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Among the slew of reveals for Final Fantasy XIV during Fan Fest Tokyo last weekend was a new town players will visit during upcoming expansion Dawntrail. While a new corner of Eorzea to explore is exciting by itself, the cyberpunk city has added to my hope that the MMO is set to shower a bit more love on the best Final Fantasy game. That’s right: Final Fantasy IX.
If you’re like me, you probably have at least one treasured memory of being allowed to play an edutainment game at school under the guise of learning. What a blast, getting to play video games at school! For me, it was a floppy disk with a bizarre Pac-Man clone where you had to answer maths questions every time you ran into an enemy or obstacle. I’m sure for others it might be unforgiving classic Oregon Trail or globetrotting trivia quiz Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Seemingly not content with swallowing up Animal Crossing and spitting out its own farm-and-craft minigame, Final Fantasy 14 has apparently now guzzled down Starfield and is readying to unleash its own way to sink dozens of hours into galactic wandering.
Danish audio brand Epos is getting out of the gaming space, so its (actually great) headsets are going cheap right now. The H6Pro, a closed-back gaming headset with a neutral sound signature, robust design and wired connectivity is down to $67 at both Best Buy and Amazon US, from an original MSRP of $180.
Nvidia have resurrected their Super refresh branding for a new trio of GeForce graphics cards: the RTX 4070 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and RTX 4080 Super. The announcement, part of the GPU giant’s CES 2024 showcase, was light on specifics about gaming performance – but all three promise marked improvements on their 40 series predecessors. And, in the RTX 4080 Super’s case, even a big ol’ price drop.
Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter’s #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, my eye has been caught by games with mechs, games set in space, games with aerial action, a game where you take photographs of draculas, and many more. Check out these attractive and interesting indie games!
An unnamed former Activision executive is taking the Call of Duty publisher to court in California, accusing the company of age discrimination and violating the state’s whistleblower protection law. Said executive is a 57-year-old who worked at the company from 2014; apparently, he and six other men aged 47 or older were cut from a team of 200, as part of broader Activision Blizzard restructuring efforts last August.
Even with the rising power of integrated graphics, the prospects of getting high-quality, high-rez gaming capability in a laptop of ultrabook proportions is still years from becoming a feasible reality. Until then, slimmer gaming laptops like the HP Omen Transcend 16 remain the closest approximation of that dream, cramming discrete GPUs – the Nvidia Geforce RTX 4060, in this case – into lighter, narrower chassis designs.
The usual catch with such devices, sadly, is an overeagerness to appear aspirational. Which is, to be clear, the nicest thing I can say about a Razer Blade 16 costing £2500 for its own RTX 4060 model. Despite the name, however, the Omen Transcend 16 is much more down to earth – it still offers enough premium trappings to feel like a step up from chunkier laptops, but at its current pricing of £1199 / $1429, it’s a fair trade as well. And it supports Nvidia DLSS 3, dash of futureproofing tech that might just soothe any worries about buying a 2023-spec PC in 2024.
Welcome to another instalment of the Maw, our weekly live round-up of all things New and videogame-flavoured, as we continue our eternal efforts to appease the festering dark god of gossip and reportage. I asked the Maw if it had any 2024 resolutions last Friday, and it responded with the brain-splitting clamour of a million fell voices crying out in anguish. I have run this through our Chthonic Translator and the short version is that it wants to get down the gym now and then.
Some new game releases we are tip-toeing towards with our shields raised this week, in case they turn out to be Mimics: Allison Road-inspired horror Supernormal (8th Jan), free turn-based dungeon crawler Buriedbornes2 (10th Jan), medical management sim War Hospital (11th Jan), feudal Chinese spin-off Reigns: Three Kingdoms (11th Jan), pleasingly nonsensically-named retro RPG Crystal Story: Dawn of Dusk (13th Jan).
Arthur ‘Mr. Podunkian’ Lee, one-time contributor to the megalithic Stardew Valley, is now working on a life sim of his own. It’s currently unnamed, but it’s set in a city, it’s got bikes, and it’s got a tentative intention to release in 2024.
