Want to get a powerful Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor for $50 off with a free copy of Starfield Premium Edition? B&H Photo in the US have you covered with their latest discount on AMD’s fastest gaming CPU*, which sees the processor drop to $389 after debuting earlier this year at $439.
That’s still a hefty chunk of change, but it’s worth it for a gaming CPU that outfights the Core i9 13900K and trades blows with the much more expensive Ryzen 9 7950X3D, coming well ahead in some games and a tiny bit behind in others.
Honkai Impact 3rd, the hack-and-slash action game that shares its universe and characters with HoYoverse’s more recent and better-known Honkai: Star Rail, is due to receive a massive update that will take the game to Mars – and seemingly leave one of its heroes behind.
If you’re waiting for a Steam Deck capable of running Starfield at a decent clip, you’re going to be waiting a while yet. Valve has said that a more powerful Steam Deck will arrive at the end of 2025 earliest, with no major performance upgrade expected in the meantime.
Hit manga and anime series My Hero Academia is the next pop-culture licence to take a shot at the battle royale crown, as the superhero series launches free-to-play online multiplayer game My Hero Ultra Rumble next week.
If you enjoy tower defence, video games presented as fake PC desktop environments, and big sexy mouths in Hell, cast your innumerable unblinking eyes over Heretic’s Fork. The deck-building tower defence game casts you as an employee of Hell tasked with punishing sinners by building towers and deploying troops using a demonic computer system. I’ve played a few hours since Heretic’s Fork launched yesterday and while it hasn’t quite enraptured my hellbound heart, I am enjoying figuring it out—and seeing what my paperclip helper will do next.
Malenia, Blade of Miquella, is a menace. Even among Elden Ring’s cast of bastard-hard bosses, the Goddess of Rot distinguishes herself as an ender of lives, a relentless steel tempest that has shredded the most prepared and dextrous of adventurers. She’s also been beaten, rather soundly, by a man using only his mouth.
Or, to be more precise, a QuadStick FPS, a specialised game controller comprised of a mouth-operated joystick and several ‘sip and puff’ switches. It’s the favoured tool of professional streamer and Guinness World Record holder Rocky “RockyNoHands” Stoutenburgh, who in 2022 used it to become the first quadriplegic Elden Ring player to claim Malenia’s scalp. This was a win for a QuadStick as well: a showcase of how adaptive hardware and clever controller design could make games more accessible than ever, enabling players with disabilities to match and exceed the heroics of their able-bodied peers. And yet, there’s little sense – among disabled players, advocacy groups, or even controller manufacturers – that accessible hardware is entering its golden age. While major breakthroughs have been made, high prices and commercial concerns still carry the threat of willing, eager players being left behind.
The scourge of Cosy/Cozy Gaming has finally come for Middle-earth, and more specifically the Shire, which I guess was pretty cosy/cozy to begin with. Wētā Workshop and Private Division have announced Tales of the Shire, a “heart-warming” experience that will release on PC in 2024. I’ve got a live action trailer for you, in which a young person doodles pictures of Hobbits, while seated at a desk intriguingly strewn with modern appliances such as laptops and assorted Lord of the Rings paraphernalia. The book she’s doodling in contains sketches of celebrated locations such as the Green Dragon pub in Bywater, and there are drawings of dolls, Hobbit-holes and onions. Take a peek!
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority have “provisionally” approved Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, removing the last major legal obstacle to the completion of the deal.
The CMA blocked the deal in April this year over concerns that it would “alter the future of the fast-growing cloud gaming market”, and might lead “to reduced innovation and less choice for UK gamers over the years to come”. Microsoft attempted to woo the regulator by agreeing to sell Activision Blizzard game cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft, and while the CMA have “limited residual concerns”, they’ve largely accepted Microsoft’s modifications.
Baldur’s Gate 3‘s Patch 3, which was so massive Larian held it back a day to test it properly, will release today, and it’ll add an RPG feature many of us have been requesting since we stepped clear of the Nautiloid – the ability to change a character’s appearance. Alas, it comes too late for the Wood Elf Druid I rolled during my first try at the 1.0 version. I wanted her to look like a sort of Kung Fu Galadriel, with cool tattoos and aerodynamic scars, but she emerged from the character creator looking like she’d been mugged by a packet of demon crayons. I’ve left my active character, a High Elf Sorceress, safely tattoo-less.
Hifiman’s Ananda open-back headphones aren’t what I would call the most obvious choice for a gaming headset – they lack a microphone and debuted at $999, for one – but they also sound incredible, are super comfortable and are currently $600 off at Amazon in the US… so I thought this might interest the audiophile gamers out there!
