HomeFeaturesPlayne Have You Played… Playne?Have you Playned Have you Playned Have You Played?is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.Playneis a meditation tool. You’re supposed to open it up once a day, meditate for at least ten minutes, and watch as a forest grows around you over the weeks and months that you manage to keep up the habit. I don’t use it anymore, but it was the springboard to me meditating a few times a week....

HomeNews Instead of WWE 2K21, wrestling fans are getting arcade action in WWE 2K Battlegrounds this yearLooks a little RAW Looks a little RAW There’s no proper WWE 2K game coming this year, which isn’t too surprising after therough landing that WWE 2K20 hadlast year. Instead, 2K have announced something that seems, or at least looks, quite different. Enter stage leftWWE 2K Battlegrounds, a game which sounds like a wrestling battle royale but probably is not....

HomeHardwareFeatures Oculus Rift S review: the best VR headset for the massesSecond only to the Valve Index Second only to the Valve Index When Oculus launched their original Rift headset back in 2016, I was one of those people who was firmly in the HTC Vive camp. Back then, I just couldn’t see the appeal. The Rift didn’t do proper room-scale VR, it didn’t come with any motion controllers, and it was just as much of a faff to set up due to its external sensor....

HomeNews Restore Deus Ex: Human Revolution’s golden glow in the Director’s Cut with this modThe googles, they do something! The googles, they do something! A defining part ofDeus Ex: Human Revolution’s look is a golden haze over everything, a flourish that some mocked it for. I don’t know if Eidos changed their minds about the golden wash or just got sick of the jokes, but either way it was wiped away as part of the Director’s Cut a few years later....

HomeFeaturesTitan Quest Titan Quest is two-thirds of a game, but exactly what I needGreat Zeus Great Zeus I wrote a different introduction to this one. One about how odd it is thatTitan Questshould be a game I so frequently return to given its being the antithesis of much of why I play games. But while I’ll get to that, I need to begin with the real introduction: I’m really struggling. This situation, this lockdown, it’s triggeringmy mental health issuesin so many directions, and I’m really having trouble holding it together....

HomeNewsTotal War: Shogun 2 Total War: Shogun 2 is free to keep right nowFreebie alert Freebie alert Saddle up, Samurai.Total War: Shogun 2is blowing the battle horn—or bashing the giveaway gong, rather. This week you can snag the war strategy sim set in feudal Japan for free because Creative Assembly (and everyone else) would like you to stay home and play video games if you’re able instead of frolicking about in public during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic....

HomeGuidesXCOM: Chimera Squad XCOM Chimera Squad console commands: how to enter cheatsHow to enable god mode How to enable god mode I warn you now that these XCOM Chimera Squad cheats will likely ruin the game for you, whether it is the challenge of running your own team with limited resources, or even the challenge of each and every mission being nullified because your agents are all invisible gods. Enter at your own risk....

HomeGuidesXCOM: Chimera Squad XCOM Chimera Squad weapons: how to craft in the assemblyHow to upgrade your agent’s equipment How to upgrade your agent’s equipment One way to upgrade your agents in XCOM Chimera Squad is via the assembly. Here you can invest time and resources into improving their equipment, improving field team ranks, and tons more. It can be daunting to know what to start off with first, so we’ve prepared a table with all the available research....

HomeNewsPatrick’s Parabox Recursive puzzler Patrick’s Parabox flaunts boxes within boxes within boxesSquares within squares within squares Squares within squares within squares Patrick’s Paraboxis too smart for me. Granted, regular Sokoban is often too smart for me, but thanks to a very simple concept, Patrick Traynor’s recursive boxes are creating mazes within mazes - tiles that transcend dimensions as my headache turns into a full-blown migraine. While he’s not ready to unleash his Paraboxes onto the public, you can catch his puzzles in a new trailer posted this week....

HomeNewsValorant Riot looking for “long-term solutions” after devs report sexist harassment in ValorantValorant effort Valorant effort A tough stance on cheaters, bots and key-resellers. In-depth training modes. For a traditionally inaccessible genre,Valorantseems to be trying its hardest to be as welcoming as possible - and now, that means making sure people can play nice on their battlefields. After one of their own was hit with sexual harassment, Riot have promised to find a lasting solution against bad actors in their fledgeling hero shooter....

HomeFeatures 13 moral lessons from PC gamesOne Off The List One Off The List When the historians of the future cast their cyber-eyes over the deluge of stupidity we encrusted upon the primitive internet, they will see that our fables, our moral storytelling, was mostly conducted with flashing colours and double-jumps. Yes, videogames have adopted the moralistic finger-wagging of fairytales and Victorian novels, for better or for worse. They have taught us a lot about ourselves and our place in the world....

HomeNewsDOOM Eternal A demonic face-off from Doom’s past is sealed inside Doom Eternal’s soundtrackShotguns and shredding Shotguns and shredding But while Gordon might’ve snuck in enough demonic imagery to induce a good ol' 90s moral panic, the composer apparently didn’t quite have complete control over his music. Doom Eternal’s Original Soundtrack Album released last week withsome questionable mastering- with Gordon stressing that he had very little hand in the album’s final state and that he felt just as confused and concerned over the audio mixing....

HomeNews Auto Museum 64’s free parking lot is packed with stylish 90s racersNo parking, unfortunately No parking, unfortunately Take a drive down memory lane with me, readers. For this weekend’s field trip, we’re heading toAuto Museum 64, a free “educational showcase” of late-90s game art - a fascinating study of the Nintendo 64’s slickest racecars, rally trucks and high-performance hovercraft brought together under one roof. Get there early, mind. Parkins spaces fill up fast....