Citizens News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

The psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl posited that humans are motivated, above almost all else, to search for meaning in their lives. He would probably be unsurprised, if more than slightly confused, to see that spirit manifest in a rumour that the rubbish performance of Cities: Skylines 2 is being caused by excessive teeth.

Will Star Citizen’s long-promised and much-delayed single-player campaign Squadron 42 ever actually come to fruition? Well, we seem to have got a step closer, as developer Cloud Imperium Games now claims the game is “feature complete” and is entering the “polishing phase.”

The massively popular, long-in-development, and often controversial space sim Star Citizen was always supposed to be accompanied by a single-player, story-focused spin-off called Squadron 42. Now, 11 years after the announcement of both projects, Squadron 42 is finally "feature complete," and developer Cloud Imperium Games has detailed what you can expect with a 26-minute-long new trailer.

Blizzard has announced a rather unusual competition in which players can win a PC infused with real human blood.

Star Citizen's standalone single-player campaign Squadron 42 is now «feature complete», developer Cloud Imperium Games has said.

The developers of the highly-anticipated single-player sci-fi game, Squadron 42, just announced that this upcoming title is now feature-complete. 

Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) has said the campaign portion of its controversial space sim is finally “feature complete”, over a decade after it was announced.

In a stunning new announcement, Chris Roberts has revealed that the single player component of Star Citizen, Squadron 42, is now feature complete.

In a recent case of online fraud, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken action against a man from Ahmedabad who swindled a US citizen by pretending to be a senior executive from a big company's fraud department. It is alleged that Ramavat Shaishav used fake identities to deceive the victim to part with their cryptocurrency.

Although the game has only recently come out, Spider-Man 2's ending already feels like one that fans will remember for a long time.

The Star Citizen alpha updates continue, adn this time we’re up to alpha 3.21 with the release of a new patch dubbed Mission Ready.

It has been eight years since developer Colossal Order wowed us with the release of Cities: Skylines. Now, they are back again with Cities Skylines 2 , which is set to release on October 24th. I’ve been playing with city builders since the first Sim City came out in 1989, so of course, I was happy to jump in and try my hand at growing a city in Skylines 2 . Two things became very evident during my short time with Cities: Skylines 2 . One, I am still horrible at creating cities. And 2, although many new features and upgrades are packed into Cities: Skylines 2 , many hardcore fans of the original Skylines may not be ready to give up all of the DLC and community mods that have arguably made it the best city builder available today.

While the original Cities: Skylines practically brought its breed of open-ended city builder back from the dead (after SimCity 2013 killed it), Cities: Skylines 2 is a sequel that often feels like it took more steps back than it did forward. It's full of exciting and gratifying new mechanics for managing your economy and creating more realistic metropolises. But it also asks you to do a lot of busywork if you don't want the end product to look horrendous on close inspection, and sacrifices some of the user friendliness of its predecessor to fit in more bells and whistles. I’m not ready to tear it all down, but right now there’s an unsightly case of urban blight that’s going to take some major technical renovations to clear up.

The odd and somewhat terrifying "boat people" from Marvel's Spider-Man captured the attention of unsuspecting fans who reached the far-off waters surrounding NYC. What started as a meme would eventually be immortalized in the PS5 and PC remaster for Marvel's Spider-Man, with the devs poking fun at fans for going a bit outside the boundaries.

The infamously blocky boat people from the first Spider-Man have sadly been updated to look like regular boat-faring citizens of New York in Spider-Man 2.

RoboCop has been badly mistreated by the video game medium. Outside of Data East’s very good 1988 arcade game, studios have condemned RoboCop to appear in mostly lousy licensed video game schlock over the past 35 years.

A Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom fan has crafted a skeleton plane for whizzing around the skies of Hyrule, and it's sure to cause sleepless nights for the citizens below.

Pinocchio souslike Lies of P has hit a major sales milestone in just under one month, despite being both a new IP and available on Xbox and PC Game Pass on day one. With more of the action RPG on the way, it’s safe to say that developer Round8 Studio has found itself a hit, and it looks like it will continue to grow.

Lies of P has sold over one million units.

Developed by Neowiz Games and Round8 Studio, and released on September 18, Lies of a P is a soulslike that has managed to stand out in its oversaturated genre by offering a unique take on Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio. Developers have revealed that the game has already sold a million copies globally.

Aadhaar biometric locking: Various Aadhaar card scam allegations have recently surfaced where threat actors have reportedly looked to exploit the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) to clone the victim's biometrics and siphon money from their bank accounts. In other cases, victims have received fraudulent links that they've mistakenly clicked on, giving hackers access to their Aadhaar information. In light of such cases, it is crucial to keep your Aadhaar secure and away from the prying eyes of hackers and other cybercriminals.

The Thaumaturge is an isometric narrative RPG set in Warsaw in 1905, and it has been announced for a PS5 release in Early 2024. It features turn-based combat and an intriguing supernatural setting, and we got a decent look at it in an official gameplay trailer.

World of Warcraft players have once again shown their community spirit and love of adorable animals, raising over $1.5 Million (USD) for BlueCheck efforts in Ukraine through the sale of two precious in-game pets: Sunny and Flurky.

Blizzard is celebrating the success of the Sunny and Flurky pet packs, having raised over a million dollars in charity for BlueCheck Ukraine! Previously available between July 25 and August 29, 2023, Blizzard pledged 100% of proceeds for each Pet Pack in support of BlueCheck Ukraine, consisting of the Sunny pet for Dragonflight and Flurky pet for Wrath Classic.

Thanks to the World of Warcraft community, more than a million dollars in aid has already been designated for BlueCheck partners on the ground. By cutting the red tape the WoW-BlueCheck partnership is providing critical resources, right now, to the following organizations:

A mysterious user has been trying to infect US politicians and Taiwan’s president with spyware by circulating malicious links on Twitter/X.  

In an effort to stifle any public opinion that isn't fawning or shows viewpoints the Kremlin doesn't want the average Russian to see, the Russian government is going to try to ban virtual private networks (VPNs). According to a report from Russia's RIA (H/T to Fudzilla), The regime wants to ban VPNs from March 1. 

An upcoming game describes itself as Zoo Tycoon, but with fantastic creatures. All I can say to that pitch is: finally.

Basim reconnects with his old friend Dervis soon after entering Bagdad in Assassin’s Creed Mirage. The man greets him warmly and offers him his old job as a thief back, in a way. From there, players are able to steal rare artifacts from citizens around the city and return them to him.

As a city builder enthusiast and horrible mayor I've paved the way for plenty of disasters in my cities, like neglectfully letting peasants freeze by the dozens, losing my honey fortune to a heist, and chopping down a friendly enchanted talking tree just to get an amulet.

Loki season 2 has now premiered on Disney Plus, and the streaming series is jumping straight back into the story from season 1. But the very end of the season premiere, its post-credits scene, could be foreshadowing something monumental and dire for Loki's future, and for the future of the MCU.

You never know when a Marvel or even Star Wars TV show is going to spring a post-credits scene on you these days, and Loki’s season 2 premiere episode is no different.

Along with Vampiric Powers, 5 new Endgame Bosses, and a host of quality-of-life improvements, the second Season of Diablo 4 will also introduce players to a new open world Event — called Blood Harvest. Season of Blood Livestream Summary Diablo 4 Season 2 Official Blog Post

Today, NVIDIA announced that nearly 60 games will be added to the GeForce NOW library throughout the month of October, starting with the following 29 games headlined by Assassin's Creed Mirage (out today).

Assassin's Creed Mirage's focus on social stealth and detective work makes for a compelling dive into ninth-century Baghdad.

Elon Musk is not above lobbing insults at random strangers on the internet, but his summertime effort at "citizen journalism" has now resulted in him being sued for incorrectly suggesting that a 22-year-old college student was associated with a neo-Nazi extremist group.

The original Frostpunk was a compelling blend of a city-builder and a survival game, all wrapped in a story about keeping a community alive during a global ice age. Unlike other city-builders focusing on cause and effect, however, Frostpunk's world offers no respite—either make things work or see the citizens slowly succumb to the elements and internal turmoil. This unorthodox, survivalist take on a city-builder presented a harrowing story of surviving the apocalypse, all defined by your actions.

First there was Fallout Shelter, and now there’s The Elder Scrolls: Castles. This latest mobile entry by Bethesda takes the formula laid down by Shelter and applies it to The Elder Scrolls universe.

Billionaire Elon Musk, known for his online presence on X (formerly Twitter), is asking the general public, anyone with a smartphone, to make waves on the microblogging platform and thereby change the world for the better. Musk wants everyone to know that X is no longer just about text, that it's evolving into an all-in-one solution for users, covering everything from social media to banking.

This isn't quite the way I imagined an early access game about being a shopkeeper would begin, but long before I rang up my first customer threw rocks at cardboard cutouts of cowboys, dodged lasers fired by hippo statues, and survived a shootout with a crowd of evil thugs sent after me by a ruthless corporate overlord.

How do you follow up a five-star treat like Dave the Diver? With a zombie-themed, 16-player PvPvE stealth-survival extraction game, of course! Developer Mintrocket has just unveiled its next project, titled Nakwon: Last Paradise, and it's about as much a departure from its acclaimed snorkelling-and-sushi-restaurant-management adventure as you can get, dropping players onto the streets of Seoul, right into the middle of the undead apocalypse.

As we approach the release of Cities Skylines 2, developer Paradox Interactive is offering you a deep dive into all of the sequel's new and improved features.

Cities Skylines 2 is almost upon us, and from what we’ve seen, it’s delivering every minute and specific little detail we could want in a city builder. At the same time, the late Soviet era aesthetic of Stalker – and the upcoming Stalker 2 – provides one of the best-looking environments in all of gaming. Those big factories. The chunky old cars. Metro 2033, Metro Last Light, and Metro Redux make the most of the Soviet style, which brings to vivid life a kind of decrepit old world waiting to be reborn. You put all this together, the mechanics of Cities Skylines, and the visual flair of Metro and Stalker, and you get Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic, a superlative city sim that’s just signed to a new publisher, and available to try with a free Steam download.

Shadows Of Doubt is in many ways my ideal game: a procedurally generated detective sim set in an open, rain-slick noir city. I'm waiting for it to get further along in its Early Access journey, and to that end, its first major content update is here now.

Thursday’s newly disclosed vulnerabilities in iOS were used to install spyware on an iPhone belonging to an Egyptian politician running for president, according to security researchers. 

We’ve all had the moment in-game where we outsmart the AI while casually picking them off one by one as the game tries to figure out what’s happening. In many different titles, we, the players, are often smart enough to figure out the AI script limitations and holes that can be manipulated for our gain. This has been the case for Cyberpunk 2077 for a while now, and the game’s infamous clueless enemies are looking to change that narrative.

We're thrilled to announce the return of GamesBeat Next, hosted in San Francisco this October, where we will explore the theme of «Playing the Edge.» Apply to speak here and learn more about sponsorship opportunities here. At the event, we will also announce 25 top game startups as the 2024 Game Changers. Apply or nominate today!

Apple today released a fix for a trio of iOS vulernabilities that hackers may already be exploiting.

There’s an expression in life that many video game companies take to heart, “Never put all your eggs in one basket.” After all, where will you be if you put all your hopes on one thing, and then something happens to that one thing? Gaming companies tend to try and focus on more than one game at a time if they have the ability. Or, they know that they can do multiple DLC packs and expansions to keep their game growing. For CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty was an example of “putting their eggs in one basket.” The difference is that they made it work for the better.

Steampunk is such an interesting genre. It’s one of those things where you just know it when you see it. Typically, the hallmarks of a steampunk story are alternate history, Victorian architecture and clothing, and technology too advanced for the rest of its setting. Because of these vague parameters, steampunk games are usually a mix of genres, especially horror, fantasy, and sci-fi. That’s a pretty wide net to cast. This list brings together 15 games that we think will satisfy a variety of players looking for steampunk fun. They may be ranked, but because these games are so different in tone and gameplay, feel free to take the ranking with a grain of salt. Hopefully, you will find your next game in the list below!

Fortnite generates plenty of profit through its V-Bucks and microtransactions. Over the years, there have been plenty of reports of parents hit with breathtakingly high bills after a child goes on a Fortnite spending spree. Anyone who’s faced such a situation may be able to claim a refund thanks to a ruling by the Federal Trade Commission.

Star Citizen has just released Alpha 3.20, “Fully Loaded”. It's a big update, with new content, new maps, new ships, and top to bottom Arena Commander overhaul, complete with new content.

Star Citizen’s long-running development has inched forward yet again, this time to the Alpha 3.20 stage.

Recent dev diary announcements have given me hope for the future of Chirper in Cities: Skylines 2, and well as a method (and an excuse, as if I needed one) to creep on my citizens' rich lives.