DiRT News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Look, it’s been a busy time for video game enthusiasts. Rather than easing out of a busy holiday season, the first three months of 2024 have been filled with enormous, high-profile RPGs that can eat up an upwards of 60 hours each. I’m tired. You’re tired. Don’t you just want to play something short and sweet at this point?

It's that time of the year! Summer is almost here, and like every year, Roborock is here to make life more fun and less chaotic with its automated vacuum cleaners. Time to head out, have fun, and worry less about the messes left behind. Roborock has just introduced its latest Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra, initially unveiled at CES this year, where it received tons of accolades.

Roborock has become synonymous with high-end and high-tech, efficient automated cleaning. After taking over an industry that was keeping robot cleaning restricted only to a niche few users, the company refuses to take a breather, managing to deliver cutting edge technology almost every year. This Spring starts with the cleaning giant introducing the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra with yet another revolutionary cleaning dock that ups the game - once again!

Herbalism is the first Profession to undergo tweaking in The War Within, introducing a new farm-based minigame as well as changing how some pre-existing mechanics like Seeds work. While generally following the same framework as it did in Dragonflight, Herbalists will see some new bonuses and effects in their Specialization trees, as well as have the chance to find all-new Herb Nodes out in the wild!

Over the last decade, there’s been a glut of sci-fi and fantasy series on television and streaming. With peak Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, The Wheel of Time, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Expanse, The Witcher, Silo, Foundation, and more, keeping up with the deluge, and discerning which ones are worth your time, is daunting. But there’s a very simple trick to determining whether or not one of these shows is good, and it’s all about the costumes.

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Pepper Grinderdoesn’t need any words. There’s no need for dialogue or instructions because what this game entails is all in the name. Shipwrecked and with her treasure stolen, Pepper’s objective is clear: Grind — literally — her way through a pirate-plagued world to get back her prize.

Sony knows it’s onto a good thing with the PS Store, as with each passing week it continues to add dozens of new titles, all of which are ripe for future reductions and price promotions. That means we’re seeing bigger and bigger sales every month, and time-limited Weekend Offers are becoming a thing on top of regularly scheduled sale events.

Everyone loves building gigantic castles and mountain-side lairs in Minecraft. These give you a cozy place to rest between adventures — and if you're a seasoned builder, you'll want to upgrade your home by personalizing it with decorations. Few decorations are as timeless as flowers, which have been available in Minecraft for years and add a nice pop of color to your foreboding fortress or countryside cabin.

Thank your own personal deity—possibly the titular Dragon's Dogma 2 dragon—it's Friday! This morning, I should like to turn your attention to a sale of some old EA-owned gold that's made its way to Steam for the first time. Chief among them for me is The Saboteur, basically a WWII GTA set in Paris. I'm also all about the dirt cheap tsunami of Command & Conquer games, too.

Today, it's time to pay not that much to score quite a heck of a lot, thanks to Humble Bundle. The tastiest component in said package has got to be Nioh 2, top action-RPG and spiritual predecessor of the imminently forthcoming Rise of the Ronin. The latter keeps all the samurai action, strips out the supernatural enemies (plus giant enemy crabs), and adds in a backpack glider not unlike the Bat-tastic one from the Arkham series. Pretty good formula so far, no?

PowerWash Simulator is a chill-out game that captures the simple joy of scrubbing dirt and grime from the side of a house, statue, or playground. But what if you’re bored by the humble scene of a garage door or muddy truck? What if you yearn to gain the same satisfaction as a miniature painter gets from airbrushing an elaborate figurine? PowerWash Simulator occasionally does pop culture crossovers to introduce a little bit of variety — like SpongeBob SquarePantsand Final Fantasy 7 Remake— but none of them are as grim and dark as the Warhammer 40,000 pack.

PowerWash Simulator is no stranger to unusual collaborations. From Final Fantasy VII to SpongeBob SquarePants, this compelling cleaning sim is willing to tackle dirt no matter where it may be. Following a series of teasing posts on X by the PowerWash Simulator account, we finally have a release date for what might be the most ambitious crossover yet, Warhammer 40,000.

Over the last few years, Vacuum cleaners have evolved. A couple of decades ago, cleaning your floor or couch would've meant finding an outlet close to it to plug your vacuum cleaner into so that you could reach even the corners of your room. However, that has not been the case since cordless vacuum cleaners have come to the fore. These home appliances make chores such as vacuuming effortless and efficient. Despite being a relatively new category of product in India, cordless vacuum cleaners are now catching on widely for a number of use-cases that could only be dreamed of once.

Looking for a spare iPad? How about a 2017 model complete with cellular capabilities for just $145? It's all real.

Apple’s MacBook Pro lineup has been praised for having the best build qualities for any portable notebook. That unibody chassis gives structural integrity like no other, but the internal issues and the arrangement of the components are an entirely different story. Every portable Mac features flexible display ribbon cables that are extremely fragile and have to be handled with extreme care, and when these cables are pressed against accumulated dust and dirt, they can get damaged, leaving the owner with an unusable machine. These incidents are being referred to as ‘dust door.’

Dario Casali, who started working at Valve in 1996, has started his own playthrough of the original 1998 Half-Life on YouTube (thanks, Gamesradar). The episodes are coming out at a blistering pace, with Chapters 1 through 8 already released, but the Chapter 1 walkthrough comes front-loaded with a fascinating glimpse into the classic's early development.

Dead Island 2 is making waves among its nostalgic community once more thanks to its upcoming lore-filled expansion, Haus. If you’re like me, then you grew up playing the original and immediately jumped into Dambuster Studios’ recent sequel. The zombie shooter does sport a hefty price, though, as new horror games generally do. If you’ve been waiting for a discount to grab it, the Epic Games Store’s annual Halloween sale is here with massive deals for games like Dead Island 2 and other banger sequels such as Gunfire Games’ own Remnant II.

With the imminent release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Sony has released the launch trailer, and it highlights the rise of a darker Peter. 

In case you missed the memo, Marvel's Avengers is leaving storefronts at the end of September. Square Enix's live service-centred superhero action game will be no more after about three years on the market, leaving PS Store on 30th September 2023 (though you can still play it after this date). However, as spotted by GamesRadar, you can at least check the game out in its final weeks on sale for a seriously reduced price.

The best Far Cry games can be yours for next to nothing right now, as the entire series goes dirt cheap with discounts offering up to 85% off. From the very first game to the modern Far Cry 6, Ubisoft’s series has something for everyone who enjoys open-world FPS games, and you can grab whichever of them takes your fancy without breaking the bank thanks to a big Steam sale.

Things can get heated in combat in Baldur’s Gate 3, and the AoE and targeting system in the game has resulted in many players missing their mark when excited, as it’s easy to misclick and select the wrong target. This isn’t a problem in most games, but the fact that the battlefield itself is such a potent weapon in Baldur’s Gate 3 means that accidents are bound to happen.

It comes out in November.

After several rumors, Electronic Arts and Codemasters have finally announced EA Sports WRC. As per the latest leak shared by billbill-kun, the off-road racing simulation game will be released on November 3rd for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X, and PC via EA App, Epic Store, and Steam. Early access will begin on October 31st for those who pre-order the game; they'll also get the VIP Rally Pass for 5 in-game seasons and three livery and apparel packs for Toyota, Hyundai, and Ford. EA Sports WRC is priced at $49.99 on PC and $59.99 on consoles.

EA and Codemasters have announced EA Sports WRC, their licensed successor to Dirt Rally, coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC in just a couple of months. The game’s official launch date will be on 3rd November, but pre-orders can gain early access from 31st October.

EA and Codemasters have announced EA Sports WRC, their licensed successor to Dirt Rally, coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC in just a couple of months. The game’s official launch date will be on 3rd November, but pre-orders can gain early access from 31st October.

If Baldur's Gate 3 has drawn you into the wonderful world of computer RPGs inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, you now have an excellent chance to catch up on some of the genre's biggest classics thanks to the Steam Strategy Fest.

Nintendo has announced that the next game joining the Nintendo Switch Online (Expansion Pack) line-up. Excitebike 64 will be arriving on August 30.

If you don’t mind your handheld gaming PC coming with the odd scratch mark, you may be interested to hear that Valve are now selling "Certified" refurbished Steam Decks on the cheap. A refurb of the top-spec 512GB model will save you over £100 / $100, and there are similarly proportioned discounts on renewed 256GB and 64GB models.

Welcome to another day of both savings and me anxiously looking for a Baldur's Gate III discount that simply doesn't exist. My apologies, friend. I report the bargains; I do not create the bargains. That being said, I honestly believe that some games forged by smaller outfits are so well done — hell, they deserve a full-price purchase. Purely as a "this is how you ought to be doing things" reminder to the bigger publishers.