Folk News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Video games are not cheap. We don’t have to tell you that, I’m sure. With the latest-generation console platforms, we saw the price hike for new AAA releases. So, instead of paying the standard $59.99 for a new game, we’re digging deeper into our pockets to fish out $69.99 to get the latest releases. It’s important to know what games to purchase at launch and what titles to set back until they drop down. Fortunately, sales are always going on to give you some savings. For instance, we’re moving into the holiday sales with most retailers offering Black Friday deals. Today, we have word that the Steam Autumn Sale event will be kicking off tomorrow. 

Rejoice, Starfield foodies. Thanks to the RPG's latest update, you can now eat and drink stuff on sight without needing to pick it up first.  

In 2020, the developers of Raji: An Ancient Epic (one of the most well-known video games to come out of India) noted how difficult it had been to finance their work; the rejections from potential investors were so numerous that the founders came close to asking their team to look for other jobs. (They eventually received an Unreal Dev Grant.)

The creators of Grand Theft Auto 5's most popular roleplay mod have reassured fans that they haven't forgotten about its Red Dead Redemption 2 cousin. 

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For the first time in years—since the Tiny Living pack, probably—a Sims 4 expansion feels like it's really for the Build Mode girls. There's a lot of Live Mode gameplay coming in the For Rent expansion too, with tenant revolts and deadly mold and the dubious prospect of becoming a landlord Sim. But for now we're firmly in the anticipatory creativity portion of the Sims DLC cycle, which means everyone is sharing beautiful townhouse builds that I'm going to snag off the gallery immediately.

It's been 25 years since the release of the original Half-Life, one of the most important videogames of all time, and to celebrate the big birthday Valve has released a major new update to the game that adds new features and support for modern displays, restores cut and lost content, implements full Steam Deck support, and a whole bunch more—and it's giving the full game away to one and all until November 20.

Baldur's Gate 3's 11th hotfix is here, bringing with it a neat little list of tweaks and remedies to Larian's incredible RPG. But frankly, who cares? Because the real meat here is the fact that romancing Gale no longer entails canoodling in an inky black and infinite void and—praise be—you'll soon be able to kiss number one boy Astarion properly too.

Despite the 1,000 explorable planets and seemingly endless side quests, Starfield’s universe can sometimes be extremely narrow. I mean that literally. The corridors in several space stations and ships are normally wide enough to fit only one person, which obviously leads to issues when you have fellow friendos following you. And now players have one simple request to crew mates: move out the dang way.

Super Mario RPG might have gotten a fresh coat of paint in its new Nintendo Switch remake, but it definitely has retained its charm. Nearly all of the notable bits have made it back, whether it’s Link sleeping in the Rose Town inn or Exor’s funny interaction with Geno Whirl.

Black Friday 2023 is the perfect time to consider buying a stand-alone 4K Blu-ray player. Home video used to be so simple. With DVDs and Blu-rays, you could expect your video game console of choice to play your favorite discs and do it well. But now, things are messy. Both Microsoft and Sony sell consoles without disc drives. And even their best hardware lacks top-of-the-line features available on dedicated 4K Blu-ray players. (Not to mention the fan noise in these gaming beasts.)

For the last decade, nothing has kept people loyal to—or trapped in—the Apple ecosystem more than iMessage. Apple's messaging app creates a harsh divide between other iPhone users (beautiful blue bubbles, messages sent over data, integrated file sharing and encryption and more) and Android users (green bubbles, ancient unencrypted SMS) whose presence in a group chat would ruin everyone else's access to those advanced features. If Apple was ever going to bring down the walls around iMessage, I figured it would be a dramatic moment in one of its annual keynotes—not on a random Thursday, which happens to be today.

Back in August, Remnant 2 principal designer Ben Cureton told the RPG's players to git gud. In response to complaints about the RPG's punishing, accurately named Apocalypse difficulty, Cureton argued that, "it's called Apocalypse. It's not called 'I get 3 orange slices and a medal for participation.'"

Last night's episode of pro wrestling show AEW Dynamite featured a match called the "Like a Dragon Gaiden street fight presented by Sega," and folks, it was even wilder than that name suggests.

There’s been plenty of hope to see the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake launch into the marketplace. The game was praised when it was unveiled to be in the works again, years after the folks first launched from the folks at BioWare. However, there’s been a long gap now regarding actual updates. The video game has yet to be outright canceled for the public, but it’s been kept very much under wraps on its current progress. In fact, Embracer’s CEO was recently asked about the game again, and his statement doesn’t indicate what is going on with the IP. 

Stop reading this article and consider picking up Super Mario RPG on Switch.

If, like me, you love scouring instruction manuals just for the enemy pages, you’ll dig the latest preview for Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. 

As someone who has been gaming a (very) long time, I get the benefit of seeing games come around again, especially those from my childhood. I even, occasionally, get to see games that I never got to play on the original platform for whatever reason get shiny new releases. So, when a remake of Super Mario RPG was announced for Switch – a game that wasn’t originally released in Europe for the SNES, and that I only played on the Wii eShop release. I was all in.

The next major PC patch for Starfield is currently in beta, and early testing suggests that we can expect some gigantic performance improvements in this update.

USAmazon — $149.99Best Buy — $149.99GameStop — $149.99Target — $149.99PS Direct — $149.99

Wyll the warlock may not be our favorite Baldur's Gate 3 companion, but that's only because the overall standard is so high. In any other RPG he'd be a top pick, and even in Baldur's Gate 3 he's worth keeping around. It's just a shame you can't complete his personal quest, which earns you a sweet Infernal Robe and prevents him from growing a pair of horns, without killing Karlach, who is everyone's number one fave.

Stop me if you've heard this before. You've just arrived in a small village on a secluded island that's fallen into disrepair, and the only thing that can save the town is some complete newbie doing a heck of a lot of farming. Yes, Coral Island has a lot in common with the best cozy games on PC, but those games have a formula for a reason: it works. I played about a dozen hours of Coral Island while it was in early access and except for the time I rage quit because a sprinkler I crafted was mildly disappointing, it's a perfectly enjoyable cozy farming and life sim.

Something tells me there’s a reason behind Coral Island’s decision to wipe Early Access players’ saves. Playing Coral Island’s 1.0 version from scratch lets you enjoy plenty of new in-game features.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's director celebrated its Golden Joystick Awards 2023 win by tapping into a much-memed scene from the upcoming game.

Warcraft Rumble has a…lot going on that hampers the overall player experience, but one late-to-endgame design choice really takes the cake. Make sure you pick up one of each leader if you intend to progress in Warcraft Rumble in any meaningful way. Or, you can stop playing, that’s fine too.

Destiny 2's community team has been nominated at The Game Awards for their liaising, feedback collection, transparency, and player correspondence – and a lot of the people behind that work are no longer at the company following a recent wave of painful layoffs at Bungie. 

The console wars continue to rage on, as always. Nothing gets the gaming market fired up quite like being at loggerheads with competitors. There’s never usually a clear winner, but for the UK, the PS5 seems to be outshining the rest.

Each year at Blizzcon, attendees experience the exhilarating rush of the crowd, special events and panels, and of course, as many photo ops as you want — and this year, the Diablo 4 presentation in Hall A had some incredible ones! A strange sight was beheld by those attending BlizzCon 2023; common folk from all across the lands gathered — to be sacrificed. It is not yet known as to whether it be the work of some afflicted spell of compulsion, or if these people came so willingly out of some twisted malevolence or perhaps even some promise of power.

I’ve heard it being said many times and many ways, but this year has been an excellent one for games and an abysmal one for the folks who create them. On that note, Samurai Punk—the studio behind several indie games including Killbug and Screencheat—has announced its closure in a post via Twitter.

No Man's Sky has earned yet another accolade for its longevity - it's won the "Still Playing" award at the Golden Joystick Awards powered by Intel. 

Recently, a group of modders released their own Community Patch for Starfield, representing a collaboration working to improve the studio’s new IP. Creative fans have crafted mods left, right, and center since the game’s release, and that’s without official modding support from Bethesda.

Hey there, gaming comrades! Grab your controllers and brace yourselves because a storm is brewing in the world of ‘Path to Nowhere.’ The iconic ‘Coquelic’ character is getting the boot, and the fanbase is exploding with digital dissent. Though it’s worth noting that Coquelic’s removal is specific to the Chinese version of the game, not affecting the global player base, it is still disturbing hardcore fans.

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The folks at Valve are big fans of Nintendo's Switch OLED handheld console.

Activision's rollout of the new «Call of Duty HQ» launcher has been anything but elegant. The HQ, which is really just a rebranded frontend for a single CoD game, is the only way to launch the new Modern Warfare 3, and until yesterday, that process was a real slog. To play MW3, you had to first launch the CoD HQ, then click MW3, then return to the desktop, then wait for the actual game you wanted to play to boot.

Call of Duty spawns are always a little wonky on launch day, but they're rarely as entertaining as this Modern Warfare 3 bug. Some console folk hopping into multiplayer early (presumably employing the good ol' New Zealand region switch trick) are getting swept up in a nonstop bullet barrage as the map Quarry will sometimes spawn every player in the lobby at the same spot.

With Steam Deck OLED now in the spotlight, Valve reassures gamers that dual-boot support and SteamOS improvements are still "very high on the list," and the development team will make some significant changes to the operating system in the next year.

Valve has introduced the Steam Deck OLED, which offers more than just a better screen. It has many other improvements over the original model, ranging from faster Wi-Fi to a bigger battery. All of that being said, it isn’t advertised as a successor, and it’s no more powerful at running games than any other Steam Deck. It’s simply a premium alternative, like the Nintendo Switch OLED is to the regular Switch. You can check out our full review on the Steam Deck OLED.

Valve only just announced the Steam Deck OLED, but the company is already teasing a much more substantial upgrade to its popular handheld.

Even though competitive keep-away isn't really my thing, it's hard not to admire Dead By Daylight from a comfortable distance. The folks at Behaviour Interactive have cooked up over 30 playable killers over the years, some original to the game and many adapted from classic horror media, with distinct abilities and upsetting methods for slaying Survivors. Their latest killer is an unconventional new face: Charles Lee «Chucky» Ray is joining Dead By Daylight. 

We review Overboss: Deul, a two palyer game from Brotherwise Games. Overboss: Duel takes the tile laying game play from Overboss and converts it to a two-player experience.

AMD has limited the driver support for its Polaris & Vega GPUs to "Critical" updates only as both architectures near their EOL (End-of-Life) period.

US Newegg — $199.99 PlayStation Direct — $199.99

Of all the iconic moments in Metal Gear Solid, the battle against Psycho Mantis is tough to top. It’s both a cool boss fight and a mild deconstruction of your gaming habits!

After nearly three years in development, Outerloop Games and Annapurna Interactive’s Thirsty Suitors was released on Nov. 2. From the beginning, the Outerloop Games team knew a few things: They wanted to make a game about relationships, and they wanted it to reflect the lived experience of its developers in telling an immigrant story. So much of the game was built out from there to create the wholly unique, genre-bending Thirsty Suitors — a game that blends its story up with cooking games, turn-based battles, and skateboarding.

Hello folks. A small bit of RPS Game Club news today. Since it's starting to get toward end of the year season, Game Club will be taking a short break for the next two months. That means we won't be running it this month (November), or next month (December). We will, however, be returning with a fresh set of monthly game selections in 2024, so you can look forward to more group play-a-longs and liveblog chats early next year.

Blizzard Entertainment’s official gaming convention, BlizzCon, took place over the weekend (between November 3 and 5). Since the event, numerous fans who attended have taken to social media to complain about the enormous queues and what’s they describe as “poor management”. 

Good news, folks! Bluepoch Games is on cloud nine this month as their time-travelling RPG, ‘Reverse: 1999,’. The slick and stylish game time does the moonwalk has skyrocketed to the top of the charts in over 160 countries right after its official launch.

Overwatch 2's recent collaborations with anime One Punch Man and Kpop group Le Sserafim were a way for the developers to share their love of something with fans, according to the game's executive producer. 

Black Friday is still a few weeks away, but several retailers have already begun rolling out some excellent deals worth checking out this weekend. For example, our top deal this weekend is the inaugural discount on the Asus ROG Ally, knocking $80 off the speedy handheld PC at Best Buy. Some other noteworthy deals include a pair of Humble bundles, a sizeable discount on the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller, and some personal favorites from my board game library.

The Wrath of the Lich King expansion was arguably the peak of World of Warcraft. The team was firing on all cylinders, coming off of the already impressive Burning Crusade, and growing its player base steadily. Then Cataclysm hit, and some folks were torn on its efficacy as a follow-up.

The speedrunning community surrounding Baldur's Gate 3 has focused on many complex feats to match the game's immense scope. Along with the traditional goals, such as clearing the game as quickly as possible, a smaller community of players has taken to a less conventional feat - romancing party members as quickly as possible. And as it turns out, the one party member that's been the quickest to find intimacy with is the notoriously prickly party member Lae'zel. However, the recent Patch #4 for Baldur's Gate 3 that just launched today has led to a catastrophic change that has disrupted the BG3 romancing speedrunners. Following the patch, Lae'zel has now upped her standards significantly, and she's no longer that easy to romance.

Hey there, gaming pals! If you’re a fan of Goddess of Victory: Nikke, developed by the South Korean sensation Shift Up, you’re in for a treat. A new Nikke contest gives you the chance to win some hot new merch.

Twitch updated its rules for when streamers who have violated Community Guidelines can appeal, with a way for even perma-banned streamers to get reinstated on the platform. On Oct. 31, the livestreaming platform published an update and shared it via the official Twitch Support account on X (formerly known as Twitter), saying that the appeals process “shouldn’t be a mystery.”

Monopoly Go is one of the better Monopoly simulators out there currently. It’s very quirky in terms of visuals and sound, and there are a lot of folks playing, but sometimes you may want to remove someone from your friends list on Monopoly Go.

Jala doesn’t go to bed without saying goodnight to her father. Each night after Jala backflips out of her jacket and kicks off her shoes, she joins him on the couch until she falls asleep to the sounds of dad shows: Cold War documentaries and her taped childhood basketball games, naturally. After years away from her family, Jala allows herself to soften for a moment in their support. And each night, once Jala falls asleep, her father slings her onto his back to carry his adult daughter upstairs.

Sonic and friends are back for an all-new 3D adventure…on the Apple Arcade. Announced via X (Twitter) and YouTube, SEGA and Hardlight’s Sonic Dream Team will launch exclusively on Apple Arcade on December 5th.

After I finished downloading WarioWare: Move It, I booted it up in handheld mode and was met with a warning screen: yep, I completely forgot that it was a motion control-only game. My journey afterward was rife with peril, but the weirdness and general ingenuity of this series alleviated most of those frustrations.

Hey there, folks! Some big news is coming your way from the world of Black Desert Mobile. The game is buzzing with excitement as we welcome the enchanting Maegu Awakening class.

Warner Brothers Studios is turning 100 this year, and to celebrate, the folks at Humble are bringing us another killer bundle featuring some of the best titles from the WB Games library. The “Play the Legends” bundle lets you scoop up 12 awesome games for just $15, all while benefitting a nonprofit organization.

Indie developers have launched a wide-ranging charity bundle to raise money for relief efforts in Palestine following escalating attacks from Israel. The Games For Gaza bundle has quickly surpassed the initial $10,000 fundraising goal and has now raised over $240,000 in just five days.

If there’s a perfect new game to play this Halloween, it’s Alan Wake 2.

Skipping the second generation of Apple silicon entirely, the 24-inch iMac has arrived with M3 processing to drastically elevate Apple's all-in-one computer. With little else changed, the new iMac focuses on what more power can do to increase its versatility and ability to serve the unique needs of each family member in your home.

Candela Obscura feels as if it's snuck through to become one of the biggest (and perhaps most unexpected) tabletop RPG launches of the year, and GamesRadar+ has an exclusive sneak peek at some pages from the rulebook for you. 

Alan Wake 2 launched last week to largely stellar reviews (with our own Alan Wake 2 review giving it top marks) as well as a not-insignificant number of reports from players experiencing technical issues on both PC and console. Today, we have fresh patch notes from Remedy Entertainment promising bug fixes as well as visual and UI improvements on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

BlizzCon® is only one week away, and we can’t wait to see you! Join Chromie and Nozdormu as they observe the timeways while folks gather for in-person and virtual festivities.

Destiny studio Bungie has reportedly laid off an unknown number of staff today, according to a Bloomberg report, which also says that The Final Shape expansion for Destiny 2 has been delayed.

Fill your ears with the sounds of Azeroth with some Synthwave beats to help carry you to BlizzCon! Mixed by Jason Charles Miller (voice of Prince Valanar in Wrath of the Lich King and High Commander Goodchilde in Legion) and Jamison Boaz of Rezodrone, these four tracks include epic remixes to nostalgic tracks.

If you’re looking to get Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora on the PC platform, then you might be keen on knowing the PC system requirements to run the game. Fortunately, the wait is finally over, as the official PC system specifications have been unveiled. The development team working on the game has taken to the official X account for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and released a graphic to highlight what your PC might need to hit some of the resolutions and FPS. Fortunately, we have a rather detailed look into the system requirements, so whether you’re looking just to get the game up and running or if you’re after the best visuals possible, you’re covered. 

[UPDATE] According to a new article posted on Bloomberg, Bungie has internally delayed Destiny 2: The Final Shape to June 2024, whereas Marathon is now slated for 2025.

It took years after the release of Alan Wake before Remedy Entertainment could return and bring out a proper sequel. The game development team had previously tried to deliver a game installment to keep the narrative going for Alan Wake; however, nothing quite lined up in their favor. Instead, they went on to create games like Quantum Break and Control. However, since the release of Control, the developers were finally able to pick Alan Wake back up and deliver a new game for fans. Now that this Alan Wake 2 game is finally available, the development studio is crediting the folks over at Epic Games for giving them the creative freedom required to deliver such an acclaimed hit. 

As the end of October approaches, it's time to gather in the RPS Game Club space port to talk about this month's game pick: Starfield! We'll be assembling in our traditional liveblog format on Friday November 3rd at 4pm GMT (9am PT/12pm ET) to chat about our intergalactic adventures, catalogue all the grey rocks we've landed on, and generally have an earnest (and hopefully fun!) chinwag about Bethesda's latest. So come along with your favourite biscuits and beverages as we discuss all things Starfield.

Itch.io has released a new game bundle to raise money in response to the ongoing crisis in Gaza and occupied Palestine.

Mantic Games, the miniature wargame studio behind Kings of War, Firefight, and Deadzone, has announced that a new Kickstarter campaign will launch next year as they look to bring an epic-scale Warpath game to the table.

Gangs of Sherwood, the co-op PvE game inspired by the English folk hero but set in a gritty neo-medieval future closer to the grimdark world of Warhammer, has seen its release date pushed back by almost a month.

Marvel comics, TV shows, and especially movies seem to have a requirement to emphasize the “what’s next” of it all, where the end of everything is also a tease for something else. Well, folks, Insomniac Games took that assignment, ran with it, and took a few extra laps just for good measure.

Blizzard has announced they're looking into an issue causing Sanguine Altars to gray out as players move closer to them. While there's no current timeframe on any fix, Blizzard is on the case!

To quote an excellent Tekken player who happens to be a friend I train with: in Tekken, “the simple act of moving backwards properly requires practice.” Fighting games are notoriously complicated, and that can intimidate new players or keep them away entirely. Even if you’re an oldhead, learning a new game takes time. But Tekken 8 looks like it’s trying to flatten that curve by providing some of the best teaching tools in the genre. So, listen up, people: class is in session.

Long before Wizards of the Coast senior art director Ovidio Cartagena and his team of artists conjured up cavernous depths populated with jade merfolk and fungal tyrants, he would ride the bus back and forth to school each day in his hometown in Guatemala. In his day-to-day life, Cartagena saw Mayan pyramids and statues of warriors who fought the conquistadors. Fast forward several years, and he’s now living in the United States, but those experiences live on through the art of Magic: The Gathering in the Lost Caverns of Ixalan set.

In the words of PCG's Tyler Colp, Diablo 4 took «a leap in the right direction» with the start of its second season this month, and now it would very much like you to come back and give it a go. That's why the game is running a free trial until Monday, October 30, giving you a chance to mess around with dang near all of the game on Battle.net during our upcoming spooky weekend.