“It was called Brain Freeze, and it was very dark,” co-director Terry Kenny tells me. “That was the one I was really attached to, because I’m a bit of a horror buff, and I think it would’ve changed the tone of the game. It would’ve leaned into a much darker horror game. Looking at it now, I still feel bad about not having the chance to have made it, but I can see now that I don’t know how it would’ve sat with the other stories....
Lemnis Gate will pit players against each other in 1v1 and 2v2 matches with rounds that last just 25 seconds. Each player only has that amount of time to perform whatever action they want to do, before time winds back, and another 25-second round begins. I’m struggling to get my head around this one, but my understanding is this gives you opportunities to see what your opponents are going to do next, and set up ambushes or fix mistakes you might have made previously....
You play as brother and sister Toto and Gal, whose vivid imaginations set the scene for some fantastical point and click puzzling. One minute you’re roaming a field fetching teacups (and a strange, very blue liquid) for a bespeckled rabbit, a very large crowned frog and a toothy gnome; the next, you’re tracking down pieces of a broken alarm clock to wake up your sleepy brother. Did I also mention you turn into a big bear monster at one point?...
The game itself sometimes makes very good choices, though it’s about 50/50 that it goes a bit too weird and ends up being silly. This makes for an intriguing mixture, especially with a complicated story of murder and neglect spanning decades, and by the end I was extremely fond of the way the sublime and the ridiculous sat side by side. The main let down isn’t that Madison sometimes makes you giggle by accident, but that its multi-stage puzzles become so drawn out that you stop jumping at creepy angels and terrifying violin squeals....
There’s just… not much there. Open up the Graphics menu in the Settings tab and this is all you get for Mass Effect 1: That’s it. No quality sliders, no graphics presets, no resolution scalers… Nothing. Just six On / Off settings (one of which is your standard V-Sync toggle), and some basic resolution options. It’s the same for Mass Effect 2 and 3 as well, as you can see below....
I played the Mech Mechanic demo - now available as a Prologue on Steam - and found it as satisfying as all of these games. There’s a jigsaw-like quality to it: you’re presented with a mech leg or arm or torso and must click to remove each individual screw, bolt, rod, and piston until you find the broken part. There are simple minigames to perform repairs, and then it’s back to click-click-clicking to rebuild the appendage....
In Mind Scanners you work for an institute in The Structure, a dystopian metropolis where “insanity is on the rise”. It’s your job to “analyse, diagnose and normalise” The Structure’s citizens, and maybe one day this institute will let you see your daughter again - did I mention they’re holding her hostage? Mind Scanners is a disturbing concept, but one I’m intrigued to play. Like Papers, Please, you’ll earn money from diagnosing people, and fiddling with their hearts and minds with various arcadey puzzles....
Microsoft have a full breakdown of how to get it working on an HDR-capable PC over on their dev blog right now if you want to try it out for yourself, although you’ll need to join the dev channel of their Windows Insider Program in order to unlock the feature in Windows’ HR Colour settings menu. They also recommend you have an HDR certified gaming monitor (one that has a VESA DisplayHDR certification, for example) rather than one that’s simply ‘HDR ready’....
That news comes courtesy of this month’s Q&A with Asobo CEO Sebastian Wloch and head of MSFS Jorg Neuman on Twitch this week (cheers, Twinfinite). During the stream, the pair announced that World Updates should be hitting on roughly a 2-3 month schedule, with the USA taking focus sometime later this year. Like this week’s Japan update, it’s likely we’ll see some stateside cities get the improved photogrammetry treatment, along with more hand-crafted airports and improved terrain resolution....
They’ve said for a while that the beta would come in July, and now a blog post pins it to the 30th. The closed beta will run through the same Flight Sim Insider Program and Xbox Insider jazz that have been used for the alpha. All current alpha testers will get beta access, and Microsoft say they plan to send out a new wave of invitations for the closed beta too....
“Jack of all trades, master of none” doesn’t make it any less scary when a lizard the size of a warehouse is bringing fire and ice upon you. Besides that trailer, Capcom have run through the next few weeks of hunting with their latest Developer Diary, starting with two new beasties to beat down before getting to that dragon. We’ve already gotten a look at both new monsters, Furious Rajang and Raging Brachydios, arriving with Title Update 3 on April 9th....
Layered weapons are arriving in this update, which are pretty much just skins for whatever you fancy wielding. Capcom say that almost all of the weapons featured in Rise and Sunbreak up to this title update will be customisable. Among the random things you can make your insect glaive or whatever look like, I think my favourite is a giant teddy bear with a tartan bow tie and little waist coat....
There are a total of four Shells - one of which you’ll find very early on - scattered across the map. I’d recommend getting hold of them all as soon as you can, as it’ll give you plenty of options when fighting through difficult zones or tackling tricky boss fights. Mortal Shell: All Shell locations Below I’ve rounded up all the Shell locations in Mortal Shell, with links to each page which’ll explain things in greater detail....
This expedition’s roguelike credentials stem from it being a time loop, with the game set to survival mode difficulty. If your Traveller dies then they’ll be booted back to start all over again. Don’t freak out though – you’ll come across Memory Fragments during each loop that act as stuff that was lost in previous loops. Collecting these fragments gives you procedurally generated tech that gets better as more Travellers help out researching the loop phenomenon....
Version 1.0 has brought new spells, enemies, perks, secrets, and more music for the soundtracks. Biomes have new modifiers shaking them up, and some have new temperature effects like liquids freezing when it’s cold or ice and snow melting when it’s hot. It’s also added Twitch integration, letting viewers vote on in-game effects to make runs even more chaotic. See the patch notes for everything. We here at RPS have had a lot to say about Noita, because it’s really very cool....
While it may seem odd to be apologising for a graphics card that isn’t even out yet, Nvidia are no doubt trying to avoid another RTX 3080 debacle here, which sold out almost instantly when it launched last Thursday. Retailers reported it took all of five minutes for their RTX 3080 stock to disappear last week, dozens of others crashed or were overwhelmed by bots, including Nvidia’s, and stock alert emails failed miserably....
Is DLAA actually worth using, though? I tried two of its most recent implementations, in No Man’s Sky and Deep Rock Galactic, and found that any image quality benefits come at a sometimes hefty performance cost – even on one of the best graphics cards. Then again, because DLAA requires a muscular GPU in the first place, the frames-per-second difference might not even be noticeable unless your monitor has an esports-grade refresh rate....
As detailed on the GeForce blog, 28 indie games have recently confirmed their inclusion of DLSS; most have already released or are in early access, with only a few still to launch. The batch includes Norse city builder Frozenheim, breakneck FPS Severed Steel, upcoming MMO Mortal Online 2 and nature photography sim Wakamarina Valley, New Zealand, which I hadn’t seen before this announcement but have become quickly smitten with. Ah, wanderlust....
The Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 Amp Extreme Airo model that I’ve used for testing costs £1960 / $1700; both substantial premiums, especially in the UK, on the already lofty RTX 4090 base RRP/MSRP of £1679 / $1599. To many, if not most PC owners, that ALL probably looks like unfathomable riches. Especially with the fastest Nvidia GPUs of the last generation, the RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti, now going for less than £1100 and £1200 respectively....
