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Tuesday, June 21st, 2022
| Time | Event |
| 9:35a | No, you won’t need a Core 10th Gen CPU or newer for Intel Arc graphics cards  Last week Intel published a “quick start guide” for their upcoming Arc A-series graphics cards, including a “Supported Hardware Configurations” section that only specifically namechecked their own 10th, 11th and 12th Gen Core CPUs. Cue a heady mix of confusion and perturbation – surely Intel weren’t suggesting that Arc GPUs would only function when paired with an Intel CPU, and a relatively new one at that? No, they weren’t, though the guide’s vague wording isn’t doing it – and worse, potential Arc users – any favours. Parts of the guide appear to conflate support for Resizable BAR with support for the Arc A-series in general, which further muddies things as Resizable BAR works on AMD Ryzen chips as well as those three Core CPU generations. I asked Intel directly for clarification and essentially, Arc GPUs won’t have such super specific CPU requirements just to run - though they’ll apparently perform better in systems that do support Resizable BAR. |
| 11:07a | Fall Guys goes free to play but exclusive to Epic Games Store from today  Wacky battle royale Fall Guys is going free to play from today, so you no longer have any excuses not to try it other than an inability to decide on an outfit for your bean to wear. I’m partial to the giant foam hand costume myself. However, Fall Guys has also been removed from sale on Steam so it can become an Epic Games Store exclusive. Don’t worry if you already own the game on Steam though, because you’ll still have access through Valve’s launcher. Here’s some bouncy Free For All update gameplay in the trailer below. |
| 11:29a | Diablo Immortal’s Chinese release has been postponed for “optimizations”  Blizzard have confirmed they’re delaying the launch of gem-wrangling time sink Diablo Immortal in the Asia Pacific region until July 7th, so they can complete “optimization”. The delay was originally announced on Sunday by the game’s regional publisher in China, NetEase, and was picked up on by industry analyst Daniel Ahmad on Twitter. The decision to delay came a few days after Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo banned the Diablo Immortal account due to unspecified "violation of related laws and regulations". |
| 12:26p | Raft sails out of early access after four years with a huge update  Last time I played Raft, it was a small but solid survival game about hauling rubbish from the ocean to expand your little slab of planks into a roaming home and farm while fending off hungry sharks. That was maybe 2018. Now, Raft has finally launched out of early access and whoa what is this game now? Undersea cities to explore? Utopian biodomes? A whole post-apocalyptic story? Friendly wildlife like whales and turtles? More murderous fish? Have a look at the cooperative survival wonders in the new trailer, below. |
| 2:29p | Dune: Spice Wars' multiplayer update has gone live to put some rhythm in your step  Sci-fi 4X strategy Dune: Spice Wars has finally brought multiplayer to the desert planet of Arrakis with its latest update. Players can now jump into the futuristic space shoes of one of the game’s factions in paired matches, or free-for-alls for four against other players or bots. Try not to get sand in your eyes while you watch the trailer below. |
| 2:30p | Neon White review: a slick, stylish speedrunner with parkour demon murder 
So, you went and flubbed a Reservoir Dogs type of deal, and now you’re a dead’un. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it turns out that Heaven is a corrupt bureaucracy that’s absolutely stuffed with shadowy demons and talking cats. Those demons become your problem when god decides to give you a chance to earn your place in Heaven by committing murder - stylish, speedrunning, parkouring demon murder. It’s perdition with extra steps, then, but is it any fun? Dear reader, Neon White kicks ass. The game opens with an extremely anime narrative sequence and we’re introduced to the lovable (and less so) doofuses we’ll be shooting up paradise with. This is where most folks will stop and squee at the fact that player character Neon White is voiced by the incomparable Steve Blum, perhaps known best for his role as sonorous space cowboy Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop. White is joined by his fellow demon-slaying Neons including Yellow (best boy), Violet (sucks), Red (mysterious), and Green (bad guy). |
| 3:31p | Badge-farming might be behind some big Steam Next Fest demo player numbers  Yesterday I wrote about eco-strategy game Terra Nil’s demo, which went gangbusters during last week’s Steam Next Fest and shot up into the top 50 most played games on Valve’s storefront. Well, turns out that might be at least partly down to a practice called badge-farming. That’s according to industry pundit Simon Carless’ latest GameDiscoverCo newsletter, anyway. |
| 3:56p | The trials and terrors of benchmarking The Cycle: Frontier  Since The Cycle: Frontier is having its second (???) launch tomorrow, June 22nd, I thought I’d knock together a performance and settings guide to mark the occasion. This would involve, as they always do, a bunch of benchmark tests: repeatable runs through a specific area or sequence that would give an accurate indication of how different settings and hardware affect performance. In most games these are either quick and easy or time-consuming and easy, but not The Cycle: Frontier. Oh no. See, without a dedicated benchmarking tool, running these kinds of tests requires a certain controllable environment, where variables are known and parameters can be reset in a click. This is not the case for The Cycle: Frontier, whose environment is usually trying to fucking kill you, particularly though the unavoidable presence of other players. I’ve never sat down to record some average FPS values only to spend half my time cowering behind a tree, fearful of being shot, robbed and – worst of all – forced to start work over again. |
| 4:00p | SpellForce: Conquest Of Eo is a strategy RPG with 4X DNA and "do or die action"  I love the name "SpellForce", mid-word capital letter and all. It conjures a mental image of a kid’s TV show where some, possibly sentai-style, superheroes learn about the importance of spelling and grammar. Maybe a little punctuation, as a treat. SpellForce the video game series isn’t that; it’s a trio of RPG-RTS hybrids which, by the time you read this, will have had a new entry announced in the form of SpellForce: Conquest Of Eo. It’s a fresh, turn-based take on the series which casts the player as a wizard attempting to further their mastery of magic. |
| 7:43p | Valve's latest patent filing is for a new VR headset  A new patent filing might offer the first look at designs for Valve's next VR headset, a rumoured standalone device codenamed "Deckard". The filing, made last year and published this past week, describes a head-mounted display with a rear housing, and the mechanisms by which that display could be adjusted. It's not thrilling stuff - but it is further confirmation that Valve continue to work on designs for VR hardware. |
| 8:22p | Call Of The Wild: The Angler is an open world co-op fishing sim  The Hunter: Call Of The Wild took Avalanche's technical expertise in creating open worlds, gained by making the Just Cause series, and employed it instead to create an open world hunting sim. Well, now Call Of The Wild: The Angler is intending to do it again, with an open world fishing game in which you walk or drive in search of the perfect spot to cast your line. |
| 8:54p | Factory management sim Good Company has left early access  I am continually on the lookout for the next management game to obsess me, and Good Company looks like a good candidate. It's a tycoon factory builder about forming a technology company and leading it, from product design through hiring staff and all the way to replacing those staff with robots. It looks cute and, as of its departure from Steam Early Access today, robust. |
| 9:16p | AMD's blazing-fast Ryzen 9 5900X processor is £342 after a £168 reduction  Ebay is offering 15% off on a range of a products, allowing you to get the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-core processor for a historic low price: £342. To get the discount, use code BIG15 at the checkout. |
| 9:27p | Bo: Path Of The Teal Lotus is a Metroidvania from the people Nintendo stopped making Metroid fangames  Bō: Path Of The Teal Lotus launched on Kickstarter back in February and quickly cleared its funding goal for a Metroidvania based on Japanese folklore. It has gained even more attention in the last day or so, because its creation reunites some of the people who worked on AM2R, the well-liked unofficial Metroid 2 remake that Nintendo DMCA'd out of existence in 2016. |
| 9:40p | The Razer Basilisk Ultimate Hyperspeed is down to $80 at Amazon ($150 MSRP)  The Razer Basilisk Ultimate is one of the best wireless mice on the market, offering a comfortably wide design with plenty of buttons and a fancy scroll wheel - a popular recipe that could also describe the Logitech G502. The Basilisk Ultimate normally oscillates between $140 and a sale price of $90, but today it's gone lower - it's $80 at Amazon. That's a pretty solid price for what you're getting! |
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