Kotaku Saturday, December 30, 2023 3:15 PM Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom And Everything Else That Blew Me Away: Ethan Gach's Top 10 Games Of 2023  I love the idea of annual top 10 lists until it comes time to actually make one. Then my perpetually indecisive brain freaks out about whether the game I spent 100 hours playing was actually any good, the tension between an interesting game and a fun one, and the cries of all the games I never finished or even got… |
Kotaku Saturday, December 30, 2023 10:00 AM  As we round out 2023, we asked you to chime in with your own Game of the Year picks, as well as your own memories of wonderful gaming gifts from holiday seasons past. We also give you the lowdown on a PS5 controller that promises never to raise the spectre of drift. Venture forth for this and more, and we'll see you… |
PCGamesN Saturday, December 30, 2023 3:21 PM  No one expected to see a sequel to the cult hit Dragon's Dogma after years of radio silence on the franchise from Capcom. So when Dragon's Dogma 2 was officially unveiled, longtime fans rightfully lost their minds, and we're steamrolling ever closer to its imminent launch in 2024. The thing is, we actually could have gotten this sequel years ago. The game's director wanted to make the next title right after the first, but things didn't line up. Continue reading Dragon's Dogma 2 director wanted to make a sequel years ago MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Dragon's Dogma 2 release date, RPG games, Dragon's Dogma 2 system requirements |
PCGamesN Saturday, December 30, 2023 3:07 PM  December 30, 2023: We've added two new Monopoly Go dice links to our list. How can I get Monopoly Go free dice links? The classic board game has made its way to a free-to-play format, and you'll be doing laps of the board collecting houses and hotels and completing a variety of multiplayer minigames along the way. You can't get far in Monopoly Go without dice rolls, which you'll have a limited amount of to begin with. To earn more dice rolls, you'll need to log in daily to collect bonuses, invite your friends to the game, or progress further. If you don't want to spend your hard-earned money on more dice, you can use dice links for the board game instead. Now, let's run down all the currently active Monopoly Go free dice links for today. Continue reading Free Monopoly Go dice links December 2023 MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best board games, Free PC games, Monopoly Go dice |
PCGamesN Saturday, December 30, 2023 2:14 PM  After 32 years, Bobby Kotick is no longer the CEO of Overwatch 2 maker Activision Blizzard. Following the video game company's monumental merger with Microsoft, Kotick stepped down on Friday, December 29. Not even 24 hours after his leave, current and former workers at Activision Blizzard have taken to social media to share claims of the former CEO not listening to concerns, threatening employees, and being a poor leader. Continue reading Activision Blizzard workers speak out after Bobby Kotick's CEO exit MORE FROM PCGAMESN: All Overwatch 2 characters, Best Overwatch 2 settings, Overwatch 2 tier list |
PCGamesN Saturday, December 30, 2023 1:06 PM  In 2022, the Saints Row reboot dared to revive a series that has long lived in the shadow of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Unfortunately, it received heavy-handed criticism and controversy over its gameplay and open-world parts, marking it below average in most gamers' eyes. Although, if you were curious about Saints Row and wanted to try it out, you can score a free game copy, but you have to be quick. Continue reading Controversial open-world GTA 5 rival is free for 24 hours MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Saints Row release date, Best action-adventure games, Upcoming PC games |
PCGamesN Saturday, December 30, 2023 12:14 PM  The colorblind filters debuting in Tekken 8 went viral on Twitter, receiving plenty of praise for its unique approach toward being a more accessible fighting game. Unfortunately, disabled players who are colorblind have expressed discomfort with these filters, some even experiencing vertigo and migraines. While a positive move on the developer's part, the colorblind filters might do more harm than good based on recent responses. Continue reading Tekken 8 colorblind filter is giving disabled gamers migraines MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Tekken 8 roster, Tekken 8 release date, The best fighting games on PC |
PCGamesN Saturday, December 30, 2023 12:00 PM  'I love League of Legends' - a phrase that, more often than not, I'm finding suffixed with a 'but.' Yes, there have been issues before (Sentinels of Light, I'm looking at you), but Season 13 is perhaps the worst chapter in League's extensive history, fraught with bad balancing changes and a bizarre ramp-up in pricey microtransactions. Continue reading Riot doesn't know what League of Legends players actually want MORE FROM PCGAMESN: League of Legends Season 14, League of Legends patch 13.23, League of Legends tier list |
Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed Saturday, December 30, 2023 1:21 PM  American Truck Simulator is heading to Missouri for its next expansion. It'll be the first appearance of the Mississippi river in the beloved simulation game. |
Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed Saturday, December 30, 2023 1:00 PM  I'm going to level with you, readers. Probably something like 70% of my 2023 games time was spent on precisely two co-op shooters, neither of which I've written about much, nor were new enough to be eligible for the most recent Advent Calendar. I apparently have a type. I'm sorry. Still, while the man's rules prevent me from recommending Deep Rock Galactic or Darktide, I do have a few picks that fell short of full Advent Calendar glory. And they're all... colourful, quite short indie platformers? Hmm, maybe I have two types. |
Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed Saturday, December 30, 2023 12:58 PM  Saints Row's 2022 reboot is currently free to keep from the Epic Games Store. It's bittersweet considering its developer, Volition, was closed down in August, but it's also an opportunity to experience the last game the 30-year-old studio got to make. |
Twinfinite Saturday, December 30, 2023 10:00 AM  |
Siliconera Saturday, December 30, 2023 3:00 PM
Cyprus-based Owlcat Games forged itself a reputation for sprawling CRPG adventures with lengthy narrative branches to explore, but that have a tendency to strain under the weight of the interlocking systems. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader trades fantasy crusades for spacefaring ones, but still cleaves to the house style, for better or worse.
Though about as much has changed as stayed the same, to Owlcat's credit it feels more like a confident iteration on their preferred systems rather than simply running out of ideas. What remains is a solid scaffold to explore some of the less common themes and locales of the Warhammer setting, while what has changed feels very deliberate.
For starters, while Kingmaker was real-time with pause and Wrath of the Righteous could switch on the fly, Rogue Trader is purely turn-based. While some may miss having the option to switch, focusing on the one type lets Owlcat build on that more structured system with grid-based movement and special abilities that give you extra turns or movement points. Ranged combat also becomes something of a priority with the introduction of XCOM-style cover and hit percentages. Though in the early hours at least I still found my melee characters dominating the field, often cutting down most foes before my guns could land a hit. It mostly works out to be a solid, if slow, combat system that lacks the polish and snappy feel of those more dedicated grid-based combat games like the Firaxis XCOM's or even Chaos Gate: Daemonhunters.
The classes are an interesting spread too, despite being limited to four base options down from the nearly hundred offered in the Pathfinder titles. They're more flexible and varied than you'd think too, with the Operative having options to specialize into more of a supportive debuffer or a stationary sniper. Compare that to the similarly ranged-focused Soldier class, which instead brings movement, survivability, and close range, area-of-effect attacks to the table. I chose to specialize my trader as an Officer, giving allies more chances to shoot or even entire extra turns at will, with later class options letting me direct all my companions to fire at a target at once. My only real gripe is it would have been nice to see Owlcat branch out from the Pathfinder-style feats and proficiencies system we're so used to. I'm not familiar enough with the (many) 40k TTRPG systems to know if Rogue Trader is built on one like the Pathfinder games, but it would be nice to see a progression system that doesn't require scrolling through a list of feats the length of a major religious text next time.
The game itself also felt more stable than a some of Owlcat's previous outings, at least at launch. I had only a single crash over the time i played the opening act twice and some of the first planet, with the only real jank or errors on display were mostly graphical. Soldiers on a bridge would step out on to thin air to get a better shot, or laser beams shot wide would still somehow cause a cultist to spontaneously bisect, that sort of thing. What was more concerning was the enemy AI, which would frequently group its units together for protection, only to then scythe them down with its own guns for a chance at hitting my party. If this were intentional, I'd say it was grimly accurate to the setting, but something tells me it's more of a behaviour oversight.
As for the story, while it's too early to see how things pan out or how reactive the game will be to your choices, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader does do a good job of letting you establish your kind of character early. Whether you intend to play a willing pawn of the dark powers or a conceited space nobleman, there are plenty of chances even early on to make faustian pacts or scoff at orphans, rather than locking those options behind alignment levels. The companions, too, are varied and distinct with only Abelard the seneschal being less than immediately interesting. That said I've not gotten to his character quests yet, I just hope he ends up more Alistair Theirin or Atton Rand than Carth Onasi, to borrow from Bioware for comparisons. The return of tooltips on important phrases also goes a long way to helping newcomers to the setting make sense of all these pseudo-latin Proper Nouns.
In all, though Rogue Trader isn't exactly boldly treading new ground, where it does go it goes confidently. If it can avoid the pitfalls of Baldur's Gate 3 and the flimsy final act, the game will likely be another hundred-hour timesink for anyone who loves CRPG's, Warhammer, or both. If not, it will probably still get there, but it might need a year or two of patching.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is immediately available on the PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
The post Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader Treads Old Ground in a New Setting appeared first on Siliconera. |
Siliconera Saturday, December 30, 2023 1:00 PM
HoYoverse has launched a new web event for Honkai: Star Rail called Fables of the Stars, which features the upcoming character Black Swan reading New Year's fortunes. Players can earn Stellar Jades and larger prizes like iPhones and Swarovski jewelry until the event ends on January 5, 2024.
The event, playable in a web browser, will require players to have reached a Trailblaze level of 4 or higher on their connected account. Participating will allow you to receive a fortune from Black Swan in the form of cards featuring various characters from the game. Collecting enough of the 14 cards in the Fables of the Stars event will award Stellar Jades for use in Honkai: Star Rail itself.
Players can then share duplicate cards with other players to complete their collections, which will also enter them into the drawing for prizes based on the character shared. Sharing Black Swan's card, for example, gives you a chance to win some Swarovski accessories while sharing Dr. Ratio's could win you a bath toy.
You can find more details on the HoYolab post or through the announcement tweet below:
Version 1.6 recently arrived in Honkai: Star Rail and featured the debut of Ruan Mei, the Critter Pick event, and new additions to the Simulated Universe mode. The update also saw improvements made to the auto-battle behavior of the character Pela.
The Honkai: Star Rail Fables of the Stars web event is available now and will last until January 5, 2024. The game is immediately available on PC, PS5, and mobile devices.
The post Black Swan Tells Fortunes in Honkai: Star Rail Fables of the Stars Web Event appeared first on Siliconera. |
PC Invasion - FeedDDD Saturday, December 30, 2023 12:00 PM  I love board games. From tactical and intense action games, to roleplaying games, to euro games, to card games — the lot. Playing Monopoly GO recently made me wonder what other board games I'd love to see receive the same treatment. Now, I don't necessarily mean that the following board games deserve to become vacuous money-grabbing gimmicks. I simply mean that I'd love for more board games to make this leap into the digital and maybe even live service platform. Board games that need a creative digital spin-off The following board games would do well to have a video game spin-off that isn't simply a digital version of the board game. Monopoly GO has turned Monopoly into a completely different product and experience that stays true to the initial values. It would be so cool to see more of this creativity in other board games I love. Note that the following board games aren't ranked or anything, they're simply te... |
Gamer Empire Saturday, December 30, 2023 10:18 AM Most Paradox Interactive games reach their peak by using community-made mods. This is due to the fact that these grand strategy games offer an amazing canvas for the fans to work with. Hearts of Iron 4 is no different, as it has an incredible base for many of the community modders to use and build […] |