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Nothing gets me more excited than the first few notes of Vampire *******. Whatever rendition, the Castlevania track is an adrenaline-pumping masterpiece. So ****** me surprised when a new Vampire Survivors DLC is announced out of nowhere, and opens with those entrancing sounds. Called Ode to Castlevania, developer Poncle says it's the biggest expansion for its hit Steam roguelike yet, and I'm afraid I'm about to lose another few weeks to it. Best of all, it's a dirt cheap DLC for a dirt cheap game. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Vampire Survivors creator won't release copycats or "anything AI or Web3" Vampire Survivors ******* evolution guide The best Vampire Survivors build View the full article

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom often functions as a grab bag of elements from previous Zelda games, but one instance of abandoning the past actually leads to some of the best content in the game. It's standard procedure for ideas to carry on from one Zelda game to the next, and in a loose timeline that paints an overarching picture of Hyrule's history, the focus on recurring cultures and locations ends up making a lot of sense. View the full article

Making money, or Reeve, fast in Metaphor: ReFantazio can be a chore, but doing so will be crucial to your progress in the game. You will need money for things like healing items, weapons, gear, and even upgrades for your party. This makes getting Reeve as fast as possible a priority and one you will want to be able to do reliably. View the full article

Pearl Abyss, the developer behind the upcoming open-world action adventure title Crimson Desert, allegedly turned down Sony's offer to bring the game exclusively to PlayStation 5. Fans have been waiting to get their hands on the medieval RPG for years, and Crimson Desert is currently aiming for a simultaneous release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S in the second quarter of 2025. View the full article

Samsung might have started the foldable phone revolution, but the company is facing increased competition from the likes of the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the OnePlus Open. Read Entire Article View the full article

During PAX Aus 2024 not only did we get the Steam Deck for Australia announcement, but the project leader on Valve's own Portal 2 did an interview with KIWI TALKZ. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

One of last year's best surprises was Mintrocket and Nexon's Dave the Diver, a deeply charming and funny adventure that oscillates between deep sea exploration and being a sushi chef. The game proved a hit with critics and players alike: It scored a whopping 91% in our review, with Chris Livingston saying "I'm routinely up playing until 2 am, even after 30 hours it's still throwing fun and creative new systems at me, and every time I play I'm delighted, surprised, and utterly charmed.".. Read more.View the full article

If you're fondly dreaming of an actual Steam Deck 2, not some half-and-half OLED travesty, you should also be fondly dreaming of a better class of battery. Valve designers Lawrence Yang and Yazan Aldehayyat have shared a little of the company's thinking regarding "generational leaps" in hardware, commenting that they don't want to release a Steam Deck sequel that is "only incrementally better", and in particular, that they don't want to release a new Steam Deck that is drastically more powerful at the expense of battery life. Read more View the full article

It has been confirmed that the late Lance Riddick will be replaced as the voice of Sylens in LEGO Horizon Adventures. Sylens was a major character in the two games that inspired LEGO Horizon Adventures, serving as a reluctant and mysterious ally to Aloy while enacting his own agenda from behind the scenes. Part of what made him such a compelling character to many was Lance Riddicks performance, as he gave Sylens a cerebral and sometimes sinister tone that left gamers (and Aloy) questioning whether they should trust him as he helped uncover the many mysteries within the world of Horizon. View the full article

Alan Wake 2 gets a chunky patch tomorrow, October 22, as developer Remedy Entertainment has unveiled the Anniversary Update. A blog post outlined the myriad additions coming to Alan Wake 2 in a major update to its acccessibility settings, with Remedy adding options such as infinite ammo and one shot ******. The update is free and launches alongside but not as part of the The Lake House expansion. Alongside the accessibility additions comes the ability to invert the horizontal axis and not just the vertical, plus updates to DualSense functionality on PlayStation 5 such as motion control support and more haptic feedback. The full patch notes are available below. "We can’t believe it’s been almost a year since Alan Wake 2 was released," Remedy said. "Thank you to everyone who has played the game and become a member of our fanbase and the Remedy community, no matter when you joined us or how long you’ve been a fan." Alan Wake 2 arrived in 2023 as a survival horror game following the titular writer who continues to face psychological horror beyond anything imagined in his books. In our 9/10 review, IGN said: "Alan Wake 2 is a superb survival horror sequel that makes the cult-classic original seem like little more than a rough first draft by comparison." As of August, Alan Wake 2 had yet to turn a profit for Remedy, but it had recouped most of its development and marketing expenses. Alan Wake 2 Anniversary Update patch notesAdded the ability to invert the X (horizontal) axis on mouse and controller, and not just the Y (vertical) axisAdded gyro aiming (motion controls) support on PlayStation 5You can turn the motion sensor function on and off, as well as tweak horizontal and vertical sensitivity, set gyro space, and choose whether your pitch, yaw, and roll directions are standard or invertedAdded haptic feedback to healing items and throwables on PlayStation 5Added Gameplay Assist menu in Gameplay Options, which contains several options such as:Quick turnAuto complete QTEButton tapping to single tap******* charging with tapsHealing items with tapsLightshifter with tapsPlayer invulnerabilityPlayer immortalityOne shot *****Infinite ammoInfinite flashlight batteries Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day. View the full article

I'm still processing the fact that the Fallout TV show was good. Not even good, it was kind of great, and all that in spite of the fact that it hews so closely to Bethesda's wacky vision of the Wasteland, which I'm just a little bit tired of... Read more.View the full article

The centerpiece of the A900 is AMD's 4th gen Epyc Genoa processors. The base configuration features dual 64-core Epyc 9124 CPUs, giving you a total of 128 cores. If that's not enough, Titan offers an upgrade option to the 256-core variant of the same chip. Read Entire Article View the full article

In a rather decisive statement made shortly after the launch of Valve's handheld in Australia, Steam Deck product designer Lawrence Yang outright condemned the release of yearly products that are only "incrementally better" than the previous design. While the Steam Deck is still the best handheld gaming PC all-around, it's aging AMD APU is starting to fall behind competitors in terms of power. Despite this, Valve isn't going to turn to annual releases and will instead wait for the right technology to come along before releasing an all new handheld. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: It's official, the AMD Ryzen 9000X3D release date is soon, 7800X3D beater on way Fractal Design Refine review: elegance and comfort combined in a gaming chair Save 19% on this pink Sakura wireless gaming mouse, if you're quick View the full article

Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 has revealed that the controversial Riot Shield will not be in the game at launch. While there's no guarantee that the Riot Shield won't be added to Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 further down the line, launch players can be safe in the knowledge that it won't be there to frustrate them on day one. View the full article

Image: Poncle The world of Dracula and the Belmont family is coming to Vampire Survivors. The newly announced downloadable content for the auto-shooter survival game, Ode to Castlevania, promises a bunch of new stuff: 20 characters, 40 weapons, an extra-large stage, and over 30 music tracks. Developer Poncle said in its announcement post on X that the $3.99 expansion should contain more than 10 hours worth of gameplay — though it’s not clear if there will actually be any vampires in the game (I’m still ******** there won’t be). The new Vampire Survivors DLC is set to launch on October 31st on the PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, Android, and iOS. You can also track its release with a cheesy, ‘90s-era countdown timer site set up by the developer.... Continue reading… View the full article

Xbox Game Pass has been a dominant force as a subscription service since it first launched, giving players unlimited access to the vast catalog of games it offers. With hundreds of choices and every genre from rougelike to relaxed farming-simulator, it never fails to offer something to players of all preferences. With new games continually added to the platform, though, players may have a tough time keeping up with all the incredible hidden gems that have slipped them by. View the full article

All Magic the Gathering players own a fair number of duplicate commons, particularly draft staples from the sets we most enjoyed drafting, but few of us aspire to build a collection around them. And then there's CEO-TendiesTrading (his Reddit handle), a long time player who owns over eight hundred copies of the red common creature 'Kird Ape'. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: MTG Marvel crossover reveals Wolverine, Iron Man, and Storm cards Magic: The Gathering release schedule 2024 Cheap Duskmourn MTG card sees 450% price spike View the full article

Recent reports have claimed Twitch prevented users in ******* from creating accounts on the livestreaming platform, but Twitch is now denying these accusations. Instead, the platform said the issue stemmed from the email verification process, a problem it has since fixed. Twitch released a statement yesterday on X (formerly Twitter) denying it had prevented users from signing up to the streaming platform. It admitted, however, to temporarily disabling signups with email verification in both ******* and Palestine following the Oct. 7, 2023 ******-led ********** ******* on ******* where approximately 1,200 people were *******. View the full article

All Magic the Gathering players own a fair number of duplicate commons, particularly draft staples from the sets we most enjoyed drafting, but few of us aspire to build a collection around them. And then there's CEO-TendiesTrading (his Reddit handle), a long time player who owns over eight hundred copies of the red common creature 'Kird Ape'. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: MTG Marvel crossover reveals Wolverine, Iron Man, and Storm cards Magic: The Gathering release schedule 2024 Cheap Duskmourn MTG card sees 450% price spike View the full article

Since this is a Sonic review I’ll go fast and cut to the chase: Sonic X Shadow Generations is a fantastic combination of one of the Blue Blur's classics and a new helping of smartly designed Shadow levels built around his own abilities, and after spending some time with it has become one of my favorite Sonic games I've ever played. ***** and Sonic Team have learned from their recent attempts, Frontiers and Superstars, and have found clever ways to weave the best ideas of those games into a major refresh of a fan favorite. And certainly, when it comes to Shadow the Hedgehog, this is his definitive game. Half of the content of Sonic X Shadow Generations is remastered from 2011’s Sonic Generations, which we gave an 8.5 In our review back then. It does have a few new bells and whistles, like the adorable Chao hidden in each 2D and 3D stages, but other than their level designs are mostly unchanged because they hold up just fine. I'd like to imagine that the Chao are a hint that we’ll see the return of the Chao Garden from Sonic Adventure 2 in a future Sonic game, but for now they’re just a nice homage. If you never played the original, it’s definitely worth experiencing it for the first time here: Sonic Generations is a stellar combination of 2D and 3D gameplay that celebrated what was at the time a 20-year history by curating and recreating some of the best and most iconic Sonic levels that had come before. Shadow Generations wastes no time showcasing its creativity with multiple stand-out moments. The very first stage, or instance, transforms into fractals and looks like the alternate dimensions we've seen in Dr. Strange or Spider-Man: No Way Home. The levels from Sonic Generations also get a slight but noticeable graphical boost thanks to the current generation of consoles: environments look more polished and the colors are more vibrant, making enemies, hazards, and springs just a bit more noticeable when you’re moving at high speed. So by default this is the best way to play it, even if the difference isn’t night and day. This is the best way to play Generations, even if the difference isn’t night and day. However, the real reason you’d want to play Sonic X Shadow Generations is the all-new campaign filled with creative reimaginings of Shadow’s stages from his past appearances throughout the Sonic series. Shadow's five-hour campaign is separate from the Generations storyline but plays out in a similar way, in that each stage has one part in 2D and another in 3D. Shadow’s stages have all the fast-paced appeal you’d expect to get when playing as Sonic, similar to when new paths open up when replaying a stage after Sonic has gained the light dash ability. Shadow starts with a similar skill called the Chaos Dash, and then goes on to open up even more pathways when returning to stages with abilities like the ***** Wings that let you fly short distances and skip whole sections of levels, making them play very differently. Shadow’s Chaos Control ability also creates fantastic moments where he does things like freeze time to ******** a missile flying at him in a flashy mini cutscene. And, unlike in the 2D Sonic stages that play like classic Sonic with no homing ******* or boost gauge, Shadow keeps all his abilities for his 2D sections so they feel just as fast as his 3D stages. Besides the main stages there are various challenge stages with objectives like requiring you to ******** enough targets before reaching the goal, or finish a hazard-filled level with a single ring to unlock bosses and the next set of stages. It’s similar to Sonic Generations, with the main difference being that you need to complete all of the challenges to acquire the keys you need, instead of just one. I do miss the collecting of the Chaos Emeralds you get in Sonic Generations, because some of them had fun rival boss battles against characters like Metal Sonic and Silver, but since Sonic is collecting them in his portion of the story it wouldn’t make much sense for Shadow to be collecting them at the same time in his. With both campaigns combined, the total number of stages is now over 150. With both campaigns combined, the total number of stages is now over 150, including traditional, challenge, and boss stages. That would take even an avid Sonic fan about 15 to 20 hours to ***** through. And for those looking for even more challenges, completing the Shadow campaign will unlock a new option that increases the difficulty of bosses and challenge levels when replaying them. Though minimal, there are some new storylines that creatively weave between games where Shadow has appeared, tying them into big moments we've seen in past games, like Sonic and Shadow's duel in Sonic Adventure 2. There is also a healthy dose of new scenes filling in Shadow's past that reunite him with friends and foes, and offer more context to his storylines in games like Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Adventure 2. These moments ranged from fascinating to kickass, and they always left me wanting more. Like Sonic’s, Shadow's is made up of fun reimaginations of some of his best stages across past Sonic games. We’ve got new versions of levels like ******** Highway, Rail Canyon, and the Space Colony Ark, and each stage is packed to the brim with creative routes that make good use of Shadow's old and new abilities. What We Said About Sonic Generations (2011) It feels refreshing to be able to say that Sonic is good again. His upward trajectory over the last year continues and he’s only gaining momentum. Sonic Generations is largely a game for the most ********* of Sonic fans, but for the millions who have fond memories of narrowly dodging spikes, grinding on rails, or even that time he was a pinball, Sonic Generations is a game made for you. – Jack DeVries & Brian Altano, October 28, 2011 Score: 8.5 Read the full Sonic Generations review [/url] He begins with his iconic Chaos Control ability, which stops time (including the stage timer) and allows you to outrun hazards like a runaway train, stop groups of enemies in their tracks so you can dispatch them with ease, or use the new Chaos Dash to reach strategically placed shortcuts. From there, you unlock ***** abilities that give you new options for movement and combat. Without going into spoiler territory, one of my favorites that you get about midway through his story is ***** Surf. This power makes water levels a lot more fun by giving you a shadowy manta ray that can spin-******* through enemies and objects. These abilities are handed out after finishing a group of stages or an area’s boss, and they come at a fast enough pace to keep things consistently interesting and different from what came before. ***** Surf makes water levels a lot more fun. There are also some creative and enjoyable new versions of boss fights, like a metallic dragon that has you chasing him on the water, knocking trash into him, and charging up so you can unleash Chaos Control and land some real damage with a homing *******. I wish there were more of those, but those that are here make excellent use of the most recent ***** abilities and are all fantastic additions to the collection of egg robots and various other bosses from Sonic history. In fact, the only stage that broke my momentum and reminded me of the missteps of modern Sonic games was the Sonic Frontiers 3D stage. It feels empty compared to most of Sonic X Shadow Generations and had an overreliance on a new sludge-based upgrade for Shadow that reminded me of one of my least favorite Wisp powers from Sonic Colors. Other than that, though, I enjoyed replaying every stage to find optimal paths, gather collectible keys to unlock secrets in the hub world, and improve my runs until I earned the coveted S-rankings. Sonic X Shadow Generations also evolves the all-white hub world of Sonic Generations by taking it from a 2D plane to a three-dimensional one that expands outwards as you complete all the stages in a section and its accompanying boss. In between stages, I'd spend some time exploring the hub world to see what chests I could open using the keys I'd collected, as well as completing various optional activities like collecting 100 rings in a short amount of time to unlock multiple rewards like artwork, music, or journal entries about characters and the events of Shadow's life. Similar to his blue counterpart, Shadow also has stages that are entirely locked to the old-school 2D perspective, and they feel right at home as he races his way to the goal. Besides a McDonalds toy called the Shadow Grinder from 2003 and a DLC stage in Sonic Forces: Episode Shadow, this is the first time we've gotten multiple full-2D Shadow levels, and it was interesting to see how his expanded move set impacted their designs. Abilities like Chaos Spears allowed me to hit switches from a distance to open up alternate paths, while ***** Surf meant no longer having to deal with those underwater sections of Sonic games that a lot of people don’t enjoy – you can just surf right on top of the water until reaching land. Finally, I have to call out that the music accompanying our favorite hedgehogs as they race to the goal line is excellent, the guitar riffs for stages like ******** Highway and Space Colony Ark return, and are joined by some fantastic tracks like Crush 40's All Hail Shadow and Sonic Heroes Rail Canyon theme. One of my favorite elements of the Generations games is the selectable background music for every stage and challenge, so if you only want to hear Live & Learn across every stage like the Crush 40 sicko you are, you can do that! The only catch is that you have to find some music tracks in chests scattered across the Shadow’s hub world or by collecting the musical notes and Red rings in Sonics to unlock them, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

SILENT HILL 2 from Bloober Team SA and KONAMI just got a fresh update today, pulling in lots of fixes and some technical improvements. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Surgent Studios was founded by actor Abubakar Salim, best known for roles as Bayek in *********'s Creed Origins and Alyn of Hull in House of the Dragon. It went on to make Tales of Kenzera: Zau, but times have been tough since the game's release, and now the studio is taking a temporary hiatus... Read more.View the full article

Image: AMD AMD is officially announcing its first next-generation X3D desktop processors today, based on its latest Zen 5 architecture. I’d love to tell you which Ryzen 9000-series X3D chips are arriving next month, but AMD is strangely only teasing a release date of November 7th and providing no pricing or further details. AMD has only provided a single slide about this X3D announcement, ahead of Intel’s Core Ultra 200-series launch on October 24th. Rumors had suggested AMD would announce its highly anticipated Zen 5 X3D chips a day after Intel’s performance embargo for the Ultra 9 285K, but AMD has decided to tease the existence of next-gen X3D processors a little earlier than expected. Thanks to other leaks, we’re expecting to hear more about... Continue reading… View the full article

Back in the protean stink of 2013, the ****** we call Factorio sprouted in lowercase early access form and began its meticulous, ravenous conquest of the emerging factory sim genre. Some say that Factorio gave that genre life, though I'd point at Dwarf Fortress as one among many notable forebears. Today, the terrain of factory simming is hotly contested by rival piles of conveyor belt spaghetti. I'm not just talking about Satisfactory or Shapez - they're even making philosophical factory sims these days. They have cosy factory sims now. Accordingly, the immense, smoke-rimmed cyborg eye of Factorio has turned from the exhausted soil to the relatively untapped heavens. Somewhere up there, there is unspoilt territory. Somewhere, there is land that has never known the roar of a smelter - and in Factorio's behemothic Space Age DLC, out today, you will find it. Read more View the full article

World bosses in Throne and Liberty are events that take place all across the world and offer a chance for you to earn epic endgame gear for your builds. Here’s everything you need to know about world bosses and their loot in Throne and Liberty. upcoming world bosses: This list is based on early access servers that are ahead of launch servers when it comes to Milestones. As the servers complete Milestones, new world bosses will become available, and we’ll update the article accordingly. View the full article