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********* TV station TV Asahi recently asked international anime fans what their top 20 anime openings are, and the results have me convinced no one actually watches anime. Back in March, it was announced on TV Asahi's Sosenkyo Twitter account that they'd be hosting a special program going into the top 20 anime openings ranked by international anime fans. The program apparently polled 1740 people, from all across the world, in order to find out which are the best of the best according to non-********* viewers of anime. Don't worry, you won't have to sit through the three hour long special to find out, as conveniently the Twitter account listed them out for us. Here's the full list, which certainly indicates that most people are just thinking of the anime they most recently watched rather than what the best are: Read more View the full article

What are some beginner tips for playing Manor Lords? Perhaps more importantly, how can I avoid getting stuck in Manor Lords? Well, good news: Manor Lords moves at a gentle pace by default, and there's plenty of time before your first winter sets in to make sure your little medieval village is running smoothly. However, while you won't face too much in the way of ********* or natural disasters during your first year, there are some mistakes you can make early on that can ***** your settlement - or at least, severely hamper its growth. In Manor Lords, you control a parcel of unimproved land somewhere in the ********* countryside. Starting with a group of five families, you'll need to scavenge for food and building materials, build workshops and housing, and keep your villagers happy enough to increase your Manor Lords population - with the goal of eventually having enough of them around to levy taxes on. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Manor Lords families - how to find and reallocate your workers Manor Lords early access review - a beautiful, ambitious city builder How to claim new areas in Manor Lords View the full article

A recent Helldivers 2 ***** shows a highly durable mech called the EXO-49 Emancipator. Helldivers 2 features different types of stratagems, including exosuits that provide players with assistance in combat. These battle mechs make high-difficulty missions easier thanks to their excellent firepower and durability, allowing the driver to perform rapid shots and clear waves of enemies. Exosuits in Helldivers 2 also wield rocket launchers players can use to take down multiple enemies at once. View the full article

Image: Shift Up While the combat is challenging and rewarding, it takes far too long to get to the good stuff. Continue reading… View the full article

Stellar Blade hacks ‘n’ slashes multiple genres and iconic franchises, takes the best bits, and combines them into something special. The result is an epic action adventure that not only shows its pedigree and holds up as an excellent first-party PlayStation exclusive but has the potential to grow into something ******* and better. At first glance, you might think Stellar Blade is a half-baked sci-fi thriller that underdelivers—but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Shift Up’s new IP genuinely sets a high bar, and its combination of exhilarating combat, sumptuous graphics, and deep systems makes it flourish in an era chock-full of high-class contemporaries. View the full article

Gazing out across my lively medieval burgh in Manor Lords, I see great promise. The detailed buildings, villagers, and landscapes are always pleasant to look upon. The complex, rewarding, if not necessarily precision-balanced economy is entertaining and intuitive to interact with. And the war cries of my homegrown militia, off to bash some bandits, remind me that each ******* clash is costing someone a son or a husband. But for all its potential, Manor Lords is an extremely Early Access-feeling Early Access game at this point. Sometimes, it even seems more like a proof of concept than a finished product. There is fun to be had in this initial release of Manor Lords. The freedom to lay out bustling streets and market squares, putting villagers to work on sprawling farms and in smoky backyard workshops, is a joyful and generally well-paced experience. The road tool is a little fiddly for my liking, but laying out custom lots and snapping everything together dynamically at the corners makes it easy to craft settlements that look and feel cohesive and realistic. One of my favorite little touches is the addition of backyard workshops, which let you move commerce into the places where people actually live. That's much more accurate to the era Manor Lords is trying to capture than having massive commercial buildings everyone works at. I get this cozy, familiar feeling when I zoom in and can see that this is where the town blacksmith lives. And just across the way, Herman and Agnes brew ***** for the lively tavern down the road. Almost everything about the sound design and visual presentation is exceptional. Rainstorms patter and *****, leaving roads slick and strewn with puddles. Winter blankets everything in a sparkling frost. The animations for something as simple as getting water from a well are grounded and meticulously detailed in a way that always rewards me for zooming in. You can run around on foot, but… not without some weirdness. There's even a neat feature that lets you run around as a character in your own town, but… not without some weirdness. For one thing, you'll always be the same exact guy, no matter which portrait you chose for your ruler during set-up. And for another, the collision detection on buildings is clearly unfinished. An open gate might feature an impenetrable, invisible wall, whereas you can wander right through the outside of a ******* without a care like a sacreligious ghost. This, and several other features, to be clear, are marked as work-in-progress in the UI. And that's totally fine. Manor Lords is consistently up-front about what's finished and what isn't. I also ran into some other fun and funny visual glitches, like a horrifyingly deformed sheep that looked like it got lost on the way to a John Carpenter movie. Again, stuff like this doesn't ruin the experience, but it does remind me that we're very early in Early Access. The main difficulty in Manor Lords comes from keeping all of your villagers supplied with food and fuel so they don't ****, then providing them with amenities like clothes and ***** to level up their dwellings and start producing wealth. It's a pretty decent little economic loop that offers enough friction to prevent outright snowballing, especially when you get a large population that is dependent on crop fertility, mills, and bakeries to not starve. You can even specialize a settlement in making money and trade for most of your material needs, which is pretty neat. It can be a bit rough getting things going initially, though. As I discussed in my Six Things to Know Before You Play Guide, there are very limited ways to distribute your starting five families' labor that won't get you into big trouble. The tutorials are decent, but the UI sometimes made it difficult to find the information I wanted. For instance, you can hold Tab to see what everyone in a given building is doing. But I couldn't for the life of me find a way to view a list of all available families and what they were assigned to. This is a complex management game. I need more spreadsheets! I really enjoyed the RTS combat once I got a proper army assembled. The other thing that can go very wrong early on is getting wrecked by bandits before you have the resources to build a full militia unit. And it seems like there's really no recovering from this. On one save file, two of the bandits just stuck around and kept burning things forever, even after several minutes on the fastest game speed, so I couldn't rebuild, but I also never got a game over. So much for that run, I guess. When I did get a proper army assembled, though, I really enjoyed the core of the RTS combat. It's sort of Total War lite, with formations of about 20 to 40 guys who can be spearmen, axemen, pikemen, or archers. Each of these must be equipped individually with weapons, shields, and armor you either have to make or trade for yourself, which ties the economic and warfare systems together nicely. Eventually, by building a manor, an elite cadre of men-at-arms can be recruited who are fully customizable, and can equip even better gear. Issuing orders is a breeze, and there are a number of different commands from “charge forward” to “give ground” that cut down on the amount of micromanagement required in battle. The issue is, I hardly ever needed to make much use of these systems in the current build. Your ultimate adversary, that ****** baron across the way, was never able to put together an army that could compete with one even a fair-sized town of my own could muster. Random bandits become almost a joke to deal with once you have at least two full regiments. I didn't even find myself taking enough casualties to affect my economy much in the late game. Outgrowing the greatest possible military challenges seems far too easy, and left me simply waiting around to generate enough Influence to claim more of my rival's lands. A system for the King's Favor, which can speed this up, doesn't seem to really be implemented yet. Oh, and that manor I mentioned earlier? It's also quite a bare-bones and clunky system at this point. (Though, again, the UI will warn you of this.) There's a tax office that simply doesn't do anything. You can build walls and towers, but everything enclosed by them becomes considered part of the "blueprint" of the manor itself, which stops you from building anything else in that area ever again. So you can theoretically wall off your whole settlement, but gods forbid you ever need to move, demolish, or rebuild anything in that area. I'd honestly recommend just plopping the basic manor building and the garrison to max out your retinue size… then don't worry about it until later patches make it actually usable. There's also only one map right now, which is a bit of a bummer. It's huge, and gorgeous, featuring several regions to start your settlement in. But I look forward to seeing more varied geography in the final version. Also, not letting me pick my starting tile is pretty annoying, and often led to me restarting over and over until I was randomly placed in the one I wanted. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

After a long wait and several delays, Manor Lords is finally due for release in early access later this week. It's been greatly anticipated for a variety of reasons: Manor Lords blends city building strategy, RTS combat, and painstaking historical realism in a combination that's both boldly innovative and approachably familiar. Developed by the one-man team of Slavic Magic - who signs his name "Greg" on the splash screen - Manor Lords is undeniably an impressive achievement. View the full article

The information comes from a new Gigabyte press release notifying users of the latest AGESA 1.1.7.0 beta BIOS release that makes its current AM5 motherboards (X670, B650, and A620-series products) compatible with AMD's next-gen processors. Asus and MSI confirmed support last week, but only mentioned "next-gen AMD Ryzen CPUs" rather... Read Entire Article View the full article

Hey pal, grab a chair. Sit down a while. I've spoken to your parents, and they're worried about you, mate. They've been telling me that you're thinking about buying Stellar Blade on the PS5 - don't get up! It's okay, this is a no judgement zone, bud. Don't look embarrassed, it's just me and you having a conversation here. Now, let me tell you something... Ignore those bozos. Stellar Blade is a downright shocker of a release. An uppercut to the "best games coming in April" videos who could not see past feeble aesthetics to the pack-a-punch action extravaganza behind Stellar Blade, like a fool hiker missing the forest for the trees. Stellar Blade asks a question that sat steadfast in even Plato's mind: "Can too much cake ruin a party?" For those blissfully unaware of what I'm waffling about, Stellar Blade is a third-person action game made by South Korean developer Shift Up. With roots firmly ******* in the mobile market, the studio is taking a Fenway Park level swing at a true triple-A experience. We're talking PS5 console release, shiny graphics, and money splashed all over the place. Read more View the full article

When, in town building simulation Manor Lords, you ****** your first manor, it feels natural to place it in the center of your humble 14th century ********* settlement. It presents as a locus of power, where your character avatar resides. Also, it’s right there in the title. I built mine down a side road, between oxen posts and granaries, for no real reason but free space. The more I play, the more it feels a fitting place. Not sidelined, exactly, just not especially loud. I need the taxes it brings to pay mercenaries to see off bandits, but lords - their whims and ambitions - don’t set the tone here. Parchment and seals aren’t as important as tilled earth; as winter snow, spring thaws and autumn harvests. So, despite the title, this sedate, curious, and intricate sim isn’t really about lords, nor manors. Not half as much, anyway, as it is about manure. Read more View the full article

Is Life by You on Game Pass? The Sims has had global success for decades and is one of the best-selling game series of all time. Naturally then, many have tried since to replicate the life game and its success. One that looks like it could come close to doing so is Life by You, an upcoming sim with a more realistic, lifelike aesthetic. As we eagerly await the Life by You release date, you might be wondering what your options are for getting your hands on the simulation game. Since we know that Life by You is only going to be available on PC at launch your choices are already limited, but what does this mean for Life by You on Game Pass? Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Life by You release date, early access, news, and gameplay trailers Life by You system requirements Cities Skylines 2 publisher delays its new rival to The Sims View the full article

It's a combination that's hard to imagine. You take the strategy gameplay of classic Command and Conquer - the beloved originals like Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert - and somehow cross it with roguelikes and deckbuilders. On first inspection, it seems like it shouldn't work. But a visionary new RTS game, that the developer says is getting very close to launch, manages to ******** this genre-blending sleight of hand flawlessly, and you can try it for yourself right now. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

Sitting right alongside the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC and Hollow Knight Silksong at the top of my Steam wishlist, upcoming sandbox RPG and building game Reka is one I've had my eyes on for quite a few months now. With a beautiful look, a setting that evokes the fantasy wilderness of games like Valheim and The Witcher, and the ability to build a home that literally walks through the forest with you, Reka captivated my attention from the moment I first saw it, and you can sign up right now for the chance to join a new playtest on Steam. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Valheim style dark fantasy sandbox game unveils customization tools Valheim meets The Witcher in this gorgeous dark fantasy sandbox game View the full article

Hoyoverse announces that pre-registration has opened for its upcoming action RPG title, Zenless Zone Zero, and players can earn unique rewards if certain milestones are reached through sign-ups. HoYoverse is seemingly on an unstoppable roll with Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail becoming massively successful games for the studio. While both games are designed as RPG experiences, they each tap into elements that make them different, with Genshin offering a massive open world to explore similar to Breath of the Wild, while Honkai: Star Rail leans heavily into sci-fi and features turn-based RPG combat. View the full article

Despite the massive, unexpected success of Helldivers 2, the game's overwhelming popularity and fast-paced content release schedule might be turning into a double-edged sword. A sequel to the less-known Helldivers developed by Arrowhead Games Studios, previously best known for their Magicka series, Helldivers 2 exploded in popularity shortly after its release, taking the industry — and the developers themselves — by surprise. Since then, the game has managed to maintain a large and active playerbase to participate in its ongoing galactic war, but some of the game's ******* issues might be falling by the wayside. View the full article

Honkai: Star Rail has launched the official drip marketing campaign for *****, confirming that she is a five-star Erudition unit. ***** isn't the only new character that will be introduced in Honkai: Star Rail's version 2.3, as the developers confirmed yesterday that Firefly, another five-star unit, will appear in the upcoming update. The banner order for version 2.3 has yet to be revealed, but it's believed that Firefly will arrive in the first phase, while ***** will be available in the second phase. View the full article

Developer Hexworks has unveiled Lords of the Fallen’s update 1.5, bringing a robust modifier system that introduces a Roguelite mode. This Lords of the Fallen’s final free update marks the culmination of ongoing enhancements since the game's release, prioritizing performance boosts, stability improvements, and a wealth of new features. View the full article

Fallout 4 is known for having plenty of factions vying for control of the irradiated ruins of the Commonwealth and while one of them may feel relatively useless, a new mod makes them significantly more effective at taking control. Waking up as the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 feels especially intimidating when the entire world has gone to ruin but one group of fighters, The Minutemen, is simply looking to make a difference and help their fellow Americans. Unfortunately, their aspirations are slightly out of their reach given that the player needs to accomplish everything for them. View the full article

Helldivers 2’s current Major Order to successfully defend 10 planets across Terminid and Automaton space has put Hellmire in the ******* line once again, and it looks like players would really rather not have to deal with it. For the uninitiated, Arrowhead’s explosive third-person co-op shooter tasks the Helldivers 2 community with completing various challenges as part of the ongoing Galactic War, a meta narrative driven by Game Master Joel. Amid this latest Major Order, which looks increasingly likely to fail, players are faced with dropping onto perhaps the most-hated planet in the game right now: the appropriately named Hellmire. Hellmire suffers from a near-constant cycle of fires, which cause players a number of problems, not least because ***** damage is currently doing an extreme amount of damage to friend and foe alike. Arrowhead has admitted ***** damage is "ridiculous" and confirmed a complete overhaul is in the works, but for now, Hellmire is lethal just to be on, let alone deal with the Terminids, too. Firestorm is here on hellmire #Helldivers2 TheQuixotic6 [Hidden Content] — Helldivers Alerts (@HelldiversAlert) March 14, 2024 The hate for Hellmire has become so extreme that some players are even suggesting it makes no in-universe sense for either the Terminds or the forces of Super Earth to want to claim the planet, given the rampant ***** tornados. Redditor Elgescher adds that players may have Hellmire fatigue, given this is the latest in a string of liberations on the planet. “I'm done with this planet,” they said, “can't we just ***** it up already?” Helldivers 2 displays active player numbers on a per planet basis, and it’s true that Hellmire has one of the lower player counts, but it’s not alone in that. It seems the more easy-going Estanu is currently attracting more players than any other planet. Why **** defenses keep failing#HELLDIVERS2 ©Dotortoiseshop [Hidden Content] — Helldivers Alerts (@HelldiversAlert) April 23, 2024 The issue around Hellmire taps into an emerging push and pull between Helldivers 2’s Galactic War-focused ********* community, and casual players who like to play on planets and against enemies they enjoy and little else. Arrowhead itself has said it can only do so much to help the core community complete Major Orders that require a coordinated effort. Sometimes, even if Joel offers a helping hand, the community will fail. And it looks like that’s going to happen again with this latest Major Order, although, ultimately, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Yes, those medals will be lost, but lost planets will become playable again as part of a future Major Order. And let’s remember, the Major Order that proceeded this defense mission was an absolute blast. If you’re looking for more on Helldivers 2, check out IGN’s feature on the Let Me Solo Her of Helldivers 2, a player who has answered over 100 **** Beacons as part of a mission to help others. Helldivers 2 has become one of the surprise hits of 2024 since launching in February, topping the charts on Steam and reportedly selling around three million copies. According to at least one analyst, it's still growing. Check out IGN's Helldivers 2 review to find out why it's going down so well. Wesley is the *** News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Owners of recent Intel CPUs and Asus motherboards based on the Z790, B760, and H770 chipsets are strongly advised to install the latest firmware update released by the Taiwanese manufacturer. The company introduced the new update as a BIOS ready for "next gen Intel processors," while the firmware is essentially... Read Entire Article View the full article

Zenless Zone Zero has opened up pre-registeration, and has already soared past 30 million sign ups as of writing. In fact, it has passed 32 million and is steadily rolling its way higher with no sign of stopping. As the next big game from the creators of Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, it looks like there's a huge swell of interest in getting interested on day one. Already, players have been accessing Zenless Zone Zero through a variety of alphas and testing periods. There's also been sign-ups for PS5 testing, which has only recently seen invites go out to keen console gamers. However, whereas those players have had to deal with hard content caps and the slow implementation of new mechanics and quality of life features, the full release will be the expected polished package. Speaking of, alongside this announcement, Zenless Zone Zero was listed on the Apple store and other digital storefronts with a July 3rd release date. So those who sign up today won't have to wait too long at all to actually jump in and play. It's a great date to release too, as the rest of the year is looking somewhat dry and a honkin' new gacha game could probably do well in that *******. Read more View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Armadillos, the grumpy pistachio nuts of the animal kingdom, have been added to Minecraft in a recent mob update. You can brush them to harvest "scutes", the boney armour plating of the animal's back, which you can then use to craft armour for **** wolves. Speaking of wolves, this update also sees an ********** in canine diversity, with eight varieties of the wolf now appearing across different biomes. Awoooooo! Read more View the full article

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge iPhone users can finally enjoy retro gaming emulators without jailbreaking their phones. Continue reading… View the full article

For the achievement hunters out there, grabbing every collectable, finding every hidden secret, and defeating every boss is inevitable. With this guide, finding every doll in Sker Ritual Deadly Lovers Fortress will become just that little bit easier and push you closer to completion.How to find all the dolls in Deadly Lovers FortressThankfully, unlike Sewer of The *****, this level isn’t full of disgusting squelchy viscera. However, it looks absolutely freezing. With this guide, you should be able to collect together all the dolls in Sker Ritual with no trouble and be out before you catch your ******.I would recommend heading in with some friends to speed up the whole process. Outer Court doll #1The first doll you can find in Deadly Lovers Fortress can be found just as you leave the first room and head outside. Look directly up and to your left to spot the little doll perched up on a rocky outcropping.Image: PC InvasionOuter Court doll #2Just before ...View the full article

Lords Of The Fallen, an action RPG that was a mixture of fun and infuriating when it first launched, has received its final free update. It introduces the "Advanced Game Modifier System", which sounds like something creepy bachelors would pay an extraordinary monthly fee for. No, it doesn't provide terrible advice on how to talk to women. Instead, it allows you to customise LOTF with modifiers to turn it into a roguelike. Read more View the full article