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During an extremely short behind-closed-doors demo for Dune Awakening, I was given my first glimpse at what the team at Funcom is expecting from this open-world survival MMO: A huge time investment from players, a compelling take on the Dune story, and several factions you can choose to learn new skills and abilities from for your journeys into Arrakis. It’s clear that the developers who gave the demo are excited about the concepts at play, boasting that the desert section of the map alone is the size of all of Conan Exiles, and that they imagine you’ll spend 30-50 hours of the game leveling there. But that just seems to scratch the surface of what you’ll be able to do. What makes Dune Awakening different and interesting is the fact that every single week, the sections of this world not protected by a shield will be hit by a sandstorm, wiping out all the buildings you and your opponents have constructed in the seven days leading up to this weekly event. The official website describes them as “cataclysmic Coriolis storms [that] regularly alter the landscape, uncovering new valuable resources and sweeping away player-built outposts. When the dust settles, the race is on. Scout the fresh new land and uncover the secrets of the sands.” This was demonstrated to us as a player journeyed into a radioactive ****** site and showcased the ability to climb any geometry in the world while teasing secrets that can be found at the highest peaks. But the one aspect they kept going back to was Survival. This aspect of Dune Awakening became clear during our hands-off demonstration when a Sandworm erupted from the ground and chased down the player we were following. ****** is devastating, and you cannot ****** a Sandworm. You can only survive or lose everything you’ve acquired to that point if you get eaten. The same will be true should you lose in PVP and become a refreshing beverage for your opponent, or fail to take cover during a world-changing event. Even becoming dehydrated in the desert if you don’t pay attention to your heat meter and get heatstroke will put you at a severe disadvantage. Surviving will be a key part of your journey. It’s also clear that Dune Awakening has a lot of ambitious gameplay elements the team is trying to tie together. For instance, a fictional story where the ************** of Paul Atreides doesn’t take place because he was never born – because his father survived. And because his mother had a daughter as she was instructed to, instead of a son. With these overarching story elements used as a jumping-off point, the team gets to play with a unique future and a new outcome for the factions, and key players of the Dune Universe interact in a way you wouldn’t see in the novels. There is a political system that pits players against each other in a battle for territory. Sandworms will eat you if you’re caught in their path and take all of the gear you had with them. And sweeping sandstorms that will obliterate any structure you’ve built on the map and create an entirely new landscape every week. All of these systems are doing their best to craft a template that will keep the world of Dune Awakening fresh and interesting for players. During our demonstration, the team estimated that you would spend your first 30-50 hours of the game in the starting location alone, and that was one of several on the map that we were shown as explorable. On the one hand, I do like the idea that the game world will be kept fresh via sandstorms that ******** all you’ve built up and unlock an entirely new overworld to explore. On the other hand, I am wondering what each new week will look like as teams scramble to utilize their building templates to prop up a new structure and claim a zone as their own to defend against combatants as each week begins. Here’s hoping it’s absolute pandemonium. While there are story changes you should expect, the need for water and even more importantly alliances are intact. Eventually, you’ll be able to choose an NPC to train you. We were shown five skill trees that can be unlocked by doing said training, which will then allow you the option of three techniques you can mix and match as your main attacks. That’s in addition to the three passive skills you can also equip. To unlock all of the options available will take a significant amount of time, but getting the right build using different attacks from each will give you access to interesting abilities. The main ability I’ve seen as an example would be a scanner that shows more information about a location you plan to explore, including ****** NPC locations. In my demo, the team promised two maps to start with and more to come. We got to peek at the Deep Desert, where most of the conflict will happen and hundreds of players will focus on collecting resources and fighting over key locations each week. There's the Hagga Basin which will have a 40-plus player cap. And two social hub locations Arrakeen and the Harko Village. There is, of course, a plan to add even more to the world as time goes by. So far Dune Awakening seems incredibly ambitious. Abilities can be unlocked by the Mentats and Bene Gesserit. There will be cool gear to collect like Holtzman gadgets and templates of interesting firearms to unlock. There’s a heat system that will require you to stay hydrated by any means necessary. And giant sandworms that will eat entire convoys if you’re not careful. One speed-run demonstration from Funcom wasn’t enough to scratch the surface of the various systems and how they’ll interplay with one another, but I’m excited to see more. For more on Dune Awakening, keep it here at IGN. View the full article

Playing video games with all sorts of unlikely objects has been prevalent for quite some time. Popularized by the Souls franchise, this practice only keeps evolving. Now, a CS2 fan has solved the ultimate puzzle—how to play the game with a Rubik’s Cube. A CS2 YouTuber aptly named The Unlimited Guy shared a video of himself playing CS2 using a Rubik’s Cube on June 15. The player goes around flipping the cube in all sorts of ways to move and ****** and even manages to score quite a few ****** in the game’s Deathmatch mode. Though it isn’t clear what precisely he did with the cube to make everything work, it appears that moving has been tied to buttons the player engineered onto it while ********* is performed by flipping the right segment. View the full article

If you're a long-term player of Elden Ring, you may well have been one of those PC gamers who has suffered from micro-stuttering—very brief but large drops in frame rate—throughout. All kinds of solutions have been bandied around the interwebs for it but none have truly nixed the issue. With the long-awaited expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, and a massive 20GB patch to the base game, you may have been hoping that FromSoftware has done something about it—but I'm afraid you're out of luck... Read more.View the full article

Banana is one of the funniest things I've had the pleasure of reporting on—it's a game that seems to have started as a joke, but has rapidly skyrocketed to a high throne on the Steam pantheon, becoming the second most-played game on the platform, beaten only by Counter Strike 2... Read more.View the full article

Recruiting villagers in Aska is how you will be able to build up your village without the need to spend countless hours getting every single stick out there in the wild. Here is how to recruit villagers in Aska.Aska: How to recruit villagersHow do you summon stray Vikings? Well, by using a lighthouse of course! Only this time, it is magic-fueled and it is called The Eye of Odin. This device uses Jotun Blood — a material filled with Norse magic — to light up a signal in the sky that will guide Vikings toward your village.Screenshot: PC InvasionThat way, each of them will be able to have a task they can perform, saving you lots of time. Building The Eye of Odin will require several materials you can find nearby, but it is a bit more complicated than it sounds. Make sure you’re eating and drinking while you work toward building The Eye of Odin. Here are the materials you need:2x Long Sticks: Found by chopping down trees.8x Sticks: Found on the ground or ...View the full article

Mother Harlot is an optional boss you can try to beat in Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance during the "Return of the True ******" quest given by the NPC Sophia. This mission asks you to face many powerful foes representing different Avatars of ******. The eighth opponent in this process within the World of Shadows is Mother Harlot, who has minimal weaknesses your team can exploit. View the full article

New Honkai: Star Rail 2.4 leaks about the character known as Yunli detail her alleged gameplay kit, which hints at a promising set of skills. Even though the turn-based RPG is still at the start of Version 2.3, the beta for the next patch has started and, with it, an influx of information is starting to be shared. Officially, for now, HoYoverse has announced Yunli as one of the confirmed 5-star characters for Version 2.4 alongside Jiaoqiu. The highly rumored new March 7th form in Honkai: Star Rail has also been confirmed. View the full article

Logs are important in Aska as they help give strength to many structures like cottages. But, like most things in Aska, the game doesn’t show you how to get it. To learn how to use and get logs in Aska, you should read this guide. Aska: How to get and use logsThankfully, like seeds, logs are plentiful in the world of Aska. But since they are a more advanced resource, you need to do a few extra steps before being able to farm for logs. Before we get to how to get logs, we need to know what tools we have to make first.The main tool you’ll be using at least for the start is the Large Stone Axe. It won’t be in the build menu, since those are dedicated to the basic tools. To get this heavy-duty axe, you must build a Workshop Pit. Doing so we’ll also give you the option to create a farm in Aska as well. Additionally, you’ll need logs to create structures like the farm, so it’s a good idea to know how to do this early on.Screenshot: PC InvasionWhen you’re...View the full article

Out of all the resources you earn in Aska, it seems that Flax is probably one of the most important. Since you’ll be using Flax a lot, this guide will show you the best ways to farm it in Aska. Aska: Best ways to farm FlaxFlax is important in Aska because it makes rope, and rope is used in everything. From tools to structures, rope binds everything together. Since you’re going to be using rope a lot, it’s a good idea to create ways to never run out of Flax. Farming FlaxTo make the best out of your village and get things built fast, consider using the best ways I’ve found to farm flax:Searching for Flax plants: When you find a Flax plant, it gives out about five Flax per plant which can increase the farming rate. However, I’ve found this method takes some time since Flax plants become rarer and rarer the farther you go out. Mainly because I’ve already harvested them. On the other hand, when you get Flax, you also get Flax seeds. You can plant these...View the full article

Intel has posted a detailed chart of recommended BIOS values for CPU users impacted by recent crashes. Those experiencing problems should set the parameters in the table below as BIOS defaults where applicable. The parameters represent Intel's default settings, which should override the higher-clocked defaults that some vendors shipped pre-installed... Read Entire Article View the full article

We're getting an official One Piece board game later this year. Artist Eiichiro Oda's creation is one of the biggest anime and manga franchises ever, with over 1,100 episodes, 108 manga volumes, and even a positively reviewed anime Netflix adaptation, it's a juggernaut of ********* media. Now, it's getting a fresh tabletop game, titled Luffy's Bento Panic. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Atomic Mass pulls the plug on Star Wars X-Wing and Armada Forgotten board game crowdfunder finally arrives, 9 years late Best board games 2024 View the full article

The upcoming closed beta test for Marvel Rivals is coming in late July, and the dev team has promised this one will be several times ******* than the closed alpha in terms of players, content, and new features. In the latest Marvel Rivals “Dev Talk” volume, the team behind the third-person hero shooter confirmed July’s closed beta test will have a player base “five times” the size of the closed alpha test from this past May. The servers are being expanded from just North America to also include both Europe and Asia, and the servers themselves will be upgraded to 60-tick rate. View the full article

The next chance for players to try out Marvel Rivals will include a bit more experimentation than the previous closed alpha test from May. When the game’s closed beta test begins in late July, NetEase said it will introduce a pick-and-ban system in Competitive play where “Galacta will grant favor or banish certain characters in the upper tiers of ranked play and for special events.” View the full article

Besides hunting and fishing in Aska, using and farming seeds is just as important. This process has a bunch of moving parts. To make life easier and plant seeds better, this guide will show you how to get and use seeds in Aska.Aska: How to get and plant seedsGetting seeds is fairly easy, it’s just as simple as farming for Firewood. You can get seeds by consuming or harvesting certain resources. You can earn those seeds by eating blueberries, garlic, and other foods you find. If you’re looking to get seeds from resources like flax, you can harvest them, and then you get flax seeds. That’s the easy part, planting them requires much more. But after you’ve learned how to do that, you can get an unlimited supply of food and resources. Screenshot: PC InvasionHow to plant seedsTo plant these seeds, you must farm them. You won’t be able to farm until you get a Workshop Pit. This won’t be accessible until you build the Woodcutters and Stonecutter pits. Once...View the full article

Zenless Zone Zero may have drawn comparisons to Persona 5 thanks to its urban fantasy anime aesthetic, but producer Zhenyu Li has revealed that Digimon was a far ******* influence on his creative vision for his upcoming HoYoverse title than Atlus' blockbuster JRPG franchise. "We happened to choose the urban genre in general, and for some players they might just find urban genres similar," Li said of the Persona comparisons, in an interview conducted via interpreter. "However, there are a lot of differences if you go deeper into the game." Although he didn't go so far as to disavow the Persona influence altogether, Li was clearly more eager to talk about a very different game franchise that he did consciously draw from during ZZZ's production: "I draw references from Digimon because I played a lot during my childhood." He went on to elaborate just one of the ways in which Digimon directly influenced Zenless Zone Zero: "[in] our temporal system, you will meet different incidents in different times [of the in-game day]. This is all something drew inspiration [for] from Digimon World." Read more View the full article

The more I play Aska, the more I realize that I need better ways to get resources. Having a Hunter and a fisher is important to get better quality food, and we’ll show you how to use them in Aska.Aska: How to use the hunter and fisher in your campAs you may have noticed, Aska doesn’t give you much outside of the basics like making a campfire, getting a shelter, and attracting new villagers. These are things you need you need to survive this new land in Aska. After that, you’re on your own and things might not be as clear once the training wheels are off.Hunting and fishing in Aska is almost the same as it is in Palworld. In the Pokemon-inspired survival game, if you wanted to grow plants you’d need a Pal to do the watering for you. This rule has made its way over to the Viking game, but it’s not as strict. In Aska, when you get a new villager, you’ll have two choices to pick from. If one of the options has a villager who’s proficient in hunting, select that on...View the full article

If you start exploring the world in Aska, you will probably find out soon enough that eating food or consuming water will not do anything to heal the wounds you have received from wisps and wights. Well, this is easily fixed. Here is how to build a shelter and heal in Aska.Aksa: How to build a shelter and heal in AskaAs you can probably guess from the title of this guide, the secret to healing in Aska is to build a Shelter and then sleep inside it. While the shelter is the most basic form of housing accommodation in Aska, it does the job well of providing health regeneration in the early game. You will be able to build this pretty early on, right after you build your campfire. That being said, the amount of materials you will need to build it will have you travel around the area a bit, so let’s check out what you need to collect to heal from any sustained damage.Screenshot: PC Invasion3x Long Stick: Found by chopping down trees using an axe.2x Rope: Crafted b...View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Firewood in Aska is important as it can help you survive the cold and cook better. However, getting the resource is a challenge. If you read on, I’ll break down the best ways to farm Firewood in Aska.Aska: Best ways to farm FirewoodEarning Firewood is one of the more common resources in Aska, but there are a few methods to get it. Regardless of what you prioritize when building your Viking village, Firewood plays an important role. So, the earlier you stack up on it, the more you can do with it. Farming Firewood can be easy if you create your village near Young Birch and the larger variant of it. I set up my base near a large and dense forest because I needed logs and long sticks. What I didn’t realize is that when you cut down the trees, the stump stays.By cutting stumps down, you can harvest Firewood. I was getting about five to six pieces of Firewood per stump. Being near or in a forest can give an unlimited supply of Firewood along with other resources like sti...View the full article

Moonstone Island has eight different types of Spirits and dozens of Spirits overall, each Spirit with its own unique abilities. Let’s review all Moonstone Island Spirits and how their abilities work.Moonstone Island: All Spirits and their abilitiesMoonstone Island is all about taming Spirits, raising them in your Spirit Barn, and using them to ****** other Spirits in card battles. There’s a long list of tameable and boss Spirits ahead, so here are all the Spirits and their abilities in Moonstone Island.EarthWaterPoisonElectricFireIcePsychicDarkAll Earth SpiritsNameAbilityAnkyloBad Temper: Automatically gains one Rag every three turns.BrickhouseMad House: If Tackle card is available, draw it from the draw pile at the start of each turn.CoolslimeFree Food: Once tamed, feeding Coolslime in battle costs no Energy.DustyLil Guy Energy: Whenever one of your attacks is blocked, gain one Energy.FluffoxFriendly Fluff: Increases chances of successfully chatting, fli...View the full article

Xbox has officially announced that it's not only going to have presence at this year's Gamescom, but will be assembling its "biggest booth yet", while PlayStation and Nintendo have both confirmed they're giving the show a miss. Yep, just one of the big three is planning to rock up in Cologne, meaning that there'll be absolutely no console wars-esque discourse the entire time the show is on. Surely, right? Okay, so definitely not, but at least there won't be any photos of Xbox and PlayStation logos facing each other like they're the flags of two sides engaged in of some kind of dramatic ancient conflict, rather than the occasional bout of corporate handbags. "The Xbox team is heading BACK to Gamescom," the console maker has just announced via a Tweet, adding: "Visit us at our biggest booth yet August 21-25!" Hey, at least there was enough restraint shown that the tweet didn't contain the exact dimensions of this big booth, followed up by the line 'see, we weren't kidding, it's ******* than your dad's shed'. Read more View the full article

A rather strange Steam Deck bug has appeared in Elden Ring ahead of the new Shadow the Erdtree DLC launch. If you leave the game idle for more than five minutes, all inputs may suddenly fail to register, and only a full game reboot will fix the problem. From Software is aware of the bug and is working on a fix. Ahead of the Shadow of the Erdtree release date, the original game of Elden Ring is still one of the most popular games on the Steam Deck, which itself is one of the best handheld gaming PCs. Gamers are still in awe that the massive open world runs so well on Valve's portable, but it's not unusual for bugs like this to rear their ugly heads from time to time. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New Elden Ring patch notes arrive ahead of Shadow of the Erdtree Grab Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree for its lowest price at 12% off Elden Ring DLC recommended level View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

AMD's recently announced Ryzen 9000 desktop and AI 300 laptop CPUs have both just had their exact release date leaked by a combination of retailers who accidentally showed the new products too early, and it looks like we won't have long to wait. Both types of new AMD Zen 5 CPU will be arriving in July 2024. The AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs, which are based on the new AMD Zen 5 CPU architecture are expected to deliver solid gains in performance, although AMD itself has admitted that its existing X3D CPUs will still be the very best gaming CPUs for the time being. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: AMD Radeon GPU prices are falling even further now AMD just tore up the rulebook on GPU design AMD's most powerful Ryzen gaming CPU is now at its lowest ever price View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super is currently going for the lowest price we've ever seen, with this latest graphics card deal on Newegg pricing the top-end GPU at just $949.99. That's a $50 drop on the usual MSRP, and it's a good $250 cheaper than the original (and slower) RTX 4080 when it first came out. The RTX 4080 Super is our favorite sub-$1,000 gaming GPU right now, earning it a coveted place on our guide to the best graphics card. Its launch earlier this year saw Nvidia effectively acknowledging that the original RTX 4080 offered poor value for money, and that it needed a cheaper and faster high-end chip in this price bracket. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: This is the smallest Nvidia RTX 4070 graphics card, and the cutest too Nvidia just remembered GeForce Experience still exists 4K gaming on Unreal Engine 5 has a problem, but there is a fix View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

No competitive multiplayer game has perfect balance, but some had notoriously broken eras that players still shudder to think of. In a June 20 Reddit thread, players reminisced and debated some of the worst and most unfair metas of various popular games through the years. There are some smaller shoutouts in there to things like Smite‘s Gauntlet of Thebes metagame that made every character frustratingly tanky or the Pokemon VGC‘s Smeargle meta when it was impossible to avoid every ‘mon on your team being put to sleep with Darkrai’s signature Dark Void move. Some stood above the rest as the most loathsome and notorious metas. View the full article

Here's another interesting looking indie game for you to follow with Wax Heads, a cosy-punk slice-of-life narrative sim about managing a struggling record store. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article