I’m a big fan of teeny tiny mini-ITX builds (opens in new tab) that hide away your PC, but I also adore a loud and proud RGBehemoth (opens in new tab). The choice between minimalistic style vs bright lights and displayed power is one of the hardest to make, and finding middle ground is sort of besides the point. Or that’s what I thought, but it turns out there are some masters of the middle ground out there, and one such build is this simply beautiful glass desk feature.
Kumag1989 posted their glorious new build on the Nvidia Reddit (opens in new tab) which shows off one of the nicest – while still achievable looking – in-desk gaming PCs I’ve ever seen. Rather than going small to try to fit everything into a slim build, they’ve gone bigger leaving a beautiful airy looking glass display, complete with a lovely fake plant. It’s wonderfully clean and relaxing while still offering tonnes of usable desk space on top.
The entire glass surrounds with matching white lit fans and water cooling really makes the whole PC look more like a purposeful piece of art on display, rather than a beastly gaming machine. The square structure complete with center plant gives off futuristic zen garden vibes.
Everything is laid out beautifully thanks to all the space used, so it feels more relaxed than cramming components into a small space. Instead here we can see everything at work and it’s simply lovely.
Further down in the reddit post Kumag1989 posts the specs used, which starts unsurprisingly with a custom built table. It’s a shame that we haven’t really seen much of a rise of premade in-case table builds given just how damned nice they can look.
It also uses a custom water cooling loop solution, but that’s fairly common with fancy PC builds, and there are plenty of options on the market. If you’ve got the skills and materials to make something like this though, the rest of it is mostly up for purchase as is.
(Image credit: Kumag1989 on Reddit)
The guts of this beauty are an Intel i9 11900K paired with an RTX 4090 so it’s definitely not just skin deep here. This is seated on a Z590 Aorus Pro ATX motherboard, with 32GB of RAM. This would be a very sweet piece of kit to game on, that’s if you can tear yourself away from just admiring the build for long enough.
There are some downsides to this beauty though, as Kumag1989 admits in the thread. Having so much glass is just ripe for fingerprints, and a lot of care has to be taken around it. Doesn’t matter how badly you get whooped in Overwatch 2 by an overpowered Sojourn main, there’s no rage quit table slams with this bad boy around. That being said, I think looking at this beautiful build would be more than enough to calm me down even after the hardest loss.
Growing up in a family that celebrates, there wasn’t much that could compare with the tangible excitement of Christmas morning. The hype built up over months of watching shops roll out decorations, combined with an endless onslaught of thematic TV specials was overwhelming. All the while gifts were slowly piling up under the tree letting you scope out potential boxes, drop not-so-subtle hints, and otherwise be utterly caught up in the anticipation of amazing gifts. (opens in new tab)
Trying to sleep on Christmas Eve was a challenge on par with riding down the steepest hill in town, so as soon as a theoretical argument could be formed that it’s technically morning, you were up and ready. Bleary eyed parents were dragged out of their rooms with dressing gowns and weak mugs of tea to watch as those expertly wrapped gifts were torn asunder by grubby, ungrateful, motor skill-deficient little hands.
“It’s a NINTENDOOO SIXTY FOUUR” came the elated scream of a very happy child with a brand new brand name console. Next door, faintly in the distance you could hear “Uh.. thanks?” as a hapless child revealed something that probably looks a lot like one of these Powkiddy products. An apt name that kinda sounds like you’re punching a child in the face.
What’s a Powkiddy? Yeah, I’m not too sure either after browsing both the Walmart listings (opens in new tab) and the official website (opens in new tab), but they appear to be knock-off console emulators desperate for litigation. These things are riding the faintest of lines to look as close to popular consoles as possible, old and new. They come packed with a selection of included games that is mysteriously not listed and all feature suspiciously vivid displays in their product images.
Other than giving the gift of disappointment this year, the Powkiddy devices are actually probably super useful for DIY enthusiasts out there. While I wouldn’t give one to an excited kid, for anyone who wants to dabble with their own emulation, these could be pretty neat. Though it’s always good to be wary of the legal side of these things (opens in new tab). The consoles on offer vary in price, and come in heaps of different sizes and shapes, and right now they’re on sale on the official website.
There’s GameBoy SP devices like the Powkiddy V90 (opens in new tab), which is $20 off right now going for $39.99 USD and has been known to run custom firmware. (opens in new tab) Or something like the more Switch-shaped Powkiddy Max2 open source system (opens in new tab) down to $114.99 USD from $154.99. Each has their specs listed on the official website, but you’re not going to be getting impressive hardware here.
If you’re happy to do some tinkering to an emulation machine, or are just looking for what might be a fairly easy to use shell for your own project, some of these could be great choices. There’s even buttons and spare parts, which are also on sale right now if you don’t need the full piece. Unfortunately I’m not sure what the feel of any of these units is like, but I’m willing to bet they’re much nicer than anything I could easily rig up myself at home. Definitely a much more polished solution to something than this 3D-printed Steam Deck shell (opens in new tab).
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/1669785060_Give-the-gift-of-disappointment-or-DIY-with-Powkiddy-consoles.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2022-11-30 04:51:332022-11-30 04:51:33Give the gift of disappointment or DIY with Powkiddy consoles
Darktide’s easter eggs have decades of Warhammer 40,000 world-building to pull from. Fatshark’s previous games, the Vermintide series, likewise had years of the Warhammer Fantasy setting’s backstory to draw on, and were delightfully rich with references.
Vermintide had easter eggs from the Warhammer Fantasy novels (the vampire Franz Lohner talks about is the protagonist of Drachenfels, which also provides the setting for a DLC), the pen-and-paper RPG (expansions like Death on the Reik and Shadows Over Bögenhafen are named after its adventures), and other Warhammer videogames (Lohner has a shield with the heraldry of the Grudgebringers from Shadow of the Horned Rat and Dark Omen, and makes sly references suggesting he was actually their commander, Morgan Bernhardt).
Darktide may have slightly fewer easter eggs than the two Vermintide games at the moment, though that’s only fair given that they’ve had years of updates and add-ons to pack them in. The easter eggs Darktide has are still plenty of fun to spot. Here’s what we’ve found so far.
That Chaos graffiti means something
You might have been too busy escaping from prison in the prologue to notice, but servants of Chaos on Tancred Bastion took the time to leave some graffiti behind. While you’re heading to the loading bay you pass containers full of junk, one of which has cryptic runes painted on the inside. They’re not just random scribbles; they actually do mean something. To figure out what, we’re going to have to go back a few decades.
Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned, published in 1990, was one of two books that properly detailed the main Chaos gods and their followers for the first time. It was packed with info you might want for your tabletop games, like pages of runes should you need to paint a few words in the Dark Tongue (opens in new tab) on the banners waved by your miniature Chaos worshippers.
With that, we can translate some of Darktide’s graffiti like the writing in that container on the Tancred Bastion. It says, in phonetic runes, “NURGLE LOVES YOU.” Other cheery phrases repeated in graffiti and on flags in other maps include “KILL MAIM DESTROY,” “ROT DEATH,” “DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR,” and “FOP THE DARK GODS,” which is obviously supposed to say, “FOR THE DARK GODS,” but you can’t blame cultists for making the occasional typo.
Not every bit of graffiti has been conveniently translated into English for us. In a few places runes spell the word “GUNAGHGHYRAN,” which is the name in the Dark Tongue for Beasts of Nurgle, or “Gu’nagh’ghyran”. Other runes spell out “AKSHO DAKH,” and while “aksho” means “to seek” according to the brief Dark Tongue glossary in Realms of Chaos, “dakh” doesn’t have a meaning spelled out. Neither does “BAKGURANI AGKWAMI,” another repeated phrase, though that might be the name of someone we haven’t met yet.
Image 1 of 6
“NURGLE LOVES YOU” (Image credit: Fatshark)
“KILL MAIM DESTROY” (Image credit: Fatshark)
“BEAST OF NURGLE”, “DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR” (Image credit: Fatshark)
(Image credit: Fatshark)
“FOP [sic] THE DARK GODS,” “DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR,” “Rapid Regeneration” (Image credit: Fatshark)
Other graffiti is written using the runes that refer to mutations and gifts of the gods, and those seem more randomly chosen. En route to primary control in the map Relay Station TRS-150 are runes for several of the gifts servants of Chaos can receive: tentacles, pin head, and irrational hatred. Elsewhere there are runes for rapid regeneration, cloud of flies, resilient, eye of the god, face of a beast, biting tongue, Chaos Lord, and limb loss. In the Realm of Chaos rulebooks these attributes were chosen for your characters by rolling on a random table, and seem to have been applied to the walls of Tertium Hive just as whimsically.
Some graffiti that isn’t written in the Dark Tongue is an easter egg for players coming from Vermintide. It’s the triangular symbol of the Horned Rat, which the skaven do seem to like scrawling on every available surface, even in games they’re not in.
(Image credit: Fatshark)
Our ravaged bodies are ready
The medicae servitors of Tertium Hive get some of Darktide’s best lines, morosely begging to be taken with you and bemoaning their lack of purpose after their charges are used up. They’re voiced by David Shaw Parker, who played innkeeper Franz Lohner in both Vermintide games as well as narrating their trailers, and he gets to utter a callback to Fatshark’s previous Warhammer games when the medicare servitor asks, “Might I heal your ravaged body?”
That’s a reference to witch hunter Victor Saltzpyre’s immortal line, “Holy Sigmar, bless this ravaged body,” which became something of a meme after its use in the original Vermintide, and was brought back for the sequel due to fan demand. I’ve even seen it on a T-shirt available from wish dot com of all the places.
A shout-out to Space Marine
(Image credit: Fatshark)
The Graia Mk VIII Infantry Autogun’s description explains that it was manufactured on the Imperial forge world of Graia, a planet that’s been mentioned in Warhammer 40,000 books going back a fair way. Graia’s been singled out for a nod in Darktide specifically because it’s also where one of the other 40K games that did justice to the setting took place: Relic’s third-person action game Space Marine was set there.
As the Graia Mk VIII’s description notes, it’s a weapon “in short supply after a series of calamities befell the forge world of Graia”, which is certainly one way of summing up the events of Space Marine.
Not all the tattoos are of skulls
(Image credit: Fatshark)
There’s a plentiful selection of tattoos to choose from when designing your character, some with appropriate slogans like “DEATH BEFORE DISHONOUR.” There are also a couple with a more unlikely motto, like the lower-back piece with the wreaths, which says, “THE LOVE WE SHARE.”
The only time I’ve seen this phrase mentioned in connection with Warhammer 40,000 is in the first book in the Ciaphas Cain series, For the Emperor (opens in new tab), where it’s the name of a song being sung by Amberley Vail when Cain meets her—one of several “old sentimental favourites” she sings. Guess it’s still popular after all these years.
Uplifting words
On the subject of music, Zealot Preachers will occasionally burst into song mid-mission. One of them sings the words “We all walk in His immortal shadow,” which is a line from a hymn called Imperial Lobgesang. The final lines are also quoted in a cutscene from Battlefleet Gothic Armada, but here are the full lyrics, via background book The Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer.
Love the Emperor, For He is the salvation of mankind. Obey His words, for He will lead you into the light of the future. Heed His wisdom, for He will protect you from evil, Whisper His prayers with devotion, For they will save your soul. Honour His servants, For they speak in His voice. Tremble before His majesty, For we all walk in His immortal shadow.
I’ve seen that container before
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Fatshark)
(Image credit: Games Workshop)
Darktide really does feel like being transported down to a game of Warhammer 40,000 being played on the tabletop. The designs of all the scenery feels spot-on, from barrels to barricades, and in some cases that’s because they come directly from terrain made for the miniatures game (opens in new tab).
The cargo containers are one of the most obvious pieces imported directly from Games Workshop’s designs, being part of the Munitorum Armoured Containers set released as part of Battlezone Manufactorum. While all Darktide’s vehicles are also based on existing 40K machines, a semi-obscure one that usually shows up connected to a trailer near those containers is a four-wheeler called a Wolfquad that’s also used by Atalan Jackals (opens in new tab).
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Fatshark)
(Image credit: Games Workshop)
Our friends from the first trailer return
The squad of four we were introduced to in the teaser trailer (opens in new tab) didn’t make it out alive, I’m afraid. You can see them strung up on a wall in the Hab Dreyko map, impaled above an arch on the way to the HL-16-11-1318 hab. Sometimes as you pass beneath them Sergeant Major Morrow will explain they were “one of our recon teams back when this started,” and he’ll be glad to finally learn what happened to them. You can see them meet their sticky end at the end of Darktide’s intro video (opens in new tab).
If there’s one thing we’ve learned through the consumption of popular media, it’s that sooner or later, the machines are going to rise up and kick our asses. For those who haven’t yet picked up on that message, here’s another opportunity: Synced (opens in new tab), an upcoming third-person roguelite looter-shooter that’s going into open beta testing in December.
Synced is set in humanity’s near future, following an event called the Collapse, which saw the nanomachines we’d come to rely on for the day-to-day operation of our civilization decide that they could do better as a solo act. Thus, they began propagating themselves by consuming humans—not really sure how that would work, but this is a videogame, not science class—and ultimately morphed into deadly creatures known as Nanos. Now it falls to you and your pals to face them down as Runners: Fortune-seekers who make runs through the dangerous region known as the Meridian in search of a substance called “nano-energy.”
It is admittedly not the most original (or coherent) excuse to blast killer robots into pieces that I’ve ever run across, but it does promise a unique gameplay trick: Players can “synchronize” with Nanos, thereby turning them from enemy to ally (and also providing the title for the game). Developer Next Studios said the combination of different Nano classes—Crusher, Seer, Guardian, and Suppressor—and individual player loadouts and skills “allows for a broad variety of combinations and tactical approaches.”
Lots of new games make big promises, but the good news about Synced is that an open beta will begin on December 10, so you can jump in and see what it’s all about. It won’t be complete, of course, but it will feature both PvP and PvE content, and will be free to everyone. New content will be released throughout the beta and players who take part in the beta will earn a reward in the full game, but because Synced is still in development, progress will not carry over: This is, as the saying goes, a one-way trip.
This is what you’ll need to play—I would assume that these are not finalized system requirements, but just a baseline for the beta.
Minimum:
OS: Windows 7.1/8/10
Processor: Intel i5 2.4GHz
Memory: 16GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GTX 660
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 35 GB available space
Recommended:
OS: Windows 7.1/8/10
Processor: Intel i7 3.4GHz
Memory: 16GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce RTX 2060 or higher
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 35 GB available space
The Synced beta will be available through Steam and a standalone launcher available at syncedthegame.com (opens in new tab). Naturally, there is also a Discord server (opens in new tab) you can hang out in while you wait for the beta to start.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/A-new-rogue-looter-shooter-about-the-machine-betrayal-of-humanity.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2022-11-29 23:28:312022-11-29 23:28:31A new ‘rogue-looter shooter’ about the machine betrayal of humanity is going into open beta soon
The thing I’ve always found interesting about the Far Cry series is how the base games are always straightforward, “real world” shooters, but the post-release content invariably goes bonkers. Far Cry 3 set the standard with Blood Dragon (opens in new tab), which was standalone but nonetheless established a weird-ass baseline that continued through Far Cry 4 (Valley of the Yetis (opens in new tab)), Far Cry 5 (Lost on Mars (opens in new tab)), and now a new Far Cry 6 expansion called Lost Between Worlds (opens in new tab) that will send revolutionary hero Dani Rojas on a journey to a strange interdimensional realm in the company of a stranded alien.
The alien’s spacecraft has crashed on Earth, you see, and the alien—named Fai—apparently believes that Dani is responsible for bringing it down. Thus, she insists that Dani also help fix it. And since they’re both stuck in a twisted, un-Earthly version of Dani’s home of Yara until the repairs are made anyway, there’s no point in arguing.
Instead, Dani and her new pal will go on a quest for five lost shards hidden across 15 “challenging and intense trials” called Rifts: A fortress suspended in the sky, for instance, or an underwater city filled with deadly traps. Along the way they’ll discover new and powerful weapons and tools, collect energy fragments that will enable them to “revive and retry” Rifts, and do battle with hordes of crystalline humanoid and animal enemies called—I am not making this up—Shardfaces.
I assume this is a Shardface of the humanoid type.
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
“With multiple branching paths, platforming exploration, and intense moment-to-moment action, players will have a unique experience with each run as they master this twisted world,” Ubisoft said.
It sounds silly, yes, but this is a videogame and sometimes it’s okay to just kick back and have some silly fun.
Far Cry 6: Lost Between Worlds will be out on December 6, and will sell for $20/€20. Ubisoft also released a trial version of Far Cry 6 that includes all of the Isla Sanctuario missions for free, and rolled out a new update (opens in new tab) for the base game, free for all players, that adds a New Game+ mode, makes changes to the UI that improves progression tracking, and fixes a number of bugs that you can find detailed below.
Stadia:
As Google announced (opens in new tab), Stadia will shut down on January 18, 2023.
Up until January 18, 2023, players will continue to have access to Far Cry 6 on Stadia, with the following exceptions:
Title Update 6 and the Far Cry 6 expansion “Lost between Worlds” will not be available on Stadia.
Any additional Title Updates, Hot Fixes or other patches will not be deployed on Stadia.
We’re currently working to bring the games you own on Stadia to PC through Ubisoft Connect. If you own Far Cry 6 on Stadia, stay tuned for details on timing.
Far Cry 6 offers cross-progressions between all available platforms, and you can manually transfer your save files to a different platform following the instructions here. Transferred save files will allow continued access to your progress after January 18, 2023, on those platforms.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed an issue that could cause an infinite black screen after the cinematic of the “Juan of a Kind” mission.
Fixed an issue that could cause Aoraki and Snowshoe errors when trying to start a Co-Op session from Single Player.
Fixed an issue that could cause low FPS when starting a new game under certain circumstances.
Fixed an issue that caused the Enemy Silhouette default setting to be “On” when choosing Guerrilla Mode.
Fixed an issue that could cause the freezer in the Special Operation to be empty after the player had previously failed the objective, causing the Special Operation to be not completable.
Fixed several incorrect or missing localizations.
Fixed an issue causing the minimap to be misaligned when switching UI and Font scaling options.
Fixed an issue that could cause the mission objective to disappear when the player died to an explosion during the “Sundown” mission.
Fixed several missing Voice Over notifications when using the accessibility option.
Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause Juan to not radio the player to trigger the Stranger Things intro mission correctly.
PlayStation 5: Fixed an issue that could cause the game to crash on launch.
PlayStation 4: Fixed an issue that could cause the water to flicker in certain areas.
DLC: Fixed an issue that could cause the client player to get stuck on a black screen when jumping from any room in the Father’s painting during the “Thicker than water” mission when playing in Co-Op.
DLC: Fixed an issue that could cause the “The King of Kyrat” Dashboard prop to not be awarded after completing the necessary requirements.
DLC: Fixed an issue that could cause players to fall out of bounds when interacting with a Memory Link door in any of the Villains DLC.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/New-weird-Far-Cry-expansion-alert-This-one-is-about.jpg6331200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2022-11-29 23:06:272022-11-29 23:06:27New weird Far Cry expansion alert: This one is about interdimensional aliens
One of the fastest ways to hit max level in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight (opens in new tab) is to stand in one spot and click through menus. Crafting, it turns out, is one of the fastest ways to hit the game’s new level 70 cap.
Dragonflight is the first time that crafting items has rewarded XP in WoW. For every new item you make, you get a hefty chunk. It’s actually possible to craft a load of different items to gain three levels in just 10 minutes. WoW speed levelers, much like regular speedrunners, found the most efficient route to level 70 actually includes several minutes of staring at a crafting menu.
The first player to hit level 70 was Adelio (opens in new tab), a Korean player who managed to catch a boat to the new zone before many people (opens in new tab) on the US and EU servers. With that head start, they charged through the Dragon Isles quests with a full group to help corral enemies together. For WoW, this method is pretty standard: using knowledge from the beta, you stack XP buffs and efficiently chain quests together. The only difference is that they took a break to make some items, letting them fill downtime between quests and pulls. Adelio shot up to level 70 in about three hours.
Gingi, a long-time world first raider, did the same thing but way faster. He reached level 70 in about an hour and a half once he made it past the server errors. Gingi had a similar strategy where he raced around the Dragon Isles with the new dragonriding (opens in new tab) skills and other movement abilities to pull packs of enemies together. You can see in the Twitch archive (opens in new tab) that he only stops moving to cast spells or craft. The riveting finale is somehow him sewing together a Trailblazer’s Toughened Coif—a piece of gear he will never wear—to earn the last bit of XP to level 70.
WoW’s modern quest design is already made to be a quick process. It’s best to think about a new expansion’s series of quests as the intro or first act of a long storyline that will continue in future patches. But for speed levelers, the crafting XP bonus lets them skip doing unnecessary things like walking or fighting at opportune times. It reminds me of WoW’s ultimate pacifist player, Doubleagent, who is currently at level 61 from picking flowers in the Pandaren starting zone.
WoW continues to add new ways to earn XP, which lets you dabble in activities outside of quests without falling behind. Side attractions like pet battles, Island Expeditions, and the last expansion’s roguelike Torghast mode are still useful ways to level up. Maybe one day it’ll match Final Fantasy 14 and introduce full-on crafting classes with their own storylines and gear. The major changes to crafting and professions in Dragonflight make it seem like a very real possibility.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/1669763043_World-of-Warcraft-Dragonflights-first-max-level-players-rode-its.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2022-11-29 22:48:542022-11-29 22:48:54World of Warcraft: Dragonflight’s first max level players rode its OP crafting system over the finish line
City builders typically present you with goals and challenges like balancing your budget, controlling your pollution levels, managing your resources, and keeping your citizens happy (or in the case of survival city builders, keeping them from dying horribly).
But sometimes you just want to build for the sake of building without worrying about traffic or logistics or how much things will cost or what bonus a house will get from a nearby park. Sometimes you just want a sandbox city builder with no restrictions, objectives, or headaches.
For times like those, there’s a city builder headed your way that wants you to have a completely carefree building experience. It’s called Gourdlets (opens in new tab), the work of solo developer Aunty Games. It looks both relaxing and adorable, and there’s absolutely no objectives, no budgets, and no goals beyond just building an attractive little village filled with houses, trees, roads, parks, beaches, gardens, and other decorations.
The best part (and the reason the game is named Gourdlets) is that while you’re building your city, a little cable car will pull up and tiny little two-legged vegetable people will embark and begin exploring and enjoying your town. They won’t just walk around to see the sights, they’ll also interact with the things you build. Make a beach and a chunky little Gourdlet will build a sandcastle. Set up a park and another will happily toast marshmallows over a campfire. They’ll sit on your benches, go fishing in your ponds, and water your flowers. Darn cute stuff! You can even see them react to changes of weather, opening up their wee little umbrellas when it rains and building snowmen in the winter.
As someone who spends a lot of time in survival city builders watching my citizens die miserable and starving in the snow, this is the sort of soothing change of pace I can fully get behind. Gourdlets is planned for a 2023 release on Steam (opens in new tab), but there’s a free demo out now (opens in new tab) and you can play it right in your browser.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/1669774058_Relax-and-unwind-with-this-stress-free-city-builder-sandbox.jpg5921051Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2022-11-29 22:39:542022-11-29 22:39:54Relax and unwind with this stress-free city builder sandbox
I think it’s safe to say that we’re in Twitter’s endgame now. I don’t think it’s going to collapse like a dying star: Elon Musk paid $44 billion for the tortured, eternally unprofitable platform, and his creditors certainly want to see some kind of return on that investment. But Musk’s annoying mercurial unseriousness, MAGA drift, and the fundamental reality that 11 figures is way too much to pay for a beleaguered social media company has me and other longtime posters coming to terms with the fact that Twitter is already well past its peak. Nothing lasts forever on the internet, especially when venture capital is involved.
I’ve got mixed emotions about it. Twitter and its clout jockeying has been bad for my mental health and terrible for my perception of reality, but some of the greatest posts ever written have appeared on my Twitter timeline, and I’ll be sad to lose that venue when it’s gone.
While the signal is still blinking, we’ve assembled a collection of our favorite gaming tweets (from the past decade-ish, after which our memories start to fail us) as a tribute to this long, strange trip. Screenshots link to the original tweet, when possible. Now let’s remember the good times, pre-emerald-mine dynast.
One of the most INSANE things I have ever experienced online, specifically VRChat, is that someone completely recreated Kmarts with working scanners, p.a. systems, and more – and have a Discord with 3,000 people that occasionally roleplay working here unironically. #vrchat pic.twitter.com/bdAmc1j0pjJuly 27, 2022
Bethesda Front Row Hypeman Squad freaking out over every other sentence is honestly the funniest thing I’ve seen all day. pic.twitter.com/XnxntXzNPBJune 10, 2019
The world’s first trombone rhythm game is instantly a GOTY contender. And no, I’m not kidding. Turn up the volume and hear Beethoven like you’ve never heard it before. https://t.co/Qu7Cmkhjzc pic.twitter.com/jTXNdWx3ZmSeptember 20, 2022
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/The-funniest-gaming-tweets-from-the-past-decade-just-in.jpg8121200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2022-11-29 22:28:092022-11-29 22:28:09The funniest gaming tweets from the past decade, just in case Twitter implodes
Blizzard is nerfing my favorite new hero, and I’m only a little salty. Overwatch 2 (opens in new tab) Season 2 begins on December 6, and with it comes the new Tank hero Ramattra, a new payload map, and a bunch of balancing changes. Today’s dev update (opens in new tab) doesn’t go into detail about most of the planned balance changes, but here’s what we know for sure: Sojourn is getting a big nerf, and Doomfist is getting a big buff.
“Both metrics and player feedback have shown Sojourn dominating the highest tiers of Competitive ranks while remaining a challenge for players without the same mechanical skills,” reads the post. It’s true: take a peek at Overwatch 2’s public ranked leaderboards and you’ll notice a sea of Sojourn mains. Her ability to one-shot kill most heroes in the game with a single, unpredictable headshot has proven too deadly in the right hands.
“To address the high-skill feedback, we’ll be focusing on the lethality of her Rail Gun at distance for Season 2, encouraging players to make use of Sojourn’s high mobility to close the distance for the more devastating right-clicks.”
To translate: “focus on the lethality of her Rail Gun at distance” almost definitely means that she’s going to deal less damage from far away. Depending on how harsh the new damage dropoff will be, the days of one-shotting a Cassidy from full health may be over. This change makes a lot of sense for Overwatch 2’s most competitive settings, but over in the land of Quick Play with average-skill players, Sojourn’s dominance isn’t so distinct. She’s been a reasonably popular pick in my matches, but most players aren’t pulling off constant insta-kill headshots.
Still, Sojourn does have a case of ‘being good at everything’ at the moment, and slightly weakening her sniper shot should make her playstyle more distinct from Overwatch’s resident headshot queen: Widowmaker.
The other hero under the microscope is Doomfist, who’s had trouble fitting into his new Tank role. At high level play, Doomfist’s potential to disrupt enemy frontlines and deal group damage is big, but his mobile moveset is hard to grasp and you’re usually better off with a simpler pick. To address this, the December 6 update will see “significant changes that better support his role as the team’s front line, while still maintaining the playstyle core to his Hero identity.”
Blizzard name-dropped a few other heroes getting balance tweaks next week:
Ana
Bastion
Junker Queen
Kiriko
Mercy
Symmetra
We don’t know who’s getting the nerfs/buffs of this group, but allow me to make some educated guesses. It’d make a lot of sense to me for Mercy, Junker Queen, and Symmetra to get some sort of buff. Mercy’s especially could use a boost in a meta that increasingly favors supports that can score kills as often as they’re healing. Kiriko and Ana are probably getting nerfed on account of having the greatest abilities in the game (Protection Suzu and Biotic Grenade) and high healing potential. Bastion is a toss-up. I think he’s fun and reasonably strong, but I also suspect he’s unpopular at higher ranks.
Overwatch 2 Season 2 begins on December 6 with a new 80-tier battle pass. The fancy new mythic skin this season is Zeus Junker Queen, a combination of two things that I didn’t expect to look so cool. Here’s hoping JQ gets the buff that finally makes her fun to play. Once again, new hero Ramattra will be unlockable at Tier 55, but unlike with Season 1, Overwatch 1 owners will not get automatic access to him. For that, you’ll need to buy the $10 premium battle pass.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/1669759391_Overwatch-Season-2-is-coming-for-all-you-Sojourn-mains.png6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2022-11-29 21:21:512022-11-29 21:21:51Overwatch Season 2 is coming for all you Sojourn mains
It’s been a challenging couple of years for the GPU industry, with it hitting a not-so-great milestone recently: a new report from JPR (opens in new tab) says that in Q3 of this year, GPU shipments dropped 10.3% from the previous quarter.
Year-to-year, overall shipments on GPUs are down about 25%, which includes standalone GPUs as well as those shipped inside desktops and laptops. That’s the biggest drop in GPU shipments since the 2009 recession.
“The third quarter is usually the high point of the year for the GPU and PC suppliers, said John Peddie, president of JPR. “Even though the suppliers had guided down in Q2, the results came much below their expectations.”
On top of that, GPU attach rates are down 6% from last quarter, which means fewer people are buying systems (laptops and desktops) that come with a discrete or integrated video card. The report notes that AMD’s overall GPU market share fell 8.5% while Nvidia lost about 2% of its market share, with Intel going up 10%, taking its rivals’ piece of the pie, presumably with its integrated GPUs. It’s the only one of the big three with a positive increase in GPU shipments since Q2, with a rise of 4.7%.
There are plenty of reasons why GPU shipments are down: The report points to the decline of GPU crypto mining (opens in new tab), US sanctions against China (opens in new tab), and Covid-related supply chain issues as some of the leading factors. Right now, the market is flooded with older graphics cards, so much so that Nvidia has reportedly halted production on the RTX 2060 (opens in new tab) and three other budget GPUs.
Despite these lower-than-expected numbers, Peddie sees a silver lining for Q4, stating, “Generally, the feeling is Q4 shipments will be down, but ASPs [average selling price] will be up, supply will be fine, and everyone will have a happy holiday.”
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/1669781379_GPU-shipments-last-quarter-were-the-lowest-theyve-been-in.jpg5741062Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2022-11-29 21:18:032022-11-29 21:18:03GPU shipments last quarter were the lowest they’ve been in over 10 years
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