Frictional has been busy scaring the wits out of us with Amnesia (opens in new tab) in recent years, but the studio hasn’t forgotten SOMA (opens in new tab), its rather excellent philosophical robo-horror from 2015. Although the Swedish developer is hard at work on Amnesia: the Bunker, the game’s creative lead Fredrik Olsson recently let slip in a chat with DualShockers (opens in new tab) that a project in SOMA’s heady mould is quietly in the works at the studio.
“We are still very much interested in doing more SOMA-style stuff,” Olsson told DS, noting that Frictional’s co-founder Thomas Grip is currently at work “on a bigger project that you can say has much more of this kind of philosophical stuff like you saw in SOMA”. That would jive with a job posting from the company last month (opens in new tab), which was explicitly looking for a narrative designer who “loves sci-fi and horror”.
So fear not, fans of being horrifically mutilated by androids, your time will come. It’ll probably just have to wait until after the next Amnesia game’s decidedly robot-free WW1 horror gets out the door. That’s set to be May 16 this year, after a “tough winter” at Frictional (opens in new tab) forced the studio to push the game back a little bit.
Look on the bright side, though, the Amnesia games have been pretty great so far, with the last one drawing praise in Leana Hafer’s Amnesia: Rebirth review (opens in new tab) in PCG for being “one of the most effective and mind-bending horror games ever made, just like its predecessor”. With any luck, the Bunker will live up to that stellar track record, and we can spend our time being irreparably traumatised by that while we wait for the pieces to fall into place on Frictional’s upcoming SOMA-like.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1676383971_Frictional-has-a-new-SOMA-style-game-quietly-in-the-works.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-14 13:12:412023-02-14 13:12:41Frictional has a new ‘SOMA-style’ game quietly in the works
An official Warner Bros. interview has resurfaced featuring the late Kevin Conroy, the actor best-known for his lengthy stints as the voice of Batman in the animated series and Arkham games, who died in November last year (opens in new tab). While the topic under discussion is mostly his time on the animated show (and series co-creator Bruce Timm is also in there), Conroy at one point begins discussing his time on the Arkham games and not, it must be said, in a wholly positive light.
The full clip can be seen above (spotted by fandomwire (opens in new tab)) but the necessary context for this is that Conroy’s just been discussing the difference in feel between recording for a radio play, where all the actors are in the same room together with their scripts, and the process necessary for recording videogame dialogue.
“Then suddenly I had to do a game [and] they have to have each voice completely clean in it’s own take,” said Conroy. “You do four hours a day alone, in a booth, in a vacuum, creating the character, keeping the character’s voice alive, and then creating the situation for each line… and then they want it three times. You know, ‘Give it to us angry! Oh, keep that anger and give it to us with a little irony! Oh, we love the anger and we love the irony, now just sweeten it with a little bit of love.’
“By the time you get out of there you’re pulling out your hair, you’re going, ‘What the fuck do they want me to say!?’ So you do that for four hours, and then you get an hour for lunch, and then you do four hours more! And that goes on for a week, just you.”
It should be said that Conroy is having a bit of a grumble about the process necessary here, rather than criticising Rocksteady or the games. And you can see how, for a voice actor who began his career in more traditional media, the transition to the more clinical and all-encompassing scale of being the lead in a big budget videogame must have been jarring at times. It wasn’t just one week, after all, but over and over.
“And then you get a couple weeks off while they’re writing more stuff, then they bring you back in,” said Conroy. “Arkham Knight, the third in the trilogy, took two years to put together and it was 37,000 lines of dialogue!”
Whatever he may have felt about being in that booth alone, Conroy’s performance in the Arkham games remains fantastic, and that trilogy stands as one of the definitive versions of Batman in no small part thanks to his contribution. The man himself said “I can’t believe they’re not going to do another one” (opens in new tab) in 2017, but one final curtain call remains: Conroy will return as Batman this May (opens in new tab) in Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1676380301_Kevin-Conroy-found-recording-the-Arkham-games-frustrating-‘What-the.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-14 13:06:592023-02-14 13:06:59Kevin Conroy found recording the Arkham games frustrating: ‘‘What the f**k do they want me to say?’
Troll Bogeys are an important ingredient in Hogwarts Legacy and you’ll need to find one for Professor Onai’s Assignment, which allows you to add Descendo to your collection of spells (opens in new tab). It’s also a required item for a number of potions so figuring out where to find the handy—but gross—item should prove useful.
There are a couple of ways to get your hands on Troll Bogeys and you’ll need to leave Hogwarts for both. Remember to activate floo flames by walking near them so you can fast travel (opens in new tab) to that location if you need to return. Here’s where to find Troll Bogeys in Hogwarts Legacy.
Hogwarts Legacy Troll Bogeys: Where to get them
The easiest way to get Troll Bogeys is to buy them from J. Pippins Potions in Hogsmeade. These go for 100 Galleons each, but there’s limited stock, so you can only buy up to five at a time.
If you’ve picked up Professor Onai’s Assignment, she’ll task you with finding and defeating a troll to obtain one. Trolls can be found randomly attacking certain Poacher camps, armoured ones can be found in the very south of the map helping the goblins, or the easiest option is to locate a troll lair. One of the nearest is to the northwest of Feldcroft, which is to the southwest of the castle through the valley south of Lower Hogsfield. Check the screenshot below for the exact location.
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Troll lair location. (Image credit: Portkey Games)
Troll Bogeys. (Image credit: Portkey Games)
You also need to fight a troll for the Troll Control sidequest found in Brocburrow, to the southeast of Hogwarts so there’s always the option to get two quests objectives done in one go if you fancy a bit of exploring first.
Despite their formidable size, trolls are fairly simple to beat—they just have a lot of health to contend with. You can Protego against most of their attacks, but some attacks will flash red, and you will need to evade instead.
Despite Valentine’s Day being a stupid holiday created by greeting card companies to make more money, I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for it. I love romance in all its forms, but I’m especially guilty of becoming deeply invested in fictional relationships. Deep friendships and blossoming romances have long been a staple of various mediums, and videogames are no exception.
Whether they’re used as a vessel for storytelling or simply as a fun little side story, there are tales of love to be found all over our Steam libraries. I asked the PC Gamer team to grab their Cupid’s bow and tiny heart-shaped arrows for the best romances (or bromances!) PC gaming has to offer.
Tidus and Yuna – Final Fantasy 10
(Image credit: Square Enix)
Mollie Taylor, Features Producer: If there is one videogame love story that consistently puts me through the emotional wringer, it’s Tidus and Yuna’s in Final Fantasy 10. You spend so many hours watching these two characters falling in love with each other—occasionally played out in painfully cringeworthy laughing scenes—and the way both characters grow both together and apart.
The whole build-up culminates in one of my favourite scenes from any game, where the two finally have their big moment (opens in new tab) in Macalania Woods. It’s a story filled with heartbreak too, and no matter how many times I play through the game I still cry like a baby.
Ted Litchfield, Associate Editor: There’s nothing explicitly romantic about the relationship between Precinct 41’s Lieutenant double-yefreitor Harrier “Harry” (to his friends) Du Bois and Precinct 57’s Lieutenant Kim “Kimball” (to his enemies) Kitsuragi, but nevertheless I care about Kim and Harry’s relationship more than any Final Fantasy fling or Bioware beau I’ve ever looked up a guide for.
Whether “DuBoitsuragi” is canon or not is of no import—their working partnership and blooming friendship is just masterfully done, standing alone as a platonic relationship or gelling nicely with whatever saucy dimension you want in that mind palace of yours. The fact that you have to earn Kim’s trust, and that it’s something you can waste away, makes his approval all the more meaningful to me. If you played a fascist Harry who got Kim’s favorite radio DJ to hate him or, god forbid, left him hanging on an Ace’s High, meet me out in the Walgreens parking lot in 15 minutes so we can settle this like adults.
Osiris and Saint-14 – Destiny 2
(Image credit: Bungie)
Tim Clark, Brand Director: Destiny 2 is fundamentally a game about committing extra-terrestrial genocide through the medium of space magic while hoovering up loot to do more massacres with. Not a great backdrop for romance, but it’s a testament to the strides made by Bungie’s narrative team that the remarkably tender romance between Osiris and Saint-14 has formed a major part of recent seasons.
For those not keeping up with the increasingly soapy storyline, Saint-14 is a legendary Titan Exo (ie sentient robot) once thought lost in time, fighting an eternal battle against the Vex. Having been rescued by the player, Saint rekindles his affair with the grumpy but brilliant Warlock Osiris. But—twist!—soon after, Osiris was ambushed by the Hive, who also killed his Morena Baccarin-voiced Ghost. The Witchqueen then took the bodily form of Osiris (don’t ask how) to infiltrate both the Last City and his relationships with many of the game’s major characters, including an increasingly suspicious and upset Saint.
Anyway, the resolution of that mess left Osiris in a coma from which he woke at the end of last season having drunk a mug of steaming tea boiled down from parts of the desiccated corpse of Nezarec, a long-dead Disciple of the Witness, which all things considered seemed to have a surprisingly restorative effect. At his bedside, the couple enjoyed a rare same-sex smooch considering this is a mainstream looter shooter. The Destiny 2 community mostly reacted happily and immediately christened the hot beverage ‘Nezcafé’.
Leliana and the Grey Warden – Dragon Age
Lauren Morton, Associate Editor: Left to my own devices, I’ll always return to a Morrigan or Fenris or Dorian romance but the best Dragon Age romance has to be Leliana and the Warden. She starts out Origins as a rather delusional follower of the Maker with a dark past, but throughout the game the Warden is there beside her as she questions her faith, confronts an old lover, and begins to truly make her own destiny during the blight. She becomes more contemplative and self-assured, making it clear that the Warden found her at one of the most pivotal points in her life—the makings of a lifelong relationship.
She returns throughout the series, though not as a romance option for later player characters. Despite BioWare’s habit of the occasional retcon, Leliana’s optional romance with the Hero of Ferelden remains untouched. Dragon Age: Inquisition’s final DLC takes place 13 years after the events of Origins and their relationship is still ongoing, reuniting as often as their separate duties allow. Even if she’s elected as the Divine (the Dragon Age Pope), she keeps the Warden by her side as her mortal spouse. Theirs is a romance of character growth, dedication, and a decade of yearning that spans the series.
Zagreus and Thanatos and Megaera – Hades
Jody Macgregor, Weekend/AU Editor: There’s a quote from Parks & Rec that’s become a bit of a meme, the one where April says, “This is my boyfriend Derek, and this is Derek’s boyfriend Ben.” Hades is that, only instead of Aubrey Plaza it’s the fury Megaera and she’s introducing her boyfriend Zagreus, prince of the underworld, and his boyfriend Thanatos, the embodiment of death. This is Greek mythology, have you heard what Zeus gets up to? Compared to that, polyamory is no big deal. Even if your girlfriend is the game’s first boss, who probably kicked your butt a bunch of times. Zagreus has a kink, and that’s OK. It doesn’t involve turning into a swan or a shower of gold dust, so again, our short prince has got nothing on Zeus.
Noctis Lucis Caelum and Lunafreya Nox Fleuret – Final Fantasy XV
(Image credit: Square Enix)
Robert Jones, Print Editor: This doomed and largely seen/hinted at only indirectly in flashbacks romance has really stuck with me largely due to how complex and it is. One of Final Fantasy XV’s greatest and, in my mind, overlooked qualities is how it seems to mirror a hauntingly real lifepath for its protagonist, with the dreams and freedom of youth giving way to the duty and restricted circumstances of adult life. This is even mirrored in the game’s structure, with the first half of the game taking place in an open world and letting the player explore and be free, only to then funnel them into a super linear experience for the back half. Noctis and Luna may have been friends since childhood, and that friendship may have developed into love, but regardless of their desires their union and happy ever after in life never materialises, with both having to sacrifice it – and indeed their very lives – in the name of duty. When Noctis and Luna are finally reunited and married in the afterlife, after so much pain and strife, it is a beautifully touching moment.
Aribeth de Tylmarande and Fenthick Moss – Neverwinter Nights
(Image credit: BioWare)
Robert Jones, Print Editor: Another doomed romance that has stuck with me largely due to its consequences rather than the shown interaction between its two characters and how their relationship is written. And boy, the dooming of this relationship almost brings doom upon the entirety of Faerûn. As Neverwinter Nights starts, the player is soon introduced to the relationship held between Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande, the elven paladin of Tyr, and Fenthick Moss, an elvent cleric of Tyr. Their devotion to each other is only second to that of their faith. So when Fenthick Moss is betrayed by a mentor and setup as the fallguy for the terrible crime of unleashing the Wailing Death plague upon the city, before then being brutally hanged and his body dumped in a pit, the fallout impact on Aribeth is devastating. Indeed, in a great twist only revealed late on in the game, Fenthick’s death drives her to renounce her faith, side with Neverwinter’s true enemy, and then as a fallen paladin lead an army in all-out war against the city. Aribeth feels she has nothing to lose now her great love has been taken from her and, with her future obliterated, is overwhelmed with vengeance and glorious purpose.
Iron Bull and me – Dragon Age Inquisition
Fraser Brown, Thirsty Editor: Since Ted cruelly took Harry and Kim before I could get in here, I have to go with my runner up: Freddie Prinze Jr. playing a one-eyed horny monster man. Yes, it’s Iron Bull, one of Inquisition’s top tier companions, and also a certified hottie… at least if you like giant, scary-looking dudes who are all fucked up with scars. And let’s face it, who doesn’t?
I’m a bit ambivalent about BioWare “romances”, and for all the characters you can date across all of its games, it seems a bit scared to make them sexy or even slightly erotic, but romancing Iron Bull is a tonne of fun. You learn a bit more about Qunari culture, which is probably nice if your sexuality is “more lore, please”, but what I really appreciate is how BioWare playfully juggles bawdy and caring. Iron Bull is a thirsty boy whose flirting is very direct, but he’s also a very sweet dude who wants to make sure his partner is completely comfortable. It’s probably one of the healthiest relationships BioWare’s portrayed. So yeah, go ride the bull.
Kane and Lynch – Kane and Lynch: Dead Men
(Image credit: IO Interactive)
Dave James, Hardware Fella: Seriously, the fan fiction is off the hook.
Max Payne and Mona Sax – Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (and I don’t care if it’s obvious or cliched)
Love hurts. Happy #ValentinesDay from Mona Sax and #MaxPayne 💔 🔫 pic.twitter.com/mRUvIDAjRYFebruary 14, 2018
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Andy Chalk, NA News Lead: Why has nobody done Max Payne and Mona Sax? This is peak stuff, an absolute classic: A doomed love between a broken-down cop and a stone-cold contract killer hell-bent on revenge, their fates irrevocably intertwined by bullets, blood, and a hot shower in a cold warehouse. Max kills for Mona; Mona saves Max. And in their final desperate moment, with Max at her mercy, she refuses to pull the trigger, and her life is traded for his.
“She was dead. The bullet in her head had come to the end of its slow-motion journey. Now, like all my loves, she is mine forever. She has brought me here, to this moment of clarity, where time slows down, and I choose to look back, to see myself. And in that act of seeing, I am reborn.
“I had a dream of my wife. She was dead. But it was alright.”
There’s actually a secret ending, for players who can finish the game’s most difficult mode, Dead on Arrival. But in true Max Payne fashion, it’s not real: In the canon, Mona Sax is dead, and Max is alone. It’s so goddamn good.
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It’s official: Reaching World of Warcraft’s level cap of 70 without leaving its tutorial zone is now old-hat. Instead, real dedicated zen masters hit maximum strength without even arriving there, making use of WoW’s pet battle mechanic to slowly level up without ever leaving the confines of the boat that takes you to the game’s starting area. That’s what a player called Cheatcho did, who documented his remarkably stationery journey to level 70 in a recent Reddit thread (opens in new tab) (via GamesRadar (opens in new tab)).
How did he manage it? Well, WoW contains a few pet battle quests that can be finished by any character on your account, rather than only the character who got the quest. By picking up the quests on one character and concluding them on another, you can do things like, well, level up a character that hasn’t even arrived at the starting area yet. All Cheatcho had to do was grind five of these quests for over 200 days to reach the dizzying heights of level 70 on his boat-bound Pandaren Shaman (why is it always Pandarens?).
Cheatcho says they did it “Because it’s the ultimate solo player way to level a character,” given that “You never leave the ship. You never defeat another player, dungeon boss or even group with anyone else”. Plus, of course, they “consider doing it fun”. It almost sounds like the tenets of some kind of inward-looking, anchoritic (opens in new tab) philosophy: the kind of thing a wizened figure on a mountaintop would impart to you after a treacherous climb. I will absolutely, 100%, never even attempt to do it myself, but by god I’m glad someone else has.
If you’re made of sterner stuff than I and fancy trying it yourself, Cheatcho has some advice. So long as you keep separate characters parked at each of the pet battle trainers (who grant the relevant quests), you can level from 60 to 70 over the course of about 60 days, at a cost to you of a mere “5 minutes per day”. They also recommend doing it “if you hate leveling a specific class/spec but you want it at max level,” which, again, I can’t help but feel sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. But then again I’m not the mythical hero who achieved maximum power while ensconced on a boat, so what do I know?
The whole thing, of course, puts me in mind of Doubleagent, the Pandaren pacifist legend (opens in new tab) who reached WoW: Dragonflight’s max level in the game’s tutorial zone through a combination of herb-picking and mining. Unlike Cheatcho, Doubleagent’s method didn’t require them to make use of separate characters on their account, but it did need them to actually, you know, get off that boat. Clearly, we need to settle this with a no-holds-barred, one-on-one zen-off. First Pandaren to fall asleep loses.
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Need a clue for today’s Wordle (opens in new tab)? The answer in a flash? Or perhaps you’d just like to read some general hints and tips designed to make the February 14 (605) game that little bit easier. Whatever Wordle help you’re after, you’re sure to find it here.
My opener slotted the first green neatly into place. My follow-up gave me the last green and a handy pair of yellows. And then it all came together beautifully on the third guess. Another victory: Wordle done. Time to celebrate with a chocolate biscuit and look forward to tomorrow’s puzzle.
Wordle hint
A Wordle hint for Tuesday, February 14
Today’s answer concerns the act of creating audible vibrations: banging a drum, singing a song, etc. If something emits a noise or note it would make a _____, wouldn’t it? There are two different vowels to find today.
Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle?
No, there is no double letter in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
Looking to extend your Wordle winning streak? Perhaps you’ve just started playing the popular daily puzzle game and are looking for some pointers. Whatever the reason you’re here, these quick tips can help push you in the right direction:
Start with a word that has a mix of common vowels and consonants.
The answer might repeat the same letter.
Try not to use guesses that include letters you’ve already eliminated.
There’s no racing against the clock with Wordle so you don’t need to rush for the answer. Treating the game like a casual newspaper crossword can be a good tactic; that way, you can come back to it later if you’re coming up blank. Stepping away for a while might mean the difference between a win and a line of grey squares.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
What is the Wordle #605 answer?
Here’s the word you’re looking for. The answer to the February 14 (605) Wordle is SOUND.
Previous answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Wordle solutions that have already been used can help eliminate answers for today’s Wordle or give you inspiration for guesses to help uncover more of those greens. They can also give you some inspired ideas for starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle answers:
February 13: USAGE
February 12: GIANT
February 11: DEBUG
February 10: HEADY
February 9: STAGE
February 8: FLAIL
February 7: APPLE
February 6: NINTH
February 5: DANCE
February 4: UNLIT
Learn more about Wordle
Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and it’s up to you to work out which five-letter word is hiding among them to win the popular daily puzzle.
It’s usually a good plan to start with a strong word (opens in new tab) like ALERT—or any other word with a good mix of common consonants and multiple vowels—and you should be off to a flying start, with a little luck anyway. You should also avoid starting words with repeating letters, so you don’t waste the chance to confirm or eliminate an extra letter. Once you hit Enter, you’ll see which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.
Your second guess should compliment the first, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you might have missed on the first row—just don’t forget to leave out any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the correct word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words and don’t forget letters can repeat too (eg: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips (opens in new tab), and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used, you can scroll to the relevant section above.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle (opens in new tab), as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle (opens in new tab), refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures (opens in new tab). Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
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Wanted: Dead would have totally banged in the late 2000s. It’s a no-nonsense hack-and-slash with some sickeningly wicked dismemberment, B-tier voice acting, and heaps of jank. It’s exactly what developer Soleil was aiming for, backed by several ex-Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive workers. But in the year of our lord 2023, its unapologetic vision isn’t going to sit right with everybody.
What is it? A hack-and-slash inspired by janky 2000s action games.
Unfortunately, I’m one of those people. I’m a huge Team Ninja lover and a regular Dead or Alive defender, so I was excited to dive into the Hong Kong Police Department’s Zombie Squad. A group of former criminals on life sentences, you take on the role of Hannah Stone. Along with comrades Herzog, Doc and Cortez, Wanted: Dead’s flimsy narrative is played out across a number of missions.
They’re linear, but in a way I really dig. Waves of enemies are dotted between checkpoints, most of them fairly identical and repetitive. There are gun-wielding enemies who can be easily rushed, a number of melee enemies who provide different levels of challenge and miniboss-type monstrosities that deal big damage and require precise timing. Their pathing can be a little wonky sometimes, not always sure whether to beeline for me or one of my teammates. They all follow simple patterns that, in isolation, are mostly easy enough to deal with bar one or two particularly tough enemies faced in the final mission.
Stone cold
Wanted: Dead has a mixture of melee and gun combat, with Stone able to slash away and parry with her katana, stagger enemies with a handgun or go classic third-person shooter behind cover. She can also parry certain moves with a handgun, and evade gunfire with a dodge ability. When it flows, the combat feels great. Slicing off an arm or parrying a move at the right moment is super satisfying, and Wanted: Dead is full of gloriously gory finishing moves that never got old across my 12 hours with the game.
Gunplay feels significantly weaker in comparison to katana slashing, and the cover system is pretty rough. Sometimes Stone wouldn’t come out of cover properly, unable to shoot at any enemies because she was too busy planting her cheek against the wall. You do have the ability to vault over low objects, but I found it too inconsistent to use reliably.
(Image credit: Soleil Ltd.)
Most guns also felt pretty crap to use aside from Stone’s own rifle and the shotgun, which seem to be two of the only guns capable of actually hitting enemies. Grenade launchers and Stone’s supply of hand grenades inflicted little damage if at all, and I eventually gave up on using them as they were so useless.
On the plus side, you can make small tweaks to Stone’s main gun and the handgun through weapon customisation, and Stone can also upgrade her abilities through skill trees. The skill trees are nice and simple, split into offensive, defensive and utility skills. There’s minimal faff when choosing what skills you want to invest in, and the progression of gaining new abilities is straightforward, allowing you to gain enough points to pick up your final upgrades with enough time to enjoy them in the final mission.
Enemies usually wait patiently for Stone to finish annihilating whichever foe is in front of her, meaning I was rarely struggling with more than one or two foes at a time. I did encounter some frustratingly unfair situations where I’d get stuck between two of them, unable to evade or parry my way out while being pummeled from every which direction.
I’m not the most action-inclined gamer out there, and found the end-of-mission bosses particularly frustrating. The final mission gave me so much grief, unaided by some very sporadic checkpoint placement that turned the game into a gauntlet with some heavy health resource management. One particular checkpoint in the final mission killed me off over 10 times, leaving me frustrated in my lack of skill that was at odds with my desire to progress and finish the goddamn game.
You’ll be well at home if you’re an enjoyer of games like Devil’s Third, Sekiro or, of course, the classic Ninja Gaidens. But as someone who doesn’t dabble in these games a whole lot, the difficulty spike really dampened my time with Wanted: Dead.
On the bright side, there weren’t any performance issues getting in the way or making the fights even harder.There are occasional frame drops when new enemies pop in and texture loading issues, but for the most part, my game was buttery smooth. I ran most graphic settings at the highest option with no problem. For those whose rigs may struggle, there are plenty of graphic options to tinker around with like texture quality, draw distance and ambient occlusion. No ray tracing or DLSS—I couldn’t imagine a 2007-inspired game benefitting much from the former, and the fairly low system requirements mean DLSS shouldn’t be much of a necessity.
(Image credit: Soleil Ltd.)
I did, however, encounter some pesky bugs that added to the roughness of the game. Music would stop dead in the middle of encounters, and menus would fail to disappear while gameplay continued in the background. I also encountered a couple of crashes that would occur at random. I’m not sure if it was a bug or poor audio mixing, but one level had the enemies’ singular voice screaming above the music and every other sound effect which was incredibly distracting.
Death by confusion
The gameplay loop is a well-paced cycle, whizzing me back to police headquarters at the end of each mission. It’s the most open the game ever gets, with four floors to explore for a handful of collectables, and some very out-of-place minigames that flip Wanted: Dead into a weird Yakuza-like. At one point, I finish up watching a cutscene and immediately get thrown into Stone and Gunsmith (voiced by Metal Gear Solid 5’s Quiet) singing 99 Luftballons while I frantically mash my keyboard to the rhythm.
It’s weird moments like this where I sit back and realise I’m not even entirely sure what I’m playing. The narrative is all over the place, regularly throwing completely needless cutscenes at me. An early cutscene spends 35 seconds following Herzog over to a diner jukebox, watching him select a song and then walk all the way back to his table. The Zombie Squad go on to place an egregious order, with Stone taking an entire 24 seconds to ask for her breakfast “and a pack of smokes.” A little later on, a roughly 90-second cutscene involves Stone walking into the police cafeteria. She sits down and mindlessly examines each plate of food while seemingly struggling to grasp the concept of using a fork. She looks up to see, for some reason, the rest of her team sitting at another table. That’s it, that’s the cutscene.
(Image credit: Soleil Ltd.)
Even when the cutscenes are trying to tell a story, it’s delivered so woodenly that I’m still not sure what’s happening. I’m not particularly bothered by its wishy-washy narrative, but on several occasions, I had to sit back and say “What the fuck?” when a cutscene would fade to black. At times, Wanted: Dead resorts to telling its story through anime cutscenes, a choice that gave me severe whiplash the first time it happened. It’s at such a juxtaposition with its normal aesthetic that it felt unnatural, though in isolation they were crisp and well-animated.
Wanted: Dead is too janky to happily exist in mainstream gaming in 2023. But it’ll definitely strike a chord with a niche audience—one I’m sadly not a part of. Soleil had a vision, and it can be proud that it damn well achieved it. It won’t be for everybody, but for those who it is for, they’ll have a good-ass time with it.
Hogwarts Legacy’s best talents help you equip your witch or wizard with the tools to take on just about any foe. The game often surrounds you with several enemies at once, which can get messy fast. With the right choices, you can create a strong talent build that should keep you on your feet in the toughest battles.
You can unlock talents early in the game after completing the “Jacdaw’s Rest” quest. You’ll have five trees to choose from: Spells, Dark Arts, Core, Stealth, and Room of Requirement. Each tree contains three tiers of talents, some of which require you to be a certain level to acquire.
Your first talent point comes at level 5 and then you get one for each level after. There are a total of 48 talent points, but you’ll only have 36 points to spend. And the game doesn’t currently have a way to respec, or reset your talents.
If you’re just starting out, you might want to know how to solve the Ghost of Our Love treasure map (opens in new tab), or how to get a broom (opens in new tab) so you can start flying. Otherwise, here’s the best talents to pick.
The best spells talents
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)
Level requirement: 5 Talent: Incendio Mastery
You can beef up your Incendio with Incendio Mastery. It’s fairly simple: when you cast Incendio, it sends out a circle of fire around you. It’s a great method for clearing out packs of enemies and useful to have early in the game.
Level requirement: 5 Talent: Levioso Mastery
A great early game talent, Levioso Mastery helps you manage groups of enemies. It pulls them together and helps you single individual enemies to dispel. You can also combine with with other attacks to wipe out groups all at once. It’s a strong pick for the early hours of the game.
The best core talents
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)
Level requirement: 5 Talent: Spell Knowledge I
I’d recommend picking up Spell Knowledge I (and possibly Spell Knowledge II) to increase the amount of spells you can equip. It’s a wizard game, after all; you need spells for almost everything you do. Combat, exploration, and puzzles all require different spells, and having the ability to swap between several of them is crucial to have as soon as you can get it.
Level requirement: 5 Talent: Protego Expertise
With Protego Expertise, every time you block an attack, it sends one back toward the enemy. Hogwarts Legacy combat is all about blocking and dodging with spells in between. Protego Expertise helps fill some of the downtime as you work to survive the game’s harder encounters.
Level requirement: 5 Talent: Swift
Swift is very useful for closing the gap between enemies if you plan to play a melee-range build with spells like Incendio. It causes your character to dash forward when you hold the dodge button. For fights that get messy, it can help you escape and get some breathing room.
Level requirement: 16 Talent: Revelio Mastery
Revelio Mastery will make your life easier once you’re deep into the game. It increases the range on the spell that reveals hidden objects and treasure. The upgrade is substantial enough that it’s worth spending a point on once you’re high enough level.
As you make your way through Hogwarts Legacy, you’ll find a lot of enemies have loads of health. This talent helps you build your Ancient Magic Meter by spamming basic attacks on airborn enemies. With this, you can get into the routine of building your Ancient Magic up and deploying it on tougher foes to save yourself time.
The best stealth talents
(Image credit: Avalanche Software)
Level requirement: 5 Talent: Human Demiguise
The Stealth talents can be a little lacking, but Human Demiguise is worth picking up. Once you grab this talent, you can sprint while using Disillusionment. Otherwise, it’s slow and tedious. With a game as big as Hogwarts Legacy, a quality of life talent like this will help you in the long run.
If you love stealth, the final talent in the associated tree is very good. Essentially, it makes it so Petrificus Totalus is nearly a one-shot for small enemies. This can be useful to start off a fight or clear out a camp.
The best dark arts talents
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)
Level requirement: 5 Talent: Knockback Curse
Dark Arts users can grab the Knockback Curse talent to empower Flipendo. Flipendo pulls enemies up into the air already, but with this talent it also curses them and makes them take increased damage. Flipendo has a fairly low cooldown, which makes this talent especially useful.
Level requirement: 5 Talent: Blood Curse
Blood Curse makes your spells way more efficient when it comes to large groups of enemies. When you attack a cursed enemy, every other cursed enemy also takes damage. Not only does it make managing packs of enemies easier, it makes every spell you cast significantly more impactful in a fight. Combine it with the Unforgivable trait, and you’ll be dishing out loads of damage.
Level requirement: 22 Talent: Curse Sapper
Curse Sapper is available once you’ve got a fair amount of time in the game. With it, you can get a little bit of health back for every enemies that you defeat. It adds up when you’re facing off against bigger packs of foes. This is a smart choice if you find yourself draining too many potions in combat.
The best room of requirement talents
(Image credit: Portkey Games)
Level requirement: 5 Talent: Fertilizer
Until this new build (opens in new tab) gets nerfed, Fertilizer is one of the best talents in Hogwarts Legacy right now. Every chomping cabbage you send out is doubled. Considering how much damage these vegetables put out when combined with the Herbology 3 trait, this talent is a threat to the game’s toughest enemies.
Level requirement: 16 Talent: Maxima Potion Potency
While there’s not a ton to love in the room of requirement talents, the Maxima Potion Potency isn’t a bad choice. It’s a flat increase to your damage when you’ve drink a Maxima Potion. As you get further into the game, there are occasionally combat scenarios that would be much easier if you could frontload a ton of damage into an enemy early.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1676336394_Hogwarts-Legacy-best-talents-How-to-build-your-wizard.jpg6761200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-14 00:35:552023-02-14 00:35:55Hogwarts Legacy best talents: How to build your wizard
Like many small-studio projects before it, Radio the Universe (opens in new tab) is one of those strikingly gorgeous, long-in-development independent games you catch tantalizing glimpses of on Twitter or Reddit and just need to know more about. The top-down, almost Hyper Light Drifter-adjacent adventure was at one point slated for a 2020 release while, as reported by Destructoid (opens in new tab) and, uh, us (opens in new tab), the game has been in the works in some form since at least 2012. But after this long wait it’s finally playable by the general public for the first time thanks to a Steam Next Fest demo.
And it rules! Radio the Universe nails the fundamentals of this sort of top-down, 2D Soulslike—your sword swings have this weighty feel and satisfying arc with a meaty crunch on hitting enemies, and the combat is tough but fair. Every enemy has an almost glacial wind-up with a holographic projection of where their strike will land, but they have wide, far-reaching hitboxes while you have a limited HP pool. Add in multiple enemies and their staggered, overlapping attack patterns, and Radio the Universe is left with a chaotic, engrossing rhythm to its combat.
One further wrinkle is that the game only rewards experience if you deplete an enemy’s HP precisely to zero—enemy health is rendered by a big number floating over their heads, while your attacks deal damage in multiples of two or three. You’ll want to tag a six-hp enemy with the right combination of attack types to avoid “overkilling” them, and thus voiding your experience reward. I found this encouraged me to really mix it up with my attack types, doing mental math on the fly to figure out the most efficient path to a perfect kill. That’s right kids, Radio the Universe makes math fun!
Radio the Universe’s atmosphere is as superb as I was hoping, with this haunted, desolate city combining cyberpunk vistas and weirdly gothic elements in a way that reminds me of the NieR games. Radio the Universe also does a great job of balancing its combat against quiet time and environmental exploration, and overall I just really enjoyed my time in this cursed place.
I did have one technical hurdle with Radio the Universe: the game seems to hard lock certain PC configurations when launching in fullscreen mode, requiring a manual reset. As outlined by Steam user Ghostly in this thread (opens in new tab), one solution is to go to the Options.ini file in the game’s Steam install directory and set the “AlternateSyncMethod=” setting to “0.” This fix did work for me, but ironically didn’t wind up being necessary—Radio the Universe runs perfectly on Steam Deck right out of the box, and that’s how I enjoyed the demo.
Radio the Universe is definitely an indie game to watch out for in the coming year, with this demo hopefully indicating that we’re approaching its full release. Whenever it comes, I’ll be ready, and you can check out the demo yourself and wishlist the game on Steam (opens in new tab), as well as pre-order it on itch.io (opens in new tab).
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/This-desolate-action-RPG-about-a-city-at-the-end-of.jpg6771200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-14 00:24:032023-02-14 00:24:03This desolate action-RPG about a city at the end of time is 11 years in the making
The best Hogwarts Legacy mods transform the experience of playing the open world RPG. It’s already a game where you stuff your robes with all sorts of spells and potions, so a few mods couldn’t hurt. You can do everything from customizing how your character looks to adjusting the controls for riding your broom. And none of it requires you passing any convoluted tests that could get you killed—that is, as long as you’re comfortable unzipping files and moving them around.
Hogwarts Legacy mods are starting to pile up now that the game is finally here. The game has proven to be fairly malleable as far as new releases go. And installing them doesn’t take that much effort. For most of the mods, you only have to unzip a file and drag it into the game’s folder.
You can pick up mods that help make the game run better, change the look of your broom, and alleviate the strange flying controls. There are also a lot of joke mods, too. Thomas the Tank Engine (opens in new tab) has already made an appearance in the game, and people have made sure to mod Shrek in as soon as possible too.
I can’t promise to understand everything that the Ascendio mod does to Hogwarts Legacy, but it apparently tweaks the game’s engine parameters to make it run better. Hogwarts Legacy has a stutter problem due to the way it handles shaders. Whenever you enter a new area, it has a tendency to chug and plummet your fps. The Ascendio mod, created by a Skyrim modder, does its best to fix that.
Hogwarts Legacy lets you zoom through the world on a broom, but by default the keyboard controls are limited to WASD. This mod lets you control the broom with your mouse. You can rotate, descend, and ascend with one hand as you travel around the game. It’s a simple change for anyone that prefers flying with more granular control.
For PC players who prefer to use a controller or a gamepad, the better broom control mod is convenient to have. The mod replaces the default flying controls and puts all of the movement on the left joystick. The right joystick is dedicated to the camera. If you want a more comfortable flying experience that resembles other games, this mod is the way to do it.
With this mod, casting spells in Hogwarts Legacy takes some skill. Instead of having to MMO your way through pages of spells assigned to numbers on your keyboard, you can attach spells to swipes or gestures on your mouse. It could make remembering spells during combat a lot easier and it’s kind of fun to fling your mouse around like you’re holding an actual wand.
Hogwarts Legacy has a spider problem. Which is to say, it has them. If you want to solve that problem, pick up the arachnophobia mod. Every spider in the game is replaced with a red cube and no longer terrifying. Even the game’s spider bosses have entered their geometric era and are about as threatening as a child’s toy.
Someone had to do it. The Elder Wand mod puts the most powerful wand in the Wizarding World’s history into the palm of your hand. Despite being created by Death itself, the modded Elder Wand operates like every other stick in the game. You can put wand handles on it too, but they make it look a little weird. Keep it stock and conjure up your best character backstory to roleplay as the most powerful teenage witch or wizard in the world.
The Nimbus 2000 broom mod equips your character with Harry Potter’s speedy mount. It replaces the Yew Weaver Broom, which you can buy in Hogsmead for 600 Galleons. Some of the comments say the model isn’t super high quality when playing the game at a high resolution, but if you absolutely need to use the real thing, this mod is for you.
This mod does exactly what it says: turns the legendary sorcerer known only as Shrek into your broom. The mod replaces the Aeromancer Broom, which is available to buy for 3,000 Galleon from Rohan Prakash. It’s a small price to pay for harnessing the power of a godlike being. So go equip Shrek, get your game on, and go play.
High-resolution PC gamers will appreciate this mod the makes Hogwarts Legacy’s minimap, spell icons, and other UI features a little bit smaller. The mod has three versions, each scaling the default size down. You can choose from a 50%, 75%, and 80% version of the mod to download.
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