As technology advances, you can always count on one thing: students will use it to avoid doing homework. One industrious student not only got an AI chatbot to do their homework assignment, but they also rigged it to a 3D printer to write it out on pen and paper, expending the maximum amount of effort required to do the minimum amount of homework. Bravo!
TikTok user 3d_printer_stuff (opens in new tab) shared a series of videos on how they programmed a 3D printer to produce homework with the answers that ChatGPT (opens in new tab) wrote.
They gave ChatGPT their assignment; it spit out an answer, and then they copy/pasted that text over to 3dwriter (opens in new tab). As you can see, once you sort out the proper spacing and mount a pen onto your 3D printer, 3dwriter can write out the AI-generated text onto a sheet of paper perfectly between the margins. The tutorial video shows the process step-by-step.
ChatGPT has been in the news recently after Microsoft said it would invest $10 billion in OpenAI (opens in new tab). The company developed an AI chatbot that scrapes the internet to produce long-form answers to questions in a human-like fashion. This is exactly why ChatGPT has already been banned in New York City public schools (opens in new tab) over cheating and plagiarism concerns. Ultimately the fear is that students will use it as a crutch and hinder the development of critical thinking skills, which is why the NYC Dept. of Education restricted access to the AI chatbot on its schools’ computers. I don’t blame them, considering one of the videos shows math homework being done on the fly.
Of course, as many comments suggest, the next logical step in 3d_printer_stuff’s scheme should be to train an AI to mimic their handwriting. That way, they could fool a teacher since the handwriting shown here is just a little too perfect. You could also use these tools for non-cheating purposes, I guess.
I’d argue that setting up a rig to do your homework takes more time than just doing the homework yourself, but I applaud the hustle nonetheless.
Either way, it’s interesting to see what the cross-section of AI and automation can produce that doesn’t involve it being “light outs for us all,” (opens in new tab) according to one CEO. I nor PC Gamer endorse cheating or scamming your way out of doing homework. We do think it’s cool, though.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675481170_This-genius-student-uses-the-power-of-AI-and-a.png196349Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-03 20:39:302023-02-04 17:00:59This genius student uses the power of AI and a 3D printer to ‘handwrite’ their homework
If you’re a fan of building and management games like Two Point Hospital, maybe I can interest you in a sim featuring the types of characters who put people in the hospital.
I’m talking about soldiers. One Military Camp is a base-building and management game where you’re in charge of a—well, you can probably guess from the name. Recruit new soldiers, train them into different specialties like comms operations, artillery, explosives, medics and infantry, and even upgrade them into elite operatives like spies, pilots, and tank drivers.
To do that you’ll need to grow your run-down little military camp into a booming operation, filled with training buildings, obstacle courses, watch towers, warehouses, maintenance yards, and landing pads. To whip your soldiers into shape you’ll need veterans to serve as instructors, and discipline is key so you can keep everyone on a strict schedule. You’ll also need to manage resources like food, gear, and supplies while keeping your camp within its budget.
But along with all the weapons training and jogging in formation and loudspeakers blaring trumpeted anthems, you’ll also need to keep morale up among your eager little soldiers by making the camp look nice with parks, plazas, and decorations. Provide leisure activities like ping-pong tables, pinball machines, and gaming tables—it’s just not basic training unless your soldiers can play a little poker now and then. (I’m basing that not on personal military experience—I am a coward—but on every military movie I’ve ever seen.)
The details and animations in One Military Camp’s trailers look great, with soldiers running through those obstacle courses filled with tires, training at the firing range, lifting weights and boxing, driving minitanks around sandpits, and even carefully stepping through laserbeams in an espionage practice course. In the trailer you can catch a glimpse of a diver being pursued by a shark in a small pool, presumably to level up their swimming skills for aquatic missions.
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Interestingly, there’s no real violence in One Military Camp which must be a first for a game about training soldiers into elite killing machines. There are missions and quests, and you send squads of your soldiers and specialists to locations on the world map via chopper, but the carnage takes place offscreen. The only real combat you’ll see appears to be if an enemy drone invades and starts dropping bombs on your buildings, which can be countered by setting up defensive measures like turrets and missile launchers.
One Military Camp has just announced an early access release date of March 2, and publisher Abylight Studios has also revealed a roadmap which includes a sandbox mode coming in April, pets added in May, soldier customization options in June, and a full release aiming for September.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675599206_This-military-base-building-sim-has-all-of-the-soldiers-and.jpg6331123Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-03 20:23:152023-02-03 20:23:15This military base-building sim has all of the soldiers and none of the violence
MissMikkaa, the streamer who defeated the Elden Ring uber-boss Malenia using a level one character and a dance pad (opens in new tab), has yet another bizarre boss kill to her repertoire: This time, she’s taken down Margit, the Fell Omen, with an acoustic guitar.
See for yourself:
We did it! Killed Margit today with an Acoustic Guitar! This might be the most inconsistent and hardest run so far hahaha, very fun! The plan is to beat Elden Ring by only using the guitar as a controller. pic.twitter.com/xF9FB8JeBqFebruary 2, 2023
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You’ll notice that MissMikkaa is using a real acoustic guitar here, and not some kind of Guitar Hero-style controller. You might then naturally wonder how it works. The answer, she said in another tweet (opens in new tab), is a program called Abject Audio Inputs (opens in new tab), which binds audio frequencies to keyboard inputs. Basically, you can use any sound to control your keyboard, recorded or live, “as long as you are able to keep a certain consistency in your tone.”
“My guitar is connected via an XLR cable to my gaming PC,” MissMikkaa explained while demonstrating the setup during a recent livestream. “Basically how the software works is that it has these frequencies that it looks for, for this specific [in-game] action, which is W. So when it hits that frequency, for example when I do a G [chord]—you saw that it hit it—that means it does a W [keypress] for four seconds. Now if I want to attack, I have it assigned to the second frequency, which is A minor, and that’s just a tap. And now we can heal, which is R, which is the third line [in the software], which is a C chord on the guitar. You see?”
MissMikkaa acknowledged how ridiculous it looks to play Elden Ring with a string instrument. “I mean, I can understand how it can look like, or be unbelievable, but it’s definitely not fake. Instead of saying, ‘this is not real,’ you can say, ‘How does this work?'”
(Image credit: MissMikkaa (Twitch))
In case it needs to be said, playing Elden Ring with a guitar and some weird software is clearly not easy. MissMikkaa was able to take down Margit, but I spent 15 minutes watching her battle Godrick the Grafted with a guitar during her Twitch (opens in new tab) stream, and she got absolutely rocked throughout. She eventually moved on to more conventional guitar-driven exploration, but even that was clearly a struggle—although to be perfectly honest she’s doing better with the guitar than I ever did using a conventional controller (opens in new tab).
It’s definitely not the way I’d want to play Elden Ring, but the commitment to the bit is impressive. Of course, MissMikkaa is well known for exploring the Lands Between in the weirdest and most difficult ways possible: Before this, she beat two instances of Elden Ring’s final boss simultaneously, using a dance pad for one and a regular controller for the other.
Ultimate Challenge Run – COMPLETED! I finished the dance pad & controller simultaneous run the other day after beating Elden Beast! It was so much fun and I definitely want to do more creative challenge runs in the future! Thank you all ❤️ pic.twitter.com/YD3GJTmrIcJanuary 8, 2023
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675602877_Elden-Ring-streamer-strums-Margit-to-death-with-an-actual.jpeg6881200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-03 19:55:342023-02-03 19:55:34Elden Ring streamer strums Margit to death with an actual acoustic guitar
There’s nothing I love more than a game world that wants to tell me a story, but it’s rare that I’m the one asked to do the telling. Season: A Letter To The Future has a vast horizon when it starts, painting a fascinating post-apocalyptic-ish setting where the player is tasked with documenting what they find. Yet the more I travel through Season, the more its vista shrinks, taken up instead by the story its narrator wants to tell and leaving no room for my own exploration.
Need to know
What is it? A narrative adventure game Expect to pay: £20.99 / $25 Release date: January 31, 2023 Developer: Scavengers Studio Publisher: Scavengers Studio Reviewed on: 64-Bit Windows 10, Nvidia GeForce GTX 970, Intel i7-4790K, 16GB RAM Multiplayer? No Steam Deck: Unverified Link:Steam page (opens in new tab)
The starting promise is a tantalising one. Season begins with a character at some point in the future opening a journal, the one our narrating protagonist is about to embark with and begin to fill. This unnamed protagonist has been raised in an isolated mountain village and wants to journey out to capture the world’s current “season,” an era, before the next one comes along. There’s something cosy in this opening as you prepare to set off. The narrator’s mother carries it, thanks to a voice performance infused with warmth and encouragement. Together you create a pendant, infused with memories, to protect you on this journey.
Season is a game obsessed with memory. The world is littered with remnants of the past and bears the hallmarks of post-apocalyptic fiction, but people continue to live and flourish in this world. Yet you’re focused on deciphering the past, capturing cultures gone or fading. Whether that’s through graffiti or religious shrines, you are trying to provide a thorough snapshot of a place and time. To do this you have three main tools: a camera, an audio recorder and the journal. With these you will be compiling as much as you can about what you see.
The bulk of the game takes place in a large valley which you can openly explore, on foot or on your little dinky bicycle, visiting key points in any order. Every time I’m set loose over a hill or down a slope, my heart swells with the excitement of what’s to come as I glimpse distant statues or the rising smoke of a hidden cottage. It’s a game world for the kind of people who like poking around, getting a sense of life from fictional places. I could lose hours just studying every inch of a village or a single pub in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Season caters to that desire, building the whole experience around curiosity. Everywhere you visit has a lovely handcrafted quality about it. Each locale is convincingly lived in, with dozens of little props and a sense of their day-to-day life, whether it’s a rural farm or an artist’s junkyard.
Except my every attempt to connect with the world, to let it enter my imagination and take on a life of its own, was interrupted by a narrator who, frankly, just would not shut up.
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Every hill holds the promise of something wonderful over the rise (Image credit: Scavengers Studio)
The game’s central valley will take many hours to explore thoroughly (Image credit: Scavengers Studio)
Sometimes it’s good to be seen and not herd (Image credit: Scavengers Studio)
It does capture the joy of a really lovely bicycle ride (Image credit: Scavengers Studio)
The games that Season pulls from rely on “less is more.” Shadow of the Colossus, Journey, and very recent games like Sable and Lake invest in captivating landscapes because they trust them to tell their stories. Season is a bit too ponderous for its own good, reluctant to let me have a thought for myself before the narrator pipes in with theirs. It feels like it wants to take me on a meditative journey, but it never leaves enough room in its story for us to breathe.
Our narrator comments on every object, every sight and sound, as if Season is afraid of what anyone might think if left to come to their own conclusions. A world, built by so many people, wasted by one who refuses to get out of its way. I couldn’t help but think about the allegations of sexual and verbal harassment regarding former creative director Simon Darveau, who remains at Scavengers Studio. A dark cloud hanging over the whole game.
A lot of dialogue doesn’t have to be a problem, but Season is quite one note. Unlike Sable or Lake, Season is humourless in its dialogue and not very playful in its exploration and the endless chatter really starts to drag things down. Its melancholy tone is potent but without any respites of joy or warmth, Season starts to feel like a parody of itself.
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Putting together this journal will be your pride and joy (Image credit: Scavengers Studio)
Photography is your main method of documenting the world (Image credit: Scavengers Studio)
Few NPCs left an impression but the voice acting is good throughout (Image credit: Scavengers Studio)
It’s seldom gloomy visually but a melancholy tone is pervasive (Image credit: Scavengers Studio)
The world of Season is one with sights that beg to be explored (Image credit: Scavengers Studio)
(Image credit: Scavengers Studio)
The kind of game you might make if you wanted to mock the earnest sensibilities of walking simulators (opens in new tab). I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say it’s pretentious, but it is overeager. Perhaps that’s appropriate for a game about a sheltered, youthful traveller.
I did relish taking great care of the little journal I was curating. You get to choose what goes in and where, from pictures and audio samples, to sketches and knick-knacks found along the way. I fixated on the layouts, trying to be thorough without just cramming in everything. By the end of the game I was so proud of the book I’d put together, in spite of so much of my exploration being drained of all mystique. Even when a bug wiped all my save data several hours in (an issue that has since been resolved, at least) I still painstakingly put together that journal a second time.
While its overbearing narrator robs Season of the wonder and meditation it so clearly aspires to, I still managed to find a little of my own. I just wish its letter to the future was one I got to write, rather than one I only got to carry.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675606547_Season-A-Letter-to-the-Future-review.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-03 19:49:332023-02-03 19:49:33Season: A Letter to the Future review
The bad news is that The Last of Us Part 1 (opens in new tab) on PC, which had been set to launch on March 3, is delayed. The good news is that the delay is brief as these things go, just a few weeks, and it’s now set to come out on March 28.
The delay, believe it or not, was apparently prompted at least in part by the popularity of the HBO show (opens in new tab), which has brought the game back into pop culture prominence and exposed it to a whole new audience.
“Hearing your love for the HBO adaptation, seeing your beautiful Photo Mode shots, and learning about how the world and characters our studio created nearly a decade ago continue to reach new and old fans alike floors us every day,” Naughty Dog said. “We know a lot of you have been revisiting the story that started it all with The Last of Us Part 1 on PlayStation 5 console, and we realize that many of you have been excited to jump in—some for the first time—when Part 1 hits PC.
“And so we want to make sure that The Last of Us Part 1 PC debut is in the best shape possible. The additional few weeks will allow us to ensure this version of The Last of Us lives up to your, and our, standards. We are so excited to bring The Last of Us Part 1 to a new platform, reaching new and returning players with Joel and Ellie’s unforgettable story of survival, and we hope that you’ll continue to look forward to its PC release on March 28.”
It’s a weird statement, right? It’s one thing for a team to say it needs more time than it anticipated to get things right, but something else entirely to imply that they were ready to gun this thing out the door in whatever half-assed shape they could smack it into until the TV show became a hit. I can’t decide if this is pure cynicism or brutal honesty: Is Naughty Dog camouflaging development headaches in a warm cloak of boundless love for the fans, or just admitting that it’s only really going hard because everyone is paying attention?
There is a third possibility, and this is what I’m hoping for: After seeing the massive success of episode 3 of the HBO show, which went deep into the relationship between Bill and Frank (opens in new tab) (something the game doesn’t explore), Naughty Dog is expanding the narrative to embrace their story as canon. I know, three weeks isn’t enough time to make big, meaningful changes, but I think it should happen and so I’m putting it out there.
(Image credit: Naughty Dog)
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Whatever the case, March 28 is now the big day. The Last of Us on PC is available for pre-purchase now on Steam (opens in new tab) and the Epic Games Store (opens in new tab), both of which currently still indicate a March 3 release date.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675448227_The-Last-of-Us-Part-1-is-delayed-because-everyone.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-03 17:14:342023-02-04 16:59:40The Last of Us Part 1 is delayed because everyone likes the HBO show so much
A sleek design and excellent software makes the Stream Deck + an easy sell.
For
Sleek build
Easy to use software
Lots of plugins
Single Type-C USB connection
Against
Pricey versus standard Stream Deck
A dinky but powerful box of tricks that’s likely to be a hit with streamers as much as the creative pros it’s designed for.
For
Great for gamers, streamers
But also musicians
Easy to navigate marketplace
Lovely tactile feel
If you’ve kept an eye on some of our hardware review coverage, the chances are you may well have noticed that we’ve taken a look at a couple of the latest and greatest streaming decks out there: the Elgato Stream Deck + (opens in new tab) and the Loupedeck Live S (opens in new tab). If you’re still undecided on what to buy out of the two of them having read my verdicts and reviews, then this article pitting the pair up against each other in some key areas should hopefully help you out.
Ease of use
The Stream Deck has plugins for video creation, photo editing, streaming, and more. (Image credit: Future)
The first category here to take a look at is ease of use, and which device I’d argue between the pair is going to be the most convenient. Immediately though, I’m going to say that it depends on who you are. The Stream Deck + is going to be especially easy to use if you’re a streamer who wants convenient access to apps and plugins for platforms such as Twitch, or if you want to use it as a control centre for any other Elgato products you’ve got such, be it key lights or a microphone. Its big tactile buttons and dials make it easy and fun to use, and the fixed stand is arguably at the perfect angle already.
On the other hand, the Loupedeck Live S is going to be an excellent choice for creative professionals as well as streamers who want to not only use the device in places such as Twitch and OBS, but also if they’re a heavy user of Adobe Creative Suite or Final Cut Pro, as well as if they use a DAW for music production. Its smaller profile is great for space savers, while the bundled stand raises the angle up a fair bit for more comfortable use, although is a little bit flimsy.
In my book, the Stream Deck + wins for ease of use by virtue of its design; those big chunky buttons and dials offer some excellent tactility that the Live S can’t really match.
Winner: Stream Deck +
Software
Loupedeck’s devices come with plugins for popular creative apps, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, ready to go. (Image credit: Loupedeck)
Keeping in that theme of solid ease of use, the Stream Deck +’s accompanying software is especially simple to use. Adding plugins to use on the device is as simple as downloading them from the marketplace, letting them install, and dragging and dropping them to a respective button the Stream Deck +. Then, simply wait a couple of seconds, and that plugin will be able to be used.
You do also get a good selection of plugins and apps to use in Elgato’s software with everything from a clock to stocks and more useful buttons such as for controlling OBS, media playback or using the dial for screen brightness or system volume on your host device.
It’s much the same story for the Live S, too. Loupedeck’s own software provides a similar function with the ability to drag and drop functions into the device’s interface, which would then show up on the console itself. Where this differs though is in its marketplace, where you can grab a wide array of plugins to use the Live S with an excellent range of programs, including native support for Adobe Creative Suite, which the Stream Deck + doesn’t have. You can also nab everything from emotes to stream overlays too, with a range of both paid and free options, meaning there’s something to suit everyone.
As a result of the vast swathes of plugins, apps and overlays on offer as well as clever features such as native support for Adobe Creative Suite, I think the Live S wins on software.
Winner: Loupedeck Live S
Hardware
Both consoles have a relatively similar construction. Sleek black boxes. (Image credit: Future)
Of course, it’s all very well and good having a set of devices that are easy to use and offer decent software, but what are things like on the hardware side of things? Well, the Stream Deck + is a noticeably larger device than the Loupedeck Live S, with its integrated stand and 465g weight. This also allows it to feel sturdy in hand, and especially well made. The buttons on offer are nice and tactile, while the selection of dials feel decent, although their lack of feedback is a little jarring at times. A single USB Type-C connection also keeps things easy, and means you can use the Stream Deck + with virtually any modern PC or Mac.
In the case of the Live S, it’s a much slimmer and flatter device by trade, with a total mass of 168g and a total thickness of 30mm. This means it’s going to be a great device for those wanting more of an unobtrusive look. Despite that smaller stature though, the Live S feels generally well made, with a nice textured finish to the plastics used, as the Stream Deck + does. My only issue with build quality here was the additional stand of the Live S, which felt quite flimsy, and that with one wrong move, it could break off.
Unlike the Stream Deck +, the Live S doesn’t use buttons for its main interfaces, but these kind of touch pad screen type things, which feel pretty good, although I’d personally prefer actual buttons. You do get 15 pads though, whereas the Stream Deck + only has eight buttons. The Live S only employs two dials though, which do feature actual tactile feedback, and the four buttons feel tactile themselves.
It’s quite hard to pick a winner when it comes to hardware, to be truthful. The Live S arguably offers you more doodads and buttons to play with compared to the Stream Deck +, even if Elgato’s product is a little bit weightier and arguably better built. An especially hard fought draw.
Draw
Verdict
The Stream Deck’s simplicity and functionality is hard to ignore. (Image credit: Future)
So, after all this, are you any the wiser as to which device to pick? Well, for my money, I’m going to take the Stream Deck +. It may be a tad more expensive than the Live S, but it’s marginally better built and offers some solid ease of use. Its software is pretty good too, even if it doesn’t offer as full of a set of features as the Live S does.
With that being said though, the decision as to which device to go for largely depends on your needs and what type of person you are. If you’re someone who’s a straightforward streamer, then the Stream Deck + is going to be the best option, while for creative pros who need the additional support for DAWs and MIDI devices, the Loupedeck Live S is going to be a better fit. Either way though, you’re going to be getting a capable streaming deck or console that can make your life a lot easier, even if they aren’t the cheapest devices in the world.
Dwarf Fortress will soon provide another way to mistreat your hapless peons. The upcoming arena mode will give you an open playground to experiment with the game’s NPCs, letting you place down different creatures, select their skills and equipment, and sic them on one another for your own twisted amusement. You’ll be able to sort your combatants into teams, give them special characteristics (like “necromancer,” for example), and even mess with the weather or place down hindrances like snow and mud.
DF creator Tarn Adams said (opens in new tab) the patch should be coming “early next week” in an update posted to Steam yesterday. Arena mode has been in regular, ASCII-style Dwarf Fortress for a while now, but it’s one of those things—like Adventure Mode (opens in new tab)—that’s still on the Steam version’s to-do list. As well as letting you live out your fantasies of becoming a kind of dwarven Caesar Augustus, the colosseum will come with a few new arena maps in addition to the one from the regular version of the game.
Adams says that the devs “are hoping to add an editor and save/load/sharing capabilities for these maps in the future as well,” but doesn’t give a precise release window on that. For now, you’ll have to stick with the included options, which do at least have a working save/load function, letting you return to an ongoing brawl later on if you have to step away.
Those players who aren’t all about naked bloodlust will also find the arena to be a handy tool for testing mods before publishing them. If you’ve invented some entirely new genre of dwarf, you’ll be able to dump them into the mode and make sure they don’t crash your hard drive before you go putting them on the Dwarf Fortress Steam Workshop (opens in new tab).
Dwarf Fortress has already had a few updates since it finally came to Steam at the beginning of last December. In that time, the game has made nearly 10 million bucks (opens in new tab), smashed its two-month sales estimate, and even acquired a second programmer (opens in new tab). Oh, and it’s pretty good, too (opens in new tab).
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675451889_Dwarf-Fortress-next-update-grants-even-more-ways-to-torment.png5941056Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-03 16:16:312023-02-04 16:59:16Dwarf Fortress’ next update grants even more ways to torment your minions
Blizzard has used an update about toxicity and cheating in Overwatch 2 (opens in new tab) to slip-out a bit of a humblebrag: Since launch, the game has attracted “over 40 million players, both returning and new.” Partly that’s because, unlike the original, Overwatch 2 is free-to-play, but even so that’s a staggering number of players ignoring the objective.
The Overwatch 2 dev team gives its approach to bad behaviour the D.Va-inspired and grandiose name of the Defense Matrix initiative, which I’m sure has the nasty sorts quaking in their boots. Blizzard says that early rollout of its system for detecting “disruptive” voice chat has begun and it has “proven to be exceptionally accurate and effective in identifying abusive chat and language.” When bad chat is identified, the game will selectively silence the guilty parties and in worse cases apply account suspensions.
Blizzard is also taking aim at inappropriate content in custom games, probably because a persistent problem for the game has been things like a ‘sexual harassment simulator’ appearing in the game’s popular list (opens in new tab). It says it has some new moderation tools that will automatically target “inappropriate titles or content, along with issuing restrictions or account actions to those who create and post such custom games.”
An option for players to hide their and others’ battletags during games is being introduced to combat stream-sniping. On top of this, players will also be able to hide the current queue time and delay it for a random amount before the game actually begins, as well as hiding replay codes.
Over 50,000 accounts have been “actioned” for cheating since launch, and Blizzard’s had enough, to the extent it’s no longer just targeting the cheaters, but those who go along with them. From season 3 it’s looking to identify players who regularly group-up with cheaters, and will take action against these accounts, even if they’re not cheating themselves, with “severe suspensions” and in extreme cases outright bans. Blizzard even gets a bit finger-waggy about it: “players who knowingly group up with cheaters are looking to take the same advantage as those who use cheats themselves, including boosting their accounts to skill levels they would not normally belong in with their own skill.” OK, Mum.
The developer ends by reiterating something that’s a feature of this update: Report, report, report. Blizzard says it’s more likely to take action against behaviour when it’s reported, and is working on making the UI for doing so easier, but report whatever you see. Just reading this made me feel a bit like a narc, even though I know we’re talking about douchebags, but it’s clear Blizzard wants players to approach this like most of the team compositions I end up on: No Mercy.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675436902_Overwatch-2-is-targeting-players-who-play-with-cheaters-even.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-03 14:41:192023-02-04 16:58:54Overwatch 2 is targeting players who play with cheaters even if they’re not cheating themselves
As I sent my eager soldiers into battle against our German adversaries in The Great War, Petroglyph’s World War I RTS, I was confident we were about to change the shape of the Western Front. Or at least the top part, around the border between France and Belgium. I didn’t know the exact troop composition of the force we were about to meet, but I knew we vastly outnumbered them. It turns out that all this meant was I had more soldiers to lose—all because I’d forgotten my bloody balloon.
I’d just finished The Great War’s extensive tutorial—which does a good job of untangling what is a rather complex blend of turn-based wargame and trench-filled RTS—and it made a big point of emphasising the importance of visibility. What is a concern in pretty much every RTS is even more of a priority here, thanks to the conflict’s penchant for artillery. You need to be able to see a great distance if you’re going to hammer the enemy until there’s nothing left but craters. And that’s where the balloons come in.
(Image credit: Frontier Foundry)
During the planning phase of the RTS battles, you lay down trenches, barbed wire and machine gun emplacements, building grim fortifications out of mud and twisted metal, but if you can’t see, they won’t save you. Bringing in some balloons, and then sending them up in the air, will open your eyes to the world around you, pushing back the fog so that you can see the enemy charging or find choice targets for an artillery bombardment.
These balloons unfortunately attract pests, with enemy planes and artillery attempting to take them out and blind you. You can lower the balloons to protect them, but that means temporarily reducing your vision dramatically. Not that I had to worry about any of this in that cold, snow-covered field, tragically devoid of balloons as I was.
Modern warfare
See, while the tutorial gives you a lot of toys to play with right away, the campaign begins with only the absolute basic techs. We’re just past the point where horses are no longer a feature on the battlefield, but to start filling the skies with balloons and planes some more work is required. As the campaign progresses, you’ll be fighting a war of technological advances, with both sides pushing through new ideas and inspiring the opposition to develop countermeasures, like new kinds of trenches, and then new kinds of tanks that are better suited to driving over those trenches. Eventually you’ll be using techniques like undermining, where your sappers will dig beneath the enemy and lay nasty, explosive traps for them.
(Image credit: Frontier Foundry)
I was so eager to rout the Germans, however, that I spent hardly any time exploring the research screen before rushing in, guns blazing. But when the fight started, my guns proved to be mostly useless.
Two points on opposite sides of the map were waiting to be captured, but I had absolutely no idea what would be waiting for my men. To make matters worse, the Germans did have a balloon, so they could see me coming straight away. Obviously I should have used my artillery to take it out, but no, instead I spent the next 10 minutes impotently throwing unit after unit at a wall of bullets.
It was a massacre. For a moment, you could hardly see the snow, with a rug of corpses covering everything—at least until the game did me a solid and made them dissolve into the terrain. I lost so many men that I quickly became numb, and dropped all pretence of using a strategy. There were no control groups, no flanking manoeuvres, just meat charging into the grinder. But then—progress! While the machine guns were cutting through my troops like they were made of one-ply tissue paper, all that time my artillery was bombarding the emplacements and the trenches they were protecting. My men were effectively being sacrificed just so I could get a glimpse of new targets for the big guns.
(Image credit: Frontier Foundry)
It was slow going, but it was working, and when that first line of defences fell, my men poured into the trenches and claimed them. I also remembered, finally, to take out the enemy balloon. With both of us blind, things were a bit more level, and since the second row of trenches wasn’t as well fortified, we were soon upon the point, ready to capture it.
Trench combat can be a bit tricky to read. Out in the open, you can see the impact of a hail of bullets pretty clearly, and understand why the fight is going one way or the other, but inside the trenches, amid the throng of dying men, you just have to rely on the unit health and morale bars, which don’t always feel like they’re telling you the whole story. Broadly, though, I’m quite keen on The Great War’s take on this era of warfare. Trenches are more than just places for soldiers to hide or fight over, and you can create whole networks of them, connected by communication trenches, allowing your men to scurry across the battlefield without having to show the enemy their ripe melons, much to the chagrin of snipers.
You can cram two units inside each trench section, placing one on the firing step and using the other as back-up. It’s the unit on the firing step who’ll be peppering charging foes with bullets, so you’ll want to make sure to figure out which of your two units is best suited to the role. But when that firing unit starts to take a beating, you swap it for the other one, extending the amount of time you can deal with enemy assaults.
(Image credit: Frontier Foundry)
With the point ours, I could reinforce from that position, so I brought in new troops to defend it just in case. Then I turned my attention to the second point. I already had a few units to the south, so I brought them up. Then I noticed all the lads I’d brought in to protect the other point either dying or legging it. I was foiled by low visibility yet again, not realising that just to the north was another machine gun emplacement. On the other side of the map, my troops had met the enemy and were desperately trying to make it to an empty trench where they could hunker down. A few more seconds and they would have made it. Thinking I should save at least some troops for the rest of the war, I finally offered a ceasefire.
Will they or won’t they?
There’s a lot of nuance to how The Great War handles victory and defeat, and it’s one of the things that makes WWI such an unusual proposition for an RTS. It’s not a simple binary where you either win or lose, and you have to change your expectations a lot. This was a war where a great victory could sometimes mean just pushing forward a few miles, or even just a few inches. There are different categories of victory and defeat, but battles can also end in stalemates, as this one did. I’d been unable to break the Germans’ hold over the area, despite all the bodies I threw into the mess. Successfully taking that one capture point, however, put me in a better position for the next attack, but the cost was huge, and reduced my National Will—meaning that the folks back home were hearing bad stuff about how things were going and losing their appetite for war.
National Will is one way you can win or lose the entire war, so it’s critically important, but Petroglyph hasn’t designed it to punish players. The penalties are mild enough so that you can still fight and maybe even turn things around even if your National Will is approaching zero. There’s always got to be this chance for a comeback, which couldn’t happen if your forces had been rendered completely ineffective.
(Image credit: Frontier Foundry)
My next scrap was a scripted historical battle where I was given control over the Central Powers, specifically the Germans. This fight, the infamous Battle of the Somme, couldn’t have been more different from the last, starting out as a predominantly defensive battle with Allied troops hurling themselves at my trenches. And I had much fancier toys to play with, including flamethrowers and artillery with a variety of firing modes, including the rolling barrage, where rows of explosions provide cover for advancing troops thanks to all the smoke. Above the battlefield, meanwhile, planes were dropping bombs or getting into dogfights. Nowhere was safe.
Historical battles have a variety of mission objectives and bonuses that give the conflicts some narrative flavour, along with a welcome, varied pace. There are some explicit choices that you can make during in-battle events that also allow you to take slightly different approaches, but which can also have knock-on effects that you might be less pleased with. So when I asked for some reinforcements that would have otherwise been sent to another battle, I soon learned that there was a cost. That other battle started going badly for the Central Powers, so the Allies didn’t need as many troops to take us on, and sent them over to the Somme instead.
These enemy reinforcements only proved to be a minor wrinkle, at least, and the Allies soon found themselves on the back foot. It was time for the Central Powers to go on the offensive. Under the cover of explosions and smoke my men charged out of their trenches and into No Man’s Land, while my pilots above chased down the enemy bombers trying to thwart our attack. I had the advantage now, but some bombs got through and many of my units took a beating in enemy trenches. It was still a costly attack, but one that put victory within reach.
(Image credit: Frontier Foundry)
Despite these bespoke battles boasting some additional complexity, I found the structure of the Somme slightly easier to manage as a first-time player. The objectives gave me a clearer idea of what I needed to do to win, and the moves I made across the battlefield were more effective as a result. And this time, thank God, I actually had some balloons.
The Great War: Western Front arrives on PC on March 30, but you’ll be able to experience a slice of the war early, during Steam Next Fest. You’ll be able to play through the tutorial (which I highly recommend, because there’s quite a lot to take in) and part of the campaign, as well as one historical battle: Battle of Passchendaele. The demo will be available from February 6.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675440642_I-lost-thousands-of-soldiers-in-The-Great-War-Western.jpg6611200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-03 14:05:442023-02-03 17:21:22I lost thousands of soldiers in The Great War: Western Front because I forgot my balloon
Hot on the heels of its Tomb Raider expansion, Powerwash Simulator (opens in new tab) is set to get Final Fantasy 7 DLC that will finally fulfil your aching, secret desire to scrub clean a Guard Scorpion at a million PSI. Announced by Square Enix on Twitter (opens in new tab), the DLC will see you take your power washing armoury over to Midgar to blast clean all sorts of familiar sights. It’s not much, but it’s honest work.
There’s no release date for this one yet—and Japan’s official Final Fantasy 7 Day (opens in new tab) is already behind us, so I guess it won’t be that—but we do know a few of the things we’ll be cleaning up. Brace yourself for the thrill of pressure-washing Cloud’s motorcycle, Tifa’s bar, and, yes, the aforementioned Guard Scorpion whenever the expansion finally lands. Much like the Tomb Raider pack, it’s set to be free, like access to one of the Wonders of the World.
That Tomb Raider add-on for Powerwash Simulator (opens in new tab) dropped on January 31 and was surprisingly robust, bolting on five Croft-themed maps and various knick-knacks to polish. It was a loving tribute to several decades of Tomb Raider history, even if it was covered in filth, and had plenty of little in-jokes and nostalgic nods for fans to smile wryly at. I suspect the FF7 DLC will be much the same. Honestly, if Powerwash Sim wants to become a kind of hose-down tribute to iconic gaming series of years past, I’m up for that.
There have been more than a few Powerwash-heads on staff here at PCG. Guides writer Sarah James made it her personal GOTY pick last year (opens in new tab), praising the stress-relieving qualities of annihilating dirt at high pressure, and Rachel Watts was waxing lyrical (opens in new tab) about the odd power fantasy that comes with an arsenal of pressure-washing gear all the way back in 2020. I guess cleanliness really is next to godliness.
Powerwash Simulator’s FF7 DLC will release… at some point in the future, and I have to imagine it’ll be sooner rather than later. In the meantime, you can amuse yourself with the free Tomb Raider expansion over on Steam (opens in new tab) and the Microsoft Store (opens in new tab).
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675433259_Hose-down-a-filthy-Final-Fantasy-7-boss-at-several.jpeg5631000Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-03 13:51:062023-02-03 17:20:54Hose down a filthy Final Fantasy 7 boss at several thousand PSI in Powerwash Sim’s upcoming DLC
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