Let’s be honest: 2023 wasn’t exactly the best year for stunning GPU releases. Not for cards that blew our collective minds or opened our collective wallets. However, that’s not to say we haven’t reviewed some great candidates for our graphics card of the year, and it’s quite telling that our picks here fit squarely into the mid-range to budget end of the market.
This is where the GPU battles were fought in 2023, as Nvidia and AMD squared off against each other to deliver gaming GPUs that focussed on bang for our collective bucks.
Given world events and a general squeeze on disposable income for many of us, it should come as no surprise that GPU manufacturers adjusted their sights and took a long hard look at the middle sector of the market. Prices on high-end cards remained high (and in the case of the RTX 4090, climbed towards the stratosphere), but it’s in the $600 or less category that we saw some of the biggest releases.
While Nvidia came out swinging in April with the RTX 4070, it took AMD until September to deliver its counter with the well-received Radeon RX 7800 XT, only for Nvidia to drop pricing of the RTX 4070 in response. Meanwhile at the lower end of the market, the RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti launched to somewhat mixed reviews, only to be met with resistance from the already-released RX 7600 and later the RX 7700 XT.
It seemed like every time Nvidia went left, AMD later went right, and overall 2023 has seen an entertaining display of one-upmanship and price adjustments from these two industry heavyweights.
Best graphics card 2023: the nominees
The winner of the Best Graphics Card 2023 PC Gamer Hardware Award will be announced on New Year’s Eve, so make sure you check back with us then to see which of these picks ends up taking the prize.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/1703683967_PC-Gamer-Hardware-Awards-The-best-graphics-card-of-2023.jpg6711200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-12-27 13:00:172023-12-27 13:00:17PC Gamer Hardware Awards: The best graphics card of 2023
I think you know what I’m talking about here: Far Cry 9 comes out on September 7, but if you shell out an extra $15 for the Premium Deluxe Plus Edition, you can get a five-day head start clearing the bases of whatever caricature of a 20th century revolutionary movement Ubisoft‘s cooked up this year.
And I don’t mean to dog on Ubisoft too hard here—it feels like every game is doing this. Starfield, Modern Warfare 3, Hogwarts Legacy, and Like a Dragon: Ishin are just a few games that pulled the deluxe “early access” move in 2023.
At the risk of getting into “Old Man Yells At Cloud” territory, this trend just makes me so tired. So many companies call this “early access,” but that’s already a thing! It means you release a bounded version of a game (like its first act only) before it’s finished to get revenue flowing and playtest among a wider audience—the rhetorical sleight of hand in conflating a pre-order bonus with this practice already makes it feel like we’re starting on the wrong foot.
I get it
No, I do, I get it. This is a marketing practice with a clear enticement for gamers and benefits for publishers. Let’s say it was a follow up to one of my favorite games. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is playable three days early if I spring for the “Scarlet Rot Edition” or whatever—you bet your ass I’d be forking over the extra tenner.
If you’re selling a game, the pre-launch play window is a clear thing to differentiate and possibly move higher paid tiers of your product. Instead of an ugly premium skin of the game’s starting pistol that’s blue or something, you lure suckers in with the much more tangible benefit of starting the party early.
What’s more, you do get a mini version of one of the benefits from an actual early access launch: a brief window of wider playtesting among an agreeable audience, one that’s willing to pay extra to get your game as soon as possible, and, at least in theory, might be more willing to overlook some pre-launch day foibles.
The “Old Man Yells At Cloud” part
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)
It just annoys the everloving hell out of me, the part of me that still has some dignity and hates getting nickel and dimed. Now, I sure picked the wrong hobby if I hate being nickel and dimed, but this particular practice is so odious to me.
The sterile marketing logic behind the practice feels anti-fun.
I hate the stratification of game pricing in general, seeing that unfurling scroll of Premium, Premium Plus, Premium Plus Plus Ultra Digital variants of games—it makes something that should be fun feel like picking out an insurance package. “Which fits my needs better, the $80 ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ bundle of Call of Duty 24: Black Ops 11: War On Terror, or the $90 ‘Mission Creep’ bundle?”
And at the end of the day, you’re effectively paying extra to not have the game’s day one patch—and there’s always a day one patch. This is such a small thing, just a couple days and a couple bucks of cash, but the sterile marketing logic behind the practice feels anti-fun.
Videogame launch dates already feel so amorphous in this era of actual early access, and you also have the baked-in assumption that so many AAA games will only be ready for prime time after six months of patches. Do we really need to be muddying the waters even further as a deliberate marketing tactic?
Blowback
(Image credit: EA)
I’m not talking about the excellent history podcast, I mean as in the consequences of your actions. While that audience of gamers willing to pay extra to get your game early might be among your most devoted, it can also prove vocal and mercurial.
My mind jumps to Battlefield 2042 and Mass Effect: Andromeda as easy examples. The former had a premium pre-launch play period tied to EA Play (formerly EA Access) and certain preorder packages, while the latter had a 10-hour “trial” available to EA Access (now EA Play!) subscribers ahead of launch.
These games were not exactly fated to have rosy receptions to begin with, but the story became the entire gaming world watching in fascination as the people who ostensibly loved these series the most howled about the bad times they were having and shared unflattering clips highlighting bugs or other issues.
And wouldn’t you be upset too, if you paid extra for one of these things only to find it’s a total dud? So let’s just leave the Bronze Supremo Warfighter Three-Day “Early Access” Edition behind in 2023. I know we won’t, but I just think it’d be nice if the industry would prioritize my feelings on this matter—I’m a good guy.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/1703647894_2023-was-the-year-I-got-fed-up-with-seeing.jpg6841150Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-12-26 19:45:092023-12-26 19:45:092023 was the year I got fed up with seeing those ‘early access’ deluxe editions where you pay more to play the game a few days early
Choosing a $2,000 gaming monitor as my pick for 2023 isn’t exactly democratic, even if the monstrous Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 G95NC is already $500 cheaper than when I reviewed it earlier this year. But it is one of those rare cases where a premium priced product gives you something genuinely special.
At 57 inches, the G95NC is a beast. And the problem with big monitors is typically fat pixels. That’s why 4K TVs don’t make great desktop monitors. Sure, you get a lot of sheer display panel for your money. But at ‘normal’ monitor viewing distances, the sub-100 DPI pixel density of a big 4K TV is awfully ugly.
Text looks blocky and blurry even on TVs with the correct subpixel structure. It’s even worse with OLED panels and their weird and wonderful RGB subpixel arrangements.
Moreover, you don’t get any additional desktop real estate to work with over a smaller 4K monitor. And generally the crispness, the sharpness, the image detail suffers.
Sure, it’s all dandy viewed from 10 feet away, which is what TVs are designed for. But up close as a monitor? Not so much. Which is where the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 G95NC slaps. It’s basically two 32-inch 4K monitors welded seamlessly together.
That means the pixel density is exactly the same as a 32-inch 4K monitor, which I happen to think is an excellent compromise between visual sharpness and frame rates. At least, I do on a 32-inch panel.
(Image credit: Future)
With this Samsung, it’s a bit more complicated. With the dual-4K resolution comes literally twice the GPU load of 4K. And, let’s be honest, plain old 4K is demanding enough for even the most powerful graphics cards. Dual-4K is a bit of a nightmare.
So, to be clear, for gaming purposes, you’re going to need at least an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT or Nvidia RTX 4080, and preferably an RTX 4090. But then if you can afford this monitor, you can probably afford one of those GPUs.
The slight catch is that even the fastest GPU out there—and thus the one you’d think would be the best fit for this Samsung—can’t actually hit its full 240Hz refresh. Nvidia has yet to support DisplayPort 2.0, so its GPUs are limited to 120Hz at dual-4K.
Honestly, that’s an academic shortcoming given that even with an RTX 4090 you’re not going to be hitting 200+ fps in Cyberpunk, or whatever, at dual-4K resolution.
Anyway, we’re slightly deviating from the point, which is how stunning this thing is. Once you’ve experienced high-DPI visuals on such a large scale, well, there’s kind of no going back. Everything else looks either miserably small or blurry and blocky.
It’s also a relief to find that Samsung has basically sorted all the issues that blighted its other high-end mini-LED monitors. Oh yeah, this isn’t an OLOED panel. It has VA LCD tech and fully array local dimming with 2,392 zones.
(Image credit: Samsung)
All the weird strobing, the backlight zones obviously popping on and off, all that nonsense has been solved for this display. So you get genuine HDR performance without all the clumsiness of previous Samsung mini-LED displays.
To be sure, in terms of lighting control a per-pixel OLED panel is still far superior. But show me an OLED gaming monitor with this pixel density at any size, let alone this scale. They don’t exist.
Admittedly, the first 32-inch 4K OLED gaming panels should be with us by mid 2024. And TCL has announced a full 8K panel that should be with us by the end of 2024 that will offer comparable pixel density. However, for all-round PC usage as opposed to pure gaming, OLED still has plenty of shortcomings, not least of which are burn-in and limited full-screen brightness.
Anyway, those monitors are all promises for tomorrow. The Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 G95NC is here today. And it’s totally awesome.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Samsungs-dual-4K-monster-is-way-too-big-too-expensive-and.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-12-26 17:00:392023-12-26 17:00:39Samsung’s dual-4K monster is way too big, too expensive, and still my favourite gaming monitor of 2023
Make today’s Wordle win a sure thing with our tips. On this page you’ll find general advice for the daily game as well as a helpful clue for the December 26 (920) puzzle. And, whether you need a last-row save or just want a quick victory, you’ll find today’s Wordle answer too.
“OK so that’s the last letter locked in straight away… and here comes the first, that’s unusually helpful… but what to put between them?” Somehow I was firing on all Wordle cylinders today, and easily spotted today’s answer amongst the unused letters. Hopefully today’s Wordle will cause you no more trouble than it did me, but don’t worry if it does—you’re in the right place.
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Tuesday, December 26
Landline, cell, and even rotary types of today’s answer can all be used to make calls, although the rectangular slabs of black glass that tend to run either iOS or Android do much more.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
There are no double letters in today’s Wordle.
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: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
Just in case you need it. The answer to the December 26 (920) Wordle is PHONE.
Previous Wordle 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:
December 25: EVOKE
December 24: GRACE
December 23: SLOPE
December 22: TOUCH
December 21: BUILT
December 20: SMALL
December 19: TABLE
December 18: FUNNY
December 17: BACON
December 16: GLOBE
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
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 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, 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, 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, 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. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/1703575746_Wordle-today-Hint-and-answer-920-for-Tuesday-December-26.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-12-26 03:57:442023-12-26 03:57:44Wordle today: Hint and answer #920 for Tuesday, December 26
I’ve been unhealthily obsessed with Razer Blade gaming laptops since it really nailed that matte black MacBook aesthetic over the last few years, and managed to jam high-end graphics silicon inside that sleek chassis and still make it fly. It’s unhealthy because the damned things are so frickin’ expensive, commanding a premium because there hasn’t really been another PC machine to come close.
Now, I don’t want to channel the Jeremy Clarkson/Top Gear ‘…until now’ thing too much, but Lenovo has almost come out of nowhere this year to hit the top of my most-wanted gaming laptop list. The latest Legion machines offer a level of style, performance, and build quality that belies their relative affordability.
Compared to equivalently specced Razer Blade or Asus ROG laptops your Lenovo Legion will deliver all the same gaming and creative performance but generally for a far lower cost. Indeed, our favourite gaming laptop, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i, has been on sale at B&H Photo for most of the year, making it all but impossible to recommend any other RTX 4080-toting notebook.
But when I say it’s ‘come out of nowhere,’ that’s doing a huge disservice to Lenovo. It’s paid its dues as one of the leading office laptop makers in the world, with its ThinkPad devices dominating tray tables in half the business class seats in the air right now. It’s only this year, however, that its Legion laptops have made a real splash in the gaming market.
It turns out I’m also weirdly a sucker for its smooth ceramic keycaps and the feel of the forged carbon lid.
It’s not only in its value proposition where the Legion machines have staked a claim for this nerd’s heart, either. I love a bit of smart-speccing and smarter pricing, for sure, but I do still have dreams, those money-no-object desires, too. That’s where the sleek black Blade machines have lived for so long, but I’ve been testing the Legion 9i recently and it’s glorious.
It’s the RTX 4090 version, and I still stand by my statement that only a fool would purchase a gaming laptop with that faux top-end Ada GPU inside it, because you can get an RTX 4080 version with all the same good stuff inside it. And it really is good stuff, even if the promise of integrated liquid cooling is a bit over-enthusiastic (c’mon, it’s an active vapour chamber, at best).
Mostly it’s because of that glorious 1,200cd/m2 mini-LED screen, the lovely keyboard, and the absolutely rock-solid, rigid, but still impressively slim, chassis. It turns out I’m also weirdly a sucker for its smooth ceramic keycaps and the feel of the forged carbon lid. It’s so damned tactile, even if it looks like some odd urban camo.
This year has been all about mobile gaming innovations for me—I’ve loved testing the Steam Deck OLED, have tweaked and toyed with a ton of other great handheld gaming PCs, and pulled apart my forgiving Framework 13 laptop to stick in many new, different mainboards and some with genuine gaming chops, too. But it’s my affection for the Legion laptops that has surprised me the most.
Lenovo may not have 2024 all its own way, though. Razer is sure to be updating its Blade range, and I’m excited to see a 13-inch Meteor Lake Stealth. But we also know that Asus is upping its game to try and be more like Razer, switching out the plastic Zephyrus chassis for an all-metal unibody design. That’s going to make the Asus Zephyrus G14 a real thing of beauty and I for one cannot wait to get my hands on that.
Though, if Lenovo releases a 14-inch Legion next year, that’s a good deal less than the ROG or Razer premium, it could still get my vote. And my heart. And my axe.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/1703539667_The-biggest-hardware-surprise-of-2023-for-me-was-how.jpg6711200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-12-25 17:00:462023-12-25 17:00:46The biggest hardware surprise of 2023 for me was how damned good Lenovo Legion laptops are now
Win Wordle your way every single day with our help. There’s a whole range of general tips and advice ready to go, as well as a handy clue for the December 25 (919) puzzle, and, as always, today’s Wordle answer in easily accessible form just in case you need it.
Wait, that letter goes where? Are you sure, Wordle? And today of all days, when I’ve got my own body weight in potatoes to peel before the sun rises and a forgotten present to wrap (Happy Christmas if you’re celebrating, by the way)? A messy win’s still a win though, isn’t it, even when I’m kicking myself for not seeing the pattern as soon as I should have done.
Wordle today: A hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Monday, December 25
The word you need to find today is one that can describe something that might bring up a particular thought or a specific response. The smell of a family member’s cooking might _____ a fond childhood memory, for example.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
Yes, a letter is used twice in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If you’ve decided to play Wordle but you’re not sure where to start, I’ll help set you on the path to your first winning streak. Make all your guesses count and become a Wordle winner with these quick tips:
A good opener has a mix of common vowels and consonants.
The answer could contain the same letter, repeated.
Avoid words that include letters you’ve already eliminated.
You’re not racing against the clock so there’s no reason to rush. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you’re coming up blank. Sometimes stepping away for a while means you can come back with a fresh perspective.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
Have fun if you’re celebrating today. The answer to the December 25 (919) Wordle is EVOKE.
Previous Wordle answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Previous Wordle solutions can help to eliminate guesses for today’s Wordle, as the answer isn’t likely to be repeated. They can also give you some solid ideas for starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle answers:
December 24: GRACE
December 23: SLOPE
December 22: TOUCH
December 21: BUILT
December 20: SMALL
December 19: TABLE
December 18: FUNNY
December 17: BACON
December 16: GLOBE
December 15: TOPIC
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
There are six rows of five boxes presented to you by Wordle each day, and you’ll need to work out which five-letter word is hiding among them to win the daily puzzle.
Start with a strong word like ALIVE—or any other word with a good mix of common consonants and multiple vowels. 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’ve typed your guess and 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 avoid 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, 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, 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, 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. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/1703503623_Wordle-today-Hint-and-answer-919-for-Monday-December-25.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-12-25 04:01:562023-12-25 04:01:56Wordle today: Hint and answer #919 for Monday, December 25
I’ve been playing and writing about videogames for an awfully long time now, and I’ve seen my share of controversies come and go. Hot Coffee, anyone? At some point long ago, I may have thought that such things would become increasingly rare as our medium matures.
But it seems that the opposite has happened. As gaming has become bigger and more influential, it’s intersected with a wider set of issues.
2023 was no exception, and so here we are to round up some of the biggest controversies of the year. There are so many, I’m morally required to split these into two articles to reduce the risk of scrolling-related injuries—we’ll have the second half posted in a couple days.
Dungeons and Dragons updates the Open Gaming License
(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)
Our eyebrows: 😳
What happened: For 20 years, Dungeons and Dragons’ Open Gaming License enabled companies to create tabletop RPGs based on D&D’s rules without having to pay royalties to Wizards of the Coast. That was all thrown into turmoil by a January leak of a planned updated of the OGL: WotC planned to assert stricter control over third-party products, and companies making more than $750,000 on OGL products would be required to start paying fees. The reaction to the planned changes was overwhelmingly negative, leading Wizards of the Coast to apologize and amend its plans, but many of the most contentious points in the updated OGL remained. It also pledged to release the core D&D ruleset under a Creative Commons license. But that wasn’t enough to satisfy the vast majority of the player base, who simply wanted the original OGL to remain in place.
The outcome: The D&D community got what it wanted: After a brief effort to ride out the storm, Wizards of the Coast threw in the towel and walked the whole idea back completely. Still, the damage was done, and numerous third-party publishers, presumably spooked by the whole affair, continued to push forward with efforts to distance themselves from WotC’s grasp.
Hogwarts Legacy grapples with JK Rowling’s legacy
(Image credit: Avalanche Software)
Our eyebrows: 😓
What happened: The trouble with Hogwarts Legacy wasn’t the game but the creator of the Harry Potter franchise, JK Rowling, who for some reason has spent her post-Potter years transforming herself from beloved children’s author to notorious transphobe. Avalanche Software and WB Games did their best to distance the game from Rowling: An FAQ on the Hogwarts Legacy website says the author “was not involved in the creation of the game,” and Avalanche reportedly pushed to have a “trans-inclusive” character creator in the game. Voice actor Sebastian Croft also voiced his support for trans people, tweeting, “I believe whole heartedly that trans women are women and trans men are men.”
Still, the bottom line was that Hogwarts Legacy is a Harry Potter property, and that means Rowling was going to make money from it. That left Harry Potter fans with a dilemma: Should they play the game they’ve been dreaming of, knowing that the author will benefit? Some people took a “forgive-but-not-forget” approach, but others drew a harder line in the sand: One person went so far as to create a website enabling people to see which of their Twitch followers had streamed the game, presumably so they could express their ire or perhaps unfollow altogether.
For die-hard Potter fans, the situation was made more difficult by the fact that Hogwarts Legacy turned out to be quite good.
The outcome: Despite the uproar, Hogwarts Legacy was a big hit, Warner made an actual billion bucks across 15M copies in five months, and we’ll no doubt be seeing sequels in the future. Rowling, for the record, remains an unrepentant transphobe.
Atomic Heart includes a racist cartoon
(Image credit: Mundfish)
Our eyebrows: 😒
What happened: Atomic Heart was already facing controversy over developer Mundfish’s Russian roots sparked by the invasion of Ukraine and concerns that the game might seek to glorify the Soviet Union and rehabilitate the KGB, its notorious intelligence agency. A different and more concrete issue came to light early in the year when players noticed the appearance of a racist caricature in a clip of Nu, Pogodi!, a beloved Tom and Jerry-style Soviet children’s cartoon that first aired in 1969: Segments of the show appear on television sets in the game’s safe rooms and they’re generally pretty innocuous, but one bit contained a dated (to put it politely) depiction of an African tribesman shooting a bow and arrow. As we noted at the time, it’s the sort of thing that would carry a content warning similar to what Disney has added to its classic films when they air on streaming services, but it appeared in Atomic Heart completely without context.
The outcome: A few days later, developer Mundfish apologized for the inclusion of the clip, and pledged to edit the relevant bits.
Six Days in Fallujah finally comes out
(Image credit: Victura)
Our eyebrows: 🤨
What happened: The military shooter Six Days in Fallujah sparked immediate outrage when it was announced in 2009. Developer Atomic Games promised it would be a sensitive and fair treatment of the infamous 2004 battle, with input from US Marines, Iraqi insurgents and civilians, historians, and senior US military commanders. But the use of a contemporary, then-ongoing US war as a setting for a videogame did not fly: Six Days was quickly dropped by publisher Konami, and the whole thing fell off the map and was forgotten until a surprise return in 2021. That triggered a a second backlash over fears that it would glorify or distort the events of the war, but the pushback wasn’t as furious: The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Valve, Microsoft, and Sony to refuse to distribute the game, but more generally there seemed to be a resigned acceptance that Six Days was going to happen, wrapped in a hope that it wouldn’t be as bad as some feared.
The outcome: When it finally arrived in June it was thoroughly unremarkable, in large part because it was an early access release and thus missing most of the promised content. But what we saw didn’t give us much hope that the game would achieve its lofty goals. It was “just a barebones milsim,” we said at the time, lacking any of the context that was promised: “What I’m seeing is a game that’s more interested in depicting American valor than the actual losers of the story it’s telling: Fallujah,” staff writer Morgan Park declared.
Reddit goes dark
(Image credit: Reddit)
Our eyebrows: 😒
What happened: Reddit announced planned changes to its developer terms in April that would, among other things, enforce a rate limit on access to its free API and introduce a new “premium” option for developers who want more. And it was really premium: The creator of the Apollo Reddit client for iOS estimated it would cost him $20 million per year to keep his client operating at the new rate. It was an extremely unpopular move, and in response thousands of subreddits took part in what became known as Reddark: A 48-hour shutdown in protest of the planned changes. That’s just a tiny slice of the total number of the estimated 2.8 million or so subreddits floating around out there, but it included some of the biggest and totalled a combined subscriber count of more than 2.5 billion.
The outcome: Some subreddits stayed dark beyond the planned 48 hour window, prompting Reddit to pressure moderators to reopen, and threatening to remove those who did not. Protests continued in different forms—users on the Steam subreddit, for instance, began posting messages about literal steam—but in the end it was pretty much a return to business as usual: Most subreddits reopened, and the API changes rolled out as planned. The Apollo client, sadly, is no more.
Linus Tech Tips gets sloppy
(Image credit: Linus Tech Tips)
Our eyebrows: 😑
What happened: The popular YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips came under fire in August after a botched installation of Billet Labs’ Monoblock cooling system led to a strong recommendation against it: “The experience of building with it is a nightmare,” channel founder Linus Sebastian declared, “and the advantages over literally any other solution are negligible.”
That led to a callout from competing channel Gamers Nexus, which accused it of “rushing content out the door” in order to achieve “quantity over quality.” Gamers Nexus also accused LTT of selling the one-of-a-kind Monoblock prototype, rather than returning it to the manufacturer as promised. After initially defending the work, LTT posted an apology video that concluded with Sebastian admitting that he’d taken the complaints personally and overreacted to them, although he continued to defend the channel’s behind-the-scenes dealing with Billet Labs. The channel also suspended production for a week in order to work on improving its content.
But that apology was something of a flop among followers, who felt it was too jokey and focused more on promoting items in the LTT store than on actually addressing complaints. Allegations shared by former LTT social media manager Madison Reeve, who said on Twitter that she was forced to leave the company because the toxic work environment and pressure to produce content was “ruining [her] mental health,” eventually prompted a more serious response from LTT CEO Terren Tong, who told PC Gamer that the company would conduct a “thorough assessment of the allegations,” including hiring an outside investigator, “and will commit to publishing the findings and implementing any corrective actions that may arise because of this.”
The outcome: There’s been no word on the results of those investigations at this point, and while analytics sites like Social Blade and VidIQ indicate that the channel’s viewership took a hit as a result of the controversy, it appears to have bounced back to relatively normal levels since.
Lies of P won’t say ACAB
(Image credit: Neowiz)
Our eyebrows: 😐
What happened: An early Lies of P gameplay trailer featured a brief appearance of a decapitated figure strung up in the arches of a bridge, with a crudely painted sign bearing the message APAB hanging from its neck. The message was obviously a play on ACAB, an acronym meaning All Cops Are Bastards that’s taken on a charged political connotation in recent years due to its adoption by people opposed to police violence. But sharp-eyed fans noticed that the message was gone in later videos—in its place was a different sign saying “Purge Puppets.”
Lies of P director Ji-Won Choi later confirmed that the message did in fact stand for All Puppets Are Bastards, and said that it was removed in order to avoid controversy. “We took it out eventually because we wanted everyone to enjoy the game exactly how we intended it to be enjoyed, and not judged based on any trends,” Choi said. “We really wanted the world that we designed to be interpreted by the players exactly how we aimed it to be, so we took out factors that could be a little risky.”
The outcome: Proactive self-censorship is rarely a good idea, but neither is co-opting real-world social struggles for a videogame backdrop. And unlike Deus Ex: Mankind Divided’s use of “Mechanical Apartheid” and “Augs Lives Matter” in marketing materials, in this case it was a single sign, not intrinsically tied to the game’s narrative, and the whole thing blew over pretty quickly. And Lies of P turned out to be pretty good.
We’ve already reported on Qualcomm’s new 12-core Arm uberchip, the Snapdragon X Elite, and its claims of x86-beating performance and efficiency. But it takes two to tango when it comes a major transition like moving from x86 CPUs to Arm chips. You don’t just need hardware, you need software, too.
And that, dear PC fans, is where Windows 12 supposedly comes in. Reports indicate that Microsoft is planning to add specific support for Snapdragon X Elite in future builds of Windows.
Specifically, Microsoft is said to be working on a new build of Windows, codenamed Germanium, that supports Snapdragon X Elite (via Windows Central). It’s said that the current Windows-for_arm builds of Microsoft’s operating system aren’t ready for Snapdragon X Elite. So the chip will have to wait for Germanium.
Now, Germanium is slated for release in April. And laptops with that critical Germanium-Snapdragon X Elite combo will allegedly appear in June. So, by half way through 2024, we should have a feel for whether 2024 is going to be the Arm-powered step-change for the PC.
For background, it’s worth remembering why the PC has yet to make a really substantial transition to Arm CPU architectures, despite that being predicted for years and Apple having shifted to Arm throughout its product stack.
Should Intel fear Qualcomm’s new 12-core beast? (Image credit: Qualcomm)
A decade or so ago, the assumption was that Arm was really only suitable for low power applications. You needed x86 for high performance. But Apple’s ‘A’ and ‘M’ chips have proved that wrong. Apple’s Arm cores now have significantly higher performance per clock cycle than any traditional x86 PC processor.
For sure, the top x86 chips still give more outright CPU performance thanks to higher clocks and core counter. But Apple has proven that Arm can compete and then some for fundamental number crunching grunt.
More recently, the PC’s transition to Arm has be held back by Qualcomm’s exclusive licensing deal for providing Arm hardware for compatible Windows builds. That arrangement expires next year, opening up the market to anyone to have a crack.
Of course, it’s somewhat ironic that it is indeed Qualcomm that seems to be first out of the gate with what looks like a chip that could do for the PC what Apple silicon did for Macs.
But it’s expected that Qualcomm will have some pretty serious competition on its hands fairly soon. Nvidia is said to be prepping its own Arm chip for 2025. AMD is likewise rumoured to be working on an Arm CPU, though a release date hasn’t been mooted.
Qualcomm’s claims for the Snapdragon X Elite’s GPU are just as eye popping. (Image credit: Qualcomm)
And lest you have forgotten, that huge dump of leaked data from Microsoft revealed that it is considering using Arm CPU cores for its next Xbox games console. Factor that all together, and it certainly looks like Arm hardware on the PC will hit critical mass in the next few years.
But what about the software side of the equation. Microsoft obviously already does Arm-compatible builds of Windows. But one critical area where Arm versions of Windows have arguably failed to deliver is support for legacy x86 code. Eventually, you might expect all major software to be ported to Arm. But during any transition phase, support for old x86 software will surely be critical.
Windows 10 for Arm, of course, included emulation technology that enabled existing unmodified 32-bit x86 apps to run on Arm devices. Windows 11 upped the ante to add support for 64-bit legacy software and apps.
But thus far performance and stability has been patchy. Simple apps usually work, which can include some older games, but performance and stability on more demanding software is much more hit and miss. And then there’s the pesky issue of driver support. A lot of hardware that requires bespoke drivers just doesn’t work.
This is exactly where Apple has done a really good job. It’s easier for Apple, of course, because it controls the entire hardware and software stack. It’s enabled Apple to put features into its Arm-powered A and M series chips that are specifically designed to accelerate x86 emulation, smoothing out its transition away from x86 Intel chips and onto its own Arm designs.
Could the likes of Nvidia’s mighty RTX 4090 one day be found running on an Arm platform…? (Image credit: Future)
Old x86 Apple software really does run remarkably well Apple silicon, and that even includes some games. It’s a handy demonstration of both what can be done and what needs to be done if Arm is going to be truly viable on the PC.
Of course, it is indeed games that are perhaps that hardest challenge for any emulation effort. And so it’s gaming PCs that will likely be the last bastion of x86 PC hardware.
But Apple has proven how well emulation can be done and both Qualcomm and Nvidia have every reason to put major effort into making chips that emulate x86 software as well as possible. Neither has a licence to make x86 CPUs. So, if they want to get traction in the PC processor market, Arm chips that emulate x86 CPU cores well are a must.
Put it this way, you just know Nvidia would love to be able to build you an entire PC, controlling both the CPU and the GPU and cutting both AMD and Intel entirely out. That would put it on a even footing with its main competition on the PC. Thanks to Intel’s push into graphics, both it and AMD can do both of the major components, leaving Nvidia swinging in the wind and dependent on platform support from either Intel or AMD. It can’t possibly be happy with that situation.
However, what neither Nvidia nor Qualcomm can do, nor AMD for that matter should it too get in on the Arm action, is ensure Microsoft delivers on its half of the equation. Thus far, there’s little doubt that Microsoft’s efforts with Windows on Arm have been half hearted. But if Microsoft is indeed making a specific build of Windows for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite, that implies Microsoft, too, is getting its act together.
And, of course, if the next Xbox console really does go with Arm cores instead of x86 cores, that will automatically mean that most major games have an Arm codepath from the get go.
So, yeah, we have heard it all before. Industry analysts have been predicting that Arm will assimilate the PC for decades. But it could actually be happening this time, it really could.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/1703431499_2024-could-be-the-year-the-PC-finally-dumps-x86.jpeg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-12-24 15:00:062023-12-24 15:00:062024 could be the year the PC finally dumps x86 for Arm, all thanks to Windows 12 and Qualcomm’s new chip
Want to give your daily Wordle a boost with our tips and tricks? Or maybe you’d really like someone to tell you exactly what the answer to the December 24 (918) game is without making you work for it. Whichever way you want to play, you’ll find all you need and more (even a clue written especially for today’s puzzle) right here.
I had a bit of a stumble today, right before the answer popped into my head. It was my own fault, really. I was so sure it was going to be that, that when it wasn’t (not quite, anyway) I sat staring at my screen in an irritated sort of shock, as if Wordle had got it wrong and not me. Still, a win’s a win.
Wordle today: A hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Sunday, December 24
Elegance, kindness, and a refined, dignified, manner (especially in the face of adversity), could all be described using the answer to today’s Wordle. You’ll have to find three different consonants to find today’s answer.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
No, there is no double letter in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
Anyone can pick up and play Wordle, but if you want to do it well and make all of your guesses count, these quick tips will help get you started on your Wordle winning streak:
Choose an opener with a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
The answer may contain the same letter, multiple times.
Try not to use guesses that contain letters you’ve already eliminated.
Thankfully, there’s no time limit beyond ensuring it’s done by midnight. So there’s no reason not to treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you’re coming up blank. Sometimes stepping away for a while means you can come back with a fresh perspective.
Wordle today: The answer
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
Need a win? Here’s your win. The answer to the December 24 (918) Wordle is GRACE.
Previous Wordle answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Past Wordle answers can give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh. They are also a good way to eliminate guesses for today’s Wordle, as the answer is unlikely to be repeated.
Here are some recent Wordle solutions:
December 23: SLOPE
December 22: TOUCH
December 21: BUILT
December 20: SMALL
December 19: TABLE
December 18: FUNNY
December 17: BACON
December 16: GLOBE
December 15: TOPIC
December 14: WOULD
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and you’ll need to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them to keep up your winning streak.
You should start with a strong word like ARISE, or any other word that contains a good mix of common consonants and multiple vowels. You’ll also want to avoid starting words with repeating letters, as you’re wasting the chance to potentially eliminate or confirm an extra letter. Once you hit Enter, you’ll see which ones 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.
You’ll want your next guess to compliment the first, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you might have missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. After that, it’s simply 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, 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, 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, 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. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/1703395448_Wordle-today-Hint-and-answer-918-for-Sunday-December-24.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-12-24 04:10:262023-12-24 04:10:26Wordle today: Hint and answer #918 for Sunday, December 24
Oh my god, I am so freaking tired of live service games. I know, I know, they’re a necessary evil. It’s 2023, baby, videogames ain’t what they used to be. They cost way more to make and developers have to continue toiling away on patches and expansions post-release. Money has to be made and, for the most part, one-and-done sales just ain’t cutting it anymore.
The natural development of the industry’s need for a constant revenue stream is, regrettably, the live service game. Ever-present, ever-evolving experiences that eat away at all my time and occasionally my money. Dailies, weeklies, monthlies, battle passes (a thing I already have thoughts on), limited-time cash shop items, loot boxes. I could go on.
Updates often fly in at such an alarming rate it’s nigh impossible to keep up with everything I enjoy unless I somehow manage to turn games into a job even more than I’ve already done. Overwatch 2, Fortnite, Apex Legends, Diablo 4, and Honkai: Star Rail are just some of the ones I dabbled in this year and inevitably fell off because the commitment was simply too much. It’s like several tiny toddlers yanking on my arms, demanding my attention. It’s a constant battle to get me to continue playing, but what I really want right now is a break from it all.
Live service games prey on one of my biggest weaknesses: my intense FOMO. Missing out on bonuses, seasonal events or chipping away at some lengthy progression drives me to keep playing, even when it’s 2am and I’m desperately trying to finish my dailies so I can go to bed. Who knows when that sick crossover event is going to come back? Will it ever come back? Welp, better make sure I’m playing every day just in case it never sees the light of day again. I am the sucker who falls for it every time, despite my attempts to get away.
The problem in trying to take a break from something like live service games is that they are literally everywhere. The industry seems to have hit a peak saturation point with them over the last couple of years, leading to me being crushed under a metric ton of time-consuming doodads. Almost every multiplayer game I play is vying for my attention long beyond when it reasonably deserves it. I can’t just play a game, enjoy it for what it is and pop it back on my virtual shelf to return to in five years when I get a nostalgia hit. After all, will it even still be there for me to enjoy?
Dead or alive
Because unfortunately, it’s not just me who suffers at the hands of live service shenanigans. Developers have seen their projects killed in a matter of months when player count and profit misses the mark. As Morgan Park wrote earlier this year, live service keeps killing off modestly successful multiplayer games. Super cool ideas are getting wrapped up in all the nonsense that comes with games as a service, meaning they never get their full opportunity to shine.
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)
Just this year we’ve seen the death of real neat games like Knockout City and Rumbleverse, the latter of which barely made it to the six month mark before biting the dust. It was even up for two DICE awards right before its closure. Babylon’s Fall was closed down less than a year after releasing, and despite Spellbreak’s attempts to innovate on the battle royale formula, it too shut its doors.
Hell, Creative Assembly’s Hyenas wasn’t even given a chance to make it out of the gate. Despite beta tests, the game was scrapped right at the finish line. Quantum League, Paladins, Gundam Warfare, Super People 2. All games that were shuttered this year alone. Clever, creative or risky ideas are being thrown to the dogs, doomed before they even get a chance to fight back. As much as I complain about all of the time I dedicate to grinding in a live service game, none of that compares to the hours developers spend intensively toiling away for a product that sometimes doesn’t even get to release.
Clever, creative or risky ideas are being thrown to the dogs, doomed before they even get a chance to fight back.
The unfortunate reality is that smaller, curated experiences just don’t pay the bills like they used to. But increasingly, it seems like neither does throwing a live service game at the wall and hoping it sticks. In a year that’s been plagued by server shutdowns and developer layoffs, it doesn’t seem like there’s a foolproof formula to fall back on anymore.
Something we have seen in 2023, though, is that there’s still a thirst for these contained experiences. Dave the Diver was a total sleeper hit, nabbing a 91% in our review and easily being one of the team’s favourite games this year. Dredge was a personal favourite of mine, earning an 89% in my review. Baldur’s Gate 3 in all its battle pass-less, microtransaction-less glory has been the hottest game of the entire year, securing our highest review score in almost two decades and sweeping numerous award shows.
I would love to see 2024 being the year of fewer live service games. More cool ideas wrapped up in 12-to-15 hour chunks, more sprawling RPGs that keep me busy for weeks or months on my own time, not a publisher’s. Games are supposed to be for fun, for relaxation, a way to escape the monotony and drudgery of everything else we have to do as adults. Live service games feel exhausting, like the antithesis of everything the hobby is supposed to be, and I certainly won’t be sad to see them trend downwards over the next 12 months.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/1703359404_Im-officially-exhausted-by-all-the-live-service-games-and.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-12-23 16:00:042023-12-23 16:00:04I’m officially exhausted by all the live service games and I want to see way less next year
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