All the tools you need to win your first Wordle of the weekend are right here. Take a glance at our tips if you’re after a little general help, read the November 23 (1253) clue if you need something more direct, or go feast your eyes on today’s answer if you’d just like to make sure you find five green letters before you hit the bottom row.
It took a few rows to get into a word-finding rhythm today. I had a few bits and pieces, but no real strong direction to go in until about the midway point. From there it all changed, a great group of greens guiding me to glory (I’m allowed a little alliteration, as a treat).
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Saturday, November 23
In the UK this is a sweet dessert, one with a distinctive wobble to its consistency. In the US this word means something a little different—a fruity substance often added to sandwiches.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
Yes, there is a double letter in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
A good starting word can be the difference between victory and defeat with the daily puzzle, but once you’ve got the basics, it’s much easier to nail down those Wordle wins. And as there’s nothing quite like a small victory to set you up for the rest of the day, here are a few tips to help set you on the right path:
A good opening guess should contain a mix of unique consonants and vowels.
Narrow down the pool of letters quickly with a tactical second guess.
Watch out for letters appearing more than once in the answer.
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?
Looking for a weekend win? The answer to the November 23 (1253) Wordle is JELLY.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
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 answers:
November 22: PEARL
November 21: SPINE
November 20: NICHE
November 19: GOING
November 18: FRAIL
November 17: TALLY
November 16: VISOR
November 15: TACKY
November 14: UVULA
November 13: PRIMP
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.
Your second guess should compliment the starting word, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. With a bit of luck, you should have some coloured squares to work with and set you on the right path.
After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: 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.
Frogs aren’t the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Diablo 4, but that might change with its upcoming season of witchcraft where you can summon a whole army of them. They’re quite messy, smacking enemies with their poison tongues and then exploding into a green mist. Skeletons could never, which is why I suspect everyone, including necromancer players, will be clamoring to become the ultimate frogmancer.
Blizzard spent a small portion of its recent stream going over the new seasonal witchcraft powers coming with season 7 in January. The exploding frogs are one of several spells you can find and upgrade throughout the season, much like season 2’s vampiric powers. A shambling new enemy type, called the Headrotten, have invaded Diablo 4’s open world and slaying them helps fill out your spellbook.
The existing Grim Favors system, which sends you out into the world to complete short objectives for a cache of loot, will be the focus of the season. Various regions will be taken over by Headrotten for you to hunt down and earn a new currency to spend at an expanded settlement at the base of the Tree of Whispers—something players have wanted for a while now. Blizzard says season 7 is a big experiment for what the Grim Favors could look like in the future.
There are of course more spells than just the exploding frogs, including:
An eldritch orb that circles you and sets enemies on fire
Spirits that dart around and protect you from taking damage
A magical cyclone that sucks up monsters dealing heavy damage
A cauldron of fiery bats that stun enemies
Skip to 54:04 to see the frogs.
A bigger list is available in the blog post. Every spell gains a bonus effect at its maximum level, and they’re designed to offer a broad benefit that everyone can utilize, like a flat damage increase or extra movement speed. Blizzard plans on going into more detail closer to the launch of the season, but the way you manage your powers looks like an iteration of the UI that was introduced with season 3’s robot spider companion. Spells have tags just like skills and have a bunch of synergies for combining different types.
Several of these new powers will be in the upcoming public test realm version of the season, which will run from December 3 to 10 on Battle.net. As usual, there are also tons of balance changes, including much-needed nerfs to spiritborn, new build-defining unique items, and a long-requested system for quick-swapping your gear and build in towns called The Armory.
Diablo 4’s next season—which doesn’t have an official name yet—will begin on January 21.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1732322994_Exploding-frogs-are-coming-to-Diablo-4-in-its-upcoming.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-11-23 00:10:162024-11-23 00:10:16Exploding frogs are coming to Diablo 4 in its upcoming witchcraft season where you can summon an army of these poisonous little guys
The top end of Battlemage, Intel’s next major GPU, is rumoured to finally launch next month and could be bringing RTX 4070 Super levels of gaming. Alongside this, we should see a cheaper GPU intended to directly compete with the RTX 4060 Ti.
Intel has been in a bit of a weird spot for some time. Its 13th and 14th gen chips suffered from severe stability issues and even its latest CPUs, the Ultra 5 245K and Ultra 9 285K, are a bit of a letdown in the gaming department. With its upcoming mid-range discrete GPU, codenamed Battlemage, it has a chance to claw back a little of its credibility and the latest rumours suggest it might just do that.
As reported by tech YouTuber RedGamingTech, Intel is currently prepping two. The first, named “G21”, is said to be housed in a graphics card that will be roughly equivalent to an RTX 4060 Ti, with 12 GB of VRAM and coming in with a power draw of something like 130+ W. The second, more powerful slice of Battlemage silicon is currently called G31 and is claimed to be ‘on par’ with an RTX 4070 Super when slotted into a board with 16 GB of VRAM and 225+ W of power at its disposal.
Earlier this year, it was reported that, while Intel had worked on a GPU much more powerful than these behind the scenes, it had decided to commit its resources to the mid-range market as that’s where the money is for most gamers.
Coming in at RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4070 Super levels, just before Nvidia is due to announce the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 line, is an interesting choice from Intel, and signposts its desire to compete with its mid-range cards.
To do so, it needs to beat out Nvidia’s cards in price or offer better performance in some way. I have just recently upgraded to an RTX 4070 Super myself and it’s an excellent bit of tech at its MSRP of $599. If Intel can undercut that significantly then it’s got a chance, but whether it can afford to in these troubled times is going to be another thing entirely.
Previous Intel Arc cards have often been held back by high power draw, an expensive price, and software issues. But that software has improved over the last few years so there’s hope that Intel can pull it out of the bag. We’ve tested Battlemage in its Lunar Lake iGPU form, and it’s a far more consistent performer than any of the Alchemist GPUs we’ve tested previously. So, it should be a smoother ride for anyone picking up a discrete Intel graphics card of the next generation.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Just last month, hardware leaker Golden Pig shared that the card would be launching in December, though there is some ambiguity there as the translation from Chinese to English could have lost some sarcasm in their original post to social media site Weibo. However, that same release window is reiterated in the RedGamingTech video above, further pointing to a launch potentially in only a few weeks time.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1732286934_New-Intel-next-gen-GPU-Battlemage-rumour-pegs-it-as-an.jpg6761200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-11-22 14:36:182024-11-22 14:36:18New Intel next-gen GPU Battlemage rumour pegs it as an RTX 4070 Super competitor with 16 GB VRAM and launching next month
Now you’re here, you’re very close to a hint for today’s Wordle. It’ll help no matter where you are in today’s game. If you’re looking at a fresh board it’ll give those crucial opening attempts some guidance, and if you’re a little too close to the bottom it’ll help make sense of the letter you’ve found along the way. Or you could click through to the November 22 (1252) answer if you like. We won’t tell.
Surely, surely, a seasoned Wordle-r staring at four green letters on their second row would instantly leap upon the answer. Surely. I blame, uh, the weather. Yes, let’s go with that. Or my cat. Or… the date. I’m glad I got there in the end, but I’m annoyed with myself for missing the most obvious missing letter for so long.
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Friday, November 22
Today’s answer refers to a decorative gem produced by certain mollusks should a grain of sand work its way inside their shells.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
No, there is not a double letter in today’s Wordle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
A good starting word can be the difference between victory and defeat with the daily puzzle, but once you’ve got the basics, it’s much easier to nail down those Wordle wins. And as there’s nothing quite like a small victory to set you up for the rest of the day, here are a few tips to help set you on the right path:
A good opening guess should contain a mix of unique consonants and vowels.
Narrow down the pool of letters quickly with a tactical second guess.
Watch out for letters appearing more than once in the answer.
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?
Here’s your winning word. The answer to the November 22 (1252) Wordle is PEARL.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
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 answers:
November 21: SPINE
November 20: NICHE
November 19: GOING
November 18: FRAIL
November 17: TALLY
November 16: VISOR
November 15: TACKY
November 14: UVULA
November 13: PRIMP
November 12: FLOWN
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.
Your second guess should compliment the starting word, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. With a bit of luck, you should have some coloured squares to work with and set you on the right path.
After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: 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.
This week’s big release is GSC Gameworld’s Stalker 2, the long-awaited sequel that PCG’s Joshua Wolens found “is still Stalker, down to its bones” (for good and bad, mostly the former). Good Old Games has taken the opportunity to announce that it is adding two of the classic Stalker games (confusingly, Stalker 2 is the fourth game in the series) to its new Preservation Program—Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, and Stalker: Call of Pripyat.
The announcement comes alongside a hefty 75% discount on both titles, and GOG’s Preservation Program represents the platform’s commitment to maintain the games’ compatibility with current and future PCs. GOG tends to apply a light touch, the idea being preservation after all, though it does sometimes apply custom improvements and quality-of-life tweaks. The two Stalker games join a list of over 100 titles in the program, including the likes of Alpha Protocol and the first three Resident Evil games.
Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl is the first game in the series, released in 2007, and established the unmistakably desolate vibe that has made the games so beloved. A lonely, brutal, resource-starved and often terrifying journey through the zone, where fellow Stalkers are as indifferent to you as you are to them, it is a PC gaming milestone (and has an incredibly rich selection of mods to sift through).
The second game in the series, Stalker: Clear Sky, is the one that misses out here: A prequel turned around in double-quick time that re-used much of Stalker’s foundations, it’s unclear why Clear Sky isn’t included in the announcement. It is however available dirt cheap on GOG anyway, so it’s not like it’s disappeared.
Stalker: Call of Pripyat landed in 2009 in Ukraine and 2010 elsewhere (yes, GSC developed three Stalker games in three years) and was the semi-sequel to Shadow of Chernobyl. For my money this is as good as the first game in the series, though bear in mind that what I value in these games is creeping around, being freaked out, and occasionally twanging a guitar to reassure myself.
Shadow of Chernobyl is available for $5, reduced from $20, while Shadow of Pripyat is a few pennies more. If your wallet won’t quite stretch to the full-fat shiny sequel and you’re waiting for a discount, then crank up one of these with the help of one of the many excellent community mod guides, and discover why the Zone keeps pulling old fools like me back in search of its secrets.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1732214806_GOG-adds-two-of-the-original-Stalker-games-to-its.png6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-11-21 18:39:142024-11-21 18:39:14GOG adds two of the original Stalker games to its preservation program, with huge discounts to boot
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/ASSASSINS-CREED-VALHALLA-109-ALFRED-DONT-RUN.jpg7201280DecayeD20https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngDecayeD202024-11-21 15:01:112024-11-21 15:01:11ASSASSIN’S CREED VALHALLA #109 | ALFRED DON’T RUN
If Thursday’s Wordle is putting up a fight, our hint for today’s game might be just the thing you need to get it tamed. Need something more to the point? Congrats, you’ve got it. The answer to the November 21 (1251) Wordle is waiting below.
Wow, OK, I guess that’s today’s Wordle over then? My second row revealed four green letters so quickly and easily I didn’t even have the time to be shocked, and with those on the board the only thing left to do was win. I guess I’ll try to enjoy my win and use the free time I’ve now got to look forward to tomorrow’s game.
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Thursday, November 21
On a book, this usually has the title and the author’s name on it. Elsewhere, this might be a column of vertebrae.
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
If you’re new to the daily Wordle puzzle or you just want a refresher after taking a break, I’ll share some quick tips to help you win. There’s nothing quite like a small victory to set you up for the rest of the day.
A mix of unique consonants and vowels makes for a solid opening word.
A tactical second guess should let you narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
There may be a repeat letter in the answer.
You’re not up against a timer, so you’ve got all the time in the world—well, until midnight—to find the winning word. If you’re stuck, there’s no shame in coming back to the puzzle later in the day and finishing it up when you’ve cleared your head.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
Need a little help? The answer to the November 21 (1251) Wordle is SPINE.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Previous Wordle answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Keeping track of the last handful of Wordle answers can help to eliminate current possibilities. It’s also handy for inspiring opening words or subsequent guesses if you’re short on ideas for the day.
Here are the last 10 Wordle answers:
November 20: NICHE
November 19: GOING
November 18: FRAIL
November 17: TALLY
November 16: VISOR
November 15: TACKY
November 14: UVULA
November 13: PRIMP
November 12: FLOWN
November 11: STOIC
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes every day and the aim is to figure out the correct five-letter word by entering guesses and eliminating or confirming individual letters.
Getting off to a good start with a strong word like ARISE—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters—is a good tactic. Once you hit Enter, the boxes will show you 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 starting word, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. With a bit of luck, you should have some coloured squares to work with and set you on the right path.
After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: 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.
As part of the ongoing overhaul of Star Wars Outlaws that Ubisoft hopes will turn it into the must-play Star Wars game it should’ve been right from the start, new creative director Drew Rechner has announced that “forced stealth” is being removed from the game almost entirely.
The extent to which Star Wars Outlaws is a stealth game came as something of a surprise, given how much the pre-release promo materials (and Star Wars itself) focused on the joys of blasting stuff. But in an update posted today, Rechner acknowledged that some people just don’t dig it, and that missions requiring players to avoid detection “could feel frustrating or unfair.” Those feelings were exacerbated by the game’s sometimes “unpredictable and inconsistent” stealth mechanics.
And so, it’s out: Stealth requirements are being removed from “almost all” quest objectives. Sneaking around will remain an option, and the best way to approach some missions, but the change means that if you’re caught, you’ll be able to start shooting instead of being reset to the previous checkpoint.
Rechner said the change is “our first step in expanding player choice,” a point he touched on when he was announced as the new creative director of Star Wars Outlaws earlier in November.
“We know many of you enjoy the stealth approach, so it was important to us to preserve that playstyle while also giving you the freedom to decide how to tackle each mission,” he wrote. “Ultimately, you’ll have the choice to sneak, go in combat-first, or—my personal favorite—sneak until you’re caught and then blast your way out.”
Combat will also be enabled in “syndicate districts,” which players previously had to sneak into if they weren’t on good terms with the syndicate in question: Now, they’ll be able to enter these areas peacefully if they’ve built up a good rep, sneak in as they could previously, or just hammer through.
Personally, I like stealth in videogames: If I have the option to sneak through quietly and drop no bodies as I go, that’s the path I’m going to take. Any beefy clown can hose down a room with a portable autocannon, after all, but getting through with nothing but a pistol, a silencer, and some cool sunglasses takes a professional. But good detection systems are an essential part of that, and mandatory stealth bits in games that really don’t have it nailed down are indeed incredibly frustrating.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Star Wars Outlaws’ stealth changes will be rolled out as part of the big title update 1.4.0, which will also see significant rework to the game’s combat and controls. It’s scheduled to go live on November 21, which is also when Star Wars Outlaws comes to Steam.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1732142592_Star-Wars-Outlaws-is-dropping-forced-stealth-so-instead-of.png6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-11-20 22:29:592024-11-20 22:29:59Star Wars Outlaws is dropping ‘forced stealth,’ so instead of being reset when you get caught sneaking around, you can just start blasting
The original Steam Controller, which has been defunct now for half a decade, had a rocky history. Well, perhaps not so much rocky as controversial, it having a plethora of diehard fanboys and fangirls but also more than a smattering of detractors, including our very own hardware overlord Dave James. Now—someone shield Dave’s ears—there’s talk of a second iteration already being in mass production.
Valve boffin and leaker Brad Lynch shared on X (via The Verge) that, in addition to a VR controller, the Steam Controller 2, codenamed “Ibex” is “being tooled for a mass production goal in their factories right now” and “that’s why I know they’re in later stages of production.”
Codename for Steam Controller 2 is “Ibex”Separate product from Deckard’s “Roy” controller(s)Both are being tooled for a mass production goal in their factories right now. That’s why I know they’re in later stages of productizationNovember 19, 2024
Presumably by “their factories” Brad means Valve’s factories, given both are Valve products. This would possibly shed some light on whether the Steam Controller 2 would be produced in-house or with help from a third party, something which—along with everything else about the Steam Controller 2—has remained unclear.
We first heard about a second Steam Controller back in 2022 when Steam Deck designer Lawrence Yang stated “yeah, we want to make it happen. It’s just a question of how and when.”
If this rumour’s true, it looks like that “when” might be very soon.
The original Steam Controller ran for a fair few years up until 2019 when it was discontinued. During its lifespan, it had an ardent following of dedicated proponents espousing the benefits of the controller’s versatile design: two trackpads, gyro movement, and back-paddles. Using custom configs, the controller, these proponents argued, allowed you to play mouse-and-keyboard games much easier than a standard controller does.
One problem, however, was that there were no official baseline profiles, so you had to comb through community-made profiles, and when you got one that worked well it often wasn’t the quickest and easiest thing to get used to. Another problem was that the build quality wasn’t great, although the build quality of Valve hardware has obviously improved massively since then.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Plus, as our Dave argued back in 2022, there wasn’t much of a reason to use a Steam Controller when you could either use an easier-to-use, better-built, standard one, or otherwise just use a mouse and keyboard. There’d have been more of a market for the Steam Controller if there was more of a market for Steam couch gaming, but the Steam Machines Valve pushed out were too late, came sporting Windows rather than SteamOS, and didn’t catch on.
I asked Dave for comment on this latest Steam Controller 2 rumour and in response I got a picture of a whale and a plant pot hurtling towards the ground: “Hello, ground!” and “Oh no, not again.” Although that’s only the sentiment if Valve were to use exactly the same design again, and it might not. Valve has a tendency to only release things when it’s totally confident they’re doing something new.
The thing is, though, even if it did go for the same design, I could see there being more room for a Steam Controller 2 today than there was for the original Steam Controller way back when. That’s because, despite the abandoned Shield and Steam Machine projects, there’s more room for couch Steam gaming these days, primarily thanks to remote play and ubiquitous options for screen mirroring and such.
For instance, I often beam the Lenovo Legion Go up to the big screen while sitting back on the couch, and before I did that I’d often use remote play on my laptop to do the same.
The ease of using remote play and the prevalence of handhelds and docks might, I think, make much more sense of a Steam Controller today than it did back in the days of the first-gen Steam Controller. Heck, I sometimes even use an external controller for my handheld when I’m not streaming it to the big screen, for example sat up in bed, using the Legion Go’s built-in stand.
Throw in some Steam Deck- or Index controller-esque build quality and it might do well. Although, saying all this, we don’t even know for certain whether Valve will opt for the same trackpad design as the first-gen. It would probably make more sense for Valve to opt for a trackpad and thumbstick design such as on the Steam Deck. That’d be fitting, too: The Steam Controller experiment helps lead to the Steam Deck, then the Steam Deck helps lead to the Steam Controller 2.
Personally, given we know next to nothing about the Steam Controller, I’m holding out hope that it’s just a really solid, normal controller—no trackpads or anything. Not for any actual reason, but just because I revel in controversy and the thought of the stink it’d stir makes me chuckle. That, or a giant red button the likes of the 8BitDo Super Buttons. And announce it on April 1, of course.
Nah, jokes aside, trackpad that badboi up. It’ll be interesting to see what the detractors make of the design in today’s gaming landscape where it arguably makes more sense to use one.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1732106524_Wait-the-Steam-Controller-2-is-in-mass-production-Someone.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-11-20 12:39:502024-11-20 12:39:50Wait, the Steam Controller 2 is in mass production? Someone grab the popcorn because nothing brought out the strong opinions like Valve’s first controller
20 years ago, Half-Life 2 was the recipient of two of PC Gamer’s highest review scores ever: 96% in PC Gamer UK, and 98% in the US version of the magazine, which at the time published separate reviews.
“This is the one unmissable game,” UK reviewer Jim Rossignol concluded. “It’s time to get that cutting-edge PC system. Sell your grandmother, remortgage the cat, do whatever you have to do. Just don’t miss out.”
I didn’t promise any cats to the bank, but perhaps I would have if I’d needed to. My obstacle to playing Half-Life 2 was a pathetic lack of furniture: All I had in my studio apartment at the time was a futon, one Ikea chair, and a wobbly breakfast table that was too compact for a comfortable keyboard, mouse, and monitor arrangement. My Sony desktop PC, Logitech peripherals, and tiny LCD display instead lived on the floor under a window, flanked by a radiator that worked in tandem with the meager heat output of my early-2000s GPU to keep me warm.
If there was a good reason I was living like a disgraced detective in November 2004, it’s been compressed in my memory to ‘I was in college.’ Maybe I spent all my desk money on Half-Life 2. Whatever the case, after setting up an account with a frustrating new service called Steam, I played through Half-Life 2 lying on my stomach with my neck bent at 90 degrees, as if posing for the ‘what not to do’ section of an ergonomics textbook. We did what we had to do, as Jim said.
20 years later, I’m proud to say that I now own a desk, but I like to think it hasn’t changed me. Half-Life 2 certainly did, though, and along with Steam it set a new course for PC gaming. To celebrate the big anniversary of Valve’s landmark shooter, we’ve republished the original text of PC Gamer UK’s Half-Life 2 review below—enjoy the brief trip back to one of PC gaming’s most exciting moments. —Tyler Wilde, US Editor-in-Chief
Half-Life 2 review – PC Gamer UK, November 2004
It was all in that moment when I just sat back and laughed. I couldn’t believe it was quite this good. I chuckled in muddled disbelief, expectations utterly defied. My nervous fingers reloaded the level, knowing that I had to see that breathtaking sequence one more time. It was then that I knew for certain: Valve had surpassed not only themselves, but everyone else too. Half-Life 2 is an astounding accomplishment. It is the definitive statement of the last five years of first-person shooters. Everything else was just a stopgap.
Half-Life 2 is a magnificent, dramatic experience that has few peers.
Half-Life 2 is a near perfect sequel. It takes almost everything that worked from Half-Life and either improves on it, or keeps it much the same. But that simple summation undersells how the Valve team have approached this task. Half-Life 2 is a linear shooter with most of the refinements one would expect from years of work, but it is also a game of a higher order of magnitude than any of the previous pretenders to the throne. The polish and the stratospheric height of the production values mean that Half-Life 2 is a magnificent, dramatic experience that has few peers.
It would be madness for me to spoil this game by talking about the specific turn of events, so spoilers are going to be kept to a minimum. We’re going to talk about general processes and the elements of style and design that make Half-Life 2 such an energising experience. Key to this is the way in which Gordon’s tale is told. Once again we never leave his perspective. There are no cutscenes, no moment in which you are anything but utterly embedded in Gordon’s view of the world. Everything is told through his eyes. And what a story it is. Gordon arrives at the central station at City 17—a disruptive and chilling dystopia. And from there? Well, that would be telling. This is not the contemporary America that Gordon seemed to be living in during the original Half-Life. The events of Black Mesa have affected the whole world. The crossover with Xen has meant that things have altered radically, with hyper-technology existing alongside eastern bloc dereliction.
(Image credit: Valve/PC Gamer)
The world is infested with head-crab zombies and the aliens that were once your enemies now co‑exist amongst the oppressed masses. This very European city is populated by frightened and desperate American immigrants, and sits under the shadow of a vast, brutalist skyscraper that is consuming the urban sprawl with crawling walls of blue steel. It’s a powerful fiction. City 17 is one of the most inventive and evocative game worlds we’ve ever seen. The autocratic and vicious behaviour of the masked Overwatch soldiers immediately places you in a high-pressure environment. People look at you with desperate eyes, just waiting for the end to their pain, an end to the power of the mysterious Combine. Who are they? Why are you here? Who are the masterminds behind this tyranny? The questions pile up alongside the bodies.
Half-Life 2 isn’t big on exposition, but the clues are there. You’re thrust into this frightening near-future reality and just have to deal with it. Your allies are numerous, but they have their own problems. Your only way forward is to help them. And so you do, battling your way along in this relentless, compelling current of violence and action, gradually building up a picture of what has happened since Black Mesa. The Combine, the military government that controls the city in a boot-stamping-face kind of way, are a clear threat, but quite how they came to be and what their purposes are become aching problems. Once again Gordon remains silent, listening to what he is told so that you can find those answers for yourself.
(Image credit: Valve/PC Gamer)
But even with Gordon’s vaguely sinister silence (something that is transformed into a subtle joke by the game’s characters) there are reams of dialogue in Half-Life 2. It is spoken by bewilderingly talented actors and animated with almost magical precision. Alyx, Eli, Barney and Dr Kleiner are delightful to behold, but they only tell part of the story. There are dozens of other characters, each with their own role to play. And each one is a wondrous creature. They might be blemished, even scarred, with baggy eyes and greasy hair, but you can’t tear your eyes away. People, aliens and even crows, have never seemed quite so convincing in a videogame. Doom 3’s lavish monsters are more impressive, but Half-Life 2’s denizens are imbued with life. More importantly, they offer respite. Half-Life 2’s world is a high-bandwidth assault on the senses that seldom lets up. That moment when you see a friendly face is a palpable relief. A moment of safe harbour in a world of ultraviolence. As Gordon travels he is aided by the citizens of City 17 and the underground organisation that aims to fight the oppressors. Their hidden bases are, like the characters who inhabit them, hugely varied—an abandoned farm, a lighthouse, a canyon scrapyard and an underground laboratory—each superbly realised.
It is this all-encompassing commitment to flawless design that makes Half-Life 2 so appealing. Even without the cascade of inventiveness that makes up the action side of events, the environments become a breathtaking visual menagerie. Cracked slabs and peeling paint, future-graffiti and mossy slate, tufts of wild grass and flaking barrels, shattered concrete and impenetrable tungsten surfaces—City 17 and its surrounding landscape make you want to keep exploring, just to see what might be past the next decaying generator or mangled corpse. Whether you find yourself in open, temperate coastline or mired in terrifying technological hellholes, Half-Life 2 presents a perfect face. The first time you see ribbed glass blurring the ominous shape of a soldier on the other side, or any time that you happen to be moving through water, you will see next-generation visuals implemented in a casual, capable manner. Half-Life 2 doesn’t have Doom 3’s groundbreaking lighting effects, but objects and characters still have their own real-time shadows and the level design creates a play of light and dark that diminishes anything we’ve seen in other games. The very idea that people have actually created this world by hand seems impossible, ludicrous. The detritus in the back of a van, the rubbish that lies in a stairwell—it all seems too natural to have come about artificially. Add to this the split-second perfection of the illustrative music, as well as the luscious general soundscape, and you have genuinely mind-boggling beauty.
But these virtual environments are little more than a stage on which the action will play out. And what jaw-dropping, mind-slamming action that is. What’s tough to convey in words, or even screenshots, is just how much impact the events of combat confer. This is a joyous, kinetic, action game. The concussive sound effects, combined with the physical solidity of weapons, objects, enemies and environment, make this a shocking experience. Each encounter is lit up with abrupt and impressively brutal effects. Explosions spray shrapnel and sparks, bullets whack and slam with devastating energy. The exploding barrel has never been such a delight. You think that you’ve seen exploding barrels before, but no: these impromptu bombs, like everything else in the game, are transformed by the implementation of revelatory object physics. Unlike previous games, the object physics in Half-Life 2 are no longer a visual gimmick—they are integral to the action and, indeed, the very plot.
Gordon can pick up anything that isn’t bolted down and place, drop or hurl it anywhere you choose. Initially this consists of little more than shifting boxes so that you can climb out of a window, but gradually tasks increase in complexity. Puzzles, ever intuitive, are well signposted and entertaining. If they’re tougher than before they’re still just another rung up on what you’ve already learned. This is immaculate game design. There are a couple of moments in these twenty hours where something isn’t perfect in its pace or placing, but these are minor, only memorable in stark contrast to the consistent brilliance of surrounding events. There is always something happening, something new. You find yourself plunging into it with relish. Just throwing things about is immediately appealing. You find yourself restraining the impulse to just pick up and hurl anything you encounter. (Free at last, I can interact!) Black Mesa veteran Dr Kleiner is remarkably relaxed about you trashing half his lab, just to see what can be grabbed or broken. Combine police take less kindly to having tin cans lobbed at their shiny gasmasks.
But the core process of this new physics, the key to the success of the game, is to be found in the Gravity Gun. Once you’ve experienced vehicular action and got to grips with combat, Half-Life 2 introduces a new concept—the idea of violently manipulating objects with this essential tool. The gun has two modes, one drags things toward you and can be used to hold, carry or drop them. The other projects them away and can either be used to smash and punch or, if you’re already holding something, hurl it with tremendous force. A filing cabinet becomes a flying battering ram, dragged towards you and then fired into enemies, only to be dragged back and launched again to hammer your foe repeatedly, or until the cabinet is smashed into metal shards. Pick these up and you can blast them through the soft flesh of your enemies.
The gravity gun isn’t just another a weapon, it’s the soul of Half-Life 2.
Killing the badguys with nearby furniture becomes habitual, instinctive. Or perhaps you need cover from a sniper—picking up a crate will give you a makeshift shield with which to absorb some incoming fire. Likewise, you immediately find yourself using the gravity gun to clear a path through debris-blocked passages, or to pick up ammo and health packs, or to grab and hurl exploding barrels at encroaching zombies, setting them ablaze and screaming. You can even use it to grab hovering Combine attack-drones and batter them into tiny fragments on concrete surfaces. Soon the gravity gun is proving useful in solving puzzles, or knocking your up-turned buggy back onto its wheels. Yes, a buggy. I’ll come back to that. The gravity gun isn’t just another a weapon, it’s the soul of Half-Life 2. Do you try to bodge the jump over that toxic sludge, or take the time to use the level’s physics objects to build an elaborate bridge? Do you waste ammo on these monsters or pull that disc-saw out of where it’s embedded in the wall? Of course, you always know what to do. When there’s a saw floating in front of your gravity gun and two zombies shamble round the corner, one behind the other, well, you laugh at the horrible brilliance of it. Yeah, I think that was the moment that I sat back and laughed. It’s just too much.
Sometime after these experiments in viscera comes Gordon’s glorious road trip. Simplicity incarnate, the little buggy is practically indestructible, but also an essential tool for making a journey that Gordon can’t make on foot. Dark tunnels, treacherous beaches and bright, trap-littered clifftops become the new battleground. Like the rest of the game there are oddities and surprises thrown in all the way through. The bridge section of this journey would make up an entire level in lesser shooters. And yet here it is, just another part of the seamless tapestry of tasks that Gordon performs. Also illustrative of the game as a whole is the way in which the coast is strewn with non-essential asides. OK, so you’re zooming from setpiece to setpiece, but do you also want to explore every nook and cranny, every little shack that lies crumbling by the roadside? Of course you do. This is a game where every hidden cellar or obscure air-duct should be investigated; you never know what you might find.
Investigating means using the torch that, oddly, is linked to a minor criticism of the game. Both sprinting and flashlight use are linked to a recharging energy bank. It’s clear why this restriction was imposed, but it’s nevertheless a little peculiar. The quality of the game meant that I was searching, rather desperately, for similar complaints. Smugly I assumed that my allies in a battle were non-human because that way Valve dodged the lack of realism and other problems created by fighting alongside human allies. Of course my lack of faith was exposed a few levels later, when I found myself in the midst of the war-torn city fighting alongside numerous human allies who patched me up, shouted at me to reload, apologised when they got in the way and fought valiantly against a vastly superior force. What a battle that was. I want to go back, right now. The striders, so impressive to behold, are the most fearsome of foes. Fighting both these behemoths and a constant flow of Combine troops creates what is without a doubt the most intense and exhilarating conflict ever undertaken in a videogame. The laser-pointer rocket launcher is back and even more satisfying than ever before. Rocket-crates give you a seemingly infinite resupply to battle these monsters but it’s never straightforward. Striders will seek you out, forcing you under cover, while the whale-like flying gunships will shoot down your rockets, inducing you to resort to imaginative manoeuvring to perform that killing blow. Even dying becomes a pleasure—you want to see these beasts smash through walls and butcher the rebels, again and again. Oh Christ, what will happen next?
I could talk about how those battles with the striders almost made me cry, or about the events that Alyx guides you through so cleverly, so elegantly. I could talk about the twitchy fear instilled by your journey through an abandoned town, or the way that the skirmishes with Overwatch soldiers echoes the battles against the marines in the original Half-Life. I want to rant and exult over this and that detail or event, this reference or that joke. I want to bemoan the fact that it had to end at all (no matter the excellence of that ending). And I’m distraught that we’ll have to wait so long for an expansion pack or sequel. I even had this whole paragraph about how CS Source will be joined by an army of user-fashioned mods as the multiplayer offering for this definitively singleplayer game. But we’re running out of space, out of time. There’s so much here to talk about, but in truth I don’t want to talk, I just want to get back to it: more, more, more… You have to experience it for yourself. This is the one unmissable game. It’s time to get that cutting-edge PC system. Sell your grandmother, remortgage the cat, do whatever you have to do. Just don’t miss out.
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