As podcaster Ryan Zhao put it on Bluesky, “The design process has gone wrong when what you need to prototype is ‘what if there was a space.’” Gotta go fast When Google revealed the first version of Genie earlier this year, it also published a detailed research paper outlining the specific steps taken behind the […]
December 6, 2024 | AI, AI game design, AI gaming, Gaming, Google Genie | No comments
Steam Machines 2.0? While there hasn’t been any wider official rollout for the Powered by SteamOS program yet, any move by Valve to offer officially licensed SteamOS compatibility for third-party hardware wouldn’t come as a complete surprise. Valve’s Lawrence Yang has been saying since 2022 that “we’re excited to see people make their own SteamOS […]
December 5, 2024 | Gaming | No comments
As you crisscross the map, you also invariably stumble on a seemingly endless array of optional sidequests, mysteries, and “fieldwork,” which you keep track of in a dynamically updated journal. While there’s an attempt at a plot justification for each of these optional fetch quests, the ones I tried ended up being much less compelling […]
December 5, 2024 | Features, Gaming, Indiana Jones, MachineGames | No comments
Turnover at the top of the company isn’t stopping Intel from launching new products: Today the company is announcing the first of its next-generation B-series Intel Arc GPUs, the Arc B580 and Arc B570. Both are decidedly midrange graphics cards that will compete with the likes of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4060 and AMD’s RX 7600 […]
December 3, 2024 | Alchemist, arc b570, arc b580, battlemage, Gaming, Intel, Intel Arc, rtx 4060, rx 7600 xt, Tech | No comments
The Steam Link was a little box ahead of its time. It streamed games from a PC to a TV, ran 1,500 0f them natively, offered a strange (if somewhat lovable) little controller, and essentially required a great network, Ethernet cables, and a good deal of fiddling. Valve quietly discontinued the Steam Link gear in […]
December 3, 2024 | Gaming, Raspberry Pi, single board computers, Steam, steam link | No comments
When an updated, remastered, or otherwise spiffed-up version of a game is released, nobody—not long-time fans, not archivists, not anybody, really—ever asks for the original version of that game to be taken down. Does this seem to stop game studios from committing this unforced public relations error? Absolutely not. Blizzard, a company that has recently […]
December 2, 2024 | Blizzard, DRM, DRM-free, game preservation, Gaming, gog, video game preservation, Warcraft, warcraft 3, warcraft 3 reforged, warcraft II, Warcraft III | No comments
There are better versions of these games The VIP package Atari sent me, along with a selection of cartridges. Credit: Kyle Orland Since I’ve never owned an Atari 7800 cartridge, Atari sent me eight titles from its current line of retro cartridges to test alongside the updated hardware. This included a mix of original titles […]
November 26, 2024 | Atari, Atari 7800, Gaming | No comments
Bloomberg reports that Sony is “in the early stages” of work on a fully portable console that can play PlayStation 5 software. The device is still “likely years away from launch,” according to “people familiar with its development” that spoke to Bloomberg anonymously. The report comes less than a year after the launch of the […]
November 25, 2024 | Gaming | No comments
The bow is a bit too effective at taking out early enemies from afar Credit: Obsidian / Microsoft The tedium of the bow doesn’t really break until you stumble on your first spellbook, which you can hold in your off-hand while gripping the dagger in the other. Spouts of flame, freezing icicles, and blasts of […]
November 21, 2024 | Gaming | No comments
You’re getting pretty close to the ground there, chief. But the good news is, you’re generating terrain for other players. Credit: Microsoft You’re getting pretty close to the ground there, chief. But the good news is, you’re generating terrain for other players. Credit: Microsoft AI learning was used for 2024‘s world mapping. It allowed for […]
November 19, 2024 | flight sim, flight simulator, Gaming, microsoft, microsoft flight simulator | No comments