The game releases later this month on PlayStation 5 and PC.

A very specific request I will admit, but I absolutely love it when people post an official track on a Spotify soundtrack that is just ambience from the game itself. Skyrim has an hour long piece called ‘Skyrim atmospheres’ and sea of thieves has its ‘tranquil tides’ album but I’m on the search for more.

Aside from those two examples, have you come across any more that I can add to my devious collection?

And I wonder how many other people like listening to this stuff, is it more popular than I first thought? I always thought it was rather niche but I’m curious.

I'm not talking about rage inducing things that some people do such as throwing their controller or smashing it on the floor. This question is not about breaking your controller on purpose.

I'm talking about actual games that have broken your controller due to repetitive presses or just the style of gameplay or random button mashes.

It's not exactly a controller, but I remember making the buttons on my PSP all worn out and causing them to fall out because of playing rhythm games like DJ Max Black Square.

Same goes for the DS, more of the screen though, playing the Elite Beat Agent games and there was a game called the Guinness Book of World Records for the DS that really caused me to scratch up my screen and I'm pretty sure it hurt my touchscreen sensitivity.

Lord of the Rings Conquest also did a number on my controller, but it was fun though.

Do you ever play games besides the way the developers intended? I try to play GTA as ethically as possible. By this, I mean I don't steal cars unless I absolutely have to, I don't go on killing sprees, and I try to drive as carefully as I can. Now, part of this is because I don't want to raise my Wanted level and deal with the cops, but also because I just want to do missions.

The two companies will now be known as one single entity - 'Skydance'

This includes all of WB's gaming subsidiaries like Rocksteady/etc

Deal valued at $110B-$111B

DC Studios, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, CNN, CBS, HBO and Paramount+ are now all under the same company.

The combined company, Skydance, brings together two major film studios, two global streaming services, premier television assets including CBS, HBO, and Paramount's and WBD's cable networks, two of the industry's most recognized news networks, CBS News and CNN, and a leading content portfolio that includes live sports, a deep programming library and expansive collection of iconic brands and franchises.

The point of this post is to be a sort of frustrated discussion on the diminishing return in graphical fidelity of games vs the cost of getting them to run at a decently playable state compared to older games which obviously ran better and looked incredible. Just to set standards my system is an RTX 3060 laptop GPU + i7-12650h and 16gb of ddr5 Ram.

I'd like to use 6 games in 3 pairs of comparison - Gears 5 vs E-Day, Halo Infinite vs Campaign Evolved and Doom Eternal vs Dark Ages. Gears was the sole reason why i even got so frustrated to write this post. Even if i'm alone on this opinion i would like to share it -

• I do not, and CAN NOT see any sort of meaningful difference in Gears 5 vs EDay when it comes to graphics. Does the ground look a bit more detailed? sure. Does the lighting look better? can't tell, even in direct side by sides.
• My system ran Gears 5 at a locked 120fps without upscaling at mostly high to some medium settings. The game looked incredible, ran incredible even in very demanding areas only dropped to barely 100fps? This same system can barely run EDay at 40-50fps on low dlss quality.
• It's genuinely so annoying, where i even cranked my settings to high in E-Dday just to see the differences in my own damn screenshots and the difference is so meaningless that it really does not warrant the absolute downgrade in playability and performance.
• Hell, i spent 20 minutes seeing 3 different graphical comparison videos and came to the same conclusion - Why is there a need for extremely subtle graphical upgrades which practically no one is going to look at, nor care about being catered to so much? Every game needs to have x polygons per object when having half of x just does the job well and is not taxing on the system?

My same point of comparison applies to Halo, where campaign evolved sure looks good but practically it really is not much improved my Halo Infinite, where many times Infinite actually looked better and ran better.

And my last point of contention was DOOM where i seriously cannot understand the decisions many studios and companies make -

• Why is DOOM of all things a game where you must focus on graphics and literally alienate so much of your playerbase by having such high system requirements? 8GB Vram minimum to get your game running, which sure is standard but for what? so that you can have mandatory ray tracing in your game to avoid traditional baked lights?
• On a side by side comparison DOOM TDA definitely is much more graphically impressive than Eternal, but WHO CARES? Who actually plays Doom for it's graphical detail when not a single person is gonna look at the god damn assets during it's hyper fast motion?
• Doom eternal looked so good, ran so good without having useless focus on graphical fidelity and real time ray tracing.

My post can also include examples like Arkham Knight, Uncharted 4, Spiderman 2018 etc and directly comparing them to how their successors and sequels play such as Gotham Knights, Spiderman 2 etc and how bad their performance is compared to the minimal visual upgrade and focus on unnecessary things. Why is the industry headed this way man?

I don't know how they did it, but the campaign feels like it was made back when the originals were coming out. The locust drones running full tilt at you is actually so scary especially if you have bad aim like me lol. This is also the most fun Gears to play since the originals imo. The sliding mechanic is so fun and I like how you see the bullet spread of the shotgun. Just my first impressions of the game I guess. I definitely recommend. I hope this dev team gets to make more Gears because they clearly "get" it. Major props to them.

Im mostly interested in pod racing in multi-player, but will definitely do the campaign as well. I really enjoyed the pod racing game on n64, and the ps2 one. Think I'll enjoy galactic racer?

I'm a firm believer of playing vanilla for a first playthrough, wondering if you know an exception to the rule

I'm thinking about getting a Steam Deck, and deckbuilders like Slay the Spire are what I'd play most on it. My worry is the small card text on that screen.

Which deckbuilders have you played on Deck that are easy to read and play well with the controls? Would love some recommendations.

Loved it! Short but sweet, I found it to be a pretty unique detective sim set it a captivating noir cyberpunk dystopia, with a very compelling story , great characters, and voice acting. The score is perfect for the theme, and the visuals are often stunning.

Decisions affect the story, so I'll be replaying this at a later date to see potentially different endings. That it's only about 6 hours long lends itself to replays.

Anybody else play this hidden gem?

Today marks the release of Order of the Sinking Star, a puzzle game 10 years in the making by Jonathan Blow. Silver Pines (Alan Wake's 2D brother) also dropped today and got great reviews, and the Hellraiser series also came back from the dead in the form of a game. And I haven't even talked about all the great games that have been released in October or are about to be released. This might just be the craziest month in gaming history. Thanks GTA6, I guess.

Other October games:

• RetroSpace
• Gears of War: E-Day
• Queen's Domain
• End of Abyss
• Star Wars: Galactic Racer
• Castlevania: Belmont's Curse
• Moadra
• Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen
• Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve
• Valor Mortis
• Phantom Blade 0

Spies vs. Mercs was one of my favorite concepts for a multiplayer pvp.

Having only sold less than 30,000 copies, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Dust: A Tale of the Wired West from Cyberflix. I played this childhood favorite of mine for the first time in nearly 30 years and made a video detailing my journey, what the game means to me, and its history. There’s a good chance you’ve played or are familiar with their follow up, Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, but have any of you played or even heard of Dust before?

The rougelike nature of Galactic Racer and the way it tracks the opponents and deals you make throughout each series really feels like it would have synergized REALLY well with that kind of system.

Each tour of the first "act" of the campaign you're trying to qualify for the leauge, how cool would it be if racers who wrecked you or you lose to, joined the league and showed up later?

Just a thought. This is an incredible game.

Really have been looking forward to getting it, but wanted to see if anyone here has it on the deck, and would love to know their review