December 2022

Audio player loading… Action base-building roguelike Cult of the Lamb (opens in new tab), one of this summer’s hits, comes barreling into Winter announcing its first big content update for next year. It’ll bring new stuff to the adorably violent cult of floofy animals, focusing on the combat portion of the game over the cult management.The new content update will feature new moves for The Lamb itself, letting you press and hold the attack button to drop a heavy attack that’ll be unique to each weapon. They’ve showed off an area-of-effect smash for the sword, a boomerang throw for the…

As the wan sun fades on this bleak year of 2022 we are given to look back and think about all we have to be grateful for. And in PC gaming tech terms that means we’re looking at all the gaming gear released over the past 12 months to pick our favourite tech in a bunch of different categories.And you know what? That includes graphics cards this year, in an actual meaningful way. We paid lip service to GPUs last year, when they existed in a mostly theoretical rather than physical sense, but finally, we can actually buy new cards….

Has anything good ever come from NFTs? Aside from the Christopher Moltisanti meme (opens in new tab), I mean. I really can’t think of anything. The functionality they offer games is technically different than what’s been available for years through conventional microtransaction sales, but it’s practically the same thing for those who don’t play games to be financial speculators, and the whole business of making, buying, and selling them is awash in corruption and criminality. “A useless, costly, ecologically mortifying technology,” is how French trade union Solidaires Informatique (opens in new tab) described it, and I have no notes.Myself, I…

As 2022 comes to a close, it’s natural that we all take a look back at the year behind us and think about the games we’ve played. This year, for me, was mostly taken up by some amazing narrative indies like The Case of the Golden Idol and Strange Horticulture. But really, a large part of my heart belongs to Elden Ring, and in particular Elden Ring’s environment. My brain is still baffled by the scale and beauty of Elden Ring’s world. I would gasp a little when I found something new, overlooked a ridge to rolling fields speckled with trees…

Audio player loading… It’s nearly the end of the year and I’d like to take you all to absolute task for not telling me that there’s an indie JRPG called Chained Echoes which is apparently not only quite good, but has a 15-second turtle race set to explosive, shouting hardcore metal. (If you also did not know I invite you to echo shame session here.)I mean seriously, it’s hysterical and an amazing green light on trying the game. For one thing, it shows something JRPGs often lack any awareness of: A sense of humor. It’s a great moment that begs…

Audio player loading… I’m a sucker for a clever indie puzzler, so naturally Sushi for Robots looks quite nice, doesn’t it? It’s a simple premise, the robots are obsessed with some sushi and you’ve got to serve it to them by setting up the weird conveyors they eat from. It’ll release in Spring of 2023, but we know a bit about it now, and I like how that looks.It’s a solution-driven puzzle game, one where you use the tools available to you in order to customize the outcome: This one is stickers, which let you place new effects on the…

Choosing the best gaming keyboard of 2022 is going to be a damn close call. Of the many gaming keyboards we’ve looked at throughout the year, loads have delighted us—the MelGeek Pixel (opens in new tab) notwithstanding. However, only one will forever be regarded as the soulful switchmeister of 2022. Let’s look back at the year to get a better bead on which one might end up this year’s absolute king of caps.2022, it would seem, is the year of the smol gaming keyboard. Each and every keyboard nominee we’ve chosen this year comes in a compact form factor, be…

2022 sure has been a year for AI. Image generation in particular has taken off somewhat spectacularly this year, though we’ve seen plenty of advancements in the broader scope of machine learning too. It’s given us a lot to think about in the games industry, in fact. And while many will herald it as something that may well solve all our problems, others have taken a slightly less welcoming approach.As with any advancement, there’s been a fair amount of controversy coming along with it. Beside the iRobot-fuelled fear that AI will one day rise up and take us hostage, there’s the…