The RPS Advent Calendar 2024, December 19th Every calendar door hides today’s entry, if you cross it Image credit:RPS The RPS Advent Calender 2024 is underway! Each day reveals one of our favourite games from this year, leading up to our Game Of The Year on the 24th. Check the main calendar post to see the full list. Huh, it’s a little hard to breathe today, don’t you think? Like the air’s a bit thin....

The Samsung T7, a modern classic of a portable SSD, is up to 45% off in the Cyber Monday sales Small yet spacious, like all external drives should be Image credit:Samsung Got yet another quality PC storage deal for ya, this time courtesy of Cyber Monday and the Samsung T7 – an almost comically dinky portable SSD that can, nevertheless, stuff itself senseless with file backups and game installations. The 1TB model in particular is going mighty cheap, falling to $88 in the US and £67 in the UK....

The Sunday Papers Image credit:RPS The Sunday Papers is our weekly roundup of great writing about (mostly) videogames from across the web. Sundays are for playing around with the Nintendo Switch 2, of course. Let’s round up some writing from across the week first. The first look at IO’s Bond game revealed that it stars an almost instantly insufferable Young Bond, who looks like they fed every online argument about who should replace Daniel Craig into an AI and told it generate an average of the white ones....

The Sunday Papers Image credit:RPS Sundays are for strutting around the place in your bathrobe. Let’s waltz as we read the week’s best writing about games and game-related things. For Eurogamer, Chris Tapsell wrote about Palworld’s derivative nature . Some nice observations that sort of summed up what I couldn’t put my finger on, that it makes you feel like a “mark”. I also found this Xwitter thread by Arkane Lyon’s studio director Dinga Bakaba an interesting counter argument....

The Sunday Papers Image credit:RPS Sundays! Sundays are for going quickly. Gabriel Winslow-Yost wrote for Harper’s Magazine - not an outlet typically known for their videogame coverage - about Elden Ring and the role of death and failure in games . Another way to put it is that the games can be, for the wrong person, or someone in the wrong mood, simply unpleasant. It is not always clear why one would want to spend one’s leisure time swearing at a screen, lost, stuck, dying over and over in the dark....

A great SSD for PC and PS5 UK Deals WD Black SN850X 2TB with Heatsink- £150 at Amazon UK (was £167) Buy now US Deals WD_Black SN850X 2TB with Heatsink- $180 at Amazon US(was $200) Buy now The SN850X pretty much pushes the limit of the PCIe 4.0 interface with sequential speeds of 7300MB/s reads and 6900MB/s writes. It also has superb random performance, with 1.2M IOPS random reads and 1....

The Witcher 3’s powerful new modding tools now in testing on Steam Based on tools used to create the game, REDkit should allow bigger and fancier mods Image credit:CD Projekt Red If you can’t wait to start rummaging in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt ’s guts with its powerful new modding tools, you can now shoot for early access by signing up for a playtest on Steam. The new REDkit suite is based on the actual tools that CD Projekt RED themselves sued to create one of the best RPGs , and will let folks make a much wider range of mods....

This handy list of mods makes Dragon Age: Inquisition short enough to play again before Dreadwolf comes out Hurry up, Inquisitor Image credit:EA I’ve clocked up nearly 400 hours playing BioWare’s big fantasy RPG Dragon Age: Inquisition , which is not a stat I’m particularly proud of. I’m not ashamed either, partly because, as has been identified by artist Corey Brickley , via the Maw , there’s a lot of filler....

This upcoming metroidvania reminds me of Kill La Kill and Mega Man Legends Abyss X Zero is made by the studio behind Unsighted Image credit:Studio Pixel Punk The two-person studio behind 2021’s tip-top top-down action-RPG Unsighted yesterday announced their next game, a 3D metroidvania named Abyss X Zero . It’s not out for a while yet but its look already reminds me of two things: the pleasingly clean art style of Mega Man Legends and the edgy anime schoolgirl styles of Kill La Kill....

This week in PC games: Deliver At All Costs, Onimusha 2 reborn, more Monster Train and a touch of cat racing What we’re feeding the Maw Image credit:Konami Despite the best efforts of all concerned, there are once again new PC games this week. See how they frolic among the days ahead, trampling all over our life commitments and need for tranquility like boisterous, fugitive oxen. Please equip yourself with a broom, weighted net and klaxon and help me herd them back into the pens, for proper disassembly....

Totally Legit Wheeler Seller is here to pinch any pennies you didn’t spend on Jalopy and My Summer Car They’re speed holes, they make the car go faster Image credit:Sombrero Labs / Simplicity Games A grim and insanitary management game about absolutely abysmal cars? One for you, Brendy! Oh sod it, he’s not here anymore. That’s what we get for letting him learn how to drive - and letting him have a cell with a window....

Unity ring in the new year by firing 1,800 people in the name of “long-term and profitable growth” Approximately 25% of workforce laid off Image credit:Unity The quest to appease the immortal share price continues as game engine provider Unity announce that they’re laying off another 1,800 people, or around 25% of their current workforce, in a bid to “position” the company “for long-term and profitable growth”. The news comes from a Securities and Exchange Commission filing scooped up by the Verge , which also has an official press statement from Unity’s PR director Kelly Ekins....

US immigration enforcers use Halo art to promote mass detention, while the White House and Gamestop swap Master Trump memes No comment yet from Microsoft Image credit:Microsoft The USA’s Immigration Customs Enforcement service, aka ICE, have started using imagery of Microsoft’s sci-fi shooter Halo for recruitment posts on social media, even as Gamestop and the US administration indulge in some bantz characterising Donald Trump as Master Chief, and even as Microsoft attempt to flog a new Halo game....

Virtual pet sim Weyrdlets is like Animal Crossing on your desktop, except you might get some real-life work done too Procrastination bait meets productivity tools Image credit:Weyrdworks When I was a kid, one of my absolute favourite things to do on the PC was to mess around with a free virtual Felix - like the cat from the cat food adverts - who would roam around the Windows XP desktop, chasing balls of string between program windows and curling up to take a nap on the taskbar....

Vultures - Scavengers Of Death is a turn-based roguelike that looks like a vintage Resident Evil game Regretfully, you do not play a bird Image credit:Vultures Games Crow Country , Conscript , and now Vultures - Scavengers Of Death . We really do seem to be living through a craze for PS1-style horror games . Vultures is different to the others, though, in that it’s turn-based zombie crunching combined with roguelike scavenging to survive and get more powerful....

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition gets an August release date, with a chunky discount for Anniversary owners Also people are mad about a Space Marine noise or something Image credit:Relic Entertainment Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition is out August 14th, with a 30% discount off the $30 label price for owners of the Anniversary Edition. That discount applies to both Steam and GOG , and will be available for the “foreseeable future” (Fateweaver noises)....

Warner Bros’ game studios weren’t really a factor in Netflix’s acquisition, so you can add that to the list of concerns Business as usual All these massive, multi-billion dollar acquisitions are getting a bit scary, aren’t they? The one on everyone’s minds at the moment is of course Netflix’s proposed takeover of movie studio giant Warner Bros, offering up a cool $82.7 billion in exchange. This, of course, has an indescribably massive potential to ruin mainstream cinema, but we won’t get into that right this second, because there’s another concern: how much the streamer does not seem to care about the games side of Warner Bros....

What are we all playing this weekend? Well? Do tell! Image credit:Alphonse Trimolet/Old Book Illustrations See ya, suckers – I’m off to India for a week, and am only writing this introductory paragraph because Ollie stole my ’taking holiday’ idea while I was distracted by a bird. Specifically, I’ll be in Dharamshala, the mountain town where the Dalai Lama lives. Maybe I’ll get to ask him what he thinks of my Steam Deck....

What’s better: enemies stopping respawning after you kill them loads, or removing a card from your deck? Vote now as we continue deciding the single best thing in games Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Playstack Last time, you decided that cosmetics unlocked by challenges are better than characters making ‘bdbdbdbdbdi’ noises while talking in text . This was a close one but your voices were, regrettably, heard clear. This week, I ask you to choose between two different ways to clear your path of obstacles....

What’s on your bookshelf?: Finji co-founder Bekah Saltsman read-only Image credit:oldbookillustrations.com Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week - our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! As a reward for sticking with this column for so long, I’m delighted to announce that we’ll soon be rolling out the chance for you to write in with a detailed list of all your most subversive ideas and which books inspired you to hold them, and in return I’ll send you an email alert if those books ever appear in this column....