Tag:

experience

Ratshaker Is A Short, Strange Horror Experience

by admin August 18, 2025

If you look at Ratshaker on the PlayStation store, you might be inclined to write it off as one of hundreds of shovelware games on storefronts designed for easy trophies. I know I did at first. But then, I saw the game gaining traction across multiple subreddits where plenty of users seemed to agree that it’s actually a surreal horror title worth the low cost of entry — I checked it out. I’m glad I did.

While Ratshaker may have a low-res visual style, brief runtime, and fairly easy trophy list, it manages to rise above the trappings of shovelware to be something that diehard horror fans can appreciate. The game tasks you with, well, shaking and squeezing a rat to solve some basic adventure-style puzzles around a home where something horrible has happened. Yeah, it’s fucking weird.

But while Ratshaker‘s simple premise initially leans toward being quirky and funny in its delivery, don’t let that fool you. As you further explore the home and peel back what happened there, Ratshaker reveals some truly unnerving events that may stick in your head for a while. If that sounds up your alley, here’s how long it’ll take you to beat this bizarre experience.

How long does it take to beat Ratshaker?

Ratshaker is a cheap game with a short runtime, so you shouldn’t go in expecting an epic adventure. Instead, you’re treated to an immensely strange horror mystery that will take about an hour to unravel. But the brief time you spend with Ratshaker will feel like enough. It’s a game that doesn’t need much time to tell its story, which ends up far more unsettling than you may expect, even after engaging with its disturbing opening.

If you’re also playing Ratshaker for its fairly easy platinum trophy, be aware that there are missable trophies throughout the adventure. And you’ll technically need to see both the real ending and a secret ending to earn the platinum trophy, but you can do both on one playthrough if you manage your saves right. Following a guide can help you not miss out on these trophies if you’re not eager to play Ratshaker twice.

Even if you’re not seeking the easy platinum trophy, I’d argue that the low price and ominous vibes make Ratshaker a good grab for any horror fan who appreciates weird shit. It’s available now on PS5 and Windows PCs, with a release on additional platforms planned for later this summer. Shake that rat.

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August 18, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Fantasy Life i might be the star of the Switch 2 launch, providing both the Animal Crossing and RPG experience it needs

by admin June 21, 2025

What a strange and wonderful game. It took me about four hours to pin down what Fantasy Life is, because by turns it’s Animal Crossing and then it’s a role-playing game, and then it’s something else. The form of the game shifts and shimmies during the opening hours as a constant stream of new ideas are introduced, and it’s only as they begin to settle that you begin to appreciate what an intoxicating blend it can be.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time

Officially , Fantasy Life i is a life sim RPG, which broadly means – and you’ll know this if you’ve played Fantasy Life on 3DS of course – that you can play many roles within the game, many Lives, as they’re known. You can be a carpenter, a blacksmith, a mercenary, a paladin, an alchemist, a spellcaster, a tailor and so on. There are many Lives to choose from. But the crux of this is you don’t have to choose only one of them. If you want, you can be them all.

You can be out adventuring as a mercenary, wielding a big sword and wearing your mercenary kit, then switch instantly to being a woodcutter the moment you approach and interact with a choppable tree. It’s similar when approaching a workbench, as your carpentry Life takes over and woodworking skills kick in. The same is true of every Life skill you learn: once you’ve got them – and there’s a little tutorial to-and-fro involved in getting them (which you can skip if you know what you’re doing) – they will be available wherever you go, whenever you need them. It’s a surprisingly liberating system.

There is cloying sweetness to the game, which isn’t entirely unwelcome, and there are some genuinely funny jokes and characters to meet. There’s a strong sense of tongue-in-cheek running through it.Watch on YouTube

Why would you want so many Lives, though? Firstly because the game encourages you to have them, either through main quests or villager-given quests on the island, but also because being a woodcutter and being able to source your own wood for your carpentry Life makes sense, just as mining your own ore as a blacksmith makes sense too. But Fantasy Life i takes this a step further, in terms of motivating you, by also being a go-out-and-adventure kind of role-playing game, meaning you’re not always stuck in town, wandering around.

The story is convoluted but it involves travelling backwards and forwards in time to an island that’s either resplendent and filled with life, or destroyed, depending on whether you’re in the past or the present. A thousand years ago, the island was vibrant and populated by an eccentric cast of villagers, who you’ll slowly get to know – and some are genuinely very amusing – whereas in the present, there’s no one around. It’s in these past and present futures where you’ll build a home and make a life, but that’s not all there is to Fantasy Life i.

Well I don’t want to toot my own horn but it’s true, I do. | Image credit: Eurogamer / Level 5

There is a wider game to explore that goes as far as other worlds, and it’s one of these, Ginormosia, that you’ll keep coming back to. This place is massive and much more closely resembles the kind of adventuring land you find in a typical action-based RPG (and which will be the basis of the roguelike mode being developed for the game, by the way). It’s the sort of place with zoned biomes and packs of enemies that gradually increase in strength, and even towers and shrines to unlock that do similar things as in the recent Zelda games – reveal nearby locations, or offer puzzles.

In Ginormosia, your combat skills will be of particular use, and you’ll obviously benefit more heavily from whatever better-quality armour and equipment you’ve made or acquired. But there’s no way you can tackle Ginormosia in one go: it will take several nibbles over the course of the game, as each time you go away and level-up a bit, and equip-up a bit, and then return. This is where Fantasy Life i finally starts to come into view, in how it presents us with two game experiences stretched across our home life and our adventuring life, that compliment each other.

For instance, combat prowess: you can level up in your chosen Life while out adventuring, but you can’t increase your rank without doing jobs for the guild master, who’s back in town. And it’s only by increasing your rank that you can access more powerful skills on your skill tree, and unlock things like charged attacks, better combos, and various passive abilities, all of which make you more deadly or hardy, depending on what you want to do. It’s a similar deal for crafting abilities – yes they have skill trees too. So you see that you might want better combat abilities and equipment for your adventures, but in order to get them you’ll have to pursue several different Life paths at home first.

This is the carpentry mini-game. You have to move between the three stations and press the buttons prompted as fast as you can. It’s simple but it’s fun.

That might sound laborious but there’s an innate joy involved in pursuing them. Take carpentry for example. A mini-game springs into life when you want to make something that involves pressing button prompts as fast as you can in order to successfully craft. It’s a little more complex than that but suffice to say that it’s energetic and fun, which aren’t words I typically associate with crafting systems in games. Even chopping trees or mining ore are enjoyable, using ideas like ‘find the sweet spot’ to alleviate the boredom, whereby if you hit a sweet spot, you can greatly increase the speed you take a node down. Couple this with powerful buffs from food or potions and you can smash through resource nodes in seconds. And now you probably want to learn alchemy in order to achieve this. Do you see how it goes? One thing encourages another.

It’s as you start to nose through the skill trees in the games and overlap the Lives you’re living that Fantasy Life i really gets a hold of you, and because it’s so broad, it manages to satisfy a lot of game urges in one. Do you want to build and decorate a home like you do in Animal Crossing? That kind of peaceful island life exists here. Do you also want the thrill of adventure and story and combat?

That kind of experience exists here too. It’s a clever blend and a clever studio that can knit them together and make them work. There’s much more to Fantasy Life i than meets the eye and, for me, it’s one of the stars of the Switch 2 launch.

A copy of Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time was provided by Level-5.

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June 21, 2025 0 comments

Dune: Awakening Eighth Trial of Aql guide

Gaming Gear

Dune: Awakening AMA promises changes coming to PvP: ‘We want the experience to be reliable, responsive, and clearly understood’

by admin June 19, 2025

Dune: Awakening is a hit, but it’s not without flaws. PvP in the deep desert is a particular issue for an awful lot of players, based on Reddit complaints, and you better believe that questions about Funcom’s plans for it came up during an AMA held today on Reddit.

There’s little in the way of concrete information at this point, I’m sorry to say, as Funcom is still figuring out exactly how it wants to proceed. But senior game director Viljar Sommerbakk laid out three overarching goals for PvP combat in the deep desert:

We want players to make meaningful decisions about what they bring with them and how they outfit their vehicles
Once players have engaged in PvP, we want the experience to be reliable, responsive, and clearly understood. This determines how PvP as a whole feels and how players make their moment to moment decisions in a fight
To ensure a more reliable experience in ground combat, we are continuing to address issues with movement desyncs and rubber banding, as well as ability activation reliability

One thing Funcom is not considering, according to creative director Joel Bylos, is deep desert zones restricted to ground combat. Developers recently patched out the ability of ornithopters to “goomba stomp” players on the ground (although in kind of a half-assed way) but even without that goofy exploit, air power still dominates: As PC Gamer’s own Lisan al Gaib Chris Livingston recently wrote about Dune: Awakening’s PvP combat, “In most fights it’s just pilots trading missiles with each other in the air instead of engaging on the surface with swords, shields, and skills.”

Establishing ornithopter-free zones “is not the plan,” Bylos said. “However, a lot of our adjustments and balancing are going to drive combat towards the core vision, which is people competing over points of interest in the Deep Desert. The current balance between vehicles and on-foot is not tuned to our liking and there are multiple changes in the pipeline to address this (above and beyond bugs we will fix).”

Funcom also isn’t planning to remove rocket launchers from scout ornithopters, the source of another common PvP complaint. Instead, it’s working on changes that will see a scout ornithopter’s speed and maneuverability impacted by its loadout: Specifics weren’t provided but presumably you’ll be able to either come heavy or go fast, but not both.

That, Sommerbakk said, will make the assault ornithopter a better choice when you specifically want to engage in combat, but still leave some offensive capability available to the scout for those who want it.

Bylos acknowledged that he was “not being very concrete” in his answers, but said that’s because the team is still “planning and watching how people are playing and finding the right points to address.”

One thing that is on the way, though—not related to PvP but that I find interesting just because it’s Dune—is “sandwalking,” the Fremen ability to walk the surface of Arrakis without attracting the attention of sandworms. Bylos told PC Gamer in 2024 that Dune: Awakening actually had sandwalking at one point but it was cut, because “it looked ridiculous, and it made you walk really slowly.”

But Funcom has apparently figured out a way to make it not suck: In response to a player who said they wanted to be a proper “desert wanderer,” Sommerbakk said, “We will do walking without rhythm.”

As for Funcom’s more immediate plans, executive producer Scott Junior said the studio is currently testing a patch with “a lot of QoL updates” that it hopes to have ready for early July. “When we get closer to it being publicly testable we will release the full patch notes,” Junior said. “It contains too many changes for me to list here, but you’ll be seeing it soon!”

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June 19, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Fortnite Nintendo Switch 2 Edition review: by far the best way to play on a handheld, and a pretty solid TV experience too

by admin June 17, 2025

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Launching alongside the Nintendo Switch 2, Fortnite Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is quite simply the same game, but better. Bless developer and publisher Epic Games for trying, but Fortnite on the original Nintendo Switch is hardly the most elegant way to play and feels like you’re at a significant disadvantage thanks to the decreased graphical fidelity, framerate, and draw distance. It’s forgivable on handheld, but with TV mode, it looks rough and feels rougher. But I’m glad to say the Nintendo Switch 2 edition is a great way to play, no matter where you are.

Review info

Platform reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2
Available on: Nintendo Switch 2; Non-Switch 2 version available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, PC, Android, iOS (in some regions)
Release date: June 5, 2025

I mean, what can you even say about Fortnite at this point? Epic Games’ 100-person Battle Royale game has taken over the world over the last eight years, and it’s only grown larger in the time since. In the vein of something like Roblox, Fortnite is both a battle royale and a user-generated game platform where you can find an endless amount of custom maps to play with your friends on.

But let’s get into why the Fortnite Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is such a great way to play.

Chug jug with you

(Image credit: Epic Games)

To really hammer that “you can play Fortnite without even touching its main mode” point home, I don’t like Battle Royale – the marquee mode – thanks to the game’s building mechanics. However, when it comes to the Zero Build mode, it’s undoubtedly the best Battle Royale game on the market right now. Over the years, Epic has augmented the core mechanics of the game with a host of new movement options like wall kicking and roll landing that keep things fluid in what used to be the jankiest of movement systems.

Of course, the problem with any ‘evolving game’ is that it’s tough to give a review of the main mode because of how it changes. Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1 was peak, while Chapter 4 and Chapter 5’s third seasons were two of the absolute worst seasons of a live service game I’ve played. This means there could be three-month stretches where you just simply don’t like the game. And considering Epic Games has been experimenting with seasons based around media franchises like Marvel, Star Wars, and a rumored upcoming Simpsons season, if you don’t like those, that’s all you get for months.

Thanks to the use of the Nintendo Switch 2’s feature set and specs, it’s one of the best ways to play the game on console and by far the best handheld version.

Outside of that, there are the Epic Games-created modes. There’s Fortnite OG, which brings back the original Chapter 1 map (which can also be played in Zero Build, thankfully); Reload, which is a faster-paced 40-player battle; and Ballistic, a first-person mode that is a take on Counter-Strike. While none of these stand up to the core mode, they offer different ways to take on the mechanics of Fortnite and are solid games in their own right.

Then there are non-shooting modes like the Minecraft-inspired Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and the best side mode, Fortnite Festival, which is a rhythm game mode and the closest thing we’ll get to a new Rock Band game, considering it was developed by Guitar Hero and Rock Band creator Harmonix. This mode gets constantly updated with songs and artists, with a new singer taking center stage with a skin and big song drop every few months or so (with the likes of Sabrina Carpenter, Metallica, and Hatsune Miku showing up).

And despite having so many options, the player base for each main mode is really healthy, meaning you’ll never wait too long to find a game of anything, with some custom games even having dedicated player bases. A few of these Epic-made modes have their own seasons and battle passes, too, which does add up if you don’t subscribe to the Fortnite Crew. However, Epic recently changed it so XP earned in any mode goes towards every single pass, which is a massive step up.

Mouse trap

(Image credit: Epic Games)

Fortnite Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is the same game as it is everywhere else; there are no exclusive modes or anything of the sort. However, thanks to the use of the Nintendo Switch 2’s feature set and specs, it’s one of the best ways to play the game on console and by far the best handheld version of Fortnite.

Compared to the Nintendo Switch version, which ran at 880p docked and 660p in handheld mode, Fortnite Nintendo Switch 2 Edition runs at 1224p docked and 900p in handheld, so it still isn’t 4K / 1080p, but it is a significant boost. However, the resolution isn’t where the upgrade matters; the improved textures as well as a far greater draw distance, which was one of the original console’s biggest hindrances – especially with how big the Fortnite map is. Most importantly, Fortnite Nintendo Switch 2 Edition runs at a solid 60fps as opposed to the 30fps of the Nintendo Switch – which in an online shooter that has cross-play with more powerful platforms – makes a world of difference.

Gyro aiming returns from the Nintendo Switch edition of Fortnite, but new to the Switch 2 version is support for mouse controls via the Joy-Con 2 controllers. Effectively, this allows you to use a mouse setup for aiming with the movement capabilities of an analogue stick, and is a wonderful combination.

Best bit

(Image credit: Epic Games)

As I was writing this review, Epic released a Hank Hill skin alongside an emote recreating the King of the Hill intro: my best bit can only be that and even how it looked on the Switch 2, which was excellent.

However, the mouse implementation is a touch awkward. Due to the lack of buttons available, you’ll still need to access the face buttons on your Joy-Con to jump and reload, which creates some uncomfortable moments as you crane your hand. Plus, the mouse controls need to be activated from the in-game menu, as opposed to just sticking the Joy-Con in mouse position like in other games. This isn’t the biggest pain in the world, but it doesn’t revert back once you use a controller that doesn’t support mouse controls (such as attaching your Joy-Con 2 to the Switch 2 itself), which means you’ll need to get the controller off and go through the menu with the mouse to deactivate it.

Fortnite is a phenomenon for a reason; if you let yourself get by the “popular game bad” noise that you often see with this and the likes of Call of Duty, you’ll find what is probably the best Battle Royale game in the genre. And even outside of that, it’s a massive game platform that has an endless supply of whatever you like, from racing, rhythm games, and even custom Fall Guys games.

However, the risks of an ongoing game persist because you’ll occasionally be hit with a season that makes the game bad for months, and there’s not much you can do to help it.

Having said that, Fortnite Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is easily the best way to play on the go or on a handheld device, and while it’s outclassed in power by the PS5 and Xbox versions when it comes to TV mode, it’s still solid to look at, and the mouse controls give it an edge that those consoles don’t have.

Should you play Fortnite Nintendo Switch 2 Edition?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility

Fortnite has a ton of accessibility options, including multiple color blindness filters, the ability to remap controls however you like, alongside multiple control options like gyro aiming and mouse controls.

A standout feature is the visual sound effects toggle, which displays a ring around your character to indicate the source of sound effects and their corresponding representations (footsteps, loot, gunfire, etc.). This is particularly beneficial for those with hearing difficulties or when playing the game with the sound muted.

How I reviewed Fortnite Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

I played around eight hours of Fortnite Nintendo Switch 2 Edition on top of a good 300-400 hours played across PlayStation, PC, and Nintendo Switch. During my time with the Nintendo Switch 2 edition, I tested Zero Build mode, Fortnite Festival and a number of custom games.

I played this in a mixture of handheld mode on the Nintendo Switch 2 itself and on a Samsung Q60D TV and a Samsung HW-T450 soundbar using the Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller and the Joy-Con 2 controllers when using mouse mode.

First reviewed June 2025

Fortnite Nintendo Switch 2 Edition: Price Comparison

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June 17, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

MindsEye crashes caused by a memory leak, developer says, as it remains committed to ensuring all players have a great experience

by admin June 12, 2025

The team at MindsEye studio Build A Rocket Boy is “heartbroken that not every player was able to experience the game as we intended,” it has said, promising more fixes throughout June.

MindsEye released earlier this week, however it wasn’t the smoothest of launches. Many found themselves presented with distorting character bugs and stuttering issues when they booted up the game. Build A Rocket Boy released a statement yesterday, when it said it would be prioritising gameplay performance with an update.

“Our teams have worked tirelessly throughout the night to solve many of these issues, and we have now identified that the vast majority of crashes were caused by a memory leak,” the developer has since shared on the MindsEye Discord, adding roughly one in 10 players were impacted.

The Death of Console Exclusives Is Inevitable and I Don’t Know How I Feel About It. Watch on YouTube

“We have developed a hotfix that addresses this issue (alongside other issues that our players have highlighted), which we are working hard to deploy as soon as tomorrow on PC and on consoles once it passes certification with PlayStation and Xbox,” it continued, stating the team is “fully committed to ensuring all players have a great experience”.

Build A Rocket Boy additionally shared its hotfix plans for up until the end of June. These are:

Friday, June 13-15 – Hotfix #1 – PC & Console

What players can expect:

Initial CPU and GPU performance improvements, along with memory optimisations
Reduced difficulty for the CPR mini-game
A new setting to disable or adjust Depth of Field
Fix for missing controls in the MineHunter and Run Dungeon mini-games
Pop-up warnings for PCs with Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling disabled and for PCs with CPUs prone to crashes

Hotfix #2 – Week of June 16 – PC & Console

What players can expect:

Continuous incremental performance and stability improvements
Fix for the buggy wheels not visually spinning while driving
Fix for areas in Car Manufacturing where players could fall through the world

By End of June – Update 3 – PC & Console

What players can expect:

Ongoing performance & stability improvements
Rebalanced “Hard” difficulty setting
Animation fixes
AI improvements

Image credit: Build a Rocket Boy / IOI

MindsEye has had an unusual lead up to launch, it has to be said. At the end of May, the studio’s co-CEO suggested the game’s negative reaction up until that point had been paid for in a “concerted effort” against the developer. This is something IO Interactive, which serves as the game’s publisher, doesn’t believe to be the case.

Meanwhile, the studio’s Chief Legal Officer and Chief Financial Officer left the company, just one week before MindsEye released.

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June 12, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Microsoft and Asus announce two Xbox Ally handhelds with new Xbox full-screen experience

by admin June 9, 2025

Microsoft and Asus have been working together over the past year to create not one, but two new ROG Xbox Ally handhelds. Both of these Xbox Ally devices, part of the Project Kennan effort I reported on earlier this year, include a new full-screen Xbox experience on Windows that’s designed to be more handheld-friendly and hide away the complexity of Windows to focus on gaming instead.

The white ROG Xbox Ally is designed for 720p gaming, and the more powerful black ROG Xbox Ally X targets 900p to 1080p gaming on the go. Like the existing ROG Ally and Ally X, the new Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X share the same 7-inch 1080p screen, complete with a 120Hz refresh rate and VRR support.

The Xbox Ally uses a previously unannounced AMD Ryzen Z2 A chip, combined with 16GB of LPDDR5X-6400 RAM and 512GB of M.2 2280 SSD storage. The Xbox Ally X upgrades the chip to AMD’s Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor, 24GB of LPDDR5X-8000 memory, and a 1TB M.2 2280 SSD.

The white ROG Xbox Ally ships with AMD’s Ryzen Z2 A processor. Image: Microsoft

The ROG Ally X adds a better AMD processor and impulse triggers. Image: Microsoft

All of these specs make them very similar to Asus’ existing Windows-powered handheld gaming PCs at heart, but there are some much-needed changes to the software side that could make the Windows handheld experience a lot better.

“We know that to take this handheld experience to the next level, we cannot do this alone,” says Shawn Yen, vice president of consumer at Asus, in a briefing with The Verge, admitting that some gamers have found it “frustrating and confusing” to navigate Windows with joysticks and button until now.

Microsoft and Asus have been collaborating closely on these two new Xbox Ally devices over the past year, and Yen says Microsoft and Asus “share a joint obsession” on these new handhelds.

That joint obsession includes Microsoft making good on its promise to combine “the best of Xbox and Windows together,” thanks to a new Xbox full-screen experience on Windows that’s designed specifically for handhelds. Not only can the Xbox Ally devices boot directly to this interface, but the companies claim you can easily get back to it using a new dedicated Xbox button on these handhelds, much like an Xbox console.

Microsoft doesn’t load the full Windows desktop or a bunch of background processes in this full-screen Xbox experience, putting Windows firmly in the background and freeing up more memory for games. Instead, you launch straight into the Xbox PC app, which includes all of your PC games from the Microsoft Store, Battle.net, and what Microsoft calls “other leading storefronts.”

The Xbox Ally with the new full-screen Xbox experience on Windows. Image: Microsoft

This aggregated gaming library means you’ll see games from Xbox, Game Pass, and all your PC games installed from Steam, Epic Games Store, and elsewhere in a single interface, much like what the GOG launcher offers. Earlier this week, we started seeing parts of this unified library appear in the Xbox PC app, and Microsoft says you’ll be able to access your full Xbox console library through Xbox Cloud Gaming or Remote Play to an Xbox console.

The idea is that you should be able to seamlessly launch any game you own, whether it’s actually installed on your handheld, streaming from your Xbox Series X over home Wi-Fi, or streaming from the cloud, though we have yet to try that ourselves.

Microsoft has also made some additional tweaks to the Xbox PC app and Game Bar to make this all more handheld-friendly, including the ability to log in via the Windows lockscreen with your controller, no touchscreen taps required. You’ll also be able to use this handheld-friendly Game Bar interface to easily launch apps like Discord, or alt-tab between apps and games, or adjust settings without having to fiddle with the touchscreen. You can read all about all the Windows changes in my deep dive look at this new Xbox PC experience right here.

These two Xbox Ally devices also have Xbox-like contoured grips. It’s as if Microsoft and Asus have taken an Xbox controller and squeezed a screen between the grips, similar to what Sony did with its PlayStation Portal. The grips have been designed like this to make it easier to wrap your hands around the entire controls, so you access all the buttons and triggers.

The Xbox Ally X even has impulse triggers like all modern Xbox controllers, so you’ll feel things like terrain of roads during racing games or the impact of bullets in a shooter, all thanks to the haptics on the triggers. Asus is also using a USB-C 4 connector that supports Thunderbolt 4 on the more powerful Xbox Ally X, offering the possibility of connecting a powerful external GPU to it, alongside a single USB-C 3.2 port and a UHS-II microSD card reader. The Xbox Ally uses two USB-C 3.2 ports instead.

The ABXY buttons on the Xbox Ally X. Image: Microsoft

Microsoft and Asus aren’t providing any benchmarks or a real sense of performance for these handhelds yet, and both use chips we haven’t tested. But interestingly, they appear to be focusing on battery life this time around.

“For this generation the most important thing to us is efficiency. Efficiency is our new superpower,” says Yen. “The games will be able to play cooler and quieter, and at the same time offer you a longer battery life for gameplay.” AMD told us in January that the Z2 Extreme would be both its most powerful and most efficient handheld chip yet, while the Z2 A is rumored to be based on the Steam Deck’s less powerful but battery-sipping Van Gogh-based chip.

Importantly, the Xbox Ally is using a 60Wh battery, 50 percent larger than the pack that shipped in the original ROG Ally, while the more powerful Xbox Ally X uses an 80Wh battery, tied with the Ally X and the largest you can find in a handheld today. The Windows tweaks may also improve battery, with Microsoft claiming it’s already seeing one-third of the drain when these Xbox Full Screen Experience systems are idle and asleep.

If you want extra performance, you’ll also be able to dock these Xbox Ally devices to Asus’ XG mobile device that offers up an RTX 5090 laptop GPU to overhaul how games play on these handheld devices.

These new Xbox Ally handhelds will launch during the holiday season later this year, and Microsoft and Asus are planning to share pricing and preorder information in the coming months.

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June 9, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Blocky co-op game Lego Voyagers wants you to experience “what it feels like to be a Lego brick”

by admin June 8, 2025

The team that bought us all Lego Builder’s Journey is back with some more bricky goodness, this time in the form of Lego Voyagers.

Announced at this evening’s Summer Game Fest opening night, Lego Voyagers is a two-player co-op adventure all about “bricks, friendship and play”, which sounds very wholesome. “When two friends make it their mission to rescue an abandoned spaceship, they embark on a journey beyond their wildest dreams, ultimately learning the value of being connected,” reads the official blurb.

In this game, players will be able to actually experience “what it feels like to a Lego brick”. No, it doesn’t mean you will find out what it feels like when I accidentally step on you in the middle of the night and then try to hold in expletives while I check on my son. Rather, it means you will be able to find out what it means to “tumble, jump, snap together, and build your way through rich brick worlds”. You can check out the trailer below.

LEGO® VOYAGERS | Reveal Trailer. Watch on YouTube

Lego Voyagers will release “soon” across PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC. You can find out more here: https://bit.ly/LEGOVoyagers.

Elsewhere this evening, we got a look at a comedic fighter starring puppets known as Felt That: Boxing.

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June 8, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Razer’s HD haptic gaming cushion allows you to experience every in-game explosion for $299

by admin June 7, 2025

Razer just launched its Sensa HD Haptics gear, with the immersive gear starting to go on sale on June 10. At the moment, only two items have this feature — the Razer Freyja haptic gaming cushion and the Razer Kraken V4 Pro gaming headset. You put the former on your gaming chair, giving you an almost whole-body tactile sensation with everything that happens in-game, while the latter converts your game’s sound and audio and turns it into something you can feel in your head.

You need to install the Razer Synapse 4 control software to enjoy these haptic features, and your game title must also support it. Thankfully, 15 titles have native support for the feature, including Hogwarts Legacy, Sniper Elite: Resistance, Frostpunk 2, and SnowRunner. A further 92 games are compatible with it via SimHub, including favorites like American Truck Simulator, Forza Horizon 5, Microsoft Flight Simulator 24, and Project Cars 3. We expect more titles to be compatible with this system, including the aforementioned Dune: Awakening title bundled with the Razer gear.

Razer Freyja | Razer Sensa HD Haptics – YouTube

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The company first showed off its haptic gear as Project Esther at CES 2024, where we got to try it. Some people might write off Sensa HD Haptics as just another gimmick meant to separate gamers from their hard-earned money, but our experience says otherwise. “In a demo where I was piloting a battle mech on rails, being shot at by various enemies, the haptics in the chair mat and the headset cascaded around my legs, back, and head,” said Tom’s Hardware Managing Editor Matt Safford. “Feeling an impact move up and around me was a new and truly unique experience.”

The Game Informer archive just got upgraded with its entire backlog, so go experience the eye-melting world of ’90s game advertising

by admin May 29, 2025

It was a heavy loss in games journalism when Game Informer got kicked to the curb last fall, but it got over its own death pretty quickly when game dev and blockchain company Gunzilla financed its resurrection in March. A few projects were announced back then, including a return to print—but if you want to reminisce about the days when Game Informer was hot off the presses, its archive just got updated with its entire backlog of physical issues.

It’s free to view if you sign up for an account on the site, and goes all the way back to 1991. A blog post announcing the additions from editor-in-chief Matt Miller said: “In the coming months, we plan to surface specific legacy articles we believe are worth exploring. In the meantime, enjoy this new level of free access to the rich history of gaming we’ve covered over the last 34 years.”

The post notes it took some help from the Video Game History Foundation, Retromags, and one dedicated fan in particular: bogusfrank, “whose efforts to track down issues and preserve gaming magazine history now help us access our own company’s history and share it with all of you.” I doubt fans would have let these issues truly go lost, but having them on display in this free and accessible format is the best case scenario.