I identify with Hank, the ursine protagonist of Bear and Breakfast. Not just because I am also large, hairy, and fond of long naps, but because my winding journey through life had me renovating and running a small B&B out in the hinterlands for a few years. It's hard work, but it's satisfying when a guest has nothing but praise. I admit though, having Hank's charming friends and neighbors would have improved things greatly. Bear and Breakfast is the first game from Romanian indie outfit Gummy Cat, and a strong first showing if my first 10 hours of play are anything to go by. Doing what it says on the tin, it's a game about a cute, vaguely Yogi-esque bear managing a rapidly expanding bed and breakfast business, revitalizing an abandoned tourist town in the process. The bear essentials On a purely mechanical level, Bear and Breakfast is a relatively simple construction and management game. Controlling Hank directly (except when in the building interface), you wander around … [Read more...] about Being a bear who runs a B&B is no picnic
Ukrainian refugee finally plays Elden Ring after funding a new PC with VTuber models
Audio player loading… The day before Elden Ring's release, Nikita fled his country. Early in the morning on February 24, an airfield in his home city of Bucha, Ukraine was bombed by Russian forces. Within days, Russia had broken into the city, ransacked homes, and massacred over a thousand people (opens in new tab) , according to reporting by the BBC and other outlets covering the war. "We woke up in the morning and heard explosions. They killed a lot of people on the streets that were trying to find food," Nikita says. "People were trapped in the city for about two to three weeks without food, water and electricity. They eventually got evacuated, but it was horrible and a lot of them suffer from PTSD now." Nikita, 21, and his four family members escaped Bucha (which is about 30 km west of the capital city of Kyiv) by car and drove for the Polish border on the first day of the attack. They took alternative roads to avoid running into Russian forces. "I almost … [Read more...] about Ukrainian refugee finally plays Elden Ring after funding a new PC with VTuber models
Windows 11 used with modern CPUs could lead to encrypted data corruption
Audio player loading… Microsoft has warned that some users may be affected by an issue related to its encryption features in combination with CPUs with Vector Advanced Encryption Standard (VAES) instructions. The issue can lead to ‘data damage’. The issue affects Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022. According to a post on Microsoft’s website (opens in new tab) , the services that may be impacted include Bitlocker, which is Microsoft’s full volume encryption feature. It uses the AES instruction sets supported by modern CPUs, specifically the AES XEX-based tweaked-codebook mode with ciphertext stealing (AES-XTS) and AES with Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) (AES-GCM). The list of CPUs that are affected has not been revealed, however, Intel 10th Gen and newer, and AMD Ryzen 5000 and newer CPUs are believed to be affected. It’s believed that the issue is a result of Windows code, and not a hardware issue. Bleeping Computer (opens in new tab) reports that Microsoft has … [Read more...] about Windows 11 used with modern CPUs could lead to encrypted data corruption
Here’s How The Summer Box Office Compares To Pre-Pandemic Numbers
The movie theate business was one of the worst hit when the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down in 2020, suffering both from lockdowns and ongoing studio delays once theatres were allowed to open again. Based on summer box office numbers, it looks like the industry is recovering well, though it still has a while to go to reach pre-pandemic numbers. Variety reported the numbers in a feature that also interviewed theater owners for their outlook on the industry. According to Comscore statistics, the total box office take for the summer was $3.027 billion, only 17.5% down on 2019 numbers. The summer earnings showed an improvement of 134.6% compared to the same period last year, and a huge increase on 2020's lockdown-affected summer. The season's success has been attributed to recent blockbusters like Jurassic World Dominion, Lightyear, Elvis, and Top Gun: Maverick, which recently made its way into the top-ten earning films of all time . Other big earners include Everything … [Read more...] about Here’s How The Summer Box Office Compares To Pre-Pandemic Numbers
This Skyrim bard magic mod lets you use your Spice Girls collection to smite enemies
Audio player loading… If you ask me, videogames peaked as a medium when Hideo Kojima let us arrive on the battlefield to the tune of the Spice Girls (opens in new tab) . Ever since then, I've been on the hunt for the raw, animal high that occurs when a game lets me dispense swift justice and sick beats simultaneously. Bard Magic Overhaul for Skyrim Special Edition (opens in new tab) from Monitor144 might be exactly what I'm looking for. It works like this: in place of Skyrim's traditional spellcasting system, which saw you cast spells by waving your hands around like some kind of uncouth hedge witch, this mod makes it so that all your spells are cast by playing one of Skyrim's many lutes. Chucking a fireball, summoning a daedra, it's all accompanied by either a quick strum or a full song on the lute. The best part, though, is that you can upload your own custom music. Spice World, here I come. All you need to start casting spells from the school of rock is a … [Read more...] about This Skyrim bard magic mod lets you use your Spice Girls collection to smite enemies
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: How to complete Feeding the Wolf and honour the gods
As part of the Sigrblot festival, you'll need to complete the Feeding the Wolf quest. Your clanmates in Ravensthorpe have many hopes and prayers for the year ahead and as their leader, it's up to you to decide which god to dedicate an offering to. You'll get a bunch of tokens for completing this quest which you can use to purchase cosmetics for yourself and the settlement. Other festival tasks include humbling Ake in a game of wit (opens in new tab) and throwing a feast (opens in new tab) to boost morale. With that in mind, let's take a look at how to complete Feeding the Wolf. Where to find the shrine and letters Once you've returned to Ravensthorpe, you'll begin The War Effort questline for the Sigrblot festival, and Feeding the Wolf is one of the tasks. Speak with Thyra to get your first lot of instructions, which involves visiting the shrines near the waterfall. To find the shrines, head back to the longhouse and turn right, up towards the waterfalls … [Read more...] about Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: How to complete Feeding the Wolf and honour the gods
Read your future with 22 videogame interpretations of the Tarot
If you've ever come across the Tarot, it's probably as a means of telling the future. A cousin of modern playing cards that dates back to the 15th century, the Tarot consists of four suites of numbered Minor Arcana cards and a Major Arcana of trumps depicting archetypal characters and concepts, such as Death or the Empress. Each card is dense with possible interpretations that can be hypnotic to unravel, even if you don't take the divination thing seriously. Videogame developers among other artmakers have seized upon the Tarot as both a motif and a creative tool: Tarot-esque designs appear in fantasy RPGs like Dragon Age: Inquisition, and studios like Ice Water Games use them as a source of quickfire inspiration. A common Tarot fortune-telling method is to draw three cards and use them to explore answers to a question, like “will there ever be a proper Legacy of Kain revival”. This is also how you'll unlock games in Cartomancy , a full-blown indie collection of 22 games from … [Read more...] about Read your future with 22 videogame interpretations of the Tarot
Elden Ring update makes summoning easier and finally lets you do the Varre quest solo
Audio player loading… FromSoftware just pushed out a new update for Elden Ring (opens in new tab) , making summoning a friendly face a whole lot easier, removing the online requirements for a quest and slapping some nerfs on a few meta skills and weapons. Patch 1.06 lets you send summoning signs to more areas, including regions you're not currently in. It should make finding a helper in quieter areas a lot easier now, though understandably you can only be summoned to areas you've already visited. The same is also true for invaders, so now you can invade a larger area, including regions you're not currently in. The update has also introduced an offline alternative for the White Mask Varre questline (opens in new tab) . Before now, the only way to advance was by invading someone else's game three times. Although you didn't actually have to fight or win against any other players, it was a pain for people playing offline. Now, those who don't fancy getting their hands … [Read more...] about Elden Ring update makes summoning easier and finally lets you do the Varre quest solo
Nightdive sheds light on why Blade Runner Enhanced Edition was such a disaster
Audio player loading… I was heartbroken by the state that Nightdive's Blade Runner Enhanced Edition released in (opens in new tab) . As someone with long, fond memories of sitting at my dad's enormous grey Fujitsu PC and running around the original's rain-slick LA streets, I was excited for the surefire nostalgia hit that I thought Nightdive's remaster would be. Well, the rest is history. The smudgy upscaling, unnatural framerate, and a litany of new bugs combined to make sure the remaster turned out a worse experience than the original. Those of us who were looking forward to stepping into Ray McCoy's gumshoes were sorely disappointed. But at least now we know why. A new interview from PCGamesN (opens in new tab) with Nightdive's Larry Kuperman and Dimitris Giannakis—the company's director of business development and lead producer on Blade Runner Enhanced Edition, respectively—sheds some light on the "perfect storm" the project faced before it was released. … [Read more...] about Nightdive sheds light on why Blade Runner Enhanced Edition was such a disaster
Turtle Beach is in a race to find a buyer or else risk total upheaval
Audio player loading… Like Penelope when Odysseus went on his epic jaunt around Greece, Turtle Beach has been talking to hundreds of potential suitors, in the hopes of a match. Essentially, the peripheral company wants someone to buy it, to save it from itself. However, its search for love is not going well. There's a lot to digest there, but here goes. The peripheral company best known for its cheap console headsets, simulator gear, and controllers (and owner of PC-focused brand Roccat) has been going through a period of upheaval. One that could see some of its upper management out of a job and the company's future in the hands of another in just a few months' time. It's all rather scandalous, actually. To understand what's going on with Turtle Beach and why it's looking for a sale in the first place, you need to go back a few months to a potential buyout bid from hedge fund and part owner, Donerail. Aggressive boardroom antics The Donerail Group (opens in … [Read more...] about Turtle Beach is in a race to find a buyer or else risk total upheaval