Vampire spells that really work

When I heard that Square Enix had sold Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and three respected game studios to Embracer Group for $300 million, I instantly became that guy who knows exactly how much everything is worth but can only back up his valuations with rhetorical questions. $300 million? For Tomb Raider? And Deus Ex? Are they serious? It seems like a steal for Embracer, but in retrospect, just because my dad knows who Lara Croft is doesn't necessarily mean that the series is going to be profitable in the future. Sexy British artifact thieves are unfashionable—people want to play as miserable wretches named The Tarnished these days—and the kind of games Eidos-Montréal and Crystal Dynamics are best at making are very expensive to produce. Eidos-Montréal studio head David Anfossi said in 2018 (opens in new tab) that Shadow of the Tomb Raider cost as much as $100 million to make, and another $35 million to promote. It was half-off during Steam's Autumn Sale the same year it … [Read more...] about Is $300M for Tomb Raider and Deus Ex really that big of a steal?

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

Audio player loading… In February, Krafton announced that Subnautica studio Unknown Worlds, which it had acquired in October 2021, was working on a new project that was not Subnautica 3. Instead, it's a " turn-based strategy game (opens in new tab) set in a sci-fi world"—quite a departure from the first-person survival games that put Unknown Worlds on the map. Later this month at Gamescom, we'll finally get a look at what it's all about: Unknown Worlds co-founder Charlie Cleveland will formally unveil the new game during the Opening Night Live showcase. The presence of Unknown Worlds' new thing was initially revealed on Twitter by Master of All Gaming Ceremonies Geoff Keighley, but the tweet contained an extremely unfortunate spelling error (opens in new tab) that led to a completely different (and very not safe-for-work) Twitter account. Fortunately, Krafton also confirmed the Gamescom appearance of Unknown Worlds in a separate statement of its own, saying that … [Read more...] about Subnautica studio will reveal its new sci-fi strategy game at Gamescom

Audio player loading… Stardew Valley (opens in new tab) has been out for six years now, and somehow it just keeps on getting bigger. A recent update to the Stardew Valley press site (opens in new tab) indicates that the game has now sold more than 20 million copies across all platforms, including 13 million on PC alone. "The 20 million copies milestone is really amazing," Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone said in an email to PC Gamer. "I can't believe the game has reached this level." One of the most interesting things about the new milestone is the way the pace of Stardew Valley sales appears to be growing, despite its age. It sold more than one million (opens in new tab) copies just a couple months after release, and then hit the 10 million (opens in new tab) mark four years later, in January 2020. By September 2021 the number was over 15 million (opens in new tab) , and now, just eight months later, we're at 20 million. Barone confirmed that … [Read more...] about Eric Barone says he ‘can’t believe’ Stardew Valley has sold 20 million copies

Audio player loading… Esports aren't just for shooters, MOBAs, and real-time strategy games. As we've seen over the past several years, just about anything can be an esport, from Farming Simulator League to Geoguessr competitions to Wikipedia speedruns . If it's a program that runs on a computer, no matter what it is, someone will find a way to make it competitive. So of course there are Microsoft Excel esports. As reported by TechRadar (opens in new tab) , this past weekend Excel esports got a lot of new fans when ESPN aired a replay of the Excel All-Star Battle that took place back in May. The event was organized by the Financial Modeling World Cup, "a leading financial modeling competition for everyone interested in finance," and was shown as part of ESPN's "The Ocho" on August 4, a 24-hour celebration of weird sports that included corgi racing, axe throwing, and stone skipping. The more I see offbeat esports competitions, the less surprised I feel … [Read more...] about Finally, mainstream esports acceptance: ESPN airs Microsoft Excel All-Star Battle

Sometimes a game crashes and burns so loudly that it's impossible to ignore. But for others—following a flashy marketing campaign, maybe some preview events or E3 presentations—the release date passes, and soon after that they might as well cease to exist. They're played and reviewed, sure. And someone, somewhere, probably even loved them. But for the rest of us, they're forgotten until years later when someone mentions their name and we go, "Oh, yeah! That game! I forgot that came out." Here are some of the last decade's biggest games that disappeared from the public consciousness. Paragon Released: August 2016. Why we were excited: As someone who always bounced off MOBAs, like many others I had hopes that Epic's big-budget in-house entry into the genre, with its third-person shooter presentation, would be my best chance to finally become someone who understands what "jungling" means. Why we forgot it: Paragon had an identity problem. In response to … [Read more...] about The big games from the last decade we forgot ever existed

Audio player loading… You might think, if you think about it at all, that not everything needs to be made into a movie. The people at Bandai Namco and production company Wayfarer Studios may not agree, though, because according to The Hollywood Reporter (opens in new tab) they are getting together to make a live-action film based on Pac-Man. How does one bring the two-dimensional, monochromatic waka waka waka tablet-chomper Pac-Man to a live-action film, you wonder? Very carefully, I reply, because THR doesn't say and I really don't have any good theories of my own. The report does reveal, however, that the film is "based on an original idea from Chuck Williams," which is as close to promising as any of the announcement gets: Williams was previously a producer on the 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog live-action flick, which (after a brief and entirely necessary delay (opens in new tab) ) unexpectedly did not suck (opens in new tab) . Of course, this won't be Pac-Man's … [Read more...] about They’re making a live-action Pac-Man movie for some reason

I'd suffered through too many bad Predator movies to get excited about Prey, but now I'm an evangelist spreading the good news: this is the best Predator movie since Arnie flexed his muscles in the jungle. It's striking but understated, leaving plenty of room between the lavish violence to build tension and develop not just Naru, played by the superb Amber Midthunder, but her alien adversary as well. And now that we've finally got another great Predator movie, wouldn't it be nice if we got a game to match? Predator hasn't exactly gone ignored by game developers: there's a long list of adaptations going all the way back to 1987, though in most of them the spotlight is shared with the xenomorphs. This was the case with the best Predator games: 1999's Aliens versus Predator and its 2001 sequel. There was even an AvP RTS in 2003. But aside from an appearance in Mortal Kombat X, there's not been much Predator love for years. When Predator: Hunting Grounds came along in 2020, then, my … [Read more...] about Prey is the perfect blueprint for a killer Predator game

The latest Predator movie, Prey, has hit Hulu, and is being well-received by critics and fans alike. However, one thing Predator fans notice is the alien's (the Yautja) redesign. This is a primal design that is pretty horrifying, but there's a reason for the drastic change from what we all consider a typical Predator look. Prey is advertised as a prequel; however, it doesn't deal with any of the characters--or locations--from previous films, so the folks behind the movie could essentially do what they wanted. And this lead to the creation of the Yautja we see in the movie, which is a bit more primal. "Because it's set 300 years prior to the original, there's sort of this narrative need that this thing look a little different, in terms of what it's wearing, what it's equipped with," director Dan Trachtenberg told GameSpot. "But after taking this opportunity--saying maybe this is from a different part of the hemisphere, or what have you--the movie could carry with it the same kinds … [Read more...] about Why Prey Gives The Predator A Scary Primal Redesign

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