Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

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The Monday news, part two:

Helicopter shooter Comanche is getting an Early Access launch next week
https://www.pcgamer.com/helicopter-shooter-comanche-is-getting-an-early-access-launch-next-week/
Classic helicopter sim Comanche is returning next week, though it follows the more action-focused Comanche 4 than the sims of the '90s. It's an aerial shooter set in the near future with a focus on multiplayer battles, and you'll be able to grab it on March 12 via Steam.

Solve mysteries as a 1990s cartoon character in Murder By Numbers
https://www.pcgamer.com/solve-mysteries-as-a-1990s-cartoon-character-in-murder-by-numbers/
Murder by Numbers, the new game from the makers of avian dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend, is a campy 1990s murder mystery featuring Honor Mizrahi, the star of a hit television detective show who's forced to become a real detective when her boss is murdered—just minutes after firing her. Teaming up with a slightly addled flying robot named Scout (it's the 1990s as seen through the lens of 1990s cartoons, you see), Mizrahi will investigate a string of murders across Hollywood, uncover a dark conspiracy, and—hopefully—clear her name.

Phoenix Point DLC Blood and Titanium lets you turn your soldiers into cyborgs
https://www.pcgamer.com/phoenix-point-dlc-blood-and-titanium-lets-you-turn-your-soldiers-into-cyborgs/
The first DLC for Phoenix Point, the turn-based sci-fi strategy game from original X-Com creator Julian Gollop's studio Snapshot Games, is now available on the Epic Games Store. Entitled Blood and Titanium, the update adds new cybernetic augmentations, available through new research projects, that will enable improved stats and new abilities.

This free Death Stranding parody has towering backpacks, lots of walking
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-free-death-stranding-parody-has-towering-backpacks-lots-of-walking/
Can't wait until June to stagger around in the snow with a towering backpack on PC? Walking Simulator, a free game on Steam, might hold you over for Death Stranding's PC release—though it's more likely it'll just give you a few minutes of general amusement and/or frustration.

SXSW festival has been canceled over coronavirus fears
https://www.pcgamer.com/sxsw-festival-has-been-canceled-over-coronavirus-fears/
The South by Southwest festival, better known as SXSW, is an annual conference held in Austin, Texas, that "celebrate the convergence of the interactive, film, and music industries." It doesn't specialize in games, but interesting games stuff definitely happens there: Last year's event carried details about Halo: The Master Chief Collection, for instance, and we hosted a panel in 2018 on Ultima Underworld, one of the greatest RPGs ever.
There will be no such content coming out of the show this year, however, because there will be no SXSW this year. Just one week before it was scheduled to begin, the city of Austin has cancelled the event just due to the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak.

Respawn faked the Forge character to mess with Apex Legends dataminers
https://www.pcgamer.com/respawn-faked-the-forge-character-to-mess-with-apex-legends-dataminers/
The reveal of the Apex Legends character Revenant was weird, interesting, and a lot of fun. It actually began with an entirely different character, Forge, who first came to light in late 2019 courtesy of dataminers, before being officially revealed in January. He had lore and character abilities and the whole nine yards, and looked 100 percent legit—until Revenant offed him in the middle of an animated interview.

Warframe has big quality of life improvements and free loot for its 7th birthday
https://www.pcgamer.com/warframe-has-big-quality-of-life-improvements-and-free-loot-for-its-7th-birthday/
Warframe, the world’s greatest game about magic space ninjas, is now seven years old. So naturally it is celebrating. Players who log in during this month will get access to the free Dex Raksaka armor, with further rewards like the Dex Furis pistols and a weapon slot each weekend in March. The celebration comes amid what Warframe is calling its most ambitious year ever following the launch of a big update in January.

Post-apocalyptic tactics mixed with MMO Dreadlands comes to Early Access this week
https://www.pcgamer.com/post-apocalyptic-tactics-mixed-with-mmo-dreadlands-comes-to-early-access-this-week/
Turn-based tactics game Dreadlands is coming this week, on March 10th. It’s a game set in a “colorful apocalypse” where you command a gang of outlaw weirdos to hunt down and—I can only assume—eat radioactive rocks to make yourself awesome. It’s a pretty standard tactics game, with turn-based shooting battles and a strategic metagame to frame them, but it has a neat twist: you can fight other people. We first got a look at that system when Blackfox Studios announced the game last year, but now you’ll get to see it in action. Notably, Dreadlands is published by Fatshark, who also publish the excellent Warhammer: Vermintide.

Minecraft Festival is the latest event postponed due to coronavirus
https://www.pcgamer.com/minecraft-festival-is-the-latest-event-postponed-due-to-coronavirus/
In recent years Minecon Earth has been an online event, rather than the meatspace gathering Minecon used to be. This year a return to the real world called Minecraft Festival was planned, with tickets about to go on sale on Friday. It's now the latest gaming event to be postponed due to the coronavirus.

Watch a ridiculous Spawn gameplay trailer for Mortal Kombat 11
https://www.pcgamer.com/watch-the-ridiculous-spawn-gameplay-trailer-for-mortal-kombat-11/
In a decade of edgy comics for edgy teens it was harder to get edgier than Spawn. Now he's back, in Mortal Kombat form.
As the trailer above shows his Mortal Kombat 11 incarnation is voiced by the excellent Keith David, who also played him in the TV show. Spawn's cloak, which seems quite nicely animated, can be used as a shield as well as being full of a ridiculous amount of weaponry. Guns, chains (take that, Scorpion), some kind of hellfire axes, a sword, and more. His fatality involves skinning his opponent with the chains, then letting his cloak eat their flesh. Because of course it does.

Snoop on emails in free spam simulator PanComOSa
https://www.pcgamer.com/snoop-on-emails-in-free-spam-simulator-pancomos/
And I thought spam filters worked based on algorithms. There are simply too many sent for people to be employed to check them all, individually, I thought. According to PanComOS I was wrong. You play as a new employee tasked with checking outgoing emails—are they legit, or are they spam? Genuine messages get dragged to the 'Send' icon, while spam goes in the trash where it belongs. It's a bit like Papers, Please, but light-hearted in tone, and with actual aliens instead of illegal aliens.

Blizzard reveals how good your Battlegrounds MMR really is
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-reveals-how-good-your-battlegrounds-mmr-really-is/
Other than the Sisyphean drive to endlessly improve your MMR, there really isn't much in the way of endgame to Hearthstone's Battlegrounds mode. Which thus far hasn't proved a problem because it's addictive as hell anyway. However, a little context when it comes to understanding your own number couldn't hurt, so here's senior game designer Dean "Iksar" Ayala to explain. He took to Twitter to break down what the mode's MMR distribution looks like, and threw in some other fun stats that Blizzard has gathered.

Shenmue 3 goes gambling on a cruise ship in its next DLC
https://www.pcgamer.com/shenmue-3-goes-gambling-on-a-cruise-ship-in-its-next-dlc/
Shenmue 3's third piece of DLC will be appearing soon, on March 17, letting Ryo take a wee break on a flashy cruise ship. It's moored in Niaowu Harbour, so you won't be doing any nautical sightseeing, but you will be able to waste your cash on some minigames.