Looks like Age of Empires IV has two major "problems", according to reviews: 1- Its graphics are only ok. They could be much better. specially the units; and 2-It keeps some traits, like the population cap, from the previous games.

I can understand the first one, but the second one is a matter of opinion. Some will find those mechanics dated and restraining, but others will see tham as traits from the series and won't make a big deal about it.

I know I hardly ever bother with MC, but that score still seems kind oof worthy to me. Especially for a game that was meant to be years in the making and was shown off some yrs ago at that. 

Yea I'll try it out on gamepass but I get the feeling it will be a skip which is a shame cause we need a fap worthy RTS

I know it was daft of me to think this game would help reignight the genre, but c'mon man, I was really hoping a 2-3 trillion dollar corp was going to actually make that happen lol. 

They shouldn't have had any budget constraints, yet it still looks like a mobile title in some of it's visual aspects. 

Also, ngl, but the building UI looks like DoW III's, just shaded in blue and black. I get that they also worked on DoW III, but again, c'mon man be a little different.

I think they'll likely carry on adding a few more factions and some campaign scenarios/MP maps, but I feel like this game is gonna end up like a wet fart and vanish into obscurity (Crackdown 3 levels of obscurity). 

I did temper my expectations a bit due to it being developed by Relic. Here is a game studio that keeps making Dawn of War games but keeps going in the wrong direction. Now they get to make Age of Empires and yea, it's better than their newer Dawn of War games but still no where close to the golden days of Age of Empires 2 which is a real shame.

It's annoying cause I am continuing to try and find an alternative to Starcraft 2 before Blizzard either ruins it or kills it. But at this rate, RTS games are gonna continue to be more and more Rare. I wish it was the "Flight Sim" of RTS games (not just graphically) but instead, it's just another meh entry by the looks of things.

I think I'll still try it since it's on gamepass though.

normally i wouldn't even play any RTS outside of warcraft 3 or red alert but ye gamepass indeed

That makes sense back then. Most cases were much more enclosed, so no where for the side panel air to go but make a mess of the flow internally. Add a bunch of front and rear fans to try and correct the flow. Dumb design.

I've got a couple similar Alienware knockoff cases. Quite enclosed. Both had side fans, one case feeds the CPU and the other the GPU. They both help, but the CPU side fan (which also has a cooling cone) only works well if you're not using a tower cooler. Both are 80mm so they unfortunately add more noise than a larger slower fan would.

That's why if they made a fairly open case, with lot's of mesh, they could likely get away with one large side fan in many, cases. You could likely get away without a CPU fan with the right heatsinks. Just let the top, bottom, front, and rear, exhaust. For high end rigs it's hard to say how well that one side fan would work exactly. You'd still want your CPU fan, but a downflow cooler instead of a tower cooler. Vertical GPU positioning would also be better this way. Could open the door to new third party GPU cooler designs for those types of cases.

As a 3090 owner this a bit scary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTpKXJk8cAc&ab_channel=ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking

Summary, the way NVidia power management is setup is to keep averages in check. High constant workload acturally get manage really well by a 3090 but on the other hand there really no checks or safety procedures for quick power spikes. Which mean if you running something that going to have many quick spikes and it very efficient(ie using every core in gpu) you can get crazy high power spikes. This happens fairly often in New world which is why it killing cards.

Obvious better made 3090 going to last longer and not burn out with these spikes but this does not bold well for long term reliability of these cards if you constantly putting these vrm under such stress.

Higher the resolution the more likely you going to have situations where the gpu will be able to use all it cores on a frame and therefore increase odds that you get a dangerous high power spike. If I remember right New worlds was doing a odd thing that it was rendering in menu way higher then even the monitor that plugged into capable of. I think I saw that behavior in one of JayTwoCents videos.

Without CPU fan and heatsinks even a 90,000-watts fan is barely enough (03:50 - 04:30 in the video, around 90 degree Celsius with a Ryzen 1800X):

The news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Steam has seven new sales, plus the weeklong deals:

• Hades is going to be 30% off until October 28: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1145360/Hades/
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is 50% off until Thursday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2600/Vampire_The_Masquerade__Bloodlines/
• The Gears Triple Bundle, featuring Gears 5, the DLC Hivebusters and Gear Tactics, will be 68% off until Thursday 28. The individual items are 60% off: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/21228/Gears_Triple_Bundle/
• The Watch_Dogs Bundle, featuring both games, will be 81% off until the 28th. The games are 75 and 80% off, respectively: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/3785/Watch_Dogs_Bundle/
• Publisher Nacon brings the KT Racing Sale, with up to 90% discounts until October 28 (plus RiMS Racing is free to try during the sale): https://store.steampowered.com/sale/Nacon_KTSale_2021
• The game Road 96 is going to be 20% off until the 29th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466640/Road_96/
• Warhammer: Vermintide 2 sports a 75% discount until the 29th of October: https://store.steampowered.com/app/552500/Warhammer_Vermintide_2/
• And here are some of the weeklong deals:
  • Witchtastic gets a 25% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1080010/Witchtastic/
  • Cathedral is 40% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1056180/Cathedral/
  • Adapt or Perish is half its price: https://store.steampowered.com/app/870730/Adapt_or_Perish/
  • Mobile Forces is 70% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/837940/Mobile_Forces/
  • And Super Destronaut DX gets an 80% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/848520/Super_Destronaut_DX/

The Humble Store has a new sale: the Female Hero Sale, with up to 85% discounts during the next 6 days. The keys are for Steam, GOG and UPlay: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/female-hero-sale/

And Fanatical has a new deal:

• The new BYO Spooktacular Bundle 2 comes with 24 games to choose your 1, 5 or 10 games bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-spooktacular-bundle-2
• Also, if you spend more than £6.66/$6.66 on the Scream Sale that started yesterday, you'll get a free mystery game. Learn (not much) more here: https://www.fanatical.com/en/blog/scream-sale-top-deals-claim-free-mystery-steam-pc-game

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.10.3 driver is optimized for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Riders Republic & Age of Empires 4
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/amd-radeon-software-adrenalin-21-10-3-driver-is-optimized-for-marvels-guardians-of-the-galaxy-riders-republic-age-of-empires-4/
AMD has just released a new driver for its graphics cards. According to the release notes, the AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.10.3 driver offers optimal performance in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Riders Republic, Age of Empires 4 and Doom Eternal’s Update 6.66.
Going into more details, this new driver improves performance by up to 21% increase in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy @ 4K Ultra Settings on the Radeon RX 6900 XT and the RX 6800 XT.
Moreover, this driver comes with a number of fixes. For instance, it fixes some crashes in Battlefield 5. Moreover, it fixes image corruption on some characters when Radeon Boost is enabled while playing Cyberpunk 2077.
>> Available from here.

Looks like Steam is getting a QR code login option
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/looks-like-steam-is-getting-a-qr-code-login-option/
A recent update to Steam's code includes signs of an upcoming new login method: Scanning a QR code with the Steam mobile app. That's according to a tweet by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik.
The feature isn't live yet, but seems likely to release alongside the Steam Deck later this year to make logging in on the handheld more convenient. The Deck's touchscreen should mean typing in passwords won't be too onerous, but logging in by scanning a QR code sure sounds better to me.

Valve confirms Steam sale dates for the rest of 2021
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/valve-confirms-steam-sale-dates-for-the-rest-of-2021/
Steam sales tend to leak in the weeks and months ahead of their commencement, but this time Valve has simply published them. Sure, the dates are on Steamworks and are intended to be a guide to publishers and developers, but you can access it too.
The documentation confirms dates for the Steam Autumn Sale and Steam Winter Sale, and both are pretty obvious. In fact, we even correctly predicted the Steam Autumn Sale date. But here's when they're confirmed to happen:
Steam Autumn Sale - November 24th - 30th, 2021
Steam Winter Sale - December 22nd, 2021 - January 5th, 2022
>> You can prepare your wallets.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Red Dead Redemption 2 Mod enables dismemberment for all pedestrians
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/red-dead-redemption-2-mod-enables-dismemberment-for-all-pedestrians/
Modder ‘GetGibbed’ has released a must-have mod for all those that love the advanced dismemberment system of Soldier of Fortune or STAR WARS Jedi Knight II – Jedi Outcast. As the title suggests, this mod will allow you to dismember all pedestrians in Red Dead Redemption 2.
As the modder noted, the game features 290 pedestrians that can’t be dismembered,mostly from random encounters and side quests. This, obviously, breaks immersion as you can dismember other enemies. As such, this mod enables dismemberment for all of the game’s pedestrians.
You can download the mod from here. Do note that there are some issues, and that it’s not a perfect mod. Thus, you may encounter some bugs and glitches.

GAMING NEWS

Kena: Bridge of Spirits & The Riftbreaker have sold well
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/kena-bridge-of-spirits-the-riftbreaker-have-sold-well/
Kena: Bridge of Spirits & The Riftbreaker are two games that have been recently released. And, according to both Ember Lab and EXOR Studios, the games have sold well and are both in the profit zone.

Ubisoft blames Skype, MSI Afterburner, Discord and more for possibly causing performance issues in its games
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/ubisoft-blames-skype-msi-afterburner-discord-and-more-for-possibly-causing-performance-issues-in-its-games/
We all know that Ubisoft is a company that is well known for its unoptimized PC games. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla had performance issues, the latest Far Cry games have been mainly relying on one CPU core/thread, most of its games use VMProtect and Denuvo which bring an additional CPU/memory overhead, and the list goes on. And, funnily enough, Ubisoft states that some of the most popular third-party programs may be causing performance or crashing issues.
>> My fault? No! It's everyone else fault.

GTA Trilogy The Definitive Edition comparison videos showcase amazing graphical improvements
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/gta-trilogy-the-definitive-edition-comparison-videos-showcase-amazing-graphical-improvements/
YouTube’s ENXGMA and Real KeV3n have shared two videos, detailing most of the graphical differences between the original and the remastered versions of GTA 3, GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas.

Bandai Namco has removed the Denuvo anti-tamper tech from Tekken 7
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/bandai-namco-has-removed-the-denuvo-anti-tamper-tech-from-tekken-7/
Following the removal of Denuvo from Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, Bandai Namco has also removed this controversial anti-tamper tech from Tekken 7. Therefore, PC fighting fans can now purchase this PC fighting game, and enjoy a better overall experience.

A Quiet Place is a story-driven single-player horror game, to be released in 2022
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/a-quiet-place-is-a-story-driven-single-player-horror-game-to-be-released-in-2022/
Saber Interactive and iLLOGIKA have just announced the official video-game adaptation of John Krasinski’s horror movie, A Quiet Place. A Quiet Place will be a story-driven single-player horror adventure game, and targets a 2022 release date.

Far Cry 6 gets its first PC hotfix patch, resolves Ubisoft Connect overlay performance issues
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/far-cry-6-gets-its-first-pc-hotfix-patch-resolves-ubisoft-connect-overlay-performance-issues/
Ubisoft has just released the first PC hotfix patch for Far Cry 6. According to the team, this update is 1.1GB in size, and fixes the Ubisoft Connect overlay performance issues that players have reported.