Tbh I'm not all that excited when MS makes a PC port, because I've always expected them to one day come back to where they started from, and couple with fact that they promise us tech like DX 12 ULTIMATE (caps because I want to make it sound over the top, since MS made it come off as such), and that still hasn't been fully realised, and I'm kinda like "meh?" with what they're doing (also doesn't help that AoE IV kinda looks meh itself and didn't exactly turn heads).

MS are more trying to do things their way, instead of how everyone else is doing, but at the same time....they kinda aren't fully doing the shit they promise? (and I'm really getting tired of hearing them say they'll do it when they do it). 

Sony going back to HZD with DLSS/FSR was a pretty good move, and seeing GoW getting Reflex is another nice touch and makes me ponder as to why MS isn't going back to previous games in the past 5-6 years and doing that with their games they ported to PC (like Sunset Overdrive, Crackdown, gears 4-5 etc). 

I think Sony's trends are going to hold out a lot better than whatever MS is cooking up (I should say overcooking, WHERE'S MAH GOD DAMN DX 12 ultimate,  BRUCE!?)

This is what MS makes me feel like when they promise new tech for PC in general/PC ports:

Bwahaha, this is me. I see free and add regardless. Especially on Epic Games Store.. because fuck those guys xD

The Thursday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Steam has three new sales:

• The first daily deal is Tennis Manager 2021, 50% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1433010/Tennis_Manager_2021/
• The second daily deal is Call of Cthulhu, 70% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/399810/Call_of_Cthulhu/
• And the The Game Awards Sale brings up to 88% discounts until Monday 13: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/thegameawards

Humble Bundle has a new sale, the Dangerous Worlds Bundle, with 7 games to get during the next 13 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/dangerous-worlds

And Fanatical has a new bundle: the Abyss Bundle, featuring 8 game split into three tiers of 2, 7 and 8 games with up to 95% discounts: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/abyss-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Resident Evil 4 Original vs HD Project Comparison shows mind-blowing graphical improvements
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/resident-evil-4-original-vs-hd-project-comparison-shows-mind-blowing-graphical-improvements/
Last month, we informed you about the upcoming release of the Resident Evil 4 HD Project. And last week, ElAnalistaDeBits shared a comparison video between this mod and the original PC version. This comparison video shows how much better this fan-made HD project is, and why all RE4 fans should be excited about it.

This mod restores all the radio songs that were cut from GTA: Vice City Definitive Edition
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/this-mod-restores-all-the-radio-songs-that-were-cut-from-gta-vice-city-definitive-edition/
The release of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition was one of the most underwhelming launches we’ve seen. And while Rockstar is currently busy fixing its numerous bugs and glitches, modders are bringing back content that the team cut from it.
Modder ‘ToxicLBC’ has released the following mod that adds all cut radio songs from Vice City back into the game. Moreover, it adds all Vice city Stories songs to their respective radio stations. Not only that, but the modder has added some new 80s songs (as a bonus).
>> Available from Nexus Mods.

GAMING NEWS

Battlefield 2042 Update 3.1 releases tomorrow, full patch notes revealed
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/battlefield-2042-update-3-1-releases-tomorrow-full-patch-notes-revealed/
EA and DICE have announced that a new patch for Battlefield 2042, Update 3.1, will release tomorrow, December 9th. In addition, the teams revealed its complete changelog that you can find below.

Fallout 76 Night of the Moth December 8th Update Release Notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/fallout-76-night-of-the-moth-december-8th-update-release-notes/
Bethesda has just released a brand new update for Fallout 76, called Night of the Month, and revealed its full patch notes. According to the changelog, this patch is around 10GB on Bethesda Store and Steam. However, the Microsoft Store patch is 19GB in size. Ouch.

Demo released for the “Dark Souls meets Tetris” roguelike game, Loot River
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/demo-released-for-the-dark-souls-meets-tetris-roguelike-game-loot-river/
straka.studio, SUPERHOT PRESENTS and Arts Council have released a demo for their upcoming island-shifting action-roguelike Loot River. Slated for a release next year on PC, Loot River lets players journey down an otherworldly river in search of knowledge and loot.
>> You'll find it at Steam.

Hand-drawn 2D Metroidvania game, Afterimage, is coming to PC in late 2022, gets new trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/hand-drawn-2d-metroidvania-game-afterimage-is-coming-to-pc-in-late-2022-gets-new-trailer/
Aurogon Shanghai announced that its hand-drawn 2D Metroidvania game, Afterimage, will be coming to PC in late 2022. In order to celebrate this announcement, the team released a new gameplay teaser trailer that you can find below.

Syberia: The World Before has been delayed until 2022
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/syberia-the-world-before-has-been-delayed-until-2022/
Microids has announced that Syberia: The World Before has been delayed until 2022. The game was originally targeting a December 10th release on PC. However, it appears that it needs a bit more work, which is why Microids has delayed it until Q1 2022.

Unreal Engine 5-powered S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 looks incredible in these new screenshots
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/unreal-engine-5-powered-stalker-2-looks-incredible-in-these-new-screenshots/
GSC GameWorld has released five brand new screenshots from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl. These screenshots showcase the image quality that the team has been able to achieve with Unreal Engine 5.

The Thursday news, part two:

Total War: Warhammer 3 reveals Slaanesh, the horniest Chaos god
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/total-war-warhammer-3-reveals-slaanesh-the-horniest-chaos-god/
Creative Assembly has been trickling out reveal trailers for each of Total War: Warhammer 3's six factions, gradually ramping up hype and hopefully keeping eager fans at bay until its delayed 2022 release date. The latest trailer gives us a peek at the hedonism-loving Slaanesh.

Nexon is making a Warhammer: Age of Sigmar game
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/nexon-is-making-a-warhammer-age-of-sigmar-game/
Videogame giant Nexon has announced that it's come to a licensing agreement with Games Workshop to develop and publish "a new Virtual World" based on Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. AoS is Warhammer's highly successful reboot of the original Warhammer fantasy universe, which had a slightly rocky launch but ever since its second edition has won (most) fans over.

Rounding up Call of Duty: Warzone Pacific bugs, glitches and their potential solutions
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/warzone-pacific-bugs-crashing-glitches-fix/
Verdansk has been sent to the big battle royale in the sky, and it's now time for us to drop into a new arena of perpetual warfare: Caldera. Those who have purchased Call of Duty: Vanguard have access to the new map a full day early.

Lawyer demands Activision Blizzard victim compensation fund 'in excess of $100M'
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/lawyer-demands-activision-blizzard-victim-compensation-fund-in-excess-of-dollar100m/
A lawyer representing an Activision Blizzard employee with firsthand experience of sexual misconduct at the company said during a press conference today that the $18 million settlement the company reached with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in October is "woefully inadequate," and called for the creation of a fund in excess of $100 million to compensate victims of sexual harassment and discrimination.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla will require a full re-download with next week's title update
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/assassins-creed-valhalla-will-require-a-full-re-download-with-next-weeks-title-update/
Ahead of title update 1.4.1, Ubisoft has warned that Assassin's Creed Valhalla will need a complete reinstall once the patch goes live next week. That means you should prepare for a roughly 77GB download on PC, though apparently the total will be slightly less than the current game's pre-update size, excluding DLC, due to some optimization.

Skyrim's werewolves were originally just going to be 'people with dog heads'
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/skyrims-werewolves-were-originally-just-going-to-be-people-with-dog-heads/
Transforming into a werewolf in Skyrim is awesome. You turn into a massive, incredibly powerful beast. You run on all fours at incredible speeds. You're strong enough to stagger giants with one swipe of your claws. Your howl is so terrifying even monsters will turn and flee. The ability to become a werewolf is one of Skyrim's most memorable features.
But it almost wasn't. Skyrim's werewolf was originally going to be a normal human body with a dog's head on it. That's it.

The final Blasphemous expansion just released, and it's free
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-final-blasphemous-expansion-just-released-and-its-free/
The third and final expansion for Blasphemous, the extremely morbid metroidvania, has just launched, and it's designed to connect with the confirmed 2023 sequel. The free download apparently offers a new "fate" for the world of Cvstodia, in order to neatly lead into the events of the next game. In other words, it sounds like the base game's finale will receive a thorough retconning in order to accommodate the sequel.

Ubisoft de-lists overwhelmingly disliked NFT announcement video
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/ubisoft-de-lists-overwhelmingly-disliked-nft-announcement-video/
It seems like only yesterday we were reporting on Ubisoft's plans to capitalise on the NFT trend by, erm, selling helmets with little numbers on them. Oh wait, it pretty much was. And it looks like folks are just as impressed as you'd expect—using a Chrome extension to restore YouTube dislikes, we can see the video attracted an extraordinary 31,000 dislikes to just over 1,000 likes.
Ubisoft's response has been to de-list the video, which seems like something of a halfway house (thanks, VGC). The Ubisoft Quartz announcement can thus still be viewed, so presumably Quartz integration is still happening with Tom Clancy's Breakpoint, and the website remains live albeit bereft of any content (as was the case when the video launched).

I try my best and, while sometimes I can do it, other times it's too hard to resist (why the f*ck did I claim Alien Isolation if I don't like horror games?!)

It's a bit like the Steam bug.

Fortunately, these free games from Epic and such are helping me cut down on impulse sale purchases from Steam.

Is M1 Max worth $400 extra?

As predicted before, M1 is really only good in specialized tasks because of certain accelerators built in otherwise, it gets rofled by a 3060. It still has pretty good efficiency and excellent battery life but for an SoC that has 57 billion transistors which is almost as much as a 64 core Epyc and 3090 combined while being built on TSMC's 5nm... It's kinda unimpressive tbh.

Intel CPUs Report Highest Share For The Entirety of 2021 Thanks To Alder Lake But AMD Ryzen CPUs Retain Their Dominating Lead

https://wccftech.com/intel-cpus-report-highest-share-for-the-entirety-of-2021-thanks-to-alder-lake-but-amd-ryzen-cpus-retain-their-dominating-lead/

One of the big issues with Alder Lake S is while the CPUs are excellent in both performance and value, DDR5 is extremely hard to get and DDR4 motherboards are also hard to get. Makes it a very tricky situation.

Microsoft DirectX H264/265 Video Encode API now available for Intel and NVIDIA GPUs, AMD in Q2 2022

https://videocardz.com/press-release/microsoft-directx-h264-265-video-encode-api-now-available-for-intel-and-nvidia-gpus-amd-in-q2-2022

AMD is not only late to the party but it looks like Nvidia will be supporting Pascal GPUs while AMD will be RDNA 1 or newer.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 12GB availability to improve by the end of December

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2060-12gb-availability-to-improve-by-the-end-of-december

Halo Infinite Initial Impressions

So I have been playing Halo Infinite and I have beaten the second boss so I'll give some impressions that I have so far.

The Good:

The Gameplay is fun. The grappling hook makes traversing the world quite enjoyable and the enemies as in classic halo fashion do react instead of feeling like deadbeat drones. You can get out of a lot of tricky situations thanks to the hook but you can also get into tricky situations if you aren't aware of your surroundings.

They did a really good job with Master Chief's design. In every scene he is in, he has a lot of presence and if you only shown me his character model, I would think Halo Infinite was a next gen game.

Doesn't feel grindy so far. There are a good amount of optional things you can do but none of it feels that you need to do it to progress the story. Completing the optional stuff obviously does help with the main missions but you don't need to. I did do all the optional stuff so far though.

At certain times, the art design can be amazing. At night for example, you can look up and see a giant ship hovering above the clouds and such and the ring looks really good.

The Meh:

I'd say other than Master Chief's design, everyone else looks last gen. And the mouth movements and facial expressions of the Cortana clone looks very off and uncanny. Considering how often she is in the cutscenes and story, it was kinda yikes.

So far, I haven't seen anything in terms of world design that looks amazing and unique other than the usual ring but that just might be because I am still early on. I'd say something like Guardians of the Galaxy can really showcase how unique the sci fi setting can really be.

The Bad:

The performance is absolutely terrible once you get out to the open world. Many people already reported on this but since a 3080 Ti can't hold 4k 60, I certainly can't hold that either with a 3080. Thanks to G-sync, it's less of an issue but still, as I can get 70-80 fps on Horizon 5 at 4k which looks like a next gen game, it really doesn't make much sense why the performance is so poor. And without DLSS, I am not exactly wanting to lower the resolution.

30 FPS cut-scenes... What the heck?