The terms remaster and remake have been used and abused so much in videogames that they no longer mean much. There's been remasters with a lot more effort put in them than full remakes, and remakes that look worse than the original game.

Let's hope this is one of those cases when the end result is worth it.

I think most of us don't make our purchase decisions based on brand, but more in terms of perf/money + features. And while their power consumption is shameful, Intel has delivered an excellent product that made AMD's offering look incomplete and overpriced, which they obviously were/are.

Let's hope that both companies can keep besting each other, because that's when we, the customers, win.

This is starting to get worrying, specially since some sources say that the biggest problem is the software, aka. their drivers.

Hold on a second! There was no new bundle when I checked. Have they changed their refresh time to the same one as Fanatical? Hm...

Looking forward to Chrono Cross 'remaster'. Doesn't look to me a massive improvement over emulation, but I'll still take it. Will be a great game to play on PC as well as Steam Deck. Also looking more like the Geforce Now leak from last year is legit - https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/pndwey/definitive_compilation_of_leaked_geforce_now/

Can't wait for FFIX Remake, though like other FF games.. thats most likely to launch on PlayStation first.

I don't see the appeal of lost ark outside the fat asses, i rather resub for wow for a mmo experience

Newegg's Shocking Incompetence

Uhh okay wow.

This is a video that's worth watching cause that is actually kinda fucked up. The backstory is GN ordered an open box motherboard from newegg. When it arrived to his place, he didn't need it so he sent it back. Newegg declined him a refund because they claimed bent pins and shipped it back to him.

In this video, he has got the declined motherboard back to his place and he now opens it to see if it's actually bent or not. What he finds out is that not only are the pins bent, but newegg actually sent this to Gigabyte before putting it on sale for open box on their website. Then Gigabyte told newegg that the pins were bent and it would cost $100 to fix. Newegg then declined the repair and either they put it up on sale on purpose so the customer can deal with Gigabyte themselves or they didn't realize it was bent despite the big hard to miss notice and put it up on sale.

Yep, a long time coming. I'm surprised its taken SE this long to release the game on PC. The last time you could actually buy CC new was on PSN store back in the PS3 era.

But yeah excited to play it with some QoL improvements, like; switchable no auto encounter, better load times, not to mention updated graphics. Would still be cool to own the original though with this its makes it a little redundant. Its always nice to have things in one package imo and can't so no to more ports of good classic games on Steam heh.

For FF9 I'm willing to bet its going to be a good remake. We've seen what SE team can do with FF7 Remake and FF9 being one of their more beloved games in the series outside of VII, I think it deserves one. Hopefully if it is real and true, like you said its not part of a multi part game cause that would be a bit sucky waiting years to play the whole thing lol.

And same, its one of my favourite FF's. I bought the game on the original PS (have it stored somewhere), re-bought it on PS3 store and also on Steam.

The Friday news, the short part one!

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Celebrate the release of the Mask of the Rose demo with a chance to win $100 in Steam credit
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/celebrate-the-release-of-the-mask-of-the-rose-demo-with-a-chance-to-win-dollar100-in-steam-credit/
Mask of the Rose is set during around the events of Failbetter's Fallen London, where the city has been stolen by bats. The visual novel is a dating sim with a twist—you don't actually have to date anyone. Instead, this is a game all about relationships as a whole, both platonic and romantic, friendly and unfriendly, and more.
From today you can download and play Mask of the Rose's demo, and to accompany that we're hosting giveaways and and a PC Gamer forum takeover with Failbetter that's happening right this second.
(...)
To celebrate the demo becoming available, we're also going to be giving a $100 voucher to one lucky winner to spend on either Steam or GOG. If you want to be in with a chance to win the $100, you can head to this forum thread and follow the instructions on this competitions page. Not only that, but you can win some deluxe playing cards too. Good luck!

The Humble Store has a new sale: the GTA franchise sale, with up to 50% discounts on GTA V and its add-ons during the next 6 days. The keys are, obviously, for their own launcher: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/gta-franchise-sale/

Fanatical's new Star Deal is Spirit Hunter: Death Mark, 90% off during the next 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/spirit-hunter-death-mark

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Half-Life Decay: Solo Mission restores the series' forgotten campaign, with a twist
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/half-life-decay-solo-mission-restores-the-series-forgotten-campaign-with-a-twist/
Half-Life Decay: Solo Mission is a mod project endeavoring to make one of Half-Life's least accessible campaigns more easily playable. No, not Half-Life Alyx. The other least accessible Half-Life campaign.
Half-Life Decay was a co-op campaign developed by Gearbox and included with the Playstation 2 port of the original Half-Life. In Decay, players take control of Black Mesa scientists Gina Cross and Collette Green, and experience another perspective of the Black Mesa incident in parallel to the stories of Gordon, Adrian, and Barney.

Total War: Rise of Mordor mod removed after copyright strike
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/total-war-rise-of-mordor-mod-removed-after-copyright-strike/
Following the news this week on the lawsuit over what looked like pretty clear plagiarism on Capcom's part, it's back to business as usual in video game copyright land. Following a DMCA takedown request from Warner Bros lawyers, Mod DB has removed the Total War: Attila total conversion mod, Total War: Rise of Mordor from their site (thanks, Game Watcher).
It's not all bad news, however, as Warner Bros took issue with the name rather than mod content itself, so it's just a case of renaming the mod to something less copyright-strike-triggering then posting it back online.

GAMING NEWS

Disgaea 6 Complete is coming to PC this Summer
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/disgaea-6-complete-is-coming-to-pc-this-summer/
NIS America has announced that Disgaea 6 Complete will be coming to PC this Summer. In order to celebrate this announcement, the publisher has also released a new trailer that you can find below.

Dying Light 2 Update 1.0.6 is now available, full patch notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/dying-light-2-update-1-0-6-is-now-available-full-patch-notes/
Techland has just released a brand new update for the PC version of Dying Light 2. According to the release notes, Patch 1.0.6 brings various improvements for keyboard and mouse key binding options. Moreover, it adds a walk toggle option, and also allows players to switch between toggle and hold aiming.

Friday news, the very long part two:

The Sims 4 wedding expansion won't release in Russia because of anti-gay law
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-sims-4-wedding-expansion-wont-release-in-russia-because-of-anti-gay-law/
Yesterday, Electronic Arts announced a new Sims 4 expansion called My Wedding Stories that, as the title suggests, is all about getting hitched: You can run away and elope at City Hall, or you can go all-in with planning, parties, and everything else leading up to the big day. The expansion will be out on February 17, and in the meantime there's a teaser site for the upcoming virtual nuptials of Dominique and Camille.
Shortly after revealing My Wedding Stories, Electronic Arts announced that the expansion will not be released in Russia. Dom and Cam, the focal point of EA's promotional efforts, are both women, and a Russian law passed in 2013 forbids materials that promote "non-traditional sexual relationships," and allows for penalties of up to ₽1 million ($13,400) for businesses that violate the guidelines.

Staff turn on Team17 in the wake of its calamitous NFT u-turn
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/staff-turn-on-team17-in-the-wake-of-its-calamitous-nft-u-turn/
Team17 hasn't had the best start to 2022. It tried to jump on the NFT bandwagon, got booed, and immediately jumped off the bandwagon—but not before covering itself in the manure onboard. (...)
Now a new report on Eurogamer sheds further light on events both before and subsequent to the announcement. Following the company's withdrawal of the NFT scheme, staff were invited to a town hall meeting where management would explain why it had made the decisions it did. But the fact it was public sentiment that had caused the volte-face was its own problem.

One of the greatest 90s console shooters arrives on PC today
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/one-of-the-greatest-90s-console-shooters-arrives-on-pc-today/
Back in the mid-90s the PC was the rightful home of first-person shooters, but there was one notable console outing that eluded us. PowerSlave (or Exhumed in Europe) came out for the Sega Saturn in 1996 and PlayStation in 1997. It was pure 90s shooter nonsense, sending you to the ancient Egyptian city of Karnak to shoot hordes of aliens, scorpions, Anubis clones and tiger-headed women in bikinis.
(...)
An MS-DOS port of Powerslave did actually come out in 1997, but it was bizarrely inferior to the console versions, doing away with much of the game's clever non-linear design. Thankfully, we can leave all that in the past now, because Nightdive Studios has just released the ultimate version of the game, PowerSlave Exhumed, on PC.

Blizzard is selling an all-Golden version of Hearthstone's new mini-set for $70
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/blizzard-is-selling-an-all-golden-version-of-hearthstones-new-mini-set-for-dollar70/
Hearthstone's next big update will arrive on February 15 with a brand-new mini-set called Onyxia's Lair. The 35-card expansion will be available via Alterac Valley card packs, or you can pick up the whole thing for $15 or 2000 gold—or, for the first time ever, get an all-Golden set for $70. That's not cheap, but the all-Golden set is clearly aimed at committed Hearthstone "whales" who'd rather spend money than time acquiring the best possible decks.

Subnautica studio Unknown Worlds has a new game coming later this year
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/subnautica-studio-unknown-worlds-has-a-new-game-coming-later-this-year/
In October 2021, PUBG Corporation parent company Krafton acquired Unknown Worlds, the developer of the outstanding undersea survival game Subnautica and its 2021 sequel, Subnautica: Below Zero. Today we got our first look at what the studio's getting up to for its first project under the Krafton flag, and it is not another Subnautica game.

Minecraft's new frogs were briefly swallowing goats whole
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/minecrafts-new-frogs-were-briefly-swallowing-goats-whole/
As part of the experimental features in Minecraft Bedrock version 1.18.10, Mojang has revealed some of the abilities of the frog mobs coming in this year's Wild Update. They can eat small Slimes and small Magma Cubes, which is a goofy enough habit. As Mojang shared during today's Minecraft Live presentation, frogs had a brief period as apex predators capable of swallowing entire goats.
>> Hungry frogs.

Riot will start eavesdropping on toxic Valorant players to issue bans
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/riot-will-start-eavesdropping-on-toxic-valorant-players-to-issue-bans/
Riot Games released a report today describing the current state of anti-toxicity measures in Valorant, as well as the future of such efforts, including a beta program to record and analyze the voice comms of players reported for abusive chat.

Dying Light 2 has another way to open locked doors: bash through 'em
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/dying-light-2-lockpick-bash/
I picked up Dying Light 2's bash skill pretty early. I'd already grabbed the sprint skill (yes, sprinting, usually not sold separately when it comes to action heroes, requires a skill unlock), and the bash skill lets you turn sprinting an act of violence. You can sprint and then plow into zombies, sending them flying, even if they're clustered in a pack. It's not lethal or anything, it just clears a path without having to stop and swing a weapon, which is useful when you're trying to race home before the sun sets and the city gets very mean.
But Dying Light 2 player Longjumping-Owl-2684 on Reddit cleverly found another use for the bash skill. And not only is it useful, it's completely sensible.

World of Warcraft: Eternity's End goes live on February 22
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/world-of-warcraft-eternitys-end-goes-live-on-february-22/
After a very long wait, Eternity's End is almost here. Blizzard announced today that World of Warcraft's next big content update—and the last one for the Shadowlands expansion—will go live on February 22.

Salt and Sacrifice locks in a May release date
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/salt-and-sacrifice-locks-in-a-may-release-date/
Salt and Sacrifice, the sequel to Ska Studios' gloomy Souls-inspired Metroidvania Salt and Sanctuary, will release on May 10. That's according to a new trailer released today, which not only confirms a vastly more varied color palette than its predecessor, but also explains how PvP multiplayer will work.

Microsoft is watching Activision Blizzard to ensure 'the right people' are in charge when it takes over
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/microsoft-is-watching-activision-blizzard-to-ensure-the-right-people-are-in-charge-when-it-takes-over/
There's a lot of work left to be done before Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard is complete. (...)
In a recent interview on CNBC, Microsoft president Brad Smith took on a potentially even trickier question: How will Microsoft address the toxicity in Activision Blizzard's workplace culture that came to light last year? In response, Smith said that making meaningful changes to culture "requires a combination of commitment and humility," which for now remains the responsibility of Activision Blizzard management.

Gravity Rush creator wants to see the series on PC
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/gravity-rush-creator-wants-to-see-the-series-on-pc/
Gravity Rush is one of those games that encapsulates why Sony's now-defunct Japan Studio is sorely missed: There's nothing else quite like it. A 3D parkour-slash-action game with full 360 movement and gravity manipulation, the original was conceived by director Keiichiro Toyama way back in his Konami days before Sony gave his team the chance to make it (initially for PS3, then re-configured as a Playstation Vita showcase). Particularly striking is the colourful, lo-fi comic book aesthetic that channels French artist Jean Giraud.
Toyama will always be best-known for directing the original Silent Hill, after which he went on to make a long list of very good horror titles (Sony hired him to work on Siren). His current independent outfit Bokeh Game Studio is now working on Slitterhead. However it is the 10th anniversary of Gravity Rush, as part of which Toyama spoke to the fansite Gravity Rush Central, which asked how he felt about Sony porting more of its games to PC and whether he'd like to see the series as part of that.

Nintendo hacker Gary Bowser sentenced to 3 years in prison
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/nintendo-hacker-gary-bowser-sentenced-to-3-years-in-prison/
Gary Bowser, the public face behind Nintendo ROM hacker group Team Xecuter, has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Originally, Bowser was looking at upwards of 10 years for his crime—five years for each count he pled guilty to. Last week the US government argued that he should be given the maximum sentence for each count, to be served concurrently. Bowser's lawyers countered that he should only get 19 months, claiming that he earned significantly less than his partners in crime Max Louarn and Yuanning Chen. A ruling on February 10 has now sentenced Bowser to 40 months, a little over three years.

The people are revolting over Crusader Kings' most expensive expansion yet
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-people-are-revolting-over-crusader-kings-most-expensive-expansion-yet/
The first major Crusader Kings 3 expansion, Royal Court, has been a long time coming, finally launching earlier this week. The DLC could well be the biggest one yet in Paradox's grand strategy roster, with new culture mechanics, a duelling system and, among other things, a fully rendered 3D court in which to show off your heirlooms, schmooze guests and slip some hemlock in their goblets if they misbehave.
But all this grandeur comes at a price—£25/$30 to be precise—making Royal Court a fair bit more expensive than the £15/$20 pricepoint that Paradox's big expansions traditionally come in at. Whether or not the bumped-up tax in the Crusader Kings holding is justified, the players are revolting.

This Blast Corps-channelling wrecking sim looks absolutely smashing
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/this-blast-corps-channelling-wrecking-sim-looks-absolutely-smashing/
Radiangames has been around for a good while, and I'll always think of this outfit with great fondness: At a time in my life when I had to wade through the swamps of Xbox Live Indie Games (and what a service that was), Radiangames was one of the developers who consistently delivered great shooters and bitesized arcade-style experiences.
The developer's latest project has been in the works for two years, though doubtless some Teardown comparisons are inevitable. Instruments of Destruction is I guess a demolition simulator, except with these great Meccano-like contraptions at the core of it: You build a huge thing with flailing metal arms then launch it into a tall building, basically. The big vibe I got from it was Blast Corps, a cult N64 title developed by Rare which captured the simple joy of bashing into things and watching them crumble.

Battlefield 3 lead designer speaks on Battlefield 2042, and he's not impressed
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/battlefield-3-lead-designer-speaks-on-battlefield-2042-and-hes-not-impressed/
By EA's own declaration Battlefield 2042 didn't meet expectations, but between that, our mostly-positive review, and stuff like 155,000 players signing a petition for a mass-scale refund, things can get blurry between the game's actual design issues and players driving themselves into an entitlement frenzy.
It's times like these that we need a voice of reason, and there are few people who understand the series quite like Battlefield 3 and Bad Company 2 lead designer David Goldfarb, who took to Twitter to ask some serious questions about the game's development process.

Halo composers suing Microsoft for two decades of royalty payments
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/halo-composers-suing-microsoft-for-two-decades-of-royalty-payments/
Eurogamer has the scoop on a lawsuit originally filed in June 2020 that is only now coming to light: A case where two composers of the original Halo music and the series' iconic theme are taking Microsoft to court for what they say is two decades of unpaid royalties. Marty O'Donnell and Mike Salvatori are the plaintiffs and behind countless pieces of Halo music that have not just been used in games, but sold as soundtracks, re-recorded for other games including Halo Infinite (without being credited as the composers), and now feature in the upcoming Halo TV series.

And these are the GOG and Steam deals:

+GOG

• The Weekly Sale features action and survival games up to 90% off: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220207_weekly_sale
• And there's also a new Focus Home Interactive Sale put its games up to 80% off until Monday: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220207_focus_home_interactive
• And the new Midweek Sale features scary horror games up to 90% off for another 22 hours: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220209_midweek_sale
• The Weekend Sale comes with up to 90% discounts: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220211_weekend_sale
• The first flash deal is Kenshi, 50% off during the next 70 hours: https://www.gog.com/en/game/kenshi
• The other flash deal is Sparklite, 75% off until Monday: https://www.gog.com/en/game/sparklite

+Steam

• The first daily deal is Cooking Simulator, 50% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/641320/Cooking_Simulator/
• The second daily deal is The Wild Eight, with a 75% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/526160/The_Wild_Eight/
• The first Weekend Deal is RiMS Racing, free to try and 45% off during the weekend: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1346010/RiMS_Racing/
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance will be 70% off until Monday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/379430/Kingdom_Come_Deliverance/
• Publisher Slitherine puts its games up to 90% off until the 14th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/SlitherinePublisherWeekend
• Wargaming also puts its games on sale, up to 95% off until Monday, 14th: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/wargaming/sale/wargamingsale2022
• And 2K will put its games up to 94% off until February 24: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/2kpublishersale2022
• Last, but not least, there's also the weeklong deals.

Phew! That's all. Until next time, please have a happy and gaming weekend.

Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake Core i9-13900K With 24 Cores & 32 Threads Spotted Within The Ashes of The Singularity Benchmark

https://wccftech.com/intel-13th-gen-raptor-lake-core-i9-13900k-cpu-benchmark-leak-32-threads-es-12900k-performance/

Guess Intels plan is to have 8 high performance cores and a fuck ton of E cores in order to try and win the performance crown.


AMD Ryzen 7000 ‘Zen 4’ CPUs Coming Earlier Than Expected, Rumors Point To Computex Announcement, Early Q3 Launch

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7000-zen-4-desktop-cpu-am5-platform-launch-earlier-than-expected/

There sure is gonna be some fap worthy competition coming later this year.


BestBuy puts GeForce RTX 30 cards behind a paywall, scalpers rejoice

https://videocardz.com/newz/bestbuy-puts-geforce-rtx-30-cards-behind-a-paywall-scalpers-rejoice

GPU situation continues to get worse


Elden Ring Requirements listed for PC

https://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/1245620/


System Requirements

Minimum:
OS: Win10, Win11
Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 3 3300X
Memory: 12 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, 3 GB or AMD Radeon RX 580, 4 GB
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 60 GB available space

Recommended:
Additional Notes: TBD

SSD prices could spike after Western Digital loses 6.5 billion gigabytes of NAND chips

https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/11/22928867/western-digital-nand-flash-storage-contamination

Unless Sony decides to port it to PS5, and to PC along the way, I doubt it will happen.

Intel's bet on those E-cores could come back to bite them in the ass given because they're also quite power hungry and, all things considered, more people would prefer a couple extra P-cores (and threads) over 8 extra E-cores.

AMD pushing Zen4's launch a quarter earlier than rumored is exciting, but also comes with doubts. Are they doing this because they're affraid that Alder Lak emay hurt their sales so much? Will that "rush"mean that the whole package (CPU, software, mobos) could be not fully done and cause some troubles at launch?
Questions and more questions.

Not a big fan of it either tbh. I wasn't into PoE because of it's online type nature and LA seems to be the same kind of mix.

I just want an ARPG that's not MMO/online based. I didn't mind Diablo because that was inherently designed for SP play and co-op second.