NewsFeeder

This whole thing was a car crash.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is one of the more notable video game messes in recent years, with the Tolkien spin-off releasing earlier this year to universally negative reviews and claiming the unwanted position of being the worst game of 2023 so far on Metacritic and OpenCritic.

It's not just the first bit of the final game.

Meta’s Threads app, the social media platform that rivals X (formerly Twitter), may get a trending topics section. The potential new feature has come to light after an app developer reposted screenshots of the feature in use that were originally shared by a Meta employee.The developer that reposted the screenshots, William Max, said that, “Just to be clear: I'm not a “leaker” or anything like that,” in a post. He continued, “I simply follow many engineers and employees working at Meta, and one o...

Samsung today joined Google in attempting to convince Apple to adopt the Rich Communication Services or RCS messaging standard that Google has been pushing. In a short ad that's a riff on Romeo and Juliet, Samsung features two smartphone interfaces texting each other. "Juliet" is the iPhone in the metaphor and her parents (aka Apple) won't allow for the adoption of RCS. "What did green ever do to them? We're bubbles too," laments the "Romeo" Android smartphone. "And literally everyone wants us t...

Another chance to check out lots of games and fill up your wishlists, and Steam Next Fest - October 2023 Edition is live now.

If Starfield's space travel has been getting you down because you haven't been able tilt your virtual eyeballs far enough apart, then today's your day! The sci-fi RPG's previously promised FOV sliders have arrived - along with some "performance improvements" and a bit of a quest fix - courtesy of Bethesda's latest patch. FOV (that's field-of-view if your abbreviation list isn't up-to-date) can now, with the arrival of Starfield's 1.7.36 update, be adjusted in both first- and third-person perspec...

Good news, folks. Today, I'm very pleased to announce our new Reviews Editor, and it's our very own Ed Thorn! After spending two and a bit years flexing his typing arms as our senior staff writer, Ed will now be stepping up to wrangle our reviews section into bigger and better shape than ever before - or rather, he already has, as he officially took over the role at the start of October. He will henceforth be known not simply as Edders, but as the new and improved Reviews Edders, so please come ...

Today Nacon released a new trailer and a brand new demo of the upcoming first-person shooter RoboCop: Rogue City, showing its RPG elements.

Hey Xbox Insiders! We have a new Xbox Update Preview coming to the Alpha ring. It’s important we note that some updates made in these preview OS builds include background improvements that ensure a quality and stable build for Xbox consoles. We continue to post these release notes, even when the noticeable changes to the […] The post Xbox Insider Release Notes – Alpha (2310.231005-2200) appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Just one day before Amazon kicks off its October Prime Day, Walmart has launched a Holiday Kickoff sale. We’ve seen retailers host “anti-Prime” sales before, offering their own discounts that go live on or just before the big Amazon sales. We dove in to the deals and searched for the tech savings that are worth your time. One notable plus is that Walmart carries some devices that Amazon doesn’t, like the Google Nest Hub. Other worthwhile deals include the 9th generation iPad for $1 less than it ...

Also: Crunchyroll’s newest anime, Frasier reboot, and more.

Hey Xbox Insiders! We have a new Xbox Update Preview coming to the Alpha Skip-Ahead ring. It’s important we note that some updates made in these preview OS builds include background improvements that ensure a quality and stable build for Xbox consoles. We continue to post these release notes, even when the noticeable changes to […] The post Xbox Insider Release Notes – Alpha Skip-Ahead (2408.231005-2000) appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Starfield has only been out a month, and someone has already been to every planet in its universe. While Todd Howard said we’d be able to visit over 1,000 planets, the Bethesda dev actually undersold the sheer scale of Starfield’s galaxy - there are actually close to 1,700 planets, and now someone’s seen them all just weeks after launch.

From Square Enix's indie label. Square Enix Collective has announced that it will be bringing the adorably creepy horror adventure game Little Goody Two Shoes to Switch and other consoles on 31st October 2023. Developed by AstralShift, best known for the RPGMaker title Pocket Mirror, Little Goody Two Shoes puts you in charge of a young girl's daily life. You need to help Elise manage every single aspect of her life, from bonding with friends to keeping her fed.

New iPhones tend to be rather boring. Not the pricey Pro models that get most of the fancy new features — I’m talking about the regular versions that are ideal for most of us. Apple has historically taken a trickle-down approach to its mainline phone, adding components and features from the previous year’s Pros as part of the annual update. That’s primarily what we’re dealing with on the iPhone 15, which starts at $799. However, the combination of those hand-me-downs, a revamped camera and the s...

EA's long-running football series might have jettisoned the FIFA license, but the publisher's keen to let everyone know it's doing just fine without it - and has announced that this year's iteration, EA Sports FC 24, has reached 11.3m players in its first week of release. That's compared to the 10.3m players that hopped into last year's FIFA 23 during the same period - a figure EA referred to as "record-breaking" and the "biggest launch period" in the franchise's history at the time. EA Sports F...

In the nicest possible way, and with the greatest of respect, Remedy's comms director Thomas Puha would like people to stop fixating on frame-rate and resolution and get on with their bloody lives. Or at least, that's my summary of his thoughts following the recent announcement on Xitter that Alan Wake 2 will have a performance mode on PS5 and Xbox Series X, allowing consoleers for whom responsiveness is a priority to eke a higher frame-rate out of a game "built from the beginning as a 30fps exp...

Sky Children of the Light is visually stunning without question, but its wholesome premise and cozy gameplay are what truly make it a unique game in a sea of combat-focused online experiences. If you've played Journey, Thatgamecompany's older indie adventure gem, then you know just how special the developer can make exploration-focused games feel. Now that Sky Children of the Light is finally making its way to PC, the dev is giving us all a chance to see how it worked its magic once more in a fr...

The developers of Coyote & Crow are giving away free PDFs of their Core Rulebook in observance of Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Some games just give you that lovely warm feeling inside when you see them for the first time. For me, that was Shroomchitect, a very gentle sim game where you care for a bunch of sentient mushrooms. Mmmmm.

It’s just ridiculous.

Why do you have to be a cartbreaker? Choo choo! It's the Switch 2 rumour train, back on the track and calling at Hushed Whispers and Vague Suggestion, with a brief stop to collect several fistfuls of sodium from Expectation Management. The latest rumours come from SoldierDelta on Discord via wcftech and suggest that Nintendo may have two models of its next console planned — with a digital-only version accompanying a standard model that would accept physical media. The rumour comes from a user wh...

Ubisoft's new Assassin's Creed entry is all about stealth and subtlety, but main character Basim still gets a ridiculous special move. It's called Assassin's Focus, and it allows you to freeze time and paint a reticule over multiple enemies to teleport between them all and murder them in quick succession. It's like Red Dead Redemption's Quickdraw mode, except you're physically knifing people in the neck with every bullet. At the beginning of Assassin's Creed Mirage, you can only pull off this ef...

Dang by name, dang by nature.

Today Microsoft and 343 Industries provided the first look at the upcoming Season 5 for Halo Infinite, ominously titled "Reckoning" and coming in a few days.

GlaDos would surely approve.

The post Get Your First Look at Halo Infinite Season 5: Reckoning, Arriving on October 17 appeared first on Xbox Wire.

The connection isn’t as surprising as you might think.

The latest edition of DF Direct Weekly arrives today, discussing Red Dead Redemption's 60fps upgrade for PlayStation 5 consoles, plus controversy surrounding Microsoft's Forza Motorsport presentation - where debut media features ray tracing effects considerably more impressive than the shipping game's. We also follow up on our recent coverage on AMD's FSR 3 frame generation by seeing just how effective the technology is on console-equivalent hardware in the wake of Ascendant Studios suggesting t...

Radeon RX 7000-series users now have another metric to fret over.

Founders cite worry over job stability, but say crunch has improved.

RDNA 2 users join the RNDA 3 gang in the driver-based frame generation preview fun.

Starfield patch 1.7.36 is here, and with it Bethesda finally addresses one of the most player-requested features that's been on everyone's mind since launch. Starfield finally has an FOV slider.

Apple is considering bringing OLED displays to the iPad mini and iPad Air from 2026, according to a report from technology research firm Omdia. In a detailed report forecasting Apple's iPad panel purchasing plans published earlier today, Omdia explains that 2024 will mark the beginning of a transition to OLED in its tablet lineup. The potential transition to OLED on Apple's two mid-range tablets is apparently part of its OLED strategy from 2026 onwards. Apple has ostensibly not yet committed to ...