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Officially unveiled at this week's Panic Games Showcase, Arco is a triptych of revenge stories set across the deserts, plains and forests of a fantastical, South American-style landscape. It's a part of the world we don't often get to see in games, and its stunning pixel art (and tiny cute little llamas) instantly caught my eye when I got to play an early mission from it at last week's Gamescom. Made by four developers spread across the globe, the official genres listed on its Steam page describe it as a tactical turn-based action adventure RPG where you guide four separate heroes in their fight against the ominous sounding Red Company. But just saying it's turn-based is doing Arco a disservice, I think, as it's also a little bit real-time, a little bit simultaneous turns, and all pretty brilliant, if you ask me. Here are some very early impressions of it.

When it launches next year, Arco will be split across three separate storylines, which all meet up at the end, artist Franek Nowotniak explains. Each character will have their own abilities and specific playstyles to get to grips with, but my demo session was focused on tribal warrior Itzae who had a mean dagger stab and whirling sword swing. We meet her trying to take a shortcut through a forest, where she stumbles upon an old temple ruin guarded by a fierce demon. The boss itself is one of those classic treasure chest mimics - you know the sort, with the sharp, toothy grins and lashing tongues - but that's jumping ahead a little bit.

Trailer Link

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Starfield's pressurized doors are open for Twitch streamers a few hours before its early access release and it's already shot to the top of the concurrent viewer charts on the platform.

Bethesda's sci-fi RPG is currently holding onto around 350,000 viewers
(with a 500K peak), which places it right under the Just Chatting category. Top streamers, like Shroud, CohhCarnage, and AnnieFuchsia, already made their characters and are off completing missions and combing rooms for resources.

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Starfield is here, and after dozens of hours floating in space our reviewer Chris Livingston liked it—but didn't love it. "Starfield is Bethesda's biggest RPG ever, and it shares even more DNA with Skyrim and Fallout 4 than I expected—but it ultimately falls far short of the greatness of both of those games," he wrote in his 75% Starfield review.

As one of the most anticipated games of the year, there are unsurprisingly already tons of Starfield reviews online from other publications that have been playing the game for the last week. Although there are some notable exceptions: Bethesda didn't provide early review code to UK-based publications Eurogamer, The Guardian, and our sister magazine Edge until shortly before or just after today's embargo. That means there are still more reviews to come—but with 97 reviews already collected on OpenCritic, there's already a wide spread of reactions, from "this could be one of the most ambitious games ever made" to "a mile wide, but an inch deep."

Here's what the critics are saying.

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We tested 68 CPUs, with 20 units per model x 3 models, plus some extras. And this time, we invited Der8auer and Tim from Hardware Unboxed to join us. That's not to mention the fact that, ultimately, asking for more samples isn't viable for reviews. If the options are "no reviews at all" and "reviews with 1 sample but lots of reviewers," we'd always take the second. Also, it doesn't matter in our testing. At least, not for gaming. We'll talk about that.

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Patch #2 for Baldur’s Gate 3 is now live, bringing bug fixes, substantial performance improvements and much more! If you missed our latest Community Update, we highly recommend you give it a read here for a glimpse at the future of Baldur’s Gate 3, and the role your feedback is playing in that.

Still here? Great! Withers has heard tales of Tavs, having requested the presence of their friends for an afternoon of adventuring, wanting to return to the lifestyle of a solo adventurer without their friends in tow. Therefore, he has come up with a solution. Introducing Withers’ Wardrobe of Wayward Friends! With this woodworked wonder, you can now dismiss co-op party members and bring your companions back into the fold. Withers’ solution only extends to custom Tavs, however - so no throwing Gale into a cupboard (although we’re sure it’s comfy in there).

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AMD's Radeon boss has talked about the RDNA 3 GPU power efficiency, 12VHPWR on Radeon RX 7000 GPUs & ray tracing capabilities.

The interview is very detailed and we would like you to visit Club386 and read the full thing here but some interesting comments were made regarding a few aspects of the RDNA 3 "Radeon RX 7000" GPU family and what we can expect in the coming generation.

Back when AMD was in the process of launching its RDNA 3 GPU architecture, the company promised a monumental +54% increase in power efficiency vs. RDNA 2 GPUs through the use of chiplets and other changes. However, the launch saw little gains in the efficiency department, all the while NVIDIA took their efficiency to a whole new level with the Ada GPU architecture. Scott says that AMD believes in offering good performance per watt across their GPU lineup & that it matters more on the notebook front. So far, AMD has only introduced its non-chiplet Navi 33 to laptops.

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In the release notes, AMD states that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT GPUs get up to a 16% performance boost versus the previous Radeon Software Adrenalin drivers at 4K resolution. That's a big boost and appreciated for users who are planning to play the game either in early or launch-day releases. The release note also mentions fixes for Baldur's Gate 3 but some users may face driver timeout issues within Starfield running Dynamic Resolution. That is an issue that'll be resolved in the coming release.

amd adrenalin driver link

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Beyond Good and Evil 20th Anniversary Edition has received a US rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

The ESRB rating was spotted by Twitter user @MACOS380 earlier today, and although the rating doesn't include any additional information about this so-called 20th Anniversary Edition, it does mention that it's coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series. An Xbox One version hasn't been mentioned, but since a PS4 version is being listed, it's likely that this is a mistake.

"This is an action-adventure game in which players assume the role of a reporter accompanied by a pig-like companion investigating a conspiracy on the planet of Hillys", the rating summary from the ESRB reads. "From a third-person perspective, players explore fantasy locations, take photos of evidence, solve puzzles, and fight robot and alien enemies. Combat is sometimes fast-paced, with players using melee weapons (e.g., staffs, torches) to strike stylized enemies that generally break apart or vanish into puffs of smoke. One boss battle depicts a squid-like alien stabbed in the eye, with yellow-green splatter effects."

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MSI has unveiled its brand new GeForce RTX 40 "SLIM" lineup of GPUs, featuring a wide range of SKUs including the flagship RTX 4090 & 4080.

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The latest data from JPR shows AMD regaining some market share from Nvidia. Don't get too excited. The new figures put AMD at 17.5% of overall desktop graphics card market share for the second quarter of 2023.

That's up from just 12% for the first quarter of the year. Wind the clock back to Q2 of 2022 and AMD was on 20%. So it's still behind its modest performance relative to Nvidia one year ago. But AMD has also improved significantly from the all-time low (at least in terms of data going back to 2002) of just a 10% share in the third quarter of last year.

Overall, desktop graphics cards shipments were up by 2% this quarter versus the first quarter of the year at 6.44 million. However, they were still down by a pretty horrendous 38% versus the same quarter in 2022.

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Imagine Dragons has released its official Starfield song, called Children of the Sky (a Starfield song).

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Starfield composer Inon Zur collaborated with Imagine Dragons on Children of the Sky. He said: “The band has created an amazing, emotional, and memorable song, and I joined them in crafting the Starfield motif into the song as well as iconic elements from the Main Theme and the Starfield orchestral treatment. The outcome is a massive celebration for Starfield and I hope that the group’s fans as well as gamers from all over the world will find it as exhilarating and magnificent as we all feel.”

...

Youtube link

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Space Marine 2 has a new, explosive nine-minute gameplay video keen Warhammer 40,000 watchers are sure to get a kick out of.

Saber Interactive’s Space Marine 2 has so far shown off the relentless alien Tyranids as the primary enemy facing Lieutenant Titus and his Ultramarine brethren as they battle to save the Imperial Jungle World Kadaku from disaster. But this new gameplay video, below, teases the addition of Chaos forces to the game.

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ASUS's Revolutionary Yet Proprietary "GC-HPWR" Connector Comes With A Cableless Design But Needs Adoption To Really Kick Off

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Colorful Technology Company Limited, a professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards, all-in-one gaming and multimedia solutions, and high-performance storage, proudly announces the new COLORFIRE MEOW Series which consists of a graphics card, motherboard, and chassis. The MEOW Series feature two designs, MEOW ORANGE featuring Bobi the orange tabby cat and MEOW PURPLE featuring A+ the British shorthair cat.

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[EDIT] : Sorry, kbin is picking up the least valuable image.

card

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Cooler Master has announced the GX II Gold series of power supply units (PSUs), a new line of PSUs designed for unparalleled durability, efficiency, and performance, catering to power users, enthusiasts, and custom builders. The GX II Gold comes fully loaded with an APFC half-bridge, LLC, and DC-to-DC design, achieving an 80 Plus Gold efficiency certification while maintaining exceptional performance. A smart thermal control mode and zero-RPM default mode effectively minimize noise and enhance heat dissipation, while an ATX 3.0 12VHPWR native cable featuring a space-saving 90-degree connector ensures flexible compatibility with the latest GPUs.

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The seller claims that money from the sale will go to charity.

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We got to see an all-new preview at Gamescom, as well as getting some all-new gameplay footage, and here's what we think about the game.

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ITHome has picked up on interesting retail activity in China, where AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT graphics cards are deeply discounted. This seems to correspond to a possible discontinuation of Team Red's Navi 23 XT GPU—a Board Channel source stated: "AMD factory has stopped production of a certain GPU. At the present time, shipments from all AIB brands have stopped with inventory being cleared. AMD has stopped production for the Radeon RX 6650 XT, and nearly all brands will have their inventory cleared by the end of September."

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Lords of the Fallen is an unlikely reboot, but Hexworks are bringing some new ideas to the table that are very near and dear to my heart.

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Lenovo Legion Go will launch 1st of September with huge 8.8-inch screen, QHD+ resolution and a €799 starting price

(Article has lots of details)

Lenovo Legion Go
Dimensions (L x W x H) Base Module: (mm): 210mm x 131mm x 20mm (inches): 8.27″ x 5.15″ x 0.79” Base Module w/ Controllers Attached: (mm): 299mm x 131mm x 41mm (inches): 11.8” x 5.15” x 1.61”
Weight Controllers Detached: 640g (1.41lbs) Controllers Attached: 854g (1.88lbs)
Color Shadow Black
Display 8.8” QHD+ (2560 x 1600) IPS; 16:10 10-point Touch (144Hz / 97% DCI-P3 / 500nits / 83%AAR
Touchpad Multi-finger
Processor Up to AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme with AMD RDNA Graphics
Memory 16GB 7500Mhz LPDDR5X on board
Storage 256GB / 512GB / 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2242
Operating System Windows 11 Home
Battery 2-cell 49.2WHr Super Rapid Charge2 Controller battery capacity: 900mah2
Power Adapter USB Type-C, 65W AC adapter Output: 20V DC, 3.25A, 65W Input: 100~240V AC 50/60 universal
Ports Top 3.5mm audio combo jack1 x USB Type-C (USB 4.0, DisplayPort™ 1.4, Power Delivery 3.0)1 x microSD card reader Bottom 1x USB Type-C (USB 4.0, DisplayPort 1.4, Power Delivery 3.0)
Control and Input Gamepad Controls Legion L/RABXY buttons D-padL & R hall effect joysticks L & R bumpers L & R analog triggers Legion L & R buttons View button (L) Menu button (L) Trackpad (R) 6 x assignable grip buttons1 x mouse wheel (R) 1x mouse sensor (R) 2 x controllers release buttons Haptics: HD haptics Gyro: 6-Axis IMU
Audio 2 x 2W SpeakersDual-array near-field microphone
Connectivity 2 x 2 Wi-Fi 6E (802.11 ax)3Starting from Bluetooth® 5.2
Software Legion Space Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – Complimentary 3-month membership4,5
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A Lookback at Bethesda's Fallout 3 shown at this E3 2008

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Steam Strategy Fest is live now through 10am September 4! Check out the fest to enjoy discounts, demos, and more for strategy games of all kinds.

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