It's now available on Steam with a 90 percent discount for just £2.99. Similarly, on PSN and Xbox it's £4.49.

Back in January, Crystal Dynamics announced that support for the live-service game would end on 30th September this year and will no longer be available to purchase after this date. Its final update was at the end of March.

Your job, in Stick to the Plan, is to help Roberto get his sticks from one point to another. It's an adorably simple puzzle game from indie dev Dead Pixel Tales, and it focuses on funny new solutions to puzzles and weird twists rather than brain-burning difficulty. It's what I'd call a relaxing puzzle game, one that delights you rather than frustrates you.

Stick to the Plan is about 70 levels long, and comes with an environmental ambient soundtrack that sets the mood for a relaxing, wholesome puzzling experience. It also has accessibility options, like bright outlines for Roberto and the many, many sticks. Illustrated comic bits outline a cute little dog story between levels.

The console versions of Jedi Survivor have always fared better than the disastrous PC port, but does the latest patch solve all the issues and give a great game the high quality PC version it deserves? Alex Battaglia revisits the game, finding that incremental improvements over the months have happened - but let's face facts, it's still unacceptably poor.

Well, this is a bit of a doozy. This case — via the Institute for Justice — involves a possible First Amendment violation but somehow ends with a judicial blessing of cops who make things up after the fact to justify an arrest that has already taken place.

That’s literally what happened here. Mason Murphy was walking down a Missouri road when he was accosted by Officer Michael Schmitt. From the opening of this very unfortunate decision [PDF]:

Schmitt stopped his car, approached Murphy, and asked Murphy to identify himself. Murphy refused to identify himself, and Schmitt put Murphy in handcuffs after nine minutes of argument. Murphy asked why Schmitt arrested him, and Schmitt refused to answer.

So far, it would appear no criminal act was committed and that the cuffing of Murphy by Schmitt was in retaliation for Murphy’s refusal to identify himself and, First Amendment-wise, his refusal to shut up.

...

Apex Legends developer Respawn has banned over 2000 accounts for cheating as it gets set for next week's Harbingers Collection Event.

In a note posted to X/Twitter, the studio said it had identified and removed "2000+" cheaters and reminded players to "report any suspicious player activity through [its] in-game tools".

The Harbingers Collection Event – which sees our Legends "gear up to fight the end of the world" – launches on all platforms on 19th September and includes Living Shell Trios, World’s Edge After Dark, and the usual cosmetics.

Warhammer has dropped an all-new Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin teaser that details how it plans to "deliver a truly comprehensive RTS game at launch".

Not only do we get to see Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin's map editor in action, where you can use developer-like tools to craft your own multiplayer maps, but also the Army Livery, which lets you customise the colour palettes for each of your four factions with paints from Games Workshop's Citadel collection and "underlines Frontier’s efforts to create the most authentic game possible".

video link

We've got no stings to hold us down in this Lies of P stream archive. We played about an hour got some leveling up advice, beat a miniboss or two, and explored a Red Lobster. The point we played was about halfway through the game, but you won't see in any major spoilers.

When I sat down to play Pacific Drive at WASD, I mistook it for an atmospheric walking simulator. In reality, Ironwood Studio’s forest opus is something far more sinister. Part survival game, part narrative-led horror, you may recognise Pacific Drive as “that weird nightrider car game from E3”. Yet while the slightly beat up set of wheels took centre stage in all the trailers, this first-person project isn’t really a charming vehicle-first romp but an adventure where your car is the only thing keeping you from an early grave.

Fewer people died in last month’s Maui wildfires than previously believed, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) announced Friday.

The death toll was revised to 97 from 115 after federal fire investigators assisted local authorities in identifying remains, Green said.

“Thank God, fewer people passed away,” he said in a video message shared on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

That toll could still rise again, however. Green said there are currently 31 open cases that are being investigated — and only 74 of the dead have been identified.

The wildfire was the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century. High winds quickly entrapped and enveloped the town of Lahaina on Maui’s west coast, effectively completely destroying it. The blaze caused about $5.5 billion in damage, the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimated.

Oregon has taken an unprecedented step in offering psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, to the public.

Psilocybin tea, wind chimes and a tie-dye mattress await those coming to an office suite in Eugene to trip on magic mushrooms. For roughly six hours, adults over 21 can experience what many users describe as vivid geometric shapes, a loss of identity and a oneness with the universe.

Epic Healing Eugene — America’s first licensed psilocybin service center — opened in June, marking Oregon’s unprecedented step in offering the mind-bending drug to the public. The center now has a waitlist of more than 3,000 names, including people with depression, PTSD or end-of-life dread.

No prescription or referral is needed, but proponents hope Oregon’s legalization will spark a revolution in mental health care.

All three Steam Deck models have joined Steam's 20th Anniversary sale, marking the third time Valve's handheld PCs have gone on sale—the first was back in March, and the second during the Steam Summer Sale a few months ago.

It's the same discount as last time: 20% off the 512GB version, which brings it to $519.20 ($129.80 off). That's the same price as one of Valve's certified refurbished 512GB Steam Decks, which are sold out at the moment. The 256GB and 64GB versions have received smaller 15% and 10% discounts for this sale, respectively.

Steamdeck page on Steam

Display

• The default color rendering for Steam Deck has been adjusted to emulate the sRGB color gamut, resulting in a slightly warmer and more vibrant color appearance.
• Added Settings -> Adjust Display Colors, to tune the display's Color Vibrancy and Color Temperature. The settings can be tuned with a preview of a test image (above), or with your running game.
• Native: The native display color appearance (the color rendering for Steam Deck prior to this update).
• sRGB: Emulate the sRGB primaries, in a smooth manner that does not introduce gradient clipping.
• Boosted: Emulate a wider-gamut display appearance, resulting in increased apparent vibrance. May result in gradient clipping.
• HDR can now be enabled in Display Settings if supported by the external display.
• VRR can now be enabled in Display Settings if supported by the USB-C adapter.
• Reworked Quick-Access scaling settings to separate scaling from filtering. Added Stretch and Zoom scaling as new options to handle different aspect ratios.
• Fixed touchscreen orientation while external display is connected.
• Compositing is now avoided in additional scenarios, reducing latency and stutter in situation with multiple overlays on screen.
• Improved latency in certain situations where the application renders slower than the display's refresh rate.

General

• Fixed an issue where certain workloads would exhibit severe CPU performance issues unless SMT was manually disabled.
• External storage devices are now auto-mounted when connected to Steam Deck. To format or manage storage devices use the new device management interface in Settings->Storage.
• Updated graphics drivers, with many performance and functionality improvements. Improved performance for Starfield. Fixed viewmodel corruption in Amnesia: The Bunker and launch failures for Immortals of Aveum and Kaiju-A-GoGo.
• Improved Bluetooth connection stability, especially with multiple controllers
• Slightly improved sleep resume speed
• Implemented switching between controller bindings and mouse/keyboard desktop bindings by long-pressing Options in the Linux hid-steam driver, to match Steam's default Desktop configuration.
• Improved fade transitions between applications.
• The contents of the performance overlay can now be customized by creating a ~/.config/MangoHud/presets.conf configuration file.
• Fixed a bug where some games could appear stretched if their window size didn't match their swapchain size (eg. Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4)
• Fixed Disgaea PC needing to be tapped on before input works
• Fixed physical dimensions reported to games, fixing some issues with an incorrect aspect ratio sometimes being detected (eg. Returnal)
• Worked around a problem where Allow Tearing could cause heavy stuttering if the Performance Overlay or other overlays appeared on screen. Tearing is now impossible in such situations, and the Performance Overlay should be disabled for best results.
• Fixed a problem where keyboard input would not be detected in Overwatch 2
• Controller firmware: fixed an issue where some thumbstick touch sensors would lose touch periodically

Firmware 116

• Added voltage offset settings.
• Improved robustness of the Firmware Settings Reset chord (Volume Down + Quick-Access + Power) against some boot hang scenarios.
• Fixed a rare issue that would set the processor TDP limit too low causing CPU and GPU frequencies to be stuck at 400 MHz and 200 MHz respectively.
• Fixed an issue when the charging light would turn back on when plugged in for a while after fully charged.
• Updated Arch Linux Base
• This update pulls in newer performance, security and stability fixes for the underlying packages that are the foundation for SteamOS
• Most notably, this includes recent changes to KDE Plasma, Steam Deck's Desktop Mode. Full notes on these updates can be found on KDE's website here. Here are a few of the highlights:

New window tiling system

• Updated Discover (app store / software manager) with a new homepage and improved search
• Discover can now perform system updates from the desktop
• Updated desktop widgets