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The Steam Deck has kick-started a wave of handhelds from some of the big names in PC gaming. Asus has its Windows-powered ROG Ally, Lenovo just announced its own Legion Go handheld PC, and Logitech released a cloud-focused handheld. AMD has been quietly arming an entire new wave of Steam Deck competitors, and that got me thinking: where’s Microsoft’s Xbox handheld?

You probably already know what I'm talking about here: that thing where you're in the middle of dialogue with an NPC, but the rest of the scene has chosen not to cooperate. It's a common feature of RPGs, but it shows up extra often in Bethesda games, and of course has returned in Starfield. I can't get enough of it.

My favorite example so far is the video embedded above, which tells the very brief tale of a chipper fellow who fails to watch his own back.

These mid-dialogue attempted murders come in lots of flavors, though. Sometimes it's not a messed up bone-spider thing that ruins the NPC's day, for example, but the player themselves.

Example YouTube Video from article

Star Trek: Infinite mashes Stellaris and Star Trek together into something more delicious than anything you can get out of a replicator.

When we first got word back in June that Paradox Interactive was publishing a grand strategy game set in the Star Trek universe, we were just a little bit excited.

It's been a long time since anyone took a crack at making a Star Trek strategy game, which is a crying shame given how well Star Trek lends itself to the mechanics of exploring and colonizing space. I've had a chance to play a preview build of Star Trek: Infinite, and thankfully it's much more than a Stellaris Star Trek mod (something you can already play)—it's a game that puts you smack dab in the middle of one of the most interesting times in Trek history and, in grand strategy style, lets you write your own story.

In Star Trek: Infinite you take control of one of the four major factions in the Alpha quadrant in the year 2340, shortly before the events of The Next Generation. As the Romulans, Cardassians, Klingons, or the Federation, you build colonies, explore the stars, research new technologies, and battle one another for galactic supremacy (or, y'know, peace, if that's your deal).

The new Rust update makes life in the sky a lot more interesting.

YouTube Trailer
Steam Update Notes

The silver bullet to Starfield's enemy AI? Empty space.

The Starfield ship builder continues to be an absolute gift. Players have wasted absolutely no time crafting ships ranging from ludicrous cubes to genuinely impressive recreations of famous starships, but my favorite design by far is both absurd and so powerful that it basically breaks space combat.

Some would say the best way to wind down after a rough day down the Content Reactors isn’t to play a grotty occult horror game, but I caught a trailer for Tenebris Somnia earlier, and couldn’t help myself. In this foetid offering from Argentinian devs Andrés Borghi and Tobías Rusjan of Saibot Studios, you play a young woman, Julia, who is visiting her film-maker ex-boyfriend to drop off their old apartment key. Julia’s having a hard time getting over the break-up, but she’s clearly doing better than her ex: his apartment is full of broken glass, anomalous red gloop and creepy occult books.

The game’s twist is that it’s two visual styles thrust into the same frame. On the one hand, you'll explore an 8-bit world of unpleasantly bright colours, finding and combining objects adventure-game style (I say adventure-game-style, because this is a bit more energetic than most adventure games – you can equip and swing a wrench, and there’s a run button). On the other hand, well. Click the headline to find out, if you dare. Yes, this is me trying to do a jumpscare. Brace yourself!

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YouTube Trailer
Steam Page

Islands of Insight, the upcoming puzzle game published by Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive, is making its first playable debut as a free Steam download. You’ll have a bit of time to try Islands of Insight out, but it will vanish just as soon as it appeared, so make sure you act fast.

While you won’t be able to play the entire game, you’ll have the opportunity to solve an interconnected series of complex puzzles in order to get a window into the campaign.

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Steam Page

Stardew Valley creator ConcernedApe just shared his old music, some of which you'll find in-game, and said a few tracks could make it to Haunted Chocolatier.

Tweet Link

Bandcamp page

Governments are weird. Maybe “weird” isn’t the right word. The more accurate word may be “opportunistic.” When it comes to speech they don’t like, they move into this mode. If they think they can silence it, they will try to. And they’ll do this while still pretending the speech they’re trying to control is nothing more than their own.

Dig if you will, my brothers: vanity plates. Government speech or personal speech? Those who view this rationally likely believe that the message on a vanity license plate is the expression of the plate’s purchaser. That it’s delivered by a state-issued plate doesn’t matter. We don’t actually believe the government is trying to send a message with their IMGOD or COPSLIE or LOVETOFU vanity plate. (ALL ACTUAL CASES.)

Instead, we would logically infer the truncated statement on the vanity plate expresses the views of the person paying for this privilege.

But the government also believes it has some obligation to “protect” other drivers from being offended by the personal expressions of others, which is a supremely ridiculous belief to entertain, even professionally. So, the entities issuing plates tend to err on the side of absurdity (governments tend to phrase this as “caution”), rejecting any plate any government plate content moderator might view as “offensive.”

At 40 years old, FOSS has become a full citizen in modern society. By popularising and catalysing the pre-existing concepts from the free software movement, open source has moved to the heart of the connected technology revolution over the last 25 years. In Europe, it now drives nearly 100 Billion Euros of GDP. Unsurprisingly, it is now the focus of much political attention from all directions - including regulators and detractors. Today everyone wants to be FOSS - including many who really don't but want the cachet.

In 2022, the mounting wave broke and legislation affecting our movement cascaded into view in the USA and Europe. In Europe, the DSA, Data Act, AI Act, CRA, PLD, and several more major legislative works emerged from the Digital Agenda. Despite its apparent awareness of open source, this legislation appeared ill-suited for the reality of our communities. Why is that? Where do standards come into this? Where is this heading?

*Simon Phipps is currently director of standards and EU policy for the Open Source Initiative, where he was previously a member of the board of directors and board President. He has also served as a director at The Document Foundation, the UK's Open Rights Group and other charities and non-profits. Prior to that, he ran one of the first OSPOs at Sun Microsystems, was one of the founders of IBM's Java business, worked on video conference software and standards at IBM and was involved with workstation and networking software at Unisys/Burroughs. A European rendered stateless by British politics, he lives in the UK. *

Veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg announced on Tuesday he was deactivating his X (formerly known as Twitter) account, saying Elon Musk’s takeover of the site turned it into a “cesspool.”

Mr Mossberg is a well-respected name and expert in the US tech writing industry, who also co-founded media sites such as Recode and AllThingsD. He announced his boycotting of X on Meta’s new platform Threads, saying his reasons revolve around business tycoon Mr Musk’s threats to sue the Anti-Defemation League (ADL).

Veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg announced on Tuesday he was deactivating his X (formerly known as Twitter) account, saying Elon Musk’s takeover of the site turned it into a “cesspool.”

Mr Mossberg is a well-respected name and expert in the US tech writing industry, who also co-founded media sites such as Recode and AllThingsD. He announced his boycotting of X on Meta’s new platform Threads, saying his reasons revolve around business tycoon Mr Musk’s threats to sue the Anti-Defemation League (ADL).