Deals in this article:
- Samsung 2TB 990 Pro |
$199.99$119.99 - Lexar NM790 2TB |
$124.99$109.99 - WD Black SN850X 2TB |
$131.49$119.99 - Nextorage 2TB |
$249.99$99.99
Cyber Monday PC gaming deals are now well underway, and everything from CPUs to SSDs is seeing discounts. But when it comes to the latter, there’s a recommendation that keeps hitting our feeds that I somewhat disagree with: The Samsung 990 Pro Series 2TB.
Don’t get me wrong: The 990 Pro is a fine drive, and I’d even go far as to call it excellent when it comes to raw performance. 7,450 MB/s sequential read speed, 6900 MB/s write, and it comes from a well-known brand. (Albeit one that suffered some PR damaging firmware issues recently.)
But when it comes down…
Can I make a confession? Can I make it even if I’m pretty sure I’ve said it before, multiple times, on this very website? I can? Great. Lae’zel is my favourite companion from Baldur’s Gate 3. Yes, yes, everyone loves Karlach and the fancy vampire boy, but for me? I couldn’t go anywhere without dragging my Songun BFFL along for the ride. Much like real life, I just can’t get invested in someone if there isn’t some implicit threat of violence against my person at all times.
What was I saying? Oh right, Lae’zel’s the best, and it’s in no small part down to the stellar voicework by her actor, Devora Wilde. And you know what? It turns out she kind of had the character absolutely nailed right from the start. In a post on Twitter earlier today, Wilde posted the “forty six seconds that changed her life,” her “one and only audition” for the role of Lae’zel in BG3 that ended up landing her the part.
Toe to tip, that’s Lae’zel. Sure, Wilde clearly refined the character i…
Get all the help you need with your daily Wordle right here. Polish up your general guesses with our tips and guides, give yourself a helping hand with our clue for today’s game, or guarantee a win with a quick click down to the July 25 (766) answer.
Some days I just know I’m in for a quick win—like today. Wordle very kindly dropped exactly the right sort of clues in exactly the right sort of order, and that meant I found today’s Wordle answer in an effortless three. All that’s left to do now is wait for tomorrow’s new puzzle.
Today’s Wordle hint
A Wordle hint for Tuesday, July 25
The answer to today’s Wordle is probably one of humanity’s greatest inventions, and has existed in some form for millenia. This transportation aid can be made of pretty much anything, so long as that thing can be made round.
ViewViewViewView
Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle?
Yes, a letter is used twice in today’s puzzle. …
Looks like we’re getting another foodie crossover in Final Fantasy 14. Yesterday, the Twitter/X account for KFC Japan posted a short, ominous video of the Colonel overlooking the cliffs of La Noscea with the caption (courtesy of Google translate): “Colonel Sanders is steadily preparing for a new adventure in another world…”
Listen, I know Mr. Sanders is probably meant to be framed as a hopeful adventurer looking out upon a vast and noble sea. But a slow, jump-cut zoom on his pristine white hair followed by a cyberpunk-worthy glitch effect leads into an unpunctuated “Coming Soon”: stark white on a pitch black void. I’m not sure I’m feeling the finger-lickin’ comfort here.
This is made worse by the confirmation that Colonel Sanders is a Black Mage. As some kind of horror-movie stinger, he pulls out a gnarled staff and uses Triplecast, an ability that lets Black Mages instantly cast three of their destructive spells in devastating succession.
This also puts Col…
V Rising, a game that ah-ah-ah’d its way into a fairly successful early access in 2022, is finally hurling aside the stone lid of its early access tomb to suck away some more hours of your life.
A nifty isometric ARPG-slash-survival-game by Stunlock (previously known for Battlerite and, more unfortunately, Battlerite Royale), V Rising landed pretty well with audiences—selling a million copies in short order, then tripling that number by 2023. However, despite some major content updates, Dracula’s castle has been a little quieter since.
That’s only normal, though—no vampire lord reigns forever, and the double-edged sword of early access is that players will, generally speaking, finish up then go play something else. The game still has “Very Positive” reviews on Steam in both “Recent” and “All” categories at the time of writing.
As per the announcement on Steam, V Rising’s 1.0 update will arrive May 8. The full release will feature a new endgame zone name…
Diablo 4 Sorcerers might be the weakest class overall, but they can still gather enough power to push through some of the action RPG’s hardest dungeons.
Sorcerers have struggled to compete with Diablo 4’s other four classes in endgame activities since launch. They’re exceptional for quickly gaining levels up to 50, but struggle to survive the deadly enemies you encounter in the game’s highest World Tier difficulty settings.
With a little bit of luck and a huge amount of help from season 1’s powerful Malignant Heart gems, Sorcerers still have some bite to them.
“I solo cleared a tier 100 Nightmare Dungeon, at level 91… as a Sorcerer,” wrote Reddit user Wunthr before explaining how they were able to survive enemies 63 levels higher than them.
At tier 100, enemies will kill you in one hit. And Nightmare Dungeons limit how many times you can die and revive yourself, so it’s an impressive achievement for almost any class, let alone …
Just one day later, Battlestate COO Nikita Buyanov has caved on Tarkov fans’ primary demand: that players of the $150 Edge of Darkness edition receive free access to the game’s new PvE mode. The mood is still tense in the Tarkov community though. Buyanov’s statement did not admit to any wrongdoing on Battlestate’s part, nor did it remark on the “DLC/feature” distinction that the studio pointed to as justification for having the mode be exclusive to a new $250 bundle, leaving the door open for something similar in the future. You can read more about Battlestate’s concessions and the community’s response in our separate story on the latest developments.
Original Story: In what has rapidly eclipsed Fallout 4’s mod-breaking “next-gen” update as the biggest unforced error of the week in PC gaming, Escape From Tarkov dev Battlestate is still holding firm that players who bought the $150 Edge of Darkness edition of the game will not have access…
Back before survival MMO Dune: Awakening was a glint in Funcom’s eye, the Norwegian studio was working on another multiplayer open world survival game: Conan Exiles. The gritty survival sandbox had a lot going for it, like a base building system, bloody combat, and a punishing survival experience, but there was one feature in particular that caught everyone’s eye.
Conan Exiles had a… well, the game labels it “endowment” but we wound up informally calling it a “dong slider.” In character creation, you could change the size of your character’s penis (if they had one) from demi to venti, if you catch my drift, and all the sizes in between. What’s more, your character’s junk was fully physics enabled: when you jumped up and down while naked, your package would jiggle and shake and bounce around. It was quite the sight.
The revelation about the game’s genital physics blew up, and I’m not exaggerating: our story about Conan Exile’s endowment slider was…
Today marks when the first batch of ROG Ally handhelds are shipped off to customers. If you’ve already pre-ordered, that means the end of a month-long wait since you lay your money on the line, but for everyone else it means a chance to actually buy one of these snappy AMD-powered handheld PCs off the shelves.
In most regions I’ve checked, you can just buy one of these consoles right away—there’s been no immediate rush to snap up as many of these as possible for the second-hand market, incredibly. Below you’ll find some retailer links that might come in useful.
Right off the bat, there’s wide global availability of the ROG Ally, which makes for stark comparison to Valve’s Steam Deck, which my Australian colleague Chris Szewczyk has been quick to remind me is still not officially sold by Valve in the country (though you can buy a Steam Deck in Australia through other means).
It’s no surprise, then, that the handheld’s first wave has sold out in Australia via A…
There’s a hint for today’s Wordle waiting below, nestled snugly between a range of general tips designed to give you the best chance of winning every day. Of course, there’s also the answer to the November 23 (887) Wordle if your game’s in danger of going off the rails. Whatever you need to win, you’ll find it here.
A stupidly overlooked letter almost cost me today’s game, but luckily for me it only pointlessly wasted a few too many guesses for comfort instead. Not my proudest Wordle moment by any means, but that’s OK—we’ll keep it between ourselves, right?
Today’s Wordle hint
Wordle today: A hint for Thursday, November 23
You’ll need to think of royalty to solve today’s Wordle. The answer here is the title often given to a female ruler, whether she stands alone or with a king by her side. This word is also the name of the rock band originally fronted by singer/songwriter Freddie Mercury.
ViewViewViewView