Table of contents for Issue 260 in PC Powerplay

RAZER UPGRADES THE BLADE 14” GAMING LAPTOP TO KABY LAKE Razer has updated its popular Blade range of 14” gaming notebooks for 2017. The new Razer Blade gets the latest i7-7700HQ Intel Kaby Lake CPU with Speed Shift v2, 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory soldered on the mainboard and the option of 256GB, 512GB and now, 1TB NVMe PCIe SSDs. The graphics card gets bumped up to an NVidia GTX1060 with 6GB of GDDR5 memory and HDMI 2.0b output. There’s also Thunderbolt 3/ USB-C, Razer’s Chrome anti-ghosting keyboard, Killer Wireless-AC 1535 and a 70Wh battery. Razer has two screen options available - a non-touch 1080p matte display or a 4K UHD glossy touch screen. All this power is packed in a svelte 1.86kg package (if you get the 4K display, the…

MAXIMUM POWER ANYWHERE GAMING LAPTOPS MSI, the No.1 Gaming brand goes above and beyond, unleashing the power of the 7th Generation Intel Core i7 Platform; Kaby Lake, to reach new heights for 4K Gaming and the ultimate VR Experience. Gamers are expected to experience 15% (non-OC) to 25% (OC) increase in CPU performance. This newfound power promises significantly increased performance in multitasking, 4K Video, Multimedia, and an improved VR Virtual Reality Experience. In addition to the new CPUs, MSI will be implementing Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti & GTX 1050 graphics into the arsenal so that all users, from casual gamers to eSport professionals can enjoy an even more personalized gaming notebook for work, school, or for killing hordes of zombies, anywhere. The GTX 1050 Ti brings 15%…

Leveraging 20 years of trusted performance and reliability, Seagate’s range of Barracuda Pro drives are best for high performance desktop, creative pro desktop applications and gaming use. For rock solid, fast and 24x7 operation in a NAS, Seagate’s Ironwolf Pro hard drives will get the job done. We also know that life isn’t perfect, so for those situations where things aren’t going to plan, you can rely on the FREE two years of Seagate’s Rescue Data Recovery Services for that additional peace of mind. This is a godsend and forms part of the Barracuda Pro and Ironwolf Pro experience. BARRACUDA PRO When you need a hard drive that will store terabytes of data and still provide loads of performance, get a Barracuda Pro. This top of the line hard drive…

“a major hurdle was that Birgador defied being pigeonholed into a catchy elevator pitch” WHO HUGH MONAHAN WHERE STELLAR JOCKEYS WHY BRIGADOR Brigador has touched a nerve. With its cyberpunk aesthetic and difficult-yet-rewarding gameplay, this dark game of mercenary robot action has inspired a cult following. Created by Hugh and Jack Monahan, Brigador was directly inspired by Syndicate and Crusader: No Remorse. But something that surprised Hugh was the way it reminded fans of so many other ‘90s action games – the way it tapped into a zeitgeist. “What’s interesting is that a lot of the major touchstones for players are ones that we didn’t even know about. Neither of us had ever actually played Desert Strike, or any of the Strike games. I’m sure I’d seen them, somewhere before,…

“wastes little time before you’re engaging in fights that will punish you if you try to mash” DEVELOPER SLOCLAP PUBLISHER DEVOLVER DIGITAL DUE 2017 www.absolver.com While Ubisoft Montreal’s For Honor may have proved divisive in terms of its use of microtransactions and peer-to-peer networking, what it executed beautifully was a rewarding combat system that was, on the surface, easy to learn but, ultimately, tricky to master. New indie developer Sloclap (founded very recently in 2015) is comprised of ex-Ubisoft Montreal devs who met while working on the Ghost Recon and Watch Dogs games. Sloclap’s inaugural game is Absolver, and after going hands-on with it, I’m not surprised it’s been receiving positive buzz and pre-release awards. Absolver is a combat RPG that slaps you on the wrists for button mashing and…

DEVELOPER FAILBETTER GAMES PUBLISHER FAILBETTER GAMES DUE 2018 www.failbettergames.com The ocean, in the tradition of Lovecraft, is terrifying in its unknowability, its ineffable vastness. You honestly have no idea just how many tentacles lurk beneath that moon-dappled surface. Fallen London and Sunless Sea, the literary giants upon whose shoulders Sunless Skies rests, drew upon the ocean for not merely their geographical setting but their mystery, their sprawling possibilities. They were both remarkable works of interactive fiction, particularly Sunless Sea, which unmoored players from a traditionally linear story and let them chart a personalised course through an archipelago of narrative moments, choices and consequences. The Unterzee (the titular Sunless Sea created when London quite literally fell) wasn’t an ocean exactly; it wasn’t quite that big. But it was large enough to…

“fast becoming the kind of game where your team-mates will tear you a new one” DEVELOPER UBISOFT MONTREAL PUBLISHER UBISOFT PRICE $60.95 AVAILABLE AT STEAM, UPLAY, RETAIL forhonor.ubisoft.com You know that Simpsons joke, about nuts and gum, two great flavours together at last? For Honor is kind of like that; legitimately cool things smooshed together into a gloriously ahistorical whole. It kind of feels wrong to point out that the game is dead-set silly in its premise, but let’s face it – Vikings fighting Knights fighting Samurai in some weirdly post-apocalyptic fantasy world is kind of weird. Thankfully, though, despite a truly dire singleplayer campaign, the basic mechanics of For Honor are amazingly slick, and the game itself is impressively deep. It’s more than just a hack-and-slash beat-‘em-up – it’s…

“after the 50th time you’ve reduced every enemy to glowing balls it begins to lose its charm” DEVELOPER KOEI TECMO PUBLISHER KOEI TECMO PRICE $53.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM www.koeitecmoamerica.com/berserk The best thing that can be said about Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is that it is a rather excellent gateway into the 28 year old Berserk manga series, thanks to the two or so hours of anime and CG cutscenes detailing some of the most important events in the life of Berserk protagonist, Guts. You see him transform from a homicidally angry teenage mercenary driven by rage and bloodlust, to a homicidally angry adult driven by rage and revenge. That may not seem like a particularly huge difference, but compared to how the action in the game progresses,…

“looks and sounds like a forgotten Neo Geo classic that you read about but could never afford” DEVELOPER ANIM-ACE PUBLISHER ANIM-ACE PRICE $3.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM anim-ace.itch.io/aliens-go-home-run In both concept and execution, Aliens Go Home Run is inspired. Players take control of a little girl enamoured with baseball. Sally is both saviour and destroyer. Thanks to a homerun so powerful that it caused a disaster on another planet, aliens are invading to rid the universe from the threat of Earth once and for all. What can our baseball heroine do but use her ball hitting powers to defend us from UFOs? A combination of Arkanoid, baseball and bullet hell shooter, Aliens Go Home Run has a powerful difficulty curve, charming sprite-based design and fun soundtrack. Combine that with an appealingly…

GPU OF THE YEAR “the 1070 Mobile really hit the sweet spot when it came to price versus performance” WINNER: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile URL: WWW.NVIDIA.COM This is the first time I’ve ever awarded a laptop GPU the prestigious GPU of the year award, and it’s for very good reason. Ever since gaming laptops have been around with discrete graphics chips, they’ve had to make do with hobbled versions of their desktop counterparts. Despite this, they’ve been nearly identically named, yet offered a fraction of the performance, leading to much confusion amongst potential purchasers. That all changed in 2017 when Nvidia unveiled its brand new Pascal architecture. The desktop debut of this amazing piece of hardware was exciting already, with a huge performance boost over its prior architecture,…

“our benchmarks show this is fine for 1080p gaming, but anything more is a bit of a stretch” PRICE $2,199 www.msi.com NVIDIA’s Pascal architecture has totally revolutionised the gaming laptop world. In the past, laptop owners would buy a machine with a GPU that had a nearly identical name to a desktop GPU, but the chip itself would be totally different. Pascal has changed all that, with the desktop and mobile GPUs basically identical, giving mobile gamers real desktop performance for the first time ever. We’ve checked out the mobile GeForce GTX 1080, 1070 and 1060; now it’s time to take a peek at the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti powered MSI GE72 Apache Pro. As a relatively affordable laptop, there’s an odd mix of hardware within, but first let’s look…

PRICE $349 www.corsair.com Corsair makes excellent mechanical keyboards. Of this there can be no doubt, but with the new flagship keyboard, the K95 Platinum RGB, Corsair has outdone themselves and created one of the best keyboards we’ve seen in a long while thanks to a combination of solid construction, easily accessible controls, Cherry MX Speed switches and an excellent wrist rest. Unfortunately such excellent design and performance comes with a hefty price tag, and when stacked up against some of Corsair’s other excellent keyboards the value of the K95 Platinum RGB comes into question. The design of the K95 Platinum differs from its similarly numbered predecessor in one significant way. Rather than having a whopping 18 macro buttons to the left of the keyboard, the Platinum only has space for…

“I was threatened with both a lawsuit and physical violence if I didn’t print a retraction” If you follow games journalism and Internet drama you’ll probably be familiar with the case of Digital Homicide v. Jim Sterling. If not, the short version is that Jim Sterling (nee James Stanton) was extremely critical of a terrible game by Digital Homicide, there was some back and forth and it ended up with the owner of Digital Homicide and a number of other “developers” attempting to sue Sterling for “assault, libel and slander”, initially for 10 million dollars but later revising that amount up to 15 million. In February the suit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning that Digital Homicide could not attempt to sue Sterling again for the same perceived infractions. Though this…

CAVEAT EMPTOR Hi Guys, Love the mag and I’ve been reading since the very early days of PC PowerPlay, it’s taken me a while to drop you guys a line but here we go: I am a bit miffed about the news that Steam (IMO an overpriced service) is now adding GST to the games if they are purchased here. I have always tried where I can to be loyal to Steam but when I think about the last dozen or so games I activated through the Steam service I didn’t purchase them directly. I’m a big fan of the humble bundle for a couple of reasons, it’s a feel good purchase as you’re doing something charitable whilst getting a great discount. Sometimes you come across gems you may never…

KEY SPECS AMD RX-421BD quad-core 2.1 GHz APU (burst up to 3.4 GHz) • dual channel 8GB/16GB/64GB DDR4 SODIMM RAM (upgradable to 64GB) • hot-swappable 2.5”/3.5” SATA 6Gbps HDD/SSD • 2x M.2 SATA 6Gb/s 2280/2260 SSD slots • 1x USB QuickAccess port • 2x PCle (Gen.3 x4) slots, one installed with a dual-port USB 3.1 Type-A card • 4 x USB 3.0 ports • 4x Gigabit LAN ports • 2x HDMI outputs • 2x 3.5 mm microphone jacks (dynamic microphones only) • 1x 3.5 mm Line-out audio jack • 1x built-in speaker For the ultimate in NAS performance – whether at home or in your office – the Qnap TVS-x73 has it all. Built with a state-of-the-art metal design and topped off with a stylish gold finish, the business-class TVS-x73…

“Steam is an accurate weather-vane to measure this trash typhoon” I recently had the privilege of attending the launch of a Games Jam – a 48-hour contest where dedicated young amateurs toiled around the clock to make innovative new video games from scratch. Held at a shiny new North Sydney TAFE facility the event was a human hive of activity, with a multi-camera Twitch live stream broadcasting interviews with academics, developers, and middleware executives. They even had a celebrity TV host. The Games Jam was classy, well-attended, well-run, and lent astonishing insights into why the video game market is submerging under such a staggering content glut. The clues were not subtle. There was the staff member who eagerly pitched TAFE courses to the viewers at home: “You can be a…

“the tactical possibilities can feel overwhelming when the screen is filled with blood-thirsty foes” DEVELOPER REIKON GAMES PUBLISHER DEVOLVER DIGITAL DUE 2017 www.ruinergame.com Before I started playing Ruiner, I was told that developer Reikon Games had tweaked the difficulty to make it a bit easier on the player. So, when I tell you that there are points during Ruiner’s tutorial that will kick your arse, you’ll know how punishing this isometric action game really is. Ruiner is like the Crusader (of the No Remorse and No Regret varieties) games of old have been thrown into a screaming blender with a healthy serving of Hotline Miami’s brutality and a smattering of the Dark Souls series’ unforgiving ‘death is the best teacher’ approach to design. In terms of its look and feel,…

“this makes the sector a prime breeding ground for heresy, and a staging ground for the minions of chaos” DEVELOPER NEOCORE GAMES PUBLISHER NEOCORE GAMES DUE TBA (EARLY ACCESS) www.neocoregames.com Neocore Games has a pretty great track record with indie ARPGs, with the silly but solid Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing series, and hopefully that experience will flow into Martyr. We say hopefully because at the current moment of early access, Martyr, despite having quite a wealth of content isn’t really a game that should be available for purchase. The “Founding” has packages available for purchasing access to the alpha as well as exclusive package related content, for between $39.99 and $999.99, and for that money all players currently get is repetitive missions, a single class and frequent crashes. These…

“it’s a refreshingly weird and alien take on classic fantasy and scifitropes” DEVELOPER INXILE ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER TECHLAND PUBLISHING PRICE $44.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM, GOG torment.inxile-entertainment.com WILKS: I’m something of a fan of Monte Cook and I have been for a while. While I liked his work on D&D 3rd Edition and on d20 Call of Cthulhu, he really came into his own as a game designer when he left Wizards of the Coast and started Monte Cook Games. Numenera and The Strange, his two games based on the Cypher rule system are right up my alley. They have a simple but flexible system and settings that actively encourage anyone running a game to get more than a little weird. Numenera, the RPG world in which Torment is set, has a…

“our hero - a half demon woman half mad with rage willing to do what it takes to get revenge” DEVELOPER BANDAI NAMCO STUDIOS INC. PUBLISHER BANDAI NAMCO ENTERTAINMENT PRICE $49.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM bandainamcoent.eu/product/tales-of-berseria/pc The Tales franchise has been around roughly forever, delivering players a reliable dose of melodrama and real-time combat wrapped in a slightly lacklustre but still kind of charming shell. Berseria, the 16th game in the main series (there are also a number of side games and spinoffs) is, rather surprisingly, one of the best of the series, and is by far the most mature and nuanced when it comes to character. Rather than following the epic and mostly noble heroics of previous Tales games, Berseria instead focuses on a group of broken people doing the…

“it’s insect warfare like in the before-time. Tiny units hurling themselves in doomed waves” DEVELOPER MICROSOFT STUDIOS PUBLISHER MICROSOFT STUDIOS PRICE $59.99 AVAILABLE AT WINDOWS STORE halowaypoint.com/en-au/games/halo-wars-2 There’s nothing inherently wrong with a basic-arse RTS. A game with a couple of gimmicky factions, some cool superweapons, upgradeable factories for double-barrelled tanks, a resource system that doesn’t strictly speaking make any sense, and lots of explosions. Those games can be fun, a way to scratch your tactical itch without the brain-sweats that a proper strategy game can bring on. But RTS is an inherently dated genre. It exists because in the ‘90s, developers like Westwood realised a PC was powerful enough to manage dozens of units in real time. Dune II was basically a turn-based wargame except everything took its turn…

“the interface is extremely basic, so serious network nerds will find it lacking, but for most of us it does the job” PRICE $279 www.dlink.com.au D-Link usually sends us the most cutting-edge, high-end routers it’s got. They’re usually very expensive, look like an alien drone from Independence Day, and have had a few issues MUMIMO support of late. The DIR-879 is an entirely different beast; it’s the first mid-range router we’ve tested from the company, well below the price of previous D-Link routers we’ve reviewed. And yet to call it affordable is definitely a stretch given its feature set. This is a dual band router, running both a 2.4GHz and 5GHz network, hence the AC1900 designation in the model name. The 2.4GHz network delivers a theoretical maximum speed of 600Mbps,…

“you’re probably going to need a bracket, or steel-reinforced PCIe physical lanes, as this is one heavy sucker” PRICE $1149 www.aorus.com While we’re all waiting with bated breath for Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, which will inevitably be timed to spoil AMD’s Vega launch, we’re still more than happy with the supreme performance offered by its existing Pascal-based GeForce GTX 1080 GPU. Now that this chip has been on the market for some time, we’re starting to see rather more exotic graphics cards based on this chip, and the latest is the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 Aorus xtreme edition 8G. Let’s check out what that commanding price delivers. You’re probably going to need a graphics card bracket, or steel-reinforced PCIe physical lanes, as this is one heavy sucker. We don’t…

“different makes, models and brands of mechanical switches all contain some core components” There are two common kinds of switch on the market – mechanical and rubber dome. Rubber dome keyboards hold the lower end of the price spectrum, and consist of a rubber sheet over a PCB. Keycaps on sliders depress the rubber domes over the PCB to offer some type of feedback or resistance for every keystroke. Mechanical keyboards, on the other hand, have individual key switches for each key. Different makes, models and brands of mechanical switches have different components in a finished switch, but all contain some core components. Keycap: The plastic or metal top of a switch. This is the part you press. Stem: The part the keycap is mounted on. While some manufacturers have…

PORTAL 2 DEVELOPER RUNNING WITH SCISSORS PERSONALITY VINCE DESI, MIKEJ, GARY COLEMAN (SERIOUSLY) RELEASED 2003 AND A COUPLE OF TIMES SINCE NUTSHELL Upping the ante from the original, Postal 2 crammed every stereotype about the ugliness of middle America into one likewise ugly Unreal 2 total conversion. Yet despite its puerile concept, these days it feels oddly reminiscent of one of gaming’s most bankable open-world IPs... Once there was a man name Vince Desiderio. That man had a dream. His dream was to be known as Vince Desi. After achieving that dream, he started on another dream: to create a videogame so offensive, but also so awesome, he would become world famous. As the millennium dawned, the problem for edgy auteurs was that the wider culture was coming to terms…

MOST IMPRESSIVE ELEMENTS: 1. Intel Core i5 4590S 2. 1TB 2.5 inch Western Digital Blue HD 3. 1x 29 inch Widescreen 2560 x 1080 Full 1080p IPS Monitor 4. Launchpad Mini MY LAST UPGRADE: The i5 4590S that replaced my old Intel i3 processor that came with the lowest configuration of the Alienware Alpha R1 and 4GB to 8GB of DDR3 RAM. My most recent upgrade (about a month ago) was my 1TB 2.5 inch WD HDD which replaced my older 500GB HDD that was with the Alienware Alpha R1. MY DREAM UPGRADE: A whole new gaming rig, along the lines of a new Asus GTX 1080 Strix and i7 6700K. MY FAVORITE FEATURE: The Intel Core i5 4590S may not be the most powerful and shiniest processor today, but…

PC & Tech Authority, PC PowerPlay, Atomic and Hyper are joining forces once again to bring you another spectacular night of cutting edge PC technology, the latest advances in gaming and the coolest new gear around. The last Upgrade Australia event was hosted in Sydney, so now we’re heading back to Melbourne with an all new show with new partners and gear. Get ready to experience the latest PC hardware, talk to experts in the field, witness live demonstrations, feast on free food and drink and stand a pretty good chance of walking away with freebies. We know you can’t wait to get your hands on the latest and greatest PC gear so jump on the website and register right away! Register at: www.pcauthority.com.au/upgradeaustralia WHERE: Melbourne ‘s Monash University, Caulfield…

“When love hearts started appearing in front of the door, I knew the deal” If you had only started reading Generation XX in the last few months, you might be forgiven for thinking it’s a column about indie game development and communities. Sometimes, it is, especially when I’m busy implementing programs for my interactive media students or making music for games. If you also read the indie pages, you’ll know I review a wide range of things, but I haven’t written about anything I’m playing just for fun in a while. This column was always, at least partly, intended to be a window into the content that consistently attracts this one, female player. Firstly, I’d like to apologise for never having written about The Witcher 3. I’ve been playing it…

1 Gloria Victis DEVELOPER BLACK EYE PUBLISHER BLACK EYE DUE 2017 (IN EARLY ACCESS) gloriavictisgame.com A low fantasy medieval sandbox MMO, Gloria Victis is shaping up to be quite special. Devoid of a typical class structure, players in Gloria Victis are free to develop their characters to suit their play style, whether it be crafting arms and armour for other players, building castles, or fighting on the frontlines in PvP/PvE sieges and raids. Although there are some fantasy elements in the game world, the overall theme is one of grim and gritty brutality. 2 SpellForce 3 DEVELOPER GRIMLORE GAMES PUBLISHER NORDIC GAMES DUE 2017 grimloregames.com Development of SpellForce 3, a hybrid RPG/Strategy game is being headed up by a new studio, so it’s only fitting that the story isn’t continuing…

“the fact you can splatter the walls and ceilings with persistent blood helps as a guide” DEVELOPER PIXEL TITANS PUBLISHER DEVOLVER DIGITAL DUE 29 MARCH www.strafe1996.com Strafe is the original Quake but with randomly generated levels. The end. Oh, you want more? Okay. It’s a breakneck-pace arena shooter, albeit with some modern touches that help to separate it from being a mere Quake clone. The randomly generated levels is one of those contemporary additions. Every time you die the level changes in terms of its enemies, monster closets, rooms, power-ups and even its secrets. In gameplay terms, navigating the randomly generated levels mostly descends into jumping backwards while firing, circle-strafing, and generally ignoring the modern shooter philosophies that try to keep you shooting with your feet on the ground. Forget…

DEVELOPER RIVETED GAMES PUBLISHER RIVETED GAMES DUE EARLY ACCESS www.lightspeedfrontier.com We’re kind of amazed that it has taken this long for a game like Lightspeed Frontier to enter the world. There have been games using a similar concept of creating and flying a spaceship before, with titles like Defect: Spaceship Destruction Kit, Kerbal Space Program and Captain Forever giving players the opportunity to build and fly their own spaceships, but each of those games, no matter how good, was limited in scope, constraining players to a single play style or objective. Lightspeed Frontier looks to expand on the idea by placing spaceship construction in a sandbox environment, essentially merging a liberal dose of Minecraft with a few shots of Elite. Set in the farthest reaches of the universe, players take…

“some new movement mechanics and vastly improved close range and stealth combat” DEVELOPER REBELLION PUBLISHER REBELLION PRICE $59.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM sniperelite4.com It would be all too easy to classify the Sniper Elite series as some kind of WWII themed gore porn. It is, after all, a series that has become identifiable with its hyper gory x-ray gunshots that show in loving detail bullets ripping through Nazi flesh and obliterating bone and organ alike. Any game that lovingly renders testicles with the express purpose of popping them with high velocity lead is obviously more interested in making a splash more than it is historical accuracy or any kind of nuance. When it comes to the reason for all of the x-ray deaths and testicle explosions, Sniper Elite 4 is perfunctory…

“the knight also has to fight his own ghost to reclaim any dropped money” DEVELOPER TEAM CHERRY PUBLISHER TEAM CHERRY PRICE $14.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM, GOG hollowknight.com Beneath the adorably gothic façade of Hollow Knight lies a game that all but refuses to compromise or hold your hand. The cute insect enemies and near chibi hero may give the impression that Hollow Knight is a game for a younger audience, but first impressions can be deceiving, and here, expecting anything but a tough Metroidvania style platformer with an undeniable hint of Dark Souls would definitely be a mistake. The enemies may be bugs and other things that crawl in the dirt, but they’re just as deadly as any skeleton, zombie or black knight. Wielding a blade called nail, players delve…

“the right balance of enthusiasm, awkwardness and a desire to make up for lost time” DEVELOPER INFINITE FALL PUBLISHER FINJI PRICE US$20 AVAILABLE AT STEAM www.nightinthewoods.com At one point in Night in the Woods a minor character says to Mae, the feline protagonist, “Hey can we hang out sometime?” Mae blinks, as the two of them sit on a roof high above the main street of Possum Springs, their legs dangling over the edge, “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” Night in the Woods isn’t what I was expecting. I’d assumed it would be a cutesy 2D platformer with a spooky story, self-aware dialogue, and Limbo-style puzzles. I was wrong. Night in the Woods is narrative-driven adventure that consists almost entirely of conversations with friends, neighbours and other people around town.…

“we’d much prefer a slightly slower CPU in return for a GeForce GTX 1070 GPU” PRICE $2199 www.asus.com.au It seems that mini-PCs are all the rage at the moment, with Intel and Nvidia’s latest products allowing PC builders to fit more powerful components into smaller cases thanks to their increased energy efficiency. The Asus ROG GR8 II is the latest, and measures smaller than a standard PS4 console, with an interior capacity of just four litres. Unfortunately you won’t be able to lay it horizontally under your TV, as it’s designed to stand upright. You could lay it down but this will play havoc with the specially designed cooling system, which sucks in cool air from the bottom and expels it from the top and rear. Even when in an…

PRICE $299 www.razerzone.com The Blackwidow Chroma V2 is an interative upgrade of the original Blackwidow Chroma, but the combination of these upgrades and the choice between three different switches makes the Blackwidow Chroma V2 an excellent premium mechanical keyboard. Whereas the original Blackwidow was limited to the clicky Green switches, the V2 can feature any of the Razer switches. We were sent two units to test, one with Green switches and one with the new Yellow switches. Both are excellent, but the new Yellow switches are a real standout. The new Yellow switches are linear and feature a short throw, similar to those seen in Cherry Speed switches, Romer-G or Steelseries GS1. The actuation point of the keys is only 1.2mm, and this, combined with the 45g actuation force makes…

Gaming has given us many amazing cultural moments. For instance, Postal 2 inspired awesome filmmaker Uwe Boll to make Postal, the movie. It’s a great movie! Among other things, it explains how Flight 11 hit the North Tower on September 11 due to a humorous misunderstanding between the hijackers and the passengers. The hijackers only wanted to go to the Bahamas! Hahaha! This film came out in 2007! Hahaha! When asked about the possibility of making another Postal movie, MikeJ said (in a 2016 Reddit AMA so all quotes sic): “yes hoping on another movie, not with uwe! we wanna make our own!” To which Redditor ravingStork said: “Hahaha! Fuckin’ uwe”. To which MikeJ said: “fuckin uwe is right!”…