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TURNCOAT Shock Betrayals and Other Gaming Tropes

Getting screwed over is just part of the deal as a video game protagonist.

ALL HANDS-ON DECK The Steam Deck OLED isn’t just a minor upgrade – it’s one of my favorite pieces of gaming hardware ever

Valve has absolutely proved its hardware prowess, vision, and expertise with this refresh.

SUPER SLEUTHING 10 things we spotted in the GTA 6 trailer release date announcement teaser image

Step aside Cole Phelps and Harry Du Bois, the VG247 detectives are on the case.

BISON BUCKS Street Fighter 6 is one of the best games of 2023 – but as the year ends, DLC greed threatens its glory

Capcom, in a rare miss, has misjudged the price of Street Fighter 6's Outfit 3 offerings – and that's a damn shame.

POP OFF If you love Chainsaw Man's soundtrack, you need to check out this strange, captivating anime

Boogiepop and Others gives you the 90s anime experience despite being from 2019.

DEEP SPACE CONFINED Game of Thrones star Lena Headey makes a triumphant return to genre TV

Beacon 23 redefines the bottle episode as a stage for immense creativity.

CAN’T TAKE IT The state of triple-A PC ports and the obscene prices of GPUs are ruining my favourite hobby

For years, building a PC – or even just upgrading the GPU –has always been one of my favourite things to do. But I am slowly falling out of love with it.

STICKER SHOCK The Super Pocket is a glorious retro handheld that doesn’t require a lottery win to own

Cheap, cheerful, and a good, solid bit of tech for the price – anyone craving some retro handheld goodness can do worse than the Super Pocket.

Fighting words Everything we know about Project L, the Riot Games fighting game

Here's everything we currently know about the upcoming fighting game from Riot Games.

OUTLAWS TIL THE END Five years on, Red Dead Online remarkably feels like less of a dying west than RDR2

There's still a good number of cowboys and cowgirls roaming the plains.

FOR CRYING OUT LOUD If you liked Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, you need to watch this Netflix anime from the same studio

Time to add Devilman Crybaby to your Netflix watch list.

BEWITCHED Bite the EGS bullet and play one of 2023's most interesting shooters right now, while it's on sale

Witchfire is Destiny 2’s darker, more punishing step-sibling, and the distant cousin of Hunt: Showdown.

FREAKY FRIDAY If I had ?500 I’d buy all this cool stuff on Black Friday

I don’t have cash to burn, but if I did, here's what I'd pick up this Black Friday.

A STAR TOO FAR What’s the best game that we’d give a kicking?

Sometimes your review is an outlier, but that’s ok.

JUSTICE FOR KURTIS Celebrate the best (worst) Tomb Raider game turning 20 this year by grabbing it for under ?1

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness — franchise killer or precursor to TR's modern success?

CRIMINAL AMBITION GTA 6: five things it should keep, five things it should skip

Rockstar should not be afraid to cherry-pick the best ideas from its past, while ditching the ones that didn't work.

AN ICE TREAT Need an excuse to play one of 2023's best indies? The Pale Reach is exactly that

Dredge’s first DLC delivers more spooky fishing antics.

GOOD FORTUNES 10 years later, the Xbox One vision everyone rejected has become a reality, and I couldn’t be happier

Often called a 'launch disaster', you only need to look at the Xbox ecosystem now to understand the Xbox One's vision was actually ahead of its time.

SEX BOB-OMBED Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is a great take on a classic, but I just can’t enjoy it

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off does well to amend past mistakes, but I still can’t bring myself to finish it off.

PANCAKE DAY Meta Quest 3 is the first VR headset that doesn’t feel like a pain in the neck

The Meta Quest 3 is a VR headset that runs the Goldilocks Gambit; not too expensive, not too crap.

DADDY COOL Monarch: Legacy of Monsters makes a good case for Hollywood nepotism

…but struggles to make a case for itself.

FREY'D SO Forspoken for cheap in Black Friday is great, actually

Forget the memes, the noise, the nonsense – Forspoken for about a tenner is a great price to pay for a PS5 curio.

SCHOOL OF HARD COX 007: Road to a Million is the rare big franchise spin-off with soul

It's not quite a new Bond film, but Amazon's peculiar 007 spin-off understands what makes the spy thriller tick –?and is a refreshing take on cash-in media.

PS5P PlayStation Portal review – the PS handheld for everyone and no one

Sony’s latest PlayStation handheld is far from the niche product it’s made out to be, but it’s a long way from being ideal.

THE SHAPE OF ME 20 years ago, Pokemon Colosseum made me the trainer I am today

What's in a name, anyway?

ABSOLUTE BRILLIANCE Ocarina of Time: A game that remains the pinnacle of Zelda 25 years later

A symphony of excellence.

REBUILD OF SCOTT Netflix’s Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is Final Fantasy 7 Remake all over again

The latest Netflix anime isn't quite what you might have expected it to be.

MERRY X-MAS Does Xbox Game Pass need a Christmas miracle?

Microsoft’s game subscription service has had a good year, but it could do with a bit of buzz around the holidays.

WRONG TURN Lords of the Fallen, a Souls-like RPG, is learning the worst lessons from games as a service

Lords of the Fallen is many things, but I don’t believe one of those is an ongoing, live service game.

HALO, WHO IS THIS? "I had to solve by looking outside of the racing genre" how Bloodborne Kart pulls from Halo to get it right

You've got to pull from far and wide to live up to expectations

GAME ON! What are you playing this weekend?

The weekend is here. Yay!

BEST DIRECTOR 15 years on, Left 4 Dead still rules the genre it created

The greatest PVE shooter of all time is now old enough to rent The Godfather.

TAKE A SEAT What's the best game you can finish in one sitting?

Sometimes you just need a quick one.

ATOMIC INNOVATION Eight years on from release, Fallout 4 modding “just keeps growing” – and it shows no sign of slowing down

“There are really talented people in this community putting out more and more amazing tools, and I think it’s only going to get better.”

THE HYPE TRAIN, CJ! GTA 5’s trailers were masterpieces that hyped the game up perfectly – can GTA 6 live up to the same standard?

Re-capturing the magic will be hard - but I trust Rockstar to pull it off.

NET A GOOD ONE If you’ve got a Netflix subscription, you have to play these 20 essential free games

All of these essential games are included as part of your Netflix subscription, and they're all great

HIGHRISE HIGHPOINT Modern Warfare 3’s Open Combat Missions deserve to die, but one level should be saved

The Modern Warfare 3 campaign’s only “innovation” is its Open Combat Missions. All but one are entirely forgettable, and it’s that one that we need to talk about.

The American Dream “We got there in the end” – the creator of Fallout 4’s best Enclave quest mod reveals how it came to be

They may be "objectively evil", but Fallout's coolest baddies attract some incredible modding dedication.

I AM ALL OF I AM 18 years later Shadow the Hedgehog remains the series' guiltiest pleasure

It still even all this time has the capacity to make me laugh. What a game.

WHAT A RUSH 10 years on from the PS4, I'm lamenting the PlayStation that could have been

Should-a, would-a, could-a.

IT'S THE JOURNEY This season's cosiest anime is perfect for Final Fantasy 14 fans

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is great for general fantasy fans, too.

SUNSET, SUNRISE Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is great, but I wish Insomniac would bring back Sunset Overdrive

It might have released almost a decade ago, but I'm still thinking about it.

ON TILT Sonic’s greatest spin-off is 30 years old today – and it’s time for another one

Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball – also known as Sonic Spinball – is now three decades old. And it's still the blue blur's best non-canon outing.

MONKEY'S PAW Modern Warfare 3 brought back classic spawns, and now half my matches end in spawn traps

A classic Call of Duty feature that streamers and YouTubers never stopped asking for its return has come back, to the detriment of the entire experience.

FICKLE RICK Rick and Morty’s Season 7 recast is the least of its problems

Cartoons have been changing voice actors for decades, but few of them are a lightning rod for culture wars.

VROOM THE SPIDER “There’s a lot of nostalgia there” – How Bloodborne Kart’s devs have laser-targeted PS1 lovers

Originally a meme, this soon-to-be open source kart racer looks like the next best bet.

CHIMNEY BOP Celebrate Christmas in style with this horrid viral PS4 theme from some game nobody remembers

Marvel as the commercialisation of Christmas continues to plummet new and exciting depths.

ASTRONOMICAL Netflix might have put out the most important anime of the year, so please don’t skip it

And that's in a year where we've already had some great anime.

TIME TO HAVE FUN What are you playing this weekend?

It's been a long week.

OMNI VAN-ISHED Invincible season 2 has an Omni-Man shaped hole - for good and bad.

Omni-Man's absence is obviously the point of season 2 so far, though that approach has its pros and cons.