Welcome to my review of the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, a handheld PC that went on sale four months ago. And if you think that’s bad, tell it to the 2025-spec Lenovo Legion Go 2 I’ve left, neglected and unappraised, in the dusty heights of my utility cupboard.
Bracingly moist open world survival game Subnautica 2 is embarking on the "voyage to early access 2.0" - this being developer Unknown Worlds' excitable term for the next round of updates, which will include a new region, creature, and Tadpole chassis, plus some tweaks for biomods and creature behaviour.
I like Subnautica 2 and am happy that Unknown Worlds appear to be enjoying some stability, after all the firings and ChatGPT-abetted lawyer-wrestling over publisher earn-outs, but I really hate "early access 2.0". I know other teams use nomenclature like this, but seriously, what even is time any more? You can't make a sequel to something you haven't finished! It's 8.30 in the morning, Unknown Worlds, and I already have a migraine. Let's hurry on to the talk of spooky new regions.
Earlier this year, I embarked on a pivotal journey, one that I'm sure upon finishing will change me for good: I started watching Haikyu!! It's my first sports anime (when you're a chubby little muffin like I was, you take more interest in Not Moving over Sports), an abscess in the lexicon of genres I've dipped my toes into, one I'm rectifying after all these years. And friends, it's good eatin'. I even, incredibly briefly, floated the idea of taking up volleyball. Yet now I don't have to, and it's all thanks to a delightful, incredibly Wii Sports coded game called just volleyball.
You might remember 2021's Umurangi Generation, developed by Māori studio Origame Digital. It placed its focus on its first-person photography system as much as its very direct anti-colonial and anti-neoliberal criticism, stemming partly from the Australian government's mishandling of COVID and the bushfires that spread across the country in 2020. Origame's second game, the newly-released Penguin Colony, is just as direct in its anti-colonial theming, with its target being the ongoing Palestinian genocide by Israel, and the games industry at large for its silence.
Helldivers 2, a game that still appears to be missing in action from Steam here in the UK, is switching anti-cheat software. Developers Arrowhead are keen to tighten up security and crack down on the use of cheat mods that can influence the bug-slaying experience of folks beyond the person who's installed them.
Hello all! Welcome to another wonderful week of PC games, and mounting bloodlust. As I type these words, a neighbour has started using a leafblower. I hate leafblowers. They are mutant hairdryers from Hell. They scatter my thoughts like the tiny, tiny quantity of leaves in the neighbour's garden – a quantity of leaves you could very easily sweep up by hand in two minutes, if you had even the slightest bit of gumption.
What's that? You think I should release vipers into the neighbour's toolshed? What a capital idea! But sadly I don't have any vipers to hand, and besides, I have to finish writing this list of new PC games. There are exactly as many games in the list as there are leaves in the neighbour's garden. He'll be at it for hours, no doubt. Please read, while I order in some fresh vipers.
Rumours of Troika classic Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines potentially getting the remaster or remake treatment have surfaced. They've come from two places: one being the fairly standard source of poster on a game leak-obsessed section of Reddit, the other being rather more unorthodox. It's not often a metal band allegedly pause mid-concert to ask the crowd if they know an old game's getting a revamp.
