So, there’s this game called Rocket League, which is all about futuristic cars playing soccer with an oversized futuristic ball. And what if, instead of an oversized futuristic ball, you had a large-ish fantastical orb? That’s Broomstick League, which bears more than a passing resemblance to both Rocket League and Harry Potter’s beloved Quidditch. Chris wrote about Broomstick League last year, and it appears there’s a little more to Broomstick League than its clearest videogame inspiration. Broo

(Image credit: Activision)In unsurprising news, there will be a new Call of Duty game this year. Activision COO Coddy Johnson confirmed as much during the company’s Q4 2019 financial results call today, teasing that playtests have already “generated excitement”. During the same call, CEO Bobby Kotick indicated that more remasters are in the pipeline following the successes of the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro remakes. We’re all desperate for a cinematic Pitfall game, right? During the same call, Bli

EA might be just returning to Steam after a long hiatus, but many of its older games have continued to be sold on the platform for years. It seems to have been the regional prices that have been hit, with the US prices remaining the same. Price hikes aren’t as uncommon as they should be, with publishers sometimes getting caught increasing a game’s price just before a sale so they can claim they’re offering much larger discounts. Aside from the recent Fallen Order, there’s no obvious reason why s

Overwatch League stats producer Ben Trautman has released a tool that will let you dig into the minutiae of Overwatch’s pro players, finding out everything from their win rate in specific modes to how many critical hit kills they got last season. Basically, you’re going to be drowning in stats. The Overwatch League Stats Lab uses the same tools Trautman uses to give viewers that stats they hunger for, but he says this version is a bit more user friendly. It’s split into player, hero, matches and

Gamedec is a cyberpunk RPG where you play as a private detective solving crimes in virtual reality. In this new one, Anshar Studio reveals one of the virtual reality worlds you get to explore—Harvest Time. Milking cows and growing vegetables aren’t the first, second, or tenth thing that comes to mind when I think about a cyberpunk RPG, but Anshar Studio says that this is exactly the reason it wanted to include Harvest Time in Gamedec. The farming simulator has its own loot box system in the form

These days, there are a lot more options, and the best gaming monitors combine high refresh rates with higher resolutions. However, the main selling point is the pairing of a 180Hz refresh rate with a 1920×1080 resolution, on a large 31.5-inch curved VA (8-bit+FRC) panel. There are higher refresh rates out there, up to 360Hz are coming, and I don’t know that a 180Hz refresh rate at 1080p will look and feel all that different than a 165Hz refresh rate, which is much more common. Plus, the esports

Still, temptation looms, as it does now in the wake of Asus announcing its ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 Super White Edition. The white edition model Asus is pitching runs at a 1,650MHz base clock and 1,860MHz boost clock in its default Gaming mode. There’s also an OC mode that cranks the boost clock to 1,890MHz. So it’s basically an overclocked 2080 Super with a white shroud and RGB lighting. It’s not clear when the white edition RTX 2080 Super will be available or how much it will cost.

The Ryzen 5 2600 is a great budget option for gaming builds, and is an even better value with this deal. Even though AMD’s Ryzen 5 2600 is a previous generation slice of silicon, if you’re looking to assemble a budget PC, it’s still one of the best CPUs for gaming. Over on Newegg, the Ryzen 5 2600 is selling for $119.99, which is what it has been going for the last several weeks. In our experience, this chip can usually hit 4GHz on all cores (and maybe a bit more) if you’re willing to overclock.

Keeping it alive is considerably harder, as you’ll discover out when you play Habitat. It’s a deceptively cute village building game where your entire village fits on one screen, with each of the little houses, the trees and crops, represented as tiles on a tiny grid. To chop down trees, you merely click on them. I pick nits because, as far as I can tell, this is an enjoyably puzzly building game that’s only a few tweaks away from being a really good one. For more great free experiences, check o

(Image credit: Microsoft)Gears of War veteran Rod Fergusson has announced he will leave his role as studio head at The Coalition in March. Come that time, he’ll be in charge of overseeing the Diablo series at Blizzard, presumably with a focus on Diablo 4. When Microsoft announced it had purchased the Gears series from Epic Games in 2014, Fergusson returned to the series. Despite his short stint at Irrational, Fergusson has credits on every shipped Gears of War game. pic.twitter.com/0FuO3RFYSQFeb

(Image credit: Microsoft)Mojang has rolled out a snapshot for Minecraft’s forthcoming 1.16 Nether Update, and it provides a substantial taste of what’s to come in the sizeable patch. Snapshots are basically test versions of forthcoming updates – to access them you’ll need to enable snapshots in the Minecraft launcher menu. The highlight is three new Nether biomes in the form of the Crimson Forest, Soulsand Valley and Warped Forest. There’s also a new high-level material in the form of Netherite,

If you want to test this theory, feel free to share Mercury Researcher’s latest data on the topic at the next family event. Mercury Research is one of the largest CPU analyst firms around, and it’s often cited by companies like AMD and Intel. AMD’s PR agency just shared with me Q4 Mercury Research unit market share numbers for AMD excluding consoles and IoT. The one caveat to all this is AMD’s progress against Intel in market share is in several individual categories. As a whole, AMD’s total x86

Multiple reports have surfaced of Windows 10 coming up blank when attempting to search from something using in the Start menu. The issue rests entirely with Microsoft, and initial investigations into the matter suggest it’s related to the integration of Bing search into Windows search. “There is a lot of evidence in the JavaScript source to suggest that it was built by the Bing team. “Maybe this also explains why the bugs with the new Windows Explorer search bar haven’t been acknowledged by the

“When you talk about Nintendo and Sony, we have a ton of respect for them, but we see Amazon and Google as the main competitors going forward,” Spencer said. Microsoft and Sony announced a “strategic partnership” last year to collaborate on the development of cloud-based technology to support their game and streaming services, and Spencer said that Microsoft is willing to work with them on more front-facing features like crossplay. Even more significant, though, is the advent of streaming game s

(Image credit: klaiis, Luxiere)Respite is a game about not doing very much. Really, it’s a game about quietly meditating after something mildly dramatic has happened, first by dragging yourself out of bed, and then by watering the plants. Will you take the day off, or throw yourself back into work? That’s the decision you’re presented with at the end of this small and sweet adventure game. For more great free experiences, check out our roundup of the best free PC games.

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne finally arrived on PC last month, but it’s still got a bit of catching up to do with the console version. It’s poised to get a bit closer this month thanks to the imminent arrival of a new monster, Rajang, and the Resident Evil 2 Remake crossover event. The Resident Evil 2 crossover is possibly the best event Capcom has held in Monster Hunter, mainly because it turns your cheery handler into the terrifying Mr. X. The new monster, Rajang, is a massive, horned gorill

One of those games was revealed in today’s This Week on Stadia update as Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 3, which launched on multiple platforms today. The Monster Energy branding is obnoxious, but apparently it’s not a bad game: The PS4 version currently holds a respectable 71 score on Metacritic. With discontent on the rise after less than three months of release, Stadia needs some eye-poppers, not a niche-interest branding exercise. Monster Energy Supercross 3 is $60 on Sta

(Image credit: Cradle Games)The Surge 2 did a pretty good job of adding a sci-fi flavour to the Souls-like formula, though compared to its inspiration it’s pretty… cheerful. Hellpoint is also a sci-fi flavoured Souls-like, but all evidence suggests that it’s not shying away from the grimy, oppressive horror elements that made Souls so engaging. It’s set on a derelict space station, but expect enemies and encounters much stranger than robots. Hellpoint was Kickstarter funded last year to the tu

High school registrations are open until February 17, colleges and universities have until February 24, and the season will begin on March 2. Boyle County High School esports team coach Damian Laymon, for instance, indicated that he is in favor of the decision. Correction: The post originally indicated that the National Federation of State High School Associations was involved in the PlayVS Fortnite league. “These partnerships currently support League of Legends and Rocket League, titles that ha

Dan Houser, who founded Rockstar Games in 1998 with his brother Sam, is leaving the company. His upcoming departure was revealed in an SEC filing made today by parent company Take-Two Interactive. “After an extended break beginning in the spring of 2019, Dan Houser, Vice President, Creative at Rockstar Games, will be leaving the company. Dan Houser’s last day will be March 11, 2020,” the filing says. A Rockstar rep said that Houser’s brother and Rockstar co-founder Sam Houser’s role at the compa