Some favourite games which didn’t make the RPS Advent Calendar This year, I’ve mostly played smaller games, mostly from small or solo developers. Playing a giant timesink game all day hasn’t appealed as I’ve sought to spend more time in forests and up hills and down rivers, andDestiny 2burned me out so hard on live service games that I still can’t face those. But a year of little games has been great fun, short bursts of play and ideas explored concisely, so here are some of my other favourites....

After a $100 discount. In the market for a high refresh rate gaming monitor for FPS? Right now you can pick up the Asus ROG Strix XG27AQMR for $499 on Amazon US, a great price for a 1440p 300Hz (!) esports-grade gaming monitor that delivers a silky-smooth experience. The current price is a $100 discount on its normal going rate and quite competitive for a montor with these specs. As well as being a well-appointed 27-inch gaming monitor, the XG27AQMR comes with both FreeSync and G-Sync support, an impressive DisplayHDR 600 certification and Asus' own ELMB, a method of combining black frame insertion with variable refresh rates to deliver the ultimate in motion clarity....

Mine is 1920x1080. Weyyyyyy. For they’re not really failures. The aim here isn’t to set ourselves challenges or to submit to judgement, but to think about how we spend our time with video games as a hobby, and to think how we might spend that time more enjoyably. Was I always this grumpy or am I just more tired than ever? I honestly don’t know. And perhaps fixing a core character flaw is beyond the power of a merevideo gameresolution, but if I’m honest, this is what I think about....

Stuck on today’s Wordle word for December 27? Read our hint or find the answer below! This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today’s solution? Check out theWordle hint and answer for Thursday 12th December! Need a hint for today’s Wordle answer?Wordleis an addicting but challenging test of word acumen. Luckily, you’re in the right place for some assistance. Every day, Wordle presents its legions of players with a deviously simple quandary: can you guess the right five-letter word within just six guesses?...

It adds to an Epic account Hello? Anyone? Uh. I think I’ve been locked inside the treehousewhile the others left on their Christmas holidays, so I guess I may as well continue to write the news.Deathloopis currently free to keep for those with an Amazon Prime membership. Head over tothis Prime Gaming pagefrom now until January 10th and you can add Arkane’s time-bending recursive assassin ‘em up to your Epic Games account....

1440p, 165Hz, FreeSync/G-Sync and VESA support. It’s rare to see a 27-inch 1440p 165Hz gaming monitor for £200 or less, but that’s exactly what you can get from X= on Amazon UK at the moment. This alphabet-soup-inspired model, the X= XRGB27WQ, uses an IPS panel to deliver its spec point of choice, with FreeSync/G-Sync support, a 2ms GtG response time and a clean, RGB-optional design. This particular model hasn’t made it to the review archives of RPS just yet, but I’ve tested it for Eurogamer and found it most agreeable, mostly on account of that spec sheet for the price....

“Entire 13 person company, Versus Evil, laid off today December 22 at the start our Christmas break,” wrote former director of product strategy Francis Finckeon LinkedIn. The Versus Evil account on Xconfirmed the news. “Today is a sad day. After 10 wonderful years, Versus Evil is shutting its doors. We’ve loved bringing you the best indie games we could find & sharing so many happy memories with you all, our amazing community!...

Need a hint for today’s Connections? Read our guide for help with Connections #198 This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today’s solution? Check out theConnections hint and answers for Thursday 12th December! Want a hint for Connections today?Piggybacking off the monumental success of daily puzzle gameWordle, the New York Times has another fantastically popular word game out now. It’s calledConnections, and if you haven’t played it before, now’s the time to start....

As voted for by the RPS Treehouse 24. Remnant II Ed: Former RPS vidbud Liam and I used to work together a fair bit. We put out longform vids forInventory Space, chatted about duds likeRedfalland triumphs like, errr,Sonic Frontiers, and sent each other memes of questionable quality. It was a heady time! In an effort to keep in contact since he bid the Treehouse adieu, we’ve played a good amount of co-op shooterRemnant 2together....

We will not apologise Promise you won’t tell the other children, but the RPS staff are actually complex magical spells cast by the Sugar Plum Fairy, as part of an age old pact with the ents of the forest where the RPS treehouse was built hundreds of years ago. Each year the Sugar Plum Fairy has to collect more wishes to power the spells every year (you can help to make the spells more powerful by joiningthe RPS supporter program)....

The recently RPS-recommended Steam Deck and ROG Ally competitor at a historic low price. Lenovo’s Legion Go is the (literally) biggest Steam Deck competitor to hit the market, a handheld gaming PC that brings the same Z1 Extreme processor as the Asus ROG Ally but a larger 8.8-inch 1600p 144Hz display and faster DDR5-7500 RAM - along intriguing detachable controllers, one of which turns into a vertical mouse for FPS-type games....

Enjoy some extra personal picks that didn’t quite make the Advent Calendar Videoverse If you’re someone who grew up during the early days of the internet and had any kind of online community in your life, you need to playVideoverse. This touching visual novel is such a perfect portrait of how those nascent internet forums were often a lifeline for the people who hung out there, and at a time when our own online social networks are visibly degrading with every passing week, its themes of connection, empathy and simply being a good human become even more vital and powerful....

One of the very fastest PICe 4.0 SSDs and ideal for gaming. WD’s SN850x NVMe SSD is an RPS mainstay, having been named thebest PCIe 4.0 SSDin our evergreen gaming SSD recommendations, thanks to its extremely quick game loads and generally excellent performance. It’s also frequently discounted, but not normally to the extremes of today - where a 4TB drive is available for just $230 at Amazon US, versus the $286 it normally costs and the $449 (!...