Just don’t ask them to play Pass The Parcel, they’d rip and tear that thing to shreds The party poppers are out, the finger food is ready and waiting to be served, and the guest list forDoom’s 30th birthday party is well and truly set. Well, it would be if Doomguy ever lowered the drawbridge to his flying space castle high above the Earth’s orbit. I did try and get a radio signal out earlier, but the grumpy sod never responded....

Please wrap it up “After more than two decades of E3, each one bigger than the last, the time has come to say goodbye. Thanks for the memories.” So says theofficial E3 websitethis afternoon, as the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) confirm that E3 is officially dead. Now, it’s dead for good. pic.twitter.com/y6dtVkBvNI In a statement toThe Washington Post, ESA president and CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis said, “We know it’s difficult to say goodbye to such a beloved event, but it’s the right thing to do given the new opportunities our industry has to reach fans and partners....

Now Google needs a Project Hug Epic have won a victory in their attempt to argue that Google violates antitrust laws, as a jury has agreed that the Google Play app store and Google Play Billing service constitute an illegal monopoly. The decision comes three years after Epic first attempted to bypass Apple and Google when selling in-app purchases withinFortnite, leading to the game being yoinked from both the Apple and Google app stores andEpic filing lawsuitsagainst both tech giants....

Here’s how to find Nor and investigate clues in Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora Wondering how to find Nor in Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora?Early on in the Becoming quest, your fellow clan member Nor will go missing from the Resistance HQ. This is the game’s way of introducing the investigation system to players. If this left you scratching your head and walking through the forest for an embarrassingly long time, we have you covered....

This 5120x1440 165Hz display sports some unique features too. Want a titanic 45-inch gaming monitor? Of course you do - and this 5120x1440 super-ultrawide model is down to £699 at Currys in the UK following a rare £100 price drop. That’s a great price for a 165Hz gaming monitor with DisplayHDR 400 certification, HDMI 2.1 support and even a KVM switch. Lenovo has been making some great monitors recently, and this 45-inch super-ultrawide option operates on similar principles as the 49-inch Samsung Odyssey G9 but on a smaller scale and with a much more affordable price point....

It’ll be around six months till the full release Whatboy and Paradox Interactive’s 4X spin-offStellaris Nexushas boldly gone where many other games have gone before and entered early access. Apologies, I realise that reference is more appropriate to Paradox’s other recentstrategyrelease,Star Trek: Infinite, but I don’t know theStellarisfiction well enough to think of an appropriate in-joke. If you are similarly lacking in Stellaris knowledge, please rejoice in the fact that Nexus is a stripped-down, sped-up, turn-based version of the legendary space sim, which emphasises snappy tactical and strategic relationships over backstory....

A different kind of political fantasy I’m not normally in a rush to post marketing videos in which developers talk about how great their new game is, but I need all the help I can get in understandingMetaphor: ReFantazio. The new RPG from the makers of Persona looks stylish, dense, exciting, and almost entirely baffling in its trailers, so 14 minutes of the folks from Atlus just describing it is welcome....

“It is crucial that all workers have a voice in what role AI plays in their work.” The videogame union ZeniMax Workers United have come to a “tentative”, “first of its kind” agreement with ZeniMax parent company Microsoft over the company’s usage of the latest “artificial intelligence” tools in the workplace. As part of the agreement, ZeniMax will “provide notice to the union in cases where AI implementation may impact the work of union members” and the union will be able to “bargain those impacts” where they feel it necessary....

Faster, faster Of course I was going to insert myself into the recentTribes 3: Rivalsalpha playtest – as aTribes: Ascendplayer who’s mourned its demise for years, the reveal of a new, heavily Ascend-inspired ski-shooter was like seeing a long deceased pet rabbit miraculously come back to life. Cured, judging fromRivals’ more palatable monetisation plans, of the myxomatosis that killed it in the first place. From what I played, Tribes 3 can definitely bring back happy memories of zipping around, nicking flags and copping Spinfuser blasts, and the finished article may well have the chops to create some new ones....

Need a hint for today’s Connections? Read our guide for help with Connections #184 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....

New and expanded modding tools “a few weeks away” New Blood Interactive have released a free HD DLC remaster for their reputation-making retro FPSDusk, almost five years to the day since the originalshooterlaunched on Steam. Honestly, the idea of remastering an alt-history “199X”-style homage toHalf-LifeandDoomdoes a number on my sense of time - which multiversal branch are we in now? Still, those gibbable demon Klansters certainly look swish. Find a comparison trailer below:...

As well as mod support Open your map inStarfieldand you won’t see much more than a height map, even in cities. If you want to then travel around, you’re limited to walking huge distances when on planet surfaces and using fast travel spaceship hops when in outerspace. Both these things might change next year, as Bethesda have teased that they’re working on “many new features” that players have asked for, including city maps and “new ways of traveling”....

Worstest Worst Two years ago, developers Fntastic debuted their “open world survival MMO"The Day Beforewith a fairly lengthytrailer(which has since been scrubbed from their official YouTube channel, but it’s been preserved by IGN and Gamespot). It shows a couple of players scavenging a post-pandemic American city slick with detailed lighting effects and reactive zombie hordes. There’s crafting, cracked glass, and even a horror tease as a player peers around a corridor with a torch....