Piste to meet you Critics who describe a work as a love letter to something else have obviously never written a love letter. Real love letters are written by people so ruined by an oxytocin-soaked brain that they’re compelled to pick up a quill and rattle off paragraph after paragraph of rambling, horny nonsense, a hot stream of unalloyed adoration that is destined to one day be read aloud in a grave voice by the host of a mid-tier crime podcast....

Cool, I guess The freakishly anthropomorphised four-fingered glove is back, and it’s not even Halloween! You’ll be able to play asGloverin a brand new PC port coming to both Steam and GOG, and rather than restoring the old PC port that already exists, it’s been “completely redone” using the original source code from the N64 version of the game. Piko Interactive are the developers behind this release. Buying old games and rereleasing them seems to be most of Piko’s wheelhouse, as they’ve bought a bunch of old IPs andstuck the games onto digital storefronts....

Get started in Elden Ring with these essential steps Want to know what to do first in Elden Ring?Elden Ringis huge, so it’s easy to get lost in the Lands Between. That might feel intimidating and even put you off Elden Ring entirely, but there are hundreds of hours of fun to be had if you can figure out what to do first. If you’re looking for some help in the early game, we’re here to set you on the right path....

Stream Deck After having gone through the lengthy setup process (explained below, if you want to try streaming Game Pass games on the Steam Deck yourself) and playing for a while, I can say it’s a good enough start in bringing Microsoft’s library to Valve’s handheld. Between this and theEpic Games Launcher, it’s a relief that the Deck’s default SteamOS won’t be limited to Steam games after all. Still, a beta is a beta, and there are very much some kinks to work out....

Set in an alternate 1980s I lovedLong Live The Queenand Black Closet, two games with heavily branching and systemic narratives and a lot of juicy melodrama, mystery and romance. Now developers Hanako Games have released something new.Night Cascadesis a lesbian romance about two women investigating a supernatural mystery in an alternate 1980s, and it looks great. The setting is described as an “alternate New Age 1980s”, where belief in paranormal powers and fears over Satanism are at their peak but “same-sex love is still taboo....

Assuming your Chromebook is powerful enough Google have announced that Steam is “coming soon” to ChromeOS - although not before first announcing that it was availablenowand then backtracking. When it does arrive, it’ll be an alpha build only available on some Chromebook devices. It turns out that was premature. “As you may have already heard, our team is working with Valve to bring Steam to Chrome OS,” says acommunity post from Google....

All aboard It’s tradition that any sufficiently large modding community put Thomas The Tank Engine into a new game as quickly as possible. FromSkyrimtoResident Evil Villageand now, of course,Elden Ring. The mod replaces the Tree Sentinel’s steed with the children’s TV show locomotive, making the early, optional boss substantially less intimidating in the process. That’s unusual because I normally find Thomas’s blank, wide-eyed face scarier than whatever he’s replacing, but the absurdity of having a big angry man on his back cancels out any potential fear....

Early 2000s Mod Scene Resurrections I spent many years in my teens watching and rewatching The Matrix, and when I wasn’t rewatching the film I was downloading The Matrix mods for every early-00’s action game. Maybe it’s the new film, or maybe it’s just the perfect game to add Keanu Reeves to, but recent kung fu brawlerSifunow has a cracking pack of Matrix mods that add Neo, Agent Smith, new fight sound effects, and recolour the world green....

Track down every top-tier talisman Looking for the best talismans in Elden Ring?Talismans are a new addition to yourElden Ringloadouts, replacing rings from the old Souls games. Fresh characters can equip only one talisman, but by the end of the game, you will be able to use four at a time. Assembling the right combination of talismans can massively increase your damage and ability to survive, often spelling the difference between life and death againstElden Ring’s biggest bosses....

Learn how to charge and activate every Great Rune Trying to find and use Great Runes in Elden Ring?The powerful Great Runes provide huge buffs for some ofElden Ring’s toughest fights, but acquiring and activating a Great Rune isn’t as simple as just defeating a boss. Many players have expressed confusion over how Great Runes work and whether Great Runes are always active. If you’re one of them, you’ll find all your answers here....

Colossal critters coming in Voyage To The Sunken City Recognising that land was a mistake and our ancestors should never have left the oceans, Blizzard have announced thatHeartstonewill rectify that with the next expansion, Voyage To The Sunken City. The watery set of 135 new cards will visit the city of Zin-Azshari with new Naga critters and a monstrous new keyword, Colossal, which is for creatures so big that their body is spread across several cards....

The creator is now looking to his next game The wonderful and spooky card game adventureInscryptionhas launched a free “mini-expansion” which adds an endless roguelikelike mode based on the first act. Kaycee’s Mod (not a mod) will let you hang out in that spooky cabin on and on and on, unlocking new things and fragments of story along the way. After this, big boss Daniel Mullins says, it’s time to start on his next game....

Portable PC is going places It’s been a little over a month since I got my WASD-calloused fingers on theSteam Deck, Valve’sambitious and mostly successfulattempt at a portable gaming PC. In that time I’ve taken it on day trips, chatted toGabe Newelland theValve dev teamabout it, and been laughed at in a pub for inverting the Y axis on it. And all the while, the Steam Deck itself has been getting better - considerably so....