I love laptops. They are great for LANs, they allow me to play games on trains and planes, and most importantly, they don’t weigh 80 trillion pounds. Sadly, laptops are almost always worse than desktops in terms of raw power. What they gain in portability, they lose in cost versus performance, which is especially a problem when it comes to high-end gaming. This is compounded by the fact that, unlike desktops, laptops are exceptionally hard to build for the average consumer....

From Feral Interactive Creative Assembly’s classic strategy gameRome: Total Waris coming to the iPad, compliments of Feral Interactive. It’ll evidently be a port of the full game, with the entire campaign and 11 factions, coupled with a touch-screen interface, and “upgraded” visuals that might be even better than the original release. DLC is also in, including theBarbarian InvasionandAlexanderpacks. You just need an iPad Air or iPad Mini 2 or better to play it....

The fans are split on this one PokémonScarlet & Violetis finally out, and it’s been met with, uh, mixed reviews to say the least. While some fans are simply thrilled to have a new game to sink their teeth into, others are disappointed with the game’s visuals, gameplay, and the plethora of bugs. The result is thatScarlet & Violethas thelowest score on Metacriticof any mainlinePokémongame ever at a 77 — no new genPokémonhas scored below an 80 until now....

Back at the tail-end of 2021, Bethesda released theAnniversary Edition ofSkyrim. Along with new content and the official DLC, the game also came with a new fishing mode. Pleasant though it was, one person felt it needed a bit of tweaking. VeteranSkyrimmodderJaySerpais back again with another improvement toTES5. This time, they’ve decided to overhaul the fishing aspect of the game. Their latest mod tackles (funny joke!) the overall mechanics of this chill mini-game....

Warballoon’sStar Commandseems to be shaping up rather nicely. As one of those games that gotKickstartedbefore it was cool, it missed its initial planned release of late last year, but it is currently planned for a Summer release on iOS and Android. The mobile title will include the “Rise of the Antorians” campaign at launch, and a “Cortexian” campaign will follow shortly afterwards. Don’t worry about being microcharged up the Q-hole, though; all campaign updates will be free!...

Stop the press, more like Ubisoft, a company that is still occasionally ridiculed for callingWatch DogsprotagonistAiden Pearce’s baseball hat“iconic,” actually has an iconic symbol of its own. For nearly 15 years, Ubisoft’s purple swirl logo has been synonymous with a lot of video game trends — from the wealth of big budget triple-A action titles (likeAssassin’s Creed) to the incessant dilution of the open-world format (likeAssassin’s Creed). It kind of just depends on who you ask....

Rebranded as TERA: Rising After announcing the shift to a free-to-play modelearlier in the monthfor the action-centric MMOTERA, En Masse Entertainment has stated the official start date:February 5, a mere six days away. Considering it has been free-to-play for some time overseas, it was only a matter of time before the model came over here. If you haven’t dablled inTERAbefore, you can create a “Discovery account” now, and play with limitations up until the starting date, at which point many of those limitations will be lifted....

Castle Crashers’first bit of downloadable content, the King Pack, is currently available on Xbox Live Marketplace for 160 Microsoft Space Dollars. It’s also available for free, until supplies last, at the officialCastle Crashersmessage board if you care to enter a ridiculously easy contest. As artist Dan Paladin recently wrote on the Behemothdevelopment blog, all you have to do is click over tothe Behemoth Loves Me! forum threadand post the message “behemoth loves me!...

I think he’ll get tweaked Sometimes theHeroes of the Stormteam doesn’t nail a hero’s fantasy, or as I call it, fluff. This is mainly an issue with older characters (which are usually the subject of reworks), but in the past few years several newer additions have committed this sin. They might be enjoyable to play and add to the meta, but they don’t feel like you’re controlling something from the appropriate source material....

Rad [Update:Amazon has more pictures of the controller up, including the western packaging, which you can view in the gallery below.] Well, this is a nice thing to wake up to. For its Japanese release, Bandai Namco is providing the opportunity to buy aPokkénTournamentHORI controller, justlike the one found at the arcades. Thankfully, the western version also popped up last night on Amazon for $24.99. The controller will be released (tentatively) on June 07, 2025 — note that the game is still set for a “Quarter 2” US release date....

‘You can play it after/during the story’ The Witcher 3has had a pretty phenomenal launch. It sold gangbusters, and it did so without pinching pennies and splitting up pre-order DLC like many other sleazy publishers. But now, the time has almost come for its Season Pass to start, withHearts of StoneandBlood and Wine. Heartswill arrive on October 13, and will sport around 10 hours of content. Now, we know that it will be playable“after/during” the main story, and that its quests will be balanced around level 30 characters....

Put in Cloud next! Adam Jensen ofDeus Ex: Human Revolutionhas great hair. Agent 47 ofHitman: Absolutionhas none. Still, that won’t stop him from dressing up as Adam with some new DLC. He gets the Deus Ex Suit and the Deus Ex Zenith gun as add-ons, both of which are usuable in Contracts Mode inHitman: Absolution. Both are priced at 80 Microsoft Points each, or $1 on the PlayStation Network and Windows PC....

Two handsome men and one bum on a couch If you’re reading this in a timely manner it is Wednesday now. This video is from Monday night (or, technically, 2AM Tuesday morning). It’s about our (me, Brett, Zack) first day at GDC. We were so, so tired. We still are. I am, right now. This tiredness, this incredible busyness is why you’re reading a post for our video that went up Monday night on Wednesday afternoon....