Stress testing your memory or CPU is a one click process (if only stress testing ourselves was so easy), which makes it superior to some less intuitive solutions. While the program was mainly created to find new Mersenne prime numbers, it’s use as a stability test is popular due to its high intensity load on a PC’s subsystems. If your PC can survive for 10 hours or more under Prime95’s Torture Test, it’s considered stable. Some folks will want to download 3DMark and run a looping benchmarks for

Ruiner is a cyberpunk-inspired isometric brawler in the spirit of Hotline Miami, but it has the potential to be even more relentless than its inspiration. A deep combat system means you can deploy any number of futuristic firearms, melee weapons, and gadgets in combination to take out crowds of enemies. And with the ability to slow down time, Ruiner’s violence is as elegant as it is chaotic. Style is as important as substance in Ruiner, apparent in the sharp red neon glow enveloping its dark wor

You’re not saving the world in Away: Journey to the Unexpected. You’re just a kid looking for the answer to one of childhood’s great mysteries: what are your parents’ jobs? With a clear nod to the Dragon Quest art of Akira Toriyama, Away is definitely one of the most attractive games we’ve seen at PAX, and it interestingly combines open 3D environments with 2D characters. Structurally, it’s about recruiting friends (who you can play as) and exploring an 8-10 hour story that begins in the central

If you’ve been watching Hearthstone’s HCT Europe Summer Playoffs this weekend, you’ll have noticed a distinct lack of Druid. We wrote about the Druid problem earlier this week, predicting that multiple nerfs were on the way. By comparison the next strongest class is Priest, at just below 14%, while poor old Rogue brings up the rear at a paltry 5%. Ultimate Infestation Less than ultimate game balance. Let me know what you think they should do about Blizzard in the comments below.

Designed as a spiritual successor to games like Front Mission and Armored Core, Phantom Brigade is a modern interpretation of tactical, turn-based mech strategy. With a clean UI, destructible buildings, and pilots that remember how you treat them (like a simple Nemesis System), Phantom Brigade is shaping up to be one of the more exciting tactics games on our radar. Watch the video above for an early look at its slick interface and to hear Founder Chad Jenkins talk about how development on the ca

Frostpunk is part city-builder and part survival game, and we’ve already seen some of the tough moral choices you may encounter as leader of the last society on a frozen Earth. Forcing children into labor and letting the dead freeze where they fall is the price of survival in this harsh world, and your miserable citizens may need to indulge in a few morally questionable activities just to cope with the stress. Evan spoke to Pawel Miechowski of 11 Bit Studios about Frostpunk at PAX West, who said

We weren’t too surprised when we learned that Final Fantasy 15 is coming to PC, but the news that came after was definitely unexpected: it will be moddable and have Steam Workshop support. While Final Fantasy 15 modding won’t be restricted, nude mods, or presumably anything deemed salacious, are a worry of the developers. At PAX West this weekend, Steven spoke to Tabata about the topic further, with Tabata’s answers coming by way of a translator. While it’s ultimately up to the CEO of Square Eni

Ubisoft has overhauled Rainbow Six Siege’s Casual matchmaking system ahead of the game’s new season. For the last four months the game grouped players for Casual games based on their Ranked matchmaking rating (MMR) but Season 3 will introduce a separate MMR for Casual play. Lastly, Ubisoft announced that Siege’s new Theme Park map will be included in Ranked play for Season 3. The map was only supposed to be for Casual or private matches, but after “passionate” feedback from fans it will now feat

This week: what was your worst rage quit moment? But irrationality is the very essence of a good rage quit. Tim Clark: Hearthstone (obviously)This is less of a rage quit and more of an existential despair quit. This is more of an existential despair quit than a rage quit, then. Chris Livingston: The SimsNot sure it counts as a rage quit, but back when I was playing The Sims (the original) I had a strange moment.

Today, Kimberley examines the scenes that inform Nier: Automata’s bold fashion choices. Instead of utilitarian uniforms you may expect from an army deployed for destruction, YoRHa look like ghosts from Gothic romance crossed with children’s toys. Instead, 2B’s look emulates several haute couture collections. In McQueen’s fall 2009 ready-to-wear collection, models were transformed into phantasmagoria, their faces chalked out and mouths blotted until their natural beauty was twisted into unnatural

Some players were previously unable to save their game if they’d played for a very long time, which must have been infuriating. On the ship handling side, different types and classes of ships now have distinct handling styles, which could give players more incentive to save up for a new craft. “Each individual ship now has procedural handling and speed characteristics, based on their type and class,” Hello Games said. When I wrote about a previous patch I asked whether now was a good time to jum

It’s been a long road to release for Hiveswap, the point-and-click adventure set in the universe of webcomic Homestuck. Developer What Pumpkin Games promises a “love letter to ’90s adventure games”, so expect to pick up lots of items that you can combine in imaginative ways to solve puzzles. Let’s hope the puzzles live up to the presentation. Similar to Telltale’s point-and-click games, decisions you make in Act 1 will influence your story in later Acts, so choose wisely. Act 1 will cost $7.99 (

It’s a good time to be a Monster Hunter fan. Between the recently announced Monster Hunter: World and Dauntless, the competition has unexpectedly gotten a whole lot stiffer. At PAX West 2017, we sat down with the creators of Dauntless to take on one of their toughest baddies, the electric Nayzaga. After surviving by the skin of our teeth, we spoke with Phoenix Labs’ design director, Chris Cleroux, to get his take on why Dauntless’ creatures will stand tall next to the fan favorites of Monster Hu

The next big Rising Storm 2: Vietnam update was announced at Tripwire’s PAX West panel today, and we have exclusive screenshots (below) and a video (above) for you. The working title is ‘ANZAC Update,’ and it’s a big one. ANZAC adds a new faction, the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (hence the update’s temporary name), and with it a pile of new weapons, three new maps, and one new chopper. The three new maps are Long Tan, Rung Sac, and ANZAC, and Tripwire and Antimatter are hoping to includ

Today Swery and his team at White Owls took the next step by launching a crowdfunding campaign on Fig. The studio is seeking a whopping $1.5 million “to achieve Swery-level greatness,” and backers can opt for conventional reward tiers or actual investments in the project. “Thankfully, White Owls isn’t creating The Good Life alone—we are lucky to have established an incredible partnership with development partners, Grounding and Camouflaj, who are both dependable allies. With your support, The Go

Later this year Warframe is getting an update that looks to fundamentally shake up the endgame. Players will head out onto the Plains of Eidolon , an open-world zone full of quests and enemies to kill. Among the most intimidating of those are the Eidolons—ten story tall behemoths that emerge at night to stomp across the plains. Swapping between your operator and warframe, players will need to juggle between the two to create opportunities to open the Eidolon’s up for some damage. While they coul

As anyone who watched the PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Invitational at Gamescom can tell you, it was a bit of a mixed bag. At times during the tournament, viewers would see the camera pointed at a player crouching behind a wall or lying down in a building while the real drama was happening elsewhere on the map. At PAX West, Evan spoke with Chang-Han Kim, VP and producer at PUBG developer Bluehole, about the challenges of presenting a tournament for a game like PUBG and what lessons were learned

“I know,” Gizmo says after some silent seconds. Yes, Rocket League fan fiction is a thing, and at PAX West 2017 we asked Psyonix design direction Corey Davis to read some. For some unknown reason Corey agreed, so in the video above please enjoy a selection of Rocket League fan fiction. Don’t worry, it’s (perhaps disappointingly) completely safe for work. Check out more of our PAX West 2017 coverage here.

At PAX West 2017, Steven got a few minutes with Steven Sharif, founder of Intrepid Studios, to chat about Kickstarted MMO Ashes of Creation. “I’m planning on making massive games,” Sharif said. “Putting ‘massive’ back in MMOs, honestly.” You can hear about more of his plans for Ashes of Creation in the video above. Check out the rest of our continuing coverage of PAX West 2017 here.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has sprouted an idler problem—that is, players who join matches but don’t actually play, letting their characters die while they accrue in-game currency just by being there. Today at PAX West 2017, Evan had the opportunity to ask Battlegrounds producer Chang-Han Kim how developer Bluehole plans to deal with AFKers. That may be a matter of adjusting how players earn battle points, or “preventing AFKs as a whole.” “It’s something we will definitely be addressing,” he