“Ribbed heatsink acts as a very effective passive cooler as well as aesthetic cover. Kidding aside, ribbed M.2 heatsinks could prove useful if they work as advertised. EK says they will not interfere with other components and are compatible with all single-sided type 2280 M.2 NVMe SSDs. EK is not the first to dabble with M.2 SSD heatsinks. While we have not tested these ourselves, the design certainly looks superior to MSI’s M.2 shield.

Meteors of a glowing material named “Element 115” crash onto Earth throughout the early millennia of human history. He joins Group 935, an organization studying Element 115 and founded by his colleague Dr. Ludvig Maxis. He soon plots to betray his co-workers by wielding the power of Element 115 for himself and destroy the world with legions of the undead at his command. Simple: The pet dog was Fluffy, owned by Samantha, Maxis’ daughter who was inexplicably allowed free access to a secret, ultra-

CRW: Metal Jacket is an XCOM-like “mecha strategy game” that was originally released in Japan in 1994. But it only became widely available to Western gamers this past weekend, thanks to a fan translation that was completed and released on July 1. Work on the translation began in December 2016, and the whole thing was meant to be a “quick ‘weekend project’,” the website states. Still, their toil is our gain: thanks to this fan translation, we can learn a bit about how CRW: Metal Jacket was develo

A new blood bather has joined Diablo 3’s cast: the Necromancer, who’s available now in a $15 expansion. If you’ve been waiting for a reason to return to Diablo 3, blood waves sounds like a decent one. Good news, then: We have 80 codes for Rise of the Necromancer to give away, courtesy of Blizzard. Just enter your email address into the box below (we won’t see it, and Godankey won’t keep it) for a chance to win. On Friday, 80 winners will be randomly selected and emailed their keys, which can be

If you’ve been wanting to get a peek at the upcoming singleplayer stick-figure RPG West of Loathing, now’s your chance—just don’t blink or you’ll miss it. Developer Asymmetric, maker of The Kingdom of Loathing, the browser-based multiplayer RPG that’s been around since 2003, has condensed 23 minutes of West of Loathing’s gameplay into 37 seconds, which you can watch above. Perhaps a sped-up video isn’t the most informative way to present gameplay footage, since it flies by so quickly, but the in

But they don’t use just one chip—a typical Bitcoin ASIC miner can have anywhere from dozens to 100 or more chips in it, so Bitcoin mining hardware can do up to 14 TH/s. In mid-2011, people started buying all the Radeon HD 5870 cards they could find for Bitcoin mining (this was before ASICs). And now, in mid-2017, we have another cryptocurrency mining surge going on, driven in large part by Ethereum, but Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are playing a role as well. And if the cryptocurrency pric

but it will, based on a very brief teaser released yesterday, be getting a new, tougher “Platinum” difficulty level for its multiplayer Apex missions. Apex missions are “weekly limited-time missions” in which players can earn rewards including new gear and “mission funds” for completing specific objectives. Platinum difficulty, as BioWare said on Twitter, will require that you “take your skills to the next level.” Platinum Difficulty is coming to APEX Multiplayer. It’s reminiscent of the May tea

The situation is a little hairy at the moment because cryptocurrency miners are disrupting the market, but if you’re looking to go top-of-the-line, Dell has a pretty good sale going for PNY’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti OC XLR8 Gaming OC (VCGGTX1080T11XGPB-OC). That makes it cheaper than Nvidia’s reference Founders Edition variant, and is about $100 less than PNY’s MSRP ($735). PNY’s card features a factory overclock—it comes out of the box running with a 1,531MHz base clock and 1,645MHz boost clock, up

IGN has posted a video tour of the new “social space” in Destiny 2 called The Farm, a idyllic (relatively, anyway) location populated by civilians, Guardians, and vendors that will serve as the player’s home base after they’ve been evicted from the city by the Cabal. The Farm is “a fairly dynamic space,” narrative lead Ryan Ebenger explains in the video, with a population that changes and grows over the course of the game. A postmaster will ensure that the mail still gets delivered, and Tyra Kar

Will O’Neill’s 2013 narrative adventure game Actual Sunlight was a sobering yet excellent introspective exploration of isolation, suicide and socially misfitting protagonist Evan Winter’s place in an increasingly dysfunctional society. O’Neill’s latest venture, Little Red Lie, is due this Friday, July 7—which is no less emotive, evocative and relatable, and is yet another stellar example of thoughtful contemporary narrative adventure done well. I’ve not yet finished Little Red Lie, but having sp

It took a few days, but Nvidia has figured out what was causing Watch Dogs 2 to crash after installing its recently released GeForce 384.76 WHQL drivers. There is now a hotfix (GeForce 384.80) available for anyone who does not feel like rolling back to a previous driver release. Nvidia’s GeForce 384.80 hotfix driver is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit builds of Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7. The release notes mention the fix for Watch Dogs 2, but not for the other issues that were d

Half-Life: A Place in the West is a webcomic series set in Valve’s esteemed Gordon Freeman-housing future world that’s set between the events of the first and second games in the wake of the Seven Hour War. Now, issue three has a launch date: July 21. And to mark the announcement, Half-Life: A Place in the West Chapter 3 has a pretty nifty trailer. Half-Life: A Place in the West in its entirety will run for a total of 13 issues—with chapter three due on July 21 for $1.99/£1.49. If you’d like to

It’s been a couple of years since the last entry in the Arkham series of Batman games. Andy’s review says it’s not quite as good as the older ones, however it’s certainly still worth a look. It’s especially worth considering today, as you can get it for 75 percent off over at Bundle Stars. The final chapter of the Arkham series introduced a large emphasis on the Batmobile for the first time, but it’s still the feeling you get from just being Batman in these games that’s the main draw. Thankfully

Creative Assembly has revealed Total War Saga—a new branch of Total War games that “focus on a specific point in history, as opposed to an era as seen in the tentpole Total War games.” “They’ll follow-on from previous Total War games and inhabit the same time-period, or at the very least relate to it. But these are certainly Total War games. No word on release just yet, then, but keep an eye out for more information via the Total War site. Further details on Total War Saga can be found via this

How much do you know about cars? Admittedly, I don’t know all that much myself however I do know that the likes of Audi, BMW, Aston Martin and Bentley are considered pretty decent manufacturers. Nonetheless, Project Cars 2 has unveiled its full 180+ car roster which includes all of the above and loads more in a list that reflects the “nine disciplines of motorsport” and 29 motorsport series that feature in-game. So as to mirror how the extensive offering of cars performs in real life, each one f

Riot has announced that League of Legends players residing in the UK will face a 20 percent price rise on RP (Riot Points) following the country’s decision to part ways the EU. This change meant that while UK players were spending the same number of pounds on RP as before, players elsewhere in the world were paying a lot more in comparison. “In order to do that, we will be raising the price of RP by 20% on 25th July 2017 at 23:59 BST. “We’ll be keeping the old RP prices in store until July 25th,

WHY I LOVE In Why I Love, PC Gamer writers pick an aspect of PC gaming that they love and write about why it’s brilliant. Added to Team Fortress 2 in 2008, it quickly became a staple of the Control Point mode, where teams are tasked with sequentially capturing five areas of the map and pushing the enemy team back towards their own spawn building. On most maps, it feels as if the control points have been plonked down and the terrain built around them. The control point itself sits close to the de

Make no mistake: I’m very fond of Kentucky Route Zero. I wrote about why here, and latterly about how its weird and idiosyncratic open road was made. Cardboard Computer remains ever-tight lipped about when we can expect KRZ’s elusive fifth and final act, however has spent the past year teasing weird game-related art-inspired videos via its WEVP-TV website. From shorts that feature real life incarnations of Kentucky Route Zero’s characters, to non-game-related art house documentaries that’ve clea

Photo credit: Riot GamesIn traditional sports, player welfare is a serious issue. The physical aspect of traditional sports is an obvious reason as to why player welfare has to come first, but esports is quickly finding itself contending with similar issues. A Players’ Association is a standard in major American sports leagues, but the NA LCS Association will be the first equivalent in League of Legends. There’s a very real possibility that we’ve just been tremendously lucky so far, and that the

No, you probably can’t – at least not the sound I’m referring to, which is the free game klaxon. It sounds every time I notice a PC game has been offered up for free, and frankly, I hate the damn klaxon. This time it’s heralding the free-ness of Shadow Warrior Classic. It’s the old 1990s Shadow Warrior, so you’ll need to have some patience for the way FPS games used to be, but even if you’ve no intention to play it at least it’s damn free. Go forth and slay – it’s a worthwhile curio, especially