Tropico 5 Review

Everything is just one big joke on the island of Tropico. Your research team is incompetent, your diplomat is a snob, and your radio DJ is absolutely shameless. But that’s OK, because both Tropico 5 and its digital inhabitants don’t take anything too seriously. This management sim wraps its irreverent wit around some easily approachable mechanics that smartly grow in complexity as you move through the ages and become more familiar with your new role as El Presidente.

I’m getting ahead of myself, since you’re not actually El Presidente in the beginning. Instead, Tropico 5 starts you off as a lowly governor in the Victorian era under the service of the Crown. From these humble beginnings, you must guide your people through World War II, the Cold War, and beyond. Each age brings with it a new set of challenges because your tiny island nation is sandwiched between the world’s rotating superpowers. But as your trusted advisors say, it is your will alone that is holding Tropico toge…

Halo Infinite's First In-Person Esports Tournament Teased For 2021

Halo’s long history with esports will continue with Halo Infinite, and now the game’s first tournament has been teased. The franchise’s competitive gaming lead, Tashi, announced on Twitter that Microsoft just recently finalized a date and venue for the first Halo Infinite event in the Halo Championship Series. Come from Sports betting site VPbet

Tashi didn’t share any further specifics, but more details will be announced this summer. Also, everything could change as a result of the pandemic, Tashi cautioned.

No Man's Sky Modder Keeps Adding Sean Murray's Face To The Game

Five years after it first launched, No Mans Sky has expanded its universe with a number of free expansions. The next DLC is titled Frontiers, and for one fan, it can’t come soon enough. There’s no concrete release date yet for Frontiers, and as a way to stave off boredom, video producer Winder Sun has begun modding Sean Murray’s face into the game.

It’s all in good fun though, as the No Man’s Sky director seems impressed with just how far Winder Sun is willing to take this experiment Come from Sports betting site VPbet . The first day began with Murray’s face being placed on an exocraft spaceship, day two saw his visage plastered over portals and warps to disturbing effect, and on day three you could spot Murray-faced blobs on several planets.

Even Winder Sun’s avatar in No Man’s Sky has had some digital surgery to resemble Murray, who this week has been seen exploring a planet where all the flora has evolved a natur…

Loki Season 2- Disney+ Show Finale Confirms Second Season Is Coming

Loki has become the first MCU Disney+ show to be confirmed for a second season. The time-traveling, reality-breaking trickster god’s solo series ended after six episodes with a brief post-credits teaser that simply stated Loki will return for Season 2.

Unfortunately, this split second confirmation included absolutely no other information. Details about the production schedule, cast, or potential release of the second season have not been made available. Next on the docket for the MCU on Disney+ is the animated show What If…? Which recently received a release date of August 11 as well as its first full-length trailer.

Other confirmed MCU release dates are Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which hits theaters on September 3 and The Eternals, which will premiere on November 5. The Disney+ docket will likely include other shows, like Hawkeye, before the end of the year, but no dates have been set as of yet.

Buzz Bingo in Advanced Talks to Acquire Two Major UK Bingo Clubs

Buzz Bingo, the UK’s leading omnichannel bingo brand, has announced that it is in advanced discussions to acquire two of the largest bingo clubs in the UK, namely the MERKUR sites located in Cricklewood and Northampton, according to an official press release published by MERKUR Casino.

These two high-performing clubs complement Buzz Bingo’s existing locations, with the acquisition set to bring MERKUR Cricklewood, the UK’s largest bingo venue, under the umbrella of Buzz Bingo’s extensive retail estate.

For over 25 years, these clubs have served as central hubs in their communities, offering value-driven entertainment with a focus on low-stake bingo and frequent winners. In 2023 alone, the two venues attracted 410,000 visitors and have continued to show growth, with admissions increasing by approximately 5% across both sites so far this year, according to G3 Newswire.

On average, the clubs collectively pay out more than £1 million in winnings…

Genius Sports Group Limited kicks off Barstool sportsbetting partnership

British digital sports content, technology and integrity services provider Genius Sports Group Limited has announced that its innovations are now being utilized by the Barstool-branded online sportsbook from Penn National Gaming Incorporated.

The London-headquartered firm used an official Thursday press release to declare that it has inked a long-term alliance to supply the United States-facing Barstool brand with ‘official data and fan engagement solutions’. The company stated that it is moreover partnering with the mobile-friendly sportsbetting service so as to develop an all-encompassing ‘marketing and engagement strategy’ covering potential player retention, engagement and acquisition tactics.

Expanding enterprise:

Genius Sports Group Limited officially went public on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year via a $1.5 billion merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Dmy Technology about a month before purchasing Australian free-pla…

Increased Gaming Revenue in Macau During the Q1 of 2023

The Macau government recently announced some excellent news for the whole gaming industry in Macau. Gaming tax revenue in Macau in the March 2023 quarter is higher than it was in the same quarter last year.

Successful first quarter:

In March 2023, the government earned MOP$10.1 billion (or US$1.25 billion) from the gaming industry. Compared to the same quarter last year, when the revenue was MOP$8.7 billion (US$1.08 billion), an increase of 15.8% has been recorded.

The Financial Services Bureau published more precise information about the matter. According to them, the country in January earned MOP$1.58 billion (US$196 million) in January, and it was the month with the smallest revenue in the first quart…

Xenoblade Chronicles 3's Third DLC Wave Launches Februrary 15 With Roguelike Battles

As announced during the Nintendo Direct livestream, Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s third DLC wave will release on February 15. It includes a new hero, Masha (Lapidarist Extraordinaire), and new challenge battles with roguelike elements.

Masha can craft accessories–like the Pro Bangle, Chalk I that boosts agility by 27%, as seen in the DLC trailer. In the new challenge battles, there’s a roguelike element where players start with one character and gain more resources–be that new characters or abilities–after winning battles. Rewards include in-game outfits for your party.

Xbox Summer Showcase Is Expected To Run For About 90 Minutes

June’s Xbox and Bethesda presentation won’t be short, as the showcase will run for almost 90 minutes. Xbox general manager Aaron Greenberg responded to a question on Twitter regarding the length of the upcoming livestream event and revealed–much like previous showcases–that the broadcast will run for “around” 90 minutes in total.

“We don鈥檛 have a final show run time yet,” Greenberg tweeted. “But yes typically we end up close to that 90 minutes mark. Will keep folks posted as we get closer!”

Michigan online casino and sportsbetting market experiences June stutter

The 13 licensed online casino and sportsbetting operators in the American state of Michigan saw their aggregated gross gaming revenues for June decrease by a little less than one percent month-on-month to hit $114.2 million.

According to an official Monday press release from the Michigan Gaming Control Board regulator, online casino operators in the Midwestern state chalked up aggregated June gross gaming revenues of $89.2 million, which represented a decline of 6% month-on-month, although associated sportsbetting receipts grew by some 28% to top $25 million.

Beneficial burden:

The Michigan Gaming Control Board moreover explained that aggregated June iGaming handle in ‘The Wolverine State’ fell by a little over one percent month-on-month to $235.1 million as the industry’s associated tax contribution dropped by 22% to approximately $14.6 million. The regulator also declared that such payments had been assessed on $66.2 million …

NFL Team Profit From Sportsbooks Increased By 40% in 2022

SponsorUnited, a flagship international sports and entertainment intelligence platform responsible for following 1,1 million sponsorships and endorsements of over 250.000 brands and assets, has released its 2022 NFL Marketing Partnerships Report, which states that sports betting is the most important contributor to profits for NFL teams, with revenue in this category growing 40% in 2022 compared to the 2021.

NFL 2022 Marketing Partnerships Report description:

The NFL 2022 Marketing Partnerships Report provides insight into the sponsorship and landscape within the NFL in 2022. The report features analyzes of NFL sponsorships across the league, teams and individual athlets.

Commenting on the Report, Bob Lynch, Founder and CEO of SponsorUnited, said: “Rather than relying on a handful of household brands to grow revenues, NFL teams are driving exponential growth by diversifying their brand partners.

“Ticketing, I…

Pregnant Hailey Bieber Reveals She's Not “Super Close” With Her Family at This Point in Life

Hailey Bieber Reveals Why She’s “Not Close” With Her Baldwin Family Members

Hailey Bieber is Justin Bieber’s forever one less lonely girl. 

And that means that the Rhode Beauty founder—who announced she was pregnant with her and the “Sorry” singer’s first baby in May—is turning her focus to her growing family and is the Baldwin name behind her. 

“I’m not super close with my family at this point in my life because I feel like I’m very independent,” Hailey explained to W magazine in an interview published July 23. “I’m my own individual now, and I’ve built my own family. But when I look back on my childhood and how I grew up, I have very fond, beautiful memories.”

And while the 27-year-old—the younger of Stephen Baldwin and Kennya Baldwin’s two daughters—acknowledged the privilege that comes with growing up in a famous family, these days she’s…

Blizzard’s canceled survival game had been in development for over 6 years, was highly praised by employees-

Blizzard’s unnamed survival game had already been in development for over four years when it was announced in early 2022. Its team doubled in size that year with plans to grow even more in 2023. Now, after over six years of total development time and positive responses to the project from current and former Blizzard employees, the game has been canceled by Microsoft and its developers are out of jobs.

“I’ve been let go from Blizzard, along with many many others on the Survival team,” wrote Matt London, the game’s former associate narrative director, on X today. 

Other Blizzard survival game developers who announced their departures include senior concept artist Marby Kwong, designer Ates Bayrak, senior software engineer Renato Iwashima, gameplay programmer Michael Dale, character technical artist Matheus Lima, VFX artist Rachel Quitevis, and producer Megan Embree, who had worked at Blizzard for 13 years. 

The survival game’s director, Craig Amai, was also…

First Zen 6 rumour puts AMD’s far future CPU on 2nm tech-

We’re still waiting to see if AMD’s next CPU design, Zen 5, can live up to its lofty performance expectations. But in the meantime, we now have our first Zen 6 leak which puts AMD’s future CPU architecture two generations hence on 2nm silicon.

We also now have a name for Zen 6, or at least for its cores. They shall be known as Morpheus. For the record, AMD’s existing Zen 4 cores, as used in Ryzen 7000 CPUs including the new Ryzen 7 7800X3D, are codenamed Persephone and the upcoming Zen 5 cores are called Nirvana.

Tom’s Hardware reports that the ‘leak’ comes from the Linkedin profile of an AMD Engineer which has now been edited to remove the sensitive information, but not before it could be screenshotted (is that a word?) for posterity.

The Linkedin profile text was quite detailed before it vanished and put Zen 6 on 2nm production technology. The engineer had also worked on Zen 5, describing that as a 3nm CPU. AMD’s public roadmaps have previously indicated that Zen…

Monster Hunter Wilds reveals a horrifying spider and an electric apex predator in its Gamescom trailer-

Watch On

Today at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live, Capcom brought a new trailer for Monster Hunter Wilds, showing off new monsters, the latest hub area, and the return of well-done steaks.

The trailer begins with hunters discovering a strange flower in the new Scarlet Forest region, leading them to the lair of the Lala Barina—a new temnoceran monster. Pouncing down on the hunters from an overhead web of crimson threads, the Lala Barina is like a massive, vampiric wooly spider. Its front legs are split into trios of raking claws, and it can extend a thorn-like stinger from its rear. When enraged, the Lala Barina’s abdomen blooms into a flower-like formation, from which it can scatter paralytic blossoms. Seems like a nightmare; can’t wait to fight it myself.

From there, we get our first look at the hub area in Wilds that we’ll be returning to between hunts. It’s an “interim camp” built around a desert village, shielded from the sun by massive spans of overhanging canva…

25 years later, one of the PS1’s best and weirdest platformers finally hits PC-

Friends, it is my privilege and delight to inform you that, yes, there is still justice in the world. How do I know? Because Tomba, one of my favourite platformers of the PS1 era, is finally coming to PC a mere quarter-century after it hit (European and American) consoles in 1998. It’s being brought to modern systems by Limited Run Games—in collaboration with series creator Tokuro Fujiwara—and will run on LRG’s Carbon Engine.

Tomba (or Tomba! as it’s properly rendered) is a bit of a cult classic around certain parts of the internet, owing to its unique, hyper-colourful style and Metroidvania-ish gameplay. You play a purple-haired rapscallion as he wages a one-man war against a load of sapient pigs who have stolen his grandad’s bracelet. Pretty standard stuff.

I’d say I have incredibly warm memories of this game, but that wouldn’t be quite accurate. I actually have incredibly warm memories of its demo, which accompanied an issue of Official PlayStation Magazin…

Path of Exile 2 is sticking to its ‘ethical free-to-play’ model instead of chasing Diablo 4’s success-

Having played the first few hours, I’m still a little shocked that brooding gothic action RPG Path Of Exile 2 (due out later this year) is set to be free. Or at least, every bit as free as its predecessor. During a preview event in Los Angeles, I got to ask the game’s director, Jonathan Rogers, if the game would be following at all in the footsteps of Diablo 4, which despite catching some flak for its aggressive live service monetization and MMO aspects, has still been Blizzard’s biggest financial hit yet.

His response for Path of Exile 2 was clear. “It’s definitely not an MMO. I’ve never liked MMOs, actually,” he said. Rogers explained that while he was a huge Diablo 2 fan, he firmly bounced off World of Warcraft and its more social side. He’s an ARPG diehard, still making the kind of game that appeals to him, and doesn’t feel that MMO elements bring much to the classic ARPG formula.

“I don’t think there’s a huge amount of value to the shared overworld. There’s a lot of…

Payday 3 slammed on Steam by players forced to wait in server queues just to play by themselves-

Launch week server headaches have rankled everyone trying to play Payday 3, but the most frustrated are those who don’t even want to play the new co-op heist shooter online. Payday 3’s always-online construction means that solo players still have to connect to the matchmaking servers to start private heists, which has subjected them to the same errors and long queues as multiplayer heisters.

When I first launched Payday 3 today, I struggled just to get to the main menu, receiving an impassable “Nebula data error.” After relaunching a couple of times I was eventually able to start a private, invite-only heist, waiting through about 30 seconds of “matchmaking” despite playing with bots.

30 seconds of waiting isn’t a devastating inconvenience, but players have been reporting more frustrating queue times this week. On Steam, Payday 3 currently has a “Mostly Negative” user review rating, and discontent over its always-online design is the primary thumbs down motivator. A samp…

I found everything I love—and none of what annoys me—about classic JRPGs in this upcoming game about a heartbroken knight combatting uncanny terrors-

Look, I’m aware that the phrase “indie RPG set in early modern Hungary” sounds almost excruciatingly arch and high-falutin’, but for your own sake, don’t touch that dial⁠—Felvidek has the juice. I was already excited for this singular-looking JRPG-style project, but after making my way through its ~45-minute demo, I’m here to say it’s a must-play.

Felvidek centers on Pavol, a grinning, heartbroken buffoon of a knight tasked with investigating the arson of a nearby castle in the Slovak Highlands of the 15th century. Amid violence between Catholics, the proto-Protestant Hussites, and Ottoman Turks, something uncanny and supernatural seems to be unfolding that involves Pavol’s estranged wife.

Felvidek’s characters and writing managed to win me over after less than an hour of play: Pavol has a buddy-cop dynamic with straight-laced monk Matej, while both report to Jozef, a local nobleman who exudes confidence and composure—except for when he’s excit…

Steamy ‘Overwatch cabaret club’ where you can pay to have women fall asleep on voice chat with you gets obliterated, is immediately replaced by even steamier Apex version-

In an event the songsmiths will someday call ‘the shot heard around the world,’ an Overwatch hostess club has been unceremoniously scrubbed from Twitter (via Automaton). But not to worry, it lives once more.

Named OW_CabaretClub, the club wasn’t some kind of Overwatch-themed physical location but rather a Twitter-based service that let Overwatchers hire women to play alongside them for a fee. Punters could, if they were so inclined, get in on some flirtatious multiplayer or fall asleep with their partner in voice chat. 

The idea comes from Japanese hostess clubs—which any Yakuza player will be familiar with—where people (mostly if not entirely men, let’s be honest) can turn up and find a drink and a lady who will pay rapt attention to whatever they say.

It wasn’t long before the club’s Twitter account was blasted off the face of the Earth. Speculation is that Blizzard didn’t take kindly to its existence and the breach of its terms and conditions, b…

Today’s Wordle answer for Tuesday, September 24

However you want to approach your daily Wordle, we’ve got something here that’ll help you out. There are a few quick tips below if you’d like to learn how to improve every single guess, every day, as well as a handcrafted hint for today’s puzzle, and the answer to the September 24 (1193) Wordle waiting to be used, ready to save your win streak.

I regretted my first guess the instant I typed it in—just one yellow letter? Not a great start. I wouldn’t have minded so much if my second guess hadn’t looked eerily similar, with the yellow doing nothing more than switch positions. It was well worth persevering with though, as I turned it around soon after. Make sure you use our clue if you find yourself in a similar position, and save yourself the worry.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Tuesday, September 24

If something is today’s word, it’ll be convenient and useful in a clever way, as well as easily accessible. A jar opener ke…

Tragic- Skyrim’s ultra-sneaky bucket trick doesn’t work in Starfield-

Back in 2011, scores of Skyrim players became master thieves overnight thanks to the discovery of a simple exploit. The bucket trick, discovered just one day after Skyrim launched, made any NPC completely oblivious to thievery simply by blocking their line-of-sight. The trick? Put a bucket on their head. You’d think an exploit that trivializes pickpocketing and stealth would’ve been removed at some point, but the bucket trick survived through Skyrim’s many re-releases, and the same trick even worked in Fallout 4.

Which is why I’m sad to report that the bucket trick does not appear to work in Starfield. I can’t say definitively that there’s no way to block an NPC’s vision in Starfield, but I do know a humble bucket is no longer fit for the job. 

It is some consolation that you can still put buckets on NPC’s heads, and they still act like you haven’t done anything at all. I’ve bucketed nearly a dozen isolated Starfield NPCs of various head sizes and with several “buck…

Darktide’s next update promises a complete overhaul of weapon progression- ‘We took the philosophy with this game to not be afraid of doing quite massive changes’-

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide may have had a rocky launch back in 2022, but you certainly can’t fault developer Fatshark’s dedication to improving its grimdark creation in the time since. While we have had new missions, enemies, and weapons, the biggest focus in the game’s updates thus far has been improving the core experience and basic systems, from performance fixes to crafting changes to a complete overhaul of class progression. 

And apparently that work is still ongoing. Following a major content drop with the Secrets of the Machine God update at the end of last month, Fatshark has revealed its next major project: a complete rethink of the itemisation system, to make investing in your weapons more satisfying. 

“We took the philosophy with this game to not be afraid of doing quite massive changes,” says Victor Magnuson, Darktide’s head of game design. “The start of that was the class overhaul. We felt at the launch that we weren’t really happy with how we ende…

Wizards of the Coast fully retreats from D&D license changes after community outrage-

In a blog post published Friday, Wizards of the Coast announced that it is fully putting the kibosh on the proposed Open Gaming License (OGL) 1.2 that threw the tabletop RPG community into disarray at the beginning of this month.

Instead, Wizards will leave the previously enshrined OGL 1.0 in place, while also putting the latest D&D Systems Reference Document (SRD 5.1) under a Creative Commons License (thanks to GamesRadar for the spot).

The OGL controversy timeline in brief

  • The original OGL was put in place with the third edition of D&D in 2000, and allowed other companies and creators to base their work off D&D and the d20 system without payment to or oversight from Wizards.
  • A draft of a revised OGL 1.1 leaked early in January, which proposed royalty payments and creative control by Wizards over derivative works. This immediately incited a backlash from fans.
  • Wizards backpedaled, introducing a softer OGL 1.2 that would still rep…

iFixit CEO takes shots at Anthropic for ‘hitting our servers a million times in 24 hours’ and even the AI company’s own chatbot disapproves-

It seems like there’s a new reason to be frustrated at AI almost every day, a reason that bubbles up through the primordial soup of festering unconsciousness and into the light of anger. There’s the effect on the economy, job thievery, copyrighted content thievery, and the simple fact that it’s just not right that lifeless neural networks should be able to convince anyone they’re conscious. And now, there’s another reason to be mad at the ethereal AI buggers: they’re clogging up server bandwidth without permission.

Yes, I was aware that some companies scrape websites for content to train their AI models, and yes, I was aware that they sometimes do this without a website’s permission. But I didn’t consider the impact this might have on the servers running these websites. CEO of iFixit, Kyle Wiens, is here to let all of us know that this does, in fact, occur, as they ask AI company Anthropic: “Do you really need to hit our servers a million times in 24 hou…

Wordle today- Hint and answer for #860 Friday, October 27-

All the help you could need to win today’s Wordle just the way you want to is right here. Go straight for a guaranteed win with a quick click to today’s answer, give yourself a few pointers with our handy tips, or guided assistance with our clue for the October 27 (860) game.

My second guess today turned out to be almost right in a very wrong way, leaving me with a lot of yellows that in theory could’ve been sorted very quickly, if only I had any idea how to organise them. Let’s just say I took the nail-biting scenic route to today’s Wordle answer, and leave it at that. 

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Friday, October 27

As a social rank, this word marks someone out as beyond upper class. This is the realm of dukes, princes, and aristocrats. As a personality, a _____ person would be considered good and honourable. 

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Is there a double letter in Wordle today? 

No, there is no double lette…

You’ve got even less time than usual to blitz Modern Warfare 2’s season 4 battle pass-

Thermometers are peaking, birds are chirping, and the air outside is hot and thick. You know what that means, folks, a new season (of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) is here, and it’s bringing all sorts of changes (to the maps and gameplay of the hit Activision-published FPS) with it. Bad news, though: If you’ve got dreams of completing Modern Warfare 2’s season 4 battle pass, you’ve got about two fewer weeks than you had last season to do it. Chop chop.

MW2’s season 4 patch dropped yesterday, introducing, well, too much to go through bit-by-bit. I’ll link the full notes below, but the stuff that leaps out at me is the new maps, new operators, and the changes to the game’s extraction shooter DMZ mode. Oh, and the fact that this season will only last 48 days, a big drop from the 63 days in season 3. That does mean you’ll get to the new content in the mid-season update (and the next season) a little sooner, but you’ll have to scurry if you wanna unlock everything in the battle p…

Wordle today- Hint and answer #898 for Monday, December 4-

Don’t worry if you’re struggling with today’s Wordle, because all the help you need to win is right here. Whether you’re hoping to turn a rough game around in an instant with today’s answer, or you’d just like a targeted clue for the December 4 (898) puzzle to put you back on track, you’ll find everything you need and more just below.

I can see a million different ways I could’ve uncovered today’s Wordle at least a guess or two earlier than I did, now I’ve got the answer staring me in the face. Uncommon letter choices can really turn a game around some days… but not this one.

Wordle today: A hint

Wordle today: A hint for Monday, December 4

The most terrible outcome. The lowest someone can sink. The poorest quality something can be. The opposite of “best”. Think of that word, and you’ve won today’s Wordle. 

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Is there a double letter in Wordle today? 

No, there is no double letter in today’s puzzle.…