J4MES OX4D

The designer of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, co-creator of Call of Duty, founder of Respawn Entertainment and Titanfall plus the man who salvaged Battlefield 2042 which enabled BF6 to exist, was killed over the weekend in a car crash. Tragic news and his name will go down in industry folklore forever. Vince Zampella, the co-founder of Infinity Ward and head of Battlefield, dies in car crash | PC Gamer WWW.PCGAMER.COM Zampella was reportedly killed in a car crash over the weekend.

I saw the game had a free trial and was discounted but I just couldn't be bothered to go through the download just to try it. Even free and in the sale, the player count on PC dropped between 48,000 and 56k which is insane and this also includes the Warzone numbers. The next game will have to be something special because I have never seen it so unappealing or players so demoralised with it all.

Gears of War: Reloaded

FREE £10/$10 in store credit which you can claim in your in-game messages section. Should be enough to buy a new outfit!

Some more Dark Souls 2

Most of these big announcements at the game awards are typically premature but I trust Larian as they have a track record of doing the business. The new Fate of the Republic Star Wars game on the other hand likely wont arrive until 2029-30 and we are still waiting for the first update to Elder Scrolls 6 which was shamefully announced and never mentioned again way back in 2018. I pretty much just ignore CGI trailers and just leave these games on the backburner though.

PUBG has really gone to shit in recent years. The only players left are pretty much all cheaters and the vast majority are from China. Was a really promising game about 7-8 years ago but as soon as they went to China and flogged the IP before it even launched out of early access, it was a total mess. This game wont improve things that's for sure. The whole brand is totally unrecognisable and it'll eventually die just like H1Z1 did with a dreadful reputation.

Hogwarts Legacy FREE on Epic until the 18th Just a moment... STORE.EPICGAMES.COM

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 takes home an absurd 9 wins at The Game Awards, more than Baldur's Gate 3 in 2023 | PC Gamer WWW.PCGAMER.COM This year's Game Awards GOTY (and almost everything else) is the popular French RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Dark Souls II

Dark Souls all the way!

Glad you enjoyed it! Really hope it cleans up at the GOTY awards as it is deserving of so many categories. Also with the FFVII Remake point - maybe if they cut half the crap in those games, they would've been able to make the whole thing in one package or whereby it doesn't take 9 years to finish the 'whole' game. I was engaged from start to finish and never got bored or felt needlessly side-tracked but some of these padding-filled open world games today are just exhausting to think about let alone play!

I haven't played this much recently and I'm kinda at the stage where I know what is required to essentially complete the workbenches and then that's the game pretty much 'completed' in its current state. It's been one hell of a game and incredible value for money but there doesn't seem to be much of an endgame. I'm not sure how much legs this game has in its current form and I kinda wish the live event was longer and there was a bit more meat to it. I'm overloaded with gear to the extent, looting has lost a lot of meaning but the stuff I need is almost out of touch with the way PvP is right now and I can't be bothered taking in lots of gear, killing a major ARC and then getting shotted by a free loadout user. It's basically high risk, huge reward but at the same time potential infuriation. If successful, I then have less reason to play the game so I'm damned either way. The skill tree is just pure bloat and whilst the Raider Deck is good to sift through, it is essentially built off the back of doing generic daily feats. Another annoying thing is spawning in late when trying to do a task. Free loadout users should be the ones being dropped in late to lobbies and not someone geared up only to have 16 minutes. Better off just heading to the exit and even that's a risk in itself. Longevity is definitely an issue and although I didn't feel this way at 40 hours, once you progress so much and do so many runs, you can really see where this game is at.

Sunderland still ended up spending close to £160m I think. They spent really well but if they were to get relegated, they'd be in a whole world of trouble for years to come and they wont want to go back to League One or end up doing a Reading. Leicester are due to be deducted an estimated 9pts this month for PSR violations too and their situation could turn extremely dire if they have to sell players in January to stop it happening in the summer. There's just not enough windows or time for teams who are going down to adjust their situation - I can understand why teams going up may be scared to spend because it means they don't have to try and balance the books to fit the stupid PSR rules in no time at all. Maybe getting promoted, planning for relegation and then trying to get promoted again isn't such a bad idea especially if you can pocket a huge sum. Spending it seems to have a double-whammy knock-on effect.