Magueypulquero

Before there were the Helldivers, there was the Earth Defense Force: A die-hard unit of gung-ho go-getters who defend humanity against the insurmountable odds of a nigh-endless invasion of bugs from Planet Space. Soon those noble heroes will return to action once more: Earth Defense Force 6 is set to launch on PC and PlayStation 5 on July 25.

A great victory was won against the unknown invaders in Earth Defense Force 5, but it came at a great cost: 90% of the Earth’s population was wiped out (wow), and civilization was taken to the brink of collapse. Three years later, before we even had a chance to properly clean up that mess, it happened again—and the EDF is understandably eager to put some new recruits on the front line.

It’s less ironically fascist than Helldivers 2, but there’s no mistaking the comedic approach to the whole thing. “The EDF is still hosting recruitment centers to get new soldiers to join the fight,” Beat-on-the-Street reporter Shelly says in the trailer above. “Anyone interested can sign up at their open enrollment booth down by the burning rubble pile on the corner of Fifth and Main. The next 100 signups are eligible to win a juicy steak!”…

Helldivers 2 is one of the most impressive multiplayer games in recent memory—enjoying such a runaway success that you could barely play it for the first handful of weeks, due to chronically overloaded servers. It’s also, unfortunately, a little buggy right now—and I’m not talkin’ Terminids.

As highlighted by recent patch notes, damage-over-time effects aren’t applied under certain conditions—and certain scopes, like that of the Anti-Materiel Rifle, have been busted for even longer. Sickles can’t shoot through foliage, the Spear misses more than I whiff headshots on Automaton hulks. It’s a little rough out there. Even before some of these bugs, crashes were about as common as Super Earth flags on any appropriately patriotic suburb.

Arrowhead Games has been trying to keep pace, but one gets the feeling they’re losing in a war of whack-a-mole right now. In a message to the game’s Discord server, community manager Spitz painted a picture of the studio’s current problems:

“Most of the bugs in the known issues list in ⁠⁠[the patch notes] are actively being worked on, but they’re either large fixes that require a bit of time or low-prior…

A few weeks ago, we got wind that HTC was working on a standalone wireless AR/VR headset to rival the Meta Quest 2. And here it is: at CES 2023, HTC revealed the HTC XR Elite, an all-in-one XR headset set for release next month. And it won’t be cheap. 

The Vive XR Elite can achieve 4K resolution (2K per eye) at 90Hz with a 110-degree FOV. It’s also got an external camera for mixed reality hijinx. It’s powered by a Snapdragon XR2 with 12GB RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. On paper, the Vive XR Elite is about three times more powerful than Meta Quest 2; it’s also three times as expensive at $1,099, so there’s that. 

The Vive XR Elite is going for a comfort-focused design with as little bulk as possible. The back headrest is detachable, and the rest of the headset can be folded like a pair of sunglasses to store in a carry case. 

I wear large-framed glasses, which makes wearing certain VR headsets really uncomfortable, so I’m excited that the XR Elite has built-in diopters that adjust focus, so you can actually use the headset without glasses.   

According to HTC, the expected battery life is about 15 hours, and it off…

While everyone was distracted with Diablo 4’s gigantic loot update on the test server over the weekend, players found some clues for the next season’s theme ahead of its official announcement.

On the season 4 PTR,  or the “public test realm” for beta testing upcoming changes, you will occasionally see text pop up while killing monsters in Helltide open world events saying you’ve gained reputation with the Iron Wolves. The reputation isn’t shown anywhere in the menus and isn’t part of Diablo 4’s massive loot overhaul. I remember seeing that message pop up on the first day of the PTR, but I didn’t think much of it.

Apparently, you can also find Iron Wolves mercenaries—who made their debut in Diablo 2’s campaign—fighting in certain Helltide events. And Wowhead found an emblem, a map icon, and a list of items named after them in the PTR’s files, suggesting they will be the stars of season 4. The map icon even has the green leaf Blizzard uses to denote seasonal features in the UI.

All the datamined items look similar to the rewards you could get from Diablo 4’s second season, which featured a reputation-like system for completing objectives around t…

I haven’t done a whole lot of crafting in Starfield simply because I haven’t needed to. Bethesda’s space RPG throws a steady supply of enemies at you and those enemies drop tons of weapons and gear, most of it already fitted with useful attachments. I’ve found very few excuses to spend time at my crafting bench upgrading my weapons at all.

The one thing I did want to craft was ammo, and I was a little surprised to learn there isn’t an ammo crafting workbench in Starfield—especially since there was one in Fallout 4 (added in the Contraptions Workshop DLC) and Fallout 76.

It wasn’t a huge problem: I just had to remind myself to swing by the traders whenever I visited a major location. But there are a few guns, like the awesome heavy ballistics weapon the Bridger, that it’s tricky to find a healthy supply of ammo for.

Now you can make your own. The Craftable Ammo and Utilities mod created by modder pitufocabeza lets you use the Industrial Workbench to cobble together ammo from the materials you collect in Starfield. No need to scour the weapon dealers for 40mm XPL ammo for your Bridger anymore: craft it yourself using lead and copper. Ammo for energy …

FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki had a ton to say in a recent interview with The Guardian: While most of the focus has been on him claiming to “suck” at his own games, he also gave some clues about what to expect from FromSoftware in the future.

“Budgets, scale, scope, everything has grown to a point where room for failure isn’t tolerated as much as I think it was in the past,” Miyazaki said, pointing to a trend that’s driven everything from the increased development times of games to the layoff crisis still gripping the industry. While FromSoftware often “hedges” its projects by having publishing partners⁠—Bandai Namco, Sony, and Activision to name a few⁠—mitigating potential financial risk is still a major concern for the company.

While Miyazaki acknowledges Elden Ring as a major turning point for FromSoft, with even higher expectations than ever before, he doesn’t seem keen on pushing the envelope on sheer scale and size in future projects: “Where FromSoftware is right now, in terms of scale, I would say Elden Ring is really the limit. We’ve tapped every resource and talent that we have access to. 

“Scaling it…

A team of modders have breathed new life into cult PlayStation RPG The Legend of Dragoon, a first-party game for the original console developed by Sony Japan. The game was released in Japan in 1999 but wouldn’t reach North America until 2000 and Europe by 2001, and the combination of a mixed critical reception and a new generation of hardware saw it overshadowed.

Some players, however, have always held a candle for this most unusual and somewhat pioneering title. The Legend of Dragoon may have arrived nearer the end of the PlayStation’s life cycle, but that meant Sony Japan really knew what it was doing by this point. It produced one of the machine’s most visually impressive games, a huge singleplayer adventure, a clever turn-based battle system where characters could turn into the titular Dragoons, and realtime elements (early QTEs), all packaged-up with elaborate and fully voiced cutscenes.

Sony has kept the game available (with a few gaps), and a recent port to PlayStation 4 and 5 even added a few features like quick save, but this is one of those games where you’ll always be able to find the die-hards begging for a proper remake or even an actual sequel. N…

Microsoft’s been on a tear recently, offering anyone and everyone 10-year Call of Duty contracts like it’s going out of style. Nintendo and Nvidia have both penned deals with the US tech giant in recent months, ensuring that COD will keep appearing on those companies’ platforms for at least a decade to come should Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard go through. Microsoft has also offered the same deal to Sony and Steam in the past, but those two shot it down, the former because it won’t settle for anything less than stopping Microsoft’s acquisition, and the latter because Gabe Newell didn’t really see the point.

But it turns out that might be enough for the EU. Three sources tell Reuters that Microsoft’s deal spree will probably be enough “to address EU antitrust concerns” surrounding the Activision acquisition, clearing the way for European regulators to greenlight the deal at some point in the future. Of course, it’s still likely that Sony will do whatever it can between now and then to change that.

The spate of COD deals have been part of an attempt by Microsoft to convince regulators across the world that it can be trusted to be a responsible steward o…