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The Russian government has banned crypto mining in ten regions for a period of six years, according to reporting by the state-owned news agency Tass. Russia has cited the industry’s high power consumption rates as the primary reason behind the ban. Crypto is particularly power-hungry, as mining operations already account for nearly 2.5 percent of US energy use.
This ban takes effect on January 1 and lasts until March 15, 2031. The country’s Council of Ministers has also stated that additional bans may be required in other regions during periods of peak energy demand. It could also go the other way. The ban could be temporarily lifted or altered in certain regions if a government commission examines changes in energy demand and deems it necessary.
Cryptocurrency mining has only been fully legal in Russia since November 1, as the country has had a rocky relationship with the practice. Miners must register with the Ministry of Digital Development and energy consumption limits are continually monitored.
The country banned the use of cryptocurrencies as legal tender back in 2022, but does allow cross-border payments. The latter is largely seen as an attempt by Russia to avoid sanctions in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia isn’t the only country to put the kibosh on crypto mining due to the industry’s obscene energy demands. Kosovo outlawed the practice back in 2022 to conserve electricity during an energy crisis. Angola did the same in April of 2024. That country’s law goes a step further and criminalizes crypto mining. Several European countries, like Iceland and Norway, have started to strictly regulate the industry due to energy shortages.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/russia-bans-crypto-mining-in-multiple-regions-citing-energy-concerns-163102174.html?src=rss

The Russian government has banned crypto mining in ten regions for a period of six years, according to reporting by the state-owned news agency Tass. Russia has cited the industry’s high power consumption rates as the primary reason behind the ban. Crypto is particularly power-hungry, as mining operations already account for nearly 2.5 percent of US energy use.

This ban takes effect on January 1 and lasts until March 15, 2031. The country’s Council of Ministers has also stated that additional bans may be required in other regions during periods of peak energy demand. It could also go the other way. The ban could be temporarily lifted or altered in certain regions if a government commission examines changes in energy demand and deems it necessary.

Cryptocurrency mining has only been fully legal in Russia since November 1, as the country has had a rocky relationship with the practice. Miners must register with the Ministry of Digital Development and energy consumption limits are continually monitored.

The country banned the use of cryptocurrencies as legal tender back in 2022, but does allow cross-border payments. The latter is largely seen as an attempt by Russia to avoid sanctions in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia isn’t the only country to put the kibosh on crypto mining due to the industry’s obscene energy demands. Kosovo outlawed the practice back in 2022 to conserve electricity during an energy crisis. Angola did the same in April of 2024. That country’s law goes a step further and criminalizes crypto mining. Several European countries, like Iceland and Norway, have started to strictly regulate the industry due to energy shortages.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/russia-bans-crypto-mining-in-multiple-regions-citing-energy-concerns-163102174.html?src=rss

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Lilium, a company working on flying taxis that can take off and land vertically, has ceased operations. As TechCrunch notes, German media Gründerszene was the first publication to report that it laid off 1,000 workers a few days ago after it failed to secure more financing to continue its technology’s development. Patrick Nathen, the company’s co-founder, has announced that the company has stopped all operations on LinkedIn. Tagging his co-founders, he said that they can no longer continue working on their “shared belief in greener aviation,” at least under Lilium.
The German company has been testing its VTOL electric air taxis for a while now. Its vehicle took off for the first time for its maiden flight back in 2017, and it completed its first phase of flight tests in 2019. Lilium was able to prove that its VTOL air taxis are capable of flying at speeds of over 100 kilometers per hour, though the Lilium Jet prototype it unveiled in 2019 was supposed to be able go as fast as 300 kmh and to have a range of 300 kilometers. 
Lilium has been struggling financially over the past year, but its CEO reportedly remained optimistic about being able to secure enough funding as recently as last month. Gründerszene said that a small number of people will remain employed to help with liquidation. The company has yet to announce what will happen to its technology and the rest of its assets, but its patent attorney, Fabien Müller, wrote in a post that he’s managing the transition of Lilium’s intellectual property.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/flying-taxi-maker-lillium-lays-off-1000-workers-and-ceases-operations-160025593.html?src=rss

Lilium, a company working on flying taxis that can take off and land vertically, has ceased operations. As TechCrunch notes, German media Gründerszene was the first publication to report that it laid off 1,000 workers a few days ago after it failed to secure more financing to continue its technology’s development. Patrick Nathen, the company’s co-founder, has announced that the company has stopped all operations on LinkedIn. Tagging his co-founders, he said that they can no longer continue working on their “shared belief in greener aviation,” at least under Lilium.

The German company has been testing its VTOL electric air taxis for a while now. Its vehicle took off for the first time for its maiden flight back in 2017, and it completed its first phase of flight tests in 2019. Lilium was able to prove that its VTOL air taxis are capable of flying at speeds of over 100 kilometers per hour, though the Lilium Jet prototype it unveiled in 2019 was supposed to be able go as fast as 300 kmh and to have a range of 300 kilometers. 

Lilium has been struggling financially over the past year, but its CEO reportedly remained optimistic about being able to secure enough funding as recently as last month. Gründerszene said that a small number of people will remain employed to help with liquidation. The company has yet to announce what will happen to its technology and the rest of its assets, but its patent attorney, Fabien Müller, wrote in a post that he’s managing the transition of Lilium’s intellectual property.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/flying-taxi-maker-lillium-lays-off-1000-workers-and-ceases-operations-160025593.html?src=rss

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No game this year captured the imagination of the Engadget crew quite like Balatro did, and when it came time for each staff member to pitch their favorite games of 2024, everyone – and I mean everyone – wanted to write about Balatro. In the end, rather than forcing everyone to fight for the chance to write about their love of the game, we instead decided to ask the team to write their own individual take on Balatro.
My Steam Deck is a Balatro machine and I love it
My Steam Deck is a Balatro machine at this point, and no, I’m not complaining about this. I’ve broken out my Steam Deck for plenty of games before Balatro and I plan on playing lots more on it in the future, but for now and potentially until I take my final breath, its primary function is joker generation.
First of all, Balatro just feels nice on a handheld device. It’s the kind of game that you can play passively while watching TV or listening to a podcast, or with intense focus as you try to collect jokers, stakes, achievements and stickers on the way to Completionist++. The Steam Deck is the ideal platform for this type of game, because, especially in combination with a comfy PC setup, it allows players to flow between these two states without losing progression. The mobile version of Balatro is rad and the Switch version is peachy, but I started playing on PC and, more than 500 hours later, I’m reluctant to start over on any other platform.
I absolutely love curling up on the couch with Balatro, playing it on the PC at my desk, using it as a distraction on long commutes, and getting a few hands in before bed. The Balatro Machine — uh, I mean, Steam Deck — enables my obsession in a seamless way.
— Jessica Conditt, Senior Reporter
Balatro is a card game you can feel
Balatro is a game you mostly play in your head. There’s a giant array of modifier cards, each with their own effects and consequences, and you work through their permutations like you’re tinkering with a chemistry kit. It’s a game of decisions, all of which are contingent on the decisions you’ve made prior. Some work, most blow up in your face.
This is what makes Balatro engaging, but it’s not my favorite thing about it. What I like most is how tangible it is. How it makes a digital playing card game have any felt impact at all. It’s the little tck and shake each card does when scored. The donk when a joker adds to your multiplier, the way the donks speed up and rise in pitch as buffs and retriggers pile up. The thrrrp of the deck reshuffling. The brief delay upon opening a booster pack to raise anticipation, how the pack disintegrates to emphasize the finality of your decision. The sound of coins colliding when you collect interest or buy something. The fire that burns and rises around your score when you’ve passed the goal in one hand, a dopamine hit within a dopamine hit. The way the air gets sucked out of the trancy music when you inevitably fail.
You are not a character in Balatro. You’re just you, staring at cards set against swirling colors. Yet all of these flourishes go a long way toward sucking you into that vortex, really locking you in it, somehow giving a game that most resembles video poker a sense of physical place. Balatro is, among many things, an A-1 example of economical sound design. The easiest way to dilute it is to play it on mute.
— Jeff Dunn, Senior Reporter
The real Balatro was the joker stickers we earned along the way
I am not an achievement hunter — I’m the sort of person who skips sidequests that aren’t interesting and rarely replays games after finishing them. The one “Platinumed” game in my PlayStation collection is the PS4 version of Resogun, and I have 100-percented precisely zero games on Xbox. Why, then, was 2024 the year that I became obsessed with achieving Completionist++ on Balatro?
I received the Completionist Steam achievement, which you get by discovering every card in the game, after a month with the game. It took me another five months to get Completionist+, awarded to those who beat Ante 8 with every deck on gold difficulty. The one thing left for me to do was the game’s toughest challenge: Competitionist++, which involves getting gold stickers on every joker by beating Ante 8 on gold difficulty with each of them active.
As of writing, Completionist++ is still a distant dream. It’s easy to feel like you’ve mastered the game after beating Completionist+; There are simple joker combinations that can take you past Ante 8 with every deck. Completionist++ strips those safety nets from you, forcing you to beat the game’s hardest level without relying on surefire strategies. While I do occasionally miss my high-score chasing early days with Balatro, this challenge has given the game a completely new dynamic for me, as I figure out how to craft a win out of jokers I considered useless before.
If you’ve made your way through all the stakes and are wondering what to do next, Completionist++ is a challenge worth setting yourself. Just a word of warning: I’ve played for 460 hours across my PC and Steam Deck, and I’ve only unlocked 961 of the game’s 1,200 stickers.
— Aaron Souppouris, Executive Editor
Balatro is a deep, complex game for filthy casuals like me
Some of my friends and co-workers are taking Balatro to some wild extremes. Aaron told me he’s unlocked and completed about 95 percent of the game; I meanwhile sit at a paltry 19 percent. Another friend routinely shares quick videos from his runs where he racks up hundreds of millions of points in a single hand with Jokers I can’t fathom, while my best single hand sits at a little over 3 million.
The good thing, though? This isn’t discouraging; it’s a feature, not a bug. Balatro has somehow managed to be the kind of game you can sink hundreds of hours into in an all-out quest for completion and mastery. Or you can do as I do and pick it up, play for 30 minutes or an hour a few times a week, and come back to it again with plenty to do when you get the itch.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to get to the point where I’m grabbing a billion points on a single hand, but my gaming time is limited and I usually choose to spend it on the PS5. But one of the great joys of Balatro is that you can go on a bender and play it for hours, and then not come back to it for days or weeks, and then just pick it up and keep making progress. You’re not going to lose any skills or forget your objectives. It’s a casual, pick-up-and-play game that also hides some incredible depth, and games like that don’t come around too often.
— Nathan Ingraham, Deputy Editor
Balatro is an almost perfect mobile port
2024 is unquestionably the year of Balatro. It came out of nowhere to fill our heads with dreams of flush fives and legendary Jimbos. But I think what put it really over the top was when it launched on iOS and Android earlier this fall. Not only did the mobile version cost $5 less than the desktop edition on Steam (or console ports), but there are no intrusive ads or extra purchases anywhere in the game. That’s including all the crossover cardbacks (like the ones featuring characters from The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077 and more) and the big forthcoming update due out at the beginning of next year.
On top of that, there’s essentially no difference in features between the mobile and desktop/console versions. Granted, that’s due in large part to the game being a relatively simple title (at least in terms of graphics). But even so, you’d be surprised how easy that is to mess up. The game boots up nearly instantly and even when you’re smashing antes while pushing your score deep into scientific notation, the system doesn’t get bogged down. Throw in a satisfying interface, support for cloud saves, multiple languages and profiles plus a high contrast option that’s great for accessibility, and you’ve got an app that plays well on practically any device.
In fact, I’d argue that foldables like the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 are the perfect joker-hunting devices. Their large screens feel like a perfect match for Balatro without ever feeling cramped, which happens sometimes on older gadgets with less roomy displays. Text is generally easy to read (though sometimes less so on tiny devices) and there’s plenty of open space to push things around without getting in your own way. I have a few minor complaints you can read about in my longer piece on Balatro’s beauty on mobile devices, but as a whole I’m confident I’m going to get more than my money’s worth for years to come.
— Sam Rutherford, Senior ReporterThis article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/engadgets-balatro-of-the-year-2024-140021833.html?src=rss

No game this year captured the imagination of the Engadget crew quite like Balatro did, and when it came time for each staff member to pitch their favorite games of 2024, everyone – and I mean everyone – wanted to write about Balatro. In the end, rather than forcing everyone to fight for the chance to write about their love of the game, we instead decided to ask the team to write their own individual take on Balatro.

My Steam Deck is a Balatro machine and I love it

My Steam Deck is a Balatro machine at this point, and no, I’m not complaining about this. I’ve broken out my Steam Deck for plenty of games before Balatro and I plan on playing lots more on it in the future, but for now and potentially until I take my final breath, its primary function is joker generation.

First of all, Balatro just feels nice on a handheld device. It’s the kind of game that you can play passively while watching TV or listening to a podcast, or with intense focus as you try to collect jokers, stakes, achievements and stickers on the way to Completionist++. The Steam Deck is the ideal platform for this type of game, because, especially in combination with a comfy PC setup, it allows players to flow between these two states without losing progression. The mobile version of Balatro is rad and the Switch version is peachy, but I started playing on PC and, more than 500 hours later, I’m reluctant to start over on any other platform.

I absolutely love curling up on the couch with Balatro, playing it on the PC at my desk, using it as a distraction on long commutes, and getting a few hands in before bed. The Balatro Machine — uh, I mean, Steam Deck — enables my obsession in a seamless way.

— Jessica Conditt, Senior Reporter

Balatro is a card game you can feel

Balatro is a game you mostly play in your head. There’s a giant array of modifier cards, each with their own effects and consequences, and you work through their permutations like you’re tinkering with a chemistry kit. It’s a game of decisions, all of which are contingent on the decisions you’ve made prior. Some work, most blow up in your face.

This is what makes Balatro engaging, but it’s not my favorite thing about it. What I like most is how tangible it is. How it makes a digital playing card game have any felt impact at all. It’s the little tck and shake each card does when scored. The donk when a joker adds to your multiplier, the way the donks speed up and rise in pitch as buffs and retriggers pile up. The thrrrp of the deck reshuffling. The brief delay upon opening a booster pack to raise anticipation, how the pack disintegrates to emphasize the finality of your decision. The sound of coins colliding when you collect interest or buy something. The fire that burns and rises around your score when you’ve passed the goal in one hand, a dopamine hit within a dopamine hit. The way the air gets sucked out of the trancy music when you inevitably fail.

You are not a character in Balatro. You’re just you, staring at cards set against swirling colors. Yet all of these flourishes go a long way toward sucking you into that vortex, really locking you in it, somehow giving a game that most resembles video poker a sense of physical place. Balatro is, among many things, an A-1 example of economical sound design. The easiest way to dilute it is to play it on mute.

— Jeff Dunn, Senior Reporter

The real Balatro was the joker stickers we earned along the way

I am not an achievement hunter — I’m the sort of person who skips sidequests that aren’t interesting and rarely replays games after finishing them. The one “Platinumed” game in my PlayStation collection is the PS4 version of Resogun, and I have 100-percented precisely zero games on Xbox. Why, then, was 2024 the year that I became obsessed with achieving Completionist++ on Balatro?

I received the Completionist Steam achievement, which you get by discovering every card in the game, after a month with the game. It took me another five months to get Completionist+, awarded to those who beat Ante 8 with every deck on gold difficulty. The one thing left for me to do was the game’s toughest challenge: Competitionist++, which involves getting gold stickers on every joker by beating Ante 8 on gold difficulty with each of them active.

As of writing, Completionist++ is still a distant dream. It’s easy to feel like you’ve mastered the game after beating Completionist+; There are simple joker combinations that can take you past Ante 8 with every deck. Completionist++ strips those safety nets from you, forcing you to beat the game’s hardest level without relying on surefire strategies. While I do occasionally miss my high-score chasing early days with Balatro, this challenge has given the game a completely new dynamic for me, as I figure out how to craft a win out of jokers I considered useless before.

If you’ve made your way through all the stakes and are wondering what to do next, Completionist++ is a challenge worth setting yourself. Just a word of warning: I’ve played for 460 hours across my PC and Steam Deck, and I’ve only unlocked 961 of the game’s 1,200 stickers.

— Aaron Souppouris, Executive Editor

Balatro is a deep, complex game for filthy casuals like me

Some of my friends and co-workers are taking Balatro to some wild extremes. Aaron told me he’s unlocked and completed about 95 percent of the game; I meanwhile sit at a paltry 19 percent. Another friend routinely shares quick videos from his runs where he racks up hundreds of millions of points in a single hand with Jokers I can’t fathom, while my best single hand sits at a little over 3 million.

The good thing, though? This isn’t discouraging; it’s a feature, not a bug. Balatro has somehow managed to be the kind of game you can sink hundreds of hours into in an all-out quest for completion and mastery. Or you can do as I do and pick it up, play for 30 minutes or an hour a few times a week, and come back to it again with plenty to do when you get the itch.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to get to the point where I’m grabbing a billion points on a single hand, but my gaming time is limited and I usually choose to spend it on the PS5. But one of the great joys of Balatro is that you can go on a bender and play it for hours, and then not come back to it for days or weeks, and then just pick it up and keep making progress. You’re not going to lose any skills or forget your objectives. It’s a casual, pick-up-and-play game that also hides some incredible depth, and games like that don’t come around too often.

— Nathan Ingraham, Deputy Editor

Balatro is an almost perfect mobile port

2024 is unquestionably the year of Balatro. It came out of nowhere to fill our heads with dreams of flush fives and legendary Jimbos. But I think what put it really over the top was when it launched on iOS and Android earlier this fall. Not only did the mobile version cost $5 less than the desktop edition on Steam (or console ports), but there are no intrusive ads or extra purchases anywhere in the game. That’s including all the crossover cardbacks (like the ones featuring characters from The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077 and more) and the big forthcoming update due out at the beginning of next year.

On top of that, there’s essentially no difference in features between the mobile and desktop/console versions. Granted, that’s due in large part to the game being a relatively simple title (at least in terms of graphics). But even so, you’d be surprised how easy that is to mess up. The game boots up nearly instantly and even when you’re smashing antes while pushing your score deep into scientific notation, the system doesn’t get bogged down. Throw in a satisfying interface, support for cloud saves, multiple languages and profiles plus a high contrast option that’s great for accessibility, and you’ve got an app that plays well on practically any device.

In fact, I’d argue that foldables like the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 are the perfect joker-hunting devices. Their large screens feel like a perfect match for Balatro without ever feeling cramped, which happens sometimes on older gadgets with less roomy displays. Text is generally easy to read (though sometimes less so on tiny devices) and there’s plenty of open space to push things around without getting in your own way. I have a few minor complaints you can read about in my longer piece on Balatro’s beauty on mobile devices, but as a whole I’m confident I’m going to get more than my money’s worth for years to come.

— Sam Rutherford, Senior Reporter

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/engadgets-balatro-of-the-year-2024-140021833.html?src=rss

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This year may not have been as jam packed as 2023 was for gaming, but there were still plenty of amazing new releases. Whether you love a good indie or a big-budget production, this year had you covered. All you needed to do was look a bit deeper than you might have in 2023.
Animal Well

The core of Animal Well isn’t that structurally complicated: It’s a lock-and-key Metroidvania. You go to places to unlock other places and abilities. There are puzzle bits. Platforming bits. Bosses. A sense of progression. Beating the core “story” opens up a couple layers of admirably elaborate and increasingly meta secrets, but let’s be real, most people interested in those are just going to look up the answers online.
And yet, you play it, and you can’t help but think there isn’t much like it nowadays. Why? It’s not just the lo-fi aesthetic. It’s the fact that you never learn what your little blob guy is. It’s giving you a map to mark up yourself instead of providing any instructions. It’s accidentally realizing the disc you’ve held onto for the last three hours isn’t just for throwing. It’s the big monkey that flings rocks at you, just because. It’s the way each screen is a static shot, the way the camera centers the world instead of the player. It’s the eternal wonder and pleasure of uncovering what lies in wait in the dark, behind us, under our feet, outside of our little wells. And then having no clue what it actually means. That’s real stuff.
Animal Well is that rare thing: a modern video game that trusts you to figure it out and has enough grace to let you stumble in the shadows. I bet the ending will leave you slack-jawed.
— Jeff Dunn, Senior Reporter
Astro Bot

Astro Bot is a paean to the three-decade history of PlayStation. It shines a spotlight on every crevice of the brand’s timeline, turning both mascots and long-forgotten characters from Sony’s archives into adorable bots that you collect along your journey.
More importantly, though, Astro Bot stands squarely in the pantheon of great PlayStation games in its own right. It’s an exquisitely designed platformer that’s bursting with personality, wit and gorgeous visuals. Team Asobi packed its ultra-charming game with clever ideas and mechanics to keep you on your toes. It even feels great thanks to smart use of the DualSense controller’s haptic feedback.
Video games aren’t always supposed to be fun. But Astro Bot wrings pure joy out of every single moment — at least when it’s not kicking your ass in the tough bonus levels.
— Kris Holt, Contributing Reporter
Batman: Arkham Shadow

I never get sick of playing the Batman Arkham games. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve solved all the Riddler’s puzzles or foiled The Joker’s plans. Batman: Arkham Shadow does a superb job of replicating all the things that make the original Batman games fun, like using gadgets to rack up combos in hand-to-hand combat and swooping out of the darkness to pick off armed henchmen. The game’s most impressive feature, however, isn’t the fighting, Batarang-ing or the satisfying feeling you get when you make a Tyger guard’s leg bend in the other direction. It’s the story.
Batman: Arkham Shadow goes deep into the legend of Batman and its Rogues Gallery of thematic villains. It unpacks Bruce Wayne’s story of perpetual pain and need for emotional redemption just as well as any of the other games and even some of the big-screen adaptations. Batman: Arkham Shadow shows that VR games have a lot of potential to be more than just mindless shooting galleries and boxing simulators.
— Danny Gallagher, Contributing Reporter
Balatro
Of all the games you see on this list, not one was as universally loved as Balatro. Nearly every member of the Engadget team wanted to write about the game. So instead of limiting ourselves to just one blurb, we wrote an entire ode to Balatro.
Crow Country

When I first heard about Crow Country, a 2024 release that was heavily influenced by PS1 survival horror games, I was really intrigued but also a bit worried that it’d be little more than a nostalgia grab. But once I got to playing it, I totally fell in love, and found it to be a unique experience even with all the loving nods to its inspirations.
Crow Country follows Mara Forest, a somewhat shady protagonist, as she explores an abandoned amusement park in search of its missing owner, Edward Crow. There are constant hints to a terrible event that led to the park’s shutdown, and strange skinless monsters are all over the place. In typical survival horror form, you have to manage your resources like ammo and health kits, and you’ll encounter a bunch of puzzles that you’ll need to solve in order to progress. I played Crow Country before the introduction of Hard mode, and found it to be spooky and engaging — but, to my surprise, also kind of cozy, which I really liked. But there’s a game mode for everyone. If you want a more riveting experience, go for Hard mode. If you don’t want to face any enemies, there’s Exploration mode. Survival, the “normal” mode, falls in between those two.
Crow Country is a great game with some light horror and a story that was fun to piece together along the way. It’s perfect if you want to play a horror game that has a creepy atmosphere but won’t have your heart in your throat the entire time.
— Cheyenne MacDonald, Weekend Editor
Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Dragon Age: The Veilguard wastes no time showing off the full glory of its graphical prowess and epic storytelling. Once you’ve spent some time in its (excellent) character creator, it’s only a few minutes until you’re fighting to stop the end of the world. Solas, the previous game’s surprise villain, is trying to tear apart the boundary between the spirit and human world. And in the process, his magical ceremony fills the screen with a glorious array of neon lights, color and shadows. If you’ve got a modern GPU, you’re in for a ray tracing workout.
I’m a gamer of simple pleasures, and I’ll admit, that bombastic opening sequence alone was enough to make me fall for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. What kept me playing, though, was BioWare’s classic formula of intriguing characters and sharp storytelling. I’ll forgive the many missteps of Mass Effect Andromeda, Veilguard’s crew of ragtag heroes make it clear BioWare still has its narrative.
What’s truly surprising, though, is that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is also a decent action RPG, with fast-paced and challenging combat that feels more reminiscent of the recent God of War games than anything from Dragon Age proper. There’s a rich skill tree to follow, and you can always re-spec without penalty.
For a game that could take a hundred hours to truly finish, Veilguard still manages to feel fresh and exciting every time I sit down to play. So really, I don’t mind if it doesn’t hit as hard as previous entries, or if it doesn’t give you as many consequential choices as Baldur’s Gate 3. Sometimes it just feels good to hang out with your fantasy buds and crack a few demon skulls.
— Devinda Hardawar, Senior Editor
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

The second part of the anticipated remake of 1997’s Final Fantasy VII uses the power of the PlayStation 5 to create a more significant (if not entirely open) world. (It’s also one of the best games to showcase what the PS5 Pro is capable of, offering smoother framerates and crisper textures and detail.) It’s a bigger, better, game than Remake.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth expands Remake’s often constricted alleys and buildings into expansive plains, mountain hikes, and Mythril caverns. What’s interesting about this middle chapter is that the ending of Remake seemingly cut ties with the story we all knew from the original. Despite that, Cloud, Aerith and the rest of the motley crew tour most of the same towns and destinations of the original game. That feeling of nostalgia is paired with a modern, further refined action RPG battle system, with new synergy attacks, materia and summon spells. It’s all a little convoluted, but also meant I got to lean into my favorite characters and their play styles. (No one likes Cait Sith.)
It’s a rolling adventure that folds in extra character and story detail. While exploration in this middle chapter isn’t as expansive as I might have liked, the themed areas are all different from each other, packed with their own battle and exploration themes. I just love the soundtrack of Rebirth – I love it so much that it made it into my most-played albums of 2024.
— Mat Smith, UK Bureau Chief
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

When I first learned an Indiana Jones game was in the works, it seemed instantly superfluous. What’s the point when the Tomb Raider and Uncharted games have spent decades translating Indy’s pulpy action into the world of video games? I should have known better than to doubt MachineGames, the developers behind the recent (and excellent) Wolfenstein games. If anything, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has more in common with Dishonored and Hitman than the bombastic set pieces that have plagued Uncharted’s Nathan Drake. It’s a first-person game, for one, and it focuses more on stealth and problem-solving than mowing down dozens of baddies.
The game begins with a stunning recreation of the opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, a sequence that had me continually dropping my jaw. Many shots are directly mirrored from the original film, the Indy model looks surprisingly life-like, and perhaps the biggest shock of all, voice actor Troy Baker delivers a solid interpretation of a young Harrison Ford. Honestly, his Indiana Jones sounds more like the character I remember than Ford does in the recent (and genuinely great) Dial of Destiny.
While you’re equipped with a gun early on, most of your time is spent investigating large areas like the Vatican, sneaking around restricted areas and punching fascists in the face. You’ll also encounter a few puzzles that pose just enough of a challenge to be satisfying, without being overly annoying.
Five hours into the game, I realized I hadn’t yet fired my gun. And it would take several more hours before that was actually necessary. I can’t think of many other action franchises that practiced such restraint.
MachineGames didn’t just make a good Indiana Jones game — it crafted one of the best Indiana Jones experiences ever made. I’ll take The Great Circle over Temple of Doom any day. It’s so good, it belongs in a museum.
— D.H.
Infinity Nikki

From the hours we spend transmogging items or building gear sets for max stats, fashion has always been low-key essential in video games. So it’s about damn time that someone decided to take the plunge, accept that style is everything and put it at the heart of an extremely charming game. Infinity Nikki is the most time I have ever spent in a game’s photo mode. How could I not? My in-game wardrobe has been filling up with pieces all over the style spectrum – from the ultimate cozy loungewear to absurdly frivolous pastel confections – and I love them all. Dressing up in fabulous outfits is a big part of Infinity Nikki’s immaculate vibes, but there’s a whole lot of game here that has wisely taken its design cues from other very good titles.
The influence of Genshin Impact is clear in the approach to gacha systems. The open-world exploration and side questing feel reminiscent of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. The Whimstar mechanics are right out of any 3D Mario. But every idea has been toned down so there’s no stress and very little challenge. That sounds like it should be boring. It’s not. Being in Miraland is a complete joy.
— Anna Washenko, Contributing Reporter
INDIKA

I haven’t stopped thinking about INDIKA since I played it in May. It’s not a constant train of thought or anything, but memories of the game float through my consciousness fairly often and I welcome them each time — funny, heartwrenching and all the emotions in between. And yet, INDIKA is not a game I freely recommend to every person. It’s a satirical and surreal tale about the devil living inside a nun’s head, and while it has laugh-out-loud dialogue and cute buddy-cop moments, it’s also laced with scenes of sexual violence. No matter how delicately and powerfully these scenes are handled, they’re still heavy.
But, if you’re up for it, INDIKA is an utterly unique third-person adventure that deftly balances levity and agony. It offers a flurry of whimsical absurdity, religious criticism and raw human suffering, always with a wink and a nod. INDIKA thrives in the messy area between pleasure and discomfort, and it’s worth a play for anyone seeking something mature and original.
— Jessica Conditt, Senior Reporter
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is composed of contradictions. It’s a distillation of everything that makes a puzzle game tick, and it’s also a complete subversion of the genre. It’s heartwarming but eerie, mysterious yet satisfying, chaotic and utterly logical. It’s modern, vintage and futuristic all at once.
In Lorelei, players are stranded at the gates of an otherworldly hotel, and the only thing to do is investigate the creativity and tragedy that’s touched its grounds over the decades. The hotel is vast and dotted with secrets, and each of its rooms houses at least one mystery. There are more than 150 puzzles in the game — memorization tests, logic riddles, perspective tricks, math problems, art projects, lunar phases, astrological clocks and mazes — and the solution in one room often unlocks secrets in other areas. It’s a nonlinear experience, though it feels like everything in the hotel is deeply connected. Even you.
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is for fans of puzzles, narrative twists and David Lynch — but really, it’s for anyone who likes rad new video games. This is a game like no other, and it’s proof that innovation is alive and well in the industry, especially among indie developers.
— J.C.
Metaphor: ReFantazio

Metaphor: ReFantazio improves on the Atlus JRPG formula that I’ve loved across various Shin Megami Tensei and Persona games in every way. Perhaps the game’s greatest triumph is making that classic JRPG grindfest feel unique and purposeful. Rather than crawling through bleak, procedurally generated dungeons to level up between key objectives, you’ll be claiming bounties on monsters, helping locals rescue loved ones or searching for mysterious relics. Add to that an engaging and surprisingly grounded storyline, vibrant characters and a fine-tuned battle system, and you have a clear winner.
The one drawback is that I wish its technical underpinnings were stronger; all the beautiful artwork and stylish menus in the world can’t hide that the game is clearly built on the same engine as Persona 5, stretched to its absolute limits. Coming from the slick Persona 3 remake, which utilized Unreal Engine to good effect, it’s a little jarring to see low-res textures, fizzling lines and weird loads between areas. None of this is enough to stop Metaphor from being a game I recommend to anyone who will listen, though.
Here’s hoping that the next Persona game — which has to be around the corner, right? — takes the gameplay improvements of Metaphor and pairs them with an engine that wasn’t built to accommodate the PlayStation 3.
— Aaron Souppouris, Executive Editor
Neva
Neva packs a hell of a punch. This action platformer tells a devastatingly affecting story about disease, entropy and the relationship between human and animal over time. It’s mesmerizing on multiple levels: visually, aurally and emotionally.
The story plays out almost wordlessly, with Nomada Studio largely using its environments, enemy encounters and your progression to tell the tale. You play as a warrior named Alba who tries to cleanse the world of a corruptive force that plagues the environment and possesses animals. Her companion is a titular wolf. Neva grows from a pup to an adult throughout the seasons depicted in the game. Alba can call the wolf to her when they’re apart, but the timbre of her cries changes depending on how fraught the situation is.
Neva is a relatively short game, but it’s one that will stick with you. Just as the blight does to the landscapes and fauna of this sumptuous world.
— K.H.
Nine Sols

2024 may not be over yet, but I can safely say we probably won’t see Team Cherry release Silksong. In other words, it was another painful year for Hollow Knight fans. But if you love Metroidvanias as much as I do, 2024 was easily one of the genre’s best years since 2017. Even if you only count two of this year’s more popular releases, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Animal Well, there was no shortage of incredible Metroidvanias to play over the last 12 months. But if you ask me, most people slept on 2024’s best release: Nine Sols.
Nine Sols is one of those rare experiences where the elevator pitch actually does the game justice. It’s a 2D Metroidvania with a Sekiro-inspired combat system. I’ll be honest, that alone would have been enough to get me hooked, but the reason I’m still thinking about the game months after it came out in May is because of its story. The only thing I’ll say here is that Nine Sols is the product of Red Candle Games. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because the studio’s previous game, Devotion, was at the center of a major censorship scandal involving the Chinese government. By all accounts, Devotion featured an incredible story, and I wish I could play it after experiencing Nine Sols. The team at Red Candle Games are master storytellers, and if the way Hollow Knight hid its best narrative elements behind item descriptions and environmental details left you wanting more, I think you owe it to yourself to give Nine Sols a try.
— Igor Bonifacic, Senior Reporter
Pepper Grinder

Pepper Grinder is a brisk, no-bullshit 2D platformer. Its hook is the titular device: a giant frigging drill that lets you chew and leap through each stage like a chainsaw-wielding dolphin. You’re never fully in control while the machine roars along, so navigating the quick stages comes to feel like a cross between bull riding and figure skating, as wild and destructive as it is elegant. Put another way, simply moving in this game is a kinetic thrill. The levels themselves refuse to repeat or linger on ideas for too long — some tedious run-and-gun segments toward the end aside — the boss fights are honest challenges and the whole thing is over in about four hours. That’s fine. Pepper Grinder knows what it is, does what it does and does it well. If only more games could be so focused.
— J.D.
Thank Goodness You’re Here!

Dumb, funny, easy to play, I can’t tell if Thank Goodness You’re Here is a tribute to British comedy history or a pastiche about what Americans think British comedic sensibilities are. Either way, it’s a whole lot of fun. You control an unnamed, tiny man who goes around the fictional town of Barnsworth, helping people the only way he can: pummeling objects and people with his little fists. You can hit things, you can jump, and that’s it. That’s all you need to rustle together a flock of seagulls, deliver soup to a sickly man with spaghetti arms and even fix the local fish and chip shop’s fryer.
It looks like a fizzy cartoon that would look at home on Cartoon Network, squeezed through an aggressively Northern English lens. It’s just a shame it doesn’t last longer.
— M.S.
Phoenix Springs

I’ve never encountered a game quite like Phoenix Springs. I’ve played point-and-click adventures, sci-fi mysteries and narrative games, but I’ve never seen one that sounds this luscious, looks this dramatic or plays this hypnotically. Phoenix Springs is a noir detective novel come to life but it’s also a cyberpunk vision of the future, and it’s all presented in muted, hand-drawn hues blanketed in light blue shadows. Truly, every scene of this game is gorgeous.
Phoenix Springs stars Iris Dormer, a technology reporter who’s searching for her estranged brother, Leo. Her hunt takes her from the abandoned buildings of a rundown city, to a rich suburb, and finally to Phoenix Springs, a desert oasis bathed in golden light and occupied by a handful of odd, disconnected people.
There’s nothing rushed about Phoenix Springs. Iris walks leisurely through expansive wide shots, her silhouette cutting across high grasses and cold concrete at the same unhurried pace. When she speaks, she sounds like a jaded detective lost in time, her sentences stark and powerful. Haunting choir chords and droning bass lines share screen time with pristine silence and birdsong. Phoenix Springs excels as both a piece of art and a detective game, and it’s the perfect escape for anyone who wants to slow down and get lost in the grit of a neo-noir world.
— J.C.
Still Wakes the Deep

Still Wakes the Deep is quietly one of the best horror games of 2024 — and in a year that gave us Mouthwashing, Slitterhead and the Silent Hill 2 remake, that’s saying something. Still Wakes the Deep comes from the horror masters at The Chinese Room, and it’s a stunning first-person experience that introduces violent paranormal monsters to the Beira D oil rig in the middle of the icy North Sea.
In Still Wakes the Deep, horror comes in multiple forms. The invading creatures move with thin, too-long limbs that burst from their bodies like snapping bungee cords. Large pustules and bloody ribbons grow along the corridors, emitting a sickly cosmic glow. The ocean is an unrelenting threat, wailing beneath every step. And then there’s the oil rig itself, a mazelike platform supported by slender tension legs in the middle of a raging sea, groaning and tilting as it’s ripped apart from the inside. Each of these elements is deadly; each one manifests a unique brand of anxiety.
Amid the life-threatening terror, Still Wakes the Deep manages to tell a moving story about family and regret, thanks in large part to the game’s fabulous voice acting and compelling script. This one was easy to miss amid the glut of good horror games this year, but it belongs at the very top of that list.
— J.C.
Silent Hill 2

There isn’t much to say about Silent Hill 2 and its story that hasn’t already been said a million times; it is incredibly bleak, a masterclass in psychological horror. In the 2024 remake, the story is much the same, but there’s a new intensity to the enemies and environmental elements that takes the horror to another level. Silent Hill 2 (2024) really got under my skin at times, and at others, made me jump out of said skin.
In the game, you play as the confused and grieving James Sunderland, who traveled to the town of Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his dead wife telling him she’s waiting for him. They once vacationed there as a couple, but needless to say, Silent Hill is not as he remembers it. The game presents you with both a fight for survival and mystery that needs solving, as James fights off horrifying monsters and little by little uncovers clues that point to dark events. It’s extremely compelling and genuinely scary, not to mention emotionally effective as the story eventually reveals itself. Bloober Team did a great job with the remake and, as with the original, it’s the kind of game you’ll be thinking about well after you’ve finished playing.
— C.M.
Space Marine 2

At first glance, Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 is a simple, by-the-numbers action game in the mold of Gears of War. It’s loud, bloody, and over the top. But the more I played Space Marine 2, the more I came to appreciate how much depth and intelligence it hides just below its shiny Ceramite surface. For one, it absolutely nails the Warhammer 40K setting, both visually and in tone. It’s a game that knows its transhuman protagonists are just cogs in a brutal and repressive regime.
Then there’s the close combat system, which, once again, seems simple but rewards players who take the time to master its rhythm. Just because you’re a super soldier doesn’t mean you can simply charge into combat; instead, you need to block, parry and counter the most deadly opponents on the field. Plenty of other games have employed this rhythm, but Space Marine 2 makes its own and feel extremely satisfying. Add to that a compelling co-op mode that offers a great progression system, and you have a game that I’ve played more than any other this year.
— I.B.
The Last of Us Part 2 Remasted

I’m going to exploit a loophole to write about one of my favorite games that technically came out back in 2020, The Last of Us Part II. However, Naughty Dog released a remastered version for the PS5 in January. Yes, the core game is the same, and the graphics upgrade isn’t nearly as massive as the remake of the first Last of Us that came out in 2022. But as I said in my review of Part II Remastered, the new roguelike “No Return” mode was easily worth the $10 upgrade fee on its own.
I wasn’t going to write this up for our favorite games of the year, thinking it would be silly to go back to this particular obsession of mine yet again. However, my PlayStation 2024 wrap-up indicated that I spent a positively ridiculous 318 hours playing Part II. Yes, I went through the main campaign once this year and also finally got the platinum trophy that had eluded me on the PS4 version — but my rough guess is that I spent somewhere between 250 and 275 hours on No Return alone. Yes, that’s borderline obsessive behavior, but I think it also speaks to how good the combat system in Part II is. And getting to play these encounters with 10 different characters, each with their own traits and quirks, means there’s a ton of replay value here (if I haven’t proved that already). Add in the randomized mods that pop up (invisible enemies, healing when you land a melee hit, tripwire traps populating the arena) and you’ll never have the same run twice.
— Nathan Ingraham, Deputy Editor
Vendetta Forever

Fitness is one of the best selling points for VR headsets. It’s not just a static gaming experience. You can get up, jump around, squat, duck and dive your way in all sorts of different games. Meatspace Interactive may not have had fitness in mind when they designed the rapid action simulator Vendetta Forever, but it’s one of the most fun ways to work up a sweat on a VR headset. Vendetta Forever puts you in the shoes of the target of a series of minimalist assassins. Just like Superhot VR, the action ramps up the more you move, but Vendetta Forever has a unique “LO-KILL-MOTION” gimmick that makes it so addictive.
You zip between your faceless enemies as you snatch weapons out of the air like firearms, ninja stars and even pencils while contorting your body to avoid incoming fire. It’s easy to get caught up in the repeating action as you make your way through action movie staple scenes and learn from your deadly mistakes in gun run after gun run. Vendetta Forever is my favorite way to meet my daily cardio requirements.
— D.G.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/engadgets-games-of-the-year-2024-133005519.html?src=rss

This year may not have been as jam packed as 2023 was for gaming, but there were still plenty of amazing new releases. Whether you love a good indie or a big-budget production, this year had you covered. All you needed to do was look a bit deeper than you might have in 2023.

Animal Well

The core of Animal Well isn’t that structurally complicated: It’s a lock-and-key Metroidvania. You go to places to unlock other places and abilities. There are puzzle bits. Platforming bits. Bosses. A sense of progression. Beating the core “story” opens up a couple layers of admirably elaborate and increasingly meta secrets, but let’s be real, most people interested in those are just going to look up the answers online.

And yet, you play it, and you can’t help but think there isn’t much like it nowadays. Why? It’s not just the lo-fi aesthetic. It’s the fact that you never learn what your little blob guy is. It’s giving you a map to mark up yourself instead of providing any instructions. It’s accidentally realizing the disc you’ve held onto for the last three hours isn’t just for throwing. It’s the big monkey that flings rocks at you, just because. It’s the way each screen is a static shot, the way the camera centers the world instead of the player. It’s the eternal wonder and pleasure of uncovering what lies in wait in the dark, behind us, under our feet, outside of our little wells. And then having no clue what it actually means. That’s real stuff.

Animal Well is that rare thing: a modern video game that trusts you to figure it out and has enough grace to let you stumble in the shadows. I bet the ending will leave you slack-jawed.

— Jeff Dunn, Senior Reporter

Astro Bot

Astro Bot is a paean to the three-decade history of PlayStation. It shines a spotlight on every crevice of the brand’s timeline, turning both mascots and long-forgotten characters from Sony’s archives into adorable bots that you collect along your journey.

More importantly, though, Astro Bot stands squarely in the pantheon of great PlayStation games in its own right. It’s an exquisitely designed platformer that’s bursting with personality, wit and gorgeous visuals. Team Asobi packed its ultra-charming game with clever ideas and mechanics to keep you on your toes. It even feels great thanks to smart use of the DualSense controller’s haptic feedback.

Video games aren’t always supposed to be fun. But Astro Bot wrings pure joy out of every single moment — at least when it’s not kicking your ass in the tough bonus levels.

— Kris Holt, Contributing Reporter

Batman: Arkham Shadow

I never get sick of playing the Batman Arkham games. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve solved all the Riddler’s puzzles or foiled The Joker’s plans. Batman: Arkham Shadow does a superb job of replicating all the things that make the original Batman games fun, like using gadgets to rack up combos in hand-to-hand combat and swooping out of the darkness to pick off armed henchmen. The game’s most impressive feature, however, isn’t the fighting, Batarang-ing or the satisfying feeling you get when you make a Tyger guard’s leg bend in the other direction. It’s the story.

Batman: Arkham Shadow goes deep into the legend of Batman and its Rogues Gallery of thematic villains. It unpacks Bruce Wayne’s story of perpetual pain and need for emotional redemption just as well as any of the other games and even some of the big-screen adaptations. Batman: Arkham Shadow shows that VR games have a lot of potential to be more than just mindless shooting galleries and boxing simulators.

— Danny Gallagher, Contributing Reporter

Balatro

Of all the games you see on this list, not one was as universally loved as Balatro. Nearly every member of the Engadget team wanted to write about the game. So instead of limiting ourselves to just one blurb, we wrote an entire ode to Balatro.

Crow Country

When I first heard about Crow Country, a 2024 release that was heavily influenced by PS1 survival horror games, I was really intrigued but also a bit worried that it’d be little more than a nostalgia grab. But once I got to playing it, I totally fell in love, and found it to be a unique experience even with all the loving nods to its inspirations.

Crow Country follows Mara Forest, a somewhat shady protagonist, as she explores an abandoned amusement park in search of its missing owner, Edward Crow. There are constant hints to a terrible event that led to the park’s shutdown, and strange skinless monsters are all over the place. In typical survival horror form, you have to manage your resources like ammo and health kits, and you’ll encounter a bunch of puzzles that you’ll need to solve in order to progress. I played Crow Country before the introduction of Hard mode, and found it to be spooky and engaging — but, to my surprise, also kind of cozy, which I really liked. But there’s a game mode for everyone. If you want a more riveting experience, go for Hard mode. If you don’t want to face any enemies, there’s Exploration mode. Survival, the “normal” mode, falls in between those two.

Crow Country is a great game with some light horror and a story that was fun to piece together along the way. It’s perfect if you want to play a horror game that has a creepy atmosphere but won’t have your heart in your throat the entire time.

— Cheyenne MacDonald, Weekend Editor

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Dragon Age: The Veilguard wastes no time showing off the full glory of its graphical prowess and epic storytelling. Once you’ve spent some time in its (excellent) character creator, it’s only a few minutes until you’re fighting to stop the end of the world. Solas, the previous game’s surprise villain, is trying to tear apart the boundary between the spirit and human world. And in the process, his magical ceremony fills the screen with a glorious array of neon lights, color and shadows. If you’ve got a modern GPU, you’re in for a ray tracing workout.

I’m a gamer of simple pleasures, and I’ll admit, that bombastic opening sequence alone was enough to make me fall for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. What kept me playing, though, was BioWare’s classic formula of intriguing characters and sharp storytelling. I’ll forgive the many missteps of Mass Effect Andromeda, Veilguard’s crew of ragtag heroes make it clear BioWare still has its narrative.

What’s truly surprising, though, is that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is also a decent action RPG, with fast-paced and challenging combat that feels more reminiscent of the recent God of War games than anything from Dragon Age proper. There’s a rich skill tree to follow, and you can always re-spec without penalty.

For a game that could take a hundred hours to truly finish, Veilguard still manages to feel fresh and exciting every time I sit down to play. So really, I don’t mind if it doesn’t hit as hard as previous entries, or if it doesn’t give you as many consequential choices as Baldur’s Gate 3. Sometimes it just feels good to hang out with your fantasy buds and crack a few demon skulls.

— Devinda Hardawar, Senior Editor

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

The second part of the anticipated remake of 1997’s Final Fantasy VII uses the power of the PlayStation 5 to create a more significant (if not entirely open) world. (It’s also one of the best games to showcase what the PS5 Pro is capable of, offering smoother framerates and crisper textures and detail.) It’s a bigger, better, game than Remake.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth expands Remake‘s often constricted alleys and buildings into expansive plains, mountain hikes, and Mythril caverns. What’s interesting about this middle chapter is that the ending of Remake seemingly cut ties with the story we all knew from the original. Despite that, Cloud, Aerith and the rest of the motley crew tour most of the same towns and destinations of the original game. That feeling of nostalgia is paired with a modern, further refined action RPG battle system, with new synergy attacks, materia and summon spells. It’s all a little convoluted, but also meant I got to lean into my favorite characters and their play styles. (No one likes Cait Sith.)

It’s a rolling adventure that folds in extra character and story detail. While exploration in this middle chapter isn’t as expansive as I might have liked, the themed areas are all different from each other, packed with their own battle and exploration themes. I just love the soundtrack of Rebirth – I love it so much that it made it into my most-played albums of 2024.

— Mat Smith, UK Bureau Chief

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

When I first learned an Indiana Jones game was in the works, it seemed instantly superfluous. What’s the point when the Tomb Raider and Uncharted games have spent decades translating Indy’s pulpy action into the world of video games? I should have known better than to doubt MachineGames, the developers behind the recent (and excellent) Wolfenstein games. If anything, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has more in common with Dishonored and Hitman than the bombastic set pieces that have plagued Uncharted’s Nathan Drake. It’s a first-person game, for one, and it focuses more on stealth and problem-solving than mowing down dozens of baddies.

The game begins with a stunning recreation of the opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, a sequence that had me continually dropping my jaw. Many shots are directly mirrored from the original film, the Indy model looks surprisingly life-like, and perhaps the biggest shock of all, voice actor Troy Baker delivers a solid interpretation of a young Harrison Ford. Honestly, his Indiana Jones sounds more like the character I remember than Ford does in the recent (and genuinely great) Dial of Destiny.

While you’re equipped with a gun early on, most of your time is spent investigating large areas like the Vatican, sneaking around restricted areas and punching fascists in the face. You’ll also encounter a few puzzles that pose just enough of a challenge to be satisfying, without being overly annoying.

Five hours into the game, I realized I hadn’t yet fired my gun. And it would take several more hours before that was actually necessary. I can’t think of many other action franchises that practiced such restraint.

MachineGames didn’t just make a good Indiana Jones game — it crafted one of the best Indiana Jones experiences ever made. I’ll take The Great Circle over Temple of Doom any day. It’s so good, it belongs in a museum.

— D.H.

Infinity Nikki

From the hours we spend transmogging items or building gear sets for max stats, fashion has always been low-key essential in video games. So it’s about damn time that someone decided to take the plunge, accept that style is everything and put it at the heart of an extremely charming game. Infinity Nikki is the most time I have ever spent in a game’s photo mode. How could I not? My in-game wardrobe has been filling up with pieces all over the style spectrum – from the ultimate cozy loungewear to absurdly frivolous pastel confections – and I love them all. Dressing up in fabulous outfits is a big part of Infinity Nikki’s immaculate vibes, but there’s a whole lot of game here that has wisely taken its design cues from other very good titles.

The influence of Genshin Impact is clear in the approach to gacha systems. The open-world exploration and side questing feel reminiscent of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. The Whimstar mechanics are right out of any 3D Mario. But every idea has been toned down so there’s no stress and very little challenge. That sounds like it should be boring. It’s not. Being in Miraland is a complete joy.

— Anna Washenko, Contributing Reporter

INDIKA

I haven’t stopped thinking about INDIKA since I played it in May. It’s not a constant train of thought or anything, but memories of the game float through my consciousness fairly often and I welcome them each time — funny, heartwrenching and all the emotions in between. And yet, INDIKA is not a game I freely recommend to every person. It’s a satirical and surreal tale about the devil living inside a nun’s head, and while it has laugh-out-loud dialogue and cute buddy-cop moments, it’s also laced with scenes of sexual violence. No matter how delicately and powerfully these scenes are handled, they’re still heavy.

But, if you’re up for it, INDIKA is an utterly unique third-person adventure that deftly balances levity and agony. It offers a flurry of whimsical absurdity, religious criticism and raw human suffering, always with a wink and a nod. INDIKA thrives in the messy area between pleasure and discomfort, and it’s worth a play for anyone seeking something mature and original.

— Jessica Conditt, Senior Reporter

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is composed of contradictions. It’s a distillation of everything that makes a puzzle game tick, and it’s also a complete subversion of the genre. It’s heartwarming but eerie, mysterious yet satisfying, chaotic and utterly logical. It’s modern, vintage and futuristic all at once.

In Lorelei, players are stranded at the gates of an otherworldly hotel, and the only thing to do is investigate the creativity and tragedy that’s touched its grounds over the decades. The hotel is vast and dotted with secrets, and each of its rooms houses at least one mystery. There are more than 150 puzzles in the game — memorization tests, logic riddles, perspective tricks, math problems, art projects, lunar phases, astrological clocks and mazes — and the solution in one room often unlocks secrets in other areas. It’s a nonlinear experience, though it feels like everything in the hotel is deeply connected. Even you.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is for fans of puzzles, narrative twists and David Lynch — but really, it’s for anyone who likes rad new video games. This is a game like no other, and it’s proof that innovation is alive and well in the industry, especially among indie developers.

— J.C.

Metaphor: ReFantazio

Metaphor: ReFantazio improves on the Atlus JRPG formula that I’ve loved across various Shin Megami Tensei and Persona games in every way. Perhaps the game’s greatest triumph is making that classic JRPG grindfest feel unique and purposeful. Rather than crawling through bleak, procedurally generated dungeons to level up between key objectives, you’ll be claiming bounties on monsters, helping locals rescue loved ones or searching for mysterious relics. Add to that an engaging and surprisingly grounded storyline, vibrant characters and a fine-tuned battle system, and you have a clear winner.

The one drawback is that I wish its technical underpinnings were stronger; all the beautiful artwork and stylish menus in the world can’t hide that the game is clearly built on the same engine as Persona 5, stretched to its absolute limits. Coming from the slick Persona 3 remake, which utilized Unreal Engine to good effect, it’s a little jarring to see low-res textures, fizzling lines and weird loads between areas. None of this is enough to stop Metaphor from being a game I recommend to anyone who will listen, though.

Here’s hoping that the next Persona game — which has to be around the corner, right? — takes the gameplay improvements of Metaphor and pairs them with an engine that wasn’t built to accommodate the PlayStation 3.

— Aaron Souppouris, Executive Editor

Neva

Neva packs a hell of a punch. This action platformer tells a devastatingly affecting story about disease, entropy and the relationship between human and animal over time. It’s mesmerizing on multiple levels: visually, aurally and emotionally.

The story plays out almost wordlessly, with Nomada Studio largely using its environments, enemy encounters and your progression to tell the tale. You play as a warrior named Alba who tries to cleanse the world of a corruptive force that plagues the environment and possesses animals. Her companion is a titular wolf. Neva grows from a pup to an adult throughout the seasons depicted in the game. Alba can call the wolf to her when they’re apart, but the timbre of her cries changes depending on how fraught the situation is.

Neva is a relatively short game, but it’s one that will stick with you. Just as the blight does to the landscapes and fauna of this sumptuous world.

— K.H.

Nine Sols

2024 may not be over yet, but I can safely say we probably won’t see Team Cherry release Silksong. In other words, it was another painful year for Hollow Knight fans. But if you love Metroidvanias as much as I do, 2024 was easily one of the genre’s best years since 2017. Even if you only count two of this year’s more popular releases, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Animal Well, there was no shortage of incredible Metroidvanias to play over the last 12 months. But if you ask me, most people slept on 2024’s best release: Nine Sols.

Nine Sols is one of those rare experiences where the elevator pitch actually does the game justice. It’s a 2D Metroidvania with a Sekiro-inspired combat system. I’ll be honest, that alone would have been enough to get me hooked, but the reason I’m still thinking about the game months after it came out in May is because of its story. The only thing I’ll say here is that Nine Sols is the product of Red Candle Games. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because the studio’s previous game, Devotion, was at the center of a major censorship scandal involving the Chinese government. By all accounts, Devotion featured an incredible story, and I wish I could play it after experiencing Nine Sols. The team at Red Candle Games are master storytellers, and if the way Hollow Knight hid its best narrative elements behind item descriptions and environmental details left you wanting more, I think you owe it to yourself to give Nine Sols a try.

— Igor Bonifacic, Senior Reporter

Pepper Grinder

Pepper Grinder is a brisk, no-bullshit 2D platformer. Its hook is the titular device: a giant frigging drill that lets you chew and leap through each stage like a chainsaw-wielding dolphin. You’re never fully in control while the machine roars along, so navigating the quick stages comes to feel like a cross between bull riding and figure skating, as wild and destructive as it is elegant. Put another way, simply moving in this game is a kinetic thrill. The levels themselves refuse to repeat or linger on ideas for too long — some tedious run-and-gun segments toward the end aside — the boss fights are honest challenges and the whole thing is over in about four hours. That’s fine. Pepper Grinder knows what it is, does what it does and does it well. If only more games could be so focused.

— J.D.

Thank Goodness You’re Here!

Dumb, funny, easy to play, I can’t tell if Thank Goodness You’re Here is a tribute to British comedy history or a pastiche about what Americans think British comedic sensibilities are. Either way, it’s a whole lot of fun. You control an unnamed, tiny man who goes around the fictional town of Barnsworth, helping people the only way he can: pummeling objects and people with his little fists. You can hit things, you can jump, and that’s it. That’s all you need to rustle together a flock of seagulls, deliver soup to a sickly man with spaghetti arms and even fix the local fish and chip shop’s fryer.

It looks like a fizzy cartoon that would look at home on Cartoon Network, squeezed through an aggressively Northern English lens. It’s just a shame it doesn’t last longer.

— M.S.

Phoenix Springs

I’ve never encountered a game quite like Phoenix Springs. I’ve played point-and-click adventures, sci-fi mysteries and narrative games, but I’ve never seen one that sounds this luscious, looks this dramatic or plays this hypnotically. Phoenix Springs is a noir detective novel come to life but it’s also a cyberpunk vision of the future, and it’s all presented in muted, hand-drawn hues blanketed in light blue shadows. Truly, every scene of this game is gorgeous.

Phoenix Springs stars Iris Dormer, a technology reporter who’s searching for her estranged brother, Leo. Her hunt takes her from the abandoned buildings of a rundown city, to a rich suburb, and finally to Phoenix Springs, a desert oasis bathed in golden light and occupied by a handful of odd, disconnected people.

There’s nothing rushed about Phoenix Springs. Iris walks leisurely through expansive wide shots, her silhouette cutting across high grasses and cold concrete at the same unhurried pace. When she speaks, she sounds like a jaded detective lost in time, her sentences stark and powerful. Haunting choir chords and droning bass lines share screen time with pristine silence and birdsong. Phoenix Springs excels as both a piece of art and a detective game, and it’s the perfect escape for anyone who wants to slow down and get lost in the grit of a neo-noir world.

— J.C.

Still Wakes the Deep

Still Wakes the Deep is quietly one of the best horror games of 2024 — and in a year that gave us Mouthwashing, Slitterhead and the Silent Hill 2 remake, that’s saying something. Still Wakes the Deep comes from the horror masters at The Chinese Room, and it’s a stunning first-person experience that introduces violent paranormal monsters to the Beira D oil rig in the middle of the icy North Sea.

In Still Wakes the Deep, horror comes in multiple forms. The invading creatures move with thin, too-long limbs that burst from their bodies like snapping bungee cords. Large pustules and bloody ribbons grow along the corridors, emitting a sickly cosmic glow. The ocean is an unrelenting threat, wailing beneath every step. And then there’s the oil rig itself, a mazelike platform supported by slender tension legs in the middle of a raging sea, groaning and tilting as it’s ripped apart from the inside. Each of these elements is deadly; each one manifests a unique brand of anxiety.

Amid the life-threatening terror, Still Wakes the Deep manages to tell a moving story about family and regret, thanks in large part to the game’s fabulous voice acting and compelling script. This one was easy to miss amid the glut of good horror games this year, but it belongs at the very top of that list.

— J.C.

Silent Hill 2

There isn’t much to say about Silent Hill 2 and its story that hasn’t already been said a million times; it is incredibly bleak, a masterclass in psychological horror. In the 2024 remake, the story is much the same, but there’s a new intensity to the enemies and environmental elements that takes the horror to another level. Silent Hill 2 (2024) really got under my skin at times, and at others, made me jump out of said skin.

In the game, you play as the confused and grieving James Sunderland, who traveled to the town of Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his dead wife telling him she’s waiting for him. They once vacationed there as a couple, but needless to say, Silent Hill is not as he remembers it. The game presents you with both a fight for survival and mystery that needs solving, as James fights off horrifying monsters and little by little uncovers clues that point to dark events. It’s extremely compelling and genuinely scary, not to mention emotionally effective as the story eventually reveals itself. Bloober Team did a great job with the remake and, as with the original, it’s the kind of game you’ll be thinking about well after you’ve finished playing.

— C.M.

Space Marine 2

At first glance, Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 is a simple, by-the-numbers action game in the mold of Gears of War. It’s loud, bloody, and over the top. But the more I played Space Marine 2, the more I came to appreciate how much depth and intelligence it hides just below its shiny Ceramite surface. For one, it absolutely nails the Warhammer 40K setting, both visually and in tone. It’s a game that knows its transhuman protagonists are just cogs in a brutal and repressive regime.

Then there’s the close combat system, which, once again, seems simple but rewards players who take the time to master its rhythm. Just because you’re a super soldier doesn’t mean you can simply charge into combat; instead, you need to block, parry and counter the most deadly opponents on the field. Plenty of other games have employed this rhythm, but Space Marine 2 makes its own and feel extremely satisfying. Add to that a compelling co-op mode that offers a great progression system, and you have a game that I’ve played more than any other this year.

— I.B.

The Last of Us Part 2 Remasted

I’m going to exploit a loophole to write about one of my favorite games that technically came out back in 2020, The Last of Us Part II. However, Naughty Dog released a remastered version for the PS5 in January. Yes, the core game is the same, and the graphics upgrade isn’t nearly as massive as the remake of the first Last of Us that came out in 2022. But as I said in my review of Part II Remastered, the new roguelike “No Return” mode was easily worth the $10 upgrade fee on its own.

I wasn’t going to write this up for our favorite games of the year, thinking it would be silly to go back to this particular obsession of mine yet again. However, my PlayStation 2024 wrap-up indicated that I spent a positively ridiculous 318 hours playing Part II. Yes, I went through the main campaign once this year and also finally got the platinum trophy that had eluded me on the PS4 version — but my rough guess is that I spent somewhere between 250 and 275 hours on No Return alone. Yes, that’s borderline obsessive behavior, but I think it also speaks to how good the combat system in Part II is. And getting to play these encounters with 10 different characters, each with their own traits and quirks, means there’s a ton of replay value here (if I haven’t proved that already). Add in the randomized mods that pop up (invisible enemies, healing when you land a melee hit, tripwire traps populating the arena) and you’ll never have the same run twice.

— Nathan Ingraham, Deputy Editor

Vendetta Forever

Fitness is one of the best selling points for VR headsets. It’s not just a static gaming experience. You can get up, jump around, squat, duck and dive your way in all sorts of different games. Meatspace Interactive may not have had fitness in mind when they designed the rapid action simulator Vendetta Forever, but it’s one of the most fun ways to work up a sweat on a VR headset. Vendetta Forever puts you in the shoes of the target of a series of minimalist assassins. Just like Superhot VR, the action ramps up the more you move, but Vendetta Forever has a unique “LO-KILL-MOTION” gimmick that makes it so addictive.

You zip between your faceless enemies as you snatch weapons out of the air like firearms, ninja stars and even pencils while contorting your body to avoid incoming fire. It’s easy to get caught up in the repeating action as you make your way through action movie staple scenes and learn from your deadly mistakes in gun run after gun run. Vendetta Forever is my favorite way to meet my daily cardio requirements.

— D.G.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/engadgets-games-of-the-year-2024-133005519.html?src=rss

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If you’re traveling for the holidays today, I hope you’re not flying on American Airlines. As of this morning, the airline said on X that all of its flights were currently grounded, with no current time table for when flights will resume. As The Verge notes, a notice posted by the Federal Aviation Administration confirms that there is a “nationwide groundstop” for all AA flights; it also says that this stoppage is at “company request.” 

We’re currently experiencing a technical issue with all American Airlines flights. Your safety is our utmost priority, once this is rectified, we’ll have you safely on your way to your destination.— americanair (@AmericanAir) December 24, 2024

Naturally, loads of people are freaking out about this on X and Threads, but aside from the FAA notice and American Airlines’ post on X, there’s no word on what is wrong or when things might change. And while Christmas Eve isn’t the busiest travel day of the year, that’s cold comfort for everyone stuck at an airport this morning. We’re reaching out to American Airlines for more info and will update this story if anything changes. 
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/all-american-airlines-flights-in-the-us-are-currently-grounded-131522223.html?src=rss

If you’re traveling for the holidays today, I hope you’re not flying on American Airlines. As of this morning, the airline said on X that all of its flights were currently grounded, with no current time table for when flights will resume. As The Verge notes, a notice posted by the Federal Aviation Administration confirms that there is a “nationwide groundstop” for all AA flights; it also says that this stoppage is at “company request.” 

Naturally, loads of people are freaking out about this on X and Threads, but aside from the FAA notice and American Airlines’ post on X, there’s no word on what is wrong or when things might change. And while Christmas Eve isn’t the busiest travel day of the year, that’s cold comfort for everyone stuck at an airport this morning. We’re reaching out to American Airlines for more info and will update this story if anything changes. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/all-american-airlines-flights-in-the-us-are-currently-grounded-131522223.html?src=rss

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Hyundai is offering select EV buyers a free CCS to NACS (North American Charging Standard) adapter so that they can charge current models at Tesla’s Supercharger stations. That will allow owners to charge CCS-port Hyundai models at Tesla’s 20,000 strong Supercharger network, once shipping starts in Q1 2025. 
Hyundai is offering the free adapter to owners of 2024 and earlier Kona Electric, Ioniq 5, Ioniq 6 and Ioniq hatchback models, along with 2025 Ioniq 6, Ioniq 5N, Kona Electric Genesis EVs. You’ll be able to get the free adapter through the MyHyundai owner site. The adapters will be offered to anyone who purchased a Hyundai EV before January 31, 2025. Sibling brand Kia is also offering free NACS adapters to select customers starting next year, with a full list of supported models set to arrive soon. 
The automaker is joining Ford in offering the perk to its users, and other manufacturers are likely to do the same in the near future. That’s because the US government recently announced that NACS is becoming an open industry standard that’s likely to be widely used in charger networks across the continent.
Future models won’t need the adapter, as Hyundai has joined a host of automakers in changing its charging ports to NACS. That’ll begin with the 2025 Ioniq 5, which will have access to Tesla Superchargers as soon as it ships, according to Tesla. Older CCS-based models don’t currently have access, but Tesla is likely to enable that once the adapter ships. 
The news is significant because Hyundai recently became second largest seller of EVs in North America next to Tesla. The company currently sells four models: the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 5N crossovers, Ioniq 6 sedan and Kona Electric SUV. Kia, meanwhile, offers the EV6 crossover, EV9 SUV and Niro EV. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/hyundai-will-offer-its-ev-customers-free-nacs-adapters-starting-next-year-130010136.html?src=rss

Hyundai is offering select EV buyers a free CCS to NACS (North American Charging Standard) adapter so that they can charge current models at Tesla’s Supercharger stations. That will allow owners to charge CCS-port Hyundai models at Tesla’s 20,000 strong Supercharger network, once shipping starts in Q1 2025. 

Hyundai is offering the free adapter to owners of 2024 and earlier Kona Electric, Ioniq 5, Ioniq 6 and Ioniq hatchback models, along with 2025 Ioniq 6, Ioniq 5N, Kona Electric Genesis EVs. You’ll be able to get the free adapter through the MyHyundai owner site. The adapters will be offered to anyone who purchased a Hyundai EV before January 31, 2025. Sibling brand Kia is also offering free NACS adapters to select customers starting next year, with a full list of supported models set to arrive soon. 

The automaker is joining Ford in offering the perk to its users, and other manufacturers are likely to do the same in the near future. That’s because the US government recently announced that NACS is becoming an open industry standard that’s likely to be widely used in charger networks across the continent.

Future models won’t need the adapter, as Hyundai has joined a host of automakers in changing its charging ports to NACS. That’ll begin with the 2025 Ioniq 5, which will have access to Tesla Superchargers as soon as it ships, according to Tesla. Older CCS-based models don’t currently have access, but Tesla is likely to enable that once the adapter ships. 

The news is significant because Hyundai recently became second largest seller of EVs in North America next to Tesla. The company currently sells four models: the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 5N crossovers, Ioniq 6 sedan and Kona Electric SUV. Kia, meanwhile, offers the EV6 crossover, EV9 SUV and Niro EV. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/hyundai-will-offer-its-ev-customers-free-nacs-adapters-starting-next-year-130010136.html?src=rss

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Honda and Nissan have officially confirmed the rumors that they’re pursuing a merger. Both would still operate under their brands but with a new joint holding company as parent. If Nissan-controlled Mitsubishi also came on board, the combined group would become the world’s third-largest automaker by sales volume, with a net worth of up to $50 billion.
Nissan and Honda previously announced plans to work together on EV development, but the joint company would be far more integrated. According to the press release, it could include standardizing vehicle platforms, unifying research and development teams, and optimizing manufacturing systems and facilities. This could help cut costs.
In the US, Nissan sells large pickup trucks and SUVs that Honda doesn’t offer, alongside more experience in EVs and plug-in electric vehicles. On the other side, Honda has relatively stable financials while Nissan has been struggling, particularly at home in Japan.
– Mat Smith
The biggest tech stories you missed

White House calls for investigation into China’s alleged anti-competitive semiconductor industry
X hikes ad-free Premium+ subscription price from $16 to $22
In Infinity Nikki, photo mode achieves its ultimate form

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Meta is reportedly adding displays to its Ray-Ban smart glasses
Mostly for notifications.

According to the Financial Times, Meta may add displays to its Ray-Ban smart glasses collaboration. These screens could appear in a future device iteration as early as next year. It’s not aimed at full mixed reality, though. The screens will be on the smaller side and will likely be used to display notifications or responses from Meta’s AI virtual assistant.
Continue reading.

Fans made a native Star Fox 64 PC port with some modern flourishes
There shouldn’t be any legal trouble coming from Nintendo.
Nintendo
A group of fans have made a native PC port of Star Fox 64, which they are calling Starship. Harbour Masters, the team behind the project, used a tool that converts the original game ROM into PC executable code, so it doesn’t use any proprietary Nintendo code. That means it’s technically legal. (I’m sure Nintendo is looking into it.)
Like previous ports, Starship features all kinds of modern bells and whistles to set itself apart from the 1997 original. The frame rate is higher and the port includes frame smoothing technology for better visuals. There’s also another major benefit: It’s moddable.
Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-120830875.html?src=rss

Honda and Nissan have officially confirmed the rumors that they’re pursuing a merger. Both would still operate under their brands but with a new joint holding company as parent. If Nissan-controlled Mitsubishi also came on board, the combined group would become the world’s third-largest automaker by sales volume, with a net worth of up to $50 billion.

Nissan and Honda previously announced plans to work together on EV development, but the joint company would be far more integrated. According to the press release, it could include standardizing vehicle platforms, unifying research and development teams, and optimizing manufacturing systems and facilities. This could help cut costs.

In the US, Nissan sells large pickup trucks and SUVs that Honda doesn’t offer, alongside more experience in EVs and plug-in electric vehicles. On the other side, Honda has relatively stable financials while Nissan has been struggling, particularly at home in Japan.

– Mat Smith

The biggest tech stories you missed

White House calls for investigation into China’s alleged anti-competitive semiconductor industry

X hikes ad-free Premium+ subscription price from $16 to $22

In Infinity Nikki, photo mode achieves its ultimate form

Get this delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!

Meta is reportedly adding displays to its Ray-Ban smart glasses

Mostly for notifications.

According to the Financial Times, Meta may add displays to its Ray-Ban smart glasses collaboration. These screens could appear in a future device iteration as early as next year. It’s not aimed at full mixed reality, though. The screens will be on the smaller side and will likely be used to display notifications or responses from Meta’s AI virtual assistant.

Continue reading.

Fans made a native Star Fox 64 PC port with some modern flourishes

There shouldn’t be any legal trouble coming from Nintendo.

A group of fans have made a native PC port of Star Fox 64, which they are calling Starship. Harbour Masters, the team behind the project, used a tool that converts the original game ROM into PC executable code, so it doesn’t use any proprietary Nintendo code. That means it’s technically legal. (I’m sure Nintendo is looking into it.)

Like previous ports, Starship features all kinds of modern bells and whistles to set itself apart from the 1997 original. The frame rate is higher and the port includes frame smoothing technology for better visuals. There’s also another major benefit: It’s moddable.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-120830875.html?src=rss

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Are you tired of feeling safe and happy all the time? Is your daily life overrun by feelings of security, contentment and peace? Do you want an escape from all of the oppressive niceness around you? Well, look no further — these are the games for you.Here, we’ve collected more than a dozen of the most evocative and disturbing horror games in recent memory. These selections cover a wide range of genres and styles, but each one comes with at least a tinge of unsettling terror. So take a peek, find your game, and prepare your skeleton for some fresh air because you’re about to jump out of your skin.

Check out our entire Best Games series including the best Nintendo Switch games, the best PS5 games, the best Xbox games, the best PC games and the best free games you can play today. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/best-horror-games-120029388.html?src=rss

Are you tired of feeling safe and happy all the time? Is your daily life overrun by feelings of security, contentment and peace? Do you want an escape from all of the oppressive niceness around you? Well, look no further — these are the games for you.

Here, we’ve collected more than a dozen of the most evocative and disturbing horror games in recent memory. These selections cover a wide range of genres and styles, but each one comes with at least a tinge of unsettling terror. So take a peek, find your game, and prepare your skeleton for some fresh air because you’re about to jump out of your skin.

Check out our entire Best Games series including the best Nintendo Switch games, the best PS5 games, the best Xbox games, the best PC games and the best free games you can play today.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/best-horror-games-120029388.html?src=rss

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The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) has started a probe into China’s semiconductor industry, looking for anti-competitive trade practices. According to a White House statement, the USTR is looking into China for “acts, policies and practices” that reduced or eliminated competition in the marketplace for semiconductors.
The probe is being conducted through Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974 to examine trade practices for “foundational” semiconductors that are used by the automotive, healthcare, infrastructure, aerospace and defense industries. The White House accused China on Monday of “routinely” engaging in “non-market policies and practices, as well as industrial targeting, of the semiconductor industry” that caused significant harm to its competition and created “dangerous supply chain dependencies,” according to the statement.
If action is taken as a result of the investigation, Section 301 allows the USTR to “impose duties or other import restrictions,” “withdraw or suspend trade agreement concessions” or enter into an agreement with China to “either eliminate the conduct in question…or compensate the US with satisfactory trade benefits,” according to the US Trade Act. Those decisions, however, will be left to President Trump’s administration and incoming USTR Jamieson Greer.
A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement that China “strongly deplores and firmly opposes” the US investigation. The nation would also “take all necessary measures to resolutely defend its rights and interests,” according to the New York Times.
Tensions between the US and China are already high. President Biden launched an investigation in February into China and other unnamed countries over possible vulnerabilities and threats from connected vehicles. Then in May, the White House announced a significant increase in tariffs on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports including semiconductors.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/white-house-calls-for-investigation-into-chinas-alleged-anti-competitive-semiconductor-industry-184030356.html?src=rss

The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) has started a probe into China’s semiconductor industry, looking for anti-competitive trade practices. According to a White House statement, the USTR is looking into China for “acts, policies and practices” that reduced or eliminated competition in the marketplace for semiconductors.

The probe is being conducted through Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974 to examine trade practices for “foundational” semiconductors that are used by the automotive, healthcare, infrastructure, aerospace and defense industries. The White House accused China on Monday of “routinely” engaging in “non-market policies and practices, as well as industrial targeting, of the semiconductor industry” that caused significant harm to its competition and created “dangerous supply chain dependencies,” according to the statement.

If action is taken as a result of the investigation, Section 301 allows the USTR to “impose duties or other import restrictions,” “withdraw or suspend trade agreement concessions” or enter into an agreement with China to “either eliminate the conduct in question…or compensate the US with satisfactory trade benefits,” according to the US Trade Act. Those decisions, however, will be left to President Trump’s administration and incoming USTR Jamieson Greer.

A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement that China “strongly deplores and firmly opposes” the US investigation. The nation would also “take all necessary measures to resolutely defend its rights and interests,” according to the New York Times.

Tensions between the US and China are already high. President Biden launched an investigation in February into China and other unnamed countries over possible vulnerabilities and threats from connected vehicles. Then in May, the White House announced a significant increase in tariffs on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports including semiconductors.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/white-house-calls-for-investigation-into-chinas-alleged-anti-competitive-semiconductor-industry-184030356.html?src=rss

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If you’ve found your TV to be too slow to stream its built-in apps, here’s a decent deal that can help fix things on the cheap: The Roku Streaming Stick 4K is once again on sale for $29. This offer has been available for much of the holiday season, and it’s not an all-time low — the dongle previously fell to $25 toward the end of 2023 — but it does match the largest discount we’ve tracked this year. For reference, Roku normally sells the device for $50, though in recent months it’s often retailed for $34 at third-party retailers like Amazon. Either way, you’re saving a bit more than usual. 
The discount is available at several stores, including Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and Roku.com. If you’re hoping to grab the device as a Christmas gift, that’ll be more of a hassle: Most listings we could find say that it won’t ship until after the holidays, so you’ll likely have to order with in-store pickup at Walmart, Best Buy or another retailer with physical locations.

We recommend the Streaming Stick 4K in our guide to the best streaming devices. It’s not as fast or fluid as a premium set-top box like the Apple TV 4K, but it’s still quick to load up apps and menus, and its tiny design plugs directly into your TV’s HDMI port. It supports just about all of the major HDR formats and streaming services (Twitch aside), plus it works with Apple’s AirPlay 2 protocol, so you can beam content to it from an iPhone. While it can’t decode Dolby Atmos audio on its own, it can pass that audio through to a compatible sound system from apps that support the tech. 
Like other Roku devices, the Streaming Stick 4K is dead-simple to navigate, with a home screen made up from a basic grid of apps. Google’s TV Streamer (the top pick in our guide) is much more proactive about recommending content you might like and getting you back to shows you’ve watched recently, but you might find Roku’s interface easier to take in if you don’t mind surfing for things to watch yourself. 
The UI makes a host of free content easily accessible as well, and we found searching to work fine, even if it’s not quite as robust as Google’s OS. We also like Roku’s mobile app, which lets you control the device and listen in privately with a pair of headphones. As with every other streaming player, there are ads scattered throughout the UI, though Roku is at least a little less aggressive about them than Amazon is with its Fire TV devices. 
A few other Roku devices are still available for their Black Friday prices as well, including the Roku Express 4K+ (which lacks Dolby Vision HDR) for $24 and the Roku Ultra (which has a larger box design, full Atmos support and a more advanced remote) for $79. For most people looking to visit Roku City, though, the Streaming Stick 4K should be the best value. 
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-roku-streaming-stick-4k-is-back-on-sale-for-29-175310234.html?src=rss

If you’ve found your TV to be too slow to stream its built-in apps, here’s a decent deal that can help fix things on the cheap: The Roku Streaming Stick 4K is once again on sale for $29. This offer has been available for much of the holiday season, and it’s not an all-time low — the dongle previously fell to $25 toward the end of 2023 — but it does match the largest discount we’ve tracked this year. For reference, Roku normally sells the device for $50, though in recent months it’s often retailed for $34 at third-party retailers like Amazon. Either way, you’re saving a bit more than usual. 

The discount is available at several stores, including Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and Roku.com. If you’re hoping to grab the device as a Christmas gift, that’ll be more of a hassle: Most listings we could find say that it won’t ship until after the holidays, so you’ll likely have to order with in-store pickup at Walmart, Best Buy or another retailer with physical locations.

We recommend the Streaming Stick 4K in our guide to the best streaming devices. It’s not as fast or fluid as a premium set-top box like the Apple TV 4K, but it’s still quick to load up apps and menus, and its tiny design plugs directly into your TV’s HDMI port. It supports just about all of the major HDR formats and streaming services (Twitch aside), plus it works with Apple’s AirPlay 2 protocol, so you can beam content to it from an iPhone. While it can’t decode Dolby Atmos audio on its own, it can pass that audio through to a compatible sound system from apps that support the tech. 

Like other Roku devices, the Streaming Stick 4K is dead-simple to navigate, with a home screen made up from a basic grid of apps. Google’s TV Streamer (the top pick in our guide) is much more proactive about recommending content you might like and getting you back to shows you’ve watched recently, but you might find Roku’s interface easier to take in if you don’t mind surfing for things to watch yourself. 

The UI makes a host of free content easily accessible as well, and we found searching to work fine, even if it’s not quite as robust as Google’s OS. We also like Roku’s mobile app, which lets you control the device and listen in privately with a pair of headphones. As with every other streaming player, there are ads scattered throughout the UI, though Roku is at least a little less aggressive about them than Amazon is with its Fire TV devices. 

A few other Roku devices are still available for their Black Friday prices as well, including the Roku Express 4K+ (which lacks Dolby Vision HDR) for $24 and the Roku Ultra (which has a larger box design, full Atmos support and a more advanced remote) for $79. For most people looking to visit Roku City, though, the Streaming Stick 4K should be the best value. 

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-roku-streaming-stick-4k-is-back-on-sale-for-29-175310234.html?src=rss

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