Its a new year, and that can mean only one thing if you are a fan of HiRez Studio’s third person action MOBA SMITE: The Smite World Championships start today. In fact, through the magic of the internet this post should be going live just about the time the opening ceremonies start. Teams from all around the world have fought through their own regional seasons and HiRez has brought the winners of each league to Atlanta, GA to fight for the title of World Champion.

The first day of competition will be the placing round. Only two teams have earned a bye on this round, Cloud9 G2A and Paradigm. The rest of the competitors will have to fight their way into the Quarterfinals via a Best of 1 format. Once the contenders for the Quarterfinals have been decided, the tournament will switch to a Best of 3 format, with the grand finals being a Best of 5.

You can expect some very tense matches over the first day of competition leading into the quarterfinals. The Australian, Chinese and Latin American teams have a lot to prove as they step onto the world stage, most of them for the first time. North America and Europe will look to defend their dominance in the Smite competitive scene. Cloud9 G2A in particular looks to repeat as world champions.

Also on display will be Xbox One Smite, with four invitational leagues. It promises to be a great weekend for you if you love SMITE. And if you are there, send us some tweets from the show floor!

You know, I have to hand it to Acer. Once derided for being a manufacture of cheap computing goods that were also cheap in quality (I recall various horror stories of laptops whose screens would fall apart with very little force, among other tales), these days the company has made a niche for themselves in making electronics that are solidly built and offer something interesting while still remaining fairly priced. So it is with their latest product lines as announced by the company today: the R1 and the H7 series of monitors, and the next generation of its XR series.

Let’s be up front here. None of these monitors would qualify as “gaming” screens for those who take gaming seriously. However, all three models offer vibrant IPS panels with 178-degree wide viewing angles; and each has a different, unique touch for their price.

Take the new R1 series monitors, which seem very much geared towards the Apple creed that “thinner is always better”. Acer claims this range contains the “world’s thinnest” monitors with under 7mm thickness, and that its ZeroFrame design maximizes the view with an ultra-thin bezel. Monitors in this range will be available in a range of five sizes – 21.5, 23, 23.8, 25, and 27-inches wide – and will be capable of pixel resolutions up to 1920×1080 (making them 16:9 widescreens). Monitors in this series will first hit Europe this month (January) with prices starting at €139. North America will see them later in the first quarter of the year with prices starting at $130; other territories are to be confirmed.

For those who prefer function over form, the next set of monitors might be more interesting. Acer’s second new range of monitors, the H7 series, will include USB Type-C connectors allowing devices to be connected to the screen. While USB Type-C is still not hugely common, the standard is gaining traction and is already used to charge and for fast data transfer between smartphones, USB Hard Drives and other peripherals; and is likely to become more popular as time goes on. While still widescreen 16:9 format, screens in this range will not only have a higher screen resolution than the R1s – with a stated max of 2560×1440 – but will also be larger, with 25 and 27-inch models. They won’t be as thin, but will feature the same ZeroFrame design, to maximise the screen space. Europe can expect these monitors to reach their shores February, America later in Q1, with prices in both territories starting at 500 euros/dollars respectively. Acer claim USB 3.0 in a monitor is a “world first”, although Lenovo also announced similar monitors mere hours before.

Last but not least, Acer also revealed the next model in its range of XR series monitors. The snappily-named XR342CK feature a curved 34-inch 21:9 panel at a resolution of 3440×1440, and could reasonably pass as a good gaming screen as it uses Freesync technology for a super-fast refresh rate. Naturally it has a price to match – this model is only currently confirmed for Europe, and will retail at €1,100 in March, with other territories to be confirmed later.

At the moment Rainbow Six Siege is thrilling people who are into counter-terrorism games… and those of us who love to watch our friends die to a suicidal NPC covered in bombs. Now the news has emerged that its first DLC will not be coming as soon as expected.

The DLC named Black Ice has now been delayed until February, coming the 2nd for season pass holders and a week later on the 9th for those without. The DLC had been scheduled to release sometime this month, but the change was announced over Twitter after a fan noticed that there was conflicting information on the game’s official site and Ubisoft’s own support pages.

Black Ice will come with two new characters as well as a new map, with season pass holders getting the characters immediately and non-pass holders having to earn those characters through spending in-game cash or the real-life equivalent. The map is free to all though.

This is just the first of Siege’s DLC, of which Ubisoft suggested there could be up to eight. All are said to be unlockable without spending real-life money though if enough hours are put into the game.

After a lot of waiting and distribution of dev kits to developers, Oculus have finally announced in a blog post that they’re preparing to start taking pre-orders for the release version of their virtual reality headset.

The day in question will be this Wednesday, the 6th of January at around 8am Pacific it’s estimated. There’s been no confirmed price or shipping date for the headsets in the post unfortunately, but the post has said that they’ll be revealed on the 6th as well. It also confirms the two pre-order games it will come with: EVE: Valkyrie an N64-style platformer game, Lucky’s Tale.

The CEO of Oculus, Palmer Luckey will also be doing a Reddit AMA on the same date to answer questions from gamers and also to do some general PR. A link will be made public closer to the time. There’s also been some hints from him that shipping might come during Q1 of 2016, although the Oculus Touch hardware has been confirmed to be delayed until the second half of the year.

Are you interested yet? Do you think that the Rift will win the VR race this time round or will it fall behind now that competition has emerged?

Another year, another set of game releases. 2015 is coming to a close, and it’s time to do that cliched YouTuber/journalist/blogger look back deal. Oh yay, you cry! Another totally subjective Top 10 of the best and the worst. To you I say: Hold on just a minute. For starters, you clearly didn’t read the title of the article! Theres that whole most disappointing category! Besides, I hate top 10 lists. However, this will be a totally subjective set of games. My criteria were simple. How much fun did I have with the game? Thats pretty much it. So, on to the land of subjective 2015 awards we go!

Most Surprising Game of 2015: Press X To Not Die

Hear me out. This game was something that Scarlet Dragon and I picked up on a whim for It’s On Steam, How Bad Can It Be? If memory serves me correctly, it was her suggestion. We weren’t expecting much out of this game. It looked like a bunch of quicktime events sewn together with lousy GoPro footage. What we got instead, was a solid evening of the most face hurting, side splitting, stomach muscle cramping laughter I’ve had in quite some time.  As the main character, you exit your room only to have your friend tell you that you must “Press X to not die!” moments before he is stabbed to death. From there, you embark on a journey to save your girlfriend and escape the rampaging townsfolk. That might sound simple, and it is. But for me, it’s the writing, the sincere acting and the utterly insane setups that make this game such a huge surprise. Prompts such as “Press X to not be choked to death by a clown” or “Press Y to kick him in the balls” or even the great “Press B to spy on your girlfriend in the shower” (spoiler, that one leads to you being gutted by a katana as she calls you a loser) are just some of the examples of the humor that the team over at All Seeing Eye Games infused into their game.

With multiple choices to make, a gallery of deaths, high scores and different endings, Press X To Not Die had us rolling with laughter. I can’t wait for a sequel. The game was funny, fun to play and came out of absolutely nowhere, which is why it is my Most Surprising Game of 2015.

Most Disappointing Game of 2015: Fallout 4

I can see the pitchfork wielding mob outside my house right now.  Like many gamers, I was swept up in the hype machine of Fallout 4. I loved Fallout 3, and I had huge hopes for the fourth installment. Complete character customization for male and female characters? New wasteland areas to explore? Gun crafting and settlement building? Fallout 4 was going to be GREAT!

And then it released. It was a buggy mess. But thats fine, it’s a Bethesda game. After I sorted through the INI files to uncap the framerate, turn off mouse smoothing and fix the terrible FOV, I set out to really explore Fallout 4.  Thats when I realized something. As an RPG, it is arguably one of the worst in the genre I’ve played in the past 3 years. Conversation choices are limited,with no way to tell if your character is going to say what you intended them to.  The factions are way to quick to welcome you as the chosen hero of legend etc. after you complete only one mission for them. And there is literally no opportunity for actual roleplay in the game. The character you play is simply a pair of pants that you pilot about the game and fill with tin cans and desk fans.

As a first person shooter, it is merely servicable, and even that is being a bit overly nice to it’s gunplay. Movement is sluggish, the gunplay feels stiff and awkward and NPC animations are oftentimes just as stiff and awkward.  When it comes to telling a meaningful story, I’m still not even sure what the story of Fallout 4 IS. I got distracted by shiny things within three seconds and the game doesn’t punish me for it or impart any sense of urgency into anything I do. However, as a junk collecting simulator, Fallout 4 excels as no other game in recent memory has. I happily wandered away from the supposedly imperative story arc of saving my son to scavenge for typewriters for 5 hours, all to feed my growing addiction to screws that I needed to feed my ever growing demand for better guns.

Do I dislike Fallout 4? No. I’ve had a decent amount of fun with it. But it’s not an RPG. Nor is it a first person shooter. It’s something in between, a sandbox littered with tons and tons of junk for you to convert into weapons and settlements, story and sidequests that have little to no emotional impact and NPCs that oftentimes look like partially melted action figures. Add that on top of the fact that Bethesda has been trotting out the same engine, with the same bugs game after game while only slapping a fresh coat of paint over the rust, and I’m beginning to lose a lot of my goodwill towards the studio. Fallout 4 isn’t a bad game. It just falls far short of the hype leading up to its release. Honestly, I feel that even without that hype the game would still be disappointing. It’s a breathtakingly vast expanse of wasteland with the depth of a kiddie pool, and that is why Fallout 4 is my Most Disappointing Game of 2015.

Worst Game of 2015: Ninja Guy

I don’t even know where to start with this game. Awful graphics, terrible controls, boring level design, repetitive objectives and racist jokes. I think this game ticks all the boxes for bad game design. You play as the titular Ninja Guy who must…prove himself to his Cow Sensei as he battles from a peaceful village to a twisted hellscape. At least, the game’s description promises a twisted hellscape. Personally, I gave up after the second level. The very walking animations hinder the game. Stiff and unwieldy, anything more unlike a ninja than Ninja Guy would be hard to imagine. Almost all attacks cause you to lose directional control of the ninja, the one liners are repetitive and borderline racist. In fact, I feel like I’m being repetitive with this description of the game. Its bad. Really bad. I’ll let past me walk you through his suffering, I can’t endure the flashbacks.

Ninja Guy. Worst Game 2015.

Best Game of 2015: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

There are few games that have ever left me as awed as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. From the moment you step into the shoes of Geralt, you know that you are in for something special.  The beautiful, haunting and often cruel landscape of Witcher 3 is packed full of things to do. Sidequests in this game often have as much voice actinv and meat to them as the main quests of other RPGs. From the outset, you can feel that Geralt is not a one man world saving machine. Your actions have consequences, often unseen for hours, but they won’t shift the entire world. Sure, they may influence one city or change the fate of a character. But rarely are they as earth shattering as conventional RPGs. With a focus on deep lore, deep conversation trees and two vast open areas to explore, it might seem like thats all you need from a game. But CD Projekt Red has taken things one step further. Geralt’s formidable combat abilities are further enhanced by oils, bombs and the help of weapon and armorsmiths you find in the world. Careful preperation is the key to taking down fearsome Griffons and Basilisks. Seldom do you come across one of these beasts and not feel a bit of awe.

Of course, we haven’t even touched on Gwent. This ubiquitous card game is more than a distraction in Witcher 3. There are entire events that can be shaped and changed depending on playing a card game. I personally know several friends who are hopelessly addicted to Gwent, yet won’t even touch Hearthstone. While I’m not overly fond of it, it speaks volumes that so many people are clamoring for a standalone release of Gwent.

Put simply, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a vast, sprawling world packed with interesting lore, deep and meaningful quests, colorful NPCs and enemies and an amazing wealth of things to do- all while staying far away from the typical open world trap of throwing in filler activities. With an engrossing storyline and free DLC coming out steadily, this is one RPG that will sink its hooks into you and won’t let go. From the joy of visceral combat against a gang of Drowners to the breathtaking seas of Skellige, Witcher 3 is one of the best RPGs ever made, let alone in 2015. And thats why The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is my best game of 2015.

What games did you love or hate this year?

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