So the release date for the re-releases of GTA on the next-gen consoles and PC have been made public. For the consoles, you can expect to get the games from November 18th. and PC? January 27th. 2015.

It’s a little disappointing for those of us who have been waiting since the game came out originally on the last generation consoles, but it’s not all bad. As we’ve covered before, GTA V’s PC version will have quite a few edges over the console versions. Among the changes will be a greater draw distance, better foliage, more traffic and enhanced radio stations with 100 new tracks and re-recorded and new DJ voiceovers available to listen to. And for those of you who prefer to treat the streets of any Grand Theft Auto game like a destruction derby (hey, I don’t blame you), there will be improved damage so that your vehicle-based hijinks will cause damage that should be more ‘realistic’.

This isn’t all that has been promised as improvements to the game, so maybe it is worth waiting for the extra few months to get the game. More time should mean a better port. Right?

Hearthstone’s been around long enough now that there are strategies that are well known to regular players. Love them or loathe them, strategy is strategy. Most annoying is when a strategy cannot be countered though, and once again Blizzard have stepped in with some changes to stop some of the more notorious.

Leeroy Jenkins for those unaware is a 4-cost Charge creature that has an attack power of 6 and a health of 2, who also summons two 1/1 Whelps for your opponent. The idea is that you get to smack your opponent with a powerful Charge hit, but also hand your opponent the means to remove said card in their next turn if they should choose to. Things never go as planned though, and the card is often the centre of strategies that combine him with cards such as Shadowstep and Power Overwhelming that aim to smack your opponent for ridiculous amounts of damage getting as bad as 20+ health at the more extreme ends.

The nerf seems minor, upping the mana cost to 5, but as you only ever get up to 10 mana per turn at best (unless you’re a Druid with the right cards) it puts a limit on how ridiculous a ‘Leeroy Bounce’ can get in a turn.

Another minion has seen some changes as well. Starving Buzzard is a Hunter card that cost 2 mana, had 2 attack and 1 health and let you draw a card with every Beast summoned. It’s a useful Beast, I have one in my own Hunter deck. Seems that Blizzard considered the card draw too high though because they’ve now seriously upped its mana cost to 5 and gives it new stats of 3 attack and 2 health.

It’s up to you whether you consider either of these changes as a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, you’re going to have to get used to playing a familiar deck with a slight balance change towards the higher mana cost cards.

Forza 5 launched with some nasty micro-transactions, made more upsetting by the fact that people already spent $60 to buy it.

Players were pissed, and creator Turn 10 spent months re-tuning the otherwise solid racer. What does this mean for open-world spin-off Forza Horizon 2? No micro-transactions whatsoever.  At first.

Ralph Fulton, of Playground Studios’ (Forza Horizon 2’s primary developer) talked openly about the prospect of being able to spend real money on things—cars, upgrades, and the like—otherwise earn-able in-game at a recent preview event in San Francisco, and he didn’t mince words: the firestorm that came down on Forza 5 provided a valuable—though indirect—learning experience for the Horizon team.

“Obviously we couldn’t help but notice what happened with Forza 5,” he said. “Absolutely. But at the same time, I did feel bad for the team [at Forza Motorsport creator Turn 10]. They worked incredibly hard on that game and then things erupted.”

Their solution, then, is to launch at the end of this month with no in-game micro-transactions, no cars buy-able for real money, whatsoever.

You either earn your way to the top or stall out at the starting line. Why? Playground wants to make sure the game’s economy isn’t broken—that is, obnoxiously slow for people who don’t spend real money—like Forza 5’s initially was. They also want to show fans that this game is designed to be fair and rewarding first and foremost, that it won’t repeat the sins of its series cousin.

“We’re not trying to short-change anybody out of the experience,” he said. “We want a massive amount of content available to everyone on day one.”

“There’s a twofold strategy to that. First, we want to make sure our economy is as we planned it. From the start, we want to make sure progression, the economy, the amount of credits you get in the game—that all of that is fair and rewarding. Our job is to make you feel good about your progression. We need to make sure that’s the case once the game is out in the wild and people can play it.”

“The second half of that is to demonstrate to everyone else—to the players—that we have a game which is balanced such that you never need to spend a penny on it. It will reward you. You will feel great. You’ll feel like a rockstar for the progression you make through it.”

How exactly will that work, though? What’s the difference between “feeling like a rockstar” (or, you know, a famous race car driver, which might have been a more apt analogy) and feeling like you’re being swindled by a used car salesman? Fulton explained it like this:

“We tried to make the game really generous. We give you two or three cars in the first hour. The wheelspin mechanic [that gives you a random reward when you level up] is really important too. Everybody loves a slot machine, and you have that sense that you’ll be leveling up every 15 or 20 minutes. With that, you have this next opportunity to get more cash or even to get a car.”

Horizon 2’s world is allegedly three times larger than that of the first Forza Horizon, too. Fulton boasted that doing everything in it would take at least 100 hours.

Of course for now, that’s just a boast… empty air, no substance. What I can say with certainty is that in my experience of the game’s first hour, rewards came fast and furious. I leveled twice and got pretty good in-game money both times. I also won a championship in my muddy, thoroughly-dented-from-driving-like-a-maniac Camaro, which netted me even more glittering prizes. Also my car’s mutant healing factor kicked in after I crossed the finish line, so I didn’t have to pay pesky repair fees or anything like that.

As is, Forza Horizon 2’s economy—at least, at this early point—inspires confidence. We’re not entirely in the clear, though. Assuming players largely get on well with Forza’s new, more generous side, Playground hopes to add micro-transactions at a later date.

“I’m sure there will come a time when we want to offer our players more choice,” said Fulton. “But we won’t do that at first. The crucial thing is to make this point [about our economy] to our fans.”

An admirable goal. I’ll confess, I’m not in love with the idea of putting micro-transactions in a $60 game at all, but—for the time being—it’s looking like The Way Of The Future. Here’s hoping more creators opt to nail down the, you know, fun side of their reward systems first and then sweat the other details. If Playground keeps to its word, Forza Horizon 2 will at least provide a good model to follow.

In a joint effort between Overkill, the makers of Payday 2, and Dennaton Games, the makers of Hotline Miami, a new DLC has been spawned. A DLC for the former game that will take cues from the latter.

The DLC will release on September the 30th so there’s not long to wait for it either. When asked about the DLC Overkill said “Why is Payday 2 getting Hotline Miami DLC? “Because we at Overkill fucking love Hotline Miami”

There’s no price yet, but given that previous Payday DLC packs have never cost more than £4.99 and a few were even free it’s not expected to be that pricey an add-on. Overkill are known for being pretty generous with their community around the Payday 2 game as well, so that bodes well.

The Oculus Rift’s second version is proving to be pretty popular, enough so that the company has had to cut off a supply flow of their development kit 2s to people who were selling on the hardware for a marked up price. A consumer release has yet to be officially announced, but some sources are suggesting that it could be as soon as mid-spring of next year.

Several places claim to have gotten hold of leaked copies of the VR company’s plan, which will manifest as a limited rollout in April 2015 so that Oculus can gauge the interest for the second version of their headset first before they release it to a wider audience. However that date isn’t a definite and the release could well be pushed back for a summer release instead.

Last week it was revealed that they wish to keep the price within the $200-$400 price range; that’s about £123-£245 for those of us in the UK. As of writing the dev kits are still available to purchase for around £215 or $350.