Intel’s Core i3, i5, and i7 branding has been around for well over a decade now, starting with the release of Nehalem chips back in 2009. It’s been through a few iterations since then, namely the introduction of a higher Core i9 tier back in 2017, but its biggest shake-up might be on the way with next-gen Meteor Lake chips.

Intel might be ditching the ‘i’ from Core i3, Core i5, etc., and in some cases replacing it with the word “Ultra”.

The rumours first started when an Ashes of the Singularity benchmark showed up with a Meteor Lake chip in testing called the Core Ultra 5 1003H (via Videocardz). That’s a bit of a weird name even without the Ultra stuffed in there, but this isn’t a desktop chip. It’s likely a mobile processor from the specs listed in a SiSoft benchmark databa…

What more does one need to add to a story headline like the one above? Basically just that thread below—go read it and then come back and tell me you weren’t absorbed even if you had no idea what they were talking about half the time. 

Essentially a person buys a prison laptop off eBay, tinkers with it to see if they can make it work, then tumbles down an enormous rabbit hole of astonishing things you never knew about tech in jails. That alone makes it sound really cool but the whole story, replete with neat pictures and help from other readers, just makes it the best thing I’ve read in a long time.

The person in question is zephray_wenting on X (or Twitter, if you prefer) and the journey begins with a look at the laptop in question: An older model of Justice Tech…

At this year’s MysteriumCon, Myst creator Cyan Worlds provided a first look at alpha gameplay of its upcoming remake of Riven: The Sequel to Myst. The short demo came at the end of a presentation where it was also revealed that Riven’s original co-director, Richard Vander Wende, has been heading up the remake.

The demo showed off a portion from the middle of the game, with a puzzle involving a large boiler on the shores of a lake and some scaffolding leading out from the shore. The look of the thing reminds me a lot of Cyan Worlds’ 2021 remake of Myst, and like that first remake, Riven’s gorgeous, dreamy aesthetic survives the shift from pre-rendered scenes to realtime, full-3D exploration.

Time will tell if the remake is able to handle the gameplay transition better than My…

In a move that stunned onlookers (me) and assembled experts (also me) are describing as “mystifying,” Rockstar has finally come out and announced its freeing Red Dead Redemption 1 from its PS3 and Xbox 360 prison, by, uh, porting it to the Nintendo Switch and the… PS4? Apparently so!

Announced today, the new “conversion” of the original RDR is set to leave its outdated platforms behind in favour of other, different outdated platforms on August 17, marking the anticlimax of a story which got properly started in June this year, when the Korean game rating agency let slip that it had taken a look at a game called “Red Dead Redemption”. It’s not coming to PC at all, which is as confusing as it is kind of funny, in that way despair is funny.

Plenty of people—myself i…

It’s a rare delight to discover that a game you hadn’t considered not only has an active modding community, but has one with some really clever boffins doing some awesome work. As is the case with Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, a game that came out in 2015 but is still receiving new workshop content almost a decade later.

Enter TF2 Zombies: A loving recreation of 2Fort (a map so iconic and recognisable in gaming that it’s only outdone by Dust) all within Black Ops 3. You can see it showcased by YouTuber FPSpsycho below, though considering the map has 43,520 subscribers at the time of writing and was posted in May, it’s been in the ecosystem for a while.

Watch On

What’s really impressive here is the attention to detail—this isn’t just an asset flip with a bunch of CoD model…

Tropical archipelago adventure Tchia is soul jumping to Steam in March next year, and will be bringing with it a bunch of new features and cosmetics in a free update.

As revealed during the PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted, the Steam version of Tchia will launch with a new perks system for outfits, adding various special powers to the game’s equipable items—think environmental resistances, stamina boosts and other stat buffs. Elsewhere, new cosmetic accessories will be hidden about, so you’ll be able to sail the Pacific shores while looking dashing in a top hat.

Tchia’s ukulele will also get a tune-up. A bunch more soul melodies will be added, including a tune that allows you to launch a powerful energy blast, and another that throws you through the…

Listen, I’m not an expert in home decoration. In fact, I’m probably the last person qualified to give advice on such matters—one thing I can say for certain, however, is that you probably don’t want to bring a prospective date home with a three-foot pile of plastic poo on your coffee table.

Yet, that’s now a very real possibility. First 4 Figures, who’ve made figurines for games like Dark Souls and Silent Hill in the past, have now birthed this great monstrosity. It’s a massive statue the size of a person’s torso that depicts The Great Mighty Poo, a boss from Rare’s beloved and seedy collectathon Conker’s Bad Fur Day.

The Great Mighty Poo is a musical auteur of sorts, singing an operatic dirge to bring you a stinky death at the hands of his literal shit-flinging. You d…

Look, I love a good conveyor belt, but every factory game has them now. What if we had a fleet of programmable drones, instead? Ones we could set behaviors and automatic decision trees for based on the growing needs of our automated empire? That’s the goal in Desynced, an upcoming Early Access game that wants to take the best bits of a few genres and mash ’em together

The developers at Stage Games call it an “an automation game without belts, bringing together the best elements of base building, factory management and real time strategy genres.”

“Alone or with friends, set up mining operations, expand your logistics network, research new components for your bots and buildings, and survive hordes of alien bugs infesting the planet,” they continue.

I’m totally enraptured…

Ubisoft has excelled itself with the PR for Assassin’s Creed Mirage, coming up with one of the daftest PR stunts I’ve ever seen and, yes, I’m writing about it so it worked. Forget people in vans with parcels. What the gamers need, you see, is a bird of prey delivering the latest hotness straight to their door.

The publisher says it is “trialling” a new type of airmail, in which “iconic birds of prey, who have starred in every single videogame across the franchise’s 15-year history” are lumbered with a copy of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and carry it in their beak to a gamer’s house. It even has the gall to say that the recipient is “eagle-y” awaiting their game.

Ubisoft dressed up some model as an assassin and sent over various shots of the poor animal carrying around a PS5 jew…