Asus Z170 Pro Gaming

The pricing isn’t premium, but what about the performance?

That gamer ‘look’ and great performance, but without the usual premium pricing. That’s the proposition-going-on-salespitch for Asus’s new Z170 Pro Gaming. It’s the affordable option for performance freaks. Of course, you could also say this ain’t no Asus ROG or TUF board. It’s a poverty-spec item you’d only buy if you can’t afford something better. So which is it, Barry bargain or false economy?

Meet Your Maker

Many tools have been released over the years that claimed to make game development accessible to all. Software like Klik ‘n’ Play and DarkBASIC promised an easy route into game design, either through simplified programming languages or avoiding coding altogether. But there’s a difference between making game design accessible, and making professional game design accessible.

That’s where the other apps fell short, and where GameMaker: Studio is different. “I think that when we released Studio, the product changed and the user-base changed,” says Stuart Poole, head of production at YoYoGames, the makers of GameMaker: Studio. “People are now using this as a tool to make a living.”

Dark Soul

The story behind THE WITCHER 3’s best quest, and the flawed, human character at its heart

When Geralt of Rivia arrives in Velen, searching for his adopted daughter Ciri, he finds a war-ravaged no man’s land. Dead soldiers litter the fields – the aftermath of a bloody war between Temeria and the invading Nilfgaardians – and deserters hang from trees, bags over their heads, swaying gently in the breeze. Yet despite this horror and devastation, Velen is also a place of startling natural beauty, of lush forests and rolling hills.

Remembering… Amstrad Sinclair PC200

This week, we check out an unfamiliar PC with a familiar name

Back in 1988, Amstrad had the idea that people may want to actually have a portable version of an IBM PC, and thus the Amstrad PPC512 and the Amstrad PPC640 came into being. Both had an 8MHz NEC V30 processor, 512KB of memory, a full-sized keyboard and a tiny LCD display. They both ran MS-DOS 3.3, and featured a number of business-based software packages.

Dropsy

A surreal adventure game about being nice to people

The key to Dropsy is the hug system. Anyone you see – and some inanimate objects – can be hugged. Dropsy may look like the stuff of nightmares, but he has a heart of gold. Not everyone will want to hug him at first, though. First you have to make them like you by completing sidequests. For every successful hug, Dropsy pins a picture of the hugee to the wall above his bed.He’s a serial hugger, whose hunger for hugs cannot be sated, and the most unlikely videogame hero of the year.