On February 4th, Nvidia has pushed their cloud gaming service live to the public, exiting an extensive beta period. Called GeForce Now, it’s designed to allow gamers access to extremely high end gaming machines via streaming.

Basically, Nvidia connects to your existing gaming libraries, on services like Steam & Epic, and allows you to play cloud-based copies of those games via GeForce Now

This could be a particularly inexpensive solution for people that have an older PC or Macs, unable to push high-end graphic performance. The service also works on Nvidia Shield devices as well as Android devices (with 2GB with Android 5.0 (L) or later).

At launch, Nvidia is offering two tiers, a free-to-play option and a $5-a-month Founders edition. The 1st tier is limited to 1-hour sessions and you have to wait in a queue to connect. The Founders level offers a priority queue as well as sessions up to 6 hours as well as RTX (ray tracing) activated.

Of course, the quality of your stream is going to be highly dependent on the bandwidth you pay for. For instance, streaming at the highest bitrate at 1080p and 60 frames per second will require a 50 Mbps download speed. And if you have monthly data caps with your ISP, you could quickly hit your cap as that setting streams 15 GB of data per hour.

Of course, you can scale down data use with Nvidia’s preset data profiles. You also have the option of scaling up to 4K resolution and 120 frames per second. Be aware that anyone else on your network could potentially reduce the quality of your gaming stream if using other services like Netflix.

With high-end gaming PC’s potentially costing in the thousands (depending on how much you sink into your monitor / gaming cards), Geforce Now could be a bargain option for someone that simply can’t afford to upgrade for new, advanced games like CyberPunk 2077.

You can sign up for the free tier here. Just FYI, the Founders edition does come with a 90-day free trial. You can play for the first 90 days before being charged. Check out the video below to see GeForce Now on multiple platforms:

Shut Up and Take My Money: Geforce Now Cloud Gaming Service

Attempting to become Steam’s main competitor in the PC gaming marketplace (arguably using some questionable strategies via exclusivity), Epic Games is taking a page out of Steam’s book with their first store-wide sale.

While some games are simply on sale, Epic is also offering an unlimited use $10-off discount on all orders $14.99 or more. It works on preorders as well. Borderlands 3, for instance, is available for $49.99 after discount.

How long does the Sale last?

The sale starts on May 16, 2019 and runs through June 13, 2019.

Does the $10 Discount work on DLC?

No. It’s also not going to work on in-game purchase items. You wouldn’t be able to use it for Fortnite credits, for instance.

Is the $10 Discount Retroactive?

Yes, for the last two weeks. If you purchased a game $14.99 or higher between May 2 and May 15 on the Epic Games store, you will receive a $10 refund on your purchase credited to your original payment method.

Any Free Games?

Yes! Epic is giving away at least one game every two weeks during the sale. The first free game, Stories Untold, is available between May 16 through May 30. A second free game, RiME, will become available on May 23 through May 30.

What are some of the Best Deals for this sale?

• World War Z for $19.99. (MSRP: $35)
• Subnautica: Below Zero (Early Access) for $9.99. (MSRP: $20)
• John Wick Hex for $7.99 (MSRP: $20)
• Metro Exodus for $34.99 (MSRP: $50)
• The Walking Dead: The Final Season for $4.99 (MSRP $20)

What if I’m outside the United States?

If you are in a region outside of the United States, you are really in luck. The deals are insane compared to the U.S. store. Borderlands 3 preorder for $20 in Russia, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 preorder for $9, Metro Exodus for $7, Detroit: Become Human for $10, etc… For U.S. residents that try to roll the dice on a preorder purchase via VPN, be aware there are no guarantees the game will activate at launch.

How to find the Best Deals at the first Epic Games Store Sale

For anyone that grew up in the early eighties, the Commodore 64 was one of the early home platforms enjoyed by the video gaming community (before Nintendo rolled out the original NES).

The C64 was immensely popular with video game enthusiasts, namely for the vast library of games as well as the built-in screen that came with the SX-64 model, ideal for taking games on the go.

Of course, the Commodore 64 Mini is significantly smaller than the original hardware. Available on October 8 for $80, the C64 Mini comes with 64 built-in games and a classic C64 Joystick. the actually computer is built into the classic keyboard (non-functional) design, ideal for saving space.

The device comes equipped with a bit a new tech, namely HDMI out for running games on the big screen (720p) and two USB ports. The USB ports are for plugging in a full-sized functional keyboard, an additional joystick for multiplayer games as well as running additional games off a USB stick (max size 64GB).

Using C64 BASIC computer programming language, you can create your own games or download code for other games from the C64 community.  The hardware can also be updated via the USB drive with future updates.

Some of the more popular, built-in games include:

• California Games
• Summer Games II
• Winter Games
• World Games
• Impossible Mission I & II
• Jumpman
• Pitstop II
• Speedball II: Brutal Deluxe
• Street Sports Baseball
• Temple of Apshai Trilogy.

The full list of games is here. You can preorder at Walmart for the retail price. Amazon also has it, but the price is being inflated by third party sellers. The promo teaser video can be seen below:

Shut Up and Take My Money: Commodore 64 Mini

An alien invasion, a red cubic hero, and a renegade goat make up the players in Microsoft’s odd, marginally satisfying freebies for Gold members in the month of June. Each console seems to have a little bit of a theme going for it. For the Xbox One, they’re offering two radically different open-world games, one made for driving around and one made for head-butting around. And for the Xbox 360, they’ve delivered two games that pride themselves on their difficulty among radically different genres, from the nostalgic reflexes of platforming to turn-based strategy in a science-fiction environment.

Click Here to Grab a 12-Month Xbox Live Gold Subscription at Amazon

Coffee Stain Studios

Xbox One

Goat Simulator (June 1-30)

Originally released for the PC, Goat Simulator began at Coffee Stain Studios as little more than a joke wrapped around an early alpha tech demo. As seen in early YouTube videos, the studio had produced an insane, at times barely-functional experience devoted to unleashing chaos upon an open-world space from the perspective of a goat, driven by style points and filled with quirky bugs throughout. By request of viewers, and with the wackiness intact, Goat Simulator eventually dropped in on the Steam platform as a (relatively) finished game, and then galloped over to the Xbox One.  The enjoyment someone will get out of this critic-proof oddity will likely depend on the longevity of its novelty value: a blend of world demolition, Tony Hawk-esque freestyle traveling, and glitchy surreal humor.

The Crew (June 16-July 15)

Ubisoft paired up with the folks at Ivory Tower, the French development team made up of Need for Speed and Test Drive veterans, to assemble the newest riff on the next-gen racing experience, simply titled The Crew. An online-centered action racer, it features a sprawling environment to zoom through and a story mode that seems like it’d feel right at home in the Fast and the Furious movie franchise. While critics were kind to the vast landscape and narrative, they were equally harsh to its visual presentation and other issues familiar to Ubisoft with the likes of Assassin’s Creed: Unity: the online integration and the frequent microtransaction functions.   Noble intentions and novel design concepts are left in the dust because of its other pursuits.

Firaxis Games

Xbox 360

Super Meat Boy (June 1-15)

Following up on the success of their Flash-based game, Meat Boy, the duo of Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes furthered the platforming goodness with the aptly titled Super Meat Boy. As the titular hero in search of his girlfriend, the equally square Bandage Girl, the player scales walls and avoids the sharp ends of spikes and twirling blades across over 300 levels, leaving gory little stains in the little guy’s wake. In a style reminiscent of Super Mario Bros., both in its level design and its precise control handling, Super Meat Boy has justly earned its reputation for being both a blast from the past and quite punishing in its difficulty.  It’s not going to be for everyone, but it really hits the spot for those who relish a challenge.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown (June 16-30)

Microsoft continues its run of demanding games this month with XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a tweaked remake of a mid-’90s strategy game. The team at Firaxis Games tries to land in that mythical space between real-time and turn-based strategy combat with their science-fiction outing, which depicts the XCOM military organization embroiled in a modern-era defense front against invading aliens. Between commanding a squad of soldiers during tactical strikes from a top-down perspective, the player uses their strategic maneuvers to navigate the research and development initiative against the invaders, improving the base of operations and allocating resources. What resulted from Firaxis’ efforts has been regarded as a taxing yet rewarding experience that transcends its turn-based roots, driven by the tension of its atmosphere and combat.

Xbox Rams Ahead With Indies, Toughies With June’s Games With Gold

Possibly in response to the fact that last month’s offerings were dominated by sequels, Sony decided to offer up a more diverse variety of original works and franchise installments for its free PlayStation Plus games in June.  That includes a pair of inventive, outside-the-box indies that stretch the boundaries of what one might think about in terms of traditional gaming, though it also covers a prequel to one of the company’s flagship action series and a reinvention of a classic PS2 horror game.   All points considered, we’re looking at a pretty solid month for PS+ subscribers.

Click Here to Grab a 1-Year PlayStation Plus Subscription at Amazon

The Fullbright Company

PS4

Gone Home

Fans of classic point-and-click adventures like Myst, Shivers, and  The 7th Guest will likely be drawn to the concept behind Gone Home, a first-person mystery simulator about investigating a mansion and digging around for clues as to why it’s abandoned. Telling the personal story of early-twenties Kaitlin Greenbriar as she returns home from abroad,  the narrative unravels by peering into her family’s personal life through relics found around their house. As it rewards players the deeper they explore the mansion’s corridors and objects, a somber story comes to light about ’90s crazes, conflicted teenagers, and timely relationship woes. It’s not a game built on a fantastical premise or driven by set objectives, though, other than the personal satisfaction of deducing the heart of the family’s turmoil, and that results in a well-crafted but somewhat polarizing narrative-driven experience.

NBA 2K16

The latest basketball joint from Visual Concepts and 2K Sports arrives with one distinct new addition: a story mode for the MyCareer feature handled by film director Spike Lee. It’s a talking point that saturated the marketing for NBA 2K16, and gauging by the response to the unpleasant characters and sloppy dialogue, it probably shouldn’t have been so prominently featured. Beyond that, the latest entry in this longstanding, well-regarded basketball series makes the expected handful of refinements and mode overhauls to the previous installment, many of which deepen and enrich its NBA simulation aspects. Most importantly, even with an ambitious roster of tweaks to other areas, it seems that NBA 2K16 has retained the same tight, realistic gameplay celebrated by fans in prior years.

Sony Japan

PS3

Echochrome

Despite also being released on the PSP around the same time, SCE Japan’s Echochrome was among the first real head-turning downloads to arrive on the PlayStation network. Mimicking the skewed perspectives of M.C. Escher’s artwork, the game features a walking mannequin –the type typically used by artists for sketching — that moves along disjointed pathways created by angular blocks, staircases, and holes in the ground. While rotating the structures to complete broken planks and cover up those holes, all rendered in minimal black and white designs, the player attempts to create a fluid, consistent path for the mannequin within each level.  The elegance of this puzzle game is matched by its abstract challenge, and certainly deserves a whirl if someone hasn’t played it already.

Siren: Blood Curse (All 12 Episodes)

In the early 2000s, the Siren survival-horror series had to fight to draw attention from the Resident Evils and Silent Hills and Fatal Frames released around it. While it was generally praised for its supernatural setting and time-displaced storytelling, many also thought Siren fell short with its controls and other mechanics, limiting its appeal to patient aficionados of the genre in need of a spooky fix. As a revamped take on the first game, Siren: Blood Curse attempts to bring together its excellence in atmosphere with improved gameplay built around evading the undead, with its eerie tale of Hanuda Village spread across 12 episodes. Impressions from critics and fans alike have been roughly as positive toward its supernatural tale, but still lacking toward its merely functional gaming aspects, giving players just enough of a scare until the next entry in the genre might emerge from the shadows.

Bigbig Studios

PS Vita

Little Deviants

BigBig Studios had a few objectives in mind with their arcade-style diversion Little Deviants, which is about the titular characters’ rebuilding efforts after a robot attack. A collection of mini-games shows off what’s possible with the PSVita’s versatile controls, ranging from rolling a little balled-up critter around on a surface to guiding another of those fast-moving little guys through tunnels by way of the SixAxis motion sensors. Little Deviants earns a little slack for essentially being a cute, glorified demo of the Vita’s capabilities, but not enough to overlook the criticism it received for the unresponsive controls and fluctuating quality of the minigames themselves.

God of War: Chains of Olympus

And finally, what’s the best way to follow-up on last month’s free God of War game for the Vita? Why, to offer the other one, of course! Ready at Dawn’s first handheld iteration of the God of War series, Chains of Olympus, takes place before the events of Kratos’ original adventure on the PS2, set during the warrior’s decade of service to the gods. With his blades at the ready, Kratos fights to bring light back to a world covered in darkness due to the absence of the sun, sending him from the Temple of Helios to the shores of the River Styx in search of a solution. The series’ signature fast-paced, brutal combat and mythology-based storytelling received the same caliber of praise as its big(ger)-screen brethren, yielding a fierce adventure that’s just as epic-scaled on handhelds.

Investigation, Puzzles, and Deviants in Sony’s June PS+ Freebies

It’s not easy having a dark and depraved sense of humor. Our sensible friends stopped talking to us. The family-friendly prime time lineup can’t entertain us.

And the people who we do get along with and who actually understand us are all jerks… just like we are.

For us, there’s no hope to escape the shadowy black void that is life, but at least there’s Cards Against Humanity.

A social game for antisocial people, Cards Against Humanity challenges players to be as dirty, outrageous, and disturbing as possible, and rewards the best ones.

The rules are surprisingly simple. Each player draws ten white “answer” cards, each with an eclectic, pseudo-intellectual topic, and each with the potential for a double entendre. The Card Czar, who according to the official rules is “the person who most recently pooped,” draws and reads a black card containing a question, prompt, or fill-in-the-blank.

Players then use their imagination to create unholy connections with one of their white cards and put them in a pile face-down. The Card Czar reads the answers out loud, and then decides the winner without knowing who placed what. That person gets a point, the Card Czar switches to the next person, and we all pass a few more menial minutes of out empty, insignificant lives.

The game was, and still is a wild success. The original has since spawned six expansion packs, two holiday packs, and two specialized expansions for science and nostalgia. Now, the awful people that like this game can buy the entire up-to-date collection, plus a fun case, to make the most of their depravity.

The Cards Against Human Complete Set and Case ($99) comes with the original deck and all the expansions mentioned above, all bound together in a sardonic, limited edition InGenious case.

A game with this setup only gets better with more cards, especially if you’ve played your single deck to the point of memorization.

Buy the Cards Against Humanity Complete Set and Case Now

Shut Up and Take My Money: Cards Against Humanity Complete Set and Case

Matching retail competitor Best Buy, Amazon has launched a new Prime perk this week related to the purchase of video games. All newly released video games (within the first two weeks of launch) as well as all preorders will be discounted 20 percent for all Amazon Prime customers. Preorders are typically delivered on release day.

This will not apply to digital copies though, only physical discs. However, it will apply to special edition releases that can often climb over $100. If ordering through Amazon, customers won’t see the discount until the checkout page. The 20% off also only applies to the list price, not an on-going sale price. For most $60 releases, that knocks the price down to $48.

Comparatively, the 20% discount matches up to the 20% discount Best Buy applies for anyone subscribed to Gamers Club Unlocked. That service costs $30 for two years versus Amazon Prime at $99 for a single year. Of course, Amazon Prime comes with a large quantity of other benefits beyond the 20% discount on games.

Of course, anyone interested in new games can also wait for roughly two weeks to see discounts beyond 20 percent. Video games, especially poorly reviewed games, receive steep discounts within the first month, often falling from a $60 MSRP to a $40 price point.

If you are interested in Amazon Prime, you can find more information about Prime Perks here.

Prime Perk Alert: Get 20% off new video games with Amazon Prime

Definitely an awesome desk accessory for anyone stuck in the office, the iPad Foosball table is a miniature version of Foosball that combines an iPad, four real spinners and a companion app.

Specifically made for the older generation of iPads to save on costs, the table connects to the older iPad using the original 30-pin connector. In fact, the heavier weight of the older iPads would probably be idea for this type of physical game.

The spinners attached to the table correspond to the spinners within the companion app. The app includes a number of options like customization players, score tracking over multiple games and sound effects like a cheering crowd. The Foosball table includes rubber feet to keep the table from sliding around a table as well as the classic abacus-style counting system on the left and right side of the table.

The iPad Foosball table is currently priced at a price of $100 on UncommonGoods and is compatible with the original iPad as well as the iPad 2 and iPad 3. It is not compatible with an iPad that utilized the Lightning USB connection. Your best bet for older generation iPad technology is likely eBay or Craigslist.

Shut Up and Take My Money: iPad Foosball Table

If you haven’t heard, the insanely popular (and difficult) iPhone and Android mobile game Flappy Bird has been removed from both the App Store and Google Play store as of yesterday. The developer of the game, Nguyen Ha Dong, told his 138K Twitter followers that he couldn’t handle the success of the game and hated that it ruined his simple lifestyle. According to many reports on Dong’s success, he was making as much as $50,000 a day in advertising revenue.

However, there were a number of contributing factors that led to the downfall of that little pixelated bird. For instance:

• Flappy Bird’s sudden burst in downloads during November 2013 (along with other titles developed by Dong’s .GEARS Studios) was suspicious and possibly the work of bots. This is a tactic used be some unscrupulous developers that attempt to game the system. For instance, if their app starts appearing in the Top 50 download charts, that only leads to more downloads. Prior to November, Flappy Bird was a fairly unsuccessful title. You can read a full account of this hypothesis here.
• Media picked up on the blog post above and spent the last week hounding Dong on Twitter for answers. He attempted to ignore the attention, but this only increased pressure from the press. When he did respond, his tweets displayed annoyance and frustration.
• According to Dong’s friends, he had received a warning letter from Nintendo recently due to the extreme similarities of Flappy Bird and Super Mario Brothers when it came to the design of the green pipes in the game. While representatives for the Big N claim they aren’t drawing up a lawsuit at this time, it’s likely that the letter encouraged Dong to remove the game from the App Store and Google Play store. Dong had also previously received letters from other developers claiming that their ideas were stolen, but likely no one as big as Nintendo.

We suppose Dong will spend his nights crying about the demise of Flappy Bird and wipe away his tears with $100 bills. However, you don’t have to stop playing. While we certainly don’t recommend purchasing an iPhone 5S with Flappy Bird installed for $2,000 on eBay, there are a few other alternatives looking to take the place of the Flapster. They include:

• Flappy Doge: Quite possibly the greatest amalgamation on the Internet, Flappy Bird has been combined with the wonderful Doge meme. You can play this flash game for free on your desktop computer here.
• Ironpants: (iOS / Android) Basically the same exact concept as Flappy Bird, just swap out the bird for a superhero named Ironpants. It’s free, but laden with advertisements.
• Flappy Bee: (iOS / Android) Again, offering a similar concept to FB, but using a bee instead of a bird. Obstacles are more plentiful in this game. Also free.
• Impossible Road: (iOS) Rated highly by iOS players, Impossible Road will remind you of marble madness. Not really a direct competitor to Flappy Bird, but just as difficult.

The demise of Flappy Bird…Here’s how you can keep playing!