Author: Valhalladidde

PC

One of the weirder things to happen in PC gaming this year was that a new Painkiller came out and pretty much instantly disappeared. I’m aware PC gaming moves so fast nowadays that many games get washed away without anybody noticing. But I thought Painkiller would have sufficient cultural cachet to stick around a little bit.Perhaps it’s because Anshar’s studios reboot made some major changes to Painkiller’s formula, reworking People Can Fly’s devoutly singleplayer horde shooter as a Left 4 Dead-style cooperative blaster infused with Doom Eternal-ish movement. The combination was ambivalently received by those who did notice Painkiller’s release,…

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Several products in Magic: The Gathering’s Spider-Man crossover set are up for grabs for massively reduced prices at Amazon. The Marvel’s Spider-Man Bundle, which has been hard to find at Amazon for more than a month, was restocked December 19 for $48.49 (was $70)–and promptly sold out again. Thankfully, Target still has units available for the same price. The bundle comes with nine Play Booster Packs, an Alternate-Art Foil Promo Card, 30 Basic Land Cards, a Spider-Man-themed storage box, and a few other items. But before you buy the standard bundle, check out the Marvel’s Spider-Man Gift Bundle for $64…

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We’ve played many great skateboarding games, but none have ever looked or felt like Skate Story. This isn’t about chasing massive scores or finding crazy lines; it’s a single-player journey through the underworld, playing as a crystalline demon on a mission to save himself. The Devil says he’ll return the demon’s soul if he can swallow the moons of Hell’s many realms, armed with a skateboard and aided by a mysterious rabbit. It’s a silly setup, especially paired with a skateboarding game, but it’s so artfully done that it’s easy to be swept along. While it tells a linear narrative,…

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Tired of claims that “100% automated” AI blogs can print $28k/month? Most autoblogs publish thin, look-alike posts at scale—the exact target of Google’s March 2024 and August 2025 spam updates. The data is brutal: studies show 1 in 3 programmatic SEO projects faces a “traffic cliff” (losing ~80% of traffic) within 18 months due to thin content. What works isn’t “set and forget,” it’s controlled automation. This compliant system uses AI for drafts, but relies on human review for enrichment. One study found human-enriched content gets 5.44x more traffic than pure AI. This guide details the stack (ingestion $\rightarrow$ draft…

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See, this is how you release 500 games on Switch and NOT get branded a spammer.The Switch’s most prolific 3rd party publisher will hit a release milestone next week with one of gaming’s foundational releases. Hamster has announced in a livestream today that their 500th Arcade Archives release on Christmas Day (Dec 25) will be the original Space Invaders. The 1978 Taito release was the first endless shooter and became one of the first billion dollar video games in just four years, leading to an urban legend about a shortage of 100 yen coins in Japan. Its sequel, Space Invaders…

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PC

Ark 2 was revealed almost exactly five years ago—on December 10, 2020—with a lengthy cinematic trailer starring, for reasons I still don’t entirely understand, Vin Diesel. It was initially expected to come out in 2023, and then at the end of 2024, but by 2025—the year that’s about to end—we were reduced to promises that, yes, it’s still happening. The most recent release target we had put Ark 2 in 2027, “if all goes to plan.”All did not go to plan, and Studio Wildcard is now aiming to get Ark 2 out the door sometime in 2028, according to an…

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