VR Games To Play In 2021

Virtual reality games are currently on the rise, so to help those newer VR players out (or those veterans searching for something new) I wrote this article.

The VR 2021 Experience

The VR experience is the best when it comes to immersion, therefore VR as a platform is very difficult to beat. However, it’s not just the VR headset that causes this immersion, the game has to effectively communicate it to you. In this article, we are going to go into depth on which game creates the best immersion that you need to play in 2021 whether you are on an Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, Valve Index, or PlayStation VR, there’s something here for everyone.

Half Life: Alyx

Without a doubt, this has to be at the top of the list. Half Life: Alyx is arguably the best VR game for immersion to date. Many were afraid for the release of Half Life: Alyx especially with it being one of Valve’s first VR games. But without a slight bit of doubt, this survival / adventure game / puzzle game successfully fulfills the long wait for those half-life fans.

The graphics and physics truly reflect this being the best immersion game, but in particular, my favourite aspect was the sense of scale of everything, it felt so huge and yet you’re just in your living room! Oh and don’t get me started on how great the puzzles are, they give you enough information but not enough to give it away.

Successfully adding to the immersion is the realistic looking creatures, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t get scared at all during points. If you’re willing to spend a fair bit of money for one game, then this has to be a game you play in 2021.

BeatSaber

For those looking for something more ‘relaxing’ (depends how you look at it) beat saber is the next stop. I can’t lie, I knocked beatsaber for the longest time, especially since rhythm games aren’t my cup of tea, but playing it is a whole other feeling!

The part that makes it much better has to be the mods to allow custom song maps made by the community, allowing you to listen and dance to your favourite songs instead of lying on your bed with earphones in.

The game has a simple concept, you hit note blocks with the correct coloured lightsaber that comes to you in sync with the music. Some songs are harder than others and feel like a work out, but some are more laid back and relaxing. This is arguably the best pass-the-time game for Virtual Reality.

You can download beatsaber across any platform, so go ahead, jam out to that music and chop some blocks.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

Resident Evil 7 provides that breath of fresh air other VR games lack. This horror game classic has had its first port to VR, and you always know the classic horrors would end up being fantastic in VR, did you forget about the famous VR title Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted?

Resident Evil 7 is different to your typical horror routine however, so you can’t just run through without a breeze. Capcom has taken it back to its roots with all the precautions necessary to give you a good scare, so as you play, you will have to find ways of surviving against the game’s many freaky encounters.

This is a PlayStation VR exclusive, so single player console players, this is the game for you.

Skyrim VR

By the title, Skyrim doesn’t need any introduction, everyone knows what this game is. Coming as a multiplatform VR, it’s arguably one of the biggest adventure games anyone has ever seen in VR.

You get to relive the entire skyrim story once again in VR, however it does not include some DLCs. The graphics aren’t amazing, but having one of the biggest classic adventure games in VR is still great fun to roam around in.

How COVID-19 Has Impacted E-Sports

The ESports industry went into 2020 with extremely high expectations after the development of it within 2019 and looked like it was heading for a long term growth. But later down the timeline a virus came a long and disrupted this entire process.

The COVID-19 Pandemic has affect almost, if not, every industry and is clear to believe that esports would be one affected by it the most, but how true is this? In this article, we are going to look at how esports has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and how it is attempted to control it.

ESports Vs COVID-19

As Coronavirus took control of most countries by forcing them into nationwide lockdowns, it caused many issues for competing, thus was moved to online. This, like sports, is a huge and significant difference compared to in person competition.

The Change In-Game

Just like traditional sport, the lack of crowd extremely kills the entertainment value, it lacks that energy that once made the sport what it was. Being in that environment truly impacts the entertainment value, getting you excited for that next big matchup between the two titans, but matchups like these don’t have that energy around them anymore.

Furthermore, Esports played online actually affects the competition directly itself with ‘latency’. Games where every millisecond counts like CS:GO, Valorant and even Call Of Duty, have a big impact in affecting the outcome of the game.

Adding to this has to be the casters. Casters are one of the top reasons why esports does so well with their booming voice echoing throughout that crowd, effectively communicating that energy. However, with it being online the audio quality had to diminish with it, making some – an example would be ‘machine’ from the CS:GO casting desks – take a break to achieve their motivation back, effectively starting a chain reaction amongst other casters.

To make matters worse, events that were allowed to be hosted in person, the COVID-19 social distancing measures meant that not as many people could be in the same place at once.

An example of how this made a difference would be ESL’s Extreme Masters World Championship tournament in Poland, Katowice. It was altered so much after this event that the Polish government ordered ESL to not allow any audience members within the stadium at all, right before the event was scheduled to start.

The Effect On Brands & Businesses

Since the outbreak, many have focused on repairing the industry revenues and some, like ESL and Dreamhack, merged brands behind the scenes. This is a significant example of how bad the esports revenue tanked and it was all done to reduce operation costs.

Not just that, but similar companies within the Overwatch League (Toronto Defiant and OverActive Media) had to release staff to help reduce salary costs by up to 30%. Some took it worse than others and Team Reciprocity came to the conclusion to release all of their staff.

The industry itself has to completely change its infrastructure as it transitioned online, which you would believe would be simple to move everything online. You see, it was a challenge for all the companies and teams involved in this situation because of the adjustment of how things were monetized, more particularly in terms of sponsorships.

Written By Max Lang-Orsini

Was Cyberpunk 2077 Overhyped?

If you haven’t been living under a rock, you would know that a game named ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ was supposed to change gaming forever. What happened to all of this talk? In this article, we are going to diagnose Cyberpunk 2077’s rise to fame and how it suddenly came to a halt, if not a decline after it’s release.

Cyberpunk 2077 – A Victim To ‘Overhype’

After being in development for nearly a decade, Cyberpunk 2077 was in a ‘GTA’ (Grand Theft Auto) style based in the futuristic city called ‘Night City’. It was released at the end of 2020, but ever since hasn’t hit the news as it used to. What exactly happened to this extremely hyped game that was ‘Cyberpunk 2077’?

Cyberpunk’s Breathtaking Rise

CD Projekt Red’s biggest hyped game was Cyberpunk and you have to give it to them, their promotional methods and campaigns were very interesting to say the least. After years of making trailers for the game, they managed to get a spot to world premiere their game on Xbox’s stage at E3 back in 2019 (how does that seem so long ago)?.

After the world premiere, the buzz for Cyberpunk was unreal, you couldn’t go a day without hearing or reading the word ‘Cyberpunk’ somewhere. Keanu Reeves was their main promotional material, a form of endorsement so people with have a good retention span during their presentation (since they recognised the celebrity).

Another factor that further pushed their ever-so-fast growing hype was the memes of Keanu Reeves saying ‘you’re breathtaking’, it surely was a breathtaking meme. Not just that, but more memes popped up around the internet with the Cyberpunk soundtrack, i’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about!

All of these factors pushed the reach of Cyberpunk and at this point in time, everyone had heard of the new game to break the gaming industry, even your grandparents probably.

Beginning Of The End

All seemed well for this amazing video game and as for it’s hype train too, but it then started to drop in attention.

Cyberpunk had to delay their game as they believed it was wrong to release the game in that state, and delayed the game a further 2 more times. This led to frustration within the community and instead of excitement, it was anger. This put a lot of pressure on CD Projekt Red to get the game out, and so instead of throwing their hands in the air and saying “it will not be ready for another year or so”, they felt the need to publish.

This spiraled into many complaints and even refunds as the game was not to what they expected. It was a hot buggy mess of a game, and the extremely long wait made many players frustrated and not wanting to play.

Try to imagine waiting for a game for almost the duration of a decade for it to be boardline unplayable. However, I also like to think it wasn’t so much the developers fault with the added pressure every statement they’d give. Perhaps if they had handled it differently and delayed it for a lot longer and thought it out properly, this wouldn’t have happened.

Not everything is bad with the game, the city skies and the next generation beautiful graphics and scenery are amazing to look at. It’s that good it’s too much for today’s technology and specifications that most graphics cards struggle to meet the 60fps mark.

Victim To The Overhype Disease?

As great as the game is, I’m sure many players will return within a year or so after the release to try and play again. The development team is working hard to polish this game and make it more playable and optimised to today’s technology, but I don’t think this doesn’t make it a ‘good game’.

I can see both sides, so I’m neutral on whether Cyberpunk was overhyped or not. What are your thoughts, was Cyberpunk another victim to the ‘Overhype’ disease? Let me know

Written By: Max Lang-Orsini

Why Should You Play Beat Saber VR?

Have you ever put on some music and just relaxed, doing nothing as you listened to your favourite songs on repeat? If so, you will love Beat Saber VR, atleast, this is one of the reasons why I became so attached and lost a week of my life to it.

Reasons To Play Beat Saber VR

Beat Saber is a VR game, bought by oculus, falling under the category of ‘rhythm games’. The main objective is to hit the notes coming at you and get the best score possible. To say that rhythm games aren’t my thing, Beat Saber VR compared to other similar games like guitar hero, it’s much more for for these reasons:

Music Packs

Beat Saber, the game itself, has managed to get licenses from popular artists like; BTS, Imagine Dragons and Linkin Park and have music packs dedicated to these artists. If you like them, you will be able to play an official version within the game. Furthermore, if you are looking at listening to new songs, Beat Saber offers many of their own songs for you to slice notes to.

Custom Songs

My personal favourite part about this amazing beat game is being able to upload custom songs to beat saber. Hitting notes on beat to your favourite artists is truly a great and addictive feeling, you get swallowed by the music, it’s amazing.

New Player Friendly

Fast paced songs are more difficult as there are more notes for you to hit, but the great part about Beat Saber is that it is very new player and ‘average’ player friendly. They offer multiple difficulties ranging from; easy, normal, hard, expert and expert + allowing you to get used to the game.

A tip for you new players I’ve found to work like a treat is to use more wrist movements than arm movements, it’s easier to hit notes that spread far out to the next.

Move To The Beat

Like I said at the beginning of this article, instead of sitting or laying and listening to music, you can get your body into your favourite songs by dancing to the beat and hitting the notes. Combined this with the custom song idea, you can search for your own songs on the ‘BeastSaber’ website where people from the community upload their maps of songs.

Furthermore, if your song is not listed, you can auto generate the map by using BeatSage which uses AI technology to create rhythms from the song you uploaded. Whilst it’s not perfect, it’s an amazing feeling to slice notes to your personal favourite songs.

Challenges

If you begin to get bored of the standard slicing block routine (you would be crazy to), Beat Saber offers many challenges for you to master your favourite songs on the hardest (or fun) difficulty.

Availability

Beat Saber is available anywhere for you to purchase and start dancing to. Beat Saber is on Steam, Oculus store and Playstation VR, and further is available on the oculus quest for all of you wireless players out there.

I hope you enjoyed this detailed article and I hope it gave you a good reason to at least try Beat Saber VR for yourself. Even if you are unsure, try it, that’s what I did and I fell in love and became addicted.

Written By: Max Lang-Orsini

Twitch Live Streaming For Dummies – Max Lang-Orsini

You’ve most likely clicked on this article to learn how to stream professionally, and that is exactly the right reason you should be here for. Live streaming on Twitch, or on any other streaming platform takes a lot of energy and work, much more than you may believe. So, how do these popular streamers do it and how can you get your hands on Twitch Affiliate with consistent returning viewers?

Video Game Broadcasting For Beginners

In this article, I, Max Lang-Orsini, will break down the important points to help you become a consistently ‘good’ streamer. We will focus on some nerdy algorithm facts whilst also giving you advice for your broadcasts. But first, how do you begin and what’s the best software to use for your live streaming endeavours?

Live Streaming Software

Picking the right live streaming software to start streaming may seem daunting at first, or easy from what you’ve heard. There are a fair few streaming softwares that are worth a mention, but OBS Studio is the most obvious choice. Compared to other softwares, Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is free and is placed at a high standard amongst many other streamers.

What makes OBS great is its user friendly navigation, as well as it’s optimised capability to encode streams effectively and efficiently. Those top twitch streamers you watch are more than likely using OBS (OBS Studio to be specific), and understandably so.

Remember that you will need a capture card to stream from your console to your computer to Twitch.

Even I would recommend OBS, however, if you believe it’s not for you, here are some other great broadcasting softwares that deserve that mention;

Decast Live Streaming

VidBlasterX

XSplit

The Basic Setup

First, before streaming, you will need to follow some tutorials on building your stream up from the ground. If you know some good editors or artists, commissions are an extra you can do to help improve the quality of your stream, remember, you’re not alone!

Follow these YouTube tutorials to make sure you have the correct settings for your broadcast, no one wants to watch 5fps gameplay. Speaking of people watching, interact with Twitch chat as much as possible, you’d be surprised at the amount of people that don’t talk to the viewers in their stream. Engagement and interactivity is what drives twitch streams, so engage with the viewers the best you can!

Furthermore, setup hotkeys to mute your microphone and headphones and add the ‘noise suppression’ effect. This will help to reduce background noise and the hotkeys can be used to prevent audio you don’t want being broadcasted live.

Keeping Viewers Engaged

Remember that you are here to stream and have fun, not gawk over the numbers. These numbers you keep looking at can prove to be a very distracting factor. I would recommend to hide the viewer count number, as seeing low or less than usual can be very demotivating.

To keep viewers retention, engagement is your best way of doing so, remember that returning viewers are better than unique viewers! You want people to come back to your stream, not watch once and never again, interacting with your chat is key to keep that retention for as long as possible.

Communicating and talking a lot is also important, if you notice things becoming silent, start a conversation about a topic that the viewers may be interested in, or further, tell a story. Streamers prepare their streams throughout the day and some write notes on conversation topics they think of, this is a great improvisation technique.

If you can get them to follow you on your other social media platforms, that would be a great outcome. Posting when you’re about to be live or any other notices on streaming updates

Be Yourself

As silly as this sounds, try your best to be yourself and avoid putting on a persona, some can see through this. On top of this, be as positive as you can, as well, it’s a known fact that humans drift away from negativity, so try your best even on days you don’t feel 100%.

For that matter, if you don’t feel like you have the energy to stream, do not worry, it’s better to have no stream than a bad stream. Chances are, those viewers will come back another day when that bad stream might have driven them away from your twitch account.

The Algorithm Tips

Once you’ve got all this, it’s a matter of finding your audience and your audience finding you. However, there are workarounds to help you get these viewers more effectively.

Finding the right categories for your interests and audience is difficult when put together. Starting out will be you finding your footing. Focus on games that are big but are not oversaturated with professional players or the big named streamers, i.e Valorant and CS:GO.

Games like Sea Of Thieves or Stardew Valley are popular games without it being oversaturated. Finding these games that suit you too is that hardest point, but once again, find your footing and where you stand on streaming games.

However, if you play games that you know you can be good at, you may find viewers tuning in to watch your skill. I noticed that on Call Of Duty: Cold War Zombies, most of the higher up streamers are on the high 100 rounds, so if you know you can get to that, do so and put it in your title!

Furthermore, your title is the first impression a viewer gets of your stream, so making them want to click will be important. Puns are a great way of doing so, especially if you give off a ‘funny’ atmosphere. It’s also worth mentioning that only the first 36 characters will be shown before it gets cut off, so make the first 36 characters count!

A huge tip for much smaller streamers is the ‘5 viewer rule’. For those that don’t know, when you have 5 viewers, your chances of discoverability are much higher because you get pushed much higher in the category. This leads onto my next point;

Friends & Family

As much as it may be embarrassing to show your friends and / or family you playing games online, having them simply ‘lurk’ within the stream, or interact every now and then helps your viewer count. Having those friends tune in to help build the numbers will furthermore help your discoverability, and if they talk in your chat, it’s extra conversation starters, it comes full circle.

These are the few tips for live streaming beginners I believe to be the most helpful, especially when I started out. Remember that you do not need a separate streaming PC or even a green screen, let alone a camera, being yourself is why your viewers will keep returning (obviously if it’s watchable).

Please share if you found this helpful and reply with your input, it’s always interesting to read up on other people’s experience.

Written By: Max Lang-Orsini

Why An SSD Is Necessary In a 2021 Gaming PC – Max Lang-Orsini

Why You Need To Improve Your Gaming PC Using SSD

According to Max Lang-Orsini, playing video games has become a cultural thing in today’s society. With each release, each game becomes more realistic due to advancements in technology. That is why you need a better gaming PC in 2021.

If you are using older computers with older storage devices for gaming, you are probably giving up a lot in terms of performance and speed. Speed is an essential factor that almost every gamer considers when building their gaming PC.

It can be frustrating to look at that spinning icon on your monitor as you wait for your game to load. You get even more frustrated if you have to listen to the stuttering noise while your gaming PC struggles to accommodate your game and some unknown background task.

If you have a gaming PC in 2021, an SSD is the best solution for your performance and speed woes. You can’t excuse yourself from having a mega fast Solid State Disk inside your PC in 2021 since SSD prices have been dropping over the past few years.

Actually, there has never been a better time to build yourself a super-fast gaming PC that can offer both speed and performance.

Why An SSD Is Necessary In a 2021 Gaming PC

Higher Performance

As a gamer, you probably want smooth and uninterrupted gameplay. With an SSD, that is what you get because their headline specifications are data transfer speeds. If you have an SSD in your gaming PC, you can have shorter game loading times and other things such as faster level transitions.

SSDs have a shorter access time (IOPS) to gaming files. With this shorter access time, SSDs give you a better gaming experience than their counterparts because games contain loads of small files that are frequently accessed.

SSDs can access game files and data in microseconds, while older hard drives can take milliseconds. Even though a milliseconds-difference in access time does not seem like much, you would notice a big difference once the drive needs to access multiple locations in your storage drive for data.

If you notice environment pop ups appearing, lags, stuttering and loading icons that interrupt your gameplay, you need to get an SSD for your gaming PC. When doing something like patching a game, having an SSD in your gaming PC is essential.

Patching a game involves modifying and rewriting huge files, which can become a heavy burden on a drive. Thanks to their shorter access time, SSDs can ensure you spend more time gaming than waiting for your slow drive to complete patching your game.

Durability

SSDs are less susceptible to damages as compared to their HDD counterparts. Meaning, you do not have to worry about replacing the SSD drive in your gaming PC for years. SSDs do not have mechanical movable parts that make HDDs susceptible to environmental damages. Therefore, SSDs can save you an extra dollar despite being a bit expensive compared to HDDs.

Also, SSDs do not have that disturbing whirring noise made byHDDs, thus making your gameplay peaceful.

Conclusion

With the advancement in technology, each video game becomes more realistic with each release. Meaning you may need to improve your gaming PC to continue enjoying smooth and uninterrupted gameplay.

SSDs provide your gaming PC with the improvements you need to accommodate the advanced 2021 video games. With an SSD drive in your 2021 gaming PC, you are set to enjoy a wide variety of cutting-edge games in 2021.

HP Reverb G2 Vs Valve Index Vs Vive Pro | Which Is King? – Max Lang-Orsini

As the years progress and more Virtual Reality headsets release, choosing your next VR headset becomes very difficult. It’s a good thing the VR experience has come a long way with its technology, but every competitor poses a new challenge.

However, for the average consumer, it can become pretty difficult to consider every specification of hardware and software to get the most out of your money.

HP Reverb G2 Vs Valve Index Vs Vive Pro

In this article, I (Maximilian Lang-Orsini) will go into depth about VR headsets and whether we have a king currently. I will only focus on the three top brands as of right now; the Valve Index, HP Reverb G2 & Vive Pro.

Valve Index

Released by Valve on June 28th 2019, this expensive kit gathered many fans on launch. It’s price is like this because of it’s incredible tracking accuracy on top of the best of the best audio quality along with the strapped controllers wrapping around the hand comfortably.

The index headset has a refresh rate of 144hz allowing for smooth gameplay with extremely precise finger tracking, you won’t notice anything off about it.

HTC Vive Pro

The HTC Vive is the war veteran of virtual reality headsets. This model was originally released in January of 2018 as HTC collaborated with Valve and is an upgraded version from the original Vive.

Even though the Vive has been out for (almost) three years, it can compare to even the index because of it’s high resolution giving it a high quality image.

HP Reverb G2

The HP Reverb G2 is the newest model out of the three that was released this year in November (a month ago). The Reverb G2 is set to be an upgraded version from the original Reverb, like the Vive Pro.

The headset provides an ultra high quality display, a high refresh rate and display and provides the same high quality speakers as the Valve Index. The only issue with the Reverb is that it requires a PC to operate.

Getting Nerdy

In this next segment, we will dive into the specifications of each VR headset so you can buy what’s right for you and your budget.

Image Quality

The image quality is most likely the utmost important to any casual consumer. The things you want to consider is what has the higher resolution, and what is not prone to the screen door effect.

The Valve index has a resolution of 1440p x 1600 pixels with an LCD screen.
The HP Reverb G2 has a resolution of 2160 x 2160 pixels with an LCD screen.
The HTC Vive Pro has a resolution of 1440p x 1600 pixels with an OCLED screen.

On top of that, the refresh rate and field of view are also very important. Ideally for smooth gameplay, you want 90hz or more, which is what all of these headsets provide.

The Valve Index has a refresh rate of 80 – 144hz and a field of view of 130 degrees.
The HP Reverb G2 has a refresh rate of 90hz and a field of view of 114 degrees.
The HTC Vive Pro has a refresh rate of 90hz and a field of view of 110 degrees.

Weight & IPD

The weight of every VR headset is important when buying as you do not want something breaking your neck as you slice blocks in beatsaber. All headsets are fairly light on a good note, but over long periods, you may feel strain.

The Valve Index weighs 550g with an adjustable IPD of 58 – 70.
The HP Reverb G2 weighs 550g with an adjustable IPD of 60 – 68.
The HTC Vive Pro weighs 770g with an adjustable IPD of 60 – 73.

The Price & Worth

That is all for the nerdy specifications, but what is most important to everyone else is the price. The price must balance out the worth but, if you are on a budget, I will recommend which one you should get.

To answer which would (arguably) be the best Virtual Reality headset at the moment, I would have to say the Valve Index and I can only say this based on statistics on paper. The higher refresh rate combined with the realistic colours make VR gaming more surreal. It’s resolution is very high and has the highest field of view compared to any other headset.

Obviously, the price is way too much for the average consumer as the Index goes for $999 (with the full kit). This, I would say is the top of the range at the moment, but for those looking for a cheaper alternative, I’d say go for the new HP Reverb G2.

The Reverb G2 provides a high refresh rate of 90hz with a slightly smaller FOV of 114 degrees, but for its price, it will take over as the go to VR headset for consumers on a budget. Going for $599, the Reverb G2 has many expectations and has hype surrounding it.

By no means is the Vive Pro to be overlooked as it still has a compatible attitude to the Reverb G2 and the Index. It’s technology is still very modern, so if you currently own one, there is no point in switching just yet as it still provides an incredible VR experience.

I hope you enjoyed this article, make sure you follow for more in the future – Maximilian Lang-Orsini

2020 | A Great Year For Technology & Gaming – Max Lang-Orsini

2020 may not have been the greatest year for many, but despite the restrictions humanity has gone through like; social distancing, working from home, isolating etc, we have managed to pull off arguably one of the most productive years for technology and gaming.

In this article, I will dive deep into the top discussions of the year, the Playstation 5, Xbox Series X, Nvidia RTX & AMD’s Radeon and what this means for gaming.

Gaming Just Got a Whole Lot Better

With the launch of all this new tech, there is no arguing that gaming just got ten times better than it was before. From Augmented Reality to Virtual Reality, to extreme realistic real time Ray Tracing, there is no surprise that there is this much hype around it all.

Nvidia’s New RTX

For the PC gaming specialists out there, seeing the release of the new Nvidia graphics card series has got the buzz going. The statistics for the card outweighs their previous generations by a huge margin, and what makes it even better, it’s so much cheaper!

Nvidia’s New RTX Series Performance Chart — Nvidia RTX 30 Series Comparison To Previous Series

Looking at the statistics, it’s no surprise there is this much talk about it. The best card beforehand was the 2080Ti which went for over $1,000, but for half the price, you can get DOUBLE the speed.

The RTX 3070 compares with the previous generations best for half of it’s price, let alone the 3080 & 90’s frame rate and resolution performance.

AMD’s New Radeon

Following up after the Nvidia RTX, AMD’s big comeback sparked much hype at the possibility of Nvidia having competition again. The statistics of the Radeon blew the internet into oblivion when they saw the AMD could beat Nvidia.

AMD Radeon Big Navi Performance Chart — AMD’s Radeon RX 6900 XT Vs Nvidia’s RTX 3090

Looking at this graph is truly phenomenal. AMD finally can compete with Nvidia on the big stage and in some games actually beat them in performance. The only downside to AMD is they don’t have as full proof ray tracing as nvidia does, but if you just game, AMD, Team Red is the way to go.

AMD’s New Ryzen Zen 3

On top of all of this for the PC gamers, they get more with AMD’s new 5th generation Ryzen CPUs for a reasonable price. AMD without question had no competition with Intel this launch and with the performance it delivers combined with either the RTX or Radeon, you can have a gaming rig no one would have ever thought would have existed.

AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Performance Chart — AMD’s Ryzen 5000 Generation Series vs Intel

As you can see by the graph above, the 5000 series demolishes intel on all versions.

Xbox Series

Competing with Playstation, the fridge Xbox Series X closely compared to the PS5 gaming console in specifications. Personally speaking, I would say go for the console you prefer, or the console with the best video gaming exclusives.

Playstation 5

The Playstation 5, arguably out of all of those above has the biggest popularity. Out of all of them, the PS5 is something I cannot escape a day without hearing how good this product is. I have to mention that the look of the PS5 is incredible, it’s just a shame you struggle to get one.

The Playstation 5 & Xbox Series X brings console gaming to another level, providing high quality gameplay that now is slowly reaching PC standards of potential quality.

PS5 & Xbox Series Specifications Side By Side — PS5 V Xbox Series X

Since I could not find any statistics out there on comparing the two consoles and comparing them to the newly constructed graphics cards, here are the specifications for those nerds out there.

The Stock Problem

Regardless of how good the year was for technology and gaming and regardless of how good performance wise the products are, the fact of the matter is that the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic has really taken a toll on the stock.

At first, people criticised Nvidia for rushing the launch of their cards until AMD, PS5 and Xbox launched theres. This is proof that the pandemic has taken a huge hit on the production of these consoles and graphics cards.

You can also argue the demand for this is something that no one has ever seen before. Scan mentioned that on the release days of the consoles or cards they saw over 5 times their standard website traffic rate.

Many are having to Pre-Order, (which is never a good sign as you never know when you will get it) as no one knows when it will properly stock, leading to many angry customers.

For those out there trying their hardest to get their hands on a new card or console, just remember to not give in to the scalpers and buy someone reselling it overpriced. Stick with it and follow trackers online so you get alerted the moment they restock. It’ll be awhile before they have stock for the demand, but staying with it is the hardest part.

Good luck on your future shopping endeavours – Max Lang-Orsini

How Did ‘Among Us’ Become So Popular? – Max Lang-Orsini

To think that a simple indie game exploded in popularity and became one of the most popular games of all time is hard, but the game Among Us managed it. I had to call this emergency meeting as I saw (according to Steamcharts,) 438,524 players in September 2020 all playing concurrently, competing with the top games like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (which is pretty sus).

What Caused Among Us To Be Popular?

Released in June 2018, the game only saw a couple of hundred to a thousand players playing at one time, which sounds like a lot, but compared to your competitors is nothing. It wasn’t until the end of August 2020 when it really began to rise in popularity. In this article, we will target the points that caused this uprising for this video game.

Streamers

Arguably, big twitch streamers began streaming the game which is the biggest argument for the popularity boom. It all makes sense, your favourite streamer played the game, you wanted to play the game, it’s basically free promotion. On top of that, streamers and content creators began playing together and many collaborations that viewers finally wanted happened (like KSI & PewDiePie).

Viewer numbers on Twitch can be misleading to determine a game’s true popularity, a good example is Valorant and its beta drops, but Among Us is different. With Among Us, you can tell that everyone watching is genuine.

COVID-19

Another big point to why so many players are playing this game right now is COVID-19, the lockdowns and isolation. You see, when people are having to isolate or be locked down, many turn to gaming as a pass time and because so many people are doing so, it doesn’t appear to be as difficult to get a group of players or friends to have a laugh.

Among Us has become a hilarious option to escape from the year that is 2020.

Easy To Learn, Easy To Play

For a third reason on the Among Us’ popularity boom has to be the gameplay. I don’t have to mention the simplistic style of the game that any age can play, but the core mechanics of the game have purpose.

As a ‘Crewmate’, you have to complete tasks, causing you to potentially split away from the group and allowing the impostor to make a move. The tasks for crewmates are very simple, and within a game or two on either side, you already understand the basics for the mechanics.

As an ‘Impostor’, your job is to kill your fellow crewmates, get away with it and outnumber them before they can complete their tasks. You are able to vent in areas around the map to help navigate quickly.

Mobile Game

Something that makes the game have a huge audience and ties to a previous point is the fact that you can play on mobile, for free! Mobile Among Us is free and can play cross platform with PC, meaning you can play with friends just about anywhere. This is a great addition for multiplayer gaming

Furthermore, it increases the reach for Among Us even more by being one of the top games on the Google Play Store and IOS App Store. So in reality, there are more than 440,000 players playing at once!

Among Us has become a titan in today’s gaming, proving no matter the basicness of your game, you can still conquer the top games like Dota and CS:GO.

Dead By Daylight | A Survivor Review

Dead By Daylight is an unforgettable gaming experience full of thrills, torment and laughter as you evade against the killer to escape. The concept of Dead By Daylight is like no other, and for so long people wanted to translate this into an actual game and well, it happened.

Dead By Daylight Survivor

Over recent decades, online gaming has advanced tremendously. Not only in its graphical quality but the creative ideas are truly coming to light, Dead By Daylight is a spectacle of this.

In Dead By Daylight, you can play as a survivor, but you can also play as the killer. In this article, however, we will focus on the survivor side but if you wish, you can read the killer version I created.

Trivia

This great game was published by Behaviour Interactive on Steam in the June of 2016. Shortly after, Dead By Daylight gained a significant following with many live streamers and content creators making content on this fantastic horror game. It was later ported to Xbox and PlayStation in 2017 following it’s instant success.

Dead By Daylight is a multiplayer game (that sadly has no voice chat) where there are 4 survivors and 1 killer. It’s a grindy like game as you progress up the levels, spending your hard earned bloodpoints (points by playing) to level up characters for better perks, items, add-ons and offerings.

Your Job As a Survivor

Your main job in Dead By Daylight as a survivor is to complete 5 generators to power the exit gates, in which you can open once powered and escape. Sounds easy, but when there is a killer on the loose, the difficulty ceiling does get higher. The maps in the game vary in size, tho typically are big with many places to hide, one of the common places are lockers. Lockers look like an obvious hiding spot, but because it looks so obvious, who would use them?

To know where the killer is, you can listen to the ‘Terror Radius’ to determine how close they are. The terror radius is a heartbeat that progressively gets more and more intense the closer he is, this is a good sign to get out of there.

When the killer enters a chase with you, a good way to tell which way he is facing is by looking at the red light in front of him. Good killers will know this and if they know you can’t see them, they will turn around as they come round the corner, giving you less time to react.

Perks, Items, Add-Ons

To help you survive, the game has various ways you can use as aid. These perks, Items and add-ons for the items vary, so when you bring them into the trial, make sure you have a strategy.

Perks

To start with perks, I will mention the ‘meta’ perks that everyone finds to be the most strong and effective. For new players, you must level up a survivor to levels 30, 35 and 40 to unlock all of that character’s unique perks. To see which perks you can get from characters, read the ‘character info’ by pressing F1 on PC or you can read about teachable perks.

I find the combo ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Decisive Strike’ a good combination. Deliverance means you can instantly escape off your first hook if you have previously made a safe save on another teammate. To combine this, Decisive Strike allows you to get off the killers’ shoulder if he picks you up within a minute of unhooking yourself, giving you a quick get away.

Items

Every survivor has the same items, these items are; medkits, toolboxes, flashlights, maps and keys. Most are obviously by their name, but flashlights, maps and keys work differently to how you would expect.

Flashlights

Flashlights are not a tool to help you see, rather they can shine in the killers’ eyes to blind them. It takes a few seconds to have an effect, so I wouldn’t recommend doing this when you’re mid chase.

Maps

Maps are similar to how you would expect. When in use, the map reveals the aura of generators, or, if you are using a rainbow map, almost everything interactable.

Keys

Keys are used to open ‘Black Locks’. For those who do not know what this means, it’s referring to the ‘hatch’ that spawns randomly in the trial opening up a free escape.

Add-Ons

For the items above, you can apply add-ons to increase the duration, or increase the amount of charges your item has. Some can apply unique effects, such as the toolbox’s brand new part. This part allows you to complete 25% of a generator if you land the skill checks correctly.

The Survivor List

Before we dig in, it’s important you know that it does not matter much which survivor you play. Some injured survivors are louder than others, but that is only the real difference and is not significant, so here are my favourite survivors.

Laurie Strode | Determined Survivor

The first licensed survivor to be added to Dead By Daylight was Laurie Strode. Laurie Strode is the main character from the classic horror movie, Halloween with the inclusion of Michael Myers.

Her teachable perks are; Sole Survivor, Object of Obsession and Decisive Strike. Click each named perk to read more about how it functions.

Yui Kimura | Hardened Streetracer

Yui Kimura is a fairly recent survivor that was added to Dead By Daylight, however, a bit of bias may be on her side because of how great her outfits are. Yui Kimura is a Japanese motorbike racer who is The Oni’s survivor opposition.

Her teachable perks are; Lucky Break, Any Means Necessary and Breakout.

Quentin Smith | Resolute Dreamwalker

Quentin Smith was the survivor version of the ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ DLC. This determined survivor helps lead his team survive through thick and thin.
His teachable perks are; Wake Up!, Pharmacy and Vigil.