Key Note Gaming

If you’re a fan of life simulators, you’ve no doubt heard critics, developers, influencers, and all manner of social media-savvy people wax lyrical about the complexity of creating a compelling social simulation. As I said in my own inZoi review last year, curating a world that’s both representative of the murky mess that is being human and enjoyable to play is a seemingly impossible undertaking that few have managed. And yet, after spending 35 hours in Paralives crafting families, building homes, and sowing discord among residents, I have a renewed hope. This ambitious challenger to The Sims’ throne has captured not only the practical elements of humanity but, importantly, the weird ones we sweep under the rug, too. While its Early Access start has a lot of room to grow before it slays the reigning king of the genre, it’s certainly on its way. Your time in Paralives begins on a train, with a quick tutorial for how to handpick the actions of the Parafolk (the name Paralives gives to ...

The Wheel of Time is one of the best-selling fantasy book series of all time, but it's a franchise that has struggled to take hold as an adaptation. Most notably, Amazon's live-action Wheel of Time show was tragically cancelled just last year after what IGN called it's "best season yet" . But a new kickstarter for the first-ever official board game is bringing some fresh hope to fans of Robert Jordan's fantasy world that there's still more to look forward to. War of the Dragon is an upcoming strategy game for 2-4 players that according to the Kickstarter page , "combines tableau building, action selection, and area control mechanics in a thrilling struggle for conquest and survival". The game just launched on Kickstarter today with a funding goal of $50,000 that was pretty much immediately met. At the time of writing, almost $300K has already been pledged and those numbers continue to go up. This isn't the first time The Wheel of Time has b...

Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games, has ordered the GTA 5 modding platform Rage: MP to cease operations. The developers of the platform relayed the news via a forum post on Monday evening, noting that Take-Two had formally requested they shut down. The reason is because Take-Two and Rockstar Games have their own modding platform, FiveM, and it's the only authorized platform for modding GTA, especially with regards to the online portion of the game. "We must share an important update about the future of RAGE: MP. Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive have made it clear that FiveM is the only authorized platform for GTAV multiplayer modding, as defined in their Platform License Agreement (PLA)," said the developers. "In accordance with that policy, and at Take-Two's request, RAGE: MP will begin a structured shutdown process. We are asking all server owners to wind down their operations and migrate to FiveM." Server owners have until...

While 007 First Light is the first actually good James Bond game in quite some time, developer IO Interactive has been making well-optimized PC games for years. It’s not surprising, then, that 007 First Light runs extremely well, at least once you clear its somewhat steep system requirements. The game requires just an AMD Radeon RX 5700 or a GeForce GTX 1660 to run, but its recommended spec is an RTX 3060 Ti or a 6700 XT . That’s quite a difference, but I will say that after testing the 3060 Ti at 1080p, it runs incredibly well, although the low VRAM means you’ll probably want to turn down the texture quality a bit, even at that lower resolution. In fact, the textures in this game are like a little sponge for video memory, and if you want to max it out at any resolution, you’re going to want to make sure you’re packing a GPU with at least 12GB of the stuff. And, at higher resolutions, you’re probably going to want to bump that requirement up to 16GB if you really want to avoid an...

PlayStation has unexpectedly pulled the plug on Destruction AllStars , a live-service game released during the PS5's launch window. The game is no longer available for sale and its servers have been shut down. Those who still own the game can still play the game's arcade mode, going up against bots offline. Typically, these kinds of shutdowns are announced ahead of time to give players a chance to buy the game or rally others together for some final online matches, but Destruction AllStars was delisted and shut down seemingly simultaneously. Players were notified via PlayStation notifications. (The game's social media account hasn't been active since 2022, when X was still Twitter.) Destruction AllStars came out in 2021 and received a mixed reception. Despite releasing during a drought of games, early PS5 adopters largely rejected the game, even after PlayStation Plus subscribers were given two free months. We gave the game a 6/10 in our review, noting that although t...

James Bond will meet social media influencer Khaby Lame in 007 First Light , developer IO Interactive has revealed. It's a reveal that has left some Bond fans scratching their heads — firstly that Lame is in the game at all, but also secondly that his cameo has been revealed ahead of the game's general release — removing the element of surprise. Lame is famous for his deadpan TikTok reaction videos, where he performs an exasperated gesture to mock things that seem obvious. Unsurprisingly, it's this same gesture that Bond fans will be able to see Lame replicating in 007 First Light, as His Majesty's agent asks for directions while standing in front of a signpost. In a video clip posted to Instagram , players can see Bond wandering up to Lame, asking for directions, only for Lame to gesticulate at the sign — which already holds the answer. Come on Bond — one too many martinis? "You will meet a familiar face in Vietnam," IO Interactive wrote. "Khaby Lame joi...