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2022 saw launcher bloat turn from a minor annoyance into a genuine problem Help, my games keep exploding on the launchpad. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. Patching a game to add a launcher is like doing an operation to put in an appendix, and it’s become alarmingly common this year. Once, I seem to recall, patches fixed bugs, corrected typos, and added new content, but since a September"Quality of life update" to the BioShock gamesadded an utterly redundant new launcher, I’ve begun to worry that every update to my games library carries an unwelcome guest....

After a terrible 2021 for hardware, was 2022 really any better? In some ways, yes, in a lot of ways, oh hell no. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. It’s only natural that at the end of a long year you end up looking backwards. We’ve written a lot of tech news this year—weird, wonderful, and Gabe-y—and amonstrous number of hardware reviews, too....

AI art isn’t going away Despite ethical problems, AI image generators and other machine learning applications won’t be willed away. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. The internet did a commendable job of mockingNFTsto death, or at least into remission—big game developers likeUbisoftwho initially showed interest have mercifully stopped bringing them up—and now some hope that the “make it so uncool no one will touch it” tactic can be used to stunt another trend: the rapidly-advancing AI image generators spitting out flattering, fake portraits of our friends andstills from imaginary David Lynch Warhammer films....

Cult of the Lamb’s first big update will bring new attacks for every weapon Heavy Attacks will charge up and smash your enemies next year. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. Action base-building roguelikeCult of the Lamb, one of this summer’s hits, comes barreling into Winter announcing its first big content update for next year. It’ll bring new stuff to the adorably violent cult of floofy animals, focusing on the combat portion of the game over the cult management....

Elden Ring’s environment is still my gaming highlight of 2022 Nothing was quite as special as exploring The Lands Between. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. As 2022 comes to a close, it’s natural that we all take a look back at the year behind us and think about the games we’ve played. This year, for me, was mostly taken up by some amazing narrative indies like The Case of the Golden Idol and Strange Horticulture....

Factorio has sold 3.5 million copies Factory just keeps growing. You can’t explain that. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. Factory-building game Factorio has sold 3.5 million copies, reports developer Wube Software in its year-end update. It’s an incredible validation of success for a game that would politely be described as of niche interest to mainstream gaming. “This year we have reached another sales milestone, with 3....

How do the Home Alone videogames hold up? We’re rerunning Richard Cobbett’s classic Crapshoot column, in which he rolled the dice and took a chance on obscure games—both good and bad. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. From 2010 to 2014Richard Cobbettwrote Crapshoot, a column about rolling the dice to bring random games back into the light. This week, the other defining Christmas movie of our time....