We’re now just three short weeks away from the arrival of Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, the revved up remake of the beloved PSone kart racer. PlayStation Underground has released a new gameplay video, and it shows off a couple of tracks we’ve yet to see: Dragon Mines and Retro Stadium, the low-poly PS4 exclusive course.
Along with the matching character and kart skins unveiled earlier in the year, Retro Stadium is a throwback to the original. It’s based on Turbo Track, one of the game’s secret courses, and is deliciously old-school. You can see the track in action around half-way through the above video.
As Computex 2019 draws to a close, we look back at the very best gaming laptops that were on display at the huge show in Taiwan.
The biggest names in gaming were out in force, and they brought along a range of powerful and innovative designs that really push the boundaries of what we’ve come to expect from gaming laptops.
As Computex 2019 demonstrates, gaming laptops aren’t just getting bigger and more powerful, but also thinner and lighter as well.
So, without further ado, here’s our pick of the best gaming laptops at Computex 2019.
Image credit: Asus
Asus ROG Strix Scar III G731
Asus laptops always have a strong showing at Computex, and at this year’s event, Asus showed off some of its upcoming gaming laptops that we can’t wait to have a play on.
The Asus ROG Strix Scar III G731 was one of the best gaming laptops on show at Computex 2019.
Designed for esports, it comes with an ultra-fast 240Hz screen and is powered by Nvidia RTX GPUs. It looks set to be ideal for people who play games where lightning-fast reflexes are of the upmost importance.
Image credit: TechRadar
Alienware m15 2019
Dell unveiled its mightily impressive Alienware m15 2019 gaming laptop at this year’s Computex show, packed with a 9th-generation, quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 (4GB GDDR5) GPU, along with 8GB of RAM. That’s a pretty decent spec, but it’s also packed into an impressively thin and light chassis.
The screen options of this gaming laptop are impressive as well, with the choice of a 240Hz FHD display paired with Tobii eye-tracking technology built into the webcam array or an OLED Ultra HD screen (3,840 x 2,160) with Tobii eye-tracking tech built in.
Image credit: TechRadar
MSI GT76 Titan
While thin and light gaming laptops are all the rage in 2019, we have to admit we’ve got a soft spot for the MSI GT76 Titan – which is an unapologetic beast of a gaming laptop with a size – and specs – that are worthy of its titanic moniker.
This gaming laptop is absolutely massive, weighing in at 8.8 pounds, and is packed front to back with RGB lighting and an aluminum build – and it also boasts a desktop-class processor that can be overclocked – something of a rarity in laptops.
It also comes with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card and can fit up to a whopping 128GB of RAM. There’s nothing subtle about this gaming laptop – and that’s what we love about it.
Image credit: Gigabyte
Gigabyte Aorus 5
Gigabyte also showed off its latest gaming laptops, and it’s doing something interesting by making sure that every component in the new Aorus 5 is made by high-end manufacturers like Intel and Samsung.
This means that the Aorus 5 promises to deliver an exceptionally high-end gaming experience – and we can’t wait to properly test it out soon.
However, what really makes us excited about the potential of the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo as a gaming laptop is the fact that it was two 4K displays. The main display is 16:9 at 3,840 x 2,160 with the wide Screenpad Plus (which sits above the keyboard) coming in at 3,840 x 1,100 for a 32:9 aspect ratio.
That second screen can be used to display additional information for the game you’re playing, such as maps, and it can also be used for multitasking. So, if you like streaming your game on Twitch, you could use the second screen to interact with your audience.
Very cool and very exciting.
Check out all of TechRadar’s Computex 2019 coverage. We’re live in Taipei to bring you all the breaking computing news and launches, plus hands-on reviews of everything from fresh laptops and desktops to powerful new components and wild overclocking demonstrations.
While Usenet groups are no longer so commonly used as in the early days of the internet, they still retain a significant following of users, especially since the advent of NZB readers to make for easy access to specific discussions or topics.
However, while free Usenet groups still exist, these have been very much eclipsed by paid-for Usenet groups which aside from having a more reliable service can also provide a safer service with better anti-virus and spam filtering.
Therefore it’s likely that the modern Usenet user will be using a subscription service to access their favorite groups and content.
This doesn’t mean to say you can’t access Usenet groups for free – you can always get free Usenet trials and just use them one after the other to download Terabytes worth of data for more than four months.
We’ve picked out the safer options in this article: well-known brands that have been reviewed either by ourselves or our peers.
Want your company or services to be added to this buyer’s guide? Please email your request to desire.athow@futurenet.com with the URL of the buying guide in the subject line.
Hold on to your lightsabers: there’s a new Star Wars game in development, and it’s called Jedi: Fallen Order.
In development by Respawn Entertainment (the studio behind Apex Legends and Titanfall), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was announced during E3 2018 but we didn’t get a proper look at the game until earlier this year – during a special panel at the annual Star Wars Celebration in Chicago.
While the official reveal only gave us a glimpse at a story trailer, it was more than enough to get us hyped for the upcoming game. Plus, Respawn has promised we’ll get our first look at Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s gameplay during EA Play in June.
While fans of the galactic franchise have seen official tie-ins in the form of Star Wars Battlefront I and II, the new entry takes on a different tack, focusing on a single-player experience more in line with 2008’s The Force Unleashed – and we have all the concrete news and wild speculation you could want below.
What is it? A new single-player Star Wars game from the creators of Titanfall
What can I play it on? PS4, Xbox One, and PC
When can I play it? November 15 2019
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order release date
EA has now confirmed Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will release on November 15, 2019, just in time for Christmas and the long-awaited release of Star Wars Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order trailers
So far, we’ve only been treated to a Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order release trailer. It doesn’t show any actual gameplay, but it fills in the story, and it’s better than nothing (plus Respawn Entertainment has revealed we will get our first look at gameplay during EA Play in June).
You’ll take the role of Cal Kestis, a former Jedi padawan (AKA, a student of the Force). The game is set in the period following Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – the fateful time when the evil Emperor Palpatine executed Order 66, which saw the Jedi ambushed and killed by their own supporting Clone Trooper soldiers. Few survived and were forced into hiding.
And that seems to include Cal! A youngster only partially through his training, Cal has been forced into hiding, working construction sites and trying to keep a low-profile as the Jedi-hunting Imperial Inquisition continues to track down any remaining survivors.
The story trailer shows Cal having to use his Force powers to defend himself against rogue troopers, and to save a friend from falling from an accident. The trailer suggests the game will have some lavish set-pieces and environments, and hinted at a very-story-driven experience to enjoy.
Check it out below:
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order news and rumors
Gameplay reveal at EA Play and E3 2019 In a tweet on May 4 (May the Fourth be with you), it was revealed that we’ll be getting our first look at Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order gameplay at EA Play and E3 2019 in June.
So far we’ve only seen a reveal trailer for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Respawn Entertainment has been light on the details of how the gameplay will actually work.
Check out Respawn’s tweet below:
EA doesn’t plan to release Fallen Order on Switch Soon after the game’s official reveal, fans were wondering if Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will ever be making its way to Switch. Well, according to EA community manager Jay Ingram, there aren’t any plans to do so currently.
You can check out Ingram’s reply to a fan tweet below:
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was livestreamed – check it out We already know that on April 13 we got our first proper look at Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, as part of the annual Star Wars Celebration event in Chicago.
But luckily for fans that couldn’t make the trek to the event, EA livestreamed it.
Check out EA’s announcement tweet below for a chance to replay it:
The galaxy-wide premiere saw the head of Respawn Entertainment, Vince Zampella, and game director, Stig Asmussen (whose previous work includes God of War 3), revealing the much-anticipated details of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order toys -confirmed Disney has announced that Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order merchandise will become available in October 2019 suggesting, not only that the game will release around that time, but that the company expects it to be a title (or series) with a long life-span within Star Wars fandom. We now know that Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will release in November, just a month after the toys release.
Development is well underway “It’s very far along in development, and having spent time with it recently myself, it plays spectacularly well,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson revealed during a quarterly earnings call (via Seeking Alpha). “This game truly captures the fantasy of becoming a Jedi, and we will have a lot more to share soon.”
A Padawan called Cal? Confirmed According to rumored information from a Star Wars marketing day (which obviously made its way to Reddit) the story will take place roughly five years after Revenge of the Sith and will follow surviving Padawan Cal (via GamesRadar). This rumor also states that one of the game’s main plot points will revolve around Cal’s mentor figure – a woman named Ceres. Both these names are now confirmed.
It’s set after Revenge of the Sith We don’t know the specific time in which the game is set, but we’ve heard that it will take place at some point between Episodes 3 and 4, after the end of Revenge of the Sith but before Luke Skywalker’s appearance in A New Hope.
This places it after the Galactic Empire hunted the 10,000-strong Jedi Order practically to extinction, leaving only a small fraction of Jedi alive (aka Order 66). With the promise that the game will be set ‘in the dark times’, it sounds like our Jedi protagonist may be more the hunted than the hunter.
Star Wars: Battlefront II. (Image credit: EA)
Could famous Jedi appear? Playing as “a surviving Padawan”, technically meaning a Jedi apprentice rather than a fully-fledged master of the Force, Cal could do with some extra training. Given the dearth of living mentors left to train you, it’s possible Obi-Wan Kenobi or Yoda – or some less high-profile Jedi, like Quinlan Vos – will appear in a supporting role.
The single-player mode comes first – and there will be no microtransactions Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella tweeted about the upcoming game, describing it as an ‘SP’ (single-player) story.
It looks like a multiplayer component won’t be available at all in the game – surprising given EA’s focus in recent years on games that extend beyond a single play session. Even more surprising is the fact that there will be no microtransactions at all, ever, in Fallen Jedi. It’s great news considering the industry falls over itself to offer chunks of games piecemeal these days – but don’t be surprised if that means there will be an aggressive DLC system instead.
I find your lack of faith disturbing 2018 was a been a bit of a fallow year for Star Wars, with Star Wars: A Solo Story struggling in cinemas and the negative player response to EA Dice’s Star Wars: Battlefront 2 – largely in reaction to its prevalent use of microtransactions – still in recent memory.
Jedi: Fallen Order has been handed to a different studio, albeit one that’s still a subsidiary of EA. But Respawn has garnered a lot of respect as the studio behind Titanfall and Titanfall 2, two critically acclaimed sci-fi action games that pit players against each other in giant mechanized suits, and which both came with strong single-player and multiplayer offerings.
(Image credits: Respawn Entertainment)
Keep checking back here for all the latest Jedi: Fallen Order news
If you’re in the market for a cheap laptop deal, now’s a great time to find a good price, regardless of whether you’re shopping for work, school, or home. To make finding the machine that’s right for you easier, we’ve collected the cheapest prices and best deals of the week in addition to a selection of some of our perpetual cheap laptop favorites. This week features an assortment of workhorses, versatile machines, and basic configurations perfect for students.
We know that shopping for a new laptop can be an often arduous task of comparing storage, memory, processing power and features, but our guide below will help you find the best laptop deals and get the most for your money. From huge names like Dell, Asus and Lenovo to lesser known brands, you’re sure to come away happy with these bargains.
First up, you’ll find our selection of the very latest and best cheap laptop deals of the week where one store in particular has come away with a standout price on a certain laptop. Beneath those laptop prices, we’ve rounded up some of our favourite budget-price laptops and compared prices from a range of stores so you can get the best deal. This section is well worth coming back to if something takes your fancy as the prices are automatically updating all the time and we’re deep into discount season now too. If you’re a gamer, you’d be better suited checking out our selection of cheap gaming laptop deals, as the models on this page are not usually built with gaming in mind. We’ve also rounded up a fine collection of cheap laptop offers in the UK too.
The best cheap laptop deal of the week
More top cheap laptop deals of the week
Where to find the best laptop deals in the US:
We’ve compared prices on some of our favourite cheap laptops and run through the details on why we recommend them further down this page. But if you’d like to browse the latest laptop deals directly from your favorite retailers we’ve included a list of the most-recommended stores directly below.
Here we have one of the few budget laptops with a processor nearly equivalent to the MacBook Pro, that is, if you opt for the Intel Core i5 configuration. The best part? It’s roughly half the cost of its Apple-branded rival. Now given that it sells at a range of different prices, the Acer Swift 3 can be an obtuse purchase, but lucky for you, the midrange model will get you by just fine.
Its name is alphabet soup to the average reader, but then again this convertible laptop has always been about function over form. For one minuscule transaction, you’re getting a tablet equipped with an included keyboard and even a fingerprint scanner for more secure logins. Along with reliable performance and a magnesium-alloy chassis, it’s built to last – not to mention, one of the best Asus laptops you can buy when you’re on the budget.
While it may be outclassed by the Pixelbook and the Samsung Chromebook in terms of sheer power, the Acer Chromebook 15 can still pack a wallop while providing battery life that is frankly out of this world. It’s rare that a laptop can truly provide all-day battery, but in our independent battery tests, Acer’s Chromebook lasted an astonishing 17 hours – on top of providing enough power to get your work done online. If you’re looking for a 15 inch Chromebook that will give you the most bang for your buck, look no further.
The Lenovo Yoga Book, and the Windows 10 version of it in particular, is the sort of futuristic fodder you would find in an episode of Black Mirror. It has a keyboard that doubles as a Wacom touch panel and, best of all, it’s cheap as hell. Now, of course, that comes with the caveat of a weak Intel Atom processor, but the rest of the Lenovo Yoga Book should go down in the history books.
With its slick lines and a slim silhouette, the Acer Chromebook 14 makes for a subtle, snazzy laptop. Although its display isn’t the most attractive we’ve seen, it’s still acceptable for full HD. On top of that, the keyboard and trackpad adhere to the principle of ‘it just works.’ The battery life is satisfactory as well despite falling a bit south of Acer’s 12-hour claim in real-world use.
Bungie has been teasing the future of Destiny 2 over the last week or so, and now it’s almost ready to show us what’s in store. An ominous tweet from the developer reads, “Tune in for the reveal of the next chapter of Destiny 2”, and it’s followed by a date: Thursday, 6th June. Yep, that’s next week, just a few days before E3 2019 kicks off. We assume the reveal be streamed, as per usual, on the developer’s Twitch channel.
You’ll know E3 2019 is right around the corner when we start using the ‘Leaks’ and ‘Rumours’ article tags with regularity. Case in point: a new Darksiders game has just been “announced”. At least we think so, anyway. The title’s going to be part of a panel at Geoff Keighley’s E3 Coliseum, and it will take the franchise in a “different direction”.
Exactly how much we’ll see of the game is up for debate, because the summary on the convention’s website continues: “This is a panel discussion about the art and business of creating and maintaining an action adventure franchise rich in-game and corporate lore.” To be honest, we’ve read that sentence about seven times now and still can’t make sense of it.
In the three months since its launch on Xbox One, Black Desert has added two new regions, doubling the size of the world, four new classes, and massive world bosses that take whole servers of players to defeat. Today, we’ve added a whole new way for players to bring the fight to their enemies in Black Desert with the Awakening free content update.
All ten available classes will receive new weapons and devastating skills once they are “awakened” that can strike down enemies on the battlefield. During combat, classes can switch in-and-out of their awakened forms as they execute a variety of new combos delivering ultimate damage.
To awaken, adventurers must first reach level 56, having gained immense experience through their travels and trials by combat within Black Desert. They will receive a quest that explores the secrets of their past and challenges them to complete tests of combat. Once completed, players will be awarded a mythical weapon belonging to their history and people.
In addition to the Awakening update, players can enjoy new community-led events starting today. With Black Desert available with Xbox Game Pass, now’s the perfect time for beginner and veteran players to experience today’s new content.
Crashing into stores soon, Supermarket Shriek is the second Xbox One title from us at Billy Goat Entertainment, an obscure Irish video game developer based in sunny Belfast, best known for the biggest nautical disaster of the Twentieth Century and being a key recording location for HBO’s seminal “Game of Thrones” television series. But all those things are thankfully long behind us… unless there is a petition to reshoot the ending of “Titanic” where Rose just moves over a smidge and lets Jack on the damn door as well!
Which is why we are concentrating on the future, the very near future, when you (yes, you!) valued reader can expect to download Supermarket Shriek when it releases on Xbox One with Xbox Game Pass this Summer.
How great is that? If you’re an Xbox Game Pass member, you can pick up Supermarket Shriek as part of your membership. Let me explain a little bit more about what our game’s all about.
Supermarket Shriek is a unique (shopping) kart racer. In our story mode, players find our two protagonists, a rather nervous looking gentleman we’ll refer to as Billy, and a goat who we will refer to as Goat, situated together inside a humble shopping cart. I would explain why but I fear that would simply spoil the profound, intellectual story we are attempting to tell. Furthermore, our protagonists propel their shopping cart with their wild, incomprehensible screams.
You can aid them on their adventure alone or with a friend in co-op, assuming the role of one of our hapless heroes! Navigate through a series of deadly obstacle courses situated inside a range of shops, boutiques, and grocery stores. Both Billy and Goat will have to cooperate, coordinating their screaming to direct their shopping kart safely to the checkout without being horrifically murdered by giant axes, buzz-saws or eight-foot-tall foosball players to name a few of the obstacles.
Best of all, while you can use gamepads to control Billy and Goat, connect a headset to your controller in co-op and then use your own screams to propel our heroes. Hopefully that goes some way to explain just what the heck is going on!
Supermarket Shriek is the result of just over two years development by our five-person studio having started life as a Global Game Jam entry by Paul, our lead programmer, and myself. For those unfamiliar with the event, the Global Game Jam takes place at the end of January every year where game developers, professionals, students or just keen hobbyists meet up and are tasked with creating a game from scratch inside 48 hours. A typically vague theme is chosen to connect all the entries and a series of bonus diversifiers are listed to implement in each entry. These diversifiers usually add a bit more of a challenge when designing your game, things like “create a game that can be played with only one button” or “create a game that only uses two colours” are typical examples.
The theme when Paul and myself came up with Supermarket Shriek was “waves,” so we thought of using “sound waves” to control our game. We wanted to make a co-op game because, at game jams like this, co-op games are always the most fun when played by everyone together at the end. Paul had recently become somewhat fascinated with videos online of goats screaming and sounding indistinguishable from humans, so he insisted that one of the characters was a guy and the other was a goat.
We wanted to have multiple players use their voice to control the same thing, so we needed a vehicle or object for them to be positioned in that could be easily forced around in any direction. We wanted the players to have to traverse a level, like an obstacle course, maybe collecting things along the way and agreed that a shopping cart ticked all our requirements. Finally, we needed a theme. Being a big fan of the late, great, television gameshow host Dale Winton, we took inspiration from arguably his most popular show, “Supermarket Sweep.”
We decided to theme our game around a parody gameshow of sorts, something zany and camp that wouldn’t look out of place on mid-afternoon TV in the 90s (albeit with more deadly challenges) and thus Supermarket Shriek was born!
Wind the clock forward a few years and you find us franticly cobbling together the final version of our game that you, valued and patient reader, will be able to play for yourself very, very soon.
We very much hope that you’ll enjoy our game and enthusiastically extol its virtues to friends, family, colleagues, random strangers you accost in the street.
Finally, to borrow a phrase from the late Dale Winton himself, the next time you’re at the checkout and you hear a beep, think of all the arguments you could be having because your co-op partner decided to scream too early, and thus send you flailing to your fiery deaths in a pit of lava, when all you had to do was collect a bottle of chocolate milk and get out of the damn store… in Supermarket Shriek.
Death Stranding’s epic new nine minute trailer went heavy on gameplay footage, but its Japanese edit included a little extra for eagle-eyed fans. This clip, extracted by PythonSelkanHD, shows protagonist Sam stumbling his way through a conflict with a giant tentacle-type creature. Can it be killed? It’s unclear – but we see a few seconds of shooting, with Norman Reedus’ alter-ego seemingly able to change ammunition type on the fly.
While we know that much of Hideo Kojima’s latest will centre on survival, traversal, and stealth, we still don’t have a complete grasp on what the gameplay loop will look like. If this video is anything to go by, though, it looks like you can expect some truly crazy conflicts. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
