{"source":"Videogames","paragraphs":["\u003cp\u003eRocket League is changing in a

big way. Today, developer Psyonix announced that, later this summer, the
multiplayer cars-meets-soccer game will be going free-to-play. Additionally, the
game will get cross-platform progression, covering elements like cosmetic items,
battle pass progression, and competitive rank.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThat’s
setting a very high bar, and, for now, I’m not sure Alyx clears it. The game is
fighting VR’s inherent hardware limits, a pandemic-related headset shortage, and
the difficulty of building a game for a new platform. While it’s about as long as
the landmark Half-Life 2, with my game clocking in at 15 hours, it doesn’t feel as
big or as narratively and mechanically fresh. It advances the series’s main plot,
but it doesn’t come close to resolving it.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eStudents
from Boston University to UCLA, from South Louisiana Community College to
Northwestern University, have recently created or resurrected Minecraft servers and
shared their creations on Discord chats, in Facebook meme groups, and on Reddit
threads. The boom of college Minecraft servers has begun. These servers have the
express purpose of bringing students together and building, oftentimes focused on
recreating their college campuses. Searches for Minecraft server hosting have
peaked to unprecedented levels in the last few weeks, and thousands of students are
discussing college servers, most notably on the Facebook group \"Zoom Memes for
Self Quaranteens.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eTheThe moment I fully grasped the
danger of my situation in the opening few hours of Cyberpunk 2077, I had just opted
to take a hit of a particularly dodgy illegal substance. The drug came from a
junkie gangster with a spider-like face full of red cybernetic eyes. His name, he
insisted, was Dum Dum. As a street kid, my chosen \"life path\" in the game, I
recognized the name of the aerosolized adrenaline-booster and was able to chat
cordially with our frightening host about it. Had I come from a corporate
background or been a wandering nomad type passing through Night City, I might not
have known.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eClosest in tone to Game of Thrones’ dirty
and pitiless fantasy, The Witcher 3 is a truly superb fantasy game as full of sex,
dirty tricksters and political betrayal as any Thrones fan could wish for, with a
more generous dose of fantasy creatures. You play as a monster-hunting outcast,
Geralt, caught up in a rulers’ war. Interestingly, The Witcher lets you see the
impact that the egotistical nobles’ struggles actually have on the people forced to
live under them, rather than casting you as the hero who rides in on a white horse.
Its characters and writing are excellent, and the socio-political intrigue will be
irresistible to anyone who appreciates GoT’s tangled webs of houses and
rivalries.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eTwitch is also relaunching its twitchsports
channel today to highlight broadcasts and programming. The relaunch includes a
showcase today, hosted by Major League Soccer star Jimmy Conrad, that will cover
the NBA, UFC, Arsenal, and House of Highlights using two-hour slots to demonstrate
the type of sports content Twitch has to offer.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eWhen
the latest instalment in Microsoft’s decades-old Flight Simulator series was first
shown at the E3 video game event last year, it drew gasps from the audience. Using
two petabytes of geographic data culled from Bing Maps, together with cutting-edge,
machine learning algorithms running on the company’s Azure cloud computing network,
the game presents a near-photorealistic depiction of the entire
planet.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eIt’s an eclectic lineup, but it’s also one
that includes some of the developer’s more influential games. San Andreas is the
biggest of the trio and arguably is the most beloved game in the GTA series. It
introduced the world to the fictional version of California that would also be the
setting for the best-selling Grand Theft Auto V. Midnight Club: Los Angeles,
meanwhile, is a racer that came out in 2008, and at present, it’s the last title in
the series to be released, while Table Tennis is a shockingly in-depth look at the
sport from a developer best-known for violent action
games.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eEA will start releasing games on Steam again,
after it moved away from the popular PC game marketplace in 2011 in favor of its
Origin store and launcher. It’ll start with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, making it
the first new EA game released on Steam since 2011. Additionally, EA announced
plans to bring its EA Access subscription service to Steam starting next year,
allowing players to pay a monthly price for access to a collection of EA games
through Steam.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBut the streamer in the panel is far
from a big-time broadcaster. Known as Michael \"mmDust\" Duarte, he is a Twitch
affiliate known for speed running Resident Evil 7 who currently holds world records
for beating the game as quickly as possible. Since the panel, mmDust initially
doubled down on his comments, only to joke about them and eventually apologize in a
Twitlonger.\u003c/p\u003e"]}