Gaming

Reach the ‘PEAK’ on GeForce NOW

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July 10, 2025

Grab a friend and climb toward the clouds — PEAK is now available on GeForce NOW, enabling members to try the hugely popular indie hit on virtually any device.

It’s one of four new games joining the cloud this week. Plus, members can look forward to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 coming soon.

Time to Climb

There’s always gonna be another mountain.

PEAK is a co-op climbing game that puts players in the shoes of lost nature scouts, ascending a mountain at the center of a mysterious island. Scavenge for food (even if it’s of questionable quality), manage injuries on the climb and help the squad summit safely. Members can play solo or survive together with up to four players.

There’s a new island to survive on every day. And, with more than 100,000 concurrent players daily on Steam, there’s always a climbing buddy to join.

GeForce NOW members are equipped for the challenge with an Ultimate membership, which powers the climb at up to 4K resolution and 120 frames per second. Ultimate members can play PEAK and more than 2,000 other games they already own with extended session lengths and ultralow latency on a GeForce RTX 4080 rig. Upgrade today for elevated gameplay.

Get Hyped

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 is coming soon to GeForce NOW.

The legendary franchise series that taught generations to ollie, grind and combo like maniacs is back, helping members hit the 900 from nearly any device.

The Birdman and crew return, bringing all the classic parks, legendary skaters and iconic soundtrack gamers remember — now fully remade with a few wild surprises for players.

Relive the glory days, whether grinding rails in the airport or pulling off insane combos in Los Angeles. New environments like a water park add a creative twist. The roster is stacked with original legends and new faces — plus a few unexpected guests.

Career Mode delivers with heart-pounding runs, while New Game+ and Solo Tours keep the challenge alive. Take on friends and rivals in online multiplayer mode. The upgraded Create-a-Park and Create-a-Skater tools mean gamers can build, style and shred their way.

With GeForce NOW, gamers will soon be able to skate anywhere, anytime — no console required. Enjoy the title in stunning 4K resolution and ultrasmooth frame rates with an Ultimate membership powered by GeForce RTX 4080 servers. Drop in instantly on any device, chase high scores with the lowest latency and keep the shred alive. The ultimate skate session is always just a click away.

Every Day a New Game

Every Day we Fight on GeForce NOW — Fight as one, survive as many.

Catch Every Day We Fight, a new roguelite, turn-based tactic game from Singla Space Lab and Hooded Horse, in the cloud with GeForce NOW.

In this title, citizens from either side of an ongoing war must set aside their differences as a mysterious alien invasion threatens humanity — and time has come to a stop for all but a small band of freedom fighters. Caught in a seemingly endless loop, players must shape these ordinary civilians into heroes as they repeatedly fight and die. Real-time exploration, stealth and teamwork are essential to acquire new skills, seek out more powerful weapons, escape the time loop and save the world.

Members can look for the following games to stream:

Every Day We Fight (New release on Steam, July 10)
Mycopunk (New release on Steam, July 10)
Brickadia (New release on Steam, July 11)
Peak (Steam)

What are you planning to play this weekend? Let us know on X or in the comments below.

🕹️ Which game demands the fastest reflexes you’ve got?

— 🌩️ NVIDIA GeForce NOW (@NVIDIAGFN) July 9, 2025

The Best Characters And Karts For Smashing Mario Kart World Time Trial Records

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July 9, 2025

The Best Characters And Karts For Smashing Mario Kart World Time Trial Records

Screenshot: Nintendo / Samuel Moreno / Kotaku

Earning first place in Mario Kart World‘s 150cc races depends on a lot of factors, ranging from shortcuts, knowing where to wall ride, and how to deal with the uncertainty of getting bombarded with shells. That hasn’t stopped players from figuring out the game’s unspoken meta, locking down which vehicles and characters perform best against each other in 150cc or online. But one mode where that competitive meta isn’t as prevalent is Time Trials.

Princess Peach’s Leading Role And More New Releases

Read More: Mario Kart World: 8 Clever Ways To Dodge Blue Shells And Keep Your Lead

You’ll still need a different strategy when the only things on the track are you and some coins. Time Trials has its own meta that you can follow to easily overcome the developer times, as well as those set by the community.

Best Karts for Time Trial

If you’re aiming to beat developer ghosts or lead the player rankings in the Time Trials mode, karts with a high Speed stat will make a huge difference. That doesn’t mean Acceleration and Handling are useless by any means, but they aren’t quite as important in this mode. Speed is the name of the game when you don’t have to worry about Blue Shells or Mega Mushroom drivers among everything else.

With this in mind, prioritize these karts when trying to break records in Time Trial.

Reel RacerBowser Bruiser / Chargin’ Truck / Li’l Dumpy / Mecha Trike / Tiny TitanStellar SledBaby Blooper / Loco Moto

Best Characters for Time Trial

A vehicle selection screen shows different karts for a cow. — Screenshot: Nintendo / Samuel Moreno / Kotaku

With Speed being the stat to prioritize for Time Trial, characters from heavier weight classes typically perform best. Bowser is a very popular choice as he is the heaviest character with the highest speed. He’s also the only one in his weight class, which is why you’ll specifically see him when viewing the player Time Trial rankings for each track. It’s easy to set some crazy records by pairing Bowser with the likes of a Reel Racer for pure Speed or sacrificing just a bit of it for something more rounded out like the Baby Blooper.

Read More: The Best Characters For Every Track In Mario Kart World

If you feel that a track needs just a bit more handling or don’t want to exclusively play Bowser, going down to the next weight class can offer you some variety. Here are the characters belonging to the two heaviest weight classes:

BowserWario, Waluigi, Donkey Kong, Wiggler, Cow, Chargin’ Chuck, Pianta

Using the above characters is a safe bet for most tracks. Nevertheless, there are a handful of cases where lighter characters excel. Windy tracks like Shy Guy Bazaar or those with a ton of turns like Mario Circuit aren’t ideal for Bowser. Using the baby versions of characters or smaller ones like Toadette and Shy Guy is a better approach, but what’s important is that you’re sticking with the karts mentioned above.

Mario Kart World is available now exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2.

Dark Fairy Tale: Dreamland Survivors Steam Review

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July 9, 2025

Dark Fairy Tale: Dreamland Survivors Steam Review

Dark Fairy Tale: Dreamland Survivors is a Vampire Survivors clone. You all know how these games work. You walk around, and your attacks auto-fire at your opponents. You gain exp to level up. At level up, you get one of three dream eggs. These eggs will have one of three properties, Caster, Archer or Lancer. The order at which you absorb these eggs will directly affect your weapons. They will also effect your stats as there are other tags like Burn and Curse. Now, you can activate up to 5 eggs, which will give bigger boosts to your stats, or absorb for a smaller bump and affect your weapon. Therefore there is a choice as to which eggs to activate or absorb in Dark Fairy Tale that I liked.

Another interesting feature in Dark Fairy Tale is that every two levels is challenge level, chosen by picking a tarot card, then turning over several fate cards. The tarot will affect the win goal, like just survive or beat a boss. The fate cards will affect the parameters in the challenge, like the size of the monsters or give you an extra level. If you win, you get a treasure chest of eggs. Fail, you get nothing. Die, game over.

There’s more features, like a dash and “nightmare coins” that I won’t go into.

Honestly, Dark Fairy Tale is solid, but not great. It does all the things an auto battler does, and does some things well, but not all. For one thing, you only play Pinocchio and have a grand total of one stage. The twisted tale theme also isn’t explored as much as it should be in my opinion. And don’t forget, for five dollars you can get the base Vampire Survivors. Dark Fairy Tale: Dreamland Survivors gets a tepid Recommended with a seven score.

Overall: Dark Fairy Tale: Dreamland Survivors does everything an auto-battler should, but a lack of content and wow factor doesn’t make it stand out.

Verdict: Recommended

Score: 7

Steam Page

Release Date6/19/25Cost$4.99Developer/PublisherBingobell

Zed Drop Quest Guide in Palia

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July 9, 2025

Zed Drop is one of the new Discovery Quests in Palia. It was added recently with the Solstice Bloom update. It looks like Zeki’s boss, Zed, wants something that might help him push the illegal shipments. Zeki cannot retrieve such an item on his own, so you must help him. In this guide, we will walk you through the Zed Drop quest in Palia.

How to Complete the Zed Drop Quest in Palia

Starting the Quest

The Zed Drop quest becomes available after surpassing Friendship Level 2 with Zeki. If you have a high friendship level with Zeki, you will see a quest marker on him. Go and speak to Zeki, and he will mention that his boss needs something from Eshe’s office, which will trigger the Zed Drop quest.

Steal the Bahari Family Seal

While speaking with Zeki, he will give you the Magic Lockpick (quest item) that you can use to open the office desk in Eshe’s office. Go to Eshe’s office at night, as she won’t be there. Walk over to the sparkling spot in the office and interact with the desk to get the Seal.

Now, go back to Zeki and tell him about the Seal. Go through the dialogues, and he will tell you to deliver the Seal at the drop location.

Drop the Seal at the drop point

The drop point for the Seal will be in Elderwood. The precise location of the drop point is B7, the western pier of the De Mer Dock. Go to De Mer Dock or fast travel to the stables, and make your way to the drop point. Once there, interact with the sparkling spot to drop the Seal.

Wait to hear back from Zeki

Now, you need to wait until Zeki reaches out to you. He will send you a letter in the mail. Go to the housing plot area and check any mail from Zeki. Read the mail to conclude the quest.

Rewards

Completing the Zed Drop quest in Palia will give you the following rewards.

Friendship increases with Zeki

1x Lucky Coin

MANIAC Review | TheXboxHub

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July 9, 2025

Unleashing Mayhem in a Retro Rampage Simulator

In the early GTA games, I was playing them not so much for the 3D or 2D open worlds that the developers so beautifully created, nor for the number of missions and storylines conceived for these vast cities.

Nope, what was really impressive to me was the amount of chaos you could accumulate in just a matter of minutes. If you went on a rampage, the star system would go up, and soon you would have every helicopter, cop car, and even the army after you. It was nothing short of pure amazing mayhem.

Now, with MANIAC, the teams at Skystone Games and Transhuman Design have taken that concept from those games and made a whole rampage simulator. And you know what? It’s a lot of fun.

Drunk Santa and Nuke countdowns

The setup is simple, and the gameplay works as a bit of a mixture of top-down GTA and Vampire Survivors. You pick from a series of characters, but to begin with, you have only unlocked a drunk Santa Claus.

You are placed at the start of the game in a city with a few objectives, the main one being to survive for 20 minutes before the whole place is nuked. There are other sub-objectives like ‘drink some pina coladas with some babes’ – whatever that means.

Automated Anarchy

Now, all you need to do is cause chaos, rake in dollars, and achieve that final objective. As you move, you will automatically punch or fire a gun at any folk who may be passing by. Soon, you are knocking down and running over everything in your path, mostly as you can steal any car you see and then mow everything down as you try to escape.

Of course, very quickly into your run, the law will begin to chase you. Soon you have a horde of police and helicopters, and then even more law enforcement descending upon you. The key here is to watch your health and keep moving, all in hope of being able to stay alive.

Enhancing Your Rampage

MANIAC review 2 — It’s time for a rampage

What keeps MANIAC tense is that you have markers on the screen for your next level-up, with an arrow pointing the way. If you reach this fabled area, you go up a level and, like in the aforementioned Vampire Survivors, you now get to choose a gift or buff. These can be simple things, such as allowing vehicles to be hijacked quicker, or you might get extra weapons like flamethrowers, or you could gain followers who will help you in the chaos. These buffs are brilliant and add an additional layer of fun to the proceedings.

Permanent Perks and Playable Mayhem

Once you die in the game, which I did a lot, you start again. But you can use your hard-earned cash for extra support in the next run. Neatly, you can gain a perk that makes it harder for you to be killed, or even delay the time when law enforcement turns up, getting you closer to that nuke detonation.

There are also six different characters to unlock, all of whom have their own unique playstyles and different starting weapons attached to them.

Moral Mayhem

My main criticism is that MANIAC does feel old-school in terms of its themes and lack of morality. Is it right to just go about mowing down everyone? Maybe I am getting too old and up myself, because it is just a game, and a really fun one at that. But throughout my time with MANIAC, I have had to consider ‘things’.

Following on from that point, the top-down, cartoon visuals make the game’s style more fantasy than reality. This perspective sort of separates you from the violence and chaos happening around you. The framerate is smooth, and when the screen gets busy, the game doesn’t stutter. Further, the characters are fun, and the city design is fantastic. In fact, fun and fantastic are great ways to sum up the soundtrack too, with some limited voice-over snippets from the main characters.

A Bargain Blast of Mindless Carnage

MANIAC will roll back the years, whisking you away to those early experiences with Grand Theft Auto. It has a very arcade-like feel to it, with quick gameplay loops and exciting action. I’d say that Vampire Survivors is the closest to MANIAC in terms of DNA, with its buff system and that compelling one more go energy. But another big plus is the price – it very much feels a bargain for something this polished and addictive.

If you want to cause some mindless chaos, then MANIAC will be your first stop into madness.

Important Links

ReAdY tO gO iNSanE?! MANIAC Unleashes GTA-Style Chaos on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch – https://www.thexboxhub.com/ready-to-go-insane-maniac-unleashes-gta-style-chaos-on-xbox-playstation-switch/

Buy MANIAC on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/maniac/9n07nglhl0r5

Monopoly Go ad brings back Will Ferrell as Mr Monopoly wrapped in a lot of 90s TV sitcom nostalgia

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July 9, 2025

Monopoly Go ad brings back Will Ferrell as Mr Monopoly wrapped in a lot of 90s TV sitcom nostalgia

Monopoly Go has debuted a new ad campaign that calls back to the time of sitcoms and family arguments over the classic board game. The new campaign is called The Dice Life, and it has a star-studded cast.

Headlining the bunch, of course, is Will Ferrell, who returns to voice Mr Monopoly in the ad’s various 90s TV tropes-inspired vignettes.

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As reported by The Drum, The Dice Life ad campaign comes from creative agency Omelet, who’s partnered with Monopoly Go developer Scopely to create a love letter to that era of TV sitcoms, including an original theme song that’s clearly inspired by some of the most popular 90s classics.

You’ll recognise Jake Johnson (New Girl) and Sunita Mani (Glow) in the ad. It’s short, and serves to amplify the drama anyone who played the original board game with friends and family will be very familiar with.

Monopoly Go is having a busy summer. The game just revealed its latest Marvel collaboration, this time with the upcoming The Fantastic Four: First Steps movie. The cross-over kicks off July 13, and brings iconic The Fantastic Four characters and locations into the world of the game.

It comes with a host of new mini-games, in-game events, collectibles – and, of course, a new Partners Event. Speaking of events, we’re still waiting to hear about the next Monopoly Go Treasures Event; the most recent one having taken place at the end of June.

For more helpful coverage, catch up on the latest set of free Monopoly Go Dice Links for the month of July.

YoshiP admits brutal Final Fantasy 14 raid was a “misstep in development” as the team made it “too difficult for players to even get into”

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July 9, 2025

YoshiP admits brutal Final Fantasy 14 raid was a “misstep in development” as the team made it “too difficult for players to even get into”

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Final Fantasy 14 players have struggled with the game’s Forked Tower: Blood raid, a surprisingly brutal battle that many players have struggled to not only beat, but actually enter.

Following the release of the popular MMO’s latest raid, Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki ‘Yoshi-P’ Yoshida has admitted that the raid’s difficulty was a “misstep in development” that was supposed to be challenging, but just not that hard.

Speaking to RPG Site, YoshiP explained that the Forked Tower: Blood raid wasn’t supposed to be “hardcore content”, just a challenge that players would have to prepare for. Unfortunately, somewhere during development, the raid became way too difficult.

“I do feel that Forked Tower: Blood was a misstep in development,” the FF14 director and producer said. “It wasn’t meant to be hardcore content, so to speak. The intention was that it might be more difficult at first, but over time more players might be willing to take on the challenge; yet, in the end we made it too difficult for players to even get into the raid in the first place.”

Since the raid’s launch, Square Enix has released a number of patches to make the raid easier for players. However, YoshiP admits that it’s really hard to create content that appeases both casual and hardcore players in a timescale that pleases everyone, and that means sometimes issues like this occur.

“We are trying to work within a specific timescale, and trying to satisfy both types of players,” the director and producer explained. “At the same time, even if we were to double our number of developers, I don’t think we’d necessarily be able to double our output while trying to maintain the same level of quality.”

The next big Final Fantasy 14 update, 7.3, is expected to launch sometime in August, adding Pilgrim’s Traverse, a deep dungeon for casual players with a hardcore extra hard boss for those who want that a spicy challenge.

After apologising for the “quality of service” recently with countless buggy patches, Final Fantasy 14 is still in a great place. While there’s still some developmental quirks to iron out, hopefully everything will shape up soon.

For more Final Fantasy coverage, read about how the long-awaited Final Fantasy 9 Remake project may actually be cancelled. That’s a bummer.

Final Fantasy XIV Online

Platform(s):
PC, PlayStation 3

Genre(s):
Fantasy, Massively Multiplayer, Massively Multiplayer Online, RPG

AMD CPU Transient Scheduler Attacks security flaw revealed

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July 8, 2025

Made public today is a fresh round of security issues, this time for AMD CPUs with Transient Scheduler Attacks. It affects quite a lot of processors including desktop, mobile and data centre.

From AMD:

AMD discovered several transient scheduler attacks related to the execution timing of instructions under specific microarchitectural conditions while investigating a Microsoft report titled “Enter, Exit, Page Fault, Leak: Testing Isolation Boundaries for Microarchitectural Leaks”.

AMD has debugged these patterns and identified a speculative side channel affecting AMD CPUs . In some cases, an attacker may be able to use this timing information to infer data from other contexts, resulting in information leakage.

Some CPUs will not be getting updates for any of the issues or only for some, as AMD note some issues do “not result in leakage of sensitive information” but that depends on the exact processor series.

The CVEs are noted below:

CVE
CVSS Severity
CVE Description

CVE-2024-36350
5.6 (Medium) AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
A transient execution vulnerability in some AMD processors may allow an attacker to infer data from previous stores, potentially resulting in the leakage of privileged information.

CVE-2024-36357
5.6 (Medium) AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
A transient execution vulnerability in some AMD processors may allow an attacker to infer data in the L1D cache, potentially resulting in the leakage of sensitive information across privileged boundaries.

CVE-2024-36348
3.8 (Low) AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N
A transient execution vulnerability in some AMD processors may allow a user process to infer the control registers speculatively even if UMIP[3] feature is enabled, potentially resulting in information leakage.

CVE-2024-36349
3.8 (Low) AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N
A transient execution vulnerability in some AMD processors may allow a user process to infer TSC_AUX even when such a read is disabled, potentially resulting in information leakage.

Some of the updates for the Linux kernel were merged in recently, so hopefully distributions will get the changes out for updates quickly.

See more on the AMD website.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.

Leisure Suit Larry: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards is coming to the C64!

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July 8, 2025

Leisure Suit Larry: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards is coming to the C64!

With a lot of news this month you’d think it would slow down, but not so! As I’ve been informed by Andrew McCarthy through our IndieRetroNews Facebook page, that the 1987 hit adventure game of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards by Sierra, is being ported over to the C64 by RetroBytes. Just be aware however, even though there is footage of the game below, another version was in the works by a different developer, but that one never came to be .It was noted that the game’s original AGI engine was not compatible with the C64’s technical limitations. So lets hope this one sees the light of day.

According to google “Leisure Suit Larry is a series of graphic adventure games that have been released on various platforms. However, it is important to note that the original Leisure Suit Larry game was not officially released for the C64. The game was initially released for the IBM PC in 1987, and while there have been discussions and projects related to porting the game to the C64, no official release has occurred”. So lets hope this one is finished and we can all experience a bit of Larry on our C64’s!