Author: Mia Jones

After months of rumors and speculation, the Meta Quest 3 VR headset was unofficially unveiled today with a $499 price tag and an expected release this fall.Specifications on the new unit haven’t been shared yet, but Meta said the Quest 3 will be “40% thinner and more comfortable” than previous units, with “better displays and resolution,” and “2x the graphics performance.” It will also be fully backwards-compatible with the Meta Quest 2 headset, so any games that work on Quest 2 will work on Quest 3.”Quest 3 combines our highest resolution display yet and pancake optics to make sure content…

Hangovers suck. Especially so for those who felt pressured to drink the alcohol that inevitably caused the hangover to begin with. Drinking is slowly starting to fall out of fad, especially among younger generations. According to 2022 Gallup polling, 60% of adult Americans drink alcohol. This is down from 65% in 2019, and while 5% doesn’t seem like a huge change, it’s a pretty drastic shift when it comes to consumer spending dollars. Founders are taking full advantage of the shift as numerous startups have popped up just in the last few years looking to offer low- and non-alcoholic options.…

I thought we had already used up a lifetime’s worth of good luck when last year’s sunshine ’em up Shin chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation appeared on Steam, but now I’m wondering if this is going to be the season of spiritual sequels to niche Japanese games every year. If it is, Loop8: Summer of Gods arriving on Steam in English is the second game of my new favourite trend.. The source of inspiration this time around is 2000’s Gunparade March, which mixed cosy high school life with a looming apocalypse to incredible effect. Just like the PlayStation…

If you want to level up quickly in Diablo 4, you’ll want to use the first few hours in the game wisely. While it isn’t as crunchy as previous Diablo games, there are several ways to grind your way through and earn a bunch of XP to level up faster. Spoiler alert: this means avoiding the majority of the main campaign for the first few hours.If this is your first foray into Diablo 4 or you’re a veteran of the series, be sure to check out PC Gamer’s ultimate guide to Diablo 4 to find mounts, gems and more. Otherwise,…

Welcome back to Chain Reaction, a podcast that unpacks and dives deep into the latest trends, drama and news with some of the biggest names in crypto breaking things down block by block for the crypto curious. For this week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk, better known as Gary Vee. He is the chairman of VaynerX and CEO of VaynerMedia and NFT collection VeeFriends. The inspiration behind VeeFriends began between 2018 and 2019 when Vaynerchuk originally wanted to start a line of desktop toys for “positive reinforcement.” The idea derived from the thousands of direct messages he receives monthly from…

A tweet from Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson drove fans into a speculative froth recently. Posting on May 31, one day in advance of Diablo 4’s early access launch, Fergusson seemed to coyly suggest that Blizzard had one more big trick up its sleeve. “Are we still teasing that #DiabloIV thing tomorrow night?” Fergusson tweeted at Diablo marketing director Daniela Rodriguez, “People are going to be really surprised”.Well isn’t that exciting? The rumour-mill immediately sped up. Obviously, Fergusson was going to announce the sudden addition of Diablo’s paladin class for the fourth game’s launch. Or no, wait, he was going…

System Shock served as the inspiration for countless games, from fellow immersive sims like Deus Ex, to direct spiritual successors like Bioshock. Even Dead Space was initially conceived as System Shock 3. But according to a new report, System Shock’s own origins are stranger than you could possibly imagine.Published by Rock Paper Shotgun, the report tells the story of the game’s creation through the voices of the game’s developers. And during his recollection, designer Austin Grossman states that the game’s initial inspiration was none other than Sonic the Hedgehog.”The first reference I heard to the System Shock project was somebody…

As someone who is regularly barred from certain rooms due to a lack of abilities and resources, metroidvanias are a familiar and enthralling experience for me. Now you can experience them too, thanks to a recently launched Humble Bundle that contains some of the best metroidvanias of the last few years for a mere $15/£12.That’ll net you a gaggle of games featuring:Hollow KnightRain WorldBlasphemousBloodstained: Ritual of the NightLost RuinsLone FungusHaiku the RobotEvery single one of those boasts a user review score of over 90% on Steam, and one of them—Hollow Knight—enjoys a spot on our best metroidvania games on PC…

Here’s a new and, dare we say, awesome opportunity for your company to join forces with TechCrunch at Disrupt 2023. Yes, we dare! Announcing After Hours events! Host an After Hours event at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 What’s an After Hours event? It’s a chance to grow your brand by hosting, in affiliation with TechCrunch, an in-person, tech community–focused event in San Francisco from September 18–21 during Disrupt 2023. These side events will take place — you guessed it — after hours in the late afternoon and evening after each day of the conference. It costs nothing to apply and there’s…

In the before times, there was CRT. Then came plasma and LCD. More recently, we got OLED. Each of these technological advancements improved picture quality in some ways and kept others the same. Each had its own weaknesses as well, but the overall progression was for the better. A few years ago quantum dots entered the scene, augmenting the available technologies. These microscopic particles boosted the performance of both LED, LCDs and OLEDs, making them brighter and more colorful. These glowing dots didn’t create the image, though. The image was created by the LCD or OLED pixels, which were either directly…