RELEASING BALDUR’S GATE III into Early Access might be a masterstroke. It’s going to be there for about a year, and while it gets the 25-hour first act into players’ hands in a playable state, it also lets developer Larian off the hook for any glitches—like the fact we couldn’t get the game to run under its default Vulkan renderer, backing off to DirectX 11 instead. There’s a disclaimer up front and a darn great watermark on all screenshots to the effect that, yes, this is still an early build.
Look at it, then, as a valuable opportunity to watch a master at work. Or wait a year before buying. What you get now is a remarkable opening sequence involving a flying mollusc-ship and dragons right out of Westeros. Some mind flayers— levitating, tentacled, evil creatures with a nice line in psychic domination—have captured you and some other characters and implanted one of their tadpoles behind your eye. In a few days, unless cleansed, you’ll turn into a mind flayer yourself. We suspect cleansed doesn’t involve scented candles and a big syringe full of coffee, but everyone you meet seems to have a different plan to get the bug out of you, and some will make things far worse. The actual city of Baldur’s Gate remains off limits, for now.
Denne historien er fra Holiday 2020-utgaven av Maximum PC.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra Holiday 2020-utgaven av Maximum PC.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
NZXT C1500 Platinum
Top-tier performance and efficiency
Nvidia DLSS vs AMD FSR
Which AI upscaling technique has the edge?
World of Goo 2
Goo-d enough for two
BenQ X300G 4K Short Throw Projector
Priced high, yet punchy
Hyte Thicc Q60
Almost more mobile phone than CPU cooler
Remove stalkerware from your PC
ACCORDING TO KASPERSKY’S LATEST ‘State of Stalkerware’ report, over 40 percent of those surveyed worldwide said they’d experienced stalking or suspected that they were being stalked.
BUILD AN IT SUPPORT HUB
Discover how to use RustDesk to provide remote assistance and control your own devices remotely with Nick Peers
AMD's turn to drop the ball?
WITH INTEL'S RAPTOR LAKE CPUs falling over, the company firing around 15,000 employees, and cancelling its 2024 innovation event, AMD must have been enjoying the view - until its new Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs rolled out. So, is AMD's CPU a minor stumble or game-changing fumble?
Intel issues fix for Raptor Lake degradation
EARLIER THIS YEAR, I wrote about difficulties I was having with a Core 19-13900K processor (see MPC230 Tech Talk). Little did we realize that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. While most complaints have involved the unlocked Core i9 Raptor Lake CPUs, it appears the instability problems build up and potentially impact many Raptor Lake-13th and 14th Gen Core CPUs, with Intel identifying 22 different desktop parts.
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
The new Zen 5 CPUs are here—time to benchmark!