News - Doom: The Dark Ages Makes Hell Look Better Than Ever With Latest Path Tracing

Doom: The Dark Ages is a great-looking game, leveraging the ray tracing enhancements that the latest iteration of iDTech affords the blood-soaked shooter. But if you're on PC, then you can unlock the true potential of the engine with the awaited path tracing update, at the expense of a lot of performance.

For those unfamiliar, path tracing is an all-encompassing form of ray tracing, which simulates how rays of light bounce off surfaces, that is far more demanding. Objects shoot out more rays and allow those rays to bounce around a scene more than once, leading to far more accurate lighting, better ambient occlusion, and better reflections and surface material approximations. It is, when implemented correctly, a night-and-day difference to standard ray tracing techniques, albeit only afforded by some of the best hardware on the market.

Path tracing can be transformative in Doom: The Dark Ages, if you find the right scene to do some comparisons, and it's interior spaces seem to benefit the most. Light bounces and illuminates objects in ways that standard ray tracing can't afford, while the contrast between the areas where light is meant to be, and where it definitely shouldn't, are more naturally defined. Digital Foundry has released an extensive look at many of the improvements path tracing affords, which gives you a good idea if the additional visual flair is worth it.

(Free Game Key) Epic Games | Two Point Hospital

• Go to the store page
• Click the GET button
• Verify the game is free


https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/two-point-hospital

Free till June 19.


https://steamcommunity.com/groups/GrabFr...9567212421

News - Dune: Awakening Patch Notes Fix Frustrating Endgame PvP Problems

Dune: Awakening's latest update has brought major endgame PvP changes, putting an end to one particularly annoying strategy and making death in PvP zones far more punishing.

Update 1.1.0.15, released June 18, makes it so players no longer receive damage when hit by vehicles in Funcom's survival game set in author Frank Herbert's sci-fi universe. It may seem like an odd change out of context, but it's to curb a PvP strategy developer Funcom has called "goomba stomping" and previously vowed to address. The strategy involves players in their flying ornithopter vehicles continually crushing enemy players on the ground by repeatedly flying into them.

It's a welcome change that should make endgame PvP more interesting. Another significant PvP change is an adjustment to respawn timers. Instead of being able to quickly respawn in a PvP zone, as was previously the case, players will now need to wait 70 seconds after death in a PvP zone. Subsequent deaths will take 115 seconds.

(Free Game Key) Steam | Paradox Soul

https://store.steampowered.com/app/610570
Free until June 17.


https://steamcommunity.com/groups/GrabFr...9567212382

News - A Decades-Old Nintendo Easter Egg Has Surfaced In Mario Kart World

Most Nintendo fans are familiar with Totaka's Song: a short, 19-note melody that composer Kazumi Totaka famously hides in every game he's ever worked on. K.K. Slider once crooned it to a villager in Animal Crossing, while Luigi's Mansion and Pikmin 2 both play the song if you sit on a certain menu screen for too long. Now, the melody has surfaced in Mario Kart World, which makes for the 25th confirmed instance of the melody being hidden in a Nintendo game.

As reported by VGC, a Reddit user by the name of "charizardtelephone" found the song in the latest Mario Kart's character-select screen. By moving the cursor to Yoshi and leaving it there, the cute little dino starts humming the familiar tune.

This is not the first time the song has appeared in a Mario Kart game, nor is it the first time Yoshi is the one singing it--in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, if you move your kart close to a Yoshi watching the race, you'll hear Yoshi's voice singing the tune there as well. Fittingly, Totaka himself has provided the voice of Yoshi since Yoshi's Story in 1998.

(Free Game Key) Steam | What the Pak?!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2752710
Free till June 24


https://steamcommunity.com/groups/GrabFr...6302200275

News - How To Use Minecraft Scaffolding

If you're not using Minecraft cheats, it can be easy to fall to your death when you're busy concentrating on a mammoth new build. Thankfully, Minecraft scaffolding exists to massively reduce the risk of building at height. Sure, you can use a Happy Ghast as a transportation method when you're in the skies, but if that's not suitable for your needs either, it's well worth getting your hands on scaffolding. It's easy to craft, even easier to demolish, and doesn't require materials that are tricky to get your hands on.

How to craft Minecraft scaffolding

You'll need six bamboo and one string to craft six scaffolding. Place three bamboo down the left and right sides of the crafting table, and one string in the top-middle slot.

You can find bamboo in trial chamber chests, and you can break it instantly without the need for tools.

(Free Game Key) Steam | Holy Clash Cards

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2928340/Holy_Clash_Cards/

Free till June 9.


https://steamcommunity.com/groups/GrabFr...6302199005

News - 79% Of Switch 2 Buyers In The US Also Bought Mario Kart World

The Switch 2 launched on June 5 and sold 3.5 million units worldwide out of the gate, but how did it perform in the US specifically? Mat Piscatella of Circana shared that the system is projected to have sold 1.3 million-1.35 million units during its first week in the US. That's only Circana's initial projection of sales, but Piscatella said it represents a "helluva great start" for the console.

Piscatella shared other statistics like how 79% of people who bought a Switch 2 also obtained a copy of Mario Kart World, either through the $500 Switch 2 bundle or by purchasing the $80 game outright.

The top three best-selling Switch 2 physical games sold during the first week in the US were Mario Kart World, Cyberpunk 2077, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's Switch 2 Edition, according to Circana. Mario Kart World has big shoes to fill, as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold 68.2 million units, with Mario Kart 8 shifting 8.46 million copies for a combined total of 76.66 million.

(Free Game Key) Steam - Borderlands 2

https://store.steampowered.com/app/49520/Borderlands_2/
Free until June 8th
Warning, they apparently changed the user agreement to require root level data and threats of game bans for any sort of modifcation or vpn usage


https://steamcommunity.com/groups/GrabFr...6302198256