I will be the first to admit, that my perfect 10 review of Hades II was not as polished as I would have wanted it to be. There were so many elements about the game that I didn't want to spoil. I just put a whole lot of word salad together and slapped a 10 on it, because, I wanted everyone to go into this game fresh of of it's prequel. Now that it's been out of early access and on PC and Switch 2, I must heap more praise on the amazing Hades II. And I won't take up too much of your time, so I'll give three reasons. 

First off, is the story. This is not just the story of Melinoe, daughter of Hades and Persephone. This is also the story about what happened to Zagreus between the events of Hades and Hades II. This also is about the timeline, and speaking of time, how the big bad in this game came into power. Chronos is way worse than Hades. While Hades told you that you were stuck in hell, Chronos eggs you on, and tells you that finding him is inevitable. He knows you're coming, because, as the titan of time, he's seen it. The game tells you the story of Headmistress Hecate, and how Melinoe' came into witchcraft, also revealing the ties between that and Greek mythology. Every single character has a story arc. They never run out of things to say. With full voice acting. There is never a time where you read dialogue. This is the polish behind Hades 1 and 2. It just keeps going. The enemies and bosses even have back stories. They just wow me every time I interact with them.

Second, is the ease of the controls. I have never controlled a character better than Zagreus, until I got a hold of the absolute butter that is Melinoe. Every single button push has an instant action and reaction. I can dash around the levels, attack when I need to, and dodge when it's necessary. These games are on the short list of games where if I get hit, it was probably my fault. Most enemy attacks have a lead in, or a hit box. The game is difficult on purpose at some points, if only to keep you from thinking you're the best. You're not. You can use the permanent upgrades at home base to get there, but you're not the best. Still. Even if you've gone through both paths multiple times, the game finds ways to make it harder. It consistentlyy challenges you to be better. To get good. 

Third, is the amount of devices at your disposal to get better.  The tarot cards and the grasp that you can choose for each run just open up to a threshold to ease the pain a little. The headmistress's cauldron lets you conjure up incantations to push you further into the game and story. The items you collect help you upgrade all those the weapons and further your grasp with the tarot cards The fates list of prophecies are achievements I want to check off, because they reward me with items I need to make my weapons kick more mythological butt. And even after all that, the game rewards you when you turn up the heat for yourself. High risk...you know the rest. 

Honorable mentions will go to the music. I've been listening to the music from Hades II an unhealthy amount. My Spotify wrapped revealed that Darren Korb was my most listened to artist in 2025. This is not even a joke. There are also 4th wall breaks and easter eggs all through the game. The second boss, a siren, sings to you, with a full band, while they try to kill you. If you turn the music off in the settings, she acknowledges it, and berates you for it! It's the little things that make this game stand far apart from others, and it's why I gave it a 10. 

If you're not playing Hades II, you're missing out. But please, play Hades 1 and beat it 10 times first. Yes. I said 10 times. Well done, Supergiant. Well done. 

At CES, MOZA is showcasing a few products for the racing and flight sim fans. Some are new, some are old, but they all look really solid.

First up we have the MOZA KS Pro Wheel. This butterfly shaped wheel looks like it'll have more than enough controls at your fingertips. On the front is a 2.99" screen, which you can customize with MOZA's software. And you'll get plenty of lighting options as well. 

Another new wheel MOZA will be showing off is the MOZA CS Pro Wheel. This GT3 style wheel will also have a 2.99" screen at the top center. There's an option six paddle layout and with the standard 6x70 bolt pattern, you can put it on many third party wheel rims.

One of the more beautiful wheels I've seen is the MOZA Porsche Mission R steering wheel. What sets this one apart is the large 5.4" OLED display in the center. The glass screen makes it look and feel very premium. To help with rendering some really cool looking setups, there's a built in 1.3GHz quad core processor. Everything about the Porsche Mission R screams high end and if you're around at CES, you can check it out in action.

Finally for the flight sim folks, MOZA will have their previously announced MOZA MRP Rudder Pedals there as well. This aluminum alloy frame looks solidly built with stepless tilt adjustment +/- 25 degrees. Rotation is set to +/- 30 degrees and there's 1cm of travel. Connection to your PC can be done either through USB or an RJ11 connection to one of their flight bases. It's launching today for a price of $349 with a $65 optional damper.

Unlike last year with NVIDIA bringing in the Blackwell line of video cards, this year’s CES won’t be showcasing anything new in terms of hardware for team green. What we’re getting though are some software updates that should bring about some nice improvements for gamers who use DLSS.

DLSS 4.5 is now available and what comes with it are improvements to the Transformer model that powers this tech. The new model will produce much better image quality by reducing ghosting and improving the smoothness of edges. Also, we’ll be getting better temporal stability.

During the CES 2026 pre-brief, NVIDIA showed some of this in action. In Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a video was played of the character swinging a sword. The old DLSS4 Super Resolution showed the ghosting of the sword as it swung across the character’s body. With the new Transformer model, that ghosting is all but gone. In Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a video of an enemy in the distance showed some jagged edges that were prominent on the arms and back of the man. On the DLSS 4.5 side of things, that’s all cleaned up producing a much cleaner image.

All told, the new Transformer model looks really nice and it looks like it will be a nice upgrade to an already awesome tech from NVIDIA. It’s available now for all RTX cards and you can use the NVIDIA app overrides to enable it. It’s compatible with any game that’s already supporting the current DLSS 4 version and if you’re playing at 4K Ultra settings, NVIDIA recommends using Model L.

Frame generation is an interesting subject. Some people hate it, others love it. I’m in the camp of only using 2X as my max Frame Generation multiplier. With DLSS 4.5, NVIDIA’s launching an up to 6X frame generation multiplayer, but it’s also dynamic.

You set the target frame rate you desire and Dynamic Multi Frame Gen will only turn on when the FPS gets below the target. It might only do a 2X or 3X, but can go up to 6X now if it needs to in order to stick to that target frame rate. It’s going to be user controllable so if you don’t want to use it or want to keep it at a lower multiplier, you can still do so. Look for Dynamic Frame Gen to be made available this Spring 2026 and only for Blackwell cards.

Other than those two changes, there has been no improvements done to Reflex or Ray Reconstruction. I’m excited to see how the new transformer model does and I’m happy to see it available so quick after the announcement.

Remix has been an interesting tech for modders to breathe new life into games. Today, NVIDIA announced a new feature called Remix Logic. With the past implementations, the changes made to the game would affect it globally. With Remix Logic, these changes can now be more granular and event driven.

NVIDIA showed an example where Gordon Freeman opens a door in Half-Life 2. The scene outside is that of night time. He closes it and opens again and we now see a day time scene. Gordon closes and opens the door one more time and now the outside shows a winter environment complete with snow fall.

This isn’t just limited to actions by the player. In another example, an enemy is sneaking up to Gordon when you see the screen’s color change with some chromatic aberration and some shaking. This is all handled by Reflex Logic tying some event to have these graphical changes take place.

Reflex Logic should give modders a lot more control over scenes and graphics and now they can limit to a certain portion of the game and to something that takes place there as well.

On the hardware side, NVIDIA is partnering with some display manufacturers to launch G-Sync Pulsar displays. G-Sync Pulsar combines VRR with backlit strobing syncing. With the 360Hz panels that start at 27” and 1440P, G-Sync Pulsar some scenes can be blurry even when you have it running at very high refresh rate. G-Sync Pulsar helps make a scene clear from motion blur and NVIDIA says the up to 4X motion clarity improvement can make a monitor run at a perceived 1000Hz. Acer, AOC, Asus, and MSI will be launching displays with this tech starting at $599.

Some more quick notes, GeForce Now will have a native app coming to Ubuntu with more Linux distributions later on down the road. FireTV clients will also be getting a GeForce Now app as well. NVIDIA has finished their rollout of GeForce RTX 5080s to GeForce Now for everyone to use. Finally for those who like to play flight sims, HOTAS support is here for GeForce Now so get those controllers up and running on Microsoft Flight Simulator streaming from NVIDIA servers.

So there’s NVIDIA’s announcements for CES. They also had a few AI items, if you’re interested. No new hardware, but hopefully we’ll get something in the second half of this year. Also fingers crossed that hardware prices stabilize as well.

We're a little over a week out from the launch of The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon. For anyone who's interested in the game but isn't too familiar with the story thus far, NIS America has released a story recap trailer for The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II, the events of which lead up to Trails Beyond the Horizon (naturally the video contains story spoilers). Story and battle demos are available now and The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon launches on January 15th, 2026 on the Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, PlayStation 4 and 5, and PC via Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store.

The Audeze Maxwell has been one of the more successful gaming headsets around and I know many folks that use them. Launched in December of 2022, the popular headset can be seen on many streams on various social media platforms. Today, Audeze has announced the follow-up to this popular headset.

The Audeze Maxwell 2 is their latest gaming headset features the "SLAM" Technology has channels that are in the rings that help relieve pressure buildup improving bass and reducing distortion. First incorporated in t heir CRBN2 headsets, this feature now makes its way to the Maxwell 2.

For easy cleaning and changing, the earpads are now magnetic. I have a set of headsets with magnetic ear pads and they are really nice to quickly take off to clean. The Maxwell 2's magnetic earpads will be a nice quality of life improvement over the first generation Maxwells.

Voice communication is key in many multiplayer games and Audeze is putting AI to work as the Maxwell 2 will do a better job of filtering out background noise.

As with the previous Maxwell, the Maxwell 2 will connect to your device wirelessly or wired. Besides having the ability to use a USB-C dongle, there's Bluetooth 5.3 support as well. When connected wirelessly, you'll get about 80 hours of usage between charges.

Audeze has also updated their app for a better experience and a new UI. The original Maxwell will also be able to use the app as well.

The Audeze Maxwell 2 comes in two variants. You have the PlayStation 2 version, which runs for $329 and the Xbox version, which will cost $349. Both can be used on the PC so you're really choosing for a console specific one and the Microsoft tax is the reason that version costs a little more. The Maxwell 2 is available now for purchase.

XREAL's been on a tear lately with some great AR glasses and today we see one of their new partnerships announced. They are teaming up with ASUS to produce some gaming AR glasses with some interesting specs.

The ASUS ROG XREAL R1 are a set of AR gaming glasses featuring 240Hz capable micro-OLED panels with a resolution of 1920x1080. With a 57 degree FOV, these have the same lenses as the XREAL One Pro, which feature the flat prism lenses. While the One Pro's displays go up to 120Hz, these will be able to double that.

Just like the other recent XREAL glasses, they offer electrochromic dimming so you don't have to put on some cover if you want to block out the world. 

The ROG XREAL R1 should be powered by the X1 chip that's enabled some great features in the XREAL line of glasses. You'll be  able to do some 3DoF pinning of the image, control over the screen size and distance, and change the display's color warmth as well as brightness. And it should also get the Real 3D feature as well, which turns everything into 3D via AI. Again, I'll update this news piece once I get confirmation.

I don't see mention of compatibility with XREAL Eye yet to enable 6DoF pinning of image, but I'll be sure to ask and update this news item should I get confirmation. 

Built in BOSE tuned speakers should deliver some good sound from these.

Something unique to this setup is the inclusion of the control deck. This deck looks like it'll allow for connection of a multitude of sources as well as provide some additional USB connections. 

No pricing has been announced yet, but for comparisons the XREAL One Pro currently sells for $649 so expect it to be north of that by a bit.

H-Fi RUSH is an interesting tale. It was an Xbox Exclusive, then it went to Playstation and PC via Steam. It's studio Tango Gameworks was acquired and then closed by Microsoft, because Microsoft closed a lot of the parent company Zenimax's studios. Tango Gameworks was then bought by Krafton, and they just re-released a trailer on its own Youtube Page in December. There's a lot going on with the game, and the studio, while nothing at all is going on, until today. 

Limited Run Games is releasing a physical version of the game. Pre-orders begin January 16th. The rhythm based action fighting game will come in two editions. The first has the game, with a booklet, three DLC costumes, and additional skins for $39.99. The Smidge Edition will come will all the above, a 3 CD soundtrack with liner notes, and a collectors box based on Smidge, the tutorial bot from the game. That will set you back a cool $70. 

Finally, the Project Armstrong edition gets you all of the above, an 8" 808 plush, a mini replica of Chai's guitar, a 90 page art book, the Project Armstron Card Pass replica, a Jumbo spinning MP3 player pin that glows in the dark (non working), and a certificate of authenticity. If you thought Mario Kart World was expensive, this will more than double that, for $180 bucks! 

I'm sure this is for enthusiasts, but if you want to play it right now, it's on sale practically everywhere, and still on Game Pass. I gave the game a 9.5 in 2023, so if you feel the rhythm, try it out. Hey, it's a physical copy. You all wanted this. Right? Right?! Check out the pics below. 

Transport Fever 3 developer Urban Games has shared the third episode of its "First Look" series for the transport tycoon sim, which is releasing for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S next year.

In this new video, we get a look at a completely overhauled traffic simulation, new infrastructure tools, and new tools to help manage traffic. All three aspects feed off each other, with the new traffic simulation causing vehicles to react more realistically to changing lanes, overtaking slower traffic, and choosing the fastest routes. Smarter traffic means you'll need better road construction tools, like the ability to create intersections at any angle, including complex interchanges with realistic road marking, pedestrian crossings, and movable traffic lights.

Additionally, train stations have been reworked and are now fully modular. Add-ons will allow you to increase passenger capacity and improve comfort, which directly affects their happiness, and ultimately, town growth. Rail systems you build now come with pollution consequences, meaning you could stunt the growth of towns if you cause to much noise pollution or environmental pollution. You may need to place noise barriers, trees, and smarter routes to keep the pollution away from cities, or reduce it altogether.

Holy cow, you all, there is a lot going on in Transport Fever 3. Check out the new video below as we await word on a firm release date.

Disney last week rolled out a native app on Meta Quest 3 that allows subscribers to log into their Disney+ accounts on Quest and watch any shows from their library in VR. This is a great new feature, and I'm glad that Disney finally got around to it. But there is definitely something missing from the experience. I'm not sure what I expected, but it definitely is not what this app is offering.

Upon logging in, the player is presented with a screen floating in space in front of them in mixed reality. There is no darkened theater, no red curtain, no fun avatars or buddies to sit alongside you in plushy velvet seats. Nope, just a blank black screen floating in space in front of you.

Yep, this is pretty much it.

On this screen, you can browse the Disney+ library using an interface that is very similar to what I get on my Amazon Firestick. When you start a movie or show, the room around you dims a little (there is a sliding control lever that allows you to adjust how much). Some very basic controls allow you to start, pause, drag to fast-forward or rewind, and make the screen bigger in your space. And that's it. Oh, and you can curve the screen, if you are into that sort of thing.

The experience is...fine. And it seems that "fine" is not good enough for VR fans. A quick look at the app's reviews reveal some deep dissatisfaction from the VR crowd at the lack of 3D options (this is VR, after all, so it is perfect suited for viewing 3D films). There is also an issue with the resolution, which is in 1080 with no option for 4K. For my part, I found the picture to be clean, bright, and crisp, and as usual, the sound on the Meta Quest 3 is jaw-dropping. I still have no idea how they squeeze the surround effects out of the tiny, built-in speakers, but it is truly amazing.

But what is clearly lacking here is any amount of Disney magic. I mean, this is DISNEY! Out of curiosity, I downloaded the Blumhouse experience just to compare, and while what that app is doing is a bit distracting from the film you are watching (and only two films are offered - The Black Phone and M3GAN), at least they are trying to do something to make you feel immersed in the experience. 

I'm expecting that Disney will continue to roll out new features on this app, and if they are paying any attention to their customers, 3D films will be the first enhancement (and they better not try to charge extra for it, or there will be a freaking revolution). Immersive environments will likely follow. But after years of trying out apps like Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, and of course Big Screen, all of which offer custom viewing environments, it was a bit shocking to load up Disney+ to find this generic screen hovering in front of me.

Get some Imagineers on this thing, y'all. Would I pay a bit more for a reactive Goofy to sit there and watch Zootopia with me? Yes, I would. Would I like to watch Star Wars on the open deck of a Star Destroyer surrounded by techs working on Tie Fighters? Again, yes. Could Marvel release a free custom theater to watch films in Dr. Doom's castle to coincide with the release of the upcoming film? OF COURSE THEY COULD. Let's go, Disney. I'm available for consulting if you need any ideas. You are the company that made waiting in line at your theme parks fun and interesting. I'm sorry that you have spent 100 years raising everyone's expectations by being awesome, but that's where we are. Be more awesome. Be Disney.

You know, I understand what Steam Deck users go through now. As someone who bought the Nintendo Switch 2 on day one, I was wondering how they would run the old library of games, and what could they bring to the Switch 2 to keep up with the current games. While Nintendo's first party offerings are in their own bag, the third party games have always been questioned. "Will it run on Switch?" I get it. 

When it was announced that Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade was coming out for the Switch 2, I didn't think it was possible. There were interviews, and the producers actually surprised of how well the game ran on the Nintendo hardware. We just recently got a demo, and while it runs at 30 FPS, you don't really notice it during gameplay. 

They've also done very well with lighting, and there are absolutely no delays with the controls. Everything instantly came back to me when I played through the first mission of the game. And this is the definitive port of the game, which means you get the interMISSION with Yuffie, and some extra goodies. If anything, play the demo, which is only 8GB, and just give it a shot. 

The game will be released on Nintendo Switch 2 for $39.99, and if you pre-order, you get the original Final Fantasy VII game. I still have to finish Rebirth. So you watch this while I go do that.