I’ve made it no secret that I’m a big admirer of Police Simulator: Patrol Officers, be it my initial review of the game, or diving back into its DLCs from time to time. I recently jumped back on patrol to check out the free Garage & Tools update, as well as the Vehicle Customization paid DLC, which was provided by the publisher.

The first update added the Automatic License Plate Recognition which scans license plates and alerts if the driver is a known offender of any Brighton laws. In addition to the ALPR, several free vehicle accessories were added for no cost, including two spoilers, two light bars, 1 bull bar (a ramming bar on the front bumper), two rims, and eight stickers. If you are looking for even more vehicle customization items, the premium DLC is what you’ll want. It adds 30 parts, which includes five spoilers, six light bars, four bull bars, four sets of rims, and 11 sticker decals.

I took the new customization options for a spin last night, and I really dig the new light bars, in particular. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but in the world of simulators, the little things matter a great deal, so I’m thrilled that the Police Simulator team keeps supporting this game, with more to come over the next year. As part of the new season pass, a new patrol vehicle is dropping in the third quarter of this year, in addition to a new DLC. Another patrol vehicle will be added in the fourth quarter of this year ahead of a “major expansion”, which is loosely slated for 2025/2026.

You can watch me tinker with some of the vehicle customization and go for a quick patrol in the video below, if you please.

Originally launching back in April with only the digital option, Steel Seed is today releasing on disc for those who still cling to their physical media. It is more than just a disc though, as the boxed edition includes two Koby postcards (Koby is your in-game sidekick), a double-sided poster, and some download codes for in-game items. If you want all the in-game stuff though there is also the Deluxe Edition releasing digitally alongside the boxed. The Deluxe Edition includes two exclusive battle suits for main character - Zoe, the official Steel Seed Soundtrack by Andrea Remini, and a digital artbook with concept, character, and environment art and design. 

The physical edition is a PS5 exclusive but the digital Deluxe Edition is available for Playstation, Xbox, or PC. The Deluxe Edition is only $5 more than the standard one and it appears you can upgrade from standard to Deluxe for just that difference in price if you already have a copy of the game - at least that was the case for me on PS5. I'm excited to publish my Steel Seed review in the next few days and it's nice to know that all the options to acquire the game are finally at hand just in time to reveal my thoughts. 

With the arrival of the first three Williams Pinball Table Packs in Pinball FX VR a week ago, the Gaming Nexus Score Battle began. With three of us in possession of the required equipment (Meta Quest 3) and software (Pinball FX VR and the table packs), we decided on the following rules for our first week-long contest:

• One table per week (this past week was Medieval Madness) 
• Arcade mode
• High score wins bragging rights - and can pick the next table and mode

As you can see below, the competition was fierce, but I ended up taking the lead, actually holding the number one spot on the leaderboard for almost a week (some dude booted me from my perch this afternoon). To be fair, I only broke out of the the 170-180,000,000 score range one time, when God himself reached down and touched the table, allowing me to go on that insane 242 million point run. 

Joseph came flying in at the tail end of the week and made a valiant attempt, but was unable to unseat Jeremy from second place. So Joe is the big loser. Big, giant, loser in last place. Which is the lowest spot.

• One week contest
• Theatre of Magic
• Classic Mode
• Winner gets bragging rights and also gets to choose the next table and mode

See you on the leaderboards, y'all!

Wave 2 of May's Xbox Gamepass update is upon us and a major game will be available to play very soon. 2024 Game of the Year nominee Metaphor ReFantazio will be available to play on May 29th for the Cloud, Xbox and PC. 

Here are all the games coming to Gamepass in the next couple of weeks... 

• Monster Train 2 - May 21st
• Creatures of Ava - May 22nd
• STALKER 2 - May 22nd
• Tales of Kenzera: Zau - May 22nd
• The Division 2 - May 27th
• To a T - May 28th 
• Metaphor ReFantazio - May 29th
• Spray Paint Simulator - May 29th
• Crypt Custodian - June 3rd 
• Symphonia - June 3rd

Sadly with all new games coming to Gamepass we also have to say goodbye to some games as well. All of the following games are leaving on May 31st. 

• Cassette Beasts
• Firework
• Humanity
• Remnant 2
• Slayer x Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayer

Get the full details on everything coming to gamepass along with in game benefits and DLC at Microsoft's official website.

Logitech's back today with a brand new headset to their lineup. The Logitech G522 Gaming Headset features a new design that takes into account more comfort and lighter weight as well as improved sound in both audio and voice.

Coming in black or white, the G522 was inspired by space and a floating bodies design. Coming in at 290g, the headset features bigger ear cups to encompass the ears without making them feel cramped. A reversible suspension band allows for the headset to sit on top of a soft flexible material rather than a rigid head strap.

Sound comes from two 40mm Biocellulose drivers delivering a frequency from 20 to 20kHz with an impedance of 39 Ohm. The mic was demonstrated to us during the press briefing and it was incredible at how well it sounded. I was really surprised by the quality of the voice and if real world tests are indicative of what I saw in the demo, this could be a great headset for both gaming and business meetings if you want to have the other party hear you loud and clear.

For those who like RGB, the G522 features side firing RGB that should eliminate any glare that would come from a monitor in front of you. There will be 8 zones with 16 million colors so you'll have a lot of options to customize the G522.

Connections are done via the Lightspeed dongle, Bluetooth, or wired via USB. For Bluetooth, supported codecs are AAC, SBC, and mSBC for voice. If you connect wireless with Lightspeed, you can expect 30 hours of usage with RGB on or around 70 hours of usage with it off. And what's really cool for those who like to fix their own things, there will be a replaceable battery from iFixit should the headset start to lose its charge time.

You can order one now from Logitech's store for $159.99.

At Computex, AMD announced their next GPU with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT. This card is going to come in two variants, an 8GB model and a 16GB model. If you're just into eSports and play games at low resolution or turn down features, the $299 8GB model is for you. For more future proofing and running at higher settings even at 1080P and up, the $349 16GB model is the one you want.

Spec wise, the two cards will be the same minus the differences in VRAM. They are:

• 32 AMD RDNA 4 Compute Units
• 32 HW RT Accelerators
• 64 HW AI Accelerators
• 3.13 Boost Clock
• 150W - 182W Total Board Power
• GDDR6 memory for both cards

The card will have PCIe 5.0 X16 support and because of the total power draw that the card is rated for, just one 8-pin power connector is needed. That should be good news for those that are hesitant on a card using a 12VHPWR connector.

AMD is positioning this card to be a competitor for the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti series and if you look at the pricing, it's pretty aggressive. The GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB version's MSRP is $429, but we know MSRP prices are pretty non-existent these days. While AMD's Radeon 9060 XT 16GB version has an MSRP of $349, $80 lower than the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, we'll have to see if there are any cards available at that price. Even so, I applaud AMD for pricing these cards at a more affordable range and hope that a lot of people will be able to get it at that price.

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT will be out from many board partners starting June 5th, 2025.

Having initially released for Switch ten months ago and it was announced earlier this month that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate would make their way over to Playstation and Xbox consoles. Well that time has now come for PS4 and PS5 players while the Xbox remains on track for next month, June 24th. 

In Joe's initial Switch review first impressions were outstanding, but he later lamented the overtuned difficulty scaling. I don't know if the DLC is going to do anything to alleviate that, but it is free for a limited time. You can grab a copy of the game on the Playstation Store and that's also where you will find the Casey Jones & The Junkyard Jam DLC. It's only free through June 3rd so you've got about two weeks to snag it before the price rises to something more than $0. 

If you feel the compulsion to instead own a physical copy of the game, then those are still on track for the Fall, August 26th. Both Deluxe and Collector’s edition will be available then for all the consoles - PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch.

Maestro has been a VR gem for me. Fulfilling dreams I'm way too late to even try to accomplish, Maestro is the viral hit that allows you to conduct your own Orchestra. Now, Double Jack is giving a good ol "Hello There" with one of the coolest additions of all. Duel of the Fates from Star Wars Episode 1. Included in this paid DLC is mini lightsaber cosmetic for the baton

Double Jack doubled down to announce that the game is also coming to the PSVR2, and all the previous DLC's will be available in bundle to complete the entire collection. To further celebrate, Maestro will receive a free update, containing a stage called "Fields of Fate", which may look familiar to a galaxy battle fans. There's also a cosmetic called Angels and Demons for your orchestra, and Sergei Prokofiev's Battle on the Ice will be added to the game too. All for free. Everything drops on June 20th. Force push those roses at me now. 

Overwatch 2's next collaboration launches soon and it's a crossover with Street Fighter 6. This bundle will feature a whopping eight different skins with Overwatch 2 characters dressing up as characters from Street Fighter 6. Unfortunately there are no skins here for some of the new characters introduced in Street Fighter 6. Zarya as Marisa would have been perfect but sadly it was not to be. That said im sure Kiriko fans are finally relieved that the drought is over after they had to go more than one week without Kiriko getting a skin. 

Here are all the skins available in this collaboration... 

• Hanzo - Ryu
• Widowmaker - Cammy
• Winston - Blanka
• Sigma - M. Bison
• Zenyatta - Dhalsim
• Juno - Chun Li
• Kiriko - Juri 
• Soldier 76 - Guile

The skins will be available in Overwatch 2 tomorrow. No word on pricing yet but I can only imagine the ungodly amount of money you are gonna need to spend if you want all these skins. Legendary skins like this are usually around $20 so even if they are offered in a discounted bundle by guess is its going to be close to $100. We shall see tomorrow. 

If you love old school fighting games or even just arcade games in general and want every competitive edge you can get, then 8BitDo might have the solution for you. The controller features and all-button design, so no sticks or pads for movement input. The buttons are customizable and re-mappable on mechanical switches. There are also tournament and competitive play features such as SOCD (Simultaneous Opposing Cardinal Directions) input, locks for cleaning, and a travel-friendly size, measuring about the size of a standard piece of A4 paper at about 3/4 of an inch thick. The controller can connect either via cable or wirelessly via an included 2.4GHz dongle. There are other little niceties like magnetic folding feet, fingerprint resistant tempered glass, and the Xbox version also has a dial for volume controls and RGB lighting adjustment.  

On that note, the Arcade Controller come in two variations. The first is that officially licensed Xbox version that is compatible with Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC. The other is the standard version which works with the Nintendo Switch as well as PC. The big difference here is that the standard version changes out the volume dial for a toggle that can swap between standard S-Input for the Switch and X-Input that the PC uses. It also visually follows the old-school NES controller colors styling with classic grey/black/red highlights vs the Xbox's green and black. 

The 8BitDo Arcade Controller releases on July 15th. Pre-orders for the Arcade controller are open now on Amazon (or internationally via the 8BitDo online store). You can find more about the controllers on their official site: https://www.8bitdo.com/arcade-controller/