Personal Tech Doom soundtrack added to National Recording Registry Haters are gonna hate the fact Bobby Prince's demonic dirges rank with Taylor Swift's 1989
AWS Re:invent AWS: How do you do, fellow kids? Please watch our keynotes in Fortnite Drive around a virtual track in Las Vegas while watching Matt Garman speak on in-game billboards
OSes Game on! Penguin levels up as Linux finally cracks 3% on Steam Only a point up in a year, but that’s a 50% leap for Linux gamers
Offbeat Mad man builds chatbot in Minecraft with redstone, Python, and patience Replies are slow and it's prone to gibberish – just like any other AI
OSes Decades-old bug in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas finally shows itself Something broke on Windows 11 24H2, but dev who discovered it tells El Reg this time Microsoft's not to blame
Offbeat Mapping legend Ordnance Survey releases blocky Britain in Minecraft – again A thing of beauty for map fans and those with kids
Offbeat Oregon Trail 'action comedy' film in the works from Apple Hopefully watching it'll be less painful than dying of dysentery
Personal Tech Pokémon GO was an intelligence tool, claims Belarus military official Augmented reality meets warped reality
AI + ML Google trains a GenAI model to simulate Doom's game engine in real-ish time The proof of concept shows promise despite big limitations
Bootnotes Bored students can now enjoy Sonic 2 on TI-84 Plus CE calculators, thanks to port Blast (processing) from the past
Personal Tech Husqvarna ports Doom to a robot lawnmower – not, thankfully, its chainsaws Seminal game runs on everything, so why not pay €2,199 to run it on a tiny screen?
Personal Tech Boss fight between Donkey Kong champ and leaderboard org ends with settlement Video game record keepers Twin Galaxies finish messy four-year fight with Billy Mitchell
AI + ML If you're gonna use AI-made stuff in your game, you better tell us, says Steam And pinky swear there's no copyright-infringing material
Off-Prem $6.2B in profit wasn't enough: Nvidia hikes GeForce Now prices for Canada and Europe Cites 'increased operational costs' but whatever they are US gamers aren't impacted
Software Unity talks of price cap and fees for only largest games developers That sound? It's the screeching noise of a massive U-turn as games engine biz admits mistakes
AI + ML Guild behind actors' strike fears video game workers also at risk from AI Authorizes strike for voice and motion capture talent at major game studios
Personal Tech Oh, WoW: Chinese gamers to be cut off from Blizzard games next week Contractual mess has players wondering if preserving progress in Warcraft, Overwatch, and StarCraft will be possible
Personal Tech Minecraft's 'first luxury goods collection' features real-world $3,000 Burberry coat Surely only a blockhead would pay these prices?
Cyber-crime Grand Theft Auto 6 maker confirms source code, vids stolen in cyber-heist So is that three or four stars?
Personal Tech Microsoft to blockheads: NFTs and blockchains aren't welcome in Minecraft Cites flakiness of NFT community and speculative activity as inimical to the game's goals
Personal Tech The PainStation runs Windows XP because of course it does Retro fun and games in Berlin's ComputerSpieleMuseum
Personal Tech Beijing approves first new video games in nine months 14,000 small developers reported to have gone out of business during approval hiatus
Software New York Times outlays seven-figure sum for 1,900 lines of JavaScript – yes, we mean Wordle Developer overwhelmed by game's runaway success, doesn't oppose future paywall
Personal Tech Tesla disables in-car gaming feature that allowed play while MuskMobiles were in motion Hey Elon, it's no secret that distracted driving is a major cause of US car fatalities
Security The inside story of ransomware repeatedly masquerading as a popular JS library for Roblox gamers Ongoing typosquatting attacks target kids as Discord drags its feet
Columnists New World: Grindy? Check. Repetitive? Check. Fun? We hate to say it... but check Goddamn it, Jeff Bezos' lot can make a passable MMORPG after all
Networks If you're not sold on the benefits of 5G, Ericsson suggests you keep an eye on gaming, home broadband NA CEO predicts takeoff in 18 months max
Personal Tech Children of China, your state-sanctioned hour of gaming begins … now! Beijing limits kids to three hours a week, suggests they use it to play Chess, Go or coding
Personal Tech Real world not giving you enough anxiety? Try being hunted down by the perfect organism in Alien: Isolation 2014 stealth-em-up hasn't aged a day
Personal Tech Epic lawsuit's latest claims: Google slipped tons of cash to game devs, Android makers to cement Play store dominance Read the allegations web giant tried to keep secret from the public
Personal Tech China warns game devs not to mess with history Less-than-literal versions of the past criticised, because somebody needs to think of the children
Applications Amazon Game Studios to its own devs: All your codebase doesn't belong to us E-goliath's subsidiary drops 'draconian' contract terms that absorbed personal work, demanded license rights
Legal Chinese state media describes gaming as 'spiritual opium' that stunts education and destroys families Tencent shares dive and company restricts hours of play
Personal Tech Activision Blizzard accused by California watchdog of fostering 'frat boy' culture, fatally toxic atmosphere Games giant pushes back on claims of poor pay, harassment, and more in discrimination lawsuit
AI + ML Tencent uses facial recognition to enforce China’s curfew on gaming kids Accounts held in grown-ups’ names targeted if they stay up late
Bootnotes Wish you could play tabletop Dungeons & Dragons but have no friends? Solasta: Crown of the Magister offers a solution Plus: A tale of tech woe and E3 best bits
Security EA Games looted by intruders: Publisher says 'no player data accessed' after reported theft of FIFA 21, Frostbite source 'Surprise stealing mechanics' made short work of network perimeter security
Offbeat Photographer seeks $12m in copyright damages over claims Capcom ripped off her snaps in Resident Evil 4 art From pictures of shattered glass to patterns on doors and much more
Bootnotes Days Gone PC: Melting pot of open-world influences makes for one of the more immersive zombie slayers out there Decent port of a PlayStation 4 'exclusive', but it's far from original
Bootnotes Octopath Traveler: Love letter to JRPG golden age has great combat but retro graphics highlight the genre's tedium You sure have to press 'A' a lot
Personal Tech Lenovo's latest gaming monster: Eight cores, 3.2GHz, giant heat sink, two fans. Oh, and it has a phone bolted on Mammoth as a mobe, but serious as a game device
Bootnotes Rogue elements: Hades and Loop Hero manage to draw on the same legacy while having very little in common Let's go round again, maybe we'll turn back the hands of time
OSes Valheim: How the heck has more 'indie shovelware with PS2 graphics' sold 4 million copies in a matter of weeks? Now, this might shock you, but it's something we like to call 'fun' (if you have friends)
Offbeat Looking for the perfect Valentine's gift? How about a week of retro gaming BBC Microlympics? Chuckie Egg and Elite? Oh you shouldn't have!
Personal Tech IKEA China and ASUS team on gaming products, resist urge to call them FRÄG Chairs, desks, cup-holders, and a weird wearable cushion will reach the west in late 2021
Offbeat Subnautica and Below Zero: Nurture your inner MacGyver and Kevin Costner on an ocean-planet holiday Yes, survival games can tell great stories too
Personal Tech What's that you got there, AMD? More Ryzen chips? Yeah, OK, we could do with some of those Assuming we can get our hands on these 7nm Zen 3 parts. Plus: Epyc and Nvidia teases
OSes Why make games for Linux if they don't sell? Because the nerds are just grateful to get something that works And when nerds are your audience, everything is easier
Bootnotes Cyberpunk 2077: There's a great game within screaming to get out, but sadly it was released 57 years too early Over-promised, under-delivered, and plays like an alpha – try again later
Personal Tech Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a monastery-burning romp that would be way better if it was not an Assassin's Creed game Can we start a petition to abandon the whole 'lol jk ur in a simulation' arc too?
Personal Tech We've made it: Microsoft deems El Reg relevant enough to have a play with the nerfed version of its upcoming Xbox Not sure if we should be honoured or offended, but the Series S is a huge step up from its predecessor
Bootnotes Luke Skywalker used to bullseye womp rats in his T-16 on Tatooine. But Star Wars: Squadrons misses the mark Sadly, the space opera franchise's first proper starfighter game in yonks just isn't that good
Personal Tech AMD claims high-end Big Navi Radeon GPUs leave Nvidia's ray-tracing cards in the dust If you don't want to wait for new stock or splash out on the RTX 30 series, consider AMD's RX 6000s
Personal Tech Atari threatens to hit fourth VCS shipping deadline, provides pictures of boxes as proof of product delivery Meanwhile the console’s chief architect is still chasing payment
Bootnotes Can The Register run Crysis Remastered? Yes, but we don't see why you would want to It's the 'gaming funk' edition, also starring Wasteland 3, Crusader Kings 3, and Among Us
Personal Tech Now Nvidia's monster GeForce RTX 3090 cards snaffled up by bots, scalpers – if only there had been a warning If at first you don't succeed, fail again
Bootnotes I AM ERROR: Tired of chewing up your RAM? Razer tells gamers where to stick its special gum for the RGB crowd The taste of failure ...
Software Forget Fortnite and FIFA: India wants to develop games based on local legends ‘Computer games are a new trend, however most have foreign themes’ says PM as he calls for change
Bootnotes Death Stranding: Essential worker simulator unites its players amid a lockdown far worse than the real-life one Trudging through PC port of 2019 console title in 2020 is weird
Bootnotes Global heatmap of cheater density says Brazil is the worst at video games, but there's no data on China Script kiddies run rampant in Minecraft
Software China requires gamers to reveal real names and map them to frag-tastic IDs Gotta catch 'em all
Bootnotes The Last of Us Part II: Never mind the Metacritic nonsense, Naughty Dog's ultra-violent odyssey is a must-play* *If you have a PlayStation 4
Bootnotes Elite name on Brit scene sponsors retro video games preservation project at the Centre for Computing History Couldn't come at a better time as Cambridge museum remains closed
Virtualization No, boss, I'm not playing Minecraft. Minecraft is where I run VMs on the desktop now Game mod pipes VirtualBox into virtual blockputers
Personal Tech CEO of motherboard maker MSI dies after plunging from headquarters' seventh-floor Foul play not suspected
Bootnotes Lockdown team building: Actualise the potentiality of your workforce... through the power of video games Human: Fall Flat, Left 4 Dead 2, Embr, Sea of Thieves – goodness, we've been having a blast
Personal Tech Sony reveals PlayStation 5 will offer heretical no-optical-disk option. And yes, it has an AMD CPU-GPU combo There's a standard edition with a Blu-ray and an SSD-only digital edition. Price remains secret
Personal Tech Choose your own adventure: HP's new Omen 15 gaming laptop offers choice between AMD and Intel processors Are you Team Red or Team Blue?
Bootnotes VirtuaVerse: Cyberpunk point-and-click throwback with ace chiptune soundtrack put out by... a metal record label? The Reg speaks to Blood Music about its retrofuturistic love letter to the adventure game golden age
Bootnotes You E-diot! Formula E driver booted off Audi team after getting video game ace to take his place in online race Daniel Abt's career stalls after he struggled to shift from physical to virtual courses mid-pandemic
Personal Tech Microsoft tries really hard not to say the next Xbox could be delayed by coronavirus But its language has changed from 'clear a space under the tree' to 'our goal remains late 2020 delivery'
Bootnotes Ride now, ride! Ride for ruin and the world's ending! Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is here at last! Kind of Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of your partner
Personal Tech You can get a mechanical keyboard for £45. But should you? We pulled an Aukey KM-G6 out of the bargain bin And it's not terrible
Personal Tech RetroPie 4.6 brings forth an answer to 'What do I do with this Pi 4 I bought last year?' Fans of creaky old hardware can relive their misspent IT youth
Personal Tech Video game cloud streaming shaken up as Nvidia loses more big names, Microsoft readies its market killer It's all about the content. And where you can – and can't – get it
Personal Tech Doom Eternal: Reboot sequel is cluttered but we're only here for the rippin' and the tearin' In which case, it'll do
Personal Tech Intel's 10th-gen Core family cracks 5GHz barrier with H-series laptop processors New line-up includes first i9 part in this latest generation
Personal Tech Gaming hot ticket E3 2020 looks like it's the latest tech event fragged by coronavirus Here's some advice that should come naturally to gamers: Stop going outside
Bootnotes Escape From Tarkov: Hardest of the hardcore looter-shooter is spellbinding despite the punishing learning curve Fun not required
Bootnotes Throw a sofa at this guy with your mind. She's in Control. Oh look, now I've learnt to bloody fly. She's in Control With apologies to Joy Division
Networks Call of Duty: Modern Warfare fragged our business VOIP: US ISP blames outage on smash-hit video game rush This is Windstream, going dark...
OSes EA boots Linux gamers out of multiplayer Battlefield V, Penguinistas respond by demanding crippling boycott We're not sure if Electronic Arts has even noticed
Bootnotes I caught Disco Elysium fever. No, not the Saturday Night kind. I was really quite poorly Burn baby burn!
Personal Tech Who's that padding down the chimney? It's Puma, with its weird £80 socks for gamers Sticky grip of sole more efficient for sweeps than for gamers
Personal Tech Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC: Howdy buck do you get a solid 60FPS in Rockstar's masterpiece? Read on, partner [decent GPU required]
Bootnotes The Outer Worlds: Ever wished Fallout 4 was more like New Vegas? Here ya go... in spaaace Obsidian nails it
Security Is HONK nothing sacred HONK? It's 2019 and an evil save file can pwn much-loved HONK Untitled Goose Game Please don't forget to HONK deserialize your data safely HONK
AI + ML What the &*%* did you just $#*&!*# say about me, you little &%$#*? 'AI' to filter Xbox Live chat Let us put it this way: One of your parental units is somewhat obese and has been rather amorous towards me
Channel You only need to click once, fool: Gaming rig sales up as Trump presses continue on trade tariff tussle God bless America panic buying
Security Microsoft changes encryption, another D-Link bug, phishing dangers, and more Plus, Baltimore's disastrous ransomware infection and worse IT practices
Bootnotes Rebel Galaxy Outlaw: Well, lookie here! For once a space game that doesn't promise the universe
SaaS Cloud vendors can't resist the lucrative smell of gaming dollars – and they're all in it to win it
Personal Tech Who pressured WHO to put gaming on a par with drug addiction to help silence political dissent? Oh hi there, China
SaaS Within Google Cloud, a computer is muttering: Shall we play a game? Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of SaaS?
Personal Tech Nvidia quickly kills its AMD-screwing GeForce 'partner program' amid monopoly probe threat
Channel PC sales aren't doing so great – but good God, you're buying mountains of Nvidia graphics cards
Personal Tech Bethesda all out for 'Fallout 4', fallout for global productivity foretold in countdown
