Squint, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 looks like a fitting Steam Deck game - Related to coverage:, like, 7, come:, tips,

Civilization 7 live launch coverage: reviews, tips, and the latest news

Civilization 7's earns an early 'Mixed' review rating on Steam After 11 hours, Civ 7's Steam user review average is sitting at "Mixed," with just 41% of nearly 2,600 reviews coming in as positive. The main complaints so far are related to the new entry's UI, with critical reviewers describing the interface as feeling unfinished and frustratingly unintuitive. That expressed, despite our prerelease predictions that Civ 7's changes to age progression would prove decisive, even negative reviews are praising the new mechanics as interesting updates to the Civ formula. This is still the early access period, so only those who've paid $100 or more for one of the special editions has access, and is able to leave a review. We'll see what happens when February 11 comes around and the gates open fully.

Our Civilization 7 performance testing Our Civilization 7 performance analysis was done before the launch patch, and if things improve a ton in the retail version we'll reassess it, but our initial verdict is that the frame rates aren't as steady as we'd like. As is often the case with strategy games, expect things to slow down in the late game, especially if you have an older CPU—those AI turns can still make 'em chug. Civ 7 will run on a variety of systems, though, and is Steam Deck Verified. Careful, though: The ability to take the 'one more turn' experience to bed with you sounds dangerous. The graph below exhibits our AI benchmarking—see the full performance guide for more.

Learn the Civ 7 basics while you wait for it to unlock Civilization 7 simplifies things in some ways, but I definitely wouldn't say it's simple, and if you've been playing Civ 5 and 6 for a long time, some of the changes might throw you at first. We've got more guides coming, but for starters, here are some introductions to Civ 7's systems: Civilization 7 victory guide : Civ 7's win conditions are similar to those of previous games, but the new ages and Legacy Paths add some wrinkles.

: Civ 7's win conditions are similar to those of previous games, but the new ages and Legacy Paths add some wrinkles. Civilization 7 age transition guide : Not everything that happens in one of the new age transitions is explained in the game. This guide will help prepare you for your first historical long jump.

: Not everything that happens in one of the new age transitions is explained in the game. This guide will help prepare you for your first historical long jump. Civilization 7 settlements guide: Along with cities, you can now control towns. The way you grow and build up these settlements has also changed (RIP Workers).

Civilization 7 launch times Civilization 7 is launching in two phases: Early Access: February 5 at 9 pm Pacific (must pre-purchase Deluxe or Founders Edition).

Civilization 7 review round-up Civ 7 reviews dropped on Monday, and so far there's a mix of high praise and cooler-but-still-optimistic takes (like you'll find in our review), as well as a handful of mostly negative assessments. I think the conversation's going to get more heated once Civ 7 is available to the public and new and old fans start playing, but for now, here's a sampling of what critics are saying: The Guardian — 100.

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Squint, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 looks like a fitting Steam Deck game

Hark, or whatever that is in Czech. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has earned Playable status on the Steam Deck, and it’s a shrewd assessment on Valve’s part: there are some shortcomings that keep the coveted Verified badge out of Deliverance 2’s reach, most notably its cramped UI, but I’ve been bumbling around the medieval RPG for hours now and it is indeed plenty functional in handheld mode. Despite its system requirements arguably suggesting otherwise, it can even manage some decent 40fps-plus performance without dumping all the quality settings to their lowest.

More on that in a bit, but first, let’s talk about something that’s always fun: numbers. Most pressing of which is the [website] that Deliverance 2 takes up once its installation is complete, so straight away, you’re going to want a microSD card to help out any model besides the most spacious of Steam Deck SSDs.

The second is 1h 22m, which is exactly how much battery life I got out of my original LCD Deck when running Deliverance 2 at 50% screen brightness (and speaker volume). That’s not quite the fastest I’ve ever seen a game run it dry, but does count among other serious charge-devourers like Baldur’s Gate III and Starfield. Judging by that, Steam Deck OLED owners can likely expect a little over two hours.

Neither of these figures make Deliverance 2 an ideal Steam Deck game, but they’re not dealbreakers either, and in places it’s actually quite impressive how well its myriad interactions and interfaces adapt to the gamepad controls. In particular, its heavy, deliberately-paced swordfighting style feels a little more naturally suited for thumbsticks than it does to the swishiness of a mouse.

Less successful is the jump to a dinky 800p screen. Deliverance 2 does have proper 1280x800 support, and FSR upscaling on Quality mode looks near enough like full native. Eventually, though, you will come across menu text that’s just slightly too small to comfortably read, or an undersized HUD icon whose meaning – beyond "Something is bad, say mushy pixels" – might not be apparent without looking it up elsewhere.

Still, as with the storage and battery needs, this tendency to induce squinting doesn’t outright spoil anything. Nothing is unintelligible, just somewhat more demanding of focus than you might be used to, and the Deck’s zoom feature (Steam button + L1) helps when something needs magnifying. I just wouldn’t set FSR any lower than Quality, as after a single scroll through one of Deliverance 2’s ultra-dense menus or inventory screens, you’ll be wanting all the sharpness you can get.

Fortunately, that particular upscaler setting will suffice for good performance. While a steady 60fps is beyond the Steam Deck’s APU, staying above a playable 30fps is easy, and running on SteamOS doesn’t appear to exacerbate any technical improprieties. For the record, reviewer Edwin did lose some progress to a crash bug (and the, uh, idiosyncratic save system) on Windows, while I’ve only encountered the odd animation mishap and flickering light source. Could be worse, considering the original game’s unquenchable jank thirst.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Steam Deck settings guide.

When I say it’s easy to keep above 30fps, what I mean is you could just slap on the Low preset, turn FSR to Quality mode and call it a day. That will comfortably get you 45-50fps while roaming towns and wandering fields, only dropping into the thirties during the most demanding, set-piecey moments.

However, as we discovered when benchmarking on desktop, just a small few individual graphics settings have a disproportionately profound impact on framerates. Everything else can be left up on the prettier side – though since this is still just the Steam Deck we’re talking about, I’ve been sticking to High for these, rather than Ultra or Experimental.

My recommended settings are as follows; on the LCD Deck, these typically get me 40-45fps, also dropping lower during the tough bits but seldom below the 30fps mark.

By themselves, these sadly won’t do anything about Deliver 2’s battery hungriness, though you could potentially squeeze out a few more minutes by using the Steam Deck’s own Performance menu to lower the screen’s refresh rate. To do this, press the triple dot button (or what I’ve not long ago learned is called, in UX parlance, the "meatball" button), select the Performance tab, and move the Frame Limit slider to 45Hz or so. This will effectively limit you to 45fps, but you won’t be going much higher than that anyway.

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OXS Storm G2 review

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Being the guy that all my friends (and relatives) come to for tech advice, I've had my eye out for a truly great budget wireless gaming headset for some time. Coming in well under $100, the OXS Storm G2 nails it in both look and price but I was cautious if those full-range 50 mm drivers could match the rest of this headset. Unfortunately, they can't.

Don't get me wrong, they're not awful. Everything you are looking for in a soundscape is there. You can hear the mids and highs, and feel the bass. That's only really in one EQ mode but we'll get to that later.

I initially tested this headset out with The Last of Us Part I and Gustavo Santaolalla's guitar-driven soundtrack hits as hard as ever, providing clear mids and distinct highs.

The opening scene, with distant sirens, dogs barking, and the chaos floating just above your head works well in the headset's [website] surround sound. However, that sound isn't quite as all-encompassing as I was hoping. Nothing huge is missing from the mix but there's a slight hollow feel to it. This is partially helped by The Last of Us' soundtrack mix being relatively sparse.

Microphone: Detachable omnidirectional mic and a built-in mic.

capabilities: Two microphones, dual connecting dongle (USB-C and USB-A).

Battery Life: 40 hours without RGB, 24 hours with RGB.

There are three EQ modes in this setup and that's pretty much all the customization you will get as OXS Audio, the business's music app, doesn't support the Storm G2. If you don't like the EQ, tough luck.

Starting with Game mode, the bass is largely cut out of the mix, with it all relying on the mids and highs. This is intentional, of course. If you want to hear footsteps or the ping of a grenade before it's flung in your direction, this effectively amplifies those little almost unnoticeable movements. It works as intended, yet the sound suffers as a result.

Music mode is a little improved, focusing on a more balanced sound. The bass, mids, and highs are given near-equal attention. In Mick Gordon's 'At Doom's Gate' from the Doom 2016 soundtrack, the splashy synth accompanying the drums doesn't quite sound right, and I found this same problem in the drums midway through Delta Sleep's Toe Stepper.

There's a blurriness to the sound that I didn't find in other headsets I had to hand. This happened mostly in music that is heavier and focused on mids, but not exclusively, as the rhythmic beats of Bastion's soundtrack had the same fuzziness. These muddled mids are fairly common in budget gaming headsets, of course, but this is perhaps the most telling sign of the Storm G2's price.

This headset is at its best when swapped to the Surround Sound EQ mode, and almost the only way I'd ever advise using it.

The previous two modes are not only more hollow feeling but also seem a bit quieter, which makes the handiness of having a built-in EQ button feel a bit counterintuitive, given you will immediately have to mess with the volume settings too.

The lush gothic orchestra that shines as you take your first bite in Vampyr performs well in Surround Sound mode, mostly because it does a good job at offering a proper soundscape. Surround Sound isn't just louder and more bassy, all the sound feels a bit more full. Even at its best, the sound has a distinct yet hollow feel to it.

The Surround Sound mode can be a bit of a double-edged sword in the Storm G2. In my first game of Counter-Strike 2, being one of those annoying guys who almost exclusively like sniper rifles in games, the thunder of the AWP made me jump and drop it on the ground. This EQ mode really cranks up the bass, which works in most instances but immersive first-person shooters can almost be a little too much.

Soundscapes, like those in Sea Power's Whirling-In-Rags, 8 AM, from the Disco Elysium soundtrack, is perhaps where the headset is at its best. When there's not too much focus on any one part of the mix, and instead everything is dynamic and varied, the decent noise isolation that comes from its comfortable set of earpads can make it all feel truly immersive.

This immersive sound is helped by a genuinely comfortable fit. It's quite light, at just over 250 g, though the clamping power on the pads is a little weak. It won't come off your head with light head banging (believe me, I've tried) but it feels like it will, which made me a little less likely to.

The build quality and design are also pretty solid for the price point. The headband at the top reminds me of the HyperX Cloud Alpha, made from protein leather with red threading and this is connected to the earcups through a strong aluminium frame. The earcups themselves feel a little cheap, with a plastic frame and smattering of RGB.

That RGB also brings the 40 hours of battery life down to just over 20 so, in most cases, I'd recommend turning it off and just playing without that pretty lighting on the side. It's unlikely many will notice anyway, unless you regularly turn your head to people with a headset on.

Buy if… ✅ You want a cheap and cheerful wireless headset: For its price point, the OXS Storm G2 doesn't make any egregious missteps, which is not bad for a budget choice.

✅ You play a lot of multiplayer: Good battery life, a distinct emphasis put on footsteps in Game mode, and a great mic make this a good multiplayer choice.

Don't buy if… ❌ Sound is quite essential to you: This gaming headset does its job in the sound department. You can hear footsteps in games clearly and music is clear enough to make out. However, the sound is all just a bit hollow and probably the worst part of what is otherwise a decent headset.

❌ You can afford to go higher: For a budget headset, this does quite a lot right, though I'd pick the Corsair HS55 Wireless for $30 more and Inzone H5 for $70 more.

Interestingly, the black and white variants have a few unique differences. My white one came with two USB-C cables, whereas the black one came with a USB-C and aux cable. As well as this, the receiver for the white model has a USB-C receiver built in, which you then take and pop in. The black one has the USB-A port and USB-C port on two separate sides of the same receiver. For the most part, I would say the black one has superior accessories.

This dual-mic system is great for when this headset is connected to your phone too, which it can do pretty easily via Bluetooth or a good 'ol aux chord (assuming your phone hasn't done away with the [website] mm jack). For low latency play, the included [website] GHz dongle can connect via a handy USB-C and USB-A connector, tucked into a smart but ugly stowaway section in the dongle itself. It can't support dual connectivity, as you have to choose Bluetooth or [website] GHz on the headset cup but it's a reasonably robust connectivity variety.

The OXS Storm G2 isn't an affordable all-rounder that I would recommend to everyone on a budget but it does do enough right to be pretty solid. The sound gets muddled, especially in the mids, and the lack of much EQ control means you have to just be okay with what's on offer. However, a 40-hour wireless gaming headset with a solid mic might just be enough for many, especially if you just need something cheap to whittle away the early morning hours with a couple of friends on Discord.

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