The Far Cry formula is built to dish out emergent gameplay. Ubisoft’s weaponized joyride through Hope County in 2018 tried to teach its plot the same trick. The result? A divisive storytelling approach that found both fans and critics.

The circus arrives without warning. Nintendo’s 4-year success story with the Switch (85 million-plus in sales) now has a new rival. Known for its Steam storefront, Valve dropped its $399 Steam Deck at the heels of Nintendo’s new OLED Switch variant. While a powerful handheld PC with access to multiple stores and operating systems is promising, that’s not what caught my eye.

The Steam storefront did.

For the uninitiated, Steam is the most popular way to get PC games online. The digital storefront offers access to both ancient relics and the latest hits. …

Disclaimer: I respect all beliefs. Except those that discriminate.

It was all but invisible until it struck. Fictional races like StarCraft’s advanced Protoss serve as the perfect vehicle to represent real-world events. A direct approach earns a “political” tag from disgruntled gamers but fantasy titles bypass this setback. Some “inclusive” games use flavor text while others pick on more fundamental issues.

One game warped in age-old flaws like caste and conformity to the forefront.

StarCraft 2 helped me explore the invisible threads that dictate the patterns of Indian society. Cue the reflection on privilege and prejudice. …

The JioPhone Next’s target? India’s 300 million feature phone users.

Having invested $4.5 billion in Jio Platforms last year, Google doubled down on its bid to reach feature phone users with a stronger partnership with Reliance Jio, India’s disruptive telecom giant. Google’s plan? A 4G-capable Android Go smartphone rumored to cost below INR 5000 ($70).

With Google’s help, Reliance is poised to build on the telecom disruption it started back in 2016.

Cutthroat pricing and free voice calls backed Jio’s promise of a “2G-free India.” But owning the country’s biggest mobile carrier (425 million+ customers ) is merely one bullet…

It happened last night.

A friend of mine asked me for laptop suggestions. Being the neighborhood tech enthusiast, we went back and forth on what he wanted and what his wallet didn’t want. And then he asked me if he should get a MacBook.

To my surprise, I said yes.

I’ve been critical of Apple’s premium laptops in the past. Don’t get me wrong — they’re fantastic machines. For the right people, that is.

I never thought I’d recommend a MacBook to a Windows user.

Long gone were the days of the MacBook’s annoying butterfly keyboards. The need for a…

New year resolutions. Reminiscing about the trials and tribulations the previous year threw my way. Figuring out what to do with the cards I’ve been dealt. I do none of those things on Jan 1. Instead, I do it in mid-June. Why, you ask?

Some say that a gaming mouse is pointless. Others say that keyboard shortcuts are the name of the game. But I beg to differ. A well-built gaming mouse can help you in more than just games.

This might sound like a marketing pitch but that isn’t why you’re here. You want to know why you should step up from a low-quality mouse. While a $30+ device can feel more like an extension of yourself and not a tool, the Logitech G402 has tangible benefits.

With enhanced ergonomics, customizable buttons, and a rock-solid build, a gaming mouse can serve you well…

The iPod Touch 5 from 2012 was a thing of beauty. The little fella packed quite a punch, offering me a taste of the Apple premium at a relatively reasonable cost. At 88g and a svelte 6.1 mm, the aluminum-clad device felt like the future. It lets me access iTunes and the App Store, little portals to the world’s best libraries of entertainment. Little did I know that the world would lose everything that made the iPod Touch so special: metal bodies, headphone jacks, and the Home button.

The next two iPod Touch iterations only improved things under the hood…