Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i APC

As someone who has to set up at least a few laptops every week, I have a long list of personal grievances with Windows 11, but there’s one ‘feature’ that is way more of a deal breaker than anything else we’ve seen. Occasionally, modern laptops that are supposed to be asleep seem to get really hot and heavily drain the battery. We’d noticed this issue on some of the many laptops that come through APC’s doors over the last couple of years, but wrote it off as a specific system glitches or abnormalities arising from some of the system settings we change in order to benchmark performance. The team over at Linus Tech Tips, however, did some digging and found there’s been a pretty big change in the way Intel…

Roughly a year ago, I predicted 18 months of awesomeness for the PC. “A rapid-fire product assault is coming from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia, the likes of which we’ve rarely seen,” were my exact words. With the reveals under our belts, it hasn’t worked so well. Am I disappointed? Yup. But let’s keep some perspective. The five launches are, of course, new CPU families from Intel and AMD respectively, graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia, and Intel’s long-awaited entry into the gaming GPU market. As I write this, it’s been pretty patchy so far. So, what happened – apart from me simply being wrong? There hasn’t been a single overarching theme. It’s a mix of failure to execute, unrealistic expectations, unusual market conditions, and cynical production planning. It’s just unfortunate…

FIND THE BEST DEALS ON NEW GEAR AT GETPRICE.COM/AU PREMIUM LAPTOPS APPLE MACBOOK PRO 14IN STUNNING CREATIVE POWER Alongside its 16-inch sibling, this is simply the world’s best laptop for demanding users. The amount of power on tap via the M1 Pro or M1 Max processor is staggering, and it’s backed up by a terrific screen and stunning battery life. With all the ports you could ask for, the only negatives are its relative bulk (especially compared to the Air) and high price. From $2,999, apple.com/au ALTERNATIVES DELL XPS 15 (2022) Surely the best Windows all-rounder money can buy, with a slim design, gaming potential and plenty of power courtesy of Intel’s 12th gen Core processors. From $2,924, dell.com APPLE MACBOOK AIR The MacBook Air M2 looks like a standout…

• $2,699 | hp.com/au-en The HP Envy x360 13 2-in-1 is a little late to the 12th Gen party, launching a good four months after market leaders like the Dell XPS 13 – but HP has used this extra time well, tweaking this 2-in-1 into a product that consumers will love. The top-spec version of this 13.3-inch touchscreen convertible utilises a 2880 by 1800 pixel OLED panel that looks exceptionally rich. That panel also features a 120Hz refresh rate, which enhances the responsiveness of the touchscreen when drawing or writing with a stylus, and the full DCI-P3 colour capabilities make it a solid option for creatives. When it comes to appearances, the HP Envy x360 13 looks like a classic business 2-in-1. It’s got a boxy profile with rounded edges…

• $219 | nzxt.com Nzxt’s latest H7 line-up of cases consists of three new models, the H7, the H7 Flow, and the H7 Elite. The Elite was an impressive and handsome chassis and, as the most expensive option, we’d naturally assumed that it would be the best performing choice out of the three. But while the main focus of the Elite model was its good looks, how does its sibling, the Flow, compare? Costing $110 less than the Elite, is it a better option? Visually, the Flow sits in the middle of the three H7 cases. It’s better looking than the standard case with its flat front panel but not as striking as its more expensive sibling, the Elite. However, looks aren’t everything. The front panel on our review sample…

• $TBA | corsair.com "It’s lightweight, has a silky smooth gliding action, and a rechargeable battery with a long life. It also offers three types of connectivity, either through Bluetooth, USB Type-C to Type-A cable, or via the Slipstream USB dongle" This Elite variant is the latest and most premium offering in Corsair’s Katar mouse lineup. The design doesn’t stray far from the range’s format, so is this new entrant the best Katar mouse of all? In the box, there’s a USB Type-C to USB Type-A cable and a wireless USB dongle hidden in a small compartment beneath the mouse. These pesky receivers can easily get lost, so we always prefer it when the mouse can house the dongle. The Katar Elite follows a similar design to the most recent…

• $549 | www.store.google.com Smartwatches can tend to look more like a small phone screen you’ve strapped to your wrist than a timepiece. But Google’s designers have done a great job with the Pixel Watch to create something that looks more like a watch than many of its rivals. At 1.2in across, the 450x450-pixel resolution screen is a lot smaller than the 2in screen you get on an Apple Watch, but this also means it’s less bulky. When paired with any Android smartphone, it displays your notifications that pop up automatically or can be summoned with a swipe up on the touch screen. There are apps, maps, directions, and smart-home controls. It also gives you access to Google’s brilliant voice-activated Assistant, which is far better than the version of Siri…

CPL ONLINE INFINITY I5 $1,499 | tinyurl.com/APC515CPL This value-oriented system does many things right but stumbles in a few areas. The system overall with its 650W power supply, case, motherboard and RAM are all great for what’s on offer here, the trouble comes when looking at the cooling, GPU and storage. Using a CPU from a tray might save CPL a few dollars but it means no heatsink is included soone must be added to the bill, raising the cost. The sole storage device is a 500GB SSD, that’s all, no secondary HDD here for more storage. Lastly, the GPU was never good value at launch and is still overpriced with its 30 percent performance deficit to a similarly priced RX 6600. An ok system but there is better value…

Unlike printed photos, which can be damaged by creases, rips and stains, we tend to assume that our digital snaps and videos are indestructible. But some Google Photos users recently found that pictures they’d uploaded to the service a few years ago showed signs of ageing like physical photos, including cracks, discolouration and blurring that looked like water damage. Digital files themselves don’t degrade over time, but – as proved by the Google Photos flaw – other factors can make their data distorted and unreadable. Here, we explain how you can prevent digital decay to preserve the quality of your photos and videos. "Digital files themselves don’t degrade over time, but – as proved by the Google Photos flaw – other factors can make their data distorted and unreadable." Save…

YOU’LL NEED THIS • Raspberry Pi • Latest Pi OS • Arduino Uno (or compatible) • Breadboard • 10K potentio-meter • LED • 330-Ohm resistor (orange-orange-brown-gold) • 5x M2M jumper wires • Code: https://git hub.com/lesp/ LXF-pyFirmata The Arduino and the Raspberry Pi both have their strengths and weaknesses, but what if we could harness both of them to produce projects? Firmata is a firmware that enables our Raspberry Pi (or another Linux computer) to talk to an Arduino and use it as an extension of the GPIO. In this tutorial, we shall learn how to configure an Arduino that reacts to commands sent via pyFirmata, a Python version of Firmata. This project would be ideal for those old Arduino clone boards that many makers have in their bits box, pressing…

• Free | PC | bit.ly/WaterworldGame Slowly but surely, all of The Simpsons’ fake videogames are being made a reality. We’ve had Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge – which Marge bought Bart instead of the gory Bonestorm, remember – and now here’s Kevin Costner’s Waterworld, the machine that Milhouse played with quarters at the Springfield arcade. What does Waterworld look like as an arcade game? The Simpsons never imagined what lay beyond that initial sidescrolling scene, but developer Macaw45 has gone back to the movie for inspiration. Mainly they’ve added thugs that you have to gradually punch to death. You’ll die to the first enemy – as you acclimatise to the timing of your and your enemies’ punches – but it’s simply a matter of learning that timing, of knowing when…

• $49.99 | PC, Meta Quest 2 | store.steampowered.com Half-Life Alyx never truly wowed me, because Boneworks and its simulationist approach to VR already had its hooks in me. Physical avatars on 3D legs and no invisible walls to stop me. Bonelab expands on that experimental design. While tough for newcomers (moving around on virtual legs can be demanding until you get a feel for it) Bonelab is one of the most exciting experiences I’ve had in VR, despite the inevitable physics jank. Where Boneworks was a traditional linear action game, Bonelab is closer to Garry’s Mod for VR, interwoven with a five to six hour story. Set in an alternate ’90s where VR took off early, the story has you breaking out of a conservative metaverse to become a…

DOWNLOADS FREE FULL SOFTWARE FOR APC READERS ABELSSOFT CONVERTER4VIDEO An easy-to-use video converter for Windows. Converting videos is simpler than ever. Abelssoft proves with Converter4Video that anybody is capable of turning videos from one format into another. Converter4Video can create files of the proper format for almost any device, directly upload videos to YouTube, and even extract the file’s audio track. The video file to be converted is simply dragged and dropped into the Converter4Video window; then, the user designates his desired output format, FLV, WMV, SWF, MPEG, MP4, 3GP, M4V, AVI, MKV, MOV, F4V or RM, and with a click the conversion commences. Download link: www.apcmag.com/exclusives ASCOMP IMAGEFORMER Batch-edit and convert images with ease. With Image Former you can get your pictures in top shape in no time at…

THE HOTTEST GEAR LABS TESTED • $4,499 | razer.com/au-en The Razer Blade 15 really isn’t just one device. You have a choice between four processors (spanning three generations), five graphics cards, four gaming screens, two RAM configurations, and two storage configurations – so the Blade 15 is really an entire range of laptops. This versatility, particularly in a screen type, is part of the reason why it’s frequently in the top spots of the best gaming roundups, but there’s another factor to consider: it’s extremely compact. The Razer Blade 15 is as thin as the LG Gram 16-inch 2-in-1, and 100g lighter than a MacBook Air 16… even when configured with a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. Normally squeezing an enormous GPU like this into an Ultrabook form means you…

• $2,899 | intel.com.au Sitting somewhere in between a DIY build and a ready-to-go prefabricated gaming rig, Intel’s Next Unit of Computing (NUC) Extreme devices are designed to showcase what’s possible with the latest gaming-PC components. The NUC 13 Extreme Raptor Canyon is available with an Intel 13th generation i5, i7 or i9 processor and includes a motherboard, case and a 750W 80+ Gold SFX internal power supply – which is maybe 50-percent of what you need to fire up a computer. The remaining components are left for you to buy and install yourself, based on exactly how much power you need. The i9 units were on pre-sale at the time of writing for $2,899, but you’ll have to add up the cost of RAM, storage, an OS, and a…

• $1,834 | lg.com/au LG is pitching its UltraGear 48-inch UHD OLED TV as the company’s first OLED gaming monitor … but instead of aiming for the super enthusiast as Samsung has with the Odyssey range, LG is hoping to make a more approachable product. The 48-inch UltraGear UHD 4K OLED Gaming Monitor was on sale for $1,834 at the time of writing, which is a pretty fair price for a sub-55-inch OLED TV these days. Sure you’ll be able to find cheaper OLED TVs at a similar size out there, but they’ll come with concessions like a slower framerate, higher response time, no DisplayPort input and a lack of gaming monitor screen optimisations. If we start with the basics, the 48-inch UltraGear 48GQ900-B is a great monitor. It’s expansive,…

• $1,199 | focal.com "Put them on and you feel beautiful, buoyed up by their detail, insight and clarity, but deploy ANC (you get ‘silent’, ‘soft’ and ‘transparent’ options) and you might find you want a little more – which you can’t tweak." Truly audiophile-level Bluetooth cans are a market segment largely ignored until now. French company Focal has long had an strong range of extremely high quality wired headphones, and now it’s just owned the scene with this rather incredible listening delight. Sonically, the Focal Bathys are more than worthy of their enviable heritage. And aside from the quality wireless listen, chuck in the USB-C cable in DAC mode and you’ve got high-res up to 24-bit/192kHz too. Oh, and in case it needs to be stated, they’re utterly stunning…

• 128GB, $999 | store.google.com The Pixel 7 brings much of the same goodness as the Pixel 7 Pro (APC 514, score 5/5) – in a cheaper package. Costing a very reasonable $999 with 128GB of storage, it has the same Tensor G2 chipset and the same Android 13 software, which together add up to a great experience. The design isn’t identical to the Pro but it’s very similar, with a Gorilla Glass Victus casing, an in-display fingerprint reader and a metal camera band across the back. The display is slightly smaller, at 6.3-inch, which makes it more pocketable, and in our view more comfortable to hold in the hand. The Snow and Obsidian colour schemes return, but in place of Hazel you get the choice of a cool Lemongrass…

• $59 | www.microsoft.com This mouse is probably about as small as a controlling device can get before it becomes unusable. It measures 26x60x107mm (HxWxD) and weighs 78g, which makes it small, squat and light enough to slide into your trouser pocket. While this is really handy when you’re travelling around and want something small to pack alongside your laptop, you’ll probably want something larger to use with a desktop PC. The other immediate benefit is the price. For $60 you’d be hard pushed to find another wireless mouse that matches the high build quality on offer here, even if the Modern Mobile Mouse is relatively pared back, with few extra features. It has the three core-function buttons on top (left, right and a central scroll wheel), and another button…

macOS 10.1 | $17.95 | coconut-flavour.com MacOS provides some detail on the health of the battery in your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, including usage history and an indication of overall health. But it’s pretty basic. To find out more about the state of the battery and its performance, you’ll need a third-party solution, and that’s where coconutBattery 3 comes in. Available in standard (free) and Plus versions, coconutBattery enables you to keep a close eye on the battery health of your Mac and iOS devices, and log it over time. As well as the basics like the current temperature, the number of charging cycles and health, coconutBattery enables you to see data like a device’s current charge and full capacity in milliamp hours (mAh). It will also show you…

Part of what’s great about Google Docs is its familiarity. It looks and feels so similar to Microsoft Office, LibreOffice and other offline word processors that you can jump in and start working with very little culture shock. Similarly, Google Sheets looks enough like Excel that you can skip over any sort of training and start being productive right away. However, if you think of Google’s apps merely as free alternatives to the traditional desktop office suite, you’ll miss out on some unique features, many of which take advantage of the online model. Here are some of our favourite features and tricks that will help you get the best from Google Docs and Sheets. Pageless view When word processors first became mainstream in the 1980s, it was a fair assumption…

BUDGET A perfect balance between price and peformance. With the release of the latest generation of processors and GPUs, we were expecting a fall in the price of components this timv e around, especially in the budget department. Yet, here we are, scanning through all the sites, only to find that our CPU and GPUs, on the whole, are much the same price as last month. Maybe all the new launches raised our expectations for these builds and we’re yet to feel the effects of this trickling down into the budget market. Or perhaps we should just be grateful that prices of components aren’t still skyrocketing, as they were this time last year. After all, at this price point, you can still grab a fairly powerful machine capable of 1080p…

• $109.95 | PC, PS4/5, XBS/X | callofduty.com Modern Warfare II’s greatest strength is that it doesn’t have a gimmick. And that it doesn’t need one to stand out. All Modern Warfare II needs to be is a great shooter, and here it delivers. It is the Call of Duty experience, deconstructed, reconsidered and obsessively optimised over 15 uninterrupted years of iteration. I know when I’m playing a Black Ops game because it has offbeat arcade modes and the latest iteration of Nuketown. I know I’m playing a Modern Warfare game because the shooting is so finely tuned that I want to take my Gunsmith build out to dinner. Infinity Ward has officially mastered the instant gratification of aiming down sights and deleting targets. That goes a long way, though…

• Free | PC | bit.ly/SwapwoodQuest Created for the latest Ludum Dare game jam – which had the theme “every ten seconds” – Swapwood Quest feels like a fully formed match-three game. You don’t control the falling blocks themselves. Instead, you shift them about after the fact, swapping any two blocks on the board horizontally. At first, you’re merely trying to keep the blocks from reaching the top of the screen, but it’s not long before enemies are introduced. In each stage you’re given a creature to defeat in pitched combat. You do this by matching sword blocks and shield icons that will spare one of your HP. Every time you match these combat blocks, a token is placed in a little window at the bottom of the screen, ready…

• Free | PC, Mac, Linux | bit.ly/SallysScribbles It must be tough, being an artist in demand. Every day, clients insist you draw a cat or a smiley face or some broccoli or a line graph – and to draw it in only ten seconds. That’s the premise for Sally’s Scribbles, a game about making it as an artist – or not. At least the requests are simple enough to draw. You can just about manage a cat’s face or a stick man in ten seconds, though things get harder when you’re asked to draw things in specific colours. The trick is that, for the most part, a vague squiggle will actually do instead – clients have been happy when I’ve rebelled and drawn a cross instead of a circle.…

"Championing technology doesn’t mean we’re unrelenting yes-men and -women, however, and APC aims to be as objective as possible in all our coverage." APC is Australia’s oldest consumer technology magazine – having been consistently in print for forty years, since our first issue way back in May 1980 – and we take that heritage and responsibility very seriously. While our focus is obviously on the personal computer the very definition of the PC has changed and shifted markedly since the early 1980s. As such, we touch on many other areas of tech, too, from smartphones and apps to peripherals, accessories, and beyond. We have two goals: to find the best modern tech and to help you make the most of it. We’re also an open church in terms of platforms.…

When Deliveroo announced it was exiting the Australian market in November, it was difficult for critics to resist a smirk. Part of the ever-expanding gig economy model, where self-employed independent contractors work on a piecemeal basis, it seemed to presage a larger contraction in that notoriously precarious employment model. Like Uber and Amazon, Deliveroo didn’t employ food delivery drivers per se, but instead used a smartphone app which workers, on a self-employed contractor basis, would log into to pick up jobs and shifts. At first glance it’s an appealingly flexible system, but the reality is bleak. In Deliveroo’s case, workers were beholden to an algorithmic approach to their work suitability. If, for example, they cancelled a shift too many times, their selection for future shifts was algorithmically rendered less likely.…

Last month, we finally got a taste of what Nvidia’s Ada Lovelace architecture and the RTX 4090 GPU have to offer. Yet already there are reports of failing cards, which we touched on in the last issue of APC. It’s getting serious, because for the second major architecture launch in a row, Nvidia’s greatest graphics cards are raising power-related concerns. That’s not particularly surprising, given the new king of GPUs has a base power draw of 450W and custom cards can push that up to nearly 600W. But there’s a potentially bigger problem, and it involves Nvidia’s ‘quadropus’ 8-pin to 16-pin adapter cable. All RTX 4090 cards appear to come with the same adapter cable, bearing an Nvidia logo. On one side is the new 16-pin 12VHPWR ATX 3.0 PCIe…

• GOOGLE DRIVE | $free | GOOGLE ONE 100GB | $2 per month to 30TB $300/month | drive.google.com• WETRANSFER | $free | WETRANSFER PRO US$10 per month | WETRANSFER PREMIUM US$19 per month | www.wetransfer.com Gone are the days of sending a USB stick containing work, photographs, or other important documents over to your colleagues via snail mail or carrier pigeon. If you are clinging on to the old ways, then fair enough, but times have changed and there are now much quicker and more efficient ways of sharing your files across the internet. Thankfully, using the cloud is a much more effective and secure method of sharing data. There are plenty of cloud services out there, but two of our favourite methods are Google Drive and WeTransfer – the…

• $3,397.90 | dell.com/en-au There’s often many ways to frame a laptop, depending on what you compare it to. From one perspective, the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7620 is a heavy 2,188g alternative to the 1,480g LG Gram 2-in-1 16. From another it’s a much cheaper Apple 16-inch MacBook Pro and from another again it’s an expensive and late product that’s comparable to an MSI Crosshair 15. Each of these comparisons have trade-offs and caveats and one is undoubtedly more flattering than the others, but all of them are true and, depending on what you’re looking for, will dramatically transform how good you think the Dell Inspiron 16 7620 is. The Inspiron 16 Plus is a large laptop aimed at professional ultrabook users if you go by the marketing material.…

• $2,599 | www.msi.com Hot on the heels of the monstrous RTX 4090 comes the RTX 4080. Though it should be a much more affordable option, at this early stage RTX 4080’s carry prices that wouldn’t have been out of place during the height of the crypto currency boom. It is what it is though. In six months, the value proposition could be totally different. Let’s begin with a look at MSI’s RTX 4080 Suprim X. And a real beauty it is. MSI’s Suprim X is stunning, with a brushed aluminium finish and tasteful RGB lighting. Like all 4080’s it is built around the AD103 GPU, it has 9,728 cores. It’s clocked at 2,625MHz, though you can get an extra 15MHz on top of that via the MSI Center app.…

• $1,099 | https://www.benq.com Early last year we reviewed a 24.5-inch Full HD gaming monitor with an old-school TN-technology panel replete with its poor viewing angles, mediocre colour reproduction, modest brightness, mediocre contrast and eye-watering $899 price tag. It was the 240Hz BenQ Zowie XL2546K and we gave it top marks and declared it revolutionary. Now, here’s the next evolution – the similarly sized, $1,099 360Hz Zowie XL2566K. Well, alrighty... Firstly, it’s worth reminding newcomers that you’re not expected to see all 360 frames each second on a 360Hz refresh rate display. What you will notice, however, is just how smooth and accurate all objects in motion look and this is particularly important for competitive gamers who need to see any and all, tiny, rapidly-moving objects as quickly and clearly…

• $399 | www.steelseries.com "What really matters is the performance and, on this headset, gaming audio quality is top-tier." Among the three-strong Nova lineup from SteelSeries, the Nova 7 sits right in the middle. The three different variants include the Nova 7, the PC-optimised version we have on test here, the Nova 7P optimised for PlayStation, and the Nova 7X for Xbox consoles. Costing just short of $400, it’s not exactly at the budget end of the headset market, so is this new addition worth an upgrade or are you better off grabbing an older SteelSeries headset that offers better value for money? Unboxing the Nova 7, you not only find the headphones but a range of cables and adapters too. There’s a multi-platform USB-C wireless dongle, a 5ft USB-C…

• $439 (2TB); $265 (1TB) | samsung.com The Samsung 990 Pro is the much-anticipated successor to the popular 980 Pro. It is poised to be the very fastest drive we’ve tested, outdoing even the SK hynix Platinum P41 and the Western Digital (WD) SN850X. Initially available at 1 and 2TB for $265 and $439 respectively, the 990 Pro will also have a 4TB model out next year. Available bare or with an RGB heatsink, the 990 Pro is using Samsung’s new Pascal controller and its new V7 TLC NAND flash, a combination that promises to be faster and more efficient. The 990 Pro has the rest of the Samsung trimmings, including software support with the updated Magician application and the option for encryption. The drive is designed to fit in…

• $700 | www.draytek.com.au "The 2865ax model includes ultra fast AX3000 spec Wi-Fi 6." The Vigor2865 series includes a range of small to medium business routers, with VDSL2 model, WAN port and a top notch Wi-Fi. We are testing the higher end, Wi-Fi 6 equipped Vigor2865ax, but there are also models without wireless, others with VoIP options, or even built-in LTE connectivity. The 2865 series is a multi-WAN router, so a key ingredient is being able to multiple internet connections for improved performance and redundancy. All models include a VDSL2 modem, which supports 35b Supervectoring, as well as being backwards compatible with ADSL2+. With a suitable VDSL2 connection, the 2865 series can handle speeds up to 300 Mbps. Of course you can also use a non VDSL option via the…

Various licences available | https://ubuntu.com The latest Ubuntu (22.10) has made its customary October appearance with the colourful code name of Kinetic Kudu. As it’s not an LTS (Long Term Support) release, it will have to be upgraded in nine months, but in our experience, this tends to be a rather pain-free procedure. However, go back a version number and install 22.04 instead if you’re looking for a setup that won’t need a major upgrade for five years. As ever, the official, stated target of Ubuntu emphasises the corporate desktop, but the actual user base is broader and includes hobbyist and home users as well. It’s a stable desktop to set up for family members who aren’t computer experts, just to give one example of where it can be used.…

QUICK TIP! Most virtualisers can still boot floppy images. In VirtualBox, go to the Storage tab within the settings for a virtual machine and add a new controller of type floppy. Then, add a floppy image in the same way that you do an ISO image. Having a day when you’re running out of RAM and wish you had a faster processor? This issue, we’re looking at operating systems that can boot almost instantly, run from a floppy disk and require as little as 8MB of RAM to boot. You might think we’re delving into systems of the past, but these are currently maintained operating systems. Specifically, we’re looking at MenuetOS, an operating system coded in pure assembly language for speed and a frugal memory footprint, and a system forked…

• $7.49 | PC, XB1/S/X, Mac, Linux | store.steampowered.com Vampire Survivors is built around a horde mode in simple, sprawling maps. You pick a character from a selection of Belmont-alikes then try to outlast a horde of ghoulies and ghosties, growing in power and number over a 30-minute timer. The game’s first great curveball is how it handles shooting. Each weapon is mechanically unique, with different AoEs, fire rates, and damage profiles. Instead of directly targeting enemies, the weapons have a timed firing pattern influenced by you and your enemies’ positioning. With six weapons maximally upgraded and at least a few of them ‘evolved’ through item combos, your character lets out a constant torrent of projectiles pushing back an endless wave of foes. It practically plays itself at this point,…

• $25.95 | PC | thegoldenidol.com A woman lies dead on a sofa, her mouth open in shock. A few members of the dinner party she was attending stare in horror at the scene while others level angry accusations at each other. There’s only one person smiling happily about the woman’s grim fate, and that’s me, the detective. I’ve got another intriguing murder to solve in The Case of the Golden Idol, one of the most novel and challenging mystery games I’ve played in years. I begin my investigation, clicking on anything and everything, starting with the guests. They’re frozen in time, stuck in the moment the victim perished, so I’m free to go through their pockets with my mouse pointer to peer at their coins, rings and monogrammed handkerchiefs.…

Release: 2010 Developer: Double Fine Publisher: In-house Link:bit.ly/3fcCQas Costume Quest is a tradition I wish I had. Every time October sneaks back up on me, I get the urge to replay one of my favourite little RPGs. It’s a small-scale spooky adventure full of witty writing and trick-or-treat nostalgia – and it’s not a bad turn-based RPG either. But every year Halloween comes and goes and I don’t manage to load it back up. This year, I finally did it. The truth is that Costume Quest is timeless. You don’t need to play it in the autumn. It exudes so much Halloween energy that you could play it on a summer’s day, close your eyes, and hear the wolf howls and bat flutters that make up the ideal spooky atmosphere.…