Enlarge / Artist's conception of what used to be possible, before BattlEye ruined things.

Last week, Rockstar added BattlEye support to Grand Theft Auto V, offering some much-needed anti-cheat protection for the game's highly successful GTA Online multiplayer mode. That anti-cheat support wasn't welcome news for Steam Deck players, though, who now get confronted with an error when trying to log in to GTA Online.

According to Valve, though, Rockstar could solve this minor technical issue with a single email.

In both a Steam Community update and a Rockstar Support FAQ, the developer notes that "Steam Deck does not support BattlEye for GTA Online. You will be able to play GTAV Story Mode but unable to play GTA Online." As such, GTA V's Steam page now lists the game as "Unsupported" for Steam Deck users, because "the game's anti-cheat is not configured to support Steam Deck."

Enlarge / I hope you like radial menus, because you'll be looking at a lot of them.

Age of Mythology: Retold brings a lot of the usual advancements that you'd expect for a reboot of both the increasingly dated 2002 original game and its previous reboot: 2014's Extended Edition, which is still perfectly playable and available on Steam. The newest version of this real-time strategy classic comes with the requisite improvements in graphics and user interface, making the whole game much easier to look at and parse at a glance. And while the updated voice acting isn't going to win any awards, neither is the stilted, bare bones dialogue that those actors are working with (which seems faithful to the original game, for better or worse).

But Retold does add one thing that I wasn't really expecting in a modern real-time strategy game—full support for a handheld controller. Developers have been trying to make RTS games work without the traditional mouse and keyboard since the days of SNES Populous and Starcraft 64, usually with limited success. Microsoft hasn't given up on the dream, though, fully integrating controller support for Age of Mythology: Retold into both the PC version (which we sampled) and, obviously, the Xbox Series X|S release.

The result is definitely the best version of an RTS controller interface that I've tried and proof that a modern controller can be a perfectly functional option for the genre. In the end, though, there are just a few too many annoyances associated with a handheld controller to make it the preferred way to play a game like this.

Enlarge / This screenshot of a "Cloud in a dress" mod is being used in place of some other Final Fantasy PC mods that are way too inappropriate for publication on Ars. (credit: Nexus Mods)

Final Fantasy XVI finally arrives on Windows PCs today, over a year after its launch on the PlayStation 5. That means expanded access for a game that sold below Square Enix's expectations on console. But it also means the first opportunity for modders to add their own content to the game.

For game producer Naoki Yoshida, though, that new opportunity comes along with a plea for the user community to behave themselves when modifying the game. In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Yoshida felt the need to step in when director Hiroshi Takai was asked about what "goofy mods" he would like to see in the game.

"If we said, 'It'd be great if someone made xyz,' it might come across as a request, so I'll avoid mentioning any specifics here!" Yoshida told PC Gamer. "The only thing I will say is that we definitely don't want to say anything offensive or inappropriate, so please don't make or install anything like that."

Enlarge / Imagine owning one of those funky birds as an NFT! (credit: Flappy Bird Twitter/X)

Fans of ultra-viral mobile gaming hit Flappy Bird who were stunned by the game's sudden removal from the iOS App Store 10 years ago were probably even more stunned by last week's equally sudden announcement that Flappy Bird is coming back with a raft of new characters and game modes. Unfortunately, the new version of Flappy Bird seems to be the result of a yearslong set of legal maneuvers by a crypto-adjacent game developer intent on taking the "Flappy Bird" name from the game's original creator, Dong Nguyen.

"No, I have no related with their game. I did not sell anything," Nguyen wrote on social media over the weekend in his first post since 2017. "I also don't support crypto," Nguyen added.

No, I have no related with their game. I did not sell anything.
I also don't support crypto.

— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) September 15, 2024

"Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed," Nguyen said in a 2014 interview after removing the game from mobile app stores. "But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. To solve that problem, it’s best to take down Flappy Bird. It's gone forever."

Enlarge / Just some of the inventive character designs included in UFO 50. (credit: Mossmouth)

If you've spent any time with retro gaming emulators, you're likely familiar with the joy of browsing through a long list of (legally obtained) ROMs and feeling overwhelmed at a wide range of titles you've never even heard of. Picking randomly through such a game list is like wandering through a foreign country, searching for hidden jewels among all the shovelware in the bewildering and wildly imaginative early video game history.

UFO 50 captures that feeling perfectly, combining the freewheeling inventiveness of old-school game design with modern refinements and more consistent baseline quality bred over the ensuing decades. The result is an extremely playable love letter to the gaming history that will charm even the most jaded retro game fan.

A loving homage

UFO 50 presents itself as a collection of 50 dusty game cartridges made by UFO Soft, a fictional developer that operated from 1982 to 1989. Working through the company's catalog, you'll see evolution in graphics, music, and gameplay design that mirror the ever-changing gaming market of the real-world '80s. You'll also see the same characters, motifs, and credited "developers" appearing over and over again, building a convincing world behind the games themselves.

The individual games in UFO 50 definitely wear their influences on their sleeves, with countless, almost overt homages to specific '80s arcade and console games. But there isn't a single title here that I'd consider a simple clone or knock-off of an old gaming concept; each sub-game brings its own twist or novel idea that makes it feel new.

Enlarge / The "VP" on the cab light is a nice touch. (credit: Itch.io)

Last month, in a profile of newly named Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, The New York Times included a throwaway line about "the time his wife had seized his Dreamcast, the Sega video game console, because he had been playing to excess." Weeks later, that anecdote formed the unlikely basis for the unlikely Crazy Taxi: Tim Walz Edition mod, which inserts the Minnesota governor (and top-of-the-ticket running mate Kamala Harris) into the Dreamcast classic driving game.

"Rumor has it that Tim Walz played Crazy Taxi so much his wife took his Dreamcast away from him... so I decided to put him in the game," modder Edward La Barbera wrote on the game's Itch.io page.

Unfortunately, the pay-what-you-want mod can't just be burned to a CD-R and played on actual Dreamcast hardware. Currently, the mod's visual files are tuned to work only with Dreamcast emulator Flycast, which includes built-in features for replacing in-game textures.

Enlarge / Notice anything missing from the one and only model of the PS5 Pro? (credit: Sony)

Here at Ars, we've been publicly musing about whether the world was ready for a disc-free game console since as far back as 2015. Now, though, the better question might be whether the world ever needs a new game console with a built-in disc drive at all.

Yesterday's announcement of the PlayStation 5 Pro seemed to treat the existence of disc-based games as an afterthought. You had to be watching pretty closely during Mark Cerny's "technical presentation" video to notice that the coming PS5 Pro is only available in a single disc-drive-free model. And you'd have to read pretty deep into the official PlayStation blog post on the subject to discover that "PS5 Pro is available as a disc-less console, with the option to purchase the currently available Disc Drive for PS5 separately."

That $80 disc drive accessory was introduced as an optional upgrade to the Digital Edition of the PS5 Slim last year, alongside a Slim model that does have a pre-installed disc drive. But now, just one year later, Sony has decided that it only needs a single "disc-less" model of the PS5 Pro as the default.