Another big week in hardware and technology news. It looks like the perpetually delayed Atari VCS is finally set to ship later this fall, hopefully. We also have news of Huawei’s Kunpeng 920 CPU, talk about Volta and Turing encoders shipping with the GTX 1650, news of Apple also ditching AMD, and more. 

At GN, we recently went over the basics of overclocking the Ryzen 5 3600 XT, Infinity Fabric, and memory. We also have extensive review coverage of AMD’s new XT series of CPUs: The Ryzen 3900X, the Ryzen 7 3800XT, and the Ryzen 5 3600XT. We further introduced our new GN PC Component shirt, and you can get one here. The GN store continues to be the best way to support our work. 

News follows below, with the article and video embed.

Our initial coverage of RollerCoaster Tycoon World blew-up when we were at PAX Prime 2015. It was the first time anyone had seen real gameplay footage of the tumultuously-made title, which was (at the time) on its third development team. The game seemed like it had promise and, as we learned in a later meeting, was slated for a December launch with two pre-launch betas in the pipe.

Only one of those betas happened -- the other was canceled, and the December launch target got moved. Again. We're now looking at "Early 2016" for RollerCoaster Tycoon World, which will soon be threatened by newcomer "Planet Coaster" (4Q16 launch date). RCTW's got the name and recognition, but has to pull together its development faster than might be feasible. Even just the framerates, as you'll see in the video below, are completely inexcusable for a PC game. Here's hoping things look up for the globally loved title.

In the meantime, Atari has re-re-announced its modding plans. It feels like we're stuck on loop, here -- we talked about modding at PAX Prime ('15) and, based on Atari's newest video, not much has changed -- but they want to make sure everyone remembers that the game exists and has modding support.

Publisher Atari and developers Nvizzio today announced the release date for RollerCoaster Tycoon World, its price, and its planned beta phases.

The game is targeted for a December 10, 2015 release date, priced at $50 ($60 for “Deluxe Edition”), and will include two pre-launch beta phases. We're told that the Deluxe Edition includes “two unique building maps, terrain additions, a digital art book, and the classic Panda mascot,” the last of which will be deployable to parks for guest interaction.

1999. That’s the year. I spent most of our meeting with Atari and Nvizzio trying to remember when I last went deep with Roller Coaster Tycoon – more than a decade ago. Yikes.

RCT was the product of an era infatuated with city builders, civilization management, and RTS games. The industry ebbs in cycles of these almost-episodic fascinations – it’s MOBAs today, it was MMOs in the early-to-mid years of the century, and it was isometric builders in the late 90s.

Enough of that.

Today, we’re looking at Roller Coaster Tycoon World – which I’m truncating to RCTW, for the sake of these PAX-worn fingers – the series’ first PC release since 2004. RCTW continues the game’s iconic theme park construction, management, roller coaster design, and visitor torture, introducing a number of era-appropriate features along the way. The game is developed by Nvizzio, published by Atari, and is confirmed for a 4Q15 release at price-points undisclosed.

It's rare that GN Editor Steve and I are able to play games at trade shows, and even rarer that we enjoy them. Alas, following-up on our Nosgoth coverage, it's time we played Human Head Studios' Minimum, published by Atari.

Named for the game's minimalistic styling, developers Human Head Studios aimed to make a twitch-shooter with borrowed MOBA mechanics. The result is a 5v5 third-person shooter with dialed-back MOBA lane/creep aspects and, despite the seemingly odd combination, we think it works.