When I reviewed the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ a few months back, I noted how it was a generational jump over AMD’s latest Zen 2 chips found in competing handheld gaming PCs, and when combined with Intel XeSS, it really gave gamers the ultimate handheld we’ve been yearning for.

But there were two problems. One was price. Due to RAM and NAND shortages due to demand for AI compute, MSI had to jack the price by at least $500, putting it at an MSRP of $1,799, which is kind of absurd.

The other was, surprisingly, extremely tight supply. Despite being sold at Best Buy, Amazon, Newegg, and B&H, it sold out everywhere within 24 hours (often due to preorders).

Since its release, that resupply still hasn’t happened. All those retailers are still listing it as out of stock as of me writing this today, and this seems to regularly happen with MSI and its Intel-based handhelds (whether it’s MSI's or Intel’s fault, I’m trying to find out).

So, out of curiosity, I checked eBay to see what that scene was like for the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, and sure enough, some online stores are selling the hard-to-find handheld, but at an even more exorbitant $2,599 – which is an $800 surcharge over retail!

You may be thinking, but sure, it’s eBay, and people can list items for any price, but are people buying them? The answer appears to be yes. One retailer, seen in the above screenshot, had seven of them in stock but has already sold six, giving a real FOMO to anyone eyeing that last one.

To be fair, I did find a seller with one in stock for $2,299.99 (after coupon, plus $20 shipping), so you’re “only” paying $500 over MSRP. Another seller had nine available, with one remaining for $2,499.

But you get the point. Not only is the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ insanely expensive at retail, but its shortage is driving up its price by $500 to $800, with people buying it. It’s why I’ve always noted on our podcast that PC gaming is recession-proof. No matter how bad the economy gets, or how high prices go, there is usually someone willing to pay for it.

Not the first time this has happened

Back in December, I noted a similar trend for Lenovo’s excellent Legion Go 2 with its giant 8.8” VRR OLED display and removable controllers. It’s a killer combo of a device, even if it’s better suited for your couch than travel.

For whatever reason, Lenovo can’t keep it in stock, so much so that it eventually removed it from its own website despite excellent reviews and, yes, demand for it, as people were paying $650 over retail just to have one.

Interestingly, ASUS has been the king of “you want it, just buy it,” as the original ROG Ally and the newer ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X are still widely available online and at your local Best Buy. Moreover, ASUS hasn’t even raised the price, keeping them at $599 and $999, respectively.

I hope ASUS can maintain those stock and price levels, as both devices are really solid choices for those looking into handheld gaming. Sure, the Ally X pales in performance to the new MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, but it’s still a really good experience with an outstanding design (a design that will improve with the forthcoming Xbox Ally X20 anniversary edition that features a larger OLED display and many smaller fixes; I expect to be reviewing that when it releases, so stay tuned).

So where does that leave you in this silicon soap opera? Has the RAM/NAND crunch shoved your handheld plans into “maybe in 2028” territory, or are you already rationalizing a purchase with phrases like “long-term investment” and “I deserve this”?

Let me know in the comments what your breaking point is for handheld pricing — and whether $2,599 is where you draw the line, or merely where your wallet starts quietly begging for mercy.

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Everyone on the internet is angry. I guess that's nothing new, but are things worse than usual?

Over the past week, the X (Twitter) algorithm has been serving me more negativity than usual. When your feeds are algorithmic, you have to stay cognizant of the fact that the platform has basically engineered what you see. Platforms like X, Instagram, etc. have billions of posts covering thousands upon thousands of topics. What you engage with is ultimately what you end up seeing. For me, that's obviously gaming and Microsoft-adjacent topics.

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For whatever reason, X has been boosting visibility for negativity on a variety of upcoming and recently released games. Wolverine for PS5 for example, is currently the subject of memes and mockery. GTA 6 also has a pretty broad hate campaign going on, and Halo Campaign Evolved too has been picked apart and torn to shreds as well.

Are things worse than usual? Is this par for the course? Have you noticed an upswing in negative discourse? Or is it all symptomatic of something else ...?

How much is grift, how much is genuine?

At least with regards to X, since the platform began paying people for their tweets, it seems to have amplified and incentivized some negative behaviors. Humans seem hard wired to engage with negativity in general, and there's likely evolutionary reasons for it if you dig deep enough — avoiding and mitigating negative outcomes is a survival trait oft-exploited by social media platforms to boost engagement. Everyone knows it. Articles with negative headlines simply get more clicks, with Google etc. use as a positive signal. It's why you'll more often see negative headlines even if the outlet or author in question tries to keep things balanced — positive content simply doesn't surface as often.

I do my absolute best to stay out of it and keep things balanced, but the algorithm doesn't really help my visibility therein. I get as many hate comments saying I'm an Xbox shill as I do saying I'm an Xbox hater, because it's ultimately the algorithm that decides which aspects of my content you see.

It could be a simple case of algorithmic perception here on my end, but I also see an uptick in people commenting on said negativity and nitpicking. Whether it's recent games like Wolverine or hate campaigns against recent movies like Nolan's The Odyssey, needless politicization and polarization seems to be social media strategy du jour right now.

There should always be room for genuine, constructive criticism of course. I'd argue that even less-constructive criticism is valid in a free speech context as long as you know you'll get push back for anything that is either outright dumb or at the very least, ill-conceived.

Where it becomes exhausting is when it's either obviously in bad faith or steeped in some kind of agenda. I think in the case of Wolverine for PS5 for example, it's getting a lot of collateral negativity right now owing to PlayStation's decision to kill physical discs — a plan that has large swaths of the internet up in arms. It reminds me of negative blowback some Xbox One games got back in the day unfairly too in my view, like RYSE, Killer Instinct, and even Titanfall, as Xbox's DRM plan was met with similar consternation fairly or not.

People seem to be mocking Wolverine based on a slice of gameplay that showcases some cinematic gameplay, with users suggesting it seems too "on rails" or something. I'm curious if those users have ever played a cinematic action game before ... because these sequences are hardly representative of the full package. Maybe I'm wrong, but it just seems like hate for the sake of hate, rather than genuine feedback.

Grand Theft Auto 6 also has a huge amount of hate flowing towards it right now, partially for Netflix's "exclusive" trailer, partially for its pay-walling of features behind expensive deluxe editions. People seem to be actively hoping for some of these games to fail, and it all seems to share a common thread.

Sometimes it seems to be less about the gameplay really. People seem to be less tolerant and more aware of corporate greed than I've known in previous years covering this industry, and maybe they're using other avenues to express it — regardless of the collateral.

It feels beyond gaming too

The problem is that the anger is feeding grifters who are less concerned with actual corporate shenanigans, and more interested in riding negativity to highlight a political agenda. Many of these people evidently don't even game with any regularity, and have just seen an opportunity to farm engagement.

Furthermore, I'd argue the grift, political or not, buries legitimate feedback at times. I'm not sure humans were designed to be subjected to 24/7 drip feeds of negativity, least of all individual game developers and creators who aren't responsible for the decisions of their higher ups. I have written some pretty scathing critiques of World of Warcraft's writing in recent months, but I'd hope that they're at least constructive and presented in good faith.

Perhaps people are just generally angry right now too. Wealth inequality has become absurd. Global economies revolve around benefitting the few over the many, with opportunities limited and honest work no longer providing a decent quality of life.

Perhaps gaming is a convenient outlet for expressing anger that isn't necessarily stemming from gaming directly. Gaming companies are visible online and individuals who work there often interact with the public, unlike other types of industries.

It perplexes me somewhat, because I feel as though I've got more high-quality games to play than I've ever had access to in my life. Mortal Shell II just came out and it's awesome, Star Wars Zero Company is on the horizon and that seems awesome too. Gears of War: E-Day plays fantastically well too. Onimusha is almost here, that seems excellent as well from what I've played. Blood of the Dawn Walker looks interesting. There are dozens of indie games I haven't gotten around to yet that I want to play as well.

There's plenty of games that have disappointed me ... but I tend to just move on from those, rather than make hating them my entire personality. They're just video games, right? Something else will come along, something better.

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But I could also be wrong, sure. Maybe I'm naïve and overly optimistic, or am more tolerant of the issues. The gaming industry is facing unprecedented disruption, producing more layoffs than I've ever known since doing this. Traditional gaming audiences are being devoured by non-gaming activities and spend, and users are spending more time in free-to-play games without actually spending any money. Ownership rights are under threat by digitization. It's unclear if our hobby will even be affordable in the future thanks to Team Altman hogging all the RAM.

It's an odd thing: there's more games worth playing than ever, but more reasons to be genuinely concerned about the direction of the industry as well.

What's your take? Is it all just a social media bubble? Are games actually worse than ever? Are people aging out and don't want to accept it? I want to hear your thoughts.

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GitHub is down for thousands of users, potentially costing millions of dollars in lost productivity. Outages started around 9:40 AM ET and affect API requests, pull requests, and webhooks.

The issues also affect Copilot. A massive number of developers and companies rely on GitHub and Copilot to get work done, so even a few hours of serious issues can be costly.

The official GitHub status page states:

"We are experiencing high error rates around 20% for web experiences and api traffic. Archive downloads and raw repository content downloads are experiencing an approximate 50% error rate. SAML and OIDC authentication, SCIM, and Team Sync are also impacted. We are still working to identify the root cause and will continue to post updates as we learn more and perform mitigation."

The cause of the outage is unknown at this time.

"We identified the problematic component and have taken corrective actions. There are strong signs of recovery but we are still working to completely restore service, with error rates still remaining slightly elevated. We will post further updates as recovery continues."

This is a developing story. We will update this piece as more information becomes available.

When I saw the first Mortal Shell 2 trailer, I didn’t think this was a sequel in any way, shape, or form, at least, not until the title screen cropped up. One person on my team said, “Dude, I can’t wait,” which had me super confused. You see, I didn’t really like the original Mortal Shell. Cool concept, but I was very “meh” on it.

So why make a sequel? The first game wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire. It felt clunky and awkward and honestly suffered from a case of the mid. I’ve heard plenty of other Soulslike fans say it wasn’t worth their time, and I’m right there with them.

That’s when I saw gameplay and immediately corrected my original impulse. This wasn’t a sequel; rather, it was an entirely revamped adventure, becoming an experience that I imagine the developers, Cold Symmetry, wanted the original game to be. The world was deliciously dark, painted by brutal combat, adhered to by a diverse set of shells, abilities, and areas for players to blindly lose themselves in.

Mortal Shell 2 is every bit of a do-over that Lords of the Fallen took when they jumped from the first 2014 title to 2023. Expanding, refining, and rediscovering the original hook in a way that not only feels right at home as a Soulslike but also as a rarity, feels unique enough that it’s not a simple Dark Souls knock-off like so many try to be.

This review was conducted using a pre-release code of Mortal Shell 2 provided to Windows Central by Cold Symmetry. The company had no input or prior knowledge of its content.

Mortal Shell 2: Gameplay

Normally, I’d kick things off with a nod to the story, since that can be just as important as gameplay. But this is a Soulslike, so let’s get real and talk about what matters most: the gameplay. And honestly? It’s awesome.

Right out of the gate, the camera settings threw me for a loop. The default is this so-called “Cinematic” over-the-shoulder view, just like the first game, and honestly, it’s not great. Trust me, switch to “Action” mode as soon as you can. You can actually see what’s going on around you, instead of catching the action after it’s already happened.

Then you’ve got your standard light and heavy attacks, ranged combat, and abilities, as well as passive and actionable use items. Followed by multi-use healing items that level up over time and your “Beacons,” which are basically bonfire checkpoints, with that added twist that they must be cleansed via a minidungeon completion to grant special items.

But let’s get to the real star of Mortal Shell 2: the Shells!

If you’re unfamiliar, Mortal Shell is based on the concept of the main character being what is called “The Harbinger”, who has the innate ability to use formerly alive warriors known as “Shells”. These Shells grant the Harbinger unique passive and active abilities for the player to make use of.

Right now, my favorite Shell is Proxima. She zaps enemies from a distance with lightning, yanking lighter foes straight to her or launching herself at the big guys. The lightning staggers them, so you can pile on the hits or make a quick getaway if things get too crowded in the area.

Her passive gives you a shot at cutting incoming damage in half, whether it’s ranged or melee. You can level up both her passives and actives, stacking even more damage resistance or getting extra chances to fry enemies with lightning.

Then you’ve got Shells like Tiel, who turns you invisible after a perfect dodge, or Gragu, who ditches the usual healing item for a “Resonant Heart” that only charges up as you rack up kills. More kills mean more health, easy for the good!

And that’s just scratching the surface. There are eight Shells in total and sixteen weapons, both melee and ranged, and you can mix and match however you want. Most players will have different experiences even with the same Shell, since you can upgrade different abilities with Shell Points or Glimpse and really make each Shell your own.

The list of active and passive abilities further expands these combination opportunities, with things like poison resistance or spectral fighters that summon alongside the player based on a percentage chance of every swing. There’s a lot packed into a $50 game!

With that said, there are some minor "oops, that's not right" moments that occur. Like, I often found my perfect parries failing because the enemy would completely miss my character entirely, and not because I was backing away, but because the enemy just didn't connect.

For fights with foes you need to counter, this can become somewhat frustrating. Other similar issues can crop up during your time, where enemies will fly off in weird directions.

Then there are some weird animations that leave the player open to attack. Like a standard finisher, or some other entangled animation with one enemy can leave you open to an attack from another. Making use of the standard finisher/damage mechanic is somewhat problematic at times. Not always.

Mortal Shell 2: World Design and Story

One of my biggest gripes with the original was the map design. For the Dark Souls diehards out there, the leap from Mortal Shell 1 to 2 feels a lot like going from Dark Souls 2 to Dark Souls 3. If you know, you know. If not, just trust me: it’s a massive upgrade.

For the unknowing, the original Mortal Shell’s map design felt overly complex, if only for the sake of being so. It lacked defining characteristics or landmarks and needlessly pushed backtracking, which made it very easy to get lost.

This time, the devs clearly listened. The new map gave me that same rush I felt exploring Dark Souls 3 for the first time. There’s a central hub, but most of the world is split into huge, sprawling areas you can get lost in for hours with no random teleport zones breaking up the flow.

More than once, I’d pick a direction and end up wandering through hidden side areas I had no plan to visit. Maybe a well, a tucked-away passage, or some secret spot with a new weapon or Shell. The world opens up in a way that feels planned, not just random happenstance like before.

I know I said in the beginning that Mortal Shell 2 wasn’t a knock-off of Dark Souls, and I stand by that, but there are some definite nods, or moments where the developers are paying homage to the greats of FromSoftware.

Small spoiler alert, but there’s an entire area dedicated to poison-based creatures. Sure, I didn’t have to wade through endless puddles, ponds, and literal lakes of Scarlet Rot, but we all know there’s one studio that invented these horrible areas.

Then, there’s the main nurturing character or NPC that guides you, and that’s none other than a rather largely endowed woman who looks awkwardly close to Gwynevere from Dark Souls 1. Like, if you’re not making a double-take for the first reason I listed, you’ll do it only because it's a definite Dark Souls mention.

A story that makes sense?

The story is a little more straightforward than your usual Soulslike, but only just. Don’t expect to have everything spelled out for you.

You’re the Harbinger, a being of existence born from one of the uncorrupted Ova or unborn eggs of the Undermother. Your mission is to reclaim the Undermother’s stolen Ova from the creatures, fanatics, and forces that now guard or corrupt them in the world.

After the first game, the Undermother’s corpse crashed down into the world. People started worshipping her remains, and for a while, things were actually peaceful.

That peace didn’t last. Corruption leaked out of her corpse, madness spread, and most of the Ova got tainted or lost. War broke out, temples fell, and the world filled up with mutants, raiders, and cultists.

Most of the Undermother’s unborn kids didn’t make it. You, the Harbinger, are one of the rare survivors, ready to set things right in a world gone sideways.

Most of this story you’ll have to piece together from clues, item descriptions, and cryptic NPC chats. If you’re like me, you’ll probably end up reading someone else’s summary just to make sense of it all, just like I did with Dark Souls and Elden Ring.

I’m someone who can only focus on so many things at once, and for me, I was always more worried about checking every corner for leveling items, shells, weapons, and other trinkets. Even this style of player will be hard-pressed to avoid all story!

After powering up Shells, a total of five memories can be unlocked for each, granting the player a glance into what led to their demise. Whether it be betrayal, self-infliction, or some other circumstance. Each is easily followed along with as the player gains access to more Shell Points and Glimpse.

Mortal Shell 2: Performance and graphics

Our copy of Mortal Shell 2 was reviewed via Steam, using two of my personal computers. A desktop with an RTX 5080, Ryzen 9800X3D, and 64GB of DDR5 RAM at 4K resolution and a gaming laptop with a mobile 4060 at 1080p.

For the most part, I had absolutely amazing performance at either High or Ultra settings, both with and without ray tracing enabled. Very infrequently, I’d notice some frame rate drops, but they were so rare for me that I think I could count them on a single hand.

Given the number of terribly performing games that I’ve reviewed over the last couple of years, it’s so refreshing to get a title that just plays the way it's supposed to while not having to worry about fiddling with one or two overly problematic settings.

I did run into some issues here and there with bugs. Most notably, issues with hit detection or the occasional tutorial message stuck on my screen.

Even more surprising is that Mortal Shell 2 runs on Unreal Engine 5! Something I wasn’t even sure of until I went searching through interviews and game information on the developers' website. Maybe now that Unreal Engine 6 has been announced, developers have finally figured out how to use 5 correctly; yay!

The payoff is that the look and feel of Mortal Shell 2 are awe-inspiring, to the point I legitimately felt irritated there wasn’t a camera mode to take advantage of for screenshots. Instead, many of the shots you’ll see throughout this review are either pulled from in-game cutscenes or cropped from stills I took roaming the area.

Should you buy Mortal Shell 2?

There’s a ton more I could say about this game, but I’d rather not have my editor hunt me down, and honestly, I don’t want to spoil the fun for anyone.

Mortal Shell 2 caught me off guard, not just because it beat my low expectations but because it’s actually a blast to play. Sure, the opening tutorial is the usual slow crawl, but after that, I kept getting that jolt of excitement every time I hit a new area or tackled a fresh Beacon.

I generally don’t feel that way when it comes to Soulslike games from other studios not named Fromsoftware, and it’s not because those titles are bad by any stretch, but they infrequently hold the same level of magic.

Mortal Shell 2 joins the elite group of exceptions to this rule, one that I think I won’t stand alone on. I don’t think I’ll stand alone, and I’m very convinced of putting my stamp of approval on it.

Anyone who enjoys the genre should absolutely look to pick Mortal Shell 2 up. Even with the issues listed, these are far outpaced by the strengths of the game, making an overall sum total that's vast and terrific (many of which I imagine will be largely patched).

I have the strangest feeling that Mortal Shell has a real shot at becoming a grander franchise over time, with a crowd of folks that will be clamoring for yet a third entry. I know I won’t make the same mistake I did before. At this point, I expect more games to come. And yes, I said games.

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