PLAY SOME GAMES
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FORTNITE BATTLE ROYALE
You’ve already decided
whether Fortnite is for you, and we
won’t try to change that, but we will
say this: It’s entirely free to play,
and the only detriment to not paying
for its optional cosmetics is the
likelihood of being called a scrub by a
nine-year-old with a vocabulary made
up entirely of a surprising number of
vile slurs. http://epicgames.com27
MAGIC THE GATHERING:
ARENA
Call us disingenuous all you like,
because MTG is, like Hearthstone, a
game you need to invest in to do well.
But this client easily replaces the
awful Magic Online as our favorite
way to smash monsters together.
Find a friend, grab one of the prebuilt
freebie decks, and show them who’s
the spiciest planeswalker.
http://magic.wizards.com28
DWARF FORTRESS
Rimworld may have taken the
formula and run with it, but you can’t
beat the insanity of an intricately
detailed dwarven settlement,
with all the foibles of the dwarves
within. Will they get offended by a
horrible miasma, throw themselves
off a ledge in a fit of madness,
hide themselves away to create a
masterwork when they should be
chopping trees, or something crazier?
http://bay12games.com29
GWENT
Arguably the best thing about
Geralt’s sword-swinging adventures
through The Witcher III was sitting
down with random folk for a good
old game of Gwent—and the spin-off
game, which puts you in the Butcher
of Blaviken’s ample shoes, is just
as rewarding. It’s spawned its own
esports scene, and is astonishingly
moreish. http://playgwent.com30
PATH OF EXILE
The leading multiplayer
Diablo-like (Diablike?) out there today,
PoE is perfectly ransackable without
forcing you to pay for trinkets and
armors, and it’s constantly growing
with new expansions and upgrades.
Beware, though: This game will get
under your skin and stay there, and
many people take it very seriously
indeed. http://pathofexile.comTidyTabs pulls off the same trick. You can
mash together a File Explorer window,
Microsoft Word, your web browser,
whatever, all in one draggable, resizable
unit. http://nurgo-software.com22
Ninite
Setting up a new PC with apps
is a tedious and click-heavy process
unless you take advantage of something
like Ninite, which pulls down your
choice of programs and installs them
fuss-free. That’s only one of its primary
functions; once you’ve done your multiple
installation, you can run it again to update
those apps seamlessly from one place.
http://ninite.com23
Wushowhide
More than once in the past few
years, Microsoft has pushed out a bad
Windows update that caused chaos. If
you’re determined to keep your machine
running on a certain patch—and if you’re
doing something mission-critical, this
might be a good idea—you can useMicrosoft’s own Wushowhide tool to
hide Windows Updates or wobbly device
drivers from the auto-updater’s prying
eyes. http://bit.ly/3cIA1Yo24
TestDisk
Don’t be fooled by the name.
While TestDisk is capable of testing disks,
it’s much more adept at pulling data from
drives that are about to click their last,
or those writable optical disks that have
started to rot with age. Sure, it’s not exactly
pretty, and it’s rarely quick to do the job,
but TestDisk is an absolute essential for
data recovery. http://cgsecurity.org25
Graser
If you don’t want that data
recovered ever, you probably already know
that simply deleting a file isn’t enough—
it only really deletes the reference to
the file, and it won’t be gone until it’s
overwritten by something else. Eraser
positively shreds that data, overwriting it
with zeroes and ones repeatedly to ensure
no trace of it is left. http://eraser.heidi.ieThere’s a vast catalog of software available for quick install with Ninite.Click until you can click no more—Path of Exile is a compelling game.free software 2020
36 MAXIMUM PC MAY 2020 maximumpc.com
©^GRIN
DING^ GEAR^ GAMES,^ NIN
ITEIT