Month: January 2022

Enlarge / Aerial shots with drone of Blackgrounds Roman archaeological site. (credit: HS2)

Archaeologists surveying the planned route of a high-speed railway between London and Birmingham in the UK unearthed the remains of a Roman trading town in what is now South Northamptonshire.

At its height, the town boasted an assortment of workshops and businesses, with long-buried foundations that archaeologists have spent the past year carefully unearthing from the site’s dark—almost black—soil. Artifacts at the site, from jewelry and finely made ceramics to more than 300 Roman coins, hint at ancient affluence. According to archaeologists with the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) Headland Infrastructure, most of that wealth probably came from trade along the nearby River Cherwell or the 10-meter-wide stone-paved Roman road running through the middle of the town.

“It indicates that the settlement would have been very busy, with carts simultaneously coming and going to load and unload goods,” said MOLA Headland Infrastructure in a statement.

Enlarge / "Boy." "Yes?" "You are ready... for the PC port." (This image was directly captured by Ars from the game's PC build—as were most of the other images in this article, unless otherwise clarified.) (credit: Sony Santa Monica)

While headlines have suggested that Sony's PlayStation division is more invested in the PC gaming space than ever before, its track record of releases thus far has been a bit shaky, even if the future looks promising. Sony's combined PC-porting studios stumbled in mid-2020 with Horizon: Zero Dawn, although the company eventually massaged that game into decent shape months later. Meanwhile, Days Gone arrived in 2021 with a solid number of PC-specific bells and whistles. That's only two bona fide PlayStation "hits" on PC thus far, leaving plenty of popular series missing.

Sony continues its PC-porting streak in 2022 by announcing two more titles. The first, 2018's God of War reboot, is emblematic of the company's PS4-game-porting aspirations. (Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, coming later this year, is the second.) Sony Santa Monica provided preview code for God of War's PC port a full four weeks before the game's $49.99 launch this Friday on Steam, the Epic Games Store, Humble, and other PC gaming storefronts. Based on what I've tested thus far, that level of confidence is warranted.

Tiding PC players over before the non-PC Ragnarök

Before digging into God of War's PC specifics (and my recommendations for settings and toggles), let's recap why I care about a port of a four-year-old PS4 game. When the God of War reboot arrived in 2018, the series' original run had accumulated a mix of baggage and fatigue that cooled my initial expectations. It didn't take long for Sony Santa Monica's gorgeous, massive, emotional adventure to change my tune, and the game finished third on Ars' 2018 best-of list.

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

It's time for another Dealmaster! Today's roundup of the best tech deals we can find around the web includes the entry-level Apple Watch SE, which is down to $229. We've seen this price before, but it's still $50 off Apple's MSRP, about $30 off the SE's usual street price and only $10 above the lowest price we've tracked. While the higher-end Apple Watch Series 7 remains the top pick in our guide to the best smartwatches, the SE is a strong budget alternative. By comparison, it lacks an always-on (and slightly larger) display, it charges a bit slower, and it's missing more advanced health-tracking features like blood oxygen monitoring and ECG functionality. But the experience is largely similar otherwise, with the same robust app library, a comparable design, and most of the same core health monitoring tools for sleep and exercise, all at a much lower cost. It's still meant for iPhone users only, but if you were thinking of making this the year you pick up a smartwatch, this deal presents a good value.

Elsewhere, the Nintendo Switch Online bundle we featured last week, which pairs a recommended 128GB microSD card with a 12-month Switch Online Family Membership, is still available, as are most of the Switch game deals we highlighted from Nintendo's New Year's sale. We've also found lower-than-usual prices on Tribit's XSound Go, a budget Bluetooth speaker we've praised in past buying guides, and Samsung's T7, a portable SSD we like. Our curated roundup also has deals on Apple's Mac Mini, screen protectors for the iPhone 13, USB-C chargers, and more. Have a look at the full list below.

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