Activision is tormenting Call of Duty cheaters

You've heard by now, of course. Sony's unanimously adored 2013 stealth-action cry-along The Last of Us Part 1 has not arrived on PC in fine form. The performance issues are numerous and significant, and over a week on from launch, despite two patches from developer Naughty Dog and a driver hotfix from Nvidia, they persist. It was supposed to be so different.

The danger of an AI unbound by ethical constraints is a familiar sci-fi boogeyman. From Nomad to Ultron, it seems like one big-brained machine after another only needs to think about it for a minute before deciding that people are the problem, and the solution is... well, not hard to figure out from there. That's why there's so much concern about establishing an ethical framework for AI development: A little more effort now means a lot less extermination of organic life later.

I knew I was going to like Deceive Inc when I lost a staredown with a janitor. There we were, standing six inches from each other, both disguised as staff at a hotel, both wondering if the other guy was an actual player or an NPC. I thought I'd seen him open a drawer earlier in a very spy-like way, and I was certain he'd noticed me running when I should've been walking. Seconds that felt like minutes passed until I couldn't take it anymore. Screw it, if we're doing this I better at least take the first shot. I drew my revolver, lined up a headshot, and executed a completely innocent NPC.

The fact that 2003's Freelancer never got a sequel is one of the greatest travesties in PC gaming. Digital Anvil's third-person space shooter plonked you into a galaxy with a linear storyline but enough freedom to trade and fight as it suited you. PC Gamer gave it 90%, calling it an "expertly crafted space adventure" and "one of the best examples of this genre we've ever seen". Everspace 2 is not Freelancer. It's better.

What if Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf were the same person? Well, it would render the original fairytale pretty confusing—but it makes for a very cool action RPG character. In Ravenswatch, all the playable heroes are reimaginings of classic characters from fairytales and literature—from the sly Pied Piper who wields musical magic and summons swarms of rats, to the hulking Beowulf who carries the diminutive last dragon whelp on his shoulder, to, yes, Little Red Riding Hood as a deadly rogue and werewolf.

Call of Duty's Ricochet Anti-Cheat system doesn't always ban suspected Warzone and Modern Warfare 2 cheaters on sight. Sometimes, it keeps them around, but makes their efforts to cheat futile by applying "mitigations." For example, a mitigation called Damage Shield "disables the cheater's ability to inflict critical damage on other players" so that, no matter how hard they try, they will never score a kill.