Mouse pads used to be the gray, necessary evil atop every PC owner’s desk. These days, gamers customize their setups from their CPU to the case size to the color of their keyboard’s cable. While mouse pads are much more customizable and come in different styles and designs, there are still only two main kinds of mouse pads: hard and soft.  Physical differences in hard and soft mouse pads are straightforward.

No matter how talented you are in VALORANT, odds are you’ll need your internet connection to be in top shape to climb the game’s ranked ladder. Packet loss and high ping can negatively affect players’ gameplay experience with stutters or delays. If you’re experiencing packet loss while playing VALORANT, you may unexpectedly find yourself taken down without even hearing a shot. Players with packet loss will always play at a disadvantage versus others with smooth connections, meaning it’s an issue you should fix to have a better time in VALORANT.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War introduces a new Zombies experience for players to enjoy. The game mode features overhauled gameplay and mechanics and allows players to escape for the first time in Zombies history.  There is currently only one Zombies map available in Cold War, but Dead Ops 3 is also available. Fans can expect more maps in the future, but they will have to stick with the same map for now.

The new PlayStation DualSense controller offers a unique level of immersion not offered by any other controller on the market. Boasting haptic sensors and adaptive triggers, this controller is full of features that give the gameplay a completely new feeling to match the hardware inside the PS5. Gamers who were lucky enough to get their hands on a PS5 on the day of release will be treated with the new controller right out of the box.

Jared “zombs” Gitlin is “stepping down” from the active Sentinels VALORANT roster, the organization announced today. Zombs will move to the inactive roster ahead of a potential transfer or move to content creation. The 23-year-old was a part of the original core of players who joined Sentinels when the organization entered VALORANT in late April 2020, with only Hunter “SicK” Mims and Shahzeb “ShahZaM” Khan now remaining (Michael “dapr” Gulino joined just over a month later).

Streamer Quin69 has received his third Twitch ban—this time due to hateful conduct. Quin69 has seen multiple Twitch bans since the start of this year. On January 14, the streamer was banned after going on a rant that many felt was misogynistic, and less than a month later was again suspended, that time for showing NSFW content during a media share stream. Today, the streamer received his third ban from the platform.

Genshin Impact just released their highly anticipated “When the Sakura Bloom” version 2.5 update with a ton of exciting new features. This update, released on Feb. 16, brings players a lot of new content including five-star character Yae Miko, a few quests, two new weapons, unique events, and more. Raiden Shogun is also reappearing as a new weekly boss. Yae Miko arrives Five-star Electro Catalyst character Yae Miko is now playable in Genshin Impact.

PGL has unveiled the full schedule for the Antwerp CS:GO Major, the first Valve-sponsored tournament of 2022. The $1 million event will be played in Antwerp, Belgium from May 9 to 22 and feature three stages. The 16 Challengers and Contenders teams start the competition in the Challengers stage and the top eight advance to the Legends stage, where the eight teams with Legend status will be waiting. These two stages use a Swiss system format that lasts four days each.

Popular Twitch streamer Pokimane shared yesterday a warning email she received from Twitch following a broadcast where she accidentally streamed explicit material. The email includes the reasoning for the warning, “accidental and/or brief nudity or sexual content,” and where the violation occurred. Similarly, the email states a Community Guidelines warning has been issued to the streamer’s account and that a suspension may happen if a second offense occurs. warning is deserved, sorry to anyone who didn’t wanna see that on stream.

The eighth generation of Pokémon games introduced a couple of new powerful Fire-type Pokémon in the mix. But unfortunately for fans of the fiery creatuers, not all of them are quite useful in Sword and Shield. Having a Fire-type on your team, however, can be quite crucial in some matches depending on which version of the game you have. They take half damage against the rampant Fairy-type Pokémon and have also been popular across the Pokémon community for some time now.