RICO London, Battle Axe gameplay and more revealed in Numskull Presents stream

Numskull Games's second indie gaming stream has been and gone, showcasing gameplay from a clutch of previously announced games, such as retro top-down hack & slash Battle Axe, and including some new game announcements, such as RICO London, a sequel to the 2019 shooter.

All five games are coming out in the first half of 2021, with Iris.Fall the first out the door. Out this month for PS4 and Nintendo Switch, the game features a black cat that you must navigate through a dilapidated theatre, solving puzzles between light and shadow along the way.

Also coming to Switch and PlayStation 4, but in March, Bladed Fury is a 2D action game based on Chinese history and mytholgy. As you travel the Warring States, exiled princess Ji is looking for revenge on the clan that stole her father's lands.

It's a two-fer in April, with 80s/90s retro-inspired Battle Axe coming to PC, Switch, PlayStation and Xbox. The game features classic hack & slash gameplay to go with pixel art from Henk Nieborg and music from Manami Matsumae.

That's alongside Brigadine – The Legend of Runersia, a sequel to the 1990s tactical RPG, where you'll be looking to conquer the continent in the name of your chosen country. The game will be out for PS4 and Switch.

And finally we come to RICO London. Coming to PC, Switch, PlayStation and Xbox, the game is a fast-paced FPS where you take on the violent gangs of London, battling through procedurally generated levels. Just like the original (but in London). RICO London will be out in June 2021.

That was all for this entry in Numskull's new publishing venture. Did anything tickle your fancy?

What We Played #485 – Destruction AllStars, Bravely Default II & Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury

While it might not seem like all that much has changed, some thing certainly have, including the fact that's it's now half term and parent's around the land will sigh with relief at a week off from home-schooling. It'll certainly mean for plenty multi-generational game playing anyway, and we've started it off this afternoon with some Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I'd forgotten just how good it was, and we've had a great time despatching Stormtroopers already. I've continued to have a whale of a time with Destruction AllStars, mostly placing in the top three for every match, and Lupita is my top tier choice every time. I've also continued with FFVII Remake, and am fairly certain I'm getting somewhere towards the end. It's sagged a little in the middle I think, but I'm hoping for a strong (kind of) finish.

Jason has been playing Nioh 2 and still hasn't had any tech issues (which you can read about), Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (which you can also read about), Slay the Spire on mobile (which you will be able to read about sometime soon) and a little bit of Rocket League too.

Tuffcub has played Destiny 2, obviously because there's a new season, and The Elder Scrolls Online, saying "My friend can't play first person games so I've agreed to play that with him. It is janky as fuck and feels so dated on a PS5."

Nic B has played Persona 5 Strikers, "which is an excellent sequel to Persona 5. I've also been smashing it on Pokémon Go, having finally caught all 151 Kanto Pokémon. Only took 4 years, but we got there!"

Gareth has 100%ed Miles Morales and started New Game +, hoping to have the platinum by the end of the week. He continues, "I played some Control and can't bring myself to trade RTX 30fps for 60fps, so have been dying repeatedly. I've also played a decent amount of Destruction All Stars, which is a lot of fun although it is annoying that I'm better at crashing when I'm trying not to in a normal racing game. I also completed Injustice 2's story mode and I've resumed my now seemingly ancient Days Gone save thanks to that PS+ game collection thing. Elsewhere, I've completed yet another section of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which seems reluctant to end and less likely by the minute to come to a satisfying conclusion. I also briefly considered trying Monster Hunter World Iceborne before changing my mind because I'd only be lost. It's a lot of stuff. All praise the PS5!"

Jim has also been dipping in and out of Destruction AllStars, "which has been fun in short bursts to fill some time". He continues, "I've mainly been focusing on the backlog and surprised myself by mainlining Ashen. It's what you might call of Dark Souls lite, hitting those similar Soulslike beats but slightly more linear and without some of that vague hidden depth. The final boss was a right pain but glad I managed to hit the end credits. I've also been playing Final Fantasy IV and Moonlighter."

Meanwhile, Reuben has spent most of the week playing Bravely Default II, and have been enjoying jumping into a classic-style JRPG again. "Also, I've dropped back into Street Fighter V to get hype for this week's livestream and to write up a feature on five years of the game.

Aran has been playing Mutropolis for review. More on that next week. "I have also been playing AC Valhalla and have now started the Essex arc. Still enjoying my time. Had levelled up quite a bit and went back to a very high level boss thinking I was ready. I was not ready. Soon I'll win that fight."

Steve has been playing a couple of games for review which he tells us about; "The first is Blue Fire which is a great mixture of Zelda, Hollow Knight and the Void levels from Super Mario Sunshine. Unfortunately the PC version has an issue with Unreal engine crashes which the devs are working on patching. I also have Early Access code for Rustler which is old school GTA in a medieval world. The rest of this week I spent playing 143 demos on Steam for some features. There were some real highlights here so keep an eye out for previews and articles around this. Despite having an unplayed copy of Super Mario 3D World in my wallet of Wii U games I'm severely tempted to pick up the Switch version as a treat for myself."

Going for total assassination, Nick P managed to get the Platinum on Assassin's Creed Valhalla, telling us that it was a "solid experience although a little too big. Definitely got me back into the series again. I started playing Hitman 3 properly and I'm loving how inventive you can be. Finally, I had a little go on Destruction AllStars which was a fun distraction."

Finally, Tef dove into an advance session for the Roller Champions closed beta, and came away fairly impressed. There's depth here, and it's great when the teamwork makes the dream work, but can it capture the hearts of millions like Rocket League managed? We'll see. Aside from that, he's been dialling up his more intellectually nefarious side for an upcoming preview. What could it be?

Now then, it's over to you. What have you played?

Roller Champions has the potential to be a wheely good game – hands on with next week's closed beta

In the realms of fictional sports games, Roller Champions is far from the most outlandish effort. There's nothing quite like it in reality, but with two small teams of three facing off in a large oval, scrapping over control of the ball and trying to score points, it's like a cross between roller derby and basketball.

We got to go hands on early with the Roller Champions closed beta that will be kicking off next week on 17th February – here's how to sign up for the Roller Champions closed beta.

The rules are relatively straightforward to pick up, and the basic controls just as easy to grasp. The aim of the game is to grab the ball, take it a full circuit around the oval counter-clockwise, and then chuck it through a hoop on mounted up on the wall. One lap nets you a single point, two laps gets you three, and three laps earns you a game-winning five points.

Skating is as simple as pointing in a direction, using the ramps and doing a quick pump to gain a little more momentum as you descend, or grabbing onto allies and slingshotting yourself forward at high speed. All the better to catch up to the opponents and tackle them, sending the both of you clattering to the ground, and dislodging any ball they might have in hand, breaking any progress through a lap if your team is able to pick the ball up again.

For gamers of a certain age, Rollerball was a game that was "played" on the playgrounds of secondary school. Inspired by the 1975 sci-fi sports film, it basically boiled down to kids kicking a football up in the air and whoever it landed next to would get a kicking. Rollerskates weren't required.

Such shenanigans were quite a way before my time – I heard about it from my dad, who was a teacher during the knee-scraping fad – but Roller Champions sometimes manages to conjure up the same mental imagery, just much more colourful and cartoonish. Specifically, I'm talking about the times where you take a flying, two-footed leap into your opponent's face. Don't worry, everyone quickly stands up again totally unharmed.

There's a lot of rough and tumble through the game, though it's generally more in line with that of a roller derby than just senseless violence. Making a tackle is all about position, direction, momentum and timing, whether you're catching up to another player to try and smack the ball from their hands with a shoulder charge to the back, acting as a blocker to protect your teammate, or yes, flying feet first into an oncoming opponent. It's definitely on the forgiving side for the would-be tackler, but that makes it easier to pick up and play.

The trouble is that there's the immediate feeling that this is a game that's going to really need to be mastered, and not just on an individual level. Playing for a few hours, I quickly grasped the basic controls, but then started to realise that any of the more advanced tricks on the road to victory are going to need team play and communication. You can quickly throw the ball between you to either evade a tackle or speed up a lap, but passes rely on timing and teammates getting open space to pull off cleanly. You can slingshot yourself forward off an ally, but that requires that they are in position ahead of you to do so. It ain't going to be easy for someone trying to lone-wolf in the matchmaking queue.

That's bound to be a big part of the appeal for those that choose to get invested in the game. There's an immense amount of satisfaction to figuring the kinds of tactics that can work in close teamwork, and figuring out when you need to be together and when you want to break off and head off an opponent's play. With a set team of three players, you can start to take on particular roles to shift in and out of.

However, one thing that was notable was the handful of players that hadn't paid attention during the introductory video and not realised the intended direction of play needed in order to score. You're meant to go one specific direction around the track in order to quickly pass through the four checkpoints in turn, because going the other direction takes three full circuits before the goal opens. Then again, this would be quite the power move for a superior team to pull off!

There's something to Roller Champions, but I think it will take more effort for players to find it than in, say, the inherent charms of Rocket League – and let's be honest here, Roller Champions is 100% trying to pinch some of Rocket League's lunch. It's well worth giving a try though, especially if you can grab some friends to join you, with the closed beta kicking off next week on 17th February for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Chivalry 2 release date set for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, beta incoming

The long-awaited sequel to Chivalry: Medieval Warfare now have a release date and will be coming to PC and consoles later this year. Tripwire Interactive and developer Torn Banner Studios have confirmed that Chivalry 2 will launch on June 8 on PC (via the Epic Games Store) as well as PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Pre-orders for Chivalry 2 are now open, giving fans of the multiplayer melee series a chance to secure guaranteed access to the upcoming beta. The pre-release test will be taking place for a limited time between March 26 to March 29 and will be available on all of the aforementioned platforms. Not only that, it has been confirmed that full cross-play will be enabled, inviting PC, PlayStation, and Xbox gamers into the same bloody online crucible.

Here are more details on the upcoming Chivalry 2 closed beta:

●        Cross-Play Across All Platforms: Cross-Play smashes the boundaries between PC and console, allowing players to face-off on the battlefield together, regardless of platform.

●        Size Matters: Experience the chaos of epic medieval battlefields, charge forth to the frontlines of battle, and experience true mass-scale combat supporting up to 64-players designed to capture the intensity and scope of "The Battle of the Bastards" from Game of Thrones.

●        Master Blade, Bow, or… Chicken: Your arsenal expands with the new subclass system that provides more variety than ever before. Four base classes expand to 12 subclasses, including the Skirmisher, a melee/ranged hybrid – to the Poleman, a fighter who keeps foes at bay with long-distance melee.

●        The World is Your Weapon: Own the field with a variety of heavy siege engines including Ballistae, Catapults, Trebuchet, Battering Rams, Mantlets, Spike Traps, Ladders and more. Utilize traps to defend, including spikes, bear traps, and more. You can even deal damage with a smorgasbord of "found items" on the battlefield. Try downing a cup of mead and deal a killing blow with the empty chalice or finish off a foe by smashing him in the face with a flaming chicken!

●        New Map – The Siege of Rudhelm: In the first public hands-on of Chivalry 2 since PAX East 2020, experience the return of the fan-favorite Team Objective mode and join attacking or defending teams as 64-players vie for control of a well-fortified castle in a never-before-seen map.

●        Many Modes: In addition to Team Objective mode, closed beta participants can also sharpen their skills in a variety of other modes, including Team Deathmatch and Free-for-All.

The original Chivalry: Medieval turned out to be a massive hit, taking those familiar first person shooter tropes yet swapping guns for an arsenal of blunt and bladed weaponry. There aren't a great many games in this subgenre with Mordhau and Mount & Blade II, and War of the Vikings being the only real competition when Chivalry 2 takes to the battlefield later this year.

Source: Press Release

Every Ratchet & Clank game ranked from worst to best

The Ratchet & Clank series has been a mainstay of the PlayStation catalogue since the days of the PS2, instantly becoming one of my personal favourites with its 2002 debut. I have always looked forward to each new console generation's dip into the vibrant, wacky, and diverse galaxies of Ratchet & Clank, and the PS5 will be no different. With the release of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart scheduled for June this year, those early glimpses have teased us with seamless dimension-hopping antics and an incredibly polished looking platforming experience.

As we count down the days until the next Ratchet & Clank, I've embarked on a space-faring odyssey to rank every one of the duo's adventures thus far, from the series' original heyday to its remarkable 2016 reboot.

15 – Before The Nexus | 2013

Hardly deserving of its own place in this list (but I'm a completionist) Ratchet & Clank: Before The Nexus is an endless-runner style mobile game for iOS and Android. Little more than Temple Run with a coat of R&C paint, it's plagued with clunky controls and none of the tight, polished gameplay that has kept even the least imaginative entries in the mainline series engaging. I wouldn't bother, even if it still is available to download.

14 – Full Frontal Assault (Q-Force) | 2012

Essentially a Ratchet & Clank tower defence game with a few more bells and whistles, this disappointing title brings none of the sprawling, imaginative level design showcased by the best entries of the series, opting instead for self-contained, arena style levels. The tower defence twist is certainly intriguing though Q-Force ultimately makes for a stressful experience devoid of the same charm and exploration-driven gameplay R&C fans have come to love.

13 – Going Mobile | 2005

A surprisingly solid entry, Going Mobile is a 2D mobile platformer that predates smartphones. Back in the infancy of mobile gaming, Ratchet & Clank: Going Mobile boasted tight gameplay and impressive design for the basic hardware, and a decent amount of content, boasting R&C's trademark wacky humour. In spite of its limitations, it's still a fun distraction.

12 – All 4 One | 2010

Far from one of my favourites, but with plenty of fun to be had, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One is another deviation from R&C's tried and true formula. Designed primarily as a co-op experience, players take control of Ratchet, Clank, Captain Quark, and (strangely enough) Dr Nefarious to battle through linear, fixed-camera levels. Solidly made, and with all the heart of previous titles, but not quite what I come to R&C looking for.

11 – Ratchet: Deadlocked (Ratchet: Gladiator) | 2005

I know what you're thinking – Where's Clank? That's exactly what I thought too when I first picked up the fourth entry in the mainline series. While it has much of that delicious R&C gameplay that I love, it's missing one of the most important elements: Clank's backpack forms. Without Ratchet's trustiest of companions, you're instead accompanied by two characterless 'Combat Bots'. Deadlocked focuses on arena battles instead of galactic exploration. Ratchet's redesigned armour also gave him a weirdly broad-shouldered look, which never sat right with me.

10 – Secret Agent Clank | 2008

This PSP title has the player taking control of Clank who is, for the most part, getting stuck into some amusing spy antics with some reasonably well realised stealth elements, all while using some inventive gadgets. Sadly the experience becomes a little disjointed with some less imaginative and pace-breaking segments taking control of Ratchet and Quark. Even that doesn't keep this from being a fun little spy soiree.

9/8 – Into The Nexus/Quest For Booty | 2013, 2008

Alright, I'm cheating here a bit. I tend to think of these two Ratchet & Clank entries as DLC spin-offs, as short stories rather than full titles, so I'm happy lumping them together. Both are very solid, with gravity-manipulating and space-pirate flavouring respectively, and delivering exactly what the series does best. The only drawback, of course, is their length. Still, as stopgaps between bigger games in the series, they do an exemplary job.

7 – Size Matters | 2007

Another PSP title, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters makes an admirable effort at transferring everything we know and love about the series to a portable console. This handheld adventure isn't higher on the list simply due to the inevitable limitations of the PSP console, a few unfortunate glitches and technical hiccups, but even so, a worthy addition to the series that still holds up remarkably well.

6 – Ratchet & Clank | 2016

I go back and forth on this one. Right now I'm in a generous mood, so I'll sing its praises. Released to coincide with the 2016 movie adaptation (remember that?) this reboot/reimagining was the only R&C title released for PS4 and is definitely up there as being the most polished in terms of graphics and gameplay. It bowled over some of the staff here at TSA with Tuffcub awarding the game an unbeatable 10/10 in his review.

However, what disappoints me about this otherwise great game is that it, like the movie it's based on, feels like the original game but with all the edges sanded off. A little too clean and shiny, a little bit Pixar, it's a matter of taste, but I prefer my R&C with a bit of grit, thank you very much.

5 – Ratchet & Clank | 2002

The one that started it all. It's easy to see why the franchise has had such longevity when you see where it came from, immediately throwing you into the imaginative and diverse Solana galaxy. Excellent level design, stellar voice acting, humorous writing, and a universe that seems dirty and lived-in. The only thing that brings the original down to this point in the list is the fact that the gameplay still had a few kinks that would only be figured out in later titles, most notably, the lack of a strafe function. Otherwise, it's a classic for a very good reason.

4 – Going Commando (Ratchet & Clank 2/Locked & Loaded) | 2003

As sequels go, this is one hell of an effort. Ratchet & Clank 2 builds on everything the original game served up, expanding the universe to greater and wilder depths, bringing in even more crazy gadgets, a more rewarding sense of progression, and of course, the all-important strafing controls which helped smooth out that frenzied combat gameplay.

3/2 – Tools of Destruction/A Crack in Time | 2007, 2009

Yes, yes, I'm cheating again, but with good reason. I find it impossibly hard to choose between these two superb Ratchet & Clank games, both of them being PS3 mainline entries in the series. Exceptionally well put together experiences, with little to choose between the two of them, they evolved the R&C formula and kept the PlayStation exclusive franchise firmly in the spotlight years after the original PS2 trilogy. Although separated by unique features such as Tools of Destruction's "Constructo" weapons and A Crack in Time's clever time-bending Clank sections, I just can't separate the two in my ranking. To me they represent both halves of a defining chapter in the Ratchet & Clank saga. A spectacular return to form after a couple of so-so experiments.

1 – Up Your Arsenal (Ratchet & Clank 3) | 2004

Here it is. The zenith of R&C. You know how we all hoped after Going Commando that the follow-up would continue to build on what had come before? Well, Ratchet & Clank 3 knocked it right out of the park.

More weapons, more gadgets, more vehicles, tightened gameplay, and a massive variety in mission type. It also had humour in spades, and introduced us to Dr Nefarious, probably the most over-the-top and compelling villain of the series. I've gone back to revisit this masterpiece many time, and it will always hold a place among my favourite games of all time.

We, like many PlayStation 5 owners, are waiting with bated breath to see more of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and get our hands on the game for its June release. Where will it slot into the rankings? Fingers crossed it's at the pointier end.

Steam Lunar New Year Sale & Epic Spring Showcase Sale are both now on

PC gamers are in discount heaven, as both Steam and Epic Games Store have kicked off big sales across their digital stores. On Steam, it's the Lunar New Year Sale, which is running from now until 15th February,  while on Epic, it's the Spring Showcase Sale, which follows on from a reveal stream last night and is running until 25th February.

Discounted games include modest savings on Cyberpunk 2077 (10% off) and Assassin's Creed Valhalla (17% off), a more meaningful saving on Marvel's Avengers (50% off), Immortals Fenyx Rising (33% off), Doom Eternal (67% off), and on and on and on.

There's really too many games to pick out, so we'd simply suggest heading over to the Steam Lunar Sale page, and the Epic Spring Showcase page to have a browse through what's on offer.

The Kingdom Hearts saga is coming to PC in March

The entire Kingdom Hearts saga is coming to PC via the Epic Games Store. Announced during the Epic Games Store Spring Showcase, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, Kingdom Hearts III and the Re Mind DLC, and Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory will be launching for PC on 30th March 2021.

"It is truly a great pleasure to bring so many Kingdom Hearts adventures to PC gamers around the world," said Producer Ichiro Hazama. "Our collaboration with Epic Games is one that stretches back to the development of Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, and as part of this ongoing relationship, the team at Epic Games have been incredibly supportive in helping us make this a reality. I'm incredibly excited for so many new players to discover and enjoy the action, magic and friendship of Kingdom Hearts Hearts on PC."

The announcement comes a year after the saga was completed on Xbox One for the first time, with Kingdom Hearts 3 being the first cross-platform release in the series, and Square Enix going back to bring earlier games to Microsoft's console.

There's a vast amount of Kingdom Hearts to trawl through, especially as Square Enix released seemingly countless spin-offs through the mid-2000s, and then sought to bring them all together in remastered compilations, whether they were DS or PSP games, or main series entries.

Here's everything that will be sold on the Epic Games Store.

  • KINGDOM HEARTS HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX
    • KINGDOM HEARTS FINAL MIX
    • KINGDOM HEARTS Re:Chain of Memories
    • KINGDOM HEARTS 358/2 Days (HD Remastered cinematics)
    • KINGDOM HEARTS II FINAL MIX
    • KINGDOM HEARTS Birth by Sleep FINAL MIX
    • KINGDOM HEARTS Re:coded (HD Remastered cinematics)
  • KINGDOM HEARTS HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue
    • KINGDOM HEARTS Dream Drop Distance HD
    • KINGDOM HEARTS 0.2 Birth by Sleep –A fragmentary passage–
    • KINGDOM HEARTS χ Back Cover (movie)
  • KINGDOM HEARTS III + Re Mind (DLC)
  • KINGDOM HEARTS Melody of Memory

Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory is the most recent game released in the series, a rhythm action spin off that, once again, puts the series' narrative twists and turns in a new light. In our review, Miguel said:

"Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory could have easily been a simple rhythm game with nothing but a huge set of Kingdom Hearts songs going for it. The fact that it goes out of its way to emulate the visuals of the series and recaps major story moments elevates it to something more. It's a shame that the new story elements of the game are held off until the very end, and that Kairi isn't even a playable character despite being on the cover of the dang game."

However, it's really the main series that's most likely to appeal to gamers not yet versed in the convoluted plot of the series. The long-awaited Kingdom Hearts III released in 2019, our review saying:

"Kingdom Hearts III doesn't go in the direction some RPG fans will no doubt have been hoping for. It's unashamedly over the top in just about every way, from its barmy story and stunning presentation to its huge cinematic battles. There's plenty of depth here too, though you'll need to find your bearings first."

So, now PC gamers can go and try and keep track of all the barmy story beats and retcons through the series' long history.

Source: press release

Conspiracy! Review

Conspiracies and the theories that "explain" them have been an intrinsic part of humanities love for storytelling for millennia. We can't get enough of the things. Joining the dots between entirely random events and concocting an explanation (usually involving shadowy organisations responsible for everything bad that has ever happened) is something people seemingly love to do.

Some theories are so ridiculous as to be funny, but others are so insidious that they are responsible for some of the worst atrocities humankind has ever committed. A cursory glance at the key moments and trends of the last twelve months shows that conspiracy theories are still rife, increasingly newsworthy, and likely here to stay for the foreseeable. Which makes the recent release of Conspiracy! rather apt. The latest game from Brighton-based developer Tim Sheinman attempts to expose how the human brain is predisposed to seeing patterns and thus coming up with a doozy of a conspiracy theory.

Conspiracy! – I can only assume the startling exclamation mark is to avoid any comparison with the 2001 TV movie 'Conspiracy' – tasks the player in the role of an investigator attempting to unravel a Machiavellian plot that cuts right into the heart of the Presidential election. This is achieved through a minimalist set-up; the player is shown a screen of twenty blacked out polaroid photographs, each one labelled with a title that's either something sinister or just plain weird. On initial glance, headings of 'killing the pervert', 'two thousand dead geese' and '5G in rural areas' mean very little, though your investigation will ultimately reveal how all these events are linked.

To do this, you'll need to read through reams of emails, letters, newspaper articles and files to uncover further information. There are also cassette recordings to listen to, all in an attempt to uncover when the elusive events took place and in which order. Do this and you'll be able to choose a date from a limited selection and add it to the relevant polaroid; eventually revealing the hidden images and uncovering further clues to begin the process all over again.

There's a well structured plot to uncover here, one filled with misdirection and red herrings. There's also a healthy dose of satire to invoke a wry smile or occasional guffaw. The written sources are an interesting enough read in their own right and the vocal performances are a highlight throughout. Special mention must go to the distinctive tones of author Jon Ronson, whose excellent investigative work makes him an ideal fit for this game. Indeed, it was Ronson's involvement in the project that initially brought Conspiracy! to my attention.

Conspiracy! attempts to show how the online world has played a significant role in the construction and spreading of conspiracy theories in recent times. As such, the game has an intriguing mechanic that blurs the lines between the game and the real world. As well as scouring in-game resources, you're also able to go off-piste and give the events described a quick DuckDuckGo – other search engines are available. Scouring the internet is often the quickest, and sometimes the only way to gather the dates you need to unlock further clues.

Now, in theory this should all be very engaging, as the game bleeds into the online world and fiction becomes plausible reality. Conspiracy! seemed to want to cast me in the role of a bearded and over-caffeinated crackpot, frantically opening tabs and furiously double clicking in an attempt to join the dots, piece the puzzle together and finally blow it all wide open. I sense that my response to the game should be to emulate Mel Gibson in 'Conspiracy Theory'; that I'd feel wild, uncouth and handsome. Instead, the only parallel I can make is that the game made me feel like an office administrator. Not even an exciting office administrator with an automatic pencil sharpener and pocket calculator. Conspiracy! made me feel like an office worker with a clip on tie and a centre parting.

A big part of this is down to the gameplay being so very flat and boring. Going online to scroll through a website to find a reference to a month and year is frankly far too much like real work. Reading through an email several times to uncover its hidden meaning is, again, too much like real work. It all becomes so painfully unengaging – hampered even further by the fact that once you've done it once, you have to go through the process all over again.

This issue is likely exacerbated by there being too little visual feedback. Conspiracy! will only respond when you correctly input five dates, meaning that for the most part it was like playing the game in a vacuum. Curiously, despite the use of real events requiring real internet searching, nothing really seemed real. Maybe this is a statement on how disconnected online conspiracy theorists are from the real world? Either way though, it made for an uninspiring few hours sat in front of my PC.

Marvel's Avengers update 1.4.2 is out, here are the patch notes

Square Enix's Marvel's Avengers has been patched with update 1.4.2. tweaking matchmaking, the UI, combat, and a lot more. Sadly, after years in development at some of Square Enix's biggest Western studios, Marvel's Avengers has been a huge flop for the company costing them 11 billion yen in losses. We're not sure a patch will help with that, but at least they are supporting players who bought the game.

Here are the notes.

New Features

Due to continued exploration and defending of Earth, we have increased resource caps to the following:

  • Polychoron = 999
  • Upgrade Modules = 999
  • DNA Keys = 99
  • Fragments = 99,999
  • Units = 999,999
  • Taking AIM Operation
    • Kate's HARM Room is now replayable for everyone who has already completed it
    • Switching to the Taking AIM Operation and then returning to the Reassemble Campaign no longer results in players being unable to interact with the next campaign interaction prompt
    • Improved lighting on Getz during cinematic prior to fighting him in Masks
  • More than Inhuman
    • The More than Inhuman mission no longer disappears from the War Table
  • Reassemble Campaign
    • New Normal
      • Using grapple swing before it was unlocked in the tutorial no longer gets the camera stuck in a bad position on some occasions
    • The Road Back
      • Fixed an infinite black screen during transition to Kamala waking up after battle on the helicarrier deck
    • To Find Olympia
  • Fixed a rare issue where Kamala could not interact with the 3rd console when trying to power the doors to the Archive
  • To Stand Alone
    • Fixed occurrence where Black Widow couldn't interact with the first console
    • Fixed an issue where the control panel would not raise out of the ground following the Veil of Shadows tutorial
    • Fixed a rare issue where combat did not progress after fighting the first Adaptoid in the lobby
    • Fixed an area with missing collision and a hidden strongbox
  • Once an Avenger
    • Fixed a rare issue where enemies did not spawn after transition into the room after Kamala broke the door
  • By Force of Mind
    • Fixed a rare issue where the second combat encounter wouldn't progress after defeating the first wave
    • Fixed an infinite black screen if a player jumped off the platform of the first combat area just as the final enemy was killed
    • Fixed a rare issue where Hulk did not smash the door, preventing progression after the chase sequence
  • Fixed an issue where players could not complete the objective in the Rockets' Red Glare mission
  • The "Unable to Join Strike Team" message no longer displays incorrectly when trying to join a player that had been already matched
  • Fixed an issue where a player may be invisible to their Strike Team members
  • SPIN Exo suppression fields are now visible to all players
  • Various matchmaking optimizations and fixes
  • Fixed text/imagery and textures used on…And We're Back!, Mayhem Over Manhattan, and Rockets' Red Glare
  • Black Widow's hair now displays correctly on her Classic Stealth outfit
  • Iron Man's Low Battery emote now displays correctly
  • Players with Mobile or Dynamic controller layouts no longer need to double tap when attempting to ping for it to function
  • Tooltips now properly populate when hovering over minor/major Artifacts
  • Items marked for mass dismantle are now properly indicated by a red square preceding the dismantling
  • Fixed an issue where tracking an excursion on the War Table would highlight completed missions as well as missions that still needed to be completed
  • Fixed a rare issue that would cause unintended text to appear when selecting a challenge level via the War Table
  • Fixed an issue where players were unable to change heroes in the Quinjet for Hive missions
  • Various crash, black screen, and infinite loading screen fixes
  • Fixed an issue that could result in Iconic Missions not showing up correctly
  • Kate's Explosive Arrow landing indicator now displays correctly with its trajectory indicator
  • Kate's Quantum Field skill now correctly displays the Area of Effect indicator when used near walls
  • The War Ship's flamethrower turrets now properly target and engage players
  • Fixed a rare issue that caused Adaptoids to sometimes grab players, despite perfect dodging the attack
  • Improved the notification players receive when being targeted by Adaptoid beam attacks
  • Pressure plates now activate correctly after performing combat around them
    • Kate Bishop now consistently activates pressure plates correctly
  • Fixed an issue where one player's hero was immobilized at the start of an Elite Hive mission in multiplayer
  • Kate is no longer invulnerable during Quantum Surge with the Overcharge Regenerator perk equipped
  • The Quantum Regenerator perk now works as intended, granting additional health and energy
  • The Blink Shroud perk correctly activates Kate's Ultimate Heroic rather than Quantum Shroud
  • Kate Bishop can no longer "fly" when jumping after blink-dashing in mid-air
  • Kate can now be revived correctly as a companion after getting downed by an Adaptoid
  • Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause Hulkbuster to lose functionality when Thor uses his support heroic
  • Fixed various issues that allowed players to go out of bounds
  • Fixed multiple issues with enemies spawning out of bounds
  • Ms. Marvel's Iconic Outfit is no longer locked after finishing The Magnificent Ms. Marvel mission chain
  • Fixed an issue where tracking the Global Offensive mission chain would sometimes give improper objective direction
  • The description of Priority Missions now display the correct Legendary Gear rewards and not Exotic Hivemind Gear
  • Modules and resource rewards are now affected by the difficulty modifier
  • Vaults no longer drop Rare Gear if you're above Power Level 80 as mission completion rewards.  Instead, Epic Gear or Legendary Hero Set Gear will now be rewarded
  • Hivemind Gear:
    • Kate's Hivemind Gear will now use her set names
    • Melee and Ranged items will now have their third perk tied to what status effect rolls they have as their first and second perk. Example: If you got 2 plasma perks, the third will be plasma reinforcing or Jarvis-related
    • Cosmic damage perks can now appear on Hivemind Gear
  • Tachyon Surge Gear:
    • Defensive perks will now appear more often on Defensive Gear
    • Ranged-focused perks will now appear more often on Ranged Gear
  • Cosmic Gear:
    • Added more Cosmic arrow perks for Kate
  • Last Avenger Standing:
    • Gear dropped after the first overall completion will always be Legendary Jarvis Gear or Exotic Hero Gear with an equal chance at either
  • Fixed an issue where players could not obtain the required item to complete the Harvest: Wiring Bundles Assignment
  • Due to future refocusing efforts, players can no longer complete challenges in the HARM Room that require defeating a specific enemy or defeating enemies using a specific attack/damage type
  • Rescuing all hostages now properly counts towards challenges and faction assignments
  • SHIELD Daily Villain Sectors are erroneously showing as completed
  • Iron Man's regular missile attack does not trigger positive/negative status effect bonuses
  • AI companions have difficulty hacking doors unless they're standing right by it when the player Pings for action
  • More Than Inhuman is not showing up for those who were previously missing it
  • The cape of the Iron Knight Outfit is not present on the Main Menu or during Quinjet sequences

Check out this new trailer for Oddworld: Soulstorm

The Epic Games Store had a showcase last night and revealed a little more of Oddworld Soulstorm. Like, a tiny little bit more, the game still has no release date just a Spring release window on PlayStation and PC, exclusive to the Epic Games Store. Check out the trailer below.

Oddworld: Soulstorm was originally announced in 2016, so like all Oddworld games, is taken forever to be developed. In 2017 the title sequence was released for Oddworld: Soulstorm. However, it wasn't until  2019 that a cinematic teaser was released, followed by a gameplay teaser. The game itself is a reimagining of 1998's Oddworld: Abe's Exodus but is also a sequel to Oddworld New N Tasty, which itself was a remake of Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. In the press release Oddworld Inhabitants announced that a playthrough of the Oddworld: Soulstorm would take around 15 hours, but if you want to discover all of the game's secrets then you can dozens of hours to get everything. The features of the game include:

  • Narrative: A dark storyline with a twisted sense of humor that shines a light on the ironies that exist in the human condition. 
  • 2.9D: Epic environments with massive scale to explore by going into the world, rather than being limited to the traditional side scrolling platformer sense. 
  • Quarma (think Karma): Quarma is a real time feedback feature that reflects your actions in the game and will influence Abe, his followers, his abilities, and your score throughout the game.
  • Scavenger's Economy: Pickpocket enemies, loot lockers, sift through trash cans to acquire resources. Exchange them at vending machines to get products that give you more agency in how you chose to conquer the game's many challenges. 
  • Crafting: Use scavenged resources and vending machine products to craft items to use as weapons or tools against characters and obstacles.
  • Strength in Numbers: The more followers you save, the stronger the uprising becomes. Gift crafted items to followers. It's up to you to decide whether they will be aggressive or passive. 
  • Leaderboards: All levels offer a tallying system, leaderboards, achievements, and badges.

Source: YouTube

Godfall free Primal update adds better loot, more endgame content

A new update for PS5 launch title, Godfall, is now available to download, promising challenging new endgame content and well as various quality of life improvements.

Dubbed the "Primal" update, this free content drop makes smart changes to some of Godfall's endgame activities while also giving players more to do once they reach the game's level cap. This update is available on both the PS5 and PC versions of the game that launched in November 2020.

Developer Counterplay Games have introduced a new Primal tier of Godfall loot that will heavily boost your raw stats while also offering the game's best modifiers.

The only way to get Primal loot in Godfall is to play the Ascended Tower of Trials. This is a event tougher version of Godfall's endgame survival gauntlet. In related news, Counterplay have expanded the existing Tower of Trials with new objectives, challenges, and rewards.

Godfall Primal Update - What's New?

Key Features

For both new and veteran players, the Primal Update brings big changes to Godfall to test your mettle. Here is a quick summary of key features coming with this patch; for a more in-depth breakdown please read our designer notes after the itemized list.

  • Ascension Levels – Now let you power up even after you've reached the level cap, granting you new Ascension Powers and Ascension Bonuses.
  • Primal Items – Add a compelling dimension to loot hunting, injecting a massive buff to the item's primary trait as a new loot modifier. You'll be able to view the impact of these effects with our new Detailed Player Stats Screen.

Tower of Trials – Both regular and Ascended versions of the tower received a substantial overhaul and expanded content including fresh new objectives, better rewards, greater challenges, and surprise events that will force you to adapt and test your builds. This increased difficulty will definitely make good use of your new Ascension Levels and Primal modifiers.

  • Ascended ToT & ToT now have you pick Banes, which are negative effects on the player. The harder the Bane, the better the loot bonus!
  • Ascended ToT is the only way to get Primal Items
  • Ascended ToT is now heavily condensed: 30 Trials instead of 100, and provides many more keys per Trial surpassed.
  • Dreamstones – Dreamstones have undergone extensive changes, including improved loot targeting and increased Electrum rewards. We've also added an entirely new class of items called Volatile Dreamstones that can further improve your rewards.
  • Zenun Shopkeeper – Zenun is now an in-game vendor that lets you buy weapons with your in-game resources to gear up for your challenge runs. Head to the Sanctum to see what Zenun has available for you today!
  • More QoL – This content update includes various bug fixes, player weapon refinements, co-op tech enhancements and other QoL improvements. The full list of updates can be found below.

The Primal update is free to download now on PS5 and PC. Godfall will be receiving a paid expansion in the near future.

Sadly, Godfall didn't do too much to impress us at launch. While it had some interesting ideas in its approach to combat, the dull structure and heavy recycling of content made it a tough game to slog through.

Source: Counterplay Games

Stardew Valley update 1.5 is out now for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 & Xbox One

The latest major update to Stardew Valley has arrived on consoles, developer Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone has announced. With new character creation options, local split-screen co-op, a new farm layout and so much more, this has been a long-awaited expansion to the game, getting the game on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch back up to speed with the PC version of Stardew Valley, which received the major version 1.5 content drop back on 21st December. As always, update 1.5 is a completely free addition.

First announced in February 2020, update 1.5 is described by Marone as being "Stardew Valley's biggest update yet", there's a ton of new content and features for new and returning players to enjoy. On a technical level, the most significant addition is local split-screen co-op, which follows on from network multiplayer which was added in 2018. To go with that, there's a new farm layout, and end-game features like being able to renovate your home.

There's also significant new quests to follow which will let you open up a whole new part of the world: Ginger Island. While many long-time players will likely want to start a brand new save file, you shouldn't need to in order to enjoy many of the new features now in the game.

Note, that there is a known issue where one part of the world might render with "blue ground". This will be fixed in a patch.

Marone handily posted a list of features you can now enjoy.

A list of some of the new features to expect:

  • New people to meet
  • New goals
  • Many new items
  • A new type of quest
  • A new farm layout
  • New character events
  • A new Community Upgrade
  • Home renovations (after you've fully upgraded your house)
  • Ducks can now swim
  • You can sit in chairs
  • You can move your bed
  • Fish Tanks
  • A bunch of new furniture items as well as new furniture types like wall sconces
  • New secrets
  • 9 new music tracks
  • And so much more… you'll just have to see, I can't bear to spoil it

Source: Twitter, Stardew Valley

How long is Bowser's Fury in Super Mario 3D World on Nintendo Switch?

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury is out now, and for fans of the original Wii U version of the game, the main question is likely going to be how long is Bowser's Fury? It's a fair question, because if you already know what's in store for you with the main game, then your interest in this package, and your decision to buy it or not, could well be based entirely on Bowser's Fury.

Bowser's Fury is effectively a brand-new Mario game that's bundled in alongside the Switch remaster. It's an open-world game that has you running around a beautiful world while collecting Cat Shines and fighting off the biggest, baddest Bowser we've ever seen. It's a blast, and the ability to play it in local two player co-op adds in a little bit more potential if you're looking for a new game to play with a friend.

How long is Bowser's Fury?

Bowser's Fury has you collecting Cat Shines and fighting off Fury Bowser a few times during your time with it. To beat the game, you need to have collected 50 of the 100 total Cat Shines, as well as fought off the big bad roughly five times along the way, though that will depend on how long it takes you to gather the Shines and also whether or not Fury Bowser absolutely trashes you or if you come out on top every time you get into a scrap with him.

This took me around four hours, so that's probably a good average for anybody else who's familiar with Mario games and also likes collecting stuff at a good pace. I only lost to Bowser once during that time too, and was pushing myself to get through it quite quickly while reviewing the game. If I were playing it through with my wife or little one, I'd probably take a bit more time over it.

Is there more to do after defeating Bowser?

The good news is that, despite this fairly short run time, you can continue playing this mode after you've beaten Bowser.

There are one hundred Cat Shines in the game, so it should be around the eight hour mark if you're planning on 100% completing the game. While you'll not have to contend with the same troubles you had before finishing the game, the ones left after you've beaten Bowser will likely be harder to get on average.

However, this is offset by the ability to teleport around the map at will. This makes hopping from island to island a breeze, and as you can see in the map above, it's a sizeable map predominately covered with water. While Plessie does offer really good mobility, the option to teleport will speed things up substantially.

Of course, once you're done with Bowser's Fury you still have Super Mario 3D World itself to play and enjoy, and thanks to the online co-op, there's a lot more hours in the game than there used to be. You'll be satisfied for a long time with the game as a package, but that should answer the question of how long is Bowser's Fury.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will be released this June

Sony have revealed that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will be released on June 11th 2021. That's slightly later than some might have expected as Sony described it as a 'launch window' release.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will have an optional 60 frames per second (fps) mode, Insomniac Games has confirmed in an interview with Famitsu. However, the 60fps will not be playable in 4K resolution. If you want to play in 4K then you will have to settle for 30fps. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is taking advantage of the technology offered by the PS5. Loading times are all but gone allowing for rift jumping between stages to be very smooth. If you missed it earlier, you can catch the extended gameplay demo below.

Quite a lot of information has been released for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and we have that list of information below.

  • The Rift Tether is the name for the ability for latch onto dimensional rifts and kind of pull them toward him.
  • There will be no load screens throughout the game.
  • You can feel the energy of a shatter bomb fade away through the haptic feedback of the DualSense
  • The adaptive trigger can be used to enable secondary fire with weapons. The Enforcer can fire one shot by half-pulling the trigger until you feel a bit of resistance, before then pulling it all the way to fire the second.
  • This is a canonical continuation of Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, but can be treated as a standalone game.
  • There are more dimensional rift abilities that haven't been shown.
  • The fast-paced dimension hopping will be reserved for when you chase after Doctor Nefarious.
  • Though she will be playable, the mysterious female Lombax name was not revealed. It might not be Abby, though.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was one our most wanted games of this year, you can read more here. 

Source: YouTube

King Arthur: Knight's Tale early access roadmap revealed

Neocore Games have revealed a roadmap of upcoming updates for King Arthur: Knight's Tale, detailing updates for the next four months as the game goes through Steam Early Access. The first update will arrive this month, on 23rd February, bringing with it a new class, increased level cap, new buildings and more. Content for March, April and May has also been revealed.

The February update introduced the Vanguard character class, a scout-type who comes with a pair of one-handed melee weapons, and can hide and ambush enemies from cover. There will also be new side missions, new items and an expanded level cap.

March will be similarly beefy, with all side missions from Act 1 added, new events, hero traits and loyalty, consumable items and gamepad support. April will then introduce a new Sage class, update the Adventure Map and bring new items, and May will have extra side missions and an early loot and artifact system.

What is King Arthur: Knight's Tale?

Coming from Neocore Games, the developers of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing and Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor – Martyr, King Arthur: Knight's Tale is a game that mixes a new twist on the legend of King Arthur with XCOM-like turn-based combat, RPG depth to the character growth through the campaign, and with permadeath and other roguelite elements thrown in for good measure.

The game is currently in Steam Early Access, with release for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S planned for when the game has been completed.

Nic Reuben played the initial Early Access release for us in January, finding a compelling set of gameplay ideas and thematic setting, but an experience marred by its pre-release nature. Most enjoyable for him was how reminiscent he found it of PS1 classic Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain.

From our King Arthur: Knight's Tale preview, he wrote:

"King Arthur: Knight's Tale has more going for it than just appealing to own very specific personal nostalgia. The meat of the experience is turn-based combat which is more reminiscent of Divinity: Original Sin 2 to me. There's back stabs and opportunity attacks, armour points with squishy flesh health points underneath, and action points that can either be spent or converted for the next term. There's also a melee overwatch system which is, dare I say, neato."

Source: Neocore Games

Six Days in Fallujah – cancelled Iraq War shooter revived, coming late 2021

In a surprising announcement, controversial real world shooter Six Days in Fallujah has been revived by Golem developer Highwire Games and publisher Victura. The game had originally been announced in 2009 by Atomic Games, but was thought to be cancelled after original publisher Konami decided to avoid courting the controversy that it had managed to stir up. The new Six Days in Fallujah is planned for release in late 2021 for PC and consoles.

Six Days in Fallujah is an almost entirely new project, it seems. Highwire Games is a completely different studio, with the core leadership having previously worked on Halo and Destiny series. There's also just the fact that it's been almost 12 years since its first cancellation, with dramatic leaps in game console and PC power – the original game targeted the PS3 and Xbox 360 – and much newer game engines.

The game has been in development for the past three years creating new technology and game mechanics that are designed to not just replicate the tactics of modern warfare, but also the uncertainty that a battlefield can provide.

Six Days in Fallujah has returned after being cancelled all the way back in 2009.

The core idea is the same, coming from Marine Sergeant Eddie Garcia who was wounded during the Second Battle for Fallujah in 2004 and originally pitched the idea for a game in 2005. You will lead a fireteam through thoroughly recreated encounters from the real battle, trying to navigate the dangers of urban warfare.

There's also some remnants of the original project on the publishing side. Victura is a publishing company founded in 2016 by former Atomic Games CEO Peter Tamte, who has been intent on seeing Six Days in Fallujah made. Tamte had asserted at various times over the past decade that the game was not cancelled and that all the work had not been lost.

Why was Six Days in Fallujah controversial?

Six Days in Fallujah was immediately surrounded by controversy as soon as it was announced. The second Iraq war was still very fresh in the memories of the public and the US and UK-led coalition was still battling against the insurgency. While the was was declared won in 2003, it soon became clear that the fight was not over, with the Battle of Fallujah taking place in 2004, additional troop commitments made in the 2007 surge, and then new president Barrack Obama trying to navigate a troop withdrawal. Six Days was met with criticism from war veterans and activist groups like the Stop the War Coalition, who pointed to the many civilian casualties that had occurred as soldiers fought house-to-house. The controversy pushed publisher Konami away from the project.

However, there's a chance that now in 2021 there's enough time and distance to a battle that was fought over 15 years ago, just as there are plenty of video games set in World War II, the Vietnam War, and other allegorical wars in the modern era.

Despite the original outrage at the notion of turning a real conflict into a commodity and entertainment that glorifies war, Garcia asserts "Sometimes the only way to understand what's true is to experience reality for yourself. War is filled with uncertainty and tough choices that can't be understood by watching someone on a TV or movie screen make these choices for you. Video games can help all of us understand real-world events in ways other media can't."

For the game's creation, over 100 Marines, Soldiers and Iraqi civilians who were present during the Second Battle for Fallujah have provided their stories, videos and photographs to give the game as much authenticity as possible.

Source: press release

Street Fighter 5 – five years on

2021 will marks a fair few gaming anniversaries, but the one that stood out to me while looking through the list was Street Fighter V. It has been five years since we first threw down in the base game, followed by two overhaul updates, and yet Street Fighter V is still steeped in negativity. I wanted to take a look back at its original launch, the problems it faced, what it's like to play in 2021, and what the future holds for the franchise.

First, let's take you all back to February 2016. At the time, I was embroiled in the fighting game community (FGC) in Brighton, UK, who were increasingly more excited for the release of Street Fighter V in the run up to launch. However, when the game landed, the disappointment was palpable. Some loved it, but most weren't happy with the direction Capcom had taken. The complaints were varied, ranging from the slightly "wet" aesthetic (which still persists) to the lacklustre base roster, but there were many of them.

Street Fighter V at launch: what went wrong?

What is comes down to though, was there simply wasn't enough of a game at launch, and it was obvious that this was because of the live service model that was adopted for this iteration. In principle this was a great decision – forgoing the multiple Super and Arcade iterations of previous Street Fighter games – for a more consumer-friendly approach. However, with such a sparse single player offering, Street Fighter V didn't feel like a full package, especially in contrast to fighting games such as Mortal Kombat X and Tekken 7. And then, of course, Capcom inevitably pulled a U-turn in the following years with the release of both Street Fighter V Arcade Edition and Street Fighter V Champion Edition.

In terms of design issues, the brand new V-System was an interesting enough concept, but it was just that in the beginning, a concept. Rather than the game-changing mechanics such as the Parry in Street Fighter III or the Focus Attack in IV, the V-System felt half-baked at launch. In fact, I would argue that this set of mechanics didn't truly come into their own until the Champion Edition in 2020, which increased the number of V-Skills per character, giving the player the choice of two V-Skills and two V-Triggers for each.

Finally, there were the online features of the game, and oh boy did they mess this one up, with the worst of it being that it launched with eight frames of input latency. This is already bad, making it difficult to pre-empt opponents and keep combos going; but then when you added the inevitable additional lag from the internet, Street Fighter V became borderline unplayable at points. Add this problem to the online competitive scene and the Ranked Match system, and you had a ton of frustration from fans that even resulted in an apology from Capcom themselves.

Is Street Fighter V worth playing in 2021?

But, five years on, how is Street Fighter V looking from a gameplay standpoint and it is still worth playing (or picking up if you haven't yet)?

From a modern perspective, Street Fighter V isn't a bad package. With 40 characters, both new and returning, with a whole host of mechanics through the V-System, a variety of game modes, and countless costumes/stages, the Champion Edition release is bursting with value amid a plethora of content.

Street Fighter V still has a fairly solid footsie structure – the combo links are more forgiving to make them easier for newer players to execute, and the roster as it stands is pretty diverse. The Arcade Mode has different runs for each of the phases of Street Fighter from the first game to IV, which is a fantastic nod to the history of the franchise. The UI is far clearer and more stylised now too in the most recent editions making for a more pleasant visual experience.

It is, in essence, a good fighting game now – mostly.

In fact, in the most recent iteration of Street Fighter V, there are only two issues that still stand. The first, persisting from launch, is the online side of the game. The built-in online lag, although reduced now from 2016, still leaves the online environment dipping into being almost unplayable at times. This is even more noticeable in the last year owing to newer fighting games appearing that have far better net code, or older ones adding rollback net code post release. We're looking at you Guilty Gear.

The second is one that has come more with time, and that's the balancing issues of the game. Although Street Fighter V appears to be balanced on a surface level, many of its dedicated fans would claim otherwise. Which aspect of the game itself is unbalanced differs from person to person, but the move sets come up a lot, especially the power differential between the V-Triggers. If you wanted a far more technical breakdown than I could make as to why that is, there is a great piece over on EventHubs from last year about precisely this issue.

What it comes down to with Street Fighter V is that the game is, well, fine and has been for a while. But "fine" isn't quite good enough for one of the most popular fighting game franchises of all time. You can get a fair amount of fun out of it, and I would honestly recommend the Champion Edition if you have even a passing interest for its value alone, but this iteration doesn't quite live up to the legacy of its predecessors – even five years on.

What's next for Street Fighter V?

This being said, Street Fighter V is still growing, with Capcom's upcoming Winter Update livestream due to reveal a new mechanic for the game and more information about the first character of the fifth season of fighters, Dan Hibiki.

With some legacy characters incoming such as Rose and Oro, and even a new crossover with Akira from Rival Schools, there is the potential here for a decent final year for the game. It's just a shame that the best of Street Fighter V came so late.

Pigs have learned how to play video games

Next time you log in to Fortnite keep out for the usernames Hamlet, Omelette, Ebony and Ivory, as they may just be pigs. As in, actual snouty, bacon flavoured animals, not toxic players. Researchers have taught the pigs to manipulate a joystick using their snout, moving a cursor around a on-screen and reaching the goal and rewarding the porcine player with a delicious treat to eat.

"This sort of study is important because, as with any sentient beings, how we interact with pigs and what we do to them impacts and matters to them," lead author Dr Candace Croney told the BBC.  The researchers are impressed the pigs could even play the game as they are far-sighted creatures and, well, they have no hands. The MVP was Ivory, a Panepinto micro pig, who managed to reach the target 76% of the time.

"What they were able to do is perform well above chance at hitting these targets," commented Candace Croney, director of Purdue University's Center for Animal Welfare Science and lead author of the paper in a phone call to Gizmodo. "And well enough above chance that it's very clear they had some conceptual understanding of what they were being asked to do."

"They're not playing Minecraft – but that they can manipulate a situation to get a reward is no surprise at all," commented Kate Daniels from Willow Farm in Worcestershire.

The pixel perfect porkers were spared the chop when the research ended, Hamlet and Omelette and were adopted by a couple running a bed and breakfast on a farm and Ebony and Ivory are living out their days in a children's petting zoo.

The research will help with animal welfare and allow farmers to devise interactions to help stave off boredom, and may also help them monitor social interactions.

Read our Orwell's Animal Farm Review

Meanwhile, humans are using Pomegranates to play Hades.

Source: Gizmodo / BBC

UK PlayStation 5 restocks – Game pre-orders have all gone [Updated]

Final update: Game's pre-orders have now seemingly ended. Fingers crossed everyone that wanted one manage to snag a shiny new PS5!

Update 13:15PM: Game have seemingly filtered another set of consoles onto their site. Visiting Game's PS5 bundles page and clicking to pre-order with once again place you in a queue.

Update 11:25AM: Unfortunately, we were otherwise occupied when Game did go live at around 10AM, as opposed to our predicted 12PM. Game is now out of stock, but we may see further PlayStation 5 stock appear at other retailers:

The original article follows.

UK retailer Game seems to be gearing up for the release of fresh PlayStation 5 stock later today, having listed a bunch of new console bundles on their online store in the last 24 hours. There's no word on when exactly the stock will go live – in part to try and stall scalpers' efforts to scoop up as many consoles as they can – but following on from a restock of Xbox Series X|S consoles yesterday, we would expect to see the PlayStation 5 listings going live around midday today, Thursday 11th February. If you're looking for a console, you'll need to prepare and be ready to react as quickly as you can!

Game PlayStation 5 restock bundles

Game's online storefront shows fifteen PlayStation 5 console bundles, all labelled as pre-orders with expected release dates on 26th February 2021. The listings are not currently active and will take you to the generic PlayStation 5 hub page on the site, but you can view the listings here:

The bundles see the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition consoles combined with games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales, extra DualSense controllers, PlayStation Store credit and more. Click the following link to browse what will become available, and we recommend creating a few bookmarks for later, but be sure that you're picking bundles with the version of the PlayStation 5 that you want to purchase.

Game are expected to offer 15 PlayStation 5 bundles later today

While you will need to be quick, yesterday's Xbox Series X stock gives cause for optimism. Game installed a queueing system and Captcha to avert scalpers making off with their stock, and the stock seemed to last for around an hour before selling out.

This would be the latest in a steady trickle of new consoles arriving on the market, following a restock that occured around the middle of January. Ever since the first pre-orders and high demand, scalpers have been quick to respond to the PS5 shortage, taking to online marketplaces such as eBay, Gumtree, Depop, and Facebook to peddle their PlayStation at a premium price. However, while they seem to be making off with thousands of consoles and grabbing the headlines – and the scrutiny of the UK government – the vast majority are actually making their ways into legitimate customers' hands. The simple fact is that the PlayStation 5 is incredible high demand and Sony are struggling to keep up.

Sony shipped 4.5 million PlayStation 5 consoles by the end of 2020, roughly in line with the opening sales of the PlayStation 4, which was in similarly high demand. Their ability to keep up is being hampered by issues surrounding the fabrication of new chipsets for the consoles. Produced at TSMC 7nm fabs, under contract from chipset development partner AMD, the supply chain has been under severe strain through 2020 to match demand. There's a juggling act to satisfy the demand of PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, as well as AMD's new Ryzen 5000 series CPUs and Radeon 6000 series GPUs. Microsoft have stated that they expect the Xbox Series X to remain in short supply until at least July and we can likely expect a similar situation to apply to the PlayStation 5.

Even so, the PlayStation 5 is off to a flier and Sony have expectations that their PlayStation business will have its best ever year in terms of revenue and profit in the 2020-21 fiscal year.

Source: via Digital Foundry Deals

CDL 2021: start times, teams, and how to unlock reward drops

Ahead of CDL 2021, Activision have shared more details on the annual Call of Duty esports event including the full team line-up and rosters, how to unlock rewards drops, and where to watch CDL 2021 online.

The Call of Duty League has returned for 2021 and will see the world's 12 best teams compete across five seasons, each one culminating in a Major where the season winners will be crowned. As always, teams will be playing the most recent CoD game with Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War being the focus of CDL 2021.

Teams consist of four pro players each (down from five the previous year) and will be going head to head in best-of-five matches played on PC, picking up points with every match win. CDL 2021 will feature a revised spread of game modes including competitive favourite, Search & Destroy, as well as Control, and Hardpoint.

Related reading: Black Ops Cold War or Modern Warfare? Which Call of Duty is better?

Where to watch CDL 2021

All CDL 2021 matches will be streamed live and can be viewed via the official Call of Duty League YouTube channel. The first match will be taking place later today to kickstart the opening weekend with Los Angeles Thieves going up against Minnesota ROKKR, February 11th at 8:00PM GMT. This will be followed by the second match of the day at 9.30PM GMT between Seattle Surge and Dallas Empire. You can visit the Call of Duty League website for the full CDL 2021 schedule.

How to earn YouTube reward drops

During CDL 2021, Call of Duty fans will have the chance to unlock plenty of in-game content for Black Ops Cold War to enhance their multiplayer experience. All you need to do is link your YouTube and Call of Duty accounts (Activision promises this will only take 30 seconds) then tune in to watch live matches and earn free goodies. Note that you will need to be signed into a linked account while watching or these rewards won't unlock. Confirmed YouTube drops for CDL 2021 include cosmetics such as an exclusive weapon charm, emblems, calling cards, and weapon/XP boosts.

CDL 2021 teams

Here is the list of all 12 teams competing in CDL 2021, complete with their current player rosters.

Atlanta FaZe | USA
·        Chris "Simp" Lehr
·        McArthur "Cellium" Jovel
·        Tyler "aBeZy" Pharris
·        Alec "Arcitys" Sanderson

OpTic Chicago | USA
·        Seth "Scump" Abner
·        Brandon "Dashy" Otell
·        Matthew "FormaL" Piper
·        Dylan "Envoy" Hannon

Dallas Empire | USA
·        Cuyler "Huke" Garland
·        Anthony "Shotzzy" Cuevas-Castro
·        Indervir "iLLeY" Dhaliwal
·        Ian "C6" Porter

Florida Mutineers | USA
·        Cesar "Skyz" Bueno
·       Joseph "Owakening" Conley
·       Travis "Neptune" McCloud
·       Josiah "Slacked" Berry

London Royal Ravens | UK
·        Sean "Seany" O'Connor
·        Alex "Alexx" Carpenter
·        Thomas "Dylan" Henderson
·       Trei "Zer0" Morris

Los Angeles Thieves | USA
·        Austin "SlasheR" Liddicoat
·        Kenny "Kenny" Williams
·        Thomas "TJHaLy" Haly
·        Donovan "Temp" Laroda

Los Angeles Guerrillas | USA
·        Reece "Vivid" Drost
·        Justin "SiLLY" Fargo-Palmer
·        Adam "Assault" Garcia
·       Bryan "Apathy" Zhelyazkov

Minnesota Røkkr | USA
·        Preston "Priestahh" Greiner
·        Dillon "Attach" Price
·        Lamar "Accuracy" Abedi
·       Michael "MajorManiak" Szymaniak

New York Subliners | USA
·        James "Clayster" Eubanks
·        Makenzie "Mack" Kelley
·       Obaid "Asim" Asim
·       Conor "Diamondcon" Johst

Paris Legion | France
·        Ulysses "AquA" Silva
·        Luis "Fire" Rivera
·        Nicholas "Classic" DiCostanzo
·       Matthew "Skrapz" Marshall

Seattle Surge | USA
·        Sam "Octane" Larew
·        Peirce "Gunless" Hillman
·        Preston "Prestinni" Sanderson
·       Daniel "Loony" Loza

Toronto Ultra | Canada
·        Anthony "Methodz" Zinni
·        Tobias "CleanX" Juul Jønsson
·        Cameron "Cammy" McKilligan
·       Ben "Bance" Bance

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War launched last November on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Nick scored the FPS sequel a 7/10 in his Cold War review. Activision have yet to confirm what their plans are for Call of Duty in 2021 though it's more than likely we'll get another mainline series as well as ongoing support for Call of Duty: Warzone.

PS5 scalpers don't like the bad press they are getting, compare themselves to Tesco

A PS5 scalper is very sad. Apparently everyone is horrible and mean and we shouldn't be writing about how they are the scum of the universe, all the scalpers are doing is providing a legitimate and much needed service.

"There seems to be A LOT of bad press on this incredibly valuable industry and I do not feel that it is justified, all we are acting as is a middleman for limited quantity items," said Jordan from scalping advisory group The Lab, in conversation with Forbes.

"Essentially every business resells their products. Tesco, for example, buys milk from farmers for 26p or so per litre and sells it on for upwards of 70p per litre. No one ever seems to complain to the extent as they are currently doing towards ourselves."

For the record, milk isn't exactly in short supply and there are many options for purchasing cow based products which is why scalpers aren't making huge profits on moo-juice and instead focus on in-demand consoles.

Some retailers should be releasing new PS5 stock today, for more on that click here.

A debate surrounding the act of scalping – and, more crucially, the use of bots to automatically order consoles and other expensive tech – has been called for by a number of UK Members of Parliament (MPs).

In a nutshell, they wish to block "the resale of gaming consoles and computer components at prices greatly above Manufacturer's Recommended Retail Price", to "[deny] unscrupulous vendors the chance to make themselves vast profits at the expense of genuine gamers and computer users, while also deterring fraudulent cybercriminal activity," reports VGC.

In their motion, these MPs also wish to outlaw the use of automated bots which have been employed by individual scalpers and syndicates to jump retail queues. They propose legislation that mimics that surrounding the resale of concert and event tickets.

Scottish National Party MP Douglas Chapman has discussed the bill he will be submitting to Parliament with the BBC.

"It's simply not in the consumer's interests to have lots of stock for in demand, very exciting new products just being bought up en masse. It doesn't give the ordinary consumer fair access to the market… It's just so unfair for the ordinary person who just wants to play their game or give a gift to their child for Christmas. This situation's just going to get worse and worse."

PlayStation 5 Guides and more from TheSixthAxis

Source: Forbes

Lance Reddick offers a very sweary take on a key Destiny 2 Season of the Chosen scene

Lance Reddick, the voice of Destiny 2's Zavala is a big fan of the game and regularly interacts with fans on Twitter. He has responded to a Tweet from another Twitter user @xMechanizex who suggested some alternate dialogue to a scene from the new Season of the Chosen. In the original version Commander Zavala meets with Empress Caiatl, daughter of the former exiled Emperor Calus, and she proposes a truce and commands Zavala to kneel.

@xMechanizex has suggested that rather than a simple but firm "No" Zavala should have said something rather more… fruity. You can watch Reddick perform the alternate dialogue below but please be warned it is very sweary and includes such delightful phrases as "clap ass".

Bravo to Mr. Reddick for that, what a top chap he is.

Season of the Chosen picks up after the events of Season of the Hunt which knocked the established order of the solar system with the Pyramids and some Hive-y shenanigans. Empress Caiatl, the daughter of Calus and new leader of the Cabal, has arrived and seeking an alliance. However, when negotiations break down, you must now strike out from the H.E.L.M., acquire the Hammer of Proving and battle her war council to stave off the threat she poses.

Season 13 adds the new Battlegrounds mode, a three-player matchmade activity where you fight against Caiatl's chosen warriors. It also brings a few Strikes into the game, with The Devil's Lair and Fallen SABER returning from Destiny 1 in the Old Russia location. Later in the season an all-new Stirke, Proving Grounds, will see you fight the Cabal to save the Last City once again.

New gear is arriving, with Season Pass owners immediately unlocking the seasonal Praefectus Armor Set and Exotic bow, Ticuu's Divination, which fires Solar arrows that track multiple targets. More than 25 Exotic, Legendary and ritual weapons will be available to collect.

The new Seasonal Artefact is the Bell of Conquests, which as per usual will increase your Power every time it's upgraded, letting you grab some Seasonal mods to tweak your build.

Source: Twitter

Skate City shredding onto PS4, Xbox, Switch, and PC soon

Skate City will soon be bringing its vibe-fuelled brand of skateboarding to PC and consoles very soon, its developers Agens and Snowman have announced. Originally released exclusively on iOS devices in 2019 with the launch of Apple Arcade, Skate City is due to grind and flip its way to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as well as Nintendo Switch and PC.

More OlliOlli than Skater XL or Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, Skate City adopts a side-on view as players weave through each of its cosy stages, weaving together tricks and crossing off a list of skateboarding challenges. There's no word on a release date or pricing just yet – more information should soon be made available via Skate City's Steam page (it has been confirmed for release on the Epic Games Store, too).

Here are some more details about what to expect from Skate City:

About Skate City

Skate City captures the heart and soul of street skating in an authentic light. Players will have the opportunity to explore three unique cities based off of real-world skate locations, including the streets of Los Angeles, Oslo, and Barcelona. Set to original lo-fi beats, you can ride like a local through each city's Challenge mode, or take it at your own pace with Endless Skate. Head to the skate shop to customize your player and unlock everything else available!

Key Features

  • Coast through three beautiful and iconic locations based off of real world skate spots in Los Angeles, Oslo, and Barcelona.

  • Hundreds of trick combinations, including flip tricks, grabs, grinds, spins, and manuals with our easy-to-use controls.

  • Over one hundred challenges to complete. Or chill out and ride at your own pace with Endless Skate.

  • Customize your skater by picking up a new deck, trucks, wheels, shoes, hats, glasses, clothes, or hairstyle. You can also change your skin tone while creating your skater.

  • Capture and share your best runs with our in-game recording tools. You can zoom in, spin the camera and even slow down time to highlight your best tricks.

  • Original soundtrack of atmospheric lo-fi beats.

  • Dreamy, beautiful, nostalgic art style.

Source: Press Release

Dreams update 2.21 now live on PS4 and PS5

With the first anniversary of Media Molecule's Dreams fast approaching, the UK-based developer has been tinkering away at a new game update. Available to download now on PS4 and PS5 (via backwards compatibility) Dreams update 2.21 is loaded with new features and more ways to explore its myriad of user-created content.

This latest patch doesn't come tagged with any new creation tools and is mainly focused on helping players managing playlists and discovering content made by other Dreamers. Changes include a new message of the day feature as well grouped notifications, a "play later" button, and a revised social page for Dreamer profiles.

If you're at all curious about Dreams and the creations its community have been working on over the past twelve months, make sure you tune into The Impys. Available to watch live via YouTube and Twitch, Media Molecule will be celebrating the artistry and ingenuity of their players. If you're looking to load your Dreams playlist up with experiences to watch or play, it should be well worth a watch.

Here's everything including in the Dreams 2.21 update:

Other Improvements

  • My Creations Search Filters: New filters have been added to My Creations to help creators more easily manage their local storage space.
  • System Background Music: Playing Dreams on PlayStation®5? You'll now hear some Dreamiverse tunes playing when highlighting the game on your homescreen. A PlayStation®4 player? Scroll
  • down to the Activity area below Dreams to check this out.
  • Save Transfer Messaging: When switching to a new console, players will be reminded to transfer/copy over their Dreams save data.

Fixes

  • Tidied up the button prompts around imps while DreamSurfing
  • Fixed some crashes that were occurring on certain creations
  • Fixed a rare issue where the Keyboard wouldn't open
  • Fixed an issue where some creations in a Community Jam could not be played
  • Fixed an issue where UI to delete creations would not appear when local storage space was full

We scored the incredibly ambitious PlayStation exclusive a 9/10 in our Dreams review:

Taking Media Molecule's creative ethos to new heights, Dreams is a PlayStation essential. Booting the game up each time and having no idea what awaits is an intoxicating feeling. A remedy, forcing me from the rut of my predictable gaming habits to explore an inner creativity I'm often too lazy or wound up to let free.

If there's one game I feel guilty for not playing on a more regular basis, it's Dreams. Hopefully, The Impys will help broadcast the jaw-dropping creations players have been working on and get more PlayStation fans involved.

Source: Dreams

Orwell's Animal Farm Review

Who among us hasn't felt like we are living inside some sort of Orwellian nightmare at times? The author's name has become synonymous with overbearing, claustrophobic control, inspiring an entire catalogue of games from Observer to the bluntly named Orwell series. The combination of paranoid futurism and the very real technology available to us today makes for a pretty devastating sci-fi dialogue, one which is hard to get wrong. 1984 gets the credit for a lot of these games, but Orwell's Animal Farm takes its inspiration directly from the source of another classic Orwell tale, without the safety net of science fiction.

Assessing, probably quite rightly, that the majority of players are already familiar with the story of Animal Farm, the game promises a more inventive approach to its narrative. Instead of mindlessly walking you through a well-worn story, there's a branching storyline in which you can improve on the original fate of the animals, with specific objectives along the way. Whether or not you are well-versed in the contents of the book really doesn't dictate how much you can understand – but to be able to anticipate certain events may prove a useful bonus.

At one of the earliest points in the game, after running Mr. Jones out of the farm, you'll be able to pick up a ledger with the objectives and possible endings inside. It is your job to explore as many of these avenues as possible, taking on the role of all the farm animals, in turn, to ensure that Animal Farm thrives without its human leaders. This element swiftly tries to separate Animal Farm from the obvious Visual Novel categorisation, promising multiple endings and considerably varied playthroughs.

Unfortunately, other than the inclusion of this book, there is little to actually encourage multiple playthroughs. The game struggles with simplicity, at times making it a useful feature, and at others feeling cold and dull. The plot almost takes second place to the soft management sim that consumes most of the play time. The better you play, the less actually happens, as you can circumvent most of the negative events in the book, causing the game to become repetitive and tragically unrewarding.

Initially, there are regular meetings that allow you to voice concerns or support the pig-led government. Some animals will be resistant from the start, voicing their anxieties during these meetings and thus giving you the choice to allow them to speak or (in some cases) ban them from even participating. This element dwindles as the game progresses, with the animals meeting on a far less regular basis. Clearly, this is meant to represent the removal of democracy from the farm, but from a gameplay standpoint, it removes a lot of potential variation from the dialogue.

Other than these meetings, the rest of the game feels like a soft management sim. You're given some basic tasks – not all of which can be completed – and asked to prioritise the workload between members of your community. Some of the animals will work harder, but to their own detriment, while some take the slow and steady approach. Having such a familiar story as the background for the game does mean the player is more likely to protect certain individuals, which leads to some interesting reimaginings of the work at hand.

The element of choice does mean that much of what happens is not written by Orwell himself, but to their credit, the team manages to create a congruent storyline. The slow pace may turn some players off, but the audio narration works really well alongside some attractive graphics to create that tone of sinister oppression.

Animal Farm outdoes itself with audio-visual performance, in what is possibly the strongest elements of the game. Characters are easily distinguished and illustrated with expression and personality. The backdrop and changing face of the farm is easy to read, with a minimalist overlay that does the job quite efficiently. The music is appropriately ominous, with all animals voiced by a booming and authoritative voice actor. Stirring tones of nationalism and warfare, the quality of these elements is enough to redeem the game quite significantly.

Played at its most simplistic, with these attractive visuals and immersive soundtrack, Animal Farm is almost instructive. A useful teaching tool about the book. It seems almost as though it could be used as a student's companion, which would perhaps excuse its less engaging elements.

There is a sense that the game perhaps misses its target on occasion, that it doesn't always address the opportunities in the narrative is achingly apparent. There's a frequent gap where the story has the potential to be witty, or genuinely challenging – and it just falls a bit flat. The randomly generated yearly tasks are unrewarding and the mechanics are never justified. Raising Animalism always seems like an afterthought, leaving you with very little energy to do anything else on the farm. I can't say the game railroads players in any one direction, as it clearly strives to provide the varied endings, but you do feel a little hemmed in.

Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that people unfamiliar with the book will have much to engage with here. The book's contents are stretched thin over the frame of a weak resource management game, a slow-moving experience with frustrating elements. For fans of the book, and particularly students, it may prove a more fulfilling journey, but the branching narrative seems a little forced at times. For a game where choices matter, it is surprising how little your choices do matter and how dull the game becomes if you make all the 'right' decisions. I suppose in this way, maybe unintentionally, the game provides us with an unusual reading of authoritarian literature, diminishing your actual decisions whilst everything on the surface looks great.

The Last of Us TV show casts The Mandalorian's Pedro Pascal as Joel and GoT's Bella Ramsey as Ellie

Two major pieces of the puzzle for the upcoming The Last of Us TV adaptation have fallen into place with the casting of The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal as Joel and Games of Thrones' Bella Ramsey as Ellie. They're a pair of high-profile casting choices for the series, which is in development for HBO by Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann.

Pascal has been on a string of great roles since his recurring role in Game of Thrones as Oberyn Martell, playing Javier Peña in Narcos for three seasons before his most recent stint as the titular Mandalorian. From that show, he is obviously very familiar with the basic premise of The Last of Us, in which Joel is a grizzled smuggler tasked with escorting 14-year old orphan Ellie, who will be played by Bella Ramsey, best known as Game of Thrones' Lyanna Mormont,  through a hostile post-apocalyptic rendition of America.

Pedro Pascal will be Joel in The Last of Us HBO TV series

Meanwhile, over in The Mandalorian, Pascal has been escorting a baby Yoda around the Star Wars galaxy. I'm not saying that Ramsey's Ellie and baby Yoda are quite alike, but… there's some passing similarities to the plot, I guess?

Bella Ramsey is Ellie for the show, though expect her to look a bit older by now…

The biggest difference for Pascal will probably be that he doesn't have to act through the impenetrable and emotionless helmet of the Mandalorian armour. Well, that and there being zombified Clickers out to get him…

Pascal was announced shortly after rumours emerged that two time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali had been offered the lead role, and that Matthew McConaughey had turned it prior to this. These rumours were quashed and both Ramsey and Pascal's signing were revealed shortly after.

The Last of Us' HBO adaptation was announced back in March 2020, with Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann teaming up with Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin to bring the blockbuster video game story to TV audiences. Kantemir Balagov will be directing The Last of Us' HBO pilot episode, no doubt able to tap into his experience in directing the Russian movie Beanpole, set in the ruined city of Leningrad during WW2. They've also called upon Gustavo Santaolalla to create the series' soundtrack, which was such an integral part of the atmosphere of both The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II.

Source: Deadline

Borderlands 3 Director's Cut arrives in March – Tales from the Borderlands returns to digital stores

Gearbox had a bunch of fan-pleasing announcements in the latest The Borderlands Show, with the release date for the Borderlands 3 Director's Cut add-on set for 18th March across all platforms – PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC & Stadia. The Director's Cut is part of Season Pass 2, which will also see a bunch of new premium cosmetics adde to the game, while everyone can enjoy the returning Broken Hearts Day seasonal event, and pick up the game at a healthy discount. Speaking of buying games, Tales from the Borderlands, one of Telltale's best graphic adventures, is also returning to digital stores next week!

Take on a new raid boss in Borderlands 3 Director's Cut

The Director's Cut will arrive individually or as part of Season Pass 2, featuring a range of new content added to the game. While not a significant new story arc for the game, like the expansions found in Season Pass 1, there's still plenty of new looter shooting to be getting on with. The headline act is the new raid boss: Hemovorous the Invincible, a huge Varkid that's been hidden away behind a door on Pandora since launch. There's also a series of murder mystery missions spread across Pandora, Promethea, Eden-6, and Nekrotafeyo, introducing new locations and crime scene analysis gameplay.

The Director's Cut will bring a bunch of behind the scenes content form the game's development, including bloops (who doesn't love bloops?), cut content, and a gallery of concept art, storyboards, maps and more. Then there's the trio of Vault Cards which unlock bundles of themed loot through daily and weekly challenges, with one card active at launch and the other two coming later in 2021.

The first Vault Card for Borderlands 3 Director's Cut

But that's not all for Season Pass 2, with the new premium cosmetics, The Disciples of the Vault, also announced. There's four multipacks available, each with a unique vault hunter body and head, and they'll arrive alongside the Director's Cut on 18th March. This all compliments the Designer's Cut that arrived back in November.

Broken Hearts Day is also back running from now until 25th February, with hearts hovering around lovesick enemies throughout the game. Shoot enough hearts and you'll unlock five special themed rewards including reclours of last year's cosmetics and two Legendary weapons.

To hop into the action, Borderlands 3's various versions are between 50% and 72% off across Xbox, PlayStation and PC via both Steam and Epic.

And finally, the graphic adventure Tales from the Borderlands is returning to digital storefronts on 17th February, after having spent more than a year in limbo after the collapse of Telltale Games in its original form. Set between the events of Borderlands 2 and Borderlands 3, there's plenty of choices to be made as you shape the events of the Borderlands universe. The game will be returning to Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, but you'll be able to play on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S via backward compatibility.

In our review for Borderlands 3, Jason wrote:

I've got very mixed feelings about Borderlands 3. Overall I like it and it's fun to play, but it could have been so much more and the writing feels like time traveling back to your high school days and being surprised and a little disappointed at how immature everyone is. Few things in life are as embarrassing as the person you were five years ago. If you're not embarrassed, then I'm sorry to say that you may well be the Borderlands 3 of your friend group; stuck in the past unable to grow or change in any meaningful way, relying on fart jokes as a stand-in for your personality.

You can read the full review here. 

While not to everyone's tastes, Borderlands 3 has been very well supported. There's been a ton of added content for Borderlands 3, with regular seasonal event, the first Season Pass – which waded in with a string of new campaigns to battle through, including Guns, Love, and Tentacles: The Marriage of Wainwright and Hammerlock, Bounty of Blood: A Fistful of Redemption and Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck – and now Season Pass 2, which took a different approach to adding content. Oh, and then there were the free upgrades to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Source: press release

PlayStation Store Big in Japan sale returns with up to 75% off

The Big in Japan sale has returned to the PlayStation Store once more, with Sony offering major discounts on Japanese games in this familiar recurring promotion. The selection of games and genres is broad, with the defining characteristic simply being that the game must have come from the Land of the Rising Sun. From Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions (40% off), to Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (86% off), Dark Souls III (75% off) and back again to anime with 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (50% off), there's a game here for pretty much everyone… except those who literally only play FIFA and Call of Duty each year.

There's a good selection of discounts to trawl through, for which you can mosey on over to the PlayStation Store itself, but we've a list of all the discounted games below as well.

Big in Japan Sale – February 2021

  • 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim – £24.99
  • 428: Shibuya Scramble – £8.99
  • 88 Heroes – £2.39
  • A Pixel Story – £4.49
  • Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – £6.99
  • Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault – £4.79
  • AI: The Somnium Files – £19.99
  • Akiba's Beat – £3.99
  • Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed – £7.49
  • Arcade Spirits – £9.59
  • Assault Suit Leynos – £3.99
  • Azur Lane: Crosswave – £17.99
  • Azur Lane: Crosswave – Deluxe Bundle – £3.19
  • Azure Striker Gunvolt: Striker Pack – £16.49
  • Bayonetta – £9.99
  • Blazblue Centralfiction – £7.19
  • BlazBlue Chronophantasma Extend – £3.99
  • Blazblue Cross Tag Battle – £3.99
  • Blazblue Cross TAG Battle Special Edition – £11.24
  • Breakout – £2.99
  • Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions – £26.99
  • Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions – – Deluxe Edition – £45.49
  • Cat Quest – £1.99
  • Cat Quest II – £7.19
  • Catherine: Full Body – £15.74
  • Catherine: Full Body – Deluxe Edition – £18.89
  • Chaoschild – £4.99
  • Code Vein – £13.99
  • Code: Realize ~Bouquet of Rainbows~ – £13.49
  • Code: Realize ~Wintertide Miracles~ – £17.99
  • Conception Plus: Maidens of the Twelve Stars – £19.99
  • Conga Master – £1.47
  • Crystar – £16.99
  • Danganronpa 1/2 Reload – £8.74
  • Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls – £3.74
  • Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony – £13.99
  • Dark Rose Valkyrie – £13.49
  • Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin – £7.99
  • Dark Souls III – £11.24
  • Dark Souls III – Deluxe Edition – £13.74
  • Dark Souls: Remastered – £10.49
  • Date A Live: Rio Reincarnation – £9.99
  • Dead Or Alive 6 – £16.49
  • Dead Or Alive 6 Digital – Deluxe Edition – £20.99
  • Death end re;Quest 2 – £17.99
  • Death end re;Quest 2 Deluxe Pack – £19.99
  • Death end reQuest – £9.99
  • Decay of Logos – £7.99
  • Destiny Connect: Tick-Tock Travelers – £17.49
  • Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition – £5.99
  • Digimon World: Next Order – £9.99
  • Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories – £29.99
  • Disgaea 1 Complete – £17.99
  • Disgaea 4 Complete+ – £26.99
  • Disgaea 5 Complete Bundle – £17.49
  • DmC Devil May Cry – Definitive Edition – £8.74
  • DMC4SE Demon Hunter Bundle – £7.49
  • DOA6 Season Pass 3 – £49.49
  • Doraemon Story Of Seasons – £17.49
  • Dragon Ball Fighterz – FighterZ Edition – £11.19
  • Dragon Ball Xenoverse 1 and 2 Bundle – £11.99
  • Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot – £19.99
  • Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot – Ultimate Edition – £37.49
  • Dragon Marked For Death – £19.79
  • Dusk Diver – £14.99
  • Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair – £3.19
  • Earth Defense Force 5 – Deluxe Edition – £30.99 – £37.19
  • Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain – Ultimate Edition – £25.89 – £36.99
  • Earth's Dawn – £3.19
  • Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky – £14.99
  • Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force – £9.99
  • Fire Pro Wrestling World – £13.49
  • Fire Pro Wrestling World – Deluxe Edition – £22.49
  • Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise – £7.99
  • Gabbuchi – £3.24
  • Gal*Gun 2 – Complete Edition – £29.99
  • Gal*Gun: Double Peace – Ultimate Edition – £16.49
  • Gal*Gunvolt Burst – £3.19
  • Giga Wrecker Alt. – £9.99
  • Giraffe and Annika – £16.24
  • God Wars Future Past – £6.74
  • Guilty Gear – £3.99
  • Guilty Gear Xrd -Revelator- – £7.99
  • Guilty Gear Xrd Rev.2 – £6.99
  • Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX with Bonus – £7.19
  • Harvest Moon: Light of Hope Special Edition – £27.99
  • Harvest Moon: Light of Hope Special Edition Deluxe – £31.99
  • Harvest Moon: Mad Dash – £12.79
  • Holy Potatoes! A Bundle?! – £14.99
  • Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! – £5.99
  • Holy Potatoes! We're In Space?! – £5.99
  • Holy Potatoes: What the Hell?! – £9.59
  • I Want To Be Human – £0.39
  • Illusion of L'Phalcia – £7.19
  • Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Familia Myth Infinite Combate – £24.49
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via HUKD

Dead By Daylight update 4.5.0 adds new Tome, graphics upgrade

As we wearily stumble through 2021 like a wounded survivor, Behaviour Interactive have emerged from the fog, sharpening their hooks. A new update for Dead By Daylight is now available on all available platforms including PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC, and Google Stadia. The mid-chapter patch comes tagged with the expected shopping list of fixes and improvements with some welcome extras stuffed in there for fans of the macabre multiplayer hit. On top of that, a new Tome has been activated – this is Dead By Daylight's take on the popular battle pass progression system, presenting a branching track chock full of rewards.

Dead By Daylight update 4.5.0 introduces balance changes for Killers The Clown, The Trapper, and The Wraith. More noticeable is the upgraded player HUD which now displays match information clearly and more intuitively. Long time fans will also see a difference in how the game looks following the latest graphical update which improves environmental details, character models, lighting, and survivor animation among other visual boosts.

Dead By Daylight Update 4.5.0 Patch Notes

Content

Tome VI & The Gilded Stampede Event

  • Tome VI for The Archives will start tomorrow on Feb. 10th at 11AM ET
  • The Gilded Stampede event will start the day after on Feb. 11th at 11AM ET

New HUD Layout – Several HUD elements have been moved or updated

  • The player status widget (player names, health states etc.) has been redesigned. Along with a number of graphical improvements to animations, the player status widget is now positioned on the left side of the screen. While this change was not made lightly, it was necessary in order to make the player names readable across all platforms and resolutions as well as make room for new HUD elements like the Hook Count.
  • The objectives have been moved to the top center of the screen to give us more room to display detailed instructions.
  • Score events and status effect alerts have been moved to the right side of the screen. This was primarily to bring the status effect alerts closer to the status effect indicators they reference.
  • The number of visible score events has been increased when multiple events are triggered at the same time.

New HUD Element – Hook Counts

  • Killers see a new widget which displays how many hooks they've earned during the match out of the possible total hooks. This is only visible to the Killer.
  • Survivors see a new set of markers above each of the Survivor player's names. This lets the Survivor players know how many times each Survivor has been hooked. This is only visible to the Survivors.

New HUD Element – Survivor Portraits

  • The healthy and injured health state icons have been replaced with each character's portrait.
  • The Injured state has been improved from the PTB to be more obvious, especially for colorblind players.

UI Scale Sliders

  • The Settings menu has been updated with two new slider settings that allow players to adjust the size of their UI. Players may adjust the size of the menus and HUD separately. This replaces the previous maximum scale value used in previous releases.

Visual Update:

  • Visual updates to maps in Gideon Meat Plant and Asylum.
  • Updated model and textures on 4 Nurse outfits.
  • Update model, texture on the Clown base outfit and updated his VFX.

Updated Survivor Locomotion

New: 

  • Updated the posing for all Survivor locomotion animations.
  • Added Start/Stop transition animations and quick turn animations.
  • Added ability to use Flashlight while crouching.
  • Updated crawling turn speed and added animation feedback for recovering.

New from PTB:

  • Added new animation when entering the hatch while crawling.
  • Updated Self-Heal fail animation.
  • Slightly raised the camera when crawling.

Balance

Killers

The Clown:

Power:

  • Clown now has two types of bottles: Tonic and Antidote.
  • Tap Secondary Power to switch which will be thrown
  • Hold Secondary Power to reload bottles
  • Reload time is now 3 seconds (down from 5 seconds)

Antidote bottles:

  • Release a gray cloud that activates and turns yellow after 2.5 seconds
  • Antidote clouds last a total of 7.5 seconds and are smaller than Tonic clouds
  • Overlapping Antidote and Tonic clouds causes both to disappear
  • Survivors and The Clown gain the "Invigorated" status effect when they touch the Antidote cloud
  • Invigorated grants 10% movement speed bonus for 5 seconds
  • An Intoxicated Survivor touching a yellow Antidote cloud is no longer intoxicated
  • Tonic clouds remain unchanged

Addons:

  • Party Bottle: Thrown bottles emit confetti when shattering (was Ether 5 Vol%)
  • Fingerless Parade Gloves: Bottles are thrown with a different arc that doesn't go as high but goes further
  • Smelly Inner Soles: Greater move speed bonus when reloading (was Common, now Rare)
  • Solvent Jug: Moderately increases the Invigorated effect duration
  • Thick Cork Stopper: Smaller reload time reduction
  • Spirit of Hartshorn: Moderately expands The Antidote cloud area (was Ether 10 Vol%)
  • VHS Porn: Swaps yellow and purple color of Antidote and Tonic effects (was Rare, now is Common)
  • Cigar Box: When any player becomes Invigorated, they see all other players' auras within a 16m radius
  • Garish Makeup Kit: Considerably increases Invigorated Effect duration
  • Tattoo's Middle Finger: Auras of Intoxicated or Invigorated survivors are revealed to you for 6 seconds

Audio:

  • The Clown now has his own Terror Radius & Chase music.

The Trapper:

  • Escaping from a Bear Trap now has a 1/6 (16.6%) chance of succeeding on each attempt, but is capped at a maximum of 6 attempts
  • Addons that reduce the chance of escape increase the maximum number of attempts as well as reducing the chance per attempt

The Wraith:

  • While cloaked, the Wraith is completely invisible (no shimmer) to Survivors when more than 20m away
  • Increased the duration of the uncloak speed boost from 1.0s to 1.25s
  • Restored a missing bone-rattle sound cue at the beginning of the Wraith's cloaking animation (sometimes referred to as "bell tech")
  • Fixed an issue where the Wraith would appear to uncloak completely while kicking a generator or breaking a pallet or wall while cloaked. The Wraith now only uncloaks the necessary bits.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the Wraith's add-on "The Serpent" to reset the uncloaking progress after completing an interaction. It will now leave the Wraith completely uncloaked and able to attack, and trigger an uncloak speed boost, after damaging a generator or breaking a pallet or wall.

MISCELLANEOUS

Hex: Undying:

  • While Hex: Undying is active, Survivors within 2/3/4 meters of any Dull Totem have their Aura revealed.
  • When another Hex Totem is cleansed, that Totem's Hex transfers to the Hex: Undying Totem, deactivating Hex: Undying. Any tokens the transferred Hex had are transferred as well

Misc. Perks:

  • Fixated: Now works while injured
  • Iron Maiden: Effect lasts 30 seconds
  • Second Wind: Durations now 28/24/20 seconds
  • Pebble Diversion: Now charges in 40/35/30 seconds. Distance thrown now 20 meters at all tiers.

Deep Wound:

  • Now always has a 20-second timer
  • Frank's Mixtape and Stab Wound Study adjusted to have the same proportional impact on Survivors' Deep Wound timers
  • Borrowed Time's tier adjustments are now the duration of the Endurance status effect at 10/12/15 seconds

Mangled:

  • Mangled status effect always lasts until fully healed
  • Vigil no longer affects Mangled
  • Begrimed Head: Removed repair speed debuff, added Hemorrhage status effect
  • Rusty Attachments: Only applies Mangled to injured Survivors

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a hitch occurring in the Loadout Panel when selecting an item
  • Fixed a hitch when opening the Bloodweb after a certain level
  • Fixed an issue that could cause some survivors passively falling asleep to not count towards the "Dream Master" achievement
  • Fixed some issues regarding user impersonation
  • Fixed a crash that could occur on the initial interaction screen
  • Fixed an issue that occurred occasionally after the killer disconnects from a match where the Player Level would display incorrect Level and Devotion values
  • Fixed an issue where the Survivor could get stuck and not be able to be picked up if downed while repairing a generator.
  • Fixed an issue where the Flashlight cone would not expand after successfully blinding the Killer
  • Fixed an issue where the 1st generator piston would move abnormally fast.
  • Fixed an issue with Steve's lips while gesturing.
  • Fixed an issue with the camera when the Nurse would carry a Survivor and attack.
  • Fixed an issue where Jane and Kate chest physics would not work properly.
  • Fixed an issue where the Oni's armor would be floating.
  • Fixed an issue where the Clown's hair would be floating.
  • Fixed an issue where Totems located next to the Combine Harvester's wheel on Coldwind Farm couldn't be cleansed.

Audio:

  • Fixed an issue where Elodie is screaming louder than other survivors.
  • Fixed various surface tags for footsteps and impacts
  • Fixed an issue where Doctor static attack doesn't play his sound.
  • Fixed an issue with some locomotion survivor animations
  • Fixed an issue with Legion customization "Hooded Leather Jacket"

PC only:

  • Fixed a crash that could occur when pasting an empty text in the promo code

Windows Store only:

  • Fixed an issue when launching the game and navigating directly to Play as Killer/Survivor, the user's currency would display as 0-0-0 instead of the real values.

Switch only:

  • Fixed an issue where multiple sound effects weren't echoed on Nintendo Switch

PS5 only:

  • Fixed an issue where the player wouldn't be brought back to the initial interaction screen when the internet connection is lost

Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Playstation 4, Playstation 5 only:

  • Fixed a crash that would occur after loading the tutorial while the game is not completely installed

Fixed Issues from PTB

  • Fixed an issue where Survivor would not be able to nod their head up/down anymore.
  • Fixed an issue where Survivor character would stuttered changing direction quickly.
  • Fixed an issue where the Survivor would play the incorrect animation when bleeding out of Deep Wound.
  • Fixed an issue where the players would be able to steer character during Dead Hard.
  • Fixed an issue where the Survivor would snap back to their original position after letting go of repairing a generator.
  • Fixed an issue where the character would stutter when using the flashlight while moving.
  • Fixed an issue where the character would remain in fall stance after vaulting.
  • Fixed an issue where the character would not play the Dead Hard animation properly from idle.
  • Fixed an issue where the Survivor would clip through lockers doors while rushing out.
  • Fixed an issue where the Survivor carrying an item would clip through the ground.
  • Fixed and issue where Ash hand would jitter while carrying an item.
  • Fixed an issue where character would "T" stance when infected by the Plague and interacting with the exit gate
  • Fixed an issue where character would "T" stance when interacting with fountains.

Last year's November update for Dead By Daylight introduced a new killer, The Twins.

Will Dead By Daylight get bots on PC & consoles?

We recently re-reviewed Dead By Daylight for 2020, bumping up its original score:

Dead By Daylight has evolved into somewhat of a phenomenon, proving that the often maligned games-as-a-service model produces more than just cookie cutter loot shooters. It's still an acquired taste and a bit rough around the edges though stands out as one of the most unique ongoing multiplayer games of the generation.

Those who currently own a copy of Dead By Daylight on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One can upgrade for free on the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S respectively, carrying over their progress – here's how.

Source: Dead By Daylight

We Are Legion: Rome is a first person action RPG where you play as a Roman Legionary

Gaming Factory has announced a first-person action-adventure called We Are Legion: Rome, in which players take on the role of a Roman Legionary.  As you make your way across the Roman world the characters will face off against Rome's enemies and engage in battles. Some battles will be close quarters with sword and shield in hand, while others will require the use of siege machines for siege warfare. If players want to succeed in the Roman military they will have to follow orders to the letter.

We Are Legion: Rome's features have been listed below, showing exactly the kind of things players may experience in the virtual Roman Army.

  • Join the brotherhood of steel: The legion is you, and you are the legion. Without your brothers in arms, you will achieve nothing, just like the legion needs every legionary to be strong and effective.
  • Enlist with Rome's most elite troops: Be faithful, punitive, and follow orders without thinking twice to get promoted and quickly reach the top of the military hierarchy.
  • Dive into the legion's life and the rules that drive it: A legionary's reality is not only combat and battlefields, but also mutual relations and everything that makes up camp life.
  • Your survival depends on your equipment and skills: Depending on the cohort you decide to join, you'll need to equip yourself with the proper weapons and develop a skillset essential for success.
  • Fight for the glory of Rome: Face enemies in brutal encounters, execute tactical tasks, conduct sieges, and try to maintain captured footholds, all in the glorious name of Caesar.
  • Learn the true face of an ancient war: Everything from armor and weapons, through combat tactics and fighting style, to the overall look of the battlefield.
  • See how love and hate intertwine: Some say that with every life you take, you lose a part of yourself and that only love can save you from the horrors of war. Try to protect your humanity so as not to lose yourself in hateful madness.

The game is coming to PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, though a release date is yet to be confirmed for We Are Legion: Rome.

Source: Press Release