PCGamesN Saturday, January 3, 2026 10:46 AM If you're after something to fill the post-holiday lull, action roguelike Plague Breaker blends Rogue Legacy, Dead Cells, and Castlevania. |
PCGamesN Saturday, January 3, 2026 8:07 AM James Ohlen says Exodus is in good hands, being built by a trusted team of ex Bioware veterans and the writer behind Mass Effect and KOTOR. |
PCGamesN Saturday, January 3, 2026 7:11 AM Patrick Söderlund of Embark Studios confirms that Arc Raiders now uses an aggression-based matchmaking system, as players had speculated. |
PCGamesN Saturday, January 3, 2026 6:04 AM The latest Path of Exile 2 hotfix adds diminishing returns to the Vaal Temple and limits the ability to lock rooms, but won't fix imbalance. |
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Siliconera Saturday, January 3, 2026 9:00 AM
Level-5 is officially two for two when it comes to games that successfully survived development hell. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time turned out exceptional, even with so many ideas packed into it. Now that Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road is here, it feels a bit like each mode might be one direction the final game could have took and Level-5 decided to finish them all and toss them in together. While it didn't turn out as wonderfully as the latest Fantasy Life, it's far better than I expected.
There are a lot of modes in Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, so many that I must confess that it sometimes feels like each one felt like it could have been a full game in a way. Or, at the very least, that feels true for both the Story and Chronicle modes. Story Mode is the story of a new team and a new dream. Destin Billows (Unmei Sasanami) loved soccer, but was forced to give up on actively playing due to his health. He claims to be genuinely happy to be transferring to South Cirrus Junior High School, as it doesn't have a team. However, after learning about the school delinquent Briar Bloomhurst (Jouji Sakurazaki), who was a star player and forced to abandon his dream, and being basically badgered into friendship by Cedric Freud (Heita Kisoji), to restore the football club.
It's absolutely wild. Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road Story Mode feels like playing through a shonen sports manga. We see Destin and Briar meet and decide to move forward together. We watch Destin take part in rock-paper-scissors style RPG battles against members of the student council, police officers, nosy neighbors, and staircases. We pet and photograph cats. We kick illusionary soccer balls. We listen in on gossip from classmates. We find new teammates. I mean, we eventually also play soccer too, but the process of living life, seeing these kids at school, and getting a better understand of why it's so important they bond and do well. I could see some folks get frustrated at exactly how long it takes to form the new football club and start hitting the field, but I adored the progression pace and story being told.
But then, for people who want to get into actually playing faster and building up the "best" team, there's Chronicle Mode. Our goal here is to help Vic, Misty, and Clark "Wandaba" Wonderbot get the strongest team of 11 players with the strongest Keishin to defeat the Mind Eaters who could make humanity extinct. This involves heading into soccer matches across time, reliving past Inazuma Eleven game and anime storylines. It's a lot. Especially since Player Universe can be used recruit players and we use the Team Dock to put together our team. In general, it isn't a bad place to start, since it begins with Mark Evans (Mamoru Endou) going through a tutorial that explains how to actually play soccer and is more about completing actual matches. We can choose Chronicle Battle, Route Unlock Battle, Rare Drop Battle, and Hero Battle to advance our goals. Success in matches is dependent on meeting the History Check, which involves certain actions during teams like "Pass to Kevin," "Shoot as Kevin," "Complete a Focus Battle," "Complete a Focus Battle as Axel," and "Play for Victory." This means it can be tricky, but difficulty does scale up and does get more immediately into the game.
Like Story Mode, I'm a fan of this Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road mode, even though it involves a lot of grinding to get through it. Chronicle Mode still has a story structure. There's still character building and team organization, which I love. The active soccer matches work well, and it isn't difficult to pull off the extravagant special moves the series is known for. I also didn't find it too difficult to pass the History Checks. The Focus Fields and Focus Battles are helpful for dealing with Zone defending, and I love how we have the standard shots, Long Shots to attack from a distance, and Shot Chains along with our Specials when enough Tension builds up via playing. The ease of play might be a bit of a downside, as I almost felt as though the CPU could have been a bit more intelligent and responsive to my actions. But then, there are so many routes here, with the Go Galaxy and LBX: Little Battlers eXperience ones added post-launch, so it's genuinely possible that there's so much that I haven't hit the more challenging bouts. Plus allowing us to deplete enemy Keeper Power helps with getting one past the better goalies.
The Competition mode rounds things out. You can take part in essentially a quick match feature with preset teams, play in 1v1 and 2v2 games, and take part in online tournaments. The tournaments can involve seasonal rewards, to encourage constant participation. While there are a lot of options, including a Bond Town where you can create a town and explore, I feel like the campaign modes are stronger and a better time. It's because all you really need to do is grind out characters to win, but that isn't fun! Since I was coming into it so far after launch, I felt discouraged for a few hours. What's worse is that sometimes I'd experience terrible lag. So even though I did invest five hours into that mode, my success could be affected by outside factors.
Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road is a lot, and it feels like an installment that attempts to cover almost every possible aspect of the series. It doesn't top the earliest Mamoru Endo DS entries for me. However, there's so much here that it feels like a mode exists for every possible player. Not to mention that it is admirable to see it not only released, but is genuinely good. There are some minor issues, such as balancing and NPC intelligence in matches. The CPU isn't great about making decisions. However, the fact that we are seeing rebalancing and substantial updates like Re-Story make me wonder if this could eventually turn into a 9 out of 10 game in a few weeks or months with additional patches and fixes to things like online multiplayer.
Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road is available on the Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC.
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The post Review: Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road Is Packed With Experiences appeared first on Siliconera. |
Destructoid Saturday, January 3, 2026 9:54 AM
Using console commands in My Winter Car's early access version is extremely hard, but there's a backdoor way with the help of available mods.
My Summer Car, the predecessor, has a list of functioning console commands that allow you to access advanced options. My Winter Car also has its own console commands meant for the developers to use. However, there's no direct way of enjoying their benefits. Thankfully, you can bypass the limitations with mods.
How to enable console commands with mods in My Winter Car
The easiest way to enable console commands in the current build of My Winter Car is by using the Developer Toolset mod. This mod allows you to enable the developer console inside the game, and you can then enable the different options that would otherwise be unavailable under normal circumstances.
Once done, you can use the fully-featured in-game console for executing commands. Commands that work successfully will appear in green. You can use default and custom commands based on your requirements.
Additionally, the Developer Toolset also allows you to enjoy features like Runtime Inspector, Player Dev Controller, PlayMaker Globals Editor, and more. You can also set convenient hotkeys based on your needs.
The post How to use console commands in My Winter Car appeared first on Destructoid. |
Destructoid Saturday, January 3, 2026 5:21 AM
Managing bills is one of the most important tasks in My Winter Car, and it will help you to complete the Corris Rivett build quicker.
The secret behind completing your project car lies in earning as much cash as possible. However, you'll also have additional expenses in the form of bills. Bills mainly accrue due to the electricity that you use and the phone calls that you make.
This guide will help you reduce your expenses as much as possible.
Table of contents
How to reduce and manage phone bills in My Winter Car
The phone bills rise whenever you make a call to a fellow NPC. It also increases if you're making orders from the Classifields magazine. Most of the calls you make will be for important reasons. However, you can slightly reduce the bill by only making calls when you absolutely have to.
If you fail to clear your phone bills, the telephone will stop working. You'll only hear the beep, but the call will fail to connect. If you're doing jobs like driving a taxi, having a functional phone is a must.
How to reduce and manage electricity bills in My Winter Car
Not having power at your house isn't funny. This will happen if you don't clear your electricity bills. If you're not careful, your electricity bills can be high. Here's how you can reduce the bills.
As of writing, some of the lights in hallways continue to stay on after you turn them off. This is likely a bug that should be fixed in future updates. Always remember to turn off devices in general to keep your electricity bill to your minimum.
The post How to manage and reduce bills in My Winter Car appeared first on Destructoid. |
