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Super Smash Bros Ultimate Opening Movie
updated
Bloat was clearly on all our minds in the afterglow of the christmas season, so we did an entire podcast about the concept. But we're not talking about being full of mince pies, here: we're on about video game bloat. The scourge of modern times, that has turned what used to be a fun escapist hobby into the full time job of icon janitoring. Games are so rammed with the dreaded "content" now that dev cycles are starting to be measured in decades instead of years. It's an industry-wide problem, and we're all tired of it.
But which game is the worst offender, according to our esteemed panel of turkey-stuffed commentators?
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#persona4golden #breathofthewild #finalfantasy15
Join our panel of gaming experts as they discuss and debate the greatest video games of all time. Each week, we'll tackle a new theme and share our picks for the best games in that category.
This week on VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast, we have a special treat for you! In the spirit of the holiday season, our host Jim decided to take it easy and let an AI do some of the work for him. That's right, all of this week's notes, intro, and outro were written by an advanced language model trained by OpenAI. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show as Jim continues to embrace his "holiday mode" and let the AI do the heavy lifting.
In this week's episode, we'll be discussing what existing video game we think could have been made by an AI. From innovative game design to cutting-edge graphics and gameplay, we'll explore the games that push the boundaries of what's possible in the world of gaming. And as an added bonus, this episode's intro and outro were written by an AI! So grab your controller and join us for a lively and irreverent discussion on the best games ever, brought to you in part by the hardworking (and possibly sentient) artificial intelligence at VG247!
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#AI #chatGPT #gaming
Which is a shame, not just for users who are desperate for another Dead Space, but for the people who put their blood, sweat, and tears into this game only to see it met with such a lukewarm response. But it’s particularly galling in light of Glen Schofield’s comments early last year regarding crunch, a concept he seems broadly in favour of, although in fairness he walked the comments back after a lot of people rightly took issue with them.
But this goes beyond an ill-advised tweet from a studio head: the issue of workers rights, or lack thereof, has reached a critical stage in the games industry as hundreds of teams around the world pursue unionisation in a bid, among other things, to end crunch culture once and for all. And as the UK entered its umpteenth month of crippling strikes by public sector workers seeking to preserve their precarious living standards, in the face of a hostile government which has a clear agenda against working people, myself, Sherif, and Connor gathered in a Zoom call to ask: in a world where hard work doesn’t even pay off any more, why should anyone crunch?
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#thecallistoprotocol #deadspace #unions
The future is unknowable. As are the minds of our deranged panellists, who were asked to pick their nod for next year's GOTY based on the scraps of info we know about 2023's game releases and, somehow, none of them picked Starfield. It's obviously Starfield, you idiots.
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#baldursgate3 #starfield #cyberpunk2077 #residentevil4remake
But then, at the same time… gosh, there’s some games I really admire this year. There’s Vampire Survivors, which has the excellent frenetic energy of a 90s classic. There’s Marvel Snap, which somehow dragged me back to the world of collectible card games, against all odds, and at the same time that an improved digital version of the Pokemon TCG launched.
I could go on. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a top-tier JRPG, gleefully using genre tropes with no shame or embarrassment – and to great effect. Pentiment is the sort of game the industry needs to make more of. Midnight Suns continues Firaxis’ streak of only making shit-hot games, and nothing else, all bangers, all the time. Immortality is mind-meltingly brilliant. And, god – Sonic Frontiers made Sonic… sorta… good? Again? What the hell is that about?
But, it’s all about Elden Ring.
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#eldenring #fromsoft #darksouls
Christmas is a time of togetherness, of sharing your table with family, friends, and strangers. In that spirit, we invited a number of our friends and colleagues from across the games media to contribute to this, our first ever Christmas edition of the VG247 Best Games Ever podcast. We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it, and wish you all a joyful holiday season.
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#christmas #podcast #fallout3
In stark contrast to LEGO, Dying Light 2 is one of the most fascinating releases of the year - almost forgotten now in the wake of Elden Ring and God of War, etc. So, I wanted to make sure it too got some GOTY love. I really enjoyed its movement and combat, but also that it's a completely difference game depending on whether or not the sun is up.
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#lego #skywalkersaga #dyinglight2
On paper, it’s a compelling concept. Moreish, plate-spinning survival gameplay with a hand-crafted RPG layer from Obsidian Entertainment, the studio responsible for Fallout New Vegas, The Outer Worlds and Pentiment.
But while there’s still a lot of the survival game esoterica that plagues the genre – some of the item recipes would be more at home in a LucasArts point-and-click, for example - what I like about Grounded is the exact opposite of what some people love about survival games: it doesn’t feel endless.
With an unobtrusive but present storyline to lead the experience, the through-thread of the story quests is a compelling base for imaginative exploration and base-building, and provides impetus where I’ve found games like Ark and Conan Exiles aimless and meandering.
With a unique late ‘80s/early ‘90s saturday morning aesthetic, tons of secrets and lore to uncover and a varied roster of activities and enemies to conquer, Grounded is a fresh take on the genre for obsessives and people who don’t normally like survival games alike.
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#grounded #survival #gamepass
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#pokemon #scarlet #violet
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#signalis #survivalhorror #gamepass
Elden Ring ended up not having any of those problems, and it’s all because of two guiding principles. Elden Ring is an open world game that justifies being open. You’re free to go anywhere, and the game will even toy with you and send you to areas you won’t organically visit for a dozen or so hours later – teasing you about what’s to come.
That freedom is consistently rewarded, even if just by growing your power. Elden Ring does this by constantly showing you things over the horizon that are bound to catch your eye and tempt you to go after them. Even if you ignore that allure, you’ll quickly find that straying off the beaten path has other clear benefits.
The other thing that makes Elden Ring’s open world so compelling is that, for all the work it does to make you want to explore it, it’s okay with you missing out on a lot of it. You’re allowed to fail and get stuck. Elden Ring is perfectly fine with you getting lost because it trusts you to find your way eventually.
Most open-world games are so terrified of players missing out on content that they completely sap out all the discovery of their massive playgrounds. And for that, Elden Ring deserves my admiration.
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#eldenring #fromsoft #soulsborne
Cast: Tom Orry, Alex Donaldson, Connor Makar, and Jim Trinca.
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Our picks this week (SPOILERS AHEAD):
Tom - TUNIC
Tom didn't like this so he uninstalled it. That's it. That's the story.
Alex - Street Fighter V
When Alex came out with this I had to double check that it really was Alex speaking and not Connor via some sort of elaborate Alex Donaldson Snapchat Filter.
Connor - Guilty Gear Strive
Imagine getting battered by a 12yr old? Honestly, this is one of the most harrowing tales we've heard all year.
Please do let us know what you think of the show – and if this is your first time listening, do go back to listen to the previous episodes. If you’ve got suggestions for topics, send them our way.
“What is VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast?” you ask? Well, it is essentially a 30-minute panel show where people (Jim Trinca and associates) decide on the best game in a specific category. That's it. It's good. Listen to it.
It’s an astounding piece of work, and it really pushes the boundaries of what video games are capable of – here they are, resurrecting the artistic sensibilities of a long deceased society in order to let us walk in their shoes. Magic.
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#pentiment #gamepass #xboxseriesx
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#vampiresurvivors #gamepass #steamdeck
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#Tunic #GOTY #gamepass
It is, as you rightly suspect, a refinement of something that was already beautiful. We’re talking nips and tucks here rather than a full re-work, which is absolutely fine: anything more substantial than that risks compromising the art direction, as we’ve seen countless times before when iconic games get a graphical refresh. In fact, if you weren’t A/B comparing them as we’ve done in some select scenes for the video above, you’d be hard pressed to notice much of a difference. Essentially, there’s more detail in the image – textures are higher quality, foliage is more dense, crowd simulation has been cranked up, and the level of detail fades off much further away from the camera now.
Those are the base improvements, but of course, because this is the PS5/Series X era, we now have to make the classic choice between raytracing and performance modes. The pros and cons are absolutely clear on paper: raytracing means more realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections but with the framerate capped at 30fps, and performance gives you a nice silky-smooth 60fps mode but with flatter lighting, less accurate shadows, and screen space reflections that basically look alright until you tilt the camera. It’s a tale as old as time.
So which should you choose? Well, for our money, performance mode has the edge here: those extra frames are vital for making the dodge n’ roll combat feel good – 30fps has a habit of making motion feel sluggish – and outside of indoor environments, the raytracing implementation here doesn’t really change the equation much. If you’re staring at a river, you’ll notice more refined detail in the ambient reflections. Puddles look nicer. In gloomy and damp indoor spaces like Kaer Morhen, glinting lights and deep, dark shadows give the environment a lot of drama that is otherwise flattened out by the less sophisticated lighting model of performance mode’s raster-based rendering.
But these are edge cases: in short, the bells and whistles you miss out on in performance mode are a much easier sacrifice to make than the dramatic performance hit that raytracing demands. Besides, the kind of raytracing we get on consoles is fairly nerfed anyway: I wouldn’t consider it unless we had a nice hybrid Performance RT option a la Marvel’s Spider-Man. Alas, that isn’t always possible.
In conclusion: The Witcher’s next-or-current-gen update, with its suite of graphical touch-ups and quality of life enhancements, makes a beautiful and brilliant game slightly more beautiful and slightly more brilliant. But, as ever, don’t expect miracles on consoles – raytracing remains largely out of reach unless you have a beefy PC, and the compromises required to make it work on the cheerful box that sits under your TV just aren’t worth it.
Also, you can now have motion blur activated in performance mode without the sky glitching out, which was a weird bug with the Xbox One X build. If that’s a thing you even remember. Just me? OK.
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#thewitcher3 #xboxseriesx #ps5
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#thrustmaster #T128 #review
Cast: Tom Orry, Alex Donaldson, Dom Peppiatt, and Jim Trinca. Our picks this week (SPOILERS AHEAD):
Tom - Vampire Survivors
Tom played this for ten minutes and decided on this week's topic soon after. Coincidence, or corruption?
Alex - Dive Kick
When Alex came out with this I had to double check that it really was Alex speaking and not Connor via some sort of elaborate Alex Donaldson Snapchat Filter.
Kelsey - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Possibly the game most culturally associated with doing nothing, given that it arrived when half of society was closed for business and a lot of people simply had to sit around in their houses. Bad times. Still, it's all behind us now and the pandemic is definitely over. Right? Right? Oh.
Please do let us know what you think of the show – and if this is your first time listening, do go back to listen to the previous episodes. If you’ve got suggestions for topics, send them our way.
“What is VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast?” you ask? Well, it is essentially a 30-minute panel show where people (Jim Trinca and associates) decide on the best game in a specific category. That's it. It's good. Listen to it.
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#vg247 #best #podcast
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#Synced #f2p #shooter
This week's topic has come about because of two things:
Firstly, we're desperate to do anything Starfield related because we are a games website and people click on articles about Starfield. But, rudely, it hasn't come out yet, so we have to get creative. I say creative. I mean, we have to go on about it on podcasts and things.
Secondly, we're scraping the barrell and letting Jim pick them now, and he won't ever shut up about Star Trek or Morrowind, so obviously he won't shut up about Bethesda's upcoming blend of those things either. It's like they're making a game for him specifically, as if he deserves it. Where's my Bethesda game about stuff I like? Why can't I have an open world RPG about pining for Project Gotham Racing and watching Lovejoy?
Cast: Tom Orry (me), Alex Donaldson, Dom Peppiatt, and Jim Trinca.
Our picks this week (SPOILERS AHEAD):
Alex - No Man's Sky
Alex chose this because it's an open world game set in space. Hahaha. Loser.
Dom - FTL
Dom has this to say about FTL, a rubbish game that should have lost: “I have never let myself gamble; I’m too compulsive, and I have an addictive personality. So I scratch that itch with other things – 1000+ lifetime hours in Binding of Isaac say hello. So if I want to placate the craving in my brain for risk/reward and harvest that lovely dopamine payoff, I use games… and what better way to prime my mind for Starfield than a space game that gives me intermittent rewards, keeps things random (but logical), and makes failure feel fair. FTL: Faster Than Light is a phenomenal, top-tier video game… that just so happens to be about space exploration and science.”
Tom (me) - Morrowind
I don't even like Morrowind. I just chose it because Jim loves it and I wanted to win the podcast for once.
Please do let us know what you think of the show – and if this is your first time listening, do go back to listen to the previous episodes. If you’ve got suggestions for topics, send them our way.
“What is VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast?” you ask? Well, it is essentially a 30-minute panel show where people (Jim Trinca and associates) decide on the best game in a specific category. That's it. It's good. Listen to it.
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#Podcast #Starfield #Bethesda
So… why didn’t EA want to show it to anyone? We ponder this and more in The Thursday Nite Rant, a show we couldn’t think of a title for so we stole it from a Dril tweet. Have at, let us know in the comments if you think we’re full of exhaust.
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#needforspeed #unbound #criterion
Well, we’ve never been happier to be proven utterly wrong: Midnight Suns is legit. It’s by some distance the best superhero game of the year. The sheer gulf in quality between it and Gotham Knights – an oddly sort of Deep Impact to the Armageddon of superhero ensemble pieces where they all hang out in a big creepy building between missions – is, frankly, so wide that even The Hulk would struggle to leap it.
So, as you’ll hear in the video above, Dom and I have been absolutely sucked in by its satisfying tactical gameplay, its wholesome interpersonal dramas, and its surprisingly fleshed out off-mission activities where you explore the vast grounds of a spooky abbey and uncover centuries-old secrets about your family’s dark past. Lovely stuff. Check out my full review here if you want to know more, but rest assured that it’s one of the best games of the year, and for my money, Firaxis’ finest outing to date.
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#midnightsuns #firaxis #marvel
Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: The 6-month Inquisition Special.
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#podcast #gaming #recap
Well, months of regular updates and a DLC announcement later, the Cyberpunk 2077 redemption arc is in full swing, and it seems that CD Projekt RED are determined to win back all that goodwill that they originally earned with their most celebrated and indisputably best game.
The free update will arrive on December 14th, and in addition to visual upgrades like raytracing and high-resolution textures, it will include a suite of QoL enhancements including the ability to cast different signs on the fly without having to use the radial menu, quests and items associated with the Netflix series, haptic feedback for PS5 users, full localisation for the Chinese market, and 60fps support for Xbox Series S. Oh, there’s even a few quest fixes on the way too.
CD Projekt RED could have just issued a basic performance unlock for the new machines: plenty of other studios have taken that approach, and it’s significantly better than nothing. After all, even minor updates take time and resources to roll out, requiring testing and certification which a lot of developers simply can’t justify the outlay for, especially if they’re deep in development of their next big title. The fact that we’re getting a substantial upgrade with new content, deep gameplay tweaks, and fixes for legacy bugs, is pretty astonishing.
Other studios have charged actual money for less substantial upgrades, and they’ve been well within their rights to.
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#Witcher3 #PS5 #upgrade
And what a fifteen years it’s been: in that time, gaming has absolutely exploded, going from a sort of silly hobby for weans and saddos to a mainstream phenomenon that (yes, alright, sorry, I’m going to say the thing) makes tonnes more money (ugh, let’s just get it overwith) than any other entertainment medium (sigh, sorry).
With Valhalla being set a few hundred years before the original game in the timeline, and next year’s Mirage spin-off being designed as a sort-of tribute to Altair’s groundbreaking adventure, it seems like the perfect time to revisit the crusades for a reminder just how fully-formed the series was when it arrived: it’s often said that the series didn’t properly get going until Ezio showed up in the sequel two years later, but as I’ve argued in the video above, AC2 successfully built on sturdy foundations which were set by the incredible creativity of the first game.
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#AssassinsCreed15 #Ubisoft #History
Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 26 - The best game that crashed at the worst possible time.
Cast: Tom Orry, Alex Donaldson, James Billcliffe, and Jim Trinca.
Can you guess who picked which games? MechAssault 2, Runescape, and Dead Rising.
Please do let us know what you think of the show – and if this is your first time listening, do go back to listen to the previous episodes. If you’ve got suggestions for topics, send them our way. I came up with this weeks, but hated it so much I picked the first game that came to mind despite knowing it wouldn't win.
“What is VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast?” you ask? Well, it is essentially a 30-minute panel show where people (Jim Trinca and associates) decide on the best game in a specific category. That's it. It's good. Listen to it.
What are the starter Pokemon in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet?
As is tradition in Pokemon games, you have the choice of three Pokemon to start your adventure with in Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet.
Sprigatito
According to Nintendo and The Pokemon Company, Sprigatito is “Capricious and attention seeking.” It sounds like it gets jealous pretty easily and is prone to sulking if its trainer gives another pokemon some attention.
Fuecoco
We could have guessed from its photo, but Nintendo confirms that Fuecoco is “laid-back and does things at its own pace.” If you thought, “that creature loves to eat,” you’re right, it does, and runs towards any food it sees.
Quaxly
What else needs to be said other than Quaxly is one cool looking duck? Well, the fact that it’s a serious little thing and dislikes getting its head dirty, no doubt for fear of ruining that amazing hair.
What is the best starter Pokemon in Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet?
Jim and I had a good chat about this (see the video above) and we definitely both decided that Quaxly is the best starter Pokemon. Because it’s a duck. It looks super cool. We also like the fact that it uses a gel to smooth over its feathers, like it’s in the TV show Happy Days.
#pokemon
#NintendoSwitch
#PokemonScarletViolet
It’s one of those games that makes having a Game Pass subscription feel like you’re cheating the system somehow. But it’s also the kind of game that really exemplifies the value of a first-party subscription service, as an engine of discovery for the user, but also as a wealth-spreading mechanism that means it’s easier for things like Pentiment to get made in the first place.
Check out our full review for an extensive look at this eccentric RPG, and why we think it’s one of the best games of the year: vg247.com/pentiment-review
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#Pentiment #Xbox #GamePass
Welcome to VG247's Best Games Ever Podcast: Episode 25 - The best game with a welsh actor in it.
Please do let us know what you think of the show – and if this is your first time listening, do go back to listen to the previous episodes. If you’ve got suggestions for topics, we’d love to hear them, because we're just picking countries now and running with it.
“What is VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast?” you ask? Well, it is essentially a 30-minute panel show where people (Jim Trinca and associates) decide on the best game in a specific category. That's it. It's good. Listen to it. We’ve got some details on the show’s content below, so don't skip this warning if you hate spoilers:
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The best game with a welsh actor in it
That is the topic of Episode 25 of this podcast. Here’s a rundown of who picked what.
Tom - Planet Zoo
Look, I was very ill when we recorded this and I got absolutely zero thanks for being a hero and carrying on, just so we could deliver a good podcast - unlike the terrible one that happened when I wasn't here and Jim was left in charge.
Alex - Elden Ring
I'm Alex so I'm going to win regardless of what I pick. Anyway, I went with the big obvious choice because my mind is mostly filled with JRPG battle strategies and arcade cabs I want shipping over from Japan on a big boat. Elden Ring has loads of welsh people in it.
Connor - Total War Warhammer 2
Full disclosure, I couldn't think of a single Welsh actor for this podcast until right at the last minute. But, a quick google and peruse of the list of valid picks landed me with a pick so good I had to take it. A proper combo of a great Welsh actor and a great game. Iwan Rheon in Total War Warhammer 2.
Iwan Rheon is great. They're mostly known for their performance as Ramsey Bolton in Game of Thrones, where they play an antagonistic, people-skinning, ambitious son who literally feeds a baby to dogs to rack up those evil boy points. However, I knew them first from Misfits, a British comedy drama where a bunch of juvenile delinquents get super powers. I'm sure he'd done other stuff but that's all I knew him from, and it was plenty to warrant him as my pick.
As for Total War Warhammer 2, I mean, what a banger. It's this incredibly vast CRPG where you take control of various diverse fantastical factions and attempt to state a claim on the world through conquest, diplomacy, and big ol' magic spells. Iwan Rheon's character, Beastlord Rakarth, is a cruel Dark Elf warlord, travelling the world and amassing a growing circus of dangerous animals that he can use in battle to run over any armies he has an issue with. He's also a prick, and is essentially an unsubtle send up to Iwan's Game of Thrones role, but it fits damn well in Warhammer so no one really cared.
He's even playable in Total War Warhammer 3, and even bigger game with more races and lands to explore, but I didn't pick it since I don't think it's quite as good as 2 yet. Nonetheless, a great game, with a great Welsh actor doing a great job. In the past, I've been accused of wiggling around (or just straight up missing the point) of the podcast question. But with this one, I've surely nailed it.
Come back in a week for another exciting instalment of VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast.
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#podcast #welsh #gaming
As a drama, it runs the entire tonal gamut from prestige HBO drama to Wrestlemania, being stuffed with some of the best action spectacles that the series has ever offered (which is something of an achievement, given that the entire series kicks off with Kratos leaping across a shipwrecked fleet to kill a hydra), but also plenty of quiet, reflective moments which allow the pacing to breathe.
It also provides a wonderfully unique take on the gods themselves. In this portrayal, Odin comes across like the head of a crime family, something akin to Tony Soprano or Vito Corleone: powerful, yet afraid. Jealously guarding his status, willing to make huge sacrifices to protect his wealth, but ultimately ill-equipped to resist the changing times. It stands in stark contrast to the heroic, benevolent alien version of the character we have seen in things like Marvel's MCU. But, dare I say it, it's probably much closer to the source material: the old gods were hard to please.
God of War installments often feel like a barometer of industry trends, typifying and exemplifying what videogames are in their year of release. It's fascinating that this one (as with 2018, but more so this time) can arguably be described as a mid-point between The Last of Us and Skyrim. It's linear and character-focused, but full of open exploration. It's anchored with gritty realism while being an epic fantasy spectacle of light and magic. The best of AAA can be found right here, in this grand sort of greatest-hits package of PlayStation Exclusives.
The fact that this is still a last-gen game at its core (albeit one which is best played on PS5) suggests that we, perhaps, have reached a plateau here: it's conceivable that video games are as good as they're ever going to be, and improved technology to build and run them on just isn't going to yield the kind of revolutionary advancement that we became used to during the first few decades of this medium's relatively short life to date. But this doesn't mean they can't be exciting or groundbreaking: it just means that we've reached a point where the merit of the painting is uncoupled from the quality of the brush strokes.
If the latest best-in-class AAA game runs on decade-old hardware, we may have just reached the point where our beloved medium is driven by imagination rather than technology. As barometer readings go, I'd take that to mean sunshine ahead.
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#godofwarragnarok #PS5 #review
Well, there is merit to that argument, I suppose. But this infographic, despite looking like a spreadsheet at first, is just a basic piece of consumer information that tells you what to expect from the product in terms of its compatibility with your setup. There isn't a single use case where all of these "nine modes" come into play (unless you work for Digital Foundry, our sister site, and it's literally your job to compare them). In fact, if you've got a base PS4, which the vast majority of PlayStation's user base is still using, you don't have to worry about any of this. Your options are start or stop. The game is a PS4 title at heart, so you won't be getting a poor or cut-down experience: fear not, this isn't another Cyberpunk 2077 situation. It'll just work, and you'll have a great time.
On PS4 Pro and PS5, you have a choice between performance and quality modes which if you have either of those machines you should be more than used to by now. On PS5, there are modifiers to how these behave depending on your display's capabilities, and how your PS5 is set up on a system level. To put it simply, if you have a VRR and/or a 120Hz panel, the performance and quality modes are able to take advantage of those. Of particular interest to me, as it goes, is the quality + HFR + VRR configuration: Spider-Man has a similar mode and it's excellent. You wouldn't think that a 40fps cap is that much better than a 30fps cap, but it feels like a huge leap in performance. Not quite as snappy for the frame-heads out there who think that 60fps is an acceptable minimum at best, but for my own purposes, it's a fine trade off to get lovely judder-free motion without compromising whatsoever on image quality.
But that's by-the-by. If you don't care about that stuff, you absolutely don't have to. Just hit start and go! You're guaranteed a good time. It's just nice of Santa Monica Studio to accomodate those of us who have the gear, and the annoying habit of being pernickety about these things, to have a preference either way.
Choice! Choice is good!
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#godofwarragnarok #PS5 #graphicmodes
This was decades ago (I am old), and you'd think that, if anything, the acceptance of video games as a valid form of artistic expression would have progressed somewhat since then. I'm not sure it has, although mercifully we do seem to have seen the back of the dreaded "are games art?" debate, if only because everyone who ever got involved in it either died or got so bored of the subject that they happily conceded that it didn't matter either way. Who cares, just shoot the demons dumbass (or, indeed, the demon's dumb ass).
But I can't help but think that Pratchett, by all accounts a deeply thoughtful, kind hearted, and forward-thinking man, would have had a more progressive attitude toward my getting into his work via a PS1 game starring Eric Idle rather than, say, by being made to read Only You Can Save Mankind as part of a syllabus. More progressive than, say, Andrzej Sapkowski's, who is on record about his view that gaming is an unserious form of entertainment that has trivialised his work.
Terry loved games. He adored The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and at the time when I was playing the point and click adventure based on his Rincewind novels, he was enjoying Tomb Raider on the PS1, and in the process helping to forge his daughter Rhianna's deep love of the medium. She would, of course, go on to become a titan of this industry, whose extensive CV includes modernising Lara's character and origins for the acclaimed 2013 reboot, and writing an extremely rare example of genuinely funny video game fantasy in the form of the Overlord series.
Books and games are always doing this little dance, it seems. They pilfer each other for characters, settings, themes, and concepts. Their respective industries feed each other with talent. And, most importantly of all, their intertwined relationship inspired the topic for this very podcast, which is:
The best game based on a book that nobody who played it has actually read
That is the topic of Episode 24 of this podcast.
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#thewitcher #podcast #vg247
That's it. That's the write-up. Can I just leave it there Tom? They're going to be furious whatever I write here
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#trombonechamp #gameofthrones #startrek
Curse you, and it, for its delectable sound design, its beautiful animations, its ultra-compelling just-one-more-match battle and progression systems that get its hooks deep into your soul, firing every nerve in your pleasure centres along the way.
Curse you, and it, for its excellent and truly free-to-play (for now) business model, which eschews any pay-to-win cynicism in favour of a design which strictly only accepts coin for cosmetic upgrades, and keeps the playing field level for those of us who have zero desire to chuck £8.99 at a handful of Dr. Doom Dollars or whatever the hell it is.
Curse you, and it, for bringing this absolute delight to my attention, which I'm sure would be a gateway into all sorts of card-based pish were it not for the fact that my attention span is fleeting and I definitely won't be playing it in three weeks.
I've made peace with the fact that I'll never unlock Venom in that time, but regardless, well done to all involved.
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#marvelsnap #gwent #uncharted
“What on EARTH are you going on about now” replied Burns, already tired of this.
Jim thought for a second, looking down at his floppy Meatball Marinara, freshly purchased from Croydon’s worst Subway (which takes some doing). “Well, consider food.”
“The stuff you eat?” said Burns.
“Yeah”, Jim clarified. “So like, the best thing you can get from McDonald’s-”
“Big Tasty”, Burns interrupted.
“Yeah so -” Jim continued: “The Big Tasty with bacon,”
“No, just the Big Tasty” Burns interrupted again.
“No bacon?” inquired Jim.
“Donalds bacon is too smokey, it overpowers the beef.” said Burns, with the authority of a man who had, on several occasions, had more than one meal per day from McDonald’s: very possibly the only person to ever do so without being staff.
“OK fine”, sighed Jim, now regretting the entire conversation, and possibly the decision to take the job alongside Burns, moving to Croydon, all of it. All of it. “So the Big Tasty is a McDonald’s ten out of ten, right?”
Burns nodded reverently.
“So,” Jim continued: “if you’d gone to a good Italian restaurant and ordered the rissoto, you’d end up with something perfectly nice, but you know by the standards of Italian cuisine, it’s a solid seven. Nothing to sniff at, it’s just in a different league. A seven out of ten meal from an Italian restaurant is just better than a ten out of ten burger from Donald’s. And that’s the theory. Like how Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days is a cracking 7 but The Last of Us is a crap 9.”
Burns considered this for what seemed like several minutes, and eventually came to a conclusion: “No. I don’t agree.”
“Wait, what? Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days is great but its inherent seven-out-of-ten-ness is undeniable, and as for The Last of Us -” Jim protested, until Burns cut him off again.
“No, not that.” Burns clarified, reassuringly. “I don’t accept that a Big Tasty is worse than some Tory porridge you got in Carluccios. I don’t accept, frankly, that anything is better than a Big Tasty: the Ronseal of burgers.”
Anyway, welcome to VG247's The Best Games Ever Podcast: Ep.23: The best 6/10 that’s better than The Last of Us.
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#podcast #arguments #kaneandlynch2dogdays
If anything, if the Series S was responsible for reducing the overall complexity of next-gen games compared to what they could achieve were it not a factor, then the big boy machines – it stands to reason – would have plenty of headroom left over for performance boosts. But that’s not what’s happening.
It certainly isn’t happening in the case of Gotham Knights, which kicked off this whole ridiculous mini-controversy by launching without any performance modes despite being next-gen exclusive. This is due, we’re told, to the complexity of the game… which was originally slated for PS4 and Xbox One, but those versions were cancelled, and the game we got feels decidedly last gen and can barely maintain a stable framerate regardless. Go figure.
The Series S is a next-gen machine in all the ways that count: specifically, its super-fast NVME storage and robust CPU, both of which are basically identical to its bigger brother, and on a par with the PS5 in terms of raw numbers. It has a less impressive GPU and not as much RAM, but this is a compromise aimed at getting the price as low as possible with the concession that this machine is intended to be used with last-generation television screens and 1440p monitors. It’s not supposed to compete with premium consoles and three-grand PCs, it’s supposed to be cheap, cheerful, and “good enough” for your average user. Which it is.
It also represents a significant step up in terms of the base spec of gaming hardware that people tend to have in their homes, namely the base PS4, a workhorse machine which is still going strong due to various factors (as explored in the above video) but is hamstrung by a slow HDD and a lacklustre CPU: both of these are drag factors with the next gen machines, including the Series S, are design to negate.
With millions of users still, for whatever reason, unable or unwilling to upgrade from the last-gen machine or low spec PC they’re currently rocking (not to mention machines like the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck), it seems churlish to blame the Series S for dragging down the minimum spec that studios have to cater for when, if anything, it would appear to be pushing up the average.
Some developers feel all the same that Microsoft’s requirement to support the Series S with every Xbox release – preventing them from splitting the userbase – is cramping their style. But if they’re that determined to artificially cut their market in half, there’s nothing stopping them from making their games exclusive to other platforms.
That’s capitalism, baby. The freedom to choose!
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#SeriesS #Potato #30fps
Because it's the opening line of our theme tune, it's the first question anyone ever heard asked on our acclaimed Best Games Ever podcast: a five star rated show which some critics have described as "safe as badgers" and "short running time".
So we decided to ask it for our first ever live podcast, recorded at EGX London earlier this year, with an open mic for members of the audience to chime in with their suggestions. After several arguments about Breath of the Wild, and whether or not pizza constitutes a pie, one member of the audience stepped up and made such a perfect suggestion that they won a prize and our eternal gratitude.
We'd like to thank everyone who showed up, it was truly special to see those seats with actual people in them, and we loved how enthusiastic everyone was about taking part.
Please do let us know what you think of the show – and if this is your first time listening, do go back to listen to the previous episodes. If you’ve got suggestions for topics, we’d love to hear them, so please comment below or tweet them at us.
The best game where you get to eat pie, according to the panel
The best suggestions came from the audience, but this is what our staff picked, the idiots:
Tom - Breath of the Wild
Tom reckons Breath of the Wild is one of the best games of all time, and you can cook and eat pies in it. I can't actually fault him on this, but I do like mugging him off, so it didn't win.
Connor - Spider-Man 2
Connor entered this on the basis of a pizza delivery mini-game, running immediately into two semantic but fatal flaws: firstly, distributing pie isn't the same as eating it. Secondly, pizza isn't pie (don't write in).
Donaldson - Dead Rising and or Final Fantasy (various)
Of course Donaldson came out swinging with the weeb picks, and in fairness, both are brilliant pitches: Final Fantasy for it's delectable photorealistic pies that look scrumptious enough to make you lick the TV, and Dead Rising, where you not only get to eat pie but also brandish it as a weapon. On this basis, he won the for the panel.
Audience - Celeste
But the audience won with Celeste, a beautiful retrovania platformer where you spend the entire game collecting strawberries which get baked into a big pie that everyone eats at the end. An insightful and prize-worthy suggestion!
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#celeste #deadrising #spider-man
It also does a bunch of clever things with the gameplay: a memorable stealth section featuring an injured Soap has a very Naughty Dog feel about it. Sneaking around and hyper-realistic location, scavenging for crafting parts, deftly avoiding checkpoint after checkpoint of chattering guards.
That’s not to say it isn’t also a classic Call of Duty campaign. There’s plenty of action set pieces, tense shootouts, and things getting blown up. But this is a CoD that isn’t afraid to pull back, and for our money, it’s all the better for it.
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#modernwarfare2 #callofduty #campaign
Our resident jRPG and Nintendo fanatic Alex Donaldson had an extensive hands-on session with the new game and found a compelling, active world to explore full of series innovations alongside more traditional touches. Classic Pokéball catching makes a return, and so do Pokémon Centres, but these are also dotted arouind in the field in the form of outside kiosks. Modern convenience!
It's an extrermely ambitious game and furthers Pokémon's seemingly constant evolution from handheld RPG into fully-fledged home console experience, forever straddling the two states but constantly shifting and expanding toward the latter. Which makes it the quintessential Switch game: a premium handheld experience, with aspirations for the Big TV. But, like Arceus before it, there are performance concessions in the preview build which highlight the need for Nintendo to refresh their hardware, whether that materialises as the mythical Switch Pro or a new console entirely, as the old hardware strains to keep up with Scarlet/Violet's ambitious design and clever new features.
Having said that, it's primarily a handheld game for kids, so the performance issues are hardly going to scupper its inevitable success, but we're middle-aged and we write for a games website, so it's the sort of thing we like to moan about.
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#pokemon #scarlet #violet
Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet will release on November 18th exclusively on Nintendo Switch (obviously, I mean, it'd a be a bit of a scoop if they were sticking it on PS5 eh?)
I was once sat under a tree watching a game of amateur cricket. From the tree fell the largest pinecone I'd ever seen and to probably ever exist in the history of the world. The kind of pinecone that if it were to land on a head, would crush it like a hammer on a watermelon. This pinecone got so close to my head I heard it woosh past my ear. Death by pinecone avoided, but was it a god that saved me?
I walk the same route every weekday as I take my son to school. Not too long ago, on a surprisingly warm morning in September, my brisk walk was brought to a sudden halt as a heavy droplets pummeled the pavement just a few feet in front of me. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, they hit. I checked myself. I checked my son. No bird shit had hit us. We were safe. Was this a god?
Years ago I was brushing my teeth. This wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but what happened mid-way through was quite unbelievable. Brushing away, like I always do, I got a bit carried away. The brush zooming in and out too fast to be able to fully control, it launched out of my grasp and into the air. Where was it to land? That's right... on my head! It just sat there, perfectly balanced. The work of a god?
As I said, I don't believe in a god, but you must agree that these incredible moments really are hard to rationally explain. Anyway. Welcome to VG247's The Best Games Ever Podcast: Ep.22 - The best game about gods that isn't God of War.
Please do let us know what you think of the show – and if this is your first time listening, do go back to listen to the previous episodes. If you’ve got suggestions for topics, we’d love to hear them. 22 episodes in and let's just say the ideas aren't coming thick and fast. Jim is soon likely to suggest something like, "Best game a cat would look at and do a meow" and I wouldn't immediately dismiss it.
“What is VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast?” you ask while pondering if you could deliberately throw a toothbrush up and have it land on your head. Anyway, this podcast, which is why you're on this page, is essentially a 30-minute panel show where people (me and some others on VG247) decide on the best game in a specific category. That's it. It's good. Listen to it.
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#podcast #chat #videogames
Resident horror expert Kelsey went to Capcom UK's offices for a short-but-sweet twenty minute hands on with everyone's favourite Resi game (even yours, and if you comment saying otherwise I'll just assume you're lying) and reported back to the mothership that everything is looking present and correct: the tetris inventory? Check. Typewriters? Check. Overpowering sense of dread? Obvs. Feet planted while aiming? No, but that's fine, because it's 2022 and nobody has time for that.
We also wonder where the remake series goes from here, with spin-offs Revelations and Code Veronica seeming like juicy candidates for the REmake treatment before Capcom should think about tackling 5 & 6, and as Alex points out, the first game hasn't yet received such an extensive reimagining as RE2, 3, and now 4 are enjoying: the Gamecube remake retained the original's fixed camera over 2D backgrounds approach, but as you might have surmised from the words "Gamecube remake", it came out twenty years ago. We're well overdue a visit to the Spencer Mansion.
But that's for the future. In the present, Resi 4 remake is only a few months away, aiming for a March release. We're hoping to get more time with it before then, and we can't wait to see how faithful the full game is.
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#residentevil #capcom #re4remake
It’s not all bad: there are some nice ideas dotted around. Occupying The Belfry between missions gives the game a nice overall pace, allowing you to spend time with the characters in some touching, backstory filling cutscenes (though, note of caution, these bits are laser-targeted at Arrowverse fans, a group of people who would inject mediocrity like heroin were it possible). The investigation gameplay also has a few neat touches, like the micro-examination of people’s workspaces and personal tech.
It also tells a serviceable story set in a new take on the Batverse, which is separate to the Arkham universe, and piecing together the lay of the land via exposition drops and your built-in familiarity with DC’s characters as someone who exists in the 21st century is an enjoyable aspect.
But the things that an open-word superhero game should live and die on, traversal and combat, are just a bit bobbins. It’s canned videogame soup. Familiar, fine if there’s nothing else, but impossible to get excited about. Nobody’s going to spend a whole day of work looking forward to sinking some time into this, in the same way that nobody ever looks forward to cracking open a tin of Heinz minestrone. And, to repeat the point: that’s a shocking state of affairs for a game where the core theme is that Batman is dead and his children are grappling with his legacy.
It’s very possible, and I suspect likely, that a performance patch will materialise at some point, putting to bed this nonsense about it being so blisteringly next gen that it couldn’t possibly operate without a 30fps cap (it doesn’t remotely do anything that couldn’t have been achieved in the PS4 era). So, if that was the chief issue, I wouldn’t be too concerned about Gotham Knights: optimisation can always come in a post-release patch. But no amount of patching can fix the aggressive blandness at its core..
Gotham Knights is available from tomorrow on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
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#gothamknights #batman #nextgen
It includes PvP and co-op modes alongside its substantial single-player campaign: for this let's play we decided to employ the services of a History Expert* in order to lean on their expertise in medieval combat and Templar trivia to see if that knowledge will help our writers Connor and Sherif survive the wave-based Last Man Standing mode, which pits up to three players against an onslaught of troops, cavalry, archers, and elite units. The goal? Defend three precious carts from arson attacks, and survive fifteen waves of brutal assault.
*We did decide to exploy the services of a history expert, but couldn't find one, so we made a Welsh actor wear a stupid costume instead.
The Valiant is out now for PC, with console releases planned later.
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At the end of chapter two there is a sequence which ostensibly presents itself as a stealth section, complete with reeds to hide in, guards with predictable patrols, and plenty of cover to duck behind. But something happens around half way through which mixes things up in a way that the first game never quite dared: the rats cometh. Bursting up from the ground, through walls, hugging the edge of the light and filling every dark space. In this section, A Plague Tale's "The Floor Is Lava" game collides with its "Hide and Seek" game: and the results are harrowing.
It's perfectly possible to finesse the level, but it can for some be an exercise in frustration requiring a change of tack. The tack being: leg it.
Just boost for the door. It might take a couple of goes, as there are scripted moments where the guards will cross your path while trying to flee the rat outbreak, which just reinforces the idea that the game wants you to perfect a run rather than sneak around. And it's a curious bit of game un-design because you can't help but wonder if this window of opportunity that gives you an almost clear run to the exit, bypassing potentially around fifteen minutes of game, has been engineered into the level as a concession to (or apology for) the fact that the game's systems don't really interact that well, or... is it a metaphor for pushing ahead through chaos? Sort of mimicking Amicia's struggle with her own cautious nature as a teenage girl in the middle-ages as she is forced, through circumstance, to brute-force her way right through the centre of an erupting shitstorm?
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it's a moment that I find fascinating.
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#plaguetale #gamepass #guide
The first game earned itself comparisons to the likes of God of War and The Last of Us back when it came out, and it’s easy to see why: all of these games are, essentially, 20-hour escort quests that play out as a harrowing road trip over a dozen or so chapters. But without Sony’s money hose at hand to piss cash at your telly as though it were a truck stop urinal, there was a sense that Plague Tale couldn’t compete. It even got saddled with a pithy nickname in “The Past of Us”, as many quipped at the preview stage.
But the story of Amicia and Hugo, estranged siblings clinging on to each other as the world around them collapses into a toothy hellscape, transcended those sorts of diminutive comparisons. With a core cast of memorable characters, beautifully realised locations, and a seemingly endless trick bag of twists on the familiar childhood game of “the floor is lava”, it quickly became apparent to everyone that Plague Tale wasn’t an also-ran, but a serious piece of work that could just about stand tall amongst Triple-A giants.
With Requiem, the strength of those ideas gets the untethered, big-budget treatment that it deserves, delivering a solidly worthy sequel that, while not perfect (sometimes its various systems clash more than they interact), proves that the Plague Tale saga is more than worthy of consideration against those flagship Sony titles, and is every bit as compelling as as the Assassin’s Creed saga when it comes to the narrow field of historical action adventures with daft fantasy twists in which you batter the pope.
A Plague Tale: Requiem is out tomorrow on Game Pass for PC and Xbox Series X|S, Steam, and PS5.
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#plaguetale #requiem #gamepass
But what exactly were people desperate to play on their new PS3? I was at the March 2006 UK launch, somewhere in London, probably in a store that no longer exists and is now a Greggs. While there we interviewed the now Stadia-failer Phil Harrison – who is essentially a giant. I'd never spoken to a man so intimidatingly large before. Phil, as big a deal as he was in his PlayStation days (lots of ducks, etc) was not my highlight of the evening. Oh no. It was the public. More specifically, the actual batshit reasons some of them were buying a new PS3 a billion pounds.
One person, a young man with a pencil-thin moustache, quite enthusiastically told me: "Sonic." This took me by great surprise, so much so that I almost laughed for the first time since BBC2 comedy show "Fist of Fun" aired in 1995. But I digress. This person was queueing for hours in order to spend £425 (plus the price of the game) to play a utterly terrible Sonic game, which everyone knew was terrible as it had been released on the Xbox 360 the previous year.
A lot of people in the queue couldn't even name a single game they were buying, simply saying something about Blu-ray and FIFA – although the first FIFA on PS3 was some six months away from releasing. No bother.
Ridge Racer 7 was right there, at launch. But no, of course no one mentioned it. However, of all the reasons I was told as to why people were buying a PS3 at launch, one took the crown as the most bizarre, nonsensical bit of accounting I'd ever heard.
"Yeah, I worked out that I can save the money I was going to spend on a laptop by just buying a PS3," a man told me. "I'll do all my work on the PS3. Just need to plug in a keyboard. Got a printer ready to go," he added. I nodded politely and walked away.
To my knowledge, no wordprocessor of any form was released for the PS3 (not unless you got Linux installed on it). I hope you installed Linux and worked your little heart off, man. I really do.
Anyway. Welcome to VG247's The Best Games Ever Podcast: Ep.21 - The best dead game you'd buy a console for if it came back.
Please do let us know what you think of the show – and if this is your first time listening, do go back to listen to the previous episodes. If you’ve got suggestions for topics, we’d love to hear them. To be clear, here, no one has sent in a single suggestion. I'm starting to think no one reads this. Which is rather sad.
“What is VG247’s Best Games Ever Podcast?” you ask while pondering just how awful the PS3 launch line-up was and how the whole thing was saved by it being a blu-ray machine. Anyway, this podcast, which is why you're on this page, is essentially a 30-minute panel show where people (me and some others on VG247) decide on the best game in a specific category. That's it. It's good. Listen to it.
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#defjam #timecrisis #ridgeracer
Well... egg redistribution, and poking things in holes. And it might just be one of the most interesting experiences to hit Next Gen to date: something that so heavily and unequivocally leans into its aesthetic, no matter how unsettling things might get, that you have to admire it for its vision alone. There hasn't been a mainstream release that goes all-in on grossing out the audience like this since Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, and if anything, Scorn is even more sickening.
But there's more to Scorn than the visuals, and it's a fascinating world to explore... if you have the stomach, and patience enough for some head-deskingly obtuse puzzles.
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#scorn #survivalhorror #gamepass
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#thefirstdescendant #lootershooter #f2p
Capcom however appear to have nailed many of these issues in the Street Fighter 6 closed beta, which finished on Sunday, and impressed us with its smooth, generally lag-free presentation (even managing to put a good show in over wifi), and a social space that really does feel like hanging around in an arcade, complete with actual machines to sit down at in order to challenge nearby players to bouts.
It’s seriously impressive stuff, and the extensive character creator gives the whole thing a lot of charm, topped off with various shops dotted around the place where you can buy clothing and items for your in-game self.
At this point, all that’s left to reveal following the Street Fighter 6 beta is the World Tour mode: a Yakuza style single-player experience which looks to be a great time for casual players and Street Fighter die-hards alike. But, given how excellent the Battle Hub is shaping up to be, we have very little doubt that World Tour is going to be something equally special.
Street Fighter 6 will release on PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S in 2023.
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#StreetFighter6 #BattleHub #Gameplay
Many fans are outraged by the fact that the original voice of Mario, Charles Martinet, will not be bringing his classic take on the character to the silver screen. Instead, he's been replaced by Hollywood superstar Chris Pratt, a move which many have dismissed as stunt casting, on the grounds that Chris Pratt isn't Italian and famously doesn't even like cured meats.
We've re-dubbed the Super Mario Bros. movie trailer with Charles Martinet's voice work in order to give you a taste of what might have been.
Don't listen to anyone telling you that Martinet doesn't have the range.
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#mario #movie #trailer