Game News

Assassin’s Creed Mirage Free Trial Is Out Now And On Sale

A free trial for the 2023 game Assassin’s Creed Mirage is available now on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One. The trial is also available for PC through the Ubisoft Store and the Epic Games Store, but not Steam, where the game was never released.

The trial allows users to play the first two hours of Mirage, and all progression carries forward for people who buy the game outright. The game supports cross-platform cloud saves, so people can play the trial on one platform and buy the game outright on a different one, and their saves will be intact.

Additionally, Ubisoft is offering 40% off Mirage’s standard and deluxe editions, bringing the prices down to $30 and $36, respectively.

This free trial for Mirage is going live just as the game welcomes its newest title update that adds a new Eivor outfit for all players to equip on Basim. You can see the new outfit in the video above.

Ubisoft has a number of upcoming Assassin’s Creed games in the works. The next one, Assassin’s Creed Jade, was reportedly recently delayed and is now coming in 2025. Beyond that, there is Assassin’s Creed Infinity–which will act as a hub for future games–as well as Codename Red, and Codename Hexe. These have not had any release dates announced.

Evercade Reveals New Budget-Friendly Gaming Handheld And Home Consoles

Evercade is refreshing its hardware lineup this July with the launch of the Evercade VS-R home console and Evercade EXP-R handheld. The cartridge-based platforms are receiving fresh coats of paint, while the EXP-R is also getting an updated price tag. The Evercade EXP-R and VS-R will be sold for only $100 each.

Preorders are not yet open, but are expected to begin on April 30 through the official Evercade website. We’d also expect the hardware to be available to order at Amazon at some point. The EXP-R and VS-R have charcoal gray color schemes with turquoise accents. They each will come bundled with a cartridge, but specifics have not been revealed just yet.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Evercade family of systems, it’s a retro gaming platform that lets you play over 50 cartridge-based collections. The original Evercade handheld released back in 2020, and Blaze Entertainment has iterated on the Evercade hardware multiple times since, including with the Evercade VS home console, Evercade EXP handheld, and last year’s spin-off $60 handhelds, the Taito and Capcom Super Pockets.

The price cut for the EXP-R is a pretty enticing part of the refresh, as the existing Evercade EXP costs $150. The Evercade EXP will still be the premier handheld in the Evercade lineup in some respects, but the EXP-R has the same premium design for the most part. The two notable omissions with the EXP-R: You will not get the 18 built-in Capcom games, and the EXP-R drops the HDMI output, which means you cannot connect it to your TV. The EXP-R, however, will add a new textured grip that could make it more comfortable than the original EXP.

Outside of those differences, the EXP-R will have the same integral functionality, including TATE mode, which allows you to turn the handheld to the side to play vertical-oriented arcade games in the proper aspect ratio. Evercade will be releasing an Evercade TATE Grip alongside the handheld for $20. The grip will be compatible with the EXP and EXP-R. Just like the EXP, the EXP-R has built-in Wi-Fi support for firmware updates and a 4.3-inch IPS screen.

The VS-R, meanwhile, is a home console that can connect to your TV and supports 1080p output. The VS-R includes one controller, and additional VS-R controllers can be purchased separately. The console also supports the existing VS controllers. Like the VS, the VS-R has two cartridge slots, and there are exclusive secrets to be found by utilizing this feature on either home console.

Evercade’s library has grown to over 500 retro games across 50 cartridges, so if you’re looking for an official way to play some of the most iconic games of the past few decades, these cartridge-based gadgets are certainly worth considering. We’ve reviewed the Evercade EXP, Evercade VS, and Super Pocket. You can check out those reviews below. You can also head over to Amazon to take a look at existing cartridge compilations, which start at $20.

Learn more about Evercade

The Outlast Trials Toxic Shock Event Includes More Twisted Missions And Rewards

The Outlast Trials hit consoles and released into its 1.0 state a few weeks ago, and today Red Barrels kicks off the horror multiplayer game’s first limited-time event since then. Toxic Shock brings new MK-Challenges and Trials as part of the new program full of XP and limited-time currency that can be redeemed for a new costume in the game, the apocalyptic Crossing Guard.

The Toxic Shock event runs from now until May 7, during which time you can unlock new tokens for completing missions within the program. In total, 28 tokens can be earned, with the Crossing Guard costing 20 tokens, so you needn’t complete every single mission to unlock it. Completing the final trial will unlock an exclusive poster for your sleep room, however, so diehards may find it’s worth seeing through to the brutal end.

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Now Playing: The Outlast Trials | Toxic Shock Limited-Time Event and Update Trailer

The missions play out on previously released maps but with new objectives and variators, including the centerpiece that routinely dispenses toxic gas across the whole map, demanding you jump into a hiding place until it evaporates. There’s also a new optional objective akin to tearing down the game’s propaganda posters that tasks you with collecting rats scattered around each map.

The missions aren’t for the faint of heart, as several include some of the game’s fiercest variators, such as more and tougher enemies, extended rig cooldowns, fewer hiding spots, and even the removal of player names, making it harder to know where your teammates are at any time.

The update is out now and free but requires a game patch to be downloaded.

Sony Wants New “PS5 Pro Enhanced” Mode In Games – Report

Sony is reportedly asking game developers to take advantage of Sony’s alleged PlayStation 5 Pro for increased graphical fidelity.

According to The Verge, Sony is reportedly asking game developers to create an exclusive graphics mode in their games for its high-end PlayStation 5 model. It reportedly combines Sony’s new PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) upscaling to 4K resolution with 60fps and ray-tracing.

Games that offer this mode apparently have the PS5 Pro “Enhanced” label. However, the label will still be available for some games that have 30fps. Reportedly, games that have a fixed resolution on PS5 can still have the label as long as developers increase the target resolution on PS5 Pro, and those with variable resolutions can increase their target maximum resolution.

What this possibly means is that a game that has a higher maximum resolution on PS5 Pro and a lower one on the base PS5 could qualify for the “Enhanced” label. Reportedly, just enabling ray-tracing and opting to not improve the resolution or framerate is enough earn the label.

However, the label reportedly won’t be attached to games that only run at a more stable framerate on PS5 Pro, as well those with variable resolutions that don’t improve the maximum resolution. For example, if a game has a variable resolution from 1080p to 1440p on base PS5, and then a resolution from 1280p to 1440p, then it won’t get the label. This is because even though the low end variable resolution increased, the maximum stayed the same.

Developers who want to utilize this mode need to update their games to Sony’s SDK, but some games that don’t will still have better performance on the PS5 Pro. There is reportedly an “ultra boost” mode that helps out with framerates and resolutions. However, many unpatched games apparently won’t see improvements with this mode, especially ones with fixed resolutions and graphical settings.

Sony hasn’t responded to these reports or revealed a PS5 Pro, but rumors say that the console could be released sometime this year.

Game Reviews

Harold Halibut Review – Lost In Its Own Deep Sea

Harold Halibut puts you in the shoes of a lowly maintenance worker aboard a spaceship submerged underwater. To the residents aboard the ship, Harold is a rather charming, lovable, even dopey fellow who is endearing for his simplicity and his complacency in doing his job. Harold is tasked with removing graffiti, cleaning, and fixing machines, and when the work is done, his day ends, he goes to sleep, he wakes up–rinse, repeat. That’s the surface of Harold, but tucked out of sight from people’s view, is a character who is deceivingly introspective, often documenting his life through scribbled images in a notepad, or expressing himself through playful theatrics when he’s alone, like singing and performing operatically while mopping up a filter system. This is a side of the character only we, the player, get to see. As a character, Harold is complex, even if he doesn’t entirely understand how. He attempts to question and explore his curiosity and his own existence within the confines of a spaceship he was born and raised on, but he’s not always capable of understanding exactly what he’s looking for.

Harold Halibut

Harold Halibut, the game, is much like its titular character: It’s charming and lovable on the surface for its unique handmade aesthetic and charmingly simple gameplay. But just beneath that uncomplicated layer is a story that attempts to ask questions about introspection and self-worth, even if the game doesn’t always feel equipped to answer them or understand its strongest suits.

Harold Halibut does an incredible job in exploring its many themes and concepts by putting a magnifying glass on its setting. The FEDORA is a spaceship that was designed to leave Earth during the Cold War and set forth on a 200-year journey to seek a new planet to live on, but the new world it found was devoid of any landmass. With nowhere to go, the FEDORA crashes onto the planet, plunging its occupants into the watery depths, which they’ve learned to colonize. Meanwhile, Harold’s mentor and resident scientist, Mareaux, attempts to find a power source to launch the ship back into space to find a more suitable planet to live on.

In the meantime, as Harold, you interweave through the lives of the FEDORA’s inhabitants, the ship’s politics, and its inner workings. It’s a monotonous process that involves checking off Harold’s tasks on his PDA-like device, as you move through his day-to-day life in the quirky retro-future spaceship. But Harold’s life takes an abrupt turn after discovering a humanoid fish-like being has boarded the ship, creating a whole new perspective on the planet they’ve, in fact, been sharing all these years. It’s in this moment that Harold’s seemingly monotonous life is turned on its head, inspiring curiosity in what lies beyond the only world he’s ever known.

Harold Halibut

Harold Halibut is striking in its visuals because it’s entirely handmade. Characters, articles of clothing, pieces of furniture, teapots, mugs, floorboards, and everything else was handmade in our real world and digitally scanned into the 3D game. Its visuals instantly distinguish Harold Halibut as one of the most visually interesting games of the year. But while it’s easy to get swept up in the awe of its look, the strongest characteristic of the game is the world itself and the characters within it.

Harold Halibut is entirely focused on exploration, conversational choices, and the occasional challenge-free minigame. At its core, Harold Halibut is focused on the world and the characters that inhabit it, which, story aside, is where the game is at its best. While you may play as Harold, it’s the characters you interact with who give the game a sense of intimacy and, over time, a feeling of density that shows there’s actually a lot going on–these are the game’s biggest achievement.

Across my 18 hours, I met nearly two dozen characters, each with their own story to unpack, and I loved all of them. More than the discovery of an alien species, or the urgency to find a power source for the ship, my biggest motivation was to get to know each and every person aboard the FEDORA. Whether it was the comical musings of the sports store owner Slippie, or the by-the-book Major who enforces the ship’s laws, each character is multifaceted, with deep personalities to learn, explore, and oftentimes see challenged.

While most of the time spent with these characters is completely optional, the game’s most important and consequential moments, both hilarious and heart-wrenching, start and end with the citizens of FEDORA. The conversations can feel inconsequential in the grand scheme of the game’s plot, but are invaluable to making this handmade world feel alive and lived in.

With the abundance of characters also comes a desperate need to keep track of them. Early in my time with the game, before I had become well acquainted with the cast of characters, I was often confused with who was who and where they were located. The game’s lack of waypoints was to its benefit, however, as this kept me engaged in using the ship’s signs to navigate its many sectors, but also better learn and remember these characters, as I would with people in real life. However, those early stages also created unnecessary friction by causing me to bumble around and waste time. This could have been alleviated with the addition of an in-game glossary to remind me who is who that could have existed in Harold’s PDA.

Harold Halibut

Each character is as distinct in their looks as they are their views on life–even with the shared perspective of living in the confines of a small colony underwater. It’s their stories that gives the FEDORA believability and lends the game a prevailing heart and soul that overshadows all of the game’s other plotlines. But its achievement of creating a rich cast of characters also gives rise to struggles in properly exploring them under the weight of its other story ambitions.

Aside from the thoughts and feelings of its very broad cast of characters is an abundance of ideas and narratives driving the main plot. These range from unpacking a corporation’s ulterior motives, to a secret society lurking in the shadows, to the urgency to locate a power source for the FEDORA. And while they are no doubt necessary to tell an overarching story, they feel like ideas that are too big for the dollhouse-sized nature of Harold Halibut.

As Harold’s world aboard a spaceship begins to collide with the alien world he’s been living on, he makes friends with the planet’s inhabitants, which are known as the Flumuylum. The fish-like humanoids’ philosophies are a complete contrast to that of humans, though also pretty much what you’d imagine what it would be like if fish were humans: a species that simply floats along through life, existing and observing, giving little to no meaning to anything. This mentality crashes head-on with Harold’s everyday existence: a life that boils down to routinely taking orders and doing what other people expect of him, often in service of the ship’s corporation-based ethos and in adherence to arbitrary rules like having a curfew or paying for its water tube transportation system. The duality between Harold’s and the Flumuylum’s lives are juxtaposed for several hours in the game, until Harold is forced into a crash course in existentialism towards the latter half of the game, causing him to question whether or not he was ever in control of his own life. The scene was a tonal whiplash as the game made a hard turn to answer questions that it had only just begun to ask, and in doing so, felt more clunky than enlightening.

Harold’s abrupt journey of introspection is sandwiched on top of and between the stories and ideologies of other characters, as well as the game’s overarching plots and conspiracies. No one idea or theme felt like it had the breathing room it needed or deserved, which means they can feel more like fleeting concerns instead of food for thought. For example, one scene hints at themes of the industrialization, pollution, and consumption of animal products by the human race, only to never refer to it again, or even set up a satisfying throughline for its purpose in the first place.

In trying to weave its characters, story, and themes together, I found its focus to become muddled. With such an emphasis on all its characters, and by making them an integral part of the game’s core experience, Harold ends up being the only character that has a substantial narrative arc–he sees his world through the lens of a mere errand boy but has his world turned upside down, creating a perspective that gives his life more meaning by the end. But in spending the time to do this, the game, in turn, leaves many threads for the other characters I had grown attached to feeling unfulfilled. By the time the climatic end unfolds, I was less interested in the conspiracies behind the events that transpired and more focused on the growth of the characters.

Harold Halibut is at its strongest when intimately exploring its characters, their inner workings, and their relationships with one another. But in attempting to build towards a dramatic conclusion, many of the hours spent fostering relationships with the characters took a backseat to plotlines that were less interesting.

To quote one of the game’s own characters, Buddy the mailman, “each person aboard this ship is a world their own.” In a story about a man trapped on a ship, who is trying to understand himself better, their lives and perspectives should be the most important stories to tell for Harold’s journey. Harold Halibut’s world and the people that inhabit it were literally crafted by people that cared about him and his story. And while that story struggles under the weight of its ambitions, the human touches on every part of it are evident. Those are the heart and soul of the game, and they imprinted on me too.

Children Of The Sun Review – One Shot

It only takes a single bullet to burn down an empire. That’s the ethos behind Children of the Sun, an excellent supernatural puzzle-shooter from solo developer René Rother and publisher Devolver Digital. Like many of the games in Devolver’s vast library, Children of the Sun is wonderfully stylish, violent, and built on a unique gameplay hook; think Sniper Elite mixed with Superhot and you’re on the right track without quite telling the whole story.

You play as a protagonist known simply as The Girl, a one-woman wrecking crew waging a vengeful war against the eponymous cult that ruined her life. As one cultist after another is turned to mincemeat behind the vindictive crosshairs of your sniper rifle, you gradually make your way up the food chain until coming face-to-scope with your true target: The Leader. While embarking on this blood-soaked killing spree, hand-drawn flashbacks reveal tidbits about the atrocities committed by this mysterious cult and The Girl’s reasons for seeking revenge.

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Now Playing: Children Of The Sun GameSpot Video Review

There’s no dialogue during these cutscenes; instead, the narrative is intentionally minimalist, bombarding you with unnerving memories that are both terse and chaotic. This scattershot approach makes it difficult to glean all of the available information–perhaps deliberately so–which means you might feel lost and slightly detached from the story at times. It’s all complemented by a discordant soundscape of ambient white noise that matches the game’s striking art style–composed of deep purples and vivid yellows–and gritty, surreal tone. The game’s arresting aesthetic paints a picture of a brutal world of saturated filth, where cultists defile seedy motels, gloomy forests, and derelict apartment buildings, spreading their deceitful disease like plague-infested rats.

For as evocative as Children of the Sun’s story, visuals, and music are, it’s the innovative gameplay where it truly shines. At the beginning of each level, you’re able to move The Girl either left or right on a predetermined path. Sometimes, you can navigate around a level in a full 360-degree circle, while other times, you may only be able to move a few yards before being impeded by a fallen tree or steep riverbank. From here, you can get a lay of the land, mark enemies, and determine the best position to fire from. Once you’ve aimed down the scope and pulled the trigger, the camera snaps to the crown of the bullet as it hurtles through the air. Blood spatter and disintegrated flesh usually follow, but the catch is that this is the only shot you’ll fire for the duration of the level.

The Girl’s backstory pulls from a classic fiction trope where a young girl discovers she has latent supernatural powers once she reaches puberty. Each time a bullet is propelled through a cultist’s skull, time slows down to a crawl, and The Girl’s psychic abilities let you take control of the round and re-aim, allowing a single bullet to cleave through an entire enemy compound in one fell swoop.

Initially, you can only move the bullet in a straight line from one enemy to the next, ping-ponging between them like a murderous pinball machine, and this makes your first shot the most crucial. From that initial point of impact, you need to chart a course through every other enemy until none are left alive. This is easier said than done, of course. While some enemies remain stationary, others are walking around, circling the entire map in a car, and sitting out of view of your initial vantage point. Considering all of this, you might have to finish a level by ensuring that the penultimate kill provides a clear sightline of the final cultist, who was hidden until now. There are wrong ways to do this, but there isn’t a definitive right way, so experimentation is incentivized and rewarded.

Children of the Sun is wonderfully stylish, violent, and built on a unique gameplay hook; think Sniper Elite mixed with Superhot and you’re on the right track without quite telling the whole story

As you progress through the story and more enemy types are introduced, you’re given additional powers to counteract the likes of shielded and armored cultists and the increasingly elaborate environments they’re inhabiting. The first of these powers lets you take direct control and gently curve bullets like James McAvoy in the 2008 film Wanted. This is useful for firing over walls and bending the shot so it lurches downwards and hits the cultist on the other side, or simply tweaking the bullet’s trajectory to guarantee it lands on-target.

Another ability reveals enemy weak points, which, when destroyed in a hail of slow-motion blood, grant you the power to redirect the bullet in mid-flight. Using this, you can fire past a shield-wielding enemy and then spin the bullet around to nail them in the back of the head, entirely negating their bullet-proof protection. Other times, you might use this technique to escape a building and re-enter it elsewhere or fire into the sky to provide a better view of the area and uncover a previously elusive enemy.

Armored cultists, meanwhile, provide an altogether different challenge. The only way to penetrate their thick armor is by using a power shot–achieved by holding down the trigger for the duration of the bullet’s flight. These shots necessitate a large enough distance between targets to build up the requisite velocity needed to blow through armor, so figuring out how to remove these enemies is a unique problem. Doing so is always a thrill, though, as you get the gratification of seeing the bullet reach supersonic speeds before blasting through the cultist’s now-useless defense.

Finding a solution to each level’s grisly puzzle is immensely satisfying, especially when trial and error is abundant. Your first few attempts might revolve around tentatively exploring to find where all of the cultists are located and then figuring out the best way to carve through each one. You can sometimes use the environment to your advantage, too, shooting vehicles’ fuel caps and gas canisters to eliminate multiple enemies in one vehement explosion. You could blow up a car just to attain a better angle or snipe a pigeon flying overhead to gain a bird’s eye view of the area. I wish there were more opportunities for environmental kills besides destroying vehicles and explosive barrels, but restricting how you can interact with the world around you adds to the challenge and sense of achievement when you emerge victorious.

Gallery

At around three hours in length, Children of the Sun is a relatively brief experience. Usually, this would be a blessing in disguise for a game that doesn’t diversify from its core conceit too often, yet I still found myself desperate for more. Fortunately, replayability is rife, as the game’s scoring system encourages you to go back and replay previous levels to achieve a better rating. Headshots are scored differently from leg wounds, just as you earn more points for better timing and efficiency, while leaderboards create a sense of competition. Completing a level also reveals an excellent snapshot of the flight path of your bullet, which the game makes easy to share on social media for some extra fulfillment.

Children of the Sun’s unconventional approach to sniping is consistently thrilling and wholly satisfying. It might be full of gruesome blood spatter and cracked skulls, but it’s also the thinking person’s shooter–more of a delightfully macabre puzzle game than anything else. It’s admittedly short, and the game’s longevity will largely depend on how hard you fall for its inventive and bloody puzzles. That shouldn’t be a problem when it’s so difficult not to. And even if it’s relatively one-note, Children of the Sun plays that note with such morbid aplomb that it’s easy to recommend.

Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection Review – Fire Away

I spent many a weekend afternoon playing the first two Battlefront games back in 2004 and 2005, my friends and I sinking hundreds of hours into our repeated efforts to conquer the galaxy, recreate battles from the Star Wars movies, and theorize why the video game version of General Grievous was so much stronger than his movie counterpart. Heck, my hope that we’d one day see a Clone Wars animated series that focused on exploring the clones’ individuality was born from Battlefront 2’s wonderfully narrated 501st Journal. Now that I think about it, much of my love for Star Wars can be traced back to the first two Battlefront games. But that doesn’t change that their dated mechanics and the unbalanced nature of their unrewarding tug-of-war matches don’t hold up two decades later. And Aspyr Media does not address these issues in Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, a collected pack of the two games, leaving them feeling like relics of a bygone era that aren’t worth playing in this shape today.

Pandemic Studios’ Battlefront and Battlefront 2 (not to be confused with EA DICE’s 2015 Battlefront and 2017 Battlefront 2) are both shooters that focus on Star Wars’ Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War periods, seeing you step into the boots of ordinary soldiers who participate in the conflicts. Mechanically, both games play very similarly to one another, though Battlefront 2 adds to the first with space battles, playable heroes (who are notable characters from the Star Wars movies like Yoda and Darth Vader), and a more story-driven campaign that ties into Revenge of the Sith.

The 501st Journal is still great.

Each army features four standard soldier archetypes. You’ve got your assault rifle-wielding standard trooper, long-range sniper user, heavy-hitting rocket launcher demolitionist, and a support soldier who excels at short-range combat and fixing up vehicles. Beyond those four, each army has additional special units–the Republic Clone Army has the jetpack-equipped Jet Trooper, for example, while the CIS has the roly-poly Droideka. Because the main units all handle the same for the most part, you don’t have to learn entirely new mechanics for each class, while the more specialized troopers add a bit of distinct flair to each army. I like it–it makes it easy to pick up both games while also ensuring the gameplay doesn’t grow stale quickly.

The collection includes six maps that were added as post-launch content to both games (one for Battlefront and five for Battlefront 2) as well as two playable heroes in Battlefront 2 who were previously Xbox-only DLC (Kit Fisto and Asajj Ventress). Beyond that, there are some changes to the gameplay, such as to Hero Assault, a Battlefront 2 game mode that sees all the playable Star Wars heroes face off against the villains. In the original Battlefront 2, this mode could only be played on the game’s Tatooine map, but the Battlefront Collection makes the mode available on all ground-based maps. In addition, the collection adds cross-gen multiplayer support (but no cross-play, unfortunately) and increases the number of players per match to 32v32.

It’s those improvements that irk me, as they’re evidence that Aspyr Media did make efforts to change and improve aspects of the original games. And that’s good! Great, even. But this decision throws what wasn’t adjusted into stark contrast and highlights how outdated Battlefront and Battlefront 2’s gameplay is. It locks the Battlefront Collection into this weird space where it’s neither a good remaster nor a completely accurate preservation of the original games.

Both Battlefront and Battlefront 2 really show their age in Classic Collection.

But even without that observation, it’s clear that what was once great gameplay for a console shooter has lost its luster after 20 years. Battlefront 2 fares a tad better than the original game, given how it was able to make improvements to the first Battlefront’s mechanics back in 2005–soldiers can sprint, the details of characters are sharper so it’s easier to discern targets from further away, and maps are larger so firefights are more spread out. Plus, Battlefront 2 just has a more compelling campaign. Even if the story is no longer part of the Star Wars canon, witnessing the rise of the 501st Legion during the Clone Wars and subsequent transformation into Vader’s Fist during the Galactic Civil War is still a compelling viewpoint for the Clone Troopers’ view of the Star Wars movies, strengthened by the chilling narration of actor Temuera Morrison (Attack of the Clones’ Jango Fett, The Book of Boba Fett’s Boba Fett). His monologue of the troopers’ silence as they march into the Jedi Temple to execute Order 66 is still one of my favorite moments from any Star Wars story, and 20 years later, it hasn’t lost its impact.

Even if the story is still interesting to experience, however, the act of playing through it isn’t all that fun. Movements are sluggish and aiming isn’t precise, promoting the use of soldiers armed with automatic weapons over the others. The other classes are serviceable, but the gameplay clearly pushes you away from them, making every firefight feel increasingly the same. There’s no incentive to branch out and master the other classes–victory is achieved by whittling down the other team first, so killing as many people as fast as you can is ideal, and that’s just easier with an assault rifle or minigun than a sniper rifle or pistol.

Battles in the offline campaign and online multiplayer also suffer from imbalance–once one side takes the lead, they almost always win. It’s clear there’s meant to be some sort of tug-of-war element to each match, as each side fights over command posts, but it rarely plays out that way. Your side can only spawn from command posts your side has captured, so once one side has more command posts than the other, it’s easier for that side to pressure the losing side as the number of places where the losing side can spawn shrinks. This creates a slog where it becomes quite clear about halfway through a match which side is going to take the win, and you’re just left playing out the rest of the time to witness a conclusion that you saw coming. Heroes alleviate this a bit in Battlefront 2. If a player does well enough before being killed, they can spawn as their army’s hero for that map, and certain heroes can change the tide in an instant (especially the villains on the CIS and Empire, who are all around stronger than the good guys for the Republic and Rebellion). This would be a great counterbalance to the uneven nature of Battlefront 2 if heroes could be summoned more regularly but, as is, they’re just too tricky to unlock if you’re on the losing end of a battle. It’s hard to do well when the enemy is closing in around you. This issue is even worse in the original Battlefront, which doesn’t have playable heroes.

Why do the bag guys get all the cool powers in Battlefront 2?

The moment-to-moment gameplay of each match isn’t all that fun either. Firearms aren’t very precise, relying on a generous auto-aim feature that feels like it’s rewarding me for pointing my gun roughly in the right direction instead of actually landing a precise shot. When I was a kid, I was always just happy that my friends and I won, but now as I see the “victory” message splash across the screen, all I can wonder is how it happened. I can’t point to what in my performance led to my team winning as opposed to losing, leaving little opportunity to think back and improve. There’s an uncomfortable amount of luck associated with victory–more than I want in a shooter.

The space battles in Battlefront 2 don’t feel much better. It’s telling that the campaign still lets you skip them outright if you want, like an admission that they aren’t very fun (which is true). Though the concept of manning a starship and flying out to meet the enemy, whittling away at their capital ships or flying into their hangar to sabotage their systems from the inside is initially thrilling, it very quickly loses its appeal once you realize all matches play out pretty much the same. There’s next to no variety to Battlefront 2’s different space maps, so your strategy for one tends to work on all of them–you don’t have to adapt, leaving the gameplay feeling stagnant. Plus, the starships in Battlefront 2 don’t handle very well, making it frustratingly tricky to maneuver through dogfights.

The biggest detriment against the Battlefront Classic Collection is that we’ve had more Star Wars games since their release that all improved upon what Battlefront and Battlefront 2 did. EA DICE’s two Battlefront games have sharper shooting mechanics that better reward precision and huge battlefields that prevent one side from quickly surrounding and destroying the other. 2020’s Squadron’s aerial dogfights are huge improvements over Battlefront 2’s space battles, with more responsive controls and greater variety to the maps. Sure, Battlefront Collection brings these elements together, but not in a way that’s strong enough to make this a more compelling experience than what’s already out there.

Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection is ultimately just disappointing. It’s unclear whether it wants to be a remaster or a collection that preserves two major games from Star Wars’ history, but in both instances, it fails. This is neither an accurate representation of what Battlefront and Battlefront 2 were, nor does it make enough adjustments to bring two decades-old games into the modern era. The result is a collection that’s not really fun to play, and well worth skipping.

Open Roads Review – Quick Trip

I once read in a very profound article published in a very prestigious magazine (okay, it was a TikTok) that “daddy issues” make artists while “mommy issues” make writers. I can’t attest to the science–or lack thereof–behind this statement, but as a writer born into a long line of guarded women who wielded pens as weapons, I can absolutely relate.

As such, I have a particular fondness for mother-daughter stories and the catharsis they can offer. When I heard the team behind Gone Home would be tackling the subject in their upcoming game Open Roads, I braced for a beautiful cross-country journey that would inevitably hit too close to home. However, while Open Roads has moments of relatability that are powered by solid dialogue, charming characters, and nostalgia, I was ultimately left underwhelmed by the walk-and-click exploration game. With a runtime too short to truly pull players in and an abrupt ending that leaves things feeling hastily resolved, Open Roads feels more like a pit stop than an adventure.

That’s not to say the game’s premise isn’t interesting. Open Roads begins shortly after the death of the Devine family matriarch, Helen, and follows her daughter Opal and her granddaughter Tess as they cope with loss and what to do next. Throughout the entirety of the game, we play as Tess, a 16-year-old high school student who is every bit as strong-willed, cheeky, and hopeful as most 16-year-old girls are. On top of her grandmother’s death, Tess is also processing her parents’ recent separation and the loss of her home, as she and her mother lived with Helen but were not given the house upon her death.

While cleaning out her grandmother’s home, Tess and Opal stumble upon a suitcase buried within the attic walls and find what appears to be evidence of Helen’s secret life and a passionate love affair. With a week to go until the house is sold and an empty agenda, the pair set off on a series of short trips to get to the bottom of Helen’s mysterious life.

At each of the game’s handful of locations, you walk around as Tess and interact with objects from different time periods ranging primarily from the late ’60s to the early 2000s–the time the game is set in–that are sure to be familiar to many American millennials. Occasionally you’ll be able to pocket the items to use later, adding a slight puzzle element to what is otherwise a game driven by simple exploration, though these moments are few and far between. Certain items will also prompt you to call for your mom, who will chime in, add context, or mull over your findings with you. All this makes for straight-forward gameplay that can, unfortunately, start to feel a bit dull as the game goes on.

Outside of exploring the game’s dusty abodes and dimly lit motels, Tess spends most of her time riding shotgun in her mom’s late-’90s sedan. There, she’ll have the chance to cycle through mostly static-filled radio stations, chat with her mom, or use her trusty flip phone to text her father or best friend. Yet for a game titled Open Roads, your time spent on the road is extremely brief and only happens a handful of times, which ultimately takes away from the road-trip experience and doesn’t help to break up its repetitive gameplay.

This is a recurring issue, as the game in its entirety is too brief to effectively address everything it sets up or fully establish a deep sense of relatability and emotional connection. This is a shame considering the underlying plot is interesting and the game’s characters are very endearing. Though Kaitlyn Dever and Keri Russell might be known for their live-action careers, the pair bring a lot of personality to Tess and Opal respectively. Even Helen, who has no speaking parts and appears in the game only through grainy photographs, has a lot of personality. In fact, her vivaciousness is a frequent subject of discussion between Tess and Opal, who both exhibit her more free-spirited behavior, albeit in different ways. This is another aspect of the game I really enjoyed, as it’s all too often that mothers are written as protective, worrisome, uptight, and relatively flat–Open Roads avoids falling into that trap.

However, I also think Open Roads pivots a bit too far away from this mother-daughter tension. Sure, Tess and Opal do have their spats and Opal frequently expresses frustration towards some of her late mother’s actions, but for a pair going through grief, divorce, major life transitions, and betrayal, there’s a lack of drama that turns into a lack of evolution and catharsis. Between its overall brevity and hesitation to dig into messiness–humanness, even–Open Roads puts up a bit of a wall between the player and its story. As a result, I found I liked its characters, but I didn’t feel much towards them. While they were relatable enough, I didn’t find myself in them.

Sure, not all mother-daughter relationships are contentious or imitate Lady Bird, but in shying away from the emotional, you lose, well, emotions. For example, even with all the big plot points unraveling around them, the most impactful conversation in the game, to me, was the one Tess and Opal have after Tess accidentally leaves her phone at the hotel and demands they go back. As an adult, you’re able to see the situation rationally: It makes sense to finish up the drive and grab the phone on the way back–it’ll only be a night without it, after all. But Tess’s dialogue options are limited and a bit more intense than usual–she needs her phone. And despite being 30 years old, I still felt that desperation.

It’s clear that Open Roads wants to have meaningful conversations about generational trauma, the oft-dismissed complexity of mothers, and how humans have different ways of showing love, a fact that can lead to pain when misunderstood, and I wanted to have them too. Yet it doesn’t offer the time or vulnerability to dig into these interesting topics. And while some of its story beats are unique, or offer at least a slight variation on ones we’ve perhaps seen before, all of these stories end somewhat abruptly and without much fanfare or introspection.

Where the game does succeed in storytelling, however, is in its environments. Presumably thanks to the studio’s pedigree and history of working on exploration games like Gone Home and Tacoma, you can tell there is an understanding of how to make locations nostalgic without pandering, interesting but not overwhelming, and immersive but not disjointed. Though I’m slowly discovering that a lot of first-person exploration games make me a bit nauseous (definitely a “me” problem here, so I don’t fault Open Roads), I really enjoyed walking around the environments the studio created. There were so many objects and pieces of decor that reminded me of the ones I grew up with, and it was interesting to note how these objects–and the memories attached to them–moved me more deeply than a lot of the game’s conversations.

At every location, there were little reminders–be it newspaper clippings, a Blockbuster copy of Clueless, or a CorningWare-style casserole dish–of the time that had passed. Sure, this sense of place is aided by some of Tess and Opal’s conversations–I particularly loved the one in which Tess admits to her less-computer-inclined mother that her idea of a wild Friday night consists of pizza rolls and The Sims, because same–but a heavy amount of lifting is done by the artistry and detail put into creating these locations.

I also really enjoyed Open Roads’ character art, which feels inspired by the animated films ’90s kids grew up watching. The style stands out against the more realistic-looking environments and works well with the game’s voice acting, though the lack of proper lip-syncing did feel awkward at times. More awkward, however, was the game’s sound, which felt almost incomplete. I had expected to hear songs and sounds that would take me back to 2003, yet they were noticeably absent. While I wasn’t expecting to hear “Stacy’s Mom” or “Hey Ya!” pop on the radio, having multiple radios and TVs that you could interact with that did effectively nothing was a bit of a letdown.

It’s unfortunate that “letdown” and “underwhelmed” are words I’ve used multiple times when talking about Open Roads because there’s still so much about the game that works. The overall narrative touches on some meaningful topics, there’s a fair amount of intrigue, plenty of well-crafted dialogue, some interesting characters, and a lot of heart. Yet most things fall frustratingly short or are cut off far too early, making the whole experience slightly lackluster. Despite being a game about a mother-daughter road trip, the game doesn’t go too far and that relationship is left only slightly altered rather than meaningfully examined and changed.

Pepper Grinder Review – Short And Spicy

It only takes a glance to understand Pepper Grinder’s inventive gimmick. A small girl named Pepper–a pirate by trade–wields a drill named Grinder that’s roughly the size of her entire body. The gear allows her to grind through soft surfaces with ease, complete with the ability to launch out of the surface with a leap. That might have been enough to carry the game by itself, but what’s most surprising about Pepper Grinder is its sheer variety. Though it’s short, that brevity helps to make the campaign a no-filler thrill ride that continuously pushes the boundaries of its central mechanic.

It turns out Grinder is a pretty versatile tool, even regarding its most basic function. You can burrow through the ground, which immediately feels natural and smooth. At the same time, you can’t simply turn on a dime with an instant about-face like a typical platformer–you have to handle turns by curving an arc out of your drilling path. Additionally, when you pop out of the surface of the dirt, you won’t gain much distance unless you jump just before breaking through. Those little touches give the core mechanic a sense of finesse, imitating the feeling of a playful dolphin–or at least, a dolphin video game like the classic Ecco.

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Now Playing: Pepper Grinder GameSpot Video Review

Once you get the hang of it, drilling through soil and leaping out of the surface in a perfect arc, only to catch another piece of soft ground in the distance and continue your digging, feels thrilling and acrobatic. The drillable surfaces are nicely differentiated from hard environmental pieces, so you quickly learn to read a level and see the path through it, evoking a feeling similar to performing a great run in Tony Hawk. Collectibles like gems are scattered strategically throughout the stages to both subtly guide your eye along the path, while also sometimes setting traps for your greed.

Aside from being a traversal tool, Grinder is also your primary and often only weapon. It’s not enough to simply run into most enemies with a spinning drill, though–they often have their own specific approach to defeat them, like beetles with a hard upper carapace who need to be stabbed from the underside by burrowing underground. The main enemies, a breed of vicious narwhal-like creatures with horns on their head, are just as capable of hurting you with a head-on collision as you are of hurting them. None of the regular enemies are terribly tough by themselves, but they introduce new ways of approaching stages and obstacles as you need to get around them or through them to continue on your path.

A platformer with a standout hook like this one probably could have coasted on it, but Pepper Grinder doesn’t rest on its laurels. Instead, it consistently introduces new elements to master. These either integrate with your balletic burrowing or provide a change of pace from it. Grabbing a key with your drill will make it turn a lock, and you can use the kinetic energy to power machines. You’ll also shoot from cannons, drill holes into the bottoms of ships to make them take on water, carve through skyscrapers to make them collapse as you traverse through, and even pilot a giant mech. What appears at first to be a simple tool gives way to constant delightful little surprises.

A series of boss battles ramp up the difficulty nicely, taking the skills you’ve learned and putting them to the test. The first is relatively straightforward, as you dodge projectiles by moving through the soil and wait for the opportune moment to attack from the underside, while the second severely limits the amount of soft ground available and challenges you to leap high into the air to do damage. They progress from there, including one tough encounter with another human-like character that has roughly your size and agility. All this leads to a final boss encounter that is one of the most tense and difficult retro platformer bosses I’ve seen in a long time, which felt satisfying to overcome.

And on top of all this, Pepper Grinder carries itself with a cute, pixel-punk personality. Pepper’s diminutive sprite artwork has a charm to it, like how she revs up her trusty drill threateningly when coming face-to-face with a boss, or how she raises her pirate flag to declare victory in an area. The enemies can sometimes be seen doing their own pirate duties before you crash their party. And though story sequences are few and far between, they were just enough to explain what was going on with mimed, dialogue-free action. A short story sequence just before the final boss even made me laugh out loud.

This gentle giant is one of the fantastical creatures in Pepper Grinder.

Gallery

At such a breakneck pace of new ideas, Pepper Grinder doesn’t last very long, which is to its credit. I finished the campaign in roughly four hours, which is a relatively short playtime. Every stage also has a time-trial option, and there are still collectibles and cosmetics to unlock like stickers and hairstyles. The most important collectibles are Skull Coins, a limited resource–five per stage–that can be used to unlock special bonus stages in each of the four worlds. These are used to further explore gameplay concepts that had been introduced in the main stages. The first one, for example, takes the cannon mechanic to its logical conclusion with an entire stage built around ping-ponging from cannon to cannon, which felt pleasanlty reminiscent of Donkey Kong Country’s famous barrel stages.

Perhaps because of its brevity, I enjoyed every minute, and I appreciate the rare instance of a game that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Rather than slog through filler stages to pad its length, Pepper Grinder is bursting with new ideas for exactly as long as it can sustain that momentum. There’s something admirable about approaching its length with that level of confidence. I would have loved to play even more, if it could have sustained that pace, but this felt like a conscious choice to let the best ideas shine.

Pepper Grinder is here for a good time, not for a long time. Every piece, from the core drilling mechanic itself to the various ways it manifests with cannons and mechs and more, feels meticulously engineered to teach you a new concept, wring the fun out of it, and then move on to the next. That sense of propulsion makes every moment fun and engaging. It’s a great little gem of a game which, like its heroine, may be small in size but makes every bit count.

MLB The Show 24 Review – Base Hit

A lot of people will tell you that Hank Aaron is the greatest to ever play the game of baseball. Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, is one of those people, and it’s easy to see why. You only have to look at Hammerin’ Hank’s stats–755 home runs and 3,771 hits in Major League Baseball–his outstanding consistency across 23 big league seasons, or the fact that he achieved all of this after such humble beginnings. Growing up, Aaron had few opportunities to play organized baseball. In fact, he had few opportunities to even use the right equipment. Instead, a young Henry Aaron would take his mom’s broomstick and use it as a makeshift bat to hit bottlecaps–it’s no wonder he ended up being so good.

I knew of Hank Aaron’s incredible career, but supplemental details like this are part of what makes Storylines such a captivating and enlightening experience. If last year’s game was all about introducing this brilliant and groundbreaking new mode, then MLB The Show 24 is more about fine-tuning the existing framework. This isn’t an uncommon approach for annual sports games, and while Sony San Diego’s latest baseball sim might not seem as fresh or exciting as last year’s offering, it still plays an excellent game of baseball while possessing a tangible reverence for the sport’s rich history and inherent romanticism. Players are more than just stats and numbers, after all.

This is where Storylines comes in, and it’s once again the highlight of the whole package. Like any good TV series, MLB The Show 24 returns with a second season of The Negro Leagues, exploring an era of baseball that has often been overlooked and forgotten. At launch, there are four stories to play through, shining a spotlight on the aforementioned Henry “Hank” Aaron, as well as Josh Gibson, Walter “Buck” Leonard, and Toni Stone, with more set to arrive in forthcoming updates.

MLB The Show 24

Bob Kendrick’s charismatic and insightful narration brings these tales to life, aided by slickly produced videos that weave in historical photographs, original artwork, and archival footage to paint a portrait of these players and their profound impact on baseball and American culture. In between these video packages, you’ll play through pivotal moments from each player’s career, from Aaron’s first hit as a member of the Milwaukee Braves to Josh Gibson’s decimation of MLB pitching in exhibition games–where he batted a ridiculous .426. Perhaps the most interesting collection of episodes focuses on the career of Toni Stone, a true trailblazer who became the first woman to play for a professional baseball team when she took Hank Aaron’s roster spot after he departed the Negro Leagues for the MLB.

Alongside these eye-opening tales, MLB The Show 24 also expands on the Storylines concept by adding a series on legendary New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter. By using a New York subway motif as the backdrop for Jeter’s story, the former captain recounts important moments from the first few years of his storied career as you travel along the tracks from 1996 to 2000. Starting with his first steps as an unheralded rookie to achieving legendary status as the Yankees won three consecutive World Series titles, Jeter gives you an insight into his and the team’s mindset during this monumental run. There are also three side stories that center on the other members of the Yankees’ Core Four: Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte. These stories are brief, consisting of a single video package, but completing each additional mission unlocks their player cards for use in Diamond Dynasty.

As a Yankees fan, I enjoyed Jeter’s retelling of the era’s events, along with being able to recreate moments like his iconic jump-throw and a number of his clutch hits. Admittedly, however, it’s not the most interesting collection of stories. This is a team and player that won four championships in five years with little to no adversity, while Jeter himself was relatively drama-free off the field. It doesn’t make for the most compelling narrative, but the inclusion of Jeter’s Storylines does at least set a precedent for the series where we’ll hopefully see more engrossing tales in the future, whether the focal point is on a single Hall of Fame player or an entire team.

MLB The Show 24

Gallery

Road to the Show, meanwhile, lets you create and play as a woman for the first time. There are specific video packages that differ from those in the male career, with MLB Network analysts embracing the historical significance of a woman being drafted by an MLB team. A separate narrative based around you getting drafted alongside a childhood friend also differentiates the female career from the male side–which lacks any kind of story–while considerations like a private dressing room add an element of authenticity. The majority of cutscenes play out via text message, however, replacing the series’ previous narration with a hackneyed alternative.

The only other new addition to Road to the Show is the return of the Draft Combine, which gives you three games to improve your draft ranking by playing well against other prospects. While it’s good to see the combine back, it’s a fairly superfluous addition for those who simply want to choose which team to play for rather than leaving it up to fate. It also doesn’t take into account starting pitchers, dropping your draft stock because you’re only able to play in one of the three available games. The inclusion of women is a positive one, but Road to the Show is still in desperate need of an overhaul to its tired loadout system and bland presentation.

Franchise remains mostly the same, aside from one new addition with the potential to completely alter how you engage with the mode. Custom Game Entry Conditions is a setting that lets you simulate games until certain conditions are met, at which point you’re able to take control. You can customize these conditions based on how critical the situation is by tinkering with a situation-importance slider that ranges from low to very high.

You’re able to pick the earliest inning you’re willing to enter games, and can also ensure that you’ll always jump into player-highlight moments, such as finishing off a potential no-hitter or extending a batter’s hitting streak. With this setting, you might decide you only want to enter games during high-leverage situations in the ninth inning or play from the seventh inning onwards in tight games. This alleviates the grind of a full 162-game season while keeping you invested and making sure you have an impact on games that might mean the difference between making the playoffs or missing out on October baseball. The one side-effect of this addition is that Road to October and its truncated seasons now feel obsolete, but improving Franchise makes this a worthy trade-off.

Diamond Dynasty, the card-collecting and squad-building mode, is also not too dissimilar from last year’s game. The implementation of Sets and Seasons has been tweaked, with longer seasons giving you more playing time with season-limited cards. The amount of top-rated cards attainable at the beginning of a season has also been reduced to give you something to build towards.

Cards will now gradually escalate in power over the course of a single season so you won’t be rocking a 99-rated team after a single week. These are positive changes in what remains the most approachable of the many card-collecting modes in sports games, such is the ease with which you’re able to acquire great players without spending a dime. The plethora of single and multiplayer modes is also a feather in its cap.

MLB The Show 24’s on-field action remains stellar. For the first time, new rules like the pitch clock, slightly larger bases, and limited pick-off attempts have been implemented. Impact Plays, a new addition that emphasizes great defense, are also new, reinforcing the impact of spectacular diving catches and difficult throws. Impact Plays are possible anytime you’re player-locked, such as in Road to the Show. If there’s a possibility for a highlight-reel play, the game will slow down and task you with completing a quick-time event. How you perform here determines how successful the play will be. It feels great each time you’re able to rob a batter of a base hit by plucking the ball out of the air moments before it touches the ground or firing a laser beam to first base to beat a runner. I only wish Impact Plays were more frequent and were included as an option when controlling a full team.

The continued absence of an online Franchise mode and the stale nature of Road to the Show are disappointing aspects of this release, but MLB The Show 24 still maintains the series’ commendable output with fantastic gameplay and another collection of fascinating stories exploring The Negro Leagues and its players. A journey through the exalted career of Derek Jeter might not be quite as gripping, but it builds on Storyline’s established framework and lays down an exciting blueprint for the mode’s future. The addition of women in Road to the Show is another positive step, further reinforcing the overarching theme that baseball is for everyone, while the ability to customize how you play Franchise mode makes it a much more palatable proposition for those embarking on a 162-game season. MLB The Show 24 might not swing for the fences, but it’s still a great way to spend the looming summer months.

Anime News

New On Disney Plus In May 2024: Star Wars: Tales Of The Empire, X-Men ’97 Finale, And More

There’s a lot happening in May on Disney+, and the month gets off to a hot start on May 1 with the series finale of Star Wars: The Bad Batch and the first installment of the three-part X-Men ’97 Season 1 finale. The animated anthology, Star Wars: Tales of the Empire, will follow on this year’s Star Wars Day: May 4.

Pixar fans should also look forward to May 5, which will feature the debut of Monsters At Work Season 2. And on May 10, Doctor Who officially kicks off a new era with a two-episode premiere, with new episodes following on a weekly basis.

Disney+ also has a very strong lineup of rock documentaries this month, with The Beatles: Let It Be on May 8, Queen Rock Montreal on May 15, and The Beach Boys on May 24.

Check out the full list of content coming to Disney+ in May below. You can also check out our list for Hulu.

New to Disney+ May 2024

May 1

  • Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Season 3 – Episode 15 “The Cavalry Has Arrived”
  • Marvel’s X-Men 97 – Season 1 – Episode 8 “Tolerance Is Extinction Part 1”

May 4

  • Star Wars: Tales of the Empire

May 5

  • Monsters At Work – Season 2

May 7

  • Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story

May 8

  • The Beatles: Let It Be
  • Marvel’s X-Men 97 – Season 1 – Episode 9 “Tolerance Is Extinction Part 2”

May 10

  • Doctor Who – Season 1 – Episodes 1 & 2

May 15

  • Queen Rock Montreal
  • Marvel’s X-Men 97 – Season 1 – Episode 10 “Tolerance Is Extinction Part 3”

May 17

  • Doctor Who – Season 1 – Episode 3

May 24

  • The Beach Boys
  • Doctor Who – Season 1 – Episode 4

May 31

  • Jim Henson Idea Man
  • Doctor Who – Season 1 – Episode 5

Try Out New Tabletop RPG Adventures With This Massive Pathfinder Humble Bundle Deal

Yet another massive tabletop RPG book bundle is available at Humble Bundle this month, but unlike some of their recent collections that offer an entry point for new players, this new Classic Pathfinder Mega Bundle Part 1 is aimed at established Pathfinder players looking to expand their collection with new adventure modules, setting books, third-party expansions, and more. The materials in the Classic Pathfinder Mega Bundle Part 1 are compatible with Pathfinder 1E, so this is a great deal for anyone wanting to bust out their original Pathfinder rulebooks and roll a classic-style adventure.

Humble’s Classic Pathfinder Mega Bundle Part 1 comes in multiple buying options, with the full $25 bundle offering 69 digital books like the 300-page Southlands of Pathfinder expansion, as well the player’s guide, worldbook, and adventure modules for the third-party Midgard setting.

If you don’t want the full bundle, there is also a $5 tier that includes 24 books, and a $15 tier with 45 books. You can check out everything included in each bundle option at Humble.

Midgard Worldbook, Southlands: Adventures in the Pitiless Sun expansion, Gidgard Player’s Guide

The Classic Pathfinder Mega Bundle Part 1 will be available at Humble until May 5. It’s safe to assume the “Part 1” in the title means Humble will release a followup bundle like this in the near future. In the meantime, there are still a few days left on two other tabletop RPG deals at Humble, like the Pathfinder 2E Guns of Alkenstar Bundle, which is available until April 18. This bundle is great for first-time players, as it offers up to 18 books, including rulebooks and sourcebooks for the base Pathfinder 2E game and numerous supplements for the steampunk Alkenstar campaign setting. The deal’s full $40 tier even includes a physical copy of the Pathfinder: Guns & Gears sourcebook, which is something we rarely see in bundles like these.

The core rulebook for Pathfinder 1E is discontinued, but you can find preowned copies for as low as $22 on Amazon, in case you don’t already have it. Alternatively, you can buy a PDF for $20 directly from Paizo.

If you’re looking to branch beyond Pathfinder, you can grab digital versions of the official Avatar: The Last Airbender roleplaying game and numerous other tabletop RPGs in the Best of Magpie Games Bundle that’s available until April 20.

Brand-New Game Isn’t Out Yet, Getting TV And Movie Adaptations Anyway

Plenty of video games have made deals for film and TV adaptations, but it usually happens after a game is on the market. That’s not the case every time, though. The developers behind the upcoming game Spine have signed a deal with Sonic the Hedgehog movie producer Dmitri Johnson’s production company Story Kitchen for potential film and TV adaptations.

Spine, from developer Nekki, is a single-player game with close-quarter gun fights featuring a hero named Redline. Nekki CEO Dmitry Terekhin said to Variety, “We believe that truly great stories always stand out, and Spine universe will captivate audiences across any media.”

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Now Playing: SPINE – Early “Gun Fu In The Market” Gameplay Teaser

It’s still very early days for any possible Spine film or TV series, so there is no word yet on a cast or director, or where a potential adaptation could end up. It seems what’s happening here is Story Kitchen has snapped up the rights, just like it did with Dredge earlier this month.

“When we first learned of this upcoming game from Nekki, we lost our collective minds as Redline could not be more badass!” Story Kitchen’s Dmitri Johnson, Mike Goldberg, Timothy I. Stevenson, and Dan Jevons said in a statement.

Spine is in the works for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC, but there is no official release date yet. There are numerous video game movies in the works, and you can see more of them in the gallery below.

The next big video game movie is the Borderlands film, which arrives in August. A Minecraft movie is coming in 2025.

Netflix’s Wednesday Season 2 Adds Steve Buscemi To Cast

Wednesday’s Season 1 finale left an opening at Nevermore Academy, and it looks like the job has now been filled. Variety is reporting that veteran actor Steve Buscemi has joined the cast of Wednesday Season 2. While specific details about Buscemi’s character weren’t released, Variety’s sources indicate that he will be playing the new principal of Nevermore. Since his character’s predecessor, Larissa Weems (Gwendoline Christie), had powers, it stands to reason that the new principal will as well.

Buscemi has extensive experience in both film and television roles. Some of his most memorable movies include Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Con Air, Miller’s Crossing, and a leading role in Quentin Tarantino’s directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs. On TV, Buscemei headlined HBO’s Prohibition drama Boardwalk Empire for five seasons in addition to his stints on The Sopranos and Miracle Workers. Buscemi has also guest starred in 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Most of the cast of Wednesday Season 1 will return for the new season, including Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams. In a nod to her increased star power since the first season, Ortega is now a producer of the series as well. Ortega is also starring in Wednesday director Tim Burton’s upcoming sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Wednesday Season 2 is expected to begin filming in Ireland later this month. However, Netflix hasn’t set a premiere date for the new season yet.

Elgato’s Stellar Gameplay Capture Card Drops To Lowest Price Ever At Amazon

If you’re in the market for a dedicated capture card for consoles and PC, the Elgato HD60X is on sale for over $60 off at Amazon and Best Buy. Over at Amazon, you can snag the HD60X for $137.49 (down from $180). This deal is available to all customers, but Best Buy’s offer, which drops the price to $138, is only available to My Best Buy Plus subscribers ($50/year). Either way, this is the lowest price we’ve seen for the Elgato HD60X, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see this superb gameplay recorder for PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC sell out.

Beyond its class-leading performance, the Elgato HD60 X is easy to set up and doesn’t require any additional drivers on Windows or Mac. It’s also a sleek-looking device that won’t take up too much real estate on your battlestation. Once you’re ready to manage your footage, the HD60 X is fully compatible with third-party software like OBS and Streamlabs.

All of these features add up to make it one of the best capture cards available in 2024. And at this new low price, it’s an easy recommendation for anyone interested in streaming (or a current streamer that wants to up their game). More Elgato products aimed at streamers are on sale at Amazon right now. Check them out below:

Fallout Season 2 Could Introduce Deathclaws And Head To A New Location

Prime Video has yet to officially renew Fallout for a second season, but it seems likely, and now some of the key people working on the show have discussed what to expect in Season 2 if it gets made.

Jonathan Nolan, who directed the first three episodes of Season 1 and is an executive producer on the series overall, told The Wrap, “The challenge, especially with television, is in success, the hope that you get to go again.” He said when he was making Fallout Season 1, the aim was to create a “terrific season of television,” and he also thought about what could come next.

“I think at the same time, you’d be remiss, almost irresponsible, to not have started to talk about where your story could take you,” Nolan said. “So we have been talking from the beginning about how this would develop and evolve in subsequent seasons, if we should be so lucky.”

Nolan went on to say that there is “one locale in particular” that he would be excited to explore if Fallout was renewed for a second season. He did not say what this location is, however.

Co-showrunner Graham Wagner added that Season 2 could feature Deathclaws, which are genetically created creatures in the Fallout lore. The team wanted to have Deathclaws in Season 1, but decided to save them for Season 2 “to be able to do it properly.”

“So Season 2, we’re very excited to finally tackle one of the most iconic elements of the games,” Wagner said.

The other co-showrunner, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, said the team was tempted to try a “kitchen sink approach” and put many more Fallout elements into Season 1, but opted to save some for Season 2.

“We didn’t want to see the show to seem like it was written by people who just like spent 10 seconds reading the Wikipedia page for Fallout and didn’t bother to like bring in some deeper cuts,” Robertson-Dworet said.

The California Film Commission recently revealed that Fallout could move production to California for Season 2, though nothing is confirmed at this point.

For more, be sure to read GameSpot’s Fallout Season 1 finale breakdown to get a rundown of what happened in the last episode and what it all means.

Lego Starry Night Building Set Receives Rare Discount At Amazon

Sure, you could add some culture to your home with a replica print of one of the most iconic works of art, or you can do that and have fun with a Lego version of a couple of famous paintings. First, the Lego set based on The Great Wave off Kanagawa, painted by Japanese artist Hokusai in 1831. This artistic piece of buildable fun from Lego is rarely on sale, but right now, you can save $20 on this elegant collection of blocks at Amazon. This is the best deal yet for this eye-catching Lego Art set. Alternatively, you can buy the Lego Ideas Starry Night set, based on Vincent Van Gogh’s famous painting, for $149, down from $170. This set also rarely receives discounts, and Lego dubs it “hard to find.”

Available for $80 (normally $100), the Lego Art set captures the iconic majesty of the famed Japanese artwork by Hokusai.

Designed to be a piece of framed wall art when you’re done, this kit contains 1,810 Lego pieces, six canvas bases, two hanger elements, and a decorative tile with Hokusai’s signature replicated on it. Building Lego is usually quite cathartic, and to emphasize that relaxing feeling, Lego has provided a QR code to listen to a tailor-made soundtrack while you piece this set together.

It’s estimated that only 100 of the original Great Wave prints have survived, so this is also a terrific way to bring some art history to your home.

Lego Ideas Vincent Van Gogh The Starry Night

The 2,316-piece Starry Night Lego kit recreates the gorgeous painting in 3D wall art. Lego collaborated with MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art) to create The Starry Night, so it aims for authenticity. It even includes a Lego minifigure who is staring at a small version of the painting, as if they are at the museum. Just like The Great Wave set, The Starry Night is designed to be a piece of display-worthy art.

Naked Gun Remake Adds Iconic Baywatch Star To Cast

There is something to see here, as the Naked Gun remake has brought on Baywatch icon Pamela Anderson to star alongside Liam Neeson. Her role hasn’t been disclosed yet, but the actress will follow in the footsteps of the original film trilogy’s Priscilla Presley, according to a new report.

The Hollywood Reporter says Anderson will play the love interest of Neeson, who will play Drebin. In the original trilogy–including the TV show Police Squad–Leslie Nielsen hilariously brought Detective Frank Drebin to life. When the Naked Gun reboot was initially reported in development back in 2022, it was believed that Neeson may in fact play as the son of Nielsen’s Dreben.

Anderson rose to prominence in the 1990s, appearing in the first two seasons of Home Improvement and then starring in Baywatch from 1992-97. Her personal life has also been well documented, such as getting a Hulu limited series called Pam & Tommy in recent years. She also spearheaded her own personal project with Netflix’s Pamela: A Love Story that debuted last year.

Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers director Akiva Schaffer will helm the Naked Gun remake, as well as script the film with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand. They all worked together on the Disney+ movie that married live-action with animation. Schaffer is also known for being a member of Lonely Island and directing Hot Rod as well as Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.

The Naked Gun remake is planned to premiere in theaters July 18, 2025.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage Free Trial Is Out Now And On Sale

A free trial for the 2023 game Assassin’s Creed Mirage is available now on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One. The trial is also available for PC through the Ubisoft Store and the Epic Games Store, but not Steam, where the game was never released.

The trial allows users to play the first two hours of Mirage, and all progression carries forward for people who buy the game outright. The game supports cross-platform cloud saves, so people can play the trial on one platform and buy the game outright on a different one, and their saves will be intact.

Additionally, Ubisoft is offering 40% off Mirage’s standard and deluxe editions, bringing the prices down to $30 and $36, respectively.

This free trial for Mirage is going live just as the game welcomes its newest title update that adds a new Eivor outfit for all players to equip on Basim. You can see the new outfit in the video above.

Ubisoft has a number of upcoming Assassin’s Creed games in the works. The next one, Assassin’s Creed Jade, was reportedly recently delayed and is now coming in 2025. Beyond that, there is Assassin’s Creed Infinity–which will act as a hub for future games–as well as Codename Red, and Codename Hexe. These have not had any release dates announced.

Destiny 2 The Mountaintop Guide – How To Get It, Curated Roll, And God Roll

The second week of Destiny 2‘s Into the Light brings more fan-favorite weapons back to the game–including The Mountaintop, a breech-loading grenade launcher that dominated the Crucible for years after its release. While the new version of The Mountaintop isn’t quite the force of terror the original was, it’s still a pretty powerful option for your Special weapon slot, whether in player-vs.-player or player-vs.-environment content.

As with the other reprised weapons in the Brave arsenal, it’s possible to earn both a curated version of The Mountaintop and random rolls of the gun, which brings new options to the fore with a new perk pool. Here’s everything you need to know to unlock The Mountaintop, how to farm more rolls on it, and which copies of the gun you’ll want to keep for your god roll collection.

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How To Unlock The Mountaintop

As with the other weapons in the Brave arsenal released in Into the Light, you can get The Mountaintop by completing quests in the Hall of Champions and taking part in the new Onslaught activity. As with the other weapons, you’ll first need to complete the Feats of Strength quest with Lord Shaxx in order to unlock the full potential of the Hall of Champions. That also means knocking out the first weapon-specific quest you can pick up from Shaxx’s right-hand bot, Arcite 99-40, called Stranger Danger.

The second week of Into the Light sees the release of The Mountaintop and Midnight Coup, but to get them as rewards for completing Onslaught, you’ll first need to unlock them. With Feats of Strength done, you’re now able to pick up weapon quests from Arcite that cover all the available Brave arsenal weapons, including The Mountaintop.

Completing the Climbing the Mountaintop quest unlocks The Mountaintop as an Onslaught reward and also nets you the curated version.

Arcite’s Climbing the Mountaintop quest will unlock The Mountaintop. Like the other weapon quests, it has two different means of completing it:

  • Rapidly defeat combatants using Breech-Loaded Grenade Launchers anywhere in the system, with bonus progress for rapid final blows in Onslaught, or:
  • Defeat Guardians using Grenade Launchers

Grab a wave-frame grenade launcher like Forbearance to make quick progress on the quest, especially in Onslaught. Note that heavy grenade launchers won’t count for the quest, though–you need to use a breech-loader for progress to count.

Once you finish the Climbing the Mountaintop quest, The Mountaintop will start appearing as a random reward in Onslaught activities. You can also visit the hologram of Shaxx holding The Mountaintop to “attune” the weapon, which will increase the chance of receiving The Mountaintop from rewards chests while playing Onslaught.

Completing the quest will also net you your first version of The Mountaintop–Bungie’s curated roll on the gun, which is a pretty solid offering for PvE.

The Mountaintop Curated Perks

  • Barrel: Hard Launch
    • +15 Velocity, -10 Stability, -5 Blast Radius
  • Magazine: Spike Grenades
    • Grenades fired from this weapon do increased damage on direct hits
  • First Column: Lead From Gold
    • Picking up heavy ammo also grants ammo for this weapon
  • Second Column: One For All
    • Hitting three different targets with this weapon increases damage for a moderate duration
  • Origin Perk: Indomitability
    • Kills with this weapon provide grenade energy if you’re using a Light subclass, or melee energy if you’re using a Dark subclass

The Mountaintop God Rolls

The original version of The Mountaintop required completing a lengthy quest and was a PvP monster. The weapon shoots its grenades in a straight line thanks to the Micro-Missile perk (or Micro-Missile frame in the new version), which allows it to be a highly accurate way to deliver explosives. With the new group of perks available on the Brave arsenal version of The Mountaintop, it’s also more viable as a PvE weapon, while still being pretty formidable in PvP.

While there are a few viable combinations for The Mountaintop, in PvE, it can be solid for clearing weak enemies or dealing damage to tougher foes like bosses, depending on your preference. In PvP, the accuracy and high velocity of the grenades makes it great for slugging opposing Guardians. The Mountaintop won’t one-shot opponents like it used to, but it can still inflict some serious pain on the other team.

The Mountaintop PvE God Roll

The Mountaintop’s new slate of perks makes it pretty useful in both PvE and PvP content.
  • Barrel: Quick Launch
    • +10 Velocity, +15 Handling
  • Magazine: Spike Grenades
    • Grenades fired from this weapon do increased damage on direct hits; +10 Stability
  • First Perk: Auto-Loading Holster, Demolitionist
    • Auto-Loading Holster: The holstered weapon is reloaded after a short period
    • Demolitionist: Kills with this weapon generate grenade energy; using a grenade reloads this weapon
  • Second Perk: Frenzy or Recombination
    • Frenzy: Being in combat for an extended period increases damage, handling, and reload speed for this weapon until you’re out of combat
    • Recombination: Elemental kills increase the damage of this weapon’s next shot
  • Masterwork: Velocity

There are a bunch of potentially solid PvE perk combinations for The Mountaintop, depending on what you want to use it for. Auto-Loading Holster is a good general pick, since it’s always nice to have a grenade ready to shoot whenever you need it, while mitigating the need to worry about the speed of your reload. Demolitionist is also a good choice, especially with the synergy you get from Indomitability while using a Light subclass, helping you to get grenades back quicker and use them to skip reloading. Frenzy is a reliable boost to several stats, including damage, without requiring you to do anything to activate it, while Recombination can be great for making The Mountaintop hit hard against tougher enemies like Champions.

If you want to go all-in on grenades, though, there’s also Adrenaline Junky to pair with Demolitionist, and if you prefer to use The Mountaintop for clearing smaller enemies, One For All and Ambitious Assassin can help you fling more grenades quickly with additional damage.

The Mountaintop PvP God Roll

  • Barrel: Quick Launch
    • +10 Velocity, +15 Handling
  • Magazine: High-Velocity Rounds or Spike Grenades
    • High-Velocity Rounds: +10 Velocity, +10 Reload Speed
    • Spike Grenades: Grenades fired from this weapon do increased damage on direct hits; +10 Stability
  • First Perk: Auto-Loading Holster or Impulse Amplifier
    • Auto-Loading Holster: The holstered weapon is reloaded after a short period of time
    • Impulse Amplifier: Massively increases projectile speed, increases reload speed
  • Second Perk: Harmony
    • Final blows with other weapons increase this weapon’s damage and performance for a short period of time
  • Masterwork: Reload Speed or Handling

The Mountaintop’s effectiveness in PvP is in quickly delivering high damage with explosives, but unlike the original version of the grenade launcher, direct hits will no longer kill Guardians in one shot. That changes the equation on what you want from The Mountaintop, since in just about all cases, you’ll need to quickly swap to another weapon to close out the kill.

The Mountaintop’s strength has always been its accuracy, since it fires grenades in a straight line rather than over an arc like other launchers. Because of that, the higher you can get the Velocity stat, the more accurate and tougher to dodge your grenades can be. Handling is also important for helping with switching weapons on the fly, as is Reload Speed, particularly if you’re not using Auto-Loading Holster.

You might also want to check out the god rolls for The Recluse and make note of everything you need to do to unlock the Superblack shader.