Tag: Video Games

Nintendo’s Super Mario 3D All-Stars pack has fans excited and confused at the same time

This is weird.

Nintendo is doing it big for the 35th anniversary of “Super Mario Bros.”

For decades, Mario has been not only the face of Nintendo, but the general face of gaming period. Everyone knows who Mario is. The super powered plumber has been in our lives across multiple Nintendo consoles for decades. He’s given us so many memories.

Now, Nintendo is bringing some of those memories back. To celebrate the Super Mario Bros. franchise on Thursday during a Nintendo Direct presentation, they revealed their new Super Mario 3D All-Stars pack.

This is a collection of Super Mario games from previous consoles. It contains Super Mario 64 from the Nintendo 64, Super Mario Sunshine from the GameCube, and Super Mario Galaxy from the Wii. The pack hits the Switch on September 18.

Needless to say, Nintendo fans are super excited about the return of these classic games.

But they’re also very, very confused. That’s because while the games will be released on the 18th, they’ll also be available for a limited time only. The number of physical copies of the game will be limited in stock.

On top of that, the version available on the Nintendo eShop will only be available for purchase until March 31, 2021. After that, the game will disappear from the store and only be available to redownload.

Yes, there’s plenty of time and plenty of ways to get the game. But the way Nintendo is rolling this out is just… strange.

Fans had a lot to say about it. They’re worried it’s going to be scalped on theĀ  aftermarket.

It’s still unclear what Nintendo’s purpose in limited the game is, but it doesn’t matter. People are going to still buy it anyway.

All we can do is hope it gets in the right hands.

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See the reveal trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

This is looking great.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War reveal trailer dropped on Wednesday ahead of the game’s scheduled release on November 13th, giving gamers a glimpse of what next-gen Call of Duty will look like on PS5.

Cold War is a sequel to the original Black Ops, released in 2010. The announcement says that Cold War is set in the 1980s, but seems to jump around different periods of history, with a flashback to the Vietnam War.

A Cold War multiplayer reveal is set for Wednesday, September 9th. Cold War will also include a new zombies mode that has yet to be revealed.

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Twitter reacts to TimTheTatman finally winning a game of Fall Guys

He did it!

If you were wondering why “HE DID IT!” was trending on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon, it’s because Twitch streamer Tim The Tatman finally won a game of Fall Guys with more than 300,000 viewers watching. If you have no idea what any of that means, allow me to explain.

Fall Guys is a smash hit battle royale style platformer video game, where 60 people compete to be the last adorable little character standing. Imagine you’re controlling a character through the TV Series Wipeout, and you have Fall Guys. It’s a game anyone can play, and it’s hugely addicting to try to earn the elusive crown for winning a round.

Twitch star TimTheTatman started playing Fall Guys last week and endured day after day of failures. Whenever he came close to a victory, he would inevitably be one of the final players eliminated. Within days, TimTheTatman losing in Fall Guys became a Twitch meme.

On Wednesday, TimTheTatman finally picked up his first W, and Twitter celebrated.

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Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 is the sweet trip down memory lane we all need

Tony Hawk is back, fam.

2020Ā  has been an absolutely awful year. It’s been filled with tragedy after tragedy.

First, we lose Kobe and Gigi Bryant. Then, coronavirus. Now, we’re trying our best to eradicate all of the social ills that come with our society. It’s just all so much to deal with all the time.

That’s why it feltĀ so goodĀ to finally get my hands on a demo of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 set to release next month.

It turned out this game was the exact decompresser I needed to just…zone out with for a second. The thing was I had no idea it was going to be that. But almost immediately upon turning the game on, I felt it.

As a kid growing up, theĀ Tony Hawk Pro SkaterĀ series was the thing to play. I remember being so hype to just get the demo disc from Pizza Hut to play this game over and over again for just minutes at a time.

When I opened the demo on my PlayStation 4, some 21 years later, I felt that same feeling.

The music was the first thing that took me there. Immediately, in the game’s opening sequence, Light’s Out by Guerrilla Radio starts playing and I’m instantly taken back to the year 2000.

But, immediately, you can tell it’s not just a reproduction of the game. It’s a complete remaster. Graphically, it’s clearly a current generation game. But, internally, it’s a time capsule one finds themselves spending hours digging through.

The demo was set on the warehouse level from the original Tony Hawk’s Pro SkaterĀ game. The demo allows you to run a quick two minute skate session as Tony Hawk shredding through the level. There are no real goals. Just rack up as many points as you can.

As in love with this game as I was immediately, I was also terrible at it ā€” just like I was back in 2000 at just 8 years old.

My first run was only 8,117 points. A far cry from the 100,000 marks I used to hit back in the day, but whatever.

There was lots of wrecking. LOTS of it.

As time went by and memories came back, I got the hang of the controls and remembered some of the old tricks I used to do to rack up points. Lots of rail grinding, lots of nose planting, a bunch of constant 360’s and high air.Ā There were multiple attempts to land the 900, but they were all failures. It’s all good though. The effort was what counted.

Eventually, I finally eclipsed the 30,000 point mark. Not great, but totally good enough to be satisfied as an old and washed Pro Skater vet in his mid-20’s.

The thing was, as terrible as I was at it, putting the controller down felt impossible. This game took me back to aĀ muchĀ simpler time. Nostalgia is the best seller of all and this game was chock full of it. To go back in time, even for a just a few minutes, was such a treat.

We’ll see what the full game is hitting on when it drops in September. But, until then, the satisfaction of knowing that Tony Hawk is back in video game form just as good as he used to be is more than enough for me.

PGA Tour 2K21 impressions: What a sports sequel should be

The Golf Club has been reborn as PGA Tour 2K21 ā€“ set to release August 21st on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Switch.

There havenā€™t been many golf video games released on the current generation of consoles, but developer HB Studiosā€™ The Golf Club series has emerged as the best option on the market ā€“ though gamers who grew up on the more arcade-style Tiger Woods games may have struggled with TGCā€™s more demanding controls. The Golf Club has been reborn as PGA Tour 2K21 ā€“ set to release August 21st on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Switch ā€“ and HB Studios has taken several welcome steps to make video game golf much more accessible to everyone, while also preserving a serious challenge for the hardcore crowd.

FTW got the chance to play a preview version of PGA Tour 2K21 before its release later this month (on PC), and Iā€™ll cut to the chase. PGA Tour 2K21 is good. Itā€™s really good. Itā€™s a major step up from The Golf Club 2019 in several areas, and itā€™s the type of jump gamers are hoping for whenever they buy a new Madden or FIFA game.

The awkwardly-named The Golf Club 2019Ā featuringĀ PGA Tour did just that with regards to its PGA Tour license. You could play through a PGA Tour career ā€“ but the PGA Tour didnā€™t feel fully integrated into the game. PGA Tour 2K21 has raised the bar for presentation and implementation of actual PGA Tour players, and it has kept me invested into playing through the career mode this time around. As in previous games, you create your own player to compete against the best golfers in the world, and can choose to start your career either on the Korn Ferry Tour or the PGA Tour.

In 2K21, 12 actual PGA Tour pros ā€“ including cover star Justin Thomas, Bryson DeChambeau, Tony Finau and Patrick Cantlay ā€“ have been scanned and are represented in the game. During your rounds on Tour, youā€™ll periodically be shown a highlight reel shot from one of the 12 pros in between holes, which adds to the feel that youā€™re following an actual broadcast. If anything, these cutaways happen too frequently, but theyā€™re a nice touch. The leaderboard will be filled with other PGA Tour pros, including the ones who arenā€™t officially on the gameā€™s roster of pros.

The gameplay has gone through some huge changes to make the game more accessible, and fans of the old Tiger Woods games ā€“ or even Everybodyā€™s Golf ā€“ should feel more at home. By default, there is a power meter at the bottom of the screen that guides you on how far you should pull the club back, which makes choosing your club and executing much more straightforward than it used to be. The power meter is also present on the green, which means you wonā€™t have to rely entirely on feel as you did in previous entries of The Golf Club. Thereā€™s also a comprehensive tutorial at the start to get you up to speed. If you want more of a challenge, though, you can opt to turn all of the power meters off for a more traditional experience.

PGA Tour 2K21 welcomes new commentators to the series, Luke Elvy and Rich Beem, who do a fine job calling your career mode rounds. Commentary has always been a weak point of The Golf Club series, but Elvy and Beem are a big upgrade. Strangely, though, Elvy and Beem only appear in the career mode, but do not call any one-off rounds you set up, or rounds that will be played in societies mode. For those rounds, PGA Tour 2K21 relies on John McCarthy, who returns from previous games, but has a style that is far too casual for my taste. Apart from some event-specific lines Elvy and Beem recite at the start or the end of rounds in career mode, they seemingly should be able to serve as default commentators in every mode, and itā€™d be great to see HB Studios allow players to toggle between commentators outside of career mode.

A major strength of PGA Tour 2K21 is its course creator, which has been improved with hundreds of new assets you can use to turn your course design into a Tour-quality track. Even if you donā€™t have the desire to make your own course, you can play any published course from other creators (on any system), and within a few weeks, there will surely be hundreds of amazing player-created courses to play, in addition to the 15 licensed courses in the game.

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Jags rookies Laviska Shenault Jr., Collin Johnson, Jake Luton receive Madden 21 ratings

Three members of the Jags’ rookie class have received their “Madden NFL 21” ratings with Laviska Shenault receiving first-round pick numbers.

With “Madden NFL 21” set to come out next month, Electronic Arts has began to release the ratings for each rookie selected in the 2020 draft class. On Thursday and Friday, the respective ratings for the league’s rookie quarterbacks and receivers came out, which included Jacksonville Jaguars rookies Jake Luton, Laviska Shenault Jr., and Collin Johnson.

Luton, who was drafted out ofĀ Oregon State University, was selected the latest out of the trio (No. 189th overall). As a result, he was given a 59 overall rating, which is the lowest grade of the Jags’ rookie class so far. Luton’s best attribute is his throwing power, which comes in at a solid 87 rating.

Johnson, a fifth-round selection from the University of Texas, was given a 67 overall rating. He is a highly athletic receiver as evidenced by his 90 rated jumping attribute.

Shenault registered the highest rating among the Jags’ rookies, coming in with a 72 overall rating. The 6-foot-1, 223-pound receiver out of Colorado University is another incredible athlete on the Jaguars’ roster as evidenced by his ratings spread. He received a jump rating of 91 (his highest), but he has attributes that are actually similar to most running backs. For instance, Shenault’s ball carrying vision and juke move ratings came in at 85 and 89, respectively. For good measure Shenault’s tackle breaking rating came out to be an 82, which once again shows off how physical of a player he is.

While these numbers may seem low at first glance, rookies generally take a pounding in the ratings since their professional talent has yet to be established. If the season goes well for them, they may see a huge jump in their rating for the next “Madden NFL” installment.

How to watch EA Play 2020 on Thursday

See more of Star Wars: Squadrons and Madden NFL 21 on EA Play.

On the heels of Sony’s grand PlayStation 5 reveal last week, Electronic Arts will show off its slate of games for 2020 and beyond during Thursday’s EA Play Live show. We already know a few of the games EA plans to show off, most notably the upcoming space combat game Star Wars: Squadrons, and gamers are hoping for some big surprise reveals. Here’s everything we know about EA Play, and how you can watch.

What we can expect to see:

  • Star Wars: Squadrons gameplay
  • New Apex Legends content
  • FIFA 21
  • Madden NFL 21
  • NHL 21
  • A new Need for Speed game

You can watch the event here on YouTube.

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Fornite’s ‘The Device’ event ā€” and why so many people are furious about it ā€” explained

Fortnite servers filled up in one minute ā€” 30 minutes before scheduled start ā€” locking out fans who’d waited for weeks for the live event.

On Monday, Epic Games’ online multiplayer game Fortnite finally released teaser footage of Chapter 2, Season 3 of the game: “The Device.” The event drew outrage from fans who couldn’t take in the event live due to limited server space.

If the above sentences may as well have been written in German to you, you’re in luck: We’ve got you covered.

Let’s dive into the event, what happened, why some fans are so mad, and what the fallout from this is expected to be. Actually, before we get into all that, we’ll start at the basic stuff. Let’s get you caught up.

So what is this now?

Fortnite is an online multiplayer video game that’s immensely popular with gamers of all ages, as well as Drake.

The game has several different ways to play, including a 100-person “Battle Royale” where you go up against 99 other people online in what’s essentially a shoot-em-up free-for-all.

To keep the game fresh, Fortnite periodically introduces new seasons and chapters to change up the map and introduce new elements to the game. “The Device” was the event celebrating the launch of Chapter 2, Season 3.

Uh…what?

A popular video game was showing off a new map to its fans.

Got it. So what’s the issue?

“The Device” event had already been delayed three times, so fans were pretty antsy about finally seeing the new look of the game they love. The event was slated to start at 2 p.m. yesterday, but Epic Games told fans to show up at 1:30.

By 1:31, the servers were completely full and they couldn’t get anyone else in.

So it’s like tickets to a concert sold out.

Exactly! But unlike a concert venue, there isn’t any, like, fire code limiting capacity for the people who should be able to attend one of these events. Really, the only thing limiting the size of this event is the server space that Epic is willing to commit to it.

They committed enough server space for it all to fill up in one minute.

So fans are mad.

Yep. And it’s not just totally sour grapes ā€” Epic has shown it can get the server space to put on massive events. For a Travis Scott event they streamed, they handled massive numbers.

For this event, they either didn’t fully anticipate the demand or weren’t willing to fork over money for the additional servers, and so fans are peeved.

Hm. Interesting.

Yeah. They’ve got a point. But then again, the whole video was up on YouTube very shortly after the event.

So the people were just mad they had to wait a few minutes to watch something that’s on a computer anyway?

Listen, you said it. Not me.

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Call of Duty adds ‘Black Lives Matter’ screen to Modern Warfare, Warzone

“Until change happens and Black Lives Matter, we will never truly be the community we strive to be.”

One of the most popular video games in the world is making a statement in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Overnight, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its standalone Warzone mode – which has over 50 million players – was updated with a “Black Lives Matter” screen that appears each time you launch the game. The screen also appears in Warzone while each match is loading.

Earlier this week, developer Infinity Ward announced that it was taking measures to eliminate racist and hate-oriented names and clan tags by improving filters and making it easier to players to report offensive content.

“Our community is hurting. The systemic inequalities our community experiences are once again center stage. Call of Duty and Infinity Ward stand for equality and inclusion. We stand against the racism and injustice our Black community endures. Until change happens and Black Lives Matter, we will never truly be the community we strive to be.”

KTTKKTT

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All hope is lost for an NFL 2k game anytime soon and that’s disappointing

Sigh.

A couple months ago news broke that the NFL and 2k sports agreed to a deal with the NFL allowing it to make video games again.

Immediately, we all though NFL 2k FINALLY BYKE! Turned out that wasn’t the case ā€” the deal was only for “non-simulation” football experiences, which meant NFL 2k wasn’t an option.

Still, though, some of us held out hope that after some time that could change. But after today? Yeah, chances are slim.Ā  We’re not getting an NFL 2k game ā€” at least until 2025, anyway.

During the NFL’s owners meetings, the league agreed to extend their exclusive licensing deal with EA Sports through the 2025 season, according to a report from Albert Breer.

We’re stuck with Madden. For five more years.Ā At least.Ā This is what we’re getting.

That’s a whole FIVE MINUTES of gaffes and glitches in the middle of Madden gameplay. A simulation game should never be this glitchy. The Madden community has been pestering EA about fixing it for years now, but no dice.

And why would they fix it? They have absolutely no reason to.

They have no competition to worry about. There’s no reasonable place that gamers looking to play a football game could go outside of Madden. There’s no alternative.

That’s where a 2k Sports game would come in. It’d be another option for gamers to go to when they aren’t getting what they want from Madden.Ā But that can’t happen, though, because of the NFL’s exclusive licensing deal with EA Sports.

Now, sure, an NFL arcade-style game could be pretty cool. Maybe we’d get something like the old NFL BLITZ series again. And maybe that’ll hold us over for a bit.

But there’s nothing like being able to control your favorite football team or your favorite football players and build dynasties around them in franchise mode. There’s nothing like simulating a playoff experience or replaying old events that actually happened in the NFL. An arcade style game would be fun, but it’s not the same.

Monopolies generally suck anywhere ā€” that includes gaming. Mediocrity arises because fewer options are available. That’s what’s going on with Madden right now. The game is extremely flawed and there’s nothing pushing it to be better.

And, from the look of it, we have five more years of more of the same. The only way to stop it is for people to stop playing the game until it gets better and, uh, that isn’t going to happen.

So buckle in, folks. Five more years.