The trailer showcases a good look at the film’s version of Princess Peach (voiced by Anya Tayor-Joy) while Chris Pratt’s Mario only gets a couple of lines of dialogue. Overall, it’s a fun glimpse at some familiar Mario locales and characters, translated for the big screen. If you’re a Nintendo nerd like me, you’ve probably rewatched the trailer more than once to spot everything going on in the background. And there’s some cool Easter eggs - particularly if you like the extended Donkey Kong family....

Beyond the fonts, Swordship is still rather excellent. This is pure arcade brilliance, actually, a fast-paced avoid-’em-up with a maritime larceny twist. Your Swordship is a dinky yellow mischief-maker, a needle-thin arrowhead of a craft that can open its tiny jaws to grab containers lost to the ocean, and then pinch them. It can’t shoot, not really anyway, but it can trick nearby enemies into killing each other. Collect containers, get the enemies to kill each other, all within the narrow confines of a single top-down screen, which is given a bit of zip by the fact that everything on the screen is actually racing over the surface of endless waves....

Back in April, Square Enix trademarked the name in Japan sparking rumours of a remake. This leak suggests the remake is real, although a PSN listing that’s since been removed (thanks Escapist) offers no gameplay or release date details. That listing did include both game icon art (below) and promotional art (above). Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together first released on the Super Famicom in Japan in 1995, followed by a Sega Saturn release and PlayStation release (in the west)....

In true Hollywood style, Paramount dropped a trailer for a trailer, giving us a 21-second peek at the big teaser that’s set to debut during halftime at the AFC Championship game later today between the Cincinnati Bengals and Kansas City Chiefs. We see Master Chief and a couple of Spartan buddies, some very Halo-esque blue-glowy tech, and it ends with a familiar voice saying: “Hello, Master Chief: I’m Cortana.” And while it’s not always easy to gauge things like production values and special effects from condensed teasers, what we do see looks incredible, and has only whetted my appetite even more for the big reveal later today....

The studio is Something Wicked Games and the project is Wyrdsong, pronounced “weirdsong”, or at least that’s how Gardiner pronounced it on a phone call to me. It’s going to be set in Portugal around the forming of the Knights Templar. Something Wicked was co-founded with Obsidian veteran Charles Staples in April this year, who led design on Outer Worlds. And the studio is funded by NetEase courtesy of a $13....

A “peaceful protest” to “#SaveTF2” was organised by fans in May to raise awareness of the game’s many bugs, its ongoing bot problems, and the general lack of updates by Valve despite TF2’s ongoing popularity. In response, Valve said it had heard the game’s community. “We see how large this issue has become and are working to improve things,” it wrote shortly after. Early this morning, a new patch went live via Steam, with a list of bug fixes and changes that has been generally well-received by fans....

While support for Dying Light 2 is set to continue for the next five years, the team has an unannounced fantasy epic in the works. “We’re very happy with what we have accomplished with the Dying Light franchise so far,” said Paweł Marchewka, CEO at Techland. “At the same time, our ambition is to introduce a brand new IP that is vastly different from what we have been doing for the past several years....

Not only do you have to make a start choice between Crystle, Smazee and Houchic within five minutes of starting the game, what makes things even more difficult is there are some clear differences to Pokémon - with a different set of Types to learn and understand, and little knowledge of the meta. Because of this, there is no clear answer as to the best Temtem starter to choose from....

Golden Idol plays on basic intuition and common sense, and while it takes me a few moments to warm up to the game, I soon develop genuine admiration for its simplicity. As I examine this first scenario - a perfectly frozen moment in time with potent little touches of animation - a few exploratory clicks are enough to get going. There’s a man being pushed off a cliff, and a sprinkle of hotspots around the screen inviting me to delve deeper....

A listing for The Division Heartland is still available, with its client listed as available to download on PC “soon”. The store page also hosts various screenshots of the under-wraps shooter, and describes it as a “free-to-play survival-action multiplayer shooter set in small-town Middle America”. It promises “massive PvEvP” 45-player battles “against a group of dangerous Rogue agents, an aggressive faction known as the Vultures, while surviving a lethal virus”....

Before I get into the game, it’s important to remember Godzilla’s historical context. An allegory for nuclear tragedy, he reminds us what such dreadful weapons can do, the impact it held on the Daigo Fukuryū Maru’s crew. Most entries contain a political message, but during the late Showa era, that point was lost amidst light-hearted storylines. When Toho started wheeling out alien invasions, champions of Seatopia and a cybernetic space chicken, it didn’t land the same way....

The new content introduces the best thing a game like this could introduce: rideable dragons (ormirs). It also adds homing missiles (pyro pots), which are apparently a bit overpowered but help address some of the trickier moments in the game. And in my experience of The Falconeer, overpowered is good. The Hunter DLC, as it’s known, is £1.69 / $1.99 / €1.99. The game’s creator, Tomas Sala, told me about the homing missiles being OP....

That’s according to a new developer diary in which Hinterland Studio reflects on the last eight years of development, as well as teasing what may be coming next, including a premium season pass to ensure the game “continues to be financially self-sustaining”. After focussing for so long on the sandbox and story modes, the team says it’s now ready to “decouple” them, mitigating issues that founder Raphael van Lierop says made development “unwieldy” at times....

These volumes can be found in the Emerald Vale Community Center, Edgewater and the Geothermal Plant. Since these volumes are scattered across the Emerald Vale, then it’s a good idea to bring Parvati along as your companion. She might have some ideas on where the volumes are located. Completing this side quest will reward you with Bits, XP and maybe even a new mod. On this page: Thomas is a member of the deserters who live around the Botanical Lab....

These weapons have been hidden across the Halcyon system, including on the Groundbreaker and the dangerous planet, Monarch. Science Weapons have unique abilities, which can cause great damage to your foes. Though this all depends on how high your Science Level is. On this page: The logs will inform you of some bizarre Science Weapons that are apparently located on the Groundbreaker and in Phineas’s Lab. Sounds like the kind of thing that could be very useful in your space adventures....

Though currently running as a “beta” site - which means we’re to expect “a few hiccups” - the Pokémon Center UK site caters directly to fans in the UK, offering a flat shipping fee of £5 per order. Right now there’s a host of Christmas jumpers up for sale, as well as pins and plushies. Beyond that, you won’t see much else, but the company says it “plans to expand [its] range over 2022 and beyond”....

Nintendo Minute was a weekly series which ended in December 2021. The show was hosted by former PR managers for Nintendo of America Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang. Since Nintendo Minute ended, the pair both left Nintendo and went on to create their own podcast. In episode 31 of Kit and Krysta Podcast, when responding to questions submitted through Patreon, Ellis and Yang recalled a time when they had brought up the idea of a Nuzlocke run to The Pokémon Company....

You can see it for yourself below. So, yes, there is Elba in character (also, hey Keanu!). But just who exactly is that character? Let’s Idris the Elba in the room… According to developer CD Projekt Red, Reed is the one person we will be able to trust to help us “fulfil an impossible mission of espionage and survival.” He is a veteran New United States of America agent, and his character will be pivotal to Phantom Liberty’s story....

For some time, Caustic was one of those Legends on the roster that players rarely spent much quality time with, but after recent tweaks and buffs he now boasts the highest win rate in games that last longer than 20 minutes and has started to dominate matches. Responding to a question in which a player wondered why Caustic hadn’t yet been nerfed following frequent complaints from players, Respawn’s John Larson, Associate Live Balance Designer, acknowledged it was a “good question” and agreed that Caustic is now “undeniably strong”....

Playing the game as part of this year’s Awesome Games Done Quick charity marathon, Olenoname warned viewers that “this run’s gonna move pretty fast and it’s gonna get started really quickly” - and they weren’t wrong. As spotted by PC Gamer, instead of starting out as carefully as we would, they deleted all their tools - which saw items magically pop up in their inventory - and then threw mega bombs all over the place to chop down those trees and spawn a sneaky fast travel trip....