News:: This Dark Souls x Mario Odyssey video is the right amount of silly

Some of you are going to leave this video scratching your head, but it's precisely my kind of silly.

I think the description from creator JellyElite~ sells it accurately: "Decided to kind of [emphasis mine] recreate the Super Mario Odyssey trailer. Don't know why, but goddamn if it wasn't a bunch of fun."

Credit where credit is due: a not-insignificant part of the charm here is the infectious "Jump Up, Super Star!" track from Odyssey. Gosh that song has grown on me. I mean, I liked it from the start, but now I'm full-on obsessed. And while this video didn't crack me up, it was light and fluffy. That's all I needed.

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News:: Crypt of the Necrodancer: Amplified hustles out of Early Access

The moment I first laid eyes upon Crypt of the Necrodancer, it placed its curse upon me. Combining two of my favorite genres that I'm just awful at - rhythm gaming and roguelikes - I am doomed to an existence of forever wanting to play it, but never being good enough to beat its higher difficulties.

After entering Early Access back in December, the new DLC Amplified is ready to burst forth, with a vast wealth of new dance moves and new content. Will I be terrible? Yes. Will I be happy? Most certainly - there's a boss named "Frankensteinway," for crying out loud. How can I not be happy at that level of pun?

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News:: The Just Cause 3 multiplayer mod will get an official release next week

Just Cause 3 launched to a bunch of hiccups and problems that kind of marred the experience for early adopters. While the game has since been patched and made a bit better, console users are locked out of mods and can only extend playtime by making paying for crappy DLC. That is a shame, but at least PC users have a multiplayer mod to tinker with.

Better still, that mod is now going to be officially released. On July 20, the Just Cause 3: Multiplayer Mod will be freed from the shackles of beta-dom and will be available for download. The mod will have full integration with the Steam version of the game, featuring its own Steam store page.

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News:: Samurai Shodown V Special trailer is a bloodbath

I have fond memories of the Samurai Shodown series, but I never got around to playing Samurai Shodown V. Turns out, I'm gonna have to. Since being revealed as SNK's mystery EVO title, more details about the somewhat forgotten entry in the series have come out and piqued my interest.

As detailed in this PlayStation Blog post, Samurai Shodown V never got a fair shake when it was launched. V was SNK's attempt at a darker and grittier take on the series with the introduction of blood-splattering overkill moves similar to Mortal Kombat's famous Fatalities. With the arcade version already drawing criticism for the excessive level of gore in the game, the home version had the unfortunate timing of releasing just after a shocking violent incident rocked Japan. This resulted in a hastily censored and watered down version of the game hitting store shelves. Not only was the titled censored, the last-minute rush job to take out all the naughty slicing and dicing introduced bugs that limited the game's success.

No wonder I never played it, the poor game was cut off at the knees before it even learned how to walk.

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News:: Final Fantasy is having another resurgence

Final Fantasy is back.

Did it ever leave? Well it depends on who you ask.

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News:: New Days Gone footage explains how seasons change everything

The last we saw of Days Gone was on Sony's E3 stage. Sure, everything had gone to hell -- people killing each other, the world overrun by the undead, zombie bears -- but at least the weather seemed nice. Sometimes seasonal affective disorder can be the real enemy.

Later at the show, behind closed doors, we got a glimpse at a different side of Days Gone. As Jordan outlined in his preview, we were walked through the same slice of gameplay but this time during winter. What a difference a little bit of snow makes.

Sony released that video today for everyone to see. As the narrators point out, winter (allegedly) alters the approach the player will take. The main takeaway is that snow lends itself to stealth because of the decreased visibility. Like Jordan pointed out "Days Gone is about figuring out what's driving the systems and using that to your advantage." That includes weather systems.

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News:: Fun and laughter unlikely in Black The Fall trailer

Square Enix have released a launch trailer for Black The Fall, a dark dystopian adventure which combines platform and puzzle elements with an brutally foreboding audio/visual style.

Black The Fall, a result of the "Square Enix Collective" venture back in 2014, is the story of a worker's attempt to escape the system in which he has become prisoner. Set in a communist nightmare, the games uses dark imagery and oppressive sound and shadow to create a miserable world for our protagonist to negotiate.

Needless to say, it ain't Splatoon, but the trailer makes for an intriguing and intense gaming experience. If you wish to travel through its unnerving landscape, then Black The Fall is available now on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

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News:: Gran Turismo Sport finally has a release date

I could never get into Forza. No particular reason, just didn't click with me (though I still want to give Horizon a go). For realistic driving games, I played the poop out of Gran Turismo 4 after my friend got me hooked on it. No, I definitely did not copy his file with the endurance races completed or anything.

Anyway, after missing 5 and 6, I think I'm ready to try my hand at Gran Turismo again with Gran Turismo Sport this fall on October 18, 2017. I'm sure it won't look as pretty on my regular PlayStation 4 as it would on a PS4 Pro, but as long as I can smash super cars up against walls until they spin around like a tornado I'll be satisfied. But seriously, I'm starting to appreciate the simplicity of driving games more. No complex systems, just drive and listen to music or podcasts.

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News:: Here's apparently how Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 looks on Nintendo Switch

I didn't expect to enjoy Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 as much as I have, but even this long after its release I'm still playing DLC and have gotten my character to level 80. So the prospect of a portable one scares the hell out of me. 

This Japanese trailer for the Nintendo Switch port shows off what it's going to look like. It's essentially the same as long as you don't care about a lower resolution and frame rate drop. They're going to be adjustable to an extent, sure, but visuals mean a lot to some folks. Not to me! I'm gonna be too busy motion-controlling kamehamehas and smiling like a big idiot. And if the Western release includes the story campaign of the first game like the Japanese one will, I'm for it.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 comes to Nintendo Switch September 22. It's going to be a good holdover until the big show. 

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 for Switch debut trailer [Gematsu]

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News:: First-person servers coming to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds in monthly update

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' next major update is sure to please players who prefer to do all of their looting and shooting in first-person. According to developer Brendan Greene, a dedicated first-person mode is coming in the game's upcoming monthly update.

In addition to the news, Greene tweeted details about the team's plans for the first-person servers. They'll be available in North America and Europe first, before rolling out in other regions.

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News:: Hitman's new patch makes Agent 47 a little more professional

Agent 47, consummate professional that he is (here's a video of him kicking a toilet onto someone's head), is always looking to improve. In his line of work, staying alive is a secondary objective right behind efficient killing. Now he's a bit better at both of those.

Hitman developer IO Interactive has just rolled out update 1.12.1, and its main purpose is seemingly to make things just a little easier for 47. Combat has been tweaked to slow the fire rate of enemy pistols, reduce damage taken at mid- to long-range distances, speed up the lock-on animation with aim assist enabled, and increase rate of health regeneration.

However, these changes don't alter the Professional difficulty, which is available much sooner as of today. Now, Mastery level 5 is required to unlock a level's Professional mode. Before, it was level 20. Here's where amateurs can find out how tough it is to be an elite assassin.

Otherwise, this patch is mostly full of fixes to make Hitman a better game (improved loading times on Xbox One is probably the most notable of them). It's just in time for Season One's final elusive target contract that releases tomorrow. Here's the full list of update notes, as outlined by IO:

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News:: Samurai Shodown V Special announced, playable at EVO

In no uncertain terms, SNK has said that it's back. No longer chained by just being a pachinko licensing lease, it's crafted new games, one of which already made an impact in the fighting game arena. But there's plenty of room to spread out beyond just King of Fighters, as Metal Slug, Last Blade, Samurai Shodown, and many other treasured IPs still exist.

According to SNK a "new classic Neo Geo project" will be shown off at the Atlus/Sega/SNK booth at EVO 2017 -- that project is Samurai Shodown V Special. It's coming to PS4 and Vita in its "original form," by way of a partner studio Code Mystics. Marred by alterations for its original launch in 2004, SNK says it wants to get it right this time.

I can't wait to play as Hanzo again! Maybe we'll get a KOF XIV-esque rebirth.

SNK [Twitter]

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News:: 'Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom' delayed until January 2018

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch brought the unique beauty of a Studio Ghibli movie to North American PS3s in 2012. The gorgeous RPG was slated to get a sequel, Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, this coming November, but it looks as if we'll have to wait a bit longer. In a video message on publisher Bandai Namco's Twitter feed, Akihiro Hino, CEO and President of developer LEVEL-5, explained the delay and apologized deeply to fans. It's not a huge wait, though, as the new launch date is set for January 19th of next year.

Source: Bandai Namco/Twitter

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News:: Review: War for the Planet of the Apes

Combing through nostalgic culture has become the norm, and unfortunately, so have the middling resulting projects. Audiences have, sadly, come to expect reboots to suffer as studios struggle to re-capture what made something popular in the first place. Yet somehow, a successful Planet of the Apes prequel trilogy came out of all of this mess. I certainly didn't expect to be sitting here, sixteen years after watching Mark Wahlberg punch monkeys in the face, gushing about how great this trilogy has been overall. 

War for the Planet of the Apes is not as strong of a film as its predecessor, 2014's stunning Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but it is the culmination of years of excellent work from everyone involved.

War impresses from chimpan-a to chimpanzee. 

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News:: The Podtoid Boys want to answer your questions tonight, so ask them now

It's too stinking hot out. My brain feels like it's melting. I hardly know what day it is anymore because I've spent the better part of the month working at a summer skate camp. Teaching kids how to kickflip is cool, but dang it's hard for an Internet Blogger like me to be outside for long stretches of time.

My inability to put together a coherent thought is where you come in. Brett, Steven, and I are recording a new episode of Podtoid tonight, and as always, we want your best (or worst) questions.

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News:: Happy birthday, Metal Gear! How did you hold up the past 30 years?

Welcome to July 13. Exactly 30 years ago today, the original Metal Gear was released on the MSX2 in Japan. With Metal Gear Survive in development, it remains one of the longest-running active video game franchises in the world, longer than Final Fantasy by about five months. 

Having played all the major games in the series within the past four years (excluding Twin Snakes and the Acid games), I figured I'd celebrate by giving my experience and short impressions with the series and if they have stood the test of time. 

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News:: Gundam Versus, ARMS, and Radiant Historia remake were the biggest Japan releases this past month

This past month has been a busy one. Not only for video games in Japan, which included the Nintendo Switch surpassing one million sales within the country, but also me trying to find a job. Thus I wasn't able to report the sales the past few weeks. As an apology and catch-up, let's check out the highlights.

ARMS released to just over 100,000 sales in its first week after releasing on June 16, topping the charts almost by default with no other new releases around it. In the following weeks, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood (PS4) and the 3DS remake Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology opened with 28,731 and 24,596 sales respectively.

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News:: I don't know about you, but a VR Evangelion experience would freak me out

Japan has been experimenting heavily with VR, which includes the giant dedicated space VR Zone, which hosts several licensed games in addition to an amazing looking "save the cat" minigame.

As of late however they've also added the activity "Evangelion VR: The Throne of Souls," which puts you in the cockpit of an Evangelion unit and lets you battle angels across a Tokyo cityscape. While the action angle is obvious, I don't know if I'd be able to handle a simulator of some of the series' more harrowing elements.

I already had to take the headset off occasionally during Resident Evil 7 -- not for VR sickness reasons, but because I wanted to make sure my house wasn't trying to murder me or the cat that jumped on my lap wasn't a creature with five mouths.

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News:: Xbox Live update makes co-op live streams a reality

Xbox Live keeps adding and updating features in response to its multiplayer community. Last year, the service added support for "clubs" along with improved friend-finding options. According to Xbox Live's Major Nelson, Live users will get a host of new tweaks today as Microsoft's gaming division adds quite a few new features to its console and mobile apps, including custom Gamerpics, the ability to stream your games with up to two friends and a way to tie a single controller to your login to make it easier to sign in and play. The Xbox mobile apps get a few additions as well, including new ways to look for groups and to browse the titles in your Game Pass subscription, and users can now create their own Killer Instinct tournaments.

Source: Microsoft

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News:: Good ol' Walmart has Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 for 28% off

Price mistake? Aggressive robot? Maybe it's just Walmart outright getting in Amazon and Best Buy's face? Whatever it is, we're spotting more and more aggressive Walmart deals for pre-orders on video game titles. Some are tied to a store pick-up discount, but in the case of August's Mega Man Legacy Collection 2, the PS4 and Xbox One copy is now at a ridiculously high 28% off for only $14 and change.

Best of all? No paid membership is required to score this deal. Unlike previous Walmart pre-order deals where store pick-up is required, this is available as an online purchase for shipping (though you can do store pickup as well if you'd like to grab it on release day vs. waiting for the UPS guy to sneakily drop it off without knocking or ringing your door bell).

Mega Deal

• Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 (PS4, Xbox One) — $14.41  (list price $20)

Collecting Mega Man 7 to 10, the collection is developed by Digital Eclipse Software, the same studio that handled the first Collection. We can't confirm it, but it doesn't appear pre-ordering the physical copy will receive the same sweet theme you'll get if you pre-order the digital copy.

So your call if $4 is worth it for a PS4 theme. (Xbox gamers need not apply, of course.)

If you're hyped for the collection, this is probably the best deal you can get until six months post-release. For those who want to adore their PC or mobile with wallpapers of the title until launch, you can find them here at the official site.

We suspect a few pre-order deals will also become available for the PC/Steam copy of the game, and we'll update the post accordingly if and when they do show up.

Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 will be available on the PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. The game releases on August 8, 2017.

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News:: Xbox will now let you upload custom Gamerpics because it seemed like a good idea at the time

This month's Xbox update is set to roll out later today and features a slew of new features.

Among the most significant are Mixer co-streaming and the ability to upload custom Gamerpics, a feature I'm sure won't be abused in any way. Major Nelson implores everyone to keep it clean and stick to the code of conduct. 

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News:: Nintendo ends production for the regular New 3DS in Japan

Ha! "Standard," New 3DS.

Remember the OG 3DS? Well eventually it got an XL variant, then a "New" upgrade that essentially amounts to what Sony and Microsoft did with the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X respectively (except this upgrade has a few exclusive games). That New line was cleaved in two, with regular and XL sizes, the former of which support faceplates. Even though it was smaller in stature people preferred it because of the customization aspect, but it looks like it's being phased out -- at least in Japan.

According to Nintendo, the 2014 New 3DS is ending its production run in Japan. The XL will still be sold, and it isn't explained if it'll meet the same fate in the west. This is undoubtedly because we're now on the New 2DS XL -- there's just too many cooks in the kitchen.

3DS [Nintendo]

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News:: ‘Gran Turismo Sport’ will finally launch on October 17th

The long awaited Gran Turismo Sport finally has a launch date -- October 17th for North America and the 18th for Europe. Originally slated for launch in November of last year, the game's release was delayed last August so as not to sacrifice quality for a quicker release date. But Polyphony, the game's creator, just completed the closed beta phase it started in March and is now in the final stages of polishing the game.

Source: Polyphony

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News:: Mondo has gore-gous Contra and Castlevania wares for SDCC

Fine purveyors of video game vinyl and original art; Mondo, have unveiled a selection of Konami-themed items that will be on sale at San Diego Comic-Con next week.

An 18x24 poster for hard-as-nails side-scroller Contra, featuring original art by Eric Powell, will be available for $45, alongside a real nice double LP of the game's arcade and NES soundtrack. Limited to 1,000 copies at $25, the soundtrack is pressed on coloured vinyl and housed in a sleek gatefold sleeve. Also available will be a creepy Castlevania III poster, designed by artist Sachin Teng. This poster costs $65 and is limited to 150 prints.

Both posters are Comic-Con exclusives, as is the coloured vinyl edition of the Contra soundtrack. So if you're interested, be sure to visit SDCC, or have a buddy pick them up for you, otherwise you'll be as miserable as I am for missing out on that Shantae figure sold at Anime Expo last week.

Mondo's SDCC Castlevania and Contra merch [Mashable]

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News:: Nine Inch Nails' latest video taps into gaming legend

Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor's current interest in video games goes beyond remastering the Quake soundtrack for vinyl and using Kinect on tour. The video for NIN's new single "Less Than" uses the retro PlayStation VR game Polybius as its main attraction. The on-screen action ramps up in time with the music, lyrics flying toward the viewer, building to a crescendo at the two-minute mark where all hell breaks loose.

Source: Nine Inch Nails (YouTube)

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News:: Should you get Cursed Castilla EX on 3DS? Take this quiz and find out

My first draft of this quiz had only question. Do you love any of the Ghouls 'N Ghosts N' Goblins games? A 'YES'  answer means you should definitely buy this game. A 'NO' answer would mean... maybe you should still by this game? It's a lot less frustrating than your average game in Capcom's classic 2D action horror series, allowing it a broader appeal. 

It's also a game developed almost completely by one person. The only part not created solely by Locomalito is the music, but don't begrudge him for it. The soundtrack does an incredible job of harnessing the feel of a family of sound cards used in various game machines from the '90s, something that he couldn't have pulled off on his own.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. If you have a computer and want to see for yourself if Cursed Castilla EX is worth your money, you could always try out the original 'Not EX' freeware version of the game first. If that's not enough, the quiz below should be able to help you out. 

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News:: Final Fantasy XV's 'we promise they aren't Power Rangers' suits are coming soon for free

As you probably know, Saban Entertainment is highly protective of its Power Rangers property. It leads to a number of snafus where companies have to go back and alter their projects lest they risk litigation, even if they're seemingly protected by parody law.

Square Enix didn't want to test the waters back in February when they announced their "Magitek Exosuit" costume homage for Final Fantasy XV. They delayed their take on the Super Sentai world indefinitely until they could alter the designs to make them less..infringey.

That day has come, as the publisher has announced that both consoles will be getting a free update sometime this month that includes the suits. Given that basically everything has come westward for XV, it probably won't be a Japan-only thing either.

Final Fantasy XV [Twitter via Siliconera]

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