Destiny has proven itself a versatile shooter over the years; it has a campaign for those who just want a single-player romp, multiplayer modes for those who aren’t afraid to mix it up with others, and cooperative strikes for those who want to shoot some baddies while hanging out with friends. All of these modes are tied together around an ever-evolving loot grind, which lets you jump in and do any of these activities and be rewarded. 

There are also raids, MMO-style encounters that test six players’ ability to work together. Across Destiny and Destiny 2, Bungie has delivered 10 raids, each with their own quirks, themes, and memorable moments. We’ve decided to pit them all against each other and determine which raid delivers the best mix curious puzzles, intricate mechanics to synthesize, and bosses that test your ability to play at your peak.

10

Leviathan, Spire of Stars

Release: Destiny 2: Warmind (2018)

Our third trip to the Leviathan had us helping the opulent Cabal emperor Calus curb a Red Legion invasion from Ghaul’s successor, Val Ca’uor. As the second “Raid Lair” on the ship it’s a short ride with some fun concepts at play, but ultimately suffers from a lack of unique ideas. Tossing a ball among a six-person group is fun and all, but we’ve done this song and dance before. The short platforming stint gets interesting when you introduce the optional objective of making sure a ball makes it all the way to end, but is too short and lacks the visual flair to stand as a good breather from the action.

The last two fights are surprisingly nuanced, however, with a number of different phases and sequences which teams must work through in order to succeed. It can be a little too hectic at times, as randomly assigned buffs can lead to some ambiguous roles and can quickly make things fall apart in ways that don’t feel fun. And again, most of the concepts at play here aren’t all that new; even the main Leviathan raid had its share of symbol call-outs and plate-guarding. The layering of multiple elements works well and still makes for some rewarding moments, but the familiarity of its encounters (as well as its loot being recolored versions of the Eater of Worlds sets) make it the raid we ran the least.

9

Leviathan, Eater of Worlds

Release: Destiny 2, Curse of Osiris (2017)

The first abridged raid since Crota’s End, Eater of Worlds provided the perfect complement to the proper Leviathan’s massive size and languished pace. Kicking things off with a platforming segment is a bold move, but the focus on making sure everyone is in the right spot at the right time instead of having each player conquer the challenge on their own is a step forward. The waves of enemies that follow lack any sort of interesting mechanic or twist, however, and feel like busywork. Shooting things in Destiny is fun in and of itself, but expectations for how that shooting is contextualized are a bit higher.

Eater of Worlds’ final arena, however, is an inspired locale that not only showcases how gargantuan of a ship the Leviathan is, and also has two solid encounters that push your team’s coordination without having multiple layers to overwhelm you. “Cooking” vex skulls ahead of when you’ll need to grab them, run over to color-coordinated targets and shooter laser at them means running around a trio of arenas in a way that feels frantic, but just barely within your control. Having to avoid being captured when facing off against Argos (along with exploding harpies) can make the damage phase among the most frustrating in the series, but that’s also what makes it so satisfying when you’re able to pull it all off without a hitch.

8

Scourge of the Past

Release: Destiny 2, Black Armory (2019)

Bungie came out swinging with some novel concepts as it took the fight to The Last City for the first raid after Destiny 2’s move to more a more seasonal approach to content.

We’re introduced to the Berserker, a new enemy which requires two separate players to shoot its weak points and bring down its shields. This is also the first time we can fly Sparrows in a raid, which makes for some fun twists. The race against a giant, flaming servitor is an exciting change of pace; it’s basically co-op Mario Kart, and it works surprisingly well.

It’s once you clear a fairly short maze and platforming segment and reach the final arena that Scourge starts to lose some momentum. Tearing into Insurrection Prime with a trio of tanks is a great catharsis to an encounter that has one team mostly clearing enemies, while a second runs in circles clearing enemies while looking for charges needed to power the tanks.

The final encounter against a giant mech has a buff mechanic where players have to position themselves correctly to avoid killing each other as they damage Insurrection Prime, but this means looking at the side of your screen to make sure you have right set of buffs instead of actually shooting the thing. As a whole, Scourge of the Past lacks the epic scale of most other final bosses. Its brevity actually works in its favor, as being able to clear the raid in about an hour or so, as opposed to a night-long gauntlet, has its appeal.

7

Crota’s End

Release: Destiny, The Dark Below (2014)

Destiny’s second raid came as a relatively quick follow-up to Vault of Glass, and its reduced scope undoubtedly put it in the shadow of its larger sibling. But Crota’s End delivered some marquee encounters that still stand strong today.

Dropping into the Hellmouth for the first time, for example, is a terrifying experience. As soon as you land, you’re blinded and literally weighed down by the pervasive darkness around you, unable to double-jump and eventually unable to sprint as you’re attacked by legions of Hive, turning Destiny’s power fantasy into something out of a horror flick.

From there, a bridge-building exercise where one team member at a time crosses a gap as the rest of the team keeps the bridge intact has a fun action-movie feel to it. The final encounter against Crota is a challenging one, as his very presence prevents you from regenerating health unless you’re holding a chalice that can only be passed around so many times.

These encounters all keep you on your backfoot for the entire raid, which drives home the feeling of being deep into enemy territory, out of your depth as you confront terrors you don't fully understand. It's eclipsed by some of the encounters in other entries on this list, but Crota’s End delivers an experience markedly different from other raids, and it mostly works.

6

Leviathan

Release: Destiny 2 (2017)

The Leviathan’s gargantuan underbelly and shifting nature were attempts to help the spaces in which raids took place feel less like guided tours and more like real locations. In hindsight, the experiments are responsible for some of Destiny raids’ lowest lows. But the Leviathan also houses some highpoints in its halls.

To support the three encounters whose order changes week to week, the Leviathan hosts a central area with an encounter most teams will either have to clear three times, or find hidden tunnels to circumvent – and trust us, you’re going to want to find those tunnels, as this encounter can get downright boring after doing it multiple times. It doesn’t help that while you can’t outright “lose” the encounter, your progress can regress, which can make tackling it with a new team strenuous.

The underbelly, while an ambitious concept that had players using keys they earned in other encounters to explore a maze for additional loot, quickly lost some of its luster after it extended early raid nights far past many teams’ curfews.

The four encounters at the heart of the raid, however, are a pretty strong lineup. The stealth sequence in the pleasure garden can be frustrating, of course, as the royal beasts can be unpredictable foes for all the wrong reasons. But the royal pools, which has teams coordinate both as split-offs cells and as whole, is one of the most well-crafted encounters in all of Destiny. The gauntlet, which has you running through a game-show like obstacle course, remains a fun and unique encounter. The final encounter against Calus is still a great challenge, and also has one of the few bona fide narrative surprises in a raid encounter.

The Leviathan is far from perfect, but when you're not working through its bloat, it's an absolute blast.

5

Leviathan, Crown of Sorrow

Release: Destiny 2, Penumbra (2019)

It might just be recency bias speaking, but the latest raid delivers four great encounters without any weak moments, something that’s hard to say for many of the longer raids on this list.

The centerpiece of Crown of Sorrows is the time-limited Witch’s Blessing buff, which gives the entire raid an Ikaruga-like dynamic. This lynchpin gives every encounter a sense of urgency, and lets teams delegate roles within each two-person team as they can only kill certain enemies, but must coordinate to have two players, one blessed and one not, shoot crystals or punch bosses. The mechanic is pretty flexible, too, which means one death doesn’t have to completely sink your team.

The buff-swapping really comes into its own as your team figures out how to slowly infect most of the team with buff over the course of one encounter, alternates punching a boss in order to squeeze in multiple damage phases, then works together to have a big bad smash a smaller bad with their giant club.

Crown of Sorrows also has one of few platforming encounters most players can actually get behind. Taking a cue from Eater of Worlds and making it a collaborative effort, this sequence has you splitting up and shooting crystals as you traverse a series of platforms, with a couple of hard checkpoints along the way. It’s not punishing, but it requires the right mix of spacial awareness and shooting prowess to make you feel like an active participant, since you’re never waiting for one final teammate to cross the finish line.

4

Vault of Glass

Release: Destiny (2014)

As Bungie’s first attempt to corral six-player teams into a single unit, Vault of Glass was incredibly successful. It tops plenty of players' personal lists due to it being the first time they'd ever encountered something like it. Over time its weak spots have only become more glaring, but its stronger encounters show Bungie had a firm grasp of creating meaningful co-op experiences right from the start.

Vault of Glass has some of the strongest thematic trappings of any raid, tying into the greek mythology naming convention of the Vex; working through a palace described as the underworld of the robotic species, you trudge through a Gorgon’s maze to avoid being instant death (likely from being turned to stone); to expel a debuff that sullies you to the point of death, you must “wash” yourself in baths of light. It’s loose, but that sort of narrative thread makes it stand out for more than just the puzzles and gameplay at hand.

The mechanics behind this strong thematic framing are solid, but some weaknesses do poke through. The Gorgon’s maze made a strong case for why co-op stealth sequences aren’t fun, as the encounter went from being frustratingly obtuse to an afterthought once you nailed down the “correct” path through it. And the extended platforming segments became a low point early on. However, the combat-oriented setpieces still shine, as the time-traveling mechanic of the last two encounters remains a novel, fun experience, five years later.

3

Last Wish

Release: Destiny 2: Forsaken (2018)

After two fun-but-short raid lairs, Last Wish had plenty of strong encounters to dig into, which Destiny 2 needed after a rocky first year. From the initial bout with Kalli which had players hide in safe rooms to avoid being obliterated, to the final escape sequence in which your team slowly fades into another realm in the hopes the last person left will make it to end (and a room full of treasure chests), Last Wish is one of the most consistently engaging raids yet.

The symbols players must decode and interpret here are more numerous and difficult to discern than those in the Leviathan, but they’re used for more clever ends. Mastering them allows you go solve a quick puzzle as you run a swat-like raid on a multi-floored temple, provides a powerful mix of action and puzzle-solving as you work to crack open a vault, and lets you poke final boss Riven’s eyes out without being murdered.

As you work your way through each encounter, the scale of the raid continues to amp up until you’re facing down a god for control of an ethereal city and the fate of mankind. And once you win, you find out that’s not the end of the story, setting in motion Destiny 2’s new path forward when it comes to delivering interesting stories in more nuanced, exciting ways.

2

Wrath of the Machine

Release: Destiny: Rise of Iron (2016)

Plenty of raids have teams splitting off into smaller groups while working together, but Wrath of the Machine’s encounters, while complicated to explain, function so smoothly you barely notice all the pieces you have to put together to ace them. Coordinating bomb throws against Vosik while keeping an eye on the TV monitors behind him to make sure they’re not about to kill you is just a great bit of teamwork, and is a trademark of the kind of collaboration raids should strive for.

Any raid worth its salt has players put together everything they've learned in previous encounters in the latter ones, but Wrath of the Machine's deliver what might be the tightest, most coordinated encounters in all of Destiny. The enemies you fight are tough, teams are split up but still make call-outs that affect everyone involved, and Aksis’ tendency to teleport around the arena keeps everyone on their toes during the crucial damage phase. Turning your rag-tag team of Guardians into a cohesive unit is what raids are all about, and these encounters push you to your limit, making victory hard-fought but all the more rewarding.

And though it doesn’t have to universe-bending stakes of other raids, it does manage to deliver some amazing setpieces. The fight against the siege engine – a giant, rickety wall of fire and steel that bears down on your team as board – feels like something out Mad Max: Fury Road. Then once inside the thing, putting the contraption back together only so you hop off its top and see it hurtle off the edge of a cliff is as great a finale to an encounter as we can think of.

1

King’s Fall

Release: Destiny: The Taken King (2015)

Separate from their functions as cooperative puzzles and challenging combat trials, raids are a moment in time, a culmination of narrative arcs that bring everything to a satisfying climax. Bungie hit an early peak with this kind of storytelling in 2015, when it concluded the Oryx arc it had been building for a good while with a spectacular finale.

The Dreadnaught, Oryx’s ship, is gargantuan, otherworldly, and menacing, and is the best raid locale Bungie has crafted. It immediately sets dire stakes for the encounters at hand, and these are some ambitious encounters. The three-person relay mechanic was improved upon in the Leviathan’s royal pools, but it’s still well-executed here. Having one player hold Golgoroth’s gaze as everyone else shoots down bubbles and huddles around their light to lay into the giant ogre hasn’t quite been replicated since, however, and remains a fantastic, unique encounter. 

The extended platforming segments slow down King’s Fall’s pacing, but they’re more than made up for later on. The scale of the final two encounters, first against Oryx's daughters and then Oryx himself, is tremendous; the spacefaring arena, the interweaving roles of each player on the fireteam, having to deal with a dark copy of Oryx inside an obscured dome, and Oryx’s sheer size as your team rallies to wear him down for the last time all contribute to the feeling that when you finally felled the Taken King, you’d accomplished something worth all the effort, and make it Destiny’s best raid.

From The Jungle Book and Dumbo to Aladdin and the soon-to-release The Lion King, Disney has been remaking several of its most beloved animated films in live-action/realistic CG in recent years. The next film to receive this treatment is Mulan. The animated version of the film released in 1998, and now, more than two decades later, Walt Disney Studios has released a teaser trailer for its live-action remake.

Disney's Mulan is directed by Niki Caro and stars Liu Yifei, Donnie Yen, Yoson An, Gong Li, and more. Jet Li also appears as The Emperor and Tzi Ma is cast as Mulan's father.

You can see the trailer below, as well as a new poster for the film. Disney's Mulan releases in theaters on March 27, 2020.

[Source: Walt Disney Studios on YouTube]

Like most kids, Doug and Gary Carlston had to find creative ways to amuse themselves. However, as children of U.S. expatriates living in Germany, the Carlston boys didn’t have access to many fancy toys or modern technology. They had books. Self-proclaimed geography nerds, the boys would stay up late into the night quizzing each other out of an atlas – trying to list off all the national capitals or naming the locations of famous landmarks. Years later, Doug and Gary would form their own software company and they’d turn their childhood “game” into an actual product that would become a lasting cultural icon and go on to define educational software for an entire generation.

Who’s That Girl?

In 1980, Doug Carlston quit his corporate law practice to found Brøderbund with his brother Gary. The brothers began importing Japanese arcade games and tried to sell Doug’s homebrew legal software to attorneys. As the company continued to expand, the young publisher was constantly searching for new products to market.

“We had a place in the office called the rubber room, where a couple of guys would sit around and just bang ideas off,” Gary Carlston says. “There was a lot of news in the early ’80s about how Americans didn’t know much geography, so I thought we should create an adventure game where people had to use the almanac to solve puzzles, kind of like we had done as kids. I thought that might be a way to get kids interested in the almanac.”

The developers in the rubber room that day were Lauren Elliott and Gene Portwood, and they were ready to take Gary’s idea and run with it. Elliott was a bright-eyed kid with a notebook full of ideas who had walked in off the street one day looking for a job, and Portwood was an experienced animator who had previously worked for Disney on films like Lady and the Tramp and Sleeping Beauty. They were creative individuals, but together they seemed even more imaginative.

The instruction manual included bios of the entire cast. The models in each photo were people who worked at Brøderbund at the time

Elliott and Portwood were already working with a programmer named Dane Bigham on an adventure game about the life of the Tudor monarch, Henry VIII. In this early prototype, players wandered around England and collected crowns as they learned about the life of Henry VIII. The team decided to take the work they had done on this prototype and adapt it for Brøderbund’s new geography quiz game. The only stipulation was that Gary Carlston wanted to include a book inside the game’s packaging, which players could use as a reference guide.

“The implication was that we could pick any book,” Elliott says. “Gene and I actually went to the bookstore and found a book, an atlas. We did this for every Carmen game after that. That’s how we picked the theme for each game. First it was the World Almanac, and then it was the encyclopedia. We kind of had complete latitude for finding something that would be fun.”

If Elliott and Portwood had grabbed a biology book, they likely would have created a wildly different game, but the designers wanted to remain faithful to the experience the Carlstons had as children. Next up Elliott and Portwood needed a theme, so the designers set about crafting a James Bondish story about a rookie investigator at the ACME Detective Agency who chased a collection of oddball thieves around the world as they stole famous works of art. Portwood named the ringleader for this vile organization Carmen Sandiego.

“Gene was a big fan of those old pulp detective stories, and he loved real characters like Carmen Miranda,” Elliott explains. “We were working in an era where a lot of games didn’t have much personality. You couldn’t identify with any of the characters, but Gene did a really good job with that. That was part of his Disney background. It was his training. He knew the exaggerated emotional style of animation. That really helped because, in those early days, we only had like 16 colors; they were all gross, and you had pixels the size of my thumb, so we had to be creative to make our characters stand out.”

Click image thumbnails to view larger version

What’s In A Name?

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? didn’t sell well when it first released in August of 1985. Part of the problem might have been that Brøderbund’s marketing team didn’t know what to do with the product. “Marketing wanted to kill it,” Elliot says. “They absolutely hated us because the name we picked wouldn’t fit on the box, and the weight of the book made the early boxes fall apart.”

Fortunately, Brøderbund’s geography game was given time to build steam. After about a year on store shelves, Carmen was finally generating some notable sales. “At first it was about 1000 copies a month,” Doug Carlston recalls. “Then suddenly it started ticking up, 2500, 5000, 10,000. It would’ve been pulled from the market after two weeks if it had that kind of slow launch 10 years later, but it was given time for people to find it and discover it.”

As Carmen Sandiego gained attention, it also started to draw criticism. “We got some flak from people who said that we were depicting a Hispanic woman as a thief, and that she was a bad role model,” Gary Carlson says. “Some people threatened to start petitions at Universities, so we created a backstory, which we never really used, that Carmen’s maiden name was actually Larson, so she wasn’t Hispanic at all, but that was never published.”

Fortunately, many who played Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? began to fall in love with Brøderbund’s unique approach to adventure gaming, and many of Carmen Sandiego’s fans were also teachers. In fact, educators became Carmen Sandiego’s biggest proponents as they petitioned Brøderbund and school boards to adopt Carmen Sandiego as educational software. Brøderbund was happy to oblige, releasing an educational version of the game, which was basically the same software in a new package.

“We didn’t consider it an educational game,” Elliott says. “We used to call them drill-and-kill games, because back then educational games were full of short animations with questions, and if you typed the wrong answer you would hear this annoying beep and the rabbit would frown. There was no game, you would just do that kind of thing over and over and over again. But Gene always said, ‘Kids are short, not stupid.’ And he thought that all you had to do was teach kids like they were adults.” Sadly, Gene Portwood passed away from a heart attack in the summer of 2000.

In the ’80s, Brøderbund launched dozens of products a year, but almost all of the company’s profits came from only two franchises: one was a publishing package that allowed users to design posters and greeting cards and the other was Carmen Sandiego. Brøderbund’s adventure series grew so large that the company quickly spun off oddball sequels like Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego?, Where in America’s Past is Carmen Sandiego?, and Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego?

“As Brøderbund grew, that innovation died out over the last 15 years,” Elliott says. “The industry was becoming more competitive, and you had to stick with your winners. Gene and I probably would’ve murdered Carmen by the time we got to that last game, just because there was a lot of other things we wanted to do.”

The Carmen Sandiego franchise is now owned by The Learning Company, which created a Facebook version of the game in 2011, Carmen Sandiego Returns for PC and mobile in 2015, and a Google Earth plug-in earlier this year. However, the iconic thief is probably best known these days for her television appearances: a PBS gameshow that debuted in 1991, a 1994 animated cartoon, and the Netflix original series that debuted earlier this year.

Across all of her incarnations, Carmen Sandiego has helped teach kids around the globe about their place in the world, but it all started with an improbable piece of software that wormed its way into the educational system.

“We knew we had done the best job we could with what was given to us,” Elliott says. “We knew the pieces were there. One of the things people used to say at Brøderbund was, ‘Do the best job you can with anything you do, because even if it fails at least then it’s a good-looking failure.’ We felt that way making Carmen. Everyone was having fun doing it.”

This article originally appeared in the May 2019 issue of Game Informer.

Today, you can relive Carmen's adventures; a few months ago, Google teamed up with Netflix to reenvision Carmen's original gameplay inside Google Earth. And for more classic stories about video game development, read our feature about the pioneering women of the game industry.

At long last, Shenmue III is finally in the home stretch of development. The revenge saga of Ryo Hazuki, who witnessed his father's murder at the hands of Lan Di in 2000's Shenmue on Dreamcast, is finally ready to continue. Announced at E3 2015 as a Kickstarter campaign, Shenmue III picks up after the events of 2002's Shenmue II, meaning that by the time the game launches, it will have been 17 years between releases. I had a chance to play a brief demo of Shenmue III and speak to series creator Yu Suzuki about how development is going.

At the onset of my demo, Ryo says he needs to find a bookie. Obviously, this would be a part of a story mission. However, I'm not here for that. I'm here to see how the side activities – the updated versions of the ones that kept me glued to my screen in middle school, much to the confusion of any onlooking friends – feel in this new entry in the Shenmue saga.

I immediately go to an area that loosely fits the definition of an amusement park. As I enter an area full of small games, I decide to sample what the local game masters are offering. Ryo approaches a woman, who pitches him on playing peg-based marble-drop game Lucky Hit. After a few rounds of watching the marble narrowly veer away from the jackpot slot at the bottom of the board, I decide to move to something else: dice. Watching my demo intently, Yu Suzuki eggs me on to bet higher with each successive roll. I take the bait after winning a couple of consecutive rolls, but this method isn't sustainable in games of chance, and soon Ryo's pockets are much lighter and he's expressing his disdain in his trademark dry voice delivery.

After depleting a good chunk of Ryo's funds in luck-based minigames, I decide to try and build his bankroll back up through something only the most skilled of players can win: turtle racing. Believe it or not, the turtle racing minigame is a test of endurance for the player. As the turtles make their ways down the course, you're responsible for mashing the button that appears on screen. Doing so builds up the radial meter in the upper right corner, which provides a boost for your turtle upon filling. After a long, tiring race, my turtle comes out on top, giving Ryo a good chunk of change. Following my hard-earned victory, I decide to quit while I'm ahead and see what else I can do with my spare time.

Yu Suzuki points at the monitor and instructs me to go up a slight incline to a dojo. This sounds like a more exciting way to spend the remaining hands-on time I have with the demo. While at the dojo, I'm given the chance to train, spar, or fight one of the monks. Training is done by completing minigames. The one-inch punch, for example, has you strike a training dummy in a timing- and rhythm-based game. After that, I move on to horse stance, an Asian martial arts posture where the practitioner maintains a low squat. In this minigame, I must press a button to keep a meter marker within a small range.

After wrapping up my training, I head into the dojo and challenge the Red Tiger monk. Fighting in Shenmue III is much smoother than that of its predecessors. Ryo moves with more fluidity and his attacks feel much less stiff. After trading blows with the monk, I come out of the encounter victorious, and my skills meter rockets as Ryo ranks up. Next, I decide to spar, which gives me specific button commands to use in battle in order to learn new combinations and moves.

Despite various modernizations to the Shenmue formula, the third entry feels faithful to how Shenmue was for players in the early 2000s. "My team was not necessarily trying to provide innovative things," Suzuki says. "Because it was created through Kickstarter crowdfunding, my main focus was to make Shenmue III to make fans happy to play a sequel to Shenmue. That was the first thing I wanted to make sure. Probably nothing I'd call innovative, but there are many, many new elements."

As mentioned before, fans waited many years for the announcement of Shenmue III, and then additional years for its release. However, Shenmue III was delayed from its original August 27 release date to November 19. Suzuki tells me this is delay isn't indicative of any problems, but rather necessary time to make sure the game is in a good state when it launches. "With the title very close to the end, I'd like to brush it up as much as possible for the fans in order to make sure it's as good as possible," he says.

With fans having to wait so long for release, Suzuki says he has a mix of feelings, which seems to include a little anxiety, as launch nears. "I not only feel relief because the game is very close to release, then I also started wondering how the people are going to think and particularly how the new players are going to think," he says. "As such, there is some other feelings I started feeling."

While players have often thought of Shenmue as a trilogy, Suzuki tells me Shenmue III will not conclude the story. In fact, we may have a ways to go. "For Shenmue, I have 11 chapters in the story," he says. "My problem is, of those 11 chapters, how much do I want to put into Shenmue III? In other words, it's not the end of the story; it will continue. It's still going. Shenmue III comes out of chapters three to six."

When I ask Suzuki if that means more games or if the story will continue in other media, he says, "Whatever I can do, I will."

The first two games were published by Sega, and the influence of the publisher was inescapable. In Ryo's travels in those first two games, he encounters all kinds of references to other Sega properties, including capsule toys of characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog universe, and arcade machines like Space Harrier and Hang-On.

Since Sega isn't the publisher of Shenmue III, you likely won't find as many references to Sega in this game. However, all hope is not lost for fans wanting to see some nods to the publisher. "You can find some," Suzuki says. "There is one cabinet called Astro City, which is from Sega, and you can find some of the posters in it. I'll say that for the Sega fans, you will find some things you can appreciate and will smile."

Sega also published HD versions of Shenmue I and II on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC last year. While Suzuki didn't have anything to do with those games coming to modern platforms, he does feel as though that Sega release probably helped him to build excitement for the release of Shenmue III.

My time with Shenmue III is likely representative of how I'll play the game when it comes out later this year: delaying story missions in favor of the many diversions scattered throughout the world. That's alright, as that's how players have experienced the Shenmue games for years. This sequel to Shenmue I and II has kept fans waiting for nearly two decades, but the wait is almost over, as Shenmue III hits on November 19 for PlayStation 4 and PC.

As a series, Final Fantasy has a reputation for showcasing the best of what a console can offer. When Final Fantasy VII released on the original PlayStation in 1997, it effectively used the hardware transition to usher in a new era of era of role-playing games with 3D graphics and cinematic cutscenes. The leap between PlayStation and PlayStation 2 was less drastic visually, but as the first entry on the new hardware, Final Fantasy X led the charge into a new realm of storytelling.

Many things that define Final Fantasy X simply weren’t possible in previous installments, even beyond the obvious upgrade in graphical quality. It used 3D environments throughout rather than 2D backdrops in towns and dungeons. It eliminated the divide between the overworld and other locations, giving the world a more vibrant and connected feeling. The implementation of voice acting let players hear the phenomenal cast come to life – even if some people mock the forced laughter from heroes Tidus and Yuna in one scene (which, for context, is explicitly about them forcing laughter). All of these elements might seem like standard parts of Final Fantasy today, but they started with Final Fantasy X.

This entry also represented a strong thematic evolution for the series. In the world of Spira, a current of loss runs through everything. A beast named Sin destroys towns and kills indiscriminately, and summoners must sacrifice their lives to stop Sin and buy a few years of peace – but the creature always returns. On top of that, the characters are also living in the shadows of those who came before them; Yuna wants to live up to her father’s example, and Tidus wrestles with how his father failed him. These struggles manifested clearly because the characters could talk and their faces could express more emotion, and the unique mixture of sadness and hope resonated in way that few video game stories had achieved.

That’s only scratching the surface. A clever queue-based battle system allowed players to swap allies in or out, and a variety of minigames (including Blitzball, which is basically underwater soccer) added variety to the journey. This combination of fun mechanics and storytelling was such a hit that Final Fantasy X spawned the first direct sequel in the franchise – and some fans are still hoping for another one. Regardless of what the future holds, the past is clear: Final Fantasy X is a landmark RPG, and we had the opportunity to talk to its producer, Yoshinori Kitase, to get some behind-the-scenes insight about this classic.

In the early phases of the Final Fantasy X project, what were the goals that guided the team?
Yoshinori Kitase: Since each installment from Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII and on were depicting an increasingly Western and futuristic world, [Kazushige] Nojima, our scenario-writer, suggested for us to illustrate a world that had a stronger Asian flavor with our new title. The idea to create a fantasy world based on cultures and customs familiar to us felt really new at the time, and I do believe that we succeeded in doing so.

Final Fantasy X was the series’ first entry on PS2, which made voice acting possible. How did that change your approach to creating the game? 
Up until that point, the dialogues that the scenario writer created were implemented straight into the game. However, with the addition of voice recording, voice actors and their own creativity were also added into the mix. Their acting brought adjustments and improvements to the dialogue, making the characters livelier than ever before. That chemistry was a welcoming surprise to us, as we did not anticipate for it to happen at the time.

The “laughing scene” has become an infamous part of the game. How did you feel about players’ reaction to it?
Even in the real world, actions taken by two people in a budding romance are generally embarrassing memories when you look back on them. I believe that this scene depicts that mental state very well. This scene of course is still made fun of by fans, but I imagine that it is because it greatly touched “something” in everyone’s heart for it to be such a memorable scene even after 18 years.

Before the game released, did you think that Blitzball would be a divisive part of the experience?
No, we did not imagine this reaction. Blitzball was something that I pretty much created on my own (half of it was for my own enjoyment as well). This was because we originally did not plan for it to be something that was necessary to play in order to progress the story, but to keep it as an optional feature (where only the players that wanted to play would take a detour and play, like the secret minigame “15 Puzzle” in the original Final Fantasy). However, Blitzball eventually became a mandatory route for the story, and the game was changed so that you needed to play Blitzball to obtain a powerful weapon. I do feel sorry to have made some fans suffer because of this, but it would be appreciated if you can regard it as a characteristic of games from that era.

Do you regret how difficult the lightning-dodging and chocobo-racing minigames were for players hoping to get the ultimate weapons? Were you able to complete them yourself?
The developers in charge of those minigames did of course clear them. I personally cleared the lightning-dodge, but… (cough, cough). As a game from that era, I don’t regret it. But, for example, if I were to recreate it today, I might think through them a little more.

Can you think of anything that ended up cut that you still wish could have been included in the final game?
The original plotline had you play the opening Zanarkand scene for much longer. If we had gone with this plan, you may have experienced a world slightly similar to Final Fantasy VII a bit more before getting sent to Spira.

Final Fantasy X has a vein of sadness running through it, with a lot of destruction and loss. Were you ever concerned during development that the story would be too heavy?
We did not imagine how strongly the emotions of the story would reach our fans, with the implementation of full 3D graphics and voices for the characters. It was also the first time that I shed tears with my own game during development. At the same time, I had the feeling that games were evolving as a media to tell stories and dramas, so I was not worried at all.

Do you think Jecht and Tidus got along any better on the Farplane?
Since a father can also be seen as a rival figure for young boys, they were probably still the same even in the Farplane.

Do you ever look back in amazement on how quickly the Final Fantasy games released? Between 1999 and 2003, a new Final Fantasy came out each year (VIII, XI, X, XI, and X-2). How did that happen?
Yes. I truly am surprised that we finished developing a game in one year with a team of less than 100 people. It is most likely impossible to shorten the development time of any games at the same volume as Final Fantasy that much nowadays, no matter how many people you place on that project. It is a production flow that we can no longer return to as we now create 3D CG games, which utilize a production process that is as massive and sophisticated as film production. As such, we need much more time during the early designing phases of the project. Back then, there were times when we started to develop when we hadn’t even fully fleshed out the game design. For instance, the scenario for the world after the catastrophe in Final Fantasy VI was not ready even when we had already progressed quite a bit into the development of the game.

Without committing to anything officially, how much excitement or discussion is present internally at Square Enix regarding a possible Final Fantasy X-3? 
The idea comes up from time to time when a few close people that had worked on the original Final Fantasy X talk with each other. However, it is merely standard chitchat and there have been no movements to realize it because, once the project begins, there is no doubt that it would become a massive project with hundreds of staff working on it (and I have an ongoing project that I need to finish before then!).

Yoshinori Kitase is currently the producer on Final Fantasy VII Remake. That game recently won Best of Show from the E3 2019 Game Critics Awards, and you can read our hands-on impressions from the show.

Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster released on Switch and Xbox One this year, and is also available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Vita, and PC. Read our review here.

This article originally appeared in issue 315 of Game Informer.

Throughout his history, Sonic the Hedgehog has had to foil myriad ridiculous evil plots from his adversary, Dr. Eggman. This time, Sonic and his crew are in Tokyo for the 2020 Olympic games, when they're suddenly forced to intervene in an all-out Eggman invasion. In a bizarre twist, the best way for Sonic and his friends to battle with the maniacal doctor is to compete against him in Olympic events. 

Once you accept that odd premise, Sonic at the Olympic Games looks to deliver fun action centered on fanciful versions of traditional Olympic events. During my demo, I had the chance to see multiple events in action and play one for myself to learn a bit more about what this new mobile version of the long-running minigame series brings to the table.

A look at the Tokyo map that houses all the events and minigames.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games 2020 Tokyo was designed from the ground up exclusively for Switch, meaning it has more complex controls in addition to Nintendo's stable of characters. For Sonic at the Olympic Games, Sega wanted to prioritize simplicity. "We would like everyone to play, so the controls are designed to be really easy to do that," creative producer Eigo Kasahara says.

Unlike its console counterpart, Sonic at the Olympic Games leaves Mario and the Nintendo squad behind in favor of focusing just on Sonic the Hedgehog characters. During my demo, I see numerous characters, including Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Shadow, and Silver, in action. While you start out with Sonic, your roster expands as you progress through the map of Tokyo and its several Olympic events and minigames. "The playable character depends on the event," vice president of product development and head of Sonic Team Takashi Iizuka says.

Within Sonic at the Olympic Games, you play through various events based on actual Olympic events. During my demo, I saw the 400 meter hurdles, archery, the hammer throw, the 200 meter dash, badminton, trap shooting (seeing Shadow holding a gun definitely brought back some memories), and spring board diving. However, Kasahara says there will not only be more events than what I saw, but also more to do. "We're thinking of implementing more than 15 events right now," he says. "Other than the event games, we have minigames on the UI map. They're not true event games, but they're more like mini fun games."

While the vast majority of my demo was hands-off, I did have the chance to try out the 400 meter hurdle event. With simple swipe-to-jump controls that are more concerned with timing than precision or technical mastery, I'm able to hop right in and perform respectably in my first attempt at the event. If this event is any indication, the team's desire for simple and approachable controls is well on track. While the 400 meter hurdles event has already reached an acceptable level of approachability, Kasahara tells me that the team isn't particularly happy with how badminton controls just yet, so they're still refining how it plays.

In addition, many events have EX versions, where the rules are twisted to make things more difficult. For example, in hammer throw's EX version, your hammer must land in a narrower section of the field, while the EX mode of trap shooting gives you multiple targets to shoot at once instead of just one. Sometimes, the events themselves are completely fantastical. This is on display in my favorite thing I saw during the demo: the EX version of spring board diving. Instead of simply performing tricks using the touchscreen controls as you would in the standard version of the event, the EX version presents almost a puzzle-like layout. In this enhanced version, you must plan your route collect the most rings, picking the best times to perform double jumps in hopes of racking up the best score. This event, which looks like a lot of fun, is exclusive to the mobile version, meaning it won't appear in the Switch's Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games 2020 Tokyo. 

Mobile games, including other Sonic mobile titles, often encourage players to come back for long periods of time through continued updates. While it's almost a foregone conclusion that a big-name mobile game these days will adopt the living-game model, Sonic at the Olympic Games will not follow that trend. "It's made for the Olympics period, so we won't add any new features after the Olympics, but we are thinking about adding a classic Sonic BGM song in there, so people can download it and listen to that music," Kasahara says.

Sonic at the Olympic Games is set to launch on iOS and Android next spring. 

If you were hooked by the Sims 4 base game and are ready to enhance your playthrough, there are a slew of DLCs that offer a richer experience. After its rough initial debut, Sims 4 has since stepped up with free updates and content that appease longtime fans. However, buying all the packs would easily cost you over $500, and with seven expansion packs, seven game packs, and 14 stuff packs, you may be at a loss of where to begin. For those who are overwhelmed by the prospect of which DLC to choose, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite packs. Although we are still bemoaning the absence of popular Sims 3 staples like Supernatural and University, there is no shortage of inspired gameplay in the Sims 4.

Expansion Packs

Expansion packs offer the most features and are the most expensive, costing $39.99.

Island Living

This recent release has already proven to be a solid entry. Along with mermaids, this pack has plenty of new gameplay, especially when it comes to new features and traits in create-a-sim. “Child of the Islands” and “Child of the Ocean” both introduce some original new ways to interact within the island of Sulani. Connecting with the culture and tending to the island is rewarding. Players can really see the impact their sims make on the island with cleaner beaches, greener trees, and even more flowers.

Creating a mermaid is a lot of fun, since you can achieve some beautiful designs for your mythical creature. Though their abilities are surface level (the Vampires pack, in comparison, has light RPG mechanics that allow you to learn new magical skills), the aesthetics alone are worth the price of admission since each mermaid looks awesome when swimming around and befriending dolphins. You can also enchant people with your siren’s call, whether your intent is matchmaking or mayhem.

If you love building in the Sims, then this pack is a must-have. The world of Sulani is captivating, with seaside venues and expansive ocean waters. It’s a joy to build a home that allows your sims to wake up in the morning and dive right into the sea from their patio.

Get Famous

In the Sims 4, you can attain success by climbing a career-path ladder to the top, but other sims won’t care about your renowned accomplishments... until you add the Get Famous expansion pack.

When your sims achieve a milestone like landing a lead role in the hottest pirate movie, writing their next great novel, or catching a huge fish, your sims build their fame level. Other sims will want to take their picture and get their autograph. Having other sims gawk and have a fan freak-out over your sim is amusing and gratifying; it feels like a reward for all the hard work you put toward their celebrity status.

The ability to visit movie sets, which are filled with props like pirate ships and saloons, is also a lot of fun. You can put your sim through the hair and makeup departments and make them perform for the cameras. Your success depends on how much you’ve honed your acting skill, your rapport with the rest of the crew, and judgement calls on whether to take risks when performing. Depending on how the director reacts, the performance could be a flop or a total success. Either way, both are amusing to watch.

Seasons

Seasons should be on everyone’s must-have list. Not only does it bring welcome variations to the weather thanks to changing seasons, but it adds loads of new clothing and building items so your sims can properly prepare for snow days or the sweltering heat. Two new clothing sections are available for summer and winter wear, and there are plenty of new additions in build mode, such as a thermostat to regulate indoor climate and stockings to hang on your fireplace. All this helps accommodate for the weather and holidays.

You can get into a festive mood no matter the occasion, receiving presents from Father Winter (who actually visits your house on Christmas Eve – you can even befriend him), sending out love notes on Love Day, or creating an official holiday of your own. You can assign timeframes and activities for sims to get into the holiday spirit. Treat Yo’Self Day and Purge Day are personal favorites of mine because who doesn’t want to spoil their sims or dedicate a day to duking it out with their noisy neighbors? You can dedicate the day for gift-giving rituals or even encourage sims to engage in a full-on brawl for holidays. It’s up to you.

Though this expansion doesn’t add another world, the wealth of new gameplay makes up for that. Unless you experience an unexpected blizzard or heat wave, outdoor experiences are fun. Without the pack it can be tough to find much to do in your backyard. With Seasons, sims can make snow angels, rake leaves, dance in puddles, and even freeze to death if you’re not careful.

Cats And Dogs

No create-a-sim family feels complete without a little pupper or kitten. The creature creation for your pets is expansive and offers so many opportunities to make your pet as creative and unique as possible, from mixing breeds or adorning them with neon green fur. My most cherished design is a robotic-looking kitten to go with my alien sim.

Along with the new world of Brindleton Bay, there is also the veterinarian career path, so your sim can work to help cure beloved pets as well as perform surgery. The pets go into a machine where your sim vets “operate” on pets from the outside by looking in through an x-ray monitor. Be sure to climb up the new veterinary skill tree so the little ones don’t come out of the machine as plants or decked out in a clown suit.

The pets aren’t just added for aesthetic value, either. Unfortunately, you aren’t able to control pets like you could in The Sims 3, but there are still plenty of interactions. You can train your pets to learn new tricks and navigate through obstacles, or your critters can be lazy and just enjoy cuddling with your sim on the couch. The ability to give your pets traits makes them feel more realistic and they can even develop fears. Pets still have needs, and the “what’s wrong?” interaction can give you a heads up on what your little buddy craves.

Game Packs

Game packs offer a modest amount of content and often come priced at $19.99.

Jungle Adventure

Two of The Sims 4’s game packs offer a vacation destination for your sims, but the one that really stands out is Jungle Adventure. There are so many more adventurous and worldly options for clothing and build mode. You can easily make your sim into a Nathan Drake or Lara Croft type and set them up in a Central/South American-themed home.

Exploring tombs is spooky and exciting. Not only can you bump into skeletons, but you risk having your sims cursed and transformed into skeletons as well. Depending on if the transformation is a curse or blessing, you will either get stuck in skeleton form or be able to change back whenever you want. This will either make you want to laugh or punch a hole through your monitor. There is no in-between.

Scavenging for artifacts will eventually culminate in the formation of a complete relic. Assembling a relic can be fulfilling, especially with the surprise curses or blessings they generate, like the curse of the personal raincloud, the blessing of the skeleton assistant, or even something as brutal as the marked for death relic, where your sim can burst into flames and die.

Interacting with the locals will not only work in your favor to find cures for diseases or curses, but you can also purchase unique items to aid in your trek through the jungle and survive random hazards such as lightning-bug attacks. There are also interactions that highlight local traditions. You can ask the locals about their culture, dance with them in Selvadoradian style, and learn songs to bring back home with you.

Vampires

It’s never a dull moment when mythical creatures are involved. Unlike the Mermaids in Island Living, Vampires have a skill tree, which adds a lot to the gameplay. As your sims become more proficient in vampire lore, they level up and unlock more powerful abilities, such as teleportation with bat and mist forms. Sure, you can already teleport with cheats, but vampires get to do it in style.

Choosing your vampire sim’s perks and abilities is riveting. You start off as a weak vampire with basic powers, such as detecting other sims’ personalities. As you grow stronger, you can level up their fighting skills so they can vanquish other vampires, max out charm so they’re irresistible to other sims, or even become masters of hallucination so they can feed off of the sims of their choice without the awkward social consequences.

The new world of Forgotten Hollow comes with the Vampires game pack, and it may be small, but the dark theme and design is perfect for the brooding creatures. You can create a vampiric mansion and move in right next to Vladislaus Straud, who resembles Dracula. Don’t be fooled by his outward appearance; he looks old, but he is actually a young adult. He’s also single, so don’t be shy if you want to put the moves on him.

Parenthood

Parenthood is another key addition to the Sims 4, especially for players that want to focus on building a family. While this is a must-have pack, we wish that this was included in the base game, considering the big improvements it brings to one of the core gameplay pillars of The Sims. The base game includes a huge family tree aspiration, but Parenthood expands on this concept so it involves more than just having your sims pump out babies.

Toddlers rarely get any new content or gameplay additions, so the extra clothes and substantial interactions that come with Parenthood are more than welcome. The interplay within families includes giving advice, praising, and disciplining your kids. This is engaging, because the more you interact with them, the more their personalities begin to shift to reflect the communication. Along with growing your parental skills, you can influence your children’s actions and discuss how they should behave as they move forward into adulthood.

Parenting skills can develop for anyone that interacts with toddlers, kids, and teens. With this new bonding gameplay, relationships feel much more meaningful. I have a household where a young woman takes care of her little sister, and due to meager finances, they have to live with two of her friends. When it gets frustrating to deal with her little sister, her friends step in and help. Emergent stories like these evoke emotions for players even during mundane activities like gathering everyone to the living room floor for a school project.

Strangerville

This game pack announcement raised a lot of eyebrows. Story focused elements in the Sims tend to put people off, but this pack actually pulled it off and still offered plenty of other things to do, as well as a detailed world that does not restrict your experience.

The point of the sims is to be whoever you want to be, and this one opens up a whole new desert world with a dedicated story and military career path, which allows you to become a secret agent. The military branch fits in perfectly with sims who are trying to figure out what’s going on in Strangerville, but you can also play through the story without it. Though you cannot go to work with your military sim, you can have them “work from home” if you have the City Living expansion pack. This allows you to be more involved in their career either through training or investigating people around town.

In order to follow the story, you have to select the Strangerville Mystery aspiration. The narrative introduces elements we haven’t seen before in The Sims that are bonkers and a ton of fun thanks to light RPG mechanics and building a resistance to fight off an evil threat. With whispers of a government conspiracy and all your neighbors in Strangerville going nuts, the mystery of the town becomes more and more alluring. Though it’s short, you accrue plenty of rewards such as cupcakes and fan mail when you complete the narrative. The furniture (such as weeds growing in a bathtub or mysterious machinery) also offers plenty of bizarre build ideas, giving you the perfect options for creating a secret laboratory for your sim. The new laptops are a solid addition as well. 

Stuff Packs

Stuff packs are small add-ons that usually only cost $9.99.

Movie Hangout

Bohemian Stuff or Psychedelic Hippie Stuff could have been a more appropriate name for this pack, considering how colorful and artsy the furniture is. The new clothes and build-mode items are satisfying additions that we can’t imagine playing without.

New wall decorations, couches, coffee tables, and ceiling lights bring so much vibrancy to your builds. They can easily become favorites when designing a home and infusing it with personality. There is even a huge tree draped with lanterns that is a beautiful addition to any backyard.

Backyard

If you’re looking for more outside-focused gameplay, then Backyard stuff is a top choice. Not only does it offer rural ambiance with objects like wind chimes and bird feeders, but options like lawn waterslides enable fun neighborhood get togethers. You can throw barbeque parties while everyone falls flat on their face trying to slide across.

This is a great pack to spruce up either your front or backyard with more active features. This stuff pack can easily complement Seasons as well for the summer months, such as having your sim drink lemonade while friends and family play on the slide.

Romantic Garden

If you enjoy landscaping, then this pack will put you over the moon since it helps make your backyard look stunning. Romantic Garden Stuff is especially helpful when designing an outdoor wedding.

Another interesting addition is the wishing well, which isn’t your average backyard feature. You can send your sims on a wishing marathon to see if any wishes come true, but sometimes they get the exact opposite of what they want. Romance, happiness, wealth, long life, youthful vigor, good grades, a promotion, a child, or a specific skill all have various outcomes. The more you bribe the well, the more likely you’ll get what you asked for. Also, if you have trouble keeping your sims alive, the well proves handy in bringing them back to life.

Cool Kitchen

As the name implies, this pack is great for sims who want more variety when building and decorating their kitchens. The new knife rack, cabinets, and spice racks for build mode bring a homey aesthetic and a touch of realism. But the ice cream is where this pack gets really fun.

There are 30 flavors, with toppings of your choice, that have varying effects on your sims. Depending on your sims’ traits, they will have a favorite. Childish sims love sprinkles and whipped cream, commitment-issue sims love peppermint sticks and nuts, and gloomy sims don’t like any.

Ice cream doesn’t just make your sims happy, however. This is The Sims, after all, and even eating ice-cream can have dire consequences as some flavors can cause a ghost to visit, make your sims lose weight, or even breathe fire that can set other sims aflame. Imagine that being written on your tombstone.

There is still plenty to come with the Sims 4. Choosing from all the content packs out there isn't easy. Hopefully this list helped you out in finding the best packs to make a well-rounded Sims 4 experience. 

Sims 4 has grown immensely from its predecessors, watch our let's play of Sims 2: Castaway to see for yourself. For more on the Sims, check out Ben Hanson's exclusive video on Will Wrights' game design notebooks. 

At the E3 Nintendo Direct for Pokémon Sword and Shield (out on Switch on November 15) we learned about the Dynamax phenomenon for some Pokémon in the Galar region, and today's new trailer for the game introduces a similar form called Gigantamaxing. 

Gigantamaxing is a rare situation for certain Pokémon species, enlarging them and imbuing them with a special G-Max Move particular to that Gigantamax species that even regular Dynamax Pokémon can't use.

Drednaw, Corviknight, and Alcremie are examples of three Gigantamax Pokémon, with formidable G-Max powers. For example, Drednaw's Stonesurge causes damage to the opponent as well as any Pokémon entering the battlefield. Meanwhile, Corviknight's Wind Rage similarly causes damage as well as removes effects of moves such as Reflect and Electric Terrain.

The trailer also shows off the Galar Region Pokémon League. Here you'll collect eight gym badges (and get a special slightly customizable uniform, see below) after being endorsed by prominent people in the region like Chairman Rose or Oleana. Complete the Gym Challenge and you'll be invited to the once-a-year Champion Cup in the region where you can take on reigning champ Leon and his partner Charizard.

Nintendo and developer Game Freak have also announced a slew of additional announcements for Pokémon Sword and Shield, including each version's exclusives. Sword exclusively features Pokémon Deino and Jangmo-o and Gym leader Bea, while Shield has Pokémon Larvitar and Goomy and leader Allister.

Meanwhile, take a look at more Pokémon of the Galar region, the pre-order keychain, the double pack of both Sword and Shield, and the digital version that contains a dozen Quick Balls that help you catch Pokémon if used early in battles.

There are some new (well, old) characters joining the ever-growing Mortal Kombat 11 roster in the DLC Kombat Pass, and a few are still a mystery. There are two characters who have only been teased, and there has been little chatter about the newly-revealed characters Nightwolf or Spawn. Today, however, we get our first glimpse at a returning character, Sindel. 

7 deadly Sindels #MortalKombat11pic.twitter.com/d1isuSbwxH

— Ed Boon (@noobde) July 8, 2019

Sindel, mother of Kitana and wife of Shao Kahn, has gotten a full remodel. Since her first appearance in Mortal Kombat 3, the black and white streaked hair has been a staple of her character, which appears to have been changed in favor of a single color. 

There is currently no word as to when Sindel, or most of the other DLC characters, will be released. Shang Tsung, however, went early access on June 18. 

Update: The stream has concluded! Thanks for tuning in, and apologies if we didn't play your level! You can check out the archive above.

Original story:

We had a lot of fun live streaming Super Mario Maker 2 recently (see the embedded tweet below), but there was something missing that we're hoping to correct in a follow-up stream. During that stream, we played the pre-release version of the game which had special dedicated servers for reviewers, and as a result, we couldn't play levels from the community.

We decided to listen to some trap remixes of iconic Mario themes during our recent Super Mario Maker 2 live stream. https://t.co/3qZOEV2bc8pic.twitter.com/2J3AZ3wX9q

— Game Informer (@gameinformer) July 1, 2019

We'll be streaming the game again, today, Monday, July 8 at 2:00 p.m. CT, and this time we want to play your levels! Leave us your level codes in the comments below, and if it's a level better-suited to co-op, let us know and we will try to download it in advance.

Be sure to follow us to be notified when we go live next! You can watch (and subscribe!) on all of our various channels by following the links. You can watch on Twitch, YouTube, or Facebook. For our review of Super Mario Maker 2, head here.

Publisher 704Games and developer Monster Games have announced the next iteration in the NASCAR Heat series, NASCAR Heat 4, which is scheduled to hit the PS4, Xbox One, and PC this September. Although details on the game are light at the moment, new tire models for the different track types and more career mode flexibility are highlighted among other additions such as a needed graphical upgrade.

NASCAR Heat 3 added dirt racing, and although that may be a big draw for some (legend Tony Stewart is featured on the game's cover), one of the new features of career mode is the ability to start in any of the game's four racing series – dirt, trucks, the Xfinity series, and the Monster Energy cup series.

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Whether this is the mode's main addition for the year remains to be seen, but 704Games president Colin Smith says that the game, "[incorporates] a number of features and improvements recommended by the NASCAR Heat community."

Hopefully this includes more in-depth car customization options, improved A.I. and online performance, more career mode depth, and improvements in other areas.

NASCAR Heat 4 is now accepting pre-orders for its standard and gold editions (featuring Jeff Gordon on the cover), and the latter includes three-day early access to the game and other goodies. Everyone who pre-orders can play Martinsville at night early. Find out more about pre-orders as well as both editions of the game here.

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne’s menagerie comprises a wide assortment of monsters, both new and returning. Today, we’re looking at Barioth, one of the returning beasts. It’s no surprise that this guy’s a fan-favorite – what’s not to love about a dragon/cat hybrid? We spoke with the team at Capcom about what it took to bring the monster into Monster Hunter World, how it fits into Hoarfrost Reach’s larger ecosystem, and much more.

The Iceborne expansion, unsurprisingly, is set in a frigid new land. That setting gave the Monster Hunter team the chance to introduce new monsters, as well as give familiar monsters who weren’t able to carve out a home in Monster Hunter: World’s main setting a place to thrive. After talking to the team, it seems fairly obvious that Barioth was an easy pick for a repeat engagement. The monster was introduced in Monster Hunter Tri, but tech has advanced in the decade since that Wii installment. Before we get into all of that, let’s get a quick refresher on Barioth.

“Barioth inhabits the icy mid-tier area of Hoarfrost Reach,” says Kaname Fujioka, the game’s executive director and art director. Saying that he inhabits that area might be underselling it a bit. He dominates the area thanks to his agility and arsenal of offensive capabilities. “Just from the visuals, it has a lot of spikes and nails on the exterior, and that allows it to be very mobile – even on icy surfaces.” One of the most striking parts of its design are its two protruding fangs, which resemble those of a saber-toothed tiger. Imagine fighting something that’s as strong and agile as a pouncing tiger, only one that’s several magnitudes larger. And it can fly.

Click image thumbnails to view larger version

Those tusks are great against penetrating armor, but they serve a logical purpose in its day-to-day survival. Hoarfrost Reach is home to mammoth-like grazers called Popo, which serve as Barioth’s main source of food. “Popo have a lot of fur, so it’s difficult for other carnivores to bite down on them, but naturally the Barioth doesn’t have that problem whatsoever,” Fujioka says. “These huge tusks allow it to tear into animals like that with no problem.” 

In addition to those tusks, he’s covered in a variety of spikes and talons. Again, those aren’t just cosmetic. “Because he uses the spikes in a way that allows it to retain its agility, we incorporated that into the game design itself,” Fujioka says. “So when you’re hunting the Barioth, if you’re able to use various tactics to break away those thorns and spikes, it doesn’t have that toolset to be as agile as possible.… It is one of those monsters where in the beginning it’s very fast and intimidating, and it’s difficult for the player to figure out how you chase this monster down. As you’re able to break those spikes and slow its movements down, it opens up a lot more situations to have the hunter perform a lot of big-damage attacks. That’s the way the experience progresses forward.”

Since Barioth is a returning monster, the team didn’t have to start from scratch when bringing it into Iceborne. The team started with the original concept art from Tri, which you can see above, and went from there. “In the previous appearance of Barioth, we obviously had limitations in technology in terms of the level of detail that we could show,” Fujioka says. “For example, the talons or the fingers, we weren’t able to showcase the detail previously, but this time around we wanted to showcase that if it was going to be gripping onto a surface, what kind of details would be in the joints and the claws and talons and spikes – that’s the kind of level of detail that we were able to implement this time around. Aside from just the spikes, [it’s important] understanding the structure, the skeletal structure, and the skin and tonality of the monster, again paying attention to a lot of the detail of the visualization of the monster.”

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Once you defeat Barioth, you can break its body down into a variety of crafting components to make new weapons and armor. Once again, the team didn’t have to start completely fresh when designing the visual look for this new gear. The key is to find the distinctive elements from a particular monster and incorporate those elements into the gear so other players can immediately see it and think, “That came from a Barioth.”

“This is the armor set that appeared for Barioth in Monster Hunter Tri,” Fujioka says. “This was very popular amongst fans in Japan, so we wanted to use this as a basis in creating an armor set in Iceborne.” One of its big motifs was how the armor sets incorporated various sharp edges and its distinctive white hide. “We also wanted to make sure in seeing the different details in the armor you can kind of envision this very specific component of the monster was used in this armor set, allowing again the player to figure out how this was transformed from the monster to the armor.” That theming extends to the functionality of an armor set, too. “Because Barioth is a very agile monster, we put skills into the armor set that help with both evasion and stamina consumption.”

The same overall philosophy extends to the weapon design, too. “We felt that one of the defining features and one of the most aggressive features of the Barioth are the large tusks, so we felt like weapons that utilize and showcase those aspects have a lot of power and strength, so we wanted to go off that motif as well.”

If you like the look of those weapons and armor, know that getting the parts to make them isn’t going to be easy. Barioth is fast and hits hard, taking full advantage of his surroundings. Our hunting party was eventually able to take it down, but it was a protracted battle. Just keeping up with it was a challenge, as it pounced along the ice walls and dropped down with devastating effect. The expansion’s new clutch claw grappling hook made it slightly easier to go toe-to-toe with it, but this isn’t a monster that’s going to lie down and let you turn it into a coat without a fight. 

Click on the banner below to enter our constantly updating hub of exclusive features and videos on Monster Hunter World: Iceborne.

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Earth Defense Force is one of those series that I get fairly upset with in terms of progression, but can't actually stop playing. I dutifully keep buying every mainline game because they're like the video game equivalent of pixie sticks. This was especially true of Earth Defense Force 5 where, as frustrating as the lack of major changes can be, it is so fun that it is sometimes hard to notice.

While that game had been exclusive to PlayStation 4 since release, the game will hit PC on July 11 according to Destructoid.

The game has a bit more of a narrative than previous titles, starting you out as a new recruit that is simply guarding a military parade, taking you through being a newly trained EDF soldier, to eventually being the hero of the world against the alien menace. EDF5 also adds a lot of enemy variety in terms of alien enemies that are a huge pain and need to be dealt with as soon as you make visual contact.

Publisher D3 has not confirmed this date, though Steam's page simply says "July 2019." As for now, you can pick up EDF5 on PS4, but it seems likely you can also get it on PC in a few days.

My Friend Pedro is a game about finding a particular moment. Usually, you’re upside down and falling in slow motion, watching as the bullets from your pistol ricochet off the broad side of a frying pan and zoom toward a foe’s skull. In these instances, Pedro’s systems come together in bloody harmony, letting you conduct a goofy and violent symphony of bullets, dodges, and even the occasional punt of a decapitated head. However, the sheer amount of effort it takes to reach these moments of glory often makes the enterprise more trouble than it’s worth.
 

My Friend Pedro plays out as a 2.5D side-scroller. Your unnamed mask-wearing protagonist and his floating banana pal Pedro go from one end of the screen to the other, blasting bad guys for reasons that don’t make any sense. Fortunately, the vague story isn’t the focus; using tools for wreaking havoc is what My Friend Pedro is all about. Sometimes platforming sequences require you to use parkour jumps to get where you’re going, but they’re standard fare. Puzzles where you have to manipulate switches with bullets also exist, but the spotlight is on downing enemies in stylish ways with pistols, shotguns, uzis, and whatever else you can get your hands on. 
 

While all of this sounds enticing, the shooting is dicey. The radial aiming system makes it difficult to target foes, even in slow motion. This gets even more complicated when you gain the ability to produce two aiming reticles; one of them auto-locks onto the nearest enemy, creating busy scenes that distract from the cool factor. Even something as simple as shooting a man below you and another one above you at the same time becomes a chore because of how many tasks you have to pull off in a short time. Slowly putting cursors over both foes and making sure you’re dodging their bullets before you fire sounds like a cool action mechanic, but often feels like busywork that drains these moments of their spectacle.

A goofy sense of humor pervades the violent onslaught, with a score system that applauds you in specific ways tailored to how you destroy foes. Whether you drop barrels on enemies, set them on fire, blow them up with a grenade, or take them out with a bullet after a sweet kickflip, you can expect the system to account for it with descriptors such as “Air-splat kill!” And the displays of violence that come together when you triumph over the complicated controls are fittingly spectacular.  I once dropped down into a room, kicked a gasoline can, and shot it mid-flight to take out a group of foes with a fiery blast. Then I finished off the last guy with a spinning kick that sent him down into a black abyss below.

Just when I had a solid grasp on the controls and could pull off stellar moments of action, the final stretch morphed into a series of annoying insta-death puzzles and dull boss battles. I had a fair amount of fun blasting fools in My Friend Pedro, but I wish my experience was more about losing myself in the frenzy of its action and less about navigating a tiresome control scheme.

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Score: 6

Summary: A frustrating control scheme confounds this bullet ballet's most spectacular moments.

Concept: Blast your way through hordes of foes using slow-mo, ricocheting bullets, and skateboards

Graphics: Some platforming levels serve as bright departures from otherwise drab environments and muddy textures

Sound: The blasts of gunshots and the woom of lurching into slow motion more than make up for the forgettable score

Playability: A frustrating control scheme makes it unfairly difficult to pull off the coolest moves in this bullet ballet

Entertainment: My Friend Pedro is a fun little bloody romp that gets tripped up too many times by its frustrating controls

Replay: Moderately Low

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Breath of the Wild is a big game that happily revels in Zelda history and references, from things like islands named after characters from Phantom Hourglass to full-on architecture pieced together from ruins. That of course means there are a number of references that may have been noticed by individual players, but not really noted on the wider internet.

That seems to be the case with this new discovery of Outset Island, the initial home island for Link and his family in 2003's Wind Waker. While recording an unrelated Zelda video, the editors at GameXplain discovered an island in Breath of the Wild that looked really familiar.

It's definitely an uncanny resemblance, but probably doesn't specifically mean anything. It is unlikely that this is the Outset Island, in that it has ramifications for the series lore or means that Wind Waker's sunken world is the same as Breath of the Wild's dead one. 

It does mean that the developers of the game clearly had a lot of fun making all these little Zelda references within it, though. As the video mentions, there's things like Lon Lon Ranch that only players who remember the way it is supposed to look will actually recognize, so it probably helps reinforce the idea Breath of the Wild is the biggest Zelda game to date. Maybe the sequel will be even bigger?

Have you ever wanted to put Devil May Cry's Dante up against Street Fighter's Chun-Li? How about Rathalos up against Ryu? With Teppen, you can dive in to a wealth of Capcom's IPs and match them up against each other in a free-to-play collectible card game format on iOS and Android. Join Ben Hanson, Leo Vader, and Dan Tack in the video above as they make the case for why it's worth checking out!

The majority of gamers buy and play a game just the way it was intended, even if modes or functionality are missing or incomplete. In the case of TGC Tours, for the last five years over 16,000 video game golf fans have used the website as a jumping off point for their own ambitions of becoming a golfing legend in HB Studios' The Golf Club series.

TGC Tours is a website not officially affiliated with The Golf Club 2019 that allows players to play a full PGA Tour and tournaments in TGC 2019, and then have their results synthesized and posted on the TGC Tours website as part of a larger, cross-platform leaderboard and season structure that is not otherwise found in TGC 2019.

First players go to the website to sign up and register for Q-School. In the game you'll join the TGCTours (CC-Pro) society and play four rounds, with your score auto-submitted to the Q-School event leaderboard. Based on where you finish you'll then get your TGCT Tour card and can play TGC Tour events. The website features multiple tours, including the European and Web.com tours, as well as a variety of other user-made challenge circuit tournaments.

TGC Tours uses data straight from developer HB Studios, and TGC Tours adds more features to the career mode of The Golf Club 2019 (even though it has the actual PGA Tour license) with real opponents, a money list, stats, and other amenities to give players the feeling of competing on a real circuit.

I talked to two of the three founders – Jeff Weese and Scott Doyley – about setting up TGC Tours and the challenges involved in trying to give golfers around the world the tour experience they crave.

How did TGC Tours get started?
Weese: Scott was running some competitive events Prior to TGC Tours just by using a spreadsheet. He was running it off the HB Studios forums. It was very casual. Tim Owens had this vision of creating a bigger competition site, something that would kind of mirror the PGA. And so it was really Tim's vision. He saw what Scott was doing and approached Scott about creating a site, you know, to run Tim’s sims.

Tim didn't have any ability to do the front-end of the site. He was mostly just going to handle the logic, and he wanted somebody to come alongside him and handle the front-end of the site. So he posted in the HB forums to see if anybody would be interested in helping him to design and build the site, and that's when I came along. I had some experience in kind of running some golf competitions in the past and my trade is web development. So I agreed to come alongside him and help him build up the site. So the three of us sort of partnered together and started building the site before we had any idea what the end result was going to be, which was a real challenge.

It looks like you have instituted some of your own Fair Play rules to make things as fair as possible. Have you had to add new rules to make sure the golf is represented realistically on the website?
Weese: The data is what the data is, there's nothing to change. There are rules that we apply that aren't game rules, like we have a rule that you can't chip on the greens if you're outside of 100 feet, which is obviously not a game rule – it's not even a golf rule. But in terms of competitive fairness, we want people putting on the green. That's sort of a legacy rule, because it was more important in previous versions of the game where chipping was easier, but now that chipping is a little harder it's probably not as important, but we're keeping the rule. So there are rules like that, like tiebreakers – we set our own tiebreak rules. Obviously in the PGA they would have playoff holes; we can't do that in this golf setting because there's no logic built in for playing things off, especially when it's cross-platform. The events really aren't cross-platform. The data we're getting is cross-platform and our leaderboard is cross-platform, but the game itself is not.

Is there a difference between the systems in cross-platform play? Do PS4 users have an inherent advantage due to the controller?
Weese: The PS4 is by far statistically the easiest version to play on, or at least, there's certain aspects of PS4 that are easier [in terms of control – Ed.]. An Xbox seems to be hardest, and PC kind of runs the gamut in between. PS4 also has the largest user base. It always has, not just because this version of the game seems to favor PS4, but our users – the highly competitive ones; the ones that are at the top tiers of our tours – they know that PS4 has an advantage. They know it. They accept it. You play on the platform you choose to play on... If you prefer to do PC and try and compete that way, you may be at a disadvantage, but you have to go from there. I mean, our hope is the next iteration of the game will be a little more balanced between platforms.

In terms of that cross-platform play, Have you guys considered not doing that because PS4 has such an advantage?
Doyley:  Yeah, we've talked about it. It's kind of more complicated than just PS4/Xbox. It's basically the club set. The three systems are really balanced for the two easier club sets – it's just on the hardest one where the discrepancy is. So, it almost becomes a point where you've got to split it by console, and then by club set almost to create the most balanced tours for this game. So no, I don't think that's something that we're looking to go to because I think the pull for TGC Tours is the fact that everyone is kind under one roof and one leaderboard. So splitting by cross-platform would probably be our least-favorable option.

You mentioned chipping on the greens and we just talked about some of the challenges with cross-platform play. Is there anything else users are doing that you either had to institute a rule for or just had to work around?
Doyley: A couple of things. Obviously, the Fair Play policy was kind of brought in just because of the differences in controllers out there. So we kind of had to set a boundary where we base everything off of stock Xbox and PS4 controllers and the data we get is fairly consistent with what the average player gets. So when you get a third-party controller that's fairly an outlier, We decided to kind of put in a boundary there. Mouse users too are a bit tricky since that’s such a configurable device. The other thing I should mention too – I guess the other big drama from this year from the PS4 side would be the flick swing. A lot of the top players have figured out that they don't need to swing the entire full length of a controller. And it’s one of the reasons why we say that PS4 probably has a bit of an edge because it's hard to replicate on Xbox or PC.

Your schedule uses real event names and people can replicate the courses. Have you guys run into any licensing/legal issues?
Weese: No, we’ve never been contacted. We’re not for profit, so we’re basically using all the PGA names and whatnot under the parody law.

Do you guys rotate the courses used or have them replaced with new creations?
Weese: We change the courses every year. The majority of our events play on fictional courses. Some of them play on real course, or the real-life counterparts to their current events on the PGA Tour, for example. The course designer community is such a huge part of what we're about at TGC Tours and really what this game is about. And so we want to reward our course designers, who spend upwards of 100 hours per course that they create.

We get I think somewhere around three to four courses per day submitted to our course database – way more than we could ever field events for, but we do want to reward our course designers by showcasing their work every year. So yeah, we rotate the courses as much as we can.

Is there anything you would like to see improved in the game to help TGC Tours in particular?
Doyley: I think the main gripe most people would like to fix is the lack of backspin on a lot of the clubs. You might have issues with the PGA season mode. But obviously, for us, we operate outside that, so as long as the gameplay is fine we can tailor our site to whatever things that we might think is lacking under the PGA career mode. I find I still love the game; I’m still having a blast.

[I would like] a little more variety too in the course conditions, in what we can actually set. They have these basically unlimited settings for designers, but then for us in the game we only get like four or five settings… 

Anything you guys can talk about in terms of what you’re working on for the future of the tour?
Doyley: I don't see any sweeping changes to what we have now. Usually the main decision we have to make in the offseason is, if the new game is drastically different do we have to do a whole new Q school for everyone. Because everyone's kind of at a certain skill level, and if the game completely changes, it can kind of unbalance that [At this time developer HB Studios has not announced its plans for the next Golf Club – Ed.].

Weese: I think there are a couple of other minor things that we tweak. Overall I think the structure will be the same for the main tours. We may add to what we have. Every year we've made changes based on feedback from our users and based on game changes, and I think this is the first year, out of the five seasons we've done, where everybody seems to be overall pretty happy with the structure of the tours to the extent that we can control.

There are other things that we do want to do that provided the programming time, we would be able to implement. Some of those things are simple like adding new statistics and some things that we can display on the site to make the user-experience a little more in-depth. We have a sort of a development board of ideas and features to add to the site that is pretty long, and it grows every week. I know Tim would love to have a ladder system for additional competitions, not as part of the main tour structure, but just a separate thing as another outlet for more competitive play.

For more information on TGC Tours, check out the website.

THE TICKER

NASCAR Heat 4 Announced For September

The F1 2019 Review

Grid Delayed Until October 11

PES 2020 Adds Manchester United License, Loses Liverpool

New Star Manager Coming To PS4 On July 9

Wreckfest Hitting Consoles On August 27

Remember the Nintendo 64? It was Nintendo's third home console, the successor to the Super NES, and their first system built for 3D polygonal gaming. While it wasn't Nintendo's most successful system, or even in the top half, a generation of players grew up on games like Super Mario 64, Pokemon Snap, Ocarina of Time, and more. It's that kind of nostalgia that is probably prompting Nike to introduce a new set of shoes themed after the console.

The news comes from, well, SneakerNews, which posted the new Nike Air Max 97 and speculated that it is based on the N64. This isn't a particularly far leap, as the tongue features the "Power" and "Reset" symbols emblazoned on the front. The heel also has a fake ESRB rating, but with a Nike logo instead, and the words "Designed in 1997" on the bottom.

The shoes will appear on Nike's website and run you about $160. Hey, that's less expensive than the N64's launch price!

[Source: SneakerNews]

Arc System Works has a pretty good track record with anime adaptations and fighting games, but is still relatively unknown in the field of publishing them. It makes sense, then, that fans would want to try out a new game merely published by Arc System Works but developed by APLUS before committing to buying. If that's you, and you own a PlayStation 4, you can do so right now!

The demo takes you through the game's introductory chapter of the story mode, which presents an alternate universe story to the Trigger-created anime show. You can also take part in the game's local versus mode with a limited set of characters to get a sense of how the game plays against people.

While the demo is only on PlayStation 4, the game is also releasing on Nintendo Switch and PC, as well. All three versions release on July 26.

In SolSeraph, you are a god. You build cities from nothing, command the elements, and fight off invaders. When the time comes to strike at an evil lair directly, you inhabit a corporeal champion who jumps and slashes through monsters until the threat is eliminated. Then you move on to the next area, taking a new nascent civilization under your divine wing.

If that premise sounds familiar, then you were probably playing SNES back in 1991. That’s when publisher Enix released ActRaiser, a pioneering action/strategy hybrid with 2D side-scrolling levels mixed with top-down city-building. Though it bears no official connection to ActRaiser, SolSeraph uses similar gameplay in an attempt to continue its legacy. However, this modern take on a decades-old formula is so boring and repetitive that it crumbles under the weight of the torch it’s trying to carry.

Despite its obvious influence, you don’t need any familiarity with ActRaiser to understand SolSeraph. It alternates between traditional arcade action and simple tower defense, and both are easy to pick up. When you start a new zone, you need to clear a side-scrolling stage full of enemies like goblins, dragons, and bugs. These stages aren’t much to look at. Apart from a couple bosses, the enemies look like generic fantasy beasts, and the dull environments span an unsurprising collection of swamps, ice worlds, and deserts.

The action is painfully simple. Even though you acquire a few different magical abilities (like healing and lightning), your main repertoire is jumping, slashing, and dodging. That isn’t necessarily bad, but your limited options means the complexity doesn’t evolve, so most of SolSeraph’s difficulty comes in frustrating forms that feel artificial. For example, most levels have no checkpoints, so failure means starting from scratch every run. Another problem is how enemies can approach from the background and foreground. While this adds some visual dimension, it also blurs your perception of when these foes are vulnerable versus when they are on an inactive plane. Getting hit and restarting a level because you swung at an ambiguously nearby goblin is not fun.

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The civilization phase doesn’t fare any better. You increase populations by building farms and houses, then put those people to work in defensive buildings like barracks and archery towers. That way, they can intercept the waves of monsters pouring out of their lairs and following the roads to your village center. The more of these waves you finish, the more temples you can build, which open the lairs to attack via the 2D action levels. This routine gets old fast. It’s a bare-bones tower defense experience, and you only unlock a few other buildings to expand your defense options. Without a sense of growth and progression, each of the fives zones follows an identical development pattern with only minor variations. In the desert area, you need to a build a well before you can build farms, but that one wrinkle doesn’t change your strategy in any interesting or significant way.

Living up to a legend is practically impossible, but instead of providing an entertaining experience on its own terms, SolSeraph adheres to an ancient blueprint. It seems content to imitate rather than innovate, but its tedious gameplay can’t even accomplish that. I love ActRaiser, and I can’t blame SolSeraph for failing to recapture the magic of a 16-bit classic. At the same time, SolSeraph doesn’t have much value apart from how it reminds you of a better game you may have played about 30 years ago.

Score: 5.5

Summary: SolSeraph's modern take on ActRaiser's decades-old formula is so boring and repetitive that it crumbles under the weight of the torch it’s trying to carry.

Concept: By combining arcade action and basic city-building, SolSeraph tries to tap into the nostalgia surrounding the SNES title ActRaiser

Graphics: Plain environments and unremarkable enemy designs result in an off-putting art style

Sound: Sometimes the music successfully conjures a satisfying ‘90s vibe, but not often

Playability: Navigating the action and strategy layers is uncomplicated. The controls are straightforward and your attacks and dodges feel responsive

Entertainment: Building and defending your settlements doesn’t have enough variety, and the challenging parts are more frustrating than fun

Replay: Moderately Low

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