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      Impressions: Shovel Knight Dig is my new roguelite gaming addiction

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 23 September, 2022 - 00:07 · 1 minute

    Dig deeply enough in <em>Shovel Knight Dig</em>, and you'll find trippy treasure just like this.

    Enlarge / Dig deeply enough in Shovel Knight Dig , and you'll find trippy treasure just like this. (credit: Yacht Club Games)

    Shovel Knight Dig has been on our radar since its announcement in 2019—back when games could be revealed and immediately demonstrated at physical gaming expos. That many years ago, Dig was one of a few planned series spinoffs, and its demo at that year's PAX West show floor filled me with dungeon-digging excitement.

    This week, the series' third formal spinoff finally goes on sale on PC, iOS, and Nintendo Switch, and in great news, Dig is easily the best Shovel Knight offshoot yet. What's more, it stands out compared to other arcadey, action-focused roguelites, and the result feels like a depth-filled mod for the mobile classic Downwell .

    A new pit stop on the randomly generated road

    Shovel Knight has reasons to dig with his namesake weapon in search of treasure, secrets, and revenge. If you're interested in this character-filled story, Dig 's interactions with beautifully drawn and animated animals are as charming as the plot found in the mainline series' four campaigns. Or you can mash buttons to skip the dialogue and get to the satisfying digging.

    Control in this new 2D side-scrolling game resembles the mainline series , as well: Use an action button to swipe your shovel left or right (or downward if you hold down on the D-pad) while your hero lands from jumps and falls with his shovel facing downward, which not only harms vulnerable foes but also makes the Knight bounce upward off most stuff it contacts, except certain ground types. Instead of running left or right to a goal, Shovel Knight now digs downward through randomly generated levels (with a few left and right exceptions, usually found in the game's wealth of hidden challenges).

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      Review: Return to Monkey Island is must-play point-and-click brilliance

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 19 September, 2022 - 16:00 · 1 minute

    That's the second-biggest title screen I've ever seen!

    Enlarge / That's the second-biggest title screen I've ever seen! (credit: Terrible Toybox / Lucasfilm Games)

    For a certain kind of adventure gaming fan, no sentence is harder to hear than this: "I learned the secret of Monkey Island before you did." But I can now say it. I've played, completed, and fallen madly for Return to Monkey Island , a sequel more than three decades in the making. This is a game full of laughs, whimsy, and puzzles as carefully constructed as the stories that surround them.

    But I'm not here to spoil any of your upcoming pirate fun. I've been writing reviews for long enough to remember how great it felt to read about a new video game before playing a single minute of it. That's how we did things while saving up enough money to get our own boxed copies of older Monkey Island games, then prying them open and figuring out their Dial-a-Pirate copy-protection puzzles .

    Return to Monkey Island is nearly everything I'd hoped for in a modern return to the series. Its interface and controls split the difference between the expectations of hardcore genre fans and those of point-and-click novices. Its presentation and voice acting pair nicely to set an approachable and fiendishly hilarious tone. And the game's full journey, from bumpy waters to smooth, silly sailing, consistently feels personal, vulnerable, and reflective of its creators—which is to say, this is the opposite of a nostalgia-reeking cash-in.

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      Splatoon 3 review: Nintendo’s well of squid ink has run dry

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 7 September, 2022 - 14:00

    Familiar <em>Splatoon</em> faces show up to usher players through a confusing, unsatisfying campaign.

    Enlarge / Familiar Splatoon faces show up to usher players through a confusing, unsatisfying campaign. (credit: Nintendo)

    In the crustacean-filled universe of Nintendo shooter series Splatoon , (sorry for the pun): Something fishy is going on.

    I'm not sure what Nintendo was thinking with its push of Splatoon 3 , this week's brand-new sequel, as a replacement for 2017's Splatoon 2 . Where the last game added meaningful new weapons and modes to the series' quirky online modes, this year's new model adds a sprinkling of online-only content, which at best leaves the formula unperturbed and at worst is in dire need of rebalancing. And while Splatoon 2 and its 2018 expansion pack delivered some of the best solo campaign content of the Switch's generation, Splatoon 3 's equivalent is a slapdash mess.

    Thanks to limited pre-release online testing, I can't definitively review that half of the game, and I'm wondering how much of it can be redeemed with post-launch support. But I'm comfortable enough to say that Nintendo has dropped the ball for series fans and created an unwelcoming mess for newcomers.

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      The Last Of Us Pt 1 remake review: Enough upgrades to leave us stunned

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 31 August, 2022 - 15:00 · 1 minute

    This moment from <em>The Last Of Us Pt 1</em> was captured as a real-time cinematic on PlayStation 5. All images of the PS5 version were directly captured by Ars Technica, except where noted (though Sony's own supplied screens are in line with how the game looks on current-gen hardware).

    Enlarge / This moment from The Last Of Us Pt 1 was captured as a real-time cinematic on PlayStation 5. All images of the PS5 version were directly captured by Ars Technica, except where noted (though Sony's own supplied screens are in line with how the game looks on current-gen hardware). (credit: Naughty Dog / Sony Interactive Entertainment)

    A little over a decade ago, developer Naughty Dog diverged from its base of amusing, swashbuckling video games by revealing its most intense project yet: The Last of Us . The game's first-look trailer, which premiered at E3 2012 , appeared almost too good to be true.

    In some ways, this new series looked like the stunning Uncharted games we'd already seen on the PlayStation 3. It was full of realistic characters, detailed environments, and convincing movie-like dialogue. But this wasn't a shooting gallery interrupted by wild train sequences and epic climbs up mountains. Instead, TLOU appeared to host the tensest and most brutal combat ever seen on a gaming console. A camera dramatically swung around two survivors of an apocalypse , and these resource-starved protagonists tiptoed around dangerous foes (humans and zombies alike), always one low-on-ammo gun jam or wrong step away from certain doom.

    One year later, the game launched to accolades and high sales figures, but it didn't quite resemble that dramatically staged "real gameplay" trailer. The final game's enemy AI, battle choreography, and presentation of player choices felt more video gamey than we saw in the trailer.

    I remembered that old sense of disappointment while I played The Last Of Us Pt. 1 , this week's PS5 remake of the 2013 original. Honestly, there were moments while I tested this note-for-note remake where I felt adrift, enough so that I saw cracks in its handsome, "current-gen" facade. This is not a perfect remake, and it may leave both brand-new players and Naughty Dog diehards disappointed in some respects.

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      TMNT Cowabunga Collection review: A ‘90s dream, a few months too late

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 29 August, 2022 - 07:00

    TMNT Cowabunga Collection review: A ‘90s dream, a few months too late

    Enlarge (credit: Konami / Nickelodeon / Digital Eclipse)

    In any other year, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection would be a no-brainer recommendation for '90s gaming nostalgia. Who could turn down an invite to an arcade stocked with 13 of the series' earliest hit games, all set up for free play with welcome modern tweaks?

    But this far into 2022, another arcade filled with Turtles fun has already opened on the same block. Shredder's Revenge , a new title featuring the series' old-school arcade action, earned a spot in our year-end best-of list barely two months ago—and its brilliant, beautiful, six-player fun costs $15 less.

    TMNT fanatics with big gaming budgets can look forward to a competent and content-rich Cowabunga compilation, and we generally recommend the new collection to that crowd, despite some issues. But for fans with more limited time and money, Shredder's Revenge is the better '90s-styled arcade brawler by far—and it shows that The Cowabunga Collection 's games have aged somewhat poorly.

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      Saints Row game review: An open-world mess beyond redemption

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 22 August, 2022 - 14:00

    Catching air after glitch-colliding with a boulder is probably the <em>Saints Row</em> reboot's most fun quality. That's... not a good sign.

    Enlarge / Catching air after glitch-colliding with a boulder is probably the Saints Row reboot's most fun quality. That's... not a good sign. (credit: Volition)

    The Saints Row series emerged in the Xbox 360 era as a cheeky, irreverent response to the likes of Grand Theft Auto . By its fourth game, however, the open-world series' cars, heists, sex-toys-as-weapons gimmick, and explosive gunfights had seemingly run out of new directions to go.

    Previews suggested that this week's new series reboot, simply titled Saints Row , might wipe the slate clean to provide a fresh perspective on the crime-spree genre. Instead, this game simply wipes the slate clean—and leaves it that way.

    Saints Row (2022) is the rare open-world game that makes an average Ubisoft open-world game of the past five years seem refreshing by comparison. Describing this game as a regression to the Xbox 360 era would be an insult to the late 2000s' best open-world adventures. It can't touch the adventurous exploration, satisfying mechanics, and supercharged bombast of 2007's Crackdown , while its hole-filled plot and cookie-cutter characters aren't fun to laugh at , let alone with .

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      Review: We Are OFK is stylish, subversive TV disguised as an indie game

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 17 August, 2022 - 19:26 · 1 minute

    The stylish leads of <em>We Are OFK</em>—and yes, that includes the cartoony cat, though I'll leave its involvement in the series vague for now.

    Enlarge / The stylish leads of We Are OFK —and yes, that includes the cartoony cat, though I'll leave its involvement in the series vague for now. (credit: Team OFK)

    Imagine versions of The Monkees TV series or Beatles films like Hard Day's Night for the modern era. What might those look like? I don't just mean aesthetically—even though any "songs within the show" would certainly differ from the jangly '60s likes of "Daydream Believer." What kind of story would it tell? Where would the series air? How would it be presented?

    I returned to this thought often while enjoying this week's We Are OFK , which is as close to an answer to my question as I've seen in a modern, hyper-connected era. This format-blurring experience may be marketed as a video game, out Thursday on PlayStation consoles, Switch, and PC, but it's somewhere between an interactive experience, a passive TV series, and a visual novel . And its production values and brave storytelling choices benefit wildly from this platform-agnostic approach.

    A “video game” that leaves exes on read

    The six-hour experience, broken up into five "episodes," follows four restless and disaffected Los Angelenos in a fictional, slightly modified version of our own world. Certain brand names are changed (Twitter is now "Twibber," Tinder is "Phoenix," etc.), but its characters otherwise order ride-share cars, leave messages on read , and doomscroll like modern-day twenty-somethings. Each of the four lead characters came to LA to escape their old lives—an issue each reckons with in different ways—and, at the outset of this series' episodes, find themselves drawn to each other as a "band" while chasing their own respective artistic and romantic dreams.

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      Game review: Stray redefines the adventure genre with a cat’s-eye view

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 18 July, 2022 - 16:00 · 1 minute

    The unnamed star of <em>Stray</em> poses in its strange, new world of mysteries and puzzles.

    Enlarge / The unnamed star of Stray poses in its strange, new world of mysteries and puzzles. (credit: Annapurna Interactive / BlueTwelve Studio)

    The indie gaming genre of "silly animal exploration" has produced a bunch of fun and unique experiences. We've loved pantomiming as the following: hellraising goats , car-driving bears , and (if you'll allow it into the genre) bendy, walking slices of bread .

    But three years ago, Untitled Goose Game propelled the genre to its zenith . Its production values, accessibility, and uniquely dry sense of humor were a noticeable step up from the genre's typical "glitching barnyard animal" gimmick, and the result was a breakout hit. At that point, I quietly wondered: Where else can video games featuring unexpected animal heroes go?

    The answer, delivered by this week's Stray , is quite compelling. This brief yet memorable adventure is a refined take on the concept, as if it were made by an arthouse film studio. It lands somewhere between the eerie, atmospheric exploration of the first Half-Life and the childlike whimsy of a classic Studio Ghibli film. And it stars a cat: not an unrealistic talking cat with bulging eyes and Acme-brand hammers, but a puzzle-solving, nap-taking, tiny-hole-exploring cat who scurries on four paws and pretty much always lands on its feet.

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      Cuphead expansion pack review: As good as DLC gets

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 30 June, 2022 - 14:24 · 1 minute

    In the new expansion pack <em>The Delicious Last Course</em>, Miss Chalice makes three.

    Enlarge / In the new expansion pack The Delicious Last Course , Miss Chalice makes three. (credit: Studio MDHR)

    Some people will look at an expansion pack like Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course and make up their minds after a single glance. This $8 add-on's beautiful brutality follows the same path as the original 2017 game Cuphead , a notoriously tough descendant of the Mega Man school of game design. Maybe you love playing games that are as beautiful as they are difficult. Maybe you don't.

    I'm here to talk about Last Course because I might be a lot like you. I'm not Last Course 's target audience. I never beat the original Cuphead . I have contended that a tough game like this is easier for me to watch than it is to play. But when I saw the expansion's hands-on demo at this month's Summer Game Fest Play Days , I shrugged my shoulders, grabbed a gamepad, and gave it a shot. Might as well occupy myself between other scheduled game demos , I thought.

    And then I fell in love. For whatever reason, the demo I played, and my subsequent completion of Last Course 's "normal" difficulty content, grabbed me and wouldn't let go—which is why I'm compelled to recommend picking it up.

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