Rainbow Six Siege Immediately Banning Players For Using Slurs
Rainbow Six Siege is a game about teamwork as much as it is about competition and Ubisoft is keen to enforce that. Since yesterday, players have been getting instantly banned when they use slurs of the racial or sexual varieties.
Good.
— Rainbow Six Siege (@Rainbow6Game) July 13, 2018In April, Ubisoft penned a post on their Rainbow Six Siege blog about making attempts to curb toxicity within the game, echoing similar statements from developers like Blizzard concerning Overwatch. The R6 Twitter account has spent the better part of the day replying to complaining players and explaining the reasoning. "Fighting against toxicity and cleaning up the Siege environment is a very real and important issue," reads one reply from the official account.
The response to that tweet from a player was "And fair matchmaking."
Reddit user EMU4 showed how the ban works. Within seconds of typing a homophobic slur, EMU4 is removed from the match. Content warning for said slur. Previously, someone would have to be reported and the report investigated. In the aforementioned toxicity post, Ubisoft indicated that the game would censor banned words, but it seems they're going for a more aggressive deterrent.
While most are applauding Ubisoft for the policy, some definitely aren't. Some players are angrily demanding returns. One tweet complains that the person will have to keep from using text chat just so they don't get banned.
Rainbow Six Siege is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
[Source: PCGamer]
We're kicking off season 5 of Replay by adding some small, but noticeable changes. For one, Leo Vader now has a camera in his booth so you can look at his face when he decides it's pertinent! Also, if the two games we played today are any indication, it looks like we will now be playing bad games on Replay. Admittedly, that's not too different from what we usually do, but today's selections are exceptionally bad.
Join Andrew Reiner, Jeff Cork, Leo Vader (now with camera!), and me as we muscle our way through a few rounds of Celebrity Deathmatch before ending with another game that involves celebrities being surprisingly violent to one another.
As always, thanks for watching! We're excited to be starting this new season!
Few locations are as iconic as Shenmue's Dobuita street, if only for as long as you spend as Ryo wandering the streets looking for answers about his father's killer. Ahead of the HD re-releases of Shenmue I and II, Sega is taking you back to Dobuita Street with a short documentary that features new footage of the HD remaster.
Adam Koralik and Imran Yusuf walk you through why Shenmue was so notable for its time and how Dobuita feels like a home away from home.
Shenmue I and II released together on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on August 21.
It's the weekend again, and the G.I. staff is taking that time to do what anyone in our situation would do: play Pokémon Go, "research" arcade games, stare into the void, and apologize profusely for unfulfilled promises.
Be sure to comment below to let us know about your weekend plans!
Suriel Vazquez (@SurielVazquez) – To the dedicated fans who read Weekend Warrior, I have to apologize. A few weeks ago I mentioned on this very website I would be playing Detroit: Become Human on that particular weekend. I did not do that, and I absolutely regret this dishonest lapse in character. This weekend, I am fully dedicating myself to playing Detroit: Become Human, and I even played some of it last night to get ahead. I promise I will play this video game as declared here. I will not let you down. I will also be playing some Dota 2 because I want to get the style unlock for the Skywrath mage set and Cavern Crawl is fun when you use it to play Turbo mode. Thank you.
Kyle Hilliard (@KyleMHilliard) – I finally started playing Witcher 3 in earnest during the July 4 break. That game seems alright. I’ll probably play more of that. Otherwise, I will be attending a child’s birthday party (as a chaperone, not a guest), mowing the lawn, and you know… I’ll probably take a real hard look at myself, take some time to think, get introspective, and finally arrive at an answer to the question: do I really want to buy Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker so I can play it again on a new platform?
Leo Vader (@leovader) – Hoping and praying I can finally get my fifth Elusive Target Silent Assassin in Hitman so I can get that sweet winter coat once and for all! Then I’ll be playing that one Tom Clancy game about sieging. HAGS!
Andrew Reiner (@Andrew_Reiner) – I’m at Pokémon Go Fest with my family and extra wheel Brian Shea. Last year’s festival turned the game into an unplayable mess. What will happen this year? Read my coverage to find out! After you do that, go see Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. I enjoyed the hell out of it.
Brian Shea (@BrianPShea) – I’ll be in Chicago for Pokémon Go Fest this weekend, so that means I’ll be playing Pokémon Go. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.
Ben Hanson (@yozetty) – This weekend I hope to play more State of Decay 2. It took me a while to get around to it, but I’m happy to be sinking in now. Other than that, I’ll probably play some arcade games to study for next week’s episode of The GI Show. Have a good weekend!
Jacob Geller (@yacobg42) – I will be staring into the void for large portions of the weekend, hoping the void stares back and/or has snacks.
Camden Jones (@CCJ1997) – I might take a (brief) break from Destiny 2 to play Rime. I picked it up for free with PS Plus a while ago and finally tried it out last week. Ever since then, I've had a hankerin' to go back to it. Otherwise, I'll just listen to K-pop and dance in my room. Whatever keeps me busy between shifts at my other job.
The current Octopath Traveler box art features all eight of the game's heroes together, representing the actual structure of the game fairly well. However, you may dislike a character or like one of the eight the best, so the cover doesn't serve all your needs. Fret not! Nintendo is offering different box arts for download on their website.
You can get them from the MyNintendo store here and the entire set cost you 50 platinum points. The Platinum points don't come from purchases, so you don't need to worry there, you will get enough points from logging in and clicking around the site for a bit.
You'll need to print them out yourself, though, and high quality prints are generally better. We're still working on our Octopath Traveler review, but you can hear our thoughts about the game on the latest GI Show!
Rain clouds and a sense of dread hang over Pokémon Go Fest on the eve of its gates opening to the public. Heavy rain is likely the least of the worries for people who traveled from around the world to attend this gathering of Pokémon Go fans in Chicago's Lincoln Park. These trainers, as they like to be called, are more concerned with the stability of the game, and wondering if they'll even get the chance to play it.
At last year's inaugural Pokémon Go Fest in Chicago's Grant Park, the game was unplayable for most of the 20,000 people in attendance. As people baked in the sun, and the hours ticked by without hardly anyone being able to catch a single Pokémon, angry chants of "fix the game" and "refund" grew in volume. Niantic didn't have any answers for the game blackout. Most cellular networks were overloaded by people trying to connect to them, and even if they did, the game itself wasn't letting people in.
In the late hours of the festival, Niantic expanded the size of the digital play space that only people with tickets could access. Stretching a couple of miles into the heart of Chicago, showgoers dispersed from Grant Park and were able to finally start playing the game in the less occupied areas of the city. This switch saved the festival, and trainers walked away somewhat relieved, as their Pokédexes were filled with rare Unowns, Heracrosses, and the first Legendaries in the game. Despite getting the Pokémon they wanted in the end, people who attended still felt the Fest was a bust, and filed a class-action lawsuit against Niantic. The company settled it earlier this year for $1.5 million.
Niantic clearly believes that large gatherings of players are possible in Pokémon Go. The company has successfully united players at other events around the globe, but the United States, and Chicago in particular, have proven tricky.
To see Niantic return to the scene of the crime in Chicago is puzzling, but perhaps is a sign that the company has confidence in the game's performance. The first notable change is moving the festival from Grant Park, which was a circle that grouped everyone in a large cluster, to the more spacious Lincoln Park. The hope is that trainers will be spread out and the networks and game won't be overloaded. Niantic has set up a 1.8-mile course for players in the park with activities littered along the way.
Cell coverage should also be better. Chicago Sun Times contacted four of the largest cellular networks, and learned there will be more COWs (cell on wheels) and COLTs (cell on light trucks) in the area. Verizon is bringing in two COLTs, AT&T has two COWs, Sprint one COW, and T-Mobile says it will have four additional cell sites on hand. AT&T's COWs are expected to boost performance capacity by 452 percent.
Niantic is also beginning the festival with an expanded digital play space. If trainers run into issues in the park, they can immediately vacate it and head into the city to hopefully have better luck.
Why are trainers taking a chance on this festival again? For the exclusive Pokémon that will likely only be at the event. We already know that the region-based Torkoal will migrate from India to Chicago for two days.
Rain or shine, Pokémon Go fans will be out in full force this weekend. Here's hoping they have better luck filling out their Pokédexes with new critters than last year. I will be one of the many walking through the park with my eyes glued to my phone. You can read about my experience tomorrow, and I'll also share all of the breaking news as it hits.
Kyle Hilliard has a reputation for being a bit of a pyromaniac, in addition to being known for his love of consuming vast quantities of poultry. It only makes sense that he'd be into Bomb Chicken, an upcoming Switch game where you control a chicken who solves puzzles with a little help from her explosive leavings.
Join Kyle, Leo, and me as we watch Kyle deftly solve some of the most fiendishly tricky puzzles we've ever seen. OK, that part may be a little hyperbolic. Look, he starts from the beginning, so it's not like Nitrome is out to break anyone's brains immediately. Consider it a slow burn! Kind of like... fried chicken? Aaaaaand we're done.
Bomb Chicken is coming to the Nintendo Switch on July 13.
Today is Friday the 13th, which is the perfect excuse to share some spooky-scary features about video games that inspire fright. This feature, covering the history of the game would go on to inspire Resident Evil, originally appeared in issue 282.
Tokuro Fujiwara didn’t play video games; he didn’t even know that Konami was a game developer when he walked into the studio to apply for a product planner job he’d heard about through a college recruiter. However, Fujiwara excelled at game development. After breaking into the industry at Konami, Fujiwara moved over to Capcom, where he created Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Bionic Commando before working on other 8-bit classics such as Strider, DuckTales, and Mega Man 2.
Fujiwara’s most significant contribution to the gaming industry, however, might be an often-overlooked RPG for Nintendo’s first console that never officially released outside Japan. Entitled Sweet Home, Fujiwara’s project sounds like a game bound for obscurity; it was an adaptation of a low-budget Japanese horror film that served as an early experiment in video game horror. In spite of all this, Sweet Home became a cult hit and went on to inspire the Resident Evil franchise as well as the entire survival horror genre.
At some point in the late ‘80s, Capcom began talking with Japanese film company Itami Productions about making a game based on the then-upcoming film Sweet Home. The gory horror flick centered on a small crew of documentarians who break into the abandoned country home of a famous artist named Ichirō Mamiya. According to legend, 30 years previously Ichirō hid several precious frescos somewhere inside his home, and the fictional film crew hope to uncover these lost treasures for a documentary. Unfortunately, a mysterious ghost traps the crew inside the late artist’s house, kicking off a series of paranormal events ultimately leading to their demise.
Before the film’s theatrical debut, Capcom sent Fujiwara to walk through the set and talk with the film’s director. Fujiwara and his team used reference materials from this visit to create many of the objects and environments in the game. When it came to the script, however, Fujiwara took several liberties, often elaborating on story elements that were only hinted at in the film.
For example, at one point in the movie, the fictional documentarians stumble upon a small grave. The crew then discovers that the grave belonged to Ichirō’s infant son, who had died tragically after accidentally falling into a furnace. Devastated by this event, Ichirō’s wife kills herself and begins haunting their home.
This plot point isn’t developed further in the film, but in the game, Fujiwara added a series of collectable diary entries that expand on the narrative. These diaries explain how Ichirō’s wife was driven crazy after the death of her child, and how she proceeded to lure other young children to their deaths so her son would have playmates in the afterlife. Thronging with premature souls, Ichirō’s house eventually becomes a hotspot of paranormal activity.
It was unprecedented in the late ‘80s for a video game to expand on a film’s narrative in this way. Most games of the era were lucky if they could accurately communicate the main beats of the film they were adapting, let alone embellish the narrative. Fujiwara, on the other hand, knew games were capable of doing more than was expected of them, and this push to explore the limits of the gaming medium can be seen in every element of Sweet Home’s design.
Since Fujiwara’s game was based on a movie, developing its story was relatively easy. However, Fujiwara had few reference points when it came to designing Sweet Home’s gameplay. A few early PC titles had played around with horror themes, such as Nostromo and 3D Monster Maze, but games rarely delivered the kind of oppressive atmosphere Fujiwara wanted. In 2003, Fujiwara told the Japanese gaming magazine Continue he wanted Sweet Home’s gameplay to be an interesting mix of unconventional concepts and an attempt to do something the industry hadn’t seen before.
Many of Sweet Home’s gameplay concepts still sound fresh even by today’s standards. Players control five different heroes as they explore Ichirō’s mansion and participate in random turn-based RPG encounters. Unlike most RPGs, however, monsters didn’t drop money or items. Instead, Fujiwara thought it would be more interesting if players collected important story items in the world and then used those items to open up new areas – a gameplay system that would later become a staple of the survival horror genre.
Players could also group their heroes into teams of up to three, but that meant one team was always short by at least one member. Characters also had special items that gave them unique abilities. For example, one character had a lighter that could burn away ropes blocking corridors and doorways, while another character had a first-aid pack that could neutralize status ailments. The difficulty ramped up significantly if party members started to die thanks to a permadeath system. However, Sweet Home remembered those who sacrificed themselves for the greater good and delivered one of five different endings based on players’ actions throughout the game.
One of Sweet Home’s most impressive features was successfully selling the horror experience on Nintendo’s 8-bit console. As players explored the mansion, furniture would suddenly move to attack them, ghosts could be seen fluttering down the hall out of the corner of the screen, and distorted animal’s sounds would be heard echoing though the mansion’s blood-scrawled walls. Sweet Home’s graphics seem crude by today’s standards, but when players first got their hands on the game two-and-a-half decades ago, many of them were too scared to play in the dark. Fujiwara had accomplished his goal: No one had ever seen anything like Sweet Home before.
Black Market ReleaseIn 2000, two groups of ROM hackers called Gaijin Productions and Suicidal Translations worked to translate all of Sweet Home’s text into English. This translation of the game is still floating around on emulation message boards, and fans can buy copies of the game that have been uploaded onto actual NES carts via various grey-market websites. Gai jin Productions and Suicidal Translations spent more than a year finishing the project, and they were well aware of Sweet Home’s influence on the industry. At one point in the game they took a scene that roughly translates, “You’ll never know the secret to getting out of here,” and translated it as, “You must escape this house of residing evil!”
Sweet Home released in Japan in 1989 for Nintendo’s Famicom, and received generally favorable reviews. The film’s official trailer actually helped promote the game, and many reviewers thought the game was the better product.
Unfortunately, RPGs had an unproven track record in the U.S. at the time, and Nintendo of America’s stringent release guidelines showed preference for kid-friendly content, so Capcom decided against localizing the game for the NES in Western markets. Despite that decision, Sweet Home’s legacy would be felt worldwide.
Years later, after the release of Sony’s first PlayStation console, Fujiwara was still fond of his work on Sweet Home. Now a producer at Capcom, Fujiwara felt like it was time for the company to remake Sweet Home as a new franchise using updated console technology. He handed the project to a creative young director named Shinji Mikami.
Resident Evil – as it would come to be called – was groundbreaking for a lot of reasons and deserves its spot in gaming’s hall of fame. However, many of Resident Evil’s most iconic elements, including the mansion setting, multiple protagonists with specialized items, environmental puzzles, telling a story though scattered notes, item management with a limited inventory, and even the door loading screen are all on display in Sweet Home. Resident Evil – and the entire horror genre – owe a blood debt to this long-forgotten 8-bit game that had no right to be as good as it was.
Enter the Gungeon released in 2016 to positive reviews and has since made its way to Xbox One and Switch, steadily growing its fanbase in the process. Today, developer Dodge Roll announced the game's free Gungeons & Draguns expansion is coming to all platforms on July 19.
The massive free expansion Advanced Gungeons & Draguns hits Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on July 19! [pending console approvals] pic.twitter.com/qZoColzp6b
— Enter the Gungeon (@DodgeRollGames) July 13, 2018According to Dodge Roll, the expansion will add, "Hundreds of new rooms with dozens of new weapons, items, enemies, and ammo types. Hundreds of new, wild synergies. More generous drops rates. Slide over tables and coffins," and more.
For our review of Enter the Gungeon, head here.
[Source: @DodgeRollGames]
Destiny 2: Forsaken will introduce an entirely new breed of enemy: The Scorn. These aren't makeovers of existing enemies, and while they're technically reanimated Fallen, you won't be able to recognize them as such; the two look only remotely similar. You'll also have to learn a few new tricks to deal with the many breeds of Scorn, who are much more aggressive than other races, and will offer new challenges for Guardians to overcome.
In this exclusive video interview, we talk to Forsaken game director Steve Cotton and design director Del Chafe about some of the new enemy types in the expansion, detailing how each of them differs from previous enemies, how they complement each other, and how they mesh with the rest of the Destiny 2's combat as a whole.
Hasbro is prepping to release a few new figures as part of its Transformers: Generations War for Cybertron: Siege line, and we have the first look at three new figures – Firedrive, Sideswipe, and Optimus Prime. As you can see in the images below, these bots evoke the spirit of the original figures from the 80s, and might appeal to adult collectors.
Hasbro will be showing off the figures next week during San Diego Comic Con and all three will hit retail in the spring of 2019.
Here’s their descriptions from Hasbro:
Transformers: Generations War for Cybertron: Siege Battle Masters WFC-S1 Firedrive
The WFC-S1 FIREDRIVE figure converts from robot mode to Duo-Charge Electrostatic Photon Cannon mode in 5 easy steps. Use the weapon mode to equip other Siege figures (sold separately) with larger mission loadouts and use the included Fire Blasts to simulate blasterfire or explosions firing from the ends of weapon mode Battle Masters or other Siege weapon accessories (not included/ each sold separately).
Retail Price: $5.99
Transformers: Generations War for Cybertron: Siege Voyager Class WFC-S11 Optimus Prime
This highly articulated 7-inch scale Voyager Class WFC-S11 OPTIMUS PRIME action figure features classic conversion between robot and CYBERTRONIAN armored truck modes in 27 steps. The figure features story-inspired battle-worn deco and is equipped with a W-50 Dual-Mech ENERGON Strikeshield weapon accessory with converting axe and shield modes and a W-M3 RF Ion Blaster accessory. The 2 weapon accessories mod-lock together to form the larger Sentrystrike Ultra-Blaster. Multiple C.O.M.B.A.T. System weapons ports in bot and vehicle modes allow fans to attach weapons to figure in custom weapon configurations.
Retail Price: $29.99
Transformers Generations War for Cybertron: Siege Deluxe Class WFC-S10 Sideswipe
This articulated 5.5-inch scale Deluxe Class WFC-S10 SIDESWIPE action figure features classic conversion between robot and CYBERTRONIAN car modes in 16 steps. The WFC-S10 SIDESWIPE figure features story-inspired battle-worn deco and is equipped with a W-10 Photo-Pulser Proton Launcher weapon accessory and a W-5 Gyro Blaster weapon accessory. The 2 weapon accessories mod-lock together to form the larger RR Gyrofuse Axleswitch Hyper-Blaster.
Retail Price $19.99
Three Fields Entertainment is back with a sequel to last year's Danger Zone. Danger Zone 2 continues the car-crashing mayhem of its predecessor, moving the action to busy freeways. Matt Kato takes the wheel on today's episode, showing Ben Hanson and me what players can expect to see from the game. Fine. It's crashes. Just so many crashes.
Kato plays through several different challenges, but they all have something in common. Whether he's punting vans with a truck, racing through checkpoints in an F1 car, or trying to catch some air in a boring old car, each attempt ends in a fiery explosion.
Danger Zone 2 is out today on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
You cut through the maze of white picket fences, with a shotgun and only a couple of shells in hand. In the distance, you can hear them chittering. The three friends with you are growing nervous. “Need some health,” one of them says. Suddenly that dreaded alarm bellows and out of the bushes jumps a massive beast, capable of slaughtering you all in a few swipes…only for half of it to suddenly disappear into a wall and become stuck. Its giant hands are swinging but failing to reach you. You all shrug your shoulders, put a hundred rounds into the monster, and then move on.
Earthfall, a co-op shooter in the vein of Left 4 Dead and Warhammer: Vermintide 2, is filled with moments like this where there’s an amorphous sort of potential, a promise of fun or a challenging situation to discover around the corner, only for the game to stumble over its own feet even when it comes to the most basic qualities of a first-person shooter. Earthfall hedges more into the territory of clone than homage, with “Left 4 Dead But With Aliens” being an apt description without caveat or modification.
Set in a world that’s been invaded by aliens after a massive meteor strike, you play as one of four characters (with the other three characters filled by players or bots) trying to survive long enough to gather up enough people to lead a resistance against these extraterrestrial jerks. You progress through linear levels, fending off swarms of aliens to reach the end, occasionally setting up shop with auto turrets and deployable barricades to survive swarms of foes. There are two campaigns, each with five levels, and none of them are particularly memorable. The threadbare story is also backed by ‘lore entries’ that you can collect by shooting enough enemies with weapons. Unless you like reading about random resistance fighters’ fond memories of their assault rifles or clichéd lab reports on enemy foes, these aren’t worth the effort.
Earthfall’s biggest failing is that it apes the conventions and structure of fantastic co-op games without managing to engender the moments that make its influences so interesting. Earthfall’s weapons run the gambit from a machete to shotguns, but the many weapons all look generic and lack a satisfying punch. Enemy designs are also stale, with the countless drones that swarm you, all looking like gray crabs. More powerful, special enemies are capable of pulling players away from your group and doing damage to them until another player intervenes, but they’re also lacking in imagination when it comes to how they look. Like Left 4 Dead, Earthfall randomly sends out these special aliens to give you an extra dose of challenge but the lack of proper optimization, coupled with glitches leads to frustration more than it does excitement.
In a certain session, three, high-damage dealing brute monsters would spawn one after another in rapid succession, with no way to grab enough ammo between the encounters to fend them off. During one game, my group and I entered a small tunnel only to have one of those giant monsters spawn a few feet in front of us. You can only kill the beast by shooting it in the back so there was no way to escape or fight the monster off. We were trapped in an unwinnable situation; I closed out the session feeling cheated rather than spurred to head back in so that Earthfall could rob me of another 20 minutes of my time due to technical issues or lackluster randomization.
You can play Earthfall as a single-player experience but I can’t recommend it. Even with bots’ skill set up to the highest competency, they’re still aggressively stupid, often letting themselves be beaten to death by monsters or getting stuck in hilly environments. The whole enterprise becomes more about managing the needs of your idiot partners when you’re playing with A.I. allies instead of actual players, making an experience that already feels like a chore even more of one.
Earthfall just isn’t fun. The game has a solid foundation but that structure doesn’t hold anything that’s entertaining or interesting enough to merit the effort of playing it, especially when there are already several superior games that inhabit the same subgenre.
From now until July 26, you can take part in Monster Hunter: World's second festival, the Summer Twilight Festival. In addition to a more celebratory hub, time-limited armor sets, and a return to every timed quest.
If you missed, for example, the Devil May Cry armor set or the Horizon palico armor, those quests are now back for your hunter to grind through. It also means high-difficulty monsters like Tempered Deviljho are freely available for you to take on at any time.
This is a good time to get back into Monster Hunter: World if you're a lapsed player who missed a lot of the free content since release. Shortly after the festival ends, the Final Fantasy crossover begins in earnest with a Behemoth becoming a huntable monster along with a host of other winks and nods. The PC version will miss out on the Twilight Festival due to its August 9 release, but should be able to take part in an inevitable winter festival or the flower festival next spring.
In other Monster Hunter news, Capcom also announced an animated series in production for 2019.
The software lineup for the Switch’s second year doesn’t measure up to its blockbuster opening year. Fortunately, Nintendo still has a volume of critical hits that launched on the underperforming Wii U to help pad out a thin release calendar. Titles like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze are robust ports of their Wii U counterparts. This rerelease of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker isn’t filled with nearly as many new goodies, but it remains a delightful romp for anyone who missed this treasure hunt the first time around.
I first fell in love with Captain Toad’s quirky diorama-like adventures in Super Mario 3D World. I adored helping the mushroom-topped hero dodge traps and enemies in a series of single-screen levels while hunting for rare treasures. When Nintendo expanded on this concept with a stand-alone adventure, I happily joined the expedition. Each level only took around five to ten minutes, and the bite-sized sequences were refreshingly free of fluff. Captain Toad’s levels aren’t challenging, but I discovered a peaceful joy in rotating the camera around each level as I shifted around the pieces of each environment like they were miniature puzzle boxes.
Bizarrely, this Switch version removes a handful of levels based on Super Mario 3D World’s environments. In their place, we get an entire bonus chapter of new levels based on the worlds in Super Mario Odyssey. This is more than a fair trade, because these new levels are some of the best in the game. I got a thrill at seeing my favorite worlds from Super Mario Odyssey again while helping Toad dodge Bullet Bills atop an upside down Pyramid, or finding a way to power the moving lifts underneath New Donk City. I just wish these new levels were available from the start; fans of the original release must play through most of the game again to unlock them, unless they have access to the Super Mario Odyssey wedding Amiibos.
Since Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker originally launched on the Wii U, it made full use of the Wii U controller’s touchpad, asking players to touch sections of the environment to move them around or to tap on enemies to slow them down. Sadly, this feature doesn’t translate perfectly to the Switch. When the system is docked, players use their controller’s motion controls to move a cursor across the screen, which acts as a stand-in for your fingers. These controls feel fine, but I got tired of watching the cursor buzz across the screen like an annoying fly when I wasn’t using it. Alternatively, handheld mode allows you to use the original touchscreen mechanics without a cursor, which is the ideal way to play.
Captain Toad’s only other significant addition is a two-player mode. Sorry, did I say, “significant?” I meant trivial. Like many of the two-player modes in other Nintendo games, this is simply a tweak to the single player campaign, where one player controls Toad and the second player controls the camera while throwing turnips at enemies from off-screen. This is far from a destination mode, but it technically meets the back of the box requirements of allowing two players to interact with the game at the same time.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker was a fun time when it hit the Wii U, and it’s still a fun time today. The new levels are easily some of the best in the game, but they don’t really justify a second purchase. I’m thrilled Nintendo wants to make use of this well-traveled fungi, but I hope the next time I see Captain Toad, he’s going on a completely new adventure.
Compulsion Games released a new trailer for We Happy Few, the developer's narrative-driven action-adventure game set in an alternate-history 1960s England. The trailer introduces the game's three playable characters – Arthur, Sally, and Ollie – and gives another look at the game's strange, drug-filled world.
Players begin We Happy Few's story as Arthur, a "British everyman" trying to escape the city of Wellington Wells in order to reunite with his brother. Players will meet the two other protagonists – Sally, a chemist who uses drugs to take out enemies and avoid detection, and Ollie, a "mad Scotsman" and former soldier who shares a mutual dislike with almost everyone in town – and play through their stories sequentially.
The trailer also gave a quick look at the game's weapon crafting mechanics, skill trees, and side quests. We Happy Few has changed quite a bit since its initial existence as a survival-focused experience in early access. To read more about the game's transformation, check out Kyle Hilliard's interview with the developers.
The Pokémon Go twitter account recently tweeted about a benign message encouraging fans to talk about their Pokémon Go memories, but hidden in the associated image is a potential tease for the launch of the fourth generation of Pokémon.
From the first Pokémon you encountered to your first #PokemonGOfriend, we've enjoyed watching all of your amazing Pokémon GO journeys unfold for the past two years. What are some of your most memorable Pokémon GO experiences? Tell us in the comments! pic.twitter.com/IAU7Bvg5uK
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) July 13, 2018If you look closely, you can see Chimchar, Piplup, and Turtwig hanging out in the image which were the starters in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. You can also see Celebi flying on the left. Maybe Pokémon Fest, which is happening this weekend in Chicago, will kick off with the launch of a new generation of Pokémon? Both Andrew Reiner and Brian Shea are attending the fest this weekend, so make sure to watch the site for their coverage of the event. Hopefully it goes better than last year.
For absolutely everything you need to know about Pokémon Go, head here.
Our Take
This is a nice way to tease the next batch of Pokémon. Hopefully it is associated with Pokémon Go Fest and we will start seeing those Pokémon this weekend. I just hope they aren't exclusive to Chicago.
Bandai Namco released a new trailer for the upcoming current-gen remaster of 2008's Tales of Vesperia.
The game will have improved visuals, but also adds more mystic arts, costumes (if you look closely you will see Klonoa and Mr. Driller costumes in the trailer), and new battles.
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition is coming to PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC this winter.
With the Dragon Ball Super movie coming out in December in Japan, fans have been on pins and needles wondering when they'll get a chance to see the movie in the west. Thankfully, Funimation has announced that it won't be too long and plans to bring the movie to North America in January.
Funimation and TOEI are continuing their 22-year Dragon Ball partnership by preparing the movie to have an extremely close release after the Japanese date. They will also be celebrating the movie's release by having a seven-city tour of Dragon Ball starting at San Diego Comic-Con later this month and introducing a number of key people related to the film.
You can check out the English poster below.
You can also see the movie's Japanese teaser trailer right here.
Dragon Ball Super: Broly will be releasing in theaters a year after the release of Dragon Ball FighterZ on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The Switch version of the same game will release on September 28.
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