Hello Games is adding companion animals to No Man’s Sky. Today, the developer announced a new update that allows players to tame wild creatures, bond with them, and even breed them. “They will travel side-by-side with you as you adventure through the universe both as a friend and as a valuable aide on your voyage,” Hello Games said.
Once tamed, you can feed, play with, and explore with your companions; a “neural harness” transmits their thoughts directly to the player’s communication channels. “Creature personalities are defined by their species and ecosystem, such that no two creatures are alike, and their personalities develop further as you deepen your bond with them,” the developer said. It’s also worth noting that running into other Travellers may set your companion off, making it act frightened or aggressive, if not playful.
Once trained, companions can perform a variety of tasks for their Traveller, from scanning for resources and digging up treasure to hunting fauna and identifying hazards. Players who take good care of their companions may find collectible eggs they can choose to hatch or trade to other players. The update launches today and will also include “significant improvements” for load and warp times on PlayStation 4.
No Man’s Sky is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, with the companions update kicking off Hello Games’ celebration plans. Since the game’s launch in 2016, the developer has continued to build the game through massive content updates.
As part of iOS 14.5, Apple is updating its emoji with new variations from the Unicode Consortium’s 13.1 release, including new skin tone options for popular emoji, several new smiley faces and hearts, and some deliberate Apple redesigns.
The changes to skin tone and gender presentation are probably the most important to note. Popular emoji like “Couples Kissing” and “Couples with Heart” now have many more skin tone variations for all options.
Skin tone variations for the “Couples with Heart” emoji in iOS 14.5.Image: Emojipedia
In addition to more skin tones, the bearded emoji has also been adjusted to allow for not just the neutral “Person:Beard” but also “Man:Beard” and “Woman:Beard.”
The various beard options in iOS 14.5.Image: Emojipedia
On the more unusual side of things, Apple’s update also includes several variations on smiley faces like “Exhaling Face,” “Face with Spiral Eyes,” and the elusive “Face in Clouds.” Hearts, another emoji go-to category, also has two new members joining its ranks, “Heart on Fire” and “Mending Heart.”
Exhaling face, face with spiral eyes, and face in clouds.
Image: Emojipedia
Heart on fire and mending heart.
Image: Emojipedia
Finally, Apple is also making tweaks to some existing emoji: the rock-climbing emoji will now feature a helmet, the syringe emoji is now a more generic one rather than one filled with blood, and the headphones look like the AirPods Max.
The syringe change could be a legitimately helpful one for anyone writing about COVID-19. Not only is the new syringe way less intimidating when emptied of blood, but it’s also more applicable to vaccinations, which will hopefully become a lot more common soon. The headphone change, on the other hand, is just Apple branding, the same way that the preexisting mobile phone emoji was designed to look like an iPhone.
A comparison between the two versions of the syringe emoji.Image: Emojipedia
Apple says all of these emoji are available in the new release of the iOS 14.5 beta, which also comes with a nice little change to the Apple Music app. According to users on Reddit running the beta, you can now add and remove music from your queue with the same kind of swiping gesture used in Apple’s Mail app to archive, delete, or flag emails.
The full release of iOS 14.5 is also said to include several other helpful additions like support for the new Xbox and PlayStation controllers, the ability to set Siri’s default music streaming service to Spotify, and the ability to unlock your phone with your Apple Watch.
Microsoft today announced the Xbox Wireless Headset, which it described as “the future of gaming audio,” and started to accept pre-orders for the accessory. The headset was purportedly designed in tandem with the next-gen Xbox Series X and S consoles but will remain compatible with the Xbox One line and Windows 10 PCs.
The Xbox Wireless Headset seems like a response to the Pulse 3D headset Sony announced alongside the PlayStation 5. Both of the offerings support 3D audio, noise cancellation, and wireless connectivity; both are compatible with next-gen consoles as well as their predecessors; both charge via USB-C; and both cost $100.
But the Xbox Wireless Headset appears to take the lead in some categories. Microsoft’s headset offers 3D audio via Windows Sonic, Dolby Atmos, and DTS Headphone: X; Sony’s is limited to the PS5’s Tempest 3D AudioTech. The Xbox Wireless Headset is also said to offer up to three additional hours of battery life.
Sony and Microsoft also seem to have emphasized different aspects of the gaming experience with their headsets. The Pulse 3D headset features dual hidden microphones and a stark design evocative of the PS5 itself. The Xbox Wireless Headset, meanwhile, has a protruding mic that looks like every other headset’s.
Combine those decisions with some other features, such as the Xbox Wireless Headset’s ability to wirelessly pair with a smartphone and an Xbox console simultaneously, and it’s clear that Microsoft prioritized function over fashion. (As if the massive “Xbox” on the cans didn’t make that clear enough on its own.)
We’d have to use the Xbox Wireless Headset ourselves to determine whether or not it’s one of the best gaming headsets on the market. Microsoft is accepting pre-orders for the headset via the Microsoft Store for $99 now; the headset is expected to debut on March 16. Hopefully it stays in better stock than other next-gen offerings.
(Pocket-lint) – When the original Evil Genius was released for PC, it brought a breath of fresh air to the real-time strategy/base building genre. Putting you in the shoes of a Bond-style villain was, well, genius.
There are few things better than planning and building your own evil lair, and we’ve often returned to the sim ever since.
Now, more than 16 years later, Rebellion has followed it up with a sequel that retains everything that was great and good about the first outing, but brings it kicking and screaming into the 20s.
We’ve had a chance to play through the tutorial that starts Evil Genius 2: World Domination to give you our initial thoughts.
Taking over
Like the original, Evil Genius 2 puts you in the shoes of a megalomaniac with a penchant for world domination and his own evil lair. This time though, the base is on a tropical island and hidden behind a casino, at least in the tutorial campaign we’ve played so far.
There are four evil geniuses in the game in total, each with their own full campaign and story – Max, Ivan, Emma and Zalika. There are also three islands to play on and a host of different types of henchmen and minions to help you in your quest.
Rebellion
Each villain also gets his or her own unique doomsday device to develop throughout the story, and super agents that will visit to halt your evil plans.
We played as Max in the tutorial and opening of the campaign, who is perhaps the most known of the geniuses being as he was also on the cover of the first game. However, the main star we’ve encountered so far is the lair itself.
Building blocks
Like all great base builders, the most important thing to get right initially is constructing your lair. It’s incredibly simple to get to grips with in Evil Genius 2 and feels familiar, even if you haven’t played the original.
You draw a grid on an available zone, make sure you include a door frame and your minions will do the rest. Depending on the room, you will be offered different furniture or gadgets to install.
Rebellion
You also have to take into account where spies might enter, as they will attempt to undo all your good work, but we didn’t get that far in our relatively brief play – we’ll have to update you more when we get to review the game in full closer to its end of March release date.
Some of the more specialist rooms enable you to create more specialist minions, while others help you take on the numerous important objectives and side missions you’ll encounter in the campaign.
One hugely impressive aspect this time around is that your lair can be massive and complex, not only stretching over a large area but also multiple levels. Even after the first half-an-hour or so, you’ll have numerous rooms built and the plan will start to look busy and intricate. It also looks great both close-up and from a distance/above, not least thanks to sticking to the 1960’s graphical style of Evil Genius 1.
Best PS5 games 2021: Amazing PlayStation 5 titles to pick up
By Max Freeman-Mills
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Smooth operators
We have to admit, we need a lot more play time with EG2 to get more of a feel for global operations (objectives outside of your base) and the nuances of different henchmen, but we can safely say that Rebellion has got it spot on when it comes to the aesthetics.
Rebellion
Evil Genius 2 is stunning looking. We played the preview build on an Asus ROG Zephyrus S GX531, running an Nvidia RTX 2080 and it ran like butter – as smooth and silky as you like. Of course, this genre of game isn’t known to be graphically demanding, but the animation of each individual minion, when you zoom in close, is great. Plus, when you have plenty of rooms built and hundreds of employees whizzing around, you will be pleased at the level of detail on offer.
The game has a keen sense of character, with great comedy elements and subtle moments. Certainly, we spent a large amount of time just observing what was going on in the background and look forward to doing so more when the final release version is available.
First Impressions
To be honest, we’ve spent too fleeting a time with the game so far, but can already see it’s shaping up nicely. It’s exhibiting signs that it will be a more than worthy successor to one of our favourite sims of yesteryear.
It looks right, beautifully styled and seemingly will have enough extra depth to provide a decent challenge, no matter your skill level.
Add to that the announcement that, for the first time, it will include a free sandbox mode where you can build a base without the constraints of a story, and it could be everything a fan of the original could have hoped for.
We can’t wait to get the full game in for testing, that’s for sure.
Evil Genius 2: World Domination will be available for PC from 30 March 2021. It’ll be available exclusively on Steam and those who pre-purchase it will get 10 per cent off. That rises to 15 per cent if you own the original Evil Genius.
While Deep Silver’s and 4A Games Metro Exodus has been available for several years, that hasn’t stopped the developer from improving upon it. Today, it was announced that the game would see a new edition called Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition, which will bring DLSS 2.0 to the game and more ray tracing features than you can shake a stick at, but only if you have the latest graphics cards.
This upgraded version will take advantage of 4A’s new fully Ray Tracing Lighting Pipeline and adds support for Nvidia and AMD hardware. Those who picked up AMD’s latest graphics cards will have another game that will provide ray tracing support. Nvidia cards will benefit from DLSS 2.0, while there’s no word on if support for AMD’s DLSS competitor, DirectML Super Resolution, will be added.
“We have built an all-new Fully Ray Traced Lighting Pipeline that brings a number of optimizations, upgrades, and new features to the Ray Traced Global Illumination and Emissive Lighting that we pioneered with the original release of Metro Exodus, as well as an upgraded implementation of our powerful Temporal Reconstruction technology to further boost resolution, visual detail, and performance.” — Deep Silver / 4A Games Press Release
This upgraded version will take advantage of 4A’s new Fully Ray Tracing Lighting Pipeline and adds support for Nvidia and AMD hardware. Those who picked up AMD’s latest graphics cards will have another game that will provide ray tracing support. Nvidia cards will benefit from DLSS 2.0, while there’s no word on if AMD’s DLSS competitor, DirectML Super Resolution, will be added.
However, this is more than just a mere upgrade. As there are many added features under the hood, this wouldn’t be released as a patch. Instead, it will be released as a separate version of the game that will be free for all existing Metro Exodus owners on the Epic Games Store Steam and GOG. The Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition will be available in Spring 2021.
This upgraded version is strictly for ray traced enabled hardware, as the bare minimum for even playing the game will require either Nvidia’s or AMD’s capable hardware. If you try to run the game and don’t have a GPU that can provide ray tracing, the game won’t run. This also means you probably don’t want to try running Nvidia’s software-enabled ray tracing on the GTX series cards.
(Image credit: 4A)
In addition to The Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition version, 4A games have also announced that Metro Exodus is also making its way to both Mac and Linux. These versions were promised some time ago and are still in the works. The Mac version will be available in March 2021, while the Linux version looking like a much later 2021 release.
Ray tracing support is also heading to the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S consoles. The beefer consoles, PS5 and Xbox Series X, will run at 4K / 60FPS with full ray traced lighting. The Xbox Series S will also see upgraded ray tracing features, but not 4K as the console wasn’t designed around 4K gaming. The PS5 version will benefit from added haptic feedback for the DualSense controller. While the Xbox Series X|S will see spatial audio and controller latency improvements.
Metro Exodus is the conclusion to the Metro gaming series, which has spanned three games and is currently available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, while being backward compatible for the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Overcooked All You Can Eat, which bundles all of the content from Overcooked and Overcooked 2 into one big package, will be released on Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam on March 23rd, developer Ghost Town Games announced on Monday. Right now, the game is only available on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, so a lot more players will be able to jump into this combined bundle with the wider release.
Overcooked All You Can Eat also serves as a remaster for the games, running at 60fps and a 4K resolution. The game also has faster loading times, which I personally am happy to hear about. Levels in the Switch version of Overcooked 2 sometimes loaded frustratingly slowly.
HOT NEWS JUST IN
Overcooked! All You Can Eat comes to Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One & Steam March 23rd!
Both original games & new content New kitchens & chefs New accessibility options & assist mode Online multiplayer for ALL kitchens Cross-play coming soon
THE SCANDAL! pic.twitter.com/ndh8cGwWVz
— Overcooked (@Overcookedgame) February 15, 2021
Ghost Town Games also announced that Overcooked All You Can Eat will be getting support for crossplay multiplayer on all platforms in an update coming “soon.” The game already supported crossplay on PS5 and Xbox Series X, so it’s great to see that it will be expanded to all platforms. Overcooked is a fantastic multiplayer game, and being able to play with friends no matter what platform they’re on will make it that much easier to experience some cooking mayhem.
Overcooked All You Can Eat also has some assist mode options and new accessibility features.
Playstation 5 scalpers are mad that people don’t like them, according to recent interviews they had with Forbes writer Janhoi McGregor, and it’s hilarious. The writer recently spoke to several British scalpers who were trying to recover their public image, probably in light of recent efforts from UK legislators to ban scalping, which gives us not only only a rare look inside the scalper mindset, but also a look into how they operate.
Scalping has been a thorn in the side of anyone looking to buy consumer tech throughout 2020 and into 2021, from the RTX 3000 series to Ryzen 5000 chips to the Playstation 5. The problem’s only gotten worse as the pandemic has closed down brick and mortar stores and forced shoppers to a purely online ecosystem, where they have to contend with bots that can buy faster than any person. We’ve spoken with cybersecurity experts before about the problems scalping poses for consumers and the threat it poses to dollar value in the larger economy, but scalpers themselves have a simple retort: “What makes us so different from Walmart?”
These sentiments come from a recent Forbes story where writer Janhoi McGregor sought to get the scalpers’ side of the story. And while McGregor’s sources gave him some pretty amusing rationalizations, they also pulled back the curtain a bit on how they actually operate.
“There seems to be A LOT of bad press on this incredibly valuable industry and I do not feel that it is justified,” a scalper named Jordan told McGregor. Jordan is the co-founder of a private scalping group (also called a “cook group”) known as The Lab. “All we are acting as is a middleman for limited quantity items.”
We do have to question the effectiveness of saying “I’m just a middleman” as a defense. Middlemen aren’t exactly known for their likability.
Jokes aside, Jordan attempted to justify scalping to McGregor by comparing scalpers to grocery stores. “Essentially every business resells their products,” he said. “Tesco, for example, buys milk from farmers for 26p or so per liter. No one ever seems to complain to the extent as they are currently doing towards ourselves.”
To be fair, Tesco also buys in bulk that’s not economical for individuals and handles shipping and stocking of more reasonably sized products for the consumer, whereas scalpers buy products that are already marked up for individual purchase and add no extra convenience or value for their customers. While there’s certainly valid criticisms to be levied against current market setups, it would feel wrong if we didn’t point out that adding an unnecessary extra layer of middlemen is hardly analogous to what supermarkets do.
Or, as one gamer told McGregor about Jordan’s analogy, “He is deluded. He doesn’t get he’s another layer of profiteering in his own Tesco analogy. He’s not Robin Hood.”
But we’re not here to debunk scalper justifications, as easy and entertaining as it is. You can probably do that yourself. What’s perhaps most interesting in McGregor’s article is what scalpers had to say about the methods they use to run their “businesses.”
For instance, one of Jordan’s partners, named Regan, told McGregor about a bot he uses to mass purchase Supreme’s highly-demanded clothing. Called Volex, the bot can check out items in 2.3 seconds and bypass 3D Secure, which is a legally mandated security check for online purchases in the UK that verifies whether a shopper is the legitimate owner of their card.
Normally, 3D Secure redirects buyers to another site owned by their bank. But Velox avoids this through methods that Regan wasn’t willing to share.
McGregor talked to web security consultant Edward Spencer, who said that the scalpers are probably using pre-paid cards from outside the EU, and suggested that shops could probably thwart it by rejecting all non-3D Secure transactions.
Of course, this only applies to European purchases, which is why McGregor also spoke to a scalper going by Alex who attempted to build his own PS5 purchasing bot. Alex’s bot was a website scraper that automated checkout. Alex said that while his bot was faster than a human, it still wasn’t fast enough to compete with the bots like Volex that cook groups sell for thousands of dollars. That’s because while his bot interacted with the website, other scalping bots interact directly with severs.
“For Walmart, there was an open API for their stock,” Alex told McGregor. “Some of these bots could add a PS5 to their shopping cart, and then they could purchase it from there.”
These kinds of bots can even let scalpers
buy stock before it officially becomes available
, as happened with Argos the day before it started officially selling PS5s. While the store eventually shut down the loophole, the end message here is that, without oversight, scalpers will always find a way.
That kind of innovation usually requires plenty of resources, which is why many of McGregor’s sources “operate as a business, in some cases with full time staff.”
So, perhaps at least one aspect of Jordan’s Tesco analogy holds water. Going back to justifications, Jordan also told McGregor how his group donates to charity and is just trying to “help people make some extra money for themselves,” though Regan was more blunt…and honest.
“Your average person who just wants one of the consoles to use struggles to get close. A lot of these sites have very minimal or easy to bypass bot protection. They often release stocks at stupid times or without any form of schedule…The only people who will have known about those restocks will have been people with monitors inside of cook groups.”
These concerns match some of what we heard when we spoke to cybersecurity experts like Larry Bates, which is interesting to hear coming from the other side. It’s also enlightening, as it provides some concrete steps governments and stores can take to prevent scalping, which up to this point has proven legally difficult as it runs the risk of interfering with the right to sell one’s own property.
In the meantime, we assume that if the UK’s anti-scalping bill does pass, we’ll get even more choice quotes from scalpers about how, actually, they’re the real heroes here.
Finding the best graphics card at anything approaching reasonable pricing has become increasingly difficult. Just about everything we’ve tested in our GPU benchmarks hierarchy is sold out unless you go to eBay, but current eBay prices will take your breath away. If you thought things were bad before, they’re apparently getting even worse. No doubt, a lot of this is due to the recent uptick in Ethereum mining’s profitability on GPUs, compounded by component shortages, and it’s not slowing down.
A couple of weeks back, we wrote about Michael Driscoll tracking scalper sales of Zen 3 CPUs. Driscoll also covered other hot ticket items like RTX 30-series GPUs, RDNA2 / Big Navi GPUs, Xbox Series S / X, and PlayStation 5 consoles. Thankfully, he provided the code to his little project, and we’ve taken the opportunity to run the data (with some additional filtering out of junk ‘box/picture only’ sales) to see how things are going in the first six weeks of 2021. Here’s how things stand for the latest AMD and Nvidia graphics cards:
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware (Michael Driscoll))
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That’s … disheartening. Just in the past month, prices have increased anywhere from 10% to 35% on average. The increase is partly due to the recent graphics card tariffs, and as you’d expect, the jump in prices is more pronounced on the lower-priced GPUs.
For example, the RTX 3060 Ti went from average prices of $690 in the first week of January to $920 in the past week. It also represents nearly 3,000 individual sales on eBay, after filtering out junk listings — and these are actual sales, not just items listed on eBay. RTX 3080 saw the next-biggest jump in pricing, going from $1,290 to $1,593 for the same time periods, with 3,400 listings sold.
Nvidia’s RTX 3070 represents the largest number of any specific GPU sold, with nearly 5,400 units, but prices have only increased 17% — from $804 in January to $940 in February. The February price is interesting because it’s only slightly higher than the RTX 3060 Ti price, which suggests strongly that it’s Ethereum miners snapping up most of these cards. (The 3060 Ti hits roughly the same 60MH/s as the 3070 after tuning since they both have the same 8GB of GDDR6 memory.)
Wrapping up Nvidia, the RTX 3090 accounts for 2,291 units sold on eBay, with pricing increasing 14% since January. For the most expensive GPU that already had an extreme price, it’s pretty shocking to see it move up from $2,087 to a new average of $2,379. I suppose it really is the heir to the Titan RTX throne now.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
We see a similar pattern on the AMD side, but at far lower volumes in terms of units sold. The RX 6900 XT had 334 listings sold, with average pricing moving up just 8% from $1,458 to $1,570 during the past six weeks. Considering it delivers roughly the same mining performance as the less expensive Big Navi GPUs, that makes sense from the Ethereum mining perspective.
Radeon RX 6800 XT prices increased 11% from $1,179 in January to $1,312 in February. It’s also the largest number of GPUs sold (on eBay) for Team Red, at 448 graphics cards. Not far behind is the RX 6800 vanilla, with 434 units. It saw the biggest jump in pricing over the same period, from $865 to $1,018 (18%). That strongly correlates with expected profits from GPU mining.
That’s both good and bad news. The good news is that gamers are most likely being sensible and refusing to pay these exorbitant markups. The bad news is that as long as mining remains this profitable, stock and pricing of graphics cards isn’t likely to recover. It’s 2017 all over again, plus the continuing effects of the pandemic.
The Nintendo Switch continues to perform very well, selling the most units out of any other gaming hardware in the US in January, according to gaming analyst firm The NPD Group. But Sony’s PlayStation 5 still made more money last month, despite a more limited supply.
According to NPD’s January report, the Switch was the bestselling hardware platform in terms of units sold in January — the highest of any platform in that specific month since the Nintendo Wii in 2010. Despite this, Sony’s next-gen console earned the highest dollar sales total for the month of January, breaking the previous record set by the Nintendo Wii in 2009.
There are a few reasons why the Switch might have sold more units but made less money than the PS5. Most notably, the PS5’s starting price begins at $100 more than the Switch, with the digital-only PS5 retailing for $400 and the disc drive model retailing for $500.
The PS5 has been out for nearly three months yet, just like the Xbox Series X / S, the PS5 has been very difficult to buy, with retailers mostly hosting online sales due to severe supply shortages. With no signs of retailers selling the PS5 in stores anytime soon due to the ongoing pandemic, the only way you can buy a PS5 from a retail store is to wait for another wave of PS5 restocks to appear online. But when they do, they typically sell out in minutes, and Sony’s strong numbers for the month suggest it’s going through its stock as fast as possible. NPD’s report makes no mention of Microsoft’s new Xbox consoles.
Nintendo’s console has been impacted by the pandemic, too, as the Switch was a bit difficult to find last spring, but supplies have remained relatively healthy since. The Switch has also seen restocks of the base console and various bundles, including limited-edition ones like the newly released Mario-themed bundle.
It’s fair to say the PlayStation 5’s huge, two-tone industrial design is not for everyone, and now Dbrand says it has a solution. The company best known for its custom phone skins and cases has put “Darkplates” on sale, with the promise that the precisely carved slabs of plastic will turn your PS5 into a murdered-out matte-black hunk of hardware.
This isn’t just an unofficial accessory — Dbrand is actively encouraging Sony to sue it for putting the product out. The background there is that a small company, first called PlateStation5 then CustomizeMyPlates, was forced to cancel and refund orders for a similar product last year following legal action from Sony. Now Dbrand’s order page reads “Go ahead, sue us” at the top.
The goading doesn’t stop there. Dbrand’s Darkplate features a spin on the PlayStation button icons microtexture found on the PS5 and its controller. The company describes it as “a familiar-but-legally-distinct apocalyptic spin on the classic PlayStation button shapes.”
The Darkplate also has an optional skin for the glossy black middle section of the PS5, in case you want to customize its color or just make it less of a breeding ground for fingerprints. Beyond the matte black option, there are plain yellow and white skins as well as patterns like “robot camo” and “redcode.”
Converting your PS5 to matte black won’t be particularly cheap and might not be all that quick. One set of plates sells for $49 plus shipping, while adding a middle skin takes the base price up to $60.95. All three waves of product set to ship in February, March, and April respectively have sold out in the past couple of hours, while a fourth wave for May is now available for backorder. The PS5 Digital Edition version of the plates, meanwhile, hasn’t yet been put on sale at all.
Stardew Valley’s 1.5 update delighted a lot of us when it came out for PC in December, and now it’s finally arriving for consoles. The game’s developer announced on Twitter that the update should be rolling out to Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation “within the next couple of hours.” As of this writing, it is already available on the Nintendo Switch.
The most notable feature in the update is local, split-screen co-op play, which seems absolutely perfect for consoles. Do I want to sit next to someone I love on the couch and build a farm together? Absolutely, yes, and now we can.
The update also includes a new Advanced Options menu, new buildings, animals, and enemies, and of course a crop of bug fixes.
The Stardew Valley 1.5 Update for Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation are out, and should be available on all platforms within the next couple of hours.
— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) February 11, 2021
The full changelog is available on Stardew Valley’s website, and you can look through it yourself to see which changes excite you— we’re hyped for chairs that you can actually sit on, a menu tab that tells you if you’ve talked to someone that in-game day, and an entirely new region with its own quest and characters.
When we first covered this update, we called Stardew Valley our “forever game,” because a lot of us keep coming back to play it every time it’s updated. Despite the game’s popularity (it’s sold over 10 million copies), it still feels like a very personal project — just like my farm in the game, though I’ll admit that’s a bit less impressive.
Kingdom Hearts, Square Enix’s action roleplaying mashup of Square Enix, Disney, and Pixar characters, is coming to PC for the first time. The series will be available as an Epic Store exclusive on March 30th, the company announced today.
Titles include Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 Remix — enhanced versions of Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 — Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind, Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, and Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory. Although the series has spanned a variety of platforms, from its beginnings as a PlayStation title to its arrival on Xbox consoles and handhelds for many of the series’ spinoffs, it has never made the leap to PC.
The series follows Sora as he travels with companions Donald Duck and Goofy through worlds based on Disney classics. Kingdom Hearts III, which acts as the conclusion to Sora’s adventure, launched for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2019.
Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 Remix is available for $49.99, while the other three games are $59.99.
Pedro Pascal, who you might recognize as The Mandalorian himself, has been cast as Joel in HBO’s TV adaptation of The Last of Us, as first reported by Deadline. The casting was confirmed shortly after by The Last of Us creative director (and an executive producer and writer for the show) Neil Druckmann.
Pascal’s confirmed casting comes just hours after the news that Bella Ramsey, who played the fan-favorite ruler Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones, will play Ellie, Joel’s surrogate daughter. (Pascal also had a role on Game of Thrones — he played Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper of Dorne.) It also comes shortly after the news that Lucasfilm has severed ties with one of Pascal’s co-stars on The Mandalorian, Gina Carano.
Joel and Ellie, as seen in PlayStation exclusive The Last of Us.Image: Naughty Dog
The first game in The Last of Us series focuses largely around Joel and Ellie’s relationship, and it seems likely that the initial run of the show will keep the focus on the two characters as well. In addition to Pascal and Ramsey, the series already has some other notable talent on board — Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin is set to be a writer and executive producer, and Kantemir Balagov, who directed indie WWII drama Beanpole, is set to direct the pilot episode.
Sony’s PlayStation Network is currently experiencing a global outage. On the PlayStation Network status page, every service except PlayStation Video is marked as experiencing issues.
Tens of thousands of users are reporting issues with PlayStation Network as shown by DownDetector, where Call of Duty, Apex Legends, and Rocket League and many other games are all seeing spikes in user reports as well. We’re seeing reports in a wide variety of languages on Twitter, and PlayStation Japan has officially confirmed the outage as well.
Multiple publishers, including Bethesda, Fortnite maker Epic Games, Rockstar, and Sega, have posted tweets alerting players about the outage.
PSA: We are aware that PSN is down and players are unable to connect to Rocket League. Please see the PlayStation Network status page for updates.https://t.co/6fsLVVbDcF
— Rocket League (@RocketLeague) February 11, 2021
PlayStation Network is currently experiencing an outage. As PlayStation works to resolve this issue, you can keep up with the status here:https://t.co/rNAFmWENN3
— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) February 11, 2021
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Two of us here at The Verge were having trouble playing games on PlayStation Now. Oddly, though, I was able to hop into a Fortnite match, a colleague was able to play Destruction AllStars, and my editor was able to download content without issues. We’re curious if it has something to do with specific games that rely on PSN.
Developing… we’ll update this story if the situation becomes clearer or service returns.
(Pocket-lint) – Oh, the Wii U. That poor ol’ console really was a trial for Nintendo. But just because it didn’t sell well, let’s not forget some of the goodies that graced the platform.
Premier of which is Super Mario 3D World, now ported for Nintendo Switch in fine fettle, complete with brand new add-on Bowser’s Fury. The latter of which is the most bonkers Mario game we’ve played since Super Mario Sunshine (also re-released for Switch as part of Super Mario 3D All-Stars).
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We’ve had Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury on our Switch for three weeks, playing our way through its vast array of levels, to see whether Mario’s remastered world, including its online multiplayer, is the platforming perfection everyone needs right now – whether new to the game or already a fan.
Bowser’s Fury review
First thing’s first: the title that people most want to know about, as it’s all new. Yes, it’s Bowser’s Fury. This Switch exclusive has certainly got tongues wagging. So what’s it all about?
Well, Bowser’s Fury is quite unlike any Mario game we’ve played before. Largely because you play assisted by Bowser Jr. – who is available for a second player to command if you wish (otherwise he’s computer controlled – but you can state whether he’s helpful “a lot” or “a little”) – in taking down a very angry Bowser.
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That’s right: you’re helping your usual enemy in the goal of greater good. Mario has such a heart of gold, eh? But that premise is just the start in a rather whacky caper.
Nintendo
Bowser’s Fury feels more open-world than many recent Mario titles. It’s set in a giant expanse where you need to continue to open additional levels by collecting what are called Cat Shines.
In the centre of this expanse is Bowser, his head plonked down in the mud, who becomes rather irritated by this Cat Shine collecting and, intermittently during traversing the open-world – which we think has some elements of Super Mario Odyssey meets Mario 64 about it – Bowser will get, well, furious and start spitting fire in Mario’s general direction.
Bowser’s Fury’s world lovingly takes on elements from the wider Super Mario 3D World game – the most prominent of which is the Cat Mario power-up – and adds further twists. Specifically that, in order to take on giant bowser you need to become Giga Cat Mario – yup, a giant cat Mario! – to defeat your dino-like foe.
Nintendo
Bowser’s Fury is a great add-on. But it also feels just that: like an extra, rather than something quite established enough to be its own packaged title. So it’s the perfect way to release this slice of Mario newness; plus those who have already played through the Wii U version of Super Mario 3D World should see immediate extra worth in their purchase.
Super Mario 3D World: Floaty fun
But back to the main event: Super Mario 3D World. Which, for Nintendo Switch, is given an extra lick of paint with sharper graphics, smoother and faster characters, and three-dimentional platform gaming fun just as you’d expect.
It’s humble to the original Wii U game, so whether you want to relive that experience – from back in 2013, indeed it’s been about seven-and-a-half years now – or learn now why even back then it was a future classic, it’s a great opportunity.
If you’re as old as we are then you’ll find all the references as part of the 1990 SNES original, Super Mario World, extra charming. The boss themes, for example, largely overlap; the music often echoes the original, albeit brought bang up to date. It’s like a 3D homage, as the game’s title ultimately spells out.
But as Super Mario 3D World is, indeed, in three dimensions you’ll quickly need to get to grips with the “floaty” nature of the characters’ mechanics, as it’s very easy to get lost in space and not land where you want to go.
At first we thought this was most likely because we’ve spent two months 100 percenting Sackboy: A Big Adventure on the PS5 – which is a more complex platform game to master – but, actually, we’ve never quite got to grips with the nature of Super Mario 3D World’s controls. Moving camera and distance from character adds to the trickiness throughout.
You can commence your Super Mario 3D Adventure as Mario, naturally, or pick from Luigi, Princess Peach, or Toad. Each character has a slight shift in handling style – Luigi can jump higher, Peach floats farther, Toad is a little faster – but whichever character you pick it won’t affect what’s possible to achieve in the game or any of its level.
Nintendo
In addition to the usual favourites – firepower, mushrooms, mega Mario – there’s also the Cat Mario power-up, obtained in the form of a bell, which gives this game its most distinctive feature. As Cat Mario you can climb walls, swipe at enemies, giving the game a real distinction from any other Mario title. Not that you’re Cat Mario all the time – but you’ll often want to be.
There are plenty of levels to master, plus lots of replay value thanks to collectible stars – three per level – and an individual ‘stamp’ that adds to a sticker book. To achieve all that’s on offer will take an awful lot of practice – and we’re still not that far into those finer details.
Super Mario 3D World: Multiplayer antics
While you can pick one of the four main characters to play as, it’s also possible to play up to all four of them at once – whether in local co-operative play or online multiplayer via Nintendo Online. We’ve dabbled in both and it’s a lot of fun – with a dash of infuriating thrown in for good measure.
That’s part of the beauty with the Switch. The controller, as it’s made up of two parts, can be split to make two mini controllers – more similar to the NES from the 1980s – in order to have two-player co-operative play in your living room (or wherever you Switch lives). Or buy more controllers for a better experience (we would be most at home with the Pro Controller really).
Online takes the idea of co-op but means you needn’t share any controllers at all. Dig into Nintendo Online and find friends to play along with. But, be warned, the camera focuses on who is farthest ahead, and so it’s very easy to counter a lot of your friends’ plays – such as throwing one another off the side of the playfield – which can be both hilarious and infuriating in equal measure.
It also gets competitive, because the highest points-scorer earns a crown, which is taken into the next level. Get hit and you’ll drop your crown, which can be pinched by other players, but you’ll want to keep ahold of it to show-off that you’re the best – plus it’s worth extra points when you cross a level’s finish line (or, more accurately, climb the finish pole – just as you’ll be familiar with classic Mario titles).
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There’s a bombastic nature to the multi-player of Super Mario 3D World – note, it’s not available for Bowser’s Fury, that’s local co-op only – which adds another layer to the levels you’ve already explored and, often, loved. Which only goes to enhance the replayability factor yet more – and give you an excuse to buy into a Nintendo Switch online subscription too.
Verdict
Although we find the handling of characters somewhat “floaty” and therefore a little tricky to master – Sackboy on PS5 is more intricate in this regard – there’s still oodles of fun to be had in Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury.
As a chance to revist one of the most underplayed Mario games, but in refreshed form on Nintendo Switch, it’s a golden opportunity. It’s got all the fun and cheer of Mario, with plenty of nods to his long-established heritage, plus super online and local co-op play opportunities.
Additionally you’ll get the chance to experience all-new Bowser’s Fury as an added bonus too – which isn’t a reason to buy the package in itself, but is a great extra. And up there as one of the most bonkers Mario games to date.
That the original Super Mario 3D World is already over seven years old is never telling. Which, as ever, goes to show Nintendo’s ongoing genius when it comes to creating timeless masterpieces. Let’s-a-go!
Writing by Mike Lowe.
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