Steam

If you love turn-based combat and fantasy RPGs, then Stoneshard is a game that may have already blipped on your radar in the past. Admittedly, it's been slogging it out in early access for close to five years now after launching in February 2020, but hey, we've seen some brilliant games emerge from even longer stints in early access eventually. The next step on its long path to 1.0 is its Rags to Riches update, which is the biggest update the game has seen to date. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

When you arrive to Sukhothai in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a primary item you need to unlock is the underwater breathing device. It’s an expensive item, but a great way to get money early is by stealing gold from Voss’ gold stash safe. You can find Voss’ gold stash safe inside the Fascist compound, but getting to it is only half the challenge. The other is discovering the code on how to unlock it. Unfortunately, the clues you need to find that answer are hidden, and it might take some time for you to figure it out. We want to make it easier for you so you can continue the main quest, and buy the underwater breathing device. We’ll help you figure out the code to Voss’ gold stash safe, and how you unlock it in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. View the full article

To dominate the battlefield in Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6, optimizing your keyboard and mouse settings is essential. Mastering Omnimovement requires precise controls, and if you prefer a mouse and keyboard over a controller, you’ll want to fine-tuning your setup. Adjusting these settings will enhance accuracy, improve reaction time, and give you an edge against controller players, especially in close-quarters combat. Here’s what to tweak for optimal performance in BO6. Table of contentsBest mouse settings in ****** Ops 6Advanced movement settingsBest keyboard settings in BO6 Best mouse settings in ****** Ops 6 Mouse sensitivity is usually left to personal preference, but having it balanced will make quite a difference. Invest some time in tuning your mouse settings in the practice mode to find the sensitivity you feel most comfortable with. View the full article

Karaoke, Crazy Delivery, Coordination, Dragon Kart, and more minigames await players in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. View the full article

It’s almost time for the winter holidays, and that means it’s time for another winter event in Apex Legends, complete with skins for legends, weapons, and even a new Heirloom for Winter’s Haunt. Winter’s Haunt is the latest edition of the traditional winter and Christmas event in Apex, and this year it brings with it an LTM that took a break in 2023: Winter Express, back once again to chug along the tracks on World’s Edge. If you’ve somehow missed this one before, you and your team have to board the train and hold it, respawning when you die, but gaining points the longer you can hold onto the train without enemies taking it. And before you ask: Yes, there’s going to be a ton of Ramparts, Caustics, Wattsons, and Newcastles playing this thing. View the full article

The Fate of the Kirin Tor questline from World of Warcraft Patch 11.0.7, Siren Isle, has been delayed for three weeks. Though the rest of the content in the World of Warcraft update is now available, fans will have to wait until January 7, 2025, to see what happens to the survivors of Dalaran’s destruction. View the full article

The video is almost identical to the original PS Vita trailer, sans the audio-and-video quality and the AI voice. View the full article

Bethesda and MachineGames have just released a new update for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle that appears to have dramatically improved the lighting effects on Xbox consoles. In a blog post, MachineGames announced the release of Update 2 for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle that among other things includes general gameplay and bug fixes. However, an Xbox-specific fix seems to have added big improvements to how Global Illumination appears in game. Here are two images MachineGames released highligthing the before and after differences of the udpate. As you can see from the Before and After pictures, the update appears to have removed some of the washed out look of the pre-patch version. With the update and improvements to Global Illumination, Indiana Jones looks much more natural, with deeper shadows, and more accurate colors. Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is one of the best Xbox games to have come in some time, and evokes the feeling of a truly great Indiana Jones movie, while also providing the excellent gameplay MachineGames is known for with games like Wolfenstein. The new update looks to make a great looking game even better. Here's a full copy of the Update 2 patch notes below. Be sure to check out IGN's Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review for our full take on the new Xbox game. General Fixed an issue where users Game Slot may be reported as being damaged, or may appear to be completely missing, when no actual problem had occurred. Gameplay Fixed an issue where player may be unable to equip Indy’s whip.Fixed an issue where a player may end up with Indy’s camera permanently equipped.Fixed an issue where player may drop and lose their camera if they use the quick-equip (“key item”) prompt to equip their camera while they are inspecting another nearby pick-up item. Graphics Fix to prevent “Double vision” getting stuck on screen when Indy has almost drowned. To players who have already encountered this issue, repeating the near-drown should clear the issue.Some further improvements to reduce “stutter” from duplicated frames during cutscenes. Missions and quests – Please note this section contains some small spoilers Fixed an issue where Gina may not approach the secret entrance to the ******** Treasure Chamber, blocking the mission from progressing.Fixed an issue where Gina may go to pick the lock to the exit from the ******** Treasure Chamber as soon as you enter the room, meaning you may miss some very important story developments.Fixed a big hole in the floor collision around the edge of the wall around the Ziggurat in Sukhothai that the player could fall through. PC Specific fixes Fixed an issue where Nvidia DLSS may cause performance problems when enabled.Fixed an issue where Nvidia Frame Generation wasn’t activated properly if HDR is in use.Fixed an issue where Nvidia Low Latency Mode could cause performance problems when used with Frame Generation.Fixed an issue where global illumination may be completely disabled when playing with below minimum VRAM graphics cards.Fixed an issue where Lighting may be over bright in interior spaces if Path Tracing (Full Ray Tracing) is set to Medium or High Quality.Known Issue: Nvidia Frame Generation may be temporarily disabled if HDR is activated for the first time. To work around this issue, disable and then re-enable DLSS. This only needs to be done once. Xbox Specific fixes Improvements to Global Illumination on Xbox, to fix issues where shadowed areas had appeared brighter than expected.[/url] Matt Kim is IGN's Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd. View the full article

It’s December 1994. The Santa Clause, Miracle on 34th Street, Pulp Fiction, and Forrest Gump are duking it out at the global box office. Boyz II Men’s On Bended Knee is about to (temporarily) cede the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 to Here Comes the Hotstepper by lyrical gangster Ini Kamoze. In video games, the original PlayStation has just launched in Japan. But forget the PlayStation for a moment, because December 1994 also marked the arrival of another interactive icon: The Need for Speed, on the ill-fated 3DO home game console. The 3DO, despite being lauded as Time Magazine’s 1993 Product of the Year, was ultimately a flop. There was no '3DO II'. The Need for Speed, however, was not a flop. There was a Need for Speed II. And III. And a fourth, fifth, sixth, and so on. In fact, 30 years later the Need for Speed series is still with us. And it’s become one of the best-selling game series of all time. 3DOh Yeah “Need for Speed is actually one of the most successful game franchises ever,” notes Criterion Senior Creative Director John Stanley. Stanley has been with Criterion for 14 years working across multiple EA series, from Battlefield to Battlefront, but his predominant focus is Need for Speed. “So it’s a very big honour and mantle to be lifted each time.” 15 years ago, sales figures for the franchise hit 100 million copies. A decade ago they’d rocketed past 150 million. Precisely what they sit at today is not known, but what’s clear is Need for Speed’s success and longevity make it a monster within the racing genre. Need for Speed is actually one of the most successful game franchises ever. It certainly got off to a flying start. The original Need for Speed was an immediate critical hit, despite the 3DO’s own particular woes. Fortunately, subsequent ports to PC, PlayStation, and ***** Saturn would go on to make The Need for Speed a commercial smash as well. Presented by Road & Track Magazine and developed by EA Canada, The Need for Speed’s 3DO debut boasted just eight cars – a modest mix of European exotics and 1990s sports icons from the US and Japan. It also featured a total of three tracks. Yes, that’s paltry by later standards, but it’s worth keeping in mind that this was entirely typical for the time – at least, until the original Gran Turismo arrived several years later with a garage pumped up to unprecedented proportions. It’s also important to note that EA Canada had previously been known as Distinctive Software. Prior to its acquisition by EA in the early ’90s, Distinctive Software was responsible for the influential original Test Drive, its follow-up The Duel: Test Drive II, and cult, early 3D racing favourite Stunts (known as 4D Sports Driving in some regions). That high-speed experience was abundantly evident in The Need for Speed. Like the early Test Drive games that came before it, The Need for Speed asked players to dodge traffic as fast as they dared while outrunning the pursuing police. Electronic Gaming Monthly called it “the racing game to beat on the 3DO.” Edge Magazine declared it featured “the richest 3D environment ever seen on a home system.” GamePro was similarly full of praise, positing that “f you dream of racing exotic sports cars, it doesn’t get any better than this incredible game.” Raising the (High) Stakes Of course, it did get better. Need for Speed built itself into a true racing juggernaut throughout the remainder of the ’90s, and it lapped Test Drive as the premier purveyor of playable police pursuits and ******** street racing. The series became the place to find the greatest exotics of the era: the Lamborghini Diablo and Ferrari 512TR. The Jaguar XJ220 and McLaren F1. Down in my own native Australia, the games were even localised with their own, regional-exclusive covers, and injected with the hottest homegrown sports sedans of the time. That was truly something, as a teenager; to be stalking a games store and see the sickest *********** cars on the street staring back at me from the shelves. That was unique to Need for Speed during this era. But perhaps more than anything, Need for Speed carved itself out a reputation as a series that celebrated not just racing, but risk. “I argue it’s the forerunner, or has been and still is the forerunner, in the only franchise really delivering on consequence,” says Stanley. “That thrill of the chase. I think nothing else out there in the racing game genre does that.” By asking people to outrun police, and eventually even place their pink slips on the line, Need for Speed was a series that pushed its players to take risks. For clarity, by the time Need for Speed came around, we’d admittedly already faced the long arm of the law in 1987’s Test Drive, and many of us would’ve already lost rides to rivals after racing for slips in 1989’s Street Rod. But even if it wasn’t the first, Need for Speed was an extremely early adopter of these philosophies of risk – and it certainly became the most recognisable. Tuna, No Crust As the years went on, the property eventually found itself taking risks of its own. Firstly, with 2003’s radically reinvented Need for Speed Underground, and then with 2005’s Need for Speed Most Wanted – which is still the best selling game in the whole series. “Oh man, they’re my beloved,” grins Justin Wiebe, who jokingly describes himself as the “old fossil” EA dug up for this chat. Currently Studio Design Director at Ripple Effect, Wiebe’s history with the Need for Speed series dates back to Hot Pursuit 2 in 2002. “They’re like my crown jewels, to be honest with you,” he continues. “I’ve had a long career here and boy am I proud of having a chance to work on those games.” On Underground, Wiebe explains the team didn’t quite know what they had on their hands at the time, but they were all hooked. “It was so addictive to play,” he says. “It was the introduction of things like drag racing for the first time, where it was a completely new way of playing at high speed. And we were starting to explore other new, emerging racing genres – like drift racing and stuff like that – and starting to bring all of these new and cutting edge ideas, and then mixing in customisation. We were pioneering at that time.” EA followed Underground with a direct, open-world sequel – the first open world in the series – but the ******* question was where to take it next. “We kept asking ourselves, ‘Well, what do we do now? How do we one-up this? What are we gonna do?’” says Wiebe. “And we had an exceptional executive producer at that time, Mike [Mann], who came in and he basically said, ‘I want to make it the most elicit experience that we’ve done to date. I want to bring in the cops, and I want to make them feel so threatening, like they are the real world.’” So that was the mandate to me: take these cops and make everyone absolutely terrified of them. “So that was the mandate to me: take these cops and make everyone absolutely terrified of them.’ And I said, ‘Then, Mike, I gotta take away people’s cars that they earned; I’m gonna impound them, and they’re gonna lose them for a while.’ And he’s, like, ‘Do it.’ “[Need for Speed is] a franchise which is big, but it’s also unafraid to try to take risks. To do things differently. To challenge the norm. And that’s what I love about working on the franchise.” In an entertaining twist, Wiebe even found himself in Need for Speed Most Wanted as the racer Taz – number 14 on the Blacklist – after one of the actors failed to show up for a photoshoot. “They started wandering around the office trying to see, like, ‘Who’s the most shifty-looking person we have here?’, and then they’re, like, ‘You!’” chuckles Wiebe, stabbing his finger in the air. “So yeah, they just grabbed me and did a couple of shots and there I am. It was a good time.” According to Stanley, within the corridors of Criterion, Most Wanted remains a revered example of the series at the peak of its power. “I cite Most Wanted so much within the studio,” he says. “Just around the way that it managed to weave together the narrative, the gameplay, the progression. Everything comes together in this.” “A term that I use a lot, and now I’ll have to drink a shot for this: ludonarrative harmony. Because actually executing on that in a game? So important. And Most Wanted is a masterclass in that, and something that I definitely cite a lot.” On: The Run It’s been almost two decades since Need for Speed Most Wanted, and the series has continued to evolve. “If you look at it, Need for Speed’s never remained the same,” says Criterion Producer Patrick Honnoraty, who’s worked on every Need for Speed since 2012 – from Criterion to Ghost and back to Criterion. “From one iteration to the next, it’s always had something that was different.” “For good and for bad – because those things don’t always work and they don’t always resonate with players – but we guarantee that we’ll always be doing something different.” Things don’t always work and they don’t always resonate with players – but we guarantee that we’ll always be doing something different. “‘For good and for bad’ is a great example,” says Wiebe. “For example, my experience on creating Need for Speed: The Run. We really tried to break some new ground there. We talked about getting out of the car, and we had all these grandiose visions for how it was going to be more than just racing; the character’s going to get out of the car. But then we realised very quickly, ‘Well, we can’t really do that’, so we introduced some quicktime events.” “Yeah, we all love quicktime events, right?” he adds with an ironic smile. However, Wiebe believes they ultimately created “a grand racing adventure.” “We wanted it to feel like your life is on the line,” he says. “That it’s more humanised than ever before about the character and the story that they’re in, racing from coast to coast. I’ll be the first to stand up and say that didn’t really work, but I’m proud of the fact that we tried it.” “I was actually on a fan forum a few months ago and I actually was shocked at how highly-rated some of the fans actually made that game. I had thought, ‘Well, that’s a bit of a lump of coal in my resume.’ But it turns out that it actually has a massive cult following, and there are certain people that absolutely adore that game. And that brought a little joy to my heart; that we took a risk and there are some people that really found something to love about it.” That brought a little joy to my heart; that we took a risk and there are some people that really found something to love about it. Honnoraty has noticed the same thing. “I think every Need for Speed I’ve worked on, when it’s come out it’s been, ‘Oh my god, it was no good; it was rubbish,” he says. “People didn’t like it. And then years pass and it’s, like, ‘Ah, it was so good! It had these great elements to it. It was the best Need for Speed. Why don’t you go and make one back like that?’” “Need for Speed is always too ahead of its time, is my thing. Every time we bring one out. Every time we bring one and it doesn’t strike, people look back on them so fondly.” Defining the Series 30 years on, building a Need for Speed game is an exponentially more complicated task than it ever was, and more challenging than ever. For Senior Vehicle Artist Frankie Yip the work required is significant, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. “The cars in Need for Speed are far more intricate now compared to the earlier days of the franchise,” explains Yip, who has worked on the franchise for the entirety of his 20-year career in the gaming industry. After picking up a copy of Need for Speed Underground for PlayStation 2 as a teenager, Yip got so hooked he took a 3D modelling course and was soon living his dream, making cars for Need for Speed Underground 2. “I actually thought I was going to fail in the 3D school,” says Yip. “All the assignments? All I did was just model cars. And they’re, like, ‘That’s not part of the assignment.’ I don’t care; I like cars. So my portfolio was just all cars.” I actually thought I was going to fail in the 3D school. All the assignments? All I did was just model cars. According to Yip, dealing with the vast amount of content produced for each car is not as straightforward as it may seem. “I’ll give you an example, just to break it down,” he begins. “Bodykits, for example. Say a car has three bodykit designs. That’s three front bumpers, three rear bumpers, three sideskirts, three front fenders, so on and so on. That tallies up to 15, 20 individual parts. But allowing the player to seamlessly and smoothly mix and match those parts? Yeah, it sounds simple, but it actually involves a significant amount of work. You run into issues; like, this part doesn’t fit with this. This part doesn’t fit with that.” “There’s different variations in bumper widths, fender shapes, fender sizes; the list goes on. Panel lines, shut lines; nothing lines up. So, how do we make this all work? We actually have to build out every single part combination out there. You take that 15 to 20 individual parts I mentioned, and you multiply it to an additional 60, or well over a hundred. It depends on the car. Like, every car is a different shape. It is a ton of work, but what this does allow is it allows the player to have thousands of part combinations. And who doesn’t want that? “So now you know why, in earlier Need for Speed titles, we just restricted the body kit to be equipped as one whole unit. But honestly, where’s the fun in that?” For Criterion Vehicle Art Director Bryn Alban, there’s a *******-picture challenge; that is, what defines Need for Speed to its massive and multi-generational audience. “It means so much to so many people, and everybody’s got a different opinion as to what a good Need for Speed is,” says Alban, who’s been around since the days of Need for Speed Shift and brings the experience of building his own Skylines over the past 20 years to his role on the franchise. “So trying to appease everybody at all times is super difficult. Even down to the nitty gritty details of what customisation we put on our cars; it’s so divisive a subject for our players that it’s almost impossible for us to get it a hundred percent right, all the time.” “So when we do get things somewhat correct, it’s great. But when you see those comments where you’ve missed something, it really hurts. It hurts to your core. You’re, like, ‘Oh yeah, I forgot that we should’ve added that to the game.’ So, yeah, it’s really tricky and tough to get that balance of making the perfect Need for Speed, really.” So when we do get things somewhat correct, it’s great. But when you see those comments where you’ve missed something, it really hurts. It hurts to your core. For what it’s worth, I’ve been missing *********** cars in the Need for Speed series since they stopped featuring back in the early 2000s, and Alban agrees it could be time for the series to circle back and include them again. “Yeah, that’s a very valid point, and I think it’s true that *********** cars have been underrepresented in Need for Speed in its most recent history,” he says. “I can’t give you a reason why that is the case, but it’s definitely something that we should take a look at in the future moving forward, to see if we can redress that balance a little bit.” “When you look at things like Holden, they’re very iconic within Australia,” adds Honnoraty. “They’re very interesting things; the utes that you have. So I think those are interesting examples for us to look at. And I’m sure, Bryn, you’d tell me there’s plenty of them in the drift scene as well?” “Yeah, you see them crop up,” Alban responds with his finger clearly on the pulse. “I mean, just this last week there’s the Drift Matsuri that’s happening in Japan, and I saw that there were a couple of Ford Falcons over there in Japan doing their thing. So there’s definitely opportunities to tap into that, I think.” It’s obvious Alban knows his cars. There’s also a fun synergy in the fact that the first Instagram video I’d watched of the very Falcons Alban is referencing features one cruising through a Tokyo tunnel to Get Low by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz. It should go without saying that anyone who played Need for Speed Underground has that song seared into their synapses. To the Window, to the Wall Need for Speed itelf has cruised both high and low over the last three decades but, while the team seems conscious that the series hasn’t always been at its best, there’s a clear feeling that it’s always remained faithful to being fun and approachable above all else. “I think the trajectory has been bumpy, actually, in some cases,” admits Honnoraty. “But what’s happened – and I think what’s been most important – is if you think about the first inception of what The Need for Speed was, it was really accessible.” “I remember going to what was probably the local video game shop, or computer shop, at the time, and me and my friends saw it on the 3DO. We were like, ‘What’s this?’ We all jumped on it, on the 3DO, and you felt badass. Being able to drive it, being chased by the cops; there wasn’t an experience that was really like it at the time. I think today the biggest challenge we face is literally the age of the franchise, and what it's been. “I think it’s really tried to stay true to that formula. It’s still accessible today; a lot of car racing games are not so easily accessible, so people still have the option to jump in and have fun with a Need for Speed game. It makes you feel like you’re just a bad-*****... It’s really inside of the DNA; it’s always there. For Honnoraty, what makes handling Need for Speed tricky today are the side effects of how long the series has survived. “I think today the biggest challenge we face is literally the age of the franchise, and what it's been,” Honnoraty continues. “It’s been so many different things and appeals to so many different people.” “We even see the debates between players: which is the best game, and why is it the best game? You look at [Underground and Most Wanted]. The divisive debate that happens between which one of those is better and why – and how different they really are and what they were looking at – means that we sit in a place where Need for Speed means many different things to many different people.” Honnoraty gives an example where, after speaking to attendees of the Need for Speed Payback booth at EA Play, some players compared the demo to Most Wanted, and others were adamant it reminded them of Underground. “And I’m, like, ‘How? What? They’re completely different!’ he says. “So I think it’s just that people carry with them the feeling that they had when they played those games… I think that’s the hardest thing today; it’s honestly reconciling what Need of Speed means to players. And you’ve seen it; when we go in one direction with something that doesn’t quite work, and it doesn’t appeal to certain sorts of players. Or we go in another direction, so it’s a real thing that we have to tackle with, day in and day out. But John [Stanley] and I work with it constantly. We think we’ve nearly cracked it, so we’ll see.” “Don’t forget the Porsche Unleashed crowd that would argue that that is the number one Need for Speed of all time!” adds Wiebe. “Exactly! Exactly!” smiles Honnoraty. “We have a very vocal member in our player council that’s very vocal on Porsche Unleashed.” “And then the Carbon crowd, the ProStreet crowd,” lists Stanley. “The list goes on,” replies Honnoraty. The list goes on indeed. So too, we hope, will Need for Speed. To the window, to the wall, ‘til the sweat drop down… well, you get the idea. Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

The winter break is going to fly by thanks to CODMAS and an event called Archie’s Festival Frenzy in ****** Ops 6 and Warzone. The second special event of Call of Duty’s Season One Reloaded, Archie’s Festival Frenzy has 14 free rewards to get simply for playing the game, so it’s like an extra set of presents along with whatever you may receive from loved ones this year. And extra presents are never a bad thing. View the full article

Fischmas has finally unveiled the highly anticipated Santa’s Quests in Fisch, which gives you tasks to complete and lets you have Christmas-exclusive goodies for free. Here’s everything you need to know about completing the Santa’s Quests in Roblox’s Fisch. View the full article

The Mother's Blessing bonuses have returned to Diablo 4, increasing experience gains by 35% and gold rewards by 50%. Blizzard periodically gives Diablo 4 players the Mother's Blessing bonus rewards, with the current one lasting into 2025. View the full article

The meme that could be considered one of the most famous faces of brainrot humor is coming to Fortnite. After a post from Epic Games and what leakers found as the “Plugerman” skin, players can expect to see a full set of cosmetics based on the Skibidi Toilet series. When is Skibidi Toilet coming to Fortnite? Do you know the Gen Alpha meme? Image by Epic Games Yes, Skibidi Toilet is coming to Fortnite on Dec. 18. Epic Games posted on X just three emojis (toilet, plunger, and camera) and the “12.18.2024” date. This confirms what leakers reported to be the “Plugerman” skin. Leaker SpushFNBR posted that the collaboration includes the skin with a LEGO style, a backpack, and a pickaxe. View the full article

Ho, ho, holy crap, a zombie is about to bite you! Welcome to Liberty Falls and Jingle Hells in ****** Ops 6 Zombies. The stellar iteration of Call of Duty’s Zombies mode gets even more fun during the 2024 holiday season with Jingle Hells. Even the undead are in the mood to celebrate the holidays, so why not join in on the festive fun? View the full article

The end of 2024 is nearly here, and to celebrate it in Pokémon Go, we have the New Year’s 2025 event as the final one of the year. It begins in 2024, but it ends in 2025, giving you a short amount of time to earn exclusive rewards and Pokémon encounters. The New Year’s 2025 event is the last activity you can do in Pokémon Go. Don’t expect it to be a grand event. It’s more of a fun way to wind down the year as the development team takes time off, and they return in 2025 for more events, features, and exclusive drops throughout the year. You want to ensure you catch when the New Year’s 2025 event happens, and we have a countdown timer for when it launches in Pokémon Go. View the full article

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is giving away digital copies of Battlefield 1 Revolution for free, but subscribers must act fast before the offer ends. The offer is part of the Season of Xbox promotion, which includes the Xbox Countdown ***** and more perks for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers. View the full article

A recent survey allegedly sent to World of Warcraft fans seemingly explores the concepts for 16 new classes, from popular ideas like Tinker and Bard to brand-new archetypes like the Titankiller and Prismatic. While it should be taken with a grain of salt, World of Warcraft players could see some of these ideas in future classes, specializations, or other features like Hero Talents in the future. View the full article

As we wind down the end of the year, the holiday event in Pokémon Go is in full swing, and it comes with the Holiday Cup Little Edition. This is a PvP competition you can join, but you’ll want to bring the best teams you can make to these battles. As with previous little leagues, the Holiday Cup Little Edition has a limited amount of Pokémon you can use on your team. You’ll want to bring some of the best choices, and filter out the ones you don’t want to use. We’ve been able to construct some of the best ones that give you the highest opportuntiy of victory. These are some of the best Pokémon teams that you can use in the Holiday Cup Little Edition for Pokémon Go. View the full article

He was also the producer of Falcom's earliest games like the first Xanadu and Ys games. View the full article

If you're shopping for last minute video games for the holidays, surprisingly you're not too late. There are plenty of deals on PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch video games that can still be delivered to you before December 25. Many (but not all) of these deals are actually as good as the ones we saw during ****** Friday and Cyber Monday. They're mostly limited to retailers that have nearby retail locations like Best Buy and Target, but you should still be able to choose delivery and receive it with time to spare. Nintendo Switch Video Game Deals (Arrives by 12/25) PS5 and Xbox Video Game Deals (Arrives by 12/25) Super Mario RPG Super Mario RPG is a remake of the 1996 SNES classic. It was one of the best games to grace the console back then amidst a sea of other incredible titles, and Nintendo did a great job of staying faithful to the game's charm and fun factor. A whole slew of improvements have been implemented to bring this game up to modern day standards, including updated visuals, music, gameplay mechanics, and several small yet welcome quality-of-life UI improvements. In our Super Mario RPG review, Tom Marks wrote that "Super Mario RPG is considered a classic for a reason, and this faithful remake makes it easy for anyone who missed it in the SNES era to see why." Pikmin 4 Pikmin 4 for the Nintendo Switch is the latest in the Pikmin franchise and arguably the best one. Pikmin 4 is incredible, and feels like the full realization of where the Pikmin franchise started heading in Pikmin 3. It has tons of content, is insanely charming, and is just overall a blast to play. In our Pikmin 4 review, Jada Griffin wrote that "Pikmin 4 adds variety to the series' traditional gameplay by offering options other than the grab-and-throw formula of the past, and brings an extra helping of top-tier levels after the credits roll." Super Mario Odyssey Super Mario Odyssey is still one of the best games available on Nintendo Switch. From the stunning Kingdoms to the numerous new gameplay elements, this is a title any Switch owner should have in their collection. Odyssey is best known for its Capture mechanic, which allows Mario to use Cappy and take over different enemies and objects in the environment. In our Super Mario Odyssey 10/10 review, Ryan Mccaffrey wrote that "Super Mario Odyssey is a brilliant adventure and love letter to the series that made Nintendo a household name." Ring Fit Adventure Do you want to work out but simply don't enjoy working out? Ring Fit Adventure is one way to get around this hurdle. Ring Fit incorporates a huge variety of excellent workout exercises disguised as an RPG game. An epic adventure awaits you slaying monsters and dragons, tackling new levels, traversing different environments, acquiring powerups and skills, all the while toning your abs and burning calories. In our Ring Fit Adventure review, Jonathon Dorbush wrote that "Ring Fit Adventure is a marathon, not a sprint, just like adapting a healthy lifestyle should be. The last couple of weeks haven’t altered my life or made me look like The Rock all of a sudden, but as a way of getting into (or back into, in my case) a pattern of healthy living, it’s been a solid push in the right direction." Star Wars Outlaws Star Wars: Outlaws was released only three months ago and it's already 33% off for ****** Friday. Maybe Ubisoft is trying to boost sales after a lackluster launch, but that means you get to enjoy a AAA title at a great discount. IGN's Tristan Ogilvie gave it a 7/10 review, which is still good, but I've beaten the game and immensely enjoyed it, so I would have given it an 8. It definitely has an "Assassin's Creed game in a Star Wars skin" vibe, and there's nothing wrong with that. Metaphor: Refantazio Metaphor: ReFantazio is the latest game from Persona 3, 4, and 5 Director Katsura Hashino and the team at Atlus' Studio Zero. For the first time since launch, you can score the game at a discount, saving $20 this ****** Friday. In our 9/10 review, Michael Higham wrote that "Refining the Atlus RPG formula of weaving tough turn-based combat into compelling social sim mechanics, Metaphor: ReFantazio doesn’t just send a powerful message across its political drama, it becomes a beautiful expression of the real impact storytelling can have on all of us." Sonic X Shadow Generations Sonic X Shadow Generations is easily one of the best Sonic games in recent history. In our 9/10 Sonic X Shadow Generations review, Jada Griffin wrote that "Sonic X Shadow Generations takes an already excellent game and spring jumps it to new heights with a creative Shadow campaign and an appreciable graphical upgrade." This game is actually a collection of two games in one: a remaster of the 2011 Sonic Generations and - the highlight - a brand new, original campaign starring Shadow the Hedgehog. Why Should You Trust IGN's Deals Team? IGN's deals team has a combined 30+ years of experience finding the best discounts in gaming, tech, and just about every other category. We don't try to trick our readers into buying things they don't need at prices that aren't worth buying something at. Our ultimate goal is to surface the best possible deals from brands we trust and our editorial team has personal experience with. You can check out our deals standards here for more information on our process, or keep up with the latest deals we find on IGN's Deals account on Twitter. [/url] Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time. 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In an interview, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth game director Naoki Hamaguchi asked players interested in picking up the upcoming PC port to not create or install any inappropriate mods into the game. However, Hamaguchi said that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will continue to respect the creativity of modders and their users, despite the company offering no official in-game mod support at launch. View the full article

Marvel Rivals has exploded as one of the biggest games in 2024, right up to the buzzer at the end of the year. The game launched on Dec. 5, and in under two weeks, has already reached 200 million players across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. That’s a big achievement no matter what game you are, and NetEase Games should be proud. View the full article

Marvel Rivals has reached 20 million players, according to NetEase. The milestone player count was announced on X on Tuesday, 11 days after the game’s December 6 release for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. NetEase previously claimed that Marvel Rivals hit 10 million players in its first three days of availability. Read More... View the full article

When Nvidia replaced the longstanding GeForce Experience App with a new, unified Nvidia App last month, most GPU owners probably noted the refresh and rebranding with nothing more than bemusement (though the new lack of an account login requirement was a nice improvement). Now, testing shows that running the new app with default settings can lead to some significant frame rate dips on many high-end games, even when the app's advanced AI features aren't being actively used. Tom's Hardware noted the performance dip after reading reports of related problems around the web. The site's testing with and without the Nvidia App installed confirms that, across five games running on an RTX 4060, the app reduced average frame rates by around 3 to 6 percent, depending on the resolution and graphical quality level. The site's measured frame rate drop peaked at 12 percent for Assassin's Creed Mirage running at 1080p Ultra settings; other tested games (including Baldur's Gate 3, ****** Myth: Wukong, Flight Simulator 2024, and Stalker 2) showed a smaller drop at most settings. Read full article Comments View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

The public has spoken. After a ******* of open voting to select the nominees for the 2024 edition of the Steam Awards, results are in. Five finalists have been selected for each one of the 11 categories, and another round of open voting will select the winners. You can vote for your favorite among the finalists in each category from Dec. 19, 2024 to Dec. 31, 2024. Each vote grants a special sticker. View the full article