Mario Kart 7 may be only one numerical entry behind the most recent game in the series, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t old as shit. In fact, it was first released on the Nintendo 3DS eleven years ago, in December 2011.
With both the game and the system it was made for dead in the water for most people, it’s a surprise we’re talking about it at all outside the confines of some kind of retro or series ranking post. It’s even weirder that we’re talking about it because it just got an update.
The game’s most recent patch—which was also its first—dropped in May 2012, and did the following:
Ver. 1.1 (Released May 15, 2012)
– An update has been made available to eliminate shortcut exploits in the Wuhu Loop, Maka Wuhu, and Bowser Castle 1 tracks when they are played in the Online Multiplayer Mode.
– The update is required to play the game’s Online Multiplayer Modes. However, the tracks in Single-Player and Local Multiplayer Modes will not be affected by this update. Players can continue to play in these modes without installing the update.
The game’s second patch was released on December 13, 2022, and did…well, Nintendo won’t specify, only saying in general terms:
Several issues have been addressed to improve the gameplay experience.
That’s nice! For anyone still playing a game that was released over a decade ago. And which went 10 years, 6 months and 28 days between patches. That is 3864 days.
I wonder if any of those “issues” were related to glitches that have been exploited by speedrunners for all those years, especially since the last patch targeted some “shortcut expl? If you’re still playing the game and run into anything you notice has been changed in the update, let us know!
Mario Kart 7 Glitches – Son of a Glitch – Episode 67
Popular free-to-play mobile game Brawl Stars is doing something a bit different. In an era where it seems every game is trying to nickel and dime you with more and more stuff to buy, instead it’s removing loot boxes and all random rewards entirely from the game. It’s yet another sign that loot boxes are likely to become a relic of the past as lawmakers and players push back on the random rewards. But that doesn’t mean Brawl Stars players are universally happy about their removal.
Released in 2019 for phones and tablets, Brawl Stars mixed cute characters with MOBA-like gameplay and some battle royale elements. The end result was a fun top-down competitive action game that I played for weeks and weeks. But since I stopped playing, millions have continued to enjoy it: Brawl Stars has made over a billion dollars in profit for Supercell and still has an active player base and community. Now, Supercell has removed all loot boxes from the game, and reaction to the change is oddly mixed.
Announced in a Brawl Talk video posted last week, Supercell’s latest update to Brawl Stars has removed all random rewards from the game. These boxes were mainly used to unlock new characters in the game. Since its release three years ago, Brawl Stars has heavily featured loot boxes as part of its rewards. But with yesterday’s update, that’s no longer the case.
Supercell / Brawl Stars
“No more probabilities, no more random rewards, and no more playing the guessing game when you unlock Brawlers,” said the game’s lead designer Frank Keienburg in Supercell’s Brawl Talk video.
Yesterday, as part of this update, all unclaimed boxes were automatically opened and all the rewards were given to players accordingly. Moving forward, Keienburg and Supercell say that all rewards—including its battle passes—will be replaced with “different, deterministic rewards, some of which are new to the game.” Now, players have a new battle pass-like feature, The Starr Road, which lets them unlock all characters for free via grinding. Players can now just buy any brawler they want with gems, instead of randomly buying dozens of loot boxes to maybe get a specific hero.
“We’re making this change for a few reasons,” continued Keienburg. “Mainly, moving away from probabilities and chance, which will make things more fair and predictable for you. It also gives you clear and exciting goals every time you play the game.”
While I think removing loot boxes is a good thing and something worth celebrating—especially as mobile games continue to be some of the worst offenders with even good games like Marvel Snap including predatory purchases of over $100 or more—the community reaction is far less positive. While some players seem happy about the removal of random reward crates, others expressed disappointment. The comments on the Brawl Talk video has players rallying against the devs and demanding boxes return to Brawl Stars.
Why? For some it seems that the excitement of a loot box outweighed the frustration that often accompanies them. Others suggested they now have little interest in playing the game since random rewards are being removed. (I think some of these people need to stop and think if they really like Brawl Stars or just like pulling a virtual lever on a slot machine…) We saw something similar to this happen with Overwatch 2’s release, where some players were angry at the removal of loot boxes and demanded they be returned to the game. And while I agree that progression in Overwatch 2 sucks at the moment, I’d rather Blizzard figure out a way to fix that doesn’t involve bringing back loot boxes, even if it did give you a lot of free ones before.
The reality is that as games continue to become more and more popular, more countries will begin investigating the industry and how it makes money. And loot boxes are likely never to return in vogue as long as so many governments are leading crusades to regulate or outlaw them.
Valve’s classic Portal was recently re-released on Steam with some very fancy new visuals, including ray-tracing and DLSS support. That was great news for Portal fans, but it’s also great news for fans of all kinds of old PC games.
Before we go any further, I’ll explain the tech we’re talking about. RTX is the name given to a set of technologies used by graphics card company Nvidia that uses “ray tracing and AI technologies” to, very simply, make PC games look incredible. Here’s a trailer for Portal With RTX, the re-release of the game made with this tech, showing the improvements made to a game that most of us remember looking very 2007:
Portal with RTX | World Premiere
Now, the thing with RTX is that while in this case (and with Quake and Minecraft) it had to be put into the game by developers, Nvidia are also releasing a version of the tech with modders in mind. It’s called RTX Remix:
With RTX Remix, the game runs in the background and we replace the old rendering APIs and systems with RTX Remix’s 64-bit Vulkan renderer. This enables the addition of ray-tracing to classic games and it all updates in real-time as lights and objects move. Light can be cast from behind the player, or from another room, and in Portal with RTX, light even travels through portals. Glass refracts light, surfaces reflect detail based on their glossiness, reflections can be cast into the scene from behind the player, objects can self-reflect, and indirect light from off-screen illuminates and affects what you see.
Compared to Quake II RTX and Minecraft with RTX, the path-traced ray tracing introduced by RTX Remix is even more advanced, bouncing light four times instead of once, improving quality, immersion, and the simulation of real-world light. Additionally, we’ve also introduced several new ray tracing techniques that further improve quality while also being more performant.
Nvidia says that RTX Remix is “a modding platform” that will allow “modders of all ability levels to bring ray tracing and NVIDIA technologies to classic games”. Given it’s not out until 2023 I was expecting we were still months away from seeing what benefits it could bring to older games, but nope!
Modders like LordVulcan have found you can add RTX to some classic titles, right now, just by…dropping some files from Portal with RTX into another game’s folder on your hard drive and enabling some developer stuff in the console. That’s it. And it’s working on games like SWAT 4 and the original Max Payne.
Here’s some footage of SWAT 4taken by EiermannTelevision, which was released in 2005 and most definitely did not look like this at the time:
SWAT 4 RTX Remix
And here’s Half-Life 1, along with a little explainer on how it was done:
How To Get RTX in Half-Life: Source ~ RTX 4090 [RTX Remix] [4K]
None of those examples are perfect, but it’s incredible they work this well given how quick their implementation was. This is going to be so good when the actual RTX Remix is released in 2023, but until then it’s going to be cool seeing what other classic titles this slapdash workaround is compatible with!
As CNBC reports, authorities in The Bahamas have released a statement which reads:
The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law. While the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, The Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX, with the continued cooperation of its law enforcement and regulatory partners in the United States and elsewhere.
US authorities issued a statement shortly afterwards:
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Bankman-Fried, who sucked ass at League of Legends by the way, ran FTX. In just a few short years, the crypto exchange went from nothing to plastering its name across all manner of sporting events and magazine covers. It was considered super-valuable because it charged customers fees to buy and bet on crypto, but also because Bankman-Fried was considered the next tech whiz who was going to use FTX to launch a “super app” for finance that would make crypto legit.
Earlier this year, however, the entire thing collapsed, partly because crypto itself is a scam, but mostly because FTX in particular was very much a scam, down to the fact senior members of the exchange had a chat group called “Wirefraud.” Bankman-Fried, who was in The Bahamas in part to avoid having to testify before the House Financial Services Committee (FTX also moved its headquarters to the Caribbean nation last year), is now facing criminal charges in two countries. Meanwhile, his successor in charge of what’s left of FTX has already publicly said the company spent “$5 billion…buying a myriad of businesses and investments, many of which may be worth only a fraction of what was paid for them,” and claimed that Bankman-Fried had engaged in “unacceptable management practices.”
UPDATE 8:20pm ET: The New York Times reportsthat Bankman-Fried is being charged by US authorities with wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and money laundering.
Adobe used to be known as the company that made Acrobat and PhotoShop. Adobe is increasingly becoming known, however, as one of the great digital grifters of the modern age.
From its shonky subscription models to making people pay for certain colours in PhotoShop (which is also Pantone’s doing in a “jointly” made decision), the company is, like so many others in these tumultuous times, more concerned with growing its bottom line no matter the cost than it is in taking a moment to consider the needs of its users, or the consequences of its actions.
I’m bringing this up today because, a week after forcing people to check they weren’t reading an Onion story when learning about the colours thing, the company has announced that it is embracing AI art. This is not only an enormous grift, but also a serious threat to the livelihoods of artists around the world, big and small.
Machines don’t make art. They’re machines! They’re just making an approximated casserole out of human art that has been fed into it, in the vast amount of cases without credit or compensation. As Dan Sheehan says in his fantastic piece, Art In The Age Of Optimization, it’s merely “a technology that clearly exists to remove the human element from the process of artistic expression.”
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Anyway! Last week, Adobe dropped an announcement saying that AI-generated art was going to be made available as part of the company’s vast library of stock images, going so far as to say the field is “amplifying human creativity.” The company boldly says, repeatedly, stuff like they have “deeply considered these questions and implemented a new submission policy that we believe will ensure our content uses AI technology responsibly by creators and customers alike,” and that “generative AI is a major leap forward for creators, leveraging machine learning’s incredible power to ideate faster by developing imagery using words, sketches, and gestures.”
Creators? Fuck off! These people aren’t creating anything! They’re punching words into a computer that has been fed actual art! And even if Adobe can, as they’re claiming, only release images that have been “properly built, used, and disclosed,” it still sucks! Gah! Attempting to make good on one of AI art’s issues—art theft—doesn’t absolve it from its others, like the fact nothing to do with these images or their creation has anything to do with art!
Reaction among artists has of course been as wildly negative as any other AI art announcement over the past six months, with some criticising the company, while others resort to more traditional cries, encouraging people to seek out alternatives to Adobe’s products.
Academy Award winner Al Pacino may have opened the 2022 Game Awards, a night of industry recognition and expensive marketing for the biggest games around, but it was a new type of internet celebrity who closed it out. “I want to nominate this award to my reformed Orthodox Rabbi Bill Clinton,” said a young kid with long hair who appeared onstage suddenly after Elden Ring was crowned Game of the Year. He was wearing an ill-fitting coat, sneaking up on stage behind the the Elden Ring development team.
Security followed, and chaos ensued online as everyone tried to figure out what the hell had just happened during host Geoff Keighley’s otherwise heavily orchestrated three-hour event. But this was far from the first time the young man, whose name Kotaku believes to be Matan Even, had sprung to brief internet fame through internet-pilled trolling, even if it might have been his weirdest.
After the ceremony finished, Keighley tweeted that the “individual who interrupted” the event had been arrested. Five hours later, however, Even was already tweeting. “Today there is a lot of talk, and speculation,” he wrote. “More information will be released on all fronts sooner than later.”
When asked about what transpired after the incident, the LAPD media relations office contradicted Keighley’s account, saying a report had been taken but no arrest was made. When asked to square that, a spokesperson for The Game Awards provided a more detailed account.
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They said Even was taken to a “secure area” inside the Microsoft Theater by TGA security staff where he was then questioned by venue security as well as “TGA-hired onsite LAPD officers.” They said he was then taken into custody and transported to a local police station for booking by the TGA-hired LAPD officers in their patrol vehicle. When asked about that version of events, a representative from the LAPD would only confirm that the individual had been transported to a station. Since no arrest was made, it’s unclear how long he was held for questioning.
While this may be the first time Even risked arrest, it was far from his first publicity stunt. Before stealthing his way on stage at one of the gaming industry’s biggest events of the year in front of an audience of over a million people, Even crashed a BlizzCon panel, went viral for pranking the L.A. Clippers fan cam, and appeared on right-wing conspiracy show Infowars at least twice.
The Clippers stunt came in October 2019. Amid the Hong Kong protests, Even momentarily appeared on the fan cam at the team’s home stadium, only to immediately hold up a black t-shirt that read, “Fight for Freedom Stand with Hong Kong.” China had blacklisted the Houston Rockets after their general manager tweeted out a picture of the same t-shirt just a couple of weeks earlier.
The next month, Even interrupted a BlizzCon 2019 panel with a similar message in support of the Hong Kong protests. Blizzard had suspended Overwatchpro Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai the prior month for doing the same, and along with the NBA and other companies, came under fire at the time for its failure to stand up for Hong Kong’s democratic protesters.
As Motherboard points out, this made Even a ripe target to be co-opted by right-wing political actors who saw the opportunity to attack seeming liberal hypocrisy on the issue. But Even was also apparently already a big fan of at least one of Infowars’ hosts, Owen Shroyer. He said as much in a 2019 appearance, calling Shroyer his “favorite person on Infowars,” while in a second appearance in 2020 Shroyer called Even “one of the young stars of the conservative movement.”
While Even’s own social media activity appears to be almost exclusively concerned with the Hong Kong protests and censorship by the Chinese government, his journey from protester to Infowars guest is also a perfect example of the ambiently reactionary online pipeline that can lead one from Googling political issues to ending up on right-wing content channels. (Even was seemingly 12 during his first Infowars appearance.) It’s also a reason why some were quick to interpret his nonsensical remarks about Bill Clinton and Orthodox Judaism as potentially antisimetic.
Prior to last night, Even’s last tweets were from March 2021 and were about concerns over the rise in hate crimes toward Asian Americans. Infowars, meanwhile, has seen founder Alex Jones successfully sued for hundreds of millions by the parents of the Sandy Hook school shooting victims. Most recently, however, the site tried to hold court with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who used the appearance to praise Hitler, a heel turn that comes amid a larger wave of antisemitism in conservative circles.
It was in front of that backdrop that some worried Even’s stunt was secretly some racist 4Chan deepcut. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, who interviewed Even earlier today, said he appeared to understand Hebrew, and called him “almost certainly a Jewish prankster.”
He’s also disavowing his previous Infowars appearances, even while continuing his trolling in messages with other journalists.
“I never was an avid viewer [of Infowars] nor am I now,” he told Motherboard. He reportedly went on to call Clinton “a true inspiration, especially in the gaming space.”
Call of Duty Warzone 2.0 players are about to get what they wanted…sort of. The red-hot online shooter is getting Combat Records with its Season 01 Reloaded midseason update, which will go live December 14. Sounds good. But the catch is, it’s starting fresh: no information from the games you completed before that date will be counted toward your stats.
Traditionally, all the Combat Record does is log your and other players’ performance, including total time played, kill/death ratios, killstreaks, and other competitive stats, and players have beenwanting it to come to Warzone 2.0 since the game came out in November. However, a new blog Activision dropped today about the forthcoming patch revealed that the eagerly awaited feature comes with a significant caveat.
“Record will only be from the activation date forward, and will not include statistics from Season 01 launch through Season 01 Reloaded (November 16 to December 14),” read the update blog.
Kotaku reached out to Activision for comment.
For competitive players, this news comes down like a heavy slap in the face—nothing you do until December 14 will be officially documented. If you pop out your most impressive killstreak and no Combat Record is around to write it down, did you even have a killstreak?
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Personally, I’m not sure if this one is as bad as some fans aremaking it outto be. But I can understand their frustration, especially when considering the fact that Combat Record is a typical CoD feature that was missing from launch. It also doesn’t help that Warzone 2.0’s launch was one of this year’s most clunky and bugged. As pleasurable as the free game is to actually play, fans’ goodwill clearly has its limits.
But in the dark age between now and December 14, when stats will finally start being recorded, you can focus your attention to anticipating other midseason updates Warzone 2.0 is getting, like a Rocket League-inspired Warzone Cup with ATVs. Or you could, you know, try to just enjoy playing the game.
Other publications wrote about the discourse, developers weighed in, and the lead-up to The Game Awards became less about speculation over which game would win GOTY (spoilers: it was Elden Ring) and more about whether or not Josef Fares would wear a skin-tight t-shirt again (spoilers: he didn’t).
Ultimately, it seems like my call-out worked. Numerous people who attended the event told me via DM that I shamed attendees into dressing better. The presenters and on-stage talent at this year’s Game Awards were almost uniformly sharper-dressed than in previous years, and even Phil Spencer seemed to be wearing a slightly more formal outfit.
The Game Awards is a chance to have fun with fashion and to lean into the themes that are so often in the games the night is celebrating, so it was great to see some people really doing that last night. That’s why I decided to highlight the best-dressed attendees and honorees at gaming’s biggest night. You all did amazing, sweeties.
One of the main advertising gimmicks of tonight’s Game Awards was a promotion being run by Valve that would see a viewer win one of the company’s prized Steam Deck handhelds every minute.
As we reported last week, to be eligible you had to be watching the show on Valve’s own Steam.TV website:
As announced November 30, Valve is celebrating The Game Awards with a massive Steam Deck giveaway. The company will be giving out a free handheld PC to a single person every minute for the entire run of The Game Awards. (Never in history has someone wanted The Game Awards to run long, until now…) To have a chance, you’ll need to first register for the drawing, which you can do now, then watch The Game Awards via Valve’s Steam.TV website.
During Christopher Judge’s acceptance speech, which, yes, did run long but was also incredibly emotional and heart-warming, the winners of Steam Decks started popping up. So while Judge was up there, pouring out his heart, the rest of us were witness to:
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People who were either disappointed (a minority) or who found it incredibly funny (the majority) began tweeting their congratulations to Mr or Mrs Hunter, which led at one point to “Milf Hunter” becoming a trending topic in the United States across all of Twitter.
Given “Milf Hunter” is also the name of a porn outlet, and The Game Awards have almost zero cultural penetration outside this bubble, you can understand some people’s confusion:
If you missed this, or any other Game Awards stuff, we’ve got you covered with this roundup, which includes everything from a Death Stranding 2 reveal, to a Hades 2 announcement, to Al Pacino.
You may have already seen, but Street Fighter 6‘s June 2, 2023 release date leaked late in the day on December 8. Apparently Sony, whether accidentally or intentionally, published the date on the PlayStation Store, alongside three different editions that will be available come launch. Now, during Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards, Capcom confirmed the date is in fact real. Mark your calendars, folks: Street Fighter is coming back next year.
Street Fighter 6 – Pre-Order Trailer
The Game Awards dropped a new trailer for Street Fighter 6 during the pre-show, where we saw fighters travel around the (digital) world: France, Italy, the United States, and the like. There were also some minigames, including bottle chopping, board breaking, and basketball blocking. Weird stuff. We also saw some new characters, such as the capoeira fighter Dee Jay and the gladiator brawler Marisa, alongside a cool-looking 2v2 mode where a player-created fighter and Ryu battled against two other fighters on the same screen at the same time.
Street Fighter 6 is looking wild.
The June 2023 release date slip-up was spotted on the PlayStation Store by Twitter users bestprosplay3 and SurpriseBum. It then proliferated on gaming forum website ResetEra, with preorder pages allegedly corroborating the date. There appear to be three editions of the game: Standard, Deluxe, and Ultimate. The Standard Edition will apparently come with the base game, one outfit color for six unspecified characters, and “special titles and stickers.” The Deluxe and Ultimate versions feature the same stuff, with the only difference being the Deluxe packages the Year 1 Character Pass, whereas the Ultimate houses the Year 1 Ultimate Pass. Prices for these editions weren’t disclosed at the time.
More than seven years after Street Fighter V came out in February 2016, Street Fighter 6 is Capcom’s latest entry in the long-running fighting game series. It’ll feature all the usual characters—Chun-Li, Guile, Ken, Ryu, etc.—as well as some new faces, such as the fire-fisted Luke and (my personal fave) the kunoichi Kimberly. There are some new elements introduced in the upcoming entry, too, including the combo-breaking Drive Impact move, a robust character creator you can use in the single-player open world, and the incredible training mode that actually teaches you fighting game lingo. It’s an exciting release I’m stoked to get whooped in.
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You don’t have to wait long to get your hands on the game. Yes, it does drop in June 2023, which is about six months away. But if you were part of Street Fighter 6‘s first closed beta, you can check out the second one that runs from December 16 to 19. Even if you didn’t get an invitation to play the first beta, you can still submit an application to get in on the second one through the game’s website. Two caveats here, though. The first is you must have a registered Capcom ID account. The second is that account must then be linked to whatever platform you’re applying to play on. Once you meet that criteria, and should you be selected, you will gain access to Street Fighter 6.
If you weren’t lucky enough to be picked for access to the game’s second closed beta, however, you will just have to wait until Street Fighter 6 launches in full on June 2, 2023. The game will land on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam.
The CEO of the company behind some of the best retro consoles on the market has announced on their website than an entire shipment of units, due for release all over the world, has been stolen in a robbery in the UK.
Byatt says that “in the early hours” of December 6 a truck “carrying Evercade EXP Limited Edition stock was subject to a suspected targeted robbery”, and that while “nobody was hurt in this criminal act”, the stolen units had been intended “for despatch to all UK, USA, and rest of world customers”.
European customers are unaffected, as are those buying the regular edition of the Evercade EXP, since it was only the limited edition units that were stolen. Byatt adds that they’re currently working with British police, and are “hopeful of recovering the stock”, but in case that doesn’t pan out they have already begun the process of manufacturing replacement units.
To compensate those whose are now going to have to wait for their orders, Byatt also says that they’re creating a “Heroes” list “which will be added to our EXP console credits, thanking those people that stuck by us at this time”. Since the consoles were only available for sale on their official site, and are now sold out, Byatt is reminding people that any units turning up for sale elsewhere are “likely stolen goods”.
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The full statement is below:
Dear Evercade customers and fans,
I’m writing to inform you of some very sad news. In the early hours of yesterday morning, a lorry carrying Evercade EXP Limited Edition stock was subject to a suspected targeted robbery. Nobody was hurt in this criminal act, but a theft of our Limited Edition stock was carried out.
This stock was moving between warehouses for despatch to all UK, USA, and rest of world customers – all of the stock was taken in this terrible, possibly organised attack. EU stock was not affected and has arrived in Funstock’s European warehouse successfully.
Since learning of the crime, we have been tirelessly working behind the scenes, liaising with the Police, evaluating the situation, and defining a plan of action that we can communicate to our customers and fans as accurately and as quickly as possible.
This is especially devastating for our most committed fans who supported us with their pre-orders for our special Limited Edition version of the Evercade EXP. We feel this impact keenly and are determined to not let this situation overshadow the excitement around our new product launch. This is an unprecedented situation in the history of Blaze and Funstock and we deeply sympathize with all our fans and customers who are the victims of this theft.
We at Blaze are hugely frustrated and angry that this has occurred, and with these products so close to release the timing could not be worse. We have shared all the information, including evidence of theft, with the UK Police and we await news of their investigations. Whilst we are hopeful of recovering the stock, we expect this to be challenging and time consuming. We are working hard on making this right for Limited Edition customers. Please be aware that the EXP Limited Edition could only be purchased from Funstock.co.uk and is no longer on sale. Any other sources are likely stolen goods.
What happens next?
I have immediately started production on replacements for this stock at our factory and we will endeavour to get these into your hands as fast as humanly possible. We recognise that this will be disappointing for our customers and as a mark of our gratitude for their patience while we remanufacture the goods, we will be creating a list of “Heroes” which will be added to our EXP console credits, thanking those people that stuck by us at this time. We will also add a screen protector set into the reproduced goods and Funstock will include a 20% off voucher on a future order.
We firmly believe that the customers of Blaze and Funstock are victims here and we apologise for the impact this event will cause. We hope all our customers can join us in condemning the actions of these criminals and ensuring this event will not be allowed to stop our enjoyment of the classic gaming experience that Evercade provides.
It was only three weeks ago that we reported the astonishing news that Yuji Naka, the creator of Sonic The Hedgehog, had been arrested over allegations of insider training in relation to Dragon Quest. Now, it’s being reported that he’s been arrested again for similar charges, this time allegedly regarding shares bought before the 2021 announcement of mobile battle royale Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier.
Yuji Naka, a name behind some of the most iconic Japanese game franchises of the last 30 years, could be in a whole heap of trouble. The man who took Sonic from a high school notebook doodle to one of the most famous gaming characters in existence was arrested in November, along with others, allegedly accused of buying shares in developer Aiming, shortly before it was announced in 2020 that the studio would be making Dragon Quest Tact.
Less than a month later, it’s being reported by Asahi that it’s happening all over again, but this time in regards to his allegedly purchasing shares in ATeam Entertainment, just before it was made public in 2021 that they’d be creating Square Enix’s ill-fated mobile game, Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier. According to Asahi, he’s alleged to have paid 144.7 million yen ($1,051,000) for 120,000 shares in ATeam. It’s claimed he was arrested alongside another former Square Enix employee, Taisuke Sasaki, who was also said to have been arrested over Aiming shares last month.
Were this to be a thing someone had done, it would of course be an attempt to profit from the increased share value such an announcement would cause, but given it would be based on non-public confidential information, that counts as insider trading.
Most recently, Naka had been working on Square Enix’s dreadfulBalan Wonderworld, before being let go by the studio six months before its release. He says he later sued Square Enix over this, but has never disclosed the resolution.
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In February last year, Squenix announced Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier would be jointly developed with ATeam, before releasing it for mobile in November last year. Then, less than a year later, announced they were killing it dead. ATeam shares are now worth about half their value in 2021, and a fraction of their peak in 2013.
England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford has made a few handy saves so far at this World Cup, but between waiting around for large parts of a game and then having days between matches, there’s a lot of spare time to fill. Which he has duly done by getting an enormous gaming setup shipped over from home.
Pickford, who plays his club football for Everton, revealed the power move as part of this promotional interview below, which runs for over 20 minutes but which I’ve set to autoplay at the relevant moment:
Pickford Chats GK Union, Gaming Setups and Golf Dream Teams 🎮⛳️ | Ep.20 | Lions’ Den With M&S Food
Seems the guy really likes playing Fortnite, and had previously taken gaming laptops with him while on national duty so he could play on his off days. But switching between those cramped confines and his regular setup had proved too much for the Euro 2021 Golden Glove winner, so for Qatar he just figured, fuck it, and got something more heavy duty shipped over.
Screenshot: YouTube
The monogrammed container it arrived in is, indeed, a “proper bit of kit”. Inside it’s still a laptop, but with a custom-built, full-size TV/monitor/screen included so that the visual experience on the road matched what he was used to at home.
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As for Fortnite, it’s not just Pickford playing; as he says above it’s something he plays with the lads, and four years ago at the last World Cup the England squad were famously, absolutely hooked on it:
Aside from their inspired celebrations, England players have been very forthcoming about their own Fortnite escapades in the camp. It’s no surprise that team youngsters Marcus Rashford and Alli play religiously, or that young-at-heart Raheem Sterling and Lingard log on to Epic Games’ best-seller, but the true revelation has been star striker Kane.
Kane, or should we say “hkane23”, has racked up an astonishing 110 matches while in Russia, closely followed by Tottenham (and evidently Fortnite) teammate Alli, also known as “Delstroyer14”, who has played 82 times, according to reports. The pair have previously livestreamed their matches, including one against defender and teammate Harry Maguire.
This being 2022, and with the World Cup running (for some countries at least) for almost a month, he’s far from the only person there playing Fortnite in his downtime. But he is, surely, the only one “just tryin to get the best frames, trying to get the upper hand” with a monogrammed, armoured computer case.
It’s also lovely to see that, since switching to a PC laptop, he’s having more luck with his power supply.
Farming experience points has never been easier. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet introduced a “Let’s Go” function that allows your leading Pokémon to auto-battle roaming opponents in the overworld. But if you want to take your laziness a step further, there’s a passive farming hack that lets you strengthen your Pokémon while you’re doing something else. You just have to be a monster about it.
Here’s how it works. Fly over to the isolated puddle in North Province (Area Two), which you can see in the screenshot below. Since the puddle is surrounded by cliffs on all sides, you can only get there once you’ve unlocked the final form of Koraidon or Miraidon. By completing the Path of Legends quest, your motorbike Pokémon will be able to scale cliffs. So be sure to finish gathering all of the herbs from the five Titan Pokémon before attempting this trick.
Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku
Once you’re there, you should spot a ton of Golducks, Dratini, and Vaporeons. To start farming, jump straight into the pit and send out a Pokémon that’s strong against Water-types—you can do this by pressing the R button. Then use your motorbike to jump safely onto the top of the pit. Your Pokémon will stay within the confined area and battle everything that spawns in it, while you’re just chilling on a clifftop. The hack was originally discovered by NerdyNinetales on TikTok, and I was able to get it working on my own copy of the game.
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As I watched my Arboliva pulverize everything in the pit, I couldn’t help but feel slightly… guilty? Did I just turn this peaceful wildlife refuge into a death pit? These wild Pokémon don’t even get to experience the sweet release of death, as soon as they get back up from their beating, your Pokémon whallops them all over again, ad infinitum. All so that I could read a book while grinding some levels.
I wrote in my Scarletreview that Pokémon training felt too streamlined. Grinding your favorite Pokémon is supposed to be a labor of love. Instead, we let our beloved companions raise themselves with minimal supervision. We want the level 100 Meowscarada without the burden of having cared for it. If that’s you, then this method is perfect for raising competitive Pokémon. Personally, I’ll raise mine the normal way: Putting them in one-on-one cockfights.
I’ve played a lot of games in my lifetimes. I say ‘lifetimes’ because I have lived many different lives, all of which have been incredibly uneventful and have mostly revolved around playing different games.
Features are what make a game. Many people are saying this. If you talk to any game developer and ask them, “What makes up a video game?”, they will tell you, “Features.” Go on, ask any of them. If they don’t have this answer, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m just spitballing here. Sometimes, I just say stuff. It’s whatever.
Anyway, I’ve played a lot of games and enjoyed a lot of features in games. On that note, I’d like to tell you the features that I think every game should strive to have included in their experience, based on the games that I have played in my many, many lifetimes.
I don’t ask for much from you, I simply just ask for the love of God that you take a look.
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An ugly little guy that is annoying and everybody hates
You see this in video games all the time. A little guy that is just terrible to look at, usually with a grating voice, and always with a lot to say. I believe that while it already exists in many games, a horrible little asshole should exist in every video game.
I propose this guy. His name is Beremy, and he would be the most common character in the game. He is incredibly rude, always around, will give you advice that doesn’t actually help in any way, and there is literally no part of the game that he is not in. Also, he is in love with you.
Pressing a button to scream
Do you know how in Dog’s Life, there’s a button that lets you shit/fart? I think that’s great. However, I think it’s definitely gotten a bit old, and every game having a shit/fart button would probably be a little isolating for anybody that doesn’t shit/fart.
That being said, I think that every game should have a Scream button. Why not? There isn’t a single game that wouldn’t benefit from having the option to just start screaming. Not only would it be a relief in games that are stressful, but it could also be used to scare things away in a desperate time of need.
Realistic auto-play
Idle games are all over the Auto-Play feature, and I think it’s really overdone and unrealistic. These Auto-Play modes seem to always benefit the player, and most of the time do not reflect how a player would actually play the game.
Due to this, I believe that games with and without an Auto-Play feature should have Realistic Auto-Play, which automatically plays the game really badly. I also think that there should be a warning beforehand that says, “WARNING: This is how we believe you would play the game. If you are hurt by this, maybe you should give playing the game a try.”
Unavoidable calls to your personal mobile from the worst character in the game
Remember how Overwatch 2 wanted people to be required to add their mobile numbers to their accounts? I think this is a great idea, purely for the purpose of this feature. I think all games should include 3-hour unavoidable phone calls on your real-life phone with the worst character in the game (refer to Feature 1).
In this phone call, you have to respond audibly to the character with things like, “Wow!” and “That’s really insightful!”, and you have to mean it. The 3-hour phone call will consist of the character talking about a putrid growth that has appeared on their inner thigh, and they will go into great detail about all the ‘natural remedies’ they have been using on it that have not been working. You cannot hang up.
For the past week or so, some folks playing Spider-Man: Miles Morales on the PC have been encountering a bug that, at the end of the game’s dialogue sequences, would just go ahead and play a honking loud air horn.
It wasn’t for everyone, and asPC GamesN report some players—presumably those who have spent any time in New York City—didn’t even realise it was a bug in the first place. But for others it was there, it was recognisable as a bug and it was wonderful.
An emotional revelation from a family member? HONK. A heartfelt thanks for risking your life? HONK. A sombre reflection on the nature of heroism, and the sacrifices inherent? HOOOOOOOOONK.
Here’s one example, set to autoplay at the relevant moment:
Spider-Man: Miles Morales Airhorn Bug (Mild spoilers?)
And here’s a second that is much funnier if you sit through the whole thing first:
Spider-Man: Miles Morales Airhorn 2 (Mild spoilers)
Sadly, the bug has now been removed. The game’s latest patch notes, released late last week, lead with:
Hey everyone,
A new patch for Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is now live. This update holds dozens of fixes and improvements. We addressed a bug that resulted in unintended air horn sounds being audible for some players and fixed a bug that caused some audio effects to be absent from specific cutscenes.
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Audio missing from cutscenes would indeed suck. I’m glad they fixed that one. But extra audio, like, say, an air horn sounding at inopportune times, does not suck. It is very good, and funny. Since one of the other things addressed in the update was the creation of an option to “skip Fast Travel animations”, could we please also get “leave the very funny air horn” as a box to tick as well? Thank you!
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