Search Results

When the Rocket League developers opt to make a racing game, you play it. Fortnite is generally known for its battle royale mode, crazy licensed crossovers, and longevity in both esports and streaming. But, Epic Games wants their flagship game to be more than just a shooter. In recent memory, Fortnite has decided to take on Roblox, known for being a user-made content-distribution game, as a competitor. The good news is that not only is it working, they have the right studios working with them to do it. While you can find the recent (and also great) LEGO Fortnite and Fortnite Festival as well, Rocket Racing is spectacular. But, what is Rocket Racing in Fortnite? For those unfamiliar with classic Rocket League, it’s older than Fortnite and made by Psyonix. Epic Games acquired Psyonix back in 2019 and, not long afterward, made the entire game free to play, similar to their battle royale. In that particular game, however, you’re playing soccer (or futbol, for readers not in the USA), but driving a car while doing it. The gameplay of standard Rocket League is chaotic and has been a mainstay of “sports” games for quite a while. But, while the game focuses on the polo-like gameplay, it’s always felt like it could have a racing mode, considering you’re driving fast, customizable cars. Enter: Rocket Racing. During Fortnite’s recent Big Bang event, among the various modes that have been added, Rocket Racing brings the racing aspect that Rocket League has been missing all these years. Gameplay Honestly, I’m a huge fan of cartoon-esque racing games, such as the Mario Kart series. But, Rocket Racing has such a deep flavoring of the Hot Wheels Unleashed series and Blur that it’s hard to ignore. In Rocket Racing, you get put on a track as your chosen car and race the level, similar to most non-open world racing games. The key is drifting to acquire boost, to fly past your opponents. While Rocket League has demolitions if you boost through someone (something that happens very often), Rocket Racing doesn’t seem to encounter that nearly as much. The only time you explode is if you hit a wall the wrong way, something you do often if you're as bad at racing games as I am, which sets you back quite a bit in the ranking. I said I loved the genre, not that I was good at it. As mentioned, drifting is important. Find a way to drift in any scenario to fill your boost meter. But, your opponents are all doing the same thing. Honestly, if you’re a fan of Hot Wheels Unleashed 2, Blur, or F-ZERO, this mode is free to play and will scratch that exact itch you want in a racing game. Customization Just like in Fortnite’s other modes, you can head to your locker to customize your car. Even though I’ve unlocked a ton of cars and content in Rocket League, it’s refreshing to start on the same playing field across the board with everyone else. But, I do miss some of my fun customizable bits. Your standard starter car looks like the classic Rocket League Octane box art car. You’ll earn colors, wheels, and decals by finishing missions. However, you can head to the Fortnite cash shop for some other options. The cars you can buy there work two-fold. They not only unlock the cool sports and muscle cars in Rocket Racing, but they will also unlock the same car in your linked Rocket League account. While there are just a few in the cash shop now, there is likely to be a lot more incoming in the future. I’m sad that I can’t bring my usual Rocket League loadouts into Fortnite, but I understand that it’s trickier to do with licensed stuff, similar to how they will handle LEGO Fortnite's licensed skins. They may come eventually. Final Verdict I adore this mode. While the newly-added LEGO Fortnite and Fortnite Festival are fantastic in their own right, Rocket Racing is the mode that got me to re-download Fortnite after not playing it for years. I love that Epic Games has realized that the “battle royale” genre isn’t for everyone. By using their own properties, I can see Rocket Racing being a huge reason for a resurgence of Fortnite’s popularity. I’m the most excited to see that Epic Games announced that all of the new modes are here to stay. That means I (and anyone else) do not need to worry about racking up a ranking only to have it go away in the near future. You can grab Fortnite on basically any platform: macOS (with some luck), Epic Games Store on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Android, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5. All three new modes are available for free in the already free game.

A brand new SaGa is arriving after years of remasters and ports. Previously announced during the last Nintendo Direct, SaGa: Emerald Beyond now has a confirmed release date. Square Enix announced the game’s launch is targeting April 25, 2024 for PlayStation 4 and 5, Nintendo Switch, PC and mobile. This news came from a livestream earlier today, the SaGa Glimmerfest 2023. During the stream a few character trailers were shown alongside the release date, providing background information and English voiceover work for two of SaGa: Emerald Beyond’s protagonists. The first character showcased was Tsunamori Mido, who has often given a sort of front seat in Emerald Beyond’s marketing so far. The trailer is narrated in character by Mido’s English voice actor, giving a little background on his scenario. Rather than starting with a traditional party of characters, Mido has the ability to control “kungutsu,” a kind of autonomous puppet. Check it out: Character number two is Ameya, a perfect example of how SaGa as a series has no problem being serious and ridiculous at the same time. Ameya is a witch in training, who poses as an 11-year-old schoolgirl named Yumeha Izumi. She has a talking cat and is on a journey to get her stolen powers back. Also, the President is involved somehow? Here’s the trailer: SaGa: Emerald Beyond is the first new SaGa game since Scarlet Grace, which was originally released for the PlayStation Vita in Japan before being ported to the PS4 and Switch (and localized!) in 2019. Since then multiple remasters of older SaGa games have come out at a steady clip, such as SaGa Frontier Remastered (which you can buy) and the most recent title, Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered. The series often lets players choose from a stable of main characters, then spits them out into a non-linear adventure that can have myriad outcomes depending on the choices they make and the scenarios they come across. SaGa: Emerald Beyond is no slouch in this regard, as Square Enix has already confirmed multiple endings and a roster of five protagonists (one being a pair). Disclaimer: GameCrate may earn a small commission when a purchase is made on Amazon.

Hey Sega, where’s Skies of Arcadia? It's been 20 years! Just a few days ago, we finally got confirmation the long-rumored-slash-leaked batch of new Sega games reviving classic IP was real. The “Power Surge” trailer that debuted during The 2023 Game Awards showed off new, modern iterations of Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, Golden Axe, and Streets of Rage. But it looks like these aren’t the only properties Sega is playing with. Check out the trailer here in case you missed it! These remakes run a fascinating gamut of visual and game style, from fully-realized 3D gameplay to a more nostalgic, but modern 2D take as well. Just watch it for yourself, jeez: After The Game Awards, a few trademark filings made by Sega on December 6 were made public. These ones actually included games we didn’t see during the trailer, such as Kid Chameleon and Altered Beast. Today, several more trademark filings made their appearances. The list now includes all the IP we already saw announced, plus several more. Here’s the full list of trademarks as of December 14, 2023, as spotted by Gematsu on Twitter. Or X. Whatever: Altered Beast Eternal Champions Jet Set Radio Kid Chameleon Alex Kidd After Burner Crazy Taxi House of the Dead Outrun Shinobi Streets of Rage Super Monkey Ball These aren’t all fully dormant series from the classic Sega library. Super Monkey Ball, Alex Kidd, and Streets of Rage have all had recent, new entries. A House of the Dead remake was also recently launched for better or worse. That said, having these among the list of brand-new games under this “Power Surge” banner is probably worth paying attention to. Sega has long battled with effective ways to use its classic gaming IP, especially stuff that has lots of nostalgic cache from the Genesis days that aren’t Sonic the Hedgehog. But the days of crappy emulation boxes at grocery stores are well past us at least, with quality compilations, such as the Sega Genesis Mini 2, made in part by the emulation wizards at M2 available. Disclaimer: GameCrate may earn a small commission when a purchase is made.

Kingpin: Reloaded took a bite out of crime and crime bit back. Kingpin: Life of Crime was one of those games that I remember quite a bit from my younger years. Not because it was particularly amazing or anything, but that it was unique. I remember the PC version on shelves at local stores and how I always wanted to get a copy for myself. I even purchased the strategy guide just so I could look at all of the pictures of the game and read a little bit about what to expect within the grimy, crime-riddled world hidden away inside that PC box. When I finally was able to get a copy of the game, what I found was not only a game I had to play with the volume super low due to the most expletives I had probably heard in my life at that point, but also a game that was an interesting (yet unbalanced) experience. I can unfortunately say the same thing about this remaster that has been released 24 years after the original. There are a few things that are improved here, but on the whole, it has a slew of new problems. The story in Kingpin: Reloaded is a rather simple one: the main character, known as the Thug, has been viciously beaten and left in the trash by some goons who work for a man named Nikki Blanco. Our “hero” immediately vows to end the lives of not only the men who doled out the beating but Nikki’s life as well. Everything that unfolds afterward does so in a straightforward way, with you trying to find a method to obtain some money, score some weapons, recruit some help, and take down everyone who stands in your way to exact your revenge. Hey big man, let me hold a dollar Weapons can be obtained easily enough, for a dollar the first person you meet will sell you a crowbar, and the pawn shop owner just around the corner will give you a pistol with one magazine if you can steal a coil from a local warehouse. Opportunities like these will help you a lot in the opening hour or so with the game because you can start building your money and equipment up to be able to take on heavier threats. Talking to characters and finding out what they know can give you hints about how you should approach your next objective, and the game gives you the option to talk to people in either a positive or negative way. Some of the people you meet can be recruited for a wad of cash and they will help you fight until the bitter end during conflicts. This can be extremely helpful because combat in Kingpin: Reloaded can be pretty damn tough. Enemies move like they are hopped up on the highest amount of amphetamines possible and if you don’t have the latest and greatest mods installed on some of your weapons from the local Pawn-O-Matic shop, these baddies will eat bullets like candy and keep coming back for more. One of the differences I noticed in the remastered version is that enemies don’t seem to be quite as bullet-spongey as they were in the original. Which is honestly fine by me because before they were practically walking tanks. The inventory system’s UI in Kingpin: Reloaded looks a fair bit better than in the original and now the game lets you know when you have a new message to look at in your notebook. I had an issue with this however because no matter how many times I read every note, the notification would never stop flashing. Here comes the pain There have been some issues with this remaster that have already been patched, but there are still plenty more that I ran into that haven’t been addressed as of the writing of this review. Enemies will often get stuck on ladders and completely glitch out just shuttering in place while you pepper them with firepower. Your recruits will just randomly decide that they don’t want to work for you anymore and light you up with their fury for no reason. At a certain point in the game, I completed an objective only to have it not activate and I couldn’t progress. So the only way to fix this was to start the entire game over again. Now this isn’t a very long game, but no one wants to have this sort of thing happen. Thankfully some of the lighting issues that plagued the game’s initial release have been fixed, but characters still look like they have a blurry aura surrounding them and it just looks unappealing. Also, some textures are just AI upscales and they stick out like a sore thumb. Loading screens when dropping into a level is incredibly long, even when using an SSD. Thankfully loading in between smaller sections of the levels is brisk, but the other loading screens were so long that I thought my game had crashed. Stuttering framerates are yet another blemish on the face of this remaster and I’m not really sure what the cause could be. In one room I jumped while holding a shotgun and the frames absolutely TANKED. To rub even more salt in the wound, the multiplayer mode is absent here too. Good, bad, I’m the guy with the gun So, while there are some improvements with the issues of how much health an enemy has, the inventory system, and the game giving you a bit more of a clue on what to do next than the original, I can’t really say that this version is currently at a point where I could recommend it. I know a lot of work has been poured into this game since the original source code had been lost and this remaster had to be reverse-engineered, but I think it should have been pushed back longer because owning the GOG version of the original and using the V9 fan patch makes this whole thing look redundant.

Fortnite Festival is cool and all, but can the upcoming PDP controller work with Konasute Gitadora? With the recent launch of several new game modes in Fortnite, video games are about to get even weirder than usual. For example, guitar controllers of yesteryear might be a thing again. I'm sure there are a lot more weird things out there, but the point is a new guitar controller is coming. This time, it’s PDP, which dropped a tease for a new guitar controller on social media, teasing a January reveal and/or launch, and color-coding it to specifically nod to the recently-released Fortnite Festival. PDP is a longtime source of third-party controllers and gaming accessories, only growing more and more prominent over the years. This new tease is about as explicitly tied to Fortnite Festival as it can be while still omitting the words “Fortnite Festival” from the post. You can see it for yourself right below this paragraph: We’re just looking at a silhouette, of course, so there’s no telling what the specifics of this thing are yet. Price, buttons, and compatibility, as well as anything and everything will have to wait until January 2024. And some of those questions are pretty important, considering what exactly Fortnite Festival is. For example, while a rhythm mode developed by Rock Band studio Harmonix itself, Fortnite Festival doesn’t include strumming as a mechanic. So will this guitar have a strum bar or just simple buttons? Is it fully tailored for Fortnite, or will folks who play things like Clone Hero or Guitar Freaks be able to use PDP’s upcoming peripheral? There’s no way to know for now, but there are already folks out there asking these questions. Fortnite Festival is a standalone music rhythm mode recently added to Fortnite alongside LEGO Fortnite and Rocket Racing during the latest season. You and up to three other players can choose a setlist from available songs, instruments, and difficulty. Then, it can play a straight-up, Harmonix-developed music game. It includes star ratings, the love-it-or-hate-it Overdrive mechanic, goofy video game stage show choreography… the works. Disclaimer: GameCrate may earn a small commission when a purchase is made on Amazon. GameCrate is published by and is a subsidiary of Newegg Commerce Inc.

Sonic 2’s original plan included an ambitious story with time travel. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has long been a treasure trove for video game historians and hacking sickos around the world. This spice is still flowing today, leading us to today’s story in which “new” materials found by the Video Game History Foundation have revealed stages, enemies, plot details, and more cut content during development. Multiple stages that have never seen the public light of day are now out in the open. This includes Winter Zone, a stage that has been unearthed for the very first time via footage from a VHS tape. The results of all this Sonic 2 research have been shared in a new video from Frank Cifaldi, head of the Video Game History Foundation. The material is fascinating, especially a high-level view of some ambitious concept work. During the planning stages, Sonic 2 started as a time travel story, with Sonic chasing Eggman as he attacked the past and brought further ruin to the present. We get a look at a world map, various stage titles, and context that explains certain aspects of the final game that otherwise don’t. Cifaldi also introduces three artists at Sega, who collectively designed seven stages and only saw two of them used. Tom Payne’s Cyber City level, with help from art and assets from Payne’s personal collection, was actually reconstructed in (very partially) playable form. Meanwhile, a VHS demo reel sent in from Brenda Ross showed animation from a Desert stage (famously used for a screenshot in an old Sears ad), and footage of her Winter Zone that is now available to be seen for the first time. Well, the first time outside of Sega’s offices in the 90s. It’s fascinating footage and a rare look at the bits and pieces of classic video games that simply don’t make it to the final release. There could be any number of reasons why this happens, as Cifaldi explains in an effort to not paint these perceived losses in a negative light. There are a lot of moving parts in projects like this, and plans change constantly.

Pour one out for the trade show; E3 is gone. GGWP. As a young adult, I dreamed of attending an E3, seeing cutting-edge technology, playing the latest games, and schmoozing with people who inspired me to make my voice heard. Even now, it gives me goosebumps. I know a lot of writers, content creators, and influencers with similar stories. Unfortunately, on December 12th, 2023, the ESA shared a short post saying, "That's all folks!" We're here to eulogize E3, the now-late and formerly-great video game trade show. For those unfamiliar with the industry, we’re here to mourn the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or as it was typically known: E3. Originally, and foremost, it was an industry-only trade show meant to serve as a way for games, technology, and video game-focused news to be readily available for the media and investors. It was the most prominent and formidable game convention. The keyword here: Was. For many people, E3 was a dream come true. I wasn't much older than my youngest son when I first read about a big convention in California where all these people would see new games, consoles, and more. I was excited to see more info on the PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. Sony ended up pulling out, and Sega did as well, but the publicity was excellent for Nintendo. Pictures in magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly showed off busy floors filled with TVs and industry folk. Over a decade later, I boarded a plane from Tampa, Florida, to Los Angeles, California. One of the biggest reasons I initially helped found a successful gaming blog was to get that E3 invite, and I made it happen. My first E3 was a whirlwind. Nintendo announced a new console, but the delivery was confusing at best. PlayStation and Xbox were at each other’s throats with dueling booths. When I first entered the LA Convention Center for the first time and looked over the area, I got a little teary-eyed. Four more E3s came and went for me over the next decade. I met personal heroes like Adam Sessler, James Stephanie Sterling, and Dan Rykert. The show grew year over year, as did my experience and role in the industry. Heck, one E3, I began interviewing for a job at Bethesda. It didn’t go anywhere, but E3 was such a wild event that things like that happened. Another E3, after my youngest brother passed, I honored a promise I made to bring him to the show by carrying his ashes with me. I lost all my luggage on that trip, but it was still cathartic. Time waits for no one, even trade shows. I tell you this story because, for the last 28 years, E3 has been more than a gaming convention for so many people. E3 was that time of the year when people took a few days off of work and watched G4TV, video streams online, and/or YouTube videos of the latest announcements. Press worked tirelessly to get their hands on the biggest and hottest games or try to find that next diamond in the rough. It was a time of excitement, and if just for a moment, nothing else really mattered. My last E3 visit in person was the first year that E3 opened its doors to the public. While media professionals weren’t super keen on it, it was neat to see people get the chance to experience the event that had that same dream I had when I was a kid. Many more meetings were off the show floor, so the opportunity to soak in all the fanfare was missed. The ESA (Entertainment Software Association), E3’s governing body, made the change so they could try to keep the convention more relevant and make some additional money. E3 had competition from shows like the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), the Tokyo Games Show, and their long-term competitor, Gamescom. PAX was the only show that was open to the public, though. Unfortunately, E3 going public meant lines were much longer, and in most cases, if you didn’t have an appointment, a press member wouldn’t accidentally stumble onto the next hit game. From what I gathered, it also became much more expensive for companies to get a spot on the show floor, and more prominent names like EA, Sony and Nintendo all started to leave. Smaller companies just started booking appointments at local hotels instead of the busy show floor. Realistically, it was the beginning of the end. Still, for at least that week in June, E3 was nearly always the talk of the town. My last E3 was the first and only online E3. It was set up over Discord and was, well, really bad. Meetings were emails or breakout rooms online where you watched some gameplay. In best-case scenarios, you got an early demo to play. At this point, the show couldn’t happen live due to the COVID-19 pandemic; honestly, The Game Awards had stolen an absolute ton of the announcement limelight. The world changed, and the ESA didn’t (or couldn’t) keep up. Every ending is another beginning. The death of E3 is a bittersweet reminder that the industry itself is constantly evolving. You don’t have to gather thousands of people to get the word out about new projects. Print media has gone from a primary way to gather info to an afterthought, and short-form content like TikTok is bigger than ever. The ESA and, by proxy, E3 just couldn’t keep up the momentum. However, it isn’t a bunch of doom and gloom. The passing of E3 shows that PAX will become more critical. Gamescom will inherit E3’s remaining relevance, and publishers will continue directly marketing online. The death of old dreams makes way for new ones. I’d love to attend Gamescom one year and bring at least one of my kids. If not that, at the very least, PAX. The industry will continue to ebb and flow, and there will be a new focus for making further announcements. Right now, that vehicle is The Game Awards. With all of this being said, pour out a Bawls Guarana for E3. We may mourn its passing, but we can still look forward to the future and all the cool stuff we’ll eventually see and play from whatever rises from the ashes of E3!

The organizer of E3 has officially called the time of death: Today. When it comes to gaming events, there has been no other that stood out from the crowd in the same way the E3 did. So, seeing the official death of E3 today likely has left a void in the hearts of a ton of gamers. Announced via their official social media channels like X (formerly Twitter), a simple, somber message was left reading “After more than two decades of E3, each one bigger than the last, the time has come to say goodbye. Thanks for the memories.” Over the past few years, E3 has had a rough time getting traction after the COVID-19 pandemic. Each year, the long-running physical show kept being a non-starter. While some speculate that the 2020 pandemic is what directly killed E3 or maybe it was Geoff Keighley’s yearly Summer Games Fest, the answer is likely more nuanced than just having a single reason behind it. The digital age has not been kind to big physical events as it is, with big publishers like Nintendo or Sony slowly pulling out of spending so much money, both on a physical booth and travel expenses, over the past decade. Why do that when they could just pop an in-studio recorded Nintendo Direct onto YouTube and move on? So, having a worldwide pandemic and cheaper options for publishers in recent years, as well as their recent organizing partner (ReedPop) pulling out this year, likely contributed to the show's induced coma and eventual death. But, no matter what the reasoning is, E3 has a special place in most gamers’ hearts and will be missed. Since its inception in 1995, E3 has outlasted other big events, such as the E For All Expo, and continued being the sounding board for publishers and developers to make big summer announcements. Talking to The Washington Post, Stanley Pierre-Louis, president and CEO of the ESA, talked about the show a bit and how he knows how much people will miss it: “We know the entire industry, players and creators alike have a lot of passion for E3. We share that passion,” Pierre-Louis said. “We know it’s difficult to say goodbye to such a beloved event, but it’s the right thing to do given the new opportunities our industry has to reach fans and partners.” As E3 was the big yearly event that everyday people expected publishers to make their yearly announcements, there seems to now be a power vacuum. With The Game Awards having more announcements than focus on the actual awards in recent years, there’s always a chance that Keighley’s Summer Games Fest which he already runs, yearly during the summer, could eventually turn into a physical event. Maybe one of the PAX events run by Penny Arcade or the German-based (and Keighley-hosted) Gamescom could step up to the plate. But, that’s all just speculation. In any case, E3 is dead, long live E3. Despite its problems over the years, we will all truly miss what E3 stood for to so many gamers.

Fortnite hasn’t looked this appealing in a very long time. When most people think of Fortnite, they generally think of the Battle Royale mode of the game. Sure, it started off as a nearly entirely different base-building zombie game, but if you ask anyone, it’s all about getting the Victory Royale. But, because it’s known for a single mode, the game can become a little more one-note for a lot of people. The good news is that Fortnite has actually been adding various player-made modes and features for years to be a little more like its biggest competitor, Roblox. Last week, however, Epic Games decided that it was time to put a fresh coat of paint on Fortnite with the Big Bang event, a reboot of sorts without actually rebooting. During the event, three new officially-made modes were introduced: LEGO Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival. All three modes, for the sake of brevity, are fantastic, free, and have put Fortnite in the minds of everyday people once again. LEGO Fortnite, developed by Epic Games in partnership with the LEGO Group, was the first to launch and is a fully immersive LEGO-fied island where you build a village and survive in harsh conditions. If you have older Fortnite skins that aren't licensed, you likely have the LEGO version as well. Let’s just call it as it is, though: it’s LEGO Minecraft with a Fortnite twist. While it’s not a perfect 1-to-1 comparison, it was bound to happen eventually. But, with the uprising of survival games, one could easily compare the game to RUST, (Sons of) The Forest, or the multitude of other like-minded games out there. In fact, the game also feels like it has some flavors from the original version of Fortnite, which we know better as Fortnite: Save the World, as LEGO Fortnite has you building up your primary locale to keep out the undead while also traversing the island for supplies and equipment. Rocket Racing, brought to us by the fine folks at Psyonix (owned by Epic Games) who also happen to make Rocket League, is a full racing mode within Fortnite. While it’s easy to make comparisons to Mario Kart, Rocket Racing plays nearly identically to the Hot Wheels Unleashed series of games. If you’re looking for an F-ZERO fix or just want a mode that you can play super quick and easy, Rocket Racing is high-octane and great for anyone who enjoys unrealistic racing games. Fortnite Festival, developed with Harmonix (yeah, the Rock Band and Guitar Hero folks), made literally Rock Band in Fortnite. They might call it Fortnite Festival, but I know what I played. If you’re unfamiliar with the rhythm game style that Guitar Hero made popular, you play notes in a song by pressing buttons. While later Guitar Hero games added other instruments, Rock Band started the formula for adding vocals, bass, and drums to the mix. In either case, I now wonder when the old plastic guitars that are currently collecting dust in a warehouse somewhere will be usable in Fortnite Festival. The great news is that Epic Games has announced that these modes are now “here to stay” as both the old guard and new fans are loving them. They even plan to keep them updated regularly, live service style. They are not considered “LTM’s” or Limited Time Modes. They explained that these are treated as full brand new games. That’s fine. I need time to perfect my racing strats and to figure out how the caves in LEGO Fortnite work anyway. Fortnite is free to play on nearly any platform (sorry iMacs), including all of the aforementioned modes. If you’re looking to spend some money on the game and buy cosmetics, that’s entirely up to you though. The new Rocket Racing cars do unlock the same car in Rocket League, if you’re connected, though.

This Switch port’s quality of Arkham Knight would make even the Riddler scratch his head. The Batman: Arkham games are truly special. When Batman: Arkham Asylum was first released it was absolutely mind-blowing. I remember picking it up from the game store the night it was released and firing it up on my PlayStation 3, not having a clue what I was in store for. I must have played it all night and I just couldn’t stop playing. In a sea of superhero games, this one just stood head and shoulders above the rest with the amount of love and detail that the developers, Rocksteady Studios, put into it. Not to mention what an absolute joy it was having the legends Mark Hamill and the late great Kevin Conroy returning to their roles from Batman: The Animated Series as The Joker and Batman, respectively. The follow-up title in the series, Batman: Arkham City, pushed the envelope even further with how expansive its vision was and how much more it added to all of the incredible ideas that had been presented within its predecessor. Batman: Arkham Knight brought the conclusion to the story that Asylum and City had started. It was big, bold, dark, and bittersweet all at once. Some design choices make the title stumble a bit overall, but it is still a great game in its own right. All of my fears came true One thing is for sure though: the Arkham games are still damn fun to play. Being able to fight thugs both head-on or from the shadows, solve crimes, and face off against some of the biggest and baddest villains from Batman’s Rogues Gallery is just a dream come true. Although these games are older, they’re worth playing through now, especially if you haven’t before. Batman: Arkham Asylum takes place solely within the asylum itself, where The Joker has broken free after being briefly captured and is planning something sinister that Batman has to put a stop to. Batman: Arkham City is like the Escape from New York of the series, with Batman being trapped in the slums of Gotham where a large swath of the city has been turned into a giant prison. The stakes are definitely raised here and it doesn’t help that Batman is infected with a virus that will kill him if he doesn’t find a cure fast. Batman: Arkham Knight takes things up to 11, where the entire city of Gotham has been evacuated and Batman has to stop Scarecrow and the mysterious Arkham Knight before it’s too late and Gotham is truly lost. All of these titles take the previous installment’s premise and build on its foundation with each game. Batman starts out with very few gadgets at the beginning of each game and unlocks more as he progresses. For example, batarangs that can be used to knock down enemies or hit switches that Batman can’t physically reach, a batclaw to grapple up to high areas or even disarm baddies, a tool used to hack into doors, or even an explosive foam that can take down walls. The list goes on and on. Listen to me…there ain’t no bat! Batman also gets into plenty of scraps with goons throughout the games and has to use his martial arts mastery to beat them into submission. These encounters generally start with enemies only having access to baseball bats and pipes but become far more deadly when they start equipping themselves with stun guns, riot shields, and knives. When they start pulling out the heavier weaponry, Batman has to use stealth to neutralize the threat instead of fighting them out in the open. He can use cover from up high to stalk the thugs one by one and choke them out or give them a good punch to the back of the head. Rocksteady Studios does an excellent job of raising the stakes ever so slightly with new obstacles for you that keep all of this from getting stale. Sometimes enemies will plant explosives on the perches that Batman uses to stalk from above, or have alarms around their necks that sound when they are knocked out, or maybe they put on thermal goggles so they can see Batman’s heat signature in the shadows. He can’t be the only one with all of the wonderful toys. Taking down bad guys is just a fraction of the gameplay on display here though. Batman also needs to solve crimes or even use forensics to locate hostages or villains. Batman: Arkham Asylum has only a small bit of variety with these elements, but Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Knight expands on them a lot. I don’t have to save you All three of these games have an incredible amount of objectives to tackle. So if the main story isn't what you feel like doing at the moment, you can always explore and complete different tasks like finding collectibles, solving riddles, or finishing side missions. Gameplay performance in both Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City felt on par with their original releases on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. There were some frame dips here and there, with an occasional short pause. I also had one crash, so it wasn’t perfect. Most of the time this wasn’t an issue, but the last few hours of Batman: Arkham Asylum had more frequent dips. This was by no means a deal breaker, but I did notice it. Batman: Arkham Knight, however, is a completely different story. It frankly looks really jittery and blurry. It often feels just as poor as the rough visuals. The driving sections with the Batmobile felt abhorrent, with frequent frame pacing issues and the game at times freezing up for several seconds. I couldn’t really bring myself to play it for long periods of time due to how much it hurt my eyes and just how disorienting the problems could be. I hope that there can be a patch to help this, but I’m not sure if it’s possible due to the limitations of the Switch's hardware. Thankfully, I will say that the other two titles were definitely fully playable and saved the overall review score. Batman: Arkham Asylum was the only game directly on the game’s cartridge, so Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Knight had to be downloaded. The latter of the two is so big that you need a microSD card just to do so, which wasn’t worth it in the end. Not the hero we want or deserve Performance issues aside, this release has quite a bit of meat on its bones with having all of the DLC for every game included. This means a lot of cool Batman skins, additional campaign content, additional challenge maps and characters, and even items that were exclusive to certain consoles. The downside is that you can’t buy these games separately digitally at the moment, so it’s $60 for both the physical and digital versions, as a complete package. That means that you are paying for a game in the collection that’s not really playable. I would have to say that if you really want to play the first two Arkham titles on the go, then this is still a great option for that, but I would definitely wait for a sale. Do you have any thoughts about the Batman Arkham Trilogy? Tell us in the comments below, or talk about it on X, Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, Instagram, and HIVE Social. Don’t forget to tag us in the discussion! And keep an eye on more from GameCrate!

With how many awards they won, The Game Awards 2023 should have just been hosted by Larian Studios. Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards 2023 has finally come to a close and it seems that Baldur’s Gate 3 just won the evening, including Game of the Year. Early on in the show, Neil Newbon, who plays everyone’s favorite sassy vampire from Baldur’s Gate 3, Astarion, won Best Performance. But, that wasn’t all. Baldur’s Gate 3 also won Best Community Support, Best RPG, and Best Multiplayer as well. At one point, it was almost comedic how rapid-fire it was winning awards in a row. But, anyone that has played the game, including our reviewer earlier this year, already knows that they’re all well-deserved wins. But, wait! Alan Wake 2 got some awards too, such as Best Game Direction and Best Narrative. Super Mario Bros Wonder and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom both garnered at least one award each. There were six nominees for Game of the Year, but the two clear winners were entirely digitally released games thus far. While all six are fantastic, you can only grab four of them in physical form. The other four nominees, who we absolutely recommend you to play either way, were: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Super Mario Bros Wonder Resident Evil 4 Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 The only two Game of the Year nominees to get entirely snubbed were Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Resident Evil 4. Not a single award went to either game, sadly. Aside from the Game of the Year winners, an absolute ton of announcements happened throughout the show, as it does every year. Between Sega dropping five announcements in a single trailer, Dave the Diver getting Dredge content, or Capcom ending the show with Monster Hunter Wilds, there was a little bit of something for everyone during the event. Disclaimer: GameCrate may earn a small commission when a purchase is made.

Capcom is stepping up to the plate for its next home run swing in 2025. While Monster Hunter Rise eventually made its way to platforms beyond the Nintendo Switch, it was never really presented as the “sequel” to Monster Hunter World. But now the day has come, and Capcom’s new biggest game was revealed during the 2023 Game Awards: Monster Hunter Wilds. Monster Hunter Wilds is currently looking at a 2025 release window, and is marked to launch for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Notably, like many of the other multiplatform games during this year’s event, there is no sign of a Nintendo Switch logo. The implications there are further out, but for now, it’s a clear message. We’re looking at the next “World.” When Monster Hunter World launched in 2018, it was a sea change in the gaming world. Capcom seems to have a knack for making that kind of impact, albeit with significant gaps of time between each one. Resident Evil 4? Street Fighter 2? Monster Hunter World. What was originally an obscure PS2 game that evolved into a PSP series only truly successful in Japan, Monster Hunter World made this IP a AAA juggernaut practically overnight. Wilds is going to be what fans of World have been waiting for since then, although information is obviously scarce. According to the folks at Capcom during the show, we’ll learn more about Monster Hunter Wilds come Summer 2024. The previous title, Monster Hunter Rise, wasn’t a bad game; it was almost just as well-received as World! But it was limited by its Nintendo Switch origin point, having to dial back and make compromises compared to World in certain areas. The perception of Wilds being the “next” one is largely due to the limiters being removed in that crucial, technical sense. You can tell just from the brief trailer shown during The Game Awards that there will be plenty of game to digest this time, from the scope to the visual fidelity. Of course, we’ll truly get a taste of what to expect later next year.