We've previously shared some tips on how to survive the Slaughter Family's attempts at catching victims in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, so now we're about to share some tips on how to make Johnny a better killer in an attempt to even the odds — just kidding, Johnny will become rather overpowered and Victim players will hate us for it.

[caption id="attachment_399283" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Gun.[/caption]

Here's Johnny, one of the Slaughter Family's most effective killers in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

What makes Johnny special? Well, when the Victim Team isn't up against Johnny, proper stealth will do to avoid getting killed. When a properly built Johnny is on the enemy team, however, no amount of stealth will keep you safe as Johnny will still have Hunt, a special ability that guarantees he's able to track down anyone in his vicinity.

[caption id="attachment_399287" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Base Stats:

Savagery: 30

Blood Harvest: 16

Endurance: 30

To turn Johnny into a monster worthy of his own film series, we should focus on his strongest traits, his Savagery and Endurance. Yes, Johnny's Blood Harvesting attribute, the one required to get Grandpa Slaughter to work for the team, isn't great. That's OK, as Johnny doesn't really need the old man. If we focus on raising his Savagery and Endurance, he'll become nearly as strong as Leatherface — and will feature abilities that more than make up for any remaining shortcomings.

What are the best perks for Johnny?

[caption id="attachment_399297" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

If you want Johnny to turn into a lethal hound, I recommend you pick these perks:

Feral - Raises Johnny's endurance and lethality.

Warmed Up - Grants Johnny the absolutely unfair opportunity to track down the last surviving victim as soon as he attacks them — if they survive. This is great to make sure the victims don't get the last laugh.

Patience - Allows Johnny to spend much less on abilities when he's standing still, meaning that he gets to track his victims with Hunt way more often.

Brute Strength (Grandpa Ability) - Makes not just Johnny, but the entire family team, stronger.

If you build Johnny like this, then congrats, you've just created a monster with an all-smelling nose that's also very good at both catching his victims and finishing them off.

You can now begin your unfair hunting spree in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S (also on Game Pass), PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.

The post Texas Chain Saw Massacre: Best Johnny Build appeared first on Destructoid.

We think of video game sequels as something that can outdo the original in most ways, be more of the same, or even hit fans with the heavy hammer of disappointment. That, however, ignores the rare but very real case of sequels that don't necessarily suck but that will baffle fans with their nigh-inexplicable new design choices. We shouldn't forget this class of sequel, it does at least a great job of providing fun to anyone learning about just how absolutely bizarre these games can get.

[caption id="attachment_398483" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Silent Hill: Book Of Memories

Remember how the Silent Hill series managed to make players feel scared and uneasy even when no enemy was on screen? Well, nobody had time for that when they were reinventing the square for the PlayStation Vita with Silent Hill: Book Of Memories.

This one isn't a psychological horror game and barely even a survival horror game. It's a weird attempt at making an isometric action title in the vein of the awesome Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light but in the world of Silent Hill.

Heck, you don’t even have one of the simplest staples of psychological horror that the series had done so well up until this point—like the feeling of loneliness and isolation—as this one is a co-op adventure featuring up to four players. Wild stuff.

[caption id="attachment_398490" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Nintendo[/caption]

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Remember when the original The Legend Of Zelda changed gaming by taking a cue from the top-down perspective of RPGs and re-purposing it for action adventures?  You don't? Well, neither do I because I was too young to play it back then, but that's what the legend of The Legend of Zelda says.

Zelda 2 is definitely not a bad game (if you're looking for a bad Zelda side-scroller, google Zelda CD-I games), but it’s still pretty weird that Nintendo did away with the revolutionary design they’d come up with in the first one to make a more conservative 2D side-scroller. Nintendo already had Mario dominating that field, and there was no shortage of similar side-scrollers from other companies. Luckily, it didn't take Nintendo long to both go back to their revolutionary formula and then try new stuff that further propelled the series into legendary status.

[caption id="attachment_398485" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Konami[/caption]

Bomberman Act: Zero

This one was absolutely terrible and also marked an awful tonal shift for a beloved cutesy series that definitely didn't need one. I probably wouldn't have put it on the list because this isn't about straight-up bad sequels, but I like how its poster looks just like Oppenheimer's, so that's some extra bonus points for weirdness.

If you're looking for a wacky fun Bomberman game, then you're much better off playing Saturn Bomberman.

[caption id="attachment_398478" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Valve[/caption]

Half-Life 2: Survivor

Remember how the original Half-Life and its sequel each changed the FPS landscape of its time, due to smart gameplay mechanics that forced players to use their brains? Welp, Half-Life 2: Survivor is a bizarre, mostly on-rails arcade version of Half-Life 2 that only came out in Japan.

Do you see that massively busy interface? That's not one of those spoofs of HUD glut that you see all over the Internet—that's the real deal. The reason why anyone would come up with such an antithesis to what made Half-Life 2 great is a mystery, but I'd be lying if I said that I wouldn't spend a few dollars at the arcade to try this mess.

[caption id="attachment_398461" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Naughty Dog[/caption]

Jak 2

Ever wondered why the original Jak & Daxter had players happily hopping from platform to platform and then Jak 2 was all about gunning down enemies and driving flying vehicles? Sure, Naughty Dog had also previously equipped Crash with a Bazooka for the third game in the Crash Bandicoot series, but Crash's Bazooka only fired Wumpa fruit, not lethal rounds. What the hell happened there?

Well, it turns out that the sequel to Naughty Dog’s once happy-go-lucky platformer became a shooter because Naughty Dog saw the entire gaming landscape change with the arrival of gritty titles such as Killzone, God Of War, and, most importantly, Grand Theft Auto 3. The team made all the changes to the original that they could to accommodate gameplay elements that played similarly to Rockstar's mega-hit, and the series was never the same again.

In Naughty Dog's defense, however, I have to admit that Jak 2 was pretty damn good.

[caption id="attachment_398509" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Nintendo[/caption]

Star Fox Adventures

This is the game that sent the Star Fox series into dormancy and made the titular Fox more recognizable as a top-tier Super Smash Bros. character than as the main character of his own series. Its mistake? It decided to get Fox out of his ship and give him some ground-based missions.

This isn't a new kind of 3D game. This is Zelda with the exception that Zelda games are usually great, and this one is just okay. Star Fox Adventures marks one of the very rare moments in gaming when they would've been much better off just doing an on-rails shooter than a sprawling 3D adventure.

[caption id="attachment_398471" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Capcom[/caption]

Dino Crisis 3

Dino Crisis has always been an odd Resident Evil clone, but the rule is that you can only send your series to space after around the 8th entry. Picking space as the setting for your mundane terrestrial series in the third entry is too much—especially when it's a game about pre-historic stuff, the historical opposite of space stuff, I guess. Even Exoprimal feels more grounded than this Chimera.

Also, the first two games in the series came out for the original PlayStation, whereas Dino Crisis 3 landed on Xbox as an exclusive, which might have gotten Xbox fans to believe it has always been in space, thus making it all the more hilariously weird.

[caption id="attachment_398467" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image By Bethesda[/caption]

DOOM RPG

Remember when Doom fans didn't like Doom 3 because it was slower, darker, and spookier? Well, there's an even weirder, blacker sheep in this series: Doom RPG.

For some bonkers reason, Id looked at the "meh" reaction DOOM 3 got and decided to further reduce the amount of action and make a game that was more Final Fantasy than Doom. To Id's credit, however, Doom RPG is pretty decent and was even pretty revolutionary in the mobile gaming scene, as it provided a fully-fledged campaign two years before the iPhone made mobile gaming go big. Did any of the things that you just read entice you to wait for an HD remaster? Well, good luck with that, since Id lost Doom RPG's source code.

[caption id="attachment_398464" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Maxis[/caption]

Darkspore

Remember Spore? At some point, it was totally going to be the best game ever made! Sadly, the most fun anyone ever ended up getting out of it came from the game’s extremely advanced creature creator—mostly because they got to create beings that looked awfully phallic.

The people at Maxis looked at the game's lukewarm reception and came to the natural conclusion anyone in the ‘00s would’ve arrived at: it just wasn’t gritty enough. To solve this, they came up with Darkspore, a game that ditched everything from the original except for the creature creator, and then made a gritty action game about a badass creature that went on to battle other gritty, less phallic creatures.

Darkspore wasn’t even bad, but I can’t help but laugh at the very obvious high-speed course correction that was at play here.

The post Here are some of the most bizarre games from otherwise popular franchises appeared first on Destructoid.

Hollywood has oftentimes tried to capture the magic of video games on film, and the most fun audiences have ever gotten out of it was seeing it fail stupendously pretty much every time. Still, you cannot say the same about game-to-tv-show adaptations, as those have already provided us with actual top-tier entertainment. Let's take a look at the best of the bunch.

[caption id="attachment_385596" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image By Netflix[/caption]

06. The Witcher

Okay, It's very important to establish that Netflix's The Witcher is an adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski's books, and not of the games — Just kidding. It's pretty obvious that Henry Cavill is emulating video game Geralt because this series only exists due to the success of the games. Yes, I know damn well that the only people watching this are the millions of Witcher 3 fans out there.

It's also important to mention that the entire show (so far) is very uneven, hence landing at number six in this ranking. Still, the show does many things right — the fight choreography is awesome, and so is the costume and set design. Production-wise, this feels closer to the original Lord Of The Rings trilogy than to The Hobbit trilogy. Sadly that's not a given these days when they usually just use CGI for everything. It's great to see a video game adaptation putting so much work in.

Also, it's clear that the heart is there. Cavill is awesome, the same goes for Ciri, Yennefer, and Jaskier, obviously. The only real problem here is the story's awkward progression, but you can always come back to the first season to enjoy some fun and uncompromising episodic monster-of-the-week action.

Oh, and that song about throwing money at Witchers is an instant classic.

[caption id="attachment_368634" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by HBO[/caption]

05. The Last Of Us

Please don't get angry for seeing The Last Of Us merely at number five in a ranking about the best things of a specific kind ever made.

It’s definitely good, competent, and very ugly or beautiful whenever it wants to be. Just like the game, it picked the perfect couple of actors to give life to the characters that could carry the massive weight of both the game's drama and the hopes that more video games could get prestige TV treatment in the future.

But is it really that big of an achievement? It feels like a very safe adaptation of a game that already played like a movie in the first place. HBO's The Last Of Us is good, but you know what else is good? Watching a video compilation of the cutscenes from the first game on YouTube. I wish we could see a future season starring a new group of main characters on a completely different adventure. Perhaps you can get Henry Cavill to star in it. I heard he likes games.

04. Sonic Boom

Sonic Boom, the game, is one of the worst games ever made. Its TV show, also called Sonic Boom, would deserve praise even if it were just a smidge above an unwatchable mess filled with inexplicable animation errors, but nope, it's a genuinely good kid's show.

Many Sonic fans are aware that good Sonic games are a rarity these days, but good Sonic TV shows have always been rare. Remember that show where Sonic had a rock band? The kids of today don't have to suffer through that just to get their Sonic fix anymore.

The Sonic Boom animated series gives the world of Sonic and its characters a makeover, and ties it all up with some pretty funny dialogue — if you're in the age range of people they made this for, at least.

[caption id="attachment_234605" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Netflix[/caption]

03. Castlevania

Netflix's Castlevania is probably the first truly-great video game-based TV show, and legitimately one of the best animes of recent times.

It does a great job of fleshing out the entire Belmont clan, as well as making Dracula go from just that meme who asks "What is a man?!" into a real flesh and cold-blood character with real motivation. Also, the action is unsurprisingly great.

It succeeds in all the parts where The Witcher TV show fumbled, as whereas most of the people who care about the Witcher TV show were already fans of the games, Castlevania actually brought in a lot of new fans who likely weren't even born by the time the first game in the series came out.

The only possible problem stemming out of this show is how the demise of the game series might lead future generations to think of Castlevania as something that began as an anime, and not as one of the best 2D games of all time.

[caption id="attachment_344945" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Netflix[/caption]

02. Cyberpunk Edgerunners

Even though the Cyberpunk 2077 game we have today is miles better than what we got upon release, I think it's safe to say that Edgerunners, its neat Netflix anime tie-in, still beats it by a wide margin.

Instead of trying to retell the events of the game via some beautiful but ultra-expensive CGI, Edgerunners gives us what I wanted out of The Last Of Us TV show.

It uses the world of the game to tell a completely new story featuring a bunch of instantly lovable new characters, a decision that ultimately enriches both the anime and the game by helping populate such a huge but otherwise empty city. No, I'm not taking a dig at how the PS4 version of Cyberpunk featured a comically low number of NPCs on the streets of Night City — I'm talking about how seeing more characters living out their stories brings life and soul to the world of Cyberpunk — and this world will never have too much of that.

[caption id="attachment_398034" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Netflix[/caption]

01. Arcane

There was no way this would ever end anywhere other than in the top spot. The animation alone is so unique and marvelous it makes me believe that even if its story made as little sense as the game's lore, and even if the characters were as toxic as the overall League Of Legends community, I'd still feel tempted to rank it near the top. Luckily, I don't have to deal with that as Arcane avoids all of the known video game adaptation pitfalls and then some.

Instead of fitting the popular game in its plot in an inevitably contrived way, Arcane had the guts to create a completely new story that ignores the Summoner's Rift competition altogether, opting instead to give long-deserved depth and pathos to many of the game's popular characters. The result is an astounding success on all levels. I hope more adaptations could learn from it and risk going for something new instead of trying to repeat its video game beats — those which famously work for video games, but not necessarily in the audiovisual format.

Not bad for a show whose intro features a song by Imagine Dragons, huh?

The post The top 6 best TV shows based on games appeared first on Destructoid.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is the biggest D&D video game the world has ever seen. It has brought countless new players to the genre, many of whom likely got absolutely hooked and have already done everything there is to do in the game — despite that likely requiring up to 200 hours of playtime. If you're one of these heroes, maybe you could find some use in a list of masterpieces of old and new that capture the same magic as 2023's biggest game.

[caption id="attachment_397148" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Interplay[/caption]

Planescape Torment (1999)

Though it features a great mix of combat, enemies, and magic spells, what set Planescape Torment apart was its focus on story and character development. The developers took quite the gamble when they decided to make a game that was more focused on telling an engrossingly dark tale than it was on rolling dice to "use sword good" — but it sure did pay off. To this day, Planescape Torment remains one of the richest character studies in the history of video games.

What's really cool about this one is that regardless of how old it is, a game that puts emphasis on writing is likely to stand the test of time forever. Either way, on the slim chance that you're put off by the beautiful-but-definitely-old-timey graphics, then worry not. You can just get PT's excellent Enhanced Edition for a very generous price.

[caption id="attachment_250832" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Larian[/caption]

Divinity Original Sin 2 (2014)

This is the game that granted Larian the right to make Baldur's Gate 3, so it should come as no surprise that it's an absolute blast. If you immediately fell in love with BG3 and want more of that, then Divinity Original Sin 2 will probably scratch that itch better than any game on this list. I can't talk about everything that this game does well, but I believe that what makes it most unforgettable is the nigh-endless replayability it provides via its incredibly intricate response to player choices.

Better yet, even if you somehow don't feel compelled by its wide array of options, you can even use the game's assets to create your own story. How many game developers ask you "Oh, you think you can do it better? Then why don't you try it?

[caption id="attachment_285590" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by EA[/caption]

Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic (2003)

Star Wars is one of the few film properties lucky enough to have many great games set in its universe — and Star Wars KOTOR might just be the best of the bunch.

The most interesting part is how it's not a space shooter, an FPS, or even a lightsaber duel simulator — the three genres that the series had naturally most excelled at before the release of this gem. KOTOR actually uses an altered D&D formula, and even though it foregoes straight-up action for turn-based combat, it still contains all the exhilaration of the best Jedi Knight or Rogue Leader games. Also, did I mention how it features a plot much better than not just the prequels but, dare I say, even the original trilogy?

If you like this one, seriously consider trying out the sequel as well. Knights Of The Old Republic 2 proved a divisive sequel due to some glitches and lack of open-endedness caused by a troubled development, but fan-made patches have solved many of the game's issues. KOTOR 2 also introduces a few very fresh concepts to the extended universe canon, so it's definitely worth checking out.

[caption id="attachment_244676" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Obsidian[/caption]

Pillars Of Eternity (2015)

Tired of big studio meddling? Pillars Of Eternity might be the game for you as it was the first big title of its type to get its funding entirely out of crowdfunding. It raised over $4 million dollars through Kickstarter, making it the most successful video game crowdfunding campaign at the time.

The goal of the project was to mix elements to create a spiritual successor to many of the games you see on this list, and the result was a rich and uncompromised D&D-based CRPG that felt both old and new in all the right ways.

If you like this one you should definitely also try the sequel, Pillars Of Eternity 2: Deadfire, as it's nearly as good as the first one and it also features pirates — more than enough to make up for any small to mid-level shortcomings.

[caption id="attachment_397152" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by ZA/UM[/caption]

Disco Elysium (2019)

Released in 2019, Disco Elysium joined Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons to form the perfect pandemic gaming trifecta.

Even though it takes place in a completely new setting that shines on its own and features wildly new mechanics, Disco Elysium's focus on story and characters can't help but make it feel like a spiritual successor to Planescape Torment. 

It's so good that it'll give you hope in games and life in general even when everything seems doomed on the outside. Many know exactly what I'm talking about — I hope anyone reading this will one day see it as well.  This is the one to pick right now if you want to experience the most enthrallingly out-there narrative moments that this genre has to offer.

Neverwinter Nights

Neverwinter Nights marks the midpoint between CRPGs of old and Baldur's Gate 3, as it was the first of its kind to implement a fully 3D camera. The game's setting is just as beautiful or beautifully dire as the setting of any other game in the genre, but BioWare kicked up the immersion to 11 as the new camera mode makes players experience the action in a never-before-seen way.

I'm fully aware that what I just said doesn't feel like anything special, but that's only a testament to how much this game changed things.

The road that Neverwinter Nights first traveled paved the way for more immersive RPGs such as Kotor, Mass Effect, and the Dragon Age series — pretty much an entire golden age of CRPGs.

[caption id="attachment_397153" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by EA[/caption]

Baldur’s Gate 2

Who could've guessed that another game came out in the Baldur's Gate series before Baldur's Gate 3 and that it was also incredibly good? Even though 23 years of graphical and mechanical evolution separate the two, Baldur's Gate 2 is still absolutely worth checking out.

Another cool thing about Baldur's Gate 2 is that people who want something that looks a bit better can acquire the Enhanced Version that came out in 2013, a mere 10 years before the release of BG3.

[caption id="attachment_397154" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by inXile[/caption]

Torment, Tides of Numenera (2017)

Numenera is the more direct of many spiritual successors to Planescape Torment. That means you can expect good writing, though it doesn't quite reach the same narrative heights as the original.

One thing you can surely expect, however, is a visual feast. This game's weird Sci-Fantasy pre-rendered world is gorgeous and unlike anything we'd ever seen and are still to see in this genre.

[caption id="attachment_397155" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Interplay[/caption]

Icewind Dale 2

Icewind Dale 2 is one of many titles that cemented BioWare as a top-tier CRPG maker from an early stage. You can see many of the things you love about Baldur's Gate 3 here, though with arguably weaker graphics.

Here's an anecdote to show you how passionate people are about Icewind Dale 2. At some point after its original release, the developers lost the game's source code. That sucks because newer players, such as the ones reading this, I assume, could use a prettier version that's compatible with modern hardware. The inexistence of a source code renders the release of an enhanced version impossible unless the fans love it to the point of remaking it from the ground up, which guess what, they're totally doing. Still, even if you don't feel like waiting for the enhanced version, we guarantee you'll still find a lot to enjoy in the original one.

[caption id="attachment_397156" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Wizards of the Coast[/caption]

Eye Of The Beholder (1991)

Tired of RPGs where everyone is either very sexy or still obviously sexy but under a thin coat of ruggedness? Well, then this old-timey classic named after one of the many eyes of D&D's ugliest monster is the one for you.

Ok, wait — I'm sad to inform you that you don't get to play as that aforementioned hideous creature, but well, the game is pretty ugly. I don't mean ugly in the sense that it invites you to an aesthetically unpleasant experience, but rather in the sense that it's intentionally ruthless, probably due to the less lenient game design choices of the '1800s or whenever it was that this came out.

Eye of the Beholder is very different from every other game on this list as it goes for a first-person-perspective instead of the isometric or 3d one we see in most games of this kind, but it's still a very playable game that'll give new players an idea of how far they've come.

The post Best games to play once you’re done with Baldur’s Gate 3 appeared first on Destructoid.

Sonic the Hedgehog, known as Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog among true fans, is one of the most famous mascots in video game history. Still, unlike Mario, who's yet to appear in a mainline game that's not an absolute blast, the blue blur is reminiscent of those once-promising actors who had to start taking roles in C-list movies to maintain their exuberantly decadent lifestyle. It's a tough pill to swallow, but we have to accept that Sonic has starred in about as many crappy games as he has in good ones.

Which one is the worst of the worst?

[caption id="attachment_395790" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

10. Sonic Labyrinth

This little-known Game Gear title tells the marvelous story of that time when Dr. Eggman replaced Sonic's fast shoes with slow ones.

You can tell someone believed Sonic could do no wrong when they made a game that did away with the thing we liked most about the series. The bold move could've worked, yeah, provided that the developers had put solid mechanics and puzzles in place to make up for the absence of speed. They didn't. The only possibly interesting thing here is witnessing Sonic's first foray into the isometric perspective that we'd later see in Sonic 3d Blast. More on that other mess later.

Sonic Labyrinth just isn't fun as it is. It wouldn't have been fun even if it played fast either, though that would have at least made it confusing, uncontrollable, and thus at least pretty funny.

[caption id="attachment_395791" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

09. Sonic and the Black Knight

One of many gimmicky Sonic games. In this once-anticipated Wii exclusive, Sonic has a sword! Isn't that badass? Maybe, if the goddamn thing worked properly.

Though it looked nice and featured some neat Sonic tunes, most critics and fans couldn't help but point out the fact that the game just didn't make good use of the Wiimote. The haphazard integration of the Wii's controller made the combat go from unfun to straight-up broken.

Do you know who also didn't find the game all that badass? Well, Sega itself, considering how the company pulled it from store shelves just one year after its release along with all other poorly-reviewed Sonic games in an attempt to increase the value of the Sonic brand.

In any case, Sonic as a brave sir knight reeks of the exact same desperation that Transformers: The Last Knight did — the one where we find out the Transformers' unexpected connection to Camelot—and I just can't help but find that hilarious. Forget the upcoming GI Joe x Transformers crossover. We want an awful Transformers x Sonic collab now.

[caption id="attachment_395793" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

08. Shadow the Hedgehog

I must apologize for the attempted bamboozling. I know damn well that Shadow isn't just a re-skinned Sonic, but please allow me to explain.

Even a hypothetically decent version of this game would only ever appeal to Sonic fans, so they’re its only victims. They're only most of the people who'll look for an article such as this in search of vindication. Also, I will never have the opportunity to rank the worst Shadow The Hedgehog games because no company in its right mind will ever make another one.

The devs seemingly believed that arming the edgiest-possible character with guns would make up for all sorts of technical shortcomings, and I find that beautiful. Like many games on this list, Shadow The Hedgehog is rough in terms of playability, but it features three different endings where Shadow murders Dr. Eggman with a Karate chop, so I just can't put it in a worse place than this.

[caption id="attachment_395797" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

07. Sonic Free Riders

Sonic on the Kinect. Do I really need to explain myself on this one? Ugh, OK.

What's wild is that Sonic Free Riders looked good, had some sweet Sonic tunes, featured a decent enough story, and had a lot of stuff to do. But guess what, it played like crap. As with nearly all things Kinect, Sonic Riders was highly unresponsive. I'd like to believe it just refused to force its owners to perform all the embarrassing moves required to get it to work. If that's the case, then I salute you, Sonic Free Riders.

[caption id="attachment_395794" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

06. Sonic The Fighters

You know things are about to get wacky when not even the title makes sense. What the hell is that "the" doing in the middle of the title? That reads almost as awkward as this thing plays.

I’d argue that most Sonic games aren’t even very good at doing what they’re supposed to, which is making Sonic's speed enjoyable, so it comes as no surprise that I don’t like Sonic when he’s trying to be Tekken. It's just so sad to see all these once-successful characters having to resort to fighting it out to pay their bills.

Actually, to be entirely fair, this doesn't feel like it was trying to outright copy Tekken. This feels like they were trying to make a Sonic fighting game in a garage where the only game they had for reference was Star Wars: Masters Of Teras Kasi, one of the worst fighting games of all time. If that really was their plan then, well, they've succeeded.

[caption id="attachment_395795" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

05. Sonic and the Secret Rings

I think it's absolutely wild that Sonic’s take on the Arabian Nights doesn't fall on its face for accidentally featuring some tone-deaf message regarding the Middle East. Surprisingly, the game doesn’t accidentally say anything offensive, though that might be because it doesn't really have anything to say at all. The gameplay is half-baked, but what steals the show is an ending so dumb it immediately earns this game a high place on this list.

Spoilers: Sonic gets to make a wish to make his love interest happy — naturally a human-looking girl, because Sonic is like Mass Effect’s Shepard before he was even a thing — and instead of wishing for basically anything that could actually improve her life, he asks for a mountain of handkerchiefs so that she can cry as much as she wants. Yes, I'm not making this up.

[caption id="attachment_395796" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image By Sega[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_395798" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

03. Sonic 3D Blast

This one isn’t a glitchy mess or anything, but Sonic 3D Blast shows an interesting case of a Sonic game where the team seemingly managed to see their vision come to fruition. The problem here is that their vision sucked. The game does away with the traditional 2D sidescrolling gameplay and replaces it with an unfun isometric perspective that, guess what, is still 2D. Sonic moves awkwardly, and the game's levels just aren't fun enough to suffer through.

We learn to see the signs as we grow. If it had been a good game, simply calling it Sonic 3D would have sufficed in getting everyone hyped. That desperate "blast" at the end of the title, probably a reference to the Genesis' much-touted and greatly exaggerated "blast processing", should have raised eyebrows. Sadly, most of us were too young and naive to see it back then.

This game hurts me on a personal level. Eight-year-old me didn’t have a Saturn or a PS1 yet, so I was thrilled to know that my Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) had a Sonic game that was supposedly in 3D. I got my parents to buy it, and that was the first time I felt seriously disappointed by a game I had high hopes for. It's highly unlikely that I was the only kid who had Sonic 3D Blast as nothing but an eye-opener when it came to dealing with unreasonable expectations.

[caption id="attachment_395799" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

02. Sonic The Hedgehog (aka Sonic ‘06)

Sonic '06 is bad to the point of being ashamed of its own existence. I mean, otherwise, how come one of the best speedrun strategies involves having Shadow kill himself? The game doesn't want any of its characters to live in that doomed world anymore, so it rewards them with the ending credits upon death.

Ok, now, even though that's a real speedrunning strategy, I'm well aware that this is yet another glitch. No way such a game would ever achieve this level of poetry without it being by accident.

There's nothing really new to say about Sonic '06. Even though expectations weren't exactly through the roof anymore, it still managed to disappoint greatly due to being unplayable upon release. Also, it looked creepy as all hell. Why is the main hub an asset-flip-looking city populated entirely by humans? Will Sonic ever grow tired of trying to seduce human girls?

You'll have a better time watching video compilations of Sonic '06 glitches on Youtube than playing it.

[caption id="attachment_213077" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

01. Sonic Boom: Rise Of Lyric

You knew damn well that the first place was only ever going to be either Boom or ‘06. Why Boom at #1? Well, I don’t even think it’s necessarily worse than ‘06. They’re both so bad that they verge on total unplayability.

After some time playing, we all lose the ability to count all the flaws, but I think this one is more deserving of the top spot because, at the time of its release, fans must've been like "eh, at least there's no way it'll be as bad as '06!". And it was. You gotta award some points to that kind of knife twist.

And there's more.

Whereas there's no alternate reality in which I could see Sonic '06's creepy human-Hedgehog crossover city working, I could totally see Boom working out. It's based on a popular animated series, and it actually looks cool. Sadly, the game went through a very rough development cycle that forced the team to release it in a terribly unpolished state.

Boom just has a much sadder story — the story of its development, mind you — and that's why it gets the top spot of the worst Sonic games. Also, Sonic '06 at least had some fine classic Sonic tunes.

The post The 10 worst Sonic games, ranked appeared first on Destructoid.

The Sega Saturn met its untimely demise in equal part due to Sony's immaculate PlayStation launch and to Sega's own poor decisions. There's one thing they did well, however, and that was coming up with a short-but-sweet game catalog that holds way more gems than most remember.

[caption id="attachment_395160" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Tomb Raider

Sadly, few people remember that one of the most popular and influential video game series began its life on the Sega Saturn.

Yeah, even though many used to see Lara Croft as an unofficial PlayStation mascot due to how she blew up on Sony's platform, the truth is that the original Tomb Raider was actually a brief Saturn exclusive in Europe.

Another really cool thing is that though Sega didn't make the Saturn with 3D graphics as its main focus, the game runs just as well on the Saturn as it does on the PS1. Also, it features better colors, and, many of its effects, like the underwater distortion, look much better on the Saturn — because the PS1 version straight-up cut many of these effects.

Play it if you like: Uncharted, Soul Reaver, Dark Souls

[caption id="attachment_395161" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

Panzer Dragoon Saga

This article isn't a ranking, but I'd like to point out that if it were, Panzer Dragoon Saga would easily land on #1 for me.

Saturn is a very strange planet, likely the only one in the solar system where a studio can turn an arcade-y on-rails shooter into a full-blown RPG and have it rival contemporaries. This is an RPG like you've never seen before, and likely never will again, as it suffered a tragically unfair fate.

Yes, Panzer Dragoon Saga got serious critical acclaim upon release, but only relative commercial success. You see, it did sell well, so well in fact that it sold out in only two days, too bad it did so because Sega only ever printed around 20,000 copies for North America. That's because Saga only made it out to market once no one believed in the Saturn anymore.

So where's the remake/remaster? Well, that's another complicated matter, as details regarding the location of the game's source code are so scarce that many have been spreading rumors that Sega has lost it altogether. I sure hope I'll one day get to play Panzer Dragoon Saga again without having to resort to emulation or the $650 bank loan that I'll need to buy it on eBay.

Play it if you like: Final Fantasy, Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story

[caption id="attachment_395162" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

Saturn Bomberman

Remember the Xbox's Bomberman reboot? With the cover that looks so gritty it might have inspired the poster for Chris Nolan's Oppenheimer? If you do, you probably remember it because it sucks. Interestingly enough, however, the doomed Sega Saturn is actually the home to one of the best, if not the best, Bomberman games in existence.

Saturn Bomberman picked up on everything people already liked about this series and then added more stuff and more players. Yes, multiplayer Bomberman on the Saturn was as fun as any of Nintendo's many party games, and sadly not the kind of game that we saw on the Saturn very often.

Play it if you like: Bomberman, Mario Party, ruining friendships in style.

[caption id="attachment_395163" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Capcom[/caption]

Darkstalkers 3

As I've previously pointed out, the Sega Saturn wasn't meant to be a vehicle for 3D games. Sega made it in the attempt to build the home for the best 2D games ever made, and boy did it deliver on that front.

There are many 2D fighting games worthy of this list, such as Street Fighter Alpha 3, X-Men Children Of The Atom, and X-Men Vs Capcom, but I'd say Darkstalkers 3 either edges them out via its originality. The world and characters of Darkstalkers 3 looked beautifully weird and unique, and many miss it dearly.

As with all other games mentioned above, Darkstalkers 3 uses the Saturn's hardware to provide an experience that's a near-perfect reproduction of the arcade version. If you were to get a Saturn, a good old CRT monitor, and a copy of DarkStalkers 3, you'd still be in for an absolute blast of a play session.

Play it if you like: Any good arcade fighting game.

[caption id="attachment_395164" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

Virtua Fighter 2

Please don't let my previous talk paint a bad picture of the Saturn's 3D capabilities. Though Virtua Fighter 2 isn't a pure 3D fighter — sorry, fighting game pros just wouldn't allow me to ignore the fact that the gameplay only takes place in the two-dimensional realm — it does a great job of looking 3D.

It sure isn't as good as Tekken 3, but it's a damn interesting alternative, one that blends beautifully blends 2D gameplay with 3D graphics, and ties it all with unmatched animations for its time.

Play it if you like: Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter

[caption id="attachment_395165" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

Sega Rally Championship

One thing that Sega did right long before the PlayStation was rally games. Sure, you could say that Sega Rally Championship was no Gran Turismo, but have you ever tried the early Gran Turismo's rally mode? Ugh, it's rough. Sega Rally had a novel approach to Rally and that was to just make it fast and fun as hell. It worked.

Detractors might also say that it featured far less attention to detail than the Colin Mcrae Rally series, but it was way more of a blast to play. Though the graphics look severely dated nowadays, the gameplay remains more fan than that of any of its better-looking competitors of today.

Play it if you like: WRC series, Dirt series

[caption id="attachment_395166" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

House of the Dead

To be entirely honest, I feel like you can easily make a good case to replace House of the Dead with any other of the Saturn’s once massively popular on-rails shooters. That's not even a diss — they were all very good — especially since they allowed us to play them without having to spend a fortune at the arcades.

Still, I think this is by far the coolest-looking one of the bunch. Also, it's the one responsible for one of the most hilariously bad-acted sequels in the history of gaming, so there's that.

Play it if you like: Time Crisis, Virtua Cop, Typing Of The Dead but with a gun

[caption id="attachment_345192" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

Radiant Silvergun

We'd be doing any Sega console a huge disservice if we were to forget the bullet-hell genre. Radiant Silvergun is one of the best (yes this is another "if not the best" situation) bullet hell games of all time, and a precursor to more well-known hits such as Ikaruga. 

Once again, what makes Radiant Silvergun such a gem is a string of awesome design choices coupled with the Saturn's ability to make it run as well and look as good as it did on arcades.

Though this is likely the most difficult game on this list and thus not for the faint of heart, it's still a Saturn title that we wish everyone would give a chance.

Play it if you like: R-Type Delta, Ikaruga, Undertale (yes, that's true)

[caption id="attachment_395549" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by MobyGames[/caption]

Shining Force 3

Do you like Nintendo's Fire Emblem series so much that you can't wait for the next installment? Then perhaps consider betraying everything you stand for and trying out Shining Force 3, Sega's answer to the FE series. Tired of RPGs whose stories bite way more than they can chew? Then Shining Force 3, a game that puts emphasis on neat gameplay mechanics and not on weaving the most unnecessarily convoluted story threads might just be what you need.

Sadly, Sega had to cut a lot of content from the Japanese version of Shining Force 3 for the Western release, but the game that we ended up getting still remains one of the best RPGs on the Saturn.

Play it if you like: Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics

[caption id="attachment_395548" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Sega[/caption]

Fighters Megamix

Everyone knows and loves Super Smash Bros., but it wasn't the first series to pit 3D characters from many popular IPs against each other. That pioneering achievement belongs to Sega, the company that in '96 decided to invite many of its AM2 characters to a fighting arena.

Sure, its gameplay isn't as original and it doesn't feature as many characters as Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but it features one hell of a lot more characters than the original SSB for the N64 did. Also, we'd argue that it features even more variety than any SSB game ever did since we can play as a car from the Daytona series or even the palm tree from the AM2 logo. SSB fans had to wait until 2018 to get to play as a plant, pfft.

Play it if you like: Super Smash Bros. Virtua Fighter, Fighting Vipers, Tekken

The post The best Sega Saturn games that should be remembered appeared first on Destructoid.

At first, the concept of "video game configuration" might seem daunting to less-seasoned players, but in no time, everyone seemingly becomes quite versed in changing settings that they don't like. It's like a little ritual: boot up a new game, head immediately to the Settings tab, and start checking, unchecking, and tinkering with certain modifiers.

What are the settings that most of us immediately change to fit our needs and taste as soon as we try out a new game? We've gathered a few of our go-to's here.

[caption id="attachment_347711" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via Konami[/caption]

10. Brightness (in scary games)

Don't lie. The first thing a horror game, and most games these days, will show players is a brightness calibration screen. The devs want to ensure that the game is as dark as it can possibly be while still providing a visible gameplay experience. Horror fans will follow these orders, but most players aren't horror fans. Most players don't follow these instructions and either conveniently leave it as is, or turn the brightness all the way up to 11, because they don't want to get scared to death. I know it. You know it.

[caption id="attachment_283263" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Team Ninja[/caption]

9. Language options (for certain games)

Subs versus Dubs is one of the longest-lasting wars in the history of the Internet. There is a particular subset, for instance, that prefers to play most Japanese games with Japanese audio, rather than an English dub.

Some might want to hear a game in their own language, with a dub that a professional team localized and dubbed especially for them. Then again, not even I, a lover of the English language with no proven ties to the Japanese underworld, would experience the Yakuza games in any language other than Japanese, so there's that. But chances are, if you prefer Dubs or Subs one way or the other, you're looking for this game setting pretty fast.

[caption id="attachment_172844" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by FromSoftware[/caption]

8. Difficulty

Difficulty in games is, well, a complicated topic.

Even though it's entirely possible that most people play on normal, there are always players who'll only ever play on the extremes, be it "Easy" or "Dante Must Die". A lot of people either want to just sit back and enjoy a game's story, or they want the most challenging thing imaginable.

But many players have realized things can be way more fluid than that.

Back in the day, finishing Metal Gear Solid on Extreme and earning the Big Boss ranking felt to many like a rite of passage. That no longer has to be a thing in most games.

Nowadays, most games allow us to adjust the difficulty on the fly. Our soul is no longer bound to a hard mode campaign even hours after we've realized we're biting more than we can chew. Falling asleep?  No problem! Just kick the difficulty up a notch. Finding it way too challenging? Just lower it to "Easy" for that one troublesome boss. Hell, I've heard rumors that some games even interrupt our play session to ask us if we want to lower the difficulty to make it more fun. That might hit some like an insult, but it's nice to know that some games look out for us—and that they won't make fun of us by giving funny-sounding rankings when we finally beat them.

[caption id="attachment_393470" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by DRAMA[/caption]

7. Motion blur

Motion blur can look neat, but it's hard to pull off and not overdo.

At times, motion blur feels like an effect used to mask less-than-stellar graphics, and I just prefer to see the game as it is, possible flaws and all. The same, though on a smaller scale, goes for film grain filters.

The original Mass Effect featured film grain by default, but that became merely an option on ME2 and 3. I would very much like to thank BioWare for that.

[caption id="attachment_388504" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Square Enix[/caption]

6. Quality or Performance mode

One of the clear advantages PC gaming has had over consoles is the higher framerate. It was only in the PS4 era that a few games began allowing players to choose between "Quality" and "Performance" modes. Quality stands for better graphics and resolution but at the cost of enduring playing at 30 frames per second.

I'd take performance mode any day. It doesn't ever really sacrifice all that much graphical fidelity and usually grants us the chance to enjoy a silky-smooth 60 fps.

[caption id="attachment_388046" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via CD Projekt Red/Steam.[/caption]

5. Chromatic Aberration

This is an effect that intends to mimic lens distortions and make games feel more "cinematic".

Some ideas meant to bring games closer to Hollywood can be dangerous. The funny part is that Chromatic Aberration isn't even a good thing in movies. As the title suggests, it's the result of a recording glitch, meaning that even most movie makers might actually not like it all that much, either.

While Chromatic Aberration can bring some extra ambiance on rare occasions, other games that feature it can't really measure when to use it or not, and they end up using it everywhere.

[caption id="attachment_246379" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Valve[/caption]

4. V-Sync

V-Sync is a technology that synchronizes your GPU's frame processing with your monitor's refresh rate. It's great in theory because it doesn't force your PC to work to produce things you don't get to see—think not producing 200 frames when your monitor will only show you 60 or 144 per second, but it's awful in practice. You should avoid this setting especially if you want to compete online, as it will generate input lag that will seriously put you behind all the non-V-syncers out there.

[caption id="attachment_393504" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Riot Games[/caption]

3. Lowering the absurdly loud audio

Video game musical scores are good and original nowadays. Modern gaming’s sound effects also rule, and everybody has noticed that studios have been working very hard on them. You know what's also prevalent among gamers? The use of high-quality headphones. It's hard to avoid getting serious headaches considering the default sound levels of some games.

And it’s not just the Christopher Nolan-esque music and effects that I like to tone down. It’s also the voices, which I find too annoying even when they aren’t too loud—especially on MOBAs.

I’d been happily playing League Of Legends for about six years before I realized via a friend's computer that Anivia actually had a voice. Up until then, I only imagined it making weird “KAW KAW” bird noises.

[caption id="attachment_389002" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via CD Projekt Red.[/caption]

2. Mouse smoothing

Mouse smoothing isn't a visual setting, so it's one that naturally has an easier time flying under the radar for more casual players. PC veterans, however, tend to immediately turn it off, and with good reason. This setting tries to predict your movement and smooths—or moves—the mouse for you. Think of having autocorrect, but for your arms and hands. Weird.

Cyberpunk 2077 originally featured a version of this by default, and didn't allow players to turn it off. Quite ironic for a game about breaking the system, huh?

[caption id="attachment_265112" align="alignnone" width="1199"] Image by Microsoft[/caption]

1. Default inverted Y-axis in FPS

Younger players won't know what I'm talking about, but please know that this was a hard-fought war for your elders. I'm talking about the war against the default inverted Y-axis setting.

Some reason that the objective was to imagine a stick on the back of our heads. Pulling the stick down would make us look up. That works well in flight simulators, because that's actually how you get a plane to take off, but that's not ideal for first-person shooters. Here, players usually just like to see the crosshair going in the same direction that the mouse goes. That can either be towards a desktop shortcut, or an enemy's head in Valorant.

The post Settings we always immediately change in games, ranked appeared first on Destructoid.

The original Red Dead Redemption will come to the PS4 and Nintendo Switch in a little over a week. This is great news, as we're talking about one of the very few highly successful games of the post '2010s that hasn't seen a single re-release. Few feelings beat knowing that the wait is over—even when we didn't know we were waiting for something in the first place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5Nwgd_T1-4

Though Rockstar isn't calling it a remaster, this RDR release developed by Double Eleven Studios looks a bit sharper than it did on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. An actual HD remaster was reportedly on the table for some time, but plans seem to have dissipated. From the way Rockstar is promoting it, it seems like the company is just going for an uncompromisingly straightforward re-release.

This is definitely not the RDR remake in Unreal Engine or in the Red Dead Redemption 2 engine that some have been speculating about for a while. The Red Dead Redemption re-release will also contain the famous Undead Nightmare DLC. This neat add-on clearly banked on the '2010s zombie craze by taking John Marston in a possibly non-canonical side quest against hordes of undead cowboys, but it's still pretty fun to play nowadays.

Red Dead Redemption for the PS4 and Nintendo Switch will cost $49.99. The digital format will be up for download on August 17. The physical version will come out on October 13. The PS4 version will also run on PS5.

The post Red Dead Redemption is coming to PS4 and Switch next week appeared first on Destructoid.

Riot Games, developer of League Of Legends and Valorant, have just revealed Yasuo, The Unforgiven is coming to Project L. The swordsman is joining the revealed roster of Riot's fighting game project, and is playable this weekend at Evo 2023.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4zqkjXdYT0

Ever since he showed up in League Of Legends, Yasuo has been one of the scariest foes to face in the mid-lane due to his incredible potential to outplay and outdamage anyone. Naturally, the developers state that Project L's Yasuo is a multifaceted champion who has an answer for everything.

The trailer shows a nimble character capable of both defense and offense, as Yasuo pulls off a bunch of quick dashes, combos, and even his signature Wind Wall capable of blocking any projectile. Interestingly, however, though it shows up as part of a move, Yasuo doesn't use his other signature move, the tornado. This leads me to believe he won't have it as the traditional long-ranged Hadouken-style attack that one'd probably expect.

Who else is there in Project L?

The trailer also shows other champions in the game. There's a bit of Darius, a massive Noxian brute who, just like in LoL, will benefit from consecutively hitting enemies to build up extra damage from his wound meter. There's also a teaser for Ekko, an unpredictable trickster who'll use his chrono-abilities to repeat his successful combos. To finish it off, the trailer shows Ahri, a quick and nimble sorcerer who possesses both speed and long-ranged abilities. Riot also confirms that Illaoi and the fan-favorite star of Arcane, Jinx, will be joining the roster, but we're yet to see them in action.

The trailer also hints at the awesome combos we'll be able to achieve when pairing these characters together. That's awesome, but better yet is how Project L will allow us to get together with a friend to play it on duo co-op. Now that's true League Of Legends fashion.

Project L still doesn't have a release date, but I expect we'll be seeing many updates in the weeks and months to come.

The post League of Legends fighting game Project L adds Yasuo to its roster appeared first on Destructoid.

Three years of Early Access later, we are but hours away from the full release of Baldur's Gate 3 on PC. Larian Studios recommends players kill a few minutes of their nigh-endless wait to perform a few file management tasks to ensure the best-possible Baldur's Gate 3 experience upon release.

Larian says that it has taken measures to ensure a smooth transition either way, but the company still recommends players perform these three simple tasks before playing the final game: delete your old saves, uninstall the Early Access, and remove any mods.

"Your Early Access saves and player profiles aren’t compatible with the release version of Baldur’s Gate 3, and leaving them in your save folders may in some fringe cases cause issues," Larian says. Here are their outlined steps for taking care of everything pre-launch.

[caption id="attachment_394808" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Larian[/caption]

1. How to delete your Baldur's Gate 3 in-game Early access saves

The Early Access saves and player profiles aren't compatible with the final version and might, in some cases, cause some problems. Thus, it's best to just get rid of them altogether.

Note: don't take the easy road of just deleting the game's save folder. That might cause conflicts with Steam Cloud or Larian Cloud as they will automatically re-download the save files.

This is the way to do it:

• Open Baldur's Gate 3
• On the main menu, click Load Game
• Click through old campaigns and select Delete Campaign

This way the game will delete all saves, and also tell the Cloud services not to re-download them.

If you want to keep your save files for the sake of nostalgia, visit the %LocalAppData%\Larian Studios folder, and copy the contents to another folder of your choosing before going through the aforementioned deletion process.

[caption id="attachment_394809" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Larian[/caption]

2. How to uninstall the Early Access version

As we've previously mentioned, BG3 doesn't feature a preload, nor will the Early Access version speed up your download times for the finished product. It's best to just uninstall the whole thing, so we recommend you do the following:

• Enter the Steam client, and open your Steam Library.
• Right-click Baldur's Gate 3.
• In the ensuing menu, select Manage, then Uninstall.

3. How to delete your mods

Larian also warns that the final version of BG3 won't be compatible with Early Access mods. The company warns that these mods will cause simple issues or straight-up break the game in unpredictable ways.

After taking the steps to uninstall the game, check your PC's BG3 installation and AppData folders to ensure that there are no folders for mods left.

If you used a mod installer like the Vortex Mod Manager from Nexus, you must also uninstall the mods in the mod manager, because it works similarly to Steam and Larian's cloud services and will automatically try to re-download the mods.

There are three (even more) optional steps you can take

Larian also recommends players install BG3 on an SSD card, and not on a regular hard drive. This will ensure the best possible loading speeds. Also, please remember that you should always leave some free space in your SSD to guarantee it works as intended.

For extra pre-launch precaution, update your graphics and drivers to guarantee peak compatibility and performance. This should be a given, but it's totally natural for the hype of near-release to cloud our judgment. And for any further doubts, read the launch FAQ that Larian will release along with the game.

Baldur's Gate 3 releases on PC on August 3 at 8am PDT/11am EDT/4pm BST. It'll go live for PlayStation 5 on September 6.

The post PSA: Larian recommends deleting Early Access saves before Baldur’s Gate 3 launches appeared first on Destructoid.

Developer Pat Naoum has just launched The Master's Pupil, a game that's the culmination of seven years of hand-painted work.

If there's any doubt, Pat explains that he didn't merely use his hands to pick up an electronic stylus to draw the game on some fancy art tablet. Naoum made every single aspect of The Master's Pupil old-school style before using a high-resolution film negative scanner to bring his beautiful artwork into the game's world.

https://www.tiktok.com/@patnaoumgames/video/7257654317488819458

But what's the game even like?

The Master's Pupil is a 12-level 2D sidescroller. It invites players to go on a puzzle-solving adventure that accompanies some of the most important moments in the life of Claude Monet, the 19th-century French impressionist painter whose works informed the game.

Don't let yourself get fooled by all the beauty, though. Great sadness lives underneath. To avoid spoilers, let's just say that players will have to suffer through the loss of someone very dear to Monet. They will also experience his fight against sight ailments that nearly took away his ability to create art in the way that he loved.

[caption id="attachment_394527" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Pat Naoum[/caption]

At certain points in the game, the entire level will transform to reveal a Monet painting. The way that the various layers come together to form paintings feels reminiscent of Braid, but the art on display here is on a whole other level. Even if it doesn't seem like your kind of game, you should consider giving it a try. The Master's Pupil feels like one of those one-of-a-kind experiences that you soon won't forget.

The Master's Pupil is available on PC and Mac via Steam. It's also on the Nintendo Switch.

The post The Master’s Pupil is a hand-painted game that took seven years to make appeared first on Destructoid.

You'll have a hard time finding a movie sequel that doesn't pale in comparison to the original. Sometimes, it's just hard to come up with a story that beats the one we all already love. Games don't have that problem as making a better game usually requires the developers to just read player feedback and improve upon the original's gameplay shortcomings. That's, however, not the case in every single video game sequel. There's a surprisingly high number of once-promising sequels that fumble hilariously in places where the original triumphed.

[caption id="attachment_218357" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by BioWare[/caption]

Mass Effect Andromeda

The Hype: Though Mass Effect 3 rocks on a technical level, it proved a step down from Mass Effect 2 in terms of writing and overall story. Yes, the awful ending was but a culmination of many other problems sowed by the third game. But that was a trilogy closer. No way that a fresh new start would bring back some of the old problems and even add more problems, right?

The Trainwreck: How bad is Mass Effect Andromeda? Well, you could easily come up with a credible fan theory explaining that it takes place entirely in Shepard's final panic-induced nightmare as he slowly passes away from lack of oxygen while adrift in space at the beginning of Mass Effect 2.

I think Andromeda deserves our collective admiration because it doesn't feel like a failed product. It feels like a product whose goal was to fail and succeed on all fronts. Everybody hated it upon release as glitches made it go from very weird to look at to straight-up unplayable. Ironically, I believe it got even worse when BioWare finally patched it into a playable state. Why? Because it turns out that hiding underneath all of the unforgettable animation glitches was a formulaic and unmemorable game that's way below BioWare's standards. Bring Andromeda Classic back!

[caption id="attachment_393255" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Capcom[/caption]

Devil May Cry 2

The Hype: The first trailer for DMC2 looked dope. Everything that made the first one great was seemingly there and on a much grander scope. Also, you got to run on walls. No way this one could fail.

The Trainwreck: Devil May Cry 2 feels like a sequel made by people who'd only heard vague details about the original. The varied enemy types, exquisite levels, and even the ever-quipping Dante were gone. Instead, we got seemingly endless hallways, a mostly mute protagonist, and enemies that don't even seem to know if they want to kill you.

DMC2 is the result of a massively rushed production hellbent on trying to make bank on the success of its predecessor, and nothing could make that more evident than the game's hilarious Diesel tie-in costumes.

[caption id="attachment_393277" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Square Enix[/caption]

Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness

The Hype: I know that saying Tomb Raider on the PS2 probably won't do much for most readers nowadays, but that was all you needed to hear back in the day. The original Tomb Raider changed the world of gaming overnight when it came out for the original PlayStation back in '96. Its sequels, though great, never succeeded in bringing matching innovation to the table. A Tomb Raider sequel coming to a console of unprecedented power could likely provide the developers at Core Design with all the leeway they needed to revolutionize gaming all over again. We thought.

The Trainwreck: Shigeru Miyamoto famously said that a delayed game is eventually good, and a rushed one is forever bad. Well, I'd love to hear his thoughts on The Angel Of Darkness, a game that was both delayed and rushed. Despite featuring the longest development period in the history of the series, bad decisions such as a new — and broken — control system and dumb RPG-like elements combined with the hardships of adapting to the PS2 hardware resulted in a nigh-unplayable game. That's a shame, as many fans actually liked the new plot.

Luckily, there are fanmade patches that make this one way easier to play. Also, this blunder caused publisher Eidos to rethink it all, hand the franchise over to Crystal Dynamics, and come back with Tomb Raider: Legend, one of the best entries in the series.

[caption id="attachment_196454" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by EA[/caption]

Dead Space 3

The Hype: The original Dead Space is one of the best horror games of all time. Dead Space 2 is even better. People were naturally very excited about the release of Dead Space 3.

The Trainwreck: What made the two prior games in the series great, gameplay-wise, was the fine balance between action and horror they managed to achieve. Dead Space 3 steered too hard into action territory, and no one was happy about it. What was once essentially a game about surviving monsters was now a game about poor zombies trying to survive an overpowered monster — us. Dead Space 3 also suffered from the presence of some hilarious glitches. It's not a terrible game — it's just not the game that anybody wanted.

Interestingly, John Carpenter, the legendary film director, gamer, and likely influencer of the series, states that while he doesn't like this one as much as the other two, he still likes Dead Space 3, so there's that.

[caption id="attachment_172692" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Capcom[/caption]

Resident Evil 6

The Hype: Resident Evil 5 didn't reach the same heights as 4, but it provided a very solid RE experience — especially for people playing it in co-op mode. Resident Evil 6 seemed to want to go all out by featuring not just pretty much every character in the history of the franchise, but even various different campaigns. This was going to be the biggest Resident Evil of all time.

The Trainwreck: It ended up becoming just the most Evil blunder of all time. The lack of a focused campaign resulted in a game that wasn't especially good at anything, and terrible at most things. It also featured a bunch of inexplicable bugs upon release and is likely the main reason fans began referring to Capcom as "Crapcom" for the better part of a decade. This is the only mainline Resident Evil game that you should straight-up pass. Maybe watch one of the animated Resident Evil movies instead. They're also bad, but at least they're fun.

[caption id="attachment_265118" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Team Ninja[/caption]

Ninja Gaiden 3

The Hype: Before Dark Souls came out, Ninja Gaiden was the go-to series for players looking for a challenging campaign. Ninja Gaiden Black for the original Xbox is a nigh-perfect game, and Ninja Gaiden 2 for the Xbox 360 was still great. Though Tomonobu Itagaki, the rockstar responsible for creating the series, had left Team Ninja before they began working on NG3, the company still had the people who'd made the awesome Ninja Gaiden Sigma games. There was no reason to believe Ninja Gaiden 3 would fail to at least provide a fun challenge.

The Trainwreck: Can you believe that the developers of this game picked 2012, just a year after Dark Souls sold most of the gaming community on the idea of hard games, to release a Ninja Gaiden game that was easy? Yeah, Instead of having to focus on coming up with the best combos and strategies to get rid of your tough and smart opponents, Gaiden 3 automatically chained combos for players.

It also did away with the series's expansive levels, replacing them with the same kind of bland and empty areas that also plagued the aforementioned DMC2. What a great way to come up with a game that appeals to absolutely nobody.

[caption id="attachment_329217" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by 2K[/caption]

Duke Nukem Forever

The Hype: Duke Nukem Forever once held the dubious honor of having the longest development period in the history of gaming. Development began in '97, and it was only in 2011 that Duke himself appeared in a trailer saying that the game was good, yeah, "but after 12 f*cking years it should be." What kind of person wouldn't immediately trust a man who doesn't even know that the game was actually in development for 14 goddamn years?

The Trainwreck: It wasn't good, it turns out. That's because the Duke Nukem Forever we ended up playing wasn't being fine-tuned into perfection for 14 years. It was actually a rushed product they came up with as quickly as they could.

There was never just one Duke Nukem Forever, but rather, various iterations of the game that ended up canceled and giving way to yet another botched project. The result was one of the most chaotic and still somehow unfun shooters of all time. This is a masterclass on how not to make a game.

[caption id="attachment_190664" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Capcom[/caption]

Street Fighter V

The Hype: Street Fighter IV is the highest point in the series for many fans. Nobody had any reason to believe Street Fighter V wouldn't continue to wear the fighter crown with grace.

The Trainwreck: Turns out that keeping that crown all shiny costs a lot, and that's probably why Capcom filled every inch of the game with the most ghoulish microtransactions imaginable. That's awful, yeah, but we get it that some companies will, at some point, drop the mask and reveal that they're all about just making money.

What we still have no explanation for, though, is why they made the game slower and completely butchered the superior net code they had going with SFIV. This is probably the only fighting game in history that got mocked by pros during tournaments meant to promote it.

[caption id="attachment_393622" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by EA[/caption]

SimCity

The Hype: SimCity (2013) came out a decade after the release of the successful SimCity 4. What marvelous gameplay design advances had the wizards of Maxis made in such a long period of time?

The Trainwreck: SimCity suffered from a myriad of issues, such as a much smaller city area and worse AI than what we got in the previous games in the series. Still, that wasn't the most egregious problem. The game's greatest sin was the unholy marriage between the always online requirement and servers that just didn't work well. On paper, SimCity wasn't even better than its 10-year-old predecessor, let alone in practice.

In all fairness, we kind of have to give it to SimCity. Not because it is good, no, but because it's funny to see a game that's supposedly about building absolutely bulldozing its own series.

[caption id="attachment_393628" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Rare[/caption]

Perfect Dark Zero

The Hype: Many claim Perfect Dark for the N64 is even better than Goldeneye 007. It was so good, in fact, that Microsoft bought Rare and tasked them with making the Xbox 360's flagship first-person shooter. No way this could've — ok, you know damn well where this one is going.

The Trainwreck: There's one thing we gotta give to Perfect Dark Zero, and that is that it looked good. That's one thing nobody could complain about it when it came out. Sadly, it featured those early 7th console gen graphics. Ya'know, those really rubbery and shiny ones that we all got tired of very quickly. The original game basically has nothing going for it anymore.

As for the bad parts, the developers put too much emphasis on the online multiplayer, which left the story, campaign, and characters feeling very lackluster. Also, the multiplayer itself wasn't that great because the game suffered from both a myriad of server issues and also from its own glitches. Why bother dealing with all that when Call of Duty 2, which also launched with the 360, was right there? Zero paled in comparison to the original Perfect Dark, a game that was five years old, so try to picture just how bad it looked when compared to Halo 2.

The post Let’s talk about some of gaming’s most disappointing sequels appeared first on Destructoid.

Yes, Final Fantasy XIV will have a two-way crossover with Fall Guys. Legendary director Yoshi-P of FFXIV and XVI fame recently took center stage at Final Fantasy Fest to announce the collaboration least likely to appear on anyone's bingo card.

https://youtu.be/--_vb2j_qDo?t=7987

At first, it looks like the only thing these two games have in common is their status as multiplayer juggernauts, but the concept looks like great fun. While we still don't know the exact nature of the upcoming minigames, we know that we'll get to play as characters from Final Fantasy XIV as they try to make it through Fall Guys-like obstacle courses.

[caption id="attachment_394317" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Square Enix[/caption]

I've previously talked about the most fun minigames in the history of the Final Fantasy series. Seeing a bunch of superhuman Final Fantasy heroes getting absolutely obliterated in a gauntlet of slapstick contraptions might have me rethinking that list.

Final Fall Guys

The coolest part is that it won't be just a Final Fantasy XIV thing. Fall Guys will also have a lot of Final Fantasy stuff making its way into its world.

https://twitter.com/FallGuysGame/status/1684995594304008192?s=20

Eight Final Fantasy-inspired costumes are making their way into Fall Guys, as well as emotes, celebrations, and more. Ever wanted to look like a Fall Guys-ified Alisaie, Alphinaud, Goobue, Namazu, or just a simple Chocobo? You can get them all and more by acquiring the Warriors of Light Fame Pass on August 22.

We still don't have the release date for the Final Fantasy XIV Fall Guys-themed minigames. We just know some of them will be waiting for players in the Gold Saucer once the 6.5x patch series begins to roll out.

You can currently play FFXIV on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. It'll release for the Xbox Series X|S featuring crossplay in Spring 2024.

Fall Guys is free-to-play on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC.

The post Fall Guys and Final Fantasy XIV are setting up a crossover collaboration appeared first on Destructoid.

Larian Studios, developers of the long-awaited and just-long Baldur's Gate 3, have unveiled the trailer for the villainous Orin the Red. She's a master shapeshifter and one-third of a triumvirate of main villains that players will have to deal with in the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_nOikdM7oo

Orin will create many challenges for players as she has the ability to shapeshift into any person in the world. This means we probably won't get the chance to trust any NPC we come across in the game, or perhaps even worse. It's likely that she will, at some point, replace one of our companions without us noticing, so keep an ever-watchful eye. Also, many call her a "great master" of murder, so she's perhaps also good at doing other even viler stuff.

The voice and motion behind Orin are those of Maggie Robertson. Most players will recognize her as Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil Village. She describes Orin as a "very disturbing figure". Joining Maggie to form the villainous trio will be J.K Simmons of Whiplash and Invincible fame, as well as Jason Isaacs from that thing with the kid wizard.

[caption id="attachment_394178" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Simmons will portray General Ketheric Thorm, a military leader who's seemingly unkillable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOqD3uATwSc

Isaacs will portray Lord Enver Gortash, a sleazy politician hellbent on conquering Baldur's Gate. He'll seemingly try to convince the main character to join forces with him on his quest. That's cool, but I'm guessing he doesn't have the best of intentions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUcZYW43_pQ

We can barely wait to kill the three of them.

Baldur's Gate 3 will come out on August 3 on Steam and GOG. PlayStation 5 owners will have to wait until it releases on September 6. There's still no word on the Xbox Series X|S release.

The post Latest Baldur’s Gate 3 trailer shows Maggie Robertson’s villainous shapeshifter appeared first on Destructoid.

Savage Gauntlet, Exoprimal's new full-on co-op mode, is now live. Savage Gauntlet is a new game mode tailored specifically for PVE lovers. It features no direct PVP elements and tasks five exofighters with joining forces to overcome a weekly Dinogauntlet.

Capcom warns that Savage Gauntlet is a high-difficulty challenge for experienced players and that it will keep on rotating its rules and scenarios every week to keep it fresh and harsh.

It'll still feature some degree of player competition

On top of fighting against the game's AI, Savage Gauntlet also invites the community to compete for the fastest completion time on the global leaderboards for each platform. This challenge consists of time-attack missions that you can replay as many times as you want. This will allow players to develop the necessary strategies and skills required to achieve the best possible ranks.

Capcom teases that the most successful squads will earn awards for their service.

How to enter the Savage Gauntlet - requirements

All Exoprimal players can access Savage Gauntlet for free. You don't need the Survival Pass, but there's one catch. Accessing this expert gauntlet requires players to have beaten the game's main campaign, which may take up around 20 hours of playtime.

New missions begin each week on Thursdays at 8pm PDT. They'll end on Mondays at 7:59pm PDT, giving you a nice three days and one minute to rest.

[caption id="attachment_385216" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Capcom[/caption]

What else is new

Exoprimal is getting seasonal updates rife with awesome new content. On top of the new gauntlet mode, Season 1 will release 10 new Alpha variant exosuits on August 16. Variant exosuits are classes that feature contrasting weapon loadouts and playstyles to the classic ones.

Season 2 will begin in mid-October. It will introduce a new map, mission type, rigs, Modules, and a Street Fighter 6 crossover. Season 3 will hit in January of the next year. It will introduce more variant exosuits, a Neo Triceratops boss, and a Monster Hunter crossover.

Exoprimal sure doesn't seem like it's going extinct anytime soon. You can play it on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC (Steam).

The post Exoprimal’s Savage Gauntlet co-op mode is out appeared first on Destructoid.

Developers Ludosity and Fair Play Labs have just revealed Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2, the follow-up to its 2021 Super Smash Bros.-inspired brawler All-Star Brawl.

On top of all the memes that you can spot right now in the trailer, publisher GameMill Entertainment announces it has improved upon the original game in every way. The original character roster and stages are returning, and they've all gone through a mega glow-up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDlOIc9HsyA

What's new in the All-Star Brawl?

There's also going to be a lot of new stuff. Expect new characters, mini-games, and even a whole new single-player campaign. Both Squidward and Jimmy Neutron are confirmed for the roster this time around, too.

In the campaign, players will be up against Vlad Plasmius of Danny Phantom fame as he tries to conquer the whole universe. The daunting task will hopefully turn easier with the addition of new "Supers", which similar to the "Final Smash" moves from Super Smash Bros., are ultimate moves meant to get rid of your foes in epic fashion.

The new minigames are Pinch the Blimps, Whack-a-Bot, and Irken Armada Bootcamp Survival. We still don't know what their gameplay will be like exactly. We do know, however, that you can play them either with friends or by yourself against the world as you strive to get to the top of the global leaderboard.

All characters in All-Star Brawl 2 will now have voices, which is nice, as the first game received criticism for its lack of voices. All-Star Brawl 2 will feature talent like Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke from SpongeBob SquarePants.

All-Star Brawl 2 comes out later this year. It will also have full cross-platform play for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam.

The post Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 announced, and it has Squidward appeared first on Destructoid.

Devolver Digital has announced that The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood will come out on August 16. This is the new game by Deconstructeam, the studio behind hits such as Gods Will Be Watching and The Red Strings Club, so expectations are set for another narrative hit.

https://twitter.com/devolverdigital/status/1684217007456280576?s=20

But what is The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood?

The beginning of the trailer is reminiscientof a kind of magical realism we see in games such as Kentucky Route Zero. Still, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood doesn't waste time revealing that it'll be even more magical than expected.

It tells the story of Fortuna, a witch who lived in exile on an asteroid until she made a pact with some sort of space devil to gain back her freedom. She then reunites with her coven on Earth and goes on a mystical journey through space and time, where she'll come to terms with her abilities and responsibilities.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is a narrative adventure. It'll put a lot of emphasis on the journey and relationships with Fortuna's coven and with the friends she'll make along the way, but it will also feature more technical gameplay elements.

[caption id="attachment_393923" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Devolver Digital[/caption]

Gods Will Be Witching

Fortuna is an arcane witch. She can craft special tarot-like cards that will grant her the ability to revisit the past and foresee various possible futures for the people she meets. This mechanic will invite us to have a positive impact on the lives of every character she comes in contact with. Will we make things better?

It seems like we might be looking at one of those games that you'll have to replay a few times to finally get that perfect ending, and that's great.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood will release on Nintendo Switch and PC on August 16. Pre-ordering it on Steam will get you 10% off.

The post The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood arrives in August appeared first on Destructoid.

Ubisoft has reportedly cancelled its plans for an Immortals Fenyx Rising sequel. Multiple sources anonymously told VGC that a follow-up was in early development at Ubisoft Quebec, but leadership ultimately decided to cancel it.

Kotaku has also corroborated the report. Ubisoft has commented on VGC's original reporting, saying it's "reallocating some creative teams and resources within the Quebec studio."

“As part of our global strategy, we are redirecting and reallocating some creative teams and resources within the Quebec studio to other unannounced projects," the company told VGC. "The expertise and technologies these teams developed will serve as an accelerator for the development of these key projects focused on our biggest brands. We have nothing further to share at this time."

Fading into myth

Ubisoft's Breath Of The Wild-inspired title from 2020 was good, and found moderate success among players. Still, VGC's sources claim that Ubisoft canceled the Immortals sequel over perceived challenges around establishing the IP.

Ubisoft's original plan revolved around turning Immortals into a franchise that would explore various mythologies. The original game and its DLC explored the Greek and Chinese mythologies, respectively. Journalist Jeff Grubb reported last year that Ubisoft intended to explore things such as Hawaiian Polynesian myths in the future, but that won't be happening anymore.

Immortals is Ubisoft's fourth known cancellation this year. It follows the axing of three unannounced games as the company shifts focus to its best-selling IPs. To give you an idea of how closely Ubisoft is sticking to their bigger properties, this year's Assassin's Creed Mirage is but one of at least six games in the series currently in development.

This casts yet another large shadow over the fates of upcoming titles such as Skull & Bones and the poster child of development hell itself, Beyond Good & Evil 2.

The post Ubisoft reportedly cancels an Immortals Fenyx Rising sequel appeared first on Destructoid.

Bethesda is making up for the radio silence that engulfed much of Starfield's development by turning on the hype machine. It has just released The Settled Systems, a compilation of three Starfield animated shorts that show the game's universe.

First, there's Supra et Ultra, which is Latin for "Above and Beyond". It shows a bit of the life of a pilot who goes to New Atlantis to enlist in the Vanguard, The United Colonies' military faction. This naturally provides a good excuse to show off a neat little space battle. The animation feels a bit bare-bones at times, with a segment that barely even features any coloring, but that's clearly a stylistic choice and it looks nice overall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kj6wulHMsA

Then there's Where Hope Is Built. It's a cute little short about a teen left orphaned by the war who saves an old man and ends up getting much-needed help in return. It's a bit formulaic, but it does a good job of reassuring players that yes, there will be side quests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9trjxvaWP_0

Lastly, there's The Hand That Feeds. It shows a Neon City scoundrel having a fallout with her partner following a change of heart while robbing an employee of Ryuijin Industries, a mega-corporation from the planet Volii Alpha. The whole thing culminates with her getting a job at her would-be victim's megacorp. This is probably the most interesting of the bunch, as it hints that simple situations can have various possible outcomes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mX2iDI00FM

We still don't know if any of these characters will show up in the game. We also don't know whether we'll be seeing more episodes of The Settled Systems. Either way, we doubt these are the last promos we'll see from Starfield.

Bethesda will likely keep the hype machine in high gear until Starfield launches on September 6, 2023, on Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

The post Starfield gets some animated shorts building out the upcoming RPG’s galaxy appeared first on Destructoid.

What pirate game reigns over the e-seas?

Unless you count most of the movies in the Pirates Of The Caribbean series, every pirate-themed movie made after the 1960s has brought nothing but financial ruin to Hollywood. Cutthroat Island? It sunk an entire studio.  Disney's Treasure Planet and Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas? Many credit them for having killed traditional 2D animation altogether. Hardly the crime any movie pirate would like to be remembered for.

Luckily, pirates have thrived in the world of gaming — in more ways than one — you could say. Over the course of its entire history, gaming has featured a wide variety of pirate-themed games. There's no lack of offers, variety, and quality, so let's find out which one is the best of them all.

[caption id="attachment_272221" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Spiders[/caption]

10. GreedFall (2019)

GreedFall is the pirate game for Witcher fans. It’s an action RPG developed by Spiders — the studio, not the creatures. It takes place in a world of piracy that’s also home to a hell of a lot of elements that we just have to assume weren’t present in historically-accurate pirate times.

While players shouldn't expect great sea battles, GreedFall features great fantasy worldbuilding that includes monsters, a mysterious plague ravaging the populace, and decision-making that will impact our journey.

Players can approach the game in a variety of ways. There's diplomacy, stealth, and even the "pirate manner." The gameplay is far from perfect, and definitely not as overtly pirate-y as the other entries on the list, but GreedFall's world features a beautiful "pirate" aesthetic and provides a strange allure that one just can't deny.

[caption id="attachment_392439" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Mastfire Studios[/caption]

9. Blackwake (2017)

In theory, Blackwake is a very simple game. You command a pirate ship and try to board other ships while avoiding boarding attempts from rival crews.

Whether they're using a canon, rifle, or pistol, players get exactly one shot before they have to deal with a ridiculously long-though-realistic reloading time. This sounds awful in text, but it works marvelously in-game because that’s also the reality of the enemy. Missing a shot will, at best, result in having to sit through the most stressfully long reload animation as you hope you don’t get killed before you get to shoot again.

Blackwake made sea battles fun even without making pirate weapons fun. That’s how good it is. On top of that, the game also features neat mechanics, like having to actively fix your ship, draining out the water that’s leaking in due to enemy canon fire, and healing via drinking rum. Great stuff.

[caption id="attachment_241722" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Microsoft[/caption]

8. Sea Of Thieves (2018)

If we have Blackwake in this list, then we must also include Sea Of Thieves, because it expands and improves upon everything that the former tried. Want to take to the sea alone? You’ll have fun. Want to journey with your friends in the search for lost treasure? You’ll have even more fun. Want to go with your friends in the search for found treasure inside some other team’s ship? You’ll have the most fun.

Sea Of Thieves is the first and still best (Skull & Bones, where the hell are you?!) seafaring MMO. It's also the first great game made by Rare after Microsoft’s acquisition.

[caption id="attachment_392449" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Herocraft[/caption]

7. Tempest (2016)

Tempest is an action RPG that emphasizes the naval warfare side of things. It features a wide array of customization options and allows players to experience a complex world of seafaring, exploration, crew management, and naval combat.

It’s no slouch on land, either. Players can also engage in swashbuckling adventures against land-based enemies who are also in search of wealth — or simply trying to defend their poor little forts.

This is the closest we have to a serious "pirate simulator" — if there can even be such a thing in a medium so heavily distorted by tales of drunken sailors.

[caption id="attachment_388535" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by LucasArts[/caption]

6. Monkey Island 2: Lechuck’s Revenge (1991)

Not all pirates need to be physically strong. Not all pirate games require heavy action.

Sometimes all you need is to insult your enemy until his mind is frail enough for him to lose against your piss-poor sword skills. That is one of the dubiously hilarious lessons you’ll learn from the Monkey Island series, a pirate tale that somehow foregoes any sort of action mechanics in favor of clever writing and puzzles.

I picked Monkey Island 2 specifically for this list because I think it’s the best of the bunch. Still, pretty much any game in the series will do it for those looking for a fun pirate romp.

Bonus Points: If you feel enticed by the comedy of Monkey Island but are more into the action of Sea Of Thieves than you're into puzzles, then you'd perhaps be happy to learn that they've transplanted Monkey Island into Sea Of Thieves in an epic crossover event.

Screenshot by MobyGames

5. Skies of Arcadia (2000)

Disclaimer: sky pirates are pirates.

At the time of its release, Skies Of Arcadia went mostly unnoticed, possibly due to a sore lack of the words “Final” and “Fantasy” in its title. That was a mistake.

Time has vindicated this marvelous and highly inventive RPG as its fanbase has grown immensely ever since its release. Sadly, the only two ways to legally play it nowadays are via your cursed console of choice, the Dreamcast or the GameCube.

We’d really like to see a re-release of this one, even if they keep the entire thing as is. Otherwise, most people interested in playing it will have to resort to, welp, measures that would make the characters of this game proud.

In the meantime, we're looking forward to Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire, an upcoming RPG that could be seen as the spiritual successor to Skies of Arcadia.

[caption id="attachment_4294" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Nintendo[/caption]

4. The Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker (2002)

Back in '02, few would have expected Link to become a pirate, but they'd be wrong. Wind Waker shows Link at his most daring, and not just in the visual sense.

At first, Wind Waker looks just like a regular Zelda game, but it doesn’t take long for it to show its true colors and send players on a boat trip across the seas of its world in a way that no other game had done before.

Wind Waker's sea itself can feel a little lackluster. That's perhaps because it misses random events such as the ones introduced by Red Dead Redemption that do such a great job of making a deserted area feel lively. Still, Wind Waker does a great job of providing yet another stellar addition to the Zelda catalog and enticing other developers to try their hand at this genre.

[caption id="attachment_367674" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via Frontier Developments[/caption]

3. Elite Dangerous (2014)

Disclaimer: the same applies to space pirates

Even though it looks like a regular space shooter, this one is actually about straight-up space piracy. It just has to be in here. Elite Dangerous features space battles as fun as those of any other space game and even has a lot more depth than what many would expect from a game that's seemingly just about laser-blasting things in space.

And what's a pirate game without spectacular tales of piracy? Even though Eve Online gets all the credit for having the best player-made stories, many fans have also used Elite Dangerous as a beautiful stage for some of online gaming’s most epic tales of treachery.

[caption id="attachment_392434" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Firaxis[/caption]

2. Sid Meier’s Pirates! (2004)

The title says it all. This is the guy who did Civilization doing a simulation of pirate life. I mean, kind of an embellished and simplified simulation, but it's all the better for it.

Pirates is, in essence, a simple navigation game intertwined with various minigames. Still, it works beautifully because mostly every single one of the minigames provides enormous fun and enriches this world. Ok, maybe not the dancing one. That one kind of sucks.

This isn’t the first Pirates game by Sid Meier. It's actually a remake of the one he did in '87. Feel free to play that one instead if you feel like a purist — and find a way to run it — but this is one of the few remakes that clearly surpasses the original. Regardless of which game you pick, Sid Meier's work in the pirate genre likely remains the most fun and influential in gaming history.

[caption id="attachment_392436" align="alignnone" width="1201"] Image by Ubisoft[/caption]

1. Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag (2013)

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is arguably the best game in the series. Ironically, it's also the one people say should have more pirate action and less assassin stuff. Let's not get the fans wrong. It’s still great when it comes to classic Assassin's Creed-type action. It’s just that its pirate adventures proved so interesting and refreshing that people couldn’t stay away from them. Few things beat boarding a ship in a game that features the production values of the Assassin’s Creed series. The sea shanties also rock.

The success of Black Flag prompted Ubisoft to do yet another pirate-themed AC game, the severely underrated Assassin's Creed: Rogue. More importantly, even, it paved the way for Ubisoft to begin working on Skull & Bones, the company’s first full-on pirate game. Its development has been long and rough, but we hope it will come out one day to take Black Flag’s spot at the top of this list.

The post Best pirate-themed video games, ranked appeared first on Destructoid.

The exorcist enters the ring

Bandai Namco has just unveiled the next fighter returning for Tekken 8. Coming back after his introduction in Tekken 7 is Claudio Serafino, the closest we'll ever get to an Italian Final Fantasy protagonist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSFaTCoVJ2I

Who is this literal godsend?

Claudio is the greatest exorcist in the world and de facto leader of the Archers of Sirius, an order of exorcists that I assume has been KO'ing demons for centuries. He entered Tekken lore in Tekken 7 as Heihachi Mishima contacted his group to get help against Devil Kazuya. Claudio reluctantly joined Heiachi's organization, but his tenure with Mishima Zaibatsu comes to a close by the end of the game as Heihachi believes he's finally gotten rid of Kazuya.

While we don't know anything about the plot of Tekken 8, we do know Kazuya is still very unsurprisingly alive in it, so Claudio's service may become of use to Heichachi once again.

But really, how will Claudio play?

For the most part, Claudio is a well-rounded character. What makes Claudio special is "Starburst". That's Claudio's unique stance that he can enter once he lands certain hits. Starburst arms him with an array of empowered single moves and combos that turn him into a fearsome enemy. The trailer shows off some of Claudio's moves and an unbelievably cool Mortal Kombat-esque arena.

The character doesn't seem to have gone through many technical changes. Still, his combos are now adorned by animation effects that look straight out of Final Fantasy. The trailer concludes with Claudio absolutely obliterating poor Bryan Fury with a mystical arrow seemingly capable of murdering the devil himself. That's not just for the video — it's just his regular special move.

Tekken 8 is currently in development for PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X. Bandai Namco expects it to launch in late 2023 or early 2024. Be sure to check out the previous trailers for Hwoarang, Jin Kazama, Marshall Law, Nina Williams, King, Paul Phoenix, Jack-8, Lars Alexandersson, Kazuya Mishima, Jun Kazama, Ling Xiayou, Asuka Kazama, Leroy Smith, and Lili Rochefort.

The post Here’s our first big look at Tekken 8’s sexy exorcist Claudio appeared first on Destructoid.

Welcome to video game quote history 101

Some of today's video games far surpass the most successful movie blockbusters in terms of writing. That hasn't always been the case, however. You probably know that, as movie fans who don't care for games have never missed a chance to slam the medium's once rather generalized shortcomings in terms of writing prowess. Still, that didn't prevent video games from coming up with some — sometimes accidental — short literary masterpieces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JuK1Yr35Io

10. "They played us like a damn fiddle!" (Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, 2015)

Some catchphrases become legendary because they're badass, but most achieve that status because they try to sound badass and fail.

Metal Gear Solid V is a very divisive entry in the franchise. On the one hand, it features the best gameplay in the series. On the other hand, it features some of its iffiest storytelling. This may have resulted from the lack of polish caused by the game's abrupt development conclusion, but that's fine as it also gave us some memorably bizarre moments.

The scene where Kazuhira Miller says "They played us like a damn fiddle!" shows gaming at its most hilariously over-dramatic. Sure, the lens flare-filled over-the-top direction and voice work help, but what's definitely powering this up to 11 is the unintentionally funny word choice.

No other character in the game ever beats the chaotic rage we see in this very early scene — not even Miller himself after he loses both an arm and a leg and is subject to weeks in captivity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg

9. "All your base are belong to us" (Zero Wing, 1989)

The video game medium has a secret roulette that randomly grants creators of absolute gibberish an everlasting spot in our collective consciousness. "All your base are belong to us", the tentatively menacing words that CATS, the also not-very-scarily-named villain, utters at the start of Zero Wing, is the best possible example of the trend.

Back in the early aughts, the poorly translated dialogue became much larger than the game itself. This was one of the biggest memes at the dawn of the internet age, and it didn't tempt anyone to play the game. Nobody cares about Zero Wing. How many of you even knew it was from Zero Wing? How many of you even know we're joking?

Some of the most memorable phrases in video game history don't come from masterful writing, but rather from an ill-fated attempt at it. "All your base are belong to us" rules because anyone can easily see it's grammatically incorrect, but it still perfectly conveys the message. The message being video games don't need plot when they have starships and lasers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7pAcB-MX_c

8. "Praise the sun!" (Dark Souls 2011)

The Dark Souls series invites players to a medieval land that has somehow found a way to put itself through an Apocalypse-like scenario. The world is in shambles, and so are its inhabitants. The happiest reaction we can expect to get out of most of the game's NPCs is a lunatic fit of laughter.

That doesn't apply to one man, however. The legendary Solaire Of Astora will always be there to help with his sword and even with a kind word when needed. "Praise the sun!" is his motto, one that no player traversing such sun-forsaken areas is likely to forget.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhMsboqMMzs

7. Nanomachines, Son! (Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, 2007)

The Metal Gear Solid series overused the once-fresh concept of nanomachines to explain whatever detail Kojima didn't feel like coming up with a decent explanation for. Why is that sexy Flamenco-dancing vampire guy unkillable? Nanomachines. Why is Liquid Snake controlling Ocelot via a transplanted arm? He isn't, in fact. Fans didn't like that dumb plot element at all, so Kojima pulled a retcon and blamed a fake arm, hypnosis, and nanomachines for it.

You could make the case that the entire plot of MGS4 died due to a nanomachine overdose. For the game's side sequel, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, nanomachines are a thing of the past. It's all about cool cybernetic enhancements and cool robot dogs now.

It's only near the end when we're fighting a final boss who seems absolutely unbeatable, that Raiden asks what the hell his deal is. He receives a mega truth bomb: it's been nanomachines all along.

That's a beautiful surprise if there ever was one, and yet another moment when we'll all feel like we've been played like a damn fiddle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBGpEXbPhms

6. Toastyy (Mortal Kombat 2, 1993, and every entry from then on)

I bet you thought I'd be going for something like "Finish Him," but I think that's not even as catchy as "Fatality," which, in turn, is just as catchy as "Brutality," "Babality," or even the "Friendship" finisher.

What I believe has stuck longer in the minds of MK fans the most is that guy who comes out of nowhere saying "toastyy!" in a beautiful falsetto. Am I wrong? Maybe, but then why is it that every once in a while, we'll hear someone say it out of nowhere without that person even having a good explanation as to why they said that? Does the CIA mind control psyop MK-Ultra stand for Mortal Kombat-Ultra? We don't know, though that would be an awesome name.

So who is that guy? Why is he saying that and why is that in the game? That's one of MK's designers, Dan Forden, and he says that when the game considers one of your uppercuts to be of extremely high quality.

Now, while we do have an explanation of where it came from, we still have no good explanation as to why that comedic easter egg exists in such a tentatively serious game. Everybody loves it, though — even the people who incorrectly believe Forden is actually saying "whoopsie"— so why not?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIEOw1B2FEo

5. "Took an arrow to the knee" (Skyrim, 2011 and pretty much every year since)

I'm really, really sorry to have to remind you of this, but history isn't just about the good parts. In fact, a quick search will reveal that most of human history is apparently pretty bleak, so be glad that this is one of the few really tired catchphrases that I'm putting here.

This catchphrase is the Anakin of memes, the one that brought hilarity for like a week after Skyrim came out, then became the most obnoxious meme festering all of the internet for the next 10 or so years of its existence. We know it, you know it, and neither party wants to talk or learn any more about it. Let's move on.

[caption id="attachment_236196" align="alignnone" width="1201"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

4. "The cake is a lie" (Portal, 2007)

This is one of those quotes that grew far beyond its game of origin. That's always quite the feat, especially when it comes from one of the greatest games of all time. If you've visited the internet at any point since the release of Portal back in '07, it's likely that you've seen this written somewhere. Bonus points if you saw it written in graffiti in a creepy alley.

I could say this is the good version of "all your base." It's the case of a simple yet enigmatic — and this time grammatically correct — phrase taking over the internet and enticing people to go in (Google) search of its meaning.

Luckily, this time around, the people following the breadcrumbs won't find an unmemorable spaceship shooter like Zero Wing, but Portal, a revolutionary experience that'll reveal an entirely new dimension of gaming.

I'd like to talk about the phrase's meaning and about how well it ties to the plot of the actual game, but it'd be so much better for anyone reading this not knowing what I'm talking about to go play the game and enjoy that once-in-a-lifetime blast.

[caption id="attachment_391442" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

3. "Press F to pay respects" (Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, 2014)

The success of the video game medium's attempts at drama varies greatly. At one end of the spectrum, we have glorious stuff such as Gone Home. At the other end, we have Call Of Duty's hilariously poor attempts at portraying grief. Once your friend dies fighting alongside you, the idea that pressing a single button at his funeral will encapsulate all the grief you'll ever feel for your loss is just the most risible thing imaginable. We need more.

"Press F to pay respects" unintentionally became both an unforgettable meme and a lesson on how not to use the interactive means provided by games to convey drama. The backlash for this one raged so hilariously high that we're surprised that Activision didn't try to mend things by adding a trophy and achievement for having paid our respects.

Just kidding. Who would've expected such a tone-deaf move from a game made for teens that makes the military look cool and stars Kevin Spacey?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4_Z2Qeyxbk

2. "All you had to do was follow the damn train, CJ!" (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 2004)

Not a single game in the Grand Theft Auto series has ever missed the mark since the glorious release of GTA 3 back in '01. That, however, doesn't mean every single mission in every single GTA game has been great. No better reminder of the series' greatest failures than waking up in the middle of the night with a PTSD-induced nightmare of Big Smoke yelling at us for not being able to keep up with a regular-ass train.

Yes, we're talking about the "Wrong Side of the Tracks" mission. What makes this hilarious is that yeah, Big Smoke is right, yeah, but not really. We really only had to keep up with the train as Smoke got rid of the enemies, yes, but the mission's own randomness is oftentimes more than enough to prevent us from succeeding. Many attempts may be necessary even for good players, so don't feel too bad if you think you might have heard this one way too many times. Also, Big Smoke sucks, so there's that.

[caption id="attachment_390811" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

1. "I said I had a theoretical degree in physics" (Fallout: New Vegas, 2010)

We apologize for all the suffering, suffering that we hope hasn't been in vain. When I said that some games feature excellent writing, that was the truth. Fallout: New Vegas is one of the best examples of that, and Fantastic's quote regarding his dubious physics credentials isn't just video game writing at its best — it's writing at its best, period.

We could try to explain it further, but chances are that the people who know what I'm talking about already revere the writing in this game. Those who don't are probably too busy laughing at it right now to process any more relevant information.

The post 10 most iconic video game catchphrases, ranked appeared first on Destructoid.

Valve just pulled the ultimate switcheroo

13 years after appearing as a fan-favorite community mod, VS Saxton Hale finally graduated into a real Team Fortress 2 game mode. Sadly, it wasn't even 13 days before Valve yoinked it away from their big TF2 2023 summer update.

Though we don't know exactly what triggered the removal, many players complained about the mode's high instability. Very sad news, considering how VSH seemed to work just fine while in its community mode version. Things have gotten even rockier four days after the update. A few players claim VSH is back up, whereas others complain that the mode is constantly showing up only to vanish again. Either way, many complain they're unable to enter matches.

What is Vs Saxton Hale?

To understand what VSH or Vs Saxton Hale is, it's essential that we learn who Saxton Hale is. Though not originally in the game, Saxton Hale exists in the TF2 comics as a buff Australian weapons and hats dealer. Yes, that means that if you've ever spent money on any of Valve's famous in-game hats, then congrats — you've helped fund this madman's made-up empire.

As for VS Saxton Hale, the casual game mode itself, it's an asymmetrical multiplayer battle mode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNOsoq3hRbA

At the beginning of the round, one of the players in the server will randomly spawn as Saxton. His mission? To end everyone else. The remaining players will have to join forces to try to take Saxton down. It's not an easy battle, as Saxton is a powerful beast. Even though he only has two weapons, his left and right fists, he has a lot of HP and a bunch of special abilities that make him a tough target even against the combined efforts of eight godforsaken players.

Saxton can make use of:

• Sweeping charge: an ability that makes Saxton rush towards players to push them away. If the players end up hitting walls in result, they'll take extra damage.
• Saxton Punch: This acts as Saxton's ultra. It takes 30 seconds to charge up after he begins a round, but then he'll be able to use a devastating punch that'll damage every enemy in close proximity.
• Mighty Slam: a ground-pounding move that Saxton can perform when he's in the air.
• Brave jump: oh yeah, we weren't joking when he said that he can rain terror from above. Just like the scout, Saxton is somehow also able to perform a double jump that he can use to make the best possible use of his Mighty Slam move.

But Saxton isn't the only one with abilities. The mercenaries also have, well, two abilities:

• Wall Climbing They can easily climb walls by melee attacking the ground as this will propel them into the air.
• Last Man Standing Once Saxton only has 3 mercenaries left to kill, they will get a damage boost. Once he only has one mercenary left to kill, he'll get a huge damage boost.

Valve is hopefully working on the issue, since VSH is showing some signs of life in the casual queue. That could indicate some backend tinkering is taking place. Still, we don't know when VS Saxton Hale will make a return in full swing.

The post VSH makes a rocky official debut in Team Fortress 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Hackers have found a new way to play homebrew software on Series X|S in retail mode

Hacker group UWeaPons Store has found a new way to run emulated software on the Xbox Series consoles...again. Earlier this year, Microsoft closed the consoles' original loophole that allowed players to run emulated games in the console's base "retail" mode. We thought it might not open again, but Youtuber Modern Vintage Gamer recently revealed otherwise.

https://youtu.be/WdFBseEphwo

One of the Xbox Series S|X's strengths is the ability to download specific apps from Microsoft's store. Some such apps allow players to run emulated games from various systems without having to resort to modding. The original loophole bypassed Microsoft's requirement of a $20 monthly payment to gain access to the "developer" mode, where Microsoft is fine with users gaining access to such software. The loophole allowed an Xbox to also mostly be a PS2, a GameCube, a Dreamcast, and even a Nintendo Wii at no extra cost. That's the part that Microsoft didn't like.

UWeaPons Store has found yet another confirmed loophole. Still, the group is not openly disclosing its findings out of fear of triggering a quick response from Microsoft. Anyone interested in gaining access to the forbidden knowledge will need to subscribe to the group’s Patreon.

This doesn't guarantee that Microsoft won't find the loophole and shut it down, but it still makes a statement. It further clarifies that gamers want video game preservation, and want it at a non-premium level. As we all know, video game preservation is at serious risk.

The post The Xbox Series X/S can run emulators again, with a catch appeared first on Destructoid.

Justice is coming, Call Of Duty style

The official Call Of Duty Twitter account has just announced Homelander, Starlight, and Black Noir — some of the stars from the hit Amazon tv series The Boys — will come to Call Of Duty in Season 4 (of the game, not the show).

https://twitter.com/CallofDuty/status/1678449486916354048?s=20

To the cheaters out there mad at COD for rolling out the red carpet to three actual superhumans a week after applying new and hilarious anti-cheating measures, this isn't that big of a deal. Homelander, Starlight, and Black Noir have some neat cosmetics, but they join the season as regular operators. Don't expect anything like the ultra-powerful Thanos mode or Goku's Kamehameha from Fortnite.

Instead of abilities such as flight and super strength that we see some of the heroes use on the show, they'll only come equipped with a custom loadout and with some cool finishing moves.

The three heroes will each feature in a different bundle that costs 2400 COD points. Each bundle will feature a lot of cosmetics and three tracer weapon blueprints. Still, be warned: they'll only show their true powers when using their finishing moves.

But that's not where The Boys' influence over COD Season 4 Reloaded stops

Instead of having a few heroes completely dominating everyone in Warzone, Season 04 Reloaded will borrow a few perks from the show and make them available for everyone. The show is now supplying COD with "Temp V", a dubious drug that will help any operator gain superpowers for a while.

Upon consuming the drug, operators will randomly gain one out of four special abilities.

• Charge jump allows players to jump across the map. They receive no fall damage, and deal area damage to any enemies in close proximity.
• Electric Shockwave will allow players to cast electricity blasts that will damage both enemies and enemy vehicles.
• Laser Vision will allow players to temporarily gain Homelander's most feared power. They will get to levitate and laser-fry enemies but at the cost of becoming vulnerable to backfire.
• Teleport will allow operators to immediately move in whatever direction they're facing (think Dishonored's blinking). This is great to either get the jump on enemies or to escape a fight. This ability seemingly has no downsides.

Temp V will be present in all Warzone playlists and DMZ, but not in ranked play.

Starlight's bundle is scheduled to come out on July 12, Homelander's will arrive on July 16, and Black Noir's is coming on July 20.

The post Homelander, Starlight, and Black Noir from The Boys are coming to Call of Duty appeared first on Destructoid.

The best classic adventures you can have without going outside (and one honorary modern inclusion)

Many claim that point & click adventures died on the last day of the previous century, but is that really true? Adventure games show signs of life with many fresh new releases every year, so perhaps it's time to celebrate the genre's glorious origins as well as the best current carriers of the torch.

[caption id="attachment_388537" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by 3909 LLC[/caption]

Honorable Mention: Return of the Obra Dinn (2018)

While Return of the Obra Dinn isn't a classic point & click adventure from the olden days, it's a game about pointing at and clicking stuff that became an instant classic. It deserves a spot here. Obra Dinn merges the perspective of Myst with the mystery of Broken Sword and imbues it all with movement and mechanics that make it into a completely new thing.

Instead of tasking players with resolving a mystery that'll save the world, Obra Dinn just asks players to find out whatever the hell happened to the missing crew of the titular ship. It's a lot of people, so players might predict they're up for a repetitive challenge, but there are always twists and turns that keep the narrative fresh. You should play this one whether you're a classic adventure game veteran or a new gamer.

Strengths: A gorgeous and completely unique take on detective stories.

Weaknesses: The visual style can cause dizziness in rare cases.

[caption id="attachment_388534" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Cyan[/caption]

09. Myst (1993)

Myst changed the world back in '93 by doing away with forcing players to guide a poor character all over the map in search of hidden items. This adventure puts players in first-person perspective, an iconic choice that greatly impacted not just player immersion but storytelling in general. The people behind the Half-Life series cite Myst as a great inspiration for Valve's storytelling.

Its puzzles have been redone to death by many other games, so the experience as a whole won't feel brand new for many, but we still recommend experiencing it to anyone who cares about video games. It'll make a lot of things clear.

Strengths: It remains an invaluable piece of video game history that inspired more than just the point & click adventure genre.

Weaknesses: It only gains replay value about once in a decade when you've forgotten the solution to its puzzles or when you want to show off to your friends how quickly you can finish it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uudul4IRZTg

08. Broken Sword: Shadow Of The Templars / Circle Of Blood (1996)

Who'll ever forget an intro where a killer clown blows up a peaceful Parisian bistro? The reason why it will forever stay in the minds of whoever saw it back in the day might have to do with the innate scariness of clowns, yeah, but also because of the game's art direction. How many games that are nearly 30 years old remain beautiful to this day? Well, this one does. Don't find it pretty enough? No problem! You can even play its equally awesome remaster.

An intriguing plot (yes, there's more to the killer clown than meets the eye), a great duo of main characters, and a beautiful collection of puzzles exist within Broken Sword. This is Revolution Software's third point & click adventure, after Lure Of The Temptress and Beneath A Steel Sky, and definitely its best. The series would keep its gorgeous art style for the sequel, The Smoking Mirror, but would go for different looks in every single one of its sequels. We still like those and any adventure gaming enthusiast should check them out, but this is prime Broken Sword.

Strengths: Beautiful artwork and clever puzzles that demonstrated the classic point & click adventure genre at the height of its power.

Weaknesses: Everyone is pretty tired of having a cult of Templars as the villains by now, but they felt pretty fresh for the time.

[caption id="attachment_388535" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by LucasArts[/caption]

07. Monkey Island 2: Lechuck’s Revenge (1991)

People often associate classic point & click games with serious puzzle-solving, but the genre can get hilarious sometimes. LucasArts dominated when it come to comedy in adventure games, and Monkey Island 2 is one of their best works. Do you still find Captain Jack Sparrow funny? Well, the Monkey Island series of games inspired the Pirates of the Caribbean films, and guess what.

Unlike the series of films that begins to suck right at the beginning of the first sequel, Monkey Island only ever gets better in its second game. One thing we need to say, however, is that the original's control and interaction scheme might feel outdated by now. Luckily, you can easily overcome that problem by getting the game's much-upgraded special edition from 2010 instead.

If that doesn't sound fresh enough for you, then don't worry. Just get 2022's Return to Monkey Island, which also owns.

Strengths: Clever puzzles that are also fun. An endearing cast of characters. This series is the reason we have Pirates Of The Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. We're guessing that the only reason why the only reason Jack Sparrow is more popular than Guybrush Threepwood is that the latter's name doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

Weaknesses: It's also the reason we have the remaining Pirates Of The Caribbean films.

[caption id="attachment_388536" align="alignnone" width="1199"] Image by Sierra[/caption]

06. The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery (Gabriel Knight 2, 1995)

Most people scoff at the thought of Full Motion Video-based games. They can either play the original Gabriel Knight, a classic-looking point & click adventure game that could very well be on this list, or, just give the superior sequel a chance.

We'd like to believe that the reason FMV games failed is that most of them looked goofy, like Night Trap, or because both looked and played goofy, like Sewer Shark. Gabriel Knight 2 was none of those things. We're talking about a high-production value gothic horror tale that deserves a place among the greats.

We sure hope history vindicates this visual style as bangers such as Her Story and Immortality have been casting a whole new spotlight onto the genre.

Strengths: By far the best full-motion video game in existence. Also, are we crazy it is that the best video game cover art of all time?

Weaknesses: full-motion video gameplay isn't for everyone, but you should give it a shot!

[caption id="attachment_388539" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by LucasArts[/caption]

05. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992)

We're sorry to break it to the people who still haven't read the reviews of Indiana Jones and The Dial Of Destiny, but they all amount to something like "maybe they should've seen the signs and kept quiet after Crystal Skull". Not to worry, though, as Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is right here for any fan who feels like they haven't had their fill of Indiana Jones in a while.

Yes, movie-to-game adaptations tend to suck, but this isn't that. This is an entirely original adventure featuring the titular archaeologist that features everything you'd want — exploration and awesome puzzles — and none of the foils of the later sequels.

Strengths: It takes on average 10 hours to beat. That's a longer and more fun time with Indiana Jones than we'll get from all of the Raiders Of The Lost Ark sequels combined.

Weaknesses: LucasArt's environmental interaction HUD might feel pretty dated by today's standards. Unlike most other LucasArts classics, this one is still to receive the remaster treatment.

[caption id="attachment_388540" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Annapurna Interactive[/caption]

04. Kentucky Route Zero (2013)

Some works of art benefit a lot from looking like they could've come from any point in time. We don't know whether the developers of Kentucky Route Zero were going for a mysteriously timeless aesthetic, but the final result greatly elevates their work.

Though it came out in 2013, over a decade after the "death of all adventure games", the only thing separating the look and feel of KRZ and some of the best point & click titles in history are some very welcomed quality-of-life improvements. The only less-than-stellar aspect of KRZ was the fact that we had to wait a long while to complete it (the episodic release model was not one of the good things it added to the genre), but that's over. You can and should just buy the whole thing right now and embark on one of the best journeys in the history of video games.

Strengths: A one-of-a-kind narrative experience that you won't forget.

Weaknesses: It might feel too modern at first, but it sure does belong with the greats of old.

[caption id="attachment_388542" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by LucasArts[/caption]

03. Day of the Tentacle (1993)

Day of the Tentacle is the sequel of sorts to the also awesome Maniac Mansion. It follows a team of three different characters as they attempt to prevent a tentacle —yes, just a sentient octopus-less tentacle — from taking over the world

When people think of hilarious adventure games, chances are they'll be talking about a game from LucasArts. Many consider the Monkey Island series to be the funniest of the bunch, but we actually rank it at number three. That's how funny we think Day of the Tentacle is. Though it doesn't star a main character as famous as Guybrush Threepwood, one shouldn't underestimate its main cast and villain.

The most important aspect of all, however, is how most of its puzzles are very well crafted and never feel boring. In fact, despite all of the witty writing, most of the game's hilarity comes from the game's puzzles themselves.

Strengths: Some of the cleverest and funniest puzzles of all time.

Weaknesses: It features the same-old Scumm HUD as other Lucasarts games. If that turns you off, then consider playing the awesome remaster with revamped interactions.

[caption id="attachment_388543" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Funcom[/caption]

02. The Longest Journey (1999)

The great point & click war of the '90s saw mostly Revolution, Sierra, and LucasArts fighting for the crown. It's kind of weird that a latecomer from a newbie Norwegian company managed to mostly outdo them all. The Longest Journey seems to have taken all the important notes from the adventure game playbook and still managed to come up with one of the most original and engrossing experiences of all time. While most of its puzzles are very good (and one is very bad), what makes this one shine is its beautiful story, world-building, and voice acting.

Whereas Broken Sword showed how well you could do with hand-drawn artwork and Gabriel Knight 2 showed us the unexpected beauty of FMV gameplay, The Longest Journey showed us the peak of gorgeous pre-rendered 3d art. It might not enjoy as much popularity as the other games on this list outside of genre aficionados, but this is easily a contender for the top spot.

Strengths: This is the classic point & click adventure genre's swansong.

Weaknesses: It features one of the dumbest puzzles in video game history, but everything else is solid gold, so we just can't complain.

[caption id="attachment_388544" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Lucasarts[/caption]

01. Grim Fandango (1998)

At the time of its release, Grim Fandango got almost as many glowing reviews as it got copies sold. Don't misread that. Pretty much every review that the game got was highly positive, it's just that there aren't enough critics out there buying games to make a release commercially successful. Grim Fandango deserves all the praise and deserved huge commercial success as well.

Tim Schafer's masterpiece combines both old and (then) new elements of classic adventure games and took players on likely the most hilariously unforgettable journey in the history of video games.

Some purists will say it's not technically a point & click game because of its 3d environment interaction system. Still, a lot of people already wanted the point & click style of LucasArts games to evolve back then, so.

Strengths: Likely the funniest game of all time. The art direction and soundtrack also rule.

Weaknesses: As with even the best adventure gamers, there are always these one or two puzzles that fail to measure up to the rest.

The post Best classic point & click adventure games, ranked appeared first on Destructoid.

Street Fighter 6's roster begins its expansion with a whirlwind

Capcom has announced that Rashid will be coming to Street Fighter 6 on July 24.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP0zYYpE5_o

Rashid is the first DLC addition to the game, and you can pick him up through the Year 1 Character Pass. If you got the Deluxe or Ultimate Edition, you'll already be set.

Additionally, a special "Rashid Arrives!" Fighting pass will be added that has a Rental Fighter ticket, which will let you try out Rashid for an hour.

Rashid's Fighting Pass will also bring lots of other goodies such as gear for your avatar, a new emote, new music, a photo border, in-game cellphone wallpaper, stickers, and even title art. Everyone hated Street Fighter V for its absurd reliance on microtransactions, so players will be happy to learn that they can still get some free rewards too.

https://twitter.com/StreetFighter/status/1676124776765739009?s=20

The Turbulent Wind

He's a laid-back dude who's into all things tech and who uses the wind to gain mobility and create devastating attacks. Rashid first joined the franchise in the maligned Street Fighter V, so many of his workings have changed. The official Playstation blog teases that the new Rashid will remain an accessible fighter, but will feature various key differences, many of which with an emphasis on mobility.

For example, he will now feature a special move called Arabian Cyclone. Rashid will perform a spinning kick that creates a small whirlwind. The kick can transition into abilities that existed as V-Skills in SFV, and his whirlwinds will allow Rashid to improve his neutral game and his combos.

He'll also have Arabian Skyhigh, a double-jump move that's apparently very likely to confuse opponents trying to predict his landing spot. Rashid looks like he'll be one of the more mobile characters in the game, as he'll also feature a move called Side Flip that players can combine with a Front Flip to put Rashid in the air again. Also, to complete his escape from his SFV roots, Rashid's V-Trigger I from the previous game has become his Level 2 Super, Ysaar.

More characters such as AKI, Ed, and Akuma will be joining the game on an undisclosed date.

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This is the Dark Souls of Darkslides

A long time ago, Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance featured a minigame where we could use the Big Shell as a skate park. Yes, you weren't dreaming that up. It was glorious, but we would rarely see similar fever dreams like that again — up until very recently.

A gameplay clip titled Dark Souls Pro Skater has emerged online, and it's exactly what you'd expect. Naturally, people are raving over how rad it looks.

https://twitter.com/SavinTheBees/status/1676019593918451712?s=20

Skate or Prepare to Die

The clip shows fan-favorite Solaire of Astora showing off his high skating stats as he performs all sorts of sick tricks in a skate park-ified version of Firelink Shrine. You don't need me to tell you which 1997 ska-punk track accompanies the footage.

The good news is that Dark Souls Pro Skater isn't some pre-alpha mod someone just began in their garage. It's a combination of Tony Hawk's Underground 2 mods that anyone can get for free. If you want to try this out, acquire a copy of THUG 2 and install the THUGPro mod. Then you can get the Firelink Skate park here, and Solaire's skin here. THUGPro is a whole world, so dive into its content and find other cool stuff that you'll like.

Maybe the positive response to this clip will inspire some clever map designers out there to turn areas such as Anor Londo into skate parks as well. Like, who knows if even the widely despised Lost Izalith area could find new life and even some love as a skating ground?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooP2_Vd8dk4

If you love Souls games but skateboarding isn't your thing, then perhaps consider waiting for Bloodborne Kart to come out to give it a go. Yes, that's also real and won't even require you to own the original Bloodborne.

The post You can skate on Dark Souls’ Firelink Shrine in Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Video game history preservation is on a roll

It's a great time for video game history buffs. Just last week, we saw unreleased footage of the GameCube's first reveal. Today, we learned that Noclip, a Youtube channel famous for video game development documentaries, has just salvaged an entire decade of lost video game history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KKCWGN2fBs

The findings consist of dozens of boxes filled with video tapes. Why tapes? Because the internet was very slow back in the day. Even in the early '00s, most video game reporting took place on TV, and only a select number of big tech and gaming websites ever got to do such coverage. Thus, most of the good stuff like trailers, gameplay captures, and interviews showed up on TV once and then disappeared forever. The few things that made their way onto the Internet featured absolutely abhorrent image and sound quality.

Noclip claims that this massive amount of footage was days away from getting dumped into a landfill, meaning it nearly shared the same fate as the infamous  E.T. The Extraterrestrial Atari cartridges.  

Their plan for video game history preservation

Noclip acquired so many tapes that they can't even pinpoint how much quality footage they now own. It's one of those rare "good" problems! The team is now going through all the tapes to find anything they deem to be of historical value, and will subsequently upload all of their findings in high resolution on a new video gaming history-dedicated Youtube channel (as well as Archive.org and some other methods). As for the already existing Noclip channel, the team is naturally planning on using the footage to create new documentaries.

Sadly, tapes degrade over time. A few of these have already sustained so much damage that either show nothing or seemingly preview an unknown video game adaptation of The Ring. There's a ticking clock hanging over the people at Noclip as they try to save as much footage as they can. They have limited resources, so they urge anyone who wants to help by subscribing to their Patreon.

Such efforts quench our nostalgia thirst, yes, but that's not the most important part. We need them especially because the preservation of video game history — and of all types of media, really— is at risk. Big streaming platforms don't seem to care about keeping anything that's not an immediate hit. Hell, even Nintendo, a company full of widely beloved games and characters, seems surprisingly adamant in eradicating even their own perfectly sustainable preservation platforms.

Here's hoping that the sheer joy so many get out of seeing these efforts come to fruition might help bring some sense into the minds of big companies.

The post Noclip saved a decade of lost video game history appeared first on Destructoid.

Is that person in the room with us right now?

Activision has implemented a "Mitigation" called "Hallucination" in Call Of Duty. "Mitigation" is the tacticool name that Team Ricochet, COD's anti-cheating department, gives to measures that identify and reduce cheating. Hallucination spawns imaginary enemies in the field of view of cheaters. These keep them busy while innocent players get to shoot each other up.

Regarding Hallucination's decoys, Ricochet says they “are undetectable by legitimate players, and they cannot impact a legitimate player’s aim, progression, end of match stats or overall gameplay experience, but serve to disorient cheaters in a variety of ways”.

If you're a cheater, the decoys will act just like real players and also look like real players in the cheater's software of choice. The game places these decoys near suspicious players, so those who shoot at them will immediately out themselves as cheaters.

Why not just ban cheaters outright?

Team Ricochet bans many cheaters every day, but that's not the most productive action to take in all situations. Cheating tech is constantly evolving, and sometimes it's best to learn about the cheats involved before taking radical action. Mitigations allow innocents to play undisturbed and keep cheaters at bay while gathering important data.

Also, and this is just my opinion, this is a valid companion to banning because it is hilarious. I just can't pretend to not love it when cheaters unwittingly turn into the equivalent of a dumb MGSV guard when they signed up to play as Snake.

Activision is no stranger to trolling cheaters. The company had previously made innocent players invisible in the eyes of cheaters, pitted suspected cheaters against each other, made the weapons of cheaters fire only blanks, and even removed weapons from the hands of cheaters — while also preventing them from using melee combat. Still, this Mitigation that feels straight out of Uncharted 3's Djinn-induced trip might just take the cake anti-cheating cake.

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