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Site & Scene News
The latest scene and console emulation and hacking news alongside other gaming news, competitions, give-aways, video game and gaming hardware reviews and much more!
Microsoft has announced the first wave of games coming to Game Pass in April 2024. Highlights include Lego 2K Drive, EA Sports PGA Tour, and Harold Halibut. PSA: Game Pass memberships are also 10% off right now at Target.
Out today, April 2, is Superhot: Mind Control Delete (Cloud, Console, and PC), which returns to the Game Pass library. Tomorrow, April 3, Lego 2K Drive (Cloud and Console) hits Game Pass. IGN's review returned an 8/10: We said: "LEGO 2K Drive is a wild and whimsical all-ages kart racer with an incredible custom vehicle creation tool that's just about worth the price of admission alone."
Two games hit Game Pass on April 4: Lil Gator Game (Cloud, Console, and PC), and EA Sports PGA Tour (Cloud, PC, Xbox Series X|S) via...
When reminiscing on Final Fantasy VI, what first comes to mind?
It's possible your answer is Kefka's iconic maniacal laugh, or a final boss battle that makes you dance madly, or searching for friends in a world of ruin. But somewhere in that mix—and for many, probably foremost—is the majestic-yet-silly Opera House scene.
On the surface, it's strange that the Opera House is, for many fans, the most revered part of the notably melancholic Final Fantasy VI. The musical performance is pretty set dressing on a plot device to get our party an airship while driving home Celes and Locke's relationship on the side; there's no plot relevance to the big to-do of performing an opera.
Further, the main point of tension revolves around the...
After a blockbuster Q1 period of highly anticipated new releases, April feels like a good time to catch your breath when you look at what's out this month. That's not to say that it's going to be an entirely chill month as there are some intriguing new titles to look forward to, but if you're wanting to scratch a few games off of your backlog list, now is the time to get cracking. So what is on the horizon for April?
Metroidvania fans will be in their element with several games this month, ranging from a biological journey inside of a faithful pooch to an African odyssey to restore order to a world where the dead deserve to rest in piece. Then there's Children of the Sun, a slick puzzle game where you have to figure out how to use a...
Any space can become the perfect PC gamer's paradise, no matter how small it is. With these tips in mind, you'll be able to make the most of any tiny space.
For PC gamers, there's no space more sacred than their gaming area. It's the battleground where they engage in epic quests, nail-biting tournaments, and immersive roleplaying experiences. But what if you don't have a vast expanse to create your dream gaming den?
Fear not, because size doesn't matter when it comes to creating a gaming paradise. It's all about how you use the space. If you're a PC gamer who's short on room but big on passion, consider these tips to maximize your gaming nook.
Optimizing Space
Before you can even think about how to design such a small space, you need...
Xbox is having a hard time right now, and you don't need to be a genius to see it. Earlier this year we saw the console giant lay off almost 2000 workers with little explanation, while its studio acquisitions are yet to bear fruit worthy of competing with PlayStation. It has huge exclusives on the horizon, but the writing is on the wall that Microsoft will soon shift its strategy from the consoles it has traded on for decades to a service-based ecosystem and its own software.
Microsoft's games, as we've seen from recent ports of Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment alongside future plans for Sea of Thieves and Grounded, are being given a new lease of life on rival hardware in a clear attempt to recoup costs that perhaps Game Pass simply isn't...
When Stardew Valley first came out in 2016, it was positioned as a Harvest Moon-like. The comparison was the only way at the time to describe a low-stakes farming simulator with a village of locals to meet and perhaps marry. It's difficult to remember that now, in an era where "cozy gaming" has taken on a life of its own and "wholesome" games have their own showcases with hundreds of thousands of viewers, but Stardew was released into a different world. And then it made this one. Its latest major content release, the 1.6 update, is a testament to the game's longevity in the genre that it shaped.
Stardew Valley was a huge success when it launched; it sold a million copies in two months, and as of 2024, that number is 30 million...
In the month of March I had such lofty ideals, as I often do. I said to myself "I really want to beat Skyrim", and I really did want to. I got the game downloaded, and as I sat through Brynjolf's iconic monologue in the ever-romantic horse-drawn carriage ride, a further intrusive thought emerged. I don't know where it came from, and I don't know why it appeared as I watched a man try to escape captivity and shortly thereafter get shot by an Imperial arrow. I wanted to make a Pokemon Emerald ROM hack. In that moment I closed the game and jumped onto Google, so instead of my usual jaunt of talking about old games and discovering a few new gems for my collection, I wanted to instead take some time to talk about my first real dive into the...
The romhacking community is always a source for new ways to play retro games, from completely new levels or stages, characters, quality of life improvements, to flat out entirely new games based on the original game's engine.
Romhacker BillyTime!Games is one such person to give older games a great amount of quality of life additions and new features to completely revitalize the original games, with one such example being his Ghostbusters: Special Edition project, which is a romhack for the original Ghostbusters game released for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive, and adds new playable characters and modes.
Similar to his Ghostbusters project, Billy has worked on another beloved titles from the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive catalogue, with his...
Quite a bit of news have unfolded in the past couple of days in regards to the Sonic franchise, for both its small and big screens outings.
To start off, the director of the Sonic The Hedgehog 3 movie, Jeff Fowler, announced in March 28th that the 3rd movie, which sees Shadow The Hedgehog making its big screen debut, has wrapped production, with a nice little sketch of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Shadow:
But that's not the only thing regarding Sonic, as the Paramount+ exclusive series focused on Knuckles also got its official poster through social media, with Knuckles using his iconic 3-stars hat seen originally in the "Sonic The Hedgehog" original video animation (OVA) film back in 1996:
"Sonic The Hedgehog 3" is set to release...
After a couple days of Nintendo releasing their 18.0.0 firmware update, @SciresM releases a brand new update to his Atmosphere NX custom firmware for the Nintendo Switch, with the new version being a pre-release v1.7.0, which adds basic support for firmware 18.0.0, as well as adding some improvements and bugfixes along the way.
The changelog for version pre-1.7.0 is the following:
:arrow: Source
At the moment, Metroid fans are waiting expectantly for the next entry in the series. While Metroid Prime 4 has been largely silent after its development restarted, Metroid Dread and Metroid Prime Remastered have given the old franchise some quality representation on the Nintendo Switch. Combined with various Metroid titles becoming available through Nintendo Switch Online, Metroid is in a much better state now than it was just a few years ago.
It's good to see it back, as the old series is one of Nintendo's biggest first party franchises, and fans were afraid that its story had reached an untimely end. For a decade after Metroid: Other M released on the Nintendo Wii, the only Metroid games released were the spin-off Federation Force...
While Nintendo franchises like Mario and Zelda may get more recognition in the mainstream gaming industry, the Metroid series has quietly been one of the most influential franchises for the company, and part of this influence comes from the expertly crafted title Super Metroid. The hype surrounding Metroid Prime 4's release demonstrates how far the franchise has come despite always being in the shadow of Nintendo's more popular series. Now, 30 years later, Super Metroidhas become a legendary title in the gaming space, contributing to the popularization of the action-adventure genre in both the AAA and Indie gaming spaces.
Super Metroid launched 30 years ago for the SNES and was developed by Intelligent Systems, who had developed the...
As development on Hollow Knight: Silksong continues, the wait for the game has become a popular topic on the subject of long-awaited titles. Silksong remains one of the most highly anticipated sequels at the moment, and the few updates the game has received has some wondering when the game will finally release. As developer Team Cherry continues work on the project, a look back at the game's development history up until now will hopefully shed light on what the game's future looks like.
When Hollow Knight landed on the scene in early 2017, the game quickly struck a chord with many gamers, proving to be an incredible Metroidvania experience. Filled with great lore and challenging combat, Hollow Knight soon became an indie hit, and since...
PAX East is always a treat. A smaller, more intimate show than PAX West, PAX East is a good way to take the industry's temperature and see a ton of exciting new games from both major publishers and small indies that are doing exciting new work you may not have heard of before. I spent four days at PAX East this year, seeing a ton of cool games both on the show floor and behind closed doors. Some I unfortunately can't talk about, but let me be clear: I saw a lot of cool stuff. This roundup will cover the best of the best.
Lucid | Developer: The Matte Black Studio | Publisher: Apogee Entertainment | Release Date: TBA
Sometimes, even during a show as great as this year's PAX East, there's one game that seems to suck up all the oxygen in...
In 2017, Jon Burton released his director's cut of Sonic 3D Blast, which provided an improved way of playing a game that pushed the Sega Mega Drive to its limits. Since Burton didn't possess the source code for the Sega Saturn port of Sonic 3D Blast, he was unable to apply the same changes to that version of the game.
The aim of this hack is to apply some of the stylistic changes of the Sega Saturn version of the game to the Mega Drive Director's Cut, within the limits of the Mega Drive hardware. Namely, this hack adjusts almost every colour palette in the game to match the more realistic/nuanced visuals of the Saturn version, and provides an opportunity to listen to the Saturn soundtrack in place of the Mega Drive's music.
Included...
The GOG Spring Sale 2024 is currently underway with over 5500 discounts of up to 90%. With a few days left to avail of the sale, the digital storefront is offering gamers a game to claim and keep for free: Hammerting.
The giveaway ends on April 1st, 2 PM UTC, and the GOG Spring Sale 2024 will last until April 4th, 8 AM UTC.
:arrow: SOURCE
:download: Hammerting GOG giveaway
Troubled gaming conglomerate Embracer announced Thursday that it has agreed to sell Gearbox Entertainment, the studio behind the Borderlands games, to Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two for $460 million.
The deal makes a lot of sense — Take-Two has been the publisher for Borderlands through its 2K Games label since long before Gearbox was acquired by Embracer in 2021. In its press release, 2K said the next Borderlands game was in active development at Gearbox.
As part of the deal, Take-Two acquires the Borderlands franchise and its spinoff series Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, as well as the Homeworld, Risk of Rain, Brothers in Arms, and Duke Nukem series. The studios acquired by Take-Two are the Gearbox Software mothership in Frisco...
Despite being whimsical and colorful adventures with flexible action-RPG combat to boot, the Mana series has largely existed through remakes instead of new entries for the past 15 years. This is what makes Visions of Mana--the first fully-realized entry in the modern sense in a long time--such a big deal for fans of Square Enix's dormant franchise.
Visions of Mana makes the most of its newest outing with vast regions to explore, breathtaking vistas to take in, and an emphasis on magical elements woven into both its combat mechanics and exploration that create synergy between the two.
Having had the chance to play a brief two-part demo for Visions of Mana, I was left eager to dig into its systems as that's where the game's real...
As part of the wider announcement that Take-Two has acquired Gearbox from Embracer, Take-Two announced that Gearbox is now in "active development" on the next Borderlands title.
In February this year, Gearbox founder and CEO Randy Pitchford teased the company's next game, saying it is the "greatest thing we've ever done." Many believe it's the rumored Borderlands 4. The latest entry in the main series was 2019's Borderlands 3. In 2022, the spin-off Tiny Tina's Wonderlands was released, and a sequel is reportedly in the works.
Whatever the next game is, the new Borderlands game is just one of many upcoming games from Gearbox. There are six "key interactive entertainment projects" in the works currently at Gearbox in various stages of...
NetEase Games and Marvel Games are partnering up to develop Marvel Rivals, a new, 6v6, free-to-play team-based PVP shooter for PC featuring the iconic Marvel superheroes as character rosters. An announcement trailer was aired, providing a glimpse of the gameplay:
Marvel Rivals will feature the following:
A Deep and Varied Marvel Roster: Choose from a vast array of fan-favorite and cult-classic Marvel Super Heroes and Super Villains from across the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men, and many more from across the Marvel Multiverse. With the Alpha Test in May, players will have access to more than a dozen playable Super Heroes and Super Villains, including iconic characters such as Black Panther, Spider-Man, Magneto, and...