Thank Goodness You’re Here is here; a gravy-flavored palate cleanser from all the action-adventures, Souls-likes and Metroidvanias I’ve played the last few months.
Published by Panic Inc., the same company that unleashed Untitled Goose Game into the world, there’s a certain throughline, even if the aesthetic and tone is very different. Presented in cartoon style somewhere between Cartoon Network and educational ‘toons for preschoolers, it’s an aggressively English, charmingly northern “slap-former”, where you play as an unnamed tiny man, who’s come for a job interview at town hall. After being fobbed off by the receptionist, he has to kill time in the fictional northern-England town called Barnsworth, which is definitely 80 percent Barnsley, 20 percent plausible deniability.
Thank Goodness You’re Here is almost the opposite of the anarchy introduced by Untitled Goose Game: you’re trying to help. Despite having no connection to Barnsworth, our little hero — in varying degrees of tininess — is inadvertently pulled into plumbing tasks, fetch quests and surreal dream-sequence meat-mangling, without ever being asked if he can help.
Coal Supper
While it is a video game, it’s more like a loosely connected bunch of set pieces and vignettes. Controls are simple: you steer the little guy around the town, able only to punch (well, slap) and jump. There are a few low-stakes platforming sections, but he isn’t attempting to be Mario. A lot of the joy comes from Barnsworth itself, with its nodding in-jokes, posters and signage running the comedy gamut from buttock slapping and visual gags, through to Yorkshire dialect gags and even a few digs at gaming – ludonarrative be damned!
There’s a running joke about wheelie-bins (in the UK, most of our garbage cans are on wheels) that made me laugh on a Sunday evening – the most dour part of my week.
It’s all actually funny. The writing and voicing help enrich this surreal little town as you explore, with Matt Berry (What We Do in the Shadows) headlining and a lot of UK comedy talent including The Delightful Sausage’s Chris Cantrill, currently co-creator of BBC’s Icklewick FM, which shares a similar surreal “northern” kind humor. (Cantrill was also just nominated for Best Show at this year's Edinburgh Fringe.)
The only drawback, one that comes from the on–the-rails style of play, is that it’s tragically short. But it’s dense with jokes and knowing nods I’m on my second playthrough, taking in all the details, like the horny elderly couple who are never involved with any of your tasks, but always on the sidelines; the cheesy dad-jokery if you linger in a scene and let the characters to talk (“I’m eating for two now… Plus I’m pregnant”); the lightly barbed references to economic decline in the north, and the unashamed exaggeration of northern or working-class stereotypes, many of which will go over American (and south-of-England) players’ heads.
A great example is when you launch the game, and it’ll ask a question in a heavy Yorkshire dialect. Answer ‘wrong’, and the game will play out with standard english text, answer right and all the menus will be loaded with northern slang. There's nowt to panic 'bout, mind: you can flip between 'em in t' menu at any time.
It’s a short but rich experience. It's worth playing for the sheet lunacy of the final set piece, possibly my favorite gaming moment of the year.
Thank Goodness You’re Here is out now on Mac, PC, PS5 and Switch.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/thank-goodness-youre-here-is-a-vibrant-funny-unashamedly-silly-game-133030648.html?src=rss
Hideaki Itsuno, who directed the Dragon’s Dogma series and other major games for Capcom, announced on Saturday that he’s leaving the company. “From September, I will start developing a new game in a new environment,” he wrote in a post on X. Itsuno has been with Capcom since the '90s, and worked on a slew of popular series, including Devil May Cry, starting with the second game. He created Dragon’s Dogma, and the most recent title under his belt, Dragon’s Dogma 2, sold over 2.5 million units within 10 days of its release earlier this year. It also reportedly broke Capcom’s Steam record for concurrent players on launch day.
“I hope you will continue to support Capcom’s games and characters,” Itsuno wrote on Saturday, adding, “I hope to create fun, beautiful games that are as memorable as, or even more memorable than, the ones I have created so far. Please stay tuned for my next creation!”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/dragons-dogma-director-hideaki-itsuno-says-hes-leaving-capcom-to-start-a-new-project-194511310.html?src=rss
Bandai has launched a new Tamagotchi model, and it's actually made with real recycled egg shells. The Original Tamagotchi Celebration digital pet is even colored like a tan/brown egg, with green and white designs along with pink accents and buttons. Tamagotchi comes from the Japanese words for egg (tamago) and watch (uotchi) — and the toy is unmistakably egg-shaped — so the use of egg shells in particular is pretty on-brand. The model is paired with a packaging the uses recycled paper, as well, and Bandai says the model aligns with its mission to "promote a greener future."
Tamagotchi is no longer just another toy from the 90s that millennials fondly remember playing in their youth. It has quietly made a comeback over the past few years, with both old players and kids contributing to its renewed popularity. In May, the company re-released Tamagotchi Connection, which old fans might remember as the model with a faux antenna, to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Last year, Bandai released the Wi-Fi-capable Tamagotchi Uni that gives users access to the Tamaverse, a virtual playground where players can meet others, so they could travel together and dress up their characters.
The Original Tamagotchi Celebration doesn't seem to have the Uni's more modern features, but it does come with basic Tamagotchi gameplay. Players will have to raise their Tamagotchi until it's an adult, feed it, give it medicine, clean its mess, play with it and even discipline it if it's acting out. It's exclusively available at Amazon, where's it's currently on for pre-order for $30.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-latest-tamagotchi-is-made-with-real-eggs-120051417.html?src=rss
Owning a Playdate comes with the perk of already having access to 24 games at no additional cost from the bundled-in Season One — and some pretty good ones to boot. But there are a ton of great games outside the Season One offerings too, for when you’ve finished the whole batch or, for newer players, while you’re waiting for new games between the weekly drops. Here, I’ll highlight some of the best games I’ve played so far from the Playdate Catalog. It’ll mainly be split two ways: games that use the crank and games that don’t. There are also a couple of titles that aren’t quite games, but are worth checking out all the same.
If you’re the kind of pro or college football fan who wishes they could time travel so they can watch every game as they happen, Apple Sports may be able to help. The iPhone sports app can’t break the laws of quantum physics but it can help you keep track of all the games during football season.
Apple Sports’ newest update adds more comprehensive alerts and features for National Football League (NFL) and National Collegiate Athletic Association Football (NCAAF) games. The app will not only provide up-to-the-minute scores and stats on games but it will also deliver play-by-play updates for scoring drives with its new “dynamic drive tracker” that can show the ball’s location on the field. The Apple Sports app will also provide real-time betting odds during every game.
The app will eventually add a drop-down screen that will show the main scorecards from game to game, a feed of updates for your teams and a search function that makes it easier to find and switch between games even if you don’t follow them. It'll also cannibalize the “Live Activities” alert feature from Apple TV. Both those features will drop when the iOS 18 beta launches in the fall.
The Apple Sports app launched in February for free and is available now on the App Store. As of Thursday, the app can track games for 15 different leagues’ seasons including the NFL, NCAAF, Major League Soccer (MLS), Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Basketball Association (NBA). Apple says more leagues will be added to the app in future updates.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/apple-sports-is-ready-for-some-football-with-new-game-tracking-updates-181536944.html?src=rss
Netflix and the BBC have released an all-too-brief look at Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. A clip from the stop-motion animated movie features Wallace proudly revealing his latest invention, a “smart gnome” called Norbot. The robot aggressively shakes Gromit’s paw while introducing itself to the pooch, hinting at trouble ahead.
It’s a very short clip, but it’s full of charm and wit. The concept of a smart gnome as a riff on the smart home is funny by itself and it perfectly matches the type of humor the Wallace and Gromit series is known for. Wallace encouraging Gromit to put the voice-activated Norbot through its paces is a great touch too, considering that the beagle is famously silent.
There’s something not quite right about Norbot — the robot has a creepy design and an all-too-chipper attitude (the great Reece Shearsmith voices it). According to the Radio Times, the smart gnome is designed to perform any gardening task or “gnome improvement” (heh). It proves a hit with Wallace and Gromit’s neighbors, at least until things start to go wrong in what may well be cinema’s most terrifying instance of AI running amok yet. Wallace and Gromit will have even more problems on their plate, as the film includes the return of franchise villain Feathers McGraw.
“We are delighted to introduce Norbot, a ‘Nifty Odd-jobbing Robot’ gnome, designed to help Gromit with his gardening chores,” directors Nick Park (the series’ creator) and Merlin Crossingham said in a statement. “Norbot is Wallace’s most proud achievement to date and, according to Wallace, his ‘best invention ever!’ Garden gnomes have long been a part of Wallace and Gromit’s world, but this is no cute patio ornament… We’re so excited to see Wallace unleashing his latest invention, Norbot, into the world. However, his long-suffering pooch, Gromit, may be a little less sure…”
It’s almost hard to believe that Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is just the second full-length film in the franchise’s long and Oscar-laden history. It will arrive almost two decades after The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
Netflix announced a deal with Aardman a couple of years ago to bring new Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit films to its platform. Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will arrive on the streaming service later this year everywhere except the UK, where it will premiere on the BBC.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/netflixs-wallace-and-gromit-movie-features-a-smart-gnome-robot-in-a-teaser-clip-143224865.html?src=rss
There are a ton of Rugratsgames from early CD-ROM games to the Nintendo 64 but there’s never really been one that truly stood out on its own. The MIX Games, Wallride and Limited Run Games may have given us the definitive Rugratsgame with Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland set for release on September 10 on Steam and both current and previous-gen consoles.
The new throwback Rugrats game was announced last year almost to the date. Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland looks like it was inspired by those classic NES platformers that fueled your childhood fun and frustration (funstration?). The game comes in two modes: HD mode featuring graphics that look just like the Nicktoon and a special 8-bit mode that looks like it came out on a throwback console.
You’ll be able to play as Tommy, Chuckie, Phil and Lil as you traverse the Pickles house. The babies are pretending that their homestead has transformed into their own video game, which may just be the most adorably meta thing ever.
Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland can be played in solo or two-player co-op mode. Limited Run Games is also releasing the game on orange and classic gray NES cartridges but you missed your chance to buy one because they’ve already sold out.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/rugrats-adventures-in-gameland-crawls-out-of-its-playpen-on-september-10-212021343.html?src=rss
Sony announced this morning that the game would be taken offline on September 6, and said it will issue refunds to the few people who chose to buy it. The team-based shooter was one of a scant few new first-party PlayStation games scheduled for release this year. Sony released it on both PS5 and PC on August 23. As for the scale of its failure, the company doesn't typically reveal detailed player numbers for its own platforms. However, Steam does. The numbers there are not pretty.
A Steam player count isn't entirely reflective of a game's success, Still, it’s a key data point from which we can extrapolate some assumptions. In its first weekend, Concord failed to break 700 concurrent players on Steam. That's a dismal figure for a reasonably high-profile launch, especially one from a major publisher.
For perspective, Galaxy Burger, an indie cooking sim I'd never heard of that came out on the same day, had more than four times the number of concurrent players on Steam (469) as Concord (104) at one point on August 28. As far as a comparison for a supposed blockbuster from this year goes, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League peaked at more than 13,400 simultaneous players on Steam. That co-op game was a notorious flop that led to a $200 million loss for Warner Bros. Discovery.
In addition, Concord has amassed 766 reviews on Steam at the time of writing. Some analysts estimate that each Steam review translates to between 30 and 50 sales. At the midpoint of the scale, that would put Concord's volume of sales on Steam at around 30,000. Given its concurrent players never surpassed its disastrous opening weekend figures, that feels like a generous estimate.
We don't have a strong idea of the sales numbers on PlayStation just yet, but its swift shuttering suggests things were not much better. Either way, it’s clear sales didn’t remotely come close to covering the development and marketing costs for a game that took Firewalk Studios (which Sony bought last year) eight years to make.
There are a bunch of reasons why Concord just didn't grab people's attention. I played a few rounds during the open beta and thought it was so-so. The combat was okay and some of the core ideas — such as a cool, lore-filled map — were interesting, but it felt like there was not enough novelty.
The first wave of characters was bland, which is not ideal for a hero shooter when Apex Legends and Overwatch 2 (vastly more popular rival titles that are free-to-play) each have dozens of distinct, engaging personalities for fans to connect with. The influence of Guardians of the Galaxy is keenly felt, for better or worse, which makes it seem even more like Firewalk and Sony chased after trends that were popular in 2016.
The biggest mistake of all looks to be the price point. With players able to access so many similar games without paying a penny, having to shell out $40 for Concord was evidently not an enticing proposition for the vast majority of PS5 and PC owners.
It's likely that we haven’t heard the last of Concord. Sony says it plans to “explore options, including those that will better reach our players,” which sounds a lot like a free-to-play pivot.
And yet, Concord seems to only be the one real sour note on what's actually been a quietly strong year for PlayStation overall so far.
Opting to release the game on PS5 and PC simultaneously paid off, as most of the initial wave of sales came via Steam, per analysts. However, the Steam player count has dropped off significantly in recent months, in part because of a controversial account-linking requirement.
Stellar Blade, another Sony-published game from a third-party studio, received a generally positive response from critics and it’s doing well commercially too. Developer Shift Up estimated that sales topped 1 million units within the first two months and said in June that a PC port was under consideration as a result.
Sony's strategy of bringing its major exclusives to PC in the years following their PlayStation debut has been paying off over the last few years. It's released two somewhat older games on Steam this year in the form of Horizon Forbidden West and Ghost of Tsushima. Both are excellent, faithful ports that perform well on my high-end PC as well as my Steam Deck. They were successful sales-wise too, with the former cracking the list of the top 10 best-selling games in the US in its first week. Ghost topped the overall US game sales charts for May overall, per Circana, just after Stellar Blade did the same thing in April.
Sony has at least two more blockbuster PC ports on the way this year. God of War: Ragnarök will hit that platform on September 19. The previous game sold more than 2.5 million units on PC as of last February, per the major Insomniac leak, so the sequel seems primed to do well too. The Until Dawn remake is coming to PC and PS5 just a couple of weeks later.
And then there's the small matter of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, which arrived on PS5 earlier this year with a great new roguelike mode included. There's no PC release date yet, but TLOU Day (Naughty Dog's annual celebration of the series on September 26) is fast approaching. That seems like a prime opportunity for an announcement ahead of the second season of the HBO adaptation debuting in 2025.
A cautious approach seems wise for Part 2. Sony will want to make sure the PC port has nothing like the kinds of technical issues Part 1 had when it arrived on that platform, so giving developers as much time as they need for polish is important.
Sony even has a couple more first-party games lined up for the last chunk of the year. It might not have to wait long to wash off the stink of Concord as the highly anticipated and completely adorable platformer Astro Bot lands on PS5 on September 6. Lego Horizon Adventures— a more family-friendly take on the Horizon series — is headed to PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch in a notable multi-platform debut this holiday season.
And then there's the hardware side of the equation. In the first half of the calendar year, Sony sold just under 7 million PS5s. That’s down from 9.3 million over the same period in 2023, but a dip’s to be expected at this point in the system’s life cycle.
How the PS5 stacks up against the competition tells a bigger story. Although Microsoft has long kept quiet about how many Xboxes it's selling, earlier this year some analysts pegged the ratio of PS5 to Xbox Series X/S sales at more than five to one. Yeesh. Given Sony’s larger install base, it’s little wonder why Microsoft is increasingly eager to bring its first-party games to PlayStation.
Meanwhile, at first glance, the PlayStation Portal seemed like an edge-case peripheral for the diehards. All it does is let you play games from your own PS5 remotely without even supporting Sony's cloud gaming service.
However, the Portal has proven to be a surprising hit. Sony said the device, which was often sold out for months, exceeded its expectations. It's the best-selling games accessory so far this year by dollar amount, according to Circana. And rumors are swirling that Sony is "paying very close attention to the current handheld market," perhaps suggesting that the company is finally ready to work on a proper Vita/PSP successor. One can hope.
Even the beleaguered PS VR2 seems to have had an upturn in fortunes after a recent sale and the release of a dongle that lets owners use it to play virtual reality games on PC. According to one report, the lower price led to a sudden 2,350 percent spike in sales. Sony may have even sold more units in a single day (July 28) than it did in the previous seven months overall, according toThe Shortcut. Reports suggest that PS VR2 sales have been disappointing for Sony, but such a sharp increase (or anything close to it) would be astonishing. Along with the discount, the extra utility of being able to use the headset for PC gaming surely helped, as the actual PS VR2 games library remains fairly small.
There's one other piece of hardware that could make 2024 even more of a barnburner for Sony: the widely rumored PS5 Pro. For months, leaks have been suggesting that a mid-generation refresh is coming this holiday season. Rumors point to the PS5 Pro being able to deliver higher speeds, faster game rendering, improved graphics, better ray-tracing performance and an 8K performance mode. Given that Microsoft's new Xbox variants either add internal storage, change the box's color or take away a disc drive, the PS5 Pro may look like an even tastier option for current-gen holdouts.
Update, September 3, 3:15 PM ET: This article was originally published on August 28, six days before Sony announced it was taking Concord offline. It has been updated and republished to reflect that news.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/concord-aside-playstation-is-having-a-great-year-171506490.html?src=rss
It’s been nearly five years since Apple Arcade launched, and while the service hasn’t fully delivered on Apple’s promise back in 2019, it can still be worth paying for. Of course, that’s provided you’re willing to hunt through the 200-ish games currently available on the service. I’ve been playing Apple Arcade games since it launched and these are just a few of my favorites that have stood the test of time.
What is Apple Arcade?
Apple originally released Apple Arcade with the promise of high-quality, exclusive games that are playable across basically every device the company makes. That includes the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV (though you need a controller for the latter). Over time, Apple started allowing games originally launched in the App Store as well, provided that they met certain criteria. All Apple Arcade games are ad-free and have no in-app purchases, something that really helps differentiate its offerings over the flood of low-quality games in the App Store.
While Apple Arcade launched with a pretty excellent lineup, additional games have unfortunately been fewer and farther between in recent years. Apple has also pulled a number of games from the service, including some of the best ones you could get like Sayonara Wild Hearts, Cozy Grove, Assemble with Care, Shinsekai: Into the Depths and numerous others. It’s a reminder that with a subscription service, things can go away at any time.
While we’re not seeing the same cadence of high-quality original games on Apple Arcade as we did a few years ago, I still think the service is worth the $7 per month or $50 per year subscription if you do a lot of gaming on your phone. Some of the best games in the history of the App Store are here (anything with a “plus” symbol denotes a game that was originally sold in the App Store and then brought to Apple Arcade), and there are still a number of excellent originals worth playing. It is worth noting that the “plus” games were not designed with Mac or Apple TV playback in mind and thus only work on an iPhone or iPad. These 16 games are some of the best you can play, and there are a bunch more I want to try for future inclusion on this list. In the meantime, this should be more than enough to get you started.
Samsung's first 5K monitor is now on sale at Amazon for almost half off its original price. The company announced the ViewFinity S9 5K monitor at CES 2023 and released it first in South Korea before bringing it to the United States with a list price of $1,599 in July last year. Now, you can get the 27-inch monitor for only $830, 48 percent less than its list price and the lowest we've seen the device go for on the e-commerce website. To note, ViewFinity S9 is comparable to the 27-inch Apple Studio Display, which is also a 5K monitor that will set you back at least $1,599.
The ViewFinity S9 has a 5,120 x 2,880 resolution, 218 pixels per inch, 99 percent DCI-P3 that delivers color saturation and a 60Hz refresh rate. It was designed with creatives in mind and has a matte display to reduce light reflections. The monitor also comes with an Intelligent Eye Care mode that automatically optimizes brightness, reduces blue light and eliminates screen flickering in order to reduce eye strain.
You can connect it to both Windows and Mac devices, thanks to its DisplayPort and Thunderbolt 4 connectivity, so you can use it as a monitor for various PCs. If you stream or attend video calls frequently, you can use its built-in SlimFit 4K camera that's also compatible with both Macs and Windows computers.
The monitor is Apple AirPlay-compatible and will be able to mirror or extend your screen, which you help you boost your productivity. If you're looking at lengthy documents and a vertical screen would be ideal, you can pivot the monitor 90 degrees to keep reading without scrolling as much. In addition, you can just as easily use it for entertainment, because it comes embedded with several smart TV apps, as well as Samsung's Gaming Hub.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/samsungs-27-inch-5k-viewfinity-s9-monitor-is-48-percent-off-at-amazon-for-labor-day-123013009.html?src=rss