Founded way back in 1972, Atari celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The all-but-defunct company doesn’t really make games anymore, but it does like to plaster its recognizable logo over everything it can find—from hotels to PCs. And to celebrate that the company is still clinging to life, Atari has finally…

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Yet again, PlayStation Plus in Japan will get an additional game that isn't available worldwide. The announcement for the region included a fourth Atlus title. In February 2022, the Japanese PlayStation Plus lineup also offers Dragon's Crown Pro. People with a subscription there can claim it until February 28, 2022.

It appears alongside EA Sports UFC 4 (PS4), Planet Coaster: Console Edition (PS5), and Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep: A Wonderlands One-shot Adventure (PS4). All three of those will be available worldwide.

【#PSPlus】2022年2月提供コンテンツ情報！
フリープレイに『EA SPORTS UFC 4』や『ドラゴンズクラウン・プロ』『タイニー・ティナとドラゴンの城塞 ～ワンダーランズで一発限りの大冒険！』など4タイトルが登場！

詳しくはこちら⇒ https://t.co/POAIEYDlTx#フリープレイ pic.twitter.com/Alnp5b6PxJ

— プレイステーション公式 (@PlayStation_jp) January 27, 2022

It’s about time. The women’s game of hockey is finally making its way to EA’s NHL series. The latest NHL 22 patch introduces playable women’s teams and full IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) rosters to the game, just in time to generate hype for the Winter Olympics in Beijing. This means you’ll be able to take the ice as some of the great icons making a name for themselves in the sport, from Team USA’s speedy Kendall Coyne-Schofield to Team Canada’s “Captain Clutch” Marie-Philip Poulin. 

This is a great moment for the women’s game, and the impact isn’t lost on the players. Marie-Philip Poulin said in an EA Sports press release that “It has been such a privilege to lace up my digital skates for the very first time in NHL
22, and to get to do so while playing for my country makes it all the more surreal." She continued, "Representation matters, and I’m thrilled that every young girl who picks up a controller to play NHL 22 can feel like hockey is a sport for her, too.”

Sea of Thieves players of a certain vintage may well recall Wanda.

Wanda was a weaponsmith on Golden Sands outpost back in year one, and as unremarkable a background character as the bulk of Sea of Thieves' NPC shopkeepers. One day, though, something strange began to happen. Wanda started behaving shiftily, she forgot her name, lost her voice, and began hiding her arm behind her back whenever players were in range. More inquisitive sorts thought to catch her unawares, scaling atop her shack to peer through a window unseen. That's when the truth was revealed; Wanda was undergoing a horrific transformation, slowly turning skeletal as the weeks progressed. Things only got stranger from there; pungent plumes of smoke could be seen rising from her chimney, a mysterious companion was spotted lurking at the back of her store, and then, suddenly, she was gone.

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Before Hello Games made a name for itself with the procedurally generated space adventure No Man’s Sky, its developer was all about Joe Danger, a cartoonish motorcycle stuntman racing through an eponymous series of console and mobile games. After years of being defunct due to iOS updates, the Joe Danger mobile games…

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Today marks the first day of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty preview season for Magic: The Gathering, and it’s looking to be an exciting start of the year for the trading card game. Neon Dynasty marks the first return to a fan-favorite plane in 20 years, but instead of working with the same tropes used back in the day, Kamigawa has received a bit of a glow-up.

Set in the present day, 1200 years after our previous visit, Kamigawa is now home to a cybernetic civilization full of robotics, body modifications, and of course, plenty of neon lights. It’s now Magic’s most high-tech plane, a Japanese-inspired cyberpunk realm that I never thought we’d ever see. However, the Kamigawa of old is not lost, as this advanced society lives in balance with the kami, spirits, and nature we know and love.

People will have a reason to visit the Epic Games Store each week again in 2022. The company announced how 2021 went for the storefront and what people can expect from 2022. In it, it confirmed that Epic Games Store free games will continue in 2022 too.

How it works is that each week on Thursday, Epic Games offers at least one free game. People have a week to claim it. Once they get it, they own it forever. All they need is an Epic Games Store account to claim it. During special events like the weekly winter holiday sale, the company will offer a free game each day. In 2021, it led that campaign with free copies of Shenmue 3.

In addition to more free games, other 2022 plans came up. There will be more download options. Game Hubs will be introduced. There will be rating and poll systems introduced.

As for Daemon X Machina, this is the mech action game that originally debuted on the Nintendo Switch. A PC version followed in 2020. Originally, that was only available via Steam. But now it is on Epic Games Store as well.

Daemon X Machina is the Epic Games Store free game for January 27, 2022 through February 2, 2022. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair will be available February 3-10, 2022.

Hi! I’m Lena. You’ve probably heard my music in Celeste, or from this year: Minecraft, or Chicory, or Moonglow Bay. Maybe you saw my list from 2020 and just had to know what I thought for 2021. Whatever your reasons for browsing over to this list, hi! I write music & make games. I also have lots of opinions about them.

2021 in games was honestly good to me. People have led a lot of round-up articles talking about how there was no “big standout game” for people to rally around, and honestly I think that’s a wonderful thing. We didn’t, because the gaming space continues to grow more diverse every single year. Instead, we got a lot of really amazing and unexpected gems, some really sick remakes & ports of older games, and the kinda unbridled glee I get from seeing the dominant AAA games being 3D platformers (Ratchet & Psychonauts), a racing game (More Forza Horizon), and a shmup-like 3rd person shooter (Returnal).

None of those games are in my top 10 though, so let’s dig into some specifics on where my gaming tendencies led me in 2021. I played a ton of games. Here’s some of them!

Neat Games I Didn’t Play Enough Of (Yet)

I am an easily distracted person, and sometimes games become a little too strenuous on either my brain or my hands to complete. But I still wanted to give some words of recommendation to these few games that really left a good impression on me.

While the Dead or Alive franchise appears to be dormant on consoles, the free-to-play PC game Dead or Alive Xtreme: Venus Vacation continues to grow its roster.

Over the past few years, many new girls have been added to the game, but fans have been wondering why some of the classic heroines from the fighting games were left out. Today we learn that one of them is returning with tomorrow’s update, and it’s Tina Armstrong.

The superstar wrestler will as usual be made available with her dedicated gacha, and you can see her in action in the trailer below.

As usual, you should not expect to get her immediately (or even in the near future) unless you’re willing to pay. Her gacha will be exclusive to paid V-stones. Even if you are willing to open the wallet, the game’s terrible percentages won’t help you. The usual 1.1% SSR chance will likely be diluted down to 0.78% by a bunch of useless old SSR outfits thrown in the mix to make things unnecessarily difficult.

The good news is that her introduction will likely mean that the previous newcomer Koharu will likely become available in a free gacha soon.

In a recent interview with Men’s Journal, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — the burly mountain of muscle with a million-dollar smile — revealed that he intends to “bring one of the biggest, most badass games to the screen.”

The Rock stated that an announcement was coming but that he could not divulge which franchise he was referring to. This is not unfamiliar territory, as he has both Doom and Rampage under his belt. That particular belt hangs shamefully in an unassuming corner of the basement, as both of those movies were quite dreadful.

So what could Dwayne Johnson be hinting at? The gaming world is abuzz with the possibilities, and we’re throwing our hat into the ring with a list of options that will someday prove prophetic. Don’t be surprised when he actually elects to do all six of them in quick succession. Or simultaneously. He’s pretty versatile, you know.

Also, our hat is an expensive fedora with a playing card wedged into the band, and we would like it back when you’re done with it.

Alex Boniello is a wildly talented stage and screen actor, producer and musician. You can catch him currently in Whisper House.

Hello lovely Giant Bomb community. This marks my third year in a row that I have been asked to write a list for my favorite games site, and I’m happy to do so again! It has continued to be an incredibly weird year for us all, and while the situation in the NYC theatre scene is currently especially bleak because of Omicron, I’ve been thrilled to watch the theatre return, slowly but surely. To celebrate that, I’ve decided to share my favorite theatre moment of the year, as well as some other favorite moments across all forms of media, before hopping into my Games of the Year. I took a lot of comfort in enjoying these things and I wanted to share them. Because it’s my list!!! And I can!!!

Theatre of the Year: Hadestown’s first performance back

(Full Disclosure, I’m a co-producer on Hadestown)

Former Giant Bomb man-child Dan Ryckert has graced us with his top 10 list for 2021. You can catch Dan in the debut season of Bak 2 Skool, the Fire Escape Cast and on Twitch.

And quite possibly, in the time it's taken you to read this intro, Dan has inexplicably won a juggling contest, invented a new type of eating utensil and written several books on all the subjects previously referenced. For signed copies, please reach out to Dan directly on Twitter.

Dan's Honorable Mentions: Loop Hero, Forza Horizon 5, Death’s Door, WarioWare: Get it Together!

We are honored to have Super Eyepatch Wolf contributing to our 2021 Game of the Year guestlists. If you're unfamiliar with Mr. Wolf, he has a supremely great YouTube channel where he makes videos that shake the entire internet with each release.

His most recent upload, "What The Internet Did to Garfield," is not just perfectly on the nose for the GB Extended Universe, but has also been viewed over 2.5 million times.

But perhaps best of all, we're currently working on a new podcast with John that will begin to air in February.

Honourable mentions

Inscryption, Shin Megami Tensei V, Metroid Dread, Little Nightmares 2, Binding of Isaac: Repentance.

Mary Kish is Head of Community at Twitch. She's @merrykish on Twitter and you can also find her on the Fire Escape Cast.

Fans of 2000s platformers may remember Kao the Kangaroo. The punching marsupial first graced North American audiences in 2001 on Dreamcast, PC, and Game Boy Advance and starred in three subsequent titles in the following years. Though the series never reached the heights of a Crash Bandicoot or Ratchet & Clank, that hasn’t stopped Tate Multimedia from resurrecting the forgotten mascot for a brand new adventure.

Kao the Kangaroo is a brand-new title coming this summer that lets players jump, swing, climb, and pummel their way through a variety of colorful worlds. If you’ve caught yourself reminiscing about Kao asking, "wonder if they'll ever make a new one of those?" this is your day. Take a look at how Kao is being modernized in the trailer below. 

Kao the Kangaroo doesn’t have a firm release date, but it’s coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. It won’t be the only platformer from yesteryear making a comeback. Joe & Mac is also getting a remake which you can read about here. 

by Alex Zandra Van Chestein

Alex Zandra is a Canadian game designer, streamer and light novelist. She makes all kinds of stuff on her Patreon. You can find her on Twitter @zandravandra and watch her stream on Twitch.

Hey hi folks! I’m so glad to be here. I’m so glad you’re here, too. <3

Last year was a lot. I think I grew more as a person than I have in a very long time, in no small part thanks to a metric tonne of heavy-duty therapy. But it’s been a lot of grueling, exhausting work! And also, like… the pandemic’s been rough. We were not meant to be apart for so long. Fingers crossed this year will be kinder to all of us.

In a new video, Mark Fitzpatrick of the anime YouTube channel Totally Not Mark revealed he not only won a battle in his copyright strike war with Toei Animation but also influenced YouTube to create a new copyright rule for content creators.

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Evil Uno has played A LOT of video games in 2021.

Here are the best of them:

Honorable mentions: Ratchet & Clank: Ryft Apart, Deathloop, Death’s Door, Fights In Tight Spaces

This is the year that I went from playing games and talking about games to actually making games. I’ve been helping Stray Bombay (the makers of The Anacrusis) with comms, which means I finally understand how the sausage is made. At least for our game. Of course, I also co-host Brad & Will Made a Tech Pod with someone you probably know, and have been streaming PUBG, Returnal, Inscryption, The Anacrusis, and the occasional LEGO build on Twitch. (By the way, The Anacrusis came out in early access on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, the Epic Games Store, and Xbox/PC Game Pass on January 13. You should check it out!)

Mercifully, voice comms in PC games aren’t all about being lambasted by strangers. Whether giving a quick thanks to a helpful teammate or settling into an hours-long Discord session, some games are just better with a bit of a chinwag going on – and adding one of the best gaming microphones to your setup will make sure you always come through loud and clear.

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When KOF XV debuts, people who get a day one physical or special edition will also get a Garou: Mark of the Wolves DLC outfit for Terry Bogard. To help call attention to it (and some gameplay details), SNK shared a new trailer. In it, people can see Terry wearing the Fatal Fury look while fighting or talking to other members of the cast.

Here's a full look at the Garou Terry KOF XV DLC. The trailer starts with a conversation between Terry and Blue Mary. It hints at the relationship between the two characters. This also provides a chance to see the outfit up close. In-battle footage comes up after that. Then at the 47 second mark, the different color palettes for this costume are shown off. It's followed by him reuniting with King of Dinosaurs. However, he accidentally calls him by his Garou: Mark of the Wolves name.

Be honest with me: when you read the words "Lovecraftian dating sim", did your mind go straight to a joke about tentacle porn? Horror-themed dating sims are not exactly new, but it's rare to be given the opportunity to date the eldritch gods themselves, and taken at face value, it's hard to imagine where else this could be going.

Well, allow me to dispel your illusions right away: Sucker For Love: First Date is not an H-game. It is, in fact, the most chaste dating sim I think I've ever played, while also managing to be the most obscenely graphic. You often hear games that straddle different genres accused of not knowing what they're trying to be. Sucker For Love does not suffer from this issue: it knows exactly what it wants to be. The challenge is for you, the hapless player, to keep the hell up.

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HELLO YES THIS IS DREW. Cranking out retro games and F1 podcasts doesn’t always leave a lot of time to play stuff these days, but I still managed to put together a list of things I played that came out this year! So stay awhile, and read.

10. Pokémon Unite

I’m really just putting this on here because it’s the closest substitute I’ve found for Fates Forever–the one (mobile) MOBA I ever got into–which was BRUTALLY ERASED FROM EXISTENCE so its developers could focus on some other project called “Discord.”

9. The Forgotten City

Today Paradox Interactive released a new video about the upcoming major expansion to Crusader Kings 3, Royal Court, which was announced back in May.

The video focuses on explaining a couple of basic aspects of your court, Grandeur and amenities, the balance of which will determine how you’ll influence the courtiers and peasants that visit you.

You can watch a trailer and hear about the expansion below.

Royal Court is going to launch on February 8, 2022, and below you can check out a summary of its features.

Last year, Odd Taxi took the anime world by storm, as its unique blend of pacing, storytelling, and characters made for a wild ride that resulted in one of the best anime of the year. And while no word has been revealed as to whether the show is getting a season 2, a film, Odd Taxi: In the Woods was announced in December.

Odd Taxi: In the Woods is set to depict the events of the anime in a film version, serving as a reconstructed compilation of the events of the series. Alongside this, it will also depict the aftermath of the shocking final episode, which ended on a cliffhanger. You can get an idea of what is in store with the teaser and key visual below.

For those that have never seen Odd Taxi, we’ve provided a series synopsis for your convenience:

Free games! It's hard to pass up on such an offer. In Epic's bid to steal market share from Steam, the Fortnite and Unreal Engine developer has been continuously giving away games since the launch of its Game Store.

Right on schedule, Epic has announced next week's free title: Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair.

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The Uncharted movie is coming close, and Sony Pictures Entertainment has the promotional machine firing on all cylinders.

This time around, we get to see a trailer labeled “final” and it’s definitely action-packed, showcasing plenty of stunts that make the film look quite bombastic.

Of course, this includes the iconic cargo plane scene, which is basically lifted from Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. You can watch it in a previous video that was revealed during Sony’s press conference at CES.

Check out the new video below.

The Uncharted movie will premiere in theaters on January 28, 2022, just a few days after the launch of the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which will come to PS4 and PC in early 2022. You can also take a look at another recent trailer.

Today, Two Point Campus, the official follow-up to the hit title Two Point Hospital, got an official release date of May 17, 2022. The news came by way of a trailer, which also revealed that the upcoming simulation game is now available to pre-order, which you can do right here.

You can check out the official trailer and description for Two Point Campus right down below:

In Two Point Campus you will be able to build the campus of your dreams, while shaping the lives of your students to give them the adventure of a lifetime, full of meaningful relationships, fun extracurricular activities and of course…top quality education. After all, happy students and good grades will lead to an increase in Campus prestige, which means you can enrol more students, and coincidentally, make more money…

If you're planning to upgrade your phone this month and the Google Pixel 6 or Google Pixel 6 Pro has been on your radar, you can land some great data deals over at Mobiles.co.uk right now.

The cheapest Google Pixel 6 deal at Mobiles.co.uk offers 30GB of data plus unlimited minutes and texts with Vodafone, from just £23 per month. It's worth noting these offers do come with upfront fees, but this will at least reduce your monthly costs.

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The Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practice in Singapore launched an investigation into Ubisoft Singapore last year following reports of harassment and workplace misconduct at the studio. TAFEP, which is a third-party agency, has concluded that these reports were handled appropriately by the studio, as reported by IGN. 

TAFEP says Ubisoft Singapore has a proper system in place to handle reports of harassment and workplace misconduct and that past reports were handled correctly. The agency also concluded that differences in pay are based on performance, in terms of experience and time at the company, rather than other biases. 

“We’ve put best practices in place at Ubisoft Singapore to ensure a safe, respectful, inclusive, and equitable workplace for every member of our team,” managing director Darryl Long said following the investigation’s conclusion, according to IGN. “We will continue striving to be an exemplary employer in Singapore and the region, one that attracts and retains the best talents and creates amazing games that enrich the lives of our players.” 

Konami announced downloads for Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel exceeded 4 million worldwide. The title launched on January 19, 2022, following a brief delay out of 2021. This means it hit the milestone after only a week. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]

Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel offers over 10,000 cards, which players can obtain through spending in-game currency or crafting. The in-game currency can be obtained by playing the single-player story mode. This mode is intended to help players learn the various rules and systems before jumping into online play. In addition, players can dismantle cards they do not want to obtain "Craft Points." These points can be used to craft cards. Players can also buy pre-built decks or cosmetic accessories through the in-game shop. There are also some free packs that people can get.

Konami plans to eventually host official tournaments through Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel. This could include the title potentially appearing at the Yu-Gi-Oh World Championships in some capacity. Leaks also suggested that some more single mode stories will appear for people who want more single-player options in the game.

IO Interactive has today announced a series of free upgrades for Steam owners of Hitman 3, following fan criticism of the game's arrival there last week.

Steam users have review-bombed the game and complained it should not have released with the same £49.99 price tag it launched with on the Epic Games Store back in January 2021.

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Today Microsoft revealed the new games that will be granted in February 2022 to Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers at no additional cost.

Below you can read the list. All the games are playable on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, while only the last two are playable on Xbox 360

• Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse ($24.99 ERP): Available February 1 to 28
• Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield ($11.99 ERP): Available February 16 to March 15
• Hydrophobia ($8.99 ERP): Available February 1 to 15
• Band of Bugs ($9.99 ERP): Available February 16 to 28

If you’re not familiar with the games, below you can enjoy a trailer and an official description for all of them.

Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse
Play as American George Stobbart and sassy French journalist Nico Collard, on the trail of a stolen painting and a murderous conspiracy. A conspiracy with roots older than the written word, leading to the start of another epic Broken Sword adventure.

According to a Japanese research study, only 2-5% of players spend money in gacha games like Genshin Impact. This means that the vast majority of players are subsisting on free gacha rolls from various in-game activities. With a little bit of persistence, you can improve your odds and save a pretty significant number…

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After a long wait, fans of Nekopara can finally pre-order the Coconut: Race Queen Ver. figure from the popular visual novel series.

This 1/7 scale statue features everyone’s favorite Main Coon catgirl Coconut in a race queen outfit and a full 360-degree recreation of the art by Nekopara creator and illustrator, Sayori.

The Coconut: Race Queen Ver. Nekopara figure also boasts a detachable vest and apron that allow for multiple display options. You can check it out for yourself in the images below:

Respawn is back at it again with another trailer to hype up a new season of their popular battle royale. Apex Legends Season 12: Defiance just received a cinematic launch trailer that gives us a look at Mad Maggie’s introduction to the Apex Games along with some changes to the Olympus map.

Defiance goes live on Feb. 8 and, as fans can expect, it’s bringing more than just a new Legend. Even though the video didn’t show any gameplay, it teased Olympus being warped while falling out of the sky along with some new lore and Mad Maggie’s potential abilities.

Also, when the new season drops, it’ll bring a brand-new LTM called Control that’ll be live for three weeks. It’s a 9v9 mode with infinite respawn where teams fight to capture and hold points on the map, which sounds a lot like Hardpoint Domination from Titanfall 2.

You can check out the trailer for Apex Legends Season 12 for yourself right here to see all of the mayhem for yourself:

Pat Baer is a comedian currently living in South Carolina who you may have seen at various PAXes with his panels Pat Baer’s Anime Club, The Improvised Postmortem, and League of Heels. You also may have encountered him on Twitch, where he builds Gundams and LEGO. He hopes to move back to NYC in 2022.

2021 was another year where I stuck with only a few video games, but watched a lot of anime. And once again the fine folks at Giant Bomb let me share a list of my favorite anime of 2021! If you like your lists in video format, I’ve got you covered here: click!

Honorable mention goes to The Faraway Paladin, which starts as a slow and patient exploration of what it means to be given a second chance at life, but by the end of the season is just another decent isekai.

10. Remake Our Life!