Cowabunga, booyakasha, and St Peter’s nipples!

These are just a few of the phrases closely associated with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and any of them can most appropriately be bellowed at the top of your lungs in 2021, with the retro-styled beat-em-up Shredder’s Revenge now on the horizon.

In keeping with the franchise’s penchant for alliteration, it promises some Foot flingin’ fun, and we cannot wait to get our hands dirty and just a little bit green. Some say that’s the leprosy talking, but if all but three of our fingers fall off, we’ll look even more authentic. Bonus!

Long since Eastman and Laird first doodled a quartet of incognito tortoises one fateful night in the mid-80s, fans have been at each other’s throats over who to declare the raddest reptile of them all. If one were to skew milquetoast, you could surmise that all of them are equally as fantastic, and frankly, their vibrant personalities are exactly what has kept this franchise so popular for decades.

Alack, alack… That’s not how rankings work, and so, a subset of the fandom will walk away disappointed, like so many of my ill-fated Tinder dates. If you disagree with this list, feel free to sound off with all fury in the comments. Your vitriol feeds Leatherhead’s soul, I guar-an-tee!

The Mass Effect Garrus body pillow started out as an April Fool's joke years ago and turned into a real thing through Jinx. Now it's back, and its arrival on April Fool's day is poetic perfection. 

There are a million and one reasons to love the Mass Effect trilogy, but one of them was the fact that the game offered friendships and relationships that were intimately crafted to bring the RPG aspect of the game to even more immersive heights. One of those romances is Garrus Vakarian, a former C-Sec officer turned renegade badass that could either be Commander Shepard's best bro or their lovah! While we can't have the real Garrus quite yet (we can dream), the body pillow that was available a few years ago is back through the re-launched BioWare Gear Store. 

But should you?

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Today, Gearbox has announced that it’ll be hosting a brand-new limited-time event to get players ready for its planned Borderlands 3: Director’s Cut DLC expansion, which is scheduled to arrive next week.

Dubbed Show Me The Eridium, the new event is now live and will give players plenty of opportunity to get their eager hands on a bunch of that valuable purple mineral. Indeed, not only will regular enemies now offer a better chance of dropping Eridium, but that titular purple rock will also be more likely to drop in Mayhem Mode, too.

Furthermore, the cost of Eridium will be reduced when using Moxxi’s Vault Line slot machine and there’ll also be a discount on all the items purchased from Crazy Earl in the Cargo Bay of Sanctuary III.

Of course, this new limited-time event coincides with the upcoming launch of the much-anticipated Borderlands 3: Director’s Cut add-on that releases on April 8. In other words, Gearbox is giving all you Vault Hunters a chance to stock up on that precious Eridium to help give you a fighting chance in next week’s more challenging expansion.

Speaking of which, the sixth piece of Borderlands 3 DLC is set to bring new skins, new quests, new game modes, a behind-the-scenes commentary, and a brand-new raid boss. However, to access said raid boss, you’re going to need a lot of Eridium.

Meanwhile, two new vending machines are also planned to release with the update next Thursday. Check out what they look like below:

Elite Dangerous is currently in the throes of alpha testing its new Odyssey expansion, with pre-order players now able to put a limited version of the experience through its paces. Some of Odyssey's new features have proven more contentious than others at this early juncture, and Frontier has now moved to address some of its biggest pain points - including Odyssey's tortuous AI-piloted Apex Interstellar taxi service.

Apex Interstellar is chiefly intended to provide players who're enthusiastic about Odyssey's on-foot combat but less so about space flight with a means of getting round the galaxy without needing to pilot a ship of their own. It's an entirely reasonable idea in principle, but the reality is an excruciating bore, leaving players stuck in the passenger seat with nothing to do for many - often many, many, many - minutes at a time.

It's doubtful anyone would actively choose to use Odyssey's space taxis in their current guise (least of all those seeking instant gratification thrills), but their rubbishness is exacerbated by the fact taxis are the only way to get around in the current alpha phase, leading to considerable criticism over the last few days.

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Grow crops. Save the world.

The post Review: Harvest Moon: One World Wants You to Save the World by Farming appeared first on Siliconera.

In 1996's Harvest Moon, a young man inherited a run-down farm from his grandfather, built it back up again into a thriving ranch with chickens and cows and crops, and married a young woman from the nearby town. In doing so, Harvest Moon’s developers effectively created the farming sim genre.

2021’s installment of Story of Seasons may have changed name (having ditched the Harvest Moon moniker when its developers broke off from publisher Natsume) but the plotline and gameplay goals have changed very little. In fact, rather like its protagonists' farms, it has nestled into a cozy repetition. And if you look to the genre the series pioneered as a source of comfort rather than novelty, like I do, that's just fine and dandy.

Hikaru Nakano has been with the series since before we knew it as Story of Seasons in North America, and has seen a run of farming games through numerous iterations. He first worked on the games as a designer for Harvest Moon 64 (which he says remains his favorite game in the series), and returned for other titles including Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland for PS2 and Harvest Moon: Magical Melody for the GameCube. As the series moved to the DS, he worked as assistant producer on Harvest Moon DS: Cute and as producer and director on Harvest Moon DS: Island of Happiness, among other games. And now, he's the director on both Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town and Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town.

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There's a good reason, Nakano says, why 25 years of iterations have not resulted in drastic upheavals to what Story of Seasons is: at its core, that's just not what the series is about.

Did Urban Dynamics do more than just inspire SimCity?

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Throg returned to his modest home Tuesday morning after vanquishing his mortal foe, Ka’al, and bringing the Gaia Crystals to their rightful place inside The Whispering Tree shrine. It was a long journey, made longer when Throg’s horse got his leg stuck between two boulders.

While dreaming, he recalled some of the highlights from his journey. Hundreds of Ka’al’s accursed legion fell to Throg’s blade, though he saved his most gruesome eviscerations for the last standing member of each cluster of foes. Time seemed to slow as Throg knocked a pikeman or ax-wielding barbarian to their knees, kicked their chest, and then lopped their head clean off. Afterward, Throg celebrated by pulling an empty mug of mead to his lips and pantomimed a stamina-replenishing gulp.

The hero awoke, fully dressed, and walked over to his simmering cauldron. The bubbling pot of tan liquid had sat alone for months, but it was as nourishing as the day it first materialized, along with everything else in Throg’s home. Throg consumed it in three swipes of his spoon and then left the empty bowl on the table so it could disappear.

“I only wish I could have shared this meal with The Raveness,” Throg said to nobody. She truly was a beauty, and Throg longed to have held her hand, but intertwining fingers was beyond their capacity. Instead, their doomed courtship was limited to smashing their faces together and taking their shirts off before darkness came.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City, the upcoming reboot of the Resident Evil film franchise, has been delayed. The film was originally scheduled to premiere on September 3 and will now arrive on November 24.

Sony, who is distributing the film, has not given a specific reason for the delay. Filming has already wrapped up but Variety points out that September 3 is the same day that Disney/Marvel’s Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings will hit theaters. There’s a decent chance that, as huge and as popular of a film franchise that Resident Evil is, Sony didn’t want to try its luck against a Marvel joint. That's all conjecture of course as any number of factors could have played a role. 

After 24 years at Sony and 18 of those in Japan, yesterday was my last day at #JAPANStudio. I will miss the great creative spirit and camaraderie of the studio that was a huge part of my life. Time to seek out new and exciting opportunities!! pic.twitter.com/XOW0XytYd4

— gavin moore (@GavinmGavin) April 1, 2021

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Is 1,200 V-bucks smart money? Or dumb?

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Keroppi is the king of the new Sanrio line

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The perfect product for Turian snuggles

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People have a chance to sample the R-Type Final 2 demo on the PS4 and Switch. There aren't Xbox One or PC versions to test.

The post R-Type Final 2 Demo Flies to the Switch and PS4 appeared first on Siliconera.

How do you speedrun a MOBA?! Well, I'll tell you!

Amazingly, there is a cottage industry of speedrunners for Heroes of the Storm. Spotted on Reddit, these brave souls apparently go solo, fight no enemies, and try to take down the opposing core as quickly as possible.

Given that you need to destroy at least one end line structure to get to the core, you can't just rush it; you have to work your way there as quickly as possible. Right now Raynor holds the record as the fastest hero to clear out the core in 12 minutes and 13 seconds, piloted by the player Wardeh. You can get a quick look at how these runs typically go with the video below.

The gist is that merc camps are often crucial to the success of these runs. Braxis Holdout is also a popular map for these sorts of runs, as players can capture the Zerg-pen objectives, and unleash the horde on one lane of the enemy side, creating a tidal wave effect. Raynor is perfect for this because of his safe range and ability to sustain himself via healing without having to "back" to base.

As an aside, it's crazy how much Blizzard has been disrespecting Heroes of the Storm even as of late. There was zero presence at BlizzConline, and there hasn't been a lot of buzz for the game from any arm of Blizzard in months.

I get that we don't have access to the books, but Heroes is in a fantastic state, and in some ways, firing on all cylinders. It deserves another chance and a second look from the MOBA community at large. Every time another MOBA falters and people swear off of it, that's Blizzard's time to strike.

There’s nothing like a special edition gaming console. Sure, everyone has a Nintendo Switch, but how many of us have an Animal Crossing-themed Nintendo Switch? Who among us has a PlayStation 4 with a big Spider-Man logo on it? These bespoke systems are truly one of a kind. Actually, in some instances, they quite…

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Fans love to speculate about what their favorite studios are working on, and head of Xbox Phil Spencer loves to feed into that unsatisfiable greed. For years, the Microsoft executive has teased upcoming games by hosting press conferences wearing shirts that feature beloved characters. And remember when Spencer tweeted about getting a new fridge more than four years ago? That was clearly a subtle nod to fans about the soon-to-be-popular Xbox fridge meme. Well, Spencer is at it again.

During a Microsoft press conference announcing 17 new games, fans were most eager to dissect Spencer’s home office for clues about unrevealed projects. Viewers were quick to point out that Spencer’s steampunk-inspired clock could be a reference to an upcoming Gears of War title. Others noticed that Spencer’s shirt looked “a bit dorky,” kind of like something a novelist might wear, leading them to speculate that Microsoft will soon revive the beloved Remedy franchise Alan Wake.

However, one of the most interesting elements to Spencer’s office was a pair of ski goggles, which had been suspiciously discarded on the floor. This set Twitter ablaze with speculation that Microsoft is working on a gritty, modern update to SkiFree, the classic skiing game that everyone had on their computers in the ’90s but no one remembers why.

We reached out to Spencer for a comment, asking if there was any merit to this conjecture. The Xbox head responded with, “For the last time, no! Now, please leave me alone. We’re trying to eat dinner.”

Also, find out what’s behind the secret door

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Outriders has finally arrived, transporting gamers to the terrifying and beautiful world of the planet Enoch. Throughout your journeys, you’ll discover fascinating new creatures and areas, working together with your teammates as you each use your unique powers to survive all the while.

As a result of all of this exploration and power usage, you’ll surely see some pretty cool visuals. Whether it is the glow that comes alongside your character’s powers, or the sights and sounds of the Anomaly, we’ve put together 10 4K and HD wallpapers from Outriders for your next desktop background.

There’s no ‘right’ way to play a game

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Today is April 1, also known as April Fools' Day. Some companies make fake game announcements, others make real ones, and every piece of information is treated with incredible scrutiny.

The fake game announcement has been a classic in the games industry, and today, Remedy Entertainment joined in the fun by posting a trailer for a theoretical PlayStation demake of its 2019 game Control. These are fairly common, but Control is a really interesting game to choose—with lots of unique physics concepts to get around, and a style that's still fairly recognizable, even at the low poly-count.

I'd definitely play this version of Control for at least a little while; PlayStation aesthetic nostalgia aside, it's really neat to see the spaces of Control reimagined in this old look. Even without the ray tracing, the brutalist architecture of the Oldest House is imposing, and the idea of Jesse's supernatural powers like telekinetic tossing and flight in an older engine is pretty novel.

That's actually maybe the most bizarre part of this, is noticing some of the modern gameplay conventions that have evolved after the PlayStation's lifespan, demade into this era's visual space. The camera zooming in when the player aims down the sights, for example, or even just how the twin-stick aiming feels so different from other third-person shooters at the time. Watching this side-by-side with Syphon Filter or WinBack is wild.

Borderlands 3’s upcoming Director’s Cut expansion brings many updates, but the most exciting bit combines two things players have been requesting for years: something to spend Eridium on and a way to reroll equipment bonuses.

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In this dark comedy, Palm Springs’ Cristin Milioti winds up with a spy chip in her head

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More Falcon and the Winter Soldier and also some whales

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The original JoJo is finally getting his own Nendoroid, as a Jonathan Joestar figure will appear worldwide before 2021 ends.

The post The Jonathan Joestar Nendoroid Will Appear Later This Year appeared first on Siliconera.

Look, with Tenchu basically dead, I’m coming in hot here. HOT.

The next Assassin's Creed should be set in Japan right? So we're agreed.

Wait, you want Assassin's Creed Revelations 2? That retreads on the same locations you've been to before? You want another Rome game? We have different priorities, friend!

In response to years of fan feedback over too many sword characters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, series creator Masahiro Sakurai released a special Smash Bros. Direct this week.

Sakurai began the stream by stating the fans' complaints had “deeply affected” him on an emotional level, and he solemnly swore to never add another sword user.

"You all have been politely screaming at me for a while to stop adding sword characters to Smash," Sakurai explained, his eye twitching. “I realize actions speak louder than words, so I figured it’s best to show you how committed I am to pleasing the lot of you.”

He pulled out a photo of Crono, the hero of Chrono Trigger and a long-requested Smash Bros. fighter. “Ah yes, Crono. I had big plans for this one but I realize he is both a sword wielder and an anime man. All of you have made it abundantly clear that you want no part of him in Smash for this reason, so consider your wish granted.” Sakurai then held the photo up to the camera and slowly tore it down the middle.

Sakurai didn’t stop there. He then opened a small safe containing a rough sketch of Halo’s Master Chief battling Mario, remarking, “It took years to pull this one off. Oh wait, doesn’t he use a laser sword?” He then crumpled the drawing and tossed it out the window of his corner office.

Outriders is finally out today for all of the things (save for the Switch). But some players have reportedly found themselves unable to play, seemingly stuck on an infinite loading screen. Pro tip: Just stay in line. They have to count your login.

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Today is another big day for airport developers for Microsoft Flight Simulator, with plenty of announcements and releases.

A spin-off group from Metropolitan Airport Development Brothers (who recently released Chofu) is working on one of my favorite airports, Osaka Itami (RJOO) in Japan.

While in recent years it has lost traffic to Osaka Kansai airport, it still hosts a lot of scheduled flights, and features a very scenic approach over the city.

A long bank holiday weekend is a good time to tackle a project. Maybe think about putting up some shelves, organising your drawers, cleaning the tent you'd left festering since summer, or building networks of road, rail, water, and air transport to shunt people and products around the world for fun and profit. Friend, if the last idea tickles your fancy, you're in luck. OpenTTD, the excellent open-source remake of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, is now available free on Steam too.

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On this week's episode of The Game Informer Show, we discuss a handful of the games we've been digging recently, including Monster Hunter Rise, Disco Elysium: The Final Cut, Yakuza Kiwami, Evil Genius 2: World Domination, and Prey. Unfortunately, this is Joe Juba's last episode as a full time employee, so we spend some time saying a fond farewell and wishing him the best. 

In this 2018 GDC session, ArenaNet's Horia Dociu shares three, simple, honest, and actionable steps that anyone can apply right now to become a better artist instantly. ...

The first part of Fantasian just made its Apple Arcade debut in Japan.

The post Fantasian Appears on Apple Arcade in Japan (Update) appeared first on Siliconera.

Technically, it’s Sanic Hegehog’s energy drink

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