January 2021

Hong Kong has a popular snack chain called Aji Ichiban. Despite the name, it’s not actually Japanese, but I do recall going to these stores a lot whenever my family and I visited, where we’d fill our suitcases with its giant pack range of Chinese pork jerky and dried mangos.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s Ichiban Confections is also a snack shop, albeit one that specialises in Japanese rice crackers. It’s also unfortunately on its last legs – unless someone with the right business acumen can turn it around.

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OK, I know this is my second Have You Played…? to find an excuse to start by talking about Age Of Empires 2, and I imagine Alice Bee is making a proper wolf noise out of frustration as she edits this. I am almost sorry. But like a smug schoolboy proclaiming he’s “home” in a game of “it” by touching a tree, I’ve got a cast iron excuse here. Because Offworld Trading Company‘s lead developer Soren Johnson told me himself that this cracking solar-system economics-’em-up was directly inspired by the simple yet robust supply/demand modelling behind the market building in AoE2.

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I honestly don’t know where to begin with this pair of trainers that PC manufacturer NZXT and fashion outfit Artifact Studios announced last night. At first, I thought it was merely a fancy sneaker with an RTX 3080 ground into the heel – a feat that, during a global graphics card shortage, would have made my soul cry big salty tears of bitter discontent. Upon closer inspection, though, it seems they’ve built an entire PC inside this enormous piece of footwear, with an NZXT cooler, motherboard and fans all visible through the transparent purple side panel. It’s an impressive feat, to be sure, but I also have so many questions. How does it run? How many feet per second can you travel in these things? And will the fans help keep my toes nice and cool, or will they tear my soles to absolute shreds?

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Shutterbugs waiting on the return of Pokemon Snap might enjoy this blink-and-you'll-miss-it TV commercial for the upcoming Nintendo Switch release, which has started airing on Japanese television.

The typically enthusiastic short stars young actor Kokoro Tarada and YouTuber Fuwa-Chan as the duo prepare to enter the world of "Pokemon Ecology", both dressed to the nines as old-school explorers and ready to get snap-happy on the wide variety of Pokemon that await within. Brief gameplay footage then gives us a sneak peek at all our favorite characters, including Pikachu... Apple Burner... LongBeak... and... Butterfly.

You can check out the commercial below, courtesy of NintendoEverything.

New Pokemon Snap launches on Nintendo Switch April 30. Pith helmet not required.

Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, has been working on the follow up to his Terra Battle role-playing games. It’s called Fantasian.

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Pier Village. Long Branch, NJ, USA. By Christopher VanDuyn.

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There's a lot to love about the original Super Mario 3D World, not least seeing lovable explorer Captain Toad become playable for the first time in a set of fun no-combat puzzle levels.

These levels will soon offer four-player multiplayer for the first time, as part of upcoming Switch re-release Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury.

Players can team up and play as four members of the Toad Brigade in local or online multiplayer (Captain Toad, plus his Yellow, Green and Blue sidekicks). Here's a look at that in action:

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That detonator drone. Cor! Drones can be a bit dull in games - stuff to swat away in annoyance in the latest Ubisoft offering, stuff you know is the sort of thing that can probably be picked up at Currys. But in Everspace 2, those drones. Those detonator drones. Lovely.

It's a clever blend. They are Asimov and Popcap, Foundation and Peggle. They come at you and explode. So far, so drone. But as they approach they ring out these escalating notes. I'm back with Jimmy Lightning, the ball bouncing over pins one to three four - Ode to Joy! Except it's inverted. I'm frantic to stop the escalation, to shoot it away or EMP it or dash to safety.

Everspace 2 is the space game I didn't know I wanted. Now it's here I really want it. And I wonder why I wasn't initially that excited.

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Former EA executive Peter Moore has returned to the game industry, joining engine maker Unity as senior vice president of Sports and Live Entertainment.

Moore announced the news on Twitter.

Moore's career in video games began at Sega, where he worked to launch the Dreamcast in North America. He later joined Microsoft to work on the Xbox, displaying tattoos of Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto 4 during E3 announcements. The video below shows the Halo 2 E3 2004 demo during which Moore showed off his Halo 2 release date tattoo.

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The KOF XIV debutant Meitenkun makes his return in The King of Fighters XV.

The post KOF XV Meitenkun Is Still Fighting Against His Own Drowsiness appeared first on Siliconera.

Dante from the Devil May Cry series is set to make his debut in Last Cloudia.

The post Devil May Cry 5 and Last Cloudia Collaboration to Feature Dante and Nero appeared first on Siliconera.

Devouring an entire solar system with industry is, at once, both frightening and highly appealing. Well, sci-fi management sim Dyson Sphere Program is now out in early access, if you’re curious as to how it feels transforming stars and planets into cogs for your mechanised empire.

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Do you ever play Valorant and just do a little sigh when you see what map has been picked from the pool for your next match? For me, that’s Split (and also Icebox actually, but this post isn’t about that freezy fiend). Split’s always been a tough one for attackers, with its annoyingly tight choke points you’d need to funnel down, and far too many 50/50 angles for defenders to hide in. But last night, Riot Games released a patch with tons of little changes that should make Split a whole lot less frustrating to play.

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Officially, Hitman 3 launched yesterday. In reality, uh, some players still aren’t really getting to play. The servers which imported progression from the previous two games have been overloaded, an issue Io Interactive scrambled to fix yesterday. Server woes are also causing some players to have the game interrupted by error messages prompting them to reconnect or play offline. Io’s most recent statement said they were working on servers.

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All those ‘90s babies grew up with the best childhood cartoons—shows so beloved they continue to remake them to this day. Recently we’ve seen reboots of Duck Tales, Animaniacs, and Ren and Stimpy, not to mention the many iterations of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But nothing really beats the originals.

In 2021,…

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This Wednesday, a St. Petersburg court has banned the Death Note, Tokyo Ghoul, and Inuyashiki anime after concerns that teenagers would mimic on-screen violence.

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Hardly the biggest news of the day, but I’m delighted to announce that I’ve joined the incredibly-talented team at @unity3d as SVP and GM of Sports & Live Entertainment. Delighted to be reunited with so many industry friends as we work on some really cool stuff. More to come...

The United Nations has made a game about the importance of the ozone layer.

Reset Earth is a mobile game designed to give players a better understanding of the role of the ozone layer in protecting the planet. It's due out on the App Store and Google Play on 10th February. The trailer is below:

The game itself is a single-player platformer with hand-drawn art. You switch between characters and use their abilities across four levels. Puzzles aim to educate players about environmental history and the science of protecting the planet.

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In a certain kind of game I am always called AAA. Not because I am good, or because I am screaming - often I am screaming - but because defeat rockets me out of the game, through the leaderboard name input and back into another round before I can stop stabbing the GO button, whatever button that may be. Bezier: Second Edition has just launched on Switch. It's a reworked take on the brilliant PC game from - jeepers, 2016! This is that dense, personal kind of game so filled with treats I don't want to spoil much, but I can at least tell you this: chances are good that in this game your name will be AAA too.

Bezier's superficially described as an unusual take on Geometry Wars or Robotron. It's a twin-stick shooter with a luminous aesthetic, an arcade treat in which you are a point of light pursued by other points of light. But Bezier is far weirder. It has bosses and lore and odd terminology. It has enemies who put me in mind of deep-space objects one second and those strange little fish who will follow your finger across the glass of a tank in another. It's Robotron in love with Terrance Dicks and Nicholas Fisk rather than John Carpenter and Paul Verhoeven. The booming voices! The sense that things are a joke and also not a joke. The ingenious, retro-tinged way you choose which level to go to next. Throw in a bit of Berzerk too.

In the aftermath of the deadly riot that saw Trump supporters storm the US Capitol building, several social media and video-sharing platforms announced bans and suspensions for President Donald Trump's accounts. One of these was Twitch, which on 8th January announced it had disabled President Trump's channel - and the company has now confirmed Trump has been permanently banned from the platform.

"We have indefinitely suspended President Trump's Twitch channel due to the ongoing risk of further incitement of violence," Twitch said in a statement to IGN. "The President's statements continue to be interpreted as calls to action, and we are taking this action to remove the potential for harm to our community and the general public."

It seems Twitch intends to initiate wider change on the platform, however, and will be making further changes to its policies to clamp down on violent rhetoric.

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Herman Miller is a legendary name in office chairs, a Silicon Valley staple often brought up as an alternative to any new gaming chair. Last year though, Herman Miller announced it would be making a gaming chair of its own in cooperation with PC peripherals giant Logitech - the Herman Miller x Logitech G Embody Gaming Chair. As you might expect from the brands involved, this is a super-premium option with an eye-watering sticker price of £1195 - and it's just one part of a three-piece set that also includes the £175 Ollin monitor arm and the £995 Nevin Gaming Desk. Is any gaming furniture worth that kind of money? I've been testing out all three elements to find out - and after five months, I'm prepared to deliver a verdict.

Herman Miller x Logitech G Embody Gaming Chair

Let's just say it up front. The Embody Gaming Chair is by far the most comfortable chair I've ever used, particularly for long working or gaming sessions when you're sat down for extended periods. My back feels better supported, my legs don't ache and in general I look a lot more like that perfect posture guy you see in ergonomics infographics. This is largely down to its unique adjustability options, like a pair of handles that let you pull out more material to make the chair deeper, individual controls for adjusting the upper and lower back support and arm rests that can be splayed out or brought close to the body in addition to being pulled up or down.

Link being able to buy a house in Zelda: Breath of the Wild felt like it was going to be a big deal. Finally, our hero had his foot on the housing ladder. At last, he wouldn't be stuck in his childhood bedroom or living with his Grandma.

But then, as you know, nothing else really happens with it. The house is there if you really want to go back and visit, but there's no real reward for doing so.

Well, Zelda fan Waikuteru has now created a mod with some home improvements (thanks, Nintendo Life). The house hasn't exactly received a Grand Designs makeover, but there are some clever ideas here which would make Link's property purchase a little more useful.

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Characters from the mahjong manga Saki will play Final Fantasy XIV's Doman Mahjong!

The post Final Fantasy XIV Doman Mahjong Gets Saki Collaboration Manga appeared first on Siliconera.

The Kingdom Hearts III Riku Nendoroid will come with a Mickey Mouse Acrylic standee.

The post Kingdom Hearts III Riku Nendoroid Now Available for Pre-Order appeared first on Siliconera.

Zed's potential is endless with the Super Reincarnation system.

The post Disgaea 6 Super Reincarnation System Will Let You Obliterate Enemies at Level 1 appeared first on Siliconera.

He will come with a total of five keyblades featured in Kingdom Hearts III.

The post Kingdom Hearts III Sora Nendoroid Pre-Orders Are Now Open appeared first on Siliconera.

Two weeks ago, Twitch announced they were suspending former US president Donald Trump from their platform, after he incited a violent attack on the US capitol. At the time, Twitch said they would “reassess” his account after his presidency ended. Well, now he’s been booted from the White House, Twitch have banned him for good too. They’re also updating their policies to crack down on those who encourage violence on the streaming platform.

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Hades

is packed with far more content than you might expect, even for a roguelite. There’s romance, there’s decorating, and – perhaps most exciting of all – there’s a fishing minigame where you can catch all sorts of underwater underworld inhabitants and sell them for valuable items and resources.

Our Hades fishing guide will walk you through how to get the Rod of Fishing and use it to catch all sorts of different fish. Below you’ll also find a full table of every fish in the game, where to find it, and your reward for catching each one.

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Following investigation by the European Commission, a selection of publishers have been hit with a combined €7.8 million EUR (or roughly $9.4 million USD) fine following accusations of geo-blocking practices.

In an official ruling by the Commission, it was decided Capcom, Bandai Namco, ZeniMax, Koch Media, Focus Home Interactive, and Steam owner Valve had breached antitrust laws by region-locking Steam activation keys for over 100 titles between the years of 2010 and 2015. The titles in question were rendered unusable outside of Czechia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, thus breaching the commission's "Single-Market" policies.

"You are victorious!"

I've heard those words a thousand times over the course of my multiple Puzzle Quest playthroughs. It all started back in March of 2007, and has, sporadically, continued to this day. While hope was lost for a while that the series would continue in earnest, a 2019 Switch port (with some new content) hinted that one day, we could see it return. That day has come.

Announced by way of publisher 505 Games, who acquired developer Infinity Plus Two (formerly known as Infinite Interactive, the original creator of Puzzle Quest), Puzzle Quest 3 is coming "later this year" on PC and mobile devices, with "additional platforms to be announced."

Note that the game is free-to-play, but monetization details haven't been announced yet. Amazingly, the game takes place "500 years after the original Puzzle Quest" (lore continuation?!), and involves "a 3D game world."

Just don't screw up the monetization and we're here for it.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Bokujo Monogatari/Story of Seasons franchise, and Marvelous is doing what it can to keep players hooked to its upcoming release throughout 2021. The next entry in the series, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, is slated for release in the west this March. Starting in April, players will be able to download DLC expansions that will add new locations and scenarios to the game, as well as some returning faces.

The expansion pass will include five parts, with one part to release each month from April through August. Included in this DLC are:

Earlier this month, publisher 505 Games acquired Infinity Plus Two, the Australian studio that created the hybrid match-three/RPG series Puzzle Quest. This morning 505 Games announced Puzzle Quest 3, a free-to-play sequel that takes place 500 years after the original.

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The main Elder Scrolls series consist of five games released across nearly two decades, and as a result the game’s fans have spent much of that time modding pieces of the older games into the newer ones. Or in this case modding parts of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim into the now ancient third game in the series, …

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UK publisher Team 17 has acquired the rights and assets for Golf With Your Friends from developer Blacklight Interactive for £12 million. ...