February 2023

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line Review on PS4

Excellent soundtracks have been at the heart of the Final Fantasy series since its inception in 1986. Whether your first foray into the series was the NES original, Final Fantasy VII, or even Final Fantasy XV, chances are good that the music left a memorable impression on you. The compositions produced by the likes of Nobuo Uematsu, Masashi Hamauzu, Yoko Shimomura, and many others have stood the test of time, cementing themselves as a fundamental aspect of the series and even enduring outside of it in various forms.

Enter Theatrhythm Final Bar Line, the latest release of the rhythm game series. It allows the player to form a custom party from a vast pool of Final Fantasy characters in order to tap, hold, and swipe to the beat of hundreds of songs from the series at large. It’s a sizable sum of content, certainly, but is there enough mechanical depth to encourage the player to see it all?

As Atomic Heart’s release edges closer, a pair of sultry characters in particular have taken the limelight. The Twins, two advanced robotic assistants serving Comrade Sechenov, are making quite the stir on social media; due to their impressive physical presence and unique appearance, they have drawn comparisons to Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil Village.

Some fans have taken to Reddit to express their excitement:

One aspect that has particularly caught the attention of fans, properly displayed by the Reddit post, is the impressive height of the characters. According to calculations made by fans, the Metal Mommies stand at a towering height of 268 cm (8’9). The sheer physical presence these characters provide is immense.

To put the size into perspective, it has been estimated that the average height of the male character Dimitri Sechinov in the game is around 175 cm (5’8″), which is equal to 954 pixels on the game’s canvas. In contrast, the Metal Mommies stand at 1461 pixels, meaning they are 1.53 times taller than Dimitri — or a typical human being.

Despite only having a significant supporting role in one of the prequel movies, it seems that actor Liam Neeson just can’t get away from Star Wars. In a recent interview on episode 16 episode of Watch What Happens Live! (via Variety) the topic came up once again.

Specifically, Neeson was asked if he would be reprising his role as Qui-Gon Jinn full-time at any point soon. The actor had the following to say:

“No, I’m not,” Neeson said. “There’s so many spinoffs of ‘Star Wars.’ It’s diluting it to me, and it’s taken away the mystery and the magic in a weird way.”

Currently, there are only 11 Star Wars films that have been made, but a lot more of them have been popping up recently, as Disney has made plans for more spinoffs, as mentioned by Neeson. Alongside this, there’s also a lot of television series for the franchise, including four significant animated series and five notable live-action titles, each of which have gotten multiple seasons.

The uptick in live-action television series is especially notable, as there’s already been 41 episodes across five seasons of television since the first one, The Mandalorian, debuted in 2019. Considering there are four new series in the works (Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew, Lando, and The Acolyte), maybe Neeson has got a point about oversaturation.

What do you think? Does Star Wars need to dial it back a bit and save some of the mystery and magic? Let us know in the comments below.

One of the best things about mods is that it allows dedicated and knowledgeable gamers to adopt an “if the developers won’t do it, I will do it myself” attitude regarding all sorts of issues affecting a game. In God of War Ragnarok, players were frequently annoyed that nearby characters during puzzles would give the solutions with zero prompting. The same issue plagues Hogwarts Legacy, but a PC modder has decided they wouldn’t let it keep happening.

This has led to the creation of the Hogwarts Legacy Puzzle Hint Voiceover Remover by modder HaywirePhoenix over at Nexus Mods. If this speaks to you (pun intended), know that it is only available if the game’s language is set to English. The mod page doesn’t detail why this is, but it’s presumably because the mod goes into the files and removes all the puzzle hint dialogue from the whole game, and the modder only knows English.

If you’d like to enjoy figuring things out for yourself without the game trying to be too helpful, this will give you peace during puzzles.

Some users in the mod’s comments have also requested the removal of lines from some of the game’s more talkative characters, such as Deek.

Apex Legends has some good and some iffy challenges for gaining battle pass progress. One of the better challenges has players getting a certain number of kills and assists, as either will count. it allows a team dynamic where you don’t necessarily have to play the vanguard and rush fights, you can support teammates from long range, and you get the assist if they eliminate a player you have damaged.

Most LTMs (Limited Time Modes) during a collection event with a prize tracker will have a daily goal of 10 (and then an additional 15 for 25) kills or assists, and that’s mostly doable because just about every LTM takes place as a battle royale mode that still features the one squad against many gameplay.

It’s been going on seven years since players got their hands on Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, and news from developer Firaxis Games (XCOM, Marvel’s Midnight Suns) has given an update on the series’ future. The news comes from a quote by the previous Chief Operating Officer, who has just been named the new Studio Head at Firaxis Games, Heather Hazen.

In an interview with Business Wire, Hanzen said, “I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to carry on the studio’s storied legacy, beginning with the announcement that Firaxis is in development on the next iteration of the legendary Civilization franchise.”

While the quote doesn’t give any direct name to whatever this next title might be or how far along Firaxis Games is in its development, it will likely be Sid Meier’s Civilization VII. The last spin-off was Civilization Revolution 2, and it was developed and released exclusively for mobile platforms in 2014 before being ported to the PlayStation Vita in 2016.

Mainline Civilization games are big for Firaxis Games and see many additional years of support. For instance, in November, a new DLC was launched for the game in the form of the “Leader Pass,” which gives players new leader characters on a monthly basis until March 2023. For this reason, it makes the most sense that the developer will be eyeing a new mainline game that will take over not long after Civilization VI has been entirely finished.

We’re only months removed from the release of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, but with Nintendo’s announcement of a version 1.2.0 update slated for late February, players can expect Tera Raid and performance fixes, to name a few, in the near future.

This update brings plenty of quality of life changes, with many of them centering around Pokémon Boxes. Players will be able to manage much more with regard to their creature’s status all in one location, such as their nickname, held items, markings, TMs, and moves — whether it be reordering, remembering, or forgetting them.

However, the bulk of this update focuses on several bug issues that continue to plague the game, and promises that the development team “are planning further features and bug fixes not listed in these patch notes.” Most notably these fixes are aimed at tackling issues players have had with battling, and Tera Raid battles specifically.

Pokémon Scarlet & Violet 1.2.0 Patch Notes

While these fixes come in all shapes and sizes, improving battle performance is at the top of the list. After that, players should notice a few quality of life changes as follows.

Feature Adjustments

In addition to everything you’ll be able to do from the summary screen, players can also select All Boxes while moving items or Pokémon in both the Party and Boxes as well as Held Items view.

Plus, boxes assigned to a specific Battle Team will have a darker, more visible icon display if they are part of the team currently shown.

Like a Dragon: Ishin! Review on PS5

As I run through the streets of Kyo blending street thugs with an over-the-top fighting style and attempt to buy an old woman groceries, a single phrase running through my head encapsulates Like a Dragon: Ishin! perfectly: It’s good to be home.

Granted, this might seem strange to those looking forward to the game. After all, it’s the first time the title has released in any way, shape, or form in the west, with the original Yakuza: Ishin! only releasing in Japan. Not only that, but it’s a pseudo-remake that heavily alters certain aspects of the source material in order to make it more palatable to the newer members of the series’ fandom. Character models and voices have been replaced entirely, while new content has been added in to flesh out the experience further.

But therein lies the beauty of this re-release. Despite its changes, Like a Dragon: Ishin! is a classic Ryu Ga Gotoku title through and through, and manages to utilize its reliance on older series conventions in a way that makes the entire experience as ideal as possible.

Skyrim first appeared on Nov. 11, 2011, and 11 years later, I still find myself going back to it time and time again. Something about this game keeps drawing me back in, sometimes after months or even years away. Why do I keep going back to Skyrim when there have been dozens of other fantasy RPGs released in the decade-plus since the game was released?

When Square Enix first revealed Project Octopath Traveler in Fall 2017, it immediately entranced me with its distinctive HD-2D visuals and promise to revive the forgotten genre of classic turn-based JRPGs. Call me a stubborn purist, but I will always favor rich sprite work over even the most photo-realistic polygons. I was bound to love it, regardless of what the experience ultimately turned out to be.

It released on the Nintendo Switch a few short months later, in July 2018, and turned out to be pretty much everything I had hoped for. Octopath Traveler garnered near universal acclaim, though its detractors decried its somewhat derivative and predictable gameplay loop. It proved to be an honor to those halcyon Super Nintendo and PlayStation games it imitated, without ever approaching the same heights in its own right.

Fast forward almost five years later, and we’ve been treated to a myriad of gorgeous, fascinating titles crafted in the same style. 2022 brought us both the turn-based strategy effort Triangle Strategy and a retooled version of mid-90s JRPG Live a Live, and by now, Square Enix has perfected the HD-2D aesthetic (but tragically, not the subtle art of titling).

Hogwarts Legacy is a massive game in its own right, and the best part is, there are still a few things to do even after you’ve beaten the game and unraveled the Goblin conspiracy. The post-game content isn’t quite as in-depth or expansive as other RPGs we’ve seen in the past, but here are six things to do after beating Hogwarts Legacy.

Frogs in video games are all the rage. From classics like Frogger and Chrono Trigger’s Glenn to the latest Minecraft update and Hades II, these li’l guys seem to be everywhere, and for good reason. They’re cute. They’re fun. They’re, uh, ribbity.

That’s one reason why Ribby: The Game caught my eye. It’s an upcoming indie RPG by Octolivvy that explores themes of friendship, acceptance, and altruism.

The other reason it caught my eye is that the main character is named Ribecca. Ribecca the frog girl.

I, a frog-loving girl named Rebecca, need to play this game immediately.

Ribby: The Game is a throwback to the Game Boy Color era with visually pleasing monochrome color schemes. It combines elements of RPGs and visual novels to tell the story of Ribecca on a journey to get back to her home. While it looks wholesome and humorous on the outside, the game’s description states that it also explores heavier themes such as abandonment and anxiety.

A new kind of hunting game is coming, and Koei Tecmo and EA’s Wild Hearts is making sure players are getting a different kind of experience when fighting against the Kemono. Not only are there huge and intimidating creatures to do battle against, but there is also the matter of using crafting mechanics to turn the turn. If you are seeking some vital tips to help you bring peace back into the world, then here are the top 10 Wild Hearts tips and tricks to set you on the right path.

By making sure players have access to more tools beyond their weapons, Wild Hearts is building on a foundation that makes the environment as important as your best equipment. There are also many other ways to gain an edge, and learning this knowledge will ensure you have a better time.

When the Winnie-the-Pooh property entered the public domain in the United States in 2022, nobody expected that one of the first non-Disney uses of the property would be for an ultra gory slasher film. Well, that happened. Much less did the world think that movie would be a financial success. Well, that also happened. Having just released, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey is already a box office success, despite awful reviews.

It is generally known that in Hollywood, a movie would have to earn more than double its budget to be considered a financial success; Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey has achieved this at least ten times over. The film’s production companies Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Studios have not revealed the exact budget cost for the film, but they stated that it was less than $100,000, according to a report by Variety.

With just its Mexico release, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey has already raked in over $1,000,000, earning at least ten times its budget, and with an additional $700K domestically on day one. Needless to say, a sequel to Blood and Honey is already in the works. Money talks, even though there are probably some people who would object.

Project Wolf Hunting is basically Con Air meets Predator

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Remakes can offer new creative minds the chance to inject old ideas with fresh reinventions. Dead Space is a great case study, as Motive Studios smartly updated Visceral Games’ successful template while preserving its most beloved elements (here’s our review). To learn more about how the remake came together, we had a conversation with Motive Studios’ Roman Campos-Oriola, the creative director of the Dead Space remake, to reflect on the game’s development and success. However, there’s an added twist. 

Joining the discussion is Bret Robbins, creative director of the original Dead Space. The ex-Visceral designer has beaten the remake multiple times and shares the standout elements of Motive’s version. Additionally, he reveals the limitations Visceral faced while developing the original that the remake overcame and whether or not he was contacted to help with the project. We also ask Campos-Oriola about the possibility of a Dead Space 2 remake.

Game Informer: Roman, what’s your personal history with Dead Space prior to this project?

I often think about Infested Planet, a nearly 10-year-old topdown tactical shooter about holding off hordes of alien critters with turrets and careful expansion. I thought of it again while watching the trailer for Lumencraft, which seems to marry all of the above to a fully destructible world and lots more resource gathering. It'll leave early access on February 28th.

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Wild Hearts is apparently a pretty good lower-case monster hunter game, albeit one with some substantial performance issues its developers pledged to fix. Maybe now they have: a performance patch was released earlier today, promising to address frame rates, unintentionally capped high-end CPUs, and more.

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Forza Horizon 5 is getting a new expansion, and it will be revealed this Thursday, February 23rd, during a livestream. It'll be the first expansion since last year's Hot Wheels extravaganza.

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Logitech make some great keyboards and mice, and now you can get their K400 Plus wireless keyboard/trackpad combo for £25. That's £20 less than its normal price, and a great value for one of the most convenient peripherals for Steam Deck, media PCs, Raspberry Pis and other systems that occasionally need keyboard/mouse input but don't require a full keyboard and mouse setup.

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Samsung's high-end 980 Pro PCIe 4.0 SSD has dropped in price on Amazon UK, and now costs £91.82 for a 1TB model with preinstalled heatsink rather than the £125+ it normally costs. This is an awesome price for one of the fastest SSDs on the market, with the advent of the even faster (but significantly more expensive) 990 Pro pushing the previous flagship to nearly bargain basement territory.

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A hearing took place at the European Commission in Brussels today related to Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Afterwards, Microsoft held a press conference and announced that they've signed a deal to bring all Xbox PC games to Nvidia's cloud service GeForce Now. The deal includes Call Of Duty, if Microsoft come to own it.

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You’ve likely seen Blumhouse’s logo in front of horror films like Halloween and Get Out, and now you’re going to see that blue-tinged dirty wall at the start of some horror games. The film production company is launching Blumhouse Games, a division that will fund, publish, and produce horror games primarily by indie devs. The company say they’re looking for “original” content, so don’t expect any M3GAN spin-offs for a while.

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Time is flying by a little too fast in 2023, although it’s not all bad news as a new month means new Game Pass additions. Microsoft have announced the next four games hitting the service before March 3rd, alongside Atomic Heart which releases today. I was interested in the steely Soviet shooter until I read James’ review and saw that the protagonist yells “Crispy critters,” more than once - I think I’ll skip.

Here are the next batch of Game Pass titles:

• Merge & Blade (Feb 28th)
• Soul Hackers 2 (Feb 28th)
• F1 22 (March 2nd)
• Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (March 3rd)

This is my first time hearing of Merge & Blade, not to be confused with Mount & Blade which is also on Game Pass. Merge & Blade is a hybrid between puzzle games and auto-battlers. Rounds will start with a Tetris-like mini-game, but instead of shapes, you’re guiding different unit types and merging them together. You then use your completed party to raid castles and kill monsters. Mixing - or merging - Tetris into a new genre is a recipe for success, so I’ll definitely be downloading this one.

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Survival sequel Sons Of The Forest is only a few days away as it launches into early access on February 23rd, and the team is celebrating with a final pre-release trailer, exposing us to some nasty sights. Sons Of The Forest was originally going to launch into a full 1.0 release this month, but the team ultimately decided on an early access release since it worked so well for the game’s predecessor The Forest.

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I see the question, "What order should I play the Yakuza games in?" pop up on the reg. Like clockwork, it happens whenever a new Yakuza (or Like A Dragon, as it's now known) game arrives. And you know what? It gets to me. To experience the series in the richest way possible, there's an obvious answer. But if you're someone who hasn't got the time to do so, or you're a bit unsure whether Yakuza is for you, then there's another way in. Now pick up that bike and walk with me.

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The Steam Mystery Fest is well underway, discounting countless games about detectives, murder mysteries, or generally strange occurrences. Lots of heavy hitters have big sales like Return Of The Obra Dinn and Pentiment, but as always, you’ll need to do quite a bit of scrolling to find the hidden gems. The sales last until February 27th, so you have a week to grab some cheap games, and if you’re struggling with recommendations, here are some good’uns.

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Terra Nil is a reverse city-builder where you work to rejuvenate natural ecosystems by planting greenery, purifying water supplies, and reintroducing wildlife - rather than building an industrial empire. Terra Nil has released a few demos over the last year, taking Steam by storm and impressing players with its ecological twist on the genre. All those demogoers should be pleased to hear that Terra Nil is finally launching onto PC and mobile (through Netflix) on March 28th.

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Blue's legendary Snowball Ice USB mic is a popular way to get started with streaming, VO and YouTube video production, and now it's 30% off at Amazon UK. That brings it to just £38.99, the lowest price we've seen in months and a good value for the level of quality provided.

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