June 2023

This month's pick for our RPS Game Club is the nails sort-of-horror puzzle game The Tartarus Key, and we'll be doing another funtabulous liveblog to chat about it with you next Monday July 3rd at 4pm BST / 8am PDT. Is that a different month to the current one? Yes. But do I make the rules? Also yes. And, like Katharine was last time, I'm travelling right now, so Monday it is.

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Last time, you decided that snap-to construction is better than fighting a little beastie then meeting the giant adults. I can respect that. It's practical. It's not bullying. Maybe you don't enjoy getting your comeuppance. But the alternative is still pretty funny. Onwards! This week, I ask you to pick between helping people find things in an environment and using part of the environment as a weapon. What's better: Tagging locations for teamies, or door violence?

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UPDATE 29TH JUNE: The full list of winners for the Green Game Jam are as follows:

ORIGINAL STORY 28TH JUNE: This year's Green Game Jam has just wrapped, and as with last year, I was asked to judge the Media's Choice part of it. If you don't know what it is, the Green Game Jam is an annual event organised by the Playing for the Planet Alliance - itself organised by the United Nations Environment Programme - that challenges game developers to make 'activations' for their games. These are packages of content both in and around the games based on a theme.

The theme this year was conserving wildlife and biodiversity, with a particular eye on the snow leopard and the Himalayas, the manta ray and the Western Indian Ocean and the harlequin toad and the Amazon. And as always, the sentiment fuelling the jam was how much can a game teach us about a problem while having some kind of impact on the real world too?

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Microsoft considered launching a bid to buy Final Fantasy maker Square Enix, freshly-uncovered court documents have revealed.

The idea was floated among Xbox top brass back in 2019 - before Square Enix sold its suite of Western studios, and before Microsoft got entangled in its current attempted $68.7bn Activision Blizzard buyout.

Documents showing Microsoft's interest in acquiring Square Enix surfaced today, as the company continues to plead its case with the Federal Trade Commission.

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SuperGroupies announced a collaboration with Omocat, the developers of Omori. The company developed four items associated with the indie game based on the characters of Omori and Basil. The items also feature motifs inspired by their friends.

https://twitter.com/SuperGroupiesUS/status/1673964458971107328

Supergroupies made Omori and Basil backpacks and watches based on them. The Omori watch is a monochrome design featuring a Shiny Knife and a black lightbulb at the eight and six o’clock spots, respectively. The strap features various items from the game too. The Omori backpack is similarly monochrome, but has a bright purple inner lining referencing the confrontation between Omori and Sunny.

The Basil watch has a flower motif, with plants lining the wooden face. The back of the watch features the silhouette of the Stranger. The Basil backpack is light green, representing his love for plants. It also comes with a removable charm modeled on his photo album. The inside lining features a sunflower design.

The backpacks are each available from SuperGroupies for $180 plus tax, while the watches are $190 plus tax each. SuperGroupies are taking pre-orders until July 17, 2023. The estimated delivery time for these items is January 2024.

Omori will be getting other merchandise too. The Good Smile Company have also confirmed that an Omori Nendoroid is also set to release at a future date.

Bandai Namco will be opening a new retail store in London in July 2023. The Bandai Namco Cross Store will feature six official shops offering a variety of collectibles, cards and other merchandise based on Bandai Namco’s franchises.

The Bandai Namco Cross Store already has two locations in Japan, located in Yokohama and Fukuoka. The new location in Camden Market in London will be the first Cross Store location outside Japan.

https://twitter.com/bncrossstoreuk/status/1673999440330342404

The six shops within the Bandai Namco Cross Store London location are:

• Banpresto Official Shop
• Gashapon Bandai Official Shop
• Ichibankuji Official Shop
• MegaHouse Official Store
• One Piece Card Game Official Shop
• Sun-Star Stationery Shop

There will also be an arcade and an event space with the store.

Many of these stores will be making their first appearances in the UK. However, it’s not the first time Gashapon Bandai has opened outside Japan, as a pop-up store in Los Angeles is operating until August 2023.

It’s also not the first Bandai Namco attraction to open in London. The Namco Funscape opened in Westminster in 1997 and offered up arcade attractions. Due to redevelopment plans, Bandai Namco were forced to close the location in 2021. Other Namco Funscape locations are still in operation in other parts of the UK.

A new Devil May Cry event is bringing Nero and Vergil to Street Fighter Duel. Catastrophic Recast kicked off on June 28, 2023. Leading up to the event was a Demon Doomsday countdown, but now people can try for the new characters and take part in themed activities. There’s also a new trailer showing both of them in action. The first crossover with the series in May 2023 added Dante.

Nero is a Legendary Tank, Tech type with Secret Arts Fighting Style. You can buy him in the Fight Mall. Vergil is an Infernal Power, Attack type with Savage Fighting Style. He’s on a Divination banner. There are limited-time Trial Realms for both characters.

Here’s the official art showing how each one looks in the game. Both appear to be inspired by their Devil May Cry 5 appearances.
[gallery columns="2" size="full" ids="970697,970698" link="file"]

Next, here’s the trailer for the Street Fighter Duel crossover, which begins with a peeks at Nero and Vergil’s art. From there, it goes straight into a brief gameplay clip. It looks like Vergil can activate his Devil Trigger to transform in the game.

No backing down now, World Warriors! Join Vergil and Nero in the second Street Fighter: Duel x Devil May Cry collaboration, starting today! pic.twitter.com/0w7kU2vhK5

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker EP4 soundtrack is now available to purchase from Amazon and the iTunes store. The fourth mini-album currently costs $5.94 and includes music from patch 6.4 dungeons, raids and trials like Pandaemonium: Anabaseios and the Voidcast Dais where returning Final Fantasy villain Golbez is fought. The EP is only available as a digital download.

The Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker EP4 soundtrack mini album includes the following songs:

1. "One Amongst the Weary"
2. "Fleeting Moment"
3. "Athena, the Tireless One"
4. "Ultima's Perfection (Endwalker)"
5. "Starsbreath"
6. "Voidcast Savior"

These songs play in-game during fights in the Voidcast Dais trial, the Anabaseios wing of the Pandaemonium raid, and the Aetherfont dungeon. These activities were brought to the game back in May with the arrival of Patch 6.4, and can reward players with orchestrion rolls of the songs on completion.

A recent patch fixed issues with players not receiving the Echo buff in certain encounters. 

Whether it’s from Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, or an obscure party game from the aughts, you’ve had a crush on a video game character at some point in your life, right? And since it’s the season of love, we want to bring back our 2023 Pride piece to focus on the game characters we fell for during our combined decades…

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I’m sure that I love Jill Warrick—Final Fantasy XVI’s female lead—because her hair is healthy and long, gathered at the end with a ribbon, with one delicate braid as ornament. I also love her, I think, because she wears a cream-color chemise under layers of blue leather, contrasting like the small icicles that form at…

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An Electronic Arts job listing for a role related to The Sims 5, the upcoming entry in its popular life-sim series, appears to confirm that it will launch as a free-to-play game.

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Much like David Bowie, who was likely born of a Mothercrystal himself, Final Fantasy is constantly reimagining itself. Different battle systems, different aesthetics, different worlds, and a whole new story with every entry. Yet, the arrival of Final Fantasy XVI has been divisive among the fan base, with venomous…

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McDonald’s new Grimace milkshake has sparked an entire movement around treating the beverage like the murder weapon from a Japanese horror game. Zoomers and other TikTok users were pretending to die after slurping up the purple goop and now they’re pretending the Grimace Shake is what also killed their favorite anime…

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A new game content rating out of South Korea for Red Dead Redemption has fans speculating that a remaster, remake or port of the popular open-world western is coming sooner than later. However, Rockstar has yet to confirm what this rating means or if, after all these years, Red Dead Redemption will finally be coming…

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Cyberpunk 2077 was better than reviewers gave it credit for when it first released, but it struggled to overcome a “a critical mass of negativity”, the VP of PR and communications for studio CD Projekt Red has said.

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Player-versus-player-versus-nightmare monstrosity shooter Hunt: Showdown has patched in its latest boss, a flippin’ great big gator called Rotjaw who looks as nasty as she sounds.

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As part of Microsoft's court battle with US antitrust agency the Federal Trade Commission, emails between Xbox boss Phil Spencer and PlayStation head Jim Ryan have been revealed, outlining Microsoft's initial proposal to Sony - regarding the Activision Blizzard games it would be willing to keep on the PlayStation platform should its $69bn acquisition be approved - and Ryan's lengthy counter-proposal.

As confirmed by Phil Spencer last September, Microsoft contacted Sony shortly after the January announcement of its proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition, providing a signed agreement to Sony guaranteeing Call of Duty would remain on PlayStation - with feature and content parity - for "at least several more years beyond" Sony current contract.

During his FTC deposition this week, Ryan admitted he "wasn't particularly" happy with Microsoft's original proposal, but "hoped it was an opening salvo" - and we now have a more precise picture of his initial response, thanks to newly revealed emails, as spotted by The Verge's Tom Warren. In a reply dated 26th May, Ryan informed Spencer that Microsoft's proposal "did not fulfil" the objective of "ensuring Activision Blizzard games are available on PlayStation", and that the company had "serious concerns" which an enclosed counter-proposal from Sony was intended to address.

It's no surprise how popular Call of Duty is as the most recent installment in the franchise, Modern Warfare II, became the fastest Call of Duty game to cross the $1 billion sold mark in 2022.

When Capcom first announced the Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective port earlier in 2023, my timeline exploded with people insisting that everyone should experience this game without looking up anything about it. So outside of previewing it, I kept myself in the dark about this classic Shu Takumi title. Now that I finished it, I understand and I am also here to say: You should definitely play Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, but read nothing about the story going in. It’s truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

That being said, I’m still going to quickly describe the plot. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective follows the story of Sissel, a recently deceased ghost who discovers that he can manipulate the objects around him through the powers of the dead. “Ghost Tricks,” they’re called. He can also turn back time to four minutes before a person’s death and change their fate. Using these powers, he plans to uncover the mystery of his lost memories, as well as figure out what's behind the odd happenings around town. Unfortunately, he’s on borrowed time. Sissel only has until dawn to do all this before he fades away for good.

Donald Duck is considered by many fans to be the most powerful mage in all of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. For a long time, his reign as the supreme magic user in the franchise was unchallenged. But that’s changed with the release of Final Fantasy XVI, because now there’s finally another mage who’s as powerful as…

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We’re not even a whole week out from the release of Square Enix’s latest entry in the Final Fantasy series, and yet the voice actor for Final Fantasy XVI’s protagonist has already found (and read) gamers’ thirsty fan fiction.

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The developers behind Skullgirls have made a number of changes to the decade-old 2D fighter in order to correct elements they now believe to be in “poor taste”. The outcome? Hundreds of negative reviews on Steam, of course.

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Yager, the developer behind the likes of Spec Ops: The Line and Dreadnought, has announced its free-to-play PvPvE extraction shooter The Cycle: Frontier will be shutting down on 27th September, saying the game is not "financially viable".

The Cycle: Frontier, which arrived on PC last June, sees teams of players - in the role of Prospectors - airdropping onto a hostile alien planet in order to gather resources, fend off predators and competing teams with a steadily expanding arsenal, then whizz back into space at the end with all their hard-earned spoils.

The game has seen three seasons of updates since its launch last summer, but Yager has now announced development is coming to an end, with its most recent patch being its last.

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If you’re looking to play Blue Protocol, Bandai Namco offered some suggestions as for what devices and PCs to use. The company released a web page featuring recommended PC options and peripherals that will allow you to comfortably play the game. Currently, there are only four PCs and nine peripherals on the page, but that list is intended to grow.

In terms of Blue Protocol-capable PCs, Bandai Namco recommends the following:

• G-GEAR GA7A-A231B/BP
• GALLERIA ZA9R-79XT
• GALLERIA XA7R-R47
• ZEFT R56D

And the company’s suggested peripherals are:

• Logicool G502X PLUS mouse
• Logicool G502X Lightspeed mouse
• Logicool G502X mouse
• Logicool G304 mouse
• Logicool G913 keyboard
• Logicool G512 keyboard
• Logicool G733 headset
• Logicool G535 headset
• Logicool F310 controller

Blue Protocol is a free-to-play MMORPG from Bandai Namco. The game was released on June 14, 2023, in Japan, albeit with some server issues. The game will also receive a worldwide release, but before that, a closed beta test is going to be held. It will take place later this year and signups are currently open. However, signing up for the closed beta does not guarantee that you will be able to participate.

As protests continue over on Reddit, the world’s largest community forum that is now inexplicably being turned into an engine for shareholder-driven greed, one of its biggest gaming subreddits has announced that it will be leaving the platform for good.

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I've mentioned SK Hynix before, the flash memory giant that made Intel's SSDs and is now making their own SSDs under the Solidigm brand. The Korean company has pursued an aggressive pricing strategy for these drives, and evidence of that is this latest deal on their flagship P44 Pro 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive.

The P44 Pro is now down to $117 at Newegg when you use code SSCT2827, a price that also includes a free mousepad - nifty. For context, the 2TB drive was selling for $150, making this a pretty tidy discount.

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Logitech makes some of the nicest peripherals in the business, from the G502 mouse to their G Pro X headset, but their MX Mechanical Mini keyboard is something special - combining low-profile mechanical switches with a compact layout, 2.4GHz wireless/Bluetooth connectivity and Mac/Windows compatibility, it's a keyboard for all seasons - or at least, a lot of different devices.

I've tested the keyboard for PC gaming, and I've found it quite lovely - so I thought I'd let you know that this model is down to £99.99 at Currys, which is £50 less than its usual price and a good deal for high-grade wireless mechanical.

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For years, we’ve known Pikmin 4 is in development. The series revels in combining the familiar and unfamiliar, with its humanoid characters constantly crash landing on planets that are home to mysterious, plant-like creatures eager to lend assistance. Now that we’re on the verge of its return, I had a chance to head back on another voyage. Even in its early hours, it feels like a revival of the series’ most familiar concepts.

We’ve tried to scrub as much of the time period from our collective memories as possible, I know, but if you cast your mind back to the Presidency of Donald Trump, and 2017 specifically, you might remember one of the weirdest stories to emerge was one involving Disney, an animatronic robot and Hillary Clinton.

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McDonald’s in Japan is collaborating with Nijisanji for an upcoming promotion, though it’s unclear as of yet what it will entail. The Nijisanji Vtubers who will be part of it as Belmond Banderas, Kanae, and Fuwa Minato. They are not sporting new designs for the collaboration as of the time of writing.

Based on past collaborations that McDonald’s Japan announced, it’s possible that there will be new food items on the menu based on the three Vtubers. While McDonald’s collaborations in the west might mean Happy Meal toys, Nijisanji is not marketed specifically for children. So this is the more likely possibility. We might also get to see Kanae, Fuwa, and Banderas in McDonald’s uniforms when the promotion starts.

In the past, when McDonald’s in Japan held a collaboration with One Piece, it was to market a specific type of burger. It also released a promotional video based on the One Piece opening, and you could also get a special One Piece float for a limited time.

Indie developer Neal Agarwal, better known as Neal.fun, makes video games that are very small but also very good. His latest, The Password Game, is the perfect example: it takes the hell of coming up with a password for an app or site’s account and somehow turns it into something as far from hell as possible.

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When we last checked in on the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X in December last year, it had dropped to £249 in the UK. Now, the same six-core 12-thread Zen 4 processor is down to £208, making a Ryzen 7000 build surprisingly affordable - especially when you take in the drop in AM5 motherboard and DDR5 memory prices.

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