It’s not often that we write about deals that knock £2 off the usual price, but it’s also rare to get the chance to pick up two 64GB USB flash drives for just £6. These drives are well worth picking up for transferring files between PCs, installing BIOS updates and backing up small but important files, which enough space to store some – but not all – music collections, game install directories and wallpaper packs.
The first, or the final?
Now that Final Fantasy I-VI Pixel Remaster is out on Switch, it means that 11 of the 15 (soon to be 16) mainline games are now available on Nintendo’s hybrid console, some of them in multiple forms. That’s mad.
Given the sheer breadth of the franchise’s history since the release of the first game back in 1987, we imagine there are quite a few jumping-off points for fans. After all, the beauty of Final Fantasy is that, beyond a few choice recurrences here and there, each mainline game is its own beast; a contained story that requires little to no knowledge of the other games.
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The Crash Team Rumble Closed Beta is officially here – so what can you expect? Starting April 20 those who pre-ordered the game will gain access to a slice of the game, which officially launches on June 20, 2023.
In the Closed Beta, players will get to play as some of their favorite heroes and villains including Crash Bandicoot, Dingodile, Neo Cortex, Tawna, and Coco – plus more to come at launch. In addition, players will get to experience three of the maps, their relic stations, various character customizations, and more!
The team at Toys For Bob is excited for fans to finally get their hands on the game, get feedback, and see how players progress in the span of those four days. This beta is crucial to the development cycle and provides the team at Toys For Bob with the opportunity to ensure the best possible game at launch. “There will be lots more people playing Crash Team Rumble than there ever have been,” says Dan Neil, creative director at Toys For Bob, “and it’s going to give us a bunch of really important information about the game balance to allow us to fine-tune it as we move forward to launch.”
The crew at Toys For Bob have been hard at work creating an all-new type of Crash game which is also a “new, and weird, and it’s uncharted territory,” says Lou Studdert, associate creative director at Toys For Bob. “One of the things I love about the Crash franchise is how it swings from a core platforming experience to something new, but in multiplayer games like Crash Team Racing and Crash Bash, the platforming DNA was lost, and it was more about the characters in a new type of game. Crash Team Rumble brings the multiplayer fun while retaining the DNA of the skills you’ve built up by playing the franchise.”
Fans will get to test this out and get to experience all of the fun first-hand, and Toys For Bob will be eagerly waiting for their feedback and is excited to see what they have been working tirelessly on!
To access the Closed Beta on April 20, fans can pre-order Crash Team Rumble now, then get ready to rumble with full game access on June 20, 2023.
Read more about how Crash Bandicoot Heads in a New and Unexpected Direction with Crash Team Rumble, and for more information about Crash Team Rumble, check out the official Crash Bandicoot site, and be sure to follow Crash Bandicoot on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok.
Activision Publishing Inc.
– Access to the Crash Team Rumble™ Closed Beta, starting April 20, 2023*
– Retro Threads Tawna Skin
This Edition also includes:
– Crash Team Rumble™ for Xbox One / Xbox Series X|S
– Premium Battle Pass Unlock for Season 1
Get ready to dash, jump, slide, and bounce into an all-new way to Crash.
Crash Team Rumble™ takes Crash Bandicoot™ in a brand new direction, placing the series’ iconic heroes and villains into a 4v4 team-based competition. Players will duke it out across diverse and dangerous maps as both teams race to be the first team to collect and bank enough Wumpa fruit to claim victory! Rise as a hero, or feed your inner villain across a wild and N.Sane cast of characters, each with their own unique skills and abilities. Teamwork is integral to every match, as players must work together to battle the opposing team, defend their own Wumpa Bank, and capture key points around the map to boost their score.
There’s more to come for Crash Team Rumble™, with additional heroes, modes, maps, rewards, and more coming soon!
*Actual platform availability and beta date(s) subject to change. Beta downloaded separately. Play time subject to possible outages and time zone differences. See www.crashbandicoot.com for more details. Minimum Beta duration is two days. Limited time only. Internet connection required. Xbox Live Gold subscription may be required.
For more information, please visit www.crashbandicoot.com for more details.
© 2023 Activision Publishing Inc. ACTIVISION, CRASH TEAM RUMBLE, CRASH BANDICOOT and CRASH are trademarks of Activision Publishing, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners.
Activision Publishing Inc.
– Access to the Crash Team Rumble™ Closed Beta, starting April 20, 2023*
– Retro Threads Tawna Skin
This Edition also includes:
– Crash Team Rumble™ for Xbox One / Xbox Series X|S
– Premium Battle Pass Unlock for Seasons 1 + 2
– Digital Proto Pack. Includes:
— 8 ‘Blocky’ hero skins
— ‘Pixelated’ Shadow
— ‘Get On My Level’ In-Game Victory Music
— ‘Blocky’ Hat
— ‘Blocky’ Backpack
— ‘Blocky’ Score FX
— Unique Banner
– 25 Tier Instant Unlock for Season 1 Premium Battle Pass
Get ready to dash, jump, slide, and bounce into an all-new way to Crash.
Crash Team Rumble™ takes Crash Bandicoot™ in a brand new direction, placing the series’ iconic heroes and villains into a 4v4 team-based competition. Players will duke it out across diverse and dangerous maps as both teams race to be the first team to collect and bank enough Wumpa fruit to claim victory! Rise as a hero, or feed your inner villain across a wild and N.Sane cast of characters, each with their own unique skills and abilities. Teamwork is integral to every match, as players must work together to battle the opposing team, defend their own Wumpa Bank, and capture key points around the map to boost their score.
There’s more to come for Crash Team Rumble™, with additional heroes, modes, maps, rewards, and more coming soon!
*Actual platform availability and beta date(s) subject to change. Beta downloaded separately. Play time subject to possible outages and time zone differences. See www.crashbandicoot.com for more details. Minimum Beta duration is two days. Limited time only. Internet connection required. Xbox Live Gold subscription may be required.
For more information, please visit www.crashbandicoot.com for more details.
© 2023 Activision Publishing Inc. ACTIVISION, CRASH TEAM RUMBLE, CRASH BANDICOOT and CRASH are trademarks of Activision Publishing, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners.
Related:
Xbox Insider Release Notes – Beta (2305.230413-2200)
Xbox Insider Release Notes – Beta (2305.230410-2200)
Xbox Insider Release Notes – Beta (2304.230405-2200)
The key to victory in this 4v4 competitive platformer is strategy. There are strategic advantages throughout the game from gameplay, to hero roles, powers, and more.
To celebrate the start of Crash Team Rumble’s Closed Beta – here are some tips and tricks that can give you a leg up on the competition to lead your team victory:
We’ve continued to see prices fall on solid state storage over the past few months, as manufacturers are looking to sell on excess stock caused by falling demand in commercial sectors. That makes it a great time to be a PC gamer, as you can pick up some great tech for bargain basement prices – including this Crucial X6 portable SSD, which offers 1TB of space for £56.50. That’s nearly half the price this drive cost at launch a few years ago and a good £15 below what it was going for in February this year, making it an awesome pickup for the money.
As IGN’s AI Week continues, I thought it’d be fitting to look back on the Xbox’s highest-aiming gaming AI project: Project Milo, which would formally come to be known as Milo & Kate before disappearing in a cloud of vaporware altogether. It was unveiled back at E3 2009, meaning that it’s so old at this point that, more than likely, plenty of folks in an entire generation of younger gamers don’t even know what it is. Heck, I lived through it as the Senior Editor for Official Xbox Magazine at the time, and even I couldn’t tell you what it was – because I never saw it running. Few people outside of Microsoft’s walls did.
What it wanted to be was a grand experiment in AI. Take a look through all the stories IGN did on it over the years. You’ll go on quite a ride! The “emotional AI” would have allowed you to interact with Milo and his (or her, if you chose the female version named Millie) dog named Kate. And by “interact” I mean talk to, using Kinect’s built-in microphone array.
Ah yes, Kinect. I probably should’ve mentioned that part sooner! For those of you who remember Kinect but not Milo, you’re probably now nodding along and thinking, “OK, now this is starting to make sense.” And when you add in the extra piece of the puzzle – that it was the brainchild of visionary game designer Peter Molyneux, who by his own admission often bit off more than he could chew, ambition-wise, a clearer picture of Milo starts to come together.
It was, in essence, a grand experiment that never quite found the right formula. Per Milo’s Wikipedia page, the special sauce would’ve been as follows: “The game relies on a procedural generation system which is constantly updating a built-in “dictionary” that is capable of matching key words in conversations with inherent voice-acting clips to simulate lifelike conversations. Molyneux claims that the technology for the game was developed while working on Fable and Black & White.”
Truth be told, Kinect itself probably wasn’t up to the task, even if the software had been. Perhaps the Xbox One’s regretfully bundled Kinect 2.0 could’ve gotten Milo & Kate to where it wanted to go. But let’s imagine for a moment that it had all worked. How cool of an AI-driven experience would it have been to talk to – and in fact have rudimentary conversations with – a realistic digital avatar?
Some of the tech developed for Mile & Kate did go into Fable: The Journey, the Kinect game that Molyneux (who left mid-project) and the team at Lionhead did release. (Side note: with apologies to the small-scale Fable CCG called Fable Fortune, Fable: The Journey is the last “big” Fable game to ship, all the way back in 2012!) Unfortunately, as I said in my review of it for IGN, the spellcasting adventure game was quite fun… if the Kinect actually worked properly, which it often did not. Perhaps someday something like Molyneux’s original vision for Milo & Kate will, too.
Over the last few weeks we at the RPS Electronic Wireless Show podcast have noticed a slight resurgence in a trend we thought was basically over. That’s right: video game tie-ins to films! There used to be loads of them, and now there aren’t. Except there are again, culminating in Renfield (of all movies) having a Vampire Survivorslike you can actually buy on actual Steam. What’s going on? Is this marking the start of something new? What are some of our favourite game tie ins?
Plus we put the boot in on a couple of Tweets about the Mario movie, because why not, frankly.
This feature is part of AI Week. For more stories, including how AI can improve accessibility in gaming and comments from experts like Tim Sweeney, check out our hub.
AI in games is not particularly novel given that the technology has been used to power games from Half-Life to Chess. But with a new generation of AI tools like ChatGPT quickly evolving, developers are looking at ways AI could shape the next generation of games.
There are still plenty of questions about AI games, especially in terms of how they could impact the labor that goes into making a video game. But while the full grasp of AI’s effect on the video game industry as a whole remains to be seen, there are examples of how generative AI could advance the ways players interact with a game’s characters, enemies, and story.
There aren’t a whole lot of games out right now that take advantage of generative AI, but for an example of existing games with advanced AI, as well as stable experiments that offer a taste of what’s to come, check out the games below.
AI Dungeon is more a fun experiment than a proper video game. The browser RPG from developer Latitude lets AI generate random storylines for players to then play around in. Logging into the website, players first choose what kind of scenario they want to experience, whether it’s a fantasy, mystery, cyberpunk, or zombie world. AI Dungeon will then generate a story based on that setting and from there, players can interact with the game like a classic text adventure.
This approach to text AI is not dissimilar from what people are already doing with ChatGPT and other companies, like Hidden Door, are readying similar and more interactive and game-forward takes on the AI Dungeon. But as an example of how AI could affect interaction with a dungeon master, NPC, or enemy in future games, AI Dungeon is worth an experiment.
In 2014, Creative Assembly released Alien: Isolation, a survival game that pits the player against the universe’s most perfect killing organism. The AI used to design the Alien was not new, but shows just how advanced existing AI technology in games already are.
In a deep-dive from GameDeveloper.com, Alien: Isolation took a unique approach to existing AI techniques by essentially making it a PvP game where neither the player nor the Xenomorph is fully aware of each other’s actions or location. However, a second AI, the “director” will periodically give the Alien hints about your location and actions, giving the Alien its edge and advantage, as if in a real-life Xenomorph encounter.
Another well-known game that offers a glimpse of how a more advanced AI could upend gaming is Monolith Productions’ Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor. Also released in 2014, Shadow of Mordor takes a different approach to AI than Alien: Isolation.
Rather than having a ready-made enemy like the Xenomorph hunt you down, players in Shadow of Mordor have a chance of creating their own worst enemy with the Nemesis System. This AI system turns lowly enemies who may have killed the player at some point into strong rivals who grow in rank and power each time they defeat you. And as the game continues, these persistent, procedurally-generated Nemesis will become an original rival character to you, grown completely organically within the game, and not scripted by the developers.
This freedom, like the Xenomorph in Alien: Isolation, is one way AI could unshackle NPCs and enemies as the technology develops.
Have you heard about this game called “Chess”? It’s this cool game that draws thousands of viewers on Twitch every day. I’m just kidding, but one of the first AI programs created specifically to challenge human players was chess, and with the game having a renaissance as of late, why not check out what is currently regarded as one of the best AI-powered Chess players online?
Not only is Stockfish free, but it’s open-source as well. Development is also underway to merge Stockfish with a neural network, which is already showing strong results and could make the world’s smartest chess engine, even smarter. What’s old is new again, and the early AI’s used to play chess are evolving again with the new advancements in AI.
Chat GPT can’t make games, but it could potentially play a tabletop RPG with you. While OpenAI’s language program is there to generate AI-powered responses to your questions, people online have started enlisting Chat GPT to help with their tabletop campaigns. Whether it’s asking Chat GPT to help come up with designing an adventure for Dungeons and Dragons or joining as a party member, it’s not that difficult to add Chat GPT to your game nights.
Chat GPT’s conversation limit means it probably can’t join your party in the long haul, but in the spirit of experimentation, it’s worth trying out Chat GPT for yourself to see why everyone is buzzing about AI suddenly. And like in AI Dungeon, there are already game developers who are taking this general idea and beginning to tune it towards playable experiences that are, well, actually games.
AI’s impact on games won’t be seen for a couple more years, but these five projects should give you a sample of what to possibly expect when the next chapter of the AI revolution truly hits game development. For more from IGN’s AI Week, check out how AI is being used to create new adventure games, and how AI could impact the animation industry.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
Spooky supernatural sequel Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals is launching on July 12th, developer Night School have announced. Just like the first Oxenfree, there’ll be plenty of flexible walking and talking where you’ll be able to interrupt conversations at any time, or just stay silent throughout, which would be creepily on-brand for a series about ghostly rifts and unsettling radio frequencies.
Advance Wars! Afterimage! Teslagrad 2!
The latest Nintendo Download update for North America has arrived, and it’s bringing new games galore to the eShop in your region. As always, be sure to drop a vote in our poll and comment down below with your potential picks for the week. Enjoy!
Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp (Nintendo, 21st Apr, $59.99) – Get ready to roll out with the Orange Star Nation! This from-the-ground-up remake of the Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising games features all-new 3D graphics, online play*, fast-forward functionality and more! In both campaigns you’ll play as several Commanding Officers with distinct special abilities and strategize against rivals in turn-based, tactical action across maps that span the land, sea and air. Plus, you can customize maps and share them with friends, or flex your strategic muscles in Versus Mode, where up to four players** can tussle locally or engage in one-on-one battles online exclusively with friends. The Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp game will be available on April 21. – Read our Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp review
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