Last night ID@Xbox held their latest showcase to spotlight all sorts of indies. One of the highlights was the cute deduction game Lil’ Guardsman, a riff on Papers, Please where you work on a guard post, choosing to accept or refuse entry for fantasy folk wanting to get into the city. Or you can just jail them. It looks like lighthearted fun, and it’ll be hitting PC and consoles later this year.
In need of regeneration?
Bandai Namco has opened up a survey for Tales of Symphonia Remastered, asking fans and those who’ve played the game to provide them feedback on the release.
The beloved action RPG — which initially launched on GameCube in 2003 — made it to Switch back in February in a remaster based on the Japan-only PS2 port. Yet many reported multiple bugs, glitches, and issues with the remaster, with some calling it “worse than the original”, comparing it unfavourably to the PS3 remaster.
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Right now, the best Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (or Breath of the Wild 2 as many of us called it for years) preorder deal is at ShopTo for £49.85. With this preorder, you’ll get the game and the limited edition free Tears of the Kingdom poster as well. This is a £10 saving compared to the Amazon listing, and well worth considering if you don’t have any leftover extra credit at Amazon, or you won’t be trying for the Tears of the Kingdom Collector’s Edition (that’s out of stock right now as well).
Other deals to check out right now include the 3-months for 99p deal returning at Audible (usually £7.99/month). This is for new or returning subscribers, and is well worth getting if you love audiobooks. There’s also the PlayStation Spring Sale, PSN Gift Card discounts, preorders for limited edition 4K Blu-rays, a superb deal on cans of Pepsi, and plenty more to consider as well. See all these deals and plenty more just below, and make sure you’re following @IGNUKDeals on Twitter for more updates.
If you’re looking to add the special Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Switch OLED model to your collection, then look no further. Preorders for this special edition console are still available and will launch on April 28, just a few weeks before the new game.
This is a great deal on Audible. For 99p you’re essentially getting three audiobooks of your choosing (one per month), alongside the whole Audible podcast catalogue. Some of my favourites I’ve listened to on Audible this year include Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino, Strong Female Character by Fern Brady, and I Am Not Nicholas by Jane MacSorley.
But there’s plenty else to choose from as well, such as The Sandman, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Dune, Lord of the Rings, and more. For 99p, you’re getting plenty of value out of Audible, so I defintiely recommened giving it a go. (This is for new and returning subscribers only)
There’s some pretty awesome 4K UHD and Blu-ray preorders that the IGN UK audience have been loving recently. At the top of these is The Last of Us Season 1 steelbook, but we’ve had a couple of new popular preorders announced recently as well. Both John Wick 4 and the Mario movie are getting the special edition or steelbook treatment, and you can check out the preorders for both just below as well.
It’s a roll of the dice. These are my absolute favourite deals that are available right now, but don’t necessarily fit anywhere else, making them a little bit more random compared to everything else in Daily Deals.
This is the first big PS5 bundle deal we’re getting in the UK, with £40 off the original list price of £540. With PS5 consoles costing £479.99 right now, this essentially means you’re getting God of War Ragnarok for £20. It’s a great deal, but there are a few others to check out below as well.
The Netac NV7000 is compatible with PS5 consoles for an ultra-fast M.2 SSD storage expansion, with read speeds of up to 7000/6700MB/s (PS5 requires 5500MB/s or faster). Not only that, but it includes the required heatsink built in so you can have a no mess, no fuss install process.
For just £124.49, and a 5-year warranty included, this is a steal and well worth your attention. To get the deal, make sure to scroll to and click the ‘Apply 25% Voucher’ before adding to the basket and checking out. If you need any help installing your new drive, see our how-to guide here, and the how-to install video here.
PlayStation’s Spring Sale has brought with it a number of excellent deals on PS5 consoles and bundles, alongside some wonderful physical and digital PS5 video game deals. This includes the likes of The Last of Us Part 1 for £37.99, Dead Space for £44.99, Hogwarts Legacy for £44.99, Ratchet and Clank for £29.99, and plenty alongside. You can also save even more on digital purchases if you invest in some discounted PlayStation gift cards from ShopTo.
Topping it off, the latest PS5 console bundle deal is now available in the UK, with multiple retailers discounting the PlayStation 5 + God of War Ragnarok bundle. There’s a £40 saving up for grabs, with the bundle dropping to just £499.99 for a limited time only.
If you’re buying anything in the PlayStation Digital sale, then here’s how you can save a little extra money along the way. UK online retailer ShopTo has currently got a brilliant selection of PlayStation Gift Cards at discounted prices; for example a £50 card for £42.85 instead. Not only do these make great gifts, but they’re also perfect for topping up your own PSN account as well.
The only catch with these is that the best value comes from spending £50 or above, so only do this if you’re planning on make lots of digital purchases, or a couple of big ones. For example, if you buy two £50 cards, gaining £100 in total, you’re only paying £85.70, which is a £14.30 saving right out the gate. There’s more gift cards available, so I’ve left some handy links just below. And don’t worry, ShopTo is a trusted seller, and we feature deals from them all the time so you’re absolutely in safe hands when purchasing.
Obviously, these SD cards can be used with any compatible device, but we’re focusing on a select few that are perfect for your Steam Deck (A2 SD Cards like the Samsung Evo Select), or your Nintendo Switch. My favourite deal is definitely on the Samsung Evo Select 512GB SD for just £32.99. This SD card was down to £38 during Black Friday, so this is an even better deal.
Nintendo is running a new sale on select Nintendo Switch games to celebrate the launch of the Super Mario Bros movie this month. Some games have dropped to just £33.49, including Super Mario Maker 2 and Super Mario 3D World. Wave 1 of the sale lasts until April 19, with a new range of games discounted in Wave 2, starting April 20.
Pokémon Go Plus+ (it’s a silly name, but honestly it’s fun to say) works with Pokémon Go, and with the upcoming game/app Pokémon Sleep. It uses Bluetooth Low Energy technology to sync with your phone without nuking the battery life. Preorders are live at Amazon and ShopTo.
If you’re a Star Wars fan eagerly anticipating the release of Jedi Survivor, especially after all the positive previews we’ve now seen, now is the perfect time to preorder the game from Currys. With the use of the discount code JEDI15, you can get your hands on the game for just £59.49.
Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
Jack Joyce has run out of time, or steam, both work! Remedy’s time-bending Quantum Break – part superpowered shooter, part live-action TV show – has been delisted on Steam and The Microsoft Store. The game’s Steam page is still up, but it’s no longer available for purchase on PC or Xbox consoles. Publisher Microsoft had already confirmed the game would be “temporarily” removed from Game Pass (for console, it was never on the PC version) due to licensing issues, although there was no word on a removal from storefronts.
Crime Boss: Rockay City takes Payday’s potent formula and plops it in the middle of the decade that brought us bleached hair, dial-up internet, and the ’92-’93 Dallas Mavericks. Unfortunately, just like bleached hair, dial-up internet, and those 11-and-71 Dallas Mavericks, Crime Boss looks awful, is technically outclassed, and is full of embarrassing performances. Hard to outright hate thanks to the compelling, car crash quality of some of its cutscenes, it’s nonetheless impossible to recommend right now on account of regular bugs, repetitive missions, and bog-standard blasting that’s unmemorable at its best and exasperating at its worst.
At face value, Crime Boss looks like a hearty deal. There are three separate ways to play, including a dedicated single-player campaign and two co-op focused modes. On top of that, Bon Jovi’s second-best song about cowboys is on the soundtrack, and Michael Madsen is here as leading man Travis Baker – and in a dapper hat, no less. Madsen isn’t a prolific video game voice actor but he has demonstrated an ability to pick quality winners in the past – certainly with the likes of Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Dishonored, and a 2001 game you may have heard of from the makers of Christmas Lemmings called Grand Theft Auto III. Unfortunately, his winning streak is now broken.
It’s actually tricky to pinpoint precisely which pillar of Crime Boss is the weakest, although a shooter with combat as scrappy as it is here is always going to be on a hiding to nothing. Melee attacks are hopelessly unconvincing and the shooting itself is annoyingly imprecise and ineffectual, with the slimeballs of Rockay City capable of absorbing punishment like their chests are made of Kevlar. The explanation here likely has something to do with the fact the roguelike single-player rations out perks that negate aiming sway and increase the stopping power of your rounds as rewards for levelling up, but that doesn’t really help. If anything, it makes it seem like it’s just been arbitrarily made to feel like garbage until you can level up for the chance to make it less so.
The roguelike approach to the solo campaign, dubbed Baker’s Battle, is an interesting slant but it ultimately becomes exhausting. Completing Baker’s Battle requires us to take over all territories in Rockay City. Taking territories requires surviving a chaotic but largely vanilla turf war against a wave of opposition gang members. Defending territories requires surviving a chaotic but largely vanilla turf war against a wave of opposition gang members. Funding all this requires stealing stuff from a modest assortment of warehouses, strip malls, and other secure spots that always look pretty much the same. What I mean is that pushing through the campaign is already an exercise in repetition. Making it a roguelike feels like putting a treadmill in a hamster wheel. Beyond that the only real change to the formula comes in the form of some incredibly left-field side missions, like a Vietnam War flashback or a baffling trip to a snap-frozen Russian airbase, none of which have been particularly enjoyable thanks to tiny maps and unsatisfying action. Black Ops did this better 13 years and two console generations ago.
The other ways to play Crime Boss are either via a quick play menu where you can drop into random jobs, or a series of so-called mini campaigns called Urban Legends. Both of these can be played online with co-op partners or with bots. Both of these also seem like the missions I already played in Baker’s Battle, only this time with friends who’d probably rather be playing Payday.
Crime Boss unapologetically lifts most of its heist systems from its tried and true peer, even down to its automatic drills and saws with little computer screens (which would have seemed less wildly out of place in this ’90s setting had Michael Mann ever put one of them in Heat). The upshot of this thievery is that Crime Boss’s heists are easily the better part of proceedings, even if working with the lax AI often means bagging up the goods for them and tossing them a duffel rather than trusting them to do it themselves. It’s like going on vacation with a toddler.
For the most part, the shonky stealth means things descend into identical firefights time after time. Occasionally, and mostly in the final moments of a successful heist, I would get glimpses of Crime Boss at its most competent. There is a certain satisfaction to be gleaned from having the crowd subdued and the loot secured, even if it is highly derivative of Payday’s long-established formula. On one particular job my crew and I had quietly and completely cleaned out a jeweller, after some patient initial skulking about had rewarded me with a store full of dead CCTV cameras and trussed-up security guards. However, just when things threatened to go south, our getaway vehicle had what can only be described as a seizure as soon as I tried to climb in. This was an isolated bug but others are much less so, including random freezes that last for several seconds and regular instances where character models fail to load in at the start of a mission, leaving guns floating around and shooting you until their owners blink into existence.
At any rate, I was still able to successfully escape the jewel heist with the take a few minutes later, but having the van flap around like a Fallout corpse and peel away as we were literally trying to enter it isn’t exactly an elegant bow to tie on a mission.
Equally inelegant are the lion’s share of voice performances from its otherwise highly recognisable cast, most of which feel like they were email attachments sent back to the studio the same day the contracts came through. I’ll happily admit seeing Michael Rooker and Danny Trejo digitally de-aged and straight off the set of Days of Thunder and Desperado, respectively, was a powerful novelty at first, but Crime Boss otherwise squanders its kitsch cast.
Vanilla Ice is here as a rapping drug lord who is either beatboxing between his sentences or has someone else doing it for him. I can’t tell. Danny Glover is here and doing his best, despite the fact they didn’t exactly push the boat out when naming his character, which is Gloves. The always terrific Danny Trejo is here, but I’ve only heard him speak once. He has a bigger presence on the box art than in the game itself.
The worst celebrity by a country mile, however, is Chuck Norris, who appears quite regularly – either gloating over your dead body at the end of a run, or showcasing his incorrigible lack of trigger discipline by continually waggling his pistol at his partner. I like Chuck Norris movies as much as the next guy who grew up lurking in video stores throughout the 80s and 90s, but the only thing Missing in Action here is his ability to speak naturally. I guess it makes sense for a game about stealing everything that isn’t nailed down; someone has pilfered half the punctuation from Chuck Norris’ script.
There is absolutely nothing about his delivery here that works. Indeed, he doesn’t sound like he’s even delivering it. He sounds like he’s either been Bowfingered in a restaurant, or is dictating handwritten napkins to his phone to print out in a larger font later. What’s particularly baffling, however, is somehow Norris still isn’t the worst sounding actor in most of his scenes – that victory belongs to his partner, who appears to be a Sonny Crockett cosplayer voiced by a Fraggle.
The world of hack-and-slashing Hammerwatch returns this summer with a sequel, developers Crackshell have announced. Just like the first game released ten years ago, Hammerwatch 2 is a top-down fantasy ARPG where you’ll be building your own hero, choosing between a series of classes, and battling hordes either alone or in a co-op group of four.
When I think of Minecraft, I think of creativity, peace, and adventure. Minecraft Legends’ opening campaign scene made me feel as though my past accomplishments and care for the franchise were being rewarded by trusting me with a new and important challenge: save the Overworld from the greed of the piglins. Minecraft Legends is the fourth Minecraft spinoff game (Telltale’s Minecraft: Story Mode and Mojang’s Minecraft Earth and Minecraft Dungeons preceding it) and after getting an hour with its campaign and about an hour with its PvP multiplayer, it’s already building to be my favorite of the bunch.
Minecraft Legends is an action-strategy game, which yes, is different from an RTS (real-time strategy), though only in a few critical ways. Instead of taking a top-down omnipotent view of the world below you, your character leads mobs into battle with a sword in hand. Dennis Ries, Executive Producer at Mojang, told me that one of the reasons Mojang didn’t want to make a traditional RTS is because of the challenges they present when putting them on console. The action-strategy interpretation cuts out some of the impersonal aspects of real-time strategy and makes events and threats more focused.
Instead of commanding waves of soldiers or creatures from above, you’re using music to direct a mix of mobs to attack piglin towers or defend an otherwise defenseless village. First, you’ll start with two kinds of golems, and then as the campaign progresses, you’ll find allies in the iconic creeper and other formerly hostile mobs. Directions to the mobs are rather simple (move here, follow) but become more complex steadily over time (command one set of units following to move or focus a target). I played exclusively on an Xbox controller. It did take me a fair bit of time to get used to all the commands, and I can’t say I came away from my hour with the campaign having fully mastered them, but I think the campaign still does a good job of peppering in new layers of lessons during the early tutorial missions. I really only felt the lack of mastery because of the multiplayer session that came later – but more on that in a moment.
It’s difficult to say whether the on-the-ground perspective is more helpful than a wider view after only an hour of the campaign, but it did make my personal affection for units stronger. That being said, it’s a little disappointing I can’t cheer on my units or do more with our friendship other than sending them off into battle and reviving them again at their spawn structures. I served as a commander playing music on a lute for commands and used my sword only for hitting piglins. The cobblestone golems have to attack a piglin tower on their own as my sword (the only weapon you’ll have as far as I know) doesn’t do damage to the structures. Then, when it comes to the actual mining or resource collecting or building defensive structures like walls or arrow towers, the helpful fairy-like creatures called the allay handle that. It’s an interesting distribution of tasks that I’m curious to see how it changes and expands as the campaign continues.
The tutorial mission early on was short and straightforward but served as a great introduction to the Hosts, three new ethereal NPCs. Each gave me a boon to assist in my quest to defeat the piglin invaders and defend the Overworld. I like them. They serve as just enough context for the story and as fun and encouraging guides, but also give me enough space to still feel like this story is my own – something I look for in Minecraft. The tutorial was genuinely essential and expanded well into that first hour of play, building on beginner mechanics as the piglin threat increases.
Getting upgrades in Minecraft Legends isn’t done through earning experience that translates to new levels, but in true Minecraft fashion, instead requires using resources to build toward something new – in this case, building “improvement structures” that can be made with a large collection of resources and a special stone called prismarine that’s earned by defeating piglins. Improvement structures unlock more units, new buildable defenses, or a slew of other upgrades, like the ability to mine for diamond or other ore.
One benefit of Minecraft Legends playing by its own unique action-strategy rules is its campaign’s patience with battle. Ries said that if I wanted to, say, spend more time exploring the procedurally generated map to find the new beetle or bird mounts, I could do so without the village actually being in peril. The peril kindly waits. The Hosts will gently provide reminders of the next critical task, but they won’t stop you from indulging in curiosity. I could easily see myself getting lost in seeking out new mounts or finding other secrets. Ries confirmed there are no secret areas, but enticing things like floating treasure chests in the sky, that yes, are intended to be there and are their own sort of challenge to collect. I appreciate that Minecraft Legends preserves Minecraft’s exploration and discovery.
An hour wasn’t nearly enough to make much of a dent into the full scale of the piglin threat or my forces’ abilities to combat it. Ries said Minecraft Legends’ campaign can take anywhere from 18 to 25 hours to complete, depending on how each player approaches the game. I look forward to exploring and unlocking everything in it I can when Minecraft Legends is out on April 18. It’s a rare chance to befriend creepers and other creatures I’ve admired but had no choice but to slay or run away from previously. Though there is co-op for the campaign, it’s one I think I’ll play alone. Ries did clarify too that there is no couch co-op due to screen space issues among other things, but for folks who want to play together in one household, there is cross-play.
The Minecraft Legends mechanics come to full force in multiplayer. In each match, two teams of four start from nothing and are challenged to destroy the opposing team’s base while protecting their own. This means starting by only being able to gather the basic resources of wood and stone and, hopefully (if your team is coordinated), gather prismarine and build enough improvement structures to unlock building the most complex buildings and tools, like the devastating redstone launcher or the protector towers that can counter the launcher. The multiplayer map mimics the campaign’s in having specific biomes where certain resources are guaranteed to be found, and like it, it’s procedurally generated for a new challenge each match. Ries said it is much smaller than the campaign’s map, but like the campaign, special and important upgrades like finding new mounts can be acquired through exploration. Everyone starts with a horse, but if you find the beetle, you’ll be able to scale walls rather than having to enter through a gate or break down a wall.
The average length of multiplayer is said to be about 20 – 30 minutes, but my team managed to push almost 40 minutes. We defeated the opposing team’s redstone launchers several times, but ultimately our uncoordinated roles and lack of a developer in our ranks spelled our downfall. Minecraft Legends is a game that requires strategy in multiplayer, but unfortunately has incredibly limited tools for it in the build I played. Ries said there’s no dedicated in-game chat for safety reasons, which I respect, but there’s no way to really call out specific actions or declare player roles either. One reason my team survived so long was because one of my teammates planted his flag at the base and stayed there almost the entire game to build improvements, building alongside me until I ran off to gather resources with a third player. Our fourth may as well have been AFK, which led to our defeat when trying to fend off a more coordinated enemy attack.
Roles like a dedicated builder or resource gatherer are crucial to success. Minecraft Legends has a ping system, but as it didn’t seem to go much further than me pinging a spot on the map or an item in a menu, I wasn’t able to convey my strategies without taking off my headset and speaking directly to the people somewhat near me. With the time investment in mind, I’m not certain I’d want to play Minecraft Legends online without having at least a friend or two by my side. Still, I did only get to try one especially long match with three others as unfamiliar with Minecraft Legends’ mechanics as myself, so I’m hesitant to entirely write off the solo queue for multiplayer just yet.
Any Minecraft fan knows Mojang is usually around for updates post-launch, and Minecraft Legends is no exception. Ries said there will be special challenges called Lost Legends, which serve almost as separate mini-games. Successfully completing one could earn you a skin.
One Lost Legends example Ries gave me that I didn’t play was called Portal Pile, a base defense challenge against waves and waves of piglins that’ll be available at launch. Ries said they also want to work with creators to potentially have them make their own Lost Legends challenges called Myths. There will also be a Legends Marketplace to get skins for player characters and mounts. Ries didn’t mention if they’d be any campaign DLC.
Even though my long multiplayer match was nowhere near the long ones Ries said they had when they were initially tuning multiplayer (almost two hours originally), the investment in multiplayer and potential challenges with team coordination has me skeptical about my chance at success. I’m not at all skeptical about my interest in the campaign, though. It seems like just the right amount of challenge while still being a pleasant reflection of some of my favorite elements of Minecraft. Sure, it’s weird to not stop and collect every resource myself, but with the help of the allays, the charming Hosts, and the potential of finally getting closer to the creepers without them exploding, I can say I’m excited to learn.
Miranda Sanchez is the executive editor of guides at IGN and a member of Podcast Unlocked. She’s a big fan of stationery and fountain pens. You can sometimes find her on Twitter.
Mamma Mia!
There’s a celebration of Mario taking place right now with the launch of his new animated movie. As part of this, YouTube’s Gaming division has joined in on the fun – releasing a video to highlight “over 100 billion views” of Mario-related content on the worldwide video platform.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the many Mario milestones on YouTube:
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
In case you were wondering…
Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto is currently doing the press rounds for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and during a chat with Game Informer, the legendary video game creator was asked about the possibility of “other Nintendo” series being transformed into movies.
While we’re sure many fans out there are already dreaming of adaptations like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid series, there is “probably nothing to announce in the near future” even though Nintendo Pictures is now officially a thing. This shouldn’t be all that surprising to hear given how long it took Nintendo and Illumination to complete the Mario Movie. Here’s Miyamoto’s response in full:
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Square Enix has confirmed that the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, which are essentially upgraded versions of Final Fantasy 1-6, will be released on Nintendo Switch and PS4 on April 19, 2023.
The Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters are currently available on PC and mobile, and soon a new audience will be able to experience much of the history of the Final Fantasy franchise in a new way.
If that wasn’t exciting enough, these versions come with a new pixel font, which seems to address one of the biggest issues fans had with the games when they first were released – the questionable choice of font by Square Enix for these remasters that left many unhappy.
There will also be a new option to switch between the original and new background music whenever you so choose, and there are more options to adjust encounter rate, EXP, Gil, and ABP.
All six games will be available on April 19 at 8am PT/11am ET/4pm BST, and fans will be able to purchase them individually or as a complete package. On the eShop, the games range from $11.99-$17.99 per game, and all six can be purchased for $74.99.
For more, check out seven things you probably didn’t know about Final Fantasy 1-3 and our hands-on preview of the future of the series in Final Fantasy 16.
Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
