Author: Game Infliction

Double Fine Productions founder Tim Schafer will be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) Hall of Fame this month at the 26th annual DICE Awards, in recognition of his over 30-year impact on the games industry.

Schafer’s career began at LucasArts in 1989 as a programmer working on games including Indiana Jones and the last Crusade and Maniac Mansion. He was eventually invited by Ron Gilbert to work on The Secret of Monkey Island and its sequel, both of which received massive acclaim. Schafer went on to design games such as Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango before eventually leaving LucasArts in 2000 to found Double Fine Productions and create Psychonauts, Psychnauts 2, Brutal Legend, and Broken Age.

AIAS Hall of Fame status is given to “game creators who have been instrumental in the development of highly influential games and moving a particular genre forward.” Schafer will join past honorees such as Ed Boon, Connie Booth, Bonnie Ross, Todd Howard, Hideo Kojima, and others.

“Tim has been a beacon of creativity and innovation in the games industry for decades,” said head of PlayStation Creators Greg Rice, who will be presenting the award. “Since the early days of LucasArts he’s been setting the benchmark for storytelling in games, and with the formation of Double Fine he created a place that not only allowed him to continue to deliver incredible games, but also inspire and support others doing the same. He truly is a legend.”

We praised Double Fine’s most recent work under Schafer, Psychonauts 2, for its “weird and wonderfully written story” and its expansion of its predecessor “toward both grander and more intimate threats without losing the joyous childhood adventure vibes of the original.”

The 26th annual DICE Awards will take place on Thursday, February 23, in Las Vegas as a part of the 2023 DICE Summit.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

The difference between PlayStation and Xbox over the past generation-plus isn’t just the quantity of exclusives, it’s the quality of them. Microsoft has had precious few exclusives at all, which in and of itself has been a big problem. But worse, the number of those that have been not just good but fantastic is embarrassingly small. And that’s why last week’s surprise reveal and immediate shadow-drop of Tango Gameworks’ rhythm-action game Hi-Fi Rush was so huge for Xbox. It surprised, it delighted, and it’s a viral hit – and it’s exactly what Xbox needs right now.

Rhythm-action games aren’t new. But they’ve also never really been “hit” games. We’ve enjoyed a steady diet of them over the past few years, likely from game developers who themselves are, like many gamers, mourning the seemingly permanent death of the plastic-instrument genre that Guitar Hero and Rock Band pioneered in the late-2000s. And while a number of the new-age rhythm-action games have been good – last year’s Metal: Hellsinger leaned hard into its theme and was an incredibly fun game for doing so – there’s something more approachable and appealing about Hi-Fi Rush. Maybe it’s the literal-cartoon art style and its equally cartoonish plot about a teenager who cuts the line at Vandelay Technologies to get his disabled right arm replaced with a functioning robotic limb, only to end up getting rockstar powers courtesy of the iPod that gets mistakenly fused to his chest during the automated, factory-like procedure.

Hi-Fi Rush makes this silly-sounding premise sing though, with humor, liberal use of the entire color palette (recalling past Xbox cult classics like Jet Set Radio Future and Sunset Overdrive), and gameplay that rewards combo moves and special attacks pulled off to the beat of its incredible soundtrack – including cuts from Nine Inch Nails and The Black Keys – but, crucially, doesn’t penalize you for failing to stay in rhythm. Every moment literally exudes joy, as even the normally boring bits of the environment bop to the beat as your rockstar avatar Chai snaps his fingers or taps his foot.

The result is an instantly lovable game that feels fresh and has taken the gaming community by storm. And Bethesda knew it had something special. Everyone has been talking about Hi-Fi Rush for the past week, and deservedly so. It’s also the beneficiary of great timing; the only other significant release around the same time was the Dead Space remake, which, while outstanding, is hardly gunning for the same audience. Dead Space and Hi-Fi Rush couldn’t be more opposite if they tried!

Furthermore, to be blunt, both Microsoft and the Xbox community needed this. We thought the cloudy days were gone forever in 2021, but the dark skies returned last year, with even Xbox boss Phil Spencer acknowledging the dearth of exclusive game releases over the past 12 months. Xbox’s no-show at The Game Awards in December only further tested fans’ patience. And so, the fact that Microsoft didn’t just give us release dates for key first-half-of-the-year exclusives at its recent Developer_Direct broadcast but also released a kickass new game that very day was a jolt of positivity, enthusiasm, and downright fun that Xbox has been lacking in for much of the early part of this new console generation.

So where are we now as we head into the second month of a critical year for Xbox? Forza Motorsport seems to be pushed to the second half of 2023, and Starfield is still something of a question mark, release-date-wise, but for the moment Xbox fans are eatin’ good thanks to a joyous, totally-out-of-left-field surprise from one of the studios it acquired to solve its first-party game problem. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some more evil corporate bosses to beat down with my robot guitar arm…

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

After the infamous WWE 2K20 misstep, the hugely popular WWE 2K22 arrived last year to course-correct the series and revolutionize the way we play simulations of the squared circle. Hot on its heels and looking to capitalise on its predecessor’s revolution this year is WWE 2K23. But from what I’ve played so far, it feels less like it’s standing on the shoulders of the giant, and rather peaking over cautiously.

As to be expected, WWE 2K23 comes with all the bells, whistles, and powerbombs you’d expect from a new WWE game. There’s a whole new roster featuring the likes of the returning Cody Rhodes and the up-and-coming NXT champion, Bron Breakker. Also receiving a yearly upgrade is the wrestler’s attire, music, and general presentation. It’s all as up-to-date as it could be, but outside of these upgrades, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that, at its core, it was largely the same game as before.

Much like the way lots of sports games iterate on their established winning formula, everything in terms of gameplay in WWE 2K23 has rolled over from the previous game. So much so that despite only having an hour to play the game, I immediately felt at home with the breaker system, combos, reversals, and all the grappling intricacies. If you’re familiar with 2K22, you’ll know exactly what to expect.

That’s not to say there aren’t a few new clever additions though. The first to stand out is the arrival of the long-awaited and heavily requested match type; WarGames. For the first time in the series, WWE 2K23 extends the canvas with the addition of an extra ring. WarGames features two rings side-by-side with a cage surrounding both, with entrants from either a three or four-man team entering in intervals. From a glance, this could appear like a re-purposed version of any other six or eight-man speciality matches like Hell in a Cell, but there are a couple of interesting details that not only help break this apart from the pack, but also help it stand out in its own right.

Like its real-life counterpart, the WarGames match features an interesting swing in the advantage for either team, with one team being a wrestler short at several intervals. At this point the team with the handicap has to fend off their rivals knowing that they’re at a severe disadvantage, biding their time until one of their teammates can enter the action. That teammate, however, can choose to grab a weapon (or weapons) to not only even the odds but perhaps flip the advantage the other way.

Unlike Hell in a Cell or Elimination Chamber, WarGames’s two-ring setup also affords the player more space to work with, preventing the congestion and clumsiness seen in the aforementioned modes. There’s also an interesting drama that comes from the bout being settled by one pinfall, which could easily happen whilst you’re duking it out in the other ring. This presents an interesting risk/reward conundrum, forcing you to separate from your teammates and potentially miss the important save so you can afford yourself the space to do maximum damage to your opponent. All of this presents an interesting swing in match dynamics and one I’ve not experienced before in a wrestling game. And with WarGames being available as an online mode, I’m excited at the prospect of this back-and-forth concept playing out against other players.

The 2K showcase makes a predictable return to the series, but with its potentially freshest, most exciting pivot yet. Despite the showcase having John Cena – this year’s cover star – as the focus, you never actually get to play as the sixteen-time World champion. Instead, the series of matches now focus on every time John Cena lost an important match, with the player taking control of the superstar who took him down. Not only is the tale of all his losses an interesting story to be told by the man himself between matches, but it also has the benefit of providing variety to the player by not forcing them to play as one character a dozen times in a row.

Even though the mode now offers that much-desired playable character diversity, I’m still slightly cautious about the entertainment value of this showcase. I only got to experience one match from this series which involved the historic ECW One Night Stand match, where Rob Van Dam dethrones Cena as the WWE champion. But from what I saw there appears to be an over-reliance on the (albeit impressive) switch to real-life footage, with several periods of just watching the actual match for minutes at a time. I found myself feeling like I wanted to be back in the action and create these moments myself, not just watching clips of footage that are already burned into my brain. It’s a small niggle from a small sample, and I’m still very interested in playing the full showcase, but I’m slightly worried it’s not everything I hoped for.

Despite what I said about the gameplay earlier, there is one advertised change that did make a difference to the core mechanics. WWE 2K23 now introduces an optional variety to kicking out of pin attempts, offering the choice for players to flick the right stick in a timed window as opposed to mashing a button. The kick out zone is a sliding bar that decreases in size and moves more unpredictably as the match progresses and your vitality decreases. I took to this alternate option immediately, which surprised even me, but the tactile feel of the flick, the one-to-one representation of the movement, and the last-gasp nature sold me on the concept of accurately reflecting the drama of a WWE match. With the rapid button-pressing option, knowing you’re out for the count is telegraphed early, but the new timed window system always provides the elusive chance of a kick out that you don’t get when the button-pressing demands are beyond the realms of human capability. And what could be more wrestling than the drama of that shocking kick out?

It can be argued that 2K22 set a new benchmark in terms of grappling gameplay, with my personal (and perhaps controversial) opinion being that the series is currently the best it’s ever been. But with this comes the struggle for the next game in the series to do more beyond small iterations, and I feel like this year’s game is in the unfortunate position of struggling to make its own dramatic statement. From what I’ve seen so far, there are certainly some worthwhile and fun steps in WWE 2K23, and fans of WarGames, John Cena, and having an up-to-date roster are in for a treat. I just worry that the final game might not make the impact its revolutionary younger brother did.

Dale Driver is the UK Video Lead for IGN and a lifelong WWE fan/apologist who acknowledges his Tribal Chief. Be thoroughly bored by following him Twitter at @_daledriver.