Last week, Mario and Donkey Kong’s decade-old dispute bubbled back to the surface in the appropriately titled Mario vs. Donkey Kong, a Switch remake of the identically titled GBA original from 2004.
NL’s stalwart PJ O’Reilly enjoyed his time with it, awarding it a ‘Good’ 7/10 in his review and highlighting the new co-op mode as a highlight in a game that lacks teeth: “If you’re a more seasoned player looking for platforming challenges, this game finds its strengths as an experience for younger gamers or as a co-op title. Taken as such, it absolutely earns a recommendation.”
Purge the forces of chaos in brutal turn-based combat, available on Xbox February 20
Combat Nurgle’s sinister plot in an epic campaign penned by legendary Warhammer 40,000 and Black Library author Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Shape your own elite squad of Grey Knights; tailor their abilities, equipment and even their appearances as you clash with the daemonic
Chaos threatens humanity once again. Reports of a mysterious plague named ‘the Bloom’ emerge from the Tyrtaeus sector, and the arrival of an Imperial Inquisitor sets in motion a chain of events which will test your tactical prowess to its limits.
In Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters, you’ll take command of the Grey Knights, an elite chapter and secretive order of Space Marines, tasked with aiding the Inquisitor in the eradication of this foul corruption.
Force Commander, given the grave nature of this new threat, I have been authorised to distribute the following confidential military doctrine to assist your encounters with this plague. I hope that these Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters tips serve you well. For the Emperor!
Turn-based tactics, Space Marines style
A single Grey Knight is an army unto itself, whether executing enemies at distance or purging them in melee combat. Your elite soldiers don’t miss their shots, offering you total precision when they open fire on the forces of Chaos. Repeatedly attacking foes will stun them, creating an opportunity to target specific body parts and reduce your foe’s effectiveness or even unleash a stunning execution to boost your entire squad with an extra action.
Take Down the Reapers of the Bloom
Force Commander, early reports indicate that the Grey Knights will take on towering, powerful boss enemies in the form of the Reapers of the Bloom, from Greater Daemons such as Aeger the Benevolent, to the hulking corroded Chaos Knight, Cruciatus the Generous. Each will require you to rethink your tactics in order to achieve victory. But an even graver threat awaits those who discover the Bloom: Mortarion, the Death Lord and Primarch of the Death Guard.
Personalize the Grey Knights
As Force Commander, you can customise each battle-brother to your liking, tweaking crests, skin colour, hair colour, armour pieces and more. Grey Knights arrive trained as a particular class, starting with the Justicar, Interceptor, Apothecary and Purgator. An additional set of four advanced classes unlock throughout the campaign. As your Grey Knights gain experience, you will be able to further shape their training to suit your style on the battlefield, sharpening their skills until they become the ultimate weapon against the darkness.
An Unpredictable Enemy
Across an expansive campaign, our prognosticars suggest you will face a wide variety of Nurgle’s threats such as Poxwalkers, Helbrutes, Plague Marines, and Myphitic Blight-haulers as you battle the Bloom. Enemies will mutate across combat missions depending on which strain of the Bloom is present, visually changing them and offering combat buffs such as additional armour.
Psyker Power
Each Grey Knight has a reserve of Willpower, which is spent on psychic powers, and is primarily regained by slaying enemies on the battlefield. Psychic powers range from increasing the power of melee attacks to area of effect buffs for your Knights. Additionally, by supporting Inquisitor Vakir’s research into the Bloom, you’ll gain the ability to deploy powerful single-use psychic abilities called Stratagems which can turn the tide of an entire battle.
Purging the Bloom
Between battles, you’ll preside over command of the Strike Cruiser, the Baleful Edict. From the helm, you’ll respond to the growing Bloom threat, monitoring its spread via the Star Map and deciding where to go next. But be warned, you will have to make tough choices in order to limit the Bloom’s spread. The longer you leave an outbreak unchecked, the more enemy resistance you can expect.
The Changing Battlefield
Combat zones will change over time as the Bloom takes hold, offering new cover opportunities as well as new hazards. Players can also utilise the environment to their advantage, unleashing massive plasma battery explosions or collapsing pillars on foes. Players can set waypoints for their Grey Knights as they tactically move around each map, avoiding parts of the level where an enemy might be in overwatch stance, or where noxious corruption might otherwise damage them.
Upgrades on the Baleful Edict
The Baleful Edict acts as your command centre, where you’ll find key areas in need of your attention. The Manufactorum lets players first repair and later upgrade their vessel, enhancing its response capabilities significantly. In the Armoury, Grand Master Vardan Kai offers equipment requisition to boost the war effort. Finally, in the Libris Malleus, Inquisitor Vakir will enhance the Grey Knights’ combat abilities and unlock tide-turning psychic abilities called Stratagems.
Add to Your Arsenal
By showing its dedication to the chapter, your Strike Force is granted rewards over time such as additional Grey Knights, Master-crafted weapons, Armour and specialized Wargear. Completing optional combat mission challenges known as Glorious Deeds, which impose tougher limitations or objectives, will unlock additional requisition points to spend in the armoury.
Beware the Warp
Warp Surges are unpredictable combat mission events that can call in new enemy reinforcements, activate powerful mutations, and introduce unpredictable effects and hazards onto the battlefield, upping the challenge. The more corrupt the map, the more likely a Warp Surge event will occur, but enemy actions and Grey Knight abilities can further influence Warp Surges as well.
I hope these insights provide a guide for your investigations Force Commander. You can start your battle against the Bloom right now on Xbox. Share your triumphs with your fellow Grey Knights on our social media channels and strike down this foul corruption!
Nacon announced the as-yet untitled Terminator game back in 2022. It’s in the works at Nacon Studio Milan, and takes place in an open world set between the events of Judgment Day (the Skynet nuclear strike that causes the apocalypse) and the formation of John Connor’s resistance. You play as a group of nuclear apocalypse survivors fighting to stay alive.
As Nacon said at the time, the Terminator game features an original story that draws upon the events portrayed in the movies. The cinematic teaser trailer revealed a T-800 hunting someone in a warehouse, the iconic original Terminator theme tune blaring in the background.
Meanwhile, GreedFall 2: The Dying World is the follow-up to Spiders’ Dragon Age-style role-playing game GreedFall 2. This one’s due out for PC and consoles at some point this year. Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is the next game in the racing franchise developed by Kylotonn and also set for release in 2024.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
As time goes by, it really does seem like there’s a Soulslike for every occasion: Lies Of P for those who prefer their fairy tales more on the messed up side, Steelrising for those who like France and robots, Lords Of The Fallen for those who like spectral moths and lanterns. Well, another joins the fray in Enotria: The Last Song, an Italian-inspired Soulslike with the loveliest setting I’ve seen in a while.
Helldivers 2 saw a huge weekend during which it broke its own concurrent players record multiple times and even passed GTA 5’s Steam peak, but it was also a frustrating weekend for many who struggled to log in and play with the servers at capacity.
Helldivers 2 players on the game’s Discord are saying they are not logging out on purpose so they can ensure they can play when they want to. One user said they left themselves logged in to Helldivers 2 before they went to work to make sure they could play when they got home. Another said they hadn’t logged off for three days.
It’s fair to say that some Helldivers 2 players who have struggled to play the game have reacted angrily to these reports, which suggest there are a significant number of people simply idle but taking up server space. “This needs to be implemented asap because so many players are not logging out on purpose,” one X/Twitter user said. “They’re ruining it for others and they’re making this issue worse. They don’t want to log out because they don’t want their server spot taken and then forced to wait in queue again.”
Anoteher X/Twitter user brought this problem to the attention of Arrowhead boss Johan Pilestedt, who replied to suggest the development team is working on a fix. “Agreed, I have already mentioned this to the team,” Pilestedt said.
Meanwhile, Pilestedt revealed that anything beyond the “hard cap” of 500,000 concurrent players “brings the system down”. Arrowhead is working to address Helldivers 2’s significant server issues as word of mouth sparks even more to the cause.
In our Helldivers 2 review, we said its “combat feels fantastic, its missions stay fresh and interesting, and its smart progression system doesn’t nickel and dime you.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Cheery RPS fanzine PC Gamer have highlighed a heartwarming story of lost media becoming found again. A mod for Matthew Perry career high and/or nuclear apocalypse RPG sidequest Fallout: New Vegas, which was thought lost since some time around 2016, has been found by chance on someone’s hard drive. The content of this mod, you ask? It adds a companion who looks like redoubtable nu-metal pioneer Fred Durst. I was trying to come up with a pun to do with “nookie” or that modders will “keep rollin'”, but I respect you too much for that (also it’s Monday and I’m very tired – give me something to break, am I right?).
The cult hit EarthBound (Mother 2) is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, so naturally, that means that Japan is getting another collaboration between Mother and watch manufacturer Casio.
Due for launch on 14 March, 2024 via a lottery purchase system, the ‘Mother Red’s GW-6900‘ follows a previous collaboration back in 2021. This time, however, the watch is red… Like, really red. You’ve got the Mother logo at the top of the display, while the word ‘Potential’ is nestled in at the bottom.
We haven’t heard much about the initiative since, but in an article published by the Japan Times, one Sega executive referenced the Crazy Taxi reboot specifically and called it a triple-A game.
Takaya Segawa, who runs Sega’s support studio in Sapporo, said: “We’re responsible for titles such as Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis and Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! in cooperation with the bases in Tokyo and overseas. We are also participating in the development of triple-A titles, including Crazy Taxi.
“At present, we don’t have any titles developed independently by the studio, but we intend to do so in the future.”
Crazy Taxi is a driving game series that first appeared in arcades in 1999 before ports on consoles such as the Dreamcast saw it enjoy popularity in the home. You play a taxi driver who speeds through the city to deliver passengers to their destinations, performing stunts to earn points along the way.
The Crazy Taxi reboot is one of the first games coming out as part of Sega’s bid to revive its legacy franchises, although the company has yet to announce a release window or in which form the games will launch. But with Segawa calling Crazy Taxi a triple-A game, perhaps fans can expect something more significant than a modest return for one of its most-beloved arcade games.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Another week of PC game releases is upon us and oh heck, slow down. There are an alarming number of games out this week that I want to play, from large-scale 3D productions to itty-bitty time-killers, each sinisterly appropriate to my Steam stats and wider research interests. Are videogame publishers and The Maw in cahoots to overwhelm me with impulse-buys and sabotage my attempts to Report the News? It’s possible. It’s possible. The Maw can be pretty cunning for an indiscriminate force of cosmic famine. The creature has been known to forge alliances with misguided mortals, seeking to flank and overwhelm harried news writers. How else to explain Phil Spencer’s T-shirts?
Riot Forge’s last stab at publishing smaller spin-offs from indie teams has resulted in Bandle Tale: A League Of Legends Story, which at first glance has all the things I love in self-proclaimed cosy games: gorgeous pixel art, laidback objectives and characters cute enough to trigger primal cheek-squishing instincts. But despite looking like an SNES classic and playing like a mix between Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, Bandle Tale unfortunately ties itself in knots with overly grindy crafting that had me rubbing my temples in an effort not to combust.
