Category: Video Games

April Fools’ Day 2023: The Best Video Game Pranks on the Internet

April Fools’ Day has once again arrived and has brought with it some hilarious video game pranks. While most can be found to be fake for a laugh, there are a few clever ones that catch us by surprise and become actual new games or updates to existing titles that are just as wild as the day they are released.

It can be hard to keep track of all the best video game pranks on April Fools’ Day, so we are here to gather all the best ones in this roundup! Let us know which prank is your favorite below!

We’ll also be updating this article throughout the day, so be sure to check back for the latest additions!

The Super Mario Bros. Movie Voices + Nintendo Switch Online Announcement

To kick off the April Fools’ Day festivities, IGN presented to the world the latest Nintendo Direct, where Shigeru Miyamoto revealed all the voices from The Super Mario Bros. Movie would be coming to your favorite games. Yes, this includes Chris Pratt voicing Mario in the original Super Mario Bros., Seth Rogen’s Donkey Kong laughing his way through Donkey Kong Country, Anya-Taylor Joy’s Peach dominating the competition in Mario Kart 8, Jack Black’s Bowser destroying everything in his path in Super Mario Odyssey, and much more.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog Is a Real Game You Can Play Now

While this technically came out a day early, SEGA had a very special treat planned for Sonic fans with the actual release of The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, a free murder mystery visual novel game on Steam that stars Sonic and his friends.

Among Us Brings Back Horse Mode For Another April Fools’ Day

From March 31 – April 2, Innersloth has brought back Horse Mode to Among Us, which turns player into either a horse or a rancher to compete in two modes – Horse Wrangling Mode and Classic Horse Mode. While the classic mode is very similar to a normal game, Horse Wrangling Mode is a new version of Hide N Seek with the Seeker becoming the Rancher and the crewmates becoming Horsemates.

Overwatch 2’s ‘Very Serious’ Patch Notes Brings a New Level of Fun to Arcade Mode

In celebration of this special day, Overwatch 2 has released some “very serious” patch notes that reveal some new additions to Arcade Mode. Not only are there googly eyes and new hilarious Ultimate Voice Lines, but each Hero has also been buffed in certain ways to make each match more chaotic and fun.

PUBG’s New Bizarre Battle Royale Mode Features Super Powers, Zombies, and a Monster Chicken

PUBG’s latest April Fools’ Day mode is called Bizarre Battle Royale and it brings in super powers, zombies, and a monster chicken that will give you the fight of your life.

League of Legends Will Let You Stack Hats Upon Hats To Get In the Holiday Spirit

If you hate the thought of just one hat on your head, League of Legends is here for you. Until midnight on April 2 in your local timezone, you will be able to “up your hat game in any blind pick match.” This means you can wear A LOT of hats at once.

Become ‘Legend-Dairy’ in Baldur’s Gate 3 and Cheese Your Way Through Encounters

Some online have said you can cheese your way through certain encounters in Baldur’s Gate 3, and Larian Studios took that to heart. To make the community happy, it is happy to announce on April Fools’ Day that an actual wheel of cheese will be a new character and will allow the cheesing to go to a whole new level.

The Razer Razer Is the ‘World’s First Shaving Mouse Powered by Rare Chroma RGB’

If you need more RGB in your life, Razer has your facial hair covered with the brand-new Razer Razer, the “world’s first shaving mouse powered by Razer Chroma RGB.” Not only can you get a perfect shave, but you can do so without ever leaving your computer.

HyperX Cloud20 Is a New Headset That Will Keep You Hydrated by Spraying Water in Your Face

It can be hard to stay hydrated while gaming, and HyperX wants to solve that problem with the new Cloud20 headset that will spray your with water from time to time to keep you as healthy as possible! Oh, and the video is a real winner.

Developing…

Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Atelier Ryza 3?

Or is it a secret?

Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key launched recently just over a week ago, and fans of the series have had a good chunk of time to get familiar with Ryza’s latest adventure in alchemy.

In our review of the game, we called it “a heady mix of exploration, crafting and combat that benefits greatly from a narrative arc that’s had time to develop and grow”. Small disappointments such as tiny text and no English dub weren’t enough to take the shine off the game in our eyes, and it serves as a great culmination of Ryza’s trilogy on Switch. Check out the review below for the full rundown:

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Forget Weapon Durability, The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Needs a Cooking Overhaul

We got our first extended glimpse at The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom gameplay this week, and while it largely focused on Link’s new fusion abilities, one returning feature set the internet ablaze as soon as it was confirmed: weapon durability. But while people were arguing about whether Breath of the Wild’s breakable weapons are good or not (spoiler: they are, and we talk in-depth about why on the latest episode of NVC), I am far more concerned about the future of another likely returning system – because let’s face it, Link’s cooking skills need sharpening.

While not explicitly shown during the gameplay video, all the telltale signs of cooking are back – Link had an inventory full of ingredients (some of which he was more concerned about strapping to his weaponry rather than roasting) and that signature wide cooking pot could be seen over a campfire in a cave that was briefly visited. There’s evidence the food system might have actually been expanded as well, since a cooking pot symbol in the UI now seems to be occupying “up” on the d-pad in the same way you quick-select your weapons and shields.

That’s great to see, because I have a serious love-hate relationship with Breath of the Wild’s cooking. It’s a surprisingly deep system full of fun experimentation and some seriously powerful buffs if you know what to throw in a pot. It also got me to actually care about all the little bits and bobs I was vacuuming into my back pocket as I explored Hyrule, with items I overlooked early on suddenly being worth their weight in rupees once I realized what they could be used to make.

However, the way you actually interact with your cooking options in Breath of the Wild falls regrettably short of its full potential. It is patently insane that the only way to cook is by slowly navigating your cluttered inventory, individually putting up to five items into Link’s arms, closing out, and then physically dropping them into a cooking pot – and Hylia forbid you add the wrong item or miss the pot and have to start all over again. You can at least skip most of the cooking cutscene that plays each time, but making more than a couple meals at once is a laboriously slow process.

It’s also nuts to me that there’s no in-game way to track what combinations you’ve already tried and what the results were, especially given how many ingredient options you have. I actually really love that you can find posters at different stables with meals for you to try making, but it’s wild that your options are basically to memorize them immediately or manually write them down if you want to retain that recipe longterm – and while you could take a photo, the album isn’t exactly designed for easy browsing either.

“I have a serious love-hate relationship with Breath of the Wild’s cooking.”

On top of that, as much as I loved experimenting with different combinations of ingredients to find interesting results, this system eventually becomes fairly easy to crack. While the idea of mixing and matching up to five items is charming, the truth of the matter is that you only need to use one when it comes to your healing and stamina options. Once you’ve boosted your stats enough, putting any single item that increases your max health or stamina into a pot (for example, Hearty Durians or Endura Carrots) will result in a meal that gives you a little bit of an extra boost while also completely refilling your natural max. That flattened out many of the “best” late-game cooking options for me, which can make the processing of roasting a bunch of single carrots even more tedious.

As I see it, Tears of the Kingdom has an opportunity to smooth so many of the bumps in a system I ultimately really like. Let me sit down at a campfire, open a cooking menu, and select individual ingredients in order to more quickly find out what their combinations result in. Better yet, save the meals I’ve already made in a recipe book and let me quickly cook them again (or in multiples) if I have the ingredients on hand. The issue of how food scales once you’re dozens of hours in is a harder problem to solve, and I’m not going to pretend I know how to do it, but even just improvements to the way you interact with a cooking station is something I’d take over weapon repair any day.

We haven’t seen much of Tears of the Kingdom yet, but this week’s gameplay left me extremely optimistic. I imagine there are some big surprises still waiting in the wings, but the fact that its fusion and Ultrahand abilities already seem to empower the way players experimented with (and even exploited) Breath of the Wild gives me hope that Nintendo could do the same with cooking. Because if we’re going to be able to strap a piece of meat to a sword and beat bokoblins to death with it, the least we can do is make it medium-rare.

Resident Evil 4 Remake Has a Game-Breaking Bug and Capcom Is Working on a Fix

Capcom has alerted Resident Evil 4 Remake players that a rare game-breaking bug has been found at the beginning of Chapter 12 that could stop your progress if you attack with your knife right after obtaining a key item.

Capcom shared the news on Twitter, saying that this issue affects players on all platforms and that it “intends to fix this issue in a future update and apologize for any inconvenience.” Luckily, the fix will allow players who were impacted by this bug to continue their current save.

As for the bug itself, Capcom has detailed what it is and how to avoid it in a non-spoilery way;

“A cutscene will play at the beginning of Chapter 12, after which the player will receive a key item,” Capcom wrote. “Please refrain from attacking with the knife until the notification for obtaining this item is displayed in the upper right of the screen.

“After obtaining the item, it will appear in the Key Items & Treasures menu in the attache case. If it has not appeared, please reload saved data from before the start of Chapter 12.”

This bug aside, the Resident Evil 4 Remake has been a joy for many of us to play. In our 10/10 Resident Evil 4 Remake review, we said it is “Only the most relentlessly exciting Resident Evil adventure of all time that’s been rebuilt, refined, and realised to the full limits of its enormous potential.”

For more, check out how to get the most money for your treasure and gemstone combinations, the news that RE4 Remake sold three million units in two days, and why getting the new bolt thrower is our most important RE4 Remake tip.

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.

Video: The History Of Nintendo Life’s Most Famous Catchphrase

“Hello there lovely people”.

If you’ve been a long-time fan of Nintendo Life, there’s probably one thing you associate with us as much as you do Nintendo news: the words “Hhhhhello there lovely peeeeeople”.

Coined by the very lovely Alex Olney over on YouTube for us, he, Zion, and Felix have decided to finally crack open the egg and reveal the truth behind what is our most-famous catchphrase. That’s right, folks, it’s time to strap in and get ready for a Nintendo Life history lesson.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Surprise Nintendo Direct Reveals Mario Movie Voices Coming to ‘All Of Your Favorite Mario Games’

The Super Mario Movie is due to release next week, and Nintendo is celebrating by bringing Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, and the rest of the voice cast from the big screen to the small screen.

Shigeru Miyamoto appeared in a special April 1st Nintendo Direct to announce that “your favorite Mario games” will be adding a special “movie mode” featuring the voice talents of the Super Mario Bros. Movie cast. Supported games include Luigi’s Mansion 3, Mario Kart 8, and even the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES.

Activating the new “movie mode” will replace the existing voices with movie cast members, or if there are no voices, add them in. Want to hear “Mushroom Kingdom, here we come!” after Mario clears a level in the original Super Mario Bros.? Now you can!

“It’s a whole new way to enjoy the Mario games you know and love,” Miyamoto said.

‘A dream come true’

In a statement released to the media, Pratt expressed his excitement over having his voice appear in the original Super Mario Bros.

“This is a dream come true after spending hours of my life stomping on Koopas,” Pratt said.

Pratt’s appearance alongside a star-studded cast include Seth Rogen and Jack Black sent shockwaves through the gaming industry when it was revealed. Anticipation has only grown since then, to the point that some analysts think it may be the highest grossing movie of 2023.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie releases April 5. As for the Mario DLC featuring their voices, a release date has not yet been revealed.

Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 1st)

Flame on.

One week ago today we were looking at the calendar and commenting on how things seemed pretty quiet for Nintendo to round out March and then out of nowhere — boom! — we’re hit with our first proper look at The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and everything changed.

Yes, this was the week that we fell thoroughly back into the Zelda spirit (as if we ever left) as we broke down every new detail in the latest trailer, had a close look at that special edition OLED and discussed Nintendo’s previous successes with the ‘more of the same’ format.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Switch eShop’s Massive Bethesda Sale Includes Skyrim For “Lowest Price Ever” (US)

And many other bargains.

There’s a new Bethesda sale on the Switch eShop and series like Elder Scrolls and Doom have seen some massive price cuts.

Both The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and DOOM Eternal are going for their “lowest prices ever” on this particular digital storefront, so if you’ve been holding out for a sale – now might finally be the time to splash some cash. This sale ties in with the 29th anniversary of the Elder Scrolls series.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

The Super Mario Bros. Movie Will Feature the DK Rap, Which Seth Rogen Calls ‘One of the Worst Rap Songs’

Alongside revealing that the legendary DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64 will be featured in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Seth Rogen has also jokingly called it “objectively, one of the worst rap songs of all time.”

Rogen, who voices Donkey Kong in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, appeared on the film’s official Twitter to share the exciting news and react to watching the original DK Rap from the opening of 1999’s Donkey Kong 64.

Rogen also confirmed that his version of Donkey Kong will be introduced with the DK Rap in the film before calling it, as previously mentioned, “one of the worst rap songs of all time.” However, he finds more things to love as the song continues and even gives it a “10/10 bananas” rating at the end.

Grant Kirkhope, who was the composer of Donkey Kong 64 and the person responsible for the DK Rap, responded to the video in the best way.

“If you’d told me in ’97, when I wrote the worst rap track in the history of rap tracks, that it would go on to be in a Mario Bros movie I’d [sic] would’ve burst with excitement! Long live the DK Rap!” Kirkhope wrote.

Fans won’t have to wait long to see the DK Rap come to life on the big screen as The Super Mario Bros. Movie will be released in theaters on April 5, 2023.

For more, check out Rogen’s comments on how he’d be “excited” to voice Donkey Kong again after this film, why Mario voice actor Chris Pratt said to “get ready for a lot of these movies,” and Keegan-Michael Key on how he maintained Toad’s high-pitched voice throughout the movie.

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.

PlatinumGames Announces Next Instalment In “Neo-Classic Arcade” Series On April Fools’ Day

But is it legit?

You might remember that last year, PlatinumGames released a video from a clearly fake press conference at which Hideki Kamiya and co. announced nine new “upcoming” games as a part of a series called the Neo-Classic Arcade. This year, the studio is back at it again as it revealed a “Spectacular Side-Scrolling Action” game starring its V-Tuber and mascot, Pt Shirogane.

The game was announced on the fictional “Happy-Go-Lucky Underground Radio” show, hosted by Pt. You can watch the full reveal in the video above (be sure to turn subtitles on), with the small amount of game footage (assuming that it’s a real game) appearing around the 3:17 mark.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com