Sega’s Sonic Origins collection brings Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic CD to modern consoles and PC on June 23rd.
The game will release on Xbox consoles, PlayStation consoles, the Nintendo Switch and PC for roughly $54 (the price varies slightly based on the platform). Controversially, several features, including ‘Hard Missions,’ are locked behind the game’s more expensive ‘Premium Fun Pack’ version.
Sonic Origins also offers noteworthy extras, including an ‘Anniversary Mode’ with widescreen visuals and infinite lives and specific extra challenges you can complete during levels to earn ‘Medallions.’ These Medallions can then be spent to unlock in-game content, including special stages and other items.
It’s no secret that I’m not a massive fan of the Sonic series because I don’t feel the gameplay featured in the chilli dog-eating hedgehog’s sidescrollers has aged very well when compared to, for example, the Super Mario series.
Still, even I can admit that Sonic Origins seems poised to be a pretty solid, albeit pricey, collection of some of Sonic and friends’ most fondly remembered titles.
Sega is reportedly working on “big-budget” reboots of Crazy Taxiand Jet Set Radio focused on creating online communities with recurring revenue.
Bloomberg says that these reboots are part of Sega’s ‘Super Game Initiative‘ that aims to create titles that operate as a living service and feature ample microtransactions, similar to popular titles like Fortnite and Destiny 2.
Sega’s Crazy Taxi reboot has been in the works for a year and will release within the next two to three years. Jet Set Radio is still very early in development.
Two other titles are also reportedly in the works, with the first being a first-person shooter Sega wants to earn $780 million USD (about $984,000,000 CAD) in revenue. Bloomberg says that all of these titles are still early in development and could still be cancelled.
Though Crazy Taxi/Crazy Taxi 2 and Jet Set Radio are Dreamcast cult classics that I personally spent a significant amount of time playing in the early 2000s, it’s unclear if either series will still have an audience in 2022.
For example, the arcade nature of the Crazy Taxi series could make it challenging to expand into a more full-fledged experience (this is the issue Crazy Taxi 3 ran into). That said, I’ve been playing a lot of Crazy Taxi on the Steam Deck through a Dreamcast emulator, and I’m surprised at how well the game has aged. Also, it’s not a Crazy Taxi game without a very The Offspring-focused soundtrack, of course.
Jet Set Radio and its Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater-like goal-oriented gameplay and cel-shaded graphics, on the other hand, seem more primed for a modern reimagining.
Easter Sunday didn’t go as smoothly as planned for several travellers at Boston’s Logan International Airport after an old PlayStation in a “degraded condition” caused bomb scares and the evacuation of passengers from the airport’s Terminal A, according to a BostonGlobestory.
According to the report, TSA agents rang the alarm after inspecting luggage, when they found “a potentially suspicious item in a bag.” Subsequently, the State Police Bomb Squad was called to inspect the potentially dangerous item that turned out to be an old PlayStation.
“Troopers responded and, after investigation and research, determined that the item was a PlayStation video game console with a degraded condition caused by age or damage,” a statement from police provided to the BostonGlobe said. “The condition of the console caused abnormalities in the image produced when it was x-rayed, prompting the screeners’ concern.”
The report doesn’t outline which PlayStation console it was, but if I was to guess, the chunky PS3 in a torn condition would surely raise suspicion.
Footage from the airport shows evacuations and hoards of travellers having to wait outside the airport. While there was no confirmation about the suspicious item being potentially dangerous, State Police spokesman David Procopio told BostonGlobe that the terminal was evacuated “out of extreme precaution.”
Subsequently, upon finding no explosives and discovering that the suspicious item is an old console, travellers were ushered back into the airport around 5pm.
There’s a possibility Game Boy and Game Boy Advance titles could be coming to the Nintendo Switch.
According to a 4chan user (via Gematsu) that posted links to four files — two NSP (Nintendo Submission Package) files and one 7z zip archive featuring two NCA (Nintendo Content Archive Files) pulled from a Switch development kit — Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games will soon drop on the Switch.
According to the post, both emulators are signed by Nintendo Europe Research and Development, a division of the company based out of Paris that worked on DS and Wii emulators for the Wii U and the NES/SNES classic. The reported codename for the GBA emulator is ‘Sloop’ and the Game Boy emulator is called ‘Hiyoko.’
Twitter user @trashBandatcoot posted screenshots and links to videos of the leak. @Mondo_Mega, another Twitter user, revealed a list of Game Boy Advance/Game Boy Colour games tested so far with the emulator, including the following:
Game Boy Advance
Astro Boy: Omega Factor
Car Battler Joe
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
ChuChu Rocket!
Drill Dozer
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
F-Zero: Maximum Velocity
Game & Watch Gallery 4
Golden Sun
Golden Sun: The Lost Age
Gunstar Super Heroes
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Kirby and the Amazing Mirror
Koro Koro Puzzle Happy Panechu!
Kuru Kuru Kururin
Lufia: The Ruins of Lore
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Mario Golf: Advance Tour Mario Kart: Super Circuit
Mario Party Advance
Mario Tennis: Power Tour
Mario vs. Donkey Kong
Mega Man Battle Network 5 — Team ProtoMan
Mega Man Battle Network 2
Mega Man Zero 3
Metroid Fusion
Metroid: Zero Mission
Mr. Driller 2
Ninja Five-O
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team
Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire
Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation
Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis
Wario Land 4
WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!
Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
Game Boy/Game Boy Color
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX
Qix
Super Mario Land
Tetris
4chan isn’t exactly the most reliable source as far as rumours go. Still, it makes sense that the Game Boy and the Game Boy Advance would be the next platforms to hit Nintendo’s Switch Online/Expansion Pack subscription platform, especially since Nintendo’s Wii U Virtual Console offered both GBA/GBC games several years ago. It’s worth noting that Eurogamerand Nintendo Lifehave both previously reported that Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games are coming to Switch.
Not much to talk about with GB(C) though. The build of Hiyoko we have here is in an earlier state than Sloop; each game is a seperate app and there's only four of them: – Super Mario Land – Link's Awakening DX – Tetris – Qix
These six words, as taken from an older man played by Steve Buscemi on 30 Rock, have become a popular meme whenever a person or company does something out of touch.
It’s also what I often think of whenever I see mainstream news outlets covering video games.
Earlier this week, The New York Times lead consumer tech writer Brian X. Chen published a piece about Elden Ring, Japanese developer FromSoftware’s latest action role-playing game. In it, Chen attempts to explain the success of Elden Ring by drawing parallels to overcoming the struggles of the COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulties of FromSoft’s game. On the one hand, he makes some salient points about the increased need for communion after the last two years, and the ways in which Elden Ring players can team up and defeat challenging in-game enemies.
Naturally, many people took to Twitter to point out how it’s reductive, at the very least, to pin this on the pandemic. There are many reasons Elden Ring has been successful: it’s the latest game from the beloved studio behind Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro, A Song of Ice and Fire novelist George R. R. Martin helped write the game’s lore, and it offers a refreshing, handholding-free take on the open-world genre, to name but a few. That’s to say nothing of the way the game’s open structure makes it, in some ways, more approachable than previous FromSoft games — a fact that makes it more appealing to someone like me, who has fallen off each Dark Souls entry.
But even leading up to the game, anyone who’s been following the industry over the past few years could have told you that Elden Ring would have been a big hit. Hell, Elden Ring beat out the Breath of the Wild sequel — a Zelda game — to be named the Most Anticipated Game for two consecutive years at The Game Awards.
Adding to Chen’s apparent misunderstanding of games was the fact that his piece hilariously used cellphone footage of Elden Ring, instead of official, publicly accessible assets from publisher Bandai Namco. As Vice’s Patrick Klepeck notes, this likely boils down to how many newsrooms and their legal teams don’t understand fair use, especially in the context of video games. Those who play games even somewhat regularly can tell you that Xbox and PlayStation consoles, two of Elden Ring’s supported platforms, even have dedicated controller buttons to allow you to record and share game captures easily.
“Proper coverage is especially needed because the gaming industry isn’t some niche thing”
It’s frustrating to see pieces like these because they misrepresent the industry. To be clear, there is value in the perspectives of people who don’t traditionally play or cover games, especially if they’re framing it as such. I’m not trying to “gatekeep.” For example, we published a wonderful freelance piece from busy family man James Jackson last year about how he renewed his passion for games by playing on Easy Mode — a refreshingly unique perspective that our regular MobileSyrup writers wouldn’t be able to provide. But for Chen to position his Elden Ring write-up as an explainer for NYT readers who maybe aren’t as familiar with games but rather blatantly miss the point is disappointing, to say the least.
The NYT piece is far from the only offender, though. Around the same time that went up, CoinDesk — an outlet that focuses on bitcoin and other digital currencies — published its own questionable take on Elden Ring. Essentially, Chief Insights Columnist David Z Morris tried to rather bafflingly, draw comparisons to Elden Ring and cryptocurrencies. Yes, a video game and a digital currency.
“And Elden Ring’s hypersuccess came only after a long and sometimes lonely process of building and experimenting, made possible with the support of a small, dedicated fanbase, in the face of a horde of uncomprehending (dare I say maidenless) critics. And these weren’t people who simply disliked the games and weren’t interested in playing them. They were people who regarded the existence of these games as a threat. Their strangeness was a personal affront, an attack on an entire status-quo worldview.”
The notion that FromSoft has had a “small, dedicated fanbase” (at least, since Dark Souls) that’s been fighting off a “horde of uncomprehending critics” is flat out untrue. While any game — or any artistic creation, for that matter — will always have its critics, it’s ludicrous to act like FromSoft is an underdog amid consistently strong selling and universally acclaimed games.
A December 2021 Bloomberg piece (rather questionably) seemed to suggest that a) Horizon’s Aloy is one of the only examples of a well-realized female character in gaming and b) she’s the “ideal” depiction of women in the medium. (Image credit: PlayStation)
Both Elden Ring pieces remind me of another strange take from a non-gaming publication. In December, Bloomberg technology columnist Tae Kim wrote about the “sexist” depictions of women in gaming. He argued that the industry is slowly making improvements through characters like Horizon Forbidden West’s Aloy, but cited Tomb Raider, Genshin Impact and Bayonetta as examples of games with women in “skimpy outfits.” While not without some merit, this simultaneously ignored how the last 10 years of Tomb Raider games haven’t sexualized Lara Croft as much or how women — including, even, singer-songwriter Lady Gaga — actually like Bayonetta and failed to recognize anything besides Horizon. Ultimately, this is a nuanced issue, which was not done proper justice by Kim suggesting only certain kinds of female characters should exist. Naturally, many pointed out the flaws in that mentality.
In all of these cases, people who don’t generally cover games used a medium they don’t fully understand to make a broader argument. (Notably, Bloomberg also employs one of the gaming industry’s best journalists, Jason Schreier.) It’s especially unfortunate since both the NYT and Bloomberg pieces have the right idea in mind — praising the jolly cooperation of FromSoft titles and calling for greater representation of women in gaming, respectively — but they stumbled in making those points due to a lack of knowledge on the subject matter.
How to improve this
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Responding to the NYT feature, Polygon editor-in-chief and co-founder Chris Plante outlined several smart ways in which mainstream/non-gaming outlets can increase this kind of coverage in an effective way.
The @nytimes published another messy video game story. I don't want to dunk on the writer, so I'll list a few things the paper could do right now for little investment to dramatically improve its coverage:https://t.co/PQf909NdSZ
Some of his points include assigning ownership of games coverage to a single desk (noting that many publications have people from various divisions taking stabs at gaming) and contracting writers with experience covering games (which also throws a bone to the many freelancers out there). Some mainstream outlets, like The Washington Post, also have their own (really good) gaming verticals. Or, at the very least, if you’re going to write such gaming pieces yourself, maybe just speak to more experienced people instead of making inaccurate statements?
Niantic has revealed its next mobile game, Peridot. The augmented reality (AR) title will enter a soft-launch phase on iOS and Android soon.
Revealed via a quick teaser, Niantic showed off a few of the creatures found in Peridot. Many of them share similarities to Pokémon and the game itself looks very much like what we’ve come to expect from Niantic.
Players collect creatures and raise them as their own. These creatures as referred to as Peridots and each have their own individual personality traits. Players must identify their likes and dislikes before breeding them with other Peridots. This then creates new generations of creatures to interact with.
In some ways, Pokémon Go’s DNA is very apparent here. However, there doesn’t seem to be an emphasis on catching Peridots. Instead, gameplay traits from Tamogatchi or Pikmin seem to be more present in the title. Players must play with their Peridots and feed them. Peridots are also able to learn new tricks along the way.
As Peridots are captured, each one is catalogued in the game. Once different species are bred, those new archetypes are discovered and shared in the game’s catalogue of creatures.
As an AR game, players can use their iOS and Android devices to bring their Peridots with them on the go. You’ll be able to take pictures and videos of the creatues in the real world using the game’s AR capabilities.
As for how the game’s UI looks or how players capture Peridots, those questions remain unanswered. Given Niantic’s previous work, it’s safe to assume that there will be a fairly streamlined gameplay loop. Peridot looks to be a title geared towards players of all ages and its gameplay will likely reflect that.
Niantic has opened up pre-registration to players. Those who want to stay up to date on the Peridot development and release can find out more on the website.
YouTuber ETA Prime has plugged an AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, one of the highest-end graphics cards on the market, into Valve’s Steam Deck handheld — and it works and plays games at 4K with max settings.
According to ETA Prime’s video, though some games run great on the Frankenstein-like setup, the Steam Deck’s slow CPU and PCI-Express bandwidth restrictions result in a bottleneck. The unwieldy setup is possible because the Steam Decks’ M.2 PCI-Express x4 socket works with eGPUs, according to ETA Prime.
Of course, this isn’t something the average Steam Deck owner should attempt because it defeats the purpose of the handheld in the first place. Not only is there a massive desktop-level graphics card attached to Valve’s handheld, but the RX 6900 XT also requires a bulky external power source. There’s also a chance that you mess up the Steam Deck’s internals, rendering the device useless.
That said, it’s cool someone was able to make this happen, and perhaps in the future, we’ll see an official version of the Steam Deck that works with an eGPU.
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is kind of like your mom’s meatloaf.
Sure, there are better, more intricately-crafted meals out there, but that doesn’t make Mom’s cooking any less delicious.
The journey of The Skywalker Saga has been a long one. After being first announced nearly three years ago, developer TT Games has been hard at work on their next foray into the galaxy far, far away. Collecting all nine mainline Star Wars films into one brick-based package, this game looks to usher in a new era for the franchise, after more than a decade and a half of Lego titles.
The Skywalker Saga is inarguably the biggest Lego game ever made. While past titles have sported many levels and hundreds of characters, this does all that while including open, explorable worlds, a reinvented combat system, and a new over-the-shoulder camera angle. Even though this was announced before the next generation of consoles got started, this very much feels like a next-gen Lego Star Wars.
But it’s also very much a game of give and take. While it does innovate in almost every aspect, nearly everything comes with a caveat. However, none of these flaws are big enough to detract from just how good this whole package is.
For gamers who have been with the Lego Star Wars franchise since 2006, the gameplay of The Skywalker Saga is the first big change they will notice. There are some familiar trappings like collecting Mini Kits and grabbing as many studs as possible, but pretty well everything else is different.
Gone is the fixed camera and fairly basic platformer gameplay, and in comes a new more modern approach to playing the game. The camera now follows your character over their shoulder, as it would in God of War or Uncharted. This change makes the game instantly feel like an upgrade from past Lego titles. Not to say the other games in the franchise have felt lesser, but this new camera does elevate the experience quite a bit.
Instead of going through fairly linear missions making up each movie of the franchise, these linear sections are now broken up by larger open-world hubs. While at first, I did question why they were there, after a few hours these explorable zones had me hooked.
While moving through each of the movie’s stories it became so easy to get lost in these open sections searching for collectibles. Sure, the upgrades these hidden relics grant you are, for the most part, fairly inconsequential; however, that did not stop me from wanting to collect every single one of them.
These small carrot-on-the-stick collectibles all come with their own set of challenges, offering some of the most fun creative thinking moments of the game. The solutions never hit the level of creativity of something like Super Mario Odyssey, but they are simple, yet fun diversions that had me straying off the beaten path more often than not.
When going through the linear missions, however, it does feel very much like a Lego game. You will build, traverse, and solve minor puzzles as you venture across the galaxy, and for the most part, it is a good time. It is a simple formula, but it works.
Some of the shake-ups found in these story missions are the best moments The Skywalker Saga has to offer, though. Taking a break from swinging a lightsaber to pilot a speeder on the Forest Moon of Endor has never felt better. Or how about the sudden surprise of puzzle-solving from two different perspectives in the droid factories of Geonosis? These little mix-ups keep the experience fresh in a title where you are doing a lot of the same thing over and over.
Like many of the systems in The Skywalker Saga, combat has been entirely reworked as well. The new combat system takes notes from the past games in the franchise but reinterprets them into something wholly new.
However, gamers looking to find something as complex as either of those games will not find that here. This is almost like a low-calorie diet version of either of those. Yes, there is a combo system in place, but it is quite simple and fairly easy to master. And yes, there is dodging, parrying, and a giant health bar in boss encounters, but most can easily be beaten by mashing the attack button.
Something that is a welcome addition is the third-person shooting. Similar to games like Gear of War, you can take up arms behind cover and pick off enemies that way. Again, this is nothing as complex or as pinpoint accurate as other games, but it does feel good to shoot a blaster.
The combat here may look and feel different than the Lego games of yore, but ultimately, The Skywalker Saga never makes it feel quite like the revolution that many had thought it could be before release.
Co-op is back as well! And while it can be fun to play through these epics with a friend, adding another play does take the already thin screen real estate and double the issues. This of course wouldn’t be a pressure point if you could jump in with a friend online; however, at launch co-op can only be done locally.
From a technical standpoint, The Skywalker Saga is, far and away, the best-looking Lego game ever made. The character models give off this authentic Lego sheen, making them look like they have come to life on your living room floor.
The way that light bounces off of these plastic characters is truly stunning. And the attention to detail on these figures is something to behold. You can see the seams along the side of minifig headpieces, or the dirt or snow collecting in their joints as you traverse various worlds. It’s these small touches that really make this feel like seeing your favourite Lego sets come to life.
The playable characters and set decorations are the highlights there, however, the game’s many environments can be a little hit or miss. While locales like Ahch-To or Bespin look great with pops of color and excellent lighting effects, others disappoint.
Planets like Tatooine, Crait, and Geonosis can look messy at times, with these mostly one-color environments becoming a bit of a brown, orange, or white mess when looking at them closely. This is especially the case when focusing on objects in the distance. With the lack of general palette variety on these planets, backgrounds can look splotchy and can take away from the immersive Star Wars experience found in other locations.
The sound design of The Skywalker Saga is a dream. The soundtrack is, of course, masterful, as it features nearly all of the series’ John Williams-composed work. Despite this being a Lego game, I found myself welling up at certain moments if only because of the masterful score (damn you, “Binary Sunset”).
The rest of the soundscape created here is impressive. Each locale has its own sonic flare, and the Lego of it all adds these nice familiar clicks and snaps to everything as the world is disassembled and rebuilt around you.
A couple of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga’s biggest misses come in its presentation. The two most notable of these are its voice acting and the HUD.
The voice acting here can be a bit of a mess. TT Games utilizes both actual dialogue from the Star Wars films as well as added lines read by voice actors. And while in practice it can be cool to hear Daisy Ridley or Mark Hamill every once in a while, it is a little jarring to hear these characters jump back and forth between the original actors and hired talent.
Most of the voice acting team do a serviceable job, usually chiming in with that signature Lego game humor, but there are some that are downright bad. Not to take anything away from the voice actors who lent their talent to The Skywalker Saga, but hearing Adam Driver and the actor brought in to play Kylo Ren back to back makes it sound like this character is two completely different people.
Also on the presentation front is the busy HUD. The act of playing this game can be messy at moments, with your health, a combo metre, stud counter, quick-time events, mission log, a map, and a boss’ life bar all on-screen at once.
This problem increases exponentially after unlocking upgrades to reveal the game’s many collectibles, creating little light blue halos all over the screen at any given time. These HUD elements can, for the most part, be turned on and off, but it is annoying that you have to go digging in the menus to make that happen.
In short, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga may not be the qualitatively best Star Wars game ever made, but it just might be my favorite. This really does feel like the beginning of the next generation for the franchise, and an evolution of what has come before.
Yes, it does have its missteps with messy environments, simple combat, and lackluster voice acting. But it’s the “just one more puzzle” nature of the open world, the stunning character models, and getting to relive some of my favorite moments in film history that kept me playing.
This is a love letter to Star Wars in nearly every way. While it stumbles in a few places, it puts fun at the forefront of the experience, and is that not what gaming is all about?
Certain Affinity, a video game studio with offices in Austin and Toronto, has revealed that it’s “deepening” its relationship with 343 Industries and Halo Infinite.
Windows Centralpreviously reported that the studio is working on a new Infinite mode codenamed “Tanaka.”
This latest announcement from 343 Industries is likely tied to the still unknown Halo Infinite game mode. Certain Affinity is also reportedly supporting the development of the new Perfect Dark and is working on an original Monster Hunter-like game called Suerete, according to Windows Central.
We’ve been part of the @Halo franchise for more than 15 years and we’re honored to say we are deepening our relationship with 343 and have been entrusted with further evolving Halo Infinite in some new and exciting ways. Join us on our journey. https://t.co/fApGobYZS3pic.twitter.com/XSuS7EtLcq
Tanaka is believed to be a battle royale-like mode for Halo Infinite that involves a shrinking arena and beat-em-all gameplay.
Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is available for free on Xbox consoles and PC. Season 2 Lone Wolves of Halo infinite launches on May 3rd. The much-needed update to the beleaguered game features two new maps, new game modes and tweaks to weapons (RIP to the Mangler).
I’ve spent countless hours playing Halo Infinite over the last few months, but even I’ve dropped off playing the game consistently lately. There just isn’t enough new content hitting the title, but hopefully, whatever Certain Affinity is working on injects some much-needed life into the Infinite.
