The Perfect Wave Review

Animation was the butt of the joke at this year's Oscars ceremony, but one high-profile director/producer had the perfect response to the poorly received joke from host Jimmy Kimmel. 

A Marvel fan has suggested that Doctor Doom's potential introduction to the MCU, possibly leading to his role in Avengers: Secret Wars, could be achieved through a Doctor Strange storyline.

A truly committed Palworld player invested over 800 in-game days in order to collect a set of Legendary Pals with their ideal skills. The new open-world adventure game of battling and catching creatures, exploring, and base-building, is continuing to roll through early access, and is showing no signs of losing momentum. Palworld quickly attracted players on launch and has continued to build a passionate community of fans since.

The many regions that players have visited throughout the Pokemon games all draw inspiration from real-world locations, inspiring one fan from Amsterdam to imagine what a counterpart to their home city would look like in the world of Pokemon. Their absolutely amazing pixel art project not only captures a similar vibe to that associated with the older Pokemon games, but also does a great job of showcasing what a Netherlands-inspired region might look like in the games' world.

The Xbox Partner Preview showcase offered us a look at a number of the third-party games heading to Xbox Series X/S this year. We were shown a variety of trailers during the 30-minute presentation, including a taste of the Japanese mythology inspried Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess and the announcement of The Sinking City 2.

We review Uprising Curse of the Last Emperor, a cooperative 4x game published by Nemesis Games. Uprising will pit you and your fellow players against the legions of the empire and the hordes of chaos.

Converting a traditionally single player IP into one meant for multiplayer too is a process with just as many hits as there are misses, so developer Red Barrels will be delighted it's landed on the right side of history. With up to three friends along for the ride, The Outlast Trials is a slightly different ballgame to its offline counterparts, but it retains enough horror to appeal to those fans picked up through entries past.

There's something special to a retro gamer about the resurrection of a cult classic, as it either gives a hidden gem a new lease of life, or it introduces gamers to a series they've never heard of before. Sunsoft has capitalised on this idea, as Tasto Alpha has developed the single player platform game, Ufouria: The Saga 2, which manages to combine being part-remake and part-sequel of an underappreciated NES game called Ufouria: The Saga — released as Hebereke on the Famicom in 1991.

With all of the gory appeal of a cheesy horror movie, The Outlast Trials works even better than it did when I played it in Early Access last year. There’s just something magical about hiding with your besties in wardrobes and under beds as a deeply rude lady with a power drill for a hand hunts you down. What better way to spend a Friday night with the lads? Each of its death games is unique and filled with devilish and gruesome horrors, including formidable killers with cunning and lethal AI, and upgrading your character’s abilities and gadgets is a fantastic reward for surviving all those bloody corridors. Its biggest weakness is that there just aren’t that many levels to play, which isn’t a great feeling when matches are supposed to be all about striking fear into you and your BFFs. Still, my crew and I had a lot of fun with The Outlast Trials, even if that novelty bled out quicker than we would have liked.

Long before the Suicide Squad went on to try about killing the Justice League, it dug its own grave. The action-adventure shooter from Rocksteady was born with the burden of living up to the lofty standards set by the studio's beloved Batman: Arkham games. Then, it stepped on a rake when last year's gameplay reveal confirmed that the game would be an always-online, live service looter shooter — a departure from Rocksteady's repertoire of narrative-focussed single-player experiences. And when it finally came out in early access ahead of its February 2 release, the developers had to pull it offline due to a bug that led to full story completion just as players logged in to the game for the first time.

Insomniac Games has released a public statement in response to layoffs at the studio announced this week by parent company Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Every so often, a Balatro run will click. The random number generator is on my side when I pull a series of buffs that perfectly align: It’s the Half Joker (+20 to the multiplier for hands with three or fewer cards) pulled as I was upgrading pair, three of a kind, and high card hands, topped off with a Supernova (the number of times a poker hand’s been played is added to the multiplier), Burnt Joker (upgrades your first discarded hand) and Space Joker (a one-in-four chance of upgrading a played poker hand). Add in extra face cards, a few Stone cards (that add chips) and buffs to those, too, and it feels hard not to win.