Arcade News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

What a year, huh?

By Darryn Bonthuys on

The Sonic franchise has taken many forms, from 2D to 3D, and even a point-and-click game. This time around, we’re dealing with Sonic Dream Team which is a platformer available on various Apple devices through its Arcade.

A number of staff have been laid off at 3D Realms and Slipgate Ironworks - the developers behind Ghostrunner, Shadow Warrior, Duke Nukem and more - as the game industry devastation wrought by Embracer’s restructuring efforts continues.

To put it lightly, arcade racers struggle to succeed in this day and age. Big budget attempts are almost extinct, and indie efforts unfortunately rarely make an impact, regardless of quality. What's the answer, then? How can drift-obsessed, arcade racing, petrolheads get their over-the-top kicks? Well, here's one answer — make it a single mode, and stick it in one of the most popular games on the planet.

Originally due in November, trendy K-hip hop combat game Tiger Blade will now purr to PSVR2 from 20th December, just in time for the holidays. The rhythm slasher, which sees you tasked with stealing a previously believed extinct cat from a rival clan, is set in an alternate version of Korea – and you can read more about the developer’s influences in our interview.

The outrageously overpriced microtransactions for Fortnite’s new arcade racing game Rocket Racing have dramatically dropped, following robust criticism from the game’s community. Epic Games originally intended to flog a single car for 4,000 V-Bucks, which would cost you around £27.99/$29.99, albeit with leftover in-game currency.

SEGA’s excellent Yakuza series is well-known for its minigames, but Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth looks to seriously expand upon the expectations of fans with an unprecedented number of side-activities and distractions. Chief among them is the inclusion of some fairly famous Model 3 arcade games, including SEGA Bass Fishing, SpikeOut, and Virtua Fighter 3tb. These are brand new ports, and it’s the first time SpikeOut has been playable on console since an iffy Xbox spin-off almost 20 years ago.

We were lucky enough to spend close to an entire day with Tekken 8 at a recent Bandai Namco press event — and we walked away from the experience thoroughly impressed. We've had high hopes for the long-running series' latest instalment for quite some time — especially since we're such big fans of Tekken 7 — but going hands-on with a near-final build of Tekken 8 really solidified our belief that this bone-crunching fighter could be something very special.

Earlier this week, Bandai Namco announced a free playable demo for the upcoming fighting game, Tekken 8. Said demo is now available to download and install on PS5.

Overwatch 2’s annual holiday event Winter Wonderland will return to the game on Dec. 19. On Friday, Blizzard Entertainment detailed what players can expect during Winter Wonderland 2023, including returning game modes and new Legendary skins for heroes like Sojourn, Mercy, Tracer, Baptiste, Illari, and Cassidy. Also confirmed: a new Winter Wonderland event pass, which has a free track and a paid track that’s separate from the season 8 battle pass.

On July 29, 2024, Microsoft will turn off the ability to purchase games on the Xbox 360 Marketplace, effectively killing access to hundreds of digital games. Many of those games will remain available on other platforms, but there are outliers - and one resource has put together a list of the 47 games that will die with the 360 store.

Atari and Mega Cat Studios have released Food Fight: Culinary Combat, a multi-player reimagining of the somewhat bizarre 1983 arcade game, into Early Access. The catch is that, right now, it’s exclusively available on the Atari VCS.

The official story trailer for Bandai Namco’s upcoming fighting game, Tekken 8, has landed, and it’s revealed even more stunning cinematics from The Dark Awakens story mode. 

At the tail end of a historic six months for fighting game fans, after the releases of Street Fighter 6 and Mortal Kombat 1, Bandai Namco is about to respond with Tekken 8. In a recent press tour, we checked out a near-final build of the game and also joined a press roundtable Q&A with Game Director Kohei Ikeda to ask for clarifications on various content and features.

Since the recent merger of ArcheAge andArcheAge: Unchained, there have been some updates and patches, but the December update adds new content to take on, including a return to Mistmerrow, a new boss, and more PvE options too.

Ubisoft has delisted its online-only racing game The Crew as it winds down post-launch support for the title, with servers confirmed to shut down early 2024.

AEW: Fight Forever gets a new gameplay mode today, but some players are upset that they have to pay for it.

Gaming can take you on all kinds of different journeys, and this week's guest on the One More Life podcast has certainly taken a unique route through the world of interactive entertainment.

Don’t judge me, but I’d rather have an arcade machine taking up space in my living room than a Christmas tree. So, you can imagine I’m pretty stoked about the fact that Amazon has slashed the price of various Arcade1up machines, and I’m specifically hyped about The Simpsons version. I mean, I’d take beating up goons with a vacuum over putting bobbles on an artificial conifer any day, even if placing presents around a cabinet looks a bit daft.

If you can’t wait to get your fist on Tekken 8 next year, then thankfully you won’t have to! Bandai Namco has announced that a Tekken 8 demo will be out on PlayStation this week, and then for Xbox and PC next week.

Bandai Namco has announced plans to release a Tekken 8 demo this week.

Temu, the Chinese e-commerce company whose app is now attracting longer engagement times than Amazon, is Apple’s most downloaded free app in the U.S. for 2023. The Cupertino-based tech giant today released an App Store feature that showcases the top iPhone apps of the year, free and paid, as measured by app installs — its proxy for overall popularity. This year, apps from Chinese-based companies have taken over spots previously held by U.S. tech giants like Meta and Google, as CapCut and TikTok, which hail from Beijing-based ByteDance, came in at No. 3 and No. 5, respectively.

If you can’t wait to get your fist on Tekken 8 next year, then thankfully you won’t have to! Bandai Namco has announced that a Tekken 8 demo will be out on PlayStation this week, and then for Xbox and PC next week.

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The Iron First tournament is coming to PS5. To prepare my mind, body, and soul for the occasion, I spent a few hours training with the latest build of Tekken 8. After trading blows with some of the world’s best across a variety of new modes, I can’t wait to earn my spot among the elite when the game launches on January 26.

Bandai Namco has announced that their upcoming fight-’em-up, Tekken 8, will get a demo on December 14 on PS5. If you’re not the PS5 type, the Xbox and PC demos will arrive on December 21.

So far, Tekken 8 has been limited to closed beta tests online or a handful of appearances at offline tournaments and gaming events. An easy opportunity for the masses to play hasn't presented itself, until now that is.

Hot off a recent Guinness World Record (which surprisingly isn’t for most times a man has been thrown into a volcano and survived), Bandai Namco’s been pulling out all the stops for Tekken 8 ahead of its early 2024 release. Last week during The Game Awards marked the second time that Wccftech has gotten hands-on with the longest-running fighting game narrative in history. 

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth's roster of minigames sound just as whacky as I'd hoped.

On paper, 1995’s Cool Riders sounds great. It was the follow-up to 1993’s Outrunners, which itself was a multiplayer follow-up to 1986’s Out Run. Only this time, it’s on motorized bikes. Then you see it, and you realize Cool Riders is one of the least cool games to exist.

The original creators of Jet Set Radio are involved with the series' new games announced last week.

Antstream Arcade, the world's largest officially licensed retro gaming platform, is adding 27 Bandai Namco classics to its lineup of over 1,300 games, including Pac-Man, Galaga, Splatterhouse, Dig Dug, and Pac-Mania.

Epic Games has confirmed that Fortnite’s trio of new game modes are permanent additions to the free-to-play title.

If you have someone in your life who’s often zipping off to exotic locales, or just traveling frequently for work, there are some amazing gifts you can get for them that can make their downtime during travel pass them by a little quicker.

Lego Fortnite, the new survival game spinoff of the Fortnite phenomenon that Epic Games launched on Dec. 7, is off to a flying start. According to Epic’s official player tracking, as recorded by Fortnite.gg, Lego Fortnitepeaked at an astonishing 2.45 million concurrent players on Saturday.

Hot on the heels of a new full-sized Sonic game in Sonic Superstars, the Apple Arcade exclusive Sonic Dream Team might not look like it has much to offer at first. It only has a dozen levels, and all you get control-wise are a D-pad and two buttons. For some, the fact that it’s only available on Apple devices (at least for the time being) is a non-starter all its own. But despite all that, Sonic Dream Team more than manages to justify its existence – in fact, its superb level design and bite-sized missions make it one of the most fun, creative, and enjoyable 3D platformers I’ve played in a long time.

Considering that Capcom was ruling the fighting game roost in 1993, Saturday Night Slam Masters is such a low-key production. Street Fighter 2 blended together with a wrestling game sounds like such an amazing concept, but that’s absolutely not what Saturday Night Slam Masters is.

What happens when the biggest indie game of 2020 meets the biggest indie game of 2022? We’ll find out soon enough, as Among Us is headed to Vampire Survivors in a piece of DLC titled Emergency Meeting.

Fortnite’s Rocket Racing is a brand-new arcade racer that tests your driving skills with gravity defying mechanics. Developed by Psyonix, creators of Rocket League, Rocket Racing captures the same competitive feel, just on a racetrack. Here’s how Rocket Racing plays as a competitive racing game and what to expect from content and cosmetics in the future.

Fortnite’s more than just a battle royale game, a sandbox survival game with Lego, and a metaverse playground where you can watch a giant Eminem perform. It’s also an arcade racer now, thanks to the addition of Rocket Racing, a new game in Fortnite built by the team behind Rocket League.

Following the genre-mashing success of Inscryption, indie developer Daniel Mullins is going back to the game that put him on the map. 

Arc System Works has announced Guilty Gear: Strive Season 3 downloadable content character Elphelt Valentine. She is available now.

During the game awards, Daniel Mullins Games, the creator of Pony Island and Inscryption announced their next game, Pony Island 2: Panda Circus.

The Among Us beans are infiltrating Vampire Survivors in a new Emergency Meeting DLC out on 18th December for PC and Xbox.

As part of the Day of the Devs stream, Digital Eclipse has revealed the next game in their Gold Master Series. This one is focused on Jeff Minter, entitled Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story.

We're pretty optimistic about Resistor, an intriguing blend of RPG and arcade racing that's looking quite promising. A new video for the game has just been unveiled, this time providing a general overview of what to expect.

Love it or loathe it, Fortnite has not stood still. The game, now on Chapter 5 after a hugely successful nostalgic interlude, has continued to grow and improve with each new update cycle. The latest version not only introduces a multi-genre future for the free-to-play release, but has also included some pretty dramatic gameplay improvements, too.

A bonus 12 Atari 2600 games will be added to PS5, PS4 compilation Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration in an update arriving on 5th December 2023. The free patch is just the first in a series of updates planned that will add more classic titles to the experience we named one of 2022's Best PS5, PS4 Remake, Remaster, or Re-Releases.

You may not like playing mobile games, but millions upon millions do. Estimates indicate approximately three billion people enjoy some kind of interactive experience on their smartphone, which is almost half the entire planet’s population. That’s a staggering statistic, and it’s not hard to understand why Sony would want to penetrate the market.

A new Final Fantasy XVI patch will be deployed at the end of next week, but you shouldn't be hoping it includes anything even remotely substantial: it's just going to make an adjustment to the way scores are calculated in Arcade Mode. The PS5 update will be available for download on 8th December 2023, adding a new leaderboard for all your performance scores and retiring the old one.

Whether you know it or not, your phone might the most powerful gaming handheld you own. While the advent of handheld gaming PCs like the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally offer excellent solutions for gaming on the go, you don’t have to drop several hundred bucks to game away from your console or phone. The rise of cloud gaming services, remote game streaming apps, plus amazing dedicated mobile games make it easy to turn most phones into powerful and versatile handhelds.

Contra: Operation Galuga is due to be released at some point in early 2024, and now a new trailer has been released showcasing the character roster. Bill Rizer, Lance Bean, Lucia, Ariana, Stanley Ironside, and Probotector will be the six playable characters to choose from, each bringing their own style of play to the fight. More details about each character after the trailer.

It can be tough to think of clever gifts to buy for someone who really loves video games. Gamers are already among the toughest to shop for, and it ramps up in difficulty if you’re getting a gift for someone who tends to buy the newest accessories and games for themselves.

Racing games come and go, but the best of them manage to combine memorable visuals with fantastic handling and game modes. New Star GP is a racer that looks firmly to the past while crafting a racing game of the future, with retro-influenced visuals – think Sega classics like Virtua Racing and Daytona – but a thoroughly modern outlook. While it’s currently out in Early Access on PC, you can hop into a brand new demo on Xbox right now, all in preparation for the game’s release in 2024.

Apple Arcade has played host to a variety of outstanding games over the years – from Konami’s release of a new side-scrolling Castlevania adventure to Fantasian bringing back the classic Final Fantasy feel to more recent games like Samba Di Amigo getting an exclusive version with a storyline for the service. Today, Sega releases an all-new Sonic game exclusively to Apple Arcade in the form of Sonic Dream Team. This lightning-fast adventure sees a new 3D Sonic game created for the service and allows players to play as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Cream, Rouge, and Amy Rose.

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The Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro gives you instant access to 20 classic fighting games, including many games in The King of Fighters series.

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, the acclaimed interactive history of Atari from developer Digital Eclipse, has just added 12 more retro games as part of a free Holiday Content Update.

Contra: Operation Galuga is due to be released at some point in early 2024, and now a new trailer has been released showcasing the character roster. Bill Rizer, Lance Bean, Lucia, Ariana, Stanley Ironside, and Probotector will be the six playable characters to choose from, each bringing their own style of play to the fight. More details about each character after the trailer.

Racing games come and go, but the best of them manage to combine memorable visuals with fantastic handling and game modes. New Star GP is a racer that looks firmly to the past while crafting a racing game of the future, with retro-influenced visuals – think Sega classics like Virtua Racing and Daytona – but a thoroughly modern outlook. While it’s currently out in Early Access on PC, you can hop into a brand new demo on Xbox right now, all in preparation for the game’s release in 2024.

Sonic Dream Team is released today on Apple Arcade, and our gameplay footage lets you see it in action.

Critically acclaimed retro compilation Atari 50 is getting a free update today that adds a further 12 games.

Primal Rage maybe wasn’t the best fighting game to hit arcades in 1994, but I have some fond memories of playing it with friends. I wish we could get some sort of re-release, or maybe even a release of the canceled (but apparently finished) Primal Rage 2. But we’re not talking about Primal Rage. We’re here to look at DinoRex.

The world of Fortnite is expanding this week into some new realms. Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival are three new experiences (games) coming to Fortnite throughout the week.

If you move quickly, you can currently get the 8BitDo Arcade Stick for Xbox Series X at Woot for $74.99, the best price yet for the $119.99 controller. This massive gamepad is a must for fighting game fans, so whether you’ve recently picked up Street Fighter 6 or Mortal Kombat 1, or you’re looking forward to the launch of Tekken 8 in February, now is the perfect time to pick up your new weapon of choice.

In the time of always-online requirements, game-ruining microtransactions, and DLC, sometimes players may be left yearning for the days when things were a lot more simple. That's something that HyperMegaTech! is certainly aiming to help with, thanks to the extremely portable Super Pocket handheld consoles.

Resident Evil 4: Gold Edition seems to have leaked, and from an unlikely source.

Epic has revealed Rocket Racing, a new racing game from Psyonix that will be part of Fortnite.

Epic Games’ eternally popular battle royale game, Fortnite, is about to get significantly larger, with three new live-service games set to be added by the end of this week. 

The latest Fornite Big Bang event teased plenty of exciting new features to look forward to in Chapter 5, including Eminem skins, a Lego mode, Fortnite Festival and some serious petrolhead action courtesy of Rocket Racing.

Epic Games is adding three new "experiences" to Fortnite later this week, including a survival crafting Lego adventure, a Rocket-League-inspired racing mode, and a musical mode made by Harmonix that's riffing on Rock Band.

Sega is bringing a «new era, new energy» to next week's The Game Awards.

By Emma Roth, a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.

Remember Ballance? I entirely don’t. But Ziggurat is pulling it out of obscurity (maybe) and onto Steam and GOG on January 5.

Deathloop leads Amazon's crop of free Games with Prime for December.

During the 2023 Comic Con Experience (November 30 - December 3) in São Paulo, Brazil, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer spoke with Bloomberg's Rachel Gamarski to confirm the company's strategy to build an Xbox mobile store with the help of like-minded partners.

Apple has unveiled its best apps and games of 2023, with MiHoYo's Honkai: Star Rail winning iPhone Game of the Year.