Sonic Mania Plus Review – Encore! Encore!

From the opening title’s splash screen, Sonic Mania’s presentation is intoxicating. Its colorful, retro 2D graphics and vibrant ’90s-inspired pop soundtrack is enough to make any Sega Genesis fan squeal in excitement. In this jointly developed game, Sega and members of the Sonic fan-hack community have created a loving homage to the blue hedgehog’s glory days. But Sonic’s latest outing isn’t only concerned with reminding you of his past; though it is decadent in this regard. Sonic Mania exceeds expectations of what a new game in the franchise can look and play like, managing to simultaneously be a charming celebration of the past and a natural progression of the series’ classic 2D formula.

Taking place shortly after the events of Sonic & Knuckles, the game’…

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The Forest Review- Are You Afraid Of The Dark-

The broad premise of The Forest is far from unique. A plane crash lands on a seemingly deserted island, and you, a lone survivor, have to figure out a way to survive. It doesn’t take long, however, until blood curdling screeches fill the night and glowing eyes appear in the distance. Once it sets in that your new home isn’t as empty as it first appeared, The Forest evolves into a uniquely harrowing adventure that you won’t soon forget.

Cannibals inhabit the grassy fields and pristine lakes around you, watching your every move; they are the source of The Forest’s ever-present tension. You might expect monsters like this to attack on sight, but their behavior is erratic. Sometimes they’ll charge forward to unsettle you during daylight but stop just outside striking distanc…

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No More Heroes 3 Coming To PC, PlayStation, And Xbox

Developer Grasshopper Manufacture and publisher XSEED Games have announced that No More Heroes 3 is coming to PC, PlayStation, and Xbox in Q3 2022. The game will be available for $60 as both a digital and physical version edition, with the special Day 1 version adding a softcover art book, a CD soundtrack, a Santa Destroy biker license plate, and a custom box with a new illustration by series artist Yusuke Kozaki. Come from Sports betting site VPbet

Originally launching on the Nintendo Switch in August 2021, No More Heroes 3 is set nine years after the last game and stars Travis Touchdown as he once again looks to reach the top of the assassins leaderboard, although this time he has to face off against intergalactic con…

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Overwatch 2's New Halloween Game Mode "Mutates" Heroes For Brutal PvP Action

Overwatch 2 Season 13, Spellbinder, is arriving just in time for Halloween, and Blizzard is delivering a new Junkenstein-themed PvP game mode to celebrate.

Called Junkenstein’s Laboratory, the mode will mutate the abilities of heroes like Reinhardt, Moira, and Mercy in “fast-paced” team deathmatch rounds, with Blizzard stating in a blog post that the spooky ability mutations will “challenge even the most seasoned players.” The mode will be available alongside the season launch on October 15 and run through November 4, but additional details, like what kind of alterations will be made to each hero’s abilities, have yet to be revealed. Come from Sports betting site VPbet

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BlueBet Shifts Focus to Australia After Exiting U.S. Market Post-Merger

In a significant strategic shift, BlueBet, recently merged with Betr, has announced its decision to exit the U.S. market and concentrate its operations exclusively in Australia. This move is set to occur shortly after the merger, indicating a forthcoming rebranding of the combined business.

The decision mirrors challenges faced by smaller Australian betting firms such as PointsBet, which have struggled with the complex and expensive regulatory landscape in the U.S. Each state requires separate approvals for betting operations, often taking years and consuming substantial financial resources before a single bet can be placed. Both BlueBet and PointsBet have encountered failures in securing these approvals in s…

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GGPoker’s WSOP Super Circuit Event Bringing $100 Million in Prizes for the Coolest Poker Faces

An established operator GGPoker is bringing more exclusive poker action with the prestigious online tournament World Series of Poker (WSOP)! A series of poker events will be held from March 3 through April 1, 2024 within the thrilling WSOP Super Circuit 2024. The tournament will reportedly feature the $100 million prize pool to be awarded to the most convincing poker faces at this stage of the WSOP Road to Vegas qualifiers.

$100 Million Prize Pool:

In addition, the organizers will gamble to randomly award $2 million in free tickets to participants. As GGPoker announced earlier today, the World’s Biggest Poker Room will include 18 prestigious WSOP Ring events. The winner of each event will take the largest share of the prize pool. In addition, they will reportedly be eligib…

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Jelly Entertainment Acquires Wundermachine To Optimize Content Distribution

Jelly Entertainment, a UK-based game development studio, has reportedly completed the acquisition of Wundermachine, a B2B supplier of social gaming products and technology. The acquisition represents a significant expansion of Jelly’s offering capability in terms of distribution and delivery, as well as a wider market coverage. According to the source, the transaction testifies about the Jelly’s strategic intent to grow into a full-profile B2B supplier.

Acquisition Boosts Content Distribution:

Germany-based Wundermachine is reportedly an experienced gaming and software supplier to the social gaming industry. Its experience in delivering proprietary technology and products across a range of partners will contribute to the Jelly’s capacity as far as content distr…

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Xbox Would Suffer "Irreparable Harm" If It Went Back On CoD PlayStation Promises

In making its case for its Activision Blizzard acquisition to be approved, Microsoft has repeatedly said it will continue releasing Call of Duty on PlayStation. But what would actually stop the company from doing otherwise, given that Sony has reportedly refused to accept a contract guaranteeing future releases? According to Phil Spencer, there is serious damage to Xbox’s brand that it would not intentionally invite.

As part of the ongoing hearings, in which the FTC is seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the acquisition from going through without further review, Spencer was asked if he would expect any kind of reaction from PlayStation CoD fans if the series were pulled from Sony’s systems.

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Fortnite Season 8- How To Find And Use The Carnage And Venom Symbiotes

Fortnite Season 8’s battle pass features a sinister surprise at the end: Carnage, the psychotic symbiote from Marvel comics, is the final prize of this season’s pass. If you don’t want to wait to wield Carnage’s power, however, Epic Games has added symbiote weapons to the battle royale game for players to find. Here’s how to find–and more importantly wield–the Carnage and Venom symbiotes in Fortnite.

Fortnite Symbiotes Explained

Symbiotes in Fortnite are Mythic weapons, unique items that hold powerful passive and active abilities. The symbiote will occupy one item slot in a player’s inventory when picked up, immediately granting the wearer zero gravity jumps and the ability to re-deploy a glider during any high jump. When activated the weapon reaches out in fro…

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Nairobi institutes higher range of licensing fees for gambling-friendly premises

Operators of gambling-friendly venues located in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi reportedly now have to pay a range of higher licensing fees following the passage of new legislation that has been designed to bring in more tax revenues and cash for charitable causes.

According to a report from the Business Daily Africa newspaper, the Nairobi County Assembly’s ratification of the Nairobi City County Betting, Lotteries and Gaming Act of 2021 means that betting premises must hand over about $5,560 for their inaugural licenses while simultaneously paying a $92 application fee. The new legislation has also purportedly instituted a $278 annual renewal charge as well as a $92 location transfer duty.

Costly certification:

For those properties in …

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Montenegro’s Electronic Payment Ban in Gambling Sparks Backlash- Threatens EU Compliance and Foreign Investment

Montenegro’s recent enactment of amendments to its gambling laws, effectively banning modern electronic payment methods such as Apple Pay, PayPal, mobile banking, IPS, and e-banking, has sent shockwaves through the global financial community, particularly in the European betting and iGaming sectors.

Challenges to EU compliance:

The Minister of Finance’s assertion that the country is not obligated to comply with EU rules raises eyebrows, given Montenegro’s aspirations for EU membership and integration into the digital business world. This paradoxical stance could hinder Montenegro’s progress towards EU accession, as alignment with EU standards is a crucial requirement.

The amendments have sparked concerns about Monte…

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Kylie Kelce Reveals the Personal Change Jason Kelce Has Made Since NFL Retirement

See Kylie Kelce’s Sweet Retirement Gift for Husband Jason Kelce

There's been a shift in Jason Kelce since his retirement from the NFL, according to his wife Kylie Kelce.

In fact, the former Philadelphia Eagles player is "more conscious about what he’s putting in his body," Kylie told E! News in an exclusive interview, "because he isn’t burning calories like he used to."

And now that Jason is off the field, working as a commentator on ESPN's Monday Night Countdown, Kylie said she's excited they'll finally be able to "watch Eagles football" as a family.

But even though she's a diehard Philly sports fan, Kylie—who shares daughters Wyatt, 4, Read more

Ark- Survival Ascended lead designer Jeremy Stieglitz admits ‘the servers are ass, they run like ass, and their stability is ass’-

This story originally stated that crossplay had been disabled for PC players—to clarify, that was only true of PC players using Windows 10.

Ark: Survival Ascended, the Unreal Engine 5 remaster of Ark: Survival Evolved, had a heck of a launch in early October. With 600,000 copies sold after only two weeks, it looked like it’d quickly march right up the list of the most played games on Steam, where the original dino survival game perched for so many years.

Not quite. Ascended is currently averaging about 50,000 concurrent players and sits at around number 20 on the Steam charts, which is impressive—but player satisfaction is a different story. Ark is currently sporting the dreaded “Mixed” reviews label on Steam, and only abo…

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Here’s a game that combines jigsaw puzzles with arithmetic problems to great success

An upcoming indie puzzler takes on the complexity of circuits by reducing them to familiar puzzle pieces and simple math. In Electrogical, set to release this year and with a demo out now, you’ll place pieces on the board to form a chain that adds, subtracts, divides, and multiplies to reach a set output—but the pieces you have are fixed in shape and rotation, the boards are weird sizes, and you might not need every part you have to succeed.

It’s pretty approachable for both a puzzle game and a math game, without time or attempt limits or anything like that, and it aims to reward creative approaches by the player. The cool part is when it starts messing with the formula: Challenge levels have simple solutions, but let you chase high scores by using more pieces, or fewer pi…

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Netflix is doing a Splinter Cell animated series, and Michael Ironside isn’t in it


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Marvel Rivals’ closed beta is aggressively bad and turns my favourite Marvel villain into a glorified babysitter

I knew something was terribly wrong 10 seconds into Marvel Rivals’ tutorial. Actually, not just something. Everything. The annoying omnipresence of Galactus’ weird anime daughter, who serves as the host of these gladiatorial bouts; the fact that the map looked like a soulless facsimile of an Overwatch location, all brightly coloured but entirely forgettable; and worst of all, the combat itself, which is so unpleasant that it took all my willpower not to quit there and then.

My enthusiasm for hero shooters allows me to overlook a lot of flaws. I even enjoyed a stint in Star Wars: Hunters—free-to-play junk food, but fun nonetheless. And I wanted to like Marvel Rivals. The MCU has done a fantastic job of sapping my interest in comic adaptations, but that didn’t stop…

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Gamers hoping to build a Ryzen 9000-series system with an affordable B850 motherboard are set for a long wait-

Gamers hoping to build a new Ryzen 9000-series system with an affordable B850 or B840 motherboard will reportedly have quite a wait according to a report from ComputerBase. Motherboards with the budget-friendly chipsets are unlikely to debut before 2025.

X870 and X870E options set to reach the market in the coming weeks, though given their features and specs, they are certainly not going to be cheap.

AMD always indicated it would stagger the release of the new chipsets. Still, it’s a bit disappointing to have such a long delay, as B850 boards in particular would no doubt add some additional incentive for mainstream users to upgrade.

Of course, you can use any currently available B650 or B650E motherboard (or A620 board for that matter) with a CPU like the Ryzen 5 …

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MultiVersus developers say an in-game option to purchase more lives with real money was ‘a bug’-

The makers of MultiVersus say an option giving players the ability to purchase more lives with real money during campaign missions is in fact “a bug,” and not a feature that’s meant to be in the game. As you might imagine, I—and lots of other people—have questions.

Warner Bros’ answer to Smash Bros. made a big return last week after almost a year of dormancy, bringing with it a new campaign mode, which includes the ability to replenish lives with real money. As someone who spent many an hour exchanging money for life in various local arcades that struck me as not a particularly big deal, but given the reaction to the option on Reddit, many MultilVersus fans felt differently. 

Under the bug, players could buy a full refill of lives—the number wasn’t spe…

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Skyrim Grandma shoots down rumors of Starfield NPC appearance- ‘I’m not in the game’-

Shirley Curry, better known to gamers as Skyrim Grandma, said in a new video that despite the apparent Easter egg in the recent Starfield Direct showcase, she’s not going to appear in Starfield as an NPC. She’s also not going to play Starfield, because she’s “too angry” that she (and the rest of us) are still waiting for Elder Scrolls 6.

Curry rose to fame in 2015 when a Skyrim “let’s play” video she posted to YouTube attracted thousands of responses—and brought her thousands of new followers. She’s continued to post videos to her YouTube channel since then, growing in popularity to the point that in 2021 Bethesda announced that she will be included as an NPC in The Elder Scrolls 6. She has also, understandably, expressed some impatience with Bethesda on that front: She was …

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The Backrooms, a liminal space so internet-famous it spawned its own canon, has been found in the real world by 4 sleuths on a Discord server-

The origin of the Backrooms, a photo of a liminal space deemed so eerie it earned internet and gaming stardom, has been uncovered by four image-savvy detectives scrubbing 4chan, and a chance encounter with an archived internet page from 2003. 

In case you’re unfamiliar with what the Backrooms are, here’s the rundown. In 2019, an image was posted to 4chan displaying an eerie set of rooms devoid of natural light—capturing people’s imaginations so vividly that it spawned its own lore. 

It’s considered a liminal space, which is loosely defined as an area that’s not quite surreal, but getting close. It’s the manmade equivalent of the uncanny valley, a building or a space crafted from normal parts, but arranged in an abnormal and unsettling way. Hallways t…

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Games consoles are infuriatingly exempt from California’s otherwise important new right to repair bill-

California, the biggest state in the US when it comes to both population and the sheer volume of tech companies squeezed into its borders, has just passed the country’s most extreme right to repair bill in the US (via Ars Technica). It’s the third state to pass such a bill, but goes further than either Minnesota or New York in that it forces companies to support their products for longer. But while it will cover gaming PCs and laptops, games console manufacturers get a free pass.

The bill just has to go back to the Senate for a procedural vote, but having already pass wholly unanimous votes previously in both the state Assembly and the Senate, that should be a formality before it is finally signed by the governor. The bill will then join the other two bills, coming into effect nex…

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Suicide Squad- Kill the Justice League steps on one last rake for the road by sneaking in Denuvo DRM-

I’m genuinely hoping Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League doesn’t sink itself. There is something to be said for live-service fatigue, but I am not immune to the appeal of numbers going up, and it looks like it could conceivably be a good time. Here to punch another hole in my hope-boat is the news that, yeah: the game has Denuvo DRM in it.

As spotted by PCGamesN, the game’s Steam Page now lists Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League as incorporating “Denuvo anti-tamper”. SteamDB notes that the change took place January 20. 

Denuvo is a notoriously unpopular form of DRM. It’s blamed for a swathe of problems from crashes to major performance issues. Conventional wisdom is that Denuvo always makes your games run worse—that’s not necessarily always true, as the Den…

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Warhammer 40,000- Darktide’s latest update adds new weapons and a mission to reactivate an icy AdMech foundry-

After pulling off a Darktide redemption arc last year, Fatshark’s not resting on its inquisitorial laurels. Secrets of the Machine God, Darktide’s latest update, arrived earlier today, bringing a new mission to revive an abandoned Adeptus Mechanicus foundry and a set of new weapon types. If you’re not already thrilled, you should be: It’s never a bad time when the tech-priests are around.

The new mission, Clandestium Gloriana, will have strike teams descend into a derelict “Foundryplex”—a massive production facility where the AdMech tech-priests once worked their fabled wonders, which the Inquisition hopes to reawaken for its war effort. The mission will feature some new tech from Fatshark, like a mission-giver who will accompany the players and a variable end-of-miss…

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Twin stick crafter-shooter-basebuilder The Riftbreaker aims for a very ambitious 2024 roadmap-

We haven’t posted much about twin-stick shooter slash base-building survival game The Riftbreaker since its 2021 launch, but fans of butchering hordes of bad bugs and nasty monsters with either a carefully-constructed network of defensive guns and/or your giant mobile killer mech suit have enjoyed a few years of expansions and major updates since then.

Now developers Exor Studios are working on the third big expansion to The Riftbreaker’s world, bringing the story of a stompy mech and its pilot to a new biome, the swamp. They’re also working on much-requested multiplayer co-op, enabled by its broad success even though they didn’t design the game for co-op at all.

“While swamps on Earth are rather uninviting and gloomy most of the time, Galatean Swamps are rich, colorful, and…

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Walton Goggins earns an ‘Outstanding Actor’ Emmy nomination for playing a sexy noseless mutant in Fallout-

Amazon’s Fallout series was a big hit, and it turns out the critics like it too. The show has been nominated for 16 Emmy awards, including a couple big ones: Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Walton Goggins.

Most of the categories Fallout is nominated in are for awards that are generally handed out off-camera—things like “Outstanding Period or Fantasy/Sci-Fi Makeup (Non-Prostethic),” or “Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One Hour),” the sorts of categories most of us likely haven’t even heard of. But it’s also up for awards in special visual effects, stunt performance, and writing for a drama series, which are nothing to sneeze at.

The highlight has to be the Outstanding Drama Series nom, which is great but, …

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World’s best chess player loses tournament after ‘horror mouseslip’-

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen exited an online tournament on Thursday after accidentally moving his queen to the wrong square, allowing rival Hikaru Nakamura to take it with his king and ultimately win the match. Chess.com called the move a “horror mouseslip” for Carlsen, who left the event in third place with $15,000.

After beating Carlsen in that armageddon match (a special ruleset for tiebreakers), Nakamura went on to win the Chessable Masters tournament and its $30,000 top prize on Friday, putting him ahead of Carlsen in the rankings for this year’s multi-event Champions Chess Tour. 

The result of Carlsen’s fatal misclick can be seen in the screenshot above. At the top right of the board, Nakamura’s king (black) can be seen capturing Carlsen’s defenseless quee…

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Wordle hint and answer #650- Friday, March 31-

Turn every game of Wordle into a winner with our help. We’ve got general tips to help you improve every guess you make, a clue written especially for the March 31 (650) puzzle, and the answer to today’s Wordle, only a quick click or scroll away.

That was tense. Every guess today seemed to throw up more problems than answers, my screen filling with grey boxes. The situation was looking grim: the few letters I had found just didn’t go together—until my next guess finally made sense of them. It was a close thing, but I finally, happily, stumbled into today’s Wordle answer.

Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Friday, March 31

This word describes all of the items or people in a particular group, or an event that occurs regularly: something that happen…

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Wordle today- Hint and answer for #860 Friday, October 27-

All the help you could need to win today’s Wordle just the way you want to is right here. Go straight for a guaranteed win with a quick click to today’s answer, give yourself a few pointers with our handy tips, or guided assistance with our clue for the October 27 (860) game.

My second guess today turned out to be almost right in a very wrong way, leaving me with a lot of yellows that in theory could’ve been sorted very quickly, if only I had any idea how to organise them. Let’s just say I took the nail-biting scenic route to today’s Wordle answer, and leave it at that. 

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Friday, October 27

As a social rank, this word marks someone out as beyond upper class. This is the realm of dukes, princes, and…

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Wordle hint and answer #652- Sunday, April 2-

Whether you need to save your impressive Wordle win streak or would like to improve your abilities, you’ll find everything you need just below. We’ve got general tips and advice to help you make the most of every guess, the answer for today’s Wordle laid out in plain text, and for those who just need a helping hand, a fresh clue written especially for the April 2 (652) puzzle.

An anchoring green in the middle of my opener gave me something useful to work with, and although my follow-up guess was frustratingly grey-heavy, it did at least eliminate enough letters to make the next guesses much more focused, and I won today’s Wordle with plenty of room to spare.

Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Sunday, April 2

The word you’re looking for today can refer…

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