Posts By Kevin Austin

From the Xbox Wire: Each year, we look forward to bringing many new controller designs to our fans. With the launch of the Xbox Series X|S in November, we were eager to bring you our new Xbox Wireless Controller in three options: Carbon Black, Robot White, and Shock Blue. Today, we’re excited to introduce the latest design in the new generation of controllers, the Xbox Wireless Controller – Pulse Red. With a vivid, fiery-red topcase and crisp, white backcase, ...

Nintendo just announced that it has purchased Next Level Games, the developers behind titles like Luigi’s Mansion 3, Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon, and the Super Mario Strikers series. Nintendo’s announcement says the deal is expected to be concluded in March, and “will serve to secure the availability of NLG development resources for Nintendo.” NLG’s history of working directly with Nintendo dates back to the studio’s earliest days when it released Super Mario ...

I have spent quite a bit of time this year getting my hands dirty with Nioh 2 and it’s expansions. Much of which has been an enjoyable experience into a game style I typically don’t enjoy much. The final DLC expansion came out last week titled The First Samurai. The First Samurai expansion will add the “Dream of Nioh” difficulty, along with new Guardian Spirits. The DLC expansion will also feature new yokai for players to encounter, such as the…

Minecraft Dungeons was a revelation for me earlier this year. It took a style of game I love — Diablo 3 is one of my favorite games of last-gen — and combined it with a property I couldn’t care less about. Would I care about a kid-ified version of a loot-based dungeon crawler? The answer to this rhetorical question was a resounding “yes!” I couldn’t stop playing the game until I beat it, again and again, going through the core…

John Wick Hex really clicked for me when, after clearing a level, I watched it back “in real-time,” versus the time-based strategic puzzle-combat gameplay. Watching the titular hero make his way through a street, punching, rolling, kicking, and shooting adversaries in under 10 seconds is a lot of fun. Of course, 10 seconds in “real-time” translates to about 5 minutes of gameplay, as the player tries to orchestrate all of Wick’s maneuvers.   The game — ...

Back when the original Katamari Damacy came out, I was working at Toys R Us as manager of the electronic department stocking the new games that had come out that week. Back then there used to be a section for value games aka 19.99 and under. There was a new release game there I had never seen before that had released at the $19.99 price point. The cover was this:   This game perplexed me. Looking at the cover then,…

I’m not sure there’s a more intense single-player racing experience than coming to the end of a long rally stage as the rain starts to spit. The time pops up at the checkpoint and you’re either a second ahead or behind the pace heading into the last stretch. Every time it happens in WRC 9 on Series X, I shift forward in my seat and try my darndest to hit each apex without careening off an edge and down a…

Nintendo continues on with its celebration of all things Mario this year! On top of the special Maximus Cup online event on Tetris 99 which was inspired by Super Mario All Stars, Nintendo has a contest to win a sweet retro inspired Mario T-shirt to Canadian Fans! Check out the full details below: “Do you have a Mario Memory which makes you smile? Maybe it was the time you and your siblings battled to stay on Rainbow Road in the…

Immortals Fenyx Rising (aka Gods and Monsters) was originally announced at E3 2019 and instantly drew comparisons to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, rightfully so. The game is now officially launching on Dec 3, 2020, for basically every current console and PC. I had the opportunity to review the Switch version of the game, which I was interested in seeing how well another company can pull off a BOTW type game on a Nintendo console. But before we get ...

When Tetris Effect came to PS4 and PSVR in 2018, I largely wrote the game off because, well, Tetris is a game I’ve been playing all my life. It’s a great game, obviously, but I’ve never been particularly great at it. And why would I pay $40 for yet another iteration of the game? Well, I was wrong. Tetris Effect is worth every bit of $40. Two years later, Tetris Effect: Connected has launched alongside the Xbox Series X and…