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Let’s get this out of the way first: Toukiden: Kiwami is an awful lot like Monster Hunter, and there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, Capcom’s popular beast-hunting franchise has yet to make its way to the PlayStation 4, and in the absence of the original, a well-intentioned imitation is more than welcome. It helps that, while derivative, Toukiden: Kiwami is also pretty fun. In Toukiden, players assume the role of a Slayer, a soldier who protects Japan from Oni, evil spirits who prowl the land and prey on the innocent....

As fans await the 9th and final episode of WandaVision, there is still plenty of time for last-minute speculation and debate over what’s going to happen and what it will all mean for the future of the MCU. Between the revelations of Wanda’s own backstory in the latest episode and the reveal of the actual main villain, there’s certainly a lot to discuss. Some fans, however, think the final surprise may be bigger than anyone could have expected....

Bethesda took a risk when it decided to revitalize the Wolfenstein brand last year with MachineGames entry The New Order. Previously, the franchise was home to a series of poorly received sequels and reboots as it attempted to distinguish itself from more popular and mainstream first person shooters. But fortune favors the bold, and The New Order proved to be a fan-favorite and went on to become one of Game Rant’s favorite games of 2014....

Residents of Azeroth should still be able to team-up with enough dungeon crawlers to reclaim Orgrimmar from Garrosh Hellscream in the new Mists of Pandaria content patch, but revenue for Blizzard’s aging MMO is showing a steep downward trend. Blizzard may rapidly be approaching a time when the microtransaction models of World of Warcraft’s competitors start to look pretty appealing. According to industry analysis firm Superdata Research, Blizzard’s nine-year-old MMO has experienced a 54 percent decrease in revenue over the last seven months....

The Life is Strange games aren’t afraid to pull the players’ heartstrings when something wholesome or tragic happens. Dontnod has created other games outside of choice-based games like Vampyr and Remember Me, but their Life is Strange series is their magnum opus. Being in the shoes of Max, Chloe, and Sean and encountering the issues they’re dealing with in their games helps us connect to them despite being entirely fiction....

For decades, boxing has been one of the world’s most popular sports, with the biggest bouts raking in millions of dollars in pay-per-view buys. Considering the sport’s popularity, it’s no surprise that we’ve seen it recreated in video games, both in the form of goofy arcade titles and realistic simulations. And by extension, the gaming world has seen plenty of boxers make the jump, ranging from ordinary fighters to supernatural combatants....

The Pokémon brand has always been popular. Since the first Pokémon game on the Gameboy was released, the franchise has become nothing short of a phenomenon. While it may be hard to imagine the series being more popular than it is now, I would argue that Pokémon was the most popular in the late nineties when the anime started airing in the West. Every kid watched the show. I would watch it every day; my mom would buy VHS tapes of the Pokémon show and I would watch them constantly....

In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, koroks are adorable tree-like characters that inhabit Hyrule. Their main home is in Korok Forest, but they are apparent all over the map, needing Link to find them all so they can go back home to their Forest. When Link finds a korok, it pretty much keeps the same exact dialogue, which is “yahaha, you found me!” However, that changes within the forest walls....

With a new decade comes new opportunities. With brand new consoles such as Xbox Series X and PS5 expected to make their long-awaited debut this Winter, the next generation will usher in new ideas and innovations developers can take advantage of with updated graphics, textures, gameplay elements, and more. The ideas that developers and publishers hope to bring to the table are new IPs, remasters, remakes, or perhaps a long await sequel to a game franchise....

Gaming is a huge industry that has captured the hearts of players all over the world. They love the various settings and roles they play in these games and for many, it is their favorite hobby. Luckily, there are several careers that look to hire gamers, and they are not all in the gaming industry. Several players choose to translate their passion into something that will make them a sustainable living....

Although it is over 50 years old in 2020, The Muppet Movie is still one of the most iconic films in history, both due to its groundbreaking approach to film making as well as the many technical hurdles that the team had to jump through to bring the Muppets to life on the big screen. With various degrees of meta-commentary on the nature of Hollywood as well as several standout musical numbers, there’s very little to hate about this film....

You won’t find any open-world games these days that don’t have mods developed for them. Gamers have always loved creating cheats in order to have an easier way to play games, and the Assassin’s Creed series has experienced the same. Odyssey, in particular, has seen a lot of mods come its way. While it’s true that activating mods is a way to avoid the challenges of the game, it’s also a way to enhance your playthrough since there are so many possibilities this way....

During the 16-bit era, it was almost an unwritten rule that you had to have a boss at the end of every level. It was just the formula at the time, especially in an era dominated by side-scrollers. Some developers would take the easy way out and make an enemy with a simple pattern that could be defeated in three hits. And that was fine. But other devs got really creative, crafting screen-filling monstrosities or multi-stage tests of endurance that required players to deploy every skill they’d learned throughout the game....

The GameCube arguably marks the end of the infamous “Nintendo Hard” era of Nintendo’s game design philosophy. As the company (and their partners) explored new technologies and new ideas, developing absurdly difficult games simply became less of a priority. However, that doesn’t mean that the GameCube’s library lacks truly difficult games. If anything, a select few developers saw advancements in the medium as a chance to advance the art of difficult game design and rose to the occasion by creating titles that would make even the most hardcore old-school gamers blush as they try and try again to beat them....

There’s no way to talk about Battlefield Hardline, the first non-military spin-off in DICE and Electronic Arts’ FPS franchise, without first addressing Battlefield 4. From server connection problems to gameplay bugs, Battlefield 4 was an example of how not to launch an online-focused game. Yes, things got better eventually, but first impressions are everything. It’s a good thing, then, that Battlefield Hardline arrives in a stable condition, or at least an extremely more stable condition than Battlefield 4....

We all know a new Call of Duty title is coming this year, but for the longest time the game’s title was left to speculation. Until now that is, as we can finally confirm (re-confirm?) that the game will be titled Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. The title comes as no surprise and the images which confirm the information match up with the previously leaked box art containing the orange-colored “II” after “Black Ops....

It’s not very often that a mod comes along that is special enough to outshine the game that the fan creation is an extension of. The survival-horror Arma 2 mod, DayZ, proved early on that it was out to do more than capitalize on the popularity of zombies in mainstream entertainment. PC gamers have embraced the mod for the terrifying, slow-paced survival challenge that it is and loads of them are ready to start shelling out money for the standalone version of the game whether it’s ready or not....

When it first hit North American shores back in October of 2009, Demon’s Souls became a sleeper hit. But all good things must come to an end unfortunately, and Atlus will be pulling the plug on the game’s multiplayer servers next month. Demon’s Souls multiplayer will go offline on May 31st, at exactly 11:59 pm PM PST. This means players will no longer be able to to summon others into their game, or invade another’s session....

There are certain gaming series’ that have become iconic examples of their given genres. For first-person shooters, there is Half-Life, for platformers, Mario and for action role-playing games, there is Diablo 2. Released in 2000, Diablo 2 quickly became synonymous with PC gaming culture. Even if they haven’t played it, almost everyone has been exposed to the game in some form over the years. Now, 11 years later, the Diablo series has finally made its way back into the hands of the public with the release of the beta for Diablo 3....

There’s no question that BioWare would need to change up their formula with regards to the Dragon Age franchise; although the most recent sequel was not a failure by any means, there was no denying that fans of the original Dragon Age: Origins had complaints, and wasted no time in letting them be heard. But with Dragon Age: Inquisition, the studio isn’t just trying to address the departures from the franchise’s roots, but use the jump to next-gen to make a game world that is bigger, better, and more customizable than ever before....