It’s that time of year again. The baubles are on the tree. The stockings are above the fireplace (or, if you don’t have a fireplace, hanging on a door handle). Every company you’ve ever bought something from is sending you your annual ‘wrapped’ list. Spotifytold me I listened to over 80,000 minutes of music, and I was in the top 0.1 percent of Bill Ryder-Jones fans. Sainsbury’s supermarket told me I bought a lot of houmous....
Quick Links If you’re new to Farming Simulator withFarming Simulator 25, you’ll understandably see “GPS” and think it’s a conventional digital tool for providing directions to a destination. Instead, it’s a steering assistant that will denote several important aspects of the world around you in order to facilitate a smoother, more efficient, route through your field. In practice, this means that - if GPS is enabled - the game will provide visual indicators of its suggested pathing while you’re seeding, fertilizing, harvesting, and more....
The Bundesliga’s range of solid meta options continues to grow inEA Sports FC 25,with the addition of new Hero cards and upgrades to some of the league’s young stars, like Florian Wirtz and Xavi Simons. Whether you’re building your entire squad around the Bundesliga, or want some good options to link with your free Donyell Malen card, there are plenty of choices. Luckily, there are more Hero cards this year to collect if you need more chemistry points to round out your squad....
Summary Alright, let me take you back in time for a second:it’s the early 2000s.You’ve just gotten home from school. There are some snacks in the fridge, and your mom won’t be home from work until just before dinner. There’s a roast you should be taking out to thaw, but there’s no time for that: you’ve got a game to win. If you were a self-respecting kid of the millennium, you probably spent as much time playing Backyard Sports as youdid actual sports....
Early access is a great tool forindie developersto show people their game as they continue to work on it. It can be used to get the game over the finish line with final polishing through player feedback, or fund the game through heavier development cycles. In 2024, several early access games were officially launched with their 1.0 updates, allowing players and developers alike to finally see the full fruits of their labor....
Pokemon TCG Pocketis jam-packed with players using Pikachu ex and Mewtwo ex to win games. There are also plenty of other meta threats, such as Marowak ex, Venusaur Ex, and Charizard ex, causing trouble for players who haven’t quite built those decks yet. Having a meta deck is fine, but sometimes you just want to be the underdog. You want to play a deck that no one expects to see when challenging players online....
Looking across the nominations for this year’sThe Game Awards, I don’t see too many shocks. Some surprises, most notablyShadow of the Erdtreeactuallymaking the cut for GOTY,, but nothing egregious. That’s a good thing for the health of the show. It’s also a sign of the fairly unimportant year 2024 has been for video games. Whenever you say a year hasn’t been great for games, people rush to comment with individual games that have been good....
Quick Links The Gate of Saint Jerome campaign inThe Stone Of Madnessbegins with delivering the stone to Panecillo. Panecillo is quite an unusual character; despite this, he gives you a key. While trying to figure out the purpose of this key, you come across several engravings. These contain information from an engineer who once lived here, explaining how to escape and revealing his experiences. Could this engineer be Panecillo himself or a close friend of his?...
The Sun and Moon era of thePokemon TCGtook players to the tropics of Alola, where they could meet some of the most colorful trainers and Pokemon that reside on the islands. The Crimson Invasion set contained many of the most popular characters with gorgeous full art cards that captured their personalities perfectly. While these details make the cards in this set pretty to look at, some don’t need to stay in your binder as eye candy and can be played in any format....
Pokemon TCG’sEX Hidden Legends is a fantastic set to open if you still have a sealed box. Though, are you willing to risk it all for a chance to get your hands on some of Hoenn’s most powerful Pokemon? Holographic cards have always looked nice, but Hidden Legends adds some unique twists to the familiar design. You have your old-school designs as well as special crystalized holo cards that make up some of the coolest trios of cards....
There have been good video game adaptationsbesidesPokemon. I enjoyedFalloutandThe Last of Us, and I’m sure there will continue to be good video game movies and TV shows that do not involve Poke Balls, Pokedexes, or anything else with the Poke prefix. But while others have been good, Pokemon has consistently been the most interesting. Pokemon has a bit of an unfair advantage here. The Pokemon anime began all the way back in 1997 and was a very faithful adaptation of the games....
I’ve always been curious about thePlayStation Portal, but like a lot of the Sony peripherals that have launched as part of thePS5generation, there is always a catch. The device is just an 8-inch tablet screen with two halves of a DualSense controller attached to each end, and exists to stream the console experience directly into the palm of your hands. The Portal streams directly from the PS5 at a 1080p resolution with a performance cap of 60 frames per second, and it’s marketed as an official, high quality means of remote play instead of a dedicated portable handheld....
Quick Links WhileDragon Ball: Sparking Zerowas never meant to be a balanced game, no one really expected one of the best characters of the game to be Yajirobe. While his involvement was crucial during the first fight against Vegeta, he was always meant to be weak, closer to a joke character than a real one. Yet even after the nerfs, Yajirobe continues to be a key piece in several teams, particularly due to his ability to heal himself with Senzu Beans....
