Pools feels like a game that was specifically made for me and potentially nobody else. I’d never heard of it before today, but there it was at the top of my Steam recommendations. Pools. On sale for a few bucks off its $10 asking price. Never heard of it. Looked weird. For that price, I could make it happen. If I regretted the purchase, I’d just make fun of it for the eight people who still follow me on social media....

Summary Nintendohas seemingly confirmed that Princess Peach won’t get kidnapped inMario & Luigi: Brothershipand will instead actively help out the brothers on their adventure. Although most of us were expecting this week’sNintendo Directto be a bit of a quiet one considering the Switch is coming to the end of its lifecycle, the Big N was there to prove everyone wrongwith one of its best showcases in recent memory.One of the biggest surprises was Mario & Luigi: Brothership, which was shown right at the start of the Direct and revealed to be coming later this year....

Summary Balatrois the type of game that comes along and completely overtakes your whole life with suits and hands for months while you try and figure out every winning deck you can build. It’s often compared toSlay the Spire, another card-based roguelike. Alas, having cards is about the only thing they have in common. All of your battles take place on the table in Balatro. So you’ve given the game a go and won a decent number of hands, but can’t quite seem to beat your first Ante 8, or harder bosses such as The Ox....

I’m not aPCgamer. I have a PC that will play video games, but it’s an only-decent gaming laptop that can’t run the most cutting edge games with any degree of smoothness. My PC is mainly used for reviews of indie games I know my lack of power can cope with, as all of my casual gaming time is spent onPlayStation,Xbox, orSwitch- consoles I specifically request when review codes come my way....

Developer Shift Up has announced thatStellar Bladewill belaunching uncensored across all territories ahead of its release later this week, putting to rest non-existent fears the game will be nipped and tucked in the name of censorship. Was this ever the case, or is it being hailed as a victory to continue the newfound culture war the game has been caught up in? It’s a complicated situation, and to understand it we need to look at the relationship between censorship and video games and how their experiences often change depending on when or where we have them....

Summary ASuper Mario 64fan has been working for the past month to port the game to the Game Boy Advance, rewriting the game’s code from scratch, with various features being added every week or so. Super Mario 64 is probably the most iconic platformer out there at the moment, pushing the boundaries of the Nintendo 64 and pretty much defining 3D platformers, inspiring many of the titles we have today. It’s been the subject of hundreds of fan projects over the years, but YouTuber Joshua Barretto has managed to come up with quite a unique one, somehow porting the title to the Game Boy Advance....

Summary For two decades, theLegovideo games have reliably cranked out a winning formula accessible to all ages. Name a major movie or media franchise, and odds are good it’ll have received the ol' TT Games treatment: Star Wars, DC, Marvel, Lord of the Rings, Sonic the Hedgehog, Jurassic World, the list goes on. Most of the time, these titles behave themselves and fit snugly into the definition of ‘kid-appropriate,’ what with their lurid colors, simple difficulty, and knockabout slapstick....

Quick Links Do you enjoy beat ‘em up and dungeon crawler games with rogue-lite elements? If you also want to play co-op,Rotwoodis the game for you. The game’s charming graphics are just as captivating as its characters, making even the enemies endearing. Your goal is to defeat the corrupted beasts of Rotwood, obtain better weapons and armor, and with the game’s perks, it’s possible to create different builds each time. If you’re ready to embark on a journey to defeat the frenzied bosses in Rotwood and find your missing crew members, learning some beginner tips will be beneficial....

Death is not the end inMagic: The Gathering’s latest Commander release, Graveyard Overdrive. ThisModern Horizons 3preconstructed Commander Deck will tug at your graveyard so often that it might as well be an extension of your hand, with cards to fill your graveyard alongside even more cards that keep coming back for more. There are a lot of powerful cards to be found in Graveyard Overdrive, including some new cards that have never been seen before....

Do you find yourself obsessed with ferreting out the truth, probably stemming from years of playing Clue as a kid? Lucky for you, modern board game publishers have since taken that nugget of deduction from the classic Hasbro game and implemented it into more advanced games. Board games with social deduction mechanisms can range from a light-hearted party type that causes laughter all around the table, to a little bit more serious, whodunit format....

In a world full of traditional first and third-person shooter games,top-down shooter gamesseem to go under the radar. These games might not have the most realistic graphics, but they’re extremely fun in their own way. One of these games' best features is seeing the full environment around you clearly and basing your strategy around it. What makes them even better is playing them with friends in a co-op way, which just adds to their fun and strategic nature....

ThePokemon TCGhas experienced an incredible surge in interest, most notably amongthe most valuable Sword and Shield era sets. Any set with a Charizard in it is prone to receive some attention, though not every set – andnot every Charizard – is expensive. Secret Rares, also called Rainbow Secret Rares are a mainstay among the most popular Sword and Shield sets, and Darkness Ablaze’s most expensive cards feature several of these special patterns....

Over the weekend,PlayStationannounced that it would be forcing allHelldivers 2players on PC to connect their Steam accounts to PSN accounts. This would have locked out players in countries where PSN isn’t available, which is alotof countries - over 100, to be exact. Understandably, players were outraged and review bombed the game, which eventually led to PlayStation going back on the decision. All in all, things turned out alright, unless you were a community manager for Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead....