Searching for a dose of that old The Lost Vikings magic on your Nintendo Switch? We’d love to push Rez Plz forward as a blood-soaked candidate, but unfortunately there are just too many sore points for our liking.

In this co-op puzzle-platformer, you’ll find yourself guiding a pair of wizard twins through a SNES-era fantasy world. These aren’t your usual boy-wizards destined for greatness, mind, with their sole ability (at least initially) being to resurrect one another from the dead. The game gets a lot of mileage out of this ‘live, die, repeat’ system, as you sacrifice one brother to further the progress of the other.

Fans of dark and twisted humour will appreciate how you can deliberately slaughter one twin and use their lifeless body as a platform for navigating a pool of lava. You might impale one on a pillar of spikes and then wall-bounce off them with the other, or use one as a literal human torch. In the second world, you’ll even need to start thinking about dismembering your heroes to activate some of the hellish sacrifice-driven level equipment.

The most pleasing element of Rez Plz is the way that the twins have a real physical presence in this otherwise generic world. Even aside from the grisly stuff, they can hoist each other up to higher platforms and stand on one another’s shoulders. Enemies, too, can be slaughtered and their bodies utilised to hold down pressure-sensitive switches. Thankfully, all this morbid stuff is handled with a light touch, and everything’s rendered in a bouncy Saturday morning cartoon style.

The main issue with Rez Plz is that it lacks the polish and precision tuning that its mechanics demand. The frame rate is frequently horrendous – especially in the first world – which can directly impede your progress, as some of the jump sequences you’ll need to make are rather exacting. There are also numerous technical gremlins, from game crashes to situations where the camera doesn’t keep up with the action or switch focus to the correct twin.

This sense of frustration is exacerbated by overly twitchy platformer physics that fall just a little short of where they need to be, and a control system that never quite feels instinctual and second-nature in single player. It’s all too easy to lose track of which twin is the active one and which button you need to press, especially when the twins are close together, or when the puzzles start to place a time pressure on you, such as during ‘boss’ levels.

Somewhat ironically given the game’s central gimmick, it doesn’t handle death particularly well. When you run out of respawn crystals, a Spelunky-like ghost will start stalking your remaining twin. Which is fine when there’s another crystal within reach, but much of the time there won’t be. It just feels a little tacked on.

All in all, the fun and challenge that’s undoubtedly present in Rez Plz dies a death of a thousand irritating cuts. A resurrection isn’t entirely out of the question, but it’ll require a couple of hefty updates to jolt it into life.

Can you believe it? Sonic the Hedgehog is almost 30 years old. With this in mind, Sega wants to start looking after the blue blur a little more. This was mentioned by Sega’s Aaron Webber earlier this year in May – when he said the company wanted to put “more time” into each of its Sonic video games, rather than rush them out.

Now, in an interview with the website Otaquest, the head of the Sonic Team, Takashi Iizuka, has briefly mentioned how Sega wants to “take good care” of both its 2D and 3D iterations of Sonic moving forward. Here’s the full exchange:

Otaquest: There are basically 2 different approaches to Sonic as a character which are defined by Classic Sonic (2D) and Modern Sonic (3D), and the release of Sonic Mania showed that there is a lot of demand for the 2D gameplay among fans. Has this impacted the way Sonic Team approaches handling the franchise at all? Do you feel like there’s a pressure to balance between the 2 different styles?

Takashi Iizuka: Not much time has passed since the distinction between “classic” and “modern” was made, in fact, it was since 2011’s “Sonic Generations” title. Even before that, in addition to the main 3D series, there was a high demand for the 2D action games such as the Sonic Advance series, so we revived the old Sonic as Classic Sonic for the 20th-anniversary title, Sonic Generations. We initially thought that it would be a 20th Anniversary project only, however after that we had a strong demand for a new classic Sonic standalone title, that became 2017’s Sonic Mania. We would like to take good care of these two very popular iterations of Sonic’s in the future.

This care and concern for Sonic’s image has recently extended to his first live-action movie. When the character’s controversial design was originally revealed, director Jeff Fowler explained how Sega and Paramount were committed to making the iconic video game mascot “the best” he could be in his big-screen debut and gave him a complete redesign. Listening to the fans clearly paid off – with the movie becoming a box office success on release.

As for what’s next, we’ll just have to wait and see. Sega of America’s CEO, Ivo Gerscovich, says some “really exciting” news is on the way for Sonic’s 30th anniversary, that the company can’t wait to share. What kind of reveal would you like to see for Sonic’s birthday next year? Tell us down below.

In case you haven’t been keeping tabs on the WWE video game scene, it’s currently in a state of complete anarchy. Ever since THQ went bust and 2K Games took over the licence in 2013, the games have been gathering a steady flow of criticism, which has been rapidly gaining in pace as each instalment is released.

The situation has been particularly grim for Nintendo fans. When 2K took over it completely ignored the Wii and Wii U and only released one game, WWE 2K18, on the Switch. The problem was, this Switch version was more broken than Matt Hardy (don’t worry non-fans, that’s his gimmick: I’m not libelling him) and was absolutely riddled with bugs and slowdown. Rather than fix it, 2K quietly shirked away again and chose not to bring 2K19 or 2K20 to the Switch.

Even fans of other consoles have been discovering what that feels like now. Last year 2K ditched developer Yuke’s – who had been lead developer on the series ever since it started two decades ago – and decided to make WWE 2K20 on its own, before quickly realising it was rubbish at making wrestling games without any help. As such, there will be no WWE 2K21 at all on any system: instead 2K is pausing to reflect on what it’s doing wrong, and is letting its NBA Playgrounds studio Saber Interactive release a cartoonish arcade-style brawler called WWE 2K Battlegrounds instead (hey, at least that one’s coming to Switch).

It’s clear that the WWE 2K series is in some sort of existential limbo as 2K tries to figure out how to revive a series now that it’s punted the team that knew it inside-out. I think I might have the solution, and while it’s something of a bold one I think deep down anyone who’s been playing wrestling games for a long time will know it’s the correct one.

Kill it. Retire it. And bring back No Mercy.

For those not familiar with it, WWF No Mercy was a Nintendo 64 exclusive and was the definitive WWF (as it was known then) game. It had an enormous roster for the time, had a thoroughly entertaining branching story mode and, most importantly, had the most perfect combat system which has yet to be even remotely approached by any other wrestling game since, let alone surpassed.

What made No Mercy such a fun game to play was the tactical element of its control system. On a base level you had two opening gambits: an attack (with the B button) or a grapple (with A). You could tap either button for a quick one that did less damage, or hold it down for a more powerful one that took a while to wind up, telegraphing it to your opponent so anyone reasonably skilled at the game could figure out what’s coming and reverse it accordingly (the L button reversed grapples, the R button reversed attacks).

What this ultimately meant was that if you put two experts against each other the game would actually play out like a real wrestling match. You would never be crazy enough to try to bust out the big moves early on, because your opponent would see you coming a mile off and counter you out of your boots. Instead, your strategy would be to try to chip away at your opponent with quick attacks and grapples, and slowly wear them down. Then, as their stamina depleted, you would be able to pick them up off the floor and leave them stunned for a brief period, finally leaving them wide open to more powerful attacks and grapples.

It’s the closest a WWE game has ever come to feeling like the real thing (and yes, we know it isn’t ‘real’ in that sense, so if you act smart and mention it in the comments everyone will know you didn’t actually read the article). The fact that two decades later nothing has matched it speaks volumes about the current state of the genre: it’s little surprise that there’s an active ROM modding scene with fans making their own modern versions of the game, by taking out the old wrestlers and replacing them with today’s superstars.

What I propose, then, is that 2K call these modders’ bluff and do the same thing. Give No Mercy an HD update, call it WWE No Mercy 2K22 (it’s too late to do it this year), and fill the roster with modern WWE and NXT superstars. Chuck a bunch of legends in there too: the character models are so low poly that you could have hundreds and hundreds of wrestlers in there with fairly little effort. Yes, 2K has a big scanning set-up that it uses to make photo-realistic versions of athletes in its NBA and WWE games, but given that 2K20’s character models were notorious for looking like ropey mannequins from a backstreet Niagara Falls waxworks, we don’t think many would care too much if this HD No Mercy had hundreds of low-poly grapplers in there instead.

Here’s the kicker: there’s already precedent for this. Right before THQ went under it released WWE WrestleFest, an iOS version of the classic 1991 arcade game that retained some of the original roster like Jake ‘the Snake’ Roberts and Macho Man Randy Savage, but also added the likes of John Cena and The Rock. It was planned for Xbox 360 and PS3 but when THQ went to the big squared circle in the sky, so did WrestleFest. It’s no big loss, because it was rubbish, but the point is that taking an old wrestling game and updating its roster isn’t even a revolutionary idea: it’s been done before, just with a game that wasn’t very good in the first place.

There’s a deep irony in the fact that Nintendo fans have been getting slim pickings these days when it comes to wrestling games, whereas 20 years ago Nintendo was the place to be if you wanted the definitive WWE experience. It’s time to correct that hideous injustice and bring the champion out of retirement for one last ride. It’s time to show a modern generation of wrestling fans how a video game representation of sports entertainment is supposed to feel. It’s time to realise that THQ picked the wrong horse to back all those years ago and should have killed the SmackDown! series (which eventually became 2K) instead of the N64 games. Friends, it’s time for No Mercy to make a run-in.

We have made the decision to move the release of Destiny 2: Beyond Light to November 10. 

As the first chapter in a new trilogy of expansions, Beyond Light is the beginning of a new era of Destiny 2. We have a powerful story to tell and incredible new features that we’re really excited for players to experience. As always, our goal is to make the coolest, most entertaining expansion we can possibly make for our fans. To that end, we are doing what’s best for the game and moving the launch date.

The past few months have been a challenge and will continue to be during this pandemic. We’ve learned to create together in a new way, by having to work apart from one another. Despite these hurdles, we’re still committed to the same level of quality that our fans expect.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be unveiling more of what we’re working on for Beyond Light and what that also means for Season of Arrivals, which will now extend to November 10. Beyond Light sets the stage for an incredible future in Destiny 2 and, though it’s coming later than we originally anticipated, we’re excited to continue that journey with you this November.

Newsbrief: Carbonated has raised $8.5 million at the close of a seed funding round, money the California-based team plans to use to get its first project, an AI-driven squad-based shooter for mobile, off the ground.

The funding comes from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Bitkraft Ventures, and others, and will help the studio ramp up its hiring efforts and bring 20 more developers on board, remotely.

In addition to that in-development mobile game, the Carbonated team notes in a Medium post that it is also working on a live-ops tool it calls Carbyne that aims to allow it to quickly create, modify, and deliver in-game content.

Spike Chunsoft has announced the launch of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair on August 20 in Japan. Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is the second installment of the Danganronpa series. The franchise is best described as a murder mystery adventure game, but it can be compared to Agatha Christie’s best-selling novel, Murder on the Orient Express. There are a lot of Japanese detective games on mobile, but few of which compares to the Danganronpa series.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair takes place on Jabberwock island, as part of your School Trip. The once-bustling tourist paradise is now uninhabited, but yet somehow in pristine condition. The students of Hope’s Peak Academy are all having fun until Monokuma returns to begin his diabolical game. Now, trapped on an island with a killer on the loose, it’s up to you to solve the mystery: if you want to escape.

As your classmates drop like flies, you must examine the crime scene for clues, interview suspects, and determining the motive for each despicable murder. If Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair sounds like a game you would enjoy, you can check out the trailer included below for more details.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair release date: When will it launch?

Famitsu has confirmed that Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair will launch on iOS and Android on August 20. It will list for 1960 yen, which equates to around $18.

DANGANRONPA 2: GOODBYE DESPAIR trailer: what does the gameplay look like?

If you are yet to play any of the Danganronpa series, then you should check out the trailer below. It shows how you will go about investigating the murders by interviewing your classmates.

If you are looking for something to play now, why not check out Tales of Crestoria?