Last year changed the way many of us thought about software. It certainly changed the way I did. I spent much of 2025 building, probing, and questioning how to build software, and in many more ways what I want to do.
"I think one of my most-played games is Pokemon Pinball, but the idea to make a pinball game came from Mario... he came to me and say 'JP, I want to make a custom engine for Playdate and we should make a pinball game.'"
As you can see, this cartridge has Hollywood Video stickers on it. Which is interesting. And I wasn't able to find any record of the competitions being done at Hollywood Video. The 1995 competition was a Blockbuster competition. A major competitor, or the major competitor of Hollywood Video.
Over the weekend, players were able to progress the ARG far enough to reveal new information about Cryo Archive, the "endgame" level of Bungie's sci-fi shooter that is set on the actual Marathon ship first featured in the original '90s trilogy of games. To hop into this yet-to-be-unlocked area, players will need to reach rank 25 and have "established connections" with all factions.
I had this idea, let's go out to a store and buy the cartridges, buy three or four of them. And indeed, despite Linden's technical wizardry, even he couldn't do anything about the underpowered hardware, and, as anyone who's played it can tell you, while the sheer existence of Doom on the SNES may be magical, playing it is anything but.
To keep the hype train rolling, Illumination and Universal Pictures have dropped a short new teaser. It's exactly 30 seconds long, so you'll probably be seeing it again on TV this Sunday during the Super Bowl. It does feature some nifty footage that we haven't seen before, including a hungry Yoshi absolutely devouring a Magikoopa. There are also shots highlighting the star cannons from The Super Mario Galaxy games and one shot that shows Rosalina bodying Bowser Jr.
It's now an online sci-fi extraction shooter in which players beam down to the planet Tau Ceti IV to scavenge for loot, carry out missions and potentially blast each other in the process. Its closest rival is Arc Raiders, which makes a similar use of stylised retro-futurism.
It's more fun to destroy something that doesn't look like it can be destroyed. It is more fun to destroy that which is beautiful. Levels needed lots of additional visual flourishes, ranging from patches of flowers and fauna to ornate rock formation and snaking, overgrown trees to make the destruction feel like the showstopper it was meant to be.
The Japanese video game studio founded in 1998 by Goichi "Suda51" Suda proudly carries a B-movie spirit, blending absurd concepts, complex characters, and cascades of pixelated blood on screen. Over the years, the developer's work has often received a mixed critical reception, and the founder doesn't think there's a game in Grasshopper's portfolio that he would consider "financially successful." Yet, it has also accrued a loyal following, carving its own space in the industry with games that carry an indistinguishable look and feel.
There were lots of good stuff in this week's Convergence Showcase too, including another peek at Mouse: P.I. for Hire as we get to see one of the game's bosses for the first time. This first-person shooter with rubber-hose animation is set to arrive on March 19. There were other welcome announcements for me in this showcase. First, there was a release date for the Zelda-inspired adventure Gecko Gods.
It's been over a decade since the last major 007 video game, and longer still since the last good one. So there's a lot of buzz around IO Interactive's upcoming 007 First Light. But this isn't another first-person shooter trying to chase after the beloved N64 GoldenEye. Instead, IOI is making something very different than most other Bond games, and that has many fans, myself included, intrigued. Could this be the first Bond game to truly nail the vibe? Hopefully so.
Of the Warlock's three Demonic partner options, I found myself leaning most on the Tainted, which can stay out of harm's way while harassing slower enemies from afar with fireballs. The other Demon options both had their charms but often got too caught up in massive enemy swarms to be as effective as I wanted, I found. I also didn't see much point in the skill option that let me teleport my demon into a specific fight
The Donkey Kong Country Returns HD free update is out today and adds Dixie Kong as a playable character along with her helicopter hair spin. It also adds a Turbo Attack mode which essentially turns every level into a speedrun challenge. Finally, a free Switch 2 upgrade will give the game better resolution, improved visuals, and faster load times. It'll also include support for GameShare so two players can play local coop on separate devices using only one copy of the game.
In 2017, Breath of the Wild director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, art director Satoru Takizawa and technical director Takuhiro Dohta gave a keynote at GDC. It offered a rare and candid glimpse at the production behind the latest (and to some, greatest) Legend of Zelda , released only a few days prior. Getting a peak behind the curtain at how the toybox of physics and elemental effects came to be was a treat, but one of the more bizarre parts of the talk regarded an earlier pitch.