Author: Game Infliction

It’s all well and good grabbing ridiculously expensive Pokémon TCG cards regardless of the climate, and I’m absolutely writhing in jealousy at those who can.

But imagine going back in time and pulling one of those epic chase cards straight off the shelf? Of course, you could today if you hate your bank account that much, but what about the most expensive Pokémon cards in packs right now?

I’m talking about Pokémon TCG bangers that you can pull in a booster pack today, and there are loads. We’re focusing on Destined Rivals, Prismatic Evolutions, Twilight Masquerade, and Surging Sparks for today, so let’s have a deeper look at the mad bangers you could pull from an in-print Pokémon TCG booster pack.

Just to note, the chances of pulling these cards are extremely slim, so if you plan on spending massive amounts of money on Booster Bundles, Booster Boxes, and ETBs, bear in mind that the actual value of the card itself is usually cheaper than ripping packs. Unless you’re mega lucky, of course.

10: Lillie’s Clefairy ex – 184/159

The 2021 relaunch of Splitgate solidified that Valve-style portals and old-school arena shooters are two great tastes that taste great together. Splitgate 2 carries that same great melding of run-and-gun action and tactical trickery that helped the original plant its flag in the genre, so it’s starting from a good place. Only problem is, it never makes much net progress from there. Even though the addition of character classes and a wider range of power weapons help bring Splitgate 2 through a new threshold of promise, some of the other shots it takes through the looking glass loop around to bite it from behind and have made me a bit less enthusiastic about the time I’ve spent with this free-to-play followup.

Visually, quite a bit has changed relative to the original. Gone is the muted, more industrial look of the battle venues, replaced by lots of vibrant colors and brighter lighting. That all makes it look less distinctive and more like the many games trying to catch the eye of Fortnite players. In the trade up from the grubby metal walls to the cleaner, sleeker surfaces, Splitgate 2 is also absent of the more interesting features that made the original’s maps interesting and memorable. Features like deserts and trees that would be smack-dab in the middle of a map (like in one of my favorites, Oasis) are now relegated to background decorations, and every surface you’ll actually run and gun across feels samey across the 15 map options.

Technically you can fix that problem yourself using the returning map creator mode, now called The Lab, which is powerful enough that it’s already filled with dozens and dozens of fan-made recreations of famous PvP maps from bigger games. To be fair there are some more interesting and original user creations that serve as great side shows to the main action. But most of these that I tried felt too gimmicky to be considered good replacements for the developer-made maps as far as having consistent and competitive rounds of the standard modes (to the extent that’s possible considering there’s no ranked mode currently available). It’s also spreading the community a bit thin. I had a pretty hard time getting strangers to queue for some of the wackier-looking options, often sitting in lobbies alone for long periods of time in hopes some other curious Splitgaters would stumble in. I was often disappointed.

Splitgate 2’s biggest win, though, is in gameplay tweaks that have a huge impact on pacing from match to match. The signature portals are still the X-factor, allowing you to create paths between two points on the map on the fly. Once you wrap your head around how they work they are fantastic tools for setting up ambushes, tricky getaways, and even manipulating physics to slingshot you across the map. I mostly use them here like I did in 2021, pulling off one-man flanks on jerks attempting to take my team’s objectives. This time, though, it only takes one button to create both ends of your personal wormhole when shot in succession, making them much more convenient to use. It comes at a slight cost, in that opening one of your portals on top of an enemy’s is the only way to close theirs, and that can force you to close off your own routes. But after logging over a dozen hours, I much prefer this minor drawback over the anti-portal grenades of yesteryear.

Movement always felt smooth, quick, and controlled in Splitgate thanks to its fast (but not too fast) sprinting and limited jetpacks. In Splitgate 2, both of these things combine with a new slide mechanic to make getting around the maps feel like I remember being able to move in my best rounds of Titanfall. The jetpack seems more powerful, with more lift before cooldown than the original’s version. Being able to stay aloft for longer means firefights more often begin or end in the air, adding a level of dynamism that makes every skirmish a challenge at every angle.

The standard arsenal isn’t much different than the original, though, which is a shame because it’s not very imaginative. Most weapons have slick futuristic curves and color schemes but function exactly like the assault rifles, SMGs, and carbines you’ve wielded in too many other games to count, and I wasn’t motivated to do much exploration of the options or customization of loadout presets because of that constant sense of deja vu. They really just make me want to sprint to grab power weapons, which spawn with some fanfare on neutral points during matches, as soon as possible. These returning super guns have gotten a couple of notable additions to their lineup, including my favorite: a pair of machine pistols that can be combined to form a longer machine gun when aiming down the sights. These are all awesome, game-changing weapons that are worth the effort to secure every time they’re available.

Mechanically, the biggest change to the way Splitgate 2 plays is the addition of three character classes, which are presented as avatars of competing corporate entities who settle their differences in this futuristic sport of gun-toting portal slipping. Sabrask, Meridian, and Aeros all have their own unique active abilities, like Meridian’s Hypersight, which reveals enemies around you for a short period, or Aeros’ Rush that gives everyones movement, reload, and regen a speed boost. My favorite is Sabrask’s Smart Wall, which plops a one-way bullet shield that protects anyone standing behind it while keeping them free to shoot through it at the enemy (much like a deployable version of Reinhardt’s shield in Overwatch). They each also have passive effects that they can grant their whole team simply by being present, incentivizing teams to have at least one of each in play. That means actives are more obviously impactful than the passives, largely because I’ve yet to play a game where every team involved wasn’t receiving boosted health regen from Meridian and faster ability and equipment recharges from Aeros and Sabrask, respectively. Is it really a “boost” if it’s basically the standard?

I think there’s an argument to be made that the choice to forgo class-based, hero shooter-y design was a keystone of the monument to the past’s simpler shooters that the original Splitgate was building. It meant all of us started from the same base capabilities and had to earn every advantage during a match, and there’s validity to that. I am sympathetic to this old-school Halo-style mentality, but I’ve come to prefer the diversity of these three new classes, which add just enough tactical expression to give old people like me a chance against fast-twitch no-scoping youth so long as I can out-think them.

Part of that is because Splitgate 2 matches, regardless of the mode you’re playing, are almost always more fun on smaller maps. They may not be as interesting as the maps in Splitgate, but at least they are built to take the most advantage of portaling in a way that ensures you’re never too far from the action. Larger maps, like the ones found in the three-team, 24-player Onslaught game types, can feel almost lonely because you have to run a fair distance to find some other players exchanging fire before plotting your portal game.

Across the board, though, it strikes me as odd that maps seem to deemphasize the advantage that using portals in combat would have. So many objectives sit in places completely hidden from a portal wall, and it felt much more difficult to use portals for aggressive pushes. Fortunately for me, someone who mostly uses portals to set traps and for escapes, and I felt like Splitgate 2’s layouts firmly establish that my more passive approach is the right way to play. Firstly, thank you so much for the 1047 Games. But secondly, this means that offensive strikes on objectives – especially the ones you have to hunker down on like in Firecracker or Domination – happen with the kinds of jetpack assaults and high-energy flanks that you could do anywhere else, from Tribes on down. Even modes that require lots of movement or rotating objectives, like Splitball and Hotzone, don’t afford many more opportunities to use the feature in a way that couldn’t be done without it. The most damning realization of this came when I was playing one of the limited-time No Portals playlist maps and realizing my games didn’t feel all that different without that supposedly defining ability.

Finally, the big new marquee feature of Splitgate 2 is the battle royale mode, and it operates mostly as expected: many teams of four drop into a semi-random zone on the map and fight each other to be the last squad standing. The wrinkle it adds to the genre (besides portals) is that the greater map is made up of four smaller maps connected to one another by jump paths and tunnels. These maps are styled as different environments – there’s a snowy zone and a lava zone, for instance – so it’s easy to communicate which one you’re talking about when planning with your team. Splitgate 2’s version of the storm closing in around you is shutting down one of these regions, forcing all surviving squads toward each other in a shrinking set of rooms; the effect is mostly the same.

What’s disappointing is that the different locations aren’t all that mechanically unique, so fights play out the same way no matter where you are. You certainly don’t want to have shoot outs while knee deep in magma, but when determining which zone to move to next, the potential hazards of the environment was never a top factor. And here, like in the other modes, Portals only come into play a bit, usually to move across long distances quickly, but not very much in the heat of battle. All in all, I didn’t find much going on in this battle royale worth steering your drop bus away from your current favorite for.

I’m not going to lie to you, folks. When I hear the word “soulslike,” my eyes start to glaze over, and I imagine the sweet release of death. It’s the same way I feel when someone says “metroidvania,” or “roguelike.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with soulslikes, metroidvanias, or roguelikes, for the record. There’s just an awful lot of them. I love a good steak, but you can’t eat fillet mignon every day. Sometimes you need some sushi, a taco plate, hell, even just a burger. A little variety goes a long way. So when I got asked whether I wanted a one or two-hour appointment with Wuchang, I only signed up for an hour. But I was allowed to play for two, and I’m really, really glad I did. Wuchang may be a soulslike, but it’s got unique ideas, and by the time I put down my controller, I knew I wanted to see more of what it has to offer.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers sets itself apart from the jump with its unique art and setting. It takes place in the land of Shu during the latter part of the Ming Dynasty. That single choice sets what I played of Wuchang apart from just about every other soulslike. Most games in this genre aren’t shy about their dark fantasy aspirations. In theory, that should mean everything looks a little different. In reality, that means most games look like Dark Souls, which means that most games really look like Berserk. I like Berserk, but it’s not great when everything looks like it stepped out of one of Kentaro Miura’s panels. Wuchang’s dark fantasy, make no mistake, but its setting means a lot of what I saw looks and feels unique (and colorful).

The story’s got an interesting setup, too. You play as Wuchang, a pirate with a nasty bout of amnesia. In my demo, she woke up without knowing who she was or what was going on. Unfortunately for her, amnesia might be the least of her problems. You see, Wuchang has contracted a disease known as the Feathering. It starts small; feathers form on your limbs. But as the disease progresses, you lose your memories, go mad, and undergo a “monstrous transformation.”

There’s no known cure, but that doesn’t mean our girl is just going to lie down. She’s healthier than most, so she’s going to look for a cure. The problem is, once most people realize you’ve contracted the Feathering, they’ll attack you on sight. It’s a neat reason for why just about everyone in Wuchang (though not all; there are plenty of people willing to help you) will attack you as soon as they see you. And the Feathering isn’t entirely a curse; it also gives Wuchang access to very powerful magic. Unlike most other Souls games, you don’t have to equip or spec into magic for it to be useful. It just is. That’s pretty slick.

The other big thing Wuchang does is make each of its weapons unique. Each one is different in very subtle ways. The greataxe in my demo could block, but parrying was a technique that was essentially reserved for a longsword. Other weapons didn’t have either ability, opting instead for attack skills to lay on the hurt. And you can’t just fire off these skills anytime, either. Using them (aside from block and parry, which you always have provided you’ve equipped a weapon with them) take charges, which you build by pulling off perfect dodges or parries. Nailing perfect dodges and parries also charges your magic.

Wuchang isn’t quite as fast as Bloodborne, but it’s faster than most souslikes and encourages you to be aggressive to build those charges. The dance is still here against bosses, and you shouldn’t charge in blindly, but Wuchang is less about waiting for enemies to whiff an attack and punishing them and more about forcing them to swing at you, building those charges, and then cashing in for big damage, either through weapon abilities, magic, or attacks that deal damage while switching to your other equipped weapons. It’s a nice change of pace from traditional soulslike, and forces you to take risks to get access to your best stuff.

Even leveling up is its own thing. Instead of dumping points into your core stats, you fill out a skill tree for everything from your weapons to upgrading your flasks. If you want specific stats, you’ll get them through the armor you equip. There’s no shortage of outfits in Wuchang, from the traditional to the risqué (and there is no shortage of fanservice in Wuchang), but you’re not just playing Fashion Souls or looking at core stats here. You always want to be sure you’re picking the right resistances. If you’re losing to enemies with swords, you might want some slashing resistance. Getting smashed by a big hammer? Bludgeoning resistance is the way to go. Magic got you down? Get some magic resistance in you. These choices matter, and I appreciate that your gear matters, even if I could have done without some of the fan service.

There are still bonfires (here, they’re shrines) and resting at them, which in Wuchang is known as “entering the Dream,” still respawns any enemies you’ve defeated. Even that, though, isn’t necessarily safe. The first time I entered the dream in my demo, I was attacked by a large, bird-like boss. I lost the fight that followed, but when I went back to the dream, the boss wasn’t there. I couldn’t tell you what the deal with that was, but it was interesting, and I kept wondering when (or if) I would get another shot at him. I didn’t, but I am interested in getting another crack at him and figuring out what all that stuff is about.

Speaking of bosses, I did get to square off with three of them during my time with Wuchang, and none of them corresponded to the “Big Dude in Armor” stereotype. From Software got that right with Artorias the Abysswalker, and they (and many others) have leaned on similar versions of that fight since. Often imitated, never duplicated, as the saying goes. Wuchang isn’t interested in sitting down at that table, though.

Instead, every one felt very different. The first was a masked man with a halberd. He definitely had a range advantage on my longsword and greataxe combo, but that was fine with me. I wanted him to swing at me so I could build charges and then use my greataxe to lay down the law. This boss took me quite a few attempts, mostly because I’d think I had an opening when I really didn’t, and get cooked for trying to attack when it wasn’t actually my turn. Once I got his patterns down, though, I was building charges and spending them efficiently, dodging through his attacks and landing big swings of my own. And when I needed to back off? I could cover myself with magic.

The second fight was against someone who seemed to have been transformed by the feathering. This was more acrobatic. The boss would leap into the air and attack from range, forcing me to time my dodges to avoid projectiles and keep from committing until I absolutely had to. I didn’t find it nearly as hard as the first (it took me just s couple tries), but I did appreciate the change of pace.

The last fight… whew, that last fight. Only one person at the entire event beat the final fight in the Wuchang demo, and I’m sad to say it wasn’t me. While the other two fights were all about dodging, this one (against a woman wielding a sword), forced me to parry. Even with the right weapon and good timing, she was a hard fight: incredibly fast, aggressive, and damaging. Every time I tried to back off to heal, she was in my face. Even when I parried her successfully, I had to be careful; I often only had time for a single counterattack before she’d hit me again. It was a brutal fight, and I didn’t win, but I appreciated how hard it was, and how I’d had to change my strategy for each boss. I can’t wait for another crack at her from the comfort of my couch.

And that sums up my feelings with Wuchang as a whole, really. I got a ton of time with it, far more than anything else I played at Summer Game Fest, and I left satisfied with what I’d seen. But I was also excited to see more. Not bad for a souslike, right?

If you scan the shelves of your local board game store, any number of well-known video game adaptations will likely leap out at you. There’s Mass Effect: Priority Hagalaz for example, or Slay the Spire: The Board Game, alongside many other board games based on video games. But one very well-known name you won’t see is that of Lara Croft, or her beloved Tomb Raider franchise. For the series’ legions of fans, that is all about to change, but not necessarily in the way that they might think.

“We wanted to create a solo board game where Lara Croft is on a new adventure,” Luke Meila, designer of the upcoming Tomb Raider: The Crypt of Chronos, explained to IGN at his stand at the UK Games Expo, boldly supported by a hirsute gentleman cosplaying as Lara Croft. “We’ve seen Lara in video games, movies, comics and her adventures are always tailored to whatever the medium is, so that’s what we did with this: make a board game as if Lara has always been in a board game.”