Category: Video Games

The Simpsons Hit & Run Soundtrack Is Out Now On Spotify And Apple Music

Can we have the game now as well?

There have been a number of stories over the years about possibly reviving The Simpsons Hit & Run – a Grand Theft Auto-like title set in the fictional town of Springfield. While we don’t seem to be any closer to a comeback, earlier this week fans of the 2003 title noticed how the game’s soundtrack has now been uploaded to services like Spotify and Apple Music:

Unsurprisingly, it’s got some wondering if the game might return in the near future. Back in 2021, Matt Selman – an individual who worked on the animated show since 1997 – mentioned how he would “love” to see Hit & Run revived, but said it would be “complicated” to bring back (via IGN):

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Marvel Snap Will Get Its Long-Awaited PvP Battle Mode in Late January

Marvel Snap will be getting its long-awaited PVP Battle Mode on January 31, assuming there are no “last minute issues.”

The news was revealed on Marvel Snap’s official website, and developer Second Dinner’s associate design director Kent-Erik Hagman also took to Unity Blog to further detail what players can expect.

Marvel Snap’s Battle Mode arrives as part of the Version 1.0 update, and it will see two opponents facing off against each other through multiple rounds. Both players will start with 10 health and the goal is to cut the other player’s health to 0 before they do the same to you.

Additionally, decks are locked throughout the entire battle, so it will benefit players to pay attention to what cards are played so they can know what they’ll be up against in future rounds. Another strategy is to hold a card back until a future round to surprise surprise your opponent.

Battle Mode went under multiple iterations during development, including times when the health value was different, where the Reality Stone could transform your cards before each game, and more. However, the team quickly saw that some of their earlier decisions led to games that weren’t as fun and engaging.

After all the playtests, the team honed in on a way to make games tense and still last just around 20 minutes. This time estimate is made possible by the High Stakes Rounds that “start with the stakes at two Damage, so it’s much more deadly.”

This is just the beginning of Marvel Snap’s Battle Mode, and although players can only face off against others in their same matchmaking region, global matchmaking will be on its way “a bit later.”

Assuming all goes well, January 31 will also see the arrival of Series Drop. This will see certain cards that are Series 5 (the rarest cards) drop down to Series 4, and certain cards that are Series 4 will move to Series 3. When cards drop a Series, they become “10x more common in Collector’s Reserves, and [they are] much cheaper in the Token Shop.”

These drops will happen every month, and the team will award players who acquire a Seris 5 card before it moves down with a special First Edition Badge. This feature will come later, however.

For more, check out our full wiki so you can become the best player you can and our Marvel Snap review.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Video: Watch This Splatoon 3 Pro Team Collect 241 Golden Eggs In A “World Record” Salmon Run

Mr. Grizz must be happy.

Splatoon might be primarily known as a competitive shooter, but since the release of the second game, Nintendo has expanded upon the original concept with its cooperative wave mode Salmon Run. If you do enjoy putting in a shift for Mr. Grizz, you might want to check out the above IGN video.

It’s a detailed breakdown of a world-record Salmon Run focused on a group of pro Splatoon 3 players (Brian, Gungee, Marty and Reyko) who were able to gather a whopping 241 golden eggs. What’s perhaps even more impressive is the fact it’s been done using an online connection – so the team has to factor in latency issues.

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SimCity 4, the greatest citybuilder of all time, was released 20 years ago

SimCity 4 had its problems. Its huge cities would chug on even decent PCs, for one, and its traffic simulation seemed outright broken.

Twenty years later – thanks to faster PCs, the Rush Hour expansion, and a huge modding community – SimCity 4 is the best of all SimCity games. If what you care about is simulation, scale, variety, and the beauty of urban sprawl, it’s also the best citybuilder.

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Fantasy citybuilder Against The Storm now lets you create your own custom mode

Against The Storm provided some of the most fun I had playing a citybuilder last year. That was in part because, despite being set in a dark fantasy world in which you must satisfy an unyielding Queen, and despite being in early access, it’s remarkably graspable. It’s the kind of citybuilder where, if you place a building in the wrong place, it simply lets you pick it up and move it at no cost.

As of its latest update, there’s now a new customisable game mode that lets you make your expeditions even more relaxed – or much harder.

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Feature: Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider’s JoyMasher On Dev Nightmares And Changing Direction

“It was originally supposed to be more linear, like Dracula X”.

Publisher The Arcade Crew and developer Joymasher have just launched their latest retro-inspired title Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider, an homage to classic 16-bit action platformers like Shinobi III and Hagane: The Final Conflict. The game is a remarkably authentic retro experience that puts the focus firmly on quick, replayable sessions with hidden items and branching pathways. We were particularly enamoured with the game in our review, awarding it a solid score of 9/10; be sure to check that out if you’re interested in adding Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider to your Switch collection.

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Soapbox: All Fish Pokémon Are Bad, And There’s A Good Reason Why

Go (away) fish.

I’ll start this with a confusing admission: My favourite thing in the world is a trip to an aquarium. I could spend days gazing through the curved glass of a tank, watching sharks glide past me, pressing my hand against the smooth, white underbelly of a stingray, and taking note of the clownfish darting in and out of the swaying mass of a sea anemone. Aquariums are my happy place. They’re fascinating, beautiful, entrancing, and for a kid who grew up pretty far away from the ocean, basically magic.

So why do I dislike fish Pokémon so much? It’s precisely because they have nothing in common with those actual fish in an aquarium, or in the sea. Let me explain.

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Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (January 14th)

Game on.

With the Christmas chocolates finally dwindling in number, we think it’s fair to say that 2023 is well under way. And as the year kicks off, so too do we see the return of gaming news — nature is healing, people!

This week at Nintendo Life, we have been welcoming in the new year with open arms, looking to the months ahead and talking about some of the upcoming big games. We prepared for some of the titles which are right around the corner as we ranked the best narratives in the Fire Emblem series and asked what is next for Final Fantasy on Switch after the pixel remaster? Then, of course, we looked on to Zelda, pondering which games we should all replay before Tears of the Kingdom comes out.

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Random: It’s Now Been 6 Years Since Zelda: BOTW’s ‘Switch Presentation’ Trailer Released

Now bring on Tears of the Kingdom!

It’s set to be a massive year for the Zelda series with the sequel to Breath of the Wild launching this May. As excited as many fans are about the future, many can’t help but reflect on just how long it’s now been since the original game’s iconic reveals.

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