The post Diablo IV: Pursue Celestial Fortune in the Lunar Awakening Event! appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Category: Video Games
Ninja Gaiden 2 Black Review
There is a moment near the end of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black where you retrace the original Ninja Gaiden’s opening level in reverse. I know that level like the back of my hand, having played it over and over and over again two decades ago on a demo disk until I could beat Murai, the first boss, without getting hit. And though you aren’t forced to go all the way to the beginning of that first stage here, this area isn’t what it used to be. It’s dilapidated, rotting, falling apart; you can see the damage caused by time and the events of the first game clearly. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black never directly comments on this; Ryu doesn’t mention it, and the camera never pulls any tricks to call attention to it. It’s a moment of subtlety that’s very un-Ninja Gaiden, but as I ran back through these familiar stomping grounds, I had an enormous smile on my face. Like this remake as a whole, it may not quite be what it once was, but slicing and dicing my way through it feels as good as ever.
That moment is a good summary of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, an Unreal Engine 5-powered remake of 2008’s Ninja Gaiden 2, one of the Xbox 360 era’s definitive action games. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is, according to Team Ninja, supposed to be the definitive edition of Ninja Gaiden 2, combining a stunning visual upgrade with several balance changes. Unfortunately, as good as 2 Black is – and let me state without equivocation this is a remarkable visual upgrade to an already excellent action game – it is not the end-all, be-all edition of Ninja Gaiden 2 that the Black moniker implies. Like many of the weapons Ryu wields, 2 Black is something of a double-edged sword. Its changes cut both ways.
But before we dig into what 2 Black isn’t, let’s talk about what it is. This is what I like to call an Action Jackson: a 3D beat-em-up with a hyperintense focus on combat above all else. Like previous versions, 2 Black takes place a year after the Xbox reboot of Ninja Gaiden. This time, the Black Spider Ninja Clan and Greater Fiends have formed an alliance to resurrect the Archfiend, and Dragon Ninja and ultimate badass Ryu Hayabusa is the only one who can stop them (though he does get a little help from his friends and the CIA). The story is more an excuse for you to travel the world, meet exciting and interesting monstrosities, ninjas, and Fiends, and turn them into limbless torsos than it is a fleshed-out narrative.
That said, I forgot how funny it is. Greater Fiends voiced by Steve Blum quote Shakespeare at you! You fight a lightning man on the Statue of Liberty! A giant, four-armed werewolf named Volf brings you to the colosseum in Venice, which is full of more werewolves, for a duel to the death, and he’s like “do you want him to die?” and all the werewolves cheer, and then he’s like “who do you want to kill him?” and then all the werewolves are like “Volf!” and he’s like “Yes! I, Volf, will kill him!” and so you’re just fighting a giant four-armed werewolf in the colosseum while a bunch of werewolves are cheering him on. This, folks, is the best camp this side of the river.
But you’re not here for that. You’re here for the combat, and on that front, 2 Black delivers and then some. Ninja Gaiden 2’s whole deal is that you can delimb enemies, cutting off arms, legs, and even heads as you rip through rooms, opening up anyone who is suddenly short a body part for an instant execution if they’re still up and walking (or crawling) around.
The downside is that enemies that are injured are even more dangerous. These dudes will jump on you, stab you, and blow themselves up to kill you. Unlike Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden is not about styling on your enemies. It is about surviving. Your foes will not stand there and wait for you to attack them, nor will they do long, slow attacks with a noticeable windup. No, these dudes are fast, ferocious, and unrelenting, and they think you kicked their dog and are pretty sure you said something about their momma. They want you dead.
The thing is, they’re up against Ryu Hayabusa. Ryu isn’t your typical Action Jackson protag; the dude, even by genre standards, is a walking arsenal. By the end of the roughly 10-hour campaign, you’re going to be walking around with no less than nine melee weapons, three ranged weapons, and four different flavors of fancy Ninja magic (Ninpo), and each melee weapon has a unique moveset with combos to learn and special techniques to master. You haven’t lived until you’ve decapitated someone with a Flying Swallow, used the Lunar Staff or Vigoorian Flail to combo half a dozen enemies at once, or pulled off the almighty Izuna Drop to slam a dude’s head into the ground so hard that it explodes.
Ryu feels like a character from a fighting game. He has a complex moveset and combos to learn, the ability to block attacks and then sidestep or dodge backward, special moves and magic, and a unique counter-attack ability specific to each weapon that allows him to transition from defense to offense in the blink of an eye. Oh, and he’s a Ninja, so he can do stuff like run up walls and leap down for a powerful blow, jump on his enemy’s heads, and leap forward and hurl them across the screen by the neck.
In recent years, action games have leaned heavily on parries and invincibility-frames to get you out of trouble, but that’s not how 2 Black operates. Ryu has excellent defensive tools, but Ninja Gaiden is about positioning, aggression, and mastery of both your weapons and slew of techniques. You are always moving, always looking for an opportunity to go on the offensive, and always prioritizing the biggest threat, whether it’s an injured enemy who might try to grab you, a caster hanging back to pepper you with spells, or an enormous werewolf looking to tear your face off and eat it.
At its best, this is a symphony of death and you’re the conductor, chaining together combos, dodging and counter-attacking, and using the Essence dropped by enemies to immediately charge your Ultimate Techniques, which are attacks so powerful that they can slice and dice an entire room. Ryu is always the coolest guy on screen, and when you’re cooking, the enemies throwing themselves at you to die give off that “surely I will be the guy that kills John Wick” vibe. When you’re not, you can die very, very quickly. You’re going to get good, or you’re not going to progress.
It’s not as unforgiving as it sounds. Save statues restore your entire health bars the first time you use them, and most of your life (minus a red section that grows over time as you take damage) is restored once you finish any given encounter. Even then, you’ve got items to fix that red section, heal you in a pinch mid-combat, and if all else fails, you can always kill more enemies and pray for blue Essence that will restore health. It’s never over until it’s over.
So it’s a flawless combat system, right? Well… not quite. Just like in the original, the camera can be a little janky and get stuck in weird places from time to time. It’s not too bad if you’re proactive about managing it and smart about how you approach fights, though it can have issues with tight corners and you will get hit off-screen every now and then. It’s an annoyance, but a minor one.
The other major problem is the quality of the boss encounters. Some of them like Volf are challenging, memorable, fun, or a combination of the three. But then there’s fights like the Water Dragon, a weird worm thing in the subway, or the Nuclear Armadillo (yes, really). And those… well, those kinda suck. Not because they’re hard, necessarily, but because they’re just plain not engaging to fight, force you to play in ways that zap the fun from Ninja Gaiden 2’s combat system, or rely on some weird gimmick. Even some of the best fights can overstay their welcome with repeated re-runs. I mean, I love the Genshin fight, but did I really need to do it four times, especially when it doesn’t change much during the rematches? How many times do I need to teach you this lesson, old man?!
Between fights, you’ll get to explore each level, which are linear but still reward heading off the beaten path with health bonuses, Ninpo upgrades, Essence, and Crystal Skulls (Why was 2008 the year of the crystal skull?) that provide discounts at the shop. It’s here, in the stages themselves, that you see the depth of 2 Black’s visual upgrades. Yeah, the new character models look amazing (love the new hair, Sonia), but the lighting changes and texture upgrades really make these environments pop. Ninja Gaiden 2 has always been gorgeous, but it’s easy to forget how ambitious it was. These levels are huge, and occasional camera issues aside, the platforming sections are largely really enjoyable and provide some nice variety between combat encounters. I particularly like the one in the clock tower – running up walls and doing bird flips is fun! Who knew?
So overall, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is pretty great. If anything, though, its biggest flaw is that it’s based more on the 2009 PlayStation 3 port Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 than it is the original 360 version. This is a little inside baseball, but bear with me for a second: For those who don’t know, Ninja Gaiden 2 and Sigma 2 are very, very different. I’m not going to go into extreme depth here because there’s too much to list, but Sigma 2 added or removed certain bosses, costumes, and weapons, reworked levels, changed how weapon upgrades work, and even added three new characters (Rachel, Momiji, and Ayane) with their own story chapters. It’s… a lot. So much so that Team Ninja has even crafted a handy dandy comparison table listing what’s in all the different versions.
The differences I really want to highlight, though, are the changes to enemy density and health, as they have the single biggest impact on how 2 Black actually plays. Compared to the original, Sigma 2 substantially reduced the number of enemies on-screen at once. There are dozens of enemies on iconic sections like The Stairs in the original release, so many that it could actually force the framerate into the single digits on Xbox 360. In 2 Black, you might get eight or so on screen at once in the same sequence. In exchange for sheer numbers, enemies in Sigma 2 (and thus, 2 Black) get more health and take longer to delimb, but are less aggressive. Even a Ninja Dog could tell you that these changes make combat worse. Environments are often empty and enemies feel spongy. Certain enemies, especially bigger ones like werewolves or the gargoyle-esque Van Gelfs (which are already immune to staple attacks like the Izuna Drop) take much, much longer to delimb and kill, making combat encounters with a lot of them drag.
I played 2 Black on the Path of the Acolyte difficulty (Normal) for this review because I figured it is what most people will play, though this was considered Easy in the original 360 release. After finishing it, I fired up the original Ninja Gaiden II on my Xbox Series X and played for a while on Path of the Warrior, which 2 Black lists as Hard and the original lists as Normal. Even on a higher difficulty, enemies died more quickly – I could often delimb or outright kill individual ninjas with a single attack from the Dragon Sword when it might take a full combo to do so in 2 Black – and it was exciting to fight more enemies on-screen at a time. Ninja Gaiden 2 just feels faster and better than Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. Ryu even seems to move through the environments more quickly, and it’s more exciting to play as a result.
2 Black’s issues don’t stop there. The combat changes from Sigma 2 also mean that enemies will sometimes block attacks in a combo after being hit or fall out of a combo mid-string. While this inconsistency does technically make 2 Black more like its predecessor, 2’s combat system isn’t built for it the way Ninja Gaiden Black’s is and it feels bad every time it happens.
That said, however, 2 Black does do a lot right in addition to the visual upgrade. The higher level of gore from the original release is back, as is the weapon upgrade system. Sigma 2 just gives you free upgrades at certain points; in 2 Black and the original, you can buy upgrades at any shop with Essence, which you also spend on healing items. I challenged myself to play through 2 Black without using any healing or Ninpo restoration items unless I found one when I was already full up, so this didn’t affect me a ton, but having upgrades cost Essence again is a good change because it forces you to choose between saving it to boost your weapons or spending it on items that will help you stay alive. Even intro screens before each mission resemble the more appealing ones from the original release more than Sigma 2. These things may feel minor, but they matter.
2 Black also smartly removes the not-great Giant Buddha Statue and Statue of Liberty (yes, really) boss fights that Sigma 2 added while retaining good additions like the Dark Dragon. And while enemies are still spongier than in the original, they do at least feel less spongy than Sigma 2 and there seem to be more of them. Still not quite as many as in the original, though without playing all three games back to back to back and counting corpses, it’s impossible to say.
And the good stuff from Sigma 2 is still here. I like the new levels with Rachel, Momiji, and Ayane. None of these characters have Ryu’s expansive kit, so there isn’t as much depth to them, but they all feel unique and are fun to play as, especially in one-off chapters. This is still Ninja Gaiden, so they still look Like That (Ayane’s costume is particularly silly), but 2 Black never treats them as anything less than Extremely Competent Action Girls and they’re a nice change of pace, even if the transition from Ryu to them occasionally feels jarring from a story perspective.
Finishing the campaign unlocks additional costumes for every character (though not as many as in Sigma 2, and even some of the costumes from the original are not present), which is neat. You’ll also open up Chapter Challenges if you wanna replay chapters and compete for a high score, though there aren’t online leaderboards, and 2 Black does not bring back the original’s New Game Plus mode. There’s the Formerly Co-op With Another Real Person But Now Only With an NPC Friend Tag Team Missions, too, if you’re looking for more to do, which is nice. And I also appreciate the return of Sigma 2’s Hero difficulty, which is great for folks new to action games or who might need additional accessibility options.
If I have one other complaint with 2 Black, it’s that there are bugs here and there. It crashed on me once, had a few texture bugs in extremely funny places like The Stairs (if you know, you know), and once a door with some enemies (and goodies) behind it failed to open. The latter was, admittedly, really funny: I just heard rocket ninjas shooting at me from inside a train as I furiously tried to get in and kill them and they furiously tried to get out and kill me, but it did mean I had to restart from my last checkpoint to fix it.
Beyond: Two Souls TV Series on the Way from Star Elliot Page
PlayStation and Quantic Dream’s story-driven adventure game Beyond: Two Souls is getting a TV series reimagining from original star Elliot Page.
Deadline reports that Page’s Pageboy Productions has acquired the rights from Quantic Dream in the hopes of adapting it into a television show. The project is said to be in early development and is expected to keep the video game experience’s non-linear narrative in mind as work progresses. Additional details, including casting information and release plans, have yet to be revealed.
Page told Deadline that filming Beyond: Two Souls was “one of the most challenging and fulfilling acting experiences” of his career. He continued: “The story’s rich narrative and emotional depth offer us a fantastic foundation. We want to create a unique vision of the characters and their journeys that resonates with fans and newcomers.”
Pageboy head of development and production Matt Jordan Smitt elaborated on how he, Page, and the rest of the team plan to “honor the game’s legacy while inviting fresh perspectives.” He added: “Delving into questions of survival and how split-second decisions can alter not just our lives, but the lives of others, are key to telling the story.”
The original Beyond: Two Souls launched for the PlayStation 3 in 2013 before eventually making its way to PlayStation 4 and PC in 2015 and 2019, respectively. Directed and written by Quantic Dream’s David Cage, it follows the story of Jodie Holmes, a girl with psychic powers that allow her to communicate with a spirit she calls Aiden. Aside from the non-linear narrative that explores different sections of her life, the game was known for its inclusion of big-name actors like Page and Willem Dafoe.
Cage said he is collaborating with Page on the Beyond: Two Souls TV show, though the extent of his involvement is unclear.
“We are absolutely thrilled to collaborate again with Elliot Page on this project,” Cage said. “I was blown away by his acting performance in the game, and I couldn’t think of anyone else to tell this story with the same passion on another medium. Beyond: Two Souls is a very special game for millions of players around the world who were moved by the story of Jodie and Aiden, and their journey in life and beyond. I know that Elliot has all the talent and instinct to make it something really unique on TV.”
It will be some time before the Beyond: Two Souls TV series makes its debut. In the meantime, you can see IGN’s original review for the game here and all of our Quantic Dream video game reviews here.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP.
Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
Space Engineers 2 early access review: a solid and solitary box of building blocks – yet not much else
It’s easy to feel pride when you’re flying through space at 1000 metres per second. “Look at my spaceship go,” you say to yourself, “look how fast it crashes into that other, smaller ship.” Building your own galactic snowpiercer from scratch in Space Engineers 2 will bring a smile to anyone who once revelled in clicking together Lego podracers and bashing them into one another on the living room carpet with a violence eight-year-olds should not yet have mental access to. That said, this is the precise extent of the things you can do in the game so far. Build ‘n’ crash. Every feature fits in this opening paragraph. There’s good reason to trust the developers’ ability to deliver the rest of this crafting and survival game. But right now, it’s all core, no loop.
Talking Point: What Do We Actually Want From ‘Mario Kart 9’?
Kart to kart.
With the truly shocking confirmation that, alongside the new console, Nintendo is busy assembling a follow-up entry to the best-selling game on Switch, it’s got us thinking about what we really want from a new Mario Kart.
In all honesty, we’ve been thinking about this for years, arguably since before we knew that Mario Kart 8 would be getting a Deluxe reprieve and assumed the new hotness on Switch would be totally new. Don’t get us wrong — Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is an astonishing product, and we’re huge fans of the enormous Booster Course Pass DLC, but we’ve been playing the same game in some form for over a decade now and we’re jonesing for a fresh take.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
No Man’s Sky Worlds Part II Update Brings New Planets, Life and Stories to Discover
Summary
- Worlds Part II introduces billions of new stars and planets to No Man’s Sky, each teeming with new life to discover.
- New gameplay, missions and lore tie up loose ends from long-unanswered narrative strands.
- Worlds Part II arrives on Xbox and Xbox Game Pass today, and is free for existing players.
Today, I’m super proud to announce that Worlds Part II is coming No Man’s Sky today, is free to download for all existing Xbox and Game Pass players today, and is one of the biggest updates we’ve ever released.
Across the universe we’ve introduced billions of new star systems, home to trillions of wholly new planets have been generated with new terrain technology. Enormous and foreboding Gas Giant planets can be seen for the first time, ten times bigger than our biggest planet, providing dramatic new environments to explore.
Innovative water technology has enabled us to spawn all-new water planets with new biomes and oceans that are kilometres deep. Deep sea gameplay has been introduced, and there’s a huge variety of new life to be discovered in the depths.
Water now responds to players as they travel through them and ripples and foams as spaceships skirt above them. Water surfaces are now more realistic and reflect the ever-changing cloud systems above and the glorious expanse of the night skies.
A new lightning system makes the seas and oceans look so different with new caustics, light shafts and the deeper you explore the darker it gets. In fact, every element of our lighting has been rewritten. Even on dry land, shadows show more details, light flickers through leaves, caves are dark and immersive
New terrain technology enables the creation of huge mountain ranges and deep canyons never possible before. All this technology combines to create that feeling of wonder in an infinite universe as you gaze up at a mountain peak miles above you, or stared down into the abyss of a dizzyingly cavernous gorge.
Every planet is different and no one has seen it before you, not even us, for us that’s what makes No Man’s Sky unique and why the emotions of exploring our universe just hit differently.
As the team continues work on our next big game, Light No Fire, we learn new things, develop new tech and can’t resist sharing that with our No Man’s Sky players.
To accompany all this new technology and variety, there’s a whole host of new gameplay, lore and missions to dig into. There is a mission strand which explores the mystery of the Gas Giants and links up some narrative threads which have been left teasingly unanswered for a long time.
There’s a new expedition which is like a guided tour through the best of what Worlds Part II has to offer, with a generous suite of rewards including a new starship which is part living ship, and part jet fighter!
To celebrate the release of Worlds Part II, we’re running another Twitch Drops campaign from Thursday 30th January to Monday 3rd February. Tune in to your favourite No Man’s Sky streamers on Twitch to unlock exclusive ships, multi-tools, pets and more just by watching them play.
Worlds Part II takes the No Man’s Sky universe to a whole new level. It is way beyond what I ever thought possible when we first sat down to code our crazy little universe. Nine years later and this update is another step in the journey of this game that we truly love.
No Man’s Sky
Hello Games
$59.99
$23.99
Xbox One X Enhanced
PC Game Pass
Xbox Game Pass
No Man’s Sky comes complete with all 29 major updates up to and including Worlds Part I.
Inspired by the adventure and imagination that we love from classic science-fiction, No Man’s Sky presents you with a galaxy to explore, filled with unique planets and lifeforms, and constant danger and action.
In No Man’s Sky, every star is the light of a distant sun, each orbited by planets filled with life, and you can go to any of them you choose. Fly smoothly from deep space to planetary surfaces, with no loading screens, and no limits. In this infinite procedurally generated universe, you’ll discover places and creatures that no other players have seen before – and perhaps never will again.
Embark on an epic voyage
At the centre of the galaxy lies a irresistible pulse which draws you on a journey towards it to learn the true nature of the cosmos. But, facing hostile creatures and fierce pirates, you’ll know that death comes at a cost, and survival will be down to the choices you make over how you upgrade your ship, your weapon and suit.
Find your own destiny
Your voyage through No Man’s Sky is up to you. Will you be a fighter, preying on the weak and taking their riches, or taking out pirates for their bounties? Power is yours if you upgrade your ship for speed and weaponry.
Or a trader? Find rich resources on forgotten worlds and exploit them for the highest prices. Invest in more cargo space and you’ll reap huge rewards.
Or perhaps an explorer? Go beyond the known frontier and discover places and things that no one has ever seen before. Upgrade your engines to jump ever farther, and strengthen your suit for survival in toxic environments that would kill the unwary.
Share your journey
The galaxy is a living, breathing place. Trade convoys travel between stars, factions vie for territory, pirates hunt the unwary, and the police are ever watching. Every other player lives in the same galaxy, and you can choose to share your discoveries with them on a map that spans known space. Perhaps you will see the results of their actions as well as your own…
The post No Man’s Sky Worlds Part II Update Brings New Planets, Life and Stories to Discover appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 PC features and ray-tracing options detailed, out tomorrow
Hey everyone, we’re just one day away from bringing the latest epic chapter in the Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise to PC, where you’ll battle as Spider-Men, Peter Parker and Miles Morales, against a rogue’s gallery of iconic Marvel Super Villains, including the monstrous Venom and the ruthless Kraven the Hunter.
With the game launching soon, I’m excited to share more about the awesome new PC-enhanced features the team at Nixxes has been working on.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, created by Insomniac in collaboration with Marvel, is a technological and graphical showcase utilizing tools like ray-tracing to bring the city of Marvel’s New York to life. On PC, you’ll encounter a variety of new ray-tracing options with individual quality settings to finetune performance and fidelity across a broad range of hardware configurations.
Ray-traced reflections quickly catch your eye in the skyscraper-filled city of Marvel’s New York as you swing along its many glass surfaces. Meanwhile, we’re offering ray-traced interiors, shadows, and ambient occlusion options that add an additional layer of believability with realistic shadows and increased depth to the game.
If you have a high-performance PC with Super Hero-tier hardware, you can take advantage of our increased raytracing geometry detail setting. This enables the use of higher quality meshes for raytracing, resulting in more detailed and realistic reflections. You can also use the raytracing object range slider to increase the range at which objects are considered for raytracing. Furthermore, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC includes NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction1, which improves raytracing quality on supported hardware. Let me introduce you to Menno Bil, Graphics Programmer at Nixxes, to tell you more about this feature:
“NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction aims to achieve more detailed raytracing features by combining two separate temporal processes in a frame: denoising of the raytracing features and upscaling of the entire frame. By combining these steps, ray reconstruction keeps more useful information over multiple frames to add small details in raytracing effects that can otherwise be lost.
In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC with ray reconstruction enabled, we see more detailed ray-traced reflections and better-defined ray-traced shadows, especially when viewing raytracing effects at steep angles. We also see improvements in the ray-traced interiors and less ghosting and noise in the ray-traced ambient occlusion.
We’ve included two models of NVIDIA’s Ray Reconstruction, the original model introduced in DLSS 3.5, and a newly improved model designed for RTX 40 series GPUs and newer. This new model results in an overall more temporally stable image, further improving the visual quality of raytracing.”
– Menno Bil, Graphics Programmer, Nixxes
Players with ultra-wide monitors can enjoy full support for ultra-wide aspect ratios such as 21:9, 32:9 and even 48:9 when using triple monitor setups. Our team of engineers and artists worked hard on ensuring all cinematics in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 are adapted to be fully viewable in aspect ratios up to 32:9.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC also supports various performance-enhancing technologies, including NVIDIA DLSS 3 and AMD FSR 3.1 upscaling and frame generation.* Intel XeSS upscaling is also supported.1
With options like raytracing and ultra-wide support, we want to give players the chance to make full use of their high-end PC gaming rigs. However, at Nixxes we also take pride in making PC games scale down to prior generation hardware. To cater to this, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC offers a wide range of graphics settings and presets, including options without ray-tracing, like dynamic resolution scaling. Check out an overview of the recommended specifications for a variety of graphics presets below.
| Minimum | Recommended | High | High Ray Tracing | Very High Ray Tracing | Ultimate Ray Tracing | |
| Avg. Performance | 720P @ 30 FPS | 1080P @ 60 FPS | 1440P @ 60 FPS | 1440p @ 60 FPS | 1440p @ 60 FPS | 4K @ 60 FPS |
| Graphics Presets | Very Low | Medium | High | High Ray Tracing High | High Ray Tracing Very High | Very High Ray Tracing Ultimate |
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 AMD Radeon RX 5700 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 AMD Radeon RX 6800 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 |
| CPU | Intel Core i3-8100 AMD Ryzen 3 3100 | Intel Core i5-8400 AMD Ryzen 5 3600 | Intel Core i5-11400 AMD Ryzen 5 5600 | Intel Core i5-11600K AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | Intel Core i7-12700K AMD Ryzen 9 5900X | Intel Core i9-12900K AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D |
| RAM | 16 GB | 16 GB | 16 GB | 16 GB | 16 GB | 32 GB |
| OS | Windows 10/11 64-bit (version 1909 or higher) | Windows 10/11 64-bit (version 1909 or higher) | Windows 10/11 64-bit (version 1909 or higher) | Windows 10/11 64-bit (version 1909 or higher) | Windows 10/11 64-bit (version 1909 or higher) | Windows 10/11 64-bit (version 1909 or higher) |
| SSD Storage | 140 GB | 140 GB | 140 GB | 140 GB | 140 GB | 140 GB |
Two editions of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be available when it launches on PC on January 30, including the Standard Edition and Digital Deluxe Edition (DDE). Players will also have the option to upgrade to the DDE content if they already own the Standard Edition.
Upon purchase, the previously announced Pre-Purchase offer will be made available to all players as PC Purchase Perks. This includes:
- Arachknight Suit early unlock for Peter with three color variants
- Shadow-Spider Suit early unlock for Miles with three color variants
- Web Grabber gadget early unlock
- +3 Skill Points
Players will receive two early unlock suits: the Spider-Man 2099 Black Suit and the Miles Morales 2099 Suit, plus additional benefits like trophies and friend management if they opt to connect to a PlayStation Network account. A PlayStation Network account is optional to play Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC.
Our friends at Insomniac are also excited to collaborate with NetEase Games and Marvel Games to bring Peter Parker’s Advanced Suit 2.0 from Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 to Marvel Rivals. To celebrate Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s upcoming PC release, Marvel Rivals players can purchase this suit in-game starting 6PM PST on January 29. Check out the Advanced Suit 2.0 in action.
Nixxes and Insomniac, along with our partners at PlayStation and collaborators at Marvel Games, are excited for everyone to experience Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC!
*Compatible PC and graphics card required.
Super Mario RPG Drops to $25 at Gamestop
While supplies last, Gamestop is offering the excellent Super Mario RPG remake for Nintendo Switch for only $24.99. Pro members can get it even cheaper at $22.49. You can get free shipping on orders over $79 or choose in-store pickup, otherwise pay a $6.99 shipping fee. This game is a brand new and sealed physical copy so you can sell or trade it off when you’re done with it.
Note that this is part of a greater Gamestop Sale Event that’s discounting other games at the lowest prices we’ve seen, like Dragon Age: Veilguard for only $24.99.
Super Mario RPG for $24.99
Super Mario RPG is a remake of the 1996 SNES classic. It was one of the best games to grace the console back then amidst a sea of other incredible titles, and Nintendo did a great job of staying faithful to the game’s charm and fun factor. A whole slew of improvements have been implemented to bring this game up to modern day standards, including updated visuals, music, gameplay mechanics, and several small yet welcome quality-of-life UI improvements.
In our Super Mario RPG review, Tom Marks wrote that “Super Mario RPG is considered a classic for a reason, and this wonderfully faithful remake makes it easy for anyone who missed it in the SNES era to see why. It’s unabashedly odd, reveling in the unexpected with writing that constantly had me bursting out laughing at jokes I’d heard a dozen times before. Its turn-based combat is fairly simple outside of its very clever boss fights, but it’s also ultra satisfying to keep your timing string going even when you’re plowing through pushovers. And while the updated graphics are equal parts pretty and sort of unambitious when it comes to interpreting the original’s style (with some unfortunate menu lag), the new takes on its excellent music are truly exceptional. Super Mario RPG already held up pretty well if you didn’t mind a bit of dust on its different systems, but now there’s no excuse not to see why Mario’s most unexpected adventure is still so beloved.”
Looking for more Mario games? Here’s a list of every Mario game for the Nintendo Switch.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
Demeo X Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked is a VR tabletop tactics game from Wizards Of The Coast
You’ll have to bear with me for this one, because the press release we received for Demeo X Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked contains about an 86/14 split between scrambled hypeguff and actual tangible information. In brief, it’s a VR collaboration between D&D traffickers Wizards Of The Coast and Demeo studio Resolution Games that aims to simulate a tactical co-op tabletop experience without any of the boring bits, like seeing your mates’ genuine reactions to things or having your frigid digitised soul warmed at the hearth of human kinship. Here is – in a sense of the word so loose I fear imminent smiting by a bellicose scribe god for typing it – a trailer:
Score Select Games on Sale for Just $25 at GameStop: Super Mario RPG, Dragon Age, and More
2025 has already kicked off with a few different video game sales at various retailers, and as we make our way into February, the discounts just keep dropping. GameStop currently has a selection of games on sale for Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch that are down to just $24.99, including Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Super Mario RPG, Starfield, and more.
Below you can see some of our favorite picks from this sale, but to see the full list of available discounted options head to GameStop’s sale page here.
Select Games on Sale for $25 at GameStop
If you want to check out even more game deals but have a preferred platform you play on, it’s worth having a look through our individual roundups of the best PlayStation deals, the best Xbox deals, and the best Nintendo Switch deals. In each of these we’ve highlighted some of the best game deals we’ve come across for each console alongside discounts on hardware and accessories.
If you’d prefer to have an overall look at the best discounts from each platform, check out our roundup of the best video game deals. And if you’re curious when the next big sale event is to save even more on games, have a look at our breakdown of the best times to buy video games. There, we’ve explained some of the biggest sale events of the year for games so you can plan ahead.
Another great place to look for gaming discounts is in our Daily Deals roundup, which features excellent discounts on the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection and Sonic X Shadow Generations. It’s not just for gaming deals, though. Daily Deals also highlights discounts that have caught our eye across tech, physical media, and more, so you can see our favorite deals of the moment in one convenient roundup.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.