The legally distinct Cheerios in Tiny Tires, the upcoming miniature racing game that looks to be a loving homage to Micro Machines, have their own physics. This delights me. So does the milk, actually, leaving trails on the checked linoleum tablecloth as the infinitely minute driver tries to compensate for its skidding effect on those titular Tiny Tires. There’s pool balls, too! And floppy disk ramps! Floppy disks were probably still useful the last time anyone thought about Micro Machines, but now I’m reminded of it, I’m suddenly very excited again!
Six new ship upgrades are now in the Playstation 5 and PC third-person shooter, one for each section of the ship module.
Helldivers 2 new ship modules:
Superior Packing Methodology: Resupply boxes refill support weapons with the maximum number of carriable magazines.
Atmospheric Monitoring: Orbital HE barrage spread reduced by 15%.
XXL Weapons Bay: Eagle stratagems that drop multiple bombs will drop one additional bomb(s).
Enhanced Combustion: Fire damage from stratagems increased by 25%.
Circuit Expansion: Lightning arcs, fired from weapons and turrets, jump to one additional enemy.
Blast Absorption: Sentries take 50% less damage from explosions.
Let’s dig into the details here and offer some initial thoughts. 15% less spread on barrages may convince some players to give them another shot (they’re considered weak in the current meta because they’re not focused). Superior Packing Methodology may end up essential for players who use the Recoilless and Spear support weapons. And Enhanced Combustion is going to cause all sorts of chaos with the already buffed flamethrower. Circuit Expansion looks like it could be fun, too.
These new ship upgrades require the previous upgrade in each module to already be unlocked before you can buy them with samples, so only pliers who have mixed out their ship upgrades and have plenty of samples on hand will be able to test these out straight away. For everyone else, the grind continues.
If you’re looking for more on Helldivers 2, check out IGN’s feature on the Let Me Solo Her of Helldivers 2, a player who has answered over 100 SOS Beacons as part of a mission to help others.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Helldivers 2 has its next premium warbond, called Democratic Detonation, and there’s an explosive theme with this one.
Democratic Detonation adds new weapons, including an Exploding Crossbow and Grenade Pistol that are sure to cause as much damage to teammates as they are the automatons and terminids. However, there is new armor that helps with the inevitable increase in explosive damage across the battlefield.
As with previous Premium Warbonds, Democratic Detonation costs 1,000 Super Credits. While you can earn Super Credits from gameplay and Warbonds, you can also buy them for real-world money. Via the in-game shop, 1,000 Super Credits costs $9.99. Premium Warbonds do not expire, so you can work your way through them at your own pace safe in the knowledge their items will remain available.
Here’s a list of everything in Helldivers 2’s new Democratic Detonation Warbond, per Arrowhead:
Firepower
BR-14 Adjudicator Rifle
Deliver righteous judgement to your enemies with accuracy. This armour-penetrating assault rifle is best used against smaller groups.
R-36 Eruptor Rifle
Keep your distance… this bolt-action rifle fires jet-assisted shells that explode shrapnel in all directions upon impact. All directions. Even your face.
CB-9 Exploding Crossbow
Kaboom! Enjoy powerful exploding bolts that dish out max damage upon direct impact. Gravity must be accounted for when aiming.
Secondary Weapons & Utility Booster
G-123 Thermite Grenade
This little beauty can stick to surfaces before burning up to a toasty 2000°C.
GP-31 Grenade Pistol
Does what it says on the label – a pistol that fires grenades. Don’t forget to reload between shots though.
Expert Extraction Pilot Booster
Need to get out of a jam fast? This booster lowers the time it takes for the extraction shuttle to reach the extraction beacon. Home in time for dinner.
Armor
CE-27 Ground Breaker
Medium Armor.
“The ground is just another obstacle that hasn’t yet been cleared.” – SGM Janet Jones, Excavation Corps Founder.
CE-07 Demolition Specialist
Light Armor.
Originally worn by Lunar terraformers, this suit can withstand rapid changes in pressure, heat, and personal velocity.
FS-55 Devastator
Heavy Armor.
Domestic versions of this armour allow colonial farmers to safely plant crops and mines side-by-side while staying in one piece.
Of course, always accessorise your choice of armour with brand-new capes – Harbinger of True Equality, Eagle’s Fury, or Freedom’s Tapestry – as you mix and match your lethal loadout of liberation.
If you’re looking for more on Helldivers 2, check out IGN’s feature on the Let Me Solo Her of Helldivers 2, a player who has answered over 100 SOS Beacons as part of a mission to help others.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Japanese game company Sunsoft has officially announced Sunsoft is Back! Retro Game Selection for the Nintendo Switch. It will be making its way across to the hybrid system in Japan later this month on 18th April. The good news is an English version is also on the way!
This generation has seen the arrival of $70 USD triple-A titles and even Nintendo has upped its prices with Link’s latest outing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
While it seems like this new price point is here to stay, Saber Interactive’s CEO Matthew Karch doesn’t think it’s a sustainable model and believes it will go “the way of the dodo”. Speaking to IGN recently, he mentioned how he believes game companies could eventually find a way to lower development costs.
Hey Xbox Insiders! We are releasing a new Xbox App and Game Bar app for Windows builds to Xbox Insiders who are enrolled in the PC Gaming Insiders preview! Thank you all for being Xbox Insiders. Continue read to learn about fixes and known issues. Make sure that you update the Xbox app, Gaming Services and Game Bar to ensure you get all of the fixes!
Versions of PC Gaming prerelease products:
Xbox App version: 2404.1001.17.0
Released: 4:00 p.m. PT – April 10th 2024
Game Bar version: 7.124.3191.0
Released: 4:00 p.m. PT – March 21st 2024
What’s New
Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta)
Starting today, Xbox Insiders can preview updated social features when using supported browsers, the Xbox app for Smart TVs, and Meta Quest Headsets. Insiders will have an updated interface in the guide for the following actions:
Find and manage friends
Start parties outside of playing games and continue party chats between game sessions (currently not available on Smart TVs)
Send messages
View user profiles
View notification inbox and toasts
View achievements
Note: Users on browser will need to enable Preview features on their browser to gain access to the feature. This is done by clicking on your profile picture at xbox.com/play and then select Settings and then enable “Preview features.”
Xbox App Bug Fixes:
Fixes to address Party Chat reliability issues.
How to Get Xbox Insider Support
Don’t forget! If you encounter any issues, you can leave feedback by navigating to the feedback option on your profile menu.
You can also provide feedback, as well as interact with the community, on the Xbox Insiders Subreddit. Please be as specific as possible when providing feedback.
When posting to the subreddit, please look through most recent posts to see if your issue has already been posted or addressed. We always recommend adding to threads with the same issue before posting a brand new one. This helps us support you the best we can!
For more information regarding the Xbox Insider Program follow us on Twitter. Keep an eye on future Xbox Insider Release Notes for more information!
Thank you to everyone who participates in the Xbox Insider Program! Your feedback helps us continue to build a great gaming experience in the Xbox app on PC.
There’s a huge price drop on one of the most popular board game classics. Walmart is offering the Pandemic board game on clearance for only $14.12, a hefty 70% off the original $45 MSRP. Get free shipping for Walmart+ members or on orders $35 or more (otherwise you have to pay a $6.99 shipping fee). The price of this game dropped to about $16 last week, but this deal is even better.
Pandemic Board Game for $14.12
Pandemic was released back in 2008, but the gameplay is so fundamentally intuitive and engaging that it’s still one of the best beginner board games you can get right now. For new or casual board gamers seeking a cooperative experience rather than a competitive one, there are few games that offer it quite as well as Pandemic. Each player will be assigned one of six potential jobs, such as the Dispatcher, which can move other players around the map, or the Medic, which can remove extra diseases from their location; you and the other players will need to work together to cure and eradicate four deadly diseases that are quickly spreading around the globe. This board game is worth it at MSRP, it’s practically a must add to your collection at this bargain price point.
If you’ve replayed the game enough times, there are also many different thematic expansions to keep it fresh. If you’ve run it completely dry and nothing you can add on can convince you otherwise, we have plenty of other recommendations on fantastic board games that might whet your appetite.
Developer Awaceb has given us a release date for its lovely open-world adventure game Tchia, and it’ll be gliding onto the eShop on 27th June 2024.
Originally released on PC and PlayStation back in 2023, the Switch port of Tchia was announced in March 2024. Pre-orders are also available on the Switch eShop right now for $29.99 (or your regional equivalent). Alternatively, you can grab the Oléti Editionfor $34.99, which comes with the added Kepler Customization Pack — this gives you four costume sets for Tchia and four kits to decorate your boat with.
Critically acclaimed RPG Grandia HD Collection is out now.
Two timeless adventures with iconic casts of characters.
E nhanced UI, visual improvements to cinematic videos, updated language support, and more.
I am excited to announce that the remaster of the classic role-playing series, Grandia HD Collection, has launched on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S! Whether you are returning to these iconic games or entering these worlds for the first time, the series’ dynamic attack system, rewarding magic and skill progression, and immersive storylines offer dozens of hours of heroic adventures.
Getting You up to Speed on All Things Grandia
The Grandia HD Collection brings two role-playing games that have defined the genre for decades to come to contemporary audiences.
Grandia
Grandia follows Justin, a young adventurer who fatefully inherits a magic stone and thus sets out to uncover the mysteries of a lost civilization. In his search, he attracts all types of attention. Some good, in that he meets other adventurers who aid him along on his quest. However, some are bad, like the Garlyle Forces who work to keep him from unraveling the truth of the past.
Meet the Crew
Justin – Driven by his curious and fearless nature, Justin often dives headfirst into situations without thinking. He possesses the mysterious Spirit Stone—an artifact passed down through his family—which plays a pivotal role in his adventures.
Sue – Justin’s childhood friend from the town of Parm. She often joins him on his misadventures, bringing to them her courageous optimism and unexpected maturity that balances out Justin’s impulsiveness. She is almost always accompanied by her flying ball of fluff Puffy, who is as mysterious as he is adorable!
Feena – The most well-traveled of the bunch, Feena has an independent spirit and impressive skillset that garners the respect of those around her, especially Justin. As the journey unfolds, players delve deeper into her multifaceted character and mysterious past.
Grandia II
Grandia II acquaints us with Ryudo, a Geohound who does odd jobs to get money alongside his loyal eagle companion, Skye. One fateful day, he receives a request from the Church of Granas to serve as a bodyguard to one Elena, Songstress of Granas. Together, they bring out pieces of each other that neither of them knew existed amidst their journey to rid the world of Evil in the form of Valmar, God of Darkness.
Meet The Crew
Ryudo – A mercenary with a tough exterior and noble heart. He takes on various jobs for money—despite the moral implications—and is accompanied by his trusted bird companion, Skye.
Elena – The epitome of innocence and purity, Elena’s world is opened wide when she begins to journey alongside Ryudo.
Millenia – Uninhibited, playful, and mischievous, Millenia is a force to be reckoned with. Her origins and the nature of her existence cause her relationship with the party to take many interesting and unexpected turns.
Key Destinations
On your journey, you’re bound to visit many enticing cities. Here are just a few of the places you will come across on your travels:
Grandia
Port City of Parm – Our protagonist Justin’s hometown. The century of adventurers has ended, and the century of the industrial revolution has begun. Once a port of departure for adventurers, Parm City has now developed into a metropolis with two faces, the birthplace of modern industry and a center of trade. This city, where the pleasant sea breeze and the smell of coal coexist peacefully, is full of bright energy of residents striving for a better tomorrow. Order in this city is protected by the Garlyle Force, the Industrial Foundation’s private army. As a port city, Parm’s main food source is fish; the city is comprised mainly of metal houses with sparse vegetation.
Gumbo – A charming village facing the Sea of Mermaids located in a volcanic region with an everlasting summer climate. The land of love with a beautiful emerald green sea, white sand coastline, and many frogs. This is truly a place of relaxation, especially for young lovers. However, a dragon settled on the top of the volcano and began absorbing the volcano’s power, subsequently cooling the surrounding area.
Grandia II
Cyrum Kingdom – A vast colorful kingdom that finds itself along the coast. In the center of this kingdom sits Cyrum Castle, the key to the Cyrum people’s dark history. In Valmar and Lord Granas’ historic battle, the Cyrum people—or People of Darkness as they were once known—served Valmar. However, once he was sealed away, they renounced their commitment to darkness.
St. Heim Papal State – thehome to Pope Zera and impressive Granas Cathedral.
This cathedral sits atop a looming mountain overlooking St. Heim. The Granas Cathedral is the largest church to Lord Granas, making it a place of religious significance for his followers.
What’s New
Embrace the collection and unlock your childhood nostalgia—now with enhanced UI, sprite, and texture art details. Watch cult-favorite cinematics, now visually improved along with widescreen support. The collection also has updated language support for English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified and traditional). You can also play the games in entirely English or Japanese audio!
The Grandia series is known by its loyal fanbase for its unique Skill Point system, turn-based combat, incredible world-building, melodic compositions, and more.
The highly-anticipated Grandia HD Collection for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S are here! Get your hands on two games that changed the landscape of RPGs forever, in beautiful HD graphics.
GRANDIA: Dive into the captivating journey of Justin and his allies as they race against the sinister Garlyle Forces. Unravel the mysteries of a forgotten civilization and immerse yourself in an RPG hailed as a timeless classic, inspiring generations of games to come.
GRANDIA II: Step into the shoes of Ryudo, a jaded Geohound with a heart, as he embarks on a magical quest alongside a group of unlikely allies. Their journey is riddled with twists and turns as they seek a divine weapon to save the world. Delve deep into this tale where the line between good and evil blurs, and everything is open to question…
You might have heard about a game called Wingspan, which went from being acclaimed in the hobby space to selling a massive million-plus copies in retail. It did so not only by being a fun board game but thanks to its accessible and appealing theme where players manage a bird sanctuary. It was not without its critics, particularly over its slightly repetitive structure, and those concerns have fed into the design of a more complex re-skin, Wyrmspan, where players represent mighty dragon wranglers in a fantasy setting.
What’s in the Box
The original game was famous for its high production values–that’s another key plank of its wide appeal–and while Wyrmspan isn’t quite as pretty, it doesn’t disappoint in that department either. It has a collection of multicolored, speckled resin eggs just like its predecessor, a slew of punch out cardboard resource tokens and two neat plastic storage boxes to keep them in. The coins are cardboard but are silvered, which is a lovely touch.
Players each get a selection of wooden cubes and an adventurer piece in their color, along with one of five boards to track their growing menagerie of dragons, which is where most of the game state will get tracked. There are three other shared boards, one to track the round and its associated bonuses, another is a dragon guild board with four different bonus tiles to sit in the middle, and the final one organizes the dragon and cave decks.
The dragon deck is enormous–almost 200 cards–each with its own distinctive art. While the dragons are impressive, it’s not on a par with the luminous illustrations of real-world birds in Wingspan. And the graphic design generally verges on the bland, with most of the boards being empty space printed with generic fantasy-style fonts. Not that that matters so much once they’re covered in face-up dragons.
Rules and How It Plays
If you’re familiar with Wingspan you’ll already have a good grasp on how to play Wyrmspan–there’s a boxout in the rules that should make learning it a cinch–but there are some key differences. Players start each of four rounds with six coins, and each of the game’s three actions–excavate, entice and explore–costs a coin to perform. Sometimes an action will cost an additional coin or give you a coin back, so the number of actions you can take each turn varies.
Excavate lets you play cave cards from your hand into one of three different dragon habitats on your player board. You’ll need to have a cave card to get dragons into anything other than the initial slot, and playing a card also nets you a bonus printed on the card, such as additional resources or card draws. Entice allows you to play a dragon from your hand into an empty cave. This will cost you resources like meat and gold, printed on the dragon’s card, in addition to the coin. Dragons are a major source of victory points, and most have other printed effects.
Some dragons have an ability when played, others at the end of a round, but for most you’ll need the third action type, Explore, to get the most out of them. This is the most complex action, in which you send your little adventurer meeple into any inhabited caves, gaining benefits depending on which habitat you’re exploring and what dragons you’ve got played there. The Crimson Cavern will let you get food resources to spend on dragons, while the Golden Grotto and Amethyst Abyss will net you cave and dragon cards, respectively, from a face-up selection. The more dragons in a given habitat, the deeper you can go and the better the rewards will be.
The dragon deck is enormous – almost 200 cards – each with its own distinctive art.
You’re thus immediately caught in a classic board game dilemma: you need food and cave cards to play dragons, but without dragons, it’s hard to get food and cave cards. There’s nothing for it but to bite the bullet and take some pathetically weak explore actions while you try and build a strategy, but the big question is what aspects are you going to favor, and which can you neglect?
Decisions here will be heavily impacted by what dragon and cave cards you start with. For example, some cave cards give you food tokens, so you might feel you can wait on populating your Crimson Cavern. And this is where the additional complexity of Wyrmspan begins to bear fruit over its predecessor. The extra concepts ensure there’s a lot more interplay in effects between the cards in your hand and the actions you can take, ensuring there’s more strategy and tactics in your choices.
Perhaps the most notable of these new features is the dragon guild board. You can earn moves on this board in various ways, and each earns you a small bonus from the space you land on. However, for each half-cycle you get to pick a larger bonus from the tile in the middle, many of which include big end-game scoring bonuses. The rewards you get here are substantial enough to build a strategy around, and with four different middle tiles together with that colossal stack of dragon cards there’s a ton of variety to explore during repeat plays.
This is where the additional complexity of Wyrmspan begins to bear fruit over its predecessor.
Other particularly noteworthy changes include the removal of the random food roll of Wingspan in favor of a free choice of food resources and the swapping out of action cubes for the coins resource. While the latter might sound like a small change it has a big impact, because now cards can earn or cost you coins, changing the amount of actions you can take in a turn, which you have to factor into your planning. It even introduces a bigger element of timing into the game, as if you have more or less actions than other players it will change the urgency with which you feel you might have to take things from the shared boards, like the selection of face-up dragons and caves.
Hatchlings, a specific subtype of dragon card, add to this sense of time-based pressure. They can be awkward to put into play because they require milk, a resource that’s otherwise largely useless. But once on your player mat, each visit from an adventurer yields a bonus until the third, which offers an extra-impressive benefit. This imparts a real sense of urgency to try and get these whelps played, to make sure you’ve got time for enough visits to trigger the bonus and enjoy its effects.
However, timing your plays effectively to get what you need before others do is about the only level of player interaction you’ll find in the game. For most of it, you’ll be preoccupied with building your own dragon-powered game engine, not caring what your opponents are doing. Thankfully, this is a fully absorbing task on its own, thanks to all the different ways in which card effects overlap, and the sheer amount of in-game variety takes up some of the slack left by the lack of in-game interaction.
