People have spotted a number of strange ties between CEO killer Luigi Mangione and video games, but they’re tenuous at best.
Chances are you’re already familiar with Luigi Mangione, the man arrested and charged with murdering Brian Thompson, the CEO of American health insurance company UnitedHealthcare.
Naturally, with his name and face being made public, internet sleuths have been keen to learn more about him, resulting in plenty of info widely circulating online.
Mangione has been connected to several prominent video games, but most of these are awfully slim ties and mostly just a strange series of coincidences.
The first connection is, unsurprisingly, his name. People were quick to crack jokes about Luigi from Nintendo’s Super Mario games, as well as reference Nintendo’s infamous Year of Luigi, an anniversary event meant to celebrate the character’s 20th anniversary but which coincided with a poor financial year for the company.
Word also quickly spread that Mangione’s name directly translates to ‘mansion’ in Italitan, meaning he shares a name with the Luigi’s Mansion series of games. A cursory glance at Google Translate, however, shows that’s not accurate, with ‘mangione’ said to be Italian for ‘glutton’ or ‘big eater.’
One popular conspiracy theory claims Mangione cryptically hinted at his crime using the header image on his X account, which includes a picture of the Pokémon Breloom.
People believe the choice of Breloom has a deeper meaning, focusing on it being officially listed as the 286th Pokémon. In the Bible, Proverbs 2:86 reads: ‘Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways.’
It’s suggested this is tied to Mangione’s potential motive for committing murder… or maybe he just likes the Pokémon? Even one as fairly forgettable as Breloom is going to have its fans.
NBC did report that Mangione once belonged to a group who routinely played a certain video game where you play the role of an ‘assassin’, which sounds insidious until you realise they’re talking about Among Us.
The social deduction game has been around since 2018 and, thanks to a surge in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic, has become extremely popular among players of all ages.
The only real connection Mangione has to video games is that he did briefly work at Civilization developer Firaxis, but only as an intern for roughly a year where he did bug testing on Civilization 6.
Firaxis has confirmed to Polygon that it employed Mangione, but otherwise declined to comment further. A bug tester is as low-level a job as you can get in gaming and doesn’t imply any technical or design skills.
Ultimately, while the internet continues to be amused by its Luigi and ‘there’s a killer among us’ jokes, Mangione’s gaming ties are minor and have nothing to do with his alleged crimes.
Aside from maybe making the studio feel a bit awkward, what does Civilization 6 have to do with any of this? (Firaxis)
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete – single payment gaming (Nintendo)
The mobile version of Animal Crossing has transformed from a free-to-play game to a paid-for one and it’s all the better for it.
Animal Crossing is a genuinely fascinating franchise. Rather than competing against other players or perpetrating acts of choreographed violence, its twin focuses have always been friendship and home decoration, with side orders of exploration and collecting. With no particular goal, score or end point, its whimsical and open-ended game world is far more enthralling than it might initially sound.
Although it’s been around since the N64 era, the series really hit its stride with 2020’s New Horizons, which had the luck of coming out just as lockdown began and everyone was suddenly unable to do the things in real life that the franchise has always been about. That propelled it into Nintendo’s A-list, which mobile spin-off Pocket Camp also tried to take advantage of.
Originally released in 2017, Pocket Camp was initially free-to-play and, of course, filled with microtransactions. It was a simplified version of the console games, based solely around a campsite, and while the additional content, added over the years of its operation, added up to a lot of unique features the exploitative monetisation never went away… until now.
Pocket Camp’s abridged Animal Crossing experience looks similar to New Leaf on the 3DS but brings a more mobile-orientated approach. You still chat to friendly, anthropomorphised animals, bringing them presents and receiving others in return – while acquiring items to decorate your home – but this time your home is a tent, and the items needed to decorate it come from loot boxes rather than direct purchases.
As a Nintendo game, its gacha mechanics naturally come dressed in a more palatable disguise, in this case fortune cookies, which along with your fortune include random items of furniture, rugs, cuddly toys, and decorations for your campsite home. The fact that there are a staggering 16 fortune cookie vendors on the island tells you all you need to know about their centrality to the game’s revenue model.
Well, thank goodness that tawdry era is over. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete is Nintendo’s antidote, a fully paid-for, microtransaction-free replacement. You’re still helping visiting animals enjoy their time at your campsite, while steadily decorating your tent – along with its peculiar outdoor living space – and pimping your camper van at OK Motors, but now your interactions aren’t fixated on encouraging you to spend money.
The old game’s paid currency, Leaf Tickets, have become Leaf Tokens, which you either get free as a reward for completing activities or buy using in-game currency. They let you speed up wait timers, purchase fortune cookies to get new items, and generally grease the wheels of progress. That’s important because even after its update, you can still often see the remains of the old monetised version poking through.
Despite some dumbing down for mobile there are still loads of things to do. The animals that visit and stay at your campground all want to chat and have various wishes for you to fulfil. There’s also fishing and insect collecting – two absolute staples of the franchise – and while there’s no museum here, to which you can present your collected specimens, you’re still rewarded for finding them.
There are also new things in Complete that weren’t available in the free-to-play version. There’s Whistle Pass, where you can listen to KK Slider gigs if you turn up at the scheduled time. While Human friends can join you after you’ve exchanged Camper Cards by scanning each other’s QR codes.
The Whistle Pass area is brand new (Nintendo)
You can also now appoint a fellow resident as camp caretaker, helping to administer your camp even while you’re not there, by filling fellow animals’ requests and harvesting the crafting materials they offer in return. The only downside is that your friendship levels with them won’t increase, but to make up for it your caretaker will even go fishing and collect insects on your behalf.
Complete will also let you import customised designs from New Horizons, vastly expanding the possibilities both for dressing up and home decor. At the time of writing not quite everything seemed to import perfectly but given the game’s already compendious catalogue of decorations and furniture, it’s still a large dollop of icing on an already substantial cake.
It’s also refreshing to play Nintendo games, with their freedom from bugs (other than the ones you and your caretaker collect) and extraordinary levels of polish, as a mobile game. Even downloading the game’s asset files, when you first open it, comes with its own mini-game that also earns you bells – Animal Crossing’s traditional currency.
It feels as though every detail has been thought through, with a positive player experience in mind, and that includes the ability to import your previous Pocket Camp game save, if you played the original version.
It can’t be overstated how freeing it is not to feel as though you’re continually being shaken down for cash, the game no longer looking for angles to fleece you, but simply letting you enjoy building the best campground you can. It brings it back to the generosity and innocence characterised by the rest of the series, and even though it’s still nowhere near as complex or involving as New Horizons, it’s at least now the simplified mobile version it should always have been.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete review
In Short: Stripped of its exploitative microtransactions, Pocket Camp returns as a paid-for app, bringing a superior, if abridged, Animal Crossing experience to mobile.
Pros: Dozens of different activities and tons of Animal Crossing style content and characters. New Whistle Pass area and you can import custom items from New Horizons. Customary Nintendo levels of polish.
Cons: Not as involving as its console big brother, with nowhere near as many features. The original’s microtransaction-based structure is still very obvious.
Score: 7/10
Formats: iOS (reviewed) and Android Price: £8.99 (rising to £19.99 after 31st January 2025) Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Nintendo EPD and Nintendo Cube Release Date: 2nd December 2024 Age Rating: 3
A lot of furniture has built up over the years (Nintendo)
Players only have a month left to file a claim for a refund (Epic Games)
Thanks to a 2022 settlement with the FTC, Epic Games is sending out refunds to hundreds of thousands of Fortnite players in the US.
With plenty of video games nowadays filled to the brim with tempting microtransactions, it is not uncommon for children to rack up huge bills on online purchases without their parents’ knowledge.
It’s become such a serious problem that US regulator the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) got involved and has now ordered Fortnite publisher Epic Games to start refunding a not insignificant number of people for their unwanted purchases.
This week, the FTC announced that it would be sending out 629,344 payments to Fortnite players across the US who had made unwanted purchases and had filed appropriate claims before October 8, 2024.
While each individual payment will vary, the FTC states that, collectively, Epic Games has to pay out $245 million (about £192 million), with the first round of refunds totalling over $72 million (which is over £56.5 million).
This comes after a settlement the FTC and Epic Games reached two years ago, in December 2022, regarding accusations the former lobbied against the latter for using ‘dark patterns to trick players into making unwanted purchases [and] let children rack up unauthorised charges without any parental involvement.’
The FTC has also argued that Fortnite’s own button configuration is deliberately counter-intuitive and confusing and has led to players making accidental purchases.
The regulator insists that this is only the first round of refunds. There’s no doubt a lot of claims to process, so even those who didn’t file one until after October 8 should receive a payment eventually.
There is a January 10 deadline for claims and, so far, this only applies to players in the US. The FTC’s website says it’s ‘currently limiting the claims process’ to US citizens, so it’s unclear for now whether Fortnite players elsewhere will be able to claim anything.
While it’s certainly a large sum, $245 million is a drop in the ocean for a company like Epic Games. In April 2022, the company was valued at roughly $32 billion (about £25 billion) and in February of this year, it received a significant investment from Disney.
Fortnite’s partnership with Lego is also continuing to prove lucrative, with a new ‘social role-play experience’ titled Lego Fortnite Brick Life set to release on December 12. It will co-exist with the original Lego Fortnite survival game, now titled Lego Fortnite Odyssey.
Is there no stopping this gravy train? (Epic Games)
While some remain hopeful Rockstar has something planned for The Game Awards 2024 this Friday (which isn’t impossible but not guaranteed), a recent report on GTA 6’s development has revealed some interesting details.
In particular, it suggests that GTA Online 2 is definitely happening and that Take-Two plans for it to have just as long a lifespan as the current game, once GTA 6 launches in 2025.
Will there be a GTA Online 2 for GTA 6?
There was already speculation of a GTA Online 2, with the infamous 2022 leak supposedly containing evidence of its existence. However, it was never clear if Rockstar would make something entirely new or continue with the current GTA Online.
Although there’s been no official confirmation from Rockstar or parent company Take-Two, a report from Bloomberg (which accurately leaked details on GTA 6’s story) suggests GTA 6’s online mode won’t be a continuation of GTA Online.
Bloomberg describes it as a ‘significant online mode’ that will sell additional content to ‘generate revenue for years.’ No doubt it will follow the same model as GTA Online, which makes its money through microtransactions.
Much of GTA 5’s continued success can be attributed to GTA Online, which launched alongside the main game in 2013 (albeit a few months after launch) and has kept players engaged for over a decade with regular updates.
So, it makes perfect sense for Rockstar to ensure GTA 6 comes with something near enough identical. If this really is GTA Online 2, though, it begs the question of whether support for the original GTA Online will continue or not.
That’s likely dependent on how many people jump ship to GTA 6’s online mode and whether that leads to a substantial drop in revenue for the original GTA Online.
For now, the only other details Bloomberg mentions is that GTA 6 has already missed multiple deadlines (which is not unusual) and its undefined release window is actively putting off other publishers from committing to autumn 2025 release dates for their own games.
Rival companies are just as eager as fans for Rockstar to confirm a more concrete release date. It’s speculated that even Nintendo is trying to avoid an autumn launch for the Switch 2, so as to not coincide with GTA 6.
Whether GTA 6 does meet its autumn 2025 window, or gets delayed to 2026, knowing when it’s out means publishers can more easily avoid launching their games at the same time.
No sane publisher would try to challenge GTA 6 (Rockstar)
The first games have been confirmed for The Game Awards 2024, with hopefully at least one Kojima project to join them.
With this year’s The Game Awards edging closer and closer, gamers are beginning to get an idea of some of the big reveals that will be taking place on Friday.
There’s naturally a lot of speculation concerning what sort of games will be shown off, but only so much is actually confirmed to appear, with the especially major announcements being a closely guarded secret.
As for what is slated to appear during the event, we’ve compiled all the confirmed titles you can expect to see after the show kicks off at 12.30am on December 13.
Who is in the line-up for The Game Awards 2024?
So far, Bandai Namco has promised to announce its next DLC fighter for Tekken 8 and a strong rumour points to It Takes Two developer Hazelight showing off its next project.
Although the rest is shrouded in secrecy, a few other games are now confirmed to be in attendance, including Borderlands 4 and Mafia: The Old Country.
Both games were announced at Gamescom back in August, but only with the briefest of teaser trailers. Fortunately for Borderlands fans, series creator Randy Pitchford has promised its new trailer will feature gameplay.
He’s keen to hype it up, promising a lot of new footage as well as a ‘sick, never-before-seen original cinematic sequence’ set after the events of Borderlands 3.
As for Mafia: The Old Country, it’s unclear whether its trailer will feature any gameplay, with developer Hangar 13 only asking fans to tune into The Game Awards. Both games are coming out in 2025, so if Borderlands 4 can show off gameplay, you’d think the new Mafia would be in a similar state.
Hideo Kojima will also be attending as a guest presenter, as confirmed by host Geoff Keighley, but that’s hardly surprising as they’re both friends.
With any luck, he’ll have something new to show for either his Death Stranding sequel (which is slated for 2025) or his OD horror game for Xbox, both of which have featured at past Games Awards shows.
Given the show goes on for three hours these are clearly not going to be the only games featured and none of them are likely to be the mic drop at the end either.
What other, currently unannounced, games might debut at the show are currently a mystery though, with rumours of Xbox making a big announcement, a possible new GTA 6 trailer, and Resident Evil 9 and/or Tomb Raider currently having no evidence to back them up.
As for other rumours, it was claimed Xbox exclusive South Of Midnight will not only get a new trailer but a release date too. However, Windows Central’s Jez Corden has disputed the claim, leaving it unclear whether he means the game won’t get a release date or not have a new trailer at all.
The studio also thanked its fans for supporting it in the Player’s Voice category for The Game Awards (the one category entirely decided by a public vote) despite failing to make it to the final round.
Another peripheral maker looks like it’s going to be in trouble with Nintendo, as it seemingly shared an early look at the Switch 2.
While there have been frequent Nintendo Switch 2 rumours the past year or so, they seem to be accelerating the closer we get to the new console’s reveal – which Nintendo has said will happen before April.
Now, just one week later, it seems another company that deals in console accessories has accidentally shared a glimpse at the Switch 2 before any official reveal from Nintendo.
US based company Satisfye uploaded a YouTube video to announce its new ZenGrip 2 accessory, which is essentially a shell with handles you can plug a handheld console into.
The company already sells similar products designed for the Switch, but this video contained a blurry shot of the ZenGrip 2 attached to a Switch console.
Given the deliberate obfuscation, it seems Satisfye was teasing its accessory for the Switch 2. Something that’s only reinforced by the fact the video was swiftly taken down, as if it showed something it wasn’t supposed to.
It certainly looks like a Switch (X)
This being the internet, people were quick enough to snag screenshots before the trailer’s removal. While they’re not the cleanest images, these two screenshots by X users DP19 and WickedRay do show something that strongly resembles allegedly leaked images of the Switch 2 prototype from October.
What also lends some credence is that, while it’s a bit hard to make out, the right-hand Joy-Con has an extra button, just like what was shown in the leaked footage from a week ago.
Plus, on Satisfye’s website, a pre-order page for the ZenGrip 2 features a logo depicting the Switch along with the text ‘made for next gen console.’ So, Satisfye’s definitely promoting this accessory for use with the Switch 2.
It’s long been assumed the Switch 2 won’t look too dissimilar to the original Switch model, but it’s surprising Satisfye would publish a video featuring the console and risk inviting Nintendo’s wrath.
As an accessory company, Satisfye may well know what the Switch 2 looks like, at least enough to put together a mock-up image for the trailer. Either that or it’s based on all the rumoured information that’s been shared so far.
There’s some debate over whether this is just a marketing stunt, and Satisfye is as in the dark as everyone else, or if it’s jumped the gun ahead of an official announcement.
It’s looking more and more likely Nintendo itself won’t reveal the Switch 2 until 2025. In fact, the company, with only a very remote chance of an annoucement at The Game Awards on Friday.
A reveal can’t be much further off, right? (Nintendo)
The Tuesday letters page pits Indiana Jones against Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, as a reader is disappointed there’s going to be a Last Of Us Part 3.
PLEASE NOTE: We are currently preparing our content for over the Christmas period and will need a number of Reader’s Features, so if you’ve been meaning to write one but never quite got round to it we could do with as many as possible before Monday, December 23.
Rising expenses A lot of valid points recently, including the Reader’s Feature, regarding the fact that there’s really nowhere for the next generation of consoles to go, if publishers don’t want everything, from the games to the consoles, costing even more money. There’s a point at which things become just too expensive and I feel the £700 PS5 Pro crosses that line. I realise it’s only aimed at super fans but the fact that it even exists, and its improvements are so minor, I feel is a sign that publishers should stop and take stock of what they’re doing.
That may actually be what they’re doing too, with this talk of portables. But, like everyone else, I can’t imagine a future where Xbox or Sony decide to make their next console less powerful than the current one in order to fit it into a handheld device. That’s so against their entire mindset I just cannot see it ever happening.
The problem is not only is it virtually impossible to make a PlayStation 5 handheld but the closer they get the more expensive it’s going to be. Do you want to spend £700 or anything even close to that on a handheld? Even the most expensive Steam Deck model is less than £600, and they’ve only sold a few million worldwide of those.
And if the PlayStation 6 is a normal console, that goes under your TV, how much is that going to be? Given current prices it’s going to be at least £600 and I think that’s too much even for fairly committed gamers. Sony and Microsoft have backed themselves against a wall and I really don’t know where they go from here. Danson
Franchise battle It’s not a great measurement for a game that’s probably going to be played more on consoles but Indiana Jones And The Great Circle currently has an all-time peak on Steam of 12,138 people. That’s not bad, compared to some recent flops, but it’s miles behind something like Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, which has a total of 186,199.
I think that’s been one of the most popular single-player games on PC this year, so it shows how high it can get but its 24 hour peak is only 8,861, so it was clearly a bit of a flash in the pan, as I imagine most single-player games are.
It does give an indication of which IP are more popular with modern gamers though, and I bet they spent 10 times more making a game based on Indiana Jones than they did Warhammer. Probably not the best decision in hindsight but at least they can say that the game reviewed better than Space Marine 2 – although not by that much. Zeiss
Running the shop RE: Colm. It’s true Valve haven’t really pushed the Steam Deck hard in terms of marketing, etc., but what they successfully did was kickstart an entire market that didn’t really exist previously.
Handheld PC gaming is now a market in itself and everyone is clamouring to try get in on the act, and even Microsoft and Sony are trying to resurrect handheld gaming.
For Valve, it’s not even important that their console would be huge seller, if they can convince others to follow suit and produce similar machines that are successful, they’d be ecstatic, at it’s more people to buy from Steam store. Kiran
Physics is hard Just finished Sniper Elite 5. Didn’t like it at the start but due to being too late to refund it, I learned to like and even enjoy it.
I would say however that the x-ray and death animations need a lot of work. The way enemies go flying when shot needs an overhaul. If the bullet flight and drop, etc. are realistic why can’t the body physics be the same?
I’d also like to know why I always seem to shoot out the teeth of almost every enemy. It’s probably my aiming prowess so that issue is on me.
I’ve played every game so far since 2, even playing the VR game, so I do enjoy them but I need it to change just ever so slightly. Helmets shouldn’t fly off when penetrated. Bodies should slump when there’s a head shot and vehicles shouldn’t just come to a sudden stop when hitting mines.
I’m aware it’s not an AAA game series, so I can forgive some of the issue but maybe they can tweak it a bit for the next numbered game in the series. Bobwallett
No charge It was mentioned in the Inbox a couple of months ago, but Shogun Showdown is another (currently PC only) indie game that’s building an excellent reputation and hasn’t been reviewed by many yet. It’s also free just now if you have Amazon Prime, so maybe that gives it less of a business case to include it in your 2024 wrap-up reviews, as a lot of us wouldn’t necessarily need to decide whether or not to pick it up.
I haven’t played it yet, but my understanding is it’s a 2D turn-based strategy with roguelite and deck building elements. It’s now sitting on my Steam Deck and even if you’re not going to get a chance to review it, I just wanted to flag that it’s up for grabs for anyone that has a Prime sub. Panda
Cost cutting Good on these Call Of Duty voice actors quitting the game, if Activision is holding them to ransom over cloning their voice in AI, and just using that, I wouldn’t have anything to do with them either. I’m still shocked that the moment we get something close to AI the only thing anyone seems to want to do with it is replace artists. You know… those famously underpaid workers that getting rid of will probably not save any money at all and yet will make your product drastically worse?
What recent movie have you been to where the worst thing wasn’t the script and yet now they want to make them even worse by having an AI write them? And they want to have all the art in video games done by AI, so it always looks the same? And now voiceovers too? So they never sound quite human and always slightly off.
The guest stars and cameos in Zombies mode used to be one of the big appeals, where they’d say that Michael Hasselhoff was in it or whoever, but now they’re all just AI? What’s the point, you’re destroying one of your major selling points just to save a few pounds. Not to mention ending up with an inferior product. Focus
Predictable outcome I know everyone said before it came out that it was weird Konami was making so many Silent Hill games, given none of them had ever been that big before, but it’s still sad to see that Silent Hill 2 doesn’t seem to have done that great.
I don’t know anyone amongst my casual gaming friends that has heard of it, and it doesn’t seem to have done much in terms of sales or streaming coverage or any of the other measurements we could use. I remember GC saying the original wasn’t that big a hit so I’m not sure why Konami expected that to change with the remake, but it’s a shame because it’s a really great game. Landon
Same old, same old Why am I not surprised to find that talk of The Last Of Us Part 3 has gone from probably never happening to a matter of if and not when. It seems only a few months ago Naughty Dog was saying that they’d only do a third game if they had a good idea for it and now the implication is they do have an idea, and they’ll get round to it soon. Or, rather, Sony saw how popular the TV show was and made Naughty Dog do it.
I do feel Naughty Dog has been the biggest victim of the increasing time it takes to make video games. They’ve only worked on two different franchises since the PlayStation 2 era, both of them with very similar gameplay, and now they’re being dragged back to one of them again, one that didn’t need one sequel let alone two.
Most people at that company will have known nothing but Uncharted and The Last Of Us and that seems such a waste. I hope they are working on a new IP and it’s something completely different, but even if it does involve dragons, or whatever, why do I get the feeling you’ll still be creeping around throwing bricks to distract them? Gunther
Inbox also-rans To be honest, I’m surprised anyone still makes VR games any more considering how few people own the headsets. How are these companies ever going to make their money back on that new Batman game or this Behemoth game? Lempton
I can’t help but laugh at how these GTA 6 stories about fans are getting crazier with every passing week. I don’t think some of these people are going to make it to next autumn. The next trailer is going to make them worse, not better! Bircher
The small print New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.
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GameCentral reviews two classic arcade games and eight others in Taito’s latest coin-op collection, featuring the best of Bubble Bobble and its sequel.
Taito has always been one of our favourite arcade makers. Even back in the day, they were never as well known as contemporaries such as Sega and Capcom, but while their portfolio is relatively small games like Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, Qix, Arkanoid, Rainbow Islands, Dairus, The NewZealand Story, Chase H.Q., and Operation Wolf were amongst the best in their genre – genres which in many cases they helped create.
After being bought by Square Enix in 2005, Taito faded further from the public eye, although starting in 2019 they did begin to engineer something of a comeback, by reviving past franchises such as Darius, The Ninja Saviors (aka The Ninja Warriors), and Bubble Bobble. That movement seems to have faltered in recent years but in 2022 they released the marvellous Taito Egret II mini arcade console, which collected most of their best known titles in one place.
Clearly, a £165 mini-console is not going to do much for Taito’s mainstream recognition but, sadly, there’s not been no all-in-one retro collection to work as an alternative. Many of their games are available separately on the Switch, via the Arcade Archives label, but that also is not exactly high profile. The Milestone collections are basically just bundles of existing, and not yet released, Arcade Archives titles, which means no museum content of any kind, but since this volume contains some of our favourite games of all time, we’ll take it.
We didn’t review the previous collections because they were such a random hotchpotch of the iconic and the almost entirely unknown. The most famous games in the first one were Qix and The Ninja Warriors, while Taito Milestones 2 had The NewZealand Story and Darius 2, but not Darius 1. Whether that’s because of licensing issues or throwing darts at a dart board we’re not sure, but the end results were wildly inconsistent in terms of the quality and prominence of individual titles.
By luck or judgement, Taito Milestones 3 is a notable improvement, so we’re going to give this a full review, although we’ll leave the crown jewels, of Bubble Bubble and its sequel, until last. Besides, the franchise that has the most entries in this collection is Rastan Saga, which started with a well-regarded side-scrolling hack ‘n’ slash in 1987 and was converted to almost all 8-bit home systems of the day, except, surprisingly, the NES.
To be honest, it’s still probably best of the trilogy as, like most Taito games, there’s slightly more to it than any of its peers, with optional weapons, alternative routes, and some very nice sound and visuals for the day. It’s difficult and unfair but less so than most similar arcades of the time, with useful checkpoints that make progress – via the unlimited credits a home version offers – surprisingly enjoyable.
Rastan Saga – the original is the best (ININ Games)
1989 sequel Rastan Saga 2 is technically more adept, but its more cartoonish visuals and terrible animation lose a lot of the charm of the original, which was clearly channelling the Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan movies. The level design is also notably worse, making it the only genuinely bad game in the collection. It does introduce a two-player co-op mode though, which is carried through to pseudo sequel Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga Episode 3.
One of the pleasures of a good retro compilation is not only classics you remember but ones you’ve never heard of before and we had no idea there was a Rastan Saga 3. Although, really, this has no gameplay connection to the first two games, as it’s a (very) simple scrolling beat ‘em-up, in the style of Streets Of Rage et al.
The game’s combat is absolutely mindless, with barely more than one attack for each of the three characters. Although there is an incorporeal wizard that follows you around sometimes and attacks enemies seemingly at his leisure. There’s also a few beast-riding mini-games, on horseback and flying on a dragon, which show off the game’s excellent graphics.
It may be dumber than rocks but the 1992 visuals, which must’ve been on one of Taito’s extra wide screens, to judge by the screen ratio, are fantastic, with some fun boss enemies and Rastan himself looking like he’s been cut out and pasted directly from a Frank Frazetta painting.
Another oddity we’d never heard of, and which was released the same year, is Dead Connection and it couldn’t be more different. It seems to be a pastiche of the The Untouchables movies, with each level taking place on a single screen, where you control a trench coat-wearing ‘detective’ as you, and ideally a pal, gun down everyone you see.
All the sprites are absolutely tiny, and the only controls are to shoot in the direction you’re facing and a rather theatrical dodge roll. With digital controls we expected the game to play like a dog but it’s actually really good, with some intelligent auto-aim that also allows you to shoot at elevated positions.
There’s lots of extra weapon types to collect and an impressive amount of destructible scenery, with chandeliers falling from the roof, cars bursting into flames, and bullet holes riddling walls. It reminded us slightly of Power Stone, in that it’s a sort of sandbox arcade game that encourages you to use the environment as much as your own attacks to take down enemies.
That makes it sound more impressive than it is but it’s still another hidden gem for the collection. We’re more familiar with 1991 scrolling beat ‘em-up Runark (aka Growl), which was also on the Egret II, as was the peculiarly complex 1989 action role-playing game Cadash.
Champion Wrestler – Rastan is in this too (ININ Games)
Arcade operators, who wanted you to die quickly and have to put in another 10p, must’ve hated this one because it’s a full-on role-player, featuring multiple player characters, some of which use magic; stats and levelling up; and multiple shops, with weapons, armour, and items to buy. There’s even Dark Souls style hidden areas, alternative routes, and almost Metroidvania style backtracking.
It’s not even that difficult, so you can keep playing for ages on a single credit. As such, it’s a shame that the combat is so clunky, and notably less fun than the otherwise much simpler Rastan Saga. Even the terrible translation is more entertaining than the fighting, with multiple allies congratulating you on ‘How well you came.’
Rounding out the collection is the rather good 1989 wrestling game Champion Wrestler which, as you’d expect from Taito, gets an impressive amount of moves out of its two button controls. It also features Rastan as one of the characters, which is a neat cameo.
And then there’s 1990 Rolling Thunder/Shinobi clone Thunder Fox, which does a decent job of trying to be an interactive 80s action movie, with a good amount of variety in its scrolling beat ‘em-up (stab and shoot ‘em-up, actually) sections and a number of brief vehicle-based interludes. There’s also a bit of Green Beret in there too, but unfortunately it has far more ideas borrowed from other games than it has of its own.
Rainbow Islands – game of the forever (ININ Games)
All of which brings us back to the stars of the collection: 1986’s Bubble Bobble and its 1987 sequel Rainbow Islands. We’ve spoken before, including in our Egret II review, about how we consider both games to be cast iron classics and we haven’t altered that opinion in the almost 40 years they’ve been around, so we’re certainly not going to now. Especially as this version of Rainbow Islands is superior to the one on the Egret II.
Bubble Bobble is still the same perfectly crafted single screen platformer as always, and really comes to life as a two-player co-op game. Rainbow Islands is a single-player game featuring one of the most versatile weapon systems in all gaming: a rainbow you can use to hit enemies with, trap them under it, drop on them, or use as a platform to reach higher ground. It’s wonderfully flexible and the game is stuffed to the gills with secrets and extra abilities, of the sort you’d never usually expect from an arcade game.
What’s great about this version of Rainbow Islands is that it has the same level and enemy progression as the original, rather than the remixed Rainbow Islands Extra, which we hate. Taito still can’t use the original soundtrack, because it sounds too much like Somewhere Over the Rainbow, but other than that this is almost exactly the same game we fell in love with on the Amiga 500 all those years ago.
We’re a bit stuck as to what to give this collection in terms of a score though, as zero effort has gone into padding it out from the individual Arcade Archives releases, which cost £6.29 each. In fact, these are slightly worse than the individual releases as they don’t feature the regional variation settings, which means Dead Connection is stuck with Japanese text during cut scenes and Runark can’t decide whether it’s called that or Growl. Although everyone speaking German is how it always was in Warrior Blade.
There’s absolutely no museum content at all, beyond a relatively in-depth manual for each game – including cheat codes were applicable. They are good emulations, with lots of control and difficulty settings (which is handy, because Rainbow Islands is very difficult), but apart from an online leaderboard there’s nothing here beyond the original arcade games.
That said, we can’t give a lower score than this to any collection which includes two of our favourite games, especially as one is as close to a definitive edition as you can get nowadays. A lot of the other games are also fun curios, but we don’t appreciate the scattershot approach to the collection’s contents and would much rather have seen a more complete compendium that celebrates the full glory of Taito’s arcade legacy.
Taito Milestones 3 review summary
In Short: You could just buy the classic Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands separately but while none of the other games in this retro arcade collection are anywhere near as good, they are all at least interesting.
Pros: 10 late 80s to early 90s coin-ops that range from entertaining curio (and one dud) to GOAT status. Great emulation and plenty of control, difficulty, and display options – as well as an online leaderboard.
Cons: The games included seem to have been chosen almost entirely at random, even if it’s not quite as bad as previous volumes. No museum content of any kind.
Score: 8/10
Formats: Nintendo Switch Price: £34.99 Publisher: ININ Developer: Taito Release Date: 10th December 2024 Age Rating: 12
Rastan Saga 2 – the worst of the batch (ININ Games)
A God Of War alumni is back at PlayStation (Sony Interactive Entertainment)
The developers behind God Of War and The Last Of Us both seem to be gearing up for new announcements, but what could their next games be?
It’s been over four years since developer Naughty Dog launched The Last Of Us Part 2 and we’re still in the dark about what the studio’s next original project is.
While little is known about these projects, Naughty Dog has recently hired an industry veteran to work on at least one of them: God Of War’s Rafael Grassetti.
In a post on Instagram, Grassetti, who worked as an art director at Santa Monica Studio on the recent God Of War games, wrote: ‘I’m super excited to be joining the amazing crew and project over at @naughty_dog_inc, and to be back to PlayStation!
‘I’m joining Neil Druckmann and his team as Art Director, to help create the next big thing! A huge thanks to everybody who was involved on making this happen and all my friends from sister studios. I’m hyped and can’t wait to share more about it!’
In a post announcing the move on X, he simply wrote ‘New chapter’ alongside the Naughty Dog logo.
Grassetti left Santa Monica Studio after 10 years in May 2023, where he worked as a principal artist on 2018’s God Of War and as an art director on its sequel, before becoming the studio’s overall art director.
He joined Netflix’s Team Blue studio shortly afterwards, which was shut down before it had even released a game in October this year.
What is the next game from Naughty Dog?
Sony has not announced Naughty Dog’s next project, but in a blog post from December last year the studio confirmed it is working on ‘more than one ambitious, brand new single-player game’.
Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann later stated in February 2024 that a concept for The Last Of Us Part 3 exists, implying that the sequel isn’t one of the aforementioned projects in development.
As for what the next project is, Druckmann has only given teasing snippets. In an interview with Sony, he described it as ‘something really fresh for us’ suggesting it is a new IP, and said it is ‘maybe the most excited I’ve been for a project yet’.
While details are low, we definitely know actor Troy Baker, who portrayed Joel in The Last Of Us, is involved in Druckmann’s next game. As confirmed in a profile interview of the actor on GQ, Druckmann said: ‘In a heartbeat I would always work with Troy.’
There have been rumours that one of the new games is a fantasy-based title involving dragons, but this is based on little more than a supposed Easter egg in The Last Of Us Part 1.
What is the next game from Santa Monica Studio?
Following 2022’s God Of War Ragnarök and its subsequent Valhalla DLC, it’s unclear what Santa Monica Studio is working on next.
However, various LinkedIn posts from developers and job listings indicate it is a new IP, and not another God Of War game. The studio has long beenrumoured to be developing a sci-fi project of some kind, although one previously existed over a decade ago codenamed Darkside, which was later scrapped.
Back in 2022, Santa Monica Studio said it is ‘spread out on a lot of different things’, indicating it could be juggling multiple projects too. This, however, was before the launch of Ragnarök’s Valhalla DLC.
It may also have been a reference to the help Santa Monica Studio gives to other first and third party developers working on games for Sony, although the studio has seemed to slowly move away from that role in recent years.
The studio’s creative director, Cory Barlog, last tweeted about his project in March, writing: ‘Seeing some early things coming together on this thing I am working on right now and GOD DAMN the people I get to work with at Sony Santa Monica are just f***ing beyond brilliant.’
Although it may be a little early to hear about Santa Monica’s next project, as God Of War Ragnarök was only two years ago, it feels like we’re perhaps overdue an update on Naughty Dog’s next project.
As such, it’s very possible we could see something at The Game Awards, which kicks off at 12.30am on Friday, December 13 in the UK; especially as The Last Of Us Online was announced at the related Summer Game Fest event.
The Last Of Us Part 3 is in the very early stages (Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Skydance’s Behemoth – the biggests bosses in gaming (Skydance Interactive)
A new VR experience where you fight skyscraper-sized monsters uses the tech to give an incredible sense of size and scale, in this visually impressive action adventure.
There aren’t many games that insert their developer’s name before the title. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six doesn’t count, so the most famous example is probably Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise, and beyond that the various works of American McGee and Hideo Kojima. For whatever reason, it’s also the route media company Skydance have chosen for their latest, Behemoth.
You’ve probably seen the Skydance logo before a number of movies, as they’ve co-produced everything from the Mission: Impossible and Transformers franchises to Alex Garland’s Annihilation. Their video game forays have been relatively limited so far, but they are making Marvel 1943: Rise Of Hydra and a new Star Wars game with Amy Hennig. Although for now their most prominent title is fellow VR game The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.
Behemoth certainly has a cracking concept. You’re Wren, a man or woman from a village dying of the Curse, a damning magic that spreads corruption, gradually transforming people into monsters. It has also led to the creation of Behemoths, gargantuan beasts that stalk the Forsaken Lands, spreading terror and chaos. For some reason though, the Curse doesn’t seem to be affecting Wren in quite the same way.
You’re still gradually transforming, but far more slowly than most, and rather than simply weakening you, it instead gives you magical strength you can use for a few seconds before having to wait for a cooldown. In other words, it’s a variety of curse that’s ideally suited to video games, letting you punch though weak walls and hurl enemies around like pathetic rag dolls, but not letting you do those things all the time.
It’s also perfect for Behemoth’s brand of VR physicality. Looking down at your hands, you can see the dark shadow of corruption spreading up your arms, and your interactions with the virtual world are similarly big on participation. To heal, you bring the medicine pouch or herbs up to your mouth, and stowing or drawing your swords or throwing knives means reaching for your waist or behind your shoulders, in gestures that aren’t quite as seamless as Batman’s were in Arkham Shadow but are better than most.
You’ll also need to turn giant keys in locks, re-forge your magic behemoth-slaying sword by hammering the slag off its blade as it sits on an anvil, put your hands over your ears when enemies magically shriek at you, and cover your mouth to protect against toxic mist. Along with climbing hand over hand, the swings and parries of sword fighting, and fending off enemies’ blows with a shield, it really helps draw you into Behemoth’s world.
That sense is at its most impressive when you come across the Behemoths themselves. VR gaming makes it easy to take things more personally than you do watching the action unfold on a screen, and in this case craning your neck to try and see the top of a vast beast, its head shrouded in cloud, is an imposing experience. And that’s before you go toe-to-toe in combat.
Skydance’s Behemoth – you’ll soon get sick of fighting these guys (Skydance Interactive)
Facing off against your first behemoth is intimidating. Its weapon – a massive ball on the end of a chain – is the size of a house, towering above you even when it’s lying on the ground, let alone when it’s being aggressively swung at you. Getting close to its hideous feet, even its toenails are considerably above your head height. It’s a great way of making you feel insignificantly small and grotesquely outmatched.
However, it’s a shame the game feels the need to solve all the problems it poses on your behalf before you’ve even had a chance to consider them, immediately instructing you step-by-step on what to do. Actually performing those actions might take a couple of rounds of practise, but it robs you of the feeling of achievement when you finally turn the creature from mountainous monster to plus-sized cadaver. You’ve mimed out the actions, but someone else was calling the shots.
A bigger problem is that there are too few behemoths to fight. The overwhelming majority of your time is spent making your way to the next big boss by way of legions of human scale cannon fodder. Those can be archers, various denominations of brawler, and the odd mid-level boss, but all must be disposed of using your bow, blades, and occasional bouts of super strength.
Your sword is your main weapon though and VR melee combat suffers from all its usual problems. It’s slow and deliberate, so no matter how wildly you swing your arms in the real world, your in-game sword follows at a sedate pace, breaking the immersion. The tracking isn’t always perfect either, your blade waggling about trying to keep up, leading to an impression of only half controlling the action. You also can’t parry by just holding up your sword, you need to swing towards the incoming strike.
That’s fine, because enemies are generally very kind about telegraphing upcoming attacks, but even with all that assistance, blows frequently seem to clip through your sword, meaning you get hit anyway. You’ll also need to use an axe to hack away at their shields and armour, but only your sword can fend off attacks, so you’ll need to switch in combat, which is just not reliable enough to do under pressure. And don’t get us started on throwing weapons, which proves as awkward as it always seems to in VR games.
The end result is a sense of clumsiness, which given the enormous frequency of those battles, permeates the entire game. We eventually tired of the fighting, switching the difficulty to easy to spent as little time with it as possible. For a combat-based game, that’s not a promising sign. Far more entertaining is the way you traverse the landscapes using your wrist-mounted grapple hook.
It winches you across gaps and up cliffs but it also lets you swing, leaping onto platforms, or catching hold of one of the game’s climbable walls of corruption. Once there, you’ll need to keep an eye on your stamina bar, which erodes as you climb. In combat that means backing off while it recharges. On a long climb it means going as quickly as possible so you can reach terra firm before it runs out.
We’re not fans of snap-turning, but got unusually motion sick with smooth turning, until counter-intuitively discovering that faster turning speeds got rid of the problem. After that, all the winching and swinging worked absolutely fine, with no worries about involuntary regurgitation. That’s useful, because your grapple hook is used constantly, first for traversal, but eventually also for grabbing weapons and consumables, and more amusingly, yanking enemies off ledges.
It’s worth saying that while many VR games tend to be rather blurry, Skydance’s Behemoth rarely does, its glorious vistas of mountains, ruined castles, and majestic forests looking pleasingly clear. The same goes for the scroll that lets you upgrade your powers and fast travel around the map, with your stats and labelled collectibles perfectly readable.
After a slightly delayed launch, Behemoth has had most of its bugs excised, although there were still a few stray bits of audio that seemed to play out of place, and one mid-level boss kept vanishing, only its hat or energy bar remaining – forcing you to target the empty space just below it. Still, most of the game works as intended.
It’s a shame combat isn’t more rewarding, but at least you’ve got the behemoths to look forward to which, without much plot, offer a degree of punctuation to the action. They’re undoubtedly the game’s highlights, and while you don’t get the inspiring melancholy of Shadow Of The Colossus, the fights are at least memorable, each having its own rhythm and techniques.
The game lasts 10 or so hours – a couple more if you can stomach a higher difficulty and yet more time spent hacking your way through tedious, identikit knights and archers – and also sprinkles in some light puzzling, which is slightly undermined by their repetition. It’s a solid use of VR, helping you experience the gross disparities of scale in a far more visceral way than would be possible on a flat screen, but viewed purely as a game it’s not a very big deal.
Skydance's Behemoth review summary
In Short: A game about fighting office block-sized monsters, where you spend most of your time battling far less interesting human-scale enemies, with clumsy and repetitive melee combat that pales next to the all-too-few behemoth fights.
Pros: Really makes you feel insignificant next to its massive foes. Majestic and sharply drawn landscapes and ruined castles. The gesture controls and grapple hook traversal help you feel part of the world.
Cons: The sword and bow fights that make up most of the game are very uninspired. Despite a delay it still has bugs, and its puzzles rely on too few mechanics, making them feel repetitious.
Score: 6/10
Formats: PlayStation VR2 (reviewed), Steam VR, and Meta Quest Price: £34.99 Publisher: Skydance Interactive Developer: Skydance Interactive Release Date: 5th December 2024 Age Rating: 18
Skydance’s Behemoth – do look up (Skydance Interactive)
