2024's Best Games Let Me Figure It Out

This year, I decided I’d finally play 2022’s Case of the Golden Idol, a mystery game that thrusts you onto the scene of a murder moments after it’s happened. You pan through several screens, absorb every detail you possibly can, gather clues in the form of nouns and verbs, and make logic-based deductions by filling in the missing details in passages that tell the story of what occurred there. There are systems in place to guide you in the right direction, and the game begins quite simply, but by its end, I was being pushed to my absolute limit. The first few cases took all of about 10-25 minutes, but the final one in the game seemed to stretch across the span of an entire night. My head was positively bursting with possible motives and culprits, and kudos to Case of the Golden Idol for allowing me the room to be wrong about these cases until I eventually divined the right permutation of terms and cracked the case. It was one of the most frustrating ends of a game ever, and…

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Here's How Rings Of Power Invented New Characters For Middle-earth

While Prime Video’s upcoming series Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power takes place in JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth, the showrunners got to take some liberties with the world, like expanding on Tolkien’s work with brand-new characters.

Obviously, Tolkien fans may be a little leary of new creations for the beloved franchise– the author himself passed away in 1971 and can’t add more to the lore. However, the show’s creators aren’t cavalierly bringing them into existence: They say they’re painstakingly creating them based on writing and clues from Tolkien’s books.

During the Rings of Power panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, showrunner JD Payne was surrounded by others from the show, as he spoke to a massive audience inside Hall H. “We had the privilege of working with Tolkien scholars and amazing linguists and lore masters that were in the writers room,” Payne explained. “Tolkien gave us all these great clues about cultures of the Second Age.”…

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Halo Infinite First-Year Stats Revealed, As Dev Reflects On A Year Full Of "Challenges"

Halo Infinite has wrapped up its first full year of operation, and developer 343 Industries has now shared some first-year statistics. Live-service boss Sean Baron said in a blog post that Halo Infinite had the “biggest launch year” in Halo’s 20-year history.

Some of the first-year stats included 170 million multiplayer matches played, 50 million campaign missions played, and 16 billion Spartans slayed. Players collectively wiped out more than 2 billion bots and performed 6 million “Ninja” kills, which is when a player jumps over a foe and smacks them on the back with a melee. Finally, 343 said players collectively created 130,000 maps in Forge.

“We’re so grateful for the time you’ve spent with us and the passion you have for this franchise. The year has been full of challenges and opportunities,” Baron said. “Yet, your energy and engagement has driven us.”

Baron added: “We’ve changed the way that we develop and even the way we’re organized. Needless to say, we’re …

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Final Fantasy XIV's Huge Newfound Adventure Patch Is Live Now

Final Fantasy XIV’s Patch 6.1, dubbed Newfound Adventure, is out now and ready for players to explore a wealth of new content. The patch adds a bunch of new main storyline quests, a new alliance raid, a PVP mode named Crystalline Conflict, and more new content, as well as a bunch of quality of life updates and bug fixes.

With the new patch installed, players will be able to continue the story post-Endwalker in the Newfound Adventure quest, with 10 new main scenario quests added in total. A new alliance raid series called Myths of the Realm has also been added, seeing players investigating the mysteries of the Twelve. Check here for a more in-depth look at the story content being added in this patch and future 6.1X updates.

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Is Star Wars- Galactic Starcruiser Worth The Cost-

When it was first announced that Walt Disney World would be opening an immersive Star Wars hotel, it seemed like a dream come true. The chance to spend three days living out your own Star Wars story while on a “cruise” through space sounded amazing. Later, though, we learned exactly how much that “cruise” would cost and it was quite a bit. Could Star Wars: Galactic Stasrcruiser possibly be worth the thousands of dollars, though? After partaking in the full experience as part of a press preview, we actually know the answer–and it’s a bit of a complicated one.

The cost

First, let’s talk about how much a stay aboard the Halcyon ship at the center of Galactic Starcruiser costs. Much like an actual cruise, that depends on the number of people in your party. All told, this is a three-day/two-night experience. The price breakdown is as follows:

Konami Announces Castlevania 35th Anniversary NFTs, Auction Starts Next Week

The Castlevania series is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, and to mark the occasion, Konami is rolling out new Castlevania-themed NFTs. The “Konami Memorial NFT” program, as it’s called, begins with an auction starting on January 12.

There are 14 items up for sale, including pixel art showing off iconic scenes from the games. Some of the NFTs include “newly drawn” art from the Castlevania series, the NFT page says.

The auction itself is taking place on OpenSea, which bills itself as the largest NFT marketplace on the internet. The auction ends at 9 PM ET on January 14, at which point the highest bidders will take home, so to speak, their digital prizes.

In the FAQ, Konami says no Castlevania NFT with the same exact data will be resold, but “similar” ones focused on the same game “may be resold in the future.”

Konami getting into the NFT market is not a surprise, as Konami president Kimihiko Higashio said in a statement that technologies like NFTs w…

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Kirby and the Rainbow Curse Review

Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is mechanically tied to Kirby: Canvas Curse, a 2005 Nintendo DS platformer. In Canvas Curse, you control Kirby with only the stylus, tapping to make him roll along and drawing rainbow lines to move him up, down, over enemies, and into the path of collectibles. Kirby could also copy enemies’ skills and use them to his own advantage, making for an interesting and versatile mix of abilities to guide the beloved pink character through a handful of worlds packed with environmental puzzles.

Canvas Curse innovated a new way to move Kirby around, but Rainbow Curse has squandered most of its charm. Despite the beautiful claymation art style and eye-candy coloring, the game is dull. Kirby’s movement and abilities have been oversimplified to the point that getting Kirby actually to do what you want is a gamble. This, coupled with a watery story mode and unexciting bonus modes, makes Rainbow Curse feel soulless, disconnected from a franchise…

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Latest Elden Ring Patch References New Maps, Rebalances PvP

Elden Ring might be the frontrunner for game of the year 2022, but the past few months have been rather quiet ones for From Software. Now, a new patch that rebalances Elden Ring’s PvP has added hidden references to new maps, as well as laying the groundwork for a wider PvP reshuffle that fans have been asking for.

Patch 1.07 is almost exclusively multiplayer-focused. The biggest change is the addition of separate damage scaling for PvP battles, which is by far the biggest change that the game’s community has lobbied for in the months since its release.

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