One of the biggest draws for any monsters game is being able to collect a menagerie of powerful, cool, adorable, and terrifying creatures - whether that’s by catching them in balls, convincing them to join you through diplomacy, or recording them on cassette tapes.Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Princehas two methods. The first is a classic: show off your strength and recruit monsters by beating them up. Monsters respect strength, that’s easy enough to understand....

It’s January 2. Some of you might even be reading this while you avoid the mountain of emails you’ve just returned to after the holidays. The last thing on your mind is what ornaments you will be putting on your Christmas trees 11 months from now. It’s worth thinking about now and not this time in ten months, though. Hallmark doesn’t sell many ornaments in January, which is why a lot of them are on sale, some of them seeing their prices slashed to less than $3....

“We thought that was gonna be the fight of our lives,”Beadle & Grimm’sco-founder Bill Rehor says of the name of his and Matthew Lillards’ newD&Dshow, Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!. “We think the show has a sort of irreverent Kitschy aesthetic and [naming it after the movie Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!] seemed like a funny reference. We wanted something that immediately signalled that this was going to be a show different from a normal D&D series....

TheNintendo DSwas the first console I ever truly loved. I probably played my Game Boy Advance, with all two games I had, for more hours overall, but the DS felt revolutionary. Every problem I had with the Advance, the DS fixed and then some. It had a backlit screen. It had wirelessPokemontrading. It had twice as many screens and a lid that flipped up and down, making a mockery of my brother’s prized SP....

The return ofMultiVersushas been teased for some time, withthe first sign of life spotted in September. However, now thatThe Game Awardshave come and gone with no news on the relaunch, it’s looking less likely that we’ll get a release date before the new year. And yet, we have a glimmer of hope, as MultiVersus Happy Meal toys might be coming to McDonald’s. Sure, usually, this wouldn’t mean anything more than getting the chance to pick up some cheap merch....

The lawsuit against Niantic continues, as the anonymous women bringing legal action against the studio claim they were retaliated against when they took their issues to HR. They say thatNiantictried to “silence” them when they complained that the workplace felt like a “boys club” and a “hostile work environment for women”. This comes as Niantic tries to get the lawsuitJane Doe vs Niantic Inc.dropped or stalled, instead settling the allegations in private arbitration....

Palworldis a smash hit, making it onto theSteamtop ten for the highest player counts of all time. With more than 850,000 players online right now - and rising - Palworld is in tenth place, poised to overtakeBaldur’s Gate 3. Its current player count also makes it the second most played game on Steam right now, only beaten byCounter-Strike 2which sits at around 960,000 players. However, with the weekend only just kicking off and Palworld spreading through word of mouth, we may see it take the top spot....

Pokemonhas a weird thing with father figures, stemming all the way back to the release of the Pokemon anime and Ash Ketchum’s constantly missing dad. Throughout most of the games, you only have your mother as a parental figure, as it seems like every main character’s father just suddenly vanishes upon turning 10. Thankfully, other Pokemon characters have much more supportive father figures, including Penny from Pokemon Scarlet & Violet....

Pokemonkicked off what seems likely to be a busy year on theFunko Pop!front by revealing it will gradually be releasing six new pearlescent figures,teasing what the first one is going to be immediately. I say teasing. Those of us who have been playing Who’s That Pokemon for the past 25 years will have had no issue determining which Pokemon would be the first of the six released. It was, of course, Lucario, and the shiny variant of its Pop!...

Summary 2023 was a year packed with great games. So many that there are likely some you missed, especially if you prefer to pick up physical versions of games and you skipped over any titles that were digital-only. Until now,Sea of Starsfell into that category. A fantastic RPG from the creators of The Messenger. If Sea of Stars is a game you’ve been meaning to get to, but you’d prefer to own a physical copy, I have some very good news for you....

Quick Links Diablo 4’sSeason of the Construct has added a new companion for players to customize and create builds around. The Seneschal is a robotic spider pet that can be highly modified to fulfill any role, ranging from melee tank to support. It’s a highly versatile companion that most players will want to unlock. But before you can use this spider companion yourself, you’ll first need to complete this season’s new questline....

Spider-Man 2’s director, Bryan Intihar, has explained why the sequel is missing so many costumes from the first game andSpider-Man: Miles Morales, noting that it wasn’t as simple as just porting them from one to the other. Although Spider-Man 2 has seen a ton of praise from critics and fans since its release last month, it’s also seen its fair share of criticism. Players have expressed disappointment inthe final boss battle against Venom,Miles Morales' awful new suit,and the lack of suit powers, but there’s one part of the game that has drawn more ire than the rest - the selection of Spider suits and how many have been cut from previous games....

Nobody knows how game development works apart from developers, and even then, some of them describe the process as arcane and mysterious. As the saying goes, every shipped game is a miracle. Plenty of journalists have never worked in a studio either, but will go out of their way to understand how the things they report on are made, because that’s due diligence. Most gamers, though, have little interaction with the industry apart from buying and playing the final products – why would they, after all?...