Author: Trafficblast

Paper Mario: The Origami King is coming to Tetris 99 later this week as the 15th Maximus Cup event kicks off. The latest limited-time tournament begins on Friday, July 31 and runs until August 3, giving players the chance to earn an exclusive theme for the block-stacking puzzle game.

Playing Tetris 99 during the event period will earn you points, with different values awarded depending on how well you place during each match. Amass 100 total points during the event and you’ll unlock the Paper Mario: The Origami King theme to keep.

The theme gives each tetromino an origami-style makeover, adds a new background, and includes three music tracks pulled from Mario’s latest RPG. You can see how it looks in action below.

You’ll need to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to participate in the event. Memberships cost $4 USD for one month, $8 USD for three months, and $20 USD for one year. Nintendo also offers a $35 USD annual Family Plan that covers up to eight Nintendo Accounts.

If you do already have a subscription, you can download and play Tetris 99 online for free. The game also offers a $10 USD “Big Block” DLC that adds a handful of offline modes, including Marathon and a Local Arena that supports up to eight players.

Paper Mario: The Origami King, meanwhile, launched earlier this month on Nintendo Switch. The series’ return earned an 8/10 in GameSpot’s Paper Mario: The Origami King review. “With a newfound combat system that steals the show and offers a novel take on turn-based combat, its winking, nodding, and adventuring shine all the brighter, Suriel Vazquez said in his review. “Its world and characters might not be the series’ best, but it’s still able to consistently throw left turns, good gags, and smart surprises at you. Each piece of The Origami King elegantly fits into its whole, taking its irreverent flair to new heights. The Paper Mario series has recently shown that being clever and being smart are two different things, but thankfully, it’s once again managed to be both.”

You can even grab the game for $10 off a week after launch.

Death Stranding finally launched on PC earlier this month, and the game’s newly formed community is already getting suitably weird with it. We already turned the game into a nightmare ourselves, but one creative fan has manifested something even eerier.

As far as first PC builds go, Twitter user Cami Roebuck might hold the award for the most impressive. No, your eyes are not deceiving you; that is, in fact, a life-size BB sitting inside a PC. The Bridges logo is a nice touch, and the case does look like a piece of mail protagonist Sam “Porter” Bridges would transport across Death Stranding’s post-disaster America, but there’s no ignoring that baby.

Precautions have been made to ensure “little Lou” doesn’t melt. The only question now is whether she’s capable of detecting any nearby BTs.

Whether your PC has its own BB or not, the recently released port is the best way to play Death Stranding. Aside from the boost in performance and visual fidelity, the PC version also includes an exclusive side-story that pays tribute to Valve’s Half-Life and Portal franchises and introduces a slew of new items (like a Headcrab hat you can make Norman Reedus wear).

Hideo Kojima’s latest was awarded a 9/10 in GameSpot’s Death Stranding review when it launched on PS4 back in November 2019. “Death Stranding is a hard game to absorb,” Kallie Plagge said in her review. “There are many intertwining threads to its plot, and silly names, corny moments, and heavy exposition belie an otherwise very simple message. That comes through much more clearly in the game’s more mundane moments, when you find a desperately-needed ladder left behind by another player or receive a letter from an NPC thanking you for your efforts. It’s positive without ignoring pain; in fact, it argues in both its story and its gameplay that adversity itself is what makes things worth doing and life worth living. It’s a game that requires patience, compassion, and love, and it’s also one we really need right now.”

Microsoft has revealed the Xbox Games with Gold lineup for August 2020, which features survival RPG Portal Knights, Xbox classic Red Faction II and more.

All of the games listed below will be free for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Live Gold subscribers and will unlock across the course of August, with Override: Mech City Brawl available until early September.

• Portal Knights (August 1 to 31 on Xbox One)
• Override: Mech City Brawl (August 16 to September 15 on Xbox One)
• MX Unleashed (August 1 to 15 on Xbox One and Xbox 360)
• Red Faction II (August 16 to 31 on Xbox One and Xbox 360)

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/07/28/xbox-august-2020-games-with-gold-trailer”]

Portal Knights is a survival RPG with multiplayer sandbox elements and can be played online with up to 4 players in the same world. Override: Mech City Brawl is a 3D mech brawler which includes a single-player campaign and a co-op mode where each player can control part of the mech suit.

For the classic games this month we’ve got MX Unleashed, a freestyle motocross simulator which we called “a winner” back in 2004 when we reviewed it. Rounding off the quad is Red Faction II, in which you can lead a rebellion on Mars and as per usual for the Red Faction franchise, cause heaps of destruction.

You can still pick up WRC 8, Dunk Lords and Juju from July’s Xbox Games With Gold if you’re yet to redeem them, but act fast, as Juju and WRC 8 expire on Friday the 31st.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

As promised last week, Rockstar has updated Red Dead Online with a new Frontier Pursuit. Today the developer has detailed the pursuit, which is called The Naturalist and focuses on tracking Legendary Animals.

As a Naturalist, players will work with Harriet Davenport, who aims to protect and study the region’s rarest animals. You’ll be required to track these species, sedate them with the new Varmint Rifle, and draw blood samples to be handed to Harriet. A Revive Tonic can be used to rouse sedated animals so they are not left vulnerable to predators and hunters.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/09/05/red-dead-online-frontier-pursuits-trailer”]

Naturalists can also brew other tonics, including Weight Loss and Weight Gain Tonics, and drinks that allow you to more easily sneak up on potential animal subjects. Other brews will mitigate weather effects.

Alternatively, players may want to work for big game hunter Gus MacMillan, who will pay a generous fee for the pelts of these rare animals, and even tailor them into unique clothing. Animals can be more efficiently hunted with the new Elephant Rifle and its one-shot, one-kill Nitro Express ammunition. However, working with Gus will sour your relationship with Harriet, so you’ll want to choose wisely.

Your targets as part of this Frontier Pursuit include seven new Legendary Animals, and each of those have three subspecies. An Animal Field Guide acts as a sort of Pokedex to complete while on your animal-discovery travels.

Naturalists can learn new skills including Mercy Kill, use an advanced camera, and partake in two animal-based Free Roam Events: Protect Legendary Animals and Animal Tagging. They also have access to role-specific weapons, outfits, and a horse.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/11/27/the-first-17-minutes-of-red-dead-online-gameplay”]

Legendary Animal Sighting Missions allow you to raid the camps of poachers and liberate their caged animals. Or, should you choose to, you can break them out and immediately kill them for their pelts.

Alongside the Naturalist content, the update also improves the Threat indicator, and implements Asynchronous Matchmaking, new Daily Challenges, new Daily Challenge rewards, and an improved wardrobe system. A new Outlaw Pass with 80 ranks allows players to unlock bonuses including 40 gold bars, XP boosts, new weapon metals and engravings, the Australian Shepherd camp dog, and filters for the Advanced Camera.

PS4 users will also get free gifts in the form of 10 sedative ammo, 5 animal revive tonics, and 5 blending tonics, as well as early access bonuses: the Woodcote poncho, The Legendary Ram, and The Coastal, Oceanic, and Megafauna Fossil collection sets.

The update comes in the wake of the Red Dead Online community protesting against Rockstar for not updating the game with new content.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

A modder known for working on modding Mario games has created an entirely new Zelda adventure.

Along with a few friends, Kaze Emanuar created a new unofficial Zelda game in the Ocarina of Time engine, titled The Legend of Zelda: The Missing Link. This fan-made game takes place in between Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, the two Legend of Zelda games released on the N64.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=every-ign-zelda-review-score&captions=true”]

Thanks to borrowing Ocarina’s assets, The Missing Link fits right in with the aesthetic of those legendary Zelda titles. The launch trailer for the game sets a melancholy vibe, similar to the tone of Majora’s Mask.

In a playthrough video on YouTube, Emanuar and CDi-Fails, who also worked on the game, go through the adventure while also talking about the creative process.

Walking through Kokiri Forest, the creators talk about how they made the color palette darker to signify the passage of time. As for what’s new, there’s an original dungeon, and a new time travel mechanic not seen in either N64 Zelda adventure.

The game only takes about an hour to finish, but it is complete with a final boss battle and a credit sequence.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/06/12/breath-of-the-wild-sequel-team-drew-inspiration-from-red-dead-redemption-2-e3-2019″]

For more N64 news, check out the huge Nintendo source code leak from this week, where it may have been confirmed that Luigi was planned to be playable in Super Mario 64. Or, for more on Zelda, read up on the new Cadence of Hyrule DLC announced for this fall.

Story originally reported by Kotaku.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Logan Plant is a news writer for IGN, and the Production Assistant for Nintendo Voice Chat, IGN’s weekly Nintendo show. You can find him on Twitter at @LoganJPlant.

Cuphead, the fight-against-the-devil sidescroller that made waves in 2017, is finally launching on PS4 today. Studio MDHR announced the news in an interview during the Summer Games Fest.

Cuphead will be available on the PlayStation Store for $20 / €16 / £16. A special update for Xbox players that includes a digital art gallery, behind-the-scenes commentary, and a playable soundtrack was also announced. No date was given for it.

Cuphead launched as an Xbox One and PC exclusive after Microsoft partially funded the development by Canada-based Studio MDHR. It’s since launched on both Nintendo Switch and Tesla’s suite of electric vehicles. PlayStation fans have been clamoring for a release since the game originally launched.

A new DLC, dubbed The Delicious Last Course, was announced in 2018 but then delayed to 2020. Studio MHDR released a 30-second teaser trailer showing off some new features that are coming with the DLC, including playable character Ms. Chalice and her double jump, abilities to acquire and enemies to slaughter, and levels and environments ripe for exploration. The studio said it would have more to say about the DLC “in the coming months.”

“Cuphead has been a long time coming, and it’s great to see that it lives up to its initial promises across all platforms,” said critic Peter Brown in GameSpot’s review of Cuphead. “It’s beautiful to look at, and with a pitch-perfect soundtrack, it flawlessly captures the era its developers so clearly revere. It’s also an intense action game that pulls no punches. It could benefit from a few tweaks, and two-player co-op doesn’t feel like the valuable addition you might imagine, but Cuphead remains a rare, unique game that truly stands out.”