Author: Trafficblast

Digital Extremes’ showcase of all things Warframe, TennoCon, has been delayed from its original date of July 11. The event, which has already gone digital-only, has now had its date moved to August 1.

While a reason for the delay hasn’t been specified, the Digital Extremes blog post explained that “changing the date will allow us to put on the best possible show remotely and deliver the magic of TennoCon to you, our worldwide community!”

TennoCon is the latest in a number of gaming events that have been delayed, many of them in respect to continuing protests around the Black Lives Matter movement in the USA and worldwide. These include the PS5 reveal and Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City Wire showcase.

The good news in this for Warframe players is that Baro Ki’Teer will still visit for the original July 11 date, while making a second appearance on the new August 1 date. Players who purchase the TennoCon digital pack will have access to his full inventory on both occasions.

The submission deadline for Warframe’s TennoCon Community Art Show has also been extended to July 10, where artists and cosplayers can submit their works for a chance to be featured.

Warframe is currently free-to-play on PC and current-gen consoles, and has already been confirmed for a next-gen release with a PS5 version.

Operation: Tango has been announced, and a gameplay trailer has been released to show how it works. It’s a two-player asymmetrical game in which one player is an agent and the other is a hacker, and the two must work together to progress.

The trailer, below, shows how the agent will be out getting their hands dirty, dodging turrets and sneaking through levels. The hacker needs to assist them, unlocking doors, taking control of cameras, and making sure that things go smoothly.

It looks like the two styles of gameplay on offer here will be very different from one another, and that both players will need to communicate to succeed. On the game’s Steam page, it says that you won’t be able to play without a microphone.

According to the trailer, the stakes are nothing less than the well-being of the world. There will be multiple levels to play through, each offering unique challenges and Hollywood-inspired moments.

The game is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC in 2021.

GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.

Nintendo has announced and released Jump Rope Challenge, a free simple game that uses a pair of Joy-Con to allow Switch owners around the world to virtually jump rope anywhere without a jump rope.

Revealed by Nintendo’s Twitter, Jump Rope Challenge can be downloaded now, for free, on the eShop and was created by a few Nintendo developers who were working from home in Japan and wanted to “add quick and fun physical movement into their daily life.”

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Jump Rope Challenge will be free until September 30, and it also allows for a friend to join in on the jump roping fun with another set of Joy-Con.

However, it is important to note that Jump Rope Challenge is not compatible with Nintendo Switch Lite.

Prior to this surprise announcement, Paper Mario: The Origami King was one of the only upcoming Nintendo-developed games that have been officially announced with a date for the immediate future. Following its July 17 release date, much of Nintendo’s plan is unknown, so it’s a small treat to have this smaller new experience from Nintendo themselves.

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We know it is working on much-anticipated games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 and Metroid Prime 4, but those have yet to receive any release dates or release windows.

There have been reports of a Super Mario remaster collection that would include such games as Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Mario Sunshine, but those are only rumors as of this writing.

Put together Jump Rope Challenge and Ring Fit Adventure, and Nintendo is doing its part to keep you in-shape during the stay-at-home policies due to COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who loves Nintendo and its randomness and hope it never changes. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

For the first time ever, a video game can be prescribed as medicine in the US, with the FDA approving EndeavourRX for use in treating symptoms of ADHD.

In an announcement from the US Food and Drug Administration (via The Verge), EndeavorRX by Akili Interactive is the first game in history that can be legally marketed in America as a medicine, after studies showed that the iOS product can be beneficial for patients impaired by ADHD. Doctors will be allowed to prescribe the game to children between eight and 12 years old.

It is worth noting that Akili Interactive’s study – by doctors working for EndeavorRX’s developer – came to the conclusion that there isn’t enough evidence to suggest that this game should be used as a replacement for established ADHD treatments, but that it can be used in addition to existing treatments.

The game, which is only available on prescription (and which you can join a waiting list for) sees you travelling on a raft down rivers in various fantastical locations, collecting targets and dodging obstacles. Your character can even be equipped with various different costumes from a rotating selection. You can watch a short gameplay trailer to get a sense of it

You can check out the full news release from the FDA here, which explains why the landmark decision was made and describes the game as “the first digital therapeutic intended to improve symptoms associated with ADHD.”

“The EndeavorRx device offers a non-drug option for improving symptoms associated with ADHD in children and is an important example of the growing field of digital therapy and digital therapeutics,” notes Jeffery Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health.

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

While talking with Jonathan Bennink, the lead designer on LEGO Super Mario, I was unsurprised to hear Super Mario Bros’ World 1-1 was a huge inspiration during the four-year development of the toy range. The warp pipe, question block, Goombas – even little fluffy clouds – are all wonderfully created out of bricks. However, after a few hours of play time, it actually more closely resembles Super Mario Maker. While the starter set provides the essentials – the starting point and the finish flag – everything in between is entirely up to you, and LEGO Super Mario is best enjoyed when you forget the instructions and let your imagination run wild.

That wasn’t my immediate reaction though. I always knew LEGO Super Mario wouldn’t be a ‘traditional’ LEGO set, designed to be either built following instructions and displayed, or just a random set of bricks from which you can build whatever you want. Instead it sits somewhere in between, its core components – the aforementioned warp pipe and finish flag, the power-up blocks and expansion sets like the Piranha Plant Power Slide, Boomer Bill Barrage and Toad’s Treasure Hunt – being the building blocks you piece together however you like.

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It’s a simple idea: you build the level, in any way you see fit to any size you want, then move Mario through it. Imagine how a kid plays with action figures, walking them along, and you get the idea, but here Mario interacts with the blocks and obstacles, and collects coins as he goes.

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At the centre of everything is Mario, who is about two-thirds the size of a Brickhead and has little LED screens for eyes and on his belly. Although he’s odd-looking – my five-year-old described him as evil and said “Bowser has turned him bad” – he’s kinda cute once he starts talking and reacting to movement. Importantly, his voice is spot on and his exclamations, from the way he greets Toad to whooping when jumping, are gleefully authentic.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/lego-super-mario-sets-reveal-trailer”]The sensor underneath Mario detects the colour of the bricks he’s touching – green for grass, blue for water, red for lava and yellow for sand – making him react accordingly. There are also unique patterned tiles that have different effects. Goombas, Koopas and Bowser Jr all have them on their back, and knocking them over and scanning the tile is the equivalent of stomping on them. Toad and Toadette have conversation tiles, which make Mario say ‘Hi’ when he passes, plus there are question block tiles that reward power-ups like the Super Mushroom and the Super Star, which makes him invincible for a few seconds.

There are also unique tiles on obstacles that, in conjunction with Mario’s built-in accelerometer, detect when he’s spinning on a platform or riding in the cart on the Piranha Plant Power Slide. The more spins, the more coins.

And collecting coins is the ultimate aim in LEGO Super Mario. At its simplest, you earn coins by moving Mario through the level, stomping enemies, collecting power-ups and completing obstacles. But there are ways to earn more if you’re willing to experiment. Spinning on a platform rewards coins, but stop and spin in the opposite direction and you’ll get bonus coins; balance on the power slide without hitting the piranha plants triggers a multiplier; the longer you move without hitting the plants at either end, the bigger the multiplier. These are all things you have to discover for yourself and I’m sure there are many other tricks I’ve yet to find.

Scores feed back into the app (Mario connects to your phone or tablet via Bluetooth), which you can then share with your friends. Sharing pictures of your creations is also encouraged, to enable others to build the same course and compete against one another. Indeed, that’s where LEGO Super Mario is most fun, playing together to see who can score the most points.

Sharing the experience also made for some unexpected level designs too. Mine were pretty restrained, moving from one themed area to the next, almost in homage to the Mario games I’ve played in the past. But my kids, who don’t have the history with the video games, threw the rule book out of the window and created towers by stacking obstacles on top of one another. Just because Mario runs from left to right in the games it doesn’t mean he has to in real life.

When LEGO Super Mario was first announced I was a little skeptical. I found the Mario figure a little off-putting and, as a fan of LEGO, I would’ve loved to have seen display models of the Princess Peach’s castle from Mario 64, or the airship from Odyssey (I still would). I was also dubious about how it would stand alone as a game when there’s so much emphasis on the player to follow a level rather than cheat or game the system. In that respect it has a lot in common with board games – yes, you can cheat by skipping the lava or jumping straight to the finish flag with seconds to go, but where’s the fun in that? Any initial skepticism I had was short-lived and after playing and creating for a few days, there’s so much to like about LEGO Super Mario. I love the idea of exploring new levels, to find new ways to get coins, and look forward to seeing the ways the community breaks the mould when it releases in August. But mostly I love the way it captures the playfulness of LEGO and experimentation of Nintendo, fusing it into something that’s both familiar and fresh.

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Alex is the head of IGN’s UK Studio and has an unhealthy obsession with LEGO. Follow him on Twitter.

Donkey Kong player Robbie Lakeman has achieved a new world record of 1,260,700 while streaming on Twitch, surpassing player John McCurdy’s 2019 record of 1,259,000. While the achievement hasn’t yet been verified on Twin Galaxies’ Donkey Kong leaderboard, the full run is available to watch on Twitch.

Lakeman previously held the second highest record at 1,247,700, set in February 2018, and has long been one of the top players in the community.

The news that he had set a new record was tweeted out by Billy Mitchell, a fellow Donkey Kong player who featured in the movie The King of Kong, and later became infamous for allegations of cheating on his historical DK records. After an investigation, Twin Galaxies wiped his high scores from the site and banned him from submitting any new ones.

Lakeman’s record-setting moment was clipped a number of times on Twitch, where he often runs record-beating attempts. The full four hour session is also available to view for those who are curious.

While there’s still a chance Twin Galaxies will reject the attempt, it appears to have been completed on the same set up used to record his 2018 run.