Board and table top gaming has seen some incredible growth over the last decade. Chances are you have at least one or two board games in your home outside the classic stand-bys like Risk and Monopoly. With so many great board games and role-playing games like D&D, we put together this guide to help you find the perfect gift for the unplugged gamer in your life.
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The Spongebob Collectors Edition Is $50 Off on Xbox One Right Now
Update: The Xbox One version of the F.U.N. Edition is currently marked down $50. It’s unclear when the price will go back up, so grab it quickly if you want it.
Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated is set to release for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC sometime in 2020. A remake of the 2003 original, the game is a 3D platformer that lets you play as Spongebob, Patrick, or Sandy as you fight robots in colorful locales. It features upgraded visuals, restored content that was cut from the original game, and a new horde multiplayer mode.
If you’re ready to plunk down your money and preorder Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated (that’s a mouthful), we have all the details you need about what comes in each edition, how much it costs, and where to find it.
Arise Is A Beautiful Collision Of Music And Emotion
Piccolo Studio in Barcelona, Spain has been around for 20 years, and this year, the team is releasing its first video game, ever, Arise: A Simple Story. For two decades, Piccolo ran successful interactive ad campaigns for global brands like Coca-Cola–but that corporate lifestyle grew stale.
As the team puts it on their website, “We were making money and winning awards, but it wasn’t fulfilling. Making video games [has] always been a childhood dream, so we went for it. Starting from scratch in a risky industry was a leap of faith, but we were looking for that missing spark in our lives. If you fail, at least fail doing what you like.”
Narrative designer Alexis Corominas says he wants to be able to look back, remember, and be proud of the work he’s done. That mentality is reflected in Arise–the game begins with the death of an old man, who reawakens in limbo. From here, you’ll explore 10 different memories from the man’s past.
“Every level of the game is dedicated to a single feeling,” Corominas explains. “If you connect all the feelings in the game, it’s like a roller coaster of emotions. These are universal feelings. The goal of the game is to touch people.”
Levels play out without any dialogue–music swells as you platform through various setpieces, but characters from the old man’s past don’t speak to one another. Arise focuses on emotions rather than story.
Of course, Arise is still a game you play. The old man can run, jump, and use his grappling hook to swing from various points. But Arise’s central mechanic is the ability to scrub through time. Some levels let you move between morning and night, while others stretch out across full seasons. In all cases, moving forward or backward in time changes the level around you, as animals, objects, and platforms shift over the course of minutes, hours, and days.
One stage (seen in the gameplay above) had us leaping across giant sunflowers. The flowers follow the sun across the sky and tilt as the day progresses, allowing us to change the angle of the flowers as we leaped across gaps. The same stage had a handful of snails that would slowly move throughout the day, letting us hop aboard their shells to reach higher platforms.
The goal of the sunflower level is to chase down a kite that belonged to a friend from the old man’s childhood, representing a happier time in his life. The following level (also seen in our gameplay video) is not so joyful: a mountain range slowly ripped apart from the center, forcing us to rewind and bring cliffs back together as we make our way to the summit. In the end, the reason for the schism was made clear: that same childhood friend was going away, leaving the old man on one side of the divide as his friend was pulled away, both literally and figuratively.
This reflexive level design is accompanied by an art style reminiscent of Tequila Works’ Rime. That checks out, as Rime’s art director Jose Luis Vaello is also the art director for Arise. Vaello’s work is inspired by Disney’s Fantasia and the “Disney of Japan,” Studio Ghibli. It’s a good match for the game, as it’s levels are focused on emotional moments rather than plot points.
Arise: A Simple Story releases on December 3. It’s headed to PS4, Xbox One, and PC via the Epic Games Store.
Arise: A Simple Story Gameplay – 9 Minutes Of Giant Sunflowers & Earthquakes
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Here Is When Disney Plus Goes Live For You And How To Get A Reminder
We’re just days away from the launch of the most-anticipated streaming service launch of the year. Disney+ is coming on November 12 to select countries, and we couldn’t be more excited. We now know the exact time the service arrives, and luckily, we can all get a good night’s sleep before watching The Mandalorian.
There are countdown clocks floating around. The official Disney+ site has one if you scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, and Marvel’s site as one as well. Over at StarWars.com, there’s a countdown clock right under the banner for The Mandalorian. And these clocks are all counting down to Tuesday, 9 AM ET.
Disney+ arrives in the US, Canada, and the Netherlands on November 12 and Australia and New Zealand on November 13–other European launch dates have been revealed, and it won’t arrive until Spring 2020. Depending on where you live in the world, the launch time differs because time zones totally exist. Here is when the streaming service arrives for the previously mentioned launch countries.
Disney+ launch times:
- 6 AM PT
- 7 AM MST
- 8 AM CT
- 9 AM ET
- 3 PM CET
- 1 AM AEDT (November 13)
- 3 AM NZDT (November 13)
There is plenty to watch on Disney+, including a ton of Disney cartoons you grew up with, like Gargoyles. There are some great ’80s movies you’ll want to watch all over again as well. And you’ll probably want to watch all the Marvel movies and TV shows arriving on Day One as well.
If you want a reminder for the launch date, Disney+’s Twitter account has a tweet set up where if you like it, it will remind you when the streaming service launches. That’s pretty handy if you’re bad at remembering this.
Once you like the tweet, you’ll get an instant reply, letting you know that you will be getting a reminder about the launch.
Yes, Disney Twitter bot, I will give you some of that aforementioned tassel. Prepare yourself, as I prepare myself to have a “sick day” from work next Tuesday. Disney+ launches on November 12.
Pokemon Sword And Shield’s Japanese Launch Event Is Cancelled
The Pokemon Company has cancelled the Japanese launch event for Pokemon Sword and Shield that was due to take place in Tokyo next week. Lead producer Junichi Masuda, and game director Shigeru Ohmori, were both scheduled to appear at the event.
In an apologetic statement, the Pokemon Company cited “operational reasons” for the event’s cancellation.
Both Masuda and Ohmori gave a round of interviews last month, with Sword and Shield’s controversial lack of a National Pokedex being a hot button topic. “There were a lot of discussions about which direction we should take that in,” Masuda explained in an interview with Eurogamer. “Ultimately we felt that, for the overall game, focusing on creating the richest experience we could within that game, leaving the Pokedex as we did was the best solution overall.”
The angry discourse surrounding the National Pokedex’s exclusion has hit a fever pitch this week as Sword and Shield leaks have begun to emerge, detailing which Pokemon would not be returning this time around. The topic has even been dubbed “#Dexit” by fans, in reference to the game’s UK-inspired setting.
There’s nothing suggesting fan anger led to the cancellation of Sword and Shield’s Japanese launch event, but it wouldn’t be the first time a scheduled event was called off due to potential threats. Square Enix was forced to cancel four Starwing Paradox tournaments earlier this year after several death threats were sent to the game’s management team. A man was also arrested by Tokyo police after threatening Square Enix with an arson attack, stating that he would repeat the Kyoto Animation tragedy.
Blizzard recently cancelled an Overwatch Switch launch event in New York City, too. No official reason was given for the abrupt cancellation, but it seemed to stem from backlash the company received due to the actions it took against Hearthstone player, blitzchung, after he voiced support for the ongoing Hong Kong protests.
Pokemon Sword and Shield launches on November 15 for Nintendo Switch.
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Cooler Master MM710 Review
There’s a gaming mouse war of the scales taking place right now. Glorious PC Gaming Race claims its 58 gram Model O is “the world’s lightest RGB gaming mouse,” but that apparently sounded like a challenge, because Cooler Master has decided to make the world’s lightest mouse by going old school. Dropping the RGB lighting, its MM710 (See it on Amazon) clocks in at just 53 grams. Do you need a mouse whose claim to fame is weighing about the same as 6,400 chicken feathers? Let’s find out.
Amazon’s Having a Huge Sale on Disney Funko Pops
There’s a Funko for anyone’s interests, and today’s Amazon Deal of the Day features a massive sale on all sort of different Funko Pop figures. There are figures on sale from Fortnite, Marvel, and Star Wars, but the vast majority of vinyl Pop figures on sale right now are Disney-themed (yes, I know, technically Marvel and Star Wars are Disney but you know what I mean).
Funko Pop Sale: Disney
There are quite a few Disney Funko Pops on sale today, and they tend to skew toward some of Disney’s more recent movies, but there are quite a few from The Nightmare Before Christmas. There’s even a Disney deep-cut, with a pair of figures from The Black Cauldron, which I’ve never even seen, nor do I know anyone who has.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses DLC Finally Lets You Play With Dogs
The third wave of DLC for Fire Emblem: Three Houses is now available, bringing new quests, fresh attire, a sauna and – critically – the ability to interact with animals.
Among the shakeups is the fact Anna is available for recruitment to those who complete a special quest. Meanwhile, the new sauna activity can be found at the Monastery, giving you the option to “add steam” and balance a heat bar.
Nintendo announced the news on Twitter, writing, “Conquer new quests, dress up with new outfits, sweat it out in the new sauna activity, and interact with animals in the Fire Emblem: Three Houses Expansion Pass Wave 3 DLC, available now.” Critically, it’s currently unknown whether “interacting” with animals involves petting.
Nintendo Is Publishing The Stretchers, A New Game from Little Nightmares Dev; And It’s Out Now
Surprise, surprise, Nintendo has stealth released a new game from Little Nightmares developer Tarsier. Called The Stretchers, this whimsical puzzler tasks you with ferrying patients to the hospital in a race against the clock.
The gameplay looks like a curious mix between Crazy Taxi and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, as you control two medics in charge of scooping up “dizzy” patients on a stretcher and navigating to an ambulance so you can dump them in the back and set off, crashing through fences, walls, and into other vehicles. Let’s just say they’re not the safest ambulance drivers.
The Stretchers is clearly designed with co-op in mind; the Switch’s two Joy-Con’s providing easy access to local multiplayer. But it can be played solo as well, which is where the Brothers vibes come from.
It hasn’t yet appeared on the US eShop, but The Stretchers is available now on the UK Nintendo Switch eShop for £17.99.