The Nintendo Switch released three years ago on March 3 2017, and has proven extremely popular since. The system's birthday isn't being treated with too much fanfare, though--there's a new system update available, but it doesn't add a whole lot.Update 9.2.0 is available now, and will download next time you try to use the Nintendo Eshop or other online services. It can also be downloaded manually from the System Update option in the System Settings menu. Here's what has changed, according to the update notes: "General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience."Nintendo tends to release several such updates for the Nintendo Switch each year--don't expect any major new features when you turn on your Switch next and see that the system's ready for an update.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Months after its initial release, Nintendo's free-to-play Mario Kart Tour for mobile finally has a release date for its multiplayer. Currently you can add friends but not race them, and the multiplayer option in the menu is greyed out.This will all change on March 8, when multiplayer arrives to the game. Mario Kart Tour will be introducing multiple levels of competitiveness, with different ways to race against other people and up to eight players per race.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

There's an air of familiarity to Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem. It's an action role-playing game with heavy inspiration from Diablo and Path of Exile, from their high-fantasy gothic settings to their destiny-bound protagonists and plethora of abilities to dabble in. Wolcen wears its influences on its sleeve, and while it makes changes to their established foundations, it stumbles so many times along the way that it just feels lost by the end of it.Wolcen's opening obscures some of its more novel ideas, with a stale and predictable narrative that makes it feel generic. You play as one of three siblings born and bred for battle, but cast out from the only family you know when an unknown power awakens within you. It's a plot filled to the brim with exposition, riddled with vaguely explained fantasy jargon and worldbuilding that never clicks into place. It's easy to forget about entirely after the first few hours, with only the stilted dialogue and awkward cutscenes reminding you of the uninteresting events dressing Wolcen's main draw.The setting, however, doesn't fall prey to the same oppressive medieval look. Gloomy caverns and bright, colorful forests are equally impressive backdrops for the equally outstanding visual details buried within them. The variation across Wolcen's three acts is impressive too, as it whisks you between the opulent, gold-laden halls of an ancient sacred ground to the blood-drenched trenches of a chaotic battlefield.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

There isn't a lot of room for newcomers in the fighting game genre. Veteran franchises like Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, and Guilty Gear have dominated the space for years, so the new challengers that do choose to step into the ring usually have the backing of a popular license. Granblue Fantasy Versus is just that kind of rookie fighter; it's based on a property that's incredibly popular in Japan thanks to a successful mobile gacha (virtual capsule-toy vending machine) game with RPG hooks, but relatively unknown everywhere else. Versus is, for all intents and purposes, Granblue Fantasy's debut on the world stage.Developed by Arc System Works--known for excellent fighting game adaptations of Dragon Ball Z and Persona 4--Granblue Fantasy Versus has a strong core thanks to unorthodox gameplay mechanics that delicately balance depth with approachability, while introducing interesting new ideas of its own. The extra flourishes that serve as a nod to fans or aim to adhere to RPG roots whiff on occasion, but the experience as a whole holds its own thanks to the strength of its fundamentals.ArcSys has made strides in improving the approachability of its anime fighters more with simpler inputs and easier-to-understand systems, but for Granblue Fantasy Versus, it has moved away from the breakneck pace, air-dashing-oriented, aggressive playstyle of anime fighters to something more traditional. As a ground-based fighting game, Versus has a much slower pace of play and places heavier focus on normals and special moves instead of partner assists and lengthy touch-of-death combos. In that respect, it can be likened more closely to Capcom fighting games such as Street Fighter. The emphasis is on timing and spacing your attacks properly to create opportunities for follow-ups or set up situations where you have an advantage, but not necessarily an almost guaranteed victory. At a higher level, it's about footsies, precisely executed mixups, smart use of the universal overhead, and the occasional frame trap. For newcomers--of which there's likely to be many, given the popularity of Granblue Fantasy--it's much more stable ground to find footing. Fighting game veterans will naturally have an advantage, but for everyone else, the mountain doesn't seem as steep to climb, so the idea of walking the path to mastery is much more inviting.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The auto-battler revolution of 2019 saw a flurry of activity from publishers as they tried to take advantage of the latest craze: Dota 2 Auto Chess. A custom game mod built using Dota 2 itself, Auto Chess was another product of the endless iteration found in the custom map modding scene--Dota was born out of a Warcraft 3 custom map, which iterated on a StarCraft custom map, and Auto Chess itself iterated on a separate Warcraft 3 map, and so on. A year later, Valve's free-to-play interpretation of Auto Chess is one of the few left standing, and for good reason: Dota Underlords is a thrilling game that promotes layered strategy, mental acuity, and the rush that comes with beating overwhelming odds, making it a continually diverse and compelling experience.Unlike Dota 2, Dota Underlords is a straightforward game. You can easily think of it like a deck builder or drafting game with multiple economies--Dominion, Ascension, or the Legendary series are some good touchstones. Facing off against seven other people, you have to build a team from a selection of heroes presented to you, and that team will then fight in head-to-head battles with others over a series of rounds until only one player remains. Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Saw and Insidious writer Leigh Whannell's newest horror movie, The Invisible Man, started strong with a $29 million USD opening weekend in North America. That makes it easily the No. 1 movie of the weekend in the US and Canada, pushing Sonic the Hedgehog down off its top spot for the first time since its debut.Sonic made $16 million to finish second, while Harrison Ford's The Call of the Wild came in third with $13.2 million, according to box office roundup by Entertainment Weekly. The Invisible Man had a budget of around $7 million, so things are looking good for the movie's profitability.The Invisible Man is a reboot of the H.G. Wells story that was first adapted into a movie in 1933. The new film stars Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss as a survivor of abuse who believes her dead boyfriend came back to life to haunt her as an ... invisible man.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Trackmania is returning with a remake of Trackmania Nations, the free-to-play sequel from 2006. The new game, announced during the Trackmania Grand League Finals in Lyon, France, will include a season campaign and will operate as a live service game, rotating which tracks are available each day.The Trackmania series is built around wild track designs, with plenty of loops, corkscrews, and jumps, as well as the ability for players to create and distribute their own tracks. The Trackmania Nations remake will include new blocks and surfaces to build with.Ubisoft has published an interview with Florent Castelnerac, the managing director at developer Ubisoft Nadeo, where he delves into the project further. He says that the series has lost some of its simplicity over time, and he would "like to combine depth, beauty, and lightness" for this new release. "I think it is what people expect from modernity: to be powerful yet simple," he says.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The Call of Duty franchise has lost one of its most veteran developers who helped create the fan-favorite Zombies mode. Jason Blundell, a 13-year veteran of Treyarch, said in a statement that he enjoyed working at the studio over the past decade-plus, and he was particularly happy and excited about his contributions to the Zombies mode."[The Zombies team is] comprised of some of the most creative and talented developers in the industry, many of whom you never see because they're behind the scenes shaping the direction of each experience," Blundell said.Blundell also thanked the Zombies community directly, saying he appreciates their "passion, enthusiasm, and frankly, your craziness."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Diablo III is still going strong nearly eight years after release, with Season 20 set to begin on March 13, and players on PC, Switch, PS4, and Xbox One will be able to experience it. The new season will be known as the Season of the Forbidden Archives, and will have a lore focus on Kanai's Cube, as well as "the equally celebrated and reviled Horadrim, Zoltun Kulle," who will help you tap into some tremendous powers.During Season 20, you'll be able to equip three additional Legendary powers into the slots of Kanai's Cube, with no category restrictions for what you can do. You'll be able to mix and match between Weapon, Armor, and Jewlry powers, meaning you could have, for instance, three Weapon powers if you wanted to.The seasonal cosmetic rewards will be the same ones that players got their hands on back in Season 8, many years ago. They're pictured below.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

A whole new month has arrived, and March has so much to play that this episode of New Releases is highlighting six games instead of the normal five. March has Nioh 2 for action junkies, MLB The Show 20 for sports fans, and Doom Eternal for those of you with an itchy trigger finger. If you're looking for something more chill, there's also Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX and Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Nintendo Switch. Finally, Xbox One and PC players can get their Metroidvania fix with Ori and the Will of the Wisps.Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX -- March 6Available on: SwitchRemember Red and Blue Rescue Team on the Game Boy Advance? Well this Switch re-release includes everything in those dungeon crawlers, coated in a new watercolor-like art style. It also adds Mega Evolutions introduced in Pokémon X and Y. An Eshop demo is available now if you wanna try it out without spending your hard-earned money.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The Suicide Squad has finished filming ahead of its release in 2021, director James Gunn has announced. The director announced the news in a Instagram post where he also shared some tragic personal news. Gunn shared that his father passed away weeks before filming began and his dog died just before the end of filming."It was a hard, hard time in my life and yet the most fulfilling time I’ve ever had making a movie," he said. "The professionalism, talent, compassion and kindness of this cast and crew inspired me every day. Thanks to everyone involved in this film, in every stage of development, in every department--I am grateful from the bottom of my heart for you all. You are why I make movies." View this post on InstagramAnd that’s a wrap on #TheSuicideSquad. My father died two weeks before we started filming and my dog died two weeks before the end. It was a hard, hard time in my life and yet the most fulfilling time I’ve ever had making a movie. The professionalism, talent, compassion and kindness of this cast and crew inspired me every day. Thanks to everyone involved in this film, in every stage of development, in every department - I am grateful from the bottom of my heart for you all. You are why I make movies. ❤️A post shared by James Gunn (@jamesgunn) on Feb 28, 2020 at 3:46pm PST Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive first released in 2012, but in 2020 it's had more players than ever. The game, which hit a peak player count of 901,000 in February 2020, has now gone even further. As reported by PCGamesN, tracking site Steamcharts recorded a peak player figure of 924,045 on Sunday, March 1.Steam's own figures put it even higher--the 24 hour peak count, as of right now, is at 925,990.The game went free-to-play in December 2018, which seems to have led to a steady growth for the title. The rise of streaming, esports, and the fact that the game receives regular patches and updates have also all contributed to its growth.The IEM Katowice esports tournament over the weekend of February 28-March 1 likely boosted the game's player numbers, too--the CS:GO tournament had a $500,000 prize pool.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

As Diablo III’s Season 20 draws closer, Patch 2.6.8 is adding some much requested balances, bug fixes and new items for PC and console players alike.This season, Barbarian, Witch Doctor and Wizard players will see a shake up with brand new class sets, designed to boost play styles and skills most popular with the player community.The full patch notes explain the changes in detail, with a number of minor bug fixes and balancing updates, but the most interesting additions are the new class sets. After promising a new set for each class after Patch 2.6.7, this update adds three.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

It's a big week for Call of Duty: Mobile, as the game's newest season has begun, ushering in a new Battle Pass, along with a new map and character.Starting with the new character, John "Soap" MacTavish has been added to the game, and the only way to get him is through the new battle pass, which is called "Rise of Soap." There is also a new scorestreak called H.I.V.E. This streak grants players a weapon that shoots proximity mines that, when triggered, release a bunch of "nano drones" that kill enemies in the area.A new #CODMobile season has BEGUN! New Battle Pass, new objectives and of course...📦 NEW GEAR! 📦 pic.twitter.com/z1q7DNLhga — Call of Duty: Mobile (@PlayCODMobile) March 1, 2020The new multiplayer map is called Cage, and it's available now in all ranked modes. The close-quarters map is noteworthy because it's the first map in Call of Duty Mobile that was made specifically for the game. The rest are borrowed from the console/PC games.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

One of the most delightful parts of Rian Johnson’s black comedy Knives Out--aside from Chris Evans’ sweater--was Daniel Craig’s famous investigator Benoit Blanc, and his over-the-top Southern accent. A new interview with director Rian Johnson has revealed that casting happened only due to serendipitous circumstances with Craig’s role as James Bond.In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Johnson revealed new details about the making of Knives Out. The quirky murder mystery was made on an unusually quick turnaround--Johnson said he started writing in January 2018, had a first draft by mid-year, a more finalized draft to send out by September, and then signed Daniel Craig on and started shooting within six weeks.While Daniel Craig was top of the list to play Blanc, it almost didn’t work out with the English actor’s Bond commitments. Johnson said he purposefully didn’t write Blanc with any one actor in mind, just in case scheduling clashes made the casting impossible. However, Johnson says that “the Bond movie pushed like, three months” at just the right time, freeing up Craig for shooting on Knives Out.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com