Mortal Kombat 1 was announced today and looks to reboot the series entirely and was announced for a September 19th launch. It seems the Fire God Liu Kang is rebooting the Mortal Kombat-verse and whereas the game looks very Mortal Kombat-like they are promising a new re-visioning of the game.

"Mortal Kombat 1 ushers in a new era of the iconic franchise with a new fighting system, game modes, and fatalities!"

The trailed doesn't really get specific on any new game mechanics but I'm interested to know more about how they are bringing the series into a new era. I thought Mortal Kombat 11 was incredible and offered a really fun modernization on the game, frankly I'm not sure what more they could do but I'm open to a new "punch your friend in the face game" while we are hanging out together. One big part of Mortal Kombat 11 was the extra DLC characters such as the Terminator, Rambo and Joker. Hopefully this version of the game comes with quite a few memorable cross-over characters too! Hopefully Nintendo allows Pikachu and getting Eric Cruise from Mac and Me would be ideal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5le9sYdYkM

"This new expansion brings classic Age of Empires style and gameplay as a brand-new self-contained experience with all 16 original Age of Empires civilizations and the new Lac Viet civilization.

Conqueror your enemies through three new, fully-voiced campaigns, improved AI, and historically driven gameplay, all while unlocking new achievements on your Xbox or Steam account. Plus, get the bonus Romans civilization in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition!"

Microsoft released Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition which is a complete remaster to the original Age of Empires II with new visuals and a game core for modern PC's and 4K displays. It hit the scene in 2019 and Microsoft has continued to support it with updates, DLC and now with a new expansion Return of Rome. If I had my way Age of Empires would continue on indefinately and Microsoft seems to be doing that with a steady drip of Age of Empires II releases as well as as Age of Empires IV with seasons.

Mighty DOOM is the latest franchise shooter entry that dropped on iOS and Android phones as a free to play game. Even though I first played DOOM as Shareware sometime ago, this is the first DOOM game that I can think of that's a free to play mobile game. After blasting my way through the Demon Hordes in Mighty DOOM for a day I'm happy to say the game is a worth game that earns the DOOM name.

One of my fears with mobile free to play games is how annoying the gameplay will be to get you to pay money. I don't fault developers for doing what they need to do to pay rent, that said, I prefer buying games up front. That said, that's not how things often work on phones so free to play it is and Mighty DOOM is nice in that it doesn't seem like you need to pay for anything. Well, I could see a time where advancement might be so slow that paying makes sense, but I imagine i'll stop playing before that becomes a problem.

Mighty DOOM is a top down bullet hell shooter where you play through each stage one level at a time. I'd say Mighty DOOM feels more like a space shooter like Galaga than the traditional DOOM first person gameplay. That said, the bullet hell styled game play is on point and there is quite a bit of strategy you can employ in each stage to keep the gameplay fresh. There is a progression system by which you collect coins to upgrade your weapons and armor. Some weapons and armor have different abilities that can change your gameplay well worth experimenting with. For instance, if you want to stand back and shoot things from afar you should level up the rifle but if you want to get in close for more close quarters DOOM gameplay, you need to upgrade the shotgun.

So far, I've barely scratched the surface of Mighty DOOM and it's already a lot of fun. If past Bethesda mobile games like Fallout Shelter or Elder Scrolls: Blades are an example, Mighty DOOM should have a long life slaying demons ahead of it.

Bethesda released a video today letting us know the September 6th release of Starfield. This may be the only new game I'm interested in playing this year. Last year I made a goal to play more games than I buy, and as part of that have artificially limited myself to the purchase of three games all year long. So far I bought nothing, but Starfield may be it. That said, I still have a three month Game Pass subscription I have yet to activate, so either way, playing this game looks good.

Besides Skyrim in space, I really don't know much about what this game may be? I'm sure it's not "Skyrim in space" but Bethesda hasn't released a whole lot of details which they seem like they are going to start doing with a Starfield Direct on June 11th.

Curious who all will be playing this at launch? Let me know in the comments.

https://bethesda.net/en/game/starfield

I enjoy great remakes of classic games I love. In 1997 GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64 was the first shooter some played and for many, the first taste they had of how incredible multi-player gaming can be. I had many get togethers with friends over GoldenEye and remembered how badly I got wrecked by the people that actually had a Nintendo 64. Even though I wasn't very good, GoldenEye was incredible and recently Microsoft announced that they were remaking it for Switch and XBox and it dropped some time ago. If you purchased the digital copy of the Rare Replay Collection you'd get it free otherwise you can buy it or it seems to be included in your Switch Online subscription. Luckily I got the Rare Replay Collection cheap on sale some time ago, so I was able to download GoldenEye to my XBox.

Bottom line it, it's a good remake but falls short of being great. It brings back the game you love with a modern control scheme, 16x9 graphics and 30 fps gameplay. But it doesn't do a lot more and I feel like when you compare this to Night Dive Studios remakes like Quake or the Blizzard StarCraft remake some time ago, this seems barebones. I don't mind a spartan re-release and this is the classic game, but a few more touches would have been nice, like glowing up some of the graphics a bit.

Still, the single player game is just like you remember and the split screen multi-player on XBox brings back the nostalgia and offers a fun alternative to the fast paced modern shooters of today. If you have fondness for this classic or want to check out an important entry in gaming history, you need to play this.

Metal Jesus dropped a video recently where someone asked him what his top played Switch games were. It's an interesting question as it's not a best of or favorites list, it's just the top games you've played on the system. I was curious what my top Switch games were and I suppose it's not too surprising:

1. Link's Awakening Remake: 30 hours or more


2. Diablo III: Eternal Collection: 25 hours or more


3. Super Mario Maker 2: 20 hours or more


4. Fortnite: 20 hours or more


5. Minecraft: 15 hours or more


6. Minecraft Dungeons: 15 hours or more


7. New Super Mario Bros Wii U Deluxe: 15 hours or more


8. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: 10 hours or more


9. Shredder's Revenge: 5 hours or more


10. Super Mario 3D World + Bowsers Fury: 5 hours or more

Let me know what your list is in the comments!

Mighty DOOM is an all new top down mobile DOOM game coming to iOS and Android March 21st. Frankly, shooter games that are translated to mobile using tap to aim controls always feel a bit wonky to me. I appreciate that Mighty DOOM looks to change up the traditional shooter gameplay and feature a top down sort of bullet hell approach using a more animated style of graphics. As with all mobile games, the devil will be slayed in the details of how the free to play aspect will work. I imagine this won't be a pay for mobile game and in some way we will be buying skins or using some kind of currency to purchase timer unlocks. Either way, it's awesome Bethesda is continuing to release DOOM games and I'm really curious to play this one and see how it goes.

What do you think of the Mighty DOOM trailer? Let me know in the comments.

Right now, my 6 year old son and I are re-watching the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon bit by bit. The show starts incredibly strong with a first season that is basically a mini-series origin story that is way better than it has any right to be. After that, season 2 keeps incredibly strong and now I'm in season 3 which is where the shows writing, animation and such starts to really wane. It's a great show still, but the quality has backed off considerably and even many of the original voices of the Turtles change from episode to episode. This original cartoon show was the base for how we look at the Ninja Turtles now and nearly all the games in the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection pack of classic Turtles games.

The Cowabunga Collection features 13 classic Turtles games but for the sake of this review, I've only really focused on two games. The original Ninja Turtles arcade game and the Capcom NES Ninja Turtles game. To me, both are retro classics and the NES game being hard as hell and the arcade game being of the best brawlers of all time that served as the base for last years Shredders Revenge.

Firstly, the presentation of the Cowabunga Collection is top notch. Each game is easy to flip through on the main menu, I just wish the game had the system the game was from listed with the game. For instance, there are two versions of Turtles in Time for the Arcade and SNES. I get that the 4 player version is the Arcade version but a tag saying that could help clean up any confusion.

The emulation used is perfect and I noticed no input delay or lag when I played the game. In playing the original Capcom Ninja Turtles NES game, the emulation keeps the original NES lag when they are too many enemies on the screen and they also offer an option to hack the game to fix all of that. That said, the games feel perfect and that's not something we can always get with these re-releases.

I picked up the Cowabunga Collection on Switch and X-Box and so far I've only played it on Switch and it's damn near perfection. Getting these classic games collected all in one place is really awesome if you want to re-live these with friends and don't have 50 bucks in quarters and a local arcade handy. Now if they just release all the old Simpsons games on one pack, including the Arcade game I think I'll be all set.

After the jingle of the bells quiets down the fresh new year is upon us. As part of the glow of the new year I always think a bit about the previous year. As part of that, it's fun to consider what things I enjoyed that bubbled to the top of the rest and since lists are fun, here we go. It's not a top 20 gaming list(as in I don't have 20 things), not sure I played that many games but a list of all the stuff I enjoyed in the book, movie, music and game space.

Feel free to drop your lists in the comments.

Andor: It seems Star Wars life is now lived as a series of Disney+ TV shows. Most of them have been fine, some have been pretty good (Obi-Wan) but one show punched out to be incredible and Andor is the show. It's a very emotional show and the way it highlights the grey area in how rebellions in space can be born is superb. If any show makes Tie fighters and Storm Troopers menacing, it deserves high praise and Andor does just that.

Storm of Swords (Audiobook): Game of Thrones is a massive cultural empire right now and I started in 2022 listening to the Audiobooks. I'm currently listening through book 3 - Storm of Swords and I finally understand why everyone is nutty for Game of Thrones. I've never seen the shows, so I can't comment, but the books as read by Roy Dotrice are next level incredible. The series starts our creating a good character in Ned Stark and shows you immediately that good people don't win with high minded and lofty morality.

FutureNever: I'm a reasonable Silverchair fan so I decided to give Daniel John's new album FutureNever a spin and I love it. I feels thematically like a later album Silverchair follow up that marches on to newer territory while looking back more than a couple times.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Season 13: They are officially off Netflix and hosting themselves on The Gizmoplex and I can say this is the strongest reboot season they've done yet. Doctor Mordrid, Santo and the Lost Treasure of Dracula, Munchie & The Christmas Dragon make this season one of the most eclectic mix of films yet and their riffs make them sublime. After The Christmas Dragon series finale they confirmed Season 14 and I can't wait. The idea they had to spread out the episodes and livestream them each month to fans as we chat and watch them together was an inspired choice. It turned each episode into an event and I can't wait for next years slate of incredible movie riffing!

Marvel Snap: A free to play card game that doesn't require money to win? Holy shit kids sign me up! Ever since it launched I've been playing it daily and I see no signs of slowing. I've unlocked all the base cards and the game is a bit slower to grant me new cards but I'm still having all the fun. The nice thing about free to play games are they are easy to bounce off of and this one in particular as I won't lose anything and they don't have any silly "all your cards will expire on X date for the new card set" limitations. I was initially sad the core Hearthstone developers left to do this but after playing it I honestly wish they left sooner.

Fortnite: You know, this game isn't new but I play it regularly and it's still fun and I think it's worth noting. Another free to play game that doesn't require money to win and I'm still here for it years later. Earlier this month Fortnite upgraded on my XBox with the new engine and it looks incredible on my Series X. It's fun these live games can make serous updates and don't lose any of the performance and move forward well into the future. Love you Fortnite.

Retro Game Scene: Quake, Diablo II, Doom Limited Run Games Release: I think this is more of a shotgun entry in that there were a ton of retro game re-releases that I loved. Night Dive remastered Quake which was one of the best, if not the best re-release of all time. Blizzard dropped Diablo II and I thought was was incredible and it might be on par with Quake but I felt Quake is a bit higher in that they kept the original pixel art relatively untouched and Diablo II went a fully other direction artistically.

Doom got an incredible box release with Limited Run Games and I stupidly didn't get the top of the line box which I'm still kicking myself about. I didn't think it would matter to hear the Doom music, but when my friend Will showed it to me in person I realized I made a mistake. I have a good version but my box no makey the music.... oh the woe, the misery!

Shredders Revenge: A new Turtles beat-em up that is incredible? It came and it kicks shell! For a beat-em up it's pretty lengthy but that didn't stop folks from complaining anyway (the original arcade games were shorter kids!). If the developers previous beat-em ups are an example, they will release a DLC pack that should add new content and I'm very curious what that would be? Either way, what we got is in my opinion an instant classic and something I'll always come back to with friends.

Cowabunga dude!

Risk of Rain Kickstarted back in 2013 and at the time I called it "An Interesting New Platformer" and since then Risk of Rain became on of the most popular Indie Rogue-likes and got a sequel that was published by Gearbox. Since then the Risk of Rain devs have sold the IP to Gearbox and have recently dropped the news that Risk of Rain is getting a re-build / re-master / re-release.

"Carefully designed, beautifully remastered, and loaded with new ways to play—Risk of Rain is back and better than ever! This remake of the classic Risk of Rain packs enhanced visuals, an updated codebase, and tons of new content.

No two runs in the iconic roguelike are the same, and that has never been truer. Risk of Rain Returns brings new and enhanced Survivors, customizable Survivor abilities, fresh items, monsters, and a brand-new game mode. The game’s difficulty increases the longer you play, so prepare to fight through hordes of monsters that threaten your continued existence, collect and combine items to enhance your abilities, and scale your power to godlike levels. "

Firstly, this isn't an update to your existing game, this will be an entirely new game. I appreciate this as it means the original game you love should be untouched and you should be able to go back to it and play it as you remember. I think this is important because some folks may not love a remastered game or some might want to go back in time to play what the game was before. Either way, we're more than a fresh coat of pain on Risk of Rain and I'm here for it.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/632360/view/3501014738163460155