Games

After the disappointing performance of films like Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter, Sony has decided to halt production on all of its Spider-Man-related projects. This includes a Spider-Woman movie, which many believed had the potential to be a standout Marvel film, and was reportedly going to be directed by Olivia Wilde. With the project now canceled, the future of the character Jessica Drew remains uncertain.

In 1970, video games as we know them didn’t exist yet. Most games were shared between programmers as experiments or demonstrations. However, that year saw the creation of Chess 3.0, a computer version of chess that won the first U.S. Computer Chess Championship. The competition was unique: players moved pieces on physical chessboards, and operators entered those moves into a mainframe computer. Although not a commercial success or widely played, Chess 3.0 was an important step towards the computer chess games we have today.

This week, Square Enix announced that Nier: Automata has reached a significant milestone: 10 million copies sold worldwide. This is a remarkable achievement, as few action RPGs like Automata ever reach this level of success. The game’s prequel, Nier: Replicant ver.1.22474487139, has also performed well, selling 2 million copies.

Hogwarts Legacy takes place long before the Harry Potter stories, but it’s full of hidden references and details that enrich the wizarding world. Many of the game’s optional quests reveal interesting information about wizarding history. Recently, a player discovered a detail that explains the origins of the basilisk – the giant serpent from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The game might finally answer the question of how Hogwarts ended up with such a dangerous creature.

Many failed superhero projects, both before and after the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, weren’t failures of concept, but of execution. The core ideas and characters had potential to build something truly great, even a connected universe like Marvel Studios created. The problem wasn’t if a franchise could work, but how the story was told. With a better approach, any of these projects could have succeeded.

The original Crackdown was a successful game published by Microsoft for the Xbox 360, selling over 1.5 million copies in its first six months and winning several awards. This success led to Crackdown 2 in 2010, continuing the series. However, a sequel, Crackdown 3, faced significant development challenges and wasn’t released until 2019 on the Xbox One – almost ten years after Crackdown 2. Sadly, Crackdown 3 didn’t meet player expectations.

I’ve been watching a lot of anime lately, and it’s great to see so many favorites returning with new seasons – they’re really building on what made the originals so good. There’s one series reaching a really important turning point, and another that could easily become my pick for the best new anime of the year. I’ve put together a list of seven shows you absolutely shouldn’t miss right now.

PlayStation 5 owners can get the game Gotham Knights for only $7 on the PlayStation Store until February 26th. Developed by WB Games Montreal – the team behind 2013’s Batman: Arkham Origins – Gotham Knights launched in 2022 as a separate story from the Batman: Arkham series. It’s a standalone game and remains so four years later, but it was inspired by the Batman: Gotham Knights comic books.

Although the console is over five years old and benefited from some remaining holiday deals, it’s still remarkable that Sony’s system performed better than Nintendo’s brand new one, even if the difference wasn’t massive.

I’m working on my New Year’s goal to play twelve PlayStation 5 games that weren’t released on the PS4, and for February, I’ve chosen Deathloop, developed by Arkane Studios.