Last year changed the way many of us thought about software. It certainly changed the way I did. I spent much of 2025 building, probing, and questioning how to build software, and in many more ways what I want to do.
"I think one of my most-played games is Pokemon Pinball, but the idea to make a pinball game came from Mario... he came to me and say 'JP, I want to make a custom engine for Playdate and we should make a pinball game.'"
The Nexus features a 5.89-inch IPS screen with a resolution of 840×512, offering a wider 16:9 aspect ratio that enhances the gaming experience for classic titles.
As you can see, this cartridge has Hollywood Video stickers on it. Which is interesting. And I wasn't able to find any record of the competitions being done at Hollywood Video. The 1995 competition was a Blockbuster competition. A major competitor, or the major competitor of Hollywood Video.
Over the weekend, players were able to progress the ARG far enough to reveal new information about Cryo Archive, the "endgame" level of Bungie's sci-fi shooter that is set on the actual Marathon ship first featured in the original '90s trilogy of games. To hop into this yet-to-be-unlocked area, players will need to reach rank 25 and have "established connections" with all factions.
The emotional hit was something I didn't expect, although perhaps I should have. The Commodore 64 Ultimate, a new version of the legendary 8-bit computer, comes in a box designed to resemble the original packaging a photo of the machine itself on a background of deep blue fading into a series of white stripes. Then when you open it, you find an uncannily accurate replica of what fans lovingly referred to as the breadbox the chunky, sloped Commodore 64, in hues of brown and beige,
I had this idea, let's go out to a store and buy the cartridges, buy three or four of them. And indeed, despite Linden's technical wizardry, even he couldn't do anything about the underpowered hardware, and, as anyone who's played it can tell you, while the sheer existence of Doom on the SNES may be magical, playing it is anything but.
It's more fun to destroy something that doesn't look like it can be destroyed. It is more fun to destroy that which is beautiful. Levels needed lots of additional visual flourishes, ranging from patches of flowers and fauna to ornate rock formation and snaking, overgrown trees to make the destruction feel like the showstopper it was meant to be.
It's now an online sci-fi extraction shooter in which players beam down to the planet Tau Ceti IV to scavenge for loot, carry out missions and potentially blast each other in the process. Its closest rival is Arc Raiders, which makes a similar use of stylised retro-futurism.
Released in 1999, 70s-style Robot Anime Geppy-X is a sideways shoot-em-up about blasting mechanical space fiends. A competent enough shmup, what established as a cult classic in Japan was its lovingly-crafted send-ups of '70s anime, such as Getter Robo and. An ever escalating robo-opera divided between episodes, with mean robot bosses, increasingly absurd transformations and suffocatingly tight disco speedsuits.
For a lot of the games I've written about in the C:\ArsGames series, I've come to the conclusion that the games hold up pretty well, despite their age- Master of Orion II, Jill of the Jungle, and Wing Commander Privateer, for example. Each of those have flaws that show now more than ever, but I still had a blast revisiting each of them.
There were lots of good stuff in this week's Convergence Showcase too, including another peek at Mouse: P.I. for Hire as we get to see one of the game's bosses for the first time. This first-person shooter with rubber-hose animation is set to arrive on March 19. There were other welcome announcements for me in this showcase. First, there was a release date for the Zelda-inspired adventure Gecko Gods.
Returning to old games isn't always easy. Depending on how old the game is, you might run into various problems, including unusual controls or compatibility issues. Another common point of friction you might encounter is an older game running poorly. This can make it a slog to replay some of the modern classics, even if they're just a decade or so old. So I'm happy to see Ubisoft going back and updating performance in games like Far Cry Primal and Assassin's Creed Unity.
Vital Shell , fortunately, is less a monstrous example of scientific hubris and more a competent, top-down arena shooter that combines fantasy mechs with automatic battling mechanics and adds an aesthetic splash of PlayStation 1 visuals and ambient jungle music for good vibes. I spent a few rounds running the game through its paces after noticing its launch this morning and, folks, it's pretty dang fun.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Super Mario 64, a game that was designed to be a single-player showcase for the Nintendo 64. This title may not have been built with multiplayer in mind, but at this year's Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) charity livestream, players turned Super Mario 64 into a team sport as 70 different speedrunners joined forces for a single 70-star run through the game.
The Donkey Kong Country Returns HD free update is out today and adds Dixie Kong as a playable character along with her helicopter hair spin. It also adds a Turbo Attack mode which essentially turns every level into a speedrun challenge. Finally, a free Switch 2 upgrade will give the game better resolution, improved visuals, and faster load times. It'll also include support for GameShare so two players can play local coop on separate devices using only one copy of the game.
A new, detailed trailer for Mario Tennis Fever gives us a good look at the new elements introduced by the latest entry in the long-running series, and the emphasis here really seems to be whole new levels of way to mischievously cheat. I'm not a professional tennis referee, but I'm fairly sure it's frowned upon to set fire to the court, or spawn enormous enemies to distract your opponent.
They've never all appeared together at once, except on lists of video game legends. And, surely, in the dreams of some gamers. They would certainly make a peculiar group: a mustachioed plumber, a fearless archeologist, a lightning-fast hedgehog, a warrior and a princess, a monkey in a tie, a marsupial in jeans and a strange yellow rodent. Outlandish, to those unfamiliar with them. But for those who know of their existence, these creatures are global icons.
Games Done Quick, the biannual charity speedrunning event currently going on right now, not only helps organizations like the Prevent Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders - it helps indie games get noticed, too. Indie game developers face an incredible uphill battle not only getting their projects funded, completed, and launched, but discovered as well. Events like GDQ can be a boon to developers, exposing tens of thousands of viewers to little-known games like Bat to the Heavens, Small Saga, and more.
