Category: Entertainment & Lifestyle

Friday marked the official release of physical Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection copies to the public, and to commemorate, PlayStation has rolled out a special interview video with three of the project’s key developers: Marvel Games’ Brian Marquez (Product Development) and Capcom’s Shuhei Matsumoto (Producer) and Hiroyuki Nara (Designer).

The trio offer commentary on a breadth of topics concerning the nostalgic bundle, but hone in on one particular character to tell the tale of how challenging he was for Capcom’s staff to animate. It’s a good thing they took the time to figure out the right approach, as this character would wind up being one of their most iconic.

Designer Nara spearheads this subject of the interview as he recalls some of the unique struggles the Capcom animation team faced when creating Marvel character Venom.

This Spider-Man adversary is one of the most beloved characters in the comic book world as he retains many of Spidey’s powers, but does so via the use of a symbiote alien that engulfs muscular host Eddie Brock in what amounts to a suit.

This suit lives and breathes right along with Eddie, and while much of their movements are in unison, there are plenty of animations that see the pair detach in partial ways. When Venom takes damage, for example, the suit often wigs out as if being shocked or trying to temporarily detach from its host.

On top of this, Venom has a trademark white spider logo across his chest and back, and Nara recalls how difficult it was for the team to illustrate and then animate this in a way where it wouldn’t look distorted. Of the many characters that would be in the Versus series, Venom took special attention from the entire team.

“At the time, a lof people on the development floor had a Venom action figure on their desks,” he explains. “…So everyone knew the figure and understood what we had to aim for. That made things stressful when it came to create the character,” said Nara.

There’s a bit more to the Venom story, and plenty more as the developers answer questions for a full 10 minutes in the full video below. Give it a watch and let us know if you’re enjoying the Marvel vs. Capcom: Fighting Collection now that it’s out for both physical and digital release.

Tons of new content hit Mortal Kombat this week, and while the bulk of the news is surely the addition of new DLC guest Ghostface, NetherRealm Studios has also added new threads for Ermac, Rain, Frost, and Sareena.

The latter two Kameo characters received some festive “Winter” attire while the two main roster ninjas got their very own pair of Mortal Kombat 1995 film-style costumes. Continue on to see images of all costumes and all color variations thanks to efforts by MK Warehouse and LlLOTTY.

Frost looks as though she’s tossed a handful of Christmas-themed accessories on her person. She dons a Santa-like hood, Christmas lights, and a few ornaments along with some knee-high striped socks.

Sareena goes with the a similar theme, but puts on a hat instead of a hood. She looks a little more like a Christmas killer than her cold counterpart, but that might have something to do with the dead look in her eyes and the blades she’s carrying.

Rain really doesn’t look much like he did to begin with, one of the many palette swap ninjas of Mortal Kombat 3, but that doesn’t mean he can’t go back to his roots every so often.

He and Ermac both have MK 95′ style skins, which are admittedly on the plainer side of things, but still look extremely sharp. Neither of these characters were in MK 95, though both did pop up in its sequel: MK Annihilation.

Each Mortal Kombat 2 costume is priced at 500 Dragon Krystals, which equates to $5 USD apiece.

Check out all costumes and colors here, then let us know what you think and which you like best in the comments.

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If haven’t already seen them, we also have all colors for Kitana, Mileena, and Tanya’s new classic Mortal Kombat 2 skins (you know, the ones without the back windows).

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate features 86 playable characters, the largest roster in the series. This is mostly due to its “Everyone Is Here” theme that made it so that every character that had ever been playable in a previous entry was guaranteed a slot in this game.

As it turns out, Masahiro Sakurai has been working on a secret game project since April 2022. He apparently finished the proposal for the game at “lightning speed” back in July 2021 while he was still overseeing the development of Kazuya Mishima and Sora as the final DLC challengers for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

For now, details about this secret game project are scarce. One of the leading theories right now suggests that Sakurai is already working on the next entry in the Super Smash Bros. franchise.

Sakurai himself believes in the possibility that there will probably be another Smash entry someday. This follow up could either continue expanding Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s massive roster via the “deluxe edition” route, or ultimately design a Smash with a smaller cast.

Either way, there will probably be newcomers added to the series since that makes up a big part of what Smash is all about. As such, Sakurai may end up returning to some scrapped ideas in a future entry.

For example, Sakurai has apparently wanted Geno as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. for years, but has never been able to make it a reality. With the recent release of Super Mario RPG on the Switch, the remake of Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars on the Super Nintendo, Geno’s chances feel like they may be higher than ever before.

Rumors suggest that Sakurai was considering James Bond from GoldenEye 007 — Nintendo 64 game based off the movie that was released back in 1997 — for Super Smash Bros. Melee. Indeed, GoldenEye was such a hit on the Nintendo 64 that it was a possibility that fans were truly hopeful about.

At one point, Sakurai was asked about whether or not James Bond could be playable in Melee via a fan email. Sakurai cited “adult matters” as to why the character couldn’t be included.

More specifically, James Bond was prohibited from being playable in Melee due to his usage of realistic weapons, Pierce Brosnan’s portrait rights, movie rights, and the fact that Microsoft had recently bought Rare around that time.

Since then, many have interpreted Sakurai’s comments to mean that he had actually considered James Bond as a playable character at one point. However, it’s more likely that Sakurai was simply informing the fan that those “adult matters” made James Bond’s inclusion impossible right from the get-go.

Regardless, it is interesting to note that there is actually GoldenEye content within Super Smash Bros. 64 with the Proximity Mine item. In the Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. Melee, the Proximity Mine was redesigned to better resemble the mine in Perfect Dark, with the game of origin in international releases listed as being “TOP SECRET.”

Of course, it’s also worth mentioning that the idea of including James Bond would violate at least one of the rules that Sakurai has come up with specifically for including third party characters. For these characters to be added to Smash, they have to be iconic, have to originate from a game, and had to have appeared on a Nintendo console at least once before.

Similar to how James Bond was prohibited due to his usage of realistic weapons, Snake from the Metal Gear series was limited to using explosives. Utilizing GoldenEye 007 as source material would’ve made developing a moveset for James Bond particularly difficult considering that it’s a first-person shooter type game.

Overall, it doesn’t seem particularly likely that Sakurai would’ve included James Bond as a playable character even if these “adult matters” weren’t issues that needed to be resolved. Indeed, Sakurai has been adamant that a character like Dragon Ball’s Goku would never be playable in Smash due to his origins not being tied to video games.

Still, the concept of James Bond in Smash might’ve been interesting. If he was playable in Super Smash Bros. Melee, Sakurai would’ve had to figure out a way to have him return in Smash Ultimate, otherwise its “Everyone Is Here” theme would be for naught.

This likely would’ve been an impossible task, so maybe it’s for the best that it didn’t happen.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics first launched back in September, but the MvC fun does not stop there. You see, the game only released in digital form a couple of months ago, and tomorrow fans will be able to pick up a physical copy of the highly renowned compilation of classic fighting games as well.

Yes, Marvel vs. Capcom fans are particularly excited about this release as securing a physical version means no company can ever take away your copy of legendary titles such as Marvel vs. Capcom 2 ever again. Those who pre-ordered the physical edition are receiving a special comic book as a bonus, and the series’ official Twitter account released a slick new animation for this comic book to honor it and the game’s release tomorrow.

Just yesterday we got our first glimpse at the insides of this special Marvel vs. Capcom-themed comic book. Capcom officially shared a handful of images featuring preview panels from the comic that showcase the likes of Ryu, Wolverine, Captain America, Psylocke, Mega Man, Dr. Doom, and more all slugging it out in a heated battle.

The company followed that up today with another tweet this time including a video that essentially animates some of the scenes from the comic book itself.

“When two worlds collide, their heroes must work together to face a hidden threat. ” wrote the official Marvel vs. Capcom Twitter account. “The physical version of #MvCFightingCollection comes out tomorrow on November 22!”

The animation sees Ryu firing off a Shoryuken and Captain America blocking it with his shield, Ruby Heart and Wolverine clashing, and even Iron Man and Morrigan firing lasers at each other. This comic book’s cover was illustrated by Marvel artist Todd Nauck and will contain 32 pages in total.

When two worlds collide, their heroes must work together to face a hidden threat.

The physical version of #MvCFightingCollection comes out tomorrow on November 22! pic.twitter.com/IIQhfcpbql

— Marvel vs. Capcom (@marvelvscapcom) November 21, 2024

This special comic book is an exclusive item for those who pre-ordered the physical copies of the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection on PlayStation 4 or Nintendo Switch. The PC version, naturally, is staying as a digital download only, and Xbox won’t be seeing the release of the game until 2025 where it’s not confirmed just yet if we’ll be seeing strictly digital or a physical release as well.

Sega recently mentioned that a new Virtua Fighter game was in the works and it looks like they weren’t fibbing. Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. has officially been announced and is special in that this marks Virtua Fighter 5’s debut on Steam.

A new trailer has been released that features a look at the opening cinematic of the upcoming title. As you might expect based on the game’s name, this is another updated version of Virtua Fighter 5 that introduces several important changes including the implementation of rollback netcode.

“Step into the ring with Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O.,” reads the game’s official description from Sega. “Based on Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown, Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. gives players an optimized gaming experience in their quest to become the world’s greatest fighter.”

Sega boasts several improvements being made to this version of the game, which includes the aforementioned rollback netcode, as well as up to 60fps/4K support.

In addition to this, we’ll also be seeing another round of balance changes made here in Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O.

Check out the trailer below.

In some ways, DLC practices in gaming have felt like the wild West. The relatively new approach of releasing and then expanding a game (sometimes by multiple factors once all is said and done) has naturally come with potholes as developers have faced little regulation when it comes to transparency and promptness of promised content.

Such happenings have naturally frustrated not only players when they occur, but also Valve-owned gaming platform: Steam. Steam has just rolled out some new rules and regulations concerning Season Pass DLC content, which essentially holds developers feet a bit closer to the fire as they’ll now be required to deliver more effectively on their promises.

Moving forward, developers will have to list exactly what’s being included in their Season Passes on Steam and relative time frames said content will be dropping at if it does not release all at once.

“By offering a Season Pass, you are promising future content,” reads the post. “In the process of launching a Season Pass you will be asked to commit to a launch timing for each content release in the Season Pass. That launch timing is a commitment to both customers and Steam.”

“If you aren’t ready to clearly communicate about the content included in each DLC AND when each DLC will be ready for launch, you shouldn’t offer a Season Pass on Steam,” concludes the statement.

Indeed, across a few instances now the fighting game community has expressed frustration at being prompted to purchase post-launch content without even knowing what it fully entails, and we’ve seen developers like Capcom learn this lesson a few years back.

Bandai Namco, on the other hand, used an approach that asked Tekken 8 fans to pre-purchase the first four DLC characters without knowing who they’d be by folding the Year 1 Character Pass into deluxe editions of the game. It should still be noted that Tekken 8 players do have the option to wait and buy each of these four characters for $7.99 apiece as they release.

Since reading through pages of regulations intended for developers can get a little dry, we’ve rounded up Steam’s new season pass guidelines so you can get an idea of what to expect moving forward:

Delays or cancellations in DLC release schedules are also getting further regulation as Valve is requiring developers to take relatively quick remedial action or reimburse players.

“We understand that game development doesn’t always go as planned,” says Steam. “If you think you aren’t going to be able to release a DLC into the Season Pass by the quarter you promised, we allow you to self-reschedule the release date one time only during the Season Pass. You can pick a new date up to 3 months later than you originally selected. If you cancel a DLC in a Season Pass, customers will be offered a refund for the value of unreleased DLC.”

There’s a lot more to the post as Valve gets ahead of likely questions and other important details for developers. Let us know in the comments below what you think of this clearly customer-centric move by Valve, and if you think any major fighting game developers will be updating their DLC policies in the near future as a result.

Thanks to Vinny Aguiar for sending this our way.

Tekken 8 launched with 32 characters and, as per the usual practice these days, Bandai Namco is regularly adding more as DLC. Fans of the long-running franchise have been taking to social media to inquire about who might be coming down the pike in the future, and in a few instances, director Katsuhiro Harada has been gracious enough to respond.

One X user recently asked about Eliza, a vampiric character first made playable back in 2017 via Tekken 7 DLC. Harada deems her a personal favorite, but didn’t have very promising things to say for those hoping to see her again soon.

“She is a slightly unusual character among those I have created so far,” he starts. “She was my favorite character too, but the battle tuning staff had a lot of trouble with her in Tekken 7. Changing her stats even a little bit would make her too strong or too weak, so she was very difficult to tune, and she was also disliked by some tournament players, so she was a character that was hard to make worthwhile,” said Harada.

Indeed, Eliza proved to be a very unique avatar for players accustomed to Tekken otherwise. On top of requiring relatively high execution to use effectively, she also had the rare ability of mid-battle flight, and could strategize around regaining health a la sucking foes’ blood.

While many loved playing as the seductive fighter, perhaps even more hated fighting against her. Developers gave her slightly smaller hurtboxes than most of her roster mates, meaning certain combos and sequences would not work on her despite working on the rest of the cast.

She was also part of the “2D menace” triad, as guest fighters from two-dimensional fighting games (namely Akuma from Street Fighter and Geese Howard from Fatal Fury) brought with them unique mechanics and abilities that gave them clear advantages over their 3D-native counterparts.

Eliza had a special meter and was capable of unique cancels in Tekken 7, and the fact that she was put in a group with the extremely polarizing Akuma did her no favors.

At the end of the day, though, what Harada is saying is understandable. Characters who differ too greatly from the rest of the pack are almost always destined to start playing their own game, in a sense, and can quite easily either float directly to the top or sink directly to the bottom of the pack.

Unlike Geese and Akuma, Eliza is a Tekken native. It’s one thing for a guest from another property to make a single appearance, but will Eliza have to take another 600 year nap before we see her again?

Below you can read the full X post from Harada, and we’d love to hear your opinion on whether you’d like to see Eliza return to Tekken or not. Was she too difficult to play and too different from the rest of the pack, or does the sleepy vampire just need a few tweaks to play nice?

She is a slightly unusual character among those I have created so far.
She was my favorite character too, but the battle tuning staff had a lot of trouble with her in TEKKEN 7.
Changing her stats even a little bit would make her too strong or too weak, so she was very difficult… https://t.co/XfUR57MZ0u

— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) November 19, 2024

Mortal Kombat 1 has seen its latest DLC character released via early access this week. None other than classic slasher icon Ghostface from the Scream movie franchise is now a fully playable main roster fighter in Mortal Kombat, and so far, the people seem to love them.

Despite all of the love and attention NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros. Games undoubtedly put into creating this character for the game, fans haven’t failed to notice that there appears to be have been a major missed opportunity here. None of Ghostface’s customizable gear pieces seem to give him the legendary “WAZZUP” mask from the Scary Movie series, but much like it always plays out, PC modders have got it covered.

Now, for those of you born after the ’90s (sheesh, I’m old…), you might be wondering what I’m even talking about here. To explain this whole thing, we have to take it back to about 1999 to 2000.

In 1999, a Budweiser beer commercial aired during that year’s Super Bowl that featured a group of friends who were essentially chillin’ and watching the game, some of them at their own houses. One friend calls the other on the phone to ask what he’s up to before a third friend walks into one of the rooms and yells out, “WASSSSUUUPP!”

The guys continue to say what’s up to each other in increasingly exaggerated ways until the word basically becomes “WAZZZZZAAAAAA,” and it culminates in several friends all on the phone together saying it to each other.

This commercial became massively popular and was being spoofed all over the place, including in the 2000 hit comedy film Scary Movie made by the Wayans Brothers. In it, the Ghostface killer (who was also extremely popular at the time) used his trademark phone call tactic to call one of the characters in the film, and instead of intimidation things quickly devolve into a spoof of the “WAZZUP” commercial.

Scary Movie also became massively popular at the time, and the mask featuring Ghostface sticking his tongue out and saying the catch phrase became another recognizable fixture for the slasher — even though it didn’t technically hail from the Scream movie series at all.

Which brings us back to today. Now that Ghostface is in Mortal Kombat 1, many fans were expecting NetherRealm to put the cherry on top and make the WAZZUP face one of Ghostface’s actual wearable custom gear items. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case, and it makes sense as adding something from Scary Movie likely would require other rights and legalities be put in order than that of the ones from the Scream series, which probably ultimately wasn’t worth it just for a single joke mask.

That being said, this PC mod does what the developers don’t, and some crafty fans have already gone in and added the legendary goofy face to Mortal Kombat 1.

There are a handful of mods going around right now, but the one we stumbled across comes from the mind of DazzyAllen. With it, the mod replaces any of the actual Ghostface masks in the game that you want.

When equipped, all three of the Ghostfaces get the mask change, and it looks pretty darn close to the source material.

Rights and legal boundaries aside, I can’t help but feel as though NRS and WB really missed a big opportunity here by not putting the mask in the actual game, though, there still might be some secret Brutality or some instance of it being in there that we just haven’t found yet.

You can check out some images of the mod below, and be sure to scroll further to see it in action complete with the appropriate audio added.

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ladies and gentlemen… dewey pic.twitter.com/KPlpso2Ab5

— DIBZ (@DaIslandBoyz) November 20, 2024

That headline almost fits perfectly for a Family Guy cutaway gag, but it also happens to be FGC news as Deven Mack and Jonathan Langdon, the current voice actors for Sonic the Hedgehog and Barney the Dinosaur, respectively, commentated the top eight of a Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament in Toronto.

Both actors are Canadian and were apparently in the area during the most recent Toronto Melee event. Tournament organizers were sure to seize on the opportunity to put these professionals behind the mics for the tournament finals.

We’ve included a few snippets of their commentary as Mack and Langdon use their practiced articulation skills to cover the action. They seem to go in and out of their characters at times, which is especially noticeable as Langdon adopts Barney’s big bubbly delivery at one point:

The voice actors of Sonic the Hedgehog and Barney the Dinosaur attended a Toronto Melee tournament today and commentated Top 8 pic.twitter.com/uIC016qCk6

— DarkGenex (@DarkGenex) November 20, 2024

We are getting commentary by Barney & Sonic.@jlangdon17@DevenOClock pic.twitter.com/V9Qdx8dz1w

— Toronto Melee (@toronto_melee) November 20, 2024

Before you ask, no, Mack is not the actor behind Sonic in Smash Ultimate, (that’s Roger Craig Smith, if you were wondering).

Mack lends his pipes to the speedy blue hedgehog in Sonic Prime, an ongoing Netflix series that began back in 2022.

If that Barney in the banner is a tad unfamiliar to you, you’re not alone. Langdon is the latest actor to voice the big, purple dino as he’s on the new Barney’s World show, which started in October of 2024.

You can watch the full top eight play out via the Toronto Melee Twitch VOD if you’d like to see and hear more.

Content creator King Jae has released a new tier list for version 1.09 of Tekken 8. Within this tier list, the top 11 characters have been properly ordered.

Similar to what we’ve seen from other tier lists, King Jae’s tier list has Dragunov, Yoshimitsu, Nina, Jin, and Alisa labeled as the best characters in the game. Dragunov is consistently being viewed as the overall best character in Tekken 8.

Law, Shaheen, Feng, Lili, Xiaoyu, and King can be found in the second highest tier category. This implies that these characters are also viable at the tournament level.

Eddie Gordo and Heihachi Mishima, two of the three DLC fighters released so far, appear to be about equal in the A tier group. However, Lidia Sobieska seems to be the weakest of the bunch as she’s been positioned in the category below Eddie and Heihachi’s.

At the very least, Lidia has avoided being positioned in the lowest tier group. This suggests that she’s at least better than three other characters in Tekken 8.

According to King Jae, the worst characters right now are Panda, Lars, and Raven. It’s also interesting to note that Kuma is two tier categories above Panda despite them being very similar due to Kuma having access to the Electric Wind God Fist.

Check it all out below:

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