New trailer teases the talent Twisted Pixel’s launch title for Xbox One,LocoCycle, already stands out by way of its premise alone, in which an unfortunate mechanic is literally dragged into a conflict involving sentient motorcycles. Today, they’ve announced something which sounds almost as strange in the modern games industry. According to a post onthe game’s developer blog,LocoCycle,“makes use of extensive live action sequences,” in the telling of the story. Live action scenes have all but disappeared from videogames as rendering technology has improved and in-engine cutscenes became the norm, so this will probably helpLocoCycleto stand out even further....

Prepare yourself, commander XCOM 2is almost here!This handy ‘lil mapwill help you determine when you’ll be able to start sending your soldiers (that you named after your best buddies, youmonster) to their inevitable deaths. I think I’ve made that joke before, but that’s okay! Don’t fact check me, just pretend I am always original and great and amazing and things’ll work out much better between us. You probably want to know where our review is....

Get to know the people that make great videogames The week before last on Sup Holmes (now oniTunes) we were lucky to welcome Merritt Kopas to the program. Merritt is a multi-talented powerhouse, gifted atwriting,pixel-pushing,game design,public speaking, and the study of sociology. I got the sense that she didn’t necessarily see hard and fast barriers between those various pursuits. Game design, Poetry, Sociology — it’s all just systems. She’s expressing ideas about systems through systems....

ABZU creators return Publisher Annapurna Interactive has announced that lavish looking adventure titleThe Pathlesswill launch alongside PlayStation 5 hardware in November. It will also be available to purchase on PS4, PC via Epic Games Store, and on iOS via Apple Arcade. Developed byABZUcreators Giant Squid,The Pathlesswill allow players to explore a beautiful open-world environment, ranging from icy tundras and deep forests to dank caves and peaceful meadows. As “The Hunter,” players must travel this mythic universe on a quest to rid the land of an ever-growing corruption....

Also, Ride Armors Mega Man X‘s Vile has a long history of rocking a whiskey glass from an old manga storyline. It even made itinto his D-Arts figure rendition, and now it’s part of the ’66’ line. ’66’ is the name of Bandai Namco’s new figure initiative, which will be sold in the form of blind boxes, as well as a Ride Armor 2-pack. The former will run you 5,940 yen ($54....

As Nigel Thornberry would say, “smashing!” Nickelodeon is getting in on the platform fighting game genre with its animated cast of characters.Nickelodeon All-Star Brawlwas announced today for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch this fall, and it’s got a whole host of Nick stars ready to brawl. Revealed over atIGN,Nickelodeon All-Star Brawllooks like a platform fighter, or put a little more directly, aSuper Smash Bros.-alike. It definitely seems like there’s some knocking around of opponents, and the moves definitely have the sort of animations and attack style you’d expect from aSmash....

‘What Pikmin type digs the quickest?’ Last year, Nintendo rolled out a series of video quizzes. In June, it showcaseda “Can You Guess that Game” challenge, with fuzzy logos and characters slowly coming into focus: it’s still the best one! Then it went game-centric, deliveringaMario Kartquiz. Now it’sPikmin 3‘s turn. While it’s only three questions strong,Pikminis a pretty good choice for a quiz for multiple reasons. Chiefly, it’s not exactly a blowout title in terms of popularity, so fringe fans aren’t going to know all of its secrets....

Ghost’s lines re-recorded Prolific voice actor Nolan North (Uncharted‘s Nathan Drake) is becoming the Ghost inDestiny, reportsGame Informer. He’ll voice the AI companion inThe Taken Kingand, no joke, the original game too — the dialogue is being re-recorded for consistency. Talk about the nuclear option. “North echoes some of the cadences and quirks established by the character’s original voice actor, but his line delivery is hard to immediately connect to his familiar heroic tone,” according to the site....

Take a free look at theHaloseries The first episode of Paramount’sHaloseries premiered today. And if you’re waiting in the wings because you don’t have a Paramount+ sub, there’s some good news in the form of a free trial. TheHaloTV series is also releasing at a weekly cadence, rather than all at once. The first episode, “Contact,” premiered today. A new one will follow each week, through nine episodes. If you want to free trial the whole thing, well, you might be waiting until May....

Sleep dart counter at the ready, people Despite her impressive design,Overwatch’sair commander Pharah has been yet to feel much lovewhen it comes to figures and other merchandise. Fortunately, that’s all set to change next year, as Good Smile Co. has opened pre-orders on a Figma of the duty-bound hero. Standing 155mm in height, Pharah is featured proudly in her sturdy battle armour, complete with clear mount and the trademark Figma flexibility, allowing you to display Fareeha in all sorts of dynamic “mid-air” poses....

‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness’ Sometimes I just want to zone out with some synth music, bright colors, and pure gameplay.Super Hexagonworks well for that, but it is always nice to try something new.Project Jhas an interesting hook to it, where the light is navigating through a maze drawn with perspective, but leaving out any lines to get a good feel for it without moving the light source. Project Jis free to play with in-app purchases to remove ads, which is a bit of a turnoff, but from what little I have played already the ads are not too intrusive....

New trailer shows gameplay — finally! Quantum Break, Remedy Entertainment’s latest, is coming to Xbox One in 2015. A new video released this morning shows brand new gameplay. It feels like we’ve been waiting forever for some solid looks at gameplay, so this is great. What’s not as great is thatQuantum Breakwon’t be at E3. Instead, it’ll be revealed at Gamescom later this year. Destructoid will be there in Cologne, Germany this August to check it out in person....

Limited Run Games and Konamihave announcedthat the digital version of theRocket Knight Adventures: Re-Sparkedcollection will be releasing on Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC on June 11. Rocket Knight Adventures: Re-Sparkedcontains the three 16-bit games in theRocket Knightseries. This includes the originalRocket Knight Adventures, the GenesisSparkster(subtitledRocket Knight Adventures 2), and the SNESSparkster(not subtitled). To be clear, GenesisSparksterand SNESSparksterare two completely different games featuring the series’ protagonist. Of the included games, one of them is the very best Genesis/Mega Drive ever made, and the other two are games....