Nintendo has announced the latest installment of the Mario Party series. Super Mario Party Jamboree is a brand-new entry in the franchise, but it’s looking as if the general thrust of play remains mostly intact, with a few notable additions.
The reveal trailer shows Mario and friends descending on a small archipelago of islands that make up a massive resort. Across the many boards, players can encounter 110 different minigames.
Jamboree includes five new boards – Mega Wiggler’s Tree Party, King Bowser’s Keep, Roll ‘em Raceway, Goomba Lagoon, and Rainbow Galleria – plus returning boards from earlier games, including Mario’s Rainbow Castle (From Mario Party) and Western Land (from Mario Party 2). We got to see a bit of how the board games play out in a couple of these locales. Roll ‘em Raceway includes a turbo dice item that allows player Karts to zip forward up to 40 spaces with a good roll. In Goomba Lagoon, a changing tide adjusts the path across the board.
The most surprising addition is the new Koopathlon game mode, which allows up to 20 players to jump in together online. The early gameplay on offer here calls to mind other online party titles like Fall Guys.
Nintendo is touting Jamboree as the largest game in the series. We’ll see how true that is when the game launches for Switch on October 17.
In addition to the critically acclaimed Street Fighter 6, which arrived last year, Capcom has been mining its fighting game history with various collections. While collections focusing on series like Street Fighter and Darkstalkers have proven popular, today’s announcement might be the most anticipated collection Capcom can put out, as it is bringing back seven of its beloved Marvel-focused games in one package.
Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is a bundle headlined by the iconic Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, but six other titles join the collection, dating back to 1994’s X-Men: Children of the Atom. The full collection includes X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, and side-scrolling beat-’em-up The Punisher.
Every fighting game in the collection features online play, including ranked, casual, and lobby matches with rollback netcode plus global high-score leaderboards, plus a training mode and spectator mode. The collection also includes a music jukebox, in-game museum, display filters, and more.
Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics arrives physically and digitally on PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC later this year.
In The Hundred Line you are Takumi Sumino, a student who is suddenly enrolled at the The Last Defense Academy when an outbreak of monsters threatens his life and the lives of his fellow students. Takumi is part of a group of students at the school who must defend it against monsters in grid-based strategy encounters for 100 days. The academy is apparently very secretive and you will lose classmates over the course of the game, which is not surprising considering this game is from the creators of the Danganronpa series. In the Danganronpa games, the mortality of nearly every character is always on the line.
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The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is coming to Nintendo Switch in 2025.
We recently learned about five Mega Man games arriving on Nintendo Switch Online’s Game Boy catalog, but Nintendo has recently focused an increasing amount of its catalog efforts on more obscure titles or those that never came to the West. With many of the most classic titles already on Nintendo Switch Online’s various catalogs, the output has decreased significantly. However, during today’s Nintendo Direct, four of the most requested games were announced for release today.
Metroid: Zero Mission, the excellent Game Boy Advance remake of the original Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Four Swords, the Game Boy Advance remake of the classic SNES title but with a separate co-op campaign, come to Nintendo Switch Online’s Game Boy Advance catalog. On top of that, Nintendo announced the Nintendo 64 catalog is getting two M-rated entries: Perfect Dark, the GoldenEye 007 spiritual successor from developer Rare, and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter.
As a reminder, the NES, SNES, and Game Boy libraries are included in the base Nintendo Switch Online subscription, while Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, and Sega Genesis catalogs require you to upgrade to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription. As such, to access all of the games announced and released today, you’ll need to subscribe to that premium membership. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Four Swords and Metroid: Zero Mission join the Game Boy Advance library today, while Perfect Dark and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter join the Nintendo 64 catalog today.
Hot off the Boston Celtics’ NBA Finals victory last night, we learned of a new way we can step onto the court this summer. Nintendo Switch Sports, the successor to the overwhelmingly popular Wii Sports series, arrived in 2022. While the initial offerings lacked depth and sometimes left us craving more than the base game was able to deliver, Nintendo has stuck with the title and has improved the offerings through free updates. A few months after launch, the title added golf at no additional charge, and during today’s Nintendo Direct, we learned that another free update is coming to the game this summer to add basketball to the mix.
Nintendo Switch Sports’ implementation of basketball uses motion controls to dribble, pass, and shoot. You can participate in two-on-two matches locally, or compete in Five-Streak Battle matches and Three-Point Contests. You can also take part in a solo Three-Point Challenge, where you need to make as many baskets as you can before time expires.
Nintendo Switch Sports’ basketball free update arrives this summer. For more on Nintendo Switch Sports, be sure to read our review of the base game here.
If you subscribe to the digital edition of Game Informer, you can now learn all about our trip to BioWare for Dragon Age: The Veilguard! Following the cover reveal our digital issue is now live on web browsers, iPad/iPhone, and Android devices.
Alongside our 12-page Dragon Age: The Veilguard cover story, you will also find big features on our trip to Warsaw, Poland to play The Alters, a deep dive on SFB Games the creators of Snipperclips and Crow Country, a look back at Silent Hill with with the developers it has inspired, a feature about how Sony and Microsoft created its specialty accessible controllers, reporting from Summer Game Fest, and lots more! We’ve also got previews for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Black Myth Wukong, Star Wars Outlaws, Undermine 2, Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, and reviews for Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, XDefiant, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Crow Country, Minishoot’ Adventures, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, and much more!
If you love print as much as we do, you can subscribe to the physical magazine:
You get 10 issues for $19.91, or two years and 20 issues for $34.99. Individual issues are also now available for purchase at this link or in any GameStop store.
Metal Slug Attack actually began as a mobile tower defense game for iOS and Android devices many years ago, but today, as part of Nintendo’s Summer Direct presentation, it was revealed the game is getting “reloaded” for just about every platform. Also, of note, this game is not to be confused with the other tactical Metal Slug game, Metal Slug Tactics. You can learn more about that game here.
Join Kyle Hilliard and Brian Shea for a look at some early gameplay from the game and learn why it is scratching their Plants vs. Zombies itch.
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Head over to Game Informer’s YouTube channel for more previews, reviews, and discussions of new and upcoming games. Watch other episodes of New Gameplay Todayright here.
As long as we apply data science to society, we should remember that our data may have flaws, biases, and absences. That is one motif of MIT Associate Professor Catherine D’Ignazio’s new book, “Counting Feminicide,” published this spring by the MIT Press. In it, D’Ignazio explores the world of Latin American activists who began using media accounts and other sources to tabulate how many women had been killed in their countries as the result of gender-based violence — and found that their own numbers differed greatly from official statistics.
Some of these activists have become prominent public figures, and others less so, but all of them have produced work providing lessons about collecting data, sharing it, and applying data to projects supporting human liberty and dignity. Now, their stories are reaching a new audience thanks to D’Ignazio, an associate professor of urban science and planning in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and director of MIT’s Data and Feminism Lab. She is also hosting an ongoing, transnational book club about the work. MIT News spoke with D’Ignazio about the new book and how activists are expanding the traditional practice of data science.
Q: What is your book about?
A: Three things. It’s a book that documents the rise of data activism as a really interesting form of citizen data science. Increasingly, because of the availability of data and tools, gathering and doing your own data analysis is a growing form of social activism. We characterize it in the book as a citizenship practice. People are using data to make knowledge claims and put political demands out there for their institutions to respond to.
Another takeaway is that from observing data activists, there are ways they approach data science that are very different from how it’s usually taught. Among other things, when undertaking work about inequality and violence, there’s a connection with the rows of data. It’s about memorializing people who have been lost. Mainstream data scientists can learn a lot from this.
The third thing is about feminicide itself and missing information. The main reason people start collecting data about feminicide is because their institutions aren’t doing it. This includes our institutions here in the United States. We’re talking about violence against women that the state is neglecting to count, classify, or take action on. So, activists step into these gaps and do this to the best of their ability, and they have been quite effective. The media will go to the activists, who end up becoming authorities on feminicide.
Q: Can you elaborate on the differences between the practices of these data activists and more standard data science?
A: One difference is what I’ll call the intimacy and proximity to the rows of the data set. In conventional data science, when you’re analyzing data, typically you’re not also the data collector. However these activists and groups are involved across the entire pipeline. As a result, there’s a connection and humanization to each line of the data set. For example, there is a school nurse in Texas who runs the site Women Count USA, and she will spend many hours trying to find photographs of victims of feminicide, which represents unusual care paid to each row of a dataset.
Another point is the sophistication that the data activists have around what their data represent and what the biases are in the data. In mainstream AI and data science, we’re still having conversations where people seem surprised that there is bias in datasets. But I was impressed with the critical sophistication with which the activists approached their data. They gather information from the media and are familiar with the biases media have, and are aware their data is not comprehensive but is still useful. We can hold those two things together. It’s often more comprehensive data than what the institutions themselves have or will release to the public.
Q: You did not just chronicle the work of activists, but engaged with them as well, and report about that in the book. What did you work on with them?
A: One big component in the book is the participatory technology development that we engaged in with the activists, and one chapter is a case study of our work with activists to co-design machine learning and AI technology that supports their work. Our team was brainstorming about a system for the activists that would automatically find cases, verify them, and put them right in the database. Interestingly, the activists pushed back on that. They did not want full automation. They felt being, in effect, witnesses is an important part of the work. The emotional burden is an important part of the work and very central to it, too. That’s not something I might always expect to hear from data scientists.
Keeping the human in the loop also means the human makes the final decision over whether a specific item constitutes feminicide or not. Handling it like that aligns with the fact that there are multiple definitions of feminicide, which is a complicated thing from a computational perspective. The proliferation of definitions about what counts as feminicide is a reflection of the fact that this is an ongoing global, transnational conversation. Feminicide has been codified in many laws, especially in Latin American countries, but none of those single laws is definitive. And no single activist definition is definitive. People are creating this together, through dialogue and struggle, so any computational system has to be designed with that understanding of the democratic process in mind.
For years, fans of the Legend of Zelda have clamored for the titular princess to star in her own game, but even as she’s become a more prominent character in recent entries, the Zelda-led Zelda game has yet to appear on store shelves. In today’s Nintendo Direct, that wish was finally granted; in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, it’s up to Princess Zelda to save Hyrule when Link is captured.
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While the game takes its art style from 2019’s Link’s Awakening remake, this title is not a remake of any kind, and there’s no clear indication that it is connected to Link’s Awakening. In this adventure, Zelda uses a new magic item called the Tri Rod to journey across Hyrule. The Tri Rod can create “echoes” of items, like tables, beds, or boxes, to climb and explore the overworld and its dungeons, but it doesn’t stop there. Echoes of water blocks can be used to swim up and over certain obstacles, while trampolines allow players to easily leap across gaps.
Throughout the gameplay demonstration, Series producer Eiji Aonuma explains that players can also make echoes of enemies, and that these enemies can be used in combat on your side. Zelda captures a moblin to fight some slimes, then uses meat to lure in some bird enemies and summons a deku baba to snap them up. Aonuma goes on to say that there are so many echoes in the game and that he hasn’t even counted them all – we’ll have to learn what the limits of echoes are, if any, some other time.
As the trailer continues we get more glimpses into who Zelda will be interacting with throughout the game, and it includes two kinds of Zoras, some Deku shrubs, a Sheikah person (potentially Impa) and the Great Deku Tree. It also features some 2D platforming and underwater sections, as well as Zelda using birds and plants with helicopter-like leaves to glide.
The game launches alongside a golden Hyrule-themed Switch lite, which you can view in the gallery of images above. Luckily, you won’t have to wait long for either of them: the handheld and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom will be available later this year, on September 26.
If you’re at all familiar with the Dragon Age series, you likely already know BioWare has experimented quite a lot with its gameplay. From Dragon Age: Origins’ real-time strategy RPG approach to Dragon Age II’s mostly-set-within-one-city action experience to Dragon Age: Inquisition’s strategy-action mix, BioWare hasn’t quite defined the franchise’s combat. However, a through-line is apparent from Origins to Inquisition: BioWare seemingly wants this franchise to be action but has attempted to shift to that without abandoning its longtime fans.
With Dragon Age: The Veilguard, BioWare has completed its transition from strategy to real-time action, but thanks to an optional tactical pause-and-play combat wheel that harkens back to the series’ origins, I feel it’s found a great (battle)ground for Dragon Age combat. Of course, it’s hard to tell how Veilguard’s action will hold up over what is sure to be a dozens-of-hours-long RPG, but if what I’ve seen so far is any indication, the studio is on to something.
A Shift In Strategy
“I think the first thing to keep in mind is that combat […] in the franchise has been an evolution,” game director Corinne Busche tells me within BioWare’s Edmonton office. “Every single entry reimagines what combat is like and I would say our goal was to make sure we had a system that allowed players to feel like they actually were able to step into the world of Thedas. They’re not a player observing from afar – they are inside of this world. Being this authentic world that’s brought to life, the combat system needs to support that, so you are in control of every single action, every block, every dodge, every swing of your sword.”
Busche says players complete every swing in real-time, with particular attention paid to animation swing-through and canceling. On the topic of canceling, I watch Busche “bookmark” combos with a quick dash. With this mechanic, players can pause a combo’s status with a dash to safety and continue the combo where they left off afterward. Alongside the dash, there’s a parry for some classes, the ability to charge moves, and a revamped healing system that allows players to quickly use potions by pressing right on the d-pad.
Busche says each character will play the same in a way, regardless of class, in that you execute light and heavy attacks with the same buttons, use abilities with the same buttons, and interact with the combo wheel in the same way. During my demo at one point, we use a sword-and-shield Warrior Qunari that hip-fires and aims their shield to throw it like Captain America while hammering down big damage with a sword. Pressing the same buttons as a mage might throw out magical ranged attacks instead of a shield.
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Abilities, like a Spartan-like kick from a Warrior or a Mage’s firewall that deals continuous damage, add to the player’s repertoire of combat options. Warriors can parry incoming attacks, staggering enemies in the process. Rogues have a larger parry window, and Mages can’t parry at all but instead throw up a shield that blocks all incoming damage so long as they have the mana to sustain the shield.
“That is just the baseline that allows us to get that level of immersion of, ‘I’m actually in this world; I’m a part of it,'” Busche says. “But again, the abilities, the strategy, linking my companions’ abilities together to perform devastating combos, that is really where the depth and the complexity comes into play.”
Abilities And The Skill Tree
Warrior Rook Skill Tree
This extends to companions, who, at your choosing, bring three abilities (of their five total) into combat, executed either with quick select buttons or the pause-and-play combat wheel. Every time you rank up a companion’s Relationship Level, you unlock a skill point to spend specifically on that companion – this is how you unlock new combat abilities.
Though companion skill trees pale in comparison to Rook’s expansive tree, which features passive abilities, combat abilities, and more, as well as paths to three unique class specializations, there’s still some customization here.
You can find the skill tree for Rook and companions within Veilguard’s start or pause menu. This menu contains pages for Veilguard’s map, journal, character sheets, and a library for lore information, too. Here, you can cross-compare equipment and equip new gear for Rook and companions, build weapon loadouts, and customize your abilities and builds via the aforementioned skill tree, which looks relatively easy to understand.
You won’t find minutiae here, “just real numbers,” Busche says. In other words, a new unlocked trait might increase damage by 25% against armor, but that’s as in-depth as the numbers get. Passive abilities unlock jump attacks and guarantee critical hit opportunities, while abilities add moves like firewall and spartan kicks to your arsenal. As you spec out this skill tree, which is 100% bespoke to each class, you’ll work closer to unlocking a specialization (which doesn’t take reaching the max level of 50). Every class has three specializations, each with a unique ultimate ability. Busche says BioWare’s philosophy with the skill tree is “about changing the way you play, not the statistical minutiae.”
Companions In Combat
If you completely ignore companions in combat, they will attack targets, use abilities, and defeat enemies all on their own. “[Companions] are their own people, “Busche says. “They have their own behaviors, they have their own autonomy on the battlefield, they’ll pick their own targets. As their plots progress, they’ll learn how to use their abilities more competently, and it really feels like you’re fighting alongside these realized characters in battle.”
Speaking to companion synergy, Busche adds, “I see all the abilities Harding has, and I see everything that Bellara is capable of. And sometimes, I’m using vulnerabilities synergistically. Maybe I’m pausing or slowing time with Bellara so that I can unleash devastating attacks with Harding, knocking down the enemy, and then me, as Rook, I’m rushing in and capitalizing on this setup they’ve created for me. It is a game about creating this organic sense of teamwork.”
Busche says there are more explicit synergies, with intentional combos where specific companions can play off each other, and you can queue up their abilities to do just that. That’s what the pause-and-play combat wheel is for in Veilguard.
In this screen, which pauses the camera and pulls up a flashy combat wheel that highlights you and your companions’ skills, you can choose abilities, queue them up, and strategize with synergies and combos the game recognizes, all while targeting specific enemies. Select what you want and release the wheel to watch your selections play out.
Putting It All Together
During a mission within Arlathan Forest after Veilguard’s prologue, Busche utilizes Veilguard’s dual-loadout mechanic. As Rook, you can create two weapon loadouts for quick switch-ups mid-combat. As a mage Rook, she uses magical attacks to add three stacks of arcane build-up to make an Arcane Bomb on a Sentinel, a mechanical set of armor possessed by a demon. If you hit the Sentinel’s Arcane Bomb with a heavy attack, the enemy will take devastating damage. Once the Sentinel has an Arcane Bomb on it, Busche begins charging a heavy attack on her magical staff, then switches to magical daggers in Rook’s second loadout, accessed with a quick tap of down on the d-pad to unleash some quick light attacks, then back to the staff to finish charging its attack. She then unleashes the heavy attack, and the Arcane Bomb explodes in a liquidy whirl of green magic.
“I’ve seen [Veilguard’s combat] refined over time [and] I love it,” BioWare general manager Gary McKay tells me. “I love that balance of real-time fluid action, but also the ability to have the depth in the RPG, not just in terms of pause-and-play, but the depth in terms of how you bring your companions into the battlefield. What are you going to do with their skill points? What’s the loadout you’re going to use? Everything is about bringing Rook to the center of the battlefield, and I love it.”
Former Dragon Age executive producer and Veilguard consultant Mark Darrah feels Veilguard is the first game where the combat is legitimately fun. “What I see in Veilguard is a game that finally bridges the gap,” he says. “Uncharitably, previous Dragon Age games got to the realm of ‘combat wasn’t too bad.’ In this game, the combat’s actually fun, but it does keep that thread that’s always been there. You have the focus on Rook, on your character, but still have that control and character coming into the combat experience from the other people in your party.”
I get the sense from watching Busche play several hours of Veilguard that BioWare has designed a combat system that relies heavily on players extracting what they want out of it. If you want to button mash and use abilities freely when their cooldowns expire, you can probably progress fine (although on the game’s easier difficulties). But if you want to strategize your combos, take advantage of elemental vulnerabilities, and min-max companions and Rook loadouts, you can do that, too, and I think you’ll find Veilguard rewards that with a more enriching experience.
For more about the game, including exclusive details, interviews, video features, and more, click the Dragon Age: The Veilguard hub button below.
