The reviews are pouring in, and Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is a couple of days out. I personally am still in love with Streets of Rage 4, so it's safe to say that with Lizardcube behind the ninjitsu, the game looks good, and if it's anywhere close to the demo, it's going to be a good time. 

On August 29th you will be able to play the whole thing on Playstation 4/5, Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, Steam, and whatever you're calling an Xbox nowadays. The launch trailer is below, with a little something I came up with before we even knew a Shinobi game was coming. I'm hoping Sega loves it. 

I had a chance to play a half-hour demo for Deadpool VR, the new superhero action game coming to Meta Quest 3 and 3S on November 18th. I played on Quest 3, and found the game to be ludicrously intuitive and smooth to play. It's clear that developers at Twisted Pixel and Oculus Studios have been polishing this thing up to a brilliant sheen; Deadpool feels poised to join Iron Man and Batman in the top tier of VR superheroes.

Sorry, homies, you gotta click through to see the trailer. Age gating...what can you do?

This is one of those smart VR games that returns your gear to its holster whenever you drop it or throw it away, so you can easily reach behind your back to grab your katanas whenever a baddie gets too close (or you get bored and wanna chop some dude down the middle). Enemies also drop their weapons when you take them down, and they hover in the air for a few moments, allowing you to grab them for a quick combo. 

Toward the end of the demo, Deadpool gets access to a grapple gun, which allowed me to grapple all over a room while spraying guys below me with an endless hail of lead. The mechanic reminded me of the VR hijinks you can pull off in Sairento VR, combining double jumps, wall runs, and grappling to completely stymie your foes and take them down before they know what happened. It's a total hoot.

I can't say enough about Neil Patrick Harris' voice work. The developers absolutely picked the right guy to step into the red and black jumpsuit for this game, as Harris has the comedic chops to carry the endless prattling of Deadpool in a way that will soon have you forgetting other actors you've seen (and heard) in the role. Harris can deliver the sarcasm, references, and dirty non-sequiturs with the best of them. 

My time with the demo has be very jazzed to play the full game. From the trailer, it seems that there will be a lot more to Deadpool VR than just storming a SHEILD installation and chopping up a bunch of faceless bad guys (not that it wasn't fun). The game seems to be delivering the perfect combo of chaos, hilarity, and violence, and I'm absolutely excited to see what surprises the final game has in store when it hits late this fall.

You can wishlist Deadpool VR here. 

Streumon Studio, makers of Space Hulk: Deathwing and Necromunda: Hired Guns are cooking up something diabolically special with their next release, Daimon Blades. Streumon launched it’s first title, E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy back in 2011, and is returning to the same universe with Daimon Blades – though with a very different take.

Whereas E.Y.E. was something of a cyberpunk 4-player action game, Daimon Blades is going full dark fantasy. We got an early hands-off look at Daimon Blades, and in action, the game looks quite a lot like certain incarnations of DOOM, but with knights and swords instead of DOOM Guy and guns. Daimon Blades looks as though it plays fast – like, really fast – with players dashing all over the map, carving through demons with gushes of blood spraying in every direction.

Daimon Blades is retaining E.Y.E.’s 4-player structure, but it’s important to note that solo players can play the whole game offline if they wish. Solo or with friends, players queue up for expeditions from the small hub base into…well…hell, maybe? There is a roguelike structure in place, which allows teams to become more powerful during each run, while gathering loot and materials to bring back to the hub for more permanent progression. If you don’t find the right gear during a run, the crafting mechanics might get you where you want to be. Players can create weapons, skins, amulets, and rings.

Streumon is purposely leaving progression open-ended; players can create any sort of character they wish through upgrades and gear changes. There are no classes, and when I asked them if I might be able to create a healer, the answer was “Sure, probably.” You can horde your gear, and change focus as needed by swapping out your stuff.

Players can expect to die a lot in Daimon Blades, but dying isn’t necessarily the end of your run. Your magic weapons (the Daimon Blades, get it?) will resurrect you, but each time that happens, a “corruption” meter fills a bit more. If you allow it to fill all the way, it’s game over for real, and you lose a lot of your loot. But reach the dungeon’s end and you are queueing back up for another run, with the benefit of whatever goodies you escaped with.

I’m gonna be honest here – I didn’t think Daimon Blades would be my jam. I tend to prefer a slower pace in games, and ripping around a dungeon slashing dudes isn’t always my idea of a good time. But after seeing Daimon Blades in action, I gotta say, this game looks freaking bonkers, and I’m probably more excited to play it than any other game this fall. Keep an eye on this one, y’all. Just not too close, as those Daimon Blades might poke your eye right out.

Daimon Blades is scheduled to release on Steam Early Access on September 3.

During last Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 race at Daytona, iRacing Studios revealed the cover stars for NASCAR 25. Gracing this year’s key art will be back-to-back Daytona 500 champion, William Byron, reigning NASCAR All-Star Race champion, Christopher Bell, and 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion, Ryan Blaney. You can see the new cover art featuring all three drivers below.

The iRacing team also dropped the official soundtrack for NASCAR 25, and the biggest news is that the track list will include Molly Hatchet’s “Flirtin’ With Disaster”. They nailed that one. It’s a big-name soundtrack too, featuring artists such as System of a Down, Chevelle, Breaking Benjamin, Jelly Roll, and Killer Mike, among others.

NASCAR 25 launches October 14^th for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with a Steam release taking a P3 position at some point in the future.

As you probably already know by now, I was a part of NBA2k26 Community Day, courtesy of 2K/Visual Concepts. With it came a couple of interviews, and some in depth gameplay for this year's iteration of the game. The footage only contains a little bit of a WNBA game, and an NBA game, but there's more to come. 

To be honest about it, I did think the game moved a little smoother, and looked better. I had to get my rhythm shooting back into play, but once I did, I was off and away. This footage contains my filthy casual gameplay, and a little hint of what's to come. We attended a Golden State Valkyries game, and I must say, the W may have made a new fan out of me. 

For now, take a look at this, and look for more footage and details as we get ready for the release of NBA2K26. Early access starts on August 29th.  

For those of you who don't know, Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection already has their pre-orders up. We got an exclusive look at the Mortal Kombat Trilogy and we had quite the conversation with Stephen Frost from Digital Eclipse. He told me that he had more surprises for the game, and at Gamescom, they announced Mortal Kombat Mythologies, and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces. The video interview was admittingly not my best work, and is therefore omitted from this article. 

Unusual Suspect of the Games N Moorer family Q The Gift, put his own legacy on the line against another conglomerate. Kenny from YO! Videogames took part in Atari's challenge a Kreator, and needless to say, Q got absolutely Mortal Kombat Annihilated.  It was a deadly alliance, but ultimately, it was a trilogy of losses. He got beat by me, and then by me again, off camera. 

I'm sorry to waste such internet space, but here's the video from Vegas. At least he got a commemorative pin for his performance. He did beat me at Invincible VS, but you know...FRIENDSHIP!

I had no idea how badly I was missing out when I slept on StunForge and HypeTrain Digital's Nordhold when it initially released last March. Nordhold is currently sitting at an 80 on Metacritic, and Steam reviews are Very Positive, so evidently the word got out to the gaming public and I just missed it. Well, I'm here to rectify that situation.

Nordhold is a tower defense game, but don't let that deter you from trying it out. This is the deepest, most complex tower defense game I've ever played. It's like 30% tower defense, 30% economy management, 30% roguelike mechanics, and 10% cussing. The cussing comes from me.

Nordhold is the epitome of an "easy to pick up, tough to master" game. Yes, it is a tower defense game, and you do plop your towers along a procedurally generated path, and yes, they do shoot at mobs that march dutifully through whatever dire crucible you have assembled along the sides to kill them. But the game is so much more than that. Usually in tower defense games, you are protecting a gate, trying to keep a certain number of baddies from reaching it. Nordhold is the first game I've played that asks the question "What's on the other side of the gate?"

Turns out, there's a whole city over there. And in the city is a veritable ton of structures you can build, which either generate materials for your towers or perks for your playthrough. Oh, and you have to build houses and hire workers to produce your resources. And each structure offers a mountain of perks, some of which are only active for one run, and some of which are permanent. The economy in Nordhold is delicate - mismanage one resource or have a worker in the wrong mill for one wave, and you might be toast. You really, really have to pay attention.

At the end of almost every wave, the game offers roguelike-style perks, which can completely alter the mechanics of your towers, making or breaking your run. And at the end of each run (you are gonna die, a lot), you get Honor points, which can be used to unlock more permanent perks and bonuses. 

The whole thing feels a lot like a real-time strategy game with a tower defense game tacked onto it, all of it under a roguelike umbrella. The combination is explosively addictive. I'm to the point where a run takes me anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour, so that "one more run" feeling (present in spades) can easily chew up an afternoon before you know it. 

Nordhold came to my attention this week because the team behind it released a huge update, with a full new game mode that adds even more permanent perk options in the form of a massive skill tree that can be layered on top of the already insanely deep perk menu. There is a new tower type and all sorts of other goodies - including new power banners and skills, and an in-game skin shop (no microtransactions!). 

I really didn't know what I was doing yet in this video, but it still gives a taste of the gameplay.

Since I engaged with it, Nordhold has been gobbling up hours of my life, and I've been grinning the entire time. This game takes the tower defense genre and expands it in every possible direction. Nordhold is crystalized video game addiction, and I can't recommend it highly enough. 

There is so much content in the NBA 2K games nowadays, that each mode needs its own deep dive. Most recently, the team at 2K has shared what upgrades and changes to expect in the MyNBA and MyGM modes when NBA 2K26 launches on September 5th.

For starters, The Playoffs mode can now be played entirely online, meaning that you and your friends can set up and seed a 16-team playoff to play through in its entirety against each other. Under the hood, much improved simulation logic is being added in. So, if you’re someone who likes to simulate big chunks of a season (or an entire season) of a career, you’ll now have the freedom to toggle between three simulation options: normal, smarter, and faster. Smarter sims will use more advanced trade logic and variables to better mirror real-life strategies, but they will take longer to process. Conversely, faster sims will run through seasons more quickly, but the AI logic won’t have time to consider every possible outcome accounting for every variable.

Elsewhere, you’ll now be able to insert your MyPLAYER into a franchise roster if you please, and arena banners are now dynamic, meaning new ones will get added as your accomplishments stack up over the course of your career. MyNBA Directives improves upon GM goals from your team governor, rewarding you with a bigger budget for achieving specific goals, which can then be used to target premier free agents, or renovate your facilities. Along those lines, there is now a bigger emphasis on managing your facilities to provide boosts to player attributes, fan attendance, player recruitment, and more.

Looking more specifically at the MyGM mode, each NBA team will now have a scenario based off the real-world team that you’ll have to tackle as GM. For example, the Dallas Mavericks drafting Cooper Flagg number one overall and making him the new face of the franchise. A new MyGM Building will be your home base all team activities. Work with staff, watch team practices, and take care of tasks all in one place. And finally, MyGM mode can now be played “unranked”, allowing you to edit players, import custom rosters, and adjust gameplay sliders to create a custom experience.

I’m going to rest my fingers now. We’ve got one final Courtside Report to look forward to next week detailing the changes to The City so stay tuned.

There may not be a game more tailormade for me than Copa City. Blending management sim with the soccer (football) match day experience, Copa City is not your typical sports game, if you can call it that at all. Rather than controlling the action on the pitch, you’ll be handling everything off the pitch instead. Things like setting up fan zones, transportation routes, marketing, locating food trucks, and stadium logistics. One of the coolest aspects is that it will feature licensed real life clubs, like Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, Flamengo, Bayern Munich, and more to be announced.

Today, the development team has shared a new look at gameplay that details how its “Match Readiness” mechanic will work, which is a series of milestones that must be reached before the match begins. Achieving each milestone unlocks additional rewards, such as the ability to add more facilities to your stadium. And more facilities mean more fans, which means more money for your operation. Check it out in action below.

Copa City is high on my wishlist for 2026 games, launching on March 26^th for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Back in my day, we didn't have Arcade 1Ups and fancy companies making arcade perfect compilations for our Nintendos. We even called every video game a Nintendo, and later, a Sega. When I was your age, I used to play ports of arcade games made by a company called Acclaim. And I know what you're thinking. Stop that. And go give your ex a second chance. They didn't know that you said to put the clothes in the dryer, you meant to start it. 

Anyway, Acclaim is coming back, as their own IP, and sometime next week, they'll reveal what they've been working on. While I doubt it'll be a stellar home version of NBA Jam, or some licensed game that I should enjoy, let's just wait and see. They've been back since March, and now they're ready to reveal something. And they're waiting until after Gamescom.  

Just wait and see.