Another week, another avalanche of discounts tempting me to ruin my already sketchy bank balance. I promised myself I’d be strong, but scrolling through these cuts reminded me why I keep caving. There’s just too much quality here to ignore. Scroll and see for yourself...
In retro news, I'm using Brighton the sun's blazing rays to light a 20-candle cake for Mario Party 6, the entry that brought voice control to the GameCube. Along with the bundled microphone that had us yelling at our TV like maniacs, noughties-era-me was also impressed with a dynamic day-night cycle that strategically transformed entire boards every three turns.
Twenty years later, I still remember the chaos of four people gathered around a single microphone, and honestly, that's the kind of couch co-op magic that defined the GameCube era. Just an absolute box of joy (with a convenient handle to boot).
- Pac-Man Championship Ed. 2 (PC,PS4,XO) 2016. Get
Nice Savings for Nintendo Switch
On Switch, TheLegend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is a newer spin that continues Nintendo’s tradition of layering innovative mechanics atop Hyrule. I’ve already sunk hours into its puzzly brilliance. Meanwhile, Sonic Frontiers shocked me by proving Sega can finally deliver an open zone world worth exploring. It’s a great example of fan feedback shaping a sequel into something memorable.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (-25%) - A$59.90 An inventive twist on Hyrule's legend, this entry plays with perspective and puzzles in ways that keep the series fresh without losing its magic.
Super Mario RPG (-25%) - A$59.90 Square and Nintendo’s classic collab shines again. A playful blend of platforming and turn-based battles with a goofy cast that still charms decades later.
Sonic Frontiers (-40%) - A$59.60 Sonic goes open-world, sprinting across islands with speed, puzzles, and titanic bosses. A bold, divisive experiment, but one fans should try at this discount.
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled (-34%) - A$46.30 Still the sharpest alternative to Mario Kart. Beautifully remade, with deep drifting mechanics and an outrageous lineup of characters to keep the chaos flowing.
Civilization VII (-24%) - A$68.00 Sid Meier’s long-running empire builder returns with refinements, new leaders, and endless late-night “one more turn” temptations.
On Xbox Series X, Cyberpunk 2077 is the textbook case of redemption. CD Projekt rebuilt Night City into the RPG we were promised, and its Phantom Liberty expansion earned Keanu Reeves another pop culture foothold. Also, Dead Island 2 has no right being this fun. Its gore tech is absurdly detailed, and I’ll admit I’ve lost time experimenting with zombie dismemberment.
1TB Expansion Card (-30%) - A$215.60 Plug-and-play storage that matches Xbox velocity architecture. Pricey, but essential if you bounce between Game Pass monsters like Starfield and Call of Duty.
WWE 2K25 (-54%) - A$55.00 The squared circle gets flashier each year. A solid roster, career content, and creative tools make this worth grappling with at a heavy discount.
EA Sports FC 25 (-26%) - A$29.00 The artist formerly known as FIFA keeps evolving with better dribbling, presentation, and modes. For under thirty bucks, it’s a golden goal for football fans.
Dead Island 2 (-70%) - A$20.90 Sun-soaked zombie slicing across LA, packed with gore, humour, and drop-in co-op. A guilty pleasure at a fraction of launch price.
Cyberpunk 2077 (-65%) - A$31.40 CDPR’s redemption arc. With Phantom Liberty, patches, and next-gen polish, Night City is now the RPG paradise it always promised to be.
Xbox One
Dying Light 2 Del. (-42%) - A$69.00 Parkour, undead chaos, and branching storylines. Deluxe content sweetens the deal for those keen to survive the night.
Assassin's Creed Mirage (-70%) - A$23.80 A stripped-back AC returning to stealth roots in Baghdad. Sleek, short, and a steal for fans of old-school Assassin’s Creed.
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (-60%) - A$27.90 Three platforming classics remade with gorgeous polish. Still brutally tricky, still satisfying when you nail those tricky jumps.
PS5-wise, Ghost of Yotei is obviously dishing the big Tsushima vibes, which makes sense as it’s carrying on Sucker Punch’s love of stylish swordplay. And EA Sports WRC is the definitive rally sim now, especially since Codemasters inherited the license from Dirt Rally. Few games capture mud physics this well.
Split Fiction (-37%) - A$44.00 A stylish narrative adventure that toys with dual perspectives, weaving puzzles and emotional beats into its experimental structure.
Ghost of Yotei (-21%) - A$99.00 A gorgeous new samurai epic with breathtaking visuals, tight combat, and a moving tale. Pricey, but prestige experiences rarely come cheap.
Star Wars Outlaws (-67%) - A$36.00 Finally, a scoundrel-focused Star Wars tale. Explore planets, dodge the Empire, and live the outlaw fantasy at a massive markdown.
EA Sports WRC (-68%) - A$24.00 Dirt Rally devs take the official license for a hardcore sim that nails every muddy drift and hairpin.
Octopath Traveler (-60%) - A$36.30 Square Enix’s HD-2D darling, now on PS5. Turn-based storytelling with eight heroes, beautiful pixel art, and excellent music.
PS4
Batman: Arkham Col. (-59%) - A$34.90 Rocksteady’s trilogy of Batman greatness. Tight combat, iconic villains, and a moody Gotham to glide through.
Mega Man Battle NL Col. (-34%) - A$25.30 Nostalgic grid-based battling from the GBA era. A huge anthology of quirky digital duels.
Katamari Damacy Reroll (-75%) - A$11.20 Still delightfully weird. Roll up the world to rebuild stars, all to a funky soundtrack. A cult gem at a bargain.
PS+ Monthly Freebies Yours to keep from Sep 2 with this subscription
Finally on PC, Titanfall 2 remains a masterclass in FPS design. Its single-player campaign has a time travel mission that’s still referenced as one of the best ever. Pair that with Outward Definitive, a cult-favourite RPG that dares you to survive without handholding, and you’ve got serious value on Steam.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows (-65%) - A$34.90 [Use code: AUTUMN ] AC finally heads to feudal Japan. Two protagonists, stealthy intrigue, and samurai drama deliver a dream setting for fans.
Pico Park (-100%) - A$0 Cooperative chaos where teamwork makes the dream work. Free is the perfect price for falling out with friends.
Titanfall 2: Ult. (-85%) - A$5.90 Wall-running, mechs, and one of the best FPS campaigns ever made. Criminally cheap.
A Plague Tale Bndl (-65%) - A$19.40 Two rat-infested adventures, beautifully grim storytelling, and stealth survival gameplay. Sobering, heartfelt, and worth the plunge.
Outward Def. (-88%) - A$7.10 A cult RPG that values survival, co-op, and consequences. Brutal, but rewarding.
Adam Mathew is a passionate connoisseur, a lifelong game critic, and an Aussie deals wrangler who genuinely wants to hook you up with stuff that's worth playing (but also cheap). He plays practically everything, sometimes on YouTube.
The whole world may have been waiting for Hollow Knight: Silksong’s cocoon to finally crack open, but it sure doesn’t seem to have been burdened by that pressure. This excellent sequel to an all-time great has more than managed to live up to the high expectations I had set for it, standing as both a smart continuation of the original Hollow Knight and a fantastic game of its own. It stays close to the formula that made its predecessor so impressive, but still reshapes, refines, and revamps just about every aspect of it in ways both big and small. Silksong is unapologetically challenging, endlessly creative, and impressively thoughtful across both its gorgeous world and the stories that are told there. The metamorphosis may have taken almost a decade, but this butterfly has emerged as one of the biggest and boldest around.
If you never played Hollow Knight, the main thing you need to know is that you seriously missed out, and may want to go back and do that first. It’s a masterpiece of a 2D platformer, filled to the brim with action, exploration, and oodles of interesting lore. Silksong follows in its footsteps but doesn’t require you to have played the original, though it is certainly enhanced by having done so – both because the story has plenty of great little callbacks and references to catch, but also because it feels like an evolution of what Hollow Knight was doing mechanically. It sticks so close to the original’s style and structure, in fact, that a little bit of the sheer surprise has admittedly worn away. But that doesn’t stop it from hiding mysteries, delights, and unexpected twists all over the place that a Hollow Knight fan like myself treasured discovering.
Regardless, your journey across the brand-new world of Pharloom as the wise and confident Hornet stands on its own merits. Hornet is an excellent hero, taken to this land against her will at the start and then driven to do the right thing for its people once she finds out why. I don’t want to spend this whole review comparing what’s changed from Hollow Knight line by line (we’d be here all day), but the difference in tone with her in the driver’s seat, as opposed to your silent Knight, is a big one, and a decision that largely works to Silksong’s benefit.
Hornet is polite but stern, reserved but not cold, and the top-notch writing throughout lets you get to know her through conversations with a charming cast of bug-based characters I grew to love. They range from adorable to goofy to genuinely touching, with standouts like the singing pilgrim Sherma running that whole gamut over the course of their own personal arcs. The larger story is made more explicit as a result of Hornet being able to talk, clearly spelling out the “why” of this journey and certain key events in a way that really worked for me. I found I was more engaged from the jump here than I am in most games where you have to spend hours in a wiki to understand what’s really happening – though there are still plenty of subtle mysteries hiding in the corners of this world for you to piece together yourself. As with so much of Silksong, it strikes a fantastic balance here.
Hornet is an excellent hero and Pharloom is a fascinating world.
Pharloom is a fascinating place as well: a dying land where hopeful bugs go on a pilgrimage from its lower levels all the way up to the shining peak of a spectacular cogwork city called The Citadel in blind service of their faith – though few actually survive the trek you now inadvertently find yourself on. One of the greatest strengths of games as a creative medium is how they can tie themes and actions together. For example, part of the reason I gave Celeste a 10 back in 2018 was because of how it made you experience Madeline’s struggle to overcome her own personal mountain by making you climb a literal one. Silksong pulls off a similar trick: it’s about being tested and overcoming, about leaving the world a better place than you found it even when that’s hard to do, and about persevering while still making time to give yourself grace in the face of defeat. You don’t need to read a single line of dialogue to feel those themes through the actions you are taking alone.
That’s because, just like Hollow Knight, Silksong will test you. This game is Tough with a capital T – although, the specific word I prefer to use is “challenging,” because it doesn’t just punch you in the face and kick you to the curb for the sake of being hard. It challenges you to overcome obstacles that routinely feel insurmountable at first but are finely tuned to be conquered as your skill, knowledge, and toolset of earned abilities improves. Perhaps an extreme example of this is an area like Bilewater, which has very few respawn benches to rest at and includes some of the most punishing poison water I’ve seen in any game, forcing you to cleanse yourself after falling in it by wasting your precious healing ability while also draining the resource that fuels that ability – a double whammy. I thought this area was unreasonably difficult to navigate when I first tried to force my way through it – but then I took a break, explored elsewhere, and returned hours later with new combat options, items to help mitigate that poison, and a better gameplan that made it a cakewalk.
Pharloom has so many branching paths and optional areas that its roadblocks were able to feel substantial without killing my momentum. If something was too challenging to take down with my current items, upgrades, or skillset, the knowledge that I’d almost always be rewarded for trying another path stopped me from ever getting too frustrated. Rather than slamming your head against every wall you come across, Silksong is best approached by letting it come to you as you move methodically and flow down the most appealing paths you find. Having the map pin system available at launch (as opposed to Hollow Knight, which added it in after the fact) is also a godsend that allows you to keep track of all those out-of-reach ledges and the roads you don’t immediately go down as you explore – and you’re never wasting time by picking the paths that call to you.
I was also routinely lifting my jaw off the floor every time I entered some visually stunning new area, almost all of which had incredible music to match. A vibrant coral canyon filled with flying bugs that look like fish; a blustering snowy peak that had me huddling for warmth; the golden halls of The Citadel itself; and the clockwork innards that power it. Silksong does the thing every great sequel should do: it looks how you remember Hollow Knight looking, but actually makes its predecessor seem flat by comparison. Every dial has been turned up to 11 – there’s more color, more sparkle, and more variety. And whenever I thought I had found the limits of this map, I’d stumble into another new area with its own ecosystem, secrets, and hostile bugs.
Combat rewards patience and spatial awareness over button timings alone.
Those aggressive enemies and brutal boss fights follow the same “go with the flow” philosophy as the areas around them: if you face them like this is one of the more typical 3D action games Hollow Knight clearly takes some inspiration from, you might find yourself having a rough time. But if you treat Silksong as the platformer it really is, staying patient enough to focus on positioning while dodging and getting damage in where you can, then even its most savage enemies will start to melt. It has become a cliche to call combat a “dance” nowadays, but it truly is the best way to describe some of these encounters. Silksong isn’t the most mechanically nuanced action game in the world, but learning an enemy’s patterns as you fall into a rhythm of dodging a swing, dashing in for a hit, hopping to safety, and then repeating really does feel like a bit of blade-based choreography that rewards spatial awareness over button timings alone.
Another reason the haymakers Silksong throws do more to motivate than frustrate is because, in the grand scheme of difficult action games, this one is actually pretty dang forgiving. A lot of credit for that goes to the healing system, which lets you spend Silk (a resource you earn by hitting enemies) to recover a big chunk of health all at once. This might seem like it would incentivize aggression to gather more Silk, but it actually had me playing it safe and prioritizing precision above all else. If I was ever falling behind in a fight, it was always encouraging to know that I could potentially heal back up to full like nothing had gone wrong if I just stayed alive long enough to get a few pokes in. (Of course, that is sometimes easier said than done.)
Silksong’s big fights and the paths between them don’t mess around, but they generally make sure to put this lifeline within grabbing distance as well, leaving it to you to figure out how to reach out and seize it. Bosses have reliable windows to safely heal in, and platforming areas frequently throws weaker enemies at you that are designed to do little more than stock up your Silk, which gives you a reason to fight even these smaller foes – and to do so thoughtfully, because they may not threaten to kill you outright, but taking a reckless hit limits the relief they provide before some stronger foe lurking up ahead. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the areas with that poison water are pretty much the only ones where their more common enemies can respawn while you are still on the screen next to them – developer Team Cherry might test you with tall orders, but the means to meet them are always available somewhere.
As much as I love the way Silksong challenges me, there are some aspects of how Team Cherry has balanced the difficulty that can leave a sour taste in my mouth from time to time. To be clear, I think the tuning is impressively dialed in overall: outside of a couple late-game fights, I beat nearly every boss in a half dozen attempts or fewer, usually taking just two or three tries, which felt like a sweet spot in terms of providing pushback without ever making me want to throw down my controller. That said, it is a little jarring how many enemies and environmental hazards deal damage in chunks of two instead of one compared to the original Hollow Knight, often emphasized by two distinct hit sounds that make it seem like you’ve done something wrong to cause that extra pain. That can result in feel-bad moments even if the “difficulty” isn’t technically out of whack. Health upgrades also arrive so slowly that it’s a little discouraging when your life total is functionally cut in half by a boss that only deals damage in pairs (including just accidentally bumping into them sometimes).
Desperately searching for a bench teeters on the line between thrilling danger and mounting dread.
A similarly rough feeling can be caused by a few areas that put their respawn benches extremely far apart, even turning a handful into “gotcha” traps that savagely pull the rug out from under you when you think you’ve finally found relief. I actually think those traps are hilarious, but desperately searching for a checkpoint when you are first exploring a new area teeters on the line between thrilling danger in uncharted territory and a “what am I doing wrong here?” sense of dread. However, this bench placement isn’t some mistake done without regard; just like a boss has to be learned and overcome, the challenge of the areas that use benches more sparingly is surviving to find one, and finally doing so is as satisfying as taking down any big bug. Silksong is a true-blue platformer at its heart, and mastering its precise movement options across devious, spike-covered obstacle courses was a real treat.
Reaching that mastery is supported by Silksong’s customization options, which expand on the original Hollow Knight and give you more ways to tune your playstyle to your liking. Here you can unlock Crests that change your basic attacks as if you were wielding an entirely new weapon – that might mean swapping the default diagonal downslash for the more vertically direct option provided by the Wanderer Crest, changing to the Beast Crest for a claw-based attack that turns your burst heal into temporary lifesteal, or – my personal favorite – using the Reaper Crest to gain access to wide-arcing attacks that knock extra Silk out of your foes after a heal. There’s not much incentive to swap between these Crests once you’ve found the one you are most comfortable with, but they all feel different enough to provide some genuine playstyle decisions.
The new Tool system that slots into these Crests is also flexible in a way I appreciated. In addition to equipable abilities that cost some Silk to use, all the Tools you find are split into three color-coded categories. Red Tools give you an additional, ammo-limited attack like a throwing knife or mid-air spike trap; blue Tools usually provide some sort of defensive effect like expanded Silk storage or fire resistance; and yellow Tools offer more general support options like making dropped money fly to you automatically or marking Hornet’s current location on your map. This separation is a notable improvement over Hollow Knight’s single-slot system because support effects and combat buffs are no longer fighting for the same limited space, and I was more freely swapping Tools in and out depending on the area or boss I was taking on as a result.
Each Crest has a different balance of the color-coded slots your Tools go into as well, letting you get pretty creative with weird builds that mix and match certain abilities or deprioritize stuff you don’t find yourself using. For example, I often saved my Silk for heals rather than those special abilities, so the drawback of the Architect Crest, which swaps the Silk slot out for a third red Tool, ended up fitting my playstyle nicely for a bit. That said, I do wish the “weapon” styles weren’t permanently tied to a Crest’s Tool slots and passive effects like they are – I would have happily kept using the Architect for its Tool options and unique ability to turn Silk into ammo while away from a bench, but the more rigid, drill-like basic attacks that came with that (while cool) had me returning to the Reaper eventually.
The list of things waiting to be discovered across Pharloom is extensive.
Of course, you have to find all of these different options first, and the laundry list of things waiting to be discovered across Pharloom is extensive. I always try to complete as many side tasks as I can before heading down the “correct” path in games like this, letting myself get distracted by friendly NPCs and the quests they post on boards in the small handful of towns you’ll come across. When I finally reached the end, my in-game timer was at just over 44 hours played and 96% completion. Was that enough Silksong for me? No – I’m still hungry to dive back in and clear off that last 4% (and I already know where most of it is).
There is a bit of a strange bump in the middle of that road, however, as you can “beat” Silksong much faster than what I just laid out. I am going to avoid specifics and spoilers here as much as possible, and if you don’t want to read anything about what “finishing” this game means then you can skip the next three paragraphs, but know this is a big enough deal that it really does feel worth discussing in broad strokes. That’s because the main path is actually fairly achievable if you’re only interested in following the primary quest objective, and the first time I reached the credits was before I even hit the 30-hour mark (and it could have happened sooner than that if I wanted it to). But that initial ending is… mediocre, with an abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion to the story that left me more confused than fulfilled.
Based on my experience with the first Hollow Knight, I barely even took this finale seriously, but the trouble is that there’s very little indication you could reach a different one this time around… and you can. In vague terms, doing so requires you to complete a lot of entirely unrelated activities that are framed as completely optional when you run across them. That includes some pretty uninspiring fetch quests that ask you to grind pointless items from specific enemies, as well as one particularly lame one where the required items just randomly spawn in some nearby caves, which is an addition that feels like an uncharacteristic step backwards. You will probably do everything you need to eventually if you are trying to complete all the side stuff anyway, but there is a huge amount of additional content and a stellar alternate ending waiting behind these opaque unlock requirements, and it’s wild someone might miss that because they couldn’t be bothered to complete some boring fetch quest.
This is a similar-ish structure to unlocking the “true” ending of the original Hollow Knight, but the big difference is that the requirements for doing so there were directly tied into your character’s journey of discovery, and the path you had to take was a little more intuitive as a result – here, I was essentially left floundering for a bit as I tried to figure out which checkboxes still needed to be arbitrarily ticked off. Hollow Knight’s alternate ending also only changed the final fight, whereas Silksong conceals what feels like roughly 15-20% of its content behind this false ending. The writing of that conclusion is also great, probably some of the best in the entire story, and it shakes things up gameplay-wise in a pretty delightful way I won’t spoil. I recognize this weird structural decision won’t be a huge deal in the grand scheme of things – all of Silksong’s secrets will be common knowledge soon enough – but it still feels like an odd choice.
That all being said, it is legitimately cool how any two people could take wildly different paths on the way there. It took me 35 hours to find an area a friend of mine found in less than 10, and I unknowingly took such an unusual route to reach Act 2 that I solved a special puzzle area and beat an incredibly fun boss way before I was “supposed” to, giving me access to an entirely different part of The Citadel than I expect most people will initially see. Splintering paths like this are all over the place, and it’s genuinely incredible that Silksong can be approached from so many directions without ever feeling like you are doing something wrong or have gone somewhere you shouldn’t (apart from a punch to the face feeling a little harder than normal).
We've rounded up the best deals for Sunday, September 14, below, so don't miss out on these limited-time offers.
Madden NFL 26 for $42.99
PlayStation 5 copies of Madden NFL 26 are available for $42.99 this weekend at Amazon. This latest entry brings new updates that make a noticeable difference, particularly when compared to entries of the last few years. In our 8/10 review, we wrote, "There’s always room for improvement, but it’s hard to overstate what a leap Madden NFL 26 feels like both on and off the field."
Save 20% Off AirPods Pro 3
If you're a student, you can save $50 on Apple AirPods Pro 3 before they're even out! You have to verify your student status with an official ID or receipt using Target Circle, and then you're free to score this amazing deal. AirPods Pro 3 bring a slight redesign, improved ANC, live translation, and much more. Get all the details on this deal here.
The Hundred Line - Last Defense Academy for $49.99
The Hundred Line - Last Defense Academy is one of the most underrated games of 2025. This massive game features a whopping 100 different endings to discover, each offering unique content and dialogue. Created by Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi, The Hundred Line is a game any RPG fan will quickly fall in love with.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves - Deluxe Edition for $39.99
GameStop has the Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves - Deluxe Edition on sale for 50% off this weekend. This edition packs in the Special Edition base game, which includes the first year of DLC for free, a Steelbook containing the original soundtrack, an artbook, a double-sided poster, and two sticker sheets. If you haven't dived into SNK's latest fighting game, this is a great time to pick City of the Wolves up.
College Football 26 for $42.99
If you're like me, you probably spent your entire Saturday watching college football. Today on Amazon, you can score EA Sports College Football 26 for $42.99, which saves you almost $30. This year's entry packs in many new features that make the college football experience better than ever.
Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2 for $39.99
While the Demon Slayer The Hinokami Chronicles only covered the first season of the anime, The Hinokami Chronicles 2 adapts all the way up to the Infinity Castle arc. This is a really great way to refresh yourself on the anime, especially before watching the first Infinity Castle film in theaters.
Save on the Magic: The Gathering - Final Fantasy Commander Deck Bundle
This Magic: The Gathering - Final Fantasy Commander Deck Bundle packs in all 4 decks available, and you can save over $100 this weekend at Amazon. The Final Fantasy collaboration was the biggest in history for MTG, with sets sold out everywhere around launch. If you've held out on starting your MTG journey, this is the perfect set to jump in with.
Pre-Order Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on Blu-ray
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is finally coming to Blu-ray, and now is your chance to take home this beloved anime. This Complete Blu-ray Box Set includes all ten episodes of the anime across three discs, a special booklet, a storyboard booklet, three animation cel sheets, and a two year anniversary poster. Currently, this set is set to ship out starting on October 23.
Save $10 Off Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion
Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion just released a few weeks back, and you can already save $10 off an Xbox Series X copy at Amazon. This highly anticipated mecha game is a sequel to 2019's Daemon X Machina, providing quality mecha action and a load of customizable options.
Pre-Order Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Switch
Friday's Nintendo Direct featured the reveal of Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2, a collection that's part of the 40th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. These games are set to receive enhancements to resolution, UI, and even new storybook content. If you haven't ever played either game, the Nintendo Switch is going to be the ultimate platform to do so. The best part? This collection is out in just a few weeks, so be sure to get your pre-order in!
Yakuza 0: Director's Cut for $37
The Nintendo Switch 2 edition of Yakuza 0 is available on sale for $37 this weekend. The Director's Cut version adds new cutscenes among other features, and it supports 4K resolution at 60FPS.
LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle for $136.99
LEGO sets have continued to get more expensive over the years, especially those with more pieces. This 2,660 piece set was the very first set to model Hogwarts Castle and its grounds, making this the perfect gift for any Harry Potter fan.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater for $52.38
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is set to finally release this week after years of anticipation. The remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 is $52.38 at Fanatical right now, so PC players can save almost $18 off ahead of launch. In our 8/10 review, we wrote, "Between its old-school stealth-action gameplay and engaging spy-thriller story, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater largely succeeds as a faithful, visually impressive remake of the 2004 classic."
Last week, 2K Games released the next part in the Borderlands series, Borderlands 4. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, it’s time now to benchmark it and examine its performance on PC. For our benchmarks, I used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz, AMD’s Radeon RX 6900XT, RX 7900XTX, RX 9070XT, as … Continue reading Borderlands 4 PC Performance Analysis: Terrible Optimization and Technical Issues→
Last week, we saw Apple TV’s The Studio and HBO Max’s The Penguin coming out as big winners during the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. Tonight, the winners will be announced for major categories in the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony. Severance and The White Lotus lead the way in nominations, though The Penguin, The Last of Us, and Andor are also predicted to take home a bunch of statuettes.
If you’re hoping to tune in, here’s how you can watch tonight’s awards ceremony live.
When Are the Emmys?
The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards officially start at 8pm ET / 5pm PT on Sunday, September 14. The red carpet begins at 6pm ET / 3pm PT, with pre-shows kicking off throughout the day. The event is scheduled for three hours, lasting until around 11pm ET (though it almost always runs a tad long).
Where to Stream the Emmys Live
The 74th Emmy Awards Ceremony will air live on CBS while streaming on Paramount+ Premium. The full ceremony will be available to stream on-demand through any Paramount+ plan the following day.
Presumably to align with the event, Paramount+ is offering 50% off the cost of its annual subscriptions. Until September 18, you can grab a year of Paramount+ Essential for $29.99 (normally $59.99), or Paramount+ Premium for $59.99 (normally $119.99).
Otherwise, the service also happens to offer a seven-day free trial. However that trial is limited to new subscribers to the monthly plan, which doesn’t have any active discounts. For reference, ad-supported Paramount+ plans start at $7.99/month, while the ad-free plan starts at $12.99/month.
Who's Hosting the Emmys This Year?
This year’s awards ceremony will be hosted by stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze. It’s the comedian’s first time hosting the event, where his stand-up special, Your Friend, Nate Bargatze, has received two nominations. Like previous years, the ceremony will take place at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
Who’s Nominated?
This year’s awards are based on nominations for series that aired between June 1, 2024 and May 1, 2025. You can find the full schedule that led to this year’s nominees on the Emmys' website.
Leading the way in nominations this year is Season 2 of Severance and Season 3 of The White Lotus. We had great things to say about both of these, particularly the latest season of Severance, which Samantha Nelson described as “top-tier science fiction TV” in her review.
I’m personally rooting for Cristin Milioti for her performance in The Penguin. For the full list, you can check out our breakdown of this year’s nominees.
World 1-1. We’ve all run, jumped, and brick-bashed our way through that familiar first stage. It seems so simple and second-nature to us now, but in this modern age of iterative entertainment, it is almost impossible to convey the magnitude of the leap Super Mario Bros. represented compared to everything that came before it. That cabinet, that game, might as well have descended from outer space. Its art, music, smoothness, and most of all, its level design were light-years beyond.
World 1-1 introduced game design principles and a geometry of motion so perfectly calculated that it endures as one of the great works of the art form to this very day. But how was this miracle performed? Well, let us tell you, with the help of its creator, Shigeru Miyamoto.
The closest things to the opening level of the plumber’s first solo adventure up to that point were the stiff-but-serviceable screen-flipping Pitfall! and the gorgeous but terrible side-scrolling Pac-Land. Both were early essays on game design: Pitfall! presented a two-layered jungle with plenty of enemies and obstacles to jump over, but its flip-screen progression, huge non-linear map, strict time limit, and unintuitive treasure placement made it feel more like a puzzle to solve than a world to explore. Pac-Land was simply beautiful to behold and scrolled fairly cleanly in one direction, but the layout of the levels was haphazard and frustrating, and the controls felt maddening.
In comparison, Mario was like exploring a realized, unified, and diverse world. Every step revealed new threats and sights. Leap over enemies or land on them? What’s in those question blocks? There’s a Starman?! Wait, hidden lives? A secret underground treasure room with its own music?! Wait, there’s a FIRE FLOWER?! You can hold B to run or blast turtles with pyrotechnics?! What even is this game????? But in order for all of this madness to be built, it first needed solid foundations, and that’s where World 1-1 really comes into its own — teaching you the basics in the most elegant manner possible.
Super Mario Bros. isn’t nearly as big as it feels. In fact, World 1-1 measures only about 15 screens, including the underground room. It feels much bigger because over two or three screens, the tone of the terrain changes, from the intro section to leaping over pipes to platforming to pits. And yet within that tiny space, you have every power-up in the game, a hidden multi-coin block, a pair of traversable pipes, an invisible 1-UP, two enemy varieties, and a secret fireworks display.
But perhaps the biggest secret of 1-1 is that it’s a school. And the course is Mario 101. In a 2015 interview with Eurogamer, Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka talked about the extraordinary degree of thought that went into the design, beginning with World 1-1’s iconic opening: a tiny Mario facing an empty plane. Then the team considered how to teach the player several skills at once: how to avoid enemies, how to destroy enemies, how question blocks work, and how to tell an enemy Goomba from a helpful mushroom. All three are accomplished within the first steps of this opening level.
“If a suspicious enemy appears,” states Miyamoto, “the player will need to jump over it.” Running forward into the first Goomba just kills you, a lesson a player need only learn once before discovering they’re much safer in the air. Then moving forward, the player discovers some low bricks and question blocks.
“If we have a question block, they might just try to tap that as well,” continues Miyamoto. “If they see a coin, it will make them happy and they’ll want to try again.” Tapping the second block releases a mushroom that slides away, then bounces off a pipe to come hurtling at the character. The low ceiling makes it very hard to avoid, and the mushroom hits Mario, but instead of damaging him, it transforms him into Super Mario. In a matter of seconds, you’ve learned how both rewards and dangers work through the rest of Super Mario Bros.
“We kept simulating what the player would do”, Miyamoto explains. “So even within that one section, the player would understand the general concept of what Mario is supposed to be and what the game is about.” Even small details mattered. The opening screen’s first enemy was supposed to be a Koopa Troopa, but teaching the player the jump and kick movement necessary to overcome one worked less well at the beginning than they’d hoped. So they invented the simple-to-stomp Goomba (late in the game design process, according to Tetzuka) to help players understand the basics first.
Another valuable lesson, holding B to run before a long jump, is taught safely by two gaps later in 1-1. Pointing at this area, Miyamoto says, “Here we are preparing the player for the B-Dash”. He notes that the first gap is a pit with a filled-in bottom, a safe place to experiment and learn about long jumps without risking lives. This jump is followed immediately by a nearly-identical variant, a pit where, if the player falls, they will die, but by applying the skills they’ve just learned, they will easily survive. “By doing that, we wanted the player to naturally and gradually understand what they’re doing”, he continues. “The first course was designed for that purpose: so they can learn what the game is all about.”
Once the player realizes what they need to do, it becomes their game.
Miyamoto further explains that the tutorial nature of early stages usually comes only after the team has crafted more sophisticated levels, so the creators know what skills the players need to develop. “Usually when we have a really fun course, they tend to be the later levels”, Miyamoto confirms. “World 2-1, World 2-2, we create those first and then afterwards come back and create World 1-1. There’s a lot of testing whilst the game is being built. I don’t give them (players) any explanation and just watch them play and see how they do it, and most of the time I think they’ll play a certain way or enjoy a certain part, and they end up not doing that. I think ‘That's not what I intended!’ So I have to go back and use that as feedback”.
The intricately crafted layout creates a satisfying illusion of choice and a constant curve of advancement. Miyamoto sums it up perfectly: “Once the player realizes what they need to do, it becomes their game.”
The level layout is tuned to match Mario’s famous momentum, allowing a skilled player to perform precise jumps, slides, and combinations. An experienced Mario jockey can run forward at the beginning 1-1, squash a Goomba while hitting the first mushroom block, sprint forward, hit a coin block, reverse direction, jump up, catch the mushroom before it hits the ground, and hit the other coin. The team wisely mapped run and fireball to the same button, creating a slight degree of real-world physical dexterity challenge to trading momentum for projectiles. Likewise, the need to hold B to run and press A to jump made long jumps just slightly and satisfyingly more difficult.
Then there’s the music. Unlike most software development teams, the Mario team’s composer, Koji Kondo, was embedded with the developers. The famous Mario theme was composed and edited over and over as the level layout changed to match the pace of the design, and from then on, those few bars of digitized score would never leave our brains again.
And all of this magic was achieved using only the most limited of tools back in 1985. To really understand why Super Mario Bros. works so well, you first need to understand how the NES renders graphics. The animated characters that move around the screen, such as Mario, are sprites, detailed and mobile clusters of pixels. The NES can only handle a few sprites onscreen at a time, so most of the rest of the world, including the ground, platforms, hills, and backgrounds, is made up of tiles and 8x8 blocks. Most of the objects you see in Super Mario Bros. are composed of these chunks. The question blocks, walls, and bricks are all made up of four combined 8x8 tiles, creating distinct 16x16 squares. It’s similar to the process used to build levels in Mario Maker, only more granular. These little tiles were the tools that Shigeru Miyamoto and team worked with to build a masterpiece.
Super Mario Bros is an early NES game, created before advanced memory map chips stretched its graphical capabilities. That meant that to achieve their vision, the Mario team had to push the hardware to the absolute limits of its capabilities. The entirety of Super Mario Bros.’ source code is 40K. That means the entire game, including graphics, fits on about thirteen closely-typed pages. Crammed into that space are 32 distinct worlds, eight boss battles, a second quest, myriad secrets, and a memorable cast of characters.
That restriction meant the design team had to make every bit count, and that led to all kinds of clever tricks to save space. Ever noticed the clouds and the bushes are just the same palette-swapped tiles? Or that the blocks in 1-2 are just recolored blocks from 1-1? Both tricks (and many others) were used to compress space and make room for more features.
Add together the level design, gorgeous visuals, perfect controls, and iconic music, and you have a game that transcends the tropes of older action games. Super Mario Bros. took levels and made them worlds. And Mario just went on from there. World 1-1 to 1-2. An underground kingdom. Then later, forests. Castles. Bridges. Under oceans. Worlds upon worlds.
But none would exist without that very first. Hell, it's arguable that video games as they exist now wouldn’t be a thing if it weren’t for World 1-1. From the most meagre of pixelated tools, Miyamoto and the team at Nintendo crafted a miracle, and one that’s still as fun to play today as it was 40 years ago.
Jared Petty likes writing about how wonderful and silly video games are. You can find him at Bluesky as Bluesky as pettycommajared.
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The Witcher: Season 4 will premiere on Netflix on October 30, the streamer announced Saturday during the Canelo vs. Crawford fight. New key art, photos and the first clip featuring Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia were also released.
The action-packed clip shows Geralt battling a nightwraith. The new photos, which can be seen in the slideshow below, give us our first official look at Laurence Fishburne as Regis.
The Continent awaits. Here’s your exclusive first clip of Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher Season 4. Returns 30th October, only on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/CTvryeUmRd
“This is the beginning of a two-season journey for our family to finally reunite and be together — hopefully forever,” The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt told Tudum.com about Season 4.
The season’s official plot synopsis reads: “After the Continent-altering events of Season Three, Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri find themselves separated by a raging war and countless enemies. As their paths diverge, and their goals sharpen, they stumble on unexpected allies eager to join their journeys. And if they can accept these found families, they just might have a chance at reuniting for good…”
In addition to the aforementioned Liam Hemsworth and Laurence Fishburne, the cast of The Witcher’s fourth season includes Anya Chalotra (Yennefer of Vengerberg), Freya Allan (Princess Cirilla of Cintra), Joey Batey (Jaskier), Eamon Farren (Cahir), Anna Shaffer (Triss Merigold), Mimî M Khayisa (Fringilla), Cassie Clare (Philippa), Mahesh Jadu (Vilgefortz), Meng’er Zhang (Milva), Graham McTavish (Dijkstra), Royce Pierreson (Istredd), Mecia Simson (Francesca), Sharlto Copley (Leo Bonhart), Danny Woodburn (Zoltan) Jeremy Crawford (Yarpen), Bart Edwards (Emhyr), Hugh Skinner (Radovid), James Purefoy (Skellen), Christelle Elwin (Mistle), Fabian McCallum (Kayleigh), Juliette Alexandra (Reef), Ben Radcliffe (Giselher), Connor Crawford (Asse), Aggy K. Adams (Iskra), Linden Porco (Percival Schuttenbach), Therica Wilson-Read (Sabrina), Rochelle Rose (Margarita), and Safiyya Ingar (Keira).
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