SKYLANDERS MULTIPLAYER. I mean, hi everyone, welcome to This Week in Family Gaming! Skylanders will be getting online multiplayer for the first time with Skylanders SuperChargers. SuperChargers is the next game in the series, and it introduces vehicles to the equation. The game will still have single-player and two-player co-op adventure mode, plus two-player split-screen competitive races, and up to four-player online racing. It looks really cool. Like Mario Kart, which is never a bad comparison. Learn more about the five thousand things you can buy at this link here.
This news came out of Gamescom, which is the world’s biggest gaming convention. It’s open for the regular folks as well as press, unlike E3. Also unlike E3 it is truly radical in a ‘90s sense, because they have skateboarding workshops and moto-cross. Also, lots of games. To learn what the heck goes on at Gamescom, check out my write-up of it. I really want to go.
Nintendo is set to unleash a new wave of amiibos on September 11 this year. We’ll see the Classic Color 8-bit Mario, along with Zero Suit Samus, Captain Olimar, Ganondorf, Bowser Jr., and Dr. Mario. The 8-bit Mario is tied to the release of Super Mario Maker, a game that lets you build your own Mario levels. This is a great time for retro game fans because Nintendo is also releasing the Retro 3 Pack on September 25. This bundle includes R.O.B., Mr. Game & Watch, and the Duck Hunt Dog. Good luck amiibo-hunting!
Xbox boss Phil Spencer loooooooves having an exclusive release of Rise of the Tomb Raider for Xbox One, don’t get him wrong. But in a recent interview during the ChinaJoy conference, Spencer says Xbox hopes to have more big first-party releases—that is, games like Sunset Overdrive or Halo that are really, permanently, always going to be exclusive to the Xbox One.
Meanwhile, all the games that you’ll get for Games With Gold on Xbox 360 will be available on Xbox One thanks to that fancy backwards compatibility thing. Backwards compatibility is on its way this November. For a full list of publishers participating in the change, click here.
How do you deal with the shame of being truly awful at video games? That’s the question Linda Breneman tackles in her column this week: dealing with video game guilt. She writes about the challenges of playing Assassin’s Creed Unity and suffering. Check it out here.
The Nintendo NX is supposed to be Nintendo’s next big console, but what do we actually know about it? Not much. Courtney and I chat about it in this week’s episode of The Issue—she thinks we won’t see the NX ‘til 2017 at least. I think the NX is going to tie into Nintendo’s mobile games. But what do we know?
Are you gonna be at PAX Prime this year? 500 people are going to get to play Episode 4 of Tales from the Borderlands together in a theatre. Keezy Young writes that we should come equipped with our shouty voices, so it sounds like you won’t actually get your hands on a controller—but you will get to have some raucous audience-participation fun. Read more about it here.
