Vinath Oudomsine from the US state of Georgia was awarded a Covid relief loan after he claimed to run a small business comprising of 10 employees. However, after obtaining the cash (a tidy $85k), Oudomsine “used $57,789 of it to buy a first-edition, shadowless and holographic Charizard card with a 9.5 gem mint rating”, (thanks, Polygon). Having pleaded guilty to one account of Wire Fraud, Oudomsine will now spend 36 months in federal prison, with no parole....

Today’s patch makes two tiny changes to fix tournament points and match history from being reset. But it has also, again, sparked discussion among players wondering if a more significant update will ever follow. Released back in 2017, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is Nintendo Switch’s best-selling game. Four years on, it continues to sell extremely well and has a near-permanent spot in the UK boxed game chart top 10. Last year it looked like surging sales of Animal Crossing: New Horizons might finally dethrone Mario Kart 8 Deluxe from the Switch’s all-time top spot - but then Mario Kart 8 Deluxe went and sold a bucketload more....

Porter - who recently portrayed Heimdall in God of War: Ragnarok - was heard in audio logs but only rarely glimpsed as Osborn in the first Spider-Man. However, post-credits sequences found in that game and its Mile Morales follow-up appeared to be setting the character up as Venom in Insomniac’s “darker” Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Given that Insomniac has already teased Venom as a major antagonist in next year’s sequel, it seemed a distinct possibility Porter would also be making a return, but the actor has confirmed otherwise in a now-deleted tweet....

Watch on YouTube Mega Drive Mini 2 trailer The console will launch on 27th October in North America and Japan and include over 50 games installed from both the Mega Drive and Sega CD. Sega also boasts games never seen before will be included. Additionally, it will include the six-button controller rather than the original three-button. A release date for Europe is yet to be announced - including price and availability....

A new mod, named Rivercraft, has been created and is currently being tested in a school in Preston, as detailed by Microsoft. The mod was created in a collaboration between Minecraft, the Environment Agency and BlockBuilders, an organisation that specialises in digital youth engagement. It contains three games, all set in a recreation of Preston. They are as follows: Managing Flooding - players build their own version of the Preston flood defences, flood storage areas and flood gates....

Fortunately (or to the chagrin of Activision), there have since been numerous leaks revealing what’s ahead for the first-person shooter series. First, there’s a brand-new game mode called DMZ, an extraction-style mode similar to Escape From Tarkov. This will be the “third mode” alongside single-player campaign and multiplayer, which has tradiitonally been a Zombies or Spec Ops mode. Prominant Call of Duty leaker TheMW2Ghost released a recreated version of the DMZ map, so as to avoid a copyright takedown notice from Activison....

Like most SMGs in Modern Warfare 2, Vel 46 allows a fast-paced play style. Running all around the map looking for enemies and pulling your gun fast to deliver the killing blow is what defines playing with a gun such as this one. In order to help take the most out of this gun, we have prepared the best Vel 46 loadout, taking into consideration what are the best attachments, perks, and equipment....

PC players were using mods to add unofficial characters to the roster. But it appears Warner Bros is not pleased with the growing modding scene, having issued takedown notices for videos featuring mods in the game. Now it appears the game is up, with Warner Bros adding security features to stop the game running at all with mods. Modders will inevitably try to circumvent the game’s security. But for now we’ll just have to settle with the plain vanilla game....

You can attribute some of that to the unusual MultiVersus character roster, which isn’t especially cohesive. Packing 18 fighters with more planned, they all fall under Warner Bros. Discovery’s licensing, but mixing Game of Thrones characters with Bugs Bunny just feels strange, no matter how you slice it. That said, I never questioned it once I started playing - everyone’s been well adapted. That’s helped by voice actors reprising their roles, with Kevin Conroy and Matthew Lillard returning for Batman and Shaggy respectively as major highlights....

As more of a budget card, it isn’t decided to run AAA titles at Ultra settings in 4K at HFR, but in our review, we noted it’s a respectable performer for 1080p titles, with AAA games such as Doom Eternal running at an average of 197fps or so, which sits in line with Nvidia’s last-gen RTX 2060 Super in terms of performance. In cranking things up to max settings with Borderlands 3 for instance, the RX 6600 managed 77....

The first trailer starts off in New Racoon City in our current year, before fast-forwarding to post-apocalyptic London in 2036. The second trailer focuses on Umbrella Corp as it works on the ‘Joy’ miracle drug that cures all of humanity’s ailments… though is also infused with the T-virus. This is Netflix’s second Resident Evil adaptation, not to be confused with last year’s four-episode CGI series with Leon S. Kennedy, or separately the franchise’s live-action movie reboot not linked to Netflix (confusing, I know)....

The joint production between publisher Bandai Namco and ILCA was announced during the Ace Combat 25th anniversary retrospective panel (thanks, Gematsu). ILCA is the Japanese studio working on Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl. It helped out with 2019’s well-received Ace Combat 7, too. Explaining why ILCA had been drafted in to help out, Ace Combat series producer Kazutoki Kono said: “Project Aces staff will of course continue to be involved in the development of this new project, but as we celebrate 25 years and 3m copies sold, we’ve come to understand we have many fans of all tastes....

The trademark was filed in Japan on the 17th of March, with the filing made public today (nice spot, Gematsu). The filing itself doesn’t give much away - in fact it is literally just the word Knack - but it has started speculation that Sony may be gearing up to release a third installment to its platformer series. However, please do not get your hopes up too far. While this could be a sign that Knack 3 is coming, there is also every chance that this is all just a bit of housekeeping from Sony....

Japanese studio Pocketpair is responsible for the multiplayer, open-world survival crafting game that sees Pals farming, working in factories, and being shot at. The latest trailer, see below, shows the player and Pals double-teaming against enemy creatures. The vibrant open world looks stunning, with Pals being collected in coloured balls and put to work building structures. But then the player character hunts down creatures with guns and bow and arrow, alongside elemental abilities from Pals....

From Microsoft’s attempted Activision Blizzard takeover to Sony’s PlayStation 5 price rise, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 6 hack to the return of Silent Hill - we cover it all, with some Elden Ring underwear too. Going head to head in the Eurogamer Newscast News Quiz of the Year 2022 are our faithful news elves - Ed Nightingale, Victoria Kennedy and Liv Ngan - and of course, if you’re listening or watching at home, do join in....

At the tail-end of last year, EA revealed Criterion’s new (and currently unnamed) Need for Speed title would launch in “fiscal year” 2022 - that is, somewhere between this April and the end of March 2022 - but the publisher has now announced it’s shifting that release to FY2023. The news was shared by chief studios officer Laura Miele in a post offering an update on several of the publisher’s future titles....

The game is set for release on Switch on 20th January 2023. More details are expected to be revealed soon. Check out a first look in the trailer below. Watch on YouTube Fire Emblem Engage – Announcement Trailer This is the same Fire Emblem game that was detailed back in the summer in leaks which Eurogamer verified as legitimate at the time. Gameplay will be the same turn-based combat the series is known for....

In a recent Ask The Developer session with the game’s designers, producer Takayuki Shimamura and art director Junji Morii discuss the development of player characters. That included having players inside robots designed to look like burgers, bears, skulls, and more. “I remember we had the most outlandish characters that looked like robots,” recalls Shimamura. “Around the time when we decided to restart the project from scratch and were told that we would be starting over to create the world’s most easy-to-invite to motion-based game, I asked, ‘Are you sure we can’t go this far?...

Back in October I wrote a piece about a painting I really love - Capriccio: St Paul’s and a Venetian Canal, by William Marlow. It’s an obscure painting - it’s held in the Tate’s collection but it’s rarely on display - and Marlow is an obscure painter. I have googled gently over the twenty years since I saw the painting and have seen a few of his pieces, most of them sort of fine but not particularly memorable....

In an interview with Comic Book about his upcoming graphic novel, Isaac was asked for an update about the movie, and kindly obliged, albeit without offering any firm information about the film’s progress. “We want it to happen,” said Isaac. “Be excited. What’s the script? What’s the story? What’s the take? […] But hopeful that comes to fruition because there’s so much potential for that.” “It’s an incredible game. It’s my favourite,” he confirmed....