Videogames, bruv Morning, Brits. Thousands will be heading to London’s Tobacco Dock later for EGX Rezzed’s preview day; are you one of them? The fourth Rezzed expo ushers in a new location for the event, having relocated from the Birmingham NEC last year and Brighton two years before that. Perhaps this will be the venue that sticks? New city aside, the weekend looks to be more or less as we’d expect it to, with developer sessions, the GamesIndustry Fair, and a hefty number of indie games filling out the three-day schedule....

$39.99 “Vita” time? Remember when the PlayStation TV was selling for $99.99 back around its October 2014 release date? Well now it’s all the way down to $39.99 today in a seemingly randomhalf price dealat GameStop. The drop is about $40 off the current list price with shipping free in the continental United States. There’s no expiration date that we know of and it actually “sold out” earlier today. Now it’s back in stock as an unmarked “pre-order status” — where “release date” is marked to May 28 (that’s when it’ll be available for shipping)....

Reconnaissance Mission In one of the strangest stories from the weekend, it seems that WayForward’s anticipated strategy releaseAdvance Wars 1+2: ReBoot Campwas rendered fully playable… by one single Switch owner. Twitter user “Rachael” (@killetheth) posted images pulled directly from the incoming release, which was seeminglyavailable to launch live from their Switch Lite unit, (though they are unable to access the title, from the same account, on their “main” Nintendo Switch hardware)....

I haven’t committed much time to playing aSonic the Hedgehoggame since its first sequel, which would normally make me feel somewhat disqualified to talk about what the blue hedgehog is up to in modern days. But playingSonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2at GDC, I didn’t feel as if I’d missed much of anything, particularly as our demo had a focus on Sonic’s sidekick, Miles “Tails” Prower. Tails was my favorite part ofSonic 2(which I wholly admit may affect my judgment here) and I always wished I could have approached stages in that game using only the little freak of nature....

That ‘counter’ sound effect is so satisfying A few months ago, Darren covered an inventive fighting game by the name ofLethal League. I thought it looked cool back then and have only become more into the concept over time. Essentially, two to four players try to take each other out by whacking an anti-gravity ball around an arena. It’s a relatively straightforward yet highly competitive game that’s best seen in motion, so please, watch this video for your own benefit....

Cutesy platformer headed to Sony box Elden Pixels’ NES-style platformer,Alwa’s Awakening,will launch on PS4 this week, Thursday in fact, following on from its previous releases on PC and Nintendo Switch. The 8-bit adventure follows you Zoe, as she attempts to restore peace to land of Alwa, armed with her trusty magic staff. In keeping with its old-school roots,Alwa’s Awakeningis a no slight task, with some 400 screens to explore and little in the way of hand-holding....

Arriving on PC and Wii U Last we heard,Insanity’s Bladewill be seeing a Wii U release as well as its original PC plan, and progress seems to be coming along nicely if this new trailer is anything to go by. It’s only about a minute or so of footage, but I’m really digging what I’m seeing so far. The overall theme of the game is literally a revenge story set in hell, and the fiery visual style reflects the theme pretty well....

We’re truly living in uncertain times when it comes to industry jobs and sadly, Rocksteady appears to have been the latest victim in a round of layoffs. The studio itself recently brought usSuicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, which may be partly responsible for the layoffs. The report comes fromEurogamer, with some unnamed staff members from the studio’s QA team in particular noting a series of redundancies. The department is said to have been “cut in half over the past month,” though losses within the company may have affected other teams as well....

There was plenty of excitement when aS.T.A.L.K.E.R.sequel was announced by GSC Game World. Nobody could have predicted just how tumultuous the development cycle would be. The game has faced numerous delays due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine which forced the team to quickly relocate from Kyiv to Prague. This was far from the end of their problems, as they would also suffer cyber attacks originating from Russia. Because of all these hurdles, thegame’s release date has shifted to 2024....

And the formula isn’t very complicated We’re living in a time when the terms “AAA game” and “financial success” seem to practically be mutually exclusive. The list of titles that companies havedeemed a commercial failurefeels as if it’s growing by the day. Due to inability to manage money, games are routinely trotted out with exorbitant sales goals in the mere hopes of breaking even. Tim Schafer did a Reddit AMAand explained that Double Fine’s approach is pretty much the exact opposite....

Don’t call me a ouiaboo The only known third-party exclusive for Nintendo Switch at this time isSeasons of Heaven, an indie game based on the book of the same name about a boy with Asperger’s named Yann and his bulldog Ani. The first full trailer shows vibrant and mysterious landscapes at first (including stacked rocks; I just had to Googlewhy the hell people do that), but you may be surprised when the calm and happy-go-lucky adventure meets samurai ghosts and giant black monstrosities....

Unreal “Where we droppin’, boys” is a common question that kicks off the start of everyFortnitematch. Sony’s less concerned about where it’s droppin, but rather how much. The answer: A quarter of a billion dollars. According to a report byGamesBeat, Sony has invested $250 million into Unreal Engine andFortnitecreator Epic Games. This strategic investment gives Sony a minority stake in Epic, although the percentage wasn’t divulged. Tencent bought a 40 percent stake for $330 million, but that was in 2012 pre-Fortnite; the company is worth a lot more than it was eight years ago....

Very slowly, apparently [Update:According to a post on thePlayStation Blog, Sony ascribes the outage to “high levels of traffic designed to disrupt connectivity and online gameplay.” The company is working to resolve the issue and restore network connectivity as soon as possible.] Sonyassertsthe PlayStation Network should steadily be coming back online. The announcement follows a two-day outage reportedly spurred by denial-of-service attacks. Update: PS4, PS3, and Vita network services are gradually coming back online – thanks for your patience...