Everyone loves a good party, but rallying the troops to make sure a good time is enjoyed by one and all? That can be a pain, and Apple knows it. On Tuesday, the company introduced a new AI-powered app called Apple Invites to make it easier to get your dream guest list in order for any occasion.The basic idea behind the tool is to bring together many capabilities from across Apple's ecosystem -- from photos, to music, to maps, to weather -- and use them to create and share invitations, while also operating as a kind of digital portal for your event.Your guests will not only be able to RSVP to your custom invitation, but can contribute to a shared album during and after your gathering. You can even allow them to contribute to a shared Apple Music playlist for your party -- although we suggest using your discretion with this one.It wouldn't be 2025 without AI playing a role in a new tool or feature, and so, of course, Apple Intelligence has been integrated into Apple Invites, too. You can use the built-in Image Playground to produce original images using your own concepts and descriptions, or even people from your photo library. Apple Intelligence Writing Tools will also help you phrase your invitation perfectly to convey exactly how sophisticated or raucous your soiree will be.Some good news if you have an imminent event you're looking to organize -- like a Super Bowl party, for example -- Apple Invites is available immediately, either via the App Store or on the web. And even better, you don't need an Apple device or account to RSVP, meaning you have no excuse to leave your Android-user uncle off the invite list (which may in fact be bad news -- sorry if so).

February 4, 20252 min readTrump EPA Spending Freeze Continues despite Court OrdersTwo judges have ordered the Trump administration to lift a freeze on spending, including at the Environmental Protection Agency. But nonprofits and states still cant get money for contracts that are backed by the Inflation Reduction ActBy Jean Chemnick & E&E News Grid Alternatives employees hoist a solar panel as they install no-cost solar panels on the rooftop of a low-income household on Oct. 19, 2023, in Pomona, California. Mario Tama/Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | The Trump administration is still freezing many climate and infrastructure grants despite two federal court orders barring it from doing so.Nonprofits and state agencies still lacked access Monday to EPA grant awards funded through the Inflation Reduction Act. Two district court judges have issued orders to reverse such spending freezes with U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan reinforcing her order Monday.EPA administers several major grant programs under the climate law, including the nearly $5 billion Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program and the $7 billion Solar for All program, which supports community and rooftop solar projects in low-income neighborhoods. The overwhelming majority of those grants were final when former President Joe Biden left office last month, and the Trump EPA has few clear options to pull back funds or repurpose the awards.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.EPA is not the only agency that has halted payouts from the IRA and the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, said Jillian Blanchard, vice president for climate change and environmental justice with Lawyers for Good Government. She said grant recipients at the Agriculture and Energy departments are also reporting that they can't access funds.People cannot get into their accounts. They can't access funding. They're waiting on invoices to be paid. No one will call them back, she said.EPA program recipients told POLITICO's E&E News on Monday that the inability to access funds was already having an impact after one week. The recipients, granted anonymity to avoid retribution, said they have had to lay out money for expenses, like payroll or rent, without knowing if and when it would be reimbursed. The freeze has also prompted some recipients to pause hiring and worry about how long they could pay existing staff.The Justice Department in a filing Monday acknowledged AliKhans order and pledged to inform agencies of it. But it argued that the order contains several ambiguous terms and provisions that could be read to constitute significant intrusions on the executive branchs lawful authorities and the separation of powers.EPAs acting General Counsel Sean Donahue sent an agency mass mailer to all employees before 9 a.m. Monday morning that linked to the temporary restraining order. He promised additional EPA-specific guidance on agency financial assistance, which sources said was not sent as of Monday evening.EPA declined to respond to an inquiry from E&E News about why the funds remained frozen, referring questions to DOJ. EPA did not acknowledge questions about whether the delay was due to a technical difficulty or whether the agency believed it was complying with the court order.DOJ declined to comment.Zealan Hoover, former director of implementation at Bidens EPA, said the Trump administration appeared to be trying to dodge the order.I am very concerned that this illegal action will force state and local governments to pause construction, lay off staff and slow their work to provide cleaner air and water, he said.Blanchard echoed that concern.It looks like this executive is considering just completely flouting a court's direct order, she said.Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

Demolition derby racer Wreckfest 2 starts PC early access in MarchCrash test.Image credit: Bugbear Entertainment/THQ Nordic News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on Feb. 4, 2025 We were big fans of developer Bugbear Entertainment's demolition derby racer Wreckfest when it launched back in 2018, so there was some excitement when a sequel was announced last year. And the studio has now confirmed similarly enthusiastic sorts will be able to slam pedal to the metal when Wreckfest 2 launches into Steam early access on 20th March.Wreckfest 2 promises what Bugbear is calling the "next evolution of full-contact racing", and there's talk of an overhauled physics engine, more intricate component damage simulation, and "even higher crash fidelity" - all working together to conjure "absolute vehicular mayhem".Course-wise, Bugbear is promising a blend of high-speed circuits, "crazy courses with obstacles and jumps", plus intersections and oncoming traffic. Initially these'll be available in Racing, Derby and multiplayer mode - supporting up to 34 players - with more to come. Sometime into Wreckfrest 2's early access release, for instance, Bugbear is set to introduce a revamped career mode designed to adapt to individuals' playstyles, plus as skill-based matchmaking system and server queues for online players.Wreckfest 2 early access announcement trailer.Watch on YouTubeIn order to prepare for the big race, player can customise their battered cars with new armour and components types intended to suit different playstyles, with more parts coming as early access continues. Also due to launch at some point during early access are tournaments, high-score challenges putting players in "unconventional vehicles that were definitely never supposed to end up on a racetrack", and mod support.Bugbear says the goal of early access is to ensure Wreckfest 2 is "shaped by [player] feedback" from day one. And while there's no indication of how long Bugbear plans early access to continue, the original Wreckfest notably remained in early access for four years. The results, however, were worth it, with Martin Robison calling it a game of "primal pleasures" and "little by way of pretension" in his Recommended review.So if you're ready to ride its sequel as it heads to the early access finish line, you'll be able to do so on Steam from 20th March.

Layoffs look likely at Sumo Digital, as company ditches plans to work on its own IP"Unavoidably this transition will have an impact on our studios and people."Image credit: Sumo Digital News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief Published on Feb. 4, 2025 UK game maker Sumo Digital has told staff it will refocus exclusively on "development services for partners", rather than continuing to create its own IP.This decision will "unavoidably... have an impact on our studios and people," a statement from the company noted today. "We are committed to minimising this impact as much as possible, exploring all options to retain talent, and supporting those affected with transparency, care and compassion," it added.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Xbox Developer Direct - four promising games also coming to PlayStation.Watch on YouTubeHeadquarted in Sheffield, Sumo Digital has grown considerably since its founding in 2003, with development offices in Nottingham, Newcastle, Leamington Spa and Warrington, and also abroad in India. The company additionally owns several other studios, including the Brighton-based The Chinese Room, developer of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and Still Wakes the Deep.In 2021, Chinese megacorp Tencent announced it had bought parent company Sumo Group in a deal worth around 919m. Today's news seems set to mark the second round of layoffs at the company in under a year, after 15 percent of its staff were let go in June 2024, and Canadian indie studio Timbre Games was divested. Sumo Digital has long been a work-for-hire studio that has quietly helped develop some of video gaming's biggest blockbusters, with contributions to IO Interactive's recent Hitman trilogy, Xbox's Forza Horizon 4 and 5, Activison's Call of Duty: Vanguard and Warner Bros' Hogwarts Legacy. It has also worked on a long list of games as lead developer, including Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, and LittleBigPlanet 3 and Sackboy: A Big Adventure for PlayStation.More recently, Sumo had begun working on its own IP, including puzzle platformer Snake Pass, and indie titles such as DeathSprint 66 and Critter Cafe that it released through its own publishing label, Secret Mode.Sumo's statement says the company has now been forced to balance "creative ambitions and the commercial realities to ensure the long-term stability and success of our business". The company continued by saying it hoped the decision would strengthen its position as "a premium development partner" going forwards. "Whether collaborating on new or established games, co-developing games, providing specialist engineering, or porting services; we are confident in our teams' exceptional talent and our ability to thrive in this next chapter," the company concluded.

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Contents hide Warhorse Studios Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 player count is already a sight to behold. Just a day after launch, the new medieval RPG has skyrocketed to massive concurrent player counts, kicking off a new era for the Czech game studio.With almost universally glowing reviews including our own review Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is expected to have long legs, just like its predecessor. As DLC is already in the works, the games high player count should rest easy knowing that a tonne of additional content is already on the way.Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 player count revealedVia SteamCharts, the player count for Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has started off strong. On Steam alone, the game has hit a peak of 1225,730 players at the time of writing, and the game is only climbing.For comparison, the original game in the series was already a major success, but was substantially lower in peak player numbers. Across the games lifespan, the original game saw an all-time high of 95,863 players concurrently exploring at the same time.Of course, these numbers are even higher once console versions of the game are taken into account. However, since Xbox and PlayStation typically dont release peak concurrent player numbers for any title outside of their own, we shouldnt expect to get any concrete data.Nevertheless, it goes to show that gaming as a medium is still continuing to grow. While publishers want new games like GTA 6 to raise prices to $100 to keep up with costs, there are more gamers than ever buying titles and higher player numbers than ever as well. Isnt that interesting? Must-Listen: Publishing Manor Lords w/ Joe Robinson VideoGamer Podcast Listen Now For more Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 coverage, read about how to haggle in the dense, realistic RPG, check out the games entire mission list or maybe tips and tricks to surviving the games harsh difficulty.Subscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

Federal employees are seeking a temporary restraining order as part of a class action lawsuit accusing a group of Elon Musks associates of allegedly operating an illegally connected server from the fifth floor of the US Office of Personnel Managements (OPM) headquarters in Washington, DC.An attorney representing two federal workersJane Does 1 and 2filed a motion this morning arguing that the servers continued operation not only violates federal law but is potentially exposing vast quantities of government staffers personal information to hostile foreign adversaries through unencrypted email.A copy of the motion, filed in the DC District Court by National Security Counselors, a Washington-area public-interest law firm, was obtained by WIRED exclusively in advance. WIRED previously reported that Musk had installed several lackeys in OPMs top offices, including individuals with ties to xAI, Neuralink, and other companies he owns.The initial lawsuit, filed on January 27, cites reports that Musks associates illegally connected a server to a government network for the purposes of harvesting information, including the names and email accounts of federal employees. The server was installed on the agencys premises, the complaint alleges, without OPMthe governments human resources departmentconducting a mandatory privacy impact assessment required under federal law.Under the 2002 E-Government Act, agencies are required to perform privacy assessments prior to making substantial changes to existing information technology when handling information in identifiable form. Notably, prior to the installation of the server, OPM did not have the technical capability to email the entire federal workforce from a single email account.[A]t some point after 20 January 2025, OPM allowed unknown individuals to simply bypass its existing systems and security protocols, Tuesdays motion claims, for the stated purpose of being able to communicate directly with those individuals without involving other agencies. In short, the sole purpose of these new systems was expediency.OPM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Got a Tip?Are you a current or former employee with a government agency impacted by this? Wed like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact Dell Cameron securely at dell.3030 on Signal.If the motion is granted, OPM would be forced to disconnect the server until the assessment is done. As a consequence, the Trump administrations plans to drastically reduce the size of the federal workforce would likely face delays. The email account linked to the serverHR@opm.govis currently being used to gather information from federal workers accepting buyouts under the admins deferred resignation program, which is set to expire on February 6.Under the law, a temporary restraining order is an extraordinary remedy, notes National Security Counselors executive director, Kel McClanahan. But this is an extraordinary situation.Before issuing a restraining order, courts apply whats known as the balance of equities doctrine, weighing the burdens and costs on both parties. In this case, however, McClanahan argues that the injunction would inflict no hardship on the government whatsoever. February 6 is an arbitrary deadline, he says, and the administration could simply continue to implement the resignation program through preexisting channels.

NASA personnel were told to drop everything to scrub public sites of mentions of DEI, indigenous people, environmental justice, and women in leadership, according to a directive obtained by 404 Media.The directive, sent on January 22 and obtained by 404 Media, states:Per NASA HQ direction, we are required to scrub mentions of the following terms from our public sites by 5pm ET today. This is a drop everything and reprioritize your day request. Note that the list below is the list that exists this morning, but it may grow as the day goes on.DEIADiversity (in context of DEIA)Equity ( )Inclusion ( )Accessibility ( )MSIMinority Serving InstitutionIndigenous PeopleEEJEJEnvironmental JusticeUnderrepresented groups/peopleAnything specifically targeting women (women in leadership, etc.)Do you have anything to share related to this story, NASA or SpaceX? We would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at sam.404. Otherwise, send me an email at sam@404media.co.By now, Trumps war on DEI is well documented. But the directive shows the specific words that some agencies were asked to delete, providing a clearer picture of how agencies have been asked to scrub information. A NASA employee told 404 Media we were absolutely required to scrub all DEI related or DEI adjacent topics and terms from all external websites by 5pm the 22nd, which was a drop everything and get it done task. 404 Media granted the employee anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.Many of these changes are visible on publicly-available NASA Github repositories, where NASA pages have been edited to change, for example inclusive to fair. Inclusion has also been deleted from promotional materials about competitions.These changes are a result of President Donald Trumps executive order Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing. Civil servants across the federal government have had to divert their attention from normal operations to attempt to comply with Trumps gender- and diversity-obsessed orders the last few weeks, including Social Security Administration sites removing information about sex designations, the Department of Labor sites about discrimination at work, CDC websites, and informational videos about the use of pronouns. The NASA Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity website was taken offline, too.Github repositories have been a public view of many of these removals.In an email to staff after Trumps DEI order, NASA acting administrator Janet Petrothe first woman to hold the position since its founding 67 years agowrote that diversity programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination, and accused some in government of attempting to somehow sneak in diversity and inclusion efforts.As Inc. pointed out, NASA is not an exceptionally diverse workplace: A 2024 report from the NASA Office of Inspector General said that despite diversity efforts, NASA made little progress in increasing the representation of women and minorities in its civilian workforce or leadership ranks. Specifically, over the past decade NASAs overall workforce demographics have stayed roughly the same. At the same time, astronaut selection, which involves sorting through thousands of highly qualified candidates, has in the recent past (and during Trumps first term) attempted to represent what Americans actually look like and the backgrounds they come from, including women and people of color.When Petro took on the role to lead NASA, she wrote on LinkedIn that she would remain steadfast in our commitment to NASA's mission and core values. In 2021, when she was the director of Kennedy Space Center, she spoke at length in an interview about the value of diversity, saying our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility has been paramount to mission success. In that interview, she went on to reflect on how committed she was to making paths for women and minorities in her field: Since the beginning of my professional journey, I have been in the minority of the organization I belonged towhether it was flying helicopters in the Army or working as a mechanical engineer or program manager in a commercial aerospace company, she said. I often found myself either the only female, or only one of a couple. There werent many minorities either. [...] I am, therefore, profoundly committed to promoting opportunities for growth for all. A big part of this is ensuring an environment where everyone feels included, has a voice and feels safe to express their opinions.Jason Koebler contributed reporting to this piece.Sam Cole is writing from the far reaches of the internet, about sexuality, the adult industry, online culture, and AI. She's the author of How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex.More from Samantha Cole

Pad's the wayDune Awakening may be coming out on PC first, but it's "designed with a controller in mind"Producer Nils Ryborg provides some insight from his own experience porting traditional PC genres to console.Image credit: Funcom News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on Feb. 4, 2025 Porting a game from PC to console is hard, especially if the game in question is from a genre traditionally one native to the PC. It can be tricky to make the transition across platforms without losing something along the way, but in the case of Dune Awakening, the game has been "designed with a controller in mind".All this, without any word on when a console version is coming out. In fact, the game's release on PC (which we know will be coming first) is also a mystery. To help figure out what considerations were taken with this inevitable multi-platform release, I sat down and spoke to Nils Ryborg. Ryborg is a producer on Dune Awakening, but prior to his time at Funcom he worked on the console port of Pillars of Eternity at Paradox, and so could provide some unique insight on the process.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. "The struggle there, I remember Pillars of Eternity (laughs) we spent a lot of time trying to figure out the UX in it, and brought in a little bit of influences from action RPGs, especially with how you move." Ryborg stated. "It's primarily a very tactical game, and obviously you're very limited when you use a controller. So we created AI architects you could work with, so you could make your NPCs make better decisions, and direct them a little bit." He continues, "We made it easier for you to move your character around and make quick decisions, and do real-time combat a bit more effectively. But we also left in the mechanics that allowed you to pause and pull off more complicated strategies. All this alongside basic UX things like finding ways to cycle different buttons and what not. But the driver there was shifting things to more of a ARPG while keeping as much tactical stuff as we could"So that's what the Paradox team had to do, what about Funcom? Was its approach the same, or were considerations taken to make the transition a little less hassle?"So from the start, it's the easier way of making a game, going console-first. A lot of that transitions easily back on the PC, whereas if you make a pure PC game where you use a mouse and keyboard to control, it's really difficult to port over. So it's been designed with a controller in mind from the get-go." "Obviously, we're releasing on PC first, right? So that's where we'll have a good setup, but the console UX-wise, I'm not super concerned. Obviously it's all the classic tech stuff, y'know, where they're a little more limited in certain hardware things. So it needs to perform well and other tech stuff. It shouldn't be overly complicated."So, while those anticipating Dune Awakening on console are still going to have to bunker down for a while, waiting for more info, they should at least be happy knowing that the version they get won't be drastically different from their peers on PC.

You Like It DarkerOn The Sims' 25th birthday, let's celebrate the weird and wacky original that breathed life into a genreIt's a tired talking point, but you really probably couldn't make a game like this today.Image credit: Maxis / Electronic Arts Article by Rebecca Jones Guides Writer Published on Feb. 4, 2025 If, like me, you've been playing The Sims since more or less the very beginning, odds are good you were quite a small child when the first game came out, right? It was 25 years ago today, so if you were even old enough to play on a computer at the time you must be 30-ish by now, minimum; and of course there's the small fact that anyone who came to this series already middle-aged is probably really getting up there in years. Sims in this original outing didn't age, but we all sure do.I promise there's more to this preamble than just a grim memento mori; the point I'm trying to drive at is that kids who grew up with the original Sims often recall being quite scared by the game at times. It's certainly true for me; much as I fell in love with The Sims from the first time I saw those classic live-action TV ads, I can distinctly remember being upset or frightened playing it sometimes.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. I nearly cried the first time one of my Sim children got shipped off to military school for having bad grades (an especially terrifying concept to a 10-year-old), and I'm pretty sure I used to have to get my mum to sit with me whenever the musical sting came on that indicated one of the ghosts in the Goth graveyard was going for a midnight stroll. Others report a primal fear response even now when they hear the music cue which meant a burglar (or, with the Unleashed expansion pack installed, possibly just a raccoon) was approaching their Sims' home.But, that's kids, right? I'm 34 now, with a deep love for all things horror, and there's no way that The Sims could still unnerve me.Well. That's what I thought until I started checking out a few retrospective videos on YouTube ahead of today's big celebration. Less than five minutes in I saw a child Sim die of starvation and instantly remembered that oh, yeah, Sims 1 was quite harrowing, actually. Even if you can get over the visuals of a Sim in mortal distress, which have remained more or less consistent throughout the series, I'd forgotten just how awful the screams were. Those never really came back in any of the sequels. Sims in TS1 use pre-rendered skins that don't have dynamic facial expressions, which I used to think was a bit eerie until I saw this promotional render of what that would actually look like and realised that no, we're good, actually. | Image credit: Maxis / Electronic ArtsThe original Sims wasn't entirely devoid of euphemisms "punch bowls" and "bubble blowers" already stood in for the kind of hard substances that would get the game slapped with too high an age rating; meanwhile, babies were made through lots of kissing, and your Sims needed to purchase a special item of furniture specifically to "play in" if they wanted to do anything more intimate with their romantic partner. But at the outset, The Sims contained some surprisingly dark and raunchy stuff, too.On the opposite end of the spectrum from those painfully realistic death throes, you could hire a party entertainer who was so extremely clearly a stripper that all but the most sheltered of pre-teens were guaranteed to get the joke, even if you didn't technically see more than what's on display in a bathing suit. (Said "cake dancer", incidentally, is making their triumphant return to the franchise with The Sims 4's Blast From The Past event, which launches later today!) Adult Sims could walk around nearly-nude regardless of context and with nary a mod installed thanks to some very revealing default outfits, and I don't feel like I need to say too much about those go-go cage dance animations for you to get the idea. The dead house plants, the dirty dishes, the young child watching her infant sibling while their parents get about as frisky as it's possible to in TS1 right in front of them: it gets worse the more you look. | Image credit: Maxis / Electronic ArtsA frequent criticism of The Sims franchise as a whole is that it's become increasingly sanitised as time has gone on, and going all the way back to the beginning, it's hard to argue with that. Plenty of the original's general sense of weirdness has been toned right down, in favour of a more idealised and upbeat take on what it means to be "cartoonish".Realistically I'm sure there are a lot of reasons as to why this happens over time, but my first thought was that unlike all of its sequels The Sims was in the unique position of being developed without a strong sense of who its audience would be. This was, after all, an experimental architecture sandbox that shifted over the course of its development into a life simulator, a genre that hadn't really taken off up until that point in time. There was no script to follow, and to further compound the confusion, it wasn't particularly apparent who was going to want to play a video game (a thing allegedly only boys liked) which closely emulated the enjoyment of moving dolls around a dollhouse (a thing allegedly only girls liked). So really, it's not all that surprising that the humour and aesthetics of the original Sims tended to favour the interests of whichever demographics were programming computer games in California in the late 1990s. As someone who can remember the turn of the century, I do feel the need to clarify that this was meant to look incredibly tacky at the time. Thank goodness the interior designers of this eternal Vegas vacation remembered to invest in a certified sex bed.Image credit: Maxis / Electronic ArtsAnd then, of course, The Sims found its audience. Most seismically, as we now know, it turned out that women and girls actually really like video games that recognise their common interests and lived experience; and The Sims became the best-selling PC game up to that point in time in large part due to its phenomenal success with female players, a marketable demographic that up until that moment hadn't been seriously entertained by most game publishers. Plenty of guys liked it too, of course, because it's a great game and because the idea of ruthlessly gendered hobbies is nonsense anyway; give men the privacy of a screen and it turns out a lot of them enjoy playing with digital dolls too, even if the potential for sex and violence is quite limited (although far from absent, as we've already seen).But of course, once you have an audience especially an audience as hungry for more of what they like as those original Simmers were commercial considerations kick in. The Sims is most popular with women and children, and even though we know those groups actually thrive on all this darkness and innuendo, you can't market that to the latter in particular. It becomes a bit of a catch-22, in which EA are fully aware that mods which introduce grimmer and raunchier content are uncontested fan favourites, but there's no way you can make that sort of thing a core part of the game without drastically reducing your ability to make actual sales. And we might not like to admit it, but without making a game that they can sell, eventually there'd be no Sims left at all. An unreasonable number of well-groomed, buff men wandering around town in beachwear in the middle of the day, and a Cupid statue I'm pretty sure is about to shoot a woman. Never change, The Sims 1. Never change. | Image credit: Maxis / Electronic ArtsSo, in a way, the best thing to do is just appreciate what we had in The Sims 1: a weird and wonderful little experiment that led to great things, but probably won't ever be repeated and certainly not by a company as corporate and small-c conservative as EA. But on the original game's 25th birthday, let's take a moment to remember that "cosy" games don't need to be too wholesome indeed, The Sims 4 has revitalised its image somewhat of late by turning its attention to the twin matters of sex and death, and although that conversation is far more serious and earnest now than it was in The Sims 1, I still think this just makes my point for me.I'm glad they didn't bring back those death rattle cries, though. Yikes.

Or Search-Action, if you prefer? Castloid?Updated with Laika: Aged Through Blood and Blade Chimera. Enjoy!The word 'Metroidvania' might rub some the wrong way, but it's a useful catch-all to describe a very specific type of search-action game experience. Combining elements from both the Metroid series and Koji Igarashi-produced Castlevania titles, this broad platforming genre has you using an ever-growing skill set to open up new paths across an expansive, layered map.Read the full article on nintendolife.com