Nintendo has released its latest round of global sales data as of September 30, and once again its slate of first-party games ran the field. While the top five Nintendo Switch games all continued their steady success and remained in place relative to each other, the bottom half of the list was scrambled by some newcomers that have joined the list.The biggest change is from Mario Tennis Aces, which rocketed to number six on the list with 2.16 million copies, after debuting in the number ten spot as of June 30. Kirby Star Allies, which cracked the list in March figures, has now tied Arms for the number seven slot at 2.1 million. The re-release of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze also made the list with 1.67 million.There's a notable drop from the fourth and fifth spots, making those first four--Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Splatoon 2--the mega-hits in the Switch library. Those will be the ones most difficult to dethrone, while the rest of the spots are likely to continue shuffling.On the 3DS the list is less dynamic. All ten games have retained their exact positions as the system puts out fewer new releases, and the pace of new purchases appears to have slowed as well. Between March and September, for example, Pokemon X/Y sold an additional 50,000 copies. That's steady success for a franchise that has already sold in the tens of millions, but the system is definitely starting to show its age. Check below for the full list.Nintendo SwitchSuper Mario Odyssey -- 12.17 millionMario Kart 8 Deluxe -- 11.71 millionThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild -- 10.28 millionSplatoon 2 -- 7.47 million1-2 Switch -- 2.64 millionMario Tennis Aces -- 2.16 millionArms -- 2.10 millionKirby Star Allies -- 2.10 millionDonkey Kong: Tropical Freeze -- 1.67 millionXenoblade Chronicles 2 -- 1.53 million3DSMario Kart 7 -- 17.04 millionPokemon X/Y -- 16.29 millionPokemon Sun/Moon -- 16.10 millionPokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire -- 14.06 millionNew Super Mario Bros. 2 -- 12.61 millionSuper Mario 3D Land -- 11.96 millionAnimal Crossing: New Leaf -- 11.69 millionSuper Smash Bros. for 3DS -- 9.24 millionPokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon -- 7.51 millionTomodachi Life -- 6.20 millionInfo from Gamespot.com

During its Nintendo Direct for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the company had a wide variety of news to share concerning characters, DLC, and more. Significantly, it also outlined the last remaining mode: Spirits. The mode presents special challenges that will give you equippable "Spirits" to enhance your own characters.Each fighter can equip one Primary Spirit, which enhances stats. Some Primary Spirits will also have slots to equip Support Spirits with additional skills. Sometimes to pass a Spirit challenge you'll need to equip a Spirit with a special ability that is suited for the stage hazards or enemy types. You can also combine cores to summon new Spirits, train them in the Gym, or send them off on quests to find treasure.Spirits will come in four rarity levels: Novice, Advanced, Aces, and Legend. They also have three different types of abilities in a rock-paper-scissors pattern. Attack is strong against Grab, Grab is strong against Shield, and Shield is strong against Attack.Nintendo showed off several examples of Spirit battles, like a Guts Man challenge with a large opponent, or the Able Sisters that come equipped with a drill. But, you'll get lower rewards for unbalanced fights, so try to keep your power level similar to your opponent.Super Smash Bros. Ultimate promises the biggest roster of the series so far, featuring every character that has ever appeared playable in a Smash game along with a few new additions. Today was the final Smash Bros. Nintendo Direct, so we've now seen the full lineup of characters--that is, until Nintendo begins revealed the Smash Ultimate DLC. You can see everything else announced during the Direct in our news round-up.Smash Bros. Ultimate launches on December 7, but a bundle is launching a month early with a code that will activate upon the release date. It's getting Gamecube-style controllers and some stores have Amiibo exclusivity. Check out our pre-order guide for more details.Info from Gamespot.com

Today's Super Smash Bros. Ultimate presentation filled out the rest of the roster and revealed all of the fighters that will be in the game upon release. But more are coming, as the presentation also noted that more fighters will be added post-launch as DLC.Each fighter pack will include one fighter, one stage, and multiple music tracks, for $6. Nintendo is planning to release five packs, and you can purchase a bundle "Fighters Pass" for $25 that will include all five fighters, five stages, and all the music tracks. Nintendo noted that it hasn't begun active development on the fighters yet so it may take up to a year to complete the full Fighter's Pass. Purchasing the Fighter's Pass will also get you an outfit based on Rex from Xenoblade Chronicles 2.Another piece of post-launch content is coming for free. Piranha Plant will be available for free for early purchasers. If you buy Super Smash Bros. Ultimate digitally or register your physical copy by January 31, 2019, you'll get the fighter at no cost around February 2019. It will be available for purchase separately sometime later.Today's presentation revealed the final two roster characters: Ken and Incineroar. It also took the wraps off the final mode, Spirits, which allows you to take part in special challenges to earn equippable buffs for your characters. This also serves as the story for the game, as Nintendo teased that there will be a plot explanation for the characters being turned into apparitions. You can read about every announcement and watch the highlights of the Direct in our news round-up.Smash Bros. Ultimate launches on December 7. Check out our pre-order guide for more details.Info from Gamespot.com

Alongside the ongoing Fortnitemares challenges, Fortnite: Battle Royale players have reached Week 6 in Season 6. The Thursday weekly reset means a whole new batch of weekly challenges to complete. Completing the weekly challenges is crucial to earn Battle Stars and level up your Battle Pass, which in turn will earn you cosmetic items. We have a breakdown of Week 6's challenges, but if you want to catch up on all the still-active quests from previous weeks, take a gander at our comprehensive Fortnite Season 6 challenge guide.As always, the challenges are split into two tiers. The free section, available to all, tasks you with placing Chillers in different matches, searching for a Chest in different named locations, and getting three shotgun eliminations.The higher tier challenges available only to Battle Pass owners give out stars as well. You can get rewards for landing at Shifty Shafts, dealing pickaxe damage, finding sheet music, and elimination with a common weapon. The landing, sheet music, and elimination challenges are all multi-stage quests, so you'll have other challenges open up after you complete the first phase.Fortnite Season 6, Week 5 ChallengesFreePlace Chillers in different matches (3) -- 5 Battle StarsSearch a Chest in different Named Locations (7) -- 5 Battle StarsShotgun Eliminations (3) -- 10 Battle StarsBattle PassLand at Shifty Shafts (Part 1 of 5) -- 1 Battle StarDeal damage with a pickaxe to opponents (250) -- 5 Battle StarsFind the Sheet Music in Pleasant Park (Part 1 of 4) -- 2 Battle Stars (10 total)Elimination with a Common weapon (Part 1 of 5) -- 2 Battle Stars (10 total)If you complete those and still have a hankering for more challenges, you can also take part in the Fortnitemares event. Though ostensibly tied to Halloween, it's still ongoing for a few more days. You can take on special Fortnitemares challenges to earn the Outlander skin and other cosmetics. Outlander and some of the others are part of a new type of reactive cosmetics which change appearance based on your match performance. You can find out more about the Fortnitemare event and challenges here.Info from Gamespot.com

The latest Super Smash Bros. Ultimate presentation was chock full of new announcements, including word of a special dedicated service coming next year. Dubbed "Smash World," the free service will let you post and watch videos of your glory moments.Game director Masahiro Sakurai teased that the service will boast other unnamed features as well, and that it will be given regular updates throughout its lifespan. The brief glimpse at the UI shown during the presentation had a large array of video captures appearing on a mobile device.Smash World isn't the only extra coming to Smash Bros. in 2019. The presentation also revealed plans for DLC characters, stages, and music to come throughout the year. There will be five packs in all--each of which grants one character, one stage, and some music tracks--for $6 apiece. Nintendo is also offering a Fighter Pass for $25. In addition to those five characters, Piranha Plant is being added as a playable character, and he'll(?) be free for anyone who registers their copy of the game by January 31, 2019.As for launch day content, the presentation revealed a few more goodies in store on that front as well. Two more fighters joined the roster--Ken and Incineroar--and we finally got a closer look at both the Adventure Mode and the new Spirits Mode, along with how online matchmaking works.Super Smash Bros. Ultimate launches December 7. Check out our pre-order guide for more details.Info from Gamespot.com

A final Nintendo Direct focused on the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate introduced a whole new mode, which pairs hand-in-hand with its revised way to include beloved characters from a wide variety of new and retro video games. The new "Spirits" system replaces Trophies, letting the company give power-up attributes to still artwork rather than attempt to render 3D models of every character it wishes to reference.You earn Spirits by battling in Spirits Mode, and then they can be used to buff your character. The Spirits come in two varieties: Primary Spirits, which mostly have stat increases, and Support Spirits, which attach to Primary Spirits and imbue you with special skills or abilities. Spirits are ranked by rarity: Novice, Advanced, Ace, and Legend. They also come in three power types: Attack (Red), Grab (Green), and Shield (Blue), in a rock-paper-scissors circle of vulnerabilities.The presentation showed dozens of Spirits rapid-fire style and with some attributes obscured by the various menus. While this list isn't complete, it shows several of the Spirits shown so far, with their special attributes, color affinity, and rarity. Check out the list to see just how deep Nintendo is reaching with its references.Smash Bros. Ultimate releases on December 7. Check out our pre-order guide for more details.Primary SpiritsGooey -- AdvancedYuga -- Shield, AceArticuno, Zapdos, & Moltres -- Attack, LegendCranky Kong (Speed Down) -- Attack, AceKlaptrap (Weight Down) -- Attack, AdvancedRevali -- Attack, AdvancedRabbid Peach -- Shield, AdvancedKid Dracula -- Grab, AcePrimid -- NoviceBonkers -- Attack, AceReinhardt Schneider -- NoviceFlare -- NoviceBokoblin -- NoviceSmeargle -- NoviceLakitu & Spiny -- Grab, AdvancedGordo -- Shield, AdvancedGuts Man -- Grab, AdvancedOwain -- Attack, NoviceThe Imprisoned -- Shield, AdvancedBullet Bill -- Attack, NoviceMelia -- AdvancedLeon Belmont -- Grab, AdvancedZael -- Attack, AdvancedPrince Fluff (Weight Down) -- Grab, NoviceMicaiah -- Grab, AceSevera -- NoviceShy Guy -- NoviceSkull Man -- Shield, AdvancedST Falcon -- Attack, NoviceSkull Kid -- Grab, AdvancedSigma -- Attack, AceStarfy -- AceJimmy T -- Shield, AceMumkhar -- Attack, AdvancedBlooper -- ShieldEphraim -- Attack, AceZoroark -- Attack, AdvancedOctoling Girl and Octoling Boy -- Attack, AceKyogre -- ShieldPrincess Ruto -- ShieldCut Man -- GrabSupport SpiritsVulpix (Fire Flower Equipped)Cappy (Strong Throw)Pseudo-Palutena (Transformation Duration Up)Elise (Autoheal)Slippy Toad (Made of Metal)Rattly (Jump Up)Tree (Unflinching Charged Smashes)Lip (Lip's Stick Equipped)Nabbit (Item Gravitation)Ouendan (Critical Health Stats Up)Amy -- Attack, AceFortidudo -- AdvancedAir Man -- Shield, AdvancedPolterpup -- Shield, AdvancedRogue the Bat -- Grab, AdvancedLip -- Grab, AceAble Sisters -- Attack, AceHal Emmerick -- Shield, AdvancedMimikyu (Death's Scythe Equipped) -- AdvancedGuardian (Weapon Resist Up) -- AdvancedYama -- Attack, NoviceDr. Lobe -- AdvancedF-Type -- Shield, NoviceMia & Miyu Amakara (Poison Damage Reduced)Jelfonzo -- Grab, NoviceNino (Undamaged Attack Up)Urban Champion Fighter (Fist Attack Up)SnipperclipsMedli (Strong Wind Immunity)UnknownMouser -- NoviceSilver the Hedgehog -- AdvancedDry Bowser -- LegendClefairyMetal SonicUrbosaEliwoodLoftwingPiantasPandoraKaitlin and KatieChibi-RoboPiplupTailsDr. WilyWaddle-DeeMetroidMr. ResettiMajora's Mask MoonZeroRambi the RhinoInfo from Gamespot.com

Activision has announced a free companion app for Call of Duty, letting you keep track of social features, earn rewards, track your own stats and performance, and keep up with Call of Duty news. It will work with both Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Call of Duty: WW2 when it launches for free soon on iOS and Android devices.The friends feed will let you track your friends' accomplishments and battle stats and compare acheivements. You can also form a squad with up to 20 players and earn in-game exclusive rewards by completing squad goals. Those will consist of challenges like killing a certain number of zombies or winning a specified number of matches in a game mode. You can even bank your rewards toward real-world gear from Call of Duty licensees like KontrolFreek.Connecting your in-game profile to the app will give you detailed stats of your own performance in Black Ops 4 and Call of Duty: WW2. You can get weekly "Action Reports" along with personalized recommendations on how to improve your game. The app will also show you heat maps to analyze your play.Finally, the app will serve as an information hub for Call of Duty happenings, giving word on in-game events and patch notes."The release of the Call of Duty Companion App is part of our continued commitment to creating personalized services for players that enhances their gameplay and deepens their connection to the game, as well as other players," said engagement SVP Monte Lutz, in the announcement. "We're launching with compelling features that are tailor made for the Call of Duty community, and we'll continue to add new capabilities, including localization, a loadout editor and chat, that will give players the tools they need to get the most out of Call of Duty. We look forward to partnering with the community on developing the roadmap for future features."Info from Gamespot.com

At its annual BlizzCon keynote, Blizzard announced the next Hearthstone expansion coming to the popular digital CCG: Rastakhan's Rumble. The new expansion focuses on trolls who come together once a generation to compete for the blessings of the Loa.The fierce competition consists of nine teams--one for each Hearthstone class, with a Legendary leader to call their own, naturally. The Loa spirits also come in as Legendary minions. Shirvallah the Tiger is the first to debut, a Paladin Loa with a massive casting cost of 25 Mana. That's way too high to actually play, but you progressively reduce that price by casting spells throughout the match. Each class also has its own Spirit, a special minion that always starts with Stealth to allow you to set up combos.It will also introduce a new keyword called "Overkill." If you have more damage than you need to kill a minion, you get a bonus. The weapon shown had an Overkill effect allowing you to attack again. Finally, a new single-player portion called Rumble Run will come too.Rastakhan's Rumble will launch on December 4. You can pre-purchase now from two different bundles. The Challenger's Bundle gets you 17 packs and a "Ready to Rumble" card back for $20, while the Rastakhan's Rumble pre-purchase nets you 50 card packs, the card back, and an alternate Shaman hero, King Rastakhan.Info from Gamespot.com

Epic has teased a brand new weapon coming to Fortnite soon. An in-game message recently teased the Heavy AR, a new assault rifle that packs a punch, especially when fired in short bursts. The announcement likely means the release is imminent, so it will probably appear in this week's update. The gun appears to be based on the real-life AK weapons.It was a busy weekend for Fortnite, as the Halloween event Fortnitemares concluded with a big one-time world event. After flopping its way to the lake, hovering above the battlefield, and spawning zombie-like creatures to fight, the cube affectionately nicknamed Kevin had one more trick up its sleeve. It spun rapidly until it exploded and transported players into a strange light realm. Everyone caught up in the blast floated as luminescent butterflies formed around them, and then they were transported back to the island.After all was said and done, the vortex that had been left at Loot Lake had disappeared and been replaced by a Stonehenge-like structure. It's fair to say that area probably holds some secrets for the community to unravel as the game starts laying the groundwork for its next seasonal transition. These usually come with big world events that give some rationale for map and mechanics changes.You still have a few weeks to take on the Fortnite Season 6 challenges guide. And while you can't earn the Fortnitemares rewards any longer, the whole season is still pretty spooky. The Legendary Dire Wolf skin, for example, becomes progressively more werewolf-like as you level it up.Info from Gamespot.com

Fortnite has opened up a new set of limited-time challenges in honor of everyone's favorite sentient otherworldly cube, though it might already be too late to qualify for them. Your reward for completing the event is a Kevin the Cube to call your own, nicknamed Lil' Kev, as a new piece of back bling.The event takes place in two phases. First, you had to log on prior to 1 PM ET on November 5 to unlock the Lil' Kev challenge pack--in other words, if you didn't get in before that deadline, you have no way to obtain these challenges and the accompany back bling. Provided you did get online, doing so provides you with a set of three challenges, which themselves are pretty simple. You'll have until November 11 at 1 PM ET to finish them to earn the back bling.Unlike Fortnite's weekly challenges, which are usually catered toward some specific seasonal content, these challenges will be naturally obtained if you play some Fortnite over the coming week. You'll get completion simply by playing matches, earning XP, and outliving opponents. You'll need to play a minimum of 15 games to complete all three.If you're still looking to complete this season's Battle Pass and earn your Season 6 rewards, check out our challenges guide. You can tote a new weapon into battle soon, since Epic has been teasing the addition of a new heavy assault rifle to the game that could drop any time. And if you're a Kevin fan that somehow missed the big world event over the weekend, check out our recap. The cube has been busy making all sorts of weirdness happen in the world.ChallengesPlay Matches (0/15) – 500 XPGain 5,000 XP (0/5000) – 500 XPOutlive Opponents (0/500) – 500 XPInfo from Gamespot.com

Ubisoft has once again canceled its planned Epic Mercenary event for Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and has now suspended the feature indefinitely while it works out the kinks. As a make-good, the company is offering additional Epic Ship events and a discount on a Legendary item.In a statement on its official forums, Ubisoft said that it discovered a bug that was causing the Epic Mercenary events not to appear properly for most players. "It wasn't satisfactory to have an event available to only a portion of our players, so we decided to temporarily remove the Epic Mercenary Events from the game altogether until the issue is resolved."Ubi says it hopes to provide an ETA as soon as possible, and it currently plans to bring a fix later this month. Epic Ship events will take place each week moving forward for the time being, and Ubisoft will be discounting Sargon's Legendary item by 80 Orichalcum next week.The Epic Mercenary events are part of the live events package Ubisoft has planned for Odyssey to keep it going well into the long-term. This particular mercenary was supposed to be Damais the Indifferent, and it was first scrapped weeks ago. Ubisoft described its post-launch plans as the "biggest and most ambitious" in the franchise's history, intended to keep players engaged as Ubisoft takes a year off from creating a new main Assassin's Creed game in 2019.Info from Gamespot.com

Fallout 76 is approaching launch, and Bethesda has outlined the last few beta dates. Those mark your last chance to try it before launch, and Bethesda plans to let you import progress from the beta into the full game, so it's a bit like getting a head-start. According to the announcement, the final two tests will take place this week. Each of these times are valid across all platforms:Tuesday, November 6:US Pacific Time: 10 AM - 12 PMUS Eastern Time: 1 PM - 3 PMUK GMT: 6 PM - 8 AMAustralia AEDT: 5 AM - 7 AM (November 7)Thursday, November 8US Pacific Time: 11 AM - 5 PMUS Eastern Time: 2 PM - 8 PMUK GMT: 7 PM - 1 AMAustralia AEDT: 6 AM - 12 PM (November 5)Bethesda actually increased the tests from previous plans, having added extra time as a make-good for a bug that was deleting the game. The studio is banking on Fallout 76 continuing long into the future, but it warned that this will be a process. The company fully expects there to be bugs to sort through and a community to develop as its first attempt at a persistent online world in the Fallout franchise.We recently got our first glimpse at the in-game store in Fallout 76, which gave us an idea of the prices of various items using the "Atoms" currency. We still have not seen how that converts to real-world dollars, however. The beta is just a taste, but so far we have some concerns about how it feels to explore an expansive wasteland without NPCs. Time will tell how that sorts out in the final release, which is expected to be very similar to the beta.For more details on the Fallout 76 beta, including how to get in if you haven't claimed your spot yet, check out our beta guide.Info from Gamespot.com

Warcraft 3 ultimately led to World of Warcraft, but nearly 15 years of persistent lore and world-building in WoW has rendered some older material outdated. Blizzard plans to correct that in the upcoming Reforged remaster of Warcraft 3, by updating some older pieces to reflect the universe as it currently is."This is a Reforged edition. We're looking at the campaign itself, like The Culling in particular," Brian Sousa, Art Lead on Classic Games at Blizzard, told GameSpot. "We completely redesigned the map layout and made it look like Stratholme from World of Warcraft because people have been in Stratholme, people know the entryway to Stratholme, and the original didn't have any of that. It was a very different feel altogether. It had Greek columns, and it had like weird statues, and a river, and the zoo, and things that people wouldn't recognize if they were from World of Warcraft playing this game."That was one of the things. We're like, 'Well, this should look like Stratholme', so it had a complete redesign with that. As we go through more of the campaign, there's going to be more instances where we do pull on World of Warcraft for influence because they have the lore, they have grounded out all of these characters, all these locations, and they've put so much backstory into just everything. We have a huge library to pull from."This Reforged edition will include remodeled characters and animations, remastered maps, an upgraded UI, and 4K support. A "Spoils of War" edition also nets you bonuses in Blizzard's various other games like Hearthstone, Diablo 3, and Heroes of the Storm.Alongside Warcraft 3: Reforged, Blizzard took the opportunity at BlizzCon to announce a release window for WoW Classic. Like Reforged, it takes a game from Blizzard's classic library and remasters it for modern audiences, but this time it's turning back the clock on lots of the modern touches that have come to WoW over the last decade, to allow players to experience it the way it originally existed. It's coming in the summer of 2019, which will officially mark 15 years since WoW first released.Info from Gamespot.com

Blizzard has wasted no time adding Overwatch's newest character to the public test realm, where PC players can try out new updates before they're ready to roll out wide on all platforms. The new character Ashe just debuted at BlizzCon on Friday, and she's already available to try out. You can see her in action in the video above.As detailed in a panel at BlizzCon, Ashe's main weapon is a lever-action rifle with a speedy firing mode or a slower mode down the sights. Her secondary is a sawed-off shotgun, and she can also lob dynamite with a delayed fuse timer. Finally, her Ultimate ability calls in B.O.B., her robot bodyguard/butler to do some damage of his own or to give you a wave.Ashe was revealed in an animated short called "Reunion," which hinted at her history with McCree. As a former member of the Deadlock gang, he abandoned his crew to join the good guys and apparently made a few enemies in the process. You can check out the Ashe gameplay video to see more of her in action. Naturally, the update also adds a wide array of skins to change Ashe's look. You can see them all below.To access the PTR on your PC, open Battle.net and select "PTR: Overwatch" as the Region. Ashe is just one of many heroes coming down the pipe, as Blizzard said it has six new heroes planned. It also debuted a new set of Overwatch Lego for those who prefer to go hands on with their tiny heroes.Info from Gamespot.com

The interactive movie--that nebulous, hard-to-define genre briefly fashionable in the mid-1990s, when CD-ROM technology made it possible for developers to integrate live-action footage into games--is not exactly remembered for its high quality. But even in the tradition responsible for such notorious follies as Night Trap, Sewer Shark, and Who Shot Johnny Rock, The Quiet Man is astonishingly dire--a graceless, outdated game that belongs squarely in the era of laserdiscs and the Philips CD-i. When it isn't an interactive movie, it's a simple 3D beat-em-up of the kind once ubiquitous at arcades. But an interest in the past does not make The Quiet Man a love letter to video game history, and its ideas are poorly realized.The Quiet Man boasts a formal conceit that is at least moderately interesting. You play as a svelte blonde 20-something named Dane, who is deaf, and as a consequence the game is almost totally silent. You hear only the muffled patter of footfalls while walking, some indistinct notes of synthesizer to represent voices, and a faint patina of generic ambience elsewhere. The marketing materials describe this as an effort to allow the player to "experience the world in the way Dane does." But we clearly do not experience the world as Dane does. Dane reads lips; he communicates extensively and effortlessly with every character he encounters. So why are these conversations not subtitled? In one lengthy scene of dialogue after another, people talk with Dane, presumably advancing the story. Meanwhile, we have no earthly clue what's being said or what's going on.This sort of inexplicable design is entirely typical of The Quiet Man. It’s difficult to understand so much of what transpires. Consider an early narrative sequence in which Dane meets either a colleague or a friend--the relationship was not apparent to me and only gets more confusing over the course of the story--and converses with him in his office. In a series of mundane closeups the other man speaks as Dane nods along, rapt; the nature of their discussion is opaque, and their performances, amateurish and hammy, are abysmal. You can imagine this scene being staged in such a way that the content would be clear even without sound or subtitles. The Quiet Man doesn't even try.When these mystifying, interminable full-motion-video scenes at last end, the actors are switched out for crudely animated substitutions, many of whom bear such a poor resemblance to their real-life counterparts that it is frequently unclear who's who. It's never hard to pick out Dane in the heat of battle, though, because he's the only one who's white. The endless procession of villainous henchmen you're asked to brutally dispatch are uniformly latino, broad caricatures of "cholos" in street-gang garb who sneer at you between pummelings. You fight them pretty much exclusively throughout. The political implications of the game's demographic makeup are appalling, in this fraught time of wall-building especially, and the end result is plainly, unforgivably racist.In any case, it's quite fitting for the enemies to be the same cliched type repeated ad nauseam, because repetitiveness is the very nature of The Quiet Man's beat-em-up combat system. Brawling has what might generously be described as an arcade-like simplicity: one button to punch, one to kick, and one to dodge, plus a finishing move that can be triggered on occasion. It would be more accurate to call this rudimentary. Almost every battle boils down to a dull frenzy of button-mashing, as enemies rarely block, scarcely fight back, and practically never come at you more than one at a time. Though waves of 10 or even 20 must be defeated to clear a given room, they don't change their approach or vary their style, and mostly seem to stand around awaiting their turn to be vanquished. There's no way to vary your own attacks, either, which gives every encounter the air of a chore.Boss battles aren't much different in terms of character or technique. They distinguish themselves instead in terms of overwhelming difficulty. I almost never lost a fight in the course of regular gameplay; each of the handful of boss battles, though, kept me stuck for a long time, as I labored through dust-ups with enemies that seemed absurdly overpowered and virtually invulnerable to damage. Worse than simply losing these battles was how consistently vague they proved to be. Seldom is it apparent why you might be losing a fight. The game doesn't track damage or show the enemy's health, and it's never certain whether your hits are landing or registering much effect--hitboxes are indistinct and attacks almost always clip through bodies, which makes the whole process feel at once feeble, confusing, and outrageously imprecise.Simplistic, ungainly combat is all the more surprising given that it is The Quiet Man's only gameplay mechanic. From beginning to end there is nothing else to do--no places to navigate, no items to collect, no weapons to wield, no puzzles to solve. It's just those same mind-numbing punches and kicks broken up by extended narrative scenes that by virtue of the enforced silence you can't hope to follow or understand. The broad contours of the plot are vaguely discernible: the drama involves childhood trauma, a seedy metropolitan underbelly, various acts of conspiracy and revenge. As for the details, it's impossible to say. The game's final moments tease an upcoming addition that will allow you to play it through a second time with the sound restored. This feels like both a preposterous cop-out--that's the main conceit!--and a cruel punishment. With sound the story will surely make more sense. But having suffered through The Quiet Man once, I can't bear to try it again.Info from Gamespot.com