A piece of scenery in Japan's Super Nintendo World bears a strong resemblance to an original asset created for a Mario fangame. As spotted by Meatball132 on Twitter, a cactus used at the Nintendo-themed attraction looks a lot like the cactus used in Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii, which is a mod of New Super Mario Bros. Wii.Wow. I actually think Super Nintendo World's designers used art from Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii (a NSMBW mod) as a reference for their cacti. They have a somewhat distinct shape, were made specifically for Newer, and show up when you Google "New Super Mario Bros. Wii cactus". pic.twitter.com/CWrHiXCsj3 — Meatball132 (@meatball_132) February 6, 2021If you look up "New Super Mario Bros. Wii Cactus" on Google Images, you'll get several results for Newer's desert levels, and I assume that's where this mistake must have come from. pic.twitter.com/AuGnTHZ8K7 — Meatball132 (@meatball_132) February 7, 2021A fan developer himself, Meatball132 is currently working on a remastered version of the mod. One of the artists on the team was the first to notice the similarity. Meatball132 goes further to say that errant Google results might have led to the mix-up, since the search string "New Super Mario Bros. Wii Cactus" produces images from Newer's desert levels.As Ars Technica notes, mistake or not, this occurrence is quite ironic, given that Nintendo is always quick to shut down fan projects and emulators. A fan-artist accused Nintendo of using his Mario render in official Nintendo World art, and some have suggested that the Virtual Console version of Super Mario Bros. contains a ROM that was originally modified from a version you can download illegally. Though Super Nintendo World was scheduled to open this February, it has been delayed to the ongoing pandemic. We've reached out to Nintendo for comment, and we'll update this piece if we hear anything back.Info from Gamespot.com

Hollywood continues to flock to the GameStop/Reddit stock price drama. The company that made the Hillary Clinton documentary for Hulu, Propagate, has announced it will produce a documentary about the drama alongside The Wall Street Journal.The documentary is called This Is Not Financial Advice and it will be directed by Hannah Olson (HBO's Baby God). According to Deadline, this documentary will look into the "stock market chaos" that kicked off with GameStop and its short squeeze triggered by day-traders on Reddit."It will examine the origins and inner workings of the digital and social investment communities that turned new investors into millionaires and drove a billion-dollar hedge fund and financial services company to seek capital," Deadline reported.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

To celebrate Black History Month, State of Decay 2 developer Undead Labs commissioned Black artist Ty Ferrell to create a limited-edition t-shirt design that will be available for purchase in the official Xbox gear store. Profits from the shirt's sales will be donated to the NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)."At Undead Labs, we make games about surviving together. The heart and strength of the community lie at the foundation of the State of Decay games, and this is by design," Undead Labs' communications director Wonder Russell said in a statement. "We believe this is also true in the real world, and that we do our best work when we come together. Undead Labs is proud to stand in support of the Black community and Team Xbox in celebration of Black History Month."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Microsoft and Playground Games are bringing Forza Horizon 4 to Steam in March, the first game from the series to appear on the digital storefront.Forza Horizon 4 will launch on Steam on March 9 with all its current content intact. That includes the game's two big DLC packs--Fortune Island and Lego Speed Champions--as well as new modes such as The Eliminator (the game's own spin on battle royale) and Super7.Playground Games has also revealed a new car pack for Forza Horizon 4 that will be coming to the game soon. The Hot Wheels Legends Car Pack will include some of the properties most recognizable rides, which join other car packs such as the Best of Bond and Barrett-Jackson packs.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Gaming giant Blizzard Entertainment was founded 30 years ago this month, and to celebrate the birthday, the studio is looking back at its past.The Californian studio is sharing unearthed concept art from its older games as part of the celebration. In the first piece, we get a look at The Lost Vikings, which was an early Blizzard game originally released on SNES when Blizzard was known as Silicon & Synapse. The 1991 concept art from Ron Millar shows the design of a map.#FromTheVault: The Lost Vikings just wanted to go home! #Blizz30🎨 Map Concept Art✏️ Ron Millar🗓️ 1991 pic.twitter.com/XH8sFGw3Yb — Blizzard Entertainment (@Blizzard_Ent) February 8, 2021Blizzard said it will continue to release more concept art, so keep checking back for more. If you're interested in The Lost Vikings, you can play it for free on Battle.net. Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Niantic has rolled out a new set of Field Research tasks and rewards in Pokemon Go. A new month also means a new Research Breakthrough encounter is available. Each time you achieve a Research Breakthrough from now until March 1, you'll earn a chance to catch the Sleeping Pokemon Snorlax.To achieve a Research Breakthrough, you'll need to collect seven stamps. You'll receive one stamp for the first Field Research task you complete each day, so you'll need complete at least one task daily for a full week to encounter Snorlax. If you don't manage to achieve a Research Breakthrough before the month ends, however, any stamps you've earned will carry over, so your progress will go toward next month's Research Breakthrough.Field Research tasks are distributed at PokeStops. You'll receive one task randomly from an overarching pool when you spin the Photo Disc at a PokeStop or Gym, and completing the tasks will net you different potential rewards in addition to the aforementioned stamps. You can see this month's Field Research tasks and rewards list, as compiled by The Silph Road, below.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Developer Raven Software has yanked a mode from the free-to-play battle royale game Call of Duty: Warzone due to a pretty serious-sounding glitch.The developer said on Twitter that the playlist playlist featuring the Armored Royale mode has been pulled as it investigates a bug that could cause players to go invisible. That's a pretty serious bug.Armored Royale has been removed from the #Warzone playlist while we investigate an issue allowing players to turn invisible. — Raven Software (@RavenSoftware) February 8, 2021Armored Royale is a spin on the standard battle royale mode where teams get an armored truck with a mounted gun to use. It's a chaotic variant on the standard battle royale, but it doesn't work when some players become invisible.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Destiny 2 is seeing a bunch of changes to loot and bounties with its new content season, the Season of the Chosen. One of those changes is the end of Crucible tokens, a currency you earn when playing in Destiny 2's competitive arena against other players. Today, February 8, is the last day before the launch of the new season, so if you're sitting on Crucible tokens, you should turn them in now.A bunch of Destiny activities dish out tokens, which you can spend with the appropriate vendors in the Tower and elsewhere to increase "reputation" with them. Every time your reputation rises enough, you get a loot drop from the vendor, which can sometimes include weapons and armor specific to that activity. For a lot of players, though, vendor items aren't really all that useful. Vendor drops won't help you increase your character's overall Power level and the stats on armor are usually pretty low--so apart from searching for good perk rolls on new weapons, vendor drops are easy to ignore.But at the start of the Season of the Chosen, Lord Shaxx stops accepting Crucible tokens in the Tower. And there is an upshot to spending those tokens. Even though you might not need or want the loot they supply, breaking down the weapons and armor you get earns you Glimmer, upgrade materials, and weapons parts.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Halloween and Freaky Friday star Jamie Lee Curtis has joined the Borderlands movie, becoming just the latest huge name to board the film.She will play the archaeologist and NPC Patricia Tannis, according to multiple media reports. Curtis joins Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett (Lilith) and Kevin Hart (Roland). There is some A-list talent behind the camera, too, as the script is being written by Craig Mazin (HBO's Chernobyl), while horror movie director and actor Eli Roth is set to direct the movie."Working with the iconic Jamie Lee Curtis has been a life long dream of mine, and I am so excited for her to bring her humor, warmth, and brilliance to the role of Tannis," Roth said in a statement to Collider.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

As the new year continues to zoom by at an impressively rapid pace, we now somehow suddenly find ourselves in the week before Valentine's Day. Whether you've got a current boo or not, for the time being the responsible thing to do during COVID is to make plans that center on staying home and watching movies, TV shows, and original content on Netflix. And if not much is really grabbing you, you can also spend this week looking planning ahead by checking out the full list of 70 new movies Netflix will be rolling out throughout 2021.We won't sugarcoat it for you--for the week of February 7 through to February 13, there's not a ton of new stuff rolling out. With just a scant 16 new entries coming to Netflix's formidable catalog, the pro move to make would be embracing the fact you can only watch so many things in a given week, anyway. Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

What would happen if one person had the ability to control the weather? That's the premise of Weathering with You, an anime film about a young girl who wields the strange power and uses it to her advantage. Directed by Makoto Shinkai (known for 2017's Your Name), Weathering with You is a beautiful story that takes some surprising turns and leaves you with an ending you won't soon forget. If you missed it when it came to theaters in January 2020, today's a great day to snag it on Blu-ray, as Amazon currently has Weathering with You on sale for just over $15, down from its $30 list price. To get the full discount, click to apply the coupon on the listing, and you'll save an additional $2.68 at checkout. This is the cheapest we've seen Weathering with You's Blu-ray since it released. Weathering with You $15.31 (was $30) with coupon See at Amazon Those who loved Your Name will find plenty to love about Weathering with You, which has a similar feel and, yes, will probably make you cry. Like Your Name, it begins with the meeting of a boy and a girl from different backgrounds: Hodaka, a runaway from a troubled home, and Hina, an orphan who becomes known as the "sunshine girl" due to her weather-controlling powers. After the two become friends, they decide to start a business where people can hire Hina to clear the sky and ensure sunny weather for weddings, parties, and other gatherings. However, the situation starts to get complicated, and they realize there could be dire consequences for wielding the power so freely.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Playtonic Games will reveal something new "soon," according to their official Twitter account. Known for their work on the two Yooka-Laylee games, Playtonic's last game was Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, a 2D spinoff of the 3D original that many reviewers compared to the Donkey Kong Country series.We'd like to give our community, our friends, a giant hug 💚💜We know you're all wondering what we have cooking, and although we can't say just yet, something will be revealed SOON.Thank you for being patient with us 🙂 — Playtonic (@PlaytonicGames) February 8, 2021Playtonic was formed back in 2014 by a group of developers who all previously worked at Rare. The studio's first game, Yooka-Laylee, was marketed as a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, one of the most beloved 3D platformers of all time, and one of the high water marks of Rare's legacy. Our reviewer Kallie Plagge was less than impressed with the original game, writing that its "bloated levels and a largely uncooperative camera keep Yooka-Laylee from being more than just a nostalgia trip."Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair garnered more positive reviews from other outlets. However, our reviewer Alessandro Barbosa found that the sequel had similar problems to the original, opining that the game was still "too firmly rooted in a bygone era for platformers." An update for the original Yooka-Laylee added a "64-bit" mode to make it resemble the games that inspired it.Info from Gamespot.com

Months after launch, both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are still rapidly selling out as soon as retailers announce they have stock. This shortage has led some UK lawmakers to call for the practice of scalping--where bots are used to purchase multiple units at once to later sell at a higher price--to be banned.Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the problem of scalping has been exacerbated with most retailers having to go fully online to sell their wares. This makes it that much easier for automated bots to run away with surplus units their owners can then sell at a premium. While some retailers have tried to put forth preventative measures like limiting one purchase per address, scalpers have been able to figure out ways around, and even methods of stopping it have become monetized.To combat this, Scottish National Party MP Douglas Chapman and other members of parliament are now calling for scalping to be criminalized. Chapman described the practice to Sky News as "profiteering" and "a total scam." To combat this, Chapman has brought a private members bill called the Gaming Hardware (Automated Purchase and Resale) Bill 2019-21 forward. If it passes, scalping would be banned similarly to how ticket reselling at higher prices was a few years ago. Chapman has acknowledged that the legislation is likely a long shot, but said it was one of the actions available to him in order to make the government "take responsibility" for the issue.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon has set a new animated comedy with Fox, which will debut in 2022. The untitled series will reportedly be set in ancient Greece and be centered on "a flawed family of humans, gods, and monsters that tries to run one of the world’s first cities without killing each other."The announcement came via a release from Fox, in which president of entertainment Michael Thorn further said: "Leave it to Dan Harmon to turn the mythos of early Greek civilization into remarkably sharp commentary on today’s politics, celebrity, and pop culture. This project is an incredibly irreverent family comedy as told by one of the town's most inventive storytellers. We are proud to be partnered with Dan on this series, which strengthens our hold on the animation space and, as we continue to build Fox Entertainment, marks an important first step for us with our first fully owned scripted property."According to the release, voice casting for the program is currently underway and will be announced in the coming months. For fans who are concerned this new project will pull Harmon away from--or be the source of further delays on--upcoming Rick and Morty seasons, remember that not long ago in July, Adult Swim Con gave us a first look at Season 5, and if you're worrying about Season 6 before Season 5 is out, well, try to stay patient. In that same sneak peek at Adult Swim Con, Harmon indicated that writing is moving along smoothly on Season 6--via Zoom.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Obsidian is preparing the second DLC expansion for The Outer Worlds, Murder on Eridanos, and it's closer than you might expect. As part of Take-Two's earnings report, the company noted that it expects the DLC to launch in this fiscal year, which ends March 31.The company didn't give further details on when to expect the DLC, or any more gameplay details. But with less than two months remaining before release, we should expect to hear more about it sometime soon. The same financial statement also notes that we'll see the Switch version of the DLC coming sometime this calendar year.Murder on Eridanos is the second half of the two-part expansion pass that also includes the already-released Peril on Gorgon. Given the name, it sounds as if you'll be a gumshoe investigating a murder, which would be fitting for Outer Worlds' classic pulp style.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com