The XP Drop #10 🕹 Shamelessly Addicted To Anime Horse Game
Gacha games have a hold on Chris, skater boys rejoice as Tony Hawk is back on consoles and a Call of Duty has been yanked from Xbox Game Pass.
🎉 Happy Friday! It’s another hot week on the horizon in Old Blighty, so make sure you stay hydrated. It’s our double-digit newsletter this week - let’s go! This week features a first-person piece from Chris about gacha and plenty of news to catch you up.
🗣 The Patch Notes
🚨 ICYMI
💸 This week’s releases
📽 Clip of the Week
👾 RETROspective
🗣 The Patch Notes
I Can’t Stop Playing The Viral Horse Girl Anime Game
What a week it has been.
Despite never thinking I would ever be drawn into a gacha-style anime mobile game, here I am. Almost 10 hours down the line, trying to train anime horse girls and grind out the best stats so I can watch my rating increase - thanks to the game going viral and being played by some of my favourite streamers.
I’m not proud of this - but damn, it’s pretty addictive.
If you have never heard of Umamusame: Pretty Derby, Forbes has a great explainer on the game and franchise here.
If you’re old like me, you’ll remember the fairground rides where you roll a ball to make your horse go faster. This is basically what Umamusume is - with actual gambling baked into the game - and anime/idol culture storyline that isn’t my jam but I’m sure appeals to others.
The game has become insanely popular on Twitch and YouTube, but stepping away from my shameful habit, another part of me can’t help but wonder just how popular gambling has become and how entangled it has become within the video game world.
Umamusame has gambling mechanics, and players can use real money to help themselves advance quicker, which I’ve managed to refrain from doing. But it’s become the norm for many mobile games these days—and it’s raking in the cash.
Games like Pokémon TCG: Pocket, Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero are making a ridiculous amount of cash, and it’s no wonder that game developers are swerving towards free-to-play games…
It’s probably a grim outlook for gaming in general. But in the meantime, I’ll go back to my anime girl racing game without paying into the gacha craze (yet).
🦔 Did you know… Sonic the Hedgehog was originally planned to have a human girlfriend, named Madonna. However, Sega sensibly scrapped the idea before his 1991 game debut🦔
🚨 ICYMI
☢️ Stalker 2 is coming to PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro after being stuck on Xbox exclusively for a while. Eurogamer has a great rundown of when to expect it.
✍🏻 The Stop Killing Games petition has hit 1 million signatures in the EU - much to the annoyance of video publishers. Euronews has an article here to catch you up on the story.
❌ On the back of Microsoft’s woeful cuts, legendary developer John Romero has lost studio funding for his studio’s next game. Kotaku has laid out the situation here.
🧷 Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season 2 has been announced at this year’s Anime Expo. It will be released on Netflix like before and CD Projekt Red has the full rundown here.
🔫 Call of Duty: WW2 was yanked from Xbox Game Pass after reports that vulnerabilities are allowing hackers to access players’ computers. Rock Paper Shotgun has the report here.
💸 This week’s releases
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and 4 is out this week (CREDIT: Sony)
✈️ Missile Command Delta - PC, PS5, Xbox, Switch (July 8)
🧷Mycopunk - PC (July 10)
🏝️ Islanders: New Shores - PC, PS5 Xbox, Switch (July 10)
🏈 EA Sports College Football 26- PS5, Xbox (July 10)
🛹 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 - PC PS5, PS4, Xbox, Switch (July 11)
🗡️ Patapon 1 + 2 Replay - PC, PS5, Switch (July 11)
🎮 What I’m playing this week
I’ve been tirelessly working on Death Stranding 2, delivering and killing Beached Things left and right. The story continues to get better and better - and I can understand just why critics gave it such high scores.
As I mentioned above, I’ve also been hooked on Umamusume: Pretty Derby on Android - thanks to it taking the livestreaming world by storm. To sum up my week…
I’m about 20 hours in with Death Stranding 2 at the moment and I’ve got to say - what a game. If you weren’t a huge fan of the first game, you might find this one much more fun and engaging. Well done to Hideo and the Kojima Productions team!
And yes, Umamusume has a grip on my life as well - thanks to its ever-addictive nature”
📽 Clip of the Week
Fishing is serious business, especially when you’re doing it in-game. Well, it seems Reddit user u/Feonde didn’t care whatsoever when this happened in No Man’s Sky.
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👾 RETROspective
A staggering 16 years ago today, the game Prey was released on PC and Xbox 360.
If you’ve never heard of Prey, you’re missing out. The first-person shooter sold more than one million copies when it was released. The game featured portal traversal, gravity manipulation, and spirit walking to help get through the game.
Many of these elements are featured in the newer 2017 version of the franchise when the rights were bought by Bethesda.
The most-visited links from last week’s newsletter:
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