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Mario Kart World reverse mode spotted for the first time

by admin May 28, 2025

It looks like Switch 2 launch game Mario Kart World will have a reverse mode for the first time.

Previous games in the series have included Mirror Mode as an unlockable extra, which flips tracks horizontally for a new challenge.

However, characters have been spotted racing in reverse in a Japan-only advert for the new game, suggesting a reverse mode will finally be included.

Mario Kart World – Nintendo Direct | Nintendo Switch 2Watch on YouTube

The advert includes footage of characters racing around the Mario Bros. Circuit in the opposite direction, when compared to footage from Nintendo’s Treehouse Live stream (thanks NintendoSoup).

It’s unknown yet how racing in reverse will be included in the game – perhaps as a separate option following completion of 150cc – but the footage appears to show a Grand Prix race rather than Knockout Tour, judging by the UI.

Of course, with Mario Kart World being an open world game, players will be able to drive in all directions in Free Roam, so it would make sense Nintendo would make use of this for its Grand Prix.

It’s not long to wait now until we’ll be able to play Mario Kart World for ourselves. It launches alongside the Switch 2 on 5th June – that’s next week!

Last week, Nintendo shared an interview with Mario Kart World’s developers. They confirmed the game was originally in development for the original Switch, but the open world design was better suited to the new console running at 60fps.

Switch 2 consoles are reportedly already out in the hands of players, but it requires a day one update to function.

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May 28, 2025 0 comments

Argentina's President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy's X account on May 27. 2025.

Product Reviews

RFK Jr. Poses for Weird Photos With Argentina’s President as They Plot Alternative to World Health Organization

by admin May 28, 2025

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a fringe anti-vaxxer who somehow became head of America’s health agencies under President Donald Trump, met with the president of Argentina and discussed establishing a new alternative to the World Health Organization, according to a tweet from Kennedy on Tuesday. And while the substance of their meeting is important, all anyone can notice on social media is their bizarre photoshoot.

Your eyes don’t deceive you. That’s the Secretary of Health and Human Services holding a chainsaw that belongs to Milei and reads “las fuerzas del cielo” in Portuguese. Translated into English, it means “the forces of heaven.”

Milei, a far-right ally of President Trump, campaigned on promises to deliver austerity to his country and slash government spending, often wielding his chainsaw. And ever since, people who meet with Milei will often hold the chainsaw themselves. Billionaire oligarch Elon Musk waved the chainsaw around earlier this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where Musk looked absolutely blitzed out of his mind.

That conference in February, it should be noted, was the same CPAC gathering where two other speakers (including Steve Bannon) did Nazi-style salutes that mimicked Musk’s gestures on Jan. 20.

Elon Musk holds a chainsaw reading “Long live freedom, damn it” during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on February 20, 2025.© Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

It’s particularly odd for Kennedy to be posing with a chainsaw, considering he was investigated for using a chainsaw to hack the head off a dead whale two decades ago. Kennedy’s daughter described how the head was strapped to the top of the family car and said that whale juice was streaming down into the open windows. Kennedy called the investigation a weaponization of the government, and it was later dropped.

Kennedy posted other photos from the strange meeting at Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Tuesday, including another where Milei is seated at the head of the table and the chainsaw is in the foreground. Needless to say, the vibes are straight out of The Shining.

A group of people seated around a table, including RFK Jr. and Javier Milei, with a chainsaw on the table in front of them. Photo: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. / X

In another era, these photos would be mind-boggling and come to define the legacy of the politicians involved. But here in the year 2025, it’s just another day that ends in Y.

What did these guys actually discuss? Apparently the Milei and Trump governments want to create some kind of woo-woo public health body that competes with the World Health Organization. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the WHO on his first day back as the American president on Jan. 20, and and Milei followed suit on Feb. 5.

“I had a wonderful meeting with Argentine President @JMilei about our nations’ mutual withdrawal from the WHO and the creation of an alternative international health system based on gold-standard science and free from totalitarian impulses, corruption, and political control,” Kennedy wrote.

What makes the World Health Organization totalitarian? Kennedy doesn’t get into specifics. But some far-right figures have claimed that WHO colluded with China to hide the “real” origins of the covid-19 pandemic. The Trump regime’s gallery of health-adjacent weirdos insist covid-19 was created in a lab and unleashed upon the world either intentionally or accidentally. Most scientists still believe covid-19 has natural origins.

RFK Jr. holding a gadsen flag hat that reads “No Me Joda,” which means “don’t fuck with me,” alongside Javier Miliei. Photo: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. / X

Kennedy has been busy in recent weeks, firing vital employees of the agencies he runs, including the FDA and CDC, and rolling out new policies. The health secretary was on a podcast Tuesday called “Ultimate Human” where he suggested government scientists would no longer be allowed to publish in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Lancet. Those are, of course, the most prestigious medical journals, but Kennedy called them “corrupt,” according to Politico.

Kennedy would instead like American scientists to publish their work in “in-house” journals. As luck would have it, FDA head Marty Makary and NIH director Jay Bhattacharya recently launched their own medical journal called the Journal of the Academy of Public Health. Science magazine called the journal’s editorial policies “unusual,” and real scientists have noted the journal seems to be comprised of “a small clique of contrarians around the COVID pandemic.”

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May 28, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Send kids to the past to save the world from a metallic rain hellscape in the captivating point-and-click Decade

by admin May 27, 2025

Earlier this week, one of my industry peers James Bentley (they’re over at that other site about PC games, GamerPCs I think it’s called) put out a video essay titled “I Can Guarantee You This Game is Going to be Underrated”. Trusting in James as a critic of varied and interesting taste, I clicked through and found that yeah, they’re right, it probably will be. However, I also get to write about indie PC games for a living, so I’d like to do my part in telling you about this strange, point-and-click/ visual novel called Decade.

I don’t think Decade is an easy, or perhaps comfortable game to describe, given its heavy themes. The game follows four children, specifically the four last children on the entire planet, the only survivors after metallic rain killing almost everyone else, the rest of them subsequently killing each other. Somehow these kids manage to get a time machine working, with three of them able to travel back 10 years to try and save the world.

Watch on YouTube

The thing is, time travel or not, aging comes for us all, and these children do in fact grow older across those 10 years. While in the past, they can “investigate documents, technologies, and artefacts to understand history”, all the while trying to make decisions that can lead you into several different futures. This, to put it plainly, is a concept that will likely continue to keep me up at night.

How much guilt should I feel for leading these children towards a future that might not even be liveable? Will I waste their years away in doing so? Do they get to have a future? These are questions I’m yet to answer myself through playing the game, but I’d like to, and it would be nice if you were interested in trying to do the same.

Developer Last Piscean worked on this solo after losing their job, and they still haven’t managed to find one, and with the game releasing today (with a discount that makes it the price of two cups of coffee on Steam), there’s no better time to check it out than now.

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May 27, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome are back on Steam after being delisted 4 months ago when 2K sold off Private Division

by admin May 27, 2025

Four months after they were unceremoniously delisted, Roll7’s stylish skate games Rollerdrome and OlliOlli World are both back on Steam.

Rollerdrome and OlliOlli World were removed from Steam in February, a move we assumed at the time was the result of the Private Division drama at Take-Two Interactive: After some extended cuteness and difficulty following May 2024 reports that Roll7 and the Private Division publishing label were being closed, Take-Two finally confirmed in November 2024 that Roll7, along with Kerbal Space Program 2 studio Intercept Games, had been closed, and that Private Division was sold off.

The sale of Private Division included “substantially all of Private Division’s live and unreleased titles,” Take-Two said at the time. But it turns out the sale did not include OlliOlli World or Rollerdrome, as both have returned to Steam and are now listed as being published by 2K, a subsidiary of Take-Two.

Pakistan Appoints World Liberty Financial Advisor to Key Government Role on Crypto

by admin May 27, 2025

In brief

Bilal Bin Saqib was appointed special assistant to Pakistan’s prime minister on blockchain and crypto.
The country will also allocate 2,000 MW of surplus electricity to bitcoin mining and AI centers.
Bin Saqib is also an advisor to World Liberty Financial.

The Pakistani government has appointed a special assistant to the prime minister on blockchain and cryptocurrency, mirroring the U.S. approach to state involvement in the digital asset sector, according to local media reports on Monday

The newly created role has been given to Bilal Bin Saqib, who is also a chief advisor to the finance minister and the CEO of the Pakistan Crypto Council.

A graduate of the London School of Economics, Bin Saqib was featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 and received an MBE from King Charles III for his work in social impact.

The appointment comes as Pakistan ramps up efforts to position itself as a crypto-friendly economy.

This week, the government announced plans to allocate 2,000 megawatts of surplus electricity to bitcoin mining as part of a broader plan to support mining and AI data centers.

The initiative, driven by the Pakistan Crypto Council, is aimed at generating revenue, creating high-tech jobs, and attracting foreign investment.

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao joined the council as an advisor in early April after serving a four-month U.S. prison sentence for violating anti-money laundering laws.

But as in the U.S., Pakistan’s crypto embrace has raised concerns. The push follows a sharp decline in foreign direct investment, down 45% in February compared to a year earlier, according to English-language outlet Pakistan Today.

In January, Pakistan hired a U.S. lobbyist to facilitate meetings in Washington. During a visit, the country’s interior minister reportedly appealed for more U.S. investment, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Shortly after, it began to forge ties with Trump-linked crypto project World Liberty Financial.

Bin Saqib became an advisor to the project in April, shortly after a visit to Pakistan by co-founder Zach Witkoff.

During the visit, Witkoff and his co-founders signed an MOU with the ministry that opens up the possibility of World Liberty’s stablecoin being used in the country for trade and remittances. WLF has been contacted for comment.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that Zhao was “helping facilitate some introductions for World Liberty’s foreign travels.” Zhao denied the claims and called the article “another hit piece.”

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

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May 27, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Skyrim-style open world RPG Tainted Grail: The Fall Of Avalon releases out of early access today

by admin May 25, 2025

If you are in the mood to play Skyrim or the recent Oblivion remaster, but you don’t want to play a Microsoft-backed game for, oh, any number of reasons, the word on the grapevine is that open world RPG Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is pretty decent. We don’t have a review as yet, but Khee Hoon Chan called Questline’s previous Tainted Grail: Conquest one of the best games you missed in 2021, and The Fall Of Avalon is currently humming along with an Overwhelmingly Positive Steam user consensus as it prepares to leave early access today. The Steam page also harbours a demo, plus the below, moderately thunderous trailer’s worth of first-person spellcraft, shattered cosmic castles and fishing mechanics.

Watch on YouTube

The Fall Of Avalon is set in another dark reimagining of Arthurian myth, one less abundant in beauty influencers than Tides Of Annihilation. It takes place about 600 years after King Arthur’s fall, in a realm of “unending strife” and plague that is divided into three zones.

The game is said to span 50-70 hours, with over 200 sidequests and an assortment of miscellaneous activities such as decorating your house, farming and “sketchbook journaling”. I sincerely hope that last one is a fully fleshed-out illustration subgame, or at least some kind of fantasy photography mechanic. We need more virtual idylls like Eastshade.

One overarching device is that the world worsens at night – that’s when the Wyrdness, “a chaotic primordial force”, comes out to play, making foes tougher. I too experience Wyrdness at night, but this is generally because I have decided to eat a family-sized bag of Flaming Hot Wotsits. The Fall Of Avalon’s Wyrdness is a touch less gastric in origin. According to the backstory, King Arthur actually ousted it many centuries before during his conquest of Avalon. Now, it’s back with a vengeance.

Fortunately for Avalon, you are an omni-capable RPG everyperson who can go about wyrdo-murdering using any combination of stats, perks and equipment. “Want to be a crazy alchemist-berserker punching enemies to death? Sure,” promises the Steam blurb. “A mystical blacksmith-mage summoning undead hordes? We’ve got you covered. A stealthy archer lurking in the shadows? Say less – this is the game for stealth archer enthusiasts.” Cry more, Thief.

I’m not keen on everything I’ve read about the game. There’s talk of a “mature, morally grey story”, for example. “Mature” and “morally grey” are terms used by rosy-cheeked children to describe the act of lying about whether they’ve brushed their teeth. Between that and the boilerplate industry talk of “limitless playstyles”, “meaningful choices” and “love letters” to the Elder Scrolls-style RPG genre, I doubt this will be very surprising on the whole.

Still, I quite enjoy the art direction’s core theme of “everlasting autumn”, and I like the environment design’s somewhat Fromsofty sense of rot. Did I mention there’s a plague? It’s called the Red Death. A bunch of priests are searching for a cure by means of torturous experimentation upon victims who are slowly transforming into monsters. Perhaps it’s the Flaming Hot Wotsits talking, but that sounds like just the thing for a Friday night. Let us know if you’ve played this and Have Thoughts.

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May 25, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Lightyear Frontier will be getting a much bigger world, a narrative rework, hazards, and more in an update next month

by admin May 25, 2025

Lightyear Frontier launched into early access a little over a year ago, and it generally seems to have trudged along reasonably well since then. It’s not quite ready for 1.0 just yet, but a new update was announced by developers Frame Break and Amplifier Studios earlier this week that sounds like it’ll be bringing in some much needed changes.

Appropriately titled the Shifting Gears Update, there’s two big things it’s changing. For one, the world itself is about to get a lot bigger. The devs explained that while a lot of people liked the “lush nature of the game world,” it was also just a bit too small. So, the map is increasing in size for “large-scale farming”, with the main progression system receiving a rework for “higher emphasis on farming.”

Hazards like tornadoes have been added in too to make getting around this bigger world a bit more challenging (but you can also just turn that off if you’re just in it to relax).

Plus, as previously mentioned by the devs, the narrative is getting reworked, namely mostly cutting out the character PIP-3R as a constant voice in your ear. Jay Castello called this one quite accurately in their early access review of the farming sim last year.

The narrative isn’t going away completely, and PIP-3R may appear again further down the line. But for now the way you’ll learn about the story is through Inspection Points, which are just bits of flavour text that appear in certain areas, and Artifacts Findings, which are also just bits of flavour text from artifacts you find.

On top of all of that, there’s a lot more features coming like a new mod chip system to upgrade your mech, automated drone watering, and a lot more. You can check out the full list of additions over on Steam.

The Shifting Gears update isn’t too far away either, as it’s currently due out June 4th, just under a couple of weeks away.

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May 25, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Nintendo Says Mario Kart World Has Over 100 Courses If You Include All Possible Variations

by admin May 25, 2025

Mario Kart World is just two weeks away, launching alongside the Nintendo Switch on June 5. In the lead-up to the game’s release, Nintendo released a four-part interview series with the team behind Mario Kart World, including producer Kosuke Yabuki. In this interview series, Yabuki is asked how many courses are in the game, to which he responds that there are more than 100.

Yabuki explained that because Mario Kart World is designed as an open world racing game with lots of terrain and more to explore en route and between designed race tracks, it’s tough to quantify the number of courses. However, if you add up all the possible variations, the number exceeds 100, according to Yabuki.

“In this game, you don’t just race on the courses,” he said in the interview. “The areas between courses are also used for racing. So it’s as if there are courses spread out all over the world, and if you were to add up all the possible variations, it would easily exceed 100.”

The interviewer then joked that Yabuki said earlier that Mario Kart World’s design philosophy wasn’t about increasing the amount of content, despite the game doing just that. Yabuki added, “Since it’s now a single, interconnected world, it’s hard to do a direct comparison with the last game, but in the pursuit of approachability and fun in this new, vast world, the volume of content we had to create in terms of visual design, programming, and audio increased dramatically.

“And as a result, the gameplay is more varied than ever before.”

We’ll all discover how varied the gameplay is in two weeks when Mario Kart World launches exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5.

In the meantime, read Game Informer’s hands-on preview of Mario Kart World, and then read about how Nintendo considered dropping the resolution and frame rate of Mario Kart World before changing development to the Switch 2. After that, check out Game Informer’s 2025 Switch 2 release schedule list.

Are you excited about Mario Kart World’s open world design? Let us know in the comments below!

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May 25, 2025 0 comments

Crypto VC funding: World dominates with $135m raise, Slash bags $41m

Crypto Trends

World raises $135m, Slash scores $41m

by admin May 25, 2025

The crypto funding sector saw major activity from May 18-24, with total investments reaching $307.5 million, led by World’s $135 million raise.

This week’s funding mainly focused on Finance and banking-focused ventures and payment and financial services sectors. Here’s an overview of the week’s crypto funding activity as per Crypto Fundraising data:

World Foundation

Raised $135 million from a16z crypto, Bain Capital Crypto, and Selini
World (WLD) has raised $375 million so far
According to the announcement on May 21, the funds will be used to expand its iris-based identity network, World ID.

World Foundation raised $135M from @a16z and @BainCapCrypto to accelerate scaling the real human network.
Funding was through a recent direct purchase of liquid, market-priced $WLD.
— World (@worldcoin) May 21, 2025

Slash

Slash scored $41 million in a Series B round
The project has a fully diluted valuation of $370 million
Goodwater backed the investment
Slash has raised $60 million so far

We just raised $41M at a $370M valuation to kill the one-size-fits-all business bank.
Slash is rebuilding banking, one industry at a time — tailor-made for affiliates, crypto companies, contractors, and more.
We’re just getting started. pic.twitter.com/MLbIbQcewx
— Slash (@slashapp) May 20, 2025

Catena Labs

Catena Labs secured $18 million in a Seed round
The investment was backed by a16z crypto, Breyer Capital, and Z Ventures
Gained +1 new investor

Roxom

Gathered $17.9 million in an Unknown round
Investors include Draper Associates, Borderless, and Kingsway Capital
Roxom has raised $22.2 million so far

BIG NEWS from @roxom & @roxomtv 🚨
Roxom Global has raised $17.9M to build the world’s first Bitcoin Capital Market — and launch the first 24/7 media network backed by a 100% BTC treasury.
A major step toward a more transparent, decentralized, and Bitcoin-native future.
Huge… pic.twitter.com/9hSlsgcoCN
— Roxom (@roxom) May 22, 2025

TrueX

A team of Coinbase alumni collected $11 million to debut True Markets, a stablecoin-native DeFi app offering real-time execution and self-custody on Solana.
The investment was backed by Accomplice, Framework Ventures, and Reciprocal Ventures
TrueX has raised $20 million so far

Projects < $6 million

Hyperdrive: Raised $6 million in a Series A funding
Acurast bagged $5.4 million Public sale with $90 million fully diluted valuation
VOYA Games (Craft World) raised $5 million in an unknown round
Rover raised $4.1 million Seed investment
Stablecorp (QCAD) raised $1.8 million in an unknown round
Fermi Labs bagged $1.2 million in a pre-seed round

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May 25, 2025 0 comments

Esports

A new army joins the Warmachine world

by admin May 25, 2025

Steamforged Games is introducing a new army to its miniatures game, Warmachine. The new army, Old Umbrey, has two new options which can be pre-ordered now:

Steamforged games is introducing a brand-new army to the world of Warmachine, Old Umbrey.

Old Umbrey introduces a new playable Khador army to Warmachine, built around warlocks, warbeasts and infantry drawn from the borderlands of Umbrey, The army features a distinct playstyle focused on mysticism, primal power, and battlefield control.

Pre-orders for the new Khador army, Old Umbrey go live today on May 22nd .

Two new products are available for pre-order today:

Warmachine: Khador Old Umbrey Command Starter — This Command Starter gives you a potent 30-point force for Warmachine and an ideal launching point for building your Khador Old Umbrey army.
Warmachine: Khador Old Umbrey Battlegroup Box — This Battlegroup Box is a great way to get started with Khador Old Umbrey, or a solid reinforcement to any Old Umbrey collection. With a warlock and two brutal warbeasts, it’s ideal for starting an army before scaling up to larger conflicts.