Psycho Mantis (Metal Gear Solid)

Metal Gear Solid has a reputation for featuring boss fights that defy player expectations – and Psycho Mantis is definitely one such fight that really shocked gamers back in the day. You see, Psycho Mantis will always evade your moves since he’s reading them directly from the controller – which makes it impossible to damage the boss at first. Psycho Mantis can also read your memory card, and his dialogues will reflect what saves are present on your card.

The solution to beating him is to switch the controller from port 1 to port 2, which makes him open to attacks. Once that’s done, this boss fight becomes ridiculously easy and you can easily gun him down and get on with the story. On repeat playthroughs when you know what needs to be done, Psycho Mantis becomes a very silly albeit creative boss fight that poses little to no threat to the player.

Following the Activision-Blizzard deal, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has cited his desire to work on franchises from his childhood. Inevitably that leads to the question: What other titles could be brought back for the Xbox Series X/S generation? Let’s take a look at 15 of them here.

Scalebound

Set in a fantasy world with dragons, it saw protagonist Drew having a massive dragon named Thuban by his side. Along with functioning independently, one could also give commands to Thuban while fighting. It was also possible to directly control the dragon and enter Berserker mode for increased power. Announced in 2014 as an Xbox One exclusive, the hack and slash combat combined with battles on a massive scale looked promising, especially with up to four players in co-op.

Originally slated for release in late 2016, Scalebound would be delayed to the next year and subsequently cancelled in January 2017. Studio head Atsushi Inaba felt that “both sides failed” when it came to the cancellation and that it “didn’t do all of the things that we needed to do as a developer.” PlatinumGames has expressed interest in returning to the project – especially since Microsoft still owns the IP. It may not happen any time soon but never say never.

A new Grand Prix is on the horizon for Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled and this time, it’s centered on Spyro the Dragon and his friends. Along with a Spyro-themed track, there will be challenges to unlock him as well. Check out the reveal trailer below to see how it all looks.

Other challenges will be in place to earn new customization items and scaled-up karts. You can probably expect new skins as well (purchasable with Wumpa Coins, which can be acquired with real money) while the event is ongoing. The Spyro and Friends Grand Prix goes live tomorrow at 7 AM PDT.

Check out GamingBolt’s official review for the game here. Last month’s Grand Prix saw the introduction of a new track in the Prehistoric Playground along with new skins. Prior to this, Beenox brought the Nitro Girls into the game with the Nitro Grand Prix. Expect more post-launch content and seasons in the coming months.

Rumors about a Spyro the Dragon remaster, along the lines of last year’s super successful Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy, are coming in thick at this point; the remaster is expected to modernize the original three PlayStation Spyro games in one package, much like Crash last year, and expected to launch on the PS4 fist, before coming to other systems a year later, presumably.

Now, here’s the newest bit of evidence that a Spyro remaster is coming- Twitter user BetaM has been datamining the game’s code, and he has found demo code for Spyro the Dragon within it- placed there on purpose, he claims. Even if it wasn’t placed there on purpose, its placement in there at all raises flags- and if it was placed there on purpose, then maybe purchasers of N.Sane Trilogy will get early access to a demo for Spyro?

Hopefully, Spyro is announced soon- for my money, Spyro was far better than Crash, and I’d love to play through a remaster as well done as N.Sane Trilogy was.

Rumors that a remaster of the PS1 Spyro the Dragon trilogy might be coming, in the same vein as the Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy release for the PS4 last year, have been picking up of late- reports broke out about this happening this year last month, Activision themselves indicated they are remastering one of their older IPs this year last week, and now we have this.

Apparently, a new Spyro the Dragon account has gone up on Twitter; the account itself is currently locked (so no one can follow or view it right now), but apparently, it is associated with an email that belongs to Activision- which lends, yet again, credence to the notion that a Spyro remaster release is inbound.

If the reports are accurate, the remaster will be for the PS1 trilogy, and will launch on PS4 first, before launching on PC and Nintendo Switch a year later- but, remember, this is all speculation for now. It’s substantiated speculation, but it is still not official. Hopefully this E3 will reveal more about this..

https://twitter.com/JumpButtonCB/status/969433716715028480

Sony has announced that the PSOne classic platformers, Spyro the Dragon 1, 2 and 3 will be making their way to the European PlayStation Store for all PS3 and PS Vita owners to enjoy.

They release on December 12th.

And yes, it is Vita compatible. When asked if it will be, Jawad Ashraf of the PS Store team said: “Vita compatible! The price is being confirmed but it should fall in line with previous PSOne titles.”

“Hugely successful when released way back on PSOne, I am delighted to finally be able to get Spyro the Dragon back out there for all of you to enjoy,” said Ashraf on the PlayStation Blog.

“For everyone that asked and waited patiently, now is the time to bite,” he continued. “

“Now is the time to relish in the glorious days of distant past! Now is the time!

“With your help, let this re-emergence of Spyro open the gates for more titles from the PSOne era that we shall never forget.”

Will you be buying it? I definitely want to.

Stay tuned for more updates.