It was an enormous week in video video games with the launch of the Change 2.
Fantasy Critic League – Like Fantasy Soccer, however for Video Video games
Did you exit and get a Change 2 on Thursday when it launched?
I’ll admit that even I used to be a bit tempted. Happily. I suppose, there have been none available close by, so I used to be saved the choice. However the Change 2 is admittedly the one online game console I would think about… and judging from my Change Lite utilization, even that dedication is fairly weak. However I like a few the core Nintendo franchises and, apart from the odd cellphone app, these are within the walled backyard of the Change ecosystem.
Pokemon and Pokemon equipment are on my record for certain, however so is Mario Kart. First, nonetheless, let’s have a look at the place we stood on scoring on the week opened up.
The Standings for Week 21
Final week noticed Cyanbane beginning to dig himself out of his early counter-pick gap with the fairly stable launch of F1 25, whereas Kluwes maintained their place within the pack on the again of Elden Ring Nightreign.
Which brings us round to Mario Kart World, one of many launch titles for the up to date console. Mario Kart is at all times extraordinarily common and a prime vendor for any Nintendo console era. It additionally faces a decreased critic set being a one console title. However additionally it is a protracted and storied franchise and it’s arduous for Nintendo to each hold the core theme AND innovate simply sufficient to make it really feel recent and new. So I might see the mainstream critics waving it away as stable however nothing new, my principle of the 80 rating imply.
So I used to be watching on Thursday to see what the primary critiques may say about it… after which nothing confirmed up. Nintendo had a really tight embargo on any critiques or pre-launch protection, which meant websites had been sluggish to get sufficient play time to have the ability to justify a evaluate. There have been a number of “so, the place is out Mario Kart evaluate?” articles on the market.
However, come afterward Friday, critiques began to point out up and the primary rating for the title landed on the league.
- Mario Kart World has launched!
- [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
- Now has a rating of 86.7
86.7 is a fairly good rating for this league the place the vary of scores is presently between 73 and 92, and positively higher than bathroom normal very long time main writer franchise rating of round 80.
That was Shintar’s third launch and it propelled her up the ranks because the scoring was calculated.
- Writer Rating Updates
- Play Eternally Mwahahaha (Shintar)
- Rating has gone UP from 25.8 to 42.5
- Moved from seventh place to third place
- Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)
- Moved from third place to 4th place
- Barely Scuffed Studios (Kluwes)
- Moved from 4th place to fifth place
- Crash and Burn Video games (Shawn)
- Moved from fifth place to sixth place
- Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)
- Moved from sixth place to seventh place
- Play Eternally Mwahahaha (Shintar)
So Shintar vaulted as much as third place, which is superb for any individual with solely three titles launched to this point.
And that was the anticipated replace for the week. Nothing else was slated to launch. Then, there was a Summer time Video games Week shock launch announcement.
- Lies of P: Overture
- [Picked by Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)]
- Launch date modified from ‘Summer time 2025’ to ‘Friday, June 06, 2025’.
That popped on Friday, the sixth, and never too lengthy after we acquired a rating for that.
- Lies of P: Overture
- [Picked by Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)]
- Now has a rating of 82.5
That could be a first rate rating. I really counter picked that title within the different league I’m in and am paying the worth for that now. However Cyanbane getting his fourth title on the board induced one other shake up of the rankings.
- Writer Rating Updates
- Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)
- Rating has gone UP from 37.0 to 49.5
- Moved from seventh place to third place
- Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)
- Play Eternally Mwahahaha (Shintar)
- Moved from third place to 4th place
- Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)
- Moved from 4th place to fifth place
- Barely Scuffed Studios (Kluwes)
- Moved from fifth place to sixth place
- Crash and Burn Video games (Shawn)
- Moved from sixth place to seventh place
That put Cyanbane up into third place with 5 titles launched, pushing Shintar and the remainder of the mid-pack crew down one other rung on the ladder.
Then, as usually occurs, Mario Kart World started to cool down a bit as extra critiques landed. Not sufficient to warrant a rating replace from the bot, however sufficient to place Archey forward of Shintar by a really small margin.
- Writer Rating Updates
- Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)
- Moved from fifth place to 4th place
- Play Eternally Mwahahaha (Shintar)
- Moved from 4th place to fifth place
- Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)
After which at 17:00 yesterday, which is my reduce off time for updates in these posts, there as one final place change.
- Writer Rating Updates
- Play Eternally Mwahahaha (Shintar)
- Moved from fifth place to 4th place
- Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)
- Moved from 4th place to fifth place
- Play Eternally Mwahahaha (Shintar)
All of which left the scoreboard wanting like this on the finish of the week.
The Standings for Week 22
Cyanbane is up there in third place, however has yet another launch than anyone else on the board, so which may not final. Then there’s the tight race for slots 4 via seven the place even small rating fluctuations change the lineup.
Along with all of that, there have been additionally 4 launch date updates.
- Wildgate
- [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
- Launch date modified from ‘2025’ to ‘Thursday, July 24, 2025’.
- Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound
- [Picked by Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)]
- Launch date modified from ‘Summer time 2025’ to ‘Thursday, July 31, 2025’.
- Dying Mild: The Beast
- [Picked by TAGN HQ (Wilhelm)]
- Launch date modified from ‘Summer time 2025’ to ‘Friday, August 22, 2025’.
- Cairn
- [Picked by TAGN HQ (Wilhelm)]
- Launch date modified from ‘2025’ to ‘Wednesday, November 05, 2025’.
Shintar and Cyanbane every have one other launch date locked down and I acquired two extra dates for my picks. All of that’s good as a result of we had been beginning to get to a degree the place all the things after the primary web page of the upcoming releases was just a few obscure aim in 2025.
There was additionally one bid this week.
- Shadow Labyrinth
- Received by Play Eternally Mwahahaha (Shintar) with a bid of $10
So Shintar has a further slot crammed.
The place does that depart us subsequent week for releases?
Arising for week 23
We now have two titles on the record for week twenty-three, Dune: Awakening and The Alters.
Dune: Awakening has been in pre-order head begin mode since Thursday and has handed 100K peak concurrent gamers on Steam, however no critiques can be found as of my scripting this.
Dune: Awakening is a little bit of a wild card in my e book, being a Funcom title. They’ve a historical past of utterly misunderstanding their viewers initially, then having to repair/realign their recreation as time goes on.
For instance, our group performed Conan: Exiles years after it launched and Funcom was placing out patches that had us boggled that they had been solely getting round to fixing some egregious stuff that lengthy after launch.
This time round Funcom initially mentioned they weren’t going to have personal servers at launch, which was odd as a result of the personal server facet of Conan: Exiles appeared fairly common.
Then they modified their minds and introduced that there could be personal servers accessible at launch… however they wouldn’t actually be personal servers as a result of Funcom believes PvP is such a significant facet of the sport that your personal server over at G-Portal was going to be linked to a world server for the PvP zones so randos might gank you with their krys knives.
I used to be within the title from purely a non-public server viewpoint. However since you possibly can’t actually have a real personal server, I’m a lot much less enthused. We will see. I’d additionally wager cash that Funcom modifications that… in like 4 years. However the recreation ought to be playable by then!
Anyway, the person critiques for Dune: Awakening are good, however person critiques usually swing wildly relative to recreation reviewers. So we’ll see how that performs out.
As for The Alters... I’ve acquired nothing. It’s an XBox/Home windows title with a good hype issue within the league with a rating projection of about 5 factors.
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