It’s Monday, so that means it’s time for the Goblins vs Gnomes Weekly New Card Roundup! Here’re all the cards that have been revealed in the last week:

  Gahz’rilla

Legendary Beast Minion, 7 mana cost, 6 attack and 9 health. Doubles its attack every time it takes damage.

  Coghammer

Weapon, 3 mana cost, 2 attack and 3 durability. Battlecry gives a random friendly Minion Divine Shield and Taunt.

   Iron Sensei

Mech Minion, 3 mana cost, 2 attack and 2 health. Gives another friendly Mech Minion +2/+2 at the end of your turn.

  Call Pet

Spell, 2 mana cost. Draws a card and makes it cost (4) less if it’s a Beast Minion.

  Mech-Bear-Cat

Mech Minion, 6 mana cost, 7 attack and 6 health. Every time it takes damage you can add a Spare Part card to your hand.

  Toshley

Legendary Minion, 6 mana cost, 5 attack and 7 health. Battlecry and Deathrattle adds a Spare Part card to your hand.

  Cobalt Guardian

Mech Minion, 5 mana cost, 6 attack and 3 health. Whenever a Mech is summoned, gain Divine Shield.

  Muster For Battle

Spell, 3 mana cost. Summons three 1/1 Silver Hand Recruits and equips a 1/4 weapon.

  Anodized Robo Cub

Mech Minion, 2 mana cost, 2 attack and 2 health. Taunt. Has choice – +1 Attack or +1 Health.

  Fel Cannon

Mech Minion, 4 mana cost, 3 attack and 5 health. Deals 2 damage to a non-Mech minion at the end of your turn.

  Screwjank Clunker

Mech Minion, 4 mana cost, 2 attack and 5 health. Battlecry gives a friendly Mech Minion +2/+2.

  Whirling Zap-O-Matic

Mech Minion, 2 mana cost, 3 attack and 2 health. Windfury.

  Snowchugger

Mech Minion, 2 mana cost, 2 attack and 3 health. Freezes any Character it attacks.

Perhaps no Wii U game has been more highly anticipated this year than Super Smash Bros. With the wait finally over, its time to find if Sakurai and his team can live up to all the hype, or if Smash for Wii U has a bad case of sequelitis.

Smashing Expectations

For those unfamiliar with Smash Bros., the game is a mascot fighter drawing in characters from various Nintendo franchises, as well as a few guests from other companies. Matches take place on constantly changing battlefields. Instead of health bars, players are given a damage percentage. The more damage a fighter takes, the higher that percentage will climb. The object is to increase an enemies damage percentage and then send them flying offscreen with a well timed attack. Its a simple premise, but one that has tons of depth. Items such as laser swords, bombs, blaster guns and even a submarine machine gun (you read that right) can all change the balance of a figth. And of course, there is the smash ball, an item which must be hit multiple times before it can be  claimed. Once secured, it will allow it’s owner to unleash a powerful final smash attack.

So thats the basics of how Smash works. But how does this new version play? in short, wonderfully. The game is locked at a rock solid 60 FPS at 1080P. Its amusing that in this day of people complaining about the newest next gen games running at lower framerates or lower resolutions,. Nintendo has quietly churned out a game that can handle the madness of eight players fighting on the ground and in the air with all manner of effects going off, all while maintaining that solid framerate. I have managed to make it dip below 60, but I had to try very hard and force some truly ludicrous situations on the game before the engine finally cracked. Even then, it recovered extremely quickly. The controls are spot on as well. One of the strengths of the Smash series is the deceptive depth. Every characters has the same commands to pull off basic attacks and special moves, but those moves vary wildly between characters. The roster is deep and diverse, meaning you’ll have plenty of opportunities to find a character that suits your play style. In short, the roster depth here is incredible, the game looks gorgeous, and it handles incredibly well no matter what controller you are using. Thats right, Smash supports the Wii-mote, Nunchuk, Classic Controller, Wii U pro controller, Wii U Gamepad, Gamecube controller and you can even pair a 3DS with the system and control it through the handheld.

Mode Overload

Smash Wii U comes with more modes than any game before it in the series. Sure, Subspace Emissary is gone, but its been replaced by some truly interesting alternate options. Solo and Group smash are there to allow you to go head to head with your friends or the CPU. Event Challenge tasks you with using a specific character to complete a specific task. In return you are rewarded with coins, trophies and customization items for your Mii Fighter or custom Mario etc.  All Star Mode sees you fighting all the characters in the roster in massive group battles, working backwards through the history of videogames until you get to Pacman. Classic Mode sends you on a journey to smash all in your path on your way to face off against Master Hand and Crazy Hand. In a nod to Kid Icarus: Uprising, you can increase the difficulty of this mode (and your resulting rewards) by betting coins. Just be sure not to fail, because you’ll lose your coins! Its a nice risk reward mechanic.

The last two modes (aside from online play) are Master/Crazy Orders and Smash Tour. master/Crazy Orders sees you taking on missions from the giant disembodied boss hands from Classic Mode. Master Hand will offer up a set of three challenges. Clearing one nets you rewards. Crazy Hand on the other…hand….will challenge you to beat a set of challenges and then Crazy Hand himself within a ten minute time limit. You can choose to complete just one challenge before taking him on, but your rewards won’t be as great. Conversely, you can take them all on, at the risk of being easily defeated once you take on Crazy Hand as your health does not reset between challenges in this mode. Fail, and you lose your entry fee of either 5,000 gold or a Special Ticket.

Smash Run is…interesting. To be totally honest, after several hours with the game mode I still have no idea what the hell is going on. You play on a Mario Party inspired board, moving around, bumping into other fighters and earning power-ups and other fighters for your team. The problem is all players roll and move at once and the instructions for the mode are obtuse at best. Of all the modes in Smash Wii U, this one seems like it had the most potential, and also failed the most in execution.

Back in the realm of more familiar modes, Multi-Man Smash sees you facing off against hordes of Mii Fighters. Home Run Contest is back as well, along with Target Smash. Target Smash has undergone a few tweaks though. You are no longer placed into a course and tasked with hunting down moving targets. Instead, you are given a bomb to smash at a set of targets and structural blocks, ala Angry Birds. Its interesting, but part of me misses the old style of Target Smash.

Those Darn Amiibos

Amiibos also make their debut with Smash Bros. Wii U. I picked up a Link Amiibo to test out the functionality. Simply selecting Amiibo from the menu takes you into a screen that prompts you to touch your Amiibo to the Wii U Gamepad. Within less than a second, my Link popped to life on my screen. I gave him a name, fed him some items I had picked up on my journeys through Classic Mode and then started training him. And by training him, I mean beating the snot out of him until he learned to fight back. Your Amiibos actually learn based on what you do in battle against them. In my case, I threw bombs at Link’s face in an unstoppable maelstrom of Deku Death. After levelling up a few times, he began to follow suit, pitching bombs left and right. He also became much more adept at avoiding them. Training done, I saved his data back by touching his figure to my Gamepad. Again, the process was lightning fast.

Amiibos can be taken into several modes to fight alongside you. Its a great option for those that might not be able to gather a bunch of friends together. It remains to be seen how useful Amiibos will be, but to date, I’ve had a lot of fun with my little plastic Link.

Multiplayer Antics

So the big question on everyone’s mind is multiplayer. Well, I can say without reservation that Smash Wii U’s multiplayer is great. Be it on the couch in a massive eight player brawl, or going for glory online, the game is just as fun as any other installment in the series. Online multiplayer is silky smooth. Finding a match only requires a few menu presses, no friend codes here. And once in a battle, I only ever experienced one or two instances of lag in over 100 matches. If Smash Bros 3DS was a lesson in how not to do online multiplayer in a fighting game, Smash Wii U’s performance is a master class in how to get it right. I could wish for more options in setting up matches online, but in my opinion the crazy one off match types are best experienced with friends in local play. Nintendo has done a great job getting the game to function great online, but you can feel that even they feel that Smash is best enjoyed when you can stare into your friend’s eyes and watch the tears as they get crushed under the iron boots of your Jigglypuff.

The Verdict

Super Smash Bros. Wii U is on of the most polished games on the system to date. From the incredible music, to the gorgeous graphics, silky smooth gameplay and absolute plethora of modes, this is a game no Wii U owner should be without. Go grab a copy, park some friends on your couch and go nuts. I didn’t even get into trophy collection. Speaking of which, its time to go rearrange my trophy horde.

Smash Bros Wii U: 9.5/10

Paypal have been sending round an e-mail to their customers, and for PC gamers it’s something to be interested in. If you use Steam that is, as many do.

The e-mail contains details of of Steam’s upcoming Autumn sale, and according to it, it will commence this Wednesday – the 26th and will run through until the beginning of the next month ending on Monday December 1st.

The e-mail itself was an advertisement for PayPal as a medium for buying up Steam Wallet codes:

If you wanted an excuse to buy some games for yourself soon, or you were hoping to get friends and family digital copies of games for the upcoming present-giving holiday that is Christmas this is your chance to get some good deals.

Remember to wait for the discount to be big before you commit to buy!

Two months after Spacebase DF-9 was released early without a bunch of promised features due to not making enough money to justify its continued development, Double Fine have let go twelve staff.

The lay-offs come as a result of a deal for an unannounced game falling through unexpectedly, and only the team that was supposed to be working on said game are being affected by this. Other teams within Double Fine’s company are untouched by this.

Currently on their development table is a remastering of cult classic game Grim Fandango, the second act to Broken Act and Massive Chalice; a turn-based strategy game that has been funded through Kickstarter.

It is not currently known if the staff affected have been offered help finding new work.

Evolve is getting a lot of people hyped. The idea of the 4 vs 1 where the four fight the one playing the ‘boss’ monster is very appealing and enormous fun to play. The studio behind it Turtle Rock have also made their position on DLC clear – they don’t plan to charge for new maps but they will for new hunter characters and monsters.

Explaining their position in an interview with IGN, creative director Phil Robb says that it’s to do with keeping the community together. “We never want anyone to get booted off of a server because they haven’t bought something.”

Although new hunter and monster characters will be available for purchase, that’s not going to be an issue for matchmaking either. “if you don’t buy them, if your buddy wants to buy the DLC, that’s cool, and your game will be enhanced through his purchase… So, you won’t be able to play as those characters, but you will certainly be able to play with those characters.”

It seems like a good way to handle multiplayer with DLC, and makes me even more excited for the full release of the game in February next year.