Before Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution, there was PaRappa the Rapper, a title that ushered in the rhythm game revolution. It was released in 1996 and came to the U.S. the following year. The PaRappa the Rapper franchise includes spinoffs and sequels to the original on multiple consoles, and a remastered addition was released just last week.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original game, Sony released a massively scaled-up version of the Dualshock 4 controller, as reported by Gigazine. As you can see in the video, the controller is larger than the screen displaying PaRappa the Rapper Remastered.
Console controllers have always been an issue for hot debate, and one big factor that adds fuel to the fire is size. This one might be too small, while a competitor’s is too big. Sony threw all that out the window when it set up the colossal controller at the SIE (Sony Interactive Entertainment) headquarters in Tokyo.
According to the article, the triangle, circle, cross, and square buttons, as well as the L1 and R1 shoulder buttons and directional pad, are functional. It appears that the R1 and R2 triggers and the touchpad are just for show. The analog sticks can be moved, but they don’t have any function. The light bar does illuminate though, which is a nice touch.
While it looks like fun, this should be viewed as more of a novelty, as gameplay is impeded. However, this adds an interesting to element to the game, which normally relies on the player’s rhythmic tapping of buttons. With the scaled-up controller, the player’s upper body gets involved, as you move your arms and hands to tap each button. This creates a sort of Dance Dance Revolution of the hands. It seems some strength is involved as well, as the buttons have to be pressed hard enough that you hear a bang.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.