Greetings, and welcome to another installment of Replay, WIRED's look at everything happening in the world of videogames. This week we've got news about Fortnite, PlayStation IDs, and the coolest fighting game moment ever. Let's get going!
PlayStation has finally, after much ado, launched a feature allowing players to change their online ID in the PlayStation Network service. But, uh, based on what Sony has to say about it on their PlayStation Blog, you might not want to. According to Sony, the change will work on most games developed in 2018 or afterward, and a decent amount of games published before. But with some games, the change can create critical errors, including loss of save data and purchased content like DLC or other types of add-ons.
So, yes, congratulations! You can finally change your name! But it might break your games. Is that compromise worth it? Depends on how awful your username was, I guess.
One of the most exciting moments in competitive fighting game history is called Evo Moment 37, aka the "Daigo Parry," wherein Daigo Umehara and Justin Wong squared off in Street Fighter III, a matchup that ended in a legendary, thrilling reversal that is both technically complex and incredibly exciting to watch. A video of the moment has been around on the internet for years, but as reported by Kotaku, a new video, showing the footage from a new angle with new commentary, has surfaced on YouTube.
If you've never experienced this frankly pretty sublime moment in esports, you need to check it out. And if you know it well, exploring it from another angle is still a joy.
The newest thing to come to Fortnite? Reboot Vans. The vans, coincidentally similar to Apex Legends' respawn feature, allow players to bring back dead teammates at specific locations on the map if they acquire a Reboot Card from their corpse, which will be dropped from all fallen teammates and remain on the map for 90 seconds.
Yeah, OK, it pretty much is the respawn feature from Apex Legends. But, listen, in fairness, it's a good idea. And seeing good ideas implemented and iterated on in similar games is positive for the whole genre. So this is a pretty solid move. The latest update should be live now.
Expansive, chaotic, and fun with any amount of players, Mario Kart 8 is the perfect party game in a series of perfect party games. The cart racing franchise has a killer reputation for good reason: Even if you haven't played in years you're bound to have a good time. I recently got my hands on this game with some friends after not having played it in quite a while and was stunned at how natural and how thrilling it is. Just avoid the blue shells. They make everyone sad.
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