dovahkiin

1. Donkey Kong 64 2. Diddy Kong Racing 3. Banjo-Kazooie Honorable Mention: Snowboard Kids oh how I miss the golden age of the Rare + Nintendo partnership 😭

It isn't official yet unfortunately, but hopefully they'll announce it in soon! I expect ComicBook will cover it extensively if it ever gets announced (or potentially even if a credible rumor that to float around). Seems like a no-brainer for Disney to do it, but who knows! Disney/Marvel hold the necessary rights to produce Spider-Man animated shows with runtimes under 44ish minutes, so it's just a matter of Disney valuing the opportunity and making the investment! For now we just have to wait and hope 🥹

Only a few months left in 2025, time to start thinking about your GOTY contenders!

Batman Returns on SNES! Haven't thought about that game in so long

I'd love to see what kind of comic collections other readers have! With more and more omnibuses, trade paperbacks, and mangas being published all the time, I'm sure some people have awesome collections to share! And this community will be able to appreciate them :) I'll start by sharing my collection!

I agree this is mostly true, but disagree it's impossible to avoid. Server costs and other associated licensing fees that a publisher/developer has to pay to maintain any service are an inherent business risk that publishers should be held responsible for managing, rather than a reason this shady business practice should be tolerated. Those costs/fees are a known risk that exists during the entire development cycle through to post-launch support, and privately these businesses know when those agreements will lapse, they just don't share that information (because no one forces them to). Right now, they're effectively being allowed to sidestep responsibility for that risk (with help from digital storefronts) by muddying the waters between a product and a service, as well as not being forced to adequately identify to consumers what is actually being paid for. No one reasonably demands refunds from Netfilx when they stop carrying a show due to licensing issues, but Netflix isn't positioning their service as 'selling' any individual pieces of content. I think the storefronts should have a responsibility to clearly differentiate between a digital product (which inherently has unlimited availability) and a digital service (which inherently has limited availability). The publishers should have a responsibility to indicate if their service could end, and when. Ultimately, I think this is a major perception issue that the gaming industry will need to reckon with. They built all this digital infrastructure to give themselves a zillion ways to collect money, but when it comes to responsibly informing consumers, they hide behind "It will cost us too much to commit to or share any details around server availability or end of life plans." The costs of properly informing customers are trivial compared to the upside of revenue generation and costs savings they've already realized from these digital storefronts and distribution systems.

X-Men '97 season 1 released last year was awesome. The X-Men '92 comic started in 2015 and continued its run through 2022. Spider-Man '94 just started publication last month (issue #2 drops in 2 days!). We got a Spider-Man cameo in X-Men '97 (episode 8) and we got a Peter Parker/MJ cameo (episode 10), which has my hopes soaring. Is a Spider-Man '98 animated sequel to the original series an inevitability or a pipe dream?

I think publishers should be forced to inform customers of the earliest possible end of service date when selling the game. Nothing would stop a publisher from then extending that date if the game is successful, but they should be obligated to support a game up to a date they select at the time of release, or should be obligated refund customers for all purchases if they are unable/unwilling to meet the date they set for themselves. In general for digital purchases, I think sellers should be legally obligated to prominently display the soonest end-date of their relevant license agreements for the content they are 'selling' rather than letting customers 'buy' a license to access content that has unpredictable/arbitrary availability.