The Call of Duty franchise continues its Fortnite-ification by announcing the latest playable character will be Tomb Raider star Lara Croft. The fictional grave robber will appear in Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare II, joining recent real-life playable characters like Nicki Minaj, Snoop Dogg, Kevin Durant and various characters from the Prime Video show The Boys, among others. Publisher Activision hasn't announced details as to how you get Lara Croft on your side, though it's likely you'll have to purchase some sort of bundle to access the renowned ruins ruiner. For instance, Minaj was available as part of the $10 season 5 battle pack. There will also likely be Croft-related items, skins and weapons for sale, though her signature dual-wielded pistols should be part of the initial buy-in.

Rounding out the game's cast of playable characters are Claudia, a teenager who chafes at her father's attempts to keep her home during the festival, and Sergio -- a good friend of Paul's -- who was effectively banished from Gravoi in 1969 when his relationship with one of the village's largest landowners came to light. Each of "Saturnalia's" playable characters has a special ability: Paul can use his camera to distract the creature and photograph clues for later analysis; Sergio has a wireless phone (that puts him in the vanguard of tech enthusiasts in 1989); Claudia can squeeze into places too narrow for anyone else; and Anita can remember the location of places not listed on any of the maps posted throughout the town. With the press of a button, Anita can call up the direction of any location without having to consult a map, and with another button press, she'll point in the direction of her chosen destination.

If there was a commander you could add to your naval video game ship, what better person would it be than the actual Leroy Jenkins? World of Warships said it will add US Navy veteran Leroy Jenkins as a playable character in its free to play game. While gamers may only know the legendary meme and battle cry of "Leeeeeroy Jenkins!" from World of Warcraft, the Leroy Jenkins being added to World of Warships is a sailor who served on Navy destroyer USS Kidd during the Korean War 78 years ago. Jenkins came to the attention of World of Warships officials during a visit to the actual USS Kidd museum in Baton Rouge, where Jenkins was a volunteer for 14 years. If you're wondering if the actual Leroy Jenkins had anything to do with the World of Warcraft viral meme scream of "Leeeeroy Jenkins!" it's unknown.

If you've played every board game and completed every jigsaw puzzle in your house, multiplayer video games might be another great option for some family fun. From Nintendo titles such as Mario Kart to Playstation 4 fan favourites like FIFA and Minecraft, we've rounded up 11 of the best family-friendly games to play local multiplayer with your kids. Some you can also play online co-op with your friends if you have the required online pass. The original game is back with more than 80 brand new mini-games to get the party started, including the all-new Joy-Con controller enabled mini-games. Test your skills as you take turns with up to four other players to race across the board to win the most Stars.

Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) is a mechanism used in video games that automatically tailors the individual gaming experience to match an appropriate difficulty setting. This is generally achieved by removing pre-defined difficulty tiers such as Easy, Medium and Hard; and instead concentrates on balancing the gameplay to match the challenge to the individual's abilities. The work presented in this paper examines the implementation of DDA in a custom survival game developed by the author, namely Colwell's Castle Defence. The premise of this arcade-style game is to defend a castle from hordes of oncoming enemies. The AI system that we developed adjusts the enemy spawn rate based on the current performance of the player. Specifically, we read the Player Health and Gate Health at the end of each level and then assign the player with an appropriate difficulty tier for the proceeding level. We tested the impact of our technique on thirty human players and concluded, based on questionnaire feedback, that enabling the technique led to more enjoyable gameplay.

For Samuel Hookham and his younger brother, Overwatch was an obsession that took root last spring. They played the fast-paced shooter video game almost every day, passing the PlayStation 4 controller back and forth across the couch in their family's California home. Samuel was surprised to find himself selecting a female avatar. Overwatch offers two dozen characters of different genders and races, each with a richly drawn personality. But when Samuel played, he was almost always Symmetra, a slight but potent warrior.