Monster Rancher (1997)
What are you catching? CDs… or maybe the monsters that live inside CDs? (Or “Mystery Discs,” as they’re termed in the game’s mythology.) Either way, you get new collectible creatures in Tecmo’s
Monster Rancher by popping out the PlayStation disc and replacing it with something from your CD collection. The game then scans the disc’s metadata and somehow generates a monster from that information, with certain kinds of CDs generating special kinds of monsters.
What are they doing? From there, you do what it says on the box: Ranch some monsters, which is to say, train them to fight other monsters. Unlike
5 Less Violent Battle Royale Games for Kids
Battle royale-style “one vs. many” games like
Apex Legends and
Call of Duty: Warzone have colonized the online space over the past couple of years, with hundreds of thousands of gamers logged in at any given time. But some parents are uneasy with the level of violence in the most popular titles in the genre; even in a cartoonish game like
, players are encouraged to shoot one another with bazookas.
However, there are non-violent free-for-all alternatives games that offer all the excitement of the multiplayer-elimination genre without the guns and grenades. Here are five to start with.
Horizon Zero Dawn and its upcoming sequel,
Horizon Forbidden West, is the latest crossover character to join
Fortnite. She’ll be playable starting April 15.
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Aloy’s addition is part of
Fortnite’s “Primal” season, which added crafting, wildlife, and a new biome to the game. It also saw the death of the banana man (
You’ll be able to pick up Aloy’s kit piecemeal in the item shop, including including a glider, a back bling, and a melee weapon based on her gear from the source material, in addition to a
Horizon-themed weapon and vehicle wrap. (It’s always weird to see fan-favorite characters who don’t use guns show up in
Image: Trendsetter Media
Many things were promised to us for this future dystopian society we now find ourselves in: flying cars, off-world colonies, robot workforces, android Ryan Goslings. Unfortunately, the least-fun of those seems to be the only one accurately predicated for 2021: automated A.I. replacing both industrial workers as well as our most human of endeavors, the arts. So far, they’ve come for our books, our operas, and our Garfields. Now, they are setting their sights on their newest target: those annoying-as-hell-yet-still-somehow-catchy SoundCloud mumble rappers. Is nothing sacred?
Allow us to “introduce” everyone to FN Meka, a TikTok influencer/musician who apparently also just happens to be the “first A.I. powered robot-rapper.” Described as a“virtual influencer, AR sneakerhead,” FN Meka purportedly “blends eclectic with electric. When not flexing his augmented reality fashion sense, MEKA crafts his next Soundcloud single.” So, uh, that’s a thi