Untitled Goose Game--a game in which you play as a jerk goose who waddles through a small English town ruining everyone's day-- feels like a miniature version of Hitman, but with mischief instead of murder. Like those games, it's all about learning an environment inside-out and figuring out how to play various people and systems against each other to achieve your goals. You wander between four small, quaint locations and tick off objectives from your list by wreaking havoc on the people you encounter and generally being a nuisance. At first, you're annoying a man as he tends to his garden, turning on his sprinklers as he stands over them, stealing the keys to his gate, nicking his produce, and generally getting in his way. The game continues like this, as the goose's to-do list demands that it causes upset to most of the people it encounters. Working through the game means figuring out how each element interacts with everything else and how to corralling various people, who all react to the goose differently.

It's a comedy first and foremost. Figuring out how to complete each objective might be essential to your progress, but the real fun is in seeing how harried you can make everyone. When you need to make a man spit out his tea, steal his shoes, and ruin his garden, you might start to feel sorry for him, but you also won't want to stop terrorizing him. The goose can only run, grab onto things, honk, and flap its wings, but through some combination of these actions you can manipulate the folks you encounter and cause chaos. One character might run in fear if you honk at them; another might bend over if you drop something for them, giving you a chance to steal their hat; another might leave their post if you steal something of theirs and drop it far away, giving you the chance to go back while they're distracted and steal the object you were really after all along.

The humor of Untitled Goose Game is built into the mechanics and animations; seeing the goose waddle along, honking and flapping its wings, is inherently amusing and satisfying even before you start causing mischief because of how perfectly evocative it is of a real bird. The clean, colorful visual style is also a treat. But the reactive soundtrack is what really sells the goose's charms. The music, based on Claude Debussy's Préludes, springs into action dynamically based on the goose's actions, punctuating moments when it shocks someone and adding a buoyancy to any scene involving a chase. It gives the game a feeling of farce; at its best, it's reminiscent of a Buster Keaton film, especially since there's no dialogue.

The objectives you're asked to complete often require some lateral thinking. Getting into the headspace of the goose and figuring out how a few actions can spiral into something that's going to annoy one of your targets is very entertaining. Sometimes it's immediately clear what you need to do, and sometimes the solution is more abstract, but most objectives will name an object that you can find within the environment. In the second location, for instance, you're told to "get on TV"--the solution isn't immediately obvious, but finding the TV you need to interact with is not difficult. Untitled Goose Game lightly leads you towards its puzzle solutions without explicitly holding your hand through them, so figuring out a clever solution is rewarding.

You need to complete all but one objective in each location to advance, which is a nice concession, as it means you can progress to the next area even if one of the puzzles just isn't clicking for you. Sometimes it's just a matter of figuring out what needs to be done and then doing it, but you also need to practice some level of finesse: The goose can't get too close to anyone who's going to try to shoo it away, and you'll often need to be stealthy, sneaking under tables, causing distractions, and hiding behind bushes and in boxes like a long-necked, web-toed Solid Snake.

Each area also features a fetch quest objective, for which you need to gather several items and put them in one place while making sure that you're not caught. These objectives are the least fun, generally, because too much is left to the imagination; the first one asks you to "have a picnic" by dragging a variety of particular items to a picnic blanket, but once you've done so the objective is immediately complete, with no additional vignettes or animations to reward all that effort. Untitled Goose Game's best objectives reward you not only with a feeling of satisfaction, but with a fun, charming bit of interaction between the goose and the people it encounters, whether that means watching a man stumble around with a bucket on his head or watching someone else wearily resign themselves to their favorite hat being gone.

Untitled Goose Game is also extremely short. When I reached the end, I was surprised at how little time it had taken--I had only been playing for about two hours. Thankfully, after the credits roll you unlock a new list of objectives across the now fully unlocked map, but there isn't the same incentive to complete them when you know that you won't be rewarded with a new location to explore, or even, necessarily, new interactions. Most of them are twists on previous objectives or more complicated versions of things you've already done, often involving moving items between different locations.

I'm glad that those extra objectives are there, though, and I had a good time working through them. It's just a shame that there isn't a bit more, because Untitled Goose Game ends far before I felt like I'd had my fill or seen everything the game was going to throw at me. Being short isn't inherently bad, but Untitled Goose Game's playground could stand to be bigger. I wished that I could keep riding the high of unlocking new areas and messing with new people, and it still felt like there was plenty of room to escalate things.

For all the jerkiness I performed, my favorite moment in Untitled Goose Game was the one scene where the game leaned into the goose's charms. I wandered up behind two people having a chat at the pub and hit the button dedicated to honking. The two women turned to look at me, startled, but far less hostile than most of the characters I'd encountered. When I stood in a specific spot they mimed commands for me to perform, fulfilling one of my objectives while absolutely delighting the two women. Untitled Goose Game is a hilariously antagonistic experience most of the time, but I identified strongly with these characters and how lovable they found this horrible goose.

The important thing is that Untitled Goose Game is a hoot. It's a comedy game that focuses on making the act of playing it funny, rather than simply being a game that features jokes. Wishing that it was longer speaks to how much fun I had with it. There's nothing else quite like Untitled Goose Game; it's charming and cute despite being mean, and both very silly and very clever. It's also probably the best non-racing game ever to feature a dedicated "honk" button.

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Cardy & Joe have both been reviewing games this week so gather round the podcast table for layers of critical thought. Link's Awakening has been remade for the Switch so Joe tells you why that's a banger and Cardy has done FIFA again so explains what's up with the footballs this year. Borderlands 3 also gets its fair share of debate time. Meanwhile, Dale is convinced that new Netflix show "The I-Land" has ripped him off and is out to prove it.

Joe's got a list-based quiz for the Endless Search as well as plenty of time for your feedback.

IGN UK Podcast #505: The Legend of Volta

And remember, if you want to get in touch with the podcast, please do: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

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Players of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare beta are reporting being able to transfer their save progress between different platforms, including PS4 and Xbox, which would mean cross-save and progression is enabled.

We've known for a while that Modern Warfare has cross-play. This feature allows players to compete together online across the console divide, and anyone currently trying out the beta is able to team up regardless of platform.

But cross-progression is slightly different. It doesn't just allow you to go a round in Team Deathmatch with a pal on another platform, it means you can swap and change between platforms without losing any progress or starting over from scratch. This is great for players, but platform holders have traditionally been reluctant to introduce such a feature because it makes it easier for players to defect to their rivals.

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Afterparty, the follow-up game from Oxenfree developer Night School Studio, will be released on October 29 for PC and Mac via the Epic Games Store, PS4, and Xbox One for $19.99.

Afterparty will also be available as part of Xbox Game Pass' library following its launch, while a dynamic theme will be available for PS4, which transforms the console's dashboard into a demonic pub. A Nintendo Switch release is also planned, but more details will come about that launch in the future.

Check out the gallery below for an exclusive look at Afterparty, as well as many more images from the adventure.

“We’re finally just weeks away from launching our boozy buddy adventure, Afterparty, and we cannot wait for players to explore the afterlife,” Sean Krankel, Co-Founder and Creative Director at Night School Studio, said in a press release. “We’ve spent the last few years building a world, story and mechanics to allow players to star in their own dark comedy. We hope fans of our games and binge-worthy adult animation alike will join Lola and Milo on October 29th in their quest to escape Hell.”

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Minecraft is introducing an in-game character creator that lets players customize their avatar's hairstyle, skin colour, and body shape.

As announced in the Minecraft Beta's 1.13.0.15 patch notes, there'll be over 100 free customization items alongside extra accessories created by the development team available for purchase.

The creator appears to be fairly detailed, with the notes promising options to design "body size and shape, limb replacement and tweaking of eyes, mouth, hairstyles and colours, facial hair and skin tones."

Previously, custom skins created outside the game and imported in were the only way to personalise your avatar. That approach is still allowed in a "Classic Skins Tab" where players can upload them in the same way they did before.

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Ahhh, FIFA. Like the setting of the sun, the drawing in of the nights, the putting on of an old winter coat, there's both an inevitability and a level of comfort that comes with the release of a new FIFA game. The football season is properly back. The squads are correct again. A couple of new features to keep us occupied through the long, dark nights. All is right with the world.

FIFA 20 might not be the series at absolute peak form--so far, Volta doesn't seem like the revolution it perhaps could have been and Career Mode still feels underdeveloped--but modern FIFA is such a broad, deep, and complete offering that it remains a must-buy for football fans.

On the pitch, FIFA 20 is remarkably similar to last year. Sports games do change year-on-year--I just feel that rate of change is slowing as we reach the end of this console generation. So while there are some welcome improvements--more natural first touches and more satisfying ball physics--things feel very similar to FIFA 19 once you walk out of the tunnel.

Set pieces, have, however, received a bit of a makeover--specifically direct free kicks and penalties. In a throwback to the halcyon days of FIFA 2003, both now have you aim a reticle at the precise location you want to place the ball. Then, incorporating last year's genius timed finishing mechanic, you'll need to press shoot again at the right time, while also adding curve in the case of free kicks. Both take a little time to get used to, but they offer greater depth and satisfaction when you smack one into the top corner.

In another nostalgic move--and in an attempt to offer greater improvements off the pitch--FIFA 20 introduces a new mode, the FIFA Street-like Volta Football, bringing street soccer to the main series for the first time. You control a squad of street superstars aiming to become the world's best in a journey that takes you across various unique, exotic locales. These three-, four-, or five-a-side matches are shorter and more chaotic than a standard 11-a-side game, and they feel sufficiently different and entertaining to become a worthwhile staple in FIFA's roster of modes. Fancier tricks and flicks and simplified tactics make it a mode that feels a little more focused on, well, fun, than the more traditional game types--but don't expect the depth FIFA Street gave us all those years ago. There are no Gamebreaker shots here, and it's not as easy to utterly humiliate your opponent with outrageous nutmegs and rainbow flicks. Volta League, the mode's online portion, hasn't been populated enough to find a match so far, so we'll bring you more on that in the days ahead--but the ability to play against human opponents, recruit opposition players, and kit your created character out in new gear means this will almost certainly present more longevity than the mode it replaces, The Journey.

Volta's campaign mode, meanwhile, is a single-player, uh, journey in which you'll face off against AI teams. The world tour structure is compelling and those locations are well-realized, with unique personalities and play styles of their own. However the characters you share your travels with are so irritating, and the writing so aggressively How Do You Do, Fellow Kids, that it becomes a bit of a chore to play. Hopefully, more time with the mode will lead to these characters endearing themselves a little more. In a final, strange note, Volta requires an internet connection, even when playing the single-player mode, for reasons that remain unclear.

Career Mode is FIFA's other main single-player offering, and it comes with a raft of new features. Proper conversations between manager and players are finally possible, for example; players will come to you to complain to or thank you about their game-time, as they have for many years, but you now have the opportunity to reply, with the aim to keep their morale--and hence performance levels--high. The system is shallow, with the morale bar seemingly the only variable you can affect, and messages still repeat far too often, but it at least feels a little more interactive than the stagnant old email system.

Similarly, pre- and post-match press conferences have been overhauled, and they now appear more like those seen in The Journey in previous seasons. Again, the objective here is to maintain your team's morale, and again there isn't much more to it, but it is more visually and intellectually stimulating than a simple menu screen, as it was before. The final big new feature is dynamic player potential, which I haven’t gotten deep enough into a save to test just yet, but I’ll report back on its effects soon.

Disappointingly, despite all the changes, Career Mode still feels a little barebones so far, and it still contains a number of inaccuracies. The transfer window ends erroneously late for English clubs, for instance, while VAR and short goal kicks are yet to be introduced into FIFA at all. Transfer negotiations are unchanged, save for two new background locations in which to hammer out a deal, and scouting and youth teams are the same for yet another year in a row. Career Mode has taken some steps forward this year, but a revolution is needed.

Ultimate Team, meanwhile, continues its expansion and is now bigger and better than ever. The adoption of a Fortnite-esque battle pass model in FUT Seasons--not to be confused with FUT Seasons, the sub-mode--is somewhat confusing, but a masterstroke. It essentially manifests itself as an expansion of the existing daily and weekly challenges, with new tasks you can work towards over multiple weeks. Rewards include packs, players, new cosmetic options including tifos and balls, and more. It all adds another way to be rewarded and another objective to work toward--especially useful for those who struggle to compete in the weekend league (which, by the way, is unchanged and hence remains as moreish, and as grindy, as ever).

FUT's other new addition is Friendlies, which are a new way of playing casually within Ultimate Team. There are no great rewards for playing FUT Friendlies, but you do still earn coins, and, crucially, player injuries, contracts, fitness, and your playing record remain unaffected. The community has been crying out for a place to go when they can't face the pressure of Rivals or Squad Battles, and finally they have it. It also contains the same in-depth stat tracking and bizarre mode variants as was introduced in FIFA 19's Kick Off mode, along with new House Rules options. They're a weird, entertaining place to go to have fun with friends and they mean that, if it wasn't already, Ultimate Team really feels like its own game now. You might understandably disagree with its pay-to-win tendencies--yes, spending more money on packs means you're still more likely to get Lionel Messi than someone simply grinding for in-game currency--but FUT is as compelling and complete as game modes come, and I am horribly obsessed once again.

Completeness appears to be the ethos FIFA lives by, and despite the omission of Juventus (forza Piemonte Calcio), this year's game feels more complete than ever. The same goes for its aesthetics and licensing, which continue to offer the closest virtual approximation of real-world football--or, more accurately, Sky Sports' version of football--available.

Flawed and iterative, but comforting, complete, and compelling, FIFA 20 is as frustrating and as essential as ever. The Journey and FIFA Street will continue to be missed, but Volta offers a genuinely different option for those who want to dip in and out across FIFA's smorgasboard of game types, while Ultimate Team continues its route to world domination. It's just a shame Career Mode continues to stagnate--even if EA has finally remembered it exists.

Editor's note: With servers online but currently unpopulated before release, we'll bring our final verdict on FIFA 20 soon, once we've had more chance to test out Pro Clubs, Volta League, and Ultimate Team.

Ahhh, FIFA. Like the setting of the sun, the drawing in of the nights, the putting on of an old winter coat, there's both an inevitability and a level of comfort that comes with the release of a new FIFA game. The football season is properly back. The squads are correct again. A couple of new features to keep us occupied through the long, dark nights. All is right with the world.

FIFA 20 might not be the series at absolute peak form--so far, Volta doesn't seem like the revolution it perhaps could have been and Career Mode still feels underdeveloped--but modern FIFA is such a broad, deep, and complete offering that it remains a must-buy for football fans.

On the pitch, FIFA 20 is remarkably similar to last year. Sports games do change year-on-year--I just feel that rate of change is slowing as we reach the end of this console generation. So while there are some welcome improvements--more natural first touches and more satisfying ball physics--things feel very similar to FIFA 19 once you walk out of the tunnel.

Set pieces, have, however, received a bit of a makeover--specifically direct free kicks and penalties. In a throwback to the halcyon days of FIFA 2003, both now have you aim a reticle at the precise location you want to place the ball. Then, incorporating last year's genius timed finishing mechanic, you'll need to press shoot again at the right time, while also adding curve in the case of free kicks. Both take a little time to get used to, but they offer greater depth and satisfaction when you smack one into the top corner.

In another nostalgic move--and in an attempt to offer greater improvements off the pitch--FIFA 20 introduces a new mode, the FIFA Street-like Volta Football, bringing street soccer to the main series for the first time. You control a squad of street superstars aiming to become the world's best in a journey that takes you across various unique, exotic locales. These three-, four-, or five-a-side matches are shorter and more chaotic than a standard 11-a-side game, and they feel sufficiently different and entertaining to become a worthwhile staple in FIFA's roster of modes. Fancier tricks and flicks and simplified tactics make it a mode that feels a little more focused on, well, fun, than the more traditional game types--but don't expect the depth FIFA Street gave us all those years ago. There are no Gamebreaker shots here, and it's not as easy to utterly humiliate your opponent with outrageous nutmegs and rainbow flicks. Volta League, the mode's online portion, hasn't been populated enough to find a match so far, so we'll bring you more on that in the days ahead--but the ability to play against human opponents, recruit opposition players, and kit your created character out in new gear means this will almost certainly present more longevity than the mode it replaces, The Journey.

Volta's campaign mode, meanwhile, is a single-player, uh, journey in which you'll face off against AI teams. The world tour structure is compelling and those locations are well-realized, with unique personalities and play styles of their own. However the characters you share your travels with are so irritating, and the writing so aggressively How Do You Do, Fellow Kids, that it becomes a bit of a chore to play. Hopefully, more time with the mode will lead to these characters endearing themselves a little more. In a final, strange note, Volta requires an internet connection, even when playing the single-player mode, for reasons that remain unclear.

Career Mode is FIFA's other main single-player offering, and it comes with a raft of new features. Proper conversations between manager and players are finally possible, for example; players will come to you to complain to or thank you about their game-time, as they have for many years, but you now have the opportunity to reply, with the aim to keep their morale--and hence performance levels--high. The system is shallow, with the morale bar seemingly the only variable you can affect, and messages still repeat far too often, but it at least feels a little more interactive than the stagnant old email system.

Similarly, pre- and post-match press conferences have been overhauled, and they now appear more like those seen in The Journey in previous seasons. Again, the objective here is to maintain your team's morale, and again there isn't much more to it, but it is more visually and intellectually stimulating than a simple menu screen, as it was before. The final big new feature is dynamic player potential, which I haven’t gotten deep enough into a save to test just yet, but I’ll report back on its effects soon.

Disappointingly, despite all the changes, Career Mode still feels a little barebones so far, and it still contains a number of inaccuracies. The transfer window ends erroneously late for English clubs, for instance, while VAR and short goal kicks are yet to be introduced into FIFA at all. Transfer negotiations are unchanged, save for two new background locations in which to hammer out a deal, and scouting and youth teams are the same for yet another year in a row. Career Mode has taken some steps forward this year, but a revolution is needed.

Ultimate Team, meanwhile, continues its expansion and is now bigger and better than ever. The adoption of a Fortnite-esque battle pass model in FUT Seasons--not to be confused with FUT Seasons, the sub-mode--is somewhat confusing, but a masterstroke. It essentially manifests itself as an expansion of the existing daily and weekly challenges, with new tasks you can work towards over multiple weeks. Rewards include packs, players, new cosmetic options including tifos and balls, and more. It all adds another way to be rewarded and another objective to work toward--especially useful for those who struggle to compete in the weekend league (which, by the way, is unchanged and hence remains as moreish, and as grindy, as ever).

FUT's other new addition is Friendlies, which are a new way of playing casually within Ultimate Team. There are no great rewards for playing FUT Friendlies, but you do still earn coins, and, crucially, player injuries, contracts, fitness, and your playing record remain unaffected. The community has been crying out for a place to go when they can't face the pressure of Rivals or Squad Battles, and finally they have it. It also contains the same in-depth stat tracking and bizarre mode variants as was introduced in FIFA 19's Kick Off mode, along with new House Rules options. They're a weird, entertaining place to go to have fun with friends and they mean that, if it wasn't already, Ultimate Team really feels like its own game now. You might understandably disagree with its pay-to-win tendencies--yes, spending more money on packs means you're still more likely to get Lionel Messi than someone simply grinding for in-game currency--but FUT is as compelling and complete as game modes come, and I am horribly obsessed once again.

Completeness appears to be the ethos FIFA lives by, and despite the omission of Juventus (forza Piemonte Calcio), this year's game feels more complete than ever. The same goes for its aesthetics and licensing, which continue to offer the closest virtual approximation of real-world football--or, more accurately, Sky Sports' version of football--available.

Flawed and iterative, but comforting, complete, and compelling, FIFA 20 is as frustrating and as essential as ever. The Journey and FIFA Street will continue to be missed, but Volta offers a genuinely different option for those who want to dip in and out across FIFA's smorgasboard of game types, while Ultimate Team continues its route to world domination. It's just a shame Career Mode continues to stagnate--even if EA has finally remembered it exists.

Editor's note: With servers online but currently unpopulated before release, we'll bring our final verdict on FIFA 20 soon, once we've had more chance to test out Pro Clubs, Volta League, and Ultimate Team.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has charitably offered to buy Sylvester Stallone a new knife if his upcoming Rambo film is a success.

In a video posted to his personal Twitter, Schwarzenegger remarks on the quality of a knife Stallone signed for charity in Cardiff. The Tweet is captioned, "Good luck with Rambo this weekend, @TheSlyStallone. I loved it, and when it’s a hit I’m going to buy you a new knife to celebrate."

Thank you very much big man. You’re a great friend, and a great star, but my knife is always going to be sharper than yours! #RAMBO https://t.co/co7YZk1Uhl

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Now that director James Gunn has officially revealed the full cast for DC’s upcoming movie The Suicide Squad, we know that actor Jai Courtney will be returning to the role of Captain Boomerang. But just because he's coming back doesn't mean he's safe. When it comes to a franchise like this, anyone can die, as Slipknot learned the hard way. While talking to ComingSoon.net, Courtney expressed how he hopes Captain Boomerang doesn’t come back for the Suicide Squad sequel only to be killed off early on.

“Obviously I can’t talk about it at all, but I’d be disappointed with that as well,” Courtney told the outlet.

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