Gina, a 12-week old Labrador Retriever / Chow Chow Mix playing in her rookie year in the prestigious Puppy Bowl, has been officially named the Puppy Bowl XVI MVP. Hailing from Waldorf, MD, Gina showed dogged determination in the face of alpha competition as part of the 2020 Starting Line-Up at this year’s Puppy Bowl.
The epic 16th year of Puppy Bowl pitted champion against chomp’ion, with some of the most doggone determined competitors the Geico Stadium has ever seen. Raised in over 60 shelters across 26 states, these All-American animals came ready to rustle and tussle in a battle for the treasured Lombarky Trophy. 2019 saw Team Ruff gnaw their way through the defense of back-to-back Best in Show Team Fluff for an upset victory. Would the rambunctious Ruffs stuff the Fluff again and put two trophies up on the tailgate? Or would the ferocious Fluffs imprint some fear in the heart of their rivals and get their bone back? One thing was for sure — you wouldn’t need a seeing-eye dog to know that 2020’s Puppy Bowl was looking to be a real slobberknocker!
Puppy Bowl XVI MVP (Most Valuable Puppy) award winner Gina of Team Ruff dug deep into her bag of puppy tricks for her two scores, most notably pulling off the amazing “Hound-Around Ground-and-Pound” move that took her goalpost-to-goalpost without even a single other pup on her coat or tail. Terrier teammate Cafecito also poured it on to put double-digits up on the scoreboard. But the competition did give chase, with big boy Bert scoring twice for Team Fluff and showing just how “great” a Great Pyrenees can be. Neither team would let go of the lead for long in this tug-of-rope! A tied-up half-time score sent both teams to the locker room to think about what they’d done, and even in the hair-raising final 45 seconds of the game, the scoreboard rolled over on each side of this dogfight…
Final Score: 63 to 59, and the Team Fluff “Blue Bones” once again stand on the puppy podium as champions, taking home the Puppy Bowl Lombarki Trophy for the third time in its furry franchise history.
Each and every one of these canine competitors left it all on the field in this year’s big game. And in the end, no pup was left out in the cold, as Animal Planet found adoptive parents for the stars of the event. Puppy Bowl XVI was one for the Hound Hall of Fame. Stay tuned to IGN for more information on Fluff as it becomes apparent.
The month of love is here, and this episode of New Releases is taking a top-level look at some of the biggest games of February. The new month kicks off with The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics and closes out with One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows. In between, PS4 players can enjoy exclusives like Dreams and the Yakuza 5 remaster. Platinum Games fans can also revisit Bayonetta and Vanquish with their 10th Anniversary Bundle.
The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance Tactics — February 4
Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch
Netflix created a series based on the cult-classic film, and now that series is getting its own game. As the name states, this is a tactics game, and it features over 50 skirmishes to win, 14 characters to lead into battle, and plenty of custom jobs to assign along the way as the war between the Gelflings and Skeksis rages on.
The Yakuza Remastered Collection is a one-time purchase, but that buy-in gets you remasters of Yakuza 3, 4, and 5. Those three games got staggered release dates, but the final entry arrives this month. Taking after the “5” in its name, this particular entry is set across five different parts of Japan and features five playable characters, including everyone’s favorite ruffian Kazuma Kiryu.
Media Molecule, creators of LittleBigPlanet, have crafted another deep tool set with Dreams. This PS4 exclusive lets you sculpt objects, build worlds, and create pretty much any type of activity you can think of–someone even remade Final Fantasy VII within the game. What will you dream up?
Bayonetta & Vanquish 10th Anniversary Bundle — February 18
Available on: PS4, Xbox One
These Platinum Games cult classics launched 10 years ago, and they’re being bundled together on PS4 and Xbox One to celebrate. Those of you with a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X can even experience them in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. Seems like a good way to refresh yourself before we finally get Bayonetta 3.
Based on the smash-hit anime, this arena fighter stays true to One Punch Man in a clever way. Saitama does indeed win every fight with a single punch, but if you choose him for your team during any of the 3-on-3 fights, he’ll take a while to actually show up, leaving you to fight at a disadvantage until he arrives. Of course, there are plenty of other fan-favorite characters to choose from too.
February is just getting started, and there are plenty of games on the horizon. Next week, we’ll dive into the souped-up release of Street Fighter V: Championship Edition and a new expansion for Dead Cells, called The Bad Seed.
