Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s ongoing hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today’s vintage selection from Nintendo has a real unpredictable streak and features one of the best Metroid covers you’ll hear. And, well, other things.

I know almost mothing about Trackmania, but this video about the quest for a particular shortcut is one of the most fascinating video game clips I have ever seen.

Of all the video games out there being turned into board games, few are as perfect a fit for the tabletop treatment as Bomberman. So it sucks to hear that, having originally been planned for a 2020 release, IDW and Konami’s Bomberman board game has been cancelled.

I loved Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. So much so that, had I been given more time with it during the calendar year, it would have made a serious run for my Game Of 2020. But boy, at the same time, I have not been happy with the support the game has got after launch.

Recently, I played through the newer ports of Doom and Doom II. And playing Doom II again, I was reminded of a simple fact: The super shotgun is amazing and is still the best video game shotgun ever made.

According to weirdos on the internet, The Rock might be in Fortnite. Maybe? Who can really say? (Besides The Rock, his PR team, and Epic.) Regardless, let’s put The Rock in some video games!

Last night video game preservation group, The Hidden Palace, released over 700 PS2 early builds, prototypes, E3, and press release demos in a massive dump the group referred to as “Project Deluge”.

Hello! It’s time for Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon.

When Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade was announced earlier this year, Square Enix detailed how it changed the textures and lighting, as well as added fog effects. Some changes were more subtle.

You got Halo in my Fallout! You got Doom in my Forza! Well, this is a giant mess. At least we get more Game Pass games out of it all. And a fun contest!

After a week off, Snapshots is back! We got more great screenshots this week from a bunch of games. Just a heads up: Some of these screenshots are from last week. So consider this a special, larger-than-normal edition of Snapshots!

I’ve played a lot of Halo: Reach. In fact, last month I played through the entire game again with my brother via the Master Chief Collection. But I had no idea that inside the playable Elites in the game lurks a somewhat disgusting little secret: Their innards...? Guts? Bones? Hard to tell.

Every Pokemon is interesting and worth talking about. I don’t play a ton of Pokemon, but I do enjoy the universe and I love learning more about the creatures in it. So, Here’s Another Pokemon! It’s Clauncher!

I recently noticed a favorite game of my youth, Halo, turns 20 years old this year. So I got curious and looked up what other games I loved back as a kid, to see how many are going to turn 20 in 2021. I found a lot. “What a drag it is getting old.”

This week on Morning Checkpoint we celebrate the death of Fortnite’s Peely, learn more about upcoming Square Enix games, see who’s the next big hero coming to Avengers, eat a baby(?) and get a look at the next generation of PSVR controllers.