Monthly Archives: January 2015
If Your Password is One of These – Seriously, Please Change It
Security firm SplashData has released its list of the worst passwords in 2014, many of which remain unchanged from prior years.
According to SplashData's fourth annual report, "123456" and "password" were once again the top ranking terrible passwords. Among the new entries were sports references "baseball" and "football," "696969" and "batman."
Other popular bad passwords follow sequential figures, like "qwerty." Still others take the password rather literally and request access with phrases like "letmein" or "access." One returning favorite is the ironically unsafe "trustno1."
"The bad news from my research is that this year's most commonly used passwords are pretty consistent with prior years," security expert Mark Burnett said. "The good news is that it appears that more people are moving away from using these passwords."
Blizzard Looking Into Reports of ‘Unplayable’ Latency in Diablo 3
Following reports of "major lag" contributing to a game-breaking experience for a portion of the Diablo 3 community, Blizzard is probing for more information on possible causes.
As spotted by PCGamer, claims from players that they are experiencing both severe lag spikes and sustained latency anywhere from several hundred to several thousand milliseconds (ms) began surfacing on Blizzard's technical support forum over the weekend.
While some players have continued to file complaints as recently as this afternoon, others are reporting their issues have passed, including IGN's own efforts to replicate the lag.
New Trailer for The Walking Dead’s Return
We're still a few weeks out from The Walking Dead's midseason premiere - on Sunday, February 8th - but to tide us over, here's a new trailer for the back half of Season 5.
The Walking Dead's New Midseason Poster
Titled "Another Day," the video shows Rick explaining his more recent hardline stance against strangers. That harsh decisions are necessary until everyone's safe. Meanwhile, the survivors are all back out on the open road, clinging to hope that they'll find a new sanctuary.
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/Showrenity.
Former Retro Studios Developer Opens Squarehead Studios
An industry veteran whose resume includes games like Donkey Kong Country Returns: Tropical Freeze and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption has announced the formation of a new development company, Squarehead Studios.
Located in South Wales, Squarehead Studios is lead by Rhys Lewis, a former AI Lead at Nintendo's Retro Studios. Lewis has also spent time at Rare and 3D Realms, where he worked on games like Banjo-Kazooie and Duke Nukem Forever.
"Although Squarehead will be operating on a much smaller scale," Lewis said in his announcement, "I am extremely excited to try and bring the same level of quality and attention to detail to our games, whatever platform they may be on."
Ori and the Blind Forest Release Date Announced
Action platformer Ori and the Blind Forest is scheduled to release on March 11, 2015 for Xbox One and PC.
Originally announced during E3 2014, this highly-stylized action platformer is currently being developed by Moon Studios and published by Microsoft.
As Ori the last spirit guardian, players will solve puzzles and use platforming skills to combat the dark owl Kuro and save the blind forest. Much of the platforming involved consists of gravitational shifts and twitch-based mechanics.
To learn more, check out IGN's preview of Ori and the Blind Forest.
The 100 Returns and the Dead Will be Remembered
Note: Spoilers for last month's The 100’s midseason finale follow.
With The 100 back Wednesday night from its mid-season break, IGN has an exclusive clip from this week’s episode, “Remember Me.”
The title is fitting, of course, given we recently saw a traumatic farewell occur on the series in the midseason finale, as Clarke (Eliza Taylor) was forced to kill Finn (Thomas McDonell), rather than see him go through a much more horrific, prolonged death at the hands of the Grounders.
In this scene, Clarke and the Grounder Commander, Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey) have a conversation about loss. While Lexa reveals she too has lost someone she loved, she and Clarke express very different viewpoints about what it means to mourn somebody and how to move on after they die.
Marvel Is Making a Huge Announcement Today
Marvel Comics has a special announcement coming today at 12 pm PT/3 pm ET concerning April's big eight-part Secret Wars event by writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribic.
The news will come out of a live kick-off event held at Midtown Comics in New York City where Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso and Executive Editor Tom Brevoort will be making a presentation for the fans and press in attendance. Given that the press release promised that the news will "shake the very foundations of the Marvel Universe as you know it," we are expecting some pretty big reveals today. Or maybe it's just the debut of an Uncanny Howard the Duck comic. The event will be live-streamed on Marvel's site.
Robotoki Closes, Human Element Put on Hold
Robert Bowling's studio, Robtoki, has been closed, and its first project is now on hiatus.
"This week we have ceased operations at Robotoki and the development of Human Element is on hiatus," Bowling told Joystiq. "We were actively negotiating a new publishing deal for the premium version of Human Element but unfortunately I was unable to continue to self-fund development until a deal was finalized."
IGN has reached out to Bowling for confirmation.
Bowling founded Robotoki in 2012 after his time working on Call of Duty at Infinity Ward. The reveal trailer for Human Element was released just last month when Robotoki announced Human Element would no longer be free to play.
Steam Broadcasting is Now Live
Steam Broadcasting, Valve's new streaming service, is now officially part of the Steam client for Windows users.
That means anyone with a PC can begin streaming games for their friends live, right in Steam. Valve promises Mac and Linux support "in the future."
While the official page for Steam Broadcasting still refers to it as in beta, the service is no longer limited on an opt-in basis, following a recent Steam client auto-update.
The Broadcast option under the Community tab also lets you watch public streams right in the Steam client or a browser. Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8 are the only supported browsers.
This Weekend Only, PSN Members Will Get a PS Store Discount
Sony is offering a one-time 10% discount on items available in the PlayStation store. The savings will only be available this weekend, from 9 a.m. PST January 23 until through 9 a.m. PST on January 26.
This savings comes in addition to Sony rewarding its users patience with a free five day PlayStation Plus extension. Anyone with an active PS Plus account or free trial on December 25 is eligible for both the savings coupon and the extension.
According to Sony, the discount will be good on "hundreds of thousands of items" in the store, including new releases, games, DLC, pre-orders, and even TVs and movies.