Monthly Archives: April 2017
PlayStation Plus May Free Games Revealed
May's set of free games for PlayStation Plus subscribers has been revealed, with beautiful ocean explorer, Abzu at the forefront.
The complete Tales from the Borderlands series makes up the other half of this month's very strong PS4 offerings.
Check out the full line-up of games below:
- Tales from the Borderlands, PS4
- Abzu, PS4
- Blood Knights, PS3
- Port Royale 3: Pirates and Merchants, PS3
- Laser Disco Defenders, PS Vita (Cross Buy with PS4)
McDonald’s Happy Meals Now Include Mario Toys
Nintendo and McDonald's have joined forces to put Mario toys into Happy Meals from April 26 until May 22.
There are eight different toys, including Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Yoshi, Princess Peach, Invincible Mario, a 1-Up Mushroom, and a Red Koopa Shell. Invincible Mario will light up in different colors, and Nintendo teased a similar "special function" in each of the other toys.
McDonald's Super Mario Happy Meal toys.
Lucasfilm: No Restoration of Original Star Wars Trilogy
Lucasfilm doesn't plan on restoring the original versions of the first Star Wars trilogy anytime soon.
In an interview with Steelewars Podcast, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy confirmed they won't alter George Lucas' version of the trilogy and will leave the first three films (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi) the way Lucas did when he revisited them in the 1990s.
"I wouldn't touch those, are you kidding me?", said Kennedy. "Those will always remain his."
When Lucas changed the original trilogy by adding new scenes and special effects in the '90s, he reportedly altered the actual film prints, with the original cuts apparently no longer in existence. Lucasfilm would have to reassemble them, but it seems that won't be happening.
Nintendo Switch Back In Stock at GameStop Stores This Week
GameStop has received a new supply of Nintendo Switch consoles, available immediately for in-store customers only, the retailer announced today.
The new inventory just so happens to come right before the launch of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on April 28. Earlier this year, GameStop said it would be expecting shortages on the Switch throughout 2017, and GameStop senior director of merchandising Eric Bright said in a statement today that the company expects Switch system stock "will not last through the weekend."
Nintendo is planning to double its console production over the coming year after record breaking sales across all territories.
How Titans Could Unite the Arrow-Verse and the DCEU
Keeping up with the various live-action, DC Comics-based TV series on the air is becoming a full-time job, and it's only going to become more difficult in 2018. This week, DC revealed a new digital streaming service that will feature, among other things, a live-action Titans series overseen by Akiva Goldsman, Greg Berlanti, Geoff Johns and Sarah Schechter. Combine that with the host of DC shows on The CW as well as Gotham, Lucifer and Syfy's upcoming Krypton series, and there's barely a corner of the DCU that isn't being explored on TV these days.
The Titans announcement is intriguing for a number of reasons, not least of which being it comes just a couple months after we learned that WB is adding a live-action Nightwing movie to the DC Extended Universe. With Titans also centering around Dick Grayson, it's enough to wonder if the two projects are directly connected. Could Titans actually be a prequel or companion to the Nightwing movie, thereby making it the first TV project set in the DCEU?
A Visual History of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3
Taglines don’t get much more bleak than the one for Warhammer 40,000: “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.” In addition to spawning the term “grimdark,” that tagline does a good job of letting players know what they’re in for once they enter this endlessly violent sci-fi universe.
Many video games have been set in this fictional realm, but Relic Entertainment’s Dawn of War series is probably the most highly regarded. Ever since its 2004 debut, fans have been blasting their way through futuristic war zones, eradicating every enemy on the map. With the third installment just around the corner, let’s go back to the beginning to see how far this series has come.
Hacker Jailed for 2 Years After Xbox Live, Minecraft Attacks
Adam Mudd, a teenager who set up a business which sold hacking software to various criminals, has been jailed for two years.
According to The Guardian, Mudd created the Titanium Stresser program when he was 16, which has since carried out over 1.7 million cyber attacks. Websites and companies affected include Microsoft as well as Xbox Live, TeamSpeak, and Minecraft.
Since he created the program, Mudd has made over £386,000 in both US dollars and bitcoins. The prosecutor, Jonathan Polany, said that there are over 112,000 registered users of Titanium Stresser, and that over 660,000 IP addresses have been attacked using it.
Playing HotS Isn’t Mandatory for New Overwatch Skins
Blizzard is enticing Overwatch owners to engage with Heroes of the Storm by offering exclusive skins for playing the MOBA. But the Genji and D.Va costumes will eventually come to standard loot boxes in the team-based shooter.
Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan addressed the issue on the game's official Battle.net forum. A console player was upset that they might never see the Oni Genji or Officer D.Va skins because they don't play the PC game.
No worries, Kaplan said. Blizzard is totally aware of this. "... We plan to add both the Oni Genji skin and the Officer D.Va skin to the normal, base Overwatch loot box at some point in the future," he said.
Superman Joins Gerard Way’s Young Animal Imprint
DC's Young Animal imprint may be set in the DC Universe, but books like Doom Patrol and Shade: The Changing Girl tend to focus on weirder and more obscure heroes. That's not the case with the latest issue of Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye. Issue #7 features a big team-up between the superhero spelunker and the Man of Steel himself.
We had the chance to chat on the phone with writer Jon Rivera about this new issue and the unusual dynamic between Cave Carson and Clark Kent. Rivera also talked about how his collaboration with Young Animal "showrunner" Gerard Way was evovled over the past year and how this Superman team-up ties into the larger story Rivera and artist Michael Avon Oeming are telling.
Burnout Creators Announce New Car-Crashing Game
Danger Zone, a new vehicular destruction game from Three Fields Entertainment, has been announced.
Releasing for PC via Steam and PlayStation 4 next month (priced at $12.99/£9.99/€12.99), Danger Zone puts players in a virtual crash test facility that features 20 single-player crash testing scenarios, each with its own distinct layout.
In the game, which is built in Unreal Engine 4, players are tasked with driving into a junction to create the biggest collision they can. If enough cars are involved in the crash, the player will earn a "SmashBreaker," which turns their car into a bomb that can be triggered to explode on command.
Points are awarded for the number of cars crashed, and bonus points can be earned by pushing cars off the road or exploding them while in "SmashBreaker." Danger Zone will also feature leaderboards, allowing players to compare their scores against other members of the community.