Monthly Archives: April 2018

Hearthstone Director Ben Brode Leaving Blizzard to Start New Company

Ben Brode, game director for Blizzard's wildly popular card game, Hearthstone, is leaving the company to start one of his own.

Brode made the announcement in a post on the Blizzard forums, where he told fans "after 15 years at Blizzard and almost 10 years working on Hearthstone, I have made the incredibly difficult decision to embark on a new journey" before continuing, "man, that was a hard sentence to type."

Brode says he is leaving the massive game developer to help start a new company.

"We’ll probably make games" Brode says, "but we haven’t figured anything else out, yet," he said, noting he's "looking forward to designing, programming, and actually creating things again."

Continue reading…

God of War Photo Mode Shown Off for the First Time

God of War's photo mode has been revealed and will come to the game as a piece of downloadable content.

The feature was shown during Sony's celebratory livestream for the launch of God of War.

The photo mode will function similarly to the one seen in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, complete with the ability to change depth-of-field, adjust camera angles and add filters.

Why the MCU Is All About the Dads

Tony Stark's announcement to the world that he was - and still is, for now - Iron Man ostensibly marked the beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But the seeds of the Avengers were sown decades earlier. Long before Tony had his revelation in the desert and even before Captain America got his muscles, the dads of the MCU were making messes that their children would be left to clean up for decades to come. This has become a recurring theme throughout the first three phases of the MCU, and it looks to culminate with the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War and its conclusion in Avengers 4.

Starting with Iron Man and right up through the most recent films we’ve seen the relationships of these heroic characters and their fathers or father figures depicted. And almost without fail, our heroes are cleaning up after their dads' ambitions.

Continue reading…

Puzzle Fighter Closing as Capcom Focuses on Dead Rising

Capcom's mobile title, Puzzle Fighter, is soon to be no more, with the game leaving the iOS and Android stores on July 1.

"As the studio is dedicating its focus to our flagship Dead Rising franchise, we have decided to sunset Puzzle Fighter," reads the Capcom Unity blog post. It confirmed the servers will shut down on July 31, giving players a full month to continue playing the game after it leaves the store.

The Chibi-style fighter featuring popular characters from Capcom's various franchises launched in November last year, so it's been fairly short-lived.

Continue reading…

Long-Awaited Horror Title Agony Gets a Release Date

Kickstarter horror title, Agony, finally has a release date, and will be coming to PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on May 29.

Initially scheduled for a March 30 release, last month the devs announced that the game would be delayed, but gave no indication of a revised launch date.

"You’ve been tortured for countless days, not being able to get out of the Hell," they wrote in their latest Kickstarter update. "But finally! The salvation day is coming soon, so save your strengths and be prepared for the slightest chance of escaping the horrors of the past and solve the riddle behind the mysterious Red Goddess!"

Continue reading…

Teen Titans Go Replies to Deadpool’s DC Movies Jab

This week saw the release of the final trailer for Deadpool 2 and of course, Wade Wilson broke the fourth wall to poke fun at Cable, asking if he was from the DC Universe what with all of his dark, emotional baggage. Teen Titans Go didn't let the barb go unanswered, and took to Twitter to remind Ryan Reynolds of his own history with DC.

"Hey Ryan Reynolds, caught your new Deadpool movie trailer. Never forget - before you became a Marvel character, you were a part of the DC Comics universe," tweeted the Teen Titans Go movie official Twitter account, referencing Reynold's role as The Green Lantern in the 2011 film.

Continue reading…

The Netherlands Determines Some Loot Boxes Are Gambling

In the latest twist in the ongoing saga of loot boxes - or similar items that reward a purchase with an item at random - the Dutch Gaming Authority (or Kansspelautoriteit) has made the decision that some loot boxes can be considered gambling, and instructed video game publishers that they will need to make changes in order to comply with Dutch law.

Per a translation by Eurogamer, the authority examined the use of loot boxes in ten games (seemingly the ten most popular on Steam) and found that four of them directly contravene the Dutch Betting and Gambling Act. Although the authority itself didn't name the games involved, NOS reports that the four games in question are FIFA 18, Dota 2, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Rocket League.

Continue reading…

Superman Didn’t Need Saving Before Bendis Came to DC

Superman is typically perceived as a superhero snoozefest. That criticism has dogged the character for decades, but Superman actually has more than a few great stories under that yellow belt holding up his trunks, plus the past few years have seen his comic series go through bit of a renaissance. That’s why the headline of a New York Times article published on April 13 hit a nerve with Superman comic readers, myself included. The piece by author Sridhar Pappu was intended to be a profile on Brian Michael Bendis, the prolific comic scribe who went from Marvel Comics to rival publisher DC in order to take over the Superman comic franchise, but the headline, “Can This Man Save Superman?” colored the article with the perception that Bendis was being brought in to fix the Man of Steel when in reality there was nothing broken.

Continue reading…