Monthly Archives: November 2019
Sony and Nintendo’s Early-’90s Falling Out Was Best Thing to Happen to Game Industry, Says Ex-Sony Exec
According to Ex-Sony executive Phil Harrison, the big Nintendo/Sony falling out over the joint Super Nintendo project in the early '90s might be the best thing to have happened to the video games industry.
In this month's episode of IGN Unfiltered, Ryan McCaffrey sat down with former PlayStation executive (and current Google VP) Phil Harrison to talk about the infamous split, as well as Harrison's time at Sony, Microsoft, Google, and much more.
Harrison began by providing a short history lesson, for those unfamiliar with the deal, "The vision... the plan was, Sony would make a combined unit, which was a Super Nintendo and a CD drive mixed together," Harrison said. "Sony already made the sound chip for the Super Nintendo, so that was the thing that created the relationship. In fact, Mr.
Adidas Releases New Star Wars Capsule Collection
Adidas has released a brand new 'Space Battle' pack as part of their Star Wars collection.
The new gear, launched on November 21, comprises of an assortment of sneakers featuring three exclusive designs inspired by iconic models from the galaxy far, far away, including the fan-favorite Millennium Falcon, the X-Wing Starfighter, and the Death Star.
In collaboration with Lucasfilm, the latest capsule celebrates the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire across some of Adidas' most popular running shoe brands, including the UltraBOOST S&L, the UltraBOOST 19, and the Alphaedge 4D.
Trover Saves the Universe Game, From Rick and Morty Co-Creator, Gets Release Date
Trover Saves the Universe, the comedic adventure game from Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland and Squanch Games, is being released for Xbox One and Switch after initially being exclusive to PlayStation 4 and PC. The Switch version is out first on November 28, with the Xbox One version landing on December 3, with each getting a special launch discount of 20%.
"We love this IP and we’re really excited that gamers from all sides of the gaming sphere can finally play it," Roiland said. The new versions will include the Important Cosmic Jobs DLC content, which includes new characters, original comedy sketches, the Space Slam arcade game-within-the-game, and more. The existing PS4 and PC versions will be marked down 30% at select retailers starting on November 22 as a Black Friday deal.
No, Cancelling Stadia Pro Won’t Take Away Your Discounted Games
A tweet from the Google Stadia Twitter account has stated that games purchased with a discount provided by a Stadia Pro subscription will be unavailable for users to play if the subscription has lapsed. However, this information is a communication error and is incorrect.
The original statement is in Italian, addressing a question posed to the account. The translation reads: “Hi! We saw your post and we want to help you! Games obtained free or with discounts thanks to the Stadia Pro subscription will no longer be available once the subscription has expired. You can continue playing with the games you have purchased at full price. A greeting!”
Pokémon Sword and Shield Sells 6m Units Globally in the First Week
Pokémon Sword and Shield has sold over six million units in its first week to become the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch title so far.
The Pokémon Company announced today that Pokémon Sword and Shield has sold over six million units globally in its first week. That includes both digital and physical sales since the game’s release date on November 15.
As translated by industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, the Pokémon Company noted that this smashes the previous record held by Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which sold five million units in its opening week. With that title now taken, Smash Bros. Ultimate will have to settle with being the best-selling fighting game ever.
Black Friday 2019 Deal: Get a 3 Month Ultimate Xbox Game Pass for £1 at Microsoft Store
If you haven’t already tried it out the impressive Xbox Game Pass, there has never been a better time to sign up with this early Black Friday offer.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the flagship membership for the subscription service, which includes access to both the Xbox and PC Game Pass catalogues alongside Xbox Live Gold, for online gamers.
Star Wars 2022 Movie Has Reportedly Found Its Director
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has reportedly lined up a director to helm the next Star Wars movie that is tentatively scheduled for 2022, though no official announcement for this project is expected until the new year.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, sources have claimed that Kennedy has a currently-untitled Star Wars movie on deck for 2022; however, this movie will apparently not be part of Rian Johnson's new Star Wars trilogy.
Yu Suzuki Thanks His Fans and Hopes They Want Shenmue 4
Yu Suzuki, creator of the Shenmue series, hopes that he can make Shenmue 4 now that the third game in the series is out.
At the end of Shenmue III, after the credits have rolled, a thank you letter written by Suzuki and addressed to his fans appears on the screen. Metro published the letter in full, but the relevant bit at the end reads: “I sincerely hope that, together, we can continue to spin the tale of Ryo and his adventures in Shenmue 4.”
The wording of Suzuki’s letter alludes to the fact that Shenmue III was only possible due to a successful Kickstarter. Without that initial funding the game would probably not have been realised so it’s understandable that Suzuki is appealing to fans to help him with Shenmue 4.
Black Friday UK Deals 2019: 3 Months of Kindle Unlimited Free, 40% off Creative Cloud All Apps by Adobe
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for the latest deals and follow our very own IGN UK Deals Amazon storefront for IGN's curated lists of best games, tech and accessories.
Get the Best Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals in 2019
Planet Zoo Review – Spreadsheet Safari
Planet Zoo is a beautifully detailed and mechanically rich management sim that sometimes stumbles under the weight of its own systems. The diverse lineup of exquisitely rendered animals is utterly delightful, and the tools you’re given to build your dream zoo with are mostly intuitive, though there are exceptions. Though hampered by slow progression and a frequently cumbersome UI, it’s chock-full of all the detailed options you want from a good management sim and offers both a rewarding and educational experience.
Building a successful zoo is all about making sure everyone and everything in it is happy, working, and well-looked after. Animals need to be kept in the right climate and conditions to keep their welfare in check, which is no mean feat in itself. Career mode is the best place to start out, offering a helpfully structured and much-needed tutorial across its first few scenarios that show you the ropes of how to make your zoo tick along. If you manage to complete all the given objectives you’re free to move on to the next scenario or continue on running the zoo as you please with the training wheels now off. There are also modes that allow you to start from a blank slate, as well as a sandbox mode that eschews the game's economy entirely.
The Zoopedia--the in-game encyclopedia full of useful animal facts and stats--gives you all the basic information you need to know before setting up an enclosure, but the process really starts once you move your animals in and can properly gauge how they’re feeling about their surroundings. You’re encouraged to really consider the finest of details. Is the enclosure laid out with the right plants from the right continent? Is there enough shelter from bad weather? Is the herd made up of the right ratio of males to females? But while it’s easy enough to spot these problems, finding the right answers can be a pain as you’re forced to trawl through different sub-screens that are hidden within a myriad of menus and icons. While there are warning notifications for these issues, you have to hunt down the right menu yourself just to make the fix.
Conservation credits play a big role in advancing your zoo's rating with visitors. These credits are an in-game currency you earn for doing various tasks, from logging into your online game and completing community challenges to releasing animals into the wild. They’re used to adopt new animals from the animal trade centre, which helps you expand your zoo as well as encourage breeding. This nets you a spike in visitors--baby animals are cute as heck--and, more importantly, an animal with stronger genes, making it more valuable to trade for cash or release for credits. But while conservation credits are easy enough to earn when using the offline economy, online is a different story, with credits being doled out sparingly at best, especially in the early game. This causes some problems in the game’s online Franchise mode, where the animal trade centre is populated with creatures exclusively from other online players, and almost all of them can only be bought with credits. This slows the pace early on, forcing you into a cycle of breeding and releasing animals until you can finally start populating the zoo with the ones you actually want.
As for the humans in your zoo, visitors need to be both entertained and educated through having a wide variety of animals to see and learn about, and your workers need to have all the right facilities so they can keep things from descending into chaos. Your staff will mostly wander autonomously, though you can create helpful work zones to assign them to watch over. Animals can get upset if their enclosure is always dirty or if their food isn’t being refilled, and while you can set how often some worker types visit an enclosure, work zones let you keep the right people near enough of the right places.
When starting to flesh out the facilities of your zoo, you begin with a small selection of shops and staff quarters, unlocking more by assigning your staff to research them. The more you research, the better and broader variety of buildings you have. Building isn’t perfect--paths will often fail to connect up, and it took some time to wrap my head around the concept of building storefront facades and then placing the store inside them, rather than plonking the store down and having it just work. But it’s ultimately for the better as it creates flexibility for user-created designs.
You’re offered a full gamut of individual building parts that you can use to create your own blueprints, which can be shared via the Steam Workshop. Most of the basic pieces--walls of varying shapes, roof tiles, doors and window frames--will snap together on a relative grid, letting you put your designs together like building blocks. Although some of the manipulation controls aren’t immediately intuitive, with a little time, creating your own style of buildings gets simple enough that you can focus more on refining your creative ideas for that new toilet block or burger stand, rather than working out why your walls won’t connect up.
The animals themselves are the absolute stars of Planet Zoo. They’re all gorgeously rendered and look wonderfully detailed up close, their fur waving back and forth as they graze and prance about. Some of their animations can be a tad janky, but for the most part, watching your animals wander and interact is the biggest joy to be found in Planet Zoo. Whether you’re watching a lion cub nervously sidle up to water before turning to squeak at a nearby adult, a herd of springboks pouncing about together, or a lonely adult orangutan sitting on a rock in the tropical rain, I never failed to be moved by how they looked as they went about their business, feeling a real connection with and responsibility towards them.
Despite a slow burn in online mode and a bloated user interface that gets in the way of fully enjoying the finer management aspects of Planet Zoo, there’s still more than enough here to get something out of your time with it. It’s got its janky moments, but the animals are all rendered sublimely, the management sim mechanics are smart, and the sensible building controls will encourage and help you to build the best park you can for the animals in your care.