The Insanity of Dragon Quest 11
Welcome back to Game Scoop!, IGN's weekly video game talk show. This week we're discussing Dragon Quest 11, hunting, Breath of the Wild, and more. Watch the video above or download the podcast below.
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Chappelle’s Show Star Charlie Murphy Dies At 57
Comedian and actor Charlie Murphy, who was also Eddie Murphy's older brother, has sadly passed away at age 57.
TMZ reports Murphy died from leukemia Wednesday morning in a NYC hospital. He had been undergoing chemotherapy treatment. Murphy's loved ones had believed his health was improving before learning of his death, according to the report.
Charlie Murphy.
Murphy recently co-wrote some of Eddie's movies, including Vampire in Brooklyn and Norbit, and co-starred in films like CB4 and Are We There Yet? He was also one of the main co-stars on Chappelle's Show (later co-host of the Lost Episodes season) and was part of some of its most memorable skits, specifically Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories.
Xbox Scorpio Is a 4K Roll of the Dice for Microsoft
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has shed light on Microsoft's gamble to pursue 4K gaming with Xbox Scorpio, saying the company created the console with the expectation that the transition to 4K TVs would happen midway through the generation.
"We saw 4K TVs coming, and we made a prediction that 4K TVs were going to be a thing during this generation," Spencer told Gamasutra.
The Xbox exec noted how the transition from SD to HD televisions happened during the shift from the original Xbox to the Xbox 360 era. "It was nice because we could just kind of ride that and say okay, 360 is an HD console. OG Xbox is an SD console," Spencer said, noting that while there were some progressive mode titles on the original Xbox, Microsoft "could use that as a kind of clean cut."
PC Gaming Helped Drive Xbox to Backwards Compatibility
In addition to discussing what's in store for Microsoft's VR plan and Scorpio design goals, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer talked about how his gaming background helped form the push for backwards compatibility on Xbox One.
"...I grew up as a PC gamer, and the thing I love about the PC ecosystem is I can still go boot up Age of Empires 2 and I can go play that game," Spencer said in an interview with Gamasutra. "It's funny, I was looking at the World Video Game Hall of Fame, there's like Solitaire and Donkey Kong....but...console has this construct that actually makes it hard to go back and play some of those old console games. Because the format is so tied to the hardware itself."
Syfy Renews The Magicians for Season 3
The Magicians has been renewed for a 13-episode third season, Syfy announced today. It will air in 2018.
The Magicians second season concludes on Wednesday, April 19 and will continue to follow Quentin Coldwater and his group of friends, many of whom were students at the magicians school Brakebills in season 1. The end of the first season and season 2 opened the series up to the magical world of Fillory, all adapting the trilogy of best-selling Magicians novels by author Lev Grossman.
Syfy has also revealed that the second season is up in several ratings demos over season 1, which is currently available to stream on Netflix. Following its run on Syfy, the network also made an uncensored version of the first season available to stream.
Damon Lindelof on Why it Was Time to End The Leftovers
IGN’s pick for the best television series of 2015, The Leftovers, finally returns this Sunday for the debut of its third and final season. I recently sat down with Damon Lindelof -- who created the series with Tom Perrotta, who wrote the book on which the series is based -- to discuss the approach to Season 3, which will partially take place Australia (a setting that’s been established in previous seasons as having notable importance) and the decision to wrap up the critically acclaimed, yet unfortunately not widely viewed, show in Season 3.
Lindelof also explains his resistance to binging TV shows and his preference that a TV episode feel like its telling its own clearly-defined story, rather than the more nebulous approach some shows take in the Netflix era of treating the entire season like a story meant to be seen in one sitting. Plus, the Lost co-creator discusses whether he'd return to broadcast TV again, now that he's wrapping up a show for HBO.
Ewan McGregor Is Unrecognizable at the Center of Fargo
I'm interviewing Ewan McGregor, and I can't stop my eyes from drifting up to the exposed bald spot on the top of his head.
We're on the set of Fargo in Calgary, and this is not the Ewan McGregor I have seen before. His stomach bulges out as he sits, he has a double chin and a thicker nose, and then, of course, there's his distracting receding hairline. This is McGregor at his least glamorous.
"In a couple of years, everyone will be rocking this look," he says with a chuckle.
Ewan McGregor as Ray Stussy
The All-New X-Men Find Surprising New Allies
X-Men Blue has reunited the original five X-Men, but the first issue had a few surprises in store for this familiar team.
Warning: this article contains spoilers for X-Men Blue #1!
X-Men Blue is the latest series to star the teenage original X-Men, who have been stuck in the present day ever since the beginning of All-New X-Men in 2012. This new series sees the team struggling to regroup and find its purpose after the recent revelation that they no longer have a home to return to.
The good news is that these young X-Men have a new mentor to help them find their place in the Marvel Universe. You may recognize him:
Phil Spencer on Why Scorpio Waited Until 2017
Microsoft's mid-gen upgrade to its Xbox One console could have released last year, but according to head Phil Spencer, the company wanted to make sure framerate wasn't sacrificed in the quest for 4K.
Spencer told Gamasutra maintaining a solid framerate "was our design goal, from the beginning. To say: same framerate, increased resolution."
"We didn't think we could make that promise to developers in 2016," he said.
Believing 4K TVs would reach market maturity somewhere in the middle of the current console generation, Spencer said the Xbox team "designed a console for 2016, and a console for 2017," and the Scorpio won out as the fruit of its 2017 labors.
Yakuza Kiwami Coming to the West
Yakuza Kiwami will come out August 29 in the Americas and Europe.
SEGA is only bringing the PlayStation 4 version of the HD remake to the west. Yakuza Kiwami will cost $30/£30/€35.
People who pre-order Yakuza Kiwami will get a steelbook version of the game (seen below). A limited amount of first-run copies will also sport the special packaging.
Yakuza Kiwami was confirmed for a western release back at PSX 2016. The HD remake of the original game was officially announced back at TGS 2015.