Monthly Archives: August 2019
Apex Legends Forum Heats Up as Developer Calls Toxic Fans ‘A**-hats’
It’s been a tough week for Apex Legends, and an even tougher week for its development team, following strong player backlash during the game’s Iron Crown special event. After making some significant changes to how players could earn the new (and prohibitively expensive) legendary skins included in the event, Respawn took a moment to apologize for how it structured the event. A part of that process of making good appears to be reaching out to the Apex Legends subreddit, where things quickly heated up into verbal sparring between at least one Respawn developer and players.
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Why Hearthstone Esports is Saying Goodbye to the Specialist Format Already
Hearthstone is a much more agile game now than it has been in the past. This year alone we’ve seen a regular cadence of changes to the core game – nerfs, buffs, cards going to the Hall of Fame, as well as the introduction of a brand new esports program and brand new format for competitive play – Specialist. And right from the get-go, the Hearthstone esports team said that if Specialist didn’t pan out the way they hoped, they’d look at changing it. And that’s exactly what has happened – the team recently announced that Grandmasters season 2 would move away from Specialist and use a tweaked version of Conquest that introduced the ability for players to “shield” one of their four decks to prevent it being banned.
GRRM Says GoT Ending Reactions Won’t Change Winds of Winter
In an interview with Observer (via The Guardian), Game of Thrones author George RR Martin described the end of the show as “freeing,” and insisted that the controversy over the show’s ending, which many critics deemed lackluster, wouldn’t impact how he tackled writing the Winds of Winter and other A Song of Ice and Fire books.
“It doesn’t change anything at all … You can’t please everybody, so you’ve got to please yourself,” Martin told Observer.
Game of Thrones’ eighth season was criticized for both its unusually short length, and for how that quickened pace seemingly fumbled up character motivations that had been boiling for the prior seven seasons. Ironically, while the show was blitzing through character arcs and plot threads, GRRM says it was a key source of why he’s been taking so long to finish Winds of Winter, the next installment in his book series that sparked the show.
Superhot Appears to be Coming to the Nintendo Switch
Superhot, the action game where time moves only when you do, appears to be coming to the Nintendo Switch in the near future.
A dataminer by the Twitter handle of @itssimontime managed to discover an update file for Superhot was uploaded on Friday, even though the game hasn’t been officially announced yet.
SUPERHOT for Switch just got an update... but they haven't even announced its release yet pic.twitter.com/tk1ZLeGZQv
— SimonTime (@itssimontime) August 16, 2019
Tom Hiddleston Has Been Lying About Loki’s Fate for A Long Time
Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame Below
In an interview with MTV, actor Tom Hiddleston revealed that he knew Marvel anti-hero Loki would continue on in a Disney+ series “about six weeks” before the worldwide release of Avengers: Infinity War. Hiddleston also elaborated on what the new Loki series means for the infamous character and what it’s been like to play him for a decade.
But like most actors in the MCU, Hiddleston was out of the loop on spoilers for Infinity War, Avengers Endgame, or what would come after. In Infinity War, Loki is killed by Thanos in the opening scene, wherein Thor and the remainder of Asgard's population attempt to flee the Mad Titan, leading many to believe the actor had moved on from the MCU, like Robert Downey Jr. or Chris Evans.
Reevaluating Shyamalan’s The Village 15 Years Later
It was supposed to be his greatest achievement.
When The Village arrived in theatres 15 years ago in the summer of 2004, M. Night Shyamalan was riding a singular wave of success. After three hit films in a row with The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs, Shyamalan was set to continue his hot streak with The Village, a brand new thriller about a 19th century settlement terrorized by monsters lurking in the woods. While it made a handsome profit at the box office, it was widely considered the director’s first failure, vilified for being short on scares and its supposedly unsatisfying final twist. Critics were confused. Audiences felt betrayed. Where was the thrilling horror film they were promised?
IGN UK Podcast #500 Live
16 Podcasters, 300 audience members, 1 live band and 500 episodes. This is the IGN UK Podcast's 500th episode live spectacular!
We roped in a whole host of voices from past and present to join us live at London's famous 100 Club. With four panels of four, we talked about our favourite memories from the last ten years of podcasts. We also had not one, but three of our favourite Endless Search games with the amazing Code:Marla doing a live performance of jingle (yes, they did it 3 times!).
A great time was had by all, but mostly by us! Thank you so much to all the amazing people who traveled so far and helped make this event so special. Here's to another 500 episodes!
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Rare Pokemon Center Merchandise From the World Championships 2019
While the Pokemon World Championships are a place for hundreds of players to compete across the globe for over $500,000 in prizes, it's also known for offering an exclusive line of rare Pokemon merchandise that can only be purchased at this event. The merchandise is always themed after the city hosting the competition, so given this year it's in Washington, D.C. the theme is all about museums. That's why Pikachu, Piplup and the gang are decked out in explorer's gear -- so they can find rare artifacts and Fossil Pokemon bones and bring them back to be put on display.
Check out all of the DC-themed merch below along with the rest of the Pokemon Center wares by flipping through the slideshow gallery below.