The Upcoming Super Mario Bros Movie Might Be A Musical [Rumor]

You can’t keep a long-anticipated movie like Nintendo’s animated Mario film a secret for too long.
After being delayed to 2023 via an official word from Shigeru Miyamoto, plot details for the film have allegedly leak (via ResetEra). We won’t spoil anything in these earlier paragraphs; scroll down if you want to see the full synopsis. Here’s the breakdown of what you can expect:

The film will be about the Mario. Bros’ origins, but they do start out as heroes before discovering the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario and Luigi in the film will start off with worn-out and dusty suits with muted colour schemes. Their trademark colours from the games will be used later in the show.
The show’s art style is cartoonish and full of life; it may be similar to the art style of the Hotel Transylvania movie series by Genndy Tartovsky.
The show’s humour is mixed, with puns and meta jokes aplenty. Might be similar to fares like Wreck-It Ralph.
Characters such as Donkey Kong Jr., Pauline, and Toadsworth will be in the show as side characters. Daisy is name dropped.
Enemies in the film include the staple Goombas, Koopas, Hammer Bros., Bullet Bills, Banzai Bills, and Lakitus. New enemies include ink blobs with teeth and cute ninjas; this may be animation studio Illumination’s way of shoehorning original cute creatures into any product they make, just like with Despicable Me’s minions.
The film will have musical numbers highlighting each bit’s plot points.
The movie will open with a narration from original Mario voice actor Charles Martinet.

The leaked story bits seem to be true, as Giant Bomb podcast guest Jeff Grub has mentioned the same details. The fact that the leak has been DMCA’d on Reddit further proves that there’s some credibility in these story details.
Again, take all of this with a grain of salt since it’s still rumours. With that said, the full description and story details (including the full plot synopsis and ending) are below; spoiler warning.

You’ve been warned (via ResetEra)

The Super Mario Bros movie will be out in mid-2023. It stars Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, and Seth Rogen.


Warcraft’s Hogger Joins Heroes Of The Storm Roster

Warcraft fans will be happy to learn that Hogger, the Scourge of Elwynn, is smashing into the Nexus as a playable character in Heroes Of The Storm.
Check out the breakdown via the official website below:
Ability Breakdown:
This leveler of low-levels is primed and ready to pounce! When taking advantage of the Rage mechanic, which lowers the cooldown on his abilities as he gets deeper into the fray, Hogger becomes a rampaging monster.
With the ability to dish out tons of area damage and by generating pathing blockers with his Trait, Loot Hoard, Hoggerâ€™s ability to start a fight, grab a kill, and escape intact is second to (g)none.
Basic Abilities

(D) – LOOT HOARD
Gain Rage from taking damage or dealing Basic Attack damage. Hoggerâ€™s Basic Abilities refresh 1% faster for every 2 points of Rage. After 3 seconds of not gaining Rage, it will quickly decay. Cooldown: 20 seconds.
(Q) – STAGGERING BLOW
Hogger takes a swing with his flail, dealing damage to and knocking away enemies in a wide arc. Enemies who then collide with unpathable terrain take an additional burst of damage, are stunned for .75 seconds, and grant Hogger 15 Rage. Cooldown: 12 seconds.
(W) – EZ-THRO DYNAMITE
Throw a stick of Dynamite with a 1.5 second fuse to the targeted location. Upon hitting an enemy Hero directly or expiring, the Dynamite explodes, dealing damage and slowing enemies hit by 30% for 2 seconds. Hitting a Hero directly also grants Hogger 10 Rage. Cooldown: 8 seconds.
(E) – HOGG WILD
After .25 seconds, Hogger launches himself towards the targeted direction. While spinning, Hogger deals damage every .125 seconds to nearby enemies, increased by 1% per point of Rage. If Hogger hits terrain while spinning, he will bounce off it and travel in a new direction. Cooldown: 14 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
(R) – HOARDAPULT
Hogger attaches himself to an empowered Loot Hoard and heaves it a great distance, dealing damage on impact and slowing enemies in a large area. If Hogger is nearby, the empowered Loot Hoard created with Hoardapult will dislodge a chunk of Meat towards Hogger every 10 seconds. Cooldown: 70 seconds.(R) – SHOCKWAVE
After .5 seconds, Hogger slams the ground, sending a shockwave traveling in a long line. Enemies hit by the initial slam take 306 damage and are stunned for 1.25 seconds while those hit by the shockwave take 210 damage and are stunned for .5 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.


Definitive Version Of Overcooked! Is Coming To PS5 & Xbox Series X

Publisher Team17 and developer Ghost Town Games have announced Overcooked! All You Can Eat for the PS5 and Xbox Series X. It will launch both physically and digitally sometime later in 2020.
Overcooked! All You Can Eat will essentially be the definitive edition, including both Overcooked! and Overcooked! 2, as well as every morsel of additional DLC, which have all been remastered in 4K and 60FPS.
It will feature over 200 levels of culinary chaos, seven new levels, and three new chefs. Content from Overcooked! have also been rebuilt in the Overcooked! 2 engine, which enables levels from the original game to be played online for the very first time.
In addition, the game will offer support for cross-platform multiplayer functionality, new accessibility options and an assist mode, which will include options such as the ability to slow the timeouts on recipes, increase the duration of rounds, and the option to skip levels.
In the meantime, check out the trailer below.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx-B8HsnfLo&w=560&h=315]


Lunar New Howl: The Best Dogs In Video Game History

Dogs: man’s best friend in the real world. Fluffy, loyal, and/or able to fetch frisbees and other things for you if they weren’t distracted by pointer lights. Humps anything on sight if you don’t keep them in check.
In the digital realm of video games, dogs are useful. They can fetch items for you, become assists when you’re fighting, or turn into power armour thanks to your robot dad. Other times, they become stars of the show or even steal the spotlight from their masters.
In honour of our four-legged pals, we celebrate The Year of the Dog by talking about our favourite canines in video games.
Missile (from Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective)

We start off this list with a not-so-well-known-but-still-adorable Pomeranian named Missile. This little fella dies early in the puzzle game, but he ends up aiding our ghostly detective through many puzzles and challenges in keeping people in the physical world alive.
The Dog (from Fable 2)

Your dog in Fable II is the most-touted feature in Peter Molyneuxâ€™s Xbox 360 masterpiece. Or at least thatâ€™s how he sold it back in the day. Despite the overblown hype, your dog is still pretty awesome; he helps dig treasure for you, fight off bad guys, and also lead you to your objective. Best of all, your dog is crucial in determining your characterâ€™s ending.
Rush (from the Mega Man series)

He’s a spring coil. He’s a submarine. He’s a portable jet. He’s a hoverboard. He’s also power armour. There’s nothing Rush cannot do to help Mega Man as long as his creator Dr Light is around to figure out how to modify the good robot dog.
I’m surprised he didn’t come with a portable toaster in case Mega Man needed to get breakfast on the go while on his way to dismantle Toad Man and Snake Man the umpteenth time around.
Poppy (from the Samurai Shodown series)

Galford’s four-legged buddy is a living weapon, ready for his master’s beck and call. He can launch himself as a pinball (think Blanka’s roll) and even pin an opponent so that he/she is prone to your follow-up attacks. Poppy is one of the pioneers in video game history where a dog is as effective as his/her master.
Shadow (from Dead To Rights)

The ultimate K-9 unit in any police force in a video game, this half-malamute half-wolf dog can assist his master Jack Slater in incapacitating crooks.
He can also play ninja and pick off terrorists one-by-one with the power of dog reflexes and wolf-like savagery. This dog goes straight for the jugular; he sure won’t be needing any Royal Canin to satisfy his bloodlust.
Yamato (from Shadow Dancer)

Joe Musashi’s attack dog pal in Shadow Dancer is a huge bundle of awesome since he’s fast at incapacitating opponents so that his master can score a kill. And he’s also a pile of cute if he gets hurt. Any canine that gets his or her own stylized charge meter gets our vote for top dog in video gamedom.
Dogmeat (from the Fallout series)

From decent party companion to immortal portable suitcase-slash-attack dog, the many Dogmeats of the post-apocalyptic world have always been consistent party members since the first Fallout game on PC. Throughout each sequel, Dogmeat becomes a sentient killing machine and effective treasure finder too.

Honourable mention: the robot dog in Fallout: New Vegas.
Shikuru (from the Samurai Shodown series)

When they had Nakoruru’s alternate fighting form use a wolf instead of an eagle, SNK even impressed themselves. So much so that they made an all-new character in the form of Rera and her furry four-legged companion Shikuru.
Rera is basically a top tier character as long as she’s on her wolf companion. Unlike the other fighters on the Samurai Shodown roster, she fights with the ferocity of a savage beast.
Boomer (from FarCry5)

FarCry 5 isnâ€™t even out yet, and we already have a nomination for best dog in video games for 2018. Boomer will maul enemies, stealth kill pursuers, and even fetch weapons for you. And if you donâ€™t like his current fur colour, you can customize it so that he looks like the killer rabid Golden Retriever youâ€™ve always wanted.
That Giggling Motherf***er (Duck Hunt)

Negative reinforcement at its finest. Miss your shots in this basic Light Gun game and he laughs at you. Shoot well, and he’ll catch the dead ducks for you. At least you can shoot him in the Arcade version. It’s not like he’s real or anything, right?
Amaterasu (from Okami)

Granted, she’s not really a dog or a wolf and more like an actual goddess, but she starts out as one in the Kamiki Village.Throughout the course of the game, she befriends a tiny bug painter called Issun, fights off demons and aspects of darkness, and flourishes the land with nature. Grass roots sprout on whatever patch of land she walks on: clearly she’s driven to see through her godly mission.
Aside: the game’s out on PC now; you have no excuse not to play the best action adventure game in recent years that’s better than any Zelda title save for LoZ: Breath of the Wild.
The Pomeranian (from Tokyo Jungle)

We cap off this list with perhaps the most hardcore survivalists in this oddity of a PS3 game: Tokyo Jungle. When you start the game, you control a Pomeranian who has to survive by killing mice and fat cats, while also continue its lineage by procreating with other Pomeranians. Why the hell are these toy dogs the unsung heroes of video games?
Did we miss out a dog or two? I probably did; call me out on Kakuchopurei’s Facebook page.


Star Wars Visions: The Star-Studded Cast For The English Dub

It’s been a long time coming, but Star Wars has finally gone anime. It took more than four decades but considering that the roots of Star Wars owe themselves essentially a lot of Japanese and other Asian elements. This time a total of seven different has been given the reins to bring their unique talent and perspective to the first season of Star Wars Visions, an anthology animated series.
These includeÂ Kamikaze Douga, Geno Studio (Twin Engine), Studio Colorido (Twin Engine), TRIGGER, Kinema Citrus, Science Saru, and Production I.G. Each studio will use their signature animation and storytelling styles to realize their own visions of the galaxy far, far away.
You can check out our review of Star Wars Visions here.
Episode 1 – The Duel (Kamikaze Douga)

Brian Tee – Ronin
Lucy Liu – Bandit Leader
Jaden Waldman – Child Village Chief

Episode 2 – Tatooine Rhapsody (Studio Colorido)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt – Jay
Bobby Moynihan – Geezer

Episode 3 – The Twins (Trigger)

Neil Patrick Harris – Karre
Alison Brie – Am

Episode 4 – The Village Bride (Kinema Citrus)

Karen Fukuhara – F
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa – Valco
Nichole Sakura – Haru
Christopher Sean – Asu

Episode 5 – The Ninth Jedi (Production IG)

Kimiko Glenn – Lah Kara
Simu Liu – Lah Zhima
Masi Oka – Ethan

Episode 6 – T0-B1 (Science Saru)

Jaden Waldman – T0-B1
Kyle Chandler – Mitaka

Episode 7 – The Elder (Trigger)

Jordan Fisher – Dan G’vash
David Harbour – Tajin Crosser
James Hong – Old Man

Episode 8 – Lop & OchÅ (Geno Studio)

Anna Cathcart – Lop
Hiromi Dames – Ocho
Paul Nakauchi – Yasaburo

Episode 9 – Akakiri (Science Saru)

Henry Golding – Tsubaki
Jamie Chung – Misa
George Takei – Senshu
Lorraine Toussaint – Masago

All nine episodes of the first season are slated to premiere on Disney+ Hotstar on 22 September 2021.
In the meantime, check out the trailer below:


Here’s Why Ubisoft Deleted This Gamer’s Games Library

One of the flaws of digital gaming is the fear of having your games removed or unplayable after having purchased them but what if you lose your entire account and hundreds of dollars in the process? That’s what happened to this poor gamer, who discovered that he lost all his games in his Ubisoft Uplay account after not logging in for more than a year.
Speaking with PCWorld, the Norwegian gamer who wishes to simply be named Tor, said that stopped gaming for a while in 2020 to focus on his studies and work. When he decided to return to gaming in 2021, he discovered that he was unable to log into his Ubisoft account.
He was later able to reset the password but then learned that his account had been closed. He said that Ubisoft told him that they couldn’t recover it and that it was permanently gone. When PCWorld reached out to Ubisoft, the company insisted that Tor’s case is not normal and that they’ve never deleted an account that hasn’t been inactive in less than four years. Tor also discovered that while he did receive an email warning him of inactivity and account deletion, it was in his spam folder.
What happened to Tor’s account? According to Ubisoftâ€™s international terms of service agreement, they “may suspend or close your Account and your ability to use one or more Services or part of the Services, at any time, automatically and at our sole discretion whereâ€¦ upon notification, where your account has been inactive for more than six months”.
Apparently, it all has to do with Ubisoftâ€™s interpretation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). According to this Ubisoft support page:
â€œPlease be reassured that Ubisoft does not automatically close inactive accounts,â€ the support page says. â€œHowever, per our Terms of Use, in rare instances we can take action to comply with some local data protection legislation.
This is only if we have strong reasons to believe that the account in question will remain unused. We may also close long-term inactive accounts to maintain our database. You will be notified by email if we begin the process of closing your inactive account.â€
When contacted further by PCWorld, Ubisoft gave four criteria that they take into account to consider before deleting an account:

The gaming activity of the account since its creation.
The ownership of PC games since the creation of the account: accounts tied to purchased games are not eligible for deletion
The duration of inactivity of the account, meaning the last login to our ecosystem (including from Ubisoft games on Steam and other platforms). While our Terms of Use are meant to reflect every possibility, in practice, we have never deleted accounts that have been inactive for less than 4 years.
The existence of an active subscription to Ubisoft and/or related to the account.

Before an account is deleted, the gamer in question should receive three emails over a 30-day period offering to restore the account to active status. The user will also receive an error message when logging in warning of the pending deletion.
In regards to Tor’s case, Ubisoft said:
â€œConsidering the specific case you mention, the player mentions that their account has been deleted when they had only been inactive for less than 2 years (he mentions that he was away for two years maximum on that account) and that he had purchased PC games through Ubisoft Connect (and not Steam or Epic for instance, in which case entitlements would be linked to their accounts on these platforms).
This case doesnâ€™t fit within our criteriaÂ for inactive account deletion, so our customer support team will reach out to the player to get his username so they can start an investigation and take the appropriate measures.â€
Ubisoft is the only games company that has a policy for shutting down or closing gamer accounts. Microsoft and Riot Games do have similar policies, while Steam, Blizzard and GOG don’t. However, according to a video game law lawyer named Ryan Morrison (who was consulted by PCWorld), all game publishers can potentially and legally delete a gamer’s account for any reason they want.
That’s a scary idea, isn’t it? Especially for gamers who have gone 100 percent digital. When was the last time you logged into your Ubisoft account?


Celebrate The Launch Of Street Fighter 6 In Malaysia Next Sunday; Here’s How

Street Fighter 6 will be coming out on the week of 2nd June, and we will be celebrating with fans and the community with the biggest launch in the country.
Infinite Carnage and ATO Gaming are proud to host a community-centric Street Fighter 6 launch party, including a fun launch tournament and free play opportunities for the new 2D fighting game from Capcom, along with some sweet vintage prizes for tournament winners and cosplay aficionados.
Here are the details:
Date: 4 June 2023 (next Sunday)Time: 12pm – 7pmVenue: ATO Gaming Cafe x Studio TTDIActivities: Launch tournament, cosplay & photo booth, free play booth, game store
Tournament Entry Fee: RM20
Registration Link: https://bit.ly/3WEgdwGLINK
Platform: PS5
Tournament Format: Double Elimination
Prizes:1st: Hori Alpha Arcade Stick2nd: PS5 Dual Sense3rd: Street Fighter 6 PS5 Copy
Partners & Sponsors: Infinite Carnage, ATO Gaming, Gakuen.gg, Kakuchopurei, Raretech

Your moment, your fight. See you on Sunday!


New Genshin Impact Music Video Stars Yelan

If you like Yelan from Genshin Impact, this new music video is for you.
HoYoverse has released a new EP music video with songs associated with the Liyue region, where our featured gacha heroine resides. The songs on the EP video include Lone Drifter, Wandering Clouds, and Silent, Starry Night. The first song features Yelan relaxing and chilling along with Ningguang, and the last track features Yelan sitting at a table.
This is also HoYoverse’s way of reminding people that the Yelan and Hu Tao rerun banners are up from now until 28 February. Genshin Impact is out now for PC and mobile.


Gaming Is Now Worth More Than Film and Music Combined

Gamers and developers have long cited gaming as one of the entertainment industries with the biggest potential. Now we have the numbers and statistics to back that up, as the video games market is currently worth a whopping Â£3.864 billion (or roughly RM20.103 billion), making it larger in value than both film and music combined.
According to the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) (via Sky News), three games in 2018 managed to sell more than one million units in the UK alone. These titles were FIFA 19, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Call of Duty Black Ops 4.
Despite physical retail sales actually decreasing by 2.8% in 2018, the games industry still comprises approximately 51.3% of the total entertainment market. That basically means that around half of the world’s entertainment is now being dominated by gaming.
ERA CEO Kim Bayley attributes the games industry’s huge growth to the fact that it took advantage of the digital format to offer “new and compelling forms of entertainment.” Gaming has always adopted the latest tech faster than any other entertainment medium, often trailblazing the way for movies, TV, and music to catch up.
The most recent example of this would have to be Netflix’s grand experiment in releasing Black Mirror Bandersnatch. It took the world by storm, introducing non-gamers to the branching narratives of the interactive choose-your-own-adventure platform.
In other related news, esports viewership numbers are also set to overtake traditional sports like basketball and football by 2022. It has already surpassed that of baseball and hockey, so it’s only going to get even bigger from now on.


New Psychedelic Horror The Chant Coming Fall 2022

Brought to you by Prime Matter and Brass Token, The Chant is a new third-person action horror game slated to release later this Fall.
If you are a fan of games such as Until Dawn or House of Ashes, then The Chant seems like it’s going to be right down your alley.

Set at a spiritual retreat on a remote island, The Chant has you trying to survive against a host of prismatic terrors that are unleashed after a group chant ritual goes horribly wrong, opening a portal to a nightmare dimension called The Gloom.
This dimension feeds off negative energy and starts driving you and the others mad, preying on your own anxieties and fears, and manifesting as interdimensional creatures: ultimately taking you on a journey of psychedelic horror the likes of which you have never experienced before.
But all is not lost; only by unravelling the mysteries of a 1970s new age cult while strengthening your mind, body, and spirit, can you reverse the chant and avoid being trapped in The Gloom forever.
The Chant will release this Fall 2022 on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and PC available both physically and digitally. For more check out the teaser below.


Universal Studios Japan Is Opening A Giant Mario Kart Attraction

To say that Nintendo is a phenomenon in Japan would be a gross understatement. It’s become part of the Japanese identity at this point, symbolising creativity, fun, and a plumber who jumps. It looks like Universal Studios Japan (USJ) is going to make Nintendo a part of their identity too.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKCqJ8llKuA&w=560&h=315]
An article from TimeOut Tokyo reveals that Universal Studios Japan will be opening a ‘Super Nintendo World‘ in its theme park. It’s scheduled to be ready for visitors by mid-2020, just in time for the 2020 Summer Olympics happening in Tokyo.
There will be multiple rides featured across the park with one of the biggest attractions being a Mario Kart-themed ride. Concept art shared by one of the artists working on the project also shows a Donkey Kong attraction based on the games’ levels. A Yoshi ride will also be built.

Concept art for Donkey Kong at Super Nintendo World has been shared on the artistâ€™s portfolio site. The first images are for the left and right sides of the land, second set is main ride entrance through temple. Originally designed for USF, land now set to open at Epic Universe. pic.twitter.com/rx6hKcIOqw
â€” Alicia Stella (@AliciaStella) November 4, 2019
The attraction has been under construction since mid-2017 and some USJ visitors have already caught a glimpse of portions of the Super Nintendo World being built. Seeing as how we’re only a year away from the park’s completion, it’s definitely exciting to see it all come together.

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The scenery of SUPER NINTENDO WORLD â„¢ viewed from various places.
2019.11.02#USJ #ãƒžãƒªã‚ª pic.twitter.com/3KVcYmUAMx
â€” USJæƒ…å ±å±€ L.C.A.STUDIOS (@LCASTUDIOS_USJ) November 5, 2019
Personally, I just want them to allow me to wear Mario’s famous Tanuki suit and then let me glide across the entire park. Please, that’s all I have ever wanted.


ASUS Launches New AMD Ryzen 4000 Gaming Laptops In Malaysia

Today, ASUS has officially launched its latest line of sleek and powerful gaming laptops in Malaysia, the first products in the country to be powered by the new AMD Ryzen 4000 processors. These include four new laptops, each of which caters to different demographics.
First up are the new ASUS TUF Gaming A15 and A17 laptops. All variants of the TUF Gaming laptops similarly feature 1920×1080 IPS display with a fast 144Hz refresh rate and Adaptive sync (which means no more screen tearing problems when gaming).

Check out the different variant models of the two below:
ASUS TUF Gaming A15
ASUS TUF Gaming A15
ASUS TUF Gaming A15
ASUS TUF Gaming A15 FA506I-HHN137T (RM3,499)

Ryzen 5-4600H
GTX1650 GDDR6 4GB
15.6″ FHD IPS Panel 144Hz Adaptive sync
512GB SSD

ASUS TUF Gaming A15 FA506I-IHN240T (RM3,799)

Ryzen 5-4600H
GTX1650Ti GDDR6 4GB
15.6″ FHD IPS Panel 144Hz Adaptive sync
512GB SSD

ASUS TUF Gaming A15 FA506I-IHN241T (RM4,099)

Ryzen 7-4800H
GTX1650Ti GDDR6 4GB
15.6″ FHD IPS Panel 144Hz Adaptive sync
512GB SSD

ASUS TUF Gaming A15 FA506I-UHN203T (RM4,699)

Ryzen 7-4800H
GTX1660Ti GDDR6 6GB
15.6″ FHD IPS Panel 144Hz Adaptive sync
512GB SSD

ASUS TUF Gaming A15 FA506I-UHN204T (RM4,999)

Ryzen 9-4900H
GTX1660Ti GDDR6 6GB
15.6″ FHD IPS Panel 144Hz Adaptive sync
512GB SSD

ASUS TUF Gaming A15 FA506I-VAL118T (RM5,599)

Ryzen 7-4800H
RTX2060 GDDR6 6GB
15.6″ FHD IPS Panel 144Hz Adaptive sync
1TB SSD

ASUS TUF Gaming A15 FA506I-VHN248T (RM5,899)

Ryzen 9-4900H
RTX2060 GDDR6 6GB
15.6″ FHD IPS Panel 144Hz Adaptive sync
1TB SSD

ASUS TUF Gaming A17 FA706I-IH7079T (RM4,299)

Ryzen 7-4800H
GTX1650Ti GDDR6 4GB
17.3″ FHD IPS Panel 144Hz Adaptive sync
512GB SSD

ASUS TUF Gaming A17 FA706I-UH7078T (RM5,199)

Ryzen 9-4900H
GTX1660Ti GDDR6 6GB
17.3″ FHD IPS Panel 144Hz Adaptive sync
512GB SSD

ASUS TUF Gaming A17
ASUS TUF Gaming A17
ASUS TUF Gaming A17
However, the more premium option on offer is the new ROG Zephyrus G15, with only one variant available for purchase in Malaysia. Powered by the all-new AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS mobile processor, it features double the core count of the previous generation. In addition, the premium features include its ultraslim form factor and 144Hz gaming display.

Check out the full specs below:
ROG Zephyrus G15 GA502I-UHN095T (RM5,299)

Ryzen 7-4800HS
GTX 1660Ti Max-Q GDDR6 6GB
15.6″ FHD IPS Panel 144Hz Adaptive sync
1TB SSD

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCHLPaIqndI&w=560&h=315]


Japan Shows The Rest Of Asia How It’s Done In Malaysia’s FV x SEA Major 2019 Tournament

This story is still developing…
When you have one of the first Capcom Pro Tour tournaments in Asia happening early this year, you’re going to stir a hornet’s nest in the Street Fighter V competitive scene. In this case, it’s the Japanese players who want those sweet, sweet CPT League points.
And it’s pretty evident here in this weekend’s SFV bout set in FV Cup X SEA Major 2019 down in sunny Kuala Lumpur. Except for a lone Hong Kong player who goes by HotDog29, the top 5 was dominated by Fujimaru, Tokido, Bonchan, and Momochi.
Still, it wasn’t an easy fight for Japan: both HotDog29 and Taiwanese pro GamerBee fought their best to maintain their top 8 status in this Asian fightfest (via Versus Asia).

These slew of streams also prove that FV Cup and SEA Major should shell out some money to get better & more hype-worthy English commentators. You may be stellar players, Xian, Gamerbee, and OilKing, but you’re no masters of the mic.

The finals play out like you would expect from a CPT fighting game dominated by Japanese players. SFV player Fujimura shows the old-school veteran Tokido that he has better mixups and options than the latter’s Akuma.

Here is the full list of winners for the Street Fighter V tournament.
1. FD|Fujimura (Ibuki)
2. Rohto|Tokido (Akuma)
3. Talon|HotDog29 (M. Bison)
4. RB|Bonchan (Sagat, Karin)
5. Victrix|Momochi (Zeku, Kolin)
5. DNG|Itabashi Zangief (Zangief, Abigail)
7. CYG|GamerBee (Cammy)
7. FAV|Sako (Menat, Kage)
9. FAV|Ryuusei (Urien)
9. SZY|Mizuha (Kolin)
The Rest Of The Battle
Over in the SoulCalibur 6 corner, we have Malaysia’s Muhamed Meguseyf taking home the gold. He had to fight against Singapore’s Willis Sia in a Groh vs Maxi match; two offence-heavy characters in a crazy strings-centric match.

Two Filipino players took home the gold and silver equivalent in Tekken 7: 1st place winner Bren Maru and 2nd place winner PBE Bully.


The Quarry Gets Retro 50s Costumes For Halloween

2K and Supermassive Games have revealed new DLC content coming to The Quarry, featuring a classic makeover with new character outfits inspired by ‘50s horror, just in time for the Halloween season. This classic horror style can be seen through a new trailer and movie poster inspired by the look and feel of 1950s horror cinema.
A group of nine teenage counsellors are stranded at Hackett’s Quarry on the last day of summer camp and try to navigate the horrors they encounter in a new era. Delivering chills and frights in ‘50s style garb, the ‘50s Throwback Character Outfit DLC is now available on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.

New and returning players looking to experience these new outfits can get them free until 1 am GMT+8 on 2 November 2022. After this time, the 50s Throwback Character Outfit DLC will be available for individual purchase at US$4.99. For a limited time, you can get 40% off The Quarry: Standard Edition for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
The Quarry: Deluxe Edition (Digital) is also available for 40% off for PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Windows PC via Steam. The Quarry: Deluxe Edition includes the full game, Gorefest Movie Mode option, instant access to the Death Rewind system, Horror History Visual Filter Pack, and ’80s-themed character outfits.

PlayStation Store: Deluxe Edition only: October 19, 2022 – November 2, 2022
Steam: Standard Edition & Deluxe Edition: October 21, 2022 – November 4, 2022
Microsoft Store: Standard Edition & Deluxe Edition: October 18, 2022 – October 31, 2022

In the meantime, check out our review of The Quarry here and check out the trailer below:


Six Stack: Six Predictions for Stage 2 of the Overwatch League

1. Return of Dive 1.0 Equals More Enjoyable Viewing
The nerfing of Mercy leads to the return of the classic 2/2/2 composition that relies heavily on aggressive, quick burst team fights. This will lead to more decisive team fight wins as well as faster completion of maps. We aren’t saying the team fights during the first stage were boring; it’s just that no thanks to the Mercy Valkyrie + Double Res strat, skirmishes tend to be long-drawn battles of attrition that relies more on timing and coordination than raw skill. While folks who understand the game appreciates this highly complex approach, those who are new to Overwatch may be turned-off. The impactful, Dive 1.0 will be more casual-viewer-friendly leading to increased viewership for the league.
2. Resurgent Seoul back in the MixÂ
We saw Seoul struggle with MercyÂ towards the latter stages of Stage 1 as both their main supports, Ryujehong and Tobi were more adept with Lucio, Zenyatta and Ana. Not to say that they aren’t competent on Mercy, but the prolonged fights during the Mercy meta does not work in Seoul’s favor tactically. The compulsory Mercy pick also robbed them off the opportunity to operate at optimum level in terms of team composition as Tobi and Ryujehong, both known as the Boop & Ana Gods respectively weren’t able to fully utilize their skillset. We’ve seen the Seoul Dynasty boys (back then as Lunatic-Hai) most dominant during Dive 1.0 meta, with Ryujehong on Ana popping off with clutch moves and the rest of his team outplaying their opponents with a variety of trick playsÂ so expect them to return to dominance during Stage 2 which as mentioned in Point 1, reverts back to the 2/2/2 composition.
3. Shanghai Dragons nets Two WinsÂ
We’ve seen drastic improvements from the Dragons heading into Weeks 4 and 5 of Stage 1 and with the inclusion of four new team members, the team is now stronger. While there are doubts as whether communication will become an issue, the improvement of overall mechanical skill will bring at least two wins for the Dragons in Stage 2. Against which teams you ask? Well if we have to put our money on it, it’s gonna be the Mayhem and Gladiators. Both teams while are stronger on paper, are the least consistent and most predictable due to their smaller rosters.
4. The Return of ZaryaÂ
With resurrection going out of style, teams will focus more on not getting eliminated,Â  resulting in players using characters who are able to sustain longer during fights. Roadhog’s breather ability will make him a staple pick on most control maps while Orisa’s shield is useful on escort maps. However it’s Zarya’s ability to shield-bubble herself and her teammates make her a must pick come Stage 2. The current meta which sees tons of Junkrate picks will also favor Zarya as it serves as a quick farming avenue. Expect to see a combination of her and Winston bubble shields, perhaps supported with an Orisa barrier which primarily serve to nullify burst damage make waves during Stage 2. D.Va’s inability to block Zarya’s primary fire (Particle Cannon Beam) may also affect her pick rate resulting in lesser D.Va Bombs, and replaced with Graviton Surges.
5. Moira MetaÂ
The drop in Mercy picks coupled with the reintroduction of Dive 1.0 and its potential corresponding counter, the Quad Tank approach will result in the rise in stock for Moira. Known for her burst healing potential as well as high mobility, Moira will be highly used by teams who are tank-heavy in their picks to nullify the burst damage threat from the 2/2/2 comp. We’ve seen glimpses of her usage during Stage 1 in tank-heavy, overtime pushes and when shielded by a huge meat wall in front of her, is a pain to deal with. The rise in Ana picks will also fuel to the Moira meta as she gets more freedom to operate aggressively in a barrier-ridden meta.
6. Welcome to the Junkrat JungleÂ
Despite his minor nerf, Junkrat will remain very relevant in Stage 2 thanks to the combination of his mobility, burst damage and the slower, tankier picks in the meta. On the defensive side, his grenades and mines will play a pivotal role in whittling down the enemies’ shields and barriers while when on offense, focuses on the squishier targets such as the backline or the flanking Genjis and Tracers.

Of course all the points listed above are just speculations and educated guesses based what we’ve learned during Stage 1 as well as taking into account the latest update to the game. Changes in Overwatch always carry a ripple effect that affects the game in so many ways so we may be well off the mark once Stage 2 gets underway.
Stage 2 kicks off next week, 23rd February 2018 and with the transfer window now open, you can keep track of the players movements here.


Under The Waves Is A New Narrative-Driven Game From Quantic Dream

During Gamescom Opening Night Live 2022, Quantic Dream (publisher) and Parallel Studio (developer) announced Under The Waves.
It’s coming to the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2023.
Under the Waves is a narrative-driven adventure game about the engulfing power of grief. Set in the depths of the North Sea in the techno-futuristic 1970s, professional diver Stan is struggling to overcome a life-changing loss and embrace a new future. The isolation of the deep sea is a fitting manifestation of his state of mind, and as Stan retreads further into his self-imposed solitude, he starts to experience strange events far beneath the waves. He will eventually have to make a difficult choice… stay lost in the depths forever, or break free to the surface and to the rest of his life.
Check out the trailer below:


Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi Series Gets Delayed A Few Days Later

Disney+ has announced (via YouTube) that the Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series will now premiere on the Disney+ Hotstar streaming service on 27 May 2022, which is two days later from its previously-announced release date.
Fans will be happy that due to the delay, we will now be getting two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi at launch.
Obi-Wan Kenobi will be set 10 years after the events of Star Wars Episode III Revenge Of The Sith and presumably before the events of Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope. It is executive-produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Michelle Rejwan, Deborah Chow, McGregor and series writer Joby Harold. Deborah Chow will direct Obi-Wan Kenobi after having helmed two episodes of The Mandalorian.
Other cast members include:

Moses Ingram.
Joel Edgerton.
Bonnie Piesse.
Kumail Nanjiani.
Indira Varma.
Rupert Friend.
Oâ€™Shea Jackson Jr.
Sung Kang.
Simone Kessell.
Benny Safdie.


XDefiants Devs Have Revealed Their Way Of Dealing With ‘Snaking’

Two-time Call of Duty World Champion and XDefiant developer Patrick “ACHES” Price has revealed their implementation of a solution to snaking which has tormented Call of Duty for many titles now.
Ubisoft’s newest FPS game, XDefiant, has been making waves since its closed beta release. It’s even surpassed Call of Duty’s viewership on Twitch, and fans of the series are thrilled to have a new competitor in the arena.
XDefiant has received excellent reviews so far, boasting 14 maps, 18 weapons, and lightning-fast gameplay. And get this, the project was led by Mark Rubin, who has worked on CoD classics like CoD 4, Modern Warfare 2 and 3.
But XDefiant isn’t just a clone of CoD; it takes inspiration from the popular shooter and adds its own twists. ACHES, who used to be a professional player and is now a game designer, has created a feature that’s sure to excite CoD fans. XDefiant punishes players for “snaking” and spamming, which refers to players who quickly switch between prone and crouching positions to gain an advantage without getting caught.
This tactic has become prevalent in high-level CoD play, and it’s been a source of frustration for many players, including Call of Duty League pros. During a Major IV Qualifiers match, a player named Carson “Brack” Newberry used snaking excessively, and the competitive community didn’t react kindly to it.

An XDefiant player recently criticized the game for penalizing jumping and sliding, but ACHES explained the reasoning behind the design decision. The feature is meant to stop spam behaviour, but it shouldn’t limit players from utilizing great movement. Aches elaborated that players who spam sliding, jumping, or crouching will receive an ADS sway penalty, which would make it harder for them to aim.

Want to address and provide context for everyone to see and give feedback. So, this is currently by design. The reason for this is to stop egregious spam behavior. However we do not want to limit the player from utilizing great movement, as I'm sure you've seen (cont.) https://t.co/ujuKAiLpOD
— PATTYP (@ACHES) April 17, 2023

Call of Duty could benefit from implementing a similar feature, as it would theoretically eliminate snaking entirely. Aches also mentioned that the feature is still a work in progress and that they’re open to feedback and suggestions on how to improve it.


Marvel’s Spider-Man PS4 Will Be Getting These Spiffy Far From Home Suits

To commemorate the release of Spider-Man: Far From Home in cinemas, fans who own Spider-Man PS4 will be getting the black and red “Upgrade Suit” plus the Noir-like “Stealth Suit” through a free update.

Playstation Japan tweeted out that the update is currently being delivered with pictures of the respective suits in poses that usually appear in the loading screens.

Though it’s been a while since the release of the three-parter DLC pack “The City Never Sleeps“, the game’s NG+ mode coupled with those oh-so-sweet swinging mechanics will definitely be worth returning to especially now that we’ve got new duds.
For more Spider-Man nonsense, here’s a look at who the heck Mysterio is and also our thoughts on Marvel’s Spider-Man, which won a few “Best of 2018 Kakuchopurei” awards.


Fatal Frame Mask Of The Lunar Eclipse Will Haunt You In 2023

During Nintendo Direct September 2022, Koei Tecmo announced that Fatal Frame Mask Of The Lunar Eclipse will be available digitally for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in early 2023.
Fatal Frame Mask Of The Lunar Eclipse originally released for the Nintendo Wii back in 2008.
Fatal Frame Mask Of The Lunar Eclipse takes place a decade after five girls mysteriously disappeared at a festival on R?getsu Isle, an island in southern Japan. While all of the girls were eventually rescued, their memories were lost, with only the faint remembrance of a single melody and a seemingly possessed masked woman dancing in the moonlight. Now, ten years later, with still no memory of the events surrounding their disappearance, two of the five girls have died — discovered with covered faces and found in a tragic, crying pose. The remaining three girls now head off to the eerie island to solve the mystery of their friends’ death, while also unlocking the mystery of the memories left behind.
As the girls explore the western-style mansions and abandoned hospitals on R?getsu Isle, they will rely on the moonlight and a faint flashlight to search for clues. The story progresses by discovering relics like old newspaper articles and notes that help the girls unravel the island’s secret past. While exploring, the girls will also be confronted by a series of spirits. They will need to use a Fatal Frame franchise classic, the Camera Obscura, to repel vengeful ghosts, sealing away their power by photographing them. Throughout the game, the girls will need to equip stronger lenses and change out different films in order to capture the most powerful spirits, while also using the camera to capture “things that cannot be seen” to help them find the evidence they need to remember their haunting past.
The remastered game features an all-new Photo Mode, along with new and altered costumes, and enhanced graphics including the improved rendering of shadows and light, delivering a more immersive and frightening experience. In addition, in-game movies and character models have been brushed-up to deliver a story that shines, both narratively and aesthetically as the three remaining girls attempt to rediscover their past before becoming victims once again.
Check out the trailer below:


Get Your Very Own Kingdom Hearts 3 Keyblade With These Pre-Orders

With only two weeks left to the highly-anticipated release of Kingdom Hearts 3, Square Enix has revealed our first look at the console-exclusive and store-exclusive pre-order Keyblades for the upcoming game.
There are three exclusive Keyblades for those who pre-order Kingdom Hearts 3 either from: Amazon (international)/Seven Net Shopping in Japan, the PlayStation Store, or the Microsoft Store.
PS4 players will receive pre-order Midnight Blue Keyblade, which is reminiscent of the magic-based Shooting Star Keyblade, albeit with a unique PlayStation-inspired design. When Sora’s attacks connect with enemies, the sparks and particle effects consist of iconic PlayStation Dualshock button symbols. It also comes with the following abilities:

Blizzard Up â€“ Increases damage dealt by blizzard attacks
Blizzagan â€“ Available as a situation command

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNIXnw6PqLg&w=560&h=315]
Meanwhile, Xbox One players will receive the Phantom Green Keyblade, which has a similar design with the Midnight Blue Keyblade albeit with a green color scheme and Xbox-inspired aesthetics. When Sora’s attacks connect with enemies, the sparks and particle effects consist of the iconic Xbox logo. It also comes with the following abilities:

Thunder Up â€“ Increases damage dealt by thunder attacks
Thundagan â€“ Available as a situation command

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5u-4a1PQYo&w=560&h=315]
Last but not least, those who pre-order the game on Amazon or Seven Net Shopping will also receive the Dawn Till Dusk Keyblade, which looks like a more snazzy Kingdom Key. When Sora’s attacks connect with enemies, the sparks and particle effects consist of the crescent moons. It also comes with the following abilities:

Fire Up â€“ Increases damage dealt by fire attacks
Firagan â€“ Available as a situation command

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XurbbFKK790&w=560&h=315]
Kingdom Hearts 3 is slated to release for the PS4 and Xbox One on 29 January 2019. In other related news, the limited edition Kingdom Hearts 3 PS4 Pro is currently available for sale in Malaysia. In the meantime, check out our hands-on preview and impression of the upcoming game here.


Gearbox Dedicates Borderlands 3 Gun To Terminally-Ill Fan; Gets Special Preview Too

A month ago, a huge Borderlands fan by the name of Trevor Eastman posted on Reddit that he was diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal, stomach, and liver cancer in June 2018. He was given one year to live according to doctors.
He made one request: to be able to play Borderlands 3 early before he passes on. And play it he did. The post was shared by fans and ultimately reached the ears of 2K and Gearbox. Not only did Trevor Eastman get to play a special preview of the game, but the company is naming and creating a gun after him (via Twitter).
It’s called the Compressing Trevanator, which is a Legendary shotgun that can switch between Cryo and Fire element. It also has a property labelled “Trev is gunna get you!”; we don’t know what it does but true to Borderlands fashion it’ll make this Maliwan-branded gun unique.
Here’s how it looks like.

Say what you will about Gearbox Software and its CEO Randy Pitchford. But you cannot deny the fact that the company listens and watches its community with some degree of love and passion. The company also did a tribute to a dead fan back in Borderlands 2; they named one of their NPCs after the fan, Michael Mamaril, who will give Vault Hunters random loot when approached.


Netflix’s Sweet Tooth Gets Epic New Trailer

Based on the DC Comic book series by Jeff Lemire, Sweet Tooth is set in a post-apocalyptic fairytale about a hybrid deer-boy and a wandering loner who embark on an extraordinary adventure.
From Executive Producers Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey, Jim Mickle, Beth Schwartz, Amanda Burrell, and Linda Moran, Sweet Tooth tells the story of “The Great Crumble” that wreaked havoc on the world a decade ago that lead to the mysterious emergence of hybrids â€” babies born part human, part animal.
Unsure if hybrids are the cause or result of the virus, many humans fear and hunt them. After a decade of living safely in his secluded forest home, a sheltered hybrid deer-boy named Gus (Christian Convery) unexpectedly befriends a wandering loner named Jepperd (Nonso Anozie). Together they set out on an extraordinary adventure across whatâ€™s left of America in search of answersâ€” about Gus’ origins, Jepperd’s past, and the true meaning of home. But their story is full of unexpected allies and enemies, and Gus quickly learns the lush, dangerous world outside the forest is more complex than he ever could have imagined.
Sweet Tooth premieres on Netflix on 4 June 2021. In the meantime, check out the trailer below:


Syphon Filter Titles Might Be Coming To PS4 & PS5

The Syphon Filter games might be coming out for current consoles soon. The Game Rating and Administration Committee of Korea has rated Syphon Filter, Syphon Filter 2, Syphon Filter Dark Mirror, and Syphon Filter Logan’s Shadow for the PS4 and PS5 (via Gematsu).
Syphon Filter originally launched for the PS1 on February 17, 1999, followed by Syphon Filter 2 on March 14, 2000. Syphon Filter Dark Mirror originally launched for the PSP on March 14, 2006, followed by Syphon Filter Logan’s Shadow on October 2, 2007.
The rumour is that these titles will likely be part of the PlayStation Plus Premium tier, which is set to launch in June 2022. This is because the announcement for that mentioned access to a catalogue of “beloved classic games” from the original PlayStation, PS2, and PSP generations.


Resident Evil Village Drops This May, PS5 Demo Available Today

During the Resident Evil Showcase live stream, Capcom announced that Resident Evil Village is slated to launch for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC on 7 May 2021.
Resident Evil Village Gameplay Details
In Resident Evil Village, players once again assume the role of Ethan Winters but this time in search of his kidnapped daughter. The gameplay in this game will be in first-person like 2017’s Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, but the combat will introduce new elements like blocking/guarding and what looks like a sort of parrying against enemies.
Blocking/guarding in action.

You will also be dealing with a new antagonist: castle owner Lady Dimitrescu (via PlayStation Blog), the tall vampire lady that’s all the talk on the interwebs since she made her presence on a previous teaser. She is accompanied by her three daughters (one of them pictured above), whom who will probably fight in the course of the game.

Resident Evil 4 fans will also be happy to learn that the game’s iconic inventory system will make a triumphant return in Resident Evil Village, which is apt considering the similarities in setting and tone.

Players can also look forward to the return of Resident Evil 4‘s iconic Merchant person, albeit in a new form. In Resident Evil Village, it’s going to be a big guy simply named The Duke, and you’ll be buying your weapons from him.

Â Â
Courtesy of our very own Mr. Toffee, check out some of the Resident Evil Village gameplay footage below:

Resident Evil Village Maiden Demo Exclusive For PS5
In an expected move, a Resident Evil Village demo is already releasing today exclusively for PS5. However, it will be a unique experience, as players will assume the role of a character simply known as the Maiden, and it won’t feature any combat whatsoever. Your objective is apparently just to escape the castle.

Who is this Maiden? We’ll have to play the demo to find out. Another more extensive Resident Evil Village demo will launch sometime in spring 2021, presumably before the full release of the game on 7 May 2021.
Another Multiplayer Companion Game…
They also revealed that it will come with a multiplayer element, just like 2020’s Resident Evil 3 did with Resident Evil Resistance. Free for owners of Resident Evil Village, it’s called Resident Evil Verse. Not much has been revealed, but let’s hope it’s a better experience than Resident Evil Resistance was.

Resident Evil Village Pre-Order And Special Editions
You can already pre-order Resident Evil Village starting from today.
Check out the Resident Evil Village Digital Deluxe Edition below:

And the Resident Evil Village Collector’s Edition below:

Oh, and pre-order bonuses galore too:

In the meantime, you can watch the full live stream & full demo playthrough below:


You Can Now Vamp Up Your Freighter In No Man’s Sky Endurance Update

Hello Games, No Man’s Sky developer, recently dropped the trailer for the Endurance update. This update will introduce and implemented in the upcoming 3.94 FREE updates of the game.
With Endurance, players can now further customise their freighter which prior to this, features and interactivity of the capital ships were arguably very limited. You can now experience space walk on your freighter that you have so passionately decorated and customised. Vamp up and expand your freighter with pre-made rooms which you can further customise into extended interior features, external platforms, and catwalks. Endurance update also embraces enhanced nebulae, deep space stores, fleets of organic frigates, and so much more.
Endurance also enhances the freighter crew experience. You’ll find your specialist crew walking around your base, your engineers, biologists and technicians display their thoughts as they patrol the base, and your hired frigate captains and squadron pilots visit your capital ship in between.

Another subtle but much-appreciated addition introduced in the update is that travelling via black holes now comes with a more impressive cinematic experience. Really gets that inner space explorer in you riled up!

If you’re a player of No Man’s Sky or planning to pick up the game (it’s never too late) down the road, get ready to bask in this much-needed freighter and space experience overhaul update!

Check out their official website for more on this update.
Are you looking forward to Endurance? Do you think updates No Man’s Sky updates has been pretty consistent and impressive each and every launch?Let us know down in the comments or head on over to our socials.


Here’s What Tom Holland and Kevin Feige Officially Said About The Recent Spider-Man Kerfuffle

As of right now, the MCU and Sony live-action Spiderverses are in disarray. To sum it up, Sony and Disney are in conflicts about the film license’s rights which involves producer rights and/or a whole lot of money split 50-50. After a few days of silence, Spider-Man: Homecoming/Far From Home star Tom Holland and MCU film producer Kevin Feige shared their personal feelings in public on Entertainment Weekly.
We’ll start with Tom Holland.

“Basically, weâ€™ve made five great movies. Itâ€™s been five amazing years. Iâ€™ve had the time of my life. Who knows what the future holds? But all I know is that Iâ€™m going to continue playing Spider-Man and having the time of my life.
Itâ€™s going to be so fun, however we choose to do it. The future for Spider-Man will be different, but it will be equally as awesome and amazing, and weâ€™ll find new ways to make it even cooler.”

And now, a few words from Kevin Feige, MCU overlord.

“Iâ€™m feeling about Spider-Man gratitude and joy… We got to make five films within the MCU with Spider-Man: two standalone films and three with the Avengers. It was a dream that I never thought would happen.
It was never meant to last forever. We knew there was a finite amount of time that weâ€™d be able to do this, and we told the story we wanted to tell, and Iâ€™ll always be thankful for that.”

Welp, that’s one way to spin the story and answer in the most non-antagonizing way possible. Still, it doesn’t confirm whether Spider-Man will find his way into the MCU anymore and whether Marvel is ready to share plans for a Spider-free/filled universe.
We’ll be getting more Spider-Man movies, that’s for sure. Whether they’ll be another Into The Spiderverse or another Amazing Spider-Man, that remains to be seen.


Racing Sim Assetto Corsa Surpasses US$120 Million In Sales

Driving simulation development specialist, Kunos Simulazioni and owner Digital Bros have announced that the racing sim franchise Assetto Corsa has reached a record sales of US$120 million.
Kunos Simulazioni, established in 2005 by founders Marco Massarutto and Stefano Casillo, was created with the goal of developing industry-leading driving simulation software. In 2013, Assetto Corsa went into early access on Steam and launched its full version in December 2014.
In August 2016, Digital Bros subsidiary, publisher 505 Games, released the game on PS4 and Xbox One and Assetto Corsa reached an entirely new console audience. The studio was purchased by Digital Bros in 2017. The franchiseâ€™s exponential growth has continued, with the release of Assetto Corsa Competizione on Xbox One and PS4 in 2020, with the game coming to next-gen consoles later this year.Â
To further expand the Assetto Corsa franchise into eSports, the company has appointed Valerio Piersanti in December of 2020. Piersanti comes from Ferrari, holding the position of Head of Business Development. Piersanti undertakes the role of Kunos-Simulazioni Vice President for Licensing & Assetto Corsa Partnerships.
Piersanti said:
â€œI am excited about this challenge and joining the Digital Bros group organization and I would like to express my gratitude in particular to the Galante brothers for the trust they have placed in me.
Assetto Corsa is a brand that I have had the privilege of following with Marco Massarutto since the beginning, through to the collaboration set up with Ferrari.
Now the goal is to fully exploit the potential it has always shown, and consolidate its positioning and partnerships in a rapidly changing context.“
Due to limitations for on-track racing events, the demand for simulation racing in esports has created a renewed momentum for the industry. Using the franchise, Kunos Simulazioni has developed a new esports strategy, with champion drivers from the SRO Motorsports Group and F1 drivers such as Charles Leclerc competing against peers, and together with their partners, Kunos Simulazioni is looking forward to another successful SRO E-Sport GT series this spring.Â


Zack Snyder’s Justice League Uses Halo Emblem For Deathstroke’s Sword

It looks like Zack Snyder’s Justice League may have accidentally used an icon or emblem from the Halo franchise.
It all started whenÂ Twitter user Geoff Reeves visited an exhibition that shows off the costume of Deathstroke (as played by Joe Manganiello) as featured in Zack Snyderâ€™s Justice League. He spotted an emblem on Deathstrokeâ€™s sword, which was presumed to be a reference to Batman villain Raâ€™s Al Ghul and his League Of Shadows.

Checking out @ZackSnyder ‘s #justiceleague display in Dallas & saw this little gem on #Deathstroke ‘s costume worn by @JoeManganiello! The bottom symbol over the shoulder is Ra’s al Ghul! I hope a Deathstroke movie w/ Joe happens. It’s such a Great backstory!#attdesigndistrict pic.twitter.com/zVo1uWzcby
— Geoff Reeves (@GeoffReeves) March 11, 2021

However, Twitter user @TheBatstan later pointed out that the icon on Deathstrokeâ€™s hilt is actually an emblem from the Halo franchise.

So is no one going to point out that that's a symbol from the fucking HALO multiplayer? https://t.co/AatkFUZejV pic.twitter.com/gpAvZnUwJ7
— TheBatstan (@TheBatstan) March 12, 2021

So how did a Halo multiplayer icon wind up in Zack Snyderâ€™s Justice League?
One theory is that someone involved in the costume or weaponâ€™s design did a Google image search for â€œRaâ€™s Al Ghul logo” and the first result is that image.
According to veteran Bungie artist Christopher Barrett, he originally designed that emblem (with the original Adobe Illustrator file to prove it) decades ago:

I still have the original illustrator file pic.twitter.com/0nRieKXHHE
— Christopher Barrett (@cgbarrett) March 14, 2021

The story of how a Halo emblem came to be associated with Batman’s Raâ€™s al Ghul is even more interesting. A fan-fiction creator may have been responsible, as an author on the fandom-crossover wiki Comic Crossroads used a slightly modified version of that Halo icon to represent the League Of Shadows in an alternative comics universe named Earth-5991. In that universe, a fusion of Marvelâ€™s Daredevil and DCâ€™s Batman, Matt Murdock (not Bruce Wayne) becomes the Dark Knight.
In the meantime, you can check out my own review ofÂ Zack Snyderâ€™s Justice LeagueÂ here, or if you donâ€™t have the four hours to spare and watch the movie later this week,Â head on over hereÂ for my breakdown ofÂ Zack Snyderâ€™s Justice LeagueÂ (along with the biggest changes).


New The King’s Man Trailer Teases Sleek Action-Packed WW1 Fest

20th Century Fox has released a new trailer for its upcoming The King’s Man, which will act as a prequel to the previous two instalments in the franchise. While the first two Kingsman movies were riffs and smart satire on classic spy movies like the James Bond franchise, The Kingâ€™s Man looks to be a stylized historical epic action piece.
Set during the early days of World War I (similar to 2017â€™sÂ Wonder Woman),Â The Kingâ€™s ManÂ starsÂ Ralph FiennesÂ as the Duke of Oxford andÂ Harris DickinsonÂ as his protege Conrad, in place of the roles previously portrayed byÂ Colin Firthâ€˜s Galahad andÂ Taron Egertonâ€˜s Eggsy.
It’s fascinating to note that the action scenes and fight choreography in The King’s Man seem to focus more on sleek close-quarters combat involving swords and knives, which is appropriate for the era. Of course, there are still primitive rifles, machine guns and the like, as seen in the trailer.

The official synopsis reads:

As a collection of historyâ€™s worst tyrants and criminal masterminds gather to plot a war to wipe out millions, one man must race against time to stop them.
Discover the origins of the very first independent intelligence agency inÂ The Kingâ€™s Man.

The movie also starsÂ Rhys IfanÂ (The Amazing Spider-Man),Â Gemma ArtertonÂ (Prince Of Persia),Â Matthew Goode,Â Tom Hollander,Â Daniel BrÃ¼hlÂ (Captain America: Civil War),Â Djimon HounsouÂ (Guardians Of The Galaxy), andÂ Charles DanceÂ (Game Of Thrones).
My favourite quote from the trailer comes from Ralph Fiennes’ Duke Of Oxford:

“Our enemies think we are gentle men but reputation is what people think of you, character is what you are.”

The Kingâ€™s ManÂ is slated to release on Valentineâ€™s Day (14 February) in 2020. Check out the trailer below.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pbLPOrTSsI&w=560&h=315]


Corsair Acquires Controller Maestros SCUF Gaming

High-performance gaming and PC peripherals brand Corsair has acquired high-performance controller makers SCUF Gaming. The acquisition is expected to be finalised by the end of December 2019.
SCUF Gaming is best known for making third-party high-performance luxury controllers for major gaming brands like PlayStation, Xbox, and for the PC. Their controllers are often modular by feature and design, built to individual specs and making it possible for players to gain an advantage in competitive gaming.
Corsair CEO and founder Andy Paul said:

â€œWe are thrilled to greatly expand our portfolio of industry-leading peripherals and enter the gaming controller space to help gamers play at their best.
SCUF leads the market for performance controllers and are a key ingredient to the success of countless esports professionals.
SCUF will make an excellent and winning addition to the vast lineup of award-winning CORSAIR and Elgato products.â€

SCUF Gaming is actually Corsair’s second major acquisition in 2019 alone, after acquiring another PC peripherals brand earlier this year in July; Origin PC. Elgato (known for their gaming products for streaming and such) has also been owned by Corsair since 2018.
While SCUF Gaming will be under Corsair, they will continue to operate from their HQ in Atlanta and other regional offices. All existing SCUF Gaming warranties, purchases, and support will remain unaffected, as they will continue to be provided by SCUF Gaming themselves.
In the meantime, check out the awesome announcement trailer from Corsair below.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOyZ2ffU2D0&w=560&h=315]
(From Corsair via Lowyat)


E3 2019: Auto Chess Is Going To Be A Thing On Epic Games Store, Huh?

One of the most popular mods for Dota 2 is going to be a standalone game on the Epic Games Store. Hooray for those people, I guess.
Dota Auto Chess, a joy-filled deck-based Dota 2 game that made Artifact obsolete and Malaysian/Singaporean streamers go nuts over for some unknown reason, was so popular it’s going to be a Valve-made game on Steam. However, original modder Drodo Studios will not be helping the company out for that version, opting to develop the one for Epic Games.

Here’s why Valve cannot work together with Drodo:

“We had great conversations, but we both came to the conclusion that Valve and Drodo could not work directly with each other for a variety of reasons. We ended up agreeing that weâ€™ll each build our own stand-alone version of the game, and support each other to the fullest.”

The version for Epic Games Store is called, well, Auto Chess, and will also roll out for mobile. In other words, we’re living in a world where there are two types of Auto Chess games, one for each rival digital distribution store. Jesus.


Dead Island 2 Sales Surpasses 2 Million Units Worldwide

Embracer Group, the parent company of publisher Deep Silver has announced in its latest interim financial report that Dead Island 2 has sold over two million units. The holding company reported its most recent financial results for Q4 of its current fiscal year (January 2023 to March 2023) in which it showed strong initial sales for developer Dambuster Studios’ long-awaited sequel to Dead Island.

Last month, one million copies were sold in three days after the sequel launched for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Epic Games Store on 21 April 2023.
Lars Wingefors, Embracer Group co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), said:
“I am happy to state that the game has now reached a sell-out of well over two million units. It is rewarding to see that the decision to give [Dambuster Studios] time to polish the game has paid off.”
This achievement has become Deep Silver and PLAION’s biggest launch ever in terms of both units and revenue – quite an accomplishment considering how long the game’s development had been hanging in the balance. Fortunately, the latest Dead Island entry received an overall positive response, and in our review, we praised the game’s design, satisfying combat, and characters. If you played the game, check out our guide on how to become a zombie slayer.
Watch our interview with Dambuster Studios leads, Khan and Dan Evans-Lawes about Dead Island 2’s less-than-serious tone, the art direction, and future DLC.


Sink Your Teeth Into Indonesia-Made Dating Sim My Lovely Wife Next Month

Indonesian developer GameChanger Studio and Neon Doctrine have announced the release date of My Lovely Wife: a Dating Sim, and Alchemy Sim, and Management Sim rolled into one delightfully morbid, narrative-rich package. The spiritual sequel to My Lovely Daughter; My Lovely Wife delves into a tale of grief, dark magic, and murder.
My Lovely Wife will be available on Switch and PC on 8 June 2022.
Players will assume the role of Jake, an ordinary man in extraordinary pain. After the sudden death of his beloved wife Luna, a mysterious benefactor offers an interesting proposition: Gather an alchemical substance known as Carnal Essence, and in return, he will Luna back from the dead. However, the only way to gather Carnal Essence is to summon devilish beings knows as succubi and have them extract it from willing humans.
Carnal Essence’s potency depends on the feelings of the succubi for their summoner; the deeper the affection, the more potent the essence. Unfortunately, acquiring Carnal Essence requires the sacrifice of the succubi, meaning that the only way to bring Luna back is to betray and kill them to create a vessel for Luna’s soul.
With each of the twenty available succubi having their own unique characteristics and desires, Jake will have his hands full trying to keep them all happy enough to get the carnal essence he needs, as well as dealing with the guilt that comes with betraying them. Whether you use and manipulate the succubi to your own ends; manipulating and murdering them to accomplish your goals, or find love with one of them depends on you and your choices. With 42 different endings, My Lovely Wife lets you choose your own path.
A mix of dating simulation, escort management, and alchemy simulators brought to life in a gruesome, gothic fantasy art style, My Lovely Wife asks its players how much they’re willing to sacrifice to fulfill their heart’s desire, or whether they want (or are able) to move on and say goodbye.
In the meantime, check out the trailer below:


Hitman 2’s Sniper Assassin Mode Understands Its Scope

When a franchise is under a new wing -in this case, it’s the Hitman series now distributed under Warner Bros. – it’s time to start anew. What’s the best way to do that after telling everyone that it’s ditching the episodic model that obviously worked in favour of a single-player story that people are on the fence about? Why with a free arcade-style game that stays true to the Hitman style and tone to make people forget that bit of earlier news for even a moment.
Hitman Sniper Assassin came out for PS4, Xbox One, and PC a few weeks ago before E3 2018; I got around to playing this bad boy right after E3 2018 week. Even if you’re late to the party like yours truly, this sniper challenge is worth checking out if only to see how well you can rank up. You can thank IO Interactive for keeping the series’ ingenuity intact.
Shots Fired
The gist is you play as Agent 47 as you take down three main targets and 10 of their bodyguards during a wedding reception in an isolated mansion not unlike the one in those 80s action flicks. You are armed withÂ a sniper rifle and your Hitman instincts where you can highlight your targets amidst the swarm of rich twats and socialites and also slow down time to get your swaying aim right. And you only have 15 minutes to pull this off.
It sounds easy enough if you’re just aiming to kill just the three marks, but the magic of Hitman Sniper Assassin is the scoring system where you are testing yourself to see how fast and how efficient you can kill all your targets. As soon as you kill your first target, the time bonus goes into effect and you can’t afford to slow down if you want the highest-possible multiplier.
You have to factor in the environment as well. You can shoot down speakers placed all over the top parts of the mansion to give your targets a permanent concussion or shoot their legs so that they fly off into the pool where their body can sink into the water, undetected. You can even go aggro and blow up the wedding cake to lure your targets to where you want them to go.
A Long Shot?
Long story short: it’s good to know that the Hitman logic and puzzle-solving is being put to full use here. With multiple ways to tackle this special scenario, this little pet project shows that perhaps developer IO Interactive might do good with the upcoming sequel reboot of sorts.
Is this free game worth putting a Hitman 2 pre-order for? Probably, though there is a chance that Warner Bros. might release the first level of the Sniper Assassin mode as a demo after Hitman 2 is out this 13 November. I stress on the word “might” since these are big conglomerates we’re dealing with, after all.


It’s Ellie Vs. The World In The Last Of Us Part 2

If you’ve been eagerly anticipating the release of The Last Of Us Part 2, I’m sure you’ve already seen the eight minutes worth of new gameplay footage unveiled by Naughty Dog last week. With the review copy of the game, I’ve received the privilege of playing through the full section of the short sequence shown in that same footage.
Lasting approximately two hours, the chapter begins with The Last Of Us Part 2 protagonist Ellie setting out to find and hunt down Nora, one of several antagonists in the game, who is at a nearby hospital. It’s already been previously established that there are several factions in The Last Of Us Part 2, including the militia group Washington Liberation Front (WLF) and the cult-like Seraphites of Scars.

As I ventured out from my base of operations (which I can’t reveal), I had to pass through a section of the city. The Last Of Us Part 2 encourages exploration and the rewards scavenging, as I discovered more weapons, items, and even additional story moments simply by going off the beaten path. Game director Neil Druckmann wasn’t kidding when he said that certain story and narrative moments can be missable.
The first obstacle in my path was an abandoned newspaper building. It was darker than usual inside, and I met one of the more annoying types of Infected; the Stalkers. The Stalkers are sort of a hybrid between Runners and Clickers, as they still have eyesight albeit with more durability and speed. They probably got their name from the fact that they like to hide and ambush people when they least expect it.

Anyways, I had to fight my way through several swarms (yes, swarms) of Stalkers in the dimly-lit and narrow offices of the newspaper building before finally escaping into a sewer. Fortunately, my time in the sewer was brief and I managed to get out to relative safety. Or so I thought.
As I stumbled upon a heavily-forested area, I heard an unidentified and chilling whistling sound in the distance, before an arrow strikes Ellie in her shoulder. They caught me completely by surprise as I was passing through a seemingly safe forested area, hitting Ellie with an arrow to the shoulder.

Ellie shrugs off the arrow by pulling it out, and I’m met with more echoes of creepy whistling sounds approaching.

It turns out that this was the work of the Seraphites, or Scars. That’s right, unlike the conventional militia troopers of the WLF, the Scars communicate with each other not by speaking, but instead by whistling as if they’re descended from dolphins.

Imagine getting stalked by a bunch of fanatical weirdos who whistle to signal their friends, like they’re aliens from outer space.

Despite being freaked out, I was actually at an advantage, seeing as the forested area gave me sufficient places to go prone (lie down on my belly to avoid detection). This is a new mechanic introduced in The Last Of Us Part 2, improving the stealth options in combat. I essentially crawled my way to each Scar grunt and picked them off one by one. To my horror, I had to fight even more Scars in the next area, which can be seen in the E3 2018 gameplay trailer, if you’re interested.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btmN-bWwv0A&w=560&h=315]
After defeating the mysterious Scars, I finally entered the area as seen in the gameplay footage revealed last week, and encountered the now-famous girl with the PlayStation Vita. Even after killing her, I could clearly see the PlayStation Vita on the ground, still intact, with the screen actually showing Hotline Miami.

What’s amusing here -and a nice piece of detail I’d like to point out- is that I could still hear the subtle tunes and hum of MOONâ€™s “Hydrogen”, one of the most popular songs from the first Hotline Miami.

Then, I found myself in a huge compound outside the hospital with quite a number of WLF goons strewn about. My first course of action was taking out the sniper on the watchtower as soon as possible, then picking off the WLF soldiers I could spot from above. It’s strange though, the AI seems to be a bit dumb, in that they couldn’t pinpoint my location.

I know this because none of them even attempted to climb up the ladder to the watchtower where I was camped. I expected them to rush or at least converge to my location, but they didn’t, so I had to abandon my elevated position on the watchtower and come down to finish the rest of the stragglers off. As I made my way deeper into the hospital, I finally found Nora, but that’s all I can say for now.
This two-hour section retains the same dramatic narrative and tight action beats that we’ve come to expect from the original The Last Of Us. The weapons pack the same satisfying punch and it’s as thrilling as ever.

I sincerely hope that the rest of the game will be able to keep up the same level of quality and pacing until the finish line. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s looking pretty bright for Naughty Dog.

Stay tuned for our full review for The Last Of Us Part 2 on 12th June. The Last Of Us Part 2 is slated to release on 19 June 2020.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eML5icfq5VM&w=560&h=315]


Gun Gun Pixies Is A Third-Person Shooter Featuring Tiny Skimpily-Clothed Girls Shooting Up A Female Dormitory

That’s a mouthful of a headline, I must confess. Companies Compile Heart and Noisy Pixel will be releasing a third-person shooter called Gun Gun Pixies that pretty much features what most men want in their lives: control over tiny women who shoot endorphins at college girls without being spotted.
Why are these midget maidens doing this? Because they’re aliens “studying human behaviour in order to help overcome the social issues of their beloved home planet”. Observe how they…well…observe.

If that isn’t similar to an ahegao face, I don’t know what is. Don’t Google what ahegao is if you’re in the office, by the by.
Also, if you’re low on energy during your recon mission, you’ll get naked.

It’s pretty much on-par with Inti Creates’ Gal Gun series, at least in the ero and story justification aspect of things.
While Gun Gun Pixies isn’t technically a new game -it was a PS Vita exclusive in Japan back in April 2017, this is the first time the game will be getting an English release for Switch and PC this year. So basically, it’s the first time a lot of us has heard about this pretty obscure title.
Full video below if this madness piques your interest.


John Wick Game Announced, Featuring XCOM-Like Gameplay

A John Wick game is in the works by Thomas Was Alone and Volume developer Mike Bithell and his studio, Bithell Games. Titled ‘John Wick Hex‘, it’s a “fast-paced, action-oriented strategy game” based on Lionsgate’s John Wick franchise being developed for unspecified console platforms, PC, and Mac.
The PC and Mac versions of John Wick Hex will be exclusive to the Epic Games Store. Here is the game’s official description:

“Players must choose every action and attack they make while considering their immediate cost and consequences.
Every move in John Wick Hex feels like a scene from the movies, and every fight contributes to your progress on the job and requires precise strategic thinking.”

John Wick Hex also features an original story and unique graphic noir art design, as well as some of the voice cast from the movies, including Ian McShane (Winston) and Lance Reddick (Charon).
The gameplay is very similar to the likes of XCOM and other tactical strategy titles, described by Bithell as “fight-choreographed chess”. Progressing in the main story will unlock new weapons, suit options and locations. Each weapon will require different tactics, but ammo is limited.
No release date has been revealed for John Wick Hex as of yet. Perhaps we’ll learn more about the game at E3 2019. In the meantime, check out the announcement trailer for John Wick Hex below.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nEwjqisgGY&w=560&h=315]


Bandai Namco’s Latest Sci-Fi Game Is Called Synduality

Bandai Namco has debuted an announcement trailer for a brand new multiplayer game titled Synduality. The third-person sci-fi shooter game will be released in 2023.
There’s currently no word on whether or not the game will be exclusively on PS5 or if they’ll also port it over to PS4.

Thanks to a PlayStation blog that was released alongside the announcement, we now know a lot more in regards to the plot and landscape
The trailer opens with an Arthur C. Clarke quote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
We are then introduced to a young woman with a silver bob-cut along with the game’s protagonist who pilots an AI mech named Magus and together explores a dystopian landscape in the year 2222. A catastrophic rain event known as Tears of the New Moon nearly eradicated the human race. Survivors fled to the underground city of Amasia.
The protagonist is known as a Drifter, someone who must sell AO Crystals to survive. AO Crystals can only be harvested from the polluted outside world where there are many dangers such as large dog-like enemies called “Enders” and violent mechs. To travel, you’ll drive around in a vehicle called the Cradle Coffin, which you can customize.
The game will also have a unique PvP option, wherein playing online will support encounters with other players on their own missions meaning you might clash while trying to gather precious supplies.


Director Reveals First Look At Robert Pattinson Batman Suit

Director Matt Reeves has finally revealed our first look at Robert Pattinson’s Batman suit from the upcoming The Batman movie. He shared a brief screen test teaser of the actor in the new and unique Batman suit on his personal Twitter account, accompanied by Michael Giacchino’s ominous and epic new The Batman theme.

#TheBatman#CameraTesthttps://t.co/M1tAE2aTA1
â€” Matt Reeves (@mattreevesLA) February 13, 2020

Robert Pattinson’s Batman suit looks a lot more makeshift than previous incarnations, as the metallic Batman logo on his chest seems to be made of the gun that Joe Chill used to kill his parents. This could be inspired by a story penned by Kevin Smith in the landmark 1000th issue of Detective Comics, in which Batman actually does that for his chest logo.

Robert Pattinson’s Batman suit also looks like it was inspired by two lesser-known versions of the Dark Knight from the comics. If you notice, he has an elevated collar of sorts, which has never been seen in any of the live-action Batmen so far.
I know of two Batman suits that feature an elevated collar. That’s the one from Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola’s Gotham By Gaslight Elseworlds one-shot comic and a Batsuit worn by a future version of Damian Wayne AKA the son of Bruce Wayne (which first debuted in Detective Comics issue #966). Check them out below:
Cover art of Batman Gotham By Gaslight animated adaptation.
Mike Mignola’s original version of Gotham By Gaslight Batman.
Damian Wayne’s Batman suit.
It also reminds me a bit of Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo’s Batman, especially the ruggedness and overall look of it.
From the Batman: Damned comics.
As good as Robert Pattinson’s Batman looks, we still have a while yet until it will be released. The Batman is slated to premiere on 25 June 2021. The cast (so far) includes Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne AKA Batman, Jeffrey Wright as Commissioner James Gordon, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot AKA The Penguin, Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle AKA Catwoman, and John Turturro as Carmine Falcone.
In the meantime, check out why I think Robert Pattinson will be a great Batman (or not) here.


SoulCalibur VI Is Going To Feature Guest Characters After All…

The SoulCalibur series had its fair shares of guest characters; some logical, some absurd. For every Ezio Auditore coming in, we get Darth Vader and Yoda.
Leave it to Bandai Namco to continue the guest character train for its sword-combat series. We now have Geralt of Rivia in the game, in his Witcher 3: Wild Hunt getup and his steel/silver sword combo.

Here’s what we gathered from this gameplay alone:
-He has his Quen sign, Igni sign, and Axii sign from Witcher 3. He uses the Igni and Axii sign for his SoulCalibur VI super move; it’s pretty awesome.
-According to the presser we got, his fighting style is a “combination of swordplay, ability-enhancing potions, and combat magic”. Which means he can buff himself up mid-match. And tossÂ explosions when needed.
-Bandai Namco’s Project Soul team worked closely withÂ CD Projekt Red, according to the latter’s community lead Marcin Momot. So far, they’ve got his moves, his spells, and his twirly attack animation right, so hooray!

SoulCalibur VI is coming out in 2018. In the meantime, we’ve done a quick recap of the series’ alchemist tart Ivy Valentine.Â


Celebrating The Best Of 90s PC Gaming Sound Blaster Ad Lib Soundtracks

On 4 January 2023, Creative Technology founder Sim Wong Hoo passed away. He was 67.
Sim founded the Singapore-based tech company in 1981 and has spearheaded the company since the beginning. For those who don’t know, Creative Technology is well-known for its Sound Blaster sound cards, wireless speakers, headphones, and even fancy soundbars. But every 90s PC gamer will remember the game-changing Sound Blaster since it was the most popular sound card to buy for desktops back in the day.
Gamers in that period who had 386s and 486s were definitely blessed with the best and catchiest music to come out from these revolutionary sound cards. Check out our full SoundScape tribute to Sound Blaster Ad Lib PC gaming music. It’s quite a nostalgia trip!

If you want more, well, here are a few other OSTs that weren’t in the video.
Dune 2: The Battle For Arrakis had quite an RTS-style OST from Frank Klepacki, making the most out of it before CD music technology became the standard in PC gaming.

Before EA killed off this company, Origin was always pushing the limit in PC gaming, creating spectacular powerhouse games like the Ultima and Ultima Underworld games, as well as the Wing Commander series of first-person space shooters. The latter came with DOS-flavoured soundtracks that featured some chillax tracks pre-flight.

Speaking of which, the Ultima Underworld soundtracks revel in being a fantasy medley of music that feels “simple”, but rather evokes that sense of adventure and dungeon-crawling that’s expected of the heroic Avatar. Good stuff!

Prince of Persia’s intro theme from Francis Mechner had that Arabian Nights’ mystical feel to it.

The Indiana Jones adventure game, Fate of Atlantis, featured a majestic soundtrack with that pulp action adventure tinge to them.

What are your favourite 90s PC gaming Sound Blaster Ad Lib soundtracks? Let us know!


Kerbal Space Program 2 Delayed To 2023

Intercept Division has announced that Kerbal Space Program 2 has been delayed to early 2023.
In a YouTube video, creative director Nate Simpson said:
“We are building a game of tremendous technological complexity, and are taking this additional time to ensure we hit the quality and level of polish it deserves. We remain focused on making sure KSP2 performs well on a variety of hardware, has amazing graphics, and is rich with content.
We’ve built a spectacular team at Intercept Games—a team that includes, as previously mentioned, key members from the development team behind the original Kerbal Space Program. We have the perfect combination of experienced, passionate, and skilled developers to fully realize this game’s ambitious potential.”
Kerbal Space Program 2 is slated to release for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC sometime in 2023.


Epic & Improbable Create US$25 Million Fund To Help Move Devs Away From Unity

Improbable and Epic Games have announced a $25 million fund to help move developers to “more open engines,” in response to the news that the license for SpatialOS to operate with the Unity Engine has been revoked due to a sudden breath of its terms of service.
Improbable’s SpatialOS has always worked with almost all of the popular and major game engines, including the Unity Engine, to give developers a cloud-based solution for multiplayer gaming for many platforms. According to both Improbable and Epic Games, Unity’s actions will affect many developers negatively and disrupt the development of games, especially those by smaller indie companies.
“Recent changes by Unity to their terms of service have raised concerns among developers about their future ability to choose freely among engines, middleware SDKs, stores, and cloud service providers,â€ said Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney and Improbable CEO Herman Narula in an official statement. â€œWorse, it has left some live and in-development games in legal limbo.”
According to them, this $25 million funding will come from “a variety of sources including Unreal Dev Grants, Improbable developer assistance funds, and Epic Games store funding.â€
Unity has since defended itself by giving out its own official statement on the issue at hand. According to the company, the revoked license only applies to new games running SpatialOS. However, games already running SpatialOS and the Unity Engine together will not be affected.
“Projects that are currently in production or live using SpatialOS are not affected by any actions we have taken with Improbable,â€ said Unity tech chief Joachim Ante in a recent blog post. â€œWe have never communicated to any game developer that they should stop operating a game that runs using Improbable as a service.â€
Unity also claims that they informed Improbable of the terms of service violation more than a year ago, which indicates that the Unity’s move isn’t so ‘sudden’ after all. While Unity admits that the specific wordings have recently been updated, the company claims that it was only for the purpose of clarification.
The Big Picture
Whatever the immediate fallout of this conflict will be, it looks like it will probably benefit Epic Games most in the long-term. Fewer developers will be using the Unity Engine, especially those that utilize SpatialOS in their games, in order to avoid legal problems in the future.
An example of an upcoming game running on the SpatialOS platform is Automaton Games’ Mavericks: Proving Grounds. Together with the powerful CryEngine, SpatialOS will allow the game to feature as many as 1,000 players at any one time.
Mavericks: Proving Grounds


Diablo 2: Resurrected Players Demanding Refunds After Many Login & Server Issues [Update]

Update [16/10/2021]: We’ve added why the outages have been happening.
Following our Diablo 2: Resurrected server outage and login issues story a couple of days ago, players from all over the world are really making their frustrations heard.
The outages are due to the game’s authentication servers, which started after Blizzard patched the Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch versions of the game on 6th October.

[#D2R]  As part of our continued investigation into the issues over the past few days, our team will be actively monitoring and reacting to the situation during peak play times and there may be periods where logins or game creation are limited
— Blizzard CS – The Americas (@BlizzardCS) October 13, 2021

We continue working to resolve the login issues in #D2R as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by today's outages.
— Blizzard CS – The Americas (@BlizzardCS) October 11, 2021

Players who experienced these outages and using the US, Asia, and UK servers are taking to social media to demand refunds. Here are but a few examples:
 Guess who’s down !? Down again (8) ! from      Diablo

 This is rapidly approaching "i would like a refund territory" from      Diablo

Comment from discussion .

There’s even a #RefundD2R thing on Twitter.

Damn guys, login problems are like once a day.. #RefundD2R
— Samuel Giudice (@SamuelGiudice) October 12, 2021

#refundD2R same day, same time, same channel. This is unbelievable. 5 days in this shit
— Alex C – Moonspell (@alexcasjim) October 13, 2021

No refunds either – on a game that is consistently unplayable #refundd2r pic.twitter.com/8jEIlZjaFq
— Matt Bradshaw (@Snipe_Dogg) October 12, 2021

We hope to hear from Blizzard about this escalating issue soon. In the meantime, perhaps it’s time you revisited Diablo 3, which is all sorts of stable at this point in time?
Why Is This Happening?
Blizzard posted a lengthy official update as to why the server outages have been happening:
“Our server outages have not been caused by a singular issue; we are solving each problem as they arise, with both mitigating solves and longer-term architectural changes. A small number of players have experienced character progression lossâ€“moving forward, any loss due to a server crash should be limited to several minutes.
This is not a complete solve to us, and we are continuing to work on this issue. Our team, with the help of others at Blizzard, are working to bring the game experience to a place that feels good for everyone.
Weâ€™re going to get a little bit into the weeds here with some engineering specifics, but we hope that overall this helps you understand why these outages have been occurring and what weâ€™ve been doing to address each instance, as well as how weâ€™re investigating the overall root cause. Letâ€™s start at the beginning.
In staying true to the original game, we kept a lot of legacy code. However, one legacy service in particular is struggling to keep up with modern player behavior.
This service, with some upgrades from the original, handles critical pieces of game functionality, namely game creation/joining, updating/reading/filtering game lists, verifying game server health, and reading characters from the database to ensure your character can participate in whatever it is youâ€™re filtering for. Importantly, this service is a singleton, which means we can only run one instance of it in order to ensure all players are seeing the most up-to-date and correct game list at all times. We did optimize this service in many ways to conform to more modern technology, but as we previously mentioned, a lot of our issues stem from game creation.
We mention â€œmodern player behaviorâ€ because itâ€™s an interesting point to think about. In 2001, there wasnâ€™t nearly as much content on the internet around how to play Diablo II â€œcorrectlyâ€ (Baal runs for XP, Pindleskin/Ancient Sewers/etc for magic find, etc). Today, however, a new player can look up any number of amazing content creators who can teach them how to play the game in different ways, many of them including lots of database load in the form of creating, loading, and destroying games in quick succession. Though we did foresee thisâ€“with players making fresh characters on fresh servers, working hard to get their magic-finding itemsâ€“we vastly underestimated the scope we derived from beta testing.
Additionally, overall, we were saving too often to the global database: There is no need to do this as often as we were. We should really be saving you to the regional database, and only saving you to the global database when we need to unlock youâ€“this is one of the mitigations we have put in place. Right now we are writing code to change how we do this entirely, so we will almost never be saving to the global database, which will significantly reduce the load on that server, but that is an architecture redesign which will take some time to build, test, then implement.”
Long story short: the old game’s code is causing most of the problems. Here’s how they’re solving it currently; chief of them using queues:
Rate limiting:Â We are limiting the number of operations to the database around creating and joining games, and we know this is being felt by a lot of you. For example, for those of you doing Pindleskin runs, youâ€™ll be in and out of a game and creating a new one within 20 seconds. In this case, you will be rate limited at a point. When this occurs, the error message will say there is an issue communicating with game servers: this is not an indicator that game servers are down in this particular instance, it just means you have been rate limited to reduce load temporarily on the database, in the interest of keeping the game running. We can assure you this is just mitigation for nowâ€“we do not see this as a long-term fix.
Login Queue Creation:Â This past weekend was a series of problems, not the same problem over and over again. Due to a revitalized playerbase, the addition of multiple platforms, and other problems associated with scaling, we may continue to run into small problems. To diagnose and address them swiftly, we need to make sure the â€œherdingâ€â€“large numbers of players logging in simultaneouslyâ€“stops. To address this, we have people working on a login queue, much like you may have experienced in World of Warcraft. This will keep the population at the safe level we have at the time, so we can monitor where the system is straining and address it before it brings the game down completely. Each time we fix a strain, weâ€™ll be able to increase the population caps. This login queue has already been partially implemented on the backend (right now, it looks like a failed authentication in the client) and should be fully deployed in the coming days on PC, with console to follow after.
Breaking out critical pieces of functionality into smaller services:Â This work is both partially in progress for things we can tackle in less than a day (some have been completed already this week) and also planned for larger projects, like new microservices (for example, a GameList service that is only responsible for providing the game list to players). Once critical functionality has been broken down, we can look into scaling up our game management services, which will reduce the amount of load.


Marvel’s Shang-Chi Gets Action-Packed First Trailer

The first trailer for Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten RingsÂ has arrived, and it’s full of kung fu action.
It stars Simu Liu as the titular Shang-Chi, Tony Leung as Wenwu AKA the real Mandarin (not the imposter from the 2013’s Iron Man 3), and Awkwafina as Katy.
What’s interesting here is Tony Leung’s Wenwu AKA the Mandarin. Fans will be glad to learn that they’ll be getting a more comic-accurate version of the famous comic book villain. According to an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton described Wenwu:
“A character like Wenwu could have easily been a one-dimensional villain with no heart.
Tony opened this character up [so] this is an antagonist who has a deep ability to love.
I think people hear ‘the Mandarin’ and expect a very specific kind of thing, and that may not be the thing they’re getting.
They’re hopefully getting a more complex and layered take on the character than that name would lead you to.”
Tony Leung as Wenwu AKA the Mandarin.
The Mandarin’s ten rings in action.
Check out the official poster below:

Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings is slated to premiere in Malaysian cinemas on 2 September 2021.