Monthly News May 2020

==Battle Adverisement==
*Fantasy RTS Army User Royale Sign-Ups: A battle royale by the brilliant mind that brought you Hippoman comes a user tourney with a new spin on it. Instead of the usual free-for-all battles between powerful martial artists, mages, and swordsmen, this tourney is a battle of armies. Masterminds of strategy lead their men into battle while bold and fearless warriors charge ahead, inspiring awe and fear from their foes. Will your army reign supreme?
*Tenth Anniversary Royale: From one user BR to the other, veteran user Leolab brings us a battle royale to celebrate our upcoming tenth anniversary. You already made your character for it, so what are you waiting for? Go to the blog and vote. Don't be a Shinji.
*Armed Forces of Malta vs. Luxembourg Army: Even though Malta and Luxembourg are among the smallest nations of Europe, even they have brave men and women who are not afraid to die for their country. But what happens when these two micronations have a battle of epic proportions? Which one will come out on top?
*World War: Though the name may imply something different, this battle does not involve soldiers and commanders from the great wars. No, in this battle, warriors hailing from the former Allied and Axis nations to do battle to bring glory to their country. As the dust settles and the losers lie in the dirt, only one can claim the title of the Deadliest Warrior.
*Bo' Rai Cho (Mortal Kombat) vs. Po (Kung Fu Panda): Everyone easily underestimates plus-sized people. They are fat after all, how can they fight with all that weight? These two, however, show that you don't need to be a musclebound Schwarzenegger lookalike to kick some major ass. In this battle, the drunken master of Lui Kang and Kung Lao takes on the legendary Dragon Warrior. Which one of these unstoppable forces be left standing after they collide? Only one way to find out.
*Philipine's Most Wanted: The Philipines, an archipelagic country rich with history and culture with a landscape as bright and varied as the people that inhabit it. But not all if well in this Pacific paradise, as criminal groups fight for power to the detriment of the people. Including the New People's Army, a guerrilla group who fight to establish a communist government, Abu Sayyaff, violent Moros who will stop at nothing to put the islands under sharia law, and the Waray-Waray gangs, brutal mercenaries who use the government's corruption to their benefit. As these three evil organizations fight for dominance, who will be the Deadliest Warrior?
*Seven Deadly Sins: Gluttony, lust, pride, greed, sloth, and wrath. The seven deadly sins, each representing an aspect of human excessiveness that stand against everything that is good in the eyes of God. In this battle, seven warriors each representing a sin battles for supremacy. The prise? The fulfilment of their deepest, darkest desires.
==Popculture News==
*Rick May, best known as the voice of Soldier in Team Fortress 2 and Andross and Peppy O'Hare in StarFox64, has died after contracting COVID-19. Besides being a well known voice actor, May is also a prolific theater and opera director and director having worked on over 300 shows including Fiddler on the Roof, Death of a Salesman, and The Odd Couple. In honour of his memory, Valve added golden statues of the Soldier in various Team Fortress maps. Rest in peace soldier, you've earned it.
*Fans of the game developing and publishing company Valve were in for a brief scare as the source code to their biggest games Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive leaked onto the internet. As a result many feared that hackers could use the leaked information to hack into the games and upload a virus that players could contract that could mess with their Steam account or maybe even their own computers. But Valve themselves have come out saying that the codes were rather old and do not apply to the current game code but have started an investigation regardless.
*The end of the school year is approaching but because of the quarantine graduation ceremonies and proms have been cancelled. Normally that would have been it, with many students resign to simply stay at home and be sad about it. But thanks to the power of video games, there is another way. Instead of having proms and graduation ceremonies in real life, students are now organizing them in Animal Crossing: New Horizons by decorating their islands and inviting their friends who also have the game onto their island. While this is in no way a perfect substitute, it is nice to see people come together despite the quarantine.
*With cinemas being forced to stay close amid the corona crisis prominent movie studios have been forced to realise their latest movies onto streaming platforms in order to make a profit. Normally you would think that this would cause them to lose out on potential customers, but because everyone is forced to stay at home more are using streaming platforms than ever before so the movie studios have been making their money back and even seeing some success. This has caused some studios to become disillusioned with cinemas with spokespeople of Universal openly questioning their use after the success of Trolls World Tour. In response, major cinemas chains such as Cineworld and AMC Theatres declaring that they would no longer screen Universal movies. If this is a sign of things to come remains to be seen.