Thursday, September 29, 2016

News:: Logitech's newest webcam is for the livestreamers

With eSports shaping up to be a half-a-billion dollar industry this year, now would be a good time to step up your livestreaming game if you're hoping to get noticed among the packs of Twitch streamers and YouTubers. Enter Logitech's latest webcam: the C922 Pro Stream, designed specifically for gamers with 1080p streaming at 30 frames per second and dynamic background replacement to make your face streams really pop.

Source: Logitech Blog



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News:: Quantum Break finally arrives on Steam, so here are some deals

Timed exclusives are pretty stupid, particularly when you try your best to keep the rest of the gamers on a major platform from picking up a copy of a decent title. Quantum Break has made its way onto Steam today and off the Windows Store (and Windows 10). The Games for Windows Live déjà vu aside, the game is quite good and garnering positive reception from users on Steam.

If you're a PC gamer who has been eying it since earlier this year, you can now pick the game up for your Windows 7 or 8 machine on Steam. Yay. With its move to the Steam platform, Quantum Break has cropped up at various digital retailers and this translates to some nice savings.

Quantum Break Steam Deals

  • GMG Deal (Steam) — $30.35  (list price $40) <- use code: VIP3
  • DLGamer Deal (Steam) — $31.99  (list price $40)

GMG's deal should last until tomorrow (the small 3% off coupon anyways) while DLGamer's deal has an unknown expiration date. Both copies are of course Steam keys and sourced straight from THQ Nordic.

Quantum Break finally arrives on Steam, so here are some deals screenshot



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News:: Gussy up your Steam Controller with these new skins

The Steam Controller is a thing that exists and has a fanbase. I didn't care for it when I used it at PAX 2015, but I may eventually come around. A nice sale is going on and you can finally customize the look of the remote with some pretty cool skins.

While only Portal and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive are represented, I'm sure this will open the floodgates for other publishers to license out their brands. I really dig those Steam Link skins, mostly because I'm tired of small, black boxes hanging around my home theater setup.

If cosmetic changes aren't your thing, you can also grab a carrying case for the controller along with a wireless dongle and battery door. I guess Valve will do anything to avoid making a game, including jumping into the overpriced cellphone-style accessory market.

All of these items are on sale for the next week, but I have a feeling that the regular Steam sales will routinely see them drop in price.

Steam Hardware Accessories [Steam]

Gussy up your Steam Controller with these new skins screenshot

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News:: Sony shows off everything inside the PS VR core bundle box

We're a couple of weeks away from the debut of the PlayStation VR, but you can prepare with this new unboxing video from Sony. The hardware inside the $400 core bundle box (headset, processing unit, headphones and demo disc -- but not the Move controllers and required-for-use PlayStation camera) is all ready and accounted for, but the real trick may be getting your hands on one quickly if you haven't already preordered. We got a closer look at some of the new experiences during the recent Tokyo Game Show, but everyone else will have to wait until it arrives October 13th.

Source: PlayStation Blog



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News:: Unworthy is another cool 2D take on Dark Souls

We always appreciate a good quickpost from the Destructoid community, and reader AlbertP has given us a wonderful gift indeed with his note about Unworthy, a cool-looking game currently flying under the radar. It's a Souls-like action-RPG, but from a side-scrolling perspective, and without jumping. Neat!

For an extend peek beyond these short but telling gifs, a few folks have let's plays of the pre-alpha build. The developer, Aleksandar Kuzmanovic, has also shared some snippets on his Twitter feed.

Unworthy is another cool 2D take on Dark Souls screenshot

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News:: Steam Controller and Link on sale for 30% off again at GameStop

GameStop always has the most random deals. Popular accessories at 30% off and it won't even mention it on the front page. Why the heck not? Appearing earlier this morning, Valve's Steam Controller is on sale yet again for $15 off, a big 30% price break down to $35.

This matches its previous low price, which was offered at either Steam Store, Amazon, or GameStop (some of the few retailers that actually carry the controller).

As with before, the Steam Link is also on sale for the same percentage discount, complementing the Steam Controller. No expiration date is noted from GameStop but since this showed up in the middle of the week, it should be a part of its weekly sale and we're expecting it to last through next week. Pick a unit up if you're interested, or check out the various reviews available online.

Steam Controller and Link on sale for 30% off again at GameStop screenshot



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News:: Nintendo's Famicom Mini is Japan's NES Classic

Nintendo fans in its home country are getting their own teensy retro console, as well. Today, Mario's creator has revealed the mini Famicom, a shrunken version of the original NES the company released in Japan. Just like the mini NES for the west, the Famicom mini fits in the palm of your hand and plugs into your TV via HDMI. It comes with two wired controllers instead of one, but the bad news is that it follows in the footsteps of the New 3DS -- it doesn't have a bundled AC adapter. You'll have to buy that one separately.

Via: IGN

Source: Nintendo (1), (2)



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News:: Breakaway is a new game from Amazon that has been built from the ground-up to support Twitch (which,

Breakaway is a new game from Amazon that has been built from the ground-up to support Twitch (which, remember, Amazon owns) viewers and broadcasters. They call it a “4v4 mythological sport brawler”, which means “it’s basically a MOBA but we don’t wanna call it that.

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News:: Japan is getting its own retro Nintendo system with the Mini Famicom

The Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition is sure to be one of the top gifts you'll find under Christmas trees this December. With 30 all-time classics built-in, pre-orders for the device have virtually sold out worldwide. When I first saw it I was excited and wanted one desperately. Now, I think I kind of want this Mini Famicom instead.

Announced today, Nintendo will be releasing the Nintendo Classic Mini Family Computer later this fall. Featuring a miniaturized design modeled after the original Famicom, I imagine this too will be a hot buy for our friends across the Pacific.

Japan is getting its own retro Nintendo system with the Mini Famicom screenshot

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News:: Hello Neighbor lives to creep another day

Hello Neighbor looks like a creepy game, but the best part is that it looks like a specific kind of creepy game. It's about breaking into this guy's basement because he's probably hiding bodies or illegal contraband or government secrets. Who knows! But he's up to something and you're gonna find out what.

But, with a little perspective shift, maybe he's not the creepy neighbor. Maybe it's you who's the creepy neighbor. Finding ways to distract him so you can rummage through his basement? That's egregiously nosy, brazenly overstepping the line and landing somewhere near felonious. 

I can sympathize. My neighbor is a big-time busybody. He has his finger on the pulse of the community, always knowing what everyone's doing. He might be reading this post right now! (Hi, Pete!) It's mildly disconcerting and annoying, but probably not troublesome. One time he asked if I worked for the CIA. I told him no, but that I do something similar. Anyway, I doubt he's getting into my basement anytime soon. If he does, he'll just find all the amiibo I damned to a life of storage.

Hello Neighbor isn't new. Jordan wrote about it last year when the developers were trying to Kickstart it. That campaign failed miserably, but all's well that ends well. TinyBuild decided to publish it, so Hello Neighbor should eventually see the light of day. It's good to hear that it's not getting shoved in a crate and left to rot like the neighbor at the end of this trailer.

Hello Neighbor lives to creep another day screenshot



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News:: Track: Arise | Artist: GosT | Album: Non Paradisi

Track: Arise | Artist: GosT | Album: Non Paradisi

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News:: Japan Gets Its Own Mini-NES, The Mini-Famicom

News:: Roam the Valve HQ reception in VR and find the cake already

When the folks at Valve aren't fiddling with Steam, updating popular first-party franchises or working on wacky projects, they like to have a little fun. Or, at least the team working on Valve's Destinations VR title does. Destinations is a casual, multiplayer experience for exploring community-created worlds and playing simple games with friends. And now, as of the title's most recent update, anyone with a Vive or Rift can feel what it's like to venture inside the hallowed ground that is Valve HQ.

Via: UploadVR

Source: Steam



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News:: Driveclub VR is $20 if you own the Driveclub season pass

A quick note for those of you considering Driveclub VR as your launch-day PlayStation VR game of choice: Sony is offering a discount for season pass owners. This was known, generally speaking, but now we have more info to go on (and it can't hurt to reiterate).

The standalone racing game launches on October 13 for $40, but if you secured the (original, non-VR) Driveclub season pass as of September 28, you'll be able to buy Driveclub VR digitally for $20. So, half price. Unfortunately, if you had your eyes on a discounted disc-based copy, you're out of luck.

I know some of you, myself included, were wondering who actually got this game out the door given the closure of Evolution Studios earlier this year. Here's the situation, as explained by Sony:

"The majority of the game was completed by Evolution, with the remainder carried out by a dedicated team comprised of Evolution Studio veterans, several of which now are also members of the WWS Immersive Technology Group -- so you can be assured that Driveclub VR is in safe hands."

Expect lots of PSVR coverage on the site next week. Review season is here!

Driveclub VR Out October 13, Upgrade Details for Season Pass Owners [PlayStation Blog]

Driveclub VR is $20 if you own the Driveclub season pass screenshot



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News:: Fan Creates Terrific Intro For Indiana Jones Cartoon Series

Indiana Jones superfan Patrick Schoenmaker has, for the last five years, been working on this animated sequence which imagines the intro to an Indy cartoon series that never actually existed.

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News:: It's PlayStation VR unboxing time

Someone call Brad Pitt, we've found out what's in the box - it's a PlayStation VR headset

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News:: Pokemon Go traffic surged to 50 times Niantic's initial estimates

I'm always fascinated by developer interviews and retrospectives on popular games, and Pokémon Go was easily the biggest release of the year so far. Google's Cloud platform was the tech running in the background for Pokémon Go's launch, and the team posted an article today that explains a little bit about what was going on behind the scenes.

The article is a little more technical than I was expecting, but there is some interesting stuff in there. During the initial rollout period, developer Niantic was expecting a fairly small launch with a gradual increase in users. What actually happened, of course, is that the app became one of the most downloaded in history, a worldwide cultural phenomenon that dominated the news for over a month.

While Niantic had a plan in place if the app was more popular than it was expecting, the actual downloads blew past its worst-case scenario. At its peak popularity, there were up to 50 times more server interactions than Niantic had anticipated.

Another thing I found interesting is that Pokémon Go was the field test case for Google's Customer Reliability Engineering (CRE), and it sounds like it was a trial by fire. When the app launched in Australia and New Zealand, Niantic could see almost immediately that its initial estimates for download numbers were insufficient, so it called in Google for reinforcements. This helped add more server capacity for the U.S. and Japanese launches later in the month. Apparently the Japanese download numbers tripled those in the U.S., so there's no doubt those servers would have been melting into slag otherwise.

Since Niantic is made up of ex-Google employees and maintains a strong working relationship with Google, it's doubtful that any other company would have gotten the same response. In other words, as rocky as Pokémon Go's launch was, it could have gone a lot worse.

I've been playing Pokémon Go on and off since the beta, and to Niantic's credit, it's still working on improving the game. Most recently, we learned that the "spawn nests" of similar creatures spawning in a close area have been randomized, making the game a little more equitable for people who don't live near a Dratini nest. Although it's not as popular as it used to be, I still see people walking around with their phones in hand from time to time. And I can't help but join them. In fact, I just hit level 20, so I have Ultra Balls now. 

Stop laughing. It's a legitimate medical condition.

Bringing Pokemon GO to life on Google Cloud [Google Cloud Platform Blog]
Pokemon GO's spawning nests now seem to be randomized [Nintendo Everything]

Pokemon Go traffic surged to 50 times Niantic's initial estimates screenshot

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News:: Disneyland Has A Pokémon Go Problem

A reader’s girlfriend works at Disneyland, and sends word that it looks like management is having some trouble with the actors in ball gowns and animal suits playing Pokémon Go on the sly.

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News:: A Game About Throwing Spears At Penguin Vikings And Hipster Giants

I liked Lichtspeer before I even started playing it. The menu screen, if you’ll believe it, is what sold me.

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News:: Are you a bad enough dude to choose these presidents?

[For you non-Americans, you're probably wondering how horrified we US citizens are at the thought of our next election. For my fellow Americans, how about we listen to Mr Knives at just what kind of limitless options we have for video game presidents as opposed to reality. ~Strider]

For those living in America, tonight represents the first debate between two potential future presidents. Plenty can be said about both of them to ignite a flame war of a thousand suns so I'm staying away from that. That's what Facebook comment sections are for.

Are you a bad enough dude to choose these presidents? screenshot

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News:: All the Weird Stuff US Customs Seized in Florida This Summer

Have you ever tried to get something that you shouldn’t through US Customs? Frankly, I don’t know how people summon the nerve. Whether it’s illegal drugs, exotic animal meat, or counterfeit purses, people will try to smuggle just about anything. And everyone seems to have their own favorite hiding places. But if any of your favorites are on the list below, you might want to rethink your life choices.

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News:: Phoenix Wright has to deal with time travel in new Ace Attorney 6 DLC

As if challenged to be even more crazy, the "Turnabout Time Traveler" case is now available from the in-game menu for Ace Attorney 6: Spirit of Justice. It's $5.99 / £5.39 / €5.99, which for Europeans and British people (which I can now separate) is slightly pricier than the DLC case released for Dual Destinies

Also making an appearance is Larry Butz, the clumsy and ill-witted childhood friend of Phoenix and Edgeworth, the latter of whom will be serving as the prosecutor in this case. Larry is always getting himself in bad situations or even jail due to his endless and fruitless pursuit of love. Looks like he's in trouble again, this time trying to marry a time traveler. Larry Butz, his pursuit of love, and time travel sure does sound like quite the quantum conundrum.

Phoenix Wright has to deal with time travel in new Ace Attorney 6 DLC screenshot

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News:: NBA 2K17 MyCareer: The Kotaku Review

News:: Modern Warfare Remastered launches trailers, not nukes

Activision has pushed out a launch trailer for the Modern Warfare remaster. See, despite the fact that its proper launch isn't until November 4, anyone who pre-ordered Infinite Warfare's legacy or digital deluxe edition gets access beginning on October 5. The hope is that the extra 30 days (and, by extension, this video) will make someone say "Oh, hell yeah!" and plop down the cash for Infinite Warfare.

Conspicuous marketing practices aside, this is indeed a trailer that might make someone say "Oh, hell yeah!" It's a sizzle reel of quick cuts, high action, and big explosions. It seethes badassery. It's the movie Crank if Crank were distilled down into a video game trailer.

If that's the sort of thing that sounds good to you, well, you know what to do in order to get Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered next week. For those who can wait, Activision won't say it but an eventual standalone release is probably a good bet.

Modern Warfare Remastered launches trailers, not nukes screenshot



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News:: The Best Twitch Overlay of 2016 (So Far)

Okay, pidgezero_one, I laughed.

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News:: Battlefield 1 Player Makes A Damn Fine Toss

Today on Highlight Reel we have impressive intros, corpse sleds, grenade tosses and much more!

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News:: YouTube celebrity PewDiePie announced today that he’s designing his next game with one of the master

YouTube celebrity PewDiePie announced today that he’s designing his next game with one of the masterminds behind Goat Simulator, a satirical game that owes its popularity to YouTubers, the Verge reports. The details of the game are unclear, but it wiill be on PC, iOS and Android. Today, PewDiePie released his newest game, Tuber Simulator.

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News:: Gender-swapped gods added to World of Final Fantasy

Shiva, Ifrit and Shantotto (from Final Fantasy XI) have been spotted in Weekly Jump as new additions to the for-children World of Final Fantasy. In the Final Fantasy series, Shiva has typically been depicted as a female ice goddess, and Ifrit as a masculine beast of fire. This time, however, Ifrit is not only humanized but feminized and Shiva is made male.

Without going too deep into mythology, Shiva is strictly a male deity of Hinduism whereas Ifrit is a fire-beast of middle-eastern lore that can be either male or female. Though I'm still not sure where the ice and revealing clothing came from with regards to Shiva. This version of Ifrit, based on this one image, reminds me of Wakfu character design.

Gender-swapped gods added to World of Final Fantasy screenshot

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News:: Look At This Shiba Inu Game

News:: Detective Curt Schilling Is On The Case Of The Hoboken Train Crash

A train crashed into a station terminal in Hoboken, N.J., this morning, reportedly killing one and injuring over 100. The cause of the crash is still under investigation, but former MLB pitcher Curt Schilling has his own theories.

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News:: Report: Battleborn to follow Evolve's lead and go free-to-play

Gearbox's good-but-commercially-unremarkable hero shooter Battleborn will be going free-to-play soon, an anonymous source has reportedly told Kotaku

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News:: Review: Star Trek Online

In the interests of full disclosure, I’ll tell you right now: I’m really into Star Trek Online, and have been for the six-plus years of its life so far. By Steam’s count I’ve logged nearly three thousand hours in the Cryptic-developed free-to-play MMO, and that’s not even counting the many hours I spent with the game before it actually debuted on Steam. I own a “lifetime” subscription to it, and have spent more time with Star Trek Online than any other single title. I doubt any opinion I have on it could ever be considered truly unbiased, after all this.

But that was all on PC, though. The game I’ve given so much time to has just recently debuted on PS4 and Xbox One, and I’ve had the chance to give it yet more time, though now in pretty much the same situation as any new player, and to take stock of how this old bird flies through fresh eyes.

Review: Star Trek Online screenshot

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News:: Snacktaku Eats Arby's Smokehouse Pork Belly Sandwich

There is a place that is both before and beyond bacon, and Arby’s dares take us there, at least for a limited time. Whatever other plans Snacktaku had this week died at the feet of Arby’s Smokehouse Pork Belly sandwich.

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News:: Time to get sucked back into Stardew Valley

I've wrestled free of Stardew Valley. I don't know how I got away from the soothing farm life sim, but I did, and I'm hesitant to so much as look at its listing in my Steam library unless I have no obligations left for the day. This isn't a game I can play for "just a little bit." It's a multi-hour commitment.

With all that said, dang, I might be about to head back in. There's an important update currently in beta testing that you can and probably should get (right click on Stardew Valley in Steam, hit "Properties," click "Betas," and choose "beta"). If you'd prefer to back up your saves in case of a possible but "very unlikely" data tragedy, you can find your files in the %appdata%/StardewValley/Saves" folder.

All set? Let's run through the list.

Time to get sucked back into Stardew Valley screenshot

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News:: Speedrunners Finally Pull Off The 'Holy Grail' Of Mario 64 Glitches

Since it came out 20 years ago, Super Mario 64 has been cracked open, turned inside-out, and then some, but people keep figuring out new ways to warp its candy colored reality. The latest is being billed as the biggest speedrun breakthrough since 2007, and it’s not hard to see why.

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News:: Ask Kotaku's Staff Anything

It’s Thursday afternoon, fall is finally here, and we’re all getting ready for an exciting next few months of video games. (Except for me—I’m going on sabbatical in October. See you suckers later.)

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News:: Battleborn is allegedly going free-to-play

Gearbox Software's MOBA-lite shooter Battleborn never stood much of a chance. It released in the same timeframe as the likes of Overwatch and Doom, and everyone's collective interest gravitated toward those titles. Amid low player counts, early and aggressive sales were staged. In an earnings call, publisher 2K Games confirmed that it performed below expectations.

As many predicted, Battleborn will seemingly get a second shot in the free-to-play sector. Kotaku reports it has a source that confirms this shift should take place in the next couple of months, probably by mid-November. This has allegedly been in the works for a while, and that the announcement has already been delayed a few times.

Interestingly enough, the Kotaku piece mentions Gearbox wanted Battleborn to be a free-to-play title all along. It was supposedly under insistence from 2K that it was sold as a full-priced retail product. That strategy obviously didn't work, so it seems as if Plan B is to switch to what Gearbox wanted all along.

There's recent precedent for 2K breathing new life into its games by going this route. Evolve was recently re-branded as Evolve: Stage 2 and made free-to-play. Initially, it shot up the Steam charts. At time of writing, it sits far lower (but still in Steam's top 100 best performers of the day) with approximately 2,700 concurrent players. If this report pans out, we'll see in due time whether or not free-to-play can work the same magic for Battleborn.

Source: Battleborn Is Going Free-To-Play Soon [Kotaku]

Battleborn is allegedly going free-to-play screenshot



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News:: Lost Odyssey and more come to Xbox One

The newest batch of backward compatible titles for the Xbox One have been released, and it's a pretty solid selection of games this time. Lost Odyssey, Toy Story 3, and Guwange all just became playable on the Xbox One.

Of the three, Lost Odyssey is the standout. It's a Final Fantasy title in all but name, the first game Mistwalker studios put out after Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu left Square. It's great to see that it's become a backward compatible title, since this one's never been available on any platform other than the Xbox 360.


I wasn't sure what was keeping that lower belt on, but Niero pointed out that she probably has magical magnetic hip bones. 

Toy Story 3 came out alongside the movie of the same name in 2010. It was most notable for its Toy Box mode, which was evidently the inspiration for the same mode in Disney Infinity. 

Finally, Guwange is an attractive 2D shmup with visuals inspired by Japan's Muromachi period. I haven't played this one, but it was developed by Cave, and the studio tends to know what it's doing when it comes to shooters. 

Lost Odyssey, like Blue Dragon, is a relic from those couple of years when Microsoft still thought it could win over Japanese gamers. It'll be interesting to see if it still holds up. The main character's long hair constantly dangling in front of his eyes seems like it'd be annoying, but I suppose that's his problem, not mine.

Major Nelson [Twitter]

Lost Odyssey and more come to Xbox One screenshot

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