For most of the election, many people thought Donald Trump was a joke, or at least someone who had no chance of being President. It’s no surprise, then, that many video games that featured or added modes involving Trump treated him that way, too. The creators of those games talked to us about the intent and impact of…
SimCity is so realistic. That’s probably why, in SimCity 4, you can mod in a vestige of our current surveillance state, 33 Thomas Street, New York, NY, which just yesterday was outed as a probable NSA surveillance site.
People do dumb, silly, and strange things all the time. Sometimes they do it out in public. Now that everyone carries a little, inconspicuous camera with them, is it okay to snap a quick picture of these dumb, silly, and strange things?
That's just one of the talking points on this week's Podtoid. To be honest, I don't even remember which side I took. Darren took like 15 years to edit this episode. Must've been too busy getting strangled by strangers.
It's not all Watch Dogs-levels of privacy breaches, though. We talk video games too (I think). I know for certain there was a SATPOTPAQ and I probably won at least one point. Maybe more.
Just listen and tell me what happens. Then vote for your favorite and most handsomest cast member in the comments.
Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or download it here.
If the numerous decorations and lights didn't give it away, we've got bad news for you... the holidays are indeed coming. With it though are deals aplenty. Have a thick wallet with due diligence savings? Give us your damn cash, say the retailers. (I suppose we're part of the problem too by posting this, but hey a robot's got to feed its alcohol oil addiction).
Until this Saturday, Toys"R"Us is running two noteworthy promotions:
Both promotions stack with one or another. The BOGO deal is limited to three discounts per order, so you can easily rack up over $100 worth of games (given most titles are $60) if you buy in groups of two.
Of course, with Black Friday and Christmas just around the corner, most of these individual titles (particular the big Triple-As) will receive big fat price cut in the coming days. With that said, your best bet is to pick up Nintendo games as the damn things are rarely on sale.
The sales end November 22. They only work on in-stock items, so no dice on Pokemon Sun or Pokemon Moon (but Toys"R"Us has 'em on sale for 20% off anyways). The sale also works on toys-to-life figures such as the Disney Infinity and amiibo series. Purchases above $19 will receive free shipping.
Messing around with NPCs is a time honored tradition in open world games. Never before have I seen it done with a screaming car.
Lord knows I do not need another Rust-lookin' open-world survival game, much less one debuting on Steam Early Access, but Conan Exiles has me considering exactly that.
Funcom has a bunch of new screenshots today, some of which will look very familiar. The typical start-with-nothing, craft-your-way-to-the-top premise is what it is, and I'm not especially looking forward to that progression loop, but I like the sound of these snippets from the game's overview:
"Enslave the bandits of the exiled lands to do your bidding by breaking them on the grueling Wheel of Pain. Sacrifice the beating hearts of your enemies on the blood-soiled altars of your god to seize true power and glory. Summon the colossal avatar of your god and see them lay waste to your enemies and their homes." At least on paper, this ruthless world should be a good fit for the genre.
Battleborn Day, the fan-led event aimed at drumming up more players for Gearbox’s troubled hero shooter, managed to drastically increase the number of players in the game over the November 12 weekend, but the numbers were still low and the spike didn’t last.
The Game Awards 2016 will be held just more than two weeks from now on December 1. All of the nominees were announced today, and it's a fantastic reminder that there were a lot of excellent video games this year.
Naughty Dog's Uncharted 4: A Thief's End leads the nomination arms race with eight nominations. There's a three-way tie for second place between Firewatch, Overwatch, and Inside; each of those games received five nods. There are still plenty of incredible titles that didn't lead the way in nomination quantity, too. Games like Doom, The Witness, Stardew Valley, and Hitman all show up.
Plenty of space is reserved for stuff that might not be considered traditional categories yet. There's a Best VR Game category, since this is the first year that VR has actually been introduced to the consumers. The Trending Gamer is also back. Finally, three awards are dedicated to eSports.
These are just the nominees, though. We don't yet know who will bring home the hardware. We have to wait until December 1 to find out.
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I'll never forget the good times I've had with Awesomenauts. Ronimo has continued to support its 2D MOBA for years, and it's to the point now that I can hardly fathom how it's still able to come out with updates when so many players have moved on. While I'd prefer a sequel at this point, that persistence is admirable. Today's update, "Rise of Galactron," addresses matchmaking and networking.
Impressively, the matchmaking system has been redone. "The game will no longer require you to maintain a non-stop connection to the Steam servers, which will ensure you don't disconnect from a match if the Steam servers go down for a second or two. Matchmaking is entirely handled by our own tech, and we've fundamentally changed the matchmaking flow. Players will now be matched all at once every few minutes, rather than be assigned to the best possible match that already exists."
Other revisions include a persistent party system, the ability to watch replays and chat while queuing, the option to rejoin a match after a disconnect, harsher leave penalties, and an overhauled character select screen that can remember your most recently played character and mark that as the default. And it wouldn't be an update without new skins, balance changes, and fixes as well.
Here’s a suggestion for sometime in the next few hours, as your strained attention span finally collapses under the weight of world events: Spend some time crawling through London’s Victorian sewer system.
Mages of Mystralia was one of my personal favorite games at PAX West 2016, but details on its release were still vague. At the time, indie game promoter Dan Adelman couldn't officially give a platform for its release, but at the time he did note I was playing it using a DualShock 4.
That hint is now solidified: Mages of Mystralia will release on PlayStation 4. And it's not too far off; developer Borealys Games plans to have it out by next spring. For an updated taste on the build-spells-from-scratch gameplay, it will also have a new demo on display at PlayStation Experience next month.
In just a few more months, I'll be delving into the technical spell creation system. I had a ton of fun with the tools available in the PAX demo, chaining abilities into big combos. It'll be cool to see what new functions I can program into my fireballs now.
Craft Your Own Spells in Mages of Mystralia, Out 2017 on PS4 [PlayStation Blog]
Persona 5 is coming later than expected, uh, again! Hopefully this is the last time.
Atlus confirmed a revised April 4, 2017 release for North America and Europe today during a livestream. That's a short-term bummer, no doubt about it, but the game will be better off in the long run and there's a silver lining: Atlus plans to offer dual audio with free Japanese voice-over DLC at launch.
David Letterman couldn't get enough Miku in his life, and we all can't either, it seems.
Sega has announced that Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone is coming west -- a PSN exclusive that will feature "more than 200 songs" to perform. It'll be released on January 10, 2017, and comes with a free demo that hosts two songs, and two $30 packages of tunes alongside of a $53.99 bundle of both.
The publisher claims that since this is the "arcade" edition of Miku it'll be tougher than normal, and will be rendered at 1080p60 on PS4. Since I generally enjoy console editions of the series than the portable ones, I'm excited to give this one a whirl.
The fifth Persona is delayed yet again, this time to April 4, 2017, Atlus announced today on a stream. To make up for this delay, the publisher says they’re adding dual audio, so you’ll be able to play with either Japanese or English voices. Still a bummer.
The fanboy in me is going crazy over this, so let me take a few deep breaths.....Nintendo is partnering up with Scrap to hold an event called "Defenders of the Triforce." This event involves taking The Legend of Zelda and creating an escape room based around it. For the uninitiated among us (myself included), an escape room is a real-life version of a video game dungeon where participants are tasked with escaping a locked room in a set time limit.
For this Zelda themed event, you and five other people will be locked in a room based off of The Legend of Zelda. You'll be given items from the series and puzzles based around set-pieces from the games. I'm almost certain there will be no hookshot involved, for obvious reasons.
Date are not available for every city, just yet, but a few cities have pre-registration open. Ticket prices are going for $36 until December 31, where they will then go up to $46. That really isn't bad for an hour-and-a-half event that will put you inside of a Zelda game.
The act of logging your steps with an activity tracker is good for meeting personal goals, but what if there was another use for hitting that target. Well, starting November 25th, tallying 10,000 steps with your Fitbit device will help improve your NBA2K17 gaming sessions. Next week, logging said number of steps in a day will earn you a temporary boost to your MyPlayer in the game to offer better on-court performance.
If you are giving a video game gift later this year, there’s a chance you’ll be wrapping up a copy of Call of Duty or Nintendo’s NES Classic. You may be dutifully satisfying a request for Overwatch or doling out for PlayStation VR. This is what people will ask for. Maybe you’d like to toss in a surprise?
If you've been skating by hacking Pokemon in the past, Nintendo is going to crack down more than they have in the past. Illegal Sun and Moon pirates have been reporting that Nintendo has been handing out 15-day bans to players who have attempted to connect to the pair of game's online services provided that you haven't been flagged in the past.
For those of you that have been flagged, you'll be dealing with a permanent ban. Some users are saying that even if you merely visit the eShop with a flagged pirated copy, you'll get the boot. And for a game like Pokemon that can be highly abused, it's great to see Nintendo cracking down, at least for the sake of keeping online play fair.
Nintendo comienza a banear a los jugadores piratas de Pokémon Sol y Luna [NextN]
This morning, a jury in Fort Worth, Texas found defendant Anthony Clark guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The FBI had accused him of working with a group of hackers to steal FIFA coins from EA. He’ll be sentenced in February.
Fans curious about the history behind Battlefield 1's stories are in for a treat. YouTube channel Games of History released a longform video essay discussing the game in full. They talk about the truth and lies found throughout the game’s exciting campaign.
There are now almost as many versions of the board game Clue available as there are different variations of Monopoly. But Hasbro’s new Clue: Star Wars Edition includes a couple of unique twists on the classic game, including a 3D version of the Death Star where the mystery plays out.
If you just can't wait until Black Friday, a new PS4 Pro deal surfaced last night. This even beats out the launch week deal we posted last week now that we edge closer to the big sales day. Unlike the PS4 Slim, there hasn't been any official deals or discounts revealed yet for Black Friday in those flurry of leaked flyers from recent days.
Shipping is about 3 to 4 business days depending on where you live, which isn't awful. Sales tax charged in the states Antonline has warehouses/location.
As mentioned before, Antonline is an authorized Sony dealer so you'll get the full warranty for your shiny new PlayStation 4 Pro. There is a limited quantity available, and we do not know how long this deal will lost. Since last night we can confirm they sold about 300 consoles, typically Antonline carries no more than 500 per "deal offer" - so we expect this to go quick.
This seemingly basic remote might not look like much at first blush, but it can actually control eight of your favorite home theater devices, and even turn your smartphone into a universal remote as well.
Picking up a new Dungeons & Dragons book is one of my favorite experiences. Opening it for the first time, the spine cracking a bit, the pages resistant to turning -- it all makes for a bizarrely tactile feeling that I look forward to each time. The Monster Manual type of books have always been my favorite to flip through, especially with the Fifth Edition version. Each creature comes with stat blocks to make them playable for your adventures, but it's always the story hooks that dig deep into me, helping me to conjure half-formed inklings of worlds and scenarios I can drag my players into. Wizards of the Coasts' newest book Volo's Guide to Monsters combines the granular nature of stats with even more narrative, and it's all the better for it.
Instead of being a collection of beasties ripe for plucking and placing into a campaign, Volo's Guide is presented as an in-universe text. Volothamp Geddarm, a traveling scholar who's known for not always being completely accurate in his writings, has collected his observations on monsters into a book. Elminster, the Sage of Shadowdale, isn't so sure that Volo's gotten everything right. Because of this, there's the D&D equivalent of post-it notes with Elminster's notes throughout the book disputing what Volo has to say. Unlike the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, the focus is still on material to improve your game, but these story blurbs add so much character to the book and make it a more entertaining read.
Volo's Guide is divided into three chapters: monster lore, character races, and a bestiary. The monster lore chapter is a sort of deep dive into some of the most iconic D&D monsters. Instead of just the few pages beholders have in the Monster Manual, they have thirteen. This allows for a more in-depth look at how eye-beasts reproduce, behave around minions, how they fight and live their daily lives. There are also rolling tables so you can make a beholder on the fly (traits like skin color, texture, eyestalk shape, and the like) and a sample map of one of their lairs. Seeing so much information on one subset of enemy really got my creative juices flowing, and I almost want to make a beholder campaign now. Also included in this chapter are giants, gnolls, goblinoids, hags, kobolds, mind flayers, orcs, and yaun-ti.
Normally, teens can’t WooHoo or get pregnant in The Sims. To “fix” that, some players use mods that allow teen sim romance. Surprisingly, these mods are popular with real teen girls who roleplay fictional pregnancies, ultrasounds and all, on social media for hundreds of thousands of people.
Header by Kon-H on Deviantart. Background is a screenshot of the new Ecopoint: Antarctica map.
As you may have seen yesterday, every version of Overwatch has been updated, giving everyone access to the new character Sombra. Chris was one of the first people in the world to get to play her, and you can check out his impressions here. One thing you may want to educate yourself on is what happens when your favorite characters get hacked. There's a lot more to cover in this patch though, so let's go point by point over all of the new stuff. Apart from Sombra, the best new feature is probably the Arcade mode, which adds several new ways to play Overwatch. I'll go over each of these in more detail below. All of the new stuff comes just in time for this weekend's free play event, so expect to see lots of newbies logging in to check out Sombra.
One of the biggest changes is immediately apparent if you jump into a Quick Play match. Quick Play has been changed to single pick, meaning if someone else gets the character you want, you'll need to choose a different character. On the upside, it means you won't have to face teams with three Torbjörns, two Reinhardts, and a Mercy anymore. The "classic" Quick Play where your team composition can include any number of the same hero has been renamed "No Limits" and added to the Arcade mode. This change helps people who want to practice for competitive using similar rules, but for those who want to mess around or practice with a character, No Limits is still an option.
Most of the changes that were being tested on the PTR are now live, and the one that affects everybody most is the change to ultimate charge rate. Everyone's ultimate ability now costs 25% more than it did before the patch, meaning you'll see ultimate abilities less often. This seems fair since every character was affected, and it should help make Overwatch a little more strategic and less of a race to press Q (or Y, or Triangle). I've noticed that I think a little more before using my ultimates since I know it'll take longer to get another one, and it seems as though it helps keep every team fight from having six or seven ultimates go off. Additionally, damaging non-players (e.g. Symmetra and Torbjörn's turrets, or Symmetra's teleport pad) no longer charges ultimate abilities. This can be seen as a slight nerf for some of the flankers like Genji and Tracer who excel at wrecking constructs. It's possible this change was made specifically because Sombra has one of the best ultimate abilities in the game, and can sneak behind enemy lines more effectively than any other hero.
Overwatch's user interface was updated to accommodate the new mode available. Quick Play, Competitive, Play Vs. AI and Custom Game all got new icons, and a new mode called Arcade is now available. Arcade replaces the Weekly Brawl game type, and instead, Brawls now have their own section in the Arcade. Players can earn up to five loot boxes per week by winning matches in the Arcade, in addition to any they earn by leveling. Arcade consists of five different game types, and we'll go over each of those in turn. Helpfully, each mode has a blue bar on its panel letting you know approximately how many people are playing that mode right now.
The first and largest panel in the Arcade menu is devoted to a new mode called Mystery Duel. This game mode takes place on the new map, Ecopoint: Antarctica. As you might expect, you don't know what character you're going to be playing until the game starts. In this mode you'll be facing off against someone else playing the same hero. There are five rounds, and play continues with a new mirrored matchup each round. Ecopoint: Antarctica is interesting because there are no health packs or any way to restore your health unless you're assigned a character who has those abilities as part of their kit, like Mei or Roadhog. For this reason, a couple of characters with strong self-healing (Lucio and Mercy) are not available in this mode. I played a couple of games here, and this is where Overwatch's fighting game influences really begin to show. Without other players to rely on, each match comes down to your strategy, your mobility, and your aim.
If you'd prefer to play a match on Antarctica that lets you group up, you can try out 3v3 Elimination. In this mode, you and two other players form a small group and attempt to hunt down an opposing team of three who's trying to do the same to you. Once again, this mode is best of five, with the winner being the last team containing surviving members. There are no respawns, so focusing fire and confirming kills is essential. You can switch characters between rounds, so there's a little bit of mental rock-paper-scissors that comes into play, trying to counter enemy teams or anticipate a counter to your choices. So far, this mode seems to be the most popular of the new Arcade game types.
Third on the list is the All Brawls mode, which takes teams of six and matches them against one another. This mode makes use of altered rulesets that have been available on a weekly basis since Overwatch's release. Most of these restrict what hero types are available, for example making your entire team Soldier: 76 or confining your choices to the sniper classes. Others are more varied; Total Chaos is a favorite of mine, a mode that greatly reduces ability cooldowns for all characters. As mentioned above, All Brawls takes the place of the Weekly Brawls that were previously available. Unfortunately, this mode does not appear to include the special event Brawls available during the Summer Games and Halloween events. Looks like we'll have to wait until next summer to play Lucioball again.
The last new game mode takes one of the first Weekly Brawl events and turns it into its own mode. 6v6 Mystery Heroes is pretty much just a normal game, except your character choices are randomized, and reset after every death. This can make it a little hard to build charge for an ultimate, particularly with the changes in charge rates. It can also mean you end up with three Widowmakers on attack trying to push a payload, but at least now it's not just because they're morons. I like this mode quite a bit because it forces you to choose characters you might not necessarily be familiar with, and helps you learn their strengths and weaknesses. That said, it also feels great to be assigned a character you know well and start cleaning house.
The final mode in the Arcade is No Limits. This is simply the old version of Quick Play, which allows any number of people to choose the same character. If you all want to play Sombra and hack the planet, so be it.
Though the general revision to ultimates is the one that'll change the game the most, there are several other changes that affect all players as well. The alteration to experience gain after "promoting" and going from level 100 back to level one is now in effect. Previously, leveling past 100 meant that you could earn the next 23 levels pretty quickly since levels 101-123 required the same amount of experience as levels 1-23. Every level after that required a flat 22,000 experience. From now on, every level past 100 will cost 20,000 experience. If you're just starting out, the amount of experience required to go from 14-100 has been slightly reduced. The total experience needed to gain 100 levels after a promotion is nearly the same, but it should be a little bit easier to gain those first hundred levels.
Competitive play will see some adjustments, apart from the change to the meta that Sombra's release will bring. Season 2 of competitive play will end November 23, and the third season will begin November 30. The developers heard the complaints that there was too much time in between competitive seasons, so there'll be less of a delay between seasons from now on. I find it interesting that a new character has been introduced midway through both seasons so far, and wonder if that's an intentional decision by Blizzard to shake up the top ranks of competitive play. When Season 3 starts, players may find that they start lower in the rankings than they had previously been placed:
When season 2 started, we had more players in the Gold and Platinum skill tiers than we originally intended. These players typically began the season by having their skill rating adjusted downwards after their first few matches. For season 3, skill ratings will be slightly lower after your placement matches, allowing them to increase as the season begins. After you play enough matches, your skill rating changes will return to normal.
Several improvements were made to how Overwatch stores and accesses data, which is intended to reduce load times and storage space requirements. 6 additional spectator slots were added to Custom games, up to 12. Additionally, PlayStation 4 Pro support was added.
The rest of the changes affect specific characters.
Ana's Nano boost no longer increases the target's movement, though the extra power and toughness remain unchanged. This means the nigh-unstoppable Ana/Reinhardt combo is a little less busted, and may mean you'll see other characters being targeted by Nano. The general change to ultimate charge speed means that you shouldn't see a Nano boost in nearly every big fight anymore.
D. Va got some substantial buffs. Her Mech got a health increase, up to 200 from 100. Her Mech's armor remains the same, at 400. In Overwatch, armor reduces damage caused to the target by half if the damage would be 10 or less, and by 5 if the incoming damage would normally do 10 or more. The extra health here doesn't have any damage reduction included, but D. Va's Mech is a little tougher to take down now, and this gives healers more breathing room to restore her armor during a battle. This technically gives her the largest health pool in the game; Roadhog also has 600, but none of his is armor, so he takes full damage from all incoming fire.
D. Va's mech movement speed while firing was increased by 25%. One of D. Va's strengths is her mobility, but this has always been pretty limited when she wanted to go on offense. This revision helps her boost in and out of fights, and she's slightly less threatened by enemy snipers now. Finally, her Call Mech ultimate (used when she's outside her Mech) had its cost reduced by 20%. This puts it right about where it was before the general change to ultimate charge speed. Unlike the earlier PTR patch, she can get her Mech back pretty quickly. D. Va still isn't quite as tanky as Winston or Reinhardt, but this does give her a little more wiggle room and gives the team more options for a main tank.
Lúcio got a healing nerf, and Amp It Up now heals his team 10% less effectively. I didn't notice too much of a change, but having two healers on a team is rarely a bad idea in any case.
Picture by Kara K. at Skillshare
Mei is probably the character receiving the biggest nerf. Her ultimate, Blizzard, was made much more effective in the last major patch, and her ability to self-heal wasn't taken into effect when her ultimate charge rate was set. As a result, she was getting her ultimate much more frequently than she was supposed to. To compensate, her ultimate cost is being increased by 15% on top of the 25% all other characters are subject to. Expect to see many fewer Blizzards blocking your path.
Mercy got a slight but very helpful buff. She'll begin regenerating health if she can avoid enemy fire for 1 second, down from 3. This should help her survive to keep healing her team more effectively, particularly if the Mercy is good at using Guardian Angel to avoid fire by jumping between friendly players.
Pharah got a big buff to her movement, and an adjustment to her weapon skills. Her rocket launcher now does a minimum of 13% more splash damage, but the knockback from the explosion now scales with how close your shot was to your target. In other words, she can't knock people around as easily as before, but she does a little more splash damage. This makes it more satisfying to fire into a crowd since the first shot won't necessarily scatter your targets. Her movement in the air got a big boost, and now she never really has to land if she doesn't want to. The Jump Jets now boost her 35% higher, meaning she can float much more efficiently. This is probably my favorite change. Pharah's always been good at delivering death from above, but it's now much easier to swoop in and out of battles, allowing her to harass enemies and retreat. These expanded flight capabilities make her much more of a hard counter to Junkrat and Reinhardt, though she'll still need to watch out for hitscan characters like Soldier: 76, Widowmaker, and McCree.
Speaking of Soldier: 76, his updates went through the PTR without changing. Each bullet now does 20 damage, up from 17. However, the bullet spread when he's firing a full clip on automatic has increased from 2.2 to 2.4. This matters much less when the target is at short or medium range, but Soldier will have a little more difficulty engaging with longer-range characters like Widowmaker and McCree. You can still negate the bullet spread somewhat by firing in short, controlled bursts rather than going full auto, and the Helix rockets will still go exactly where they're aimed regardless of bullet spread. It's worth pointing out that the extra bullet damage makes Tactical Visor more effective, and means he'll eliminate opponents much more quickly while he's hitting every shot.
Torbjörn got some big changes to his mechanics. He'll still be rewarded for collecting scrap from fallen players, but he'll also automatically generate some over time. It still costs 50 to create an armor pack, and he generates it at about 2 per second. This makes it easier to keep your team supplied with armor packs, and you can be more useful to your team without necessarily having to wander into no-man's-land to collect scrap. If you do pick up scrap, it'll grant you 15 on your meter rather than 25. This may mean Torbjörn will show up more frequently on Attack, since he'll be able to provide a couple of armor packs to his team before a round even begins. Torbjörn's hammer was also tweaked. It'll swing 25% faster, meaning it's quicker and easier to repair and upgrade turrets. To balance this, it now does 27% less damage when used as a melee weapon.
Widowmaker has fallen out of favor, but she got a couple of minor buffs. Her Venom Mine no longer hurts her if it's triggered nearby, meaning she can throw it in people's faces as a last resort. Her scoped damage bonus also charges 20% faster, making it easier to land fully charged sniper shots on opponents.
Zarya now has a good reason to go emo, as she got a pretty significant nerf. The power gained from both her personal and her projected barriers has been decreased by 20%. It'll be much harder for her to gain and keep a full charge on her particle cannon, so she won't be able to melt face nearly as easily as she had before. This adds insult to injury, as she'll be a high priority target of Sombra, who can cut her health pool in half by hacking her. Zarya will still be deadly in the hands of an expert, but these changes may mean she's seen less often in top level competitive play.
