Monopoly's venerable thimble is not passing Go and it won't collect $200. The sewing accessory has been part of the board game since 1935, but voters decided to ditch it during a recent contest for a more modern replacement.
Via: Associated Press
Source: Monopoly Token Madness
The Gardens Between, an upcoming Windows and Mac game from The Voxel Agents, makes a strong first impression. The puzzles themselves manifest as little diorama-like dream worlds, and the self-described "bittersweet story of friendship" tracks two pals, Arina and Frendt, on a journey "where the forwards and backwards traversal of time makes cause and effect malleable." Take a peek!
This early glimpse doesn't tell us much about the puzzle-solving, but I like the premise so far and the artistry here is top notch. Looks and sounds like a real charmer, in other words. On the radar it goes!
It sounds like Valve is taking advantage of a neural network to combat the spread of cheats in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Posting on Reddit, someone using the moderator-verified Valve Anti-Cheat account wrote that a fix is in the works for folks using spinbot hacks. A spinbot, as Rock, Paper, Shotgun describes it, helps avoid being hit by other players' weapons. Combined with aiming cheats, it makes the cheater pretty impervious to defeat.
Via: Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Source: Reddit
Stardew Valley is renown for its attention to detail. Little quirks in characters are represented in their daily schedules from when they work to when they sleep, but it wasn't 100% realistic. As most romantic comedies like to joke about, a lot of single guys love to shine their rocket from time to time, so one modder thought it natural to extend this behavior into Stardew Valley.
Enter the "Horny Bachelors" mod, which adds specific times for each of the potential bachelor characters in Stardew to pet their trouser snakes. Apparently this is just an extension of a bunch of previous efforts the modder, named Girafarig, had created. He also has made some mods that allow players to sex up Alex and one that is titled "Nude Bathing."
If you'd like to read an interview with the creator of this hilarious and true-to-life mod, head on over to Waypoint where they've pressed him about his desire to have digital avatars relieve some tension. It makes for a stimulating read. Very thorough, long, exciting, and tantalizing. Masturbation!
The ‘Stardew Valley’ Modder Who Added Jerk Off Schedules For Every Guy [Waypoint]
All successful collectible card games maintain their relevance by adding new expansions at periodic intervals, and HearthStone is no different. Blizzard released some information earlier today that let us know more about their plans for HearthStone into the next year.
Sometime soon, the current pool of cards that are valid for standard play will be reduced. This will coincide with the release of the latest expansion, rumored to be themed around the Un'Goro crater. When this happens, the standard format's name will change over from Year of the Kraken to Year of the Mammoth. All of the expansions released in 2015 will rotate out of standard play and will only be available for "Wild" games. This includes two of the Story expansions, Blackrock Mountain and The League of Explorers, as well as The Grand Tournament card set, all of which will rotate out at the same time.
In addition to the full expansions that are leaving standard play, Blizzard announced that several classic cards will also lose their eligibility. Fortunately, anyone who already has copies of these cards will be reimbursed their full crafting cost value for as many copies of that card as the player owns and can play in a deck. This reimbursement will be limited to playable copies, so you'll only be given arcane dust for one copy of a legendary card from the list, or up to two copies of a more mundane card. It'd probably be a good idea to craft these cards if you have the ability to do so, since you'll be able to keep the cards to play in Wild and will also receive the full dust value when they leave Standard.
The standard cards losing their eligibility that can be used by any class are Azure Drake, Sylvnas Windrunner, and Ragnaros the Firelord. The reasoning for each of these cards rotating out seems to be that each of them were somewhat overplayed, causing the deck slots where they could be inserted to become stagnant. In Sylvanas' case in particular, the blog post mentioned that her Deathrattle ability to steal an opposing creature would be too powerful when combined with cards from the upcoming expansion.
Several class-specific cards will also be removed from standard play. For the Warlock, Power Overwhelming will rotate out. For the Mage, Ice Lance, and for the Rogue, Conceal. All six of these cards will join what Blizzard is calling the "Hall of Fame," which also includes cards currently in the Reward set.
Blizzard also announced that there would be no new story expansions this year. Instead, three themed (pack) expansions will be released throughout 2017. The last Expansion, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, did a much better job of combining the feel of the Story expansions with the new card sets, so I'll be interested to see how this plays out.
The blog stated that "each release will include optional single-player missions that will help develop the expansions’ thematic narratives and offer fun challenges." In Mean Streets, each of the faction's leaders introduced themselves to you and gave you a quest before providing a couple of packs, and it sounds like more of that type of content is what we should expect from upcoming expansions.
Finally, it was revealed that players will be able to unlock a new hero portrait when the next expansion launches, the Rogue hero Maiev Shadowsong. Maiev was the Warden from Warcraft 3's Frozen Throne expansion, and a large part of the Night Elf campaign in that title involved her efforts to track down and recapture Illidan, the Demon Hunter known as the Betrayer. Her character portrait will be available to everyone who plays as the Year of the Mammoth kicks off.
A Year of Mammoth Proportions! [Blizzard]
Nintendo's second foray into the mobile gaming market seems to have a bit more panache and aggression packed into it. Loads of freebies to get started, a rotation of characters to earn, and just a few weeks after launch we got a new selection of characters introduced into the mix. Of course, full disclosure, I'm enjoying it in the short bursts I've been playing it in primarily because I've managed to earn several five-star characters without spending a dime on microtransactions.
Today is a bittersweet day for NeoGAF user hiphoptherobot. His Nintendo Switch pre-order arrived on his doorstep two weeks ahead of schedule, but he has absolutely nothing to play on it. "I have no games at all," he told the popular gaming forum. "All I can do is flip through the menus." In a short video published on Vidme, he does just that -- slowly working his way through the console's set up process, peeking at News page filled with console use tutorials and fiddling with the console's settings menu.
Source: NeoGAF
Have you ever taken one of those psychopath morality tests? Here's a good one. It tasks you with making callous and calculated decisions about who should die in a car accident. Like, is a pregnant woman's life more valuable than a criminal's? How about an elderly person versus a child? Or a disabled man versus an able-bodied man?
The next Watch Dogs 2 add-on confronts the real-world application of these sort of tests. In Human Conditions, the protagonists of Dedsec find out that Nudle (ostensibly Google) has self-driving cars that assign values to everyone's lives. So, in an impending accident situation, the car will prioritize the safety of whomever it deems to be worth more. There are no emotions holding this technology back.
That's just a third of Human Conditions, though. Another mission thread deals with hackers who have installed ransomware on the machines of Bay Area hospitals. Ubisoft hasn't yet outlined the last plot line.
Human Conditions is said to be about five hours in length. There's some timed-exclusivity going on as it's available on PS4 on February 21, and on PC and Xbox One on March 23.
[Update: YouTube's PR team got back to us with some more information on the Content ID system. According to YouTube's help site, content matches for "so-called Royalty free production music libraries" -- see also: the music used in Party Hard -- must be routed to YouTube employees for a "manual review." We asked why the Party Hard Content ID matches went through if they were reviewed by a person rather than the site's automated system, but YouTube declined to comment.
Destructoid was also told that YouTube had implemented a team dedicated to Content ID that has allegedly resolved millions of claims and protected YouTube users from fraudulent claims. YouTube declined to tell us when the team was first implemented or comment on any specific examples of the team's success.
YouTube also clarified that a new version of the Content ID revenue system was in place, where revenue would be held on videos with a disputed Content ID claim. If the YouTube uploader disputes the claim within 5 days of the original claim, all revenue will be held from the first day of the Content ID match. After the first 5 days, revenue is held from whenever the dispute was first filed.
Although that all looks good on paper, the details of YouTube's Content ID dispute process falls more in line with the anecdotes I've heard from various YouTubers. If you want to dispute a Content ID match, here's how it goes. YouTubers can dispute the claim, at which point the claimant has 30 days to either release the claim (agree with you and drop the Content ID match), uphold the claim, or submit a Copyright Takedown Request, which essentially annihilates your channel with a Copyright Strike.
If they uphold the claim, you can appeal the upholding, which gives them another 30 days to either release the claim again, submit a delayed Copyright Takedown Request (which gives you 7 days to apologize and give up, so your channel isn't ruined with a strike), or submit a Copyright Takedown Request. If you get a copyright strike, then you must file a counter-notification, which gives the claimant 10 days to "provide [YouTube] with evidence that [the claimant] has initiated a court action to keep the content down."
And that's it folks, it couldn't be easier than that; multiple stages of arbitration, during which all revenue on the video is held by YouTube. Best-case scenario, the claimant gives up at stage one and you get your video back along with the revenue held during the process. Worst-case scenario, if you follow this process all the way to the end, you've missed out on 70 days of revenue (that's between four and five paychecks, for those of you on a biweekly payment system) and the nature of American copyright law means there's a good chance your channel will be stuck with a copyright strike. So, yeah. I'm happy to admit that I was wrong -- your money isn't completely lost during the Content ID appeal process, but I didn't know that appealing Content ID claims gave the copyright holder the chance to hit you with a copyright strike. That's not much better.
Again, I must stress, YouTube gave a blanket "decline to comment" when asked for examples of the Content ID team's success.]
Video game YouTubers and indie developers exist in a sort of symbiotic circle. The YouTubers are always looking for the next underground viral hit (Five Nights, Hello Neighbor, Minecraft, et al), and indie developers could earn a strong following off those initial five minutes of fame, turning that into a successful follow-up game or even just a long tail for their primary release. As is the case with the mainstream press and developers of all stripes, that back-and-forth is understood but generally unspoken. But if one side goes off the reservation, like when a game developer starts hitting YouTubers with Content ID claims or when a YouTuber demands money in exchange for coverage, that never works out well for both sides.
In the case of Party Hard, a game from Ukranian developers Pinokl Games and published by indie label TinyBuild, the conflict between developer and YouTuber was not really instigated by either side. For once, this is not a case of bitter game developers trying to censor unflattering criticism. It's just a case of YouTube's Content ID system scraping up against the realities of independent game development, with Let's Players' caught in the middle.
As it has for the two years prior to this, Bethesda will again hold a press conference at E3. And, like previous years, it'll take place on Sunday. This was all confirmed by Bethesda today, although a specific time hasn't yet been mentioned.
There are a couple of takeaways from this. First and most obvious, the Sunday before E3 is getting really busy! With Xbox moving from its traditional spot, Sunday is now just as important as Monday --maybe more so if EA does its big thing on Sunday again. E3 is an increasingly long event as everyone wants to make sure that their presentation has the public's undivided attention.
But, the more exciting conclusion we can draw is that Bethesda almost certainly has some big stuff to reveal this year. Last year's press conference focused largely on Dishonored 2, Prey, and the Skyrim remaster. All of those will have already released by June 11. Quake Champions is the only announced Bethesda game that will still be in development at the time of the presser.
So, it seems reasonable to speculate that Bethesda will have a handful of significant reveals in the next four months, some of them probably at its E3 event. These press conferences aren't cheap to produce, and there wouldn't be any sense spending that money unless there's something to show off. At this point, Bethesda has almost everything up its sleeve still.
@bethesda [Twitter]
[Update: Just a bump before we close the contest tomorrow. Get your entries in now if you want a shot at winning! Also, if you're curious how Halo Wars 2 turned out, go give our review a read.]
Look, we simply have too many copies of Halo Wars 2. We have one that got used for a review (coming soon!) and maybe there's another floating around somewhere, but 15 extras?! Too many. Something has to give.
Alright, it's kind of disingenuous for me to imply that our surplus is your gain. These codes were never actually for us. Amazon Games was nice enough to send 15 copies of Halo Wars 2 our way, but they were always intended for you. We're just the middleman.
If you want in on Halo's second shot at real-time strategy, we might be able to hook it up for free. (Alternatively, if you don't want to play the waiting game with your fingers crossed, here's where Amazon's selling Halo Wars 2.) Fifteen sounds like a lot, but you'll still need some luck on your side.
Here's how this will work: We're going to give away 10 of the 15 codes in this post. The other five are going to replies to this tweet. Feel free to enter both places! We're closing the contest on February 17, so get your entry in soon. That should be plenty of time to pre-load before the February 21 release date. Also, note that these are digital versions of the game, so they work through the Play Anywhere program on both Xbox One and Windows 10 PC.
All I need from you is a comment telling me what's your favorite Halo game or what's your favorite real-time strategy game. If you want to explain why, fantastic. You went above and beyond. Way to take the initiative. It won't help you win this contest, but it'll probably help you get that big promotion at work. Proves you're a real go-getter, a doer and not a talker. They could use leaders like you.
And, if you're lucky, you could get some experience leading troops around Halo Wars 2's battlefields.
Microsoft is holding a free multiplayer weekend for Xbox Live starting tomorrow. Along with the reduced barrier to entry comes the chance to play Rocket League and NBA 2K17 for free, too. Since Live is a paid service on both the 360 and One, the free weekend will also extend to Microsoft's former console (albeit without the games).
Seemingly in a move to topple Microsoft's free weekend, Sony announced that the PlayStation Network will be having a free week for multiplayer on PS4. Yes, an entire week of free online play for any game on the system, versus Microsoft's three-day pass.
Starting tomorrow, February 17, at 12 AM PST, you'll be granted access to the illustrious servers that Sony holds captive behind a paywall. While I suppose paying for more stable service makes sense, I can't say I've missed multiplayer on my 360 or even really utilized it on my PS4. Maybe I'm just growing into an old, cynical man-child who pines for the "good ol' days."
Play 'NBA 2K17' and 'Rocket League' for free on Xbox this weekend [Engadget]
Free Multiplayer Week on PS4 Begins February 17 [PlayStation Blog]
One lucky person was able to secure a Nintendo Switch two weeks ahead of schedule. Posting to NeoGAF, user hiphoptherobot has shared footage of the console's setup process and given curious fans a quick scroll through the various system options and user-interface elements.
To be honest, there isn't a whole lot going on in this video (though it is interesting how much the Switch downplays Miis). But because Nintendo has been so tight-lipped about the Switch and we're so dang close to launch, folks are antsy, and that has led to excitement. I mean, I'm right there with you!
"I just happened to get lucky because unnamed store decided to ship early for whatever reason," hiphop wrote, adding that he doesn't have any games yet, so all he can do is "flip through the menus."
Nintendo Switch UI video from some guy [named hiphoptherobot] [NeoGAF]
Clever Endeavour Games' party platformer Ultimate Chicken Horse is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and also Nintendo Switch (still getting used to typing that! Feels good!) in Q3 2017.
The game is hinged on a fun-sounding concept. Players take turns one-upping each other by placing traps or hazards and attempting to reach a goal before turning things back over to their opponents.
For these upcoming console ports, Ultimate Chicken Horse will offer a new Free Play mode for creating levels using "the full suite of objects," with the ability to save and share your creations online. PC players will also get that functionality in a free update on the same day the console versions release.
Like Gang Beasts and Duck Game, this is something I'd prefer to play on a console. My PC setup is too scrunched up in a corner and it's just a mess trying to get two people, much less three or more, to fit.
Psyonix is holding another free Rocket League weekend on Xbox, giving the unexposed a chance to get hooked on the jumpy flippy car soccer game. It's also 25 percent off for Xbox Live Gold subscribers, a discount that will seem of tremendous value after these folks figure out just how goddamn good this game is.
If you're one of those people, know that Rocket League is a super inviting game. You'll have a lot of fun and everyone's really nice. They'll say "Nice shot!" and "What a save!" after you do stuff, even if you screw it up. You'll quickly learn to cherish your time spent with your new Rocket League family. You can stop reading this post now.
Introduced in Summer/Fall 2016, the HP Omen X, a collaboration with Maingear, is not exactly a budget gaming rig. Heck, even the bare chassis has a list price of $600. The gaming desktop hasn't had very many deals through the past few months given its premium nature, but with the introduction of a new 20% off coupon for select HP desktops (of which the Omen X 900 qualifies), we're finally spotting some reasonable pricing for the borg-cube gaming rig.
In fact, if you opt for the models with 7th-generation Kaby Lake processor you'll find significantly better value when compared the older config with 6th-gen Sky Lake processors. Newly introduced to the lineup and buried among HP's confusing model # store catalog, you can now pick up the latest Omen X with Kaby Lake for $1,279.99 after using coupon code VIPFEB20DT for 20% off. The base config starts with a Quad Core i5-7400 3.5Ghz processor, GeForce GTX 1070, 8GB RAM, and a 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD combo to finish off the machine.
For those with money to burn, the top-end config is priced at $2,399 (after coupon), and comes with a Core i7-6700K 4.0 Ghz, a 512GB SSD combo with a 3TB HDD, giant 32GB of RAM, with a GeForce GTX 1080 to top it all off. For the same price, you can also opt for a model with a 256GB SSD plus a Radeon R9 Fury X instead of the GTX 1080. Both are ridiculously pricey but will run any games you throw their way for 2017 and beyond.
Use 20% off coupon: VIPFEB20DT
HP Omen X 900 Deals
HP Omen 870 Deals
In today's "Whoa, what, really?" gaming news, THQ Nordic has revealed plans to bring back Lock's Quest with an enhanced port headed to PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One this April.
It's a name I haven't thought about in years -- the DS original from 5th Cell debuted in 2008 -- and an unlikely candidate for a re-release, to be sure. "It is one of those hidden gems and a fan-favourite, so when things fell into place, we quickly decided to do this," noted THQ Nordic's Reinhard Pollice.
A sequel to 2014's relatively popular theHunter was released earlier this morning. theHunter: Call of the Wild has quickly shot up to the top-selling spot on Steam, currently at #3 on the US and Global top-seller list.
Well, turns out there is a discount making its way around on the net at GMG. There you'll find Steam keys for theHunter: Call of the Wild going for $24 instead of the $30 elsewhere. Not bad for a release day deal on an in-demand title.
This open-world hunter title is reviewing well in the graphics and gameplay department but many are reporting bugs and thus reviews are oscillating between "mixed" and "mostly positive" (when it crosses the 70% positive threshold). For big-time theHunter fans, given some of the issues on the title, you should definitely avoid paying the full price on Steam. For everyone else, check back in a few months time, or dig into the "free" version of the first game (essentially a demo at this point with most of the content behind a paywall).
Back when Deep Down was announced in 2013 it gave us a real Souls vibe, but a lot of people feared that it would be another "me too" type project. Well, since Souls is ending soon with the second and final DLC of potentially the last Souls game, Capcom could, in its efforts to remain dormant with Deep Down, tap back into that market. If...the game ever comes out, that is.
As of last week the company has re-filed another trademark for Deep Down, effectively telling us that they're still working on it. The project has had five trademark extensions in all, with the most recent one dating back to August of 2016.
The last we heard of Deep Down is that it had grown into a completely different beast, but that was in 2015. Maybe Capcom has a new budgetary system in place now -- all new IP must be funded by at least 10 remakes before they hit the market. In that case, once the millionth Resident Evil 4 port hits we might be open for business!
Deep Down [TMDN.org]
Indie game developer Snowman has built up quite a reputation based mostly on one game: Alto's Adventure. But we now finally know when we'll get to see the studio's next creation. Where Cards Fall, a game the company has been teasing for a few years now, will be out this fall for Apple TV, iOS and Steam. If you haven't seen any of the gameplay yet, Snowman has also released a new trailer today that gives a pretty extensive look at what to expect when the game arrives.
Source: Snowman
Cities: Skylines was released in March of 2015 on PC, but an Xbox One port was supposed to follow at some point. So we waited, and waited, and nothing really came of it. But after a small update in January that it still exists, Paradox Interactive is ready to confirm that it will be released in the spring of this year -- so we don't even have a release date yet, but it's something.
It'll ship with the After Dark expansion, and based on the new gameplay trailer below, it seems to have basically everything else from the PC version. Hopefully the partnership with Microsoft will somehow allow mods into the picture, even in limited form. If you're interested, it's also coming to the Windows 10 platform.
Vicarious Visions' remaster of the first three Crash Bandicoot games has been something I've been looking for to for a minute now. Including the first three Crash titles (Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, and Crash Bandicoot: Warped), Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy features new animations, better cinematics (enhanced for 4K and PS4 Pro), and a fully remastered soundtrack. It's also touting full analog stick support and new checkpoint saving systems.
It's basically a full remaster down to the bones and that sounds awesome. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy will release on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Pro June 30th for $39.99.
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy hits June 30th [Polygon]
It's another what's old is new again week, with Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber as the headliner on the Wii U Virtual Console. Also on Wii U is Back to Bed, Wall Ball, and Color Cubes. I still recall many conversations in my younger years where people argued over the superiority of the Ogre series compared to Final Fantasy Tactics.
3DS has a new Nintendo game this week in the under-hyped Tank Troopers, which features a 30 level campaign and multiplayer. It basically looks like Steel Diver, but with tanks. That's it for 3DS.
A funny but perhaps now outdated gag, Magikarp vs Magikarp splash battles are now being made into a mobile game, naturally titled Splash! Magikarp. Well, OK I guess?
Memes aside they're taking the most uneventful part of the games and making it into a mobile game which will certainly either cost money or feature micro-transactions. Sounds like a poor match-up but as with all games I have no choice but to reserve judgement until gameplay is shown.
Nintendo loves to be mysterious.
Even just several weeks away from the launch of the Switch there's still so many unknowns, and one of their favorite things to do is announce peripherals but not give any specifics. That includes amiibo support for Fire Emblem Echoes -- but thanks to a listing from Amazon Japan, we have a little more to go on.
It's a simple description, but according to the page it says you can "challenge a special dungeon" (singular). As a reminder, Echoes will arrive on May 19 in the west, along with a separately sold Alm and Celica amiibo double pack. Hopefully we'll get more info on some other amiibo related happenings soon, like what the five new Breath of the Wild figures do in-game, and when Bayonetta, Corrin, and Cloud are coming.
Fire Emblem Echoes [Amazon]
Looks like someone heard me when I pointed out that the Steam release of Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator would not come with the previously released DLC, or at least I like to think that. In any case the newest version of Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator, titled simply Xrd Rev 2, will include all DLC this time around as it comes to North America this year. It will be available as a stand-alone title both physically and digitally for PlayStation 4, but Xrd Revelator owners on both PS3 and PS4 can upgrade digitally.
On top of including old DLC, the new version will be packed with new content including fresh story chapters, moves, stages, and even two new fighters. Arc System Works will also be re-balancing all the fighters, so you may have to change your main or re-adjust depending on how much is changed.
