News:: Dead Rising 4's next add-on turns Frank West into a zombie

Poor Frank West deserves better than this. He's a hero, having saved countless people from a zombie outbreak. He's a pioneer, the kind that seek out danger in order to get a scoop. And, as everyone seems to remember most, he's covered wars.

Still, you play with fire long enough and you're bound to get burned. Or, if you play with zombies long enough, you're bound to get bit. That's the timeline the upcoming Dead Rising 4 DLC explores.

On April 4, a single-player add-on called Frank Rising will release on Xbox One and Windows 10 PC for $10. In it, Frank is infected by the undead and he needs to find a permanent cure. The twist is bolstered by the fact that Frank needs to feast on humans instead of traditional food in order to stay alive. Well, I guess humans are traditional zombie food.

Good on Frank for seeing how the other half lives. Understanding all perspectives is an important part of being a journalist, and now he'll have the empathetic experience to objectively cover the zombies. Frank West: Good Journalist.

Spring Forward Into All-New Dead Rising 4 Content [Xbox Wire]

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News:: Meet Nintendo's core cast of fighters in Arms

Chris already initiated the dibs callin' process for Arms when he posted the Japanese-language versions of these clips last month, so I'm left with the slightly off-smelling scraps. Not that I mind!

Out of the combatants introduced so far -- Spring Man, Ribbon Girl, Ninjara, Master Mummy, and Mechanica -- I'd be just peachy playing as the neglected mummy grump in this stretchy Nintendo Switch fighting game. The old brute can restore his health as he turtles up in defense, after all.

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News:: You can build an airship in Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Okay. Traveling via self-catapulting rock is cool. Inventing super jumps to skip puzzles is cool. Dropping a chicken wing on the ground in below-freezing lands and it turning into a frozen chicken wing is cool. There are a lot of little cool things in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

But little cool things can come together in more and more complex or inventive combinations. Thus, placing Octo Balloons on a raft to turn it into an airship, as YouTube's BeardBear has done.

If you wanted to fly even fast, you might be able to use the same "motor boat" trick that you can use to make your raft move faster in the water, but your flying machine probably won't be stable enough.

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News:: Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth follow-up announced

Word of a new Digimon game for PlayStation 4 and PS Vita bubbled up over the weekend.

As revealed in the most recent issue of V-Jump, Bandai Namco is following 2015's Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth with a new role-playing game, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Hacker's Memory. It's on track for release in Japan this year and should also be localized, based on this European trademark listing.

Hacker's Memory has upwards of 320 Digimon and stars an unlucky guy "who had to jump into the hacker world after he was made the criminal in a case he knows nothing about," reports Gematsu. A few scans have surfaced -- it looks Cyber Sleuth-y all right! -- and the prior game is said to be a pack-in.

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Hacker’s Memory announced for PS4, PS Vita [Gematsu]

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News:: Mass Effect: Andromeda's easier to manage with this mobile app

Normally, companion apps are almost a complete waste of time. There's functionality, but nothing pressing enough to make them crucial. Even when they enhance the experience, the games are usually competent enough in their menu management that the app mostly just serves as an alternate means to accomplish something. Or, they'll come with some small dividend, a bonus for thinking about the game when you're away from the game.

Mass Effect: Andromeda's companion app is more than that. Well, sort of. It's still just a different way to click through menus, but Mass Effect: Andromeda's menus are bloated enough that this feels like a significantly more efficient way to do it.

Named Apex HQ (available on iOS and Android), it's mostly multiplayer-oriented and excels at giving an overview of your characters, their loadouts, and your overall progress (along with the ability to upgrade and tinker with everything). This is something that Mass Effect: Andromeda (full review here!) doesn't do particularly well. Simply put: It's less confusing on the app than in the game.

However, the bigger allure comes in managing your Strike Teams, the passive multiplayer squads you can send to tackle missions when you don't feel like doing them. In Andromeda's singleplayer, you have to be either on the Tempest or the Nexus to send Strike Teams into battle. This is a problem because a lot of time is spent far away from those locations. The app makes it so you can always check in on them, constantly reaping the benefits of their hard work.

There's a lot to keep track of in Mass Effect: Andromeda. It's overwhelming at times. This app won't help cut down on the bulk of everything but it will streamline it to some extent. That's enough to justify a download. 

Apex HQ [iTunes, Google Play]

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News:: Game Freak hiring for console game based on a 'globally popular RPG'

Pokémon creator Game Freak is hiring for an undisclosed console-bound video game, one that's said to be a "globally popular RPG" with cartoonish characters and monsters. That sure does sound familiar!

With still-lingering rumors about a potential offshoot of Pokémon Sun and Moon known as Stars coming to Nintendo Switch, it's tempting to want to connect these dots and be on our merry way.

One of the job openings calls for an artist experienced with working on Wii U and PlayStation Vita character models, and another involves animating and modeling, as well as assisting programmers with data work. Both listings are for contract positions that will last until May 2018.

I was already down for a Switch-based Pokemon title when those rumors originated, but after a few weeks spent having a grand old time with the system, I'm even more raring to go.

[Via Siliconera]

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News:: Fifteen minutes with Dusk just isn't enough

There's a lyric on Beach Slang's second album that sounds like it could be Dusk's mantra. "Play it loud, play it fast. Play me something that will always last," howls singer James Alex. Though the request is simple, it's a loaded gun. The band's growling sound channels the Replacements' sonic angst, unleashing it in a single line that challenges rock music's softening edges while rekindling punk's essence: fast, raw, and eternally driven by attitude.

Dusk carries that attitude, just in a different form. The upcoming first-person shooter wears its influences on its sleeves. It's unabashedly fast with an old-school look that serves as a nod to a bygone era. But instead of treading on nostalgia-worn territory, Dusk hits you like a sack of bricks, as if the game has something to prove. 

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News:: Cheetah looks purrty good in her Injustice 2 gameplay trailer

Revealed back in February along with Poison Ivy (meaning we should get a gameplay trailer for her soon too), Cheetah fits right in with the Injustice 2 roster. I'm not sure if it's my preference if non-projectile characters or a latent furry desire, but Cheetah's moveset looks super fun to play. 

Her claw and ground game give me Felicia (from Darkstalkers) vibes, and her combos seem to move at a brisk pace (with her EX rolls and pounces). While the supers of Injustice 2 have been lacking in some areas, I think I'm in love with Cheetah's knock-off "Maximum Spider." 

Too bad about those Source Crystals though. 

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News:: Lucio is getting some big changes, Overwatch team wants less draws

A new PTR build is live for Overwatch, and it includes some big changes for Lucio. I'm hesitant to call them outright nerfs as a frequent Lucio player, but time will tell what it'll do to his win and pickrate.

In short, his sonic amplifier is now buffed, as is his heal song healing rate (50%) and wall ride speed (30%), but his area-of-effect radius for songs is now 10 meters, down from 30 meters. So now instead of being in the general area of people who need heals, you'll basically need to be right up on them. The range of his ultimate has been nerfed a bit too.

It's definitely more inline with bard-like roles in other games with tighter radius concerns, but it's going to take some getting used to -- if this is indicative of the final build (anything can change in PTR, just look at Ana). People are already up in arms about it, but given his insanely high pickrate, it makes sense why Blizzard would want to shake him up. I have a feeling they'll revert to 15-20 meters by the end of the testing period.

In other news the team is looking to eliminate draws as much as possible for CTF and Elimination games, but didn't offer any details beyond that.

Jeff Kaplan [Battle.net]

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News:: 2007 forum poster dreams of working at Nintendo, ends up in new Zelda credits

Over the weekend someone on Reddit noticed an English-looking name -- Corey Bunnell, credited with Shogo Kihara for Wildlife Programming --- in the otherwise Japanese-filled credits for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. 

"[A] quick Google search" led to a 2007 post by a user "Corey Bunnell" on the online message board Translators Cafe asking for advice on how he, a recent high school graduate, can work towards going to school in Japan. "My dream," the post explains, "is to live in Japan and work for Nintendo as a game designer."

Kyoto Report states Bunnell joined Nintendo in 2014, the same year he graduated from from Ritsumeikan University with a computer science degree. Good job, Corey! I consider it a victory for wildly ambitious posters everywhere.

American Says In 2007 It's His Dream To Work At Nintendo, Winds Up In Credits For Breath Of The Wild [Kotaku]

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News:: Get caught up on the wild and wacky universe of Drakengard and NieR in one minute

If you prepped for NieR: Automata by reading wiki entries for Drakengard (which is in the same universe) and the previous NieR, you may not have even started the game yet -- that's how far the rabbit hole goes.

It's an insane series to say the least, so watching a one minute video narrated by the soothing voice of Automata's protagonist is probably the way to go here. Think Attack on Titan meets Shin Megami Tensei meets...Yoko Taro, and you'll have some sort of idea of where this clip will go.

Sure you aren't going to resonate with all of the emotional details as much as you would if you actually played the games, but the last 20 seconds or so should get you mostly up to speed with the intro of Automata, without providing any major spoilers for the even deeper rabbit hole you're about to descend into.

This really makes the case for Platinum handling a remake of every Drakengard and the original NieR.

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News:: The best part of Binding of Isaac on the Switch? Easy co-op

I can't be the only one who thinks of food when I slide off those Switch controllers right? It reminds me of breaking off a piece of candy or bread, or something.

I've been doing that frequently over the weekend to test out The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+, which just hit the Switch both in physical form (with a fancy box) and digitally. Playing to one of the Switch's biggest strengths four player co-op is available day one, both in TV and tablet mode. It's still the same limited "helper" setup as in the past (I wish we didn't have to resort to "true co-op mods" on PC), but it's fun all the same to dive back into the world of Isaac with all of the Afterbirth+ extras in tow.

There is one caveat though -- developers don't seem to have a unified controller UI front. For some titles you can access controller re-syncing on the fly in-game, but for Isaac and several others, you need to put the game on hold to go to the Switch's home menu, select "controllers," re-order everything to suit your Isaac co-op session, then go back in. It's a minor pain, but a pain all the same, and something I hope Nintendo addresses with its development partners over time. There is a silver lining though, as every player can fully remap every button to their liking in Isaac.

Other than that, Afterbirth+ is basically the same as it's been for the past few months on PC. Read up on Peter's detailed review for everything that's changed.

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News:: Zelda: Breath of the Wild speedrun battle continues, players now at roughly 50 minutes

Before Breath of the Wild was out, Nintendo sent several copies to leading members of the speedrunning community, who were eventually able to figure out new tech together like "whistle sprinting," which led to sub-hour runs. Now we're getting down to the wire here with roughly 50 minutes, as the debate between amiibo use and non-amiibo use continues.

Just after speedrunner Venick hit the record with 50:17 (following a massive glitch that ended his run entirely on the final boss gauntlet), sva161620 has achieved 47:59 as of yesterday on Wii U (which is a smidgen faster than Switch) without using the German translation, which would have saved them 10 seconds.

Every time I think about starting a new file to experience the game over again I find something else to discover on my original save. It's the game that keeps on giving, and I reckon we'll see it on a lot of Game of the Year lists at the end of 2017.

Venick [Twitch]

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News:: 'Zelda' fan creates an ocarina-controlled smart home

In the real world, an ocarina is a lot less functional than the magical one Link has in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. As Nintendo 64 lovers know, the Hyrulian hero can use his instrument to do things like manipulate the rain and switch between night and day. In our realm, ocarinas just sound nice. Allen Pan, better known as Sufficiently Advanced on YouTube, decided he was tired of playing his ocarina without mystical results. So, he did what any Zelda fan with the technological know-how would do: create a smart home setup controlled by an ocarina.

Via: The Verge

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News:: Dumb internet mob attacks woman over Mass Effect: Andromeda animations

Here is the right way to enjoy Mass Effect Andromeda's occasional madcap facial animations: write a fun post about them filled with gifs, videos, and laughs all around. What a blast! Remember when someone compared the funny walk to the Monty Python silly walk? Hah! Classic.

Here is the wrong to enjoy Andromeda's facial animations: send threatening and rude messages online to someone who you think might be the "lead facial animator" on the game. One Allie Rose-Marie Leost was found on Twitter with a bio which read at the time, "Lead Facial Animator on Mass Effect: Andromeda, FX makeup arist, & cosplayer." This revelation was tweeted out and published in The Puke Post, pointing hundreds of angry online people in her direction to send shit-headed messages, having found a convenient patsy for their unbridled rage towards the 800-person company.

BioWare then had to issue a statement noting that Leost, a former employee of EA Labs, "was misidentified as a lead member of the Mass Effect: Andromeda development team. These reports are false." The statement continued with a condemnation of some peoples' reaction, noting, "attacking individuals, regardless of their involvement of the project, is never acceptable."

I figured Leost's bio was a joke, given that the funny faces had gone viral, and that she very obviously is not "a lead member of the Mass Effect: Andromeda development team," but it's impossible to know what it read prior. Unfortunately this is not the first time insane BioWare fans (or simply the spiteful internet at large) decided to target one particular woman for crimes against gamers.

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News:: As it turns out, the Switch has a screenshot limit

Just like that surprise "extra menu" that pops up after loading 12 games onto the Switch, users have begun to discover a new screenshot limit on the system. With folks taking literally hundreds of screens from Zelda: Breath of the Wild it was bound to happen, but reddit user megamilkybee has confirmed what that limit actually is.

According to a warning that pops up in the album app, the system memory can only hold 1,000 screens, lest you move or delete them. If you pop in an optional microSD card you can hold up to 10,000. Provided that you're not completely attached to having the screens on a card you can (turn off your system), pop the card out, copy them all onto your PC, then wipe the screens folder clean.

That should be more than sufficient going forward, just keep in mind that your options will be limited if you aren't getting a microSD card anytime soon (maybe you're waiting for larger capacity cards to drop?).

I hit my screenshot limit [Reddit]

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News:: Player discovers silly Zelda: Breath of the Wild underwater glitch

People are finding all sorts of delightful ways to break Zelda: Breath of the Wild, sometimes within the confines of the physics engine, and sometimes, in all new ways that Nintendo ever even thought of. This instance probably belongs in the latter category, veering into firm "this is a glitch" territory.

Twitter user Swiffy22 found that by getting hit (in this case, from a Stone Talus) and falling backwards into a body a water, that they could walk along the ground. Breath of the Wild doesn't feature any type of diving, even with Zora gear, so this is clearly breaking the game.

Still, it looks pretty harmless, especially given that you can fast travel at any point, even in combat (and the auto-save feature pops periodically even on the world map) -- a system that was probably implemented to avoid situations like this.

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News:: GDC developer survey shows PC development interest on top, Switch on bottom

While random internet polls will showcase a wide array of favoritism among any number of platforms in any given week, the results of this poll are a little more indicative of where the industry might be going based on the targets. At GDC, polling firm Statista asked 4,500 developers what platforms they're working on, and the resounding number of them said "PC/Mac" at 53%.

Next up was smartphones/tablets at 38%, followed by PS4/Pro at 27%, VR at 24%, Xbox One/Scorpio at 22%, web games at 13%, Linux at 7%, AR Headses at 5%, Apple TV at 4%, and Switch at 3%. For the latter it is early yet, but note that Switch development kits have been out in the wild for quite a bit. That could easily shift though now that the Switch is selling, as many of those teams were likely waiting to see if it would be another Wii U-level dud. Also, high levels of VR development haven't been able to help the platform reach over into the mainstream yet, and could severely drop over the next year if it doesn't take off.

Either way it's unsurprising to see the PC, mobile, and PS4 platforms on top.

Gaming Platforms [Channel News.com.AU] [image source]

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News:: Official Mana series Twitter posts massive Seiken Densetsu 3 on Switch tease

Late last night the Mana series Twitter account (Seiken Densetsu) randomly dropped this kernel -- a tease of Seiken Densetsu 3 playing on the Switch. We don't yet know if it's a fully fledged game, if it's Japan-exclusive, if it's an upcoming Virtual Console title, or if it's even real.

This is massive for a number of reasons, most notably due to the fact that Seiken Densetsu 3 has never been localized. Despite that it has a massive worldwide following and many fan translations, so even if it only arrives on the Japanese eShop, everyone could easily access it.

Whatever the case might be, putting out obscure games like this would show more initiative toward retro preservation than most of the Virtual Console efforts on Wii U. I really hope this new iteration of the service is worthwhile.

Seiken [Twitter]

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News:: The Morning After: Monday, March 20th 2017

Hey, good morning!

Is there such a thing as a good Monday morning? Hopefully, you've managed to calibrate to the clock changes last week, as we kick of this one with the weekend's highlight. After all that bad Uber news, its president has quit, while Tesla is killing its (slightly more) affordable 60kWh Model S. Our weekly After Math breaks down all the numbers from the last seven days too -- no calculators required.

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News:: Just in case you missed this MLB The Show glitch

This beautiful, happy accident from an early build (since ironed out) of MLB The Show 17 made the rounds this weekend, set off by this tweet:

A bug in MLB The Show 17 early development (which has been fixed) http://pic.twitter.com/UBC78sUF7q

— Steve Noah (@Steve_OS) March 16, 2017

I just didn't want any of you to miss it. I consider it a visual expression of how my soul feels each day I long for the return of the baseball season and its blissful, anesthetizing effect. I would also like David Cronenberg to remake Bull Durham.

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News:: Review: Mass Effect: Andromeda

"Andromeda is all about new beginnings, not holding funerals." I overheard some generic leader telling his crew that aboard the Nexus, what is functionally Mass Effect: Andromeda's Citadel-like hub area. These people -- the ones spearheading the initiative and the thousands more still in cryosleep -- have given up their lives in the Milky Way and shipped off to the Andromeda galaxy in hopes that whatever's there is better, or, at the very least, habitable.

So too is Mass Effect: Andromeda about new beginnings. More direct, it's not a memorial service. Developer BioWare very sparingly makes any reference to characters from the Shepard Trilogy -- it just doesn't feel like that's what we're here for. This is a Mass Effect game in name only. Sure, there's a lot that's recognizable. The presentation looks the same and many of the proper nouns are familiar. But this isn't something that latches onto its past.

Commendable as it might be, Mass Effect: Andromeda may have been wise to take more cues from previous games.

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News:: SXSW's gaming awards celebrate 'Uncharted 4' and indie hits

South by Southwest isn't just about cool tech, movies and music... gaming is a big deal, too. The Austin festival has unveiled its fourth annual gaming award winners, and the top picks definitely reflect SXSW's emphases on storytelling and out-of-the-ordinary concepts. The leader, by far, was Uncharted 4. Naughty Dog's swashbuckling action game took home five prizes, including video game of the year as well as excellence awards for a memorable character, narrative, animation and visuals. It's not surprising, to be honest -- U4 has been an awards darling for months, and its combination of sophisticated characterization with breathtaking vistas was bound to be appealing to SXSW's panel.

Source: SXSW

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