News:: Pinball FX3 gets cross-platform multiplayer, but PS4 is limited to PC

One of the cooler features in the upcoming Pinball FX3 is the inclusion of live multiplayer between opponents. Now you don't have to just believe an easily faked scoreboard online to prove you are better than someone. While I didn't expect cross-platform to be a part of the experience, Zen Studios has announced that FX3 will feature competition between platforms. How awesome!

Unexpectedly, PS4 players will be limited to matchmaking between other PS4 brethren and PC players. As for everyone else (Windows 10, PC, Xbox One), they'll have access to users from any version for multiplayer hi-jinks, excluding PS4. I suppose there really isn't anything we can do about that.

As for the list of playable tables, nearly every DLC table from the previous entry will transfer into 3. Only five aren't making the cut, which comes down to licensing issues. They are as follows:

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News:: Live Show: The GTFOMLG Show Episode 10.0

Wow, episode 10 already? Thank you all so much for your support! Be sure to keep tuning into Dtoid.TV, as we're ever expanding with new personalities and live content.

Getting back to GTFOMLG, I'm super excited for tonight's show as we'll be playing one of my old favorites, Wrath of the Black Manta for the NES. While this game may not hold up these days, I remember it fondly, and have been looking forward to picking it up again.

Later in the evening, we'll be messing with my newly acquired Nintendo Switch while we get together with the community to play some ARMS. Lastly, if you're curious about what we'll be playing next week, well, the masses have spoken. Games include Dog's Life (PS2), Mister Mosquito (PS2), Willow (Arcade), and Ninja Spirit (TG-16). See you there!

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News:: Gears of War 4 is getting a shorter Horde mode variant

Tomorrow, The Coalition is coming out with a shorter, more "intense" version of Horde mode in Gears of War 4. Dubbed Horde Frenzy, the new variant is 25 waves long (half the normal length) with bosses appearing every 5 waves. It's still a time commitment -- the developers are clocking Frenzy runs at 60 to 90 minutes -- but it's much more approachable than the standard version, to be sure.

Horde Frenzy will be playable on Avalanche, Dawn, and Forge Blitz to start, with Normal Ironman and Insane difficulty options available. First-week players will also earn 50 percent bonus XP.

This is a good step, but I feel like they can (and probably should) go even shorter. To that end, The Coalition says it'll be "listening to your thoughts and feedback on this mode as we look to the future."

Gears of War 4 - Horde Frenzy [Gears of War]

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News:: Treadnauts is a chaotic new take on Scorched Earth

Remember Scorched Earth? Or Death Tank? Or any of those old artillery games?

Their spirit lives on in Treadnauts, a cute little multiplayer game that's just as much about bouncing your impossibly agile tank around as it is lining up the perfect shot.

I always love the idea of these games, but they're rarely so fast-paced or hectic. This speaks to me.

If you like how the game is shaping up so far, be on the lookout for a public alpha in two weeks. Treadnauts is in development for PC, Mac, and consoles at Topstitch Games.

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News:: ‘Quake Champions’ isn’t finished, but you can play it August 22nd

Been green with envy over your pals playing the Quake Champions closed beta? Time to stop being jealous and start working on your rocket jumping because the classic shooter's revival is moving to Steam's Early Access on August 22nd, where everyone can play. Now, there was an open beta during E3, but that was a limited-time deal. To celebrate, publisher Bethesda is knocking 25 percent off the Champions Pack, bringing the price down to $29.99.

Source: Bethesda

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News:: Comments of the Week 12: Cor Blimey!

Welcome back to Comments of the Week, where we take a look back at a week's worth of great quips and comments from lurkers, contributors, and regulars just like you! For the uninitiated, I am Perro, and I will be your maître d' on this journey through my personal picks of the best comments of the week from August 7th through the 13th! There will be laughter, tears, anger, and a couple faps to even out the shame, so strap yourselves in and get comfortable! Enjoy the show!

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News:: Battlefield: Bad Company now playable on Xbox One

It feels like Battlefield: Bad Company came out forever ago, and with no continuation of the spin-off series in sight, it's always nice when its name pops up in the news. As of today, the Xbox 360 version is now playable on Xbox One through the console's backward compatibility functionality.

Most of my fond memories of Bad Company are actually from the sequel, but it's all good -- that game is also playable on Xbox One. I haven't gone back to revisit either of these in years. I really should.

Major Nelson [Twitter]

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News:: Minecraft will soon let you transfer saves from Wii U to Switch

In the near future, Minecraft players will be able to transfer their worlds from Wii U to Nintendo Switch.

"We're about ready," 4J Studios said on-stream while demonstrating the transfer tool. "Whenever the next patch comes for Wii U and patch comes for Switch, this functionality will be there."

The process itself looks quick and easy enough. You'll just hit a couple buttons on your Wii U to initiate the transfer and then confirm it on your Switch. My poor Wii U is still hooked up, but it's been moved to a different room where it remains docked and unplayed. I don't have the heart to pack it up yet.

[Via reddit]

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News:: Thomas Was Alone creator's new game is about a robot detective

I do love a good surprise release. Mike Bithell of Thomas Was Alone and Volume fame has announced and launched his team's latest game, Subsurface Circular, a "graphical twist on the classic text-based adventure." It's pitched as a single-sitting game and priced accordingly at $4.79 on Steam.

"A detective stationed on the Subsurface Circular investigates a series of disappearances among the city's robotic working class," reads the summary. "Collect words and phrases, then use them in dialogue puzzles to uncover the world's secrets and determine its future."

As you'll quickly glean from this trailer, the writing and characterization will be what make or break this short but focused experience (and knowing Bithell's prior work, there's nothing to worry about there).

"My fear was hype: A hopefully good, polished short game could be ruined if we announced early and set false expectations," he said of the surprise launch. "So, would that work? If we just launched a short game, announcing it at the point it goes on sale? Let's find out in 5 minutes."

Subsurface Circular [Steam]

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News:: Obi-Wan Kenobi getting standalone Star Wars movie since it's worked so well for Han Solo

Even though the standalone Han Solo movie has gone through some major problems, Disney isn't giving up on Star Wars spin-offs. Heat Vision confirmed today that an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie is in the works. Academy Award-nominated director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliott, The Reader) is in early talks to helm the picture. As of now, there is no script or screenwriter. There is also no word on if Ewan McGregor will reprise his role as the Jedi knight originally played by Alec Guinness.

Truly, Disney will squeeze the Star Wars cash cow until its swollen, tender teats no longer yield creamy blue milk.

I don't care what you think about the following scene from Billy Elliott -- "Town Called Malice" is one of the best songs ever.

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News:: Full look at Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite's story reveals the Venom symbiote and Chun Li's new face

I'm hoping Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite has just been a victim of bad first impressions. I know I haven't helped in this matter at all, but the more I look at this newer art style, the more I'm adjusting to it. Is this the case for anyone else? Anyone else warming up to it? I'd argue the more cartoonish characters translate very well. 

Regardless, this full story trailer shows off quite a few cool things. We see the scope of the new story mode (showing off just how involved Darkstalkers' Jedah is going to be), we see how Ghost Rider and Dormammu (with a blink and you'll miss it Firebrand) look in the new style, the Venom symbiote (probably confirming those Venom DLC rumors). and get a look at Chun Li's new face! It's been a point of contention among series fans, so I'm curious to find out what you think.  

Also Capcom confirmed a couple of modes: Story, Arcade, standard versus modes, Training, Mission, Collection (which is a gallery mode with unlockable character art, etc.), and along with standard online offerings is something interesting called the "Beginner's League," which is fought between players Rank 14 and lower. That's a neat way to compete online, even if you're not a super pro. I just want Infinite to succeed, so at least the story mode seems more put together than it did at first glance 

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News:: An effigy for Adobe Flash

Now that Adobe has announced it will be discontinuing support for Flash after the year 2020, I decided to speak with some of the creators who got their start with the platform. Jim Crawford, Tim Donley, Tyler Glaiel, and Tom Fulp join us to reflect on the past, present, and future of Adobe Flash.

For over 20 years, people have been creating with it, and, despite its current security flaws, this is still an important part of video game history. It deserves to be preserved. Once support is finally phased out of modern browsers, many of these experiences run the risk of being lost to the unforgiving void of time.

Instead of foaming at the mouth with my own views on the subject, I thought it might be more interesting to get insight from the people that this matters to the most: the developers who used it.

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News:: Today's Hellblade update targets game-breaking bugs

If talk of progression-blocking bugs kept you away from Hellblade, today's update on PC and PS4 is here to lend a helping hand. Ninja Theory has addressed issues in Fenrir Cave as well as tidied up the subtitles (something Chris brought up in his review) and rebalanced certain enemies.

"We are continuing to monitor reports of issues in Hellblade and will be working on additional fixes for future updates," added Ninja Theory. "In particular we are investigating performance issues that players with AMD GPUs are seeing and are working towards a fix as quickly as we can."

This update is a crucial first step, and I'm curious to see what comes next once the bugs are squashed.

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News:: Question everything (and leave those questions in the comments of this post)

[Extremely sick guitar riff] The boys are back in town town, the boys are back in town! [Three minutes later, whispering] The boys are back! The boys are back!

For the first time in weeks, the Podtoid Boyz are all where we're supposed to be. Two bachelor parties and a trip to Mexico had us displaced for a while. Don't worry, we're all done having fun and we're ready to make some internet radio.

We picked a good time to come back because some dang video games finally released. Sonic Mania and Tacoma are a couple of the ones that we've got in store. You best believe we're gonna talk D-Team PUBG too. Like the time I became a pack mule.

You can be Podtoid's pack mule. You're carrying questions in your sexy brain and we want you to unload them all over the comments section. Whatcha wanna know? We'll answer them on the show. Hate Disqus? Email at podtoid[at]destructoid[dot]com.

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News:: PS4's latest firmware update is live for beta testers

Sony is now testing the latest PlayStation 4 system software update. If you managed to get into the beta, you'll be able to download firmware 5.00 and try out some new features as of today.

For the rest of us, Sony also shared the full details on the update, although they're going to look awfully familiar if you've kept up with this stuff as of late. (The patch notes leaked just last week.)

There's nothing too terribly surprising here: organizing multiple PlayStation Network accounts and managing parental controls should be easier, the Quick Menu now shows your downloads and installs (and a clock!), Custom Lists will enable you to quickly create and edit lists of your friends, and PlayStation 4 Pro owners can do 1080p 60fps live streams through Twitch. Some good ease-of-use features -- especially the revised Quick Menu -- but nothing I was dying to see implemented.

Actually, I take that back! I'm stoked about disabling pop-ups during movies and TV shows.

PS4's System Software 5.00 Beta Rolls Out Today, Key Features Detailed [PlayStation Blog]

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News:: Sephiroth is putting in work in the new Fortune Street game

We only got one Fortune Street in the west on consoles in 2011 (there was also one worldwide mobile release), but Japan has been churning them out for nearly every console since 1991.

Born out of a Dragon Warrior minigame, this Monopoly-esque series has withstood the test of time, and is set to barrel into Japan later this year on PS4 and Vita under the extremely long moniker of Itadaki Street: Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary.

Part of those festivities include an appearance from Cloud and Sephiroth, who are hamming it up in super serious fashion in the trailers below. You'd think that this is the perfect opportunity to drop nostalgia on the west with another localization -- but then again, that's a lot of text to translate I guess!

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News:: 'Volume' developer launches a surprise, bite-sized sci-fi game

Subsurface Circular came out of nowhere.

Well, that's not entirely true. Mike Bithell, the developer behind Thomas Was Alone and Volume, tweeted a prescient question in April, asking followers if they'd be interested in paying $5 for a unique, hour-long video game. He didn't mention that his team at Bithell Games was already building Subsurface Circular, a bite-sized, reasonably priced experience for PC and Mac.

Source: Steam

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News:: How 'We Happy Few' plans to avoid the pitfalls of 'No Man's Sky'

The 1960s dystopia of We Happy Few will hit Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on April 13th, 2018, thanks to Compulsion Games and Gearbox, the studio best known for Borderlands. You're not hallucinating -- We Happy Few did already come to Xbox One and Steam as an early-access game, but now it's ready for prime time. The full experience, priced at $60 and featuring a rich storyline starring three separate characters, will be ready to roll next spring.

That's all fine and dandy, but We Happy Few's joyous release-date news hides a deeper development story. Compulsion has followed a long, winding road to April 2018, and the first major twist in that path came early in the development process.

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News:: Quake Champions enters early access next week

Bethesda's revival of arena shooters, Quake Champions, will be leaving its closed beta phase on August 22 and entering into Early Access on Steam and through Bethesda's own game launcher (which I didn't realize was a thing). While the game will eventually be free-to-play, this current Early Access period will require a payment $29.99 (25% off the usual price of $39.99).

If you opt in to paying for Quake Champions, you'll receive all 11 currently available champions, any future champions, an early access skin for Ranger and three exclusive loot chests. Along with being able to finally play the game, players will also have access to the DOOM Slayer, clearly inspired by the Doomguy from last year's incarnation of DOOM.

If you happened to be a part of the closed beta, you can still play Quake Champions for free, but you'll be limited to launching it through Bethesda's launcher. You'll then have the option to upgrade to the "full" version or you can buy champions individually (similar to how the game will work when it finally launches as free-to-play).

All in all, this sounds odd to me. While I don't mind microtransactions in free-to-play games, putting eventually free games up for sale at regular retail prices just feels wrong to me. Having loot crates and drop rates and all this extra crap in a Quake game is also sickening, since its following a model made popular by a totally different game.

I'm still interested to see if Bethesda has changed the game any from the beta I played at PAX, but I'm honestly not that optimistic about Champions anymore. It just sounds too much like following trends instead of trying to revive a beloved franchise.

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News:: What did you decorate your Zelda: Breath of the Wild house with?

It took me several weeks to even realize that you could buy a house in Zelda: Breath of the Wild. From the looks of this recent reddit thread, a lot of folks didn't even realize you could buy one at all. Madness!

There's so much to explore in Breath of the Wild it can get pretty overwhelming. I didn't even bother doing the bloated Korok Seed questline at all and I have hundreds of hours of spelunking on my original save file, just trying to find Easter eggs, hidden loot troves, and other amazing gems -- of which there are many.

But this discussion got me thinking -- how did you all decorate your house? I did it just like this poster, with elemental swords adorned on the wall. I've seen some other great ideas like Bokoblin Arms that wiggle and try to grab you, but I want to hear your thoughts!

The best way to decorate your house? [Reddit]

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News:: Twitch can filter streamers by their 'Overwatch' hero of choice

Overwatch and Hearthstone fans will now find it easier to discover livestreams most relevant to them after Twitch introduced new channel filtering options for the popular Blizzard titles. From today, viewers can open a new menu that appears at the top of each directory, which allows them to select channels based on what on hero a streamer is playing, as well as the opportunity to filter by game mode, player rank, number of wins in Hearthstone games.

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News:: Next Splatfest asks what superpower would you rather have

Hot off the heels of the recent mayonnaise vs ketchup (semper fidelis mayonnaise) Splatfest, Nintendo of Europe has announced the theme for the Splatfest scheduled for September 1st through 3rd. That weekend you'll have to choose whether you'd rather fly or become invisible. No specific details have been put out but it would be cool to see them implement the abilities for the weekend but I doubt that they would be able to alter the core game that much just for a limited time event.

The true and clear winner here will be flight, I mean outside of sneaking around or high intensity bird-watching what good is invisibility? With flight you get the high ground every time, you can tell those corporate fat cats in the flight industry where they can stick their bag fees, and you can spit on people you don't like and play it off as a bird pooping on them. So which side are you on? The side that can fly or the wrong side of history?

Whatever Marina chooses

— Inkling Mario (@quagmario) August 17, 2017

O-ok, I guess that's a way to decide your power as well.

Nintendo of Europe [tweet]

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News:: 'Splatoon 2' Switch bundle is a $380 Walmart exclusive

In case you've been holding off on picking up a Nintendo Switch until it had a pack-in game, you're in luck. Nintendo has announced that it's releasing a special Splatoon 2 version of the console replete with neon green and pink Joy-Cons, a carrying case and a download code for the seafood-starring shooter. If there's a downside, it's that the bundle will only be available from Walmart. Assuming that doesn't deter you, it'll cost $379.99 starting September 8th. So, for an extra $80, you'll get a much-needed carrying case and a solid game -- it's a veritable circus of value.

Source: BusinessWire

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News:: Nintendo Download: Minecraft: Story Mode

It isn't a big week for any Nintendo platform, but some of you might be happy that the entire first season of Minecraft: Story Mode is now available on Switch. Also on Switch is the Jackbox Party Pack 1, Jackbox Party Pack 2, Magician Lord, and Sky Ride -- it's a regular old catch-up week for the Switch! Might as well port anything and everything while the iron is hot.

As for the 3DS, you'll find Chicken Wiggle and Alchemic Dungeon today. The former is developed by Atooi, one part of the split from Renegade Kid, responsible for some great recent platformers like the Mutant Mudds series.

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News:: ‘World of Tanks’ adds single-player campaigns on August 22nd

The multi-player competitive game World of Tanks is getting its first single-player campaign mode next week. On August 22nd, Wargaming will release War Stories -- episodic gameplay that users can experience both solo or cooperatively. "As the first campaign series in the World of Tanks universe, War Stories allows us to bring a new narrative to the game and expand on our multiplayer experience with engaging single-player and online Co-op content for our new and longtime tankers," said TJ Wagner, Wargaming creative director, in a statement.

Via: PlayStation

Source: World of Tanks, Gamasutra

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News:: PS4’s next update finally lets you squelch notifications during movies

We knew a few things PlayStation 4 owners would be getting with the system's next big software update thanks to a leak last week. But it goes beyond enabling PS4 Plus owners to stream on Twitch in 1080p at 60 frames per second. While only pre-selected users get to enjoy the new additions as the update rolls out in beta today, Sony released a list of features for the console's greater playerbase to look forward to.

Source: PlayStation Blog

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News:: Snack World makes strong debut in Japan

Hitman: The Complete First Season finally makes its way to Japanese shows, but along with Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 is shown up by Level-5's The Snack World: Trejarers. Level-5's newest multimedia franchise topped even the PS4 version of Dragon Quest XI, if only for this week.

It's not quite the new Yo-kai Watch for Level-5, but The Snack World made a strong showing to go along with the mobile release back in April as well as its anime. It looks cute, but something about it isn't quite pulling me in yet; I think the Japanese love their food a bit more than me.

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News:: I would play the hell out of Arms on Game Boy Advance

These demake art projects have a tendency to create a crushing sense of false hope, but I appreciate looking at them and wondering what might have been all the same. Artist Bomb998 shared this gem over Twitter -- a retro-tinted Arms featured on none other than the Game Boy Advance.

Folks have heard me speak to the legacy of the GBA for years now, and I think you can see why if you happen to just Google any random piece of pixel art featured on the portable. The engine allowed for a level of vibrancy that wasn't possible in the past, and it brought backlit gaming to the Game Boy family -- enough said.

For now, I think I'll go grab my SP and fire something up, as I often do!

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