For some Smash Bros is serious business. The competitive community that revolves around the series has been strong for years and is currently preparing itself for the newest title. Top tier Smash players, ones you see win at APEX and EVO, are usually male and range in age from early 20’s to early 30’s. That’s why “Karissa the Destroyer”, a 10 year-old girl from the west coast, is causing a stir.
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Best Buy and Target have kicked off some impressive pre-Black Friday video game promotions today, and Kohl’s has an insane stackable coupon deal on the Xbox One if you’re in the market for a new console.
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Welcome to Kotaku‘s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon.
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It was a rumor, it was confirmed, now the man himself has made it official. Matt Damon has finally confirmed that yes, he’s returning to play Jason Bourne in a 2016 film directed by Paul Greengrass. Read the official Matt Damon Jason Bourne quote below.
E! News got the Matt Damon Jason Bourne scoop, but it didn’t seem like something that was supposed to happen. Ben Affleck mentioned that Damon was returning to the role at a Project Greenlight event, so instead of deny it, Damon said the following:
Yes, next year [we’ll shoot it]. It’ll be in 2016 when the movie will actually come out. Paul Greengrass is going to do another one and that’s all I ever said. I just needed him to say yes.
If you head to that link, you can watch a video of the exchange too.
Basically though, this is exactly what we’ve known for years. Damon has long said he’d return to the franchise if Paul Greengrass came back to direct. Latino Review then heard he and Greengrass were coming back, though producers denied it. Deadline followed with a confirmation in September, saying the 2016 slot initially slated to be a Justin Lin directed Bourne film starring Jeremy Renner, was taking a back seat. The question now is, will Renner’s character appear in this Greengrass/Damon film? Initially the news was that the Renner side of the franchise was going to continue in tandem with the Damon films, leading to a showdown/crossover sometime down the road.
Damon will next shoot The Martian for director Ridley Scott. If Bourne is set to shoot in the Fall, he’d likely be able to fit another movie in the middle such as the recently announced Alexander Payne film, Downsizing.
The Bourne franchise has grossed over $1.2 billion worldwide, with each installment crossing the $100 million mark at the domestic box office. A return to the roll for Damon is a sure fire hit for Universal.
The post Matt Damon Confirms He’s Returning As Jason Bourne appeared first on /Film.
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During Nintendo’s November Direct presentation last week, the company announced that the cult-favorite puzzle mystery entry in the Zelda franchise, Majora’s Mask, will come to 3DS spring 2015.
Yesterday, Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma explained that the project is more ambitious than you might expect, and that Nintendo has actually been working on it since it finished developing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, back in June 2011.
“So although we’ve been working on the game for quite some time, we didn’t want to say it was being developed until we were at a point where we could proudly say that this is not going to be just another remake and that it’s going to be worth your time,” Aonuma said.
He added that the development team has spent a lot of time making sure the gameplay experience is smoother than in the original version without taking away from its unique world, and that it hasn’t removed the look and feel of the game, which is creepier than other Zelda games.
Finally, Aonuma said that Nintendo will reveal what has been changed and what features have been added to the Nintendo 3DS version soon.
Check out GameSpot’s wrap-up of the November Direct presentation to catch up with the latest Nintendo news.
| Emanuel Maiberg is a freelance writer. You can follow him on Twitter @emanuelmaiberg. |
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For all of GameSpot’s news coverage, check out our hub. Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com |
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Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare developer Sledgehammer Games is working on an update for the game that will make some changes based on feedback from the player community, add bug fixes, and polish a few other things.
“Our team has been working hard on improvements to the game,” Studio Head and co-founder of Sledgehammer Games Michael Condrey said in a post to the developer’s website. “We’ve also had our ears to the ground, listening to your feedback. Our commitment to continuing to support the game and community is as strong as ever, and we have the whole team focused on making the experience the best it can be.”
Condrey said the update will address the following issues:
Prior to launch, Sledgehammer also promised that Advanced Warfare will support dedicated servers, which is still not the case now that the game is out. Last month, Condrey told Stevivor that we should hear an announcement about it soon, but in the recent post to Sledgehammer’s website, he simply refers to this statement from Activision:
“Advanced Warfare employs game servers hosted at data centers globally on all platforms and listen servers as part of our proprietary matchmaking system. Our goal is to ensure the best possible connection and greatest gameplay experience regardless of location and time of day.”
Call of Duty Advanced Warfare shipped worldwide on November 3, and has received a generally favorable response from critics. GameSpot’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare review said the FPS is “a deluge of action-film bravado.”
| Emanuel Maiberg is a freelance writer. You can follow him on Twitter @emanuelmaiberg. |
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For all of GameSpot’s news coverage, check out our hub. Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com |
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The Black Glove, a game from former Bioshock developers Day For Night Games, has failed to meet its Kickstarter goal, raising only $216,517 out of the $550,000 it needed, which, in keeping with Kickstarter’s policy, will be returned to backers.
In its last Kickstarter update, Day For Night Games said it’s working as hard as it can to keep The Black Glove from being canceled. However, it’s not going to try for another crowdfunding campaign right away.
“We asked for the total we needed to guarantee that we could self-publish the game within a year with 6+ hours worth of content for $20,” Day For Night said. “If we turned around immediately and asked for less without having secured the rest of the funds necessary, we wouldn’t be able to guarantee our Kickstarter backers that we could deliver the game.”
Day For Night said that it’s pursuing all options, and is beginning to talk to all the publishers that have reached out to it over the last few weeks. It added that if you want to help, you should sign up for email updates on its website and follow it on Twitter.
First announced in June, Day For Night describes The Black Glove as a surreal first-person game where the player’s goal is to improve artists’ work by altering the past. During the Kickstrater campaign, Day For Night said it would release the game on PC and PlayStation 4, and add VR support for both the Oculus Rift and Sony’s Project Morpheus.
| Emanuel Maiberg is a freelance writer. You can follow him on Twitter @emanuelmaiberg. |
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For all of GameSpot’s news coverage, check out our hub. Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com |
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We’ll be updating this story throughout the weekend so check back again for the latest updates from Blizzcon 2014. In the meantime, here are the biggest stories so far.
Blizzcon road trip. Hop in the car with the GameSpot crew as we drive from San Francisco to Blizzcon central in Anaheim.
Blizzard CEO and Founder Mike Morhaime started off his presentation with a pointed discussion deriding hate and harassment in the gaming community. He added, “”Let’s carry the good vibes from this weekend out into the world all year round.”
The next World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor, is releasing just next week. But the primary Warcraft news at the show focused on the upcoming movie. Director Duncan Jones called it “Avatar and Lord of the Rings at the same,” during a panel.
Legendary and Blizzard also brought down the wall on the Warcraft movie cast list, so you can check out the cast of the Warcraft movie. We got to see a work in progress trailer for the film (which will hopefully be available for viewing for non-Blizzcon attendees soon. But, in short, it looks epic and absolutely nails the look and feel of the Warcraft universe.
For the World of Warcraft game, 100% of the sales for an upcoming ram pet called Argi will go towards the Red Cross for Ebola relief efforts.
Blizzard’s first new, original game in 17 years, Overwatch is a team-based multiplayer shooter that was announced during the Blizzcon opening ceremony. After spending some time with a playable version of the game, we give our thoughts and initial impressions here.
The developer has said that there will be a lot more heroes coming in the future, but you can compare the members of first group that we got to play with here. Since it’s early, we don’t have a lot of other firm details; asked about whether Overwatch would be free-to-play or would come to consoles, Blizzard basically said, “Maybe.”
Is Overwatch just made of the remnants of the previously cancelled project Titan? Not quite, but Blizzard discussed that issue in depth at a press conference for the game following Overwatch’s announcement.
Blizzard’s entry into the MOBA arena has a beta incoming January next year.
We also learned about new additions to the game’s roster including:
New battlgrounds will include:
Click on any of the images below to see a larger version.
At Friday’s Blizzcon Diablo III panel, it became clear the Diablo team is focused on the longevity of Reaper of Souls, making pretty substantial additions with each patch. Version 2.1.2 will see the addition of new types of treasure goblins (that drop gems and other materials), and the start of season two, but special attention has also been paid to rifts. The development team behind Diablo wants to improve areas that didn’t necessarily make for good rifts due to placement of conduits (that will now be counter-acted by pylons that give buffs), the lack of variation in rift guardians, and problems associated with how and where players died. In fact, members of the development team revealed the possibility of a death timer, but they’re expecting feedback if that ever gets integrated into the public test realm version of the game.
Additionally, some extensive work is going into the adventure mode. Many of the areas that were lacking in randomization are getting some attention. For example, Tristram Fields will be rebuilt with an eye for making it feel a little more dynamic than it was previously, almost by splitting it down the middle. But perhaps the most notable addition coming in a future patch is the addition of the ruins of Sescheron. Fans of Diablo will remember that as the barbarian stronghold laid to waste by Baal in the Lord of Destruction expansion for Diablo II, and it was great to see it interpreted for Diablo III.
There are several other items coming down the line for Diablo 3 beyond patch 2.1.2, including new monsters like the Rat King, as well as ancient items that are even more powerful than the game’s legendary offerings. So while some may have been disappointed by the lack of an expansion announcement, it would seem the team is keeping itself plenty busy.
We got lots of new trailers for Starcraft II’s next expansion Legacy of the Void, including an introduction Oblvion trailer and announcement of Archon mode. Sign ups for the beta area available now. Watch the other trailers here:
Less than a year since its official release, Hearthstone will be getting its first expansion next month: Goblins vs. Gnomes. You can get a sneak peek at 30 of the game’s cards right here.
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During an interview with Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void Lead Producer Tim Morten, GameSpot asked about the waning popularity of the the real-time strategy genre, and if Blizzard has a plan to make it more appealing to a wider audience in the future.
In short, even Blizzard, whose StarCraft and Warcraft games helped define the genre, doesn’t have a clear answer, but it hopes that the popularity of MOBAs like Dota 2 and League of Legends is a good sign.
“We talk a lot about that internally and there’s a hope on my part that the audience that’s playing Heroes of the Storm, that’s playing MOBA games, will be interested in feeding into more complex gameplay,” Morten said. “In a way that’s a gateway to what RTS is, and of course grew out of RTS in the first place. I hope there’s some synergy there.”
Morten added that part of the problem is that RTS games have a steep learning curve, and that Blizzard is trying to address that issue as it’s revisiting the tutorial and training missions from the previous games in Legacy of the Void.
Additionally, Blizzard hopes that players will be less intimidated to play online with Legacy of the Void’s Archon Mode, a brand new cooperative mode where two players share control of a single base and units.
“But there’s a lot more thinking that I’d like to do. it may wind up being the case that it becomes the focus of something in the future, but it is something that we’d like to figure out how to solve. I wish I could say we knew what the magic bullet was.”
Blizzard has not yet announced a release date for Legacy of the Void, the third, final, and standalone expansion in the StarCraft II trilogy. You can sign up for the game’s beta today at Battle.net.
| Emanuel Maiberg is a freelance writer. You can follow him on Twitter @emanuelmaiberg. |
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For all of GameSpot’s news coverage, check out our hub. Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com |
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You might notice some changes if you turn on your Xbox One today, as Microsoft is rolling out its November system update, the company has announced.
The November update adds the ability to create custom backgrounds, which Microsoft said was the “number one requested feature” from fans. This isn’t quite the custom themes Xbox head Phil Spencer said he wanted to support on Xbox One eventually, and we won’t see that functionality at least until next year. As Spencer explained, we might see smaller system updates next month, but Microsoft doesn’t want to roll out big updates in December as many new consoles bought during the holiday season are coming online.
Other additions to the November update include the option to attach a up to six game clips or achievements that will be displayed in a carousel format. You can also share your favorite Xbox One game clips on Twitter, but not screenshots, another feature that the Xbox One won’t get to until 2015.
A full breakdown of updates, written by Microsoft, is published below, while a video walkthrough is available in the video above.
Show Who You Are – We’re including some of the top fan requested features this month. Among them is the ability to customize the background on your Xbox One, show off your top achievements and share game clips in new ways.
Custom Backgrounds – For the first time, each account on your Xbox One can have a customized background. You can choose a custom color as a theme or achievement art as your background image and those will show on any Xbox One that you Sign In on with your account. Additionally, you can use the Media Player app to pick any JPG or PNG image off of a USB attached drive or a home media server that supports DLNA. While viewing a picture/photo in full screen mode, press the Menu button and choose “Set as background” – your custom image is stored locally on that Xbox One console.
Gamer Profile – You can now share your location and bio as part of your profile. You can set these options on your Xbox One console and use Xbox One SmartGlass to browse to other people’s profiles and check out their showcase items. Additionally, you can now select a set of showcase items that are displayed when other gamers look at your profile on an Xbox One console. You can use Xbox One SmartGlass or Xbox One console to add or remove up to six game clips or achievements that will be displayed in a carousel format.
Tweet about your Favorite Game Clips – You can now share your favorite Xbox One game clips with your followers on Twitter. Use the Share button on any game clip you have created and select Twitter to compose the Tweet.
A New Way to Watch TV – For the first time, you can discover new shows and see what people are saying about them in real-time with new Live TV and Twitter integration.
Live TV Trending – Xbox One owners in the U.S., Canada and the UK, will see a new “Trending” tab in OneGuide that displays the top 20 most watched TV shows, with the list filtered down to the shows that are currently available to you based on your OneGuide settings. The Live TV on Xbox trending list is updated by the minute, so you can easily discover shows that are popular with other viewers.
Twitter TV Trending – Additionally, if you are in the U.S., you’ll see what Live TV is trending based on the highest number of tweets. The Trending tab in OneGuide is updated to display Live TV on Twitter first and Live TV on Xbox trending second. You can tune to a specific show from either trending list by pressing the A button.
Tweets in MiniGuide – Also, initially available in the U.S., you will see the actual tweets for the Live TV shows in real time and quickly find the Twitter #hashtag to join the conversation.
Recents and Favorites in MiniGuide – MiniGuide has been updated to include your favorite TV channels in a combined Recents and Favorites area and MiniGuide can now be activated via voice by saying “Xbox Select – MiniGuide” while watching TV.
Store improvements and SmartGlass updates – We’re introducing cool new features for SmartGlass and Store as well:
Xbox One Store improvements – The Store pages on Xbox One have been improved to enable you to more quickly browse and find content. The navigation buttons are moved to the far left so you can find them easier. You can also more quickly find game add-ons, perform store specific searches and recommendations are more prominently displayed. Finally, store categories have been standardized so you can easily see the top items in each query at a glance.
Friends’ Game Activity on SmartGlass – You can now see a list of your friends that have played a given game within the Xbox One SmartGlass experience.
Games with Gold & Deals with Gold on SmartGlass – For gamers with an Xbox Live Gold subscription, you can browse “Free Games with Gold” and discounted content with Gold and initiate download of the content to your Xbox One console from your mobile device.
SmartGlass Store Improvements – We added a new section for Apps to make it easier to find and download apps for your Xbox One, as well as adding a Coming Soon filter for Games and Add-ons to make it easier to see upcoming Xbox One releases sorted by anticipated release date.
Other Fan Requested Features:
Snap IE – From the Address Bar in Internet Explorer, you can now easily snap from a full screen experience and move Internet Explorer into snap mode.
IE Featured sites – Now, Internet Explorer will show a number when something is newly-added to featured sites. Newly-added sites will also display a badge (denoted by an asterisk (*) in the upper right corner) until you launch them or seven days have passed since the site was added to the Featured list.
Restart now – If you want to restart your Xbox One console without getting out of your chair, you can now do it by going to Settings – Power & startup, and choosing “Restart now.”
Console update information – Under Settings – System – Console info, you can now see the latest status (e.g. “update successful”) for Xbox One console updates, including date last updated and last automatic update check.
| Emanuel Maiberg is a freelance writer. You can follow him on Twitter @emanuelmaiberg. |
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For all of GameSpot’s news coverage, check out our hub. Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com |
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