May 2020

It’s already May 5 in Japan, which means that it’s the birthday of one of Dead or Alive Xtreme: Venus Vacation’s original girls, Nagisa.

If you follow the game, you likely know the drill. Koei Tecmo and DMM are celebrating Nagisa by introducing a new costume part of a paid-only gacha that grants you an abysmal 0.78% chance of actually getting it. 

Since only one paid gacha isn’t enough, they also brought back last year’s birthday costume, so you have two options to throw money at the game instead of one. Isn’t that awfully nice of them?

Incidentally, the same costume from last year will likely be featured in the celebration of the Steam version in English, which is behind in content by approximately a year, so the new one released today on the Japanese client is likely coming in 2021 on the steam version. 

You can check out a trailer below.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, Dead or Alive Xtreme: Venus Vacation, is a free-to-play version of Dead or Alive Xtreme, available only for PC.

Earlier this month, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Kazuyuki Arimatsu and Hideki Mori published a paper highlighting research on finger tracking technology in VR controllers. An accompanying video highlights its impressive potential, showcasing an ability to track and mimic hand gestures, as well as facilitate precise movements within a virtual environment.

As noted by UploadVR, previously discovered patents suggest the company has long been intent on developing some form of finger tracking, which is presumably either for its current PSVR headset (already confirmed to be PS5 compatible) or a new and improved version. Are we looking at the experimental stages of a next-generation Move controller here?

Quite possibly, and we certainly hope so based on the demonstration of its functionality. As you’ll see in the video, the controller mimics 12 different gestures performed by a number of different test subjects, all with incredible accuracy. It even overcomes simulated interferences such as sweaty-palms and jewelry.

The controller is also demonstrated to allow users to pick up small objects and manipulate them with incredible precision, a section of the video reminds me of a haptic VR demonstration program I tried at a conventional years ago.

Speaking of which, we know for a fact that Sony has a keen interest in haptic technology; the prospect of precise finger tracking in combination with a haptic feedback system is exciting indeed.

Today ILMxLAB announced that its Star Wars virtual reality episodic game Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series is making the jump from Oculus to PlayStation VR.

While there is no release date just yet, the launch on PS4’s virtual reality platform is slated for the summer.

Vader Immortal is a three-episode series, but all three episodes will be bundled together for the PlayStation VR release.

If you’re unfamiliar with Vader Immortal, here’s how the developer describes it on the Oculus store.

Episode 1:

“Step inside a galaxy far, far away with Vader Immortal: Episode I. You are a smuggler operating near Mustafar, the fiery world Darth Vader calls home. When you are unexpectedly pulled out of hyperspace, you find yourself uncovering an ancient mystery at the behest of the Sith Lord himself. With the help of your droid companion, ZO-E3, you’ll navigate the dangers of the fortress, hone your lightsaber skills, and meet new characters along the way as you discover what Vader is up to.

Also included with your purchase is Lightsaber Dojo, an open-ended training experience where you can hone your skills with the weapon of a Jedi Knight.

Starring Maya Rudolph, Vader Immortal is a canonical Star Wars adventure created by ILMxLAB and Lucasfilm in collaboration with Oculus Studios.”

Episode 2:

On June 11, 2020, EA Play Live, which is essentially EA Play 2020, will be held digitally and go over upcoming games.

The post EA Play 2020 Will Be Held When E3 2020 Would Have Been appeared first on Siliconera.

A new Animal Crossing duplication trick has appeared for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but this one is limited to 2x1 items.

The post The New Animal Crossing Duplication Trick Only Copies 2×1 Items appeared first on Siliconera.

Key, P.A. Works, and Aniplex are teaming up for their third anime project collaboration following Angel Beats! in 2010 and Charlotte in 2015.

The post Key, P.A. Works, and Aniplex’s Third Anime Project Announcement Coming May 10, 2020 appeared first on Siliconera.

In Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics, people can unlock Mario playing card customization options for the card-based games.

The post Mario Playing Cards Appear in Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics appeared first on Siliconera.

Final Fantasy VII Remake's co-directors discussed the state of Final Fantasy VII Remake part 2 in an Ultimania interview.

The post Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 2 Still in Conceptual Planning Stage appeared first on Siliconera.

So the Final Fantasy VII Remake Ultimania book has been a font of info for what's to come in what is now called the "Remake Project."

We learned that there is a second secret meaning to the term "Remake" that director Tetsuya Nomura will explain in a few years, and that future entries could err on the shorter side of things to get the project going along quicker. Now thanks to another Ultimania tidbit (translated by Twitter user aitaikimochi), we have some idea of when the next part is coming. A translation of that translation? Not anytime soon.

According to co-director Naoki Hamaguchi, they are "in the current stages of planning" for the second part, and "nothing is solid yet." Another co-director, Motomu Toriyama, clarifies that since he was responsible for Midgar's impact in the original game he "knows it like the back of [his] hand," but the next installment is tougher as it involves areas he's "forgotten about," or perhaps doesn't recall so easily.

The ever-popular "so will it have a world map" question comes up, which Hamaguchi says is "something [the team has to] consider." This is just a prediction, but they do tackle it, they would have to balance the strong narrative focus with the ability to aimlessly wander around. If I had to guess, I don't think it's going to be so expansive: more like mini-sandboxes with quests that connect each major hub to one another (similar to Final Fantasy XII).

May 4th. A day where fans come together to celebrate the enduring blockbuster franchise that birthed several awesome movies, a few not-so-awesome ones, multiple animated spin-offs, a notorious Holiday Special, a billion-dollar toy-line, and endlessly divisive lore. It's Star Wars, of course.

To celebrate this year's "Star Wars Day," Steam is running a sale on a huge catalogue of PC games that all came from a galaxy far, far away. For a limited time, you can get discounts on a massive range of Star Wars adventures old and new. This deal is getting better all the time.

There's generous discounts on titles such as Electronic Arts' Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Ravensoft's Jedi Knight series, BioWare's legendary Knights of the Old Republic games, Zen Studios' Pinball FX 3 tables, and a huge run of LEGO releases. Even FMV clunker Rebel Assault is in the mix. Whether you live on Endor, Hoth, that planet with the red sand, or that dopey casino place, there's something for every fan.

While not a die-hard Star Wars aficionado, I do hold a special space in my heart for the beloved franchise. I enjoy the original trilogy, dig some of the recent movies, and will forever love the series' excellent costuming and physical effects work, even if - strictly speaking - I'm more of a Battle Beyond the Stars/Star Crash kinda guy.

Happy Star Wars Day!

PlayStation and developer ILMxLAB have announced that Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series is coming to PlayStation VR this summer, following on from its 2019 release on Oculus.

Vader Immortal is a VR adventure which consists of three distinct episodes. Running around an hour each, these short-form narrative adventures put the player deep inside the Sith Lord's fortress where, armed with lightsaber skills and a mastery of The Force they will battle their way through its dark, hazard-filled corridors en route to a showdown with the Dark Jedi himself.

Once done saving the galaxy, players can dive into the Lightsaber Dojo mode, taking on various enemies and challenges with an arsenal of iconic lightsabers, including Darth Maul's double-bladed saberstaff and Kylo Renn's fiery crossguard affair. For more info, check out Chris Carter's review of the Oculus edition right here.

Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series launches on PSVR this summer and is available now on Oculus.

Earlier this year, Lord of the Rings: Gollum producer noted that their upcoming game, an adventure title set in the Middle-earth, was not trying to be a continuation of the popular New Line Cinema/Peter Jackson-verse, and specifically claimed that "he doesn't look like Andy Serkis."

At this point we hadn't seen more than a mere logo, so the jury has always been out on that statement. Given how hard it is going to be for some newer Lord of the Rings fans to divorce themselves from that iconic portrayal, I was dubious. There was hope that the team would be using a drastically different style for the titular character, perhaps something that used features that were more inline with the source material (the logo event hinted at this), but it seems as if that's not the case.

Based on new screens from GameStar, it looks like plans changed, and (in my mind, at least) Gollum looks nearly identical to the Andy Serkis character from the Jackson trilogy (and the Hobbit films) with slightly more cartoony features. Even the outfit is nigh identical, which is wild given that Gollum's various portrayals since the 1937 source have all, more or less, iterated upon the character.

Up to 80% Off Star Wars Titles | CDKeys

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While most of us are sheltering at home in crude blanket forts floored with empty corn chip bags, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is in his palatial, immaculate home, in the lotus position, hovering three feet above a reflecting pool, levitating with The Power of Ideas and emitting beams of coherent light and a never-ending…

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Turns out while violent pleasures have violent ends, Westworld’s season three finale was a violent end that had very little pleasure in it. That is, if you were hoping for something more than a basic sci-fi action flick. It turns out everything the show has been building up these past seven episodes is nothing much at…

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EA is moving ahead with its E3-adjacent event this year as a completely digital showcase. EA Play Live 2020 will take place on June 11 beginning at 7:00 p.m. There’s no schedule for it yet, but EA says the livestream will include world premiers and other news.  

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A pair of Taotronics headphones, a Logitech mouse, a NutriBullet blender, homesick candles, an Aukey USB-C charger, and

Unity has acquired visual scripting solution Bolt from Ludiq for an undisclosed fee. ...

On every PC gaming forum, there’s a question that pops up without fail: “Now that I’ve completed Stalker, how should I replay it?”

There’s clearly more than one answer to that. I’ve never known a game to be quite as autopsied by its own fans as the Stalker series (or, technically S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but who has the time). The three games – Shadow Of Chernobyl, Clear Sky and Call Of Pripyat – have all kinds of mods, and those mods have their own mods. On and on it goes. Every release has its own style, aided by the developer’s willingness to let modders use their assets and engine to a remarkable degree.

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Some of the very first screenshots from Daedalic Entertainment’s The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum have appeared on the internet, and it looks fairly decent. The image above is one of the better ones to get a look at how the titular cave gremlin will look, and he sure does look like Gollum. The developers said previously that this iteration of him wouldn’t look like he does in the movies, but I dunno, I think he definitely has a resemblance to the movies’ take on the character. Just a bit more frog-like.

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The Acer Predator Triton 500 was one of our favourite gaming laptops of 2019, but at £1799, its top set of components didn’t come cheap. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case. At Scan you can get a slightly different version of the Triton 500 for considerably less money right now, with a superior Core i7-9750H CPU and an RTX 2060 graphics chip for £1600. Scan will even throw in a laptop bag you’ll probably never use, free of charge.

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Like everything else, Evo is not going ahead as usual this year. The fighting game championships will not invade a Las Vegas resort for a weekend at the end of July, with that event now cancelled and tickets getting refunded. But Evo 2020 is evolving, and will go online this summer. It surely won’t be the same but, even as a casual spectator, I’m still well up for it.

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It was a bold move for Disney to release a blockbuster sci-fi RPG without any control input at all, but there’s no doubt about it: that’s exactly what their Star Wars spin-off TV show The Mandalorian is. And for my money, it’s the best RPG of 2020 so far.

Not convinced by this admittedly fairly spicy take? Don’t worry. With the eighth and final episode of Mando having just aired in the UK, and with it being Star Wars Day and all, I’ve got the perfect excuse to talk about a series I’ve been glued to, and bring you onboard with the idea that it’s not a TV show at all, but an RPG that plays itself.

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There may not be a physical E3 event this year, but that hasn’t stopped publishers from finding ever more inventive ways of announcing their new PC games for the year. Take Ubisoft, for example, who decided the best way to announce Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was by doing an eight-hour art stream reveal. It’s only going to get more hectic for new PC game releases as the weeks go on, too, with Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest starting later this month and the summer edition of Steam’s Game Festival running from June 9th-12th.

It's hardly a surprise, but it seems this year's EA Play event will be taking place digitally this year, following the cancellation of most physical events due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The online event will take place on 11th June at midnight UK time, and promises "world premieres, news and more". That's all the information we have so far, and there isn't yet an exact schedule - but I imagine it will be similar in form to the livestreams seen in previous years. But filmed from home, I guess.

EA Play typically takes place slightly before E3 in Los Angeles, and allows guests to watch live interviews with developers, take games for a test drive, or meet their favourite game characters. The plan to host a digital event means EA Play joins the likes of Gamescom in temporarily moving to a fully-online format. Poor old E3, meanwhile, revised its original plan to hold an online version of the show, and it seems likely many of those announcements will take place in the four-month Summer Game Fest held by Geoff Keighley, which starts in May.

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It's been a little over a year since The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was announced, and today we're finally seeing some early glimpses of what scurrying around as Gollum will look like.

The screenshots, which were released as part of a Gamestar preview, show some of the game's environments along with player-character Gollum. Although the game is based on the Tolkien books rather than the films, Gollum does somewhat resemble the design seen in the Peter Jackson trilogy - albeit with longer hair and shinier skin. Good to know he's been moisturising.

Although there's still little information about how the mechanics will work, judging by the screenshots there's going to be a fair bit of stealth required, along with some nimble navigation of Mordor's mines and forges. As a prequel to The Lord of the Rings, it takes place before Gollum encounters Frodo, although exactly what he gets up to in this game remains a mystery. The abundance of spiders in the screenshots might suggest an encounter with Shelob.

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Lightsaber-wielding Star Wars VR game Vader Immortal is headed to PlayStation VR.

Previously released episodically for Oculus headsets, the complete game will arrive on PlayStation's VR platform at some point this summer.

Developed as a canon story with input from Lucasfilm and written by Batman Begins scribe David S. Goyer, it sees you squaring up to ol' bucket head in person.

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Hang out here long enough and you've probably noticed that the Eurogamer lot are partial to a good pun under their headlines. I'm assuming, then, there's some appreciation for the play on words that is hosting Star Wars Day on May the 4th.

Star Wars and video games share a rich history, so it's no surprise to see various retailers attempt to capitalise on the festivities with their own Star Wars day deals. You can find offers on the old (Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Knight) and the new (Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Battlefront 2), plus much more in between.

I've gathered the best of the bunch below for you to peruse. You can also head to Jelly Deals where we've got a roundup of all the other Star Wars day deals, featuring Lego, box sets, collectables, merch and more.

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A leaked internal Nintendo presentation has shed light on the company's reasoning for choosing its infernal 12-digit friend codes - something decided upon nearly 15 years ago and which we still type in today to add friends for Animal Crossing.

The decision to use friend codes rather than real names or nicknames was made back in the mid-noughties, as the company planned the Wii's internet connectivity, and has come to light now via a cache of old Nintendo data being passed around the internet.

In a slide from the leaked presentation titled "The Friend Code" (picked out of the leak by Kinda Funny's Imran Khan), Nintendo set out its reasoning for picking 12 random digits as the best way to add friends, rather than typing their names.

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E3 was canceled this year, but EA just announced a digital EA Play Live event full of "world premieres, news and more," which will take place on June 11.

This would have been around the time that E3 would have happened, so hopefully this is a good way to kick off the summer and we'll get some exciting announcements. Fingers crossed for a Mass Effect collection!

EA Play Live goes digital in 2020!
See you on June 11th at 4pm PST... World premieres, news and more! https://t.co/ShTNzjqJ3D pic.twitter.com/xqmYfGBWfs

— Electronic Arts #stayandplay (@EA) May 4, 2020

Microsoft is also prepping a digital event for this Thursday, so be sure to come back in a few days to catch all that gaming news. 

[Source: @EA]

The toot heard ‘round the world

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It looks like Yakuza Like a Dragon PC version could be on the way, as SteamDB now has a listing for the next entry in the series.

The post Yakuza: Like a Dragon PC Listing Appears on SteamDB appeared first on Siliconera.

The Star Wars Jedi new game plus option has finally arrived. New Journey+ and extra Meditation Training options have been added.

The post Star Wars Jedi New Game Plus Added in Free Update appeared first on Siliconera.

Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia now gives people a chance to change up characters' look if they have powered up different weapons.

The post Dissidia Weapons Get Gloss Options to Change Their Look appeared first on Siliconera.