July 2020

Ever wonder which Animal Crossing personality type would be best suited to match your own? This quiz is here to help you find out. Normal, lazy, uchi (sisterly), snooty, smug, cranky, jock, or peppy… Every one of them has its own unique quirks, just as you do!

No need to wonder where you’d fit in anymore. Answer these quick questions to find out which of your favorite characters you resemble!

The UK government should regulate loot boxes in video games under gambling law as games of chance, and soon, a Select Committee of the House Of Lords have recommended. They also advised proactively future-proofing laws against other gambling-esque elements that might arise to replace loot boxes, so laws don’t again end up years behind. Loot boxes have been around a good decade by now, after all, and UK laws still do nothing against them. Will the government act on this advice? Ahhh who knows.

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Based on its intensely confusing demo, I’ve concluded that I really like everything about Ostranauts, except for actually playing it. Admittedly that’s a fairly significant obstacle, and it seems I’m not the only person facing it. But it also seems developers Blue Bottle Games are acutely aware of where the pain is coming from, and it looks like they’re holding off on launching into early access until it’s been alleviated a bit. I hope it goes well for them. Because beneath a UI that makes even the simplest task so onerous that it’s not worth bothering with, this is a rich, fiercely imaginative simulation that I’m desperate to fall in love with.

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Dell have kicked off a huge ten-day sale across all sorts of different PC-related bits and bobs today, including up to 40% off gaming laptops, gaming desktops and their Alienware gaming monitors. There’s a lot going on, but we’ve picked out our top Dell deals highlights below, including £100 off one of their officially certified [cms-block], the AW2521HF, and a GTX 1660 Ti-powered G7 17 gaming laptop for under £1000.

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The House of Lords has published a report recommending the UK Government should reclassify loot boxes as gambling.

The House of Lords Select Committee on the Social and Economic Impact of the Gambling Industry says the government "must act immediately to bring loot boxes within the remit of gambling legislation and regulation". Alongside recommendations for other gambling concerns, the report argues loot boxes should be classified as "games of chance", which means they would fall under the Gambling Act of 2005 and be regulated by the Gambling Commission.

While the UK Government previously promised it would "focus on issues around loot boxes" as part of a potential overhaul to the Gambling Act (and last month called for evidence), the loot box section of the House of Lords report argues the issue "requires more urgent attention". It recommends ministers "should make regulations under section 6(6) of the Gambling Act 2005 specifying that loot boxes and any other similar games are games of chance, without waiting for the government's wider review of the Gambling Act". It also recommends ministers should be given the power "to specify by regulations that any activity which in their view has the characteristics of gambling should be treated as gambling for the purposes of the Act".

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Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku’s reader-run community: The Anime That Made Us Cry • Kaiju Crush Dev Diary: The Final Push, Day 8 • TAY Retro: Famicom - Dragon Quest II (Dragon Warrior II) [TV Commercial, JP]

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The House of Lords Gambling Committee has recommended that loot boxes are classified as gambling in the UK. ...

Being a good games designer requires strong soft skills. Providing feedback, mediating discussions, resolving conflicts, managing people; these require empathy, tact and diplomacy. ...

The Last of Us Part II Spoilercast | Final Checkpoint Podcast Ep. 43 Read More »

Most of this year’s best movies are available from the comfort of your own home

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Watching Steve Carell break is a delight

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NBA 2K21 costs $69.99 on PS5 and Xbox Series X, no free upgrade

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Love Kirby? You can now get a Kirby Hat Studio Banpresto Box that has dapper character merchandise from a past Japanese ichiban kuji.

The post Kirby Hat Studio Banpresto Box Includes a Dapper Kirby appeared first on Siliconera.

Fairy Tail game's new trailer gives us a closer look at the Digital Deluxe Edition costumes.

The post The Fairy Tail Atelier Ryza Costume for Lucy and More Featured in a New Costume Trailer appeared first on Siliconera.

With Flash Player support set ending this year, Kongregate has stopped accepting games and is preparing to close chat rooms and forums.

The post Kongregate Stops Accepting New Games appeared first on Siliconera.

A new Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo Switch competition will let people in Europe actually "brain train" with Dr. Kawashima.

The post Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo Switch Will Let People Compete With the Doctor appeared first on Siliconera.

It’s impossible to look at Mortal Shell and not immediately draw the parallels between it and the Dark Souls series, which is fine! If there’s one thing that is incredibly apparent after spending about four hours playing and replaying a demo build of Mortal Shell, it is that developer Cold Symmetry has a deep love and understanding for not just the Souls series, but the entire Souls-like genre. Your character moves like a Dark Souls character, NPCs talk like Dark Souls NPCs, there are item descriptions in the loading screens, combat is impactful and deliberate, and so on and so forth.

But what’s most impressive about Mortal Shell is that for as much as it borrows from the Souls-like formula, it also introduces its own ideas into the mix. They’re ideas that dramatically change how the game is played, and in doing so, Mortal Shell breaks out of its own Souls-like shell and becomes its own beast.

Mortal (Shell) Kombat

The first large departure from the formula is that there’s no block button in Mortal Shell. And sure, there’s no block button in Bloodborne either, but it’s still handled very differently. Instead, players are able to harden their body to something like stone in order to cause enemy attacks to bounce right off. This is an extremely powerful defensive option, as it doesn’t take any stamina away when you block an attack. It will nearly always cause your opponents to recoil, giving you an opportunity to attack, and you can even harden mid attack animation, allowing you to immediately shift to defense while attacking.

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I know what you're thinking: a Dark Souls roguelike? That can go to hell! But hear me out.

Maybe you've played Dark Souls....oh I don't know, 20 times by now. You've memorized everything from enemy placements to boss strategies. You know that by the time you hit [x] boss you have [x] item so you're all good. This mod from Grimrukh changes all that and encourages randomized replays. That kind of rules.

The gist is that the mod turns the game into a roguelike experience, akin to Binding of Isaac or Dead Cells, in the words of its creator. Grimrukh says they completely altered enemy placements (as in, they aren't just random models, but are in random locations that may not exist in From Software's core game), as well as loot tables and even randomized bosses. 

Rescued allies will join you at the shrine to provide bonuses. You also need to run this gauntlet before you die five times: at which point you will lose your progress entirely and teleport back to Firelink Shrine on a fresh run. To be frank it's like it's an entirely new game. And that's the best part about an optional mod: if this sounds really stupid to you, you don't have to download it.

I'm utterly intrigued, however. Dark Souls has had its fair share of randomization mods, but this total conversion package is a way simpler way to aggregate it all.

Roguelike Souls [Nexus Mods]

The Game Bakers (of Furi fame) has announced that its sweeping co-op adventure Haven is in development for PS5, and will arrive alongside its previously announced PS4, PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch editions later this year.

Originally announced way back in February 2019, Haven is the story of two starry-eyed lovers, Yu and Kay, who have left their own world behind to begin anew on a mysterious and seemingly humanity-free planet. Players will have the opportunity to explore the rainbow-coloured surroundings, engage in combat with strange creatures, and - according the new trailer below - play some naughty card games.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is getting its delayed DLC drop today (on everything but Switch, which is coming at a later date), but there's actually two orders of business: the content itself and an underlying update. We'll get to that.

First, the meat! Boss Revenge and the Chroma Wheel are the main courses. The former allows you to step into the shoes of several main campaign bosses (Andrealphus, Bathin, Bloodless, Gremory) and take on the game's heroes (Miriam, Dominique, Zangetsu). Think of it like a fighting game, where you go room-by-room defeating each enemy, with each "fighter" bringing along their own moveset.

The Chroma Wheel is a lot simpler of a concept: it adds more cosmetic options into the fray, like a hair salon on top of more outfit coloring. To access that feature you just need to go visit Todd the Barber in the main game.

As for that aforementioned underlying update, the Zangetsu progress bug is now finally fixed in a roundabout way. Previously the Zangetsu update annoyingly required players to finish the full game before accessing him as a playable character. The problem is, a lot of folks started a New Game+ run and deleted their endgame save. If you didn't have the time to run the game all over again, tough.

[Update: This might be the start of something bigger. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, research firm IDG Consulting notes that given the last time a price hike occurred was roughly 2005 ($60), we're past due for one. IDG notes that a potential $10 increase will "only" be a 17% hike, compared to a 39% increase for film ticket prices or a 100% increase for Netflix subscriptions. Of course, that figure doesn't take into account all of the extra monetization prospects of games.

IDG says that according to "their channel checks" more publishers are looking at a $70 price point, with the concession that "not every game should garner" that new MSRP. That said, once the floodgates open and the usual suspects (WB, EA, Take-Two) make their move, there's probably no going back.]

A line has been drawn in the sand. Will other publishers follow? Stay tuned, as this coming generation still has a lot of muck to wade through (like you know, the cost of the PS5 and Series X).

As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, NBA 2K21 will sport an MSRP of $69.99 on the PS5 and Xbox Series X: a $10 price increase over the respective PS4 and Xbox One editions. While the current-gen console versions of 2K21 will launch this September, the future generation will get their versions "this holiday season" at that new price.

Ghost of Tushima’s soundtrack has been given the spotlight over on the PS Blog today. In a substantial article, Sucker Punch’s audio director Rev. Dr. Bradley D Meyer offers insight into the conceptualization of the game’s score, while supporting commentary from its two composers, Ilan Eshkeri and Shigeru “Ume” Umebayashi, explained the inspirations behind its design.

Further, we’re treated to previews of two tracks, as well as the announcement that the full score will be available digitally or as a two-disc set on July 17.

For those who haven’t heard of Ilan Eshkeri (myself included, admittedly), he’s written scores for movies including Coriolanus, 47 Ronin, and Stardust, video games like The Sims franchise, and other cool projects including the European Space Agency’s Principia mission.

It is explained that Sucker Punch actually used music from his other projects to help guide their creative processes during the early phases of Ghost of Tsushima’s design. It wasn’t long before they realized he was exactly who they wanted for the score.

Eshkeri’s focus throughout the project has been character melodies and themes. Apparently “immersed himself in traditional Japanese instruments and musical scales” in the creation of various tracks from the score, including Jin’s theme.

Eshkeri explains his intruige with the game’s main protagonist:

“Throughout the game, Jin is a character in deep emotional conflict and this, above all else, is what drew me to Ghost.”

Damian Lillard of the Portland Trailblazers and Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans were both recently revealed to be cover athletes for this year’s NBA 2K game. Today, it’s been announced that Kobe Bryant will be joining them as the third cover athlete for NBA 2K21.

Surprising no one, Kobe Bryant will grace the cover of the game’s traditional Legend Edition. Only this time, it’ll be called the Mamba Forever Edition as a tribute to Bryant.

Fans will even be able to choose between two NBA 2K21 Kobe covers. The current-gen Mamba Forever Edition will feature a young Kobe Bryant sporting his old number eight jersey, while the next-gen version of the cover will show Kobe just before his retirement.

NBA 2K21’s Kobe Bryant Mamba Forever Editions will provide the following bonuses and incentives:

• 100,000 Virtual Currency
• 10,000 MyTEAM Points
• 10 MyTEAM Tokens
• 60 MyCAREER Skill Boosts
• 30 Gatorade Boosts
• 40 MyTEAM Promo Packs (10 at launch, then 3 per week)
• Sapphire Damian Lillard and Zion Williamson MyTEAM cards
• MyPLAYER Shoe Collection
• MyPLAYER 72 HR 2X REP Boost
• MyPLAYER backpack and ball
• Kobe Bryant Digital Collection
  • 5 MyPLAYER Shoes
  • 3 MyPLAYER Jerseys
  • Black Mamba MyPLAYER Uniform
  • Rookie Lakers MyTEAM Jerseys
  • Black Mamba custom MyTEAM Jerseys
  • Sapphire Kobe MyTEAM Card (Evos to Ruby)
  • 5 MyTEAM Shoes (Incl. 1 Diamond)

Pre-order to receive the following digital items:

Devolver Digital’s and DeadToast Entertainment’s wacky side-scrolling platformer/shooter, My Friend Pedro, is getting a TV series adaptation, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter.

The TV series will be written and executive produced by John Wick co-creator, Derek Kolstad. The 30-minute TV series will be rated R and is considered to fall into the “dramedy” genre of television.

Co-founder of Devolver Digital, Mike Wilson, will act as one of the executive producers, next to David Leitch (John Wick), Kelly McCormick (Hobbs and Shaw), Stephan Bugaj (We Happy Few), and Howard Bliss (DJ2 Entertainment).

No other details on the TV series were reported but as soon as we know more, we’ll be sure to let you all know.

My Friend Pedro was developed by DeadToast and is a game about a man who is literally killing everyone in his path due to him being mind-controlled by a banana… a sentient banana.

The game released back in 2019 and we reviewed it on Nintendo Switch, scoring it a 4 out of 5. Our reviewer, Jesse, called My Friend Pedro an “excellent pickup that justifies the price.” If you’re looking for an absurd and outrageous shoot em up, this indie is one hell of a ride.

The post Devolver Digital’s ‘My Friend Pedro’ Is Getting an R-Rated TV Series appeared first on Twinfinite.

Today Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red released some beautiful new artwork of the massively-anticipated RPG.

The artwork was shared on the game’s official Twitter account showcasing the Watson district, on top of a factory operated by iconic weapon manufacturer Arasaka.

You can check all the images out below.

Today Bandai Namco released a brand new trailer of its upcoming anime soccer game Captain Tsubasa: Rise Of New Champions.

The trailer focuses on the English team and unlike the previous videos, it focuses on a single known player who appeared in previous Captain Tsubasa media, Robson.

You can check him out in action below.

Publisher Paradox Interactive has expanded its portfolio this week with another studio acquisition to add to a growing roster of talented studios. Playrion Game Studios becomes Paradox’s eight internal studio, a Parisian developer founded in 2010 to support the development of Airlines Manager.

Airlines Manager has become a big hit since transitioning to the mobile platform in 2014, now played by over 10 million players.

Benjamin Cohen, Founder and Studio Manager at Playrion said of today’s announcement:

“I am incredibly excited to join this amazing and well-established game company, and to bring our expertise and knowledge about mobile games. As soon as we met Paradox Interactive, I understood that we had very close DNA. For almost five years,

Playrion has experienced exponential growth thanks to our very talented team, and without a doubt, we’ll be able to push things even further with Paradox Interactive on our side. This is the best opportunity we ever had to improve the experience of our players and to deliver better games.”

Charlotta Nilsson, chief operations officer at Paradox Interactive, also weighed in:

“Adding Playrion to our roster allows us to continue expanding our business in new areas, and bring more of our IPs to mobile. We’re always thrilled when we find teams who want to make the kind of games we’d like to make ourselves. Playrion is a natural addition to the Paradox family, and we’re delighted to have them joining us.”

Paradox Interactive recently concluded its annual Insider showcase, which was a digital event this year as a result of COVID-19 stay-at-home measures.

It’s been a long time coming, but Adobe Flash’s drawn-out death spiral is coming to a close. This week, free browser game portal Kongregate announced that it’ll no longer be accepting new submissions to the site, laying off several staff members as it pivots entirely towards developing and publishing games. While everything currently hosted on the site will remain there for the foreseeable, they’re the last games Kongregate will ever host.

End of an era, that.

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Seeing Song Of Saya (Saya no Uta) featured on Steam is like finding a dead body on the shore.
It’s a terrific visual novel, this one, but one always recommended in whispers. A horror love story festooned in blood and gore, and with a list of content warnings longer than my games backlog. It can be completed in a single sitting, but will haunt you for years. Its presence on a mainstream storefront feels viscerally wrong, like something dark and rotten that should not have been brought to light.

And yet, this is not the first time Song Of Saya got introduced to a bigger audience. Because a decade ago, it got an American comic adaptation.

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We’ve still got two weeks to go until Kojima’s post-apocalyptic deliver ’em up Death Stranding comes out on PC, but as my early performance tests showed yesterday, even GTX 1060 owners should be able to run the game at 60fps on max settings at 1080p. However, Nvidia have since confirmed that Death Stranding will also be getting DLSS 2.0 support when it comes out on July 14th, helping to boost those frame rates even higher if you own an RTX card – and from my own further testing, even an RTX 2060 will be able to hit a smooth 60fps at 4K with DLSS turned on.

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Continuing their remarkable expansion, Crusader Kings and Stellaris company Paradox Interactive today announced they’ve bought Playrion Game Studio, a French crew focused on mobile games. Maybe you know them from Airlines Manager? Paradox say that owning Playrion will help them bring more of their game worlds to mobile. No hints as to what might be next, mind.

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Remember those incredibly cool-but-creepy mantis blades from the 2018 Cyberpunk 2077 demo? Well, unfortunately there's some bad news here, as the ability to use them for wall-running appears to have been scrapped.

The information comes from an interview with Gamereactor, in which level designer Max Pears explained the mechanic had been removed.

"Ah, the wall running - that is something that we removed due to design reasons, but there's still going to be a lot of flexibility in how you move, that's for sure," he explained.

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The developer of Football Manager has insisted it did not change the way the game works in response to an allegation of racism.

An article published in The i newspaper this week alleged Sports Interactive altered the way the simulation's widely-used player database works following the publication of an online article in 2019 that accused Football Manager of having "a racism problem".

Football Manager's database represents real-world footballers by a number of stats (roughly 250 each) covering a variety of aspects from the physical (Pace, Strength, Shooting, Tackling etc) to the mental (Adaptability, Creativity, Decisions, Leadership etc). These stats are initially compiled by a network of more than 1000 researchers around the world, then refined and compiled into the final database by Sports Interactive's in-house team.

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2K has set an example in what is likely to be a new trend by setting the suggested retail price (SRP) of the PlayStation 5/Xbox One version of NBA 2K21 at $69.99. This appears to be the first instance of an upcoming next-gen title listing its price.

The game's press release notes that the game's actual retail price may vary, but barring specific sales retailers typically sell products at the SRP.

We'll have to wait and see if other publishers follow suit now or in the future, but with rising development costs, the power of the coming home consoles, and that this happens every few generations, it's a good bet this is the new normal.

The old Star Wars: Bounty Hunter video game is getting a little love again with the release of a new Black Series action figure from Hasbro. Star Wars: Bounty Hunter released for PlayStation 2 and GameCube in 2002, and was recently resurrected as a digital release for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, meaning it can still be played today.

This Jango Fett figure stands in at six inches in height, and is similar to one that released years ago, but is slightly different with a new jet pack and cleaner armor. It also comes in a Gaming Greats package that lines up with the recently released Darth Revan and Shadow Stormtrooper figures.

Like those two figures, Jango Fett is a GameStop exclusive. Preorders are now open, and the figure is slated to ship on September 15. You can take a look at the figure in the gallery below:

Click image thumbnails to view larger version

Hello. My name is James. I am ostensibly an adult. And, like The Mandalorian’s Din Djarin before me, I am the proud adoptive father of Baby Yoda. And Baby Yoda. And the other Baby Yoda. In fact, I have seven of them so far and have no intention of stopping.

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With the release of NBA 2K21, games on next gen consoles might see a price increase. In a press release this morning, Take-Two Interactive announced NBA 2K21 on the PS5 and Xbox Series X, as well as their current-gen counterparts. Noticeably, the next-gen standard versions of the game came with a suggested retail…

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Whether or not you like The Last of Us Part 2, there’s no denying it’s a diverse game. People of different genders, sexualities, and races exist in its world, and there’s a perverse equality in the way none of them are exempt from suffering. The game’s only trans character, a religious youth named Lev, is notable for…

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Kongregate has laid off a, reportedly sizable, portion of its staff, a decision the company says in a statement to Gamasutra was set in motion by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. ...