October 2020

Dusttin Bowerman goes by the name Dogman, and he plays a mean Zenyatta for the Atlanta Reign, one of Overwatch League’s better teams this season that sadly didn't make the finals. In his second year in the league, Dogman has seen the competitive events shift from being held in front of roaring fans in an arena to the hum of an air conditioner in his apartment. Despite a different approach to matches, the league continues to find success and deliver impressive shows of player skill, but there are a number of drawbacks.

First off, how do you get started in Overwatch League?
Right out of high school I started playing Overwatch. I was about 18 at the time, and I was trying to do some college to stay at home with my parents. Eventually I moved out and tried to make [Overwatch] a full-time thing within a year. I got picked up by the Atlanta Reign academy team. After a pretty good season in Contenders, I got called up to the Overwatch League team.

"We had all worked on 3D projects until now, so moving to 2D with Eastern Exorcist meant we had to learn and master a lot of new techniques." ...

In this 2020 GDC Summer talk, Romero Games' Brenda Romero digs up the fascinating history of women in computer programming. ...

This post into the statistics behind various dice algorithms and how they can be implemented in the design of more balanced options for players. ...

This may be the month of ghosts and ghoulies, but we should still make time for gags and good times. To that end, do grab this week’s Epic Games Store freebie if so inclined, it’s Pikuniku. Released last year, it’s a lovely platforming explore-o-puzzler starring a wee blob with little kicking legs. Frankly, just watching those sticky feet is enough to cheer me up. And it’s good. And it’s free to keep. So that’s good.

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As they do, Mediatonic have been dripping out details about Fall Guys season two before it lands this month. Torturous new obstacles and maps are coming when the fumble royale game goes medieval. Now at last we know the second season begins on October 8th. As a treat, there will be a few days of double experience points beforehand in case you need to wrap up those season one rewards.

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My first mission in Star Wars: Squadrons (which I shall now call Squadwarns for the sake of ease), saw me jumping into a TIE fighter to have a nose around a big asteroidy space dock thing, looking for refugees from the recently-burst planet of Alderaan. My space boss reckoned those refugees might be hiding in cargo transports, so he told me to scan some cargo transports. ‘That looks familiar’, I thought to myself, as I approached one of the big, blocky things. I’d seen that ship design before, you see.

And when the scan started, and the transport’s model appeared in wireframe on my simulated cockpit’s little computer screen, I had a real little moment. Because it was, of course, the exact transport design encountered in 1994’s TIE Fighter. That was why it looked so blocky, I think: because if you were designing a ship for a 3D flight sim in the early nineties, it kinda had to be blocky. But what really did me in, was that the transport looked more impressive as a wireframe model on a deliberately rubbish retrofuturist computer screen, inside my computer screen, than it had done on my actual computer screen in 1994. Huh.

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Ah yes, the calendar rolls over and my favorite time of year begins. Almost every online game is due to be hexed with haunted decor, outfits, and seasonal achievements. Team Fortress 2 is one of the lot, kicking off its spooky celebration with four new player-made maps and a good handful of cosmetic items for Scream Fortress XII. Oh hey, they’ve also made some balance changes to Mannpower and enabled Steam’s text filtering.

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Now that Sony and Microsoft are releasing their next-gen consoles to the world, this fall season is starting to heat up quite a bit, as there are several top-tier new PS4 games that should be on your radar.

We have a list of every new game coming to the PS4 in October 2020 down below, but if you want some more info on some of the more notable releases, just keep scrolling down:

New PS4 Releases for October 2020

• Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time – Oct. 2
• Star Wars: Squadrons – Oct. 2
• Forgone – Oct. 5
• Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix – Oct. 5
• Ikenfell – Oct. 8
• Ride 4 – Oct. 8
• Ben 10: Power Trip – Oct. 9
• FIFA 21 – Oct. 9
• The Survivalists – Oct. 9
• G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout – Oct. 13
• Torchlight III – Oct. 13
• Cloudpunk – Oct. 15
• Monster Truck Championship – Oct. 15
• Raji: An Ancient Epic – Oct. 15
• Space Crew – Oct. 15
• NHL 21 – Oct. 16
• Amnesia: Rebirth – Oct. 20
• Remothered: Broken Porcelain – Oct. 20
• Bless Unleashed – Oct. 22
• Transformers: Battlegrounds – Oct. 23
• Carto – Oct. 27
• Ghostrunner – Oct. 27
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV – Oct. 27
• Song of Horror Complete Edition – Oct. 29
• Watch Dogs Legion – Oct. 29
• The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope – Oct. 30
• Auto Chess – Oct. 31

The post New PS4 Games Releasing in October 2020 appeared first on Twinfinite.

It’s a Great VR Experience

Reasons to Play Star Wars: Squadrons

We’ll start off with this one solely because there’s a good chance that it won’t apply to a few of you, so we’ll get it out the way!

Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time has finally crash-landed onto PlayStation 4 and Xbox One over 20 years after Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, allowing players to travel not only through time but also through multiple dimensions, where they’ll meet new friends, foes and some familiar faces in the strangest places.

Whether you’ve been a huge fan of the orange marsupial since the totally tubular ’90s or just jumping into the series for the first time and falling in love with it, your fandom won’t be complete without one of these breathtaking wallpapers to set as your PC home screen.

Here are some of the best space-bending, time-twisting Crash Bandicoot 4 wallpapers you’ll want to download now.

Ubisoft’s popular city-building game Anno 1800 is heading toward the end of its second season pass, and today a new trailer was released.

The trailer showcases the last DLC of the season pass, titled Land of Lions.

It’ll come on October 22, and will let you visit a brand new African-style continent among resource-gathering and politics.

You can check it out below.

If you’re interested in the second season pass, you can enjoy the original announcement trailer.

Here’s a list of the content:

• Seat of Power: Show off the power of your city with a prestigious palace and government departments that can boost your economy.
• Bright Harvest: Bring the wonders of mechanized farming as you boost the efficiency of your farms with tractors and more.
• Land of Lions: Travel to the Southern continent and join forces with an embattled Emperor to bring life to the desert using a new irrigation system.

Anno 1800 is currently available exclusively for PC.

The second season of content for Fall Guys finally has a firm release date, and developer Mediatonic is set to help players see the first season off in style.

In a brief post to Twitter made by the official Fall Guys account on Oct. 2, it was revealed that Fall Guys’ second season of content would kick off at the end of next week.

“Announcing dates always feels like you’re cursing things, but it’s Halloween month, so let’s get cursed!” the post reads. “Season 2 launches on Thursday 8th October.”

No new details were given at this time for what the next season would entail content-wise – though new content has been hinted at in other recent Twitter posts by the official Fall Guys account, like this one here – but the post did reveal that those currently playing the game will be able to enjoy double Fame Points until the new season kicks off.

The full post can be viewed down below.

When Rare announced their pirate-adventure-sandbox Sea of Thieves to the world, the studio put an emphasis on developing the game alongside a community of players. A part of this was establishing a Pirate Code that dictated—among other things—“Everyone is welcome on the Sea of Thieves regardless of age, gender, race,…

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One of the better classic NHL games is coming back in the form of NHL 94 Rewind. Unfortunately it’s currently only available as a pre-order bonus.

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UK developer Bossa is offering free copies of Surgeon Simulator 2 to all NHS staff members. And if you do work for that excellent organisation, all you need do is visit this website before October 22 and register your official NHS email address to receive a PC key for the wild 'n' gory sequel.

"At Bossa, we've always envisioned Surgeon Simulator 2 as a valuable training tool for NHS workers to hone their healthcare skills!" said Bossa co-founder Henrique Olifiers. "The Surgeon Simulator 2 community is frankly rubbish at saving Bob, so we think our players need to be shown how it's really done."

I brought my Switch with me to bed last night. No, it wasn't to check on my Animal Crossing villagers I haven't visited in over a month... It was to maliciously wreck 34 other players in Super Mario Bros. 35 by outlasting them and sending as many hammer brothers their way as I possibly could. Now that's what I call a fun time under the sheets!

I managed to rack up two more first-place victories last night in Super Mario Bros. 35, and I can't get enough of it. Nevertheless, regardless of whether I get bored or sidetracked by another video game, Super Mario Bros. 35 has a limited lifespan set in place by Nintendo. Why? I haven't the faintest clue. Perhaps they believe the skill ceiling could become too high? Maybe they plan on fully expanding this idea with a different and more fleshed out release (levels from World and 3 would be glorious). Maybe it's just Nintendo being Nintendo.

Destiny's Festival of the Lost event has always been one of the more wholesome seasonal goings-on in the series. Back when the original Destiny was devoid of content it was over far too quickly, but as time has gone on and the Destiny universe has become more full, it's a nice way to spend a few minutes each week.

The gist was that (which has blossomed into more perks and activities in recent years) you'd go around the Tower hub and go trick or treating for cosmetics: but now it's a little more involved. In Destiny 2 you can complete Triumphs in the Haunted Forest, which will grant you rewards like a mummified Sparrow, ship and Ghost. Just know that you need to be at Power Level 750 to get into the Haunted Forest (which most characters should be at this point).

Also, there are some known bugs with the event, so be aware of them going in. You can check them out below, as well as the debut trailer. The event kicks off on October 6 and will run through November 3!

Early on, Genshin Impact was met with a mixed reception due to how similar it was to Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Having finally played it, I can say that it's a lot more than a clone — even if it doesn't fully live up to its inspiration.

Carrey joins SNL for a special new episode of the show

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Pick up two armor pieces and two weapons for going Flawless this week

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Head to Io for some Exotics

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Nodding Heads’ debut game incorporates thrilling tales from the Hindu pantheon

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See what happened after Revolutionary Girl Utena with the manga continuation After the Revolution on October 6, 2020.

The post Revolutionary Girl Utena: After the Revolution Continues the Story in October appeared first on Siliconera.

It's October, which for many of us means that the Halloween celebrations have already commenced! To make the month of spooks even spookier, Silent Hill 4: The Room is making a comeback thanks to a digital release on GOG, and it's a pretty awesome deal for horror fans. 

Silent Hill 4: The Room first made its debut back in 2004 and it drastically pivoted the franchise in a different direction, especially regarding the feature where players would suddenly find themselves held prisoner in the in-game apartment. The first-person perspective made this experience incredibly immersive, making the exploration of the apartment daunting and terrifying.

Upon exploring this area, the setup where players uncover a small portal to the world of Silent Hill in the apartment was a nice touch. While the apartment was a swing (and a miss for some) in a new direction, the bulk of the game was pretty inline with what this series is known for: chills and thrills and a whole lot of confusion in the best way possible. 

Let's look at some interesting discount and sale strategies for console and PC games - including Switch eShop discounts and Steam sales. ...

Now it looks like the folks at GOG are taking GOG Galaxy 2.0's mission statement one step further by testing the ability to buy games from other digital stores through the platform. ...

The early access launch for Baldur’s Gate 3 is just a handful of days away now—which is exactly how much time I need to prepare myself for the character creator in an RPG. Larian Studios have gone over the eight races and their several sub-races that you’ll be able to choose from during early access. They’ve also opened signups for a Larian account that will allow you to play your saved games across storefronts and platforms if you like.

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The idea that EVE Online is just spreadsheets in space is one I’ve heard hundreds of times since I started playing EVE five years ago. I always try my best to explain the breadth and depth of the EVE experience as being much more than that. Today however, a new update to the game has forced me to throw in the towel: …

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When you’re playing a game whose layout is randomized, you might not immediately think all that much about level design, or even assume the levels were designed in the same sense as, say, a fully linear game or a series of finely tuned multiplayer maps. And yet, in games such as Hades, developers meticulously assemble…

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Earlier today, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot updated his employees about a recent company-wide survey regarding the status of reforms following a summer complaints about harassment, misconduct, and other systemic issues at the global video game publisher.

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The Torchinsky Files is back! Well, it’s not really like it ever left, since it’s just me down here in this basement where I spend hours and hours every day working but, look, I finally shot a new one! So I’m just happy to be back on track. And it’s a good one since it’s all about the origins of something we still see…

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With the world in crisis, just straight-up, feel-good moments are few and far between. So some of us here at Kotaku, for no other reason at all, much less one dominating the current news cycle, have grabbed a bunch of our favorite fanfares from a bunch of our favorite video games to help you close out this strangely…

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It's not too late to max out your Season 1 progress in Fall Guys before Season 2 starts on October 8.

BEAN SPILLING POST

Announcing dates always feels like you're cursing things, but it's Halloween month, so let's get cursed!

🔥 Season 2 launches on Thursday 8th October 🔥

Season 1 will now end as Season 2 begins and we're going to DOUBLE fame points during this time! 👀 pic.twitter.com/J9TFIZ1BDd

— Fall Guys 👑 (@FallGuysGame) October 2, 2020

After announcing that finalized date on Twitter, Mediatonic also said that Fall Guys will give out double fame points starting on Monday, October 5 – a chance to earn enough XP to hit level 40. Up until the last five or so slow-moving levels, I feel like I reached that point pretty effortlessly. It just happened.

I'm not sure I'll still be into Fall Guys enough to hit the Season 2 cap – we'll see how fun the medieval levels are and if Mediatonic can keep the game fresh in follow-up updates – but I'll give it my best.

While we're here, I'd like to formally request a Fall Guys level based on Don't Spill the Beans.

After publishing improperly-exported gameplay footage of Amnesia: Rebirth that ran poorly and had some of us feeling anxious about the fast-approaching October 20 release, Frictional Games has since released a 60FPS trailer with a look at "monsters, puzzles, physics, and creepy environments."

The setting is unfamiliar, and the protagonist comments on her surroundings more than expected – something I'm sure I'll get used to – but there's no mistaking it: this is classic first-person horror. Frictional also did something I want these trailers to do – it shows what happens when you eff up.

This footage was captured "over a month ago" and certain elements, like the tank, have since been updated. "So cool how your game always gets a massive quality boost near the end of development."

I can already tell Amnesia: Rebirth will be an exhausting, nerve-fraying romp. A fine game for 2020.

As world-builder Roblox continues to expand upon its global success - having established an incredible user base on PC and mobile platforms since its 2006 launch - parent company Roblox Corporation is reportedly considering going public on the U.S. stock market in 2021.

According to a report on CNBC, Roblox Corporation is currently weighing up its options, considering whether to go public via a traditional initial public offering (IPO), or through a direct listing, which will prevent the selling of new shares and will disallow banks from weighing in on stock pricing. Previously valued at an amazing $4 billion USD, Roblox Corporation is reportedly confident it can double its valuation to a staggering $8 billion.

While not spoken about as frequently and in as large circles as Mojang's Minecraft (of which it is often inaccurately compared to), Roblox has built a similarly huge audience of younger players, with an estimated half of all under-16s in the U.S. sinking time into the mini-game party title. Roblox Corporation currently states that its app has around 115 million monthly active units, garnering around 1.5 billion hours of "monthly engagement."

U.S. gaming platform Roblox prepares to go public [CNBC / GamesIndustry.biz]

One of the greatest sports video games of all-time is getting a roster update in about a month. Current NHL players are being dragged all the way back to the mid-'90s.

EA Sports has revealed NHL 94 Rewind, which doesn't involve Mario Lemieux and his 100 rating looking absolutely invincible. Instead, as EA Sports describes it, "it's today's teams and today's rosters with controls and graphics from 1994." Some of them, like Joe Thornton and Ilya Kovalchuk, might've been on the original NHL 94 rosters! There's no way to know.