Month: May 2018

In 2014, Scarlet Moon Records launched a video game music album that few could have seen coming. The Prescription for Sleep: Game Music Lullabies album features famous video game songs presented in a jazzy lullaby style to help you sleep. It’s a unique concept, and one that was successful enough to get five further album releases, including those dedicated to Secret of Mana and Undertale, and one in honor of the Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. Now, Scarlet Moon Records is announcing a remaster of the album that started it all–and it’s coming soon.

The re-issue features the same songs from the original, along with two bonus tracks: “Fisherman’s Horizon” from Final Fantasy VIII and an entirely original track called “He Chose You.” Additionally, the audio has been tweaked to “more closely [match up with] the rest of the albums.” The music was performed by the group Gentle Love, which is a duo comprised of Metal Gear Solid and Bayonetta composer Norihiko Hibino on saxophone and PersonaQ pianist Ayaki.

Ahead of the remaster’s release next week, GameSpot is bringing you an exclusive preview of the “Fisherman’s Horizon” track. It is a lovely, gentle tune that combines the piano and sax smoothly. It puts you to sleep–in a good way. You can listen to the full preview in the embed above. The album’s cover art can be seen above.

Producer Jayson Nopolitano said the original album has become “a musical phenomenon,” and he’s already teasing the next release.

“We found that listeners have been creating their own playlists with all six albums in the series and that the original volume could benefit from some remastering as such,” he said. “We also wanted to treat fans to both a new arrangement and an original track–which we’ve been told are the highlights of many of our albums–to celebrate four years of the series. We’re thankful for all the support and look forward to announcing the next album in the series soon.”

You can pre-order Prescription for Sleep Volume 1 Game Music Lullabies Remaster now on Bandcamp.

Surprising and angering fans, Fox this week announced the cancelation of the cult comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but the show may live again.

Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that, just hours after Fox announced the show’s cancellation, multiple networks reached out to producers Universal Television. According to the site, Netflix, Hulu, TBS, and NBC all made calls, though these might have been only exploratory in nature. It would in fact be more surprising and noteworthy if no networks came calling. We don’t know anything about what might have been said or discussed on the phone calls, but it seems encouraging for the show to have other networks take some kind of interest.

Universal Television company declined to comment on THR’s report. The other two shows that Fox canceled this week, The Mick and The Last Man on Earth, are also in discussions with new homes to potentially come back, THR’s sources said. Go to THR to see the full report.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which stars SNL veteran Andy Samberg, premiered in 2013. According to Deadline, the show failed to find a substantial audience in part because it moved back and forth between Sunday and Tuesday. The show was created by Parks and Recreation creators Dan Goor and Michael Schur.

The Japanese company Sanrio are best known in the west for Hello Kitty; for over 40 years the anthropomorphic cat has been one of the most popular brands in the world. But Sanrio has made a lot more than just Hello Kitty–Gudetama, Keroppi, Pochacco, My Melody, and Badtz Maru are among the popular kawai characters that have played a major part in Japanese pop-culture over the years.

Retsuko is the latest addition to the Sanrio family. While the adorable red panda at the center of the brilliant new Netflix show Aggretsuko looks every bit as cute as these other characters, she is very different. For a start she is an adult, a 25-year-old trying to navigate life in the big city. She hates her job in accounting, which has slowly crushed her once optimistic outlook on life. But Retsuko has a secret–after work every night she heads to a karaoke bar and rids herself of all her frustrations by screaming death metal into the mic she carries with her at all times. The entire first season of Aggretsuko is now on Netflix, and to celebrate, here’s all the times that Retsuko gets mad…

Konami launched the Metal Gear spinoff, Metal Gear Survive, back in February on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. How well has it sold? Konami isn’t saying, at least not yet, but the signs aren’t exactly great.

The Japanese publisher today reported earnings for its fiscal year ended March 31, and the report didn’t say anything about the game’s performance. The report marks the game’s release as a notable event during the year, but says nothing of how well it did in the market.

Konami is of course under no obligation to share a unit sales figure–in fact, many publishers are shying away from announcing hard sales numbers these days. Still, the silence is notable given the size and stature of the Metal Gear franchise.

Not only that, but Konami went out of its way to speak positively about games like PES 2018, which the company said “continued to enjoy stable performance.” The line about Metal Gear Survive only notes that the game…came out.

“As for computer and video games, a spinoff title in the Metal Gear series, Metal Gear Survive, was released…,” Konami said.

Metal Gear Survive launched on February 20, and it did not make it into the Top 20 list of best-sellers during the month in the United States, according to NPD Group. In the UK, it entered the charts in the No. 6 spot, getting outsold by games far older than it. The game was quickly discounted to $20, which also is a sign that the game might not have performed so well.

Even if Metal Gear Survive didn’t do all that well for Konami, the publisher had a good year financially, with revenue and profit rising year-over-year. You can read the company’s full earnings report here [PDF].

The reviews for Metal Gear Survive, including ours, were middling, but most reviewers found things to praise. Despite it being more demanding and obtuse than GameSpot reviewer Tamoor Hussain would have liked, he noted, “There’s actually a good survival game in there.” So if you’re a Metal Gear diehard, or are simply interested in trying out a new survival game, snagging Metal Gear Survive on sale is the way to do it.

The “gifting” feature that launched on Xbox One last year is expanding. Microsoft announced today that digital PC games in the Microsoft Store and downloadable content are now eligible for gifting. At launch, only Xbox One digital games could be gifted. The other big piece of gifting news today is that all Xbox One digital games can now be gifted.

Additionally, memberships to Xbox Live and Xbox Game Pass can be gifted as well. “This feature has been a huge hit with our fans and has made buying presents for friends and family even easier, especially around the holidays,” Microsoft said in a blog post today.

This is what gifting on Xbox One looks like

To gift a game, on PC or Xbox One, you select “Buy as Gift” on the store page and then provide an email for who you want to send it to. On Xbox One, you can send via Gamertag. The recipient then gets a code, and bam, that’s it.

There are some things to be aware of, however. If the content you want to gift is on sale, you can only purchase two games or items as gifts in a 14-day period.

There is no limit for gifting full-price items. Gifting only works with Xbox One and PC games, not Xbox 360 or original Xbox games. Additionally, you cannot gift pre-orders or consumable DLC such as in-game currency.

Gifting is a nice feature that should come in especially handy around the holidays or at any other gift-giving time. Gifting is not available on PS4.

Epic Games is updating Fortnite again to make changes to the limited-time Avengers: Infinity War mode that features the mega-powerful Thanos and his gauntlet. Specifically, the update will change his attributes to make him more powerful, but also somewhat easier to kill.

Starting off Thanos’ Beam is now deadlier; it does 20 damage instead of 12. Additionally, punch damage is increased from 80 to 100. Balancing this out somewhat is the fact that Thanos’ health now stands at 500 instead of 800.

Regarding these changes, Epic said in a post on Reddit, “Our goal is to allow more folks to truly experience the power of Thanos, while also making you feel powerful when wielding the gauntlet.”

Today’s update also addresses loot drops in the Infinity Gauntlet mode. With the update, only Rare, Epic, and Legendary-level weapons will spawn, which in turn should give players more firepower to help take down Thanos.

The new Fortnite update also makes some general changes, including lowering the height of the battle bus and a bigger storm circle at the start of matches. Additionally, the spawn rate for med kits, chug jugs, and big shields are increased. You can see the full patch notes below.

The new mode, Infinity Gauntlet, launched earlier this week. Thanos was too strong at the start, and Epic nerfed the character right away.

Fortnite Patch Notes:

Thanos Changes

• Increased Beam from 12 to 20 damage on players.
• Increased Punch damage from 80 to 100.
• Decreased health from 800 to 500.

General Mode Changes

• Reduced height of the Bus when dropping
• Bigger initial storm circle
• Less storm damage early game (first 3 storms from 5%/5%/10% per tick to 1%/2.5%/5%)
• Initial Gauntlet spawn time changed from bus ride plus 30-45s to bus ride plus 120-135s
• Increased spawn rate of Med Kits, Chug Jugs and Big Shields.
• Removed spawn of Bandages and Slurp Juice.