The Pokemon Company announces several new games including New Pokemon Snap. New Pokemon Snap is coming to the Nintendo Switch, but there’s no release date at this time. Pokemon Smile, an app designed to encourage kids to brush their teeth, and Pokemon Cafe Mix, a puzzle game where you play as a cafe owner serving only Pokemon were also announced. To learn about everything that was announced, check out the news story here: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/pokemon-presents-isle-of-armor-launch-new-pokemon-/1100-6478556/
Horizon Forbidden West gets an in-depth trailer which details its setting and new features, with an emphasis on the PS5’s SSD, claiming that the game should have “virtually no loading screens.” Speaking of PlayStation 5, yes, it can lay horizontally.
For the next five weeks, GameSpot is hosting Play For All, a summer gaming celebration and charity event featuring special guests like Troy Baker, Danny O’Dwyer, and many familiar GameSpot faces. We are all coming together to raise money for Direct Relief in support of those fighting on the frontlines against COVID-19, as well as Black Lives Matter.
Hearthstone has a new free five-chapter solo story, Trial by Felfire that is available now, as part of patch 17.4.1 and the Felfire Festival. This solo adventure comes after the release of the new Demon Hunter class, the first new class added since launch in 2014.
The adventure follows the story of Aranna Starseeker, who teams up with Illidian, the game’s Demon Hunter, to take down the architect of the Rusted Legion, Mecha-Jaraxxus. The adventure awards a Rusted Legion card back.
A special bundle is also available for purchase, containing Aranna Starseeker Demon Hunter hero, a special card back, and 20 Ashes of Outlands–the most recent expansion–card packs for $20 USD.
The update also includes some balance changes and bug fixes that take effect tomorrow, June 18. The full patch notes can be found on Hearthstone’s official website or below.
Hearthstone Patch 17.4.1
Battlegrounds Updates
HEROES
Lord Jaraxxus
Bloodfury
Old: [Cost 2] → New: [Cost 1]
Reno Jackson
Gonna Be Rich!
Old: [Cost 3] → New: [Cost 2]
Millificient Manastorm
Tinker
Old: [Passive] Mechs in Bob’s Tavern have +2 Attack. → New: [Passive] Mechs in Bob’s Tavern have +1/+1.
Maiev Shadowsong
Imprison
Dormant minions no longer reduce the number of minions you see when refreshing Bob’s Tavern (Unless you’re at Tier 6 and have 2 Dormant minions in play, then it will reduce by 1).
Fixed two separate issues that caused the Hero Powers for Lady Vashj and Maiev Shadowsong to trigger unintended effects in the shop phase.
Fixed an issue where the Deathrattle for Sneed’s Old Shredder was not summoning newly added Legendary minions.
Card Update
Twin Slice
Old: [Cost 0] Give your hero +1 Attack this turn. Add ‘Second Slice’ to your hand → New: [Cost 1] Give your hero +2 Attack this turn. Add ‘Second Slice’ to your hand.
Second Slice
Old: [Cost 0] Give your hero +1 Attack this turn. → New: [Cost 1] Give your hero +2 Attack this turn.
Golden Twin Slice will be eligible for a full dust refund for two weeks after the 17.4.1 patch goes live.
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Sony’s Horizon Zero Dawn sequel, Forbidden West, will make use of the PlayStation 5’s SSD to help improve load times dramatically. According to game director Mathijs de Jonge, there will be “virtually no loading screens” in Forbidden West.
“With the PS5’s SSD, there will be virtually no loading screens,” he said in a new video from PlayStation. “In an open-world game like Horizon Forbidden West, if you open up the map and fast travel from one end to the other, restarting from a check-point will be super fast. And when you boot up the game, you’re right there–in the action.”
The PS5’s SSD has been one of the console’s most-discussed features so far. Developers have spoken at length about how it will help improve load times and how this will make for an overall better gaming experience.
Like the first game, Forbidden West is being developed by Guerrilla Games and features the Game of Thrones-inspired main character Aloy who lives in a world overrun by gigantic machine-robots.
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In the wake of Twitch DMCA takedowns, DragonForce has announced that its last three albums are available for all content creators on the streaming platform to use.
Earlier this month, a number of Twitch streamers were faced with unexpected DMCA notices on their content. The streaming platform took to Twitter to advise content creators to take down clips containing background music from 2017 to 2019 while it worked on dealing with the sudden influx of requests from copyright holders on its end.
📢 This week, we’ve had a sudden influx of DMCA takedown requests for clips with background music from 2017-19. If you’re unsure about rights to audio in past streams, we advise removing those clips. We know many of you have large archives, and we’re working to make this easier.
The DMCA takedown notices issued to various content creators were not the result of Twitch changing any existing fair-use politics, but the result of existing DMCA laws being enforced against the platform in a visible way for the first time.
Since then, Dragonforce has confirmed that its last three albums–Extreme Power Metal (2019), Maximum Overload (2014), and Reaching Into Infinity (2017)–are now available for streamers to use on Twitch. Lead guitarist Herman Li announced during the GCX charity stream that tracks from those albums would be able to be played DMCA-free, and that creators could play those tracks “without having anything to worry about.”
It looks like the DMCA restrictions are being enforced not only against past clips and videos on Twitch, but also on livestreams. Music streamers, in particular, are concerned about the penalties being handed out and are seeking solutions to the issues that Twitch poses when its service intersects with legal licensing requirements.
Over the past few of weeks many Twitch users were hit with DMCA take down notices and penalties for using copyrighted music. Here’s a few Australian music streamers talking about how difficult it is to legally license music for stream vs other types of performance. pic.twitter.com/CtrDrtIX1L
GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
Actor Robert Pattinson has shared his diet and exercise program for The Batman, and it sounds pretty tough. In the latest issue of Healthy For Men (via IGN), Pattinson reveals what he did to get jacked and fit for what might be one of his biggest roles to date, and it involves drinking less booze and working out more.
To get abs, Pattinson did circuits of bicycle crunches, dumbbell side bends, double crunches, and a superman–he did three sets of 25 repetitions per move.
For cardio, Pattinson ran 5-10 km three to four times per week. And for his general strength, Pattinson performed army-style heavy sandbag routines on the beach and boxing. Pattinson also took long walks to not only burn calories and limber up, but also to get his mind in a better place.
In terms of his diet, Pattinson said he cut down on alcohol and ate less processed meat and fried foods.
Pattinson told the magazine about his strength and conditioning preparation for The Batman, “It’s all about pushing boundaries and building up to a point where you know you can do justice to the physicality required. He also specifically mentioned Chris Hemsworth, The Rock, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Evans as the “true warriors of the superhero genre,” adding that he spoke to some of them ahead of his performance as The Batman.
Pattinson wasn’t always too interested in diet and exercise. He said in a 2013 interview with Australia’s Sunday Style, “Body dysmorphia, overall tremendous anxiety. I suppose it’s because of these tremendous insecurities that I never found a way to become egotistical. I don’t have a six-pack and I hate going to the gym. I’ve been like that my whole life. I never want to take my shirt off. I’d prefer to get drunk.”
While leaked photos from the set tend to pop up here and there, director Matt Reeves revealed photos of Pattinson in the Batman costume and the Batmobile, which looks like a classic American muscle car, and that’s pretty rad.
The Batman will come to theaters on October 1, 2021.
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Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio stop-motion film, which was announced back in 2018, is making progress, with a major casting decision having come to light. In a video interview with Ace Universe, actor Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan in the Star Wars prequels) announced that he’s playing Jiminy Cricket in the upcoming film, and that recording had started before the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the interview, which was picked up on by Entertainment Weekly, McGregor says that he recorded some lines “before (he) left for New York,” and that since the film is stop-motion he expects that it is some time away from being finished yet. “But my first part of that, which is recording his dialogue, is sort of done,” he said.
However, he hints that there “may or may not be a song that needs to be recorded,” likely hinting at the iconic “When You Wish Upon A Star” from the 1940 Disney film. In the original, the song was sung by Cliff Edwards, the voice of the animated Jiminy Cricket.
Play For All is continuing on into July. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 relief efforts with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
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GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming–and we were recently joined by Brian Fargo to talk about his long career and his upcoming title, Wasteland 3. Fargo talks about numerous topics with editor Michael Higham in the video below, and gives us a few interesting insights into the upcoming third Wasteland game.
Fargo reflects on the long road between Wasteland 1 and 2, and tells us that Wasteland 3 players won’t need to have played the first two to understand what is happening. However, fans familiar with the series will get several Easter eggs and returning characters. “There’s a lot of inside humor, there are things that only you would get,” he says. “There are some parts that will feel more meaningful,” and some characters return from both previous games, he explains–but it’s not necessary to have played them.
Fargo talks about the importance of choice and consequence in the game. “We think that true consequence, meaningful consequence, is what makes these worlds super immersive,” Fargo says, explaining that they “leaned into” this aspect of the game harder than ever for Wasteland 3. He says your choices might pay off “10 hours later, 20 hours later” during the game.
Fargo digs into specific examples of how choice and consequence works–but you’ll have to watch the video for all the details. Suffice it to say, it sounds like the game will react to your actions in multiple ways as you play through it. He also gives some insight into how a game like this gets made, which is very interesting.
Wasteland 3 is coming on August 28 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4–even though developer inXile Entertainment is now owned by Microsoft.
Play For All is continuing on into July. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 relief efforts with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
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Jurassic World: Dominion is among the first major studio movies to resume production after shutting down due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Filming is set to begin again soon at Pinewood Studios in the UK, and now star Bryce Dallas Howard has spoken about returning to work amid the global pandemic.
“There’s been a lot of communication,” Howard said on the Entertainment Weekly Live Sirius XM show. “They are going above and beyond. We would never go back to work if we didn’t feel safe. And, you know, we’re taking it a day at a time and I’m very grateful to have a job.”
Howard went on to say that she has been speaking daily with the rest of the cast and crew about it to make sure they are staying safe and healthy. She said she’s been asking the key stakeholders, “How are we going to do this safely, and not making compromises that could undermine someone’s health and well-being.”
Filming on Jurassic World: Dominion will begin again at Pinewood on July 6.
Deadline reported that Jurassic World studio Universal is working with the British Film Commission and unions from the United States on safety measures. Universal is said to be spending about $5 million on these protocols, and this includes “thousands” of coronavirus tests for the rest of filming. Each member of the cast and crew will be tested multiple times, while everyone on the crew will wear masks at all times during filming.
In addition to Howard, Jurassic World: Dominion brings back Chris Pratt, while Sam Neill, Laura Dern, BD Wong, and Jeff Goldblum are set to reprise their roles from the earlier movies.
Chapter 2, Season 3 has officially begun in Fortnite, implementing several changes–some quite noticeable and others less so. Called Splashdown, the new season is water-themed and gives Fortnite an aquatic makeover.
In the video above, Jordan Ramée details the six major changes that are a part of Fortnite Chapter 2, Season 3. The most noticeable change is the new map–Fortnite’s battlefield has been completely flooded. To navigate between the landmarks, you’ll primarily need to take to the air or the sea in order to get around, and it’s via the latter method where you’ll encounter Season 3’s other major change: loot sharks. Yup, murderous loot sharks.
Like every new season, Splashdown adds a new battle pass to work through, challenges to complete, and cosmetics to unlock. Splashdown adds two new weapons too–one of which, the hunting rifle, is a beloved older weapon that’s been freed from its time in the vault. All this and more are detailed in the video above.
GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
Microsoft has posted what appears to be the Xbox Series X’s boot-up sound. If it sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the same startup sound that was featured in an Xbox video from May.
Microsoft shared the new Xbox sound using Twitter’s new voice notes feature. It’s a calming noise, and it’s quite different–and much longer–than the regular Xbox One’s boot-up sound. In a follow-up tweet, the Xbox account said of the startup sound, “It’s like a choir of gaming angels singing in your ears.”
The Xbox Series X is scheduled for release this holiday. There are a number of key particulars about the console still to be unveiled, perhaps the biggest of which is its price. Here at GameSpot, we predicted what we think the console will cost, but Microsoft has yet to make an official announcement.
GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 relief efforts with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.