Author: Trafficblast

It’s been over a year since HBO’s Westworld was on our screens and, for even the most attentive viewers, it might be a struggle to remember everything that happened. That’s not to say your memories aren’t in tip-top shape, it’s more that Westworld was an incredibly nuanced exploration of AI sentience, moral and ethical obligations, and the darker side of human nature–and those are just a few of the complicated themes it tackles.

Trying to understand all that while also keeping track of the plot was tricky at the time, so you’d be forgiven for forgetting some of the finer details. Luckily for you, we’ve put together a quick recap that will walk you through everything that happened, both inside Westworld’s Wild West theme park and outside of it. In the video above resident Westworld superfan and … host (geddit?) … Lucy James will walk you through all the important moments from the first season so that, by the time you’re done watching, you’ll be ready to jump into Season 2.

Westworld Season 2 begins airing on April 22. A trailer for the new season has been released, and offered a glimpse at a Shogun world, where we’ll likely get to see William (Jimmi Simpson) before he became the Man In Black visiting Dolores in the Delos labs. This moment could be key to further exploring his transformation from the lovesick wanderer with feelings for a robot to the heartless monster that caused so much chaos in the first season.

Interestingly, someone has found a secret binary code hidden in the Westworld season 2 trailer. When decoded it reveals a link to a hidden page on the Delos website, which is a commercial for the company and its theme parks–specifically Westworld. However, some really haunting imagery also be seen there.

Today Blizzard revealed the final cards for its upcoming Hearthstone expansion, The Witchwood. This latest addition to the digital card game will add 135 cards in all when it launches this Thursday, April 12. It all centers around a spooky haunted forest theme with creepy new features and keywords.

Rush, one of the new keywords, is similar to the existing Charge mechanic but restricted only to attacking minions on the turn they are first played. The other is Echo, which lets you play the same card multiple times in a turn as long as you have the mana to pay for it. Other mechanics add flavor without their own devoted keyword. Worgen characters swap attack and health (and visual art) every turn they’re in your hand. Finally, some of the new cards have special effects if you build a deck only out of even- or odd-costed cards.

If you’d like to jump aboard, you still have a few hours to claim some free packs for completing daily quests. Once the expansion launches, you can log in and claim three free packs and a free class legendary. You can read our chat with game director Ben Brode for more insights on the expansion and why this may be the best time for newcomers to join.

Check out the full list of expansion cards below, organized by class.

Neutral

Druid

Hunter

Mage

Paladin

Priest

Rogue

Shaman

Warlock

Warrior

Sunday night’s episode of The Simpsons addressed the recent controversy surrounding the character Apu–and not everyone enjoyed what the show had to say. First, some background. In 2017, comedian Hari Kondabolu released a documentary called The Problem With Apu that put forth the idea that the convenience store owner is shown with negative racial stereotypes. Actor Hank Azaria, who voices Apu and won an Emmy for his performance, responded by saying the situation was “upsetting” and that the documentary made some good points.

A scene in Sunday night’s episode, “No Good Read Goes Unpunished,” shows Marge and Lisa trying to make a book, “The Princess in the Garden,” inoffensive to people in 2018. In a fourth wall-breaking moment, Lisa turns to the camera and says, “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?”

The camera then moves to show a picture of Apu on Lisa’s bedside table with the line “Don’t have a cow” written on it.” Then Marge chimes in with, “Some things will be dealt with at a later date.” Lisa responds, “If at all.” You can watch the full scene in the embed above.

This didn’t go over so smoothly, something that executive producer Al Jean predicted would happen. Some viewers said it was a tone deaf response by the writers, one of whom was Simpsons creator Matt Groening. Jean defended his show in a series of tweets. He also thanked the fans who spoke positively about the episode and re-tweeted some messages of support, including one that said this matter is a “non-issue.”

You can see screencaps of these exchanges below.

Kondabolu, the director of “The Problem With Apu,” also responded. He said it’s “sad” what The Simpsons did with the episode, suggesting the writers went down that path merely to get ratings.

The Simpsons, which is one of the longest running shows on TV, is currently in its 29th season. New episodes air Sunday nights on Fox.

With Season 2 of Westworld quickly approaching, fans of the HBO series are trying their best to figure out just what will be going on this year, by looking at clues left all over the internet by the showrunners. Well, it seems like the minds behind the series are planning on revealing everything, beat by beat, on the internet prior to the show’s airing.

Showrunner Jonathan Nolan took to Reddit today to discuss his plans for the second season and whether or not he would reveal everything that’s going to happen in the upcoming episodes. Because the Reddit community explores every nook and cranny of the HBO series, theories redditors come up with can actually be spoilers. So instead of ignoring and denying what could actually be truths about the new season, Nolan wants to put it all online, as long as the people want it.

“We thought about this long and hard, and came to a difficult (and potentially highly controversial) decision,” explained Nolan. “If you guys agree, we’re going to post a video that lays out the plot (and twists and turns) of Season 2. Everything. The whole sordid thing. Up front. That way the members of the community here who want the season spoiled for them can watch ahead, and then protect the rest of the community, and help to distinguish between what’s ‘theory’ and what’s spoiler.”

Nolan went on to say that if the post gets 1,000 upvotes, they will “deliver the goods.” This message comes on the heels of the Reddit community finding websites with Season 2 details, with URLs to these sites hidden within promotional images for the show.

Fans started getting really excited for the upcoming season when a trailer was released during this year’s Super Bowl. Season 1 left fans with so many questions, especially after seeing a bunch of samurais during the finale; however, we now know for sure that we will be making a trip to Shogun world, and it will be gory. We’ll have to wait and see if Westworld will be taking us anywhere else this season. Maybe Futureworld?

Season 2 of Westworld comes to HBO on April 22.

Welcome to another episode of Steam Punks, the GameSpot show where we go through the top PC Steam games each week, cutting through the clutter and showing you the best hidden video game gems.

The charming RPG Minit kicks off the show this week, where you’re asked to complete your quest with the restriction of 60-second lives. It’s not the first RPG to explore this time mechanic, but Minit sets itself apart with its incredibly focused design, and its unbridled creativity in its quests, characters, and wealth of secrets.

Next, we take a look at The Adventure Pals, an off-the-wall, Cartoon Network-inspired action platformer which Jess finds very comforting to play. The difficulty echoes something along the lines of a Kirby game, and there’s a lot of joy in seeing what kinds of bizarre things the game can surprise you with.

Then, we go into the free-to-play realm with Airmech Strike, a MOBA twist on the Airmech series which has just graduated from Steam Early Access. Even if you’ve got genre fatigue, the fast-paced, shoot-em-up nature, along with some actual real-time strategy components might be enough to win over that part of your brain. With its focus on 1v1 and 2v2 matches, along with simple fact that you get to fly around in a transforming robot, Airmech Strike a low-investment game that is worth giving a shot, even just to watch some AI opponents explore.

Finally, we take it down a few notches and relax with Train Valley 2. This Steam Early Access tycoon puzzle game lets you play at your own pace in order to think about the logistics of a rail network and create the most efficient infrastructure possible. It’s got a lovely, calming low-poly graphical presentation so if you like your micromanagement tasks to be a little more chill, Train Valley has got your back.

Minit is also available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The Adventure Pals is also available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Have you been playing any fantastic new PC games that we missed? Let us know on Twitter: @EdmondTran + @JessMcDonell

Steam store links: Minit | The Adventure Pals | Airmech Strike | Train Valley 2

With more than 90 million units shipped, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most successful video games in history from a commercial standpoint. The studio is owned by Take-Two, a publicly traded company whose investors are looking for bigger hits each time out. Can the inevitable Grand Theft Auto VI do even better than its predecessor? That remains to be seen, but one analyst thinks GTA V was the biggest hit Rockstar will ever see.

Rockstar’s next big game is Red Dead Redemption 2, which comes out in October for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. This game will surely be a big success, but Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz doesn’t think it will sell as well as Grand Theft Auto V.

“That’s not to say Rockstar won’t have other big hits–it may–but another GTA V isn’t likely,” he told MarketWatch. “Michael Jackson had a lot of hit albums but he only had one ‘Thriller.'”

Overall, Creutz said he thinks GTA V is a “wild outlier” in the video game market when it comes to sales. In recent years, video game companies have declined to share specific unit sales data for their games, but it is safe to say that no other title has been as commercially successful as GTA V in many, many years. Creutz was commenting on a piece that claims GTA V has brought in $6 billion in revenue that makes it the most successful entertainment product of any kind in history, though there is no hard data to back this up.

Indeed, GTA V might be a unique case. It was originally released in 2013 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, before later coming to PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. It was released at the tail-end of the Xbox 360/PS3 generation, which was good for the game in that it launched into a massive installed base of consoles which undoubtedly helped improve sales.

By comparison, Red Dead Redemption 2 will only be released on PS4 and Xbox One, so by virtue of that, it has a comparatively smaller market to sell to. That being said, the game is still likely to sell exceptionally well. In 2016, Cowen & Company said it was modeling 15 million in sales for the game.

Even if no future Rockstar game sells more than 90 million units, Red Dead Redemption 2 or GTA VI could still be exceptionally commercially successful through other means. Take-Two wants to have some form of microtransactions in all of its games, and given how wildly successful and lucrative they have been in GTA V, we can only imagine how this business model grows with Rockstar’s future games.

As incredible as it is, Grand Theft Auto IV is coming up on its tenth birthday later this month. And this means that some music licenses will expire and Rockstar will have to remove a bunch of tracks from the game’s soundtrack.

According to Kotaku, on April 26, a bunch of 10-year agreements will be up, and Rockstar will patch several songs out of the game. Kotaku reports that sources have said that “a lot” of music will be removed, but the developer has not given a list of specific tracks.

This happened with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as well; in 2014, the studio took 17 songs out of the game. But what makes GTA IV’s situation particularly notable is that there’s apparently a workaround for PS3 players. Kotaku reports that, prior to April 26, owners of the game on PS3 will receive system messages giving them the option of downloading digital versions of the tracks. As a result, they’ll be able to continue listening to the tracks in-game. It’s unclear why or how this is happening, or if a similar option will be given to PC and Xbox 360 players. We’ve reached out to Rockstar for comment and clarification.

Grand Theft Auto IV launched way back in 2004 for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, and it achieved significant critical and commercial success. GameSpot, for instance, gave it a 10/10 in our original review. In addition, be sure to check out our feature on all of the biggest game anniversaries happening in 2018.

Even though the conversation around it has died down a bit, HQ Trivia continues to grow into a mobile juggernaut. The audience for its twice-daily games routinely number in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes in the millions, and last month HQ’s developer raised $100 million in funding. This week, one game will feature the biggest prize yet: $300,000. And Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will be hosting it.

That’s right, the game that’ll award the biggest prize won’t be hosted by the normal HQ host, Scott Rogowsky. HQ occasionally features other hosts, but Rogowsky appears in the vast majority of games. Rogowsky fans don’t have to worry, though, as he’ll act as co-host to The Rock, according to People.

The special game will take place at 12 PM PT / 3 PM ET / 7 PM UTC on Wednesday, April 11. As with all HQ games, if you happen to answer every question correctly, you’ll get a percentage of the prize pool depending on how many other players win. If no one wins, the prize pool will likely roll over to a future game.

The Rock is currently on tour to promote his next film, Rampage. It’s based loosely on the game Rampage, which was originally released in arcades back in 1986 before being ported to a bunch of other systems. The film hits theaters on Friday, April 13. In other The Rock news, Johnson is still undecided about whether or not he’ll appear in Fast & Furious 9.