As part of a new initiative on IGN, we’ll be spending whole months exploring topics we find interesting in the world of video games – and we hope that you will, too!
The first of the “themed months”, April is focused on Urban Legends. We’ll be taking a weekly look at the bizarre, eerie, untold, and otherwise unexplained phenomena within the gaming community.
And there’s more still to come! Next week, we’ll be taking a look at the bizarre story of Polybius – no, not the recent PSVR game, but the urban legend that it’s based on, where the US government attempted to weaponized arcade machines as mind control devices in the late 1980s.
[poilib element=”accentDivider”]
What are some of your favorite gaming-centric urban legends? Let us know in the comments, and stay tuned for more upcoming themed events, including explorations of game development and some of the biggest icons of the gaming community.
One of the more charming things you may not expect in the world of Destiny is that there’s an entire set of lore all about the foods the characters in the game eat. Ramen was highlighted in the launch trailer for Destiny 2, but there have also been cookies in the form of Gjallardoodles for a questline, and celery instead of Halloween candy that everyone’s favorite party pooper Eris Morn gave you as a “treat.”
With that in mind, Bungie, Insight Editions, and author Victoria Rosenthal have partnered to bring us an official cookbook of real-world versions of Destiny 2’s recipes. Rosenthal, who creates graphics for NASA as part of her day job, has translated many of those items alongside a few cocktails of your choosing.
Each recipe in the book – which is 208 pages long – come with step-by-step instructions and full color guide to help “fans go on their own culinary adventure.” I’m a big fan of trying out new recipes with my wife, and I plan to try out a few of these recipes to share the outcome with you on a future Fireteam Chat episode. In the meantime, check out a few exclusives they sent over to us that you can try for yourself at home in the slideshow below (no word yet on whether or not Radiolarian Pudding from the 2019 in-game Dawning event will be included, but I’m willing to bet it would be white chocolate pudding and be absolutely delicious.)
Destiny: The Official Cookbook is set to hit store shelves on August 4th, 2020 for the retail price of $34.99USD, or $26.89USD if you pre-order on Amazon. To my surprise Insight Editions also have several othere themed cookbooks such as Marvel Eat the Universe, The Elder Scrolls Cookbook, and one that features prominent WWE Wrestlers expressing the importance of a balanced breakfast (“these ham and pineapple stuffed “doughnuts” are a great choice for your first meal of the day, or as your last meal on Earth.” – WWE’s Big Boss Man.)
The Destiny equivalent quote for the Spicy Ramen reads “Spicy Ramen has been a staple here in the Tower for as long as I can remember. Highlighting an incredible combination of flavors and spices, this is one of the best recipes the Golden Age has to offer. Not even the Red Legion could bring down these golden noodles swimming in rich flavorful broth.”
Destin Legarie is a Director of Video Content Strategy at IGN and host of our Destiny Show Fireteam Chat. You can follow him on Twitter or watch him stream regularly on Twitch.
Rockstar Games is working on a new Grand Theft Auto, but the next entry in the series is reportedly a long ways from release, and may take on a different scope due to alleged changes at the Red Dead and GTA studio.
An anonymous source close to Rockstar Games has confirmed to IGN that the Red Dead Redemption 2 company is next working on a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, as first reported by Kotaku.
Kotaku’s report, which places a larger focus on workplace changes allegedly happening at Rockstar following the massive discussions on crunch in game development that centered around Red Dead Redemption 2, also notes, however, that the next GTA is “early in development.” The report further goes on to explain that, due to the changing nature of conditions at Rockstar, the company is considering ways of altering production to avoid similar crunch issues. One such plan is to allegedly have the next GTA, whether it be called GTA 6 or some other title, be “a moderately sized release (which, by Rockstar’s standards, would still be a large game) that is then expanded with regular updates over time, which may help mitigate stress and crunch.”
Of course, given that the next Grand Theft Auto is early in development, it remains to be seen how the later parts of development could affect these plans to curb crunch, the process by which developers work frequent overtime in order to hit certain release dates and milestones.
According to the new report, Rockstar has attempted to root out the causes of widespread crunch reported at the studio, including changes in leadership throughout many of its offices, outside management training, and plans to improve technology pipelines and scheduling for production on the next game. And while there’s still concern at the studio, according to the report, many anonymous devs speaking to Kotaku were cautiously optimistic about the future.
IGN has reached out to Rockstar for official comment on the alleged changes at the studio, as well as further comment on the next GTA, and will update this story should they respond.
Crunch and its impact on developers has of course been a discussion before Red Dead 2’s development, and one we’ve seen continue since, including a CD Projekt Red executive indicating crunch would be needed on Cyberpunk 2077. And recent reports suggested that The Last of Us Part 2’s delay from February to May allegedly led to more sustained crunch, rather than alleviating it.
GTA 6 has not officially been announced, and though we’ve seen plenty of attempts to fool us into believing GTA 6 has been announced for previous years, Rockstar has remained quiet about what will follow Red Dead 2, as well as its continued work on Red Dead Online and GTA Online.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered launched on PS4 earlier this month, but it’s only out on PC on April 30. Today’s driver adds support for it too, ensuring you have the best performance at launch. Saint’s Row: The Third Remastered is even further out, with a release date in late May, but even that is supported in today’s driver release.
Today’s driver also introduces three more monitors into Nvidia’s G-Sync Certified list. These monitors don’t have native G-Sync support, but instead use software with FreeSync to emulate the experience. The three new monitors that Nvidia have certified as supported include the Acer XB273GP, Acer XB323U, and ASUS VG27B.
If you’re not into owning your own Nvidia hardware, you can utilize the company’s own streaming service called GeForce Now, as long as you own some supported PC games.
Click To Unmute
Size:
Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?
WWE Chairman Vince McMahon held a phone conference Wednesday afternoon stating that several cuts were coming not just from the talent roster, but also from across the board. The first wave of cuts came about an hour after the meeting that included Drake Maverick, the Good Brothers, Eric Young, Lio Rush, EC3, Curt Hawkins, and several road agents including WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle and longtime official Mike Chioda who has been with the company sine 1989.
McMahon was also recently named an official in President’s Trump committee to advise on reopening sports and was recently declared an “essential business” by Orange County, Florida.
Several wrestlers responded to the news of their release the best they could and took to Twitter to thank fans.
To everyone on Gods green earth. Thank you for the kind words. I’ve been doing this for 46 years(Wrestling)I pray you all get through this and we can share a hug and drink again. Stay healthy. (SD)
Last time I got fired I had a really funny tweet in response to it. Doesn’t really feel appropriate today. I will say this, a lot of very talented ppl lost their jobs today and out of this disaster the PRO WRESTLING community will rise stronger than ever! 🤘🏻
I wanted 2 say thank you to the WWE for the time I spent there.I made many new friends and had the opportunity to work with so many talented people. To the Superstars, continue to entertain the WWE Universe as well as you possibly can. They’re the best fans in the world. #itstrue
Thanks everyone for all the great messages. I truly believe that this is just temporary. There are many people in this world in far worse situations than I am, so please don’t worry about me too much. I’ll always be The Hurricane and I’m always just a tweet away. Love you all!
It’s obvious that professional wrestling has seen some dark days in decades past, but this could be just the start of the number of releases to come. Gamespot will update accordingly.
It’s been eight years since the trailer for the Western release of Phantasy Star Online 2 dropped. Back then, Sega announced that it was due out in 2013, but it’s only now that the long-awaited online RPG is available to download on Xbox One. There are two special editions priced at $30 and $60 respectively, but the base game is free-to-play–you just need an Xbox Live Gold subscription in order to play online.
Although Sega dropped the trailer eight years ago, it wasn’t until last year, when PSO 2 was announced during Microsoft’s E3 2019 presentation, that a Western release started looking like a reality. PSO 2 initially launched in Japan in 2012 and continues the original game’s formula of mixing futuristic tech and magic in combat. As the name implies, it’s a multiplayer-focused variant of the fantasy RPG series, with players able to meet in lobbies, speak through text chat, and engage in raid quests with up to 12 players. The original Phantasy Star Online is widely regarded as one of the most influential games of all time for what it did for online console play in Japan, pushing the feature in the East when no other games were.
PSO 2 is enhanced for Xbox One X with 4K support and an expanded user interface display size. Game Pass Ultimate subscribers in the US and Canada will also receive some special PSO 2 DLC as part of the service’s new Perks. These include a special content bundle, which includes unique emotes, in-game cosmetics including an Xbox jacket, a gold ticket Mission Pass and in-game currency with a Meseta Crystal.
Despite launching on Xbox One, the online action RPG is not exclusive to the Xbox platform, according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer. There’s no word on whether PSO 2 will eventually make its way to PlayStation 4 or Nintendo Switch in the future, but a PC version is slated for a late May release, exclusively on the Microsoft Store.
Click To Unmute
Size:
Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?
The long-rumoured follow-up to Apple’s popular low-cost iPhone, the iPhone SE, has finally been revealed. Named simply the iPhone SE, the new smartphone will be up for pre-order on April 17, and ship as early as April 24.
Much like the original iPhone SE, which took the internals of the then flagship iPhone 6S and put them into the body of an iPhone 5S, the 2020 iPhone SE won’t seemingly compromise on performance. It features the same A13 Bionic chip that powers the iPhone 11, but is housed in the same chassis as the now discontinued iPhone 8. It will include Qi wireless charging, a True-Tone display, and TouchID, since the SE lacks the front-facing FaceID camera.
The iPhone SE ships with a single rear camera, with specs similar to the main lens on the iPhone 11. Its 12-megapixel sensor with a 28-millimeter f/1.8 lens supports Smart HDR, Portrait Mode, and features optical image stabilization, but you will lose on the wide-angle view that the second camera offers on the iPhone 11, and the telephoto lens of the iPhone 11 Pro models.
The iPhone SE comes in three colors, namely Black, White, and Red. The white model adopts the styling of the iPhone 11 however, with black front panels and only white on the glass adorned back. The iPhone SE doesn’t include an audio jack and ships with lighting cable support. The 4.7-inch screen is considerably larger than the 4-inch screen of the original, but is still much smaller than the iPhone 11 Pro’s 5.8-inch display.
These omissions help the iPhone SE to launch with a relatively low price. It comes in three sizes, with the base 64GB costing $399, the 128GB going for $449, and the largest model with 256GB of storage retailing for $549. By comparison, the cheapest model of the iPhone 11 costs $799, while the Pro starts at $999.
The TurboGrafx-16 Mini is my new favorite all-in-one mini retro console, but it’s definitely not for everyone. I know, I know, when I reviewed the SEGA Genesis Mini last year I said THAT was my favorite, but the TurboGrafx-16 Mini has bumped it out of the top-spot thanks to a solid selection of obscure games and oodles of M2-emulation charm.
That said, the TurboGrafx-16 was never a mainstream console, but it was historically significant. It was the first console of the 16-bit generation, although its CPU was only 8-bit. It was also the first to feature CD-ROMs, all the way back in 1988. The Mini celebrates the history of the TurboGrafx-16, but with the bulk of its games available only in Japanese and the relative obscurity of its English-language game selection, it’s a niche product aimed at old people like me and not a mainstream audience.
More Like CharmingGrafx-16
The original, proprietary TurbGrafx-16 controller ports have been removed here in favor of USB, but that’s fine. Other small details have been kept, like the little tab that moves over the end of the game card slot when you turn on the power switch, just like it does on the actual hardware. There’s absolutely no reason for this feature to exist, and yet it does, just for the charm of it. I appreciate it almost as much as I appreciated the spring-loaded cartridge bay doors on the Genesis Mini.
My one gripe with the console’s design is the plastic shell covering the power and HDMI ports on the back. I found it a little tricky to pop off, taking just a bit more force than I felt comfortable giving it on my first try. The shell keeps the TG-16 Mini looking accurate while at the same time hiding the ends of the HDMI and USB cables, making them appear to be hard-wired into the unit itself. It’s pretty cool, actually, but it comes at the expense of easily swapping cables if you tend to move your consoles around a lot like I do.
Inside the period appropriate, vaporwave-aesthetic box is an HDMI cable, USB power cable, the console itself, and a controller. Other than the small complaint with the plastic shell, my other beef is with the controller. You may have noticed I said “controller,” and not “controllers.” There’s only one included with the TG-16 Mini, and that’s one too few when you consider the quality of the multiplayer games included. If you want another controller, that’s $24.99 on top of the $99 console. Who sees a Bomberman game and thinks “can’t wait to dive into that single-player story?” No one, that’s who.
It is possible to play Bomberman in its true, multiplayer glory with an optional multi-tap adapter that allows up to five players to compete. It costs an additional $29.99, plus another $100 for four more controllers. If you really need to play Bomberman ’94 as the developers intended, it’s pretty pricey.
One more potentially crucial omission from the box: an AC adapter. If you don’t have a spare USB port or a wall adapter, you’re looking at another $19.99 just to power it up. This doesn’t bother me in the least, since I have AC adapters for USB devices all over the place. It just needs to be pointed out.
The included controller with the TurboGrafx-16 Mini is great. The Japanese PC Engine Mini, already available in the wild, includes an inferior, original-run controller without turbo-fire toggle switches. Another thing I love is the cord is super-long. It’s at least 10-feet, which might hold the record for longest controller cable on a mini-console yet.
Serving Up the Classics
The menu for the TurboGrafx-16 interface is instantly recognizable if you’re familiar with the SEGA Genesis Mini. It’s almost as though this is a sequel to the earlier console, albeit with totally different games and ecosystems. The similarities in menu design are pretty obvious, but there are lots of cool extra touches with the TurboGrafx-16 Mini menu missing, or hidden, from the Genesis.
For example, there are PC Engine-kun wandering around the menu screens. PC Engine-kun is an anthropomorphized, pixelated version of the Japanese PC Engine, dozens of which wander around the background when navigating the menus. It can be turned on or off, but why? In this era of social distancing, PC Engine-kun, you’re just what I needed right now.
There are five different display settings, four of which let you turn on CRT scanlines: 16:9, two different stretched 4:3 modes, and a pixel-perfect mode. The fifth and final is my favorite mode of all, the TurboExpress. If you’re unfamiliar, the TurboExpress was a portable TurboGrafx-16 with a built-in TV tuner, and I only ever knew one kid who had one. The tiny screen was a massive eye-strainer, but the novelty of playing games of TurboGrafx caliber on-the-go made up for it. The filter gets it completely right: not only is it housed in a TurboExpress shell, but the screen-filter replicates the horrible picture of the original unit. It’s so stupid and pointless, something I’ll probably never use in a meaningful capacity, but I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.
You can also switch between the TurboGrafx-16 and PC Engine from the main menu screen. Making the switch simulates the look of powering down an old CRT television. There’s no reason for it to have that extra bit of flair, but it does, and once again it’s something I love.
Other amazing touches to the interface include an animation of each card loading into the console. Better still, when you select a CD-ROM game, it loads the CD-ROM software card into the slot and a pixelated version of the TurboGrafx CD (or PC Engine CD, depending on which you’re playing) pops up. That would be more than enough for my tastes, but again, we’re talking about M2, whose commitment to pure delight seemingly knows no bounds. Before a game starts, the near-forgotten sound of a mechanical drive spinning up a CD plays and I almost fell into a nostalgia coma.
Oh Right, It Plays Games Too
Oh right, the games! There are 57 included with the TurboGrafx-16, but the majority of them are PC Engine releases… which is kind of a bummer because they’re all in Japanese, which I cannot read. But of the 57, 25 were released in the West, and they range from must-play retro games like Alien Crush and Splatterhouse all the way down to games like JJ & Jeff, a terrible side-scrolling garbage dump of a game which I played for the purpose of this review and will never again boot up. Overall, the selection is a classic shmup-lover’s dream, with shooters being the predominant genre here.
On the PC Engine side of the interface, there are a few duplicates from the Western release line-up, but by and large it has a solid selection of games you’ve probably never played and its fair share of games you might not have even heard of. Similar to the TurboGrafx-16 line-up, they range from “awesome” games like Salamander, Ghosts n’ Goblins, and Bomberman ’94, to bizarre things like “The Genji and the Heiko Clans,” a side-scrolling fever dream I don’t think I ever want to play again.
Other PC Engine notables include the excellent Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, the famously bizarre Cho Aniki, and Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire, an original copy of which will set you back a few hundred bucks on eBay. Having Hideo Kojima’s Snatcher on the TurboGrafx-16 Mini had me briefly considering learning Japanese (it’s easier to just find a walkthrough, FYI).
Hidden Gems
It wouldn’t be an M2 product if it weren’t hiding some secrets, and there are at least 3 hidden games on the TurboGrafx-16 Mini: Force Gear, Twin Bee Tanks, and the arcade version of Konami’s Salamander. They’re all excellent shooters, accessible through a series of button pushes during Salamander’s loading animation. Their existence had me looking through every game, mashing buttons to see if I could unlock even more secrets. (Narrator’s voice: I didn’t)
Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian is set for none other than Star Wars day (May the fourth be with you), and is an eight-episode series. Disney claims that it “starts streaming” on May 4, suggesting that – like its other multi-part shows – it will roll out on a week-by-week basis.
No further details are offered by the announcement tweet, but it seems like we can expect a detailed look at how the Star Wars TV show was brought to life by Jon Favreau and his team at Lucasfilm.
The Mandalorian launched on Disney+ last year, and is currently rolling its episodes out in the UK and some other regions which only received Disney+ a few weeks ago. Our full season review was full of praise, and Season 2 looks set to feature Rosario Dawson as fan-favourite Jedi, Ahsoka Tano.
[poilib element=”accentDivider”]
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter.
PlayStation Plus members are getting a free skin for the PS4 version of Fortnite. This is the first exclusive cosmetic pack for the PS4 since December, with new skins releasing on PS4 every few months.
This skin, called the Point Patroller, is an exclusive ingame cosmetic pack that will only be available for Fortnite players on PlayStation 4. The Point Patroller features a blue/silver/black pallet that matches the Sony PlayStation aesthetic, with the Recon Strike as a backpack.
The skin is available on the PlayStation Store on April 14, just before the new Fortnite Update launched on April 15, for all PlayStation Plus Members with current subscriptions. Previously, these exclusive skins have only been available in-store for a few months, so make sure to download it while you still can.
If you’re behind on Fortnite at the moment don’t worry, because Season 2 of Fortnite has been extended until June 4, when Season 3 will begin. You have until June 4 to collect and finish all of the Season 2 exclusives and challenges, so you’d better get started.
Click To Unmute
Size:
Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?
