Author: Trafficblast

Spawn’s arrival in Mortal Kombat 11 was something we’d been expecting for a while, but after a long wait, the beloved Image Comics superhero arrived in NetherRealm Studios’ gruesome brawler last month. IGN had a chance to speak with NetherRealm Studios creative director and Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon about how Todd McFarlane’s favorite Hellspawn wound up in the MK11 roster.

IGN: How does the process of working with Todd McFarlane differ from working with DC?

Ed Boon: Both Todd McFarlane’s team and DC have been very cooperative and collaborative. Each want to see their characters represented accurately in our game. Because Spawn is by nature a super violent character and is in an M-rated Mortal Kombat game, naturally there were fewer limitations to work with him. Todd did make it clear that he did not want us to hold back, and from that standpoint there were very few limitations put on the Mortal Kombat team.

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IGN: Spawn’s always been a lot more M-rated than some of the other IPs NetherRealm has put into Mortal Kombat, was there anything you wanted to try that got shot down?

EB: Actually, Alien, Predator, Jason and some others were up there too. ☺ But for Spawn, yes… there really wasn’t much that we wanted to do that got shut down as far as actual content was concerned. There were a couple of minor adjustments we made to stay within the character and history of Spawn, but those changes were not related to toning anything down. It was almost like Spawn was one of our characters… I bet we could have incorporated him into our story if we had the opportunity. ☺

IGN: Whose idea was it to give Spawn a sword? We realize Medieval Spawn totally is a thing; we’re just used to seeing Al Simmons lugging around giant machine guns.

EB: During the creation of our fighting characters, ideas come from all over the place. Often times the concept artist illustrates something that inspires someone from another group, and vice versa. The idea to have Spawn use a sword in our game probably came from our design group. They often request props and weapons while trying to define how a fighter will play. Part of the challenge of introducing a guest character in a game that already has 25 or 30 existing characters is introducing something new to the mix. Everybody knows that Spawn has his signature chains, but we felt that adding the swords as well would make him that much more interesting to play.

IGN: Todd McFarlane himself revealed that Spawn would be in Mortal Kombat 11 way back in 2018, shortly after the game itself was announced — do you have any top secret upcoming projects of Todd’s you want to spoil? (Just kidding… mostly) 🙂 

EB: LOL … maybe he was just showing his excitement because he WANTED Spawn in Mortal Kombat 11. But no, I don’t have anything to spoil.

IGN: Keith David voices Spawn, reprising his role from the HBO animated series — did you get a chance to work with him? How did he react at the news he’d be playing Al Simmons again?

EB: I have met Keith. He really is a good guy. Very cultured. I was not at the recording sessions when he did the voice of Spawn for us, but I immediately identified his voice when I heard the results of the recording sessions. He was also gracious enough to appear at our Final Kombat esports championship here in Chicago. He really is a great sport, and I hope we can work together again in the future.

IGN: Whose idea was Spawn initially? Did NetherRealm approach McFarlane, did McFarlane approach NetherRealm, or was it in response to fan demand?

EB: I honestly believe it was a combination of all three. We have always wanted to have Spawn in one of our Mortal Kombat games. I’ve heard a number of times that Todd McFarland expressed interest in seeing Spawn in Mortal Kombat. As far as the fans are concerned Spawn is probably one of the most requested characters ever to be in the franchise. He really is a perfect fit.

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IGN: McFarlane Toys is making MK action figures, and you’re putting Spawn in Mortal Kombat – tell us about that relationship?

EB: In the simplest of terms, I would describe it as a full circle mutual admiration collaboration. 😉 NetherRealm has always been huge fans of the McFarlane figures. The proof is in the pudding. If you walk around our studio you will see their action figures littered across many team members’ desks and workstations. We genuinely are big fans of the quality of their work. I couldn’t think of better timing as far as all of this cross pollination of intellectual properties and expertise in our various forms of art.

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There you have it! Spawn and Mortal Kombat, a match made in… Well, maybe not heaven, but some kind of afterlife.

While Spawn in Mortal Kombat makes sense aesthetically and stylistically, IGN’s Mitchell Saltzman thought he also worked well technically! You can check out his full review of the DLC here.

Disney announced a series of new release dates Friday that see several major date changes for Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Black Widow, which was to have opened in May but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, will now take the November 6, 2020, slot originally occupied by The Eternals.

The Eternals, in turn, moves to Feb. 12, 2021, which was when Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was to have opened. Shang-Chi now takes the May 7, 2021, date that had belonged to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

The Doctor Strange sequel moves to Nov. 5, 2021, which bumps Thor: Love And Thunder to Feb. 28, 2022.

Black Panther 2 remains slated for May 8, 2022, while Captain Marvel 2 shifts ahead two weeks to July 8, 2022.

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Disney’s release date changes obviously don’t just affect the MCU. Mulan, which was to have opened in March before being postponed, is now opening July 24, 2020. That, in turn, bumps Jungle Cruise a whole year to July 30, 2021.

Likewise, Indiana Jones 5 has also been pushed another whole year, from July 9, 2021 to July 29, 2022.

The Ryan Reynolds-Taika Waititi video game comedy Free Guy moves from this July to December 11. Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story and Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel remain put on on Dec. 18 and Dec. 25, respectively.

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Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch has been shifted from its original July 14 release date to Oct. 16.

Curiously, Disney has yet to set new release dates for several titles formerly owned by Fox: The New Mutants, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Antlers, and Woman in the Window.

Will any of those titles join Artemis Fowl in being shifted from a theatrical release to Disney+ instead? Time will tell.

Pokemon Go is celebrating the start of spring with a new event. The festivities run from April 9 through April 16, during which time you’ll have a much greater chance to find certain springtime Pokemon and even another Shiny.

First, Niantic is introducing a few special spring-themed Pokemon to the game. You’ll be able to encounter Buneary wearing a flower crown and Pikachu wearing a flower hat throughout the event. Flower crown versions of Pichu and Togepi will also hatch from 2 km eggs, as will Happiny, Munchlax, Tyrogue, Chingling, and Riolu.

Additionally, certain Pokemon will appear more often throughout the event. There will be increased spawns of Chansey, Mareep, Marill, Torchic, and Exeggcute–the latter may even be Shiny. Niantic is also offering special Field Research tasks that lead to encounters with Alolan Exeggutor, Azumarill, and the rare Gen 5 Pokemon Audino.

Finally, a handful of different bonuses will be live throughout the event. You’ll receive twice the normal amount of Candy for hatching eggs, and Lucky Eggs will last for one hour. Given that social distancing measures remain in place in many parts of the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Niantic is also halving the distance it takes to hatch eggs indefinitely. You can read more details about the upcoming spring event on Pokemon Go’s website.

In the meantime, the April Fools’-themed Tricky Pokemon event is still live. That runs until April 7 and features “tricky” Pokemon like Sudowoodo and the debuting Stunfisk. A new Legendary Pokemon, Landorus, is also available in Raids for a limited time this month, and Niantic has rolled out a new set of Field Research tasks for April.

There have been a lot of gaming mysteries over the years, many of which have now been solved. What happened to Half-Life 2: Episode 3? Well, we kind of know. What’s the meaning of the Mt. Chiliad mystery? We got our answer. But there’s a new gaming enigma, one that stretches back into last year, a mystery still waiting to be solved as I type:

What in the freshly-baked hell is going on with Cooking Mama: Cookstar?

The core of this mystery lies in the fact that, depending on where you look, Cooking Mama: Cookstar is either out now, coming soon, or completely MIA. A trailer on the game’s (extremely quiet) Twitter feed definitively announces that it’s “available now” on Nintendo Switch. That statement is, at best, partially true.

If you can’t stand the heat, get into Mama’s kitchen! #CookingMama is back with her most fantastic and fun video game adventure ever!

Introducing Cooking Mama: Cookstar. A brand-new Cooking Mama experience created for Nintendo Switch™.

Order here: https://t.co/gxje6DKjyZ pic.twitter.com/tHFa35WKZ2

— Cooking Mama: Cookstar (@CookstarMama) March 26, 2020

That trailer (and the game’s website) point to a Nintendo eShop version of the game, but if you search for that version at time of writing – in the US or Europe – the eShop returns no results, not even a ‘Coming Soon’ entry. Even stranger, the game was released on the US eShop last week, but only for a few hours, before being unceremoniously pulled from sale and its listing scrubbed from Nintendo’s digital store entirely.

Physical copies of Cookstar are a different story. According to some very pleased/confused Redditors, copies have quietly appeared in select US outlets of Target. Amazon only lists third-party sellers (at least one of which seems to have been set up solely to sell this new Cooking Mama game, strangely), implying the retail giant has no copies at all.

In Europe, the game is seemingly impossible to get a hold of right now, and is listed by several retailers for a release later this month – but none of them seem to agree about when. Don’t even get me started on the apparent PS4 version of the game, which is listed for sale across the internet, but hasn’t been outwardly mentioned by any official source around ‘launch’.

Cooking Mama: Cookstar is, in essence, Schrödinger’s Video Game, seemingly existing and non-existing simultaneously, with neither state particularly easy to prove. Can you tell I’ve been looking into this for too long?

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In short, this is all a bit of a mess, and a contingent of fans across social media are becoming vocal about how very unusual this situation has become. The few people that have been able secure a copy have been able to upload images and videos of the game. As you’d expect, it looks like just another Cooking Mama game – nothing about what I’ve seen suggests that it’s broken, offensive, or any other quality that could cause this level of confusion, silence and general oddity.

But perhaps all this should have been expected, because almost everything about the run-up to Cookstar’s release has been decidedly odd. Also called Cooking Mama: Coming Home to Mama (I can’t fully work out when or why it swapped to Cookstar), the game has been inadvertently revealed by ratings boards in 2019, and had an unlisted game trailer leak (including an incorrect release window and a non-existent website).

The first real mystery to contend with is who has actually made this game. The Cooking Mama series was created by Japanese developer Office Create, which hit a goldmine when the games started to sell by the million on Nintendo DS. Office Create eventually changed its name to Cooking Mama Ltd., making 10 mainline and spin-off games in the series. Seemingly just to confuse me further, it seems that, at some point, it changed its name back to Office Create, the developer listed on the most recently released Cooking Mama games. But neither of those company names are on the packaging or merchandising for Cookstar.

An early classification by the Australian ratings board listed its developer as 1st Playable Productions – an education game developer – but that classification has since been removed, and a new listing includes no mention of 1st Playable. 1st Playable itself makes no mention of the game on its website.

Nintendo and the devs really dropped the ball with Cooking Mama Cookstar. I was able to preorder as soon as the trailer went out but displaying the game on eShop only to take it off with no explanation and then leave folks hanging when it was suppose to out in late March. pic.twitter.com/GRWDK0mGtx

— SIMPAI is on Alba Island (@MadamZeti) April 3, 2020

The sole mention of a creator on Cooking Mama: Cookstar’s box is Planet Entertainment. Planet Entertainment is a part of Planet Digital Partners, a US company that boasts, in its own words, “an all-star team of video game industry leaders including the former PlayStation Europe President, the founder of Take 2/Grand Theft Auto, the former CEO of Guitar Hero and hit-maker developers of Halo, Quake, and NBA Playgrounds.”

That would seem to get us somewhere, but even this is something of a dead end. Neither Planet Entertainment, nor Planet Digital claim to be developers – both list themselves as publishers. I tried to work out if Planet Entertainment could be the development arm of Planet Digital Partners, and looked up its listed company headquarters – it’s just a sizeable house in rural Connecticut. I mean, it’s not impossible that that house is bustling with clever people coding virtual lettuce, but it doesn’t feel likely.

And it gets stranger: Planet doesn’t seem to acknowledge its involvement with Cooking Mama: Cookstar anywhere other than the game’s box, and the Cookstar website. The company Twitter account has been silent since 2019, and there’s no mention of the game on the Planet Entertainment website. In fact, that website has actively deleted older posts about the game.

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Thankfully, we can see some of those original posts, because they were hosted elsewhere – and an August 2019 entry became notable for announcing that the new Cooking Mama would be the “first game to integrate blockchain technology on major consoles”, which led to widespread confusion at the time. That press release discussed adding in-game currencies, online events and “Private-Key Enabled Balanced DRM”. Please remember, we’re talking about a Cooking Mama game.

Just to up the strangeness a little more, a final paragraph announced that the game would have a vegetarian mode – for which it won an award from PETA. Only the vegetarian mode appears to have made it into the final release from what I’ve seen of the game.

It adds up to make one of the stranger cases of a missing game that I can remember – certainly not vaporware, but very certainly a hazy proposition. A game released in a liminal space – it’s out, but it’s not out out. Someone, somewhere is running a Twitter account specifically about Cookstar, but isn’t responding to fan queries about what’s happened to the game – who is that? How have both digital and physical releases ended up in fans’ hands legitimately, when they should seemingly have never been released?

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The sad thing is, at the heart of this whirlwind of weirdness, there’s a group of people that just want to play a new game, and can’t – and they aren’t being told why.

I’ve attempted to make contact with Planet Entertainment, Planet Digital Partners, Koch Media, and Office Create about the game, to try and get to the bottom of who made Cooking Mama: Cookstar, when it will be officially released, why any of this has happened at all, and to check if it actually is the world’s first blockchain-enabled console game. At time of writing, none of them have responded. A PR agency for Planet, Sandbox Strategies, has replied but unfortunately can’t answer my questions. The mystery, unfortunately, continues.

If you have any information about the saga of Cooking Mama: Cookstar, please email [email protected]. Please, at the very least for my poor brain’s sake, do it.

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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News, and he can’t decide if this was fun or terrifying to research. Follow him on Twitter.

Resident Evil 3 Remake makes it clear right from the outset that you’re in for a tough fight against the undead and Umbrella Corporation’s unstoppable bio-weapon, Nemesis. It will be tough to survive in Raccoon City, but in traditional survival horror fashion, you’ll be able to find an assortment of items and weapons to help even the odds. However, some are more challenging to locate than others, and they can make all the difference in surviving your encounters with the deadly bio-weapon.

Just like in the Resident Evil 2 Remake, you can find special upgrades for Jill and Carlos’ weapons. With this in mind, GameSpot has put together a quick guide that details how to find all of the available gun parts to find throughout Resident Evil 3.

Jill’s G19 Handgun

Handgun Dot Sight: This upgrade can is located in the art storage room across from the Kite Bros Subway Office in Downtown. Inside the storage room is a locked safe, and next to it is a note from the dead owner. This note will give you a clue on how to unlock the safe, which will take you to the nearby Drugstore, which is next door to the Kite Bros. office. In the back of the store is an Aqua Cure poster, which has three numbers circled–this is the combination key for the safe. Head back to the art storage room and unlock the safe to get the handgun dot sight, which will increase accuracy for the G19. | For convenience, if you want access to the safe, then the combination is left 9, right 1, left 8.

Extended Magazine and Handgun Moderator: Both of these upgrades drop from Nemesis. Once it has taken enough damage, it’ll drop an Umbrella storage case, which houses ammo and upgrades. The tricky part about this is that the drops are tied to the current point of the story, so if you wait too long to take him out, you’ll miss out on certain upgrades. Also, the drops are only available during the Downtown section of the game, so they can be easy to miss.

There are two opportunities to do this: The first is during the chase immediately after the Power Station (which will give you the Extended Magazine), and the second is when Nemesis chases Jill once again after infecting zombies with the parasite, right outside the Donut Shop (which will drop the Moderator). The best way to knock Nemesis out are the various explosive barrels scattered around. Once he gets close enough, shoot the barrel to take him down easily. Remember, these are the only two opportunities to get the upgrades, so if you miss one or both of them and progress the story, you won’t be able to get them at all.

Jill’s M3 Shotgun

Tactical Stock: This upgrade is the second reward you can get from the Kite Bros. Monument in the Subway station entrance. Scattered across Downtown are three different Fancy Boxes housing Red, Green, and Blue jewels. To find all three, you’ll need the lockpick and bolt cutters. The first one is located in the Donut Shop’s backroom, while the other two are located in the chained up Grocery Store (opened with the Bolt Cutters) and the locked Toy Store (opened with the Lockpick). Once you have all the jewels, insert them into the statue in the subway to get a grenade, the Shotgun upgrade, and a hip pouch. This upgrade will increase the overall accuracy of the Shotgun.

Semi-Auto Barrel: After the first boss fight with Nemesis, you’ll reach Kendo’s Gun Shop. Check the shelves near the front door for ammo, green herbs, and the upgrade, which will increase the Shotgun’s fire-rate.

Shell Holder: Shortly after the Hospital, you’ll enter Underground Storage. This area is a massive puzzle filled with enemies, along with some hidden items scattered around. This upgrade is located in the back of the warehouse near a staircase, after you fight some zombie dogs and one lone zombie. On the ground level by the staircase is a switch that will lower one of the lifts, opening a shadowy corner that holds a chest containing the Shell Holder. This upgrade will increase reload speed for the Shotgun.

Jill’s Lightning Hawk

Extended Magazine: Shortly after finding all three fuses to activate the lift in Underground Storage, you’ll enter the command center for the area. Before examining the row of computers, check behind it, near the big window, to find a case containing the Lighting Hawk’s only upgrade. The extended barrel will decrease the gun’s recoil while also increasing its attack power.

Carlos’ CQBR Assault Rifle

AR Scope: Shortly after arriving at R.P.D. Station, you’ll encounter a zombified Brad Vickers. While you can ignore him, taking him down will earn you the S.T.A.R.S. ID, which will open up locked chests throughout the station. The case with Carlos’ first weapon upgrade is in the West Office. To get there, you’ll need to head through Reception towards the north hallway. When you get to the area full of zombies, you’ll find doorways going to the R.P.D. Armory and West Office. Inside the office is a S.T.A.R.S. chest. Use the ID card you got from Brad to open it and get the AR Scope, increasing the accuracy for the rifle.

Tactical Grip: This upgrade is located in the Courtyard of Spencer Memorial Hospital. Upon getting to the second floor, you’ll find broken windows that allow you to leap down into the Courtyard, which has some additional items to pick up. The broken window by the door leading to the Nurse’s Station leads down to an area that has a green herb and a chest with the Tactical Grip. This will decrease the weapon’s recoil.

Dual Magazines: The last upgrade for Carlos is located in the safe in the Nurse’s Station. To open up access to the safe, you’ll need to get the combination key from a note in the surgery room on the first floor. To get access to this, you’ll need the Hospital ID from the Staff Room on the second floor. Read the note found in the surgery room to get the combination for the safe, which will unlock access to the Dual Magazines. This upgrade doubles the amount of ammo the rifle has in a single clip, from 32 to 64. | For convenience, if you want access to the safe, then the combination is left 9, right 3.

Resident Evil fans can return to Raccoon City in Capcom’s latest remake of a horror classic, Resident Evil 3, which is out today on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Resident Evil 3 takes place around the events of Resident Evil 2 but follows protagonist Jill Valentine, a S.T.A.R.S. agent trying to escape Raccoon City as she’s stalked by a relentless monster called Nemesis. The game is also bundled with a 4 vs. 1 online co-op game called Resident Evil Resistance.

If you’re looking to dive into Resident Evil 3 this weekend but haven’t yet secured your copy of the game, we’ve rounded up all the best deals we could find on the game, including some markdowns on digital versions you can download today. We don’t suggest waiting long to claim any of these deals–they’re likely to sell out fast, and some are scheduled to end this weekend.

While not discounted, physical copies of the game are still available at places like Best Buy and GameStop, but be sure to note any delivery estimates as many stores are seeing delays on physical game shipments.

Before purchasing, check out GameSpot’s Resident Evil 3 review, which has now been finalized. The game earned a 6/10–editor Alessandro Fillari praise its fantastic visuals, immersive atmosphere, and focused survival horror elements, but he took issue with its jarring boss encounters and lack of a lingering presence for Nemesis.

Best deals on Resident Evil 3

PS4

For PS4, Ebay has an official deal on the physical edition for $55 via reputable seller NationwideDistributors. This is a brand-new copy, comes with free shipping, and includes Ebay’s money-back guarantee. Be sure to check your delivery date–mine says “guaranteed by April 7.”

The game is also part of Target’s current buy two, get one free games sale, which happens to include other AAA games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Death Stranding, and Persona 5 Royal. So if you want to grab several games on your wishlist, you can save a decent chunk of money on the entire bundle. Saturday is the last day to take advantage of Target’s B2G1 sale.

It’s also worth noting that if you purchase Resident Evil 3 at Best Buy, your game will come with a free exclusive steelbook case (worth $20 on its own).

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Xbox One

At Newegg, you can get an Xbox One digital code for $55 with promo code EMCDHDE23. This deal is only available until Sunday.

The B2G1 sale and the steelbook offer mentioned above are also available for Resident Evil 3’s Xbox One physical edition.

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PC

You can snag Resident Evil 3 for a nice discount on PC, where it’s currently $46.19 at Fanatical and Green Man Gaming. These are game keys you can redeem on Steam.