Celebrating Women in Gaming: International Women’s Day – IGN Plays Live

Happy International Women’s Day, everyone! To celebrate, IGN will be taking a look at some of our favorite women in game development while playing the games they’ve worked on. Titles to be featured will include Little Big Planet, Firewatch, Cuphead, Portal, Snipperclips, Halo, and more! Join us live on Thursday March 8 at 1pm PT/4pm ET/9pm UK (March 9 at 8am AET).

In addition to showcasing a plethora of amazing developers, we’ll also be raising money and awareness for some outstanding charities. This year we’ll be supporting Girls who Code and The Malala Fund – two organizations that encourage women to chase their educational goals across the globe. You can read more about each group below:

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Nintendo Switch Gets Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy Next Month

Bandai Namco is bringing three of its Naruto titles to Nintendo Switch this spring in one package. The publisher announced it will release Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy on Switch next month, marking the series’ debut on Nintendo’s hybrid console.

Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy is a compilation of three Naruto game: Ultimate Ninja Storm, Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, and Ultimate Ninja Storm 3: Full Burst. The trilogy takes players from Naruto’s earliest days as a budding ninja through the Fourth Great Ninja War story arc.

“Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy drops players into the Ninja World and gives them the chance to actively experience major battles and fan-favorite scenes with larger than life bosses, adrenaline-pumping quick time event sequences, fast-paced battles, and visuals that rival the anime series it is based on,” says Bandai Namco.

Along with the base games, Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy includes “a number of” DLC costumes from the original titles at no extra cost, although it won’t feature the full range. The package also includes additional episodes and scenarios that Bandai Namco initially released as DLC.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy releases for Switch digitally via the Eshop on April 26. It’s one of the many anime-based games arriving in 2018, including My Hero Academia: One’s Justice, which is also set to arrive for Switch (as well as PS4, Xbox One, and PC) later this year.

Sony Blocks PS4 Game About Picking Up Women

Super Seducer, a game that bills itself as the “world’s most realistic seduction simulator,” has been blocked from sale on PlayStation 4. The game launched today on PC and was planned for PS4 as well, but Sony confirmed to Motherboard that it will not offer the title on its digital store.

The company apparently offered no explanation as to why it won’t sell the game, but the announcement comes in the wake of criticism about it. The game features real video of “seduction guru” Richard La Ruina, who gives players advice about how to speak to women in places like coffee shops, offices, and bars. The women are also shown via video.

“My comment is that I have no comment on this,” La Ruina told Motherboard about Sony’s decision to block the game from sale on the PlayStation Store.

Super Seducer launched on Steam today for $10. In addition to the base game, it offers add-on packs like “Earning the Kiss” and “Nighttime Strategy” for $4 each. The game has a “Very Positive” aggregate review score on Steam, though it only stems from 53 reviews. Many user reviews are overwhelmingly negative, calling out the game for being sleazy or worse.

La Ruina defended his game in an interview with PlayStation Lifestyle earlier this year.

“This is not a dumb FMV game,” La Ruina said. “It’s something that has a lot of thought going into it. We were careful to make sure that the women are all strong in it. [We made sure that] I get severely dealt with when I’m behaving incorrectly. I think that it’s a lot deeper. It’s easy to dismiss when you see pickup artist and then FMV, but it’s a lot deeper and smarter than you might get.”

We will report back with more details on this story as they become available.

Michael Shannon Watched Shape of Water Win an Oscar From a Bar in Chicago

Michael Shannon decided to spend Oscar night at a local dive bar in Chicago.

The current owner of Chicago’s Old Town Ale House, Bruce Elliott, caught a snap of Shannon drinking beer and watching the film he stars in, The Shape of Water, win the Oscar for Best Picture on TV. The sound was also turned off, to boot.

“No sound on the TV, just subtitles,” Elliot tweeted. “Of course the jukebox was rocking, and the beer flowing. Where else would you want to spend Oscar night?”

shannonn Michael Shannon at Old Town Ale House, picture via Twitter.

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What We Expect to See from the March 8 Nintendo Direct

Nintendo has finally broken its silence and announced a new Direct for tomorrow, March 8 at 2pm PT/5pm ET. We’re not exactly sure about what could show up during tomorrow’s showing, but we can certainly jump on the hype train with our predictions.

We know for sure that the Direct will focus on both the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch, as well as a specific breakdown on the upcoming Mario Tennis Aces. So new footage and info on the upcoming Detective Pikachu for 3DS, Kirby Star Allies, and Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze are probably a sure thing for tomorrow’s direct. Here’s everything we hope to see tomorrow, as well as some things we aren’t holding our breath for.

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Alamo Drafthouse Video Store Will Offer Unlimited Free Rentals

Alamo Drafthouse is opening a video rental store later this year and it will offer unlimited free rentals.

Entertainment Weekly reports the store, called Video Vortex, is currently under construction and will open in Raleigh, North Carolina this year. It will offer over 75,000 movies to rent for free, which includes some of the best and worst movies ever made. Take a look at an artist’s rendering of the store in the gallery below:

“This collection of over 75,000 titles includes the best, worst, and weirdest of cinema from dozens of countries across the globe, including hundreds of complete catalogs of film’s greatest auteurs,” Video Vortex’s Kat Shuchter told EW.

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Finn’s Fate Was Never in Doubt in The Last Jedi

Spoilers ahead for Star Wars: The Last Jedi!

The biggest moment for John Boyega’s character Finn in Star Wars: The Last Jedi was when he pilots his ski speeder on what amounts to a suicide run against the First Order’s laser siege cannon on Crait. While Finn’s would-be self-sacrifice was ultimately thwarted by Rose Tico, some fans have wondered if there was ever a version where Finn actually died.

According to Boyega himself, who I chatted with on the phone this week, there was no version of the film or the script he read where Finn actually died in the end.

Finn was ultimately saved by Kelly Marie Tran’s character Rose Tico, who surprised her new friend with a quick kiss after saving his life. While Boyega was fine with discussing Finn not dying, he refused to speak about what his character’s feelings are toward Rose.

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Oculus Rifts Stop Working This Morning Around the Globe

Update: Oculus has confirmed Rifts around the world stopped working this morning due to an expired software certification. The company is currently working to resolve the issue. Below is Oculus’ updated statement:

“Hey everyone – This is an issue with our software certification that we’re still actively working on. For security, we use a certificate to ensure that the software you receive actually comes from Oculus. That certificate has expired, and we’re looking at a few different ways to resolve the issue. We’ll update you with the latest info as available. We recommend you wait until we provide an official fix. Thanks for your patience.

Original story follows:

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Learn to Code With These Online Courses

If you buy something through this post, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.

Understanding the ins and outs of how the world wide web is built is an incredibly valuable skill. You can leverage your programming knowledge to improve your value at your job, learn a skill to seek out new career opportunities, or to just hack together CSS and HTML to build something for yourself.

As someone who’s been dipping my toes in web development since HTML 2.0 (old!), I’ve found taking a course is more helpful than learning bits and pieces of knowledge one at a time. I’ve compiled 21 of the best online web development courses around, so take a look

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