The one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, previously owned by controversial pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli has been resold – and virtually nobody knows who has it now.
The single-sale collector’s album – which contained a 31-track record, a hand-carved box and an accompanying 174-page parchment-paper book bound in leather – was originally purchased by Shkreli at an auction in 2015. At the time of the auction, IGN reported that Shkreli could do with the album whatever he pleased, so long as it was never made commercially available. The former executive is thought to have paid around $2 million for it.
Shkreli, who became infamous for drastically increasing the price of the antiparasitic drug Daraprim in 2015, later handed the album over to the US government amongst a range of other seized assets in 2018 after being convicted of securities fraud. Proceeds from the sale of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin will be used against the $7.4 million Forfeiture Money Judgment that Shkreli was sentenced to pay in 2018.
As reported by the BBC, the US government has now subsequently sold the one-of-a-kind album – and reportedly for “substantially more” than the $2 million originally paid for it. According to the US Department of Justice, the “contract of sale contains a confidentiality provision that protects information relating to the buyer and price” meaning that it is unclear who now owns the coveted record.
What’s also not clear is whether an original sale clause still remains in effect after the resale. When Shkreli bought the item, the contract of sale originally stipulated that either Wu Tang or actor Bill Murray could take the record back at any time in the next 88 years by means of “one heist or caper to steal back” the record.
Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which apparently contains two appearances by guest singer Cher, features contributions from every living member of the Wu-Tang clan. RZA apparently came up with the concept of the album as a reminder that music can still be viewed as a depiction of fine art. RZA, alongside his co-producer Cilveringz, is one of the few people known to have listened to the record in its entirety.
For more on the Wu-Tang Clan, why not check out our review of the 2019 Hulu-produced series Wu-Tang: An American Saga which we said was “a top-notch tale about the origin of hip-hop’s most famous game-changers.”
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Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
The RTX 3070 Ti has been out for more than a month, but thanks to the GPU shortage we haven’t been able to take a look at very many third-party options. Gigabyte has come to our rescue with the RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G, a triple-fan take on Nvidia’s latest graphics card. It promises cooler temps and, more importantly, a price that matches the $599 MSRP of the Founders Edition. Let’s take a closer look and see if it’s worth picking up over the competition.
Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G – Design and Features
The Eagle OC 8G plays it safe. With its simple, triple-fan design and basic grey, rectangular shroud, it’s not going to win any awards for groundbreaking design, and isn’t intended to. Gigabyte’s Eagle line-up is less about flash and more about improving on the reference model without driving the price up. You do get some flair, however, with some angled cuts on the shroud, blue rings on the fans, and a bit of glossy plastic covering the Eagle branding.
Once installed, you’ll find that there’s even a bit of RGB. A blue slash angles its way along the side behind the Gigabyte logo. According to the product page, this should be customizable with the company’s RGB Fusion 2.0 app, but I couldn’t get the software to recognize the card, so it stayed blue. That’s probably for the best because it ties together the blue and grey color scheme which carries through to the back of the card.
Around the back, you’ll find a nice metal backplate to help dissipate heat. It’s not light on branding but I stopped noticing once it was installed in my case. A backplate is a small touch, but I’m happy to see it nonetheless. On the right side, a sizable vent has been cut to allow air passthrough to further keep temperatures down.
Like the Founders series from Nvidia, the Eagle uses a shortened PCB and longer heatsink to draw heat further from the GPU. The third fan is positioned directly over the rear vent, allowing air to blow across its fins and out the back. When the case fans are oriented properly, the warm air hits the path of airflow crossing the CPU and is whisked out of the case. Even though it has an extra fan compared to the Founders Edition, Gigabyte did a good job of keeping size in check coming in at just over 11 inches (or half an inch longer than the FE). It is thicker and takes up 2.5-slots, so you’ll want to bear that in mind if you have an add-in card directly below it.
These elements are all part of the Windforce 3X cooling system we first saw on the RTX 3080 Eagle 10G. Apart from just being triple-fan, Gigabyte has enhanced their function with 3D texturing to guide airflow with reduced acoustics. The fans spin in opposing directions to increase air pressure and reduce turbulence. The heatsink has also been shaped to maximize direct contact with the heat generating components.
With the exception of a small factory overclock, the Eagle 8G is identical to the reference RTX 3070 Ti. That means 6144 CUDA cores and 8GB of GDDR6X memory, the same ultra-fast variety found on the RTX 3080 and higher Nvidia GPUs. Running on a 256-bit bus, that gives the Eagle a memory clock of 19GHz and total bandwidth of 608GB/s. The core clock has received a modest boost to 1800MHz, a 30MHz overclock over reference. This isn’t the kind of overclock that will create a meaningful, or usually even perceptible, difference in games but, paired with the thermal performance, points toward the possibility of additional overclocking headroom.
The result of this design is a card that runs cooler and quieter than the original but whose out-of-the-box performance is nearly identical in games. At peak, my sample hit 77C in an open case and usually hovered between 74-75C. That’s a five degree improvement from what I recorded with the Founder’s Edition in identical circumstances. The card also ran quieter and could barely be heard at these temperatures. Perhaps thanks to this headroom, the card also managed to clock higher and peaked at 1965MHz during testing while usually holding steady closer to 1890MHz. Interestingly, this is a higher peak (the FE topped out at 1950MHz) but a lower average speed by the same 30MHz as the overclock. The factory overclock, then, was a bit of a wash on my sample and plays out exactly as you would expect in frame rates. Still, with its thermal and acoustic performance, this is a card that begs to be overclocked.
Around the back of the card, you’ll find your array of video outputs. Gigabyte does change things up compared to the Founders Edition, delivering two DisplayPort 1.4 ports and two HDMI 2.1s. The total resolution supported is 7680×4320 (or 8K).
As an Nvidia 30-series GPU, you can also look forward to the unique benefits that architecture brings to the table. The three-core Ampere processing system – composed of a shader core for traditional rasterization, a tensor core for AI functions, and an RT core for ray tracing – allows the GPU to segment game rendering into distinct parts for improved features and performance.
DLSS is core among these, intelligently upscaling games using temporal anti-aliasing with motion vector data to render near-native results at much higher frame rates than would otherwise be possible. This feature opens the door to ray-traced gaming at playable frame rates, even at demanding resolutions. Nvidia has a sizable lead on AMD with the integration of its upscaling tech in major games and shows no signs of slowing with recent additions to Red Dead Redemption 2 and Doom Eternal.
Streamers, esports players, and Netflix lovers all have something to look forward to here. For streaming, the card supports the latest version of Nvidia’s high-efficiency video encoder. The Nvidia Broadcast suite also leverages the Ampere architecture and opens the door to neat features like virtual background removal for a digital greenscreen and AI noise removal and voice tracking. First-person shooter fans can enable Nvidia Reflex and Nvidia Boost in supported games to reduce input lag. For video streaming, the card supports AV1 decoding to enjoy the latest and greatest from Netflix and other major streaming platforms.
Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G – Performance
With background out of the way, it’s time to dig into performance. To assess the Eagle OC 8G, I put it through our gamut of real-world and synthetic tests to see how it stacks up against the competition. Unless otherwise noted, all games were tested at ultra settings.
Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G – Benchmarks
Beginning with synthetic tests, the Eagle OC 8G offered extremely similar results to the stock RTX 3070 Ti. In 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra and Unigine Heaven, it improved performance by 1%. It fell short of the MSI RTX 3070 Ti Suprim X by 3% in each test; however, bear in mind that the Suprim is priced $100-150 over MSRP when it can even be found. Compared to the RTX 3080, the Eagle was 12% slower in 3DMark and 12% slower in Heaven. Against the RTX 3070 Founders Edition, it performed 7% faster.
Turning to ray tracing synthetics, the story is much the same. In 3DMark Port Royal, the difference is less than 1% between the Eagle and Founders Edition. Compared to the RTX 3080, it was 23% slower in Port Royal, 21% slower in Boundary, and 27% slower in 3DMark’s Ray Tracing test. Against the RTX 3070, it was 7% faster, 8% faster, and 5% faster respectively.
In our first selection of tests, the RTX 3070 Ti Eagle OC 8G performs right alongside the Founders Edition. It edges it out slightly, but the frame rates are typically so close that you would have a difficult time noticing. At 4K and 1080p, the card performed 1% faster, and at 1440p, it averaged less than one percent difference. The comparison to the RTX 3080, then, will also be nearly identical but for context it is 15% slower at 1080p, 18% slower at 1440p, and 19% slower at 4K. Pitted against the RTX 3070, it was 3% faster at 1080p and 1440p, and 4% faster at 4K.
Turning to our expanded round of 4K testing, the results are just about as you would expect. The Eagle is 1% faster than the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition and 19% slower than the RTX 3080. Compared against the RTX 3070 FE, the Eagle was 10% faster.
While it would have been nice to see the Eagle punch up, performing on par with the FE is acceptable given that this is one of the few cards that isn’t being drastically marked up in price. If you can find it in stock and have your heart set on an RTX 3070 Ti, this isn’t a bad one to buy at MSRP.
That said, we can’t recommend purchasing any RTX 3070 Ti. The performance uplift compared to the RTX 3070 Founders Edition is just too small. For another $100, the RTX 3080 offers a much more substantial improvement. Conversely, for $100 less the original RTX 3070 performs relatively close. Either card feels like a much better value for the money.
In celebration of both Xbox Game Pass and the upcoming premiere of Free Guy in theaters, Xbox and Ryan Reynolds have teamed up to present the first-ever Xbox Game Pass Non-Player Character (NPC) Awards.
Free Guy, which stars Ryan Reynolds as a bank teller who realizes he is an NPC in an open world video game that will soon go offline, is set to be released in theaters on August 13, 2021, and Guy himself is one of the lucky nominees. Alongside Guy in the voting is Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal’s Samuel Hayden, The Outer World’s Parvati Holcomb, and Sea of Thieves’ Chief Trader Mollie.
All of the previously mentioned characters, minus Guy, are from games that are currently available on Xbox Game Pass. The full descriptions of each nominee is as follows, in case you are unfamiliar;
Parvati Holcomb, The Outer Worlds – Everyone’s favorite shy and empathetic mechanic. She’s the heart of the ship and the crew, and she’s the NPC for you.
Guy, Free Guy – Portrayed by Ryan Reynolds, Guy is a creature of habit. He has the same daily routine and has never done anything all that extraordinary. Outgoing and perpetually cheerful, but a tad naïve, Guy is a teller in a big city bank who is a fan of mid-90s pop divas.
If you want the chance to vote for your favorite NPC, be sure to vote in Xbox’s Twitter poll that is now live until August 3.
For more on Free Guy, check out our IGN Premiere exclusive clip from the film below.
Madden NFL 22‘s ratings rollout continued on Wednesday with the announcement of the next 99-rated player, Travis Kelce, along with the top 10 tight ends in the professional football game.
Leading the group is Kelce (99 OVR), followed by George Kittle (96 OVR), Darren Waller (93 OVR), Mark Andrews (88 OVR), and Hunter Henry (87 OVR). Others tight ends making the top 10 list this year included Austin Hooper (86 OVR), Rob Gronkowski (86 OVR), Mike Gesicki (85 OVR), T.J Hockenson (85 OVR), and Dallas Goedert (84 OVR).
You can see the full top 10 list for highest-rated tight ends below, while more Madden NFL 22 player ratings are available further down the page.
Madden NFL 22 launches on August 20 across console, PC, and Stadia, with Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes sharing the cover. For more, check out GameSpot’s Madden 22 preorder guide.
Back 4 Blood’s upcoming early access beta will officially start on August 5 through August 9, with access coming from preorders of the game. An open beta will be held from August 12-16, with both betas being playable on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox platforms.
As for the content, Back 4 Blood’s betas will feature two co-op maps where you can fight back against the Ridden and the PvP mode Swarm, a competition that has players battle it out as the Cleaners versus the Ridden to see which team can last the longest against the infected hordes.
Since it was revealed earlier this year, developer Turtle Rock’s has been dropping details on its cast, modes, and generous system for handling DLC purchases to its spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead. Back at E3 2021, the studio confirmed that DLC such as maps and gameplay additions will be available to all party members as long as the group leader owns it.
PC players can also look forward to a number of supported features for the co-op first-person shooter, such as 4K resolution, an uncapped framerate, and more.
Developers from Call of Duty, The Last of Us, and PlayStation have formed a new studio to make AAA games, and they’ve received $100 million in funding for their first project.
The team is called That’s No Moon Entertainment Inc (a reference to Star Wars), which is not to be confused with the UK studio No Moon–the latter was founded in 2016. South Korean studio Smilegate (CrossFire) invested more than $100 million into That’s No Moon for the new game, which is described as an “ambitious, new action-adventure game that will push the limits of both gameplay and story.”
In a post on the company’s website, That’s No Moon alluded to the possibility that its new game will be a single-player experience. “We believe in the importance of single-player narrative games and that story and gameplay are not two distinct ideas, but rather extensions of one another,” the post says. “Our shared vision is to craft captivating stories and relatable, emotionally resonant characters that are not only entertaining, but thought-provoking. We want to make experiences that will stick with you for long after you put down the controller.”
The website also teases that whatever That’s No Moon creates, it might not be just a game, and the company is laying the groundwork to make this a reality.
“We want to create characters and worlds that begin in our games, but will eventually extend into linear media–whether that’s TV, film, or beyond. To achieve this, we’re building a state-of-the-art studio in Los Angeles with a dedicated, in-house virtual production stage that will be home to our team when it’s safe to do so.”
Some of the talent working on the game includes former Infinity Ward and Naughty Dog narrative lead Taylor Kurosaki as its creative director; Call of Duty: Modern Warfare design director and The Last of Us lead game designer Jacob Minkoff as its game director; and other developers who worked on games like God of War, Fortnite, Destiny, and Uncharted 4.
In terms of the management team, Michael Mumbauer, the former head of PlayStation’s visual arts group, is the CEO. Tina Kowalewski, the former boss of Sony Santa Monica, is the chief strategy officer at That’s No Moon. Other business leads include Nick Kononelos (chief operating officer, formerly senior development director at EA), Barry Genova (chief technology officer, formerly foundation engineering nead at Bungie), and George Allison (chief financial officer, formerly a finance executive at PlayStation).
“We started That’s No Moon with a singular vision of creating unforgettable stories and characters that will define and extend beyond our medium,” Mumbauer said. “I’m proud to share that ambition with such a talented team of creators and our incredible partners at Smilegate.”
“We look forward to working with them and continuing to invest in visionary development teams seeking to bring bold new ideas and innovation to gaming,” Smilegate VP Harold Kim said.
That’s No Moon is based in Los Angeles and San Diego. The company is hoping to grow its team to almost 100 developers by 2022.
The Fortnite August Crew Pack has been revealed, and it makes for yet another fan-made cosmetic set in a game well-populated with fan creations. Once named Ava by the original artist, Summer Skye is the character’s official name, meaning she’s actually a reimagining of a previous Battle Pass character. Here’s everything you’ll find in the August Crew pack for Fortnite.
August Crew Pack – Summer Skye
Skye is back for the first time in over a year.
Summer Skye is a new alternate skin for Skye first developed by nollobandz, a fan artist who has been featured in the game before, most recently for their original character Eco. The young gamer character first featured in the Chapter 2 Season 2 Battle Pass. Summer Skye will include a full range of cosmetics to round out her set. Included with August Crew membership are the following items:
Summer Skye outfit
Cursed Eagleshield Back Bling
Epic Sword of Might Pickaxe
Pspspsps! Wrap
Cattitude Wrap
Afternoon Quest Loading Screen
If that’s not enough, Skye will also include an alternate style Stormy Skye. One of each included weapon and vehicle Wrap is meant to pair with one of Skye’s two new styles. For those feeling nostalgic, Skye’s classic hat can be put on or off with any style.
Here’s your first look at the alternate style, Stormy Skye.
Fortnite Crew is a monthly subscription that gives players access to exclusive cosmetics, a monthly stipend of 1,000 V-Bucks, and unlocks the latest Battle Pass. For players who already have the active Battle Pass when they join Fortnite Crew, a one-time refund of 950 V-Bucks is deposited into their in-game accounts.
The July Crew Pack was the second to include a licensed character–Marvel’s Loki–but most months have featured original creations from the Fortnite universe. Summer Skye marks the first fan-made skin to headline a Crew Pack monthly bundle. To date, Epic has never made Crew cosmetics available outside of membership, and it’s unlikely that will change.
Developers from the teams behind The Last of Us, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, God of War, Destiny, and more have come together to form That’s No Moon, a new studio working on a single player, third-person, action-adventure game, and backed with a $100 million investment.
As announced in a press release, That’s No Moon comes with huge AAA pedigree, with many of its senior figures coming from a background at PlayStation studios. Michael Mumbauer (formerly head of PlayStation’s Visual Arts Group) is CEO, and Tina Kowalewski (formerly head of product development at Sony Santa Monica) is Chief Strategy Officer.
Although details are scant, the studio’s first game will be “an ambitious, new action-adventure game that will push the limits of both gameplay and story.” Taylor Kurosaki will serve as creative director, and Jacob Minkoff will be game director – the duo previously worked together at Infinity Ward and Naughty Dog on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and The Last of Us. That’s No Moon says the wider development team’s credits include, “God of War, Fortnite, The Last of Us Part II, Destiny, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and many more.”
That’s No Moon has received a $100 million investment from Smilegate (creator of the Crossfire series), which will also be acting in a partnership role. The partnership aims to “create new experiences that will inspire empathy and deeper personal connections with players around the world.”
Interestingly, while the studio is working on a game, the announcement press release mentions That’s No Moon “rests at the intersections of games, film, and TV,” although it’s not clear if that’s a creative philosophy, or representative of the actual kinds of projects it aims to work on. Based in Los Angeles and San Diego, the studio aims to build a team of 100 developers by 2022.
CEO Mumbauer was reported to have been working on a remake of The Last of Us before that project ran into roadblocks – it seem That’s No Moon represents what the former Visual Arts Group studio head went on to do next. Game leads Minkoff and Kurosaki announced that they had left Infinity Ward in May to “pursue a rare and exciting new opportunity”.
Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].
Chip ‘n’ Dale: Park Life premieres on Disney+ on July 28 with new episodes weekly.
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It’s wild to realize that Chip and Dale are now older than most of their audience. Created 78 years ago, the troublemaking chipmunks first ran amok in Disney short films, playing adorable antagonists for the likes of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Pluto the dog. Over the years, their appearance has evolved, reflecting the animation style du jour, be it naturalistic, anthropomorphic, or three-dimensional CGI. With Chip ‘n’ Dale: Park Life, they are re-imagined once more, offering fans an intoxicating blend of new-school style and old-school substance that is wonderfully entertaining and downright addictive.
Directed by Jean Cayrol, Chip ‘n’ Dale: Park Life takes its titular critters back to basics: two fun-loving chipmunks run wild in a city park (and sometimes onto the sidewalks and streets beyond.) Made up of three 7-minute shorts, the premiere episode offers an enticing taste of this nutty new incarnation. In “Thou Shalt Nut Steal,” Chip and Dale rile poor Pluto by pilfering a stash of acorns, which he intended to feed to his hungry pups. This seems a suitable premise for the ever-hungry heisters, who’ve often snatched snacks from classic Disney characters. But in a defiant contrast to their antagonist origins, the duo is more mistaken than malicious. So, instead of snickering at Pluto’s misfortune, they plot how to give the stolen goods back without ending up a snack themselves. In this way, the show blends elements of their classic antics with the more modern incarnations, where they were plucky — though chaotic — heroes (or Rescue Rangers, if you will).
Successive shorts “The Baby Whisperer” and “It Takes Two to Tangle” go zanier in concept. The former features the daffy duo riding unsupervised babies as if they are bucking broncos. The latter tests their bond when they are literally connected at the hip (or — more specifically — knitted together by the tail). Each story offers a stellar setup for sight gags wacky and wild, like Pluto’s floppy ears being spun above his bulbous brow to transform him into a soaring helicopter. With such outlandish gags, the show swiftly establishes that anything can happen when this dynamic duo puts their heads together. True to form, they are still an affable odd couple: Chip is intelligent and fastidious; Dale is an impulsive free spirit. Of course, they sometimes squabble. Yet the assurance that they are ever a team establishes a heartwarming theme, which throbs powerfully at the show’s emotional core.
Simply put, this a kinder, cuddlier, more self-aware version of Chip and Dale than their classic models. Likewise modern is their latest look, which has the sharp black lines and vivid shading of a digital pencil. Flat backgrounds with few details make for a pared-down aesthetic that comes alive in a hip, jewel-toned color palette. Here, the emotions of the chipmunks might be reflected in the intense hues that surround them, be they serene nighttime blues or fiery reds of their tree trunk home. Meanwhile, a savvy sound design pleasantly harkens back to their early years.
Forget the chipmunks whose dialogue was remotely intelligible. These clamoring creatures communicate in dramatic gasps, comedic squeals, and a chatter so high-pitched and fast-paced that we’re not meant to comprehend it. Vincent Artaud’s pronounced musical score adds context, bolstering emotional moments, be they of regret, elation, or panic. Chiefly, however, Chip ‘n’ Dale: Park Life leans hard into visual storytelling. Cayrol and France’s Xilam Animation team carefully crafted slapstick comedy that won’t be lost in translation. Expressive gestures, surreal illustrations, and strategic storyboarding make sure we never miss a beat — or a punchline — of these silly yet smartly executed stories.
The PlayStation 5 has officially sold 10 million units, but Sony Interactive Entertainment boss Jim Ryan has acknowledged that there still aren’t enough consoles available.
Sony’s newest gaming console surpassed the milestone as of July 18, and the hardware continues to outpace PS4 in terms of sales in the same period of its lifecycle. The news comes less than a day after Microsoft reported that its Xbox Series X/S are now the fastest-selling Xbox consoles to date.
While this is a major milestone for Sony, the company is still dealing with the hardships of making enough supply to upkeep the demand amid an ongoing global chip shortage and could remain an issue until 2023.
“While PS5 has reached more households faster than any of our previous consoles, we still have a lot of work ahead of us as demand for PS5 continues to outstrip supply,” Ryan said in a press release. “I want gamers to know that while we continue to face unique challenges throughout the world that affect our industry and many others, improving inventory levels remains a top priority for SIE.”
Ryan separately pointed out that those that do manage to get hold of the console are using it more than the previous Sony machine. “Engagement on the platform is the highest that we’ve ever seen whichever way you look at it,” Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan told GamesIndustry.biz. “Whether it’s the number of people measured by a metric such as MAU [Monthly Active Users], or whether it’s the time that these people spend playing games. Both of these metrics are showing very significant double-digit growth compared to the launch window of PS4, the previous high-water mark.”
In addition to sharing how many PS5s have been sold, Sony also shared sales figures for several games under the PlayStation Studios umbrella. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart launched last month and has already sold over 1.1 million copies, while Housemarque’s Returnal has surpassed 560,000 copies sold.
Sony also notes that Spider-Man: Miles Morales has sold over 6.5 million copies since launching on PS4 and PS5 in November of last year, while MLB The Show 21 – which is the first entry in the series to launch on non-PlayStation hardware – has become the fastest-selling title in franchise history, with more than 2 million copies sold as of July 18 across all platforms. According to Sony, the baseball title “has reached more than 4 million players” since its release in April, which is likely due to the game also being available on Xbox Game Pass since release.
With the PS5 already selling 10 million consoles, this helps the company build momentum as several high-profile games are slated to release on the console, such as the timed-exclusive Deathloop, which will launch on September 14. More first-party exclusives are expected to launch within the next year, such as a sequel to God of War, Horizon Forbidden West, and Gran Turismo 7.
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Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
