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Conan Makes His Triumphant Return to Marvel

It’s hard not to react to news of Marvel reacquiring the rights to the Conan franchise with mixed emotions. On one hand, Conan used to be a huge, vital part of Marvel’s publishing lineup. Not to mention how well the Star Wars franchise has fared since returning to Marvel. But on the other hand, Dark Horse has been doing great work with the property for the past 15 years. What can Marvel bring to the table that hasn’t already been done at this point? Fortunately, Conan the Barbarian #1 makes a pretty convincing argument for the latest Conan shake-up.

If nothing else, it may have been worth bringing Conan back to Marvel solely to see what magic this new creative team can weave with the character. Writer Jason Aaron is a very natural fit for this book. His work inherently has that unique blend of humor, over-the-top imagination and brutality that make for a good Conan yarn. And in hindsight, Aaron’s work on 2015’s short-lived Weirdworld revival reads like a proof-of-concept for Conan the Barbarian. Aaron’s script has a very classical feel to it, though one with just enough flavor and wit to carve a unique voice amid the thousands of other Conan comics published y Marvel and Dark Horse.

Save on Micro SD Cards for Nintendo Switch With One of These Deals

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

Were you one of the many people who unwrapped a Nintendo Switch on Christmas morning? Or did you take advantage of one of the many Nintendo Switch deals which first started back on Black Friday? No matter how you came to acquire your shiny new Nintendo Switch, one thing is certain: You’re going to want to upgrade the internal storage at some point. Why not do it now instead of later?

The 400GB SanDisk Ultra microSD card has done nothing but go down in price over the last few months, and the Nintendo Switch supports up to 2TB of microSD storage. There aren’t any 2TB microSD cards yet, but 400GB for under $100 is a great deal. If you’re like me, you probably download smaller indie games, which means you can fit a whole lot on there before you approach anything close to filling it up.

Netflix Doesn’t Want You to Take the Bird Box Challenge

Though some fans have began participating in what they call the Bird Box challenge, Netflix has asked fans not not to hurt themselves in the process.

The Bird Box challenge involves people blindfolding themselves as characters do in Netflix’s popular thriller while they attempt common tasks. A quick Twitter search of #BirdBoxChallenge shows fans mostly trying to walk in public or play around the house with their children to comedic effect, but reports indicate many have attempted (and mostly failed) at doing things like riding a scooter, using an escalator or ordering food at the drive-thru while blindfolded.

An Underground Lake on Mars Is an Interesting Puzzle for Scientists

What appears to be an underground lake on Mars has been found, thanks to an ice-penetrating radar from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter, according to Science News.

The lake was discovered on the planet’s south pole, where NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter also searched for liquid water, coming up with nothing.

“It’s a big mystery, we’d love to figure it out,” planetary scientist, Isaac Smith, from the Planetary Science Institute said.

The discovery was announced months ago, but scientists are still unclear about how the lake could be undetectable to NASA’s orbiter.

NordVPN Review

IGN is revisiting some of the more popular VPN applications due to reader request. Note that if you click on one of the links to buy the product, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.

NordVPN has grown in popularity (See NordVPN’s website) since its inception in 2012, but it hasn’t lost what makes it good: its easy-to-use app with enough features to make savvy users happy, a strong focus on privacy, and—thanks to a bunch of new servers—decent speeds. IGN reviewed it in May2017 and I decided to revisit it due to reader demand to see if has improved, gotten worse, or remained about the same. As it turns out, it’s actually improved quite a bit, but privacy concerns are now part of the equation, tempering my enthusiasm for it somewhat.

Project CARS Studio Developing Its Own Standalone Console

Slightly Mad Studios, best known for its Project CARS racing games, is developing its own standalone game console for release in “around three years.”

The console, currently referred to as the Mad Box, was announced by Slightly Mad Studios CEO Ian Bell on Twitter. As reported by Variety, Bell said it will “support most major VR headsets and those upcoming in the specs will be equivalent to a ‘very fast PC 2 years from now.’ We’re in early talks with manufacturers of components so we can’t say much more right now other than we have the designs specced out in detail.”

Here’s What’s Hitting Xbox Game Pass In January

The holidays may be over, but Xbox Game Pass members will be getting new Xbox One games to play at no additional charge in January. Six new games are landing on the service between January 3-10. That’s in addition to two late December arrivals Microsoft introduced after the announcement of December’s lineup.

December’s late additions include Life is Strange Complete Season, which contains all five episodes of the time-manipulating adventure game’s first season. A week later, all three episodes of the prequel, Life is Strange: Before the Storm, hit the service. Next, on January 3, subscribers will get access to the first episode of Life is Strange 2 (with the rest of the episodes arriving on the service as they’re released).

Also coming to Xbox Game Pass on January 3 are the futuristic dino-survival game Ark: Survival Evolved and the aptly titled Farming Simulator 17, which has you tend crops and livestock while you manage a farm. January 7 sees the addition of the online combat game Absolver, followed on January 10 by Just Cause 3 and the brand-new 3v3 combat game Aftercharge.

Xbox Game Pass lets you download and play over 100 Xbox One games, including first-party titles on the day they’re released. That means you can play games like State of Decay 2 and Forza Horizon 4 already, and will gain access to Crackdown 3 when it launches on February 15.

You can sign up for Xbox Game Pass for for $1 for the first month and pay $10 for each additional month. Currently, the service is only available for Xbox One, but Xbox boss Phil Spencer has big plans for the future and wants to see it come to “every device.”

Xbox Game Pass January Titles

Life is Strange Complete Season (December 20)
Life is Strange: Before the Storm (December 27)
Life is Strange 2: Part 1 (January 3)
Ark: Survival Evolved (January 3)
Farming Simulator 17 (January 3)
Absolver (January 7)
Just Cause 3 (January 10)
Aftercharge (January 10)

Fallout 76 Bug Temporarily Disabled Nukes

One of Fallout 76‘s most explosive features was temporarily out-of-service recently. A bug rendered players unable to launch nuclear weapons, before Bethesda issued a statement that it was aware and issued a hotfix.

Usually the nuclear launch codes are reset on a weekly basis, every Monday evening, and players have to battle their way through enemies to find the new ones. Codes in hand, they can go to a nuclear silo and launch them at spots on the map to punish other players, or simply give a fresh dose of radiation to a spot and create mutated high-level enemies there.

This week, however, the old codes were still in place, and no longer worked. The changeover took place on New Year’s Day. In a statement on Twitter, the company said it’s aware of the issue and looking into it. Then, on January 2, the game went down for maintenance and came back up just over an hour later.

#Fallout76 Players: We’re aware of and actively investigating an issue with Nuke silo access. Thank you for your patience while we look into this issue.

— Bethesda Support (@BethesdaSupport) January 1, 2019

This is far from the first unexpected hiccup to hit Fallout 76. The game has experienced an ongoing series of issues, from low review scores to controversy over its special edition canvas bags to a personal data leak. The studio hasn’t shown any sign of slowing its plans for the game, though. It’s still regularly issuing patches and announcing upcoming features, including a new mode without PvP restrictions, and the ability to run your own shop.

PS4 Holiday Sale Week 4 Drops Prices On Even More Games And DLC (1,600+)

Sony isn’t messing around with its holiday sale this year. Between now and January 15, you can save up to 70% on nearly 1,700 games, expansions, and digital items for some of the biggest titles of 2018 and beyond. And if you’re a PS Plus member, you’ll get an even bigger discount on many of the on-sale items. We’ve already highlighted some of the best PS4 games on sale, and a selection of the best titles available for $5 or less. But now that we’ve arrived at Week 4 of the sale, a new batch of games has been added, making now a good time to see if anything you want is on discount.

If you’re in the market for a big-budget shooter, you can grab Battlefield V for $36. It received high marks in our Battlefield V review and is set to get a decent amount of added content in the coming months–including a battle royale mode. Speaking of add-on content, Prey, one of last year’s more overlooked titles, got an expansion called Mooncrash that turns the game into a roguelike experience, complete with randomized loot and procedurally generated enironments. You can get the base game and all of the DLC for just $20 right now in Prey: Digital Deluxe Edition.

For fans of moody Metroidvania-style games, Hollow Knight: Voidheart Edition is on sale for $10. The crossover fighting game Marvel Vs. Capcom: Infinite is on sale for $20, and the seriously scary first-person horror game Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is down to $18.

The sale also features a whole lot of PS3 and PS Vita games on sale as well. And if you’d like to see just the deals on PSVR games, the PS4 exclusives, or 2018 releases, you can filter those games here. Just make sure you finalize your purchases by January 8, when some of these games go back up to regular price. And note that the sale ends once and for all on January 15.

A New Game Console Is On The Way To Compete With Xbox And PlayStation

Slightly Mad Studios CEO Ian Bell has revealed the company is developing a standalone console. Exact hardware and software specs haven’t been announced yet, but Bell has provided a few details.

The first mention of the console came via Twitter, when Bell tweeted, “The Mad Box is coming.” Bell told Variety that the Mad Box will probably release in about three years and support up to 120 frames-per-second for virtual reality play. “It will support most major VR headsets and those upcoming and the specs will be equivalent to a very fast PC two years from now,” Bell wrote. “We’re in early talks with manufacturers of components so we can’t say much more right now other than we have the designs specced out in detail.”

When it comes to games on the console, Bell wrote, “We think exclusives are ‘exclusionary’ but given that we’ll be shipping a cross platform engine to all developers it will be their choice. As of now we have no plans to pay developers ‘incentives’ to exclude other hardware vendors.” He further explained that Slightly Mad Studios thinks “the industry is a little too much of a monopoly or a micro oligopoly,” and The Mad Box aims to bring some healthy competition to the console race, which for years has pretty much exclusively been a three-way battle between Microsoft’s Xbox, Sony’s PlayStation, and Nintendo’s hardware.

Bell added that early design builds for the Mad Box will be revealed in about four to six weeks. The Mad Box is planned to release worldwide and be competitively priced in comparison to other upcoming consoles. “We have multiple investors already offering the required funding for us to see the product to completion, but it’s still early days and we’re looking at the best offers right now,” Bell wrote.

2018 saw numerous changes to a lot of gaming hardware, including consoles. Some were good, and others not so much. Check out our report cards for more detailed accounts.

Xbox Game Pass January Titles

GameSpot 2018 Report Cards