John Drury

The next generation is on its way

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Remedy's latest game goes full Microsoft at launch

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Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen has a lot of really neat mechanics that mix up the usual sword n' sorcery combat of other fantasy action games. Here at Monster Factory, we see that kind of ingenuity as possibility; or, to be more precise, vulnerability. Thanks for giving us the ability to climb and throw monsters, Dragon's Dogma! We will make you regret giving us these freedoms.

Please enjoy today's Monster Factory in the video above, but bear in mind, it is NSFW. Unless, of course, you are an active all-star pitcher in the MLB, in which case, it's kind of a training video?

The mesmerizing music for beautiful mobile puzzler Monument Valley is getting a double vinyl album, iam8bit tells Polygon.

The music, by Stafford Bawler, OBFUSC and Grigori, is broken up into two volumes. Pre-orders open tomorrow for the vinyl LP, which sees the premiere of Monument Valley's second volume of music.

The LP is housed in a gatefold jacket with original art and printed LP sleeves. The LP also includes an eight-page story booklet. The vinyl also comes with code for the digital...

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A shot across the bow at Best Buy

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After a few months steeping on the PTR, it’s time for another massive Diablo III [official site] patch. Like, surprisingly massive. The type of content a different developer might package up, slap a name on, and sell for a fiver.

Want the rundown?

… [visit site to read more]

As GOG’s winter sale nears its end, the virtual vendors of vintage (and virginal!) video games are offering a freebie to everyone, no purchase necessary: Planet Moon’s Giants: Citizen Kabuto from the year 2000. Obviously, to save money for more bourbon, I shall be presenting Cara with a copy as her gift in our office Secret Santa once she returns from her festive nap. “It’s a cult classic,” I’ll say. “Pretty funny. You get to be a giant and puny Britishfolk and a sea witch and everything. Took me ages to find.” If any of you rotters give away the secret, there will be CONSEQUENCES.

… [visit site to read more]

Metroidvania techno-thriller Shadow Complex [official site] debuted downloadable on Xbox 360 in 2009, and folks have been asking for a PC release ever since. It was pretty good fun, see, doing all that ‘run and jump and climb shoot and find items to get into new places to find items to get into new places’ stuff, all shiny and polished like. But a PC release never seemed forthcoming, until last night. Shadow Complex has arrived in ‘Remastered’ form and is free to download right now.

… [visit site to read more]

The list of potential PS2 games heading to PS4 keeps growing

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If you’re in the market for a new home, you could surely find something for $250,000 — heck, why settle for looking for a house when you could just buy an entire ghost town? An abandoned South Dakota town that was on the market for $400,000 back in 2014 is still up for grabs, and now at a bargain price.

Swett, S.D. is still on the market after 16 months, reports The Rapid City Journal. The unincorporated hamlet about two hours from Rapid City comes with a bar (currently closed), a single house, workshop, three trailers and 6.16 acres of land.

The real estate agent in charge of the listing says she fielded an avalanche of phone calls and emails from people interested in buying the town when the news first hit, many of them with quite… unique plans for the property.

She tells the Rapid City Journal that the weirdest idea came “from a guy out of Nebraska who wanted to bring in 2,000 women from Russia, and 600 men who were felons, and he was going to build acrylic houses and run cameras 24 hours a day,” she said. “I told him he needed to call the state because I couldn’t deal with the permits for anything like that.”

Three written offers fell through for various reasons, but the agent says she’s still getting phone calls, and is surprised that the town hasn’t sold yet. The bank has now cleaned up the land, hauling away three decaying mobile homes and other paraphernalia, and has deeply discounted the price in the hopes of finally finding a buyer.

“They even installed shiny new town signs for Swett,” the agent said. “The old ones had bullet holes in them.”

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FOR SALE: An entire South Dakota town [The Rapid City Journal]

Monument Valley, the gorgeous puzzle game from Ustwo, is available free in the iTunes App Store right now.

The iOS game is marked down from its regular price of $3.99, which is what the Android version is still selling for. Asked how long the App Store deal will be available, Ustwo producer Dan Gray told Polygon that it's a "temporary price drop that we wanted to do just before Christmas." In other words, you should probably snatch up President Frank Underwood's favorite indie game as soon as you can.

For more on Monument Valley, read our review. If you're already a fan of the game, you may want to check out the new officially licensed merch that iam8bit is selling, including Ida, Totem and Crow plushies.

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As was made abundantly clear last month, the modern age has failed us by way of flying DeLoreans, hoverboards, and self-drying, self-fitting jackets. The wonder of playing games remotely, on the other hand, is very much a reality. The Steam Link plays PC games on TVs, Xbox One games can be mirrored on Windows 10, and upcoming official PlayStation 4 Remote Play support will let folks play on their PS4 through Windows and Mac computers. Great Scott! It’s already here unofficially, mind.

… [visit site to read more]

Felicia Day of The Guild and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog fame will join the cast of the revived Mystery Science Theater 3000, series creator Joel Hodgson announced on the project's Kickstarter page.

Day will play the role of Mad Kinga Forrester, daughter of original character Dr. Clayton Forrester. Hodgson goes into detail about the character's origins as well as the background behind getting Day to join the project in his update, which includes a video featuring Day in-character.

While Hodgson and Day have already completed pre-production work for the show, Hodgson asks fans to keep in mind that "the situation is the same with Felicia as everyone else: we haven't got any formal deal in place yet because we weren't sure how this...

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Steam users and Dota 2 fans now have an added incentive to pre-order the Windows PC version of Fallout 4. An announcer pack for the MOBA title featuring the voice of robotic companion Mister Handy will be included with Steam copies of Fallout 4.

According to the listing on Steam, "the voice of everyone's favorite robotic butler, Mister Handy" will replace that of the default announcer in Dota 2. The pack will be available sometime in mid-November to Fallout 4 buyers.

This is one of numerous crossovers in which Dota 2 has taken part. Previously released announcer packs include those starring voices from The Stanley Parable and Bastion, as well as the lead characters of Rick and Morty.

The latest adventure in Bethesda's nuclear...

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Alan Tudyk, familiar to mourners of Joss Whedon's Firefly as Wash and star of next year's Star Wars: Rogue One, was set to add Uncharted 4: A Thief's End to his list of credits — until he walked away from the role.

Tudyk talked to IGN about his decision to quit the production of next year's final Nathan Drake adventure. "I quit!" he told them, laughing. "I left because [Naughty Dog] decided to go a different direction with it and so when they did that ... it made my contract null and void," he explained.

Without getting into too many specifics as to why, Tudyk used this as his chance to leave the project. He was joined by Todd Stashwick, who similarly felt that the studio was "making some weird changes" after a turnover in leadership.

...

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Prey for the Gods [official site] wants to remind you of Shadow of the Colossus, wants you to compare it to Shadow of the Colossus, and wants you to go round telling your chums “It’s like Shadow of the Colossus but with snow and on PC.” Because it is, really.

With a desolate land, a young hero, and boss monsters large enough that you’ll need to scale them to murder them, it’s not shy about its source material. If Team Ico’s PlayStation 2 classic had ever received an official PC release, it might be decried as a rip-off. Instead, it’s more something folks have waited years for. Watch this:

… [visit site to read more]

thebestoftumbling:

the window washers favorite apartment

Oh, Bobby!

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HBO has come under fire from Hollywood's biggest union after a casting note calling for actors to agree to "genital to genital touching" was released.

More specifically, the note for Jonathan Nolan's upcoming highly anticipated, futuristic western series Westworld — based on Michael Crichton's (Jurassic Park) 1973 movie of the same name — declared background actors "may be required to perform genital-to-genital touching, simulate oral sex with hand-to-genital touching, contort to form a table-like shape while being fully nude, pose on all fours while others who are fully nude ride on your back [and] ride on someone's back while you are both fully nude," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In response to HBO's lack of oversight on the...

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Sound the pork bell and toot the meat horn: if you’re a fan of pork in your tacos and burritos, you’ll be glad to hear that Chipotle is declaring an impending end to the carnitas shortage that started back in January. The other white meat is now available at 90% of its 1,500 restaurants, the chain announced today.

Chipotle had suspended one of its pork suppliers for not complying with its animal welfare standards — the company requires pigs to be raised with access to the outdoors or deeply bedded barns, without the use of antibiotics, and with no gestation crates.

By July, carnitas was available in 26 states, and Chipotle assured customers the end of the shortage nationwide was nigh.

Today the chain announced that it’s restored most of the pork supplies it lost after cutting ties with the offending supplier, and says that it expects to have carnitas back in all restaurants by the end of November.

The only U.S. locations that don’t have carnitas are in the Cleveland and Atlanta areas, and in North Carolina and South Carolina.

“The decision to stop selling Carnitas in many of our restaurants was an easy one,” said Steve Ells, founder, chairman and co-CEO at Chipotle in a press release. “We simply will not compromise our high standards for animal welfare.”

“Now, we are excited to have Carnitas back in nearly all of our restaurants, and want to thank our customers for their patience while we worked to address this issue,” Ellis added.

Netflix will air the third season of Charlie Brooker's TV anthology series, Black Mirror, as a 12-episode original series, the company announced today.

Black Mirror tells a different story each episode, which typically focuses on some aspect of modern society, technology or speculative fiction. Although seasons 1 and 2 are currently available on Netflix, both originally aired in the UK; each season included only three episodes. Brooker has already begun writing new episodes, and the series is expected to enter production in late 2015. A premiere date has not yet been announced.

"Charlie has created a one-of-a-kind series with an uncanny voice and prescient, darkly comedic vision," said Cindy Holland, vice president of original content...

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Four new controllers are among the new color options Sony showed off for the PlayStation 4 at its Tokyo Game Show keynote today.

The controllers (above) will come in cold, silver and "steel black" beginning Nov. 6, with a clear plastic crystal following on Dec. 3. The launch dates are for Japan; Sony did not give any information for western availability, though the gold and silver controllers have been announced for Europe.

Additionally, the hard drive bay cover for the console itself will get nine color variants on Nov. 6., including gold, silver, red, yellow, purple, and pink. Again, no western launch plans were given there. The faceplates will run ¥2,500, which is about $20.

Finally, a wireless round headset will launch in Japan on...

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After revealing a new console bundle today, Microsoft also announced a new "lunar white" standard controller for Xbox One, becoming available at the end of the month.

The controller is $64.99 and will be available through GameStop only, Microsoft said.

The controller is the updated configuration of the base model that Microsoft announced back in June. That means it has the 3.5mm headset jack that accommodates other gaming headphones.

The right and left bumper buttons have been tuned for responsiveness, and the controller can receive firmware updates wirelessly instead of needing a USB cable plugged into the Xbox One. Microsoft also touted an "improved grip texture for more control and comfort."

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A message, beamed into the RPS mobile base from an unknown source:

“Hello, Commander. In light of our desire to ensure that the upcoming extraterrestrial reign of terror is a significant improvement on the gloriously successful incursions of 2012, this council of developers has convened to approve the activation of the XCOM 2 Delay Project. You have been chosen to spread word of this initiative. To oversee our first… and last* change to the release date. You may believe that releasing this year would have made all of your planet’s dreams come true but we are looking to the future. We urge you to keep that in mind as you proceed.”

Actually, I spotted the news on Twitter. XCOM 2 [official site] won’t be with us until February 5, 2016.

… [visit site to read more]

Have you ever ever wondered what it’s like for your checked luggage at the airport? Where does it go, what does it see, who touches it — does it make suitcase friends along the way? While many of those questions remain unanswered, a new video shot from the point of view of a piece of baggage cruising around behind the scenes at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam is definitely mesmerizing.

In what could be a scene out of a Pixar movie featuring adorable, no-nonsense robots just doing their job, the point-of-view camera attached to a suitcase shows the long journey your bags make to get from the cargo hold of the plane and around the airport, until they land at baggage claim.

There are conveyor belts aplenty, robotic arms tipping bags here and there with purpose, and long stretches of rollercoaster-like cruising up and down.

The video below is worth a watch for fun, but perhaps even cooler is the 360-degree view video the airport added to its site. That version allows users to click and drag their mouse on the screen to see any direction around the bag as it shuttles along on its merry way.

It's finally here! Fallout Shelter is now available for Android and, since you probably don't want to read more stupid words, here's a link to the Google Play store so you can get downloading.

When Bethesda surprise announced Fallout Shelter — the free-to-play mobile vault management sim — during E3 in June and said it would be available that very day, fans cheered. But the catch was: It was only available for iOS. It turns out same day surprises still have some limitations. But then, at a Fallout panel at QuakeCon last month, Bethesda announced the Android release and detailed some of the improvements coming to that version, as well as the iOS version. Here's a breakdown of that update from the iOS App Store:

What's New in Version...

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A pair of recent interviews with Blizzard employees, conducted by IGN at Gamescom, have hinted at the future of the Warcraft franchise beyond the MMO’s vice-like embrace. It’s not only movies; there might be a new strategy game on the cards.

… [visit site to read more]

Using your fingerprint to open your phone may be convenient but it could also pose a security risk. That’s according to security researchers who discovered a way to breach Android devices to steal the unique prints.

ZDNet reports that FireEye researchers identified what they referred to as the “fingerprint sensor spying attack” that allows hackers to acquire large batches of consumers’ fingerprints from Android-based phones, including those made by Samsung, HTC, and Huawei.

The researchers, Tao Wei and Yulong Zhang, say that because the devices’ sensors aren’t locked down by manufacturers, it creates a vulnerability that allows hackers to obtain images of users’ fingerprints.

“In this attack, victims’ fingerprint data directly fall into attacker’s hand. For the rest of the victim’s life, the attacker can keep using the fingerprint data to do other malicious things,” Zhang said.

While the experiment was based mainly on mobile phones, the researchers warn that the same issues could be found in other devices such as laptops that use sensors.

Zhang tells ZDNet that he couldn’t specify which devices were more vulnerable to the hack, but did not that the iPhone was “quite secure” because it encrypts fingerprint data.

Researchers say they notified device makers of the issues and they have since provided patches to address the vulnerability.

Still, Zhang and Wei recommend smartphone users always keep their software updated to the latest version and only install popular apps from the Google Play store with fingerprint sensors.

This is the second time this summer that Android phones have been found to be vulnerable to hacks.

Last month, security researchers discovered a flaw in nearly 950 million devices that let hackers send out a piece of code via text message to take over phones remotely.

Hackers can remotely steal fingerprints from Android phones [ZDNet]