PhatStarr

As promised earlier this month, singer Ariana Grande is now a playable character in Final Fantasy mobile game Brave Exvius. Here’s how to add the bunny-eared performer to your pixel party.

First off, you have to have a copy of the free-to-play game installed on your iOS or Android device. Just search the store for “Final Fantasy” and look for the distinctive new game icon.

Once you have the game installed, you’ll have to play to the point where you unlock the Dimensional Vortex, a special area where players and their parties of Final Fantasy characters can participate in special event battles for fabulous prizes. Look for the Dangerous Woman Tour event.

It’s pretty easy to spot.

Playing through the lowest tier battle for the event is all you need to do to add Dangerous Ariana to your group. The stage features a pulsing heart motif, and Grande’s “Touch It” plays during battle in place of the normal music. Maybe turn your sound down first, or wear some headphones.

Once that relatively easy task is complete, you’ll be rewarded with Dangerous Ariana. The singer will appear in your in-game mailbox. All you have to do is go in and claim her.

Dangerous Ariana is a pretty powerful character, especial in latter tiers of the Dangerous Woman event, where her Limit Break, “Touch It”, is very effective against the Resentful Noise Spirit boss battles.

You’ll want to keep playing through the event after scoring Ariana, as the special items needed to awaken her final, six-star form (Ariana Venti?) are only available during the event.

And there you have it. My default Final Fantasy Brave Exvius party now consists of Clyne, Shantotto, Vivi, Fran and Ariana Grande. Great.

Plus, new looks at Ruby Rose and Common’s characters

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It honestly feels like NBC’s DC show Powerless is throwing everything to the wall to see if any of it survives cancellation. The latest twist: Bruce Wayne has a cousin now.

The latest Powerless promo reveals that Alan Tudyk’s character is no longer Del Heller, the well-suited insurance manager. He’s now Van Wayne, a cousin of Bruce Wayne who runs Wayne Security, a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises. Van also calls him “B Dubs” on the phone, cause har-har.

But here’s the thing: There are no Wayne cousins.

Yes, there’s Vanderveer Wayne, Bruce’s so-called cousin from one issue in 1962, who may be the namesake. But there is no explanation for who the hell he is or where he came from. That’s because Thomas Wayne had no brothers or sisters who produced Wayne heirs. There’s even dispute whether Thomas is an only child, since Aunt Agatha kind of pops in and out of the story. There’s also Bruce’s great-uncle Silas Wayne, but neither he nor Agatha had any kids.

So, who is he? Is he Agatha’s secret love child? Is he like a random third-cousin from the suburbs? Are they even going to bother explaining it, or is it some weak excuse to include the Wayne name without paying a licensing fee? Also...why the hell didn’t they name him Alan Wayne? C’mon people, it was a low-hanging fruit.

As of now, Kate Kane is the only Batman cousin that I know of who actually makes sense. If there are any others, especially ones with the Wayne name stamped on their ass, please point them out to me (Update: Someone did this, so thanks!). I’ve spent hours studying Wayne family trees and I’m dying to have this make a lick of sense.

Even if Van is short for Vanderveer, it presents another problem that makes Bruce look like even more of a total dick. Bruce inherited the entire fortune, meaning he’s the only Wayne in charge of the business and its subsidiaries. That means Van Wayne didn’t start the company, nor shape it — and from the looks of the trailer, he doesn’t even care about it that much. All signs point to Bruce Wayne committing nepotism to give his made-up cousin a cushy seven-figure job at a place that profits from Batman’s collateral damage.

It’s just the icing on top of something truly disappointing. NBC took a clever series idea and botched it to the point where it likely won’t last the year. Powerless debuts February 2. Yippee.

[Twitter]

Update: Someone in the comments pointed out Vanderveer Wayne, a minor character from Earth-One who appeared in one issue back in 1962. He was described as Bruce’s cousin; but again, no explanation where he came from or how they’re related. The article has been updated to reflect this.

DJ Ravidrums wants to help Make America Great Again

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An inside look at the creation and fallout of Square's industry-defining role-playing game, as told by those who were there.

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Last night, the pro wrestler Big E tweeted a picture of himself, Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, Sasha Banks and Rich Swann holding their respective WWE championship belts with the caption, “#BlackExcellence.” While wrestling is staged, having this many black champions at once is still an accomplishment, and marking the occasion with a photo is appropriate. But to some fans the hashtag, and the idea of celebrating something along racial lines, was a problem.

Big E, Woods and Kingston are the current WWE tag team champions as the group New Day, and they just broke a record for the longest reign of any tag team in WWE history. Banks and the newly crowned Swann, are also the champions in their respective classes—Raw Women’s and Cruiserweight. They’re also all black, and black wrestlers have had an unpleasant history in the WWE. In our profile of Woods, who is also a gaming YouTuber, we noted that personas of black wrestlers are often steeped in racial cliches.

Black wrestlers are rarely given a fair shake in professional wrestling. Being black is often their only gimmick, and it manifests itself in humiliating ways. Kamala was a cannibal from Uganda. Cryme Time were street hoodlums who stole things. The New Day, as first conceived, was a gospel praise group. The trio were booed, vociferously, for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t because they were taken seriously, but because they were not.

But New Day would transition from being a church group to a bunch of joyous nerds, gaining popularity and success with each sidelong reference to their geeky interests. As someone who isn’t a fan of wrestling, it’s something I can enjoy without diving into the fandom. And that is because their success is already an expression of the idea of Black Excellence.

If you check the #BlackExcellence tag on Twitter, you’ll probably see a lot of pictures of young black men and women graduating from college. You’ll also see some bomb ass selfies, black celebrities winning awards and more often than not, recordings of Nina Simone’s, “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.” It’s a space for positivity, a place to cheer on your peers and celebrate their successes. As Kingston would later say about the motivations behind the picture and caption Big E posted, “It does not come from a place of malice, spite, or gloating. It comes from a place of joy and a place of happiness. … It is important for people of all races, but particularly people of color, and especially the youth, to see that it is entirely possible to achieve your dreams and aspirations regardless of your race.”

There is something refreshing about seeing blackness portrayed as being fun or something one should have pride in. In video games this year there were two major black protagonists—Lincoln Clay from Mafia III and Marcus Holloway from Watch Dogs 2. While Lincoln gets to shoot up the KKK in 1960s New Orleans, which frankly sounds fun as hell, I skipped that game in favor of playing as Marcus in modern San Francisco. Watch Dogs 2 exists in a world where race and racism is real, and the game acknowledges that Marcus is a black man. When Marcus rolls up to the headquarters of the hacker group he just joined, Horatio, a fellow hacker and another black man, daps him and says, “It’s good to see another brother.” Where Lincoln opens the game by being shot in the head and goes on a roaring rampage of revenge, Marcus gets to play with drones and take selfies. He gets to be a young black man who can hold it down and enjoy himself without adversity primarily defining his story. It isn’t to say that this is a realer or truer experience of being black in America than the narrative of Lincoln Clay’s more explicit racial struggle—it’s just one that also exists. Seeing irreverence and accomplishment is just as valuable as seeing a journey from bondage to freedom and is part of what those WWE wrestlers were celebrating. Black lives don’t need to be defined by oppression, and the idea of celebrating Black Excellence is one rooted in showing black lives as more than just one thing.

But to some, the notion of talking about race at all is divisive. The very first response to Big E’s tweet is Twitter user @Badlandz saying, “if it was #WhiteExcellence you would see it as being racist,” and they were far from the only one to react that way.

I understand the instinct of thinking that it’s hypocritical to point out Black Excellence and not white successes, but that line of thought falls apart under further scrutiny. Do you want to see some examples of white successes? You can look at the President-Elect of the United States, most of the Senate and the House, almost all actors and recording artists, and the majority of the staffers of the website at which I am currently employed. Black successes are worth pointing out because fewer of them are lifted up in the first place. As Kingston says about the significance of five concurrent black champions in the WWE, “Historically in our nation, there was period in time where this would not have happened, followed by a long period of time where it became possible, but had not actually materialized. Now, we are in the time in which the possibility has become a reality.”

If you like free video games, and you want to play a killer RPG that’s worth playing if only for the fantastic short stories that come packaged in interludes throughout the game, go get Lost Odyssey for free on Xbox One and/or Xbox 360 right now. It’ll be free until December 31.

Despite being the platonic ideal of a big budget, blockbuster video games, the Call of Duty series has had its fair share of glitches, and the first Modern Warfare was no exception. Many of them included ways to escape multiplayer maps entirely, falling out of the levels into strange and bizarre mirror universes bereft of textures and other people.

Reddit user DaJeroen discovered a friendly nod to the game breaking bugs of yester-year in the form of a “caution” sign over one such location, reminding players who pass by to mind the wet rooftop in case they should accidentally slip and fall into another dimension. While Modern Warfare’s underworlds weren’t nearly as creepy or haunting as some others, like Dragon Age: Inquisition’s, they had their own desolate charm; a meditative reprieve from all the shooting and trash talk.

Modern Warfare Remasterd does have a few tricks up its sleeve, including a number of cheats that range from exploding fruit to replacing every enemy with Victor Zakaev. It’s also looks like there are still a few inter-dimensional portals lying around.

The Division is worth playing again thanks to its ambitious new 1.4 patch. Ubisoft’s long-stumbling third-person shooter is back to rewarding players without forcing them to grind. It’s now more hospitable to people who play solo or aren’t leveled up enough to immediately find co-op partners. It’s still paradoxically drab yet beautiful, and it needs some new areas or missions, but it’s a good, fun game again.

The Division was patched last Tuesday. In the week since, I’ve only been able to play for a few hours, on and off. But a game that was once hostile to casual play now offers me so many ways to play it, so many options to choose from, and so many rewards for my efforts that even playing it sporadically this past week has raised me to the max player level possible (gear score 229). I’ve had a good time along the way and feel like I now have a chance to appreciate its strategic depths.

Previously, I’d been stuck. I’d cleared the campaign in the spring. I liked it playing some of it solo, and I had a great time randomly matchmaking with others to clear most of its story missions. In June, I tried the game’s first major expansion, Underground, and was excited about the concept of procedurally-generated subterranean levels tailored for co-op. Unfortunately, it seemed that Underground co-op was designed for people who liked to grind or who at least played The Division obsessively. Missions were unrewarding to play solo, so I attempted co-op. I’d try matchmaking with strangers but was too low-level to avoid being kicked. Worse, Underground and the rest of The Division’s endgame was weirdly balanced so that the gear you needed to be strong enough to comfortably clear its missions was usually only rewarded if you cleared those missions.

Before 1.4, it was very hard to progress without hammering at levels obsessively or without teaming with people in the game’s more loot-generous, PvP and PvE area, the Dark Zone. I don’t play with friends, so the Dark Zone wasn’t a viable option. Too dangerous. Too many packs of other players looking to slaughter solo adventurers like me.

None of that is a hindrance anymore.

The changes in the new 1.4 patch are sweeping. Very little new content was added with the patch, but many of the game’s systems work differently. The most impactful change might be the introduction of world tiers, which establish the difficulty level of enemies throughout the game’s world and prime players for getting rewarded with better loot.

Initially, I was only powerful enough to play in World Tier 3.

Here was my character when the game first patched...

But Tier 3 was lucrative enough. After I left my home base, the first enemy grunts I encountered dropped an orange piece of loot. Orange is the second rarest loot classification in the game. I was already improving my character.

The World Tier system makes wandering through the game’s overworld of snowy post-terrorist-attack New York City interesting again. Enemies are tough, but taking them out is rewarding.

As I got better gear, I felt I was strong enough to try playing more Underground. At World Tier 3, however, matchmaking was a bust. I imagine most people playing are too high-level for Tier 3. Pre-patch this is the kind of thing that would have left me stuck, but the rebalanced Division was compatible with my situation. I went and solo’d some Underground missions, which were challenging, as ever, but they now reward you with good loot. Soon enough, I was powerful enough to jump to World Tier 4, and once I was there, matchmaking was a cinch. Plenty of people were around and up for a few missions in Underground.

Here, I joined with two strangers to blast through a mission and pick up more good loot.

And then one of those strangers and I did another mission together...

Along the way, I was even able to pick up more of the games unexpectedly good lore logs...

I wasn’t grumbling about the game anymore. I wasn’t kicked. I was playing, having fun, and improving.

By last night, I was already up from Gear Score 180 to the low 200s. I felt bold, so I tried the Dark Zone to see how I’d fare. Maybe the Dark Zone is still too rough for solo players like me. Enemy player gangs still roam those streets!

Even in the dangerous Dark Zone, though, I was able to find and extract some more good loot...

With 1.4, The Division’s developers added more progress-tracking to the game. You’re constantly filling bars that reward you with loot caches that contain good gear. Even failed missions aren’t a wash if you’ve bumped that progress bar a bit.

I kept getting better stuff and decided to try the Dragon’s Nest co-op Incursion last night. Last time I tried that, I could not hold my own. Last night, however, I did pretty well...

At least I was doing well until I got to the part with the fiery floor. I couldn’t beat that before I had to call it a night...

When I checked this morning to see how good my loot was, it turns out I was able to spec my character to Gear Score 229, the game’s current max.

Now I can focus less on leveling up and more on the perks and powers of the various pieces of in-game gear that I’ve collected. That way I can learn which load-out might best suit me the next time I’m in the fire-filled Dragon’s Nest. I’m actually looking forward to it, because I don’t feel like the game is asking me to grind to get its variety guns, backpacks and other gear anymore. It’s handing it all out for reasonable effort and then letting me learn what’s best to use.

The 1.4 patch didn’t add new missions, and the game really could use some brand-new things to do. That will presumably come in the next two planned expansions.

New content will help, but there is another thing that holds the game back that I’m not sure expansions can overcome. The game’s setting is still boring for the way it plays. This kind of loot game looks weird when put in a real-world context. It makes visual sense to see numbers (or words) sweat off an alien as you shoot them in Destiny...

It looks strange, however, to see huge damage numbers sweat off some guy in a hoodie in The Division...

It’s also not the world’s most exciting thing to slay an enemy and obtain the mighty helm that is the mesh cap.

That’s something they can’t patch. But that’s also something that’s all aesthetics.

What matters most about most games is how they play. The Division, thanks to 1.4, now plays very well. I’m back in it.

Compromised accounts tied to No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games led to a series of faked official statements today calling the ambitious space exploration game “a mistake.”

Two sources close to the development of the game indicated to Kotaku that that “mistake” tweet and subsequent e-mails sent purportedly to press by Hello Games chief Sean Murray were the result of a hack.

It started with a tweet posted to the official Hello Games Twitter account this morning around 8:48 AM Eastern. “No Man’s Sky was a mistake.”

Suspecting the account was hacked or otherwise compromised, Kotaku reached out to Murray at Hello Games via an email we’d communicated through in the past around 9:30 AM. We asked whether the Twitter account had been hacked. The response we got was: “No, the tweet was not a hack, but rather a disgruntled employee. The email that we sent however was official.”

Forbes and Mashable, who both reported on this this morning, both say they were also told by someone using Sean Murray’s e-mail that the “mistake” tweet was from “a disgruntled employee.” It’s unclear if those e-mails were legit. We had been given the same line, but when we followed up it became harder to believe this was really Sean Murray e-mailing us. [UPDATE - 12:50pm - Due to an editing mistake, we stated that the e-mail to Forbes was from a Sean Murray account. It was from a Hello Games e-mail account that Sean Murray has used in the past. Based on a screenshot in an update to the Forbes article, it appears to be the same e-mail address we’d been communicating with.]

We were curious about the e-mailer’s reference to an “official” e-mail. Having received no other email from Hello Games this morning, we asked the person e-mailing us to send the e-mail they were referring to. At 9:53 AM we received the following response, forwarded from a different Hello Games email account bearing Sean Murray’s name. The statement was originally time stamped 7:55 AM. We believe this e-mail that we were sent is also fake: 

No Man’s Sky was a mistake.

I have contacted you because the silence from Hello Games has been unwarranted and unprofessional. The community has asked me to speak up, and I have a confession to make. The game was simply unfinished upon arrival. Our hand was forced by not only Sony, but the community as well. The constant harassment and absolute gross misconduct on the community’s part has made it hard to fulfill our artistic vision, while the pressure from Sony to release the game as soon as possible forced us to cut key features. I want to apologize for what we did not deliver on, as the game does not meet up to what our artistic vision was.

However, we do wish that the community was more understanding of our situation. Many people have asked for refunds despite our promise to continually improve and update No Man’s Sky. We are just a small studio that has poured our blood, sweat, and tears into this project. The complete lack of respect when it comes to the work we have done absolutely saddens not only myself, but the team as well. We want to improve the game to the point we dreamed of it being and beyond.

I hope everyone affected understands,

Sean Murray

The information given to us via email exchanges didn’t line up with that given to Polygon, who were told by someone identifying themselves as Sean Murray that the original tweet was posted by Sean himself but removed by an employee.

As it turns out, the original “mistake” Tweet was sent through Sean Murray’s LinkedIn account, suggesting that the business networking service may have been the source of the original breach.

Later this morning, Sean Murray’s account tweeted:

No Man’s Sky was released in August of this year following multiple delays, having built up a tremendous amount of hype since the first teaser trailer debuted in 2013. Many of the features demonstrated or suggested during the game’s development period did not make it into the final build, and many feel the final product was rushed to market unfinished.

The hacked message was the first tweet posted to the Hello Games Twitter account since September 23. It’s quite possible that someone frustrated over the developer’s silence acted out.

We will continue to follow this story as it develops.

Update 11:32 AM: Hello Games’ Twitter responded to a tweet from Sean Murray asking if they were still hacked with the following:

So either everything’s fine, or everything’s still hacked and we’ll never know what’s real or fake ever again.

It’s going to be a six-part, monthly mini-series

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Now that the special demo for Pokémon Sun and Moon has dropped for some regions, players are making some incredible discoveries—including what may be the best Alolan form of any Pokémon we’ve seen so far.

Yes, that’s Dugtrio with blonde hair. I know, I know. It looks fake. My initial reaction was that it must be a Photoshop or something, but as you can see from this footage by @ruiisuD, it’s real. Other trusted sources are confirming its existence on social media as well.

Maybe it seems random, but think about it: Sun and Moon are tropical games. It makes sense that some monsters might take on more of a surfer-like appearance. Heck, Raichu straight-up air-surfs.

Between this and the ridiculous new Exeggutor, it’s clear that Game Freak is having fun designing the regional variants of Sun and Moon. I love it.

Update 10/18 2:16 AM: And here’s the new Dugtrio in action:

The demo goes live in North America at 10AM ET. For now, the internet is eating this new Dugtrio up:

Super Mario 64: Last Impact is the result of 4,000 hours of work by Kaze Emanuar, and it looks incredible.

You may know Kaze from other Mario hacks—he recently also the horrifying mod that replaces every texture in Super Mario 64 with Toad’s face, for example. This time, he’s back with something bigger and more ambitious. Judging from YouTube uploads, the ROM hack has been in the works for at least a year:

Last Impact adds 130 new collectible stars, entirely new areas, enemies/bosses, and 12 new power-ups. To wit, during the trailer you can see Mario don the frog suit, and at one point, he even uses his Paper Mario ability to flatten himself and fall through a grate. Kaze seems to have taken cool mechanics, characters, and ideas from all sorts of different Mario games, and has packaged them into one cohesive world. It’s very cool.

If you’d like to take a closer look at some of the areas featured in the trailer, I invite you to peruse this playlist, which showcases Kaze playing through some of the levels:

My favorites include a level where you go into a giant beast, as well as the casino-themed one. So far, from what I’ve seen, the levels are all elaborate and fleshed out enough that you can see why Kaze would have the audacity to try to improve on an all-time classic. He’s clearly a super fan with deep understanding of what makes Mario games enjoyable.

You can download Last Impact here, and watch a tutorial on how to actually play it here:

This week, Kotaku EIC Stephen Totilo joins the Splitscreen podcast to talk about PlayStation VR. What does it do? Does it virtually create reality? Let’s find out.

I reviewed PlayStation VR yesterday, and Stephen and I have been using it and discussing it for the past week. We decided that it wasn’t difficult enough to demonstrate VR using written words and gifs, so we decided to move things up a layer of abstraction and talk about it on a podcast.

We also talked some about the new Gears of War 4 horde mode and answered a bunch of listener questions. What do our parents make of our chosen careers? Which Assassin’s Creed game is Stephen’s favorite? Tune in to find out.

You can listen to this week’s episode on iTunes or Google Play. Or find it directly on Simplecast. (MP3 download here.)

It looks like WWE cruiserweight champion TJ Perkins is going to give Xavier Woods a challenge for the title of top video-game-crazy pro wrestler. Woods may have a popular YouTube gaming show, but Perkins now has a killer gaming-themed ring entrance.

Perkins’ new entrance was part of Sunday night’s Clash of Champions WWE special. Note the health bar, the power-ups and the eight-bit look (via r/squaredcircle user SgtDrP3pp3rs):

And if that was all too subtle for you, the official name for his official theme music? “Playing With Power.”

Whoever runs the official Mega Man Twitter account was impressed:

So was Woods:

And so was fighting game legend Justin Wong (who Perkins retweeted):

Perkins has been Tweeting and retweeting about the entrance (and his successful title defense) since last night. And while he may follow an Overwatch meme account, it sure sounds like his tastes run more old-school. As he Tweeted back to Woods:

HP Home & Home Office offers the HP ENVY 700-200z AMD Quad Core 3.7GHz Desktop PC (no monitor), model no. E6S60AV#ABA, for $499.99. Coupon code "PC25511" cuts it to $474.99. With $9.99 for shipping, that's the lowest total price we could find for a similar desktop by $115. It features an AMD A10-6700 3.7GHz quad-core processor, 8GB RAM, 1TB 7200 rpm hard drive, DVD burner, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, and Windows 8.1 64-bit.

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The first wave of Steam Machines, console-like computers designed to run Valve's Steam software and its thousands of PC games, will be in some pre-order customers' hands on Oct. 16 and in stores on Nov. 10, Valve announced today. The Steam Controller and Steam Link will also hit on Nov. 10.

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Dallas Mavericks point guard Rajon Rondo will not play Monday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves due to a facial injury, league sources told ESPN.

Developer Refract Studios is bringing Distance, its successfully-Kickstarted arcade racer, to the PS4 in 2015, according to a post on the PlayStation Blog. The game, which straps players into a car that can defy physics in order to barrel roll along ...

Newegg offers the ASUS 23" 1080p LED-Backlit LCD Monitor, model no. VS238H-P, for $119.99 with free shipping via the steps below. That's tied with our May mention and the lowest total price we could find by $38. Features include a 1920x1080 (1080p) native resolution, LED backlight, and HDMI, DVI, and VGA inputs. Deal ends July 31. To get this price:

1. Add the ASUS 23" 1080p LED-Backlit LCD Monitor to your cart for $159.99
2. apply coupon code "EMCPCHE59" to cut the price to $139.99
3. redeem this $20 mail-in rebate to further chop it to $119.99

Patuoxun via Amazon offers the Mpow 12,000mAh External USB Battery Pack in Silver or Black for $38.99. Coupon code "PB31MPOW" drops it to $29.99. With free shipping, that's $36 off list, tied with our February mention, and the lowest total price we could find. It features dual USB ports and a 10.2-oz. weight, which is less than most similar devices.

Crock-Pot offers the Crock-Pot Countdown Designer Series Digital Slow Cooker in Brushed Stainless Steel, model no. SCCPBC600-S, for $79.99. During checkout, it falls to $39.99. With free shipping, that's tied with our mention from two weeks ago and the lowest total price we could find by $20. It features high, low, and warm settings, 6-quart capacity, programmable controls, and removable stoneware.

Anna's Chocolates offers a 2-piece chocolate sample for free with free shipping in exchange for filling out a short form. The sample includes two assorted chocolates or truffles. Deal ends March 31 or after 75,000 samples.

Monoprice takes up to 70% off a selection of items during its Year End Clearance. Plus, get an extra 15% off via coupon code "CLEAR15". That's the best clearance sale we've seen from Monoprice since February, when we saw up to 85% off. Shipping starts at around $3. Shop for gaming, security, mobile, and many other accessories. Deal ends today.

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Remember Seth Green's animated Star Wars series Detours? Seth Green does. He gave an update on the show during his Reddit AMA yesterday, where he announced that 39 full episodes of the show are completely finished, along with many more scripts too — but they're all on hold.

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