NFL superstar Tom Brady was drafted by the New England Patriots in 2000, and he went on to play 20 seasons with that one team alone. That’s changing for the upcoming NFL season, as Brady has quit the Patriots and is expected to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a cool $30 million per year.
The deal has yet to officially go through, but the folks at EA Sports have released a mock-up video showing Brady in a Bucs jersey in Madden NFL 20. For Patriots fans, this is a jarring video to watch–and not just because the video pauses for what feels like too long on Brady’s teeth. If the deal goes through, we can expect to see the real Brady in a Bucs jersey before too long, but for now, this will have to do.
In his impressive Hall of Fame career, Brady has won 219 regular season games, in addition to 30 wins in the playoffs. He’s won six Super Bowl rings, and he’s been named NFL MVP three times.
In other news about NFL video games, EA Sports is getting a competitor for the first time in a while. Rival 2K Sports recently announced it reached a deal with the professional sports league to make non-simulation NFL games. EA Sports will continue to make its simulation-based NFL games, and 2K Sports will step in with other, unspecified titles, beginning in the calendar year 2021.
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Untitled Goose Game has won another Game of the Year award. The whimsical game in which you play a grumpy, mischievous goose has won the overall Game of the Year award at Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony, following its GOTY win at the D.I.C.E Awards in February.
Untitled Goose Game was developed by Australian studio House House. After launching on PC and Switch in September, the game came to Xbox One and PS4 in December. A line of Untitled Goose Game clothing was also released in the wake of the game’s viral success.
House House said on Twitter in response to the win, “This is such an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime honour.”
Remedy’s Control also won big at the Game Developers Choice Awards, taking home awards for Best Technology, Best Audio, and Best Visual Art. Another big winner was Disco Elysium, which won Best Narrative and Best Debut for developer ZA/UM. The Best Mobile Game award went to the wonderfully wacky golf game, What the Golf?
In addition to honoring some of 2019’s best games, the Game Developers Choice Awards gave out the Ambassador Award to Kate Edwards. The award is given to someone who helps video games “advance to a better place through advocacy and action.” Edwards was the head of the International Game Developers Association, before moving on from that post to become the Global Game Jam executive director.
Another award, the Pioneer Award, was given to Roberta Williams. Williams is known for her breakthrough work in the graphic adventure genre, and specifically for creating King’s Quest and Mystery House. She co-founded the company Sierra On-Line.
The Game Developers Choice Awards were slated to take place at the end of the Game Developers Conference, but the awards ceremony shifted to an online show after the main event was postponed.
“We are so happy to continue to honor the creative work of the finest game designers in the world by hosting the Game Developers Choice Awards online this year,” GDC manager Katie Stern said in a statement. “Games can help us connect, they can inspire us to create, and sometimes they help us to escape. There is perhaps no better time for us to appreciate what games mean to us than in trying times like these.”
Game Developers Choice Awards Winners:
Game of the Year
Untitled Goose Game (House House/Panic)
Best Audio
Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
Best Debut
ZA/UM (Disco Elysium)
Best Design
Baba is You (Hempuli)
Best Mobile Game
What the Golf? (Triband/The Label Limited)
Innovation Award
Baba is You (Hempuli)
Best Narrative
Disco Elysium (ZA/UM)
Best Technology
Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
Best Visual Art
Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
Best VR/AR Game
Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series (ILMxLAB & Oculus Studios/Disney)
Audience Award
Sky: Children of the Light (thatgamecompany)
Pioneer Award
Roberta Williams
Ambassador Award
Kate Edwards
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The coronavirus is now affecting the anime industry, with Funimation being the latest company to close their offices and have employees working from home.
Over on the Funimation blog there is a much longer explanation on why this decision was made. The safety and health of the employees has been deemed more important than getting out the dubs on time, but Funimation will still strive to deliver as best they can during this epidemic while keeping their employees safe.
“The safety of our Funimation family is our highest priority right now, so we’re adjusting our dub-production schedule to allow everyone to work from home,” the post reads. “This means there will be delays in some of our dubbed series in the coming weeks, but subs are still on schedule!”The post explains how this will impact the Funimation SimulDub production and release schedule, while has allowed the studio to release dubs at the same time as the subbed release. “(We) have temporarily paused SimulDub production for the remainder of the current and upcoming seasons. We’ll let you know if and when that changes.”
This means that the following simultaneous dubbed releases will be delayed:
March 18, 2020
March 19, 2020
Hatena Illusion, starting with Episode 8
Infinite Dendrogram, starting with Episode 8
Nekopara, starting with Episode 9
Smile Down the Runway, starting with Episode 9
Toilet-bound Hanako-kun, starting with Episode 9
March 20, 2020
Asteroid in Love, starting with Episode 5
Case File nº221: Kabukicho, starting with Episode 21
Darwin’s Game, starting with Episode 9
March 21, 2020
March 22, 2020
Black Clover, starting with Episode 124
ID: INVADED, starting with Episode 13
March 24, 2020
April 3, 2020
While the dubs will be delayed, subs will still be released on time and on schedule, so you can still get your weekly hit of anime. For anime recommendations, check out our favorite anime releases of 2019.
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Valve president Gabe Newell recently opened up about returning to the Half-Life universe after so many years and how technology will continue to shape the future of the company.
In an interview with IGN, Newell makes a comparison to The Matrix, the 1999 sci-fi thriller, and just how close we are to some of the technology in terms of computing. He is of course referring to the technical side of how the Matrix works as a form of VR, not the robots enslaving humanity as a giant super computer.
“We’re way closer to the Matrix than people realize,” Newell says. “It’s not gonna be The Matrix. The Matrix is a movie and it misses all the interesting, technical subtleties and just how weird the post-brain computer interface world is gonna be. It’s gonna have a huge impact on the kinds of experiences that we can create for people.”
Newell believes a brain-AI interface will be revolutionary for the gaming industry. While he is excited to see how fans react to Half-Life: Alyx, he is actually more excited to reach the next level of technology and see just what can be done. Going forward, VR is going to be on a completely different level with a brain-AI interface, Newell believes reading your brain’s motor and visual cortexes will be realistically possible, something on the tier of the Nerve Gear from Sword Online, may actually be possible.
Valve will be delving into this, with Newell keen to learn just what the limitations of the next level of technology will be. He compared the next stage of technology to an “extinction level event” for every form of current entertainment. Companies that are not thinking about the next steps of evolution are going to be left behind in a big way, Newell thinks.
“It’s an extinction level event for every entertainment form that’s not thinking about this. […] If you’re in the entertainment business and you’re not thinking about this, you’re going to be thinkingabout it a lot more in the future,” he said.
According to Newell, making Half-Life: Alyx is an example of Valve thinking about the future, taking the next step in an old franchise into VR is a large jump for the series, but it makes sense when you see just what Valve is doing. Depending on how Alyx goes will affect the next few years of development at Valve, according to Newell
In an unprecedented move, GameStop just revealed via Twitter that it will be releasing DOOM Eternal beginning March 19th, a day early “as a safety precaution for our customers and associates” in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The reason for the early release is to separate it from Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which is also set to launch Friday with both titles expected to sell many, many copies. While the early launch is exciting for DOOM fans, Animal Crossing fans are upset that they couldn’t begin their island getaway a day early.
To ensure we adhere to CDC-recommended social distancing guidelines, we will be selling DOOM Eternal a day early on Thursday, 3/19 as a safety precaution for our customers and associates. Animal Crossing will release on Friday 3/20 to further help separate the crowds.
Matthew Adler is a News and Features writer for IGN who really wishes it were Animal Crossing that came early, but is happy to jump into DOOM Eternal instead. You can chat with him on Twitter or watch him on Twitch.
Conan O’Brien has a plan to resume his late-night show as early as possible. While late-night shows like Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers are currently off the air in the wake of the global COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, which is making it unwise to bring together crews and guests, O’Brien wants to start up his show again by filming on an iPhone and using video chat.
Variety is reporting that the show Conan will return to the air from March 30, with the show being filmed and produced remotely. The show will be shot on an iPhone, with no audience, and guests will be interviewed by video chat. This will allow the show’s employees to keep working during a period of social isolation.
According to the show’s producer Jeff Ross, this decision is borne from both O’Brien’s desire to work and the need to keep paying staff. “We have a staff that wants to work, that doesn’t want to not get paid, and you just want to keep the business going,” he says.
O’Brien gave Variety a statement on the show’s return: “The quality of my work will not go down because technically that’s not possible.”
Doom Eternal is scheduled to officially launch on Friday, March 20, but retailer GameStop will start selling it early. The company has confirmed it will begin selling the new id Software shooter on March 19 in an effort to keep customers and employees safe amid “social distancing” protocols.
This is all happening because Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons are both officially releasing on March 20. These are two of the biggest games of Spring, and GameStop is expecting a lot of foot traffic of shoppers coming in to grab one or both of the games. The CDC is recommending against gatherings of 50 or more people, and this would seemingly impact GameStop on big launch days like March 20.
To help separate the crowds, GameStop has chosen to sell Doom Eternal a day early. New Horizons will go on sale as scheduled on March 20. This kind of move is seemingly unprecedented.
To ensure we adhere to CDC-recommended social distancing guidelines, we will be selling DOOM Eternal a day early on Thursday, 3/19 as a safety precaution for our customers and associates. Animal Crossing will release on Friday 3/20 to further help separate the crowds.
Steam has added a new tool today for recommending games to users. Steam Interactive Recommender uses machine learning to predict which games you’ll enjoy based on what other people with similar taste have played.
The Interactive Recommender started as a tool within Steam Labs back in July 2019, but has now become a proper feature of the store.
The announcement digs into how all of this works. You can interact with the recommender by specifying that you want popular or niche games, or whether you want older or newer titles, and it’ll give you a list of titles based on other Steam users’ playtime histories.
Tags and reviews are not taken into account, and it’s based purely on what people are actually playing. “The basic idea is that if there are other players with similar play habits to you, who also play a game that you haven’t tried yet, then that game is likely to be one you’ll enjoy too,” the announcement reads.
Judging on my own taste, it seems very accurate–it recommended me several games that I have played and enjoyed on consoles.
The Interactive Recommender isn’t replacing any of Steam’s other recommendation methods, but will exist alongside them.
While Black Desert on PS4 and Xbox One is still far behind the PC’s Black Desert Online in terms of content updates, big steps are being taken to catch these versions up. The latest of these updates brings the Maehwa class, which is focused on a combination of melee and ranged combat, to Xbox One and PS4 for the first time.
The Maehwa was an orphaned child, raised by a high-ranking military official. Under his eye she trained her whole life to become a deadly fighter, eventually mastering the legendary blue flames of the Crescent Petal. Wielding the Kerispear, a long polearm, she fights with a mix of close range melee and ranged combat, using her blue flames for ranged attacks.
The Maehwa will be launched with both her original and Awakening skills:
The Divider Skill – A charge attack where the Maehwa rushes forward and cuts down her enemies.
Chaos: Red Moon – Embodies the Maehwa with the power of the Red Moon, allowing her to evade enemy detection and attack an enemy flank.
Petal Bloom – The Maehwa can channel an icy aura into her Kerispear, launching the aura into an enemy with a strong thrust.
Frost Pillars – Maehwa causes her enemies to become slowed with an ice attack.
The Maehwa is currently available on Xbox One and PS4 as a free update. Players can play as the Maehwa on the all new cross-play servers as well, which means that friends with different consoles can start a new campaign together.
Stanley starts his evil plan to make money off the Freak Show but thankfully he doesn’t quite get away with it. Meanwhile, Maggie is having seconds thoughts and even tries to warn Jimmy.
As for Jimmy, he’s still recovering from Meep’s death and surviving his encounter with Twisty and Dandy in the woods. He’s hailed as a hero in the town but he doesn’t quite see it that way. He would eventually hook up with Desiree but he was a bit too hands on.
Desiree finds out that she had a miscarriage and she eventually gets the courage to stand up to Dell. The strong man has been spending much of his time at a local gay bar and hasn’t come to grips with what he truly wants in life.
Now that Twisty is gone, Dandy goes full Patrick Bateman and his mother Gloria is left to cover up his horrendous murder. Unfortunately for the Motts, Dora’s daughter Regina is looking for her mother and she won’t be letting up anytime soon.
Finally, Elsa Mars performs another David Bowie song but gets booed off the stage. By the episodes end, she takes Richard (actually Stanley) up on his fake proposal to become a TV star. What he really wants, much like the Freak Show audience, is the Tattler twins.