Monthly Archives: August 2016
Dota 2’s $20 Million International Starts Today
The biggest event in eSports is here: Dota 2’s The International 2016. From August 2-13, the 18 best Dota 2 teams from around the world will compete for an insane prize pool of nearly $20 million -- culminating in the grand finals at Key Arena in Seattle next week.
Whether you’re brand new to Dota or a player with a few hundred (or thousand) games on your record, there’s a lot to keep in mind. From what’s at stake to who’s playing to the biggest stories to keep track of, here’s what you need to know about TI6.
This Is the Largest Prize Pool in eSports History
The total TI6 prize pool is, at the time of writing, a whopping $19.2 million. For context, TI5’s prize pool was $18.4 million, and TI4’s was $10.9 million.
Wrestling Wrap Up: Smackdown Needs Tag and Women’s Titles
While we're all still getting used to this brand split, what with Randy Orton and Brock Lesnar "invading" each other's shows for sneak attack with little-to-no consequence, a big move may be on the horizon.
Two separate world titles were pretty much a given, but now it seems - based on rumors - that Smackdown will be getting its own set of tag belts and a separate women's title of some sort.
As you know, this wouldn't be the first time that the WWE had two tag championships. In fact, New Day's current reign record is based on the belts that started in 2002, but a whole new Women's title would be a big deal, especially since WWE just changed its rhetoric and created the Women's title this past April. There are risks and rewards that come with these changes, which reportedly wouldn't happen until after SummerSlam, during the build to the Smackdown-only PPV Backlash.
How NBC’s The Good Place is Like Lost
In NBC's new comedy, The Good Place -- created by Michael Schur (The Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), with Drew Goddard (Marvel's Daredevil, Lost, Cabin in the Woods, The Martian) directing the pilot and executive producing along with Schur -- Kristen Bell's Eleanor is an ordinary woman who enters a heavenly afterlife after a clerical error mistakes her for one of the world's best and noble people. From there, her slice of paradise starts malfunctioning because of her mere presence, confounding her resident guide and overseer, Michael (Ted Danson).
The cast and creators of this new series sat for a Q&A panel at the Television Critics Association summer press tour where Schur spoke about how different this project was from Parks and Recreation. "The pilot is a pretty good template for what is an average episode for this show," he explained. "It has a contained story, and then at the end something kind of dramatic happens and it sends the show spiraling off into a different place. The model for this show, in some ways, in my own head, is Lost."
Darkest Dungeon PS4, Vita Release Date Revealed
Sony fans have long wondered when they’ll get to play the psychological roguelike Darkest Dungeon. We finally have that release date.
Darkest Dungeon will arrive on PlayStation 4 and Vita on September 27th.
Darkest Dungeon is that dungeon-crawling RPG where your heroes' mental faculties are affected the deeper they delve. It officially launched on PC early this year.
The PlayStation version will be packing a bunch of added content. There are now 15 total heroes to play with and a larger campaign. It’ll set you back $25.
Oh, and it features cross-buy and cross-save support.
Check Out These Gorgeous Walking Dead Covers
The Walking Dead comic is kicking off a major new storyline called "The Whisperer War," and to celebrate Image has commissioned a new series of interlocking variant covers from artist Arthur Adams. These six covers depict a massive showdown between series mainstays like Rick Grimes and Michonne and the bloodthirsty Whisperers.
First, check out the full, unbroken image below:
Pokemon Go Dev ‘Revokes’ Legendary Pokemon Access from Players’ Accounts
Pokemon Go developer Niantic Labs has responded to the alleged appearance of legendary Pokemon, including most prominently Articuno, in Trainers' accounts, revealing that the company has removed these Pokemon from players' accounts.
In a statement provided by a Niantic representative to IGN, the company said that it has "rectified the situation" and "revoked" the legendary Pokemon. The statement reads:
"We recently noticed that a few Legendary Pokemon got into a few accounts when they shouldn’t have, To preserve the game’s integrity and as a measure of fairness, we have rectified the situation and revoked the legendary Pokemon from the Trainers’ accounts."
New Medic Character Among Big Updates Coming to Evolve
Evolve is kicking off a new event today called Shear Madness, and with it comes an update each week for the next five weeks. The Quantum Surge Update, the first of the new changes, launches today.
Among the changes coming to Evolve is a new medic character Quantum Caira who uses "sustained healing and careful positioning" to keep the team in the hunt.
Shear Madness also introduces a new co-op mode, character adaptations, 3 map variants, as well as community-suggested features and improvements.
Additionally, the event brings balance tweaks, advanced Hunter tutorials, and an "all new 'Try Before You Buy' option," where perks normally unlocked with Silver Keys can now be accessed in training mode.
JK Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts Sequel Gets Release Date
The second film in J.K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them trilogy has been given a release date: November 16, 2018.
According to Deadline, the film will see Potter series veteran David Yates returning to direct, with Rowling, David Heyman, Steve Kloves and Lionel Wigram also returning as producers.
The script - which Rowling has reportedly already written - will apparently focus on an "increasingly dark time for the wizarding world, where Newt and other heroes have to decide on their allegiances."
Grow Up Might Look Like More of the Same – It Isn’t
“Wheeee!” “Errrrk!” “Ahhhh!”
These are some of the noises elicited by Grow Home, last year’s Ubisoft Reflections’ side project-turned-acclaimed wobbly heart-melter. One noise you’re unlikely to have made is “I am deeply happy to have efficiently and quickly reached the end of this starry adventure and will now return to the drab vicissitudes of life”.
Grow Home was a game technically about Pixar-y robot, BUD, climbing an alien beanstalk to get back to your spaceship mum - but it was about making death-defying climbs up impossibly steep cliff faces to reach an island that looked like it had a nice mushroom on it. Or rodeo-ing a space-vine to place you above a donut-shaped island and BASE jumping through its island-y guts to find a secret cave. Or kicking a sheep from 10,000 feet above sea level into that self-same sea. The fun was in spending time not getting to the end.