Dragon Quest 11: Expert/Beginner Double Preview
I think I’m a fairly typical westerner, in that I don’t know a great deal about the Dragon Quest series. I know the basic idea - a venerable JRPG franchise that's not so much traditional as it is the tradition - but I can't say I've ever played one before. Thankfully, IGN Japan's Esra Krabbe is a long-time fan, and even reviewed the Japanese version of the latest game (rating it very highly) when it came out last year.
Earlier this year, both Esra and I got a hands-off look at the upcoming localised version of Dragon Quest 11, and thought it would be useful to preview various facets of the game from two distinct angles. Esra will bring the expert opinions, while I’ll be looking at it from the perspective of someone who’s never touched a Dragon Quest game before. If you're from either camp, here's what we think right now.
Sea of Thieves: Xbox Game Pass Access Issues Fixed
Overwatch League Player to Throw Opening Pitch at New York Mets Game
Jong-yeol 'Saebyeolbe' Park, a member of the Overwatch League team New York Excelsior, will be throwing the opening pitch at a Major League Baseball game. It's a first for an eSports player.
It was announced this week that the team would be visiting New York's Citi Field for a meet-and-greet and autograph signing at the game on April 2, teasing a "very special surprise" that fans should "stick around to witness."
The game will see the New York Mets face off against Philadelphia Phillies, and is a great opportunity for a cross-promotion for the Wilpon family, which owns both the New York Mets and the New York Excelsior team.
PSVR Gets a Permanent Price Drop This Week
Sony has announced that the PlayStation VR bundle will get a permanent price drop to $299 USD / £259.99 (no Australian prices available at time of writing) from tomorrow, March 29.
It's a hefty cut, dropping from $399 USD and £349.99.
In the US, the bundle in question includes the headset, a PlayStation Camera and a digital copy of Doom VFR. In Europe, you get PlayStation VR Worlds instead of Doom.
Sony's expecting a big year for PSVR, estimating that 130 more games will arrive for the platform by the end of 2018.
As of last December, Sony's sold 2 million PS VR units - this might go some way toward shifting a few more.
Outlast 2 Patch Adds Features That Were Cut to Avoid Adult Only Rating
Outlast 2 is getting a new "Story Mode" that will make the game much easier, as well as adding in features that were cut from the original release that would have taken the game's M rating up to Adult Only.
Red Barrels announced the update on Steam, saying "we’ve taken the opportunity to reinsert some of the things we had to remove from the original game in order to get an M rating. These changes are not drastic in our opinion and do not impact gameplay, but they had to be made to avoid an Adult Only rating."
Outlast 2 was initially refused classification in Australia due to sexual violence, specifically "a ritualistic orgy.” After some changes by the developer, it eventually got past the board for release.
Xbox One PUBG under £17, Xbox Live 12 Month Gold Membership under £35
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PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds under £17
Grab your copy of one of the best games of 2017 at SCDKey for just £16.36. You will have to apply the promotional code "XBOX3%" in order to get your 3% discount and bring the price down to under £17.
Orcs Must Die! Developer Lays Off Staff
Robot Entertainment has let go 30 members of staff in a strategic decision that sees the studio shift its focus from two projects to just one.
"Over the past 18 months, our studio has had two teams working on different projects," said the studio's CEO Patrick Hudson. "Today, the company is making a strategic shift to focus on a single internal game project.
"Unfortunately, that means we need to resize our team to fit only one project. We've made the very difficult decision to let go of over 30 of our very talented and dedicated developers."
According to the company's LinkedIn profile, the studio has 65 members of staff, meaning the layoffs will see almost half its employees cut.
WTF Is Darkseid Doing On the Justice League?
Three new Justice League titles will be spinning out of the end of Dark Nights: Metal and the subsequent Justice League: No Justice mini-series, which is cool but not entirely unexpected news, save for one detail: Darkseid, the most dangerous villain in the DC Universe, will be joining one of the teams. It turned heads when Lex Luthor joined the Justice League in 2016, but he at least had Earth's best interest in mind, in his own twisted way. Darkseid is in a whole other league of evil.
The three new teams will be your classic Justice League squad, the Justice League Dark to combat supernatural threats, and then the one that recruits Darkseid, Justice League Odyssey, which writer Joshua Williamson has nicknamed “Justice League Space.”
John Cena on Board to Star in Duke Nukem Movie
John Cena is on board to star in the upcoming Duke Nukem movie.
Producer Andrew Form confirmed in an interview with CinemaBlend that, as of right now, the WWE superstar is set to star in the video game-inspired movie.
"He is. Yes. We don't have a script yet, so that is confirmed at this point but if he reads the script and he doesn't like the script I'm sure there's ways that he could pull out, but right now he's our guy," Form said.
Cena in Daddy's Home 2
Overwatch World Cup 2018 Announced
Blizzard has announced the start of this year's Overwatch World Cup.
According to the official Overwatch League website, the average skill rating (SR) of the top 150 players from each country will be tracked starting today and continuing until the end of Competitive Season 9 on April 28.
The top 20 countries will be invited to participate in the competition alongside France, South Korea, Thailand, and the United States, which have been chosen as host countries and received automatic qualification.
The qualifying countries will form their own National Competition Committees made up of a General Manager selected by Blizzard and a Coach and Community Lead who will both be selected by votes.