Disney Infinity Appeals Equally to Male and Female Gamers
The Disney Infinity franchise appeals to both boys and girls at an equal rate. According to a report at The Wall Street Journal, the demographic split for players of Disney's toys-to-life franchise is almost 50/50.
Disney's John Vignocchi told the Journal the demographic split between male and female gamers was initially expected to skew around 70% male and 30% female, but the actual numbers showed an even split.
Vignocchi credited the appeal to young females being attributed to "Disney’s IP treasure chest of powerful and strong female characters."
Out This Week: Metal Gear Solid V, Mad Max
With so many new games and movies coming out, it can be hard to keep up. Lucky for you, IGN is here to help with a weekly round-up of the biggest releases each and every week. Check out the latest releases for this week, and be sure to come back next Monday for a new update.
Note: The prices and deals compiled below are accurate at the time we published this story, but all are subject to change.
Daredevil Photo Teases New Romance for Hero
A photo snapped of the Daredevil: Season 2 set teases a new romance for Matt Murdock himself.
Possible spoilers follow!
Comic Book Movie noticed a tweet that captured a picture of Murdock (Charlie Cox) walking hand in hand with Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) on the set. While Page and Foggy Nelson (Elden Hensen) spent more time together in the premiere season, this image might point to a new relationship brewing between Page and Murdock.
Creepshot out of my bedroom window of the Daredevil leads pic.twitter.com/7DchnGMZEm
Nuketown Is Coming Back in Black Ops 3
The fan favorite Call of Duty multiplayer map, Nuketown, is coming back in Black Ops 3.
Called "Nuk3town," the map will be free for those who pre-order the game for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Check out the concept art below.
"The Nuketown maps have a special place in Call of Duty multiplayer history and we can't wait to build upon that heritage in Black Ops 3," said Mark Lamia, Head of Treyarch. "We carefully adapted the design of the map to make sure that it fit with our new movement system, but also to make sure that we retained the spirit and the fun that made fans fall in love with it in the first place.
NASA Seals Six People in a Dome for Mars Research
In an effort to simulate the conditions in which astronauts would have to live during a hypothetical mission to Mars, NASA has organized and started an experiment that locks away six people in a dome for the space of a year.
The experiment will study the participant's reactions to isolation, providing them shelter in a place with limited privacy and no fresh air or fresh food.
The BBC reports all six willing participants - an Astrobiologist, physicist, pilot, architect, journalist, and soil scientist - will live together in this 36x20 space beneath a barren volcano in Hawaii. To maintain the simulation, each of the participants must completely suit up before venturing outside.
Top Comics to Buy This Week
We all want the best of the best, so let us point out the top comics and collectibles released each week. We spotlight our favorite comics that we know are money-well-spent, new books that look cool, and any toys we can't wait to play with.
Check out our picks, then take to the comments to let us know what looks good to you.
Written by Matt Fraction & Michael Chabon & Drawn by Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba | Image
Koko the Gorilla Shows Burgeoning Speech Capabilities
Koko the gorilla, already famous for her ability to communicate with humans via sign language, is now exhibiting behaviors associated with speech.
According to a report by the Daily Mail, Koko is displaying breathing and vocal behaviors scientists previously believed were impossible for gorillas. This means that she is calling into question the long-held notion that humans are the only primates capable of vocalized speech.
Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Marcus Perlman initially intended to study Koko's gestures, but while watching video of her he observed "all these amazing vocal behaviors."
Final Fantasy Versus 13 Was ’20-25%’ Done Before it Became FF 15
Final Fantasy Versus XIII was roughly a quarter complete before it shifted to become Final Fantasy XV.
Speaking to IGN at PAX in Seattle, Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata explained the transition.
“It’s a little bit rough, but in terms of how much it had progressed in terms of development, Versus XIII was around 20 to 25 percent,” Tabata told IGN via translator. “In terms of character designs or visuals, nothing really had been fixed at that point. We were still working on updating it and revising those designs.”
Tabata says that development on Final Fantasy XV started around three years ago, and Versus XIII “was being developed up to the point that XV started development.”
RIGS on Project Morpheus Made Me Feel Terrible
I played one match of RIGS: Mechanized Combat League on PS4, and I never want to do it again. As a competitive game, its sports design is fun, involved, and satisfying. As a VR game on Morpheus, it asked a lot of me, only to repay me in the first-ever nausea I’ve experienced in a virtual reality helmet.
I’ve used a lot of VR in 2015, and terrifying potential price point aside, it’s a promising technology that excites me about new and different kinds of games. I’ve spent about almost 2 hours playing games inside Valve’s excellent HTC Vive headset, enjoyed The Getaway on Morpheus, and dabbled in Microsoft’s HoloLens. Headsets never made me feel sick until I sat in the seat of a mech rig in RIGS.
Hob Is the Next Best Thing to a New Zelda Game
Runic Games’ Torchlight series filled the void left by Diablo’s decade-long absence, and it did it well. The Torchlight games weren’t simple copycats of Blizzard’s dungeon-crawling action RPG either — they brought their own amazing ideas to the concept, improving the genre and challenging Blizzard to do better with Diablo 3. Hob, Runic’s next game, seems to serve a similar purpose.
Like Torchlight, Hob is heavily inspired by the outstanding action games many of us grew up on, blending the best of their brilliant ideas into one beautiful, smart, and innovative action-adventure game. While we wait for The Legend of Zelda, Hob could be the next best thing.
Hob’s influences are clear, and developer Runic Games is completely transparent about drawing inspiration from Zelda, Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus. The team’s love for large-scale, top-down action-adventure games comes to life in Hob, whose gorgeous 3D world isn’t at all what it seems.