How Hearthstone is Raising the Bar for its Esports Initiatives
The Hearthstone World Championship Finals are happening right now in Amsterdam (you can watch them here), with 16 of the best players competing for the chance to become World Champion. It’s the first time the finals have taken place away from BlizzCon, with a massive event all their own, and it’s a reflection of just how focused Blizzard is on making Hearthstone a huge deal in the world of esports. To that end, these finals are the culmination of a year that saw the esports side of Hearthstone take a huge leap forward, with tournaments on the road to Amsterdam taking place all over the world, from the Bahamas to Shanghai. 2017 also introduced new Blizzard run series’ like the Hearthstone Global Games (HGG): a nation-based team competition unlike anything the game had seen before.
Doctor Strange Gets a Pair of Serious Upgrades
In Doctor Strange #384 by writer Donny Cates and artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Doctor Strange got a pair of considerable power boosts.
Warning: full spoilers ahead!
Art by Michael Del Mundo. (Marvel Comics)
Previously, Doctor Strange lost the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme to Loki. In an effort to get it back, he went on a quest to Asgard where the World Tree gave him what he would need to beat Loki: a branch of Yggdrasil charged with magic. Upon using it, he got a massive power boost and an Asgardian makeover.
Pixar Brings in New Writer for Toy Story 4
Toy Story 4 has found its writer in Stephany Folsom.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Folsom has been hired to pen the film's script, after Rashida Jones and her writing partner Will McCormack departed the project over "philosophical differences" with Pixar last year.
Toy Story 4 will serve as Folsom's first major writing credit. Despite having worked on Thor: Ragnarok, she was denied "Story by" credit by the Writers Guild of America. In 2013, Folsom appeared on the Black List for an original screenplay she wrote called 1969 A Space Odyssey: Or How Kubrick Learned to Stop Worrying and Land on the Moon.
We Made Our Own (Sort Of) Functional Nintendo Labo RC Car
Nintendo's Labo announcement yesterday came as a surprise to everyone, but the fact that its kits were made of cardboard was one of the funnier and unexpected parts for me.
So, armed with nothing but a box, some tape, and an expensive gaming console, I set out to make my own cardboard Labo RC Car. I didn't just want to make one, I wanted to make one that works. You can see my semi-successful creation in action in the video above.
I went through the announcement trailer (which you can watch below) and pulled out any images of the official RC car, and then tried to replicate it from those. To get it to vibrate I used the "Find Controller" option in the Switch menu, which lets you vibrate specific Joy-Con if you've lost them or can't tell which is which.
Rom: Spaceknight and M.A.S.K. Movies ‘Not Likely’
Fans were excited a couple of years back when word broke about a writers room being assembled for Hasbro's planned shared cinematic universe which would include properties like G.I. Joe, Micronauts, M.A.S.K., and Rom: Spaceknight. The group included Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon, Eisner Award winner Brian K. Vaughan, Oscar-winner Akiva Goldsman, and several other in-demand Hollywood screenwriters. That included John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who in a recent chat with IGN talked about what that writers room experience was like -- and how they don't think the movie versions of M.A.S.K. and Rom are going to happen.
CoD: WWII Was the Best-Selling Game for December 2017
The NPD Group released its report for December 2017, with overall spending on gaming up 10% over the same period last year.
The top-selling game for the month, by revenue, was Call of Duty: WWII. Call of Duty also took the title of the best-selling game of 2017. According to NPD, this is the eighth consecutive December in which a Call of Duty game came in at the top of sales. Call of Duty and Destiny were the top 2 selling games for last year.
Nintendo was the overall leader in consumer spending for the month, with Activision Blizzard topping the same category for the year.
Marvel Reveals the Founding Avenger Everyone Forgot
In Avengers #676, the second chapter of the “No Surrender” storyline where the Earth has been mysteriously “stolen,” sending the world into chaos and calling all active and reserve Avengers to action, we learned a great deal about the mysterious character named Voyager.
Warning: full spoilers ahead!
Art by Mark Brooks. (Marvel Comics)
Nintendo Keeps Thinking Outside the Box
Welcome back to Game Scoop!, IGN's weekly video game talk show. This week we're discussing Nintendo Labo, Final Fantasy 15: Royal Edition, a new Alien game, and more. Watch the video above or download the podcast below.
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Epic Slows Paragon Development to Increase Fortnite Focus
In the wake of Fortnite's incredible success, Epic Games has moved some members from the Paragon team over to work on its popular sandbox survival game.
In a post on Reddit, Epic addressed the future of Paragon, explaining that while support for the title will continue, the studio is scaling back its focus on the free-to-play MOBA in favor of increasing its focus on Fortnite.
"Progress has been slower lately for two reasons: First, the team's time is split between immediate improvements and longer-term efforts, so there's less visible progress," the studio explained. "Second, a number of Paragon team members jumped onto Fortnite to help sustain the game as it has grown far larger than anything in Epic's past."
Hemsworth Talks Trading Thor for a Real-Life Hero in 12 Strong
Chris Hemsworth might be best known for playing Marvel's Mighty Thor (and being a stealthy comedic scene-stealer), but in 12 Strong, he's embodying a real-life hero -- the leader of an elite US Special Forces team sent into Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 to join up with one of the local warlords, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, in the fight against the Taliban.
And if that tricky political terrain wasn't dangerous enough, the mountainous landscape also meant that the soldiers couldn't use traditional transportation, instead charging into battle on horses, even though most of them had no riding experience.