Month: April 2018

The word “infinity” carries a lot of weight in the Marvel Universe. When that word pops up in a new crossover, fans can expect plenty of cosmic spectacle and drama as heroes join forces to battle for the fate of the entire universe. That’s true for the MCU, as well. Avengers: Infinity War pays off on ten years’ worth of movies, as Thanos comes to Earth seeking to complete the Infinity Gauntlet and gain total dominion over the universe.

Now’s a great time to brush up on all things Infinity at Marvel. From the original Infinity Gauntlet to the current Infinity Countdown, check out this slideshow breaking down each one of these cosmic epics.

For more on what’s to come for Marvel’s ongoing Infinity saga, here’s what we know about Infinity Wars, Marvel’s big crossover event for summer 2018.

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The biggest problem with the HTC Vive Pro is that there just isn’t that much to say about it beyond the fact that it has the highest resolution available for VR right now. Don’t get me wrong: boosted resolution is definitely nice. But for the sky-high price, the vast majority of people are going to be better off waiting for the real second-generation VR headsets.

Outwardly, the Vive Pro is significantly nicer than the original Vive (read the review) thanks to its extremely comfortable headstrap and removable high-quality headphones. It’s similar to the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap, which is a $100 upgrade to the original Vive, and it does an excellent job of distributing the weight of the headset. The cable and breakout box have also been refined, simplifying the bundle of three cables into one combined plug, and there’s now a power button on the breakout box, making it easier to turn the entire headset on and off.

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As part of its big effort to continue to improve Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Microsoft is inviting community members to test new updates in a “flighting” program. Invitations are now going out for the Halo Community Feedback Program, and specifically the MCC Insider Program.

Plenty of people signed up for the program, apparently, as developer 343 said in a blog post that it has been “thrilled to see so much interest and excitement” for the program. The first wave of invitations were sent out last week. If you signed up already and don’t see your invite, be sure to check your junk and spam folders. If you haven’t signed up, it’s not too late–you can do so here.

This process begins with a survey that should take around 5 minutes to complete. Note that this survey, and the testing program, is subject to Microsoft’s confidentiality agreement, so you can’t talk about it. If you’re invited to join, you will also need to be a member of the Xbox Insider Program to test updates on Xbox One–you can find out how to sign up here. Eventually, 343 will push out updates to Halo: MCC to Insider Program members.

Some other things to bear in mind is that even if you do get into the MCC Insider Program, you might not get access to every update. 343 cautions that “the participation audience will be intentionally small” at the start before expanding to more players later down the track. You should also expect some “hiccups and bumps,” but that is to be expected given that it’s the whole purpose of this.

“We look forward to your participation and feedback but we also ask for your understanding and appropriate expectations as we share work-in-progress builds directly with you,” 343 said.

Back in October, Microsoft spoke frankly about why Halo: MCC struggled and laid out a bold and ambitious plan to address its lingering bugs and improve it on the whole. Because this effort came across as sounding like a serious and time-consuming effort, some believed it would impact the development of the next mainline Halo game. However, 343 later explained that its efforts to improve Halo: MCC won’t impact the development of the next Halo FPS.

While the next Halo FPS has not been officially announced, we definitely know it is coming. And thankfully, it’s going to have split-screen support. As for when Microsoft may finally announce it, that could happen at E3 in June, but we don’t know anything for sure yet.

In addition to the big new Spring sale happening on Xbox Live, Microsoft is offering a pretty sweet deal on Xbox Live Gold. If you’re a new subscriber, you can get 3 months of Gold for only $10.

That’s a pretty nice deal, considering 3 months of Xbox Live Gold normally goes for $25. You need Xbox Live Gold to play Xbox One games online (for the most part) and to take advantage of other subscriber-only benefits such as deeper discounts on deals. You can sign up on Xbox.com right here (via Slickdeals). Again, this deal is only available for new subscribers to Xbox Live Gold.

With Xbox Live Gold, you also get free games every month on Xbox One and Xbox 360. The first of April’s free Xbox One games is The Witness, from Braid creator Jonathan Blow–here’s how to get it now.

As for the Xbox Live Spring sale, a lot of big games are on sale, including Call of Duty: WWII, Star Wars: Battlefront II, Destiny 2, FIFA 18, and Assassin’s Creed: Origins, among others. Check out GameSpot’s roundup of all the big deals here.

Gamepads are fine for some games, but to truly experience a fighting game you need a fight stick. Here are some of the best.

The OCE Scene had some huge events this week, with the OPL Grand Finals, the ESEA MDL S27 Australian Finals and the CS:GO Asia Summit 2018. The Throwdown Rocket League regular season continued also, with the Chiefs continuing to prove too good.

Be sure to head over and check out the rest of the esports hub! I wrote about the curious distinction people still make regarding sports and esports, so  give that a read! Remember you can email tips to me esportsau@ign.com or you can just click to send me an email. If you want, you can tweet suggestions at me as well, my twitter is down the bottom of this article.

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Breakaway, the competitive video game developed by retailer Amazon’s internal game studio, has been canceled. The developer, Amazon Game Studios, announced over the weekend that it has canceled the game “after a lot of soul searching,” and is now instead moving on to pursue “new ideas” instead.

“While we have developed many ideas and made a lot of progress, we are also setting a very high bar for ourselves,” Amazon said. “In spite of our efforts, we didn’t achieve the breakthrough that made the game what we all hoped it could be. After a lot of soul searching, the team decided to focus on new ideas. As a result, Breakaway is no longer in active development.”

The cancellation statement continues: “We remain exceptionally proud of the team’s work, and feel privileged to have been a part of such a dedicated and enthusiastic community.”

Amazon Game Studios left the smallest glimmer of hope for Breakaway, saying it could return to the project “if a thunderbolt of inspiration strikes.” The official word is that “Breakaway is no longer in active development.”

This is no big surprise, as Kotaku reported back in October 2017 that Breakaway, a 4v4 game, was canceled. The shutdown of the project came after Amazon reportedly held multiple public tests. Presumably the feedback was not as enthusiastic as Amazon would have wanted.

So now Breakaway will join the ranks of canceled games that includes titles like Scalebound, Star Wars 1313, Titan, and others.

While Breakaway is canceled, Amazon Game Studios has multiple titles in the works, including an open-ended sandbox game called New World and a third-person sci-fi game called Crucible. Amazon had a big hiring push years ago, bringing on Portal designer Kim Swift and Far Cry 2 director Clint Hocking, though they left the studio without releasing anything. Now, former Sony Online Entertainment boss John Smedley is heading up Amazon Game Studios in San Diego.