Month: March 2019

Star Citizen‘s been trudging along since it debuted on Kickstarter in 2012. Initially seeking $500,000, Cloud Imperium Games’ space-sim closed its Kickstarter campaign after accruing a little more than $2.1 million in November 2012. Some years later, the studio’s first game has exceeded well over $200 million–and the numbers keep going up. Now it’s announced the game’s biggest update should blast off this weekend.

Titled Alpha 3.5, the update includes a new city-planet, overhauled flight models, and additional character creator options. The new planet is called ArcCorp, a planet with two moons that’s “almost entirely covered in man-made structures.” Players will be able to visit the Area18 landing zone where you’ll find an NPC quest-giver who will dish out new missions.

Alpha 3.5 takes gravity into consideration, as it’s factored into planetary flight. Further, the update adds a new map called Star Marine for the squad FPS mini-game, new guns for pilots and ships, some new vehicles, and additional performance balancing and improvements.

In addition to overhauled flight mechanics and a new planet to explore, Cloud Imperium implemented a new character generator. Now, players will pick two parents when creating a new character–think the character creators from Rockstar’s GTA Online. Women will also (finally!) be playable, getting added to the character creator along with a variety of parents to pick from. Returning pilots can pick a new look and/or gender thanks to this update.

Star Citizen is available now on PC to those who backed the project. Alpha 3.5, similarly, will be available to all backers.

On the morning of March 29, 2019, a Red Dead Redemption 2 AMV was shown on the news program Good Morning America. You might not have heard of it if you don’t browse TikTok, the short-form video platform colloquially known as “cursed Vine,” but that music video has, as of this writing, nearly 16 million views on YouTube and counting. It got over 80,000 views in the time it took to write this article.

The song, “Old Town Road” by rapper Lil Nas X, is at the center of both an explosively popular cowboy meme and country music drama, and it also slaps. It shot up the Billboard Hot 100 list and on Spotify and iTunes, reaching #1 on global Apple Music by March 26. It was so popular that DJs had to rip it from YouTube in order to play it on the radio. All the while, RDR2 was wrapped up in the hype–Lil Nas X tweeted on March 13 that Rockstar Games had followed him, and when he was signed by Columbia Records, he was welcomed using the Red Dead font.

“Old Town Road” debuted at #19 on the Billboard country charts, but by March 27, Billboard had confirmed that it removed “Old Town Road” from the charts because “it does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music.” This resulted in a bit of an uproar about what genre “Old Town Road” belongs in, be it country, hip-hop, or something else–though Lil Nas X listed it as a country song, and while noting that it’s not as serious, has said that it’s not simply a parody. That’s when the song really hit the mainstream, gaining attention beyond music publications and the meme-literate.

So how did this all happen? Lil Nas X, who was largely unknown before dropping the banger, uploaded “Old Town Road” in December 2018. It took off around February this year thanks in part to TikTok, where people use the opening moments of the song–right when the trap beat hits and the country drawl begins–to transform themselves or their pets into cowboys, among other things. It often involves accidentally drinking “yeehaw” or “yeeyee juice.” (It’s what it sounds like.)

The power of teens making jokes really can’t be overstated. Compared to Vine, TikTok is currently a much more insular meme community, iterating on itself until the trends die out–often before they make it to Twitter or elsewhere. But TikTok has been responsible for songs going viral before, including the origin of the “hit or miss” meme, iLOVEFRiDAY’s “Mia Khalifa.” TikTok is also to thank for Solid Snake voice actor David Hayter saying the phrase “dummy thicc.”

Lil Nas X himself has a strong shitpost vibe on Twitter, where he recently became verified. But jokes aside, “Old Town Road” is simply a banger, and the music video is what’s good about AMVs. No yeehaw juice needed.

If you want more Red Dead 2 goofs, go ahead and check out our let’s play series Dirty Arty, where we do dirty dirty stuff as Arthur Morgan and friends. There are even multiple timelines, somehow.

Indie studio Heart Machine, founded in 2013, received a great deal of acclaim after Hyper Light Drifter releases in 2016. The 2D action-RPG found its way to the Nintendo Switch two years later with a host of new content, and now studio founder Alx Preston has revealed a TV adaptation.

According to a report by Polygon, Hyper Light Drifter will receive a TV series from Castlevania producer, Adi Shankar. Preston told Polygon that he and Shankar are actively developing the TV adaptation. No writer has been confirmed, but Preston and Shankar are actively seeking writers to lead the project. There’s also the matter of translating a semi-open world game to a TV show where there’s no interactivity with the viewer.

“The difference between a series and a game is vast in a lot of ways. Hyper Light [Drifter] as a game was pretty atmospheric and kind of overbearing at times,” Preston said. “For a series, the question is: how do you sustain and keep your attention on a non-interactive run? Does it get really, really dark and serious? Does it have some levity?”

Hyper Light Drifter the game lacks verbal, distinguishable dialogue, relying solely on world-building and environmental storytelling to tell its narrative. Preston wonders how he and Shankar will translate this to Hyper Light Drifter the TV show. “There’s still a question of how much dialogue we really have, if any. Could it be a more silent series or would we have voice acting?” he said.

Shankar expressed his love for video games as a medium and stated that he enjoys translating works by passionate creators like Preston. “It’s important for me not to just all of a sudden become the AAA junkie,” Shankar said. “To just go like, ‘OK, what are the biggest franchise, I’m going to jump on all of them.’ That’s not why I’m trying to do[with] this.”

Earlier in March 2019, Heart Machine unveiled its next project, Solar Ash Kingdom. The game features a familiar, vibrant aesthetic, but in a 3D setting. The announcement trailer didn’t divulge much information in the way of a release date or platforms, but it did conclude with the Epic Games Store tag, seemingly confirming the title will make its way to the Epic Games storefront when it launches.

Hyper Light Drifter is available now for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox One, Linux, and macOS.

The announcement of Mortal Kombat 11 wasn’t much of a surprise, but the word that it would be appearing on Nintendo Switch alongside PC, PS4, and Xbox One certainly was. In part because the ultra-violent series has had a checkered history contrasted with Nintendo’s family-friendly image, and in part because the series has recently turned into a fidelity-pushing powerhouse, the Switch wasn’t an expected home for NetherRealm’s latest gore-fest. Following hands-on time at PAX East, it feels perfectly at home on Nintendo’s hybrid platform, even if the visuals are predictably downgraded.

The port isn’t being handled in-house, instead having been handed off to Miami-based Shiver Entertainment with NetherRealm overseeing production. The mission given to the studio was apparently to make sure it runs smoothly at 60 FPS. While we didn’t verify the exact frame rate, the message came through clearly: the priority was the fighting mechanics themselves.

Shiver succeeded, with some visual compromises. One close-up of Sub-Zero’s biceps looked more like painted on musculature than the curves and shadows you’d expect on other platforms. The x-ray effect of the Fatal Blows are less detailed, looking more like a bloody mess than the stomach-churning viscera of the other versions. And naturally, the backgrounds are lacking some of the cool lighting effects that give the game such a moody atmosphere. The result is something not quite as downgraded as the mobile ports of Mortal Kombat X, but the drop in visual quality is still noticeable.

That said, the gameplay itself has made the transition beautifully. Mortal Kombat’s revival is almost rhythmic in its style, with hard-hitting blows pummeling opponents into the ground with a kind of gory grace. Those elements rely on smooth animations and clockwork-tight controls.

If seeing every crunching bone and snapped tendon with perfect clarity is what matters to you, of course, the Nintendo Switch will not be your platform of choice. But NetherRealm and Shiver appear to have succeeded at their apparent mission, to make a Nintendo Switch version that is on-par with the others in the fighting fundamentals. That’s good news for those who want to take their Kombat on the go, and don’t mind a few compromises.

Mortal Kombat 11 launches April 23 for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Check out our pre-order guide for more details.

Xur is back with some old exotics and random rolls. Stop by in Destiny 2: Forsaken and meet up with him to get both a new Invitations of the Nine as well as to check out his wares. Captured on PC.

With Endgame approaching, here’s a look at who the most powerful Avengers really are.