Month: August 2019

Borderlands 3 has officially gone gold. Gearbox confirmed the game’s status on Twitter and thanked everyone who contributed to its completion.

For those not up to date on the lingo, a game that’s “gone gold” has been completed and is ready for manufacturing. So Borderlands 3 is in its final stage before release. Any additional changes to the game’s code that are made from now on will come in the form of a day one patch or post-release updates.

Borderlands 3 takes place shortly after the events of both Tales from the Borderlands and Borderlands 2: Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary. The game launches with four new playable Vault Hunters—Zane, Amara, Moze, and FL4K–each of whom has some of the most uniquely designed skill trees seen in any previous Borderlands title.

We’ve already had a chance to play as the first three. Zane can sacrifice his grenades to equip two different active skills at once, Amara’s mastery of the elements allows her to mix and match the skills of every Siren that’s come before her, and Moze is able to change what her active skill does by putting different weapons and armor on her Iron Bear mech.

Launching on September 13 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC, Borderlands 3 has a limited-time exclusivity deal with the Epic Games Store. Once the deal is complete, the game will go to other PC platforms like Steam. Borderlands 3 is also releasing on Google Stadia once the cloud-based game streaming service launches. Though it won’t have cross-platform play at launch, Gearbox is “committed” to making it happen.

Kono Oto Kamare: Sounds of Life, which wrapped up its first season in June 2019 and landed on our best of Spring 2019 guide, will return this October, Funimation confirms. With 20 volumes in the manga series, written by Amyu, there’s plenty of material fans may see in the upcoming second season.

With Sounds of Life receiving a second season, the Shonen anime will get a new opening. Crunchyroll reports that the new opening, titled “Harmony,” is performed by Shouta Ao, Mio Kanzaki’s Japanese voice actor in the anime. There’s also a new ending, and while it doesn’t have a title, Crunchyroll states that it’s performed by Chika Kudo’s voice actor Yuma Uchida.

Sounds of Life is a slice-of-life anime, following the Tokise high school Koto club’s last member–a sophomore named Takezo Kurata–as he seeks to revitalize the club after the rest of its members graduate. Production company Funimation, where Sounds of Life is streaming, says the story is about how difficult it can be to find harmony, especially “when a delinquent and a prodigy player sign up.” Sounds of Life is available on Hulu as well, so it’s likely the anime’s second season will arrive on the streaming platform.

According to Crunchyroll, Kono Oto Kamare: Sounds of Life’s second season will air at the following times:

• Tokyo MX: every Saturday during the 25:00 time slot beginning on October 05, 2019.
• BS11: every Saturday during the 25:00 time slot beginning on October 05, 2019.
• AT-X: every Monday during the 22:00 time slot beginning on October 07, 2019.
• Tochigi TV: every Monday during the 23:00 time slot beginning on October 07, 2019.
• WOWOW: every Wednesday during the 24:00 time slot beginning on October 09, 2019.
• Hokkaido Television Broadcasting: every Monday during the 25:25 time slot beginning on October 14, 2019.

According to the video above, Sounds of Life Simulcasts on Saturdays at 10:30 AM PT / 12:30 PM CST / 1:30 PM ET / 6:30 PM BST and SimulDubs at 1 PM PT / 3 PM CST / 4 PM ET / 9 PM BST on the anime’s official Funimation page.

The new update for Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled that launches on August 2 not only introduces the Back N. Time Grand Prix event. The update serves as the introduction of mictotransactions.

In a blog post, Activision announced that players will be able to purchase “Wumpa Coins” in various bundles. The microtransaction bundles will be available from within console stores, though specifics about the bundles including pricing has not been announced.

Whatever the case, Activision said the new option “won’t change the game’s core mechanics.” You can still earn the Wumpa Coins simply by playing the game, but for those who want to speed up their progress, they’ll be able to buy the Wumpa Coins right away.

Players can buy the items, which include characters and various cosmetic items, from the in-game Pit Stop store. Some of the new skins coming to Nitro Refueled include Mad Scientist Crash, Sabretooth Pura, and Stone Age N. Tropy.

In our Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled review, we said, “When the nostalgia fades, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled remains fun and engaging enough to keep you racing on with a smile on your face for much longer yet. It’s good to have Crash back.”

Oscar-winner Ben Affleck was at one point attached to write, direct, and star in an all-new Batman movie. However, the actor eventually dropped out, and Matt Reeves came in to direct and write a new script. But what was Affleck’s Batman movie going to be about?

Robert Richardson, who was set to be the cinematographer on Affleck’s movie, said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that the Batman flick would have delved into “the insanity aspects.”

“Well, he was going more into the insanity aspects. So I think you would’ve seen something a little darker than what we’ve seen in the past and more into the individual, who’s inside Batman,” Richardson said, via Batman-News. “What element may be sane and what element may actually not be sane. So he was entering into a little more of the Arkham, as you know, he’s going into where you keep everyone who was bad, everyone that shifted and Batman.”

Richardson said it was “very fascinating” to visit the darker side of Batman. Another interesting element is that Arkham Asylum is rarely seen in Batman movies, though Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Asylum is set there. The new Joker movie starring Joaquin Phoenix will see the character visiting the “Arkham Hospital.”

Robert Pattinson stars in the new Batman as the caped crusader in the film that’s due in theatres in June 2021. The movie has been in the works for several years; Affleck stepped down as director in early 2017, and more recently confirmed that he was no longer involved at all, stating that he had “tried to direct a version of it, but couldn’t crack it.”

The original 1996 Diablo is playable now right on your computer’s web browser.

The browser port of the original Diablo was developed by Rivsoft, a team of developers who work on several Blizzard-related projects. However, the port would not be possible were it not for the work of a development team who in 2018 reconstructed the original source code for Diablo.

GalaXyHaXz and the Devilution team reverse-engineered the source code for the original Diablo last year in 2018. The project was meant to be archival, so the source code was reconstructed with all the bugs and bad code from the original 1996 version.

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