After a round of at-home show-and-tell, the panel talks about their continuing experiences with Animal Crossing: New Horizons, including their first impressions of Bunny Day. Finally, hear your listener questions answered on Question Block. Plus, dogs!
Timecodes!
00:00:00 Welcome!
00:00:53 Let’s talk about those crazy Mario rumors
00:15:53 A couple of new release dates!
00:25:46 Show and tell!
00:33:52 How is your Animal Crossing island?
00:47:30 What we’ve been playing
00:54:38 Question Block!
01:05:23 Wrap up!
What we’re playing:
Zach: Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Brian: Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Seth: Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Bravely Default II Demo
Peer: Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Good Job, In Other Waters
You can listen to NVC on your preferred platform every Thursday at 3pm PT/6pm ET. Have a question for Question Block? Write to us at nvc@ign.com and we may pick your question! Also, make sure to join the Nintendo Voice Chat Podcast Forums on Facebook. We’re all pretty active there and often pull Question Block questions and comments straight from the community.
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Logan Plant is the Production Assistant for NVC. You can find him on Twitter at @LoganJPlant.
A fake Flipnote for Switch app designed for April Fools’ that started making the rounds online ended up causing more anger than amusement. So much so that the ensuing harassment forced its creators to go into social media lockdown.
James (who asked IGN to withhold his last name for the story) is part of a community that reverse-engineers legacy online services like Flipnote Studio, an app for the DSi released in 2008 that let players create and send custom animations.
“From a technical perspective, we found them to have rather convoluted technical innards (particularly Flipnote Studio 3D,” James told IGN in an email. “So we had a long-running joke where we speculated about what Nintendo could possibly throw at us next.”
The community made the idea of a new Flipnote app for the Switch an in-joke, but the impetus to create fake screenshots for April Fools’ didn’t materialize until five days before April 1.
“Towards the end of March, somebody who apparently wasn’t aware of the joke started to get on our case about [Flipnote Switch] rather aggressively, thinking we were intentionally tricking the community.”
As a response, James created a quick mock-up in Sketch, a design program, and presented it to the community. While the community member in question wasn’t very pleased with the glib response, another developer on the channel was briefly fooled. That spurred the developers to try and flesh out the concept and present fake screenshots of a “leaked” Flipnote Switch app for the community’s annual April Fool’s joke.
Mock-ups for the fake Flipnote app for Switch created for April Fools. Art Credit: Calcium; UI: James; Translation: Liss
James organized the effort and designed fake UI. Other contributors included Calcium who created the artwork, Liss who contributed a fake Japanese translation, and Austin and Rob from Sudomemo, a website dedicated to sharing Flipnote creations long after the service was shuttered officially.
Together, the team created several “leaked” screenshots of a new Flipnote App coming to the Switch, complete with a fake title screen. You can check out some of the assets in the gallery below.
James told IGN he has no idea how the screenshots leaked from their Discord server, but the images were soon being picked up by Nintendo fansites as legitimate leaks.
“It was wild that any outlets picked it up at all to be honest, especially when the first few [sites] cited the source as being ‘some random people on a Discord server.’ Like, that wouldn’t normally strike you as being remotely trustworthy, right?” James said.
“But in the following days the telephone-game effect kicked in and soon enough the source was somehow ‘an insider at Nintendo of Japan.’ Things got a little scary then.”
The team released the “leaks” online three days before April 1 with a plan to reveal themselves on April Fools’. By then the screenshots had already made their way to sites like r/NintendoSwitch on Reddit and 4chan.
Then on April Fools’ James revealed the joke.
“Initially it seemed to go as expected,” James said. “Of course we knew people would be disappointed and that there would be a few harsh responses but it felt relatively light-hearted for the most part.”
While the early comments were more finger-wagging than malicious, that soon changed. “Gradually the responses became more intense[.] People started bringing out the slurs and calling for us to be doxxed and/or murdered. While we’re usually fairly laid back, it was clear that people were taking this worse than we imagined.”
“Honestly, go f*** yourself. Why not spend your time creating something useful instead of misleading a bunch of people into thinking something good is around the corner?” read one comment in response to the joke reveal.
Mock-ups for the fake Flipnote app for Switch created for April Fools. Art Credit: Calcium, UI: James, Translation: Liss
“In hindsight, it was a bad time to pull a stunt like this with everything that’s been going in the world recently,” James told IGN. “Everyone’s already a lot more stressed out than usual and it was extremely uncool of us to give them the false hope of something exciting on the horizon.”
James also regretted the decision to stagger the timing of the joke by releasing the screenshots early and revealing the joke three days later.
What began as an in-joke quickly spiraled out of control, thanks to a combination of the internet’s ability to obfuscate information and the video game community’s fixation on leaks and rumors.
“Ultimately there was no malicious intent or anything like that, just an in-joke that was handled very poorly,” James concluded. “It should go without saying that we’re definitely not doing anything like this again.”
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Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN. You can reach him on Twitter.
Check out the gallery below to see new screenshots from TLoU2, as spotted by Nibel on Twitter. (The images are currently unavailable on the Last of Us official website.)
The screenshots offer new looks at Joel and Ellie, as well as the return of Tommy and brand new characters. Some of the scenes in the screenshots were not what we saw when we went hands-on with The Last of Us Part 2 last year, but unfortunately no additional story details accompanied the new images.
The Last of Us Part 2 first received a release date of February 22, 2020 late last year, but soon after Naughty Dog announced a delayed Last of Us Part 2 release date to May 29, and most recently confirmed the sequel is delayed “until such a time where we can solve these logistic issues.” Naughty Dog’s latest announcement noted last of Us Part 2 is “nearly done,” but that concerns over all players getting to play at launch, when the spread of COVID-19 has caused many stores to temporarily close and states and nations to adopt lockdown protocols, has led to the decision to delay.
This one-time event will play exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. for 10-days. According to the official press release, the films “will be available in front of the Prime Video paywall and free to all audiences around the country, with or without an Amazon Prime membership, all that is needed is a free Amazon account.” Participating filmmakers will receive a screening fee for streaming their film over the 10-day period.
“Ever since SXSW was cancelled by the City of Austin, we’ve been focused on how we could help the incredible films and filmmakers in the SXSW 2020 Film Festival lineup,” said Janet Pierson, Director of Film, SXSW, in a statement.
“We were delighted when Amazon Prime Video offered to host an online film festival, and jumped at the opportunity to connect their audiences to our filmmakers. We’re inspired by the adaptability and resilience of the film community as it searches for creative solutions in this unprecedented crisis.”
Making your way through Hell’s vast hordes of demons in Doom Eternal can be a difficult task, especially when you come face-to-face with one of those pesky Marauders. The Marauders are part of the Khan Maykr’s army and are one of the most challenging recurring enemies you’ll face, due to its strong offensive and defensive capabilities.
If find yourself struggling to defeat these deadly foes, we have some tips on how to beat them, below. Be sure to visit our Doom Eternal guide for more strategies and walkthroughs.
In order to beat a Marauder, you first have to understand how it attacks and defends itself. In terms of its offensive capabilities, Marauders wield two primary weapons: a laser axe and a shotgun. While the shotgun is used for close-range combat, the laser ax fires a beam of energy from long distances and causes damage if it happens to hit you.
For defense, the Marauders possesses a shield that can block just about anything unless you shoot it at the perfect time.
The perfect time to attack the Marauder is when the creature’s eyes blink green. This window of opportunity is small, but we know a trick to make it last longer.
The Super Shotgun vs. Marauder
When the Marauder’s eyes blink green, he’s about to land a devastating attack, but just before he does, you can use the super shotgun to stun him if you get a direct hit. While stunned, you’ll have the opportunity to deal some additional damage.
The best weapon to use on a Marauder while it’s stunned is the Ballista. This powerful weapon deals MASSIVE damage to the Marauder. Sure, you can use your super shotgun in this situation, however, we discovered that it takes longer to defeat the Marauder and you waste more ammo if you use that particular method. The bottom line, the Super Shotgun to Ballista combo is the best way to take out the Marauder.
How to Deal with the Fire Wolf
If the Marauder’s speed, laser axe, shotgun, and impenetrable shield weren’t enough of a challenge, it can also summon a Fire Wolf. Thankfully, the Fire Wolf has a low HP and is relatively easy to take down.
The key to getting rid of this nuisance is taking out the Fire Wolf as soon as it spawns. It appears that the wolf is on a timer, so the longer it stays alive, the more likely the Marauder will spawn a new wolf once the one before you is slain. Following these steps will give you a chance to focus on the Marauder instead of his wolf companion.
Now that you have the skills to defeat one of Doom Eternal’s toughest foes, the Marauders won’t seem so tough the next time you’re confronted by one. Remember these crucial steps: Green Eyes, then the Super Shotgun, and finally, the Ballista!
Be sure to check out these Doom Eternal guides next:
Fortnite‘s not-so-secret Deadpool skin is scheduled to unlock tomorrow, April 3, and it appears Epic has a Deadpool-themed event planned to coincide with the skin’s release.
The official Deadpool Twitter account teased that the irreverent Marvel character will be “crashing” Fortnite starting April 3. “There’ll be music, tacos, and a whole lotta Deadpool,” the tweet reads. The accompanying image shows the Yacht defaced with Deadpool’s drawings, suggesting the area will be taken over as part of the event.
Starting tomorrow, I’M crashing this party. There’ll be music, tacos, and a whole lotta Deadpool. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this. pic.twitter.com/ubrsOFalvf
As for the aforementioned Deadpool skin, you’ll be able to unlock it if you’ve been keeping up with this season’s Deadpool challenges. There have been a new pair of these challenges every week thus far, but they’re considerably easier than Fortnite’s regular weekly challenges; most can be completed just by clicking around Deadpool’s hideout in the main HQ.
