Month: January 2021

A demo build for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has turned up alongside an old N64 demo cartridge which housed Nintendo racer F-Zero X. Though the demo was partially saved over, some of it was intact enough to reveal new details about the Nintendo classic.

Details about the demo and its existence were shared by Forest of Illusion, a site dedicated to preserving Nintendo’s history. There were several surprises found in the demo data, including several magical spell medallions that were supposed to grant Link different abilities to help with his journey.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Twitch has indefinitely banned Donald Trump. Previously, the streaming platform temporarily suspended Trump’s Twitch account after the Capitol attacks. Now, with the ban, Trump cannot make another account nor appeal Twitch’s decision.

In a statement to The Verge, a Twitch spokesperson stated, “We have indefinitely suspended President Trump’s Twitch channel due to the ongoing risk of further incitement of violence.”

“The President’s statements continue to be interpreted as calls to action, and we are taking this action to remove the potential for harm to our community and the general public. Twitch has clear rules that prohibit hateful conduct, harassment, or incitement of violence on our service, and we consider off-service events when making enforcement decisions. However, the events of the past weeks have highlighted a gap with respect to rhetoric that encourages violence, regardless of whether or not it was directly streamed on Twitch. We will be updating our policies as a result of our consideration of this situation,” the spokesperson continued.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

It’s been tough trying to snag a PS5 or Xbox Series X in 2021, but GameStop has announced customers will have another chance this Thursday, January 21. The video game retailer plans to restock PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch bundles, though a limited number of units is expected, so you’ll want to be quick if you want a new console.

Unfortunately, it’s unclear exactly when the PS5 or Xbox Series X|S will be restocked. GameStop’s Twitter account will post when they’re live, but you can always keep an eye on our PS5 restock and Xbox Series X availability guides for updates. No bundles are currently available for the PS5 and Xbox Series X, but they will likely appear at the links below tomorrow. People can expect a variety of extra accessories and games thrown into the bundles, which will make them more expensive than the standard consoles.

PlayStation 5 bundles

See PS5 at GameStop

Xbox Series X|S bundles

See Xbox at GameStop

Nintendo Switch bundles

See Switch at GameStop

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Hulu has announced that starting on January 25, fans of Paul Feig’s coming-of-age high school drama Freaks and Geeks will be able to stream the show on the platform. The streaming service also confirmed that its original soundtrack will remain intact.

The show was previously available on other networks and platforms, like FXX and Netflix. However, due licensing disputes, these brief revivals of Freaks and Geeks contained altered scenes where music cues were changed and an almost entirely different score. This wasn’t the case for those who own Freaks and Geeks on DVD, which retains its iconic soundtrack. This is a big deal, as the show’s music is performed by artists like Billy Joel, Grateful Dead, The Who, and Van Halen, all musicians who really help set the tone for Freaks and Geeks’ setting.

According to The A.V. Club, Hulu confirmed that with bringing this iconic drama back to television, the streaming platform was able to secure the show’s original soundtrack.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Crunchyroll has been a prominent name in the anime industry for years now. The company has been the go-to for anime streaming for a while, but it has expanded into other ventures in recent years, with one of the most interesting being video game publishing.

In 2016, Crunchyroll Games began publishing games based on anime or original titles featuring anime-like art styles–the most recent of which, Princess Connect! Re:Dive, released in the US on January 19 after a successful launch in Asia back in 2018. The publisher has worked on games about other established properties, like Mob Psycho 100, as well as original IP, like Grand Alliance, all in the hopes of promoting types of games that traditionally haven’t done as well in the west. Though there are exceptions, like last year’s Genshin Impact, plenty of anime or anime-looking games just don’t make a splash in American or European markets.

“I think [game publishing] goes in hand with our philosophy, which is our long-term vision to be a more significant kind of piece of that anime ecosystem, of that puzzle,” Crunchyroll general manager of games & head of 360 Terry Li told me. “We already are on the video side, but I think on the game side, there’s certainly an aspiration that we want to get more involved in game development, game publishing. Not for the sake of just doing that, but because we do believe that today there’s an abundance of games that get made in Asia around this anime ecosystem that don’t fully consider a global audience.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Six asteroids will pass by Earth on January 20, which just so happens to be Inauguration Day in the US (via ZME Science). Fortunately, or unfortunately–depending on if you have a nihilistic wish for 2021 to just be over already–the asteroids will not collide with our planet.

According to ZME science, the closest one will pass Earth by roughly the same distance that the moon is located at. You can view all of the asteroids’ data over at NASAs Center For Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).

If you’re curious about past asteroids that made it close enough to the Earth for NASA to take note, you can also view that info in the above link. CNEOS is an organization that “computes high precision orbits for Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), predicts their future motions, and assesses their impact hazard.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Cyberpunk 2077 had one of the most commercially successful launches of all-time for an RPG back in December, but the game’s last-gen edition was marred with issues that prompted class-action lawsuits. Valve founder Gabe Newell has now shared his thoughts on the situation, telling New Zealand’s TVNZ that he has a lot of sympathy for the developers at CD Projekt Red, adding that he believes the Polish studio will do what it can to make things right as time goes on.

“I have a lot of sympathy with a situation that every game developer finds themselves in,” he said. “All I know is that there are a lot of very happy gamers in the PC space, which are the ones that are most visible to us.”

Newell said there are parts of Cyberpunk 2077 that are “just brilliant,” and this demonstrates that the developers put in a “tremendous amount of work” to get the game out the door.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

After starring in the box office smashes Rogue One and Venom, actor Riz Ahmed had a choice to make: continue to pursue big commercial projects and make a lot of money or try something else. He chose the latter and went on to star in Sound of Metal, and now he’s explained some of his thinking and why it was ultimately the right decision for him and his career.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Ahmed said he had a strong gut feeling about Sound of Metal, in which he plays a drummer who begins to lose his hearing.

“‘Why are you doing this when you could go off and get paid, finally?'” Ahmed recalled about his thought process. “There was an opportunity to do bigger, more commercial projects and make money and buy a home and all these things. But I thought, ‘Here’s your chance.’ My gut feeling about it was so strong. And for whatever reason, I felt really hungry for something like that, to go all in and just fucking go there.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot

The official launch trailer for Apex Legends Season 8: Mayhem is set to go live tomorrow morning, January 21 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET, the Apex Legends Twitter account announced.

The trailer will introduce the brand-new legend Walter “Fuse” Fitzroy, a guy who loves bombs. According to the trailer’s description on YouTube, which fans can set a reminder for once it goes live, “not everyone back on Salvo is happy” about Fuse joining the Apex Games. We’ll also have the trailer embedded here once it’s live, so check back tomorrow morning.

Apex Legends Season 8: Mayhem kicks off on February 2, and Fuse isn’t the only new addition to the popular battle royale. Alongside the forthcoming playable hero, Apex Legends players can expect a new weapon and several map changes, which have yet to be announced. These details will likely get mentioned during the Season 8: Mayhem launch trailer tomorrow morning.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Lyubomir Vladimirov, a Bulgarian indie dev, has been on a mission for the past six months or so: Get Elon Musk to approve his use of the SpaceX name and logos in his upcoming survival sim set on Mars. After over 150 tweets at the tech giant, Vladimirov finally got a response on January 13.

In a reply to one of Vladimirov’s tweets, Musk replied “you can steal our name/logos and we probably won’t sue you.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot