Month: March 2021

Update:

As the investigation into Jay ‘Sinatraa’ Won continues, the Overwatch League has issued a statement regarding the matter. Prior to playing Valorant esports, Won was a key member of the San Francisco Shock Overwatch team, where he was crowned MVP for the team’s winning 2019 season.

Furthermore, Overwatch will refund an Overwatch League skin for Zarya that was inspired by Won as part of his MVP win during his time in the league. The Overwatch League operates under a franchise system, and the San Francisco Shock is operated by a third-party company.

In a statement to IGN, an Overwatch League spokesperson says, “The Overwatch League is aware of allegations made against former player Jay “Sinatraa” Won. We take any allegations of this nature seriously and unequivocally support victims of abuse.”

Overwatch League also says it will offer refunds for the “Alien” Overwatch League skin, which was designed to commemorate Won’s MVP win. Anyone with the skin currently can refund the skin for 200 League Tokens (retail: $9.99 USD) and have the skin removed from their collection. The Overwatch Championship and MVP badges will also be removed from the Alien skin in a future patch.

An official blog post on the Overwatch League website for how Won helped inspire the Alien skin has already been taken down and now redirects to an error page.

Here is the Overwatch League’s full statement below:

“The Overwatch League is aware of allegations made against former player Jay “Sinatraa” Won. We take any allegations of this nature seriously and unequivocally support victims of abuse. The League is offering a refund of 200 League Tokens for the “Alien” Overwatch League MVP skin to players who request one, at which point the skin will be removed from their collection. We’ll share more information on how refunds will work soon. The Overwatch Championship and MVP badges will be removed from the “Alien” skin in a future patch.”

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Original Story: Professional Valorant player Jay ‘Sinatraa’ Won has been suspended from the North American Valorant Champions Tour following allegations that he sexually abused a former partner.

Content Warning: details on sexual and emotional abuse follows.

In a statement yesterday,  Cleo Hernandez provides a detailed, graphic account of her relationship with Won, saying Won pressured her into sex on numerous occasions without her consent, even after she repeatedly told him no or expressed that she was in pain. She also accused him of being emotionally abusive and manipulative while they were together.

The account includes an audio recording in which Hernandez can be heard saying “No” repeatedly while a male voice, said to be Won’s, insists on continuing.

Today, Riot issued a statement through its official Valorant Champions Tour NA account authored by global head of competitive operations and Valorant, Alex Francois:

“We are aware of the current situation regarding Jay Won (Sinatraa) and have launched an investigation. Per our existing competitive rules and investigative process, a decision has been made to suspend Won throughout the investigation and therefore he will not be able to compete this weekend.”

Won’s team, the Los Angeles Sentinels, has also suspended Won with a similar statement:

“We are aware of the current situation regarding Jay ‘Sinatraa’ Won and have launched an investigation internally. While the investigation is pending, he is suspended from the team. We will provide a further update once the investigation has concluded.”

Won is a former competitive Overwatch player who used to play for the San Francisco Shock, before moving to the Sentinels and Valorant in 2020.

Won has yet to reply to these accusations. IGN has also reached out to the Overwatch League for comment as well.

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Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

There’s a lot of great deals on games today. For the first time, Walmart has the AtGames Legends Ultimate Home Arcade in stock. Normally it’s only available at Sam’s Club with a membership and without free shipping. It’s a big step above the Arcade1Up cabinets that have been so popular lately in terms of build quality, versatility, and the number of games. The other big news is that today is Mario Day and there are several Nintendo Switch video games and eShop gift cards are on sale.

AtGames Legends Ultimate Home Arcade for $499 Shipped

 The AtGames Legends Ultimate Home Arcade normally can only be purchased at Sam’s Club. That means you’d need a membership or pay the 10% surcharge fee. Shipping isn’t usually included, either. Now you can get it at Walmart for the same price, with no membership, and with free shipping. This is a full-sized cabinet that’s much more robust than your typical Arcade1Up cabinet. It features a generously sized high-definition 24″ LCD monitor and two player setup (each player gets a joystick, six action buttons, and a spinner). There’s also a trackball for precision gameplay like in Centipede. Speaking of which, the biggest draw are the 300 licensed arcade and console games that are preinstalled. That includes classics like Missile Command, Asteroid, Space Invaders, Burger Time, Fix It Felix, and much much more. If you have the technical know-how, you can also add in your own games with a USB flash drive. If you want our hands on impression, check out our IGN review for this arcade cabinet.

• Get it at Walmart for $499

Arcade1Up Galaga Countercade for $79

This popular Galaga mini-arcade is actually pretty hard to find at this price. It’s either sold out elsewhere or selling for over MSRP. Despite its diminutive size, it’s actually very playable with an 8″ hi-res display, speaker, and full sized joystick and control buttons. Both Galaga and Galaga ’88 come preinstalled.

• Get it at Walmart for $79

Mario Day Sale Is Today!

Mario Day is officially day (Mar 10), and there are a bunch of Nintendo Switch games and eShop gift cards on sale today. If you’re still console-less, the limited Mario edition is in stock at Best Buy.

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More Gaming Deals

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Eric Song is IGN’s deal curator and spends roughly 1/4 of his income on stuff he posts. Check out his latest Daily Deals Article and subscribe to his IGN Deals Newsletter.

The final tier of armor available in Valheim right now is Padded Armor, and like the other tiers before it, you’re going to have to work hard to make it. You can only create Padded Armor with materials from the Plains biome, but unlike other armor sets, it doesn’t require you to find new metals, but rather new plants. Here’s everything you need to know to create Padded Armor in the Plains so you can prepare to take down the fifth Valheim boss, Yagluth.

We’ve got lots more Valheim coverage, check out our complete Valheim armor guide, as well as our guide for finding Iron and crafting Iron gear and for finding Silver and crafting Wolf armor, for venturing through the Swamp biome, and for taking down the Elder boss in the Black Forest and Moder, the dragon boss of the mountains. And if you really want to bend Valheim to your will, check out our cheats guide using the game’s console codes.

What To Do First

You can’t really deal with the Plains biome until you’ve made significant strides through the other biomes, and particularly the Mountains. You’ll want a good set of Wolf Armor before venturing into the Plains, unless you don’t mind doing a lot of corpse runs to recover your stuff, so be prepared to construct a Silver mining operation to get yourself geared up. You may even want to put in the time to gather extra resources and upgrade your Wolf armor as much as you can.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Apex Legends arrived on the Nintendo Switch, and we take a side by side comparison to see how it stacks up to PC gameplay.

WandaVision’s first and possibly only season has come to a close on Disney+, and we’re still working through all the Easter eggs and plot implications. One of the biggest moments of the series was when Wanda’s dead brother, Pietro, knocked on her door. Only it wasn’t Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who played the character in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Instead, it was–spoilers ahead–actor Evan Peters, who played the mutant version of the character in three of Fox’s X-Men movies. In a new interview by Variety with actress Elizabeth Olsen and head writer Jac Schaeffer, Schaeffer revealed just how surprised she was by the fan reaction to this moment.

“Naively, I didn’t expect people to get carried away in that way,” Schaeffer said about the whirlwind of fan theories that followed Peters’ appearance. “We didn’t anticipate that the show would drop after a full year of MCU drought in the middle of a pandemic.”

“I couldn’t have anticipated, I don’t know, maybe [WandaVision executive producer] Mary Livanos and [MCU mastermind] Kevin Feige are like, ‘Yeah, it’s like this every time,'” Schaeffer continued. “But I’m like, these theories are crazy! So it’s not that it wasn’t that it was not part of my thinking, and also, that’s not my department. I am lucky enough that I get to hear about the other projects and sometimes involved in their conversations. I know a little bit about all the things that Lizzie’s been up to.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Nintendo has never been shy about finding occasions to trot out its legacy games, but it leaned especially heavily on Mario’s back catalog for its Super Mario 35th anniversary celebration. Back in September, the company collected the plumber’s three earliest 3D adventures–Mario 64, Mario Sunshine, and Mario Galaxy–into one Switch compilation, while Wii U’s Super Mario 3D World arrived on the system (bundled together with the wonderful new mini-adventure, Bowser’s Fury) just last month. Between these two releases, almost all of Mario’s 3D games are now available to play on the hybrid console, making it nearly the perfect system for Mario fans–were it not for a handful of glaring omissions.

While most of the plumber’s 3D outings have made their way to Switch by this point, Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario Galaxy 2 are still conspicuously missing from the system. The former’s absence is somewhat understandable; although 3D Land remains a great game and was a true showpiece for the 3DS’s stereoscopic 3D, its ideas and gameplay would be greatly expanded on and refined by 3D World. With that game now on Switch, 3D Land isn’t as sorely missed (and, arguably, would not play as well if it were released on a system without stereoscopic 3D).

Super Mario Galaxy 2, however, remains a puzzling omission. Mario’s second Wii adventure is one of the most highly regarded entries in the series. Not only is it one of the rare few titles to earn a 10/10 from GameSpot, but it was also the highest-scoring game of its year according to GameSpot sister site Metacritic. All of this acclaim is for good reason: Mario Galaxy 2 built on its (already delightful) predecessor in every way imaginable, throwing a head-spinning array of inventive ideas and mechanics at players. Later Mario games, especially 3D World and Super Mario Odyssey, would retain Galaxy 2’s freewheeling inventiveness, but the Wii game remains the most finely tuned and polished game in the series.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

The TV adaptation of the Wild Cards book series, which was created by A Song of Ice and Fire writer George R.R. Martin, will be released by Peacock. The show was originally set to be produced for Hulu.

Wild Cards was first announced back in 2018, with Andrew Miller (The Secret Circle) announced as writer and showrunner. However, he is no longer involved, and the show is now in development for NBCUniversal’s streaming service Peacock. Variety states that producers are currently looking for a new writer to take over the project. Martin will executively produce, with Melinda M. Snodgrass, who co-edits the book series.

Wild Cards is a long-running interconnected superhero universe that started in 1987 and spans many anthology books and standalone short stories, with more than 40 writers contributing to date. The series focuses on an alien pathogen that rewrites human DNA to either create superhuman powers or horrific deformities. The latest anthology, Knaves Over Queens, was published in 2019 and edited by Martin and Snodgrass.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

In celebration of Super Mario’s 35th anniversary this year, we take a look at the best trailers and commercials from the Super Mario games.