IGN’s Top 25 Favourite Kart Racers

Kart racers are a bit of an enigma. They’re easily the most suitable racing games to play amongst friends, but they’re also capable of rapidly ruining relationships. They seem so lean and simple compared to the colossal car-PGs that dominate the realistic end of the racing spectrum, and yet for every bona fide classic – or even every cute, half-decent distraction – there’s a fistful of fetid, phoned-in flops based on the cheapest licenses money can buy. It’s obviously not as easy to put together a good kart racer as it looks.

We’ve been speeding, sliding, and slinging weapons through kart racers on just about every bit of hardware conceived throughout the last quarter of a century. They’ve become a lot rarer these days, although this week sees the release of Sega’s Team Sonic Racing – and Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled will be unleashed next month. Can either of this pair stand the test of time and make the cut next time around?

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Introducing FroStee – Australia’s Hearthstone Grandmaster

Hearthstone’s new 2019 esports program is in full swing now, and the first stop on the Masters Tour is coming up in Las Vegas on June 15 – June 17. That tournament is going to be unlike anything Hearthstone has done before, with 350+ people competing in two days of Swiss rounds to determine who will go through to the top eight playoffs on the third day. Not only is this is the first Blizzard-run tournament of this size, it will also be a showcase for the game’s new Specialist format, which sees competitors bringing multiple decks for a single class.

Most of the players in attendance will have earnt their spots through online Masters Qualifiers tournaments, but there will be 48 players who get an invite by default. These are Hearthstone’s Grandmasters: 16 players from North America, 16 from Europe and 16 from APAC, all of whom were invited to be Grandmasters based on factors like lifetime earnings or HCT points earnt during 2018.

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God Of War Sales Exceed 10 Million

Sony has provided a new sales update for God of War PS4–and it’s huge. The title has now sold more than 10 million copies, according to a slide from Sony’s recent investor day briefing.

The 10 million sales was shown to demonstrate the strength of Sony’s owned franchises across platforms. As you can see, God of War franchise sales have grown across their entries on PS2, PS3, and PS4. The same is true for the Uncharted and Last of Us franchises.

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It’s not clear if the God of War (or other games mentioned in the graphic) count copies sold in console bundles, but that seems likely. God of War launched in April 2018 and became the PS4’s fastest-selling exclusive game ever.

For more on God of War, you can check out the GameSpot Audio Logs episode where game director Cory Barlog breaks down one of the most impactful scenes that almost didn’t happen. Check it out in the video embed above.

Will There Be A Game Of Thrones Sequel? “Nope, Nope, Nope. No,” HBO Says

HBO’s Game of Thrones recently ended its eighth and final season. We know who lived and died. We know who won The Iron Throne. The ending was divisive. It tied up loose ends but also posed more questions about the future of Westeros. Could any of that be explored in a Game of Thrones sequel show? No. There will be no sequels, HBO programming boss Casey Bloys says.

“Nope, nope, nope. No,” Bloys told The Hollywood Reporter.

HBO is working on multiple prequel TV series with new characters and actors in a story set in a different time period. Bloys says there won’t be sequels, however, because he wants the Game of Thrones created by D.B. Weiss and David Benioff to stand on its own.

“Part of it is, I do want this show–this Game of Thrones, Dan and David’s show–to be its own thing. I don’t want to take characters from this world that they did beautifully and put them off into another world with someone else creating it,” he said. “I want to let it be the artistic piece they’ve got. That’s one of reasons why I’m not trying to do the same show over.”

The world that George R.R. Martin created is “massive,” Bloys said, so HBO wants to keep trying new things instead of bringing back familiar characters and settings.

“We’re trying to do things that feel distinct–and to not try and re-do the same show,” he said. “That’s probably one of the reasons why, right now, a sequel or picking up any of the other characters doesn’t make sense for us.”

The entirety of Season 8 was controversial, and specifically the finale. Fans created an online petition asking for a remake, and Sansa actress Sophie Turner slammed it as “disrespectful.”

Sophie Turner Slams The Game Of Thrones Season 8 Petition: “It’s Disrespectful”

Some people on the internet are not happy about the final season of Game of Thrones. They created a petition asking for a remake of Season 8 with new writers. Of course that will never happen. But almost 1.5 million signed the petition, which means it’s getting attention.

Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark on the award-winning HBO show, told The New York Times that the petition is “disrespectful” to everyone who worked so hard for so long to make Game of Thrones over the past decade.

“All of these petitions and things like that–I think it’s disrespectful to the crew, and the writers, and the filmmakers who have worked tirelessly over 10 years, and for 11 months shooting the last season,” she said. “Like 50-something night shoots. So many people worked so, so hard on it, and for people to just rubbish it because it’s not what they want to see is just disrespectful.”

Turner said she’s not surprised that people got angry on the internet about Game of Thrones.

“People always have an idea in their heads of how they want a show to finish, and so when it doesn’t go to their liking, they start to speak up about it and rebel,” she said.

The actress added that Game of Thrones has always been a show with “crazy twists and turns,” starting with Season 1, so she doesn’t understand why people got so upset with how the story went in Season 8. “It shouldn’t be such a negative thing for fans. It’s a shock for sure, but I think it’s just because it hasn’t gone their way,” she said.

Whatever people thought about Game of Thrones Season 8 and the finale specifically, the show was a massive success for HBO. The finale, “The Iron Throne,” tallied more than 19 million viewers to set a new record for the show and HBO overall.

For more on Episode 6, check out the show’s latest coffee cup-style gaffe (this time featuring a pair of water bottles) and a reminder of who was at the council meeting (there were some faces present who we hadn’t seen in years). For our thoughts on the final episode, check out our “The Iron Throne” review.

Enter for a Chance to Win NBA 2K Playgrounds 2

Welcome to Daily Win, our way of giving back to the IGN community. To thank our awesome audience, we’re giving away a new game each day to one lucky winner. Be sure to check IGN.com every day to enter in each new giveaway.

Today we’re giving away NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 for Nintendo Switch. To enter into this sweepstake, fill out the form below. You must be at least 13 years old and a legal U.S. resident to enter. Today’s sweepstake will end at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Entries entered after this time will not be considered.’

Daily Doodle: It appears as though there are more eyes on our adventurers...

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