Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered is celebrating St. Patrick's Day with an in-game event that starts today and runs until April 3, Activision has announced.
First, everyone gets one free Supply Drop per week as part of the Operation: Shamrock & Awe event. These do not stack, so you'll need to log in and download your Supply Drop for each of the three weeks; you can't get all three at once.
Additionally, Activision has released a new map called Daybreak, which is a modified version of the bleak-looking Downpour. Daybreak, on the other hand, features a lot of sunlight, as well as rainbows and rooms decorated with green balloons and leprechaun imagery. This map is free and is only available during the Shamrock & Awe event.
What's more, players can complete challenges to earn themed camos, including one with shamrocks and another with rainbows. Players can also unlock themed reticles, calling cards, and emblems, while a shillelagh melee weapon can also be obtained.
Players who complete the three collections, "Luck," "Leprechaun," and "Pot o' Gold," will unlock Darren "Graves" Cosgrave as a playable character. He won't be available to unlock after the event wraps up, though if you have him, you get to keep him.
The Shamrock & Awe event ends at 12:01 AM PT / 3:01 AM ET on April 3.
Singer Ed Sheeran and New York Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard aren't the only surprise celebrities who will appear in Game of Thrones Season 7. Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds has confirmed that he's coming back for his second Game of Thrones cameo in the upcoming season and will play a Wildling again.
Hinds broke his leg in a motorcycle accident last year, and he filmed his Game of Thrones cameo before it healed. His broken leg affected the way he walked, making him stagger like a zombie, apparently. The Game of Thrones producers liked this, Hinds said, and even gave his character a close-up.
"I just came back from my second cameo Game of Thrones," he said on an episode of Hatebreed singer Jamey Jasta's The Jasta Show podcast (via Metalsucks). "This time, I had my broken leg and they were like, 'You're doing the best zombie walk, we want you to come right towards the camera. I want you to drag this axe behind you.' I'm like a reborn, come-to-life Wildling turning into a White Walker."
Mastodon wrote an original song, "White Walker," for the Game of Thrones mixtape Catch the Throne Vol. 2. Game of Thrones co-creator DB Weiss is apparently a big fan of the group.
Here is a picture of Hinds and Mastodon's other guitarist, Bill Kelliher, in costume for their Season 5 cameo:
Batman is known for having a colorful and varied rogues gallery. Some villains are extremely dangerous, while others seem a little tame. The Mad Hatter is often seen as just obsessed with his Alice in Wonderland motif. With his expertise in hypnosis and hypnotherapy combined with his mind-controlling tech he places inside hats, he's ready to turn Batman's world upside-down.
Batman has recently tracked down Poison Ivy for help and fought Mister Freeze. He's about to discover who is working behind the scenes against him. We talked to All Star Batman writer Scott Snyder to find out why Mad Hatter was chosen and why he's started incorporating more prose into his comic writing.
Art by Giuseppi Cauncoli.
GameSpot: Why did you choose the Mad Hatter for this issue, and how come you've been using more prose in your writing?
Scott Snyder: I don't know, man, I've reached a point in my career and my life. I'm older. The point of writing comics is to inspire yourself and to write about things that matter to you or that are personal and that make these characters new to you and exciting and show you how you can be brave in the face of things you're afraid of right this minute.
For me, the last time I wrote prose, right before I got into comics, I had a book deal for a novel. I was working on it, and it was more a literary novel. Then the economy began to contract. To be fair, the book wasn't the most commercial; it was about a barnstormer. I still love the idea. But ultimately the further I worked on it, the more nervous I got that it wasn't going to make them the money back, that they would have to give me if they approved it. It became a really toxic time in my life where I was working on prose and I think probably drinking too much and hating going to work because I was writing under this tremendous pressure in my head that this needed to be a best-seller if I was ever going to pay my mortgage or we just had a kid and I was teaching high school, and I was tutoring, anything I could do to make money.
And that's when comics came along, which I had always wanted to do. I got the chance to pitch, and it really saved my writing life where I got in and was like, "This is what it's like to have fun writing again." I totally had forgotten after the last two years of writing prose, and I loved writing prose up until it became something I was doing under duress for money. Luckily the publishing house, I'm still very good friends with the people I worked with, they were great, dissolved the book deal and allowed me to move into comics entirely because I was having such a good time.
The point I'm trying to make is that I haven't gone back to prose since then, and the last two years I started dabbling with it both in Batman issues and in American Vampire. I decided with A.D. After Death that we'd go whole into it and make it half prose, at least half. There were a couple points along the way, working on it, that I had real anxiety, and got really borderline depressed about it, but certainly anxiety where I couldn't sleep. I had constant panic attacks, and I couldn't really eat. Every time I sat down to the computer, this voice in my head was like, "Oh you're going to write that line? That sucks." And then you'd get a panic attack, and you'd walk around the house. You sit back down, "Oh you're going to write that? That's even worse than the first line." Get back up, walk around the house, try and calm down.
But you know, you have to push through it. And for me, just finishing AD, and I'm deeply proud of it. I think it's one of the better things I've ever done, and it's personal and all that. Just finishing it feels so good because it's about for me this point in my career, the same as All Star. And with an issue like this, [it] speaks to that. It's about trying to do things that make you exciting to yourself, and make these characters exciting to you, never doing anything that feels like you're doing it for the money, you're spinning your wheels or any of it.
So this issue in particular speaks to a lot of that feeling I just described and anxiety. I wanted Mad Hatter to be a character who says, "Look, you think you know what the world is like. You think what you're seeing is true. But what if I start to tell you it's not? And it's not real." And the voice in your head that suddenly was so encouraging a minute ago, saying, "Oh you can do this, you know you can," turns on you and says, "No, you can't." And not only that but, "You're a loser, everything you believe is false, you're never going to make it," and just won't leave you alone. And becomes alien and menacing in your head.
And that's why I chose to do this issue in first-person narration entirely. I've never tried that before. And I've done third-person where it's like a storybook, which is what I did with Jock because that gives it a distance feel, and Mr. Freeze, it gives it like a remote kind of distance cold narration. But first-person is really intimate. So this one I wanted to do that way to show how it feels when you're facing something that feels like it's telling you everything you believe about yourself is untrue, everything that you hope for will never happen, all that's in your head, and your head is the worst place to be for that. And then you get to the other side and there's this feeling of astonishment and relief.
All Star Batman #8 Variant Cover by Camuncoli.
And so the issue is largely designed as a kind of trip down the rabbit hole with the Alice in Wonderland stuff, in that regard, where it starts in first-person and then moves to second person, where he's saying, "Oh, I do this. I'm after them. This is what I see." And then it kind of switches in the middle where he's like, "You do this Batman. You get him. You can do this, dah, dah, dah." And then it switches almost so that Hatter is speaking in his mind, and the font changes, and he's like, "This is what you're seeing, this is you." Batman's dialogue is in quotes in his own mind, and then as Batman starts to win again, it goes backwards through that progression back to the first-person again.
It's meant to sort of mirror a bit of that arc I was telling you about that I went through at least when I was really struggling with some doubts about myself and felt very ... when you feel unwell, when you don't feel like you can trust your own mind, because it's attacking you.
Did I even answer it? I don't even think I was answering your question. I was just talking. So you can ask anything you want.
During the fight it seems like Hatter knows a lot of Batman's secrets.
Right.
Is this the case, or is this like a wait and see?
It's meant to be that if you believe Bruce that this is not real, then the reality stops the minute Hatter has infected him. Did he meet Hatter in the past? Yes. Did he reject Hatter's offer of technology? Yes. Did Hatter put a tag in his pocked to try and dope him? Yes. Did he find that? Yes. Everything past that, whether he knows that Bruce is Batman, whether he followed him and saw that he was struggling to take down crime, all of that is likely in Bruce's head if you believe that it's fake. All of that means he doesn't know he's Bruce Wayne, he doesn't know any of it; it's all sort of within Bruce's own mind at that point, if that's the side you're on. That's it.
A little bit. I didn't want to totally discount that, but it's more of a connection to the secret history of the Blackhawks that ties to who they were in the 50s. It's also a mystery that's going to continue into stuff we're doing over the summer.
So this isn't going to end in the next issue?
No, it actually gets bigger; that mystery gets bigger next issue.
With Duke Thomas, to you what makes him best suited to be Batman's partner?
I think what makes him best-suited for this moment in particular is that, like in this issue, I think Izzy speaks to it a bit, which is that I think it's a moment where generations of readers coming in want to see heroes that exist independently from the heroes that they love, that they also love that they grew up with that are the main heroes. I think characters like Ms. Marvel and Spider-Gwen really speak to that and have become real staples. At DC, I think the success of a book like Detective Comics that foregrounds a bunch of characters that are relatively young and different Cassandra Cain--and even Batwoman is a new character if you're talking about 10 years versus 20, 30, 40 years, and done in different ways. I think the excitement around creating a character that's called something different like Orphan (Cassandra Cain) has a new take. I think all of that stuff is really exciting.
So for me that idea that Duke is his partner isn't what I'm thinking. It's more Duke is somebody who is looking to find his place in the DCU and in Gotham in a way that almost speaks to the core value of him. He's about the fact that to be a hero, you find a way to do it your way independently of the people that have inspired you. He always said that Robin doesn't need a Batman. So he's trying to find a place in Gotham that's his own and very different than anything anybody else has. And not to be too spoiler-y, but we're trying to hint at it pretty hard for the last year or so in terms of he goes out by day a lot as opposed to the other characters. He seems to have different sorts of connections to Gotham, so in that way we're trying to set him up that he'll have a different role, different geography and stuff.
In your opinion, what makes Batman the world's greatest detective?
I think the fact that he never gives up. The thing I love about Batman, like the core thing about him is that you put him in a situation where somebody says it's impossible to solve this, it's impossible to get out of this, and he always does. And the very core of his existence, he's somebody who you could say, "Okay, the worst thing that could happen to a kid happens to him. The odds are he's going to become disillusioned and become at least a damaged person and become hindered by this." Batman is the opposite. Sure he's crazy. But the way that he comes out of it is he defies all those odds. He comes out as this huge symbol of inspiration and turns himself into kind of the opposite of what you'd expect to happen to somebody that somebody would become if that happened to them.
So to me what makes him the greatest detective is the fact that regardless of the case and the difficulty of it, he will not stop until he figures it out.
What can you tease about issue nine?
All Star Batman #9 by Afua Richardson.
It's a culmination of this whole arc. Where basically it's essentially like somebody steps out of the shadows and says, "I was trying to show you three ways the world could end. Through natural disaster," you know like the permafrost melting and spores being released, "through biological weapons," hinted at in the Ivy arc, "or through madness," which is this, the subjective craziness which Hatter says, "We all just want to disappear into our own minds and forget about all of this and create a world that we feel comfortable with whether it's the way we take our news, or the way we create our own perception of the world," that's what he's kind of proposing.
And so this person steps out and says, "Look, you're just the story we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better, but I've shown you how fragile everything is and now I'm going to push it all over the edge." So it's pretty fun. I'm really proud of this arc, honestly. You know to be able to do very, very different types of stories with each villain within one arc and then make it one kind of collected thing, I've never tried it, so it's so exciting just to get to do different things than I have, and to get to work with such different people than I'm used so. So I really love it.
All Star Batman #8 is on sale in stores and online Wednesday, March 15.
Ubisoft has started coming down hard on those who cheat in its medieval brawler For Honor. The company said on Reddit that it has already banned around 1,500 people for "AFK farming."
The practice involves rigging your character to finish a match, even when you're not actually playing, in order to garner end-of-game rewards and progression. For example, players have tied rubber bands around analog sticks so their in-game character is always on the move, tricking the game into thinking they're playing. This means they don't get kicked out and still pick up bonuses like XP at the end of the game.
AFK farming is, however, against For Honor's code of conduct, says Ubisoft. As a result, around 1,500 people have already received three-day bans, and another 4,000 sneaky players have been detected farming XP using the method and will receive warnings as a result.
"If you create a Custom Game that in any way encourages players to gain experience while inactive, you risk having your account banned," he warned.
In other For Honor news, the game recently received a huge patch that changed the balancing for a bunch of fighters--check out all the details here.
For Honor launched on February 14 to a positive critical reception. GameSpot awarded the game an 8 in our review; Matt Espineli said the game offers "some of the most satisfying multiplayer melee fighting conceived in recent years." For more, check out our full For Honor review.
A new update for Guerrilla Games' PlayStation 4 exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn is out now. Update 1.04 fixes a lot of bugs for the game's main quests, sidequests, and gameplay systems.
One that's resolved is a problem for when main character Aloy becomes stuck in her sliding animation. Additionally, no longer should the music stop during a "long period of play." A number of other "miscellaneous issues" have also been fixed.
The full patch notes, which were shared on the PlayStation website, are posted below. The descriptions contain some story spoilers, so be aware of that.
One problem that this patch does not fix is an issue where all outfit stats appeared to have doubled. Stats have not actually doubled, despite what the UI states.
"This issue is being looked into currently and we shall try to address it as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience," Guerrilla said.
Horizon: Zero Dawn Patch 1.04
Main Quests
Fixed an issue in "The Proving" where one of the attackers would fall down the slope.
Fixed an issue in "The Womb of the Mountain" where the spear would not be in Aloy's inventory if players opened a treasure box with a DLC item before retrieving Aloy's weapons. Note: Players who have already encountered the issue will need to reload from a game saved prior to this quest.
Fixed an issue in "A Seeker at the Gates" where players would be able to enter the gates of Mother's Watch when fast-traveling to this location.
Fixed an issue in "A Seeker at the Gates" where the quest objective would not update from "Go to the Carja Border Fort" to "Kill the corrupted machines".
Fixed an issue in "A Seeker at the Gates" where players could not progress through the Carja Fort.
Fixed an issue in "The City of the Sun" where Erend wouldn't spawn after the dialogue with him ended if players rushed past the civilians on the bridge.
Fixed an issue in "The Sun Shall Fall" where players couldn't return to Dervahl if they fast-traveled during the objective "Talk to Dervahl".
Fixed an issue in "The Grave Hoard" where skipping the conversation with Sylens at the end of the quest and immediately restarting would prevent "To Curse the Darkness" from starting.
Fixed an issue in "Deep Secrets of the Earth" where players couldn't enter the bunker if they fast-traveled away from the objective after they had interacted with the bunker.
Fixed an issue in "The Terror of the Sun" where Aloy would respawn in an empty arena after being killed by the Behemoth. Note: Players who have already encountered the issue will need to go to Sunfall, at which point they will be teleported back into the arena to continue the quest.
Side Quests and Activities
Fixed an issue in "Hunter's Blind" where the objective would not update after talking to Talanah.
Fixed an issue in "Hunter's Blind" where players could kills the Glinthawks before the actual objective was triggered.
Fixed an issue in "The Foreign Lands" where players could already deliver the bow to Lakhir before being instructed to do so.
Fixed an issue in "Fatal Inheritance" where the objective would fail to update after disabling the lure device and speaking with Ranaman during the quest.
Fixed an issue in "Blood on Stone" where the Rockbreaker would not surface correctly if players fast-traveled from and to the quest area just before the start of the sequence.
Fixed an issue in "Death from the Skies" where the Stormbird objective would remain active after deactivating the lures and fast-traveling from and to the quest area.
Fixed an issue in "Redmaw" where Redmaw would be alive again if players left the quest area during the objective "Talk to Ahsis".
Fixed an issue in "Redmaw" where the marker for the objective "Talk to Ahsis" would be invisible outside of the quest area.
Game Systems
Fixed an issue where exploration music would drop out after a long period of play.
Fixed an issue where Aloy could become 'stuck' in her sliding animation.
Fixed miscellaneous issues to improve the overall play experience.
Similar to indie game-centric promotions Sony has had before, the company today announced Play Collective.
This is a new promotion centered around six upcoming games headed to the PlayStation Store over the next month and a half. Aside from simply highlighting the games in question, PlayStation Plus members will receive a 20 percent discount on each of them by preordering from the PlayStation Store.
It all begins next week, on March 21, when Everything is released. It will be followed by another game each Tuesday through the end of April. The discounts for all six games are live now, but they expire on the morning of each game's release.
Here's the full schedule and discounted Plus pricing for the US:
A new update launches this week for Rainbow Six Siege, improving Glaz and introducing a variety of balance changes, among other things.
This is a Mid-Season Reinforcement update, meaning it aims to improve the game rather than add new content. That said, if you're a Glaz player like me, you'll be happy to hear that Glaz's sight has been reworked to make it more useful.
When aiming down the sights with Glaz's weapon, you'll now have thermal visual feedback, which makes it much easier to pick out enemies (provided they aren't behind a wall). This also works through smoke grenades, which can help to counter players who use those.
Other character buffs come for Doc, who can now overheal players to 140 health (up from 120), and Buck, who gains an additional magazine for his Skeleton Key shotgun.
Among the weapon changes, the DMR's trigger rate has been reduced to prevent players from being able to fire them faster than intended. Certain sights are being reduced in size after the change made during a previous patch, which should help to prevent them from obstructing your view too much. And Echo's MP5SD2, which features an integrated suppressor, now deals more damage at mid-range, as it was deemed too ineffective previously.
This patch also introduces a new Elite set for Twitch (pictured above). This consists of a matching uniform and headgear along with an Operator card, title, charm, and victory animation.
Additionally, it paves the way for a technical test server. Ubisoft said that game "health" is an area of emphasis, and this will serve as one way of improving that. At some point in the coming weeks, it said it will launch a test server to "focus on specific technical systems we want to introduce to the game. The first of these is the One-Step Matchmaking, which was mentioned at the Six Invitational and is a new approach to our matchmaking to make it more stable." More details will arrive in the "upcoming weeks." There's no mention if this will be PC-only, as is the case with test servers for games like Battlefield 1 and Overwatch.
For a full list of all the changes, including more weapon adjustments and bug fixes, check out the patch notes. The patch deploys tomorrow, March 15, with maintenance windows scheduled during the following times:
You can automatically get into the beta by purchasing the game's Founder's Pack, which normally goes for $20 but is available right now for $15. In addition to providing instant access to the beta, it gets you every character that Hi-Rez ever releases for the game. A total of 15 are scheduled to arrive in 2017, adding to the 22 that are already available.
Alternatively, you can sign up at the Paladins website for a chance to get into the closed beta. GameSpot is holding a giveaway for Paladins codes. We have 50,000 each for PS4 and Xbox One. Click the links below to find out how to enter.
A free open beta is coming at a later date, Hi-Rez said in a post on the PlayStation Blog.
Paladins is a team-based shooter set in a fantasy universe. Some of its characters include a shotgun-wielding monk and a goblin that pilots a mech. Watch the closed beta announcement trailer above to get a better idea for what to expect.
[UPDATE] The trailer has now arrived and can be seen above. It provides basically the best look we've gotten so far at the multiplayer mode, starting off by confirming there are over 25 character sets to choose from "at launch," suggesting more are coming later. You can play as a character from the Andromeda or Milky Way galaxy. Each character has their own set of skills and abilities.
Over 40 upgradeable weapons will be available at launch, with more to come. Additionally, weapons are not restricted to certain classes, so any character can use any weapon.
There will be five multiplayer maps available at launch, including Sandstorm, the one shown in this preview video. More maps will be released later as free DLC.
At the end of a match, XP and other rewards are shared between teammates, so as to discourage teammates from competing, BioWare says. Extra packs can be purchased using credits, which you can unlock through gameplay or by spending real money for microtransactions.
Additionally, the video talks about the multiplayer Strike Team missions, which can be accessed from the Tempest, your ship. Rewards earned from completing these missions can be used in single-player.
BioWare will share new details about Mass Effect: Andromeda's multiplayer today, the developer has confirmed. Fans can expect a "deeper look" at the mode in a new video.
You don't have to wait to see some new footage, as the teaser below shows off what fans can expect from the four-player, wave-based co-op mode. Take a look:
Assemble your squad. Tune in tomorrow for a deeper look at Multiplayer in Mass Effect: Andromeda. pic.twitter.com/LvkrOsO269
GameSpot played Andromeda's multiplayer mode at PAX East over the weekend. You can read editor Scott Butterworth's impressions right here.
BioWare originally planned to let a group of people play Andromeda's multiplayer through a beta, but the developer canceled plans for this.
You may not have to wait until launch to try Andromeda's multiplayer mode, however, as EA/Origin Access subscribers on Xbox One and PC can play it as part of the game's 10-hour trial coming on March 16. The full game launches on March 21 for Xbox One, PC, and PlayStation 4.
In other news about Andromeda's multiplayer mode, producer Fernando Melo has shared yet another image, this one focusing on the consumables screen.
On the 13th day of #MEAndromeda MP-mas, the MP dev team gave to you: a look at the consumables screen. Boosters & in-game emergency supplies pic.twitter.com/hZRSFJUE14
GameSpot will have lots more on Andromeda in the coming days as part of our new video series, "The Story of Mass Effect: Andromeda." You can watch a trailer for that below.
By Anonymous on Mar 14, 2017 09:51 pm We dive in to show off the features of Mass Effect Andromeda's character creator and somewhere along the way we got sidetracked. We are sorry.
By Anonymous on Mar 14, 2017 09:50 pm Here is the beginning of Mass Effect Andromeda for your viewing pleasure, heads up there are spoilers here. Obviously.
Get a much closer look at the co-op mode.
Tune in as we check out the first mission and explore Eos in Mass Effect Andromeda.
Ramone Russell takes us through the new Road to the Show mode in MLB The Show 17.
We dive in to show off the features of Mass Effect Andromeda's character creator and somewhere along the way we got sidetracked. We are sorry.
Here is the beginning of Mass Effect Andromeda for your viewing pleasure, heads up there are spoilers here. Obviously.
Check out our unboxing of the Mass Effect Andromeda Collector's Edition Nomad ND1
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