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As the gaming industry reacts to the proposed closure of Lionhead Studios, Phil Spencer takes to Twitter to promise more new IPs and expansions to existing franchises. Last week saw Microsoft announce plans to shutter development house Lionhead Studios, news that came as a surprise to many of the company’s fans. There are plenty of people who have strong opinions on the matter and many are taking to social media to air their grievances....

2020 is nearing its end, and for the gaming industry, that’s likely a positive thing. It’s unknown what 2021 holds, but with the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series X amid the coronavirus pandemic, there’s a ton of anticipation for what remains over that hill. One thing that has turned out to be promising is the subscription services that moved from current-gen to next-gen, like Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus....

Everything changed when the fire nation attacked, and you can take part in that adventure with the official Avatar: The Last Airbender roleplaying game early next year. A book revolving around The Legend of Korra will also be released. Magpie Games is producing the new tabletop game that will have you save local merchants from the Triple Threat Triad in Republic City or rescue a child that’s been kidnapped in the Spirit World....

Fantasy Flight Games recently posted a news blog piece to its website discussing the Automated Player method. Automated Player is what they are calling the ability to solo-play Sid Meier’s Civilization: A New Dawn board game, inspired by the ongoing COVID-19-enforced quarantine we’re living in. In the Automatic Civilization post, Developer Tony Fanchi lays out the details for a new Automated Player method, which came about through FFG “digital office” discussion regarding “which of our non-cooperative games might be best suited to being played solo....

Vacationing to distant places can be tricky. The more history a place has, the more exciting it can be to stay there, right? But do you really want to know all of the dark secrets in an old house? Or, even more unsettling, would you want that house to know yours? This is the setup of You Should Have Left, a new Blumhouse horror movie with a mysterious premise. The latest film from screenwriting adaptation chief extraordinaire, David Koepp, You Should Have Left begins on a marriage that already seems to be preternaturally doomed: successful and very middle-aged Conroy (Kevin Bacon) has started a family with the much younger Susanna (Amanda Seyfried)....

Japanese game development studio Toaplan may not be as much of a household name as companies like Nintendo, but anyone keyed into Internet culture will no doubt be familiar with its 1989 scrolling-shooter Zero Wing for spawning the iconic “all your base are belong to us” meme. That game, alongside similar shooters Truxton, Hellfire, and Fire Shark, are being given physical re-releases for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive thanks to Retro-Bit Gaming....

What Does Unicorn Mean? In IT, a unicorn refers to a project or firm with a unique potential. This broad term can be used to refer to a company in the tech field that has experienced impressive gains or to a project that is, in some ways, groundbreaking or unique. Techopedia Explains Unicorn The term unicorn is most commonly used to describe a company, for example, a Silicon Valley startup, that started out small but has since increased its market capitalization to, say, $1 billion or more....

What Does Real-Time Log Analysis Mean? Real-time log analysis is a process of getting information that is more meaningful and human-readable from system log files, in real time. Logs provide a view into the performance of a large-scale system, but are often too cluttered and can simply be unreadable for most people. However, real-time log analysis methods help to visualize data being provided by logs and help the administrator easily understand what is going on based on the statistics of the data....

What Does SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) Mean? Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is a part of Microsoft’s SQL Server that intends to make data migration easier. It is designed for data integration and workflow for extract, transform and load (ETL) operations used in data warehousing. It replaces Microsoft’s earlier Data Transformation Services starting with Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Techopedia Explains SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) SQL Server Integration Services is a data migration tool that comes with Microsoft SQL Server....

Cyberpunk 2077 has had a remarkably shaky launch, and that’s putting it lightly. The last-gen versions of the game are completely broken, and even if you have a high-end PC with a powerful GPU, there are hundreds of bugs that regularly occur on a moment-to-moment basis. Before I get into what Cyberpunk looks like when it’s actually working, I’d like to direct your attention to the clip below, which perfectly sums up just how wildly busted this game can be....

Joel and Ellie came a long way during their journey in The Last of Us, venturing from as far east as Boston to as far west as Utah. After all the events of the first game, the two finally settled in a fictional version of the real town of Jackson, Wyoming. In between, Ellie and Joel spent a full year traveling across several of the United States to reach the Fireflies in Utah....

When it comes to playing in the Sinnoh region, it’s vital to try out the new selection of Pokémon! So why not let your personality figure out the one most suited to you? Your MBTI® can tell a variety of things about you, much more than the typical personality test. In just a few questions it can help you discover your strengths, weaknesses, loves, hates, and even your relationships with friends and family....

Recently, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio made a significant heel-turn with its titular beat ’em up franchise to something far different. Rather than continue with Kazuma Kiryu’s story in Kamurocho, the Yakuza series will be starting anew with Ichiban Kasuga, boasting a gameplay experience closer to Persona than Yakuza. Yakuza: Like a Dragon not only kicks off the new protagonist’s story, but also ushers in a completely new JRPG framework that significantly changes how the series is played....

Fortnite fans are speculating that a SpongeBob crossover is coming. That seems like a stretch, but we don’t think we have ever been more excited about a potential crossover. Fortnite players were expecting to be entering a new season this week. Well, actually, they expected the new season to start more than a month ago. That start date was delayed by five weeks, then last week, it was delayed again. Chapter 2: Season 3 will now begin on Thursday, June 11, 2020, providing Epic doesn’t decide to delay it further....

Back in 2017, Blumhouse scored a big hit with writer/director Christopher Landon’s Happy Death Day, a sci-fi/horror comedy in which an excellent Jessica Rothe played a college student who keeps waking up to relive the day on which a serial killer slaughters her. A sort of hybrid of Scream and Groundhog Day, Happy Death Day was acclaimed by critics, earned $125 million at the box office and was followed two years later by Happy Death Day 2U, which continued the story but emphasized a more sci-fi angle to the tale as Roth’s character found herself in an alternate dimension....

Sonic’s official 30th anniversary is June 23, but the blue hedgehog actually made his very first appearance in a video game four months before that. A lot of landmark anniversaries will be celebrated in 2021. The Legend of Zelda turns 35, Pokemon is gearing up for its 25th anniversary, and Crash Bandicoot also celebrates 25 years since the release of the world’s best-known marsupial’s very first game. However, the one we are more excited about than any of those is Sonic’s 30th....

With Grand Theft Auto V only having just been confirmed today, there hasn’t been much time for gamers to mull over what type of location they hope the game will be set in. While past iterations have always featured a fictionalized version of a real life locale, many were hoping that this newest iteration might either be set in an actual place or at least a stunningly realized facsimile of it — and it turns out they might be right....

One of the cornerstones of the first PlayStation’s history was the release and success of Final Fantasy 7, an exclusive revolutionary RPG that was one of the best selling games of all time. Now it seems Sony has recaptured the magic with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, as Cloud and the gang make their triumphant reunion for one last ride. But, like many other fantastic games, the reimagining of the classic RPG is at the very least a timed-exclusive until 2021....

The World of Warcraft: Shadowlands pre-patch has been out for over a week with improvements like revamped character customization and choosing where to level alts being well received by players. However, the community has also discovered some unique interactions because of class updates including a special one for hunters. While the hunter class didn’t get any major changes, their stable size was increased to 200 slots and they learned to tame new types of pets including the Cloud Serpent family....

UPDATE: All Xbox Live services have been restored. The original story follows. Some Xbox Live services appear to be down for Xbox One and Xbox 360 users, including party chat, access to friends list, logging in, and online gaming. The outage started on January 12, and has been reported by thousands of Xbox Live users. While some have reported issues with online gaming, in our own testing, we only noted difficulties joining friends in parties, and that included receiving or sending party chat invites....