Skullgirls 2nd Encore is getting a new DLC character, developer Hidden Variable and publisher Autumn Games announced. Her name is Umbrella and she is part of the game's Season 1 Pass DLC. She is planned to be released sometime in 2021 and will also be available in the Mobile version.Hidden Variable says that Umbrella is still in early development, but the developer wanted to share some details about her playstyle. Umbrella has a living weapon named Hungern that she utilizes with most of her attacks. Hungern has an interesting mechanic where he gets hungrier and hungrier as the match progresses or after performing certain actions. His hunger level fluctuates and will affect his attacks.Hungern has three states: Starving, Overstuffed, and Ravenous. When he is Starving, Umbrella's normal attacks are slower, but attacks that devour opponents become stronger. The Overstuffed state provides bonus effects to attacks that have him spitting up something from his stomach. Being balanced between those two makes Hungern enter the Ravenous state. This means that he is hungry and powerful, but isn't Starving just yet. Players that can maintain this state will be rewarded. It looks like Umbrella's gameplay direction requires some micro-management.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Double XP in Call of Duty: Warzone is live now, but it only lasts until tomorrow. Activision announced that, in response to 1 million players completing Call of Duty's challenge for supporting veterans, it would grant extra experience points for all players for 24 hours.Last week, Activision kicked off an in-game challenge to raise awareness for action to support veteran medics and hospital corpsmen and women. The challenge tasks people to revive five downed players in Call of Duty: Warzone; competing it by May 9 grants a unique Call of Duty Endowment calling card. In addition, Activision donates $1 to the Call of Duty Endowment charity for each person who successfully finishes the challenge.The total number of players has just crossed 1 million, and as promised, Activision enabled Double XP for all Warzone players. But it won't last long: the promotion will only be live until tomorrow. An exact time wasn't specified, but Activision's announcement came at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET / 6 PM BST so the Double XP is likely to expire at that same time tomorrow.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

This week, the United States government signaled its intent to take the side of consumers in the fight over the "right to repair," or the ability for consumers to readily and easily repair their own devices. In a new report, the Federal Trade Commission attacks manufacturers, listing an array of anti-competitive and restrictive action taken to prevent owners from fixing their products.The report, titled Nixing the Fix, has been eagerly anticipated by both manufacturers and consumer rights advocates, as it is one of the biggest signs in recent years of how the U.S. government is approaching the right to repair. In the report, the FTC outlines the policies instituted by manufacturers of devices from mobile phones to cars, such as purposefully limiting the availability of spare parts and instituting product designs that make repairs unnecessarily complex. The Right to Repair logo.The FTC focuses on the impact to the users from these restrictive measures taken by manufacturers. It specifically calls out the disproportionate financial impact that onerous anti-repair designs and policies have on low-income communities and people of color. The FTC states that small repair shop businesses are also unfairly harmed.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Kelly Olsen (Azie Tesfai) will be picking up the mantle of Guardian in the twelfth episode of Supergirl's sixth and final season, titled "Blind Spots." She is taking over the role from James Olsen (Mehcad Brooks), who left the series back in Season 5. Take a look at Kelly in full Guardian costume in Tesfai's celebratory tweet below.While this superhero, character, & my process of writing her debut represents many ‘firsts’... the one I’m most proud of is cultural:The first Ethiopian or Eritrean superhero EVER! 🦸🏾‍♀️🇪🇷🇪🇹 pic.twitter.com/VeujAFxcTK — Azie Tesfai (@AzieTesfai) May 7, 2021Making the moment even more special is the fact that Tesfai co-wrote the episode alongside co-producer J. Holtham. It will also be directed by an Arrow-verse regular, David Ramsey, who is slated to appear in it as his fan favorite character, John Diggle. A full description of the episode is not yet available, but it will deal with and address racial inequality.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Resident Evil Village's traveling merchant, the Duke, will sell you a whole lot of useful stuff over the course of the game. One service you might not know he offers, though, is his culinary expertise. If you find the ingredients, the Duke will cook various meals and share them with you. These meals are extremely useful--they boost protagonist Ethan Winters' overall stats, giving him more health, faster movement speed, and a stronger defensive guard.The ingredients the Duke needs for these meals are all various kinds of meat, which you can find around the village and surrounding area. Whenever you see animals such as fish, chickens, pigs, or goats, you should, uh, kill them. They'll drop different kinds of meat you can then deliver to the Duke for each kind of meal. But there are several special, one-of-a-kind animals you'll need to find in the village to make the very best foods. Below you'll find all the details you need to make each of the Duke's meals, including where you can find the rarest animals.Quick Cooking TipsYou'll gain access to the cooking system the first time you return to the village after venturing into Castle Dimitrescu. It's a good idea to scour the village for ingredients every time you return to the village. Each time you head to different areas around the village outskirts, you'll gain new keys and items that let you unlock new places, and thus, new animals.Mostly, the cooking system is just about finding animals. You'll find most of them around the village just as you're exploring during the game. When you find animals, they'll be marked on your map, so you can easily return to get any that you might have missed. And sometimes, even animals you haven't seen for yourself will be marked on the map--so make sure to use it to help you track down the ingredients you need.You can turn in your ingredients to the Duke at any time in the cooking menu, applying them to whatever recipe you want. This is a good practice for keeping your inventory clear, in fact; meat can take up a lot of space in your suitcase if you're holding onto ingredients for a long time. That makes it tougher to pick up new weapons, ammo, and health items, dump ingredients quickly to free up space.As you work through the game, you might find photographs that show you rare animals. Each of these photos shows the animal and its background will give you clues about where those animals are located. We're marking those animals' locations in this guide, but if you want to find them on your own, you can do that by diligently searching through Resident Evil Village. You'll know the rare animals by their coloring: you're looking for a bluebird, a white pig, and a yellow fish.After leaving Moreau's Reservoir, there will be several signs scattered through the village directing you to your next objective. Follow them until you see the one marked "Good Luck!" that points you into a tunnel. If you turn left here and follow the path, you'll come across Otto's Mill, where the Cannibal's Plunder treasure is marked on your map. Expect a fight when you go inside the mill, but it's worth the effort to unlock room filled with spare meat, fish, and poultry. You can use it to shore up any recipes you might be lagging on (specifically if you need Meat; there's a lot less Poultry and Fish to be found, unfortunately), and if you don't need the ingredients for recipes, sell it all to the Duke to make some extra Lei.Recipes Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

If you're one of the millions of users who access their streaming services through a Roku-branded television or streaming box, you may have noticed just how long it took HBO Max and Peacock to arrive on the service. Now, Google and Roku are at odds over the YouTube app following Roku's removal of the separate YouTube TV app. Google added fuel to the fire today by adding YouTube TV to the existing YouTube App.The fun kicked off last week when Roku removed the YouTube TV app from the Roku store. The distribution deal between the two companies expired on April 30, and Roku says Google is asking for unfair terms meant to not just benefit YouTube, but also to negatively affect Roku and Roku users. The terms include things like providing Google with special access to consumer data, Roku to build a special YouTube search function into the Roku interface, and even for Roku to meet certain hardware specs. In short, it sounds like Google is asking Roku to be another branch of its existing Chromecast product line at additional cost to Roku itself.When negotiations stalled out and the distribution agreement expired, Roku removed the YouTube TV app.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Some video game franchises seem destined for the mobile gaming scene, their format ideally suited for touchscreen controls or quick on-the-go gaming sessions. Bandai Namco's drum-pounding rhythm game Taiko no Tatsujin is the latest established franchise to make the jump to mobile, and it's a match made in heaven. Bright, colorful, and full of charm, Taiko no Tatsujin Pop Tap Beat will have you smiling from ear to ear as you tap tap tap away to its catchy soundtrack. It's just a shame that fun has such a short shelf life.Pop Tap Beat follows the standard rhythm genre format: notes travel from one side of the screen to the other (in this case right to left), and you tap the screen when each one reaches a circle to score points. The closer to the circle the note is when you tap, the more in rhythm with the song you are and the more points you score. It's a simple system that's easy to understand and pick up even if this is your first time playing a rhythm game, making for a short learning curve and a longer focus on fun.The gameplay loop offers incremental increases in challenge with each subsequent difficulty level, offering an experience that's challenging without ever feeling impossible. Notes come in two colors: red, which signals tapping the drum, and blue, which signals tapping around the edge of it. Higher difficulties will split the drum in half, meaning you not only have to pay attention to the color of each note but also keep in mind which side of the screen needs to be tapped. Pop Tap Beat mixes things up further with special notes, alleviating any monotony. These special notes include drum rolls with continuous tapping, golden drums for furious tapping, and balloon notes for a different kind of furious tapping.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Video games offer vast, detailed worlds that you can truly get lost in, and sometimes, there's more to learn about a world than what you easily pick up by just playing the game. That's part of why video game art books and compendiums are so popular--they dive deeper into the lore and history of a game while also showing off the art and sketches that went into making a game world come to life. If you're someone who likes to collect art books, guides, and other books around gaming, Amazon's latest sale has an absolute treasure trove of deals to check out.The new Amazon sale features steep discounts on dozens of video game art books, compendiums, cookbooks, novelizations, and more. But on top of these individual discounts, there's a multi-buy deal that slashes 50% off one of your items when you add two to your cart. As usual, this'll be the cheaper item that gets the discount, so keep that in mind. This offers stacks as well--if you buy four things, the two cheapest items will be 50% off. With these combined deals, you can stock up on any gaming books you've been eyeing for a great price today, so it's absolutely worth browsing all the offers.Highlights from the sale include Dark Horse's entire line of video game art books, giving you a closer look at concept art, sketches, and more from games like Cuphead, Ghost of Tsushima, and Final Fantasy. Notably, the brand-new Mass Effect Trilogy: Expanded Edition art book is on sale, just in time for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Crunchyroll Games has announced that Mitrasphere, a co-op mobile RPG, is coming to audiences outside Japan. Pre-registration is now open.Initially released in Japan in August 2017, Mitrasphere takes place in a fantasy world where, one day, golden crystals--which rained down from the sky--begin affecting people, changing their lives. Many of your NPC companions are cursed in different ways, and you're all working alongside each other in order to overcome their personal demons.Gallery In Japan, Mitrasphere has reached 7 million total installs. Crunchyroll Games is looking to improve that number as part of its attempts to increase the popularity of anime games in the West, bringing Mitrasphere to select countries in North America, South America, New Zealand, and Europe.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Destruction AllStars Season 1 has begun, adding a battle pass, photo mode, playable character Alba, and 3v3v3v3 competitive mode Blitz to developer Lucid Games' multiplayer demolition derby game. I'm most excited to jump back into the game for Alba, partially to try out her laser beam kit but mostly to see how she adds to the overall story of Destruction AllStars as a veteran of the sport.In fact, it's Destruction AllStars' diverse assortment of characters that first drew me into the game. I enjoy its gameplay too--anyone down for some Carnado later?--but I keep coming back to the game for its characters. Destruction AllStars is such a wonderful celebration of representation, featuring characters of different races, cultures, genders, sexualities, and body types, plus folks with disabilities--I remember being pleasantly surprised when I realized the always silent Shyft, was, in fact, mute and communicating to the other characters while waiting in the lobby with American Sign Language.Ahead of Season 1, I sat down for an email interview with game director Colin Berry, art director Chris Davie, lead writer Giles Armstrong, and writer Khaya Ahmed to talk about the storytelling in Destruction AllStars and why the team decided to go so hard on crafting wonderfully unique and diverse characters for a game where you're crashing cars most of the time. Destruction AllStars is an experience that certainly benefits from having a diverse assortment of characters and plenty of dialogue (I love this cast of characters so much y'all) but it's one that didn't necessarily need those things in order to be fun. I was happy to hear that the narrative aspects of Destruction AllStars have always been a part of the game; the team established the importance of storytelling right from the get-go.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Marvel has released a video announcement with Tom Hiddleston letting fans know that Loki will now premiere on June 9, and air on subsequent Wednesdays over the course of its premiere season--instead of June 11 and Fridays, as was expected until this official message. Or, as Hiddleston declares: "Wednesdays are the new Fridays."Hiddleston reprises his role as Loki from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, sharing some continuity with the films of the franchise, but actually taking place in an alternate universe. Picking up after the events of Avengers: Endgame, Loki features "the God of Mischief as he steps out of his brother's shadow" as he escapes with the Tesseract and in the hands of the Time Variance Authority. The TVA is an organization from the far future that monitors and polices time and the multiverse--in this series, Loki works for the TVA to atone for his own time and space crimes against, well, time and space itself.The above video is full of crucial information about how you can watch Loki soon, but fans can also check out a sizzle reel that was released back in December. The trailer also features Owen Wilson as Mobius M. Mobius, a high-profile employee of the TVA--note that this character has nothing to do with Morbius the Living Vampire, whose movie was just delayed to late January 2022. In addition to Hiddleston and Wilson, the series will include Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku, and Richard E. Grant.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Resident Evil Village isn't even out to the public yet, but that hasn't stopped modders from getting their hands on the demo and turning Lady Dimitrescu into Thomas the Tank Engine. That's right--one of the first mods to be released for the game features the popular children's locomotive in the role of the tall vampire countess.As spotted by PC Gamer, modders had to first actually make Lady Dimitrescu fightable in the demo, which they accomplished by replacing the Daughters with the vampire. Then, other modders took the initiative to change her into Thomas.But don't expect a clean swap and to be fighting against a nine-feet-tall locomotive engine. Instead, the creators took the much more grotesque path of swapping faces, resulting in a profoundly disconcerting train-vampire hybrid with a haunting face. If you want to fight against Dimitrescu the Tank Engine (or should it be Lady Thomas the Vampire Countess?), you need to grab the mod that swaps the daughters and then the Lady Theodora mod.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

In April, Humble Bundle made a controversial decision to remove sliders from its game listing, which previously gave people the option to decide where their money was going--to Humble itself, to developers, or to charity. It was replaced by a few set amounts for charity, but the store has decided to reverse this decision after receiving feedback. "We recently announced our initial plan for redesigned bundle pages which no longer include sliders that let customers fully control what percentage of their order went to Humble Bundle, charity, and publishers/developers," the company said in a blog post. "We've heard everyone loud and clear and apologize for the way these changes were rolled out. We are now taking a moment to pause, collect constructive feedback, and be more transparent about the path forward."We want to thank everyone for their recent constructive feedback about sliders. We will be turning sliders back on today for all customers and will be exploring updates on how they are used in the future with input from our incredible community. https://t.co/P4mEwueD2j — Humble Bundle (@humble) May 5, 2021That feedback included some criticism from big-name developers. Thomas Was Alone and John Wick Hex designer Mike Bithell was one of them, calling the full charity donations "the defining feature of their platform."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Xbox business boss Lori Wright testified in the ongoing Apple vs. Epic court case on Wednesday, and as part of this, a heavily redacted internal Microsoft document was entered into evidence. This document, which is available for anyone to see on the court's website, includes some very old and outdated information about a number of topics, including some of the competing games that Microsoft thought would be released in 2020.In a slide called Worldwide High-Profile Competitive Console Exclusives, Microsoft listed off titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 and Metroid Prime 4 as games that the company believed would release in the 2019-2020. The document, which is so old that it uses the name Project Scarlett instead of Xbox Series X, is dated to August 2020. But based on the information that was available to Microsoft at the time, it seems the company believed those high-profile Nintendo Switch games could be released in 2020.Of course, they were not, and no release dates for them have been announced.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Apple's latest iPad Pro models, announced at the company's latest Spring Loaded event, are probably the biggest swing yet at trying to make the tablets fully fledged laptops. Most of that comes down to its internal guts, with the new iPad Pros sporting the same Apple M1 processor as its latest MacBook Pro and Air laptops. The full range is coming later this month, but if you're already sold on Apple's promise you can save $50 on an 11-inch iPad Pro preorder at Walmart today. Apple 11-inch iPad Pro (2021) Wi-Fi 128GB $749 (was $799) | Ships May 24 The deal is available on the cheapest of the new iPad Pros--the 11-inch Wi-Fi-only iPad Pro with 128GB of storage--but is still a great savings on a tablet that isn't even out yet. The Apple M1 processors brings with it 8 CPU and GPU cores as well as 16GB of RAM, meaning you'll have no problems with productivity apps on the go with the extra oomph provided. The new model also includes 5G support, but the smaller 11-inch model misses out on the new Mini LED display that the larger 12.9-inch models come with. Still, this is the same, incredible display as last year, so it's not like you're missing out. See at Walmart The iPad Pro supports the second-generation Apple Pencil and the Magic Keyboard, which suspends your tablet in mid-air while giving you a near MacBook-like typing experience to further blur the lines between the two products. There's a new version of that, too, with the Magic Keyboard coming in white now instead of just the standard black. It's still $300, so it's a hefty investment.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com