2016 Ubisoft Game Lab Competition - The team from NAD in collaboration with UQAC, wins big with its "Koru" prototype

Today marks the end of an adventure for the 135 students who participated in the 2016 edition of Ubisoft's Game Lab Competition. After three months of hard work and long hours spent developing their first game prototypes, it was time to celebrate their achievements at the scholarship and awards ceremony, held last night at the Rialto Theatre. Among the 17 prototypes that were nominated was "Koru"—created by École des arts numériques, de l'animation et du design (NAD) UQAC in collaboration with Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC)—which took home the award for best prototype. Koru also snagged the award for best game design and the audience award, and a total of $10,000 in scholarship money.
"The students had to juggle a challenging assignment and short overall production time. The winning teams all presented prototypes that met the demands and had various well-executed features. However, the Koru team stood out because their prototype was fully functional and had a combination of features—cooperative play, art direction, design and various technical aspects—that were perfectly executed. All in all, it's a game that's a lot of fun to play, and that's what matters most," says Ubisoft Montréal Producer Julien Laferrière, who served as chairman of the 2016 Game Lab Competition jury.
A celebration of emerging video game creators in Quebec
In this sixth edition, the assignment and restrictions that the students took on mirrored the real-life production challenges that are often encountered at Ubisoft Montréal. Among them: the integration of game systems in which groups of objects must interact according to predetermined rules, a physics-related component, and a component related to artificial intelligence.
"For us, the competition is both a direct way to hire local talent and encourage all the emerging professionals in the Quebec video game industry. This year is no different. By collaborating with Quebec universities, and with the fortunate assistance of our employees who serve as mentors to each of the teams, we're able to aid students in their transition from academic studies to the workplace. Because of the competition, they now have real-world knowledge and production experience, which will go a long way when it comes to pursuing their passion," concludes
Cédric Orvoine, Vice-President of Human Resources and Communications at Ubisoft Montréal.
The list of winning teams:
Best prototype – $8,000Koru – École des arts numériques, de l'animation et du design (NAD) UQAC in collaboration with Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC)
Jury's Special Award – $2,000Sew World – Université Laval
Best technical challenge and innovation – $2,000Sublimation – Polytechnique Montréal in collaboration with UQAT Montréal
Best game design – $2,000Koru – École des arts numériques, de l'animation et du design (NAD) UQAC in collaboration with Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC)
Best user experience – $2,000Déuström – École des arts numériques, de l'animation et du design (NAD) UQAC in collaboration with Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC)
Best Quality of the "3C" (camera, characters and controls) – $2,000Radiant Crusade – Concordia University
Best creativity and theme integration – $2,000Lumina – McGill University in collaboration with Concordia University
Best art direction – $2,000Astral Tides – École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) in collaboration with École des arts numériques, de l'animation et du design (NAD) UQAC
Audience awardKoru – École des arts numériques, de l'animation et du design (NAD) UQAC in collaboration with l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC)
The students were given 3 months to create a playable game prototype that fit with this year's theme: the ocean. Overall, the 2016 edition of the competition attracted 135 students—divided up into 17 teams—from 11 universities throughout Quebec. The teams competed for $22,000 in scholarship money, and Ubisoft has committed to offering employment and internship opportunities to 10 of the top participants.
About Ubisoft
Ubisoft is a leading creator, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and services, with a rich portfolio of world-renowned brands, including Assassin's Creed, Just Dance, Tom Clancy's video game series, Rayman, Far Cry and Watch Dogs. The teams throughout Ubisoft's worldwide network of studios and business offices are committed to delivering original and memorable gaming experiences across all popular platforms, including consoles, mobile phones, tablets and PCs. For the 2014–15 fiscal year Ubisoft generated sales of €1,464 million. To learn more, please visit www.ubisoftgroup.com.
SOURCE Ubisoft
http://www.montrealgazette.com

This impressive controller performance zigzags across video game history

At face value, this video from The KlingDing is just another charming chip-tune remix made slightly more impressive by its live performance. Consider the combination of classic games and current hardware, and the video transforms into a Matryoshka doll of video game history.
The game footage, taken from Super Mario Bros. on the classic Nintendo Entertainment System and Tetris, Pokemon, and Kirby on the Nintendo Gameboy, is being played on an early model iPad. The music — an emulation of the PSG sound chips of the 1980s — is performed with controllers from video game consoles of the mid-2000s.

And the video is published on YouTube, which now hosts YouTube Gaming to compete with Twitch, a streaming service through which millions of people watch strangers play modern and classic video games alike, including a fish that once played Pokemon, which is featured in this video.
I enjoy this about video game culture, how a cute fan-made video can effortlessly be in conversation with four decades of the culture that inspired it.

By Chris Plante
http://www.theverge.com

Activision's competitive video game watching hits new record

Less than six months after launching its eSports subsidiary, Activision Blizzard seems to have a hit on its hands.
Viewership in the company's just-completed "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship" set competitive video gaming records, said Activision, with viewers watching a total of 45 million hours of live broadcast over the five-day event.
All totaled, the event captured 71 million video views, with concurrent views hitting 1.6 million at one point.
If all of that sounds a bit confusing, try this: Two weekends ago, millions of video game fans spent hours watching on their PCs and mobile devices as other people played a game. And the number of people doing that regularly is on the rise.
"Last year, more than 225 million people watched competitive gaming, and the passion, engagement and size of this audience only continues to grow," said Mike Sepso, senior vice president of Activision Blizzard Media Networks and co-founder of Major League Gaming.
Players in the recent tournament competed for a $1 million prize pool.
While most of the media's attention is on virtual reality when it comes to new frontiers in video games, eSports is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with. Electronic Arts has also launched its own competitive gaming unit, tapping one of its highest-profile executives, Peter Moore, EA's chief operating officer and former head of Microsoft's Xbox subsidiary, to oversee the division.
While EA's unit is still ramping up, Activision has expanded quickly, buying MLG last December for $46 million. That gave the company a mature platform to host tournaments and leverage relationships with television networks, including ESPN and USA.
The audience for eSports is certainly there. More than twice as many people viewed a competitive video game tournament last year than watched Super Bowl 50. And by 2018, the audience is expected to hit 323 million, according to analysis firm Newzoo.
R.W. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian expects eSports revenue to reach $1 billion by 2018 — a big leap from an expected $200 million in 2015. There are significant opportunities with tournaments, advertising and sponsorships, broadcast contracts and wagering.
Perhaps more importantly, it's also a chance to deepen user engagement and increase monetization of game titles — as games played in tournaments are likely to see a longer tail at retail as fans try to emulate professional gamers.
For investors, though, it could be a little while before the success of Activision's (or EA's) eSports division trickles down to investors, say analysts.
"ESports is still mostly a marketing play for Activision — and the investment and impact in 2016 will likely remain minimal," said Ben Schachter of Macquarie Securities.

By Chris Morris
http://www.cnbc.com

Quantum Break is better TV than videogame

In Remedy Entertainment’s Max Payne (2001) and Alan Wake (2010), the player can approach television sets and watch short, surprisingly detailed videos. In Max Payne, these include soapy melodrama Lords and Ladies and the paranoiac, Lynch-riffing Address Unknown. Alan Wake sticks to a Twilight Zone-inspired anthology series called Night Springs. These TV shows are worth mentioning as a reminder that Remedy has never been shy about recognizing its influences. As such, Max Payne is a blend of Hong Kong cinema gunplay and conspiracy-laden noir. While Alan Wake is a Stephen King thriller filtered through the lens of Twin Peaks and The Twilight Zone. Both games are played straight—they intentionally lean into the campier side of their inspirations without ever attempting to mock them. The in-game televisions are a loving acknowledgement of the stories the developer enjoys and a clear signal to the audience that the story they’re watching is an intentional send-up of established genres.    

In Quantum Break, Remedy’s most recent work, the player can guide protagonist Jack Joyce (portrayed by X-Men actor Shawn Ashmore) to a TV within the first few minutes of the game. Though the plot starts with Jack rushing to meet his brother for the demonstration of a revolutionary new technology, time can still be taken to stand around in front of a set and watch a video. The player expects more of these as the game goes on, but, instead, Remedy largely forgoes the constraints of these short videos for something bigger: live-action, full-length episodes of its very own science-fiction drama series.

multi-colored ribbons of exploded fireworks hang suspended in mid-air

Quantum Break is not so much a tribute to pulp sci-fi—it’s an embodiment. After his brother’s time machine malfunctions, Jack finds himself imbued with superpowers. His exposure to time-manipulating “chronon particles” gives Jack the ability to freeze the world around him, speed from place to place, and create pockets in space where nothing moves. The accident that gives Jack his powers also sets the end of the world into motion—a calamity dubbed The End of Time in which everything in existence simply stops. In attempting to avert this catastrophe, Jack is opposed by former friend Paul Serene (Game of Thrones’ Aidan Gillen), the founder of Monarch Solutions, a mega corporation with a vested interest in the shape the oncoming apocalypse will take.  

That a brief summary of Quantum Break’s plot is necessarily convoluted should provide some idea of how the game itself unfolds. Just as Max Payne and Alan Wake couched themselves in crime and paranormal thriller conventions, Remedy’s latest owes a profound debt to the twisting plotlines and fantastic technology of the time travel genre.    

Though initially off-putting, the game’s eagerness to explain the pseudo-science behind its various super devices, and the straight face with which it approaches the dramatic potential of time loops, becomes endearing. As Jack, the player spends much of her time shooting through groups of enemy soldiers across a series of competent, but unexceptional gun battles. It’s only in the handful of moments when the world freezes—time “stutters,”  Jack able to move while everyone and everything else remains motionless—that Quantum Break exploits the design potential of its sci-fi conceits. There’s the impressive tableau of a party where multi-colored ribbons of exploded fireworks hang suspended in mid-air, and a scene where Jack attempts to escape a collapsing tanker, its steel guts having turned a great concrete dry dock into a several story-tall labyrinth. Otherwise, the game’s sense of character comes when control is wrested away for Quantum Break’s serialized TV show—four 20-minute episodes that run between the game’s playable acts.

In these episodes, a script that often falls flat in the rest of the game comes to life through fast-paced, ultra-corny scenes. Free of the technobabble that bogs down the computer-generated cinematics and fills the far too lengthy and frequent text logs, Quantum Break’s television segments are given no mandate but entertainment. The cast seems game for all of it and their performances—especially The Wire’s Lance Reddick’s portrayal of the dispassionately evil Martin Hatch—introduce a level of distinctly human enjoyment to the story, one that’s lacking from the exactingly detailed motion captures used in the rest of the game.

only the richest and best-connected may be able to survive

While the interactive core of Quantum Break is a serviceable ode to pulp science-fiction, the episodes are a reminder of what makes the genre enjoyable beyond metaphysical thought exercises: the ridiculousness. Much of this is the by-product of the glint in the cast’s eyes as they gnaw on Quantum Break’s glossary of terms (the “Lifeboat Protocol;” the “Chronon Field Regulator”). The rest comes from the low-rent charm of the episodes’ visuals. Take, for instance, the outfits worn by Monarch Solutions’ goons become cosplay writ large in live action, the same, sleek yellow-and-white design worn by the enemies in-game turning cartoonish next to actors in ordinary wardrobe.

This isn’t to suggest that the game is without substance. Remedy understands that, no matter how ridiculous its premise, proper genre fiction can use its immediate appeal as a Trojan horse for broader commentary. Quantum Break is eager to point out the ways in which the link between wealth and technology (especially in a corporate context) will become increasingly evident in the future. It makes a thriller out of the idea that, should super-advanced technology bring about a calamity, only the richest and best-connected may be able to survive the disasters they’ve caused. It isn’t much, but the connection between this message and our ongoing inability to implement government policies that mitigate the destruction of our natural world adds welcome depth.

Yet, despite the success it finds in both evoking and making good use of its genre trappings, Quantum Break is too uneven to fully capitalize on its strengths. Its TV episodes energize the plot only to see it grind to a halt with slabs of expository emails and notes. Its use of time manipulation creates fantastic visual effects and environmental navigation challenges in some sequences, before relegating them to power-ups meant to add flair to drab gun battles in others. In its previous work, the television sets that dotted Remedy’s games were extensions of already well-established tones. Quantum Break, in enlarging their length and complexity, turns them into a crutch that’s forced to support a game that can’t consistently match their appeal.

by Reid Mccarter

https://killscreen.com

Dark Souls III (Video Game)

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For a while now, Dark Souls has been the litmus test of “hardcore.” A bright line between the casual mongrels and the real gaming stewards of the universe, an image helped none by the “Prepare to Die” ad campaign that has lived well beyond its syndication and into the actual title of one of the games. And it’s not a dishonest statement. You will die in Dark Souls. It is hard. But it isn’t impossible. Or, in my opinion, terribly difficult.
It’s a seemingly paradoxical standpoint if you consider “challenging” and “difficult” to be the same word. While I find Souls games to be incredibly challenging, I don’t find them to be difficult. I find Call of Duty to be difficult. Somewhere along my gaming lifetime, my ability to line up twitch reflex headshots waned as my strategy gaming micromanagement waxed. I’m not going to be one of those self-righteous assholes that thinks there’s something inherently superior about more “intellectual” games like The Walking Dead, Civilization, and Fez. These are just games that I prefer.
Dark Souls has always met my sweet spot between the contemplative and the reactive. It requires a decent amount of spot reflexes to properly dodge/parry/block all of the attacks, but also requires you to learn the pattern. Not only must you master the wind-ups and follow-throughs of your foes furious flurries, but also your own. Run out of stamina, and you’re fucked. It’s certainly tough, but not the sisyphean torment that a lot of people pretend it is. I mean, I beat most of them drunk.
The reality of Dark Souls has never been the myth of “ultra-brutal” that many perpetuate. For those on the periphery, the circulated meme will always be a picture of a broken controller and “WELCOME TO DARK SOULS, GIT GUD LUL!” For fans, it’s all about praising the sun, uncovering all of the covenants, beating the Pursuer your first try, and finally backstabbing Havel enough times without getting your skull crushed in. It’s not a torture, but a rapturous journey, a series of joyous achievements whose peaks are unmatched in other titles.

I’ve had whole relationships less satisfying than beating this stupid asshole’s shiny metal face in.

It might seem like I’m exaggerating a bit, and perhaps I am. There’s really just nothing quite like it. That is, unless you are talking about Dark Souls III. In which case, it’s basically just the first Dark Souls. Even as an amalgamation of the various elements that made Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Demon’s Souls, and Bloodborne great, it’s still clearly more Dark Souls than anything else. In a game where continuity is mysterious and plot is more of a backdrop than a driving force, Dark Souls III is as direct a sequel to Dark Souls as you can get.
This isn’t me heaping major shit on Dark Souls III. There are much worse things than being basically just Dark Souls. There’s an entire industry based on being basically just Dark Souls, and I’m fine with that. At its core, it’s still the high stakes, fast and fluid combat that I love. It’s still the same vague, mysterious world that just begs to be picked apart. The foes are still menacing, options vast, arsenal unique, and deaths punishing. I still love this game. Just not as much as the rest.

Although, as you can tell from all my pictures, I love the shit out of the Fume Ultra Greatsword.

After an initial first area that surprisingly didn’t have a “must lose” battle, you warp into the walls of Lothric and immediately drink in a rich and heavy sight. Along with many a tidbit for lore-nerds to pour over their significance, an array of tortured and wailing undead flank you at either side. They aren’t all immediately aggressive, most simply cowering and praying in desperation to gods who have long since forgotten their prayers. You will slaughter them for their sweet, sweet souls.
After making your way through a handful of undead, you immediately face your first wyvern (think dragon). He’s not a boss, and functions as a living trap that must be figured out and avoided. This is not a daunting task. Even if you can’t figure out his simple, “spray fire, take a nap, repeat” pattern, he only does little piddles of damage that can easily be healed through. It’s clearly much of a less dick move than The Bridge Wyvern, but the parallel is clear. As a method for introducing the character to the concept of “expect anything at any time,” it’s more forgiving. It’s also way less memorable.

I wonder if I can resist the urge to pick up all the items sitting in his blast radius. *SPOILER ALERT* I couldn’t.

The wyvern isn’t the only parallel to the first Dark Souls. There’s an undead town, a poison swamp, a skeleton catacomb, and you even return to Anor Londo. There’s a wooded area with an animal covenant, and even a couple secret zones. However, the actual design of said levels feels much more like a mix between Dark Souls and the more linear Dark Souls 2. Zones are sprawling and rife with interconnected paths and shortcuts, but the actual connection between the zones feels initially loose. It’s a lot of large elevators taking you to wildly different areas.
It’s a point that I feel will be contentious with fans. The environments are more varied, but it comes at the cost of world cohesion. When you take a step back and look at it as a whole, you can see the threads holding everything together. It wasn’t until my second playthrough that I realized the shattered bridge I had to teleport across earlier is actually a zone you travel to later. As a world, it is certainly tied together. It just pales in comparison to the interconnected world of the first Dark Souls. There are instances of hidden keys leading to spiral staircases that lead back to an unopened door in a previous level, but the entire map of Dark Souls was an interconnected system of veins and arteries crisscrossing through the world to make it a living, breathing organism. Dark Souls III is a series of large, open, and interesting hubs.

The imagery depicts a massive scale without delivering. You’ll travel the walls of that castle in the distance, but only briefly.

Combat, on the other hand, is significantly improved. There might be some who will prefer the clunkier style of the older games, but Dark Souls III is faster, fluid, and more responsive. Hitboxes are refined, with a layering that expands your stagger impact beyond your range of damage. Staggering large enemies can now be followed up with a powerful riposte, which previously was reserved for smaller humanoid enemies. All weapons now have a “Weapon Skill,” which ranges from a simple damage upgrade to a devastating power attack. Magic has been revamped, with spells no longer having set charges and instead utilizing a new “Focus Point” bar. Similar to health, FP does not regenerate over time, and must be recharged with “Ashen Estus Flasks.” Weapon Skills also require FP, but not to the degree that spells do. You set your number of Ashen flasks and regular Estus from the same pool, meaning that your Soul Arrow spamming comes at the cost of overall longevity. It’s a novel way to balance the system, as it was previously a huge advantage at very little cost to have just enough stats for some minor spells. It’ll take a legion of fans playing for months to figure out how the balancing worked exactly, but I found it made the PVP much more variable.

Which is perfect for me, who employs more of a “you’ll be in a world of hurt when I finally waddle over to get you!” tactic

It’s easy to see the patchwork frame that director Hidetaka Miyazaki assembled from his other games. The first Dark Souls is the foundation, the skeleton and north star guiding the rest of the game’s design. The ember system and central isolated hub is a callback to Demon’s Souls, and even has it’s own murdering traitor NPC. The more streamlined level design is a product of Dark Souls 2, and the more fluid combat is inspired by Miyazaki’s similar franchise Bloodborne.
That isn’t to say the world lacks its own identity. While Dark Souls had a lonely, dead world feel, Dark Souls III is rich with decay. It feels a bit more like Bloodborne, full of body horror, wailing tortured souls, and otherworldly creatures just beyond your reach. Powering yourself up with an “Ember” is the replacement to restoring your “Humanity,” and causes your skin to crack and flake revealing a flame within. It’s a momentary, fickle spark of light in a world extinguished. In this descent into ashes, the world is more alive in its undeath, just like a long dead corpse now bloated with maggots wriggles and breaks down.

Yoel of Londor is a particularly pitiful character. Of all the NPCs struggling through, his gnarled hands and hunched back tell the greatest story of struggle.

I’ve been waffling back and forth between the good and the bad this whole review, which I can understand is a bit confusing. My feelings on the world are mixed, and the more time I spend analyzing the bits the more I grow to like them. It’s a game I like in a franchise I love, but it’s difficult to describe why exactly it let me down without pointing to something that another equally fervent fan might love. So I’m left with one, solid criticism. It never took me more than two tries to beat any boss in Dark Souls III. For a game that I cherish for being a challenge, these landmark fights were alarmingly easy. Aside from the Nameless King and High Lord Wolnir, I struggle to remember a single fight. It’s the same formula of “kill four great lords to unlock the last boss,” but none of them are as menacing as the towering bundle of corpses that was Nito or the terrifying Four Kings. Nothing even comes close to the epic challenge of Ornstein and Smough. There’s actually a boss that is just a bunch of dudes. For a game that is otherwise fantastic, I was incredibly disappointed.
I have to remind you that I’m rating this on a scale of Dark Souls. As a game, it’s still great, and one I’d almost universally recommend. The polished combat and smoother difficulty curve will bring in plenty of new fans, and I seriously doubt it will ostracize any old ones. I liked all the changes, and it’s clear that the future of the series is somewhere along these lines. I just can’t ignore that for a series that has sucked hundreds of hours out of me, the twenty hours that it took me to beat Dark Souls III are almost all ephemeral. If I close my eyes, I can see the route through Undead Burg, into the Depths, down through Blighttown, and into the Quelaag fight on the inside of my eyelids. When I have to look up on the wiki to remember the bosses, Dark Souls III has done something wrong. It’s a game you will play and likely love. Hopefully, it will inspire you to play the rest of the series. We can always use more sunbros praising

http://www.dreadcentral.com

Hear Yamantaka // Sonic Titan and Pantayo's Soundtrack For New Video Game Severed

“Psychedelic noh-wave” Yamantaka // Sonic Titan and Pantayo, an all-female kulintang group, have collaborated on a full-length soundtrack for Severed, a new video game from Drinkbox Studios.
In the game you play as “a one-armed warrior named Sasha, wielding a living sword on her journey through a nightmare world in search of her family.” The Zelda-influenced RPG drops April 26 on Playstation Vita, and you can watch the concept trailer here. The soundtrack features titles like “Crow Golem” and “Death,” so you can expect a lot of super-tense monster battles.

This is the second soundtrack of 2016 for Y // ST co-founder Alaska B—she also scored the documentary Michael Shannon Michael Shannon John, which will premiere at this year's Hot Docs. Insert many coins to download the soundtrack on the Bandcamp page.

By Jordan Darville
http://www.thefader.

THE ART OF ATARI Takes a Look Back At Video Game History

How well do you know your video game history? Today, video game consoles are dominated by Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. But back in the late ’70s and early ‘80s, Atari was one of the biggest gaming brands, and it paved the way for the other companies to follow. This fall, Dynamite Entertainment is releasing The Art of Atari, an extensive retrospective of Atari’s lore alongside artwork from the company’s arcade and home games.
Robert V. Conte and Tim Lapetino co-wrote The Art of Atari, which Dynamite describes as “the most comprehensive [Atari] retrospective to date.” As you may recall, the earliest Atari titles didn’t really have the greatest graphics by today’s standards. But the box art gave the ideas behind the game a greater visual flourish. Several of the classic box covers are reprinted in The Art of Atari, including Yar’s Revenge, Centipede, Asteroids, Super Breakout, Warlords, Missile Command, and several others. That’s in addition to the concept art and press materials from the original release of these games.
Additionally, Conte and Lapetino interviewed and profiled some of the key figures from Atari’s past, as they shared stories from their time with the company. You can see some of the currently released preview pages in our gallery below.
The Art of Atari will be released in October.
What did you think about the preview pages for The Art of Atari? If you’re a classic gamer, which Atari titles were your favorites? Share your gaming past in the comment section below!

by Blair Marnell
http://nerdist.com

This week in video games: April 11, 2016

This week: Gears of War 4 gets a release date and its beta approaches; the list of Games with Gold for April; the lowdown on Fallout 4 DLC; and the list of games releasing this week. But first, Nintendo gets into social media with a new "game", Miitomo.

Turn yourself into a Mii character with Miitomo

Nintendo has released it's first product for a device it doesn't own. But it's not really a game.
Miitomo, a free download available for Android and iOS, is more like a social-media app. You start by creating an avatar, or "Mii" in Nintendo-speak, which you then use to interact with friends and which interacts with you.
Part of the engagement that Nintendo has conceived of has your Mii asking you questions, which the Miitomo system then compares with the responses of others.
The app has voice-to-speech capabilities, too, so you can dictate responses and your Mii will talk to you in whatever bizarre synth voice you want to create for it.
And although the app is free to download, Miitomo will let you spend real money if you want to. There are a bunch of different virtual currency systems that you can use to do things in the app. You can shop for new outfits for your avatar, for example, and background environments.
Like any other social-media app, Miitomo is as good as your network. If you've got plenty of friends who are Nintendo fans, you'll get much more out of this than others.
For the rest of us, we'll have to wait a bit longer to see Nintendo games appear on our smartphones. But they are coming.

Dead Space, Sunset Overdrive are Games with Gold for April

Games with Gold, which grants Xbox Life Gold members with free games every month, this month features fantastic adventure game The Wolf Among Us (from Telltale Games), which is available until April 30.
EA's stellar horror Dead Space, available until April 15, joins the list of Xbox 360 games that can be played on Xbox One, thanks to the system's backwards compatibility.
Saints Row IV, the over-the-top open-world action game, will be available starting April 16 until the end of the month, also backwards compatible.
And you can download the outrageous "awesomepocalypse" Sunset Overdrive starting on April 16 and until May 15.

Second Fallout 4 add-on coming soon

On March 22, players in the Fallout wasteland were given the chance to build their own robot companions with the Automatron add-on.
Wasteland Workshop, the second of three downloadable content packs announced for the game from Bethesda Softworks, comes out soon. It lets you capture creatures from the wasteland that you can then tame.
The third pack comes in May; Far Harbor includes a new landscape to explore in the form of an island off the coast of Maine.
The three content packs are available together with the season pass, which also includes additional Fallout 4 content that hasn’t yet been released.

Releasing this week

* Bravely Second: End Layer from Square Enix for Nintendo 3DS
* Dark Souls III from Bandai Namco for PS4, Windows, and Xbox One
* Ratchet & Clank from Insomniac and Sony for PS4

 Gears of War 4 releases on October 11, beta starts April 18

 Gears of War 4, in development at The Coalition here in Vancouver, is being released on Oct. 11.
Exclusive to Xbox One, the first-person shooter, first announced at E3 last year, features entirely new characters, including JD Fenix, the son of the primary protagonist of the first trilogy.
But the game is still set on the planet Sera, which gives the game a sense of history, as events take place some 25 years after Gears of War 3.
Fans eager to see what the new game will be like can get their chance starting on April 18, when the mulitplayer beta begins for anyone who's played Gears of War: Ultimate Edition on either their Xbox One or Windows 10.
The Gears 4 beta becomes available to all members of Xbox Live Gold starting on April 25.

http://www.straight.com

New Android Video Game Nutmeg Life Soccer Game Launched on Google Play Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2898286#ixzz45YqzcarH

Nutmeg Life Soccer Game was designed by TB Games. It is available for Android on Google Play and allows the player to test their skill.

This press release was orginally distributed by ReleaseWire
Staten Island, NY -- (ReleaseWire) -- 04/11/2016 -- For soccer fans who cannot wait for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which will be the 21st FIFA World Cup and held in Russia, TBZ Games has some good news. The popular gaming studio is pleased to announce they have launched their new Android video game on Google Play. Nutmeg Life Soccer has been described as one of the most exciting new soccer games of 2016, bringing players hours of fun on their Android devices.

The new nutmeg game has gained a great deal of attention from game reviewers and Android gamers alike. It's a one of a kind game that tests the skill of the player. The team at TBZ Games came up with an idea and took it forward to provide players with an addictive soccer game that would be hard to put down.

The aim of Nutmeg Life is to get the soccer ball past the defender. Sounds easy but as many players have commentated, it isn't. The defender has skill, he can come at the player and tackle them, the player has to use their skill and swipe left or right to avoid being tackled and keep possession of the ball. The longer the player spends their time trying to get the ball past the defender, the more skill they will gain, allowing them to become better than the defender.

Since being launched, it has become one of the most downloaded games in its category on Google Play. It continues to receive five-star reviews and has become one of the most recommended soccer games for Android devices.

Sam Jackson, who gave Nutmeg Life, a five-star review said: "Really cool soccer game. Love the game play and the whole idea of the game. I maybe love it because I play the sport and love to nutmeg my opponents :)"

Isabelle Boileau, who also gave the game, five stars said: "A really awesome game very relaxing and extremely addictive one of my favorites."

To learn more about Nutmeg Life or to download the game and become the next David Beckham or Cristiano Ronaldo and beat the defender, please visit https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.TBZGames.NutmegLife&hl=en

About Nutmeg Life
A simple to use nutmeg game for all soccer fans. It has become one of the most talked about soccer games of 2016
For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/new-android-video-game-nutmeg-life-soccer-game-launched-on-google-play-680152.htm

Media Relations Contact

Chantelle Ellis
Media Relations
Nutmeg Life
Telephone: 01472319008
Email: Click to Email Chantelle Ellis
Web: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.TBZGames.NutmegLife&hl=en


Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2898286#ixzz45YrH8XPX

Alumni use kickstarter to create video game 'BlackSea Odyssey'

Three UCF alumni began a space-faring fishing trip last year that culminated in the release of the team’s first video game: Blacksea Odyssey.
It’s a top-down shoot em’ up, giving players the perspective of looking down on their character while they play, with rogue-lite elements such as random procedural generation, where the game world is created using algorithms that make different levels every game, and perma-death, where players get one life per game or else they have to restart a new.
“The premise is that you are in this space fishing competition where the greatest huntsmen gather and you go out taking bounties,” said producer Percy Legendre.
The development trio consists of Percy Legendre, who graduated fall 2014; Sean Pinnock, who graduated spring 2015; and Peter Milko, who graduated spring 2014, all with degrees in digital media – game design track.
The original concept for Blacksea Odyssey was inspired by the classic arcade game Asteroids and Ernest Hemingway’s literary classic “Old Man and the Sea.”
“I liked the idea of fishing in space, I thought it sounded interesting and weird.” Legendre said.
The game has hit digital shelves despite a rocky road in development that hit the team late last year.
“We were able to work full time until November, or late October, when we found out that [our publisher Mastertronic wasn’t] doing so well financially,” Legendre said. “They were having trouble with their own financing, so we ended up parting ways with them. So we needed extra funding to finish the second half of Blacksea Odyssey and that’s when we turned to Kickstarter.”
Within the span of a couple of weeks, the small development team put together a campaign that raised them $12,300, a couple grand above their goal, and pushed forward into development.
The game itself came out of a list of 200 odd ideas from the team, which were eventually condensed down to five or six before they began prototyping. After trying several prototypes for different ideas, the team went back to Blacksea Odyssey for the Global Game Jam in January of last year to a positive crowd reaction.

CENTRAL FLORIDA FUTURE

UCF video game school best in nation

While the initial prototype is a far cry from what the game is today, the core premise of playing a big game hunter remains from the game jam’s theme of “What do you do now?”
“[Players] collect all this fish and take them to where the boss is supposed to be,” Pinnock said, describing the gameplay from the Global Game Jam prototype, “and the camera zooms out 10 or 15 times and you’re this tiny little spec on the screen next to this monster that is several times larger than the already enlarged screen and ‘What do you do now?’ comes across the screen because you’re fighting this absolutely massive titan.”
At the time, the game had a different feel thematically from its current fast-paced action style.
“It was more of an atmospheric adventure and less a fast-pace shooter, which I think is more like what we were originally going for, but I don’t know, it just wasn’t as fun.” Pinnock said.
Because the game is also being developed by a small team, they needed an art style that was simultaneously unique but easily repeated.
“We did try a couple of different art styles,” Art Director Milko said. “The reason we went with this geometric art style is because I’m the only artist on the game we wanted to choose something that I could draw very quickly, but also something very stylized, that way when you see a screenshot you think, ‘Oh, that’s Blacksea Odyssey.'”
Working on this game and trying to create an attention grabbing art style forced Milko to readjust the way he approached drawing as well.

CENTRAL FLORIDA FUTURE

Knight makes educational impact with video games

“Normally you have a very dark foreground and a bright background, but for Blacksea Odyssey, it’s the opposite,” Milko said. “So I had to sort of adjust to drawing the opposite way I normally do.”
Taking a positive reaction and some constructive criticism, the team pursued this idea into a full release.
The team created a pitch deck, a document that tells publishers development milestones, schedule, budget and gameplay, alongside a more advanced prototype with many of the new core features and began sending it out to independent game publishers. They ended up signing with Mastertronic, a London based publisher last May before parting ways later that year.
Blacksea Odyssey has a planned release window in June of this year for PC and a console release a month later for Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

By Christopher Bobo,a contributing writer for the Central Florida Future.
http://www.centralfloridafuture.com

Video Game Trains Army Leaders to Deal With Sexual Harassment

The Army is capitalizing on many soldiers' love of video games to help its leaders deal with sexual assault and harassment within the ranks.
The ELITE-SHARP Command Team Trainer -- an interactive game-based training tool launched April 1 to coincide with Sexual Assault Prevention Month -- was based on the already successful ELITE Lite counseling program that debuted 18 months ago, an Army statement said.
Both tools, which feature animated sexual assault and harassment scenarios that demonstrate correct and incorrect ways to handle such situations, are available at milgaming.army.mil.
The new game -- primarily developed at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies -- includes an interactive portion where leaders meet face to face with virtual soldiers who have been victims of sexual assault or harassment.
The ELITE, or Emergent Leader Immersive Training Environment, tools allow the Army to move away from the "old paradigm" training, such as PowerPoint slides, videos and classroom discussion, that some have deemed ineffective, the statement said.
Engaging with avatars also provides trainees with a higher quality experience, said Maj. Greg Pavlichko, chief of the Army's Games for Training program at the Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
"If you and I are in class together and we are discussing counseling or SHARP, and we are then asked to (role-play) -- I'm the person with the bad behavior and you are the leader that is asked to counsel me, well maybe I don't care, maybe I'm a terrible actor, maybe I'm just not into it," he said. "So your experience is very dependent on the student population and basically how into it they are."
Pavlichko, who expects the ELITE platform to become even more interactive in the future with artificial intelligence, said he's seen attitudes about games evolve in the training community.
"Games are fun. Training is not supposed to be fun," he said. "But then after enough senior leaders see the capability, they see its potential, they understand its potential."

Stars and Stripes | Apr 08, 2016 | by Aaron Kidd
http://www.military.com

New Attack on Titan video game unleashes a first action-packed announcement trailer

KOEI Tecmo America has unleashed an announcement trailer for a new Attack on Titan video game, based on the hit anime series of the same name. The game has already been released in Japan but will be made available in North America on Aug. 30.
Attack on Titan will be available on various gaming consoles including the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as a digital-only release for the PS3, PlayStation Vita and PC via Steam. Here’s an official description of the game:

Attack on Titan closely follows the riveting storyline of the animes first season and focuses on the exploits of various key characters, putting the player in a position to relive its most shocking, courageous and exhilarating moments. It revolves around the story of three young people who survive the destruction of their walled city district by enormous, man-eating Titans and eventually go on to join the Scout Regiment in order to protect humanity from this overpowering foe.

KOEI says more info concerning the game’s plot, original content and playable characters will be released in the upcoming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled. It’s also expected that the video game will be rated M for Mature. Check out the exciting trailer below, and be sure to stick around until the very end for an extra scene.
Wow, just WOW! This looks totally UH-MAZING and a lot of bloody good fun to boot! Who knew kicking some man-eating Titans' behinds could look (and feel) so exhilarating? I also happen to dig the video game's visual style A LOT and I think Attack on Titan may've just landed on my to-buy list. Yep! It did. What about you?

By Nathalie Caron

(Via KOEI Tecmo)

http://www.blastr.com

Power Up! Playing Video Games May Boost Your Brain

Video game players who don't want to put down the controller may have a new excuse to keep the game going: A small new study finds that gaming may boost the amount of gray matter in parts of a person's brain, indicating that the brain may have better control over small movements in the body.


In the study, researchers found that video game players had more gray matter in two areas of the brain associated with learning motor skills, compared with people who did not play video games.
In addition, the video game players in the study had quicker reaction times, according to the study, conducted by researchers in Poland.


Previous studies have found differences in certain cognitive functions in people who play video games versus those who don't, the researchers said. For example, video game players have been able to perform more complex tasks with less effort compared to non-video-game players.
However, very little is known about how playing video games may affect the shape of the brain, said Natalia Kowalczyk, a graduate student in neuropsychology at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, Poland, and lead author of the study, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.


To study this, the researchers compared 31 video game players to 29 non-video-game players, Kowalczyk told Live Science. All of the people in the study were men, and their average age was 25, she said. The researchers chose players who had played the game StarCraft II for at least 6 hours a week for the past six months, she said. The non-video-game players, on the other hand, had not played video games for more than 10 hours over the past six months, she said.
The researchers used a type of brain scan called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look for structural differences in the participants' brains. In addition, the participants did a reaction-time test while being scanned, Kowalczyk said.


The researchers found that the video game players had more gray matter in two areas of the brain — the right putamen and the globus pallidus — compared with the non-video-game players. These parts of the brain help control, among other things, movements in the body — for example, pressing a video game controller, Kowalczyk said. [9 Odd Ways Your Tech Devices May Injure You]
It isn't clear whether this greater amount of gray matter existed in these men before they began gaming, or whether it is the result of their gaming. But it's possible that this change may make it easier for video game players to complete simple movements, so that they may dedicate more brainpower to more demanding aspects of the game, such as strategy, Kowalczyk said.


The researchers also found that the video game players had quicker reaction times than the non-video-game players, Kowalczyk said. To test reaction time, the participants were shown a flashing box on a screen. The box moved to different positions, and the participants were asked whether it had appeared in the same place one or two flashes earlier, she said. Although the video game players responded more quickly on the test, there was no difference in accuracy between the two groups, she said.
By Sara G. Miller, Staff Writer  
Follow Sara G. Miller on Twitter @SaraGMiller. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science
http://www.livescience.com

Review: Trippy 'Quantum Break' marred by tiresome gunplay

What would you do if you could control time? Visit the future and grab an iPhone 50? Kill a despised historical figure while he's still a baby? Carve out some time to catch up on your Netflix queue?

Will Joyce, the genius who discovers time travel in "Quantum Break" (Microsoft, for the Xbox One, PC, $59.95), wants none of that. He's the kind of quirky brainiac who just wants to unlock the secrets of the universe. Unfortunately, his tinkering has busted the time-space continuum so badly the whole thing's about to collapse.

You play Jack Joyce, Will's brother, who's dragged into the whole mess by an old friend named Paul Serene. Paul is head of Monarch Solutions, one of those mysterious corporations that's so powerful it needs its own military — and he has his own ideas about how to harness time travel. Is Paul insane? Can Will be saved? It's up to Jack to find the answers.

Fortunately, he's the kind of average-Joe who turns out to be ridiculously skilled with firearms. Unfortunately, saving the world is going to require him to kill hundreds of people who made the mistake of signing on with Monarch. So what could have been a brain-bending time-travel romp turns into yet another trigger-happy orgy of violence. Sigh.

At least Jack's exposure to Will's device gives him some unique talents. He can dodge bullets, freeze enemies and unleash "time blasts" that hurl opponents into the air. Occasionally, Jack needs to use his powers to solve rudimentary puzzles — like, say, reversing time to restore a broken bridge.

What's most distinctive about "Quantum Break" is the way it's presented. Most of the time you're controlling Jack in computer-generated scenarios, like you would in a typical video game. But on occasion you're invited to put down your controller and watch what Paul and the other characters are up to.

These non-interactive episodes are shot on full-motion video, with human actors in real-life settings. The quality is decent — about on the level of an episode of "24" — and the cast has some familiar faces, like "The Wire" veterans Aiden Gillen and Lance Reddick. Jack is played by Shawn Ashmore, best known for "The Following," and it's a little disconcerting to switch from watching the real actor to controlling a computerized version.

The combination feels like binge-watching a season of a middling TV thriller, except you have some control over the outcome. The video segments you see are determined by some of the choices you make in-game, enough so that you'll want to play through "Quantum Break" a few times to see all the variations.

That makes it all the more disappointing when the drama wraps with an exasperating firefight that depends more on old-fashioned ballistics than trippy quantum physics. "Quantum Break" pulls off some neat tricks with its overall presentation — I just wish its separate elements were cleverer. Two stars out of four.

By: Lou Kesten The Associated Press

Online:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/quantum-break

Follow Lou Kesten on Twitter @lkesten

http://www.metronews.ca

Hardcore Henry is a let-down for its target audience

I sometimes wonder what would’ve happened if the movies they’re making for 13-year-olds now came out when I was 13. I think part of the reason I became attracted to cinema in the first place was that the films aimed at me were shit like Wild Wild West; they were so obviously terrible that even undiscerning preteens hated them. They forced me to look elsewhere and, while that took me to the most predictable avenues (Scorsese, Kevin Smith, Boondock Saints etc.), I made the move from video games to a much more affordable film obsession.
Most big-budget movies made these days are aimed at teenage boys; hell, many of them appear to be made by teenage boys or at least have been in mental gestation since the director’s teens. I know for a fact that if Hardcore Henry had come out in 1999, I would have lost my shit in a downright embarrassing manner. You see, Hardcore Henry is a film the likes of which have rarely, if ever, been seen before. Sure, there have been first-person movies before, but a first-person action movie is a whole other thing. It’s kind of a monumental undertaking in a lot of ways — it has pretty strict constraints and brings to the fore a litany of issues that don’t necessarily come up in a regular action movie. It feels weird to call a movie where the protagonist is constantly finding new ways to turn his opponents into disparate bits of meat “experimental,” but there you have it.
Henry wakes up in a highly sophisticated plane/laboratory being doted on by a woman (Haley Bennett) who says he’s his wife. She explains that he was terribly mangled at war, but thankfully advances in science have turned him into a half-man, half-robot supersoldier. The relief is short-lived, however, as the ship is attacked by Akan (Danila Kozlovsky), a psychic brat who seems to have it out for Henry. Before he can fully comprehend what his new lot in life is, Henry is catapulted out of the plane, separated from his wife and forced to fend for himself in a world where seemingly everyone is out to get him. He befriends a shapeshifting, seemingly immortal soldier of fortune named Jimmy (Sharlto Copley) and sets about trying to save his wife and get himself out of this carnage-ridden pickle.
The goal of Hardcore Henry is total immersion — much like a video game, the audience here is meant to “be” Henry. Henry does not speak and we never see what he looks like; he’s a blank canvas for us to project our own emotions on, or at least our own reactions to the mile-a-minute carnage he seems incapable of avoiding. It’s a big gamble to take in the film world. While we’ve seen things like this in the recent remake of Maniac starring Elijah Wood or considerably more sedate examples like the 1947 film noir Lady in the Lake or The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (which employs the same tactic for a diametrically opposite purpose), it’s never been applied to as ambitious and relentless a purpose. Unfortunately, Hardcore Henry fails for a very simple reason: control — or lack thereof.
Control is the fundamental difference between video games and film. Anyone who has had to wait their turn patiently while their sibling/friend/relative plays a video game and has so much fun knows that the experience loses almost all of its luster if you have to sit there passively. Unfortunately, no amount of gore, explosions and other folderol thrown at us by director Ilya Naishuller will ever replace the experience of actually making the decision to jump over a thing or shoot a dude. Hardcore Henry very faithfully recreates the first-person shooter experience, down to the sometimes wonky physics, generic locations and the way the information is dumped into the player — so faithfully that after about 20 minutes, it feels unmistakably like waiting for your turn.
It’s undeniable that Hardcore Henry represents an ambitious and technically impressive attempt at something — it simply has such a fundamental misunderstanding of what qualities video games and film have in common. Its plot is generic and derivative, just like the plot of a video game; its one relatable character (Jimmy) holds so very little stakes because it becomes obvious that he’s a non-player character who can die an endless amount of times with no repercussions. Hardcore Henry is slickly, emptily cool, so technically impressive that it all washes away and turns into a rainy Sunday afternoon at your neighbour’s house where he’s hogging the controller.
That’s one kind of immersion, I guess. ■
By ALEX ROSE
http://cultmontreal.com

Spacebat, a Space Shooter-Inspired Game, Announces its Launch

The Game, Which is an Ode to the Two-Dimensional Space Shooter Games of the 90's, Wants to Resurrect and Advance the Style
LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / April 7, 2016 / Misunderstood Creature Entertainment (M.C.E.), a young gaming company dedicated to producing new video games, recently announced the launch of its latest project, SpaceBat. The new game pays homage to traditional Space Shooter and arcade games that were popular in the 1990s.
According to a M.C.E. spokesperson, Spacebat will offer a number of elements such as evolving weapons and a point system. The makers of Spacebat want to bring multiple play styles to the game as well as two types of infinite enemies and boss rushes. At this time, Spacebat includes a main game play--which looks a lot like traditional 2D dog fights--as well as eight levels of adventures, including castle raids, ship battles, and forests on fire.
M.C.E.'s goal is for Spacebat to be the fully animated, artistic, and fun game that any player needs for their library. Spacebat will also serve as the game that advances the genre, especially because the game's team has already been assembled and is ready to take on the challenge.
"This genre really hasn't seen much advancement compared to all the other genres of gaming so prevalent in today's design world," stated a representative of M.C.E. "While it is great to have good consistent designs, M.C.E. came up with the idea to take the initiative. Instead of waiting for that next great game to come, we're actually going out and making it."
At this time, M.C.E. has taken their video game campaign to Indiegogo, where they seek the funds to bring the company's vision to life. In exchange for contributions, M.C.E. is offering its donors a number of different perks, such as posters, soundtracks, and early copies of the game.
Individuals interested in learning more about Misunderstood Creature Entertainment and Spacebat can visit the game's Indiegogo page for additional information.
About Meep the Legendary Spacebat:
Meep the Legendary SpaceBat introduces elements such as evolving weapons and uses points like some M.O.B.A.s use gold or coins. Meep's game play offers two types-infinite enemy and boss rushes like Meeppocolapse. Additionally, the main game play--which is more like the traditional 2D dog fights--follows the story though around eight levels, including but not exclusive to: Castle Raids, Ship Battles, Forest on fire, Duels with Magic wielding heroes that mistake players for intruders, Epic fights involving Meepvs an automatic Vacuum Cleaner that has a laser gatling gun security protocol. For more information, please visit https://goo.gl/YfKagz.
Contact:
Jan Leonard
admin@rocketfactor.com
(949) 555-2861
SOURCE: Misunderstood Creature Entertainment
http://www.baystreet.ca

Twitter to stream Thursday night NFL games

Twitter beat out other contenders to reach a deal with the National Football League to stream Thursday Night Football games, a fresh effort by the struggling social media company to increase engagement and advertising revenue as growth among users has slowed.
Twitter reportedly paid less than $10 million for the 10-game package. Twitter spokesman Jim Prosser declined to comment on the financial terms of the deal. Twitter's investor relations' Twitter account says the company included the expense in 2016 guidance for investors.
Twitter controls some of the advertising inventory for the games, Chief Operating Officer Adam Bain said in a tweet.
Twitter has more than 300 million users, among them pop stars, Hollywood glitterati and world leaders. But it's far smaller than other social media services — it's one-fifth the size of Facebook and smaller even than Facebook-owned photo-sharing service Instagram.
Revenue is growing quickly, but not as quickly as it used to, and analysts expect that trend to continue. Research firm eMarketer recently slashed forecasts for the 10-year-old company, saying it now expects Twitter to generate $2.61 billion in global advertising revenue in 2016, down from the $2.95 billion it predicted in October of 2015, as Twitter struggles to compete with market leaders Google and Facebook.
Scott Kessler, analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said the NFL deal is "a way for Twitter to attract and engage Twitter and Periscope users, and generate advertising revenues."
Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter downplayed the significance of the deal, calling it "a prestige move, not necessarily a sound business move."
"Not many people watch TNF, fewer will watch via Twitter," he said. "Breakeven at best, and other than the media attention, not really all that meaningful."
In a statement released Tuesday, the NFL says the streams will be free, and won't require viewers to authenticate through a cable subscription to watch. The NFL is trying to cross the generational divide to reach younger fans and other households who don't own televisions and mostly watch sports on the Internet while boosting revenue by selling streaming rights to games separately.
The NFL has streamed individual games, but this marks the first season streaming deal. CBS and NBC pay $450 million for the rights to broadcast the Thursday night games. Verizon has the mobile rights.
"Twitter is where live events unfold and is the right partner for the NFL as we take the latest step in serving fans around the world live NFL football," said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in a statement.
According to Bloomberg, which first reported the deal, Twitter was competing with big names in tech, including Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo, which streamed last year's game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars in London.
As part of the deal, Twitter will host in-game highlights from the Thursday night games as well as pre-game broadcast through Twitter's live streaming app Periscope.
"People watch NFL games with Twitter today," said Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in a statement. "Now they'll be able to watch right on Twitter Thursday nights."
Twitter has worked with the NFL since 2013, partnering on the social network's Amplify program, where the NFL can capture key moments from games and quickly share them on Twitter. Last year, the NFL reached a multi-year deal with Twitter to include more content, including archival video, game recaps and top plays.
This isn't the first time the NFL has experimented with unique approaches to delivering highlights or other football content to fans. Last year, the league partnered with Snapchat to let users participate in a global Live Story, sharing their experiences from NFL stadiums.
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.

By Brett Molina and Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY
ttp://www.usatoday.com

Question Of The Month: What Video Game Character Would Make The Best President?

In issue 275, we asked readers what video game character they would elect as president, if such an absurd thing were possible. Now it's time to cast your vote.
Magazine readers delivered a landslide victory to Earth's last hope against the Reapers, Mass Effect's Commander Shepard. Other readers chose more unconventional candidates, like Sackboy (he is a builder after all), and Max Caulfield from Life is Strange (a little young, perhaps, but being able to rewind time would certainly come in handy).
Now it's your turn. Cast your ballot by sharing your pick in the comments below, and be sure to make your case for why you're not wasting your vote – this is important business! The winner will be the first candidate to receive a super majority of electoral votes, assuming he or she first attains enough delegates to win their party's nomination during the lengthy primary process, or successfully registers as an independent candidate by submitting the required amount of signatures before each state's registration deadline. So get to it – our democracy hangs in the balance!

By Jeff Marchiafava
http://www.gameinformer.com

Video games affect us all in different ways. Some get a competitive thrill as they demolish all who stand in their way, others explore and immerse themselves in strange and wonderful worlds, and, thankfully for us, some decide to write songs about their experiences. From rock to chiptunes, from metal to orchestral, from kick-ass to every damn bit as kick-ass, here are the top 10 musicians inspired by video games.

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10. Lindsey Stirling

When I think of video game inspired music, I think of Lindsey Stirling. Her violin talent is as powerful as it is beautiful. From Halo to The Legend of Zelda, she’s covered a wide range of video game music with a multitude of different artists. Stirling doesn’t just stop at video games though; she writes her own whimsical melodies. She’s definitely made a name for herself outside of the gaming community, too. You can find her original music and covers on Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, and maybe even your local venue.

~ Laura Chandler

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9. ANAMANAGUCHI

Anamanaguchi is all about that 8-bit. Their fun, “dancey” tunes are reminiscent of early blips and blops of NES  music. While they don’t directly reference video games, they use video game hardware, mostly the NES and Gameboy, to make their dynamic dance tunes. Their songs bring you back to the early days of gaming, where video game death meant starting at the beginning of the whole damn level and not at your last obsessively-saved checkpoint. Next time you host a party, don’t forget to have the DJ throw on some Anamanaguchi for some off-console DDR.

~ Laura Chandler

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8. I Fight Dragons

I Fight Dragons isn’t as inspired by specific video games as most of the artists on this list. Rather, they deal in chiptunes, the bits and bytes of sound made by old video game consoles, and rock and roll. The former isn’t just an accompaniment to the latter either: the chiptunes are melded into IFD’s natural Green-Day-Meets-All-Time-Low sound and becomes its own unique style. Their songs vary from slow, measured melodies to high-paced, head-banging tunes to even a rock opera. IFD’s songs tend to center around life and human nature in some form or another, simultaneously singing its praises and delivering biting commentary on its pitfalls. Their work has been featured in TV shows like The Hills and The Goldbergs, as well as on Nintendo Video and even our own site’s official podcast. I Fight Dragons manages to take the old and combine it seamlessly with the new, and that’s perhaps the biggest thing they take from the video games that inspired them.

~ Donovan Bertch

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7. Daniel Tidwell

Metal is probably the last genre you think of when you play video games, well, unless you count Brütal Legend. But, Daniel Tidwell and his electric guitar bring heavy video game riffs and lightning quick melodies. Of course, Tidwell takes on songs from Skyrim, DooM, and Silent Hill, but he also puts a metallic twist on games like Zelda, Portal, and Pokémon. It seems more common to cover these types of songs in electronic or classical genres, but metal brings a new kind of beauty to the songs. If you’re faced with an impossible boss, put on some of Tidwell’s covers and channel your inner badass.

~ Laura Chandler

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6. Famikoto

Though being perhaps one of the more unorthodox entries in this list, anyone who listens to the music of Famikoto will be immediately enamored. Their name combines the Japanese games system Famicom, and the Koto, which is just one of many Japanese instruments the band uses to recreate music from Nintendo games. Not only is there a sense of authenticity to the music, but it’s absolutely beautiful and surprisingly intimate for how large and unwieldy some of the instruments actually look. Songs such as “To Zanarkand” are as graceful as one might expect, but even tunes like the Super Mario Bros theme are made to be sweeping and rapturous (not that the original isn’t, of course!)

~ Connor O’Malley

http://www.bitcultures.com