Month: September 2017

Enlarge / A Keepstar Citadel, one of the largest constructs in the game. CO2's Keepstar was part of the heist. (credit: CCP)

Space-based MMO EVE Online has a reputation for being somewhat difficult and tedious to actually play—while at the same time being one of the best games to watch others play (this video, for example, makes EVE seem thoroughly awesome). But the game is practically the platonic ideal of a Hilarious Story Generator—game creator CCP Games encourages players to do creative things in-game, which regularly leads to amazing stories of almost unbelievable shenanigans.

Yesterday’s massive blow-up has managed to top them all. By the time it was over, a player coalition had been effectively destroyed and a whole slew of assets worth tens of thousands of real-world dollars had been stolen. SomethingAwful’s Goonswarm Federation has taken credit for engineering the largest and potentially most disruptive blow-up in the game’s history. Kotaku tells the entire story in great detail, but here’s the short version.

Look, Ma! No hands!

The player group on the receiving end of the screwjob is called Council of Two, or just “CO2.” A high-ranking CO2 player named “The Judge” was approached by a high-ranking Goonswarm player named Aryth, who over the course of a few months managed to flip The Judge’s loyalties. The loyalty-flipping was centered around—what else?—past slights and wars that occurred between Goonswarm, CO2, and other player groups.

With the iPhone launch out of the way, Google is now starting to spin up the marketing machine for its next flagship phone. Google has launched a teaser site and a video asking dissatisfied smartphone users to "stay tuned for more on October 4." What Google wants users to "stay tuned" for is the Pixel 2, the sequel to the Google Pixel.

When we last checked in with Google's 2017 flagship, we were working off a tweet from VentureBeat's Evan Blass claiming that the phone would launch October 5th and come with a new "Snapdragon 836" SoC. Later reports from both Android Police and XDA Developers disputed this, saying Qualcomm wasn't working on mid-cycle "836" refresh this year. The Pixel 2 is now expected to have the same Snapdragon 835 SoC as every other high-end Android phone.

Android Police

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Bethesda, one of the first third-party publishers to pledge support for Nintendo's fledgling hybrid console with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, has committed two new games to the Nintendo Switch via a Nintendo Direct: the lighting-fast shooter Doom, and the upcoming Nazi-blasting fun-fest that is Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Doom launches "this winter," while The New Colossus launches at some point in 2018, a good deal later than the game's October 27 launch on other platforms.

That Bethesda is committing to the Switch, even if its games won't appear on the platform until after they launch on the likes of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, is a major boon for Nintendo. Thus far, the most compelling games on the Switch have been made by Nintendo itself, including Arms, Splatoon 2, and the sublime The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Other major multi-platform ports are on the way, but are either older games like Rocket League, or sports and family games like FIFA 18 and Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2.

Earlier this year, some developers spoke out about bringing their games to the Switch, claiming that a lack of processing power compared to the other consoles is hampering their efforts. However, sales of the Switch—which have reached over five million units— have made it one of the fastest-selling devices in the company's history. Stock remains sporadic at retailers, and despite competition from Nintendo's own upcoming Super Nintendo Classic Edition, the Switch will remains a hot ticket item for the holiday season.