December 18, 2017 – BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc. is bringing the dot-munching action and brilliant neon visuals of PAC-MAN™ Championship Edition 2 PLUS to Nintendo Switch™ on February 22, 2018 in the Americas.
In PAC-MAN Championship Edition 2 PLUS, Switch players and PAC-MAN fans alike can experience the reimagined retro series with intense mazes and fast action at home and on the go. This game includes PAC-MAN Championship Edition 2, which features a number of gameplay modes including Score Attack mode, Adventure mode and big boss battles, giving players endless opportunity to build on and improve their skills. Beloved ghosts, Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde will be in hot pursuit as PAC-MAN furiously devours Pac Dots and players chase the high score for a coveted spot at the top of the leaderboards. The Nintendo Switch version of PAC-MAN Championship Edition 2 PLUS also comes with an exclusive two player co-op mode called PAC-MAN Championship Edition 2 PLUS 2P for twice the fun! Team up on a single Nintendo Switch with each player controlling their PAC-MAN character with a single Joy-Con™ across multiple mazes to rack up the highest score possible. Special co-op maneuvers give this mode a unique spin on traditional PAC-MAN gameplay.
Jackson, NJ — December 17, 2017 — Six Flags Great Adventure’s record attempt for the world’s largest snowball fight, which was postponed last weekend — ironically, due to a snow storm — took place today with 505 guests hurling a combination of indoor and real snow balls at each other for one minute. Nine Six Flags theme parks across North America participated in this national Six Flags Snow Day presented by Hallmark Channel.
The current world record of 7,681 participants was set in Canada last year. Six Flags aimed to break the record with 9,000 participants last weekend, but extreme winter weather along the East Coast snarled park events from Massachusetts down to Atlanta. Last weekend, 4,317 guests participated throughout five Six Flags parks in California, Texas and Missouri, and events in the remaining four parks, including Six Flags Great Adventure, took place this weekend. Total event participation has not been finalized.
In 2016, Six Flags broke the Guinness World Records® title for most couples kissing under the mistletoe.
Six Flags Great Adventure magically transforms into a winter wonderland for Holiday in the Park weekends and select days through Jan. 1, 2018. More than a million glittering lights, dazzling holiday entertainment, delicious seasonal treats, Santa’s village and many popular rides provide a way for guests to create holiday memories at Six Flags Great Adventure this winter. This year’s event features two new shows, a newly-themed section, plus more shopping, dining and rides than ever before. Holiday in the Park is included with all Season Passes and active Memberships.
Universal Studios Hollywood is once again transformed for the holiday season. First of the holiday fun to take in is Grinchmas. Grinchmas uses the the sights and sounds of the 2000 film Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas to delight kids and adults. Once again, the heart of the Grinchmas event takes place around a gigantic Christmas tree, adorned with ornaments and lights, but there are also several things to do and enjoy setup around the tree. You can eat several holiday treats created for the event – my personal favorite being the “yeti doughnut” – as well as take your picture with Whoville citizens, the Grinch himself, and even the Grinch’s faithful companion: Max. You can also send your loved ones (or even yourself) a holiday card from the Whoville post office! There is also an area where you can customize your own special Grinchmas ornament. Then there is a large assortment of stage shows – from “Story Time with Cindy-Lou” to the Grinchmas tree lighting ceremony in the evening. Overall, Grinchmas is a very fun time for young and old. I also wanted to give a special shout out to the makeup artists behind the makeup of Grinchmas. Their are doing a terrific job in blending the “who” prosthetics on their actors.
Earlier this year, Universal Studios Hollywood unveiled a terrific new holiday idea for 2017 in addition to their venerable Grinchmas event: Christmas in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. After not seeing anything happen in that area of the park for Halloween Horror Nights (could we pretty please get Deatheaters next year?), the gates being not so ceremoniously-shut, this was a welcome addition to the park. The decorations hanging about in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter are decidedly rustic in nature, with boughs of holly and pine adorning the various shops and buildings of the fictional Hogsmeade village. Additionally, the Hogwarts Choir performs on the small stage with holiday-inspired harmonies – all backed up by their croaking frogs. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, the attraction inside Hogwarts Castle, is also there for your riding enjoyment and has never looked better with its higher resolution 2D projection system. The Three Broomsticks has has a holiday makeover as well, offering an array of holiday themed dishes from the wizarding world, so be sure to catch lunch there during your visit. Finally, the highly-fabled hot butterbeer is back!
Of course, you will also be able to enjoy all the rest of the attractions and things that Universal Studios Hollywood has to offer. The studio tour is legendary and, despite its reliance on 3D movie-based experiences, still offers you an amazing view on the studio lot. I love doing stargazing from the tour tram as you never know who you’re going to see while being driven around – especially if you are there during the work week when shows and films are shooting. On the day we visited, which was a Sunday, the backlot was fairly quiet as one would expect, with maintenance workers buzzing about in golf carts. The area of the lot used for The Good Place is still off limits due to shooting, but hopefully they will open it up again soon. That area is a hoot to visit – especially if you are a fan of the show.
Overall, Universal Studios Hollywood has put together a great holiday celebration with Grinchmas and Christmas in the Wizarding World. There are plenty of things to do for both young and old and, after you are done in the park, you can enjoy the Universal City Walk outdoor mall. There you will find a number of interesting shops and restaurants for your holiday shopping pleasure. You can find ticket information and a lot more at the Universal Studios official website.
OSLO, Norway – December 18th, 2017 – Game developer and publisher Funcom is excited to announce that it is teaming up with Cabinet Group LLC to establish HEROIC SIGNATURES, a new company that will hold and manage the interactive rights to numerous attractive intellectual properties from the writings of Robert E Howard and the Swedish original pen & paper and board games. These properties include Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, and Mutant Chronicles, all of which have been made popular through motion pictures, comic books, novels, tabletop games, miniatures, and more. Other properties include Dark Agnes, Kult, Kull of Atlantis, Mutant: Year Zero, and El Borak. HEROIC SIGNATURES’ portfolio includes a total of 29 different intellectual properties making up several decades worth of rich worlds and characters.
“Heroic Signatures is now the guardian and caretaker of a veritable treasure chest of incredible worlds, each of them ready to be brought into the interactive space,” said Funcom CEO, Rui Casais. “Any developer or publisher will be able to license these properties, and our ambition is to see a multitude of games grow from these worlds and to see the properties strengthened across the board to the benefit of everyone who works with them.”
Cabinet Group LLC controls the overall rights to all properties. Funcom and Cabinet Group LLC will each own 50% of HEROIC SIGNATURES, which will control and manage the interactive rights to each property, i.e. the right for video gaming on all platforms.
Funcom will utilize these properties, in addition to the Company’s internal properties, as part of an increased focus on co-development and publishing partnerships with third party developers. Funcom has previously shared that it will be going into select publishing partnerships with developers, and these partnerships are intended to be targeted to leverage the core strengths and markets of Funcom, with focus on quality over quantity of projects. The first of these projects developed by a third party and published by Funcom, will be revealed next year.
To fund publishing partnerships with third party developers, and secondarily to have more flexibility in investing in production of new games internally, Funcom has secured a 10.6 million USD investment from SwedBank Robur Fonder AB which has previously invested in several other major game developers and publishers.
“We see this as a new giant leap in Funcom’s turnaround,” says Erik Sprinchorn, fund manager at SwedBank Robur Fonder. “Building on its impressive recent development, multiple new revenue sources from IP and strategic expansion into publishing will increase cash flow robustness and boost further growth. Combined with additional funding and a reverse split the company is now really well positioned as an attractive long-term investment.”
December 15, 2017 – Epic Games has launched its “Survive the Holidays” event for Fortnite, which includes all-new game content for both Battle Royale and Save the World!
Some details on the update can be found below and full patch notes can be found here. Fortnite is now available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Mac. Fortnite Battle Royale is completely free; Fortnite’s PvP “Save the World” is in paid Early Access, and will be free in 2018.
Season 2 for Battle Royale players kicks off with the all-new Battle Pass! Players who purchase a Battle Pass will immediately get sweet cosmetic loot with more than 65+ rewards unlocked for progression throughout the season. Players can get more details in the recently released “Battle Pass Overview” video.
The mode also gets a festive update with a limited-time Snowball Grenade Launcher weapon and other fun visual updates. Additionally, the game has been updated to add new daily quests, updated UI, bug fixes, and general game improvements.
The Fortnite Guide to Holiday Survival is here! This limited time holiday event brings an all-new questline, exclusive holiday-themed loot and activities, Holiday Heroes, new weapons, the addition of mini-bosses, and more.
The “Survive the Storm” event also returns on an all-new Winter survival map with festive trees, snow, and a mountain vista. Epic has also listened to player feedback on the mode and brought a number of improvements, including rebalanced difficulty, resourcing, and rewards.
As always, the update brings a ton of bug fixes and updates to the Early Access title.
December 15, 2017 – Bohemia Interactive today announced Project Lucie, an experimental VR puzzle game for Oculus Rift, which is also playable with classic mouse & keyboard controls. Project Lucie is the latest free addition to Bohemia Incubator, a label for experimental games that are made available to the public. The launch follows the graduation of another Incubator title, Ylands, which entered Steam Early Access last week. In celebration, a brand new video introduces Project Lucie, and wishes Ylands good luck!
In Project Lucie, players take on the role of Lucie, an 8 year old kid with a big imagination, and follow her story by completing puzzles that come to life! Beyond Lucie’s story, an Editor mode invites players to explore their own imagination by building their very own puzzles. While it’s playable on PC with a mouse and keyboard, the game is built to support Oculus Rift and Touch controllers – to fully immerse players in a Virtual Reality environment, and provide a complete gameplay experience: full physical simulation, and complete presence within Lucie’s world and imagination. A Pre-Alpha version of Project Lucie is now available to play for free via the Bohemia Store.
“Project Lucie is at a very early stage of development” explains Project Lead, Laurent Lavigne, in his Welcome Blog. “It includes just one of Lucie’s stories, together with a creative sandbox and editor mode. We hope this ‘slice’ of features presents the core of what the game’s about. As part of Bohemia Incubator, our intention is to let players try our game, and share with us their feedback, comments and recommendations.”
Project Lucie is the third game to be made available under the Bohemia Incubator label. This Incubator release enables a small but dedicated team at Bohemia Interactive to test game concepts and validate design decisions, as well as to guide the development of supporting technologies and services. In addition, it is a way to learn more about different areas of game development, game genres, and platforms.
While there are similarities between Bohemia Incubator and Steam Early Access, a key difference is that Incubator games can be much more basic, experimental, and rough. Moreover, Bohemia Interactive might even decide to cancel or stop supporting an Incubator game. To reflect this, people will often be able to play the games for free while they are part of Bohemia Incubator (such as Project Lucie).
For more in-depth information about Bohemia Incubator, please visit http://incubator.bohemia.net, and check out the Incubator FAQ. To keep track of all the latest news, be sure to follow Bohemia Interactive on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Los Angeles, December 14, 2017 – E!, the global pop culture powerhouse, announced today that the 44th installment of the “People’s Choice Awards” will premiere on November 11, 2018 with Den of Thieves’ Jesse Ignjatovic and Evan Prager as Executive Producers. Den of Thieves joins Wilshire Studios who have produced E!’s signature “Live from the Red Carpet” series for over two decades providing cross platform, in depth coverage of Hollywood’s biggest award shows. As previously announced, E! acquired the “People’s Choice Awards” and serves as the exclusive home of the popular annual award show that celebrates the best in pop culture and is voted on entirely by fans. E!’s telecast of “People’s Choice Awards” will air globally across E!’s 17 international channels reaching 153 countries in 24 languages. E!’s ownership of “People’s Choice Awards” includes the annual live event along with all digital and social assets.
“Den of Thieves, Jesse and Evan have an incredible track record in live event production, and we are excited to tap into their expertise, along with Wilshire Studios, as we evolve and supercharge this fan-centric, iconic franchise for the next generation,” said Jen Neal, Executive Producer, Live Events, Executive Vice President, Marketing for E! “By moving ‘People’s Choice Awards’ outside of the traditional awards season, we establishing a new window to celebrate the best in pop culture and will harness E!’s tremendous multi-platform reach to engage fans and drive momentum throughout the year.”
“We are thrilled to be producing the 2018 ‘People’s Choice Awards’ for E!. The PCAs are an iconic award show because they truly reflect the fans — through the power of their votes,” said Jesse Ignjatovic, Executive Producer, Den of Thieves. “There is no better home for this show than on E! and we can’t wait to bring that fan energy to the stage in 2018.”
Den of Thieves is a full service production company that specializes in the live event & award show space, having produced the “MTV Video Music Awards” for 11 consecutive years, the “iHeart Radio Music Awards,” “MTV Movie Awards,” “Radio Disney Music Awards,” “The Gong Show” on ABC, “American Idol” on Fox and several other projects featured on both television networks and digital outlets.
“The People’s Choice Awards” is the only major awards show voted on entirely by the public for fan favorites in movies, music, television and digital. Only fans determine the nominees and winners for the annual awards show and nearly 300 million votes were cast for its most recent installment, which aired January 18, 2017.
“People’s Choice Awards” was originally created in 1975 by Robert Stivers. “People’s Choice Awards” was previously owned by Procter & Gamble and produced by Mark Burnett airing on CBS.
Here’s a new trailer for the upcoming Far Cry 5 titled “The Resistance”.
About Far Cry 5
Far Cry 5 will be available March 27, 2018 on PlayStation® 4 Pro, PlayStation®4, the Xbox One, Xbox One X, Xbox One S, and Windows PC. Set in America, a first for the franchise, Far Cry 5 offers players total freedom to navigate a serene-looking yet deeply twisted world as the new junior deputy of fictional Hope County, Montana. Players will find that their arrival accelerates a years-long silent coup by a fanatical doomsday cult, the Project at Eden’s Gate, igniting a violent takeover of the county. Under siege and cut off from the rest of the world, players will join forces with residents of Hope County and form the Resistance.
For more information about the game, please visit http://farcry.com.
Moenchengladbach/Germany, December 15, 2017 – Fans of gripping police simulation games will need a little bit more patience before they can go on patrol in the fictional US city of Loston Bay: In order to meet the wishes of their very active and enthusiastic community developer Bigmoon Entertainment and publisher astragon Entertainment have decided to postpone the release of POLICE SIMULATOR 18 on PC to summer 2018.
“Through our close communication with the members of our player community we have received a tremendous amount of constructive feedback regarding the development of POLICE SIMULATOR 18 from police fans all over the world. We are of course striving to implement as many of these elements as possible, so that we will be able to offer players a police simulation that fully matches their expectations. We have therefore come to the conclusion that it will be beneficial to extend the development period by a few more months and postpone the release of our game to summer 2018,” explains Benjamin Wolf, producer at astragon Entertainment, the publisher’s decision.
About POLICE SIMULATOR 18
In POLICE SIMULATOR 18 the player will slip into the role of a real US police officer – either male or female – and discover the interesting challenges and varied tasks that lie waiting for him in the streets of the sprawling US city of Loston Bay. The player can choose to go on patrol through three different city districts either alone in the game’s single player mode or together with a friend in the cooperative two-person multiplayer mode. The extremely expansive – and thanks to the use of the Unreal® Engine 4 very lifelike – metropolis can be freely explored by the player either on foot or in one of three distinct patrol cars.
In addition to these police cars with their fully functional cockpits the virtual cop will of course also be able to use a broad range of authentic police equipment.
More information regarding the development of POLICE SIMULATOR 18 can be found on the official facebook page of the game as well as on Steam™:
So! You are almost done with your shopping? Then it hits you that you forgot to get little Jamie a present! What do you do? Do you rush out to get Jamie the latest Turbo-Man toy? NO! That would be silly, and you would probably end up locked in holiday toy combat with a disgruntled postal worker while someone you don’t like is at home eating your cookies! Instead, just look below and pick one – you won’t be disappointed! I mean, JAMIE won’t be disappointed! 🙂
HP Omen X 35 Inch Curved Display
HP’s Omen X line of computers and gaming peripherals is a stylish and performance-driven lineup. What stood out most to me, however, was its HP 35 Curved Display – it’s ultra-wide and CURVED! Also, it has an exceptional sense of style as well as 100Hz refresh rate and G-SYNC compatibility. This display is simply exceptional.
Creative Labs crafted a very impressive PC gaming headset with their Sound BlasterX H7 Tournament Edition. Featuring a 50mm tilt-driver setup which creates small acoustic chambers in the ear cups, the Sound BlasterX H7 TE is also very comfortable to wear for long gaming sessions. Finally, its removable mic has some great noise cancellation for chatting with your team mates. These are just a few reasons why it made our “Seal of Excellence” award!
Keeping my coffee hot during my morning routine never goes well and inevitably ends up with me pouring a cold cup of coffee in the sink. The Ember electronically controls your drink’s temperature by way of an iOS app and is rechargeable! Couple that with its ceramic mug style lip and push-to-open operation, drinking from the Ember travel mug is terrific and makes a great gift for the busy person in your life.
Xbox One gamers in your life will love the Plantronics RIG 800LX with its free DOLBY Atmos capabilities and comfortable ear cups. Additionally, it’s super-comfortable for long gaming sessions and has a nifty flip up boom microphone which auto-mutes when in the up position. You can also adjust the headset for various head heights which is something you don’t usually see. Finally, the DOLBY Atmos provides some seriously-cool positional audio which will blow your mind!
Creative Labs makes this list a second time with their iRoar Go bluetooth speaker. Not only does it have some great styling and lines, but it also features some seriously powerful audio from a considerably portable product thanks to its “SuperWide” technology. This technology allows the small iRoar Go to sound almost like a much larger sound bar that you would have in your home/dorm/office theater system!
