The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is underway in Las Vegas, and tonight's keynote address was delivered by Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. Huang spoke about several of the innovations advanced graphics processors have made available in the past few years, but the real draw of his speech was a brief section where BioWare General Manager Aaryn Flynn joined him on stage to present some new footage from the upcoming Mass Effect: Andromeda. Huang showed surprising knowledge of the franchise before turning things over to Flynn, giving a succinct summary of the series' lore.

The new video starts off by showing the protagonist's ship, the Tempest, flying through a field of asteroids. It continues by showing off a previously unseen planet and demonstrating some of the combat and skill trees available to the player. It closes with some combat, and the hero is shown fighting against a new enemy type, a robot called a "nullifier."

Flynn spoke for a moment about Andromeda after the trailer was completed. While we already knew that Mass Effect: Andromeda uses the Frostbite engine developed by DICE, Flynn confirmed that this means there will be more verticality and destructable objects. He also mentioned that Andromeda will feature a dynamic profile system, which lets you change your class in realtime. Anyone who suffered through the first Mass Effect as a Sentinel will be glad to see this option.

We learned earlier that the rumored March 21 release date for Andromeda was correct, and Flynn joked that the date could be interpreted as 3,2,1, blastoff. You can see some more stills from the video below.

Ever wanted to be a PC gamer, but didn't want to buy a gaming PC? NVIDIA's Jen-Hsun Haung wants your number. Taking the stage at CES today, NVIDIA's CEO announced GeForce Now for PC and Mac -- an offshoot of its cloud gaming service aimed at prospective PC gamers. Despite sharing the same name as the streaming service it offers to NVIDIA Shield users, GeForce Now for PC isn't a gaming subscription service. It's a server rental program.

NVIDIA's Shield TV was one of the few successful Android TV devices -- it was both a capable 4K entertainment device and a simple way to bring PC gaming into your living room. So it only made sense that NVIDIA had a sequel in the works. Today during his CES 2017 keynote, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang unveiled a new version of the Shield TV, which will support 4K HDR for both games and movies.

Reworking the Air Jordan 4 with a stylish Super Nintendo aesthetic? Cool enough.

Wait'll you see the backside, though.

For this design, which will be available in super limited quantities, creator Freaker Sneaks took things a step further, incorporating the face buttons and d-pad from an official PAL SNES controller.

Trico is the clear highlight of The Last Guardian (especially when he's being a good boy), but I'm also enthralled by its world, too. It's densely detailed and flows believably, just begging you to poke your head around every corner and investigate for secrets and insights. It's also surprisingly vertical the further in you get. That fact is made clear with this fan-assembled image of the map.

First, reddit user CandykillerArt (great name) put together an extensive view of the play area from high up "[using] a couple of screenshots from the cutscene towards the end of the game" and "a bit of Photoshop trickery" to extract more detail. That alone is pretty cool and worth commending.

Then, building off that effort, redditor LYRAA3 annotated the image with specific scenes from the adventure. If you've been trying to work out where everything happened, look no further.

After living through the VR frenzy of 2016, it's almost hard to believe that HTC's Vive Pre debuted at CES just a year ago. Since then, the company released the consumer edition of the headset and reorganized all of its Vive business under a subsidiary. Now that it's laid the groundwork for its VR ecosystem, HTC is looking to make it flourish by focusing on developers and fine-tuning its user experience.

Compared to Playstation VR and the Oculus Rift, HTC's Vive virtual reality headset is a bit of a face-hugger. It offers a window into beautiful virtual realms and boasts room-scale motion tracking but, well, it's just not very comfortable. Soon, that may change. HTC just announced that it's creating a Vive Deluxe Audio Strap to replace the headset's elastic headgear. Not only does the new strap look a lot more ergonomic, but it tacks on one of the Oculus Rift's most convenient features: built in headphones.

Sony's press event is the final big show of CES 2017's press day. Shake off that gadget fatigue, because the company is likely to unveil plenty of TVs, devices and accessories that will hit stores before the end of the year. (Something that can't be said of all the gadgets announced at CES.) Join us at 8PM Eastern Time, right here! We'll be reporting direct from the front lines of consumer electronics' media salt mines.

Killer Instinct has been one of the most entertaining fighting games of this generation, and that's made even better by Iron Galaxy's constant support for it. With newest roster addition Kilgore, which is now available for download at $10 (with half of the proceeds going toward funding the KI Ultra Tour Community Fund, which helps fund the community tournament circuit), Ultimates are also returning to the series at a later date. 

With a brief gameplay video on Iron Galaxy's Twitter (with footage first debuted during an in-depth Kilgore stream), we see Jago and Kilgore battling it out until Jago eventually unleashes his new Ultimate, a giant, flaming spirit bomb. Before this addition, the only Ultimate in the game was Shadow Jago's in Arcade Mode. Unfortunately there aren't any other details as to when they're releasing at this time, but we'll update you with the information as it arrives. 

I'm dying to see Ultimates from the guest characters. Rash, specifically. I wonder what he's going to do? 

If there's one shared hatred in Overwatch we can all bond over, it's gotta be Roadhog's hook.

Whether you're on the receiving end and are snatched straight through what should be solid walls, or are playing as Roadhog himself, and hook a target only for them to be pulled behind you, there's a lot of frustration going around. The hook just doesn't feel right in its current form. It lacks consistency.

Blizzard had previously mentioned that it was looking into updating the mechanic. Thankfully, the wait shouldn't be much longer now, and we might even see a change pop up on the PTR as early as this week. Principal designer Geoff Goodman detailed the planned hook rework in a forum post:

"Firstly, the hook victim will now move in to the position directly in front of Roadhog, rather than just a straight line towards him. There is a cap on how far 'to the side' you can be pulled, so you can't just hook someone, spin 180, and dump someone off a cliff. This part (along with some other bug fixes) should generally make the hook feel more consistent as to where the victims get pulled.

Secondly, the line-of-sight check to see if a hook should connect or not is now checked from Roadhog's position, instead of the hook's position. This basically means the hook can't connect to targets that Roadhog himself can't see.

Lastly, there is a new persistent line-of-sight check back to Roadhog once the hook has landed. If this check fails, the hook breaks off and returns to Roadhog. This means if you get hooked and move out of LOS quickly (either you dashed, were falling, were pushed, etc), the hook will now break early and not pull the target.

Overall these changes will likely make Roadhog a bit weaker, but we'll evaluate his performance once we get people playing him and make adjustments as necessary."

My most-played characters in Overwatch are Zenyatta, Mercy, and Lúcio. I've developed a sixth sense for knowing if and when a Roadhog is on the prowl, but even staying out of sight isn't always enough to keep that damned hook off me. That said, if I'm playing a tank, I'm likely picking Roadhog, so I can sympathize. I know that without his hook, he's not getting much done, so it needs to remain powerful for him to make sense. These changes sound like a step in the right direction on both ends.

With this business out of the way, it's time to give Ana another pass.

“Well now everything dies, baby, that’s a fact,” sang Bruce Springsteen on “Atlantic City,” and while everything that dies likely won't come back, save for a zombie apocalypse, I hope you take solace in knowing all your passing icons live on in every song, photograph, and movie.

But hey, enough with the sourpussing. Let's talk about video games (or more specifically, why I’m skipping the likes of Uncharted 4). While I did play some big names this year, I thought it was best to pick out the underrated and the forgotten. I mean, let's face it, your favourite game probably dominates every list on the internet, so don't worry if you don't see the usual suspects posted here.

Not everything here might be worth your time, but rest assured, every rough gem has its own shiny allure. And, sometimes, that’s all you need to catch one's eye.

After quite the time lapse, Pokemon Snap's finally getting some exposure again. Even though Nintendo's attention is aimed at the upcoming Switch, the 1999 Pokemon photography game is the focus of an eShop addition.

Nintendo added an eShop page for Pokemon Snap that indicates it'll come to the Wii U tomorrow in the US. It's priced at $10. The Wii U version already released in Europe and Japan last year.

For anyone who's unfamiliar, Pokemon Snap tasked players with traveling around Pokemon Island to take photos of 63 different pocket monsters in the wild. Once committed to film, Professor Oak would judge the pictures based on size, pose, technique, etc. There's more to it than just shooting the camera, though. There are items to strategically use in order to lure the Pokemon into more photography-friendly situations.

Although this addition would've probably been best served with a release during the Pokemon Go mania, it'll likely still do fine now. The sales performance of Pokemon Sun and Moon proved that people will gladly spend money on Pokemon right now. And Pokemon Go proved that those non-traditional offshoots are just as captivating. Pokemon Snap was doing that 20 years ago, and now it'll do it again.

Pokemon Snap [Nintendo]

Heroes of the Storm had a pretty full year, and Blizzard is kicking off the New Year right with yet another character -- the troll Zul'jin.

As the first troll in the Nexus he has some big shoes to fill, and even though he's yet another Warcraft assassin, I think he'll slot in nicely with the rest of the lineup.

Yes, Blizzard is still patching Diablo III. In a related move, GameStop has decided to discount Diablo III across all major platforms, bringing back the historic low price for the 2012 title (2014 for the PS4 and Xbox One).

This is a good chance for those new generation of gamers or those who never bothered to pick up the latest in the storied franchise. If your Winter Break is excessively long and you're an action-RPG fan, this is worth checking out.

Note that these editions include both Diablo III and the Reaper of Souls expansion.

Diablo III Deals

• Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Ultimate Evil Edition (PS4) — $19.99  (list price $40)
• Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Ultimate Evil Edition (Xbox One) — $19.99  (list price $40)
• Diablo III Battle Chest (PC) — $19.99  (list price $30)

So The Last Guardian came out, was definitely a real thing, and seemed to have an overall positive reception among the community. Sure some people got miffed at Trico's ornery demeanor, but I think a lot of folks recognized it as a beautiful, but flawed adventure.

What's next then? Well, director Fumito Ueda spoke to Glixel, and he doesn't seem to really know. He has his doubts about VR for one, but is interested in it, providing a fictional account of a Shadow of the Colossus VR game. Said doubts include potential motion sickness, and the lack of a real market (an interesting point, like he's confirming that PSVR isn't selling as well as Sony wants).

Because of these factors he'd only want to make a VR game if it made "business sense," which, for the virtual reality market, might be a long while. Until they can get the price down on headsets and potential eliminate the wires (they're working on both), I don't see the average person dropping hundreds of dollars, before software and hardware, on the privilege.

It is neat though!

'Last Guardian' Director Fumito Ueda On Creating Trico, Classic Anime, and His Doubts About VR [Glixel]

PlatinumGames' take on Leo, Mikey, Raph, and Donny will have to stay in the sewers from here on out. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan has been taken off Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox digital storefronts.

This comes less than eight months after the underwhelming hack-and-slasher released in May 2016. It appears to be a simple matter of a license lapsing, but this is one of the shortest license durations in recent memory if that's the case. The silver lining is that physical copies are still available, although likely not being manufactured anymore.

TMNT isn't the only Activision license to expire recently. Both of The Amazing Spider-Man titles were removed from Nintendo's eShop yesterday.

We've reached out to Activision for comment about Mutants in Manhattans sudden unlisting from digital stores. We'll update this article if/when we receive a response.

TMNT : Mutants in Manhattan delisted under a year after release [NeoGAF]

Forza Horizon 3 players on Windows PCs just got a lot more than they bargained for. When Microsoft and Playground Studios posted the January car pack update, they briefly released the wrong version (likely a developer build) of the racing game. This not only prompted a massive 53GB download -- basically, re-downloading the entire game -- but created havoc with your saves. If you started a new profile in this version, it wouldn't be playable in any other release.

Via: Eurogamer

Source: Forza Motorsport Forums (1), (2)

As was foretold in prophecy, Diablo has begun invading Blizzard's other games as part of the 20th anniversary celebration for Diablo. Hearthstone's event began earlier today, and it pits players against Diablo II's Dark Wanderer for the weekly Tavern Brawl event.

Defeating the Wanderer will reward you with a special, diabolical card back, but there's a bit more to this event than meets the eye. Initially, the Wanderer seems to be pretty weak.  His hero power summons a random imp enemy on his side of the board, and his deck follows the Warlock archetype. Defeating his minions will randomly cause loot drops to spawn, and destroying these will give you a random weapon, some armor, or "gold" in the form of mana coins. He'll begin the game with three secrets on the board, each triggered by a condition that evokes one of Diablo III's hero classes, and these change from round to round.

If you can trigger all three of his secrets, however, the Wanderer undergoes a dramatic transformation. His portrait will be replaced by Diablo II's Cow King, and his deck will become overrun with Hell Bovines. He'll also be fully healed, making it quite difficult to reach this stage and still defeat the boss's true form. I haven't been able to get past this stage yet, but it's a lot of fun trying to get past the swarms of minions the Cow King sends your way.

The Dark Wanderer Tavern Brawl runs from now until Midnight Pacific time on Sunday, January 8.

You're about to feel better if you've been holding back on buying a new TV. The HDMI Forum has unveiled a new specification for its namesake video connector, HDMI 2.1, and there's enough here to make enthusiasts happy. It now supports both very high resolutions and high frame rates. In particular, you can get 4K at a speedy 120Hz, and 8K at 60Hz (when 8K sets are ready). You'll even see 8K with high dynamic range, although you'll need new 48Gbps cables to experience this and other high-bandwidth features in all their uncompressed glory. Thankfully, there are some upgrades that shouldn't take years to reach your living room.

Source: HDMI Forum

Let it Die is one of those games I want to see continue doing what it's doing. Aside from Twitter clips and occasional forum mentions, I haven't seen all that much conversation surrounding Grasshopper Manufacture's hack-and-slash survival title. It seems to be resonating, though -- it's garnered one million downloads in North America and Europe since December 3, 2016, according to GungHo.

This is a free-to-play release, of course, but given how niche and challenging the action-survival game can be at times, that's reassuring to hear. (Also, it hasn't launched in Japan yet.) As a thank-you of sorts, players can claim one Death Metal as a daily log-in bonus from Friday, January 6 to Sunday, January 8.

At two bosses down with presumably plenty left to go, I'm still feeling out Let it Die, but gosh do I just love its peculiar world and aesthetic. The slick introduction videos at the arcade, the oddly cute frogs (that I always feel guilty about munching on), the crazed mushroom lady, the game-within-a-game concept -- it's all so very weird and, more importantly, good. Unexpectedly good.

Here's hoping that download figure continues to climb, then. Support the weirdos and risk-takers.

Diablo just turned 20, and although we didn't really get a whole lot of fanfare out of BlizzCon outside of an event and a new class, the former is coming very soon as a result of the upcoming 2.4.3 patch.

As previously discussed the entire first game, including every boss, has been re-created in Diablo III, complete with tinny sound effects and an old school retro aesthetic. I had to chance to briefly give it a try, and I have to say, from the UI to the way your character walks, they nailed it.

If you're wondering how to access it, here's a quick rundown. Basically, you kill cultists, grab an item, then go to Old Tristram and enter the portal. Boom, you're done. A lot of people are angry that this is only a "one month" event, but it will happen "every January" going forward, if it's any consolation.

Electronic Arts and BioWare have finally ended months of itchiness by announcing the release date for Mass Effect: Andromeda. At CES this morning, the duo revealed that the title will arrive in the US on Tuesday, March 21st 2017. Europeans will need to be a little more patient, unfortunately, since the game debuts on that side of the pond on Thursday 23rd. The title will arrive on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows just four months after its original ship date of "Holiday 2016."

Source: Mass Effect

Mass Effect: Andromeda was always locked in for a first quarter 2017 release, but I thought for sure it would be pushed back.

Nope! That's definitely not the case, as EA has confirmed to Destructoid that Andromeda now has a firm March 21 release date in North America (March 23 for Europe). It'll launch on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, but a Switch port could eventually happen if enough people want it (read: if the Switch sells original Wii numbers and EA sees dollar signs). BioWare also shared a little tidbit that's become some sort of tradition for them -- they sent their development team home from the winter break with a "holiday build," which they're currently in the process of tweaking.

New gameplay will also be revealed later today at 6:30 PM PT at CES, so stay tuned for that eventually. Since it's just a few months away it's tough to really keep speculating what Andromeda will be like, but I'm just happy this series is still around, even if it's eating into precious time they could be using to make a new KOTOR.

On January 13, Nintendo will reveal something about the Nintendo Switch. It could just be the date and price. We could get confirmation on a whole load of stuff like the Skyrim port that's sorta-kinda confirmed, and potential ports/remakes like Splatoon and Mario Kart. It's Nintendo, so I wouldn't be surprised if we got very little.

Yet, despite all of this lack of information, Gamestops across Europe are jumping the gun and taking pre-orders. It's set at a generic placeholder price of €499.99, but if you really want one, you can put some cash down on it sight unseen. Countries that are holding pre-order opps at the moment include Italy, Germany, and Ireland.

There's also a rumor that GameStop just got a company-wide memo stating that pre-orders will go live in North America the day after the presentation on January 14, which does seem likely (especially since the leaker, allegedly a GameStop employee, has been correct before). We already took bets on the price of the Switch, let's see who's right!

Switch [Gamestop via Nintendo Life]

The developers of Dissidia Final Fantasy arcade have already said that if Final Fantasy XV caught on (I think it has) and people respond kindly to Notcis (uh, they mostly have), he might make it into the game representing XV.

Now, I don't think they're going to announce him this soon, but on January 10, Square Enix will reveal yet another new character. There have also been rumblings of putting Minwu (from Final Fantasy II) in, so that's a possibility. Shit, the sky is the limit with this game. They already have additions from Final Fantasy I-XIV, as well as Tactics and Type-0, and half of those games don't have their proper villain accompaniment yet, just the hero.

If they really do approach the realm of 50 characters like they eventually want to, I hope this hits the PS4 at some point. Even if I have to import it, I'd be down for partaking in this massive all-star road trip.

Dissidia [Square Enix via Siliconera]

Have you forgotten about the new year yet? Well, Harmonix certainly hasn't as they've announced a slew of downloadable songs to kick off 2017. Along with some new hits come a few "classic" songs from previous games. While that is super neat, I'm a little confused as to where this leaves people who imported the previous games into Rock Band 4. Either way, at least late adopters can finally play some of the more popular songs.

While the initial batch of songs isn't much to write home about (Blue Öyster Cult aside), Harmonix has promised that more returning cuts will be headed in the coming months. I guess when you've run out of new songs to license, you just go ahead and re-license older hits. Ah well, some of the DLC this month is worth a damn, which is surprising enough.

As we've all heard there are many, many estimates for how much money Super Mario Run made, but this latest one after all of the dust has settled is a little more bleak.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Newzoo, a market research firm, claims that the game generated around $30 million in revenue from the over 90 million installs it garnered. In other words, approximately three percent of the userbase actually paid money for it, and the rest either didn't bother or have already deleted the game from their phone.

If this estimate is accurate, it doesn't bold well for Nintendo's future mobile strategy. It says that providing a full, reasonably priced game where you buy everything upfront instead of paying daily or weekly fees or pay to play isn't as viable as pimping your game out with microtransactions.

Then again, there's still hope that Android users can still be monetized, and maybe Nintendo will change their tune about providing updates for it.

Why Super Mario’s Run Was Short [WSJ]

A friend just turned me onto these, and I know they're a few days late, but outside of the creepy Miitomo hot dog person, these are damn cute.

Over on the "Play Nintendo" activity site, the Big N put together a collective of New Year's cards (you know, like the valentines you give in grade school), which run the gamut of Mario, Animal Crossing, and the aforementioned Miitomo themes.

Another thing that caught my eye is that Jibanyan, a character from Level-5's Yo-Kai Watch, is the only third-party character in the "Friends" section of the site -- almost like he's first-party now. Good to see that someone is looking out for this great series.

Happy New Year! [Play Nintendo]