It's been reported by Japanese website PC Watch that Blizzard Entertainment and its partner in the Orient, Netease, are suing the developers of mobile arena-shooter Heroes of Warfare, 4399, over claims that the Android/iOS title is a rip-off of their own team-based battler, Overwatch.

Heroes of Warfare features two teams of kooky characters battling it out over checkpoints, on a variety of maps, which are suspiciously similar in layout to maps featured in Blizzard's celebrated shooter, the game also contains sound effects that seem to have been pulled directly from the Overwatch assets, as well as a somewhat recognisable UI system.

I guess the selling point of Heroes of Warfare is that it is mobile, thus allowing fans of Overwatch to get their fix whilst out and about. Either way, 4399 have found themselves at the wrong end of legal drama, as Blizzard and Netease argue that the game is clear copyright infringement.

Now you guys 'n' gals enjoy this Heroes of Warfare footage and decide for yourselves. I'm off to play a relaxing game of Cuphaed Adventure.

Blizzard sues Heroes of Warfare developer [PC Watch]

Atlus USA have announced that they will be opening a dedicated digital store for merchandise pertaining to their range of games and IPs. The store will go live on October 16.

Atlus Online Store will stock fun and cute tat based on the likes of Persona and Jack Frost at launch, with further inventory to be added in the foreseeable future as the store grows. They will only be shipping within North America at first, but have stated that they are aware of their overseas fans, and hope to expand globally in the future.

The store also believes in the principle that everyone should have the opportunity to get what they want, and will work to restock any and all sold out merchandise. So if you want your very own plush Morgana or Jack Frost, or some slick merch based on the heart-stealing kids from Shujin High, then be sure to check the store out when it goes live at 8am PT/12pm ET on Monday, October 16

Atlus Online Store statement [Official site]

Here's a big one for you guys. No, not that. Heathens. It is arousing to be back though. I meant this contest however. The awesome folks at ConsoleTuner.com are at it again: letting you pick your choice of controller (xb360, xb1, PS3 or PS4), a free Nintendo Switch, and of course, the Titan One and Two. Now some of you may be asking, "What's a Titan One or a Two?" Fair enough, let's check the blurb:

In The Beginning...

Nintendo’s 1992 masterpiece, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is a perfectly paced action adventure game, where our plucky hero, Link, must travel the world of Hyrule acquiring the knowledge and tools necessary to defeat Ganon, the King of Evil, and restore balance to the Light and Dark Worlds. The progression is straightforward, with Link acquiring items at opportune times to advance to the next dungeon, eventually becoming strong enough to defeat the final boss. When a hacked version of A Link to the Past surfaced in the early months of 2016, randomly distributing the items Link needs to complete his quest, it took a classic and gave it new life, creating a game that feels like a new experience every time you play.

This hacked version of the game is the brainchild of David “Dessyreqt” Carroll, who had previously worked on randomized versions of Super Metroid and Final Fantasy VI. These two games, along with ALttP make up Carroll’s three favorite games, on his favorite system, the Super Nintendo. To him “it was just natural that I would go ahead and randomize A Link to the Past after having built Randomizers for the other two.”

While working on his Super Metroid Randomizer, Carroll “stumbled upon a new algorithm for shuffling items” that he realized he could use to easily build a Randomizer for Link to the Past. This was somewhere in the middle of 2014. In these early days, Carroll was a one-man show, working on the Randomizer in secret. One thing he hit on early in his work was that in a normal speedrun of ALttP, there are many locations in the game that players never visit because there are no key items in these areas of the game world. The Randomizer can potentially force players to run to all corners of the map to find items, and Carroll saw this as something that would be appealing to players looking for a new challenge.

Carroll's own challenges that he faced were that he wasn't really a ROM hacker, and admits to still being quite unfamiliar with 65816 (SNES) assembly, so everything he did to randomize items was trial and error. Making use of the ALttP ROM editor, Hyrule Magic, to change items at various locations and using a binary diff tool to help him identify what addresses led to what chests in the game's code, Carroll plugged away at his project. Finding every item location, and determining what items were needed to get to that location was a painstakingly slow process that was certainly the most tedious and error-prone part for Carroll.

Life would get in the way for Carroll as work, family and other projects cut into his time, and bringing the Randomizer to life was put on hold. He was actually surprised that when he was finally able to pick the project back up in 2016, no one had created a randomized ALttP yet. 

People are often dismissive of the PS Vita: it pales in comparison to the Nintendo 3DS, its back catalogue is nothing special, and Sony made some utterly bizarre design choices. These people often forget that there is another layer of disappointment to this story, which was the release of the PSTV – a gadget for your PS4 that doubled as a non-handheld Vita. Let me repeat that – a non-handheld handheld, three years before Nintendo executed the idea with some semblance of elegance. In hindsight, it feels like it was almost doomed to failure.

Hold that thought, though – maybe the PSTV (and the Vita, for that matter) attract greater criticism than they deserve. There are certainly reasons why you might want to own a small, versatile Sony games console, and the PSTV provides just that. I've had my PSTV since February 2016, and I use it on a fairly regular basis – I'd say that at this stage, equal time is spent between my PS3, PS4 and PSTV. So, I feel well placed to look back on the hundreds of hours I've poured into this little guy, and tell you whether it deserves to be written off as a flop. Ultimately, the PSTV lets Sony fans down, falling short in several areas, but there's still something of value there for a select few of us.

Every time I see the most minute area in Zelda: Breath of the Wild represented in any way, even if it's a video clip for a tip, I want to load up my game and go there.

Out of all of the exploration-based games I've played in my life since the '80s, and I've seen quite a few, Breath of the Wild influenced me to really just go to town with some of the most random areas even if there were no immediate rewards.

One location I remember quite vividly is Dueling Peaks, which is represented wonderfully in this painting from "GIVE_ME_GOLD_THANKS." It's an oil rendition on a 16x20 canvas, and you can compare it to the original in-game zone below.

I painted Dueling Peaks from Breath Of The Wild [Imgur] Thanks Kenny!

'Lore' Proves Podcasts Can Inspire Disturbingly Effective TV
Bryan Bishop,
The Verge

A year after Amazon greenlit the television adaption of the popular podcast, Lore debuted this week. The Verge reviews the series as it makes the jump from audio to visual, exploring whether or not the storytelling medium can be the basis for good television. Meanwhile, we're still waiting on that Serial TV show.

Capcom's comic-book brawler Marvel vs Capcom Infinite will see its first major update in a few days, and have released the patch notes ahead of time so you can get your favourite fighters gameplan in order.

First and foremost, Spiderman will lose his notorious combo loop that does, like, a zillion damage. This will stop players, who show a complete lack of Great Responsibility, from abusing it in battle. There are also some bug fixes affecting Captain America, as well as some changes across the board related to Air Recovery.

The list of tweaks can be seen below. The update goes live on October 16, with the game's first three DLC characters becoming available for download the following day.

I still remember when Azure Striker Gunvolt was announced all the way back in 2014 at BitSummit. Since then it went from a little 3DS game that could to getting a PC port, a sequel, a "Striker" double-pack, a Switch port, and a title character appearance in two retro-themed spinoffs.

Inti Creates, who have a number of great platformers under their belt, have come a long way in the current industry, and have cemented themselves as one of the most consistent retro-tinted developers right now. That's why I'm even remotely excited to see cute Halloween themed artwork from them, showcasing Gunvolt characters.

In what doubles as a contest and a wallpaper dump, Inti Creates has asked folks via Twitter what character they want to see in the next Halloween image. If you want, feel free to vote, but I'm not your dad.

Inti Creates [Twitter]

People are often dismissive of the PS Vita: it pales in comparison to the Nintendo 3DS, its back catalogue is nothing special, and Sony made some utterly bizarre design choices. These people often forget that there is another layer of disappointment to this story, which was the release of the PSTV – a gadget for your PS4 that doubled as a non-handheld Vita. Let me repeat that – a non-handheld handheld, three years before Nintendo executed the idea with some semblance of elegance. In hindsight, it feels like it was almost doomed to failure.

Hold that thought, though – maybe the PSTV (and the Vita, for that matter) attract greater criticism than they deserve. There are certainly reasons why you might want to own a small, versatile Sony games console, and the PSTV provides just that. I've had my PSTV since February 2016, and I use it on a fairly regular basis – I'd say that at this stage, equal time is spent between my PS3, PS4 and PSTV. So, I feel well placed to look back on the hundreds of hours I've poured into this little guy, and tell you whether it deserves to be written off as a flop. Ultimately, the PSTV lets Sony fans down, falling short in several areas, but there's still something of value there for a select few of us.

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

Welcome to the weekend. We'll recap this week's news highlights, plus big stories from Friday like the Stranger Things season two soundtrack/trailer and, wait one second, did that Twitter boycott actually work?

The two founders of Riot Games announced that they're handing off the management of League of Legends to other administrators so they can make a new game -- which will end up being the publisher's second big video game release in 11 years of operation. Brandon "Ryze" Beck and Marc "Tryndamere" Merrill created Riot in 2006 to develop their only title, which has become a wildly successful gaming juggernaut dominating the MOBA genre. Now, they're handing over the leadership reins so they can make new titles that will 'finally put the "s" in Riot Games,' as they put it in their joint statement.

Via: Glixel

Source: Riot Games