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'Apex Legends' Battle Pass and new character Octane arrive tomorrow
Apex Legends has exploded in popularity since the battle royale game arrived last month, and EA and Respawn aren't wasting much time in making the first seasonal Battle Pass available. The Wild Frontier pass arrives March 19th for 950 Apex Coins ($9.50). If you buy it, you'll unlock three themed character skins immediately, for Lifeline, Wraith and Mirage. You can earn more than 100 additional rewards each time you level up, including weapon skins, banner frames and XP boosts.
'Apex Legends' team plans to fix player hitbox issues
Apex Legends is a success by most measures, but that doesn't mean it's without problems. A Respawn community manager said the developer is aware of and "discussing" multiple complaints that the hitboxes (the invisible shapes that determine whether or not a hit counts) are inconsistent between characters and could give you an unfair advantage. Some Legends appear to have disproportionately large hitboxes that make them easier targets (Gibraltar's is 140 percent bigger than Wraith's, for example). Others, meanwhile, have more precise hitboxes -- you can shoot between the legs of Bloodhound, but trying the same with Pathfinder registers a hit.
Hearthmind brings the 'Twitch Plays' phenomenon to Hearthstone
Ever since Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft launched on PC and Mac in March, we've been asking ourselves one question: How would this strategic card game behave if a democratic octopus were in control? That question is now partially answered thanks to Hearthmind, a website that blends Blizzard's CCG with the livestreamed, crowd-play-style of control popularized by Twitch Plays Pokemon. Hearthmind isn't quite controlled the same way Twitch Plays Pokemon is though, as players vote on actions in the game by dragging their mouse cursor over the playing field as opposed to entering commands in the stream's chat. An action is picked by the game every five seconds, so it retains a somewhat brisk pace compared to its Pokemon-based counterpart. As of this writing, the stream, powered by Hitbox as opposed to Twitch, is hovering around 100 participants. Hearthstone just launched on iOS for free this month after Blizzard detailed the game's single player campaign. An Android port of the game is still in the works. [Image: Blizzard Entertainment]
