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'Animal Crossing' themed Nintendo Direct scheduled for Thursday
Animal Crossing: New Horizons will bring Nintendo's franchise to the Switch in March, and one month ahead of the game's release date it will unveil more details about the new entry. A 25-minute livestream on February 20th at 9 AM ET will give us a look at the "Nook Inc.'s Deserted Island Getaway Package!" that makes up the backbone of the new game. Players have been waiting for years to see a new console entry in the series, and it's almost here. Just wait a few more hours to get a better look at it, and the good news is that it's not delayed again.
Nintendo's special 'Animal Crossing' Switch is coming March 13th
The first new Animal Crossing game on consoles in several years is almost here, and Nintendo is rolling out a special edition of its Switch to mark the occasion. This $300 Switch will arrive on March 13th, a week before the launch of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It's covered in pastel colors, with two-toned Joy-Cons and a white dock that has some of the game's characters painted on it. The only thing it doesn't come with is the game itself -- that you'll have to buy separately. It's available for pre-order at Best Buy (update: and Amazon) if you're already throwing your money at the screen, or you can just buy the game by itself and play it on a normal Switch -- your choice. On the other hand, if you can't get enough but just don't need another console, Nintendo is releasing themed "Aloha Edition" carrying case and screen protector packages on the 13th for both the Switch and Switch Lite. The real good news, though, is that after a slew of videogame delays -- that included Animal Crossing slipping from its planned launch date last fall -- it looks like this one is just about ready to go on March 20th. Buy Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Amazon - $59.99 Buy Animal Crossing Edition Switch on Amazon - $299 Buy Animal Crossing Nintendo Switch on Best Buy - $299.99
NASA renames Kuiper Belt object following controversy
NASA's nickname for the distant Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, Ultima Thule, has been more than a little contentious. While it has innocuous meanings, Ultima Thule is also the term white supremacists use to refer to a mythical homeland. The agency is sidestepping that controversy, however. It just officially named the object Arrokoth, or "sky" in the Powhatan/Algonquian language. NASA received the consent of the Powhatan tribe before making the change.
Animal Crossing on the Switch is delayed until March 2020
Bad news for Animal Crossing fans. Nintendo announced during its E3 Direct event that the upcoming Switch-exclusive title, Animal Crossing New Horizons, will not arrive in September of this year, as previously believed. Rather, the company expects the game will be ready for release on March 20th, 2020.
NASA details the most distant world we've ever observed
Back in February, NASA released the clearest images of Ultima Thule -- the Kuiper Belt object New Horizons got close to in a flyby, which makes it the farthest world we've ever explored. Now, the New Horizons team has published the first scientific results of the data the spacecraft beamed back, giving us more information on the ancient remnant of an era when our Solar System's planets were still in the midst of forming.
Ultima Thule is unlike anything we’ve seen in the solar system
It turns out Ultima Thule is a kind of lumpy space snowman. If you've been following NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, you know Ultima Thule is an object in Kuiper Belt, the donut-shaped region of icy bodies beyond Pluto. New Horizons made the farthest flyby in human history when it passed Ultima Thule on New Year's Day. As data from New Horizons makes its way back to Earth, scientists are beginning to analyze the data it collected, and they're making surprising discoveries.
New Horizons photos shed more light on Kuiper Belt
Those of you following NASA's New Horizons know the interplanetary space probe made the farthest-ever flyby in human history on New Year's Day, when it circled Ultima Thule, an object in Kuiper Belt. Now, a discovery from New Horizons' 2015 trip around Pluto and its satellite Charon sheds even more light on Kuiper Belt, a donut-shaped region of icy bodies beyond Pluto. Analyzing photos from the probe's flyby of Pluto and Charon, scientists have discovered a surprising lack of small objects in the belt.
What's next for NASA as Cassini's mission comes to a close
After nearly two decades in space and 11 years studying Saturn (and its myriad moons), the Cassini spacecraft ended its mission at roughly 6:30 am Eastern on Friday when it slammed into the gas giant's suffocating atmosphere. It was an auspicious end for the $3.4 billion spacecraft, argues Curt Niebur, the program scientist for Cassini at NASA headquarters. "I find it exhilarating, myself," he said. "Instead of just crashing it into something and saying we're done, we're actually going after science questions that we never intended Cassini to answer. And we'll be able to address those. It's fantastic."
A lawsuit almost stalled NASA's Cassini mission
Capt. Scott Kelly wasn't kidding when he famously quipped that "space is hard." Even getting to the launch pad can prove to be a daunting challenge. Take the Cassini mission to study Saturn, for example. Despite an investment of $3.4 billion and nearly a decade of development, Cassini wound up being very nearly scuttled at the last minute by protesters who thought they knew better than a federal agency that has put multiple men on the moon. Geez guys, it was just 73 pounds of plutonium riding aboard that Saturn orbiter -- it wouldn't have caused that much damage had something gone horribly wrong at launch.
'Asteroid Day' is a good time to learn about the threat of space rocks
On June 30th, 1908, more than 770 square miles of remote Russian forest were obliterated from the face of the Earth when a relatively small meteor, estimated at only around 400 feet across, unleashed 15 megatons of energy above the Stony Tunguska River. One hundred and nine years later, humanity knows precious little more about the dangers that lurk within our solar system than we did in 1908. But a recently founded "global day of education" aims to bring the existential threat that space rocks pose to the forefront of our collective consciousness.
The Big Picture: NASA unveils best Pluto image yet (updated)
Anxious to see the closest shot of Pluto ever? NASA is set to release high res photos soon, but in the meantime, the space agency has posted a "love note back to Earth" with a low-res Instagram image. That marks the first time the agency has given a social network first dibs on a major image, according to Wired. The image itself was snapped by the New Horizon probe 16 hours before its closest approach, some 476,000 miles away. NASA said it will release higher resolution versions of the image later tonight and discuss them in a briefing at 8AM briefing (EDT) on NASA Television. We'll bring you all the details of that a bit later on, but in the meantime, enjoy the best photo ever taken of our solar system's bastard stepchild planet.
Perfect World International's New Horizons expansion launches December 18th
Last month, Perfect World Entertainment unveiled the New Horizons expansion for Perfect World International and teased players with new screenshots of the upcoming content. Today, the studio announced that the expansion will hit servers on December 18th, so players will be able to experience the all-new Reawakening and War Avatar systems, new starting areas, zones, events, and more starting next week. Tony Liu, Product Manager at PWE, stated, "This is a massive refinement coming to PWI. With New Horizons, we're taking PWI to a new level of polish, bringing loads of new features, optimizing the experience, and continuing to provide one of the best free-to-play MMO experiences on the market." [Source: PWE press release]
Perfect World unveils New Horizons expansion
Perfect World Entertainment has just announced an all-new expansion for its flagship MMO Perfect World International, titled New Horizons. The expansion includes features both big and small, from the introduction of a trading card game to the optimization of early-level content. Perhaps the biggest change landing with New Horizons is the Ascension system, which allows you to take a level 100 or higher character back to level one and re-level through Perfect World's content. Ascended characters are more powerful than their non-ascended counterparts and will have access to special new "heights." Also on deck: streamlined starting zones, UI tweaks, new skills, new titles, new gear, new quests, and new everything else you'd expect with an MMO expansion. New Horizons is set for launch sometime this winter. Check out the screenshot gallery below for a first-look view of the expansion's zones and dungeons.
Allods Online has a few good mercs for hire
Allods Online: New Horizons is, well, on the near horizon, and gPotato is shining a spotlight on the expansion's star pupils. In a new dev diary, the mercenary system is dangled right like a plump morsel in front of a starving crowd. Mercenaries work in a similar fashion to those in other MMOs. Players who are struggling to put together a full group for challenging content can hire one of these hard-working soldiers of war. Allods will give players their first mercenary contract for free, but subsequent ones cost in-game currency. Mercs last for two hours and are under control of the player who hired them. The mercenary roster includes Rowdy Brow, a tank; Matron Lighthand, a healer; Stormer the Fierce, a melee warrior; Casper Flinty, a ranged damage dealer; Lisa de Vevre, a buffer/debuffer; and Michael Grammar, a ranged spellcaster. New Horizons is on course to launch early this month. In the meanwhile, may we interest you in an exclusive interview with one of the devs?
Massively Interview: Allods Online talks health, housing, heroes, and horizons
Allods Online takes a lot of flak for its early direction, particularly over its F2P model, so we weren't entirely surprised when last month the game downsized to a single North American server. But when just a few weeks later gPotato opened a new server and then announced what looks like a whopper of an expansion (complete with the Allods-equivalent of player-owned housing!), we couldn't help but be intrigued. What the heck is this game up to? That's where gPotato Production Coordinator Aaron "Condulus" Biedma comes in. Biedma graciously stepped up to answer in detail our frank questions about the health of the game, the new expansion, the cash shop, and what lies beyond New Horizons. We even sneaked in a question about sexism in the lore. It's all after the cut!
Allods Online gives a glimpse of new expansion areas
The Allods Online community is aflame with excitement over the upcoming New Horizons expansion, and gPotato seems determined to keep throwing fuel on that fire. Today the company posted a brief overview of all seven new allods (zones) coming with next month's update. These new allods range from the spooky, gloomy region of the Lost Expedition to the lush, untamed Jungles of Mboa-Mboa. There's also the demon-plagued Black Rampart, an all-female city called Fenia's Cloister, the murky depths of the Underwater Kingdom, the toasty Cinder Vale, laboratory-run-amok Zone 51, and Metal Municipality, a city undergoing civil war. All in all, it looks to be a diverse travel itinerary for any adventurer. GPotato recently posted the trailer for New Horizons.
Rule your own allod in Allods Online's new expansion
It's only been a few days since gPotato announced a new server for Allods Online, but today the firm has even more exciting news for fans of its free-to-play fantasy MMO. An expansion called New Horizons is coming on August 8th alongside the new server launch. Quite a bit of content is in the offing, including the ability for players to build, design, and rule their own allod (which is basically an island in the game's vast expanse of magical space known as The Astral). The expansion also brings ship-to-ship combat, territorial and trade wars, and mercenary characters to the table. These mercs can be called upon to join parties and take down tough content that's not normally tenable for solo players or small groups. The mercs will take a share of the loot spoils, though. That's not all there is to the new patch, but you'll need to head to the official Allods website to find out more. [Source: gPotato press release]
Japanese Virtual Console: March lineup revealed
Nintendo Japan has revealed its March lineup for the Virtual Console and we're more than a little jealous. That's right, The Revenge of Shinobi is on the list and we don't know if we'll ever see it. You see, at one point the boss characters in the game were (very clearly) Batman, The Terminator, Godzilla and Spider-Man and while some of those characters have changed, Sega has never included the game on any Genesis compilations in North America for possible copyright restrictions.Japan nets a few other exclusives this month, beginning with Koei's New Horizons for the Super Famicom and the classically terrible platformer Takeshi no Ch?senj? from Taito on the Famicom. And in a surprising twist, Japan will play catch up to a few Virtual Console releases already available in North America, including: Sonic Chaos for the Sega Master System and the Famicom puzzler Clu Clu Land.The first titles to be made available -- releasing on March 3 -- will be Nihon Falcom's Mega Drive RPG, Dragon Slayer Legend of Heroes II and the PC Engine original Space Invaders from Taito. The rest of the titles will gradually release over the course of the month.