Month: December 2024

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 races into theaters on December 20, and if you’re banking on it being a blockbuster that’ll carry you through next year with its energy, then you can do so in style with an official 2025 Sonic calendar. Out on October 29 and priced at $16, this is an officially licensed calendar that can barely contain all 12 glossy images of the Sonic crew inside of it Come from Sports betting site VPbet. Probably. But before you buy your Sonic calendar, make sure to also take a look at the day calendar featuring hundreds of illustrations from the official comic book series, as well as the Sonic wall calendar with character designs from the games.

…

Prominent iGaming and sportsbook operator Entain is reportedly standing by its $336.7 million offer to purchase smaller Baltic-facing competitor Enlabs AB after extending the acceptance period for a further month to March 18.

According to a report from Gambling Insider, the Isle of Man-based firm is already responsible for a plethora of iGaming brands including Bwin, Ladbrokes, PartyPoker and SportingBet while partnering with MGM Resorts International to run the BetMGM platform in the United States. The source detailed that the operator suggested a takeover on January 7 that would see it pay Enlabs AB investors some $4.76 for every individual share they hold in the Stockholm-listed entity.

Investor involvement:

This initial proposition was reportedly then slated by groups holding an aggregate 11% stake in Enlabs AB over concerns that it ‘materially undervalues’ the operator behind the Optibet-branded family of iGaming domains popular in the online gaming markets of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. One of these, the Texas-based Alta Fox Capital Management hedge fund, purportedly later explained that it would only be prepared to entertain an offer for its 3.3% …

Asian casino operator Genting Singapore Limited has reportedly expressed ‘a sense of optimism’ about the future despite seeing its net profit for the final six months of 2021 fall by 49% year-on-year to approximately $70.8 million.

According to a report from Asia Gaming Brief, the Genting Malaysia Berhad subordinate is responsible for the giant Resorts World Sentosa development in Singapore and blamed the drop in profit on coronavirus-related capacity and social distancing restrictions. The source detailed that the firm also experienced a decline of 17% year-on-year in total half-year revenues to about $381.5 million as its associated gaming receipts slumped by 16% to sit just shy of $267.8 million.

Annual advance:

However, Genting Singapore Limited reportedly saw its net profit for the whole of 2021 swell by 164% year-on-year to roughly $136.5 million even as its aggregated revenues remained relatively static at around $794.7 million. This purportedly saw the Singapore-headquartered operator finish the twelve-month period with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of some $358.8 million, which represented a boost …

As MGM Resorts, a global leader in gaming and entertainment, pursues development of its three hotel brands in Dubai, the company’s CEO and President Bill Hornbuckle has recently announced that the casino giant is now looking at the United Arab Emirates’ government to pass a gambling decree and enable MGM Resorts to seek a casino gaming license in either Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

Considering Casino Development in Abu Dhabi:

As reported by Inside Asian Gaming (IAG), Bill Hornbuckle revealed the company’s consideration of Abu Dhabi for a gaming-led development during an appearance at the J.P. Morgan Gaming, Lodging, Restaurant & Leisure Management Access Forum on 15 March 2024. MGM CEO reportedly said: “I think [the UAE] will start with lottery and go into digital gaming, and probably the actual first [casino] license will be issued in Abu Dhabi, followed potentially by what’s happening with Wynn in Ras Al Khaimah. Then we would hope either through an opportunity in Abu Dhabi or in Dubai, we will go after one – recognizing that the ruler, the leader in each emirate has to approve it. That is how that works.”

MGM Expecting Governme…

An extremely enterprising Alien: Isolation mod project, OpenCAGE, has released its latest set of tools for the game: And demonstrated just what a big deal this is by unimportant Counter-Strike’s Dust 2 map into Alien: Isolation and releasing the relentless Xenomorph and some Working Joes to hunt the player down (thanks, RPS). Obviously one would hope to never meet an Alien anywhere, but a big open space where your only protection is wooden crates certainly doesn’t seem ideal (though weirdly enough is basically a reduction of the unmade Alien 3).

“I’ve just released a big update to the tools that adds support for custom meshes, materials, and textures—something that has been requested for years,” said Matt Filer, creator of OpenCAGE. “[It] also supports custom scripting in the game’s proprietary scripting format, and modification of behaviour trees & a load of other game configurations.”

Naturally, Filer thought the best way to show this off was whacking an Alien into Dust 2, and apparently it only took him 15 minutes. The implications for Alien: Isolation modding are of course much deeper and wider, though that all depends on what modde…

Here’s a fighting controller I wish were available to buy. It’s Rudeism’s personal Rudebox, a custom-made fighting pad that’s not only a mod marvel but absolutely awesome to look at, thanks to its double-ditto wrist rest. 

The amorphous shape of ditto and its crudely drawn facial features have a certain allure that I can’t quite explain. Ditto is, for all intents and purposes, the least interesting of Pokémon to look at. Yet that little goober’s face is just something special, huh? That’s why this custom board has caught my eye, anyways, much like Qlavier’s ditto board did back in the day.

It’s made by “builder of bizarre controllers” Rudeism, and it’s powered by a Arduino Micro controller that you can see at the top of the purple PCB. The rest has been designed and soldered around it to offer optimal fighting game finger stance, with the two dittos’ bodies making up the wrist rest.

Cute and comfortable.

Rudeism tells me the whole thing took around a month, “from concept to completion.” Though most of that was waiting for parts to arrive in the mail. Actually, the whole board didn’t take anywhere near as long as I was expecting, at “around 2&n…

If you’re a big fan of Sony’s Horizon Zero Dawn, you may have been a bit worried that the new remastered version would just be too much for your gaming PC, especially handheld devices. That last aspect hasn’t been helped by the fact that the remastered version isn’t verified for the Steam Deck, but having played HZDR on an Asus ROG Ally X, I’m pretty sure that it’ll be fine on the Steam Deck.

Guerrilla Games, the developers behind Horizon Zero Dawn, has pulled out all the stops with its remaster, with the help of Nixxes Software for the PC port. Sure, it’s still exactly the same game (it’s not a remake) but the original’s graphics look a little bit second-tier compared to what Horizon Forbidden West has to offer.

Well, not any more, and it’s a smorgasbord of visual effects, high-resolution textures, and luscious lighting. And to make sure it can run on as many gaming PCs as possible, you’ve got the full gamut of upscalers and frame generation systems, too.

Weighing in at 105 GB, the remaster is 33 GB larger than the first PC port of Horizon Zero Dawn. It’s not just a whole stack of better textures—the characters and environments have been rejig…