Tag Archive: news


Goldberg announced as WWE 2K17 pre-order exclusive

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June 8, 2016

2K and WWE announced last night on Monday Night RAW that former two-time United States, WCW Tag Team, WCW World Heavyweight, and WWE World Heavyweight champion Bill Goldberg will be this year’s pre-order bonus for WWE 2K17.

A product of the WCW Power Plant, Goldberg ran roughshod through WCW in the late 90s, feuding with the likes of the nWo, Diamond Dallas Page, and Sid Vicious, and putting together a (heavily inflated) undefeated streak of 173-0.

“My son was a big part of this coming together, and I can’t wait for him to see his dad kicking ass in a WWE ring through the magic of video games,” said Goldberg in a statement. “I encountered the likes of The Rock, Triple H, Brock Lesnar and Ric Flair during my WWE career, and now through WWE 2K17, I’ll be taking on the biggest and baddest Superstars of today—showing them once and for all that I am still ‘Da Man!’”

Goldberg joins the ranks of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sting, and the Ultimate Warrior as pre-order bonuses for the WWE 2K series. There will be two versions of Goldberg as part of this pre-order: one from his WCW days, and one from his time at WWE. The pre-order also includes two exclusive playable arenas in the forms of WCW Monday Nitro and Halloween Havoc. You can check out the reveal trailer below.

WWE 2K17 will be available in October for Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, and PS3.

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WWI setting means Battlefield 1’s multiplayer will be unlike anything before it

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As part of today’s livestream and presentation, EA DICE revealed that the future of Battlefield is going back to the advent of what we might consider modernized warfare with a World War I setting. Besides a single-player campaign with multiple protagonists, Battlefield 1 is looking to provided the most robust multiplayer suite the series has ever seen.

The first aspect of this is the largest maps yet. Arabia, the Italian Alps, and the muddy fields of France from the western front have already been confirmed and are just as destructible as anything we’ve seen before. Massive battleships can pepper coastlines and reduce them to clusters of smoldering craters, while tanks can rolls through narrow alleyways in urban France, leaving buildings in heaps of rubble behind them. One unique vehicle, though, will be cavalry horses. Riding horses can provide speed in multiplayer, while also giving players access to places normal vehicles cannot get to.

The battle for air supremacy has also taken a distinct turn in Battlefield 1. You can try to channel your inner Red Baron (the pilot, not the pizza) by hopping into biplanes. Some of these old-school aircraft will also offer players a chance to dominate with friends, as they’ll seat two people, meaning one person will pilot while the other will man the guns. Whether or not you can accidentally shoot your own plane like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is yet to be seen.

The core of Battlefield 1‘s multiplayer, though, will remain with the troops on the ground. Players will be able to choose from one of four classes: Assault, Medic, Scout, and Support. Assault is great for taking out enemy vehicles, Medics are the healing experts, Scouts specialize in picking off single targets with sniper rifles or the like, and Support uses heavy guns to mow down infantry that cross their path. There are also vehicle-specific classes being introduced for the first time, like tank drivers and biplane pilots. While anyone can drive vehicles in multiplayer just like in previous games, these special classes will get boosts if piloting their vehicle of expertise.

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Personal weaponry is also a massive aspect of the new Battlefield. While flamethrowers, mustard gas, and zeppelins were teased in the presentation, we can confirm era-accurate ordnance of all kinds. Pistols, rifles (bolt-action, semi-auto, and fully-auto), and machine guns will be usable by players. You can also call in artillery strikes. Your melee weapon may be just as important as your gun, however, for the first time in the series.

In true World War I fashion, getting your hands dirty in the trenches and getting up close and personal with your enemies is going to be a large part of the gameplay. Knives, sabers, shovels, and trench clubs all offer up distinctive advantages and kill scenarios for players, while a special power called the bayonet charge will also be available for some particularly gruesome close-up kills.

One final change Battlefield 1‘s multiplayer is introducing is a heavier emphasis on team play. Lone wolves beware as charging blindly into battle should spell certain doom as EA DICE has admitted to trying to reward more strategic, team-oriented gameplay. How exactly this will manifest itself is yet to be seen.

And due to EA DICE failing to offer hands-on opportunities before EA Play in June, it’s difficult to tell just how all these changes will actually feel in Battlefield 1. The grounded, reality-based scenario definitely has me excited again, and the potential for even more varied locations not yet announced—like Prussia on the eastern front, maybe—has me wanting to know more. At the very least, it appears like Battlefield is taking a step forward by going back in time.

Battlefield 1 will launch on October 21st for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

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Fallout 4 reigns supreme at 19th annual D.I.C.E. Awards

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February 25, 2016

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Fallout 4 surprised many when it took home Game of the Year at the 19th annual D.I.C.E. Awards last night in Las Vegas.

The win was Fallout 4‘s third of the night out of the eight categories it was nominated in, tying it for the most total hardware of the evening with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Ori and the Blind Forest, and Rocket League. It also marks the second year in a row that a game that also won Best RPG/MMO took home the big prize of the night after Dragon Age Inquisition pulled off the same feat last year.

Surprisingly, the game with the most nominations—Rise of the Tomb Raider with nine—only picked up one win, which was for Outstanding Achievement in Character for Lara Croft.

Aside from the 22 awards given out in specific categories, the D.I.C.E. Awards also recognized Visual Basic with the second ever Technical Impact Award, Hideo Kojima was inducted into the show’s Hall of Fame, and Satoru Iwata was posthumously given the Lifetime Achievement award.

For all of the nominees in each category, you can check out the list below. Winners have been bolded.

Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition
Batman: Arkham Knight
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
Ori and the Blind Forest
Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design
Destiny: The Taken King
Ori and the Blind Forest
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Star Wars Battlefront
The Order: 1886

Outstanding Achievement in Story
Fallout 4
Her Story
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Tales from the Borderlands
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Outstanding Technical Achievement
Just Cause 3
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Star Wars Battlefront
The Order: 1886
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Outstanding Achievement in Character
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate — Evie Frye
Her Story — Hannah Smith
Life is Strange — Maxine Caulfield
Rise of the Tomb Raider — Lara Croft
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Geralt of Rivia

D.I.C.E. Sprite Award
Galak-Z
Her Story
Kerbal Space Program
Rocket League
Undertale

Outstanding Achievement in Online Gaming
Destiny: The Taken King
Halo 5: Guardians
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
Rocket League
Splatoon

Mobile Game of the Year
DomiNations
Fallout Shelter
Lara Croft GO
PAC-MAN 256
The Room Three

Role-Playing/Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year
Bloodborne
Fallout 4
Pillars of Eternity
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Undertale

Sports Game of the Year
FIFA 16
Madden NFL 16
MLB 16 The Show
NBA 2K16
Rocket League

Racing Game of the Year
Forza Motorsport 6
Need for Speed
Project CARS

Fighting Game of the Year
Dead or Alive 5 Last Round
Mortal Kombat X
Rising Thunder

Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year
Cities Skylines
Fallout Shelter
Grey Goo
Heroes of the Storm
Kerbal Space Program

Family Game of the Year
Guitar Hero Live
LEGO Dimensions
Rock Band 4
Super Mario Maker
Tearaway Unfolded

Handheld Game of the Year
Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders from Planet Space
Helldivers
Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon
Yo-Kai Watch

Adventure Game of the Year
Batman: Arkham Knight
Life is Strange
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Ori and the Blind Forest
Rise of the Tomb Raider

Action Game of the Year
Destiny: The Taken King
Helldivers
Just Cause 3
Splatoon
Star Wars Battlefront

Outstanding Achievement in Animation
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
Batman: Arkham Knight
Ori and the Blind Forest
Rise of the Tomb Raider
The Order: 1886

Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction
Lara Croft GO
Ori and the Blind Forest
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Star Wars Battlefront
The Order: 1886

Outstanding Achievement in Game Design
Fallout 4
Her Story
Lara Croft GO
Massive Chalice
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction
Fallout 4
Life is Strange
Rise of the Tomb Raider
The Witcher: Wild Hunt
Undertale

Game of the Year
Bloodborne
Fallout 4
Ori and the Blind Forest
Rise of the Tomb Raider
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

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Penn Jillette, Randy Pitchford to kick off 2016 D.I.C.E. Summit

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February 5, 2016

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The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences announced yesterday that Penn Jillette and Randy Pitchford would kick off this year’s D.I.C.E. Summit with their presentation titled “Assumption and Expectations with Interactivity and Magic”. The session looks to incorporate lessons in misdirection, expectation disruption, and lying.

Penn Jillette, of course, is one half of the internationally renowned magic team of Penn & Teller, and Randy Pitchford is probably better known as the president and co-founder of Gearbox Software, but has proven to have a few aces up his sleeves as well over the years. The duo’s session looks to help set the theme for this year’s summit, the “Art of Engagement”.

“Engagement is central to both business and art,” said Martin Rae, president, Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. “This year a variety of talented people will explore engagement and how it deeply affects what they do – whether it is advancing automobile technology, building boundless entertainment franchises, or creating open worlds based on experience. As always, our audience will be treated to big ideas that will help drive their own creative pursuits forward.”

Along with Jillette and Pitchford, the AIAS announced nearly a dozen other speakers for this year’s show including lead writer for the Tomb Raider reboot Rhianna Pratchett, new IP editorial director for Ubisoft Tommy Francois, and TV/film producer Adrian Askarieh.

They join previously announced speakers such as Firaxis co-founder Sid Meier, and Bethesda game director Todd Howard. All D.I.C.E. Summit sessions will be available via livestream through a variety of yet to be announced partners. The 19th annual D.I.C.E. Summit will take place in Las Vegas from February 16-18.

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2016 D.I.C.E. Award nominees announced; Rise of the Tomb Raider leads

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The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences have announced the nominations for their 19th annual D.I.C.E. Awards.

Fifty-three different games have received a D.I.C.E. Award nomination this year across 22 different categories. Leading the way is Rise of the Tomb Raider with nine nominations, including one for Game of the Year. The other Game of the Year nominees are The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Bloodborne, Fallout 4, and Ori and the Blind Forest. Voting across all categories begins tomorrow and is peer-voted on.

You can check out the entire list of nominees and awards here.

Besides the game nominations, the D.I.C.E. Awards also announced their individual awards. The Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata. Mr. Iwata sadly passed away last year after complications from a tumor.

Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear series, will also be honored this year with an induction into the D.I.C.E. Hall of Fame. We’re pretty sure Konami won’t be able to stop him from receiving this award.

The winners will be announced on Thursday, February 18th, at the annual awards show being held this year at The Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas after the conclusion of the annual D.I.C.E. Summit. The show is being hosted for the second year in a row by comedian Pete Holmes. Stay tuned for more information about the D.I.C.E. Awards as we get closer to the big day.

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REPORT: No Assassin’s Creed mainline entry coming in 2016, Assassin’s Creed Empire set in Egypt and coming 2017

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Rumors surfaced this morning detailing the next main entry in the Assassin’s Creed franchise and hinting that Ubisoft would be moving away from annual releases in the series.

The rumors first appeared on 4chan by a poster claiming to be a developer working at Ubisoft. The post explained that there would be no Assassin’s Creed release this year, in part due to the ambition of the game, which is supposedly going for more of a “Witcher feel” in terms of world size and scope. They also said that the new project looks to be set in ancient Egypt, will bring horses and boats back, and is being spearheaded by the team that brought us Black Flag. The posts were compiled conveniently on NeoGAF.

As the day went on, gaming news site Kotaku chimed in, claiming their sources confirmed some of those details to be true. According to Kotaku’s sources, this new Assassin’s Creed, codenamed Empire, will be set at least to some degree in Egypt, and would indeed not be coming out until 2017, giving the series more time to cook after the disaster that was Unity. No word yet on time period, but if we were to wager a guess, we would say the time of Cleopatra and Alexander the Great if the 4chan poster’s comment on this starting a new trilogy that would move to Greece and Rome holds any weight.

Considering the recent history of leaks with Assassin’s Creed, the odds of all this being true are strong. It also makes a ton of sense.

Many have complained about feeling franchise fatigue when it comes to Assassin’s Creed, mostly due to the low-water mark that was Unity. Although last year’s release, Syndicate, was a marked upswing—courtesy of new developer Ubisoft Quebec—it still featured a fair amount of bugs and glitches that have become commonplace in the franchise. If Empire has indeed been worked on since 2014, though—and is getting an extra year of development—it could be Ubisoft’s attempt to both alleviate the aforementioned fatigue and address the glitches that have started to become synonymous with the series.

Ubisoft also doesn’t have to worry about the franchise leaving the public consciousness. The Assassin’s Creed movie comes out in December 2016, and the final two chapters in the Chronicles spin-off will come out over the next six weeks. Plus, there’s a potential Assassin’s Creed Collection on the horizon, which was revealed after Ubisoft recently registered the website domain “assassinscreedcollection.com”.

In terms of Ubisoft’s fall lineup, several titles could be plugged into the hole that no Assassin’s Creed would leave, including potentially For Honor, Ghost Recon Wildlands, South Park: The Fractured But Whole, and even possibly Watch Dogs 2—which Kotaku also reports is rumored to be set in San Francisco.

As EGM’s resident Assassin’s Creed fanatic, this seems like a smart play from Ubisoft. Considering we’ve had six straight years of Assassin’s Creed experiences that have only grown larger and more complex, the idea of taking a year off to polish what—if the 4chan poster is to be believed—will be the most ambitious entry yet has me excited for the series in a way I haven’t been in a long time. Plus, if the team behind Black Flag is indeed working on it, this only bolsters my hopes that everything from these rumors and reports is indeed true—as Black Flag was, in my opinion, the best entry in the series since Assassin’s Creed II. This move gives the franchise’s biggest fans time to be excited again, and not have the series thrown in our faces around the clock.

Now, we just have to hope Ubisoft comes out and confirms everything we’ve heard today.

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Shadow Complex Remastered officially announced

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December 6, 2015

ChAIR Entertainment announced at the 2015 Game Awards they’re bringing their critically acclaimed side-scrolling action game, Shadow Complex, to current gen.

Originally released in 2009, Shadow Complex was an Xbox Live Arcade exclusive for the Xbox 360 that put players in the shoes of Jason Flemming. While camping with his new girlfriend, Jason accidentally discovers a secret military installation in the mountains and must uncover the reason for the base’s existence while saving his would be bae.

Shadow Complex was written by acclaimed comic book writer Peter David, and runs parallel to the events in Orson Scott Card’s novel, Empire, before the two stories dovetail into the events of the book, Hidden Empire. Whether the sudden return of Shadow Complex to the gaming realm signifies a possible new entry into this series coming down the line, either in gaming or novel form, is yet to be seen.

Shadow Complex Remastered will tout improved graphics, new melee takedowns for Jason, and a whole new batch of achievements and trophies, all wrapped in a classic metroidvania that will have Jason explore, backtrack, and upgrade himself via the mysterious military installation’s various armaments.

ChAIR has also revealed that Shadow Complex Remastered is not a Microsoft exclusive and will be available for PS4 and PC along with the Xbox One.

“Bringing Shadow Complex to a larger audience of gamers across multiple platforms has always been one of our goals at ChAIR,” said Donald Mustard, co-founder and Creative Director at ChAIR. “We’re super excited to introduce a remastered version to fans, old and new, and for the opportunity it creates for us to do more in the Shadow Complex universe.”

In addition to this, the PC version of the game will be available for free from now until December 31, 2015, via www.ShadowComplex.com, and coming to the other consoles sometime in 2016.

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Fallout 4 fan mods Red Sox slugger into game, MLB wants him to nuke it

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November 17, 2015

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I don’t think this was the baseball news most expected to come out of Boston this off-season.

I am apt to scouring the Hot Stove reports to see what new moves had been made, if any, when baseball free agency starts (always during my lunch break, of course). Imagine my shock when David Ortiz’s name came up, though, in my feeds. But it hadn’t been because the infamous Red Sox slugger had been shipped from Beantown. Instead, he was still entrenched in Fenway Park—200 years from now.

Richie Branson, an independent game developer out of San Antonio, Texas, decided he wanted to put his skills to good use and make the post-apocalyptic Boston setting of Fallout 4 feel a little more authentic. Fenway Park was already a central part of the game—its ruins house one of the largest survivor settlements in Fallout 4—but Branson felt it was missing something. So, like many fans do with immensely popular games, he created a mod.

In this case, his mod inserted Boston Red Sox uniforms into the game, allowed players to dress up like Big Papi, and he could swing a massive baseball bat to defend himself from the dangers of the Wasteland. Maybe it was a bit of virtual karma for Ortiz, who now could be attacked by big green monsters after spending the better part of his career pelting a Big Green Monster with line drives (and yes, I understand that most of Ortiz’s batted balls actually go to right field because he’s a power-hitting lefty, but you get the idea). It was a fun little add-on, given to the gaming community for free by Branson, to be enjoyed by all, and which you can see in action in the video at the bottom of this article.

As reported originally by Steve Annear of the Boston Globe, however, not everyone did enjoy the mod—specifically, Major League Baseball. “The use of these marks is an infringement of our rights. We plan to enforce those rights,” a MLB spokesman said in an e-mail Thursday in a curt statement to the Globe.

This shocked Branson, as it would any sane person.

“I’m not trying to sell this counterfeit Red Sox jersey. I’m putting a free Red Sox graphic into a game that already insinuates the Red Sox are in the game, at Fenway Park,” Branson told the Globe.

Major League Baseball would not elaborate further on what action it would take, but frequently in cases like this, cease-and-desist orders are issued, and as Branson admits, he’d begrudgingly have to comply. Thus denying everyone Branson’s hard work.

It is the opinion of this gamer that if Major League Baseball knew what was good for them, they’d reconsider any action against Branson. Not only does this come off as another overly sensitive knee-jerk reaction that has become commonplace nowadays, but it further perpetuates the idea of how out of touch baseball is with the world around them.

As revealed earlier today, Fallout 4 had not only the best launch for a game in publisher Bethesda’s history, but one of the best overall launches in history, making $750 million dollars in just a couple of days, and shipping around 12 million copies worldwide. Instead of embracing this pop culture phenomenon, especially amongst a demographic that baseball is slowly aging out of as it continues to find it difficult to connect with young potential fans, MLB is trying to bully someone for having fun. Great way to show you’re exactly what people want to sign up for and be a part of, Baseball. Then again, this is the sport that still vilifies gambling more than drug abuse. Someone should let baseball know that it’s 2015, not 1915.

Fallout 4 is available now for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. But if the numbers above are any indicator, you probably knew that, and are unlikely to be a part of Major League Baseball.

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Far Cry Primal announced as next entry in epic first-person survival series

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October 11, 2015

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The Ubisoft teaser stream that started yesterday has culminated in the announcement of the next chapter in the Far Cry franchise.

Traveling back in time to the year 10,000 B.C., Far Cry Primal puts players in the shoes of Takkar, a seasoned hunter who stands tall as the last surviving member of his hunting group. In a world where man isn’t at the top of the food chain yet, Takkar will be tasked with putting together a new tribe while fending off woolly mammoths, sabertooth tigers, and other humans who would rather kill you than join you.

“The interesting thing about Far Cry is that it’s flexible. So when a team proposed to explore the idea of a Far Cry taking place during the Stone Age, we just said ‘let’s hear it!’ And the more we heard about it, the more we realized how much of a damn good idea it actually was,” said executive producer, Dan Hay.

Ubisoft Montreal is back at the helm of this project, leading a four-studio coalition comprised of Ubisoft Shanghai, Toronto, and Kiev to bring the prehistoric region of Oros to life. Far Cry Primal is expected to be similar in both scope and size to what was seen in Far Cry 4 and is not an expansion like Blood Dragon was.

“Stone Age is the perfect setting for a Far Cry game,” said creative director Jean-Christophe Guyot in a press release. “Far Cry usually puts you at the edge of the known world, in a beautiful, lawless, and savage frontier. The Stone Age is, in a way, the very first frontier for humankind; it’s the time when humans put a stick in the ground and claimed land for their own, the time when we started climbing the food chain. That came with conflict, against other humans of course, but also against nature itself.”

It should be interesting to see how this time period affects the gameplay of Far Cry. Obviously guns and traditional vehicles are ruled out, but a larger emphasis on fire and weapon crafting should be expected. And I can’t wait to see how prehistoric outposts are set up without explosives and alarms.

One thing is already evident, though. It looks pretty as hell.

Far Cry Primal is set for release February 23rd for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, with a PC version to follow in March.

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NHL 16 predicts result of upcoming hockey season

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EA Sports has used NHL 16 to virtually sim the entire 2015-16 season.

Thusly, EA Sports believes the Anaheim Ducks will win their second Stanley Cup after beating the Montreal Canadiens in the Final. Montreal will have knocked off Pittsburgh in the East to get to the Cup Final, and Anaheim will have eliminated Minnesota in the West. Winger Corey Perry of the Ducks will be named the Conn Smythe Winner (playoff MVP).

Other predictions included Canadiens goalie Carey Price winning the Vezina (best goaltender) for the second year in a row and Alexander Ovechkin winning his fifth Rocket Richard scoring title in eight years. And, as no surprise to anyone, Edmonton Oilers rookie Connor McDavid won the Calder Memorial Trophy (rookie of the year).

NHL 16 is available now for Xbox One and PS4 and be sure to check out my full review to see how this year’s game stacks up.

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