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By Alana SemuelsJanuary 9, 2025 3:20 PM EST

Insurance companies were worried about many of the homes in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles long before this week’s devastating wildfire burned through the area, ravaging homes and forcing evacuations. The Palisades, because of its location next to the brush-heavy Santa Monica Mountains and the high value of its homes, was too vulnerable to fires to insure at permissible rates without the companies losing money. Insurers including State Farm, which dropped nearly 70% of policyholders in Pacific Palisades in July 2024, refused to offer new insurance plans or renew old ones.

As a result, many homeowners were forced to obtain coverage from the state’s insurer of last resort, the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (CA FAIR) Plan, which covered 1,430 homeowners in the Pacific Palisades zip code of 90272 in September 2024, an 85% increase from 2023. The FAIR plan insures homes against fire but has higher premiums than traditional home insurance and only covers up to $3 million in damages for residential properties. 

Like many other insurers o…

The recently announced changes to Fortnite Crew have been accompanied by some unpopular changes to XP gains in Chapter 6 Season 1, with progress slowing compared with past seasons–a jarring shift after the just-ended Remix season was overly generous with XP.

As with every new Fortnite season, players spent Chapter 6’s launch day binge-playing the new battle royale map and trying out all the new weapons and items. But a lot of folks noticed something odd after playing all day–they weren’t as far along in the new battle pass as they’d normally expect to be. Whereas dedicated players could usually earn 20 or 30 levels just from playing a lot on day 1, this time around, a lot of folks (including myself) found their gains grinding to a halt before they hit double digits.

This is reportedly the result of some newly implemented major changes to how XP is primarily gained in Fortnite. Season-long milestones for battle royale have been removed entirely, there is now just one set of three daily quests for all modes combined instead of quests for each mode, and XP in other modes (Lego, Reload, OG, Festival, Save the World, and Creative) is now primarily time-based and hard-ca…

Near the end of December, Keanu Reeves will lend his voice to Shadow the Hedgehog on the big screen in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. But as revealed during Sony’s State of Play, Reeves will also be voicing Shadow earlier in December as part of a DLC release for Sonic x Shadow Generations.

Only a brief clip of the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Movie Pack DLC was shown during State of Play, but it dropped Reeves’ Shadow directly into Tokyo, which is one of the settings in the film.

While speaking to PlayStation Blog, Shun Nakamura noted that the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Movie pack is unconnected to the narrative of Shadow Generations. Instead, he described it as “bonus content,” but stressed that Shadow’s controls will remain consistent with the main game.

“The development team also lives in Tokyo, so we tried to develop this setting an enjoyable place as a Sonic game but also clearly showing the Tokyo-likeness,” added Nakamura. “We even went out for research to the actual area being used in the game for inspiration. We feel it is very exciting to play as Shadow in a real existing city, so please look forward to it.” Come from Read More

Bethesda and Id Software have revealed the PC specs for Doom: The Dark Ages. They provided specifications for the minimum, recommended, and ultra settings, and the requirements are a substantial step up from Doom Eternal.

The game requires that your PC hardware is ray tracing-compatible, even on minimum settings, and Bethesda will reveal details on path tracing specifications at a later date. Bethesda also provided a range of GPU examples for its specs, with the minimum being at least a Nvidia RTX 2060 Super and the AMD RX 6660. For the recommended setting, you should have at least an RTX 3080 or RX 6800. For the ultra setting, you should at least have an RTX 4080 or RX 7900K.

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Video games should be upfront and honest with the player, but sometimes they have to mislead you a little bit. Case in point: according to a recent social media post from designer John Ebenger, if you tried to sprint in the Citadel in Mass Effect 1, you weren’t actually moving any faster: the camera field of view (FOV) simply changed to give you a sense of speed rather than the real thing.

Ebenger served as a designer at BioWare on both Dragon Age and Mass Effect, and now currently works as a cinematic director at Firewalk Studios, which is working on the recently-revealed hero shooter Concord. Ebenger says Shepherd’s turtle-like gait was due to technical limitations: the game simply couldn’t stream in assets fast enough on the older consoles. Given how the original Mass Effect famously used elevators to hide its load times, this makes sense. The more you know.

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Silent Hill 2 composer Akira Yamaoka has announced that the remake’s soundtrack will be a “brand-new, reworked” experience. Yamaoka revealed the news to GameSpot and various press outlets during a recent preview event for the upcoming psychological horror game. The longtime composer went on to say that, while he understands that the original soundtrack is “beloved,” he ultimately wanted to ensure that all players would have a “fresh experience.”

“I have reworked all the tracks. There are segments and bits and pieces of the original tracks that you can hear, but all of the tracks have been reworked from the ground up. I understand that the soundtrack is very much beloved, but ultimately I composed over nine hours worth of music and I’m still wondering how in the world we are going to fit all of that into a soundtrack.”

Though this news might disappoint fans of the critically acclaimed soundtrack, rest assured that–based on our time spent with the Silent Hill 2 remake and some additional comments given by Yamaoka–it seems as if the soundtrack will remain very familiar. The composer explained that he both referenced and sampled tracks from the original score while com…

Decades ago, The Terminator taught the world that there’s nothing more terrifying than a killer robot with an Austrian accent. 40 years later, the first movie still holds up as an incredible thriller, and fans can re-experience it again soon with the upcoming 4K Blu-ray edition launching on November 19.

The Terminator: Steelbook Edition Come from malaysia online casino

The upcoming 4K release isn’t the only Terminator Blu-ray out there. There is also a steelbook version featuring incredible artwork of the T-80. It is temporarily out of stock at Amazon and Walmart, but it is worth keeping an eye on for when it eventually comes back in stock if you like collecting steelbook edition Blu-rays. The special features and additional formats on it are exactly the same as the upcoming standard 4K edition as well.

• Amazon — $35 (sold out)
• Walmart — $35 (sold out)

More Terminator Blu-rays

Since 1984, the Terminator franchise has expanded massively with seq…

Zelda fans can now get the Great Deku Tree Lego set at major retailers. Launched last September as a Lego Store exclusive, the first building set based on The Legend of Zelda is now available at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target. The superb 2,500-piece Great Deku Tree Display Model is a 2-in-1 package that lets fans build the Deku Tree as depicted in Breath of the Wild or Ocarina of Time.

Buy The Great Deku Tree Lego Set at:

• Amazon
• Best Buy
• Walmart
• Target
• Lego Store

It’s worth noting the Great Deku Tree is currently on backorder from the Lego Store and won’t ship for two months, so it’s certainly possible other retailers will sell out, too. As of now, all major retailers have the Great Deku Tree in stock and can ship it now. Lego The Legend of Zelda: Great Deku Tree costs $300, but My Best Buy Plus/Total members save 10%, which drops the price down to $270. My Best Buy Plus costs $50/year, so new members will already be getting $30 of that fee back with this one purchase. All in-stock Lego sets are eligible for this perk, including the brand-new Mario Kart lineup. The Lego Mario Ka…