Blizzard’s Overwatch team recently did a Reddit AMA and was asked again which heroes they would like to see represented in Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. series. Game director Jeff Kaplan chose Tracer for the second time in a row, while the lead hero designer Geoff Goodman went with Doomfist – a hero with a moveset inspired by classic 2D fighting games.

Jeff Kaplan: tracer plz

Geoff Goodman: Doomfist could also work, hes kind of a fighting game hero already! He’s certainly inspired by fighting games.

Kaplan said a bit more about his pick when he was first asked the same question by IGN last October, and also mentioned how Doomfist would be a good fit but would be happy with any selection the Smash Bros. team made.

Tracer’s our girl, Tracer’s our mascot. She’d be my first choice. There’s a lot of great runners up. I think a lot of people can immediately see Doomfist gameplay applying to Smash, but if it were up to me, I’d like to see Tracer.

To the Smash Brothers team, whatever character you want, we love them all.

While an Overwatch representative seems unlikely based on the DLC fighters we’ve seen added to the latest entry so far, there’s always a chance of a cameo of sorts for any video game series. For example, in more recent times we’ve seen games like Undertale, Cuphead, and the Fallout series receive Mii Fighter costumes and even special themed spirit events.

Although we can’t say for sure if Overwatch will ever appear in Smash, what we can confirm is that Overwatch 2 is coming to the Nintendo Switch. Would you like to see Tracer or some other Overwatch character appear as a fighter or DLC in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in the near future? Leave a comment down below.

BREAKING NEWS: @TheRock is the new part-owner of the XFL.

Read more: https://t.co/2KzxOEUTVz pic.twitter.com/x3u2Q8q9Ik

— Sportico (@Sportico) August 3, 2020

Sega Group Corporation president and chief publishing officer Kenji Matsubara has stepped down due to “personal reasons.”

The company broke the news in a short press release, where it explained that Matsubara’s request for resignation has been received and accepted with immediate effect.

Matsubara has held a number of roles at Sega, initially serving as the CTO of the company’s networks division before being appointed president and COO of Sega Games in 2017.

He was named president and chief publishing in April 2020, but has now stepped down just four months later.

2K has signed a partnership with OneTeam Partners and the National Football League Players Association that will allow the publisher to include the likenesses of NFL players in multiple football games.

The deal will give 2K the right to feature the names, numbers, images, and likenesses of over 2000 current NFL players. The financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.

The news comes a few months after 2K penned a “multi-year partnership” with the National Football League that will allow it to create a number of new football video games.

That deal, however, will prevent 2K from going head-to-head with EA in the simulation genre, as it specified those new projects must be “non-simulation football game experiences.”

At the time, 2K president David Ismailer said the company will design “approachable and social” games that are “centered on fun.”

Believe it or not, but it’s actually been a few months since we got an update on the development of Bayonetta 3.

In the same GameXplain interview with PlatinumGames, Bayonetta series creator Hideki Kamiya was asked once again how the third entry was going. Kamiya kept it short, according to a translation:

It’s going fine.

This follows up on Kamiya’s previous comments in May when he said the team was “still hard at work on it” and the game “hasn’t been cancelled” despite fans voicing their concerns on social media.

Adding to this, Platinum producer Atsushi Inaba touched on how the pandemic had affected the company:

How much that has impacted our work? I think honestly, that’s something that we’re going to have to see.

We’re working from home, we’re trying to do what we can to get to kind of work with this new work style. It’s still very early and I think that how well we’re able to adapt is really going to show how we can, you know – not with just this situation – but with any other situation to pop up, as a company it’s a challenge for us.

Kamiya previously mentioned how Bayonetta 3’s development was “going really well” in December last year, “very smoothly” at the start of this year, and then said it was “progressing smoothly” towards the end of February.

What are your thoughts about the latest Bayonetta 3 update? Do you think we’ll actually see this game any time soon? Leave a comment down below.

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@screammovies @spyglassmediagr @paramountpics

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In this article, you will get the necessary information on how to create a table in SQLite using the package pyodbc in Python.  Example code is included and a link to a Github repo will be provided in the references section.

Prerequisites

To use pyodbc in this article some prerequisites need to be met.

1. ODBC Driver – you need to download and install the ODBC driver for the database provider you are using. In this article, I am using SQLite.  Downloaded an ODCB driver for sqlite3 from http://www.ch-werner.de/sqliteodbc/,
2. SQLite3 – this article assumes that you have SQLite3 in your system and have created a database called testDB.db.
3. Database DDL – different database providers use different data definition languages.  DDL is the language needed to create tables in a database.  You must be familiar with this syntax to successfully create your table.  Creating tables in SQLite can be found here: https://sqlite.org/lang_createtable.html
4. Design your table – This is the table that will be implemented in the example below:

Here is an example of why you need to know the Data Definition Language of your database.  The following information was taken from https://www.sqlite.org/datatype3.html

“SQLite does not have a storage class set aside for storing dates and/or times. Instead, the built-in Date And Time Functions of SQLite are capable of storing dates and times as TEXT, REAL, or INTEGER values:

• TEXT as ISO8601 strings ("YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.SSS").
• REAL as Julian day numbers, the number of days since noon in Greenwich on November 24, 4714 B.C. according to the proleptic Gregorian calendar.
• INTEGER as Unix Time, the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.

Applications can choose to store dates and times in any of these formats and freely convert between formats using the built-in date and time functions.”

SQLite Create Table Data Definition Language for the PeopleInfo table:

CREATE TABLE PeopleInfo ( PersonId INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, FirstName TEXT NOT NULL, LastName TEXT NOT NULL, Age INTEGER NULL, CreatedAt TEXT DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP NOT NULL );

Let’s dive into the steps to create a table in SQLite using pyodbc in Python.

Step 1: Install the pyodbc Package

Install the Pyodbc package using the following command:

pip install pyodbc

For Anaconda use the following command:

conda install -c anaconda pyodbc

Step 2: Connect Your Python Script to SQLite

Next, you will need to connect your script to SQLite.

You may use this template to perform the connection:

Remember to import the pyodbc package first. Connect to the database using the connect method with the ODBC connection string for SQLite.

import pyodbc

conn = pyodbc.connect('Driver={SQLite3 ODBC Driver};' 'Server=server_name;' 'Database=database_name;' 'Trusted_Connection=yes;')

Step 3: Create Cursor from Your Connection

The cursor object created by cursor() allows you to execute queries.

cursor = conn.cursor()

Step 4: Create the Table in SQLite

Now you will be able to create your table in SQLite

For our example, here is the code that I used to create the table in SQL Server using Python: 

cursor.execute(''' CREATE TABLE PeopleInfo ( PersonId INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, FirstName TEXT NOT NULL, LastName TEXT NOT NULL, Age INTEGER NULL, CreatedAt TEXT DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP NOT NULL ); ''')

Step 5: Commit the Transaction

conn.commit()

Committing the transaction is an important topic to discuss.  The statement above explicitly commits the transaction.  If you do not commit the transaction, the database will not create the table.  The transaction will be rolled back.

 Other options to consider are:

 1 – Add the autocommit parameter to connect.  This will not require a manual commit.  For example:

con = pyodbc.connect(your_connection_string, autocommit = True)

2 – Use a with block and anything will be committed before the connection is terminated at the end of the with block.  For example:

with pyodbc.connect(your_connection_string) as con: CREATE_TABLE_CODE

Step 6: Insert Records to Verify Your Table is Configured Correctly.

cursor.execute(''' INSERT INTO PeopleInfo (PersonId, FirstName, LastName, Age) VALUES (1,'Bob','Smith', 55), (2, 'Jenny','Smith', 66) ''')

conn.commit()

Step 7: Run a SELECT Query to Retrieve the Records.

cursor.execute('SELECT * FROM PeopleInfo')

for row in cursor: print(row)

Step 8: Close Your Connection If It Isn’t Needed.

conn.close()

Database connections are an expensive resource and there might be limited connections available to your database.  Remember to close your connection explicitly if you are not using a “with“ block as explained in Step 5.

Complete code:

import pyodbc

conn = pyodbc.connect('Driver={SQLite3 ODBC Driver};' 'Server=localhost;' 'Database=testDB.db;' 'Trusted_Connection=yes;')

cursor = conn.cursor()

cursor.execute(''' CREATE TABLE PeopleInfo ( PersonId INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, FirstName TEXT NOT NULL, LastName TEXT NOT NULL, Age INTEGER NULL, CreatedAt TEXT DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP NOT NULL ); ''')

conn.commit() cursor.execute(''' INSERT INTO PeopleInfo (PersonId, FirstName, LastName, Age) VALUES (1,'Bob','Smith', 55), (2, 'Jenny','Smith', 66) ''')

conn.commit() cursor.execute('SELECT * FROM PeopleInfo ')

for row in cursor: print(row) conn.close()

Output:

(1, 'Bob', 'Smith', 55, '2020-08-01 20:37:04')

(2, 'Jenny', 'Smith', 66, '2020-08-01 20:37:04')

References

1 – Pyodbc Github repo: https://github.com/mkleehammer/pyodbc

2 – Pyodbc Getting Started: https://code.google.com/archive/p/pyodbc/wikis/GettingStarted.wiki

3 – Create tables with SQLite: https://www.sqlitetutorial.net/sqlite-create-table/

July 31, 2020 Pre-registration for Meteorfall: Kurmit’s Tale is now open on Android

Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale is now available pre-registration for Android users on Google Play. The brilliant deckbuilding roguelike has been on PC for some time now but is nearing a full launch on mobile. Krumit’s Tale is the sequel to the incredibly well-received Meteorfall: Journeys, another card-based roguelike with Tinder mechanics. However, in this Meteorfall, the Tinder mechanics are shelved for a more dynamic three-by-three grid system. This may not seem like an enormous deal, but to anyone who played the original, this is game-changing.

Roguelikes offer superb replayability as no two playthroughs are the same. They compound this by including five unique starting heroes in Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale, each with their own playstyle. Although the gameplay changes each time you die, your progress is saved in other ways. After several runs, you will unlock the starting characters and new cards to use.

Not everyone is a fan of roguelikes, but if there was ever one to convert non-believers, Meteorfall is the game to do so. If you are interested in pre-registering for Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale, or if you want to see the games official trailer, read on for more details.

You can pre-register for Meteorfall: Kurmit’s Tale by vising Google Play and clicking the large green button.

The trailer of Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale is not too revealing when it comes to the combat itself. The three-by-three grid system is on screen for a couple of seconds, before the character cards and animations take over. With that being said, the art style and animation quality is top-notch.

If you would like to know more about Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale, then check out the Steam page, which comes out of early access on July 23.

If you would rather find out about Meteorfall: Journey and the best mobile card-based games, then check out our best mobile card game guide. Also, if you’re looking for more roguelikes, read our best mobile roguelikes guide.

© Nintendo

One of the few major Wii U releases that could still potentially be ported across to the Nintendo Switch is the Platinum-developed title, Star Fox Zero.

Although the controls would need a massive overhaul, many Star Fox fans are still wondering what the chances are of it happening. In a recent interview with the YouTube channel GameXplain, Atsushi Inaba of PlatinumGames admitted the company has no idea if it’s returning, but said it hasn’t been approached by Nintendo about it. Here’s a translation:

To be honest we wouldn’t have the slightest clue, Star Fox Zero was a bit of a special case for us.

Star Fox was, you know, an IP that Nintendo has had way before we entered the picture. That was a game that they were interested in making and kind of just lent out an offer to us “hey, would you like to kind of work on this with us”.

As far as the future of any ports or whatever, maybe concern, no conversations have come our way. I don’t think it’s something we would be involved in, to be honest.

So, if a potential port is in the works – we’re guessing Platinum either hasn’t been notified or isn’t involved. Alternatively, Nintendo has no plans to revive this game during the Switch generation as it has with Mario Kart 8, New Super Mario Bros. U, and a number of other titles.

Would you like to see the return of Star Fox Zero? Share your thoughts down below.