Oh boy.

I’m sure those of you familiar with the Internet have come across the Youtube “Prank Channel” phenomenon. The point is to film pranks or stunts with unsuspecting members of the public and catch reactions on hidden cameras. They’re… not exactly well thought of because some of the ‘pranks’ really aren’t funny. Now it seems that the law agrees because one Youtube troll has gotten jail time for some of his.

Youtuber Van Le, of the channel Trollstation (a co-founder in fact) was arrested when filming one of the jokes that involved a teenager carrying a briefcase containing a clock or a ‘fake bomb’ which they would proceed to show to individuals at crowded tourist hot spots in London before rushing off without the case.

The ‘joke’ was filmed back in September and was supposed meant to be a homage to Ahmed Mohamed, an American teen whose homemade clock was mistaken for a bomb. However, whoever thought this a good idea must have a strange sense of humour and the police unsurprisingly didn’t see the funny side of the entire incident.

Van Le was the cameraman responsible for filming this antic, as well as another one that was also brought up in the case against him at the Tate and National Portrait Gallery that saw masked men running into the museum carrying paintings to convince visitors that a robbery was taking place at that very moment.

Van Le pled guilty to one count of bomb hoax placing with intent and has been sentenced to 24 weeks for that stunt, while the Tate gallery incident netted him another 12 weeks behind bars. That means that he’s gotten nine months of jail time for the sake of a Youtube ‘prank’. The teenage accomplice has also been found guilty but because of his status as a minor has been given a 12-month intense referral order.

A spokesperson for the Trollstation channel called the punishment “pretty unfair”.

“A big production crew for the Jackie Chan movie [The Foreigner] blew up a bus in London in February and didn’t warn anybody apart from some local people,” the spokesperson said. “In a way that impacted more people and scared a lot more people, but a small production does this low-budget thing and this is how it is dealt with.”

So, it’s been a week since I last brought you up to date on the new cards we can expect from Blizzard’s next expansion to their Hearthstone game. Since then a number of other cards have been revealed, a good number of the focusing around a “Forbidden” theme that sees you spending all your mana for an effect specific to the card – and they’re all class-based cards too.

Take a look at the new cards and see which ones you might want to have in a future deck:

——-

Giant Sandworm

Beast Minion, 8 Attack, 8 Health, 8 mana cost.

Can attack again if it attacks and kills another Minion.

Forbidden Flame

Spell, 0 mana cost.

Spend all Mana and deal that much damage to a Minion.

Forbidden Shaping

Spell, 0 mana cost.

Spend all Mana and summon a random Minion that costs that much.

Klaxxi Amber-Weaver

Minion, 4 Attack, 5 Health, 4 mana cost.

Battlecry: If your C’Thun has 10+ Attack, gain +5 Health.

Ancient Shieldbearer

Minion, 6 Attack, 6 Health, 7 mana cost.

Battlecry: If your C’Thun has 10+ Attack, gain 10 Armor.

Stand Against Darkness

Spell, 5 mana cost.

Summon five 1/1 Silver Hand Recruits.

Hogger, Doom of Elwynn

Legendary Minion, 6 Attack, 6 Health, 7 mana cost.

Whenever this Minion takes damage, summon a 2/2 Gnoll with Taunt.

Eater of Secrets

Minion, 2 Attack, 4 Health, 4 mana cost.

Battlecry: Destroy all enemy Secrets and gain +1/+1 for each.

C’Thun’s Chosen

Minion, 4 Attack, 2 Health, 4 mana cost.

Divine Shield.

Battlecry: Give your C’Thun +2/+2 wherever it is.

Forbidden Healing

Spell, 0 mana cost.

Spend all Mana and summon restore Health for that much.

The developers of Castlevania: Lord of Shadow have just changed their website a little. It’s currently been taken over by a semi-interactive teaser for their next as-yet-unknown game, and it includes a countdown to a date in the middle of next month.

MercuryStorm teased the new sci-fi game a while ago, with the site previously saying the the team were off “exploring new worlds, fighting strange creatures, discovering new heroes”. Now it’s updated to show an image of a man with a cigar in a tiny cockpit, surrounded by a retro-futuristic mishmash of things like dials, radars, portholes and computer screens. Clicking upon the computer screen will take you to three options – a link to the studio’s other games, a message about the crew being in “hibernation” (for a long space journey perhaps?) and the aforementioned countdown timer which will end on April 15th.

Just what it’s counting down to isn’t known yet, but it’s a fair bet that it’ll be a proper reveal of the game – title, some images, a concept. So keep your eyes glued to the site on the date in question to find out first.

The first Escalation missions for the new Hitman game have finally landed, extending the life of the game’s first episode with missions that see you asked to take out new targets in specific ways. And each successful attempt sees you unlock a more difficult version of the mission. Sounds good if you’re a challenge-seeker.

The first of the new Contracts is called “The Holmwood Disturbance” and sees players head to an attic, wear they will don a magician’s outfit and then eliminate target Faustin D’Aoust with a bullet. I’m assuming they mean shot from a gun of some sort, although I guess if it’s possible to choke them with it, that’d be accepted too. Each time you pass the mission, you’ll get more restrictions and obstacles added including extra security cameras, an additional target, disallowed pacifications, and forcing you to escape by speedboat.

The second new Escalation is “The Mandelbulb Requiem” and has Agent 47 eliminating target Michel Charest while dressed as a Palace Staffer. More difficult versions of it will ask you to hack a laptop, contend with extra security measures, and even use a different disguise to get to your target.

Of course, Escalation Contracts also don’t allow you to save during the mission, so it forces you to think on your feet a little more. If you get something wrong you need to figure out a way to get past it and continue your mission – or adapt and change your plan. In a way that’s a little bit more realistic and probably a bit more fun too unless you prefer to see your plans go like clockwork.

The second episode of the game should also be hitting sometime in the next month too, so prepare yourself for that.

The DLCs were announced a few weeks ago, and now we finally have the trailer for the first DLC public.

Automatron will release on March 22nd and will pit you against the mysterious Mechanist who has assembled an army of hostile robots and released them into the Commonwealth to cause havoc. You will be able to find these robots, destroy them and take their parts to construct your own robotic companions to fight back against the enemies of the Commonwealth. The trailer showed off the construction screen as well as many different scenes that resemble what I imagine Robot Wars would look like in the Wasteland. This content will be available to purchasers once they get their character to Level 15, which means you’re not going to meet a mechnical death machine just outside of Vault 111 with your fresh character.

Either way, I’m looking forward to making my own robotic companion. If you’re not so much, then maybe the following two months’ DLC packs – Wasteland Workshop in April, and Far Harbor in May – will be more up your street.