This year's Black Friday sale doesn't officially start until Friday 26th November, but Amazon's early bird Black Friday deals are now live and there are some decent deals to be had on gaming monitors.

We can see stock slowly ticking away as we're writing this, so we'll keep this brief to ensure you don't miss out. It's worth noting that there isn't much included when it comes to top brands, and Amazon's other early-bird Black Friday deals are pretty lacklustre on the gaming and tech side of things, but make sure you keep updated by bookmarking the best Black Friday gaming monitor deals here.

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Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 have been removed from digital stores due to licensing issues with their usage of historical footage.

Konami has released a statement that explains the details.

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If you own the Summer Fesitval Nendoroid, you can even make them hold hands!

The post Hatsune Miku Magical Mirai Winter Festival Nendoroid Preorders Open appeared first on Siliconera.

The official Twitter account of Overwatch esports team Philadelphia Fusion announced that Kim “Alarm” Kyeong-Bo has died. He was 20 years old.

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Atlus has released another of its trailers showcasing the 200+ demons of its upcoming JRPG Shin Megami Tensei V one by one.

This time around, the trailer focuses on Ishtar. Inspired by the goddess of love, fertility, and war of Mesopotamian mythology, she debuted in the series with Shin Megami Tensei II in 1994.

You can watch her in action below.

The biggest conspiracy in MGS history Konami has quietly announced that it intends to remove some classic titles in the...

The post Metal Gear Solid classics to be ‘temporarily’ removed from digital storefronts appeared first on Destructoid.

It’s that time of the week, and Avex just revealed the first screenshots and the synopsis of the fifth episode of the ongoing Muv-Luv Alternative anime series.

The episode will be aired on Wednesday, November 10, and you will be able to watch it on Crunchyroll if you live in one of the countries in which the service is available.

Here’s what you can expect:

“December 1, 2001. Inspired by Takeru Shirogane’s words, “Why don’t you ask youself from the other world,” Yuuko Kouzuki conducts an experiment to send Takery back to his original world in order to retrieve the formula that holds the key to Alternative IV. The experiment includes having Takeru live in the same room with Kasumi…”

Below you can enjoy the first images of the episode.

I almost missed Underland. No press releases, no personal recommendations. I was just scrolling the Nintendo eShop one day and luckily it stood out - a strange 2D affair with graphics that took me back to the days of the BBC Micro and games like Exile - spacesuited figures alone in caves, the whole thing rendered magical by the limited colour palette. This is a video game, but for people of a certain age it feels specifically like a computer game.

Exile is sort of close, I think. That was the first game I remember playing that had meaningful physics, not that I realised that at the time. Underland is also a physics playground. I'm so glad I found this wonderfully odd game. I'm so glad I didn't miss it.

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Japan has a long tradition of “Pokemon Jets,” beautiful airliners decorated by the cute critters from the ultra-popular gaming franchise, and a new one is coming.

The trend started all the way back in 1998 when ANA painted the first three Pokemon Jets, a Boeing 747 and two 767. More followed until perhaps the most famous 747 which was painted in Pikachu’s bright yellow in 2004.

Many around the world mourned when old faithful JA8957 retired in 2013, as it had become a beloved common sight at Tokyo’s Haneda airport, and it was really impossible not to notice it when it was parked on the aprons.

Recently, following a few years with no Pokemon Jets in the sky, things picked up again with the two airliners dedicated to Exeggutor and Pikachu launched by Solaseed Air and Starflyer over the past year.

Now it’s the turn of the Sapporo-based airline Air Do to get its own in order to promote tourism to the northern island of Hokkaido after the difficult years plagued by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The aircraft is a Boeing 767-300ER with registration JA607A, a 19-year-old airliner that has been in service with ANA until earlier this month. It’s now getting a brand new coat of paint and it’s all about Vulpix.

It’ll be named “Rockon Jet” (Rockon is the Japanese name of Vulpix) and it’ll enter service on December 1. The plan is for it to keep flying with this livery for five years. It’ll even have its own website showing which routes it’ll fly, so you can try to catch it if you’re in Japan.

Konami just announced that both Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3 are being taken down from online shopfronts, after issues emerged with “licenses for select historical archive footage used in-game.”

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Today Sega released its financial results for the first half of the fiscal year, related to the period between April and September 2021.

The company reports strong performance centered on the Entertainment Contents business, which focuses on video games.

Both the consumer (meaning home video games) and arcade areas performed strongly.

Sales and sales and operating income showcased significant improvement year-on-year, as you can see on the tables at the bottom of the post. In particular, operating income is back in the black while Sega operated at a loss during the same period in the past year.

Similar improvement year-on-year in sales and operating income can also be seen for the Entertainment Contents business. According to the publisher, the results of the business “significantly exceeded expectations.”

This leads to a revision of the full-year forecast. While the pachislot and pachinko machines segment is predicted to decline due to the semiconductor shortage affecting distribution, this is offset and overcome by the growth of the gaming business, resulting in a small increase in the overall income forecast.

Speaking of the gaming business, in particular, the strong performance is identified for both new games and those released in previous fiscal years.

In the future, Sega expects growth in both sales and expenses for the consumer area (home video games for consoles and PC) due to launching more new titles. Free-to-play games also have been performing steadily and Sega plans to launch the global version of one of its titles (Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage) and a major update for Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis on December 15.

With the hype around Elden Ring intensifying due to the upcoming network test this week, the truth is that we are still months away from the game’s February release. However, if you had questions about how console generations would work for the game, or the PC specs required for Elden Ring, then Bandai Namco has you covered.

For PC players, you can expect Elden Ring to run at a maximum resolution of 3840x2160P and framerate up to 60FPS. The game will have support for both HDR and ray tracing, with the latter coming via a future patch.

On the PlayStation front, the following specs will apply for Elden Ring:

If you are planning to start the game on your PS4, save data can then be transferred over to the PS5. Do note that the transfer is only one way, and PS5 save data will not be transferable to the previous generation.

As for the Elden Ring specs for Xbox consoles, here is the relevant information:

Konami will be removing both Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3 temporarily from all digital storefronts on November 8. The reason cited for this is that so Konami can renew the license for select historical archive footage that is used in each game.

The company announced that the removal mainly impacts the versions on older hardware, including PlayStation 3 and Vita, Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS, GOG, and Nvidia Shield. The following titles will be affected:

PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita

• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty HD Edition
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater HD Edition
• Metal Gear Solid HD Edition

PlayStation Now

• Metal Gear Solid HD Collection

Xbox 360

• Metal Gear Solid HD Edition: 2 & 3

Nintendo 3DS

• Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D

GOG.com

• Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance

NVIDIA SHIELD

• Metal Gear Solid 2 HD for SHIELD TV
• Metal Gear Solid 3HD for SHIELD TV

Currently, there's no set date or time for when these games will be relisted on digital storefronts. In other news, Konami announced back in August that online servers for Metal Gear Solid V on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 would be shutting down in May 2022.

Atlus released another of its many trailers showcasing the over 200+ demons of its upcoming JRPG Shin Megami Tensei V.

This time around we get to see the gameplay of Belial, a demon inspired by Abrahamic mythology that debuted in the series with Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II in 1990.

You can watch him in action below.

If you did not already know, FromSoftware’s next big game, Elden Ring, will be having a closed network test in just a few days. While players will definitely be eager to jump in and experience a snippet of what is to come, there will likely be more changes for the full release. However, something that will likely remain is the classes found in Elden Ring. On that end, the studio has shared the five that will be available to players for the test.

Players will be able to choose from the Warrior, Enchanted Knight, Prophet, Champion, and Bloody Wolf classes, each coming with a choice between body types. If you have played any of FromSoftware’s recent games, then they already look quite familiar. You have your armored classes as well as the magic wielders, so depending on your playing style, you have a few choices to make.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is 10 this year, and as part of the birthday celebrations, BioWare have decided to do something I can’t remember ever seeing before; they’re re-releasing the game’s old trailers in an elegant resolution for a less civilized age.

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It will simulcast on Crunchyroll once it starts.

The post Bungo Stray Dogs Season 4 in Development appeared first on Siliconera.

Kotobukiya is continuing to bring back its long sold-out Muv-Luv plastic model kits.

This time around it’s the Takemikazuchi Type-00F from the spin-off Muv-Luv Alternative Total Eclipse piloted by heroine Yui Takamura and characterized by its striking yellow color.

This Yellow variant of the Takemikazuchi reserved to commanders of the Imperial Royal Guard and members of noble families is currently available for pre-order at Kotobukiya’s own store for 6,380 yen, which translates approximately into $56. The pre-order window is limited until November 24.

The release window is March 2022. It’s worth mentioning that this model kit was originally released several years ago and has been out of print and fairly difficult to find for a long time.

Like the 1.5 Type-00R Takemikazuchi, this is among the most detailed Muv-Luv models by Kotobukiya, and it’s 180 mm tall. . You can check out what it looks like below.

Incidentally, the Muv-Luv Alternative Total Eclipse is soon going to be localized and released on Steam. If you want to try to control a Takemikazuchi, Project Mikhail: A Muv-Luv War Story has just been released in early access.

November 7 continues to be the gaming holiday where BioWare fans celebrate their favorite space-faring RPG franchise, Mass Effect. This year, BioWare released a blog post full of looking back at the series impact and this year's release of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition.

The blog also details new products fans can buy, sales on the games, and even new Mass Effect-themed Steam emotes. A giant infographic runs down the numbers on big choices Mass Effect Legendary Edition players went with, revealing 15% of people did not recruit Garrus, an option 85% of us can't calibrate our brains or our hearts to leave that precious boy behind. However, there's nary a mention about the future until the end of the post, which says, "We are, of course, hard at work on the next adventure in the Mass Effect universe." We knew that, though, after a teaser trailer premiered at The Game Awards last year.

It looked like that's all there was to this year's N7 Day. That is until the image below was posted on Twitter:

Today BioWare is celebrating its traditional N7 day and released a new image of the new Mass Effect game in development.

The artwork shared on Twitter showcases a starship with the “SFX” lettering and very, very small characters apparently moving to survey what appears to be an impact site and perhaps a corpse.

Among the characters, one is certainly a Krogan, while if you squint really, really hard, you can perhaps see a Turian in another. Of course, it’s extremely hard to say at this scale.

Interestingly, “SFX” used to be Mass Effect’s original code name, but we don’t know whether this is an intentional Easter egg. What we do know, is that Mass Effect will continue.

You can check out the image below with the original Tweet.

I don’t have time for Shin Megami Tensei V. I really don’t. But I’m going to buy it, love it, play it before bed for several nights and then never touch it again. And I can’t wait.

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Third-party developers released new videos and screenshots about upcoming aircraft add-ons for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

We get another extensive look at Red Wing Simulations’ Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation with a brand new video showcasing the take-off procedure.

You can watch it below.

Next in line is the Pilatus Porter PC-6 by FlightSimGames, which was showcased in several videos showing flaps and landing tests and more.

We also get some screenshots from the official forums, showing both the exterior with floats and the cockpit.

Though it’s not news that there’s a new Mass Effect game in development—it was first shown off in a trailer late last year—this poster BioWare released for the game today is new. If you’re the type of fan to speculate wildly at the tiniest hints and suggestions (which would be every Mass Effect fan), then you are in…

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A new poster released in celebration of N7 Day has teased a bit of the future of Mass Effect and its next entry.

Shared on Twitter by the official Mass Effect Twitter account, the image appears to simply be a ship landing on a planet near a crater. However, the shape of the crater and circle in the middle are very reminiscent of the Geth - a group of networked AI beings that were created by the Quarian but eventually rose up and gained sentience. Legion was a Geth and was a member of Shepard's team.

If you look closely at the image, you see a group of four characters leaving the ship (potentially hinting at the party size of the next Mass Effect?). In the group, there appears to at least be one Krogan (like Wrex) and possibly a Salarian (like Mordin) or Turian (like Garrus)? They are very small, so it is hard to tell for sure and they could be anything.

As part of BioWare's N7 Day festivities, the developer has released a piece of teaser art for the next Mass Effect game. The striking artwork shows a massive crater on an alien world, and it seemingly contains a series of clues about its plot and characters.

A ship is in the foreground--not the Normandy but a new one with the letters SFX printed on it--and what appear to be multiple characters are standing nearby. They appear to be a Krogan, a. Turian, and an Asari. The teaser art also strongly suggests that the Geth will factor into the story in some capacity. The crewmates appear to be walking towards a Geth's remains.

"Thank you all for being the best fans in the world!" BioWare said in its tweet where it revealed the new artwork.

Very little is known about the new Mass Effect game, so it's very exciting to see this teaser art. Fans will surely have theories and more about what secrets it may be holding in the time to come.

Don’t press start! This is the best bit! As noted in the past, I’m a mark for movie trailers. I...

The post What are your favorite video game intros of all time? appeared first on Destructoid.

Unsurprisingly, Alice's unique skill draws heavy influence from Alice in Wonderland.

The post Alice and Nebiros Cause Insta-Death in SMT V appeared first on Siliconera.

Garrus is sexy, smart, and has saved my ass countless times. He might be BioWare’s best character ever. And apparently thousands of Mass Effect Legendary Edition players skipped him altogether.

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Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games has released new videos of its growing space simulator.

The first video showcases the new mining gadgets, which will likely make life easier (or at least more interesting) for solo miners, alongside a look at improvements to character design, new armor, and work done for the upcoming Pyro system.

The second stars UI director Simon Bursey and principal UI programmer David Bone Gill as they take about improvements to be made to the interface, including the currently rather clunky star map.

You can watch both below.

To some he’s a cryptic Agent of the Nine. To others he’s the Exotic Engram guy. My friends call him Pasta Face. Most know him as Xur, and after years of being obsolete he’s once again a weekly center of attention in the Destiny 2 universe. It feels good to have him back.

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While the Scarlet Nexus game might feel like a lot, the anime adaptation condenses things a bit and could make it easier to understand.

The post Scarlet Nexus’ Anime Weaves a Cohesive Experience appeared first on Siliconera.

We’re in a tight spot Killer7 was a hell of a way to make a splash in North America. After...

The post Killer7 is what you play when you’re in the mood for Killer7 appeared first on Destructoid.

Among the lineup of Kodansha Creators’ Lab that has been recently showcased at the Indie Live Expo Winter 2021 there is a game that certainly draws attention, and it’s Rise of Rebellion.

The game developed by Team Hytacka, which was among the first “generation” of developers selected for Kodansha’s indie support program, just received its Steam page and featured prominently in the trailer showcasing the publisher’s lineup. You can watch it alongside the new screenshots below.

The game has been in development for quite some time with the goal of creating “The most interesting action RPG in the world.” Its creators have been showcasing its development regularly with tons of videos on their YouTube channel since August 2019. If you’re interested in game development or simply in seeing more of the game, they’re certainly worth watching.

Akatsuki and Too Kyo Games released another trailer of their upcoming mixed media project Tribe Nine, introducing one of the tribes included in the game.

The new showcase the Taito Tribe and its theme song “Maxim,” focusing on showcasing its characters and theme. The tribe is named after the Taito ward in Tokyo. It likely owes its “traditional” style to the fact that Taito includes the Asakusa district.

This follows previous trailers focusing on the Minato and Chiyoda Tribes, and on the Adachi Tribe.

You can watch it below.

Perfect for both the fall weather and Dog Day!

The post Okami Slippers Look Like Amaterasu and Issun appeared first on Siliconera.

Game Freak’s Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl remasters aren’t officially out for another two weeks, but some copies of the upcoming Nintendo Switch games have already started appearing out into the wild. Now fans are combing through apparent leaked screenshots and videos for signs of previously unannounced…

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Cblogs of 10/30 to 11/05/2021 –Ze Diglett thinks we are getting into the golden age of Platform Fighting games. –Black...

The post What franchise or brand should get a crossover platform fighter? appeared first on Destructoid.