October 2020

Which console features from yesteryear are you super fond of? Given that there are new machines out soon - and given that it's almost Halloween - we thought we would spend the week picking and choosing our favourite elements from our favourite consoles and stitching together our perfect Frankenstein's Console. Inevitably it's going to look a bit like that car Homer Simpson designed, and equally inevitably it's going to say Giga Power Pro-Gear Spec when you boot it up. Anyway - join us! And have a think about what your own Frankenstein's Console might look like. If you dare...

It's fair to say that I care about switches more than most people. As long as it turns the thing on and off, what does it matter? My friends, it matters a great deal. Power switches are commands. They are points of contact (literally, in a circuit - or at least they used to be, but I'll get to that). They are bridges between worlds; they are the most fundamental connection between the human world and the electronic one. They bring the electronic world to life.

A lady used to love painting but now she works downstairs in a coffee shop and looks miserable. Somehow, art faded from her world. But what if she were to rediscover it? What if, through some benevolent stroke of fate, a reminder from her past were to drop out of the sky in front of her? Would it spark a recovery? Would she find love again?

Two boys are lonely. One has a father who shouts and smashes things and makes his mother scared. Another has a mother who shouts at him for playing music. They live in the same block but they have never met, and now as men, they sit alone. What if you could bring them together? What if you could go back in time and, through some benevolent stroke of fate, ensure they were both on their balconies at the same time and noticed each other? Could it spark a love between friends that would last forever?

This is Love. It's a game about exploring the lives of people who share an apartment block, a game about playing around with time. And it's a game about sometimes delivering the fateful nudge two people need in order for their paths to cross. Really, it's a game about helping people find love.

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Fashionistas of The Last City, you may breath a sigh of relief and begin clearing out your wardrobe: Bungie have confirmed that Destiny 2‘s upcoming transmogrification won’t require us to hold the original item. The workings of the transmog system are still largely unknown but game director Luke Smith did say last night that yes, if we want to duplicate a garment’s look and apply it to another, it is enough to have the original in our Collections. I’ve been saving every swish item for months, my Vault now overflowed into my inbox, and am so very glad to hear this.

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I won’t dignify the underscore that is in the official title. Watch Dogs 2 may not have an iconic cap, but you know what it does have? An iconic mask.

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Starting next year, Prime 1 Studio is releasing a pair of limited-edition Resident Evil 2 statues, featuring Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield blasting zombies.

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Intelligent Systems will release a metal keyholder based on Fire Emblem: Three Houses' Sword of the Creator on January 30, 2021.

The post Sword of the Creator From Fire Emblem: Three Houses Is Turned Into a Keychain appeared first on Siliconera.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War takes up to 250GB of drive space on PC at launch, Activision has confirmed.

That's if you want the full game installed, running at the Ultra RTX specification. This means running the game at a high fps in 4K resolution with ray tracing.

Run the game at any specification lower than that, and you're looking at 175GB of drive space.

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Sony will pay almost $1bn to acquire Crunchyroll, the hugely-popular anime-streaming service available through both Xbox and PlayStation consoles.

The PlayStation maker is in final negotiations to seal the deal with a $957m bid and is the only company in the running, Nikkei Asia reports.

Sony already owns anime service Funanimation, which has a million subscribers, though this is dwarfed by Crunchyroll's three million subscribers and whopping 70m free members.

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Wow. Now that was a week, wasn't it? We had a last-minute delay to Cyberpunk, more controversy over CD Projekt and crunch, a last-minute delay to Destruction AllStars, embargo lifts for the unboxing of the Xbox Series X, S and PlayStation 5, the exit of the director of Halo Infinite from the troubled project, and for the first time a clear idea of how big third party games will run on the next-gen consoles.

Loads to talk about then during this week's Eurogamer next-gen news cast! As usual, I'm joined by news editor Tom Phillips and reporter Emma Kent to discuss the week's news - and there's a lot to get through. It's a packed show!

Generally when a Flare Path interviewee says they dabbled in diplomacy in their younger days they are talking about their formative games. However, in Ryan Hewer’s case the lower case ‘d’ isn’t a typo. My interlocutor today is a man whose CV bestrides two parallel worlds. In one the dire consequences of a clumsy piece of international brinkmanship can be fixed with a single dab of the Load button. In the other geopolitical miscalculations blight real lives and end them. (more…)

Roman thinks you’re ready for Rithmetic Foxers. Below are three equations disguised as picture sequences. Each pic represents a number (For example a photo of The Flying Scotsman might signify 4472, 462, or 3). It’s your job to identify the mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) indicated by the lettered squares. The BIDMAS rule applies. If a solution involves brackets or indices, Roman will mention it. (more…)

Cyberpunk 2077

‘s Night City is a veritable warzone. The skyscrapers are dominated by unimaginably wealthy megacorporations, while the streets are home to various powerful gangs and factions, each with their own agendas and conflicts. To help you navigate this warzone, we’ve put together the below Cyberpunk 2077 gangs and corporations guide, which will tell you everything you need to know about all the factions revealed so far.

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There are a few easy ways to snap pictures Watch Dogs: Legion’s dystopian London, whether you want to get some nice shots of the cityscape or you’re looking to photograph evidence to #resist the powers that be. Here’s how to take photos in Watch Dogs: Legion.

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Beats Solo 3 Headphones | $120 | Amazon Gold Box

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Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today we’ll fly with angels, which in Gynoug is far, far grosser than it sounds.

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The Tokyo-based electronics giant is reportedly going into the final round of negotiations to buy Crunchyroll. According to Nikkei Asia, the acquisition could cost Sony over 100 billion yen ($957 million).

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Japanese retailer GRAMAS will release a line of discreetly designed Neon Genesis Evangelion leather accessories.

The post Neon Genesis Evangelion Unit-01 Themed Wallet and Phone Case Are on the Way appeared first on Siliconera.

Sony could potentially spend more than ¥100 billion or $957 million to acquire the service.

The post Sony Has Entered Final Negotiations in Acquisition of Crunchyroll appeared first on Siliconera.

CyberConnect2 reveals more new .hack anniversary merchandise, including Chim Chim plushies that are available in five colors.

The post .hack Chim Chim Plushies Included in New Anniversary Merchandise appeared first on Siliconera.

When the adventure ends, the clock starts ticking

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A bit of lore lights the fuse for an explosive premiere

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Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will begin integrating with Warzone in December, Activision has said.

Speaking during an investor call last night, Activision's chief operating officer Daniel Alegre said this integration kicks off with Black Ops Cold War's first season. Black Ops Cold War comes out on 13th November.

It is unclear exactly how Black Ops Cold War will work within Warzone, but we do know all new Black Ops Cold War weapons and operators you unlock will be usable in both Black Ops (as you'd expect) and Warzone. Content within the Black Ops battle pass, as well as new Black Ops store content, will also work across Black Ops and Warzone.

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PlayStation boss Jim Ryan has said he believes in the potential of virtual reality for video games - but also that the technology to really make it "meaningful" is still years away.

Speaking to the Washington Post [paywall], Ryan reflected on the current PlayStation VR headset as a way Sony had gained "experience" in developing VR games and hardware. But it also sounded like we shouldn't expect a new PSVR model anytime very soon.

"I think we're more than a few minutes from the future of VR," Ryan said. "PlayStation believes in VR. Sony believes in VR, and we definitely believe at some point in the future, VR will represent a meaningful component of interactive entertainment. Will it be this year? No. Will it be next year? No. But will it come at some stage? We believe that.

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The 55-inch Samsung Q80T, our favourite non-OLED TV for 4K gaming, is available for £879 from Very today with code R37XN, compared to its street price of £1099. That's the best price we've ever seen on this TV by a good £220, making it incredible value. The 65-inch model has also been discounted, dropping from £1499 to £1199, a reduction of £300.

The Q80T ticks all the boxes for next-gen gaming on PS5, Xbox Series X or PC. You get a 4K screen with 120Hz refresh rate, HDMI 2.1 support (including gaming features like VRR and ALLM), great contrast (4000:1), excellent colour accuracy and very low input lag (10ms at 60Hz, 5ms at 120Hz). As the Q80T uses a VA QLED panel, it's also immune to the burn-in that can put some people off OLEDs. All in all, it's a great set and our top non-OLED pick for gaming.

The Q80T sits at a good spot within Samsung's lineup too, as it costs only a bit more than the Q70T but boasts better brightness, contrast and viewing angles thanks to its Full Array Local Dimming feature. The Q90T, the next model up, gets brighter still and handles gradients better, but this set costs significantly more and doesn't have any new features compared to the Q80T.

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Sony has announced the accessibility features of the PlayStation 5, confirming you can turn off the DualSense's haptic feedback and adaptive triggers.

In a post on the SIE (Sony Interactive Entertainment) website, the company confirmed you can reduce or disable the force of haptic feedback and adaptive triggers on the DualSense wireless controller.

The DualSense's haptic feedback and adaptive triggers are pitched as two of the PS5's more significant new features (Digital Foundry's John Linneman is certainly impressed). The tech locks down the triggers when your weapon gets jammed in Arkane's upcoming immersive sim Deathloop, simulates the fatigue of the athletes on the court when playing NBA 2K21 (as players get more tired, you get more resistance when pushing on the sprint trigger), and the controller even imitates the feeling of spider-sense in Spider-Man: Miles Morales.

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It's fair to say I didn't love the base versions of Pokémon Sword and Shield. They suffer on a few fronts, from a world that still seems empty and oddly shallow, a lack of the series' essential, trademark dungeons, or any sense of surprise or mystery. There are clear gaps in world and story alike, and having now lived with Dynamax Raids, the generation's staple feature and Sword and Shield's endgame crux, I can safely say they're an absolute drag. With a bit of distance, it's clear this generation needed more time.

The Crown Tundra isn't a total panacea - really, it can't be - but it is an improvement, and in places quite a dramatic one. Taken in isolation, it makes for probably the best Pokémon experience in a couple of years. Put together with the rest of Sword and Shield, including the other expansion, Isle of Armor, it's also illustrative of how great they could have been.

Like The Isle of Armor, The Crown Tundra expansion has you arrive, misty-eyed by train, at a new slice of the world, with some typically eccentric characters awaiting and a typically quirky, new species-driven main story to work through at your own discretion. Again, it takes place in a Wild Area-esque open world, meaning a free camera and free sense of exploration, and again the design of that open world takes some considerable steps of improvement upon the last.

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Halloween may not have the same spooky shenanigans and hijinks as it has in previous thanks to COVID-19. However, you can still make the night more memorable by experience by watching a handful of horror movies brought to you by Netflix.

Here are some movies we hand-picked for you to watch while you chow down on a bucket full of Halloween candy.

ParaNorman

ParaNorman, a touchstone stop-motion film from Laika (of Coraline fame) surrounds an 11-year-old medium who has the ability to talk to ghosts and gets ridiculed for it in school and at home, although Norman’s mother is more supportive of his gift than his father is.

PlayStation and Marvel have revealed that those who pre-order Spider-Man: Miles Morales for PS4 or PS5 will be able to snag a very stylish suit that’s inspired by the animated film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Marvel uploaded a video to its YouTube channel today that showcases a couple of minutes of gameplay with Miles wearing the suit. And it’s way more than just a different outfit. The suit is animated exactly like the film, giving the game an artistic stop-motion effect. It is especially cool to see during the combat scenarios, too, as comic-book styled phrases appear when Miles attacks enemies.

Check out the video below:

Here’s a quick synopsis of the game via PlayStation:

In the latest adventure in Marvel’s Spider-Man universe, teenager Miles Morales is adjusting to his new home while following in the footsteps of his mentor, Peter Parker, as a new Spider-Man.

Most of the time, character skins serve to change the aesthetic of just the character. Rarely, though, they change the aesthetic of the whole game.

Insomniac has confirmed that the suit from 2018's Academy Award-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is one of the new skins in Spider-Man: Miles Morales. It's more than just a neat nod to the best piece of superhero media in years. It alters the flow of Spider-Man on PS4 and PS5.

That's because Insomniac has animated the suit to match the visual style of the film. Miles Morales' actions seem to run at 12 frames per second while the world around him runs at 60fps. That's what it looks like anyway, although I'm not sure it's completely faithful to the movie from a technical standpoint. Regardless, it has that crunchy feel to it that defined Into the Spider-Verse.

This is the second suit that will be a launch day bonus for Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The first is a white T.R.A.C.K. suit that was revealed back in September. The Into the Spider-Verse addition is a much more impressive effort. Both are immediately available for anyone who pre-orders on PS4 or PS5, but it's not exclusive content. They seem to also be unlockable for anyone who doesn't swing in with a pre-order.

What's up with the lack of excitement when it comes to November gaming services? They probably know you're going to drop a ton of cash on stuff, so why offer anything big, right? Well, the good news is that Prime Gaming has a giant collective of stuff still available from past months, regardless of whatever is new in November.

Amazon's Prime Gaming service has announced their main games, and there's at least one interesting title in there: Victor Vran, A Knight's Quest, Smoke and Sacrifice, Lethis - Path of Progress and Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan. Out of all of those, I can recommend Victor Vran as the perfect Diablo-adjacent dungeon crawler for that price.

Prime Gaming is also adding some loot-based bonuses, including Madden NFL 21 player add-ons, a Rocket Arena outfit (which is amazingly on season 2), and several Apex Legends, Valorant, and League of Legends drops.

The big news, however, is that the SNK games are still in Prime waiting to be redeemed if you haven't grabbed them already. A few other titles like The Occupation and Stick it to the Man also don't expire until mid-November. So head into your account and just click the "claim" button for all of them!

Prime Gaming [Amazon]

The era of streaming is upon us, with tons of different channels to negotiate. While a few streaming channels had all the things years back, now publishers and studios are carving up rights like Jack-o'-lanterns, splitting them among multiple services. You can see it right now in the anime industry between the Netflix, Funimation and Crunchyroll wars: but that battle is about to get a lot more interesting.

According to a report from Nikkei Asia, Sony is teeing up to purchase Crunchyroll any day now. The report contends that Sony has entered "final negotiations" with the company, and is prepared to pay upwards of $957 million US to grab the 70-million strong channel. Yes, 70-million! Animation in general is enjoying a resurgence right now thanks to the pandemic, which includes live-action television shows adapting to include animation in particularly tough-to-film circumstances.

As a note, Sony is the majority owner of Funimation, which has its own anime streaming service. If this deal goes through, it's entirely possible that Sony could combine them and be more choosy about where the app (FuniRoll?) ends up. This deal could also impact a ton of currently-licensed shows across all streaming services: including ones that Sony produces themselves through Aniplex.

A lush city in the sky, a time-travelling Scottish scientist and vehicles you can turn into gassy death machines. These headline the cool new additions coming to Apex Legends‘ seventh season, Ascension, and I got to play it ahead of Wednesday’s launch.

There’s a lot I like about this season. The new map, Olympus, is gorgeous and interesting to traverse. This is largely thanks to the vehicle, the Trident, which isn’t particularly deadly but is certainly versatile. Then there’s Horizon – the brand new Legend who is my new favourite mum (sorry real mum).

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Right then you muppets. I bet you’ve heard all sorts of old rubbish about London town in Watch Dogs Legion, ‘aven’t you? You’ve probably got yer knickers in a right twist over how faithfully it recreates the UK capital, and how totally facked it is.

Well don’t you worry no more, sunshine. The name’s Ronald McNationalism, hardest bloke in DedSec, and I’m going to take you on a little bloppity-blip (that’s geezer chat for “trip”) round some of the city’s most iconic landmarks. We’ll start with the Shard, that massive tower full of money in Southwark. You can see behind me there, plastered with massive warnings about what an utter bloody danger I am.

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Supermassive Games, the makers of Until Dawn, return today with a new branching horror story, The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope. This time, they’re sending hapless students to an abandoned American town with a dark history of witch trials. Oh you bet they’re getting a spooking! It supports co-op so your pals can join in making foolish decisions leading to their deaths too, make a real Halloween of it.

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Ever since the 2013 Cyberpunk 2077 teaser trailer, we’ve known that the game was going to have one banging soundtrack. The music of CD Projekt Red’s extremely ambitious RPG has been the topic of much excitement and discussion, so we thought we’d put together this quick Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack guide, which will walk you through the diverse selection of musical artists and songs that are known to be in the game.

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Twenty-two days ago, I wrote: “If Nintendo has hidden some amazing twist at the end of Pikmin 3 Deluxe, if the epilogue really delivers, the joke will be on me.” Today I am here to tell you there is no twist, at least not a plot twist at the end of the new Switch port of the 2013 Wii U adventure Pikmin 3. But the joke…

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The Apple Watch SE and an iTeknic water flosser lead Friday’s best deals.

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So you’ve had an encounter with a ghost. All of a sudden the air turned cold; a light flickered; a shadowy figure floated in a dark corner; when you asked if you were in the presence of a spirit, the Ouija planchette in your shaking hand dragged itself toward “YES.” Naysayers be damned, you know you’ve been contacted…

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This week we got another heads-up on several changes coming to Destiny 2, both in its next expansion and beyond, including that players won’t need to keep copies of all their favorite-looking armor in order to take advantage of the upcoming stats-preserving transmog system.

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