November 2020

Samsung Galaxy Buds Live | $140 | Amazon

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I woke up this morning chanting a little mantra to myself: It’s just a regular Tuesday, it’s just a regular Tuesday, it’s just a regular Tuesday. Apparently my body couldn’t be tricked, though, because it remained in a heightened state of anxiety—even beyond what it’s normally capable of, which is saying something. So…

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Time passes strangely these days, so it is easy to forget things that happened or were said or were pledged just five months ago.

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Still not quite sure how this one makes out.

The post Pixel Puzzle Makeout League Is a Puzzling Attempt at Romance appeared first on Siliconera.

Want to continue Deacon's adventures on a PS5? Well, Days Gone save files will still work on the system and it'll run at 60fps.

The post Days Gone PS5 Features Include 60fps Support appeared first on Siliconera.

Happy Godzilla Day! You can now find the character's costume in Fall Guy's in-game shop. There's even a new trailer showing it off.

The post The Fall Guys Godzilla Trailer Shows a Competitive Kaiju appeared first on Siliconera.

Anyone who enjoyed console gaming in the '90s will be more than familiar with the publisher Acclaim. First founded in 1987 by friends Greg Fischbach, Robert Holmes, and Jim Scoroposki, the New York-based outfit would go on to publish a huge range of successful home releases such as Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and various WWE titles.

Well, it appears that one of the original founders, Greg Fischbach, is returning to video game publishing with a brand new company. Accelerate Games is, much like Acclaim, hoping to build long-term relationships with budding developers, helping to get their wares out onto the market and into the hands of video game fans worldwide. As the former president of Activision International during the company's fledgling years, Fischbach no doubt hopes to bring his decades of marketing experience to the new endeavor.

The first studio to sign with Accelerate Games is Signal Studios, whose upcoming remake Toy Soldiers HD will be the first title published under the Accelerate label. Signal Studios' partner John Gow is also credited as an Accelerate co-founder, so this important first release is very much an "in-house" affair.

"What we love about Toy Soldiers is it combines historical accuracies, hardcore action and strategy, and humor with infectious fun gameplay," Fischbach said in a press release. "The game's off-the-charts replayability and multiplayer features are sure to recapture the attention of previous enlisted fans and recruit an army of new ones...We look forward to helping the small, but talented team at Signal Studios reach their goal of introducing Toy Soldiers to new audiences worldwide across console and PC platforms."

Some time ago, a rather large datamining effort uncovered a ton of potential characters that could enter the world of Marvel's Avengers. Now, someone else seems to have figured out which ones are coming next.

While we know that Kate Bishop and Clint Barton are coming in early 2021 as a Hawkeye duo (as well as Spider-Man as a PlayStation exclusive at some point); we have little knowledge of what's actually arriving after that. Thanks to Avengers fan Miller, who has been tweeting out the latest discoveries, it seems like Black Panther and War Machine could be next: as their character models are fully visible.

This could also be our first confirmation of additional levels and missions, too. The phrases "Crystal of Kadavus, Draupnir Tactigon, Norn Stone of Protection, Norn Stone of Alliance, Norn Stone of Attunement, and Norn Stone of the Fanatic," were datamined, which could lead to potential future storylines.

Of course, none of this is official yet, and could be content left on the cutting room floor that may never see the light of day. Given the situation this game is in, some of the stuff that's been datamined could be cut at some point. Square Enix still has to ship the "next-gen upgrades" and they are already behind schedule with DLC rollouts.

Miller [Twitter via MP1st]

It's not too often that I get to write about true next-gen exclusives, but it completely slipped my mind that Resident Evil Village is only slated for PC, PS5 and Series X/S. Given how much Resident Evil 7 pushed the formula I'm really anxious to see what 8 can bring to the table; but before then, Capcom is starting to share some of those shiny next-gen features with us.

Detailed on the official PlayStation site for the game, naturally, Village will take advantage of next-gen SSDs for "almost no load times." It'll also use adaptive triggers for the DualSense, as well as haptic feedback to "simulate the feeling of firing a real gun." Although 3D audio has been around for some time, it'll be supported in Village as well (this is one of Sony's big selling points, especially with the new headset). Visually, Village is re-confirmed to support 4K settings as well as ray tracing.

As a true next-gen game (seven more days and it'll be current-gen!), these are the sorts of things you're going to be seeing a lot of going forward. Actual SSD support and 4K are basically the standard now outside of cross-generational games that might not fully support it.

Resident Evil Village [PlayStation]

Ziggurat Interactive has announced that 2002 PC release BloodRayne, along with its 2004 sequel BloodRayne 2, are to receive all-new enhanced editions later this month. Best of all, players who already own the original versions of both titles will receive the upgraded editions free of charge.

BloodRayne: Terminal Cut and BloodRayne 2: Terminal Cut  - titled after the studio that handled the remasters, Terminal Reality - will support resolutions up to 4K, with improved rendering and upscaled cinematics to match. The BloodRayne engine has been overhauled to offer better textures, lighting, water, fog and reflection effects. Additionally, support has been added for a wider range of controllers.

For the BloodRayne faithful, this under-the-hood boost should provide a more versatile and immersive experience with the third-person adventure classics. "The response was tremendous when we announced that we had taken over stewardship of the BloodRayne series," said Ziggurat's Wade Rosen in a press release. "Fans have been asking what’s next for the series, and now we’re excited to show off the great work that’s been done by Terminal Reality on the first two titles."

BloodRayne 1 & 2: Terminal Cut launches November 20 on PC via Steam and GOG.

BloodRayne enhanced versions coming to PC on November 20 [Gematsu]

Third-party add-on developer Orbx announced another relevant airport package for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

This time around the popular developer is going to release Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport (LIEO) alongside the surrounding city of Olbia in Sardinia, Italy.

Olbia is a popular vacation destination and should bring back a bit of summer at least to our computers.

Below you can check out a bunch of rather spectacular screenshots and an official description

“Using the latest MSFS SDK updates, this airport is one of our very first to integrate completely customized animated jetways, as well as a custom ground poly (projected mesh). All textures have been redone, with full PBR and higher resolution artwork utilized throughout. Dozens of landmarks lie waiting to be explored, including several new easter eggs not previously included in the original P3D release.

Blizzard Entertainment released two new trailers of the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion Shadowlands.

The trailers focus on two areas included in the expansion, The Maw and Ravendreth.

Both videos provides an in-depth look at what you can expect from each place in terms of environment and its inhabitants.

You can watch them below.

The expansion launches in less than a month on Nov. 23 exclusively for PC.

Once Seraphine started voicing her anxieties, things took a turn for the weird

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On the fence about playing Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of An Elusive Age - Definitive Edition, the expanded version of the well-received 2018 RPG? Square Enix has given players ample time to figure it out. A demo for the upcoming game is available now on PS4, Xbox One, and Steam and provides an hours-long argument for why you should give the full game a shot. 

The demo consists of the game’s entire opening chapters; a chunk Square says could take around 10 hours to complete. Since that’s enough time for players to get the story moving in earnest, all progress will carry over to the full game. Best of all, Square promises demo players will receive special rewards when they boot up the full release. That’s probably the best way to give players real sense of a title that takes 60-80 hours to complete. 

Dragon Age Origins first made its glorious BioWare debut back in 2009 on this very day (November 3). This RPG adventure was immediately met with high praise for its incredibly fleshed-out characters, a narrative heavily impacted by player-choice, and those ooh la la romances. It's one of my personal favorites but even I can admit that this game has not aged well. For those wanting to celebrate the Dragon Age anniversary, here are some of the top mods that I use that will enhance that gameplay experience. 

Best Dragon Age Origins mods

Dragon Age Redesigned 

Dragon Age Redesigned is my go-to when I want to pretty up the game a bit. While it's not the "prettiest" in terms of re-texturization, it is one that is the most reliable in terms of preventing crashes and lost saves. 

What this mod does is it changes all of the NPCs in-game (goodbye weird broken elbows and necks made from nightmares) while fixing the various skin and proportion issues seen in-game. It also helps to make what players see in-game be more in-line with the actual Dragon Age lore, something that is surprisingly an issue with the vanilla game. 

Download this mod here. 

Extra Dog Slot 

Destiny 2: Beyond Light

is almost here – and when it does, it’s throwing a whole lotta junk out of players’ inventories. Schematics, treasure maps, and even Expired Ramen Coupons are all on the chopping block, but it’s the last of those three that’s got some guardians all riled up. While I’m not even sure if Destiny’s gun-wizards can eat, there’s an apparent sentimental value to the game’s noodly food-tickets, with many players now petitioning Bungie to let them hold onto their tasty little keepsakes.

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Yuzu is a popular Switch emulator, one that earlier this week decided to add limited online multiplayer support for its games. A decision it swiftly reversed.

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Apex Legends’ new season launches tomorrow, alongside the game’s arrival on Steam. I’ll admit this hellscape of a year has given me little time for Titanfall developer Respawn’s battle royale, but the upcoming season’s changes could entice me back in—at least until I fall off the game’s new map too many times, which I…

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Tuesday’s Best Deals | Kinja Deals

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I am a lapsed Destiny 2 player. In anticipation of the Beyond Light expansion coming out November 10th, I thought I’d reacquaint myself with the game which I hadn’t touched in years. Even though I probably should have waited for Beyond Light and its promise of a revamped and heavily streamlined new player experience,…

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A bunch of old items are vanishing from Destiny 2 players’ inventories next week when its expansion Beyond Light launches, including an expired ramen coupon handed out years ago. Now players are celebrating the memento before it disappears, and its creator says he had originally hoped to do more with it.

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Square Enix has released a 10-hour demo for Dragon Quest XI S - Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition (say that five times fast) on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Even better, Square Enix says all your progress will transfer over to the full game if you decide to purchase it.

One might be shocked to hear that a game’s demo can last 10 hours, given that some games last all of six. Considering Dragon Quest XI players can easily rack up 100+ hours before hitting the ending, it’s a little more understandable.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/10/24/dragon-quest-xi-s-definitive-edition-story-trailer"]

Square Enix announced the demo in a blog post. You can get the PS4 version here, the Xbox One demo here, or the Steam demo here.

“To be frank, calling this a demo is kind of underselling it,” Square writes. “The download lets you play through the entirety of the opening chapters - a gargantuan chunk of game that could take you around 10 hours, depending on how you play.”

Square Enix also added that players who complete the demo will receive a “little treat” for players who complete the demo, although they’re not revealing what it is.

Xbox has revealed the line-up of entertainment and streaming apps that will arrive on Xbox Series X and S come launch, which is just one short week from today, believe it or not.

Once they unwrap their shiny new box, proud owners will be able to use a selection of the most popular TV and Video streaming services, which to be fair are probably available on every other device in your house, but the choice is still nice. Services available include movie channels Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, TV streamers such as HBO Max, Disney +, and NOW TV, alongside popular online services such as YouTube, Twitch, and Spotify.

Xbox not only promises that the services will boost the  image clarity, color, and dynamic sound experiences of your favorite services, but also notes that it has slashed the loading time of the Microsoft Store and its respective services in half, allowing you to access your entertainment faster than ever before.

You can check out a full list of the available services on the official Microsoft blog. It should be noted that certain channels may or may not be available dependent on country.

Xbox Series X launches November 10. Xbox will be holding a launch live stream to mark the occasion.

There's been another gruesome murder, this time of Camp Crystal Lake's most popular camper: Dedicated servers.

These stories always end the same. Survival is a matter of how long rather than will they make it. Inevitably, there's always a body count and some grief. That's just the score when you wade into these waters.

Like the victims in a slasher flick, online multiplayer games aren't long for this world. Friday the 13th: The Game is the latest example. Developer IllFonic will stop supporting it this month. The game is getting a final patch in the coming weeks and then the dedicated servers are being turned off.

It's a grim fate for Friday the 13th but it's not the end of the road. The game will still be playable via peer-to-peer connections. IllFonic is also keeping the database servers in commission so that progress can be tracked. Friday the 13th isn't dead, but it's also not alive and well. It's been critically wounded.

That's the circle of life, I guess. Kill, kill, kill, kill, be killed. IllFonic has other killers to worry about nowadays.

The Future of Friday the 13th: The Game [Friday the 13th]

Before Sony first showed off its "card-based" UI for the PS5, there were a lot of questions as to what the PS5's menus would even look like. But buried underneath the new look and feel was a very curious feature: official guides.

Similar to a concept Stadia showed off a while back, Sony wants players to stay in the game rather than look elsewhere for information, which they'll facilitate through "activities." In short, if you're a PlayStation Plus subscriber, you can access short little videos or hints that will show you where collectibles are; or how to solve a certain portion of the game.

Gun Media is pulling the plug on asymmetric multiplayer horror Friday the 13th's dedicated servers later this month, and is delivering one final patch at the same time.

Friday the 13th: The Game had a rocky start back in 2017, with a litany of bugs and technical issues threatening to undermine what was an otherwise solidly entertaining - and commercially successful - horror experience. Despite improvements, Gun Media then fell foul of a lawsuit relating to ownership of the Friday the 13th license, at which point it announced it would no longer be developing new content for the game. Even so, the community has remained.

That rocky road, however, now appears to have reached something of an end; in a post on the official Friday the 13th: The Game forum, lead community developer Matt Shotcha confirmed that Gun Media will be 'decommissioning' the game's dedicated servers later this month, reverting back to the peer-to-peer networking favoured at launch.

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Developer Rebellion has released first gameplay footage of WW2 shooter sequel Sniper Elite 4 running on Switch, ahead of the port's release on 17th November.

Sniper Elite 4 picks up immediately after the events of its predecessor, this time taking the series' well-regarded third-person tactical shooting to Italy, 1943, where players can enjoy "sun-drenched Mediterranean coastal towns, ancient forests, mountain valleys, and colossal Nazi megastructures" - in-between bouts of Nazi busting, of course.

The end result is an experience Eurogamer's Martin Robinson enjoyed rather a lot when he reviewed it back in 2017. "Rebellion has folded in the essence of stealth greats such as Splinter Cell and Metal Gear while keeping the characterful flavour of Sniper Elite itself," he enthused, "and for the first time it's not necessary to make any excuses on its behalf. Sniper Elite 4 is a really good video game."

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It seems like everyone today is playing Among Us. Innersloth, the studio behind the game that recently boomed in popularity, announced today that they have updated their game with some new features.

The first new feature is an option to add anonymous voting. With this option turned on, all votes will appear as grey so that players will not know who voted for who.

Next, they’ve added the ability to change how the task bar works. Normally, the bar fills up as players complete tasks. This can now be toggled to always be on, only update during meetings, or remain invisible (which removes the task bar entirely).

There is a new addition to one of the sabotages that the imposter can perform: the comms sabotage now clears the security logs, making it a bit trickier for crewmates to track each other.

Finally, a few quality of life changes have been added to Among Us in this update. Symbols have been added to the fix wires task to make it more accessible for colorblind players. Also, cosmetics have been added to the meeting screen.

Various bug fixes and anti-cheating measures have also been implemented in this update.

Innersloth has also outlined a roadmap of features they are working on to be released in the near future.

They hope to add Among Us user accounts by December, which will help with banning and reporting at the start and friend lists later down the road.

A new map will be added free of charge to all players, featuring new tasks and a Henry Stickmin theme.

They’re also working on translating the game to more languages and adding a full colorblind mode so that more people can enjoy the game.

In fact, there’s a good argument to make that TikTok ColorPick is the act of watching paint get wetter. Inspired by the effortlessly daft “#guessthepaint” videos of TikTok artist Christian M Hull, Tiny Islands creator David King has created an interactive toy for guessing your own paint without shelling out a fortune at B&Q. Hey, if it’s free and passes the time this evening, it might just be worth a shot.

Take my advice, though – it almost always ends up beige.

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An elderly man contest is happening today. It is the product not of a functioning democracy, but a system fueled by corporate lobbying, vast fortunes, and the whims of the wealthy. So let’s have a look at what some video game executives have been up to recently.

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We are mere days away from the arrival of the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S, which means a whole load of new games are also set to launch. While both systems are launching with plenty of games, albeit many upgraded editions of existing titles, there are also a bunch of compelling games launching for…

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Genshin Impact has been out for around a month now and it's pretty insane the positive buzz the game has for being a free-to-play gacha game. Despite the inherent dangers of gambling your money away on in-game content, the game beneath the gacha mechanics is really good. I am an unapologetic sucker for games with grinding mechanics, and Genshin Impact has grinding in spades.

Lone Survivor is still my favorite game about suffering from psychosis, and as much of the world reaches month eight of government-mandated COVID-19 precautions, it's now proven to be one of the most prophetic as well.

Even under cheerier circumstances, the game was an intriguing downer, balancing quiet moments of isolation with your pet with tense, often horrific voyages into the outside world. Balancing the need to gather supplies, try (and often fail) to take care of yourself, and maybe even put an end to all the terrible things in your life made for a game with plenty of depth, despite mostly taking place in small, cramped spaces. I wasn't kidding when I said it was prophetic. 

Now Lone Survivor is coming back in a new engine for Switch and PC. Lone developer Jasper Byrne is remaking it from the ground up for modern consoles, and after having talked with him a few times over the years about his thoughts and feelings about making games, I'm nothing short of shocked. I really thought he was done with this particular chapter in his life, but I guess if 2020 has taught us anything, it's that we can never be sure what our ever-changing world will inspire in us.

Slowly but surely, we're checking off Sony-published PS4 games that will officially look and run better on PlayStation 5. Days Gone is next on the list with a confirmation from Bend Studio that the gargantuan open-world romp will reach "up to" 60 frames per second with dynamic 4K on PS5.

According to senior staff game designer Eric Jensen, you'll need the 1.70 patch – a recent 25GB download that brought stability improvements, optimizations, and bug fixes, among other things.

That's as good of a reason as any to start up a New Game+ run (when your backlog allows it, of course). For many of us who never made time for Days Gone despite seeing a pretty favorable reception from players, we'll be able to check out the game on PS5 with the day-one PlayStation Plus Collection.

This game has always felt like a big commitment to me – there's only so much room in my life for open-world gaming, and I don't like leaving games half-finished – but I still want to circle back eventually.

I hope this 60FPS trend continues. There are more games on the PS Plus list I want to hit up.

@BendStudio [Twitter]

Games Done Quick has unveiled the full schedule for its 2021 Awesome Games Done Quick charity speed-running event, which - as was the case with this year's Summer Games Done Quick - will adopt an entirely online format in reponse to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Awesome Games Done Quick 2021 will run from January 3rd to January 10th, with all money raised going to the Prevent Cancer Foundation. It'll feature more than 170 speedruns over the course of its seven-day runtime, offering the usual mix of mega-budget triple-A titles, smaller-scale indie offerings, retro classics, and occasional oddities.

A quick glance down the very long speedrun list offers up the likes of Supergiant Games' masterful dungeon runner Hades, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Capcom's cult classic horror treat Haunting Ground, Night in the Woods' rogue-like DemonTower mini-game, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, and plenty more.

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Look, I deeply admire the craft and ingenuity that goes into serious, elaborate cosplay, but I have a very special place in my heart for stuff like this.

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