Less than a week after it first arrived, Fortnite's controversial new weapon, the Infinity Blade, has been removed. Developer Epic Games announced that it is vaulting the sword across all modes due to its notable impact on the game's balance and the lack of any reliable counters to it.
"We messed up and rolled out the Infinity Blade overpowered / without good counters, especially in the end game," Epic wrote. "The Infinity Blade has been Vaulted and we are re-evaluating our approach to Mythic items. Thanks for calling us out on this!"
The Infinity Blade arrived in Fortnite earlier this week as part of the game's 7.01 update. Unlike other weapons you can pick up in the game, only one sword spawns per match, and it appears in the same location each time: in a pedestal atop Polar Peak, which makes the start of every round a mad dash to get the sword.
Much like the Infinity Gauntlet from the short-lived Thanos LTM, the Infinity Blade grants its wielder incredible powers, including increased max health and shields, increased movement speed, and more. While it's still possible to kill the player wielding the sword, it's clear that the first person who manages to pick it up is at a big advantage. Epic's decision to remove it completely from the game comes shortly after the developer had said that it would reduce the Infinity Blade's effectiveness.
It's unclear if or when Epic plans to reintroduce the Infinity Blade to Fortnite, but the developer mentioned that it is "re-evaluating [its] approach to Mythic items," suggesting that other special types of weapons may be in the works for the game.
By Anonymous on Dec 14, 2018 11:55 pm Join Jean-Luc and Ben as they check out the new holiday event and get back to hunting with you the community in Monster Hunter World.
By Anonymous on Dec 14, 2018 11:39 pm The Asylum is visited by a Dark Cousin and a homicidal Santa Claus in Episodes 7 and 8. Don't miss Ryan and Greg's continuing breakdown of American Horror Story's second season. Bonus: Stu makes a return!
By Anonymous on Dec 14, 2018 11:30 pm Marvel's Spider-Man offers the best web-slinging traversal system ever experienced in a game, but the quality of its story and characters is why this PS4 exclusive stands out.
Over the next few days, we will reveal what we believe are the 10 best games of 2018, organized by release date. Then on December 19, we will reveal which of the nominees gets to take home the coveted title of GameSpot's Game of the Year. So be sure to come back then for the big announcement, and in the meantime, follow along with all of our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best of 2018 hub.
Marvel's Spider-Man is special, if for no other reason than that it's the closest a video game has come to capturing what it feels like to be everyone's favorite friendly neighborhood wall-crawler. It's exhilarating to step off a skyscraper and hear the orchestral score begin to swell, only to crescendo and level out as you start swinging towards your next objective; there's never a moment in the game's 20-hour run-time where you don't want to be flying through the air. You're constantly unlocking or discovering tricks that Spidey is known for pulling off in the comics--like firing out a web from both shooters to slingshot yourself through a hanging pipe--that make traveling from point A to point B the most thrilling part of the game.
The game knows what it's good at too, and wastes no time throwing you straight into its traversal system after a brief opening cutscene leaves you hovering over a city street. Pulling the right trigger on your controller fires out a web from Spidey's shooters with a satisfying thwip, and web-zipping, vaulting, cornering, and wall-running add stylish flair to your journeys across New York. All of the web-slinging mechanics are very easy to grasp, and it won't be long before you're careening over traffic and leaping off buildings with all the natural grace of the Spider-Man from the comics.
This same level of accessibility extends to the game's acrobatic combat, which utilizes a collection of dodges, punches, kicks, and throws to create an enjoyable zen-like flow of counters and strikes. Unlocking new skills and gadgets, such as web throws and electric webbing, allows Spider-Man to be more versatile. Spidey can be stealthy too, and it's fun to quickly zip through the rafters of a building or between the shadows of a warehouse while taking out enemies with trip mines and impact webbing. And regardless of whether you sneak or swing into a situation, Spider-Man is always ready with a collection of clever quips to liven things up.
All of this isn't to say that the game is solely good for being a Spider-Man simulator. Far from it. There's a well-written story in this game too, and it delivers a compelling retelling of the origin of one of Spider-Man's lesser-known enemies, Mister Negative, before transitioning into its own take on the formation of the more notorious Sinister Six. Side missions flesh out other characters from Spider-Man's rogues gallery as well, from familiar faces like Tombstone to relatively unknown ones like Screwball.
Much like the comics, Marvel's Spider-Man is as much a story about Spidey's villains as it is about the wall-crawler. Some people might recognize the names of several of Peter Parker's acquaintances, from his boss at work to his ally on the police force, as supervillains and murderous vigilantes from the comics. One of the game's greatest strengths is how it lays the groundwork for these characters without actually giving away if those you begin to care about are doomed to their fate, because the story leaves you guessing right up until the end whether they're going to follow their comic book origins or not.
An unforeseen, but no less welcome, surprise is the amount of agency the game gives to several of the women in Peter's life, something that's not really been done in other Spider-Man games. Aunt May runs a business that a male antagonist dumps into her lap, while Mary Jane gets her own campaign missions where we see her ingenuity at work. Unfortunately, in the main storyline, Silver Sable is just annoyingly evil, Black Cat is heard but never seen, and Yuri Watanabe is mostly dependent on Spider-Man's help. However, the latter two are fleshed out and have more prominent roles in The Heist and Turf Wars post-launch expansions.
The cookie-cutter nature of Marvel's Spider-Man's crime activities that randomly pop up around the map can get tiresome--especially since you need to tackle dozens of them in order to fully complete the game. But even these side missions fulfill an important purpose, as their inclusion allows you to immerse yourself in Peter's life.
The game makes you feel bad for not being there for the citizens of New York, as they'll rage against you or express their feelings of betrayal on J. Jonah Jameson's podcast if you fail to stop crimes. Their words push you to try and be greater--even if it's 2AM and you should really be going to bed because you have work in the morning. But it's that nagging feeling that you should be trying to do more, even if it's stopping a store robbery for nearly the dozenth time, that defines Peter's life. The inclusion of these activities captures an important part of the fantasy of being Spider-Man, a role which frankly shouldn't be fun all the time, and the entire experience of playing the game is made better as a result.
Marvel's Spider-Man isn't just one of our favorite PS4 games of 2018, it's one of the best titles to come out this year. Between the traversal mechanics, acrobatic combat, and story about a young man trying to shoulder a city's worth of responsibility, Insomniac's newest game captures the essence of what it's like to be Spider-Man.
Over the next few days, we will reveal what we believe are the 10 best games of 2018, organized by release date. Then on December 19, we will reveal which of the nominees gets to take home the coveted title of GameSpot's Game of the Year. So be sure to come back then for the big announcement, and in the meantime, follow along with all of our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best of 2018 hub.
Best known for 2013's Papers, Please, developer Lucas Pope has a knack for crafting memorable and evocative games that engage your deductive reasoning. His latest game, Return of the Obra Dinn, once again puts you in an administrative role--you're an insurance adjuster for the East India Company in the early 19th century--and tasks you with identifying who or what a person is based on limited information. In this case, you have to discover the fates of all 60 crew members and passengers aboard the Obra Dinn, which was lost at sea only to drift back to harbor several years later with no one on board alive.
Armed with a magical pocket watch that allows you to see and explore each victim's final moment and a mostly empty notebook to fill in--as well as your own detective skills and possibly a real-life notebook--you go from corpse to corpse gleaning what you can from short snippets of voiced-but-not-animated scenes frozen in time. Your notebook includes a passenger manifest with names, jobs, and countries of origin as well as an artist's rendition of life on the ship, and differentiating between one seaman and another is no small feat. Return of the Obra Dinn does not hold your hand, and you have to pay very close attention to keep track of who's who, how they died, and, if they were murdered, who did it.
At first, you won't be able to make sense of much. You might see one man shoot another in a scene but not know either of their names, or you might be unsure whether an attack counts as being "knifed" or being "killed (sword)." But as you uncover more and more memories and explore the ship within each, the pieces will begin to fall into place. There's an incredible amount of detail packed into Obra Dinn's mostly still, hauntingly beautiful world, and the smallest of those details--like who is standing next to whom in a memory--give you insight into relationships and roles aboard the fated ship.
An omniscient, voiceless narrator confirms your conclusions in groups of threes, and as you enter the third fate into your notebook, the screen goes dark, the music changes, and text appears: "Well done." This same narrator warns you from the start that some fates will be clearer than others, and some will require you to more or less guess. But sometimes all you need is one piece of information to start a domino effect of deductions--process of elimination and educated guesses go a long way if you know you have two fates correct--and it's those "aha" moments that make Return of the Obra Dinn so compelling.
As you deduce more and more fates, your investment in the small details gives way to investment in the broader story of the Obra Dinn. Someone's accent might give you a clue as to who they are, but hearing them speak or, in some cases, die, makes them more of a person than a puzzle piece. Understanding relationships helps you determine who's a high-ranking crew member and who's a steward, but seeing those relationships play out over dozens of memories gives life to those nonmoving, disparate scenes. Eerie music and sound design are the final flourishes that bring everything together, and by the end, you'll find that even the right answers don't tell the full story.
As you're told at the beginning of the game, sometimes you won't have all the information you need to confidently draw conclusions--you will, at points, have to guess. Return of the Obra Dinn is brilliant not just because its puzzles are satisfying to solve but because it challenges you to make assumptions rather than flawless deductions, and then it challenges your assumptions in turn.
This is not an instant win. No purchase necessary. Competition ends at 12:00 PM PT on December 19, 2018, in which 30 winners will be chosen at random and emailed a code for the full game (MSRP: $30).
Another weekend is here, and that means another visit from Xur, the strangely tentacle-faced Destiny 2 vendor who offers a chance to buy Exotic weapons and armor each week. The start of the Destiny 2 holiday event called The Dawning means that many of us have been baking special cookies to give to the game's characters, so make sure to give Xur a gift before you get one for yourself.
This week, you'll find Xur hanging out on Io, in the Giant's Scar region. Load into the area and then ride your sparrow north, past the machinery, to find a cave set in the wall of the area. Check out the map below for his exact location. Don't forget to make some Strange Cookies to bring him as part of Eva Levante's baking quest.
As is always the case, Xur is packing Exotics from the Year One collection--sorry, still no Forsaken or Black Armory Exotics for sale. Your option for an Exotic weapon this week is Risky Business, along with one piece of Exotic armor for each of the three classes. If you don't already have it, Risky Business is a great weapon to snag because it's a Primary auto rifle that basically functions as a minigun, picking up firing speed the longer you hold down the trigger. You get increased accuracy when firing from the hip, and the gun will automatically load any ammo pickups from the ground into the magazine while firing, all of which makes it a pretty devastating bullet hose.
On the armor side, Hunters have the Orpheus Rig leg armor, which adds more shots to the Moebius Quiver of your Shadowshot super, and gives you ability energy for every enemy you tether with it, which is great for encounters with tons of enemies, like Escalation Protocol. Warlocks get the Claws of Ahamkara gauntlets, which grant a second melee charge to the user, and Titans can grab the Hallowfire Heart chest armor, which makes solar abilities recharge faster, especially when using a solar super.
Here are all the Exotics Xur offers this week and what they'll cost you:
Risky Business (Exotic auto rifle) -- 29 Legendary Shards
Orpheus Rig (Exotic Hunter leg armor) -- 23 Legendary Shards
Claws of Ahamkara (Exotic Warlock gauntlets) -- 23 Legendary Shards
You can also buy a Fated Engram, if you can afford it. Dropping 97 Legendary Shards on the item will grant you one Year One Exotic you don't already have for that character. You can also snag a Five of Swords challenge card for free, which allows you to add difficulty modifiers that increase your score in Nightfall runs.
We're still waiting for Xur to start offering Exotics from Year Two, although it's not clear when, or even if, he'll start selling the new Exotics from Forsaken and beyond. We do know that Xur will soon start to offer something new, though: weekly bounties. According to Bungie's content map for Destiny 2, annual pass holders will be able to start getting bounties from Xur starting in Season 6, which runs from March through May. What those bounties will entail isn't clear yet, but maybe they'll finally shed some light on what Xur's deal is, and his enigmatic masters, the Nine.
In the meantime, there's plenty to do in The Black Armory expansion that recently dropped, which packs an additional five Exotic weapons. We know that at least one of them will come from an Exotic quest launching later in the season, and it seems a second is part of an Exotic quest hidden in the forges.
Rockstar continues to tweak and refine Red Dead Redemption 2's multiplayer mode, Red Dead Online. A new update for the game is now available on PS4 and Xbox One, and along with making general stability improvements and other fixes, it enables microtransactions.
As Rockstar detailed on its blog, Red Dead Online's in-game store is now live as part of the latest update, giving players the option to purchase gold using real-world money. The gold is sold in various bundles, ranging from 25 bars ($10) to 350 bars ($100). You can see the prices for each bundle below:
25 gold bars -- $10 US / £9 / €10
55 gold bars -- $20 US / £18.49 / €20
150 gold bars -- $50 US / £45 / €50
245 gold bars -- $75 US / £70 / €75
350 gold bars -- $100 US / £90 / €100
In addition to these bundles, Rockstar is offering a special one-time deal on 25 gold bars for $5. The developer is also gifting everyone who has participated in the Red Dead Online beta thus far an additional 15 gold bars. To qualify for this gift, you'll need to play the mode by Thursday, December 20. Rockstar says that all gold bars should be delivered to players by December 24.
That isn't the only freebie Rockstar has for players. As an added bonus, those who pre-ordered Red Dead Redemption 2 or purchased the game's Special or Ultimate editions will receive extra RDO$. Players who picked up the Special edition will receive $100 RDO$, while those who bought the Ultimate edition will get $1,000 RDO$. Finally, everyone who pre-ordered the game will take home an extra $100 RDO$ on top of the other bonuses. Rockstar says the cash will automatically be added to players' accounts starting December 21.
There are plenty more updates on the way for Red Dead Online in the near future. Rockstar says it will continue working to address the community's feedback, noting that new anti-griefing measures and gameplay balance improvements are coming. The developer also says it will introduce new features, modes, and other content for Red Dead Online in the new year.
As Christmas approaches, your opportunity to buy gifts for friends, family, and--perhaps most importantly--yourself, shrinks by the day. To help encourage people to finish their holiday shopping, many retailers are running sales right now. And one of the best gaming deals we've seen is at Walmart, where you can save $100 on Xbox One S and X console bundles. That means you can pick up an Xbox One S with a game for just $200, or an even more powerful Xbox One X and a game for $400. It's unclear when this deal will end, so don't delay.
Xbox One S consoles are available with a wide array of pack-in games, ranging from Battlefield V and Fallout 76 to Minecraft and NBA 2K19. That's perfect for anyone who hasn't upgraded to a 4K television set and doesn't plan to anytime soon. Here are the Xbox One S bundles available now for $200.
If you or the person you're buying for has a 4K television, you'll probably want to get an Xbox One X instead. The most powerful video game console on the market, the Xbox One X can push true 4K graphics, which means you'll get the most out of your TV and the console. Here are the discounted bundles available at Walmart right now.
If you need help choosing which model to get, check out our Xbox One S and X console comparison, which goes over the differences between the two hardware configurations in detail. And if you'd like some help picking which bundle to buy, you can read our reviews of the games below.
By Anonymous on Dec 14, 2018 09:30 pm Dirty Arty is back, but this time he doesn't have any clothes! Can Arty survive the harsh climate? Find out in this week's episode of our Red Dead Redemption 2 let's play series.
Discord has announced that in 2019, the launcher will offer 90 percent of the revenue share made off of game sales to developers. That deal undercuts every offer on other major online PC game stores.
"Players really want to have one library --one place to manage their games," wrote Discord CEO and founder Jason Citron. "Unfortunately, because existing stores charge 30 percent per sale, developers are creating their own platforms to avoid this fee. We totally understand that developers are tired of sharing profits."
Steam is one of those stores that Citron references, taking 20-30 percent from developers on a tiered earning structure. Discord's announcement comes in the same month that Epic undercut Steam with the reveal that its store would only take 12 percent of a game's revenue share and have no tiers to the profit-sharing. Certain PC games are also being offered exclusively through Epic's store--like Hades and Journey, and Discord has a 90-day exclusivity on some titles through the "First on Discord" program as well. For the first time in a while, Steam has some serious competition.
Citron cites Discord Nitro's growing success as the reason for why Discord doesn't need to compete with developers for revenue. Nitro is a Netflix-like service for PC games, offering players a library of 60+ titles for $10 USD. Although the service mostly offers indie games, such as Inside and Wasteland 2: Director's Cut, there are triple-A titles like Metro: Last Light Redux and Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition as well. Discord has plans of adding more games to the service in the coming months.
Discord did not provide a specific date for when its store will start offering developers 90 percent of their game's revenue share.
Rockstar has launched its online store for Red Dead Online, the multiplayer mode in Red Dead Redemption 2. Now that you can purchase gold bars, the studio is thanking anyone who has toyed with the online mode early by gifting them some free gold bars. A separate reward awaits players who pre-ordered or bought the Special and Ultimate Editions.
Anyone who has played the Red Dead Online beta through Thursday, December 20 will get 15 gold bars, or a little more than $5 worth of in-game currency. Those gifts will be rolling out as early as today for some users, and all of them will be delivered by Monday, December 24.
In addition, players who pre-ordered Red Dead Redemption 2, and who bought the Special or Ultimate Editions, will get some extra RDO$ deposited into their accounts. Special Edition owners will get $100, while Ultimate Edition owners will get $1,000. Any pre-orders will get $100, and for Special and Ultimate Editions that stacks on top of their other rewards.
Rockstar previously gifted 15 gold bars as a make-good for some bugs and balance issues with the initial launch experience. Between the two, you could have racked up 30 gold bars. That initial apology came paired with a patch to rebalance the game, which is still in a beta period. Rockstar set expectations by launching in beta a month after the single-player game launched, which was altogether similar to how it treated the launch of Grand Theft Auto Online. That game also had some rough patches near the beginning but has been an ongoing success in the years since.
The end of the year is almost upon us, and Google has released its annual "Year in Search" data to provide a look back at the trends that defined 2018. In the realm of video games, at least, it's not terribly surprising which ones made the list.
The top video game search term of 2018 was Fortnite, which exploded in popularity this year. Rounding out the rest of the top five were Red Dead Redemption 2, Fallout 76, Far Cry 5, and God of War. Expanding to the top ten includes a handful of other popular games, along with some surprising inclusions like Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Zombs Royale, the browser-based game.
Fortnite's popularity actually transcended the video games category, and was the most popular gif search as well. Presumably lots of people wanted to learn how to floss this year.
This is all according to the US data, whereas the global search data contains fewer and mostly broader categories. That list includes search queries like actors, movies, and bands, along with celebrities who have passed away in the last year like comics legend Stan Lee. Last year's global data also had a category for consumer tech, which showed the Switch beating Xbox One X.
Shooter fans, if you've been holding off for a discount before picking up this year's Call of Duty, now is probably the time to pull the trigger (please excuse the pun). As part of Best Buy's Nick of Time sale, which runs through December 17, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is down to $30 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Better yet, Amazon is matching the price on most platforms. We probably don't have to tell you that getting one of the biggest games of the year for half off just two months after it launched is a remarkable deal.
This discount arrives during a string of massive sales that seem to represent one final push to sell as many video games as possible in the lead-up to Christmas. You can find other killer deals at GameStop, PlayStation Store, GOG, and other retailers.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is this year's installment in the annual franchise. Developed by Treyarch, it comes with the traditional multiplayer and Zombies modes, but no single-player campaign. Instead, it has Blackout, a battle royale mode similar to PUBG and Fortnite that finds around 100 players dropping onto an island as a deadly storm shrinks the playing area, pushing everyone together. The last person or team standing wins the round.
In GameSpot's Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 review, critic Kallie Plagge wrote, "Black Ops 4 isn't short on content, and its three main modes are substantial. Multiplayer introduces more tactical mechanics without forcing you into them, and it largely strikes a good balance. Zombies has multiple deep, secret-filled maps to explore, though its returning characters don't hold up and prove distracting. Finally, Blackout pushes Call of Duty in an entirely new direction, making use of aspects from both multiplayer and Zombies for a take on the battle royale genre that stands on its own."
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