Router: Netgear Nighthawk AC1750 Smart Dual Band WiFi Router (R6700)
Whether you're editing documents over Google Docs or engaging in a competitive multiplayer match, Netgear's Nighthawk AC1750 has got you wirelessly covered. It supports more than 12 devices and both 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless signals. Its range is aided by three external antennas, and it's quite fast, with download rates that can hit 450Mbps.
Price: $95
Backpack: Everki Beacon
There are a ton of cheap backpacks out there, but the Everki Beacon is a quality pack that is built to last. For its shell, the Beacon uses a lot of mesh padding, and there's rubber padding at the bottom that offers a little protection in case you drop it. The Beacon comes with a water-resistant tarp that allows you to protect it from the rain. The pack also has a separate laptop compartment that can fit the largest 17-inch gaming notebooks. In general, the backpack has a bunch of compartments that can hold all your school supplies. To top it off, the Beacon looks good, comes with a chest strap, and is comfortable to wear with its soft shoulder straps.
Price: $112.73
Printer: Brother HL-L2340DW
While there are certainly cheaper printers, Brother's HL-L2340DW laser printer is arguably the best budget solution on the market. Setup is easy, ink cartridges are relatively cheap, and it works over Wi-Fi, which allows you to print from mobile devices via Apple AirPrint or Google Cloud Print.
Price: $120
Speakers: Razer Leviathan
Razer might be better known for its gaming headsets on the audio front, but it also makes a quality soundbar. The company's Razer Leviathan speaker sounds clear and crisp, and it offers a ton of bass with its included subwoofer. The soundbar is also small enough to be tucked under monitors and supports NFC pairing, Bluetooth, optical, and auxiliary inputs. In addition, it supports Dolby Digital Surround with two 2.5-inch drivers coupled with two .74-inch tweeters.
Price: $189.99
Webcam: Logitech C920
Logitech's C920 webcam is great for both streaming and video calls. It's a 1080p camera that has two mics, which allows it to capture stereo audio. The C920 also offers low-light correction, so you can use it in dim environments.
Price: $58.58
Mic: Audio Technica ATR2500
While the Blue Yeti is a highly recommended microphone for streamers and video/audio producers, Audio Technica's ATR2500 shouldn't be overlooked. It's a cardioid condenser USB microphone that can be found on sale quite often for $69.99, which makes it worth a look. Near-professional audio doesn't have to cost you $100-plus, and if you're a student, you can always appreciate saving money without sacrificing quality.
Price: $99.00 (frequently on sale for $69.99)
Entertainment: Netflix Subscription
At $7.99 a month, Netflix is a great, affordable way for students to unwind. The streaming service offers over 6,400 movies and 1,600 shows and works on almost every computing device out there. Users can also download select videos to watch offline, and the service can be canceled anytime.
Price: $7.99 per month
Delivery Service: Amazon Prime
Amazon Prime gives you so much: free shipping, extra discounts, Prime Video, Prime Reading, and even Twitch Prime benefits (such as no ads and free games). You can almost find anything you'd need to buy on Amazon (books, school supplies, electronics, you name it), so the free shipping and extra discount on certain items is enough to justify a membership. And if you tend to wait until the last minute for things, many areas get same-day shipping and free two-day delivery.
Price: $10/month or $100/year
Set Top Box: Nvidia Shield
The Nvidia Shield not only supports your standard array of popular streaming apps like Netflix and Amazon Video, but it allows you to play a bunch of Android games and stream PC games from locally networked computers. The device supports Google Assistant AI, so users can ask it to keep them up to date with reminders and more. Finally, it supports Google Cast, which allows people to stream videos to the device using their phones.
Price: $199.99
Portable Bluetooth Speaker: Ultimate Ears Boom 2
The UE Boom 2 is arguably the best portable Bluetooth speaker around. It's loud enough for small parties, rugged enough to survive five-foot drops, and waterproof for up to 30 minutes. This makes it a great speaker to use in the shower or at the beach. It's also got pretty good battery life and can last 15 hours on a single charge.
Price: $150
Pre-built Gaming PC: Cyberpower PC Syber Vapor Elite
CyberPowerPC offers great pre-built rigs at affordable prices. The company's Syber Vapor Elite is one that's powerful enough for design work and video production duties. Oh, and it's also a pretty competent gaming PC with its quad-core CPU and GTX 1060 GPU. The Syber Vapor Elite is small enough to fit into the tiniest dorm rooms and apartments without much issue. The company also allows you to tweak the configuration. We recommend spending $1,155 so you can get an external optical drive and a 240GB SSD coupled with a 1TB HDD.
Price: $1,155
Keyboard: Corsair K68 Water Resistant Mechanical Keyboard
Those who are particular about their keyboard should look into Corsair's K68 since it comes with smooth Cherry MX Red mechanical switches. It also has a rubberized gasket underneath the keycaps that not only makes keystrokes quieter, but protects the innards from getting damaged if you spill liquid on it.
Price: $100
Mouse: Razer Naga Hex V2
Razer's Naga Hex V2 mouse is designed for MOBA players with its eight programmable side buttons, but they also come in handy for productivity. Video producers, photographers, engineers can program keyboard shortcuts to these buttons to make their applications easier to use. Even writers can use these buttons for simple actions in word processing applications.
Price: $80, can be found for $60
Mobile Gaming: Nintendo New 2DS XL
Nintendo's New 2DS XL is the latest iteration of the 2DS/3DS, and while it's late in its life cycle, there are so many great games to play on it, especially if you have yet to jump in. The New 2DS XL is a bit more compact than the New 3DS XL and sports a sleek design and two large screens. When you have some downtime during commutes, between classes, or after exams, jump into Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Fire Emblem: Awakening, or Xenoblade Chronicles.
Price: $150
Power Bank: Anker PowerCore 10000
With mobile devices being so essential to our daily lives, it's important to keep them up and running. That's why it's important to carry a power bank. One of the best portable chargers is Anker's PowerCore 10000. As the name implies, it offers 10,000mAh of juice. That's more than enough to fully charge an iPhone 6 three times over. Considering it offers so much battery life, it's pretty small. To top it off, the PowerCore 10000 also offers high-speed charging.
Price: $26
Earbuds: Plantronics Backbeat Fit
You can find cheap earbuds everywhere, but finding quality wireless ones can be a challenge. Luckily, there's Plantronics' Backbeat Fit. The Bluetooth earbuds are designed for fitness, which makes them great at keeping the "freshman 15" at bay. They're sweat-proof and water resistant with their IP57 rating, and wrap around the ear for a stable fit. They also last up to eight hours on a single charge, which makes them great for lengthy study sessions.
Price: $79.90
USB drive: LaCie XtremKey USB 3.0 (32GB)
A USB thumb drive is one of the most essential tools in high school and college. Whether you're moving large video files, bringing your Powerpoint presentation to class, or just taking your essay to the library to print, thumb drives are clutch and a must-have. The LaCie XtremKey, in particular, is built to withstand harsh conditions since it's secured in a hardened waterproof aluminum case. It's also a USB 3.0 thumb drive, so data transfer will be pretty fast. We recommend the 32GB version since that's pretty spacious, but sizes up to 128GB are available.
Price: $45
External Hard Drive: WD 1TB My Passport
While a USB stick works great in a pinch. If you want something larger to archive videos and documents, we recommend getting a beefier external hard drive. WD offers one terabyte solutions that scale up to 4TB with its My Passport HDDs. The portable drive is pretty fast with its USB 3.0 support and allows users to reach read and write speeds of 174MBps and 168MBps, respectively. The 1TB SKU retails for $53, which makes it pretty affordable.
Price: $53
Windows Laptop: Dell XPS 13
There are a plethora of Windows laptops out on the market, but arguably the best travel-friendly one is Dell's XPS 13. It features excellent build quality and can be outfitted with good internal specs that include a quad-core i5 CPU, 8GB of memory, and a 128GB SSD. It also comes with a 1920x1080 IPS touchscreen display coupled with a 64-bit version of Windows 10.
Price: $930
Apple Laptop: Macbook Air
Apple's devices are usually pretty expensive, but the company's MacBook Air is very reasonably priced. For $750, you can get a thin and light 13.3-inch Apple notebook that's equipped with a quad-core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. Despite the laptop's small size, it's got a battery that can last up to 12 hours.
Price: $750
Gaming Laptop: Gigabyte Aero 15
While Dell's XPS 13 and Apple's MacBook Air are great portable notebooks, they can't match the power that a gaming laptop offers. With its 1080p IPS panel, quad-core 7700HQ CPU, GeForce GTX 1060, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD, it offers balanced specs that make it great for gaming or productivity. It's also very portable for a gaming laptop and offers good battery life.
Price: $1,899
Chromebook: Asus Chromebook C202SA-YS02
For the student who just needs to do some word processing and browsing, there's the Chromebook category. Asus' offering here might only offer 16GB of storage, but it doesn't need much since its operating system is essentially just Google's Chrome browser. It's also only $199. Still, for that price, you get a spill-resistant keyboard and decent specs that include Intel's Celeron N3060 processor coupled with 4GB of RAM. Because the Chromebook isn't very power hungry, it can also last up to 10 hours.
Price: $199
Tablet: Asus ZenPad 10.1
There's a sea of tablets out there, but for the student, Asus' ZenPad 10.1 is a compelling choice. The one-pound 10.1-inch tablet is affordable and uses a 1280x800-resolution IPS panel that's equipped with a quad-core 64-bit processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. It also supports Micro SD cards up to 64GB.
In the gallery below, you'll find every Knights of the Frozen Throne card that's been shown off so far. These include cards with a new keyword, Lifesteal, which heals players based on the damage that it does. There are also Legendary Hero cards, which replace your character with a modified Death Knight version when played; these come with a new ability and look.
In addition to new cards, Knights of the Frozen Throne includes new single-player content--something the most recent expansion, Journey to Un'Goro, did not. Earlier this year, Blizzard made changes to how new expansions and single-player Adventures are rolled out. Knights of the Frozen Throne's single-player component is different than those in the past, as it comes with a set of free missions, including a prologue, two wings of three boss fights each, and a final battle against the Lich King. Completing the prologue will net you a random Legendary Hero card, while finishing each wing will also get you a card from the expansion. If you make your way through everything, you'll also obtain a card pack.
A special, one-time pre-order offer is available for Knights of the Frozen Throne, allowing you to buy 50 card packs for $50. Doing so also gets you a special card back, pictured above along with some new artwork.
Hearthstone's latest expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne, is just days away. Blizzard announced today that it launches for all players next Thursday, August 10.
As its title suggests, Knights of the Frozen Throne is themed around Warcraft's Lich King and the Frozen Throne. It introduces another 135 cards to the game, including those with the Lifesteal keyword, which heals players for the amount of damage the card deals. Legendary Hero cards are also new; when played, they replace the user's character with a Death Knight version that sports a new look and ability.
Another component of Knights of the Frozen Throne is new single-player content, which was absent from the Journey to Un'Goro expansion released earlier this year. Blizzard has altered the way it rolls out single-player Adventures. For this expansion, you'll get a bunch of stuff for free: there's a prologue, two wings of three boss fights each, and a final battle against the Lich King. A random Legendary Hero card is awarded upon finishing the prologue, while a free card pack is available for completing everything.
We haven't yet gotten a look at every new card from the expansion, but more than half of them have now been revealed. You can check those out in our gallery of every Knights of the Frozen Throne card shown off so far. If you're suitably intrigued, you can pre-purchase 50 Frozen Throne card packs at a discounted rate of $50. This offer is only available once per account.
While games continue to regularly go on sale in the Wii U and 3DS Eshops, discounts have been much rarer to see on Nintendo Switch, with only one notable exception thus far. Now, however, Switch owners have a rare chance to snag a pair of games from the Eshop at a discount.
Square Enix's nostalgic RPG, I Am Setsuna, is currently on sale in the Switch Eshop for $26.79, 33% off of its standard price of $40. The melancholy adventure follows the eponymous Setsuna, who is fated to be sacrificed in order to save her land. The game marked the debut effort of developer Tokyo RPG Factory and was inspired primarily by classic RPGs such as Chrono Trigger. It received positive reviews when it released, so this would be a good opportunity to pick it up before the studio's next effort, Lost Sphear, arrives on the console. The sale ends on August 10 at 9 AM PT/12 PM ET.
Switch owners can also snag a discount on TumbleSeed, the "roll-y roguelike" that challenges players with balancing a seed while climbing up progressively more treacherous mountains. The game normally retails for $15, but for a limited time Switch owners can pick it up for $10. The sale coincides with a new update the development team just released, which adds six new game modes to the title (including a Switch-exclusive two-player battle mode), new persistent abilities, a weekly challenge, and more. The update also makes the notoriously difficult game easier.
Meanwhile on 3DS and Wii U, a number of Kirby games are on sale in each console's respective Eshop to celebrate the series' 25th anniversary. From now until August 8, 3DS owners can purchase Kirby: Planet Robobot and Kirby Triple Deluxe for $30 and $15, respectively, while 3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure is on sale for $5.24. Wii U owners can find discounts on various Kirby Virtual Console titles, including Kirby's Return to Dream Land ($15), Kirby 64: They Crystal Shards ($7.49), and Kirby's Dream Land 3 ($6). You can find the full list of Kirby games on sale here.
This has been a fairly busy week for the Switch Eshop. Seven new titles debuted for the service yesterday, including the Grand Theft Auto sendup Retro City Rampage and the NeoGeo shoot-'em-up Aero Fighters 2. A region-free demo of Monster Hunter XX is scheduled to arrive in the Japanese Eshop next week, on August 10, but all Switch owners will be able to download it simply by creating a new Nintendo Account and setting their region to Japan.
Like numerous other game companies, Square Enix has reported its earnings for its most recent fiscal quarter, which came to an end on June 30, 2017. It was a period without any major new game releases, although there were still some bright spots.
Most notably, the launch of Final Fantasy XIV's Stormblood expansion led to a sizable increase in Square Enix's MMO business. MMO net sales for the quarter were 9.3 billion yen, over 3 billion more than during any quarter in the previous year. The publisher will continue to pursue the MMO space, as the next two months will see new versions of Dragon Quest X released for PS4 and Nintendo Switch in Japan.
On the traditional packaged games side, net sales were down due to the lack of new releases. However, Square Enix did see "strong download sales" of its catalog titles, specifically calling out Nier: Automata (which I assume did well entirely because of this video). This led to the company's console games generating more operating income (the amount the company earns before deducting taxes or interest) when compared with the same period a year ago.
In terms of mobile games, Square Enix described its mainstays--Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius, Hoshi No Dragon Quest, Dragon Quest: Monsters Super Light, and Kingdom Hearts Union X--as "continuing to show strong performances." The mobile/PC browser segment saw an increase in net sales to 23.7 billion yen, up from 19.7 billion last year.
Unfortunately, no specific unit sales figures for any of these games were shared. Total net sales for the quarter were 57 billion yen, up from 51.1 billion a year ago; operating income was down to 3.9 billion from 8.9 billion. Square Enix warned investors of the "major changes" facing the industry, which could lead to larger fluctuations in future results. In particular, it noted that "consumer needs for contents suitable to smart devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs are rapidly expanding, while the console game markets in North America and Europe are increasingly getting competitive and oligopolistic."
As reported by The Verge, Episode 4 of the current season of Game of Thrones is now online. It has been confirmed that the source of this leak is Star India, one of HBO's distribution partners, and that the company's logo appears as a watermark throughout the episode.
In a statement, a spokesman for Star India said, "[We can confirm] the compromise of episode 4 of Game of Thrones Season 7, earlier this afternoon. We take this breach very seriously and have immediately initiated forensic investigations at our and the technology partner's end to swiftly determine the cause. This is a grave issue and we are taking appropriate legal remedial action."
As The Verge notes, the leak earlier this week hasn't yet resulted in any Game of Thrones episodes appearing online, only scripts for the show. Hackers obtained 1.5 terabytes of data from HBO, which also included upcoming episodes of the sports comedy Ballers and the new anthology drama Room 104.
The HBO breach was the latest in a series of hacking threats against high-profile entertainment companies. In May, it was reported that Disney's big-budget sequel Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales had been stolen and was being held for ransom by hackers. However, the studio subsequently denied that the film was taken, and stated that it was a merely a "threat."
This followed an incident earlier this year, when a hacker claimed that he had stolen the latest season of the Netflix show Orange is the New Black, and was similarly demanding a payout from the streaming giant. The biggest studio hack to date was the infamous attack on Sony's servers in 2014, when over 100 terabytes of data was uploaded online.
By Anonymous on Aug 04, 2017 09:15 pm Welcome to Game Dump, where Joey and Jean-Luc go though our massive collection of games and judge if they are worthy of keeping.
The first proper Splatfest in Nintendo's colorful Switch shooter, Splatoon 2, is set to begin soon. The event kicks off in the US tonight, August 4, at 9 PM PT/12 AM ET and in the UK on August 5 at 3 PM BST.
This Splatfest runs for a full 24 hours and, like the World Premiere Demo that took place before the game released, revolves around food. This time, players are asked to choose which condiment they prefer: mayo or ketchup?
To take part in the Splatfest, simply pledge your fealty to your condiment of choice at the voting booth in Inkopolis Square, and the wins you amass in Turf War will go toward your team's overall score. Depending on your rank by the end of the event, participants will be rewarded with a number of Super Sea Snails, rare items that can be used to add additional slots to your gear.
We already got a glimpse at one of the maps that will be featured during the event: Shifty Station, an entirely new stage that will make its debut tonight. Unlike the other maps in the game, however, Shifty Station will only be available in the stage rotation during Splatfests. Nintendo says its layout changes from event to event, so players will be battling on a different version of the map the next time it appears during a Splatfest.
Nintendo is also releasing another free DLC weapon to coincide with the Splatfest. This time, players will be able to purchase the Sploosh-O-Matic, a returning weapon from the first Splatoon. This particular shooter has a short range but compensates with its high attack power. It's sub-weapon in Splatoon 2 is the Curling Bomb and its special attack is Splashdown.
New games continue to roll out for the Nintendo Switch, with a total of seven new games arriving on the Switch Eshop today. The biggest of these is Retro City Rampage DX, an upgraded port of the 2012 game.
Retro City Rampage is an open-world action game designed as a sort of parody of '80s and '90s games and of the original, top-down Grand Theft Auto titles. After launching on PC, PS3, and PS Vita five years ago, it later came to Xbox 360, Wii, PS4, 3DS, PSP, iOS, Android, microwaves, calculators, and vacuum cleaners (probably). About time it came to Switch, then. It'll set you back $15 / £13 / €15. Developer Vblank is also working on a spiritual successor called Shakedown Hawaii, which is coming to Switch (as well as PC, PS4, Vita, and 3DS) soon.
Also new is the fast-paced twitch platformer Slime-San, which previously launched on PS4, Xbox One, and PC in April. That'll cost you $12 / £10 / €12. There's also arcade Pong-variant Gunbarich and aerial arcade game Strikers 1945 for $8 / £6 / €6 each, cute brain-twister Puzzle Adventure Blockle for $8 / £6 / €6.29, and multiplayer party game Use Your Words, which costs $15 / £11.79 / €13.
Finally, the Switch receives its customary ACA Neo Geo game of the week. This time around it's Aero Fighters 2, another aerial shoot-'em-up. It was first released in 1994, and now you can play it on your Switch for the price of $8 / £6.29 / €7. In addition to the new games, one older one is on sale. I Am Setsuna, the popular JRPG, is available for 33% off for one week.
Looking ahead, the Switch will receive a region-free demo of Monster Hunter XX next week, despite the game still not being confirmed for a western release. The Switch's firmware was also updated this week to fix a battery display issue, bringing with it the usual stability and performance improvements.
Sega Sammy has reported the results of its most recent fiscal quarter, which ended on June 30, 2017. Persona 5 and Phantasy Star Online 2 were among the highlights for its video game business, while a big increase in the pachinko business helped the company to reach a positive quarter.
As revealed recently, Sega stated that Persona 5 has shipped a combined 1.8 million units worldwide since its Japanese release last year and April 2017 launch internationally. A regional breakdown was not shared, but the company said the RPG "performed well" outside of Japan. The performance of Sega's two other major game releases during the quarter, Dawn of War III and Endless Space 2, was not specified.
Once again, Sega called out the success of Phantasy Star Online 2, which frustratingly remains unavailable in the West. Sega noted that, despite turning five years old in July, it continues to "perform strongly." It also called attention to the launch of a "large-scale update," Episode 5, from late last month as a sign of its continued support. There was, however, still no word regarding an international release for the online RPG.
Sales for the quarter were 107.2 billion yen, up from 70.6 billion during the same quarter a year ago. That increase can be attributed almost entirely to the pachinko business, which saw sales jump to 54.9 billion yen from 21.2 billion yen thanks to strong sales of Hokuto No Ken 7 Resurrection. That actually exceeded the amount generated by the Entertainment Contents group (50.2 billion yen), which includes Sega's video game business.
With August comes another month of new games to play. There's a great selection of new releases, like Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, Yakuza Kiwami, Madden NFL 18, and more. It's only the beginning of what's to come in the next few months leading up to the end of the year. Below, you can see the biggest August releases as well as a list of some of the most notable games coming out this month.
Uncharted 4 wrapped up Nathan Drake's story, but the franchise continues with Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Set in India, the game focuses on established series characters Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross embarking on a journey to discover the Tusk of Ganesha.
Aside from what you've come to expect from the Madden series, its latest entry features a story mode called Longshot, which stars House of Cards and Moonlight actor Mahershala Ali and follows a football player with the goal of making it to the NFL.
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle -- August 29 (Switch)
The upcoming turn-based strategy cross-over game Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle was first revealed at Ubisoft's E3 2017 press conference. It shares similarities to the XCOM series while retaining the colorful, lighthearted nature of both the Mario and Rabbids franchises.
DC's upcoming miniseries Nightwing: The New Order completely changes the dynamic of the comic book universe. The majority of heroes and villains alike had their powers stripped from them, and the man leading the charge, while working with the government, to hunt down the remaining metahumans is Dick Grayson, also known as Nightwing.
Kyle Higgins, the writer of The New Order, first worked on the New 52's Nightwing series back in 2011, and his return to the character was exciting for him, to say the least, "It feels familiar but different," Higgins told GameSpot. "I can write him in my sleep though. He's my all-time favorite character. It's more exciting than anything. I've already written the series, and now that I'm done, it's a bit sad. Even though it was for a very specific story, he was my guy again."
The six-issue miniseries follows Dick Grayson in 2040. "Dick's like 45 years old and he has a 12-year-old son," explained Higgins. "We're living in a world where about 12 years earlier, Dick detonated a device that neutralized 90% of the world's superpowers. There had been a proliferation and spread of superpowers in the world. They were as easy to get as a loaf of bread at the supermarket. You could walk into a bodega and pick up telekinesis. In a lot of ways, it's an allegory for the gun issue in our country right now but through the lens of DC superheroes and superpowers. The spread and incidents that escalated in the world finally culminated with something that's like the Armageddon war of Metropolis."
The New Order miniseries--you can see a preview of the first issue above--is a very different tale for the character many people know as Batman's former sidekick, Robin. "This is a unique situation because it's my take on Nightwing out of continuity. It's like an Elseworlds, and it takes place far enough in the future that I'm defining the character. I'm not playing off of established continuity that's happening in the mainline right now or anything like that." Higgins and artist Trevor McCarthy have carte blanche with the character and the world he inhabits, leading to this unique take on characters losing their powers.
By neutralizing the world's metahumans, Nightwing's actions lead to an authoritarian state: "The world did get safer, but similar to what we see in our country, things went too far. Laws passed that made superpowers illegal, and if you were part of the 10% that had superpowers, you had to register, and go on inhibitor medication, and if the inhibitor medication didn't work, which was very, very rare, then you're put into stasis until the doctor can figure out a way to take them away."
The story of a superhero losing their powers has been done before but never on such a large scope as this. There are many changes to the world around characters people know and love and with that, come redesigns of characters. Higgins explained that McCarthy did many redesigns of popular characters, and McCarthy's take on Superman was the writer's favorite.
Higgins closed by discussing the relationship between Dick Grayson and his son, Jake, and the dynamic's affect on the story: "It's Jake [in the future] narrating the book, looking back asking the question that we as readers are asking, 'How does my dad, who a lot of people said was the heart and soul of the DC Universe come to believe that this was best for the world? Was the world really that bad that this was the only way for the world to move forward?'"
Higgins and McCarthy's Nightwing: The New Order comes to comic shops and digital formats on August 23.
This Sunday's episode of Game of Thrones will be the series' shortest ever. According to Entertainment Weekly, the episode, "The Spoils Of War," clocks in at 50 minutes. It's the shortest episode ever across all seasons, but only by one minute.
The previous three episodes in Season 3 came in at around an hour or just over. While this Sunday's episode might be the shortest ever, the fifth episode, which airs on August 13, will move back to around the normal length, coming in at 59 minutes.
The Season 7 finale, meanwhile, is the longest Game of Thrones episode ever, clocking in at 80 minutes. It's significantly longer than the previous longest episode, the Season 6 finale, which was 69 minutes long.
In Game of Thrones Season 8, which is the final season, episodes could each be as long as movies. Seasons 7 and 8 containing just 13 episodes between them, which is shorter than usual, but the longer episodes might mean the total runtime is just about the same.
For more on this week's episode, check out the spoiler-y preview above. GameSpot will have a breakdown of of the biggest moments and more after it airs this Sunday at 9 PM on HBO.
Destiny 2's expansions are going to be very important for the overall health and success of the shooter, according to publisher Activision. Speaking on an earnings call today, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg gave a high-level overview of how the publisher is thinking about Destiny 2 ahead of launch and the importance of its DLC.
Starting off, Hirshberg said there are "a lot of positive signs" about Destiny 2. Starting off, Activision believes in the game itself--Hirshberg said the publisher has a "tremendous amount of confidence" in it.
"We received almost universally positive feedback from both the press and the fans alike," Hirshberg said, adding that the game's development cycle is "continuing to close strong."
One of the reasons why Activision is so optimistic about Destiny 2 is because it is taking steps to broaden the franchise's appeal, Hirshberg said, with things like bringing it to PC, localising it for more countries, and partnering with Blizzard to launch the PC edition through the World of Warcraft company's massively popular Battle.net service.
He added that pre-orders for Destiny 2 have been "very strong" and added that an "overwhelmingly high percentage" of pre-orders have been for the premium versions that include the game and its expansion content.
Destiny 2 will be supported with multiple expansions after launch. While these have yet to be fully detailed, Hirshberg stressed that Destiny 2's expansion content is incredibly important.
"Finally, and maybe most importantly with a game like this, Destiny is so engaging that the follow-on content is almost as important if not as important as the main game," Hirshberg said.
The success of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is no secret, as it's topped numerous sales charts since its release in late June. During a post-earnings conference call with investors, Activision Blizzard discussed the game's performance and the possibility of more remasters from the company--and the odds sure sound good.
Responding to a question about what Crash's success could mean, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg said, "We knew that there was a passionate audience out there for Crash--full disclosure, myself among them--but we had no idea... it's hard to tell if that's a vocal minority or that's a real mass audience until you put something out there. Crash has surpassed all of our expectations by a pretty wide margin."
Without revealing any sales figures, Hirshberg then noted how well N. Sane Trilogy has performed. It was the world's top-selling console game in June even though it was only released on the second-to-last day of the month, and we learned today that it was the top-selling PS4 game on PSN in the US and Europe.
And while there's likely something to be gleaned from the success N. Sane Trilogy has enjoyed, Hirshberg argued that remasters are not an entirely new space for Activision. "I think this is just another example of us really listening to our communities and our fans and offering them great content where they want to engage, which is one of our core strategies," he said. "We think we have other great IP in our portfolio that we're considering, of course, but this isn't new behavior for us. We've already shown the power that is Modern Warfare Remastered [and] Zombies Chronicles, and Crash Bandicoot is obviously another great example.
"So this is a strategy that clearly has our attention, and while there are no new announcements today, I think you can be confident there will be more activity like this in the future with more great IP. The other opportunity beyond remasters is to look at some of our classic IP and ask whether or not it can be reborn on a new platform, like what we're doing with Skylanders on mobile. Our IP library is an asset that, when done right, can be very powerful."
Welcome to Game Dump, where Joey and Jean-Luc go though our massive collection of games and judge if they are worthy of keeping.
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