The developers of several acclaimed indie games, such as Spelunky and Downwell, have come together to create a compilation of 8-bit games. Called UFO 50, it includes 50 new titles from several different genres.
According to the developers, their goal "is to combine a familiar 8-bit aesthetic with new ideas and modern game design sensibilities." Derek Yu (Spelunky), Eirik Suhrke (Spelunky, Ridiculous Fishing), Jon Perry (Time Barons), Paul Hubans (Spunk and Moxie), and Ojiro Fumoto (Downwell) have each worked on the collection. You can check out UFO 50's announcement trailer below to get a sense of some of the games that it includes.
UFO 50's website states that players can expect "full games" that are "slightly smaller than commercial 8-bit titles from the '80s," and that it could take hundreds of hours to finish every game in the compilation. The games are connected only by a 32-color palette and "other restrictions" that the developers decided upon.
All 50 games will be playable solo, and "roughly a third" will have some sort of multiplayer mode. It's currently scheduled for launch in 2018 on PC, and console releases will come after that. There's no set price yet, but the developers "want it to be an easy purchase."
Although you won't be roaming around Mordor with friends in Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the game nonetheless has a new multiplayer component that sounds pretty cool: you'll be able to invade other players' captured fortresses and defend your own from similar assaults.
As reported by Eurogamer, the mode is called Social Conquest and seems similar to the Forward Operating Base missions in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. After defeating all the Orcs controlling a fortress, you can take control and customize it. You'll be able to install commanders and captains from your own Orc army, and you can buy upgrades to make it more difficult to capture.
After customizing it to your satisfaction, you can then share your fortress online. This allows other players to then attack it, attempting to kill your followers and capture the base. The mode has two variations: friendly conquests, which allow the attacker to retain all of their followers after combat, and ranked conquests, which let you rise a leaderboard with each successful conquest but at the risk of permanently losing followers.
If a player succeeds in Social Conquest, they'll get a loot chest and spoils of war, which can be redeemed for spoils of war chests. They'll contain followers and other items. It's unclear at the moment what the outcome is for a defender that loses a battle.
Shadow of War also features Vendettas, missions that originally appeared in Shadow of Mordor. These are essentially revenge missions: you can challenge an Orc that killed a friend to battle. The new Vendettas, however, are more complicated; players must complete objectives first to attract the Orc that killed their friend.
Following its reveal at E3 in June, Horizon: Zero Dawn's first expansion now has a release date. The Frozen Wilds is due out on November 7, developer Guerrilla Games announced today.
A story-based DLC expansion was announced not long after Horizon's release, but it wasn't until E3 that we learned it would be winter-themed and take Aloy to the north. It features a new area with new story content, side-quests, and more. You can check out a trailer for it above.
The Frozen Wilds will cost $20/£16/AU$30 upon its release, but PlayStation Plus members can currently pick it up on PSN at a discount, dropping its price to $15/£14.39/AU$27. Anyone who pre-orders it receives a special Banuk Aloy avatar for use on PSN.
While this will mark the first big DLC release for the game, there have been a number of post-launch updates. That included a substantial one in early July that introduced New Game+ and a higher difficulty setting.
8-7-17 update: This story has been updated to reflect new CPUs, GPUs, motherboard platforms, and more.
For the uninitiated, building a computer might sound as daunting as building a rocket ship, but assembling a PC is not rocket science. As a matter of fact, if you've ever put together a Lego set, then you've got the chops to build a basic PC. The more challenging part of the process is simply educating yourself on what parts to buy, but planning out your build is also arguably the most fun part. To help you enjoy this process, we've written this PC component shopping starter guide, and by the end of it, you'll be ready to hit the ground running to start building your own custom PC!
First things first:
Building a PC doesn't have to be expensive. If you plan to do most of your gaming at a resolution of 1080p (which is by far the most common gaming resolution today) and you only want to play less-demanding games like League of Legends, DOTA 2, or Hearthstone, you could spend as little as $400 on your PC. If you want to jump into the deep end to play games like The Witcher 3 at pupil-splitting 4K, then yes, that's where the multi-thousand dollar PCs can come into play. Of course, there's also a middle ground if you want to play demanding games, but aren't concerned with turning up all of the graphical bells and whistles. As we mentioned, there's a ton of flexibility here.
Generally speaking, you want to get the most bang for your buck. If you spend more money on a component, chances are you will get slightly better performance, but you'll be paying a high premium for it. Conversely, if you spend too little, you might end up making some compromises down the road, and might be better off with spending a few dollars more for a better long-term experience. Deciphering all of that may seem difficult, but we're here to walk you through it component-by-component.
Unless all you're planning to play are non-graphically demanding indie games, we'd recommend a quad-core central processing unit (CPU). While the graphics processing unit (GPU) is often seen as the most important component of one's gaming rig, it is important to not overlook the value of having a good CPU. After all, the CPU is the brains of the operation, and if you go with a poor one, it will only serve to bottleneck your GPU. This means it will prevent your graphics card from going full speed, so to speak.
At the moment, Intel's $350 quad-core Kaby Lake 7700K CPU is arguably the best (non-enthusiast) consumer quad-core CPU right now, and the company's $200 quad-core i5-7500 is a great bang-for-your-buck gaming CPU. While Intel's chips seem to slightly edge out AMD's processors when it comes to games, there are great offerings from AMD that offer a good balance between gaming and productivity at affordable prices. The company recently released its Ryzen 3 series CPUs, which represent great entry-level quad-core chips that are tailor-made for budget gaming rigs. Its Ryzen 5 CPUs are great mid-range bang-for-the-buck CPUs, and the company's Ryzen 7 processors are aimed at enthusiast streamers and video production specialists. AMD is offering even higher-end processors designed for professionals with its Ryzen Threadripper chips. The highest-end 1950X SKU offers a whopping 16 cores and 32 threads, which makes it great at multitasking and running compute-heavy workloads like graphics rendering.
To conduct an accurate apples-to-apples comparison of core count, they should be kept in the same family. A quad-core Intel CPU will most likely be better than a dual-core Intel CPU, but an octo-core AMD CPU isn't necessarily better than a quad-core Intel CPU, for instance. To muddle things up a little more, an octo-core Intel CPU might not be better than a quad-core Intel CPU for gaming, considering most games aren't optimized for anything above four cores. In some cases, opting for a CPU with more than four cores is not only a waste of money for gaming, but can result in slightly poorer performance. Take for instance Intel's $1,000 5960X CPU. This is a great processor for gaming and a dream chip for productivity tasks. The CPU might have eight cores, but it carries a base frequency (speed) of 3GHz, which is slower than the base frequency of the 4.2GHz quad-core i7-7700K, which retails for $350. Why does the exorbitantly priced octo-core CPU run at a lower frequency than the cheaper part? When you have to squeeze twice as many cores into the CPU die, you essentially have to make some compromises when it comes to power and heat.
Technically speaking, Intel's highest-end CPU currently out on the market is the $1,000 i9-7900X, which is a 10-core CPU within the company's enthusiast line of processors. Intel's enthusiast chips, designated with an E at the end of the SKU, are typically tailored for professionals and come with more than four cores. The aforementioned $350 7700K is marginally faster than the 7900X in games typically, but the 10-core CPU generally beats the 7700K in productivity tasks where more cores can be leveraged.
If you can't decide between two CPUs, a good online resource is CPUboss.com. The website allows you to compare the specs of any two processors and will provide a score for each CPU. The site also provides comparison benchmarks and weighs performance against price.
Another thing you may want to pay attention to is if the CPU is "unlocked." Unlocked CPUs allow you to overclock them for "free" performance. While all AMD CPUs made today are unlocked and overclockable, in the Intel world, generally only the more expensive "K" or "E" SKUs can be overclocked. While CPU overclocking is very common, every CPU has its own overclocking limit (even with CPUs in the same SKU!). While overclocking isn't necessary, if you want to try doing so, you should get an "aftermarket" cooler so that you can crank up the power a little more. We'll talk more about coolers later.
Graphics Card
Provided you have a good enough CPU, your graphics card is going to be the single biggest component affecting your gaming performance. Essentially, the GPU should be the most expensive component of your gaming build.
This isn't to say that you should break the bank to get a graphics card. We also want to dispel a myth that you'll need to upgrade your GPU every year or every other year, just because new graphics cards come out at that cadence. A video card that you buy today will not magically get slower in the future (if anything, it may even slightly improve with driver updates). As a matter of fact, the GeForce GTX 660, which came out five years ago, can still play the overwhelming majority of modern games with acceptable frame rates. You just won't be able to crank up the graphical bells and whistles as high as you might like.
What graphics card should you get, though? That really depends on your budget and desires. We've put together an in-depth GPU buyer's guide where we've rounded up all the modern graphics cards to help.
If you want to max out most of your games at 1080p (the most common gaming resolution) with consistent frame rates above 30 FPS, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 and AMD RX 570 will do the job. They are also baseline GPUs for VR. The more powerful GeForce GTX 980, 1060, and Radeon RX 580 graphics cards are great for 1080p gaming as well, but they are also competent cards for handling the more demanding 1440p resolution. For better performance at 1440p, you'll want a GTX 1070 or AMD's upcoming RX Vega 56. If you want to go all in and try your hand at 4K, we'd recommend going with at least the GTX 1080 or AMD's upcoming RX Vega 64, but to be honest, 2160p is extremely taxing on hardware; you'll likely want a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, if not two of them, as it is the fastest gaming graphics cardonthemarkettoday.
If you don't need to game with your settings maxed out, a GTX 1050 Ti or an RX 560 are good bang-for-the-buck cards for your medium-to-high settings needs. For systems solely focused on non-graphically demanding games like League of Legends, Dota 2, and CS:GO (which are among the most popular PC games today), more affordable options like the GTX 1050 or RX 550 will do fine.
AMD vs Nvidia
Once you've figured out your GPU price range, the next logical question to ask yourself is, "Do I go with Nvidia or AMD?" As it stands right now, each vendor has its strengths and weaknesses, but the hardware community generally gives Nvidia the nod over AMD for better and more consistent driver updates. Nvidia also currently enjoys a lead in the performance-per-watt architecture category (that is to say, the company is able to deliver greater performance with less power). That means Nvidia cards are generally able to run cooler and quieter. Nvidia also offers a strong suite of features like GeForce Experience, which allows you to quickly enable optimal playable game settings, and Nvidia ShadowPlay, which allows you to easily capture in-game video. AMD is generally seen as offering a slightly better dollar-to-performance ratio, meaning you get pretty good bang-for-the-buck if performance is what you seek. Of course, graphics cards are always evolving and comparisons are going to vary on a situational basis. Like the iOS vs Android debate, both sides have their fervent fanboys and pitchforks. Luckily for you, both companies make great graphics cards and you can't really go too wrong either way.
But how do you recognize what makes a great graphics card? There are a couple things to look for. Both Nvidia and AMD use parallel processing cores for their GPUs. Nvidia refers to its cores as "CUDA" cores and AMD calls its cores "stream processors." The higher amount is generally a telltale sign of a card's quality. Like what we said about CPU core count, however, you can only compare numbers within the same family. This means you can't effectively compare CUDA cores against stream processors. You should also look at a card's base and boost clocks, which generally dictate the frequency, or speed, at which a card runs.
The amount of video RAM (VRAM) a card has is generally another indication of a card's quality tier. Again, the more you have, the better the card. Since VRAM, or the frame buffer (as it's also commonly known), is responsible for loading a game's textures, the higher the resolution you're gaming at, the more textures it has to push. VRAM therefore indirectly dictates what resolution each card should run at. Generally speaking, 2-4GB of VRAM is good for gaming at 1080p (HD), 4-8GB of VRAM is good for 1440p gaming, and you'll want six or more GB of VRAM to effectively game at 3840x2160 (4K).
Like CPUboss.com, if you can't decide between two GPUs, there is a similar website for graphics cards, appropriately titled GPUboss.com. Again, the site allows you to compare the specs between both devices, gives you a score for each, and provides comparison benchmarks.
RAM
8GB is the bare minimum that we'd recommend for a respectable gaming PC, and you shouldn't feel the need to go out and buy expensive RAM sticks. If you like to open up numerous tabs using Google Chrome or would like to do video editing/production work on the side, it's not a bad idea to opt for 16GB. In terms of RAM speed, getting 1600MHz and above is going to be fine for your gaming needs. RAM speed matters more if you're running on your CPU's integrated graphics, but since you'll be using a discrete desktop GPU, this won't concern you. We'd also advise you to get your RAM running in at least dual-channel mode as opposed to single channel. For a total of 8GB of RAM, we recommend going with two 4GB sticks, as opposed to one 8GB stick. The reason for this is that it offers greater memory bandwidth, which could help with productivity applications. When you're shopping, make sure that you get the right RAM for your motherboard: DDR4 is the newest consumer RAM standard, but if you're using a slightly older motherboard, there's a small chance that you may need DDR3 RAM. If you're building a Ryzen system, you'll also want to make sure that your DDR4 memory is compatible with AMD's CPUs. You can get a detailed list of confirmed compatible RAM on the company's website.
Motherboard
You'll want to shop for you motherboard, or mobo, after you've determined which CPU you're going with, since motherboards support specific CPU sockets. For instance, if you choose Intel's i5-7500 CPU, which uses the LGA 1151 socket, you'll need a motherboard that supports that socket. Current Intel sockets include the aforementioned LGA 1151 and LGA 2066, the latter of which is more of an enthusiast mobo socket. AM4 is AMD's modern, mainstream socket and is designed to work with the company's Ryzen 3, 5, and 7-series CPUs. The company's upcoming Ryzen Threadripper CPUs, which are geared for prosumers and professionals, uses the larger TR4 socket. In case you're concerned about socket compatibility, you can use PCPartPicker.com to put together your build online. The website will inform you of any CPU and motherboard mismatches.
In addition to sockets, you should also pay attention to chipsets, which usually dictate what ports and features your motherboard will support. For instance, Intel's latest high-end consumer Z270 chipset for the company's Kaby Lake processors supports overclocking, up to 10 USB 3.0 ports, and up to 24 PCI Express lanes. If you plan on overclocking a Ryzen CPU, make sure your motherboard is equipped with an X370, B350, or X300 chipset.
We'd generally avoid getting an older motherboard that supports an outdated socket; since older boards are no longer supported, you won't be able to slot newer, upcoming CPUs into them. You may also miss out on more modern features like USB type-C connectivity or even USB 3.0 support, if you go back far enough.
Once you've figured out what kind of socket your motherboard will need, the next big thing to decide is the motherboard's size. Mobos generally come in four form factors. From smallest to largest there is: Mini-ITX, MicroATX, ATX, and Extended ATX. If you select a Mini-ITX board, you can get a small, portable Mini-ITX case to go along with it. If you choose an Extended ATX motherboard, you'll probably need a big full tower case to house it. Going with an Extended ATX motherboard will likely provide the most features and ports, but it will generally be more expensive and you won't be able to squeeze it into a small chassis. Going with Mini-ITX, however, limits you to one video card and just two RAM slots. The other two options cater somewhere in between, so it's up to you to decide what you need.
Some key considerations when looking for a motherboard include: Does it support Crossfire/SLI for two or more graphics cards? How many PCIe slots does it have? (This will determine how many video cards you can slot into it.) Does it have the ports that I want? Does it come with WiFi? Does it offer Bluetooth? There's a bunch of other little details about motherboards, but these are some of the big-picture things to look at.
Case
Arguably the most important thing to look for in a case is its size. It roughly follows the same size guidelines as motherboards. Meaning, Mini-ITX chassis are for Mini-ITX boards, Micro-Towers are good for Micro-ATX boards, Mid-Towers pair well with ATX boards, and full-towers are designed for Extended-ATX mobos. Another thing to look out for is, well, looks. Yes, you can get a cheap case if you're on a budget, and it will do the job, but the case is the shell of your hot rod. It should ideally look sexy. Yes, that's a little shallow, but it's okay to "treat yo self" every now and then. Thankfully, you don't need to spend a ton to get a nice looking case. Take for instance the Fractal Designs R5 pictured here. At around $110, the mid-tower offers a sexy, yet minimalist design that isn't outlandishly expensive.
Aside from the aesthetics, you'll want to make sure the case can fit all of your components. We're not just talking about the motherboard here. If you're going to be getting a bulky aftermarket cooler, a giant video card, or a large power supply, for instance, you'll want to make sure those parts will fit in that case. The case will often give you height or GPU-length info, but in case it gets too confusing, using a website like PCPartPicker, which informs you of incompatibility issues, can help you solve the problem.
Other things to look for in your case is to ask yourself: Does it have any cable management options to keep the innards of your PC tidy? Does it include any fans? Does it offer good airflow with vents at the top and back/sides? Does it include dust filters?
Cooler
Unless you're buying an enthusiast CPU from Intel, most CPUs will come with a stock cooler. If you don't plan to overclock, then sticking with these included coolers is fine. If you did want to overclock a little however, you'll want to get a more efficient aftermarket cooler. If you didn't want to spend too much for one, Cooler Master's Hyper 212 Evo is a great bang for the buck air cooler you can get for around $30. If you wanted to be a little more aggressive with overclocking, it's a good idea to step up to a closed-loop water cooler. These coolers use liquid to more effectively dissipate heat. The most common closed-loop coolers will come in either single-rad or double-rad forms. The most important thing you'll want to look for here is to see if the cooler will fit your case. Another thing to look out for is the size of the cooler's fans. Most cases will support 120mm fans, but some cases will also support 140mm fans. Generally speaking, because larger 140mm fans are able to move more air with less effort (due to their larger blades), you don't need to crank up the rpms as high to achieve optimal cooling. Experientially, this can save your ears from any leafblower-like noises. There are plenty of good closed-loop liquid coolers out there, but a good single-radiator 120mm cooler is the Corsair H80i, and a good 140mm cooler is the NZXT Kraken X42. There are also great double-rad versions of both (the Corsair H100i and NZXT X62, respectively). If you wanted even better cooling performance and flashier aesthetics, you'll want to look into installing a custom-loop cooler, but these are much harder to install, and we'd only recommend them for more seasoned PC building vets.
SSD
As far as we're concerned, an SSD for a gaming PC is a must. We'd recommend getting a 240GB SSD or greater. If that's too much for your budget, you can opt for a 120GB SSD for at least the operating system. Having an SSD for your OS will allow you to boot up your PC super fast. We're talking under 15 seconds here.
The new hotness in super-fast storage is Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) drives. They come in two form factors. Intel's 750 PCIe SSD requires a PCIe slot, whereas Samsung's 960 Pro requires an M.2 slot. While these drives are insanely fast, you will be paying a premium for them. For reference, Samsung's 960 Evo NVMe SSD is up to five times as fast as traditional 2.5-inch SATA-based SSDs, but cost about twice as much.
Intel has also recently released an NVMe drive that's based on the company's new 3D XPoint architecture. Geared toward data centers, Intel calls its drive the DC P4800X SSD. While you can purchase the SSD, it only works with Intel's latest 7th generation Kaby Lake CPUs and costs a whopping $1,520 for 375GB of storage.
Intel also recently launched its Optane Memory caching drive; it, too, is based on 3D XPoint technology and can dramatically boost the speed of hard disk drives (HDD). While it's no replacement for having an SSD, it comes highly recommended if you're going to use a standalone HDD as your primary drive. Like the aforementioned DC P4800X drive, Optane Memory requires a seventh generation Intel CPU and a 200-series motherboard that has an M.2 slot.
Hard Drive
While we love SSDs, unless you're going to shell out for something like Samsung's 2TB 850 Pro SSD, which costs roughly a grand, chances are you're also going to want cheaper mechanical hard drives for your mass storage needs. Depending on how many games you play, your needs are going to be different, but we'd recommend getting at least a 1TB hard disc drive (HDD). Just make sure it's a 7,200rpm one, which is the standard HDD speed nowadays. Don't feel the need to opt for anything faster, either, as your SSD is meant to do the heavy lifting when it comes to speed. If you're trying to be economical, a good thing to look out for is price per GB. Also, unless you have a super tiny case, you could always add a secondary hard drive later.
Power Supply
Now that you've picked all your components, you've got to get a power supply unit (PSU) that offers enough juice to power everything. To make your life easier, there are online power supply calculators that will tell you how much wattage you'll need upon plugging in the components you plan to use. Generally speaking, it's a good idea to give yourself a 100-watt power buffer, in case of a power spike or the weather goes awry. You may also want to give yourself a bigger buffer if you think you're eventually going to want to add a second graphics card to your rig. It's also a good idea to get a good power supply made by a reputable PSU manufacturer, since you don't want any of your components getting damaged in the event that a shady power supply keels over. Some reputable power supply vendors include Corsair, EVGA, Seasonic, Enermax, Lepa, Silverstone, and Antec among others. If that's too much to remember, just make sure to get a PSU that's rated "80 PLUS" or better (This means that it's 80 plus percent efficient on any load that is above 20 percent).
Another thing to consider with purchasing a power supply is deciding between modular or non-modular. Non-modular power supplies have all the wires and cables dangling out the back of the PSU, whereas modular power supplies allow you to pull out any unnecessary cables you don't need for your build. If you're a neat freak, you may want to opt for the modular PSU, as it allows you to free your PC from clutter (which in turn can slightly assist with airflow). The downside to modular power supplies is that you have to keep track of where you left all the extra cables in the event that you needed them at a later date.
You might remember Destiny 1's weird Red Bull promotion that offered double XP and an exclusive quest in The Taken King expansion. It turns out that Destiny 2 is getting a similar promotion, but this one involves Pop-Tarts and Rockstar energy drinks.
Rockstar and Pop-Tarts will sell Destiny 2-themed products, and they'll come with in-game items. For Rockstar, if you grab one of the Destiny-branded cans, you'll get some sort of gear for your character, although Activision hasn't yet specified what the gear will be. You'll also get a chance to win a prize in Rockstar's daily and weekly lotteries, with the grand prize being Destiny 2-themed motorcycles.
Pop-Tarts, meanwhile, will offer players an XP boost with every Destiny-themed box. There'll also be "custom-designed, collectible packs highlighting each Guardian Subclass," if you want to collect Pop-Tarts boxes.
Both of these promotions begin on September 1. As for Destiny 2, the game launches on September 6 for PS4 and Xbox One, and for PC on October 24. The PC version is getting a beta test later in August, and you can read about what it includes here.
By Anonymous on Aug 07, 2017 11:16 pm Lucy, Dave, and Tamoor discuss Daenerys' tantrums, their love for Dickon Tarly, Jurassic Park, and that amazing battle sequence. Beware spoilers!
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.
Spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 7 episode 4, "The Spoils of War," below
It's another cliffhanger on Game of Thrones, as Season 7 episode 4, "The Spoils of War," concluded with Jaime Lannister sinking into watery depths, wearing full armor, and apparently unconscious. What chance does the Kingslayer have to escape this soggy fate? GameSpot spoke with a real master armorer with 20 years of experience, Jeffrey Hildebrandt of Royal Oak Armoury in Saskatchewan, Canada, to find out.
Firstly, we found out that although Jaime Lannister's armor is "based kind of aesthetically on some historical armor, it doesn't really have much of a historical precedent." The lion-faced spaulders covering his shoulders, for example, are inspired by parade armor worn by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, whose reign ended in 1556. Not exactly the type of armor a knight would realistically wear into battle, in other words.
More importantly, Jaime's gear in "The Spoils of War" appears to be made almost entirely of leather, a far cry from the Lannisters' armor of choice in the Song of Ice and Fire books, where Jaime often wears elaborate (and incredibly heavy) gilded metal plate. Will that save him from a watery grave?
Apparently not; the weight of all that leather adds up, according to Hildebrandt. "I would say it would be on the upper limit of how heavy armor ever would be," he said. "The great thing about leather armor is that it usually offers lots of flexibility. It's pretty good for mobility. But it's really heavy, and when you combine leather with metal reinforcement, it turns out to be pretty much the heaviest armor you can wear."
"He's pretty much wearing doubled-up armor below the waist, too," Hildebrandt continued. "He's got those long leather skirts right down to his knees, and he's wearing these high riding boots, and he's got leather tassets kind of hanging overtop of the longer leather skirts. So I would say that if it was real armor made out of real leather reinforced with metal, he would be super heavy."
The armor's weight won't be Jaime's only problem if he suddenly comes to his senses and tries to swim to the surface. "The actual shape of the armor would really bode badly for anyone who's trying to swim in it," Hildebrandt said. "Those long leather skirts that hang over his legs, I can't imagine trying to swim in something like that, and those long riding boots that he's got...they would act like a sea anchor."
Jaime's golden prosthetic hand, although flashy, won't help his breaststroke much, either.
So what about trying to slip out of all that gear? Historically, knights had squiers to help them in and out of their armor, as it was difficult to reach every strap, buckle, and clasp by oneself. Hildebrandt thinks Jaime would have a hard time trying to doff his armor in time to escape drowning. "Trying to get all your armor off with one hand while you're sinking and unconscious at the same time, that's almost like, he's doomed," the armorer said.
"According to physics, Lannister is going down," Hildebrandt said. "Maybe he'll come back kind of undead or something, like some of the other characters have."
There's one ray of hope penetrating the water's depths: Couldn't someone jump in and drag Jaime to the surface, despite all that weight?
"Yeah, I suppose so," Hildebrandt guessed, though he emphasized that his knowledge of swimming comes nowhere near his mastery of armor.
Someone--likely Bronn, though possibly one of the Tarlys--knocked Jaime off his horse and plummeted into the water with him at the end of "The Spoils of War." Whoever it was, let's hope they're a strong swimmer. Otherwise, Jaime and Tyrion will never get their reunion, Cersei won't learn that Olenna poisoned Joffrey, and Jaime won't get to knock his sister off the throne like he did the Mad King (fingers crossed). And that would just be sad.
It's been a long time since a beat-'em'-up like Redeemer--something so dedicated to the cause of simple punch-kick-shoot mayhem above all other concerns--has hit the scene. It's a niche whose modern torchbearers can be too complex and involved to achieve that kind of casual, pick-up-and-play hit of kinetic brutality. On the other hand, some are too busy trying to be cartoonish and above the pseudo-self-seriousness that guides classics like Streets of Rage or Double Dragon.
Redeemer makes a fine attempt at hitting the sweet spot between both philosophies, though, with a perfunctory story about a Russian ex-mercenary named Vasily ditching his old life in favor of living as a monk at a Shaolin temple. The past isn't done with Vasily, however, and when the bionic-enhanced PMCs come knocking on the temple's door looking for him, it's time for him to go back to work.
The story is less First Blood and more late-night Cinemax cult film, but there's still a tonal bullseye to hit between total mayhem and dour wartime parable, and Redeemer is off by a few inches. The story, told in comic book-style splash pages between levels, is the kind of gritty, grimdark tone worth making fun of, but it's delivered completely straight-faced before dropping you into scenarios of complete lunacy involving cyborgs and flesh-eating mutants.
It's not necessarily badly done, but it's highly incongruous. The aesthetics employed during gameplay lie upon an equally vast spectrum of tone and quality, with some environments and effects--fire, in particular--looking rather beautiful and breathtaking, and others appearing blurry, like a painting that's been rained on. That range in graphical fidelity can vary from scene to scene, but even at its best, Redeemer can't hide its often monotonous level design.
Still, the main event is the combat, which has its own balancing issues. For the first hour or so, Redeemer feels like Final Fight by way of Gauntlet: a top-down brawler against a never-ending slew of soldiers, with one button to punch, one to kick, one to block, and one to dodge. For a while, the only real complication is the introduction of a button to interact with the environment to pick up temporary weapons, toss objects at enemies, or (when close enough) insta-kill foes using your surroundings.
This can be fun, albeit mildly uninspired. The game doesn't offer any combos to perform, and there's no tangible difference between spamming punches and spamming kicks against every enemy, aside from the latent need for variety. In addition, while the game goes heavy on blood, the camera is too far away by default, only zooming in for context-sensitive finishing moves and the last blow struck against an a wave of enemies, Arkham-style. That distance keeps the game from achieving the brutal excitement of smiting one's enemies with extreme prejudice, where many of the game's finishers--which also feel a bit hurried--are indiscernible in busy scenes.
The game starts to get reckless in a hurry about throwing new twists at you. There's a half-hearted stealth element that allows Vasily to sneak up and assassinate enemies while their backs are turned, which is really just a convenient way of thinning a herd that, more often than not, will turn into a frantic, bloody mosh pit of five or more foes anyway. It's the addition of guns that ends up throwing off the formula the most, however, turning the game from a quaintly satisfying beat-'em-up into a less-gratifying riff on design principles from Hotline Miami.
Later in the game, a disarm mechanic is introduced to supplement Vasily's parry ability, which essentially robs the game of its casual nature and turns it into a game of strategy--the likes of which the more rickety mechanics aren't deep enough to sustain. Factor in the lack of variety in the enemy design after the mutants come out to play and a tendency to conflate difficulty with "throw more enemies at the player," and after about five hours, Redeemer is in danger of numbing you to its minor charms, creating more work than it's worth.
Fortunately, Redeemer teeters but never topples over the line into drudgery. For what it's worth, the added mechanics do at least introduce a variety of options for dispatching the legion of enemies Vasily faces in his bloody rampage toward vengeance for his fallen temple. There are smirking joys to be found in the right situation where Vasily snaps a soldier's neck, steals their shotgun, blows away two of his buddies the next room over, and finishes the third with his bare hands. Redeemer's a game that clearly has its heart in the right place but feels the need to justify or enhance a genre that needs less to succeed than one might think.
The news was first rumored last week, when it was reported by Transformers World that the production studio owned by Hasbro (which owns the rights to Transformers) was opening an animated theatrical movie division. Hasbro has now confirmed that a Transformers animated film is indeed in the works. The company has also stated that the movie will be part of the cinematic universe; however, there is currently no release date for the film.
Of course, if the film happens, it will be the second animated Transformers film. Transformers: The Movie was released back in 1986, and although it was a financial failure at the time, it is now considered a cult classic. It celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, and was remastered for a new Blu-ray release.
Crash Bandicoot's N. Sane Trilogy is top of the UK charts for a third successive week and a fifth week in total, according to sales monitor Chart-Track. The company says the remaster trilogy has now achieved "the most weeks at No.1 for a PS4-exclusive title and the most weeks at No.1 for any title so far this year."
It's not just in the UK that Crash Bandicoot is performing well. Sony revealed last week that the remaster trilogy was the best-selling title on PSN in the US and Europe last month, and publisher Activision stated the game has "surpassed all … expectations by a pretty wide margin."
The company went on to say that Crash's success may pave the way for more classic games to make a comeback. "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," said Activision's CEO, Eric Hirshberg. "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."
You can read the full top 10 sales chart below, courtesy of Chart-Track. Note this table does not include digital sales data, and so should not be considered representative of all UK game sales.
Following tonight's shortest-ever episode of Game of Thrones, HBO has now published a teaser trailer for next Sunday's episode--and it's pretty intense. You can watch the trailer below, but of course be aware that it contains pretty massive spoilers.
Tonight's episode, "The Spoils of War," was only 50 minutes long, making it the shortest-ever episode of the acclaimed HBO show. Things return to normal for the August 13 episode, which moves back to around the normal length, coming in at 59 minutes. And the Season 7 finale is the longest-ever episode.
The official description explains that Spotify's Xbox One app will offer basically everything the PlayStation 4's version does. You can listen to music while playing a game, and browse for songs, albums, and playlists. You can also use your phone or tablet to change the music without leaving your game, which is pretty good.
If you have Spotify Premium, you get higher-quality audio and no ads. You can see some images of the Spotify Xbox One app above, from the app's product page.
In order to participate in the next beta, you'll still need to meet the previous requirements: own a copy of the game and its season pass and be an Xbox Live Gold/PlayStation Plus subscriber. But you'll also need to ensure you have the Closed Online Test downloaded by tomorrow, August 8--it won't actually be available to download once this second test begins.
Prior to the start of this beta, Square Enix will release an update that's intended to resolve matchmaking issues. These have plagued the first test, which concludes tomorrow and was originally intended to be the only beta.
Comrades is a cooperative multiplayer expansion for Final Fantasy XV, which until now had been single-player-only. Players create a character of their own to take online and partner with other players to explore the world and complete quests. Only a select amount of content is included in the beta, but there will be a variety of new weapons, gear, and attack styles in the full DLC. Noctis and company will eventually be made available as playable characters.
Square Enix has not yet provided a release date for Comrades, and it's unclear if its time table will be affected by the outcome of the upcoming beta. Whenever it does launch, Comrades will be available both on its own and as part of the season pass.
Following last week's first image of Domino in Deadpool 2, we have another picture of one of the upcoming sequel's new characters. This time it's Cable, the hulking cybernetic warrior played by Josh Brolin. Check it out below, via Brolin's Instagram account:
Cable's creators Rob Liefeld and Louise Simonson previously described the character as "the opposite of Deadpool: a man who is a leader and used to being obeyed, who is very controlled but with an aura of simmering violence." X-Men fans also know him as the son of Cyclops; he first appeared in a 1990 issue of The New Mutants.
In related news, it was announced in May that an adult animated Deadpool show is on the way. The currently untitled series will be overseen by Atlanta star and creator Donald Glover with his brother Stephen, who will both act as showrunners, producers, and writers. It is being developed for FXX, the sister channel to FX, and the 10-part first season will premiere next year.
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Lucy, Dave, and Tamoor discuss Daenerys' tantrums, their love for Dickon Tarly, Jurassic Park, and that amazing battle sequence. Beware spoilers!
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