By Alex Newhouse on Dec 16, 2017 03:44 am
If you still haven't tried out Overwatch, now you have a chance to jump in cheaply. Right in time for the holidays, Blizzard has discounted the PC version of Overwatch by 50%--bringing the price down to $20. And if you're looking to get a bunch of cosmetic items, too, you can grab the Game of the Year Edition for $30--bringing it in line with the PS4 and Xbox One versions. These are some of the better deals we've seen on the game since its release, especially $20 for the base game. If you're just looking to jump in and don't need a handful of skins and Loot Boxes, then this is the way to go. However, if you do want some of the extras, the Game of the Year Edition is on sale for $30 across all platforms. Blizzard has discounted it on PC on Battle.net, while the physical console versions are available at Best Buy and Amazon. If you happen to have Gamers Club Unlocked at Best Buy, you can get an additional discount to bring the price down to $24. The digital version on PS4 is also $30 through the PlayStation Store. The Game of the Year Edition comes with the base game as well as 10 Loot Boxes, 5 Hero skins, and digital items for Heroes of the Storm, World of Warcraft, Diablo III, and Starcraft II. In other Overwatch news, the game's holiday update went live recently, adding a ton of winter-themed items and a new game mode. You can see all the new Overwatch Winter Wonderland skins in our gallery. Some links to supporting retailers are automatically made into affiliate links, and GameSpot may receive a small share of those sales.
By Chris E. Hayner on Dec 16, 2017 02:58 am
The day has finally come. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is now playing in theaters, after premiering Thursday night. Naturally, the latest Star Wars film will be the top-earning movie of the weekend. With the first box office results in, though, there is a better picture of exactly how well The Last Jedi is doing. According to Deadline, the film grossed $45 million in the United States and Canada on Thursday night, the second-biggest Thursday night gross of all time. That puts The Last Jedi on track to gross over $200 million in its opening weekend alone. That would make it the highest opening weekend of 2017--Beauty and the Beast currently holds the crown with a $174 million debut. However, it trails the opening of Star Wars: The First Awakens, which grossed $247 in its opening weekend. That number stands as the biggest opening weekend of all time. While The Last Jedi isn't beating The Force Awakens at the box office, it is grossing much higher than 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The first standalone film in the Star Wars franchise opened to $155 million in the United States and Canada, eventually grossing $523 domestically. Meanwhile, The Force Awakens earned $936 million in its entire domestic run. Both films crossed the $1 billion mark worldwide, which The Last Jedi should have no problem doing once its theatrical run comes to a close. Considering the movie also has a Metacritic score of 86 and audience reaction group PostTrak says theater goers are giving the film a "definite recommend" rating, The Last Jedi's going to do very well. That's good news for director Rian Johnson, who will next tackle the development of an entirely new Star Wars trilogy to come after Episode IX. Johnson's next Star Wars films will center on new characters in a different part of the galaxy. If you've already seen The Last Jedi and have questions, GameSpot has you covered. You can check out our coverage of the identity of Rey's parents, a look at who Snoke is, and any other The Last Jedi spoilers, questions and theories you may have.
By Kevin Knezevic on Dec 16, 2017 02:53 am
Pokemon Go's most recent Legendary Pokemon, Ho-Oh, may no longer be available, but players didn't have to wait long for a new Legendary to replace it. Beginning today, December 15, players around the world will have a chance to encounter the Legendary Ground-type Groudon for a limited time. Groudon marks the first Legendary Pokemon from Gen 3 to appear in Pokemon Go. Like previous Legendaries, it can be encountered as a Raid Battle at Gyms. You'll need to team up with other players in real-life to battle it; only after bringing Groudon down will you have a chance to capture it. Groudon will appear in the game until 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 PM GMT on January 15, 2018. Dozens of other Pokemon from the series' Gen 3 games, Ruby and Sapphire, were introduced in Pokemon Go following last week's big update. 50 new Pokemon can now be found in the game, including Torchic, Mudkip, Swablu, Wailord, and Salamence. The remaining Gen 3 monsters will be rolled out later. New Pokemon weren't the only additions last week's update brought to Pokemon Go. Developer Niantic also introduced a dynamic weather system. Now, the weather in the real-world will be reflected in-game, which affects how often you'll encounter certain Pokemon; Water-types, for instance, will spawn more frequently when it's raining. In addition to that, Niantic also added the ability to create Battle Parties. Players can save teams of up to six Pokemon to use in Raid and Gym battles.
By Alex Newhouse on Dec 16, 2017 02:53 am
Fortnite is getting into the holiday spirit. Starting today, its holiday-themed event for the PvE Save the World mode is now live, adding a whole bunch of new activities and items to try out. It's part of a bigger update that also includes some changes and additions for the Battle Royale mode. Survive the Holidays is highlighted by a new questline that tasks you with bringing "the holiday spirit to everyone in the husk-ridden world," according to developer Epic's patch notes. You'll get a bunch of Snowflake tickets for participating in the event, which can be used to buy special items like Holiday Survival Llamas. In addition, the update adds several, more difficult versions of certain mini-bosses. Husk, Husky, and Smasher have all been made tougher and feature randomized gameplay variations. The update also overhauls the Survive the Storm mode, which features a winter-themed map, 3-day and 7-day versions, and new enemies. Finally, Survive the Holidays also adds new Heroes and weapons. You can now play as Sarah Claus (an Alchemist), Blitzen BASE Kyle (a Warden), Snow Stalker Jonesy (a Demolisher), and Fragment Flurry Jess (a Reclaimer). On the weapons side, you can try out a couple of new snipers and a snowball launcher. The Battle Royale mode also gets a few winter-themed additions. You can try out the Snowball Launcher, and there'll also be a holiday Battle Bus as well as "other gifts waiting for you around the island." Epic also implemented a bunch of tweaks and changes to gameplay, which you can read about over at its website. All of this is available now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. This event marks the beginning of Fortnite Season 2, which comes with a lot of other items and activities. Buying a new Battle Pass will get you access to all the cosmetics Season 2 runs from now until February 20, and you can read all of its patch notes here.
By Chris Pereira on Dec 16, 2017 02:27 am
One of Destiny 2's major new features arrived recently as part of a post-Curse of Osiris update. Masterworks present what amounts to a new class of weapon, providing players with another thing to hunt down in their journeys. Unfortunately, the way they work can be a little confusing, and as is often the case with Destiny, it's not explained well in-game. Here's what you need to know about Masterworks and Masterwork Cores. Masterworks are variants of Legendary weapons. They track your kills in either Crucible or PvE, provide Orbs when you secure multi-kills, and--most importantly--provide bonus stat perks. These affect a single attribute--such as reload speed, stability, impact, magazine size, or blast radius--and can be re-rolled if you would prefer a different buff. You can obtain Masterworks like any other item; once you hit Power level 250, you'll have a chance for Legendary weapons to drop as Masterworks versions. The Raid and Trials of the Nine both offer a "very high chance" for their drops to be Masterworks, making them the most reliable way to obtain new ones. But you're also able to get them from vendors, Strikes, standard Crucible matches, and so on. An alternative path involves forging a Masterwork yourself, although the cost for doing so is somewhat high. Any Legendary you own now has a new Masterwork Upgrade option on its Details screen. This will allow you to turn a standard Legendary into a Masterwork version; you can choose for a Vanguard or Crucible version, depending on what kills you want it to track. This process costs 25 Legendary Shards and 10 Masterworks Cores. But how to get Masterwork Cores? That's where the drops become all-important: Unwanted Masterwork weapons can be dismantled, a process which yields Masterwork Cores. The number you'll obtain varies; in our experience, it tends to be 1-3 Cores per dismantle, meaning you may need to acquire quite a few weapons to complete this process. Masterwork Cores also serve another purpose. As noted above, you can re-roll the stat bonus on your Masterwork weapon. This is called reworking a weapon, and it costs 25 Legendary Shards and three Masterworks Cores. There's no telling what bonus you'll get from reworking, so be sure that you're okay with ditching your current bonus before going through with the process. Masterworks are expected to expand in the future in a number of ways. Bungie has already said it plans to introduce Masterwork versions for other types of gear in the game. It also plans to highlight the weapons' kill tracking in more ways, such as displaying the number on the Crucible kill screen. In the meantime, you can check out all of the Masterworks weapons we've found so far.
By Michael Rougeau on Dec 16, 2017 02:11 am
In a pivotal Star Wars: The Last Jedi scene, one character urges another to "let it all die." The character is talking about relics of past generations: Jedi, Sith, rebels, empires. At times, this movie feels determined to do just that. If 2015's The Force Awakens bent over backward to be like the original movies, The Last Jedi does the same to buck your expectations. It doesn't "let it all die," but it does clear away enough of the old to set the newest Star Wars trilogy on a surprising path toward its conclusion. The Last Jedi's determination to move forward comes with good and bad consequences. On one hand, there are genuinely shocking moments in this movie. Characters you thought were good have a dark side. Those who should be wise act foolishly, and a single decent act doesn't suddenly make a bad guy good. If you think you know which way this thing will go purely on a narrative level, you're probably wrong. For a Star Wars movie, that unpredictability is refreshing. But The Last Jedi treats many of the series' vestiges with equal contempt, no matter how distant or relatively near in the past they are. More than one character or plot established in The Force Awakens gets unceremoniously blown up here. After Episode VII, this trilogy's path felt too familiar; now, it might go anywhere, but that's also made the whole endeavor feel shakier, like the plan might change again before it's all over. The plot being unpredictable is refreshing; axing entire storylines from The Force Awakens before they ever had a chance to pay off seems sloppy. Star Wars: The Last Jedi picks up more or less right where The Force Awakens left off. Rey has traveled to a distant corner of the galaxy to get Luke Skywalker back in the fight, and General Leia's Resistance alternately flees and fights the much more powerful First Order. Without the need to introduce so many new characters, The Last Jedi does what middle trilogy movies do: It lets us spend more time with those already established. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is still a hot-headed but skilled Resistance pilot. Finn (John Boyega) is struggling to find his place in the Resistance as a First Order deserter. Rey (Daisy Ridley) has quite a job convincing Luke (Mark Hamill) to come out of exile, while Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)--a.k.a. Ben Solo--battles his inner conflict, not to mention Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) and General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson). Leia (Carrie Fisher) leads the Resistance against overwhelming odds. Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) is still pointless. Chewbacca chewbaccas. BB-8 is still great. Add to this already unwieldy cast: Kelly Marie Tran's Rose Tico, an intensely likable Resistance maintenance worker who gets in above her head; Benicio del Toro's DJ, a thief who toes the line between good and bad; and Laura Dern's Vice Admiral Holdo, an utterly unnecessary addition who takes screen time away from better characters. What really doesn't help The Last Jedi is how grossly bloated it is with circuitous subplots, narrative cul-de-sacs, and detours that amount to little more than distractions. The movie's main event is actually a drawn out stalemate between Snoke's armada and Leia's pathetic forces, which probably wasn't a smart structural choice for a middle movie that would have threatened to drag even without a lengthy standoff in the middle. Various characters on both sides give regular reports on the Resistance ships' dwindling fuel supply, which graciously serves to signal to audiences approximately how much more foot-tapping non-action remains before the movie gets good again. There are entire schemes, mutinies, and double-crosses that serve only to tread water while The Last Jedi's many moving pieces all get into place for a finale that is, admittedly, awfully grand. That sounds grim, but The Last Jedi gets many important things right too. Like The Force Awakens, it's beautiful to behold. It's also just the right amount of funny. Even the Porgs, which drew such a following before the movie had even released, provide the right amount of cute without feeling overused. Luke Skywalker's decades-long arc pays off in a way that Han Solo's, sadly, did not in The Force Awakens. Yet Luke's scenes never dissolve into pandering or fan service; in fact, his journey provides more surprises than any other plot in the movie. Carrie Fisher's performance comes with surprises too, although the exact details of her plot will surely cause some to wonder how much of the film was changed after the actress's death in late 2016. Regardless of whether we ever find out, The Last Jedi is a beautiful send-off for the iconic character and the actress who played her. Most importantly, The Last Jedi provides real momentum and growth for its core characters. Poe, Rey, Finn, and Kylo were all right where we left them when the movie started, which made it easy to jump straight into the conflict. By the end, they're in very different places. Episode VII and, now, Episode VIII have accomplished something as difficult as it is crucial: They've made us care about a new generation of Star Wars heroes. Looking toward the past in these movies has been fun and emotional, but the new trilogy was always going to live or die by what it added to the series, not what it rehashed. And the journeys of characters like Rey and Ben Solo are starting to feel as nuanced and essential as those of Han, Luke, and Leia in the original trilogy. Regardless of where it ends, that's something to admire, and despite its issues, The Last Jedi overall is as enjoyable a Star Wars film as The Force Awakens was before it. | The Good | The Bad |
|---|
| Characters introduced in Force Awakens continue to evolve | Bloated with unnecessary subplots and distractions | | Luke and Leia's journeys and payoff | Some new characters add little | | Stylistically beautiful and funny | Treads water for much of the middle | | Subverts the series' established tropes and provides genuine surprises | |
By Kevin Knezevic on Dec 16, 2017 01:25 am
Amazon and Twitch Prime subscribers can now pick up another free game. For a limited time, the clever and stylish first-person shooter Superhot can be yours for PC if you have an Amazon Prime membership. Beginning today, December 15, Prime subscribers will be able to download the full game--which normally retails for $25--at no cost. The free period runs until just before Christmas, on December 24. To claim your copy, click on your Prime Loot tab or visit Superhot's Twitch page. You'll be able to download and play the full game through the Twitch desktop app. Superhot originally released in February 2016. The game's defining feature is its unique time-stopping gameplay mechanic. Time only elapses while you're moving; stop, and everything will freeze in place until you begin to move again. GameSpot awarded the title an 8/10 in our Superhot review and called it "a clever game with deep, hidden elements that require committed and thorough examination." Twitch Prime is included in Amazon Prime, so if you're already a member of the premium service, you'll be able to take advantage of this free offer. Superhot isn't the only freebie available right now; subscribers can also get a Bomb Voyage Weapon Camo & Winter Siege Supply Drop Pack in Call of Duty: WWII, a Golden Classic Card Pack for Hearthstone, and other rewards. You can learn more about Twitch Prime and begin a free trial on Twitch's website.
By Justin Haywald on Dec 16, 2017 01:21 am
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out in theaters now, and if you want some impressions, you can read our Star Wars: The Last Jedi review or dig into a roundup of the biggest Last Jedi reviews from around the web right here. But if you're looking for spoilers, from the Easter eggs and little details you might have missed to full-on plot discussion, we've got a rundown of all our spoiler-filled features here. This goes without saying, but everything below this story is a potential spoiler. If you haven't seen the movie yet, and you don't want to know what happens, then you should head back to the GameSpot homepage. Star Wars: The Last Jedi spoiler discussion. In this video we discuss all the things that we felt went right and wrong with the new Star Wars. The new characters, the old characters and Porgs. This is also the video you'll find embedded up above. Who is Snoke? We'll start light because, frankly, we don't have a lot of answers ourselves. But here's what little we've learned about the enigmatic Supreme Leader from the events in The Last Jedi. Essentially, Snoke is still an enigma, and now that he's dead, it's more likely that the only way we'll learn more is through expanded universe media. What's the deal with those dice? Luke pulled a pair of golden dice from the dashboard of the Millenium Falcon, but you'd be forgiven if you didn't know the trinket's origin; we haven't seen them since the original Star Wars trilogy. The dice's significance is a mystery, though it's rumored that their the dice Han used when gambling to win the Millennium Falcon. But it's likely we'll get a more concrete answer in the upcoming standalone Solo film. Who are Rey's parents? This question is, at least partially, still up for conjecture. But if Kylo is to be believed, Rey's parents are inconsequential characters we won't hear anything else about. While that seems like it could be a narrative letdown after Kylo Ren's reveal to be a Solo/Skywalker, Rey's lineage does fit into the broader Star Wars universe. After all, Anakin came from otherwise unremarkable beginnings. And then the orphaned stable boy at the end of the film seemed to show latent force abilities as well. So, we don't really know who Rey's parents are, but The Last Jedi seems to indicate that it doesn't really matter anyway. Why did Luke die? Following his battle with Kylo, we learn that Luke was projecting a non-corporeal version of himself across the cosmos. But the strain of such a strong illusion took its toll on the aging Jedi. But it's likely this isn't the last we've seen of Skywalker. Much like the passing of Ben Kenobi and Yoda, Luke became "one with the Force," his body disappearing into nothing. So it's likely he'll be a guiding presence for Finn, and possibly Kylo, in the trilogy's finale.
By Chris E. Hayner on Dec 16, 2017 12:56 am
SPOILER WARNING: PROCEED WITH CAUTION Star Wars: The Last Jedi has finally arrived in theaters, letting fans experience the next chapter in the Skywalker saga. As classic characters like Luke and Leia work with the next generation of the resistance--Rey, Finn, Poe, and series newcomer Rose--to rise up against the First Order, The Last Jedi answers many questions posed by both Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the film franchise as a whole. One of those questions happens to be something fans have been debating since The Force Awakens first hit theaters: Who are Rey's parents? Rey has shown through both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi that she is very powerful with the Force, which led to a number of fan theories over the past couple of years. Some thought she was somehow the child of Obi-Wan Kenobi, while others thought Luke Skywalker himself was her father. In that particular theory, her mother is Mara Jade--Luke's wife in the expanded universe. Yet another theory posited that Rey could be Kylo Ren's sister, another child of Leia and Han Solo. As it turns out, none of those are the reality--or, at least, that's what viewers are led to believe. During their confrontation on Snoke's ship in The Last Jedi, Kylo tells Rey she already knows who her parents were. "They're nobody," he says to her. Kylo adds that they probably sold her off for drinking money and are now buried in a pauper's grave. While this might be disappointing for some fans, it makes Rey a more mysterious and interesting character. It also gives her a connection to Darth Vader that Kylo will never have. Anakin Skywalker, like Rey, came from nothing. He was a "nobody" who was strong with the Force and ended up changing the galaxy. Of course, it was for the worse. Rey, on the other hand, can save it. However, that's all dependent on whether Kylo is being honest. While viewers are led to believe Rey knew the truth about her parents, Kylo is also extremely powerful with the Force and could have been manipulating her. It's entirely possible that Episode IX will reveal that Kylo was lying about her lineage. That said, having Rey come from nothing to lead a new generation of Force-sensitive warriors is a very interesting turn of events for this new Star Wars trilogy to take. Do you enjoy this revelation about Rey's parentage? Tell us in the comments below. After that, take a look at our extensive Star Wars: The Last Jedi feature for more theories and answers to all of your questions.
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