We're just about halfway through February, which means a few of this month's free Games with Gold will be returning to their normal price very soon. Xbox Live Gold members have a little time left to get a pair of titles for Xbox One and Xbox 360 before they're replaced by the second half of February's freebies.
On Xbox One, a holdover from January's Games with Gold lineup, Ubisoft's survival-horror game Zombi, is still free to download through February 15. Meanwhile, the fast-paced Xbox 360 racer Split/Second is likewise set to return to its normal price on February 15. The latter game is also playable on Xbox One through backwards compatibility.
With Zombi and Split/Second on their way out, two more Xbox One and 360 games are slated to take their place. Beginning February 16, Xbox One players can download the Assassin's Creed spin-off, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India, for free until March 15. On 360, the Dreamcast classic Crazy Taxi will be free through the end of the month. Gold members can also still grab the Xbox One first-person shooter Shadow Warrior.
Monster Hunter World is the most accessible game in the series. However, it still leaves some mechanics and systems unexplained. To help you get a knack for some of Monster Hunter World's intricacies, we've compiled 16 essential tips that we wish we knew before starting the game.
Monster Hunter World is out now for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, with a PC release to come later in the year. That's notable, as recent entries were limited to 3DS. The additional horsepower has allowed for a game with much larger, more beautiful environments to play in.
You might've noticed a net in your inventory that's not terribly effective against the world's bigger denizens. However, that net can be used to capture smaller insects, birds, and lizards. These captures earn you a few research points with each creature that you catch, but more importantly, the little beasts are added to your room as potential living decorations. Even after upgrading your room, the number of pets you can display is limited, but you're free to swap them out at any time.
This counts for fish as well: While you can grab fish one by one with your rod, you can grab a few at once by using your net. Be warned, though, that the net scares off every other fish in the surrounding water.
Your Palico Can Get New Gadgets
While you're probably aware that you can swap out your Palico's weapon and armor at the Smithy, you might not know that you can acquire other gadgets for your companion. The starting Vigorwasp gear is incredibly helpful--especially early in the game, since it gives you free and immediate heals. But you can find other pieces of gear that give your Palico a whole host of different benefits.
To find the new equipment, you need to go out to an area on an expedition and look for Grimilkynes; the researcher in each area will help point you in the right direction. Each area has a Grimilkyne who offers a quest, with new Palico equipment as the reward.
One of our favorites is the Plunderblade, which you earn from the Grimalkyne in Rotten Vale. This handy item steals additional monster parts from your prey, which gives you yet another chance to earn some of the game's rarer items (and thus craft better loot).
Always Manage Bounties In Between Missions
Don't let all that time spent picking flowers and murdering small animals go to waste. Head to the Resource Center in Astera's tradeyard between every mission to turn in completed bounties and pick up new ones. They're usually fairly easy to complete--tasks range from gathering honey, to completing hunts in specific areas--and they reward valuable armor spheres for upgrading your equipment.
Turn In Delivery Requests At The Resource Center
The Resource Center is also where you go to turn in completed delivery quests. These are the missions that require you to collect a certain amount of specific materials, usually obtained from speaking with characters in Astera who have an exclamation mark icon. Even if you have all the materials, you can't turn in the quest until you speak with the woman at the Resource Center and select the correct option in the menu. Do so whenever possible, because the rewards are often valuable, and can include new fast travel campsites.
How Investigations Work
Investigations are one of the more confusing elements that are introduced early on in Monster Hunter World, largely because their name is something of a misnomer. You're not actually "investigating" anything; these are really just side quests to hunt or capture specific monsters. That's it.
The hard part is managing them. At the Resource Center in Astera's tradeyard, you can "register" a maximum of 50 investigations at any one time. Each investigation can only be attempted or completed a limited number of times, but it's easy to get more investigations through combat, or by sniffing out monster tracks, marks, and other leavings out in the world. You'll also want to periodically comb through and delete lower-level investigations that you're not interested in, so that you don't butt up against the cap. Investigations are the best option for farming specific monsters, if you want their loot to make new armor or weapons.
How Weapon Upgrade Trees Work
Even early on, when your weapon upgrade trees span barely more than a few branches, they can seem hopelessly confusing. The important part to understand is that each weapon archetype has multiple possible starting materials. The basic charge blade, for example, begins on the ore tree (the Proto Commission Axe) or the bone tree (the Bone Strongarm). Each has its own unique upgrade path, and they don't intersect.
For example, if you want to make a charge blade that deals lightning damage, you need to start with the Proto Commission Axe and work your way up; meanwhile, the Bone Strongarm can lead to a water-infused charge blade. It gets way more complicated, but the most important thing to know is that you can craft new base versions of these weapons--ore, bone, or otherwise--at the smithy anytime. You can also walk back most upgrades to get your materials back (though not the zenny).
How Multiplayer Works
Playing Monster Hunter World with your friends is one of the game's main selling points, but actually hooking up for multiplayer can be a headache. The main thing to know: You need to be in the same "session" as your friends to join each other on quests. When you load up the game, you can matchmake into a session with strangers, or create your own; either way, you can then invite friends. Or you can form a "squad" (like a clan or guild) with your friends, and load into your squad's session every time you start the game. Anyone in your session can join a quest once you "post" it at a quest board or with your handler. If you want only friends to be able to join, set a password.
This comes with some limitations. You can't invite your friends early on in "assigned" (story) missions; you have to view all the associated cutscenes and get to the actual monster fight first. After that, you can fire off SOS flares (to attract random players), or have friends in your session join from the quest board. If you're having more trouble connecting with people, make sure that you're in the same session by checking the player list from the options menu (make sure that everyone is the appropriate hunter rank for the quest you're attempting).
Be careful: Monsters become significantly more difficult in multiplayer, and their health scales automatically for four players. Playing with only two players can actually be harder than hunting solo, so it's smart to fire off an SOS flare from the menu, once you actually start the mission to invite more players in.
Save Manually
Monster Hunter World auto-saves your progress when you do something important, like completing a quest. But it's smart to save your game manually whenever you're joining a new online session or powering down for the night.
Let's say you complete a quest and then spend several minutes putzing around in Astera, upgrading weapons, registering bounties, and managing inventory. Then a friend invites you to their online session. Great--you accept their invitation, ignoring the warning about losing unsaved progress. Congrats! Unless you saved manually, you just lost 15 minutes of your life, and you'll have to do all that micromanagement again.
How To Actually Use the Insect Glaive
A lot of us first-time Monster Hunters were drawn to the Insect Glaive as our initial weapon of choice, because it's flashy and looks cool. But more than a few of us didn't discover how to use it to its full potential, until we had already slain the first few monsters.
The Insect Glaive comes with a Kinsect--a giant beetle that you're supposed to aim and shoot at monsters, in order to extract one of three different buffs for yourself. Once you're happy with what it's got, you'll need to recall it in order to receive the limited-time benefits.
If you're diligent, you can have all three buffs going at once, which will greatly assist in your ability to slay your foes. Send the Kinsect to a monster's feet, and you can get a white speed buff. Hit its body, and you'll get get an orange buff that boosts defence. Finally, hit its head and you'll get a red buff, which boosts your attack power--and more importantly, expands your attack strings and combo options with even more slicing and dicing!
Don't even consider attacking something until you have a red buff, at the very least. Seriously--some of us can't even believe we slogged through so many monsters without knowing this.
The other important thing to remember with the Insect Glaive is that you should make liberal use of the vault-jump (R2 + X on PS4, or Right Trigger + A on Xbox One). You'll have access to two different aerial attacks (which are fantastic once you have a red buff active), as well as a midair dash to cover more ground or keep your combo going. It's even possible to stay in the air indefinitely, if the conditions are right. Naturally, this ability also makes it incredibly easy to mount monsters in order to knock them down.
The Insect Glaive is all about being incredibly mobile, doing great air damage, and keeping your buffs up to unleash a dizzying flurry of strikes. It's fun as hell--when you know how to use it.
You Can Swing Around On Wedge Beetles
Mounting monsters is both fun and incredibly useful, but you don't always have always a good ledge to leap from. Enter the Wedge Beetle, those glowing bugs that you may have noticed scattered around the world (which also make a very distinctive noise to notify you that they're nearby). By aiming at a Wedge Beetle with the left trigger, you can hit the Circle button (on PS4) or B button (on Xbox One) to latch onto it, allowing you to swing indefinitely before launching yourself in a direction. This is useful not just for mounting monsters, but also for navigating the world, as you can sometimes save yourself the trouble of scaling a wall--just fly on up by latching onto a Wedge Beetle.
Item And Equipment Loadouts Save Tons Of Time
One of the most time-saving (and tedium-reducing) things you can do in Monster Hunter World is save your item and equipment loadouts. This can be done from the Manage Items and Manage Equipment screens of your item box, and each loadout can be assigned a name to help you keep track of what it is. By doing this, you can establish equipment sets that work effectively when hunting specific types of monsters. This means no more scrolling through all of your items to double-check, say, whether you have something that provides more defense and resistances.
Item loadouts serve a similar purpose: They not only ensure that you have everything you want to bring on a hunt, they also allow you to easily dump everything that you picked up on a previous hunt. While Monster Hunter World introduces the ability to visit your item box while you're in the field, this ensures that you never find yourself ready to capture a monster after a long fight, only to realize that you didn't bring any traps.
The Map Is A Powerful Tool
A glimpse at the map can be overwhelming, but it's incredibly helpful if you know how to use it. If you're on the trail of a monster, you can select it in the bottom-left of the map, to have your scout flies help guide you toward it. Beyond that, you can set custom waypoints anywhere on the map,and your scout flies will guide you to your destination. And the map shows quite a lot--quests and bounties that involve hunting a particular small monster or collecting honey are much easier when your scout flies can take you to the correct location.
Talk To The Chief Ecologist Often
Among the people you'll want to routinely talk to in town is the Chief Ecologist, in the Ecological Research area of Astera. Located just to your left of where you spawn (up the stairs, behind where you manage bounties and investigations), having a quick chat allows you to capitalize on any tracks and other monster evidence that you collect in the field. Picking up that stuff is incredibly helpful long-term, but speaking to the researcher is a necessary part of the process, as doing so lets you increase your Research level with that particular monster. This, in turn, allows you to check out your Hunter's Notes from the Start menu at any item, which gives you important information about monster weak points, resistances, and item drops. Higher Research levels also provide a scout fly bonus, letting you more quickly pick up a monster's trail.
The Wishlist Makes It Easy To Track Materials
Crafting everything you want requires a lot of materials--and trying to remember exactly what you need can become a hassle. Rather than waste your time running to the crafting screen to see if you finally have all the necessary parts after each hunt, setting up a wishlist ensures that you get notifications telling you both when you've picked up a material for something on your list, and when you have all the parts to start crafting.
Capturing Monsters Is The Way To Go
Capturing monsters may seem a little intimidating, particularly if you're a newcomer; it's easier and safer to just keep smacking a monster on the head with a sword than to risk death by trying to ensnare it. But the process is actually quite easy (check out our guide to capturing monsters in Monster Hunter World), and more importantly, tends to yield more rewards than killing a monster. Capturing is obviously an essential element of some quests, but even when you can get away with killing a monster, you're better off bringing some traps and tranq bombs (or tranq ammo) and capturing everything that you can.
Flash Pods Are Invaluable Against Flying Monsters
Flying monsters can be obnoxious, particularly if you're a melee weapon user. They soar into the air, often out of even the most comically large weapon's reach, and they launch deadly attacks from the sky. Launching rocks with your slinger won't do much, but the slinger can be equipped with something that is more effective: Flash Pods. These are occasionally given to you for free at the beginning of a quest, or you can craft them and bring them yourself.
Either way, simply scroll through your item bar and equip the Flash Pod, and you suddenly have a great counter to flying monsters. You only get three shots, but firing one in the vicinity of a monster's face with the slinger (done by holding the left trigger and firing with the right) will stun the monster and cause it to drop out of the sky, thereby saving you from an incoming attack (and opening up an opportunity to deal some damage).
Science fiction is always about the present day. Highly advanced technology or aliens aside, sci-fi authors are always telling stories inspired by the world they live in and where they see it going in the future. Altered Carbon, both Richard K. Morgan's book and Netflix's adaptation, is no different.
The story's introduction is as bewildering as most sci-fi--the audience's attention is whipped around, trying to figure out the rules of the fiction as we're thrown from an otherworldly vista of flying cars zipping between glowing neon skyscrapers to a naked man flopping out of an amniotic sac, alive and in a new body centuries after his apparent death. Once Altered Carbon establishes its ground rules, though (immortality is possible now, thanks to "stacks" that contain a person's mind and can be transferred from body to body), the confusion fades. And it starts to feel more than a little familiar.
The characters, mainly former elite soldier Takeshi Kovacs and police officer Kristen Ortega, don't seem too different from real people, despite their familiarity with virtual reality worlds, the communication tech built into their eyes, and acceptance of the unnatural rules guiding the ways in which life and death function in this world. They still love and hate one another just as people have always done. They still fight for money or various ideologies. They're still human, for all the good and bad that represents.
The world they inhabit, too, may look unlike our own, but only on a surface level. Still, hundreds of years into the future, people murder each other for petty reasons, scramble for economic and political power, and recreate age-old occupations like hired killer or sex worker, even if the ways they do so are different than the present day. It's here, on the larger scale, that Altered Carbon makes its feelings on the future known.
In the TV show's second episode, Kovacs monologues: "Technology advances, but humans don't. We're smart monkeys and what we want is always the same: food, shelter, sex, and, in all its forms, escape." As the plot advances, this point ends up feeling like the cornerstone of the story's understanding of humanity. Readers and viewers follow a mystery that details enormous class disparity, the wealthy enjoying access to immortality on a far greater scale than the poor. It also shows wars for control over how stack technology is employed, guerilla groups fighting government forces for ideological and religious reasons. We see, too, the sex trade continue, even as it takes a horrifying new form that pushes beyond the limits of the human body.
Each of these plot elements is easy to compare to our real world. Even though the technology involves switching bodies throughout centuries, the influence money has on Altered Carbon's world is only a sci-fi extension of modern day inequality when it comes to health care access (we already live longer if we have the means to afford it). Though we don't travel from planet to planet to fight, our world is full of wars meant to acquire territory or propagate various worldviews through political power. Modern sex trafficking doesn't involve all the complexities of sleeve switching, cloning, and virtual reality, but it does, as in Altered Carbon, consist of exerting power over vulnerable women and turning human beings into chattel.
Over centuries of humanity, we haven't necessarily progressed as much as found new ways to exercise our base impulses. Altered Carbon says that even though the way its characters do so may look wildly different from our present day, our behavior remains the same. It's an honest, if pessimistic, vision of where we're going as a species.
Though history does show instances of actual breakthroughs in advancing human rights, it's still not a linear process that has led us to total enlightenment. At our darkest moments, basically, it's hard to believe the message, quoted most famously by Martin Luther King Jr., that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." More often it feels like the world is shaped, as Kovacs says, by smart monkeys chasing the same things we always want, no matter the cost.
Altered Carbon says that this is a process that will continue on far into the future, beyond death itself. Even if we advance to the point that we craft ways to overcome the limits of natural life, humanity will still remain the same as we've ever been. This makes its fiction fairly dystopian--a grimly cynical look at where the promises of technological breakthrough will bring us.
Despite this darkness, though, Altered Carbon is also a story about people who, beaten down by the worst of their world, try to overcome inequality and wanton violence by working toward something like justice. In that, there's still the faintest glimmer of optimism, no matter how dark everything surrounding it may be.
February has been a busy month for Nintendo Switch owners so far, and that only continues this week with the release of Bayonetta 2. Platinum Games' acclaimed action game arrives on Switch nearly four years after it originally debuted on Wii U back in 2014, and it has the distinction of being one of the few games to earn a rare 10 out of 10 from GameSpot.
"Bayonetta 2 never strives to be anything less than the purest, rarest kind of action-game experience, one that values skill, reaction times, and sheer spectacle over all else--realism and storytelling be damned," critic Mark Walton wrote in GameSpot's original Bayonetta 2 review. "Sure, you can feel the influence of the likes of Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden in Bayonetta 2's combat, and see it in its wonderfully outlandish visuals. But neither of those games, nor the many that followed in their footsteps, come close to the brilliance of Bayonetta 2."
Ahead of its release, other outlets have begun publishing reviews of Bayonetta 2. As always, we've rounded up a sample of them below to give you an idea of what critics have to say about the action game. For a broader look at Bayonetta 2's reception, be sure to check out GameSpot sister site Metacritic.
Alongside Bayonetta 2, the original Bayonetta also arrives on Switch this week, and it likewise remains one of the most highly regarded action games ever released, as you can read about in our original Bayonetta review. Both titles are available individually on the Switch Eshop, but those who pick up a physical copy of Bayonetta 2 will also receive a download code for the original Bayonetta, giving fans a chance to catch up on the series before Bayonetta 3 launches exclusively for the console.
Game: Bayonetta 2
Developer: Platinum Games
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release date: February 16
Price: $60
GameSpot -- 10/10
"Bayonetta 2 arrives on Switch with everything intact from the Wii U version, but with the added convenience of portability and a more consistent frame rate, making it the definitive version of the game. Thanks to the confident execution of seemingly unbridled creativity, Bayonetta 2 remains a game that shouldn't be missed, just as it was when we first reviewed the game on Wii U." -- Peter Brown [Full review]
IGN -- 9/10
"Playing through Bayonetta 2 on Nintendo Switch allowed me to relive some of the most exhilarating, action-packed, hack-and-slash moments from the last decade of gaming. The framerate improvements alone make it a better experience than the Wii U version, and the Amiibo-activated costumes at least put a fun spin on it even if there's no substantial new content for returning players. It's disappointing that the Switch version can't manage more than 720p on a big screen, but with that said, Bayonetta 2's fantastic art style holds up well." -- Filip Miucin [Full review]
Trusted Reviews -- 4.5/5
"Bayonetta 1 and 2 remain a fantastic duo of action titles that feel perfectly at home on Nintendo Switch. Being able to play two of Platinum Games' finest efforts whenever you like is hugely appealing, and the abundance of content on offer here only makes it even better." -- Jordan King [Full review]
Vooks -- 5/5
"There's a reason Bayonetta is revered amongst fans of character action games. While Bayonetta as a character might deter some people from giving the franchise a chance, there's an incredible set of action games in this collection. As I said right at the beginning, after playing both Bayonetta games for the first time on Switch I was kicking myself for not trying them sooner. The characters and utter spectacle of the environments and encounters are impressive, and the flow of combat is immensely satisfying whether you keep it to basic dodges and ripostes or get experimental with combining techniques. Both games are adjustable to your preferences as far as difficulty, game speed, and complexity--even if you've been intimidated by similar games in the past, you can get in on the action here." -- Steven Impson [Full review]
Since the launch of Fortnite's free-to-play, PUBG-esque Battle Royale mode last year, it's become tremendously popular. If you're among the people playing the PS4 version, you can grab some free cosmetic items right now, provided you're a PlayStation Plus subscriber.
A new PS Plus bonus quietly surfaced on the PlayStation Store today. Dubbed the PlayStation Plus Celebration Pack, it consists of two exclusive items: a glider and an outfit, both of which are pictured below. These are not available for purchase and can only be claimed if you're a PS Plus member. You can grab the pack here.
The pack becomes available ahead of the next Fortnite update. It will only be available for a limited time, but you've got much more time to claim it than the typical PS Plus freebie--the offer expires on February 1, 2019. We've reached out to Epic to find out the exact details of this promotion and whether PC or Xbox One players will also have access to these items.
February's standard lineup of free PS Plus games are still available and include PS4 launch game Knack. Meanwhile, if you were subscribed in the past to PS Plus, a new freebie recently became available thanks to the launch of Mercenary Kings' new Reloaded Edition. Additionally, another smaller perk is out now for Gems of War. And finally, the ongoing PSVR game giveaway continues, with the latest being Starblood Arena.
Microsoft has rolled out a fresh set of deals on Xbox Live, and there are some solid offers to be had across Xbox One and Xbox 360. Starting with Xbox One, the newest Call of Duty game, Call of Duty: WWII, is on sale for one of the first times since release. Right now, you can get it for $39, which is 35 percent off its normal $60 price.
Go to Major Nelson's blog to see a full rundown of this week's Xbox One and Xbox 360 deals, including country-specific price points and more. The offers, some of which require an Xbox Live Gold membership, are good through February 19.
What are you watching on Netflix this week? If you're not sure, perhaps it's time to try something new. The streaming service as plenty of options being added this week, in case you're looking for the perfect Valentine's Day binge.
The most notable arrival is the first season of the original series Everything Sucks. The coming-of-age comedy is set in the mid-1990s and, if the trailer is any indication, is going to hit many viewers right in the nostalgia. With nods to everything from Alanis Morissette to Beavis and Butthead to dating in a pre-social media and texting world, Everything Sucks aims to capture what it was like to be a freshman in 1996. Whether it succeeds it nor is something you'll have to find out.
Other titles coming to Netflix include the movies Evan Almighty and Blood Money. Additionally, originals like Irreplaceable You, DreamWorks Dragons: Race to the Edge, and Greenhouse Academy will premiere as well.
You can take the full list of what's coming to Netflix this week below. Alternatively, you can check out the list of everything being added in February.
February 14
Greenhouse Academy: Season 2 (Netflix Original)
Love Per Square Foot (Netflix Original)
February 15
Deep Undercover Collection: Collection 2
Re:Mind: Season 1 (Netflix Original)
February 16
DreamWorks Dragons: Race to the Edge: Season 6 (Netflix Original)
Destiny 2's Crimson Days event is now live, bringing a new activity--a special 2v2 Crucible playlist--to occupy your time. But no matter what you do, you'll be working toward unlocking the real highlight of the new update: new gear. Destiny 2 players on PC, PS4, and Xbox One now have a variety of items to acquire, but only for a limited time.
You can take a look at everything that's currently available in the images. The Valentine's Day-themed event includes new Ghosts, Sparrows, armor and weapon shaders, emotes, weapon ornaments (for weapons like scout rifles and auto rifles, but hand cannons and others get no love), and more to acquire--but no new armor. These are primarily included in new Crimson Engrams, which are obtained by playing the aforementioned Crucible mode. Alternatively, if you've reached the level cap (level 20 if you don't own Curse of Osiris, 25 if you do), each level up will reward you a Crimson Engram in addition to the standard Illuminated Engram. No matter how you obtain it, the Crimson Engram is guaranteed to decrypt into an item you don't already own until you've unlocked everything.
While the bulk of the new items are obtained through the Engram, there are five others that are obtained through different means. You'll need to fulfill a specific objective in order to unlock the corresponding reward (or to have a chance at earning it, in one case). Here's how to unlock them:
Tirastrella Ghost Shell + Fire of the Crimson Days Emblem: Complete the "Welcome to Crimson Days" milestone (finish five Crimson Days matches, talk to Shaxx)
Undeterred Exotic Sparrow: Complete Crimson Days Crucible playlist matches for a "chance" to unlock this
Dieselpunk Exotic Ornament for Wardcliff Coil: Complete the Leviathan Raid or Eater of Worlds Raid Lair to find this in the final chest
Flaunting Dance Emote: Complete the Nightfall Strike during the event
Crimson Days is now live on all platforms, and it runs until the weekly reset on February 20. Even if you don't plan on playing much, you can get a free Crimson Engram just by logging in and speaking with Tess at The Tower.
The Evil Within 2 will now let you play through the entire game in first-person, thanks to a new update available right now. The first-person option is in addition to the previous third-person mode, and it's accessible at any time via the in-game menu on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
"A lot of players like playing horror games in first-person, so for those who want to see some of the game's situations through Sebastian's eyes, it's a really neat experience," said Tango Gameworks producer Shinsaku Ohara. "I think exploring Union in first-person makes the scale feel even bigger than it does when you're in third-person. Also, being able to see our environments and enemies up close allows players to get an even better look at how much effort went into their designs."
The mode offers another option for those who haven't yet tried The Evil Within 2, or potentially a reason to play the game again for those who have. It's worth picking up, too: critical reception was positive upon its launch in October, and it earned an 8/10 in GameSpot's The Evil Within 2 review.
"Though there's some occasional technical hiccups that result in some particularly frustrating moments and weird pacing issues," wrote Alessandro Fillari, "this horror sequel elevates the tense and impactful survival horror experience in ways that feel fresh and exciting. What this cerebral horror game does isn't totally new, but it rarely feels routine, and offers plenty of surprises. Coming in at a lengthy and surprisingly packed 15-hour campaign, the sequel does an admirable job of ratcheting up the tension and scares when it needs to, while also giving you the freedom to explore and proceed how you want. It's a tough thing to balance, but The Evil Within 2 does it remarkably well, and in a way that leaves a strong and lasting impression after its touching conclusion."
Editor's note: Bayonetta 2 arrives on Switch with everything intact from the Wii U version, but with the added convenience of portability and a more consistent frame rate, making it the definitive version of the game. Thanks to the confident execution of seemingly unbridled creativity, Bayonetta 2 remains a game that shouldn't be missed, just as it was when we first reviewed the game on Wii U. The original review has been updated to reflect the new version of the game. - Peter Brown, Feb. 14, 6:00 AM PT
Bayonetta 2 never strives to be anything less than the purest, rarest kind of action-game experience, one that values skill, reaction times, and sheer spectacle over all else--realism and storytelling be damned. Sure, you can feel the influence of the likes of Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden in Bayonetta 2's combat, and see it in its wonderfully outlandish visuals. But neither of those games, nor the many that followed in their footsteps, come close to the brilliance of Bayonetta 2. It is a masterclass in pure, unadulterated action-game design, where its insane eye-popping visuals meld effortlessly with some of the sharpest, most joyful combat to have ever graced a video game.
There's no delay in getting you to the good stuff either, no scene-setting preamble to keep you from the action; I can think of few games where the opening moments are as outrageously bombastic as the last. Within minutes you'll have travelled through space atop a crumbling building, sliced golden angels into gooey chunks of meat, and even hopped inside a machine-gun-mech to take on gargantuan holy beasts. Newcomers may well button bash their way though these opening moments, but the sheer spectacle of it all makes them no less fun or exciting.
The basics are explained briefly--press Y to fire your guns, press X to punch things--but Bayonetta doesn't hold your hand via convoluted tutorials or training sequences. All it gives you are the absolute essentials you need to survive its early stages; it's up to you to learn more complex moves by experimenting or perusing the command list. Your proficiency with the titular Bayonetta's combat skills evolves at a natural pace. Nothing seems forced or faked, and--with a couple of minor exceptions--nor are you suddenly gifted some newfangled ability that results in a huge boost of power.
It's the design of the levels themselves, and the enemies that populate them, that encourage you to learn new combos and improve your skills. While there's not much in the way of exploration, levels like the beautiful, European-like Noatun, with its detailed stone pillar walls and glistening canals, hide secret battles and challenges for you to find. Most, however, funnel you as quickly as possibly from one hypersonic set piece to next. One moment you're happily chopping away at angelic guardians atop a fighter jet, and the next you're battling a giant golden snake that's guarding the glittering gates of heaven. Death comes quickly to those who fail to adapt to the timings and speeds of these wildly different encounters, but it's in this learning by doing that you're rewarded with a real sense of accomplishment, one that you don't get from simply being told what to do.
The mechanics of Bayonetta 2's combat don't differ that all that much from those of its predecessor. But when that predecessor is one of the greatest action games ever made, this is no bad thing. Everything from the way punches and kicks connect with your enemies, to the detailed, pixel-perfect animations that accompany them, showcases a stunning combat system that values skill and reaction times while looking gorgeous in the process. Even minor frame rate issues during the game's more complex scenes do little to detract from it. What is new in Bayonetta 2 is Umbran Climax, a powerful combat technique that lets you unleash powered-up punches and kicks, and a devastating demon summon. While you need a full magic gauge to perform an Umbran Climax--preventing you from using one of Bayonetta's gruesome torture attacks--the increased range of each hit, and the small amount of health you reclaim while using it, makes it a far more useful in combat.
But it would all be for nothing without Witch Time, a dodging mechanic that rewards last-second escapes by temporarily slowing down time, allowing you to unleash a barrage of attacks, or circumvent defences like shields and rotating spikes. It's a mechanic that's often mimicked, but never bettered; Witch Time transforms the already impressive combat into a sweeping ballet of guts and gunfire, culminating in the furious button mashing and blood-splattering of a dazzling Climax finish.
Timing, of course, is crucial to these moments, but even if you aren't that adept at unleashing a killer combo, the simplicity of Witch Time's single-button manoeuvring makes impressive displays of combat accessible to all. Bayonetta 2 ably strikes that balance between intuitiveness and depth, and does so without resorting to built-in handicaps or convoluted training missions. With just a few simple combos and well-timed flicks of the trigger to engage Witch Time, Bayonetta effortlessly twirls and kicks through the air, unleashing calamitous blows that are overwhelmingly satisfying to perform. Before long, you feel like a master of the form, even if, in reality, you've barely scratched the surface. The smooth, seamless flow of gratuitous gore and eye-popping visuals that follows the most dramatic of your encounters make for a wild ride almost impossible to put down.
It helps that Bayonetta 2 rarely lets the action drop. Unlike its predecessor, the game rarely allows the pace to dip as you explore larger towns, and it's not long before you're thrown back into another spectacular battle against the forces of heaven and hell (Paradiso and Inferno, in Bayonetta speak). Cutscenes are briefer this time around, which keeps the focus squarely on the combat, but they are just as tongue-in-cheek as before. You get your fair share of cheesy characters and sight gags, particularly in the humorous opening moments where bumbling Italian gangster Enzo is mercilessly teased by Bayonetta, and then has his more delicate parts almost run over by a motorbike-riding Jeanne. Things get a little more tense as the battle to save the earth rolls on, but the game never takes itself too seriously, punctuating its deeper moments with sarcastic quips from Bayonetta, who--despite suffering crotch shots and blatant innuendos--remains one of the most charismatic and powerful heroines in the medium. There are none of the sleazy moments that peppered the likes of Lollipop Chainsaw and Killer Is Dead; the sexualisation here serves to empower, not to belittle.
The story stitching it all together is utter nonsense, but fittingly so, because its absurdity serves as way to push you into ever more outlandish battles. By the time you reach the latter half of the game, the action rapidly escalates into multiple "Whoa! Did that really just happen?!" moments--a rock 'em sock 'em battle between two giants of Paradiso and Inferno, and an underwater clash with a sword slicing mega-knight being particular highlights--before climaxing into some of the most absurdly weird and wonderful boss battles to have graced an action game. But making it to the end credits barely scratches the surface of Bayonetta 2. There are hidden battles to find in each chapter, different accessories and weapons to buy and pick up from fallen enemies that give you access to new combos and powers, and challenges that have you trying to defeat enemies without taking a single hit, or by only being able to deal damage in Witch Time.
Then there are the medals doled out after every battle (awarded to you depending on the length of your combos and how much damage you take) that encourage you to keep going back and trying to perfect your performance--and when you've done that, there are the harder difficulties to try and master too. You can spend hours hunting down Nintendo-based Easter eggs and costumes, and--judging by my own squeals of delight when I found them--it's well worth the effort.
If you manage to work your way through all that, there's Tag Climax's two-player online co-op to master too. Not only does Tag Climax let you do battle with enemies not in the main game, it's actually also one of the best ways to acquire halos (Bayonetta 2's in-game currency), if you've got the chops for it. You can wager halos against your online partner as to who will get the highest score, with larger wagers upping the difficulty as well as the potential reward. Then, at the end of six rounds of furious battling, a winner is declared. Shared abilities like Witch Time and Umbran Climax ensure that there's an element of teamwork to these cooperative battles, and on higher wagers, they can get incredibly challenging.
But it's a challenge you'll want to experience again as soon as you put down the controller. Bayonetta 2's combat is so expertly constructed, and its presentation so joyously insane, that you'd have to try so very hard to get bored of it all. In a year filled with the promise of ever more elaborate experiences on all the shiny new hardware, that Bayonetta 2--a homage to classic game design and escapism--should be the most fun I've had playing a game all year is unexpected. But maybe it shouldn't have been. After all, its predecessor still stands as one of the finest games of its genre. To have surpassed that with Bayonetta 2, and to have created a game that will be remembered as an absolute classic, is nothing short of astonishing.
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THQ Nordic, the Austria-based company currently in possession of the Darksiders, Red Faction, and de Blob properties, has acquired Koch Media, the parent company of Dead Island, Saints Row, and Metro publisher Deep Silver. The deal, which is set for approval later today, was worth €121 million (approximately $149 million).
The acquisition means that THQ Nordic now owns all of Koch Media's assets, which includes its studios, intellectual properties, and licenses, such as the Metro game series. Koch Media's business also includes films, which are created "primarily for German and Italian speaking territories."
Noteworthy studios that are part of the acquisition include Volition, which is responsible for the Saints Row series; Dambuster, which is behind Homefront; and Fishlabs Entertainment, known for the Galaxy on Fire series.
"I strongly believe that THQ Nordic is a great strategic fit with Koch Media," said Klemens Kundratitz, Koch Media CEO, who will continue in his role as chief executive. "In addition to having long experience within games development and publishing, THQ Nordic has the skills, willingness and capital to deliver growth in the future."
Lars Wingefors, CEO THQ Nordic, indicated that Koch's studios will continue to operate as normal, with both Volition and Dambuster working on new, unannounced AAA games, in addition to 4A's Metro Exodus.
"Koch Media has a long history of profitability despite losses incurred from some less successful game releases," he said. "THQ Nordic is convinced that the development studios of Deep Silver as part of THQ Nordic will successfully deliver at least four ongoing AAA game projects including Metro Exodus as well as the next Volition Studio AAA release and the next Dambuster Studio AAA release, together with a number of other game development and publishing titles."
Last year THQ Nordic announced Biomutant, a third-person action game set in a fantasy universe. It is also has Darksiders 3 in the pipeline, which is being developed by Gunfire Games, a studio made up of many ex-Vigil Games employees, all of which worked on the original Darksiders and its sequel.
Lawmakers in Hawaii have put forth a pair of bills that, if enacted, would limit the sale of video games with "gambling mechanisms" to minors and require that loot box odds be disclosed. The bills were introduced into Hawaii's legislature recently by Democrat Chris Lee, who you may remember was the politician who called out Star Wars: Battlefront II for being "predatory."
The first bill is HB2686. It states that video game publishers have recently begun to use "predatory mechanisms" in their games that are "designed to exploit human psychology to compel players to keep spending money in the same way casino games are designed." It goes on to say that things like loot boxes--which are popular and prevalent in games today--are similar to slot machines because they let users pay money for a chance at winning something.
"One common variety of this type of predatory mechanism, known as a loot box, can present the same psychology, addictive, and financial risks as gambling," reads a line from the bill. The document goes on to note that digital stores exist where players can sell the items they acquired through loot boxes and other "gambling-like mechanisms." In turn, this gives players the ability to "effectively cash out their winnings," as they might in a casino, the author wrote.
HB2686 goes on to reference the World Health Organisation's recent announcement that "gaming disorder" is a real mental condition that requires more clinical research. "Mental health experts have raised particular concern about the exposure of youth and young adults to gambling-like mechanisms, which can affect cognitive development and lead to addiction, and to which youth and young adults are particularly vulnerable," reads a line from the bill.
This bill's main focus is to prohibit the sale of video games that include a "system of further purchasing, including randomised reward or a virtual item that can be redeemed to directly or indirectly receive a randomised reward," to people under the age of 21.
The other bill, HB2727, includes much of the same text as HB2686, but it goes further to say that video games with loot boxes should be required to making "certain disclosure[s]" about the odds that players will receive a certain item. More, specifically, this disclosure must be featured "prominently" at the time of purchase and in the game itself when loot boxes appear. If this bill becomes a law, Hawaii's Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, potentially in conjunction with a third-party, may conduct audits on video games sold in Hawaii to ensure that accurate probability rates are disclosed clearly and transparently.
Both bills note that it is not uncommon for video games to get frequent updates after release. However, HB2727 states that "no video game publisher shall at any time modify a game to contain or otherwise permit the inclusion of additional content for which the game was not appropriately labeled at the time of original sale."
In the United States and most other parts of the world, video games generally do not disclose things like loot box odds, though regulators in China recently started enforcing this.
Bear in mind that these bills, if they become law, would only apply to games and gamers in Hawaii, whose population is only around 1.4 million. That being said, lawmakers from other states, such as Washington, have also put forth bills with similar language. Lee told GameSpot in an interview that it will be a combined effort to enact the kind of change he wants to see. Already, Lee tells us that he has seen bipartisan support for these efforts. More significantly, he said other elected officials across the country, including US Senators and members of Congress, have reached out to voice their support.
If the new bills introduced in Hawaii and Washington, as well as other parts of the country and world, become law, it could significantly impact the world's biggest publishers such as EA, Activision, Take-Two, and others. Just recently, we learned that Activision Blizzard made $4 billion from microtransactions in 2017, while Ubisoft makes lots of money from add-on content as well. Not all of this money comes from loot boxes or what Lee and others might call "predatory" mechanics, but a portion does. So it stands to reason that these companies, and organisations that represent them in Washington--such as the ESA--would want to protect their interests. This is all to say, this is a story that we don't imagine will fade away anytime soon, but will rather pick up steam and debate in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
We will have more from our interview with Lee in the days ahead. Keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest.
AMD put out a new version of its Radeon Adrenalin software suite, and with this 18.2.2 update comes a driver that boosts performance in a few popular PC games. Two of the top battle royale games, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite, are getting some extra frames per second on AMD cards. In addition, the newly released Kingdom Come: Deliverance gets proper support and improved framerates.
The benchmarks were performed by AMD internally and the results come out of a system consisting of an Intel Core i7-7700K CPU clocked at 4.2GHz and 16GB of DDR4-3000 RAM on the Windows 10 64-bit operating system. Tests were done with the RX 580 at 1080p and RX Vega 56 at 1440p, and comparisons were made between previous driver versions and the latest version 18.2.2. The following is a breakdown of the benchmark results.
Fortnite
Fortnite is getting a slight boost for AMD users; the new driver shows up to 3% faster performance on the RX Vega 56 video card compared to driver version 17.12.1 at 2560x1440p (1440p) and Epic graphics settings (jumping from an average of 63 FPS to 65 FPS). With the RX 580 at 1920x1080 (1080p) and Epic graphics settings, results show up to 6% faster performance using the new driver, going from a 72 FPS average to 76 FPS.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
When looking at PUBG, the RX Vega 56 showed up to 5% faster performance using the 18.2.2 driver compared to version 17.12.1 at 2560x1440p (1440p) and High settings; the improvement was from 76 FPS to 80 FPS. In testing the RX 580 at 1920x1080 (1080p) and High settings, AMD indicates that you can see up to 7% faster performance with the new driver; results showed the average framerate go from 81 FPS to 87 FPS.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
The RX Vega 56 will get up to 3% faster performance using the new 18.2.2 driver at 2560x1440p (1440p) with Ultra High settings; the average framerate went from 46.1 FPS to 47.4 FPS. When it comes to the RX 580, the new driver shows up to 4% faster performance with 1080p and Ultra High settings, by jumping from an average of 53.5 FPS to 55.9 FPS.
Pokemon Go is celebrating Valentine's Day this week with a higher chance of catching certain Pokemon and earning extra Stardust. Alongside this special holiday event, Pokemon Go also received a new update.
Update 0.91.2 on Android devices and 1.61.2 on iOS was released today, announced on developer Niantic's Twitter account. It's a small update, and the iOS and Google Play stores haven't listed patch notes yet, but Niantic states that it focuses on fixing bugs.
Trainers, Pokémon GO is being updated to version 0.91.2 for Android and 1.61.2 for iOS to implement bug fixes.
Meanwhile, the big holiday event is happening from now until Thursday, February 15. It increases the chances of running into the Pokemon Luvdisc and Chansey, and it grants triple Stardust for each of those that you capture.
In other news, the next Pokemon Go Community Day event is coming up soon. It'll take place on February 24 and, like the first Community Day in January, players will have a chance to capture a special Dratini that knows a move normal Dratinis don't know.
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Rob and Peter find out what Kingdom Come: Deliverance is all about.
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