Between now and January 10, you don't have to spend any money to get one of the best platformers of the decade. The Epic Games Store is giving away free copies of Super Meat Boy to anyone with an account. And if you don't have an account, signing up is free. All you have to do is sign in, claim the game, and you're good to go. The only catch is that you'll need to use the Epic Games Launcher to play it.
Super Meat Boy is an ultra-challenging side-scrolling platformer that stars an anthropomorphic slab of meat. Your job is to navigate the fragile hero through dozens of stages that are filled with obstacles like saw blades, shards of glass, and piles of deadly salt. It's a tough game, but the levels are mostly short, and you respawn instantly.
In GameSpot's 9.5/10 Super Meat Boy review, Tom McShae wrote, "It's impossible to point to just one element that makes Super Meat Boy such an extraordinary game. From the intense-though-always-fair difficulty and the inspired level design, to the pinpoint controls and catchy soundtrack, all of the different aspects converge into something that is truly outstanding."
The Epic Games Store launched earlier this month, offering a small selection of games initially, with a promise to increase the selection over time. The company also said it will hand out a PC game for free every two weeks throughout 2019, giving potential customers a reason to keep coming back. The first freebie was Subnautica, but that's now been replaced by Super Meat Boy. Epic has yet to announce what game will be free when Super Meat Boy goes back to regular price on January 10.
The Dawning, Destiny 2's holiday event, is nearly over, which makes this weekend your last chance to give a few holiday cookies to Xur. The special vendor who only appears from Friday to Tuesday each week also has his usual crop of products: Exotic weapons and armor. Here's everything you need to know about where to find Xur and what you can buy from him during your final Exotic shopping days of 2018.
For the final weekend of December, you'll be able to find Xur on Titan in the area known as The Rig. If you still need to deliver him Strange Cookies to get all the Triumphs for the Dawning event, check out our Dawning recipe guide before you miss your chance.
As usual, he's offering Exotics from the Year One collection to help you get all the best weapons and armor from before the release of Destiny 2's Forsaken expansion. This week, Xur has D.A.R.C.I., a powerful sniper rifle that gives you a whole bunch of information about enemies when you activate its "Personal Assistant" perk by aiming through the scope. When the Personal Assistant is activated, the rifle does a lot more damage and has better targeting acquisition, making it a pretty great tool both in the Crucible and against enemies throughout the solar system.
Xur also carries three pieces of Exotic armor, one for each class of character. This week, Warlocks can grab the Stag helmet, which gives you additional Rift energy when you're critically injured and creates a healing Rift on your body if you die--making it a lot easier for teammates to revive you. For Hunters, Xur has the Ophidia Spathe chest piece, which gives you an extra throwing knife melee charge. Finally for Titans, there's the Ashen Wake gauntlets, which make your fusion grenades explode on contact and increase your grenade throwing speed and distance.
Here are all the Exotics Xur offers this week and what they'll cost you:
D.A.R.C.I. (Exotic auto rifle) -- 29 Legendary Shards
Ashen Wake (Exotic Titan gauntlets) -- 23 Legendary Shards
The Stag (Exotic Warlock helmet) -- 23 Legendary Shards
You can also buy a Fated Engram, if you can afford it. Dropping 97 Legendary Shards on the item will grant you one Year One Exotic you don't already have for that character. You can also snag a Five of Swords challenge card for free, which allows you to add difficulty modifiers that increase your score in Nightfall runs.
These are the last few days of the Dawning, so don't forget to knock out your Triumphs and unlock the Dawning Cheer sparrow. There's also Iron Banner this week, a great place to get Powerful gear while you drive your characters up to the new 650 Power level cap. And last week saw the release of the Izanami Forge, the third of four new forges as part of the Black Armory expansion.
It's a good time to be a movie exhibitor. In 2018, movie theater revenue broke records, thanks in large part of massive event films like Black Panther and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Because of those major tent pole titles, along with many others, it's expected that the year will end with theaters bringing in $11.8 billion domestically--besting the former record of $11.4 billion in 2016. However, while the films themselves are a hugely important driver of the current boom, there's something else that deserves at least some of the credit: MoviePass.
The MoviePass subscription service relaunched in late 2017, allowing customers to see one movie a day, 365 days a year, all for only $9.99 per month. Chances are anyone who's been to a movie theater knows just how insane that is. After all, in many US cities, you'd be hard pressed to see one movie for 10 bucks, let alone a year's worth. Still, those behind MoviePass--which originally came onto the market in 2011 at a higher price and much less fanfare--believed profit would come because of the data they'd be collecting, which could be used in targeted marketing.
Right from the beginning, it sounded too good to be true and, as we found out throughout 2018, it truly was. The implosion of the service was a sight to behold. In the meantime, though, the company managed to change the way we, the viewing audience, go to the movies. Suddenly, you didn't have to be picky about what you were going to see because you were going to pay the same price regardless.
In many ways, it's similar to what services like the Xbox Games Pass or GameFly does for those who want to experience a wider array of video games without dropping $60 every time they want to try something new. MoviePass allowed people to go outside of their movie comfort zone and try new things at the theater. And, for a period of time, it also allowed them to watch a film more than once.
Of course, the flame out that followed was nothing short of catastrophic. Between a shortage of cash and badly handled customer relations, MoviePass went through a series of rule and price changes, leaving many wondering exactly what they had signed up for. Then certain movies didn't have tickets available and the service stopped working at some theaters, while tickets to specific films started adding a surcharge, making users pay more. When the company announced that it would curate which movies its customers could see, it also became increasingly difficult for users to cancel their subscription.
It's at this point that many users realized just how bad the MoviePass experiment had gone. And it wasn't just them.. A number of shareholders filed a class action lawsuit against the company, while a member of the board of directors criticized the company's management in his resignation letter.
In the end, the service quickly became something of a pop cultural joke and faded into the background to regroup and come up with a way to exist without going even further into debt. In that time, though, other companies saw what MoviePass was doing and figured out their own way of doing things. Because, while MoviePass' time in the sun may have been brief, a movie theater subscription service is a great idea. After all, that's why even MoviePass is still trying to make a go of it, though it no longer offers the plan giving customers a movie ticket each day.
And while it may never again attain the heights it briefly held in 2018, at the very least MoviePass will be remembered for revolutionizing the way we see movies. Now let's just hope the others that rose up during its free fall--AMC Stubs A-List and Sinemia, for example--don't suffer the same fate
A number of big video game sales are going on right now, including the Steam Winter Sale, PlayStation Holiday Sale, and Xbox Countdown Sale. But if you prefer getting games for free (and who doesn't?), GOG has what you're looking for. Between now and December 30, you can download the horror game Soma for PC, Mac, and Linux, totally free. While you're there, GOG probably hopes you'll check out its own winter sale, which runs through January 3.
Soma is a first-person game that takes place in an underwater research lab. As often happens in these sorts of games, you find yourself alone in the facility with no recollection of how you got there or what's going on. Your job is to avoid being killed by what lurks in the shadows as you learn about the lab and make your way to safety.
In GameSpot's 9/10 Soma review, Richard Wakeling wrote, "I came in expecting something similar to Amnesia, just in a terrifying new location, but what I found is an intelligent game that forced me to think and contemplate ideas as only the best sci-fi is capable of doing. It may not stir the hordes of wailing YouTubers looking for the next best haunted house, but SOMA succeeds at crafting something much more meaningful in a genre that's deserving of more than just simple jump scares."
To get your free (and DRM-free) copy, all you need to do is hop over to GOG, sign in or create an account, and click the "Claim" button. Do that, and you'll receive an email saying Soma has been added to your library. Easy peasy.
That's not the only deal GOG has going right now; over 2,000 games are on sale for up to 90% off. And if you spend just $0.01 during the winter sale, you'll receive a free copy of the 1996 strategy game Fantasy General (regularly $1.50). Spend $15, and you'll get Everspace (normally $30) for free.
The gift-giving holidays are over, but retailers still need to pay the rent. To help urge you to open your wallet as one year ends and another begins, GameStop is running its Winter Sale, which sees prices dropping on all kinds of PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch games. Read on to see what's on sale between now and January 1.
For starters, if you buy two pre-owned games, you'll get one free. The PlayStation Classic just released on December 3 for $100, but the plug-and-play console is already down to $60. No matter which system you have, you can grab the newest toys-to-life game on the market, Starlink: Battle for Atlas, for just $40. And if you trade in select games, you'll get $20 off any new game or pre-order.
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