Nintendo has announced a special online demo for Mario Tennis Aces, which goes live on April 26 at 12PM PT / 3PM ET and continues until May 3. Downloading the demo gives you a free seven-day trial to Nintendo Switch Online as well.
"Taking part in the special demo will also allow players to reap some special rewards that even carry over into the full Mario Tennis Aces game," Nintendo said in a press release. "Playing just one match in this week-long tournament unlocks an outfit for Mario that decks him out in classic overalls, while by collecting points in the demo's co-op challenge mode, players are eligible to unlock blue, red, and yellow Yoshi that can also be used right away in the special demo or in the full version of the game."
Mario Tennis Aces' latest update added an expanded Ring Shot mode to the game. In Ring Shot, you play cooperatively with other players and try to rally as long as you can while hitting the tennis ball through randomly appearing rings on the court. There are Singles, Doubles, and Yoshi's Ring Shot variations to the mode. Yoshi's Ring Shot is a limited-time event which ends on June 1. You rack up points hitting the ball through the rings that are the same color as the Yoshi you're playing as, and the event gives you the chance to unlock three new Yoshi colors: pink, orange, and light blue.
The roster in Mario Tennis Aces has grown in recent months, with Pauline, Boom Boom, Kamek, and several others joining. Dry Bones will be added as a playable character next month.
In our Mario Tennis Aces review, Justin Clark wrote, "It speaks volumes that even the multiplayer limitations don't entirely dampen my enthusiasm for Aces. The Tetris Effect is in full swing here; days after the credits rolled, I still crave the satisfying thwack from a Power Shot, mentally replay matches and imagine how I might do things differently given a bit more focus and know-how. Mario Tennis Aces does what this series has done best, and for the most part, improves what it's rarely gotten right prior."
The Revelry is in full swing and the Iron Banner has returned in Destiny 2, and if that wasn't enough, it's also the weekend--which means it's Xur time. The Agent of the Nine is back once again with an offering of Exotics to sell, although unfortunately he's not bringing any of the Exotics from Forsaken with him this time out. He does, however, offer a Fated Engram that guarantees a fresh Exotic, and a new Invitation of the Nine weekly bounty. And if you're still hurting for Exotics, you can head into the Verdant Forest and snag the Arbalest with our handy guide.
Head to Titan to find Xur this week. He's in the area marked as The Rig, hanging out in a low building to the northeast of the spawn point. Ride your sparrow north with the edge of the platform and the water on your left until you see a low building; the vendor is inside.
Xur brings Sweet Business with him this week, an Exotic auto rifle that sprays an ridiculous amount of ammo. The gun increases its fire rate and range the longer you hold down the trigger and automatically reloads from ammo you pick up off the ground, allowing you to do a ton of shooting without stopping. On the armor side, Xur brings Hunters the Lucky Pants leg armor, which reloads your stowed hand cannon for every precision hit you land, and makes hand cannons faster and more accurate when you swap to them. For Titans, there's Doom Fang Pauldron, which gives you Super energy when you make melee kills, extends your Super on Shield Throw hits, and recharges Shield Throw when you get melee kills with your Super active. Finally, for Warlocks, there's the Aeon Soul gauntlets, which recharges your allies' class abilities, especially if they're also wearing Aeon Cult Exotics.
Here are all the Exotics Xur offers this week and what they'll cost you:
Sweet Business (Exotic auto rifle) -- 29 Legendary Shards
You can also purchase a Fated Engram from Xur, if his inventory doesn't interest you. Fated Engrams can now dish out Exotics from the Forsaken expansion, as well as the Year One group. Grabbing one of the engrams gives you a random Exotic that you don't already have, provided you can afford it. Fated Engrams will run you 97 Legendary Shards, and you can only get one per account each week. Xur also offers the Five of Swords challenge card for free, which allows you to add difficulty modifiers that increase your score in Nightfall runs.
Finally, Xur brings another Invitation of the Nine weekly bounty. It gives you a Powerful gear drop when you complete it, as well as a bit of story about the Nine and the Drifter, and a new Lore entry. As usual, you'll have to clear out a mess of enemies of various types, and complete a Strike. Stick to the planet mentioned in the bounty to kill the enemies you need, as they don't always count if you kill them in other places.
Avengers: Endgame has finally arrived, completing a story arc that has spanned a decade and more than 20 films. It's been clear for a while that this blockbuster would bring in an impressive take, but after the first night of screenings we're getting an idea of just how much.
Deadline reports that the film's Thursday night screenings brought in $60 million, toppling the record set by Star Wars: The Force Awakens at $57 million. For the purposes of tabulating, Thursday evenings are counted as part of Friday's box office take, which industry estimates say could reach around $130-140 million. If so that would beat the total Friday record, also set by Force Awakens at $119 million.
Meanwhile, the movie is breaking records in the other markets as well. THR reports that its overseas two-day gross since opening on Wednesday is $305 million, which includes a large chunk from China. That brings the grand worldwide total up to $365 million before the weekend has even started.
And there may be more broken records to come. Industry watchers think the full domestic weekend box office take could top $300 million. Even getting close to that point would be enough to beat the opening weekend record set by Avengers: Infinity War, which brought in just over $257 million.
We've known for quite a while that Avengers stood a good chance at breaking records. Initial estimates put it at a $200-250 opening weekend, which would have just missed the Infinity War record. But even those estimates were couched in reminders that the Infinity War's own estimates pegged it at an opening of $180-225 million, and it blew past those easily.
It also remains to be seen if Endgame will match or exceed Infinity War in total global sales at just over $2 billion. Even if it does, it will still need to go a lot further to take down the current reigning champion of total global sales: Avatar, with $2.78 billion.
If you're getting ready to take part in that weekend box office gross, make sure you check out our spoiler-free review and plan ahead with our advice on when it's safe to pee. Or if you've already seen it and you're still processing all that happened, we have you covered with everything from who's alive and dead to Doctor Strange's plan.
Now that the world is seeing Avengers: Endgame, the final installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Infinity Saga, there are many questions to be answered. And that's before you consider what happens from here in the MCU. We know some of the movies still to come, but how will Marvel Studios top what it has already done? Warning: The following contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame.
While most of the questions you have will likely be answered with time, there's some we can solve right now, whether it's if there was a post-credits scene or what the ending of the film means. However, there's yet another question--a minor one, but still--that is ready to be answered.
Toward the end of the film, during Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr.) funeral, many of those he's has known throughout the first decade of the MCU are seen, from his fellow Avengers to the Guardians of the Galaxy, to even friends like Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). There was one face in the crowd you might not have recognized, though: that of a teenage boy. At a glance, you may have dismissed him as being Peter Parker (Tom Holland), but the answer is actually a really nice Easter Egg.
The boy is Harley Keener (Ty Simpkins). You should remember him as Tony Stark's kid sidekick in Iron Man 3. In the 2013 film, Tony winds up in Tennessee after an attack by the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), where he befriends Harley. The kid then helps him track down the Mandarin and plays a big role in helping Tony cope with the PTSD he's suffering from due to the fallout of the first Avengers film.
Harley was not seen or mentioned in the MCU after Iron Man 3, but including him in Tony's funeral is a very nice touch--and one that shows the impact Stark had on the young man. In fact, now that he's growing up, perhaps Harley could be a candidate to become the next Iron Man. That probably won't happen, but what a fun twist it would be. Regardless, the mystery is solved.
The latest PlayStation mega sale is upon us--the annual Golden Week sale launched this morning on PSN (North America only), offering hundreds of game and DLC discounts up to 65% off (and 75% off for PS Plus members), including titles for PS4, PS3, PS Vita, and PSP.
The Golden Week sale is a nod to the week of national holidays celebrated this time of year in Japan and features Japanese-made (or Japanese-inspired) games, including popular series like Resident Evil, Persona, Dark Souls, and Dragon Quest. The sale will run until Tuesday, May 7 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET.
It's a good week to put your PS Plus membership to use: In addition to greater discounts on Golden Week deals, there's also a huge sale on hundreds of PS4 games and DLC going on right now that's exclusive to PS Plus members. Be sure to check it out before it ends Tuesday, April 30.
Sony recently started to explain its plans for the next generation of PlayStation, suggesting it could be closer than we had previously thought. But it still isn't too close, as the company has now ruled out seeing it anytime in the next year.
Sony Interactive Entertainment followed up with an earnings announcement, and Wall Street Journal reporter Takashi Mochizuki tweeted about the company's comments (via Engadget). The company announced that the next PlayStation will not be coming in the next fiscal year, which rules out any new console on shelves by April 2020. The company also recommitted a heavy investment into developing the next PlayStation.
Last year we had heard that the next-generation PlayStation was still three years away, which would put it in 2021. Cerny taking the wraps off with first details suggested that Sony could have moved that timeline up, possibly for a 2020 launch. This revelation doesn't rule out 2020 altogether, but it does mean the company would need to aim for a summer or fall launch instead of spring.
PS4 architect Mark Cerny began detailing plans for the next PlayStation--presumably to be named the PlayStation 5--in a recent interview. The upgrade sounds like a significant improvement that still relies on a lot of PS4 architecture, even down to allowing for backwards compatibility. Other features include a solid-state drive, and the potential to support 8K resolution. You can read up on all of the technical specs we know so far.
Cerny also specifically ruled out the PS5 being an all-digital device. Microsoft has taken the first step into offering an all-digital console with the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition, but it remains to be seen if its next generation will be all-digital as well. This could tie into Microsoft's plans to launch a streaming platform, code-named Project xCloud, which could reduce the need for physical media. Meanwhile, both of them will face a new competitor with the coming launch of Google Stadia, an all-streaming gaming platform.
Microsoft has released its Q3 earnings, and it suggests the current console generation is slowing down and ready for another refresh. Xbox console sales fell by 33% year-over-year, which the company attributes to a simple decrease in sales volume. In other words, people are simply buying fewer Xbox consoles.
However, the news wasn't too grim for Microsoft. Overall game revenue actually increased by 5% year-over-year, thanks to strong third-party software sales and subscriptions. Xbox Live's monthly active users hit 63 million, up 7% from last year. Altogether the games division raised $2.36 billion in revenue for the quarter, an YOY increase of $112 million.
The Xbox One is more than six years old now, so the decrease in console sales suggests Microsoft is hitting a saturation point. That's when console manufacturers tend to eye a new generation, and Microsoft may start to explain its vision for the next Xbox at E3. In the meantime, it introduced the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition, a new SKU of the console that lacks any disc drive and only plays downloaded games.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's competition has gotten first to the gate in starting to explain its plans for the coming generation. PS4 architect Mark Cerny began to outline some details on the next generation of PlayStation, including backwards compatibility, a solid-state drive, and other tech specs. It won't be disc-less, which may set it apart from the next Xbox, but that remains to be seen. Microsoft is planning a streaming service that likely will integrate with its future console plans.
Game of Thrones is famous for killing off, well, pretty much everyone. There are a few characters who remain or simply go missing, of course, but a decent proportion of its ensemble cast end up six feet under.
Season 8 is still ongoing, of course, so we're asking you to name all the main characters who've died up until the end of Season 7. That means extras and unimportant side-characters with credits like "man in hat" are excluded. To help you out we've provided the name of the killer and the cause of death--be careful though, some of the spellings are pretty tricky! Give the quiz below a go and let us know your scores in the comments.
Following the first details about the PlayStation 5 announced last week by lead system architect Mark Cerny, Sony has now officially confirmed a next-generation console. In the company's latest earnings report, Sony said its gaming division experienced an "increase in development expenses for the next generation console."
That's all Sony had to say on the subject of the PS5, however.
According to Kotaku's Jason Schreier, Sony's decision to seemingly randomly announce the PS5 was not completely random. Schreier says that one reason is because Sony just started to deliver PS5 devkits to third-party studios, and they wanted to get ahead of leaks.
Also in the earnings report, Sony announced that it shipped 17.8 million PS4 consoles during the fiscal year ended March 31. That's down from 19 million during the year prior. In all, the PS4 has now sold 96.8 million consoles worldwide since its release in 2013.
PS4 sales have been falling annually for years now, which makes sense given the console is so old. For the current fiscal year, Sony expects PS4 sales to drop yet again, falling to 16 million.
It was also confirmed in the earnings report that Sony has 36.4 million paying PlayStation Plus subscribers. Sony's digital offerings are doing very well. PlayStation Network revenue, including full-game downloads, DLC, PS Now, and PlayStation Plus, amounted to over $12.8 billion for the year, which is a new yearly record.
Sony's video game division overall, called Game and Network Services, saw revenue of $20.9 billion. PS4 sales dropped, as mentioned, but this decline was partially offset by more PS4 game sales and PlayStation Plus subscriptions. Some of the numbers and analysis here was compiled by Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad.
Avengers: Endgame gets its title from a key line uttered by Doctor Strange toward the end of its predecessor, Avengers: Infinity War. After losing the fight with Thanos on the planet Titan, Strange tells Tony Stark, "We're in the endgame now." It's a reference to the fact that Strange has a plan for beating Thanos, and even though it seems like the Avengers are losing, there's more to the fight against the Mad Titan than just this battle. (Check out our Endgame review to see if the finale measures up to the setup.)
Infinity War ended with Thanos's victory and his snap, in which he used the Infinity Stones to eliminate half of all life in the universe. Among those who ceased to exist was Doctor Strange, who never got a chance to explain what his big plan was. Now that Avengers: Endgame is here, we can see what he was thinking--and why he changed his mind about allowing Thanos to get the Time Stone.
First, it's important to remember exactly what Strange said in Infinity War. Originally, his plan was to keep the Time Stone away from Thanos by any means necessary, but he was unwilling to let Tony destroy it or otherwise take it away from him--Strange was insistent that he keep the stone. After he was kidnapped by Thanos's lieutenant, Ebony Maw, and rescued by Tony and Spidey, Strange reiterated that the most important thing in the fight was the stone. He pointedly told Tony that no matter what happened, he would protect the stone, even at the cost of the lives of Tony, Peter Parker, or both.
When they reach Titan, Doctor Strange spends part of the discussion of how to take down Thanos using the Time Stone. He watches some 14 million possible timelines, and as he tells Tony, and only saw one in which the Avengers won the battle. The fight ensues with the team coming close to getting the Infinity Gauntlet away from Thanos, which could have allowed them to stop him, but they're unsuccessful. In the final moments of the fight, Thanos stabs Tony in the gut, then prepares to finish him off.
This is the moment where Strange changes things. He makes a bargain with Thanos: Spare Tony's life in exchange for the Time Stone. It's a big shift from Strange's earlier declaration that the stone was more important than anyone on the team. Strange's comment about being in the endgame comes soon after, once Thanos has departed from Wakanda. That reveals that Strange changing his mind and saving Tony services some greater agenda, more important than keeping the Time Stone away from Thanos.
We all know what happens next: Thanos wins. But Endgame reveals why Strange made the decision that he did, because Tony's survival in Infinity War is essential to everything that happens. When Scott Lang returns from the Quantum Realm, he reveals that Hank Pym's shrinking technology can make time travel possible--but it's Tony Stark who figures out how the team can travel to specific places and times, without getting lost along the way. Strange knew that the Avengers couldn't beat Thanos in a straight fight, but that they'd be able to eventually undo the snap--if Tony was still alive to help them figure out how.
Strange and Tony have another big moment during the climax of the film. As Tony is battling Thanos, trying to get the Gauntlet away from him so he can't use the Infinity Stones again, he catches Strange's eye. The pair have already had a conversation about the future; as Strange puts it, telling Tony about what was going to happen would cause it not to happen, because the knowledge would cause Tony (and potentially everyone else) to change how they would act.
In the final moments of the fight, Strange, meeting Tony's eyes, raises one finger. It calls back their earlier discussion--this is the one successful version of events, telling Tony they're on the right path. But Strange is also signaling what Tony has already realized: that it's up to Tony to defeat Thanos, and to use the Infinity Stones to do it. And Tony knows from seeing both Thanos and Hulk use the Gauntlet that it'll likely kill him.
The reality is that Strange has known this was how things had to go the whole time. He stopped Thanos from killing Tony in Infinity War because he knew that Tony had a huge role to play in the rest of the fight. Tony would be essential to helping secure time travel; he'd be necessary to get hold of the Space Stone and build the gauntlet that would allow the Avengers to use the Infinity Stones; and he'd be the one to finally defeat Thanos.
And when Strange said he couldn't tell Tony the outcome or it would change, it was because he knew that Tony still had one more role to play: He'd have to sacrifice himself to beat Thanos.
The bummer is that Strange knew all this, but in 14 million timelines, couldn't see another way forward--maybe one where Tony got to live a long and happy life with his family. But with the Marvel Cinematic Universe's big arc beginning with Iron Man and closing with Avengers: Endgame, it's pretty fitting that the key to everything would be Tony Stark, doing the very thing Steve Rogers said Tony was incapable of during their first mission together in The Avengers: sacrificing himself for the greater good.
Avengers: Endgame made good on its name and delivered a ton of endings--and most of them were actually great, if tragic, satisfying conclusions to a decade of work. One of them, however, was not.
And it very nearly ruined the entire movie.
Consider this your spoiler warning.
Steve Rogers finished out his tenure as a main line MCU hero by not only wielding Mjolnir and surviving a truly brutal beating by Thanos, he also (apparently) volunteered to be the person to deliver the Infinity Stones back to their respective points in the timeline. You know, to avoid all the branched timelines that the Ancient One warned Bruce Banner about with the help of their handy cosmic infographic. Steve does this completely alone for some reason, which also doesn't make a lot of sense, but we'll let that slide for right now.
The real problem is that Steve doesn't actually succeed at his mission. He gives the Stones back, sure, and returns the Mjolnir he's been using to Asgard, apparently, but then he decides to take a detour and go live a full life with Peggy Carter somewhere in the past. This results in him showing back up in the present not by taking the quantum portal, but by walking (or maybe he took an Uber? Who knows) to a bench about 50 feet to the left of the portal, returning as an old man who has lived an entire life in the blink of the audience's eye.
We even get a little flashback of Steve finally sharing his dance with Peggy back in the '40s (or maybe the '50s, after the war) in what is obviously intended to be a very romantic, fulfilling coda to his story.
Or, maybe it would be, if it worked at all either in terms of Steve's thematic arc throughout his MCU tenure or by the rules that Endgame itself established.
Getting Technical With Time Travel
Let's take a look at Endgame's time travel logic first. As explicitly stated, by Endgame's own rules, you cannot change the present, you can only create new timelines--i.e. If the Infinity Stones weren't placed back in the exact places in the exact moments they were taken from, the MCU would be dealing with a bunch of branching timelines where various characters and entire movies either couldn't exist or would be completely doomed. A few of those branched timelines definitely still exist--an alternate 2014 where Thanos brought his forces to Earth years earlier than he originally did, an alternate 2011 where Loki escaped with the Tesseract after the end of Avengers 1, and so on--but the ones that were taken care of, were handled by Steve. That was his mission.
But in the process of closing off all the potential branches, Steve apparently made a new one. Or, rather, he should have made a new one, but somehow didn't. Steve changed his own past, and the past of Peggy Carter, by being present for those 70 years he originally spent frozen and marrying her--which, for whatever reason, allowed him to still exist as an old man in the main timeline he left--our present.
If Steve had actually created a branched timeline, he wouldn't have been an old man in our present. His reformed existence in the past should have changed events to the point that the movie's present day would be different not only for Steve but for everyone. We'd be seeing a different timeline all together.
In the interest of mitigating the confusion here (and make no mistake--this is confusing as hell) let's break it down. There are two potential possibilities.
Possibility 1 is that Steve did create an alternate timeline that we just never got to see where he and Peggy were married, possibly went off and were superheroes together, stopped HYDRA from infiltrating SHIELD, rescued Bucky, prevented Howard Stark's assassination, and negated the need for the Avengers entirely. In the process, he erased the entire life that he knew Peggy had without him, including her husband and the kids she had while he was in the ice. Poof, gone.
Then, happy and old, Steve miraculously jumped back to our timeline unassisted, which ought to be impossible, and for no real reason, just in time to pass the shield on to Sam. Seriously, why would he bother coming back at all if he was so confident that the present day world didn't need him anymore? Why leave the timeline he made, especially if it really were so much better? What incentive does he have to go through the trouble?
What About Option 2?
Possibility 2 is that Steve did not create a branched timeline by going back, just lived his life as quietly as possible through the post-war years. That would make him complicit in the knowledge of all the horrific things happening to the people he loves during those years. This would also mean, in order for the timeline not to be fundamentally broken, that our version of Steve would have always been married to Peggy, even if he didn't know it until this exact moment. This not only contradicts the entirety of the Agent Carter TV show and various parts of the MCU up to now (like Steve's meeting with dying Peggy after he dethaws), it also means that Steve would be Sharon Carter's uncle--and, uh, that's pretty gross, even if he didn't know it at the time.
Even discounting the potential for unwitting incest, there are some other major problems here. Remember when Steve said when he sees a situation headed south, he can't turn his back? Remember how Steve's entire origin story revolves around his inability to sit back and let a conflict run its course without him? How he doesn't like bullies no matter where they're from? How he literally submitted himself to a potentially lethal science experiment rather than not fight in a war? How he jumped into German occupied territory without an army backing him up just on the off chance that there was something he could do to help his friend? How he can "do this all day?" Started a war to clear the name of his ex-assassin bestie? Still acted as a hero even while he was an international fugitive?
In what world does Steve Rogers, even a beaten down and jaded Steve Rogers, just sit on his hands and let the future deal with its own problems?
The answer should be none of them.
This doesn't even begin to broach yet another uncomfortable topic. The people who returned from the Snap were very literally dropped into a future when no time had passed for them at all--the miniature version of Steve's experience waking up from the ice back in 2011. But apparently he's totally fine with just bailing on a world experiencing a level of trauma that he is uniquely qualified to help them through.
"He's earned the right to be selfish!" You say? Sure. If anyone deserves a vacation, it's Steve--but that doesn't mean he's going to take one. We've spent the last 8 years learning the ins and outs of this character in the movies, and the last 7 decades learning about him in the comics. Letting things just happen is fundamentally not something he'd do. It's just not. He could retire, pass the shield over to Sam, and take a major step back, but there's no way Steve is ever just going to give up the fight altogether--and this has literally happened in the comics. Steve's even been an old man, but he still doesn't stop participating in superheroic world. It's simply not in his nature to quit--that would be like Tony suddenly deciding not to be an engineer just for the hell of it.
But say the goofy, esoteric time travel logic doesn't matter to you either way--there's still an issue. It has less to do with the mechanics and more to do with Steve's place within the MCU's meta-narrative.
Let's Ignore The Time Travel All Together
For a second, let's just pretend that we don't have almost 100 years of comics to look at and focus exclusively on the 60-some hours of film we've been given. Thematically, Steve is a guy who has lost a lot in these movies. Arguably, that's his most defining quality--he went into the ice 70 years ago, and he thinks a different guy came out--his words, not mine. The motif of being unable to go home again is repeated poignantly again and again and again--and through all of that, through everything, Steve has learned how to keep going. And that's a good thing--or at least, it was a good thing. By moving on, Steve was actually doing exactly what Peggy Carter had hoped for him ("the world has changed, and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best, and sometimes, the best that we can do, is to start over.")
Sure, there are a few beats in Endgame specifically where it looks like he's finally hit his breaking point ("some people move on, but not us"), but that only means he's been beaten down, not taken out. Hell, he even manages to summon up the force of will in the 11th hour to be worthy of wielding Mjolnir, making him only the third character and only mortal in the MCU to do so. That's nothing to scoff at.
Steve may be defined by loss, but the power of his character comes from turning that loss into strength. Sure, he's a super soldier, he's fast and strong and can take a major beating, but his actual superpower is his indomitable will. If there's one thing you can count on in the world, it's that Captain America is not going to give up, even when things are at their absolute worst.
Except for when he does, apparently. Giving Steve a temporal get-out-of-jail-free card may seem like a good idea on the surface, but at the end of the day all it does is recant his entire journey. What's the point of emphasizing the perpetual motion machine that is Steve Rogers--the constant assurance that no matter how dark things get, no matter how much you lose, you can still move forward--if the ultimate reward is getting to do the exact thing he was told he couldn't do; that he spent his life and five movies moving beyond?
Which is to say nothing about the completely squandered pay off for every moment of his solo trilogy. Remember how important his "I'm with you till the end of the line" refrain was with Bucky Barnes? Hopefully you do--there's officially licensed merch with that line printed on it. Fans got it tattooed on their bodies. It comes up a lot, and for good reason. It wasn't exactly subtle as far as big symbolic gestures are concerned and it was a major part of not one, not two, but three individual movies. Funny how now it's more like "I'm with you until the exact moment I decide I don't want to stick around anymore." Funnier still how that line, maybe the most memorable Captain America line of the entire MCU next to "I can do this all day"--another thing that was, apparently, not true--doesn't get a single shout out or call back in a movie that is about 90% shout outs and call backs to memorable MCU moments.
It's cheap, not romantic, and a needlessly dull edge to an otherwise powerful arc. The lesson that ought to be about processing grief and turning toward the future became a carelessly handwaved wink-nod at returning to the past, at which point Steve's journey is no longer about the process of recovery, it's a message about working really hard until you're miraculously presented with a magic bullet to make all your hard work and effort no longer matter.
Which, frankly, sucks.
And, really, none of this is even touching on the fact that Steve and Peggy's soul mate level connection was fostered over the course of, what, like a week back in 1945? Maybe he should have gotten over it. She definitely did. There was a whole TV show about it.
BlizzCon 2019 now has dates. The World of Warcraft and Overwatch developer's annual gaming show will be held November 1-2 at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Tickets go on sale in two waves, the first of which commences on Saturday, May 4. The second wave will become available on May 8. In previous years, ticket-buyers received a goody bag, but this year, everyone gets to choose a special collectible statue.
The choices include either a human footman or orc grunt; these are meant to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise. You can see the two statues below. The statues will be available for everyone to buy in the future as well.
Like in past years, BlizzCon 2019 is expected to feature gaming, esports, cosplay, camaraderie, and the latest Blizzard Entertainment news." There will be developer panels, esports contests, and more. There will also be a new "BlizzCon Pregame Festivities" event that's held outside the convention center the day before the show starts. This is described as a "casual get-together," and there is also a Darkmoon Faire event taking place on Thursday.
Blizzard is changing up how ticketing works for BlizzCon 2019 and charging more. There are three options this year: the BlizzCon Pass ($230 USD), the BlizzCon Portal Pass ($550 USD), and the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner Pass ($750 USD). In 2018, it cost $200 to get in.
The BlizzCon Pass gets you in the door and access to the Pregame Festivities event, in addition to the statue and in-game goodies. The BlizzCon Portal Pass, meanwhile, includes a number of extras to justify the $550 price tag. That ticket includes everything mentioned above, as well as access to the Darkmoon Faire at the Night at the Faire event taking place the day before BlizzCon starts, as well as a number of "convenience-related extras." These include first access into the show hall, preferred parking, separate lines, access to a dedicated lounge where people can hang out and chat with Blizzard developers.
As for the $750 USD Benefit Dinner Pass, this is the ultimate package that gets you into a charity dinner event the night before BlizzCon where you can meet and speak with developers, artists, and other Blizzard people, along with all of the perks mentioned above. Proceeds from the dinner go to the CHOC Children's charity.
Probably the biggest news from last year's BlizzCon was the reveal of Diablo Immortal, a new mobile game. Many were hoping to see Diablo 4, but it didn't happen, and fans voiced their concerns.
Madden NFL 20 has been announced with its cover star and a list of exciting-sounding new features, including the return of college football.
Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes will be on the cover of Madden NFL 20. Mahomes is a good pick for cover athlete, as he's one of the most exciting players in the NFL right now. He was the NFL's Most Valuable Player in 2018.
In terms of new features, Madden 20 brings a few especially noteworthy ones. Starting off, college football will be featured in the game in a limited capacity. A new mode called QB1 will see players creating a quarterback in college and then taking them through the College Football Playoff and eventually to the NFL Combine where they'll compete for a spot on an NFL roster.
"Last long enough and you just might leave a legacy and even play in a few Pro Bowls. This new and customizable career campaign is all about you, with personalized playable scenarios, events, and dynamic challenges. The choices you make early on will affect how your career pans out," EA says.
There are 10 colleges to choose from in Madden 20, including Texas, Oregon, Oklahoma, Clemson, Florida, LSU, Miami, Texas Tech, USC, Florida St. It is a big deal that Madden 20 has college football, because EA has been out of the college football game for years amid various lawsuits. You can learn more about the situation here.
Madden 20 also adds new "X-Factor Players." This new "game-changing" system will allow players to use "unique abilities" to make NFL superstars feel powerful. It appears Mahomes is one of them, and his unique ability is probably his quick feet and ability to escape.
"In total there will be around 50 Superstar X-Factor players and over 30 additional Superstar players," EA says. "The difference between the two are the Zone abilities and Superstar abilities. Zone abilities are best described as once-a-season moments that only the league's best can pull off, while Superstar abilities are traits that are unique to some of the most talented players that you see each and every game. In total there are over 20 Zone abilities for the 50 Superstar X-Factor players and over 140 Superstar abilities. Each game you will see and feel the difference because of these special traits."
Additionally, Madden 20 features the "Urban Symphony," which is what EA is describing as "a soundtrack that highlights pop culture, hip-hop music, and urban lifestyle trends, while mixing in traditional musical elements of the sport (i.e. marching bands) to create an original soundtrack that truly delivers on the emotion, history and meaning of football."
Madden 20 launches on August 2, but people who buy the more expensive Superstar Edition can play three days early.
A new month is just around the corner, which means Niantic will soon be rolling out a new set of Field Research tasks for Pokemon Go. The tasks are scheduled to begin appearing next Wednesday, May 1, at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET, and they'll be available through the end of June. What's more, they'll give you another chance to catch a couple of fan-favorite Legendary Pokemon.
Each time you achieve a Research Breakthrough during the next two months, you'll be rewarded with an encounter with one of four possible Legendaries: Ho-Oh, Lugia, Latios, or Latias. Both Ho-Oh and Lugia were previously available through Research Breakthroughs, but this marks the first time you'll be able to encounter the Eon Pokemon this way, which is helpful if you missed out on their recent Raid events.
As usual, you'll be able to receive the new Field Research tasks by spinning the Photo Disc at Poke Stops. You can complete as many Field Research tasks as you'd like daily, but you'll only earn a stamp for the first one you finish per day. You'll need to collect a total of seven stamps to achieve a Research Breakthrough and encounter the Legendaries.
Additionally, you'll be able to hatch new Pokemon from Eggs beginning this week. The Gen 4 Pokemon Turtwig, Chimchar, Piplup, and Bonsly may appear from 2 km Eggs, while Cubone, Combee, Buizel, Glameow, Bronzor, Skorupi, and Croagunk may hatch from 5 km Eggs. Finally, 10 km Eggs may produce Mawile, Absol, Shinx, Cranidos, Shieldon, and Riolu. You can read more details on the Pokemon Go website.
Also on the way in May is a new Pokemon Go Community Day. This time, the event will take place on Sunday, May 19, and the featured Pokemon will be Torchic, one of the three starters from the series' Gen 3 games, Ruby and Sapphire. You'll also be able to earn triple the usual amount of Stardust for every Pokemon you catch during the event.
In the meantime, you have another opportunity to catch Shiny Meltan, as the special Mythical Pokemon is appearing again from now until May 5. If you're unsure of how to find one, check out our guide on how to catch Meltan. This is also your last chance to capture Origin Forme Giratina; the Legendary is scheduled to leave Raid Battles on April 29.
How's Nintendo doing from a business perspective? Quite well. The company today reported earnings for this fiscal year ended March 31, and times are (mostly) good. Nintendo pulled in ¥1.2 trillion ($10.7 billion USD), which is an increase from ¥1.06 trillion ($9.4 billion USD) for the previous 12-month period. In terms of profit, Nintendo made ¥249.7 billion ($2.2 billion USD) in operating profit, compared to ¥177.5 billion ($1.6 billion USD) the year prior.
Via Engadget, Nintendo sold 2.47 million Switch consoles in the final three months of the fiscal year, boosting the console's lifetime total to 34.74 million (which exceeds the lifetime sales of the N64). The 2.47 million Switch consoles sold during the final quarter of the fiscal year is down slightly from the 2.93 million consoles Nintendo sold in the same quarter last year. For the full fiscal year, Nintendo sold 16.95 million Switch systems; that's just under the 17 million that Nintendo forecasted it would sell the year, but it's up year-on-year.
As for game sales, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate racked up 13.81 million copies sold, while Pokemon Let's Go: Eevee and Let's Go Pikachu combined for 10.63 million copies sold. Super Mario Party sold 6.4 million copies, while Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold 7.47 million copies during the period (for a total of 16.7 million copies lifetime). A total of 23 different games, from Nintendo and others, sold more than 1 million copies on Nintendo Switch during the year.
Another bright spot for Nintendo was its digital business. Sales of digital games grew 95.4 percent to ¥118.8 billion ($1.064B USD); Nintendo called out Switch digital games as showing "especially good growth."
Sales of the Nintendo 3DS, which is now more than 8 years old, dropped 60.2 percent to 2.55 million units during the year. The NES Classic and SNES Classic combined to sell 5.95 million units.
For more on Nintendo's earnings report and other related matters, check out the stories below:
We're quickly coming up on the end of Fortnite Season 8, but Epic still has a few more challenges in store for players before Season 9 officially begins. Week 9's challenges are now live across PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch, and mobile, which means you have another chance to earn Battle Stars and unlock more of this season's skins and other Battle Pass rewards.
If you're familiar with how Fortnite works by now, you'll know there's an added incentive to complete as many challenges as you can; if you finish all of the ones from a given week, you'll also clear a Discovery challenge, which will reward you with a special loading screen. These screens typically feature a cool or humorous piece of artwork, but the real reason you want to unlock them is because they each hide a subtle clue that points you to a free Battle Star (which levels your Battle Pass up by one tier) or Banner (which can be used as a profile icon) hidden somewhere around the island.
Once you've completed nine weeks' worth of challenges, you'll unlock the loading screen pictured below. This one features Season 8's best new skin, Peely, rather unwisely trying to retrieve a treasure chest from a river of lava. Look in the background directly above the treasure chest, however, and you'll be able to spot an etching of a viking ship. This is the clue to where this week's free Battle Star can be found.
As it turns out, there's a large wooden viking ship in the snowy mountaintop village located just southeast of Snobby Shores. Make your way to the area and you'll be able to easily spot the boat sitting near the edge of the waterfall. Approach it and the Battle Star will appear inside. Collect it as you would any other item, then finish the match and your Battle Pass will level up by one more tier. You can see the ship's exact location on the map below. We also walk you through exactly where to find it in the video at the top of this guide.
If you've been keeping up with all of this season's free Battle Stars and Banners, you'll know there are a few caveats before you can find them in the game. Specifically, the items won't appear around the map unless you've first completed the necessary number of challenges and unlocked their corresponding loading screen, so you can't simply waltz to the right location and expect to find it unless you've done all of the other steps.
If you still have any outstanding challenges from this season, be sure to check out our complete Fortnite Season 8 challenges guide. We've put together tips to help you finish all of this season's trickier missions. You can also see all of the cosmetics up for grabs in our Season 8 Battle Pass rewards gallery.
Fortnite's 8.50 update arrived on April 25, and it marked the start of the anticipated Avengers: Endgame crossover event, which encompasses new Avengers-inspired cosmetics--like a cool Black Widow skin--and a Fortnite Endgame limited-time mode that features its own unique set of challenges to complete and rewards to unlock. The event is slated to run through to the end of Season 8, which formally wraps up on May 8.
With the announcement that Apex Legends Season 2 details will come in June, Respawn Entertainment has provided a much-needed update on the state of its battle royale title. Executive producer at Respawn, Drew McCoy, wrote a lengthy blog post discussing server performance problems, audio and hit registration issues, content update plans, and more.
The post outlines how the California-based studio intends to deal with several issues impacting Apex Legends, including closely monitoring server performance at the beginning of matches, tracking incorrect (and inaccurate) hit detection and registration in-game, and more. "The stability of Apex Legends is very important to us," McCoy said. "And we've been doing a lot of work internally to improve our processes across the board." Respawn admits there's a growing strategy to deal with cheaters but hasn't announced anything yet "to avoid telegraphing our moves."
Respawn has yet to confirm when Apex Legends will see these changes but will "talk more about the work that's being done in these areas and provide updates about when we'll be addressing them in future patches" over the next few weeks. You can read the full details below.
Slow Server Performance at the Beginning of a Match
So far, we know that it affects some datacenters more than others, it happens on many different server configurations, and it doesn't seem to hit multiple server instances running on the same machine. In other words, it's not that a machine is overloaded and everything on it is running too slow – it's that one instance on the same machine seems to be doing more work than the others, and we're trying to nail down what work it's doing and work backwards to understand the root cause. This is extremely high priority for us, and we'll keep you updated on our progress.
Audio Issues
Currently testing some potential fixes that will hopefully address many of the performance issues we've seen reported.
Cheaters
We've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes. This is something we will always be more secretive about to avoid telegraphing our moves to cheaters, but we'll be sharing more on the progress made next week.
Hit Registration Issues
We are adding engine features to help track down and report instances of incorrect hit registration in playtests so we can force the bug and reproduce the issue consistently. While we have made some progress with some fixes locally, more work needs to be done to address the root of the problem.
Season Launches
The beginning of each season will start big with a new Battle Pass, a new Legend, something new for the meta, and more.
Thoughtful Updates Throughout the Season
Just as we've done since launch, we will continue to address exploits, necessary balance changes, bug fixes, and small features throughout the course of a season. For complete transparency, our goal isn't, and never has been, to patch or update content on a weekly basis. We believe strongly in the importance of large, meaningful changes to the game that have lasting impact, thus our focus on a seasonal release cadence we laid out at launch. We will continue to follow this cadence in the future.
Improved Communication
We need to provide more visibility into the future, and what we're working on. That doesn't mean we're going to start telling folks everything they want to know when they want to know it, but you can expect more transparency on future updates and fewer surprise drops.
Transparency is paramount to Respawn, with McCoy stating that it "[needs] to provide more visibility into the future, and what we're working on." Apex Legends players can "expect more transparency on future updates and fewer surprise drops."
McCoy didn't shy away from the conversation around crunch. In a week when Polygon unveiled Epic Games' severe work conditions on Fortnite, McCoy said "the studio culture that we've worked hard to cultivate, and the health of our team are very important." He added that Respawn wants to avoid crunch because it can "quickly lead to burnout or worse." This means any future Titanfall projects are delayed indefinitely to fully support Apex Legend's longevity. "No resources from the Apex Legends team are being shifted to other titles in development here at the studio," McCoy confirmed. "Nor are we pulling resources from the team working on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order."
Years after its debut, Days Gone is finally available. The open world zombie game puts you in the shoes of Deacon St. John, a rough-and-tumble biker turned mercenary after the world went to hell. You'll take on Freakers (aka zombies) and factions of brutal survivors in an expansive open-world adventure.
Though the game boasts high production values, reviews have been mixed. The adventure itself is often said to be dull or middling, and many critics agree the story fails to do anything interesting with its conflicted hero. This is reflected in GameSpot's own review.
"I did a lot of things in Days Gone," said Kallie Plagge. "I burned every single Freaker nest; I cleared every ambush camp; I maxed out my bike; I took out a few optional hordes just because. Like Deacon with Sarah, I kept going because I hoped to find something, to follow a thread to a possibly fascinating or satisfying or impactful conclusion. But at the end of it all, I'd only gotten scraps."
Many other outlets have published their Days Gone reviews as well. We've gathered a sampling of them below to give a view from around the industry. For an even broader overview, check out GameSpot's sister site Metacritic.
Game: Days Gone
Platforms: PS4
Developer: Sony Bend
Release date: April 26
Price: $60 / £50 / $100 AUD
GameSpot -- 5/10
"Deacon also has a policy where he doesn't kill unarmed women, which does not affect the story in any way and goes completely unexamined. There's no introspection here; Deacon is selfish, and it's simply boring that the game is uncritical of him." -- Kallie Plagge [Full review]
PlayStation Lifestyle -- 9/10
"Days Gone checks all the boxes of a proverbial PlayStation exclusive, but never feels like it's stepping on anyone else's toes. Despite the games, film, and TV that you can easily draw comparisons too, Days Gone handles it all in such a way that it has its own unique identity. The more I played it, the more I loved it, until finally finishing the long journey and not wanting the adventure to end. Sam Witwer is brilliant as Deacon St. John, and his journey of survival, humanity, and self-discovery through a deadly world via motorcycle is a memorable one that shouldn't be missed." -- Chandler Wood [Full review]
Attack of the Fanboy -- 8/10
"Days Gone is by no means perfect, but if you're willing to put up with some shortcomings the reward is one of the best open-world zombie apocalypse games to date." -- William Schwartz [Full review]
Game Informer -- 7.75/10
"Days Gone has good gameplay foundations. The scarcity of supplies and ever-present threat of zombies put me on edge as much as it gave me options to escape by the skin of my teeth. But the inability to fully deliver on either the story or open world fronts makes it a title of both possibilities and limitations." -- Matthew Kato [Full review]
USGamer -- 3.5/5
"The zombie apocalypse is well-trodden territory and the open-world spin of Days Gone can only differentiate it so much. There's a strong narrative focus, but Deacon St. John doesn't carry that weight as deftly as he could. There are highlights and fun tools available within, but the game doesn't push those forward initially, leaving the players to deal with some tedium first. Days Gone is a great foundation for something better though, so hopefully Bend gets the chance to improve upon it." -- Mike Williams [Full review]
IGN -- 6.5/10
"Days Gone feels bloated, like a movie that goes on for an hour longer than it needs to or should've. It's messy and confused, but peppered with genuinely thrilling encounters with rampaging hordes of zombies and occasionally breathless firefights. There's a good game in here somewhere, but it's buried in a meandering storyline, repetitive missions, and just too much obligatory stuff to do without an eye on the smaller details that could have given it much more character. Some fine tuning and editing could have removed the tedium and celebrated what makes this game unique and interesting, but Days Gone rides strictly down the middle of the dusty road and never finds its rhythm." -- Lucy O'Brien [Full review]
Destructoid -- 6/10
"Days Gone ups the open world survival ante but doesn't have enough cash to pay for the rest of the rounds of betting, making it one of the weirdest AAA releases in recent memory. If enough people buy it, its stronger moments will likely be immortalized in YouTube videos for years to come. Yet, most people will probably remember it as the open world zombie game that didn't bring much mechanically to the table. With some tweaks to the pacing, it could have reconciled its warm, frank look at humanity and been something special." -- Chris Carter [Full review]
Slant -- 1.5/5
"Days Gone is the apotheosis of the more-is-more philosophy: more bars to fill, more gates to progress, more hours of playtime, more zombies per square inch because "more" is supposed to fill the hole where some semblance of meaning ought to be, bridging the gap between one mind-numbing mission template and the next. It's the purest example yet of the video game as mere content to be consumed, down to the very fact that each storyline you're supposed to be emotionally invested in is marked with a completion percentage. Days Gone is a void." -- Steven Scaife [Full review]
Variety -- No Score
"There is a living, breathing undercurrent of ambition undeniable in the scale and intricacy of developer Bend Studio's creation. And you can tell the effort here is to apply to a naturally tense open-world survival structure the kind of high-impact narrative one would expect from a linearly-funneled action game. But the result is one of the best examples of why that can't work, and of the damage such an effort can have on otherwise solid foundations. With the game's pacing ground to dust in service of open world largess, expansiveness, and narrative potential, the core of "Days Gone" is buried too deep for even a zombified resurrection." -- Trevor Ruben [Full review]
Anthony and Joseph Russo, collectively known as the Russo brothers, have helmed four Marvel movies--including both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, and two of the three Captain America movies--back-to-back. With Endgame here, the Russo brothers are taking the chance to say goodbye to Marvel Studios and the Marvel Cinematic Universe--at least, for now.
According to a GamesRadar interview, the Russo brothers have no plans for more Marvel movies at this time. "It's our Endgame, at least for now," said Anthony Russo. "We don't have any plans for now to make any more Marvel movies." The key phrase is "for now," as Anthony confirms that the opportunity "certainly may come up in the future at some point."
So what's next for the director duo? The two are teaming up with Tom Holland (Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming) on a smaller project called Cherry, with American screenwriter Jessica Goldberg (creator of Hulu's The Path) writing the script.
"[It's] loosely based on a real story about a veteran of the Iraq War, who suffers from PTSD ... gets a heroin addiction and ends up robbing banks to sustain that addiction." The book, also titled Cherry and published in August 2018, is the debut novel of currently-incarcerated Nico Walker, who robbed 10 banks around Cleveland in a four-month period in 2010. Walker was arrested in April 2011 and indicted with an 11-year sentence in 2012.
In addition to Cherry, the Russo brothers have 21 Bridges and Dhaka in post-production. 21 Bridges, an action thriller, stars Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther), J. K. Simmons (Justice League, Whiplash), Sienna Miller (American Sniper, Foxcatcher), and more. Dhaka, meanwhile, is an action drama featuring Chris Hemsworth (Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War), David Harbour (Hellboy, Stranger Things), Manoj Bajpayee (Love Sonia, Missing), and more.
In our Avengers: Endgame review, we called it "an emotional, fulfilling ride [that's] a love letter to the entire MCU--the whole thing."
If you're an Xbox One owner who plays online multiplayer games, you're probably very familiar with Xbox Live Gold, Microsoft's premium service that lets you do just that. A 12-month membership sells for $60 at most retailers, but for a very limited time, you can grab an annual subscription to Xbox Live Gold for just $40 at MassGenie. The deal ends in less than 24 hours, so act fast.
Here's how to claim the offer at MassGenie: On the product page, click on the Power Deal circle. It'll prompt you to sign in or create an account--creating an account is free (and there's no guest checkout for Power Deals). After you're signed in, you'll automatically be redirected to checkout, and you'll see that the coupon (XBOXLIVE12M) has automatically been applied.
After you check out, the Xbox Live Gold code will be sent to you in a tracking email after the Power Deal ends. The Xbox Live Gold code is the same as the tracking ID in your order history. To see the code, just click "track your package" in the email you'll receive, and you'll be redirected to your order details, where you can see the tracking ID/digital code to redeem at the bottom right.
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