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Showing posts from October 15, 2023

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Baldur's Gate 3 Interactive Map and Locations for Acts 1, 2, and 3

The 10 Best Sonic Games

8 Spider-Man 2 PlayStation Trophies That You Can Unlock Right Away

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We can confirm that the tradition of a fairly straightforward Platinum continues in the Insomniac line of Spider-Man games. But you know how it is as a trophy hunter: you’ve done all the hard stuff, and then you’re left with a string of simple tasks to mop up. This article explains how to get a bunch of those easy-to-get clean-up trophies the moment you can free-roam Spider-Man 2’s open world without spoiling any of the game's major story events. Watch the video or keep reading! 1. You're Gonna Need Help First up is a free trophy. Before we can get any other trophies, we need to play through the opening to get access to the open world. So, by completing the intro sequence during the mission Surface Tension , you’ll be rewarded with the “You’re Gonna Need Help” trophy. Great job! One down, seven to go. Before You Move on to #2... After getting this first trophy, you’ll still need to complete some activities before we actually get to free roam. Complete the story mission

The Best Dungeons and Dragons Books in 2023

It’s safe to say that Dungeons & Dragons is enjoying something of a golden age. Between the renewed popularity for the hobby brought on by Stranger Things to the success of the Honor Among Thieves movie, from the explosion of tabletop-focused podcasts and YouTube shows to the massive popularity of Baldur’s Gate 3 , there’s seriously never been a better time to start rolling for initiative. But navigating the nearly decade-long reign of the Fifth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons (AKA 5E) can be a bit difficult for newcomers to digest, especially owing to the plethora of high quality content being put out by third-party creators. If you’ve recently decided to get into the hobby, but don’t know where to start, here’s our recommendations on the best Dungeons & Dragons books in 2023. You can also check out our beginner's guide to D&D for additional tips. First-Party Content A few disclaimers before we dive in! First, this guide will primarily focus on first-party con

Alan Wake 2's PC Specs Stun Fans With Its Hefty Recommended Requirements

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Alan Wake 2's recommended requirements on PC are finally here, and it looks like fans may want to upgrade their GPU. The newly-revealed PC requirements suggest that players will want at least an RTX 4070 if they want to be able to enjoy Alan Wake 2 with ray tracing activated. It will also require at least 90 gigabytes of storage on an SSD harddrive for an optimal experience. Here are the recommended requirements. Recommended (No ray tracing) Resolution: 1440p GPU: GeForce RTX 3060 / Radeon RX 6600 XT VRAM: 8 GB DLSS/FSR 2: Balanced CPU: Ryzen 3700X or i7 10700 RAM: 16 GB Storage: 90 GB SSD Recommended (Ray tracing) Resolution: 1080p GPU: GeForce RTX 4070 VRAM: 12 GB DLSS/FSR 2: Quality CPU: Ryzen 3700X or i7 10700 RAM: 16 GB Storage: 90 GB SSD In order to get all the way up to 4K/60fps with ray tracing activated, Remedy recommends that users have a GeForce RTX 4080 card, which is one of the best cards on the market right now. One tweet broadly captured the

Spider-Man 2's Physical Release Seems to Be Having Installation Issues

Players who bought the physical copy of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 are having difficulty installing the game onto their PS5 consoles. The issue was flagged by a user in the Spider-Man 2 subreddit on Friday, who reported that the game's installation after inserting the disc stops at 36%. The users said that they tried everything to keep the installation going — from disconnecting the PS5 from the internet and allowing the disc to install first, to resetting the PS5. They even tried getting another disc at GameStop. — with no results. The Reddit post spawned a Resetera thread which saw similar reports of users having the same issue with their Spider-Man 2 disc. They also tried everything to get the game working, including deleting and installing it five times, clearing the system cache and rebuilding the database, but the installation still wouldn't progress past 36%. "This is the first-ever physical disc that I have received that didn't work," they said. &qu

EA Iron Man Game Being Developed in Unreal Engine 5

EA Motive has confirmed it's developing its upcoming Iron Man game in Unreal Engine 5 in a long-awaited update from the studio. Revealed in a blog post , EA Motive said Unreal Engine 5 will "empower the dev team to work their magic and create something really special". It joins several other games like Black Myth: WuKong , Tekken 8 , and The Witcher Remake in using the engine, with Lords of the Fallen being one of the first major games that uses it to release. EA Motive confirmed it is now focusing on Iron Man after switching from the incredibly well-received Dead Space Remake earlier this year, though the game is likely still years away as it's still very early in development. "We're still early in pre-production and taking our time to make sure we set the best possible foundation for development" EA Motive said. "But already, we’re finding so many opportunities to explore story, design and gameplay with Iron Man, and it’s exciting to see t

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2: The First Preview

As both a long-time competitive Smash player and someone who found the first Nick All-Star Brawl to be pretty disappointing, I came away from my hands-off preview of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 impressed, excited, and surprised. From the new Slime mechanic to making its characters feel more alive, all the way down to the training mode, Brawl 2 feels like a huge step up in almost every possible way. The original All-Star Brawl was fun, sure, but the lack of even basic stuff like voice acting made Nickelodeon’s iconic characters feel flat. Similarly, many of the characters felt same-y and lacked different gameplans from each other aside from basic stuff like movement speed, knockback, and damage on their moves. Combined with flat animations and dull sound effects, that gave gameplay a mirrored sense of lifelessness. Even still, it was a good time with friends, and it had some clever ideas. But most importantly, it seems like it set the framework for All-Star Brawl 2 to really knock t

Josh Sawyer Would Make Pillars of Eternity 3 If Given a Baldur's Gate 3-Sized Budget

Obsidian Entertainment released Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire in May 2018, and it hasn't given any news of another sequel to the Pillars series ever since. Now, studio design director Josh Sawyer said he would love to develop Pillars of Eternity 3 — under the condition the game receives the same budget as Baldur's Gate 3 . In a video interview with Touch Arcade about the anniversary of Pentiment, Sawyer said that, while he loved the first two Pillars games, he would love to make Pillars 3 if there weren't any time or budget constraints. He didn't say the same for Pentiment 2, however. "I don’t think I would make Pentiment 2. I really do feel very satisfied with that game. It’s not like I don’t wanna return to it ever, but I just did it, so I’d probably wait a little bit," Sawyer said. "I think if it truly was an unlimited budget, I think I would try Pillars 3 because I know what the budget was for Deadfire, which was not a whole lot and I have

Super Mario RPG Remake: Release Date, Gameplay Updates, and Latest News

A month after the side-scrolling Super Mario Bros. Wonder hits Switch, Nintendo will return to the Mushroom Kingdom for Super Mario RPG, a remake of its 1996 cult-favorite collaboration with SquareSoft (now Square Enix). Ahead of the remake’s upcoming release, we’ve compiled this comprehensive overview of everything we know about Super Mario RPG, including its release date, price, gameplay updates, and more. Jump to : Release Date Latest Trailer Gameplay Story Details Preorder Super Mario RPG Release Date and Price Super Mario RPG will be released on November 17 exclusively for Nintendo Switch . It costs $60 USD . Super Mario RPG Trailer The official Super Mario RPG trailer was revealed alongside the game in June. More recently, Nintendo released an official gameplay trailer. Check them out below: Super Mario RPG Gameplay Updates Nintendo has largely kept the gameplay systems of the original Super Mario RPG in tact: Playtime will be split between exploring the worl

Xbox's Activision Deal Is Done. Now What? – Unlocked 617

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard is finally done, and so we can finally stop talking about it! Or, well, at least we can stop talking about the annoying will-they-or-won't-they regulatory side of it. Now it's time to talk about the games! We discuss Activision-Blizzard games in the back catalog that we'd like to see lightly refreshed for the Xbox Series X|S (similar to the recent Quake 2 remaster), before taking turns talking about which of their IPs we'd like to see Microsoft bring back as a brand-new game. Plus: Starfield tops the sales charts, Bethesda's "Uncle Pete" Hines says goodbye, and more! Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our YouTube channel , or grab an MP3 of this week's episode . For more awesome content, check out my recent Alan Wake 2 preview! For more next-gen coverage, make sure to check out our Xbox Series X review , our Xbox Series S review , and our PS5 review . Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's

Hellboy: Web of Wyrd Review

As a longtime Hellboy fan, it continues to astound me that there are desperately few video game adaptations of the big red monkey devil’s exploits. There’s a lot to love about Mike Mignola’s almost 30-year-old hellion, from his look, to the fable-flavored supernatural world he skulks around righting wrongs and protecting the innocent, to the often touching pieces of self-reflection throughout the many stories that touch on themes of loneliness, discrimination, found families, and the risks and rewards of rising to a higher calling. Seven hours with Web of Wyrd was a good reminder of the challenges involved with turning such a complex work into an interactive game where our actions matter. While it nails much of the look of the graphic novels, Web of Wyrd trades substantial story and characters for an entertaining but low-stakes, action-packed romp whose roguelite elements fail to put up enough of a fight to give the heavy-handed devil his due. At first glance, Web of Wyrd is gorgeou

Skull Island: Rise of Kong Review

Here's the thing about King Kong: He is not just an ape, he's a giant ape. It's his defining feature in the 1933 movie that birthed him and the ultimate cause of his tragic demise. Picking up people, climbing skyscrapers, fighting dinosaurs — being huge is King Kong's whole deal. Skull Island: Rise of Kong is bad for a lot of reasons, but the main one is it's a game that lets you play as an iconically large gorilla and somehow manages to make him feel exceedingly average. Rise of Kong portrays King Kong in the most bland way possible, and then it matches that mediocrity for everything else around him. Rise of Kong lets you experience how King Kong became King Kong, which was apparently by beating a lot of things to death and getting really angry while doing it. After swearing revenge on the giant raptor that killed his parents like some sort of gorilla Batman, you’ll punch your way through each of Skull Island’s five levels, all of which are as massive as they

A Dog Will Become the First Ever Canine Speedrunner at AGDQ 2024

Prepare for a gaming event like no other, as a four-legged contender is all set to dash into the spotlight at Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) 2024, making history as the first dog to complete a speedrun in a video game for the popular event. A shiba inu will speedrun a game at @GamesDoneQuick this January; he will be the first dog to do so: https://t.co/IA78oPZwe2 — JSR_@TwitchCon/GDQx (@JSR2gamers) October 17, 2023 In a post on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), user @JSR2gamers posted an announcement video teasing his dog Peanut Butter (also affectionately called P.B. by his owner) and the milestone he is set to embark on next year. This is not the first time Peanut Butter has speedrun a game; three months ago, his owner uploaded a video of the good boy speedrunning the NES game Gyromite, which P.B. completed in 25 minutes and 29 seconds. How the pup will speedrun Zelda 2 Now, Peanut Butter does not have any thumbs (obviously), making it difficult to hold a c

Phil Spencer 'All in' on Xbox Studios Revisiting Older, Owned IP

Phil Spencer really, really wants someone within Xbox Game Studios to make a new Hexen game. First, he wore that Hexen T-shirt at the Xbox Games Showcase earlier this year . And now, he's name-dropping Hexen repeatedly as a franchise he wants someone within Xbox to revisit somehow. But, Spencer notes, only if the team doing so is genuinely passionate about it — or whatever other older franchise they're plucking from Xbox's catalog to refresh. Speaking on the Official Xbox Podcast , Spencer spoke on the company's strategy for how it allocates its owned catalog of IPs to its development studios, reassuring that Xbox isn't out there compelling anyone to revive older franchises they aren't interested in. He said he frequently meets with Xbox teams to learn what they're passionate about, and is happy to let teams dig into the Xbox vault for franchises they're personally interested in. "I just don't think that a team working on something that isn

Phil Spencer Explains Why There Won't be any Activision Games on Game Pass in 2023

So, Xbox owns Activision-Blizzard now, right? So why are Call of Duty and Diablo not on Game Pass yet? That's been a question on many people's minds lately now that Xbox's massive acquisition has finally closed. And today, Xbox head Phil Spencer showed up on the Official Xbox Podcast to try and answer it. During the podcast, Spencer was questioned about the recent news that we wouldn't see a massive drop of Activision-Blizzard games on Game Pass immediately after the deal finalized, as many had expected. As it was pointed out, a major flood of Game Pass newcomers happened when Xbox acquired Zenimax. Twenty Bethesda games dropped onto the service just days after , including some of the company's biggest franchises. Where, then, are all the Activision Blizzard games? Why is this different? Per Spencer: they're coming. Eventually. But the regulatory challenges surrounding this acquisition made it a bit trickier to navigate than the Zenimax deal, and adding g

Phil Spencer Reiterates 100 Percent Parity for Call of Duty, No Exclusive Skins or Betas

Xbox's Activision Blizzard merger is finally done , but that doesn't mean that Phil Spencer is suddenly ready to reverse course and make Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive. Speaking on the Official Xbox Podcast, Spencer reiterated that the platform's goal is "100 percent parity" on content across all platforms. "The players on PlayStation and in the future on Nintendo... I want you to feel 100 percent part of the community. I don't want you to feel like there's content you're missing out on, skins you're missing out on, timing you're missing out on. That's not the goal," Spencer said. "The goal is 100 percent parity across all platforms as much as we can for launch and content." Phil Spencer on Call of Duty: He confirms that there will be 100% parity on content for Call of Duty on all platforms “We have no goal of somehow using Call of Duty to get you to buy an Xbox console.” Confirms there won’t be a platform exclu

Wizard with a Gun Review

With a ridiculous on-the-nose title like Wizard with a Gun, you know exactly what you’re getting into. You’re a wizard, and you have a gun. But the gun is also your wand, so even though you’re shooting all manner of creatures, it’s magical shooting. This silly premise has a lot going for it, opening the door for plenty of unique combat scenarios in its sandbox world. But despite a great opening, Wizard with a Gun starts losing momentum once it becomes clear that it just doesn’t feel finished. Pulling off spell combos and crafting new bullets can be a lot of fun with a friend in co-op, and there is a good amount to explore for fans of survival sandboxes, but balance issues and the lack of a proper ending leave it feeling like it’s missing an Early Access label. As my friends and I kept saying, “it’s got good bones,” but the robes on top of them don’t take long to wear thin. Wizard with a Gun immediately gets you to the shooting and the wizarding, with a campaign that’s easy to under