Month: August 2018

If there’s one thing Nintendo fans could use more of in their lives, it’s Nintendo-themed gear. We’re talking everything from wristwatches and wall hangings to hand puppets and flasks. If that’s the kind of thing that satisfies your consumer needs, you’re in luck: this week, Nintendo-themed merchandise is on sale at ThinkGeek. Let’s take a look at the kinds of Nintendo deals you can take advantage of right now.

Zelda fans have plenty of items to choose from. You can get a fancy watch with a leather strap for half price at $30. If you like Link’s satchel in Breath of the Wild, you can pick up a similar one for $18 that’s big enough to carry more than just a Sheikah slate. And who wouldn’t want to sleep in pajamas modeled after Link’s outfit? You can also get some nice discounts on Zelda-themed shirts for women and men. There’s even a Zelda sports bra and holiday sweater.

It would hardly be a Nintendo sale if Mario fans didn’t have anything to buy, so of course you can get some cool gear inspired by the Mushroom Kingdom. In terms of puppets–and who doesn’t want a puppet?–you can get Bowser ($13) or a Piranha Plant ($10). Or how about a cookie jar shaped like a question block for $17? Or a 1-Up plush for $15? And they’re calling it a “canteen,” but this container shaped like a Super Mario Bros. cartridge is clearly a flask made for hiding your booze.

General Nintendo fans can pick up a shirt with an SNES controller on it that says “Made in the Nineties” or a coffee canister that’s shaped like a Game Boy. There’s a lot more Nintendo gear on sale here, so check out ThinkGeek’s deals page to find the item that’s right for you.

Here’s a game you should probably download if you haven’t already bought it. For Honor: Starter Edition is free on Steam between now and August 27. This isn’t one of those free play weekends where you lose access after a couple of days, either. If you download the game, you can keep and play it forever.

For Honor is quite a bit different from most other games on the market. It’s an online melee brawler that pits three factions of warriors against one another: Vikings, Knights, and Samurai. All of the heroes have unique fighting styles, and the combat system is deep and intricate.

The version that’s free right now on Steam is the Starter Edition, which typically sells for $15. As such, it’s more limited than the pricier versions you can also purchase. The Starter Edition comes with all the core content of the game–the single-player campaign and all the multiplayer modes and maps are there. What’s missing are most of the heroes.

For Honor launched with 12 hero characters. The Starter Edition comes with three heroes fully unlocked (one from each faction). You also get to choose three additional heroes to make “playable.” Unlike the fully unlocked heroes, you can’t customize these characters with new outfits unless you spend 8,000 Steel (the in-game currency) on each one. The six additional heroes that launched with the game cost 8,000 Steel each to fully unlock.

Since the game launched, Ubisoft has introduced six additional heroes to the game. Unlocking these characters costs 15,000 Steel each. (A new faction comprised of four more characters is coming with the Marching Fire update on October 16).

You can buy Steel for real-life money or acquire it through gameplay. Ubisoft says earning 8,000 Steel requires an in-game purchase of $8 or between eight and 15 hours of play time. Even if you don’t want to do the mental gymnastics to figure out what it would take to unlock all the characters, you can still pick up For Honor: Starter Edition for free right now to try it out.

Each Tuesday, Microsoft refreshes its weekly Deals with Gold and Spotlight sales. This week’s discounts are now live, meaning Xbox One and Xbox 360 owners have a new selection of cheap games to choose from. Some of the deals require an Xbox Live Gold subscription, as indicated below. The prices go back up on August 28, so don’t wait too long to make your purchases. Here are some of the sale’s highlights.

Whether or not you participated the Rainbow Six Siege free play weekend, you can pick up any version of the game on sale this week (provided you have Xbox Live Gold). The standard game is on sale for $20 / £12, though it’s missing many of the Operators found in the more expensive versions of the game. The Advanced Edition costs $24 / £16 and comes with 10 Outbreak Collection Packs and 600 Rainbow Six Credits. The Gold Edition costs $45 / £31.50 and contains everything in the Advanced Edition, plus the Year 3 Pass. If you want everything available in the game, you’ll need to spend $65 / £48 on the Complete Edition, which comes with everything above, plus the 16 Operators released prior to Year 3. Phew.

You can pick up the acclaimed Gotham-set trilogy by grabbing Batman: Return to Arkham and Batman: Arkham Knight on sale for $10 / £14 each. If next year’s Metro Exodus has you intrigued, you can play through the first two games in the Metro Redux Bundle on sale for $7.50 / £6. The sale price of the action-RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance has been creeping down since it launched earlier this year; you can grab it now for the lowest price we’ve seen yet, $40 / £37.

Many more games and add-ons are on sale between now and August 28. We’ve highlighted more below, but you can see the full list on Major Nelson’s blog.

* Requires Xbox Live Gold

The Pokemon series is one of the longest-running animated shows on television, spanning more than 1,000 episodes and 20 movies to date, and now you’ll be able to relive nearly the entire saga on Twitch. The Pokemon Company is partnering with the streaming service for a massive Pokemon marathon, which kicks off next week, on August 27, at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET.

This certainly isn’t the first television show marathon Twitch has broadcast, but the service says it’s the “single longest programmatic viewing event” in its history. The stream will air as a series of smaller marathons over the next several months and into 2019, encompassing 932 episodes from 19 seasons of the TV series beginning with the original Indigo League, as well as 16 Pokemon movies.

The Pokemon marathon will be broadcast on the TwitchPresents channel. According to the official Pokemon website, 10-16 Pokemon episodes will air Mondays through Thursdays, with encores of those episodes running on Fridays and Saturdays. A different Pokemon movie will also be broadcast every Sunday. You can find the schedule for the first nine seasons of the series below.

In addition to watching the series, you’ll be able to interact with the stream thanks to the Pokemon Badge Collector Twitch Extension. Those with a Twitch account will see “catachable” Pokemon appear during the broadcast, which they’ll be able to click on and add to their collection. The Extension will also feature a leaderboard, and the rarer the Pokemon you capture, the more points you’ll receive.

The Pokemon Company recently announced the series’ latest film, The Power of Us, will receive a limited theatrical release this fall. The film will appear in select theaters on November 24, 26, and 28, with one final showing following on December 1. The Power of Us is set in a town that reveres Lugia and marks the debut of the brand-new Mythical Pokemon Zeraora.

Pokemon the Series Twitch Marathon Schedule

• August 27 — Pokemon: Indigo League (Season 1)
• September 3 — Pokemon: Adventures in the Orange Islands (Season 2)
• September 10 — Pokemon: The Johto Journeys (Season 3)
• September 17 — Pokemon: Johto League Champions (Season 4)
• September 24 — Pokemon: Master Quest (Season 5)
• October 1 — Pokemon Advanced (Season 6)
• October 8 — Pokemon: Advanced Challenge (Season 7)
• October 15 — Pokemon: Advanced Battle (Season 8)
• October 22 — Pokemon: Battle Frontier (Season 9)