Pokemon Go Adds New Legendary, Dialga, Tomorrow

Palkia may no longer be available in Pokemon Go, but a new Legendary Pokemon is set to take its place soon. Starting March 1, the Pokemon Diamond mascot Dialga will begin appearing in Raid Battles around the world–but as usual, it’ll only be around for a limited time.

As with most other Legendaries, to catch Dialga you’ll first need to team up with other players at a Gym where a Dialga Raid is taking place and battle the Pokemon. If you manage to defeat Dialga, each player who participated in the Raid will receive a handful of Premier Balls and an opportunity to catch it.

Dialga is the only Steel/Dragon Pokemon in the series, which gives it numerous resistances to other types. Your best bet for battling it is to bring along Fighting and Ground Pokemon such as Machamp, Hariyama, and Groudon. Dialga will only appear in Raid Battles until March 28, giving you until the end of the month to catch one.

In other Pokemon Go news, Niantic recently introduced the Team Medallion to the app’s in-game store. This item allows players to change their team allegiance once every 365 days. The developer has also rolled out a new AR photo mode, which is the only way to encounter the elusive Pokemon Smeargle.

Pokemon Go’s next Community Day event is scheduled for March 23. This time, the featured Pokemon will be Treecko, one of the three starters from Ruby and Sapphire. Players will also be able to hatch Pokemon Eggs at a quarter of the distance they typically require during the event.

Opinion: Anthem May Have Its Problems, but Its NPCs Are Fantastic

Coming away from Anthem, I constantly hear people talking about how it makes them feel like Iron Man; you get to zoom around in a powerful suit and blast away enemies. I also hear about how it’s not quite living up to expectations, at least not at launch, but you can read more about that in IGN’s review. But when I step away from Anthem, what I’m excited to write home about are the great characters hanging around in Fort Tarsis and all of the world-building collectibles scattered about. Did you know that the actors behind Fix-It Felix, Louise Belcher, and Charles Boyle all lent their talents to characters in Anthem? Did you know they also have their own short storylines?

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Pokemon Sword and Shield Trailer Breakdown

Pokemon has sent out a call to arms with the reveal of the new Gen 8 games on the Nintendo Switch, Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield. We’re going to point out all of the new and returning mechanics, what the trailer tells us about the new region, and piece together some clues about the two new Legendaries.

But we’re going to start with the most sacred of rituals that marks the start of every new Pokemon Generation…

The Judging of the Starters!

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Devotion Review

The most effective horror can seep its way into the mundanity of our everyday lives, ruminating beneath the surface before wrapping its malevolent tendrils around our sense of comfort and familiarity. Years after it was removed from sale, the bite-sized slice of P.T. we were privy to still manages to evoke those trembling feelings of unease more potently than almost any other horror game since–making each trip around that unremarkable L-shaped corridor an intimidating test of nerves. Devotion, a new psychological horror game from Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games, evokes P.T.’s terrifying spirit to paint an inventive, thought-provoking, and insidious portrait of family life within the claustrophobic confines of a small Taiwanese apartment.

Set throughout the 1980s, Devotion focuses on a strained family of three: struggling screenwriter Du Feng Yu, retired singer and movie star Li Fang, and their sickly young daughter Mei Shin, who aspires to be like her mother. The game predominantly takes place within the five rooms of their modest apartment, with a narrative that takes you on a distressing tour through the years and various configurations of this intimate space. The attention to detail in each facet of the apartment is striking, as every nook and cranny is thoughtfully assembled to replicate an authentic, lived-in home. There are old newspapers being used as makeshift tablecloths, pencils and discarded scripts messily strewn across desks, a corridor that’s extravagantly decorated with the haphazard art of Meh Shin and her litany of crayons, and a calendar hung above the CRT TV that notates significant dates in the family’s lives. Each detail, no matter how meaningful or insignificant, establishes and effectively reinforces Devotion’s disconcerting sense of familiarity. This nuanced sense of place ensures that whenever your eyes are averted elsewhere and the apartment begins to shift and transcend its limitations–sometimes dramatically, other times subtly–it’s all the more unnerving when you turn around and come face-to-face with a surreal distortion.

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All of these details, from the apartment’s transforming arrangement of rooms, its varying lighting, the tempestuous weather rattling away at the windows outside, and the way the building mutates around you, are all in service of Red Candle’s profound storytelling. The central tale is intimately focused on the family of three, but Devotion manages to weave a tangled web that deftly examines the impact that mental illness, societal pressure and expectations, and religious fanaticism can have on a beleaguered family. For as much as Devotion is about its characters and the fantastic way their development coalesces with that of the ever-changing apartment–with the increasingly dishevelled rooms acting as a poignant metaphor for the family–it’s also about a specific time and place; delving into the role of women in 1980’s Taiwan, feminine beauty standards, the infancy of mental health research and the stigmas attached to it, and the sometimes dangerous faith desperate people will place in religion. Explorations of Taoism and Buddhism might not completely resonate with a Western audience, but the story is told in such a way that it’s relatively easy to read through the lines and understand the awful, heartbreaking extremes people are willing to go to for those they love.

Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games, evokes P.T.’s terrifying spirit to paint an inventive, thought-provoking, and insidious portrait of family life

Impassioned voice acting brings Devotion’s limited number of cutscenes to life, but most of the story is told through the myriad items you gather, read, and manipulate as you traverse through different variations of the family home during 1980, 1985, and 1986. Puzzle solving is relatively straightforward, with any items you find inevitably being used to solve a particular conundrum. All of your interactions are geared towards unravelling the mystery of exactly what happened within the unassuming walls of this family home. A note you found earlier might inform a scene later on, while coming to understand the family’s relationship with one another will gradually evolve the context and meaning of certain trinkets aside from the revelations discovered in its most gut-punching moments. Devotion might be mechanically simple–knowing to put a camera on a tripod isn’t going to wrack your brain, for example–but its strengths come from simply immersing you in a place with an engaging story you’ll want to see through to its conclusion. There are a couple of jump scares, but they feel earned within the oppressive atmosphere achieved through ominous music, sounds, and unsettling imagery, with striking motifs tracing everything back to the family’s shattered lives.

Unlike a lot of contemporary horror games, Devotion also resists the temptation to dabble in frustrating trial-and-error stealth sections or monotonous conflicts with monsters in an attempt to heighten any perceived sense of excitement. There is one regrettable chase scene late in the game, which is undeniably Devotion’s lowest point, but it’s also brief and easy enough that it doesn’t overstay its welcome. At three hours in length it’s feasible to reach the end credits in one sitting, and that might be the ideal way to experience it. The pacing is almost immaculate aside from a plodding stroll towards the game’s final act, but even this is easy to push to the back of your mind once you’ve reached its stunning conclusion.

Devotion doesn’t quite match the anxiety-inducing frights that permeate each cautious step forward in games like P.T. and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but its domestic terror burrows deep inside your psyche long after the final credits have rolled. The sorrowful story it tells meshes malice with tenderness, metaphor with stark truths, and achieves it all with the nuanced kind of environmental storytelling other games can only strive for. There are moments when it jumps out of the genre completely, surprising you with a sudden tonal shift, and others where the oftentimes clichéd presence of a children’s doll is used to signal a character’s poignant detachment. Everything Devotion does is in service of this story and its character development; you learn about these people’s lives, empathize with their plight, and come to understand their actions, even if you don’t agree with them. Home is where the heart is, and Devotion is a shining example of what the horror genre is capable of.

[Editor’s note: At the time of publishing Devotion is not available to purchase on Steam. The game was pulled by Red Candle Games, which stated this was due to “technical issues that cause unexpected crashes and among other reasons.” The game was also caught up in a controversy surrounding art in the game which looked to be based on a meme of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Addressing this, Red Candle Games said “our team would also review our game material once again making sure no other unintended materials was inserted.” The game is expected to be made available again in the future.]

The 22 Absolute Worst Funko Pops You’ll Probably Want To Avoid

MLB The Show 19 Full Cover Revealed After Bryce Harper Signs $330 Million Contract

In one of the biggest contracts in sports history, slugger Bryce Harper today signed a 13-year, $330 million contract with the MLB’s Philadelphia Phillies. Harper was previously announced as the cover star of Sony’s MLB The Show 19, but because he was a free agent then, the cover was only a placeholder that showed Harper in a nondescript hoodie. Now that he’s signed his record-breaking deal, Sony has released the official cover art showing Harper in his Phillies garb.

Harper’s deal, which has yet to be officially confirmed by the Phillies and is pending a physical, also includes a no-trade clause and no opt-out clause, so we could continue to see Harper playing for the Phillies until 2031. In the deal, Harper makes an average of $24.4 million per season. While massive, it doesn’t even crack the top ten of the MLB’s highest annual salary list.

Under his new contract, Harper will make more than $150,000 per game and almost $45,000 every time he steps to the plate, according to numbers crunched by Darren Rovell.

Harper spent his entire professional career as the right fielder for the Washington Nationals before signing with the Phillies today. The new cover for MLB The Show 19 with Harper in a Phillies uniform is just fine, but his beard looks weird.

MLB The Show 19, which launches on March 26, will be available in a Standard Edition ($60 USD) and a Gone Yard Edition ($100) that is exclusive to GameStop and EB Games. It comes with a New Era baseball snap back cap, a copy of the game, in-game extras, and more. A $100 Digital Deluxe edition will also be available; some of its extras include an allotment of Stubs, custom avatars, and more. An MVP Edition ($70), meanwhile, includes a series of digital extras and a steelbook case if you’re picking up the physical edition. Everyone who pre-orders any edition of MLB The Show 19 gets extra in-game digital content.

Our Biggest Look Yet at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

Disney has revealed a ton of new information for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, including attractions, food, drinks, and even a shop where fans can create a one-of-a-kind Lightsaber.

Last week, a special preview event was held at Disneyland Resort that revealed more of the magic of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, and it’s our biggest look yet at the land that aims to transport fans into the universe of Star Wars and make dreams come true.

We’ve heard a little bit about the two main attractions at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance – and more details have been revealed on what to expect.

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Switch’s Resident Evil Games Are More Expensive Than Expected

Capcom is bringing three classic Resident Evil gamesResident Evil HD Remaster, 0, and 4–to Nintendo Switch on May 20. All three are now available to pre-purchase through the Eshop, but as the digital store reveals, they’re a bit pricier than you might expect.

All three Resident Evil games are listed on Switch’s storefront for $30 / £30 apiece. Not only is that price tag surprising considering each game is several generations old by this point, it is $10 more than the titles cost on other platforms.

This certainly isn’t the first time the Switch versions of some games have turned out to be more expensive than on other consoles; since the system launched, many publishers have charged slightly more for Switch games to offset the cost of manufacturing cartridges. Such was the case with Rime and LA Noire, among others.

What makes this instance feel especially egregious to fans, however, is that Resident Evil HD and Resident Evil 4 aren’t receiving physical releases on the system; they’ll only be available digitally. Switch owners will be able to purchase a physical copy of Resident Evil 0, and Capcom is selling a Resident Evil Origins Collection that packs in both 0 and the original for $60–although reportedly only 0 will be on a game card, with the other included as a download code.

Aside from the Japan-only streaming version of Resident Evil 7, this marks the first time the mainline Resident Evil series is coming to Switch, although Capcom has previously released Resident Evil Revelations and its sequel for the console. Both titles came with exclusive retro-style minigames.

Pokemon Go: Legendary Pokemon Dialga Headed to Raid Battles

Legendary Pokemon Dialga is headed to Pokemon Go.

As revealed by Niantic on Pokemon Go’s official site, Dialga will join Raid Battles on March 1 at 1:00PM PT and will remain in the game until March 28 at 1:00PM PT.

Dialga is the fifth Legendary Pokemon from the Sinnoh region to come to Pokemon Go, following Giratina, Cresselia, Heatran, and Palkia. Overall, Dialga will be the 80th Sinnoh Pokemon available in Pokemon Go so far.

Pokemon Go most recently added a new AR Snapshot mode, allowing you to take photos with any Pokemon in your collection for the first time.

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Get At Sundown: Shots in the Dark for Free with IGN Prime

IGN Prime has partnered with Mild Beast Games and Versus Evil to bring you At Sundown: Shots in the Dark. IGN Prime members, grab your copy of the 4-player hide-and-seek shooter where the maps are covered in darkness and light is your enemy.

At Sundown: Shots in the Dark is a hide-and-seek shooter where the maps are covered in darkness and light is your enemy, as 4 players compete in a death-match to be the best! Strategic gameplay is vital in the shadows of this dark world in which you only become visible when you shoot, dash or slash. See or be seen, kill or be killed. How long will you survive At Sundown?

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