Pokemon Go‘s May Community Day may have just ended, but Niantic has already announced the first details for next month’s event. June’s Community Day is scheduled to take place on Saturday, June 8, and this time, the featured Pokemon will be another fan-favorite from Ruby and Sapphire: Slakoth.
Throughout the event, the adorable sloth Pokemon will appear in the wild more frequently than it normally does, giving you plenty of opportunities to catch it and stock up on Slakoth candy. On top of that, you’ll have your first chance to encounter a Shiny Slakoth, and any Slaking that you evolve up to an hour after the Community Day ends will learn an event-exclusive move, although Niantic hasn’t revealed what that will be just yet.
In addition to increased Slakoth spawns, you’ll be able to take advantage of a few other bonuses during June’s Community Day. As usual, any Lure module you use will remain active for three hours rather than their usual 30 minutes. On top of that, Eggs will hatch at a quarter of the distance they typically require, which will come in handy if you’re trying to hatch some of the new Gen 4 Pokemon that were recently added to the game.
Continuing the trend of the past few Community Days, June’s event will run from 3-6 PM local time. Previously, Niantic would hold Community Days during specific windows of time for each region, but this makes it much easier to remember when the event is happening in your area. You can read more details about June’s Community Day on the official Pokemon website.
In the meantime, Pokemon Go is in the midst of an Extraordinary Raid Week event. From now until May 28, new Pokemon, such as Bronzor and Clamperl, will appear as Raid bosses. You’ll also have a chance to encounter Shiny versions of Bronzor and Lapras, and you’ll earn twice the usual amount of Stardust and XP for participating in Raids. In addition to the event, Niantic recently introduced new items that let you evolve Eevee into Glaceon and Leafeon.
GOG is the PC game platform you might know and love for its anti-DRM stance. It’s a consumer-friendly policy that’s the exception to the rule, and while it may also eat into GOG’s marketability as a distribution platform in the eyes of AAA publishers, it sends a clear and positive message to consumers.
GOG’s goodwill towards its customers got its foot in the door, but the pressures of competition from the likes of the Epic Store and Steam are no doubt hurdles to overcome. The trick to getting over these obstacles and ensuring growth for GOG may lie in the upcoming launch of GOG Galaxy 2.0, which doesn’t merely overhaul the look of the platform’s desktop client but expands its functionality in a bid to offer even more services and conveniences to users.
In a recent meeting with GOG’s managing director Piotr Karwowski, and SVP of business development Oleg Klapovskiy, I got the first taste of their vision for GOG Galaxy 2.0: “All your friends and games in one place.” What this means is a few things, including collating all of your digital PC games, across all platforms and services, and making them easy to launch and install directly from Galaxy.
Though you obviously can’t launch PS4 or Xbox One games from the app, you can add your PS4 and Xbox One games to your index to use Galaxy as a general purpose library management tool–which includes the auto-population of cover art and basic meta info for each game you add.
These are handy additions with arguably modest benefits that have been offered by other apps in the past, but what really makes the pitch for GOG Galaxy 2.0 attractive is that it aims to connect you and all of your friends, across all consoles and PC platforms, to create an all-encompassing gaming portal. Their ambitious approach goes beyond collections, accounting for gameplay data, achievements, and direct messaging. GOG Galaxy 2.0 can even find friends on one service, and if they are also a Galaxy user, help you connect on services where the friendship hasn’t yet been established.
Throughout my demo, GOG Galaxy 2.0 looked both orderly and attractive. The inviting user interface made looking at arrays of data and comparison points a relatively painless process, and it was surprising how many useful modules could fit on a single screen. Users will also be able to get into the weeds and alter the look and feel of their interface by configuring existing pages and menus, as well as create new menus with custom logic and layouts to suit their organizational and analytic needs.
Piotr and Oleg aren’t shying away from the challenges in front of them. It’s one thing to create an elaborate tool for PC games, and it’s an entirely different beast to bring the traditional walled gardens of consoles into the mix. GOG has access to Microsoft’s API already and is aiming to support all platforms including PlayStation 4 and Switch. That being said, part of my live demo included a look at Piotr’s entry for the PS4 exclusive God of War. This included a detailed record of trophies, both locked and unlocked, and their logos and descriptions. These unofficial integrations and plugins are possible due to Galaxy 2.0’s open-ended nature, which allows for user-made extensions.
All of the data that goes into your GOG Galaxy 2.0 library and profile will live on GOG’s servers, which means that you get the convenience of portability, but also that GOG will potentially know a lot about you and your gaming habits. Piotr was very adamant that GOG is not in the business of selling data. He also stressed that users can both deactivate their profiles and strip their info from servers whenever they so choose. Where there would normally be ground for heavy skepticism against other companies, GOG’s promise feels genuine in light of its consumer-friendly reputation.
When asked to explain how GOG Galaxy 2.0 makes business sense for GOG, Oleg and Piotr simply stated that their hope is that users who use the app will also take advantage of the built-in store. Though I’m sure there’s more thought put into the design and integration of features in order to drive sales of games on GOG, you can’t argue with the fact that much of what GOG Galaxy 2.0 offers to consumers bears no connection to sales nor advertising. It’s not a work of charity, to be certain, but as GOG has proven in the past, showing customers that your platform is built to make their hobby a markedly better experience can be reason enough for loyalty to set in, and sales to follow.
GOG’s promises seem to come from the right place, and more importantly, most of them are proven to be achievable today. Anyone who wants to give the GOG Galaxy 2.0 a shot can volunteer for the upcoming closed beta launching soon, over at http://www.gogalaxy.com/.
The hugely anticipated Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker is set to feature a variety of new characters alongside the series’ regular cast. One villainous group that has been teased since 2015’s The Force Awakens is the Knights of Ren. It has now been confirmed that they will appear in The Rise of Skywalker, which is directed by JJ Abrams.
The news comes via an article published by Vanity Fair about the making of the new Star Wars movie. In one of the various behind-the-scenes images we see a group of masked characters standing in the desert with stunt coordinator Eunice Huthart. The caption reads: “J.J. Abrams, alongside Stunt Coordinator Eunice Huthart, directs the Knights of Ren; elite fearsome enforcers of Kylo Ren’s dark will.” Check the image out below:
The Knight of Ren did feature in The Force Awakens, during one of Rey’s visions on the planet Takodana. But that scene was short, dark, and set in the pouring rain–this new image gives us a much better idea of what to expect. According to Lucasfilm’s creative art manager Phil Szostak, the look of the Knights in The Force Awakens was based on rejected designs for Kylo Ren, and you can certainly see how their appearance influenced Kylo’s.
While the Vanity Fair article doesn’t provide any further details about how the Knights of Ren will feature in The Rise of Skywalker, we do know more about some of the other new characters. Keri Russell will play a masked villain named Zorri Bliss, Richard E. Grant is First Order leader Allegiant General Pryde, and Naomi Ackie plays Jannah, who is pictured riding a creature called an Orbak.
Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters on December 19. It stars Daisy Ridley as Rey, Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, John Boyega as Finn, Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron, Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico, Lupita Nyong’o as Maz Kanata, Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux, Mark Hamill as Luke, and Billy Dee Williams as Lando. For more, check out the movie’s first trailer and everything we know about Star Wars Episode IX.
Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker isn’t the only new Star Wars release that fans have to look forward to this year. It has also been confirmed that the live-action TV show The Mandalorian will be available on the streaming service Disney+ when it launches on November 12.
Warning! Season 2 SPOILERS for Stranger Things below.
The highly-anticipated third season of Netflix’s Stranger Things is nearly upon us. Premiering on Thursday, July 4, the adventures of Mike, Eleven, Dustin, Lucas, and the rest of the Hawkins’ crew continue with terrifying new monsters to battle, and a new mall to visit.
Netflix has dropped 14 new posters for the upcoming season featuring many of our favorite characters. You can check out the images in the gallery below.
Stranger Things and Netflix have partnered with Coke for an entertaining ’80s commercial for “New Coke,” which includes some of the cast. Coke revealed the advertisement via Twitter.
Game of Thrones is easily one of the most complex fantasy series ever to appear on TV, with a cast of hundreds all playing a role in the wars to determine the true ruler of Westeros and decide the fate of the living. Many of these characters evolved quite a bit over the course of eight seasons, to the point where they’re hardly recognizable by the end — we’re looking at you, Lino Facioli as Robin Arryn!
With that in mind, we thought it would be fun to compare the first and last scenes of all the major players of the Game of Thrones saga. How did their appearance change? How different a person had they become in the end? Note that we’re only including characters who played a major role over the course of several seasons rather than just one or two, where there appearances and costumes would have changed, which is why some big names like Khal Drogo, Oberyn Martell and Euron Greyjoy were left out. Spoilers, obviously, lie ahead!
There’s something about the apocalypse we just can’t quit. Whether its a nuclear war, zombies, robots, games (and gamers) have a morbid fascination with what comes after society breaks down. The infatuation is long-standing, but in 2019 we’ve seen an interesting style shift starting to form: In games like Rage 2 and Far Cry: New Dawn, bleak wastelands are set in the seemingly grand tradition of end-of-the-world stories, but brightened with neon color palettes and a healthy dose of explosive, double-barrelled escapism. You not only get to survive the end of the world, but you also get to thrive in it.
It sounds like a subtle distinction, but it creates a disconnect between the state of the world and how you move through it. The people around you, friends and, often, foes, struggle, but you’re more powerful than ever. That distances you from the desperation you’d expect to feel in such hard existence and the characters who aren’t as lucky as you, which waters down the story. But that distance also makes the ride even more fun, as you aren’t burdened by the weight of that experience.
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There are some great opportunities to save on 4K TVs right now with the Walmart Memorial Day Sale already underway, but Walmart wanted to capture its own piece of that sweet 4K magic and announced it’s now the exclusive retailer for ONN televisions. If you’re familiar with ONN, it’s now the exclusive Walmart house brand, similar to Best Buy’s Insignia line.
One of the main takeaways from Marvel’s 2019 output is that Tom Taylor writes a mean Spider-Man. This is hardly surprising given how well Taylor has succeeded with books like Injustice and All-New Wolverine, but it’s nice to have the confirmation anyway. Taylor’s Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man provides an engrossing, character-driven alternative to the core Amazing Spider-Man comic. War of the Realms Strikeforce: The Land of Giants, on the other hand, allows Taylor to flex some different muscles as he thrusts Spidey into the thick of a cosmic conflict.
Technically, this one-shot special is an ensemble book, with Captain America leading a team that includes Spidey, Wolverine, Luke Cage and Iron Fist into the icy realm of Jotunheim. But Taylor firmly (and wisely) frames the tale around Peter Parker. The narration is presented as if Spidey is a battle-weary soldier trying to process what he’s seen as he writes home to his best girl. For a guy who’s used to swinging through the buildings of Manhattan and punching various animal-themed villains in the face, battling Frost Giants and riding winged horses on a completely different plane of reality is a bit of a culture shock.
