Month: September 2019

On the court, NBA 2K20 is a dazzling experience that matches the energy and presentation of its real-life counterpart. Enhanced footwork, dribbling, and player spacing help improve an already sturdy foundation. However, outside of the surprisingly well-written story mode, NBA 2K20 loses its focus off of the court. NBA 2K20 excels at recreating the pro game, but opportunities to purchase microtransactions exist at nearly every corner, and complex modes like MyLeague are given far too little attention.

The first thing I noticed about NBA 2K20 is that everything feels more intuitive. The learning curve is still immense, but learning the basics is now a lot smoother than it used to be. A redesigned “2KU”, NBA 2K20’s optional tutorial mode, is particularly helpful and doesn’t require more than an hour to get through. Thoughtfully, an on-screen controller mimics the movement of the desired skill, making it plenty easy to imitate. Once I successfully learned a skill, like eurostepping toward the basket, I could move on at whatever pace I felt comfortable. This allowed for the remastering of skills I forgot about since last year, and trying out some moves I hadn’t been able to pull off previously at all.

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Our Xbox crew gives in-depth impressions of Gears 5’s multiplayer as well as Borderlands 3. Plus: a surprising departure at Bethesda/Zenimax, a bit more on the next Resident Evil project, and the awesomeness that is Banjo and Kazooie appearing in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, or grab an MP3 download of this week’s episode. For more awesome content, check out the latest episode of IGN Unfiltered, featuring a career-spanning interview with longtime Remedy writer Sam Lake – he of Max Payne, Alan Wake, Quantum Break, and Control fame. Watch it below:

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.

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Ahead of this year’s Tokyo Game Show, scheduled to run from September 12-15 at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan, Square Enix showed off a new trailer for Kingdom Hearts III‘s upcoming DLC. Re Mind, the action-RPG’s first piece of post-launch content, is slated to arrive this winter on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Square Enix says Re Mind is a free update for Kingdom Hearts III that sees Sora take on the evil Organization XIII. With a new battle form and friends at his side, Sora will encounter new enemies and bosses as he travels to a familiar realm. In addition to playable characters like Aqua, Roxas, and Riku, you’ll also get access to additional Keyblades when Re Mind launches later in the year. No specific release date has been provided.

In our Kingdom Hearts III review, GameSpot editor Tamoor Hussain said, “What sticks with me is the exciting battle against elemental titans with Hercules, taking Rapunzel out into the unfamiliar wide world for the first time, snapping selfies with Winnie the Pooh, and going toe to toe with Davy Jones. In 2002, as Sora, I left Destiny Islands to travel across the universe and make new friends. In 2019 I brought old ones home, and I had so much fun doing it.”

Free new content updates are on their way to Remnant: From the Ashes. The flawed but fun third-person action-adventure sees a new mode and dungeon arrive later this month, whether you’re fighting alone or with friends in tow.

Adventure Mode releases on September 12. This is a new game mode that allows players to re-roll individual worlds and play altered versions of previous campaign missions. You’ll be able to embark on an adventure through the dynamically generated worlds of Earth, Rhom, and Yaesha, beginning at a single bonfire-esque World Stone and ending once you’ve defeated the world’s final boss. Enemy spawns, points of interest, dungeon locations, and more may be different from the main campaign to throw a spanner into the works. All you have to do is select Adventure Mode from World Settings to begin. This won’t affect your current campaign progress either, and any items or traits gained along the way are free to keep.

Another free update is out on September 19, introducing a new dungeon called Leto’s Lab. You’ll have to fight your way through Research Station Alpha, exploring the lab of head researcher Leto Apostolakis. He theorized that the mysterious red crystals spread throughout Remnant could be used to bridge space-time for near-instantaneous travel, eventually unlocking the World Stone on Ward 16 and allowing mankind to travel to other worlds. Leto’s experiments quickly diverged, however, and the lab was forced to evacuate when one of his dubious experiments went awry.

Leto’s Lab will dynamically spawn on Earth after its release. This new dungeon differs from the others in Remnant by revealing more backstory about the world while mixing in light puzzles with its usual combat.

You can check out GameSpot’s Remnant: From the Ashes review. “For the most part, the experiment is a success, resulting in deeply satisfying combat against creative and challenging enemies,” said Alessandro Barbosa. “Remnant struggles to effectively transfer that success over to an engaging loot system and an interesting story to wrap it all up, but when you’re blasting away foes with weapons crafted from the remains of your latest boss kill, it’s hard not to do so with a wide smile on your face.”

At roughly 35 hours in with seemingly plenty more to go, GreedFall is almost everything I want out of a big, juicy, old-school RPG. While it’s still lacking a lot of polish, the exciting, enjoyable combat and excellent, complex quest writing bring it very close to that winning formula of a mid-2000s BioWare game – something developer Spiders has previously aimed for but missed with its last couple of releases. GreedFall’s sprawling adventure finally seems to have landed on the right foot, and so far it has been worth the wait.

Comparisons to The Witcher series and Dragon Age: Origins are easy to make as you traverse its wild, semi-open environments. Spiders has always been great at worldbuilding, and the Age of Discovery-inspired fantasy setting GreedFall throws you into doesn’t disappoint in that regard. From the moody, muddy streets of Serene that evoke Paris or London in the 1700s, you set sail for the mysterious, volcanic island of Teer Fradee. While exploring it, you’ll take steel and gunpowder to all manner of foes, human and mythical, while uncovering a compelling mystery that, unfortunately, reveals some of its best secrets a bit too early for my taste.

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Niantic’s second wave of Ultra Bonuses has arrived in Pokemon Go. For the next several days, players around the world will have a chance to hatch region-exclusive Pokemon from eggs. That’s not all; the Mythical Pokemon Deoxys, which has up until now appeared exclusively in EX Raids, will be available in standard Raid Battles for a limited time.

From September 9-16, all four forms of Deoxys will appear as bosses in five-star Raids, making this your first opportunity to capture them outside of the invite-only EX Raids. On top of that, Farfetch’d, Kangaskhan, Mr. Mime, and Tauros may hatch from 7 km eggs, and if you’re very lucky, you may hatch their Shiny forms.

If you need help challenging Deoxys in battle, Pokemon that are effective against it, such as Absol, Tyranitar, Houndoom, and more, will also appear as Raid bosses throughout the week, giving you a chance to build a powerful team before taking Deoxys on. You can see the full list of this week’s Ultra Bonus rewards below.

Niantic still has one more wave of Ultra Bonuses on the way, and it is saving perhaps the most exciting batch for last. Beginning September 16, the first Gen 5 Pokemon will appear in Pokemon Go. Among other Pokemon, players will have a chance to encounter Klink and its Shiny form in Raid Battles, while Shiny versions of Patrat and Lillipup will appear in the wild. Mewtwo will return to Raids as well, and this time, you’ll have a chance of encountering its Shiny form.

Before the third set of Ultra Bonuses arrive, Niantic will host a Pokemon Go Community Day. This month’s event takes place this Sunday, September 15, and the featured Pokemon is Turtwig, the Grass-type starter from Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum. You can catch up on other recent Pokemon Go news below.

Pokemon Go Ultra Bonuses

September 9-16

• Farfetch’d, Kangaskhan, Mr. Mime, and Tauros may hatch from 7 km eggs. You may also hatch their Shiny forms
• All four forms of Deoxys will appear in five-star Raid Battles
• Pokemon effective against Deoxys will appear in other tier Raids

September 16-23

• Klink and Shiny Klink will appear in Raid Battles
• Shiny Patrat and Shiny Lillipup will appear in the wild
• Mewtwo that know Psystrike will appear in five-star Raids, as will Shiny Mewtwo

Borderlands 3 launches for Xbox One, PS4, and the Epic Games Store on September 13, followed by releases for Google Stadia in late 2019 and other PC storefronts in 2020. For long-time fans who are looking for an adventure, don’t worry, Borderlands 3 offers a lot of content to do.

The fourth mainline installment in the loot shooter franchise acts as a sort of conclusion to the series, completing the narrative arc first put forth in 2009’s Borderlands. That first game took just over 20 hours to beat, and its follow-ups Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel took about 30 and 17 hours respectively. Borderlands 3 takes a little over 30 hours to complete, putting it at about the same length as Borderlands 2. I finished my first playthrough in 33 hours.

On my first playthrough, I typically only stopped to complete side quests when I needed to level up more–as Borderlands 3’s campaign missions are fairly punishing to tackle when you’re below their recommended level. Upon finishing the campaign, I still had about 10 unfinished side quests in my mission log, and another dozen left undiscovered–marked with exclamation points on my map for me to go to and acquire.

It’s difficult to discern just how much more time those side quests would add to the total runtime, as some of Borderlands 3’s optional missions can be completed in as quickly as a few seconds while others can last upwards of 45 minutes. Some have multiple parts too, taking place across the universe on more than one planet. Finishing the campaign also unlocks a few pieces of endgame content, as well as Borderlands 3’s new game plus, True Vault Hunter Mode. So it will take a lot longer than 33 hours to complete everything.

In GameSpot’s Borderlands 3 review, I wrote, “Borderlands 3 has a few stumbling blocks when it comes to bosses, but these fights are overshadowed by the game’s rewarding gunplay and over-the-top humor. The game’s character-driven narrative acts as a satisfying finale for the loot-shooter franchise, and the new mechanics and features–especially the reworked skill trees and weapon manufacturer effects–give you plenty of agency in how you want to play through it. If you’ve never been a fan of the franchise, it’s unlikely Borderlands 3 does enough things differently to change your mind, as the game best excels at continuing what the series has always done: deliver a humorous tall tale of misfits looting and shooting their way to heroism.”