Month: October 2019

Popular battle royale games Fortnite and PUBG have cross-play support, and Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will introduce it as well at release later this month. But what about Blizzard’s hero shooter Overwatch? Principal producer Wes Yanagi told GameSpot that cross-play is “definitely compelling,” but it’s not likely to happen for Overwatch anytime soon.

“Cross-play is something that would definitely be compelling for players, and as a player, I would love to see it happen. The truth is that implementing cross-play for Overwatch is more difficult than people realise,” Yanagi said.

That being said, Yanagi went on to say that Blizzard is currently looking into cross-play support for Overwatch. “We are exploring how to bring this to Overwatch, but do not have anything to share at this time,” he said.

The issue doesn’t appear to be political or specific to Nintendo, as Nintendo already allows cross-play on Switch with other titles such as Fortnite and Rocket League. Additionally, Phoenix Labs’ upcoming game Dauntless will support cross-play on Switch with PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

No version of Overwatch currently supports cross-play, meaning those on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Switch can only play with other members of the same community.

Earlier this year, Blizzard spoke about how the company was “excited about the potential” for cross-play support with Overwatch. However, the company said in a statement to Engadget, “There’s still a lot of work to do on both our side and the platforms’ side to determine whether this is something that makes sense for Overwatch, and we’re keeping an eye on how cross-play systems and technology develop.”

Overwatch’s Legendary Edition launches on October 15 for Nintendo Switch. It includes all 31 heroes and 28 maps from the other versions of the game, and voice chat won’t be limited to Nintendo’s own app. For lots more, check out GameSpot’s interview linked below, in which Yanagi talks about the origins of Overwatch on Switch, the possibility of Overwatch characters coming to Smash Bros., and lots more.

EA Sports has released a big new content update for NHL 20 that makes a series of changes and bug fixes across the professional hockey game’s various modes, and more.

Starting with gameplay changes, the patch notes confirm that NHL 20 has added the real-world NHL rule change for the 2019-2020 season for when the puck goes out of bounds. The rule change states that when the attacking team sends the puck out of bounds in the attacking zones, the ensuing face-off will take place in one of the two dots in the attacking zone. This should now happen in NHL 20.

Additionally, the NHL 20 patch fixes an issue where the skaters in some situations were unable to pick up the puck after a penalty shot in Threes mode. Outside of these changes, the new update makes some physics fixes, one of which eliminates a gruesome-sounding bug that could cause players to get their limbs stuck in the net. Ouch. There were also instances of when the puck could magically move through the goalie’s pads, but that bug has also been fixed.

There are also AI improvements in the newest update, including defenders making smarter plays on odd-man rushes. Additionally, the new NHL 20 update makes goalies smarter by improving and expanding on goalie animations.

Elsewhere, the social hub–World of Chel–has been updated with reduced requirements for the weekly challenge card, while a number of new jerseys for multiple teams have been added. You can see the full patch notes below, as written by EA Sports.

EA typically releases a tuning update around this time, but that isn’t happening this year because the baseline gameplay is “in a good place,” EA said in a blog post. That being said, EA is still looking into a few areas and asking players for advice on how to improve them. These include:

• Interceptions from behind
• Inconsistency of low relative speed hits from console to console
• Puck loss when pivoting at high speed

NHL 20 was originally released in September for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. GameSpot’s NHL 20 review scored the game a 9/10.

NHL 20 October 1 Patch Notes:

Gameplay

General

• Added NHL 2019-2020 season rule change for puck out of bounds
• When the attacking team is responsible for the puck going out of play in the attacking zone, in all instances, the face-off will be conducted at one of the two face-off dots in the attacking zone
• Fixed a case where the player is sometimes unable to pick up the puck after a penalty shot in Threes

Physics

• Fixed a case where players could get their limbs stuck in the net
• Fixed multiple cases where the puck could go through the goalie’s pad
• Improved cases where slap shots would be missed when taken near the boards

AI

• Improved a case where the weakside defender would overcommit on an odd man rush allowing the puck carrier a breakaway
• Fixed a case where AI players would start to accelerate when passed to without player input

Goalie

Various goalie animation fixes

• Fixed cases where goalies were sometimes trying to perform controlled/redirect saves when the puck had a high chance of being deflected and would leave them more vulnerable than they should be
• Improved goalie tracking when the puck is behind the net

Shooting

• Improvements to shot angle selection logic for some rare cases
• Improved cases where players on loose pucks would perform a snap shot when a slap shot would be expected
• Fixed rare cases where one-timers would miss the puck completely

Presentation

• Added ability to preview the play-of-the-period replays in action tracker
• Various environment camera clipping fixes
• Player lineup animation and camera improvements
• Play-of-the-period/game animation and camera improvements
• Various Play of the Game/Play of the Period selection logic fixes
• Multiplayer hug improvements
• Fixed cases where penalty replays in EASHL don’t show the penalty being taken

Franchise Mode

• Added the season standings to the calendar screen
• Added Auto Staff Setting that allows the CPU to assign scouts for the user team
• Fixed an issue where Alumni Player’s Ages don’t show correctly in a fantasy draft in Franchise Mode
• Fixed an issue where the PP and PK columns in Hire staff were reversed
• Misc stability improvements

Art

NHL

• Updated Nashville Predators Scoreboard
• Center Ice Changes
• Updated the following Center Ice layouts

AHL

• Binghamton Senators
• Canadian Hockey League
• London Knights
• Cape Breton Eagles

Uniforms

The following uniforms have been added to NHL 20:

NHL

• Buffalo Sabres Alternate
• Chicago Blackhawks Home and Away
• Edmonton Oilers Alternate
• Carolina Hurricanes Away

Canadian Hockey League

• London Knights Home and Away
• Tri-City Americans Home and Away
• Cape Breton Eagles Home and Away

SHL

• Farjestad BK Home and Away
• HV71 Home and Away
• Rogle BK Home and Away

Liiga

• Mikkelin Jukurit Home and Away
• Lahti Pelicans Home, Away and Alternate
• Tappara Tampere Home, Away and Alternate

EBEL

• Dornbirn Bulldogs Home and Away
• EC Panaceo VSV Home and Away
• EC-KAC Home and Away
• EC Red Bull Salzburg Home and Away
• EHC Liwest Blackwings Linz Home and Away
• Hydro Fehervar AV19 Home and Away
• HC TWK Innsbruck Home and Away
• Graz 99ers Home and Away
• SPUSU Vienna Capitals Home and Away

HUT

General

• Fixed a desync issue which was causing the opening faceoff to loop in some Online Games
• Fixed an issue where players could see their opponent’s PSN ID/Gamertag before loading into a Competitive Seasons/HUT Champs games
• Fixed an issue where Goalie Mask items may have become invisible when navigating the Apply Consumable screen
• Fixed some issues where items may have not been properly revealed in Choice Packs

Squad Battles

• Save last-used difficulty as default (complete games only)
• Now display ‘Possible Points’ for each opponent as difficulty is selected

World of CHEL

Improvements

• Having heard the community feedback, we are reducing the requirements for the World of Chel weekly challenge card. Now, user will only need to complete a reduced number of the 5 columns to earn that week’s Special Reward.
• Added a link to Edit Player from the Recent Items screen so the user doesn’t have to manually back out and enter the flow from the WoC HUB
• Added the ability to have EA Custom Stock Team Branding uniforms be equipped by clubs. Stay tuned throughout the year for future uniform releases that can be earned by clubs through hockey bags.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the current leader in Ones was not displaying correctly after the user has won the final Ones Eliminator round
• Fixed an issue where we display the wrong error message if a club is in a Threes Eliminator dressing room, and the session falls below the minimum users
• Reskinned the “Waiting for All Users to Resume” screen that comes after the pause menu so that the text is more legible
• Fixed various clipping issues and enabled several additional goalie intro animations that previously had clipping issues
• Fixed a failed to retrieve data issue that could occur when trying to enter any Dressing Room without the Lead Profile
• Fixed an issue where a user could crash upon another user closing the game while loading into gameplay
• Fixed a timing issue where desnyc’s could occur when a Player Class Tuning file or a Gameplay Tuner Set upload happens while games are about to get underway from the Dressing Room
• Fixed an issue where very long club names could overlap each other in the dressing room after matching up in a clubs game

Niantic has announced another round of Legendary Raid Hour events for Pokemon Go. As usual, the events will occur every Wednesday evening throughout October, and fittingly, this month will feature some “spooky” Legendaries.

For one hour each week, a greater number of five-star Raids will occur at Gyms around the world, giving you more chances to catch a Legendary Pokemon. Each Raid Hour will take place from 6-7 PM local time. On October 2, 9, and 16, the featured monster will be Pokemon Go’s current Legendary, Altered Forme Giratina, which returned to the game late last month.

Altered Forme Giratina is scheduled to leave Raids again on October 17, and the remaining Raid Hour events in October–on October 23 and 30–will feature an as-yet unannounced Legendary. You can see October’s full Legendary Raid Hour schedule below, while more details about the events can be found on the official Pokemon Go website.

Pokemon Go’s October Community Day, meanwhile, takes place next Saturday, October 12. The featured Pokemon during this month’s event will be Trapinch, the first form of the Ground/Dragon Pokemon Flygon. You’ll have your first chance to catch a Shiny Trapinch during this month’s Community Day, and you’ll earn triple the normal amount of XP for each Pokemon you catch during the event.

In other Pokemon Go news, Niantic has teased some new Team Rocket characters. The official Pokemon Go Twitter account recently shared distorted images showing the profiles of three unfamiliar characters, and each had Team Rocket’s iconic R symbol next to their pictures, suggesting they could be high-level members of the villainous team.

Pokemon Go October Legendary Raid Hour Schedule

October 2, October 9, October 16

• Altered Forme Giratina
• 6-7 PM local time

October 23, October 30

• To be announced
• 6-7 PM local time

Following the launch of Destiny 2’s new Shadowkeep expansion and New Light – the new free-to-play entry point for Destiny players – Destiny 2 has now reached an all-time concurrent players record on Steam, which has seemingly caused Bungie to take the servers entirely offline due to an overload, according to their tweet as of 2:13pm PT.

The tweet read: “Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 are being taken offline for emergency maintenance. Please standby for updates,” and another update was sent out at 2:46pm PT which read, “Emergency maintenance for Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 is still ongoing. We apologize for the continued delay. Please stay tuned for updates on our progress.”

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If you consider yourself “fancy,” you might want to take a look at “The Frame,” a high-definition TV which is made to resemble (and function as) a picture frame when not being used to play your favorite games or watch your favorite TV shows.

While this fancy installation normally clocks in at $1999, you can get one right now for $1097 at Walmart, which is the deepest discount we’ve ever seen.

Samsung “The Frame” 4K QLED Smart TV for $1097

• Get it at Walmart for $1097

This 55-inch TV has 4K, HDR, and a QLED screen, but it also sports an Art Mode (and Art Mode Slide Show functionality) which allows you to set either a static art image or slideshow when the TV isn’t in normal use. It also comes with 4 HDMI ports, 3 USB ports, Bluetooth LE support, a No Gap Wall Mount, and Walmart is offering free 2-day delivery.

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Note: sorry for the late timing on this review. I was out on vacation last week but wanted to make sure I didn’t break my streak when it comes to reviewing all issues of House of X and Powers of X.

There’s been a notable shift with the most recent few House of X/Powers of X installments. Having laid out his bold new vision for the X-Men line and introduced two game-changing plot twists, writer Jonathan Hickman is turning his attention to laying the groundwork for the ongoing series spinning out of this crossover. Powers of X sheds critical new light on one of those books, even as it allows Hickman the opportunity to dig in deeper with two fan-favorite mutants who had previously only played small roles. This issue doesn’t rock the boat as much as those that have come before, but it still offers an intriguing taste of things to come for the franchise.

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Today Game Informer unveiled their latest cover story, and it’s all about the upcoming Pokemon Sword and Shield. While there are still plenty of questions surrounding the next generation of Pokemon, we finally have some new details to tide us over until November.

Pokemon Sword and Shield is just a month and a half away from being released but Game Freak is still keeping a lot of details close to the vest. Today’s Game Informer cover reveals new information that directly addresses some of the most pressing questions from fans.

 

Here are the biggest Sword and Shield details revealed so far:

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If you’re an Apex Legends fan you’ll no doubt know that Season 3 has officially begun. If you fire up the game you’ll be prompted to download the Meltdown patch and, once you’ve got it, you’ll be treated to a whole lot of new content. This includes a new character called Crypto and also a new map. Respawn has released the official patch notes, so we can dig into what else the update has to offer.

There’s a significant amount of tweaks and changes to the way Apex Legends plays. Existing characters have had their functionalities fiddled with, and the way various weapons and items perform have also been altered to create a balanced gameplay experience. Interestingly, there have also been some more drastic changes, with new hop-ups being added and one fairly recent addition being removed.

Of course, there’s also a bunch of quality of life improvements and bug fixes. You can take a look at the patch notes below. The new character Crypto, meanwhile, has a drone which can be used for recon, among other things. You can learn about what he’s capable of in our full Apex Legends Crypto breakdown.

Apex Legends Season 3 Update Patch Notes

Legend Meta

All Legends

• Executioner Perk: Previously, the Gold Armor perk, “Executioner”, gave a full shield recharge on successful completion of a finisher. In Season 3, all Legends will have this perk meaning–finishers will fully recharge your shields regardless if you have Gold Armor equipped or not. Gold Armor will now have a Guardian Angel perk that is detailed below in the Loot/Meta Changes section.

Gibraltar

• Dome Shield
  • Players in the Dome Shield use healing items 25% faster.
  • Increased the throw distance by 60%.
  • Increased cooldown.
    • 20 seconds -> 30 seconds.
• Defensive Bombardment
  • Decreased cooldown.
    • 4.5 minutes -> 3 minutes.
  • Decreased duration
    • 8 seconds -> 6 seconds.
  • Increased throw distance by 36%.

Bloodhound

• Eye of the Allfather
  • Reduced the animation time to activate by 33%.
  • Now immediately tells you how many targets have been pinged.
• Beast of the Hunt
  • Fixed an issue with FoV scaling messing up ADS aim sensitivity.
  • Reduced animation time to activate by 30%.
  • Increased movement speed bonus
    • 25% -> 30%

Bangalore

• Rolling Thunder
  • Increased damage

Octane

• Adrenaline Junkie
  • Fixed an issue with FoV scaling messing up ADS aim sensitivity.

Wraith

[Designer notes: We’ve pulled back additional nerfs for further testing, but Wraith’s power balance is definitely on our radar.]

• Dimensional Rift
  • No longer deploys if you are downed before placing it.

Pathfinder

• Grapple
  • Reduced the grapple projectile velocity by 33%, meaning it takes a fraction of a second longer to connect the grapple to the wall. The behavior once you are connected remains the same.
• Zipline
  • Increased cooldown
    • 90 seconds -> 120 seconds.

Weapon And Loot Meta

• Hop-ups: [Designer notes: We think the number of hop-up types in the game is about as high as we want to go right now when we consider loot dilution and the likelihood of finding a desired hop-up. Going forward, we intend to rotate hop-ups each season — some may be removed from the loot pool to make room for new or returning ones. Below are the changes we’ll be making to hop-ups for Season 3.]
• REMOVED: Disruptor Rounds
• REMOVED: Skullpiercer Rifling
  • Wingman: Was 2.0 base / 2.25 with Skullpiercer. Is now 2.15 base.
  • DMR: Was 2.0 base / 2.5 with Skullpiercer. Is now 2.15 base.
  • The base headshot damage multipliers of the DMR and Wingman have been increased slightly.
• NEW HOP-UP: Anvil Receiver
  • Attaches to: Flatline and R-301.
  • Rarity: level 4 (gold).
  • This hop-up empowers semi-auto mode; it offers highly increased damage, but at the cost of reduced rate of fire and double ammo per shot.

• NEW HOP-UP: Double Tap Trigger
  • Attaches to: G7 Scout and EVA-8 Auto.
  • Rarity: level 3 (purple).
  • This hop-up makes each trigger pull fire a quick two round burst.

Consumables

• Ultimate Accelerants
  • 20% -> 35%.
  • Ultimate charge restored increased
  • Reduced the amount in the world by around 40%.

Gold Gear Changes

• Gold Backpack
  • The gold backpack has a new perk, “Guardian Angel”. With Guardian Angel, you will revive downed teammates with bonus health and shields (if they have armor).

• Gold Armor: The gold armor will now have “Fast Use” (consumable items take half as long to use), which was previously on the gold backpack. Now, you will be able to tell when an opponent has the ability to heal faster by seeing the gold armor damage numbers.

Weapons

[Designer Notes: For Season 3 weapon changes, our goals were to encourage and improve longer range gunfights and reduce power on some of the weapons that have been dominating lately. We will of course be closely watching data and player feedback on these during the season.]

• R-99
  • Base mag size reduction
    • Before: 18/22/26/30
    • After: 18/20/23/27
  • Added some recoil randomness to patterns.

• PDW Prowler
  • Added some slight recoil randomness while maintaining the same pattern when fired in full-auto mode.

• Longbow DMR
  • Reduced rate of fire
    • 1.6 -> 1.3
• Reduced leg damage multiplier
  • 0.9 -> 0.8

• G7 Scout
  • Increased base damage

• Hemlok
  • Increased base damage
  • Slight decrease to rate of fire to both fire modes.

• R-301
  • Reduced damage

• Mozambique
  • Decreased pattern spread
  • Mozambique will now reset from recoil faster, which should make it easier to track targets and see where shots land.

• L-STAR
  • Substantial reduction to horizontal recoil.
  • Now comes equipped with 1x Digital Threat optic.
  • Reduced damage 21 -> 19

New Kitted Gold Weapons

We’ve swapped out the previous set of Gold Weapons with some fresh new ones for Season 3. Keep an eye out for these fully kitted beasts that all include tier 3 versions of all compatible attachments, hop-up, and the following optics:

• Flatline
  • Includes 1x-2x optics
• EVA-8
  • Includes 1x threat scope
• TripleTake
  • 4x-10x Threat scope
• G7 Scout
  • 2x-4x optics
• Charge Rifle
  • 4x-10x threat scope

Quality Of Life

• Added a “random” option for customizing your unlocked loadscreens.
• Expanded the Ping Wheel so that you can now equip your unlocked Intro and Kill quips.
  • Equip up to 8 intro or kill quips in the lobby
  • Nearby enemies can hear quips when activated
  • Press Y while ping wheel is up to access (controller) or F1 (default keyboard binding — you may need to set this manually as it won’t auto-bind).
  • “Celebrate” quickchat is now the 1st option in the quip wheel (Previously down on dpad).
• New Legend battle chatter – Legends now have voice lines that will call out when your squad is being third-partied. This is triggered if you take damage when recently damaged by another living squad
• You can now equip multiple skydive emotes (if you have multiple available on a character) – Hold A while skydiving to open the menu to select the skydive emote you want to use.
• Daily challenges should only give you, at most, 1 challenge for a Legend you don’t own.
• No dupe character daily challenges (e.g. you should never get 2 Gibraltar dailies in the same day).
• Fixes for slowdown/performance drops at the start of a match.
• Mirage – decoys will now go where directed when deploying them during the drop if Mirage isn’t the Jumpmaster.
• Lifeline – D.O.C. Healing Drone will no longer float away after being deployed on Supply Ships
• Fixed issue where Legends could show up as locked instead of selected when joining a match late.
• Small improvements across UI to make fonts and other elements more readable.
• When swapping weapons with one on the ground, attachments will now attempt to transfer to your stowed weapon in addition to the weapon you are about to pick up.

Bug Fixes

• Octane – fixed a bug where sometimes mantling while using a tactical stopped players from being able to perform any other actions until the tactical is finished.
• Wattson – fixed bug where sometimes the visual FX from her fences would not show up after being deployed.
• Pathfinder – Fixed a bug with Insider Knowledge passive where Survey Beacon locations would disappear from the full map after activating them.
• Fixed bug where players could sometimes receive additional Battle Pass rewards by leveling up two games in a row.
• Fixed an exploit that allowed players to spam fire with the Peacekeeper.
• Fixed bug where looting Lifeline’s Care Packages would not count towards the “Loot X amount of Care Packages” in the Battle Pass challenges.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the smoke visual FX from Gibraltar, Bangalore, and Caustic Ultimates would show up on scopes when swapping weapons rapidly.
• PC – Fixed bug where model settings would be forced to “high” regardless of what setting was selected.
• Fixed a bug where players could sometimes skip the landing animation after a long fall.
• Fixed bug where sometimes map fog visual FX would disappear while looting a deathbox.
• Rebalanced audio to address issues with footsteps, ziplines, and jump jets.

Ranked League Series 2

You can check out the full details for Series 2 and learnings we got from Series 1 in our Ranked Blog here. Some highlights of the changes we’re making below.

• Rewards for your placement in Ranked Leagues Series 1 will be available to you after downloading the update for Season 3.
• We’ve adjusted the scoring for Series 2 that allows for more granularity for future improvements.
• At the launch of Series 2 on 10/1 we’ll be doing a soft reset on everyone Ranked Position from Series 1. The reset will be 1.5 tiers. That means if you ended Series 1 in Gold II, you’ll be reset to Silver IV. Players in Platinum IV will be reset to Silver II, and Apex Predators will be reset to Platinum II.
• Assists have been added to your overall score.
• New HUD elements have been added to help players keep track of their in-match RP gains or losses.

Samsung makes fantastic tech (especially TVs), and they are frequent headliners in our best deals posts, and today’s 75-inch 4K HDR TV is no exception. This giant Smart TV is last year’s model, and it’s on sale at Walmart for an extremely affordable $997 (down from $1499).

Samsung 75-inch 4K UHD HDR TV for $997

• Get it at Walmart for $997

This massive 75-inch behemoth has everything you need from a new TV; native 4K support and upscaling, HDR, 120Hz refresh rate, Smart TV functionality, and Dolby Digital Plus support. It has two HDMI ports and a single USB, and Walmart is offering free freight shipping.

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