When it comes to free trials of streaming services, you have a lot of options–if you’re streaming video, that is. Those of us looking to stream music have a slimmer selection. You can always get a free month of Spotify or Tidal, assuming you haven’t already done their free trials. But the best free music streaming trial by far right now is Amazon Music Unlimited. It gives new subscribersthree months of free, unlimited access to a massive library of tunes.
You can cancel any time, including before your first bill arrives, meaning you won’t have to spend a cent. If you haven’t tried Amazon Music Unlimited yet and could use some music in your life, there’s no reason not to give it a shot.
Essentially, Amazon Music Unlimited is the online retailer’s answer to Spotify. It gets you unlimited ad-free access to virtually any song on the planet. You can stream or download the music on your phone or tablet. If you have an Echo device, you can call up any song, album, station, or playlist just by asking Alexa.
If you choose to keep your subscription once the free trial runs out, it costs the same as the competition: $9.99 per month for a single subscription or $14.99 for a family membership that lets you listen on different devices simultaneously. The one exception is if you have Prime.
Amazon Prime members get a special discount, making the service cost $7.99 per month or $79.99 per year. As usual with these kinds of things, paying annually costs less than a year’s worth of monthly payments, so do that if you can afford it. In any case, starting the free trial is a no-risk proposition.
If you’re not eligible for the Amazon Music Unlimited free trial, there’s one other great music streaming deal available right now: You can get four months of Tidal for just $4. And if our shelter-at-home lifestyle has you seeking out more free digital entertainment, check out our massive rundown of digital freebies covering everything from games and video streaming services to reading and online courses.
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Chris Reed is IGN’s shopping and commerce editor. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.
Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise finally has a release date following its surprise announcement during a Nintendo Direct. The sequel to the 2010 cult-hit will be released on July 10, 2020, for the Nintendo Switch.
Deadly Premonition 2 lets you explore a new mystery as FBI Special Agent York. Set in both present-day Boston and the fictional town of Le Carré, Louisiana Deadly Premonition 2 is both a sequel and prequel to the original mystery game.
The new trailer doesn’t reveal too much new information, but Rising Star Games and Toybox released a handful of new screenshots featuring the returning FBI agent in the new town. Other new characters include Agents Davis and Jones who are tracking down their own mysterious serial killer.
Like in the first Deadly Premonition, A Blessing in Disguise features an open-ended adventure with a sandbox explorable by foot or skateboard. There will also be a variety of mini-games like bowling, bayou rides, skateboard challenges, and more, as well as character customization for you and your skateboard. Basically, the big reveal here is that you get to ride around town on a skateboard.
As part of a promotion, the first Deadly Premonition is 50% off on the Nintendo eShop right now through May 17. Read our original Deadly Premonition review here.
The games were removed from Steam (as well as PS3 and Xbox 360) in January 2019, with no explanation as to why. These titles seemingly require numerous licenses, from the films, Lego toys, and other rights-holders, so they might have been removed due to a licensing issue.
Other Lord of the Rings games, including Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, were never removed. It’s not immediately clear if Lego: The Lord of the Rings and Lego: The Hobbit have been reinstated on PS3 and Xbox 360.
Lego: The Lord of the Rings and Lego: The Hobbit tell the stories of J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic stories, or more specifically the movies from Peter Jackson, with the characters represented by the brick characters and featuring a more whimsical approach.
Working from home hasn’t stopped Digital Extremes, developers of free-to-play shooter Warframe, from working on a bunch of new content. Some big updates are inbound, including the Deadlock Protocol event that had to be delayed from an April release to sometime in May.
New details shared in a developer stream included the updated timeframe, but also gave players a look at the new Warframe Protea, and the story quest that will launch with Deadlock Protocol. Around 35:33 in the video below, the team show off some of the animations and aesthetics that have gone into 2020’s first new Warframe.
Around 1:19:00, you can see a demo of the next Warframe that will be available after Protea: the community-designed Broken Frame.
In more big news, Nightwave Intermission 2 is finally ending, moving into Season 3: Glassmaker, with the team promising that future intermissions won’t be “as brutal as the last”. According to Warframe director Steve Sinclair, Glassmaker is “not like the usual Nightwave”. Glassmaker features an interactive diorama full of “glassed” victims for the player to investigate in order to solve the shared murder mystery.
Glassmaker is set to drop “very soon”, while Deadlock Protocol will likely be available later in May.
A popular free-to-play game with a huge playerbase across multiple platforms, Warframe has put some serious work into expanding this year, with a huge update released in March and plans to release the game for upcoming consoles PS5 and Xbox Series X.
Warframe is currently out on PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4.
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Avengers: Endgame is celebrating its first birthday this week, and to mark the occasion, directors Joe and Anthony Russo have shared some neat behind-the-scenes videos.
The brothers shared the videos and images as part of a watch party for Endgame, during which they posted interesting behind-the-scenes details about the production of the blockbuster like how an early idea was to make Captain America the Soul Stone.
The videos include tender moments like the last days on set for Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. and Captain America actor Chris Evans. Another video shows Chris Evans in his old man makeup and outfit throwing a ball and running around like a much younger man. The Russo brothers also shared a video of Captain Marvel actress Brie Larson’s first day on set, including a nice moment where she embraces Black Widow actress Scarlett Johansson. You can see these videos and more embedded below.
Endgame made $2.78 billion at the global box office in terms of revenue to become the highest-grossing film in history. The movie not only brought in a lot of revenue, but it made a profit of $890 million, which is a new record.
WarnerMedia is gearing up for the release of HBO Max on May 27, adding a third content-streaming option to a stable that already includes HBO Go and HBO Now. Current HBO Now subscribers may be wondering how Max will differ to the service they already use. Here’s the details on HBO Max, how it differs from Go and Now, and what the fate of the other two services may be.
As a quick rundown on how HBO’s platforms currently work: HBO Go is a service available to cable subscribers, making HBO content available to stream on internet-connected devices. HBO Now is a more traditional streaming service, offering HBO series and a number of movies to non-cable subscribers.
HBO Max works on a similar premise to HBO Now, but will be diversified with original Max content, plus series and movies from WarnerMedia’s larger stable of content. The big names coming to HBO Max include Friends, South Park, The Big Bang Theory, Wonder Woman, and the Studio Ghibli collection.
HBO’s official messaging goes to pains to avoid referring to HBO Max as a streaming service, with the website calling it a “platform offered by WarnerMedia,” where HBO Now is called “a standalone streaming service,” though it’s not clear whether there’s a functional difference between the two.
HBO Now subscribers will get access to MAX on launch, with both services being priced at $15 a month. Those who access their Now subscription through a third party such as Hulu, Apple, or Roku may not get this instant switchover, however, though HBO has advised these customers to “stay tuned for more details” as partnerships are renegotiated.
Though it definitely seems like HBO Max is designed to replace HBO Now, and potentially even HBO Go, nothing has currently been announced about discontinuing or renaming the older services. With 10,000 hours of content from a number of WarnerMedia’s brands, however, it definitely seems like HBO Max is being set up as the company’s main platform.
HBO Max will launch on May 27 at $15 a month. For more info, check out everything we currently know about the new streaming platform.
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The comic book industry has been hit especially hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, with many stores shutting down and Marvel and DC’s distributor halting shipments of new books. DC’s Publisher Jim Lee is one of many comic creators doing what they can to help struggling stores, and he gave IGN an exclusive look at his latest charity sketch art.
Lee is currently in the midst of an ambitious charitable effort, drawing one sketch every day for 60 days in a row, each featuring a different DC character. Today’s creation features the Clown Prince of Crime himself. Check out the incredible Joker artwork below:
And if you want to take a peek at the past 25 days’ worth of amazing DC sketches, we’ve put together a gallery of all Lee’s sketches so far:
You can head over to eBay if you want to bid on this or other upcoming sketches. Each auction remains open for three days, and the winner of each auction is allowed to choose the next character Lee draws. All proceeds from these auctions are being donated to the Comic Book United Fund, which is managed by the Book Industry Charitable Foundation and aimed at providing financial relief to comic book retailers struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic.
According to DC, Lee’s sketches alone have already raised over $200,000 for the CBUF, and combined with other charitable auctions from creators like Art Adams, Ivan Reis, Sam Keith and J. Scott Campbell, the total raised is over $300,000. Additionally, DC has pledged $250,000 to the charity.
This isn’t the first outreach effort Lee has helped spearhead at DC. Last year Lee was among a group of DC employees who traveled to Kuwait, and he taught US troops how to draw Batman.
While everyone is preoccupied with the nostalgia of the Final Fantasy 7 remake, an even earlier Final Fantasy is celebrating its 30th birthday. Released on April 27, 1990, Final Fantasy 3 introduced the job-change system, and pushed the limits of what a game could do in those days.
Square Enix has released a new interview with game creator Hiromichi Tanaka about the development of Final Fantasy 3. With two Final Fantasy games already under their belt, and game carts increasing in storage space, the team wanted to push the envelope with Final Fantasy 3. “We had learned how to make good use of the NES, plus carts had gotten to megarom data sizes that were about double that of FFII,” Hiromichi Tanaka said. “So we were making FFIII with the mentality of pushing the amount of data that can be packed into these carts to its utmost limits.”
Tanaka also explains how they went from the story-heavy FF2 to the mechanics-dominated FF3. “That’s because Mr. [Akitoshi] Kawazu wasn’t involved,” he explained. “When Mr. Kawazu creates stories, they have a certain distinctive characteristic to them, so his involvement often has a tendency for that game to be remembered as story-heavy.”
While Square, now Square Enix, is now a huge company with thousands of employees, the company was much smaller and development not quite as organized as it is these days. Tanaka explains that his involvement extended to “essentially everything but the story” with Final Fantasy 3.
“With FFIII Mr. [Hironobu] Sakaguchi started writing the story, so I handled everything not related to that – battle, menus, system design, all of that,” he said.
It was also the first game to be properly documented at Square, a process that’s now considered core to the development process. “After making FFI and FFII we realized, ‘Oh, there’s not any documentation left,'” he explained. “With FFIII, we decided to create an official project plan, organize all the materials in a binder and archive it properly.”
Final Fantasy 3 was the first appearance of many features now iconic to the series, including Moogles, the summoning system, and even having the party present with the main character in the game. Hiromichi Tanaka touches on this and more in the full interview, which is worth a read for any fan of the classic Final Fantasy games.
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Once you complete Final Fantasy 7 Remake once, you’ll unlock a tougher challenge: Hard Mode. This version of the game requires you to be on your toes in every single battle, while taking away some of the key elements you might have relied upon in Normal Mode to get you through. Hard Mode is the only way to fully upgrade your weapons with Manuscripts, unlock the toughest boss battles in the game to earn its best accessory, and get the chance to make choices that will let you see additional scenes.
We have some essential tips that will help you best all the amped-up foes you’ll face in Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s Hard Mode. And if you want more, we’ve got tons of FF7 Remake guides, walkthroughs, tips, and analysis.
1. Conserve MP
There are very few ways to replenish MP in Hard Mode, so save it for healing.
That means you’ll want to conserve MP as much as possible; only use spells when you absolutely must, and save most of your MP for healing spells, as without items, you’re locked out of replenishing HP or reviving downed teammates in almost any other way. Using MP Up Materia can help you get more MP out of your teammates, but you’ll want to consider carefully which character you use for which magic job. Try to remember ways to game the system, too: Aerith’s Arcane Ward doubles your spell output for the same cost and her Siphon Soul ability steals MP from enemies. Some weapon upgrades cut down on spell costs, too, which can be seriously beneficial.
2. Use Prayer And Chakra
Prayer lets you heal without using MP–that makes it essential in Hard Mode.
The big workaround for your finite MP supply are the Prayer and Chakra Command Materia. Prayer gives you a healing boost to your whole team for two ATB charges, while Chakra heals one character based on how much damage they’ve taken. Neither is ideal in all cases, but finding and equipping both Materia on all your characters will give you non-MP options for healing in emergencies. Chakra is relatively easy to come by, but Prayer is much rarer: look for it in Chapter 14 in the “Corneo’s Secret Stash” side-quest.
3. Don’t Forget Revival
Revival Materia is essential in Hard Mode–there’s no other way to save your downed teammates.
Without items, you can only revive teammates who are knocked out in battle one way: Revival spells. You’ll need Revival Materia, which you can generally purchase, on all of your characters, and you should try to level it up as quickly as you can. The Ascend spell is great for getting characters back into a fight at full strength, but it’ll take you a while to earn. Forgetting to equip Revival can be the end of your team in a fight, so make sure everyone has some at all times.
4. Guard Like Crazy
Keep your guard up or you won’t last long in Hard Mode.
You’ll take more damage from attacks in Hard Mode from all sources–it is hard, after all. That makes using the Guard ability more important than ever. You can generally get away without guarding much in Normal Mode, but in Hard Mode, there are plenty of moments when you’ll face attacks from enemies that you can’t avoid. Guarding can hugely reduce the amount of punishment you take (especially with the Steadfast Block Materia equipped), while keeping your characters from getting stunned nearly as often. As Cloud tells Tifa, keep those gloves up.
5. Counterattack Is OP
Punisher counterattacks and Cloud’s Counterstance are key to winning fights and staggering many tough enemies.
With all that guarding you’re going to be doing, you’re going to want to spend a lot of time in Cloud’s Punisher mode. Even against enemies whose attacks you can’t avoid, you’ll often be able to get in a counter-attack swing with Punisher mode engaged, allowing you to do damage and, for most enemies, fill up their Stagger meter. Even better than Punisher mode counter is the Counterstance ability from the Twin Stinger sword. It’s similar to guarding in Punisher mode but is activated with an ATB charge, and allows Cloud to dish out a ton of damage when he’s hit. These are great ways to pressure and stagger enemies, so try them often.
6. Switch Characters Frequently
Fill all your characters’ ATB bars and keep opponents off-balance by switching characters frequently.
Enemies in FF7 Remake tend to flock toward and prioritize targeting whichever character you’re currently controlling. That’s especially true with bosses, who will often ignore AI characters to go after your controlled character, even if you’re largely staying back out of the fight. You can use that targeting to your advantage by frequently switching between characters; it’ll often allow you to “kite” an enemy with one fighter while you switch to another to flank, fire off spells, or heal. Especially in some of the tougher boss battles toward the end of the game, frequent switching will create gaps in enemy defenses you can exploit and open up chances to heal your team when they’d otherwise be in serious trouble. It’ll also allow you to drive up everyone’s ATB meters equally, giving you more options throughout any given battle.
7. Experiment With Combos
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Final Fantasy 7 Remake – Crazy Combos
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There’s more to fighting in FF7 Remake than just dishing out damage and blocking or dodging incoming blows. Some moves your characters have are more effective on certain enemies than others. For instance, Cloud’s Disorder ability, learned from the Nail Bat, can usually upend enemies that are Cloud’s size or smaller; the same is true with Tifa’s Omnistrike. Both abilities let you knock enemies off their feet so you can pummel them uninterrupted. String the right moves together and you can combo enemies indefinitely without them being able to react, an essential skill for staying alive and minimizing MP use throughout Hard Mode. Experiment with different moves to see how they affect enemies so you can keep your opponents off-balance.
8. Cheap Spells Are Your Friend
When driving up Stagger, cheap magic spells can be pretty effective and safer than stronger, more expensive ones.
Lots of enemies in FF7 Remake have weaknesses to magical elements, allowing you to deal big damage to them or drive up their Stagger meters with magic spells. The trouble is, with MP at a premium throughout Hard Mode, you’ll probably find yourself foregoing offensive magic in favor of saving up for healing spells at critical moments. There are moments when using offensive magic is a good idea, especially in some boss fights where it can give you a significant advantage–the trick is to opt for weaker spells over stronger ones.
Weak magic spells aren’t just cheaper than their stronger counterparts, they also cast faster. The trouble with going with Firaga over Fire, for instance, is that you run the risk of being interrupted during the casting, which causes you to lose MP with nothing to show for it. A weak spell will often give you a decent blast of damage or add to an enemy’s stagger without breaking your MP bank or leaving you vulnerable. You don’t generally need to use Firaga to stagger an enemy–Fire will probably do.
9. Evaluate Your Weapons For What Perks You Need
Which weapon you use in any given situation comes down to more than just its base stats.
As you advance toward Level 50 and start gathering Manuscripts to continue upgrading your weapons, you’ll find that each of them excels at different things. Some weapons are good for physical attacks, some for magic, some for critical strikes, some for defense. Just because you’ve got Tifa’s Purple Pain or Cloud’s Twin Stinger doesn’t mean you should sleep on their other weapons. The final weapon you unlock isn’t necessarily the best.
Take a few minutes to go through the weapons you have, compare their stats, and see what perks they carry that aren’t reflected in the numbers. You’ll find each weapon is good for specific situations, and one might be better for a character’s role than others–or for the specific needs of an enemy encounter. You can also compare weapons directly with Materia slotted in by using the “Reslot” option when you equip something new, which allows you to see how things like HP Up affect weapon stats.
10. Consider Character Builds Carefully
With the right combination of weapon, accessory, and Materia, you can create some interesting character builds to help you get through.
Every character has their specific strengths and weaknesses, but with the right weapon and Materia, you can get a lot of versatility out of your team. Utilizing weapon abilities and perks along with different Materia can give you powerful builds. For instance, giving Barret Healing spells and Materia like Prayer, plus a bunch of HP Up, and using his Lifesaver ability allows him to tank a ton of damage while healing pretty constantly. Steadfast Block lets Cloud absorb damage while unleashing Counterstance after Counterstance. Pairing Tifa’s stagger capabilities with ATB Stagger and similar Materia lets you keep a constant flow of her abilities as she beats down enemies. Using Aerith’s wards on other characters can power them up in ways you might not expect. Take some time to consider your options as you build out your characters–you don’t have to go with the most obvious options.
11. Spread Out Your Summons
Stronger, more expensive summons aren’t necessarily always better.
Once you have Leviathan and Chadley’s final summon, it’s tempting to just equip the two most powerful Summons and never really think about the others again. That’s a mistake, though. While late-game summons are really powerful and benefit from not using elemental attacks, they often require two full ATB charges to summon, and their abilities can require two ATB charges to use.
Instead, make sure to carry multiple summons of different capabilities. Chocobo & Moogle, for instance, excel specifically at pushing up enemies’ Stagger meters, while Ifrit and Shiva are obviously beneficial from an elemental standpoint. Keep lots of options on-hand and pick the summon that best fits the scenario, not just the one that seems the strongest.
12. Work On Stagger
Always use Assess on your enemies, then adjust your strategy to maximize Stagger.
In some boss fights, the best way to stay alive is to stagger the enemy. For bosses that have big attacks or that count down to your destruction, landing a stagger can save your life and reset their attack phase. But in all cases, staggering enemies lets you lay down some serious pain while you and your characters remain safe. Taking advantage of opportunities to stagger bosses is essential in Hard Mode.
While in Normal Mode you might stagger enemies without really knowing how or why, in Hard Mode, you want to pay a lot more attention to what works and what doesn’t with each opponent. Assess will usually give you a sense of how you can quickly stagger a boss, whether it’s through the use of magic or attacking at certain moments. Pay attention to what moves cause enemies to be Pressured–that means they’re susceptible to moves that increase their Stagger meters. When you have an enemy Pressured, go nuts with moves like Focused Thrust, Focused Strike, and Focused Shot. The Stagger meter is just as important as an enemy’s health, and taking advantage of it should constantly inform your strategy for each new bad guy you face.
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