Month: July 2020

The Atari VCS didn’t make its original launch date of March 2020, but thankfully, the console has a new release window. The Indiegogo-funded system will ship out to backers this fall, which is also when it’ll be available at retailers. The classic-inspired console is still available for pre-order at many locations, so if you haven’t snagged one yet, you still have time.

VCS stands for Video Computer System, a nod to Atari’s 1977 console bearing the same name. Revealed in 2017, it’s styled to look like the original Atari consoles and features both modern and older games. One of its launch titles is a reimagining of the Atari classic, Missile Command. Missile Command: Recharged is already available on a number of platforms and will launch alongside the Atari VCS this fall. The VCS also supports the ability to download, stream, and play games through a Linux-based operating system.

As for its specs, it’s unclear exactly what hardware the Atari VCS is packing. It’s powered by an AMD Raven Ridge 2 processor and Ryzen GPU, but other than that, we don’t know many details. The VCS comes in two different models, the 400 and 800, which boast 4GB DDR4 RAM and 8GB DDR4 RAM respectively.

If you want to pre-order the Atari VCS, there are a number of options to choose from. There are three different bundles, each of which include an 800 console, classic controller, and modern controller. The only difference between the bundles is the colour of the VCS’s front panel. You can even snag a 400 or 800 console on its own and pick up either controller separately.

Everything listed below is scheduled to ship this fall. Unfortunately, we don’t have a more specific date. We’ll keep you updated when more information is revealed.

800 Onyx All-In Bundle

$390 ($380 at GameStop)

800 Carbon Gold All-In Bundle

$390

800 Black Walnut All-In Bundle

$390

Onyx Base Console

800 Model | 400 Model

$280 | $250

Classic Joystick

$50

Modern Controller

$60

Like it or not, Death Stranding is a tremendously bold game. We recognized it as one of the best of 2019 and reviewer Kallie Plagge spoke to its qualities in the full review from last year. But why talk about the game in 2020? For one, it’s quite, uh, timely with its theme of being an essential worker during a catastrophic event that leads to nationwide quarantine. It’s also one of the few PS4 exclusives getting a proper PC port. I have been playing the PC version ahead of its July 14 launch day and I’m here to report that so far in the early hours, it remains a superb game enhanced by the fact that it looks and runs much better than it did on PS4 Pro, if you have the right PC specs.

For those living under a rock (and not to avoid Timefall), here’s the short of it: Death Stranding is Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima’s latest. You’re a delivery man played by actor Norman Reedus amid a deadly paranormal phenomenon called the death stranding that forces the surviving population to seek refuge in underground bunkers. While the game has a fair share of third-person stealth and action, it’s also quite literally a walking-hiking simulator where balancing your cargo and traversing harsh terrain are core elements. It’s all wrapped around a heavily cinematic and somewhat bizarre story about human connection.

I know, playing courier with the occasional action sequence may not sound enticing, but trust me and my friends when we said last year that it’s a stunning experience, if you have the time and patience. Its broader message of human connection is made manifest in the asynchronous multiplayer component in which the actions of others–such as laying down ladders, bridges, and roads–will affect your own game world. Everyone’s just helping each other make their deliveries, stay alive on a hostile surface, and chug their oddly placed Monster energy drinks to keep on keeping on. Even though you never see your fellow players, giving them a few “likes” for their work, and getting a few in return, is sort of uplifting.

Death Stranding can be quite a stressful experience, especially when encountering the deadly and ghostly BTs who often occupy hostile zones en route to your objective, or crossing paths with rogue MULE bandits. But at the same time, Death Stranding is incredibly therapeutic. You have a lot of time to reflect on your actions and the story beats while soaking in the beautiful vistas and mountain ranges on your way to finish delivery orders as a soothing Low Roar song plays.

With Death Stranding being a largely visually captivating experience, this is where the PC version shines specifically: enhanced visuals and much higher frame rates further elevate those awe-inspiring moments. By no means was the PS4 version a slouch when it came to impressive visuals–the cutscenes starring finely detailed character models and environments are a testament to that. But when running native resolutions with antialiasing and better quality textures and effects, the natural world you explore in Death Stranding is all the more striking.

The enhanced experience is, of course, subject to your own PC’s specs and performance will vary. I’m running a high-end build using an Intel Core i7-7700K, 16GB of RAM, a Samsung 970 Pro NVMe SSD, and the Nvidia RTX 2080 video card. I have every setting maxed out, using a resolution of 2560×1080 (21:9 ultrawide), and with Nvidia’s RTX-exclusive DLSS 2.0 antialiasing enabled.

Note that anisotropic filtering is not a native option in the menu and you’ll have to manually force it through the Nvidia control panel (or AMD equivalent). This is important because Death Stranding features long stretches of land and anisotropic filtering does the work in cleaning up the image quality of surfaces in the distance.

I’m able to maintain 100+ FPS during deliveries out in the open world of the first major area, regardless of weather effects. The initial loading time upon bootup seems a bit longer compared to other recent PC games, especially considering I’m running a high-end NVMe SSD, but every load screen that follows goes by quickly. It’s an overall improvement over what I recall from the PS4 version.

I won’t say frame rate is critical to your success or the overall enjoyment, but it certainly bolsters the Death Stranding experience. Gameplay runs like a dream with silky smooth performance, which is jarring (in a good way) considering how many hours I poured into the PS4 version. This makes action sequences more manageable and the treks across vast plains more pleasing, and so far I haven’t had any noticeable dips in frame rate.

(If you’re not running a high-end setup, you can refer to the official recommended specs sheet to give you an idea of what settings to run and the expected performance.)

Death Stranding looks great and runs well, and can even surpass that of the PS4 Pro, given you have the proper PC hardware. It often goes without saying, but this is good news–the broader takeaway here is that the quality of Death Stranding’s PC port can speak to how Sony’s first-party exclusives can get another lease on life on a new platform for a different audience. Death Stranding uses the Decima engine from Guerilla Games, the same engine and developer for Horizon Zero Dawn, which is also due to have a PC port launch this summer. So, I think it’s fair to expect Horizon to be of this caliber as well.

To reiterate, I’m still in the early going of Death Stranding on PC. I’ll continue to play through it to ensure its performance stability and visual consistency while also looking at how it’s PC-exclusive Half-Life and Portal crossover content shakes out. The game officially launches on July 14 through Steam and Epic Games Store.

When it first aired, Lost was groundbreaking for the way it rejected common TV structures, presenting a serialized show that demanded viewers come back week to week. It helped lead us into the era of prestige TV we still enjoy today, though leading that charge could be a struggle, as co-creator and showrunner Damon Lindelof discussed in an interview with Collider.

Lindelof says that the plan for the series was only ever to run for around three seasons. With the show’s hook relying on dangling mysteries in front of viewers hungry for answers, it could only ever sustain itself for as long as those mysteries were compelling.

“Lost was like, ‘What’s in the hatch? What’s up with the monster? Who’s the original Sawyer? How did Locke get in the wheelchair? What is the nature of the island? Why does it appear to be moving? Who are the Others?'” Lindelof told Collider. “There were all of these compelling mysteries and so we were saying, ‘We wanna have this stuff answered by the end of Season 1, this stuff answered by the end of Season 2, and then the show basically ends after about three years.'”

At the time Lost was being made, however, TV shows were generally designed to be run for as long as people kept watching them. “[ABC] were just like, ‘Do you understand how hard it is to make a show that people want to watch? And people like the show? So why would we end it? You don’t end shows that people are watching.'”

As the show kept dragging out, they manifested many of the issues that Lost viewers would be familiar with–frustrations with ongoing mysteries and flashbacks that no longer added to the story. Lindelof and co-showrunner Carlton Cuse kept trying to negotiate with ABC to end the series in line with the story arcs they had already created and thought through to a logical end.

Eventually ABC agreed to end the series after 10 seasons– while the creators were working on the third season and wanting to make the fourth one final. Eventually they settled on six, which led to the show’s controversial ending–though star Josh Holloway recently said he was personally happy with how the series ended.

“The agreement was we landed on six [seasons] with less episodes to give us more time in between seasons to plan things out,” Lindelhof explained. “And then of course the fourth season was cut short by the writers’ strike, but everything else went relatively according to design. Not to say that everything we did worked, but we had a plan and we executed that plan.”

Lindelhof most recently worked on HBO’s Watchmen, which was conceived and executed to be a standalone single season. While HBO has suggested that future continuations are a possibility, Lindelhof seems happy to leave the story where he left it, which is more than understandable given his experience on Lost.

Bandai Namco has announced a new event for anime fans, and it’ll focus on their upcoming slate of games that are anime focused. The event, called Play Anime Live, hasn’t announced the games it will focus on yet.

The stream will begin on July 22 at 4 PM PT–that’s a Wednesday. It’s not yet clear how long the event will run for.

Bandai Namco publishes many anime games, including games based on Dragon Ball and Naruto. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a new Naruto game, and the Dragon Ball FighterZ Fighters Pass 3 currently has several unannounced fighters, so we could see news about these series (although nothing has been confirmed).

It also seems likely that we’ll see something from Scarlet Nexus, an upcoming RPG that’s coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X, along with current-gen systems. Other upcoming anime-themed games coming from Namco Bandai include Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions, One Piece: Grand Cruise, Tales of Arise, and Digimon Survive.

You can sign up for the event now, which will put you in the running to win a “VIP box” prize containing $75 worth of anime-themed swag.

GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

As a number of former Cards Against Humanity employees have come out with stories of a toxic work culture at the company, current workers have decided to unionize. The union, called the Cards Against Humanity Workers United Union, announced their intentions over Twitter this week, as reported by Polygon.

In the past few weeks, multiple former employees have aired stories characterizing a toxic company culture that enabled racism and sexism, with some allegations singling out co-founder Max Temkin. Temkin has since stepped down from the company, though he remains a one-eighth shareholder.

In one particularly harrowing story, comedian and former CAH writer and comedian Nicolas Carter ended up being held in a mental ward against his will due to the actions of his bosses. An earlier Polygon report into the workplace talked to 21 former employees of the company for a broader view of the toxic culture at Cards Against Humanity.

Now, the newly formed CAH union is working with the Chicago and Midwest Regional Joint Board of Workers United to make sure their voices are heard.

“We work for CAH because we believe in the company’s ability to do good in the world. We believe in the power of transgressive comedy,” the Twitter statement reads, before continuing to the issues the union wants addressed. “For too long, our employees have been kept in precarious, powerless and outright toxic conditions.”

The union’s most concrete demand at present is the equalization of a workplace that employs many people as contractors, requesting that all contractors be given the opportunity to move to full-time or part-time employment.

In an update sent to Polygon, two employees involved in the unionization effort said they were optimistic that the company’s owners would do the right thing in recognizing the union.

Stadia continues to roll out new features, and an important one has just been added that will benefit players who are using an Android mobile for their gaming. In the latest update on the Google Stadia community blog, it’s been announced that the wireless Stadia controller now works with Android devices.

The latest Stadia update, which is availabble now, allows you to connect the controller as long as your device and controller are connected on the game Wi-Fi network. Follow the pairing instructions on your screen and you’ll be good to go.

You’ll also be able to experience audio through your headset once it’s connected. This will be a feature that many players have been waiting on for a long time, so it’s good that it has finally arrived.

Four new games have been added to Stadia Pro as well, as of July 1. Those games are Crayta (which is premiering on Stadia), Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, SteamWorld Dig, and West of Loathing. You’ll be able to play them on your Android phone with a controller, too.

Stadia recently dropped the price of the Premiere Edition, which is designed for people who want to play their games on a television.

A movie version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s acclaimed Broadway musical Hamilton is coming to Disney Plus on July 3, and it’s expected to be one of the network’s biggest exclusives to date. Disney paid a reported $75 million to acquire the movie, which is a taping of multiple performances in 2016, and the company originally planned to release it in theatres in October 2021. Disney then moved forward the release date by 15 months due to the COVID-19 crisis, and announce a Disney Plus release.

Reviews for the movie have started to show up online ahead of its debut–and they are very strong. You can check out a sampling of opinions from reviewers below, while you can also see GameSpot’s list of 8 things to look out for when the movie arrives.

Hamilton on Disney Plus is directed by Thomas Kail, who directed Hamilton on Broadway, in addition to Miranda’s In the Heights. The Disney Plus version of Hamilton won’t be the exact way it was on Broadway, as a few F-bombs were edited out to make it more family friendly.

Hamilton

• Directed By: Thomas Kail
• Written By: Lin-Manuel Miranda
• Starring: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Daveed Diggs, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Phillipa Soo, Jonathan Groff, Chris Jackson, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Leslie Odom Jr., Okieriete Onaodowan, Anthony Ramos.
• Release Date: July 3

The New York Times

“It’s also heartbreaking. One lesson that the past few years should have taught–or reconfirmed–is that there aren’t any good old days. We can’t go back to 1789 or 2016 or any other year to escape from the failures that plague us now. This four-year-old performance of Hamilton, viewed without nostalgia, feels more vital, more challenging then ever.” — A.O. Scott [Full review]

Variety

“A modern take on our collective, complicated history, Hamilton finds fresh relevance in the Black Lives Matter protests and this divided political moment. It’s that rare work of art that celebrates diversity while urging us to put aside superficial differences, using Hamilton’s tragic outcome as a kind of warning, and his accomplishments as inspiration. Best of all, it leaves room for some future adaptation of Miranda’s brilliant musical to break free of the stage and find new, big-screen expression down the road–at which point it may resonate in entirely different ways.” — Peter Debruge [Full review]

IGN

“A lot of fantastic stage productions can fall flat or feel staid when taped, a pitfall that Hamilton avoids. However, the cinematography, editing, and the direction that urged the performers to ignore the at-home audience keeps it from feeling cinematic. In short, Hamilton the stage musical may be a 10/10. But this filmed version falls short by repeatedly reminding the audience of what we missed by not being there.” — Kristy Puchko [Full review]

The Guardian

“It has political intrigue, personal tragedy, a sex scandal, and lightning changes of mood that sweep us along at speed. Best of all is the wit that sits neatly alongside its politics: ‘Immigrants, we get the job done,’ says one character archly, and the audience laughs knowingly. ‘What is a legacy?’ says Hamilton, in the heart-stopping last moments, and the film leaves us reflecting on America’s.” — Arifa Akbar [Full review]

Empire

“Entertaining, energetic and unfailingly smart, this is theatre at the highest level, performed by a cast without a weak link. You can’t say no to this.” — Helen O’Hara [Full review]

IndieWire

“This is Hamilton as you always wanted to see it, and it always will be. And with Disney+ releasing it just in time for the Fourth of July, it doubles as a perfect reminder that America is only worth celebrating because of what it aspires to be–the version of it we see in our minds’ eye, and not the one that’s petrified on the pages of our history books..” — David Ehrlich [Full review]