Month: August 2020

Grand Theft Auto V released in 2013, and has gone on to be absolutely enormous. Ned Luke, who plays Michael De Santa in the game, has said in an interview that while he knew and had played Grand Theft Auto, he didn’t know the name “Rockstar Games” before he was asked to audition for GTA V–and now the company is a very big part of his life.

In a huge interview with TheGamer, Luke has talked about the process of auditioning for GTA V, how it has changed his life, and what he’s doing now. He recalls how, for a period before applying, he had stepped away from acting and returned to his hometown to open a restaurant with his brother. When he returned to acting, GTA V was the first audition he booked.

“I was like, ‘I’m not going to do a video game,” Luke recalls, and when he was told it was a Rockstar title, he responded “Who the hell is Rockstar?”

“The only one I knew was EA Sports: Big, from SSX Tricky, which was my favorite game,” Luke says.

Luke runs through the auditions, and how he felt certain that Steven Ogg–who plays Trevor in the game–would book that part the moment he acted alongside him. “The chemistry was just stupid,” he recalls, and he told Ogg when they left “I don’t know about me, pal, but you’re booking this thing.”

Hilariously, many of his other anecdotes about Ogg involve him farting a lot on set. “I called him a methane actor. We had this thing where we could order healthy food with a lot of stuff in it that makes you fart.”

He also refers to Shawn Fonteno, who plays Franklin, as his “brother,” saying that it “took him a while to get used to this whole thing.” Fonteno had far fewer acting credits, and as Luke says, being in GTA V boosted the profile of everyone in it. “My star rating on IMDb went through the roof…It went up to like number 115 from being down in the millions. Then when the game came out, I went up to number 42.”

Luke also says that he recorded a role in Red Dead Redemption 2, but it was ultimately cut from the game. He also says that he would “love to do DLC” for GTA V, although Rockstar has previously said that won’t happen.

The full interview contains many more anecdotes, stories, observations, and more–check it out.

Ned Luke has previously advised fans against listening to GTA 6 rumors. A domain for a new GTA was recently registered, but that doesn’t mean you should expect it anytime soon, especially since GTA V is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X in 2021.

EA’s NHL 21 has finally been officially announced with Alexander Ovechkin as the cover star and the reveal that high-skill moves like The Michigan have been added to the game. While EA has shared a good number of details on this year’s game, the developer has lots more to share regarding basically all elements of the title before its release in October.

EA has now shared a schedule for when more details will be released. On August 27, EA will talk about the new updates for the World of Chel social mode. Then in September, the developer will reveal more details on the general improvements to gameplay as well as what’s new in the Hockey Ultimate Team mode. In October, EA will divulge more information about the greatly expanded Be A Pro mode and will, later on, share more details on Franchise.

EA warned that these dates could change, so don’t mark them on your calendar in pen.

NHL 21 launches on October 16 for PS4 and Xbox One. It’s coming later than usual this year due in part to complications related to COVID-19 and working from home. EA would have surely wanted the game to come out sooner, as the real-world NHL season is heating up with the playoffs right now, but these are unprecedented times.

A closed beta for NHL 21 is set to begin on August 28, but registrations have closed, so if you didn’t sign up already you probably won’t get in.

For lots more on NHL 21, check out GameSpot’s breakdown of everything new this year.

Sky: Children of Light on Switch has been delayed. The game, which first came to iOS in 2019 and released on Android this year, will come to Switch in 2021. Nintendo fans will have to wait a bit longer for Apple’s 2019 Game of the Year.

The game, which was downloaded 20 million times in its first year, is the latest game by Journey developer thatgamecompany. On the game’s website, the studio has announced that the game has been delayed for the same reason so many things have slipped or been cancelled this year–COVID-19.

“Since March, our studio has taken safe measures to ensure all of our team members stay healthy–emotionally, physically, and free from COVID,” the post reads. “Through the pandemic, we’ve done our best to release Sky on Android, manage a live game, and launch two new adventure seasons too.”

As thatgamecompany is a small studio, keeping to this schedule while working from home has been difficult, and while they are “close to being in the final stretch” of the Switch version’s development, they’ve had to delay. “In the meantime, we have also decided to hire more staff to help us with this console release as well,” the post says.

This is, of course, not unusual–the list of games delayed by the coronavirus is an increasingly long one.

Sky: Children of Light earned an 8/10 in GameSpot’s review of the iPhone version. “Sky is both different to everything thatgamecompany has made before but also a smart evolution of what makes its games special,” wrote reviewer Alessandro Barbosa. “It’s simple to play while feeling incredible at the same time, making the act of flight exciting every time your feet leave the ground. It also features a fascinating spin on in-game purchases, locking its most alluring rewards behind the action of making friends and making a positive enough impression on them.”

I missed out on Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles when it came out for GameCube way back in 2004, so I was excited to hear it was getting remastered for modern consoles. A lightweight dungeon crawler based on the Final Fantasy universe, starring cute, Chibi-style characters? Sign me up! It ticks so many boxes for my interests, I couldn’t believe I never picked it up way back when. Well, it turns out past-me was doing myself a favor, because this is not a good or fun game in the slightest, and the remaster’s clunky multiplayer makes it even worse. In fact, its repetitive, boring, and frustrating nature means it’s a perfect metaphor for the year 2020: I expected really great things, but instead ended up living out slight variations of the same thing over and over again.

The Final Fantasy lore provides the scaffolding for stories, but Crystal Chronicles never actually builds anything on it. Look, I’m a sucker for dumb premises, and on paper this setting, in which everyone has to recharge their village crystals annually to keep from being poisoned, is exactly what I want from a cutesy dungeon crawler like this. I won’t knock it for being overly simplistic, because that’s exactly what I was expecting; besides, there’s so much else to knock it for and who has the time?

For one thing, the story plays out through boring interstitial cutscenes you randomly encounter at crossroads on the world map. Despite this ostensibly being a remaster, the character animations exude the purest of GameCube energy: mouths flap open and closed in a canned loop, body gestures are extremely limited, and the character models themselves don’t show a lot of signs of being updated from their 2004 versions. Square Enix has added voice acting here, something missing from the original GameCube version, but listening to someone read dull dialogue doesn’t do much to improve it. It’s hard to feel any connection to the secondary characters when their only purpose is to serve as the answers to eventual trivia questions.

I might have felt differently if people I met along the way popped into a dungeon once in a while to lend a hand, or otherwise had any effect whatsoever on gameplay, but the fact that they never do means all of these interactions are completely forgettable, trite filler I couldn’t for the life of me care about. Cruelly, you can’t just mash your way through the dialogue to get to the end, because you would then be punished later on when knowledge of your past dialogue options becomes a critical part of the story, so you still have to pay at least some attention.

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On top of being boring and mostly useless, the crossroads scenes are bookended by some pretty ridiculous loading screens. I’m playing on my PS4 Slim, and it takes around 15 to 20 seconds both coming and going. I’ve loaded into cutscenes that last roughly the same length as the loading time, immediately followed by another 15 to 20 seconds of loading. Look, I’m more than willing to look past loading times when they, you know, load something good or worthwhile. But this is preposterous. More than once, I’d complete a dungeon, load, move my caravan one space on the world map (roughly two seconds of movement), only to hit a random crossroads scene… and jump back into the loading screen. In other words, that’s 15 to 20 seconds of loading, two seconds of movement, 15 to 20 seconds of loading, 10 to 60 seconds of pointless cutscenes, followed by another 15 to 20 seconds of loading.

It’s infuriating on the world map, but even more so in some of the levels. One of the dungeons, Moschet Manor, is set up like a mansion. There’s a central courtyard surrounded by monster-filled rooms — these are single rooms, mind you, not whole different branches or multiple locations — and entering into any one of them triggers a loading screen. Leaving them triggers a loading screen. It’s abysmal. To make it worse, the doors only open when the switch in front of them is showing the symbol for the element type of your chalice. That means I sometimes had to stand there while it cycled through every symbol before the switch activated, followed by a loading screen. Oh, and those switches are on the inside of the rooms, too, which means you need to do the same thing to leave. Any rhythm Crystal Chronicles might build up is quickly struck down by absurd loading times and pointless filler.

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Fortunately, most of the boss introductions and some of the other repetitive animations are skippable by pressing the Option button. That’s pretty much all I can muster, positivity-wise: some parts of Crystal Chronicles can be skipped over entirely.

Oh, but not all of them. There’s a cutscene before the final battle, and while you can spam through the dialogue, you can’t skip it. With loading times and skipping through all the dialogue, it took me about two full minutes from the time I died until the time the battle started up again. Given the level of difficulty of the final boss, different attempts at this battle took me as little as 10 seconds and as long as 25 minutes – only to lose and start the horrible process over again. I’ve spent around 23 hours playing and I shudder to think of what non-trivial percentage of that time has been spent staring at loading screens.

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I understand this is a remaster and not a remake, so keeping in the original difficulty and gameplay is fine. But the unskippable final boss cutscene coupled with the horrendous loading times – something that absolutely should be addressed in a remake on modern hardware – makes Crystal Chronicles impossible for me to enjoy for any length of time.

All of that sounds bad, but it’s not even Crystal Chronicles Remastered’s worst offense: co-op play has been relegated to online-only. If your memories of the original involve hanging out with a group of friends, conquering dungeons while using your Game Boy Advance as a controller, you can sort-of replicate it by installing the “Lite” version of this remaster. It’s basically a free trial version that allows you to join other people’s games and dungeon crawl with them at any point (provided they own the full copy, that is). So if you want to relive your Crystal Chronicles multiplayer dreams, you could have all your friends bring their Switches over with the free Lite version installed – or you play from the comfort of your socially-distanced homes. But I would much rather have had simple, local co-op instead, and since the Lite version isn’t available yet I’m not able to speak to how well it works as a convoluted stand-in.

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Getting a group of friends together online isn’t exactly easy, either: you have to send them a proprietary 12-character friend code, one that expires every 30 minutes. This allows for cross-play, according to Square Enix, and the developers worked to develop the online rather than local co-op, saying it was either one or the other. Minecraft: Dungeons, a much better lite-dungeon crawler, offers the opportunity to play either locally or online, although it lacks cross-play.

There are also lobbies you can host or join, and when you first start a dungeon you’re given the option to play single or multiplayer. I was lucky enough to match up with a stranger on my first try, and we fought our way through River Belle pass. It was difficult to work together, since the only way to communicate is by choosing from a menu with pre-written dialogue options (“Let’s do this!” for example), but ultimately we were able to defeat the boss and… my connection was lost as it loaded into the post-level rewards screen. If you lose your connection at any time, you also lose any loot you might have gathered. So that was a waste of time. Also, if you’re joining a friend or stranger online to play, you don’t make any progress in your own game – that’s just for the host.

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There’s also no drop-in, drop-out play, so if you find yourself in need of a hand in a particularly tricky dungeon or boss, you need to back out of the level, find someone to join you, and run through it again. There’s one dungeon with optional puzzles that can only be solved in co-op, so I’ll never see what’s on the other side of those doors because at this point I just want this to be over.

Leveling up in Crystal Chronicles is interesting, and if it didn’t require a repetitive grind I’d like it much more. Instead of earning experience points and leveling your character passively, you gain strength through collecting artifacts in the course of your dungeon crawling. There are up to eight per dungeon, and after you defeat the boss, you choose one of the artifacts to keep. Artifacts can increase your strength, magic, and defense, among others. It’s novel, and it’s almost thrilling to discover you collected an artifact with a +3 stat boost. Unfortunately, the repetitive nature of the dungeons and the battles ultimately overshadows the thrill of unlocking a powerful new artifact.

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Fights, regardless of whether they’re against minions or a boss, are simplistic and require patience more than any other trait. Wait for any enemy to charge up an attack, run in and hit them, back off to avoid a hit, repeat. You can also charge up a spell and use that, and some of the attacks are ranged, which changes things up slightly. Regardless of the type of attack you use, the pattern is the same: wait, move out of the enemy’s attack, attack with your spell or weapon, get out of range, wait, and repeat. It’s boring with smaller enemies, but on the bosses it’s just mind-numbing because it’s simply a matter of repeating the same attack pattern for minutes at a time. It rewards rote memorization of simplistic patterns rather than any type of skillful timing or resource management. There were times when a boss’s minion might switch things up by coming at me from the left, but in the case of every boss, the best strategy is to take out the minions and focus on repeating the same pattern over and over again until the boss’s life bar is depleted.

You might have heard about a few extra dungeons being added in the remaster, and the good news is they exist! The bad news is you can’t open them up until you’ve beaten the main game, which took me just over 23 hours of solo play. They’re basically remixed “New Game+” style dungeons, mostly painted over existing ones with harder enemies but better loot. However, for some reason they’re not all available at any given time. In fact, they rotate depending on the real-world day. I got a dialogue screen informing me they rotate out each day at 4:00 am Pacific Time, which seems kind of unnecessary, but I’m not interested in playing them anyway.

Turrican, the 1990 classic action game, is coming back. The action series has long been dormant, but it’s making a return for its 30th anniversary.

The game, originally developed by Factor 5, is returning for an anniversary release from Strictly Limited Games. It’s unclear whether this will be a new game, a remake, or a port as of yet, but we’ll know more soon.

During Gamescom Opening Night Live, which starts at 11 AM PT on August 27, this birthday edition of the game will be shown off. Shortly after, pre-orders for the game, including limited edition releases, will become available on the Strictly Limited Games website.

Back in 2017, Factor 5 re-acquired the rights to Turrican, and was previously working on a cancelled PS3 sequel called Turrican: Cyclone. The press release calls this “the next chapter in Factor 5’s history.”

Strictly Limited is also still taking pre-orders for the Space Invaders: Invincible Collection on Switch.

With September only a few days away, Pokemon Go developer Niantic has outlined some of the events it has in store for the game soon. The next few weeks will bring a handful of Legendaries back to Raids and introduce a new Research Breakthrough encounter, while Team Rocket’s Jessie and James will be blasting off at the end of the month. Here’s a rundown of what’s happening in Pokemon Go in September 2020.

September Research Breakthrough: Alolan Raichu

A new set of Field Research tasks and rewards will go live starting September 1, and completing enough of these will lead to a new Research Breakthrough encounter. Each time players achieve a Research Breakthrough in September, they’ll encounter Alolan Raichu. There’s a chance this Alolan Raichu will be Shiny as well.

Legendary Raid Bosses

Niantic is bringing a different Legendary Pokemon back to five-star Raids every week in September, giving players another chance to catch some rare and powerful monsters. The Legendaries will be available from the following dates:

• August 21 – September 10: Heatran
• September 10 – 18: Cresselia
• September 18 – 25: Articuno
• September 25 – October 2: Zapdos

Pokemon Spotlight Hours

Every Tuesday evening in September, Niantic will spotlight one specific Pokemon and bonus for one hour. These spotlight events will all run from 6-7 PM local time. You can see the full schedule below:

Date	Spotlight Pokemon	Special Bonus
September 1	Eevee	2x catch XP
September 8	Houndour	2x catch Candy
September 15	Tentacool	2x transfer Candy
September 22	Spearow	2x evolution XP
September 29	Skitty	2x catch Stardust

September Community Day

September’s Community Day event takes place on Sunday, September 20. As chosen by players, the featured Pokemon this month will be Porygon. The Virtual Pokemon will appear in the wild much more frequently than usual throughout the event, and if you can evolve it into its final form, Porygon-Z, up to two hours after the Community Day ends, it’ll learn the event-exclusive move Tri Attack.

Mega Evolution Events

To celebrate the arrival of Mega Evolutions, Niantic is holding three Mega Evolution-themed events throughout September. The first runs from September 1-7 and challenges players to complete as many Mega Raids as they can. The second will follow from September 11-17 and tasks players with using Mega-Evolved Pokemon in battles against Team Go Rocket members and Raid bosses. The final event runs from September 22-28 and has players building up their friendship level with their Mega-Evolved Pokemon.

Go Battle Night

Niantic is hosting a battle-themed event on September 24. From 6 PM to 11:59 PM local time, you’ll earn twice the usual amount of Stardust for winning Pokemon Go battles and ranking up in the Go Battle League. On top of that, Niantic is increasing the number of battle sets you can complete that night to 20 instead of the usual five.

Team Rocket’s Departure

Team Rocket’s Jessie and James are set to leave Pokemon Go at the end of the month. The infamous duo will be appearing in the game until September 30, making this your last chance to challenge them. Like other Team Rocket grunts, you’ll periodically see Jessie and James flying above the world map in their distinctive Meowth balloon; if you spot them, tap on the balloon to initiate a battle.

Victini Special Research

The Mythical Pokemon Victini made its debut in Pokemon Go during Pokemon Go Fest 2020, but all players will have a chance to encounter it in September. Niantic is rolling out a new Special Research questline revolving around the Mythical Pokemon at the end of the month. If you’ve already completed the Victini Special Research from Go Fest, you’ll earn additional Victini Candy from this new questline.

We’ve all been there: you’ve picked all the parts for your new gaming PC, and funds are running low, so you spend your leftover budget on a basic chair. Before long, your back hurts, your chair creaks, and gaming on your glorious new PC starts to feel like a chore. If you spend long hours at your desk, cheaping out on your chair is never a good idea.

That’s where the Cooler Master Ergo L comes in, throwing out the usual gaming chair tropes and embracing ergonomics. Woven from high-tension mesh, supported by a solid aluminum frame, and loaded with adjustments, the Ergo L has more in common with Herman Miller than DXRacer.

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Design and Features

At first glance, the Ergo L doesn’t look much like a gaming chair at all. Except for the purple brand logo on the headrest, this chair would easily feel right at home in an office. The mix of mesh, faux leather, and mirrored aluminum lend it a classy look that feels much more “grown up” than the typical racing chair.

The differences are more than skin deep. Virtually every aspect of the Ergo L is designed with ergonomics and long-term durability in mind. Ergonomics: it’s a boring word, I know, but in the case of this chair, it means features — features that will keep you gaming in comfort for longer than your average gaming chair.

As a result, it really feels like the Ergo L is competing in a different weight class. In the gaming world, it’s closest competitors are the Vertagear Triigger 275 which is equally priced at $599.99 and the NeueChair at $549, each without the headrest Cooler Master includes. Looking to the wider world of high-end office chairs, it’s easy to see that it shares DNA with the likes of Herman Miller or X-Chair. A good ergonomic chair doesn’t come cheap, so though Cooler Master is topping the cost of most standard PC gaming seats, it’s currently one of the most competitively priced chairs of its kind.

The biggest difference you’ll find is that the Ergo L uses a high-tension mesh for its seat, and most of its backrest, instead of foam. The mesh is slightly elastic, allowing it to conform to your body and completely avoids the firmness that foam chairs usually ship with. There’s no break-in period where you’re stuck waiting for the foam to soften – Cooler Master’s MuscleFlex mesh is ready to go, right out of the box. It’s also much more breathable than foam and helped me keep cool, even in my upstairs office.

Beyond the mesh, the chair is contoured to provide support and promote good posture. The backrest is formed to match the natural curve of your spine and features an adjustable lumbar support to align it perfectly to your back. The headrest is also curved to make contact with your neck without forcing your head forward like the usual strap-on pillows that come bundled with racing chairs. The seat also has a waterfall edge so it won’t cut off your circulation and force you to move into an unhealthy position.

The other big difference here is the multiple adjustments it offers. The chair features a Class 4 gas lift rated for users up to 440 lbs and 3.3 inches of height adjustment. The seat itself is depth adjustable, so you can adjust the angle that your back meets the lumbar support. From there, you can move that lumbar support up or down to dial in exactly the contour you need. The headrest can also be set for height and angle to match what’s most comfortable for your neck. The armrests are oddly limited, though, and only adjust for height and depth.

Along the side of the chair, you’ll also find a knob to adjust the rocking tension and a lever to lock it into position. Unlike a normal gaming chair, this doesn’t allow you to recline back into a full laying position. I was able to lean back and get comfortable with my feet up with no problem, but napping may be out of the question. Still, I found the chair to be flexible enough to keep me comfortable whether I was working, PC gaming, or kicking back watching a movie, which is what any good gaming chair needs to do.

Assembly and Build Quality

Unlike the Vertagear Triigger and NeueChair, the Ergo L comes completely disassembled. Putting the chair together isn’t difficult, but it definitely takes more work than either of its competitors. While those other chairs come with the entire top half of the chair fully assembled, this one demands a process very similar to a normal racing chair: everything needs to be positioned and screwed into place. The only improvement is the tilt base, which is mechanically more complicated and is understandably pre-installed.

The entire process took me about twenty minutes following each step of the guide. I didn’t find it necessary to have a second set of hands, but the chair is quite heavy (61 pounds, fully assembled), so I’d suggest having someone nearby just in case. Cooler Master provides all of the hardware you need, but the included wrench is pretty cumbersome, so I swapped it out for some of my own tools.

The plus side to needing to assemble everything by hand is that it gave me a chance to appreciate how heavy duty the chair is. The aluminum frame is thick, heavy, and rock solid. The mirror finish also looks fantastic, and I love how it supports the back in a narrow “X.” It makes for a wonderful visual contrast and a premium look.

The aluminum wheel base follows the design and is wonderfully heavy and solid. By contrast, the casters feel lightweight and too plasticky. They’re large, at 75mm, which is a nice touch for the overall height of the chair but are otherwise unremarkable.

What I found much more interesting was the mix of mesh and faux leather. The trim gives the chair a unique look that is very stylish. Unfortunately, Cooler Master seems to have put form over function with the backrest, running a leather strip straight down the center where it meets your back, diminishing the effect of the mesh. They’ve mitigated this with micro-perforations and using only very thin foam, but I would much rather have just seen a full mesh back.

Performance

Thankfully, a thin strip of leather doesn’t stop the Ergo L from being a great gaming chair. Having used similar seats in the past, I knew what to expect going in and was ready to climb the “ergo chair” learning curve. If you’ve never used a chair like this before, be prepared to do a lot of adjusting on your first day as you figure out what feels best for your body.

Cooler Master’s mesh is a real winner in terms of comfort, though I can’t say how it will hold up in the long-term. It offered enough flex to conform to my body to offer immediate support, right out of the box. The lack of break in period was very nice, especially coming from my Secret Lab Titan XL’s firm cold cure foam. Still, I wish the company was more generous with their warranty to reinforce that the mesh will stay as good years into the future. With companies like Vertagear and NeueChair offering 10 and 12-year warranties on their ergo chairs, Cooler Master’s 2-year guarantee feels a bit short, especially at this price.

I tend to spend my days writing with bursts of gaming mixed in. That means I need a chair I can quickly switch positions in; one that will promote good posture so I’m not hunching over my keyboard but that will also let me adopt a lazier posture when it’s time to relax. The flexibility of the Ergo L allowed me to find a comfortable fit no matter what I wanted to do. The soft armrests also saved me from the sore elbows when gaming with a controller.

The adaptability of the chair is one of its high points, but it’s not without shortcomings. The lumbar support is difficult to adjust with how it’s set into the back of the chair, and adjusting the seat depth without getting up from the chair is awkward. Trying to scoot the seat in or out while holding the armrests had a nasty tendency to make them slip to the end of their track. Thankfully, I didn’t find the need to adjust these unless I was tilting back into a full recline, which I usually don’t do at my PC.

With the warm and humid weather throughout my test period, I was thankful for the breathability the mesh provided. There’s no question: the Ergo L is absolutely a better fit than a foam-lined chair for warm weather. That said, the faux leather did make my back begin to sweat slightly, whereas I didn’t have that issue at all with the full mesh chair I tested against. I didn’t have the same issue with the headrest, but if the back of your neck tends to sweat, it’s not going to help matters, especially since the micro-perforations are to the sides of where your head will actually touch.

These issues aside, I was generally very happy with the Ergo L. Even with the odd concessions to style, it was one of the most comfortable gaming chairs I’ve ever used. Most importantly, after 6 to 8 hours at the PC, I never suffered the telltale back ache when finally getting up at the end of the day. The added support and adjustability made a fundamental difference, both in promoting good posture and adapting to my body.

Purchasing Guide

The Cooler Master Ergo L is available on Amazon, B&H Photo, and other retailers with an MSRP of $599.