Author: Trafficblast

Call of Duty: Warzone has become one of the most popular games in the world, so it’s easy to see why there is a lot of excitement around the battle royale’s second season of content. Players, however, are worried about how the merger between Warzone and Black Ops Cold War will work.

“[We’re] concerned,” said Redditor realcoray in a thread about the recent Warzone cinematic trailer. “While the engine and mechanics are going to be the same, we’re all anticipating a whole bunch of new things, a lot of which will be broken in ways that will take us time to understand.”

Warzone is going to merge with Black Ops Cold War on December 16 after the update was pushed back a week. Activision and Treyarch have released some info about how the merger will work–the progression system will reset and sync between both games and Modern Warfare–but players still have a number of unanswered questions that they hope to get resolved before the merger.

“Activision, Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Raven–none of them have been straightforward…as to how this integration will work,” said Redditor Simpleblackmatch. “They could take a break from all the teaser videos, marketing efforts, etc. and just be open with the community with what we can expect, how things will work, future plans.”

Activision has made three posts, one in November and two more this month, about how the merger will work later this month, but all three focus on how progression, store purchases, and cosmetics will change with the integration. Dedicated players still wonder how new mechanics, like wildcards, specific perks, and new attachments will work once both games are integrated. The wildcard feature, for example, would turn Warzone’s loadout system upside down by letting players “break the rules” in how loadouts are built. Players can use them to equip two primary weapons and the ghost perk, which is currently impossible in Warzone. We don’t know if wildcards will come to the battle royale, though.

Players were also concerned about how Warzone would “feel” after the merger before Activision confirmed that the battle royale would run on Infinity Ward’s IW 8.0 game engine and not migrate to Black Ops Cold War’s engine. Now they are worried the weapon balance in Warzone once Black Ops Cold War’s 30 weapons are added on December 16. Infinity Ward has had to issue a number of nerfs to weapons like the Grau and the Bruen MK9 since Warzone’s launch.

This is the first time that a battle royale mode has been straddled between two different Call of Duty games. Black Ops 4’s mode, Blackout, was left behind as Treyarch confirmed that Warzone is “the path forward for the series.” There are bound to be a lot of issues with the merger–Warzone already deals with game-breaking bugs on a regular basis. One player figured out how to spawn infinite juggernaut suits recently.

Despite these complaints from a small and vocal section of the battle royale’s playerbase, Warzone continues to be one of the most popular games of the year. Players will probably have to continue to deal with new glitches, weapon balance issues, and other unexpected changes when the games merge later this month.

The Pac-Man games have been released on practically every system at this point, including consoles, PC, handhelds, and home arcades. However, the little almost-circle that could is making his way to a new platform: Amazon’s Alexa. We truly live in the future.

Available now for select Alexa-enabled devices and best experienced on the Echo Show and other screen-equipped systems such as Fire TV, Pac-Man: Waka Waka is an Alexa Skill that includes 15 different mazes, with more worlds coming in future updates. It appears you will need some sort of screen in order to play it. Classic Pac-Man gameplay is improved with new mechanics and a Frenzy Mode, and the gameplay is voice-controlled for a unique experience.

“For more competitive players, a complete set of special objectives lets gamers collect stars and earn high scores on each level,” the announcement said.

Yes, in order to move Pac-Man, you’ll be talking to your device. You’ll use his native “Wakanese” to do so, with “waka” meaning right, “waki” meaning left, and so on. If you don’t live alone or you have thin walls, you’ll have some explaining to do.

To enable the game, go to the Alexa app and enable the skill. After that, say “Alexa, open Pac-Man” to start playing.

Full access to Pac-Man: Waka Waka requires a $7 monthly subscription to the Waka Club, which also includes access to new worlds as they release. Those playing the free version get five levels of the tutorial world and the first level is each of the other stages, so you don’t necessarily need to pay.

A new Alexa assistant called PAL is also available with Pac-Man: Waka Waka, letting you chat with the liaison and even have him beatbox. It remains to be seen if he can compete with the likes of Samuel L. Jackson and Borat as unique Alexa characters.

Nintendo has revealed that the next Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC character will be revealed tonight, December 10, at The Game Awards.

In the tweet, Nintendo gave no hints as to who the character might be, instead urging fans to tune into the show to find at as soon as it happens. The Game Awards start at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET, and can be streamed right here on GameSpot.

This won’t be the first time Nintendo has used the awards show to announce a big Super Smash Bros. addition. Last year Nintendo surprised everyone with the reveal of Joker from Persona 5 for the party fighting game, who eventually released on April 17 earlier this year.

This latest fighter will be the third one included with Ultimate’s Fighter Pass 2. The DLC pack has already received Min Min from Nintendo’s other fighter, Arms, as well as Steve from Minecraft. After tonight’s reveal, the pack will still have three more unannounced fighters to reveal. Designer Masahiro Sakurai has said that all of the fighters have already been decided, so Nintendo is not open to additional suggestions.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the biggest game in the series yet, bringing together all previous inclusion from other Smash titles and continuing to grow its roster. Back in 2018, our Super Smash Bros. Ultimate review praised the game’s depth and amount of content, with critic Edmond Tran writing, “Ultimate’s diverse content is compelling, its strong mechanics are refined, and the encompassing collection is simply superb.”

Cyberpunk 2077 has only been out for a matter of hours at this point. Even if you’re yet to make it out of the robust character creator, developer CD Projekt Red has wasted little time in sharing some early sales figures for the highly anticipated RPG.

The company revealed on its Twitter account that Cyberpunk 2077 managed to attract over eight million preorders in the lead up its release. Even factoring in potential cancellations, those are incredibly impressive numbers, with 59% of those sales being for the PC version of the game. Appropriately enough, the RPG has also done very well digitally, as 74% of preorders were sold on Steam, GOG, and the PlayStation and Microsoft stores.

Looking at the game’s popularity on Steam, the digital/physical split isn’t all that surprising. According to Steam DB, there were 1,003,264 concurrent Cyberpunk 2077 players when the game launched last night, which easily dwarfs the peaks achieved by other massive PC titles like Grand Theft Auto V, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Fallout 4. For as gargantuan as that number may be, however, it still isn’t enough to topple the lifetime peaks of heavyweights Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

CD Projekt’s latest earned a score of 7/10 in GameSpot’s Cyberpunk 2077 review. “The side quests and the characters they showcase are the shining beacon through the neon-soaked bleakness of Night City, and they give you room to explore the best the core RPG mechanics have to offer. These are what carried me through an otherwise disappointing experience,” reviewer Kallie Plagge said.

Cyberpunk 2077 finally released today after numerous delays, with its original launch date set for back in April. COVID-19 has affected nearly every facet of game development this year as studios transitioned to a work-from-home setup. For CD Projekt Red, that seems to have been exceptionally true, as the Cyberpunk 2077 team had to spend far longer on routine tasks compared to when it operated in an office.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, co-CEO Adam Kiciński said that doing something like placing a character or object into the game could take hours because of the reduced communication between team members–it would take minutes when they were sitting next to each other.

Kiciński also mentioned that it was “painful” for the game’s developers to have to crunch–the practice of working extremely long hours for an extended period of time as a game approaches releases– though he hoped players would be understanding after seeing the final product.

That remains to be seen, but crunch doesn’t often translate to better games. In the case of Cyberpunk 2077, it’s still littered with major bugs across the PC and console versions, including full crashes. It was one of our biggest issues with the game in our Cyberpunk 2077 review. That review was conducted on PC, and though the console versions also seem rough, CD Projekt Red said a launch-day patch should help matters.

After initially being scheduled for April, Cyberpunk 2077 was then bumped all the way to September. This was then followed by a delay to November before its final day to December 10. It’s currently available on Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Stadia, with Xbox Series X and PS5 versions coming next year as free upgrades.