Red Dead Redemption 2 saw Rockstar return to the frontiers of the Wild West for a prequel to the seminal Red Dead Redemption, and as a result, it includes a range of period weaponry from 1899 such as the Smith & Wesson Volcanic Pistol, the Remington Rolling Block Rifle, and the Norwegian 1894 Krag-Jørgensen rifle.
In the above video, Jonathan Ferguson–a weapons expert and Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the Royal Armouries–breaks down the guns of Red Dead Redemption 2 and compares them to their real-world counterparts.
It’s never too late to learn how to play video games–or connect with family you’ve never truly gotten to know. That was the case for Mary, a woman from Bolton, England who finally began to learn about her grandson Jason via Xbox Live.
In a video posted by Xbox on February 5, grandmother Mary and grandson Jason–who live hours apart and have never really known each other–finally get to learn about each other through gaming. Mary received an Xbox Series S so she could play Minecraft with Jason, who ran her through how to use the controller and play the game over voice chat.
Over the course of several weeks, Jason learned about Mary’s life, including her large family that included five siblings. Meanwhile, Mary learned how to race across the English countryside in Forza Horizon 4, and she also explored the wide-open water with Jason in Sea of Thieves. It seemed to help her fend off loneliness during the ongoing pandemic. With lockdown in various parts of the world approaching 12 months now, that human connection is extremely important.
“I enjoy his company and I’m just happy that he wants to be with me, Mary said.”
Jason was happy to finally learn about his grandmother, too.
“I’ve talked to her more in this timeframe than I have … ever,” Jason added.
If you were worried you’d have to go more than a few months without a new video game documentary, worry no longer. A new five-part Nintendo documentary is reportedly planned for a March 1 premiere date, and it will be free for everyone to watch.
According to Deadline, Playing with Power: The Nintendo Story will premiere on Crackle, the ad-supported streaming service previously owned by Sony. Written and directed by Jeremy Snead and narrated by Sean Astin, who previously worked together on Video Games: The Movie, the series will tackle over a century of Nintendo’s history and it was developed over the course of four years.
The series includes interviews with a number of industry figures, including former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime and head of Xbox Phil Spencer, as well as celebrities like Wil Wheaton.
We’ve seen no shortage of video game documentaries recently, including the Netflix series High Score, which chronicles video games up through the mid-’90s. The film Console Wars, which is based on the book of the same name by Blake J. Harris (he co-directed the film) focuses on the rivalry between Nintendo and Sega during the 16-bit era.
We’ll have to wait and see if Playing with Power is a success, but Video Games: The Movie was pretty critically derided when it released in 2014. It was called “unfocused” and took a pretty surface-level look at the subject matter, but with the new project being a five-part series, instead, there’s a chance it can go deeper into what made Nintendo what it is today.
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The Final Fantasy XIV announcement showcase provided a wealth of new information for players of Square Enix’s MMORPG, including details on the upcoming Endwalker expansion set to launch in Fall 2021. Toward the end of the presentation, it was also revealed that a full PlayStation 5 version of FFXIV is in the works. It will take advantage of the new generation of hardware and it’ll hit open beta on April 13 this year.
Although the PS4 version of FFXIV can be played on PS5 through backwards compatibility, this new version features performance and graphical perks. You’ll be able to choose between two graphics options–a full native 4K resolution mode and a frame rate priority mode that uses 1440p resolution. Either way, the PS5 version will benefit from much faster loading speeds, performance stability, and overall visual enhancements.
Continual improvements to graphics and performance are planned to be rolled out in subsequent updates and patches. No official release date was given, although it was said that full service will begin after open beta ends.
As it was explained during the presentation, owners of the PS4 version of FFXIV will be able to upgrade and access the PS5-specific version of the game for free. There weren’t many details on exactly how process will work or if there will be any specific restrictions, however.
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For more on the game, be sure to read our full breakdown on everything we know about FFXIV Endwalker so far to see what’s in store for the MMORPG’s next expansion and 6.0 update–this includes details on the story, the new Jobs, and what kind of content to expect.
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Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker was revealed during the FFXIV announcement showcase–it’s the next expansion for the MMORPG, and it came with a teaser trailer and several details outlined by director and producer Naoki Yoshida. While there are wild implications for where the story is going next, that wasn’t all that the FFXIV team had in store. A new Live Letter from the Producer stream followed the showcase to detail FFXIV patch 5.5, which will lead into the Endwalker expansion.
It’s a two-part update that called Death Unto Dawn and will set players up for the Endwalker story. The first part will go live on April 13, which lines up with the PlayStation 5 open beta for FFXIV, and the second part is set for the end of May, which comes after the digital FFXIV Fan Fest event (scheduled for May 15 and 16). The following details may contain spoilers for those not caught up in FFXIV’s main story.
Screenshots shared in the Live Letter stream show a gathering of several major characters who represent the various regions across FFXIV’s world, and this is likely about the events that happened at the very end of the 5.4 storyline. The new main story dungeon was also teased–it’s called Palgth’an and looks like it could be the beginning of destruction across Eorzea. Palgth’an is compatible with the Trust system so you can take AI characters with you.
Patch 5.5 will feature the conclusion to the Sorrow of Werlyt optional questline. This also comes with a new trial boss fight called The Cloud Deck and it’ll pit 8-player parties against Diamond Weapon–an Extreme difficulty version will also be available.
As expected, the third part to the 24-player Nier Automata crossover alliance raid series will be included in patch 5.5. The subtitle to this part is being held as a secret, and Yoshida-san teased that Nier series creator Yoko Taro (who’s been working on the raids) might have surprises in store. He also mentioned that they’re calling this a third chapter to the raid series and not the final chapter–we’re not sure what this could mean or if it hints at future content. We did get a teaser screenshot with what looks a lot like the a Seed of Destruction from Drakengard.
This story is developing.
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Marvel has a huge slate of movies on the way over the next few years, but one of the most anticipated movies on the list is the upcoming Blade film. Blade is still a ways out, but Marvel has settled on a writer for the superhero horror film.
Stacy Osei-Kuffour will write Blade for Marvel Studios, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Osei-Kuffour worked previously as a writer and story editor on HBO’s critically-acclaimed Watchmen and Amazon Prime’s Nazi-hunting series Hunters. Marvel first revealed the project at San Diego Comic-Con 2019, where it also revealed that actor Mahershala Ali (Luke Cage, House of Cards, Moonlight) will step into the role once occupied by Wesley Snipes.
THR reports that Marvel spent the last six month searching for a writer before tapping Osei-Kuffour, and that Ali was directly involved. The team seriously considered only Black writers, focusing on diversity and representation. Osei-Kuffour becomes the first Black woman to write a Marvel film (Nia DaCosta will be the studio’s first Black woman director with Captain Marvel 2.)
If it doesn’t have RGB lighting, is it really a Razer product? Razer’s tendency to equip its products with rainbow LEDs has become the subject of jokes, though the company seems to take it with pride, even equipping its first-ever gaming monitor, the Razer Raptor 27, with an RGB stand. It might seem a little silly at first, but once you delve past the Raptor’s colorful gimmick and dive deeper into its specs, build, and performance, you’ll find that Razer’s first gaming monitor is another exceptional example of the company’s ability to deliver a quality product.
Display and performance
Adorned with an RGB-lit base, the Razer Raptor 27 provides a gorgeous, vivid image on its 27-inch IPS display, which looks doubly nice with its thin bezel. Games look sharp at the screen’s native resolution of 1440p, and the change in color tone between Valorant and Call of Duty: Warzone demonstrates the Raptor’s adept range. Bright sunny days in games like Saints Row: The Third Remastered and Metro Exodus are exceptional–the sun peeking through an overpass or set of buildings in Saints Row looks beautiful. Darker scenes, however, is where the Raptor struggles a little. Testing with the most recent Resident Evil games, dark hallways can look more gray than black. While these black levels leave us wanting, with the right settings, the Raptor is still capable of producing a good-looking image.
Razer Raptor 27
The Razer Raptor boasts a 144Hz refresh rate and G-Sync compatibility via FreeSync, both of which help it run and perform wonderfully. This provides a real advantage for competitive games like Rainbow Six Siege, Valorant, and Call of Duty: Warzone, where going from a low refresh rate monitor to a high one could make for a substantial improvement in your K/D ratio. In addition to much smoother gameplay over your typical 60Hz, the Raptor’s 144Hz refresh rate contributes to quicker reactions to movement and better precision aiming on the screen. For example, this makes sniping that enemy who pops into view much easier, dropping them before they can duck back into cover.
The image quality and fast refresh rate combine to make for one of the better 1440p gaming monitor experiences out there today, though the display is not without its downsides. The HDR400 support doesn’t output enough nits of brightness to achieve the desired baseline of HDR10, making the HDR support less than desirable. It’s still capable of providing a great image with HDR disabled, but the Raptor’s HDR doesn’t deliver the improvement one would hope for.
Razer Raptor 27 specs
Display: 27-inch IPS
Resolution: 2560×1440 (1440p)
Refresh Rate: 144Hz
HDR: HDR400
Contrast Ratio: 1000:1
Bezel size: 2.3mm
Adaptive sync: FreeSync, G-Sync Compatible
Ports: HDMI 2.0b, DisplayPort 1.4, USB-C, two USB 3.2
Build quality
The Raptor is built quite well, feeling much sturdier than other monitors with similar specs. The actual display is thick, with a more substantial body than monitors typically have. It’s attached to an all-metal stand that makes the whole monitor feel secure. This stand allows the display to be tilted up and down, which you’ll definitely need to do when setting up the monitor and plugging in your cables. If you don’t have enough room to tilt it all the way up, it can be quite cumbersome to plug in your DisplayPort and HDMI cables. Additionally, running the cables through the stand’s built-in cable jockeys can take some time. While this process can prove frustrating, once everything is set up, it provides you with clean cable management and a mess-free look.
The Razer Raptor can be tiled 90 degrees and comes with built-in cord management.
Navigating the Raptor’s menus and changing your settings is handled exclusively by a tiny joystick on the back of the monitor. You can use this plastic nub to access various menus by pushing up, down, left, and right as well as clicking in to confirm your selection. It’s certainly serviceable, but as is the case with most monitor controls, it’s not intuitive–at times, I found myself pushing in the wrong direction by accident.
Value
The Razer Raptor’s display is beautiful, and its chassis is among the best we’ve tested. Like the company’s gaming laptops, it feels almost Apple-like in its construction. However, that brings with it a particularly demanding price tag. At $700 USD, it falls on the expensive side of 1440p gaming monitors. A comparable monitor, LG’s 27-inch GL850-B, features almost the exact same specs as the Razer Raptor 27 and a similarly gorgeous display, but it costs $500. Comparing side-by-side, the Raptor’s display looks slightly brighter than the GL850-B in addition to its heavier RGB-lit stand and sturdier build. The Raptor edges the GL850-B out, but other than these small cosmetic differences, it’s a very similar experience between both monitors.
The bottom line
Despite its similarities to cheaper alternatives, the experience afforded by the Razer Raptor 27 is an excellent one, propped up by a design that rivals Apple and specs that can serve the most dedicated of PC gamers. Its fast refresh rate helps it excel in competitive settings, while its vibrant image quality makes it a great choice for those who enjoy detail-heavy single-player games as well. The Raptor is expensive, but supplementary features like its RGB lighting and cable management help make this monitor unique, and its premium build quality is befitting of its premium price tag.
The Good:
Fast refresh rate and 1440p resolution pair nicely
Superb build quality rivals Apple’s designs
Vibrant colors
Ability to tilt 90 degrees allows easy access to ports
Bright settings look gorgeous…
The Bad:
…though darker scenes look more gray than black
Expensive
About the author: Mat Paget tested the Razer Raptor 27 as his main daily monitor for about two months, and while he could live without RGB lighting, he misses the cable management and clean look. Razer loaned the Raptor 27 for review purposes.
Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy 14’s PS5 version will go into Open Beta on April 13, 2021, and will feature 4K resolution support, faster loading times, and “significantly improved frame rate.”
There will be two modes – one for resolution and one for framerate – and it will be released on the same day as Patch 5.5.
FINAL FANTASY XIV is coming to PlayStation 5, with an open beta planned to launch on Tuesday, April 13, 2021!
Players who have a Final Fantasy 14 service account that has a registered license for the PlayStation 4 version will be able to download and play the PS5 Upgrade Edition at no extra cost.
Final Fantasy 14 is available on PS5 via backward compatibility, but this version will be fully optimized for Sony’s latest console.
Not only will Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker take players to the moon, it will also bring to a close the story that began with A Realm Reborn.
There will also be two new jobs, including a healer job called Sage, a level cap raise from 80 to 90, and “massive new areas” waiting to be explored like the imperial capital of Garlemald, Thavnair, and the city of Radz-at-Han.
