In a wonderful Tuesday night surprise, the first three episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale’s fourth season are now available on Hulu, one day earlier than when they were scheduled to arrive.
The cast of The Handmaid’s Tale, including Elisabeth Moss, Alexis Bledel, Sam Jaeger, Bradley Whitford, Joe Fiennes, Ann Dowd, Amanda Brugel, Madeline Brewer, and O-T Fagbenle, shared the exciting news in a video to the show’s fans on Twitter.
These first three episodes, which are titled “Pigs,” “Nightshade,” and “The Crossing,” kick of the show’s 10-episode season that will see new episodes arriving each week.
This new season follows June’s fight for freedom against Gilead, yet her “desire for justice and revenge threaten to consume her and destroy her most cherished relationships,” according to Hulu’s official description.
As The Handmaid’s Tale continues on Hulu, so does work on the adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, which is the sequel to this story. This new novel was published in September 2020 and is set 15 years after the events of the original.
All the way back from the original Mortal Kombat in 1992 to the latest Mortal Kombat 11 of 2019, Mortal Kombat 2021 pulls from the best in its choice of fatalities, even pulling some new ones.
So, let’s compare Liu Kang, Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Shang Tsung, Jax, Kano, and Sonya Blade’s fatalities of the films to their in-game counter parts!
Like so many of Nintendo’s other marquee franchises, the Pokemon series has produced numerous spin-offs over the last 25 years, branching out into genres as disparate as puzzlers, dungeon crawlers, pinball, and even fighting games. Although not everyone of these experiments turned out to be a success, there have been some wonderful off-shoot Pokemon games, many of which are now considered classics in their own right.
If you’ve been following the franchise for as long as we have, you’ve likely played your share of Pokemon spin-offs over the years, and there may even be some that you enjoy more than the mainline series. To celebrate the release of New Pokemon Snap, the latest off-shoot title to arrive on Nintendo Switch, we’ve rounded up our favorite Pokemon spin-off games and why they hold such a fond place in our hearts. While not every one of these titles is a classic in its genre, each one did something unique that captured our attention and enhanced our love for the series. Be sure to also tell us what your favorite Pokemon spin-offs are in the comments below!
New Pokemon Snap launches for Nintendo Switch on April 30, more than 20 years after the original Pokemon Snap hit the Nintendo 64. Despite this long wait for a sequel, the original game remains one of the most beloved Pokemon spin-offs among fans, making New Pokemon Snap one of this year’s most anticipated Switch releases. You can read more about the game and what preorder bonuses are available at different retailers in our New Pokemon Snap preorder guide.
Pokemon Snap
Pokemon Snap (1999)
One can’t have a list of the best Pokemon spin-off games without mentioning Pokemon Snap. The 1999 N64 game casts you as Todd Snap, a Pokemon photographer employed by Professor Oak, who summons you to an island that somehow has numerous climates and ecosystems of wild Pokemon. Each level takes you to a new environment, where you ride in a rail-powered cart on a set path, taking photographs of the wild Pokemon you spot to aid Oak’s research. While some Pokemon will be out in the open, others you have to catch at precise moments and draw out in strategic ways using items like apples. You’ll be rated by Oak based on how well your photos turn out, and your score will be higher if you catch Pokemon in special poses.
There are only 63 Gen 1 Pokemon in Pokemon Snap, but despite the limited number of Pokemon and restricted perspective you have for taking photos, Pokemon Snap was iconic. It was thrilling to capture a great photo of a Pokemon doing something cool, and the replay value was excellent–once you got the feel for which Pokemon would appear where, you could plan your shots accordingly. Flipping through the album of your favorite photos was nothing less than pure satisfaction.
After waiting patiently for over 20 years, it’s wonderful that a new Pokemon Snap game is now on Nintendo Switch. It’s a dream come true, and I’m honestly overjoyed to see Pokemon Snap return for a new generation. At this point, I’m just hoping that Nintendo brings back the original in some form as well! Let’s get N64 games on the online service in 2021, come on Nintendo! | Jenae Sitzes, Commerce Editor
Pokemon Pinball
Pokemon Pinball (1999)
The Pokemon series has been spun off into many seemingly incongruous genres over the years, but one of its earliest offshoots remains among its absolute best: Pokemon Pinball. At first blush, Pokemon and pinball seem like an especially odd pairing, but co-developers HAL and Jupiter married the two together cleverly, producing what is still one of the most fun digital pinball games I’ve ever played.
At its core, Pokemon Pinball plays very much like HAL’s previous pinball game, Kirby’s Pinball Land, but what gives the title much of its charm is its Pokemon window dressing. Pikachu stands in the corners of the screen and can shock the ball (naturally, a Poke Ball) back into play, and the table’s bumpers take the form of various Pokemon such as Voltorb, Shellder, and Diglett. Mirroring the original RPGs, Pokemon Pinball also offers two different tables, Red and Blue, each of which features its own unique elements and bonus stages.
As you knock the ball around and rack up points, you’ll activate the game’s “Catch Mode,” which is where Pokemon’s influence truly comes in. When Catch Mode is active, you’ll need to hit the top bumpers to slowly reveal a picture of a Pokemon. Once the picture is completed, the Pokemon will appear on the field, and you’ll need to hit it enough times with the ball to catch it–an ingenious way to integrate a core mechanic of the Pokemon series into a pinball game.
It’s a shame the original Pokemon Pinball didn’t receive a Virtual Console release on 3DS as a few other Pokemon spin-offs did, so the only way to experience it nowadays would be to track down an original copy for Game Boy Color. However, its GBA follow-up, Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire, was re-released on Wii U, and it’s just as great. There’s no shortage of fans clamoring for a sequel to Pokemon Snap (for good reason), but what we truly need is a new Pokemon Pinball game. | Kevin Knezevic, Associate Editor
Pokemon TCG (Game Boy Color)
Pokemon TCG (2000)
It’s impossible to discuss the early days of the Pokemon series without also mentioning the Pokemon Trading Card Game. Together with the anime and video games, the Pokemon TCG was a big reason why the franchise was so explosively popular in the late ’90s. While I never had much interest in playing the actual card game with my friends, like other kids at the time, I was obsessed with collecting the cards, which is what led me to discover Pokemon TCG for Game Boy Color.
As its name suggests, Pokemon TCG for Game Boy was a digitized version of the card game, featuring the same rules and cards as the physical game. What made the title so compelling, however, were its RPG elements. Just as in the mainline Pokemon games, your ultimate goal is to travel to different clubs, each of which specialized in a particular type, and defeat the eight Club Masters. After collecting their badges, you earned the right to face off against the Grand Masters–TCG’s equivalent of the Elite Four.
Compared to other card games, the Pokemon TCG was fairly simple, but that accessibility was another reason it translated so well into a video game. As in the mainline titles, Pokemon cards have different elemental strengths and weaknesses, and you need to exploit them if you hope to defeat the Club Masters. Of course, given the nature of card games, battles often hinged in part on luck (there was only so much you could do if you drew a bad hand), but it nonetheless felt very satisfying to devise strategies and build a well-rounded deck.
The Game Boy Color game would receive a sequel in Japan, but that, unfortunately, was never localized. While it seems unlikely that we’ll ever get another proper Pokemon TCG video game, its spirit lives on in Pokemon TCG Online, a free-to-download digital version of the card game. It’s not a proper follow-up to the Game Boy title–TCG Online doesn’t have RPG elements like the Game Boy game, for instance–but it’s a lot of fun in its own right, which shows why the trading card game has been able to remain so popular for over two decades. | Kevin Knezevic, Associate Editor
Hey You, Pikachu!
Hey You, Pikachu! (2000)
Full disclosure: I was probably seven or eight years old when I played Hey You, Pikachu! on N64, but I’d play it again in a heartbeat if I still owned the game and its necessary equipment. Released in 2000, Hey You, Pikachu is basically a pet simulator, except your pet is a wild Pikachu that you slowly befriend over the course of the game. Professor Oak has tasked you with learning to communicate with this Pikachu using a handy voice device he’s created. To do this, you needed the N64’s Voice Recognition Unit, which plugged into one of the system’s controller slots and had a little microphone with a yellow foam cover that you’d speak into.
After you slowly gain Pikachu’s trust, it’ll come hang out with you in your house. There are numerous activities the two of you can do together, like babysitting Caterpie or gathering food for Bulbasaur’s picnic. To guide Pikachu in these tasks, you use the on-screen pointer and the VRU to give it verbal commands. Pikachu’s understanding of the human language is limited to about 200 words and phrases, but learning to communicate clearly and accomplish tasks together are the moments I remember most fondly. Of course, I wanted to talk with Pikachu about more than just fishing or gathering food. I wanted to tell Pikachu about my day. I read entire books to Pikachu using the VRU. Its look of confusion during these one-way conversations I’ll never forget, but I like to think it brought us closer.
With its emphasis on interactivity and cooperation, Hey You, Pikachu sucked me into the world of Pokemon in a way that no other game has. It’s a game that will probably never (and probably shouldn’t) be remade, but if you owned it back in 2000 and were the target age group, Hey You, Pikachu was absolutely thrilling. It gave me a digital friend I’ll never forget. | Jenae Sitzes, Commerce Editor
Pokemon XD: Gale Of Darkness
Pokemon XD: Gale Of Darkness (2005)
12-year-old Jordan thought the idea of shadow Pokemon was one of the coolest things in the world, almost as cool as a Pokemon spin-off that retained the mainline games’ traditional turn-based combat but didn’t tell the usual story about beating Gym Leaders. Someone probably should have told him about Pokemon Colosseum. Perhaps a friend, if he had had any.
But since that was not the case, Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness was my first foray into playing such a game. I love the challenge of Gale of Darkness–it’s harder than many of the mainline games, largely because you’re trying to juggle both defeating and catching your opponent’s Pokemon. I’ll still occasionally boot up the ol’ GameCube and mess around in Gale of Darkness, only to quickly remember that its Battle Tower is no joke and I’m woefully ill-prepared.
Purifying shadow Pokemon offers another wrinkle to the traditional gameplay formula as well, since they’re all powerhouses for their level but can’t grow stronger until they’re purified. And you don’t start with the typical choice of starter in Gale of Darkness–the game gives you an Eevee, letting you essentially begin the game with a Fire, Water, Electric, Psychic, or Dark Pokemon. Or, I guess, you could just stick with Normal if you’re so inclined to remain boringly dull.
And honestly, that’s why I like Gale of Darkness so much–it’s just a small tweak to what the mainline games do, not a complete transformation. And that’s really all I need, just a wee taste of something different to cleanse the palate.
Plus, for as long as I live, I’ll never forget Lotad, Lombre, and Ludicolo dancing to the sick beat of the Miror B. Battle Theme–and that’s a beautiful mixture of sight and sound that no Pokemon game has managed to match. | Jordan Ramée, Associate Editor
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team (2006)
With Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX finally out on Nintendo Switch, we’d be remiss not to look back at the 2006 games that inspired the remake: Red Rescue Team on Game Boy Advance and its near-identical Nintendo DS version, Blue Rescue Team. While I never owned a DS and therefore didn’t play Blue, I have a special place in my heart for Red Rescue Team, which I knew absolutely nothing about when I first picked it up.
The Rescue Team games, which kicked off the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon spin-off series, are strange entries in the world of Pokemon games. The story follows a human who wakes up one day as a Pokemon, quickly becomes best friends with another Pokemon, and forms a small business where they take on Pokemon rescues and other odd jobs. Oh, and you take a personality quiz at the beginning that decides if you play as a Pikachu, Totodile, or maybe a Machop (there are 16 options). Before you know it, you’re dungeon-diving and engaging other Pokemon in increasingly challenging turn-based combat as you complete jobs, such as escorting a client or delivering an item. Dungeon exploration and battles take place on a top-down, grid-like map, and there’s also a hunger mechanic–if your team gets too hungry, they’ll start taking damage.
I had no idea I was in for any of this when I first booted up Red Rescue Team on my Game Boy Advance, but the game soon won me over with its charm. The game was rightfully criticized for the tediousness of its dungeons, but the slowly unraveled mystery of my character’s identity and the camaraderie formed with my fellow rescue team members, especially my partner Pokemon (I still remember it was a Squirtle), left a lasting impact. None of the later Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games captured the charm of Red Rescue Team in my eyes, so it’s a pleasant surprise to see such a stunning remake of Rescue Team on Nintendo Switch. While there’s no reason to dig up your Game Boy Advance or DS and play the original Rescue Team at this point, I can’t wait for a new generation of Pokemon fans to experience its charms. | Jenae Sitzes, Commerce Editor
Pokemon Go
Pokemon Go (2016)
It’s impossible to overstate the impact Pokemon Go has had on the franchise in its relatively short existence. When it first arrived back in Summer 2016, it seemed like everyone in the world was enamored with the game. Videos of crowds stopping traffic to catch Pokemon and stories of expectant fathers capturing Pokemon while their wives were in labor dominated social media in the weeks that followed its launch, and you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing groups of people huddled together, phones out, hunting pocket monsters.
Of course, I was among the many players swept up in Pokemon Go’s hype, which is ironic as I don’t think the game is particularly fun to play. Compared to other Pokemon spin-offs, Go is fairly rudimentary. Tap on a Pokemon, flick your finger across the screen to throw a Poke Ball at it–rinse and repeat. Like many other mobile games, Pokemon Go is also grind-heavy; evolving Pokemon requires you to feed them a sufficient amount of Candy, and the only way to obtain that is to repeatedly capture Pokemon of that species, which can take weeks.
And yet, despite all the complaints I have about the game, there’s something inherently appealing about Pokemon Go that encourages me to keep coming back to it. I think it’s the camaraderie it fosters. Even though I’m not particularly invested in building up a team and battling in Raids, I still fire the game up while out on a walk just to see what Pokemon and Poke Stops are around. The Community Day events are especially enjoyable; my girlfriend and I often go out to the park on these days and capture Pokemon together, which is always a pleasant way to spend a sunny morning. It’s these kinds of moments, more than the actual gameplay, that make Pokemon Go one of my favorite Pokemon spin-offs. | Kevin Knezevic, Associate Editor
Detective Pikachu
Detective Pikachu (2018)
I play Pokemon pretty intensely, so it’s not often that a spin-off that lacks competitive edge grabs my attention. But Detective Pikachu is absolutely delightful. Before the movie (which is also very good), Detective Pikachu on 3DS combined Pokemon with another of my favorite things, crime drama, in a delightful, silly, fun-loving way that endeared me immediately.
Like the movie, Detective Pikachu brings the world of Pokemon to life in a way the main games don’t. The streets are lined with Trubbish; Yanma work as cameramen on flashy TV sets; and white-collar crime dominates the scene. With the help of a Pikachu with an old man’s voice–unfortunately not Danny DeVito’s, but what can you do–you get to solve mysteries wholly unlike the walloping you give to every Team Rocket-like in the main series. I was actually surprised by some of the twists and turns, too, even though the process of collecting evidence isn’t exactly difficult.
Detective Pikachu came out in the West toward the end of the 3DS’ life cycle, so there’s a chance you may have missed it. But I think it’s a good, goofy time, and it cleverly uses the Pokemon universe to craft mysteries for you to solve. Plus, it’s hard not to love Detective Pikachu, one of the weirdest cop characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of getting to know in a video game or otherwise. | Kallie Plagge
It’s full steam ahead for the MCU and all of their projects. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney+’s Ironheart show has brought Chinaka Hodge (TNT’s Snowpiercer) on as head writer.
The show will focus on Riri Williams, played by Dominique Thorne, a brilliant teenage inventor who was introduced in the comics back in 2016’s Invincible Iron Man. Williams created her own version of the Iron Man armor in her dorm at MIT and eventually took over as Iron Man when Tony Stark was temporarily taken out of commission. Riri went on to coin the name Ironheart and star in her own solo comic book series.
Details about the Ironheart show are still scarce. It is unknown where in the MCU timeline Riri’s introduction will take place or if she’ll be related to Tony Stark’s legacy at all in this incarnation of events–especially since MCU has reconfigured Peter Parker into a sort of teenage Iron Man legacy character already. Still, given the wide open playing field that is Phase 4, anything could happen and Riri has plenty of space to work.
In addition to Ironheart, there will also be an Armor Wars show coming to Disney+ which will focus on Rhodey and his War Machine armor.
Next up on the MCU docket is Loki, another MCU TV show headed for Disney+ on June 11.
It’s been almost a week since Season 3 started for Call of Duty: Warzone, and along with the “new” 1984 Verdansk map came a shift in the gun meta. Weapon tuning for Season 3 has mostly dethroned the FFAR 1 assault rifle that reigned supreme in Warzone for most of Season 2. You can still hold your own with Season 2’s star class, but there are actually better choices for the time being.
It’s been a while since the meta hasn’t felt restricted to just one or two overpowered weapons, so this is a great time to try out new weapon builds. Here are a few different options to test out for your Warzone loadouts.
Best CR-56 AMAX Loadout
Most assault rifles couldn’t compete with the FFAR 1’s previously god-tier high fire rate and low recoil, but now Season 3 finally lets the CR-56 AMAX assault rifle shine. Actually, this has been a solid assault rifle since its introduction into Modern Warfare, and it’s been my personal favorite Warzone weapon, even when everyone else was on the FFAR 1 hype train. I’m happy to see this gun sitting at the top of the pack, as this is currently the best long- to mid-range option in Warzone right now. It does have more recoil than the FFAR 1 had last season, but equipping something like the Commando Foregrip attachment can help with that.
Recommended Attachments:
Muzzle: Monolithic suppressor
Barrel: XRK Zodiac
Underbarrel: Commando Foregrip
Ammunition: 45-round mag
Optic: Honestly, optics always come down to more of personal preference and playstyle. Personally, I never go higher than a 3x optic on any of my assault rifles, and I run the Viper Reflex Sight on my AMAX build, but just pick something that feels comfortable for your long-distance gunfights. Maybe you prefer a 4x hybrid optic or a thermal scope.
Best AK-47 Loadout
Cold War’s AK-47 has been a poor choice for Warzone in the previous seasons, but Season 3 buffed this assault rifle enough to finally become viable. There was a noticeable buff to the recoil, but this still probably won’t be the gun for beaming enemies across the map. But despite not being the best option for long-range gunfights, it’s quickly becoming a popular choice for mid- to close-range gun fights due to its fast time-to-kill. An AK-47 submachine-gun-style build seems to be edging out the actual submachine guns in popularity, so this and the CR-56 AMAX will likely edge out the competition to become Warzone’s new meta.
Recommended Attachments:
Muzzle: GRU Suppressor
Barrel: 15.5″ Ultralight barrel
Stock: KGB Skeletal Stock
Ammunition: 45-round Mags
The last attachment can be preference. Spetsnaz Grip for better accuracy, optic for better visibility, or Serpent Wrap for better ADS speed. I’m pretty comfortable with the AK-47’s iron sights, so I’m currently using the Serpent Wrap rear grip on mine.
Best FARA 83 Loadout
Like the AK-47, Cold War’s FARA 83 is another assault rifle that doesn’t really stack up as well with the CR-56 AMAX as a long-range option, but works great as a mid-range option. This could be built to pair well as a secondary to a sniper, marksman rifle, or the CR-56 AMAX.
Recommended Attachments:
Muzzle: GRU Suppressor
Barrel: 14.8″ Ultralight
Stock: KGB Skeletal Stock
Ammunition: Spetsnaz 50-round mag
Rear Grip: Serpent Wrap
Best Krig-6 Loadout
The Krig-6 is another Cold War assault rifle that wasn’t a smart Warzone choice prior to the Season 3 update, but the recent buffs help this gun kill much faster now. This is not my personal favorite, but it really gets the job done with the right attachments, especially the ones that help beef up the bullet velocity. This can be another long-range option, if you’re looking to use something other than the CR-56 AMAX.
Recommended Attachments:
Muzzle: Agency Suppressor
Barrel: 19.7″ Ranger
Underbarrel: Field Agent Grip
Ammunition: STANAG 60-round mag
Optic: Optic of your choice
There’s really not a single standout as the meta for submachine guns. However, there are actually a few really solid options for a close-range secondary gun, if you’re not planning on using the FARA or AK-47’s submachine gun-like builds.
Best LC10 Loadout
The MAC-10 has been a dominant submachine gun for the past two seasons, and while it’s still a solid choice even after its recent nerf, the LC10 might actually be set to replace it. Thanks to the recent buff to the bullet velocity, the LC10 is now a strong contender for the submachine class.
Recommended Attachments:
Muzzle: Agency Suppressor
Barrel: 13.9″ Task Force
Underbarrel: Field Agent Grip
Ammunition: 45-round mag
Stock: No Stock
Best Bullfrog Loadout
The Bullfrog is a pretty accurate and powerful weapon in the submachine gun pool. This quickly became my favorite choice to pair as the secondary to my CR-56 AMAX. I personally don’t use optics on any of my submachine gun classes, but if you prefer to equip one, you could always trade out the recommended 65-round mag in favor of the optic of your choosing.
Recommended Attachments:
Muzzle: GRU Suppressor
Barrel: 7.4″ Task Force
Stock: KGB Skeletal Stock
Ammunition: 65-round mag
Rear Grip: Serpent Wrap
Best PPSh-41 Loadout
The classic PPSh-41 returned to Call of Duty with Black Ops: Cold War’s Season 3 battle pass. This submachine gun is unlocked at tier 15 of the battle pass, so you’ll likely want to spend time leveling up the gun to get the best attachments. The PPSh-41 can really deal some damage, and it offers great mobility for those who love to run and gun across Verdansk.
Recommended Attachments:
Muzzle: GRU Suppressor
Barrel: 15.7″ Task Force
Stock: Raider stock
Underbarrel: Spetsnaz Grip
Ammunition: 55-round drum
Best MP5 Loadout
Not everyone might agree on the MP5 being as relevant as the Bullfrog or MAC-10, but it’s still a really solid submachine in Warzone. You can use the Cold War or the Modern Warfare version of this submachine gun, as the stats are pretty comparable for both. The Modern Warfare version has slightly better mobility, but Cold War’s MP5 ends up having a slightly faster time-to-kill.
Recommended Attachments:
Muzzle: Agency Suppressor
Barrel: 9.5″ Task Force
Stock: Raider Stock
Underbarrel: Field Agent
Ammunition: STANAG 50-round Drum
Best Kar98k Loadout
Modern Warfare’s Kar98k marksman rifle is still Warzone’s top-tier sniper choice in Season 3, so you might already have the right attachments for your playstyle.
Recommended Attachments:
Muzzle: Monolithic suppressor
Barrel: Singuard Custom 27.6″
Laser: Tac laser
Optic: Sniper Scope is commonly used, but pick whatever works best for you
Stock: STVOL Precision Comb for aiming stability or Sport Comb if you’re looking for faster ADS speed
We could be seeing a lot of the CR-56 AMAX and AK-47 in Call of Duty: Warzone moving forward. When Warzone gets a very definitive meta, it usually sticks around for a long time. Hopefully, the developers will be more proactive with weapon balancing updates in Season 3, something I definitely recommended to help keep Warzone fresh as the seasons progress.
Microsoft reported earnings on Tuesday, revealing that Xbox is doing exceptionally well right now from a business perspective following the launch of the Xbox Series X|S and the completion of its acquisition of ZeniMax.
Gaming revenue was $3.53 billion for the quarter ended March 31, which is up a whopping 50% year-over-year. Content and services revenue for Xbox jumped by 34%, thanks to game sales and revenue from Game Pass. Xbox hardware revenue, meanwhile, exploded, posting a 232% year-over-year gain thanks in part to the launch of the Xbox Series X|S.
Analyst Daniel Ahmad of Niko Partners also mentioned that gaming revenue for the past 12 months reached about $15 billion, which is up from $10.3 billion for the 12 months before that. In short, Xbox is posting massively successful numbers right now.
In keeping with tradition, Microsoft did not release any hard sales numbers for Xbox consoles, nor did it provide a new number for Xbox Game Pass subscribers.
Fun Fact: Microsoft’s gaming revenue over the past 12 months ending March 31, 2021 was approximately $15 billion, compared to $10.3 billion in the 12 months ending March 31, 2020. Series X|S launch helped the past 2 quarters, as did ongoing game pass growth. https://t.co/RlzSEsUnDu
Microsoft overall–spanning all business divisions–posted revenue of $41.7 billion (up 19%) and a profit of $15.5 billion (up 44%). That profit is enough to pay for the ZeniMax acquisition twice, just as was the cast last quarter.
“Over a year into the pandemic, digital adoption curves aren’t slowing down. They’re accelerating, and it’s just the beginning,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said. “We are building the cloud for the next decade, expanding our addressable market and innovating across every layer of the tech stack to help our customers be resilient and transform.”
We won’t have to wait long to find out how Sony’s PlayStation business is doing, as the company will report earnings tomorrow, April 28.
Niantic’s annual Pokemon Go Fest event will return from July 17-18. Like last year, Pokemon Go Fest 2021 will be a two-day global event that players around the world will be able to participate in.
Niantic hasn’t shared many other details about this year’s Pokemon Go Fest just yet, but the studio teases that it will be a big one since both Pokemon Go and the Pokemon series as a whole are celebrating notable anniversaries.
“What does this year’s event have in store? Well, you’ll just have to wait and see! 2021 marks both the twenty-fifth anniversary of Pokemon and the fifth anniversary of Pokemon Go, so trust us when we say you won’t want to miss Pokemon Go Fest 2021!” Niantic wrote on the official Pokemon Go blog.
Like The Pokemon Company’s 25th anniversary celebration, it appears this year’s Pokemon Go Fest will have some kind of musical theme. Music notes can be seen on the event’s logo, and Niantic teased to “stay tuned” for additional details. These hints could potentially point to the Gen 5 Mythical Pokemon, Meloetta, although nothing has been confirmed yet.
Last year’s Pokemon Go Fest was notable for being the first virtual take on the event. Prior to that, the event was traditionally held in-person at specific venues around the world, including Chicago’s Grant Park, but Niantic had to change gears and turn the event into a global virtual experience in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the meantime, Niantic has a number of Pokemon Go events lined up for May. The studio is introducing the Gen 6 Legendaries Xerneas and Yveltal to the game next month, while May’s Research Breakthrough encounter will be Galarian Ponyta. The next Community Day is also set for May 15, although the featured Pokemon has not been announced yet.
The MCU’s level of secrecy regarding new projects is legendary, even to their stars. Captain America 4 was recently confirmed to be in the works from Falcon and the Winter Soldier lead writer Malcolm Spellman scripting, but star Anthony Mackie doesn’t have any details yet. In fact, according to an interview with EW, he learned about the project just like everyone else.
“I literally found out yesterday in a grocery store,” Mackie said. “The checkout guy named Dwayne [was like] ‘Yo, man. Is this real?!’ I’m like, ‘I haven’t heard anything.’ That’s what I love about working for Marvel. They call you, they’re like, ‘Come to L.A. We wanna tell you what’s going on.’ So, I’m excited to see what happens, but I haven’t heard anything.”
The focus on Sam Wilson as the star of Captain America 4 comes from Sam’s official adoption of the Captain America mantle in the finale of Falcon and The Winter Soldier–or, ostensibly, in the final moments of Avengers: Endgame, depending on how you want to count things out. Naturally, it would be hard to have a Captain America movie without Captain America himself, but given the early stages of development being reported, it’s not surprising that Mackie hasn’t gotten the phone call.
Still, he was quick to joke: “What would be really bad is if the movie [Captain America 4] starts and I get blown out of the sky.”
As for actually taking the mantle and donning a new costume, Mackie says it hasn’t actually set in yet–and the moment even felt a little anticlimactic in the show. “I don’t know what I expected, but it’s definitely not what I thought it would be. I guess I foresaw something that was much more celebratory than just being ‘Anthony with a new Twitter account.'”
With any luck, that ‘new Twitter account’ feeling will go away once Captain America 4 starts production in earnest. Until then, Disney’s next major MCU release is the Loki TV show, which will hit Disney+ on June 11. Following Loki is the much delayed Black Widow, which will be hitting theaters and Disney+ (for an extra fee on top of the subscription) on July 9.
Microsoft’s gaming division just had its best Q3 ever, not only thanks to ongoing sales of Xbox Series S and X, but also in no small part due to them basically tacking an entire extra company onto their revenue for the quarter.
In its earnings today, Microsoft reported gaming revenue was up 50% year-over-year, jumping from $2.35 billion for the same period last year up to $3.53 billion this year. It’s not a record quarter overall, as Microsoft’s gaming revenues for October through December of last year spiked past $5 billion for the first time ever during that three-month period thanks to the new console launch. But it is a record for the January through March quarter, which is traditionally more of a quiet one for gaming companies following the busy holiday sales season of big new releases.
Obviously, the Xbox Series S and X still being novel new toys and improved supplies of both after the initial holiday rush was a major factor in the revenue spike. The shift from a quiet quarter in January to March 2020 to now brought the company’s hardware sales up a whopping 232% from this time last year to now. That’s admittedly unsurprising given that probably no one was buying Xbox Ones during the first three months of last year as they waited for the Xbox Series launch, but it’s still a rather impressive-sounding number.
But hardware was far from the only culprit in Microsoft’s excellent gaming quarter. Xbox content and services revenue — aka software, Game Pass, and basically everything that isn’t hardware — rose $739 million or 34%, which Microsoft attributes to… well, everything in that category, both first and third-party software and Game Pass revenue.
Baked into that content and services revenue though is a new factor this quarter: Bethesda and ZeniMax. Microsoft officially completed its acquisition of ZeniMax in March, meaning the company’s revenue is now lumped into everything else Xbox gaming. It’s unfortunately impossible to tell what impact this actually had on Microsoft’s revenue numbers, as ZeniMax was not a publicly-traded company before and did not disclose its actual quarterly or annual revenues prior to the acquisition, but it’s very likely that the rise in content revenue was at least somewhat helped by the company suddenly adding a bunch of extra game sales to its balance sheet. The full impact may end up being more evident in future quarters when major new games launch out of ZeniMax’s portfolio.
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Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Only a few steps inland from the beach where your ship is wrecked at the start of Boomerang X, you realize some great calamity has befallen this strange place. As you make your way into the interior of the island, you find a ravaged village and the bodies of the giant mantis people who once lived there. Whatever happened here, they tried to fight it. They failed.
But then you find one of their artifacts: a strange boomerang, which looks more like a throwing star made out of bone (or more specifically, the Glaive throwing blade thing from the movie Krull). The mantis people, the Yoran, weren’t able to use this boomerang to save themselves, but you sure can. Just seconds after finding it, you’ll whip the blade through strange monster creatures made of goo as easily as if you had invented the weapon.
Things move fast in Boomerang X, as we discovered with a hands-on preview of the game that lasted about an hour. The game is actually a series of wave-based arena fights where several brands of these goo creatures appear, and you need to cut them down to size with the boomerang. You play Boomerang X from a first-person perspective, so these fights have a platforming and shooter feel, with the caveat that you only have this one weapon to defend yourself with. The handy thing about your boomerang is that it always returns to your hand (as you’d expect), but that delay in shots means that every throw is a tactical decision.
The arenas are quickly filled with different brands of monsters, like bugs that crawl on the ground and flies that buzz in the air. Some of them are marked with a yellow icon, and you know ahead of time that you need to kill a certain number of these marked enemies to complete the wave. There are always more monsters than the ones that you must kill, so if you’re strategic, you can just drop the important baddies–the rest vanish as the next wave starts.
The thing is, these fights quickly become overwhelming, and you learn very quickly that mastery of the boomerang goes hand-in-hand with mastery of movement. You can throw the boomerang through enemies at close range or hold the throw button for a second to get much more distance, and if the blade takes too long to bounce back to you, there’s a second button dedicated to recalling it. You can also bound through the air at huge distances. You don’t necessarily get much height, but you do get a ton of distance, so in the first few fights of Boomerang X, you’re constantly repositioning to avoid monsters streaming toward you in order to get better angles and slice down the creatures that need destroying.
Your need to stay mobile and keep slicing only gets more intense as you advance through Boomerang X’s arenas, but you quickly learn that the Yoran civilization had more going on than its destroyed huts and spear-filled armories let on. Soon, you start to add new properties to the boomerang–the coolest being the ability to return yourself to the boomerang, rather than the boomerang to you. That effectively means you can huck the boomerang into the air and then zap yourself to its location, sending you flying and giving you aerial combat capabilities.
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After that, Boomerang X becomes a fast-paced, ludicrously vertical experience, where you’re just whipping around arenas, taking down enemy after enemy with precision glaive throws. Right after getting the ability to use your boomerang to rocket through the air, you also gain the ability to focus and slow down time for short bursts while you’re charging the boomerang’s longer throw. With that, never touching the ground becomes an incredibly viable strategy because you can zero in exactly where you want to go or carefully target the tougher enemies’ red ruby-like weak points.
And the enemies do get quite a bit tougher and more unpredictable. While your first few batches of creatures are usually just slow-moving missiles who charge straight at you and die pretty simply, later creatures are less simple to take down. When you hit the arena called the Poisonous Well, after traveling through the Yoran’s statue-filled gardens and giant colosseum, you encounter what feels like the game’s first boss–a huge, poison-spewing frog that leaps into the air and comes down in an attempt to crush you. The frog monster has its weak points on both its back and belly, so you not only need to shoot up over it to hit your mark, but you also have to brave getting beneath its deadly attack.
Boomerang X does a great job of escalating the situation, though, because the frog is just the first wave. More and more enemies are added to the mix, requiring you to keep your head on a swivel as you try to deal with threats. Every fight in Boomerang X is about positioning and target prioritization. You need to pick the places you want to fly to with your boomerang to get yourself away from things like flying squids and poisonous frog puke, and you need to take out the toughest enemies fast before they overwhelm you. But while it’s a challenging prospect to constantly assess and reassess the battlefield while also flying through the air, Boomerang X makes it pretty intuitive; the time-slowing ability gives you just enough of an edge to let you carefully pick your next spot or make an important throw.
As you move on, you gain additional abilities that are dependent on your boomeranging skills. The Scattershot fires a short-range blast in the area in front of you, allowing you to take out lots of targets at once, but only if you manage to kill two enemies with a single boomerang throw first. The Needle fires off a sniper-like bolt in a straight line, but to access it, you need to drop three enemies at once with one of your special attacks like Scattershot. Both tools keep adding to the things that you need to keep in mind in Boomerang X–every move has to be deliberate if you want to stay alive, and even accessing your tools requires doing the math about what to kill, what to avoid, and where to reposition.
The inventiveness of the enemies helps keep you on your toes and makes those decisions a little easier, though. While at first, it can feel like Boomerang X expects you to think about too much stuff all at once, between enemy locations, your abilities, and your own position on the battlefield, a rhythm develops pretty quickly. And that’s where Boomerang X really gets into the flow and becomes fun and intense.
One early arena, the forest-like Yoranwood, brings in a huge giraffe-like enemy that dominates the battlefield by creating a huge lightning storm around its head. This creature is like 50 feet tall, a giant that just strays around, making huge swathes of the arena extremely dangerous to occupy–if you’re beneath the storm cloud, you’re vulnerable to lightning strikes provided you aren’t moving quickly enough, and passing through it will also damage you. To get all the creature’s weak points, you need to hit its legs beneath the cloud, then travel up and hit the top of its head above it. So most of the fight becomes about staying high over the storm and taking out priority targets, like the demon-like monsters that can generate endless hordes of squids that target you like heat-seeking missiles. Developer DANG! does a great job of marrying your tools with the demands of the battlefield in a way that makes keeping enemy abilities and your own in mind feel natural–reacting to dangers, taking down threats, and traveling around the battlefield gives you lots of opportunities to smartly use everything at your disposal until it quickly becomes second nature.
That fast-paced but brainy take on combat and movement is what makes Boomerang X exciting in fight after fight, while its fascinating level design leaves you with clues about the strange and fascinating world you’re exploring. It seems like an easy game to get lost in, both as you’re uncovering the secrets of the Yoran, and as you enter a flow state of perfectly boomeranging through enemies and around arenas.
Boomerang X is slated to release this spring for PC and Nintendo Switch.
