This wild ride will happen on Sunday, July 19. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the PPV will take place at the Performance Center in Florida. Raw, Smackdown, and NXT are all currently taping there for the foreseeable future. However, Extreme Rules viewers will be taking a field trip during the show, as one of the matches will take place in a spooky swamp. This is the horror show, so a spooky swamp is a must.
Depending on where you live in the world, the show will air at various times. Apologies to all the wrestling fans in the UK, as every PPV airs at midnight. Check out the start times below.
Start time:
4 PM PT
6 PM CT
7 PM ET
12 AM BST (July 20)
9 AM AEST (July 20)
Per usual, there will be a Kickoff Show on the WWE Network, starting one hour prior to the main card. There is typically one match on the preshow, and as of this writing, the match hasn’t been announced yet. And if you want to watch Extreme Rules, you’ll have to subscribe to the WWE Network. Aside from live streaming PPVs, you can watch old wrestling matches or docuseries like Undertaker: The Last Ride, which is one of the best shows of the year. The streaming service costs $10 a month, and you can cancel at any time.
As for this year’s Extreme Rules PPV, there are currently six matches on the card, but there should be a few more added between now and the start of the show. We’ll have to wait to see what happens on this week’s episode of Smackdown on Fox. Check out the confirmed matches below.
Match card:
Apollo Crews (c) vs. MVP – United States Championship
Rey Mysterio vs. Seth Rollins – Eye for an Eye Match
Bayley (c) vs. Nikki Cross – Smackdown Women’s Championship
Asuka (c) vs. Sasha Banks – Raw Women’s Championship
Drew McIntyre vs. Dolph Ziggler – WWE Championship
Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt – Wyatt Swamp Fight
While we wait for the full card, check out which way we think a few of these matches will go during the course of the evening.
Predictions:
Asuka vs. Sasha Banks
Asuka works as a champion extremely well. However, her being stuck in this back-and-forth battle with the Women’s Tag Team Champions needs a little bit of spice to keep the story fresh. While I’d rather see Asuka move forward after Extreme Rules as champ, it makes sense to give Banks the title. Let both Bayley and Banks have “dos straps” to elevate their status a little. Then, at the next PPV, give the championship right back to Asuka, and let her move on to some new talent.
Winner: Sasha Banks
Rey Mysterio vs. Seth Rollins
Who will have their eye removed from their skull? That’s the question no one is asking right now. This whole thing is very, very silly. The feud between the two is fine, but the stipulation makes no sense. This feels like a weird, over-the-top story from the Attitude era where WWE (WWF at the time) was pulling out a lot of weird stops–and not all those moments are great. Rollins and Mysterio, on their own, could have a great match. In the end, it’s going to be a trainwreck, and winners and losers don’t matter.
Winner: No one
Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt
Choo choo! Here comes the Strowman express! Because this is taking place in Wyatt’s swamp–as the Fiend/Children’s show host has reverted back to the eater of worlds–we can probably expect some cinematic wackiness in the best way possible. And while seeing Wyatt get the win over his former follower would be great, it would be a better move to have Strowman get the win at Extreme Rules and see this feud carry over to Summerslam, where Strowman will have to face The Fiend. This is a story that has legs, so let’s run with it.
Winner: Strowman
Make sure to come back to GameSpot on Sunday, July 19 for live coverage to the event. If you want to dive deeper into the weird world of wrestling, check out GameSpot’s weekly podcast Wrestle Buddies. Each week, Mat Elfring and Chris E. Hayner talk about the fun side of wrestling, from silly gimmicks to their favorite PPVs. Also, they occasionally interview wrestlers. New episodes arrive every Thursday, and you can check it out on Spotify, Stitcher, and Apple Podcasts.
Like Flick, the chipper C.J. is one of the many special visitors who will periodically stop by your island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Whereas Flick will buy your bugs and craft bug models for you, C.J. is all about seasports, and he’ll purchase any fish you’re willing to sell at a higher price than you’d normally get at Nook’s Cranny, making his visits a great chance to earn bells. But when exactly does C.J. show up, and how do you get fish models?
When Does C.J. Show Up?
Like most other Animal Crossing special visitors, there’s no telling when C.J. will appear on your island; his visits are completely random, so you’ll just need to check in every day and see if he’s there. On average, however, you’ll see him on your island at least every other week, and when he does show up, he’ll be around for a full 24 hours, from 5 AM to 5 AM.
C.J. during the Fishing Tourney
During the Fishing Tourney, C.J. will be camped out next to his tent in your town’s plaza. During his regular visits, however, he’ll be wandering around your island, so you’ll need to track him down when you want to sell him some fish. He’s sporting a distinctive yellow and black fishing vest and a too-small-for-his-head backwards cap, so he shouldn’t be too hard to spot. (It also helps that he’s the only beaver in the game, so you’ll know for sure when you’ve found him.)
Selling Fish To C.J.
Like Flick with bugs, C.J. will buy any fish you have for 150% their usual market value during his visits. This applies to any critter you’ve fished up out of the river or ocean, even if it isn’t technically a fish (such as frogs and crawfish). However, C.J. won’t buy sea creatures that you caught by diving, so don’t bother stocking up on those before you speak to him.
Before C.J. will buy your fish, however, he’ll ask you to complete a Seasports Challenge. This typically involves catching three fish of a certain size in a row, which means you’ll need to land all three of them sequentially without scaring one off. Once you’ve completed the challenge, C.J. will buy any fish you have at the aforementioned rate.
Fish Models From C.J.
In addition to buying your fish, C.J. will also tell you he can commission his talented artist partner, Flick, to create a fish model for you. Just as with Flick’s bug models, you’ll need to bring three of the same fish to C.J. to make a model. The model will be shipped to you the following day in the mail, and you can place it around your island as decorative furniture or sell it at Nook’s Cranny for three times the normal going rate of that particular fish.
Fishing Tourney
On top of his random visits, C.J. will host a Fishing Tourney periodically throughout the year. Like Flick’s Bug-Off, the Fishing Tourney gives you three minutes to reel in as many fish as you can; the more fish you land, the more points you’ll score, and you can redeem those points for special fish-themed furniture, clothing, and other exclusive items.
The Fishing Tourney takes place on the second Saturday of the following months. You can read more about how the event works and what prizes are up for grabs in our Fishing Tourney guide.
Fishing Tourney Schedule
January
April
July
October
Best Fish To Sell To C.J.
While C.J. will buy any fish for much higher than they normally cost, making even common ones like black bass generally worth keeping, you’ll naturally make the most bells by selling him fish that are already worth a lot of money. Since you can’t stack fish in your inventory like you can fruits and crafting materials, your pocket space will be fairly limited, so you may as well stock up on the fish that’ll get you the most bells.
Below, you can see some of the most valuable fish you can sell to C.J. right now in both Northern and Southern Hemisphere islands. The prices have been adjusted from their original value to the 150% value that C.J. will pay you. You can also see the full list of fish in Animal Crossing: New Horizons here.
While Sucker Punch Productions’ latest PlayStation 4 exclusive arrives this Friday, Snap Inc. and Sony have released a new Snapchat filter that turns you into the “Ghost” from Ghost of Tsushima.
The filter, which is available for all Snapchat users, gives you the same mask protagonist Jin Sakai wears in the many trailers showcasing him becoming the “Ghost,” a stealthy assassin who forgoes the samurai code in order to retake Tsushima island from the gruesome Mongols. The mask is the same one featured in Ghost of Tsushima’s Collector’s Edition, which also comes with a display stand.
You can get the Ghost of Tsushima filter from the Snapcode below.
Reviews for Ghost of Tsushima have officially hit the Internet, and critics are calling it a worthwhile send-off that wraps up this current console generation. In GameSpot’s Ghost of Tsushima review, editor Edmond Tran awarded the game a 7/10, saying, “Ghost of Tsushima is at its best when you’re riding your horse and taking in the beautiful world on your own terms, armed with a sword and a screenshot button, allowing the environmental cues and your own curiosity to guide you. It’s not quite a Criterion classic, but a lot of the time it sure looks like one.”
Check out our Ghost of Tsushima pre-order guide to learn more about the bonuses and editions available to purchase before the game launches on July 17 for PS4.
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Among the first games that’ll usher in the PlayStation 5, and thus one of the first to bring on the next console generation, is Counterplay Games’ Godfall. We’ve seen Godfall in action a few times now in trailers and videos, but some of the most intriguing tidbits about the game are things its developers have only mentioned in passing, and which haven’t yet made it into trailers or gameplay videos.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Godfall is its combination of genres. Counterplay says it sees Godfall as expanding on action-RPGs and loot game genres to create something new–what it calls a “looter-slasher.” GameSpot talked with Godfall director Keith Lee to find out exactly what the looter-slasher is all about, more about how Godfall will play, and what’s going on in its strange fantasy world.
“The vision for making this game was how we can merge [looting with] third-person melee combat, getting really juicy, tight combat mechanics, the moment to moment flow, and that experience, because a lot of the people on our team love skill-based action combat titles,” Lee explained. “Yet, also, there are people on our team, given our background having worked on Diablo and working at Blizzard, that we’ve always had a love for loot-driven action-RPGs. We love playing Borderlands. So really, the original premise and the concept was, can we have a game where it’s somewhere in the middle, meaning that it’s one part loot-driven, as well as one part skill-driven. It’s more like an intrinsic mastery of the combats while the loot is more of an extrinsic reward system for you to be motivated to play the game.”
Lee said that mastering Godfall’s broad combat system is going to be a big part of the experience, but that searching for more and better loot will be part of that experience. It comes back to Valorplates, the armor at the core of Godfall’s gameplay. There are 12 Valorplates for you to unlock as you play Godfall, each with its own specific set of stats, a passive buff for your character, and an “Archon ability.” A Valorplate’s Archon ability sounds pretty much like an ultimate ability in a game like Overwatch, or a Super ability in a game like Destiny 2–a unique, powerful thing you can use only once you’ve charged up a bar to unlock it. So because of the different stats and Archon abilities that each Valorplate offers, they sound as though they’ll function much like classes–and you’ll want to choose the right Valorplate for a given mission, or for your role in a group if you’re playing cooperatively.
Apart from your Valorplates, you’ll have other gear that determines how you play as well. There are five different classes of weapons to factor into your loadout, offering different styles of combat, as well as “augments” you can equip into your Valorplates to add different perks and stat changes.
Your character has an overall level that you’ll increase as you play, rather than leveling up your individual Valorplates. Increasing your level unlocks skill points you can allocate on a skill grid that’ll give you new abilities. As in other loot-driven action-RPGs, you’ll find stronger weapons as you play, but you’ll need to keep increasing your level to access them. If you find weapons you like in particular, though, you can use crafting materials to increase their power by upgrading them in the Seventh Sanctum, your character’s home base.
As Lee explained it, chasing loot is Godfall is perhaps a little less about always looking for something with better numbers than what you’re carrying, and more about finding things to customize your loadout to better match how you want to play, and how you’ll deal with different situations.
“From our perspective, we’re less about generating an infinite number of combinations, but more thinking about our loot a little bit more like Monster Hunter: World or maybe like God of War, where the loot is a little bit more specific,” he said. “But then, each loot piece is very meaningful or impactful if you slot it into your Valorplate or if you get a very specific weapon. So that’s been one of the big differences, is focusing on the quote-unquote ‘quality’ of the loot rather than just pure infinite quantity.”
That focus on a meaningful loot system pairs with Godfall’s focus on melee combat, which Lee compared to 2019’s God of War or Devil May Cry 5, as opposed to something like a Soulsborne game. You’ll be looking to control the battlefield, prioritize some enemies over others, and create combos.
Godfall includes more than 90 kinds of enemies, Lee said, so you’ll have a lot of potential combinations coming at you, and learning to skillfully deal with them is a big focus of Godfall’s gameplay.
“The way that we’ve designed our combat pillars from the ground up, when we first started designing in combat, is that offense is greater than defense,” Lee said. “So we really think about making sure that the player can get that feeling of offensive power fantasy. So … most Soulsborne games are much more defensive, meaning that you want to isolate. You want to do only a one-on-one. It’s disadvantageous for you to fight two-on-one. You want to always be very systematic with how you play in general. While for us, we want you to feel that you can dominate and completely eviscerate your enemies if you know how to play, plus have the right gear and loadouts. So for us, we have a much broader spectrum of enemies, more variety, and as a result of that, we also embrace many-to-one.”
The idea in Godfall is that you’re always pushing forward, prioritizing enemies, and leaning into your attack, Lee said. You’ll still face tough one-on-one fights, though. Godfall is divided into missions that you’ll choose from the Seventh Sanctum, along with your loadout. Story missions will have mid- and end-bosses you’ll face as you advance through Godfall’s tale, while “Hunt” missions will send you out to track down, learn about, and face bosses in particular. So expect some big fights that are different from the many-against-one battles with enemies you’ll fight along the way. Lee said going after and taking down bosses is one of the big structural elements of Godfall, and that you can expect a whole lot of them; story missions have their own set of bosses that are different from the ones you’ll seek out and destroy in Hunt missions. All that is part of your overarching mission to climb the Skybreaker Monolith at the center of Godfall and kill the mad god at the top.
Godfall was among the first games confirmed for the PS5, and as such, it’s taking advantage of the new console’s capabilities. Lee said the game takes advantage of the PS5’s solid-state drive for faster transfers and higher graphical performance, but one of the big focuses for Counterplay is in haptic feedback–the sense of “feeling” the game you get through controller rumble.
“What’s exciting about the DualSense controller is the fact that it has stereo vibration in terms of the rumblers, as well as resistance on the triggers, so one of the things that you can do is to create, for the first time, a sensation of your weapon hitting another weapon and how it resonates,” Lee explained. “The fact that if you’re sliding across the ground, depending on the surface of the material–you might slide on gravel or sand or water–the way the vibrations work really feel like the way that those surfaces would feel. So it’s a lot more powerful in terms of creating that experience. For us, a 3D melee combat game, this becomes really exciting, because we have lots of different types of weapons, we can have the clash of weapons, that there could be ways that we can notify the player if an enemy is offscreen about to attack you, because it is always very challenging to get a full awareness of your surroundings in a third-person melee combat game.”
Godfall is slated to release in holiday 2020.
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Overwatch‘s new event, Sigma’s Maestro Challenge, features a new legendary skin for the tank Hero. The event runs from July 14 to July 27 and offers rewards for players who secure enough wins during the challenge.
Like previous challenges, Sigma’s Maestro is focused exclusively on Sigma, not offering other skins or cosmetics. Overwatch’s larger events, like the Anniversary 2020 event, typically offer a wider variety of new item.
Overwatch Sigma’s Maestro Challenge Rewards
3 Wins | 2 Player Icons
6 Wins | 1 New Emote
9 Wins | 1 New Legendary Skin: Maestro Sigma
You can also earn up to six new sprays by watching between 2 to 6 hours of Overwatch on Twitch during the event. Alongside the challenge Blizzard has released a new soundtrack, Cities and Countries, a collection of themes from Overwatch maps and missions.
Hearthstone‘s next expansion, Scholomance Academy, is releasing in August. The new set will introduce 135 new cards including 40 new “Dual-Class” cards, a new Spellburst mechanic, and more. GameSpot spoke with game designers Chadd Nervig and Liv Breeden about the upcoming set, the new normal for how the company is approaching balance adjustments, and how an unused Demon Hunter power from Ashes of Outland helped create the new Spellburst in this set.
The last expansion [Ashes of Outland] was very grim and dark and metal. This one is a lot more lighthearted and kind of cute. When you’re deciding the order of expansions, how much do you consider what came before and what’s coming after to strike a balance?
Chadd Nervig: We definitely do keep that in mind. In general, Hearthstone tends to aim for whimsy and charm. Ashes of Outland was one of our darker sets, and this lightened things up. There’s still, “What is Kel’thuzad doing in the basement?” There’s still some darker undertones here and there.
Liv Breeden: I think the benefit of switching it up is it doesn’t create a new normal. If it’s just dark all the time, it starts to feel really sad and it’s not really Hearthstone anymore. But if we’re doing only the happy, excited sets, then they just feel the same. It’s good to have that balance of up and down between really dark and very light. That way you can play with the differences.
Dual-Class Cards
You mentioned the “dual majors,” dual class cards. From a visual design standpoint, they’ve got a unique look for Hearthstone cards, split down the middle. That’s a different way of signifying the duality of it than how you marked it with Gadgetzan.
Nervig: Yeah, Gadgetzan’s were a little different. Those were these three factions within Gadgetzan that those tri-class cards were themed after, and they had their own specific mechanics. These are explicitly dual-class, themed after the combination of those classes. Each dual-class represents a course that you could take at Scholomance Academy. For example, the Illusions course is taken by both the Mages and Rogues. You see different mechanics and on those cards that form the overlap between those.
Druid-Hunter Legendary dual-class card toys with beasts
Breeden: Gadgetzan is very much a “What faction do you belong to? What is the banner that you hold?” This really is “What makes these two classes special?” I think when you look at it, what’s the best way to do that? What’s the best way to show that this card is not like this other faction, it is really a Rogue card, but it’s also really a Mage card.
Nervig: There’s also a related thing here. We made these new card frames to visually show you the different colors of the cards, to show off the different classes. But we also took a look at the weapon frame. [The existing weapon frame] doesn’t really clearly show what class it belongs to. “What class is this weapon?” has been a really common feedback point. At the same time, doing these new card frames, we also revamped the weapon frames. You can clearly see the class on all weapons now.
“‘What class is this weapon?’ has been a really common feedback point. … We revamped the weapon frames. You can clearly see the class on all weapons now.”
You’ve been a lot more open in recent months talking about class identity. That’s something that needs to be clearly established before you make an expansion like this, where you mash up different classes by what they have in common.
Nervig: Class identity has been a major focus for us for a couple years now. The dual-classes are interesting in that, at first glance, you might think that blurs class identity. Really, the point of class identity is thinking about what the class’ capabilities are. How they do the thing is often flavorful. It doesn’t make what you expect a Mage to be able to do, it doesn’t violate that by letting them have a combo card. We get to use the mechanics from both sides. You’re not going to see Priest get a bunch of card draw through the dual class cards.
Breeden: It really made it a lot easier because we had just recently done the class identity stuff. We’ve got this sheet that says, “What are these classes good at? What are they bad at?” And then we were able to reference that, and be like, “Okay, so what works in this circle?” It is a complete circle of every class bleeds into two other classes. But it also means that we can do really interesting things, too. Druid and Hunter both do beasts, so in the crossover of the classes, it’s about beasts. But how they do beasts is very different. You can just look at Hunter beasts in general, they’re very swarmy, but Druid beasts are huge.
Was it any different finding matches for Demon Hunter, since it’s so new and it’s not quite as established?
Breeden: Demon Hunter is quite new, but a lot of these matches are flavor and mechanical focused. The Demon Hunter and Hunter matchup, I mean, come on.
Nervig: It could have gone to Demon Hunter/Rogue, for example. There’s an overlap there as well that we could have pulled from. We ended up going Demon Hunter to Warlock.
One dual-class card, Devolving Missiles, is a mashup of two popular cards. Was that often the spark of design?
Nervig: Absolutely. That sort of thing happened, at least at the starting point, a lot of the time. Lightning Bloom is basically Innervate, back when it was extremely overpowered. Now, can we do that, but offset that with the overload mechanic. That’s kind of neat. It’s like stealing two Mana from next turn in order to do a crazy thing this turn.
Breeden: We also leaned into the Demon Hunter/Warlock as one of the new mechanics. They’ve got a mechanic for their soul magic which is exclusive to just them, just this set. It’s super cool, because we can explore new spaces.
Devolving Missiles combines Arcane Missles and Devolve
The Transfer Student has different effects based on the board. Is there a plan to continue adding new effects as you add more boards?
Breeden: Our plan is that we’ll update it while it’s still in Standard, and when it rotates out, it’ll be a “Discover card from this card set.”
How Demon Hunter Influenced Spellburst
What was the origin of the Spellburst mechanic?
Nervig: We wanted to have a mechanic that really fits the fantasy here of, you’re at Scholomance Academy, this is a place all about learning magic. We experimented with things like when you cast a spell, this happens. By making it a one-time effect, something not repeatable, lets us expand out to do a whole lot of different designs with it, not just things that can scale infinitely. We get some really interesting stuff, too, like the Goody Two-Shields. You probably don’t want to cast a spell right after playing her. You want to let your Divine Shield get used up, then cast a spell, probably the next turn.
“We tried Bloodthirst in the previous set with Demon Hunter. While we didn’t keep that, we did really like the one-time trigger.”
Breeden: We tried Bloodthirst in the previous set with Demon Hunter. We wanted to do something really aggressive. We had a one-time trigger when your opponent takes damage. You play these cards, then you hit him in the face, then your Bloodthirst trigger would go off. We played around with that for the Demon Hunter before we settled on Outcast. It pushed him into this extremely narrow space, where this was all they did was go face.
While we didn’t keep that, we did really like the one-time trigger part. It creates this really interesting game dynamic where it’s not just Battlecry, it’s sometime later. There’s more gameplay to it than just playing my cards. I have to play other cards, or I have to make decisions. It’s really skill-testing in when I do it, what spell do I use, how do I construct my deck to make use of this. I think iterating on Bloodthirst to come up with Spellburst really shows that one-time triggers are really exciting, and we might do even more in the future.
Goody Two-Shields shows Spellburst effect
Rapid-Response Balance Adjustments
When unveiling Ashes of Outland, in interviews, Blizzard said it consciously made Demon Hunter cards a little higher on the power scale than usual, because it was so new. In the months since have been nerfs, nerfs, nerfs. Is the team still making Demon Hunter cards a tinge stronger?
Nervig: Our goal for Demon Hunter was always to be that they are competitive with the other classes. We also knew that this is a brand-new class, and a whole lot of what we know about balancing classes or balancing cards relies on this existing knowledge about how a class plays, what their expectations are, how they interact with the other classes, that sort of thing. We didn’t have that strong base of knowledge yet with Demon Hunter, because it’s brand new, and internal testing can only show us so much.
We knew going into it that, realistically speaking, the chances were high that we would need to make balance adjustments. So we prepared for that, and we took a different, more ready to quickly react and make changes approach to balance, starting with Ashes of Outland. I think the results there speak for themselves.
Are you going to be as prepared and agile to make quick changes, not necessarily only to Demon Hunter? Is that the philosophy going forward?
Nervig: I think this new philosophy has been working really well for us. Keeping things lively, keeping things new and fresh is really important for us. I wouldn’t expect quite the same level, but we’re ready. We’re able to make changes quickly.
“Keeping things lively, keeping things new and fresh is really important for us. I wouldn’t expect quite the same level, but we’re ready. We’re able to make changes quickly.”
Breeden: We like to experiment with different release schedules. We tried something really different with our patching schedule as well, for balances. Feedback’s been really positive. I think that’s the best way the community can show us that they like something, is to provide positive feedback. I think this expansion shows that every single time we talk to people or have interviews, people are mentioning how positive the rate at which we are fixing and adjusting things is being received.
The only criticism I’ve even heard of the patches recently was just how close this next set of nerfs is coming to the Masters Tour tournament. Was that a consideration when planning out this next one?
Nervig: We try to keep esports in mind. It is really important to us. In this case, this patch is coming out coinciding with the announcement, so there’s not a whole lot of flexibility there. Because of the proximity to the Masters Tour, we could early announce what the changes are going to be, so that players can start adjusting their decks based on that, or making predictions, or at least just thinking about it, giving them more time to think about it. The fact that Masters Tour is still close was definitely a contributing factor to why we announced the changes before actually making them.
You gotta respect a game that tells you exactly what it is upfront. Within minutes of starting Superhot: Mind Control Delete, you’re told, in those now infamous subliminal text cards that pop up from time to time in the previous games, that yes, this game will give you more. No story. No closure. No long-winded explanation of what happened in the last two games. Just more senseless shooting, and then it’ll be over. And to Superhot Team’s credit, they deliver on their promises. This is, definitely, a lot more Superhot. But it’s also a few other things that aren’t nearly as welcome.
Mind Control Delete is still fundamentally following the same mantra as the other two games: Time Moves When You Do. It’s still a first-person shooter that places you in sparse, stark white, and self-contained little killzones, against a small group of keen-to-kill goons made out of, seemingly, fragile red glass. Your job is to John Wick your way out of whatever wild scenario you’ve been placed in, using objects in your environment to your advantage. There are guns, but with very limited ammo. So, when you don’t have a gun, grab a sword. If you don’t have a sword, grab a knife. If you don’t have a knife, grab a book, a pen, or a teacup. Even with a relatively limited moveset, the time mechanics at play turn what would be a breathless massacre at full speed into a sort of kinetic chess game, allowing you the ability to plot every maneuver down to the millisecond. While gunplay is certainly your bread and butter in Superhot, there’s a maniacal glee that comes with taking out a guy wielding a katana by throwing a typewriter at him in Superhot that makes it truly special. That winning formula is still very much in full effect here in Mind Control Delete, but a few new ingredients have been added to the concoction: rogue-lite elements. And while the formula hasn’t been ruined in the least, the effectiveness has been lessened a tiny bit.
For starters, the game’s levels, which were once all unique, impeccably staged setpieces, are now relegated to around a dozen or so themed rooms–such as lab, disco, prison, or casino–with enemy/item placement and your own start point randomized each time. There’s more variety to be had than one might think in that randomization. The environments are elaborate and full of tiny, devilish design elements for you to mount for a better vantage, mail slot-sized holes to shoot through, or daredevil jumps to make out of windows to stomp an enemy from above. Even despite the minimalist aesthetic, these are still impeccably designed, functional places that still evoke the tense feeling of getting into a shootout in a place clearly meant for public use. The environments follow real world placements for everyday objects, which means using them to your advantage–using an open car door to evade a bullet, grabbing the handle off a slot machine to use as a weapon, or getting behind a DJ booth to take cover behind a speaker. Suspension of disbelief in the sparseness of it all tends to vanish in the moment. There are vast, glorious opportunities for you to surprise your enemies, or vice versa, and it takes hours to get to a point where things start to wear thin.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what ends up happening as the game goes on. Each stage–represented as cursor nodes on an MS-DOS prompt screen–is typically between five and 10 of these levels, strung together. The fewer there are to tackle at once, the less likely it is for a particular node to wear out its welcome, but by the time you reach the final grouping of nodes, you’re doing runs of up to 15 stages at once, with no way to save progress if you fail or need to duck out. Superhot’s always been a game best enjoyed in small doses, and having to plow through such long stretches of gameplay in the same grouping of stages every time feels like forced gluttony.
That’s a problem exacerbated by the game’s permadeath. As opposed to the other Superhot games, where you’re just as fragile as your enemies, you can take two hits during the course of a node. That’s a good change; it encourages taking risks you might not have when taking one bullet was game over. But there’s a catch: You’re also sent all the way back to the beginning of a node if you lose the second of your two hearts–again, not a huge deal when you’ve only got five stages to work through, but utterly demoralizing when it’s 15.
The good news is that the game provides ample opportunity to temper some of those problems with hacks, game-breaking “cheats” unlocked during the course of gameplay. Once unlocked, every two or three nodes or so, you can choose one from a random pair of your hacks to apply for the rest of that node. Running low on hearts? You could choose to heal up, or even raise the number of hearts to a maximum of five. Tired of having to disarm an enemy for a weapon? There’s a hack to start with a random gun. That’s before you get to the wild, Matrix-y hacks, like deflecting every bullet currently in the air back at enemies with one sword swipe, headshots that ricochet towards the next nearest enemy if they land, and having your own body explode with shurikens whenever you take a hit. Despite breaking the game, using the hacks effectively still takes timing, strategy, and smarts. That’s especially the case once the game decides to start cheating back, introducing spiked enemies and proximity mines to the mix. The fact that the game still feels mostly balanced and fair despite all that is impressive.
The hacks aren’t a fix-all solution to the game’s rogue-lite issues, however. The hacks are there, but getting the exact combination of benefits that work within your particular playstyle is a matter of luck rather than skill. Slowing down bullets before they get too close to you can be great, but if you don’t see the bullets coming to begin with–a bigger problem in Mind Control Delete due to the sheer number of enemies that spawn in later stages–you’re still taking a hit, and taking the wrong hit at the wrong time can still send you rocketing back to the start of a node.
The problem with the game isn’t whether it’s fun; it’s maintaining that fun in the later, vicious hours, when Superhot is less about being a wild user-friendly powertrip and more about surgical precision at all costs. There are surprises up the game’s sleeve from time to time. The most effective of them are some new, terrifying enemies with their own hacked powers who cannot be harmed, only avoided. What little the game has for a story pertains to them as well, and despite being sparse, what’s there is subtly creepy. The meta commentary is much less subtle, but there’s also not really enough of it to get annoying.
The best things about Mind Control Delete are the ones that enhance what made Superhot stand out as a cunning deconstruction of action games and those who play them. There’s quite a ton of that here, and, as mentioned, in small doses, it’s a pulse-pounding, worthy companion to both Superhot and Superhot VR. But if there was any common element to both those titles, it’s in examining why other games do things the way that they do. The fundamental flaw of Mind Control Delete is that it’s adding complication to a game premise that works largely because of its simplicity. That complexity hasn’t ruined Mind Control Delete. There’s still a ton of enjoyment to be had, and there’s still nothing else quite like it out there. But without a doubt, it’s fun that expires a lot faster than the original.
Watch Dogs: Legion’s dystopian depiction of post-Brexit London looks to be one of the more interesting game worlds of 2020. When the DedSec hacking group is framed for a crime it didn’t commit by a shadowy entity, London is soon taken over by private military and the city becomes extremely unstable. Since the premise is one of the most intriguing aspects of Watch Dogs: Legion, you may be interested in Watch Dogs Legion: Resistance Report, a companion book that releases October 27, two days before the game arrives on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
6479627 – Watch Dogs Legion Companion Book – Amazon pre-order
Watch Dogs Legion Companion
Watch Dogs Legion: Resistance Report releases October 27.
Watch Dogs Legion: Resistance Report is available to pre-order now at Amazon for $30. The book’s premise is similarly interesting, too. The 144-page hardcover is set up as an investigation conducted by an American reporter who is looking into the efforts to reclaim London. It even figures to have some narrative drama, since the “very forces he’s investigating threaten to encircle him.”
The book is comprised of research files, both text and illustrations, and chronicles everything from the city itself, to the various factions working throughout London, to the in-game gadgets and weapons you’ll tinker with in Watch Dogs: Legion.
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Watch Dogs: Legion Short Film Trailer | Ubisoft Forward 2020
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Though not discounted at the moment, with Amazon’s pre-order price guarantee, you’ll get the lowest price offered up until release if you choose to order now.
One of the coolest new weapons to come to Destiny 2 in the Season of Arrivals is the Falling Guillotine, a huge blade that looks like Cloud Strife’s Buster Sword and can be spun in a circle like you’re imitating Link from The Legend of Zelda. Falling Guillotine does a ton of damage to enemies and is a favorite for eliminating big boss-type creatures at the moment–and it seems part of what made it so good was a bug in how it dished out damage. Destiny 2’s latest update does away with the bug, but thankfully, Falling Guillotine seems relatively unscathed.
Bungie outlined the details of its new Destiny 2 patch, Update 2.9.1, on its website, and the patch fixes a whole bunch of bugs. One of them was the fact that “Vortex Frame swords” like Falling Guillotine weren’t seeing their Heavy attacks ending properly–so they were dishing out more damage than they should have.
That bug has been squashed, along with a bunch of others. The good news is, despite what should effectively be a nerf to Falling Guillotine, the sword is still fully capable of ravaging enemies, including the champions who appear during the Contact event. That’s a favorite way to use the sword right now, and it still works beautifully.
Check out the full list of fixes and changes below.
ACTIVITIES
Contact Public Event
Fixed an issue where players could collect and deposit 15 motes prior to unlocking the Umbral Mastery II gift on the Prismatic Recaster.
Trials
Increased Glimmer rewards in Trials of Osiris.
Nightmare Hunts
Fixed an issue where Nightmare Hunts could grant more Season of Arrivals rewards than intended.
Raids
The following raids no longer have weekly reward limits from main encounters:
Leviathan
Eater of Worlds
Spire of Stars
Crown of Sorrow
Scourge of the Past
Note: Secret Chests will continue to have weekly lockouts
All armor from the above listed Featured Raids has been updated to use the Season of Arrivals infusion cap.
Last Wish and Garden of Salvation raid weapons and armor have been updated to use the Season of Arrivals infusion cap.
GAMEPLAY AND INVESTMENT
Investment
Fixed an issue where the Heavy Hitters Triumph was not properly tracking which Contact event bosses had been defeated.
Fixed an issue where the Season of the Worthy Rank Stat Tracker was not appearing properly.
Pursuits
Fixed an issue where players had the Guardian Games quest in their inventory well after Titans completely dominated the event.
Hunters are still pretty sad about it.
Fixed an issue where there was inconsistent use of weapon and ammo types in High-Stakes Heist quest steps.
Fixed an issue where Seraph weapons were not counting towards Sleeper Simulant catalyst quest progression.
Weapons
Fixed a rare crash with Anarchy.
Fixed an issue with Umbral Enhancements III that was preventing Cold Denial and Falling Guillotine from getting an additional trait.
Fixed an issue with Vortex Frame Swords where the Heavy attack wasn’t ending properly over the network.
Fixed an issue where various Season of Arrivals weapons are missing collections entries.
Armor
Fixed an issue that was preventing Season of the Worthy Seasonal Armor Mods from having a chance to be purchasable on Banshee-44.
Fixed an issue that was preventing players from purchasing the Unflinching Machine Gun mod from Banshee-44.
Other
Added the ability for Season of Arrivals armor to use Charged with Light mods from Season of Dawn.
Corrected some incorrect armor mod icons for several Season of Arrivals mods.
Corrected incorrect perk descriptions for two Season of Arrivals mods – Reactive Pulse (formerly Font of Light) and Radiant Light – to correctly match their functionality.
Added the Season of Arrivals mod socket to the pieces of the EDZ destination armor set that did not have them.
The Unstoppable Pulse Rifles artifact mod will no longer cause non-Pulse Rifle damage to stagger Unstoppable Champions while aiming down sights of a Pulse Rifle.
The Rival Warlock Ghost Shell from Guardian Games will now show Ghost Projections.
Fixed an issue where the Unstoppable Pulse Rifle mod icon was displaying a Scout Rifle.
Fixed a bug that affected aim assistance when shooting through Barricades using Citan’s Ramparts.
UI/UX
Eververse
The header for the Flair section of Eververse now displays the correct text.
Controller Remapping
Updated the description for “Toggle Sprint.”
Xûr
Updated description of Exotic Engrams on Xûr, as players may now purchase more than one on a given a week using an Exotic Cypher.
Subtitles
Fixed an issue where subtitles for Season of Arrivals Drifter dialogue could misgender players as “brother” even when using female character.
MISC.
General
Adjusted Strike weekly bounty pool for the Seasonal focus.
Scorn, Cabal, Vex, and Fallen variations should no longer appear during Season of Arrivals.
Fixed an issue where the first sleeper node “CB.NAV/RUN.()Dynamo.Approach.Arch” was not appearing for players attempting to complete the Nascent Dawn Exotic quest.
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Filming on Lana Wachowski’s fourth Matrix film–her first without her sibling and longtime collaborator Lilly Wachowski–has resumed in Berlin. But the film’s release date was needfully pushed pack to April 1, 2022, effectively ruining the long prophesied Keanu Reeves double feature with John Wick 4, still scheduled for May 21, 2021. While we wait, however, there’s plenty of Matrix gossip to tide us over. For instance, on a recent episode of Roger Deakins’ filmmaking podcast, Team Deakins, the cinematographer for the first three Matrix films, Bill Pope, discussed the stark differences between shooting the first Matrix film and the subsequent two, Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions.
“Everything that was good about the first experience was not good about the last two,” Pope said. “You weren’t free anymore. People were looking at you. There was a lot of pressure. In my heart, I just didn’t like them. I felt we should be going in another direction. There was a lot of friction and a lot of personal problems, which showed up on screen, to be honest with you. It was not my most elevated moment, nor was it anyone else’s. The Wachowskis had read this damn book by Stanley Kubrick that said, ‘Actors don’t do natural performances until you wear them out.’ So let’s go to take 90! I want to dig Stanley Kubrick up and kill him.”
“There is something about making a shoot that long, 276 shoot days, that is mind numbing and soul numbing and it numbs the movie,” Pope said of shooting the second and third Matrix films, which were filmed concurrently.
Pope had far more than just criticisms to air. Deakins’ relatively new podcast is an exciting discovery because it gets into nitty gritty cinema details that many fans crave. Pope speaks casually of the long process the Wachowskis went through to make the first Matrix film, why he thinks it made that film better, the Wachowskis’ indomitable bargaining partnership, and how the birth of the bullet time visual effect led the team to hire John Gaeta, who Pope describes as “a visual effect supervisor who’d never made a movie before.” The whole episode is a fascinating listen. Pope will not return for the upcoming Matrix sequel, with Sense8 and Cloud Atlas cinematographer John Toll attached.
