Author: Trafficblast

If you’re having problems connecting to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Modern Warfare, or Warzone, you’re not the only one. Activision is currently reporting service outages across each game, affecting every platform, including PSN, Xbox Live, Battle.net, Nintendo, Steam, and Epic Games.

The company is working to correct the issue according to Activision Support on Twitter, pointing players to its Online Services status tracker. The status tracker recommends restarting your router, using a wired connection, checking your connection speed, and limiting applications that take up bandwidth to correct normal service issues, but given the scale of the current outage, these probably won’t do much until Activision addresses the problem.

As of 1:37 PM PT, Activision reported the issue “under investigation.” There are no further updates.

Treyarch is teasing more content for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’s Zombies mode. The studio tweeted out an image of what appears to be a new map, alongside the caption “Projekt Endstation was only the beginning.”

Projekt Endstation, which is German for Project Terminus, was the Nazi research program featured in Black Ops Cold War’s Zombies. It introduced the new map Die Maschine. Players believe this image is a brand-new map, rather than an updated version of one seen in Zombies before.

Treyarch has promised that more content would be coming to Black Ops Cold War’s Zombie mode. The mode has been a bright spot for the game after players have complained that the standard multiplayer modes aren’t as sharp as the ones in Modern Warfare. Call of Duty fans have also been unhappy with how Black Ops Cold War has impacted Warzone.

This teaser comes alongside a week-long free-to-play period where players can try several modes without purchasing Black Ops Cold War. Two modes, including the standard Die Maschine and the fast paced two-player “Cranked” mode, will be available during the free period. A mid-season update with new content is also coming on Thursday.

This is the first piece of additional content that Black Ops Cold War’s Zombies mode is getting. The Black Ops 3 community has been adding new content, including map, weapons, and modes, through the Steam Workshop. Their creations are worth a shot for diehard fans of Zombies.

The new RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 video cards that were released late last year have been extremely popular, and justifiably so. They offer substantial performance increases over the RTX 20XX video cards without any price bump. Unfortunately, that means that demand has been extraordinary. For those of you who prefer to build your own PC, it’s nigh impossible to score any of these cards at MSRP. That doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t score these cards at all. PC manufacturers have first dibs on RTX 30XX inventory and thus they’re able to sell prebuilt computers equipped with these video cards. Below are all the configs we’ve found that are orderable. Some ship out within the week while others require a wait time. Check them out below.

Dell and Alienware RTX 30XX Gaming PCs

Alienware gaming PCs are generally more expensive than most other brands, but you get what you pay for in terms of quality and customer support. Unlike most other vendors, Dell designs its own cases and cooling systems. Their desktops (especially the entire Alienware lineup) feature great build quality and brand-name components. Dell’s customer service is also considered one of the best in the business, especially if you opt for the higher tiered packages.

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HP RTX 30XX Gaming PCs

HP OMEN PCs offer high quality construction at a price that usually beats out most other competitors. Like Dell, HP designs their own chassis. The OMEN 30L and 25L gaming PCs are understated yet very well built. They’ve been around for a while and their customer service is reliable.

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Skytech RTX 30XX Gaming PCs

The Skytech brand isn’t that well known, but their prices and availability are what makes them stand out. You can potentially order an RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, or RTX 3080 gaming PC from Amazon and receive it by the end of the month. Because Skytech sources its parts depending on what’s cheapest at the time, the brand and model of individual components can differ from system to system. This is a common practice among many boutique vendors and is what allows them to keep prices low. For a prospective buyer who is budget conscious, this is a great way to get a high-end system at a lower price.

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ABS RTX 30XX Gaming PCs

Much of what can be said about Skytech can be said about ABS. Whereas Amazon carries most of Skytech’s RTX 30XX inventory, Newegg is the premier purveyor of ABS computers.

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Corsair RTX 30XX Gaming PCs

Corsair PCs feature top-shelf components because, obviously, most of it is Corsair branded. Unfortunately, stock is very limited.

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iBuyPower RTX 30XX Gaming PCs

iBuyPower is a boutique vendor that caters almost exclusively to the gamer. You can pick out one of the preconfigured options like the ones below, but their claim to fame is the almost unlimited amount of customizability. Of course, that freedom comes at a price. The options below ship faster than customized configs and are discounted as well.

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CyberPowerPC RTX 30XX Gaming PCs

CyberPowerPC is another boutique gaming PC vendor. The prices rival that of iBuyPowerPC, especially if you pick one of the preconfigured options.

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Eric Song is IGN’s deal curator and spends roughly 1/4 of his income on stuff he posts. Check out his latest Daily Deals Article and subscribe to his IGN Deals Newsletter.

Nickelodeon’s special broadcast of the Wildcard playoff game between the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints was watched by more than two million people, according to CBS. More than 33 million people watched the game across two broadcasts, one on CBS and the other on Nickelodeon.

The viewership from the two broadcasts is higher than any Wildcard playoff game in the last seven years.

The broadcast was weird, to say the least. It had virtual slime exploding in the end zone when teams scored, SpongeBob’s face plastered over field goal nets, and googly eyes placed over players’ faces during shots. Hopefully the wackiness made up for the lack of offense from the Chicago Bears, who only scored 9 points.

The Bears quarterback, Mitchell Trubisky won the NVP award, Nickelodeon’s version of Most Valuable Player, in the loss. He received 49% of the vote with no other player coming close to him. New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton agreed to get drenched in slime after the game, too.

Madden 21 also had a weird crossover with Nickelodeon. The Nickelodeon x Madden event added SpongeBob-themed content to Madden NFL 21’s new mode, The Yard. It includes three new game modes that ask the question, “What if SpongeBob and his pals made the rules?” as well as a new location, SpongeBob Reef-Top, and SpongeBob-inspired gear for you to collect.

You can spend the weekend grinding for epic loot in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone a little faster, as Treyarch has announced a double weapon XP weekend ahead. The event begins on January 15 and runs all the way through the long holiday weekend.

The event begins just after the big mid-season update drops on January 14, which is set to add a new Fireteam map called Sanitorium, a 6v6 map called Dropkick, and a Raid map in Zombies’ Onslaught mode. Zombies also gets a new Cranked mode that resets the timer whenever you take down one of the undead.

Double weapon XP will be active from 10 AM PT on Friday, January 15 through 10 AM PT on the following Tuesday, January 19. This also overlaps with free trial for the Zombies mode, which will last from January 14-21.

A recent update to Black Ops Cold War made new playlist rotations occur on Thursdays instead of Tuesdays. Meanwhile, if you could use a hand getting your hands on the new shotgun before the double weapon XP event drops, check out our Streetsweeper guide.

Pokemon Go‘s big Kanto Tour event takes place next month, and much like Pokemon Go Fest, players will need to purchase a virtual ticket to participate in it. To sweeten the deal a big, developer Niantic is offering an early purchase bonus that will net you some additional tickets for free, but time is running out to take advantage of it.

If you purchase a Kanto Tour ticket by 11:59 PM PT on January 13, you will also receive free tickets for January and February’s Community Day Special Research stories. If you miss that deadline, you can still get a February Community Day ticket for free if you purchase a Kanto Tour ticket by February 3.

The Kanto Tour event takes place on February 20 and is being held to celebrate the Pokemon series’ 25th anniversary. In a call back to the original games, the event will ask players to choose between a “Red Version” and a “Green Version” experience, which will affect what wild Pokemon spawn. Niantic also says that players will have a chance to encounter Shiny versions of all the original 150 Pokemon during the event.

In the meantime, Niantic is holding different “celebration” events focusing on other regions of the Pokemon world. The game’s Sinnoh Celebration is now underway until January 17 and gives players more chances to catch Gen 4 Pokemon. As part of the event, the Legendary Heatran has also returned to five-star Raids for a limited time. January’s Community Day also takes place this Saturday, January 16.

Following the Sinnoh Celebration, Niantic will be holding a Hoenn Celebration. That event will take place from January 19-24, although no other details have been announced just yet. You can catch up on Pokemon Go’s other January 2021 events in our roundup.

The Razer Blade 15 is one of the new gaming laptops coming out of CES 2021 that combines a QHD screen with Nvidia’s new RTX 30-series mobile GPUs. In short, it’s the match we’ve all been screaming for.

Razer’s refresh of its flagship Blade gaming laptop now comes with 10th Gen Intel Core H-series processors and Nvidia’s new RTX graphics, plus a bevy of screen options. In fact, there are a total of nine new configurations for the Razer Blade 15 split between the Base and Advanced Models.

We’re not going to pore over all the different little specs, but the main thing you need to know about the base model is it features a 6-core Intel Core i7-10750H processor and graphics options that go from an Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti to an Nvidia RTX 3060. The Advanced Model starts with an 8-core Intel Core i7-10875H processor and either an Nvidia RTX 3070 or RTX 3080 with up to 16GB of video memory.

The version we’re most excited about is the $2,499 model that combines an 8-core processor and Nvidia RTX 3070 graphics with a 2560 x 1440 resolution IPS display with a 240Hz refresh rate. This is the first time we’re seeing QHD screens on a mainstream gaming laptop, and with the power of Ampere finally coming to laptops it should deliver some pretty high FPS.

The Razer Blade 15 is available for preorder now direct from Razer and will be available for general retail on January 26th

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Kevin Lee is IGN’s Hardware and Roundups Editor. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam