Author: Trafficblast

Garena Free Fire is one of the most popular mobile shooters out there, competing with the likes of Fortnite and PUBG Mobile, and that means that a lot of people play it every single day. Unfortunately, that also means a lot of cheaters flock to the game as well; in fact, according to a new video from the game’s publisher, Garena banned over 30 million cheaters in 2020 alone.

The video goes on to say that 31% of the accounts that were banned were reported by players, meaning that 69% were detected by the game’s automatic anti-cheat measures. Auto-aim was the most common offense for these hackers, with 36% getting banned for it, followed by hacks that let you see through walls, teleport, and one that puts an “antenna” on all opponents, allowing you to see them from afar.

Garena Free Fire is a free-to-play battle royale game for mobile that has a lot in common with Fortnite and PUBG Mobile. Players parachute down to an island with fifty or so opponents and shoot it out in ever-tightening battle circles, with only one player or team surviving to claim victory. Currently, the game is only available for mobile platforms like iOS and Android.

Garena Free Fire isn’t the only game to publicly castigate cheaters. Last year, PUBG Mobile banned over 2 million cheaters in just one week. Recently, megashooter Call of Duty: Warzone has had many problems with cheaters, so much so that an entire team was removed from a $250,000 Twitch tournament after being caught cheating. Earlier in January, many Call of Duty players used a companion app to dodge the game’s skill-based matchmaking (usually known as SBMM), which elite players often complain about.

The publisher of the Lord of the Rings game centered around Gollum has announced the next game it will publish, and it’s completely different. Daedalic Entertainment has announced it will publish the game Hidden Deep, which is a game made by a single person: Łukasz Kałuski.

Kałuski started the game in 2014 as a passion project and Kałuski has been funding it himself for three years. “Without a doubt, Hidden Deep is the biggest project of my life into which I put all my heart and sweat and I love doing this,” Kałuski said on his website.

In Hidden Deep, you explore a “vast suboceanic research and mining facility” that is overrun with aliens. You’re trying to find out what happened to the crew, and you’ll use weapons and gadgets to survive in the depths of the ocean and try to survive as the aliens close in. The game is inspired by movies like Alien and The Thing, as well as the first Half-Life game.

The 2D game features more than 50 levels, along with a challenge mode featuring randomized levels. Check out the announcement trailer and some screenshots above.

A free demo for Hidden Deep will be available on Steam from February 3-9. The full game is slated to release later in 2021 for PC.

As for Daedalic’s next game, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is slated to launch in 2021 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch, alongside last-gen consoles.

The latest generation of video game consoles have been a prime example of what happens when high demand collides with low supply numbers, as UK retailer Argos found out this week when it was targeted by PS5 scalper groups.

As reported by IGN, users of the scalping group Express Notify managed to obtain and share links for the limited supply of new PS5 consoles amongst its members, a full day before Argos publically announced the stock refresh to consumers on January 26.

While Argos did react and shut down any rogue links from the loophole that Express Notify had discovered, by then several of the consoles had already been ordered and collected from Argos outlets. Several members of the group posted pictures of their successful purchases, with some users having bought multiple consoles as well. This resulted in there being even less stock available for the official stock drop, with other technical issues only compounding the experience for legitimate customers.

The Argo website was reported to be in a buggy state, while its official app went down for maintenance that morning, or only worked for customers in select regions. Customers were eventually left defeated, frustrated, and without a PS5 console to show for their troubles. Scalpers have been a persistent problem since next-gen consoles launched, with one report estimating that they have made in excess of $82 million in revenue almost a month after the consoles went on sale.

This has had a harmful impact on the next-gen launch, with some analysts suggesting that scalpers have contributed to depressed sales for physical copies of games when compared to previous console generations. If you’re still hoping to snag a new-gen console for yourself, check out our PS5 stock hub to see which retailer have refreshed supplies available.

Soda manufacturer Pepsi is getting into the content game and has announced it will be launching Cherries Wild, a new game show slated to debut February 14 on Fox. Created by Wes Kauble (Beat Shazam) and hosted by Jason Biggs (American Pie), “this fast-paced half-hour game show will feature two rounds of pop-culture trivia gameplay.” According to the show’s official site, contestants will spin wheels to “attempt to capture all five wild cherries to win” the $250,000 jackpot.

“Consumers are in control more than ever,” Todd Kaplan, vice president of marketing at Pepsi told Variety. “They have skip buttons. They can DVR-fast-forward. They can pay to eliminate ads with a subscription… the concept of interrupting content with your message has serious limitations. As fans are consuming, they don’t want to be interrupted.”

And so, Pepsi is apparently trying to get in front of fans who won’t watch ads, and maybe won’t notice they’re watching a show with Pepsi branding influencing the set design, colors, and even “the shape of the buttons contestants press.” Even more explicitly, reportedly each episode will feature a “Pepsi Wild Moment” when a slot machine appears to “go haywire… and will serve as a prod for viewers to play at home.” Wild.

Executive vice president of ad sales for Fox Entertainment Suzanne Sullivan also told Variety that the show’s commercial breaks will be “free from ads from rival soft drinks.”

Previously, Fox and Pepsi had collaborated on a Pepsi-inspired storyline in the popular drama Empire, a three-week storyline where one of the characters nabs “an all-important commercial endorsement from Pepsi.”

The Guiness Book of World Records has certified another achievement; this one for the largest Lego mini brick build ever, and the construction itself is a Lord of the Rings-themed diorama.

The epic design that you can see in the video below was built by a team of 50 designers who used an astonishing 150 million pieces to construct the set. It took the builders three years.

The diorama is inspired by battles from various battles depicted in The Lord of the Rings, and it is truly a sight to behold. It boggles the mind to think about the time, effort, and planning that was required to pull off such a feat of creativity and engineering.

According to the fly-over video, it appears the diorama includes a number of iconic Middle-earth locations like the Pelennor Fields and the Black Gate, among others.

The diorama is on display in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, and it was first reported on by Lego fansite Brickfanatics.

Years after the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film trilogies ended, the fantasy franchise remains popular. Amazon is currently filming a billion-dollar TV show in New Zealand, while there are multiple new Lord of the Rings games in the works, including an MMO and a title focused on Gollum.

Now that Cyberpunk 2077 has been out in the wild for a few months, the GameSpot team is ready to dig in and give our full impressions of everything the game has to offer. Cyberpunk represents a huge world that changes somewhat based on your path through it, and Kallie, Jake, and Lucy come together on this Spoilercast to discuss how they went through the game, what they found, and what their impressions were as they got lost in the world of Night City.

Check out the video above for the full discussion, but be warned that nothing is off-limits–including side-missions and endings. Kallie, Jake, and Lucy go through their favorite moments in the game, what they liked and disliked about the characters, and how each of the endings struck them based on the story they uncovered. They also talk about the ways their lifepath choices impacted the game–or didn’t.

The new trailer for Raya and the Last Dragon is here. The animated fantasy adventure will hit theaters and Disney+ Premium Access on March 5.

While December’s first trailer showcased the action and visuals, this new promo delivers a lot of plot. Kelly Marie Tran (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) plays Raya, a girl living in Kumandra, a land where dragons were once worshipped. The people of the land are at war with each other, so Raya sets out to locate the last remaining dragon to help restore peace. But what she finds isn’t exactly the spectacular beast we’re used to seeing in this sort of movie. It looks like a funny, exciting, and stunningly animated adventure–check the trailer out below.

Raya and the Last Dragon also stars Awkwafina (Ocean’s 8, The Farewell) as Sisu the dragon, plus Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange), Gemma Chan (Captain Marvel), Sandra Oh (Killing Eve), Daniel Dae Kim (Hellboy), and Alan Tudyk (Rogue One). It’s directed by Moana’s Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada, who previously helmed the acclaimed indie drama Blindspotting.

The movie was originally set for a theatrical release in November but was subsequently delayed to March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In December, Disney announced that it would hit Disney+ simultaneously with theaters. Like Mulan last year, the movie will be available to subscribers as a Premium Access title. The studio hasn’t announced how much Raya will cost, but Mulan cost $30 on top of the $7 per month subscription price.

Disney will also be releasing the next Pixar movie this summer. The film is titled Luca, and it’s set to hit theaters in July, with Up’s Enrico Casarosa directing.

The big Season 5 update for Halo: The Master Chief Collection is nearly here, and among its new additions are a whopping 80 new armor pieces for Halo 3 and Halo: Reach. 343 Industries has now revealed a number of these and spoke more generally about where they came from.

The new armors stem in part from the canceled Russian free-to-play game Halo Online, which was based on the Halo 3 engine. When they are released for Halo: MCC in the Season 5, they will officially become canon, 343 said.

Season 5 is called Anvil, a name that is inspired by the Anvil Station from Halo lore. “At Anvil Station, the UNSC would test skunkworks technologies and clandestine prototypes, some destined for full and successful production runs, other merely serving as a stop-gap in the development pipeline of Mjolnir components, weapon advancements, and more,” 343 said. “Warriors from both sides were eager to face off in field test simulations, hoping to not only advance their respective technologies, but hone their personal proficiency in battle.”

These new armors will be available in Halo 3 and Halo: Reach’s customization menus. One of them stands taller than the rest, if you ask me.

The Mister Chief helmet, pictured above, is described jokingly by 343 as, “The absolute zenith of human endeavor and a perfect encapsulation of human talent.”

Mister Chief is famous in Halo media, with the designed having been created by Halo franchise manager Frank O’Connor earlier in his career.

In the blog post, 343 joked that Mister Chief “might not be hard canon.” You can see the rest of the helmets and armor pieces in the gallery below.

Players who don’t want to see any of the new armors can toggle them off, along with any of the previously added skins for weapons and vehicles.

Gallery

The MCC Season 5 update is scheduled to release on January 27 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It’s a big week for Halo, as 343 will follow that up with the next reveal for Halo Infinite where the developers will discuss the game’s sandbox elements.

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