Author: Trafficblast

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Finding the perfect ring to ask that all-important question can be a daunting task, but if you and your partner are both big Pokemon fans then The Pokemon Company might have just made things a little easier. At least, with some of its new Pikachu-inspired engagement rings.

The new line–a collaboration between The Pokemon Company and Japanese jewelry company Ginza Tanaka–features three ring styles all inspired by the anime’s most recognizable character. Each band can be bought with either pure silver or gold bands, with prices that range from ¥115,500 to ¥346,500 (around $1,054 to $3,225). You can see all the designs below.

Although the simple Pikachu emblem design is cute, it’s not something that immediately screams engagement ring status. The more elegant Pikachu tail design certainly strikes a balance of “if you know, you know” while also remaining a striking look without the Pokemon context. The Pikachu ear design though? That’s certainly a bold choice, and especially prickly if you don’t immediately identify it as the ears of the yellow electric mouse and see…something else entirely.

The range is on sale now in Japan through The Pokemon Centre. If you’re not looking to make a life-long commitment and just want to keep trying to catch ’em all, Pokemon Sword and Shield’s first DLC recently launched on Nintendo Switch, and Tencent is funding a Pokemon-based MOBA for Switch and mobile later this year.

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The Atari VCS didn’t make its original launch date of March 2020, but thankfully, the console has a new release window. The Indiegogo-funded system will ship out to backers this fall, which is also when it’ll be available at retailers. The classic-inspired console is still available for pre-order at many locations, so if you haven’t snagged one yet, you still have time.

VCS stands for Video Computer System, a nod to Atari’s 1977 console bearing the same name. Revealed in 2017, it’s styled to look like the original Atari consoles and features both modern and older games. One of its launch titles is a reimagining of the Atari classic, Missile Command. Missile Command: Recharged is already available on a number of platforms and will launch alongside the Atari VCS this fall. The VCS also supports the ability to download, stream, and play games through a Linux-based operating system.

As for its specs, it’s unclear exactly what hardware the Atari VCS is packing. It’s powered by an AMD Raven Ridge 2 processor and Ryzen GPU, but other than that, we don’t know many details. The VCS comes in two different models, the 400 and 800, which boast 4GB DDR4 RAM and 8GB DDR4 RAM respectively.

If you want to pre-order the Atari VCS, there are a number of options to choose from. There are three different bundles, each of which include an 800 console, classic controller, and modern controller. The only difference between the bundles is the colour of the VCS’s front panel. You can even snag a 400 or 800 console on its own and pick up either controller separately.

Everything listed below is scheduled to ship this fall. Unfortunately, we don’t have a more specific date. We’ll keep you updated when more information is revealed.

800 Onyx All-In Bundle

$390 ($380 at GameStop)

800 Carbon Gold All-In Bundle

$390

800 Black Walnut All-In Bundle

$390

Onyx Base Console

800 Model | 400 Model

$280 | $250

Classic Joystick

$50

Modern Controller

$60

Like it or not, Death Stranding is a tremendously bold game. We recognized it as one of the best of 2019 and reviewer Kallie Plagge spoke to its qualities in the full review from last year. But why talk about the game in 2020? For one, it’s quite, uh, timely with its theme of being an essential worker during a catastrophic event that leads to nationwide quarantine. It’s also one of the few PS4 exclusives getting a proper PC port. I have been playing the PC version ahead of its July 14 launch day and I’m here to report that so far in the early hours, it remains a superb game enhanced by the fact that it looks and runs much better than it did on PS4 Pro, if you have the right PC specs.

For those living under a rock (and not to avoid Timefall), here’s the short of it: Death Stranding is Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima’s latest. You’re a delivery man played by actor Norman Reedus amid a deadly paranormal phenomenon called the death stranding that forces the surviving population to seek refuge in underground bunkers. While the game has a fair share of third-person stealth and action, it’s also quite literally a walking-hiking simulator where balancing your cargo and traversing harsh terrain are core elements. It’s all wrapped around a heavily cinematic and somewhat bizarre story about human connection.

I know, playing courier with the occasional action sequence may not sound enticing, but trust me and my friends when we said last year that it’s a stunning experience, if you have the time and patience. Its broader message of human connection is made manifest in the asynchronous multiplayer component in which the actions of others–such as laying down ladders, bridges, and roads–will affect your own game world. Everyone’s just helping each other make their deliveries, stay alive on a hostile surface, and chug their oddly placed Monster energy drinks to keep on keeping on. Even though you never see your fellow players, giving them a few “likes” for their work, and getting a few in return, is sort of uplifting.

Death Stranding can be quite a stressful experience, especially when encountering the deadly and ghostly BTs who often occupy hostile zones en route to your objective, or crossing paths with rogue MULE bandits. But at the same time, Death Stranding is incredibly therapeutic. You have a lot of time to reflect on your actions and the story beats while soaking in the beautiful vistas and mountain ranges on your way to finish delivery orders as a soothing Low Roar song plays.

With Death Stranding being a largely visually captivating experience, this is where the PC version shines specifically: enhanced visuals and much higher frame rates further elevate those awe-inspiring moments. By no means was the PS4 version a slouch when it came to impressive visuals–the cutscenes starring finely detailed character models and environments are a testament to that. But when running native resolutions with antialiasing and better quality textures and effects, the natural world you explore in Death Stranding is all the more striking.

The enhanced experience is, of course, subject to your own PC’s specs and performance will vary. I’m running a high-end build using an Intel Core i7-7700K, 16GB of RAM, a Samsung 970 Pro NVMe SSD, and the Nvidia RTX 2080 video card. I have every setting maxed out, using a resolution of 2560×1080 (21:9 ultrawide), and with Nvidia’s RTX-exclusive DLSS 2.0 antialiasing enabled.

Note that anisotropic filtering is not a native option in the menu and you’ll have to manually force it through the Nvidia control panel (or AMD equivalent). This is important because Death Stranding features long stretches of land and anisotropic filtering does the work in cleaning up the image quality of surfaces in the distance.

I’m able to maintain 100+ FPS during deliveries out in the open world of the first major area, regardless of weather effects. The initial loading time upon bootup seems a bit longer compared to other recent PC games, especially considering I’m running a high-end NVMe SSD, but every load screen that follows goes by quickly. It’s an overall improvement over what I recall from the PS4 version.

I won’t say frame rate is critical to your success or the overall enjoyment, but it certainly bolsters the Death Stranding experience. Gameplay runs like a dream with silky smooth performance, which is jarring (in a good way) considering how many hours I poured into the PS4 version. This makes action sequences more manageable and the treks across vast plains more pleasing, and so far I haven’t had any noticeable dips in frame rate.

(If you’re not running a high-end setup, you can refer to the official recommended specs sheet to give you an idea of what settings to run and the expected performance.)

Death Stranding looks great and runs well, and can even surpass that of the PS4 Pro, given you have the proper PC hardware. It often goes without saying, but this is good news–the broader takeaway here is that the quality of Death Stranding’s PC port can speak to how Sony’s first-party exclusives can get another lease on life on a new platform for a different audience. Death Stranding uses the Decima engine from Guerilla Games, the same engine and developer for Horizon Zero Dawn, which is also due to have a PC port launch this summer. So, I think it’s fair to expect Horizon to be of this caliber as well.

To reiterate, I’m still in the early going of Death Stranding on PC. I’ll continue to play through it to ensure its performance stability and visual consistency while also looking at how it’s PC-exclusive Half-Life and Portal crossover content shakes out. The game officially launches on July 14 through Steam and Epic Games Store.

When it first aired, Lost was groundbreaking for the way it rejected common TV structures, presenting a serialized show that demanded viewers come back week to week. It helped lead us into the era of prestige TV we still enjoy today, though leading that charge could be a struggle, as co-creator and showrunner Damon Lindelof discussed in an interview with Collider.

Lindelof says that the plan for the series was only ever to run for around three seasons. With the show’s hook relying on dangling mysteries in front of viewers hungry for answers, it could only ever sustain itself for as long as those mysteries were compelling.

“Lost was like, ‘What’s in the hatch? What’s up with the monster? Who’s the original Sawyer? How did Locke get in the wheelchair? What is the nature of the island? Why does it appear to be moving? Who are the Others?'” Lindelof told Collider. “There were all of these compelling mysteries and so we were saying, ‘We wanna have this stuff answered by the end of Season 1, this stuff answered by the end of Season 2, and then the show basically ends after about three years.'”

At the time Lost was being made, however, TV shows were generally designed to be run for as long as people kept watching them. “[ABC] were just like, ‘Do you understand how hard it is to make a show that people want to watch? And people like the show? So why would we end it? You don’t end shows that people are watching.'”

As the show kept dragging out, they manifested many of the issues that Lost viewers would be familiar with–frustrations with ongoing mysteries and flashbacks that no longer added to the story. Lindelof and co-showrunner Carlton Cuse kept trying to negotiate with ABC to end the series in line with the story arcs they had already created and thought through to a logical end.

Eventually ABC agreed to end the series after 10 seasons– while the creators were working on the third season and wanting to make the fourth one final. Eventually they settled on six, which led to the show’s controversial ending–though star Josh Holloway recently said he was personally happy with how the series ended.

“The agreement was we landed on six [seasons] with less episodes to give us more time in between seasons to plan things out,” Lindelhof explained. “And then of course the fourth season was cut short by the writers’ strike, but everything else went relatively according to design. Not to say that everything we did worked, but we had a plan and we executed that plan.”

Lindelhof most recently worked on HBO’s Watchmen, which was conceived and executed to be a standalone single season. While HBO has suggested that future continuations are a possibility, Lindelhof seems happy to leave the story where he left it, which is more than understandable given his experience on Lost.

Bandai Namco has announced a new event for anime fans, and it’ll focus on their upcoming slate of games that are anime focused. The event, called Play Anime Live, hasn’t announced the games it will focus on yet.

The stream will begin on July 22 at 4 PM PT–that’s a Wednesday. It’s not yet clear how long the event will run for.

Bandai Namco publishes many anime games, including games based on Dragon Ball and Naruto. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a new Naruto game, and the Dragon Ball FighterZ Fighters Pass 3 currently has several unannounced fighters, so we could see news about these series (although nothing has been confirmed).

It also seems likely that we’ll see something from Scarlet Nexus, an upcoming RPG that’s coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X, along with current-gen systems. Other upcoming anime-themed games coming from Namco Bandai include Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions, One Piece: Grand Cruise, Tales of Arise, and Digimon Survive.

You can sign up for the event now, which will put you in the running to win a “VIP box” prize containing $75 worth of anime-themed swag.

GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.

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