Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night’s long-awaited Nintendo Switch Graphics and Performance Update is now live and focuses on four areas of improvement; Input Lag, Visual Quality, Crashes, and Load Times.
The version 1.03 update that brings all these improvements was detailed on Bloodstained’s forums and is in response to the serious frame rate and optimization problems that appear on Switch, but not on the other platforms.
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HBO’s Watchmen is full of all sorts of nods and references to the original comic book series–what else would you expect from the creator of Lost adapting one of the most famously dense graphic novels of all time?
The show certainly doesn’t hold your hand when it comes to playing in the Watchmen sandbox, which can be a little intimidating–but don’t panic. That’s why we’re here. Whether you’re still on the fence about diving into each episode or you simply want a refresher of the comics, we’re going to break down the Watchmen mythology for you piece by piece. First up? Ozymandias, giant squids, and the end of the Watchmen story in the comics.
Obviously, major comics spoilers from here on out, and some minor spoilers for the first two episodes of HBO’s Watchmen. Please proceed with caution!
In the show, there are squids everywhere in Tulsa, and presumably, the rest of the world, if the headlines about “interdimensional attacks” and “hoaxes” on newspapers like The New Frontiersmen are any indication. They occasionally rain down from the sky. Kids learn about them in school. So, what’s the deal?
It all relates back to Ozymandias’s grand scheme to avoid nuclear annihilation and end the Cold War back in the 1980s. In a twist on the typical supervillain tropes of the superhero genre, Adrien Veidt, one of the smartest people in the Watchmen world, had concocted a plan that would, in his mind, be the only real way to prevent the Doomsday Clock from actually ticking down to midnight. By way of careful manipulation and liberal use of his public persona as a billionaire genius and former superhero, he set up what essentially amounted to a long con. He would stage a massive “alien invasion” with the help of experimental tech developed in secret by his company, in New York City. The “alien” creature–a giant squid-like monster–would teleport in, seemingly from another dimension or planet, and kill thousands upon thousands of people, both from the sudden destruction caused by its body appearing in the middle of Manhattan and because of a “psychic blast” it would emit that would fry onlookers’ brains up to miles away.
In reality, the creature wasn’t an alien, or even from another dimension at all, but a genetic mutation Veidt himself had developed in a lab. The teleportation wasn’t a gateway to another world or an attack, but teleportation tech Veidt had invented that would move objects from point A to point B, in this case with “point A” being one of Veidt’s secret labs and “point B” being New York City. The psychic blast, however, was real–the creature Vedit designed did very much have the ability to fry people’s brains, and it did. The resulting loss of life numbered in the millions.
The goal of the squid was, for all its frills, pretty simple: The “attack” would functionally force every major government superpower in the world to stop looking at one another as enemies and immediately pivot their attention to this looming extraterrestrial threat. By Veidt’s calculation, humans are simply not designed to be peaceful; they can only have their aggressions redirected and refocused on things that aren’t one another–in this case, an enemy that they will never actually be able to find, much less fight or kill, because it doesn’t actually exist. In that way, the squid attack had to be completely and 100% believable–the sort of wild goose chase that would keep every country in the world so distracted and fixated that the idea of blowing each other up wouldn’t even be on anyone’s radar anymore.
Sure, the whole thing cost millions of innocent lives, but better that than a full-on nuclear holocaust, right?
Of course, the graphic novel ends almost immediately after the attack. We get to see the dust beginning to settle, and it seems that Veidt was correct. Almost instantly, Russia and the United States come to a peace agreement, characters comment on the community’s abrupt mood swing from anxiety and fear to peace and love, etc. But what we learn in the TV show is that things aren’t that simple. For one, Rorschach–one of the only people to fully uncover Veidt’s plan–did indeed have his journals published by the New Frontiersman. Unfortunately, Rorschach was also a known sociopath with a criminal record and a reputation for psychotic delusions, so the details he was able to lay out about Vedit and the attack were never widely accepted.
In fact, rather than debunking the squid, the publication of Rorschach’s journals really only managed to galvanize radical groups like the white supremacist organization The 7th Kavalry in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and provide dogma for conspiracy theorists.
Interestingly enough, somewhere in the 30-year time jump between the end of the Watchmen comics and the start of the Watchmen TV show, someone involved in Veidt’s plan–or perhaps Veidt himself–apparently engineered some sort of failsafe. Tiny squids rain down harmlessly from the sky in “transdimensional attacks,” presumably meant to keep everyone on their toes–but where they’re coming from or how they’re happening remains a mystery. Veidt himself is missing and has recently been declared dead, but knowing what we know about his hoax, it’s safe to assume that these squid rains are not random and certainly not actually coming from another dimension. Someone must be pulling the trigger somewhere.
The question is who? And what would happen if, 30 years later, Veidt’s carefully stacked house of cards were to come crumbling down? Would the peace he sacrificed so many to earn survive the collapse? Was it ever really peace at all?
With any luck, these questions and more will be answered on the show in the future. HBO’s Watchmen airs Sunday nights at 9PM.
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Vampires, zombies, ghosts, and masked psychos are all terrifying staples of horror, but there’s something familiar and almost comforting about these old-fashioned villains. And there’s one scary protagonist that remains consistently terrifying, and that’s children. The innocence of children, and the fact that adults are supposed to protect them, rather than run away screaming, has ensured a wide variety of creepy kids over the years.
Of course, horror movie kids can be scary for a variety of reasons. Some are just plain evil and are driven to carry out terrible and murderous acts. What marks these children out is that they are often working insidiously within the family unit, using the fact that no one would believe that their angelic offspring could in fact be a deranged psychopath.
There are also those children under the control of some malevolent force. The Exorcist’s Regan is the most famous example of this, but there are other plenty of others too, innocent kids who are possessed by a demon, ghost, or evil spirit. These children often evoke audience sympathy as much as fear and skilled horror directors know how to manipulate the emotions of their audience for maximum effect.
The third distinctive group of scary kid are ghosts. Japanese horror in the ’90s and ’00s in particular featured ghost children prominently, often with tragic backstories that caused them to die tragically young. But in all cases, there’s no doubt that the creepy kid is a popular trope that filmmakers will return to again and again. So with Halloween upon us, here’s our look at the scariest children in horror….
For Honor‘s Wu Lin faction, introduced in the Marching Fire expansion, will get a new hero as part of the game’s Year 3 Season 4 content next week.
Immediately accessible to Year 3 Pass owners on November 7, the Zhanhu comes with devastating new Feats and a long, single-edged blade to deal damage with a bit of distance. The hero, playable as both male and female, is fast and powerful, relying on quick dodges and even quicker strikes to outmatch opponents. Those who don’t have For Honor’s Year 3 Pass can acquire the Zhanhu for 15,000 Steel starting on November 14.
Season 4 also introduces a new Breach map showing off a great Wu Lin fortress perched on a narrow mountain pass, as well as various Hero tweaks and Feat balances.
A Halloween event is preparing to wrap up in For Honor. Fangs of the Otherworld runs until November 1 and brings with it a plethora of themed loot, a new game mode, and much more.
Publisher Ubisoft has confirmed its plans to implement cross-platform play in “all the PvP games” it has. CEO Yves Guillemot said that the feature is “well on the way” during the company’s latest earnings call. Only two of Ubisoft’s games support cross-play at present: Brawlhalla and Just Dance 2019.
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Pokemon Go‘s Halloween 2019 event wraps up on November 1, which means Darkrai will soon no longer be available in Raids. The Legendary Regi trio will briefly replace it from November 1-4, but after that, a new Legendary will make its debut in the game: Cobalion.
The Iron Will Pokemon from the series’ Black and White versions will appear in five-star Raid Battles beginning November 4, making it the first Gen 5 Legendary to arrive in Go. Cobalion is one member of the Swords of Justice–a group of Legendaries that also includes Virizon, Terrakion, and Keldeo, which suggests the other members will likely debut in the game soon.
As usual, before you can catch Cobalion, you’ll first need to team up with other players in-person and defeat it in battle. Cobalion is a Steel/Fighting-type, which makes it vulnerable to other Fighting Pokemon such as Machamp, as well as Fire- and Ground-types like Entei, Garchomp, and Rhyperior.
Cobalion will be available in Raids until 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET on November 26. You can read more details about the Legendary on the official Pokemon Go website.
Cobalion isn’t the only Legendary making its debut in November. Regigigas is also set to appear in EX Raids for the first time later in the month. Niantic is giving players a chance to catch it early through a Special Research story event called “A Colossal Discovery,” which takes place on November 2, but you need to purchase a ticket in order to participate.
Meanwhile, Pokemon Go’s November Community Day takes place on November 16–the day after Sword and Shield launch for Nintendo Switch. The featured Pokemon this month will be Chimchar, the Fire-type starter from the series’ Gen 4 entries, Diamond and Pearl.
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Call of Duty is still going strong 16 years later with its latest iteration, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. While the franchise is known primarily for its fast-paced, twitchy multiplayer combat, each COD (with the exception of last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 4) has also included a robust single-player campaign that explores boots on the ground combat and the harsh realities of war.
While early entries focused primarily on WWII combat, Call of Duty has taken on many other popular time periods since, including the Vietnam War and Cold War eras, as well as fictional wars in the future. But which Call of Duty campaign reigns supreme? Check out our gallery below.
Expect some changes to the Destiny 2 endgame in Bungie’s next update for the game. In particular, the developer is changing how players work through the very top of the game’s Power grind in the new Shadowkeep expansion. The tweaks should make it easier to hit the peak of your abilities in Destiny 2 as you take on its toughest activities.
The latest This Week At Bungie blog post details the changes that players can expect to see coming next week. In short, Bungie is going to increase the speed of its toughest gear climb, toward the “hard” Power cap of 960. Right now, you need Pinnacle drops to reach 960 once you hit 950, and those will only drop at 1 Power point above the gear you already own–meaning for the hardest-core Destiny players, reaching the top of the climb is a slog. Bungie is changing Pinnacle drops to come in at +2 Power for each slot starting on Thursday, November 7, and adjusting how it calculates your average Power over 950 to help players climb faster.
Right now, Destiny 2 carries several “soft” Power level caps that change your progression as you work to gain the game’s best gear and increase your overall stats. From 750 to 900, any gear you earn from any activity will increase your overall Power stat, which is an average of all your gear’s Power numbers. Over 900, however, you need to complete weekly activities to earn Powerful drops. These include running through a certain number of competitive Crucible matches, completing Strikes and Nightfalls, handing in bounties to specific vendors, and more. The Powerful climb isn’t too difficult, but it does require more effort than hitting 900.
Things change again when you reach the soft cap of 950. At this point, Powerful drops no longer advance you to the final gear cap of 960, and you need to switch to “Pinnacle” activities to get more boosts to your gear stats. Pinnacles include earning 100,000 points on Nightfall Strikes, completing the Garden of Salvation raid, and running through the new Pit of Heresy dungeon. There are a lot fewer Pinnacle opportunities than Powerful ones, because the Pinnacle Power climb is meant to represent the toughest, most elite activities Destiny 2 has to offer.
Right now, Pinnacle gear drops only give you one additional Power point for their gear slot, and in order to raise your total average Power, you need one Pinnacle for each of your eight equipment slots. That means that the journey from 950 to 960 is a slow one, especially because there are generally a lot fewer opportunities to earn Pinnacles each week. Players have also complained about getting multiple Pinnacle drops in the same slot each week, further slowing their progression.
Pinnacle drops going to +2 instead of +1 should make progression go a little quicker and easier. Bungie is also changing how it calculates your total Power level once you’re in the Pinnacle band–instead of needing all eight gear slots to hit 951 before your total Power is 951, as it is now, you’ll only need four gear slots at 951 to advance. That should mean that drops for your other slots will start to come in at 951 once you’ve achieved four Pinnacle drops, allowing you to catch up your other gear more quickly. That way, Pinnacle drops for slots that are lagging behind won’t slow your progression as much. Once all your gear is 960, you can still advance your total Power by leveling up your Seasonal Artifact by gaining experience points.
It seems like this is a change that should address a lot of player complaints about the top-tier endgame of Destiny 2 as it stands right now. You’ll still have to work hard to get all your gear up to 960 and participate in Destiny 2’s toughest activities, which was Bungie’s overall goal for the system. But hopefully, these tweaks will make that climb less prohibitive, so that players who are trying to reach the absolute peak of their abilities in Destiny 2 will be able to show off their commitment a little more easily.
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