Author: Trafficblast

Call of Duty: Mobile’s Microtransactions Could Be Worse

Given the Call of Duty series’ less-than-sterling reputation when it comes to loot boxes, and the long history of cash-hungry “free-to-play” games turning out to be overly aggressive with their monetization – especially on smartphones – a free-to-play, mobile version of Call of Duty sounds like a perfect storm of microtransactions. Surprising no one, Call of Duty: Mobile is chock full of opportunities to spend money, ranging from season passes to full-on shameless loot boxes, and some of these can be downright predatory. At the same time, it’s not as bad as it could be.

There are two forms of currency in Call of Duty: Mobile: Credits and COD Points. Credits are the currency you can earn by playing, and they’re about as useless as you would expect. I’m certainly not the best Call of Duty player, but in my 10 or so hours of playtime I’ve only earned a little over 1,000 Credits. A weapon skin in the store can cost anywhere from 1,500 Credits for a more common skin, to 20,000 for the rarest available skin, the M4LMG – Black Gold. If you extrapolate that out, at my pace you’d have to play for roughly 200 hours to earn the most coveted skin.

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WWE Smackdown Has Already Replaced Eric Bischoff

Well, that certainly didn’t take long. After it was announced in June that former World Championship Wrestling president Eric Bischoff had been hired by WWE to act as executive director of Smackdown, a changing of the guards has already occurred.

WWE has announced in a press release that Bruce Prichard will be replacing Eric Bischoff in the role. Prichard will “oversee the creative development” of Smackdown and report directly to Vince McMahon, Chairman and CEO of WWE. The move comes two episodes into Smackdown’s run on Fox. While the network premiere of the series boasted big ratings, the second installment–which featured night one of the WWE draft and Bayley battling Charlotte for the Smackdown Women’s Championship–shed nearly 25% of its total viewers.

Now, WWE is betting on Prichard to carry the show forward. The press release notes he “brings nearly 40 years of experience in sports entertainment with an extensive background in character development and creative storytelling. Over the course of his career, Prichard has served in a variety of roles including announcer, producer, agent, and on-screen personality. Earlier this year, Prichard returned to WWE as a member of the company’s creative team.”

In addition to his time in WWE, Prichard has also worked extensively with Impact Wrestling, and Major League Wrestling. Since returning to WWE in 2018, he hosted a show on the WWE Network, in addition to rejoining the creative team.

Reacting to the news on Twitter, Bischoff wrote, “Bruce is a great producer, good friend and I am certain he is going to thrive in his position. He’s going to be working with a great team of the most dedicated and hard-working people I have had the pleasure of working with and getting to know.”

As of the publishing of this story, Prichard has not commented publicly on the announcement. However, WWE has confirmed to GameSpot that Bischoff is no longer with the company.

Update: Story was edited to include Eric Bischoff’s statement.

AMC Theaters Launches Streaming Service, In An Already Crowded Marketplace

In addition to cable and satellite providers, iTunes, Google Play, and Vudu are among the most popular ways for people to buy and rent movies and stream them to their phones, TVs, or tablets. Everyone has their go-to service. Now, AMC Theaters is trying to maneuver its way into this crowded marketplace with AMC Theaters On Demand.

Launching today, AMC Theaters On Demand allows users to watch movies that have completed their theatrical runs on devices like LG Smart TVs, Android phones, iOS products, Roku, and your PC. As a whole, there is nothing exceptional about the service, aside from it being attached to AMC Theaters.

There are two selling points for the service though. The main benefit comes for AMC Stubs users who will earn points with every purchase, which can be used at AMC theaters. Additionally, you can also purchase tickets to a movie you’d like to see. By combining streaming and the ability to purchase new movie tickets, AMC Theaters On Demand is doing what Fandango has been doing for quite some time now.

Currently, there are 2,000 movies from every major studio on the service, and later this year, it will expand more, including IFC Films and RLJE films, according to MarketWatch. Movies can be purchased in SD or HD ($20 for new movies) or rented for $6 in HD. We did not see an option for UHD on the site at the time of this writing.

Streaming is a booming venture at the moment, with seven major services debuting in the next year. While AMC Theaters On Demand is unlike these others, as it’s not a monthly subscription service with its own original content, it’s headed into a market that is already over-saturated with the aforementioned Vudu and others. Unless AMC Theaters On Demand can differentiate itself from its competitors, it may disappear as quickly as it launched.

Apex Legends Halloween Skins And Cosmetics: Here’s All The Legendary Fight Or Fright Items

Halloween Has Arrived In Apex Legends

Halloween Has Arrived In Apex Legends

Apex Legends‘ Halloween-themed event, Fight or Fright, is officially live. Until November 5, the event offers a new limited-time mode to participate in, as well as over two dozen rare, epic, and legendary cosmetics to unlock. We’ve compiled most of the new items you can unlock during the event in the following gallery.

You’ll unlock the first Fight or Fright item just for logging into Apex Legends while the event is going on: the Fight or Fright Music Pack, which offers you a spooky rendition of the battle royale’s main theme to listen to. You’ll have to both work towards and probably drop some real-world cash for the remaining items.

Several of Fight or Fright’s items are tied to the event’s limited-time challenges, which can only be completed by doing certain tasks in the new Shadowfall mode. In Shadowfall, you drop solo onto a nightmarish rendition of Kings Canyon. But death isn’t the end in this new mode. Instead, when you die, you drop again as a member of the Shadow Squad–a group of shadows with enhanced speed and melee damage. Your goal in Shadowfall is to either be one of the ten final survivors who must escape on a dropship, or join the Shadow Squad and kill off all of the survivors before anyone can get away.

The remaining Fight or Fright items are tied to the event’s exclusive Apex Packs–the most notable being the new character cosmetics. Of the 11 playable characters, 10 are getting skins that dress them up in Halloween costumes. Some are silly (Mirage as a cowboy) while others are much more creepy (Caustic as a clown).

Though you can earn some by completing challenges in Shadowfall, you’ll need to buy most of them to earn every new epic and legendary skin. If you acquire all 24 of the items in the Apex Packs, you’ll automatically unlock Lifeline’s heirloom for free, giving the support character a unique melee animation, banner pose, and kill quip.

Google Pixel 4 and Google Pixel 4 XL Hands-On Impressions

The Google Pixel 4 has to be the world’s worst kept secret. However, despite months upon months of rumors, early hands-on videos, and leaks by Google itself, it has been the Android phone I’ve been desperately waiting to get my mitts on.

This new flagship handset is the most substantial reinvention of the Pixel phone since its inception. Among the things Google has changed here, this device features a new design, a new telephoto camera, and a built-in radar.

But before we get too into the weeds, let’s talk about how this new phone looks and feels. With the Pixel 4, Google has gone away from the two-tone smooth glossy and textured matte design. In its place, the phone now has a prominent black bumper that wraps around the edges.

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Fortnite Chapter 2 Patch Notes Are Nowhere To Be Found

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Any update released for Fortnite is typically accompanied by a set of patch notes from developer Epic Games. And yet, despite releasing what’s arguably the biggest update ever for Fortnite: Battle Royale–hence the game now being dubbed Fortnite: Chapter 2–there have been no patch notes whatsoever.

Instead, Epic has released a comically short “what’s new” blog post on its website, which seems deliberately brief. It simply states, “Added: Chapter 2. Take your #FirstDrop and discover everything new.”

What’s new in Chapter 2 is a whole lot. The most significant addition is precisely what leaks and datamines have suggested for some time now: Fortnite finally has a new map. But with it come boats, the ability to go fishing and swim in rivers, a system for upgrading weapons, a new means for leveling up the Battle Pass, and a whole lot else that we’re going to have to continue finding out for ourselves due to the lack of patch notes.

The last few days have marked a notable shift from Epic, which usually communicates a great deal. The End event on Sunday, which saw a black hole effectively delete the game and render it unplayable for more than a day, was not detailed or explained by Epic. And now, it’s seemingly made the choice not to release patch notes. Whether this is a short-term strategy or not remains to be seen. One Redditor suggested it’s Epic treating this as a new game launch–you don’t necessarily have patch notes when first releasing a game.

Whatever the case, it’s yet another way in which Fortnite: Chapter 2 feels different from what we’ve become accustomed to over the last two years.

First Terminator Dark Fate Clip Puts Sarah Connor Back In Action

The Terminator movies keep on coming, but there is one big reason to get excited for Terminator: Dark Fate, which hits theaters next month. Linda Hamilton is set to return as Sarah Connor, a role she last played back in 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The first action-packed clip from the movie has now been released.

The scene was teased in Dark Fate’s trailers, and shows Connor emerging from a jeep to take on the new Terminator, Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna). This latest version of the cyborg killing machine is able to split into two separate units, but luckily Sarah is heavily armed and more than a match for both. Check the clip out below:

Terminator: Dark Fate is directed by Tim Miller, who previously helmed the first Deadpool. Arnold Schwarzenegger is back as the T-800, and it also stars Natalia Reyes and Mackenzie Davis. It releases on November 1 in US, and October 23 in the UK.

In a recent interview with the Sunday Post, Hamilton spoke about returning to the series that made her a star. “It took me a while to decide to do it,” she said. “It wasn’t the script but just the thought of returning to this whole, big thing again after living such a quiet, normal life for so long. Then there is the thought of being compared to yourself as you were back then. That’s not easy for anyone but in the end I knew I had to do it.

“For the past 20 years, fans have been asking me if I would do another Terminator and I would say, ‘Yeah, as geriatric Sarah Connor in a wheelchair!’ So here we are and, while the geriatric part is kind of true, we are back picking up this story and these characters 28 years later.”

For more, check out GameSpot’s guide to everything we know about Terminator: Dark Fate.

Fortnite Season 11 Is Officially Chapter 2: Update Brings New Map

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Fortnite: Chapter 2 is finally here. Rather than take the form of Season 11, which would have followed the game’s established pattern, Epic recently took Forntite: Battle Royale offline entirely for more than a day. Now, servers are back up and there’s a major new update out on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and mobile. Among other things, the big highlight is that Epic has finally introduced a brand-new Fortnite map, rather than continuing to evolve the initial island.

Epic Games has yet to issue full patch notes but it states the game has an “all-new island featuring 13 new locations.” Water will seemingly be a big factor this time round, with new mechanics such as swimming, fishing, and motorboats added. You can also carry fallen teammates to safety or revive them using the bandage bazooka.

Additionally, Epic has revealed a new battle pass for Chapter 2: Season 1. It will of course include new skins, emotes, and weapon wraps, but it also offers more chances to earn XP and medals. You’ll contribute just by searching chests, for example, or eliminating opponents or completing challenges.

Fortnite: Chapter 2 has been highly anticipated since the game went dark over the weekend. However, while people were expecting Season 11, Epic has instead followed up with Chapter 2: Season 1, indicating a fresh start for the game.