Author: Trafficblast

Death Stranding Walkthrough: Episode 5 – Mama

Episode 5 - The Long And Winding Road

Episode 5 – The Long And Winding Road

Welp, time to head on back to Mountain Knot City!

Again, there are two major ways to do this–the hard way, taking a shortcut west through the mountains, or the easy way, taking the long way up and around.

The mountain path is can be tough, depending on how many climbing tools are already set up for you by other community members. If it’s sparse, you’ll have to bring your own, meaning you’ll have to load up a floating carrier since your precious cargo (okay, it’s Mama in a weird body bag. What is with these body bags? Why can’t they walk?) can only be carried on your back.

The low-risk method is definitely the long way around. However, now that you’ve already spent quite a bit of time in this area, there should be plenty of infrastructure (roads, generators, shelters) for you to trek through quite comfortably. I decided to grab a bike and speed through in one go this way, since I had quite a few roads built, and I was familiar with which routes were friendliest to vehicles.

However, your mileage might vary. Do whatever you think you’re most comfortable with! This world is your domain now!

Biggest Celebrity Cameos We Found In Death Stranding

Have you ever had that moment where you’re walking down the street and you pass someone who looks vaguely familiar, but it’s not until hours later that you realize you saw someone who’s actually somewhat famous? It sucks, doesn’t it? You feel downright foolish afterward. In order to avoid suffering such a terrible fate in Death Stranding, we’ve compiled all the celebrity cameos you’ll encounter in the game.

In the video above, we list all of the big names whose likeness was used for a character in Death Stranding and also showcase where and when in the game you’ll encounter them. Though we don’t go into story spoilers, be warned that the video does go into minor location and side-quest spoilers. If you’d rather discover all Death Stranding has to offer on your own, you may want to come back to this video after you see the credits roll. Don’t worry, we’ll still be here. We’re always here.

In GameSpot’s Death Stranding review, Kallie Plagge writes, “Death Stranding is a hard game to absorb. There are many intertwining threads to its plot, and silly names, corny moments, and heavy exposition belie an otherwise very simple message. That comes through much more clearly in the game’s more mundane moments, when you find a desperately-needed ladder left behind by another player or receive a letter from an NPC thanking you for your efforts. It’s positive without ignoring pain; in fact, it argues in both its story and its gameplay that adversity itself is what makes things worth doing and life worth living. It’s a game that requires patience, compassion, and love, and it’s also one we really need right now.”

Top New Game Releases On Switch, PS4, Xbox One, And PC This Week — November 10-16, 2019

This episode of New Releases is all about exploring new worlds, whether its the Galar Region in Pokemon Sword & Shield, a whole galaxy in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, or the entire space-time continuum in Doctor Who: The Edge of Time. There’s also a pair of remastered games for those who missed out the first time around: turn-based RPG Romancing SaGa 3 and grand strategy title Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. There’s a ton of stuff for sci-fi and fantasy fans!

Romancing SaGa 3 — November 11

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch, Vita

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Romancing SaGa 3 is releasing outside of Japan for the first time since its 1995 debut. This RPG has been gussied up with better graphics, an extra dungeon, more story content, and a New Game Plus mode. You can choose from one of eight protagonists and start saving the world on the original game’s 24th birthday.

More Coverage:

Doctor Who: The Edge of Time — November 12

Available on: PS4, PC

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While it is based on the super-popular BBC series, this VR game doesn’t actually have you play as the Doctor herself. She’s been kidnapped, so it’s up to you, her companion, to rescue her. To do that, you’ll have to pilot the TARDIS and confront classic Doctor Who bad guys like Daleks and Weeping Angels.

More Coverage:

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition — November 14

Available on: PC

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The PC strategy staple is back, sporting a lovely coat of 4K paint. This remaster also includes new content called “The Last Khans,” which adds four new civilizations, bringing the total to a whopping 35. Couple that with three new campaigns, and you’ve got tons of possible war strategies to devise.

More Coverage:

Pokemon Sword & Shield — November 15

Available on: Switch

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By this point, you probably know what you’re getting with a Pokemon game, but Sword & Shield are mixing things up. The new Galar Region has its own variants of classic Pokemon like Weezing and Ponyta, plus region-specific evolutions for Farfetch’d and Linoone. Sword & Shield also introduce new giant, kaiju-like monsters called Dynamax Pokemon, some of which can even change form, known as Gigantamax Pokemon.

More Coverage:

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order — November 15

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

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It might sound cliche, but Fallen Order’s combat really does feel like the Dark Souls games. In fact, if you die, you’ll have to defeat the last enemy you fought to regain your lost XP, a la Bloodborne. It’s pretty fitting that this original Star Wars story is challenging, since protagonist Cal Kestis is one of the few surviving Jedi Padawans after Order 66.

More Coverage:

November has more video games to come. Next week, New Releases will take a look at the return of a cult classic with Shenmue 3 and the latest in tactical shooters with Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts.

Box Office Nov 8-10: Shining Sequel Doctor Sleep Disappoints While Midway Finishes On Top

This weekend saw four new movies open wide in the US, including Doctor Sleep, Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s best-selling novel. The film, which also serves as a sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic adaptation of The Shining, was expected to make about $25 million this weekend, according to Entertainment Weekly. Instead, it made just $14.1 million on 3,855 screens.

That’s not the best result, but it’s not necessarily a disaster just yet: with a budget of around $45 million and a B+ Cinemascore (which is decent for a horror movie), and reports from the international market still coming in, the film likely won’t end up being an enormous loss, at the very least. We gave Flanagan’s film an 8/10 in our review.

The surprise winner at the box office this weekend was Roland Emmerich’s Midway, which opened to $17.5 million on 3,242 screens. The film, which focuses on the Battle of Midway (fought during World War II), has some way to go to make up its $100 million budget–especially since it might not play so well in the international market–but this sort of film, aimed at older male audiences, often does well over a long period of time.

The other two major wide releases this weekend, Playing With Fire and Last Christmas, both performed solidly. Playing with Fire, which stars John Cena as a firefighter who gets stuck babysitting three children, brought in $12.8 million. Last Christmas, Paul Feig’s Christmas dramedy, will likely continue to pull in viewers into late December; in its opening weekend it has made $11.6 million.

Elsewhere in the charts, Terminator: Dark Fate continues to underperform in the US, bringing in just $10.8 million in its second weekend. The film–which our critic enjoyed a great deal–is tracking below Terminator Genisys over the same time frame. On the plus side, the movie has pulled in $150,900,000 internationally, including $45 million from China. Whether or not its international performance will be strong enough for another sequel to be greenlit remains to be seen.

Also of note is the further $9.2 million that Joker made in its fifth weekend. This marks the first weekend since the film’s release that it has not been in the top 5, but it’s also now the most profitable comic book movie of all time, thanks to its modest $55 million budget. The film’s domestic total sits at $313,491,507; it is expected to top $1 billion internationally by the end of its run. Further down, falling just outside the top 10, Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit expanded onto 802 screens this weekend, pulling in $3.942 million for a domestic total of $9,117,882.

Here’s the full top 10 for the box office this past weekend, based on the estimated figures listed by Box Office Mojo:

1. Midway: $17.5 million

2. Doctor Sleep: $14.1 million

3. Playing with Fire: $12.8 million

4. Last Christmas: $11.6 million

5. Terminator: Dark Fate: $10.8 million

6. Joker: $9.2 million

7. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil: $8.002 million

8. Harriet: $7.23 million

9. Zombieland: Double Tap: $4.315 million

10. The Addams Family: $4.2 million

Now Playing: Doctor Sleep – Official Teaser Trailer

Pillars Of Eternity Dev Says Deadfire Sales Were Low, Sequel Might Not Happen

Will there be a Pillars of Eternity III? That’s the question someone put to Obsidian design director Josh Sawyer recently, and his response doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

Writing on his Tumblr, Sawyer said the “relatively low” sales of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire suggest that if Obsidian were to develop a third game, the studio would have to “re-examine the entire format of the game.” He added that whether or not a third mainline game happens is not up to him.

Despite solid reviews and strong pre-orders, Deadfire sold worse than the first game, Sawyer added. That leaves Obsidian scratching its head for answers.

“Is it because the first game satisfied the existing need and the audience just wasn’t interested in the second? Is it because awareness was lower for the sequel? Is it because despite the strong reviews and the strong sales for the first game, people didn’t ‘really’ like it? Maybe it’s a combination of all of these things,” Sawyer said.

Sawyer went on to say that because Obsidian doesn’t fully understand why Deadfire failed to sell at a better level, that makes it hard to move forward with the series. Had the game been a critical failure, then the studio could know that perhaps more time spent in development would be needed for the next game. But Deadfire reviewed well with critics; the game has an 88 on Metacritic compared to an 89 for the original game.

Some have said Pillars of Eternity could have benefited from abandoning the real-time with pause (RTwP) battle mechanics, but Sawyer said this did not hurt sales.

“I’m sure some of the people reading this think they know precisely why Deadfire sold worse than Pillars 1. I don’t have that confidence, which is one of several reasons why I am leery about trying to direct a sequel,” Sawyer said. “I couldn’t give our (Obsidian’s) audience the game that they wanted and without understanding where I went wrong, I would be guessing at what the problems are and how to remedy them.”

Replies flooded in after Sawyer posted this blog post, and here are some other takeaways that he shared on Twitter:

  • Pre-sales for Deadfire were 3X better than the first Pillars, but sales on launch day and after were “quite low” compared to the first game (source)
  • Deadfire sold better than Obsidian’s 2016 game Tyranny but worse than Pillars of Eternity 1 (source)
  • Sawyer’s big takeaway on why Deadfire sold worse than the first game? ¯_(ツ)_/¯ (source)

While Deadfire might not have been a top-seller, Obsidian’s latest game, The Outer Worlds, was a critical and a commercial success. Sawyer did not have much involvement in that game, however.

Microsoft recently acquired Obsidian, and the Xbox-maker reportedly has plans to turn The Outer Worlds into a franchise. As Sawyer alluded to here, there is no word on if the Pillars of Eternity franchise will continue going forward.

Deadfire is supposed to launch on PS4, Xbox One, and Switch sometime in 2019 through a partnership with Grip Digital. However, no release date has been announced yet.

Metacritic and GameSpot share a parent company in CBS.

Now Playing: Pillars Of Eternity II: Deadfire Video Review

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New Westworld Season 3 Teaser Raises A Lot Of Questions

HBO has released a new teaser video for Westworld Season 3–and it’s a strange one. The video introduces viewers to a company called Incite, a firm that harnesses unprecedented computing power to solve the world’s unsolvable problems.

Jefferson Mays plays Incite’s founder, Liam Dempsey Sr., who quips, “We’re not Silicon Valley vaporware. We have unprecedented computing capabilities analyzing data from life’s most unsolvable problems.”

This company claims to be able to control the climate and get people the best jobs. We’re sure they’re a 100 percent above board, feel-good company. Surrrre. After all, the word “incite” is defined as: “to encourage someone to do or feel something unpleasant or violent.”

What could go wrong?

This new Westworld Season 3 trailer raises a lot of questions. Some that immediately come to mind: is Incite a competing company to Delos Destinations, the group that operates Westworld? Are Incite and Delos somehow connected?

A teaser website for Incite shares a few further details, though they are similarly mysterious. “The world can feel chaotic: big problems, no solutions, no one to lead the way. Global issues may seem so complex that untangling the answers feels impossible. Here at Incite, we want to make ‘impossible’ a thing of the past,” reads a line from the fake company’s description. “Chaos is merely a pattern waiting to be uncovered. You can help us chart a better future.”

Westworld Season 3 premieres in the first half of 2020. Season 3 introduces a number of new characters, including one played by Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul.

For lots more on Westworld Season 3, check out GameSpot’s roundup of everything we know. Westworld is based on the Michael Crichton 1973 movie of the same name.

Now Playing: The 20 Biggest Movies To Watch In Fall & Winter 2019

PS4, Xbox One, And Switch Are Getting Indie Narrative Adventure Where The Water Tastes Like Wine Very Soon

Where The Water Tastes Like Wine, a narrative-focused game in which you work your way around the 1930s American Dust Bowl, hearing and trading stories, is come to consoles later this month. The game, which released on PC in 2018, is coming to Switch, PS4, and Xbox One on November 29.

The game’s impending release was announced by publisher Serenity Forge on Twitter. It’s now available to pre-order on Switch.

The game also received a new launch trailer ahead of its console release.

The game, which contains a guest appearance from Sting, struggled at launch, with creator Johnnemann Nordhagen publicly discussing the difficulties developer Dim Bulb Games faced following the game’s release. “At the end of the day it’s astounding that a game that got this much attention from the press, that won awards, that had an all-star cast of writers and performers, that had a bizarre celebrity guest appearance(!) failed this hard,” Nordhagen wrote. Perhaps the game’s console release can recoup some of the costs of development.

We gave the game a 6/10 in our original review, stating that “if the basic premise of gathering folk stories across a version of 1930s America strongly appeals to you, then Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is worth a look, but it’s probably not worth finishing”. Since launch, the game has been updated with Chinese-American tales. It’s currently discounted by 70% on Steam.

Now Playing: Where The Water Tastes Like Wine – Music Trailer

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Blizzard’s Jeff Kaplan Does Not Believe That Blitzchung’s Ban Was Fair

Blizzard has come under fire lately for their harsh treatment of Hearthstone Grandmaster pro Blitzchung, who was banned from the game and had his winnings taken away for expressing a pro-Hong Kong sentiment during a post-match interview. Although eventually his prize money was reinstated and his ban was reduced to six months, the fallout from the incident was immense: the game’s developers spoke out against the way Blitzchung had been treated, sponsor Mitsubishi cut ties with the Hearthstone esports scene, and numerous protests were held, which led to further bans.

Blizzard president J. Allen Brack addressed the decision directly during BlizzCon, but it’s clear that many within Blizzard remain unhappy with how things have played out. Now Jeff Kaplan, director of Overwatch, has added his own voice to the discussion. Talking to The Washington Post, Kaplan has said that he would personally like to see Blitzchung’s suspension reduced further. “I was relieved when they reduced his suspension…and I think the suspension should be reduced more or eliminated. But that’s just me.”

“I’m obviously a huge supporter of free speech,” Kaplan said. “It’s something that’s very important to me…it got to me personally. I think the punishment was too harsh and I was greatly relieved when they gave his money back. I think that was extremely important.” Kaplan talked about his own experience in Overwatch, where decisions like this typically take “four or five days” to get settled. He said that it was surprising to see a punishment like this get metered out so quickly: “I was actually shocked that such a harsh penalty was levied.”

For now, Blitzchung’s suspension remains in place. For more on this, watch our interview with Freedom Hong Kong organizer Dayton Young about Blizzard’s action here, and why change is important.

Now Playing: Blizzard President Addresses Hong Kong Protests

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