Google has announced that the Google Stadia Founder’s Edition will be available beginning on November 19, 2019.
Revealed during Made by Google ’19, those who pre-ordered the Google Stadia Founder’s Edition will be able to play such titles as Red Dead Redemption 2 and Mortal Kombat 11 on your TV, laptop, desktop, and certain phones and tablets on November 19 at 9am PT/12pm ET/5pm BST/6pm CET.
Google Stadia Founder’s Editions and Google Stadia Premiere Editions will both begin shipping “in the same order that pre-orders were received.” Shortly after Stadia packages begin shipping, those who pre-ordered will receive a code to activate their Stadia account and Stadia Pro.
Google Stadia now has an official release date. During a launch event for the Google Pixel 4, the company announced that the Founder’s Edition will launch on November 19.
As previously announced, this year the Stadia service will be exclusive to those who purchase the Founder’s Edition. That $130 pack includes a limited-edition night blue controller, Chromecast Ultra, a three-month subscription to Stadia Pro, early access to a Stadia name, and a three-month Buddy Pass of Stadia Pro for a friend.
Once the full service launches in 2020, you’ll be able to play on any supported device without needing to purchase a bundle. Part of Google’s pitch for Stadia is that it opens up gaming to everyone, rather than restricting core games to high-end PC hardware or consoles. Check out our pre-order guide for more details.
Mark your calendars! Stadia will start arriving November 19. Need a quick guide on what exactly Stadia is? We got you covered. Become an expert in all things Stadia just in time for launch. pic.twitter.com/iwbCQiJ0CH
Most recently, Rockstar announced Red Dead Redemption 2 will be coming to PC, and confirmed that it’s coming to Stadia as well. But the streaming service will have to address some lingering doubts from gamers, including technical hurdles like data caps and bandwidth limitations.
Now that House of X and Powers of X are both complete, Marvel’s X-Men relaunch is in full swing and a new status quo for the X-Men is fully established. From a brand new mutant nation to the newfound ability to cheat death, the X-Men have entered a very different, very exciting era in the Marvel Universe.
We’ve already broken down everything we know about the new X-Men status quo, but we still have a lot of questions as Marvel prepares to launch its new ongoing titles. There are still major mysteries that need to be solved, and a few things that have left us scratching our heads. With that in mind, these are the biggest questions we have about Marvel’s Dawn of X relaunch.
It’s getting chilly outside, and why spend your time searching for a jacket when you can stay inside and watch movies and TV shows on Netflix? This week, there are a couple classic movies you’ll want to watch.
Arriving on Thursday, October 17, The Karate Kid arrives. The classic movie follows Daniel, a kid who moves to a new school and finds himself at odds with the school bully who knows karate. Daniel finds his own sensei, and he eventually takes on his bully at a martial arts tournament. The movie holds up exceptionally well, even when you rewatch it as an adult and realize that Daniel isn’t the hero we all remember–he’s kind of a jerk. After you watch The Karate Kid, go check out the YouTube Premium show Cobra Kai following Daniel and Johnny decades later. It’s very, very good. The first two episodes of Season 1 are free to watch.
If you’re in the mood for something a bit scarrier, as we’re in the throws of the Halloween season, you can watch Sinister 2 on Wednesday. The 2015 sequel follows a mother and her two sons who move into a rural house and find a bunch of old movies that show people dying. Of course, this is part of a curse, and now an ancient, supernatural being, wants their souls next.
Below, you’ll find everything headed to Netflix this week. For more streaming news, check out what’s coming Hulu and Amazon Prime Video for the month of October.
Every time a new Need For Speed game comes along I eagerly await to see what the new hook (if I’m being positive) or gimmick (if I’m leaning negative) is this time. For 2017’s Need For Speed Payback that was “action driving”, which initially felt promising, but ultimately failed to deliver. Thankfully this year’s Need for Speed Heat feels different. I’m happy to report that after five hours of hands-on time, the game’s ‘hook’ of day-night switching not only feels refreshing, but also an interesting direction for the series.
When I sampled Need For Speed Heat at Gamescom I was initially concerned about how the day-night switching worked. After all, Payback had introduced a seamless day/night cycle to the series for the first time, and to abandon that after only one outing felt like an odd choice. After more time with the game though, I now understand this decision as not only a game mechanic, but also a unique step in helping mould this games’ character.
It’s been 28 years since the release of a comic titled “X-Men #1” has been cause for so much excitement. This issue isn’t just the beginning of a new monthly series, it’s the next major step in the grand machine that is writer Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men revamp. House of X and Powers of X defined the scope of the X-Men’s new status quo. Now X-Men and the five other titles that comprise the Dawn of X line will begin the next chapter. Just don’t expect this ongoing story to maintain the brisk pace its maintained up till now.
It’s been five years since Angelina Jolie took on the iconic role of Maleficent, reimagining the stylish but one-note villain from Disney’s classic Sleeping Beauty for a whole new generation. Its sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, is a definite step up from the first movie by expanding the story beyond its fairy tale inspiration and bringing in compelling new characters (and actors to play them), though it is held back by pacing issues.
The first movie expanded on the fairy tale by introducing a backstory that saw the horned fairy betrayed by the ambitious and cruel man that she once loved so he could become king, and eventually having her become surrogate mother to Aurora (Elle Fanning). Though you don’t need to have seen the first film to enjoy Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, this sequel gets the audience up to speed from its opening “Once Upon a Time” intro. It follows on directly from the end of that fairytale with Aurora living as the Queen of the Moors (the fairy folk), but both their lives are upended when Prince Phillip (Harris Dickinson) asks Aurora to marry him, setting off a devastating chain of events.
Before I got my hands on the new Need for Speed game, I popped Payback into my PlayStation to remind myself why I bounced off the 2017 release quicker than my best Nürburgring lap. An unmemorable open world, annoying characters, and a weirdly grindy upgrade system were the culprits. Payback had promise, it was meant to let us live our Fast & Furious fantasies, but as Richard Wakeling put in his review, the game had a “general drabness that seeps into every layer of the game.”
Need for Speed: Heat will be the fourth game in the franchise from Swedish developer Ghost Games, but have the team managed to shift the series back into gear? Initial impressions are promising. Gone is the dusty dime-a-dozen desert of Payback’s Fortune Valley, we’re off to Palm City, a neon-lit urban sprawl, with collectible street art, tropical weather, and the colour saturation seemingly turned up as far as it will go. There has clearly been an effort to squeeze all the good bits of the open world a bit closer together, or create a “compact road network”, as producer Jeremy Chubb put it. Miami was a big influence on Heat’s Palm City, as you might guess, but there’s more than meets the eye when you hit the streets at a hundred miles per hour.
Palm City reflects your neon-trimmed car and the flashing sirens of police in pursuit.
One of the first things I noticed when I inevitably spun a supercar into a tree is that I blew right through it, rather than coming to a grinding halt on impact. Objects in the world are much more forgiving when it comes to the laws of physics, which makes navigating the winding roads a whole lot more fun. This, as demonstrated last year in Forza Horizon 4’s crumbling country walls, is a concession that usually has a positive impact on the feel of a racing game, so it’s a welcome change to the world of Need for Speed. Changes like this are what give me hope for this game being great, and thankfully they have been made where it matters most.
For example, the speed cards from Payback have been binned in favour of a much simpler upgrade system. Want to improve your engine? Cool, just earn money and buy the parts. Tuning your ride is not overcomplicated, but there’s enough there to give even the most hardcore of petrolheads a good whiff of gasoline. Cars aren’t divided into classes, nor are you restricted on what you roll up in for a race. It’s just you, a decent selection of cars to choose from, and some shiny extra parts to make you go faster and look good doing it. There’s even a dedicated ‘rev engine’ button in the tuning menu, with an emphasis on getting the tinny timbre of your exhaust to your personal preference of obnoxious harmony.
Press R2 to rev your engine and get the sound just right.
On the road, Heat has some refinements too. The handy live-tuning from Payback makes a welcome return, letting you tweak your car as you drive, and there’s a new focus on both drift and race handling. Depending on how sideways you want to go, you can swap in upgrades that will either make your car glide around the track, or tighten steering for precision handling. Drifting feels easier to pull off by just tapping the gas as you turn, then powering-on to slide around those corners, like an elegant figure skater but with more horsepower.
The biggest change to Heat, and also its biggest selling point, I think, is the contrasting day and night activities. Daytime sees you competing in totally legal races for cash prizes. Cops–yes there are cops!–don’t seem that fussed about you drifting the streets, and will only cause you a minor inconvenience if you do big and obvious crimes right in front of them.
Night is a different story. Switching to night mode makes you feel a bit naughty, like you’re out after bedtime and mum doesn’t know. Night is where you impress the cool kids by taking part in illicit races and earn Reputation, the game’s second currency. Reputation unlocks the opportunity to buy things, like new cars and upgrades, which you then purchase with the cash you’ve earned during the day. But causing mischief at night will have the cops on your bumper quicker than you can say, “Dude, I almost had you,” and they are relentless. As you race through the night your ‘Heat’ level, a multiplier for your reputation points rises, and with it more police attention. This is where the game feels most exciting, with a handful of cops on your tail as you try to reach first place without getting busted. It makes every race feel different, as you may happen to elude the law entirely, or they could be on your tail from the start. You have limited car health at night, and should you get busted or break down before you make it back to a safe house with your winnings, wave goodbye to your reputation. You could even say it’s the Dark Souls of street racing–Prepare to drive.
How to avoid getting busted is up to you; outrun police cars with the raw horsepower under your hood, or nimbly weave through backstreets until you’ve lost them in the urban jungle. NOS is very much your friend when avoiding jail and getting ahead in races, but in Heat you will need to be more tactical with how you use it. Rather than one big bar that you can tap on and off as you please, this time you have single use canisters of Nitrous Oxide, so pick your moments to boost wisely. You can also equip auxiliary items to use when on the run, such as repair kits, nitrous refills, and kill switch jammers. Kill switches being one of the nasty tools the police will deploy to try and stop you, along with road spikes, helicopters, and heavily armoured ‘Rhino’ vehicles.
Limiting NOS by cannisters makes boosting more tactical.
The brief bit of story I got to see wasn’t far from what you’d imagine; a trendy crew of young drivers who want to make a name for themselves, but I didn’t find it cringy or annoying like I have with previous Need for Speed games. I was also introduced to a very corrupt cop, who seems to have a murderous vendetta against street racers in the city. I’m genuinely curious about how his story unfolds–it feels like it isn’t beyond the realms of something you’d see in a Fast & Furious movie. There’s also a virtual crew system–a list of 32 people who you’ll see in the world, stand beside their cars in your garage, and act as a familiar group you can compete with at any time. The game offers plenty of social options, but they don’t get in the way at any point, so if driving solo is your thing you can take to the roads on your own.
I had a blast in the few hours I played of Need for Speed: Heat, and I’m way more enthusiastic about tearing through the streets of Palm City than I was for Payback a couple of years ago. The refined upgrade system, improved handling, and the risk to reward baked into the day-to-night cycle could make for a better, more interesting experience, but I can’t say for sure until I get behind the wheel in the full game.
Stay tuned to GameSpot for more Need for Speed: Heat coverage, and take a look at the video above to see me kitting out my favorite car and taking it for a spin.
Fortnite Chapter 2 has brought along a brand new map, which means a whole new set of map learning to do. That said, you might recognise a few of the places scattered in there, with some returning favourites making it through the game’s black hole.
Here’s every named location on the Fortnite Chapter 2 – Season 1 map, and a little description of what you’ll find there. We’ll start with the returning favourites:
Fortnite Chapter 2 Returning Locations
Retail Row – Now clean of zombies, Retail Row is still a ring of commercial buildings and wide-open spaces, perfect for a snipe-off.
