Dr. Mario is Fun, But Its Microtransactions Are Out of Hand

With oodles of Mushroom Kingdom charm and fast-paced gameplay, it’s no surprise Nintendo chose the Dr. Mario series as its next big mobile offering. Like Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp before it, Doctor Mario World is a free-to-play game that does its best to get you hooked before introducing its monetized in-game currency and time-locked progression system. While it’s a decidedly fun little puzzler, Dr. Mario World suffers from aggravating free-to-play barriers and a sometimes overwhelming amount of gameplay variables.

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Halo Outpost Discovery Event Reactions

On this week’s Xbox show, we give our hands-on impressions from the first weekend of the Halo Outpost Discovery fan experience, discuss a new Batman release from Rocksteady (not a new game, sadly), talk through the small glimpses we’ve been getting at Playdead’s new post-Inside game, and more!

Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, or grab an MP3 download of this week’s episode. For more awesome content, check out this month’s episode of IGN Unfiltered, featuring a career-spanning interview with Bethesda creative force Todd Howard, who discusses next-gen consoles, Starfield, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout games past and present, and his origins with a Terminator first-person shooter:

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July’s Nintendo Switch Online NES Games and Rewind Feature Announced

Nintendo has announced that Donkey Kong 3 and Wrecking Crew will be added to the Nintendo Switch Online NES library this month alongside a brand new Rewind feature that will be available with the entire collection of NES games.

On Wednesday, July 17, these two titles will join the ever-growing list of NES Classics that saw Double Dragon II: The Revenge, Volleyball, and City Connection added last month.

As for the Rewind feature, which is also releasing on July 17, players will be able to press and hold ZL and ZR to rewind and quickly fix any mistake that may have occurred or simply just replay an awesome section of a level.

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Nintendo Announces Next Free NES Games For Switch And A New “Rewind” Feature

Nintendo has announced the latest free NES games for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers, along with a brand-new feature for all NES games.

The new titles are Donkey Kong 3 and The Wrecking Crew, which will become available starting July 17. As for the new feature, the “Rewind” feature is exactly what it sounds like. You can hold the ZL + ZR buttons to rewind gameplay for all of the games in the NES library on Switch.

It sounds like how it works in the Forza Horizon series. Bungle a section or just want to try again? You can press the buttons to rewind the gameplay and have another go. It sounds like a handy feature that could be most useful in more challenging titles.

The Rewind feature arrives on July 17 alongside the release of The Wrecking Crew and Donkey Kong 3. Those titles join the 40+ others in the library of freebies for Switch Online members. Classics like The Legend of Zelda and the original Donkey King are also included.

A Nintendo Switch Online membership also provides access to online play and cloud saves, while the battle royale game Tetris 99 is also included with the membership.

Nintendo Switch Online has more than 10 million subscribers. Looking ahead, Nintendo plans to grow and “enhance” Nintendo Switch Online, but no other details are available yet.

WoW Classic Will Have Australia And New Zealand Servers

Ahead of World of Warcraft Classic’s release in August, Blizzard has now confirmed that there will be local servers for Australia and other parts of the Oceanic region, which is great news.

The Oceanic realms will be available for players in Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of Southeast Asia. The servers are physically located in Australia, and they’ll be available at launch on August 27. The specific names of the servers will be announced soon, coming sometime before character name reservations begin on August 13.

Blizzard has also confirmed that the final stress test for WoW Classic will be held July 26 and 27. The test is global, and the aim is to give Blizzard one more opportunity to test the game at scale before its public release. The version of WoW Classic available in the testing period features a number of fixes and changes; Blizzard says testers have filed some 17,000 bug reports from the closed beta. That closed beta is ending on July 13.

“We agree with the many WoW Classic enthusiasts in Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia that it will be a very good thing for players in that part of the world to connect to realms that are hosted in that part of the world,” Blizzard said in a statement. “Planned it all along!”

WoW Classic is just what it sounds like: it’s the base game, in the state it was more than a decade ago before the release of the Burning Crusade expansion. The game operates alongside the regular WoW. Access to WoW Classic is available through the standard $15 USD/month regular WoW subscription price.

Stuber Review

There are buddy comedies that work, there are buddy comedies that don’t, and Stuber is one that very much falls into the second category. Some of the most critical elements of a good buddy comedy are connection and chemistry because if you don’t connect with the characters, you don’t really care about them. Bottom line, if the characters don’t have chemistry, whatever else you pack in there isn’t going to work effectively, and the chemistry isn’t there on-screen. Both Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani work with what they’ve got, but that’s not a lot and what they’ve got lacks spark.

Nanjiani plays Stuart (Stu for short), a lovelorn and generally mild-mannered Uber driver who picks up Vic, played by Bautista, a cop on the hunt for the bad guy who killed his partner. Vic can’t drive himself around LA as he’s had Lasik eye surgery earlier that day so can’t see correctly. As a result, Stu is thrust into a pursuit that takes him all over the city, not only putting him in the line of fire but it also means he can’t get to the recently single friend, and new Spin Cycle business partner, he is secretly in love with so they can have sex. On top of that, Stu has to make sure he does an excellent job so that his Uber rating doesn’t drop otherwise he’ll lose his job. It’s like if Speed swapped out the bomb and staying above 50 miles per hour for customer service feedback and a booty call with none of the tension.

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Destiny 2 – Bad Juju Other Side Exotic Mission | Extended Gameplay

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Apex Legends Wattson Guide: Tips On How To Be The Best Static Defender

Natalie “Wattson” Paquette has joined Apex Legends as the battle royale game’s tenth playable character. Added as part of Season 2, you’ll need to drop 750 Apex Coins or 12,000 Legend Tokens to unlock her. The electrifying defender is well worth the price though if you’re not the type of person who’s gung-ho to chase after enemy squads.

In the following guide, we go over all of Wattson’s skills, explain how you can get the best out of her character, and offer strategies for overcoming her weaknesses. If you haven’t grabbed Apex Legends yet, you should. The game is free and one of the best battle royales of 2019 so far. In GameSpot’s Apex Legends review, Phil Hornshaw wrote, “Apex Legends is a mix of smart shooter ideas that makes for a competitive, team-based game that gets at all the best parts of battle royale while addressing a lot of the weaknesses. Respawn’s intense focus on team play makes Apex more than just a worthy addition to the genre; it’s an indicator of where battle royale should go in the future.”

Other Character Guides

Wattson’s General Overview

If you listen to Wattson’s dialogue, you’ll hear that she’s not terribly excited about killing people with firearms, preferring to play electricity-based pranks and make lightning-based puns to annoy her opponents. All of Wattson’s skills reflect this mindset. Though she is a defender like Gibraltar and Caustic, Wattson possesses zero offensive-driven skills. She’s Apex Legends’ first true defender character, solely specializing in reinforcing her squad’s position and outlasting any who would dare try and attack.

As such, if you’re going to try and use Wattson offensively, you’re best bet is to stop thinking like a hunter and more like a trapper who sits and waits for their prey to come to you. Wattson is not for everyone, and given how offensive-focused Apex Legends has become since its launch, it also means she’s not a necessary character to own if your squad likes speed-based teams involving Octane, Pathfinder, and Wraith. That said, if you do master Wattson’s defensive skills, you’ll find plenty of new ways to counter the other Legends when you meet them in the arena.

Wattson’s Abilities

Passive Ability: Spark of Genius – Ultimate Accelerants fully charge your Ultimate Ability, and standing near interception pylons boosts your Tactical Ability recharge.

Move over Lifeline, there’s a new Ultimate Accelerant queen who now needs those items more than you. Wattson has a wonderful Ultimate Ability that can save a squad in a pinch once the perimeter ring starts getting pretty small. As such, Wattson should always have her Ult at the ready (you never know when you might need it) and a spare Ultimate Accelerant on hand just in case. After your team’s Wattson is loaded up, pass your remaining Ultimate Accelerants to Lifeline and the rest of the squad.

Tactical Ability: Perimeter Security – Connect nodes to create electrified fences that damage and slow enemies.

Wattson can set up four nodes the second the game begins, allowing you to immediately create a wall, angled wall, or (provided the final node is close enough to the first node) a triangle or quadrilateral. After placing a node, Wattson’s Tactical begins to recharge, allowing her to place up to 12 at one time.

The electrified fences that Wattson creates is the only ability she can use to damage people and it does not do much–only 10 damage per tick. However, Wattson is alerted when someone passes through one of her fences. Any enemy passing through her gate will also slow, even if sprinting.

This makes Perimeter Security, above all else, a deterrent and nothing more. Enemies either need to suffer minor damage and a speed decrease to go through them or waste ammo shooting the nodes. Either way, you’ll be alerted. Enemy squads know this so it’s in their best interest to avoid fences. With this in mind, you can create choke points or buy your team precious time to retreat from a firefight, heal, and regroup.

Ultimate Ability: Interception Pylon – Place an electrified pylon that destroys incoming ordnance and repairs damaged shields as long as it stands.

Interception Pylon is great for bunkering down, as it will heal your squad’s shields and vastly increase the recharge rate on Wattson’s tactical ability so she can put down more fences. The ability to knock out all incoming ordnance isn’t too bad a perk either, but be warned as it will affect friendly ordnance as well. Though Wattson’s Ultimate Ability can only place one pylon per charge, she can put down three of them at once.

Tips To Play As Wattson

Wattson is one of the few characters in Apex Legends whose utility exponentially increases as the game goes on and the perimeter ring shrinks. Granted, as stated before, Wattson is at her best while bunkering down. Use the early rings to grab Ultimate Accelerants and your favorite weapons and ordnance, engaging enemies as they find you.

Once the ring gets small enough, find a spot in the center to bunker down. If you have a Pathfinder with you, all the better, as they’ll be able to tell you where the following ring location will be to better set up. Don’t bother trying to hide. Just start constructing fences, and throw out an Interception Pylon or two so that you can put up a perimeter more quickly and not have to worry about incoming grenades. Remember to place your pylons in a way where they’re difficult to reach. You don’t want an enemy squad to easily destroy all your hard work.

After that, it’s just a matter of your team holding the position. Make sure everyone has plenty of healing items and at least one good close-range weapon like an EVA-8, Mastiff, Peacekeeper, or Wingman. You can either spread out Wattson’s three pylons to cover a wide area in anti-ordnance cover or put them closer together so your squad can quickly replenish shields without having to use items. Regardless, your strategy at that point is staying put and letting the enemy come to you. Again, Wattson is not an offensive defender. She is completely devoted to holding the line and scaring off other squads from rushing forward and overwhelming you and your teammates. It’s not a glorious role, but if you set up your fence and pylons just right, your team should be able to hold off more than one squad at a time through careful collaboration.

Unfortunately, until these final moments of the match, Wattson’s Abilities are essentially useless. She can deter enemy squads from easily following her or set up a cage to stop downed enemies from crawling away, but she doesn’t excel in the wide-open firefights that typically occur in the first few minutes of each round. If you or a teammate picks Wattson, it’s in your best interest to avoid fights at the start. Consider looting on the outskirts before carefully making your way to the center of the ring. You can use Pathfinder or Octane’s Ultimate Ability to make the trek a little faster.

How To Counter Wattson’s Weaknesses

Wattson’s fences can be grappled over via Pathfinder’s Grappling Hook or phased through via Wraith’s Into the Void. Mirage can get the drop on her by sending a decoy through her fence, alerting him to her location. Octane is the best counter to Wattson by far. Not only does the speedy Legend have no ordnance Abilities to be stopped by Wattson’s pylon, but Octane can use Stim to overcome the speed decrease from the fence, rely on Swift Mend to patch up any minor damage he takes from the fence, and use Launch Pad to leap over any chokepoints.

There’s very little Wattson can do to counter these Legends, as her defensive abilities rely on the enemy approaching from a horizontal plane. Your best bet is to play as the aforementioned Legends and learn how you use their abilities to overcome enemy Wattsons. Take that knowledge and apply it when you do eventually play as the static defender. If you know how an enemy might move to overcome your fences, then you know where you can wait and hide to shotgun them in the face the second they come back down to earth. Be sure to communicate this knowledge to your squad so that they can help you respond to any attacking Pathfinders, Wraiths, Mirages, or Octanes.

Pokemon Sword and Shield’s Latest Controversy Is About a Corgi’s Butt Wiggle

Pokemon Sword and Shield has been dogged by controversy ever since it was revealed not every Pokemon from past generations will be coming to the Nintendo Switch. Also known as the National Pokedex, the removal of the popular feature has turned off a lot of longtime Pokemon fans, to the point where not even the recently revealed puppy Pokemon, Yamper, is immune to online haters.

To be fair, it’s not so much Yamper itself that is receiving criticism, but Yamper’s animation work. Earlier this week, The Pokemon Company released a new Pokemon Sword and Shield trailer that, among other things, debuted the new electric Corgi-type Pokemon. In the video Yamper shows off a few moves, including Tail Whip. Or maybe it’s more of a tail shuffle?

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