Absolute Carnage is already one of Marvel Comics’ biggest releases of 2019, but now readers have an even bigger incentive to buy the first issue. Marvel is hiding hand-drawn Carnage sketches inside copies of Absolute Carnage #1.
Lucky winners will find this card to the inside back cover of Absolute Carnage #1, featuring a one-of-a-kind sketch from veteran Marvel artist (and Carnage co-creator) Mark Bagley:
Amazon has been offering some solid deals for gamers lately, many of which have been exclusive to Prime members, such as free loot for games like Apex Legends and Red Dead Online, a free Nintendo Switch Online membership, and even some PS4 and Xbox One games for effectively free. All those perks have been offered through Twitch Prime, which is included with any Amazon Prime membership, but the latest games offer is available for anyone to take advantage of. For a limited time, you can buy one, get one 50% off on select PS4 and Xbox One games.
To take advantage of the deal, you can browse the games listed on the offer page and add two you want to your cart. During checkout, you’ll see the discount applied–it’ll be 50% off the cheaper game, which is a solid savings if you pick two games around the same price.
Plus, many of these games are already discounted–like Kingdom Hearts 3, which is only $29.88, and Days Gone, which is selling for $38. There are some recently released titles available as part of the deal, like Dragon Quest Builders 2 and Madden NFL 20, and even Elden Ring, the From Software-George RR Martin collaboration announced at E3 2019, is included.
See some of the games available below, and check out the full offer at Amazon. As is usually the case with Amazon, there’s no knowing how long this offer will be available, and the discounts reflected below will likely fluctuate, so don’t wait if you see a game you’ve been wanting at an appealing price.
Quantic Dream and its influential storytelling have been a part of games for 20 years, ever since the studio’s debut release, Omikron: The Nomad Soul, in 1999. Following news that the developer is going multiplatform — after nearly a decade of creating PlayStation exclusives — we’re looking back at all eight of IGN’s Quantic Dream reviews (five originals, three re-releases/ports).
Click through the gallery below, or continue scrolling, for our reviews of each Quantic Dream game.
Loot Crate, the self-proclaimed “world leader in fan-subscription boxes,” has filed for bankruptcy following reports of layoffs at the company.
The announcement came via an overnight press release just days after the company reportedly laid off dozens of employees, according to a report from the LA Times, apparently without severance of any kind. This comes after the company had already shuttered a warehouse and laid off almost 150 workers this past May, but none of that stopped LootCrate’s CEO Chris Davies from saying “We are very pleased with our progress from an operational efficiency standpoint,” continuing that “The company still faces liquidity issues.”
You know that dusty box of old Pokemon cards you have in your parent’s basement that you plan on one day cashing in for an insane amount of money? Well here’s a little motivation to actually go check how much they’re worth: someone just sold a mint condition collection for a cool $107,010.
Last weekend a complete set of 103 first-edition Base Set Pokemon cards were sold on Goldin Auctions for six figures. And yes, that includes the coveted first edition holographic Charizard.
What sets this collection apart from the one in your dinged up middle school binder is how they were kept in perfect condition. Every card was graded to be in “Gem Mint 10” condition, according to TMZ, who first reported on this insane Pokemon auction sale. It’s extremely rare for a card to receive a perfect Gem Mint rating because even fresh out of the booster pack a card can have minor defects that diminish the quality, like uneven color printing or little white chips on the border. So it is truly a remarkable feat to have the entire collection of the first English Pokemon set from all the way back in 1999 still in pristine condition.
EA’s latest NHL game, NHL 20, isn’t scheduled for release until September, but some lucky fans got access to the pro ice hockey game this week presumably due to a store error. EA’s community manager wrote on Twitter today that the “ceremonial faceoff” for NHL 20 came a little early this year, as some players got into their pre-ordered version of the game on Xbox One ahead of launch.
One person was banned by Xbox, but EA is working with Xbox to have that reversed. Those who were lucky enough to get the jump on NHL 20 due to the mistake will not be penalized in any way, EA added; they also won’t face a punishment for capturing gameplay.
Any footage you come across online from this accidental release comes with the caveat that it’s not final and subject to change. Additionally, some of the content in the mistakenly released early version of NHL 20 won’t be there in the full release.
Players who got to play NHL 20 early (it’s not immediately clear if the game is still available) should be aware that EA will wipe Hockey Ultimate Team and World of Chel progress at launch. Additionally, EA pointed out that people who got in early will still be able to open their pre-order HUT packs and exclusive World of Chel content when NHL 20 officially releases.
This is all very strange and unusual, and EA did not say if it was a mistake of its own or one made by Xbox. This doesn’t appear to have happened with the PlayStation 4 version of NHL 20.
NHL 20’s beta took place back in July, and EA Sports is now addressing feedback for launch on September 6 across PS4 and Xbox One. Like other EA games, it is expected that a time-limited version of NHL 20 will arrive multiple days early for EA Access members.
Toronto Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews is on the cover of NHL 20. The game also brings back the pond hockey mode from NHL 19, while it also has its own unique spin on battle royale. In addition, NHL 20 makes a major change for the commentary and broadcast package.
Diablo 3 is more than seven years old, but Blizzard has kept it alive with ports and a slew of updates that have essentially made it a live game. More is on the way, as the developer has now shared a look at its plans for Diablo 3’s future, including a commitment to communicate better with the fans.
First and foremost, Blizzard says the addition of themed seasons has been a huge boon to the game. These special rule sets added some variety for players who enjoy making regular Diablo runs but may have been growing tired of having a similar seasonal experience every few months. Blizzard says that Seasons 16 and 17 were among the most successful seasons overall; with Season 16 on PC almost tied Season 11, when the game introduced the Necromancer class.
To that end, Blizzard says it is working on more Themed Seasons, new sets for each class, and dozens of Legendary powers, along with the usual suite of balance changes. It also said that some quality-of-life and gameplay system updates are on the way too.
“These updates won’t arrive all at once, so if you don’t see something for your class right away, don’t worry; there’s something coming for everyone,” the blog states.
Blizzard also says that it plans to continue using the condensed public test realm (PTR) format, which limits the testing phase to a single week. The studio said it will give credit to great feedback from the community that results in actual changes to the game. Finally, Blizzard committed to “more frequent presence and interaction from our community team” to be more communicative.
This news comes as Blizzard prepares to wrap up Season 17 of the loot-based action RPG and roll into Season 18. Though the announcement that it will continue the trend of Themed Seasons gives us some insight about what we’re in for next, the studio is likely to share more details as we approach the actual release.
Capcom has secretly been inviting fans across Japan and the US to test an unannounced Resident Evil game. We took this opportunity to speculate on what this new Resident Evil game could be. And whether it’d be better for Capcom to be working on a new game like Resident Evil 8, or continue on the Resident Evil Remake path.
John Borba: Resident Evil is a series that has wandered quite a bit over the years, both in the narrative and in the core mechanics of the game. That said, the recent Resident Evil 2 remake took some incredible steps in a direction that returns the series to form, while providing some incredible and welcome updates that made for one of the best games of 2019 so far.
Traditionally gaming laptops have been three things: big, heavy, and expensive. That isn’t always the case anymore, especially as components have gotten smaller, notebooks have become thinner, and increased competition has helped lower prices. Thanks to these shifts in the market, you can get a great portable and powerful 1080p gaming machine these days for right around $1,000—sometimes, even less.
Below I’ve picked out the best gaming laptops equipped with the graphics cards and other specs you’ll need to run games at surprisingly decent frame rates for at least a couple years. (Without breaking the bank, of course.) And with the recent mobile release of Nvidia’s GTX 16-series GPUs, the performance of these budget machines has only improved while keeping prices down.
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw sits at a crossroads somewhere between American Truck Simulator’s slice of trucking Americana and the iconic combat of Freespace 2. It’s a highly competent, single-player space combat sim complete with warring factions, pirates, corrupt cops, and dubious sectors filled with all manner of undesirables, a nicely detailed trading system, and stellar combat. While intense difficulty spikes and lacking mission information leaves some scarring on the hull, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw delivers a worthy payload.
You play as Juno Markev, a pilot stuck between the search for her husband’s killer, her need to make cash to cover the debt of replacing her recently junked ship, and her shady past. Told largely through comms messages and cutscenes between missions, many of the characters you meet are fairly archetypal, but share a sense of relatability and groundedness that lends them a lot of their charm. Character animation in story cutscenes can feel quite stiff, lending them an uncanny valley vibe, but these moments are short and don’t distract from the wider storytelling. Juno herself is a big highlight; her endearingly grounded sense of self-belief and her inability to suffer the fools she finds herself constantly dealing with always makes for fiery dialogue.
Story threads are easy to lose track of due to the sheer number of things to do. When it’s just you and your ship, it’s all about surviving the hustle of being a space trucker; trading and smuggling goods, taking mercenary jobs, mining and selling resources–anything you can do to keep those credits rolling in so you can upgrade or outright replace the colossal junker of a ship you’re given at the game’s outset. In the opening hours, your travel is limited to one system and a handful of local missions, but once you get your hands on a jump drive you can start making your way across the galaxy, and things start to open up some more.
There are five ships you can purchase from various stations, each with traits that make them suitable as freighters or as fighters. While some ships are better suited for certain tasks than others, you’re not locked into a playstyle because of your choice. Fighters can add cargo bays to move more items, and you can take a freighter fully kitted out with advanced weapons pirate-hunting and it’ll still feel pretty good.
The beautifully detailed cockpit is the default view, and it is daunting at first–though you can also play in third-person–which seems weird given that you play an experienced pilot; the numerous switches, lights and dials each flicker away, and you’re not really sure what they do at first. There’s no tutorial to help with this, so it can feel like you’re being thrown in the deep end. But while it takes some time to understand what the ship systems are telling you, it’s not long before you’re fluent in reading the controls and gaining a better grasp on any given situation. There is support for a flight stick and a HOTAS, but I found it best with a gamepad as everything you need is right at your fingertips.
Stations are where everything outside of combat happens, although you don’t hop out of your ship and wander around. Instead you browse a handful of menus to get what you need before setting off on your next journey. This is where you make repairs or ship upgrades, handle commodities trading, sign up to one of the guilds that offer side missions, or browse the standard side missions for that station. It’s an elegant way of handling station traversal, and the nice visual shots and animations of the station internals give you a sense of what type of station you’re in and the kinds of things you might find there. You can bother the local bartender for helpful gameplay tips, sector news, or other information or play one of the handful of trite but fun mini-games like slots, 8-ball, or Star-Venger, a simple take on an Asteroids-based sprite shooter.
Missions are either picked up from stations or, in the case of story missions, given through dialogue. They generally amount to going to a waypoint and finding or killing something for varying factions. Some of these have an effect on your standing with different factions, which can change who treats you as hostile when out amongst the stars as well as the stations you can land at. Missions also show a level of risk from mild to extreme, but these aren’t a great benchmark, as countless times I warped into a mission zone of mild-to-low risk only to be completely overwhelmed within 10 seconds of my arrival. At least a reload after death is super fast, returning you to the last jumpgate you took or station you’d left and allowing you to do something else for a while before coming back to try again. But this is also a huge source of frustration as the only way to push through these difficulty spikes is to grind for credits and ship upgrades.
The tension in a good firefight is wonderful. When you’re not tuned in to one of the seven different radio stations that broadcast throughout the galaxy, the game’s southern hard rock soundtrack kicks into overdrive as the lasers start flying. Firefights will sometimes offer up instant rewards, either as bounty credits or loose cargo that’s been freed from the breached hull, and you can freely engage the tractor beam to suck these up in order to sell on yourself and reap the benefits. In some cases you may also find an ejected pilot who you can haul in for detention, or you can enslave them and sell them on the black market, though doing so will put you on the wrong side of the space cops, which can make life in the outer rims much harder than it needs to be.
The cockpit views on each of the game’s crafts are tight, and there’s no option to move your head around, so you rely heavily on your radar to know where to go and what’s around you. It’s invaluable when in the thick of the action, which can very quickly get overwhelming unless you act decisively. Power management is a big part of this, and it’s a system that adds a nice slice of tactical thinking to the visual feast of the combat. Weapons fire has two modes, linked and staggered, and while linked fire will unleash the full power of your hardpoints, it’ll drain your available power quickly and severely limit your ship’s capabilities. Staggered fire only fires one hardpoint at a time, meaning it uses less power overall, but can be sustained for longer. You can also quickly reroute power between the engines, weapons and your shields, but as there’s only so much to go around you’re always settling on a compromise between offense and defense, so the system as a whole works wonderfully well as a test of situational awareness.
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw’s gorgeous visual design is one of its biggest strengths. There’s a huge assortment of stations, ships, planets and other things to see while out in the vastness of space. From the huge casinos of the Nevada sector to the glass-capped atriums of Hobbes Station, there are postcard moments to be found almost everywhere in the galaxy. There’s also a wildly in-depth and excellent ship painter that lets you completely redesign the paint job of your ship, so you can customize to your craft’s look down to minute details. That extends to the combat, too, with under fire shields flashing in protest and hull plating falling apart as its struck by cannon fire before bursting into a flaming wreck in front of you. Distant firefights look like a laser light show.
There is a lot to do in Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, so much so that it’s easy to lose yourself among the myriad of activities beyond flying around and shooting things. Juno is a great character despite her sometimes jarring movements, as are much of the rest of the charming cast. The combat is fast, frenetic and consistently challenging, although that challenge can sometimes feel impossible without stepping back and grinding out some progress elsewhere, which quickly gets frustrating. Thankfully the core of the game–its combat, trading, and space flight–are all superb and had me launching into the stars for many hours of galactic trading and explosive firefights.