Author: Trafficblast

A strange mutation has made one of the world’s ugliest real animals look like one of the cutest fictional ones. A brushtail possum was brought to a clinic in Melbourne, Australia, with unique golden coloring. The caretakers there affectionately named her Pikachu, after the famous Pokemon.

The Age reports that Pikachu (the possum, not the Pokemon) has low levels of melanin which causes the fur color abnormality. She also happens to have large ears, which helps the comparison. She was found lying on the ground and vets say she probably fell off her mother’s back. Though she’s in good health now, the vets say she probably won’t be released into the wild because her unique coloring makes her an easy target for predators.

The golden possum abnormality isn’t unheard of, but they usually don’t live long due to their vulnerability. Caroline Dazey from Wildlife Victoria says the state has “little pockets” of the critters, but they try to keep their location secret.

The family resemblance makes sense. Pikachu the Pokemon is classified as an “Electric Mouse,” so its design was loosely based on a member of the rodent family. Possums are similarly rodents, so all it takes is a little coloring and a cute complexion to bear some similarity.

Pikachu has been the breakout star and mascot of the Pokemon franchise since the early days. Most recently, he’s getting a starring role voiced by Ryan Reynolds in the upcoming Detective Pikachu film, and was one of the two mascot characters to appear on the cover of Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee.

Video game spending in the US increased in the third quarter of 2018 over the previous year, according to a report by the NPD Group. The sales tracking firm said the games having the biggest impact on the figures were Candy Crush Saga, Fortnite, Madden NFL 19, Spider-Man, and NBA 2K19.

Altogether the firm says that total spending on video games increased 24% from July-September, over the same period in 2017. It reached a total of $9.1 billion. “Video game content” accounted for $7.9 billion, but that broad category includes full games, DLC, and subscriptions. Mobile games and digital content sales had the highest growth.

Hardware grew by 11% to $737 million, while accessories like headsets grew by 44%. Game cards had a particularly sharp increase of 63%, marking the first time they’ve beaten accessories during this period of the year.

This isn’t the first we’ve heard of games like Spider-Man and Fortnite lifting the industry up. Earlier this year NPD announced similarly rising figures on the back of Fortnite and God of War. Similarly, Sony boasted in September that Spider-Man had broken sales records set by God of War, and sales have apparently been so strong that the PlayStation business lifted Sony’s financial forecast as a whole.

“The Video Game market in the U.S. continues to thrive with compelling gaming content expanding the market, driving higher spending of hardware, accessory and software,” said Mat Piscatella, games industry analyst at The NPD Group. “And with the sales strength of recent releases such as Marvel’s Spider-Man and NBA 2K19, combined with cross-platform titles such as Fortnite, there appears to be no slowing down as we head into the final stretch of the holiday shopping season.”

An online, multiplayer-only Fallout game, Fallout 76 was roundly criticised at launch for a number of reasons, one of which was its lack of meaningful events and interactions with NPCs–which do not exist in the game.

In a new GameSpot video, Jess McDonell covers the many ways that Fallout 76, in its current state, fails to deliver an interesting post-apocalyptic world. In short, the way Fallout 76 delivers quests and story elements simply isn’t all that interesting or engaging, Jess argues.

Fallout 76 is of course not the only game that lacks other human characters, and in the video piece, Jess examines the ways in which titles like Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, Tacoma, Return of the Obra Dinn, and The Division do a better job than Fallout 76 of telling stories when the world’s other humans are dead and gone.

Be sure to watch the full video in the embed above to get the rundown on the failures of Fallout 76’s storytelling elements and how things could have been different using one of the many alternate approaches. And once you’re done, leave a comment below about what games you think handle the post-apocalypse or minimal characters best and whether or not you’re a fan of how Fallout 76 handles it.

For more on Fallout 76, check out GameSpot’s review and all of our previous coverage here.

There’s a good chance you still have holiday shopping left to do, either for someone else or–ahem–for yourself. If the person you’re buying for is into video games, Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, or other things of the sort, here’s a tip: For four hours, today only, between 1 PM – 5 PM ET (10 AM – 3 PM PT), you can get half off anything on Thinkgeek’s online store. All you have to do is visit the site during that time, and you’ll find a promo code you can enter at checkout.

You can peruse Thinkgeek at your leisure to see what you might want to get with this generous discount, but we’ve highlighted some of our suggestions below, along with their prices after the discount.

Pokemon Snorlax Bean Bag Chair

Sure, you can sit on any old chair. But when you could be sitting on this enormous Snorlax bean bag, why would you want to rest your body on anything else? (You wouldn’t.)

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Harry Potter: Hagrid’s Lantern

This human-sized version of Hagrid’s lamp lights up the room with a low-power LED candle that flickers realistically. Just note that the three AA batteries it requires are sold separately.

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Captain Marvel Crossbody Purse

The Captain Marvel movie is slated to hit theaters on March 8. If the superhero fan in your life is in need of a purse, you can’t go wrong with this stylish one.

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Game of Thrones Jon Snow Fur Hoodie

For anyone in the northern hemisphere, winter is literally coming. Be prepared with this fur hoodie inspired by Jon Snow’s iconic cloak.

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Fallout Nuka-Cola Quantum Mood Light

For the Fallout fan in your life, get the only bottle of soda that comes with its own atomic glow. Batteries are included, but you can also power this nuclear nightlight using a USB cable (also included).

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Star Wars Choose Your Side Cap

Do you want to represent the Empire or the Rebellion? You can pick your side with these simple, stylish caps–or buy one of each so you can switch them out depending on which side of the Force you’re feeling on any given day.

The Nintendo Switch continues to get great games. Developer Campo Santo has announced that its acclaimed 2016 adventure game, Firewatch, is coming to Switch very soon.

You don’t have to wait long at all to pick it up on Nintendo’s hybrid console, as it arrives in the eShop on December 17 in the Americas, Europe, Australia, and Japan. It’s being published by the Portland, Oregon-based independent studio Panic. Campo Santo announced Firewatch for Switch earlier this year, at the time pegging it launch in spring 2018, so the wait has been longer than expected.

Set in 1989, Firewatch takes place in the Wyoming wilderness and puts you in the role of Henry (voiced by Mad Men‘s Richard Sommer), a man with a troubled past who seeks a new life as a fire lookout. The other main character is Delilah (Cissy Jones), whom Henry speaks with using a walkie-talkie. The game was originally released in February 2016 for PC and PlayStation 4, before landing on Xbox One in September of that year.

It was Campo Santo’s first title and reviews were positive across the board. Here at GameSpot, it was one of our favourite games of 2016. It was also a commercial success, selling more than 1 million copies in its first year.

A Firewatch movie is currently in the works at Good Universe, the film company that also produced the well-received horror movie Don’t Breathe and Last Vegas.

Campo Santo’s next game is the intriguing-looking In The Valley Of Gods, which was announced during The Game Awards last year. In other news, Valve acquired Campo Santo earlier this year for an undisclosed sum.

Ubisoft’s massive Assassin’s Creed Odyssey offers the series’ largest open world to date, greatly dwarfing the scale of its predecessors. With no plans for another AC game in 2019, fans will be firmly set in the realm of Ancient Greece for some time, though the developers at Ubisoft plan to keep things interesting for the foreseeable future. Players have already seen some new events in the form of the free Lost Tales of Greece series, along with tweaks to the core gameplay. Now, the debut installment of the first major DLC releases on December 4 for season pass holders on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. With the first episode, Odyssey shows off a promising start for its post-launch initiative.

In Legacy of the First Blade, the lead character will encounter Darius, son of Xerxes and one of the earliest assassins to wield the original hidden blade. Fans with a sharp eye will recognize the character from one of the hidden tombs visited in Assassin’s Creed II, and you’ll eventually team up with him to take down a new threat in the form of the Order of the Ancients. As something of a mini-series, Legacy of the First Blade will span across three episodes, with the conclusion coming sometime in early 2019. We had the opportunity to play the first episode prior to launch, and we also spoke with game director Scott Phillips about how much has changed since release and where Ubisoft plans to take things from here.

“We’ve been very happy with the feedback from fans so far,” said the director. “It’s been very cool to see the reception from people that like the big things we’ve all worked on, such as the role-playing and progression aspects, the dialog systems, the massive world, the naval [systems], and all that stuff. People have been coming back for the daily and weekly events, and so on. So having players being continually engaged with the events has been super fun to see. We wanted to keep that going for the long-term with this new DLC.”

Legacy of the First Blade feels very much like a continuation of the gameplay loop from Odyssey. Taking around four to five hours to complete, the new questline will unlock after completing the events on Naxos in Chapter 7, with a minimum level cap of 29. In the first episode, Hunted, you’ll travel to the existing island of Makedonia in the northern section of the map and find it in turmoil. Though this location, along with others, felt underutilized in the main game, the region is put to better use in the DLC. Once you learn of the Order of the Ancients–setting the stage for their appearance in Origins–you’ll work with Darius to dismantle their influence. Continuing the Cultist gameplay from the main game, you’ll find a brand-new page in the sub-menu to dive into, with the following episodes adding even more targets to uncover.

Prior to the first story DLC, Odyssey has had many updates since launch, which includes a new level cap, new quests, and mastery levels that allow you to spend ability points on stats boosts. In Legacy of the First Blade, a brand-new skill is also added to the mix. In the Assassin ability tree, you’ll find a new passive skill known as Death Veil. With this ability, any target that’s killed with a stealth takedown, and without any witnesses nearby, will vanish instantly–leaving no traces behind. Though it only has a single rank, as opposed to the typical three levels, the passive skill is a great fit and should make stealth-focused players feel more at ease during some of the more challenging encounters in the episode.

Over the course of the first episode, we took on missions that covered the gamut of what you’ll find in Odyssey: investigations, stealth gameplay, naval travel and battles, and plenty of on-foot combat. Though the missions themselves consist of the sort of events you’d find in the main game–save for a few standout encounters–the narrative in the DLC offers many surprising and heartfelt moments with the lead character as they realize the growing impact their choices have throughout the world. Moreover, seeing the earliest traces of the Assassin order in Odyssey’s world–which is largely devoid of their influence–is interesting. Though it all manages to tie back into the larger story, especially if you’ve played the game to completion, the developers wanted to keep it as a side story for the sake of those who haven’t seen the game’s main arc to completion.

“We knew that there were certain systems that were sort of infinite and would continue to expand–such as the mercenaries and conquests–but it was important for us to gradually expand and pace things out for players to keep them coming back to the game with interesting events,” says Phillips. “We’re aware that more people will be coming into the game later on as the months go by, so we wanted to make sure that new content we are adding wouldn’t negatively impact the core game itself. This DLC is a great way for newcomers especially to level up and take part in an interesting quest while stepping away for a bit from the longer term odyssey.”

The most apparent thing playing through Odyssey to completion is the massive scale of the game. However, the first episode of The First Blade sticks with the island of Makedonia, making it feel like an interlude during many of the core chapters throughout the game. That’s not a bad thing. Given the scale of Odyssey, easing into a new quest that slowly builds up to what’s to come is a nice change of pace–especially for those that have already completed all the main stories.

It is a bit of an adjustment seeing Assassin’s Creed take a different approach to launching new content. The series has seen all sorts of standalone DLC over the years, so having a continuing story unravel over several weeks could make for a more engaging story. Along with the free updates adding new quests and enemies to fight, there always seems to be something new happening in the world. The events in the first episode of Legacy of the First Blade does keep things a bit subdued compared to some of the larger events in the main game. However, the teases for what’s to come during the brisk first episode hints at a much larger battle with greater stakes, and it’ll be intriguing–especially for longtime fans–to see how it all manages to play out within the broader setting of the world.