Author: Trafficblast

[Update] Service has been restored. [Original Story] PlayStation Network services are currently offline, which means online gaming, shopping, and communication is currently unavailable on the PS4. The PlayStation Network service status page states account management, gaming and social, PlayStation Now; Vue; Video; Store; and Music are all inaccessible.

“You may have some difficulty launching games, applications, or online features,” a message on the site reads. “Our engineers are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, and we thank you for your patience.”

Based on messages directed at the various PlayStation support accounts on Twitter, it looks like the outage is widespread, with users both in the US and Europe reporting issues with connectivity. Sony has not provided a timeframe for when it expects services to be up and running again. The actual cause of the issue has also not been detailed.

With any luck, the problems won’t be severe and the service should be up and running again soon. Of course, outage at this time of the year immediately sparks memories of 2011, when PlayStation Network was severely compromised by hackers. In that situation, services were not restored for a significant length of time.

Downtime is fairly common with online network services, however, so as mentioned previously in most cases issues are resolved fairly quickly.

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To celebrate 100 episodes, The Flash is doing something it’s been very fond of over five seasons. Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) is going back in time–again–and will hopefully not screw up the timeline–again. In a trailer for the momentous episode, “What’s Past is Prologue,” it’s revealed that Barry will be revisiting the biggest villains from the show’s past, and he’s not doing it alone. This time, his speedster daughter Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy) is along for the ride.

The Flash isn’t simply relying on old faces for its 100th episode, though. Instead, as Tom Cavanagh–who directs the installment–told GameSpot at the 100th episode red carpet event, “What’s Past is Prologue” is more about the show’s future than anything else.

“I do have to say I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that [the fans] figured into it in a massive way because you can you know, you want to have a certain celebration on the screen,” he said. “You do not want to be indulgent. You also don’t want to do a greatest hits episode because in some ways it’s almost too easy.”

So instead of letting the show’s past be the star, every element Barry sees once more helps to push forward a multitude of current plots, from the battle against Cicada (Chris Klein) to his relationship with Nora. “The idea that the writers had to have Norah and Barry Allen go… back in time to get a few things that they need to defeat the current villain, I thought it was genius,” Cavanagh admitted.

And in the end, it’s true to how he and the rest of those involved view the show as; a comic book come to life. “The thing that got us to 100 was trying to do a comic book every time out,” he explained. “You know, we succeed and we fail but we’re always trying. And to not do that for the 100th felt wrong.”

The 100th episode of The Flash airs Tuesday, December 4 on The CW. After that, the “Elseworlds” crossover, which sees The Flash, Arrow, and Supergirl meet up with Batwoman (Ruby Rose) for the first time kicks off on Sunday, December 8. Make sure to check out our photos and teasers for the “Elseworlds” event.

Calling all Xbox One owners who either don’t have Gold subscriptions or have let them lapse. If you’re a Fortnite fan who wouldn’t mind having three months of Xbox Live Gold, here’s a fantastic deal that’s available right now. You can get a three-month subscription to Xbox Live Gold, plus 1,000 V-Bucks in Fortnite, for just $10 / £6. The only catch is that the deal is only open to new subscribers, or anyone who canceled their Gold membership prior to October 1, 2018. You can take advantage of the deal on Xbox.com.

Assuming you’re eligible, this deal can save you a heap of money. Normally, a three-month Gold subscription costs $25 on its own, and 1,000 V-Bucks costs $10. But instead of dropping $35 on this collection of digital goodies, you only have to pay $10.

The deal is even better in the UK, where it will only set you back £6, because 1,000 V-Bucks normally runs £7. That means you get the Fortnite cash and the Gold subscription for less than the V-Bucks would regularly cost on their own.

Now is a particularly great time to get those V-Bucks as well, because Fortnite Season 7 starts on December 6. Assuming the pricing stays the same, buying Season 7’s Battle Pass–which comes with in-game seasonal items and unlocks new challenges each week–will cost 950 V-Bucks. That will leave you with 50 V-Bucks to spend on in-game outfits, emotes, or other cosmetics.

As for Xbox Live Gold, not only does the service let you take your paid games online, but it also gets you free Xbox One and Xbox 360 games each month. This is a fantastic deal, so consider taking advantage if you’re eligible.

The Game Awards will kick off on Thursday evening, promising loads of accolades for the year’s best alongside new game reveals and other announcements. If you want to watch live, you can tune in right here on GameSpot starting at 8:30 PM ET / 5:30 PM PT / 1:30 AM GMT (Friday) / 12:30 PM AET (Friday).

This year’s Game of the Year nominees are Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Celeste, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Monster Hunter World, and Red Dead Redemption 2. Three of those–God of War, Spider-Man, and Red Dead–are also up for Best Game Direction. God of War and Red Dead are generally regarded as the frontrunners, given that they both lead for number of nominees at eight apiece. Other notable categories include Best Ongoing Game, Games for Impact, and a variety of Esports categories. You can see everything in the full list of awards and nominees.

Sharing the spotlight with the awards will be a slate of game announcements. Host Geoff Keighley has already announced that we can expect ten new game announcements along with several updates on current games. Obsidian has teased that we’ll see whatever it has in store at the show too. We can also expect celebrity guests, such as Avengers 4 directors the Russo brothers.

Last year’s Game Awards attracted 11.5 million viewers according to Variety, and hosted announcements of games like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, In The Valley Of Gods, and Bayonetta 3.

Ubisoft has announced the next update for Ghost Recon Wildlands, titled Special Operations 3. The update launches on all platforms on December 11 and mostly introduces new PvP features.

Special Operations 3 includes a new PvE mission and in-game rewards, including two PvP classes inspired by the theme of the update’s mission. Ubisoft has not announced what the theme of this mission might be, but previous ones have included characters from other Tom Clancy games like Rainbow Six Siege and Splinter Cell. The update also adds two new PvP multiplayer maps.

The mission, in-game rewards, and maps will be available for all players starting December 11. Both new PvP classes will only be available for Year 2 Pass owners on December 11, and will only unlock for other players one week later.

A new Photo Mode is also included in Special Operations 3. The mode will allow players to capture any in-game moment, as well as edit pictures with effects and filters. Special Operations 3 also implements community feedback into Wildlands’ in-game store. Over 90 new items will be added, and changes will be made to the game’s Prestige Economy. Ubisoft has announced it will release more information on what those changes might be “soon.”

In our Ghost Recon Wildlands review, Miguel Concepcion gave the game a 7/10, writing, “As only the second open world game in the Clancyverse, Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a middlingly safe tactical shooter and a slightly wasted opportunity given the ambitious scope of its seemingly boundless map. While its main strength is its mission diversity, it doesn’t take long to lose the motivation after reaching El Sueno’s doorstep. Even with a foursome of highly trained friends, Wildlands eventually reveals its diminishing returns. The feeling of positive immediacy and dopamine hits begin to wane sooner than you expected from a game with such a large and diverse world.”

Ghost Recon Wildlands is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is just around the corner, and although it’s bringing some fresh faces to the forefront with Miles Morales and his friends, it’s also drawing on some pretty familiar comic book history. Or more accurately, you could call it recent history–Miles himself is less a decade old in terms of publication, so don’t be too hard on yourself if you’re not familiar with all of his background. There’s been a lot of it in not a lot of time.

One of those background elements revolves around a new version of a familiar Spider-Man baddie, a man called The Prowler, who was completely reimagined for Miles’ universe and is subsequently being brought to life for Into The Spider-Verse. He may not be the most famous villain making an animated big screen debut, but he’s probably going to be one of the most painful challenges Miles has to face for the movie, and it’s all thanks to one simple fact: If the movie keeps his backstory the same as the comics, Prowler will turn out to actually be Miles’ uncle, Aaron Davis.

To really understand what that means, you’ll have to wrap your head around the basic concept of the “Spider-Verse” as a whole. Miles exists in a reality that is actually separate from the traditional Spider-Man story–Miles’ world, the Ultimate Universe, has its own Peter Parker, who is still Spider-Man, and it’s still populated with heroes and villains with names you’d know. But there are some major differences, too. It’s essentially an alternate reality where only some things are changed. Back on the standard Spider-Man Earth–the one we know from the comics, generally called Earth 616 for the sake of clarity–Prowler is essentially a d-list villain who has had a couple of incarnations, none of them all that impactful.

Ultimate Prowler is a different situation, however, and a whole lot more relevant to the situation at hand. Aaron Davis actually had a direct hand in Miles’ spider-empowerment in the comics. A petty thief and cat burglar, Aaron had attempted to steal a case of experimental tech from an Oscorp lab, but in doing so, unknowingly spirited one of the genetically modified spiders Norman Osborn had been working with (in an attempt to replicate the Spider-Man phenomena) out of the building. Miles, not realizing what his uncle had just done, visited Aaron’s apartment only to be bit by the spider and, well, you know how that particular story goes. Miles and Peter aren’t that different when it comes to how they actually got their powers.

Prior to the spider-incident, Miles and Aaron had been pretty close, much to the dismay of Miles’ father, Jefferson, who used to run with the same less-than-reputable crews as his brother before going straight and becoming a cop. However, with the Oscorp job officially botched and Aaron now on the run–not to mention the complications built into Miles’ new dual identity as the new Spider-Man–things began to get pretty rocky. Aaron went on the run, Miles came into his superheroic own, and Jefferson forbade Miles to spend time with his uncle should he ever come back.

He did come back, of course, and things began to go even more down hill. Aside from the obvious conflicts between Prowler, a costumed villain, and Spider-Man, a superhero, there was also the matter of Aaron slowly piecing together just what had happened with his nephew and, eventually, learning his secret. The knowledge put him at a crossroads, not wanting to hurt his nephew, but seeing the opportunity it presented for things like blackmail. Afterall, the life of a supervillain gets considerably easier when they’re able to keep the local heroes off their back.

Prowler’s career blackmailing his own nephew came to a tragic conclusion after a showdown between he and Miles resulted in the fatal malfunction of his gear–or, at least, the sort of fatal malfunction of his gear. Despite “dying” in the Ultimate Universe, Aaron Davis was mysteriously resurrected following the massive multiverse-wide event known as Secret Wars, which transplanted Miles from his home Earth to Earth-616. Somewhere in the chaos, Aaron was returned to life and brought to Earth-616 as well, where he co-opted the Iron Spider identity and began working for the Sinister Six.

So what does this mean for Into The Spider-Verse? Well, it’s a little complicated. We know from our sneak peak at NYCC that Aaron and Miles are going to have a relationship at the start of things that is pretty similar to their comics counterparts. Miles sees Aaron as a cool mentor figure, despite his dad’s reservations. Miles’ origin story is slightly modified for the movie, however, so Aaron’s attempted robbery of Oscorp isn’t how Miles ends up getting spider-bitten.

That said, it would seem like Aaron is still an active criminal in the Spider-Verse universe. In the Venom post-credits scene, we saw Prowler–or at least, a version of Prowler–pursuing Miles (and an unconscious alternate dimension Peter Parker.) The interesting thing to observe here is that Miles is not actually disguised for this chase, so if the Prowler hunting him and Peter down actually is his Uncle Aaron, he may already be aware of Miles’ secret identity at this point in the movie.

(It’s worth noting, as an aside, that Aaron Davis was also portrayed in Spider-Man: Homecoming, albeit as more of a cameo. He was played by Donald Glover and Tom Holland’s Peter Parker confronted him in a parking garage.)

The other possibility here, given the multiversal shenanigans in play for all of Into The Spider-Verse, is that there are actually two different versions of Aaron Davis in play–the one Miles knows and loves, and a considerably crueler one from another dimension, working for Kingpin. Either way, Miles is probably going to get a very rude awakening about his favorite uncle when and if that purple mask comes off.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse hits theaters December 14. Read our full review to find out what we thought.