Author: Trafficblast

While sales on individual games are always nice, a sale on digital currency is even better. That’s because you can use it to buy any game you want, effectively creating your very own deal. Right now, Newegg has some great deals on gift cards for the Nintendo Eshop, Xbox Live, and PlayStation Store that save you 20% or more on digital currency. The deal ends Thursday, December 20, so grab these soon or you’ll be out of luck.

All of the gift cards are delivered via email, so you won’t have to wait around for physical cards to arrive in the mail. They come in the form of codes you can redeem on the PS4, Xbox One, or Nintendo Switch’s online marketplaces.

The best way to spend these gift cards is on games that are already on sale. Do that, and you’re effectively getting two discounts piled on top of each other (think of it as a delicious discount sandwich). Here are links to the game sale pages for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.

The best gift card deal available right now is the $25 Xbox Live gift card that comes with a free $10 gift card. And if you’re interested in EA Access, which gets you discounts and early trials for EA’s Xbox One games–as well as full access to over 50 titles–you can save $5 off a 12-month subscription with promo code EMCEREX29.

Xbox One

PS4

Nintendo Switch

Epic Games has disabled the Save the World portion of Fortnite while it investigates issues with the Stormshield Storage and the Frostnite mode. The developer made the decision to take the game’s servers down following reports of “long load times and server performance issues.”

Epic is providing updates via its Twitter account; the most recent update as of this writing is that the company is “still investigating” the issues and will “provide updates as they come available.” Fortnite’s free-to-play Battle Royale modes are seemingly unaffected by the problems.

Fortnite’s latest 7.10 update, which was released just recently, introduced a number of balance changes and prepared the game for the upcoming 14 Days of Fortnite event. The limited-time mode begins on December 19 and will cycle through a variety of events at regular intervals. “The 14 Days of Fortnite event will feature both new and returning LTMs,” Epic explains. “Large team modes switch every two days and small team modes rotate every 24 hours.”

Elsewhere, Epic is being sued by Alfonso Ribeiro–best known for playing The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’s Carlton. Ribeiro’s law firm said the the actor is accusing the studio of stealing his dance–commonly referred to by fans of the show as the Carlton dance–for Fortnite’s “Fresh” emote.

The game is no stranger to lawsuits. PUBG Corp., the creators of PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds, sued Epic over a concern “that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known.” However, the lawsuit was ultimately dropped. Epic hasn’t always been on the receiving end of a lawsuit, either. The studio sued a QA tester who leaked Fortnite Season 4 secrets, as well as a few streamers for advertising Fortnite cheats.

It’s the last week before Christmas, so you might think video game sellers would be pulling out all the stops to get your last-minute holiday spending. That’s the case with many retailers, like Best Buy, PlayStation Store, and GOG, but Xbox Live’s weekly sale is tiny in comparison. Maybe Microsoft has a bigger sale planned for later in the week, but for now, these are the deals you can get on digital Xbox One games. Note that you’ll need an Xbox Live Gold subscription to get some of the prices listed below.

Anyone looking to get more from their Fortnite experience can pick up either the Standard or Deluxe Founder Pack for half off this week. The Standard pack comes with the “Save the World” campaign, exclusive banner icons, and a bunch of Loot Piñata Packs. The deluxe version comes with all of that, plus eight Heroes, XP boosts, and other in-game items. These are still the early days of Fortnite Season 7, so now would be a good time to put these items to use.

A bundle containing both Styx: Master of Shadows and Styx: Shards of Darkness is on sale for just $15 / £13.75. These stealth games put you in control of Styx, a goblin who loves treasure and is willing to sneak into enemy territory to get it. Sports fans may want to grab Tennis World Tour while it’s on sale for $35 / £27. Its career mode lets you play as real-life tennis stars like Roger Federer and Angelique Kerber on all kinds of different tennis courts.

Aven Colony, a city-building sim that has you design and run humanity’s new settlements on an alien planet, is on sale for $10 / £8.25. Yoku’s Island Express, which mixes pinball gameplay with Metroidvania level design, is on sale for $6.60 / £5.30. The narrative-driven adventure game Syberia 3 is discounted to $25 / £20, though you’ll probably want to play the previous games first since they tell one continuous story.

You can find the full list of games on sale on Xbox.com.

It’s the holiday season, and the actors behind Metal Gear Solid are ringing in the season in their own special way. Voice actors David Hayter and Cam Clarke, who voice Solid and Liquid Snake respectively, performed a rendition Twas The Night Before Christmas with a particularly Metal Gear twist.

The duo got together for the video, complete with some in-character testy exchanges. The poem follows the basic rhyme structure of the familiar poem, but of course this is about Metal Gear, so it’s a good deal more violent. It replaces the merry and bright story of St. Nick with lines like, “To the top of the base, and hey blow up that wall / Kill the guards, the twin snakes, what the hell, kill them all.”

The most recent game in the series was Metal Gear Survive, which released earlier this year. It was a decidedly unconventional take, moving away from melodrama-heavy geopolitics and toward post-apocalyptic survival. It received mixed reviews at GameSpot sister site Metacritic, and a cold reception in GameSpot’s own Metal Gear Survive review.

“For the most part, Metal Gear Survive feels oppressive, demanding, and obtuse, and needlessly so,” wrote Tamoor Hussain. “It’s a shame because there’s actually a good survival game in there, but the pressures it places on you make uncovering and enjoying that unappealing. Over time the ability to manage thirst and hunger becomes slightly more manageable, especially if you play the multiplayer, but the lead up to that is debilitating. There’s some satisfaction to be had if you persevere and savor the small victories, but you’ll quickly find yourself thinking about if your time would be better spent playing something else.”

There’s just something satisfying about toy commercials from the ’80s. A couple of kids are actually playing with the product being sold and shouting out one-liners while some wicked guitar riff plays in the background. Well, Walmart has tapped into nostalgia to promote its exclusive home release for the movie.

Walmart has an exclusive Venom home release you may want to pick up–which is on sale now. The pack comes with a Blu-ray, DVD, and digital code for the movie, along with an ’80s-style action figure. To celebrate the release, Sony released a commercial for the set that channels the inner-awesomeness of ’80s toy commercials, which you can check out below.

The Venom home release includes behind-the-scenes production footage, Easter eggs, and deleted scenes–including an extended mid-credit sequence. Despite the fact the movie was a critical flop, Venom made over $800 million in the box office, worldwide. And while it has yet to be confirmed, we could be getting a Venom sequel in 2020. Sony has plenty more movies planned based on Spider-Man secondary characters, including the vampire movie Morbius, which will star Jared Leto.

The Walmart exclusive Blu-ray/DVD/action figure combo pack of Venom is available today for $28. Check with your local retailer at Walmart to see if they have it available.

Epic Games is rolling out Fortnite‘s 7.10 update across PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android. As part of this, the developer has also released patch notes detailing all the new additions and tweaks being made as part of the update. The headliner is undoubtedly the 14 Days of Fortnite limited-time mode, which begins on December 19 and will cycle through a variety of events at regular intervals.

“The 14 Days of Fortnite event will feature both new and returning LTMs,” Epic explains. “Large team modes switch every two days and small team modes rotate every 24 hours.” Elsewhere, the update also tweaks the way a number of weapons work. Most notably, the Heavy Assault Rifle has had its effectiveness reduced when not aiming down sights.

Other things to note include ground vehicles now sliding on icy surfaces (of which there are many thanks to Season 7’s cold snap), items near Mounted Turrets are easier to pick up, Stormwings take 50 percent more damage, and landing a vehicle on all four wheels will no longer damage players inside it. Take a look at the full patch notes for Fortnite: Battle Royale below. You can find out what’s new and changing with Creative and Save The World on Epic’s website.

Limited-Time Modes: 14 Days Of Fortnite

• The 14 Days of Fortnite event will feature both new and returning LTMs. Large team modes switch every two days and small team modes rotate every 24 hours. Starting December 19, log in each day at 9 AM ET(1400 UTC) to find out which modes are available to explore. Let us know which LTM is your favorite on our social channels!

Weapons + Items

• Heavy Assault Rifle Changes:
  • Reduced the effectiveness of the Heavy Assault Rifle while not aiming down sights; aiming down sight gameplay remains roughly the same
    • Increased ADS accuracy bonus by 10%
    • Increased accuracy while standing still by 10%
    • Reduced vertical recoil by 6%
    • Base accuracy reduced by 30%
    • Reduced accuracy while jumping and falling by 60%
• Improved Balloon controls
  • While in the air, Balloons can be released by pressing the ‘Crouch’ keybind(formerly the ‘Jump’ keybind).
  • Players can again use Alt-Fire to release a Balloon when the Balloon item is selected.
• For modes it’s available in, the height at which glider redeploy is available has been decreased from 1000 units to 576 units.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where players were able to pick up live Dynamite through structures.

Gameplay

• Ground vehicles now slide on icy surfaces.
• Eliminations from “no-scoping” enemies with Sniper Rifles now shows up in the elimination feed.
• Sticking a landing on all 4 wheels with a vehicle will no longer damage the player inside.
• It’s now easier to pick up items dropped near a Mounted Turret.
• Stormwings now take 50% more damage from hitting objects.
  • Boosting now reduces the damage taken from impacts by 50%, previously boosting prevented all impact damage.
• Damage done to players that are in a Stormwing when it’s shot down has been increased from 25 to 50
  • Damage is dealt directly to health.
• Stormwings will now take more damage from destroying structures by running through them.

Bug Fixes

• Holding a movement key while confirming an edit will no longer force the player to continue moving in the direction of the key they were holding.
• Mounted Turrets will no longer be briefly teleported under the map and then returned to their original location.
• Various Zipline fixes
  • Zipline animations no longer briefly play every time a player jumps after building underneath a Zipline.
  • Players should retain proper momentum when latching onto a Zipline. This will fix the issue where it appears a player is “jittery/rubberbanding” or receives a perceived speed boost immediately after latching onto the Zipline.
  • Players will no longer lose the ability to sprint if they emote while on a Zipline.
  • Fixed an issue that caused players to become detached from the Zipline right after seeing the animation above their head.
  • The Zipline pulley will no longer remain in the world after eliminating a player while they were riding on it.
  • Fixed an issue where players would get flung across the map.
  • Added sounds and effects when a ziplining player smashes through structures.
  • Improved attach collision around Ziplines.
• Fixed regressions with the “Auto Pick Up Weapons” option

Events

• Added additional dates for Explorer Pop-Up Cups and Friday Night Fortnite
• Explorer Pop-Up Cups
  • Resource caps adjusted from 700/500/300 to 500/500/500 for wood/stone/metal.
  • Resource gains on eliminations adjusted from 100/50/50 to 50/50/50 for wood/stone/metal.
  • We’re continuing to make adjustments on these values in an attempt to find a healthy balance, please let us know your feedback!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Traps were not granting elimination rewards in Explorer Pop-Up Cup.

Playground

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that would prevent time trial Challenges from recording player completion times.
• Players should no longer see an occasional “Please Wait” message that blocks them from starting Challenge games in Playgrounds.

Performance

• GPU performance improvements when view distances are far. This should improve resolution on consoles and in some cases, frame rate.
• Minor improvements were made to performance for emote music playback.
• Addressed movement corrections sometimes are seen when players jump
• Improved the performance of some gliders

Audio

• Improved winter biome ambient audio.
• Reduced the volume of Quad Crasher boost sounds.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Victory Royale sound effects being different on mobile/Switch.

UI

• Players can now preview loading screen cosmetics in the front end by pushing the key bound to the “preview” action “Full Screen”
• Added a vehicle health bar above the player shield bar.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where a short snippet of the currently equipped Music item could be heard when previewing a different Music item
• Fixed an occasional crash when viewing event tiles on the consoles.

Art + Animation

• Zenith has his own idle animation in the lobby.
• Lynx has her own idle animation in the lobby.
• Phone It In now plays for 15 seconds in the lobby
• Dab for days with the new emoting power of the Infinite Dab in the lobby!
  • Lasts 10 hours.

Mobile

• UI buttons updated.
  • Made the HUD settings tab visible for mobile players.
  • Updated icons to be more visible in snow.
  • Moved the Exit Vehicle button to a new location
• 60 FPS option enabled for iPad Pro – second generation (10.5″ & 12.9″) (select inside Settings).
• Enabled support for Snapdragon 710 chipsets (such as; Samsung A8S, Xiaomi Mi 8SE, Nokia 8.1, Oppo R17 Pro).
• Enabled support for Snapdragon 670 chipsets (such as Oppo R17, Vivo Z3).
• Enabled support for Samsung A9.

Bug Fixes

• Added a warning when Accessibility settings for Zoom are enabled, which interfere with tapping the screen and cause missing actions.
  • This caused players to experience unresponsive interactions.

Fortnite has been wrapped up in a bit of legal controversy lately with numerous celebrity figures attempting to sue Epic for using iconic dance moves in its game. The latest to take action is The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s Alfonso Ribeiro, who played Carlton Banks. A version his character’s dance moves, known as The Carlton, is in Fortnite and according to Ribeiro’s lawyer they are in the process of filing the copyright for the dance.