The Walking Dead: “Stradivarius” Review

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow…

Walking Dead star Michael Cudlitz returned to the fold this week to direct his former castmates in “Stradivarius,” a decent-enough bridging episode that kept the new information flowing while also setting the story up for a big confrontation out in the woods for next week’s midseason finale.

“Stradivarius” suffered from the same small struggles that “The Obliged” faced back before Rick got near-fatally wounded by his panicked rearing horse. It was sort of half an episode. Meaning, it was the cocking of the gun but not the pulling of the trigger. And because the story had to end before things got good, a bunch of chit chat was added to fill the time. Fortunately, due to the huge time jump, there was a lot to talk about. We still had more to learn about the newbies (and how much they loved them some “Bernie” – hoo, boy) and we had all the Hilltop goings-on to catch up on.

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GameStop’s Early Black Friday Deals are Live

If you buy something through this post, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.

GameStop pre-Black Friday sale has begun, with savings matching most other retailers. There are a few extra surprises, like an incredible Black Friday 2018 price on Horizon Zero Dawn, for example.

We’re gathering up all the best Black Friday 2018 deals and sales as they come in.

GameStop PS4 Slim Spider-Man Bundle Black Friday Deal

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Enzo Amore Appears At WWE Survivor Series, Promptly Kicked Out

At WWE events, you can always expect to see famous people sitting in the front rows, especially at major PPVs. However, at this year’s Survivor Series, the audience got to see former wrestler Enzo Amore, and those sitting by him got a whole show before he was booted from the arena.

Sitting in the second row, in full view of the hard cameras, Eric Arndt, known by WWE fans as Enzo Amore, arrived to this year’s Survivor Series during the Seth Rollins/Shinsuke Nakamura match. He was wearing a hoodie and keeping his head low throughout the match, as first noticed by comic book writer Mario Candelaria, who was sitting two rows behind him.

During the AOP vs. The Bar match, Arndt got up and starting making a scene, but the cameras quickly cut away. Those watching the PPV at home missed out on what many have described as Enzo being Enzo.

Photo by Mario CandelariaPhoto by Mario Candelaria

Arndt stood up, spung around, and did was sounded like a typical Enzo promo, all while holding a custom championship belt, according to Candelaria who sent GameSpot an image from the moment. Security forcefully threw Arndt from the chair he was sitting in, and Arndt ran out of the area. Apparently, people were hurt when this went down and the LAPD is currently taking statements from the audience.

Many who noticed Amore in the crowd prior to his hijacking of the show thought Amore was going to get involved in the ring somehow. Back in January, Arndt was released from WWE after the company found out about an ongoing sexual assault case, which turned out to be false. However, many insiders say that this was the last straw for WWE as Arndt caused numerous problems backstage.

The former WWE star is no stranger to getting kicked out of things after making a scene. Earlier this week, Arndt was booted from a Delta flight after refusing to stop vaping on an airplane before takeoff, according to Pro Wrestling Sheet. As he was being escorted off the place, some hero yelled, “How you doin’?”

However, Survivor Series continues, so make sure to check out our live coverage of the event.

All the WWE Survivor Series Match Results

As the WWE’s second longest-running PPV of all time – shifting over the years from “Teams of 5 Strive to Survive” to the “One Time of the Year When RAW and SmackDown Go Head-to-Head” – Survivor Series is all about scratching and clawing to stand out as the best.

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Stay with this page all evening for live match results and reactions, and follow me over on Twitter where I’ll be live-tweeting, as Brock Lesnar takes on Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins faces Shinsuke Nakamura, and Charlotte Flair – subbing for an injured WWE SmackDown Women’s Champion Becky Lynch – goes toe-to-toe, mole-to-mole with WWE RAW Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey.

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Spider-Man PS4 Is Cheap At Ebay For A Limited Time

Marvel’s Spider-Man is a critical and commercial success, but if you were holding out to web up a Spidey discount, today is your day. As part of Ebay’s ongoing pre-Black Friday sales, you can get the swinging superhero for $40–the lowest price we’ve seen from the coming sales season. [Update: The sale price has now gone up to $43 as of the time of writing, which is still a deep discount.]

Like many of Ebay’s sale items, this is likely limited by time and supply. You can pick it up at the sale price here. You may have to wait a bit for delivery, though; as of time of writing, delivery is estimated December 5-10. This joins Ebay’s line-up of “Better Than Black Friday” deals, which includes discounts on other recent games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Black Ops 4.

Spider-Man sold record numbers for Sony, and its success helped Sony’s bottom line so much that the company as a whole raised its profit forecast. This Ebay deal is the only discount we’ve seen this season on the standalone game, though Sony is offering a big discount on the game bundled with a new PS4 console as well for Black Friday.

Insomniac and Sony just detailed the second DLC pack Turf Wars, part of the ongoing serialized story The City That Never Sleeps. It’s set to drop next week, on November 20, with new story missions, sidequests, and of course, Spidey suits.

“The feeling of embodying Spidey and using his abilities is astonishing, and the time spent on exploring its major characters help make its story feel heartfelt, despite superhero bombast,” critic Edmond Tran said in GameSpot’s Spider-Man review. “There have been open-world Spider-Man games before, but none so riveting and full of personality, none that explore and do justice to this many facets of the universe.”

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 Patch Notes Bring Back “Speed Cola” Perk, PC Balance Tweaks

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 has gotten another global update across all platforms, including quality-of-life improvements, a new Perk system modifier, and PC-specific balance changes. Plus it includes the usual round of regular bug fixes that are to be expected with an ongoing live game.

In the patch notes, Treyarch says that the PC balance updates are distinct from the other platforms and the teams evaluate them separately. As a result the notes have their own PC section with additional keybinds, more slight toggles for things like push to talk or Asus Aura RGB effects, and several balance changes to weapons.

Meanwhile, all modes got improvements to detecting melee attacks, exploit fixes in Multiplayer, and crash fixes in Zombies. The Zombies mode also got a new modifier to its Perk system to increase weapon reload speed. If you’ve played previous games you may recognize this as the “Speed Cola” perk. Combining it with Fast Mags/Hybrid Mags, it results in a 50% overall increase.

“This preserves the role of these weapon attachments in creating the quickest-handling guns in each weapon class,” reads the notes. “Additionally, we wanted to ensure the reload modifiers from certain Pack-a-Punch versions of weapons are still meaningful, which stack with the new ‘Speed Cola’ tuning values.”

If you haven’t yet grabbed Black Ops 4, Amazon has a hot deal offering it for $40. This matches the best sale price across retailers on Black Friday. Plus, if you need a system to go with it, Sony just announced a new PlayStation 4 bundle that includes the game for free.

Check below for the full patch notes.

Black Ops 4 November 15 Update Patch Notes

Multiplayer

  • Gameplay

    • Improved melee attack hit registration. More improvements to come in an upcoming patch.

    • Added enemy attachment information to Killcam.

    • Resolved an issue where players leaving a match shortly after joining could cause a white square to appear in the Scoreboard.

  • Create-a-Class

    • Closed an exploit that allowed players to apply Dark Matter, Gold, or Diamond Camos on any weapon regardless of camo progress.

    • Resolved an issue where players with Signature Weapons could encounter UI Error 55068 when selecting a weapon under another Custom Class tab.

  • CWL Custom Games

    • General

      • Specialist Equipment restrictions are now implemented as intended.

      • Players now continue to earn score toward Scorestreaks after the first round of CWL Search & Destroy and CWL Control.

    • Torque

      • Torque is no longer selectable in CWL Search & Destroy to align with current official CWL ruleset. These changes will continue to be tested and reviewed for viability in competitive play.

      • Torque’s Razor Wire no longer does damage to align with current official CWL ruleset.

      • Resolved an issue where players could become stuck and unable to move when walking into an enemy Torque’s Razor Wire.

  • Maps

    • Nuketown

    • Firing Range

  • Scorestreaks

    • Fixed a crash that could occur when shooting down the Care Package, Mantis, or Strike Team Helicopters.

  • Modes

    • Gun Game

      • Resolved an issue in Gun Game where winning a match, then leaving the lobby before the next game starts, could cause that player’s name to appear on the next game’s Scoreboard with stats from the previous game.

  • Challenges

Zombies

  • Stability

    • Global

      • Fixed a crash that could occur when a player disconnected while the Chakram was thrown.

      • Fixed a crash that could occur when the Blightfather performed its tracking missile attack.

      • Fixed a rare crash that could occur while using Anywhere But Here.

      • Fixed a rare crash that could occur while using the Chakram throw.

      • Fixed a rare crash that could occur upon Homunculus death.

    • IX

      • Fixed a crash that could occur when fighting the Destroyer during the Main Quest.

      • Fixed a crash that could occur upon completing the Arena Rock side quest.

      • Fixed a rare crash that could occur when enemies spawned during the Ra obelisk step in the Main Quest.

  • General

    • Resolved an issue in Blood of the Dead where ambient music would abruptly stop and restart when progressing through rounds.

    • Closed an exploit where players could use certain Elixirs without consuming them.

Blackout

  • Characters

    • Updated descriptions for Ranger, Airborne, Frogman, Seal, and Battle Hardened characters to clarify that they are unlocked by progressing to a specific Echelon.

  • General

    • Miscellaneous

      • Resolved an issue where attempting to load a custom Paintjob could cause a UI Error message to appear.

      • Fixed a crash that could occur when switching between modes.

      • Fist Bump returned to the Gestures menu.

      • Resolved an issue where the Daily Tier Skip icon could appear misaligned in the main menu.

    • Black Market

      • Resolved an issue where current Tier progress could be reset by acquiring a Special Order.

      • Resolved an issue where the Black Market menu could disappear when switching between the Multiplayer and Zombies menus.

General (PC ONLY)

  • Stability

    • Fixed a crash occurring on CPUs that don’t support SSE4.1 instructions extension. This issue was affecting AMD Phenom CPUs.

    • Fixed a rare crash during the first seconds after launching the game.

  • Gameplay

    • Added three new keybinds for Stance Up, Stance Up/Jump, and Stance Down.

    • Added a gameplay option for ADS sensitivity trigger timing.

    • Added a gameplay option to remove hitmarker visual and/or sound.

    • Added an option to toggle Asus Aura RGB effects On or Off.

    • Adjusted iron sights and scope movement while turning to make them appear close to the center of the screen.

    • Fixed an issue where the Push to Talk keybind would not work with an overlay opened.

  • Miscellaneous

    • Resolved an issue where the player could not name Paintjobs.

    • Fixed an issue where the player could not change reticle color with the mouse.

    • Added visual improvements on tooltips throughout various menus.

    • New messages will now always be displayed in the chat box, including callouts.

    • Aligned buttons in the Custom Games lobby.

Multiplayer (PC ONLY)

  • General

    • Resolved an issue with re-rolling enemy Care Packages with the Engineer Perk.

    • Resolved an issue where a Specialist would appear in the preview slot when no Specialist was selected during the Specialist draft.

    • Resolved a visual issue in Heist where the close button would remain on screen when closing the Buy menu with the ESC key.

    • Resolved an issue where the textures would appear pitch black for several seconds at the beginning of a match.

Weapons (PC ONLY)

  • SMGs

    • Saug 9mm

    • Spitfire

    • Cordite

  • Tactical Rifles

    • Auger DMR

    • ABR 223

  • Sniper Rifles

    • Paladin HB50

      • High Caliber I – Now grants a one-shot kill to shoulders and above.

      • High Caliber II – Now grants a one-shot kill to the stomach and above. Hands and lower arms have been removed from the one-shot one kill zone.

      • Fixed an issue where the game was not using the PC description for the Paladin and its attachments.

Blackout (PC ONLY)

  • Gameplay

    • Added a keybind to tag an item.

    • Added Perk activation feedback in the player HUD.

    • Pressing the Interact key will now close the Stash while looting a Stash.

    • Resolved an issue where players could use a Trauma Kit before the game began to start with 200 Health.

    • Resolved an issue where the “Toggle” healing would heal faster than the “Hold” option.

    • Resolved an issue where the Free Look mode would make it impossible to move the RC-XD.

  • Stability

We are also currently aware of some issues that were introduced with the new title update on PC, and the team is working on fixing the following issues: