After seven months, the Nintendo 3DS has received a minor version 11.15.0-47 update that adds improvements to system stability, according to dataminer OatmealDome. The last time the Nintendo 3DS received an update was back in on November 16, 2020, which was another minor system stability improvement for the handheld console. OatmealDome added that the Internet browser may have also been slightly tweaked, possibly to fix an exploit on it.
March 2015 was the last time that the 3DS received a more substantial update, as that was when the Theme shop was tweaked, an Amiibo settings option was introduced on select 3DS models, and Home menu layouts could be saved.
[Nintendo 3DS] Version 11.15.0-47 has been released for all regions. Official Japanese patch notes state “stability”. It appears to update the Internet Browser (possibly fixing an exploit?) and recovery mode’s SSL system component. https://t.co/1vBeajGagh
While the console did good business for Nintendo in the wake of poor Wii U sales, the 75.77 million lifetime sales of the 3DS family of consoles have already been surpassed by the Switch, which sold 84.5 million units in the 49 months since it was first released. Almost a quarter of those sales came from Japan, the Switch’s biggest market.
Those numbers will likely climb when the Nintendo Switch OLED Model is released on October 8, although it may face some competition from Valve’s own PC handheld console in 2022, the Steam Deck.
Hitman 3’s Lust DLC launches today alongside a new free update for all players, and developer IO Interactive has outlined the upcoming season of content that will come out over the next month. The event starts with a free trial of the Marrakesh mission, and then includes an array of Elusive Targets and featured contracts.
According to the patch notes, the Lust Assassination Escalation contract has you collecting intel to find a randomly assigned “secret admirer” from a bunch of Pretenders. The Lust Assassination Escalation contract works differently than normal Escalations, in that it has only one stage. You’ll initially collect intel on your secret admirer from a series of safes, which you can open with explosives or by finding keys. That intel and your observation skills are then used to find your target from a bunch of Pretenders located on the dance floor. Your target will be different each time you play the Escalation, ensuring you still need to secure the intel. Finishing the contract will get you a snakeskin Scarlet Suit, a remote detonated Serpent’s Bite explosive, and a Serpent’s Tongue dart crossbow.
A new Dartmoor Garden Show permanent event will be added on August 5. The garden show Escalation mission will reward you with a Summer Sightseeing Suit. You can also unlock a Deterministic Mode that will let you replay an Escalation by choosing your own starting location and other variables, and a Contracts mode to create your own contracts at Dartmoor.
Other events as part of the season of content include the free Marrakesh rotation, Heartbreaker and Entertainer elusive targets, and featured contracts from Shacknews and the fan community. You can also unlock the ICA 19 Goldballer by finishing the new Untouchable challenge.
The 3.50 patch is approximately 3-4GB across all platforms, and it’s available to download now. Stadia and Switch owners will not need to download the patch, since the game is streaming on those platforms. Check out the full schedule of content from below.
HITMAN 3 – Season of Lust (July 27 – August 30)
July 27 – August 8: Play Markesh for free
July 30 – August 9: The Heartbreaker (HITMAN 3 Elusive Target)
August 5: The Dartmoor Garden Show (Permanent Event)
August 12: Featured Contracts from Shacknews
August 12 – August 22: Play A House Built On Sand free
August 20 – August 30: The Entertainer (Elusive Target)
August 26: Featured Contracts from the Hitman Community
Despite it being some time since Animal Crossing: New Horizons got a substantial update, Nintendo has promised that more free content is currently in development for later this year, and it all begins with an update on July 29 that sets the stage for a weekly fireworks show and new seasonal items.
Nintendo shared the news on Twitter, and while it didn’t give much of a hint as to how big these future updates will be or what they will contain, it did thank Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ fans for their support and patience and promises that “more information will be shared in the future, so please stay tuned.”
About a month ago, Reddit user TetrasSword noted that its been two months since the small April 2021 update in New Horizons, and the lack of communication from Nintendo on updates was becoming worrisome.
“I figured now would be the time for a feature addition due to the lull in events in the next couple months but I almost feel like we’ll get nothing at all,” TetrasSword wrote. “Well what do you guys think? Is an update still on its way? Is it time to give up on the game and accept there’s not going to be any meaningful updates?”
This latest news should give fans a little hope, but there is reason to temper those expectations. This upcoming update seems to be a smaller one, and a lot of previous updates have just brought back old events. One of the last big additions to the game was the Mario-themed items that became available in-game in February.
Many are still hoping to see the return of Brewster and his cafe The Roost, Gyroids, Tortimer Island and Kapp’n and his boat, and much more. There are also those wishing for some quality-of-life improvements like the ability to craft in bulk.
Hopefully Nintendo has some big surprises in store for those who supported Animal Crossing: New Horizons and made it the second best-selling Nintendo Switch game behind Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s 35.39 million.
NEO: The World Ends With You is now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4. If you didn’t preorder a copy ahead of its release, you can save $10 on your purchase right now. Amazon is offering a release day discount on NEO: The World Ends With You. At this time, the deal is only available on PlayStation, but it was up for grabs for Switch earlier, so there’s a chance it will be discounted again. Prime members get free shipping arriving by Thursday.
NEO: The World Ends With You is a follow-up to one of the very best Nintendo DS games. It’s not technically a sequel, though, as knowledge of The World Ends With You is not required to enjoy NEO. The action-RPG follows Rindo Kanade, a high school student who gets drawn into the Reapers’ Game. The game is a competition for the dead to see who will move onto the afterlife or even return to their old life. NEO features fast-paced combat with a bevy of “Psych” abilities that are equipped by acquiring collectible pins.
Though you don’t need to play the original first, it’s definitely worth playing. An enhanced port of the iOS edition of The World Ends with You is available on Switch. Unfortunately, physical copies are hard to find for a reasonable price. You can get a new copy from Amazon for $65 or snag a digital copy from the Switch eShop for $50.
If you love an energy drink, then you might want to take a look at this deal. Gatorade G-Zero is on sale today at Amazon. You can get a 24-pack of pure thirst quencher for as little as $12.49 right now, down from the regular list price of $19.99.
G-Zero is a complete sugar-free option for those counting calories, and the main deal in this promotion. You can get a 4-Flavor Classic Variety Pack for $14.99, or Glacier Cherry Variety 24-Pack for just $12.49. This is a great alternative for those who don’t want to go near the Monster Energy drink deals at Amazon. So stock up while you still can, cause this promotion won’t last for long.
Gatorade is great for picking yourself up after a run (get outside gamers) or even to pick yourself up for some energy during a long gaming session. I should know, I’ve drunk plenty of Gatorade in my time, and never have I seen such a fabulous deal.
You’re paying around $0.65 a bottle if you go for the classic variety 24-pack, and even less at ~$0.52 per bottle on the Glacier Cherry 24-pack. Outstanding. If you want more weird and wonderful deals on games, snacks, and more, make sure to follow @IGNDeals on Twitter.
[poilib element=”accentDivider”]
Robert Anderson is a Commerce Editor and deals expert for IGN. Follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
The long-awaited new trailer for Ghostbusters: Afterlife is here so who ya gonna call to break it down for you, IGN? Why, none other than the film’s co-writer and director, Jason Reitman! You can watch Reitman’s exclusive trailer breakdown via the player above or the embed below.
In the breakdown, Reitman sheds light on the Sony film’s plot while also keeping his cards close to the chest when it comes to revealing too much about its antagonist or how some of the original films’ cast factor into Afterlife.
“Historically, Ghostbusters movies were always about people going into business. It was about people starting a ghostbusting business together,” Reitman, son of the original two films’ director, Ivan Reitman, told IGN. “I suppose I knew immediately from the beginning that I wanted to make a movie about a family.”
The memory of original Ghostbuster Egon Spengler, played by the late Harold Ramis, looms large in Ghostbusters: Afterlife as the character has now passed away. “This is a movie about the Spengler family. And the Spengler family is disconnected. This movie is about why,” Reitman said.
To help him craft this new Ghostbusters tale, Reitman teamed with Monster House filmmaker Gil Kenan to co-write the screenplay. In addition to making it a story about family, they also opted to place Afterlife in an entirely different setting for the franchise.
“Gil Kenan and I immediately wanted to establish a new location for Ghostbusters. Obviously, the franchise is synonymous with New York City, but we wanted to go someplace new. We wanted to go to the American West. We wanted to go to farmland. We wanted a new color palette. We wanted to start a new idea. And this is a film that is about discovery and it really is about a family retracing its roots.”
That journey also dictated how the narrative should be structured. “We wanted the movie to unfold like a mystery,” Reitman said. “Why is this family here? Who was their grandfather? Why did Egon come to this part of the country, to Summerville, Oklahoma, why this house? What is under the floor?”
Once the Egon connection is established in the movie, other familiar iconography from the original films is revealed: “Certainly, my connection with Ghostbusters always had to do with this ephemera. It was the packs, it was the traps, it was the car. And a lot of this film for me was the thrill of what it would be like to discover all these things in your home.”
But this wouldn’t be a Ghostbusters film without spooks, specters, or ghosts. That, however, got Reitman and Kenan to do a deep-dive on what makes the ghouls in a Ghostbusters film distinct. “Identifying the look and feel of Ghostbusters ghosts is actually really tricky. If you think about the ghosts that were in the original, and there was only a few,” Reitman recalled, citing Slimer, the librarian, the cabbie and a few others as examples. “And they look completely f******g different from each other.”
“So what is it that connects Ghostbusters ghosts, right? What does it make them all of the same universe? And we spent I can’t even begin to tell you how many hours in long conversations over lunch, over dinner, trying to figure out what is it that makes a Ghostbusters ghost a Ghostbusters ghost.”
Their conversations yielded the creation of Muncher, Ghostbusters: Afterlife’s answer to the 1984 original’s Slimer. “We knew that he would be of the same free-floating class of Slimer. We knew that he would be just as old and tissuey and angry,” Reitman explained. “Something happened to Slimer over the years that people started thinking of him as the dalmatian of the firehouse. The original Slimer was an angry dude and very scary and we really wanted to get back to that.”
While there are hints and glimpses of the other original human characters in the new trailer, only Dan Aykroyd’s Ray Stantz and Annie Potts’ Janine Melnitz show up in the present during the trailer. Is Janine the mother of Carrie Coon’s character? All Reitman would offer is that “we get the sense that Janine is still connected to Egon Spengler. In the ’84 film, she was in love with him and clearly she still has a connection to him and that she was attempting to take care of him in his older age.”
Reitman was a bit more forthcoming about the return of Dr. Raymond Stantz, who the trailer reveals still runs his shop, Ray’s Occult Books, from Ghostbusters II. “For any fans of the ’89 film, they will recognize one of my favorite locations from that film that we recreated down to the detail, down to the smell, frankly. And you’ll recognize the red phone and you won’t recognize this tattoo on the arm of Ray Stantz.”
If you peer closely at the tattoo on Ray’s arm, it’s a nod to the Book of Revelations speech from the first Ghostbusters film. “Dan Aykroyd and I had talked about the possibility of him having a tattoo and something that maybe recognized the acts of 1984,” Reitman revealed. “And immediately came to us that we would speak to this conversation that Winston [Zeddemore] and Stantz have in Ecto-1 right at the height of the ’84 film.”
Having spent time in his childhood on the sets of his father’s Ghostbusters films, Reitman is acutely aware of how much this franchise means to its fans because he shares their love and passion for it. “I’ve kept it a very close secret to my heart. And part of that is because I feel like I’m not really carrying the Spengler story, but I’m carrying my own family story,” Reitman said. “It’s been a long wait for me, as it has been for anyone who has anticipated the next Ghostbusters film. And I’m just thrilled to share it with everybody. It’s a movie that was made by a family about a family. My father and I cannot wait for you to see this in theaters.”
You can see Ghostbusters: Afterlife only in theaters when it opens in the US on November 11, in the UK on November 12, and in Australia on December 2.
Fans can also now download the new official Ghostbusters app (through the App Store and Google Play) for exclusive content, including photo filters, gifs, and the Ecto-1 AR Experience that puts the iconic car in your world via augmented reality.
A Cyberpunk 2077 mod has finally added the ability to listen to the game’s various radio stations outside of your car.
Cyberpunk 2077 includes a plethora of radio stations that players can enjoy as they roam around the various locales in Night City. Up until recently, however, radio access was consigned to vehicles only, meaning that once you stepped out onto the street, the music would simply cut off.
Thankfully, the Pocket Radio mod (spotted by PCGamesN) has added tools that allow players to listen to the game’s music on the go. The personal walkman allows players to toggle the game’s radio on and off through hotkey bindings and incorporates the use of a HUD which can be accessed on-screen for further settings, including volume controls and the ability to switch stations.
Players also have the option to customize a number of other settings that may be useful during gameplay. The mod comes with an auto-hide HUD timer which can be adjusted to change the duration of idle activity necessary before the HUD disappears from the screen. Players can also tweak the game’s in-combat volume controls to their liking which could be particularly useful during stealth-based runs.
Currently, the mod cites a number of small known issues that players may experience in-game. For example, the Royal Blue and Samizdat radio stations aren’t currently usable in-game, and the mod’s audio quality may not be quite as clear as the game’s purpose-built vehicle audio. Additionally, when combat music starts playing the pocket radio’s audio may become muffled until a point at which the combat music stops.
Welcome to the Reapers’ Game, Players! Neo: The World Ends With You is out now, and we’re here to give you some advice to help get your adventure off on the right foot. Whether you’re a complete newcomer to the Shibuya Underground or an older fan who may have forgotten a thing or two with time, our starter guide should help you keep in step with the beat of Neo: TWEWY’s unique gameplay.
Keep Pushing Buttons
Neo: TWEWY has an action-based battle system, but what’s unique is that you can control all of the characters at once by pressing their assigned attack buttons. The best way to fight is by using lots of button presses in tandem to lock down enemies and score combos. For example, with a PS4 controller, if you have a mash attack set to square, a charge attack set to L1, and a hold attack set to R2, you can be pressing all of those buttons at the same time: hold R2 to launch a sustained attack to keep an enemy stunned while charging on L1 and rapid-pressing square, then release L1 to finish off your team attack with a charged strike once the other attacks run their course.
After you charge your Groove meter and execute a special attack, don’t let up on the normal button-press strikes while the big attack’s going down! You can still get in additional hits while the special is playing out. Use this opportunity to maximize damage and even get some of your Groove back!
Set Up Your Pin Loadout For Optimal Beatdrops
There are lots of pins to collect in Neo: TWEWY, each with different inputs and effects. Pins with high attack power and pins that confer bad status effects onto enemies are nice, but the most valuable aspect of a pin is how well it functions to build up your team’s Groove. When Groove is at a peak, you can unleash your team’s most powerful attacks.
When attacking with a pin, there will be a point where you can “drop the beat” by switching your attacking character, which raises your team’s groove and, eventually, enables superpowered strikes. The beatdrop trigger varies from pin to pin, but usually it happens when an enemy is launched, slammed to the ground, stunned, pushed back, or hit by several attacks in a row. (Some enemies, usually larger/heavier foes, are harder to stagger or juggle, making beatdrop opportunities rarer. In these cases, focus more on small foes to build Groove, then switch to the big target.)
Some pins are easier to get beatdrop gains off of than others, particularly many shoulder button input multi-hit attacks. Certain pin combos are great for raising groove quickly, too. Experimentation and finding out what kind of pins you like to use is key–if you don’t like using a certain pin type or if you have trouble dropping beats, you should consider switching to another pin, even if it has lower attack power. You’re not obligated to use or master every pin, after all… unless you really want all of those achievements.
Get Rich Quick By Lowering Your Level
There’s good money to be made selling duplicate pins you don’t plan on leveling. But fighting Noise over and over to get pins can be pretty tedious. Fortunately, there’s a way to get lots of pins to pawn very quickly–but it does involve risk.
By pressing pause, you’ll enter a menu where you can adjust difficulty and your team’s level. By lowering your level, you’ll decrease your team’s max HP–but your base drop rate will multiply by quite a bit, meaning you’ll get more pins as a reward. (Difficulty doesn’t affect drop rate, but does affect the types of pins that drop.)
Another way to increase pin drops is by chaining encounters. Run around and attract a bunch of noise to you, then start a fight when you see the chain number indicator. (Be careful: if you go too long without bringing another enemy into the chain, the battle will auto-start.) You will then fight a string of encounters, with your team HP carrying over from one fight to the next and each battle getting a bit tougher. If you survive this gauntlet, you’ll be rewarded with a massive pile of pins to collect. Learning to chain and fight well without losing much HP will make you lots of yen very quickly!
Keep On Shoppin’
You’ll be able to start shopping a few days into the Game for pins, books, music, and clothes. Clothes shopping is particularly important, as your gear provides both stat increases and extra abilities if your Style stat is high enough. But don’t leave that shirt on the shelf if you can’t use its extra ability early on! If the clothes give you a good overall stat boost, they’re still worth buying.
In fact, you should be doing lots of shopping in general, even if you don’t really need the items. Spending at stores raises your VIP levels, unlocking new items to buy and adds the shopkeepers to your social network web (more on that later). You’ll also build a big wardrobe for later on in the game when you can fully take advantage of unlocked clothing skills. So don’t be thrifty–spend away!
Manage Your Munchies
Eating is crucial to improving your stats. Besides upping your HP, attack, and defense, food is also the only way you can raise the crucial Style stat. But there are a few things to know before stuffing everyone’s face.
When you eat, your party’s fullness (the battery icon) will increase. You can bring it down by fighting Noise battles. As long as it’s not red, you can eat again. However, if you overeat and bring your fullness over 100%, you won’t be able to eat again until fullness drops all the way down to zero. Keep your meter in the white, and grab food when it’s almost empty.
Also, when choosing food, keep an eye on each character’s reactions. Characters have three reactions when ordering: neutral/satisfied, excited, and displeased. If you pick something from the menu and they look excited, they’ll earn extra stats upon eating it. You might even get a Tasty Bonus that provides a huge, permanent stat boost.
Likewise, if the character looks unhappy with the choice, you should probably pick a different item, as stat boosts will be reduced. There’s no point wasting money on food that characters don’t like, even if it does increase a stat you want to boost–you’ll get far more benefit overall by giving everyone their faves, or a neutral choice if they aren’t really pumped about anything on the menu.
Networking Is Key
You’ll eventually open up the Social Network function a little ways into the game. This allows you to spend Friend Points to unlock various abilities and items once you’ve gotten to know a particular denizen of Shibuya. Several of these abilities are extremely valuable, such as being able to equip the mighty Uber pins. Since some connections require other connections to be completed first, you will want to open up your network as wide as possible.
Not everyone will waltz on into your network through the story, however–sometimes you’ll need to seek them out. Look on the Main Menu status screen to see if there are any sidequests in Rindo’s thought ring–if you see “Someone could use our help in this location,” that means there’s a social network sidequest to complete on that day.
When you get to the designated area, look for someone with this icon above their head to start the sidequest. Upon completion, they’ll join your Social Network. You can also add folks to your network from dining and shopping, but many of the best benefits come from sidequests, so they are well worth your time.
Joe Pytka, the director the original 1996 Space Jam, has seen the brand new sequel, Space Jam: A New Legacy, and he has a lot to say about the film in an interview with TMZ. Very little of it is nice.
According to the interview, the director required five separate sessions to complete the two-hour runtime of Space Jam: A New Legacy. The director cited a number of issues with the film, starting with LeBron James’ celebrity. When Space Jam his theaters, Michael Jordan was the biggest celebrity in the world, Pytka said. While LeBron is an accomplished athlete, “the truth is that LeBron ain’t Michael,” Pytka said. He also said that the movie didn’t do enough to connect Space Jam to LeBron’s own life, the way his original film did.
Click To Unmute
Size:
Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?
Now Playing: 14 Minutes of Space Jam A New Legacy Gameplay
Pytka continued, citing what he considered a far superior cast in Space Jam, which included Charles Barkley and Bill Murray, and called the original’s soundtrack a classic, while Space Jam: A New Legacy‘s soundtrack is “insignificant.”
His harshest criticism is about Bugs Bunny, though. The new version “looked like one of those fluffy dolls you buy at an airport gift shop to bring your kid when your business trip has taken too long,” Pytka said, while the original Space Jam made sure its take on Bugs reflected previous iterations of the character. He called Bugs’ role in the new film “heartbreaking.”
TMZ correctly notes, though, that Pytka’s Space Jam was panned by critics at the time. Even today, the original has a 44% critic rating and 63% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, while Space Jam: A New Legacy hovers around 28% and 81% respectively, suggesting that critics and moviegoers are a bit more divided this time around.
The Green Knight, like Black Widow and Fast and Furious 9 before it, is a film we’ve been waiting on for a long time thanks to multiple pandemic delays. Unlike those films, though, this independent film isn’t showing on every single screen that lights up–you’ll have to work a little harder to find a screen showing it, making it all the more important to know what we’re going into when the film hits theaters this Friday, July 30.
Over on Metacritic, the Green Knight is in the green with a score of 88. Rotten Tomatoes, meanwhile, has the Arthurian fantasy at 94% fresh with 15 reviews from its “top critics.” While these scores will certainly shift as the film comes closer to release this weekend, those are still solid scores.
Below, you’ll see a selection of the many reviews of the Green Knight, including our own.
The Green Knight
Directed by: David Lowery
Written by: David Lowery (adapted from the original Arthurian tale)
Starring: Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton
Release Date: August 30
Gamespot – 9/10
“Anyone willing to engage with and participate in The Green Knight will undoubtedly get a lot out of the experience–it is absolutely worth multiple viewings and long discussions with friends from multiple angles. Similarly, failure to actively tune in will likely result in a confusing and frustrating watch. It would be best to measure your expectations, and to go in with an open mind.”
“Contrary to the rousing sword-and-shield epics of Arthurian adaptations past, The Green Knight is a slow march to death. And Lowery’s steady and slow-burning direction reflects that: a dreary, grey color palette that looks and feels damp, with only Gawain’s bright yellow cloak piercing through the gloom. But shot mostly in natural light, there’s still a clarity to Lowery’s vision, even as the journey descends into a surreal, magical realist wonderland filled with talking foxes, naked giants, trickster scavengers, or ghostly saints who demand Gawain recover their head.”
“Lowery has an unusual gift for forest-shrouded wonders, as proven by his beguiling live-action Pete’s Dragon for Disney. Serving here as his own editor, the director pays close attention to that extra beat or longer-than-usual take, by which we’re pulled into a world and a rhythm not like most movies. The movie’s more ruminative than exuberant. It’s also fully invested in making its own kind of magic, on its own time.”
“The fluid cinematography alternates between dreamlike and something deeply connected to Mother Nature. The Green Knight is about many things–and some of the best film writing of this year will unpack its themes in more depth–but a sense of man’s relatively minor role in the grand scope of history and nature is essential, and Palermo beautifully captures the lush greens of the world around Gawain, as if the Knight himself is already everywhere.”
