Welcome to our Saturday deals page! It’s a great time to be into PC gaming, because Dell and HP have a ton of sales going on currently, many of which include the powerful new RTX 3000 series graphics cards. If that’s not your thing, then take a look at the Beats Solo3 headphones that are deeply discounted today, or the many Nintendo Switch games over at Amazon!
Select RTX 3070 video card upgrade (+$340) on the product page!
This is undoubtedly the best deal we’ve seen on an RTX 3070 gaming PC. The RTX 3070 is just as powerful as the RTX 2080 Ti and comes with extra features like DLSS 2.0. All that power at under $1400 is pretty mind-boggling. Admittedly the RAM and storage capacity could be improved upon. You can customize this config or swap out the components on your own (it’s easy to get into this case).
#2: Alienware Aurora AMD Ryzen 7 RTX 3080 Gaming PC for $1835.99
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD
This is the best Alienware RTX 3080 PC deal out there at the moment. Don’t fear AMD; this Ryzen 7 3700X overpowers the Intel Core i7-9700 in several benchmarks. The RTX 3080 is 30% faster than the RTX 2080 Ti and a clear step above the RTX 3070. If you plan to run games in 4K, I would strongly recommend this card to achieve 60fps+ in most games.
Players have seemingly discovered a mysterious locked door in World Level 1-3 of the Demon’s Souls remake on PS5 that wasn’t in the original PS3 version.
As spotted by Twitter user @VaatiVidya, Reddit user OrganizedBonfire found this illusory wall in the Tower Knight Archstone of Demon’s Souls on PS5 while exploring its tight corridors. After stumbling upon the door and trying to open it, a message appears that says “It appears to be locked.”
As of this writing, what lies beyond the door, and even if it can be opened, remains a mystery. Reddit user Cosmic-Vagabond discovered that, by using photo mode, you are able to see that the door appears to lead to a terrace with an item sitting on a dead knight.
Via Reddit (u/Cosmic-Vagabond)
They also note that, since the door says “it appears to be locked,” it is “not a key door and instead has a mechanism.”
If you want to try to figure out the mystery, Cosmic-Vagabond notes that “at the start of 1-3 there’s the alleyway that branches off between a dead end and the path to the tower where Yuria is being held. The locked door is hidden behind an illusory wall at the end of the dead end.”
When you see Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War running on PS5, it might not appear all that surprising or different–aside from sharper visuals and graphical effects, of course. But for me, playing the game on PS5 was revolutionary not because of how it plays on a mechanical level, but what it actually feels like to play it on the new DualSense controller.
As you’d expect, new consoles tend to set the standard for gaming for the next 5-7 years with better graphics, new interfaces, and yes, new controllers. This console generation, Microsoft’s Xbox Series X controller is mostly the same as the Xbox One controller, but with some ergonomic adjustments. On the other hand, Sony’s been hyping its new Dualsense controller with haptic feedback and adaptive triggers–something I first thought would become another gimmick like the PS3’s Sixaxis sensors or PS4’s touchpad.
But after spending a few weeks with the DualSense, it has become my favorite part of the PS5. Rather than demand you to play your games awkwardly with new, unproven tech, haptic feedback and the adaptive triggers can enhance the way we already play games. And funny enough, it wasn’t Astro’s Playroom, the free game that acts as a demo for the DualSense, that sold me on it. It was this year’s Call of Duty, of all things, because these particular features are perfect for shooters.
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Black Ops Cold War Makes Me Want To Play Every Shooter On The PS5
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For the uninitiated, haptic feedback is an evolution of the standard rumble we’ve seen in controllers for the past few decades. Previous controllers like the DualShock 4 use motors to create impactful but binary experiences with vibration. It shakes when it’s supposed to and stops when it needs to stop. With haptic feedback, it uses voice-coil actuators, which is the same kind of tech used to vibrate speakers, and as a result, developers have finer control over how the rumble operates.
In the case of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, when I fire an MP5, the DualSense vibrates to the fire rate’s specific rhythm, and when you swap to a burst fire weapon, that rhythm changes. The same effect applies to reloading. Feeling the controller as you load each shell is subtle but adds a lot to the experience of a firefight. And this fine-tuning of controller vibration changes from gun to gun. It’s the kind of improvement that’s hard to express fully, but you feel the difference right away in your hand.
Meanwhile, the adaptive triggers change the amount of pressure required to press them down based on the current situation in a game. The triggers now have a resistance that changes based on the weapon. Pistols can be tapped with your finger much more quickly, while a single shot rifle requires more effort to fire. It makes every shot feel more impactful, and there’s a real tangible difference to using each gun. Even pulling the left trigger to aim down sights uses the adaptive triggers. Pulling out a machine gun requires a lot more pressure and tricks your brain into giving the impression that this gun is a massive beast.
When I fire an MP5, the DualSense vibrates to the fire rate’s specific rhythm, and when you swap to a burst fire weapon, that rhythm changes.
Couple that with the haptic feedback and a nice pair of headphones, and I’ve never felt more immersed shooting a video game gun with a standard video game controller. I had a blast playing through Cold War’s campaign, and the DualSense is a significant reason why. Out of curiosity, I switched over to the PS4 version of the game, and it’s so hard to go back. That old DualShock 4 is fine and has served me well for seven years, but the DualSense makes it feel like a relic.
Of course, the option to turn all these off is still possible on both a game and system level if you prefer not to have rumble in controllers or have a disability that would make the experience difficult or prohibitive. I can see many hardcore competitive players turning the triggers off in multiplayer. You can’t feather the trigger like you used to with the adaptive functionality turned on, and it’s easier to snap-aim to players without the pressure. I won’t deny it did feel like I was performing slightly better without them, leaving me in a pickle where I had to choose between performance or immersion. Honestly, that could be because that’s what I’m used to, and it could be that as I become more accustomed to the DualSense, that feeling might go away. I predict a lot of debate around this in PvP communities in the coming months.
As long as shooters utilize the DualSense’s capabilities in enticing ways, I know without a doubt I’ll be going with their PS5 versions for the foreseeable future.
All that aside, as someone who primarily enjoys single-player experiences, I’m in love with the DualSense, and what’s most exciting is this is merely the first attempt. As more developers get their hands on this technology, I imagine the implementation will only improve. We already hear new examples from developers, like Arkane Studios on the upcoming Deathloop, who talked up how the triggers will lock up when your gun jams. Just imagine what a developer like Hideo Kojima can do with this! My mind is racing, thinking about the possibilities.
With the DualSense being the only controller that features this functionality, it raises concerns about whether or not developers will have the capacity to fully embrace and make the most of it. After all, Activision has a history of working closely with Sony to bring exclusive content for Call of Duty, so it might not be a surprise that Treyarch went all out using the DualSense’s unique features. Spending extra time and money on features that will only apply to one system might not always be possible, but I’m hopeful this won’t go the way the Sixaxis did back on PS3.
The perks of Sony’s DualSense may not be as pronounced as other attempts to change controllers, but they can be impactful for emphasizing a new feeling of playing games without games needing to be built around the tech. As long as shooters utilize the DualSense’s capabilities in enticing ways, I know without a doubt I’ll be going with their PS5 versions for the foreseeable future.
Like something out of G.I. Joe, or even Star Wars, the U.S. Air Force is working with aerospace defense firm Lockheed Martin to deploy lasers on fighter jets by 2025.
The program even has a super comic book-y title — going by “SHiELD” (yes, with a lower-case ‘I’), aka “Self-Protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator.”
It’s very reminiscent of Hydra turncoat Grant Ward’s quote on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD when he said “It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out S.H.I.E.L.D.”
National Defense explains that SHiELD is a pod-mounted laser on the fuselage or wing of a fighter jet designed to shoot down incoming air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles.
It’s being said that the SHiEILD system might be initially used “to protect older fighters that can’t take advantage of stealth to hide from the enemy.” And, just like the dogfights we’ve seen between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire, lasers have an almost infinite ammunition supply. Traveling at the speed of light, impossible to dodge, a laser can be powered by the airplane’s engine, removing the need for an onboard gun magazine.
Popular Mechanics even states that “SHiELD, paired with existing chaff and flare defenses, could very well someday be controlled by an R2D2-type artificial intelligence tasked with defending their warplanes from missile attack.”
So there you go. How long before we get little robots, in a separate hatch, controlling the laser beam deployment?
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.
The original Short Circuit movie was about a military robot that was struck by lightning during a test, which caused the robot to become sentient. The robot escapes and is soon discovered by an animal caretaker. Breakfast Club actress Ally Sheedy played the role of the caretaker in the original movie, but did not return for a main role in the sequel.
Short Circuit 2 came out a couple of years after the first one, but it grossed about half as much as the first movie did at the box office. No other Short Circuit movies were made until now.
For those with a brand new PlayStation 5, or even those with a DualSense waiting on one, Valve has announced that the DualSense is now supported in Steam Client Beta.
As revealed in the Steam Client Beta’s latest patch notes, initial input support for the PS5 DualSense controller has been added, but “features such as rumble, trackpad, and gyro are not yet supported.”
This means that, while you are able to use the DualSense, official support is not ready for its Haptic Feedback, Adaptive Triggers, or gyro motion control. It is promising that Valve chose to use the words “not yet,” so there is hope that PC developers may one day get the chance to experiment with the DualSense’s unique features for their games.
In our DualSense review, we said “With the DualSense, Sony has both made a more comfortable gamepad for traditional gameplay, and introduced some very exciting features. The haptics and adaptive triggers make an immediately noticeable difference in games that make use of them, and they offer the exciting potential for new and interesting gameplay experiences.”
