Square Enix has announced a forthcoming War Table video broadcast where the developers of Marvel’s Avengers will provide new insight on the Hawkeye – Future Imperfect expansion that adds the arrow-slinging hero to the game and more.
This broadcast, which is taking place on February 16, will also feature updates on what the developer is planning for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. The next-gen updates were originally planned to release in 2020 but were later delayed to 2021.
Get a glimpse of the future with our WAR TABLE Deep Dive: Hawkeye, premiering on February 16! We’ll be showing: 🏹 Marvel’s Avengers Operation: Hawkeye – Future Imperfect âŹď¸Ź PS5 & Xbox Series X|S Like our previous Deep Dive, this will be directly uploaded and not livestreamed. pic.twitter.com/3aD2H5ST1T
The video presentation will be pre-recorded and released on February 16; it won’t be livestreamed. GameSpot will report back with all the details as they’re announced.
This is the second part of the Hawkeye DLC that started with Kate Bishop’s arrival in the game back in December.
Tesla has revealed a refresh to its Model S electric sports car that features an on-board GPU that rivals both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.
The Models S is getting the first refresh the line has seen since its inception in 2012, which mostly includes improvements to things you’d expect to find in a car: updated interior and exterior designs, a better powertrain, and greater mileage. What is both very new and very out of place is the Tesla Arcade, which now features 10 teraflops of processing performance for gaming.
Games have been included with Tesla models in the past, most notably Cuphead, but this is in another ballpark. The promotional images show off a carousel that features games like The Witcher 3, Stardew Valley, and more. Tesla founder Elon Musk also tweeted saying that the new Model S will support Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red also benefitted from Musk’s tweets recently, seeing a massive share price hike.
This puts the Model S hot on the hells of both Sony and Microsoft’s latest consoles offerings. The PS5 features 10.28 teraflops of computing power, while the Xbox Series X sits at 12 teraflops. There’s a lot more to a gaming experience than just that metric, but the fact that a car even comes close is surprising. That said, it is an $80,000 investment, so maybe don’t think about replacing your console just yet.
Platform
Processing Power (TFlops)
Xbox Series X
12
Xbox Series S
4.4
PlayStation 5
10.84
Tesla Model S
10
The updated Tesla Model S launches later in March this year, which leaves enough time for the company to explain just how gaming will work in its new car.
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The Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe SSD features a read speed of 3,500MBps, making it an excellent drive for those with PCIe NVMe Gen3 motherboards. While its size is small, it would be perfect for a boot drive, making a huge difference in your start-up speed and general use.
Open Roads is the third game from Fullbright, the developer that’s made a name for itself with its narrative-focused exploration games Gone Home and Tacoma. For its third game, the studio is changing things up by introducing a partner for you to travel with–in this case, protagonist Tess’ mother, Opal. This conceit opens Fullbright to implementing interactivity into the act of dialogue itself instead of the player being a passive observer to conversations.
“I think that the games that we look at as points of reference are pretty familiar in how they’re branching, dialogue-based games,” Fullbright co-founder and Open Roads director Steve Gaynor told me. “Firewatch is definitely a point of reference, games like Mass Effect are relevant in the sense of there’s this flow in the game where you’re exploring, you might find something of interest, and then you interact with it.”
Even though you’re following both Tess and Opal, Open Roads is entirely from Tess’ perspective. It’s up to you to draw your mother into the journey to discover the truth behind the mysterious past of Tess’ grandmother. Your mom may be the literal driver on this road trip, but you must figuratively push the journey forward by opening up a dialogue. In this way, Gaynor compares Open Roads most heavily to a game like Firewatch, where the outcomes of a conversation are dependent not only on what you say but how you say it.
“Most of the dialogue in the game is based on finding something,” Gaynor said. “So it’s sort of like the walkie-talkie in Firewatch–you find something, you pick it up, you look at it and then you have the ability to say, ‘I want to talk to mom about this.’ So, in a lot of ways, finding more [clues] gives you access to all sorts of conversations that you just never would’ve had otherwise. And then there may be cases where, in more central dialogue, there are actually additional options that open up, like “Hey, remember that thing we found before.” But if you didn’t find it, you don’t have that option.”
He continued: “We want to lean into that ‘Opal will remember that,’ so you make choices in dialogue throughout the game that may affect how Opal reacts to you later. Not in the sense that it will send you off on this whole alternate version of the game, but you can react to things in a certain way that later down the road–depending on what you’ve chosen earlier–you might choose a dialogue option where [Opal] is just going to not be having it because of how you reacted earlier.”
How dialogue connects to what you find allows the developers at Fullbright to maintain a focus on exploring a space when telling a story. Dialogue may be the primary way that determines how Tess and Opal’s relationship evolves over the course of the game, but the items you choose to interact with will affect the overall campaign as well. Finding something on one leg of your road trip may inform how Tess reacts to something else found later in the game, or create a correlation that Opal is able to draw a conclusion from.
This does mean that, yes, you can miss out on things while playing through Open Roads. The intent isn’t to make players think that they may run the risk of missing out on something crucial and getting an incomplete story. If you play through the game, you’ll get the same ending that everyone else does–you can’t miss the major story elements. But you can find additional information that provides further context to the story. Gaynor compares it to the story of Gone Home. Everyone who completes that game finds out what happened to your sister, but you can find additional clues in your family house that provide further context to the overall story, such as why your parents aren’t around.
“Hopefully, if you look for more [clues], and you find more, and you piece more together, it enhances and supports that central narrative,” Gaynor said. “We want to ensure that someone playing through Open Roads can get a satisfying resolution to that central mystery by following a certain breadcrumb trail of clues that will lead to the resolution, but if you play [the game] like a detective and try to find everything that you can and go into those discussions with Opal, it will give you more context for what you’re finding.”
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He continued: “There isn’t a checklist. We always want the game to be led by the player’s interest and the player’s attention. So we hope that we can make these places that are full of interesting stuff. And everything that you’ve found is because you wanted to dig deeper and you wanted to find everything that you could. You don’t necessarily know what you’ve left behind, but your experience of the place is the one that you had.”
Gaynor teased that adding another character to Fullbright’s formula of storytelling is game changer, in fact a new member of the team told Gaynor that he “can’t imagine going back to a Fullbright game where there isn’t another character to talk to.” We’ll have to wait a little bit longer to see just how transformative the addition of a partner is to Fullbright’s formula–Open Roads is currently slated to release for PC and consoles later this year.
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Listen, we’ve seen some pretty cool Nintendo merch collaborations in recent years. There’s the recent ColourPop x Animal Crossing collaboration, and last year’s Mario 35th-anniversary celebrations brought all kinds of product collabs, from basketball shoes to a new version of Jenga. But nothing has evoked quite the same reaction from us as the latest product collab with Nintendo, an apparel line releasing as part of Pokemon’s 25th-anniversary celebrations this year. But we’re not talking about new Uniqlo graphic tees this time–no, we’re talking about Levi’s x Pokemon, “coming soon” in 2021.
Apparel brand Levi’s announced the collaboration via social media on Wednesday, teasing the upcoming clothing line with a close-up shot of a denim jacket. Except this isn’t your average denim jacket–instead of standard Levi’s blue, the jacket has a green-and-brown forest background with flowers along with various Pokemon lurking in its leaves, including Ekans, Oddish, Bulbasaur, Psyduck, and more.
Maybe we’ll feel differently when we see the full jacket, but at first glance, this piece of clothing is a lot to take in. The green forest-y background feels at odds with the bright red and yellow flowers peeking through. There’s not even a consistent theme with the Pokemon included–sure, it makes sense to have grass-type Pokemon like Bulbasaur and Oddish here, but why are Mewtwo and Squirtle hanging out in the forest as well?
And then we come to the pants. Twitter account PokeJungle shared photos of two pairs of pants that appear to be from the Levi’s x Pokemon collection, taken from early listings (one of which can still be seen at Urban Outfitters). The first pair of denim pants is identical to the jacket design, meaning you’ll be able to rock a full green denim Pokemon look from head to toe. The other pair of jeans is a standard light blue denim design–except for the massive Pikachu on the right thigh. These will sell for $148 USD each, according to PokeJungle.
And don’t worry about having to carry around a purse or bag that doesn’t match your ‘fit–the collection will include a drawstring bag with the same forest design as the jacket and jeans. Convenient!
This might be one of the stranger Nintendo collaborations we’ve ever seen–but at the same time, we kind of love it. And all we know for sure is that we need to see more photos of the Levi’s x Pokemon collection ASAP. There’s no word yet on a release date for the collection, but we can expect to see more Pokemon collabs like this throughout the year–Nintendo has teased new products with Build-A-Bear, General Mills, McDonald’s, and more.
PlayStation 5 exclusive Returnal has been slightly delayed from its previous late March release date. The rougelite shooter will now launch on April 30.
Sony made the announcement on Twitter, saying that the development team at Housemarque required a little more time to continue polishing the game before launch.
“SIE and Housemarque have made the decision to move the release date in order to give the team extra time to continue to polish the game to the level of quality players expect from Housemarque,” the post reads. “See you in April!”
Returnal is one of the few PS5 games that won’t be appearing on PS4, making use of the new console’s exclusive features in various ways. The PS5’s SSD, for example, is said to take a lot of the tedium out of dying and restarting runs, while the additional functionality of the DualSense controller allowed Housemarque to design gameplay features around its haptic triggers.
This is also a big departure for Housemarque, with its best works having come in the form of frantic 2D arcade shooters such as Resogun and Nex Machina. This new format and gameplay perspective is allowing the studio to experiment while also retaining the core pillars of gameplay it has been designing for over a decade. You’ll just have to wait a bit longer to see if it pays off.
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After a run of 10 years, it appears Sonic the Hedgehog’s main voice actor in recent years is backing away from the role. Writing on Twitter, Roger Craig Smith teased as much without mentioning Sonic by name, but he included a hedgehog emoji in his message and a reference to venturing forward to “new zones.”
“Welp, 10 years was an amazing run,” he said. “Onward to new zones!” Much love to the fans who’ve been so kind. It’s been an honor.”
Sega’s Hardlight studio in the UK, which developed Sonic Dash and Sonic Racing, responded to Smith’s tweet, saying, “Thank you for everything” with a blue heart attached.
It’s not clear why Smith is ending his run as Sonic, or if it was his decision to step away. We’ll report back with more details as they are made available.
One of the most popular and prolific voices in video games, Smith also voices Mirage in Apex Legends, Ezio from the Assassin’s Creed series, and Chris Redfield from Resident Evil. Another major role was Batman from Batman: Arkham Origins.
Smith did not voice Sonic in the 2020 movie, with Ben Schwartz taking on the role of the blue blur.
When I was first tasked with reviewing Apple’s latest MacBook Air, with the primary point of focus being its gaming capabilities, I was skeptical. Mac’s aren’t known for their prowess as gaming laptops, and when you add in the fact that the new MacBook Air uses Apple Silicon, the M1 ARM-based processor, I assumed I’d spend a few hours playing Apple Arcade games and that was about it.
But after spending a few weeks with the latest MacBook Air, I have to admit I was (partly) wrong. There are quite a few games and app stores that support Apple’s Mac lineup, and some of them even run on Apple’s own chip.
While I wouldn’t rush out and buy a MacBook Air strictly for gaming, spending time gaming on one has opened my eyes. There’s more to it than that, of course. Before I dive in, though, here’s what I’ve been using.
Apple MacBook Air M1 – Specs
Here are the specifications of the Apple MacBook Air I’ve been testing:
Model: Apple MacBook Air (M1, 2020) (A2337)
Display: 13.3-inch LED (2560 x 1600)
Processor: Apple Silicon M1 8-core CPU
Graphics: Apple Silicon M1 8-core GPU
Memory: 16GB unified memory
OS: MacOS 11 Big Sur
Storage: 1TB SSD
Webcam: 720p FaceTime HD camera
Ports: 2 x Thunderbolt 4 USB-C 1 x 3.5mm headphone jack
Connectivity: WiFi 6 802.11ax, Bluetooth 5.0
Dimensions: 11.97 x 8.36 x 0.63-inches (WxDxH)
Weight: 2.8-pounds
Price: $1,649
The MacBook Air starts at $999 for an M1-equipped model, but instead of an 8-core GPU, you’ll get 7-cores. The entry-level model also comes with 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage. At the top end, a fully-kitted model features 2TB of storage and 16GB of memory for $2,049.
Apple MacBook Air M1 – Design
There’s nothing notable or special about the Apple Silicon version of the MacBook Air when it comes to design. It’s the same iconic footprint the Air has had for several years now. The space gray, gold or silver exterior is clean and free of any extra fanfare, save for the standard Apple logo on the lid. Speaking of the Apple logo, it’d be nice if Apple returned to the light-up logo on its laptop lineup, and there are rumors a completely redesigned MacBook Air is in the works, but until then, we’re stuck with the same ol’ design.
On the right side of the laptop’s deck is a headphone jack, with two Thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports on the left side. Those two lonely ports are all you have to connect various peripherals and accessories to the Air, and frankly, they’re just not enough. I maxed out the ports simply connecting a gaming mouse and the charger.
A USB-C hub or dock is a must for the MacBook Air, especially if you plan on using it for any sort of gaming or, heck, even just connecting to an external monitor.
Opening the lid you’ll find a 13.3-inch Retina LCD display, with a 720p FaceTime HD camera just above it. As with the design, Apple opted to leave the webcam alone, and instead is using image optimization features that the M1 processor brings to the table. Overall, the webcam quality is improved, however a 1080p camera would be more beneficial.
The Air uses Apple’s newest Magic Keyboard, ditching the problematic butterfly mechanism that was prone to dust particles wreaking havoc on the old design. The new Magic Keyboard, thus far, has been reliable. The backlit keys have a bit of depth to them, allowing for touch typists or even mechanical converts to adapt on the fly with little struggle.
Above the keyboard is a row of keys that trigger various system functions like adjusting display brightness, media controls, Do Not Disturb and a Spotlight shortcut for quickly searching your Mac.
Face ID has yet to make its debut on the Mac line, and so you’ll need to rely on Apple’s tried-and-true Touch ID fingerprint sensor in the top-right corner of the keyboard to unlock the Mac, approve Apple Pay purchases or sign into apps like a password manager.
On either side of the keyboard is a speaker that is loud, but lacks the same depth and overall audio quality that my personal M1 MacBook Pro has.
Just below the keyboard is a trackpad. It’s plenty big enough, offering enough space to swipe, tap and scroll through MacOS using gestures.
Apple MacBook Air M1 – Performance and Gaming
Inside the new MacBook Air is Apple’s first processor that was designed in-house. It’s based on the ARM architecture, which is the same type of processor that powers the iPhone and iPad, or even Microsoft’s Surface Pro X. The M1 processor found in this MacBook Air has 8 CPU cores, 8 GPU cores and 16 Neural Engine cores.
When ordering an M1 Mac, you can pick between 8GB or 16GB of memory, which can be limiting for some. You won’t be able to change it out yourself, so what you order is what you’re stuck with. Same goes for storage, with the model I tested having 1TB. But you can get anywhere from 256GB to 2TB in the Air.
The testing regimen for the Air, naturally, is different from any Windows 10 gaming laptop I’ve tested. Most of the benchmarking apps IGN uses to provide quantitative numbers comparing performance between systems won’t run on a Mac. So, instead, the bulk of testing was done with real world usage.
That said, I discovered that some of the games IGN used for benchmarking in the past do run on a Mac, so I ran them. Rise of the Tomb Raider, for example, runs on the M1 MacBook Air. The built-in benchmark tool returned an average of 30 frames per second at the full 2560×1600 resolution, while lowering it to 1920×1200 bumped up the average FPS to 60.
Total War: Three Kingdoms installs and runs, but there are graphics issues throughout the entire game. Namely, big black blocks that move across the screen. As far as I can tell, these blocks are in areas where unrendered fog and rain are moving through a scene. The benchmark tool does run, though, and it returned a fairly low 23 FPS.
There isn’t a fan inside the MacBook Air. It’s completely and totally silent at all times, and it’s a little weird at first. I was accustomed to my 2017 MacBook Pro’s fan kicking on the moment I opened the lid to make its presence known.
I was worried about heat management when playing games, be it Tomb Raider (which I played the most of during my review period with the MacBook Air), or games from Apple Arcade like Lego Brawls. I installed TG Pro to monitor the CPU temps and receive an alert whenever they reached 100-degrees Celsius.
For the most part, temps would hover around 93-degrees, but every once in a while, they would jump up to the 100-degree mark before quickly dropping back down. Even though those numbers are higher than what I’d expect to see in a PC, there didn’t seem to be any downside to running the system for a long period of time at those temps. Heck, the housing didn’t even get hot. Warm, sure. But never hot to the touch.
Not every game could run. After installing Steam, I went through my personal library and installed any game that I could. Hitman installed, but failed at launch. Among Us and DOTA 2 installed and ran without issue, as did World of Warcraft.
I also installed Epic Games to see which games I owned would run on a Mac, and to my surprise, there were a handful, including Fortnite. Yes, you can still play Fortnite on Apple hardware. Just not iPhones and iPads. I dropped in for a few matches, and with the resolution set to 1920×1200, with settings on High, hitting 60 FPS wasn’t an issue.
I also played a handful of Apple Arcade games, some of them were a ton of fun – like Lego Brawls and Oceanhorn 2. All of them ran without issue, but that’s expected. Apple Arcade games are optimized for Apple’s hardware, big and small.
As I said at the start, I wouldn’t tell someone to go out and buy an M1 MacBook Air over a true gaming laptop, but I’m no longer completely shut off from the option.
Tomb Raider was by far the biggest surprise, running buttery smooth the entire time I played.
Apple MacBook Air M1 – Battery life
One of the main highlights of the MacBook Air and its new M1 processor is battery life. My experience with the new Air was impressive, with a daily battery life that lasted through an entire workday and into the evening. Apple claims battery life of 15 hours of browsing the web, or 18 hours when watching videos in the Apple TV app.
As with the rest of the benchmarks, I couldn’t run the PC Mark 10 battery test on the MacBook Air, so instead I reverted back to playing a 4K video on loop in VLC, and monitoring the MacBook Air until it turned off. The display was set to 50% brightness, while the keyboard backlight was disabled, along with Bluetooth. Wi-Fi was left on.
The first time I ran the test, VLC wasn’t optimized for Apple Silicon. The battery of the MacBook Air lasted a respectable 5 hours and 32 minutes. However, the next day an update was released, optimizing VLC for the M1 chip inside the MacBook Air. I ran a subsequent battery test and it lasted 8 hours and 10 minutes.
While still falling short of Apple’s estimation, it’s more in line with our expectations, and also goes to show how important it is for developers to optimize their apps for Apple Silicon.
Apple MacBook Air M1 – Software
As is the case with Apple’s Mac lineup, there isn’t any pre installed bloatware or unnecessary apps. You get MacOS that includes apps like Messages, Safari, Photos, and the rest of Apple’s software suite.
There aren’t any apps dedicated to gaming or fine-tuning your system as is commonplace on gaming laptops, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Potentially the biggest issue you’ll run into with an M1-powered Air is software compatibility. I didn’t run through each and every gaming accessory program, but I did take a few minutes to install Logitech’s G Hub and Corsair’s iCue software and was able to use it, with connected accessories, without any deal breaking issues. Both apps can be a little sluggish at times, and it’s obvious they’re not optimized for Apple Silicon, but they work.
This week’s Red Dead Redemption 2 updates focuses on the amateur cooks and chemists of Red Dead Online. Hunters and crafters can take advantage of these experimental improvisers with a number of bonuses and discounts available throughout the week.
Those who craft any item at a campfire will receive three collectables to trade with Madam Nazar. Crafting anything at Gus’ Store will also earn you a reward for a free hat below rank 15 and 50% off any pair of boots. Meanwhile, purchasing any pamphlet will reward you with a treasure map.
On top of this, all clothing items crafted in Gus’ Store can be acquired at a 40% discount, while hunters can nab 30% off the cost of Gus’ Trinkets and improved bow variants. Those who play Red Dead Online between now and February 1 will also be rewarded with 5x gun oil and 50 small game arrows to help with any hunting endeavours.
The Wheeler, Rawson & Co. catalogue has a number of discounts and sales this week, too. There’s 50% off fishing lures and both predator and herbivore baits; 40% off bow, improved bow, and tonic crafting pamphlets; and 30% off weapon crafting pamphlets and the fishing rod.
As always, players who connect their Rockstar Games Social Club Account to Prime Gaming will also receive a variety of rewards. A free bounty hunter licence and an award for the trimmed amethyst bounty wagon livery are both currently available. In addition, players who connect to Prime Gaming before February 15 will receive offers for 50% off the LeMat revolver and a poncho of their choice, an offer for a free off-hand holster, plus 100 rounds of high velocity and explosive revolver cartridges.
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A Twitter post from Roger Craig Smith, the long-term voice of Sonic the Hedgehog, suggests that he is leaving the role.
On the social media platform, Smith said “Welp, 10 years was an amazing run. Onwards to new zones! Much love to the fans who’ve been so kind. It’s been an honor.” This was followed by an image of a blue-coloured heart split down the middle.
Welp, 10 years was an amazing run.
Onward to new zones!
While not directly stating as much, this does seem like a farewell tweet from Smith, suggesting that he’s departed the role and will no longer be the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog. We have contacted Sega for comment or confirmation.
Roger Craig Smith first voiced Sonic in 2010’s Sonic Free Riders and Sonic Colors, and has voiced the character in all Sonic games since, as well as the Sonic Boom TV series. It is currently unknown who will replace him as the voice of Sonic.
While Roger Craig Smith is arguably the best-known voice of Sonic, he did not take on the role for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie; instead actor Ben Schwartz took on the role of the speedy rodent.
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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer.Â
