Category: Games

Warning: this article contains spoilers for the first three episodes of Crisis on Infinite Earths!

The CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover is already jam-packed with heroes both familiar and new, but another important new player entered the stage in Part 3: Stephen Lobo’s Jim Corrigan, better known as the human host of the Spectre.

While he only appears briefly in Part 3, it’s clear the Spectre will have a big part to play in the future of the Arrowverse. Not only that, Oliver Queen seems to be a key piece of that puzzle. Read on for a quick breakdown of who the Spectre is and why his fate is now entwined with that of the Green Arrow.

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Warning: this review contains full spoilers for South Park: Season 23, Episode 10. If you need a refresher on where we left off, here’s our review for Season 23, Episode 9. 

South Park has spent much of Season 23 toying with its usual formula. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have been pretending as if last year’s #CancelSouthPark promotion actually got the series booted off the air, replacing traditional South Park with spinoffs like “Tegridy Farms,” “One for the Ladies” and “The Scott Malkinson Show.” The finale tricks viewers into thinking the old status quo has finally been restored by finally bringing back the classic intro sequence and setting up a good, old-fashioned Christmas special. Instead, it quickly becomes clear that we aren’t quite done with Tegridy. And that, as it turns out, is just fine.

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Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Remastered Edition has been delayed to Summer 2020, according to the official Final Fantasy Twitter account.

The announcement said the game was delayed to “allow the development team some extra time to make final adjustments to the game to make this the best experience possible.”

The Crystal Chronicles remaster was originally revealed in September 2018 and was scheduled to release in 2019. Then, earlier this year, Square Enix announced that the game would launch on January 23, 2020.

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J.J. Abrams, the director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker, has weighed in on Rian Johnson’s approach to Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Talking to The New York Times, Abrams seems to have mixed feelings about Johnson’s choices for The Last Jedi, saying it was “full of surprises and subversion and all sorts of bold choices.”

“On the other hand,” Abrams continued, “It’s a bit of a meta approach to the story. I don’t think that people go to ‘Star Wars’ to be told, ‘This doesn’t matter.’”

Ultimately, Abrams came to the conclusion that The Last Jedi helped to set up The Rise of Skywalker, saying the arch was “a story that I think needed a pendulum swing in one direction in order to swing in the other.”

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The love for Baby Yoda has spread far and wide across the stars, and it has now even reached the baby changing stations at Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland.

Spotted by Sam Carter on Twitter, the head of the baby on the sign that indicates a changing station on Galaxy’s Edge has been replaced with the head of none other than Baby Yoda from The Mandalorian.

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January will bring a new year and a lot of new movies and TV shows for your binging pleasure on Netflix.

To get things started, the streamer is releasing an impressive lineup of original series, including the final episodes of BoJack Horseman, and Part 3 of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Netflix is also debuting a new geopolitical thriller series starring Michelle Monaghan, called Messiah (check out the trailer here). Messiah centers on Monaghan’s Eva Geller, a CIA officer who uncovers information about a man (Mehdi Dehbi) gaining international attention for performing miracles.

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Axiom Verge 2 was announced this week as part of Nintendo’s Nindies showcase, and it’ll be exclusive to the Switch at launch. The first Axiom Verge is available widely, releasing first on PlayStation 4 before making its way to PC, PS Vita, Wii U, Xbox One, and Switch. It’s unclear whether the sequel will follow a similar verge, but developer Thomas Happ has talked to USGamer about launching on Switch, and given a few details about the game’s setting.

Asked about the game coming to Switch first, Happ says that the system “was kind of a natural platform to start with this time around. It seems as though every few years platforms shift in terms of popularity of indies and at the moment the Switch is really the best place for it.” The first game’s sales of the system have remained strong, while other platforms have dropped off. “It also helps that the Switch is the lowest spec of them all so I can be guaranteed that if I develop on Switch, the same thing will run elsewhere without making sacrifices,” he says.

That last statement suggests that the game will eventually come to other systems, but Happ can’t say anything specific yet. “I can’t really talk about where you’ll see Axiom Verge 2 other than the Switch. That said, it took several years before Axiom Verge reached every platform, and that worked out pretty well since each time I could devote all my energy to whatever platform it was currently releasing on.”

Axiom Verge is far from the only indie game to enjoy great success on the Switch. Indie-darling Celeste has been a huge success on the system, and 25% of all Shovel Knight sales are on Switch, to name just two examples.

Elsewhere in the interview, Happ elaborates on the game’s setting, saying that “depending on how you view things, Axiom Verge 2 is both in the future of Axiom Verge and in the past, but probably more of the latter.” He also hints at faster-than-light communication playing a part in the game’s narrative.

The original Axiom Verge scored an 8/10 in our review, and reviewer Peter Brown wrote that “Axiom Verge is a game that’s easy to fall in love with because it hits so many high notes.”

The latest patch for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, update 5.3, is now live on the game’s test server on PC. It’s the final patch for 2019, and although it’s not adding any new maps or weapons, it’s still an interesting one. The full patch notes outline every little change introduced, but the three most important additions are the new blood effect improvements, the removal of locked crates, and the new addition of cloud saves for your settings.

The blood effect changes mean that locations will now tell you more of a story about the fights that have erupted across them. Shots to the head or neck now have a more distinct visual effect, and blood impact effects on characters now better show off where they’ve been hit, but the most important change is that blood splatter will now show up on walls and floors. If a major battle happened in a building, you might walk in and find it coated in blood after this update.

Cloud saves for settings mean that you’ll easily be able to load up your settings if you switch to a different PC. Settings dependent on hardware can’t be saved, nor language settings, but you can bring most of your preferred settings over to another computer easily now.

Meanwhile, loot crates bought with BP will no longer have the possibility of being locked. This follows on from the developer’s promise to improve crate content, and random crate contents and percentages have been tweaked a bit. You have a 16% chance of getting a Wanderer, Survivor, Biker, Militia, or Raider Crate, a 17% chance of getting a Fall 2018 Crate, and just a 3% chance of a Venetian Crate.

PUBG is currently in season 5, and recently changed how its circle system works to deter camping. The rest of the 5.3 patch notes are below. It should be live on PC soon, and then for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One after that.

GAMEPLAY

Blood Effect Improvements

• Headshots including the neck area produce more distinct visual effect to ensure clear identification of hit
• Blood splatter will be shown on walls and floors if the character is hit near it
  • The size of the blood splash is unified across all color settings
• Blood impacts on characters will now provide a more precise visual representation of which body parts have been hit

Vending Machine

• Reduced the maximum number of uses per Vending Machine from 15 to 10

SETTINGS

Cloud Saving

• Settings now can be saved to the cloud in the settings screen
• Saved settings can be loaded in the settings screen when needed
  • This also allows players to load their account settings even when playing on a new PC
• Settings that are dependent on hardware cannot be saved
  • GRAPHICS: All settings in the GRAPHICS category except “Language Setting”
  • GAMEPLAY: “Inventory Character Render” setting cannot be saved
• The Cloud Saving option can be found at the bottom right of the SETTINGS screen
• Test Server settings will only be saved on to the test server account

WEAPON MASTERY

Favorite Weapon

• Players can now choose their “favorite weapon” in the Mastery tab
• The weapon of choice will show up as the first weapon stat in your PUBG ID, regardless of whether the weapon has the highest level or not
• A grey star will show up when player’s mouse is hovered over it. Clicking the star will favorite the weapon
• A gold star will show up next to a chosen weapon when a player favorites it
• Players can only favorite individual weapons and not categories
• There can only be one favorite. That’s just logical
• The favorite weapon will always show up at the top of players’ list, even when the sorting feature is used

UI/UX

Lobby Theme

• Lobby background will change to a HAPPY HOLIDAYS theme once the patch is updated on live servers
• To set the winter mood, the lobby music has also been changed

Weapon HUD Improvement

• Heal and acceleration icons on the weapon HUD will now flash when activated

CUSTOM MATCH

Esports Mode

• Boats and Aquarails now have fixed spawn locations and numbers on Sanhok

Observing UI Improvement

• Enabled rear camera flip (180 degrees flip) by pressing Ctrl+R key during freecam perspective
• Enabled adjusting camera movement speed during observing
  • Speed up: =
  • Speed down: –
• Bullet tracer setting indicator will now be shown on the bottom left of the UI

REPLAY

• Old replays cannot be played due to a version update to the replay system.

WORLD

• All PGC signs and banners on Miramar have been removed

SURVIVOR PASS: BADLANDS

• The current season of both the Survivor Pass and Survival Title System will end on January 14 PDT
  • Starting January 1st, there will be a countdown on the Survivor Pass lobby banner notifying players of the pass end date
  • A pop-up message will be displayed to users purchasing Premium Pass and Level-up items, alerting them of the time left until pass end
• Premium Pass and Level-up items can be purchased until the Pass period ends

SKINS & ITEMS

The following items will be added to the Store after Update 5.3 hits live servers:

• Added 2 BattleStat weapon skins (QBU and P1911)
• Added 2 BattleStat weapon skins (SKS and P92)
  • Purchasable with BP
• Added 3 Factory Worker skins
• Added 4 Punk Destruction skins

Crates

• Crates requiring keys to unlock are no-longer included in the pool of Random Crates purchasable with BP
• Random Crate contents and percentages have been adjusted as shown below:

Wanderer, Survivor, Biker, Militia, or Raider Crate: 16%

Fall 2018 Crate: 17%

Venetian Crate: 3%

BUG FIXES

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where the reticle would shake when ADS with a 6x Scope equipped
• Fixed an issue where character movement would stutter when firing the DBS in certain situations
• Fixed an issue where BRDM collision damage was higher than intended
• Fixed an issue where a disconnected player could float when displaced by a prone character

World

• Mitigated an issue which causes players to be bumped into the air when moving close to certain objects

Custom Match

• Fixed an issue while observing and using the x-ray feature where the character outline is not visible after a player is revived
• Fixed an issue where healing items would not show while spectating in free cam when in observer mode

UI/UX

• Fixed an issue where only the ammo of one weapon is updated in the inventory when holding more than one weapon using the same ammo type
• Fixed an issue where the character size would show incorrectly in lobby when moving to lobby after seeing preview of PGC 2019 bundle
• Fixed an issue where character rendering is done late when changing gender while creating a character
• Fixed an issue where item equipped icon and new item notification icon would appear at the same location in CUSTOMIZE menu