What is a Pokemon Center? Why is Tokyo DX special?
Pokemon Centers are, in the most basic terms, Pokemon stores–and Tokyo is full of them, which can make navigating them a little bit tricky. Functionally, they all fulfill the same role, as places where you can go and buy any Pokemon merch your heart desires, from home goods to trading cards and everything in between. But not every Center is created equal. Available stock, ease of access, and typical foot traffic affect each location as you might expect–some Centers, like the one in Ikebukuro’s Sunshine City, for example, are located in the middle of very popular shopping centers, making them a little bit more high stress to see and visit.
By comparison, the Tokyo DX Center is both the newest and the largest Pokemon Center in the city, situated around a themed foyer complete with a life-sized Snorlax statue diorama that separates it from the adjacent Pokemon Cafe. Luckily, a little over a year after opening, the crowds have become completely manageable, especially during the week.
Like virtually all of the Centers in Tokyo, DX has a selection of exclusive Pikachu-centric plush merch, but it also has a full touch screen PokeDex wall and a dedicated gaming area.
E3 2019 is just around the corner and the GameSpot team will be ready to bring you the best coverage and so much more! If you are in Los Angeles from June 11 to June 13 you should stop by our Base Station, located at the Chick Hearn Court, between Staples Center and the Microsoft Theater.
The GameSpot Base Station will be open to the general public for all ages. You won’t even need a badge to enjoy non-stop live gameplay on the eSports truck, hit the Galactic Gaming Station for some arcade gaming, take some memorable pictures at the Jack in the Box Fuel House Photo Opp, or get some exclusive swag from the Jack in the Box Loot Box. Be sure to stop by from 3 pm to 8 pm.
Remember to follow us on Twitter to find out the latest updates on our meet & greet schedule, keep up with surprises, and for the best coverage of E3 2019.
Only one weekend remains before Destiny 2 receives its next content drop: Penumbra, the final content addition covered under the game’s Year Two annual pass. June 4 starts the Season of Opulence, the last new content addition before Bungie outlines the “next chapter” of Destiny–and since it’s the weekend, that makes this the last visit by Exotics peddler Xur before the start of the new season.
Xur is hanging out in the Tower this week. Head to the Hangar and turn left from the stairs, past Dead Orbit, to find Xur up on the catwalk near the edge of the area. Things are a bit out of character for Xur this week: He’s not carrying a weapon for you to buy, but only three pieces of armor.
For Warlocks, Xur offers the Wings of Sacred Dawn chest armor, which you can use with the Dawnblade Super. When you’re using the Exotic, aiming your weapon will let you hover in midair, and landing weapon hits while you’re up there will extend the effect. Titans can snag the Aeon Safe gauntlets, which grant grenade and class ability energy to your allies and even more energy if they’re wearing Aeon Cult gear themselves. Finally, Hunters get the Frost-EE5 boots, increasing your sprint speed when you dodge and speeds up your ability regeneration while sprinting.
Frost-EE5 (Exotic Hunter leg armor) — 23 Legendary Shards
Wings of Sacred Dawn (Exotic Warlock chest armor) — 23 Legendary Shards
If you’re bummed about not getting a gun from Xur this week, you can also buy a Fated Engram, if you can afford it. Dropping 97 Legendary Shards on the item will grant you one Year One Exotic you don’t already have for that character. Xur also offers the Five of Swords challenge card for free, which allows you to add difficulty modifiers that increase your score in Nightfall runs.
And if you haven’t finished all nine of Xur’s Invitations of the Nine, you can snag one of those as well. The bounty was new in Season of the Drifter, dispensing Powerful gear rewards, a bit of story about the Nine and the Drifter, and a lore drop.
E3 2019 is fast approaching, and the biggest publishers are preparing to show off their slates of games for the upcoming year and beyond. Square Enix is holding a press event on Monday, June 10 at 6 PM ET / 9 PM PT. Regular show watchers will recognize that time slot as one that usually belongs to Sony, which is forgoing the conference this year.
We already know some of Square Enix’s plans, while others are less clear. The company has teased a reveal of its long-anticipated Marvel’s Avengers game. Some details have purportedly already leaked, but seeing it announced live is almost certain to reveal more information. Square also recently announced it will show off Dying Light 2 from Techland at its E3 event. And while it isn’t quite confirmed, the latest State of Play presentation showed of the Final Fantasy VII remake with an intriguing “more to come in June” teaser, which probably means it will be part of the E3 presentation too.
Make sure to check out all of GameSpot’s coverage of E3 2019 for the latest breaking news, and read our full E3 conference schedule to plan your watching for the weekend. Below is a standing list of all of the confirmed Square Enix games we know are slated to make an appearance at the show, so far.
The way we play games changes by the year, but there’s something particularly special about 2019: the advent of cloud-based streaming. Google is leading the charge with Stadia, which is a hardware-less gaming platform that relegates all graphical processing to remote data centers. Through an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream games directly to any capable device using the power of high-end machines housed elsewhere. So, it doesn’t matter what your actual local hardware is; as long as you can run a Chrome browser and have a sufficient internet connection, you can play any game available on Stadia.
Stadia was first unveiled at the Game Developers’ Conference 2019 with a keynote presentation outlining the first details of this new platform. We were given a breakdown of how the tech works, a few on-stage demonstrations, some of its unique capabilities, and a tease of which studios would be contributing to Stadia. And we even got hands on with Stadia itself on the GDC show floor. With E3 2019 right around the corner, we expect Google to make another push with new announcements and more information since the company said it’ll have more to share in the summer. This could encompass Stadia’s business model, upcoming game library, and possible release date–it’s set to launch sometime this year in the US, UK, and “most of Europe” after all, and E3 is as good a time as any to go big.
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Stadia Explained – Google GDC 2019 Gaming Announcement
The unveiling of Stadia at GDC 2019 gave us plenty of details about the platform. Aside from the fact that it’s entirely based in the cloud, making it accessible on multiple devices, we know about its technical specifications. At launch, Stadia users will have the power of a custom multi-core hyper-threading CPU clocked at 2.7 GHz, 16GB of RAM, cloud SSD storage, and most notably a brand-new AMD GPU rated at 10.7 TFLOPs–for comparison, the Xbox One X (the current powerhouse for consoles) is rated at 6.0 TFLOPs. Stadia will be able to play games at 4K resolution at 60 frames-per-second, though that may vary depending on games, optimization, and your own internet connection. There are plans to gradually upgrade Stadia’s specs over time, and Google is aiming to support 8K and 120 FPS in the future. But Stadia’s capabilities aren’t bound by a simple TFLOP number, since cloud-based tech can account for much more.
You won’t have to wait around for game downloads, and updates or patches since Stadia is pulling from a cloud-based version whichever game you’re playing. Google is also going to great lengths for YouTube integration, and we’ve seen it in action, like being able to jump into specific parts of a game based on a video, which is called State Share. Streamers can also let viewers join their multiplayer games instantly through what’s called Crowd Play. Google Voice Assistant will be featured as well, and could have significant implications for guides and instant access to information for games you’re playing.
When it comes to cloud-based services, bandwidth is always a huge concern as this could be a deal-breaker depending on ISP conditions and data caps. Google stated that 20 to 25 mbps is necessary for a proper 1080p 60FPS experience and around 30 mbps for 4K. As for input lag, Google VP Phil Harrison said in response to whether or not he’s confident in Stadia’s performance will satisfy players, “Absolutely, unequivocally, yes.” He cited the expectations that id Software has for Doom Eternal and how Stadia has been able to meet those expectations with its responsiveness in gameplay.
What’s Confirmed For E3
Nothing has been confirmed for E3 2019 on Google’s behalf, yet. However, the GDC reveal was capped off by saying that there would be more details to come in the Summer. Well, E3 is in June, and June is in the Summer, so it’s fair to think that Google would insert itself into (or at least around) the biggest convention for the gaming industry. Whether it’s officially part of E3 proper isn’t likely. We may see some publisher/developer booths with Stadia running certain games, but we don’t expect to Google to have an official presence at the show since it is not part of the ESA.
What We Hope To See At E3
As much as we know about Google Stadia, there are still plenty of questions that need answering and finer details that need explaining. Most importantly, what does the Stadia pricing model look like? Will it be a subscription based service, or is it simply a platform where you purchase access to specific games, or will there be options for incremental play time? Maybe it’s a hybrid of all these? It’s a mystery at this point, but Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot predicted that it would blend several purchase options. Back in April, Google stated that it already decided on a pricing model but planned on sharing details at a later date. Well, Stadia launches this year and the coming days would be as good a time as any to make the announcement.
Up to now, we’ve seen Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and the upcoming shooter Doom Eternal (see above) running on Stadia live. While those are some big names, that’s only two games, one of which has been out for months already. Google has boasted wide ranging partnerships with notable developers and publishers like Ubisoft, Bethesda, and 2K Games, and introduced its own first-party studio led by former EA and Ubisoft head Jade Raymond. With this in mind, we’d expect to see more games running on Stadia. A tentative launch lineup would also be nice to drum up hype for the platform, but to also get a better idea of what we can expect to play on it.
While Stadia’s key selling point is the elimination of a hardware requirement, Google is still going to offer its own controller specifically designed to give you convenient access to the platform’s unique tools. The Stadia controller was on display at GDC 2019 when the platform was first announced, but attendees couldn’t actually get their hands on it. We’d hope to get a feel for how it works and how its ergonomics compare to the DualShock and Xbox controllers, gamepads we’ve been using for years now.
We’re covering cloud-based game streaming from all angles as this is a big shift in the gaming industry, and you can keep up with all the Google Stadia news and details here on GameSpot.
Nintendo has narrowed down the release window for Cadence of Hyrule, the upcoming Zelda-themed Crypt of the NecroDancer game for Switch. During its recent Indie World 2019 broadcast, the company announced the title will launch sometime in June.
On top of confirming its release window, Nintendo showcased roughly a minute of new footage of Cadence of Hyrule, which you can watch below. The segment begins around the 6:57 mark and shows Link and Zelda–both of whom are playable in the upcoming game–navigating a handful of environments inspired by A Link to the Past and battling classic enemies like Bokoblins and Darknuts.
Nintendo had previously announced Cadence of Hyrule would be launching sometime this spring, although the company hadn’t specified when. There was speculation the game would surprise release this week, after eagle-eyed fans discovered a line that reads, “Release date: May 30, 2019” in the source code of Nintendo’s website. However, that has since been changed to say June 20, although whether that is the game’s actual release date or merely placeholder text remains to be seen.
Cadence of Hyrule was first announced back in March, during the Nindies Spring Showcase 2019 presentation. The game is being developed by Brace Yourself–the studio behind the original Crypt of the NecroDancer–and blends CotND’s signature rhythm-based combat with music, characters, and environments from the Legend of Zelda series. Nintendo says the game boasts 25 remixed Zelda songs, as well as a randomly generated overworld and dungeons.
Cadence of Hyrule isn’t the only 2D Zelda game coming to Switch this year. Nintendo is also releasing a remake of the series’ classic Game Boy installment, Link’s Awakening, for the hybrid console sometime in 2019. We will likely hear more about that game during Nintendo’s E3 2019 Direct presentation, which takes place on Tuesday, June 11, at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET / 5 PM BST.
Disney’s hidden gem is weird, wild, and one-of-a-kind.
There are Disney parks all over the world–and while the two in America might be in the spotlight right now thanks to the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, there are plenty of new and totally unique things to experience right here on planet Earth–if you’re willing to book a very real and not at all interstellar flight, that is. And that’s exactly what we did when we traveled all the way to Tokyo to visit Tokyo DisneySea, Japan’s one-of-a-kind Disney park.
Massive and packed to the proverbial gills with original Japanese rides and attractions spread across seven unique lands, DisneySea is maybe the only Disney park in the world that, well, doesn’t feel like a Disney park at all. In fact, you’re likely to forget you’re in the Mouse’s house entirely until you step into a gift shop and spot the decorative mouse-eared headbands and Mickey and Minnie logo t-shirts. There’s no Star Wars or Marvel to be seen, no Disney staples like Splash or Space Mountain–for those, you’ll need to hop on the monorail over to Tokyo’s Disneyland, a close duplicate of the Disneyland you’ll find in Anaheim, California. Instead, at DisneySea things are a whole lot weirder.
Situated around a massive water feature (the “sea” part of the name) DisneySea is an exercise in atmosphere and set design. Themed areas that look like the Mediterranean give way to steampunk sci-fi cave systems and then into Indiana Jones flavored wilderness exploration with anything you can imagine in between. The rides are almost entirely kept hidden behind walls and buried deep within the scenery to keep the illusion of endlessness going–and trust us when we say this park really does feel endless.
It may not be a galaxy far, far away but DisneySea is still one of the world’s best theme parks, and well worth a visit to anyone planning on making it to the Tokyo area. To prove it, we compiled a list of 15 of DisneySea’s totally original features, from snacks to theatrical productions to rides.
The Witcher is one of the most anticipated upcoming shows over the next few months. The show, adapted from the popular novels turned video game series, is set to hit Netflix in the last three months of 2019, and it has now been confirmed that production has finished on Season 1.
The news comes via star Henry Cavill, who plays Geralt of Rivia. He took to Instagram to post about the “incredible journey” of making the show. “Season 1 of The Witcher has finally come to an end,” he wrote. “And although I’m pulling a face here it has been an incredible journey! The cast and crew worked tirelessly throughout, everyone pitched in and brought their A game to set and I couldn’t be more proud of you all.” The post was accompanied by a picture of Cavill in a make-up chair–check it out below:
The Witcher’s showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich also marked the end of production on Twitter. “That’s a wrap on season one,” she wrote. “I have enough gray hair to play Geralt now, but it’s been the best year of my life. So grateful to the writers, the cast, and the exceptional crew who worked their asses off to make the Continent come to life.”
The Witcher will run for eight episodes, and is based on the fantasy novel series written by Andrzej Sapkowski, from which the games are also adapted. Sapkowski has worked on the English language drama series as a creative consultant.
As for the Witcher game series, the newest instalment was 2015’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. No new projects in the series have been announced, and developer CD Projekt Red is now working on the much-anticipated Cyberpunk 2077.
