Epic Games and Time Studios (of Time Magazine) have teamed up to present the Fortnite March Through Time, a limited-time mode that offers no combat, building, or anything of the usual sort Fortnite is known for.
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has updated its lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, accusing the gaming giant of destroying evidence pertinent to the investigation.
Despite battle royale fatigue inching its way into the collective gaming consciousness in recent years, Naraka: Bladepoint is proof that the last-fighter-standing formula still has loads of unexplored potential. This high-flying third-person brawler blends the tight sword clashes of Soul Calibur with the frantic supply gathering and ever-constricting circle of Apex Legends to glorious results. After sinking 35 hours into the full release, its superb melee combat and exhilarating gravity-defying antics are still making me grin, even if irritating network connection issues and lifeless bot matches sometimes hinder the fun. Naraka: Bladepoint isn’t afraid to punish you for not respecting its mountainous skill ceiling, but once you find your footing, putting it down is a challenge in and of itself.
In standard battle royale fashion, Naraka: Bladepoint pits 60 combatants against each other on a war-torn isle, each controlling one of seven unique heroes either in teams of three or solo. Instead of scavenging for assault rifles or bullet-proof kevlar, however, you’ll search for spears, daggers, katanas, and tons more sharp-as-steel lethal instruments along with breastplates and magical trinkets called Souljades that add passive buffs. The loot-and-scoot way of life will be familiar to anyone that’s played Fortnite or Call Of Duty: Warzone before, but the similarities end once the time comes to put up your dukes. Battling other players means engaging in wild, up-close brawls that flow more like a fighting game than any battle royale.
From the instant an opponent parried my first sword swipe, sending me face-down into the dirt, I knew Naraka: Bladepoint took a healthy degree of skill to “get good” at. Charging into battle with no plan in mind against players that know what they’re doing will almost certainly yield similarly humbling results, as frantically swinging melee attacks leaves you open to counter attacks and air juggles. Taking time to learn the differences between standard, special, combo, and charged attacks while keeping an eye on your weapon and armor durability (which depletes quickly) is vital to success. It is equally important to monitor the competition’s body language, waiting for the perfect opening to cut them down. Once I got into Naraka: Bladepoint’s lighting-fast rhythm and strategic duels, though, I started having an absolute ball parrying and dodging with the best of them. Those initial encounters may have been a smidge embarrassing, but it’s all part of the learning process, and sticking with it will yield endless hours of breathless yet rewarding brawls.
There are also ranged weapons like bows, muskets, and hilariously gargantuan flamethrowers to find if popping folks from a safe distance is more your thing. This isn’t a shooter though, and killing enemy players solely through those means is tricky. In my experience, crossbows and the like are better for last hitting someone trying to flee after a close-range tussle rather than an entirely different means of fighting. Still, proficiency with them can come in handy, especially during team fights when you might be able to more safely fire shots while your allies take all the heat.
Practice in all of Naraka: Bladepoint’s various disciplines pays off big time once you hop into trios. Initially, I was skeptical that any 3v3 scenario would devolve into a mess of crane kicks and spear stabs. In practice, however, they’re more akin to the tactical team fights of League Of Legends than a lawless royal rumble. Coordinating your hero’s unique abilities along with those of a teammate can lead to diabolically amusing results. My favorite hero thus far is Matari, a stealthy assassin that can vanish and teleport around the battlefield. In an ideal scenario, I’d get friends to charge right at an opposing team while I skulked around behind them, unleashing vicious combos before they knew what happened. That plan of attack doesn’t always work, of course, and in those moments I could (hopefully) dart away with a blink, or hope my buddy could intervene as Tianhai, a tanky hero able to soak up excess damage once he transforms into a giant beast called the Vajra. The hero toolkits are so diverse and meld together so well that I’m sure we’ll see creative matchups for months to come.
If you’re someone who loves a good backstory to their multiplayer avatar, though, it might be best to look elsewhere. Even after using Matari for hours upon hours, I couldn’t tell you a single thing about her personality. Everyone of her mid-match quips is woefully cliche or lacking any enthusiastic delivery, and none of the other heroes fair much better. Sure, there are little snippets of lore sprinkled throughout the menus, but it’s always dry exposition with almost no flavor. With how enjoyable and expressive heroes are in battle, I wish there was more to their stories.
Despite how joyous Naraka: Bladepoint’s deep melee fights against other players are, however, bots can suck the fun right out of it. For your first few hours of ranked play, you’ll almost exclusively face dullard AI-controlled adversaries that barely put up a fight. They’ll happily eat a katana to the face and often don’t bother putting up a counter-attack of their own. Developer 24 Entertainment insists that bot matches exist to ease new players into Naraka: Bladepoint since the skill ceiling is so high, but you’ll likely learn next to nothing from these insipid encounters. I prefer to get blitzed by an actual person, learning from what I did wrong, then mindlessly wail on idiotic bots – and while other games have been known to use a similar tactic to start, you’ll face bots for much longer here with no warning.
If nothing else, at least bot matches allowed me to gracefully swing about the map without a care in the world thanks to how incredibly scalable Naraka: Bladepoint’s terrain is. It doesn’t matter if you’re marching up tiny hills or leaping up towering cliffsides — if it’s within sight, you can climb it, especially once grappling hooks come into the equation. Like every other item, they’re found throughout the map and are as important as healing herbs or the finest blade. There were several instances where I forgot to fight anyone because hook-shotting from treetop to treetop was so blissful, and as long as your grappling hook reserves are full, you’ll never have to touch the ground. It ends up feeling like if Spider-Man threw in some wonderfully overly dramatic Naruto landing poses every once and a while.
But no matter if you’re swinging across the heavens or locking horns with an enemy, Naraka: Bladepoint can fall apart at the seams if the servers are acting up. Now, while that’s true of almost any online multiplayer romp, it’s especially noticeable here when so much of Naraka: Bladepoint relies on pixel-perfect precision. Frustration sets in fast when a parry maneuver goes unnoticed due to lag, but thankfully connection woes have been a pretty infrequent since its admittedly rocky release day. Hopefully that stability will remain from here on out.
The Skate franchise is officially coming to PC. The next game in the Electronic Arts franchise will launch on PC in addition to consoles.
Electronic Arts and Full Circle developers shared a video on Twitter to accompany the announcement, posting footage of a skateboarder performing a kickflip over a computer monitor. The display turns on to reveal the Skate logo.
PC_confirmation.exe pic.twitter.com/ubLRKoCw9P
— skate. (@skateEA) August 26, 2021
The Skate franchise had been a console-exclusive series until this point. The first three games launched on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The series has been dormant since Skate 3’s launch in 2010, though developers shared a behind-the-scenes teaser last month to assure fans that the fourth Skate game is still in development.
Details about the upcoming Skate game are still sparse. An official title hasn’t been revealed yet. However, EA’s trailer from last month teases an open-world design akin to the seamless downhill map of Skate 2.
The new Skate game was announced back at EA Play in June 2020. EA later shared that Full Circle, the new studio behind the game, was launched for the express purpose of continuing the Skate series. For about the next Skate game, read our article explaining how the upcoming sequel could feature an emphasis on user-generated content.
J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.
Starfield fans discovered three unlisted videos from Bethesda that reveal the lore behind some of the locations players might visit in the upcoming space RPG.
Earlier today, social media users began sharing three unlisted videos by Bethesda that offer a brief insight into locations in the game including cities called New Atlantis, Neon, and Akila.
While these videos are unlisted, Bethesda confirmed to IGN that these videos were actually shared with members of Constellation, a community club that people can sign up for on the Starfield website. Constellation members will get some new info, like these videos, first.
#Starfield – Insight into some of its locations:
The “pleasure city” of Neon, the United Colonies capital city of New Atlantis, and capital of the Freestar Collective, Akila.
Neon: https://t.co/Q7LFMTm8gO
New Atlantis: https://t.co/aSQMqTLN0A
Akila: https://t.co/sAQV8Q2xZO pic.twitter.com/fAXPFFqEdm
— Shinobi602 (@shinobi602) August 26, 2021
While these videos are now floating around online, they’re all quite brief — less than 50 seconds per video.
They offer a nice summary of three locations players will encounter in Starfield. This includes the metropolitan New Atlantis, the capital city of the United Colonies who are the most powerful and established military and political faction in the game.
There’s also Akila City the capital of the Free Star Collective, a loose confederation of three star systems and a bastion for personal freedom in space. And finally, there’s Neon, a pleasure city that began as a fishery before the ZenoFresh Corporation discovered one of the native fish species has psychotropic properties, transforming this outpost into a vice city.
Bethesda officially unveiled Starfield earlier this year as an Xbox exclusive and so far it’s sounding very much like “Skyrim in Space.” Check out everything we know about Starfield so far in the video above, and keep an eye out for more potential news drops from Bethesda.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
No More Heroes 3 asks the question, “What if E.T. came back to Earth 20 years after leaving and was an insufferable asshole?” It’s the kind of offbeat set-up for a video game you would expect from the unorthodox minds of developer Grasshopper Games and game director Suda51, and this basic premise contributes to what is a strong opening for No More Heroes 3. Between its 80s anime-inspired opening, your first taste of Travis Touchdown’s cathartic combat, plenty of call-backs, and a suitably inventive first boss fight, it makes it all the more surprising when this initial goodwill is gradually chipped away.
The first two games in the series were rough around the edges, but that was part of their charm. They were scrappy and stylish, both revered and derived, with a punk-rock spirit that made them cult classics. No More Heroes 3 is zany and maintains those coarse elements, but it also feels forced in a “How do you do fellow kids?” kind of way. You still have to go to the toilet to save your game and jerk off to recharge Travis’ Beam Katana, so the juvenile humor remains intact–it just isn’t very funny. Not because the jokes aren’t landing, but because there aren’t that many to speak of.
Most of the story revolves around returning alien FU; an intolerable antagonist who’s prone to random outbursts of violence. There isn’t much more to the character than that, and the conversations he has with his cronies are plodding and shallow, with dialogue that’s often about nothing in particular–and not in the good Seinfeld way either. No More Heroes 3 still has a habit of breaking down the fourth wall to provide knowing commentary on video games and gamer culture, and there are plenty of self-deprecating lines and overt references to the likes of The X-Files, Terminator, Akira, and Rocky. But these are flimsy band-aids on a narrative that’s disappointingly tedious.
The same can also be said of its overall structure. No More Heroes 3 reverts back to the first game’s framework by giving you an open world to explore in between each boss battle. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this design, and the familiar ranking set-up is still synonymous with the series for good reason. As is customary, Travis begins at the bottom of the rankings and must murder his way up to the number one spot. In this case, the United Assassins Association (UAA) has devised the Galactic Superhero Rankings, with the members of FU’s Galactic Superhero Corp occupying all 10 places. You still need to pay a fee to the UAA before attempting each fight, so completing activities to procure enough cash quickly becomes the perpetual routine.
Herein lies the problem. In order to progress, you have to complete three Designated Matches. These are confined combat scenarios where you’re teleported to a location and must defeat three or four enemies to progress. In most cases, this will earn you enough money to pay the UAA’s entry fee and proceed to the next boss battle. The only time this changes is towards the end of the game when you need to earn a little more cash, but this comes across as unnecessary padding. There are also optional wave-based combat challenges to partake in, and the menial side jobs from the first game return if you fancy mowing grass or picking up trash.
Gallery
Across the series these mini-games are never particularly fun, but that’s the whole point. Even if you don’t like doing these mundane and repetitive tasks, they’re at least backed up by an idea: Travis’ quest to become the top ranked assassin means occasionally working odd-jobs just to pay the bills. But that idea doesn’t really work in No More Heroes 3 considering the world-ending stakes, the fact that Santa Destroy is now populated by aliens, and that you never really need the extra cash. It feels like the mini-games are included just because that’s No More Heroes’ thing, not because they’re a satirical take on open-world game design or the realities of life.
The other issue with these sections is that they lack the charm and personality of the first game. In the original No More Heroes, working those part-time jobs meant visiting the Job Centre beforehand, and leveling up required you to build up a sweat at Ryan’s Gym. Naomi’s Lab was also there for all your Beam Katana upgrade needs, and you could even visit Beef Head to purchase pro wrestling video tapes and learn new moves. In No More Heroes 3, all of this is reduced to an upgrade system that you dump points into. This is more efficient, but it makes the barren open-world feel even more empty and meaningless than it already is. Even combat feels disconnected from everything else since you’re nearly always transported to bespoke extraterrestrial arenas. You don’t even have to fight your way through mobs to reach each boss. Most of the time you’re taken right to the front door.
No More Heroes 3 still has a habit of breaking down the fourth wall to provide knowing commentary on video games and gamer culture, and there are plenty of self-deprecating lines and overt references to the likes of The X-Files, Terminator, Akira, and Rocky
Despite its disconnect from the rest of the game, combat is No More Heroes 3’s saving grace. It loses some of the depth of previous games since you don’t have to worry about low or high attacks or swapping between multiple Beam Katanas, but it makes up for it in other areas. You’ve got your usual repertoire of light and heavy attacks, plus you can block and perform perfect dodges to slow down time, giving you ample opportunity to deal plenty of damage. Jumping attacks are a new addition, and Travis’ Death Glove gives you access to four dynamic skill moves, including a flying Death Kick and an area of effect attack. By wailing on an enemy enough times in succession to make them see stars, you can also unleash a torrent of pro wrestling moves. This will instantly recharge the Beam Katana, allowing you to carry on fighting and potentially rack up 200-hit combos.
There’s a decent rogue’s gallery of enemy types, too, each with their own unique attacks and defences. The Leopardon, for instance, uses giant eggs to teleport away from you where it can use its ranged weapon to disable the Death Glove. Fighting multiple enemy types at once forces you to adapt and utilise every tool in your arsenal, resulting in some of the most engaging battles. There is a lack of indicators for enemy melee attacks, so it can be frustrating when you’re unsuspectingly hit from behind, but the heft and sense of momentum behind Travis’ attacks makes combat particularly pleasing, especially when you’re able to mix in some German Suplexes to extend that combo. It doesn’t really evolve all that much throughout the course of the game, but it speaks to the quality of its action that it never loses its satisfying lustre. It also helps that the framerate maintains a fairly stable 60fps both docked and undocked on Switch. The same cannot be said during the open-world sections, but it also isn’t required to navigate its desolate locales.
Gallery
Boss fights will challenge your skill set more than anything else, although their quality is decidedly inconsistent. At their best, they elevate the combat with surprising new twists and energetic impetus. In the 9th ranked fight against Gold Joe, for instance, you can use his magnetism against him. By running over either the red or blue squares that appear on the floor, you can match Joe’s polarity and push him into the electrified fence that’s surrounding the arena. However, some of the boss fights deviate from the game’s traditional combat in order to riff on other games and genres. These sections are often poor imitations of better games that quickly lose their intrigue after the initial surprise reveal. The final boss is particularly bad, as the last confrontation devolves into a monotonous slog that forces you to wait and wait and wait until a small window of opportunity opens up where you can finally dish out a modicum of damage. And then when you think it’s all over, it transitions into another phase that’s somehow even duller.
If you had a mandate for all of the things a No More Heroes game shouldn’t be, “boring” would be near the top of the list, but this sequel frequently is just that. No More Heroes 3 lacks the irreverent charm and personality of its predecessors. Combat picks up the slack, and there’s a degree of vivid style to be found there, but the game falters in so many other areas. After an 11-year wait, maybe No More Heroes 3 was always destined to fall short of our expectations. But to end without so much as a touchdown is a mighty disappointment.
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No More Heroes 3 asks the question, “What if E.T. came back to Earth 20 years after leaving and was an insufferable asshole?” It’s the kind of offbeat set-up for a video game you would expect from the unorthodox minds of developer Grasshopper Games and game director Suda51, and this basic premise contributes to what is a strong opening for No More Heroes 3. Between its 80s anime-inspired opening, your first taste of Travis Touchdown’s cathartic combat, plenty of call-backs, and a suitably inventive first boss fight, it makes it all the more surprising when this initial goodwill is gradually chipped away.
The first two games in the series were rough around the edges, but that was part of their charm. They were scrappy and stylish, both revered and derived, with a punk-rock spirit that made them cult classics. No More Heroes 3 is zany and maintains those coarse elements, but it also feels forced in a “How do you do fellow kids?” kind of way. You still have to go to the toilet to save your game and jerk off to recharge Travis’ Beam Katana, so the juvenile humor remains intact–it just isn’t very funny. Not because the jokes aren’t landing, but because there aren’t that many to speak of.
Most of the story revolves around returning alien FU; an intolerable antagonist who’s prone to random outbursts of violence. There isn’t much more to the character than that, and the conversations he has with his cronies are plodding and shallow, with dialogue that’s often about nothing in particular–and not in the good Seinfeld way either. No More Heroes 3 still has a habit of breaking down the fourth wall to provide knowing commentary on video games and gamer culture, and there are plenty of self-deprecating lines and overt references to the likes of The X-Files, Terminator, Akira, and Rocky. But these are flimsy band-aids on a narrative that’s disappointingly tedious.
The same can also be said of its overall structure. No More Heroes 3 reverts back to the first game’s framework by giving you an open world to explore in between each boss battle. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this design, and the familiar ranking set-up is still synonymous with the series for good reason. As is customary, Travis begins at the bottom of the rankings and must murder his way up to the number one spot. In this case, the United Assassins Association (UAA) has devised the Galactic Superhero Rankings, with the members of FU’s Galactic Superhero Corp occupying all 10 places. You still need to pay a fee to the UAA before attempting each fight, so completing activities to procure enough cash quickly becomes the perpetual routine.
Herein lies the problem. In order to progress, you have to complete three Designated Matches. These are confined combat scenarios where you’re teleported to a location and must defeat three or four enemies to progress. In most cases, this will earn you enough money to pay the UAA’s entry fee and proceed to the next boss battle. The only time this changes is towards the end of the game when you need to earn a little more cash, but this comes across as unnecessary padding. There are also optional wave-based combat challenges to partake in, and the menial side jobs from the first game return if you fancy mowing grass or picking up trash.
Gallery
Across the series these mini-games are never particularly fun, but that’s the whole point. Even if you don’t like doing these mundane and repetitive tasks, they’re at least backed up by an idea: Travis’ quest to become the top ranked assassin means occasionally working odd-jobs just to pay the bills. But that idea doesn’t really work in No More Heroes 3 considering the world-ending stakes, the fact that Santa Destroy is now populated by aliens, and that you never really need the extra cash. It feels like the mini-games are included just because that’s No More Heroes’ thing, not because they’re a satirical take on open-world game design or the realities of life.
The other issue with these sections is that they lack the charm and personality of the first game. In the original No More Heroes, working those part-time jobs meant visiting the Job Centre beforehand, and leveling up required you to build up a sweat at Ryan’s Gym. Naomi’s Lab was also there for all your Beam Katana upgrade needs, and you could even visit Beef Head to purchase pro wrestling video tapes and learn new moves. In No More Heroes 3, all of this is reduced to an upgrade system that you dump points into. This is more efficient, but it makes the barren open-world feel even more empty and meaningless than it already is. Even combat feels disconnected from everything else since you’re nearly always transported to bespoke extraterrestrial arenas. You don’t even have to fight your way through mobs to reach each boss. Most of the time you’re taken right to the front door.
No More Heroes 3 still has a habit of breaking down the fourth wall to provide knowing commentary on video games and gamer culture, and there are plenty of self-deprecating lines and overt references to the likes of The X-Files, Terminator, Akira, and Rocky
Despite its disconnect from the rest of the game, combat is No More Heroes 3’s saving grace. It loses some of the depth of previous games since you don’t have to worry about low or high attacks or swapping between multiple Beam Katanas, but it makes up for it in other areas. You’ve got your usual repertoire of light and heavy attacks, plus you can block and perform perfect dodges to slow down time, giving you ample opportunity to deal plenty of damage. Jumping attacks are a new addition, and Travis’ Death Glove gives you access to four dynamic skill moves, including a flying Death Kick and an area of effect attack. By wailing on an enemy enough times in succession to make them see stars, you can also unleash a torrent of pro wrestling moves. This will instantly recharge the Beam Katana, allowing you to carry on fighting and potentially rack up 200-hit combos.
There’s a decent rogue’s gallery of enemy types, too, each with their own unique attacks and defences. The Leopardon, for instance, uses giant eggs to teleport away from you where it can use its ranged weapon to disable the Death Glove. Fighting multiple enemy types at once forces you to adapt and utilise every tool in your arsenal, resulting in some of the most engaging battles. There is a lack of indicators for enemy melee attacks, so it can be frustrating when you’re unsuspectingly hit from behind, but the heft and sense of momentum behind Travis’ attacks makes combat particularly pleasing, especially when you’re able to mix in some German Suplexes to extend that combo. It doesn’t really evolve all that much throughout the course of the game, but it speaks to the quality of its action that it never loses its satisfying lustre. It also helps that the framerate maintains a fairly stable 60fps both docked and undocked on Switch. The same cannot be said during the open-world sections, but it also isn’t required to navigate its desolate locales.
Gallery
Boss fights will challenge your skill set more than anything else, although their quality is decidedly inconsistent. At their best, they elevate the combat with surprising new twists and energetic impetus. In the 9th ranked fight against Gold Joe, for instance, you can use his magnetism against him. By running over either the red or blue squares that appear on the floor, you can match Joe’s polarity and push him into the electrified fence that’s surrounding the arena. However, some of the boss fights deviate from the game’s traditional combat in order to riff on other games and genres. These sections are often poor imitations of better games that quickly lose their intrigue after the initial surprise reveal. The final boss is particularly bad, as the last confrontation devolves into a monotonous slog that forces you to wait and wait and wait until a small window of opportunity opens up where you can finally dish out a modicum of damage. And then when you think it’s all over, it transitions into another phase that’s somehow even duller.
If you had a mandate for all of the things a No More Heroes game shouldn’t be, “boring” would be near the top of the list, but this sequel frequently is just that. No More Heroes 3 lacks the irreverent charm and personality of its predecessors. Combat picks up the slack, and there’s a degree of vivid style to be found there, but the game falters in so many other areas. After an 11-year wait, maybe No More Heroes 3 was always destined to fall short of our expectations. But to end without so much as a touchdown is a mighty disappointment.
Father’s Day is just around the corner (Sunday 5th September), which means it’s time to spoil your dad with something special. Being the target audience myself (father of two), I’ve put together a selection of cool stuff: gaming and gadgets, to suit a range of budgets. Expect this list to be a bit more eclectic than usual. The only thing these gifts have in common is that they are guaranteed to put a smile on any dad’s face.
Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but your dad sometimes wants to exist in another reality where you don’t feature. Short of contacting Doctor Strange to do a cosmic-level quick-edit, he can achieve his blessed escape via an Oculus Quest 2. We reckon it’s “9/10 Amazing” quality. He will too.
Some dads out there (not many in this day and age, thankfully) are operating on the antiquated notion that LEGO is for kids. The trick here is to not buy Duplo. You can watch dad’s dour face light up when you deliver him a particular set that triggers some nostalgia. It could be themed on a movie franchise, TV show or be a decoration set. Better yet, pitch it to him as a “project we can both share,” then keep the finished build yourself.
Help your dad to trace his family tree and find out more about his genetic background with this easy-to-use testing kit. According to AncestryDNA, it’s incredibly accurate and it’s all done using a simple mouth swab. I did this last year with my old man. Turns out he’s half drunk.
Read the product review on PCMag here, where it gained 4/5 due its easy-to-understand results, lots of help resources and free shipping.
Let’s be real for a second. The fact of the matter is you probably don’t know what your Old Cheese wants—not exactly, anyway. He sure does. That being said, a digital subscription or a bit o’ prepaid plastic is the classier/more hygienic alternative than just slappin’ a germ-soaked fiddy in a Hallmark card.
PS Plus Credit
Xbox Live Credit
TV Subscriptions
Why get your dad an Anda Seat brand of gaming chair? Two reasons. One: their range is well-built, good-looking, and competitively priced. Two: the name of this manufacturer gives even the most dim-witted father a free pun layup. “Oh, thanks [your name] you bought me socks…..ANDA seat!” Cuh-lassic.
Socks are kinda boring, but they’re also an eye-rolling Father’s Day tradition, yeah? Here’s something new, though—with UpMovement’s socks, you can troll your Papa and also achieve some greater good. Profits from these comfy, stylish footwear go towards helping amputees around the world restore their freedom of human mobility. Give your dad the gift of knowing he raised a decent human being.
Take it straight from the source—your old bloke hates having to get up and answer the door. That’s a footy / cricket / gaming interruptin’; that’s an angry dad. With the Ring 4 and his preferred device, he can quickly see who’s there and—if it’s not a mate bearing a slab—he can dismiss the interloper with a pre-made Quick Reply. “Get off my lawn,” most likely.
Bring back dad’s crusty childhood memories with one of these Arcade1Up cabinets, some of which offer multiple built-in games.
Got a fuzzier father than most? Amaze his follicles with this natural, organic, vegan, Beard Conditioning Oil. Better yet, he’ll smell like “Woodland Harmony”, the most Ron Swansonesque fragrance I’ve ever heard of.
Your dad loves you to the moon and back, but sweet, merciful crap he’s sick of listening to you. Sony’s top-tier WF-1000XM4s will provide him blessed relief, thanks to the industry’s highest level of noise cancelling along with superior sound quality.
While my oculars still function ok, I know that my dad’s aren’t the best for reading. That being said, I’ve found great success with keeping him in books by way of Audible’s (frankly amazing) library of spoken literature. Downside: I now have to listen to his borrowed trivia about tall wooden ships and WWII.
Does your patriarch favour outmoded consoles? Retro consoles are always money, but it could still be time to broaden his horizons by dragging him kicking and screaming into the current gen…
So, you’ve modernised your father’s gaming platform of choice. Great! Now it’s time to blow his mind with an LG C1. It’s a HDMI 2.1 enabled, OLED beast that unleashes the true visual potential of new-gen gaming hardware. He doesn’t even need to game on it, either. Just have it constantly displaying neon cherry blossom trees. It’s not that weird.
Thank The Maker—it’s Friday, and we have Star Wars discounts on hand. That tantalising triple pack aside, the Ubistore has also gone Gamescom crazy with cut prices on most ACs, WDs, FCs and other AAA abbreviations that save me from using this keyboard too much. Speaking of saving and hardware, anybody looking to make a switch to the Switch should scoop up a cheap Lite console today. All these deals and more await you sub-level.
Sign up to get the best Aussie gaming deals sent straight to your inbox!
Adam’s an Aussie deals whisperer who refuses to use *that* Daniel Craig GIF on Fridays. Every blue moon he’s @Grizwords.
Each season, Bungie introduces a new Exotic for each character class in Destiny 2. In the Season of the Lost, Hunters get Radiant Dance Machines, a revamped version of the Destiny 1 item. Radiant Dance Machines allows you to use your Hunter dodge a number of times in quick succession near enemies, and in the right build, the Exotic is absolutely broken, giving you extremely fast Super and ability charges and allowing you to easily freeze enemies.
The thing is, you’ll need to go hunt down a pair of Radiant Dance Machines, and you can only get the Exotic from specific places. Here’s what you need to do to snag a pair of Radiant Dance Machines while you can.
Like other seasonal Exotic armor drops, you won’t find Radiant Dance Machines in random Exotic engrams or in the inventory offered by Xur each week. Instead, you have to go earn the Exotic. These new pieces of armor are random drops from Legendary and Master Lost Sectors, provided you’re alone when you run them. Today, August 26, you can get Radiant Dance Machines from Aphelion’s Rest in the Dreaming City.
While they’re not guaranteed to drop with each clear, the chances are very good. Thanks to the way Exotic engrams work in Destiny 2, you’re guaranteed to get an Exotic you don’t already have when one does drop for you in these activities–so running a Lost Sector a few times pretty much guarantees you a pair eventually.
You’ll find Legendary and Master Lost Sectors marked on the Director map. The thing is, they rotate daily, and each only dishes out a certain kind of Exotic reward; the Legendary reward on one day becomes the Master reward on the next. Legendary Lost Sectors will award, say, Exotic leg armor on Thursday, while on that same day, Master Lost Sectors will award Exotic helmets. On Friday, Legendary Lost Sectors will award Exotic gauntlets, while Masters will dish out leg armor. But on Saturday, neither will offer leg armor–Legendaries will have rotated to helmets and Masters will offer gauntlets. So checking the Lost Sector rewards daily is essential to getting exactly what you want.
Your chances of receiving an Exotic for completing Master Lost Sectors are much higher than for Legendary Lost Sectors, but those activities are also much harder: Legendaries have a recommended Power level of 1320 this season, while Masters recommend a Power level of 1350. Keep that in mind when watching the rotation and deciding whether you want to dedicate some time to plumbing a Lost Sector’s depths.
You’ll also need to access the Lost Sector from the activity banner beside its entrance, rather than delving down into the Lost Sector as normal. Check the banner to see what kind of challenge you can expect–Legendary and Master Lost Sectors include Champions, add the Match Game mutator, and will lock your equipment for the duration of the activity. Make sure your loadout is set before you head in. You should also know that you have limited revives in these Lost Sectors, although killing the Champions within awards you with more revives to keep you going. After 15 minutes elapses in the Lost Sector, you won’t be able to revive anymore, so move quickly.
Aphelion’s Rest is relatively small and pretty quick to clear, housing only four Champions on Legendary difficutly: two Overload Taken Hobgoblins and two Unstoppable Taken Phalanxes.
If you’ve unlocked enough mods on your Seasonal Artifact, you can make quick work of this Lost Sector using the new Seasonal Exotic weapon, Lorentz Driver. Grab the Unstoppable Fusion Rifle and Linear Fusion Rifle mod from your artifact and you can use Lorentz Driver to make quick work of the Unstoppable Taken Phalanxes. With the gun’s Lagrangian Sights perk activated, it does even more damage, making it great for sniping other Champions from across the map.
But even without the Unstoppable Fusion Rifle mod, you can still clear this one pretty quickly with Unstoppable Pulse Rifle. Just be careful of those Overload Champions–these Hobgoblins now have Stasis weapons and will cut you apart quickly as you damage them. Use an Overload bow to stun them quickly and take them out. It’s probably best to clear out any other enemies in the area first, to minimize any crossfire you might take.
And once you have a pair, check out our story about why Radiant Dance Machines are so great in order to use them effectively.
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