The Masters Tournament, one of golf’s four major championships, kicks off this Thursday. It’s fairly common for golf games to be discounted during Masters week, and right now golf fans can save big on PGA Tour 2K21 on PlayStation and Xbox. Normally $60, you can snag digital copies for $19.79. While PGA Tour 2K21 doesn’t have a next-gen update, it’s backwards-compatible with PS5 and Xbox Series X|S and features significantly reduced load times. The Nintendo Switch edition isn’t on sale on the eShop, but Amazon is selling physical copies for all three major console platforms for $30.
Developed by HB Studios, PGA Tour 2K21 is technically the latest entry in The Golf Club series. Just like its predecessors, PGA Tour 2K21 offers a superb golfing experience that aims for realism. It earned an 8/10 in GameSpot’s PGA Tour 2K21 review. “PGA Tour 2K21 improves on the mostly stellar foundation of The Golf Club series, offering the most realistic and pure golf experience in a game to date,” we wrote.
PGA Tour 2K21 deals
At this point, I’ve logged hundreds of hours into PGA Tour 2K21. From its career mode and myriad of online leagues to the robust course creator, PGA Tour 2K21 has almost everything you could want in a golf game.
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PGA Tour 2K21 Gameplay — Scoring 59 At TPC Summerlin
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2K Sports recently announced a new partnership with Tiger Woods, marking the return of the all-time great to golf video games. Woods was previously the cover athlete for EA Sports’ golf series, which is making its return from a lengthy hiatus to compete with 2K’s series on next-gen consoles. This year’s Masters Tournaments will be without Woods, as the golfer is recovering from serious leg injuries stemming from a car accident in February.
The Masters Tournament is one of the rare major sporting events that’s available to stream for free on the official site. You can watch the latter portion of each day’s coverage without spending a dime. That said, if you’re a diehard fan and don’t have cable, you may want to get an ESPN+ subscription ($6 per month). ESPN+ will have earlier coverage of featured groups and the most iconic holes at Augusta National.
Here’s some good news for anyone in the market for a smart watch, fitness tracker, or wrist-mounted internet machine: Apple Watch Series 6 is on sale for $80 off at Amazon right now (the discount appears at checkout). That’s the lowest price we’ve seen this model drop to in the entire history of the universe. Granted, it only applies to the (Product)Red color scheme, but it’s a great color.
Apple Watch Series 6 is the latest version of the company’s smartwatch. The 40mm GPS model normally retails for $399, but right now you can get one for $319.99 at Amazon. If you’re more the 44mm sort, you can save $50 on the red one in that size instead.
The Apple Watch Series 6 brings all the high-tech features of previous models forward and adds a handful of new hardware and software features of its own. So it still offers all kinds of internet connectivity, like letting you place and receive phone calls and send and read text messages. The always-on screen, inherited from Series 5, is 2.5-times brighter than the previous model as well.
Apple Watches are full-featured fitness trackers. They count your steps, track a range of exercises from swimming to yoga, and can periodically remind you to stand up and move around.
As for what’s new in Series 6, the headline new features are all about health. You can monitor your blood oxygen level now, thanks to a new sensor. You can take an ECG anytime, if you’re interested in that kind of thing. It also has a new sleep app that helps you set a nighttime routine and can monitor your rest. You can even set sleep goals for yourself, and it will track them for you.
Beyond all that, you can swap out watch bands to match your outfit or mood. They play nicely with other Apple products, like Airpods, the company’s wireless earbuds. It’s a good watch, and this is one of the best deals we’ve ever seen on it. Grab it before it’s gone.
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Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.
All of the above games will be available to play starting April 6. Marvel’s Avengers will be available until July 5, 2021, and Borderlands 3 will be on PSN a little longer, leaving the service on September 29, 2021. There is currently no set date for when The Long Dark will leave PSN.
Marvel’s Avengers released on August 20, 2020 and is an action-RPG brawler featuring–you guessed it–Marvel characters. The latest Marvel’s Avengers update, Patch 1.5.0, brought Hawkeye Clint Barton onboard as a playable character and added a campaign replay feature. Patch 1.5.0 also gave PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players a free next-gen update, promising better visuals, improved destruction and Heroic detail, and significantly faster load times.
Borderlands 3 is a loot-shooter by Gearbox. In GameSpot’s Borderlands 3 review, Jordan Ramée commented, “If you’ve never been a fan of the franchise, it’s unlikely Borderlands 3 does enough things differently to change your mind, as the game best excels at continuing what the series has always done: deliver a humorous tall tale of misfits looting and shooting their way to heroism.” The Borderlands franchise is also getting a movie featuring Haley Bennett and Cate Blanchett, which is expected to begin production soon.
The Long Dark is a survival game–a genre that has received plenty of love as evidenced by the success of Rust and Valheim. Released in 2014, The Long Dark sets players in a freezing wilderness where the objective is to survive as long as possible.
PSN offers a seven-day free trial to players. For those who want to know more about the service, you can read our PS Now Explained article where we breakdown what you can expect.
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The first flight of NASA’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, has been delayed to April 11 to give the team and the aircraft more time for preparation.
Originally scheduled to fly on April 8, NASA delayed the flight of its first and only Martian helicopter to give the Ingenuity team back on Earth more time to characterize the helicopter’s energy story. The extra time is also just a matter of caution as well, as the team is being “extremely careful” with every step they make in the process.
NASA Working on Ingenuity Helicopter, Photo Credit: NASA
The helicopter, which weighs about four pounds with a wingspan of 1.2 meters, is powered by batteries that are charged through solar panels on its top side and at a full battery, the helicopter can fly for about 90 seconds, according to NASA. It must then land safely and charge enough of its battery again to power the heater on-board as this protects the helicopter from the Red Planet’s cold nights.
Ingenuity’s flight delay on Mars
The extra three days give the Ingenuity team the time it needs to get a better read on what that power cycle looks like and more importantly, ensure that’s its energy is positive throughout all steps of the process. The helicopter’s first flight will occur on a full battery and it will only fly a couple of meters up during that first flight before returning to the surface of Mars. It won’t go any higher than about 15 feet, according to NASA.
“This next step (flying for the first time) is huge,” Mars helicopter operations lead, Tim Canham, said during an Ingenuity Q&A held today. “Can it go up and hover and land safely? That will be a major moment of triumph for the helicopter team.”
That’s currently scheduled for April 11, although an official time has not been announced. The flight will not be live-streamed, however. People back on Earth won’t see anything of the flight until the telemetry of the flight is retrieved, which will take a couple of sols – or Martian days – which are about 40 minutes longer than days on Earth. NASA said the Perseverance rover, which is the rover that recently landed on Mars and carried Ingenuity to the planet with it, will be watching the flight from about 65 meters away. It will take photos that will eventually make it to Earth, but that could take some time as well.
Why NASA’s Ingenuity flight is such a big deal
What makes this first flight such a milestone for NASA, beyond it being the first flight of a helicopter on Mars, is that it’s powered completely by pre-programmed sequences. There are no joysticks involved nor is the helicopter remote-controlled.
“The sequences (of flight) were prebuilt by the team on the ground,” Perseverance operations engineer, Elio Morillo, said during the NASA Q&A. “These sequences have been tested over the years, (but) they’re pre-canned. We do not have real-time control of the helicopter. It’s completely autonomous.”
This posed a lot of challenges for the Ingenuity team. What happens if there’s a Martian wind gust that happens during a flight? The helicopter has sensors that can detect those wind gusts and correct its course accordingly. For the most part, though, the prebuilt flight sequences have been tested over and over again in chambers that simulate what Ingenuity is experiencing on Mars.
The Perseverance will watch Ingenuity’s first flight roughly 65 meters away from the helicopter on the Van Zyl Overlook. It will take images and the team is currently determining if the rover will be able to record sound. It has a directional mic on-board, but the team isn’t sure if, due to the distance, it will be able to pick up sound from the helicopter.
Perseverance integration lead, Farah Alibay, said it’s important to remember that Mars’ atmosphere, which is 1% the density of Earth’s atmosphere, is quite different from our planet and as a result, sound travels differently on it.
NASA Ingenuity Milestone List, Photo Credit: NASA
After the first flight, Perseverance and Ingenuity will go their separate ways. Ingenuity will begin to charge and prepare for its next flight and Perseverance will return to its original mission: collecting samples of Mars to be sent back to Earth during a later mission. The two vehicles will still communicate by way of radio, though. The base team will talk to Perseverance and Perseverance will relay the messages to Ingenuity. The helicopter will respond to the Perseverance and the rover will pass the message along to Earth.
Ingenuity’s main mission on Mars
As far as the bigger picture for Ingenuity goes, its mission is to serve as a technology demonstration.
“Ingenuity is a test vehicle for Mars,” Canham said. “It will take super-detailed logs…500 times a second…(for us) to see what happened and characterize flying on Mars. An apt analogy is the Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner — to try something never been done before and learn a ton from it…for future engineers and scientists to make bigger and better helicopters for Mars.”
To tie in with its day-long celebration of First Contact Day, Star Trek has shown off a brand new teaser for Star Trek: Picard’s second season — and with it, confirmed that the elusive Q will make an appearance.
The trailer features a voiceover of Patrick Stewart as Picard musing on the subject of time, though we don’t see his face in the trailer. Instead, we see a series of objects connected to both the idea of time and Picard’s own history, culminating in a Queen of Hearts playing card that disintegrates, until only the letter “Q” is left.
John de Lancie has separately confirmed on his own Twitter that he will be reprising the role of Q, which he has played across numerous Star Trek properties including Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and more. In his multiple encounters with Picard, he has served as an enigmatic mentor figure, as well as often providing comic relief.
Other returning actors for Season 2 include Alison Pill (Agnes Jurati), Isa Briones (Soji Asha), Evan Evagora (Elnor), Michelle Hurd (Raffi Musiker), Santiago Cabrera (Chris Rios), Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), Orla Brady (Laris) and Brent Spiner (Data).
Star Trek: Picard’s first season ended last January, with our review at the time calling the final episode emotional, if scattershot. Its second season is planned for some time in 2022 exclusively on Paramount+, and is expected to last for ten more episodes. The series has also been renewed for a third season.
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Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
If you’re looking for some fast storage for your gaming PC, Best Buy has a great deal on an NVMe SSD. For today only, the SanDisk Ultra 1TB NVMe SSD is only $100. That’s a huge $130 discount from its regular $230 price.
The SanDisk Ultra will work great as a boot drive or even as extra storage for games. It features read speeds of up to 2,400MB/s and write speeds of up to 1,950MB/s. Those speeds aren’t the fastest on the market, but they will be a huge jump over SATA-based SSDs and hard drives–you will absolutely notice the difference in load times and open-world performance.
The PS5 is expected to support expandable NVMe SSD storage in the future, but this SSD will not be compatible with the next-gen console whenever that update comes. Its speeds don’t match that of the PS5’s internal SSD, meaning it won’t be able to store or run the console’s next-gen games.
Apex Legends isn’t known for its cute and cuddly characters, but a new piece of branded merch looks to change that. A pair of Nessie dolls are coming, perfect for sulking into after you were one shot away from being crowned match Champion. The new Nessie plushies are exclusive to Entertainment Earth.
The 12-inch and 6-inch Nessie dolls are available for preorder at Entertainment Earth. The 12-inch doll costs $30, and the 6-inch version costs $10. But as the Apex social media channel points out, you can have both and make your own little Nessie family. The 12-inch version is coming in April, followed by the 6-inch version in May.
The plushies are a reference to an Easter egg in Apex. Nessie dolls are scattered around King’s Canyon and firing at them all in order will trigger a giant Nessie to briefly spawn in the swamp. The legendary creature has become popular among fans, having appeared on in-game items like charms and badges. These real plushies are modeled after the in-game item.
The Loch Ness Monster (aka Nessie) has been a longtime running gag and Easter egg in the Titanfall series, from which Apex originated. Apex’s connections to that multiplayer mech combat game have sometimes been tenuous, but Respawn promises the coming Season 9 will make Titanfall fans happy by bringing back a lot of its elements.
Save Me Mr Tako, a Game Boy-style platformer about a helpful octopus, is returning to storefronts in May after its delisting following the developer’s separation from publisher Nicalis.
In a Patreon post, developer Christophe Galati announced that Save Me Mr Tako would be getting a definitive edition digitally on Steam and Nintendo Switch on May 5, 2021. Galati will self-publish his game on PC via Steam, while Limited Run Games handles the console edition.
Save Me Mr Tako is a tribute to the Game Boy era, and features a pacifist octopus named Tako with the ability to thrive on land as well as in the water, who travels the world and mediates conflict between humans and octopuses.
Its new Definitive Edition includes a number of updates, including numerous quality of life, technical, and balance changes, as well as a hint system, three difficulty modes, a jukebox, new border images, and a new English localization.
Save Me Mr Tako was originally launched in October of 2018, but was delisted from all digital storefronts two years later after Galati parted ways with original publisher Nicalis. At the time, no specific reason was given for their separation. However, Galati had previously alluded to issues with releasing game patches through Nicalis, indicating that Nicalis was entirely in control of whether or not issues with the game got fixed. Nicalis president Tyrone Rodriguez replied on Twitter at the time that Save Me Mr Tako “did not yet make back what we put into it” and couldn’t justify the resources to QA the patch. A Kotaku report from around that same time indicated that Galati was not the only indie developer with this or similar issues.
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Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Black Panther 2 director Ryan Coogler recently spoke about the late Chadwick Boseman, and shared that he knows his friend and collaborator “wouldn’t have wanted us to stop.”
“I didn’t know what was going on,” Coogler says. “I knew what he wanted me to know. I miss him in every way that you could miss somebody, as a friend, as a collaborator. And it sucks because I love watching movies, and I don’t get to watch the next thing he would have made. So it’s grief on a lot of levels, but then, it’s a deep sense of gratitude because I can close my eyes and hear his voice.”
Coogler was in the middle of writing the sequel to Black Panther when Boseman passed, and he discussed how, although it was difficult to continue working on the film without its star and his friend, he knows “Chad wouldn’t have wanted us to stop.”
“You’ve got to keep going when you lose loved ones. I know Chad wouldn’t have wanted us to stop. He was somebody who was so about the collective. Black Panther, that was his movie. He was hired to play that role before anybody else was even thought of, before I was hired, before any of the actresses were hired. On that set, he was all about everybody else. Even though he was going through what he was going through, he was checking in on them, making sure they were good. If we cut his coverage, he would stick around and read lines off camera [to help other actors with their performances]. So it would be harder for me to stop. Truthfully. I’d feel him yelling at me, like, ‘What are you doing?’ So you keep going.” Coogler explained.
Call of Duty: Warzone has been teasing a major zombies event for months now, and it appears that the rumored destruction of the game’s map might be just around the corner. The game’s social media accounts recently posted in-universe (i.e. fictional) news broadcasts that claimed that the zombie situation is under control, but on Friday the zombies overcame the TV studio itself.
A recent update moved the zombies to Verdansk’s TV station to go along with the storyline, and some of them have mutated to become more resistant to bullets. There are also machines on Verdansk that indicate the percentage of zombie spread, implying that they will continue to grow as the storyline progresses. Some have speculated that the game’s new “bombardment” killstreak, which unleashes a cluster bomb on an entire area of the map, might be used as part of the anti-zombie initiative.
