biteho.com

A new Max Raid event is now underway in Pokemon Sword and Shield. Until May 23, Wooloo and its evolved form, Dubwool, are appearing more frequently in Max Raid Battles across the Wild Area, Isle of Armor, and Crown Tundra. On top of that, you’ll have a chance to encounter a Shiny Wooloo in five-star Raids.

The event runs until 4:59 PM PT / 7:59 PM ET / 11:59 PM UTC on May 23, giving you only a few days to find Shiny Wooloo. Before the event Pokemon can begin appearing in your game, you first need to refresh your Max Raid dens. You can do this either by connecting the game online, or by opening the Mystery Gift menu and selecting Get the Wild Area News.

This is the second Shiny Pokemon event to take place so far in May. Earlier this month, Shiny Galarian Meowth was appearing in Max Raid dens as part of a “Meowth Festival,” which also featured other regional variants of the cat Pokemon. Before that, Shiny Eiscue was appearing in Raids in honor of World Penguin Day.

In other news, The Pokemon Company recently held a poll on Twitter asking fans to vote for Pokemon Sword and Shield’s next freebie, which will be distributed during the Pokemon Players Cup IV finals stream later this summer. The four choices were PP Max, Focus Sash, Lucky Egg, and Gold Bottle Cap. Based on the poll results, the Gold Bottle Cap handily won, securing more than 54% of the vote.

There are more Pokemon games on the horizon for Switch. Later this year, the system is receiving remakes of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, while a brand-new adventure set in ancient Sinnoh called Pokemon Legends: Arceus is slated to release in early 2022. We’ve heard little about either title since they were revealed during the Pokemon Presents broadcast this past February, but with E3 2021 just around the corner now, that may change soon.

Blizzard yesterday announced that Overwatch will see its PvP mode reduced from 6v6 to 5v5 when Overwatch 2 is released – and its a move that’s left many professional players of the game worried about their future in the esport, and dismayed about the way it was announced.

In a 2-hour livestream, the Overwatch team announced the change, which will see one Tank class role removed from PvP games. At the same time, the Tank role as a whole is being adapted for Overwatch 2, with many characters seemingly due to receive major changes to their playstyle.

Following the announcement, multiple Tank players in the official Overwatch League signalled their dismay not just at having to relearn their chosen characters for the highest levels of play, but also at the potential for being dropped from their rosters. Many also pointed out that they weren’t consulted by Blizzard ahead of the changes being made or announced.

Philadelphia Fusion player Poko summed up the feeling: “Any fellow tank player scared for their job ?”

Any fellow tank player scared for their job ?

— Poko (@poko) May 20, 2021

Poko was by no means alone in his worry. Vancouver Titans Tank player Frdwnr took to Twitter to say, “unbelievably disrespectful to make this decision and completely remove a role that people gave up years of their lives to achieve – not all your favorite tank players will disappear but lots will.  and not once were pro players made aware of this or asked on their philosophies.”

In a follow-up, Frdwnr acknowledged that the move could end up making casual play more fun in the long run, “but the fact that many of my friends or people i admire will be out of jobs is just disrespectful.”

Atlanta Reign’s Gator bemoaned the fact not just that the change was being made, but that it’s been announced during an Overwatch League season: “Imagine spending 5 years to perfect your role…..Just for it to be deleted while knowing your role does not translate to another your expected to give all you got till the end of season”

London Spitfire’s Hadi added that it’s “really frustrating that this stuff can just get decided with like [Platinum-ranked players] testing it, not asking high ranked players or pros”.

San Francisco Shock’s Matthew DeLisi showed less outrage, but was wistful about what was being lost in the change: “As for whether or not 5v5 is good for the game, I won’t pretend to know the answer. But coordinating with a tank, building synergy and dominating is probably one of the most fun things I’ve done in a game”.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/overwatch-2-new-york-map-5v5-pvp-reveal”]

It’s a pretty unprecedented situation in the relatively young world of professional esports. While live games regularly make changes that affect their esport participants, there have been few as fundamental to both how a game plays, and how its professional sport equivalent is structured. Pro players won’t be able to stick with the original Overwatch either, as both the original and the sequel will include a single, linked PvP experience.

With Overwatch 2 unlikely to launch until 2022 at the earliest, the PvP changes won’t be made for some time, and no announcement has been made by the Overwatch League (or its teams) as to how the changes will affect rosters and the competition as a whole. We’ve contacted the League for comment.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Few other games have changed as much post-launch as No Man’s Sky, which has gone through several significant overhauls since its release in 2016. It looks like developer Hello Games isn’t done yet: the company is now teasing that it has plans to celebrate the game’s fifth anniversary later this year.

In a blog post, Hello Games mentioned that the game will soon be turning five–and it has some surprises in store. There is, of course, no hint as to what might be coming, but additional big gameplay changes and improvements are not out of the question. “As this is our fifth anniversary year, we have some other surprises up our sleeves, with more information coming very soon,” Hello Games wrote.

The studio also spent time in the post discussing its latest event, an Expedition that ultimately culminated in players getting to add Mass Effect’s Normandy SR1 ship to their fleet. This crossover event was held alongside the release of Mass Effect Legendary Edition.

“This is a lovely little Easter Egg moment, and something hopefully no one was expecting,” the developer stated. “We are thrilled and flattered that BioWare and EA let us pay tribute in this way. As huge fans of the series, it’s a lovely moment for sci-fi fans.”

No Man’s Sky has already had a packed 2021, with several substantial gameplay additions and updates rolled out over the past several months. The Expeditions game mode was added back in April and essentially lets the studio run seasonal events, with all players starting on the same planet and attempting to complete the same tasks. Before that, in February, pets were added to No Man’s Sky.

When the original Corsair Virtuoso RGB Wireless SE released back in 2019, it took the reins as the company’s new flagship. As our own review demonstrated, it was an impressive gaming headset that put sound quality first yet still had issues with long-term comfort. Corsair has taken that feedback in stride and returned with a brand new revised version of its premier headset, the Virtuoso RGB Wireless XT. It claims better padding, reduced clamp force, and high-resolution aptX HD Bluetooth for listening on the go, as well as an increased price of $269.99.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=corsair-virtuoso-rgb-wireless-xt-review&captions=true”]

Corsair Virtuoso RGB Wireless XT – Design and Features

As the saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and that seems to be the maxim Corsair applied with the Virtuoso RGB Wireless XT (which I’ll just refer to as the Virtuoso XT from here on out). The last model, Virtuoso SE, was a striking headset in its simplicity: sculpted aluminum ear cups, gleamingly polished edges, leatherette cushions, backlit logos on each ear cup that would disappear when turned off – the combination of features lent the original a look that flew in the face of the aggressive design of typical gaming headsets to deliver something altogether more grown up.

All of that remains the same with the Virtuoso XT and allows the headset to go where other gaming headsets cannot. Like the original, it can easily pass as a normal pair of headphones just by removing the mic and turning off the RGB. The XT one-ups that design by cutting the cord and adding Bluetooth connectivity to become all-around more versatile. If you’d rather connect with a wire, that’s still an option too via USB or the 3.5mm cable. For gaming on PC, PS4, or PS5, you can take advantage of Corsair’s high-speed 2.4GHz Slipstream wireless with the included dongle. It’s an adaptable package, which is great for gamers looking for an “all-in-one” headset that breaks the bonds of just gaming at home.

And you just might want to do that with the Virtuoso XT. Unlike most gaming headsets, it’s meant to compete with high-end headphones designed to put sound quality first. Corsair claims that its 50mm neodymium drivers are custom designed, hand-selected, and matched for every headset to deliver the best listening experience possible. They also feature an expansive frequency response range of 20Hz – 40,000Hz – a full 20kHz beyond the range of human hearing and most other gaming headsets on the market. It seems strange at first – why design a headset that goes beyond what the user can actually hear? – but it’s a common trait among premium audiophile headphones to ensure that every audible frequency comes through clear and free of any distortion. In my experience, that was definitely the case.

There’s more to a good pair of headphones than pure frequency response, however, and thankfully, Corsair demonstrates that with a tuning that excels beyond just gaming. Gaming headsets get a bad rap among audio enthusiasts for their bloated bass and muddy details, but that’s just not the case here. Like a good pair of music headphones, the Virtuosos are much more balanced to enjoy all kinds of listening. The bass is present but pulled far back compared to traditional gaming headphones. It doesn’t overwhelm the mids or high notes but instead provides a steady backbone to music, movies, and games. In fact, the headset skews the other way, drawing out those middle and high-frequency details, eliminating the muddy, boomy sound most gaming headsets exhibit. That isn’t to say they don’t have punch and slam for those explosion-laden shootouts in Battlefield and Call of Duty, but expect to hear sounds like bullet casings and breaking glass come through more clearly than ever before.

This kind of tuning makes it an even more appealing option for music lovers and gamers who want to enjoy every tiny detail in their games. The level of detail the XTs can provide is easily one of the best I’ve heard, trumping even the Sennheiser GSP-600s (reviewed here), and easily competes with dedicated music headsets. When plugged in over USB, the built-in DAC can produce sound up to 24-bit/96kHz to support lossless audio. To make the most of mobile listening, Corsair has equipped the Virtuoso XT with high-resolution aptX HD playback, which is altogether rare in the world of gaming headsets.

The addition of Bluetooth is a massive upgrade in usability away from the PC or console. Being free of cables is always better when you’re on the go, and thanks to aptX HD, you’ll still be able to enjoy the same high quality audio as if you were plugged in. Corsair has built the headset to allow simultaneous connections, so you never have to worry about missing a call or update because you were playing a game. All of the volumes can be controlled separately through the volume roller, Bluetooth control buttons, or the in-line remote on the AUX cable, but I found myself wishing for a solution to balance out my sources. Dual connectivity is an excellent upgrade but does cut battery life a full 25% from the original, coming in at 15 hours instead of 20.

The name of the game for the XT is HiFi audio, but we all have different tastes and the default tuning won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. That’s where Corsair’s iCUE software comes in with customizable EQ presets. There are several available for Bass Boost, first-person shooters, and movies but you’ll want to make your own to really dial in your sound. Unfortunately, there’s no way to save or select these presets on the headset itself, so you’re stuck using the software.

The software also provides some other features important to the headset, like lighting control. With only two lighting zones, the options are limited and not very exciting. The software also allows you to adjust your microphone level and how much sidetone you hear in your ear. The software also allows you to control how long the device remains active before going to sleep to preserve battery.

Returning back to the physical build of the headset, Corsair has really done an excellent job of making the Virtuoso XT feel like a premium headset. It’s robust and the heavy use of metal in the earcups, yokes, and band make it feel made to last. There is an excellent attention to detail, from the matching aluminum trim on the microphone, to the etched measurements on the headband, to the triangle pattern emblazoned on the inner ear cup, the entire headphones feel exceptionally well-considered.

The original Virtuoso was often critiqued for having too much clamp force and too little padding, and the XT addresses both of those issues. The amount of padding has been increased, effectively preventing hotspots from forming on the top of my head even when I wore the headset for a full workday. The memory foam cushions, trimmed in leatherette, felt good against my skin and did a good job of blocking out external noise while only becoming moderately warm. During summertime, I could see them causing my ears to sweat, however, so I would have liked to have seen an alternate set of pads included in the box at this price. Clamp force is also a complete non-issue on this headset, though Corsair may have gone too far the other direction as they had a tendency to slide around when I would move around too much.

The final key feature of the Virtuoso XT is the omnidirectional microphone. Corsair calls the microphone “broadcast quality,” which is a stretch, but it’s unmistakably good. Using Slipstream wireless, it produces a full-bodied sound with only moderate compression. It doesn’t compete with a dedicated desktop mic like the Elgato Wave 3 (reviewed here) but is perfectly fine for chatting with friends or hopping on a conference call over Google Meet. There’s an LED ring around the end to let you know when you’re muted and the gooseneck feels durable and well-made, though it has a tendency to lose its position over time.

Corsair Virtuoso RGB Wireless XT – Performance

Since the Virtuoso XT is such a multi-purpose device, I tested it with a mix of PC and console games, music, and for watching shows on Netflix and Hulu. On PC, I played multiple rounds of Battlefield V and Call of Duty: Cold War and worked my way through several campaign levels in Doom Eternal. On PlayStation 5, I spent some time with Astro’s Playroom, Hitman 3, and Red Dead Redemption 2. For music listening, I listened to Spotify across every connection type and with aptX HD enabled over Bluetooth.

The gaming experience delivered by these headphones was fantastic. At first, I felt the lack of bass pretty substantially but that’s only because I was used to my last gaming headset, the HyperX Cloud Alpha. After getting used to the new sound, I really began to enjoy how much more I could hear throughout the frequency spectrum. Footsteps in particular came forward but I was also able to hear the automated callouts of my teammates better.

Unlike the Virtuoso SE, the XTs use Dolby Atmos instead of Corsair’s own 7.1 surround sound solution. Simply connecting the headphones with Atmos installed will activate the license so there’s nothing separate to buy. Compared to their stock sound, Atmos adds depth and space to what you’re listening to, including music and movies. The headphones sound great on their own and I didn’t struggle to pick out the direction of footsteps or gunfire, but Atmos provides such an improvement to soundstage, there’s no reason not to use it.

For music, the Virtuosos are one of the best gaming headsets I’ve heard yet, right up there with the Audeze Penrose. Even though the sheer quantity of bass is less, the quality of what you can hear is improved. Bass notes have more texture and ring out tighter making them feel more defined. The mids are clear and since the bass isn’t stepping on them, it’s easier to pick apart every instrument and audio cue. The highs are soft and never sibilant. Even wearing the headphones for long, multi-hour stretches, I never found them fatiguing.

The microphone also did its job well. My teammates had no trouble hearing me over Discord and when I used it for calls, the person on the other end reported that I sounded clear – more so than on my usual Galaxy Buds Pro. I also used the headset for several online meetings. There, my colleagues noticed that I sounded more compressed than my usual desktop mic but were still able to hear me fine throughout my presentations.

Taken as a whole, the package is surprisingly solid. Even with the reduced battery life, I was still able to get a full day of listening with juice to spare. It was freeing being able to get up from my desk without needing to take them off, even if I needed to step outside for fresh air. The constant Bluetooth connection is a major upgrade and the improvements to comfort make them a very reasonable all-day wear.

This is an advance review of In the Heights, which opens in theaters and HBO Max on June 11.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

A film version of In the Heights has been in the works since 2008 when the show debuted on Broadway. A number of stars had to align before it came to fruition. Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda had to find success with Hamilton, his 2015 Broadway smash, and director Jon M. Chu had to helm the cultural sensation Crazy Rich Asians, which, while lavish and excessive, is ultimately about belonging. The In the Heights movie lives in the shadow of both these works in the way it adapts Miranda’s show. The result is a pure distillation of what he set out to achieve, updated in ways that not only work for a modern retelling but often work better than the original text. It’s also one of the liveliest and most moving films you’re likely to see this year.

The story follows Usnavi de la Vega (Hamilton’s Anthony Ramos), a bodega owner in Washington Heights with big dreams of reopening his father’s bar in the Dominican Republic, but it really follows an ensemble of friends, family, and lovers living through what feels like the last days of a neighborhood being steadily lost to gentrification. To call New York City “a character” is a well-worn cliché, but it’s a truism that bursts to life in Chu’s film, not simply through shots of streets and landmarks, but through the way each corner and sidewalk brims with life, love, and culture.

Usnavi runs his corner store with his cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV), a teenage activist, and the rest of the cast is largely introduced as they stop in for a cup of coffee. There’s Usnavi’s friend Benny (Corey Hawkins), an upbeat taxi dispatcher, Benny’s diligent boss Kevin Rosario (Jimmy Smits), and Rosario’s daughter Nina (Leslie Grace), who’s home for the summer after her first year away at Berkeley. Then there’s Usnavi’s crush Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), who’s on the verge of moving downtown to follow her fashion designer dreams, and there are a whole host of neighborhood gossips who work at the local nail salon (Stephanie Beatriz, Dasha Polanco, Daphne Rubin-Vega). There’s also a fun minor role played by Miranda himself, and to bind them all together, there’s the local matriarch Claudia (Olga Merediz), who practically raised the entire neighborhood, and whom they all lovingly call Abuela.

Abuela Claudia, an elderly Cuban immigrant, often speaks of dignity in the face of adversity and the ways people can leave their mark and be remembered. Her words now feel more vital to these characters than ever before. Their neighborhood — made up of Dominican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, and a number of other Latin American cultures — faces the prospect of permanent change, as residents and businesses are being priced out.

[ignvideo width=610 height=374 url=https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/04/26/in-the-heights-official-trailer-4]

While the casting has been criticized for colorism — which Miranda and screenwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes have acknowledged — the film attempts to frame its tapestry as multicultural, and its perspective as multigenerational. The characters are all either immigrants, first-generation Americans, or that in-between generation that immigrated when they were young (Usnavi’s family came over from the Dominican Republic when he was eight, while Sonny was still in diapers). Washington Heights is their home, but the film takes aim at the complicated question of what home even means when change is the only constant. Usnavi remains torn between New York and his father’s home in the Dominican Republic, the first home he ever knew. Vanessa wants to move to a new neighborhood where she might be more successful, but her heart belongs to the Heights. Nina has moved even further away, to California, though she might want to drop out and return home despite shouldering the expectations of her community. The film also adds a brand-new element that didn’t exist in the show, a subplot that hits like a freight train, where one of the characters is revealed to be an undocumented immigrant. They may not have the choice of deciding what home they belong to.

These questions of belonging permeate every scene, from the subtle to the operatic, and the film wraps its story in a framing device also invented for the screen. Usnavi, years later and sporting his most Miranda-esque goatee (Miranda played the role on Broadway), narrates the film’s events to a group of children on a tropical beach. It feels like an element influenced by Hamilton, which frames its story of America’s founders as history told (and wrestled with) in the present. Here, it makes the film’s narrative wistful and bittersweet.

Right from its opening Spanglish number — the half-sung, half-rapped title track “In the Heights” — Chu, cinematographer Alice Brooks, and choreographer Christopher Scott make it clear how they plan to tell this story. It starts out restrained, waiting to burst into all-out mayhem as the music builds. The depiction of these characters and the spaces they occupy is distinctly intimate, as the camera peeks at them in the crowded corners of the bodega, often through glass fridge doors or from between messy shelves. It turns the stage’s two-dimensional backdrops into an inviting three-dimensional world, and it establishes the city’s texture before letting its streets be engulfed by dance. The first time a crowd gathers to move in unison, they’re reflected in a window, out of focus and in the distance. At 2 hours and 23 minutes in length, the film doesn’t want to tip its hand too soon. It doesn’t need to. Instead, the opening song introduces the neighborhood in fragments, through an energetic montage of people from all walks of life heading out to start their day. The film even treats the sounds of the city as music, with honking vehicles and the spritzing of sidewalk water hoses layered into the soundtrack.

Chu’s approach is multifaceted. Depending on the scene or song, the film grounds its bombast in naturalism — the actors, though they sing their hearts out, measure their performances for the camera rather than the back row of an auditorium — but as it gets deeper into its runtime, it introduces playful elements of magical realism, of frames seemingly graffitied by hand, and of dreamlike numbers that combine stage lighting with memories of the city’s past. It runs the gamut, but it rarely loses focus of its story and characters.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=best-reviewed-movies-of-2021&captions=true”]

There is, however, an unfortunate downside to this initial fragmented approach, which seems designed to delay gratification. The first time the film feels big, the way you expect a musical to feel is during “96,000,” in which the neighborhood gathers at a local pool. The song comes to life in a synchronized display in and around the water, but the film hasn’t yet managed to shed its penchant for quick-cuts and zippy movements; the result is haphazard, and it feels less like a story told through dance, and more like the random shot selections of a modern pop music video, where the order doesn’t matter, and the visual language has little to say. This fragmentation continues a little while longer, carrying over to a flirtatious number between Benny and Nina, resulting in a stretch of the film that drags as it approaches the 1-hour mark.

However — and this is a pretty big “however” — this brief dip in visual and narrative energy barely matters moving forward. As the threat of a blackout looms and the characters prepare to confront each other over things left unsaid, the film settles into a rhythm, both in its more intimate moments (often non-musical ones, shared over delectably photographed food) and in its more vibrant, energetic dance scenes, one of which unfolds in a scintillating nightclub.

The film’s biggest aesthetic question is how to frame people. It does this quite deftly throughout when it comes to individuals, whose stories it punctuates through close-ups. This is helped immensely by the fact that ostensible leads Ramos and Barrera are able to balance huge bursts of musical emotion with moments of restraint, culminating in a spellbinding single-take musical sequence between the two of them. The film is a rousing success in this regard, though it’s hardly a surprise; Hollywood, after all, is the realm of the individual, most often telling stories of people who rise above.

[ignvideo width=610 height=374 url=https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/15/in-the-heights-washington-heights-trailer]

However, In the Heights is not an individualistic story. It’s one of found family and community, and one that needs its extras and dancers to feel like more than just a backdrop. The film occasionally falters at this — for instance, a candlelight vigil, which arrives at a key moment and leaves just as quickly, lacks the emotional resonance of the more personal, individual story playing out simultaneously. But the film soon finds itself in this regard, culminating in the show-stopping celebratory number “Carnaval del Barrio,” which goes against most musical instincts and places a large crowd of characters in a cramped setting, allowing their joie de vivre to feel defiant in the face of tragedy. The scene is downright overwhelming.

At its loudest, In the Heights explodes with uncontainable energy. At its quietest, it becomes a reflection on memory, and the connections that make up a culture, a story, and a history; “Little details,” Abuela Claudia says, “that tell the world we are not invisible.” But there are some moments where the film does both these things at once, as it fills the screen with small acts of heroism, and with people dancing and dreaming in darkness. Above all, it does what a great musical should do. It makes you feel alive.

2021’s game of the year contender has revealed itself as a Peppa Pig game has been officially announced. My Friend Peppa will be released on October 22 for PC via Steam, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, and was revealed in a new trailer which you can see below:

While the trailer doesn’t show off any gameplay, publisher Outright Games did share a few details. You’ll be able to customize your own animal avatar to play along with Peppa across a variety of locations from the TV show such as The Beach, the chilly Snowy Mountains, Peppa’s house, and even the Potato City theme park. Other characters you’ll be able to interact with include George, Daddy, and Mummy Pig, as well as several of Peppa’s friends.

“This is a game for all young children and their parents to enjoy together, exploring Peppa’s world in this brand-new adventure, and we couldn’t be more excited for it to release this Autumn,” Outright Games CEO Terry Malham said in a press release.

Peppa Pig has been a huge hit ever since it first debuted in 2004, with the show revolving around a young female pig, her family, and various family-friendly lessons learned along the way. The Peppa Pig franchise was bought alongside several other kids shows when Hasbro acquired production studio Entertainment One in a $3.8 billion deal back in 2019.

That’s a lot of cash, but considering how much merchandise Peppa Pig regularly sells across the 180 countries that the series is broadcast in, that investment has already started bringing home plenty of bacon for Hasbro.