Black Friday Switch Deal Will Drop Splatoon 2 To Its Lowest Price Yet

Black Friday 2020 is upon us, and many retailers are offering some especially good deals on video games this year as part of their Black Friday sales. Surprisingly enough, some of the best deals we’ve seen are on Nintendo games. A bunch of first-party Switch titles are getting nice discounts during the big shopping event, including Splatoon 2.

Although Splatoon 2 features a single-player campaign (as well as a great single-player-focused DLC expansion), the game’s main attractions are its various online modes. To play these, you’ll need to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, and fortunately, you can find good deals on those this Black Friday as well. An annual family membership typically costs $35, but you can get one year of Switch Online for only $20 from Target.

“At first glance, Splatoon 2 seems very similar to the first game. But all the small changes, and even the bigger ones in single player and League Battles, make for a fresh take on the already unique shooter,” we wrote in our Splatoon 2 review. “If you played a lot of the original, the sequel has enough to keep you coming back, and if you’re new to the game, it’s a fantastic place to jump in.”

Splatoon 2 isn’t the only first-party Switch game getting a nice discount for Black Friday. GameStop will be selling a couple of other notable titles for $27, including Fire Emblem: Three Houses and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. Meanwhile, Luigi’s Mansion 3 and Super Mario Maker 2 will each be down to $30 at Walmart.

We’ll continue rounding up more Black Friday 2020 news and deals through Thanksgiving weekend, so check back often for the latest Black Friday savings. If you’re looking for more game-related discounts, we’ve also put together roundups of the best Black Friday 2020 gaming deals, including the best deals for Nintendo Switch, PS4/PS5, and Xbox One/Series X.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Insert Coin Review

Insert Coin opens in virtual cinemas and on Alamo On Demand on November 25.

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If you walked into an arcade in the ’90s, you’ve played a Midway game. At that time, Midway was the “Sex Pistols of the gaming industry,” rebellious pioneers delivering arcade games that were loud, weird, and unapologetically violent. This video game studio gave us the flaming basketballs of NBA Jam, the promise of a Pleasure Dome in Smash TV, and the spine-ripping finishing moves of Mortal Kombat. Now all this and much, much more are dutifully recounted in the behind-the-scenes documentary Insert Coin.

Insert Coin begins in the ’80s, when the arcade market had been flooded with “rip-offs” and “garbage.” Gamers were hungry for something new and bold, and designer Eugene Jarvis was roaring to deliver. Onto a landscape littered with fantasy games, he unleashed NARC, an ultra-violent crime game with graphics that were much more realistic than the symbolic pixels of Pac-Man. When you blew a band of baddies to bits, you were rewarded with an explosion of flaming limbs. Players went crazy for it, and so began the rise of Midway. Over the course of the coming decades, a scrappy team of visionaries, misfits, and rebels made a fortune one quarter at a time by putting their wildest fantasies into arcades. Along the way, they pissed off parents, politicians, and the NBA, turning video games into the latest cultural battleground. Yet despite all this conflict, this doc is shockingly drained of drama.

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The story of Midway is told oral history-style, offering an array of talking-head interviews. Jarvis and former colleagues like programmer George Petro, art director Jack Haeger, and game designer Mark Turmell, step audiences through the highs and lows of Midway, including its beginnings as Williams Electronics and a messy merger that changed its name. Video game historians, journalists, and famous gamers — like Ready Player One author Ernest Cline — give cultural context to how these games hit or missed, sharing personal anecdotes and concise explainers on controversies the company faced. Altogether, they offer a steady stream of information about this game-changing era, including tasty trivia about T2’s motion-capture models, the bowler-hatted hero in NBA Jam’s lineup, and the cheeky origins of Sonya’s finishing move. Unfortunately, the film’s contents are let down by a crushing lack of showmanship.

Director Joshua Tsui knows video games. He worked in the field for 20 years, directing franchises like Mortal Kombat, Fight Night, and Tony Hawk. His respect for Midway Games is clear in every frame of the film as he gives their makers plenty of space to tell their stories in their own words, even when those words come out in an awkward ramble. It might be this same reverence that keeps Tsui from pushing into the story’s clear points of conflict.

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The movie mentions how Terminator 2 drew national attention for its alleged glorifying of cop killing, how Mortal Kombat sparked a national debate about video game violence that went all the way to Congress, and how the bosses at Midway encouraged in-fighting and hostility among their employees, believing it made them more competitive in making their games the best. Yet, Tsui never digs into these issues to uncover how they impacted the workers or the work. Each is presented more like a bump in the road as opposed to a dynamic obstacle, which makes this journey a slog.

Further hurting the movie’s momentum, Tsui tells his tale in clunky chapters rather than a dramatic arc. Title cars like “Building A Smash,” “Cinematic Ambitions,” or “From Filler To Killer” proclaims a new topic is about to be presented, and the last issue is officially closed. It gives the film all the flow of a poorly curated YouTube playlist, as Tsui uses the devices as an easy out for a touchy topic. Thus, a clumsy version of “all publicity is good publicity” becomes the last word on the T2 dust-up, a conclusion that is neither informative nor entertaining. It’s just frustrating and becomes increasingly so as each chapter lumbers into another with a similarly anti-climactic end.

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Napoleon Dynamite Cast Members Will Hold Virtual Reunion To Benefit World Hunger

The cast of Napoleon Dynamite will be reuniting virtually in a special re-recorded program that will be available on December 4 at 5 PM PT / 8 PM ET on YouTube. (There isn’t yet a specific link to where on YouTube this will be happening.) Their gathering will benefit The Hunger Project, an organization committed to the sustainable end of world hunger.

Jon Heder (Napoleon), Efren Ramirez (Pedro), Jon Gries (Uncle Rico), Tina Majorino (Deb), Haylie Duff (Summer), and Shondrella Avery (LaFawnduh) will be joined by “several other surprise cast members for the program.” Here’s hoping the other Tina, the “fat lard” llama might be finding time in her busy schedule to Zoom in.

While the event is a benefit, it will reportedly also be free to view. Participants who make a donation of $75 or more will be entered into a raffle to win prizes including a hand-drawn portrait by Heder, a 20-minute acting lesson via Zoom with Ramirez, a custom Uncle Rico autographed Wilson NFL football courtesy of Gries, and a gold chain plus “some surprise items” from Avery.

Napoleon Dynamite was a hugely popular 2004 comedy film directed by Jared Hess (Gentlemen Broncos, Nacho Libre). It was purchased by Fox Searchlight after its Sundance Film Festival debut and grossed over $46 million on a $400,000 budget. It also spawned an animated series on Fox in 2012 and has gone on to become a cult classic.

This is just the latest in a long run of pandemic virtual benefit-reunions this year–in the last few weeks alone, there have been similar ones from Superbad and Seinfeld. Way back in April, there was even an online Goonies reunion.

Best Buy’s Black Friday Deals on PCs and Laptops

Best Buy’s Black Friday sale is here, and it’s huge. All manner of items have gotten their prices slashed, including gaming PCs and laptops. So if you’re in the market for a pre-built gaming rig, you’ve come to the right place. Below, we’re keeping track of all the best deals on portable and desktop gaming PCs. We’re also throwing in some deals on monitors, mice, keyboards, and headsets, because why not?

If you’re interested in more than just PC gaming, be sure to check out our wider coverage of Best Buy’s Black Friday deals. And if you’re willing to venture outside of the big blue retailer, take a look at our Best Black Friday Deals mega-post, where we hand-pick all the best deals available anywhere, right now.

Gaming Laptop Black Friday Deals at Best Buy

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Gaming PC Black Friday Deals at Best Buy

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Gaming PC Accessory Black Friday Deals at Best Buy

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Chris Reed is a commerce editor and bonafide deals expert at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

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Red Dead Online Bounty Hunter Role Getting Expanded Alongside Standalone Update

Red Dead Online, the multiplayer component of Red Dead Redemption 2, is getting a significant expansion to the Bounty Hunter class. Starting on December 1, you’ll have loads of new outlaws to track down.

Rockstar announced that the update will intorduce 10 more Bounty Hunter ranks, new Legendary Bounties, and a 100 Rank Outlaw Pass to fill out. You’ll be able to earn new Prestigious level equipment by tracking down the new slew of criminals and reprobates.

In preparation for the big Bounty Hunter expansion, all Bounty Hunter missions will earn double XP this week. That should help you catch up with the role. You can get started by finding Jessica LeClerk and Horley. You can also join up with your friends in a Posse to get out increased RDO$ and XP for any Free Roam events, on top of the Bounties.

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Red Dead Online is launching a standalone version on December 1 as well, which will cost $20. You can get in at a discount by adopting early, though–through February 15, 2021, it will be 75% off for a grand total of only $5. You’ll need a subscription to PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live Gold to play online through their respective consoles. Red Dead Online will also offer a purchase option to upgrade it with the Red Dead Redemption 2: Story Mode, which includes the single-player campaign.

You can also claim some rewards by linking your Rockstar Games Social Club account to your Prime Gaming account. Those include 5 free Legendary Animal Pheromones, 6,000 Naturalist XP, a Wilderness Camp, and a Katata Coat crafted from the Legendary Katata Elk.

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Xbox Head Phil Spencer Weighs In On PS5’s DualSense Controller

Xbox head Phil Spencer enjoys the innovation that Sony has pushed with the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller, stating that innovation by any of the major console manufacturers can only be good for the industry as a whole.

“I applaud what they did with the controller, not actually for–well, I shouldn’t say not for the specifics of the controller, but more than just the specifics of the controller,” Spencer told The Verge. “I think for all of us in the industry, we should learn from each other and the innovation that we all push on, whether it’s distribution of business model like Game Pass, or controller tech, or the Wii back in the day, which clearly had an impact on us when we went off and did Kinect and Sony did the Move.”

Spencer went on to add that innovation in the console and controller spaces can be welcome inspiration for others. The key, he clarifies, is knowing whether something will “become a common part of a platform that developers and players are going to look for” or “a specific scenario on a specific piece of hardware.” Spencer said that Xbox is trying to keep its eyes open for that distinction when developing new innovations for its consoles, including controller tech and VR.

For those unfamiliar, the PS5’s DualSense is pretty cool–provided developers use it well, it could be a game-changer for the industry. The controller supports haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, a microphone and speaker, a touchpad, and an internal gyroscope. All of these come together to create different sensations while you play certain games on PS5. For example, walking across sand feels different than walking on grass in Astro’s Playroom, and you can tell the difference when you’re slicing into flesh as opposed to clanging your sword against a stone wall in Demon’s Souls.

Now Playing: How The PS5’s DualSense Makes Demon’s Souls More Intense

This Elgato Capture Card Black Friday Deal Lets You Stream PS5 And Xbox Series X Gameplay

If you’re looking to record and stream your gameplay on the PS5 or Xbox Series X, then you’ll need a capture card. Thankfully, Black Friday 2020 has delivered a deal on one of Elgato’s most popular models. The Elgato HD60 S capture card is currently $142 at Amazon, down from its regular price of $180. This deal is Elgato’s first of Black Friday, though it’s unclear if the company will discount any more of its products as the sale week progresses.

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The Elgato HD60 S is capable of recording gameplay up to 1080p and 60fps, which is more than enough for your stream or YouTube video. It connects via USB 3.0, so you’ll need the appropriate ports to use it on your PC of choice.

The downside to the HD60 S is that it does not support passthrough for 4K resolutions or HDR10, nor does it capture the latter. If you want features like this and passthrough for higher resolutions and frame rates, then you’ll need to go with one of Elgato’s higher-end models like the HD60 S+ or the 4K60 S+. If you want to learn more, check out our guide to the best capture cards for streaming on Twitch and YouTube.

If you’re looking for more discounts, check out the best Black Friday TV deals and the best gaming monitor deals. A good TV or monitor is an excellent way to improve your gaming setup. There are also a number of sales on PS5 and PS4 games, Xbox Series X and Xbox One games, and Nintendo Switch games, so if you’re looking for something to stream, now’s a great time to stock up.

Batman Animated Movies and Comics: Buy 3 for 2 on Amazon

Amazon’s incredible “get 3 for the price of 2” Black Friday sale has started, and a ton of Batman animated movies, shows, and graphic novels are included. Some of Batman’s most iconic stories are included in these deals, meaning you can stock up or get a friend into the franchise without busting your bat-wallet.

There’s more deals than we can include, so click that first link to go to the whole list on Amazon. You may have to enter “Batman” into the small search bar on the right to filter items.

Black Friday 3-for-2 Batman Deal at Amazon

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Console Tribalism ‘One of the Worst Things in the Industry’ Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Says

In a new interview, Xbox boss Phil Spencer shared how toxicity can harm the video game industry, calling console tribalism “one of the worst things about” the video game industry.

Speaking with The Verge, Spencer spoke out against what he calls “tribalism in the industry,” though more popularly referred to as the “console wars.” Spencer, who heads up Microsoft’s Xbox operation, goes as far as to say that tribalism may be the only thing that could force him out of the games industry.

“The tribalism in the industry, if there was anything that would ever drive me out of the industry, it’s actually that,” Spencer says on The Verge’s Decoder podcast. When he talks about the vocal core “that just really hates the other consumer product,” Spencer says “that’s just so off-putting to me… To me, it’s one of the worst things about our industry.”

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And even beyond that, Spencer says Microsoft’s competition isn’t actually Sony or Nintendo. “We’re in the entertainment business. The biggest competitor we have s apathy over the products and services, games that we build.”

This isn’t the first time Spencer has spoken out against toxicity in the games industry. During his keynote address at DICE 2018, Spencer called toxicity in gaming a “threat to our entire industry.”

Instead, Spencer says we should focus on how gaming is bringing people closer together thanks to features like crossplay, which tears down barriers between consoles in online play.

Xbox pushed heavily for cross-platform play early on with games like Minecraft. Since then, the feature has become far more commonplace with new games touting the feature regularly.

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Matt T.M. Kim is a reporter for IGN.

Hillbilly Elegy Review

Hillbilly Elegy is available to stream on Netflix.

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Based on J. D. Vance’s acclaimed memoir, Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy features powerful “reverse makeover” performances from Glenn Close and Amy Adams (that are sure to shine up nicely come awards season) but ultimately the film is a somewhat hollow, overly-glossy attempt to encapsulate J.D.’s struggles to escape a life of abuse and poverty.

There are interesting, and important, themes at play in Hillbilly Elegy, about the difficulties of escaping cycles of violence and how destitution itself is a disease but the narrative bounces back and forth between J.D.’s past and present a bit too loosely, to the point where you start disengaging emotionally because we’re only getting the bullet points of hill folk strife.

Again, Close and Adams are very good, and when you see actual footage of J.D’s “Mamaw” and mother during the final credits, you’ll note just how close these high-caliber performers came to mirroring the actual people. But Hillbilly Elegy needed to be a bit rougher and a touch less forgiving. It wouldn’t fix the story structure, but you get the feeling someone could have mined more out of this tale with a shoestring budget than this sanguine, souped-up Ron Howard production.

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Told through the eyes of J.D. as both a teen and a young adult attending Yale (Owen Asztalos and The Big C’s Gabriel Basso, respectively), Hillbilly Elegy never quite touches down on the runway long enough to resonate. You get flashes of manic performances, particularly from Adams as the frightfully unbalanced addict Bev, J.D.’s torrent of a mother, but you never sit with anything long enough to care. The film even resorts to a quick montage in the end, of J.D.’s life after he decides to get his s*** together, to catch us fully up to the present.

Close’s Mamaw, J.D.’s eventual hard-nosed caregiver, is excellent as a chain-smoking, cussing granny and some of the best moments in the movie come from Mamaw’s choice to try and do better with J.D. than she did with Bev. The story breezes past most of Mamaw’s sinister shortcomings as an actual mother, having raised Bev in a calamitous household of emotional horrors, relegating it to quick flashbacks and a few lines like ‘I could have done better” (to say the very least), but Mamaw and J.D.’s relationship is still the most formidable, and satisfying, part of the movie. Even if it plays out in a very rote Hollywood manner.

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Freida Pinto is good in sort of a thankless role as J.D.s “present day” girlfriend, Usha. Most of her scenes take place on the phone as she tries to steer J.D. back to his internship interviews while he’s away taking care of his junkie mother, afraid that Usha will leave him if she knows the full breadth of his family history. J.D., while pining for his summers in Kentucky hill country, actually grew up in dilapidated, depressed Middletown, Ohio – a place that was more harmful to his family than if they’d actually stayed back in the mountains.

It’s amidst the jobless and forlorn Middletown that J.D.’s life starts taking savage turns. Hence, the small town utopia his Mamaw once escaped to, making his clan “Hillbilly royalty” of sorts, winds up being more dangerous than Appalachia. Hillbilly Elegy isn’t a total loss, thanks mostly to energized performances, but it also doesn’t quite deliver the message it wants to deliver. It’s too polished, and unfocused, to fully immerse you into its grit. Splitting the story up between the past and present (the present here being 2011) provides scattershot screen grabs of J.D.’s life in ways that keep you at a distance.

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