With the release of the PlayStation 5, certain PS4 games will be getting a boost, so we’re playing through several PS4 games on PS5 to see how Sony’s next-gen console improves the performance or experience of current-gen games.
In the video above, we show off Days Gone. We first played the game on PS4 Pro and then played it on PS5—in both instances, focusing on the first 30 minutes of the campaign. As you can see, Days Gone plays at a much smother frame rate on PS5, which is especially noticeable when zooming through its zombie-infested world while on motorcycle.
There are other, less noticeable differences as well. For instance, Days Gone features less pop-in textures on PS5, and the game loads a whole lot faster on next-gen, too. If you’re thinking about picking up Days Gone, it appears you’ll have a much smoother experience on PS5 in comparison to PS4.
In GameSpot’s Days Gone review, Kallie Plagge writes, “I did a lot of things in Days Gone. I burned every single Freaker nest; I cleared every ambush camp; I maxed out my bike; I took out a few optional hordes just because. Like Deacon with Sarah, I kept going because I hoped to find something, to follow a thread to a possibly fascinating or satisfying or impactful conclusion. But at the end of it all, I’d only gotten scraps.”
The official Call of Duty charity of military veterans has announced a partnership with a toothbrush company to help raise money for veterans looking for work after leaving the service.
The Call of Duty Endowment and Burst Oral Care have announced a special-edition Sonic toothbrush that has a camo print inspired by Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Burst is donating 20 percent of each toothbrush sold, and it guarantees a minimum of a $100,000 donation to the Call of Duty Endowment.
The toothbrush costs $100 USD on its own, while you can also purchase a bundle that comes with various extras like a travel case, floss, and toothpaste, and a snapback hat for $130 USD.
Since its founding, the Call of Duty Endowment has placed more than 70,000 former soldiers in jobs with an average starting salary of more than $60,000. The charity estimates that it spends around $500 to help find new jobs for soldiers, which compares to $3000+ if they go through other means, including the federal government’s own programs.
“Veterans continue to face unparalleled obstacles compared to their non-vet peers in securing high-quality employment opportunities,” Call of Duty Endowment executive director Dan Goldenberg said in a statement. “During such a difficult time for our country, and the world, we are more appreciative than ever of partners like Burst Oral Care who understand and value the sacrifice of veterans and are giving back in impactful ways to those struggling to find jobs and return stability to their lives.”
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has a strong narrative, one that places the game in an interesting position within the AC canon that long-time fans of the series will likely appreciate. But if you want to get absolutely everything out of its story, you’ll need to be proactive, the game’s narrative designer has explained.
Ubisoft Montreal’s Darby McDevitt has taken to Twitter to encourage Assassin’s Creed fans with an interest in the “modern day” storyline running through the series, which started with Desmond Miles in the very first game, to log out of the Animus at regular intervals throughout the game’s story.
“We don’t kick you out of the Animus often, BUT we do update Layla’s dialog with her colleagues quite a few times,” McDevitt says, “usually after major events in the Eivor-Sigurd storyline.”
Hot tip for AC Valhalla players who enjoy the Modern Day. We don’t kick you out of the Animus often, BUT we do update Layla’s dialog with her colleagues quite a few times, usually after major events in the Eivor-Sigurd storyline. So hop out every so often and keep them company.
While you don’t need to jump out to finish the game, these conversations will further flesh out the story–and make you more invested in the modern-day elements as the game goes on.
Interestingly, these modern day sections also contain at least one mention of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is available on PS4, PC, Xbox Series X/S, and One, and will be available on PS5 on November 12 when the system launches. GameSpot’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla review scored the game an 8/10.
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Black Friday 2020 is starting to ramp up, with major retailers like Walmart, Target, and GameStop releasing Black Friday ad scans teasing their upcoming holiday deals. This year, Black Friday kicked off early and feels much more spread out than usual–many stores started rolling out Black Friday deals in October and have revealed them in phases rather than all at once. Because of COVID-19, most retailers are emphasizing online-only deals and aren’t showcasing the in-store doorbusters of years past in an effort to keep people from crowding stores. If you want to shop Black Friday this year, you’ll be able to secure all the best deals online from the safety of your home.
The best way to plan for Black Friday is to browse each retailer’s ad scans and have an idea of which deals you’re looking to nab ahead of time, especially when it comes to games. To help you out, we’ve rounded up the biggest Black Friday ads released so far. All the major retailers, including Walmart and Target, have released Black Friday ads at this point, though some are keeping their Thanksgiving-week deals under wraps for now.
The Walmart Black Friday ad scan is broken into several parts as the Black Friday deals are being rolled out in multiple phases. Walmart is about to enter its second big round of deals, which runs from November 11 (beginning at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET) to November 15. Walmart hasn’t revealed any big gaming deals so far, but you can bet on it carrying this year’s official Nintendo Switch bundle. Cheap 4K Blu-rays, routers, vinyl records, and work laptops are the highlights of this ad scan. The main Walmart Black Friday sale begins November 25, and those deals haven’t been shared yet.
Target Black Friday ad
Target’s Black Friday sale spans all of November, with new deals being revealed every week. It doesn’t have a traditional ad scan, but you can see the current batch of Black Friday deals on Target’s Black Friday ad page. Other than a two-day Black Friday games sale earlier this month, no gaming deals have been revealed just yet–we expect Target’s saving them for the big event that begins November 22.
The GameStop Black Friday ad makes it clear the retailer is taking the sale seriously this year. The ad is competitive with Best Buy’s, offering steep discounts on games for Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox. If you’re upgrading to the PS5 or Series X, these physical games will still play on those consoles even if they don’t come with free next-gen upgrades. Notable deals include Death Stranding for $20 and Marvel’s Avengers for $27; plus, PlayStation exclusives like The Last of Us Part II and Ghost of Tsushima match Best Buy’s prices. Switch games get great discounts as well, including Luigi’s Mansion 3 for $40. As usual, PC accessories and collectibles have a big presence in the GameStop Black Friday ad as well.
Kohl’s Black Friday ad
While Kohl’s isn’t a top destination for gaming deals, it’s actually one of the most underrated places to shop on Black Friday due to its Kohl’s Cash offer: You get $15 Kohl’s Cash for every $50 you spend, and that adds up. The Kohl’s Black Friday sale begins November 22 and runs until November 27, and you can check out the ad scan below.
Lenovo Black Friday ad
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Lenovo’s Black Friday sale offers a great opportunity to pick up a gaming laptop, desktop, or other PC accessories for way cheaper than usual. The spotlight deal is on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 laptop, which is down to $1,000 from its usual $2,700. The sale kicks off November 16 and runs until December 6, though the best deals will likely sell out before then.
Pokemon Go is hosting not one, but two Community Days this month, and the first is just around the corner. November’s Electabuzz Community Day takes place this Sunday, November 15, and like previous events, it gives players around the world the chance to catch a rare Pokemon, participate in an event-exclusive Special Research story, and take advantage of other bonuses. To help you prepare, we’ve rounded up everything you need to know about Pokemon Go’s first November 2020 Community Day below.
November’s first Community Day features the Electric-type Pokemon Electabuzz. Throughout the event, Electabuzz will appear in the wild much more frequently than it normally does, and players will have an increased chance to encounter a Shiny Electabuzz. On top of that, Electabuzz’s baby form, Elekid, will be hatching from 2 km eggs during the Community Day.
If players can evolve Electabuzz into Electivire up to two hours after this weekend’s Community Day ends, the Electric-Pokemon will know the Fire-type Charged attack Flamethrower. The only way Electivire can learn this attack in Pokemon Go is as part of this event, so you don’t want to miss your chance to get it. Any Electabuzz that evolves during the designated time frame will learn this attack, even if you caught it prior to the Community Day.
This month is heating up with two Community Day events: one featuring Electabuzz and one featuring Magmar, each with exclusive attacks! Electabuzz Community Day ⚡ will feature Flamethrower 🔥, while Magmar Community Day 🔥 will feature Thunderbolt ⚡! https://t.co/dxnX1HQRFQpic.twitter.com/wJJwefKmvN
As has been the case for the past several Community Days, November’s event will run for six hours instead of the traditional three, from 11 AM to 5 PM local time. This means players will have until 7 PM local time to evolve Electabuzz into an Electivire that knows Flamethrower.
As part of this weekend’s Community Day, Niantic will offer a Community Day-exclusive Special Research story called Electric for Electabuzz. Tickets to access the story will cost $1 USD. Event-exclusive Timed Research and Field Research will also be available during the event, and completing these will net you various rewards including Sinnoh Stones, which you’ll need to have to evolve Electabuzz into Electivire.
Other Bonuses
In addition to the increased Electabuzz spawns and event Research tasks, Niantic will offer a few other bonuses during this weekend’s Community Day. First, any eggs that are placed in an incubator during the event will hatch at a quarter of the distance they typically require. On top of that, Incense will remain active for three hours rather than the usual 30 minutes. Finally, a special Community Day box will be available to purchase during the event. The box costs 1,280 Poke Coins and comes with the following items:
One of the most popular Call of Duty brands, Black Ops, returns this week with Black Ops Cold War from developers Treyarch and Raven. The sub-brand is one of Call of Duty’s most successful commercially and with fans, and two veteran developers have spoken to GameSpot about why they believe the series continues to be so popular.
Senior creative director Dan Vondrak from Raven said it comes down to the stories that can be told in the Black Ops universe. Whereas the other games, like Modern Warfare, are grounded in real history, the Black Ops games are known for being more playful with their tone. Also, people love conspiracy theories and learning about the seedy underbellies of governments, real or not, and Black Ops delivers this in spades.
“It’s pretty simple. It’s these few tenets that I think all Black Ops fans love. The other Call of Duty games, a lot of them were like these open wars, frontline headlines stuff, whereas Black Ops stuff is like no, we’re going to be between the headlines,” Vondrak said. “We love the deniable operations. The secret missions governments don’t want you to know about.”
“The conspiracy, grounded in real history, is what triggers that Black Ops feeling. You see this footage and it’s a piece of history you know, but Black Ops loves telling you the real story behind it, and they put just enough truth in it and they blur those lines where you’re like, oh man, that maybe could have happened,” he added. “And then that paranoia, that mindfu**ery. That’s something that gave us a lot of license. It gives you something that some of the other franchises can’t necessarily get away with.”
Lead designer Tony Flame from Treyarch also shared his thoughts on the popularity of the Black Ops series. Flame worked on the first Black Ops, which came out in 2010, and he’s been involved in the series ever since. Like Vondrak, Flame said the serious-but-not-so-serious nature of the Black Ops series is part of what makes it so popular. And also the Zombies mode, which has turned into a fan-favorite.
“I think there is something playful about Black Ops. It’s serious. It has historical significance. But there is some play there, and Zombies is part of that. Some of the twists and turns in the campaign are an example of that. And even in our multiplayer. There is some creative license where we get to have fun with the fans. And with Zombies in particular, the fans can participate in, and we really do look at it as a back and forth,” Flame said. “Fans are participating in this, and our community is so passionate and so large now. We listen to them and the game changes in response to the community, and it’s very organic in that way. that’s what Black Ops has become.”
This triple-header will arrive on the Nintendo Eshop on November 17, and supports split-screen deathmatch and co-op for up to four players. It weighs in at 4.1GB, and is published by Devolver Digital, which recently bought developer Croteam.
A first-look trailer for the collection has been released, and it’ll look pretty familiar for fans of the series.
The game retails for $30, and includes the expansions The Legend of the Beast and Jewel of the Nile. This will be the first time the Serious Sam franchise has appeared on a Nintendo home console. The Game Boy Advance got its own Serious Sam game, Serious Sam Advance, in 2004; it wasn’t anything special.
The fourth game in the Serious Sam franchise, Serious Sam 4: Planet Badass, released earlier this year on PC and Stadia.
Warner Bros. has been building its house on a foundation of Harry Potter for almost 20 years now. It’s been a solid formula for the studio, but the last year has shaken the foundation. Author J.K. Rowling’s problematic tweets have caused the company to distance itself from the author, and this week the studio formally announced that Johnny Depp would be exiting Fantastic Beasts 3, where he was set to reprise his role as Gellert Grindelwald. Now, though, WB is reportedly eyeing actor Mads Mikkelsen to replace him.
Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen is at the top of the short list to join the Fantastic Beasts 3 cast, according to a report from Deadline. Deadline’s sources say that Mikkelsen is Fantastic Beasts director David Yates’ first choice to play Grindelwald, and that he’s already in early talks to do so.
Depp, who played the character in the first two movies, found himself pushed out of the role earlier this week after losing a British court battle against a tabloid that labeled him a “wife beater” in connection to his marriage to actress Amber Heard. Warner Bros. asked Depp to leave after he’d filmed just one scene last month in London. Depp isn’t hurting–the studio is apparently paying out an eight-figure salary to the actor for his single scene.
Mads has become a fan favorite actor in recent years thanks to roles like Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the fan-favorite Hannibal show, Galen Erso in Rogue One, and even the undying soldier Clifford Unger the Hideo Kojima-directed game Death Stranding. The talks are, once again, early, but if chatter on social media is anything to go by, this casting decision would be well received.
If Mikkelsen takes the role, he has a lot of work to do. We were cool on the previous entry, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, thanks to the way it mistreated Harry Potter lore, ignored the rules the previous nine movies had established, and gave Depp very little to do with the character that Mikkelsen might be taking over. Then again, Mikkelsen might be the only thing that’ll get us watching Fantastic Beasts 3.
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Back when the Xbox One S first launched in 2017, teardowns revealed that the console hid a tiny stylized Master Chief in the form of an etching on one of its internal components. Now, teardowns of the newly released Xbox Series S have revealed that the same is true of Microsoft’s latest console, as picked up by Kotaku.
A teardown posted by Modern Vintage Gamer found the easter egg, this time in the form of a tiny Master Chief helmet stamped on the console’s power supply.
It’s a cute touch for a part of the console that most users will never see–gaining access to your Xbox Series S’s internals requires removing two security stickers that will absolutely void the console’s warranty. The Xbox Series S’s minimalist black and white design was a stark departure from Xbox’s classic green and black consoles, so it’s nice to know that Xbox staple Master Chief is still keeping an eye on things from the inside.
The Xbox Series S officially released on November 10, though stock has so far been limited for those who didn’t manage to snag a pre-order. Check out our launch-day buying guide to see what retailers are stocking the Xbox Series X and S, though don’t be surprised if you can’t get your hands on a new console straight away. You can also check out our full review of the Series S here.
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