NFL’s George Kittle Gets A Master Chief Tattoo

Standout NFL player George Kittle of the San Francisco 49ers is a big fan of Halo. He enjoys the sci-fi series so much that he recently got a nice-looking Master Chief tattoo on his arm.

Thankfully, Kittle documented the experience and you can check out his video below. Note that Kittle says he is partnered with Xbox, so this is a promotional video and you can likely expect more Halo-branded content from the tight end in the lead up to Halo Infinite‘s release this year.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer responded to Kittle’s video, saying he’s willing to cheer on this video even though Kittle plays for a rival team because “everyone is welcome on Xbox.”

“We’ve always said that gaming is a great unifier…even with most of Team Xbox in Seahawks territory, everyone is welcome on Xbox,” Spencer said, referencing the Seattle Seahawks that are the home team in Microsoft’s city.

Kittle responded to Spencer’s tweet with another joke about how he believes Master Chief is actually a 49ers fan.

Kittle was drafted by the 49ers in 2017. He has gone on to perform well on the team, earning a spot in the Pro Bowl twice. He had a particularly successful 2018 season where he tallied 1,377 receiving yards to set a new single-season record for a tight end.

With a 98 OVR rating, Kittle is the highest-rated tight end in Madden NFL 21 and among the highest-rated players in the game overall.

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Final Fantasy 7 Remake Butterfinger DLC Is Now Free For Everyone

When Final Fantasy VII Remake launched in April, it included some DLC that could only be unlocked in the US–and only by players with a penchant for a certain chocolate bar. The game’s somewhat infamous Butterfingers DLC could only be redeemed by purchasing chocolate bars, and fans found that they had to buy a lot of them to get everything.

But now, that DLC is available–and free–for all players around the world. There are five new free pieces of DLC available for the game, all of which were previously made available through Butterfinger.

The items are:

  • Corneo’s Armlet
  • Mako Crystal
  • Midgar Bangle
  • Shinra Bangle
  • Superstar Belt

Redeem them now and you can outfit Cloud, Barret, Tifa, and Aerith with this equipment.

This coincides with a sale that brings Final Fantasy VII Remake down to its lowest price yet. It’s a good time to jump into one of GameSpot’s rare 10/10 games.

In other Final Fantasy VII Remake news, we recently learned that the game’s development team had a grim nickname for Tifa’s dad.

Now Playing: Final Fantasy 7 Remake – Crazy Combos

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Call Of Duty: Warzone Update Activates Mysterious Keypads

Following the gigantic Warzone Season 5 update, Infinity Ward has now pushed out a smaller update, but it could have big implications.

The update makes some tuning changes to the Juggernaut crate and the Most Wanted contract for the BR Buy Back Solos mode, while it also changes the drop rate of Juggernaut crates. But perhaps more intriguingly, this new patch activates keypads on the map.

“Keypads…are now active,” Infinity Ward said elusively.

Infinity Ward didn’t share any more details on the keypads that are now active in Verdansk, but this is not uncharted territory for Warzone. Previously, players discovered they could input codes on keypads to unlock special areas of bunkers. Some of these bunkers contained very precious loot, while others provided what appears to be more teases for 2020’s new Call of Duty game.

Activision management said on an earnings call just this week that Warzone will be used more for narrative and storytelling purposes. The success of Warzone has changed how Activision can communicate with players regarding news around the Call of Duty franchise, management said, and this could include, but isn’t limited to, teasing new details about the next premium Call of Duty game.

The new game is confirmed to be in development at Treyarch and Raven Software for a release later this year. Activision said the game–rumored to be Black Ops: Cold War–will be announced “fairly soon.” 2020 marked the first year in a decade that Activision did not announce the year’s new Call of Duty game in May or June.

For more on Season 5, check out GameSpot’s written roundup of everything it includes, while you can watch a video version here. The full patch notes have also been released.

Now Playing: Top 5 Call of Duty: Warzone Moments Of The Week

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Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare And Warzone Season 5 Update Adds A Raven That Pecks Your Eyes Out

Among the numerous new additions to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone in the Season 5 refresh is a finishing move called “Nevermore.” Inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s 1845 poem, “The Raven,” the finishing move sends in a raven to finish off your foe.

As you can see in the gameplay clip below, it is a very brutal finishing move. The raven swoops in and pecks at your foe’s face until they die. Since it’s a finishing move, you won’t see it very often, which is probably for the best–it’s a real stomach-turner.

The Nevermore execution is available at Tier 20 in the Season 5 Battle Pass. It can be used by any character, and you can equip it from the Operator menu.

Nevermore is just the latest animal-themed finishing move in Modern Warfare/Warzone. The “Top Dog” finisher calls in a dog who mauls your foe to finish them off.

Season 5 is another huge update for Modern Warfare and Warzone. It introduces a series of new multiplayer maps, a Mini Royale mode, and lots of new cosmetics and gear from the Battle Pass.

For lots more on Season 5, check out GameSpot’s written roundup of everything it includes, while you can watch a video version here. The full patch notes have also been released.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Call Of Duty: Warzone Players Hate The Season 5 Juggernaut

Call of Duty: Warzone’s Season 5 update made the incredibly powerful Juggernaut suit a bigger part of the game’s regular battle royale modes. The suit, which gives its wearer additional armor, abilities, and a minigun, is no longer restricted to a separate limited-time mode.

“This is such a bad change, no one asked for it or wanted it,” said a Warzone player on Reddit. “Leave this to the limited-time modes. Please don’t add stupidly overpowered things like this into the standard modes.”

The juggernaut suit was first introduced as part of a limited-time mode where players fought over a single suit. It was similar to other modes in that 150 players jumped into Verdansk to fight over one of these powerful suits. They would land as part of a care package, just like regular loadouts would drop at different points throughout the game, somewhere on the map. The team that got one of the suits first became a huge threat to everyone else nearby.

“What were they even thinking?” said another player who had just died from a game that ended with multiple Juggernaut suit-wielding players in the circle. “I don’t agree with juggernauts being in the main mode but IF they had to be, shouldn’t it just be 1 suit for the game?”

Juggernauts are so powerful–and often the reasons that Warzone has great Resident Evil-esque moments–that one can take on an entire team at close range by itself. This has happened in the genre before: Fortnite‘s mech suits (a giant robotic suit that can shoot rockets) gave the wearers an incredible advantage in that battle royale last year.

Warzone’s new Season 5 update brought a lot of big changes to Verdansk. A loot train is now making its way around the map, players can now pick up and throw explosive gas canisters, and the stadium is finally open to enter. There are even secret codes coming out of keypads within the stadium.

The new implementation of Juggernauts, which work similarly to the Fire Sale and Jailbreak events that came to Warzone earlier, is one small part of the update. It’s something that some players desperately wanted changed hours after the update came out.

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Deals: 50% Off Alienware Area 51m Desktop Replacement RTX 2070 Laptop

I’m not sure how Dell can profit, but they’ve reduced prices on their Alienware gaming laptops and gaming desktops yet again. This time, they’re offering a 10% off MPP discount. MPP technically means Member’s Purchase Program, but you can take advantage of this discount even if you’re not a member simply by using guest checkout. Score an Alienware RTX 2070 gaming laptop for under $1400, an Alienware RTX 2080 gaming PC for under $1600, and best of all, an Alienware Area 51m desktop replacement with i7-9700K processor and RTX 2070 graphics for under $1600. You better hurry though, these deals are supposed to end today.

Deals for August 6

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More Video Game Deals

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Eric Song is IGN’s deal curator and spends roughly 1/4 of his income on stuff he posts. Check out his latest Daily Deals Article and subscribe to his IGN Deals Newsletter.

Want to Learn Java? Get 10 Classes All About Java for less than $40

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Java is one of the most in-demand programming languages today and is used for the Internet of Things, APIs, in big data technologies, e-commerce websites, scientific applications, and more. It’s even the programming language that powers Android, which is the most widely used operating system on earth. So, Java is a fantastic programming language to learn, no matter if you’re looking to kickstart a career as a developer or simply want to round out your programming skills.

The 2020 Java Bootcamp Bundle helps you build expertise with this leading programming language with 10 hours of content on Java fundamentals, collections, classes, and more. You can grab the bundle on sale today for $35.99, which is more than 90% off its regular price tag.

Java Introduction

As mentioned earlier, Java is one of the world’s leading programming languages. It’s incredibly popular throughout the programming world for plenty of good reasons, including the fact that it’s relatively easy to learn and because its applications are virtually endless. This introduction course, intended for students without an extensive programming background, provides a general overview of Java, from understanding the Java environment and setting up your own Java environment to writing a basic Java program.

Java Basics

With a strong foundation from the previous course, you then move onto learning most of Java’s syntax elements, concentrating on general and basic syntax, while also receiving a brief overview of more advanced features. In other words, throughout this course, you’ll come to understand variables, declarations, object data types, and constants. On top of that, you learn how to write useful Java classes and create Java programs that work with these classes.

Java Objects

When programming, it’s essential to know the ins and outs of the language in which you are coding. So, this course begins with a discussion on object-oriented languages, what that means, and if Java meets the criteria for an object-oriented language. In doing so, you become familiar with objects and classes so that you can apply both to actual Java applications. By the time you finish up, you’ll also know how to create and use an instance of an object, as well as how to add functions to a class.

Comparisons & Flow Control Structures

Keeping the momentum going, this class dives into all things comparisons and flow control structures. Meaning, you’ll discover the logic behind comparisons and flow control structures, what they do, and how to use them in your code. Webucator, the instructor behind all the classes in this bundle, will walk you through several hands-on examples, such as If/Else/Else If statements, to help cement these concepts with real-life code.

Arrays

Arrays are helpful features of many programming languages, empowering developers to work with values of the same type in a single container. With expert instruction from your teacher, you’ll learn how to define and declare arrays, instantiate & initialize arrays, discover multi-dimensional arrays, and typecast with arrays of primitives.

Inheritance 101

Inheritance in Java is a mechanism in which one object acquires all the properties and behaviors of a parent object. As such, inheritance is a valuable component of object-oriented programming in Java. For an hour, you’ll learn about inheritance through examples, come to understand polymorphism, be able to explain how derived class methods override base class methods, and typecast with object references.

Intro to Java Interfaces

An interface is a reference type in Java. Interfaces are a completely abstract type that is used to specify a behavior that classes must implement. Throughout this intro to Java interfaces course, you’ll gain an in-depth understanding of interfaces, create an interface definition, implement interfaces, and use annotations for interfaces.

Exceptions Classes Explained

Like other programming languages, when Java encounters an error, or an error occurs, it will typically stop to generate an error message. Technically, Java throws an exception. This occurrence is slightly different from an actual error since it indicates conditions that a reasonable application might catch. Throughout this one-hour class, you’ll learn everything from what exceptions are and how to handle them to how to use exception classes in your code.

Collections 101

The Java collections framework is a set of classes and interfaces that implement commonly reusable data collection structures. In other words, the Java collections framework helps you achieve all the operations you want to perform on a group of data. This course provides you with important concepts on collections, classes, generics, methods, and teaches you how to use collection classes and the iterator interface.

Inner Classes

Last but not least, you get to learn all about inner classes and their classifications within Java. Inner classes are used to logically group classes and interfaces in one place so that your code be more readable and maintainable. This final course in the bundle covers these classes and best practices for working with inner classes.

TLDR, The 2020 Java Bootcamp Bundle helps you build out your expertise in Java from home with ten hours of instructional video content. Get the bundle on sale today for just $35.99.

Fortnite – New Cars Update Gameplay

Fortnite

First Released Dec 31, 2015

released

  • Android
  • iOS (iPhone/iPad)
  • Nintendo Switch
  • PC
  • PlayStation 4
  • PlayStation 5
  • Xbox One
  • Xbox Series X

In Fortnite, players and their friends lead a group of Heroes to reclaim and rebuild a homeland that has been left empty by a mysterious darkness only known as “the Storm.”

The Netflix Boot-Up Sound Was Almost A Goat

The Netflix boot-up sound is very well known, but it was almost completely different.

Netflix VP of product, Todd Yellin, said on the Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast (via THR) that the company also considered other, very different sounds. These included underwater bubbles and even a goat’s bleating sound.

All of these sounds–including the “Ta Dum” sound that ultimately was chosen–were composed by sound designer Lon Bender, who won the Best Effects Sound Editing Oscar for Bravehart. The “Ta Dum” sound, as it’s known internally at Netflix, was initially introduced in 2015.

“I liked the sound of the goat,” Yellin said. “It was funny, quirky, and our version of [MGM’s] Leo the Lion.”

Netflix ultimately decided on Ta Dum because, in polling, people associated it with things like “dramatic,” “beginning,” and “movie.” Bender said he made the sound by hitting his wedding ring on his nightstand, followed by a backward-playing guitar sound called “The Blossom.”

In other news, Netflix recently spoke about how it wants to make “broad audience” movies like Harry Potter and Star Wars. “A lot of family live action, fantasy, spectacle movies that we think are big and can play great,” Netflix movie boss Tendo Nagenda said.

Pikmin 3 On Switch, New Street Fighter 5 Characters, No Xbox Live Changes | Save State

On this Save State Persia talks about Pikmin 3 coming to the Nintendo Switch. It will include all DLC and even new prologue and epilogue missions with captains Olimar and Louie. There will also be new difficulty levels and a Piklopedia that will give you more information on creatures you encounter. The game will also be completely available to play co-op.

Capcom announced five new characters are on the way for Street Fighter V’s final season. Dan and Rose, last seen in Street Fighter IV, were the first to be revealed. Oro, who was last playable in Street Fighter III was the third character confirmed to be making a return. Akira Kazama from Rival Schools was announced, and she has a connection to Sakura so will fit right in among the Street Fighter crew. The fifth and final character has yet to be announced but the Season 5 Roadmap shows new stages, costumes, and more reveals will happen over the course of the next year.

Xbox Live Gold is here to stay, after rumors suggesting it would be discontinued were clarified by Microsoft. A name change in the Xbox Services agreement was made to distinguish the difference between underlying Xbox Live Services and Xbox Live Gold. As of now, there are no plans to change Xbox Live Gold. Another Microsoft livestream is planned for this month that may contain more information on what we’ll see next.

Our Play For All donation drive is still going strong and you can still contribute by visiting store.gamespot.com and purchasing merch in which the proceeds go directly to Black Lives Matter and Covid 19 Relief efforts.

This is your Save State for Wednesday, August 5th.