Month: January 2018

Monster Hunter returns in 2018 with Monster Hunter World. We’ve broken down which store has the best price, along with all other exclusives.

Think you’re good at Overwatch? Now is your chance to prove it…again. The hero shooter’s eighth Competitive season has begun–and there are some changes to it this time around.

New for Season 8 are changes to the skill rating system, starting with the fact that the difference in the highest and lowest-skilled player on the same team is reduced to these ranges: 1000 SR (Bronze-Diamond), 500 SR (Master), and 250 SR (Grandmaster).

This change is being made to make it so players at the high and low ends of the Skill Rating system find matches with other similarly skilled players. “In turn [this] should lead to more satisfying games overall,” Blizzard said in a blog post. More details are available here.

If you’re new to Overwatch Competitive play, you should know that it’s a mode where you can test your skills in a more intense format. First of all, you need to be level 25 to even play, and once you’re in, you must complete 10 “placement matches” to secure your initial skill rating which will be between 1 and 5000. You’re also assigned a tier (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, or Grandmaster) and you climb through the ranks (or drop lower) based on your performance during a season.

Rewards are available to unlock in Competitive, and if you make it into the top 500 on your platform and in your region at the end of a season you get a special player icon and spray. Additionally, you get an allotment of Competitive Points at the end of a season depending on how well you play. Competitive Play is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

The first of January 2018’s free Games With Gold titles for Xbox One and Xbox 360 are now available for subscribers. On Xbox One, the action-RPG The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III is completely free all month long. You play as the famous monster hunter on a journey to take down one of your toughest foes yet.

On Xbox 360, Square Enix’s Tomb Raider Underworld is now available for the low, low price of $0.00. Note that this game plays on Xbox One through backwards compatibility, so Xbox One owners can pick it up as well. One of December 2017’s free Xbox One Games With Gold titles, Back to the Future: The Game, remains free until January 15

Then on January 16, a new set of free Xbox One and Xbox 360 games will be available, including Zombi (Xbox One) and Army of Two (Xbox 360). You can see the full Games With Gold lineup for January 2018 down below. You need to have an Xbox Live Gold membership to get these games.

January 2018 Games With Gold

Xbox One

• Back to the Future: The Game – 30th Anniversary Edition (December 16 – January 15)
• The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (January 1-31)
• Zombi (January 16 – February 15)

Xbox 360

• Tomb Raider: Underworld (January 1-15)
• Army of Two (January 16-31)

It’s officially 2018! New year, new me. Oh, and new TV!

Let’s map out midseason TV, shall we? A hearty look at all the winter and spring continuations, returns, and debuts.

From the back halves of The Walking Dead, The Tick, and Star Trek: Discovery to the seasonal returns of The X-Files, Marvel’s Jessica Jones, and American Crime Story to the debuts of Black Lightning, Counterpart, and Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams – the months of January through April contain a ton of content.

Plus, more Ash vs Evil Dead, Homeland, The Magicians, Strike Back, and One Day at a Time – along with new shows like Altered Carbon, The Alienist, Waco, and American Idol. Okay, Idol’s not new, obviously. But it is back…and on a whole new network.

Continue reading…

It’s the start of a new month–and a new year–which means more free games are now available (or coming very soon!) for PlayStation Plus subscribers. With the PlayStation Store refresh on Tuesday, January 2, games like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Batman: The Telltale Series will drop to the low, low price of $0.00 for paying subscribers.

It is already January 2 in Australia, but if you live elsewhere you should be able to grab these games and the rest of January 2018’s PS Plus lineup very soon.

Mankind Divided is the headlining PS4 freebie this month. The dystopian cyberpunk role-playing game casts you as Adam Jensen and tasks you with catching a terrorist group, which you can do by being a stealthy detective or a tech-enhanced killing machine, or some mixture of both.

As for Telltale’s Batman game, this is the first season of the story and puts players in tricky situations as both Bruce Wayne and his crime-fighting alter-ego. The decisions you make will have some consequence on the relationships around you, and the overall story.

Other PS4 freebies in January include the wacky and fun party game That’s You and StarBlood Arena (which requires PlayStation VR). You can see January 2018’s full PS Plus lineup–covering PS4, PS3, and PS Vita–down below.

January 2018 Free PS Plus Games

PS4

• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (PS4)
• Batman: The Telltale Series (PS4)
• StarBlood Arena (PS VR required)
• That’s You!

PS3

• Sacred 3
• Book of Unwritten Tales 2

PS Vita

• Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness
• Uncanny Valley (PS Vita & PS4)