Month: November 2020

The Xbox Series X has been sent out to many press and streamers, and videos of various Xbox One games running much faster are emerging. With the Xbox Series X launch line-up looking pretty thin, much of the appeal for new console owners will come from revisiting older titles and seeing how the new system’s features enhances them.

Now, thanks to one streamer’s video of The Witcher 3 running on a Series X, we can check out the advantages of super-boosted loading times. YouTuber rubhen925 has shared nearly two hours of footage, showing the game running on the new system. While the full video is worth a watch, the most exciting part, funnily enough, comes when fast travel is used.

The GIF from the video below happens just past the 1 hour 14 minute mark in the video, and it shows what happens when you fast travel. There’s no loading screen now–in fact, the environment loads in so fast that it kind of looks like a glitch.

It’s a bit uglier than a loading screen, perhaps, but it’s much more convenient.

The Witcher 3 is coming to Xbox Series X and PS5 with an improved next-gen edition. It’ll feature ray tracing for the first time.

Developer CD Projekt Red’s next game is Cyberpunk 2077, which was recently delayed into December thanks to some issues with the PS4/Xbox One builds.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a bit of a mess, and for now, that’s okay. Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t done yet. As with developer Larian Studios’ previous release, the acclaimed 2017 RPG Divinity: Original Sin 2, Baldur’s Gate 3 has been released into Early Access on Steam. It contains the first act of the game: a chunk of content encompassing around 25 hours of adventuring for players determined to seek out every last treasure chest or minor side quest.

As a setup it shows promise, introducing you to a cast of half a dozen characters who hint at the potential to become interesting traveling companions. Already on the brink of civil war and now facing a terrifying alien threat, the world itself seems to offer rich pickings for these characters to indulge. And by building on the template forged by the Original Sin series, BG3 already has the foundation of a well-engineered RPG that rewards players willing to engage with its systemic creativity.

Yet such promise is muted by notes of caution. Baldur’s Gate 3 is rough and messy and often feels like it is just barely hanging together. Occasionally it falls apart, collapsing under the weight of scripting bugs and graphical glitches, and even gives up completely with numerous hard crashes to desktop. Technical issues are not unusual in any game, let alone one still in Early Access, and so it is neither a surprise nor much of a criticism to encounter them here.

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In Half-Life 2: Episode Two, players can encounter a garden gnome near the game’s opening. If they manage to carry it all the way to the end and place it in the rocket ship before it takes off, players can unlock the Little Rocket Man achievement–an infamously complicated but very fun challenge for Half-Life fans. Now, Valve founder Gabe Newell is recreating this achievement in real life for charity.

Polygon is reporting that Newell is looking to launch a garden gnome into space as part of a Rocket Lab initiative in New Zealand, where he’s currently staying. The gnome, called Gnome Chompski (as it is in several Valve games), will be sent into space during a livestream, and viewers will need to donate to watch.

Money raised from the stream will be sent to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at Starship, an Auckland-based children’s hospital.

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We tackle enemies on very hard mode in the Age of Calamity demo, and wreak havoc amongst our foes.

Control was among the best games of 2019–and one of the most taxing in terms of graphical fidelity. Even on the powerful PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X, Control would sometimes hitch, drop frames, and struggle as protagonist Jesse Faden telekinetically hucked objects at Hiss enemies or smashed through the offices of the Federal Bureau of Control, flinging papers and wood splinters in all directions in her wake.

The high graphical requirements seem like they would preclude Control from ever running on the Nintendo Switch, a less powerful game console than its Sony and Microsoft counterparts. But Nintendo and publisher 505 Games found a workaround: streaming. The release of Control: Ultimate Edition leverages cloud technology to make the game available on Nintendo’s little hybrid console, and the results are surprisingly strong. With a stable internet connection (my Switch said I was getting around 30 mbps down and 8.2 mbps up over WiFi), Control plays very well on the Switch with all its options, and if you haven’t had a chance to check out Remedy Entertainment’s killer title, this is a good way to do so.

If you’re not familiar, Control imbues you with supernatural powers and sets you loose in the Oldest House, a brutalist concrete office building with shifting walls and seemingly impossible scale. It houses the FBC, a government agency dedicated to the study, protection, and containment of “paranatural” objects and entities. If it’s supernatural, weird, or possibly involved with other dimensions, it’s the Bureau’s purview–but the building has been invaded by a spectral force called the Hiss that has possessed many of the Bureau’s employees and turned them against the survivors.

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There are a lot of awesome gifts to consider this year for the PlayStation owner in your life so we’ve rounded up a few of our favorites to help you out! Here are 7 perfect PlayStation holiday gifts for 2020.

A new trailer for Netflix‘s The Witcher series has arrived, and it contains some secrets that could point to where the show is headed for Season 2 when it comes to its monsters.

Released on Halloween and set to the song “Monster Mash,” the video’s description states that viewers should be on the lookout for a few surprises. “The White Wolf takes Halloween as a personal challenge. But keep your eyes peeled for a few sweet treats… you won’t want to miss what’s hidden,” reads the description.

Collider noticed that there are new monsters and otherworldly beasts that can be seen at around 15 seconds and 30 seconds into the video, and this could be our first look at Season 2 footage. One is a clump of blood and viscera and the other is a group of skeletons connected together.

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