Month: January 2021

One of Ash’s greatest rivals, Gary Oak, is seemingly returning to the Pokemon anime as the rival can be spotted in a new opening sequence for Pokemon Journeys that aired in Japan today.

Pokemon Journeys is the latest iteration of the long-running Pokemon anime and it sees Ash Ketchum and his companion, Goh, travel around the world of Pokemon visiting classic regions like Kanto and the newer regions like Galar, the setting of Pokemon Sword and Shield. A new opening sequence for the anime aired recently in Japan and it features a montage of characters Ash is expected to meet in the upcoming episodes – one of those people appears to be Ash’s first rival, Gary Oak.

A tweet from the official Pokemon Anime Twitter account seems to confirm the Gary’s reappearance. When translated, it mentions ‘Satoshi’s childhood friend’ (Satoshi being the Ash’s name in Japan), and leaves the question of him being a rival again hanging.

Gary Oak was introduced as Ash’s childhood friend and rival, and is the grandson of Professor Oak, who gave both boys their start as Pokemon trainers. Gary was one of Ash’s key competitors in the first Pokemon anime and remained one for quite some time. The two eventually ended up becoming friends and Gary retired from the life of Pokemon training to become a Pokemon researcher like his grandfather.

Gary later made an appearance in Pokemon the Series: Diamond and Pearl, but hasn’t been seen since, which is why his inclusion in the new Pokemon Journeys opening sequence is significant. Pokemon Journeys will mark the character’s first appearance in the English version of the anime since 2010 .

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The Pokemon anime was put on hold last year due to COVID-19, but it seems new episodes of the show are on the way. In the meantime, check out Pokemon: Twilight Wings, which is finally complete and ready for binging, and then check out this Looney Tunes-style Pokemon short released by The Pokemon Company last year.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes. 

Episode 2 Act 1 of Valorant is set to kick off on January 12, and with it arrives a new Infiltrator Duelist named Yoru.

As reported by Eurogamer, Yoru is a stealthy agent who can turn invisible and send out fake footsteps to confuse and distract enemies.

Riot released a new cinematic featuring Yoru and the descriptions of all of his abilities, which are as follows;

• C: Fakeout – Equip an echo that mimics footsteps when activated. Fire to activate and send the echo forward. Alt fire to place an echo in place. Use the inactive echo to send it forward.
• E: Gatecrash – Equip to harness a rift tether. Fire to send the tether out moving forward. Alt fire to place a tether in place. Activate to teleport to the tether’s location.
• Q: Blindside – Equip to rip an unstable dimensional fragment from reality. Fire to throw the fragment, activating a flash that winds up once it collides with a hard surface in world.
• X: Dimensional Drift – Equip a mask that can see between dimensions. Fire to drift into Yoru’s dimension, unable to be affected or seen by enemies from the outside.

“When we started talking about the goals for this agent we knew it was time to shake things up in Valorant,” said Valorant product lead John Goscicki. “The idea of ‘Stealthly Infiltration’ is something we toyed around with for years, but could never fit in the game. We felt that if we started from the ground up, we could create an agent that revolved around the idea of ‘Stealthly Infiltration’ in some way.

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“With that in mind we also wanted Yoru to be an agent that could create some really high moments throughout the game. The kind of rounds where if you pull everything off correctly you feel like the greatest player ever. The team has been super stoked to get this guy in players’ hands, he is definitely going to cause some disruption within the game.”

Valorant’s newest season will come with a new Battle Pass and a Run-It-Back bundle that includes some of the best cosmetics from Valorant’s first episode.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Constantin Liétard has created a way for Twitter to play Pokemon Red through his profile picture.

Much like how Twitch Plays Pokemon let the world comment and control a game of Pokemon, Liétard’s pinned tweet asks for people to comment either Up, Down, Left, Right, A, B, Start, or Select to control an emulated game of Pokemon Red.

Comments are pulled every 15 seconds, according to Liétard, and the most commented input is sent to the game. The current game state is then automatically made into Liétard’s 400×400 Twitter profile picture.

As of this writing, Liétard’s level 6 Spearow is battling a level 11 Oddish. Unfortunately, Spearow is currently losing, so hopefully Twitter can find a way to work together to save the bird Pokemon. Oh, and in case you were curious, Twitter did somehow pick Squirtle as the starting Pokemon.

Liétard has restarted the game a few times to add more features as it rises in popularity, and Liétard logs on manually to the game each night to save and ensure progress isn’t lost. There is also an official Discord server that allows those interested to chat about the progress in this particular game of Pokemon Red.

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There have been over 30,000 comments so far, and it will be very interesting to see how many it takes to triumph over the Elite Four.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

You may have some more time on your hands to get through that PlayStation pile of shame. Here’s a rundown of the 10 best-rated games for PS4, as gathered by review aggregator, Metacritic.com.