Author: trafficblast

Anyone looking to add player two, or anyone who wants to add a splash of color to their gaming setup, can save some cash right now. Amazon has the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, as well as various color combinations of Joy-Cons, on sale for $10 off. It’s unclear how long the deal will last, though, so grab ’em if you want ’em.

Nintendo Switch Controller Deals

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Joy-Con typically sell for $79.99, which is more than most other controllers. They have added functionality beyond what you’d get in an Xbox or PlayStation controller, but it’s a steep price for sure. So if you can pick up a pair for $10 off, you might as well.

The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller sports an MSRP of $69.99, but it’s also on sale for $10 off right now, bringing it down to a more palatable price of $59. I absolutely love the Pro Controller personally. It feels terrific in your hands, and the batter life is no joke. It lasts an incredibly long time on a single charge.

Another thing going for the Pro controller is that it has a plus-shaped D-pad, which I find a lot more comfortable than the split D-pad on Joy-Con. It’s particularly useful when playing 2D games, like the NES and SNES titles you get access to with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.

Then again, buying a pair of Joy-Con effectively gets you two controllers you can use to play couch co-op in many games. Also, the color combinations look pretty great. Either way you go, you might as well buy now while they’re $10 off. For more discounts on all things Nintendo, check out our Daily Deals post, which has offers like Pokemon Sword/Shield for $39.99.

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Chris Reed is IGN’s shopping and commerce editor. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

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With every new game and every expansion, Pokemon continues to make it easier for players to do what they love: from building competitive teams to befriending their companions. And with new landscapes and stories to explore, Pokemon Sword and Shield’s Crown Tundra offers more of the good stuff while leaning into some welcome nostalgia with returning favorites and new takes on iconic legendaries.

Dynamax Adventure Your Way to a Dream Team

Pokemon Sword and Shield made it easier to craft your Pokemon team with nature-changing mints readily available if you had the skills to earn the necessary Battle Points. Crown Tundra builds on this with Dynamax Adventures which give you the chance to add Legendary Pokemon to your team. Additionally, you can potentially nab useful items as victory rewards, such as Bottle Caps, Dynamax Candy, Armorite Ore, and the new Ability Patch – which lets you change a Pokemon’s Ability to its species’ Hidden Ability if it has one.

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Explore these max lairs with up to thrree others, with each of you choosing just one Pokemon to borrow for the quest. Thanks to this rental system, the barrier of entry is practically non-existent but that doesn’t mean success is guaranteed.

One of the most compelling elements is the fact that you’re presented with a series of pathways to choose from. This added player autonomy is a welcomed addition to the random nature of raids. Each pathway allows you to battle a different type of Pokemon (ex. Poison vs Flying) so you’ll need to be strategic about which challenge is best for your team.

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Once you’ve defeated a Pokemon in battle you can catch it and choose to swap it with your current Pokemon or leave it behind and keep rolling with the one you brought to the battle. But the catch is your current Pokemon’s HP and status effects carry over after the fight, so a new one in better shape could definitely be worthwhile.

Each adventure takes you through four total battles and by the end you’ll get to choose one Pokemon you’ve defeated to add to your team permanently. Of course, most folks will likely pick whatever glorious legendary is waiting for them at the end, but still, it’s nice to have options.

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To offset this challenge, there are NPC trainers along the way that provide a helping hand by lending you a different Pokemon, giving you a held item, or healing up your team for the battles ahead. Of course, this aid comes in the form of a dice roll to keep things interesting. And if four Pokemon are knocked out you’ll have to start from the beginning.

Becoming a Pokemon Star

Finishing all the stories in the base game and both DLC packs gives you the chance to participate in the Galarian Star Tournament multibattles. And you’ll get to partner with other NPC trainers you’ve met to face off against the best in Galar.

Apparently the NPC trainers you choose to team up with can reveal a whole new side to familiar friends and foes that you didn’t see before. Hopefully, those mysterious variations end up being meaningful or interesting and not something so subtle that it goes unnoticed entirely. Overall, the Galarian Star Tournament is definitely here for those players who are hungry for more ways to battle once the story is over.

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More Stories to Discover

The wild area was one of the most exciting additions to Pokemon but its scale and scope weren’t quite as grand as I’d originally envisioned. Thankfully each expansion has also meant more areas to explore. And with that comes more stories to uncover. Without any spoilers, I can say I’m interested in seeing the ominous wonder of the Crown Tundra unfold.

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With Isle of Armor being a fairly short experience, I imagine Crown Tundra’s campaign will be comparable in length (though I wasn’t given a specific estimation). While there are some promising elements from what I’ve seen of Crown Tundra and more to do for those already invested, the DLC may fail to demand the attention of lapsed players unless they have very specific goals for their Pokedex or competitive teams.

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Janet Garcia is IGN’s associate guides editor. You can follow her on Twitter @Gameonysus.

We’re all looking to get a piece of the next-gen pie, some are even quite desperate in fact, and we don’t blame you. But, we do hope you’re not this desperate. UK retailer Currys PC World currently has the Xbox Series X listed for an eye-watering £2449. That’s right, almost two-and-a-half-thousand of the Queen’s finest pound sterling, and about $3,200 USD at the time of writing.

But why, you might be asking, is a major British retailer deliberately selling the console at such a ridiculous price? Rather strangely, this surprise price tag is just another part of the retailer’s preorder process.

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According to Nick Hayden, Head of Gaming at Currys PC World, the “unique pricing strategy” has been put in place to prioritize those who have already preordered the console. Every customer who has managed to secure a preorder has been supplied a code that will effectively discount the listing by £2000, back down to the expected £449.

Those who had preordered an Xbox Series X (or PS5) with Currys were already required to put down a £5 deposit and this current situation is, presumably, a way for the retailer to give everyone an option to pay the full price for the console now, or when it ships in November.

In case you were wondering, those in the UK can actually go through to the order page and attempt to buy the console for the full £2449, seriously. However, before any gamers with more money than sense jump the gun, Currys does have a failsafe in place, as all orders that are placed without the special promotional code will be canceled. Which, to be quite frank, is a very good thing.

The codes were actually only valid up until October 18, 2020, so now the page is just sitting idle with a big fat price tag attached to it. There’s a very good chance that the console will drop back down in price soon to allow others to preorder, or simply just buy it on release day.

If you want any updates on Xbox Series X preorders, we’ve actually got a dedicated update page. We’d also recommend following @IGNDeals or @IGNUKDeals for live preorder updates on both the PS5 and Xbox Series X.

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Robert Anderson is a Commerce Writer for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21

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A class action lawsuit has been brought against EA Games in Canada, with the plaintiffs essentially arguing that the games giant is profiting off an illegal gambling business by selling randomized loot boxes for cash. It’s remarkably similar to a suit filed against EA in California this August, which alleged that FIFA’s Ultimate Team mode is essentially gambling.

The Canadian suit was first spotted in a Vancouver “who’s getting sued” column by The Patch Notes, a game industry-focused law blog. The Patch Notes has found and uploaded the full Notice of Civil Claim, which contains the full details on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit is being brought against EA by two individuals who describe themselves as customers of EA. One is described to have purchased loot boxes for EA’s Madden NFL games, while the other bought loot boxes for various NHL games. As a class action lawsuit, however, the action is being brought against EA on behalf of everyone who purchased loot boxes in any of EA’s games since 2008–which may mean a hefty payout on EA’s part if the suit is successful.

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The famous Peanuts TV specials, including “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” and “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” will no longer air on traditional TV.

Apple has announced that it signed a wide-ranging deal with the Peanuts rights-holders to bring these specials and more to Apple TV+. The first of them, the Great Pumpkin Halloween special, started streaming on the service on October 19 for subscribers; everyone can watch it for free from October 30-November 1.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving will then debut on Apple TV+ on November 18 for subscribers, before everyone can watch for free November 25-27. Finally, the Christmas special will debut for subscribers on December 4 and then become free for everyone December 11-13.

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Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales has received an update on Switch, and it’s added a major new feature. Update 1.0.2 features minor stability and bug fixes, but the main change is the addition of cross-save support with the PC version of the game.

This extends to the Steam and GOG versions, so you can swap your saves back and forth and take your adventure on the go. This is a feature not available in the PS4 and Xbox One versions–one also available in the Switch version of The Witcher 3.

Speaking of the Switch version of The Witcher 3, it’s also received an update. Here’s what it adds:

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Despite being well over a decade old, Middle-earth MMO Lord Of The Rings Online is still adding new content, progressing its post-War Of The Ring story through the Fourth Age. The next story to be told after the fall of Sauron is the War of the Three Peaks, with the Dwarf Prince Durin marching to reclaim the mountain stronghold of Gundabad.

The new expansion brings a new six-person Instance called Shakalush, the Stair Battle, as well as a new raid called Amdân Dammul, the Bloody Threshold. The War of the Three Peaks also introduces Missions, a new style of repeatable Instance for one or two players to grind for loot and other bonuses.

Fans of Middle-earth’s cinematic adaptions may know Gundabad from Peter Jackson’s 2014 film The Battle of the Five Armies, which saw Legolas and Tauriel storming the orc stronghold. The War of the Three Peaks’ main antagonist is an Orc named Gorgar the Ruthless, who is the son of the Hobbit trilogy antagonist Bolg–though don’t expect too much of a tie-in, as Lord of the Rings Online is based on the books, not the movies.

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The Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War beta has come to a close, and everyone who took part is getting a freebie for Call of Duty Mobile. Activision is giving everyone who played the beta a code to unlock the Black Ops Cold War character Russell Adler as a playable character for Call of Duty Mobile.

Codes to redeem the character are going out now, so check your email associated with Call of Duty. From there, you can follow the “redeem now” button and then enter your ID details and the code to unlock Adler. Once claimed, the reward will appear in your in-game mailbox inside Call of Duty Mobile.

Adler is available for both the standard multiplayer and battle royale. A new character to the Call of Duty universe, Adler is a mysterious CIA operative who lives in the shadows and is capable of “switching between disarming charisma and emotionless brutality in an instant,” according to Activision.

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As of today, Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming service is in operation, if only for a select group of users. People who signed up for the service’s early access period have started receiving invitations to join, which includes signing up for a $6 monthly subscription as well as an invite to buy Amazon’s $50 Luna Controller.

Amazon is the latest big company to get in on cloud gaming, with others including Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Sony already in on the action. Announced just under a month ago, invites have started going out to people in the US who signed up for early access–which you can still do here if you’re curious.

Users who sign up for the early access program will get a 7-day free trial, after which they’ll have to pay a beta price of $6 per month, which will presumably increase when Luna+ enters full release. Amazon also sent out a link to the Luna Controller, which currently can only be bought by people signed up for Luna+. The controller also has an early access discount, currently retailing at $50 while its full price will eventually increase to $70.

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Ten years after Amnesia: The Dark Descent set the template for indie horror, Swedish developer Frictional Games has released a direct sequel, Amnesia: Rebirth. After spin-off Machine For Pigs didn’t quite satisfy fans of the original, reviews suggest Rebirth may be just what they were looking for.

Overall, critics were impressed by Frictional’s story-heavy approach with Amnesia: Rebirth, including GameSpot’s own 8/10 review. “With Amnesia: Rebirth, it feels like Frictional has fully refined its particular approach to horror,” wrote reviewer Phil Hornshaw. “You’re trapped in a deadly, smothering world, struggling against your character’s limitations and even her perceptions. Rebirth is Frictional’s best game yet, marrying a deep, mysterious story to the signature mechanics the developer has been refining over the course of 13 years of horror games”

We’ve collected some more reviews below, with other critics who got their hands on the game ahead of its October 20 release generally agreeing that the protagonist Tasi Trianon’s story is gripping and involving, even if Frictional sacrificed some of the fear factor in service of the narrative focus. Critics generally praised the game’s refinement of mechanics that have come to be standard in Frictional’s horror games, though some were disappointed that new mechanics weren’t fully realized and could feel stale by endgame. Others warned that the game’s point-and-click mechanics could feel fiddly and imprecise on the PS4. For more reviews, check out the pieces that have been collected by our sister site Metacritic.

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