Did ‘WandaVision’ Fans Spot An Error Afoot?
Vision may need to … reboot.
New Apex Legends Hotfix Patch Re-Enables Dialogue “That Was Wrongly Disabled”
Respawn has released a new hotfix patch for Apex Legends. The patch fixes one of the more unfortunate bugs that popped into Apex Legends at the start of Season 8; it prevented players from hearing all of the awesome interactions between the playable characters during a match.
Alongside re-enabling some dialogue “that was wrongly disabled,” the patch also addresses the bug that prevented players from being scanned a second time if they had just been scanned by a Bloodhound. A small fix, but a welcome one.
Bloodhound mains have noticed that, since the start of Season 8, if you scanned a group of enemies that a Bloodhound from a different squad had just scanned, it would somehow not pick up all the targets. Though not a game-breaking bug, this issue has been annoying, especially since Bloodhound’s primary purpose is to track targets and inform their squadmates of where enemies are located. So we’re glad to see it fixed.
Watch The Street Fighter 5 Winter Update Livestream Here
Capcom will hold a livestream on Thursday, February 11 starting at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET to talk all things Street Fighter 5, focusing on a “winter update” that will include information about new fighters, esports content, a new gameplay mechanic, and Season 5 updates.
The studio also said that the livestream will feature the reveal of Rose, Street Fighter 4’s mystic fighter. Alongside Rose, Capcom will unveil the goofy Saikyo fighter Dan Hibiki, as well as disclose a new game mechanic from battle director Ryuichi “Woshige” Shigeno. Other guests include director Takayuki Nakayama, producer Shuhei Matsumoto, and DJ Steve Aoki.
How To Watch Street Fighter 5 Winter Update Stream
Fans can stream the Street Fighter 5 Winter Update broadcast right here once it goes live, as well as on Capcom’s official Twitch and YouTube channels.
MLB The Show 21: How To Sign Up For PlayStation/Xbox Tech Test
Xbox and PlayStation players can now sign-up for a chance to participate in a Tech Test for MLB The Show 21, which will take place later this month.
If you want to check out the game a bit early, you can sign up for a chance to participate in a Tech Test that will be held from February 23 at 10 AM PT to March 1 at 10 AM PT. If you are selected, you will receive a notification on whichever console you signed up for. Players will be able to download the Tech Test before the servers go live, so you can prepare in advance if need be. To do so, you simply have to consent to the Tech Test Agreement and connect either your PSN or Xbox account.
The Test itself will feature four game modes you can experiment with: (Diamond Dynasty) vs CPU, (Diamond Dynasty) Events, (Diamond Dynasty) Casual, (Diamond Dynasty) Play with Friends; Battle Royale. But don’t get too used to what you find while playing these modes. None of your items, stats, or progress will transfer over if you get the game at launch. The player attributes you encounter while playing in the Tech Test will also not be the final versions we’ll see in the release version.
Republicans Unswayed By Evidence Trump ‘Incited’ Mob Against U.S. Capitol
“I don’t think there’s anything that’s been said by either side that has changed any votes,” Sen. Jim Inhofe said.
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox Review
Adol Christin, the protagonist of Falcom’s long-lived Ys series, is a real adventurer’s adventurer. He’s been drifting from place to place since his journey began on Japanese PCs in 1987, collecting tales, meeting new people, and getting caught up in towns’ supernatural business. In Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, Adol blows into the town of Balduq and discovers a particularly dark secret seething in its depths. His trouble is our gain: Ys IX is yet another deeply satisfying action RPG starring the red-haired sword-swinger. It has a lot in common with 2016’s Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, but avoids feeling like “just more of the same” thanks to new abilities that make exploration fast, frantic, and fun.
Unlike more serialized RPGs such as Trails of Cold Steel, it’s easy to jump into Ys games because the story’s mostly self-contained. Granted, there are a few jokes and references in Ys IX that are clearly for long-time fans, but the premise is simple: The story opens with Adol being arrested for his many, many crimes against the far-reaching Romun Empire, and his lack of surprise at the arrest is honestly funny. His interrogation, where he’s grilled about certain Ys series’ tropes (“Why do ships seem to sink when you’re on them? How do you keep losing priceless historical relics?”) is also great. I laughed out loud when Adol acquired one of Ys IX’s legendary swords, and one of the dialogue options was, “I’m going to lose this, aren’t I?”
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During his escape, Adol ends up afflicted with a “curse” – and an honestly badass wardrobe to go along with it. He’s a “Monstrum” now, and is henceforth known as “The Crimson King.” (Is that a prog rock reference or a callout to Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series? You make the call!) If he wishes to know the reason behind it, he must uncover the secret seething in the heart of Balduq’s enormous prison. Thus begins a heck of a lot of sword-swinging.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Ys%20XI’s%20familiarity%20isn’t%20boring.”]In that respect, Ys IX is an action RPG that – to reiterate a previous point – looks and plays similarly to the excellent Ys VIII. While Ys VIII added a whole new literal dimension to the series by bringing it into the 3D realm, IX doesn’t have the same level of novelty, but its familiarity isn’t boring. Hacking up foes across sprawling plains, ancient ruins, and lava-filled caverns to name a few is a good deal of satisfying fun, even if the environments outside of town are a bit visually bland.
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It’s a while before you’re allowed to see those locations, though, because a hefty chunk of Ys IX’s roughly 30 hours of story takes place within the city of Balduq. I was initially a little bored, but my outlook changed when Adol gained his earliest Monstrum “Gifts” – and these new movement powers are where Ys IX begins to feel different from its predecessor. Crimson Line lets him grapple from rooftop to rooftop, Hunter’s Descent lets him glide, and Heaven’s Run lets him run straight up walls. (“Hardcore Parkour!”) These early gifts alone let Adol Batman the hell out of Balduq – yes, I’m using “Batman” as a verb – and it became much easier to appreciate my time in the sprawling city. Gifts are employed in battle, too: Crimson Line zips you directly into an enemy’s face, for example. (All the better to stab your eyes out, my dear.)
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=For%20more%20of%20a%20challenge%20%E2%80%93%20and%20a%20deeper%20game%20%E2%80%93%20I%20recommend%20cranking%20the%20difficulty%20up.”]Fans of musou games like Dynasty Warriors will probably find themselves right at home in the moment-to-moment hacking and slashing your way through hordes of enemies. But like Dynasty Warriors, the combat in Ys IX isn’t particularly deep or challenging, and Ys IX is a pretty quick game by JRPG standards as a consequence. For more of a challenge – and a deeper game – I recommend cranking the difficulty up. You still aren’t going to get Souls-like battles or anything, but the harder monsters encourage you to learn patterns and use the cool and satisfying Flash Guard parry that slows down time after a perfect dodge.
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I personally took a little bit of extra time to wrap up quests and procure knick-knacks that can be used to upgrade weapons and create gifts for my comrades, and combined with exploration of the corners of the map that added a few more hours to my playtime.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=I%20was%20inspired%20to%20solve%20Balduq’s%20problems%20and%20help%20out%20Adol’s%20new%20pals.”]Ys games usually come with their fair share of fun characters and a compelling story, but I was surprised at how invested I was in Ys events and characters. Mind, one of the characters, the Monstrum code-named Feral Hawk, is a bog-standard edgelord who just wants to swear and fight, but I enjoyed my time with the rest of the cast. I particularly have soft spots for the sweet and shy White Cat and the sickly but determined Renegade. Adol’s new friends play key roles in many of Ys IX’s subquests, which are refreshingly meaty despite being short, and are often tied into Ys IX’s overarching plot. While the main story challenges you to uncover Balduq’s strange secrets, the subquests focus more on a budding revolution within the nation against its Romun occupiers. However, the revolution’s old guard isn’t happy with the way the hot-headed young revolutionaries are conducting themselves. (The revolution’s former leader, a cigar-smoking octogenarian named Margot, is awesome.) Ys IX’s story isn’t as deep as what you’ll find in a Trails of Cold Steel game, but I was inspired to solve Balduq’s problems and help out Adol’s new pals.
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The friends Adol makes in Ys IX become important during the Grimwald Nox, a tower defense minigame that pops up at key story moments. The name is new but the concept isn’t: these missions are very similar to the base defense minigame in Ys VIII, right down to your rescued friends cheering you on and offering stat buffs and heals. You also use monster loot to craft defenses like canons and towers that inflict invaders with status ailments like sleep and poison to soften them up before you jump into combat. It still doesn’t feel fully fleshed out as a tower defense game, since you can’t freely decide where these defensive tools should be placed, which means there’s not a lot of strategy to be had in the Grimwald Nox. But there is a lot of intense swordplay as waves of demons bear down on you, hell-bent on destroying the Sphene crystal that must be protected. Once I learned that you shouldn’t skimp on beefing up the Grimwald Nox’s defenses (seriously, don’t), I started having a lot of fun in these twisted, monster-infested dimensions. You can just turn off your brain and put yourself on “auto” while you cut into monsters and collect their loot drops. It feels good, and hey, it’s cheaper than therapy.
Unfortunately, the busy Nox battles make it easy to spot one of Ys IX’s drawbacks: frame rate drops in busy areas, especially in the Coliseum region of Balduq, some of which persisted even after the launch patches. I also noticed texture pop-in, and a full-on game crash during one Grimwald Nox battle. I didn’t lose too much progress thanks to Ys IX’s robust auto-save system, but it’s always a bummer when PlayStation 4’s Blue Screen of Death puts a sudden end to your fun.
HBO Max’s Jean Smart Series Doesn’t Have A Name Yet, But There’s A Good Reason Why
The untitled Jean Smart series coming to HBO Max does not have an official title, and it’s just months away from debuting on the streaming service. The series follows a young stand-up comedian who lands a job writing jokes for an older comedian who works nightly in Las Vegas.
During the TCA winter press tour, the cast discussed the upcoming show where they delved into why the series doesn’t have a name yet. “I think part of what the challenge has been for a title is [that] the show really is trying to say so much at once,” explained executive producer and series creator Lucia Aniello. “And I think to try to summarize so many different things with just one or two or three words is an interesting exercise, and I think we’re in the middle of that exercise right now.
“But the show is obviously about a larger-than-life person, Deborah Vance (Jean Smart), and it also has a two handedness to it, but it also has an ensembleness to it as well. There’s just so much that we want to say and so to kind of boil it down into just a quickie kind of a title is an interesting process, and I think we really are just trying to find something that feels like it represents what the show is.”
The Mandalorian’s Gina Carano Faces Backlash Over Social Media Posts, Again
Actress Gina Carano is facing a backlash on social media over recent posts, including one that compared modern-day political disagreements to Nazi Germany.
Variety reports that the star stirred controversy on social media by sharing an Instagram post, suggesting that hating someone for their political views is akin to Germans hating Jewish citizens in 1930s Germany. The post had originally appeared on another account, but Carano’s sharing of it sparked controversy.
“Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children,” the post read. “Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views.”
American Horror Story Season 10: Release Date, Filming, And Everything Else We Know
One of the best things about American Horror Story is its self-contained nature. True, there are thematic continuities from season-to-season, and Season 8: Apocalypse was a crossover event that required having watched prior seasons to fully appreciate. But for the most part, the anthology concept holds up. Every new season, creator Ryan Murphy and his rotating, repertory cast have the opportunity to expand their audience. And if you’re not feeling it? There will be another season, and a completely different story the following year.
We just finished Season 9: 1984–an earnest celebration of slasher tropes that unfortunately did not feature Sarah Paulson, Jessica Lange, or Evan Peters. Here is everything we know so far about the upcoming American Horror Story: Season 10.