Loadouts have become an increasingly important part of the Call of Duty series over the past two years. Players can create their ideal weapon in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone by equipping attachments, camos, charms, stickers, and more with the Gunsmith feature. Activision wants players go further with their creations and share their loadouts on social media.
Loadout and Gunsmith systems are mainstays of recent Call of Duty games.
The patent goes in depth about what the new sharing system might feature, including the ability to challenge other players to beat your best scores and records. “According to an aspect of the invention, the sharing engine may further enable a player to issue challenges to one or more other video game player,” the patent reads. “To obtain or exceed certain player performance statistics, weapon usage statistics, or ratings, and/or achieve other objectives using a given weapon configuration.”
The existence of a patent doesn’t mean that the feature is coming to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War or Warzone, but it does make it more likely. Patents are uncovered all the time in the video game industry, but the inventions they cover don’t always see the light of day.
Call of Duty developers split loadout functionality between Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare earlier in November. Players now have the ability to make ten custom loadouts for each game, giving them more content to share on social media if Treyarch follows through on this patent.
Getting an Apple Watch opens up a whole new world, where all the tools and apps you need are only a glance away, all while looking like a relatively stylish accessory and not some gaudy appliance. Amazon and Walmart are running some of the best deals on Apple Watches this week, meaning you can finally snag one for a little less than you otherwise would have had to shell out.
Wev’e rounded up all the best Apple Watch deals we can find and listed them out below. Make sure to check out Walmart’s great 40% discount on the Apple Watch Series 3 with GPS.
If none of those deals strike your fancy, check out all the links below to see the rest of our Black Friday deals coverage. We’ve got the best deals for video games, gaming PCs, graphics cards, 4K TVs, and much more. You can also follow the IGN Deals Twitter account for live updates on stuff like PS5 availability.
A bug in Xbox Live allowed hackers to find any email associated with a registered gamertag. The site used to report bad behavior in the Xbox online community was hiding a vulnerability that allowed hackers to snag user email addresses.
Motherboard reported that last week an anonymous hacker reached out to them claiming to be able to find the email attached to any Xbox gamertag. Motherboard verified the hacker’s claims by sending them two gamertags, one of which was created specifically for this testing. Within seconds the hacker sent back the email addresses these tags were registered with. Normally, these email addresses are supposed to be private. Another anonymous hacker told Motherboard that the bug could be found in the Xbox Live enforcement portal. This page is where players can contact the Microsoft team that monitors Xbox’s online communities.
Despite the apparent threat to customer security, Microsoft’s original response to this security breach was not exactly urgent. In an email response to Motherboard’s bug report, the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC for short) said, “An email may be considered sensitive information, however, since it provides nothing else to identify the issuer, is not something that meets MSRC bar for service. As such, MSRC is not tracking the issue and will leave it to the product group to determine a mitigation as needed.”
But on Tuesday a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that it “released an update to help protect customers.” One of the anonymous hackers who contacted Motherboard specifically requested that reporting on the leak not be published until after a fix had been made because it was “the easiest vulnerability I’ve ever found.” Ensuring such precautions are taken is important, even with information that’s not extremely delicate like email addresses. Hackers have a precedent of using these kinds of vulnerabilities to dox people, like in 2017 when they used a similar bug on Instagram and created a searchable database to dox celebrities.
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GameStop’s Black Friday deals on Nintendo games are among the best around. When live, they reflect some pretty unparalleled savings on games we’ve never seen offered at such low prices. GameStop’s Black Friday deals are quite good this year, and you also have the option to have a lot of the games and accessories delivered curbside at your local store, if you prefer.
The Halo series has long been underrepresented on PC, but that’s no longer the case. The recently concluded Halo: The Master Chief Collection compiles together six different games–Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Reach, and Halo 4–complete with overhauled visuals and online multiplayer support intact. It’s an incredible package for Halo fans or newcomers, only lacking the most recent game, Halo 5: Guardians, which still isn’t available on PC.
In any normal year, Thanksgiving is a time for getting together with family to eat, drink, and, yes, give thanks. Of course, 2020 will be very different for many of us, but family remains at the heart of the day, even if some of those celebrations will be happening remotely this year. And what better to do after gorging on food with our loved ones than to watch some movies about other families?
There are of course many kids movies centered around families, while the emotional rollercoaster of dysfunctional households has fuelled great drama for decades. Sometimes family can be a close, loving, positive thing, and sometimes it can be a toxic environment that’s destructive to everyone in it. There are also movies that are initially about something else, but in which the importance of family becomes a driving theme.
We’ve rounded up some of our favorite movies about families. Some of these films are about iconic and inspiring cinematic families, while others are less obvious choices that don’t always show the family in a positive light. But they all illustrate how the dynamics of the family unit can make for great cinema, and might even help us look at our own families in a different way. And once you’ve read this, you can continue the cinematic Thanksgiving celebrations with our look at the best feast scenes in film.
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13. Ant-Man and The Wasp
The second installment of the Ant-Man franchise might be the MCU’s best look at family, which could be a little ironic depending on what you took away from the first Ant-Man film, which featured Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) basically screwing up every relationship he had over and over again. This time around, however, Scott is less in the business of accidentally (or intentionally) burning bridges and more about repairing them, both for himself and for the people around him. There are lovely, and hilarious, reunions here, fantastic father-daughter moments, and even some great found family friendships.–M. Downey
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12. Parenthood
The appeal of the Buckman family in Ron Howard’s much-loved 1989 comedy Parenthood comes from how recognizable their life is for so many parents. There are no surprise twists or unlikely plot developments, just day-to-day ups-and-downs, as Gil and Karen Buckman (Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen) bring up four kids under the watchful eye of Gil’s stern father. The movie inspired two TV versions, the most recent running for six seasons until 2015.
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11.Spy Kids
Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids movies gave us an entire family of spies. Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez (Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) are international agents who have kept their jobs secret from their children Carmen and Juni. But when they are captured by villains, the kids have to quickly learn on the job to save them. These films were important in that they presented a Latino family in a mainstream kids movie–something Rodriguez had to fight for–and the director puts as much emphasis on the love and support of a close family as he does on cool gadgets and exciting action.
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10. Uncle Buck
Buck Russell (John Candy) is the unemployed, hard-living, and generally irresponsible brother to Bob Russell, a normal, sensible suburban husband and dad. But when Bob’s wife Cindy discovers her father has had a heart attack, Buck is called in at short notice to look after their three kids. As anyone who has seen John Hughes’ classic comedy knows, Buck might be a disaster as an adult, but he’s a brilliant uncle, sparking an immediate friendship with 8-year-old Miles and even warming the heart of moody teenager Tia. Buck is the uncle we wish we all had.
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9. Poltergeist
Steven Spielberg’s movies of the ’70s and early ’80s often focused on family units facing stress in extraordinary situations, such as the marriage collapse in Close Encounters and the struggles of a single mom in ET: The Extra Terrestrial. In Poltergeist, which Spielberg wrote and maybe directed, Steve and Diane Freeling must deal with the abduction of their young daughter Carol Anne by unseen spectral forces. It’s impossible not to root for the couple as they struggle to support their two other kids while dealing with the ghostly assault on their home.
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8. The Royal Tenenbaums
The Tenenbaums are the extremely dysfunctional family in Wes Anderson’s acclaimed comedy drama. Headed by the eccentric Royal, three kids–Chas, Richie, and Margot–initially showed great promise in their respective fields (business, writing, and tennis) but few of these dreams have amounted to much in adult life. From infidelity to attempted suicide, the Tenenbaums aren’t a family you’d want to be part of, but in Anderson’s hands, its great fun watching them fall apart and come back together.
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7. The Incredibles
Pixar combined the superhero movie with the family film for this classic animated adventure. Despite their amazing powers, Elastigirl and Mr. Incredible are a believable, flawed, sympathetic mom and dad trying to do their best for their kids. Admittedly, most parents don’t have to deal with an insane supervillain genius trying to kill them, but the everyday aspects of their suburban life are every bit as important as the fantastic superhero action. It also confirmed Craig T. Nelson as one of Hollywood’s favorite movie dads, having also played the loveable father in Poltergeist and the Parenthood TV show.
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6. Parasite
Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning South Korean satire follows the Kim family, who leave a life of poverty by infiltrating the wealthy Park family and posing as highly qualified professionals. The Kims are hardly a model of good behavior, and inevitably their wild scheme eventually falls bloodily apart. But they show great resourcefulness and stick together when the going gets tough, and unlike the uptight Parks, know how to have fun.
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5. Fantastic Mr. Fox
Wes Anderson’s first claymation film, Fantastic Mr. Fox, is just as quirky and unusual as his live-action work, if not more–and that’s what makes it, well, pretty fantastic. The story of both a literal family (the Foxes) and the family they’ve found in their large community of fellow animals, Fantastic Mr. Fox deals with the expectations we set for each other, living up to the legacies passed down to us, and of course, eating tons and tons of food with absolutely wild abandon. This is one for all ages, all year round, but it’s especially perfect for the autumn with its gorgeous, fall-leaves color palette and warm, kind-hearted storytelling.–M. Downey
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4. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Perhaps the most famous family in horror, the Sawyers are the terrifying Texan cannibal clan in Tobe Hooper’s 1974 scary masterpiece. Like many aspiring American families, they run a small business–a gas station–and had steady jobs (in the local abattoir) before it was shut down. They love having guests over to their house too, making them the perfect family to sit down with on Thanksgiving–as long as you don’t mind being served up as dinner.
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3. Little Women
Louisa May Alcott’s story of the March sisters has been retold on screen many times over the decades, and as the success of Greta Gerwig’s superb 2019 adaptation showed, it continues to find new fans. It’s easy to see why–in Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy, Alcott created four very distinct, independent, inspiring characters that still resonate today. Little Women reveals the harsh realities of life in 19th century America, as mom Margaret tries to keep the family warm and fed while their dad fights in the Civil War, but also shows how the family supports each other throughout.
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2. The Fast & Furious movies
Say what you will about blood-related relatives, there’s more than one kind of family. To Dominic Toretto, his family members are the people with whom he pulls off ridiculous world-saving plots around the world, as if they’re the Avengers of street racing. These are the people he counts on when his back is against the wall, and he would drop everything to help then in any way he can. Family is what’s most important to Dom and, while the roster may change from film to film–please come back The Rock–family is forever in Fast & Furious, even when you supposedly die like Han. — Chris E. Hayner
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1. The Addams Family
The Addams family is one of the most famous households in American pop culture, and for all the spooky darkness of their lives, one of the happiest. The family was created by cartoonist Charles Addams in the 1930s, but it was the ’60s TV show that really established their personalities, with the hit ’90s movies bringing the lives of Gomez, Morticia, Fester, Wednesday, and Pugsley to a newer generation. Gomez and Morticia are as in love as the day they first met, care deeply for their kids, and are friendly to their neighbours and any visitors they have. Sure, those visitors are usually terrified by the spooky house and the macabre interests of its owners, but in most other respects, the Addams are the model family.
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Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company
With the release of the Deep Stone Crypt raid in Destiny 2, a whole new crop of Exotic weapons and armor pieces are now available with the Beyond Light expansion. Some require completing quests to reach them, while others have their own prerequisites. With Cloudstrike, a powerful sniper rifle that zaps enemies with lightning, you’ll have to complete a few tasks before you can take a crack at earning the Exotic.
Cloudstrike is technically a random drop in the Empire Hunt activity on Europa, but you have to unlock your chance to nab it. Here’s everything you need to know so you can track down Cloudstrike and fill out your collection of new weapons.
Variks, one of Europa’s quest-givers, has been dishing out special Sabotage bounties since the expansion was released. After the Deep Stone Crypt raid was added to the game, it became possible to access several that were previously hidden. First, though, you’ll need to knock out a story quest.
To do that, you’ll have to head to the Exo Stranger and pick up the story mission called A Hard Rain Falls. This is a reference to how the world has changed as a result of a team completing the Deep Stone Crypt raid. Because of the destruction of the orbital platform that’s part of the raid, one area of Europa becomes “eclipsed” every week. You’ll see which area is eclipsed when you check the Europa Director map. When an area is eclipsed, the Fallen and Darkness presence there increases, changing how things in the zone work slightly.
For our purposes, you just need to know that completing A Hard Rain Falls requires you to go to whatever area is eclipsed and complete events. Pick up kill enemies, pick up patrols, and complete Public Events. You’ll get the best progress on the mission from completing Heroic Public Events and killing powerful enemies–the ones who sport orange and yellow life bars. Knock out a few Heroics and you should complete the mission without much issue.
You’ll need to knock out the Europan Explorer I and II sabotage bounties from Variks before you can get a crack at Cloudstrike.
Now head to Variks. Finishing A Hard Rain Falls should have filled out a bunch of new Sabotage bounties that weren’t previously available (the rest unlock when you complete the Exo Stranger’s last story quest, Born of Darkness 4). The two bounties you need to finish are Europan Explorer I and Europan Explorer II–the second one only becomes available when you finish the first. Make sure you have a fairly decent stock of Herealways Pieces, as you’ll need 10 to buy the first bounty, 20 for the second, and if you’ve completed Variks’ other upgrades, 20 for one of his Empire Hunt missions. You can earn more Herealways on Europa from completing Lost Sectors, killing High-Value Targets, and beating Public Events.
Both these bounties are pretty simple. Europan Explorer I just requires you to kill enemies on Europa with your various gun types: 50 for Kinetic, 50 for Energy, and 25 for Heavy. Europan Explorer II sends you into Empire Hunts, where you need to kill 30 total powerful enemies. You should be able to do that in one Empire Hunt if you’re careful–make sure not to kill any of the big boss enemies until you’ve knocked out all the smaller minions in any given room, or you might rob yourself of the opportunity to kill every orange- and yellow-lifebar enemy in the mission. You might also want to avoid The Warrior if you’re trying to do this in one go, since we only got 29 powerful enemies in that one and had to do a whole second hunt.
Step 3: Complete Variable Difficulty Empire Hunts
Variable difficulty Empire Hunts are launched from the Director, and not found as mission banners on Europa’s surface.
Once you complete Europan Explorer II, you’ll gain access to Empire Hunts that function more like Shadowkeep’s Nightmare Hunts, where you can adjust the difficulty from Adept all the way to Master. You won’t find these on Variks’s menu, however–the new hunts are located on the Europa Director Map, toward the top. That means you can launch the hunts from orbit. They’re also quite a bit speedier, since they cut out the requirements that send you around Europa to kill various enemies before you actually unlock the Empire Hunt mission.
Every difficulty level of the variable Empire Hunts lists Cloudstrike as a potential reward. Unfortunately, the emphasis is on “potential,” as Cloudstrike is listed as a “Rare” drop. That means you might get it from a variable-difficulty Empire Hunt, but you also might not. The good news is that the rarity is the same for every difficulty level, so you don’t need to bother with the harder hunts unless you really want to.
Unfortunately, that’s it. Once you have the variable-difficulty Empire Hunts unlocked, it’s just a matter of completing them to get Cloudstrike. Keep working on Variks’s Sabotage bounties and you can amp up the Empire Hunt rewards, adding a weekly pinnacle drop. But if you want the Exotic, you’re going to have to keep playing hunts until it drops for you.
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Hades is a fantastic twist on the roguelike genre, and you can get it on sale for Black Friday 2020 this year. Supergiant’s latest and greatest adventure has a gripping narrative that stretches over dozens of attempts to escape the underworld. Whether you want to play on PC or Nintendo Switch, you’ll be able to get a 20% discount.
Hades deals are available on both Steam and the Nintendo eShop. You can pick it up for $20 on either platform. The ability to use one save file across both platforms is coming in the future as well, so you can pick it up on both PC and Switch if you want it at home and on-the-go.
Hades took some of the best elements of Supergiant’s previous games, Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre, and combined them into one amazing package that has changed the roguelike genre.
“That long-tail approach to worldbuilding may not work for everyone; before I played Hades, I didn’t see myself as someone who’d continue to play a roguelike after beating it. But I wanted to keep learning more about these characters and this underworld enough to keep coming back,” Suriel Vazquez wrote in GameSpot’s Hades review. “That, along with a robust postgame that alters every weapon and boss, lets you make the game even harder for more rewards, and offers even more reasons to play an already entrancing mix of RPG and action combat, has absolutely hooked me. When I’m not playing Hades, I’m thinking about how cool it’d be to build the Exagryph machine gun with lighting boons combo that got me that first victorious run, but also throw some critical damage on top of that.”
Three more Legendary Pokemon are back in Pokemon Go for a limited time. The Legendary Lake trio Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie are once again appearing in five-star Raids as part of the new Lake Legends event. To help you add the Legendary Pokemon to your collection, we’ve rounded up some tips on how to beat and catch Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie below.
Lake Trio Raid Hours
Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie will all be appearing in five-star Raids until 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET on November 30. These Raids don’t follow a set schedule, so they can occur any time, but you’ll receive an in-game notification when a Raid is about to begin at a nearby Gym. As usual, you’ll need to have a Raid Pass to participate in a Raid while physically at a Gym, or a Remote Raid Pass to join it remotely.
Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie
Your best chance to encounter the Legendary Pokemon will happen on Wednesday, November 25, when Niantic hosts its weekly Raid Hour event. From 6-7 PM local time tonight, Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie Raids will be occurring much more frequently at Gyms, effectively ensuring you have a chance to battle the Legendaries.
Lake Trio Weaknesses And Counters
Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie are all pure Psychic types, so regardless of which one you encounter, you’ll generally want to use the same strategy. Dark, Ghost, and Bug Pokemon all have an advantage against Psychic types, so your best bet will be to bring along Pokemon of those types when battling them.
Dark types in particular will be most effective against the Lake trio, as they resist Psychic attacks. Some great choices include Darkrai, Tyranitar, Houndoom, and Weavile. Scizor is your best bet when it comes to Bug Pokemon thanks to its part-Steel typing, making it also resistant against Psychic attacks. Ghost Pokemon don’t have any resistance on their own, but they do deal super-effective damage against the Legendaries, so you can round out your team with Pokemon like Giratina, Chandelure, and Mismagius.
Types To Avoid
Psychic Pokemon have an advantage over Poison and Fighting types, so you’ll want to avoid using Pokemon of those types when you battle the Lake trio. That includes Gengar; although the Ghost Pokemon will dish out super-effective damage to the Legendaries, it’ll take super-effective damage in return due to its part-Poison typing.
Returning television network G4 Media, which hosted Attack of the Show and X-Play, released a Thanksgiving reunion with the shows’ original cast. The approximately one-hour special also revealed the networks’ latest on-air hire.
WWE superstar Austin Watson, better known as Xavier Woods and one-half of The New Day (the current WWE Raw Tag Team Champions), is G4’s “first official on-air talent [hire].” This comes after Watson pitched extensively to the network on Twitter through his #Creed4G4 campaign, which was a multi-month endeavor and generated millions of views online.
Alongside Watson in the G4 Thanksgiving reunion special is the original cast of Attack of the Show and X-Play: Adam Sessler, Blair Herter, Kevin Pereira, Kirstin Adams, Morgan Webb, and Olivia Munn. All of them reminisce about various moments in their respective show’s history, including that one time in 2008 when Olivia Munn shaved Kevin Pereira’s face and head.
You can check out the reunion special below, which is moderated by comedian Ron Funches. It will also air on SyFy Network and Peacock, Saturday, November 27 at midnight (ET and PT).
G4 is also holding a weeklong Gravython charity drive. It features a variety of streamers and professional esports organizations, including Dr. Lupo and Team Liquid, as they host livestreams on their respective Twitch and YouTube Gaming channels. The Gravython charity drive supports nonprofit organizations like CodePath, Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code, Boys & Girls Club of America, No Kid Hungry, The National Fragile X Foundation, and Connor’s Cure.
This is all in anticipation of G4’s imminent return slated for next year. While the network hasn’t outlined its revival plans yet, it seems the return of G4 could go digital this time around.
