Author: Trafficblast

Learn To Use Damage Information

A lot of info is conveyed to you the first time you hit an opposing player with a shot. When you hit someone with your first bullet, you see how much damage you’ve inflicted–but Apex Legends also shows you exactly what kind of damage you’re inflicting. If your opponent is wearing a body shield, you’ll see an armor icon next to the damage number, and the color of the icon and numbers will tell you what kind of armor they’re wearing. Knowing how much damage you’re doing to an enemy can give you essential insights into how a fight is going, and whether you’re likely to win it.

When you engage someone and shoot them, note the damage you’ve done and the armor they’re wearing–white armor protects them for 50 damage points, blue armor for 75 points, and purple and gold armor for 100 points. If your armor is worse than theirs, you’ll want to think seriously about disengaging until you can get the upper hand by breaking their armor or otherwise out-damaging them. When damage numbers turn red, you know you’re through an enemy’s armor and damaging them directly–and if you see red numbers outlined in yellow, you know you’re dealing headshot damage. Getting used to recognizing how much damage you’ve done to an enemy and what kind of damage you’re doing will help you make key decisions, like whether to press the attack or fall back to heal.

You can change how damage information is displayed in Apex Legends to help you make those decisions. By default, damage info is set to “Stacking,” which adds up all the damage together. You can change it to “Floating,” which shows you how much damage each shot does individually, or “Both.” Pick the one that helps you the most–Stacking or Both should give you enough information to gauge how close to death anyone you’re fighting actually is.

Fans of the Borderlands series can rest easy, as developer Gearbox announced Borderlands 3 during its PAX East panel last week. Also during the panel, Gearbox confirmed the remaster of Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition. The release date for the remastered Borderlands: GotY is nearly here–here’s exactly when it unlocks and how to get it for free on PC.

The official Twitter account confirmed that Borderlands: GotY drops tomorrow, April 3. It’ll be available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One at 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET. Steam customers who own the existing Game of the Year Edition can download an update for free at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. It’s possible to obtain physical copies of the game on consoles, but they’re limited to US and Canada stores only.

When the Borderlands: GotY launched in October 2010, it gathered the original Borderlands with all four of its DLC packs–The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, and Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution–into one package. This remastered version will do the exact same, but will also bring about some new additions like gameplay tweaks (such as a new minimap, for example), a series of new guns, new character customization options, and more. Gearbox is also altering the campaign’s final boss, making it “more engaging, challenging, and rewarding.”

Further, an Ultra HD texture pack for Borderlands: The Handsome Collection will be available the same day as the Borderlands: GotY drops. According to the official Borderlands website, the UHD texture pack will affect “characters, vehicles, weapons and environments.” Gearbox didn’t specify how the UHD texture pack will affect the game, so it’s unclear if it’s receiving more frames per second, higher graphical fidelity, or both.

Borderlands: GotY is currently not live on neither the PlayStation 4 nor Xbox Store. However, it’s currently available for pre-order through GameStop for $30 on both platforms.

Late last month, it emerged that Sony would no longer offer PS4 game codes at retailers like GameStop and others beginning April 1. The thinking followed that GameStop and other affected brick-and-mortar stores would take a hit as a result. While it’s too early to say for sure, GameStop believes the move by Sony won’t have much of a negative impact.

Speaking on an earnings call today, GameStop CFO Rob Lloyd, who was involved in discussions with Sony about the change, said the majority of digital games bought at GameStop in fact come from point cards, not full-game download codes.

“Most of the sales of full-game downloads … at retail come in the form of currency,” he said. “So the move by Sony to go back to the currency model, we don’t expect it to have a material impact on our results because we’ll continue to sell that currency.”

GameStop is uniquely positioned to sell virtual currency thanks to its buy-sell-trade model, Lloyd said. He also said buying virtual currency at a physical retailer is also attractive for people who want to use cash, or those who are are unwilling or unable to use a credit card on the internet to buy directly from Sony or theoretically other digital stores.

Sony only stopped supplying full-game codes to GameStop and other retailers on April 1, so it’s certainly too early to say if the change will indeed have any material impact on the bottom lines of affected retailers.

GameStop recently reported earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter and full year, and it could have gone better; for the full year, GameStop lost $673 million. The retailer also said it expects next-generation consoles to possibly be announced or released soon.

The 2017 turn-based strategy game Tiny Metal was an homage to Advance Wars. Now two years later, developer Area 35 says it has learned from the experience and is aiming for a more feature-complete game at launch along with some new bells and whistles. Tiny Metal: Full Metal Rumble adds some quality-of-life and UI improvements. But a strategy sequel wouldn’t be a sequel without a new unit or two, and this one adds walking mechs and fueling requirements.

In the mission above, our forces aim to capture an enemy HQ in a snowy mountain region. The gameplay shows off some of the features that set Tiny Metal apart. Focus Fire lets you concentrate your attack when multiple units surround an enemy, and Assault lets you take some initial damage to push an enemy unit back a space. Check it all out above.

You pretty much can’t trust anyone or anything on April Fool’s Day, and that was the case when Maisie Williams appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show this week to discuss the final season of Game of Thrones. In a staged sequence, Fallon asks Williams, who plays Arya Stark on the hit HBO show, to give just a crumble of information about the final season.

Williams begins with the prepared answer you’d expect; emotional final days on set, sad to say goodbye to the cast, etc. But then she spills the beans, revealing that her character, Arya Stark, dies in the second episode. She looks genuinely shocked and dismayed about letting that slip. She tries to go on with the interview, but her grief is too great and she walks off stage. Fallon, too, does a bit of acting and appears dismayed and goes off to find Williams.

Then they both appear from behind the curtain and shout, “April Fools!” with big grins on their faces. We should have always seen this coming; it was April Fool’s Day.

It’s a fun sequence to watch play out, though, and Williams is a true acting talent with the way she sold her grief and dismay over revealing the Game of Thrones “spoiler.” In the end, we all got trolled, and–for better or worse–that’s what April Fool’s Day is all about.

The eighth and final season of Game of Thrones premieres April 14 on HBO, so there isn’t much more time to wait until we all find out who lives and dies, and how the story wraps up.

You need a javascript enabled browser to watch videos.

Please use a html5 video capable browser to watch videos.

This video has an invalid file format.

Sorry, but you can’t access this content!

You need a javascript enabled browser to watch videos.

Please use a html5 video capable browser to watch videos.

This video has an invalid file format.

Sorry, but you can’t access this content!

It’s a new month, and that means subscribers to Nintendo Switch Online are getting more free NES titles. This month’s lineup includes the classic boxing game Punch-Out!!, as well as Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels, which is known for its very difficult levels. The third game is the shoot-em-up Star Soldier.

These three games will become available to download starting on April 10. In the past, Japan has received different titles, but they seem to be the same this month. Here’s a trailer:

Free NES games is one the perks of signing up to Nintendo Switch Online. The catalog already includes iconic games like Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Yoshi. New titles are added on a monthly basis, so the offering pretty much keeps getting better and better.

Other benefits of Nintendo Switch Online is access to cloud saves (for some games) and of course the ability to play titles online to begin with.

A subscription to Nintendo Switch Online costs $4 USD/month or $8 USD for three months. A 12-month membership is available for $20 USD, while a Family Membership for up to eight Nintendo Account members costs $35 USD for a year. New subscribers can sign up with a seven-day free trial.

Bloodroots puts you in the boots of Mr. Wolf, a primeval hunter looking to exact bloody vengeance on a cabal of betrayers led by Mr. Black Wolf. The Hotline Miami-like action has you defeat arenas full of enemies with a series of regular and makeshift weapons, with the ever-present threat of death in a single blow. You’ll grab swords and axes to dispatch foes, as well as bludgeon them with found objects or roll on barrels to crush them underneath. Survival is hard, but chaining together attacks into a perfect combo run is even harder.

Developer Paper Cult promises that the ultraviolence is there for a purpose, and the game so far shows a surprising amount of humor. Just about everything is a weapon, including food like carrots and a full roast turkey. The enemy designs, like the boss character Mr. Boar, are given a cartoon aesthetic that shows a playfulness to juxtapose against its bloody mess.

Bloodroots is coming this summer. Check out some of the bloody good action above, and read more about the biggest games from PAX East 2019.

The annual fighting game tournament extravaganza known as the Evo Championship Series, a staple of the fighting game community (FGC), has unveiled how this year’s roster of games is performing based on current registration numbers. Evo president Joey Cuellar tweeted the rankings for the nine games featured on the main stage this year, and it comes with a few surprises (see below).

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the fact that Under Night In-Birth: Exe Late[st] stands tall with the fifth-highest registration. Although the core game of Under Night has been in arcades since 2012 and consoles since 2015, this year is its debut at the Evo main stage. This is in part thanks to Exe: Late[st] being the definitive version of the game which hit the PC, PS4, and PS Vita in 2018 for North America. The smooth, stylish 2D anime fighter comes from the relatively small developer French Bread (makers of the cult-classic Melty Blood series) who worked with Arc System Works for a few aspects of the game. As of now, Under Night even tops ArcSys’ Dragon Ball FighterZ, which had the highest registration at Evo 2018.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate topping the list doesn’t come as much of a surprise, however, considering the wide appeal, its recent release, and the retiring of both Smash Bros For Wii U and Smash Bros Melee. Tekken 7 is having a strong showing in its second year at Evo, followed by the long-timer Street Fighter V and the upcoming Mortal Kombat 11. Despite not launching until June 2019, the reboot of the SNK classic Samurai Shodown currently sits in 7th.

BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle has been sitting at 9th, but the crossover fighter has a large update for spring this year. We got our hands-on four of the new characters on the way, which you can see in the video above. The game unites the casts of BlazBlue, Persona 4, Under Night, and the animation series RWBY in a 2D tag-team fighter, and we awarded it a 9/10 in our review commending its exciting and deep, yet accessible mechanics.

Registration for each game will remain open until July 14; Evo 2019 will take place in Las Vegas, NV at the Mandalay Bay between August 2 and 4.