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Red Magic has been our favorite brand for budget gaming phones for the last few years. While Asus and Razer have been busy topping each other with 120Hz screens and the highest-end specs, Red Magic has been content to offer a 90Hz experience at a discount.

The Nubia Red Magic 5G, on the other hand, eschews that trend by offering the first 144Hz display we’ve seen along with the latest processor and 5G connectivity. This handset’s splashy spec sheet also features modern comforts like a triple camera setup and an in-screen fingerprint reader – all at a fairly reasonable $579 price. But while this gaming-focused smartphone looks really great on paper, there are some notable quibbles you’ll have to contend with.

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Nubia Red Magic 5G – Design and Features

Nubia’s latest 5G gaming phone has seen a big design change over previous Red Magic devices. Instead of going with an angular, geometric metallic backside, the Red Magic 5 features a curved glass back. There’s also a smooth metal frame that goes all around the edges of the device, which makes it feel even more like a flagship phone.

The whole thing looks and feels as slick as a surfboard, which is great for its new premium stature, but also makes it extremely slippery. Comparatively, I always liked how it’s predecessor, the Red Magic 3S, had ridges and lines that gave my fingers a natural resting place to hold it.

Of course, this is still unmistakably a gaming phone considering the shoulder buttons, cooling vents, and RGB lighting on the back of the device. I also really dig the blended red and teal paint job and even the played-out X-shaped decal on my review unit.

The new 144Hz display is easily the biggest hardware upgrade on the Red Magic 5G. That’s even faster than the 120Hz screens you’ll find on the Asus ROG Phone 2 and Razer Phone 2. The fact that the refresh rate on this gaming phone is now as fast as some high-refresh-rate gaming monitors is impressive.

The phone’s AMOLED display is also decently sized at 6.65-inches and meets the same 1,080 x 2,340 resolution of most gaming phones on the market today. Thankfully, the screen gets super bright so you can easily see everything even in direct sunlight.

While that’s basically the same screen size we saw on the Red Magic 3S, the company has managed to make its latest handset smaller thanks to a slightly slimmer top and bottom bezels. However, in that process, the Red Magic 5G has moved the lower speaker to the bottom of the device, leaving only one front-firing speaker on its forehead.

In terms of hardware, you’re also getting pretty much everything you’d expect from a modern flagship device, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor with at least 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. This unit even features an in-display fingerprint reader, headphone jack, and a 4,500 mAh battery.

Nubia Red Magic 5G – Gaming and Performance

The Red Magic 5G flies faster than any flagship phone I’ve used, largely thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 5G. Add in the fact that it has a lower resolution display with a higher refresh rate, and this phone simply has more headroom to operate on a faster screen.

The 120Hz displays on the OnePlus 8 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra already felt incredibly smooth, but adding an extra 24Hz on top of that makes the Red Magic 5G feel just a bit more jitter-free.

When it comes to gaming though the 144Hz display isn’t exactly as universally useful. For one thing, very few games support it. In my testing, Real Racing 3 was the only game to run at the 144 fps needed to take full advantage of the high-refresh-rate display.

I hope more games in the future will be updated to take advantage of the ever-increasing refresh rates on Android phone displays. In the meantime, the Red Magic 5G is primed and ready for once mobile games catch up.

Still, you’ll be able to play Android games running at their highest available frame rates. Plus the 240Hz polling rate on the touchscreen and having two shoulder buttons gives you a huge advantage over most mobile gamers.

This is especially true in PUBG Mobile where I can aim more smoothly, see more frames of animation, and fire my gun without having to move my thumb off the virtual thumbsticks. Circle strafing for the win!

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The Red Magic 5G also has a few dedicated gaming features, which can all be accessed as soon as you push forward a switch on the side of the phone. As soon as you do, you’ll be dropped into a gaming space with a spinning carousel of your games. This also immediately kicks on the internal fan, which has a high-pitched whine that sounds exactly like a hairdryer.

As much as I like my gaming phone running cool, the fan on the Red Magic 5G is loud even while running at its lowest speed. And when spinning at max speed, I could hear it from across my living room. You’ll definitely want to throw on a pair of headphones while gaming with this phone. The good news is it still has a headphone jack if you only have wired headphones or earbuds.

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Nubia Red Magic 5G – Camera

I usually don’t come expecting to write much about the photography you can take with a gaming phone, but the Red Magic 5G comes with a surprisingly long list of camera features. For starters, it has three cameras including one main 64MP wide-angle, an 8MP ultrawide, and a 2MP macro – plus an 8MP selfie camera.

Images from the phone look sharp and colorful, especially with the 64MP main camera. However, photos taken on a sunny day can look overly contrasty with shadows that are too dark and matte out detail, while bright lights end up washing out colors. Images just aren’t as balanced and poppy as you would expect – this is where Android flagships like the OnePlus 8 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra win out.

Switching between the Red Magic 5G’s three cameras can be a bit complicated. You’ll need to jump into the camera settings menu to switch it from shooting at 16MP to its native 64MP resolution, however, this ends up disabling your ability to digitally zoom. Even stranger, the ultrawide camera is only accessible in the pro shooting mode and the macro lens option is buried even deeper in the grid of Camera-Family shooting modes.

Having a macro shooting option is fun and all, but with only two megapixels the photos from this mode look like they were taken with a toy camera.

Nubia Red Magic 5G – Battery Life

Between the Red Magic 5G’s sizable 4,500mAh battery and Full HD display, this phone has plenty of battery life in it to get you through long gaming sessions. Playing a single match of PUBG Mobile complete with a chicken dinner for 30 minutes only eats up 5% of the total battery life.

With more casual usage, which includes a fair share of watching videos and gaming along with everyday web browsing, you’re looking at around two days of battery life.

Although the Red Magic 5G is capable of fast charging at up to 55W, it only comes with an 18W charger. Don’t get me wrong, this phone soaks up electricity quickly with a completely depleted battery going back up to 32% after 30 minutes and then 51% after an hour. However, when I have it plugged into my 60W MacBook Pro charger, it easily regains a 53% charge after just 30 minutes.

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Purchasing Guide

The Nubia Red Magic 5G is available at a starting price of $579 from Amazon and Red Magic’s official site. This model comes equipped with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage in Black and Red color variants.

My review unit happened to be the higher-end variant equipped with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and it runs for a slightly higher $649 price on Amazon and Red Magic.

NBA 2K21 will be released on current-generation platforms on September 4, 2020, and while it won’t arrive on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X until Holiday 2020, it is being built from the ground-up for the next-gen systems.

In addition, all versions of NBA 2K21 will offer a special Mamba Forever Edition that honors the late Kobe Bryant and his “lifelong pursuit of victory and legacy in the sport of basketball.”

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Furthermore, the standard PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions of NBA 2K21 will cost $69.99 USD, a $10 increase over the current-generation platforms and that makes NBA 2K21 the first next-gen game to commit to that price point. The UK sees a £5 increase, from £59.99 to £64.99.

NBA 2K21 will not support Xbox Smart Delivery or a similar service on PlayStation 5, meaning there will not be a free upgrade to next-gen if you purchase the game on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. However, if players purchase the $99.99 USD Mamba Forever Edition, they will get the next-gen version when it is released at no extra cost.

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The Mamba Forever Edition will include the Kobe Bryant Digital Collection that includes special MyPlayer Shoes and Jerseys, a Sapphire Kobe MyTEAM Card, and much more.

We asked a NBA 2K spokesperson about Xbox Smart Delivery, and they said “It’s something we’re interested in, but NBA 2K21 will not support Xbox Smart Delivery.”

The next-gen version of NBA 2K21 will offer “unbeatable graphic fidelity, two second load speeds, new gameplay features, and expanded game modes.” In addition, NBA 2K21 will have “MyTEAM Cross-Progression and a Shared VC Wallet within the same console family.”

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While Kobe will grace the cover of the Mamba Forever Editions, the Portland Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard and the New Orleans Pelicans’ Zion Williamson will be on the covers of the standard versions for current-generation and next-gen platforms, respectively.

“Each of our cover athletes represent different eras of the game of basketball – Damian Lillard dominates the court today, Zion Williamson is a standard bearer for the next generation of NBA superstar and what more could be said about Kobe?,” stated Alfie Brody, Vice President of Global Marketing at NBA 2K. “Three athletes representing the current, future and storied history of the game. Today’s exciting announcement is just the first of many for NBA 2K21; it’s going to be a huge year for basketball fans and NBA 2K gamers.”

NBA 2K21, which was first revealed at the PlayStation 5 reveal event, will be released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia on September 4, 2020. It will arrive as a launch title for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in Holiday 2020.

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

2K Sports has announced that NBA 2K21 will release September 4 on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. We also now know that the standard edition of NBA 2K21 will cost $70 on next-gen consoles, making it the first game for PS5 and Xbox One X to cost more than the usual $60 price for new games. Additionally, you won’t be able to upgrade NBA 2K21 from current generation consoles to next-gen consoles for free unless you purchase the just-announced Mamba Forever edition for $100. Pre-orders are starting to go live for all platforms.

The Mamba Forever edition commemorates the late Kobe Bryant and rounds out the trio of cover athletes for NBA 2K21. We learned earlier this week that Portland Trailblazers star Damian Lillard would be the cover athlete for current generation consoles, while young phenom Zion Williamson will fittingly be on the cover of the PS5 and Xbox One X standard edition.

While other next-gen crossover games such as Madden NFL 21 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla have announced free upgrades from current to next-gen, NBA 2K21 is incentivizing purchasing the expensive Mamba Forever edition instead. If you plan on wanting the game at its initial launch and on your new PS5 or Xbox One X, you’ll save $30 by grabbing the Mamba Forever edition as opposed to purchasing the standard edition twice. It’s worth noting that the upgrade to next-gen is the standard edition of the game, so you won’t double-up on the digital goodies that come with the Mamba Forever edition.

The next-gen version of 2K21 is more than a simple upgrade, though. 2K Sports claims to be building the PS5 and Xbox One X version from the ground up. Thankfully, progress in some key areas will transfer from current to next-gen (Xbox One to Series X and PS4 to PS5). MyTeam, the card-collecting online mode, will share progress along with your Virtual Currency wallet.

If you’re interested in pre-ordering NBA 2K21, we’ll be rounding up all of the details you need to know below ahead of its September 4 launch on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. NBA 2K21 will be a launch title for PS5 and Xbox One Series X.

Pre-order NBA 2K21 standard edition | $60-$70

NBA 2K21’s standard edition for all platforms is currently available to pre-order directly from 2K. Anyone who pre-orders the standard edition on current generation or next-gen platforms will get the following bonuses:

• 5,000 Virtual Currency
• 5,000 MyTEAM Points
• 10 MyTEAM Promo packs (delivered one a week)
• 6 MyCAREER Skill Boosts
• 5 pair MyCAREER Shoe Collection
• Damian Lillard Digital Collection
• 3 MyCAREER Gatorade Boosts

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Pre-order NBA 2K21 Mamba Forever edition | $100

NBA 2K21’s $100 Mamba Forever edition comes with a ton of digital goodies to use in game:

• 100,000 Virtual Currency
• 10,000 MyTEAM Points
• 10 MyTEAM Tokens
• 60 MyCAREER Skill Boosts
• 30 MyCAREER Gatorade Boosts
• 40 MyTEAM Promo Packs (10 at launch, then 3 per week)
• Sapphire Damian Lillard and Zion Williamson MyTEAM cards
• MyPLAYER Shoe Collection
• MyPLAYER backpack
• Kobe Bryant Digital Collection

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2 producer Christopher Miller has praised the “groundbreaking art techniques” being used on the animated sequel.

Taking to Twitter on Wednesday, Miller shared a few tantalizing teasers about the art design and animation style of Miles Morales’ next adventure, saying the new techniques being implemented will make 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse look “quaint.”

“The development of new groundbreaking art techniques being done for the next Spider-Verse movie are already blowing me away,” Miller admitted. “It’s going to make the first movie look quaint.”

The film has an extended production schedule due to its lengthy animation process, which means that the Spider-Verse sequel won’t be web-slinging into theatres until 2022, four years after the release of the first film.

In fact, Sony recently pushed back its release from April 8, 2022, to October 7, 2022.

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The original Spider-Verse movie won the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Animated Movie in 2019, and was also named IGN’s Movie of the Year in 2018. The film received high praise for its unique art style, with IGN referring to the film as a “visual experience unlike anything we’ve seen before,” thanks to its “vibrant colours, a few KAPOWS, and some actual thought bubbles sprinkled in for dramatic effect.”

Since Spider-Verse’s release, producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have signed a five-year deal with Sony Pictures TV to oversee Sony’s Marvel TV universe, with Sony reportedly considering a Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse TV show at one time. Fortunately, our friendly neighborhood IGN writers have put together a breakdown of every Spider-Man-centric film currently in the works to keep track.

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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

A Plague Tale: Innocence has been a major success for developer Asobo Studio, critically and commercially, and has now racked up a huge sales number. The game’s official Twitter account has now announced that the game has sold over 1 million copies since it released in May 2019.

The game, an action-adventure that involves dodging rats and being stealthy, was one of GameSpot’s best games of 2019.

In the tweet, A Plague Tale’s developers thank the game’s community of players, stating that “this wouldn’t have been possible without our community and we’d like to thank every one of you for supporting the game.”

The game is also available through Xbox Game Pass–which, believe it or not, can actually lead to increased sales.

This figure is made all the more impressive by the fact that the game is not from an existing franchise, nor from one of the bigger publishers in gaming–Focus Home Interactive does not have the marketing budget of, say, EA or Ubisoft.

The developer’s next game will be Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is looking extremely impressive.

Death Stranding is releasing for PC on July 14, giving PC players a chance to experience Hideo Kojima’s strange opus. We’ve already seen the minimum and recommended specs for the game, but now publisher 505 Games has revealed some more details about what to expect if you load the game up on a powerful rig.

Death Stranding on PC will feature Nvidia DLSS 2.0 technology, as long as you have a GeForce RTX GPU installed. This means that the game can run with a frame rate over 100fps at 1440p, or at over 60fps with a 4K image.

The press release sent to GameSpot includes a quote from Kojima Productions’ Akio Sakamoto, praising the game’s PC release with NVIDIA tech. “The extra performance Nvidia DLSS 2.0 delivers in Death Stranding allows gamers to unlock the vast graphical potential of the PC platform by increasing the graphics settings and resolution, delivering on the vision we have for the game,” Sakamoto says.

A new trailer has also been released, showcasing the game’s stunning PC graphics.

GameSpot editor Michael Higham has gone hands-on with the PC version of Death Stranding, and says that it “runs like a dream” on the platform.

“Death Stranding looks great and runs well, and can even surpass that of the PS4 Pro, given you have the proper PC hardware,” Higham writes. “It often goes without saying, but this is good news–the broader takeaway here is that the quality of Death Stranding’s PC port can speak to how Sony’s first-party exclusives can get another lease on life on a new platform for a different audience. “

Death Stranding received a 9/10 in GameSpot’s review of the PlayStation 4 version. “It’s a game that requires patience, compassion, and love, and it’s also one we really need right now,” reviewer Kallie Plagge wrote–a statement that holds even more true in 2020 than it did in 2019.

In addition to Halo Infinite and Halo: The Master Chief Collection, the team at 343 Industries is working on a Halo TV show with Showtime and starring Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief. The production was shut down in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s unclear when it may start back up again. While we wait for that, Halo’s transmedia boss Kiki Wolfkill has shared some new insight on the show and what it’s trying to do

Appearing on Star Wars writer Gary Whitta’s Animal Talking show, Wolfkill said it has been a “mind-bending challenge” to translate the video game series to TV.

Instead of directly adapting a previous Halo game or book, the TV show is seemingly going to tell an entirely new story. Wolfkill’s team has been working with Showtime–which is GameSpot’s sister company–on finding the best way to retain the essence of Halo and bring it to a new medium. This has been hard work, both on this Halo TV show and in the past. Fans will no doubt recall how Peter Jackson’s Halo movie famously fell apart.

“How do we take something and not try and verbatim translate it to a different medium. But how do we look at what the experience can mean for people,” Wolfkill said. “For me, I look at is as how do people feel when they come out of playing the game, or how do they feel after reading one of the novels. Or engaging in any of the different kinds of experiences that we have. Because that’s the core of what the universe is and entering the universe should mean.”

One of the benefits of TV versus a video game is that the show has the potentially to more fully develop its characters over the space of numerous episodes and countless hours, Wolfkill said.

“You also want it to be different, because the whole point of going to a different medium is to let yourself and let the IP express itself in a different way,” she added. “With television, we get long-form storytelling. We get to develop characters. We get to really dig into their backgrounds and their motivations and who they are emotionally. And they can express it as themselves as opposed to needing to reflect who they are through some of the other characters as we do in the games.”

There is no word yet on the plot for the Halo show. In addition to Schreiber as Master Chief, Natascha McElhone (The Truman Show, Californication) is set to play the iconic Halo AI Cortana, so we know she’ll be involved in the story in some capacity.

Previously, Wolfkill said the Halo TV show is similar to Game of Thrones in terms of its scope and scale. Unlike that show, however, the Halo TV program will not feature incest.

Simply getting the Halo TV show off the ground was hard work, Wolfkill said, due to the nature of how Hollywood works. On the other side of the coin, however, once production began, it moved along quickly–that is, until the COVID-19 crisis caused most major Hollywood productions to shut down temporarily.

“It’s really hard to get things done. Sometimes I’m amazed that anything gets done [in Hollywood], honestly,” Wolfkill said. “But on the flip side of that, once something is kind of in the chute–coronavirus delays aside–it moves at an incredibly fast rate and it’s really different that way from game development in terms of the linearity of the process.”

“We went through a period of really trying to figure out the right creative combination, and also figuring out what it meant for Showtime and Halo to come together,” she added. “They are two different entities who have both had success. Showtime has really strong expertise in places that we don’t, and Halo is a new kind of show for them. They’ve been amazing partners in acknowledging and understanding and working to really collaborate on understanding those differences and figuring out what is the right adaptation for Halo.”

The Halo TV show will be directed, at least in part, by Black Mirror’s Otto Bathurst. He directed the very first episode of Black Mirror, “The National Anthem,” which was very shocking and memorable.

The Halo TV show was announced to premiere in 2021, but that was before the production was shut down due to the global pandemic. It’s unclear if the show is still on track.

Also during the interview, Wolfkill gave a very small update on Halo Infinite, noting that the development team is “busting ass” on the project. It won’t be much longer until we see and learn more about it, as Microsoft plans to showcase the game during its Xbox 20/20 event that’s rumored to take place on July 23.

Jump Rope Challenge, the free Nintendo Switch fitness game that released in June, has just received a free update that adds several new costumes to the game’s rabbit protagonist. They’re mostly the usual suspects, but there’s one surprise.

Here’s the complete list of character costumes included in the update.

• Mario
• Luigi
• Peach
• Toad
• Bowser
• Wario
• Link
• Samus
• Isabelle
• Squid Kid (girl)
• Squid Kid (boy)
• Arcade Bunny

The most interesting addition here is Arcade Bunny, a character who has only ever featured in one other Nintendo game–Nintendo Badge Arcade, a 3DS title that handed out badges that could be attached to the system’s home screen. Arcade Bunny was a fully fleshed-out character, and since the 3DS title stopped receiving updates many fans have missed them.

New backgrounds have been added to the game too, as well as a new ability–you can now double-under by swinging your Joy-Cons very quickly.

Jump Rope Challenge will remain free to download on Nintendo Switch until September 30, 2020.