The mother of a pro Fortnite streamer received a “late Christmas present” recently, in a touching moment of charity and familial love in the video game space, according to The Loadout via PCGamesN.
Aydan Conrad, who sports a follower count of 1.4 million people on Twitch, called his mother during a recent stream to inform her that he had paid off her student loans using the profit from his streaming career.
Before he revealed his deed, Conrad’s mother replied in typical motherly fashion, saying she didn’t need anything.
“I don’t need anything, Aydan – you’ve done enough for me,” Conrad’s mother says, spurring him to smile on-stream.
“Well, it’s too late, mom,” Conrad replied. “All your school loans are already paid for.”
Conrad’s mother seems to pause before responding: ““No they’re not. You can’t… you can’t… It’s not a federal loan. I don’t think you can touch that.”
Conrad respons that he’s already talked to someone named Lina (who presumably was able to make the payment happen), to which his mother can only respond with “what?!” and bursts into tears.
According to The Loadout, Conrad’s Fortnite career has net him about $160,000 in prizes. Numbers aren’t available for how much Conrad earns from his streaming, but with 1.4 million followers, it can’t be chump change either.
Today’s spotlight deals are two coveted Collector’s Edition bundles that came back in stock: Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us Part 2. Score some great deals on Harry Potter fully illustrated hardcover books, the lowest price we’ve seen on an ASUS STRIX RTX 2080 Ti video card, and a new crazy good deal on a Google Pixel 3a smartphone.
Back in Stock: Last of Us Part II Collector’s Edition
Last of Us Part 2 is the other huge release for 2020 and the Collector’s Edition is back in stock for a limited time at Gamestop. The Collector’s Edition includes a steelbook case, 48-page mini artbook by Dark Horse, and some DLC. The Collector’s Edition includes the game with steelbook case, a 12″ Ellie statue, Ellie’s bracelet, lithograph art print and thank you ltter, stickers, pins, 48-page mini artbook by Dark Horse, DLC, and more.
Harry Potter The Illustrated Edition Hardcover Books 1-3 for $45.28 Total on Amazon
There’s currently a buy 2 get 1 free promotion on select books at Amazon and these three Harry Potter books qualify. That averages out to about $15 per book (normally around $22 per book). These are the coveted hardcover editions will full-color illustrations.
Add all three of these to cart and check out to see final price
Do you need some extra Zelda in your life? This 10-piece epic is just the thing for you. Take a look at The Legend of Zelda in a new light thanks to this manga collection.
The Firecuda is one of the best SSHD you will find. Bridging the gap between a slow HDD and a fast SSD, this is the perfect device for the game hoarder who wants to have dozens of installed games, without ever deleting them.
Google Pixel 3a or 3a XL Smartphone with Bonus $100 Amazon Gift Card From $349
Take $50 off the original price of the Pixel 3a and get a bonus $100 Amazon gift card. Since the Amazon gift card is as good as cash, you’re basically getting this phone for only $249. The price is worth it for the camera alone; the camera image quality easily outclasses any other phone in its price range and actually stacks up very well against the flagship phones from Apple and Samsung. In fact, it’s about as good as the Google Pixel 4, which costs 3x the price. Of course the other specs aren’t shabby at all, and since it’s a Google phone it is always one the first phones to take advantage of the latest Android updates.
The RTX 2080 Ti is the fast video card out there and probably the only one that can consistently drive games at 60fps or more at 4K resolution. The ASUS STRIX brand of video cards are widely regarded as the cream of the crop because the beefy cooling system allows the card to run cool and very quiet despite the factory overclock. This is the first time we’ve seen this card go for under $1K.
One of the most well regarded gaming mice on the market is now at a dirt cheap price. If you need an upgrade, or a replacement, this is the deal for you.
No one likes unsightly nose hairs. You know where they’ve been, you know what they’ve touched, and you know that although they are a vital part of your personal air filtration system, you don’t want them sticking out of your nose. This nose hair trimmer does a bang up job of preventing those nose hairs from overstepping their territory. It was never that expensive at $11, but today it just went down to $7.
The price of the AirPods Pro is back down to what we saw on Black Friday. These are truly wireless AirPods with built-in active noise cancellation and despite that that they actually have longer play time on a single charge than the vanilla AirPods. Other features include three sets of silicone tips for customized fit, a sweat and water resistant outer shell, and a wireless charging case that can provide an additional 24 hours of battery life.
Newest Apple AirPods 2 Wireless Earphones for $129
It’s a bitter fight to the end to get Apple to drop prices on their very popular Apple Airpods. Today, the AirPods have dropped 20% off down to $129, which is the lowest price that we saw on Black Friday. These are truly wireless earphones with no cord connecting the two ear pieces. It also includes a charging case.
This is the best and only deal for the Switch Lite right now. Compared to the Nintendo Switch, you’ll save $100 in cold, hard-earned cash and have access to the same library. You lose out on a couple of things, like the ability to dock, detachable controls, a slightly smaller screen, HD rumble, and the little IR camera that most people never use.
Oculus Quest VR Headset with Vader Immortal for $399 (Compatible with Half-Life: Alyx)
Oculus Quest will support Half-Life: Alyx, however you’ll need an Oculus Link cable to connect it to a PC. Many generic USB Type C Gen 1 or Gen 2 cables will work like this $18 cable right here. The Oculus Quest has been one of the hottest selling gaming peripherals over the holidays and it’s sold out practically everywhere. Although you can get it from Oculus directly, it ships out at in March. Amazon is the only vendor with an earlier ship date. For a limited time, purchase an Oculus Quest and you’ll get all three episodes of the Vader Immortal VR game.
There are many reasons why the Quest is the best VR headset to get right now. It’s completely untethered with no external sensors to set up, it’s powerful enough to play games like Beat Saber (the best VR game of 2019), Vader Immortal, and Pistol Whip, and it’s far less expensive than all the other newer generation VR headsets that have been released. The Oculus Link software which allows you to connect the Quest to a PC using a Type C cable and use it like a regular VR headset powered by your gaming PC.
Disney’s live-action Mulan remake, which arrives in theaters March 27, now has six new character posters — including Yifei Liu’s Mulan and Jet Li’s Emperor — ready for perusing.
Below you’ll also see Donnie Yen as Commander Tung, Yoson An as Cheng Honghui, and Gong Li and Jason Scott Lee as villains Xianniang and Böri Khan. Plus, some official images from the film itself!
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.
There was a moment I had while playing Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo Switch, which is currently only available in Australia and Europe. I had just finished my daily set of three exams to calculate my “Brain Age,” the metric used to assess how strong and flexible your mind is. The lower the score the better, and 20 is the absolute best you can get. Anyway, the disembodied head of Dr. Kawashima popped up on the screen to deliver my result–it was 27! Wow! What a great score. I had some issues with one of the tests, but I had set a couple of new records the others, so I was feeling pretty happy with myself. But that emotion didn’t last very long.
“Oh dear!” the head lamented, “I miscalculated your Brain Age”. He threw up a new number: 59. “Your Brain Age is a little underwhelming.” I could’ve snapped the Joy-Cons off my Switch then and there.
Dr. Kawashima, or at least this polygonal version of him, is an insensitive jerk. He pulls dumb stuff like that, he’s visibly disappointed when he’s telling me that I can do better, and the only time he’s encouraging or visibly pleased (at which point he’s freaking ecstatic) is when I make a really significant improvement on something. Improving incrementally? Maintaining a superb result day after day? Nothing. Maybe just a “good for you” if I’m lucky. I have Asian parents, so I’m used to this level of support. But when it’s coming from a video game, from a cartridge I can easily rip out and never look at again, this low level of encouragement and high level of trolling really discourages me from wanting to keep going with it. Especially when I’m mostly doing math anyway.
I’m disappointed because I know Nintendo knows how to motivate me to keep coming back. Their video games are often very morish. I’ve been playing Ring Fit Adventure pretty consistently over the past few months, and a big part of the reason I’ve (surprisingly) kept coming back to it is because of the consistent positive reinforcement and the feeling that you’re only ever making progress, not losing it. Ring Fit Adventure only ever has helpful advice and encouragement for me, and every session I have is positive. There’s never any judgment if I’m having an off day, and I always feel welcomed back. Brain Training shows me my dips on a graph and makes me sad.
Am I just upset because I’m starting to realise that I’m actually stupid? Eh, maybe a little. But believe me, I would happily just own it and keep on working at if it wasn’t for the other frustrating issue: the occasional, but hugely detrimental, issues with handwriting detection.
The first Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training came out for the Nintendo DS, and it made a huge deal about how you held the dual-screen console sideways like a book and wrote your answers with the console’s included stylus. It had a pretty great version of Sudoku, and I played a lot of Sudoku on that thing (Sudoku was really big back then). My Brain Age was also much better than it is now. Now that Brain Training is on the Switch, it comes with its own stylus and requires you to hold your Switch sideways as well. It’s still very novel, but because of the reliance on this kind of handwritten input in a number of minigames, you’re likely to run into a lot of issues depending on how you write certain letters and numbers.
The DS version of Brain Training had these issues too, but for some reason it feels far more egregious on the Switch. Maybe it’s the new fat Switch stylus versus the more precise and pointy DS one. Maybe it’s some change in how the software translates strokes, or the ways certain activities are designed. Maybe it’s all exactly the same and just a factor of my growing impatience as I get older and grumpier. I’m pretty sure I don’t have terrible handwriting–my letters are usually bold and clear, maybe even a little cartoony, and the game can detect what I’m writing 98% of the time. But if I find myself getting caught in that 2% trying to get it to recognise a “5” or a “Y,” I’ll be screaming, because my results, progress, and my self-esteem are on the line.
Here’s an example: There’s an exam in Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training for Switch where you get two minutes to memorise the placement of 25 numbers on a 5×5 grid, and then two minutes to recall them. The catch is, you only get one guess for each square, so if you guess wrong, you lose that opportunity for a point. The last time I took this test, the game had real trouble interpreting how I wrote the numbers “5” and “9,” so as soon as I would finish writing something like “25,” I could see that the game interpreted it as 18 for whatever weird reason, and I wouldn’t have a chance to hit the erase button in the split second before it buzzed and basically told me, “No, that’s wrong. The number that’s supposed to go here is 25.”
There’s a similar, slightly more gracious exam with the same kind of memory test, but you’re trying to remember and write down all the four-letter words the game showed on a previous screen. You don’t get locked out at all here, but when the game keeps misinterpreting the letter you’re trying to write for another one? Well, your mind gets preoccupied with constantly erasing and rewriting the letter in the hopes that it will catch, and your focus is pulled away from all those words you were trying to juggle in your head. It can be infuriating.
The daily exercises that game has you do to prepare for these exams are mostly free from these issues. I can multitask and make an avatar jump hurdles while picking out the highest number in a lineup, no problem. I can mimic hand shapes and do finger calculations (which are tracked with the right Joy-Con’s IR sensor, a pretty neat feature) faster than you can blink. I can sight-read music and play it on the touchscreen piano perfectly (because I’ve had years of training, but nevermind that). And when I perform all these tasks, I get that satisfying brain-squeezing sensation that makes me feel like I’m working my mind and getting smarter probably.
But when it comes to calculating your Brain Age, the game throws a whole different set of activities at you, most of which are specific to the examination mode and largely involve writing letters and numbers. That’s when things get disastrous and Kawashima thinks I have rocks in my head. That’s when he starts trolling me and telling me how disappointed he is. Brain Training’s handwriting detection is not perfect. And it needs to be perfect if I want to feel like my mistakes are on me.
I have fond memories of the original Brain Training for Nintendo DS, and after how taken I was with Ring Fit Adventure, I was eager to hop back on Nintendo’s weird lifestyle software train and ride it anywhere it would go. But Brain Training for Switch is pushing me away. Hopefully, now that we’re in the age of software updates and user telemetry, the writing detection is something that Nintendo can improve over time. And maybe Tipp and whatever the sentient Ring from Ring Fit Adventure is called can give Dr. Kawashima a few pointers on how to talk to players, too.
Activision Blizzard has announced an Esports streaming exclusivity deal with YouTube, making it the official partner for live broadcasts of all Activision Esport leagues and events.
The new multi-year deal will bring Esport broadcasts of games like Overwatch, Call of Duty, and Hearthstone exclusively to YouTube. The new deal will be kicked off with the start of the Call of Duty League season, which officially began today.
“This is an exciting year for Activision Blizzard Esports as we head into the inaugural season of Call of Duty League and our first ever season of homestands for Overwatch League all around the world,” said Pete Vlastelica, CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports. ““It’s our mission to deliver high-quality competitive entertainment that our fans can follow globally, live or on-demand, and to celebrate our players as the superstars that they are.”
Activision’s new partnership with YouTube will give it exclusive streaming rights to some of the biggest Esport franchises around — Overwatch League and the Call of Duty League.
“Both the Overwatch League and Call of Duty League are the quintessential examples of world class Esports content,” said Ryan Wyatt, Head of YouTube Gaming. ” I couldn’t be more excited for Activision Blizzard to choose YouTube as its exclusive home for the digital live streaming of both leagues.”
All broadcast’s can be viewed by visiting each league’s official YouTube channel. Further, in addition to livestreams, fans will also be able to check out archived streams and other special content.
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Andrew Smith is a freelance contributor with IGN. Follow him on Twitter @_andrewtsmith.
Given how “so completely consumed in Joker” Harley was at that stage, Robbie said Harley’s next film appearance was “either going to be all or nothing” when it comes to Joker’s involvement. “It was either going to be a complete Harley/Joker story or Joker has got to be out of the picture,” Robbie explained. “I really wanted to see Harley in a girl gang and I felt there was a huge gap in the market for a girl gang ensemble action film. I felt like no one was doing that and I couldn’t understand why, especially a comic book movie.”
Robbie continued on about why Jared Leto’s Joker isn’t in Birds of Prey: “From the very beginning it was a conscious choice of they have to be broken up at this stage, so I have a whole backstory in my head [of] what’s happened between what you saw at the end of Suicide Squad and what you see at the beginning of Birds of Prey. But ultimately that’s a rocky road and where (this) movie starts off? They break up.”
With Joker out of the picture for Harley’s second screen appearance, Birds of Prey needed an antagonist that would speak to the specific demands of this “girl gang” action movie which sees Harley team-up with Black Canary, Huntress, Renee Montoya, and Cassandra Cain. And that villain ended up being Gotham City gangster Roman Sionis, aka Black Mask.
Birds of Prey screenwriter Christina Hodson called Sionis “a narcissist” who is “against each of these women.” These more personal vendettas between Sionis — who Hodson claimed was “so fun to write” — and the Birds of Prey allowed for a story that was more down to earth and for a villain whose agenda didn’t involve the usual comic book-y schemes for world domination.
“Each of them has such a personal reason why they don’t like him and why he doesn’t like them,” Hodson explained. “That natural kind of antagonism with each of them feels personal and grounded rather than feeling like, ‘I’m going to blow up the world,’ big Machiavellian-like mustache-twirling. And that felt so right in this world.”
Hodson hailed actor Ewan McGregor for doing “so much great, fun, cool, weird stuff” with the bad guy she had written. Cast member Chris Messina, who plays Sionis’ sadistic henchman Victor Zsasz, echoed Hodson’s praise for McGregor’s performance: “He’s terrifying in the film and he’s so charming, beautiful, captivating, and funny as hell but when he turns, he turns on a dime and he’s ferocious.”
Part of that turn to ferocity seems to involve Roman Sionis donning the titular skull-faced, ebony mask that is a signature element of his DC Comics counterpart. It had long been uncertain whether McGregor’s Sionis would even don the black mask in the film until a recent promotional music video — which you can watch below — revealed Sionis wearing it.
McGregor found the experience of acting behind a mask “quite cool” and “interesting.” The actor was reticent to say much about his masked scenes for fear of spoiling the film but admitted “it was quite cool wearing the mask. It was interesting with the mask and quite helpful in this case for that.”
Welcome back to Game Scoop!, IGN’s weekly video game talk show. This week we have the results of a big survey that asked gamers what next-gen console feature is most important to them. Another big game got delayed, another Mortal Kombat Kollection is on the way, and Half-Life Alyx is done and playable. Watch the video above or hit the link below to your favorite podcast service.
Their sources point to the 2018 Jason Statham movie The Meg as a model for the new Anaconda, suggesting a more action-oriented approach this time — and maybe even a much bigger serpent this time around.
The original Anaconda hit theaters in 1997. Starring Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, and Jon Voight, the film follows a documentary crew who venture into the Amazon rainforest only to run afoul of a gigantic, man-eating snake. Despite generally negative reviews, Anaconda inspired three sequels and the 2015 crossover movie Lake Placid vs. Anaconda.
The original movie was also the source of a 2014 RiffTrax Live special, with co-host Michael J. Nelson referring to Anaconda as “indisputably the best digital snake movie of 1997.” We can’t argue with him there.
This news comes as we’re also learning about another big Hollywood remake. Disney is redoing 1942’s Bambi in the vein of 2019’s The Lion King, with a photorealistic, CG-animated approach.
