The Assassin’s Creed mobile game is finally out and you can get a peek at what’s in store with the new launch trailer.
Assassin’s Creed Rebellion was announced for Android and iOS last year, and the free-to-play game dropped this week, alongside a launch trailer featuring gameplay from the title.
The strategy RPG game, developed by Behaviour Interactive, features a roster of characters from across the series, including including Ezio, Aguilar, Shao Jun, Claudia, and Machiavelli, as well as over 20 new characters that can be unlocked.
The “new artistic direction” was touched on in the initial announcement, with characters looking like a collection of Funko Pop figures have underdone a voodoo ritual, springing to life and going on a Chucky-inspired murderous rampage. But in this case, it’s all in the name of a rebellion, so a stiletto to the heart is NBD.
Set during the Spanish Inquisition, players grow their Brotherhood through new recruits, and building and managing their fortress, in a similar vein to Fallout Shelter.
There are different combat styles to play with, and you can handle missions by utilising stealth, or going balls out mental and attacking everyone in sight.
Special limited-time events will give players a change of scenery, incorporating a variety of time periods from the series, including Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s Ancient Greece, as well as presenting the opportunity to add characters like Alexios and Kassandra to the roster.
Players with the new iPad Pro will be pleased to know that the game has been optimised for the device, with “higher texture resolutions, improvement on 3D-model rendering and overall performance optimization.”
Assassin’s Creed Rebellion is available to download on the App Store and Google Play right now.
Here’s the best Xbox One Black Friday deals on cheap games and console bundles.
As we wade knee-deep into the week of Black Friday, retailers are already rolling out metaphorical boatloads of deals ahead of the big day itself. Because Black Friday refuses to be just one single day now, plenty of retailers have begun their “early” Xbox One Black Friday deals in earnest, with some offering the promise that they won’t put their prices any lower on the day itself to encourage you to buy a little bit earlier.
Some of those things we want to spend our cash on at this time include brand new consoles, offers on subscriptions, games, accessories and more. If you’re looking for those or anything else, these are the best Xbox One Black Friday deals available.
We’re also keeping a lookout for the best Xbox One game deals. Early Black Friday deals have begun at retailers such as GAME in the UK. Looking at their current selection, though, there isn’t much we’re all that excited to jump on. There’s Far Cry 5 for £25 or WWE 2K18 for £25, but we’ll keep watch on the page to see if anything better is added later.
If none of that does it for you just yet, this page will be continuously updated with the best Black Friday deals for Xbox One, Xbox One X and associated games. You can also check out our top picks for the best PS4 Black Friday deals and likewise the best Nintendo Switch Black Friday deals.
Last year was an interesting time to be looking for a new Xbox One console. If you were happy with the cheaper option and settling for an Xbox One S there were lots of bundle options available to you, gathering together some of the console’s biggest games in handsome packages. You could grab a 500GB or 1TB model with games such as Assassin’s Creed Origins or Forza Horizon 3 for a reasonable price, so expect similar bundles featuring the newer versions of those games this year. Games were dropping into the region of £30 or below too, so you might see a few major titles drop that far in 2018.
As for Xbox One X deals, last year didn’t really offer much all that exciting considering the super-powered console had only just been released. We saw a few advertised that would only generously be described as deals, though it looks like the discounts are going to be far more enticing in 2018 going by what we’ve seen so far. The console is regularly around or below the £400 mark now – and that often includes a bundled game or two!
Overall, the next couple of weeks could be an ideal time to reward yourself with the visual fidelity bump from an Xbox One X console. You might even be able to pair it with a deal on a 4K TV, many of which we see massively cut in price during this time of year. It won’t just be good for gaming, but all those Christmas movies you enjoy watching year after year – even the super-old ones that probably lose a lot of their charm in ultra-high definition!
The Xbox Live Black Friday sale is now underway for Xbox Live Gold members. This year, you can get up to 40% off over a hundred digital titles – from recent AAA blockbusters to popular indie hits. We’ve picked out a few highlights below, or you can visit the Xbox Live Black Friday sale page to browse everything that’s discounted. Non-Gold members will get access to these very same deals from November 19th, while the sale itself will run until the end of the month.
In addition, for the entirety of the Black Friday period and a few days after, you can nab yourself one month’s of Xbox Live Gold Subscription and a month worth of Xbox Game Pass for just £1/$1 each respectively. (Sadly these don’t stack and are limited to new subscribers of each service only, but they’re still a great deal nonetheless!)
When does Black Friday start?
Black Friday is on Friday, November 23 this year, the day after Thanksgiving, and runs until the following Monday, November 26, when you can take advantage of Cyber Monday deals.
To ease you into the pre-Christmas festivities, the sales usually run for the week before Thanksgiving, so we expect discounts to start rolling out on Friday, November 16. We’ll keep you posted with all the best bargains as we hurtle towards the holiday.
In the meantime, we’ve put together a list of some of the best console bundles and game sales out there at the moment, if you can’t hold off until Black Friday.
Here’s where you’ll find our selection of the best Nintendo Switch Black Friday deals on hardware bundles and games in 2018.
You can smell the price cuts in the air, the deals wafting in the breeze. It’s the week of Black Friday, meaning it’s a great time to be a thrifty shopper as plenty of online and brick and mortar outlets go all out to grab the attention of your wallet.
Of course, with all this discounting action it can be hard to keep track of the best bargains, and that’s where we come in. We’ve got our highly trained Black Friday bargain noses out sniffing down as many retailers as we can to try and find you the best Nintendo Switch Black Friday deals as well as much more Nintendo goodness. We’re bringing the bargains, to quote the late Satoru Iwata, directly to you.
This page is where we’ll be looking at the best Black Friday deals for Nintendo Switch consoles, Nintendo 3DS consoles and games for both.
If none of the above deals takes your fancy, it’s definitely worth holding out for another day or two to make the most of the bundle deals we’ll almost certainly see during the sales.
Last year, there was a bit of a mad rush for Nintendo Switch consoles and bundles considering the hybrid device had only been out for a few months when Black Friday rolled around. We saw many retailers holding their best deals until the day itself, with the likes of Amazon offering bundles with Super Mario Odyssey or Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle for around the £330 mark. We expect there won’t be a too significant drop in price this year as the console enters its second year, though we may see a few bundles with older games drop to around or below the region of £300.
Meanwhile, premium games such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Party are likely to stick close to the £50 mark once again. We might get lucky with a few smaller discounts, though don’t hold out for anything too drastic. The hotly-anticipated Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! will both have been released just two weeks prior to Black Friday. It might be wise to think about holding out for Black Friday to see if a decent bundle deal featuring either game becomes available, but it’s far from guaranteed and would still probably be near the standard £330 price point.
When does Black Friday start?
Black Friday falls on November 23rd this year, with Cyber Monday deals kicking in a few days later on November 26. Cyber Monday is the sales event that traditionally was the online-focused sister event to the previously brick-and-mortar focused Black Friday, but as times and shopping habits have changed and online shopping has skyrocketed, the lines have blurred massively. What you can expect out of Cyber Monday is another week filled with savings, most of which were kept out of Black Friday events, meaning it’ll be a set of fresh offers.
Even so, more and more retailers have also started sneaking deals out of the door from the Friday a week before Black Friday itself, so we may see some great offers that kick off from Friday 16 November so keep returning here and checking as we approach the big day to get the best Nintendo-related savings for your buck.
Last year, the Nintendo Switch was one of the most popular products across most retailers’ Black Friday sales, and that was only the very first Black Friday event of the console’s lifespan. The console has proven very successful for Ninty, recently surpassing the lifetime sales of the GameCube. With this month’s release of Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee, Super Smash Bros Ultimate imminently on the horizon, and a new Animal Crossing next year, the console’s popularity shows no signs of slowing down and we suspect we’ll see plenty more deals on Nintendo Switch during this year’s event.
Welcome to our roundup of the best PS4 Black Friday deals on cheap console bundles and games.
Black Friday week has begun, and there’s a gamut of deals, discounts and savings on your favourite PS4 games, consoles and bundles all vying for the attention of your wallet. Many retailers are slashing prices to prepare for the big day, with some saving some even better offers back in order to unleash them for Black Friday itself. As your port in this storm of deals, we’re here to steer you through and help you along the way to securing all your gaming and tech needs this Black Friday.
Read on for our picks of the best PS4 Black Friday deals right here.
That’s already a decent set of deals, but it may be worth holding out. Unless you’re desperate to get your cowboy on right now in Red Dead Redemption 2, there are bound to be many more excellent deals crop up over the next week or so. We don’t want you feeling rubbish about your purchase if you see something even better just a few days later!
With that in mind, and with the Black Friday deals chaos being embraced by retailers around the world, you’ll definitely want to make sure you have this hub bookmarked for the best PS4 Black Friday offers leading up to and including the event itself. We’ll do the hard work of bringing the bargains to you.
Most retailers have planned a full week of deals which are now well underway with many PS4 Black Friday console bundles already live online to tempt you in. We’re in the midst of the big release months for games too, so you can expect to see many bundles here featuring Rockstar’s latest western epic, Red Dead Redemption 2. There are probably going to be a few featuring some of the year’s previously released smash hits too, including Spider-Man and God of War. There’s also the fairly reliable combo of consoles with this year’s FIFA 19 outing too. Let’s take a look at what we have on offer so far.
It’s a busy time of the year for game releases, so there’s lots for us to be looking out for as the Black Friday sales roll around. We kind of expect things to be fairly quiet for the likes of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty Black Ops 4 in the run-up to the big day itself, but we’ll certainly have an eye out for any major discounts when the big day begins proper. You might be able to find a cheeky little discount here or there.
It’s the big question facing many looking to pick up a PlayStation 4 console this Black Friday. Is it worth grabbing a cheaper PS4 Slim or should you cough up the extra money and plump for a PS4 Pro? Essentially, your decision may come down as to whether you own or are going to buy a 4K TV or not. The biggest additional feature that you gain from a picking up a PS4 Pro is that you can play games in the higher 4K resolution, something standard HD TVs cannot do. If you want the games you play to look the best they possibly can – and you have the TV tech to support it – then the Pro is the one for you.
For everyone else: whether that extra graphical bump isn’t such a major concern or it’s your first foray into the world of console gaming – then a PS4 Slim will do you just fine. It’ll play all the same games a PS4 Pro can while saving you £100 or more off the asking price. What can you spend that money on? Er, more games, obviously!
That said, you can use some of the PS4 Pro’s power while plugged into an HD TV. The Supersampling Mode, added in the PS4’s 5.50 firmware update, will render your games at a higher resolution to give the impression that they are running on a 4K display. Obviously, it’s not a true representation of a 4K image, but it’ll give you a bit of a visual bump. If you are considering an upgrade to a 4K TV soon too, you may want to future proof yourself with a PS4 Pro – at least for the next few years down the line.
Is the PS5 releasing soon?
The short answer to this is: no. We’re all but sure that something akin to the PS5 is out there and in development somewhere, but any hopes of seeing it in our homes in the near future are practically zero. It’s been rumoured that developers have already started toying with dev kits and are working on titles for Sony’s next console, but, as we’ve said, they won’t be released for a good couple of years yet, at least. We may be lucky enough to get the first hints of the PS5 next year, but nothing is guaranteed at this stage.
Either way, there’s very little reason not to get involved right now. The hurdles of early development have been cleared and we’re seeing some of the console’s potential fully realised with some terrific games like Marvel’s Spider-Man, God of War and Red Dead Redemption 2. The prices represent that too. Whereas last year the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X consoles had only just been released, they’ve now been around a good year and a bit, so we expect deeper discounts on the Pro this year than previously. The Slim should be the cheapest it has ever been as well.
For now, though, if none of the above deals takes your fancy, don’t worry. We’ll be here updating the page as often as possible to make sure all the very best Black Friday PS4 deals are represented as and when they appear. Then, we’ll be here all the way through Black Friday itself, bringing you all the best deals from around the web.
When is Black Friday?
Black Friday falls on November 23rd this year, with Cyber Monday deals kicking in a few days later on November 26. Cyber Monday, for those of you who are unaware, is the second week-long set of sales, price cuts and special offers. the Originally this was set to the be the online counterpart to the retail-only Black Friday but over the years, the lines have blurred and now it’s just one big discount Smörgåsbord.
As for Black Friday itself, a lot of retailers start discounting their stock on the Friday before, so it’s likely that we’ll see some tantalising deals starting Friday 17 November, so keep checking in as we get closer to the big day. As we learned last year, though, there may even be retailers who push things even further back. Once we’re into November, stay vigilant and keep your eyes peeled. Alternatively, just come back here since we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled so you don’t have to.
It’s not easy to find the perfect spot to call home in Fallout 76.
Not only do you have the usual wildlife and ghouls to contend with, you now need to defend your prime real estate from other players.
Settlements in Fallout 4 were often strategically placed next to huge structures with lots of loot, near lots of water or near a herd of Brahmin, so we’ve come up with this guide to help you pick the bests spots in Appalachia to call home, how to build a CAMP and use the blueprints, and a few other helpful suggestions along the way.
Those who’ve spent a good chunk of time in Appalachia will know that you’ll set up a CAMP and be all pleased with yourself before discovering an unfriendly neighbour just down the road that will obliterate you and your CAMP before you can send over a team request.
As such, many players aren’t giving away the locations of their CAMPS, lest a group of outlaws come and trash their temporary home from home.
It’s also worth noting that if someone spawns at your CAMP, they can override it and yours will be packed away until you come back online. It’s free real estate, after all.
Depending on whether you’re new to the game or a veteran, there are a few places you might want to consider building your CAMP near:
Or, if you like a challenge or a bit of punishment:
CAMP Expert
On steep ground
Near enemies
Close to other players
Far away from towns
Nowhere near resources
Solo or far away from friends
Very close to a quest location
You could also head to locations such as train stations,the Lumber Mill, farms or faction locations like the Viper’s Nest or Fort Defiance from the Brotherhood of Steel. Being near civilisation, or towns, means that some robot pals might jump to your defence should enemies or other players attack.
Fallout 76: Constructing a CAMP
Open up your Pip-Boy, and press LB/ L1 to open up the CAMP screen, You’ll need to wait until the kit is green before placing it, and then you’re free to transfer your junk to it or build.
You can build an entirely new CAMP each time or you can use the blueprint feature to save an impressive build. We’ve made a quick one for you, which is the aptly named Shit Camp.
You can pick the CAMP back up, but if you move to another location and open your Pip-Boy, you can move your CAMP for a few caps.
Fallout 76 CAMP essentials
You can build foundations, walls, windows and have some nice furnishings in your CAMP, but there are a few key items you should consider building that will actually help you survive in Fallout 76, as opposed to becoming The Real Housewives of Appalachia.
In every CAMP, you should be building:
A cooking station
Weapon and armour crafting stations
A bed (you’ll get a Well Rested perk and heal faster in an actual bed)
Stash box
Turrets
You’ll also want to fortify your CAMP and any Turrets you place to ward off any predators or players. Make towering structures for Turrets, conceal them, whatever suits you best, but remember not to impede their firing line or they become totally useless.
Once you start building generators, remember to protect them too, else you’ll spend 100 years repairing electrical gear as you did in Fallout 4.
You stash is still limited to 400, but Bethesda is planning to expand on that in the coming weeks. Some players aren’t finding an issue with carrying capacity limits as they aren’t bothering to build up a CAMP, but we know some of you are going for huge settlement type builds, so we’ll update you when we know more.
You can also build CAMPs near your friends to make a mega city and you can pretend you’re playing a really intense version of The Sims.
It’s a good idea to move and update your CAMP regularly as well as make repairs as quickly as possible. If you try to take over a CAMP you’ll be hit with a Wanted debuff and you’ll gain negative popularity, sort of like the Bad Karma we saw in Fallout 3.
There’s a secret way to exit Hitman 2’s Miami mission and it allows Agent 47 to escape on the back of a dolphin.
To unlock this hidden exit, you have to complete the mission in a very specific way.
First up, start the mission in the pit stop disguised as a mechanic, then go straight to the security station and grab the car bomb.
Next up, you have to head to the kitchen and grab a fish. Then you need to attach the car bomb to Sierra Knox’s car and call Robert Knox to tell him you’ve done so.
Pass him the bomb trigger when you meet up, then push him to his death to complete the contract. From there, you need to head to the dolphin fountains, pull out the fish, and run around between the tiles in a specific pattern.
Here’s a video showing you how to do the entire thing:
Now go forth and ride, my friends. Ride on your smooth chariot.
Note: This piece contains spoilers for the endings of both Red Dead Redemption 2 and the original. Major, you-don’t-want-to-read-these spoilers. This is your last warning – turn around if you haven’t watched the credits roll yet.
The notion of the old west as experienced in Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 – a land ravaged by bandits, gangs, quick-draw shootouts, saloon showdowns and the general feeling that you could die at any moment – is one born of myth, the iconography we associate with this period largely exaggerated. The hats that most of the van der Linde gang wear were not typical of the period – the bowler hats sported by the Pinkerton agents were far more common. Between 1860 and 1890, existing evidence suggests that there were only 15 bank heists that occurred in total across fifteen states. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the most historically famous gun fight associated with this period, lasted 30 seconds and resulted in three casualties.
Of course, Red Dead Redemption 2 never purports to be a realistic depiction of the real world – even the area it’s set in is explicitly fictionalised. It’s the cinematic wild west that Red Dead wants to recreate, the wild west directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, and it does a damn good job of it.
In cinema, the Western genre influenced, and then was later influenced by, the jidaigeki (samurai films) of Japan. Most famously, two of Akira Kurosawa’s greatest samurai films were later remade as Westerns – Seven Samurai became The Magnificent Seven, and Yojimbo became A Fistful of Dollars (The Hidden Fortress greatly inspired Star Wars, too, although their connection is sometimes exaggerated). We recognise that the gunslingers and samurai on screen aren’t necessarily reflective of the real thing, but they still inform our understanding of the time and place they’re depicting.
I spent a lot of my time in the early chapters of Red Dead Redemption 2 thinking about Seven Samurai, my favourite Kurosawa film. It’s not that the movie and the game bear a strong resemblance to each other necessarily – Seven Samurai’s tale of seven swordsmen that are hired to protect a village from a bandit attack bears little resemblance to Red Dead’s story of outlaws constantly chasing that last big score. But both are ‘end of an era’ stories, about gangs of people who realise that their time is ending and they have no idea how to adapt.
The eponymous Seven Samurai are ronin, wanderers who serve no masters and find themselves ostracised from the villagers they are sworn to protect. There’s a sense throughout the film that these warriors are feared and reviled more than respected. Arthur spends a lot of Red Dead Redemption 2’s lengthy running time grousing about how the time of outlaws is coming to an end and pontificating that there’s no place for a hard man like him in polite society. He believes in Dutch as a great man, one who can save the gang from a life of hiding and running, but he also wonders if, perhaps, he’s simply outlived his usefulness.
I grew attached to Arthur, and the notion that he was slowly coming to terms with how unhinged Dutch had become. Early on I made Arthur mean, letting him kill strangers and rob folks when he needed the money. As the game went on and I came into a small fortune, I figured a version of Arthur that was well off would likely be a little embarrassed by his own life, by the decisions he had made to get where he was. Here was a guy, I decided, who could have been a good person if he wasn’t so blinkered by his devotion to Dutch and the gang.
And then, Chapter 6 happened. It starts with an ominous coughing fit at the end of the fourth chapter; a while later going into the finale, Arthur’s not looking so good. Soon after, the game informs me that Arthur’s weight has hit the lowest point it can, even though I’ve been trying to make him eat whenever possible. I am waiting for the tuberculosis prognosis well before the game delivers it.
“For all its old west gun-slinging, Red Dead Redemption 2 ends up being, somewhat surprisingly, a game about the value of trying to do good in a world that perhaps isn’t looking to actively reward you for doing so”
As the ending approached, and Arthur reckoned with his sickness, I found myself thinking of a very different Kurosawa film. The great director’s 1952 drama, Ikiru (which I’m about to spoil a bit), is about Kanji Watanabe (played by Takashi Shimura, also the leader of the Seven Samurai), a bureaucrat who spends his days stamping forms in a department that seems to exist mostly to redirect the public to other departments when they come in with problems. The film’s narrator informs us that Watanabe has, in essence, been dead for a long time now, closed off to the pleasures of life, fixated on simply doing his job and protecting his own interests. But shortly into the film Watanabe learns that he has stomach cancer, and suddenly his life changes.
Watanabe mostly keeps his cancer to himself while trying to decide how to best live out his final months; he takes an extended period of absence from work, enjoys a wild night out with an author he meets in a bar, and begins spending time and money on a young woman whose zest for life he finds infectious. Eventually, though, Watanabe realises that the best way for him to spend his final months is to make meaningful change through the system he’s a part of. He returns to work and sets about resolving an issue we saw pass through his office earlier in the film – a group of young mothers has been desperately asking that a cesspit in their neighbourhood be replaced by a playground.
There’s not much direct overlap in the plot of Ikiru and the last few chapters of Red Dead Redemption, but there’s an important structural parallel. The film’s final forty minutes, its strongest section, takes place during Watanabe’s wake. The executives of various branches who worked with Watanabe, after a lot of hand-wringing, self-congratulating, and drinking, come to terms with the fact that in his last months, Watanabe dedicated himself to making the world a better place. The playground is a symbol of what he achieved, and we’re made to understand the difficulties he endured in overcoming the nightmare of competing departmental interests and egos to get it done. The men decry themselves as scum, and promise together to follow through on Watanabe’s example of enacting real change.
Red Dead Redemption 2 doesn’t have any post-war salarymen learning how to live again (Ikiru translates as ‘To Live’). What it has instead – if you played it like I did, and, I’d wager, that most people did – is Arthur, a man still trapped inside the only system he’s ever known, realising that he can put his energy into making things better for the people he’ll leave behind when he goes. He continues to help Dutch – he doesn’t know how to step away from his father figure – but he also makes sure that he does as much good as he can on the way out.
Throughout the game, Arthur has a hard time accepting praise or taking compliments. If you play the appropriate stranger missions, he strikes up a friendship with a nun, but has a hard time accepting her faith in him. If you choose to forgive the loans in the loan shark missions towards the end of the game, Arthur is confronted with the notion that he might be a good man who was never given the opportunity to really live a good life. In the missions with Rain’s Fall, right near the end of the game, Arthur dedicates himself to selflessly helping a marginalised people. There’s only so much he can do, of course, but there’s a definite shift in Arthur’s intent.
Most importantly for the player, Arthur dedicates himself to liberating the members of the gang that are in with a chance of making a life for themselves away from Micah and Dutch. He tells John repeatedly that it’s important that he gets his family out, that he takes whatever opportunity Arthur can make for him to escape. Arthur realises, at the end of his life, that he can improve the world through minor change. He accepts his own fate, but makes a meaningful effort to save John, Abigail and Jack from a darker path.
After Arthur is gone, the game is not over – before we can step away from Red Dead Redemption 2, we need to fully understand what Arthur’s actions did for John and the other surviving members of the van der Linde gang. It’s important that we see how John was able to rebuild a life, even if his past continued to hang over his head (including, of course, Micah himself). In Ikiru, Watanabe makes sure a playground is built, and in the process he makes things better for the community he left behind. In Red Dead Redemption 2, we get John’s farm – the farm he can buy, build and maintain with the time that Arthur gave him.
Ikiru doesn’t end on an entirely happy note. After the wake, where the drunken bureaucrats have chastised themselves for how they’ve lived and declared that the world “is a dark place if Watanabe’s dedication was pointless”, we see that things return to normal in the department, and the tyranny of bureaucracy continues unchecked. Similarly, John is still a rough man, less understanding with his son and wife than he should be, and Sadie and Charles are obviously struggling. As they set out to kill Micah at the end of the game – an action that might, you have to believe, bring them some peace – Sadie and Charles both ponder over the life John has managed to make for himself, and wonder what they can do to find their own happiness (if I had to guess, I’d say Charles has a better shot at it than Sadie). At the very least, the old systems they used to live by aren’t hanging over them as they once were.
We know that John doesn’t have long once Red Dead Redemption 2 ends. Neither do Uncle or Abigail. Bill, Javier and Dutch are not saved, and depending on how you play, at least two of them will die in Red Dead Redemption. But Arthur has bought John and his family a few years, and – perhaps more tangibly for the player – he’s bought us all an end game where we get to let John live his life, tending to his farm, mopping up remaining stranger missions, wealthy enough that he doesn’t need to turn to crime to get by. For the first time, we can see John experience something like contentment. We get to experience the life that Arthur’s actions have gifted us.
For all its old west gun-slinging, and the ways it leans into the wild west as a place where one could steal and swindle their way up the ladder, Red Dead Redemption 2 ends up being, somewhat surprisingly, a game about the value of trying to do good in a world that perhaps isn’t looking to actively reward you for doing so. Like Ikiru, it’s the story of a man who really finds a passion for life when his own is ending. Despite the carnage and death I caused on the way to that conclusion, I feel better for having played it.
The October NPD report has dropped and it seems that you lot couldn’t get enough of your gaming, spending a hefty $1.55 billion on your hobby.
The NPD data for the US market is in for the month, and this year saw a record-breaking October since tracking began, with a huge $1.55 billion spent across hardware, software, accessories, and games.
The previous record for October was set in 2008, which saw spending reach $1.36 billion. In terms of year-on-year, spending is up 73% for the month, and 21% year-to-date compared to 2017, with a current figure of $10.5 billion.
Software
As we approach Thanksgiving – and all things Back Friday related, which you can check out here – Activision has a lot to be thankful for; Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 was the best-selling game of October, and the year-to-date.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey was October’s third best-selling game, followed by NBA 2K19, and Super Mario Party, which is now the third fastest selling Mario Party game in history, behind Mario Party, and Mario Party 8.
Hardware
Hardware spending is up 26% year-on-year, coming in at $300 million, with both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One enjoying “significant gains in spending.”
PlayStation 4 was the best-selling console of the month. In terms of units sold, October 2018 set a record for the console, as well as for any PlayStation console in an October month since the PS2 in October 2002, seeing dollar sales at the highest they’ve been for an October since 2014.
You can check out the full NPD software charts below, which account for both physical and digital titles for publishers in the Digital Leader Panel.
NPD All Platforms Software charts – October 2018
October 2018 Top 20 Games
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
Red Dead Redemption 2
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
NBA 2K19
Super Mario Party
Soul Calibur 6
FIFA 19
Marvel’s Spider-Man
Madden NFL 19
WWE 2K19
Forza Horizon 4
Lego DC Super Villains
My Hero One’s Justice
Shadow Of The Tomb Raider
Mario Kart 8
GTA 5
Super Mario Odyssey
Diablo 3
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
NHL 19
NPD Top 10 Games – Year-to-date
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
Red Dead Redemption 2
Far Cry 5
Marvel’s Spider-Man
NBA 2K19
God of War
Monster Hunter: World
Madden NFL 19
GTA 5
Call of Duty: WW2
NPD Top 10 Games YOY (October 2017-2018)
Call of Duty: WW2
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
Red Dead Redemption 2
Far Cry 5
Star Wars: Battlefront 2
Super Mario Odyssey
Marvel’s Spider-Man
NBA 2K19
God of War
NBA 2K18
October 2018 Top 10 Xbox One Games
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
Red Dead Redemption 2
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
Forza Horizon 4
NBA 2K19
Madden NFL 19
FIFA 19
WWE 2K19
Soul Calibur 6
Shadow Of The Tomb Raider
October 2018 Top 10 PlayStation 4
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
Red Dead Redemption 2
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
Marvel’s Spider-Man
Soul Calibur 6
NBA 2K19
FIFA 19
WWE 2K19
Madden NFL 19
My Hero One’s Justice
October 2018 Top 10 Nintendo Switch (physical only)
There’s one thing it’s missing, though. Sure, it has a completely original score made up of music from about ten billion different artists, but it’s not the music from Mario Odyssey, is it?
Luckily, someone has rectified this huge oversight. They’ve given Arthur Morgan a glorious moustache and let him loose across New Hanover – all of the action layered over with that jovial jingle.
Not a huge amount has changed in the version of Kanto in Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee, but one feature happily missing from the old games are Hidden Machines – HMs. These cumbersome moves are gone, but their overworld functionality has been replaced with secret techniques – one of which, Sky Skim, replaces the absolutely essential Fly HM. Here’s how to get it.
All of the old HMs have been retired, and that means there’s no longer a need to keep around a weak Pokemon to act as your HM carrier, or worse burden your actually high-quality battling Pokemon with these less-useful abilities. Back in Pokemon Yellow you’d need HMs, of course – many were vital for traveling the overworld at all, while others, like Fly, made getting around places you’ve already visited a whole lot easier.
In past games the Fly HM or TM could be taught to a specific Pokemon on your team, then, but here your partner Pikachu or Eevee takes on the mantle of flier without you having to endure it taking up a battle move slot. Here’s how and where to learn it.
How to learn Sky Dash, the new secret technique to replace Fly
The Fly secret technique Sky Dash is actually unlocked naturally throughout the course of Pokemon Let’s Go, though unlike some secret techniques it can also be easily missed as you work your way through the game. An NPC appears at a specific point in the story right in your path, but if you’re in a hurry you may dash straight on past him and miss out on this secret technique. You might also be looking at this page early to find out how soon you can get Fly – if so, be patient, tut tut! But really – here’s how it works.
Sky Dash is found around three Pokemon Gyms into Pokemon Let’s Go, after you’ve visited the Pokemon Tower in Lavender Town for the first time and found yourself turned away by a giant ghost. This will send you off towards Celadon City and the hidden Team Rocket HQ. Inside you’ll have to solve puzzles and defeat Team Rocket members including their leader, Giovanni.
Once you’ve done that, leave the Gaming Corner – the site of Team Rocket’s secret base – and you’ll now see a man sitting next to a weird machine that looks like a bicycle with balloons attached. It’s shown off in the screenshot above. This is actually his flying machine, and it’s this that Pikachu or Eevee will help you to pilot to fly around the map.
As we said earlier, you can walk straight past this guy, but make sure you talk to him. This will unlock Sky Dash, which functions the same as the Fly HM in past games – it lets you quickly fast travel to any city you’ve previously visited by flying across the map of Kanto. To use it, simply open up your Play With Pikachu menu and then press Secret Techniques – once learned and unlocked, the option appears there.
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For everyone else: whether that extra graphical bump isn’t such a major concern or it’s your first foray into the world of console gaming – then a PS4 Slim will do you just fine. It’ll play all the same games a PS4 Pro can while saving you £100 or more off the asking price. What can you spend that money on? Er, more games, obviously!
