Acer's XFA240 offers high refresh rates at an affordable price

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out Acer’s gaming monitors run the gamut: whether you’re on a budget or simply need the best the market has to offer, there’s a good chance the company has an option for you to consider. The XFA240 is one of the former, retailing for $199 but offering a full HD 24-inch TN panel clocked to run at 144 Hz and with a 1 ms response time. On paper, it sounds like a great bang for the buck, but we’ve gone hands-on to see it performs under pressure. Should the Acer XFA240 be the next display on your shopping list? Let’s dig in and find out.

Design and Features

The Acer XFA240 is simply designed. You won’t find the usual gamer flair found on displays twice its cost – the name of the game appears to be minimizing the extras that add little to your gaming experience and instead bringing gaming-grade, high refresh rate performance to the masses. As such, there’s no RGB or stylized etching; what you’ll see in the pictures is from separate backlights, not the monitor itself. What you get instead is a straightforward display that’s easy to set up and get gaming with. The stand has a red ring around the base as the lone splash of color, and attaches to the arm with a single thumb screw. From there, the monitor clicks into place on the mounting plate and you’re ready to connect cables. I like how simple and quick it is. The stand is also quite good, offering nearly six inches of height adjustment, plentiful tilt to use the display while standing, and even the ability to pivot it 90-degrees for portrait orientation. The only downside is that it doesn’t rotate, though the base isn’t too heavy to manually turn when the need arises. The display is also VESA compatible for aftermarket mounts. The bezels are fairly thick compared to many gaming monitors at about a half-inch per side. This is roughly double what you’ll find on more expensive “frameless” monitors, but for the price, it’s hard to be too critical. It does tend to make the 24-inches feel a bit more cramped than I would like, however. This design also allowed Acer to keep the controls right on the face of the monitor, which is eminently better than having to grope blindly along the back. Coming from a larger display, I found the size of the XFA240 to be “just enough” for a good gameplay experience. The size allowed me to make out details clearly when the brightness or calibration wasn’t getting in the way – and it sometimes did, even after a good 20 minutes calibrating it. Out of the box, the colors were very washed out – the blacks for example were closer to dark gray. TN panels are known for having worse colors and blacks than either VA or IPS displays but even compared against other TNs I’ve reviewed, this out-of-box picture was one of the worst I’ve encountered. The OSD features six-color hue and saturation adjustments (CMYRGB), so I was able to improve the image but never completely got it to where I was happy. Even though it’s capable of 350-nits of brightness, tuning the colors and blacks forces you to turn that down. It’s a Catch-22 – do you want a bright screen with bad colors and blacks or a dimmer screen with an improved picture? The brightness also feels slightly uneven. In the picture above, taken in the lobby of The Blackout Club, you can clearly see how dark areas can appear to swallow details. This seems to be related to viewing angle because when I looked at this same scene from a downward angle, I could make out some of what was previously missing. This was also true on the Black Level test in Lagom’s LCD Test Pages, where the blacks in the darkest three boxes appeared crushed until I looked downward at the screen. As a result, I found myself fidgeting with the height of the display more than any other monitor I’ve used. That isn’t to say gaming on the monitor was bad. At 1080p, my RTX 2080 was able to stay locked at 144 FPS in most games. If you’ve never used a high refresh rate monitor before, you’re in for a treat. Not only is everything smoother but your inputs feel almost instantaneous, which is also supported by the display’s 1 ms response time. This is the biggest benefit of a TN panel and why they’re so popular in esports. True to what I experienced, the Response Time and Ghosting tests in Lagom’s test suite provided some of the best results I’ve seen. In the Response Time test, the flickering boxes had nearly imperceptible color shifting and the Ghosting Test revealed no ghosts whatsoever. In shifts from light to dark and vice versa, the XFA240 is outstanding. The display also supports AMD FreeSync and is compatible with Nvidia G-Sync between 48 and 144 FPS. It worked well with G-Sync and my RTX card, the sole exception being Apex Legends, which became very hitchy with G-Sync enabled. The monitor also supports Low Framerate Compensation, so if your framerate drops outside of the FreeSync range, the monitor will automatically increase its refresh rate to provide a smoother gaming experience. Other gaming features include a Black Level adjustment, an AimPoint on-screen reticle, and FlickerFree technology to ward off eye strain. The first feature is practically useful if you also find it difficult to see into dark areas. The only thing I wish is that it had a keyboard shortcut or controller to quickly make adjustments on the fly. The reticle is also a boon for shooters that don’t offer one, giving you a one-up on accuracy when hip-firing. The display has built-in speakers, as well as input/output jacks for routing PC audio to your headset. The speakers are only 2-watts each and lack both bass and volume. They’re good for watching the occasional YouTube video but with a normal box fan running in my room, I had trouble hearing in-game details, so you’ll want to find a better option long-term. Finally, for connectivity we have a single HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI-D connection. The DVI-D port is going the way of the Dodo on many displays but it’s fitting to find it on a more budget oriented option like this. Both HDMI and DisplayPort are capable of carrying audio to route to the headphone jack, but if you’re using DVI-D, you’ll also need to connect the included auxiliary cord to your motherboard.

Performance

I played a handful of games on the XFA240 over my week of testing and it performed very well. Full HD is an easier resolution than ever to run, so keeping games in triple-digit frame rates is an option even for gamers on hardware that’s a couple years old. With my RTX 2080, it remained virtually pegged in most games I tried. Gaming at this refresh rate in a shooter is ideal. In PUBG, that smoothness better allowed me to smoothly track enemies and pull off shots without any perceptible lag. I turned up the Black Level a touch, which let me keep the monitor at a comfortable eye level but also washed out the colors a bit more, which isn’t good when you’re trying to pick out far away enemies. Again, that Catch-22. In Apex and Overwatch, the XFA240 performed remarkably well. The smoothness was easily on par with my more-than-twice-as-expensive 144 Hz monitor from Pixio. Using the on-screen reticle gave a definite advantage in Overwatch but I quickly turned this off because it felt unfair. I was also able to play both games for a couple hours each without ever feeling eye strain. The Blackout Club gave me a harder time. There are simply too many deep darks and the brightness issues made the game feel more claustrophobic than it should; like I couldn’t see everything I was meant to. I tried adjusting the monitor to a lower position which helped, but it was frankly frustrating to have to play with my monitor lower than where I wanted it to be. I settled for turning up the Black Level adjustment but precisely because so much of the game is dark, everything again looked washed out. It was unsatisfying. <h2>Purchasing Guide</h2> The Acer XFA240 gaming monitor is available on Amazon with an MSRP of $199.

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BoJack Horseman: Final Season Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out This review contains minor plot details for the final season of BoJack Horseman, but nothing that will give away details of the ending. [poilib element="accentDivider"] There’s a great paradox in criticism. The reviewer is meant to check their ego at the door for every new work, attempting to go in as objective as humanly possible. And yet, the truly great art, the stuff that really matters, is so personally crafted and deeply affecting that it often makes that impossible, forcing the critic into the same seat as the general audience. The works that affect us most threaten the very fabric of our purpose as reviewers, while also offering what many would consider the best part of their jobs: writing a rave. So I start this review of a show about an animated talking horse living in an animal-run version of Hollywood by telling you that, if this show has been your cup of tea comedically and dramatically for the past six years, BoJack Horseman’s final eight episodes will destroy you, because they destroyed me. It’s become something of a trend for high-profile dramas to split their final season into two shorter halves. Usually, those two halves act so differently from each other in story and construction that they often feel like independent seasons. BoJack Horseman is the same. The first eight episodes of Season 6 gave most of the main characters an episode to themselves, allowing them time to grow independently into the people they need to be for the show to end the way it wants to. In effect, many of them found relative peace, most of all BoJack, becoming a professor of acting at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, far away from the red carpets and spotlight of Southern California. A lesser series would end there, but like Breaking Bad before it, the final eight episodes are primarily about tearing down that unearned happy ending and serving harsh but true justice to the characters we love despite their enormous ethical misgivings. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/12/22/new-to-netflix-for-january-2020"] Just as Hank picked up a book of poetry while sitting on the toilet in Breaking Bad, the second half of the season starts with two investigative reporters sniffing around BoJack’s involvement in the death of Sarah Lynn, an event that these episodes solidify as BoJack Horseman’s watershed moment. Inevitably there’s a crash, and then it’s all downhill from there. But Season 6 first resumes with BoJack having found legitimate peace. Teaching college kids fulfills him, and he’s regularly attending and actively participating in AA meetings. He’s done it. He’s better, and it’s a tremendous reward for us right off the bat. But it’s not meant to last. How can it? BoJack may not have built a meth empire employing neo-Nazis as Walter White did, but his sins need to be accounted for. That’s where BoJack Horseman’s final episodes start to more resemble Mad Men’s. Since the latter half of Season 1, BoJack has sort of taken the reins from Don Draper as TV’s resident male in relative power who can’t seem to stop getting in his own way, to the detriment of his loved ones. As with that series, it’s right in the opening credits. Don may be falling down towards Madison Avenue out of a figurative window, and BoJack may be sinking to the bottom of his swimming pool, all while his loved ones advance in their lives and find a natural, satisfying stopping point for their story. These last eight episodes make sure to properly service Princess Caroline, Todd, and especially Diane. (Mr. Peanutbutter has an arc himself, but due to his aggressively distracted, happy-go-lucky nature, it’s not nearly as profound. That’s fine. Doing otherwise would risk betraying the show’s signature tone and careful comedic balance.) Time is spent working them through the relationships that matter most to them, continuing to build profound new ones, and establishing careers that ensure they’re going to be okay. Diane sums it up best in one of the later episodes: “Your whole life is full of these pieces that don’t quite fit. But at some point, you start to think it’s you. You’re the piece that doesn’t quite fit. And you spend so long with that feeling that the feeling becomes your home. And it can be jarring when you discover one day that you don’t feel that way anymore.”

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Compared to them, BoJack just can’t quite seem to get a grasp on that relief, or the sense that he belongs anywhere, really. But then, none of them share such a dark past as him. There’s an incredibly tricky line the series has to walk here. As nice as it is to see BoJack thriving in the first episode of this batch, when the dominoes come down, it always feels deserved. And yet, we never stop caring for him. Will Arnett’s voice work remains remarkable, pushing this figure to a most natural end while taking him to some of his darkest places in all six seasons. It feels like the writers condemn BoJack for what he’s done without losing an ounce of their empathy for him. It’s exactly the sort of writing that gave Breaking Bad and Mad Men two of the best endings to a series in television history. BoJack Horseman joins their ranks while stunningly refusing to sacrifice even a small bit of what makes this show so unique. There’s a silly recurring gag surrounding a lazy Susan. BoJack spends part of the season preparing for the titular role in a new movie called The Horny Unicorn. An experimental, surrealist episode spends a few minutes trying to get a humanoid bird to fly out the window. As dark and depressing as these last eight episodes get, everything special about this series remains intact. It’s nothing short of a miracle of tone and balance. Of course, much of this hard work would be damaged if the series finale faltered in any way. But it doesn’t. There are fates revealed, meaningful conversations, musings on the meaning of life (something the writers smartly acknowledge that they have no basis in defining), and even some time to sit an appreciate the love given by those closest to you. “Maybe it’s everybody’s job to save each other,” one character says to another. And that speaks to the ending overall. Ultimately, this story points out that life goes on. Whatever bed we make for ourselves, we’re alive to wake up each day and try to make it better than we did the day before. Some days we fail, but others we succeed. Just because BoJack Horseman ends doesn’t necessarily mean that the characters’ struggles do. But every day, they’re getting up and trying, including BoJack. Unlike most other shows, he and his friends fail more days than they care to admit. But they keep fighting. If for nothing else, for themselves. These final episodes beautifully illustrate why we have to do that, too.

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Monster Energy Supercross -- The Official Videogame 3 Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out Monster Energy Supercross -- The Official Videogame 3 definitely isn’t an elegant name; it’s a blunderbuss burst of buzzwords and branding that sounds like it was put together by a disinterested legal department via email. It is, however, a decent game, albeit one that isn’t exactly dazzlingly different to the equally decent pair of Supercross games Milestone already released in 2019 and 2018. It’s very much another lap on the same rutted course. [ignvideo width=610 height=374 url=https://ift.tt/2UkfhzH] Following in the wake of its four-wheeled peers carving out yearly cadences that deliver authentic, licensed motorsport experiences – like F1 and WRC – Supercross 3 is an earnest and competent crack at capturing the atmosphere of the motorbikes, ’Murica, n’ Monster Energy-fuelled tone of the AMA Supercross Championship. Hey: if travelling back and forth across the United States trying not to fall over sounds appealing to you, but you don’t have the patience for Death Stranding, maybe this is more your speed. Somewhere, somehow, Norman Reedus’ trousers are tingling, either way. [poilib element="articleSubHeader" parameters="label=Back%20in%20the%20Saddle"] The fast pace and sense of speed is actually one of Supercross 3’s best assets, and I admire its ability to make even modest velocities seem blistering and dangerous in the cramped, stadium-style circuits – shoulder to shoulder with up to two dozen other riders. There’s something about how the ground whips by and riders’ clothing furiously flaps on their backs as the competitors slice through the air that really sells this. Of course, returning fans will know this minor graphical flourish has been a feature of developer Milestone’s Supercross series since the franchise debuted in 2018, and it’s one of many that go all the way down from the track editor to what seems to be the same range of butt patches. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=While%20it%E2%80%99s%20straightforward%20to%20pick%20up%20the%20learning%20curve%20is%20steep."]That said, there are some differences here that distinguish Supercross 3 from Supercross 2 beyond the token changes to the HUD. First and foremost is the tweaked bike handling. Bikes feel more connected to the ground than in previous editions, which had a bit of a floaty feel to the back wheel, but the difference doesn’t seem hugely staggering. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="legacyId=20102325&captions=true"] Racing remains fairly accessible because there are still two handling settings – standard and realistic. Standard dulls the sense of side-to-side inertia a bit and realistic challenges you to take full control of weight shifting, but there isn’t really a massive gulf between the two. However, while it’s straightforward to pick up the learning curve is steep and, like the past two games, regardless of the handling mode it’s hard to ever quite know what will cause a bail. It’s pretty forgiving if you mess up a rhythm section and case a jump (or three, or four; botch one landing and it tends to doom you to several more ugly jumps and spine-rattling landings) but the barest brush of a trackside tuff block is still regularly enough to send you cartwheeling into oblivion. Try to scrub a jump too late and you may also find yourself pitching into weird mid-air twists that seem to unleash a ferocious fart in the face of physics. There are rewards for not using rewinds during races, but I don’t earn them much. [poilib element="articleSubHeader" parameters="label=Whoops%2C%20I%20Did%20It%20Again"] It doesn’t help that the tutorial can barely be classified as such. It tells players how to start and then just… lists the buttons on screen while a race unfolds, without any further instructions on how to do anything else. A basic history with motorcycle games is probably enough to be able to pick up Supercross 3, keep yourself pointed in the right direction, and accidentally teach yourself how to seat bounce, but it seems odd it doesn’t really make much of an effort to teach players the real nuances of its bike handling dynamics. A deeper dive into the necessary techniques to tackle tracks is buried beneath a bunch of menu shuffling in Challenge Mode, but I found free riding around the open-world compound area allows for experimentation and practice with far less rigid constraints. I’ve wrung plenty of fun out of Supercross 3 since coming to grips with the handling, however. Nailing a perfect holeshot in the frantic blitz to the first corner or skipping over a series of whoops without losing momentum is very satisfying; you’ve just got to work for it. The 450s are my highlight, and easily the most fun to ride. The increased power allows you to step out the rear, turn harder, and jump further. The other notable new features are that you can now join official teams in career mode and, for the first time in the series, you can play as female riders. They don’t look any better than the blokes, who aren’t exactly up to 2020 standards themselves, but it’s good to finally recognise that women can, in fact, ride bikes.

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The Good Place Series Finale Review

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This review contains spoilers for The Good Place series finale, titled "Whenever You're Ready."

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Few sitcoms — or television shows in general, really — have ever aimed quite as high as NBC’s The Good Place. Attempting to pin down a theory of morality that can fully govern and give meaning to human existence in only 52 episodes is a Herculean (or perhaps more aptly, Aristotelian) task. It’s one that The Good Place handled with as much aplomb as humanly possible, but in its final hour the focus is no longer on ethical quandaries or saving humanity. Rather, the finale is a long-due bout of catharsis, focusing solely on the ending of Jason, Tahani, Chidi, Janet, Michael, and Eleanor’s lives in the afterlife.

At its most clinical level, The Good Place’s fourth season was about building a better afterlife. Seasons 1 and 2 were focused on unraveling the mysteries of the intricate system; Season 3 was devoted to picking apart its shortcomings. Smart writing and brilliant performances from the main cast ensured that the series never faltered despite the fact that it was never going to top that absolute zinger of a Season 1 finale.

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“Whenever You’re Ready” packs an emotional punch early on as Jason (who is happily coupled with Janet and enjoying not-living in a Stupid Nick’s Wing Dump) reaches a symbolic end point by playing the perfect game of Madden with his father. It’s fitting that Jason is the first to feel ready to pass on given that his worldly concerns have always been the simplest. That doesn’t mean that they’re any less important, however, and appearances from Jason’s dad, Pillboi, and Jason’s dance crew set the cathartic tone for the rest of the episode.

The finale also does its due diligence calling back to previous characters and gags like the prophetic Doug Fawcett or the magic panda, an easter egg spawned from Jason’s Season 2 escape plan to “Catch that magic panda, use her powers!” However, the episode isn’t bogged down by quippy callbacks or guest appearances from stars like Nick Offerman or Mary Steenburgen, keeping the focus squarely on giving the main cast time to pass on.

“Whenever You’re Ready” eschews the particulars in favor of heady emotional resolutions and quiet moments between friends. In a way, it doesn’t quite feel like a classic Good Place episode: there are no life- or death-threatening stakes at place, no existential questions to be answered, and no crucial wrongs to be righted. In fact, it feels almost a bit too idyllic and tonally out of step with the season as a whole, which lingered a bit too much on new characters and dilemmas rather than honing in on relationships between the central cast. That being said, the finale course corrects a bit by focusing in on Team Cockroach (or if you prefer, the Soul Squad) itself. A 90-minute goodbye is what these characters have earned.

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Tahani finds peace after reconciling with her sister-cum-archnemesis-cum-best friend Kamilah and their parents. She also masters nearly every talent known to man, choosing to take on the ultimate duty as an Architect rather than leaving. Chidi learns how to be confident in his decisions, making the ultimate choice to pass on. Michael finally gets to defer control, giving up his demon nature to live, and be judged, as a human on Earth. Jason spends a not-insignificant number of Jeremy Bearimys meditating in the forest before passing, harkening back to his early days as Jianyu the monk.

Eleanor, however, is the most heart-wrenching case. Defined by her selfishness throughout the show, her ultimate resolution is arguably the most admirable. By the time the finale hits, she’s gotten everything that she ever wanted: friends who genuinely care about her, faith from those who believe in her, an unconditional soulmate, a renewed relationship with her mother, and a margarita whenever the situation calls for one. In order to feel at peace, she has to give it all up after helping those she cares about reach self-actualization.

Just as Eleanor learns how to properly move on, we have to do the same. While fans of the series, myself included, would likely watch infinite seasons of The Good Place until our own day of judgment, the finale is ultimately so strong because it abides by its own message: in order for anything to have potent meaning, it must come to an end. Last summer, showrunner Michael Schur posted a note on the show’s official Twitter account informing fans that Season 4 would be the last, something that he decided after the series was renewed for a second season. The finale ultimately feels so satisfying because The Good Place has said everything that it needed to say. Rather than prolonging the inevitable with season after season or less potent material, it leaves us with one final note: “Take it sleazy.”

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Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Byleth DLC Review

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After the impressive and surprising list of DLC characters Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s first Fighter’s Pass has brought so far, the most recent and final addition, Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, feels like an incredibly safe pick – in more ways than one. They’re not as mechanically complex as the likes of Hero or Terry Bogard, and not as fan-servingly exciting as Joker or Banjo & Kazooie. And yet, a bit of vanilla to round out this already vibrant pack of extra fighters doesn’t stop Byleth from proudly standing out among their Fire Emblem peers and the rest of Ultimate’s extensive roster.

As an anime-looking sword-wielder, Byleth certainly has their work cut out for them in trying to convince people to pick them up over any of the other similar options –  and thankfully, they’ve got plenty to work with in that regard. Out of the five other Fire Emblem reps (seven if you count Echo Fighters), Byleth manages to be the only one to showcase the strategic weapon variety that’s core to the series. Using special weapons from Three Houses known as Heroes’ Relics, Byleth can seamlessly swap out their whip-sword for a hefty axe, lengthy spear, or powerful bow, and each has their own unique strengths that make them a ton of fun to smash your opponents with.

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Rather than have them haphazardly attached to various moves, Byleth’s different weapons are smartly mapped to your directional inputs. While their neutral special incorporates the bow, side attacks utilize their spear, down attacks summon the axe, and lighter swipes and overhead moves uses the whip-sword. Beyond each one looking awesome when summoned in a fight, the directional based context gives Byleth a feeling of smart cohesion that’s incredibly easy to pick up and understand.

Byleth’s moveset is also one of the big reasons why this DLC fighter seems  fairly simple compared to the others that have arrived post-launch – for better and for worse. Where Terry’s button inputs could be too technical for some, Hero’s random moves and magic meter could feel too chaotic, and the meters and consumables of Joker and Banjo too much to keep track of, Byleth forgoes all of it. Their “gimmick” essentially lies in the simplicity of a man/woman-at-arms, with a weapon for every situation, providing a different type of challenge in knowing when to use the right one rather than learning how to wield them at all.

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But Why Byleth?

It’s a question that’s been on everyone’s mind since game director Masahiro Sakurai’s big reveal: why close out Fighters Pass 1’s list of impossible-to-predict guests with Nintendo’s latest Fire Emblem protagonist? The answer is likely the most obvious one – because they are Nintendo’s latest protagonist, and rightly deserve a place on the roster. When Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s launch roster was revealed, it seemed like every main character from all of Nintendo’s biggest games were there –  including the likes of the Inklings and Isabelle, both of whom had gained increased popularity since the last Smash Bros. game. It's entirely possible the only reason we’ve seen so many guest characters as DLC is because we also haven’t been introduced to that many new Nintendo protagonists since Ultimate launched. Out of Nintendo’s 2019 lineup, Byleth was the only real new addition to a big franchise that also lent themself toward being a fighter. (Sorry, Gooigi, maybe you’ll make the Echo Fighter roster someday.) If Three Houses had been developed and released a year or two earlier, there’s a good chance Byleth would have been in the base roster as many other Fire Emblem heroes were in the past. As for why Fire Emblem has so many representatives in Smash - unlike other big Nintendo franchises, Fire Emblem is one of the few that regularly changes its cast of main characters for each game (Granted, having three reps for Fire Emblem Awakening was a bit too much, even considering Echo Fighters).

If Byleth does have a gaping flaw, it’s commitment. While each weapon type can deal a staggering amount of damage when they connect, they’ll often leave Byleth wide open to counters from a skilled or perceptive opponent. The bow, known as Failnaught, can be charged up to deal devastating precision damage at long range, but once you’ve charged past a certain threshold, you can’t get out of the move early. Similarly, aiming your attacks downward with the axe Amyr can demolish anyone standing nearby, but the lengthy startup and finish (and the time you’re left vulnerable after landing with a downward aerial strike) means you’ll either have to be very good at predicting an opponent, or drop in on a group of distracted fighters. The slow nature of these kinds of “unsafe” moves might not turn a lot of heads in the competitive scene, but it may entice newer players who aren’t afraid of making mistakes with an easy-to-grasp moveset and tons of strong attacks.

Even without the additional weaponry, Byleth’s Sword of the Creator (which is generally linked to up-attacks, but can also act as a sort of default for many others) holds some very interesting and fun properties. Able to be used like a whip, it gives Byleth’s quicker moves and upward attacks more options, thanks in part to their unique recovery move. While other characters like Zero Suit Samus and Joker can use similar tools to grab or hook onto ledges and pull themselves up, Byleth’s up-B can also latch onto opponents and use them as a stepping stone to launch high up while sending their target screaming downwards once they’ve hit a certain damage threshold – which makes it deliciously evil to use off the stage, yanking poor souls down to their doom before they can react. I was even pleased to find some clever applications when used above platforms, giving me different options to follow up with other moves depending on how damaged my opponent was, or how far my opponent bounced back off the ground below me. That said, smaller ledges have sometimes been my downfall, as the Sword of the Creator has either been unwilling or unable to hook onto tiny platforms to save me from plummeting and the move itself gives no recovery if nothing connects.

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As part of Byleth’s character pack, there’s also the addition of a host of new themed Spirit Battles. These are as ingeniously crafted as ever, and Three Houses fans will appreciate all the fun details – like Dimitri’s Spirit Battle including a tough Ganondorf in place of Dimitri’s stalwart bodyguard, Dedue. That being said, those who haven’t already played through the Three Houses story may wish to hold off on some of the tougher Spirit Battles, which inadvertently spoil some plot points by way of the battle’s surprise mechanics.

As for the stage, Garreg Mach Monastery feels surprisingly bland. While stages that tour around a large location usually offer up an array of different battlefields to fight in and adapt to, each of the monastery’s four areas are flat, walk-off arenas with the bare minimum inclusion of a few small temporary platforms. Even the guest appearances by students and house leaders of each of the three houses seem a bit dull - especially when spotted standing in an otherwise deserted grand hall. Garreg Mach Monastery isn’t exactly a disappointing place for a fight, but when you look at the variety of architecture in other Fire Emblem levels like Castle Siege and the Coliseum, the monastery just feels stale in comparison. Luckily, the inclusion of some of the best music that Three Houses has to offer won't go unnoticed. The upbeat tempo of Fódlan Winds and The Edge of Dawn mesh perfectly with frantic large battles, while songs like The Apex of the World and Between Heaven and Earth give 1v1s a legendary feel.

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Star Trek: Picard Episode 2 Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out Full spoilers follow for this episode. Episode 2 of Star Trek: Picard, “Maps and Legends,” digs its shiny, Starfleet-issue heels into its central mystery as Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding Isa Briones’s character Dahj, the android “daughter” of Data who was killed in the series premiere last week. Along the way, we also check in with Dahj’s twin, Dr. Soji Asha (also played by Briones), who’s hanging out on a decommissioned Borg cube and getting down with the bad boy Romulan Narek (Harry Treadaway). [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=star-trek-picard-photos&captions=true"] Indeed, mysteries abound, but fortunately for Picard he spent all those years on the holodeck re-enacting Dixon Hill detective stories, so he has a talent for this stuff. Unfortunately for us, though, in its second week Picard is starting to feel like it’s taking a long time getting anywhere. It’s like the warp core is down, and Geordi is nowhere to be found. Certainly the decision to keep Jean-Luc grounded in these early episodes -- earthbound and starship-less -- is essential to this version of the character, who walked away from that Starfleet life all those years ago. But as Picard works to figure out where Dahj and Soji came from, there’s a bit too much talk and not quite enough action, even by the standards of Stewart’s Next Generation, a series well known for its talk-it-out creed. Perhaps the problem is it sometimes feels as though the characters are talking at us rather than to each other, back-filling plot so we can keep up. That said, we do open on an exciting if tragic scene, as we flash back 14 years to the day the synths attacked Mars. The main synth portrayed here is apparently more primitive than Data, and certainly treated with far less respect than our favorite Enterprise ops officer ever was by his shipmates. But that’s not why the synths attack their masters, it seems; no, it looks like they received some kind of download immediately prior to the bloody revolt. The question, of course, is who reprogrammed the androids to commit the heinous attack? [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/picard-take-a-closer-look-inside-the-borg-ship"] Another enigma looming over the series is what exactly is going on at that Borg cube, which is run by the Romulans and, we learn here, disconnected (fortunately) from the Collective. It’s referred to as “the Artifact,” and treated as a sort of museum/research facility, but also one where Soji is de-Borging the Borg. Certainly her intentions seem good and genuine, but the fact that Narek is pretty clearly a bad guy (confirmed by the end of the episode) leaves her in the position of being one step behind the viewer, and that’s not a great place for a character to be for too long. At least Narek’s true nature is one mystery we’ve got figured out, even if she hasn’t. Meanwhile, Picard’s doing his Dixon Hill thing (but without the fedora) with an assist from the show’s second best character, Laris (Orla Brady), Jean-Luc’s housekeeper who also happens to be an ex-Tal Shiar (which is to say Romulan secret police). She does some computer-sleuthing in Dahj’s apartment that is worthy of Data and Geordi in their heyday for its level of technobabble, but we can forgive her for that if only because of her line “cheeky f#@kers.” I’ve never been a fan of modern Star Trek’s preoccupation with dropping swear words, but somehow it just works here. Thanks to Laris, Picard learns that Dahj’s twin is off-world, and so he visits Starfleet headquarters to ask for a ship… only to be turned down and taken down several notches by the CNC. It’s a pretty great scene all told, starting with the strains of Jerry Goldsmith’s score as Jean-Luc beams in to San Francisco, but culminating in a very un-heroic outcome for our hero as he’s told to do what he’s good at -- go home. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=jean-luc-picard-the-first-duty-gallery-comic-con-2019&captions=true"] The Admiral also makes the case for Starfleet and the Federation’s side of the situation from 14 years earlier. Whereas last week’s episode painted Starfleet in a poor light, here things become a little more complicated. Would the Federation itself have fallen apart if they had diverted all their resources to the Romulan rescue? The needs of the many… We also get to meet Starfleet’s head of security, the Vulcan Commodore Oh (Tamlyn Tomita). The actress plays the part very well, breaking down the basic logic of the Picard situation with simple statements that are reminiscent of how Spock and T’Pol discussed their failed marriage attempt all the way back in “Amok Time” on The Original Series. And yet, not long after the Commodore is introduced to us, we learn that she is in fact being duped by her underling, Peyton List’s Lt. Rizzo (who’s secretly Narek’s sister!), which unfortunately cuts into Oh’s credibility, as well as our patience with her as a character -- as with Soji. And yet, we do learn that she was behind the plan to capture Dahj, even if killing the girl was a mistake on the part of Rizzo’s Romulan goons. But what’s the head of Starfleet security doing working with Romulans? Another mystery! [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/star-trek-the-history-of-the-borg-timeline"] Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:

• Whoever reprogrammed the synths to attack Mars did so on First Contact Day -- the holiday that recognizes when humans first met alien life. Surely this is not a coincidence.
• “I never really cared for science fiction. I guess… I just didn’t get it.”
• How many Early Grey references is too many?
• It’s nice to see the use of holographic communications in this series, as it makes more sense than it did on Discovery, and in fact we learned in Deep Space Nine that Starfleet was beginning to utilize that tech more often.
• The Federation computers do not use Majel Barrett-Roddenberry’s voice anymore. Sad emoji.
• Riker, Worf, and LaForge all get namedropped!
• Not only does David Paymer show up as Jean-Luc’s old buddy from his first command, the Stargazer (where he was probably the ship’s doctor), but he also tells Picard that his medical scans indicate that the illness that he was warned of all the way back in the Next Gen season finale may finally have caught up with him.
• I love how the new Starfleet uniforms track with those seen in the alt-future of “All Good Things,” including the new combadge and the placement of the pips, but man do they seem to not be very well fitted.
• We got another appearance by the Enterprise-D… and also the original NCC-1701!
• Star Trek: Picard’s use of the word “galaxy” is a bit annoying, as technically the Federation should just be the Alpha and part of the Beta Quadrants at this point in Trek history, which is really like one-third of the galaxy. Unless, of course, something changed since we last saw Jean-Luc 20 years ago.
• We finally got to meet Picard’s former First Officer Raffi (Michelle Hurd), but more on her next week!

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Mortal Kombat 11 - The Joker DLC Review

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With previous appearances in Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, Injustice, and Injustice 2 The Joker is basically a Netherrealm fighting game veteran at this point. That’s significant because his newest iteration in Mortal Kombat 11 is easily his best one yet, absolutely nailing The Joker’s penchant to make you laugh one moment, and then think “oh my god, this sick, sadistic freak” the next. Mortal Kombat 11’s M rating certainly helps enable that, but The Joker is also simply a ton of fun to play, resulting in one of Mortal Kombat 11’s best DLC characters so far.

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The best thing about The Joker from an aesthetic point of view is the look of his moveset. It consists mostly of techniques familiar from his appearances in other games, but with some new and wildly entertaining spins. His gun is now a Batman hand puppet that Joker will actually talk to if you hold down the button and delay the shot; His short-range knife from Injustice is now a cane that he wields with the flourish of a circus performer; and his gas canisters are now exploding jack-in-the-boxes that are used in all new fun ways.

Above all else, Joker just looks like he’s having fun out there, and it makes him really fun to play as a result.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/23/mortal-kombat-11-joker-all-gear-intros-and-outros"]

Of course, it also helps that, upon first impression, he seems really, really strong. His cane gives him a far-reaching high attack that is excellent for whiff punishes and establishing his range in the neutral; he’s got great zoning in his first competitive variation, fantastic set ups in his second, and huge combo damage potential in his third. Each variation seems uniquely viable so far, which is great because it allows for a lot of versatility in how Joker is played.

My personal favorite variation is the third one, which outfits him with a launching special move in his “Kapow” spring-loaded boxing glove, allowing him to convert big damage off of his combo strings. In addition to that, this variation also has a one-of-a-kind gas can special move that allows him to drop a trail of gasoline and ignite it for big damage over time.

Joker is appropriately very mind game heavy, with the ability to hold many of his special moves and release them right as the opponent makes a move. Even his Fatal Blow can be held and canceled, a quality shared only by Johnny Cage, which allows for all sorts of nastiness, especially considering that he has a krushing blow on his forward throw that can be utilized when the fatal blow is on cooldown. It’s also one of the most satisfying krushing blows in the game, featuring the Joker literally exploding his opponent’s balls (or just general nether region for those lacking.)

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/24/mortal-kombat-11-joker-gameplay-and-fatalities"]

This allows The Joker to be a character who is extremely good at comebacks since he becomes a lot more dangerous when he’s in fatal blow territory. Any block string can become a guessing game between whether he will fatal blow, cancel it into a krushing blow throw, or into another combo. Not to mention, it also gives his less combo heavy variations a way to deal substantial damage by using the fatal blow cancel to extend otherwise impossible combos.

On top of all that, he also has very solid damage without even needing meter thanks to a fast meterless launching combo across every variation, a great far-reaching low poke, and a fantastic uppercut with great range,

All of this strength isn’t balanced by any single glaring weakness, but a bunch of small inconveniences that you’ll just have to deal with when you decide to choose Joker. He doesn’t really have any moves that leave him with advantage on block, forcing you to always give up your turn when your pressure is stopped; he doesn’t have a fantastic way to close the distance if the opponent wants to keep him out; and his otherwise excellent poke with his cane hits high, which can be easily ducked under and uppercutted if it’s scouted.

Even outside of his combat look and feel, Joker is similarly excellent. Veteran voice actor Richard Epcar reprises his role from Injustice and Injustice 2 and turns in an exceptional performance as the clown prince of crime, expertly evoking the same psychotic glee that makes Mark Hamill’s take on the character so iconic.

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Corsair K95 RGB Platinum XT Gaming Keyboard Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out When it comes to RGB, Corsair is at the top of its game. Whether you’re looking for keyboards and mice, new fans for your PC, or an eye-catching mouse pad, Corsair has a light-up option to take your setup to the next level. When the K95 RGB Platinum launched in 2017, the build quality, dedicated macro and media controls, and supremely customizable lighting set a new high-water mark for RGB gaming keyboards. This month, Corsair unveiled its successor, the K95 RGB Platinum XT. It raises the game with native Elgato Stream Deck integration, improved switches and keycaps, more onboard storage, and a comfier wrist rest. So is it worth your $199?

Design and Features

At first glance, the K95 RGB Platinum XT looks nearly identical to the original. The biggest visual update comes with the new wrist rest and the new blue keycaps for the macro keys. Apart from that, Corsair has adopted the “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” approach to product design. I was a big fan of the original version, but if you’re new to the K95 it’s worth noting just how big it is, measuring more than 18 inches wide and 6 inches wide. Even without the wrist rest, you’ll need extra space on your desk to accommodate it compared to more modestly sized boards. Keeping the same design also means that everything that made the original K95 great is back again for another round. We once again see the “floating key” design that exposes the key switches for improved lighting. Dedicated media keys and the excellent metal volume roller are back for easy control of media playback. So is the hefty “aircraft-grade” aluminum top plate for rigidity and weight. Plus, the six customizable macro keys along the left-hand side and vibrant LightEdge bar on the top rim also make their return.

Just below that, we have the USB passthrough port. It’s still only USB 2.0, so you’re stuck with last-gen transfer speeds, but it works great for connecting a gaming headset or mouse. The cable on the K95 RGB Platinum XT is braided but thick, stiff, and filled with bends from packaging. It ends in two headers, though you can get away with a single USB 3.0 connection if you don’t plan to use the passthrough. If you do, there are also helpful cable guides on the underside of the board to keep the front of your desk tidy. The lighting on the XT is as gorgeous as ever. Unfortunately Corsair’s proprietary Cappelix LEDs aren’t in the mix here, but even so the light show is impressive. The LEDs are bright and, thanks to the translucent housings on the Cherry MX RGB switches, it looks amazing from any angle. From above, the denser PBT plastic and black metal of the top plate keep the lighting surprisingly isolated and avoid the light bed that occurs on lighter colored keyboards. The customizable LightEdge bar adds an extra touch of visual flair that really takes lighting to the next level, though it’s not as unique a feature as it once was. Even small brands have gotten in on the trend.

The K95 RGB Platinum XT does have some unique tricks to tempt you into a buy. This version comes stock with double-shot PBT keycaps, something you previously had to buy separately for $50. If you’re not deep into the world of keyboards, having keycaps made of a different kind of plastic might not seem like a big deal, but it is. PBT keys are more resistant to shine, so they won’t develop that oily sheen gaming keyboards are known for. Being double-shot also means that the legends are made of a second piece of plastic and will never fade or chip over time. Ask anyone who has used a good set of PBT caps and they’ll tell you the most important thing: they just feel better to use. PBT is a denser plastic than the ABS used on most boards and, in fact, these keycaps are a good 50% thicker on top of that. Gaming and typing feels more solid and substantial, which is satisfying. Going back to bog-standard ABS caps makes the whole keyboard feel more cheap after getting used to the XT. These keycaps are an excellent value-add that makes the XT upgrade more worth it, and I love that PBT is slowly making its way into more flagship keyboards. The switches themselves have also received an upgrade. Both the Cherry MX RGB Speed and Brown switches have had their stems redesigned to feel consistent over time. In practice, I didn’t notice any difference in how the keys felt from the prior version. They’re also more durable and rated for 100 million key presses each compared to the standard 50 million. For the first time, you can also order the K95 RGB with Cherry MX Blue RGB switches, but these don’t have the redesigned benefits. I wasn’t able to tell the difference during my testing, but I expect a much greater lifespan as a result.

The other big upgrade comes with the new foam wrist rest. Frankly, it’s about time. Corsair has kept the rubber surface to its wrist rests since the early days of the original Vengeance K70. Look, I get it: rubber is grippy. It keeps you in place while gaming. It also makes your wrists sweat. The new foam padding is a huge improvement and much more comfortable. If you’re a streamer, the K95 XT’s killer feature is surely the new Stream Deck functionality. Elgato’s Stream Deck is essentially a macro pad custom-tailored to for streamers, and it’s exciting to see that functionality make its way into the K95. With Elgato’s software, you can now use the six macro G-keys as Stream Deck buttons. It’s as simple as dragging actions onto the key and the software does the rest. This integrates seamlessly with an existing Stream Deck or can work all on its own with a special floating window inside Windows. I don’t stream often but I do produce YouTube videos, and I loved being able to start and stop recording with my capture card with these easy to find buttons. If you host a stream, you can use it to change profiles, trigger GIFs, change scenes or interact with your stream in a way that was, at best, much more difficult with the original K95 Platinum. Corsair has even included some blue, Elgato-themed keycaps to replace the stock silver ones that come installed on the board. In a future version of the board, I would love to see LED macro buttons like an actual Stream Deck. Under the hood, the K95 XT includes all of the responsiveness and programmability you would expect from a modern gaming keyboard. It features a 1000 Hz polling rate, full n-key rollover, and anti-ghosting to make sure that it tracks your inputs accurately every time. You’re even able to adjust the electrical debounce time to prevent misclicks, which I found helpful with the super-smooth and super-sensitive Cherry MX Speed switches. In all my testing over the last month, the keyboard never once missed a keystroke. If there was a mistake, it was always my own over-eagerness in-game.

Performance

I tested the K95 RGB Platinum XT with both Cherry MX RGB Speed and Brown switches, which provide very different experiences in-game. Speed switches are smooth and non-tactile and actuate 80% faster than either browns or blues. Brown switches, on the other hand, have a soft tactile bump when the key triggers, giving you an extra bit of feedback to prevent misclicks. Theoretically, the shorter travel distance of the Cherry MX Speed switches should let you send commands more quickly, but this depends entirely on your response time. Practically speaking, you’ll notice how much more typo-prone you are before you ever notice a benefit in-game. This gets better with time, but there’s a definite learning curve. For my part, I enjoyed playing with the Cherry MX Brown switches. The sensitivity of the Speeds led to more misclicks and even made me run from cover once or twice due to resting my fingers too heavily on the board. Switches aside, the K95 RGB Platinum XT performed phenomenally in games. It’s as responsive as you would expect a high-end gaming keyboard in 2020 and I had no trouble playing through intense matches of Apex Legends and Battlefield V. I really liked that I could quickly record gameplay clips with the Elgato buttons. The macro row also let me do cool things like move my gadgets and secondary skills off the number row. In the middle of an intense match, it’s much easier to figure out which macro button you’re pressing than an untextured number button without looking at the board. If you’ve ever pulled out the wrong weapon because you hit 4 instead of 3, then you already know what I’m talking about. I also spent some time using these macro keys in World of Warcraft. Paired with the tools in the game, it’s possible to map pieces of your skill rotation into a single button. This isn’t something unique to the K95 (you can do it with any keyboard) but having skill chains and abilities in their own dedicated row definitely made it more useful. The K95 XT allowed me to have a whole set of standby functions without needing to sacrifice any of my other keys. The programmability of the K95 XT is useful outside of gaming too. With its five profiles of onboard storage, I was able to create keymaps for my four favorite games and another for Windows. When I login to my gaming PC, I can now press one button to open my email, another to load Discord, another for Notepad or Calculator, and another for Spotify. Since these profiles also store lighting settings, I was able to give each one its own look so I never confused which profile I was using.

Purchasing Guide

The Corsair K95 RGB Platinum XT is available now with an MSRP of $199 on Amazon or direct from Corsair.

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Arrow: Series Finale - "Fadeout" Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out Warning: this review contains full spoilers for the series finale of Arrow! If you need a refresher on where we left off, here's our review for Season 8, Episode 9 and our full review of the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. [poilib element="accentDivider"] It's a strange experience writing the final review for a series that's been a part of my personal and professional life for eight years. Before Arrow existed, Smallville was the closest thing to a fully realized, live-action superhero universe on TV. Now we have a whole Arrowverse, one that keeps getting bigger and crazier and comic book-ier with each passing year. Oliver Queen changed a lot over the course of eight years, as did world around him. It's fitting that the series takes its final bow not by putting Ollie in the spotlight, but by examining how his crusade affected the lives of everyone around him. To be frank, Arrow didn't even necessarily need a series finale in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Ollie already made his grand, heroic sacrifice and finally achieved his goal of saving Star City. What more even needs to be said at this point? But in a way, that works to the benefit of "Fadeout." The hardest part is already over. There's really no way to unstick the landing, so the finale is less an epic climax to the series than it is a quiet epilogue and an opportunity to spend one last hour with old friends. Quite a few old friends, as it turns out. "Fadeout" shows us Lex Luthor wasn't the only one to manipulate reality and create a new Earth more to his liking. Ollie apparently tweaked Earth-Prime so that doppelgangers of nearly all the loved ones who died over the course of the series are now living in the reborn Star City. It's a clever twist that allows the series to end on a very upbeat and hopeful note despite, you know, everyone grieving for the dead main character. It says a lot about Ollie that he went through the trouble of giving all these people - his mother, Tommy, even poor, twisted Emiko - a second chance without trying to reclaim his own life. And perhaps most importantly, the method behind these "resurrections" dances around any concerns about cheapening their original deaths. Those deaths still happened, just in a universe that no longer exists. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=arrow-fadeout-photos&captions=true"] It's great seeing so many familiar cast members back, including Susanna Thompson's Moira Queen, Colin Donnell's Tommy Merlyn, Katrina Law's Nyssa al Ghul and even Joe Dinicol's Rory Regan. The complaint with nearly all these returning characters is that we didn't get to see enough of them, but there's really only so much that can be expected of one episode. And certainly, writers Marc Guggenheim and Beth Schwartz knew their biggest priority had to be Emily Bett Rickards' Felicity. Season 8 has been able to coast by without Felicity up to now, but it would have been unthinkable to wrap up without bringing her back. Rickards delivers an emotionally charged performance to cap off her Arrowverse tenure, with Felicity juggling her grief over Ollie, her fear at losing William too and the profoundly strange sensation of meeting an adult version of her infant daughter. And fittingly, it all culminates in a sequence that finally reveals what became of 2040's Felicity at the end of Season 7. This episode is somewhat vague (intentionally, no doubt) as to whether Ollie still exists in Spectre form or is truly and completely dead, but all that really matters is he and Felicity finally get that happy ending they failed to achieve at the end of Seasons 3 and 7. If "Fadeout" does anything right, it's in passing the torch from Ollie to Diggle. David Ramsey really shines here as a man mourning his brother and struggling to decide what his purpose is in a world that no longer needs Team Arrow. The flashbacks help highlight that brotherly dynamic and show just how far the two have come since 2012. And happily, this episode implies we'll be seeing a lot more of the Diggle family beyond Ramsey's guest role in next week's The Flash. Their move to Metropolis suggests John and/or Lyla might be part of the supporting cast on Superman & Lois. And it sure seems like that John Diggle: Green Lantern fan theory has well and truly come to pass. The actual conflict in the finale is nothing terribly remarkable. Post-Prometheus, the idea of an old enemy from Season 1 returning to strike at Oliver Queen where he's most vulnerable seems a little redundant. But that subplot and the flashback scenes get the job done in terms of adding a little variety to the mix. You don't want to devote an entire hour to people crying in front of tombstones and statues, especially when James Bamford is directing. And there's something highly amusing about the very last villain in Arrow being named after the influential and infamously cantankerous comic creator John Byrne. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/18/crisis-on-infinite-earths-crossover-review"] While emotionally stirring in all the right ways, "Fadeout" does fall short in a few key ways. Anyone who's followed my Arrow reviews over the years probably knows what I'm going to say next. It's hugely disappointing that Manu Bennett's Slade Wilson never made a significant return appearance in Season 8. Slade is easily the best villain Arrow ever produced, and he only Reverse-Flash rivals him as the best Arrowverse villain of them all. The series will always feel irritatingly incomplete in that regard. We do get that early rehash of the pivotal Slade/Moira scene from Season 2 early on, but one has to assume Bamford and his team fudged the end result using archival footage rather than actually flying Bennett out to film a couple quick shots of being punched in the face. Otherwise, why not give Slade a meatier role and actually provide the character with the closure Season 6 never quite achieved? There are several possible reasons why Bennett never returned for Season 8 when nearly every other fan-favorite actor did. Maybe the scheduling never worked out. Maybe, as with Michael Rosenbaum's refusal to take part in Crisis, The CW was never able to provide Bennett with the compensation he felt he deserved. Or maybe Slade is just another casualty of WB's strange dislike of having multiple simultaneous versions of the same character. With Deathstroke playing such a huge role in Titans: Season 2, it could be that Bennett's return was never going to be an option. Whatever the explanation, the almost complete lack of Slade Wilson in the finale causes the series to end on a needlessly sour note. It's also strange how much the events of "Fadeout" seem to clash with last week's "Green Arrow and the Canaries." That episode revealed Dinah fled to the year 2040 after discovering no trace of her existence remains in 2020. How exactly does that gel with what we see here? There's also little sense of how and why Laurel comes to be in 2040. These glaring inconsistencies stand out all the more because this episode does reference William's kidnapping in "Green Arrow and the Canaries," so it's not as if the two hands aren't talking to each other. For these and other reasons, Arrow's final episode does stumble a bit as it crosses the finish line. There are a few too many loose ends that will probably have to be wrapped up in other Arrowverse series. But at least the core trinity of Ollie, Felicity and Diggle are given the sendoffs they deserve. Much as it has throughout its tumultuous existence, Arrow succeeds where it matters most. [poilib element="poll" parameters="id=240f520d-32b1-4811-b0d7-7dd17217cf83"]

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Kingdom Hearts 3 Re Mind DLC Review

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Kingdom Hearts 3’s Re Mind DLC is oddly jumbled. It’s a pack of weirdly separated content that is simultaneously far less interesting than it could have been story-wise and frustratingly difficult at times combat-wise unless you’ve essentially maxed out Sora’s abilities. And even when you have, the Grand Canyon-sized valley between the challenge of its bosses and everything else that comes before them is so wide that they feel entirely out of place. As a result, this shoehorned side adventure, while offering some bright spots, lands as an odd and underwhelming coda to Sora’s latest adventure.

The Re Mind DLC is largely divided into two portions – the first being an underwhelming retread of Kingdom Hearts 3’s climax with miniscule bits of added lore, while the second is a brutal boss gauntlet presented with a disappointing set of Final Fantasy cameos paired with an incredibly in-depth photo mode. That first section, which must be completed before you can tackle the latter, is perhaps Re Mind’s biggest misfire.

Screenshots from Kingdom Hearts 3 Re Mind DLC

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Lasting about four to five hours, most of it cutscenes, Re Mind revisits the end of Kingdom Hearts 3’s campaign, offering some further insight into character moments and motivations as it fills in the blanks of some of Sora’s journey. While the DLC starts on a far more interesting note, seemingly set to investigate the tantalizing and lingering mystery of the black box several characters are searching for all throughout KH3’s main story, it instead pivots to offering essentially a director’s cut of Kingdom Hearts 3’s final hours.

And it feels… superfluous. Without spoiling any of the original story (which I quite enjoyed as I mentioned in my original Kingdom Hearts 3 review) or how this new version shifts it, a few new fan service-y moments are introduced into a stretch that already felt like fan service personified. While I liked that originally, these new portions add very little to my enjoyment of sequences I’d essentially seen before. I kept waiting for something big to happen that would deepen my understanding of them, but it ultimately lead nowhere revelatory – even worse, sometimes actually raising more questions than it answers.

[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=By%20the%20time%20Re%20Mind%E2%80%99s%20more%20story%20focused%20endeavors%20ended%2C%20I%20was%20left%20questioning%20why%20I%20needed%20to%20see%20that%20retread%20at%20all."]

Mechanically, this first half frustratingly reuses boss fights as well – and while they now offer the option to play as characters other than Sora, those characters are one-offs that are just not as fun to play as. They’re not nearly as powerful as my leveled-up Sora at that point in the adventure, and their move sets aren’t varied enough to substantively change combat in an interesting way. I played as these alternate characters because I felt obligated to, not because they were fun.

Re Mind does add one small quest that let me fully explore one of Kingdom Hearts 3’s coolest original areas, a late-game sprawling citadel that I was left wanting more of in the base game. But the quest here is over and done in about 20 to 30 minutes, and while the level is definitely pretty, its emptiness feels like a missed opportunity to imbue something intriguing and unexpected into this world.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/first-19-minutes-of-kingdom-hearts-3-remind-dlc"]

By the time Re Mind’s more story focused endeavors ended, I was left questioning why I needed to see that retread at all. Hoping the second portion, the “Limit Cut” episode as it’s labeled, would offer some concrete and fresh character and story moments to satisfy a hunger the year-long wait for this DLC had caused, I was initially thrilled by the inclusion of forgotten Final Fantasy characters. Leon, Yuffie, and Aerith have been important parts of past Kingdom Hearts adventures but were absent in 3, so seeing them felt like a sign of great things to come.

Unfortunately,  they’re relegated to a single cutscene and some additional dialogue options that set up the true meat of this DLC: 13 boss battles based on digitized information of characters Sora has already fought in his quest to acquire information I won’t spoil here. Don’t even try these battles if you’re not at or near the upper limit of Sora’s strength. These are some of if not the hardest boss battles in the entire franchise, very clearly intentionally so, and I didn’t even have a hope of fighting them on normal difficulty below level 90. I did (at level 75), and found the battles so unrelentingly oppressive that I leveled Sora up to the max of 99 in order to feel like I had a fighting chance.

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Even still, I’ve only managed to best four of those bosses so far and gotten my butt kicked by each of the others multiple times over. They are, quite simply, abnormally tough, and it’s felt pretty rewarding to knock out the ones I have. But they are not for the faint of heart – short of having the Ultima Weapon and/or maxing out Sora’s level, it’s not even worth entertaining the idea of these battles, which is never properly communicated in the lead up to them.

While I’ve enjoyed the fights now that grinding levels has made them somewhat achievable, they also feel very out of place. Every Kingdom Hearts has included a tough optional boss or two, and that’s totally fine, but including over a dozen new battles that are orders of magnitude more difficult than anything else in the relatively easy Kingdom Hearts 3 makes them a disorienting challenge to tackle. It’s a bit of a monkey’s paw wish being granted – I’m glad there’s something truly challenging in this game now, but I’d rather it felt like a more natural part of the story.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/12/10/kingdom-hearts-3-remind-dlc-trailer"]

They can’t be trained for other than losing to them over and over again either, and I’ve wrestled with whether the ultimate satisfaction of beating them is worth the asking price – especially given the fairly lackluster reward for doing so, a brief tease of a starkly different future for Kingdom Hearts than what’s come before. And while its revelations definitely shocked me at first, the more I think about it, the less it means to me as a fan of this franchise.

Re Mind does, however, throw in a ridiculously deep photo mode that puts most others to shame – essentially allowing the player to pick a location and choose from a deep series of characters, poses, items, and effects to set whatever fan fiction scene you can imagine. Want Sora to strike down Donald for all those times he yelled out about ingredients? This photo mode can grant that and many other wishes. It’s a treat to play around with, though its inclusion only adds to the scattershot compilation that is Re Mind.

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The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners Review

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Imagine what would happen if you took a half-season of The Walking Dead TV show, mashed it together with a Deus Ex or System Shock style of exploration and decision-making, and then drizzled it with the best aspects of a modern VR game. What you might end up with is a survival horror game that’s oppressively tense and brutal, but also tugs on you relentlessly to explore every corner of its post-apocalyptic world for hidden loot and nuggets of lore. The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is exactly that, and it absolutely nails the mix, delivering it with a level of detail and a depth of interactivity that feels like a genuine step forward for virtual reality.

You play as the Tourist, a storied survivor and living urban legend who seems to be immune to the fictional virus that makes everybody else a little bitier in The Walking Dead universe. You’ve rolled into the sunken remains of New Orleans following a rumor about a buried hotbed of limitless supplies called the Reserve, and the rest is up to you. It’s a simple setup, but one that's perfect for the size and scope of Saints & Sinners because it doesn’t immediately saddle you with any presumptions about your character’s morality.

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You’re introduced to New Orleans by your old buddy Henri, but the moral choices you’ll make while navigating its several open-ended zones are yours alone. As an Obsidian fan, I was pleased to find that there were several major factions fighting for control of the Reserve, each with their own perspective on the bleak situation around you. One such moral choice involves a mission where a faction member will send you to rescue their brother in exchange for an important item, and it’s fantastic that you can then choose to upend the original mission and kill the brother, earning his captors as allies and instead taking the item by force – if that’s the path you prefer, of course. Saints & Sinners’ ending depends entirely on the decisions you make throughout the campaign too, few of which are decidedly ‘good’ or ‘evil’.

All that choice makes the Tourist primarily a shell for you to insert your own personality into, with decent voice acting that gives life to each dialogue option, much like Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect series. By comparison, Telltale’s The Walking Dead accomplished some truly great feats of cinematic storytelling and meaningful decision-making in its hostile and zombie-riddled world, but it never gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted. That’s something I had craved for years when I was a regular watcher of The Walking Dead TV series, and while Telltale’s take on The Walking Dead certainly made me care about Clementine, it never made me feel like I was in that world.

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Saints & Sinners scratches that itch with the grace and confidence of a well-lubricated bowie knife. The portrayal of killing zombies – or walkers – has never been as satisfying as it is here, and the abject terror of an unexpected walker swarm has never been as palpable. Zombie guts and brains are rendered with great detail, but what really grounds you in this world is the fact that weapons have appropriate weight and heft. Heavy weapons like axes and rifles require you to grip them with both hands for stability, while small weapons like shivs are much lighter and easier to land precise blows with. It’s not as nuanced as a game like Boneworks; you can’t wield just any item as a weapon, but this combat system is far more tactile and exciting than if you were doing it remotely with a gamepad or a keyboard.

Diseased walkers explode and unleash poisonous gases that lower your health pool when killed up close, meanwhile helmeted walkers are far tougher to kill, requiring a complete decapitation or extremely precise blows to exposed parts of their heads. This increased challenge only adds to the intensity of fighting an entire pack of walkers at once, a common occurrence later on, as you need to quickly pick and choose which walkers need to be killed in which way and in which order to preserve the durability of your best weapons. Rapidly juggling my inventory in real-time to acclimate to each fight forced me to be smarter and, as a result, Saints & Sinners never fell into that Action-RPG trap of becoming repetitive. I spent a little over 18 hours in the campaign – the story itself is a few hours shorter than that, but it was just loads of fun to complete scavenging runs and hunt for secret recipes on my own.

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The walkers and human NPCs themselves have their own agendas too, often interacting with one another in interesting and useful ways. While the AI isn’t always the most bright, causing enemies to sometimes get stuck in hilarious and vulnerable positions, an impressive amount of the unfurling drama that makes Saints & Sinners exciting is simulated in real-time rather than deliberately scripted. To my satisfaction, I found that many of the quests allowed me to choose my own path to a solution, and it was a delight to discover alternate routes and secrets, even if the map can feel a little nondescript or claustrophobic at times. Even when I was presented with straightforward options for moving through a group of wary human NPCs or solving a quest with diplomacy – or simply by attacking an NPC directly – I could just as easily avoid interacting with certain characters altogether, either by attracting a herd of walkers and sneaking past the ensuing carnage, or by climbing over the side of a wall or up the side of a house. That freedom to tackle a situation so many different ways is fantastic.

And though the bigger story about breaking into the Reserve can sometimes feel pretty thin between long periods of exploring, looting, killing, and crafting my way through the streets of New Orleans, it was refreshing for a VR game to let me define my character through my own decisions in a setting as meticulously detailed and open-ended as this. While Saints & Sinners isn’t exactly the first of its kind, this caliber of storytelling reaches a height that VR had otherwise yet to achieve.

Zombalaya

Central to the tension of Saints & Sinners is that you only get so much time each day to do things before the city’s bells are rung and the streets flood with ravenous corpses. Once you head back to safety you can go to sleep and skip to the next morning, but the number of undead you encounter the following day increases. This creates a compelling risk-reward choice between pushing your luck past dark or playing it safe at the cost of worse odds tomorrow, driving the tension of the entire game.

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That dilemma would be perfectly manageable if not for the fact that you only have a limited amount of inventory space, pushing you to think more carefully about what you grab. You also have to continue crafting or finding new weapons as your old ones tend to fall apart at a distressingly high rate. That forces you to make each attack count, which is easier said than done since you actually have to swing and aim with your real-world appendages. With a ticking clock looming behind all that, Saints & Sinners quickly becomes the perfect storm for adrenaline junkies.

Luckily, the inventory management is intuitive and feels great. Picking up items and placing them into your backpack is as simple as throwing them over your shoulder, and to access them again you simply grab the pack off of your back and pull items out of their neatly arranged slots. Meanwhile, weapons can be holstered in convenient slots on your waist and back while your journal and flashlight fit snugly on your chest. This style of physical inventory management has existed in VR games like Rec Room and Township Tale for some time, and it’s far more interactive and interesting than simply tapping on a menu screen with your fingers or pointing at some text with a laser pointer.

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Limited stamina is also a worry. Running out of stamina makes you slow and unable to swing, aim, or run away, meaning it’s all the more critical to land each and every blow with finesse. Likewise, having a strong weapon or beefed up stamina pool makes you feel satisfyingly powerful, but never so much that you can let your guard down, keeping combat engaging even as you get stronger.

If you do die to the shambling hordes, you’re forced to respawn at the start of the map while the day’s clock is still ticking, and you only get one chance to reclaim your inventory before it’s gone forever. As time wears on, high-quality supplies and weapons can become so difficult to find that scrounging up a broken bottleneck or screwdriver in the nick of time is sometimes the difference between life and death. This, mixed with the fact that your health and stamina pools are temporarily decreased when you die, is a perfect formula for some of the most terrifying moments I’ve had in a VR headset – but that terror was met with an equal amount of satisfaction if I could make it back to my loot and come out alive after.

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It is disappointing that character progression is fairly linear, with only a few tech trees to branch into – Gear, Guns, and Survival – and no mutual exclusivity between them. There’s nothing stopping you from unlocking every possible upgrade at the crafting stations in short order, just as long as you can find the right components from scrapping items you find in the world, similar to Fallout 4. It’s plenty of fun to use newfound upgrades like the Nail Bomb and the Grass Cutter, and there are some recipes that you first have to uncover the hidden nooks and crannies of New Orleans to find, but it’s too bad that there’s no real way to personalize your Tourist beyond the story choices you make.

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DualShock 4 Back Button Attachment Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out From robotic dogs to pocketable PCs – Sony’s never been afraid to get weird. But for the most part, the PlayStation has played it pretty vanilla. That’s why it’s exciting to see something as strange as the DualShock 4 Back Button Attachment. As the name implies, this strange, clip-on attachment adds back buttons to your PlayStation controller. It’s a peripheral that’s overdue. It’s been more than four years since Microsoft released the Xbox Elite controller to critical acclaim, and just under a year before the inevitable PS5. Sony didn’t even make the holiday season. So why now is a valid question – though we can speculate that it points to the forthcoming PS5 controller possibly having similar back paddles, thus the attachment exists for compatibility reasons. Either way, Sony undercuts its importance by offering it at a bargain-basement $30 price point.

Design and Features

The Back Button Attachment plugs into the headphone jack and the rarely used EXT port – although actually affixing the cradle to the ports is easier said than done. It requires a precise angle and pressure to plug in, and there were multiple times I thought I was about to break it. I even consulted YouTube videos before getting it right. More times than once, I accidentally started the controller and turned on the PS4, which meant I had to turn the controller off, try again, or risk pairing issues. This would usually be the place where I’d give you some practical advice on how to get it right. However, after dozens of attachments, I still haven’t nailed it. It just requires a ton of wiggling it, pushing it, pulling it out, and starting again. Once on, you’re set. The Back Button Attachment adds a bit of a chin to the DualShock 4, but I quickly got used to it. And despite adding a bit of clunk to the rear of the controller, it’s subtle enough to keep adhered to your default controller. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/14/ps4s-back-button-attachment-impressions-a-tease-of-ps5"] At .88 ounces, the rear attachment doesn’t weigh much. What’s more noticeable is the ergonomic shift. Depending on how forward your hands sit on the controller, the grip will either feel most comfortable on your ring or middle fingers. You may need to try out new grips. Mapping buttons feels high-tech and low-tech all at the same time. There’s a circular button on the back that, when held down, reveals an OLED screen. Once you hold it down, you can program the buttons by cycling through the options (there are sixteen). Then it’s just a matter of actually stopping at the right spot. Miss the button you want to map it to, and you’ll have to press the button another 16 times, which I had to do three times because I’m an idiot. To understand just how weird this process is, consider other “elite” controllers. The Xbox Elite can do it through Xbox software, and Astro’s C40 controller has a dedicated pairing button. Hold that button until the controller vibrates, then hit the trigger you want to program, followed by whatever button you want to map it to. Three button presses. Versus (literally) 48, in my case. The Back Button Attachment could easily ape this same functionality. It already has a giant button that starts the mapping process. Alas. Fortunately, once you’ve managed to find your perfect mapping, it’s easy enough to save your button combinations into a profile, of which the attachment holds three. These profiles are displayed as P1, P2, and P3. At first, I figured the controller was telling me which Player I was, not which profile was selected. Thankfully, it’s dead simple to flip through these profiles – simply double-tap the OLED button twice. The screen even tells you which buttons are mapped to which.

Performance and Gaming

The Back Button Attachment is made of sturdy plastic, and it feels similar to the back of the DualShock. Unlike the Scuf and Elite, these buttons have almost no travel. That makes them super easy to click, whether you’re using your middle or ring fingers. And while battery drain is minimal, I did notice it – especially on some of my oldest controllers. The effectiveness of back buttons varies drastically from game to game. Ostensibly, they’re intended to help you keep your thumbs on the thumbstick, so are recommended for face buttons. However, in practice, it’s a little more complicated. I found them to be just as useful for lobbing grenades in The Division 2 (D-Pad), bullet jumping in Warframe (L1 and X), and adding a little oomph to my melees in Modern Warfare (R3). For most games, once I got used to the new button configurations, I found the Back Buttons irreplaceable. There’s a real advantage to rear buttons, but you may have to experiment with what works for you. I didn’t have a great use-case for them in every game, however. For instance, in Rocket League, I was thrilled to map Air Roll (a maneuver that has no default binding on the controller) to the triggers. But once I actually got playing, I found it altogether too confusing and just mapped boost and jump to the triggers instead. Even when the back buttons combos aren’t natural, the attachment always is. It feels like a natural extension to the controller and I’ve been delighted to try out old favorites with the new peripheral. If that’s not worth $30, I don’t know what is.

Purchasing Guide

The DualShock 4 Back Button Attachment is available now for $30.

• See it at Amazon 
• See it at Best Buy 
• See it at GameStop 

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This could be a real lead forward for personal gaming... Revolutionise gaming