Three years after release, the universe of No Man's Sky continues to evolve. With each expansion, I spend weeks as a blissful wanderer, seeing an already vast universe become more populous, more beautiful, more capable of sustaining a home for anyone who dared to voyage within it. Beyond, however, is no mere evolution and refinement. It feels like No Man's Sky approaching its final form, having shed a great deal of what was previously limiting and restrictive. But there’s one new factor specifically that makes the update live up to its name: No Man’s Sky is now a VR title. And it is utterly breathtaking.It is breathtaking right away, waking up for the first time completely immersed in an alien world literally no one else has ever seen. Everything has a new fascination: the way the flora moves and shifts under harsh weather, the way the ground is pockmarked and windswept, the vast, unknowable vistas stretching across toxic interstellar perdition. It’s all beautiful before you even make the first flight into space.An incredible amount of additional work has gone into making inhabiting that Exo-Suit even more of an experience. On PS4, you can play in 2D or VR with the DualShock, something that also gives you a Smooth turning option, but two PlayStation Moves are the real way to go. With the Move, your Multi-Tool is strapped to your back, ready to be whipped out more like in Blood & Truth than an ever-present floating gun like in most VR titles. The Analysis visor has you pressing the wand to the side of your head, like you’re Cyclops preparing to fire an Optic Blast. Getting in and out of your ship involves physically pulling the handles, and escaping from a hairy situation with sentinels or the local wildlife with that lightning quick motion adds an even greater layer of tension. Best of all, the menus are mapped to a little hologram in your hands that activates when you point at it. It’s a simple and intuitive implementation of such an elaborate and persistent mechanic.Still, even with the new perspective and tools at your disposal, it should be said upfront that at its core, No Man’s Sky: Beyond is still, well, No Man’s Sky. Whether you’re in VR or not, many of the early mundanities of the game remain. You have to repair your broken ship, gather a specific resource, create fuel, drop a refiner, and so on. Beyond, however, brings varying kindnesses that welcome you to a new universe instead of prodding you into space with a stick. The UI holds your hand, telling you exactly why you’re collecting these things, what it is you’re trying to do, and exactly how to find what you need. Once you’ve found everything, having an expanded inventory and an absurd amount of space to hold items--each block can hold thousands now--means mining constantly in your travels is worthwhile. There’s always something you can use later, and you have the space to contain it. The game is much more patient and generous with the breadcrumbs that teach you how to play, guiding you into the stratosphere not only painlessly but purposefully.That extends into the rest of the game once the tutorials stop and the training wheels are all the way off. All of the larger narrative pieces from the previous updates feel organically woven into Beyond. Dialogue and instructions from one mission from the Atlas Path may be rewritten or tweaked to reference Artemis or some new action you can take in Beyond. Direct links have been made where the next logical step in your current mission involves learning more alien language instead of just trying to get your next cell to warp to the next galaxy. The missions and their objectives have a synergy now, where lines of dialogue and specific mission objectives weave narrative strands together. It’s a bit of minor housekeeping No Man's Sky has needed for a while now. The overarching subtle tale of both exploration and acceptance in the great unknown remains, but it also has quite a bit more meaning now that it’s not your sole purpose in the universe.When your only task was just to keep hopping from galaxy to galaxy towards the center, there was plenty to see and take in, but you couldn’t really live in the universe because you were so busy trying to survive. The Atlas Path asked some big, existential questions, sure. Artemis helped with that a great deal, giving you an Other to truly work towards understanding and fathoming at least one small mystery of the universe with. But there’s a huge difference between looking at a vast wilderness from a hypothetical distance and trying to figure out the very real challenge of laying down roots there. The latter is a much more fundamental part of Beyond’s gameplay loop. It’s the difference between Next telling you that yes, now you can build bases and here’s how, versus those bases being more of a necessity to sustainably start traversing the universe. The way menus and options are streamlined for you in Beyond make it easier to create, leave, and return to a place of solace and safety, and to depend on a planet, your base, and the resources within. It’s a much stronger experience, and the undercurrent of humanism running throughout the Atlas Path lands much harder as a result. Beyond’s biggest improvements are all in favor of fostering that relationship between players and the universe around them, and that includes its people, playable and non-playable.No Man’s Sky has long had one of the more positive and welcoming online communities in the gaming landscape, and there was always the worry that removing the barriers between players would invite the worst elements of online play into what’s typically a place of zen. This is far from the case.The new Anomaly, summonable to any galaxy at any time, is no longer a sparse, glorified save space, but a bustling 16-player hub of activity, full of greetings, proud ship captains, aliens who look upon you with curious eyes, and players more than happy to bring you to the worlds they call home. Just like the first spoken line of the game, so much of the Anomaly’s layout, from its menus to the way it presents the current state of the area, is about reminding you that you’re never fully alone out there. Beyond has made it so much easier to find allies to either assist in their mission or share what you have from your own inventory. Everything you pick up and mine may have a price, but the game quite often reminds you via the descriptions that those items can also be given to others. Clicking an item while on the Anomaly gives you a list of everyone in range that you might possibly hand it off to. Checking mission boards reminds you there are people who may be looking for the same thing you are, and when it’s the other way around, the request shows up in the lower left. During my time with the update, there were good Samaritans everywhere in the Anomaly, giving out extra rare items to whoever wandered into range.That’s a rather huge and heartening factor, not just because you can now jump in and help strangers shoot things down and collect loot, but because it creates a strong sense of community in what was previously a fairly lonely adventure. The Anomaly feels like the petri dish for No Man’s Sky to develop an actual culture, a place of cooks, pilots, space frontiersmen, and traders looking for the next big score. It feels alive and connected in all the ways the game used to feel isolated and cold. And it does so without overshadowing the fundamental element of peaceful solo exploration if you so desire. That new emphasis on connection is never so obtrusive that it prevents you from performing one simple task or speaking to one specific NPC and leaving, but it also doesn’t feel arduous to connect with another human being the way it did before this update.There's still some legwork involved, though. While joining games and having others join yours is a quick and simple matter (and much less finicky than it was in Next) players can occasionally spawn on drastically different locations on the same planet. That said, searching for stranded partners wound up being a weirdly fun adventure all its own.A much bigger caveat is that for a new player to party up with friends, they still have to get out into space on their own, which makes sense. There's a lot of ways for someone who doesn't know what they're doing to irrevocably screw up a galaxy by accident, or waste a resource, or piss off a planet's Sentinels, or ruin your relationship with a species of animals. The tutorials do important work of not just showing you how to play the game, but respect the game. If you want to give a partner some of your resources, you can. But if an objective given by the game tells you to build something, giving them the exact item the game wants won’t clear that objective. That’s a limitation the game is all the better for keeping in place. Choosing to assist someone can’t be the same as beating the game with or for them. If you’re with someone, you’re there for the experience. That’s not all necessarily new for a multiplayer experience, but it does feel rare when the game is pushing you to connect with other people for what tend to be for more mercenary reasons.For my part, I remained a solitary player, only choosing to put down sparing roots on the most beautiful worlds and never building more than I needed. I’m very much a city boy in real life. In No Man’s Sky, I’m a happy recluse with 40 acres and a species of chubby elephantine space mules I named Horace. I’ve been harvesting eggs and milk from the animals on the strawberry-pink and white world I’ve been calling home for the past year or so. Even as the universe got bigger, I would go to the Anomaly to trade, buy new ships, and hang out with aliens, but home remains solitary. So few of the self-sufficient agrarian aspects of my little home were even possible in previous updates. Beyond has made me feel more empowered to sustain that life, have a place to return to and maintain, and make improving it for the laid-back alien assistants who reside with me much easier to accomplish.The larger technical problems with Beyond come down to problems with VR platforms in general. Despite the visual beauty, my time with the Oculus version was plagued with flaws and odd bugs and glitches. By comparison, the PSVR version caters to performance. Frame rate and gameplay are pristine there, but at the cost of clarity, especially when it comes to the various screen displays in-game. In addition, the PSVR’s old nemesis, the camera drift, rears its ugly head here, and the Recenter VR Camera option in the Pause menu does less to solve it than it should. As of this writing, however, there have been additional patches every few days, and more and more of these bugs vanish with each one.These tiny frustrations utterly dissolve away in flight, however. No Man’s Sky’s most consistently powerful experience of seamless space travel nearly reduced me to tears as the upper atmosphere melted away into the silence and deep wonder of the galaxy. It’s the kind of thing I dreamt of as a kid. As part of an expanding experience and seemingly impossibly ever-larger universe, No Man’s Sky continues to deliver on the promise of being a space traveler--and VR assists in making it a more immersive experience.The drastic improvements made to No Man’s Sky in its Beyond expansion are the new gold standard for how to gracefully cope with a game’s flaws post-release. The game laid the foundation with its release, but it took Beyond to elevate it into something magnificent. Successfully transitioning to VR is a creative victory on its own, but realizing just how full and vibrant and rewarding an experience this game has now become is almost poignant. Beyond represents the courage of convictions, a concept that has not only met the lofty expectations it set forth, but transcended them.Info from Gamespot.com

Borderlands 3 lets you play as one of four distinct Vault Hunters--Zane the operative, Moze the gunner, Amara the Siren, and FL4K the beastmaster. If sneaking around and teleporting throughout the battlefield as Zane is how you want to play, then read our guide below. It includes the pros and cons of the character's three distinct skill trees so you can craft the ideal build.Zane has the ability to sacrifice using grenades to equip two action skills at once. If you choose to do this, you'll likely end up weaker in the early game. But don't worry, Zane possesses plenty of excellent first and second tier abilities across all three of his trees, so you'll have plenty to work with until you hit the mid-game and probably want to invest in two action skills and skill trees. We advise focusing a bit more on his Double Agent and Under Cover trees. Once you reach Eden-6, combat gets much harder and--without much in the way of survivability--Zane's going to need those later tier skills, such as the self revive skill Old-U, to boost his defense and chances of surviving. Borderlands 3 News Borderlands 3 Review Borderlands 3 Release Times: When Can You Start Playing? Borderlands 3 Review, Release Date, Preload, Unlock Times, PC Specs, And More Doubled AgentZane's Doubled Agent tree is tied to his Digi-Clone action skill, which summons a holographic decoy that distracts and shoots at enemies and can also switch places with Zane. If you're going to play Borderlands 3 solo, this is one of the two trees you should invest in, as you can evolve Digi-Clone to take the brunt of most of the damage you take as well as rely on the second pair of hands for the bullet-sponge boss battles.The first tier ability Synchronicity is a good early investment, increasing Zane's gun damage for every action skill active. With one skill on, that's pretty good. With two, it's phenomenal. Once you hit second tier, nearly every skill in the Doubled Agent tree is worth investing in. Boom, Enhance is the one exception. Some notable standouts are Quick Breather (Zane's shield immediately begins recharging when he swaps with his decoy), Old-U (Zane can get an instant second wind by swapping with his decoy), and Dopplebanger (the Digi-Clone can be recalled early in an explosion that deals massive splash damage).The utility of the Digi-Clone ability cannot be undersold, as it's probably Zane's most useful action skill. You'll want to equip Digi-Clone and invest heavily into Doubled Agent if you decide to play as Zane. Think Borderlands 2's Zer0, but less ninja and more secret agent.HitmanThough helpful early on in Borderlands 3's campaign, Zane's Hitman tree offers less worthwhile returns the further you invest in it. You shouldn't focus on this tree alone, especially if you're playing through the campaign solo. That said, the Hitman tree--which is tied to Zane's drone-summoning SNTNL action skill--does have a few useful perks, so it's worth putting a few points into it. Maybe just invest in this tree early and then leave its more advanced abilities for when you're going into the endgame content.In the first tier, put points into both the Violent Speed and Violent Momentum abilities. The first increases Zane's movement speed after an action skill use, while the second increases gun damage the faster he's moving. If you're looking for more skills to put points into, then you can put some into second tier Cool Hand to increase reload speed whenever you kill an enemy. When paired with Violent Speed and Violent Momentum, it makes Zane a speed demon with a Jakobs revolver or bolt action rifle.After that, however, the Hitman tree loses most of its luster. The remaining skills are tied to increasing the effectiveness of Zane's SNTNL drone, but none of them are exceptionally good. They're not nearly as good as the late-game skills found in the Doubled Agent tree and when you do hit the latter half of the campaign, you're going to want the perks found in the Under Cover skill tree a lot more. Like, a lot more.Under CoverThe Under Cover tree contains most of Zane's defensive skills. None of them are terribly important early on but grow exponentially in effectiveness the further you progress the campaign. Remember how we said in the Doubled Agent section that there are two skill trees you want to invest in if you're playing with Zane solo? Well, this is the other one. Under Cover is tied to Zane's final action skill, Barrier, which erects a force field that can be picked up for additional defense while on the move or left on the ground to amplify all outgoing shots with increased attack power.Early on, put points into Adrenaline to increase action skill cooldown so you can throw out your shield more often (as well as your Digi-Clone or SNTNL drone if you have those equipped). Hearty Stock increases Zane's maximum shield capacity and Ready For Action ensures his shield recharges faster. The Under Cover tree doesn't truly come into its own until the third tier though, when Nanites Or Some Shite provides health regeneration, increases reload speed, and supplies a faster shield recharge rate while near the Barrier. You also get All-Rounder, which changes the Barrier into a dome for protection from all sides.That's most of what you need out of the tree. From there, start focusing points on the Doubled Agent tree and increasing the effectiveness of the Digi-Clone with it's more advanced perks. Together, the Digi-Clone and Barrier ability allow Zane to keep teleporting around the battlefield and dealing damage from all sides, relying on his force field to recover and increase his combat prowess. If you find yourself with excessive skill points, then go ahead and work towards a few of the late-game Under Cover abilities. Deterrence Field causes Zane's Barrier to shock enemies and Distributed Denial applies Zane's shield effects to the Barrier. If you have a nova or spike shield, then Distributed Denial can be paired with Deterrence Field to turn Zane's Barrier into an offensive tool. And remember, you can pick up said offensive tool and run at the enemies if they don't come to you. Info from Gamespot.com

After Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, a disappointing spin-off released in 2014, Borderlands 3 is a welcome return to form for the franchise. The game reunites fans with the core group of memorable main characters from the first two games and delivers the mayhem-heavy loot-shooter experience that the series is known for. Borderlands 3 carries forward many of the things that made the first two games special, but in doing so it also brings with it a few of the same stumbling blocks. There are noticeable improvements to the series formula, though, as Borderlands 3 provides additional freedom in how you want to play.Set seven years after the events of Borderlands 2, Borderlands 3 wraps up most of the narratives established in the earlier games, while also teasing additional threads that could be explored in the future. Despite these hints, there's a definite finality to Borderlands 3's campaign, which satisfyingly wraps up the arcs of characters that fans have been following for 10 years.As one of four fledgling Vault Hunters--Zane the operative, Amara the Siren, Moze the gunner, or FL4K the beastmaster--you are recruited into the Crimson Raiders, the militia that defends the only civilized pocket of society found on the bandit-filled wasteland planet of Pandora. Led by Lilith, a former Vault Hunter, the Crimson Raiders have gone to war with Tyreen Calypso and her twin brother Troy, who are using their influence as popular video streamers to convince their cult following to help them acquire the immense power found in secret vaults scattered throughout the universe. The story is a bit of a slow start, but it quickly picks up near the end of the first act and rarely slows down on its way to its grand finale. Looting and shooting are still the focus of Borderlands 3, but its campaign also delivers a fairly well-written story of sacrifice, the importance of family, and the responsibilities of heroes.Borderlands 3 provides more flexibility than ever before to create the type of character you want. For the first time in the series, the Vault Hunters all have an active skill tied to each of their three respective skill trees. Amara, for example, can equip Phaseslam to deal immense close range damage, Phasecast to tear through enemies from afar, or Phasegrasp to crowd control or focus her elemental abilities on one target. Using perks from all three skill trees, you can evolve each of these skills in meaningful ways. For instance, if you want to make Amara's area-of-effect Phaseslam ability into something more precise, you could change it with perks found in both the Brawl and Fist of the Elements skill trees so that the ability transforms Amara into a levitating spider-like creature that shoots a massive fire-based death ray before she careens to earth in a smaller slam. Phaseslam can evolve in other ways too, as can Phasecast and Phasegrasp--providing numerous options for how you want Amara to fight. The same can be said for Zane, Moze, and FL4K.As a result, it's pretty easy for both you and a friend to be playing as the same character but have completely different builds and roles on the battlefield. This added freedom also makes it far more feasible, and thus enjoyable, to play Borderlands 3's campaign entirely solo in comparison to previous games in the franchise, as you're not limited to established class restrictions based on your Vault Hunter choice. You obviously don't have to go it alone--and Borderlands 3 actually makes co-op more rewarding thanks to an option that removes the need to compete for loot--but it's nice knowing that if you want to, your experience will not be completely defined by the Vault Hunter you choose.The freedom to build your ideal loadout extends beyond your Vault Hunter's skill trees. Borderlands 3 makes clear-cut distinctions when it comes to the manufacturer of each gun. Before you even loot a new firearm, looking at which company made it will tell you most of what you need to know about what it can do. Maliwan guns are fairly weak but each one shoots elemental bullets, for instance, allowing you to more easily electrocute shields, melt armor, or burn through flesh, while a Hyperion firearm raises a forcefield in front of you while aiming down sights and becomes more accurate as you pull the trigger. They're minor changes to further differentiate each type of gun, but these new manufacturer effects make it a lot easier to build specialized loadouts that can augment the perks you choose.But, more than anything, the guns are just fun to shoot. It may come as little surprise given that distinctive firearms has been the bread and butter of the franchise since the beginning, but Borderlands 3 has quite a few unique guns that offer a wide variety of enjoyable effects. Some have actual gameplay-changing ramifications, like a sniper rifle that can transform into a shotgun. But Borderlands 3 also has guns that are just playfully quirky and weird--ones that insult and tease you for your performance or just shoot more guns, for example. And you acquire new firepower at a gratifying pace, with new loot regularly dropping from the tougher enemies in the groups you encounter and explosively erupting from bosses you defeat. Borderlands 3 never lets up on giving you new weapons to experiment with, progressively increasing the explosive potential and wacky effects of the weapons you find, which in turn serves as a satisfying visual representation of how much stronger you're getting beyond the higher damage numbers.Even without the loot, defeating enemies in combat is fulfilling. Shooting an unshielded enemy in the head rewards you with their cranium erupting in a satisfying blossom of blood and gore. When you don't land that final headshot, enemies mostly go out with a final battle cry--ranging from pitiful cries for salvation to humorous insults--and the game doesn't repeat lines often enough for them to grow stale. Combat is never dull as a result, with your chosen Vault Hunter shouting out funny or cool-sounding one-liners in the brief moments you're reloading and making your way to your next victim.As entertaining as Borderlands 3's combat is, the fun that is found in the freedom to fight however you want is occasionally interrupted by the structure of boss battles, a traditional problem for the franchise. Many of the bosses look cool and have incredible theme music, but they all amount to the same strategy: shoot the weak spots, run from or jump over attacks, and repeat. You can cheat some by hiding in an unreachable corner and slowly chipping away at the boss' weak spot, but that's not much fun either as pretty much every boss in the game has a large healthpool and many of the later ones are bullet-sponges.Borderlands 3's late-game bosses pack a wallop with every attack too, downing you in a few hits if you're not careful and thus demanding that you near-perfectly dodge for an extended period of time--which can drag on and feel boringly repetitive in the longest of these fights. So when you do encounter a boss in Borderlands 3, it typically grinds the mayhem-filled action to an abrupt halt as you're forced to respond to the boss' patterns by playing more slowly and carefully.The new climbing and sliding moves do allow you to better navigate environments and thus get out of the way of certain attacks, but both mechanics are better suited for weaving among the scattered firefights with normal enemies, not the concentrated bombardment of the bosses. Several boss battles are frustratingly difficult to tackle on your own as a result, to the point that they all seem like repeated suggestions that you should be playing Borderlands 3 with at least one other person. Two or more players allows you to take turns reviving each other, making it easier to last longer. But simply trying to outlast one strong enemy doesn't impart the same enjoyable impact of the mayhem-filled firefights from the rest of the game. You feel more like a badass running around and gunning down a vast assortment of different enemies than you do hiding behind cover and waiting for the boss to stop attacking you just so you can safely get a few shots off.Thankfully, boss battles only make up a small part of Borderlands 3's overall campaign. Most of the story sees you go up against the Calypsos' seemingly never-ending cult of bandits or the armies of the twins' corporate sponsors as you race to find the pieces of the keys to open up vaults across the universe. Your journey takes you far beyond the planet of Pandora, and it provides opportunities for new types of combat encounters in a series that has largely revolved around wide-open deserts full of bandits or factories full of robots. For example, the jungles of Eden-6 contain an assortment of dangerous wildlife that have different hunting grounds and patterns, and the low gravity of a Maliwan space station orbiting the planet of Promethea allows the elemental gunslinging corporate soldiers you're going up against to jump higher and more easily attack you from above. Certain weapons have greater utility in certain environments as well, such as an explosive mushroom-like grenade that becomes more powerful when thrown into water. That's easier to do more often in Eden-6's swamps than Pandora's sand dunes. Borderlands 3's campaign sees you bouncing back and forth between planets every few hours, which keeps each setting from growing stale while also encouraging you to keep adopting new playstyles, strategies, and weapons.Borderlands' heroes are nothing if not personable, and that trend continues in this latest installment--transforming the motley crew of outlaws into a family you feel a kinship with.Even if Borderlands 3 takes you far beyond the scope of Pandora and sees you meet brand-new allies and encounter never-before-seen threats, the original cast of characters that have defined the adventures from the beginning are still at the forefront, and the story is better for it. Whether you're a long-time fan or not, it's the connection to the Crimson Raiders that acts as your motivation for fighting through the campaign. Borderlands' heroes are nothing if not personable, and that trend continues in this latest installment--transforming the motley crew of outlaws into a family you feel a kinship with. Your connection to the Crimson Raiders continues to grow with every mission as well, as--thanks to the spaceship Sanctuary III--the entire group is with you throughout the course of your journey.Newcomer Tyreen is clearly a bad person, but the campaign's story never gives you a compelling reason as to why you would want to kill her so as to stop her for good. Lilith is fond of reminding you that Tyreen's plans would ultimately destroy Pandora, but Borderlands 3 introduces a bunch of planets that would make for more preferable homes. Tyreen, and thus Troy, never amounts to a credible threat that you feel like you need to stop as a result, so the Calypso twins instead feel like the primary source of much of Borderlands 3's comic relief, not villains that must be stopped.With most of the franchise's juvenile humor and ludicrous jokes coming from your planetside interactions with the Calypsos, it's on Sanctuary III with your crew that Borderlands 3's well-written story delves into its more heartfelt and emotional moments. The game wastes little time reintroducing you to mainstays Lilith and Patricia Tannis, a brilliant yet socially anxious scientist, and building the drama of its narrative around them as the two women grow into their new roles within the Crimson Raiders. Tannis' evolution is especially compelling as you see her make courageous strides to move beyond the self-imposed limitations she's set for herself on account of her autism and social anxiety. For two characters that were popular but little more than caricatures in the first game, it's rewarding to see the growth the two underwent in Borderlands 2 now culminate into two leaders that you're willing to follow to the end.That isn't to say the other fan-favorite characters have been left out. Pretty much everyone from the previous games returns to complete their respective arcs. Borderlands 3 weaves in plenty of memorable new characters as well--such as the coffee-obsessed Lorelei, artificial intelligence BALEX, and scoundrel turned rebel general Clay--but the game's story is very much the fulfilling conclusion that long-time fans have been looking forward to for the franchise's mainstays.And what a conclusion it is. Borderlands 3 has a few stumbling blocks when it comes to bosses, but these fights are overshadowed by the game's rewarding gunplay and over-the-top humor. The game's character-driven narrative acts as a satisfying finale for the loot-shooter franchise, and the new mechanics and features--especially the reworked skill trees and weapon manufacturer effects--give you plenty of agency in how you want to play through it. If you've never been a fan of the franchise, it's unlikely Borderlands 3 does enough things differently to change your mind, as the game best excels at continuing what the series has always done: deliver a humorous tall tale of misfits looting and shooting their way to heroism.Info from Gamespot.com

Borderlands 3 includes four Vault Hunters to choose from--FL4K the beastmaster, Zane the operative, Moze the gunner, and Amara the Siren. If hunting the bandits of Pandora with a trusty pet by your side sounds like your ideal playstyle, then look no further than FL4K. Below, we've detailed the pros and cons of this character's three skill trees so you know which abilities to unlock.FL4K is the lone wolf among Borderlands 3's Vault Hunters, with his skill trees combining perks from Borderlands' Mordecai and Borderlands 2's Zer0 to focus on long-ranged combat and self-sustainability. If you're going to play Borderlands 3 on your own, you'll probably have the easiest time with FL4K as all three skill trees contribute to solo play. Plus, who needs real friends when you can rely on the aid of your in-game monkey, dog, and spider companions, amiright? Borderlands 3 News Borderlands 3 Review Borderlands 3 Release Times: When Can You Start Playing? Borderlands 3 Review, Release Date, Preload, Unlock Times, PC Specs, And More StalkerYou'll notice a few Zer0-inspired skills in FL4K's Stalker tree, the one that's specifically tied to his monkey-like Jabber companion. The action skill associated to Stalker is Fade Away, which allows FL4K to temporarily turn invisible.In this tree, try putting points into Self-Repairing System early so you can regenerate your health and cut out the cost of health packs. You want to invest five points into this tree and get to the second tier as quickly as possible to unlock the Guerillas in the Mist perk, which allows FL4K to attack multiple times during Fade Away instead of just once. Eager to Impress--which lowers the cool down time on FL4K's action skill whenever they or their pet kill someone--is also a good second tier ability to have.Things start getting really good at the third tier. Lick the Wounds allows your pet to revive you, Not My Circus has your pet draw enemy fire after you use Fade Away, and your Jabber evolves into a Beefcake--making it a lot stronger. At this point, it might be worth investing in FL4K's other trees, but you should certainly come back to this tree in the late game. Hidden Machine is great once you have a powerful sniper rifle or assault rifle with a long-range scope. The ability increases FL4K's attack damage against enemies that haven't noticed them--a phenomenal skill to pair with the Hunter tree's Ambush Predator skill.HunterSpeaking of the Hunter tree, this is the one you want to invest points into if Mordecai was your favorite Vault Hunter back in the day. This tree is all about getting critical hits, as well as increasing the power of FL4K's spider-like Spiderant companion and the character's Rakk Attack--an action skill that's basically an elemental version of Mordecai's Bloodwing action skill. If you invest in this tree, start looting and buying Jakobs guns. Soon you'll be one-shotting foes before your teammates even have a chance to notice that there are enemies to kill.Right off the bat, you want to invest in Interplanetary Stalker, which increases the damage FL4K does after every enemy they kill. Leave No Trace--which has a chance of adding a bullet back into FL4K's gun whenever they score a critical hit--is a pretty good choice too, especially if you're carrying a Jakobs shotgun or sniper rifle as both are typically single-shot weapons. With Leave No Trace, you'll get a chance to sometimes fire off two shots instead of one, making it easier to get the kill and activate Interplanetary Stalker's effects.In the second tier, start putting all your points into Ambush Predator, an ability that makes FL4K stronger the further they are from enemies. Once you do, and once you secure a Jakobs gun with a decent scope, FL4K becomes a sharpshooter of no equal on the battlefield. The remaining perks in this tree are mostly devoted to upgrading your Spiderant, which eventually evolves first into a fire-breathing Scorcher and then a corrosive-splashing Countess. As a side note, if you invest in this tree, you'll be far richer than all your friends as the fourth tier ability The Most Dangerous Game nets FL4K a generous cash reward for killing badass level foes. Considering you'll be a sniping god at this point, you'll probably be able to down most badass enemies before your friends can even reach them.MasterFL4K's Master tree is probably the one you want to invest in if you really just don't want to be a sniper. The Master tree doesn't have the sneaking potential of the Stalker tree nor the critical hit damage power-up of the Hunter tree. Instead, the Master tree focus on FL4K's pet, increasing the power of what they can do so they can protect FL4K as they fight side by side at mid- to close-range. The pet associated to this tree is the dog-like Skag and the action skill is Gamma Burst, an ability that teleports FL4K's pet to a location through a radiative portal that mutates the pet into a more powerful form.Considering how much this tree focuses on FL4K's pet, start putting points into the skills that will ensure they can be the most help to you. In the first tier, Ferocity (which increases your pet's attack power) and Go For The Eyes (which makes your pet's first attack a critical hit) are your best choices. From there you'll reach the second tier of the tree and, honestly, from this point on almost every skill just makes your pet stronger and stronger. You can't go wrong with where you invest. You basically just want to keep putting points into the tree until you reach the final tier and can unlock Dominance, a skill that allows FL4K to take control of enemies with a melee attack.Like Amara's Mystical Assault tree, FL4K's Master tree is probably the last one you want to invest in or at least the one you want to save until after you've left Pandora. FL4K's pets are actually pretty durable and deadly early on, so increasing their health and attack power isn't an immediate priority. You will at some point, especially for the challenging endgame, but increasing FL4K's own abilities should be your priority first, and that's easier to do in the other two trees. If you're not a fan of long-range combat, then this is probably the tree you want to focus on. But at the same time, if you're so against sniping, then why are you playing as FL4K in the first place? Info from Gamespot.com

Paying attention to the lead-up to eFootball PES 2020's release has sometimes felt a bit like following football's real-life transfer market. Having lost the official license of current Champions League holders Liverpool, Konami responded by replacing the Liverpudlian club with their archrivals, Manchester United. PES 2020 even got a leg up on the powerhouse of FIFA by nabbing the exclusive license to Italian giants Juventus, forcing FIFA 20 to settle for a facsimile called Piemonte Calcio. And while the inelegant esports-flavoured name change might be bad, the scrappy underdog has been wheeling and dealing in an attempt to make PES 2020 a more attractive proposition for those beholden to the church of FIFA. It's commendable and clearly important, but PES should attract people because of its on-pitch excellence.PES 2020 feels surprisingly different to last year's game once you emerge from the tunnel. The pace has been slowed down once again, delivering a realistic brand of football that's more methodical and less about ping-ponging the ball up the pitch in a matter of seconds. A palpable sense of weight to each and every player--not to mention the ball--can make the whole thing feel a tad sluggish at first, but it doesn't take long to adapt to this more considered style of play, and your input is as responsive as ever. Part of this is down to how smoothly the action flows. PES 2020 stitches each animation together with much more clarity than in previous years, effectively capturing natural movements that shift the simulation closer to reality. The new default camera angle helps with this, too, presenting the action at a slight curve that mimics what you see on TV every match day while giving you a broader view of the pitch.Click image to view in full screenThis increased visibility is important because there's a greater emphasis on space and positioning in PES 2020. The pace of play might be slower than in previous entries, but that doesn't mean there aren't moments in almost every match where an explosive injection of speed is introduced. The blistering acceleration of the fastest players in the game is immediately discernible without it ever feeling like an overpowered and one-dimensional crux. This is due to the fact that these players need space in order to utilize their game-changing speed. Most matches in PES 2020 tend to be fairly tight affairs depending on the tactics deployed by both teams, but a goal can significantly alter the outlook of a match in a hurry. Suddenly, acres of space open up for one team to exploit as the other pushes forward looking for an equalizer. And it's on the counter-attack where fleet-footed players really shine, able to burst forward into open grass and cause havoc for defenders.On the flip side, when there's limited space to work with player positioning comes to the forefront. The AI is intelligent enough to seek out pockets of space off the ball, and they'll helpfully offer an outlet pass if you ever find yourself wandering into a cul-de-sac. You'll also frequently see wide players such as Messi and Mbappe come deep to pick up possession of the ball, looking for a way to impact the match away from the isolation and tight coverage of the defense. Players will make smart runs in behind, too, though it's much harder to thread that inch-perfect pass behind the defense in PES 2020. You can still pull it off occasionally, especially if you have an adept playmaker on the ball and space to work with, but playing through ball after ball doesn't work with as much frequency as it has done in the past. This encourages a greater variety of goals, both by real players and the AI. You might see tidy one-touch passes splitting open a defense for a striker to wrap it up with an easy finish; a bullet header that's smashed in from a mouth-watering cross; or a 30-yard hit-and-hope that takes a wicked deflection off the back of a defender, rendering the goalkeeper helpless. Speaking of which, there's a lot more zip to long shots this year, making them a viable source of goals even if you might only score one in 15 attempts.The long-overdue addition of context-sensitive kick accuracy factors into all of the above as well. Now, a player's posture, position on the pitch, and the amount of defensive pressure they're under will impact the accuracy of both passes and shots. If a defender can't get a clean foot on the ball when a player is barrelling through the box, their presence might still be enough to put off the opposing attacker and send his shot wayward. Once again, this margin for error amplifies the importance of spacing and your ability to gain a yard of separation for a clear-cut opportunity. Sometimes a player's first touch is enough to escape the clutches of an aggressive defender, with PES 2020's litany of new animations and techniques allowing players to exhibit more intelligence when interacting with an approaching ball.This is another element that adds to the realism and inherent satisfaction of PES' football, providing you with an added degree of control that encompasses numerous variables such as the incoming ball's speed, the receiving player's body position, their skill level, and their playstyle. This aspect of PES 2020 grants certain players a sense of personality and individualism, with some utilizing recognizable skills and techniques to trap the ball. Along those same lines, AI teammates will even spread out to give skilled dribblers more room to work with, or make aggressive runs when a proficient passer has the ball at his feet. You'll only really notice some of this behavior with superstars like Ronaldo and Neymar, but there are other, smaller details that lend each player a tangible slice of humanity, too. For instance, the whole team has a tendency to remonstrate with the referee after the award of a free kick on the edge of their box, while a striker might wag his finger at the linesmen after a tight offside call. You may even notice the goalkeeper urging his defense to push up out of the corner of your eye, or see a defender crumple to the floor in pain after taking a shot to the midriff. Again, these are minute details, but they contribute to a sense of authenticity that elevates how enjoyable PES 2020 is to play.The latter example is also part of PES 2020's improvements to defending and an increased physicality across the pitch. Players aren't afraid to put their bodies on the line, blocking shots and crosses with reckless abandon to prevent the opposition from scoring. Sometimes this can lead to moments like the aforementioned deflected goal, and the ensuing goalmouth scrambles after some fortuitously blocked shots are also fantastically chaotic. Ideally, you'll put a stop to most attacks before they reach this point, which is helped by defending being genuinely enjoyable this year. There's a real wince-inducing crunch to some fouls, and a plethora of new tackling and clearing animations gives you more ways to win the ball back. There are no force fields around attacking players either, but they can use their bodies to get between man and ball, with physically stronger players able to hold off defenders more effectively than most. Referees are still maddeningly inconsistent, however--much like in real life. They're too whistle-happy at times and waste no time digging into their pocket to book players for innocuous fouls. Other times they'll ignore blatant penalties for no earthly reason.Fortunately, opposing team AI fares much better. The days of playing teams with a single-minded pursuit of drilling low crosses into the box are gone. There's a delightful variety of ways the AI will now approach each game, scoring all types of goals with a number of different tactics, whether they're bombarding you with long balls or passing between the lines. This makes the long-standing Master League mode a lot more enjoyable to play in PES 2020. The basic makeup of the mode hasn't really changed, but there are some new superficial additions. Instead of building a manager at the offset using a limited character creator, Master League now asks you to pick from numerous players and managers from the past and present of football, including Diego Maradona, Roberto Carlos, and the late Johan Cruyff. Throughout the season there are dynamic cutscenes that regularly present you with dialogue choices to help shape your manager's personality and allow you to set numerous objectives for your team. In truth, none of these scenes impact the game in any meaningful way. Your dialogue choices will affect how fans and the media perceive you, but this is entirely inconsequential.A more significant change in Master League revolves around transfers and how they're not quite as ridiculous as in the past. You'll still see teams pay exorbitant amounts of money for players they don't particularly need, but at least the fees are somewhat in the realms of reality. It's highly unlikely a team will splash out on a 33-year-old, for example, but that won't stop PSG spending triple digits to sign Sadio Mane. Beyond this, however, Master League is still stuck in the same holding pattern it has been for a few years now. Taking the default group of mediocre players up through the leagues--and eventually falling in love with them--is still engaging, especially now that the AI is a lot more fun to play against. But Master League still feels like a case of been-here-done-that.MyClub, the Ultimate Team-style fantasy team builder, is in a similar position, yet remains PES' best game mode. Constructing a team of legends and current players is still appealing, and the ability to play against the AI, other human players, and in co-op games gives you plenty of options to play PES however you prefer. Microtransactions are still present, but quickly assembling a competitive team doesn't rely on parting with real-world money unless you're impatient. PES 2020 also changes the way player ratings work, with every player you acquire starting with their default rating at a minimum. From there you can continue to upgrade them and exceed this rating or acquire special team-of-the-week players that are already rated higher, but you'll no longer have to worry about getting a lowly 82 rated Raheem Sterling that needs extra training.The licensing issue revolving around PES will likely never going go away, and people are still going to download option files to get all of the official kits and badges anyway. Like its predecessors, eFootball PES 2020 continues to do its talking on the pitch, refining and improving on last year's game to present what might be the greatest football game ever made. Sure, it's disappointing that you still can't play as Borussia Dortmund and the majority of the Bundesliga and a few other leagues, and its single-player offering is almost identical to what was included three years ago. But all of this effortlessly drifts to the back of your mind once you step between those white lines and simply start playing the beautiful game. Info from Gamespot.com

There are a lot of chests in Borderlands 3. You'll want to open as many as you can as each typically contains an assortment of loot, ammo, and health. There are, however, a few chests in Borderlands 3 that just cannot be opened from the start of the campaign. Many of them are tied to certain quests--the T-marked chests can only be opened by finding Typhon de Leon's audio recordings, for example--but there are some Eridium-encrusted ones that don't seem tied to anything. You can actually open these chests though. You just have to be patient.Borderlands 3 doesn't explain this, but you actually unlock the ability to do certain actions by completing story missions. The Eridium-encrusted chests are one such example, as you can't chip away at the Eridium keeping them closed (or mine Eridium deposits you find in the world) until the campaign gives you the tool that allows you to break Eridium. You'll acquire this tool at the end of the campaign's first act, so you'll have to beat all of the story missions on Pandora, Promethea, and Athenas before you earn it. Borderlands 3 News Borderlands 3 Review Borderlands 3 Release Times: When Can You Start Playing? Borderlands 3 Review, Release Date, Preload, Unlock Times, PC Specs, And More Another action you'll unlock just from doing story missions is the ability to equip grenade mods (which you acquire in the tutorial so the wait on that one is short). Further along in the story, you unlock the ability to equip character mods, and then relics too. You will most likely start discovering a lot of these items before you gain the ability to equip them, much like you run into Eridium-encrusted chests before you acquire the tool to unlock them. If you run into or find something new in Borderlands 3 and the game doesn't allow you to do anything with it, chances are the answer you're looking for is to just be patient. Just keep playing through the story and you'll learn what you want to know.If you're still on the fence about the game, read GameSpot's Borderlands 3 review. If you're already planning on picking up the game, we have a beginner's guide as well as a guide for which Vault Hunter best fits the playstyle you want. For those looking for something even more granular, we have individual write-ups that detail the ideal builds and best skills for each character. Those are linked below.Borderlands 3 Character Builds And Skills GuidesAmara Guide: Best Skills To UnlockMoze Guide: Best Skills To UnlockZane Guide: Best Skills To UnlockFL4K Guide: Best Skills To UnlockBorderlands 3 is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. The game is scheduled to release for Google Stadia later this year.Info from Gamespot.com

When you first arrive at Sanctuary in Borderlands 3, you'll notice a locked Golden Chest. You might wonder how to open it for a moment but inevitably settle on the hope that the answer to that question will be revealed to you later on. No such luck! You can only open this mysterious Golden Chest with a Golden Key, and can only get these through a few specific methods.The first method is by getting it through pre-ordering Borderlands 3, which earns you five Golden Keys. The second method involves obtaining Shift Codes that you can redeem for a chance to receive some Golden Keys. These have historically been distributed by Gearbox via newsletters and social media channels. You can plug Shift Codes into the Shift Code section in the main menu or the Borderlands VIP site. Speaking of which, you can also get Golden Keys by using Borderlands VIP points.The other course of action you can take for Golden Keys is to bank on the third method, which is to wait for any of the upcoming free content updates, such as the Halloween-themed Bloody Harvest event in October. For a full breakdown of that content, be sure to read our article explaining all the post-release DLC. Borderlands 3 News Borderlands 3 Review Borderlands 3 Release Times: When Can You Start Playing? Borderlands 3 Review, Release Date, Preload, Unlock Times, PC Specs, And More For more Borderlands 3, be sure to check out our Borderlands 3 beginner's guide and all the best Legendary, Very Rare, and Rare guns we've found so far. We've also prepared a handy guide on which character you should choose before starting the game. But for everything else, read our roundup of all things Borderlands 3.In our Borderlands 3 review, author Jordan Ramee gave the game an 8/10 and said, "Borderlands 3 has a few stumbling blocks when it comes to bosses, but these fights are overshadowed by the game's rewarding gunplay and over-the-top humor. The game's character-driven narrative acts as a satisfying finale for the loot-shooter franchise, and the new mechanics and features--especially the reworked skill trees and weapon manufacturer effects--give you plenty of agency in how you want to play through it. If you've never been a fan of the franchise, it's unlikely Borderlands 3 does enough things differently to change your mind, as the game best excels at continuing what the series has always done: deliver a humorous tall tale of misfits looting and shooting their way to heroism."Borderlands 3 Character Builds And Skills GuidesAmara Guide: Best Skills To UnlockMoze Guide: Best Skills To UnlockZane Guide: Best Skills To UnlockFL4K Guide: Best Skills To UnlockInfo from Gamespot.com

As you progress through Borderlands 3, you might find chests marked with a "T" symbol. These are what the game calls Typhon Dead Drops and they're linked to one of the major challenges you can complete in the game involving audio logs left behind by the first Vault Hunter, Typhon de Leon. You might've encountered a few of these in Pandora during the opening hours of the game and probably spent five minutes flailing about in frustration figuring out how to unlock it.To open these chests, you need to find all of the logs left behind by Typhon de Leon in the map you're currently in. While you might be thinking, "Oh no! I have to figure out where all of these tedious collectibles are?" Don't worry, the log locations are clearly marked on the map, sparing you the difficulty of having to find them completely blind. And once you've acquired all three, the location of the Typhon Dead Drop will be revealed to you on the map.There's typically one Typhon Dead Drop per open area map, so try taking the time to seek out the logs to nab yourself some solid loot. It's also worth finding and listening to these logs because they actually include details that have ramifications on what you discover later on in the story. Definitely take the time to do it to better enjoy the twists and turns of the game's more potent revelations. Borderlands 3 News Borderlands 3 Review Borderlands 3 Release Times: When Can You Start Playing? Borderlands 3 Review, Release Date, Preload, Unlock Times, PC Specs, And More For more Borderlands 3 guides, be sure to check out our guide on which character you should choose before starting the game. Also, you can check out our Borderlands 3 beginner's guide and all the best Legendary, Very Rare, and Rare guns we've found so far. And for everything else, check out our roundup of all things Borderlands 3.In our Borderlands 3 review, author Jordan Ramee gave the game an 8/10 and said, "Borderlands 3 has a few stumbling blocks when it comes to bosses, but these fights are overshadowed by the game's rewarding gunplay and over-the-top humor. The game's character-driven narrative acts as a satisfying finale for the loot-shooter franchise, and the new mechanics and features--especially the reworked skill trees and weapon manufacturer effects--give you plenty of agency in how you want to play through it. If you've never been a fan of the franchise, it's unlikely Borderlands 3 does enough things differently to change your mind, as the game best excels at continuing what the series has always done: deliver a humorous tall tale of misfits looting and shooting their way to heroism."Borderlands 3 Character Builds And Skills GuidesAmara Guide: Best Skills To UnlockMoze Guide: Best Skills To UnlockZane Guide: Best Skills To UnlockFL4K Guide: Best Skills To Unlock Info from Gamespot.com

Daemon X Machina is fundamentally about the satisfaction of making small adjustments to tackle a much larger problem. Faced with a quadrupedal robot the size of a city park, do you focus on defense to outlast it, or offense to bring it down as quickly as possible? Stay grounded for access to its underbelly, or fly far above the majority of its reach? Use rapid-fire weaponry to compensate for losses in accuracy, or a lumbering bazooka and line up each shot carefully? The game is at its best when you're diagnosing a mission and outfitting your armored mech suit to match. Most of Daemon X Machina is spent in combat, but it's the moments between missions, making these key decisions, where the game really finds its identity.As the newest mercenary surrounded by veterans, you're quickly labeled "the Rookie"--a name that you keep well past it being deserved, given that you rise in the ranks and even best most of your colleagues. The mercs are pilots of armored mecha suits called Arsenals, their actions governed by a centralized artificial intelligence that oversees their missions against Immortals--A.I. robots that have gone rogue against humanity. But you're all still mercenaries. Even if you're ostensibly on the same team against the Immortals, you're all really in it for the money, and often your objectives will come into conflict with your peers from other merc groups.Life as a newbie mercenary falls into a familiar pattern. You might tinker with your Arsenal's equipment, take on a mission consisting of attacking an Immortal outpost or defending a convoy, collect your pay, and then head back to the hangar to do it all again. Despite the simple formula, Daemon X Machina manages surprising variety in its missions. Sometimes you'll need to traverse a narrow hallway filled with the small, gun-fodder Immortal units, other times you'll need to battle against a rival merc on their own conflicting mission, and occasionally you'll discover a Colossus--a giant, screen-filling Immortal with a massive life bar.The pace of the combat differs greatly between encounter types. Smaller enemies swarm the battlefield requiring harried crowd control. Rival mechs often turn into aerial slugfests, especially as melee clashes jump to a sudden button-mashing event to overpower your opponent. And the massive Colossi are each fully unique encounters with their own individual attack patterns and weaknesses. Your backup weapons equipped to the pylons provide a little flexibility, but your Arsenal is no Swiss Army knife. No single build could be prepared for every battle type, especially in the late-game as enemies are able to absorb much more damage.The variety of these battle types call for different equipment to match, and it's the tinkering portion of the game that's strangely the most satisfying. Your Arsenal has tons of customization options, including two main weapons, two backup weapons stored on rear pylons, shoulder-mounted equipment, and auxiliary equipment, and that's without even touching on the swappable head, body, arm, and leg parts and the ability to paint and decal the whole rig. It's something akin to building a model Gundam, except you can go out and pilot it against hordes of enemy robots. Some of the most rewarding moments are when you hit a tough boss battle, step away from the game while you continue to think about how you could outfit your Arsenal for the challenge, and then return with a successful battle plan. And while this isn't exactly a loot-shooter, you can pick over a defeated Arsenal and select one part to make your own, fulfilling your equipment envy when you see an enemy with a shiny object you'd like.The wealth of customization options hits a stumbling block, however, when it comes to battles against the other mercenaries. Weapon options range from slow-moving bazookas to acid guns and swords, which are perfectly suited to dealing with standard enemies and Colossi alike. But as the game goes on, battles against other mercenaries become much more frequent, and most of the weapons aren't well-suited for them. Just like your own Arsenal, enemy rigs are airborne and extremely nimble, which means the majority of your options are just too slow. The lock-on function helps signal when an enemy is in your sights, but it doesn't really lock on to them, so you need to babysit the camera as they dash around the battlefield. I found myself defaulting to double assault rifles for the last third of the game or so, since the rapid-fire helped counteract the other mechs' evasive maneuvers. It consistently worked, but it sapped most of the fun out of tailoring my Arsenal to the situation.These mech-on-mech battles are delivered with a heaping helping of anime melodrama. The cheesy voice-acting and dialogue are just endearing enough not to distract from the excellent worldbuilding, as the characters and relationships reveal more about the history and nature of the conflict. The story throws you in the deep end without much explanation, but you'll slowly grow accustomed to the various mercenary groups and their differing philosophies and goals. The Bullet Works mercenaries are run with military efficiency, for example, while Immortal Innocence throws itself into battles with reckless abandon, and the Western VII are a gang of prisoners who fight for reduced sentences instead of cash. Each mercenary comes with their own fantastically absurd call sign, like Crimson Lord, Guns Empress, and Savior.While you build up familiarity with these mercs in the story, you also gain them as recruitable allies. That allows you to bring them along on side missions, though it is sometimes frustrating that you can't direct your allies to focus on a specific target. Their help comes at a price--sometimes a price even higher than the actual payout, in which case you're taking a net loss to make the mission a little easier on yourself. This is fine, though, because money has limited utility in the game’s economy. You can buy parts at a shop or fabricate them at a factory, but the ones you find scrounging around on the battlefield are generally better anyway.Most of your cash will instead go into small, passive upgrades for your Arsenal and humanoid avatar--called an Outer because, naturally, even your actual human body is defined in the context of being outside your Arsenal. You can pay a little money at a place called the Ice Cream Parlor for a one-mission buff, or pay significantly more to develop an upgrade tree. These upgrades make you appear progressively less human, which is thematically similar to transhumanism elements in the main story. Your inhuman appearance isn't ever remarked upon, though, so your choices don't connect with the larger narrative and it remains superficial. Instead, your upgrades and the accompanying cosmetic changes are just a matter of weighing whether you mind if your avatar looks less like you intended when you made them.Similarly, the story lands with less punch than it should have. You've been fighting other pilots so casually and with such regularity that when the stakes turn to life-and-death, it isn't really reflected in the gameplay. You're still shooting the enemy until their Arsenal becomes inactive, but then a cutscene shows that they die instead of retreating. It's a disappointing fizzle considering how fond I had grown of the various factions and their merry bands of weirdos.DXM does get a boost of longevity through its cooperative online play. Missions range from upgraded versions of the Colossus boss battles to taking on other sets of mercenaries. The lobby system and chat functions, while simplistic, perform their jobs well, and it’s cool to see your hangar bay filling up with your teammates’ mechs as they join up. Your rewards for co-op missions lean into the best part of the game by providing a constant avenue to obtain new loot like armor parts, weapons, and mod attachments. Oddly, though, there appears to be no clear way to swap your loadout or equipment when you’re in the multiplayer lobby. If you want your rig to be properly tailored to a multiplayer mission, you’ll either need to choose the loadout and then restrict your search criteria very narrowly, or deal with having a more broad-purpose build.The missed potential of the story and minor issues with mech-vs-mech combat and multiplayer loadouts make Daemon X Machina fall just short of its potential, but the foundation is strong. As a total package, it’s on the verge of greatness; it just needed a little more time in the shop tinkering. Info from Gamespot.com

With its new commentary team and updated presentation package, NHL 20 represents the franchise's biggest shakeup in years--and they're mostly positive changes. Combined with excellent controls, fluid gameplay, numerous fun and engaging different modes to play, a fine attention to detail and appreciation for hockey culture, NHL 20 is a step forward that is generally excellent.The biggest change for NHL 20 is its broadcast package. It is almost completely different this year, and the changes--which span commentary, UI, and graphics--are mostly positive but not always for the better. Commentators Mike "Doc" Emerick and Eddie Olczyk are out, while nearly the entirety of the NBC Sports Network license package, including live-action sequences, are gone, too. It's a jarring change, as Emerick and Olczyk have been the voice of EA's NHL games since NHL 15.The new commentators are Canadian sports radio personality James Cybulski and former player and current rinkside analyst Ray Ferarro. They do a mostly adept job at calling plays with style, flair, and personality, and their back-and-forth banter succeeds at capturing the essence of hockey culture with hockey IQ and knack. Some commentary lines are repeated too often, however, and Cybulski in particular sounds at times like he is hamming it up and acting like every game is Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.Outside of the new commentary team, NHL 20's updated broadcast presentation includes more colorful and dynamic graphics that display important information in more eye-catching ways. In addition to brighter colors and sharper fonts, NHL 20 introduces more dramatic, slow-motion highlights of goal scores, as well as Overwatch-style "Play of the Period" and "Play of the Game" highlights. These moments do a good job at breaking down key plays, and, with their unique angles and close-ups, provide nice moments to sit back and revel in your achievements.Part of this updated broadcast package is a new location for the score clock, which is the only major misstep. It's now at the bottom of the screen compared to the top-left in last year's game--and it cannot be moved in the Settings. The new score clock location opens up more space on the screen for action, but I found it positively difficult to quickly and easily see the important information like time left in the game, penalty minutes, and other datapoints while simultaneously keeping my eyes on the action. It's a baffling choice, especially considering many of NHL 20's various other modes keep the score clock where it was. This inconsistency worsens the experience, as you have to train your eyes in multiple ways depending on which mode you're playing.Authentic HockeyNHL 20 succeeds the most with excellent, tight controls that give you the freedom to execute basically any hockey move you can think of. There are also changes to animations and skating mechanics that make the game appear more lifelike. Building off what was already the franchise's best foot forward with NHL 19, this year's entry feels faster and more fluid with better animations that more realistically depict important transitional moments like catching a pass and getting intro stride at a quicker pace. Overall, the on-ice gameplay feels faster and more true to the real NHL experience.There are new shot animations as well, which are contextual in nature and better represent what a shot might look like from a particular part of the ice and depending on angles, power, speed, specific player attributes, and more. In NHL 19, your player would oftentimes still complete the shot animation even if the puck never got to them, which looked very strange, but that rarely happens this year. NHL 20 also introduces "Signature Shots" for a number of the league's best players; one of these is P.K. Subban's booming slapshot and Alex Ovechkin's electric one-timer. It's a treat to see player-specific animations in NHL 20, and it's yet another part of the way NHL 20 faithfully represents the real NHL experience. Additionally, goalie AI appears to be smarter this year, with netminders giving up fewer soft rebounds and making generally smarter decisions during important scenarios.NHL 20's in-game attention to detail and careful consideration of the sport is astounding. Players look and react as you'd expect them to on a TV broadcast, down to the way players subtly peek back toward their teammates during a face-off to the sharp crackle of skates gliding over outdoor pond ice. On the outdoor rinks, the crimson red glow of sunset over the pond is something to behold. On the ice, the physics system is so realistically presented that I found myself wincing after big open-ice hits.Unfortunately, NHL 20 doesn't do much in the area of improving player models. In fact, the character models for players, referees, and the crowd appear largely unchanged from last year. When the replay camera zooms in on fans on the glass, you might be wondering what kind of time vacuum the NHL series exists in for people to never age or look at all different from year to year.Dirty DanglesThe NHL series is known for its tight, precise controls, and this level of excellence continues with NHL 20. No matter what control setup you're using, the controls allow for a complete command of your player with astounding simplicity and a lot of depth at the same time. Puck possession and clever play-making are paramount in NHL 20, and the controls never fail to provide you with many different options to keep the puck, get around defenders, make the extra pass, and light the lamp. You have the freedom to play with as much creativity as you want. The game also features a slick and smart on-ice trainer that reacts to how you're playing and provides dynamic feedback that, for the most part, helps you improve your game.There is such a level of fine precision with the controls that you can determine the specific angle of a poke-check or toe-drag the puck at just the right time to open space up to make a shot on goal. In essence, the controller's analog sticks feel like an extension of your on-ice stick. The excellent baseline controls stand out even more once you move on to trying out more more advanced techniques. It takes time and practice to learn the dirtiest dangles the game has to offer, but it's deeply rewarding to perform spins and dekes that together combine to give you ample opportunities to play with style and pizzazz.In addition to the standard hockey simulation, NHL 20 has an abundance of arcade-style modes. The pond hockey mode, Ones--which sees three players on a small, outdoor rink competing against each other--introduces four new locations, including a rink set on a secluded farm and another inspired by the Rideau Canal in Canada. These new locations, in addition to weather effects like snow coming down during games, make Ones an even more authentic and holistically representative depiction of the outdoor hockey experience.Ones is lots of fun with its stripped-down, back-to-basics recreation of outdoor hockey with fast-paced play and lots of goals. Outside of the new locations, the biggest change for Ones is the introduction of offline play for couch co-op, and this is a very welcome addition after last year's game left it out in a head-scratching move.The Threes mode, meanwhile, remains NHL's flashiest and wackiest mode with completely unhinged commentary, mascots lacing it up, lots of goals, and big hits. It's the mode I found myself coming back to the most due in part to its quick games relative to the standard simulation mode and constant progression rewards in every game played.The social hub, World of Chel, returns with NHL 20 with some noteworthy updates. The biggest introduction is the "Eliminator" mode, which is NHL's spin on battle royale. You can go it alone in Ones or team up with two others in Threes to try to survive four consecutive rounds in a bracket to win the tournament. It's a thrilling, incredibly challenging, high-stakes challenge that, like the battle royale games it's inspired by, encourage you to keep coming back and improve your skills.There is a robust character-creator and you earn XP for everything you do across all of World of Chel's modes. It's rewarding to invest in your character and know that, whatever mode in World of Chel you're playing, you're working towards growing your character with meaningful advancements like new player traits, in addition to nice extras like cosmetic gear. New for World of Chel with NHL 20 are weekly challenges that track your performance and reward you with cosmetics around a particular theme. For example, the launch-week theme is NHL 94, so you can earn all kinds of themed cosmetics like jerseys and other gear. I anticipate coming back regularly.Elsewhere in NHL 20, the career-minded Be A Pro remains a satisfying and rewarding ride to take as you start your character from the ground floor and build them into a superstar, though there are no noteworthy updates to speak of this year. Franchise, meanwhile, features a new system that gives you multiple team coaches who have influence on the direction of your team today and in the future. The system, which also includes a light conversation mechanic where you can gauge the morale and interest of your coaches, adds a further level of strategy to the already robust Franchise mode that helps you feel like you're really the GM of a pro team. Franchise also introduces a trade-finder system that makes it less laborious to find and make trades.Ultimate Team returns as well, and its noteworthy addition is the introduction of Squad Battles. These function the same way they do in Madden and FIFA where you go up against HUT squads created by other players or, after launch, sports stars and celebrities. Hockey Ultimate Team is all about grinding to collect new cards, and it remains a fun experience to build a fantasy team comprised of legends and current stars alike, and compete against others.NHL 20 successfully captures the ice hockey experience from the ponds to big games under the bright lights, with a fine attention to detail and simple yet deep controls that are best-in-class. Once you get over the shock of Eddie and Doc being out of the game, the new commentary team do an adept job of providing informative and playful banter, while the game's multitude of varied modes each have their own distinct feel and appeal that go a long way to make NHL 20 an excellent representation of hockey culture across the board.Info from Gamespot.com

AI: The Somnium Files is an adventure game that combines two classic storytelling genres: the murder mystery and the buddy-cop movie. On top of that, the "buddy" for AI's lead character, detective Kaname Date, isn't human. Or animal, for that matter. Rather, it's a snarky, quirky, super-powered feminine artificial intelligence in the shape of an eyeball--named Aiba--that lives in his left eye socket and has a direct connection to his brain. Oh, and she also helps Date by transforming into a humanoid avatar form to explore the dream worlds of various characters you meet throughout the game. Talk about an odd couple, huh?It's an intriguing concept for sure. Thankfully, the near-future sci-fi detective story that AI: the Somnium Files tells lives up to the promise of its unique premise, delivering a great dialogue-driven adventure that sucks you in and doesn’t let up until all of its twisted mysteries have been unraveled.Date is a detective for a secret, experimental Tokyo police division called ABIS. When the body of his best friend's ex-wife is found displayed in an abandoned amusement park, Date soon finds himself swept up in a complex investigation to find the culprit before they strike again. Along the way, he crosses paths with a bubbly up-and-coming internet personality, her diehard fanboy (and his beleaguered mother), a Yakuza group, a corrupt politician, and the victim's young daughter, amongst many other odd, interesting, and sinister personalities. And that's not even mentioning the oddest personality of them all: Aiba, his quick-witted and sharp-tongued AI partner and confidant in exploring the case.Having a smart-alecky AI constantly feeding commentary into your brain might sound nightmarish, but Aiba comes with some special skills to aid Date with his investigations: X-ray vision, heat sensing, zooming to check up on faraway places, and even the ability to help Date in quick-time event-style combat. But Aiba's biggest role is to help Date get information from the various characters by acting as his avatar in their dream worlds. When interrogation gets tough, ABIS staff hooks a subject up to a Psync machine, which allows Date and Aiba to explore their subjects' subconscious "somnium" dream world to uncover clues and deeply hidden (and sometimes forgotten) secrets. The excursion is under a strict time limit--otherwise their consciousnesses become forever intertwined.Gameplay in the exploration and investigation sections of AI: The Somnium Files follows a fairly typical point-and-click adventure game style: You look at objects in the environments for clues and talk to characters by making comments and asking questions. The way AI handles these sections makes you less likely to get stuck than in other adventure games, however. You're only given the option to move to a new area once you've done everything necessary to advance the story in one particular location, which ensures you won’t need to backtrack or worry that you're missing anything important. If you can’t move to the map, you know there’s still more to do.While exploring the various environments will yield a fair amount of clues, it's the interactions Date has with the various characters (and Aiba’s reactions to those interactions) that really move AI's twisting mystery along. Each character you interact with is unique and memorable in their own way. There's Iris, the cheery aspiring internet idol whose mischievous personality causes Date much consternation; Ota, a devoted fan of Iris with numerous nerdy pursuits; So, a slimy politician with his fair share of secrets; Boss and Pewter, two eccentric personalities that work with Date at ABIS; and Mizuki, Date's friend's daughter with a sour attitude and strength beyond her years. There are many more interesting faces you’ll meet, too, each with an important role to play in the story and a strong personality to match. The excellent character designs by Yusuke Kozaki (Fire Emblem Awakening, No More Heroes) also give each NPC a striking visual element to match their distinct characterizations.At certain points in the story, you encounter other modes of gameplay, like interrogation scenes where you present evidence to a character and action scenes involving quick-time event-style button presses to help Date fend off threats. However, the most important parts of the game take place when Date uses the Psync machine to explore another character's somnium worlds. Using Aiba as an avatar, you interact directly with elements within these characters' surreal, illogical, and often very disturbing dream worlds, with every action she performs costing precious time. If Date and Aiba can’t solve the puzzles in the somnium within the time limit, they’ll be forced out, and you will have to start the somnium exploration over from the beginning.Solving the puzzles to progress in the somniums involves performing certain actions in a certain order on certain objects--and since these are bizarre, often illogical dreamscapes, sometimes the solution isn’t obvious or runs contrary to common sense. You can earn and use items called TIMIEs to help conserve time, but if time grows short, your best option might be to restart. This involves repeating much of the same actions and dialogue to get back to where you were, but skipping all the previous, time-wasting actions you tried before. If you don’t want to do the whole event over, you can go back to checkpoints within a somnium to try and save time by only performing necessary actions. However, you can only do this up to three times before you are forced to restart. Making this even worse is that sometimes you’re saddled with time-penalty TIMIEs from certain actions, meaning that your next action will cost significantly more time than usual and possibly even lead to unwinnable situations. As a result, the six-minute time limit winds up being a source of stress, discouraging you from exploring and appreciating the well-crafted dreamscape environments as much as you’d like and sometimes standing as a roadblock to further progressing the story.Besides revealing important story beats, the somnium sequences serve another important purpose: Depending on your actions within the somnium, the overall story will branch down one of many different potential paths, with different events taking place on each story branch. Only by seeing all of the various story possibilities, good and bad, will the whole truth behind AI's saga be revealed. Fortunately, you’re able to jump around to various points in the game’s saga (and replay somnium sequences) whenever you want, so you can put one story branch aside and pick up another anytime you feel like--though there will be roadblocks in some spots if certain plot points have yet to be revealed. As the various branches of the story give tantalizing tidbits of information and reveal more about each of the main characters, you feel like you’re piecing together an elaborate puzzle, which makes it all the more satisfying when big revelations happen.Despite the occasional frustration in exploring its dream landscapes, the whole of AI: the Somnium Files winds up being a fun, thrilling, and engaging experience. The story is filled with intriguing twists and shocking surprises, and the characters and their individual arcs inspire you to care about what happens to them. The somnium dream worlds add a layer of psychological horror to the ongoing mystery, and Date and Aiba’s constant back-and-forth interactions provide levity to make every investigation all the more amusing. AI's unconventional detective story is one you won’t soon forget.Info from Gamespot.com

The campaign in Borderlands 3 takes a little over 30 hours to complete, which puts the total runtime of its story just over that of the one told in Borderlands 2--and nearly twice the length of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. However, there's still much to do once the campaign is complete--as Borderlands 3 does have an endgame. Below, you'll find a general overview of all the content you'll unlock at the end of Borderlands 3.Borderlands 3 launches for Xbox One, PS4, and PC via the Epic Games Store on September 13. The game is scheduled to release on Google Stadia later this year and on additional PC storefronts in 2020. If you're still trying to figure out whether or not you want to buy it, read GameSpot's Borderlands 3 review.Table of Contents [hide]Circle Of SlaughterTrue Vault Hunter ModeMayhem ModeGuardian RanksEnforcerSurvivorHunterProving GroundsPost-Release ContentCircle Of SlaughterLong-time fans will recognize Torgue's Circle of Slaughter arenas as the franchise's traditional horde mode, which is renamed with a different title in every game. In Circle of Slaughter, you face off against waves of enemies, each of which are divided into phases. Each phase also has optional tasks you can complete to earn even greater rewards once you've completed every wave.If you die, you'll have to start over from the first phase on the first wave so Circle of Slaughter is much more feasible to complete as a team as opposed to by yourself. As you fight, your exploits will be praised or condemned--depending on your performance--by Mr. Torgue himself. The man loves when people use his guns or kill enemies with grenades, so if you want to make him happy, be sure to bring along all your explosive Torgue weapons.True Vault Hunter ModeIf you immediately want to jump back into Borderlands 3's campaign and replay it from the very beginning, you can do it without losing all your progress. Obviously you can just start over with a brand-new Vault Hunter if you prefer, but Borderlands 3 also technically has a new game plus through True Vault Hunter Mode.In True Vault Hunter Mode, you retain all of your skill points, weapons, grenades, and cosmetic unlocks. The enemies you fight will drop significantly better loot and grant you larger chunks of experience so you can level up faster. However, all enemies will have additional health and you'll encounter badass variants in greater frequency.Mayhem ModeMayhem Mode allows you to add interesting additional effects to combat while you're mopping up any remaining side quests. By default, turning on Mayhem Mode increases loot quality by 200%, which decreases the likelihood of finding common and uncommon loot and increases the probability that you'll get rare, very rare, and legendary. The amount of experience, eridum, and cash that drops from enemies and that's found in chests increases by 200% as well. However, enemy health increases by 15% and shields and armor both increase by 25%.With Mayhem Mode turned on, potential gameplay mods are activated as well. Some enemies may become moderately bullet-proof, for instance, or you'll become a wizard that deals less damage with normal bullets and far more with elemental attacks. You can unlock two more additional levels of mayhem in Mayhem Mode, with each evolution increasing the possibility of gaining good loot but also making the potential gameplay mods significantly more drastic.Guardian RanksBorderlands 3 does away with the traditional Badass Ranks for Guardian Ranks, and you'll unlock this second level of progression once you've completed the campaign. In previous games, your Badass Rank was increased by spending tokens you unlocked through completing challenges. In Borderlands 3, you also increase your Guardian Rank with tokens but they're earned through experience that's tied to a progression bar that's separate from the one for your level.Once you've unlocked your Guardian Rank, you can evolve it in different ways by investing tokens into three different classes: Enforcer, Survivor, and Hunter. Putting points into Enforcer increases your overall damage and fire rate, while Survivor is geared towards health and shields, and Hunter focuses on your active skills and luck (luck being the stat that determines how often you get rare, very rare, and legendary loot drops). Investing in each class also unlocks certain weapon skins and other cosmetics.Once you've invested a token, you can't get it back but you can put points towards any class you want and you're not locked out of the other two if you heavily invest in one. The full list of stat boosts that come with each class are listed below.EnforcerCritical DamageGrenade DamageGun DamageGun Fire RateMelee DamageVehicle DamageSurvivorFight for Your Life DurationFight for Your Life Movement SpeedMax HealthShield CapacityShield Recharge DelayShield Recharge RateHunterAccuracyAction Skill CooldownLuck (Rarity Rate)Recoil ReductionReload SpeedProving GroundsThe Proving Grounds are designed as cooperative-focused missions, but you can take them on solo if you prefer. You unlock several Proving Grounds upon finishing Borderlands 3's campaign and though each one is different, they all follow the same time-based challenge format.In Proving Grounds, you're tasked with beating three waves of enemies. Completing all the waves sees you go up against a boss, and defeating said boss rewards you with some excellent loot. The loot's rarity and power is dependent on both how quickly you beat the entire mission and how many times you died throughout. It's strongly advised you take on the Proving Grounds as a team instead of on your own. Though you'll be able to take on the Proving Grounds alone and most likely beat them without dying (provided you're at the recommended level), it can take a while to defeat the bosses by yourself, and that can make it more difficult to win within the optional time restrictions.Post-Release ContentThe Fall/Winter 2019 post-release content roadmap for Borderlands 3 has already been revealed. You can expect two free pieces of content first, Bloody Harvest (which sounds Halloween-themed) and Maliwan Takedown. Bloody Harvest is an event that will add new side quests and thematic awards and Maliwan Takedown adds a brand-new map, enemies, a boss, and rewards. Borderlands 3's first piece of paid DLC arrives at the end of 2019, adding new campaign story missions. All four pieces of major DLC are included in Borderlands 3's season pass.Though exact details haven't been revealed, Borderlands 3 is scheduled to get raids down the line as well, which may be what makes doing most of the aforementioned endgame content worthwhile. "We'll have special events as well as raids," Borderlands 3 lead boss designer Matt Cox said in an interview with VG247. "The details on how that shakes out will be announced later, but there's plenty of endgame."Info from Gamespot.com

One of the most critical choices you will make in a Borderlands game is picking your Vault Hunter. Fortunately, every Vault Hunter in Borderlands 3 is a ton of fun, and you can't go wrong playing as any of them. That said, they are designed differently around specific playstyles, so it helps to know a little about how they play before starting the game. In the article below, you can find an overview to help you see which Vault Hunter is right for you.We hope you find what we've detailed helpful for you in deciding which character you want to play first. For more Borderlands 3 features, be on the lookout for our beginner's guide and gallery highlighting all the craziest guns. We'll also be updating this feature in the coming days with links to standalone guides about each Vault Hunter, so be sure to check often. And if you haven't already, be sure to read our Borderlands 3 review.Table of Contents [hide]Amara (The Elemental Brawler Siren)Zane (The Hit-And-Run Grenade Throwing Maniac...with a Drone)Moze (The Scrappy Mech-Driving Soldier)FL4K (The Long-Range Beast Tamer)Amara (The Elemental Brawler Siren)If you liked playing as Brick in Borderlands and Kreig in Borderlands 2, you'd most likely enjoy Amara as she's the Siren equivalent of those two put together. Though she does come with some support and defensive abilities, Amara is almost entirely offense-focused and at her best when she's in the middle of a fight, punching bandits with her fists and crushing soldiers with her elemental arms. If you want to be aggressive, like all the time, then you want to pick Amara.Each of Amara's three active skills is designed to get her into an opponent's face as quickly as possible. Many of them can be evolved with secondary perks to aid Amara in close-quarters combat--like keeping her elemental arms out to deflect bullets or extend the reach and power of her melee attack. She never wants to leave the fight.As Amara, you're always charging forward because her attack power grows when closer to an enemy. So if you pick Amara, you'll always want to be surrounded. Playing her requires good spatial awareness--there's a lot to account for when multiple enemies are hitting you from more than one direction. Shotguns and close-range pistols are your best friends. If you enjoy tossing grenades and sniping enemies from a distance, then Amara is not for you.Amara is a bit more challenging to use in comparison to her fellow Vault Hunters as a result of her emphasis on overwhelming her opponent with close-quarters elemental damage. Some late-game enemies and bosses can fly or have sturdy elemental resistances, both of which put Amara at a disadvantage. You may want to hold off on picking her for your first playthrough if this is your first Borderlands game. But if you think guns are silly and that you'd rather punch every enemy to death, then look no further than Amara.Zane (The Hit-And-Run Grenade Throwing Maniac...with a Drone)Zane is a hit-and-run character and a grenade stacking maniac. Unlike other Vault Hunters, he can use two active skills at once--though there is no reason to do so in your early playthrough due to the second skill taking the place of grenades. Part of what makes Zane such a capable hit-and-run tactician is his potential to blow up everything in the immediate area and then instantly teleport out. This power comes from his Digi-Clone ability.The Digi-Clone is one of Zane's active skills in his Double Agent skill tree that allows him to summon a stationary copy of himself. Zane can swap places with the clone at any time and even use the clone to revive from the "Fight for Your Life" state. The clone can be used creatively to bound up a battlefield, fall back to reload, or only as a distraction to draw fire.As Zane progresses down his Double Agent tree, several abilities begin to increase his explosive power. For example, Fractal Frags where the clone throws a copy of your grenade, Duct Tape Mod where Zane will randomly fire a grenade, and Dobblebanger where the clone explodes at the end of the skill timer. Combining these abilities with any grenade that has the MIRV trait, which splits into multiple munitions, can be satisfyingly destructive. However, the biggest threat to Zane is himself. It's essential to retreat from an area blanketed with grenades by leaving the Digi-Clone behind.If you want a completely different Zane--one that posts up behind a barrier and sends out a drone to flush enemies from cover--then his other two active skills Barrier and SNTNL make him into less of a solo build and more of a support team player. You can even pick up and move with his shield.The final thing to know about Zane is he's a pretty funny guy and acknowledges his age. He wheezes if you run for any length of time and often makes it clear he'd instead be drinking in a bar somewhere else. If you're looking for a character who got smarter and deadlier with age, then Zane is your Vault Hunter.Moze (The Scrappy Mech-Driving Soldier)Moze is perfect for series newcomers and highly recommended to those with an itchy trigger finger. On her own, she doesn't have much combat abilities, but when you jump into her Iron Bear mech, a world of possibility is available to you.The Iron Bear is only available for a limited time, but in that short duration, it's well-capable of wiping out entire rooms of enemies. It starts with three weapons: the V35 Grenade Launcher, the Minigun, and the Railgun, but that arsenal expands by investing in each of Moze's three skill trees--opening up options to equip other types of firepower, like a flamethrower and a rocket volley. And each can also be customized with skills that modify their capabilities.The Iron Bear can be used in a variety of strategic ways: you can summon it frequently to rain down everlasting hell upon your enemies, or you might keep it as your ace in the hole during boss fights or when a firefight goes south. Heck, you can take both approaches; it's up to you! Moze can also be useful as a tank (conceptually and literally) for other players. After all, the Iron Bear is a near-invincible wall that can quickly pull enemy aggro off teammates.None of this is to say that Moze isn't as capable outside the mech. In fact, she's just as deadly on-foot. Her skill tree has plenty of bonuses that amplify her capabilities, such as improved reload speed, bonus incendiary damage, and enhanced shield strength. Many of Moze's skills optimize her ability to inflict damage as aggressively as possible while occasionally buffing teammates and even letting them hop aboard the Iron Bear's manned turret.As Moze, you are regularly switching between wiping out enemies on-foot and devastating them with the Iron Bear. She's a scrappy, agile, and adaptable character whose most significant strength is stacking up a plethora of damage in a short time and taking the heat off friends.In many ways, Moze is essentially a Titanfall pilot without the wall-running. So if that doesn't make you want to play as her, then we don't know what does.FL4K (The Long-Range Beast Tamer)Every Vault Hunter is perfectly viable to play with solo, but FL4K is designed around working by themselves. Instead of real friends, you can make up the difference with one of FL4K's three pets. Not only do their kills count for getting a second chance if you're downed, but you can eventually invest in a passive skill that lets them revive you. Each pet behaves differently and can be swapped around at any time, allowing for a lot of experimentation.The Master tree is all about boasting the pets, but even if you don't spec in this tree, it's essential to understand that FL4K's pets are a crucial part of their playstyle and if you aren't using them all the time then you aren't taking full advantage of what FL4K can do.There are a lot of aspects from previous Vault Hunters Mordecai and Zero present in FL4K's other skill trees. "Fade Away" lets you turn invisible for a short period and "Rakk Attack!" throws out a group of Rakk's to assault enemies. So yeah, if you liked those characters, FL4K will be familiar to you. And also like those characters, FL4K is best suited for long-range sniping. Their Hunter Skill tree is all about increasing crit damage. So if you like playing from a distance, using sniper rifles, and getting headshots, then FL4K is for you! Jakobs guns, which are all about bolt action precision damage, are going to be your best friends.FL4K is going to work best for players that manage their pets, along with their skills, to team up on enemies and take them out together. They may not be as visually flashy as the other Vault Hunters but make no mistake, in the hands of a skilled player FL4K, can dish out some severe damage.Our one warning for picking FL4K is that their pets tend to walk in front of you during important emotional moments with characters, which can be annoying. Borderlands 3 News Borderlands 3 Review Borderlands 3 Release Times: When Can You Start Playing? Borderlands 3 Review, Release Date, Preload, Unlock Times, PC Specs, And More Info from Gamespot.com

As part of Tokyo Game Show Day 1, Atlus and Sony announced some lovely-looking Persona-themed PlayStation 4 consoles. These consoles are coming to Japan to mark the release of Persona 5 Royal in October. The game is also coming to the West, but not until 2020; there is no word yet if these consoles will be available in parts of the world outside of Japan.You can see the special edition consoles, and matching DualShock 4 controllers, in the image below. Click through the images below to see them closer up.For more on P5R, be sure to check out GameSpot's analysis of the first full reveal trailer, breakdown of all the new information that followed, or details on the new playable character Kasumi Yoshizawa.Persona 5 Royal is billed as the definitive version of the acclaimed RPG. It includes new content and significant overhauls to the story, much of which has been shown off in trailers and the "Morgana Report." The latest teaser revealed new events around Ann Takamaki, and showcases how this new version is putting more emphasis on its cast.Tokyo Game Show runs throughout the week and into the weekend, with news and updates expected for Death Stranding, Project Resistance, and more, so keep checking back with GameSpot for more.Info from Gamespot.com

A new trailer for Yakuza 7, which is officially called Yakuza: Like a Dragon, premiered today at Tokyo Game Show. The trailer, which is in Japanese with English subtitles available, shows off more of the story and setting."One journey ends, a new one begins. Yakuza: Like a Dragon A brand new story in a new city, featuring new characters, along with a completely revamped combat system," reads a line from its official announcement. "All on top of everything you already love about Yakuza. Coming to the West in 2020!"Yakuza: Like a Dragon stars Ichiban Kasuga, after Yakuza 6: The Song of Life wrapped up the story of the previous protagonist Kazuma Kiryu. Sega is adopting a turn-based battle system as homage to Dragon Quest. To match thematically, the new hero is canonically a huge DQ fan. The game is due in January in Japan, and sometime in 2020 in the West.In other news, it was recently confirmed that Yakuza 7's minigames will include go karts, slot machines, and boring movies, among other things. Tokyo Game Show runs throughout the week and into the weekend, with news and updates expected for Death Stranding, Project Resistance, and more, so keep checking back with GameSpot for more.Info from Gamespot.com