U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is introducing a measure that would prevent the military from using video games, esports, and live streaming services for recruitment, according to Vice. Currently, several branches of the military, including the US Army and Navy, maintain their own esports teams and Twitch channels.The measure comes after numerous controversies regarding the military's Twitch presence. The US Army and the US Navy have been banning viewers who ask or talk about war crimes, which is potentially a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech since the organizations are extensions of the federal government. Twitch recently stopped the US Army from promoting seemingly fake giveaways that would give viewers information to recruiters.The measure was introduced as an amendment to the House Appropriations bill that is in the very early steps of setting the Pentagon's budget, and the amendment could be removed at any time. The committee next meets during the week of July 27. The budget will get reworked multiple times by the House before being voted on, at which point it moves to the Senate, so there is no guarantee that AOC's amendment will remain in the bill. It does show that the military's controversial usage of Twitch is, at some level, on the federal government's radar.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

At this point in the coronavirus pandemic, it's become pretty clear this holiday season is going to look far different than usual. Holiday parties will go virtual, some may not be able to travel to see their families, and Black Friday... well, let's just say I'll definitely stick to online shopping this year. At least one major retailer has already confirmed it's breaking from its usual Black Friday practices: Walmart announced on Tuesday that all stores will be closed on Thanksgiving Day. The retailer generally offers some of its hottest deals on Thanksgiving evening as opposed to waiting for Black Friday itself, but this year, it looks like the doorbusters will come on Friday--and hopefully, the best discounts won't be restricted to physical stores."We know this has been a trying year, and our associates have stepped up. We hope they will enjoy a special Thanksgiving Day at home with their loved ones. We are certainly thankful to our people for all of their efforts," said Walmart president and CEO John Furner in a press release.Walmart stores and Sam's Club will be open during normal hours on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and store hours for Black Friday will be shared at a later date.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Imagine being able to take back every mistake you make, instantly, reliving each moment over and over until it plays out as you hoped. In less astute hands, it could feel like an exercise in trial and error. In Desperados 3, however, it unfolds in masterful fashion, providing ample scope for you to dream up a multitude of creative plans alongside the ability to reset the board in a flash should the plan fail. It's a rapidfire process of forming an hypothesis, testing it and tossing it aside. By encouraging experimentation at every turn, Desperados 3 proves a stealth tactics game where invention thrives.Stealth games can often degenerate into a loop of quick-saving and quick-loading. Desperados 3 is built around that loop, an aspect reinforced by a tutorial which instructs you on how to quick-save and quick-load before it tells you how to deal with an enemy. It's hammered home by regular pop-up notifications informing you of the time since you last quick-saved. You can customise this reminder--tweaking the delay or disabling it entirely--but the fact the default setting is to nudge you every 60 seconds ought to stress the importance of quick-saving.Archetypal gunslinger John Cooper and his friends are rather fragile, even on the normal difficulty setting, while the cadres of thugs, gunwomen and assorted rifle-toting outlaws they find themselves up against are very much of the "shoot first, ask questions later" mindset. So when a plan heads south--as even the most meticulously observed ones are wont to do, usually when one of the gang gets spotted or occasionally a carelessly discarded body is found--it's very much a case of the quick-load and the dead.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The US Army has reportedly stopped streaming on Twitch after backlash, according to esports consultant Rod Breslau. The US Army Twitch channel, which the military uses for recruitment purposes, has received backlash for banning users from its Twitch and Discord for discussing War Crimes. Twitch recently asked the US Army to stop promoting a seemingly fake giveaway that gave information to recruiters for its lack of transparency.On Twitter Breslau said that the US Army has temporarily stopped its social activity, streaming on Twitch, and participation in events like Twitch Rivals. There is no set time frame for the US Army's return to Twitch but it could wait until Spring 2021. The pause is on the US Army's end; Twitch's official partnership with it and the US Navy will continue.new: sources tell me due to recent media coverage of fake giveaways and potentially unconstitutional bans, the US Army esports team has paused social activity, streaming on Twitch, and official activations with Twitch including participating in upcoming Twitch Rivals events — Rod Breslau (@Slasher) July 22, 2020A US Army spokesperson told GameSpot "The team has paused streaming to review internal policies and procedures, as well as all platform-specific policies, to ensure those participating in the space are clear before streaming resumes."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Microsoft has reportedly indicated that the Xbox Series X release date is in November, according to tech reporter Dina Bass. In an interview with Microsoft CFO Amy Hood, Bass asked if the "new console" was still on track for the "November holidays," to which Hood responded yes. [Update: A Microsoft spokesperson told GameSpot that it has not yet announced an official release date for the console.]Microsoft CFO Amy Hood says new Xbox is still on track for the November holidays launch. — Dina Bass (@dinabass) July 22, 2020It was in response to a question from me and I said "new console" and "November holidays." Her answer was the single word "yes." — Dina Bass (@dinabass) July 22, 2020Not entirely explicit, this response indicates that the Xbox Series X release date is sometime in November. Previously, the Xbox Series X has been announced to launch during Holiday 2020, but no specific release date has been officially announced. Back in March, an official product page in some regions listed the console as "Thanksgiving 2020." However, Microsoft said that listing was a mistake. The original Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One released in November of their launch years.A Microsoft spokesperson told GameSpot, "We're excited to launch Xbox Series X, which will set a new bar for power, speed and compatibility when it launches Holiday 2020, alongside Halo Infinite. We have nothing further to share at this time."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Developer Sucker Punch has slipped a few fun Easter eggs into the huge open world of Ghost of Tsushima, if you know where to look for them. A few are tied to finding collectibles and completing missions, but one big one shows up at the end of the game, paying homage to a bunch of PlayStation exclusive games that have helped define Sony's influence on the video gaming landscape.You can find the Easter egg after you complete Act 3 of the main quest. When you're finished with Jin's Tale, you'll awaken at Tradition's End, a small shack where Jin keeps a whole bunch of keepsakes regarding the people he meets throughout the game and the events that take place as part of the story.Look on the table in the shack, however, and you'll see something else: a bunch of papercraft characters and objects referencing other PlayStation exclusive games. There are quite a few, in fact, and it's easy to miss some of them. Here's the full list and what they're calling out.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions has featured more of its anime-styled soccer action during the Bandai Namco Play Anime Live stream. The new trailer shows off more of the action we can expect from this over-the-top game, which will let you use character-specific powers to steal the ball, shoot goals, and outpace the competition.The new trailer focused on online play, which features international matches between players custom teams. Players can select different characters for their team and customize them to make their own squad. Online matches can be played 1v1 or 2v2 and the game will feature division leagues where players can climb the rankings. Online teams can be customized and upgraded using play points, an in-game currency that are not available via in-game purchases.You can watch the new trailer below.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Adult Swim Games has announced a release date for Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time, and it's not far away. The game will launch on August 21 for Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC through both Steam and the Epic Games Store. The game, which is developed by Soleil Games (Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker) will retail for $40.The game, which is writen by Darrick Bachman (head writer of the series), follows Jack after he's trapped in an alternate timeline during their final battle. Jack has to return to his own time, which means teaming up with his friends in this other timeline and defeating enemies that series fans will likely recognize.The release date trailer, below, shows Jack battling using a variety of different weapons, including a gun. There will be over a dozen weapons in the game. It also looks like you'll be able to play as both the traditional, clean-shaven Jack and the more ragged version of the character from the show's final season.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

In 2020, it's been harder than ever to have a truly good night's sleep. With the world in disarray as a pandemic threatens our safety and wellbeing, I know that I am not alone in seeing a heavy uptick in nightmares, including dreams about death, disease, and general distress. Superliminal is about dreams and dream-logic, and represents a sort of nightmare itself, but it's a different kind from the ones I've experienced. For all its confusing geometry, strange logic, and growing unease, it's ultimately an optimistic and satisfying experience. Superliminal offers a short, enjoyable run through a subconscious in crisis, and it's a consistently clever and pleasantly challenging game with a lot on its virtual mind.You play as a patient of Dr. Glenn Pierce, one who is undergoing the Somnasculpta sleep therapy program. The whole game is set within your medically induced dream as the program probes your subconscious, asking you to complete a series of challenges to find peace of mind and overcome feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt. Things go wrong fast, though; you take a wrong turn and stumble deeper into a dream state than was intended, and the deeper you go, the further your surroundings shift from a recognizable reality. It's like Portal's puzzle chambers crossed with the dream spaces of Inception (and a hint of Alice in Wonderland too), but despite those clear influences Superliminal feels like its own thing.To get through the game, you're told to view things from a different perspective--although it might be more accurate to say that the game is about taking your existing perspectives and reconceptualizing them. The puzzles in Superliminal all revolve around your first-person viewpoint, and you have to figure out what elements of each environment you can manipulate. A lot of this involves resizing objects through an extremely satisfying mechanic--if you hold up a small square block in a hallway and position the reticule so that the block looks like it's far in the distance, you can drop it… and it'll now be much larger and located down at the other end of the hall. Similarly, if you grab something large in the distance and then look straight down, you can drop what is now a tiny object on the ground in front of you.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Microsoft's Xbox division is enjoying very strong results lately, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic that's keeping people at home playing games. Microsoft reported earnings on Wednesday, and the Xbox division saw its revenue rise by a massive 64 percent (up $1.3 billion).The sales uptick was led by "growth in Xbox content and services." Content and services revenue jumped by $1.2 billion (up 65 percent) due in part to "record engagement" as stay-at-home measures remain in place. Additionally, Microsoft said it enjoyed "strength" from third-party games, which pay Microsoft to be on their store.Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said "it was simply a breakthrough quarter for gaming," adding that Xbox Game Pass is seeing "record subscriber growth" on console and PC. However, he did not provide a new figure beyond the 10 million subscriber number that Microsoft announced earlier.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The first thing you should know about Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 is that it features a playable corgi named Hachi who pilots an enchanted mecha-tank. The second thing you should know is that the classic Castlevania homage is in every way a marked improvement over the first Curse of the Moon. In fact, silly and meme-able as it is, the corgi represents a more playful spirit in this sequel that makes the whole experience richer.The first Curse of the Moon was a short and sweet diversion, a little treat for Bloodstained backers and a neat idea to contextualize the new franchise venture from Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi. It essentially presented an alternative history, where Bloodstained was a known retro franchise and the then-upcoming Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was a bold reinvention a la Symphony of the Night.For all its charms, though, Curse of the Moon played it pretty straight with its influences. The tone was moody and gothic and the heroes were stoic slabs of granite. Then Ritual of the Night came out and mixed its macabre and demonic imagery with elements that were self-consciously goofy, like giant kitten heads peeking through the castle windows. In that context, Hachi the corgi feels like developer Inti Creates embracing the cheeky oddball quality of the Bloodstained universe, now that it has been more well-defined. If you happen to die as Hachi--and how dare you, you monster--the game is sure to show a blink-and-you'll-miss-it animation of the little dog bailing out just before his mech explodes.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Crysis Remastered is coming to Switch very soon--its release date is set for July 23, despite the other versions being delayed--and many fans have been curious about how the game will run on the system. Crysis is a famously CPU-intensive game, and this represents the first mobile or handheld port the game has received. Considering that "Can It Run Crysis?" has become a meme in games culture, it's more than reasonable to be curious.Thankfully, tech specialists Digital Foundry are here with a tech review on the latest in a line of what they are calling the Switch's "impossible" ports (previous examples include The Witcher 3 and Wolfenstein II). The verdict is in, and it's mostly good news--the game looks and performs very well on the system.The port has been handled by Saber Interactive, who previously handled the ports of The Witcher 3 and Vampyr. They've been very upfront about the tech running the game on Switch, and released a tech trailer showing off what it could do--and now Digital Foundry has dug in even deeper into what they call "a remarkable, fascinating port."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Perry Mason will be returning for Season 2 on HBO. The show, which has so far aired five of the eight episodes in its first season, has evidently been a success for the network, with Variety reporting that the season premiere was viewed 1.7 million times across all platforms at debut.The show, which stars Matthew Rhys as the titular character, has done well critically. It follows Mason, a private investigator living through the Great Depression in 1932 Los Angeles, as he lives paycheck to paycheck and deals with PTSD from his service in World War I. It also features actors John Lithgow, Juliet Rylance, and Tatiana Maslany. It's not clear yet when Perry Mason Season 2 will release, or how many episodes it will consist of.The character of Perry Mason has been around since the 1930s, and was created by author Erle Stanley Gardner. This version is executive produced by Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan Downey. HBO recently launched HBO Max, a new streaming service that features HBO's original programming and several other shows and movies. It's currently only available in the US.Info from Gamespot.com

EA Sports UFC 4 will not feature the commentating talents of Joe Rogan, who is one of the league's main commentators in real life. Creative director Brian Hayes tells GameSpot that Rogan has never enjoyed doing voiceover for the franchise, but this is the first time he won't be in the series at all.For EA Sports UFC 3, the developers at EA Sports had to splice together Rogan's voice lines from real UFC fights to put in the game. But for this year's game, Rogan is completely out."He hasn't been shy about saying this on his own podcast; like, he hates doing it," Hayes said. "If you're not a person that [can] mentally get into that space, then I can see how it could be a very, you know, challenging, potentially mind-numbing experience for a certain type of individual."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Mafia: Definitive Edition is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC on September 25, and once it's out, developer Hanger 13 is going to move on to something entirely new--their own IP. GameSpot has a full interview with Haden Blackman, the game's director, and he talks about the studio's plans for the future.Blackman says that after finishing the DLC for Mafia III, the team began work on a new IP. This could be a reference to Rhapsody, a Berlin-set spy game that was reportedly in the works at the developer (the game's map was found inside Mafia III: Definitive Edition). It's unclear whether Rhapsody is still being worked on, but something other than Mafia is definitely in the works.While work was going on this IP, the team started to think about what to do next with Mafia, and eventually settled on a remake of the original. This came about because it was clear they were not ready to start on an entirely new project just yet. "When we started to wind down on Mafia III, we had already started kicking around ideas for our original IP," Blackman recalls. "We knew that we were going to have a team, especially on the art and kind of media team side, that we wouldn't be able to leverage right away."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com