The Pokemon Company has shared a ton of new details about Pokemon Sword and Shield's upcoming expansions, The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra. Each expansion will introduce a variety of additional Pokemon to the games, including some brand-new Legendaries and alternate forms.Galarian SlowbroGalarian SlowbroIn Isle of Armor, Galarian Slowpoke will be able to evolve into Galarian Slowbro. Unlike a standard Slowbro, this Galar-exclusive variant is a Poison/Psychic type that can learn a special move called Shell Side Arm, which fires poisonous liquid from the Shellder that's clamped down on its arm. Galarian Slowbro also has a new Ability called Quick Draw, although no details have been shared about that yet.Gigantamax Venusaur and BlastoiseGigantamax BlastoiseKanto starters Venusaur and Blastoise will gain Gigantamax forms in Isle of Armor. Like other Gigantamax Pokemon, each will have its own exclusive G-Max move. Gigantamax Venusaur's attack, G-Max Vine Lash, damages non-Grass-type foes for four turns. Gigantamax Blastoise, meanwhile, is able to use G-Max Cannonade, which similarly damages non-Water-type opponents for four turns.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The Pokemon Company has shared a ton of new details about Pokemon Sword and Shield's upcoming DLC expansions, The Isle Of Armor and The Crown Tundra. We've already known that the former is slated to arrive this month, but now it has been given an official release date: June 17.StoryThe Isle of Armor takes players to the titular island, which is home to an assortment of new and returning Pokemon not found in Galar proper, such as the newly revealed Galarian Slowbro. The story of this expansion revolves around a Pokemon dojo run by a former Pokemon League champion named Mustard, who gifts you the Legendary Fighting Pokemon Kubfu.As part of your training, you'll need to challenge either the Tower of Darkness or the Tower of Waters. After successfully clearing one of the two towers, Kubfu will evolve into Urshifu, with its form depending on which tower you challenged. Urshifu is one of the few Pokemon in Sword and Shield capable of Gigantamaxing, and each form has its own signature G-Max move. Single Strike Style Urshifu can use G-Max One Blow, while Rapid Style Urshifu can launch G-Max Rapid Flow. Both attacks can damage an opposing Pokemon, even if it's using Protect.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Riot Games is donating $1 million to causes to "accelerate progress" in fighting systematic racism. The studio's first two donations are being given to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and The Innocence Project.Riot Games announced the news with a tweet on Friday, saying it was their responsibility to commit resources to systematic change. The company did not specify the amount of either initial donation.The Innocence Project is a New York-based nonprofit that works to free people wrongly convicted of crimes and prevent future injustices. The organization primarily uses DNA evidence to bring about new trials for hundreds of wrongly convicted individuals in the United States.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The best PS4 controllers out there feature programmable back paddles, and earlier this year, Sony released an attachment that equipped its DualShock 4 with them. That move proved popular, as the back button attachment sold out quite quickly. Sony announced last week that more would be back in stock in the US this week, and that looks to be have held true. The DualShock 4 back button attachment costs $30 and is currently available at some major retailers. Some have it in stock, while others are offering backorders that let you order ahead of time and receive it when more stock becomes available.Right now, you can get one shipped to you from Best Buy and Walmart for its standard $30 price tag. You can also order one from GameStop via backorder. The peripheral has proven to be quite popular, however, so this current round of stock will likely sell out soon. You can also get it from PlayStation Direct.DualShock 4 back button attachment See at PlayStation Direct See at Best Buy See at GameStop Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

A few more free Pokemon are up for grabs for Pokemon Sword and Shield. Players who transfer a monster from either title to Pokemon Home will be able to claim the three Galar starters: Grookey, Scorbunny, and Sobble. What makes these particular Pokemon special is that they each have their Hidden Abilities, which up until now have not been available in Sword and Shield.Grookey's Hidden Ability is Grassy Surge, which sets up Grassy Terrain as soon as the Pokemon enters the field. Scorbunny's is Libero; this changes the Pokemon's type to match whatever move it is using. Finally, Sobble's Hidden Ability is Sniper, which increases the amount of damage critical hits inflict.Grookey, Scorbunny, and Sobble Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Super Mario Lego Starter Course pre-orders sold out almost instantly when they were made available last month. A new round of pre-orders are live at the Walmart and the Lego Store, so now's your chance to secure the first Super Mario Lego set ahead of its August 1 release. See at Walmart See at Lego Store The Adventures with Mario Starter Course is a Mario Maker-style assortment of blocks and items that will let people build their own physical Mario levels. A fancy teched-up Mario figure makes noise and displays different colors with LCD screens when he interacts with certain "Action Blocks" in the set. All told, the kit comes with 231 pieces and requires two AAA batteries to power the Mario figure.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Horror is often bulging with contradictions and illogical deaths. Take, for example, the hapless victim who runs into a dead end when hounded by a machete-wielding murderer, or deeper into the unsettling darkness of the woods where unknown terrors lie in wait. On the other hand there's Edward, the everyday man you're embodying in Those Who Remain, the type of horror protagonist who is decidedly more aware of the dire situation he finds himself in. Despite being unwittingly caught up in the spooky affairs within the sleepy town of Dormont, he seems to regard the scenes of terror and panic unfolding around him with the detachment and fatigue of a man who desperately wants everything to blow over. Scenes of sheer exasperation in the game are absurdly common; Edward routinely shouts variations of “Not you again!” as he scrambles from yet another blood-thirsty demon that's frantically clambering towards him.It's not difficult to empathize with Edward's circumstances--and by that, I mean the exhaustion of going through, over and over again, the onerous cycle of looking for the right object to unlock the next objective with, and painstakingly searching for clues that will move the plot along, while eluding a freakish behemoth that's screeching for your blood. To put it plainly, Those Who Remain is essentially a three-dimensional version of a find-the-hidden-object game, where flinging furniture about and peering into every single desk drawer you spot are par for the course. Edward wanders about a lot just to look for things--into a luxurious mansion, the town's post office, the national library--and even traverses through into a parallel, alternate dimension to hunt down more keys, letters, and in one instance, weed killers.Like many horror games, Those Who Remain is also draped in shadows, which piles on the growing tedium and frustration of searching for these items. Even in the midst of looking for these in murky corners, Edward also has to constantly seek refuge in illuminated spots against glowy-eyed specters, which can be seen silently observing him from the pitch darkness of the abandoned town. The notion of giving your enemies such a distinct form seems like a novelty in a genre that usually presents them as some wispy, unknowable force, but the ruse soon wears thin after you realize there's not much more to this idea. In the end, the impenetrable darkness simply functions as an invisible barrier that prevents you from wandering into places you shouldn't be in just yet, while hardly posing any real, active danger.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

While several popular streaming services are offering extended free trials right now, you have more options than Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney Plus if you want to chill on the couch for a while, and HBO Max is just around the corner. Sure, those are all great if you can swing the subscription cost, but there are also a bunch of totally free streaming services out there, most of which don't even require you to sign up for an account.Services like Crackle, Pluto TV, and Tubi have a surprising number of hit movies and TV shows that you can watch without spending a dime. We've rounded up the best free streaming services you can use today. If you have a library card, you can also stream on a few additional services like Hoopla and Kanopy. There is some overlap between the services, but each one typically has at least some content that the others don't, so it's worth checking out all of the free video streaming services. No one service really claims the title of best free streaming service, however--they're all targeted at certain audiences, which makes it hard to use just one. Of course, you don't really have to choose, since they're all free.All of these services have ads in their shows and movies, but the occasional interruption can be tolerated when you're paying nothing. It's certainly better than treading through the sea of "free" gray-market streaming sites out there. The content is also a notch above a random Youtube binge (most of the time, anyway), and available on just about any streaming device you can think of, including Roku, TV Chromecast, and more. The ads also mean you don't fall into the Sling TV model of the service being free, but having to pay for certain TV series and movies. You may not be able to find a popular movie on even the best free streaming service, but open your mind a little bit beyond the Netflix bubble and we're sure you'll find something you like and can easily watch on your smart TV. A free movie is a free movie, after all, as anyone who already has Amazon Prime and occasionally remembers there's a whole streaming service attached to it can attest.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Resolutiion constantly implies there’s more going on than you realize. Its strong anti-imperialist messaging pushes you to question the nature of your mission. Its mechanics, including the fact that most enemies fall incapacitated before you kill them, suggests that maybe you should show mercy when given the choice. The concept of scholars studying the world in VR, seeking to understand things without seeing what's in front of them, challenges you to question when knowledge is useful. Walls and signs adorned with intricate symbols and filled with cryptic, interactive elements forces you to consider the possibility that you’ll need to be extremely clever and dig really deep to find the truth.That truth is extremely hard to come by, though. Even after combing the world and finding out how many of the pieces fit, I walked away feeling that Resolutiion’s big philosophical questions stirred my mind. However, its obtuse attempts to manifest them as a deep, mysterious puzzle beneath the game’s surface-level objectives created a gap between the loose, but entertaining Metroid-style action game I played and the intellectually stimulating action-puzzle I could tell was there but had trouble parsing.Resolutiion is a stylish game. Its smooth-moving but highly pixelated art style evokes games like Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery, Below, and Hyper Light Drifter at a glance, but it has its own thrown-together mix of cultural influences that create a unique setting. The backdrop of its world, a post-apocalyptic ruin rebuilding in the shadow of a cyberpunk dystopia, permeates every screen. The landscape blends large swaths of concrete and sand with bright, unnatural skies. Its characters range from Buddhist monk laborers to talking deer and bunnies espousing subversive anti-imperialist rhetoric.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Nintendo and Game Freak are releasing two big DLC expansions for Pokemon Sword and Shield this year: The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra. The former will release on June 17 while the latter is slated to follow this fall, and each will introduce a wealth of additional content to the titles, including new gameplay features, locations, characters, storylines, and even Pokemon.Since the expansions were announced earlier this year, The Pokemon Company has been gradually revealing more details about Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra in the lead up to their launch. To help get you up to speed on the upcoming DLC, we've rounded up everything we know so far about Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra below. Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

It's easy to recognize Crucible's many design influences. The Amazon-published third-person multiplayer game features hero-style characters with abilities similar to those found in Overwatch. Its one MOBA-centric game mode should feel familiar to you if you've played Smite or the now-defunct Paragon. And even its light progression system echoes the one found in Gearbox's Battleborn. Crucible attempts to remix a lot of existing ideas and cohesively tie them together into something more successful, but as a result, it fails to create an identity for itself.Crucible takes place on an alien planet primed for off-world mining, which plays host to three game modes on its single map. Heart of the Hive is as close to a MOBA as Crucible gets, with a focus on PvP and PvE play as two teams fight to secure the hearts of dangerous hives. Alpha Hunters is a spin on battle royale, with teams of two skirmishing in short matches. Lastly, Harvester Command combines traits of team deathmatch and classic point control, rewarding players for kills and the number of objectives controlled on the map. In each mode, you have a choice to play as one of 10 characters, each with a handful of unique abilities and unlockable traits.Heart of the Hive is the main event, pitting two teams of four against one another on a large map filled with AI enemies as you hunt down periodically spawning hives and attempt to capture three of their underlying hearts. Like in most MOBAs, you kill these enemies for XP, levelling up your character to improve your health, damage, and ability effectiveness. But in Crucible, there's no challenge involved in killing these enemies; it's easy enough to tackle a large group of them alone without any risk, dancing around their slow and predictable attack patterns. It reduces the necessary farming of experience to a mindless annoyance, made even more irritating by the fact that it's predominantly how you'll spend most of your time in this mode.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

FTL and Into the Breach composer Ben Prunty is donating all soundtrack sales from this weekend to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and various community bail funds across the country. Fans can pay-what-they-want for music across his entire catalogue today through the end of the weekend, with proceeds being donated on Monday.Hey! My entire music catalog is pay-what-you-want from today thru this weekend. On Monday I'll donate all the revenue to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and community bail funds around the country. #BlackLivesMatter https://t.co/SEQdEFfGk5 pic.twitter.com/2tCejG2jav — Ben "Stay Home" Prunty (@benprunty) June 5, 2020Prunty's catalogue includes music for FTL, Into the Breach, Darkside Detective, Gravity Ghosts, as well as many other tracks and albums. His full catalogue can be found on his Bandcamp page.Prunty, who also made music for Subnautica: Below Zero, joins a number of others like EA, The Pokemon Company, and others in donating to Black Lives Matter and similar causes in response to protests erupting across the United States over the killing of George Floyd.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Valorant is out now on PC after a successful closed beta period that attracted record-breaking Twitch numbers. Its popularity has many fans and potential players wondering about a possible console release. Will Valorant ever come to PS4 and Xbox One, or even Nintendo Switch, as other competitive games like Overwatch have? In GameSpot's Play For All interview with Riot Games, we asked Anna Donlon, Executive Producer of Valorant, to elaborate on the team's plans to bring Valorant to more platforms."We are definitely prototyping that right now," Donlon told GameSpot. "But there's a way to play this game and there's a way to experience this game that we're not entirely sure translates completely to console play."Donlon explained that core to Valorant is its "strong level of competitive integrity," and its designers worry about players feeling like anyone has an unfair advantage based on the platform they're playing on. A potential console version of Valorant would need to capture the same Valorant "experience" for all players, according to Riot.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The Sims 4's ninth expansion pack, Eco Lifestyle, is out now. The new expansion takes place in Evergreen Harbor where players can partake in a variety of environmentally friendly activities, like producing their own water and electricity through renewable resources.Players can also grow their own food in a new vertical garden, break down unwanted items in the Recycler and go dumpster diving for new furniture. The expansion costs $40 and is available on PC, Mac, Playstation 4, and Xbox One.Developer Maxis announced that the Sims 4 has seen more than 2.5 million new players in the last two months and saw a monthly peak of 10 million players in the last quarter.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

GameSpot has kicked off Play For All, an event that combines our coverage of all of the summer's hot gaming news with a series of charity streams. We encourage you to tune in for our daily livestreams with our friends from throughout the games industry and media as we raise money for two great causes: Direct Relief's COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter. Here's how you can help.We've set up donation pages dedicated to each of the two causes. If you're able, we would encourage you to pledge money to one or both--the process is quick and easy. You should also check with your employer, as many companies are matching employees' charitable donations, allowing you to maximize what you're able to give. If you're not in a position to donate, that's OK--we also appreciate anything you can do to share awareness of these causes.On behalf of everyone at GameSpot, thank you.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com