Last fall, Nintendo announced that it will shut down the Wii Shop Channel. While the digital storefront will still be operational until next January, this weekend is effectively your last chance to buy any titles from it.
From March 26, players will no longer be able to purchase points for the Wii Shop on either Wii or Wii U. Points that are already in your account following that date can still be redeemed for titles until the service is discontinued next January, but you won’t be able to add any more to your balance, which is the only way to download titles.
Unlike Switch‘s digital storefront, the Eshop, the Wii Shop Channel doesn’t allow users to purchase games directly with real money. Rather, players have to first buy Wii Points using either a credit card or a pre-paid card, which could then be redeemed for digital software from the service.
While many of the games available on the Wii Shop would eventually appear on the Wii U Eshop, there are a number of Virtual Console and WiiWare titles that are only available through Wii’s digital store, including a catalog of Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 legacy games, so this is your last opportunity to stock up on some otherwise unattainable titles while you still can.
The Wii Shop Channel shuts down for good on January 31, 2019. It is notable for being Nintendo’s first digital storefront, though it will perhaps best be remembered for its impossibly catchy music. Until then, players can still re-download and transfer Wii Shop games to Wii U, and all WiiWare and Virtual Console titles purchased from the service will still be playable as long as they are on the system’s memory.
Fortnite: Battle Royale players once again have a lineup of new objectives to complete. Epic Games has released the Week 5 challenges for Battle Pass owners, offering a new way to obtain some experience and Battle Stars on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Many of the objectives this week are fairly straightforward; they include searching chests in Moisty Mire and using the bush item. Two of the Hard-difficulty challenges are equally straightforward: get three eliminations with a pistol and defeat three enemies in Tilted Towers. Players are also tasked with dealing 200 damage to opponents with a pickaxe. While you can certainly swing away at any enemy, this counts damage dealt to those who have been downed. In other words, completely finish off two people who are in a DBNO state using the pickaxe, and this is easily completed.
There are two other objectives that may require some guidance. The first asks you to visit three gas stations–but the catch is this has to be done in a single match (meaning you should avoid attempting it in Blitz mode). Reddit user __Kaneda__ has published a map highlighting the various gas stations you’ll find around the island. Most of these are found in named locations, but some are in smaller areas. Pick any three, run by them during one match, and you’ll earn five Battle Stars.
The other more complex challenge is labeled as Hard, meaning you’ll receive 10 Battle Stars. It tells you to “follow the treasure map found in Anarchy Acres.” The map points you to a location just southwest of Junk Junction, near the western edge of the map. As with past versions of this challenge, you don’t actually need to hunt down the treasure map first; if you know where to go, you can simply head right to that point. You can have a look at this map from Reddit user ThePuffyPenguin.
As always, despite being weekly challenges, you have until the end of Season 3 to complete these objectives (see them all below). That’s also true for the previous four weeks, as well as the set of freebie challenges that are available even to non-Battle Pass owners.
Aside from simply giving you some focused objectives, completing these challenges allows you to more quickly rank up your Battle Pass. This, in turn, unlocks a variety of cosmetics, XP boosts, and other things that don’t directly impact gameplay. You can see everything there is to be earned in our Season 3 Battle Pass gallery.
Fortnite Week 5 Challenges
Use the Bush — 5 Battle Stars
Search chests in Moisty Mire (7) — 5 Battle Stars
Deal damage with a pickaxe to opponents (200) — 5 Battle Stars
Visit different gas stations in a single match (3) — 5 Battle Stars
Hard: Follow the treasure map in Anarchy Acres — 10 Battle Stars
The major new update for Monster Hunter World has launched, bringing a slate of new content to the game on PS4 and Xbox One. Most notably, it features the first monster to be added to the game post-launch, Deviljho, along with balance changes for almost every weapon type in the game.
Deviljho is a returning monster from previous games, and it poses a serious challenge. As you can see in the recent gameplay video above, Deviljho isn’t shy about messing around with other monsters it encounters, even picking them up in its mouth to use as a weapon. It should pose a serious challenge for players.
With the arrival of a new monster, there’s also new gear to acquire. With the parts you’ll get from fighting it, you’ll be able to craft new Deviljho weapons and High Rank armor. That should give you plenty of reason to take it on.
Some other changes not specifically related to balance include improvements that should reduce load times, new options in the “Select Return Destination” menu, and an option to kick someone from the player list. Most importantly is an anti-griefing measure that makes it so other players can’t interrupt you while you’re carving. You can see all the changes in the patch notes below or on Capcom’s blog.
Charge Tier 3 — Charged Big Bang stun values increased.
Hunting Horn
The Encore effect for the Self-Improvement melody now also increases your attack power (the effect is now “Attack Up + Deflected Attack Prevention”).
Lance
Counter-thrust — Temporary knockback negation during a successful counter-thrust.
Gunlance
Shelling — Damage parameters increased when sharpness is yellow or worse.
Sharpness loss alleviated for all Wyrmstake Cannon and Wyvern’s Fire attacks.
Wyrmstake Cannon — Damage increased.
Wyvern’s Fire — Damage increased.
Switch Axe
Zero Sum Discharge — Level 4 Earplugs effect during use.
It is now possible to chain the beginning of Sword: Jumping Element Discharge into Zero Sum Discharge.
Zero Sum Discharge Finisher — Damaged increased.
Mounted Discharge Finisher — No longer causes sharpness loss.
Zero Sum Discharge — (Bug Fix) After use, you should now properly be immune to knockbacks until you land on the ground.
Charge Blade
Impact Phials — Attack power bonuses from effects other than that of the Artillery skill (for the explosions) were decreased.
Axe: Super Amped Element Discharge — Stun values decreased for Impact Phials.
Phial stun values increased for all attacks other than Axe: Super Amped Element Discharge.
Elemental values increased for Power Element Phials.
Axe: Super Amped Element Discharge — Power Element Phial explosions spaced closer together to make them easier to hit.
Insect Glaive
Improved the effect of the attack power increase for red/white and red/white/orange extract hybrid effects.
Extract effect times increased overall.
Extract effect times no longer decrease while mounting a monster.
Bow
Dashing Shot — Fixed a bug where the Spread/Power Shots skill effect was applied twice.
Dragon Piercer — Fixed a bug where you could shoot past the attack’s angle limitations. Now shoots straight ahead of the player, regardless of the camera angle, when shot with the camera angle past the attack’s angle limitations.
Light Bowgun and Heavy Bowgun
No adjustments were made.
Game System Additional Changes
Optimized data processing to reduce loading times.
Added the feature “Kick from Online Session” to the player list.
Added “Return to Gathering Hub” (single player) and “Disband & Return to Gathering Hub” (multiplayer) to the options for “Select Return Destination” after a quest.
Added the “Text Size” setting for changing subtitle text size, under Start Menu > Options Game Settings.
In the “Online Session” menu, the name for the menu command “Squad Session Search” was changed to “Create/Search for a Squad Session” (the functionality is unchanged).
Attacks from allies no longer interrupt you during the carving animation. Additionally, players are now immune to all hit reactions, including bombs, during carving animations after quest completion.
Slightly reduced the amount that the Scoutfly Level (which is tied to monster research levels) gauge decreases after each quest.
Added the game version number to the game’s title screen (for this update–PS4: 2.00; Xbox One: 2.0.0.0).
For better or worse, Sea of Thieves is a game that grants players a lot of freedom. While there are quests and goals, you aren’t led by the hand with an objective marker from one place to the next. You can go where you want and do what you want, but with that level of flexibility, actually getting started can be a bit overwhelming.
That’s where we come in. With the Xbox One and PC game now available, we’ve put together some advice on exactly how to get started. In the video above, we explain what to do when you first get into the game and highlight the differences between the three faction: Gold Hoarders, Merchant Alliance, and Order of Souls. You’ll see us take on a quest for the Order of Souls to hunt down a captain, and we run through the basics of piloting a ship–a process that’s more involved than simply grabbing hold of the wheel and hitting the accelerator.
Sea of Thieves is the latest game from Rare. It’s a console exclusive on Xbox One, though digital copies enjoy Play Anywhere support, meaning you can play it on both Xbox One and PC. More notably, it’s the first game to launch day and date through Xbox Game Pass. In other words, you don’t actually have to purchase the game to play it–for as long as you’re a Game Pass member, you’ll be able to play.
The game’s launch has unfortunately been less than smooth for many people. Numerous launch issues have impacted the game, including those which prevent players from getting online to play and some that cause a delay before receiving rewards. Rare has acknowledged the problems on its website and says it’s working to resolve them, but fixes may take some time.
Roman Reigns is going to beat Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 34. This much we know, with near 100% certainty. Sorry to disappoint you.
There will be contrarian predictions over the next two weeks, but those predictions will be wrong. There will be no Seth Rollins plot swerve. There will be no eleventh-hour booking change by Vince McMahon. Lesnar won the WWE Universal title from Goldberg at Wrestlemania 33, and since then, he has defeated every other conceivable threat to his dominance. He defeated Samoa Joe. He defeated Braun Strowman. Reigns is the only viable opponent left. Reigns vs. Lesnar is a rematch of the two men’s Wrestlemania 31 main event, which creates narrative closure to their feud. It would be impossible to duplicate the same level of excitement on a smaller stage.
Reigns is also winning because the WWE writers painted themselves into a figurative corner. Brock Lesnar, according to the storyline, is a spoiled, entitled champion who doesn’t care about the fans, blows off scheduled appearances, and coasts on the hard work of younger, hungrier, full-time wrestlers. Roman Reigns, meanwhile, is the man who loves the fans and sacrifices his health and happiness to put smiles on their faces. WWE has sold fans on the following premise: that so long as Lesnar is champion, Monday Night Raw is worse off for it. To have Lesnar beat Reigns is a tacit admission that the show will continue to be bad.
There’s every reason to believe that Reigns vs. Lesnar will be fantastic. The last time they faced one another, Brock ended the evening with blood running down his face. Reigns didn’t, but of the two men, he arguably got hurt more. Brock’s moves were stiffer than usual that evening; a particularly vicious lariat sent Reigns crashing off the apron. Reigns took so many German suplexes that Lesnar improvised a meme–“Suplex City, b***h!”–around it.
The more WWE makes Reigns physically suffer, the more people cheer him instead of boo him. You can see the exact moment the tide shifts during Wrestlemania 31, when Reigns is rolling on the ground in pain, laughing like a long-haired, greased-up Tyler Durden. This past year, Strowman threw Reigns into tables, hurled him against an ambulance and shoved him into any hard, unforgiving surface nearest to them. The crowds ate it up. And most recently on the March 19 episode of Raw, Lesnar beat Reigns with a steel chair before tipping over his stretcher.
Beating Reigns to a pulp satisfies multiple audiences in multiple ways. His fans empathize with his pain. His haters love to see him suffer. And everyone loves a good beatdown. The YouTube videos of Reigns getting pulverized are some of the most watched videos on WWE’s official channel.
Love him or hate him, one positive factor about Roman Reigns is indisputable: he is quite possibly the most durable man on the roster. The man can take a hard beating and keep coming back for more. Even his most venomous critics can concede that. Hurting Reigns to get him over isn’t a viable long-term strategy–he’ll have a truncated career if he keeps hurling himself into metal objects– but it might work in the short term for Wrestlemania 34.
Reigns is winning on April 8, and he’s going to earn the Universal Championship the hard way. Perhaps, that’ll be enough for the majority of fans to finally get on board with him.
If you’re interested in more breakdowns of upcoming Wrestlemania matches, check out all our predictions here and stay tuned to GameSpot for more Wrestlemania coverage.
Wrestlemania is quickly approaching. The 34th annual installment of WWE’s biggest event of the year takes place on Sunday, April 8, coming to the Superdome in New Orleans. The match card for the event is still being filled out, and there is room for a few more matches.
That being said, there are plenty of rumors drifting around the ‘net about additional matches, future plans for wrestlers, and surprise returns of injured wrestlers. One longstanding rumor that came true this past week was Daniel Bryan being cleared to wrestling once again. What else could come true? We rounded up some of the most believable ones coming from wrestling insiders.
Take these rumors with a grain of salt as not all rumors end up coming true. We’ll be updating piece throughout the upcoming weeks to let you know what’s confirmed and what we heard wrong.
Daniel Bryan’s Future
Daniel Bryan has to go in for medical testing after every match. While many are saying Daniel Bryan is the healthiest star in the company, part of the superstar’s new agreement requires him to get a doctor’s evaluation after every match. (via Cagesideseats) It’s pretty obvious that he’ll be teaming up with Shane McMahon to take on Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. The supposed stipulation for the match will be a street fight or unsanctioned match. (via Ringsidenews)
Owens and Zayn Will Remain Fired
In addition, Owens and Zayn–who were “fired” on the March 20 episode of Smackdown–may remained fired until after Wrestlemania, where they will be drafted by Raw. (via Ringsidenews)
Is AJ Styles Injured?
There have been rumors that WWE Champion AJ Styles is injured. While there is no confirmation as to whether or not that is true, AJ Styles said in a recent interview that he will be at Wrestlemania, no matter what anyone else claims. (via Catch-Newz)
When Will Cena/Taker Be Announced?
John Cena won’t get an official Wrestlemania match until days before the event. We all know the Undertaker will fight Cena at this year’s event, but Taker has not answered Cena’s call. Apparently, the confirmation for this match won’t come until the Raw before Wrestlemania on April 2. (via Cagesideseats)
Big Cass Will Return
Remember Big Cass? He’s been injured since Summerslam last year, and apparently, Cass has been telling people his leg has healed up, and he’s cleared to wrestle again. It’s unclear if he’ll be at Wrestlemania this year, even if it’s just for a quick spot in the Andre The Giant Battle Royal. If not Wrestlemania, then Cass could return at Raw the next night. (via PWInsider)
WWE’s Plans For Asuka
Get ready for a long Asuka run. She’s a shoe-in to win the championship at Wrestlemania against Charlotte, and the plan is for her to defend it for a year, leading to Wrestlemania 35 where she takes on Ronda Rousey. (via WrestlingNews)
The Rivalry Isn’t Over
According to wrestling insider Dave Meltzer, Gargano vs. Ciampa will happen at Takeover: New Orleans. (via Twitter)
The Greatest Royal Rumble On WWE Network
Apparently, the Greatest Royal Rumble, an event taking place on April 27 in Saudi Arabia, will appear on the WWE Network. The 50-man rumble match was promoted on the WWE Network when you try to cancel your subscription. GameSpot attempted this but saw no such promotion on the cancellation page. (via Twitter)
Hulkamania To Run Wild Again?
Hulk Hogan hasn’t been a part of WWE since July 2015, but that could change. Hogan is allegedly in talks with WWE to make his return. As to what he would do in WWE is the real question. With Shane McMahon spending less time on tv and Daniel Bryan going back to wrestling, there are a couple of positions open on Smackdown for a new commissioner or general manager. At this time, WWE stated it does not have a contract with Hogan but it has confirmed it’s spoken with him. (via PWInsider)
We’ll learn if more of these rumors are true during Wrestlemania weekend, which takes place April 6-8.
It’s been a good few weeks of sales for PlayStation 4 players, with major deals to be had on both sides of the Atlantic. If you’re hoping to snag some new games at a discount, though, you’ll have to act fast; the EU PSN sale, Only on PlayStation, ends tomorrow, while The Great Indoors US sale has now entered its final week.
The Only on PlayStation sale offers some great deals on some of the best PS4 exclusives, like Horizon Zero Dawn (£16 / €20), its Complete Edition (£25 / €30), and expansion The Frozen Wilds (£10 / €13). The remastered version of The Last of Us is over half-off at £16 / €20, while Gran Turismo Sport is on sale for £30 / €35 and its Deluxe Edition is (£40 / €45). You can check out the full sale here until it ends on March 21 at 8:59PM GMT.
The Great Indoors sale ends March 27 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET. You can get a full look at The Great Indoors sale on the PlayStation Store, including deals on many PS3, PS Vita, and PS VR games as well.
It’s release day for Sea of Thieves. Although it had a gradual rollout in various markets around the world, it’s now available everywhere, and many players are reporting issues getting online to play on Xbox One and PC, among other problems. Rare has acknowledged the troubles and says it’s working to resolve them.
One of the more common problems is an error code called CinnamonBeard. This can pop up when trying to log in and will not let you get online, thereby rendering the game unplayable (or preventing you from joining a group). This was something we also saw during pre-release tests at times, and Rare confirmed it “indicates server capacity issues.” In other words, the game’s servers can’t keep up with demand as too many people are trying to get online.
A support page for the game indicates that your best bet when presented with the CinnamonBeard or BronzeBeard error codes is to quit out of the game completely and relaunch it. That’s not guaranteed to resolve the problem, but it is nonetheless worth a try. [Update: Rare has said that it’s “temporarily suspending new players joining the game” in order to address the ongoing issues. There’s no word on when new people can get online, but that’s the reason you may see the error screen below.]
“We’ve got A LOT of eager pirates playing Sea of Thieves right now and due to this some of you may experience issues,” the official Twitter account said today. “Our engineers are working hard to investigate and alleviate them.” This was followed by a subsequent tweet stating, “We’re still hard at work working on issues affecting players trying to connect to the game as a top priority. We’ll provide updates when we have them!”
Separately, Rare has confirmed that some players are loading into the game and finding they have no items, gold, or clothing, or that they aren’t receiving gold/reputation rewards after finishing a quest. The developer said it’s working on this, though there is a workaround that or may or may not work. “Currently the only method of resolving this issue is to exit to main menu & matchmake back into the game. In extreme cases this may need to be done multiple times,” a support page states. “The gold and reputation rewards should merely be delayed (can take a while to come through).”
Another, lesser issue of note is a missing pre-order bonus for the Black Dogs pack. In a tweet, Rare said that if you pre-ordered after January 26, the DLC won’t be automatically granted to you. Instead, it will be sent through an Xbox Live message that should arrive “soon.”
As promised, the latest addition to Overwatch‘s roster of heroes has now arrived. Brigitte, the newest Support character, is now available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One as part of Blizzard’s next update for the game. In addition to her, there are also some other changes and fixes made, as outlined in the patch notes.
Before Brigitte’s reveal, game director Jeff Kaplan had described the new character as someone who was “very needed.” She carries the Rocket Flail, which she swings in an arc in front of her and can hit multiple enemies. She can heal nearby allies over time (as she deals damage) and knock back distant enemies, and she carries a shield that protects her and teammates located behind her. Brigitte also has a charge ability that can stun enemies, and her Ultimate–Rally–allows her to move faster and provide armor to her nearby allies.
In short, Brigitte is essentially a mixture of Reinhardt and Torbjorn (her father) with the ability to heal. She’s been available on the PTR in recent weeks but will now get into the hands of everyone for the first time. She launches with a variety of alternate looks; you can see all the Brigitte skins in our gallery.
The other big change in this update involves Sombra, who’s being nerfed. As recently announced, Blizzard is addressing frustrations with her by putting Hack on a two-second cooldown when it’s interrupted by damage. Additionally, the game should now deal with her line-of-sight being broken while casting Hack.
“We’re also removing the 0.1 second window of time during a hack where it couldn’t be canceled via line of sight or with other abilities including Tracer’s Recall and Zarya’s Particle Barrier, which was originally put in place so the hack wouldn’t be interrupted by small objects such as light posts. We’ve implemented a separate fix for that issue, so she should still be unaffected by those small objects.”
The free update is out now on all platforms. Aside from what’s outlined above, Blizzard primarily makes a round of bug fixes, although one small feature is that the team info screen will show how close teammates are to having their Ultimate. The full patch notes can be seen on Blizzard’s website.
Welcome to Steam Punks, the show where we take blind chances on new Steam games that look promising, and give you our personal recommendations on whether they’re actually worth spending money on!
PC gamers know that there are dozens of new games that come out on Steam each week, and aside from the big, obvious releases, it’s hard to tell if something that looks promising really delivers the goods. We take that risk to help you find that great, hidden gem that might’ve flown under the radar.
This week, we take a look at Ghost of a Tale, a gorgeous-looking stealth game with a cute mouse for a protagonist (maybe he’s related to Moss?), as well as The Council, a game that does some seriously new and impressive things with adventure game mechanics.
Then we go back to the 1990s with Amid Evil, an early-access, dark fantasy FPS with a focus on speed and cool weapons. We also dive into Echoplex, an incredibly slick and unsettling first-person puzzle game with an intriguing, live-action mystery to go with its challenging puzzles.
Have you been playing any fantastic new PC games that we missed? Let us know on Twitter: @EdmondTran + @JessMcDonell
