
Track: The Poltergeist | Artist: Fliptrix | Album: Patterns of Escapism
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Blizzard artist Rene Koiter is also one heck of a cosplayer, which he showed once again this year by taking out (along with co-worker Jaime Scheffler) the company’s internal Halloween contest dressed as Negan from The Walking Dead.
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Unsurprisingly, Skyrim: Special Edition quickly became one of the most popular games on Steam over the weekend. And given that she had already established herself as a channel for older gamers and Skyrim fans, it made sense that Shirley Curry, aka Grandma Shirley, would return to Skyrim.
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Five years ago, danrharvey wanted to “get stuck into a creative mode build” in Minecraft. Looking back on it today, he’s built something that’s not only original, but beautiful.
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View-Master VR, Kindle mysteries and thrillers, and hundreds of pieces of activewear lead off Sunday’s best deals.
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Before the holiday shopping craze really begins, Target has launched a new Buy 2, Get 1 promotion on all video games and board games. Now through November 5, you can get three games for the price of two.
You will see the discount when you add all three items to your cart. As usual, the lowest-priced game will be free.

It looks like you can’t mix and match between video games and board games, as the discount didn’t show up when I added Battlefield 1, Skyrim Special Edition, and Settlers of Catan to my cart. Oh well. This promotion is good now through November 5 at 11:59 PM PT.
Go to Target’s website to start shopping.
It’s almost November, which means Black Friday is coming up. Keep checking back with GameSpot in the coming days and weeks, as Black Friday deals usually leak or are posted early.
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Following the launch of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim‘s remastered version on Friday, Digital Foundry has published a report that details how the game runs on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
The Special Edition, as it’s called, runs at a native 1080p on both consoles, the site said, adding that it’s believed to use the same temporal anti-aliasing that was featured in Fallout 4.
As for frame rate, both console versions target 30fps. Digital Foundry said the Xbox One version easily reaches 1080p with “some degree of overhead left over,” but not enough to get up to 60fps.
If you’re thinking about which platform–PS4 or Xbox One–to buy the Special Edition for, it looks like you can’t go wrong with either, based on specs. “So far, both consoles appear remarkably like-for-like in terms of their presentation,” the site said.

One thing to bear in mind, too, is that the Special Edition will get a PS4 Pro patch to support 4K. The console launches on November 10, priced at $400.
“Thus far, Skyrim Special Edition looks pretty solid–it can be viewed as an enhanced PC port for the current-gen platforms and in comparison to the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, there’s a night and day improvement in terms of performance and stability, not to mention resolution, art quality and overall levels of detail.”
Read Digital Foundry’s full report to learn a lot more about Skyrim Special Edition’s various visual upgrades.
Something else to consider, if it matters to you, is that Skyrim Special Edition mods are limited on PS4 to those that use in-game assets. This means there are quite a few more mods available on Xbox One than PS4. Additionally, Bethesda has said it is working on a fix for the game’s audio issues.
For more on the Skyrim Special Edition, check out GameSpot’s recent coverage below:
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If you’re looking to pick up Battlefield 1 on console but not sure which platform to go with, Digital Foundry has now posted its analysis of the game’s performance on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Starting with resolution, the site reports that both PS4 and Xbox One use a “dynamic framebuffer” that adjusts the resolution depending on the intensity of what’s happening on screen. Under normal load, the PS4 version outputs at around 1000p, falling to 900p during heavy load. The Xbox One version, meanwhile, has a baseline resolution of 900p that dips to 720p during certain scenes.

“This leads to a consistently sharper image on PS4, where intricate texture details resolve more cleanly. In fact, at 1000p the presentation often looks very similar to a native 1080p image,” Digital Foundry said.
However, the Xbox One version of Battlefield 1 can in some cases reach 1000p, which puts it right next to the PS4 version. This is something of a rare occurrence, however, and only happens during scenes with short draw distances and lower levels of detail.
As for frame rate, Battlefield 1’s campaign targets 60fps, but falls on both platforms during heavy load. “It’s not a major problem, though it does mean that the action doesn’t always appear silky smooth,” Digital Foundry said. The Xbox One has the edge in terms of campaign frame rate, with the PS4 edition lagging around 14fps behind in some cases. This isn’t a deal-breaker, however. “The PS4 version doesn’t feel overly compromised during the campaign, and the game remains very playable throughout,” the site said.
In terms of multiplayer, Digital Foundry found that the PS4 version lags behind here as well in terms of frame rate. It comes in at around 40-45fps most of the time, dropping into the 30fps range when a lot is going on. By comparison, though performance can vary on Xbox One as well, the frame rate dips are less significant. “As a result the experience when playing online is definitely smoother [on Xbox One],” the site said.
“Overall, from a console perspective, the experience is certainly smoother on the Xbox One, though this does come at the expense of image sharpness due to the game running at a lower resolution much of the time,” Digital Foundry said. “In this case, it’s a worthy trade off as online matches ideally require high frame rates for consistent competitive gameplay, although the situation isn’t ideal on either platform. It’s a different story in the impressive campaign though–performance is much more consistent here and Xbox One’s frame-rate advantage isn’t as pronounced as PS4’s persistently higher resolution.”
Of course, the PC version of Battlefield 1 is likely the best-looking and best-performing of all, provided your computer is strong enough.
Battlefield 1 came out on October 21 behind strong reviews, including a 9/10 from GameSpot.
“With Battlefield 1, EA and DICE have proven the viability of World War I as a time period worth revisiting in first-person shooters,” reviewer Miguel Concepcion said. “It brings into focus countries and nationalities that do not exist today while also shedding light on how the outcome of that war has shaped our lives. As World War II shooters proved many years ago, no game can truly capture the entirety of a global conflict. This is why the focused structure of the War Stories anthology works well. Moreover, Operations succeeds as an effective educational primer on the battles that this gripping adversarial mode are based on. Battlefield 1 is just an introduction to one of the deadliest world events in history, but it is an outstanding, feature-rich package in both its emotional stories and strong multiplayer.”
For more on the critical reception of Battlefield 1, check out what other critics are saying.
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One of the most interesting elements of the Nintendo Switch–at least based on what we know so far–is that it’s a console/mobile hybrid that you can play at home or on the go.
Nintendo already has an on-the-go device in the form of the Nintendo 3DS, so you might think that business could be negatively impacted by the Switch. Not so, according to Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima.

Asked directly by Bloomberg, “Will you discontinue the 3DS?” Kimishima pointed out that 3DS hardware sales are still improving. The launch of the Switch, though it could have some impact on 3DS sales, won’t kill the 3DS, Kimishima said.
“Thanks to our software, the 3DS hardware is still growing,” he said. “So that business still has momentum. And certainly rather than being cannibalized by the Switch, we think the 3DS can continue in its own form.”
Indeed, Nintendo reported just this week that it sold 2.7 million 3DS units during the last quarter, an increase compared to the same period last year. Additionally, Nintendo said Pokemon Sun and Moon are the “best pre-selling games in Nintendo history.”
About the Switch in general, Kimishima said, “We didn’t just want a successor to the Wii U or the 3DS. So our original concept was, ‘What kind of new experience can we create?’ And what we showed this time was an object that’s both stationary and one you can take outside to play with anyone you want.”
Also in the interview, Kimishima was asked if the Switch will have VR capabilities. It sounds like it won’t at launch in March 2017, though Kimishima said nothing is ruled out for the future.
“If you asked as if this might be possible in the future, certainly we can’t say no,” he said. “In terms of how it can be used for gaming, it’s something we must consider. It depends on the system specifications. I can’t say that we have no interest in VR because VR offers new ways of playing, but that depends on what kind of software can be played. But what kind of software works, that’s only something you only know once you actually experience it. And our games are ones that are usually played for a long time.”
Read the full Bloomberg interview here.
For lots more on the Nintendo Switch, check out GameSpot’s recent coverage in the links below.
News:
Features:
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