Spider-Man: Miles Morales Gets New Line of Funko Pop Figures

Spider Man Miles Morales Funko

Over the last few months, Sony appears to have blessed Funko with the licenses to a lot of their first-party titles. We've seen a range of games and characters immortalised in the form of the collectable figures and so far it shows no sign of slowing down.

Announced by the official Funko Twitter account is a new line of figures based on one of the PS5's launch titles, Spider-Man: Miles Morales.

There are two different Funko Pop Vinyl available in the new set. One sees the web-slinging hero in his more traditional black and red suit and the other in the Miles Morales exclusive Time Response Activated Circuit Kinetic Suit — or T.R.A.C.K. Suit for short.

The black-and-red-suited Funko also has a Chase variety available. Anybody who purchases the figure has a 1/6 chance of receiving the rare Chase Pop which is identical to the original, however, shows Miles without his mask.

Up to this point, Sony had revealed three different waves of Funko Pops. The first wave included Kratos from God of War, Jin Sakai from Ghost of Tsushima and The Hunter from Bloodborne. Wave two included figures of Ratchet and Clank, Sam Porter Bridges from Death Stranding, Joel from The Last of Us Part II and Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal. Finally, the third set included Aloy and a Thunderjaw from Horizon Zero Dawn, Higgs Monaghan from Death Stranding and Brok and Sindri from God of War.

With both the PS5 and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales now out in the wild, we have released our review of the game, scoring it an 8/10 and saying that it is "a worthy follow-up to the previous instalment, even if a lot of the core DNA has remained the same." The game is out now on both the PS4 and PS5.

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Xbox App Upcoming Update Bringing Custom Gamerpics and Game Library

Xbox

If you received an Xbox Series X / S console last week, you'll have no doubt been instructed to download the mobile phone application to help with setting the console up. Now, those with access to the beta testing of the iOS version of the app appear to be trying out some new features that could be heading to the app soon.

The current state of the app allows you to see what games are popular, your friend's activity, friends list, chats, browse your captures on Xbox Live, manage you console (a bit), and nose through some parts of your profile. Tom Warren yesterday shared some images of the changes that are coming to the app.

When the update lands, you should be able to now browse your games library, complete with filters and sorting orders. And you'll no doubt be able to choose to install them providing your console is set up to remotely install games. You'll also be able to manage your message requests and create group chats. Another new feature will find you being able to set a custom gamer picture by using images from your phone's media library or choosing from the preset library. The update will also address some known bugs and issues users have reported.

There still seems to be some features missing, such as being able to view achievements. Also, while users can use the search function to find games, I think having a more intuitive store would work well in the app for improved discoverability. Additionally, maybe somehow merging the Xbox Game Pass app would work wonders in the same way.

If you're wondering what we thought about the Xbox Series X, you can read our review here, we also have a review on the Series S on the way so stay tuned for when that lands. The update seems to be in the works for iOS at the moment, but I imagine an Android update will launch around the same time.

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Call of the Sea Will Be Available on December 8, According to Microsoft Store

Call of the Sea

Earlier next month, Xbox and PC gamers might be able to start their Lovecraftian adventure in Out of the Blue's Call of the Sea if the release date listed by Microsoft Store turns out to be true.

According to the game's official page on Microsoft Store, Call of the Sea will be available on December 8 for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and PC. The game will support Smart Delivery, meaning that you can buy it on Xbox One and add to your Xbox Series X | S library whenever you get one. Besides, the game has been optimized for Xbox Series X and S, running at 120 FPS on both consoles. Currently, you can pre-order the game for $17.99 with 10% off, but be aware that it will be available for free for all Xbox Game Pass subscribers at launch.

Call of the Sea is a first-person puzzle-adventure game with a storyline that's heavily inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's novels, though it doesn't depict those stories in a horrifying way. Instead, the game tries to put you in some gorgeous but mysterious locations to solve various puzzles and search for clues that might help the protagonist to find a trace of her dead husband. Here you can check out the gameplay overview of it:

The game is being developed by a Spanish studio as their debut project. Tatiana Delgado, the director behind the game, work along with 11 developers in Madrid, Spain to deliver this good-looking experience as soon as possible.

Thus far, there's been no official statement from neither the developer nor the publisher around Call of the Sea's release date, but they might react to Microsoft Store's listing very soon if it's true.

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Twelve Minutes Has Apparently Been Delayed to 2021

Twelve Minutes

Luis Antonio's anticipated story-driven cult, Twelve Minutes, has been in development for over five years now, and despite targeting a 2020 release date, it seems the game will now be launched in 2021.

According to the official Steam page of Twelve Minutes, the game has been planned to launch in 2021. While we should wait until we hear the official news from the publisher itself, it wouldn't be surprising if they push back the game to next year as many big titles of 2020 have already been delayed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Twelve Minutes is a narrative-driven top-down game that follows 12 minutes of a couple's life that ends in a dramatic way. Playing as the husband, you live with your pregnant wife who then gets accused by a police officer for killing her own father years ago. The officer accidentally shots your wife in an attempt to arrest her, which leads to her death with an unborn child. All these events happen in 12 minutes and then everything rolls back to the beginning, allowing you to try out different ways and search for clues to find the mystery behind the accusation of your wife. You have to find a way to reach the best destiny for all the three characters that are involved in the situation.

James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem Dafoe are the voice actors behind the main characters of the game. Twelve Minutes was first revealed in 2015, but the enhanced edition of the game, backed by Annapurna Interactive, re-announced at E3 2019 for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and PC.

While only over a month left until the end of 2020, we haven't heard anything about the exact release date of the game, which could be an indirect confirmation from developers on the game's delay until an unknown date in 2021.

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Cyberpunk 2077 Physical Editions Apparently Come With 2 Blu-Ray Discs

Cyberpunk 2077 from CD Projekt Red is nearing it's reported release date after months and months of that dreaded yellow statement that informs us of the game being delayed. Now, it seems as if retailers —likely in the UK from the image below— are receiving promotional material and physical boxes ready for launch on December 10.

Taking to Reddit, user Mikeymorphin shares an image of a bunch of Cyberpunk 2077 promotional material including banners, balloons, and stands for shelves, etc. There's also PS4 and Xbox One sleeve inserts which contain details on what's included with the physical editions. Although from the below image, those details aren't entirely clear.

Company I work for has just been sent all this promo stuff! Its deffo out on the 10th from r/cyberpunkgame

The user returned to Reddit to show a close up of the section that reads "In the box" on the PS4 case, and I imagine it's the same deal for the Xbox One. Players look as if they can expect 2 blu-ray discs to be available in the box, along with a world compendium, stickers, postcards, a map, and access to digital content. You may need to click through as the image is marked as a spoiler.

Back again with a scoop! Heres whats inside and the back cover from r/cyberpunkgame

Cyberpunk 2077 has already been confirmed earlier this year to be less than 200GB in its install size, and when the PC system requirements were revealed, it was shown to require 70GB of free space on the hard drive or SSD. It's also been recommended on PC to have an SSD. The inclusion of 2 discs in the physical edition could very well mean that we'll see a similar situation to Red Dead Redemption 2 in which one disc is installation, and the other is the game disc.

Cyberpunk 2077 appears to be on track to launch on December 10, the game was due to launch this month after going gold, but has been delayed with the studio facing criticism over the developers crunching. When it does launch, it'll be available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S, and Google Stadia.

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Super Mario Sunshine on Switch Receives New Update Allowing GameCube Controller Support

Super Mario 3D All-Stars

If you're a GameCube controller purist (of which I know that crowd is vast) then Nintendo's latest update for Super Mario 3D All-Stars is going to please you.

Nintendo pushed out a new patch for the Super Mario 3D collection which released earlier this year and with it has come one major new addition for Super Mario Sunshine in particular. Assuming you have a GameCube controller adapter for the Switch, Super Mario Sunshine will now be playable with the game allowing for the fullest level of nostalgia to be tapped into. This feature is notably (and obviously) only available when utilizing the Switch in its docked form while hooked up to a television. That also means that you cannot do this action via the Nintendo Switch Lite.

As for the other big change that has come through with this 1.1.0 version update, all three games in Super Mario 3D All-Stars are now able to have their cameras inversed. If you're someone who likes to play games in this (wrong) manner, then your time has now come.

Super Mario 3D All-Stars is available now on Switch if you're looking to snag it for yourself. While it might not be the year's most unique game, our reviewer Sam Woods perhaps put it best by saying, "The fact that in 2020, we can play three of Nintendo and Mario's best titles in one handy collection, both at home and on the go, is wonderful."

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God of War Studio Gains New Writer in Former Games Media Member Alanah Pearce

Alanah Pearce has had a pretty busy 2020. In addition to already appearing as a character in the upcoming release of Cyberpunk 2077, the former games media personality has now announced that she's making a jump to working on games in a full-time capacity.

Announced on social media, Pearce revealed that she is now working at Sony Santa Monica Studio as a game writer. Santa Monica Studio, as you surely know, is the studio that most recently released 2018's God of War and is currently working on the game's 2021 sequel for PS5. "I am so, so proud to be a part of this incredible team," Pearce said in the tweet making this announcement.

Pearce posted an accompanying video to her YouTube channel (which you can find below) and explained that this jump from the media side of things to working at a studio is something that she has been working towards for roughly five years. She has said that she is officially working in a junior position and also said that she's not allowed to disclose what project she might be working on. Additionally, she is also allowed to continue working on the projects that she currently has which includes her YouTube channel and podcast, Play, Watch, Listen.

Adding my own conjecture here, considering the next God of War is set to release next year, it seems as though Pearce could be working on something else at Santa Monica Studio. For the developer to bring on a new writer so late in the project's development would seem a bit bizarre. Then again, I know nothing about how game studios operate on that level so I could easily be wrong. Either way, we'll surely hear more about what Pearce is working on down the road.

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Slayers, The GOAT Anime Better Than Anything You're Watching Right Now, Joins Tales of the Rays

Slayers Tales of the Rays crossover collab event

On November 16, Bandai Namco announced the next collab event in Tales of the Rays – a crossover with legendary fantasy series Slayers for its 30th anniversary. Four Slayers characters will become playable in Tales of the Rays, Lina Inverse (voiced by Megumi Hayashibara), Gourry Gabriev (Yasunori Matsumoto), Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune (Masami Suzuki), and Zelgadiss Graywords (Hikaru Midorikawa).

Slayers Tales of the Rays lina Slayers Tales of the Rays Slayers Tales of the Rays Slayers Tales of the Rays Slayers Tales of the Rays

All the seiyuu have recorded new lines for the occasion. A really cool trailer with some battle gameplay was published, and can be found below. Moreover, some Tales of characters will also be cosplaying Slayers characters, most notably those who share the same seiyuu.

Slayers Tales of the Rays Slayers Tales of the Rays Slayers Tales of the Rays

Reid Hershel, protagonist of Tales of Eternia, becomes Xelloss from Slayers, because they're both voiced by Akira Ishida. Farah Oersted (voiced by Yuuko Minaguchi), also from Tales of Eternia, becomes Amelia. Guy from Tales of the Abyss becomes Gourry because they're both voiced by Yasunori Matsumoto. And Natalia (Michiko Neya), also from Abyss, will become Naga the Serpent (Maria Kawamura).

The Slayers crossover collab event in Tales of the Rays will last from November 20, 1400 JST, to December 10, 1059 JST.

The trailer uses the opening theme song of Slayers Next (season 2), Give a Reason by Megumi Hayashibara. Slayers Next is the most beloved season so they knew what they were doing.

Slayers will also have a 30th anniversary event on December 20. A similar event, in a much bigger scale and at Tokyo Dome City Hall was supposed to happen on March 29 but got canceled with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Slayers was trending on Japanese Twitter after the announcement, showing the series is still beloved. Slayers has been getting more and more collab events recently with its 30th anniversary.

Slayers is originally a light novel series written by Hajime Kanzaka and illustrated by Rui Araizumi. The novel got multiple anime, manga and game adaptations over the decades. You should definitely watch the anime adaptations if you haven't yet. In release order. There's a good chance it's hundred times better than anything else you're watching right now. Not that all anime nowadays sucks needless to say, but in my Unneeded Opinion tm, Slayers is still rarely equaled 30 years later, with an incredible mix of comedy and tragedy, an intricate amount of world-building, great story developments and iconic characters. You won't regret getting in the series.

Slayers is also one of the many novels included in Fanasia Re:build, a crossover RPG coming out soon.

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World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Gets a Gorgeous Launch Cinematic

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, PC, Activision-Blizzard

I'll never forget the first time I saw the original World of Warcraft cinematic. The level of detail and fidelity was absolutely jaw-dropping back in 2004. Sixteen years later the cinematic team hasn't lost that flair for cinematic. Today, we finally got to see what Shadowlands' cinematic looks like, and, as you might expect, it's phenomenal. At this point, I'm just keeping up with WoW's lore in hopes that one day they put out a full movie or series that uses the cinematics team's style. Give it a look for yourself below.

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is set to be a great expansion for new players to hop into. It brings a massive level squish to make the daunting task of hitting the max level a bit easier. Plus, Activision-Blizzard has added a brand new starting zone that lets players easily learn how to hop into the somewhat bloated MMORPG. There's plenty there for old players too; however, as someone who started playing this game in middle school, it's increasingly feeling a bit dated.

Don't let my jaded perspective get you down though. Even though I'd love to see a WoW 2 (whatever that actually means), I think Shadowlands has a lot of neat ideas. Not least of which is the new covenants you can join. These should provide even more replay value, especially if you're someone who runs multiple alt characters as I do. Sure, I'd like to see some bigger changes, but what Blizzard has on offer this go-around is very promising.

Fortunately, we don't have to wait much longer to check it out. World of Warcraft: Shadowlands launches on November 23 on PC.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War Review in Progress — Forgetting its History

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Review

Editor's Note: This review is not yet finalized and will be changing in the near future. What you can find below is our thoughts on mostly the campaign of Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War. Our extended thoughts on multiplayer and Zombies will be coming soon.

If it's November of any given year, that means there's a new Call of Duty title gracing store shelves and digital marketplaces. This year's title is another entry in the Black Ops series, so if you're expecting anything similar to last year's Modern Warfare, you're sure to be disappointed. So far, I've only played enough of the game's campaign to feel confident in reviewing it alone; a complete review including the game's multiplayer will be coming later on in the week, so keep an eye out.

For now, I'll be focusing on the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's single-player campaign. Recent Black Ops titles have set themselves far into the future, picturing what warfare and covert operations will look like when jetpacks are also readily available. This entry, however, is a return to the earlier Black Ops titles in almost every way. Taking place in 1981 during the (you guessed it) Cold War, players fill the familiar shoes of Alex Mason, a man obsessed with numbers, and a mysterious character named Bell, who players assume the role of for most of the game.

From its first mission, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War takes steps to demonstrate how it's differentiating itself from other titles. Players start by ambushing a house filled with enemies ringing in the new year and chase their team's target across rooftops. When he's finally captured, players get to actually choose what to say in the form of a dialogue tree. At least for me, this was a huge change for a Call of Duty title. I'm more accustomed to letting the game's characters do the talking while I have fun running and gunning.

That being said, being able to actually get involved in the game's story is extremely welcome. Every dialogue choice has an effect on the game, from the innocuous to the explicitly obvious ones. There are multiple points where players can choose to throw that target off the roof as soon as he spills the beans, or players can capture him for further interrogation right there, changing the game's ending in its very first mission.

Dialogue trees are just one of the many departures from the Call of Duty norm that Treyarch has decided to make. The second comes almost immediately after the first mission wraps up – you're introduced to the new Black Ops team and the safehouse you'll all be calling home while working to prevent the actions of Perseus, a Russian agent that has changed the balance of the Cold War every time he's come into play. This base of operations is also where players will be spending their downtime. That's right, there's time spent in a Call of Duty title not purely blasting bad guys away with enormous weaponry.

And really, it's pretty nice. For once, players will get to learn a little bit about the characters they're working alongside. It's something that the Call of Duty series desperately requires, or at least has for me. Take for example Captain John Price, as he was in the original Modern Warfare games. He's beloved in the older Call of Duty groups for being an all-around badass, but outside of that, players don't really know much of anything about him. He's like John Wick if we only saw the parts of the movies where John Wick shot people; that's his only personality trait. Instead, players get to actually learn a little bit about their crewmates, and I ended up taking every opportunity I could to do so. These small, short interactions reveal the most interesting pieces of dialogue in the entire game.

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Review

But once you get back to the story of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, things go downhill quickly. The game moves at a blisteringly fast pace and wraps up in about six hours total. Over the course of my first playthrough, I struggled to stay engaged with the game's continually developing story of espionage, intrigue, and who stole however many American-made nuclear warheads. In fact, without looking at the notes I took while playing it, most of Black Ops Cold War's campaign is a blur – it all mushes together into one extended combat sequence. There are a few key sections of missions that stand out. One of these sequences places players in the shoes of a CIA plant in the Lubyanka, the center of the Soviet-era KGB. Another has players fighting through a Russian model of a typical 1980's American suburb. These situations are fun, although only because they offer delightful changes in scenery.

Additionally, players have access to side-missions that can be accessed from the safehouse. These one-off missions don't boast a huge amount of content, but unlocking them is the real joy. The two missions require players to gather evidence from other main story missions to be completed successfully. Once gathered, players have to use that evidence to solve puzzles, with one requiring them to pick out targets from a large group and another tasking them with decoding a message. This process is unlike anything I've seen in a Call of Duty title and it's genuinely pretty fun. It plays into the entire espionage theme of the game, which makes it such a pity that the missions you end up unlocking are pretty underwhelming.

When mission variety is as drab as it is in Black Ops Cold War, the saving grace of games like these is usually gunplay, but that's not the case here either. Guns in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War are the worst they've felt in any Call of Duty title I've ever played. I should say that I never played Advanced Warfare or Black Ops 3 and 4, but regardless, this performance is simply poor. Every weapon lacks weight, and the ones that are supposed to have that boast an undeniable heft, like the game's Gallo SA 12, which I recognized as the Spas-12 from other CoD titles. This hulking, automatic shotgun doesn't let out a deep thump with every shell fired, but instead an unsatisfying "Bap!" The franchise's staple AK-47 has its own similar quirk, dinging like a bell with every round let loose.

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Review

These issues, compounded with the extremely limited variety of weapons that players have access to over the course of the campaign makes the act of killing bad guys uninteresting and unsatisfying and is a death knell for any game based around doing that exact thing.

However, the largest issue I ran into with Black Ops Cold War was presented in its final moments. Black Ops games are known for their twists and turns, and this one is no exception. It has its mysteries, and there are hints toward something larger presented sparsely by easily-missed optional dialogue throughout the game. But when things come to a head and players are going through the game's final mission, the biggest mystery it has is finally revealed, and just as quickly as players are made aware, it's resolved. It was incredibly disappointing to have the most interesting plot point in this game presented and then wrapped up so quickly when it should have taken a more front and center position.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War does some things right. It takes some brave, new steps for the franchise; it branches out with dialogue trees, downtime, evidence, and side-missions, all of which add at least something to the game. It's not always something of substance, but they never take away from the overall experience. I can certainly appreciate the attempt to make something different here and hope that future Treyarch CoD titles continue to implement these changes.

However, the core experience of a CoD campaign relies on a gripping story, providing consistently fun and varied missions, and solid shooting mechanics, all of which Black Ops Cold War lacks. The campaign here is worth playing through once to familiarize players with the game's guns and mechanics, but past that, I can't recommend playing through this story multiple times to experience each end. It's simply not worth it.

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