Batman: Arkham Knight had originally been set for a 2014 release, but Rocksteady Studios now won’t be delivering the game until 2015, as producer Dax Ginn confirmed at a recent pre-E3 event. The studio behind the Arkham series of Batman games just isn’t quite ready to commit to a fall 2014 release. Better to get it done right than get it out quick, right?
Ginn also confirmed a few previously unrevealed details about the upcoming game, specifically relating to the Batmobile. The speedy cruiser that any fan of Batman is no doubt familiar with from one of its dozens of iterations makes its playable debut in Arkham Knight, since the new game unlocks the whole of Gotham City for players to explore. What hadn’t been revealed until now is the fact that the Batmobile has two forms.
In addition to the more traditional sporty race car, good for taking on jumps and zipping from place to place quickly, the Batmobile also has a tank form, useful for solving certain puzzles and engaging in new-to-the-series vehicular combat. The car transforms at the press of a button, moving slower in its more armored form but capable of firing both vulcan cannons and missiles as it strafes around the now-larger fields of battle.
Here’s a better peek at what the Batmobile looks like in Battle Mode than we’ve got up top:
We’ll have a closer look at this multi-purpose Batmobile soon, but console yourself over the unexpected delay for now by reminding yourself that you’ll be roaming around Gotham in a Bat-tank. And take a look at the Batmobile in Battle Mode below, in Rocksteady’s latest trailer.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.