Some of the biggest surprises come in small packages. Nintendo recently announced Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker during the company’s digital event at E3 2013, expanding upon Toad’s isometrics exploits in the excellent Super Mario 3D World. As previewed in a brief gameplay trailer showing during the event, Toad will engage in a variety of world-spinning puzzles spanning both 2D and 3D planes while in pursuit of — you guessed it — treasure. The game features a bevy of familiar enemies (Shy Guys, Goombas, Piranha Plants, etc.) and it appears you’ll be able to explore fixed, isometric levels from a first-perspective using the bundled Wii U GamePad.
Little else is known about the upcoming title other than the announcement, but if it’s like past offerings, we’re going to assume the diminutive Toad still can’t jump. Shame. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is scheduled for release on the Wii U holiday 2014.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.