Activision and Bungie have finally announced that the public beta test for Destiny will come to Xbox One and Xbox 360 on July 23, following the previously announced beta for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 on July 17. In order to take part in the beta, you just have to pre-order the game from participating retailers and use the provided code. Xbox users will need an Xbox Live Gold subscription to join in on the fun.
Last month’s successful alpha test logged a whopping 6.5 million games on PS4 alone. Opening the beta up to PS3, Xbox One, and Xbox 360 will no doubt pull in even larger numbers to the already-acclaimed shooter. The beta will encompass a diverse sampling of the activities to be featured in the full game, such as co-op strike missions and arena battles.
The beta launches first on PS3 and PS4 at 10:00am PDT on July 17. It will go down for scheduled maintenance on July 21-22 in anticipation of opening up to Xbox One and 360 at 10:00am PDT on July 23, running through 11:59pm PDT on July 27. Destiny will launch in full for all platforms on September 9.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.