Japan’s greatest detective is… a Pokémon. Nintendo has released a new trailer for their upcoming Japanese Pokémon spin-off, Great Detective Pikachu: The Birth of a New Duo. The game, which was announced in October, 2013, will come to the Japanese eShop February 3.
The trailer with sprinkles very short gameplay clips in between larger cutscenes, does not paint a vivid picture of what players will do in the game. Pikachu will have a human companion, named Tim according to Polygon, who seems to play Watson to Pikachu’s Sherlock. It appears Pikachu will investigate crimes by and against Pokémon: gameplay images show Pikachu conversing with other species of Pokémon, including one who appears to be injured.
The cutscenes, which almost certainly can’t be trusted to paint an accurate picture of the game, show a moodier, more adult version of the adventure. Set to a decidedly Sherlock-inspired soundtrack, Pikachu tails a suspect, inspects a human corpse, and receives a kiss on the forehead from a human woman. Also, he drinks coffee!? C’mon Nintendo. Pokémon aren’t people.
Luckily, the trailer does have gameplay confirming that Pikachu will wear his adorable Sherlock-style deerstalker cap in the game.
The game’s release will kick off Nintendo’s year-long celebration of the original Pokémon’s 20th anniversary. Nintendo will re-release Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow on the Nintendo 3DS shop on February 27, the anniversary of Pokémon’s original Japanese release, and will be offering mythical Pokémon from throughout the series as downloadable content for Pokémon Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire, X and Y, throughout the year. Nintendo will also ship a special edition Pokémon Red and Blue version of the New Nintendo 3DS, which comes with removable face plates and both games pre-installed.
Great Detective Pikachu will come to the Japanese 3DS eShop February 3. Nintendo has not announced plans to release the game in other regions… So keep your fingers crossed.
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.