NetherRealm Studios creative director Ed Boon is polling his Twitter followers regarding expanded roster additions for the upcoming fighting game sequel Injustice 2, revealing that guest stars from multiple comic book universes and the Mortal Kombat series are under consideration.
Boon divides his nominees between comic book stars and Mortal Kombat veterans, making it likely that Injustice 2 will feature a slate of playable characters hailing from outside the series’ established DC Universe setting.
Injustice 2 is a planned follow-up to 2013’s Injustice: Gods Among Us, a one-on-one fighting game featuring DC Comics characters including Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. The series debut allowed players to pit their favorite superheroes against one another in brutal battles for supremacy, while an alternate-universe story mode featured villains like the Joker, Doomsday, and Sinestro.
The original Injustice also allowed players to assume the role of Scorpion, an undead ninja featured throughout NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat series. Injustice 2 will follow suit by offering up its own Mortal Kombat guest star, and Twitter users can vote in Boon’s poll to determine who gets the nod.
Mortal Kombat stars up for consideration include the ice-wielding ninja Sub-Zero, lightning god Raiden, cocky movie star Johnny Cage, and bionically augmented soldier Jax. Currently, Sub-Zero leads Boon’s poll by a considerable margin, making him a likely lock for the upcoming sequel.
In terms of guest stars from other media franchises, Boon asks his Twitter followers to choose between Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, the T-800 from the Terminator film series, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As of this writing, the poll shows Spawn taking a decisive lead, with Hellboy trailing at a distant second.
As with NetherRealm’s previous games like Mortal Kombat X, Injustice 2‘s chosen guest stars will likely be available as paid downloadable content following the game’s worldwide launch. A release date for Injustice 2 is not yet known.
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.