There are few games that embody “pure fun” quite like Rocket League. It’s not a hard game to understand: You drive a car, you hit a massive ball into the opposing goal, and the first team to score the most points wins. It’s that simplicity that makes Rocket League such an excellent game, though. No matter if you’re deep into shooters like Apex Legends or someone who likes to take a load off with Stardew Valley, Rocket League has something for you. But does it let you share that fun by being a cross-platform game? Let’s find out.
Yes, Rocket League supports cross-platform play across PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Steam, and Nintendo Switch. No matter which platform you’re on, you can team up with or against friends online. Like Call of Duty: Warzone, players from all platforms enter the same matchmaking queue, so when you’re playing online, you’ll likely be playing alongside users on other systems.
Unlike Call of Duty, though, you don’t need an external account for crossplay. As long as you’ve updated your game since February 19, 2019, cross-platform play should already be enabled. All you need to do is start a match to play with other systems.
Although Rocket League has cross-platform play enabled by default, it never hurts to double-check that you have the setting turned on. Alternatively, if you only want to play with players on the same platform as you, you can turn the feature off, as well. From the main menu, follow Options > Gameplay to find the setting. Look for a box labeled Cross-Platform Play and check it. If the box is filled, cross-platform play is enabled, and if the box isn’t filled, it’s not.
As long as you’ve enabled the setting, you can play with other platforms in public matchmaking, as well as private matches. If you want to play with your friends on other platforms, you can add them in the Friends menu like you would with players on the same platform as you.
This extends to cross-progression as well. As long as you link your Epic Games Account, you can transfer your rank, battle pass progress, and unlocks across all platforms.
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.