Minecraft’s latest update (1.16) is now live, bringing huge changes to the game’s previously sparse, but hellish Nether zone.
The most notable change is the addition of four new biomes to the Nether: The Soul Sand Valley (a gloomy desert overrun with ghasts), the Crimson Forest (an expanse of red fungi), the Warped Forest (blue fungi and a whole lot of Endermen), and Basalt Deltas (a land of volcanic rock).
The 1.16 patch also adds new mobs such as piglins and even striders, fungal creatures the player can ride across lava.
The update is live now for Java players and Bedrock players.
Other than biomes and creatures, the update brings a variety of other gameplay additions, including a new stone (Blackstone), new crafting material (Netherite), a respawn anchor to set your respawn point in the nether, and a whole bunch of other new features.
You can read the full patch notes here.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.