Sony announced December’s lineup of free PlayStation Plus games, revealing that subscribers will be able to download copies of Invisible Inc., VVVVVV, and other standout games throughout the month, free of charge.
The announced lineup also features several multiplatform Cross-Buy titles, allowing PlayStation 4 owners to experience the majority of December’s offerings alongside PlayStation 3 and PS Vita players.
First up for PlayStation 4 owners, is Invisible Inc., an espionage-themed strategy game from Klei Entertainment, creators of Don’t Starve. Initially released for PC platforms, Invisible Inc. made its console debut earlier in 2016 with an array of platform-specific control optimizations and interface tweaks.
PS4 players with an active PlayStation Plus subscription will also get free access to Stories: The Path of Destinies, an overhead-view action-RPG developed by Spearhead Games. Featuring combo-driven melee combat mechanics, Stories equips adventurers with several new powers and upgrades throughout its single-player quest, and one of 24 different endings await at its conclusion, depending on decisions and dialogue choices made during the course of gameplay.
Wired Productions’ military-themed twin-stick shooter Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops is also up for grabs next month across the PS , PS3, and PS Vita platforms as a cross-buy title. PS Plus members can additionally look forward to free PS4 and PS Vita ports of Color Guardians, a side-scrolling platformer with lane-switching mechanics.
PlayStation Plus has two final platform-exclusive titles in store for subscribers in December, including the PlayStation Vita version of Terry Cavanagh’s gravity-flipping retro platformer VVVVVV. PS3 owners, meanwhile, can look forward to Hyper Void, a forward-scrolling shoot-’em-up in the vein of the arcade classic Tempest.
All of December’s featured PlayStation Plus games will be free to download for subscribers on Tuesday. Players waiting to grab the current lineup have until next week to pick up November’s games for free before they return to full price.
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.