Nintendo has announced that Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet will launch on November 18 exclusively on Nintendo Switch.
A new trailer revealed both mascot legendary Pokémon, Koraidon and Miraidon. Both are lizards of some sort, with Koraidon being a red, more natural-looking creature. Miraidon, by contrast, is blue and looks more mechanical, so this generation’s theme might be man vs machine or something along those lines.
According to The Pokémon Company, these games are the first open-world entries in the series. The games have always emphasized online battling and trading Pokemon, but now they will allow up to four players to explore the region online through multiplayer. A press release notes that players can explore the game in a non-linear fashion, which is a change of pace for the usually straightforward RPG series.
Two professors were introduced: Professor Sada and Professor Turo. The former will be in Scarlet while the latter will be in Violet. Additionally, Nemona shows up as a sort of a mentor or rival figure who’ll guide the player throughout their journey.
There are some new Pokemon introduced as well, such as Pawmi, an electric mouse, Lechonk, a Normal-type hog, and Smoliv, an olive-shaped dual Grass/Normal creature.
The end of the trailer shows a background full of reflective crystals and a Pokéball flying across the screen. Whether or not this hints at anything, like the generation’s new central mechanic, is unknown. Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield had Dynamaxing, while Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon had Z-Moves.
Unsurprisingly, Nintendo is also offering a double pack that includes both versions of the game as well as a steelbook case.
When Nintendo first announced the newest generation of games, the initial trailer showcased a variety of old Pokémon that would be returning.
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.