Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a new Pokémon adventure that you won’t want to miss. The title is being lauded as a “new approach for the Pokémon video game series” and will feature new gameplay, Pokémon, and lore never seen in any other Nintendo game. The game is set to have a Breath of the Wild art style and a world with more exploration than any previous entry in the main Pokémon series (although it’s not entirely open world), and it almost looks like a Pokémon version of Monster Hunter from the most recent trailers.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus launches on January 28 for Nintendo Switch. You’ll definitely want to be playing this one on launch day, so you should grab a pre-order as soon as possible. And, of course, there are some in-game bonuses and real-life extras that come with pre-ordering at some retailers.
Right now, there aren’t a lot of pre-order bonuses on the market. It could just be a very dry title to pre-order, but we think some more bonuses might start cropping up once Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, which have quite a few different pre-order bonuses, release in November. We’ll be updating this guide as new pre-order bonuses are announced. Here’s everything we know about so far:
Nintendo: If you pre-order Pokémon Legends: Arceus on the Nintendo eShop, you’ll get a Hisuian Growlithe Kimono Set (an in-game costume for your character that you’ll be able to grab until May). If you pre-order the digital edition of the game, you’ll receive a serial code that can be redeemed for 30 Heavy Balls in-game. These specialty Poké Balls cannot be thrown as far as standard ones, but are more effective at catching Pokémon that haven’t yet noticed you.
Pokémon Center: If you order Pokémon Legends: Arceus through Pokémon Center, you’ll receive an exclusive Arceus Sitting Cuties Plush. Unfortunately, an image of what the plush will look like isn’t available just yet.
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.