The Nintendo Switch has a great lineup of games to play this holiday season, including Buy Now and Buy Now , but you shouldn’t let Buy Now get lost in the shuffle. The multiplayer shooter has continued to get free content updates since its release in July, and the latest additions include an all-new mode.
On Thursday, November 23 — that’s Thanksgiving in the United States — Splatoon 2 will receive a new stage for the Salmon Run mode called “Salmonid Smokeyard,” as well as items and hairstyles for the Inkling characters. The new items include winter clothing so your squid kid will be warm when it starts snowing, and new music will even make its way to the game.
The following day, the stage “MakoMart” will arrive to competitive multiplayer — it’s a giant superstore that lets you tase another customer so you can get that new 4K television. Later on, the new stage “Shellendorf Institute” will arrive to the game, as will the original Splatoon stages “Walleye Warehouse” and “Arowana Mall.” Other changes arriving in the update include a level 99 cap in place of the current limit of 50, new Amiibo functionality, and the ability to swap gear without exiting to the lobby — this should help to keep teams of players together for multiple matches.
The update we’re really excited about, however, arrives in mid-December. This update includes the new competitive “Clam Blitz” mode, which tasks teams with collecting clams and throwing them into a basket near the enemy team’s base. Before being able to score points, the teams must break through a protective barrier using an item called a “Power Clam.” The mode seems to be similar to Salmon Run in its basic format, but being competitive rather than cooperative should make for some interesting matches.
Splatoon 2 has some multiplayer competition on the Switch now that Doom has arrived, but we’re confident the game’s player base will hold steady. In our review, we called the game “a remarkable multiplayer shooter with all the style, attention to detail, and polish that we’ve come to expect from Nintendo.” It’s available exclusively on Nintendo Switch, while the original game is only on Wii U.
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.