Microsoft is giving away free downloadable copies of its open-world Xbox One action game Sunset Overdrive next month as part of Games with Gold, a member-exclusive perk for Xbox Live Gold service subscribers.
Xbox Live Gold subscribers will also receive a free copy of Telltale Games’ The Wolf Among Us in April, along with a pair of Xbox 360 classics that are playable on the Xbox One via the platform’s backward compatibility feature.
Released in 2014, Sunset Overdrive is a frantically paced third-person shooter created by Ratchet & Clank series developer Insomniac Games. In Sunset Overdrive, players find themselves in a massive city teeming with hordes of mutants that they can fend off using an arsenal of unconventional weaponry.
Sunset Overdrive emphasizes traversal gameplay, and rewards players for performing high-flying stunts and rail grinds mid-battle. Stylish kills award damage multipliers and other bonuses, upping the player’s destructive capabilities and increasing their chances of survival.
Also up for grabs for Xbox Live Gold subscribers in April is the full season of Telltale Games’ The Wolf Among Us. Based on the Fables comic book series, The Wolf Among Us is a narrative-based adventure game similar to Telltale’s hit The Walking Dead. Decisions and dialog choices affect events in later chapters, giving players control over how the game’s overarching story plays out.
Xbox 360 games that are offered as part of April’s Xbox Games with Gold include Dead Space, a survival horror game originally released by Electronic Arts in 2008. And April’s final Games with Gold title is Saints Row IV, an open-world third-person shooter in which players wreak havoc within a virtual cityscape using superhuman powers and abilities.
The Wolf Among Us and Dead Space will be up for grabs for Xbox Live Gold subscribers on April 1, and Sunset Overdrive and Saints Row IV will be free to download starting on April 16.
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.