Get rid of your CRT television sets, pack up your GameCube controllers, and throw away your Wii U, because Super Smash Bros. is coming to Nintendo Switch. And this time, Mario and company are bringing along a few extra-inky friends.
During the latest Nintendo Direct event, the company revealed the game with a short teaser video. We see male and female Inklings from the Buy Now series firing their blasters at each other all while they dash into the ink and use their special weapons. The room then goes dark and the classic Smash Bros. logo descends, with Mario and Link briefly visible.
Link’s appearance, as expected, is based on his look from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. He doesn’t appear to be wearing a hat, but he still has his trusty bow so he can annoy newer players.
At the moment, the new entry in the series is just called Super Smash Bros. It’s a working title, but seeing as the Wii U and 3DS games didn’t use creative subtitles, we would be surprised if the final game isn’t just called Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo Switch. There is no news yet on whether or not we will get a full-fledged story mode this time around, but it would be a shame if one were omitted once again.
Since the release of the last game in 2014, Nintendo has launched new titles with characters who will almost certainly be included in the game. Arms, for instance, has several fighters worthy of a spot on the roster and would be surprised if the recent surge of popularity for Fire Emblem didn’t lead to a few more heroes making the cut.
With the success of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, we’re also crossing our fingers that Rabbid Peach gets a spot. Bayonetta — available on the Wii U and 3DS as paid DLC, is also a gun-equipped shoo-in, as Bayonetta 3 is coming to Nintendo Switch as an exclusive.
Super Smash Bros. arrives for Nintendo Switch later in 2018. We expect to hear more news about the game at this year’s E3 in June, and we’re praying that the Melee community can finally leave the 17-year-old game behind and play something new.
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.