If you’re playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, you might want to tilt the right stick back to reveal a hidden message. A Japanese gamer revealed on Twitter that he unearthed a hidden message behind the right stick on the Pro Controller.
switchのproコンの右スティック周りの透明な部分から見える奥の方に
「thx2 allgamefans!」（すべてのゲームファンに感謝！）て書いてある…#nintendoswitch pic.twitter.com/2oHfShIw5w
— じお@ゴードン・フリーマン (@geo_stream) March 3, 2017
Pulling back the stick, gamers can see the message “THX2 ALLGAMEFANS!” written in a bold pixel-like font.
Nintendo has a strong history of inserting Easter eggs for its most hardcore fans. Smaller surprises include placing characters reminiscent of Mario and Star Fox in F-Zero X on the Nintendo 64. Other notable examples were the dungeons in the first Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo Entertainment System being shaped into letters spelling out Zelda.
Third party games have also payed homage to Nintendo’s past. In Lego City Undercover on the Wii U, if a player hijacks a bus, they’ll find that the bus is called Epona. That’s the name of Link’s trusted stallion in the Legend of Zelda series. In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, if players go digging around the Estate multiplayer map, they can find a game titled Italian Plumber: Princess Rescue, an obvious nod to the Mario series.
The Switch is Nintendo’s latest video game console; a console-handheld hybrid that was released on March 3. The concept seems to have resonated well with fans, as the original trailer has already amassed more than 28 million views. For many gamers, being able to play the recent Legend of Zelda game was a major draw. Currently, the game sits at a 98 on Metacritic. It stands as the fourth highest game ever on the website.
The Switch has only been out for a few days, and gamers will continue to hunt for more secrets.
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.