Ubisoft’s annual E3 2019 conference kicked off with the official reveal of a new Watch Dogs game. Watch Dogs Legion is the third title in the series and its main hook is that players don’t just control a single lead character, they recruit a roster of characters with different abilities and skills.
In the gameplay debut, we witnessed a character in Watch Dogs Legion named Ian as he explores London and investigates the other characters around him. He’s attempting to find someone familiar with drones and, when he finds him, the drone expert, Jimmy Shaw, starts a fight with security. Ian helps him out while Jimmy takes off. During the confrontation, Ian is injured and the player has an option to surrender or resist. Resist is chosen and Ian cloaks himself before escaping in a nearby taxi.
After a chase and crash, a firefight ensues and Ian is killed. This is where we’re shown a major change to the Watch Dogs formula for Legion. After permanently laying Ian to rest, the player can select from a roster of other in-game citizens with different abilities. A hacker and retired police engineer named Helen is chosen and she’s used to infiltrate an establishment using her skills and a small walker drone. She’s seeking out information on where Jimmy is being held and her drone hacks into a system to get files after taking down a few enemies.
We then shift to Naomi who uses Helen’s information to locate and rescue Jimmy in a place called Camden Market. Helen, Ian, and Naomi all feature unique voices, animations, and abilities and Ubisoft claims the vast collection of characters will be unique in various ways. All of the characters are guided along by an A.I. assistant named Bagley and also interact with each other based on shared objectives. After rescuing Jimmy, the young man joins DeadSec and you assume control of him in the game.
The main goal in Watch Dogs Legion is to build a resistance against a regime in London and every citizen in the game’s population can be recruited, including the police officers scattered throughout the city. The characters are unique and there are origin quests that you have to complete to recruit them. Watch Dogs Legion launches March 6, 2020, on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Google Stadia, and PC.
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.