Monthly Archives: September 2019
The Acer Predator Thronos Air Will Massage Your Back for $13,000
Last year we were blown away by Acer’s Thronos gaming cockpit, but its $30,000 price tag made it unapproachable for anyone but the most well-off gamers.
Well, Acer has heard your cries and made a more affordable Acer Predator Thronos Air that only costs $13,000.
Okay, that’s still a lot of money, but it is less than half the price of the original Thronos. To bring the price down to insane levels (rather than inconceivable levels), Acer cut down the motorized features. So now you’ll have to manually adjust the monitor arm and the angle of the gaming chair.
Still, even without the motors, this is a badass battle station for gaming. The mechanical monitor arm still supports three gaming monitors. Meanwhile, the gaming chair segment of this setup still comes with a deployable footrest and lets you lean back at up to 130-degrees while gaming.
Acer Announces Its First 300Hz Gaming Laptop
240Hz gaming monitors and gaming laptop displays have been the fastest screens you can get for competitive gaming for a while now. But Acer is amping things up with one of the industry’s first 300Hz gaming laptops with the updated 15-inch Acer Predator Triton 500.
This gaming laptop’s new 300Hz Full HD display isn’t just fast, it’s also outpacing every gaming monitor currently available. 240Hz displays could already deliver a constant stream of crisp images completely devoid of motion blur, but adding another 60Hz here makes games look even smoother. Like velvety smooth.
Largest Esports Venue in Southern Hemisphere Coming to Melbourne
A new video gaming and esports entertainment venue is being developed at Emporium Melbourne and will open in early 2020. The facility, which will reportedly be the largest of its type in the Southern Hemisphere, will span 2,700+ square metres across two floors.
“Fortress Melbourne” will boast 160 gaming PCs, console gaming suites, dedicated streamer pods, an RPG and tabletop game play area, function rooms, a restaurant, two bars, and a 200-seat esports arena with production facilities.
“Melbourne has become the epicentre for video gaming and esports culture with major events like Melbourne Esports Open and PAX Australia, so we’re excited to be opening our first flagship venue in Melbourne and offer Australians a unique entertainment space that they can enjoy all year round,“ said Fortress Esports CEO Jon Satterley in a statement.
The New Razer Blade Stealth has Nvidia GTX 1650 Graphics
Razer has updated the Blade Stealth with Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics, finally making it the gaming Ultrabook it always should have been
While this isn’t the first Blade Stealth to come with discrete graphics, this year’s model offers significantly more graphics power than its Nvidia MX150-powered predecessor. In fact, with the new GPU onboard I was able to play Doom at 60 frames per second with 1080p and Ultra quality settings turned on.
What’s more impressive is the new Razer 13-inch laptop is just as thin as last year’s model at just 0.66-inches. However, the gaming Ultrabook is a bit heavier, weighing in at a maximum 3.26 pounds (rather than 3.04 pounds) due to the addition of an extra heat pipe to mitigate the extra heat from the new graphics processor.
Shiny Charizard Pokemon Card Sells for Over $10,000
The new Pokemon card set Hidden Fates features a rare shiny Charizard-GX -- and one just sold for a staggering $10,100 on eBay.
There are several factors that contributed to why this particular card went for so much.
Hidden Fates is a brand new, special mini-set that’s especially tough to find in stores. Rather than being sold in traditional booster boxes, Hidden Fates booster packs only come packaged in limited products, like the Mewtwo and Mew collection boxes, the Legendary Birds elite trainer box, or a Gyrados, Raichu, Mewtwo, or Charizard tin. These products are quickly being snatched up at local game shops. Getting your hands on Hidden Fates booster packs is a challenge to begin with, and then you’ve actually got to pull the Charizard-GX, which is one of 45 different Pokemon GX cards in the set.
Planet Zoo Hands-On Preview – Cuteness in a Pressure Cooker
Planet Zoo, the latest construction and management simulation video game developed by Frontier Developments, will teach you a lot of animal facts. For example, did you know that male gharial have a “boss” on the end of its snout which makes it the only crocodile species with sexual dimorphism? You didn’t? Well, now you do.
Planet Zoo is full of these facts, as it aims to not only present you with a fun zoo sim but teach you about animals and preservation as well. The idea here is to provide your animals with the best possible living conditions, and the systems to help you do that are typically deep for a Frontier game.
Sayonara Wild Hearts Hands-On Preview: A Sailor Moon-Inspired Rhythm Trip
If you ever wished Sailor Moon was a badass biker who fought rival gangs set to a soundtrack that’s kind of like something Carly Rae Jepsen would produce, turn your attention to Sayonara Wild Hearts.
Sayonara Wild Hearts is developed by Swedish developer Simogo, best known for the critically acclaimed mobile horror game Year Walk. Like Year Walk, Sayonara Wild Hearts combines eye-catching art direction with a simple but solid gameplay hook. In this case, it plays almost exactly like the brilliant “rhythm violence” game Thumper.
Never Played Resident Evil Outbreak? Here’s What You Need to Know
Capcom is experiencing a bit of a resurgence right now, with franchises like Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Devil May Cry seeing massive success recently. Its most successful franchise from a sales standpoint, Resident Evil, surpassed 92 million units sold with the recent remake of Resident Evil 2. The company’s next project, known as Project Resistance, is set to be shown at Tokyo Game Show 2019. The website currently shows a logo with the letters ‘RE’ emblazoned in red, as well as information on when you can catch the reveal. However, if some recent leaks are any indication of what’s to come, we may be seeing a revival of the long-dormant Resident Evil Outbreak series.
Robert Pattinson Describes Suiting Up as Batman for the First Time
Robert Pattinson is describing the somewhat "humiliating" experience of suiting up as Batman.
Pattinson, who will star in Matt Reeves' upcoming Batman film, spoke to Variety about getting into the Batsuit during his audition.
“You do feel very powerful immediately. And it’s pretty astonishing, something that is incredibly difficult to get into, so the ritual of getting into it is pretty humiliating," Pattinson told Variety. "You’ve got five people trying to shove you into something."
Luigi’s Mansion 3 Co-Op Is a Fun, If Easier, Way to Play
Having already gotten to go hands-on with one of the variously themed floors of Luigi’s Mansion 3’s gargantuan hotel setting at E3 2019, I was excited to try out another at PAX West 2019. This time around, I got to do it with a co-op buddy (IGN’s Brian Malkiewicz dutifully took on the role of Nintendo icon Gooigi), and while there’s definitely plenty of fun and charm to be had when exploring with a friend, it also quite clearly makes puzzle solving speedier — when we weren’t getting in each other’s way.
We played through a new level of the hotel; after seeing the more medieval-themed Luigi's Mansion 3 area at E3, this time around I played through an overgrown forest area, with a mischievous ghost causing the plant life to become hostile to poor Luigi. Thick branches overran staircases and columns, bunches of leaves hid buried treasure, and several plants tried to kill me with fruit. Showing off the variety that Luigi's Mansion 3 has in store, I love knowing not to expect from one area of the game to the next what I'll be encountering. And thankfully, things were a bit easier to survive with a co-op partner.