Welcome to TAG Roundup!
Ever wonder what you missed in the world of gaming last week? No worries – we’ve got you covered!
We read a ton of video game articles each week and wanted to share some of our favorites with the Average Gamer community. We’ll feature everything from previews to reviews and everything in between.
The articles we share will be from a combination of well-known sources (like IGN) and more niche blogs that you may not have heard of. In the previous TAG Roundup post, we talked about the PS5, Dauntless, the Sims 4 and more!
Since then, we’ve had a busy week for gamers. Without further ado, let’s jump into last week in gaming.
Death Stranding Reveal Trailer – Trusted Reviews
We’re a couple weeks away from E3 and we were blessed with a captivating reveal trailer for Kojima’s next release. It’ll be a timed exclusive on the PS4 later this year (November 8 release date as of right now) and there are rumors that it could be available on PC in mid-2020.
Hideo Kojima describes the game best:
“People have created ‘Walls’ and become accustomed to living in isolation.
“Death Stranding is a completely new type of action game, where the goal of the player is to reconnect isolated cities and a fragmented society. It is created so that all elements, including the story and gameplay, are bound together by the theme of the ‘Strand’ or connection.
“As Sam Porter Bridges, you will attempt to bridge the divides in society, and in doing create new bonds or ‘Strands’ with other players around the globe. Through your experience playing the game, I hope you’ll come to understand the true importance of forging connections with others.
“Now, please enjoy the latest Death Stranding trailer.”
Sonic Movie Trailer Got Fixed – Nintendo Life
It’d be tough to find more than 3 people who were pleased with the original Sonic trailer. Since the clip came out, fans have been recreating their versions of what a cinematic sonic should look like.
One Youtuber, Artur Baranov, went above and beyond, creating this epic trailer with a more authentic look. We’ll see if the graphics director takes any cues from this rendition.
Apex Season 2 News – EA
We’ve been hooked on Apex for the better part of this year. While we were unimpressed with the Season 1 pass, both of us have high hopes for the second iteration.
There are a bunch of new additions; here are some of our favorites:
- Daily and weekly challenges
- Additional legendary skins
- New content strategies
- Earning crafting material to create a legendary item
We’ll see you out in King’s Canyon!
Gamebender to Bring Programming to Everyone – Venturebeat
Imagine a system that encourages kids to create their own video games! That’s exactly what Makey Makey co-creator Jay Silver is trying to deliver.
With funding from the National Science Foundation, this bright-colored system seems like a more intuitive Raspberry Pi (at least based on what it took for me to create a retro console). Gamebender’s target demographic is children aged 8-16, but there’s a good chance that adults latch onto this as well.
The premise is that anyone can take a video game and easily edit things like textures and images to build their own creation. It’s already hit its Kickstarter goal so expect to see these in rotation soon!
Pokemon Sleep Announcement – Polygon
The Pokemon twitter account surprised the gaming world with this tweet last Tuesday afternoon:
We’re pleased to announce the development of Pokémon Sleep, a new app from @Pokemon_cojp that tracks a user’s time sleeping and brings a gameplay experience unlike any other! Several Snorlax were consulted on this, in case you were wondering.
#PokemonSleep is coming in 2020.
Now, those that have only been held back by sleep can catch Pokemon in their sleep! From the same makers of Pokemon Go, it seems they are further entering the space of health and aiming to promote healthy sleep habits.
How they execute this will be very interesting. Will most of the accomplishments be randomized? Is sleep depth going to affect your Pokemon? Will there be battles?
Perhaps most importantly, will this actually assist with sleep?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X52hQKZGek
Diablo Co-creator Brings ‘It Lurks Below’ – Venturebeat
It Lurks Below is part survival game, part action game. You’ll find elements of Diablo from one of the main developers of the old school RPG. David Brevik’s new piece has various classes, an intuitive level system and the inventory management that many gamers love.
The game has been in early access mode on Steam since April 2018. You can pick up the official release for $20.
Xbox Game Pass on PC – PC Gamer
Subscription services are gaining momentum. Earlier this year, Google announced its cloud gaming as a service. Now, Xbox is coming out with a 100+ game library on PC.
We should expect AAA games with developers like Bethesda and Sega. Along with access to games, subscribers will get a 20% discount when buying games. Hopefully we’ll find out more about the release date and pricing at E3.
Gaming Disorder Determined an Illness – NPR
This past week, the World Health Organization (WHO) voted to adopt “gaming disorder” as an official addition to its International Classification of Diseases (ICD).
But in order to be classified as having a disease, being a video game fan isn’t enough. According to WHO, the criteria doesn’t include a certain amount of hours spent playing. Instead, the description is of someone with an inability to stop playing even though it interferes with other areas of one’s life, such as family relationships, school, work, and sleep. And, these problems would typically continue for at least one year.
The problem with headlines of this nature is that they can promote mis- or at the very least, incomplete information. Reading more you will discover that WHO is not the end-all, be-all on this particular subject. In fact, the scientific community is fairly split on the topic.
From the Entertainment Software Association, “the average gamer is 34 years old and 72 percent are age 18 or older.” This would support the case that video game usage hasn’t really changed as most of the gaming population has been playing for decades now.
While this topic remains very controversial and dividing, the best we can do is monitor our usage and make sure we are not foregoing responsibilities for the next checkpoint. This is certainly a topic we will explore as more information is released.
Pokemon Shirts are Coming – Game Informer
Everyone loves a good gaming t-shirt; look no further than the TAG store (shameless plug).
Apparel maker Original Stitch has customizable Pokemon shirts for sale so you can rep your favorite, but they’re crazy expensive. If you’re willing to drop $100 to express your fandom, then go for it!.
That’s All For Now
There were plenty of other highlights from last week but these ones really stood out. Be sure to check in next time to read about video game current events.
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What were some of the most interesting things you read last week? Leave us a message in the comments so we can check it out!
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