Author: Game Infliction

Best PS5 and PlayStation Deals Today (July 2024)

The big Prime Day sale event may be officially over and done with, but there are still quite a few discounts lingering around. We’ve gathered up some of our favorite PS5 deals below, including all-time low prices on PS5 Slim and PS5 Slim digital, and the first (and best) ever deal on PSVR2 which is $200 off. These deals scratch the surface of what’s available now though. Below, you can also find other deals on everything from consoles to SSDs and even information on where to buy a PS5 now.

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PSVR 2 for $349 (was $550)

Any PlayStation fan who’s curious about virtual reality is in luck. Right now, in addition to launching a huge PS5 game sale, Sony is dropping prices on PSVR 2 to new all-time lows.

If all you want is the hardware itself, you can pick up this bundle that includes the headset, two PSVR 2 Sense controllers, and all the cables you need to play. This is a terrific deal, landing it at $150 less than the price of Meta Quest 3 (see at Amazon).

PSVR2 Horizon Call of the Mountain Bundle for $399.99 (was $600)

The bundle that includes the PSVR2 hardware, along with the flagship title Horizon Call of the Mountain, is also on sale. It costs $50 more than the non-bundle (and is probably worth picking up, imo; check out our Horizon Call of the Mountain review for details).

Best PS5 Video Game Deals

Amazon has an excellent sale going on at the moment on a variety of PS5 games. Some are discounted all the way down to $30, including Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Horizon Forbidden West, Returnal, and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, but there are a few more on sale that are available at slightly higher prices.

Marked down to $40 are The Last of Us Part II Remastered, God of War Ragnarök, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition, and Gran Turismo 7, while Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is enjoying a nice $20 discount to $50. Many of these are limited time offers as well, so grab ’em while you can at these lower prices!

Perfect PS5 2TB SSD for $105 at Amazon

SSD prices have been rising in 2024, making now the perfect time to buy with significant discounts available. This is one of the best deals on a 2TB SSD post-Prime Day: Amazon is offering the TEAMGROUP MP44Q 2TB SSD for just $104.99. It, unfortunately, does not have a heatsink so you’ll have to invest in one, but you can easily do that here for under $10. It also offers transfer speeds of up to 7,400MB/s read and 6,500MB/s write.

PS5 Slim Consoles on Sale (Save $50)

Sony’s Back to School Sale on several of their PlayStation products even includes the consoles. The PS5 Slim Disc Edition has dropped to $449.99 from its $500 MSRP and the PS5 Slim Digital Edition has dropped to $339.99 from its $450 MSRP. These deals will all expire on August 3.

PlayStation Portal Back In Stock

Best PS5 Headset Deals: 33% Off the HyperX Cloud Gaming Headset & More Deals

There’s no shortage of PS5-compatible headsets. If you’re constantly having to turn down the volume when you play, you might want to pick up one of these, then you can listen to your games as loud as you darn well please. And if you’d like to see even more options that are worth buying, check out our collection of the best gaming headsets.

More PS5 Gaming Headset Deals:

How to Trade in Your Old PlayStation Consoles

If you’re looking to trade in your old PlayStation consoles, you can do so at select retailers in-store and online. Often, the most widely available retailers are GameStop and Best Buy. However, you can also trade your used devices online at retailers such as Amazon and Microsoft.

Some retailers will offer you cash for your used goods, while others may provide you with a gift card that can be used in-store and online. This is a great way to offload your old gaming gear and get some money that you can put towards a newer console and games.

While trading devices in at retailers will often net you the lowest amount for your used consoles, there are also online marketplaces such as eBay, Craigslist, and OfferUp that may fetch higher prices, but you’ll often be responsible for packing and shipping costs, or be required to meet someone in person for the transaction, the latter of which poses its own risks.

With how expensive gaming is getting in 2024, we’re trying to save you as much money as possible on the games and other tech you actually want to buy. We’ve got great deal roundups available for all major platforms such as Switch and Xbox, and we keep these updated daily with brand new offers. If you’re trying to keep costs down while maintaining your favorite hobby, stay tuned for more incredible discounts.

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.

PSA: Receive 1,000 Gold Points With This Switch Online Family Membership Offer (North America)

A “limited time” offer.

Nintendo is currently running a “limited time” promotion where you can earn 1,000 My Nintendo Gold Points when you purchase or renew a 12 month family membership for NSO or the Expansion Pack service.

This offer is currently open to residents located in North America and will be available until 11th August 2024. These Gold Points can be exchanged for games on the eShop and other Nintendo Switch content.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night To Address “Switch Crash” In Next Update

“We apologize for the inconvenience”.

There have been some concerns raised about the state of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on the Nintendo Switch in recent times, and it seems the development team is looking to resolve some problems in the next update.

In a brief post on social media from the official account, the team apologised to players for any inconvenience and mentioned how it’s working on fixes to resolve a “Switch crash” as well as some issues associated with other platforms.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

(For Southeast Asia) First Look: Astro Bot Limited Edition DualSense Wireless Controller

Hi everyone! It’s a pleasure to be back here to make another Astro Bot-related reveal.


(For Southeast Asia) First Look: Astro Bot Limited Edition DualSense Wireless Controller

If you have been following Astro news as of late, then you know Team Asobi have been hard at work on a brand-new game coming out on September 6. The game features over 50 planets, new powerups, lots of enemies, secrets and PlayStation-infused characters to collect. And it also features a DualSense wireless controller turned into a living character and helping Astro on his mission.

Today, it is an immense pleasure to announce that you will be able to charge into Astro’s new supersized adventure along with the cool new DualSense wireless controller – Astro Bot Limited Edition.

We know many of you were hoping for this after seeing the game trailer. So, we quickly asked our lovely bots to engineer this beauty and tada! No, no, I’m just kidding; it had been in the making for some time, carefully crafted by the amazing teams at SIE. And what splendid work they did.

The controller’s design features Astro’s signature blue accents on the handles and buttons, carved-in, sci-fi lines as well as the trademark playful pair of eyes on the touch pad.  It is a true work of art, and we could not be happier with the end-result at Team Asobi. 

With this dynamic addition to your set-up, a supersized space adventure awaits… 

The DualSense wireless controller – Astro Bot Limited Edition will be available in limited quantity in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam for SGD 114 / MYR 399 / IDR 1,449,000 / THB 2,690 / PHP 4,590 / VND 2,299,000 and will launch on September 6, day-in-date with the launch of Astro Bot

Pre-orders will be available through local retailers starting from Friday, August 9, 2024.

I will take this chance to summarize some of the cool things this new Astro Bot game does with the DualSense wireless controller

First, as many of you expect from an Astro game, you can feel the surfaces that Astro runs and slides on, from grass, sand, metal to more squishy textures or water. That was already the case with Astro’s Playroom, but we have increased the number of textures you can feel through the controller.

Next, we doubled down on the adaptive triggers combined with haptic feedback, by tying them tightly to Astro’s new powers. For example, when using Barkster, the bulldog Jetpack, you can feel the thruster ratting against your finger in synch with the animation, giving a very dynamic and immersive feeling. Every new power up has been given that same special treatment so you will be able to experience various expressions through your fingers.

Finally, given the number of enemies and boss battles we added to this new adventure, it was important to work on battle and impacts by combining all of the above. Whether it’s stretching, pounding or pummeling hard surfaces, there are many new types of impacts that can be experienced in Astro Bot. 

And of course, we could not finish this post without mentioning the Dual Speeder, one of Astro’s most recurrent gadgets, allowing him to fly into various planets. The Dual Speeder makes full use of motion control, adaptive triggers and haptic feedback. Here is a piece of very early concept art and how it looks in the final game.

That’s all from us! We’ll be back soon for more news around Astro Bot. Until then, please tell us in the comments what you think of this cool DualSense wireless controller – Astro Bot Limited Edition!

Astro Bot is out on PS5 on September 6, we are waiting for you all to join Astro for his first big new adventure.

Team Asobi out.

The WD Black C50 1TB Expansion Card for Xbox Series X|S Is on Sale Today

Amazon has dropped the price on the officially licensed WD Black C50 1TB Expansion Card for Xbox Series consoles. Right now it’s only $129.99, an 18% off price drop from its original $150 MSRP. It’s currently $10 cheaper than the Seagate model. The C50 is one of the best SSDs for the Xbox, which isn’t surprising since your options are pretty limited.

WD Black C50 1TB Expansion Card for Xbox for $129.99

The WD Black C50 expansion card is essentially a 1TB NVME SSD encased in a specialized Xbox-compatible shell. Unlike the more complex PS5 SSD installation process, which involves opening up the PS5 to access the SSD slot, the Seagate expansion card simply plugs into its dedicated port on the back of the Xbox.

This expansion card offers the same speed as the internal SSD, ensuring that you won’t sacrifice performance or encounter extended load times as you might with a regular USB drive. With a 1TB expansion card, you can double the storage on your Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S Carbon Black Edition console, and triple the storage on your OG (white) Xbox Series S console.

In contrast to the PS5, there are no alternative methods for adding high-speed storage to your Xbox console. Your options are limited to either the WD or Seagate expansion cards, underscoring the importance of seizing a good deal when one becomes available.

Looking for more Xbox accessories? Check out the best Xbox deals today.

Creepy card game Arsonate is a very short race to be the last person burning

2024’s small but growing avalanche of games that trap you in a room with a nasty little freak continues with Arsonate, in which the nasty little freak wears a gasmask and wants to set you on fire. He wants to do this using cards. There are 47 of them – a forest of silhouettes, laid across the blood-stained table between you. Every turn, you flip a tree card to reveal a flame. When the flames spread to a player’s Tower card, it’s game over.

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Star Wars: The Mandalorian Adventures Board Game Review

When it comes to the best Star Wars board games, you have a lot of great choices. The Queen’s Gambit, for instance, recreates the multi-front finale of The Phantom Menace. Star Wars: Rebellion captures the breadth of the original trilogy in a three-hour epic. The Mandalorian Adventures is the latest tabletop take on Star Wars, and it’s shooting for a somewhat smaller scope. This new release is content to capture several key moments from the first season of The Mandalorian, presenting these encounters as 40-minute firefights with color, tension, and a minimal amount of overhead. Just like the show upon which it’s based, this is a splendid slice of Star Wars that packs some new surprises while managing to call back to the spirit of the franchise.

This is a very straightforward and approachable game. The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game immediately comes to mind, as the structure here is similar. Play is focused around a spiral-bound book that forms the board. Each new scenario moves on to a subsequent page, allowing for quick setup and minimal storage space. While there is a main rulebook, missions themselves introduce new rules and tweaks that are printed alongside the map. It’s a relatively seamless experience to work through the book and internalize the additional details.

The core system is simple and surprisingly interesting. Players cooperate to take down game-controlled foes and accomplish the scenario objective. You can choose between characters such as Mando, IG-11, and Greef Karga. Each possesses their own unique deck of cards and abilities. On your turn you perform two actions, but the effectiveness of each action is variable and depends on the card you play. So, if you play a four-strength card to move, then you will move four spaces. A two-strength card to attack means you inflict two damage, and so on. Some cards include special ability text that offers additional benefits. This system is interesting because it’s a blend of a straightforward two-action turn with variance in action points. Furthermore, the way enemy response plays off this card system is splendid.

These action cards are played in slots on the board. All of the cards any player spends to move go into the “move” slot, for instance. Once one of the slots receives a total of five or more strength total, the enemy phase triggers and a card is drawn. This emphasizes the strength of the game in presenting tense and nuanced systems with the absolute minimal amount of rules weight. It enforces timing constraints and facilitates discussion between players, because you may hold off on throwing down that powerful card so that one of your buddies gets to go before the enemies trigger.

This is a very straightforward and approachable game.

This tension is important, as it’s the primary source of drama. All damage is set by the power of your attack card or the activation card drawn for the enemies. No dice are rolled, so the dynamism is entirely encapsulated in the card play. This works to increase the speed of the game and achieve that brief playtime at the expense of a more nuanced combat system. That makes sense, as this game is aimed at less experienced players as well as dedicated hobbyists.

Despite the relative simplicity, Mandalorian Adventures has an almost puzzle-like feel. The difficulty, while able to be tweaked, is formidable enough that it requires thought and discussion on how players will approach their turns. Often, you will use what information you have in combination with gut instinct to formulate a plan. Analyzing the board state is essential to success.

One of the most intriguing aspects is in how it bridges the gap between those two levels of players. Each scenario is standalone, as this is not a campaign game. However, it wants you to engage the missions in order on your first playthrough. This is because there is an accompanying deck of cards that gives you step-by-step instructions on what to play next. It’s a key component in introducing new rules in bite-sized pieces, rules that you can then apply to all games going forward. New content is also added to play and the system adjustments are considerable. By your fifth session, the game will have grown quite a bit in density, but it will have been an effortless journey.

In addition to this large deck of cards, there are two full-sized envelopes. They contain additional ways to play or modify existing scenarios. Once you have finished revealing everything, you will have numerous ways to enjoy the game. It’s an interesting concept, one indicative of publisher Unexpected Games’ design philosophy. They presented a similar approach with their debut title, The Initiative (see at Amazon). That game also presented new content during the course of play and shook up expectations.

This methodology, of breaking up the experience into a gradual arc of play, and then throwing in several optional modules to re-experience existing scenarios, is very effective. One such example, mentioned in the game’s core rulebook and hence not technically a spoiler, is the inclusion of a traitor mode of play. This is a set of cards where players are given a randomized loyalty with the chance of one character being a traitor to the group. This is excellent as it touches upon the themes of trust and honor present in the television series. You can add these cards into any existing scenario to spice it up. This mode is completely optional and not the standard way to play. In fact, it’s probably best to hold off on this until you’ve played several sessions, as the traitor mode is somewhat fragile and can result in uneven plays. Yet, when it comes together with a perfectly timed reveal, it’s wonderfully cinematic.

There’s a good deal of depth here in exploring the system and additional content. It manages to elevate the experience, achieving a status above the comparably mellow Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game. The Mandalorian Adventures is not likely to supplant Star Wars: Rebellion or Imperial Assault for fans of those more robust and weighty titles, but it’s a surprisingly devious game that captures a solid amount of tension with simple and interesting systems. It is very flexible, supporting solitaire play or even multiple participants sharing characters by shuffling all of the cards into a single deck. This really is a stellar box that offers much more than appears on the surface.

Where to Buy

Super Smash Bros. N64 Storyboard Artwork Discovered

Depicting the opening movie.

The original storyboard documents for Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64 have been discovered online.

David V. Kimball, a marketing director and content creator who has previously made videos about Super Smash Bros. Melee, stumbled across the design documents — drawn by Masahiro Sakurai — by using the Wayback Machine on HAL Laboratory’s website.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Save 25% Off the Stonemaier Expeditions Board Game for a Limited Time

Today, Amazon is offering the Stonemaier Expeditions board game for only $63.50, a 25% discount from its original $85 MSRP and the lowest price we’ve ever seen for this 2023 release. This is a limited “Lightning Deal” that will expire when a certain number have been sold.

Stonemaier Expeditions Board Game for $63.50

Stonemaier is no stranger to the board gaming world. They’ve produced some excellent games like Wingspan (and its spinoff Wyrmspan), Scythe, and Viticulture. Expeditions was released in 2023 and it is the sequel to Stonemaier’s popular Scythe game. It takes place in the same mecha-industrial setting as Scythe, but with complete different game mechanics and goals. This time around, there’s more of an emphasis on exploration over warfare with a more horror feel. Scythe is a very complex board with many moving pieces, and Expeditions is no different. Check out our Expeditions review for more details.

Looking for options? Check out the 17 best board games to play in 2024.

Throne and Liberty’s Beta Is Fun But Doesn’t Do Enough to Stand Out

I’ve done my time in major MMOs like Final Fantasy 14 and World of Warcraft, but outside of that I’ve only dabbled in the various other forms this subgenre can take. So when I say that Throne and Liberty isn’t quite rising to my past experiences with massively multiplayer dungeon-diving, loot-grinding, and boss-slaying, it’s an opinion coming largely from a “normie.” That said, both FF14 and WoW have big expansions launching the same year as this, NCSOFTs Guild Wars 2 follow up, and though its world is beautiful and its combat grows into a compelling and active ballet of skill interactions, the largely boring story and repetitive quest design I experienced in my 10 or so hours with the Open Beta makes me worried for Throne and Liberty’s chances at unseating the kings of the genre.

It is a great-looking game, though. The character creator lets you customize your avatar with some commendable levels of detail. And no matter what you put together, the end result will look fantastic, and shows no signs of the sort of player character uncanny valley that some games suffer from, where the overall quality of your PC is lower than the handcrafted NPCs from the developers. The world is pretty stunning, too. Once you see the huge flying whale for the first time, you’ll go quite a few hours before you see something that majestic again, but the environments you’ll travel through on your journey are rich in color and detail. I really loved the swampy forest overrun by spiders and the colorful plains with giant wild birds that are Definitely Not Chocobos. Even better, all of this runs remarkably smoothly. Becoming your own mount and morphing into a wild cat to sprint through cities or fast traveling from location to location loads lightning fast and in real time no matter how many people are on screen.

You’re going to do quite a lot of traveling from place to place, guided around by a completely unremarkable story about magically blessed youngsters growing into warriors of destiny, and the various factions in the world of Solisium that want to use them for their own gain. I didn’t get too far into it – only around chapter 5, which is halfway through the available content at the time – but none of it stood out as compelling. Thanks to a reliable narrator that recaps important parts of the story I did soon after doing them, I found myself skipping through much of the bland dialogue in non-cinematic exchanges.

The bulk of the quests both on the main path and side missions are pretty run-of-the-mill MMO fare.

The bulk of the quests both on the main path and side missions are pretty run-of-the-mill MMO fare. You’re gonna be collecting pieces of the local wildlife to make a potion, find missing people, do a stint as a mail carrier, etc. There’s a steady pace of new things to learn and do as you go along, but Throne and Liberty treating the main story as an elongated tutorial gave me a bit of anxiety about how to use all of the random stuff I was getting as rewards, to the point where I was very conservative with how I spent any loot because I didn’t what to spend it on upgrading something if I was only going to learn that I could have spent it on something else in the next couple of quest phases. Every region of the map has its own specific side tasks, which are worth completing for their rewards even if you aren’t usually the type to make sure all of their boxes get checked. These are more likely to feature more interesting missions or puzzles to solve than the main quest, but there’s plenty of “kill X of Y” here, too. I didn’t get to see too many of these myself, but I chatted with a few folks in my travels who described some more complex platforming missions in instances that I definitely wanted to try out myself.

You’ll do a great deal of fighting on your journey, of course, and its active combat is Throne and Liberty’s standout feature. Players aren’t restricted by classes. The pair of weapons they choose to wield determines what abilities are available to them. Similar to NCSOFT’s other big MMO, Guild Wars 2, fights require lots of positional awareness, and skills have lots of synergies with one another both within and across weapon types, and encourage lots of trial and error to figure out the best combinations for getting the most out of them. Every weapon has an auto attack pattern and can parry enemies’ big attacks so long as you hit the button prompt just right, and each weapon has their own set of follow-up attacks that take great advantage of the opening you made. This mechanic seems ancillary against smaller foes, but against bosses and other strong enemies, defense is a must if you’re going to make it out of their clutches alive. Mastery of it was an absolute must in the Bloody Palace-style boss rush mode where you face off one-on-one with tough foes that have lots of power and small margins for error.

I used the greatsword and the staff, giving me lots of power and health in melee and also some escape tools and long-range magical options. I used them mostly to charge into close combat, blast all of my abilities, then use a magical freezing cloud to leap me away from enemies and blast them with fire and lighting bolts until they closed the distance. These abilities have more direct synergies, too. Greatsword players have access to a skill that can stun targets, and can follow it up with another skill that does bonus damage to stunned foes. The staff can put burning conditions on your opponents, and a second bigger fire spell will do more damage to enemies with burning stacks on them. Late in the beta I experimented with some cross weapon synergy with other weapon options like the wand, which focuses on debuffing and healing, with some promising results.

Most of the stuff I got up to like big world events where I had to race other players to collect the most macguffins from orcs, or smaller, more simple fetch quests, rewarded me mostly in money and gear upgrade materials. . It’s a double-edged sword, because though much of the source of your ever-growing power outside of your characters leveling up also comes through leveling up your gear, but a lot of that gear is bland and boring through much of your climb. I was around the mid-to-late 20s in level when I logged off for the last time from the beta, and I had only picked up two different swords – neither particularly impressive in looks or stats. Armor was a bit more dynamic, but I had almost no connection to the loot I was grabbing at all outside of making the numbers go up. I can’t speak to how that shakes out towards the higher levels, where one would expect equipment to get more exotic, but trudging there means that the only things you’re slaying are bad guys.

Overall, I certainly enjoyed most of my time with Throne and Liberty. There are big, late-game things that I want to come back and participate in, like large-scale PVP battles between guilds and raid dungeons. The story and quests won’t upend any long-standing MMO conventions. The inner voice that usually commands me to make sure every task that can be done must be done very quietly let me skip through slow dialogue and turn a blind eye to many menial side tasks. I never skipped an opportunity to fight, though. The parry system mixed with the joy of discovering sick skill combos across the various weapons available to you was by and large the most fun I could find in my time with it, and might be enough for me to come back to test my mettle against the cream of the crop when Throne and Liberty finally launches in September.