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Red Dead Redemption 2 Launch Trailer Shows A Gang In Turmoil
The Galaxy Book 2 is Samsung's answer to the Surface Pro
'Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4' Made $500 Million At Launch, But There's A Catch

Red Dead Redemption 2 Launch Trailer Shows A Gang In Turmoil

Posted: 18 Oct 2018 07:15 AM PDT

As promised, Rockstar has released a new trailer for Red Dead Redemption 2, its eagerly-anticipated open world western. The game is set for release on October 26 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and ahead of this the studio is offering everyone another tease of what they can expect. The launch trailer shows Dutch and Arthur talking about one more big score, before life can improve for their gang. Soon there's scenes of explosions, gunfire, and internal strife, set against talk of loyalty. It's a fairly short, but very sweet trailer. Check it out above.

If that trailer has you sold on getting the game, you can now pre-load Red Dead Redemption 2. Those that pre-order the game from the PlayStation or Microsoft Store will be able to download it October 19. Getting it downloaded early means you'll be ready to play as soon as it unlocks on October 26 (barring a day-one patch).

Keep in mind that you'll require 90 GB of hard drive space, so it's worth clearing out those older games that you're not playing anymore. Red Dead Redemption 2 looks set to be Rockstar's biggest game yet. In a recent interview, co-founder Dan Houser said the final game has 300,000 animations and 500,000 lines of dialogue. Houser also said some members of the development team worked 100-hour weeks several times in 2018 to finish the game. Given the well-documented destructive impact crunch can have on people, this attracted criticism.

Houser later clarified that he was referring to specific members of senior writing team and not the entire Rockstar development team. "After working on the game for seven years, the senior writing team, which consists of four people, Mike Unsworth, Rupert Humphries, Lazlow and myself, had, as we always do, three weeks of intense work when we wrapped everything up," he explained. "Three weeks, not years. We have all worked together for at least 12 years now, and feel we need this to get everything finished. After so many years of getting things organized and ready on this project, we needed this to check and finalize everything." Houser also noted that other members of development team were not expected to work similarly long hours.

Employees of Rockstar have also started sharing their positive experiences of working at the studio. Many have said that, although they have occasionally worked long hours, this was by choice and not close to the 100 hour figure.

Red Dead Redemption 2 casts players as Arthur Morgan, a key member of the Van der Linde gang, as they fight for survival in an America that is steadily wiping out outlaws of his ilk. The game has a sprawling world and numerous in-depth features including weapon customization and an improved Dead Eye system, among others. Check out our latest Red Dead Redemption 2 impressions for more.

GameSpot has launched a weekly video series dedicated to Red Dead Redemption 2 called Quickdraw. The first episode, which you can watch here, focuses on the elements of other Rockstar titles that manifest in Red Dead Redemption 2. It analyzes how games like Bully, Grand Theft Auto V, and Max Payne contribute to the sequel's overall gameplay experience.

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The Galaxy Book 2 is Samsung's answer to the Surface Pro

Posted: 18 Oct 2018 08:00 AM PDT

A couple weeks after Microsoft announced the Surface Pro 6, Samsung is today unveiling the $1,000 Galaxy Book 2, an always-connected Windows 2-in-1 that features Qualcomm's Snapdragon 850 processor and a revamped design that's extremely close to the Surface. It goes on sale November 2nd, and US carriers including Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint will be selling it with LTE plans.

Samsung says the Galaxy Book 2 is capable of gigabit-class LTE and delivers "multi-workday battery" on a single charge. Specifically, the battery estimate is "up to 20 hours." The Book 2's speakers include Dolby Atmos support and, just like Samsung's flagship phones, are tuned by the company's AKG division. An all-new rear kickstand has a Surface Pro-like hinge that allows you to adjust the angle of the 12-inch display to a near-flat level, and its included-in-the-box keyboard magnetically attaches to the bottom display bezel in the exact same way as the Surface keyboard.

From a usability standpoint, the kickstand and updated keyboard are an improvement on the original Galaxy Book, which had a keyboard that folded into a stand like Apple's iPad. The Surface Pro isn't ideal in your lap, but it's workable. This should be too. The display is an OLED panel with a resolution of 2160x1440.

The Galaxy Book 2 runs Windows 10 with S Mode enabled out of the box, though you've got the option to upgrade to the fuller Windows experience for free. There's also a fingerprint sensor at the upper right corner of the back for Windows Hello.

My initial hands-on time with the device was pretty positive. Web browsing and editing documents seemed snappy enough, and it's definitely nice to have both a keyboard and S Pen in the box when other companies charge hundreds extra for the accessories. I'm a bit worried about having just 4GB of RAM, though. Even if this thing is by no means a powerhouse PC, that still seems like an obvious bottleneck.

Still, based on its claims, Samsung has addressed several of the weaknesses of the first Galaxy Book. Stay tuned to see whether the sequel is a worthy alternative to the Surface and other 2-in-1s — and just how helpful its perk of being always connected can be.

Display: 12-inch sAMOLED 2160x1440
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 850
Storage: 128GB
RAM: 4GB
Ports: 2 USB Type C, microSD, 3.5mm headphone jack
Cameras: 8MP rear, 5MP front
Weight: 1.75 pounds

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'Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4' Made $500 Million At Launch, But There's A Catch

Posted: 18 Oct 2018 06:05 AM PDT

Black Ops 4 just made half a billion dollars in three days, but there's some context missing.Credit: Treyarch

Activision is once again tooting Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4's horn, and with good reason.

According to the publisher, Black Ops 4 made over $500 million during its three-day launch weekend. That's half a billion dollars. That's almost certainly the biggest launch weekend of any video game this year.

After all, one of the biggest games of the year was Far Cry 5 and it only earned $310 million across its entire launch week. Avengers: Infinity War brought in $258.2 million domestically on its first weekend, making it the top opening weekend of any film in history (and pulled down $640.9 million globally.)

In other words, $500 million is a lot of money. Half a billion dollars is a lot of money, so it's no wonder that Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 broke a bunch of digital sales records at launch.

Activision noted a few other highlights about the game's successful launch:

"Through its first three days of release, Black Ops 4 set a new Call of Duty® franchise record for most combined players, average hours per player and total number of hours played, on current generation consoles."
"The combined number of Black Ops 4 players across its three modes of play during those first three days tops both last year’s Call of Duty: WWII, as well as Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (single player, multiplayer and zombies), respectively, for the same period of time."
"The first Call of Duty release on Blizzard Battle.net®, Black Ops 4 on PC continues to be significantly above last year, as the number of players is more than double year over year through its first three days."
"Additionally, based on minutes watched, the title delivered the highest level of viewership through launch weekend on Twitch in franchise history."

Of these, most combined players and average number of hours played seem very significant, as Treyarch seems to have nudged the franchise back toward its pre-PS4/Xbox One glory days. Double the number of PC players is also very significant, as it shows this game may finally have legs on PC. I'm less certain how we're supposed to compare more total players across all three modes, when prior games didn't have Blackout but did have solo campaigns.

Of course, there's a catch.

We have some hard numbers now, and so we can do the comparison thing. For instance:

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 made $500 million in its first 24 hours. This game made the same amount in its first 72 hours. Still good, just not nearly as good.
Black Ops 2 made $1 billion in 15 days. If Black Ops 4 can pull that off, then we know this is a smash hit. But given the much faster day one sales of Black Ops 2, that seems dubious.
Sales of this franchise have been sliding downward (with a few notable exceptions) for years, and while this definitely looks like a reverse in that trend, we're still not back to the pinnacle of the series.

It's still good news, absolutely, but I wonder if Activision had included a campaign as good as Black Ops 2, if we would have seen much higher sales. I think this community is hungering for a solo campaign that's set closer to modern times rather than historical or futuristic. I would love another Black Ops 2 style campaign, with two different timelines set in modern and near-past conflicts. Heck, I'd love another Modern Warfare campaign.

In any case, good news for Treyarch and Black Ops 4, but context matters and now you have it.

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