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“Alexa, do you believe in Santa Claus?” There are a few of these different commands which open up hidden treats from Alexa, including getting to talk to Santa himself. “Alexa, who’s on the naughty list?” Asking this one gets your running through an interactive game where Santa asks you some questions to suss out how naughty or nice you’ve been. “Alexa, sing Auld Lang Syne.” This one is pretty self-explanatory, if you’ve ever wanted to hear Alexa sing then now you can finally find out what that’s like....

Indie studio The Game Bakers’ dazzles with Furi, a mix between bullet hell and swordplay mechanics wrapped in jaw-dropping, unique visuals and a gorgeous musical score. Being unique without leaning towards absurdity can be a tricky proposition in an industry that has made serious heroes out of hedgehogs and married octopi. It’s impossible to tell if a premise will be received as just the right amount of artistic expression or too much ridiculousness to handle, and so it’s always exciting to see studios like The Game Bakers bring something as clearly strange and exciting as Furi to the table....

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Game Ranter Banter. Five of our writers have stopped playing Skyrim to give their thoughts on this week’s gaming news, so you better be appreciative. This week we’ll be discussing the the Steam hacks, Call of Duty related crimes and the whole BF3 vs. MW3 debate. Back into the virtual world, we’ll also be discussing Assassin’s Creed Embers. Our readers are as knowledgeable and opinionated as our own writers, so here is the place for all of you to discuss these stories as well as any others that may have piqued your interest throughout the week....

Razor is one of the first four-star characters in Genshin Impact that many players encounter outside of the knights. Razor, unlike most characters, doesn’t live in Mondstadt, but instead in a forest outside of it. Razor is a boy often whispered about by the town folks and was raised by wolves with no memories of his real parents. He considers the wolf pack to be his family, although he is beginning to come around more to the idea of getting close to humans....

The Frostbearing Tree is an important part of Genshin Impact’s new 1.2 update, bringing players a ton of great rewards if they are willing to put in the effort needed to get them. Unfortunately, the game itself doesn’t do a great job of explaining how it all works or even how to unlock it, so players will need to look elsewhere for that guidance. On the bright side, miHoYo already previewed all the Frostbearing Tree rewards ahead of time....

Genshin Impact has already had quite a few different character banners since its launch in late September. The game’s talented character designers have managed to capture the majority of players with each new release. This has caused the game to pull in massive amounts of players and the support was so overwhelming that players even got some KFC restaurants shut down in the attempt to get character merchandise. While each banner is celebrated when it launches, how do they all rank up together and which ones will be the most enticing to players when they finally get their rerun later on?...

Ghost of Tsushima is nearing its one-year anniversary, and Sucker Punch Studios is celebrating in a big way. The studio today announced Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut – which is heading to PS5 and PS4 on August 20 and will include some brand-new DLC. Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut comes with the base game, all currently available DLC, and the new Iki Island DLC. Sucker Punch says this is a “whole new chapter in Jin’s story,” and will see him investigating the island for signs of a Mongol invasion....

Yesterday, All In! Games released Ghostrunner, which is a cyberpunk action-adventure game that features fast-paced gameplay set in a futuristic world. The game also features 17 missions in Ghostrunner’s main campaign, and each the length of these quests could vary from a few minutes to half an hour, depending on the approach that players use while fulfilling them. Of course, given the long list of missions that players can embark on in Ghostrunner, some may think this is a long game....

Never has there been a main character more anti-hero than Kratos from God of War. The character hasn’t even left his position be ambiguous; instead, we can easily say he’s not supposed to be a good guy. Time and again, Kratos has demonstrated tropes found in villains, and it is only because he’s the player character that people don’t see him that way. We’re here to present you those instances where there can be no argument that Kratos was the bad guy....

The story of The Walking Dead and its spinoffs is one of countless status quo changes. First, Rick and his group found shelter at the CDC in Atlanta before it self-destructed. Then they lived on a farm until it was swarmed by zombies, then a prison before a dude with a tank blew it up, then they wandered around Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia for a while before finally settling in Alexandria, which they’ve also had to flee at least three or four times....

EA’s FIFA 21 will be coming to EA Play on May 6. This means that Xbox Game Pass for PC subscribers will also have access to the latest title in the FIFA franchise thanks to the partnership between the two companies. Besides the base game, EA Play subscribers will get exclusive access to “in-game challenges and rewards, unlock special content - including FIFA Ultimate Team kits and Volta Football gear.” Additionally, FUT players will also get a Season XP boost at the start of every new season to get to level 30 rewards as soon as possible....

A Kickstarter campaign has been launched for platform fighting game Fraymakers by McLeodGaming. The studio set a goal of £34,758 (roughly $46,000) for an Early Access release on PC via Steam, aiming for an early 2022 release. The customizable brawler features a character roster filled with indie game icons, and it looks like its premise has already won over the gaming community. Within 24 hours of the Kickstarter’s launch, Fraymakers had already surpassed its goal, with the accrued funds sitting at £54,520 (roughly $72,217) with 1,344 backers at the time of writing....

During Square Enix’s Digital Fan Festival for Final Fantasy 14, Yoshida and his team revealed that the next expansion, Endwalker, will launch later this year on November 23, 2021. Back in February of this year, Final Fantasy 14 director and producer Naoki Yoshida shared that the game’s next big update, version 6.0, would come some time during Fall of 2021. The game typically receives an expansion every other year, which means it would have originally released in Summer....

When one talks about some of the best video games of all time, then it goes without saying that Final Fantasy VII would be an inevitable part of the conversation. After all, the fact of the matter is that this game single-handedly led to the rise of the golden era of JRPGs on the PlayStation, with SquareSoft leading the charge as the PS1 was graced with a series of amazing role-playing titles that have remained legendary to this day....

Our quick take Fitbit Luxe - 4.5 / 5 Stylish, comfortable design Finishes (band & stainless steel case): Lunar White & Soft Gold; Black & Graphite; Orchid & Platinum Display: Colour AMOLED, 206 x 124 pixel resolution Dimensions: 36.3 x 17.62 x 10.05mm Interchangeable straps Fitbit Luxe vs Inspire 2 vs Charge 4: What’s the difference? Feature set Sleep tracking and all-day activity tracking Automatic exercise recognition Sp02 blood oxygen monitor 24/7 heart rate monitoring Swimproof (to 50m) Solid performance Claimed: 5-day battery life 20 exercise modes Familiar software Fitbit app (iOS & Android) Fitbit Premium paywall for some features To recap An excellent activity tracker - it’s probably our favourite Fitbit to date....

The Flappy Bird saga is cooling down just so slightly so let’s roundup the latest news and put a (hopefully) final chapter on this fad. If you haven’t been following the Flappiness, let us explain. Flappy Bird is a super-simple, classic-Nintendo-inspired infinite side-scroller for iOS and Android devices that players play by simply tapping the screen to make a bird fly through pipes. For some reason, Flappy Bird - despite launching in May of 2013 - exploded in popularity as of late and its one-man developer Dong Nguyen (his studio is named ....

There is no other genre that has translated to VR better than escape rooms. Being trapped in a room while trapped in a headset is such a viscerally harmonious experience to me. Escape rooms gamify exploring 3D space in a way that VR is perfectly equipped for. I’ve been to a number of real-life escape rooms, and every single one I’ve played could be translated directly into VR perfectly. Of course, the inverse is not always true, especially in the case of a game like Flow Weaver....

Video game voice actors are an important part of the development progress. People like Michael Ironside (aka Sam Fisher from the Splinter Cell series), and Nolan North - best known as Unchartered’s Nathan Drake - have had a huge impact on the industry by providing voices for some of the biggest games. With such a devoted fan base, it’s easy to see why fans may be upset when such talent takes a step back from their most famous roles....

With Fortnite: Battle Royale’s Halloween-themed event, Fortnitemares 2018, having wrapped up recently, Epic Games is marching on with fresh content for the wildly successful free-to-play title with yet another week of fresh Battle Pass Challenges. This time around, the tasks provided for Season 6 Week 7 should prove to be somewhat simple for players to pull off, as each of them are relatively straightforward. As usual, there are three Free Challenges and four Battle Pass Challenges for Fortnite fans to complete, with the difficulty level for each slightly varying from one another....

Fortnite has released countless Marvel skins over the last few months, and it seems like Epic Games has no plans to stop doing so any time soon. While Fortnite saw a brief break from Marvel additions during the Halloween season, things are picking up with the latest planned addition of Black Widow. Teased via an image on the Fortnite Twitter, Black Widow seems to be coming first to those participating in the game’s Marvel Knockout Super Series tournament....