Eugene Schmidt

Freelance journalist and part-time gamer. I specialize in indie games as I think they don't get the attention they deserve. I'm just your typical consumer who has some opinions to share. I've been reviewing games since I was 12. I started out reviewing them with friends on old forums that now no longer exist. Then I went to online VoDs, which I've lost interest in. And now I'm here to deliver my thoughts in written format!

Fallout 76 “premium” leather jacket brings the memes

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Fallout 76 "premium" leather jacket brings the memes 1

Bethesda has annouced a “premium” Fallout 76 leather jacket available for purchase soon. Of course, given their pretty shaky history ever since the game rolled out two months ago, there’s been mostly criticism over everything they’ve done to it so far. One of the most notable things that happened was the cheap nylon bags they … Read more

The Division 2 private beta February 7-10; Sign up even without a pre-order

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The Division 2 private beta February 7-10; Sign up even without a pre-order 3

The Divsion 2 has been confirmed for a private beta for folks who pre-ordered the game. A new story trailer has also been released for the upcoming game from Ubisoft. Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 will be rolling out on March 15, and the private beta will run from February 7-10. The game will take … Read more

Steam’s player numbers for 2018 are crazy; 47M daily active users

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Steam removes movies and videos.

Steam posted its stats today and the numbers are just crazy. Even with the launch of new platforms like Discord and Epic Games Store, Steam’s numbers are anything but dwindling- even with the 70/30 developer cut, the platform still continues to pull in some insane numbers. Of course, Steam has long been the dominant DRM … Read more

Fortnite brings back glider redeploy as an ability charge

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Fortnite brings back glider redeploy as an ability charge 6

The ability to redeploy your glider in the world’s most popular battle royale game is back. Epic Games removed a feature that was somewhat controversial with a compromise, which is to redeploy your glider after the drop from the Battle Bus. But now, Fortnite will bring it back as an exhaustible item in V7.20 based … Read more

SouljaGame Handheld is a $100 PS Vita knock-off

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SouljaGame Handheld is a $100 PS Vita knock-off 8

Soulja Boy has released a new console after following a suspected Nintendo lawsuit. This time around, it’s the SouljaGame Handheld, which is clearly just a rip-off of the PlayStation Vita. He’s been making headlines through the release of many branded Soulja products. Some of them were previously released consoles that seem to be a knock-off of … Read more

Anthem’s free world is pretty cool; Microtransactions for vanity gear only

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Anthem's free world is pretty cool; Microtransactions for vanity gear only 10

Anthem released a new trailer yesterday that shows off some more gameplay footage of a new mission and free roaming the game’s world. Recent footage of the game demoing the first mission and a few of the Javelin suits only results in fan disappointment. Common remarks included “repetitive” and ” clone.” That’s still ongoing even until … Read more

Bethesda hosting live stream for next ESO expansion – The Season of the Dragon

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Bethesda hosting live stream for next ESO expansion - The Season of the Dragon 11

Bethesda has annouced a live stream that they’ll be hosting to show off details about the next Elder Scrolls Online expansion. Data miners had already unearthed an upcoming expansion for Elder Scrolls Online game last week with some juicy details such as a new Necromancer class combined in the expansion. Zenimax then posted a tweet on … Read more

Nintendo adds Zelda II and Blaster Master to NES classic library

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Nintendo adds Zelda II and Blaster Master to NES classic library 12

Nintendo released a new video yesterday that features this month’s NES titles for the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service. This month’s two games will be: Zelda II: Adventure of Link Blaster Master They’ll both be available starting on January 16, 2019. Players will get access to virtual ports of NES classics every month, but that’s … Read more

Twitch’s most popular streamer Ninja hits 400M view milestone

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Twitch's most popular streamer Ninja hits 400M view milestone 13

Twitch’s most popular streamer Ninja has surpassed over 400M views today. He annouced on Twitter that he’s hit 400M total views on Twitch and thanks his fans. An aggregate total of 400,071,708 views was attached to the tweet with 12,881,442 followers. Other competitors of Ninja are Shroud at around half the total views and DrDisRespect at … Read more

First official pics of the Mad Box released; To compete with Xbox and PlayStation

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First official pics of the Mad Box released; To compete with Xbox and PlayStation 14

The newest console on the block has released some new images that really show off how “abstract” this piece of work can be. Slightly Mad Studios is the company behind the Mad Box. They’re the people behind Project Cars 2. The Mad Box is their console that’s currently being developed and aims to compete with … Read more

SteamWorld developer Image & Form hints at new project “coming soon”

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SteamWorld developer Image & Form hints at new project "coming soon" 18

Developer Image & Form, the creator of the SteamWorld series of games, released a new video today that hints at a new project they’re working on- and it’s coming sooner than you think. That’s straight from the video, which you can watch at the end of this article. They’re the people the few SteamWorld titles, … Read more

Nintendo Switch Blind Box launches next week

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Nintendo Switch Blind Box launches next week 19

The Nintendo Switch Blind Box will be available for purchase next week which will contain one random game from various Limited Run Games’s offerings. Thanks to them, buyers of this new Blind Box will get a physical copy of an indie game for the Switch. These titles include Flinthook, Mercenary Kings, Slime-San, Saturday Morning RPG, Night Trap, Kingdom, and Thumper. This is … Read more

Bendy and the Ink Machine releases holiday short: Cookie Cookin

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Bendy and the Ink Machine releases holiday short: Cookie Cookin 21

Bendy and the Ink Machine is celebrating the holidays with a new animated short from “Joey Drew Studios.” This animation has been released to celebrate Christmas and comes from developer theMeatly and features some of the series favorites. Developer theMeatly’s Bendy and the Ink Machine uses old-school animations similar to Cuphead from Studio MDHR. This time … Read more

Red Dead Redemption 2 tops UK charts

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Red Dead Redemption 2 tops UK charts 22

Red Dead Redemption 2 has topped the charts in the UK this holiday based on a report from the UK Interactive Games Charts (Ukie). Ukie is a non-profit organization that supports and represents games released in the UK and analyses the entertainment industry for video games. It data-tracks large and small companies and covers apps, games, … Read more

Cyberpunk 2077: “Coming when it’s ready”

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Cyberpunk 2077: "Coming when it's ready" 23

Cyberpunk 2077 has no planned released date as of now, but developer CD Projekt Red tweeted that they’ll release the game “when it’s ready.” We’ve heard this phrase before, many times, and this game is no exception. This was the response to a report from Vestor Dom Maklerski that Cyberpunk 2077 would release next year … Read more

No Man’s Sky for GOG finally gets multiplayer beta

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No Man's Sky for GOG finally gets multiplayer beta 24

No Man’s Sky multiplayer is going into another beta round. This time it’s for the DRM-free distributor GOG. The GOG version of NMS has seriously been lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of updates compared to other platforms. GOG has only received parts of the game’s major updates earlier this year and missed … Read more

Treyarch hints Zombies planning holiday surprise in Black Ops 4

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Treyarch hints Zombies planning holiday surprise in Black Ops 4 25

Treyarch has been on a roll lately with all their content updates and the release of their first major DLC, Operation Absolute Zero. But now it seems like Treyarch has started teasing something that’ll be coming to the Black Ops title soon enough. Specifically, it’ll do with the Blackout mode and Zombies. Can you guess what … Read more

Black Ops 4 Operation Zero DLC released; Exclusive content for Black Ops Pass owners

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Black Ops 4 Operation Zero DLC released; Exclusive content for Black Ops Pass owners 28

Treyarch has been on a content spree recently with a bunch of new releases for their latest title Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. For starters, they just put out a special edition Battle Edition which includes just the Blackout battle royale mode and the Multiplayer mode. The Zombies mode has been removed to save … Read more

Fortnite V7.01 update adds Infinity Blade, Ralphie’s Revenge, Creative Mode

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Fortnite V7.01 update adds Infinity Blade, Ralphie's Revenge, Creative Mode 29

Epic Games has removed their mobile game Infinity Blade, but it’ll still be present in the battle royale mode in Fortnite. Epic has been busy focusing on their new games store- hence called the Epic Games Store which is set to launch this Friday- with a free copy of Subnautica for everyone. They’ve removed their support for … Read more

GTA Online getting new game mode Arena War; Twisted Metal-like experiment

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GTA Online getting new game mode Arena War; Twisted Metal-like experiment 30

GTA Online is getting some new content as reported by developer Rockstar Games. GTA has been one of the most successful franchises of all time and Rockstar still pumps out content for free on a consistent basis. Even with the release of Red Dead Online, they’re still devoting time to their GTA Online project and … Read more

New Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown aircraft profile released – Russian MiG-31B

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New Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown aircraft profile released - Russian MiG-31B 31

A new Ace Combat 7 video that shows off the new Russian MiG-31B was released earlier today and continues to demonstrate the game’s extreme attention to detail and realism. Fans should be pumped. Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown has been putting out trailers to tease fans for the past few months on an ongoing basis. … Read more

Epic Games Store live; Free copy of Subnautica and Super Meat Boy

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Epic Games Store live; Free copy of Subnautica and Super Meat Boy 32

The Epic Game Store has officially launched with a limited selection, but so far, it’s making waves. The store was revealed earlier this week with Epic saying that it had more tricks to come as the company launched its own game store, similar to other competitors like HumbleBundle, Steam, and even the Discord Store. Epic … Read more

Black Ops 4 Battle Edition lets you play 2 of 3 game modes for a cheaper price

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Black Ops 4 Battle Edition lets you play 2 of 3 game modes for a cheaper price 33

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will be releasing a new, cheaper version that gives players access to just Multiplayer and Blackout modes with the ability to add Zombies separately. This new version will retail for just $29.99 (for now) and is called the Black Ops 4 Battle Edition, exclusively for PC. Activision and Treyarch announced the news … Read more

Nintendo adds 3 more classic NES games to Nintendo Switch Online

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Nintendo adds 3 more classic NES games to Nintendo Switch Online 34

Nintendo Switch Online subscribers will be getting a new trio of titles to the library this December.

The three new games for December 2018 are Ninja Gaiden, Adventures of Lolo, and Wario’s Woods.

Nintendo Switch Online debuted this past September and is the official and only way to play the Switch online. Playing online for Nintendo has been a free service, but Nintendo has “switched” to the paid method of offering online gameplay.

This should improve the overall service as now members are paying for an online experience (remember SSB Brawl online?) Other than being able to play against others (and with them), players will get a library of classic titles added to the service each month similar to Games with Gold for Xbox One and PlayStation’s offerings.

Nintendo has announced that the three new NES games will be available on the Switch starting December 12, 2018. The three games are pretty awesome and allow some veterans to relive some of the frustrations growing up with these games (Ninja Gaiden in particular).

Additional games will be added in January 2019 as an ongoing basis. We’ve seen Nintendo add games in packs of 3, so it’s likely going to be another trio. Nintendo has also confirmed that the NES Joy-Con controllers will be shipped starting next week for those who bought them. These are special retro controllers made just for playing the NES titles in 1:1 fashion.

The service costs $3.99 a month, $7.99 for 3 months, or $19.99 a year. There are also additional plans for multiple people. Some pretty good games have already been made available on the paid plan, namely Donkey Kong and the original Super Mario Bros.

You can get more details about the program here.