Even more Lord of the Rings games are now free for Amazon Prime members

By Tharin PillayUpdated: October 16, 2024 10:56 PM EDT | Originally published: October 16, 2024 9:03 PM EDT

On Wednesday, luminaries in the field of AI gathered at Serpentine North, a former gunpowder store turned exhibition space, for the inaugural TIME100 Impact Dinner London. Following a similar event held in San Francisco last month, the dinner convened influential leaders, experts, and honorees of TIME’s 2023 and 2024 100 Influential People in AI lists—all of whom are playing a role in shaping the future of the technology.

Following a discussion between TIME’s CEO Jessica Sibley and executives from the event’s sponsors—Rosanne Kincaid-Smith, group chief operating officer…

Inspired Entertainment, a prominent name in the gaming industry, has recently announced a strategic partnership with Kaizen Gaming to launch an exciting new product, Re-Play eSports. This platform is unique as it combines the thrill of virtual sports with the dynamics of fixed odds eSports betting. Featuring the popular game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), the platform integrates actual gameplay footage from the Champion of Champions Tour.

Additionally, it incorporates comprehensive in-game data provided by GRID to enrich the betting experience. This innovative approach aims to capture the attention of both sports enthusiasts and eSports bettors by offering continuous eSports events and betting opportuniti…

A small update has arrived to both Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 And Warzone. The November 25 patch notes detail changes to mantling movement, Firing Range updates, and lower player limits for Warzone’s Area 99 map.

One of the main highlights of the update is a movement change made to both Black Ops 6 and Warzone, which is a buff to the player’s high-mantle speed. This is specifically the speed at which players pull themselves up and over high ledges or walls. The developer says this speed was increased to better enable movement fluidity when climbing.

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Amazon’s Prime Video today announced that Like a Dragon: Yakuza, a new live-action TV series based on the popular game franchise, will premiere on October 25 this year. The Japanese production will be available worldwide with subtitles and dubs in over 30 languages.

The show is directed by Masaharu Take, and stars Ryoma Takeuchi as Yakuza protagonist Kazuma Kiryu. The adaptation won’t directly adapt any of the existing Yakuza games, and instead will showcase an original story “that games in the past have not been able to explore,” according to Prime Video’s press release.

The show will be set across two time periods in 1995 and 2005, and will delve into the life of Kazuma Kiryu, from his relationships with childhood friends to the repercussions of his decisions over the year…

Mass Effect 2 is celebrating its 15-year anniversary today, January 26, 2025. Below, we look back at its unique episodic structure, and how other developers have not picked up its torch.

Most RPGs are like fantasy or science-fiction novels. The cross-continental journeys of Final Fantasy X or Dragon Age: Origins feel analogous to The Lord of the Rings or The Wheel of Time. Even sandboxes like Baldur’s Gate 3 lean on a linear set of events, the disruption of routine key to fantasy fiction. Mass Effect 2 is a serious contrast, instead modeling itself after a season of television. I’m not the first person to make this comparison, but even after a decade and a half of further RPG releases, ME2’s structure remains striking. The format helped catapult ME2 to…

If I was a father, I think I’d love playing a game like The Plucky Squire with my kid–based on a few of the early chapters I played, its plotline seems straightforward and it’s mechanically simple while also offering some fun variety in its assortment of minigames. Plus, the game features a story that intriguingly deals with themes about fate and choice, and then frames that against childhood passions and interests. The Plucky Squire feels like one of those stories I so clearly remember experiencing when I was 10 or 11 years old and loving for how it broached symbolism and metaphors in a way that was more complex than what I had experienced at age five.

The Plucky Squire has a fantastic set-up: You’re playing as the hero of a children’s book written by a kid destined to…

Titans in Destiny 2 will soon see a bunch of buffs to their abilities, bringing the experience of playing the beefy subclass a little more in line with the fantasy and making it more viable in endgame activities.

Bungie announced the balancing changes it’s making to Titans in its weekly This Week in Destiny blog, outlining a series of tweaks coming in October with the release of the game’s next content episode, Revenant. The big takeaway is that Bungie is hoping to make playing as a Titan–the tank-ish, slightly meatheaded of Destiny 2’s three character subclasses–feel a little more like the fantasy of playing a frontline fighter that tends to punch their way through the opposition.

That doesn’t necessarily mean making Titans stronger in a mart…

A small update has arrived to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone. The patch notes include weapon balancing for both games, and one of Season 5’s new weapon attachments has been restricted in multiplayer’s Ranked Play mode.

For Modern Warfare 3, the update includes a major buff for the COR-45 pistol. The COR-45 now has an 88% increase to the base gun’s fire rate. Two of the weapon’s popular triggers have been adjusted as well. The XRK TR9 trigger action attachment now has a decreased rate-of-fire penalty from -25% to -15%, and the XRK Lightning Fire trigger action has a decreased rate-of-fire benefit from 25% to 22%.

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