Alright, something slightly different this week. Instead of hitting on a few major topics there were a lot of minor things bouncing around so we’re going to hit a whole bunch of them. Things ranging from the IRS and Fortnite, to R6 news, and back to the Witcher with a handful of numbers and announcements. Typically I stick to bigger stories because they’re easier to cover and provide tidbits on smaller ones for you to look into yourselves but this week I wanted to try smaller coverage and see what happens. As for our game this week I’ll recommend a title I’ve put around 250 hours in since the first of the year, Warframe.

First off, as a former R6 Siege player I want to hit on all the major things coming as well as their massive announcement in relation to next gen play ability. The Six Invitational just ended, congratulations to the winners of both the primary show and of the creator cup as well. Siege has been growing amazingly over the last two years and will definitely hold a special place in my heart from the time I spent playing it. If i have the time to dedicate to it again one day i very well might as well. As for now though we have the Operation Void Edge announcements that just dropped at the Invitational. The standard two new characters, one attacker and one defender being some of the more interesting ones yet. Previously we got Amaru who was able to grapple hook into various windows and up hatches for new tactical approaches but now we get Oryx. The best part is he does his work from the inside, a defender able to jump up hatches and smash through soft walls like the Kool-Aid man himself will be meta changing and massive for the game. Especially as a hard counter to the Monty block stratagem that most high level teams employ. As for attackers we have Iana, or from what I’ve seen, Twitch on steroids. We’ve all been tased by a Twitch drone while holding an angle but being pushed by both a moving Alibi hologram and a real operator is something completely new. I look forward to seeing what they can pull off especially holiday this year when Siege is available on next generation consoles day one with cross-play on the previous generation. Ubisoft is really making sure to give their players great things and I hope they continue in the years to come in the growing competitive shooter scene.

Next up there are a lot of little stories running around about the beloved CD Projekt Red series The Witcher. To start sales jumped by over 550% after the release of the TV show, which if you haven’t seen you should do immediately. Also THQ Nordic‘s parent company Embracer steps in, buying developer Saber Interactive who is working on the port of The Witcher 3 onto the Nintendo Switch. It doesn’t look like this will cause issues on the port and Saber will still be able to operate independently working on their own title World War Z. The Switch port means great things after another recent announcement that your Steam and GOG saves for The Witcher 3 will be available on the Nintendo Switch. Some will call this dangerous for the critically acclaimed video game as players can now take their hundred hour adventures wherever they go.

Next there was a tab on the IRS website regarding the taxing of virtual currencies using V-Bucks, the popular Fortnite micro-transaction currency, as an example. Now personally I see no merit to this. The currencies are not jointly exchangeable between real money and currency, it’s only one way. Not only that but in game purchases are also currently tax assessed at your respective state’s sales tax rate. This would constitute a double tax on the currency completely unnecessary. Even in games like Warframe where you can in the currency in game via trading with players there is no way to track it and it also cannot be flipped back into real money. Still interesting that the IRS added it in October of 2019.

News galore today from this week. Now we hear from movie studio Lionsgate that there is quite possibly a Borderlands movie in the works. Now I don’t know who asked for that one but I’m sure there’s fans of the 4 title franchise, 5 if you count the Tell Tale game as well, somewhere excited for the news. I hope Lionsgate likes cell shading, and a whole lot of it.

Here’s a quick one from personal experience, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare saw a hotfix this week to try and patch out some things, primarily a glitch that allowed regiments to change the color of a players nameplate. The hotfix did not land as intended though, instead players with colored nameplates found their pre name tags being changed. Also players with no stake in the colored names are heavily affected. Many are reporting extremely long queue times, multiple crashes, and graphical degradation similar to that the game experienced at launch. I’m hoping they can get it fixed soon even if it means some players go back to having colored nameplates.

Some final tid bits to throw out there this week are THQ Nordic‘s confirmation of a Gothic remake, Sony cancelled their PAX East showcase ahead of Coronavirus concerns, and Metro Exodus is doing very well on it’s Steam release even after it’s stint of Epic exclusivity. After these though that’s all I have before the game recommendation, as always feel free to reach out with comments!

This week’s recommendation is space ninja gun simulator, Warframe. This is a game that I have vested so much time in to grind out great things that is also on the table to get an interesting new update called The New War. I am definitely looking forward to it and if you need something with a lot of content and for free it is definitely the way to go.
SurelyNotAScore:8/10
McCoy Time Score:7/10