As I start writing this, Summer Solstice is upon us and I am surrounded by my comrades here at Go2Games, many of whom have been brought together by the one cataclysmic event that, whether we like it or not, unites each and every one of us – the global Covid-19 pandemic. We are all human and we are all beset by worries on a good day. Throw into the mix a global pandemic and those worries are magnified tenfold, with an added sense of existential dread. Will things ever be the same again? Probably not. Will my job still be there when all this is over? Who knows? Why do I feel weird about venturing out to see people who I’ve known for years? What am I even doing with my life right now? For many people – myself included – these are the questions that have beset every waking hour since the before times became, well, the before times.

Dealing with things over the last year has taken many forms – from Tiger King to Tik Tok, working from home to home workouts, banana bread to Dalgona, people have re-found themselves through new experiences that have helped while away the days, the weeks, the months and indeed the last year. However, there has been one thing above all else that has dominated time spent during lockdown that is not simply a lockdown fad, but rather a lifestyle choice – video gaming.

2020 saw an exponential rise in sales for video games, with an estimated £7bn spent on gaming last year. This was played out by the fact that almost two-thirds of adults here in the UK turned to gaming to help them get through lockdown and amongst the younger demographic of 16-24 year olds, 92% played video games during the pandemic. The key takeaway from all of this was that half of all gamers stated that playing video games helped them get through lockdown. As Coronavirus drew the curtain down on life as we knew it, it also made mincemeat of the one thread that holds most people’s lives together – structure.

Yet in a strange way, video games have given many people that structure to their lives, in a way that say, recorded music or films and TV shows are unable to. Turning your Ultimate Team on FIFA 21 into a world-beating outfit capable of taking any gamer in the world, figuring out how to eliminate Urias Strajer in Resident Evil Village on that brand-new PS5 you managed to somehow get yourself or reconnecting with your youth by picking up where you left off all those years ago on a Nintendo Switch with Mario Kart 8 have given spiritual sustenance, mental salvation and emotional fortitude to many worrying about whether they’ll ever be able to work again, or if their mum and dad might get Covid – or worse.

my local, smyth's, is coming along nicely. there's even some lad standing on a table next to the jukebox pic.twitter.com/Y5SECG08bo

— cian maher (@cianmaher0) March 19, 2020

I remember a time when video games were denounced as the next coming of Satan, the inspiration for school shootings – a claim that even Donald Trump made in casting blame in the wake of the Parkland shootings (nothing to do with social atomisation, gun culture and racism obvs) – and that “If you were Mario and you jumped on turtles, you were more likely to kill turtles in real life”. Yet the reality is altogether different. Video games have been the ointment to soothe and calm the worries and stresses that lockdown life has brought upon us, a way to connect with our friends in times of isolation and in some cases, a way to raise our glasses together to that most hallowed of British institutions – the local pub, recreated via Minecraft! As they say, if you can’t bring Mohammed to the mountain, you gotta bring that mountain to Mohammed! And this is just the thing – while building your local pub on Minecraft might seem like just a bit of a laugh, there are organisational skills, attention to detail, selectiveness and creativity all rolled into one task here, all of which are skills and abilities one might use in the workplace, in the classroom – in real life.

Of course, apart from our immune systems, the biggest assault launched by the pandemic was on our mental health. My personal happy place is creating/playing music, something which has been with me ever since my days as a toddler. Like video gaming, it is a place where one can operate solo, or collaborate with others. It is often said that politicians and politics are always well behind technology and the speed at which it advances (this may well be by design, as this writer anticipates the soon-to-be incontrovertible need for an egalitarian-like-Star Trek future of fully automated luxury communism in a world tended to by machines of loving grace). The social advances made by video gaming during the pandemic vis a vis the positive effect of gaming on mental health may well have helped to write a different narrative around the place of video games in modern society. No longer should video games be blamed for the ills of society when the research and evidence is there right in front of us that gaming has had a positive effect on the well-being of people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here at Go2Games, we have done our best to ensure that people do not miss out on this, partnering with Crystal Palace Football Club to get games and consoles out to those disadvantaged families and places in need.

In the coming decades, we shall soon become a world that knows nothing other than the digital age, a world where gaming was either for some of us, always present and for others like me, something that began when we did. Where once video games were a lightening rod for everything seemingly wrong with the world, they are now increasingly becoming recognised as a force for good in this world (watch this space however for a stinging critique of sexism, racism and homophobia in the gaming universe – Incels, I am coming for you). Gaming has been proven to help stave off the early onset of dementia amongst the elderly (who knew Super Mario had it in him, eh mum?) and is now being credited with playing a major role in the combat against Coronavirus and its resultant social symptoms. It is now down to us to ensure that gaming grows from this point in history, that it remains a unifying force socially and culturally and that we learn from the part it has played in the fightback against COVID-19, the biggest of all bosses.

No turtles were harmed in the writing of this article.

The post Gaming in the time of Coronavirus first appeared on Get2Gaming.

Borderlands 3 has added cross-play functionality, a new level cap, and new legendaries for players to hunt…

A new update for Borderlands 3 was announced today. Along with it comes many new features for the game, cross-play functionality being one of them. The new cross-play functionality will allow players across Steam, Epic Games Store, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S to all play together through the game’s SHiFT Matchmaking system. Sadly, this does not include PlayStation users.

The process is simple enough. Players will simply have to make a uniquely named ShiFT account.

Another big change following the update is the increase in the level cap to level 72. This allows players to create more powerful builds to tackle Borderlands and its various DLCs.

Additionally, endless seasonal events have been added. Such events can be made active or inactive by players. This does not include the game’s various limited time events. Examples of seasonal events include Bloody Harvest, Broken Hearts Day, and Revenge of the Cartels. Players, therefore, can complete challenges and collect loot from the events for as long as they need to collect it all. This means players will not be rushed in getting some of the legendary gear required for their builds. The update also includes a new finale event for the True Trials mini-events for the most powerful players (high skill level requirement).

The update follows numerous balancing tweaks for Borderlands 3, as well as two season passes of DLC content.

For those who don’t know, Borderlands 3 is an open-world, high action, role-playing first-person shooter game in which you play as ‘Vault Hunters’, traversing Pandora in the never-ending quest for treasure. Players make their own builds, explore, complete missions and of course, loot. You are constantly trying to get your hands on legendary loot, so you can take on harder missions with greater rewards. All of this can be done by yourself or with friends.

It seems like now is a good time for new players to get involved with Borderlands 3. It is also a good time for old players to revisit, with the added potential to strengthen their builds even further (due to the increased level cap).

This update also comes after announcing the ‘Tiny Tina’s Wonderland’ spinoff series at E3, 2021. It is a four-player co-op game set in “an unpredictable fantasy world”, taking place after the events of Borderlands 2 DLC Assault on Dragon Keep.

Similarly, we also received word that the Borderlands movie recently finished filming.

It seems to be a good year so far for Borderlands fans as we keep getting new content for Pandora’s whacky universe.

For information and potential discounts on Borderlands 3, check out our Go2Games Website.

To keep updated with the shop activities and weekly competitions, follow Go2Games on social media:

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The post Borderlands 3 Update Adds Crossplay, Among Other Big Changes first appeared on Get2Gaming.

Arabian horse winds up in a perilous position…

Red Dead Redemption 2 is known for its stellar craftsmanship, and it has set a precedent for game development in recent years. However, no game is without glitches.

Very occasionally, glitches do, in fact, occur in Red Dead Redemption 2. Due to the immaculate state of the game, these glitches stick out even more. One Red Dead Redemption 2 player has captured a perfect example of this after reaching their demise due to being run over by a horse and buggy.

The minute-long clip shows Arthur’s much-desired Arabian horse getting stuck upside down on top of a carriage, being dragged around town whilst its legs continue to kick in the air.

For whatever reason, the horses in Red Dead Redemption 2 can sometimes seem to break the laws of physics.

Do not stress. The clip ends with the horse being dislodged. Hence, no horses were harmed in the making of this video.

https://www.reddit.com/r/reddeadredemption/comments/o69tq5/mah_poor_arabian/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

There is no doubt that Red Dead Redemption 2 will go down as one of the most excellently crafted games in recent history. Its level of detail is perhaps unparalleled. Due to this, situations like the one above often seem more comedic than anything else. However, if players would rather avoid such physics-defying glitches, then they should probably avoid horses together.

If any of you are interested in taking home a copy of the fabled Red Dead Redemption 2 for a discounted price, then check out our Go2Games website.

Similarly, to keep updated with the shop activities and weekly competitions, follow Go2Games on social media:

Instagram: Go2Gamesshop

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The post Hilarious Red Dead Redemption 2 Glitch first appeared on Get2Gaming.

I’m backkkkk!

Hey guys, its been a hot minute since I’ve updated this blog…. and I can actually say that I have missed filling you all in on the latest gossip. Since I’ve been gone for the most part of two weeks and there could be some new readers I should probably introduce myself all over again just so you guys can get familiar with me… My names Teneil, I am 21 years old and I am a social media administrator for Go2Games.

Lets go all the way back to Monday 14th June which is the week I should’ve posted but it completely slipped my chaotic mind. Now if you was here 2 weeks ago you would know my typical morning starts with a sweet coffee, actually whilst we are on the topic of coffee I found out on Tik Tok (the app where I gain the most knowledge LOL) that if you don’t like coffee without sugar or flavoured syrup then you don’t actually like coffee you just like sugar….

https://www.tiktok.com/@alexohofficial/video/6945549579832085765?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

which is just fantastic, so I’ve basically just been wasting my money my whole adult life! But let me not blab on because I could literally talk about me and my random life for hours so let me focus on telling you about what I’ve been doing WORK WISE for the last couple of weeks.

Monday was a in house day so basically we come into the store and we have a brief meeting with the whole team just to discuss what has went well the previous week and if there need to be any changes. Shortly after that meeting my boss Josh sat down with me and my colleague Tanisha and basically wanted to find out if we have any ideas for new content on the platforms that we monitor and post on and we discussed a few ideas for Tik Tok as its a app a where videos can be made super quick and easy and its an amazing platform to really get yourself out there, we had an amazing idea to record a video of predictions for the euros 2021 (or 2020 as all the promotion says) weekly  and as it is very current and always trending we thought it was a great idea… Well you remember a second ago when I said that it was super quick and easy…. I LIED! Tanisha and I got the guys from the post production team to do the predictions in the video which I recorded on my camera roll in sections first, that was a mistake… for anyone out there recording a video with multiple parts involved its best to just use the app in the first place instead of your actual camera video because it will not allow you to post multiple videos in one if they are longer than so which is super annoying because I didn’t realise until I went home to edit it so I couldn’t even re record it in time to post it before the matches begun! But on a happier note it is pride month and we told our boss we would love to do something in celebration, we hadn’t yet thought of what we could do so stay tuned but we did change our social media icons to a G2G rainbow which I thought was so cute! You can check it out here here, but apart from that the week was pretty chill and straight forward, the guys over at post production recorded a few videos for our YouTube channel which you can go and check out and you might as well subscribe whilst you’re at it!

Moving on… this week started off really funny, we came into the store as usual on Monday had our brief meeting and then started planning content, our colleague Gemma suggested that we get Toby and Ron to record a trending dance Tik Tok video and it was nothing less than HILARIOUS OMG! They both dressed up in gaming costumes and to be honest I think it would just be better if you just click and see for yourself… what made it 10x funnier was the fact that the security ushered us out of the elevator!

We had also recorded a couple more videos on Monday that haven’t come out yet so keep your eyes peeled for next week. I post Go2Games news daily and this week we had some really exciting updates such as amazon prime day or days* as it last for 48 hours!!! I don’t really know why I said that with such excitement because by the time you would be reading this the sale would have been over 🙁 but don’t worry summer sales have started everywhere this week so you haven’t missed out on much! We also released the pre order for Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart which is available on our website (PS5) and super exciting for gamers. I’ll be finishing my week uploading a new unboxing video, daily deals/ news reports and hopefully a gaming shart.

I hope you guys enjoyed me rambling on about my last few weeks at work, I promise I wont leave it this long again because I know its a lot to take in but I hope to catch you here next week for another catch up.

Speak soon!

Teneil x

The post A fun couple of weeks at Go2Games- Teneil- Social Media Administrator- 25-06-21 first appeared on Get2Gaming.