***Editor’s Note: The Sightings feature is available to all players. The Nearby feature is currently in testing in San Francisco.***

After the closedown of the various third-party Pokémon Go tracking sites and the removal of the game’s own tracking system which had been bugged for a while with the dreading “three footstep bug”, fans of the game were not pleased. They wanted Niantic to quickly fix the game so they would be able to track down Pokémon in the wild again and it seems like Niantic have acted and are beginning the roll out a new tracking system to replace the old one that they called “flawed”.

At the moment only some users have been updated to the new system which contains two different types of tracking; Sightings and Nearby. Sightings is the more general of the two, simply showing the Pokémon that is near next to a patch of grass with no indications about how far away the Pokémon is or in which direction. Tapping the icon simply brings up the message “Find these Pokémon in the wild!” Nearby is more focused around PokéStops in the game, showing each Pokémon in front of a picture of the PokéStop that they are nearby. Tapping each one will take you to the overhead map and place down a marker to indicate their location. If the Pokémon despawns before you can find it, the game will notify you that the Pokémon has fled.

Given that it’s not with everyone yet, it does seem like Niantic is doing a controlled bit of user testing for the feature before they release it widely. What do you think? Let us know.

The Japanese magazine “CoroCoro” has become so associated in the west with Pokémon news, that one merely needs to say “CoroCoro” and Pokémon fans flock to see what else has just been revealed about the next games in the series. Thus it comes as no surprise that with the most recent issue now out in Japan, once more we bring you new details about things coming to Pokémon Sun and Moon.

New Pokémon

Let’s start with the new faces, since that’s what all new generations are about anyway. This month, CoroCoro have pictures for four new Alolan Pokémon, including one that’s a pre-evolution of another recent reveal. Currently known by its Japanese name “Nuikoguma”, this cute bear with the pink face is a pre-evolution of the previously-revealed (and rather funnily-named) Bewear. A Normal/Fighting type like its bigger brother, Nuikoguma is very popular among women and children, and tops the lists of Pokémon people want to meet. It hates being touched and will kick and struggle to resist. It’s also described as being very powerful, and it only becomes more so when it evolves into the “herculean” Bewear.

Both Bewear and this new pre-evolution are shown on the bottom of the page you see on your left, but what are those rather creepy-looking things above them? “Creepy” is the right word indeed. These two Ghost/Ground-type Pokémon are basically haunted sandcastles. Shirodesuna – the bigger one – steals the life force from other Pokémon, in a style not dissimilar to the Gengar family I love so dearly. Whatever grudges that Pokémon had then get turned into Sunaba – the smaller one – which is Shirodesuna’s pre-evolution. Sand that becomes sentient from angry spirits… yeah, that’s pretty creepy if you ask me.

The other new Pokémon reveal is the little fishy to your right, currently known as Yowashi. Capable of fighting on its own in “Single Form”, it also has a special form called the “School Form” where it turns dark and gathers lots of itself together, to create a far larger and rather monstrous-looking fish. Unsurprisingly, it is a Water-type Pokémon.

New Alolan Forms!

As well as the new Pokémon, Meowth is getting a makeover. In Alola, Meowth were bred by the ruling Royal Family; as a result, they have become far more pampered and regal-looking. For some reason, they’ve also turned grey, and now class as Dark-type Pokémon. Also getting a new Alolan form is Marowak, who to protect from the island’s native predators, has learned to wield a ghostly flame to resist them. This flame now lights up both sides of its traditional Bonemerang, and turns the Alolan Marowak into a Fire/Ghost type himself. Both are pictured to the left of the Alolan Exeggutor, revealed a month or so ago.

Other Stuff!

CoroCoro also has hints to the Alolan region’s villainous team. Currently known as Team Skull, it is suggested the team may be Pirate-themed; and is headed by a boss currently known as “Guzma”, while there appears to be many female members including a woman currently known as “Plumeri”.

More information is hinted to be revealed next week, including a hint to a “secret evolution” of Rockruff. We’ll have more as it gets revealed, but until then, as always, you can join our Forum or Discord to have your say on what you think of the new reveals.

Update: Nintendo have pushed out a new English-language Trailer showing off the CoroCoro-leaked information. Watch it here:

Dex is a side scrolling AARPG game set in a dystopian cyber future from developer Dreadlocks Ltd. In the opening moments of the game you find yourself awoken by a mysterious blue visitor, who warns you of an impending home invasion. After narrowly escaping your would be abductors, you are led to a bar to discover that you hold the key to stopping the complete domination of the world by a shadow organization.

The combat system in “Dex” is very fluid at points when it comes to the hand to hand portion. Combining the ability to block or dodge the enemies’ attacks while intertwining your own into the combo gives it an overall satisfying feeling, but with enough variety in hostile variants that within the time that I played that it didn’t feel repetitive. The shooting elements of the game didn’t feel misplaced and there was definitely a tradeoff of being more vulnerable to melee while you had your weapon drawn. The skill tree is by no means deep and at only 1 skill point a level they’ve counteracted it by making the later skills require more points, So I would recommend looking at what skills there are when you start it up and having a plan for what you would put priority in before jumping in the deep end. There are going to be levels where you don’t get a new skill because you’ll be saving up for the next one.

One of the more unique aspects of Dex is the ability to seamlessly alternate between the “real” world and the cyber one, entering into the cyber world allows you in some areas to scope ahead of your character to see what lies in wait, or interact with the environment’s electronics in order to help gain advantages for yourself. Though not without its risks, entering cyberspace you encounter a different set of enemies in the form of viruses or Trojans that will attempt to destroy your timid connection.

Quests that you undertake in the game have a surprising amount of depth in them, right from the get go you were faced with obstacles that had different ways of being able to be solved. Combined with a “Mass Effect” like dialogue system that branched into a multi-tiered dialogue tree seems to be a staple for RPG’s these days and Dex doesn’t fall short in this regard.  Characters in Dex are interesting enough but come through in a stereotyped fashion more often than not from the overweight Asian who’s tech savvy to a lecherous old doctor, sometimes you were able to pretty much guess what a character was going to be persona wise just based off of their occupation.

Overall Dex is a satisfying experience that gives off a very blade runner feel currently on sale on steam it is most definitely worth the £15 price tag. I was skeptical over how well an open world 2D game would do but Dreadlock Ltd. met the bar with Dex, I hope anybody else who picks this title up enjoys it as much as I did.

The Anniversary update for Windows 10 was much talked up by Microsoft, citing that it would improve all aspects of the OS – including bringing many benefits for gamers, from v-sync to multi GPU support. So basically what gamers wanted from them. The only problem is that somehow in improving the experience in many more complicated ways, they’ve somehow broken one of the more basic gamer experiences. A good number of users have reported that upon installing the Anniversary update their Xbox controllers no longer work properly with their computers. Whoops.

Before the update installing and using the Xbox pads was simple, as you’d expect. Windows and Xbox are both part of Microsoft after all. Now however, some games don’t recognise the controllers at all through bluetooth connection or through the official Xbox One wireless adapter. Others are somehow registering a single controller as two controllers, as well as Steam’s Big Picture mode for some reason.

Theories from Ars Technica are suggesting that the XInput API has been altered in some way in the update, and this is why the controllers are no longer working. The XInput API allowed for developers to be able to easily add controller support to their games just by adding it to their game, and the theory is given more weight when you take into account that some programs that allowed for a Dualshock 4 to act as an Xbox controller for the computer are also showing the same odd bugs and they too use this API.

Hopefully Microsoft get it sorted out soon, being able to use controllers is a fundamental part of PC gaming right now. Until they do, it might be an idea to hold off updating quite yet.

Currently as part of the ongoing ‘Summer Games’ happening in Overwatch in celebration of the Rio Olympics, Blizzard have added their take on Rocket League – Lucioball – as a mini-game mode.

Of course, part of the point of Lucioball is that everyone on both the 3-a-side teams play as some form of Lucio, depending on which skin they’ve got equipped. However, some players have discovered that if you hit the right button enough while respawning, you’ll sometimes spawn as another random Overwatch hero. This has meant for the last few days various games have been completely thrown into disarray as other heroes invaded the field and killed enemy players to stop them from scoring or winning the match. Talk about your hostile pitch invasions…

Never fear though, Blizzard are aware of the bug:

@SkyakinGamer Sorry about that. It’s a known bug and abusers will be punished.

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) August 8, 2016

Blizzard has promised that they’ll get the fix for the bug in place soon, but as of yet it’s unknown quite what the punishment will be for those who have deliberately been exploiting the bug. Blizzard can probably see who has managed to stumble into it by accident and not done it again, and those who are actively trying to use it to win matches. Given that Blizzard have been very harsh with those found to be using hacks or cheats, exploiters of the bug might be in for a rough ride.