Monthly Archives: June 2015

Indiana Jones 5 Reportedly Coming 2018

The next entry in Lucasfilm's popular adventuring movie franchise, Indiana Jones V, is just over three years away, according to a new report.

Ain't It Cool claims an inside "trustworthy" source has told them that Lucasfilm plans to release the next chapter in Indy's adventure during the fourth quarter of 2018.

Prior reports suggest Spielberg is eyeing Chris Pratt to take up the mantle from Harrison Ford of the iconic treasure-hunting adventurer in the new movie. Pratt has since responded to the casting rumors, saying "it’s nothing until it’s something." Considering how well Jurassic World performed with Pratt as the film's lead, it sure does increase the likelihood of him jumping on board.

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Lex Luthor Is Going to Comic-Con

It was already likely that director Zack Snyder and actors Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot would attend this year's San Diego Comic-Con to promote Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. After all, they dazzled fans at last year's event with a brief sneak peek of the movie. And now the film's Lex Luthor, Jesse Eisenberg, has confirmed that he will be at the convention this year.

Speaking to Collider, Eisenberg confirmed his Comic-Con attendance, saying, "I’ll be there…I think I’m there for the hour I’m on the stage."

Eisenberg was then asked which DC movie he's looking forward to most, and rather than giving a direct answer, he simply expressed his admiration of Batman v Superman screenwriter Chris Terrio: "I like what this writer does, this guy Chris Terrio," he said. "He wrote this movie we did and I just think he’s so great. He’s such a good writer. I like what he does with characters, I like what he does with wordplay and cleverness. I like anything he writes.”

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Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter Returning to SDCC

Marvel has announced that Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter will return together for a panel at San Diego Comic-Con.

For the second year in a row, Marvel will host a combined panel for the two series called the Marvel Television Presents panel. Marvel's head of television Jeph Loeb will once again moderate the panel, which will take place from 3 to 4:15 p.m. on Friday, July 10 in Ballroom 20.

From Agents of SHIELD, the Marvel Television Presents panel includes: executive producers Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen and Jeff Bell as well as cast members Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson), Ming-Na Wen (Melinda May), Brett Dalton (Grant Ward), Chloe Bennet (Skye), Iain De Caestecker (Leo Fitz), Elizabeth Henstridge (Jemma Simmons), Henry Simmons (Alphonso 'Mack' Mackenzie), Adrianne Palicki (Bobbi Morse), Nick Blood (Lance Hunter) and Luke Mitchell (Lincoln Campbell).

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Mirror’s Edge Catalyst Preserves the Original’s Spirit

I love the first Mirror's Edge so much that I literally cheered when the reboot, now called Mirror's Edge Catalyst, was announced at E3 2013. Needless to say, I've been tracking Catalyst's progress closely. I'm ready to be extremely excited if returning developer DICE can successfully recapture the free-running, first-person, gun-free, primary-color-palletted original. Conversely, if they screw it up somehow, I'll lead the pitchfork-and-torch mob to DICE's door.

Good news: we're tracking toward the former happening rather than the latter. I finally got to play the new Mirror's Edge, and I came away very happy. DICE doesn't seem to have screwed it up. They've doubled down on the de-emphasis of firearms. In fact, they even do the original game better: you can't even pick up a gun in Catalyst.

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The Division Developer Cancels Mobile Companion App

Tom Clancy's The Division will not have a mobile companion app after all.

A representative for Massive Entertainment, which is developing The Division, told IGN that the team cut the companion app because it "created an imbalance" that compromised the gameplay. The app was originally announced when the open-world, online RPG was unveiled in 2013.

The Division companion app was supposed to allow a person with a tablet the ability to assist other players or become a troll. For example, the mobile app would allow for you to control a drone and offer armor buffs to console players.

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Matt Smith to Star in Netflix Original Series

Netflix have announced the casting of acclaimed BBC stars Matt Smith (Doctor Who) and Claire Foy (Wolf Hall), alongside Mr. Henderson himself, John Lithgow (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), in their upcoming historical-drama original series, The Crown.

Described as a “gripping, decades-spanning inside story of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Prime Ministers who shaped Britain’s post-war destiny," The Crown is set to star Foy as Queen Elizabeth II, Smith as Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, and Lithgow as Sir Winston Churchill.

John Lithgow and Claire Foy John Lithgow in Dexter and Claire Foy in Wolf Hall

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Batman: Arkham Knight Review

"A clean shot to the head," drones the villain known as Arkham Knight. "That's all it will take." At every opportunity, the Knight speaks of the horrific deeds he might perform, doing his best to drive fear into Batman's heart throughout the open-world adventure game that features his name. Scarecrow similarly trades on Batman's doubts, attempting to convince the troubled hero of his own impotence at every turn. "All eyes, all hopes upon a man who fails his friends," calls out Scarecrow through Gotham's public networks, reminding Bruce Wayne that he, too, bears responsibility for the losses his loved ones endure.

Batman is a troubled hero, and past Arkham games haven't shied away from exploring his dark side. Arkham Knight is no exception: the caped crusader growls his way through one confrontation after another in which he must question his role in Gotham's current crisis. We've seen these themes before, many times over, and Batman: Arkham Knight's villains repeat them ad nauseum, as if you weren't already choking on heavy-handed metaphors at every turn. It's fortunate, then, that Arkham Knight, for all its ham-fisted storytelling and frequent returns to well-trod ground, features the qualities developer Rocksteady has infused its previous games with: superb production values, hard-hitting combat, and a wonderful sense of freedom as you soar above the skies of Gotham.

Hey, it's the Batmobile! Over and over!

Scarecrow, Arkham Knight, and the legacy of the now-dead Joker loom large over this freedom. There is another, more surprising obstacle which you must overcome if you wish to retain your ownership of Gotham's skies, however: the Batmobile. For the first time in this series, you can leap into the iconic vehicle and zoom down the streets, drifting around tight turns and pursuing key vehicles as they speed away. The driving itself is slick and satisfying, as long as you can overlook Rocksteady's tendency to wrest away camera control to show you some dramatic sight or another. Yet there's no beating the incredible rush of using your line launcher to fling yourself through the sky--and it's worth mentioning that taking to the air is usually faster than settling behind the wheel. As a result, Arkham Knight is constantly trying to justify the Batmobile's presence, forcing it upon you at nearly every opportunity.

Particularly in the latter third of the story, you're frequently forced to take part in vehicular battles against remotely manned drones. When you first engage in this kind of combat, which turns the Batmobile into an agile tank, it's a delight. You strafe from side to side, sliding the vehicle into safe areas between the visible lines that indicate the path of incoming enemy rockets. All the while, you fire your cannons at the drones and use small fire to eliminate missiles fired upon you; the dark sky lights up during these battles, giving vehicular combat an initial spark, and making you the director of a spectacularly violent fireworks display.

Gameplay utilizes Batman's excellent detective skills. His orphan skills go underutilized, however.

But in spite of the upgrades the Batmobile earns over time--EMP blasts, the ability to hack enemy drones, and so forth--the Batmobile battles never become more interesting, just more monotonous, as they seem to go on forever. The story's final hours succumb to a series of same-ish battles that play out more or less like the last, lending an air of tedium to what should be the game's most poignant surprises. The Batmobile is also the centerpiece of a number of mediocre boss encounters, all manner of puzzles, boring cat-and-mouse games with superpowered tanks, and even some of the Riddler's many optional challenges scattered across the city. Don't be surprised should you end up muttering to yourself, "Too. Much. Batmobile."

Arkham Knight is at its best when you are given the freedom of movement you both need and deserve. What a treat it is to look down upon this beautiful and derelict city as you glide through the thick, black air. Gotham has been deserted by most citizenry due to Scarecrow's most recent threat to release a hallucinogenic toxin into the streets, making the clouded heavens and the stoic statues all the more imposing. The bat-symbol cuts an impressive silhouette in the sky, drawing you towards your next mission objective--and the objective itself may be a structure like the grandiose Panessa Movie Studios, where climbing ivy and guardian statues warn you of potential danger.

Arkham Knight is constantly trying to justify the Batmobile's presence, forcing it upon you at nearly every opportunity.

Batman is beautifully animated and an absolute joy to control. To soar towards Man-Bat and tackle the shrieking beast in one of the game's many side missions, and to zip to higher vantage points only to descend onto a rioter and deliver a hard kick, are the moments that represent Arkham Knight at its very best. Every mechanical edge is oiled to maximum slickness: Batman glides through Gotham with the confidence of an experienced predator, and exhibits the exact right amount of stickiness as he approaches surfaces. There is an astounding amount of flavor voiceover; Batman comments on the task at hand should you try to leave the area you are confined to, enemies remark on the number of fallen comrades they have counted during stealth encounters, and the annoyingly chatty thugs swarming the streets have more speaking lines than any number of film scripts. Few games are this rich in audiovisual details.

Don't forget: Batman isn't killing anyone in his rampage against Gotham's enemies, though he delights just enough in breaking bones that it's hard not to nod your head along to the Arkham Knight's insistence that Batman is just as responsible for Gotham's dereliction as anyone else. The storytelling gymnastics the game performs to remind you that Bruce Wayne is not a murderer are ridiculous. The Batmobile is using nonlethal rounds, you are told, and when you run over criminals, a little zap lets you know that you're not squishing them under your tires, just giving them an electrical jolt as you pass. I could dismiss this mounting nonsense easily as forgivable video game logic if the narrative didn't devote so much time explaining (and re-explaining, and re-re-explaining) that Batman lives by a non-killing code. Rocksteady tries to have it both ways, representing this code as an emotional conflict that figures heavily into the story, then letting you plow through crowds of bad guys without consequence. Even in the oft-illogical world of video games, the dissonance is striking.

Everyone loves a good crane-moving puzzle.

Then again, this is a story about a billionaire in a bat suit, so perhaps there is only so much plausibility to be expected. It might be hard to believe Batman isn't sending men to the morgue during Arkham Knight's melee battles, but the series' rhythmic hand-to-hand combat continues to set the bar high. Batman is a frightening, almost otherworldly creature as he tumbles and slides from one target to another, and his fists exhibit the raw power of any hammer or club. Stealth combat sequences, which offer astounding flexibility in how you approach enemies, are as good as ever. Slinking through vents, taking down a goon, and zipping away is as rewarding as it is to sabotage your armed foes with your disruptor rifle, causing their weapons to malfunction and leaving their owners open to attack. Smart level design and a large array of gadgets--a remote electrical charge, a machine that emulates villains' voices, a hacking device, and so forth--keep each predator room as interesting as the last.

Batman's many talents give rise to a terrific amount of variety. He is a scientist and a detective in addition to being Gotham's scowling savior; he has a computer that knows the answers to every imaginable question (except the ones that drive the plot, of course); and he possesses the memory of an elephant rather than a bat--a nice skill to have when solving the murder mystery that serves as one of the game's better side plots. Arkham Knight finds great ways of incorporating these talents into gameplay. For instance, you re-create a kidnapping by activating the returning bat-vision mode and scouring the street for clues. The crime's events are then depicted on screen, allowing you to forward and reverse through them at will in your search for answers.

Poison Ivy is dressed for success, and like almost every one of Arkham Knight's female characters, is in need of rescue.

Puzzles like this are clever, and the related tasks, such as scanning a corpse's tissue to find anomalies, make you feel like an active participant in a real forensic analysis. The game constantly digresses, asking you to team up with comrades like Nightwing and Robin to deliver cooperative beatdowns, and to perform all number of secondary missions, which incorporate villains like Penguin, Two-Face, and Firefly. Some set pieces, such as one in which you defuse a set of bombs as a villain stands on a rotating platform, are particularly noteworthy for smart use of camera angles, and for the way the gameplay assists in characterization, teaching you about the miscreants at hand not just through dialogue and plotting, but through the way you interact with them.

Arkham Knight is loaded with villains, actually, including the one that gives the game its name: Arkham Knight himself. His identity is meant to be the game's greatest mystery, but conspicuous foreshadowing, and a reliance on age-old storytelling cliches, make every reveal as surprising as the time The Mighty Ducks won that big hockey game. There are some tense story beats and moving events, but your two primary goals--to stop Scarecrow's evil toxin plot, and to confront and unmask the Arkham Knight--are too predictable to be compelling.

Pow! Crunch! Whiff! Harumph!


What Batman: Arkham Knight does well, however, it does really well. Gotham is a dazzling playground where neon lights pierce through the rain and mist; all it takes is a single glimpse to tell you that this is a city in need. Moreover, many individual elements are so carefully constructed, and presented with such flair, that appreciation is the only reasonable reaction. Yet most of these elements--excellent acting, wonderful animations, moody soundtrack--are ones that Batman: Arkham City also excelled in, making Arkham Knight's missteps all the more noticeable. Rather than escape the pull of the games that spawned it, The Bat's newest adventure refines the fundamentals; it is a safe but satisfying return to the world's most tormented megalopolis.

13 Games We Loved at E3

E3's a bit like Christmas. You spend months excitedly preparing for it, then it's been and gone before you know. But what a show it was, packed with red-hot announcements, loads more on the games we already knew about, and surprises we're still coming to terms with. Therefore, narrowing down a list of our favourite games on show was no easy task, but Alex, Rich and Rory chose the 13 games they cannot wait to play in the coming months.

Alex and Rory also explain why this week's Game of Thrones finale is the last nail in the coffin and that season five is probably the last they'll watch. Rich, on the other hand, has yet to finish season one. Philistine.

So let's climb aboard the E3 dragon and get the hell outta here!

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Here’s What Fable Legends is Actually All About

"Uniting thrilling stories, exciting combat and heroic quests with the next generation capabilities of the Xbox One and Windows 10 PC, Fable Legends is the forthcoming adventure in the genre defining series Fable."

If you go to the official Fable Legends website and click the "What is Fable Legends" tab, these are the first words you see. The thing is, they don't actually tell you anything about what Fable Legends is at all. In fact, it almost makes it sound like Fable Legends is a direct continuation of the core Fable series, which it couldn't possibly be farther from. I'm not pointing this out because I think there's something devious about it though. I'm pointing it out because even though it has, as near as I can tell, no substantive similarity to Fable or any action RPG of any kind, it's piqued my interest. I actually quite like its novel take on wave-based, co-op PvE, so if you really want to know what Fable Legends is, read on.

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Red Dead Redemption Leading Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Vote

Rockstar Games’ highly successful and critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption is leading the vote for the Xbox 360 games that fans most want to see enabled for play on Xbox One.

The extremely popular open-world Western is some distance ahead of juggernauts like Call of Duty: Black Ops II, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Halo: Reach right now.

Microsoft revealed the Xbox One’s upcoming new backwards compatibility functionality during its E3 press conference earlier this week, confirming Xbox One will support backwards compatibility with over 100 selected Xbox 360 games by this holiday season.

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