Monthly Archives: August 2015
RIGS on Project Morpheus Made Me Feel Terrible
I played one match of RIGS: Mechanized Combat League on PS4, and I never want to do it again. As a competitive game, its sports design is fun, involved, and satisfying. As a VR game on Morpheus, it asked a lot of me, only to repay me in the first-ever nausea I’ve experienced in a virtual reality helmet.
I’ve used a lot of VR in 2015, and terrifying potential price point aside, it’s a promising technology that excites me about new and different kinds of games. I’ve spent about almost 2 hours playing games inside Valve’s excellent HTC Vive headset, enjoyed The Getaway on Morpheus, and dabbled in Microsoft’s HoloLens. Headsets never made me feel sick until I sat in the seat of a mech rig in RIGS.
Hob Is the Next Best Thing to a New Zelda Game
Runic Games’ Torchlight series filled the void left by Diablo’s decade-long absence, and it did it well. The Torchlight games weren’t simple copycats of Blizzard’s dungeon-crawling action RPG either — they brought their own amazing ideas to the concept, improving the genre and challenging Blizzard to do better with Diablo 3. Hob, Runic’s next game, seems to serve a similar purpose.
Like Torchlight, Hob is heavily inspired by the outstanding action games many of us grew up on, blending the best of their brilliant ideas into one beautiful, smart, and innovative action-adventure game. While we wait for The Legend of Zelda, Hob could be the next best thing.
Hob’s influences are clear, and developer Runic Games is completely transparent about drawing inspiration from Zelda, Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus. The team’s love for large-scale, top-down action-adventure games comes to life in Hob, whose gorgeous 3D world isn’t at all what it seems.
New to Netflix for September 2015
Even with movies like Moonlight Kingdom, Rambo: First Blood, Sleepy Hollow, Hamlet, and more, September on Netflix is predominantly about TV. Namely, Walking Dead: Season 5, the resurrection of Longmire, and all four seasons of CBS' Person of Interest.
Here's What's Leaving Netflix in September
Plus, Gotham, The Blacklist, The Following, Blue Bloods, Portlandia, and more.
All Title Dates are Subject to Change
Netflix U.S. Release Dates Only
Uncharted 4 Release Date Revealed
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End will be released on March 18, 2016, according to the PlayStation Blog.
Additionally, two limited physical versions of the game were revealed: the Special Edition' and the more extravagant Libertalia Collector's Edition. Here's what comes in each bundle:
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End Special Edition
Here’s What’s Leaving Netflix in September 2015
Heads up, everyone. Here's the official list of all the movies and TV that will be leaving Netflix's good graces in September. Get your ass to Mars, because Total Recall, Lost Boys, Jackie Brown, School of Rock, Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Apocalypse Now, all nine seasons of Coach (for those who want to super-binge before the show comes back on NBC), and much more are expiring. So plop yourself the couch and start savoring.
The Player: First Look at the Action Series
IGN as an exclusive first look at NBC's Vegas-set action-drama series The Player, starring Philip Winchester (Strike Back), Wesley Snipes (Blade) and Charity Wakefield (Mockingbird Lane). In addition to featuring all-new footage, the video includes interviews with the stars talking about their characters. Check it out:
The Player follows sniper-turned-security expert Alex Kane (Winchester), who is drawn into a mysterious conspiracy "game" where an organization of wealthy individuals gamble on his ability to stop some of the biggest crimes imaginable from playing out.
The series premieres Thursday, September 24 at 10/9c on NBC.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Release Date Revealed
Square Enix and Eidos Montreal have announced Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will come out February 23.
Announced in April, Mankind Divided is the sequel to Deus Ex: Human Revolution, set two years later in 2029 with augmented people separated from normal residents. The stealth action-RPG will continue to examine the societal tensions between the two groups.
In addition to the release date, Square Enix unveiled an Augment Your Pre-Order campaign and collector's edition for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.
10 Best Pokemon: Ancient Origins Cards
With the latest Pokemon Trading Card Game set, Ancient Origins, becoming legal for competitive play this Wednesday, September 2, we reached out to a Pokemon TCG expert for their thoughts on the 10 best new cards. That means that reprints like Lysandre and Level Ball, while great cards, were not considered for this list. These Ancient Origins cards are all available now in the Pokemon TCG and its online version.
Before we get to the list, meet our expert, Simon Narode. He's been playing Pokemon TCG competitively for three years, placing high in multiple city, regional, state, and national tournaments, and peaking with a 2nd place finish at the 2013 World Championships in the Masters Division -- not to mention he placed 7th in this year's Worlds last weekend with his Donphan deck. But as it turns out, getting 7th wasn't so bad because while he didn't take the top prize, he earned a special personal victory.
NASA’s New Horizons Targets Pluto-like Object in the Kuiper Belt
Following its successful flyby of Pluto, the next potential target for NASA’s New Horizons mission is a small Kuiper Belt object (KBO) known as 2014 MU69.
At an estimated size of 30 miles (45 km), PT1 is roughly 10 times larger than comets like Rosetta’s comet and 0.5 to 1 percent of the size of Pluto. The KBO was one of two potential targets, and the one recommended to NASA by the New Horizons team due its reachability with the fuel supply available.
Path of NASA's New Horizons toward Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69.
The Force Awakens LEGO Ad Teases Movie Action
(Warning: there may be spoilers ahead.)
A new advertisement for Star Wars: The Force Awakens LEGO sets has gone live.
The ad revolves predominantly around the sets for hero Poe Dameron's black and orange X-wing, as well as villain Kylo Ren's ship.
Dameron and Ren duke it out on a sandy planet, which may be Tatooine, Jakku, or another yet-to-be-revealed sand-swept location.
Assuming it's not a recycled droid sound bite, we also hear BB-8's beeping 'voice' for the first time.
With a few months until its release, The Force Awakens marketing is bound to step into overdrive.
For instance, Instagram recently showed Finn wielding a familiar lightsaber, Empire revealed new character shots of the lead heroes and villains, and new details about Kylo Ren have been revealed.