Monthly Archives: June 2016
Detroit: Become Human Asks – Could You Love An Android?
Detroit: Become Human, the latest effort from French developer Quantic Dream, asks players a question. Could you care about an android?
It’s a question that’s been posed to audiences throughout sci-fi movie history in various ways - think Westworld and Spielberg’s A.I. especially - and the influences of these films are felt keenly in the demo I saw today.
Much of this is to do with Detroit’s central premise. Qantic has created a world where androids are ubiquitous in the service industry but malfunctioning in inexplicable ways. Some have disappeared for no reason, explains writer/director David Cage. Some are committing suicide, and some are “behaving violently around humans”.
Pokemon GO Coming July
You'll be able to load Pokemon GO sometime during or before July, Nintendo revealed. The announcement came during Nintendo's Treehouse Live event.
Shigeru Miyamoto was there showing off the Pokemon GO Plus device, a wearable accessory with Bluetooth link that allows players to discover Pokemon without needing to constantly monitor their phones. Miyamoto revealed Nintendo hopes to have the Pokemon GO Plus device ready by July, at a cost of $35.
Later in the stream, it was acknowledged the app would need to be ready before the device, putting the official release sometime next month.
The Pokemon GO Plus flashes green and vibrates to alert you when Pokemon are nearby, freeing you from needing to monitor your phone while walking.
Xbox Boss: Scorpio Won’t Benefit Those Without a 4K TV
This week at E3, Microsoft announced Project Scorpio—a more powerful version of Xbox One—that, according to Head of Xbox Phil Spencer, was designed specifically with 4K televisions in mind.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Spencer said those who don't have a 4K display should instead buy an Xbox One S, "because Scorpio is not going to do anything for you. Scorpio is designed as a 4K console, and if you don't have a 4K TV, the benefit we've designed for, you're not going to see."
Walking Dead Group Receives Cease and Desist from AMC
The Walking Dead network AMC wants to protect its Season 7 reveal, and will pursue legal action if a popular Walking Dead spoiler group leaks it.
The Spoiling Dead Fans—a group of Walking Dead fans known for their "track record for accuracy" regarding spoilers—reportedly received a cease and desist from AMC. The network is also said to have threatened a lawsuit if the community reveals any information illegally acquired, including predictions.
"Their stance is that making such a prediction would be considered copyright infringement," a post on the site's Facebook group reads. "AMC tells us that we made some claim somewhere that says we received 'copyright protected, trade secret information about the most critical plot information in the unreleased next season of The Walking Dead.'"
James Wan Already Has an Idea For The Conjuring 3
With The Conjuring 2 scaring up big business in cinemas across the globe this past weekend, talk will inevitably turn to the potential for a third movie, and it seems director James Wan already has a story idea.
The franchise focuses on real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who spent decades investigating hauntings, so there’s a wealth of cases to draw upon in future instalments, as Wan explains…
“They do have a lot of stories so I think, organically, if we're lucky enough to tell future chapters, there's a lot of stuff we could be pulling from.”
When pushed on the subject, Wan revealed he even has a particular case in mind. “I do have something specific but I'm not going to say it. But I will say this - I do think Conjuring 1 and 2 are both set in the 70s, I think Conjuring 3 has got to be set in the 80s.”
Batman: Arkham VR Lets You Actually Put On Batman’s Cowl
After seemingly drawing the final curtain on Batman, UK-based Rocksteady Studios is back in black and wheeling the Dark Knight out the shadows once more for an intriguing virtual reality adventure in Batman: Arkham VR.
Those of you familiar with the grimy aesthetic of Rocksteady’s Arkham series should likely feel at home within this interesting new experiment, although it would appear the visceral, fast-paced combat has been traded for a focus on the cerebral, investigative side to Arkham games – which is obviously far more suited to a VR environment.
Rocksteady’s Batman VR demo is split into two admittedly sedate but cool and distinct segments. The first sees you donning the iconic batsuit and the second allows you to use Batman's evidence scanner while investigating a crime scene.
Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Is a Crash Course in Franchise Lore
Don’t expect to jump into the lore of the Kingdom Hearts universe with Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue. But for longtime fans looking to have the stage set for Kingdom Hearts 3, Final Chapter Prologue may be the much-needed crash course in all matters of the Heartless.
“I think for Kingdom Hearts 3 we want the player to leap into an action-packed game right away,” Final Chapter Prologue co-director Tai Yasue said.
2.8 is meant to facilitate that leap, bringing together three seemingly disparate corners of the universe that build out the world of Kingdom Hearts ahead of the release of the long-awaited numbered sequel.
18 Pictures of Highly Detailed Titanfall 2 Toys
In February, McFarlane Toys announced it was making a line of Titanfall 2 figures to be released alongside the game later this year. Now we've finally gotten a chance to see them up close.
The toy line includes a 7-inch version of protagonist Jack Cooper, equipped with his CAR submachine gun, and a 10-inch version of BT-7274, a Titan who linked to Cooper after his former pilot died. There are some other goodies as well, so check them all out in the slideshow below.
According to McFarlane's website, the figures come with codes for exclusive unlockable in-game content.
Person of Interest Explored a World Without the Machine
At the Austin ATX Television Festival over this past weekend, Person of Interest showrunner Greg Plageman screened tonight's penultimate episode, ".exe," for fans and then sat for a Q&A panel moderated by IGN's Eric Goldman, answering a few questions about the episode which he co-wrote (with Erik Mountain) and directed (as a first time director).
Warning: Spoilers for ".exe" follow...
"This was an episode we talked about doing about doing a long time ago," Plageman said of the concept to explore an alternate world where the Machine was never created, "and Jonah
had been on me to direct two seasons ago. By the way, the big lesson I learned is if you ever get that feeling that you're completely terrified by doing something because you're not sure how it'll work out, then you should definitely do that thing. Because that was this episode for me. It certainly arrived at the perfect time for me since it was the second to last episode and it was something we'd talked about doing and it hadn't come up, so I thought 'Well, if I'm going to direct, I'm going to do that and I'm going to get Michael Emerson to be in, like, every scene.'"
South Park: The Fractured But Whole First-Look Preview
South Park is one of the only franchises I'd be happy to see annualised, after The Stick of Truth showed us that a modern South Park game plays just like an extended episode - outside of combat, the two mediums are almost indistinguishable. The Fractured But Whole continues that trend pretty literally - it takes place immediately after the events of The Stick of Truth, with South Park's not-so-charming group of 4th graders now LARPing as Superheroes, with their own hypothetical movie franchises and Netflix series'.
After Ubisoft's press conference yesterday, where we already saw a meaty amount of gameplay, I was able to feast my eyes on an extended demo, with more fart sound effects in 20 minutes than I've ever heard in any other video game. We started out with our protagonist, literally called Douchebag, looking for Coon And Friends in Eric Cartman's house. There's a keypad barring you from the basement, though, with inscriptions of words I can't write here without getting an angry email from a young IGN reader's mother. So, you set off to find the code, interacting with cabinets and drawers that deliver an odd variety of crafting loot, though we didn't get to preview the crafting system.