Monthly Archives: April 2017

Halo 6 Will Focus on Master Chief After Halo 5 Complaints

343 Industries' Studio Head Kiki Wolfkill and Franchise Director Frank O'Connor have spoken about fan reaction to Halo 5: Guardians, and their plans for Halo 6.

When Halo 5 was released back in 2015, it was well received by critics, however there was some fan outcry over the relative lack of Master Chief in the main campaign. O'Connor and Wolfkill acknowledged this in a recent interview with GamesTM magazine (via WCCFTech).

"We very much realized that people wanted Master Chief's story of Halo 5," said O'Connor. "We definitely marketed in a way that we hoped was going to bring surprise, but for some fans and certainly fans of Master Chief, it was a huge disappointment because they wanted more Chief."

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Jeff Goldblum on Board For Jurassic World Sequel

Original Jurassic Park series actor Jeff Goldblum is set to join the sequel to Jurassic World.

The actor will "appear" in Jurassic World 2, according to The Hollywood Reporter. His eccentric character Dr. Ian Malcolm survived the first Jurassic Park only to narrowly escape death once again in the Lost World of the second. The nature of his return in J. A. Bayona's sequel remains to be seen.

Goldblum, who will next be seen as Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok, will join returning Jurassic World stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard and new actors Justice Smith, James Cromwell and Toby Jones in the sequel, which will reportedly "be more suspenseful and scary" than the original.

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Gemini Man: Will Smith in Talks to Star As a Cloned Assassin

Will Smith is in talks to star in the long-gestating clone assassin film, Gemini Man.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ang Lee (Life of Pi) is also in negotiations to direct the movie, with Jerry Bruckheimer (Bad Boys) producing. Gemini Man, which was first written in 1997, follows an aging assassin facing off against a clone of himself who's 25 years younger.

The film was originally set to be directed by Tony Scott (Top Gun) for Disney with Don Murphy (Natural Born Killers) producing. Since 1997, Gemini Man's script has been reworked multiple times as it was considered unfilmable due to the clone premise. The original plan was to have to separate actors, one older (Harrison Ford) and one younger (Chris O’Donnell), play the same main character.

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Bag of Doritos Can Play Guardians of the Galaxy 2 Soundtrack

Partnering with the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Doritos have released a set of limited edition bags that play the film's full soundtrack.

According to Billboard, the custom-designed bags are a part of the joint Rock Out Loud campaign and feature a music player that's inspired by a cassette deck to keep with the movie's retro music theme.

The soundtrack, dubbed Awesome Mix Vol. 2, features 14 tracks with a mix of 60's and 70's pop, R&B/funk, country and rock as well as a brand new track titled Guardians Inferno which was created for the movie.

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Former Activision Parent Company Could Own Ubisoft Soon

French conglomerate and former Activision parent Vivendi is reportedly honing in on publisher Ubisoft, with an acquisition expected by the end of this year.

This comes via a new report from Reuters, with the publication's sources saying that advertising group Havas and Ubisoft are the first on Vivendi's takeover list as it attempts a major expansion this year. The expansion is reportedly an act to appease investor concerns after Vivendi's shares dropped 3% despite the fact Chairman Vincent Bollore has spent nearly 15 billion Euros on shareholders and acquisitions.

Vivendi currently owns 25% of Ubisoft and has been jockeying to buy the company after it acquired Gameloft. Ubisoft heads Michel Guillemot and Yves Guillemot have been actively against the takeover, and last year reached out to Canadian investors to stay independent.

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PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Wants to Raise Money For Children’s Charity

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds creator Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene has announced a PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds charity invitational, set to take place on Thursday, May 4 at 10am-1pm PT in Europe and 2pm-5pm PT in North America.

According to a blog post on the PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds website, the event will be split into two sessions for each region, with 128 streamers participating total. Each session will host 64 players in duos mode only, making for 32 teams per region. After each region completes a set of three matches, the winner will be chosen based on highest overall placement.

All money raised during the charity event will go towards Gamers Outreach, an organization dedicated to providing "equipment, technology, and software" to children in hospitals.

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Heroes of The Storm 2nd Nexus Challenge Rewards Revealed

The second Nexus challenge goes live with the Heroes of the Storm 2.0 patch, and once again quest rewards are featuring content for both Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch.

Each week of the Nexus event, a new quest will unlock and will need to be completed May 22 when the event finishes and all quests close. The quests all have the same requirements, — the player has to complete 5 rounds in Heroes of the Storm with at least one friend in Ranked, Unranked, Quick Match. The first quest also allows players to complete those matches in the Versus AI mode.

Week one allows players to unlock an Oni hovercycle mount with six color variations, warbanner, spray, and the original Oni Genji portrait in Heroes of the Storm. Players who missed out on them during first Nexus event will also unlock the Oni Genji skin, player icon, and spray for Overwatch.

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Writers Guild of America Authorizes Possible Strike

Hollywood may be looking at another writers strike nearly a decade after the last major one, as the Writers Guild of America East and West has voted to authorize a strike should a new deal not be reached.

Over 6,000 WGA members — around 67.5 percent of eligible voters in the guild — voted yesterday for whether the guild's leadership could authorize the strike next week. 96.3 percent of those ballots were votes in favor of allowing their leadership to authorize a strike, a higher percentage and total number of votes than that which authorized the 2007-08 strike.

The WGA members would be able to go on strike on May 2 should a new deal for their union with Hollywood studios and producers via the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, not be reached by the time the guild's contract expires on May 1. Issues involved include higher minimum wages, residuals from streaming services, and more.

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Nick Spencer on Capt. America’s Betrayal and Fan Reactions

You don't even need to follow comics closely to know all is not right with Captain America. The stalwart hero of Americanism betrayed his allies in the Marvel Universe in a twist at the end of Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 by revealing himself to be a secret agent of Hydra.

While it was revealed that this was caused by the Red Skull using a sentient Cosmic Cube known as Kobik to re-write Cap's reality to be a Hydra loyalist from childhood, the fact remains that Cap is now the leader of an evil terrorist group that flies in the face of everything he stands for, something that hasn't been sitting well with some fans. Writer Nick Spencer told IGN in an interview that he was aware of how passionate fans are about the character, which is why the twist earned such a big reaction.

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