Monthly Archives: September 2019

Disney Plus: Gargoyles, DuckTales, Rescue Rangers and More Coming

Disney Plus, Disney’s movie and TV series streaming service due out on November 12, is getting the majority of Disney Afternoon cartoons. Yes, that includes DuckTales, Chip n’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, Gargoyles, Goof Troop, and even Adventures of the Gummi Bears.

Disney announced the various series would be coming to Disney Plus via the streaming service’s official Instagram account.

The Disney Afternoon series are some of Disney’s most popular cartoons, with some like Gargoyles becoming cult classics in their own right. The programming block debuted in 1990 and stopped in 1997 after the emergence of strong competitors like Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. DuckTales has proven so resiliently popular that the series was rebooted in 2017, and Gargoyles seems to frequently end up on top 100 lists like IGN's.

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You Can Buy These Actual Batman Movie Props and Costumes

Batman is celebrating his 80th anniversary in 2019, which includes a very special auction taking place in London September 30 - October 1, featuring iconic props and costumes from classic Batman films. According to auction hosts Prop Store, Michael Keaton's Batsuit from Tim Burton's seminal 1989 film is estimated to sell for upwards of $148,000.

For a closer look at the awesome Caped Crusader props for sale in the auction, check out the gallery below:

“Prop Store is very excited to be offering props and costumes from so many fantastic eras of Batman, from an autographed Batarang from the 1966 series to Michael Keaton’s Batsuit from the 1989 film and Heath Ledger’s Rocket-propelled Grenade Launcher from his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight," said Prop Store CEO Stephen Lane.

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Felicity Huffman Sentenced to Prison in College Admissions Scandal

Actress Felicity Huffman was sentenced to 14 days in prison today for her role in a major college admissions scandal.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Huffman's sentence also includes a $30,000 fine, one year of supervised release, and 250 hours of community service. Huffman was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani and has been ordered to report to prison on October 25.

The Desperate Housewives star was among 13 people who pleaded guilty in April 2019. Huffman specifically was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, after she allegedly paid $15,000 to William Singer, who fronted as an admissions consultant, to increase her daughter’s SAT scores.

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How the Greatest Scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture Was Made

Note: As Star Trek: The Motion Picture celebrates its 40th anniversary on December 7th, we're revisiting our interview here with the film's visual effects master, Douglas Trumbull.

I remember seeing Star Trek: The Motion Picture when it first came out. Yeah, that dates me. But I recall it so clearly. My dad, my sister and I went to see the film, and it was a special occasion because the old man didn’t takes us to the movies very often. But we knew the TV show. And now, Captain Kirk and Spock and the rest were back, only on the big screen. Exciting! And then we watched the actual movie…

I still remember my dad just shaking his head as we exited the theater.

Of course, in the years since then, the critical appraisal of TMP has varied. Some say it’s an underappreciated gem while others say it’s bloated and overlong (I lean towards the former take). But wherever you land in that debate, it’s pretty universally acknowledged that the reintroduction of the USS Enterprise is among the most iconic moments in the Star Trek franchise -- a five-minute, wordless sequence, amplified by Jerry Goldsmith’s classic “The Enterprise” theme… and the amazing effects work of Douglas Trumbull and his team.

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AI: The Somnium Files Review – Eye Love You

AI: The Somnium Files is an adventure game that combines two classic storytelling genres: the murder mystery and the buddy-cop movie. On top of that, the "buddy" for AI's lead character, detective Kaname Date, isn't human. Or animal, for that matter. Rather, it's a snarky, quirky, super-powered feminine artificial intelligence in the shape of an eyeball--named Aiba--that lives in his left eye socket and has a direct connection to his brain. Oh, and she also helps Date by transforming into a humanoid avatar form to explore the dream worlds of various characters you meet throughout the game. Talk about an odd couple, huh?

It's an intriguing concept for sure. Thankfully, the near-future sci-fi detective story that AI: the Somnium Files tells lives up to the promise of its unique premise, delivering a great dialogue-driven adventure that sucks you in and doesn’t let up until all of its twisted mysteries have been unraveled.

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Date is a detective for a secret, experimental Tokyo police division called ABIS. When the body of his best friend's ex-wife is found displayed in an abandoned amusement park, Date soon finds himself swept up in a complex investigation to find the culprit before they strike again. Along the way, he crosses paths with a bubbly up-and-coming internet personality, her diehard fanboy (and his beleaguered mother), a Yakuza group, a corrupt politician, and the victim's young daughter, amongst many other odd, interesting, and sinister personalities. And that's not even mentioning the oddest personality of them all: Aiba, his quick-witted and sharp-tongued AI partner and confidant in exploring the case.

Having a smart-alecky AI constantly feeding commentary into your brain might sound nightmarish, but Aiba comes with some special skills to aid Date with his investigations: X-ray vision, heat sensing, zooming to check up on faraway places, and even the ability to help Date in quick-time event-style combat. But Aiba's biggest role is to help Date get information from the various characters by acting as his avatar in their dream worlds. When interrogation gets tough, ABIS staff hooks a subject up to a Psync machine, which allows Date and Aiba to explore their subjects' subconscious "somnium" dream world to uncover clues and deeply hidden (and sometimes forgotten) secrets. The excursion is under a strict time limit--otherwise their consciousnesses become forever intertwined.

Gameplay in the exploration and investigation sections of AI: The Somnium Files follows a fairly typical point-and-click adventure game style: You look at objects in the environments for clues and talk to characters by making comments and asking questions. The way AI handles these sections makes you less likely to get stuck than in other adventure games, however. You're only given the option to move to a new area once you've done everything necessary to advance the story in one particular location, which ensures you won’t need to backtrack or worry that you're missing anything important. If you can’t move to the map, you know there’s still more to do.

While exploring the various environments will yield a fair amount of clues, it's the interactions Date has with the various characters (and Aiba’s reactions to those interactions) that really move AI's twisting mystery along. Each character you interact with is unique and memorable in their own way. There's Iris, the cheery aspiring internet idol whose mischievous personality causes Date much consternation; Ota, a devoted fan of Iris with numerous nerdy pursuits; So, a slimy politician with his fair share of secrets; Boss and Pewter, two eccentric personalities that work with Date at ABIS; and Mizuki, Date's friend's daughter with a sour attitude and strength beyond her years. There are many more interesting faces you’ll meet, too, each with an important role to play in the story and a strong personality to match. The excellent character designs by Yusuke Kozaki (Fire Emblem Awakening, No More Heroes) also give each NPC a striking visual element to match their distinct characterizations.

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At certain points in the story, you encounter other modes of gameplay, like interrogation scenes where you present evidence to a character and action scenes involving quick-time event-style button presses to help Date fend off threats. However, the most important parts of the game take place when Date uses the Psync machine to explore another character's somnium worlds. Using Aiba as an avatar, you interact directly with elements within these characters' surreal, illogical, and often very disturbing dream worlds, with every action she performs costing precious time. If Date and Aiba can’t solve the puzzles in the somnium within the time limit, they’ll be forced out, and you will have to start the somnium exploration over from the beginning.

Solving the puzzles to progress in the somniums involves performing certain actions in a certain order on certain objects--and since these are bizarre, often illogical dreamscapes, sometimes the solution isn’t obvious or runs contrary to common sense. You can earn and use items called TIMIEs to help conserve time, but if time grows short, your best option might be to restart. This involves repeating much of the same actions and dialogue to get back to where you were, but skipping all the previous, time-wasting actions you tried before. If you don’t want to do the whole event over, you can go back to checkpoints within a somnium to try and save time by only performing necessary actions. However, you can only do this up to three times before you are forced to restart. Making this even worse is that sometimes you’re saddled with time-penalty TIMIEs from certain actions, meaning that your next action will cost significantly more time than usual and possibly even lead to unwinnable situations. As a result, the six-minute time limit winds up being a source of stress, discouraging you from exploring and appreciating the well-crafted dreamscape environments as much as you’d like and sometimes standing as a roadblock to further progressing the story.

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Besides revealing important story beats, the somnium sequences serve another important purpose: Depending on your actions within the somnium, the overall story will branch down one of many different potential paths, with different events taking place on each story branch. Only by seeing all of the various story possibilities, good and bad, will the whole truth behind AI's saga be revealed. Fortunately, you’re able to jump around to various points in the game’s saga (and replay somnium sequences) whenever you want, so you can put one story branch aside and pick up another anytime you feel like--though there will be roadblocks in some spots if certain plot points have yet to be revealed. As the various branches of the story give tantalizing tidbits of information and reveal more about each of the main characters, you feel like you’re piecing together an elaborate puzzle, which makes it all the more satisfying when big revelations happen.

Despite the occasional frustration in exploring its dream landscapes, the whole of AI: the Somnium Files winds up being a fun, thrilling, and engaging experience. The story is filled with intriguing twists and shocking surprises, and the characters and their individual arcs inspire you to care about what happens to them. The somnium dream worlds add a layer of psychological horror to the ongoing mystery, and Date and Aiba’s constant back-and-forth interactions provide levity to make every investigation all the more amusing. AI's unconventional detective story is one you won’t soon forget.

AI: The Somnium Files Review – Eye Love You

AI: The Somnium Files is an adventure game that combines two classic storytelling genres: the murder mystery and the buddy-cop movie. On top of that, the "buddy" for AI's lead character, detective Kaname Date, isn't human. Or animal, for that matter. Rather, it's a snarky, quirky, super-powered feminine artificial intelligence in the shape of an eyeball--named Aiba--that lives in his left eye socket and has a direct connection to his brain. Oh, and she also helps Date by transforming into a humanoid avatar form to explore the dream worlds of various characters you meet throughout the game. Talk about an odd couple, huh?

It's an intriguing concept for sure. Thankfully, the near-future sci-fi detective story that AI: the Somnium Files tells lives up to the promise of its unique premise, delivering a great dialogue-driven adventure that sucks you in and doesn’t let up until all of its twisted mysteries have been unraveled.

Gallery image 1Gallery image 2Gallery image 3Gallery image 4Gallery image 5Gallery image 6Gallery image 7Gallery image 8Gallery image 9Gallery image 10

Date is a detective for a secret, experimental Tokyo police division called ABIS. When the body of his best friend's ex-wife is found displayed in an abandoned amusement park, Date soon finds himself swept up in a complex investigation to find the culprit before they strike again. Along the way, he crosses paths with a bubbly up-and-coming internet personality, her diehard fanboy (and his beleaguered mother), a Yakuza group, a corrupt politician, and the victim's young daughter, amongst many other odd, interesting, and sinister personalities. And that's not even mentioning the oddest personality of them all: Aiba, his quick-witted and sharp-tongued AI partner and confidant in exploring the case.

Having a smart-alecky AI constantly feeding commentary into your brain might sound nightmarish, but Aiba comes with some special skills to aid Date with his investigations: X-ray vision, heat sensing, zooming to check up on faraway places, and even the ability to help Date in quick-time event-style combat. But Aiba's biggest role is to help Date get information from the various characters by acting as his avatar in their dream worlds. When interrogation gets tough, ABIS staff hooks a subject up to a Psync machine, which allows Date and Aiba to explore their subjects' subconscious "somnium" dream world to uncover clues and deeply hidden (and sometimes forgotten) secrets. The excursion is under a strict time limit--otherwise their consciousnesses become forever intertwined.

Gameplay in the exploration and investigation sections of AI: The Somnium Files follows a fairly typical point-and-click adventure game style: You look at objects in the environments for clues and talk to characters by making comments and asking questions. The way AI handles these sections makes you less likely to get stuck than in other adventure games, however. You're only given the option to move to a new area once you've done everything necessary to advance the story in one particular location, which ensures you won’t need to backtrack or worry that you're missing anything important. If you can’t move to the map, you know there’s still more to do.

While exploring the various environments will yield a fair amount of clues, it's the interactions Date has with the various characters (and Aiba’s reactions to those interactions) that really move AI's twisting mystery along. Each character you interact with is unique and memorable in their own way. There's Iris, the cheery aspiring internet idol whose mischievous personality causes Date much consternation; Ota, a devoted fan of Iris with numerous nerdy pursuits; So, a slimy politician with his fair share of secrets; Boss and Pewter, two eccentric personalities that work with Date at ABIS; and Mizuki, Date's friend's daughter with a sour attitude and strength beyond her years. There are many more interesting faces you’ll meet, too, each with an important role to play in the story and a strong personality to match. The excellent character designs by Yusuke Kozaki (Fire Emblem Awakening, No More Heroes) also give each NPC a striking visual element to match their distinct characterizations.

No Caption Provided
Gallery image 1Gallery image 2Gallery image 3Gallery image 4Gallery image 5Gallery image 6Gallery image 7Gallery image 8Gallery image 9

At certain points in the story, you encounter other modes of gameplay, like interrogation scenes where you present evidence to a character and action scenes involving quick-time event-style button presses to help Date fend off threats. However, the most important parts of the game take place when Date uses the Psync machine to explore another character's somnium worlds. Using Aiba as an avatar, you interact directly with elements within these characters' surreal, illogical, and often very disturbing dream worlds, with every action she performs costing precious time. If Date and Aiba can’t solve the puzzles in the somnium within the time limit, they’ll be forced out, and you will have to start the somnium exploration over from the beginning.

Solving the puzzles to progress in the somniums involves performing certain actions in a certain order on certain objects--and since these are bizarre, often illogical dreamscapes, sometimes the solution isn’t obvious or runs contrary to common sense. You can earn and use items called TIMIEs to help conserve time, but if time grows short, your best option might be to restart. This involves repeating much of the same actions and dialogue to get back to where you were, but skipping all the previous, time-wasting actions you tried before. If you don’t want to do the whole event over, you can go back to checkpoints within a somnium to try and save time by only performing necessary actions. However, you can only do this up to three times before you are forced to restart. Making this even worse is that sometimes you’re saddled with time-penalty TIMIEs from certain actions, meaning that your next action will cost significantly more time than usual and possibly even lead to unwinnable situations. As a result, the six-minute time limit winds up being a source of stress, discouraging you from exploring and appreciating the well-crafted dreamscape environments as much as you’d like and sometimes standing as a roadblock to further progressing the story.

No Caption Provided

Besides revealing important story beats, the somnium sequences serve another important purpose: Depending on your actions within the somnium, the overall story will branch down one of many different potential paths, with different events taking place on each story branch. Only by seeing all of the various story possibilities, good and bad, will the whole truth behind AI's saga be revealed. Fortunately, you’re able to jump around to various points in the game’s saga (and replay somnium sequences) whenever you want, so you can put one story branch aside and pick up another anytime you feel like--though there will be roadblocks in some spots if certain plot points have yet to be revealed. As the various branches of the story give tantalizing tidbits of information and reveal more about each of the main characters, you feel like you’re piecing together an elaborate puzzle, which makes it all the more satisfying when big revelations happen.

Despite the occasional frustration in exploring its dream landscapes, the whole of AI: the Somnium Files winds up being a fun, thrilling, and engaging experience. The story is filled with intriguing twists and shocking surprises, and the characters and their individual arcs inspire you to care about what happens to them. The somnium dream worlds add a layer of psychological horror to the ongoing mystery, and Date and Aiba’s constant back-and-forth interactions provide levity to make every investigation all the more amusing. AI's unconventional detective story is one you won’t soon forget.

Man Sentenced to 15 Months and Banned from Gaming After Fatal Swatting Incident

Casey Viner, an Ohio gamer who fatally “swatted” another player, was sentenced to 15 months in prison for hiring someone to make a prank emergency call to the police that led to the fatal shooting. Viner is also banned from gaming for two years.

Swatting is where the perpetrator makes a false emergency call on someone in the hopes of getting the police or other law enforcement to show up unexpectedly at the victim’s house. Viner, 19, was upset after losing a $1.50 bet in a game of Call of Duty: WW2 and hired someone else to make a prank call to the police.

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2K Acknowledges Borderlands 3 Split-Screen Performance, Working on Fixes

Like most games these days, Borderlands 3 is currently experiencing its fair share of launch-day issues. One of the most prominent manifests on PlayStation 4 when two players are playing in split-screen and one pops open the menu to tweak their gear or skills. After numerous players reported this issue and IGN confirmed it with our own testing (see it in action in the video at the top of this page), A 2K representative confirmed to us that it and Gearbox are aware of the issue and are working to resolve it. The complete statement follows.

“We are aware that in some cases during split-screen couch co-op play, players can experience lag while in heavy combat and one of the players goes into their ECHOdevice and tries to navigate the skill trees and menus. While we will continue to work to optimize the Borderlands 3 experience, we’d advise split-screen players to prep for combat ahead of big encounters, and not leave a teammate to fight solo mid firefight!”

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RIP Movie Pass: September Shut Down Date Announced

MoviePass announced that the subscription theater ticket service will be shutting down for good tomorrow, September 14, 2019. The announcement caps off months of speculation regarding the future of the service.

In a statement released today, Helios and Matheson Analytics announced that MoviePass will be shuttering on September 14 because “efforts to recapitalize MoviePass have not been successful to date.”

The company is exploring several options for MoviePass including selling the company “in its entirety, a sale of substantially all of the Company’s assets including MoviePass, Moviefone, and MoviePass Films,” and a reorganization of the business. Furthermore, any sale of MoviePass comes with “the assumption or settlement” of MoviePass’s liabilities. You can watch our video on MoviePass' demise below.

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