Monthly Archives: February 2021
Destruction AllStars Review
With its bright energy, colorful characters, and wacky-powered cars, Destruction AllStars takes many of the aesthetic and mechanical trends from the last five years of multiplayer-focused live games and applies them to the long-dormant car combat genre. Speeding around beautifully detailed and cartoonishly articulated demolition derby courses, looking for your chance to rev your engine and hit another player so hard their ride explodes. When your own car inevitably gets busted up beyond recognition, you can hop out of your car and climb into another: A novel idea, but one that keeps you out of the action. Despite its striking visuals and solid driving fundamentals, Destruction AllStars' demolition derby-style car smashing is inconsistent and unpredictable. Every multiplayer game has highs and lows, but Destruction AllStars' best bits are few and fleeting.
You have one job to do in Destruction AllStars: Get into a car and crash it into other players. At the start of each match, 16 players start out on foot and race to grab one of a handful of empty cars, which come in many recognizable shapes like slick sports cars, burly SUVs, and tough trucks. Unlike in most car games, though, you are not tied to your car forever. You can eject from a vehicle at any time to trade for a new model or because the car's health is low and you don't want to wipe out.
Whether you crash or get crashed into, at least you're going to look good doing it. Destruction AllStars' large arenas are incredibly well-detailed and drenched in bright, colorful lights are a visual feast. The characters, from Fuego the masked-metal head to Ratu, a teal-haired boxer in an orange jumpsuit, are all drawn in a familiar Overwatch-esque style but have very specific looks that pop and draw you to them all the same. Even the little flourishes, like how a character jumps into an empty white car which instantaneously takes on their color scheme, look cool every time.
Continue Reading at GameSpotHearthstone Players Are Celebrating the Game’s WoW Classic-like Update
Tales from the Borderlands Going Back on Sale for the First Time Since 2019
For the first time since 2019, Telltale Games’ Tales From the Borderlands series is coming back to stores on February 17.
Borderlands series developer Gearbox announced the news Wednesday on the official Borderlands Twitter account.
Gearbox didn’t confirm which digital storefronts Tales would be returning to, but the game previously released on Steam. Borderlands 3 also ended up on both Steam and the Epic Games Store. Gearbox also didn't provide any pricing information. Tales From the Borderlands was one the many casualties of the now infamous shuttering of Telltale Games in 2018. After mass layoffs, many of the studio’s games were pulled from digital storefronts or, if they were in development (like The Wolf Among Us 2), canceled. Tales From the Borderlands actually managed to escape the first round of Steam removals, but both Valve and Good Old Games removed Tales from their platforms in mid-2019 for unexplained reasons. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2014/11/13/rewind-theater-tales-from-the-borderlands-trailer"]Tales from the Borderlands returns to storefronts February 17! Set between Borderlands 2 and 3, Tales from the Borderlands follows the stories of Rhys, a Hyperion suit, and Fiona, a con artist, on a quest borne of greed but destined for greatness. pic.twitter.com/6L1O5fTm0i
— Borderlands 3 (@Borderlands) February 10, 2021
Tales From the Borderlands originally released on November 25, 2014 to high praise for its comedic storytelling and classic Telltale strengths. Set after Borderlands 2, Tales follows the adventures of two Hyperion employees and a con artist hunting down a mythical vault, spurring numerous hilarious diversions along the way. It features voice acting from the likes of Troy Baker, Laura Bailey, Chris Hardwick, Ashley Johnson, and Patrick Warburton.
A number of Telltale’s pre-Walking Dead catalog remains unavailable on Steam, including Back to the Future and Game of Thrones.
[poilib element="accentDivider"] Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/bro for IGN.Buffy Actress Alleges Joss Whedon Abuse and Unprofessional Behavior, Supports Ray Fisher
— charisma carpenter (@AllCharisma) February 10, 2021She captioned the tweets with "#IStandWithRayFisher," as a show of public support for the Cyborg actor who has been battling Whedon in a months-long investigation after he alleged that the filmmaker was abusive on the set of the Justice League reshoots. In her statement, Carpenter directly addressed Fisher and the investigation, which she claimed to have participated in. "Recently, I participated in WarnerMedia's Justice League investigation because I believe Ray to be a person of integrity who is telling the truth," she wrote. "His firing as Cyborg in The Flash was the last straw for me. Although I am not shocked, I am deeply pained by it. It troubles and saddens me that in 2021 professionals STILL have to choose between whistleblowing in the workplace and job security." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/01/07/ray-fishers-cyborg-cameo-reportedly-written-out-of-the-flash-movie"] An earlier report stated that insiders with purported knowledge of the situation claimed that Cyborg had been written out of The Flash movie screenplay. It was understood that Fisher's role had been cut and that he would not be replaced by another actor in the upcoming DC movie — despite the character's inclusion in the long-gestating DCEU installment dating back to 2016. This came shortly after Fisher stated that he would no longer participate in any productions associated with DC Films president Walter Hamada. "Walter Hamada is the most dangerous kind of enabler," Fisher tweeted. "His lies, and WB PR's failed Sept. 4th hit-piece, sought to undermine the very real issues of the 'Justice League' investigation. I will not participate in any production associated with him." A week later, it was announced that Hamada had renewed his deal with DC, and would be continuing as president of the studio through to 2023. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=justice-league-snyder-cut-all-the-known-differences-from-the-theatrical-version&captions=true"] Fisher's Cyborg/Victor Stone character may not be appearing in The Flash but he will be back for Zack Snyder's Justice League, which will be debuting on HBO Max in March. Snyder's R-rated cut is said to feature over 150 minutes of unseen footage, and won't be using a "single frame" from Whedon's theatrical version of the movie. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.
Humans Could Live on a Floating Asteroid Belt In Space, Astrophysicist Says
Humans colonizing the asteroid belt might sound like sci-fi – The Expanse, to be exact – but Pekka Janhunen, an astrophysicist with the Finnish Meteorological Institute, wants to make it a reality. He recently published a paper theorizing about the feasibility of a “megasatellite” settlement, tethering together tens of millions of square miles of habitats, high in the orbit of dwarf planet, Ceres.
Located hundreds of millions of miles from Earth, Ceres is found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Even powerful telescopes have difficulty getting a clear image of its surface. Janhunen envisions using its resources to build rotating habitats that generate artificial gravity by completing a full rotation every 66 seconds. A 636-mile elevator cable would help bring supplies from Ceres to the settlements.
“Ceres has nitrogen for making the habitat atmospheres, and it is large enough to provide almost unlimited resources,” Janhunen told Universe Today. Each habitat would be similar to the population density of the Netherlands (around 13,000 people per square mile), with the 56,700 residents getting around 21,500 square feet of space, each.
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The habitat would have both rural and urban spaces. Strategically aimed mirrors would help provide sunlight, though the urban areas would be artificially lit and windowless. In addition to a way to shield inhabitants from radiation, these floating worlds would need oxygen.
Janhunen told LiveScience construction could begin within 15 years, and it would take another 22 years on top of that to actually build the elevator, power system, and habitats. It would be an enormous undertaking, and Florida Institute of Technology astrobiologist Manasvi Lingam foresees a few potential issues with Janhunen’s timeline.
"The first is a question of other essential elements, other than nitrogen,” Lingam told LiveScience. It’s not clear how inhabitants would get something like phosphorus, for example.
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The 22-year estimate also assumes the operation runs smoothly, something even Janhunen isn’t sure about. “It is likely, of course, that the actual bootstrapping timescale would be longer, or much longer, and instead of physics, it would be driven by technological delays and the logistics of transporting the inhabitants from Earth,” he wrote in the paper. Another potential issue for the habitats are asteroids, though Janhunen thinks it would be easy enough to move the habitat out of its path or evacuate residents to safety.
In 2015, the Dawn space probe orbited around the protoplanet, gathering most of the information we have on its topography. Dawn’s images were illuminating, but much about Ceres is still unknown. A recent Astronomy article about the dwarf planet is full of words like "mystery, hints," and is unclear. The first residents would have a lot to learn before starting construction in its orbit.
For more on space news, read the details of how possible signs of life on Venus were detected back in 1978, and that scientists claim they found evidence of a parallel universe where time runs backward. Studies also recently found the Moon is rusting, and it may be Earth's fault.
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Jenny McGrath is a science writer for IGN. She never tweets, but here she is @JennyMcGeez.
HBO Max Announces New Adult Animated Shows, Including a Velma Dinkley Origin Story
Netflix to Adapt Redwall Books Into Animated Movies and TV Series
PS5 DualSense Controller Drift: US Law Firm Investigating Class Action Suit
Sonic the Hedgehog Movie Sequel Name and Release Date Announced
That's as much confirmation as you could need that Tails will star in the sequel, if the events of the original film hadn't already convinced you. As for other characters, current rumours suggest Knuckles This story is breaking...Groundbreaking. Thought provoking. Extremely obvious. Presenting the official title of the #SonicMovie sequel: Sonic the Hedgehog 2! Catch #SonicMovie2 in theatres in 2022. pic.twitter.com/SlVk7fakp3
— Sonic the Hedgehog (@SonicMovie) February 10, 2021