LEGO Scooby-Doo Figures, Playsets on the Way
This year, Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby will finally be realized in LEGO form.
Slated for an August release, all five characters will have their own dedicated minifigures and a Mystery Machine van. Five playsets including a mummy museum and a haunted lighthouse will also be available.
In addition to the LEGO figures and playsets, Warner Bros. has also announced that Warner Bros. Animation is working on a 22-minute animated LEGO special featuring the Scooby-Doo characters. Made-for-video titles are also said to be coming in the next few years.
This deal between the entertainment and toy companies is likely behind a push to bring Scooby-Doo back by way of new live-action and animated movies. Having LEGO sets on hand featuring the characters could potentially help raise brand awareness and re-introduce Scooby into popular culture once again.
American Sniper Eliminates Mortdecai, Strange Magic
Clint Eastwood's Oscar-nominated American Sniper stayed the No. 1 movie at North American theaters this weekend, earning an estimated $64.4 million. It dropped only 28% since its record-breaking wide release last weekend.
With a domestic total so far of $200.1 million, American Sniper is on track to pass Saving Private Ryan as the highest-grossing war movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation) at the domestic box office.
Jennifer Lopez's stalker thriller The Boy Next Door enjoyed a solid second place debut of $15 million. The weekend's two other major new releases, however, both tanked.
Johnny Depp suffered his third box office bomb in a row with Mortdecai, which opened in 9th place with an estimated $4 million. (It should be noted, though, that Depp is appearing in a supporting role in the box office hit Into the Woods.) Mortdecai also flopped overseas with roughly $5.2 million; the David Koepp-directed caper reportedly cost $60 million.
Gotham: “Welcome Back, Jim Gordon” Photo Preview
Jim Gordon earned his job back, and he gets quite the interesting return to being a detective in "Welcome Back, Jim Gordon." When an important homicide witness ends up dead, Gordon has a hunch that it was an inside job. As in, inside the police department. Keep it classy, Gotham. Gordon turns to an old friend to get information.
Oswald Cobblepot continues to be a problem for Fish Mooney. He teaches her a lesson by taking control of one of her most prized possessions. See a photo preview in the below gallery.
Gotham: "Welcome Back, Jim Gordon" Photo Gallery:
Watch "Welcome Back, Jim Gordon" on Monday, January 26th, at 8:00pm ET/PT on Fox.
New Downloadable Character Revealed For Borderlands The Pre-Sequel
The third DLC pack for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel has been announced at PAX South 2015, and it features Sir Hamerlock's older sister, Aurelia.
Pretty much every character in the Borderlands universe has a colorful past, and Aurelia is no different. Read this snippet from the press release:
"Aurelia is the heir of the Hammerlock family fortune, but when she's not riding her hoverbike through the endless hallways of her orbital turbomansion, she's out hunting the latest and greatest game in the galaxy. If these expeditions should put her in conflict with her younger brother Alistair – aka Sir Hammerlock – all the better. The only thing more fun than shooting a rare animal Alistair intended to study is the look of abject horror and surprise on his face once Aurelia wears its carcass like a jaunty scarf."
Homeworld Is Still Great, and I’m Still Bad At It
I loved the original Homeworld, but I was never, how do you say, "good" at it. So you can imagine that when I sat down to play the Homeworld Remastered Collection, I was pretty scared of making a fool out of myself, given that over a decade has passed since I last played it, poorly, on the best gaming PC a broke college student could afford. Thankfully, the folks I was meeting with anticipated this, and had a map all set with a large fleet for me to bound-box, and send into the fray - and just like that, with a single right click, the fireworks began.
Homeworld's massive, three-dimensional space brawls were more or less the first of their kind, but very few games have recaptured that sense of scale. With this shiny new coat of paint, there are few, if any space-based RTS games that offer such a spectacle. Seeing the remastered version right next the classic version (which is also included in the Homeworld Remastered Collection) was beyond night-and-day different, to the extent that someone seeing Remastered for the first time would fully assume they were looking at a recently developed game.
Homeworld Remastered Collection is Coming Sooner Than You Think
Today at their big panel held at PAX South 2015, Gearbox announced the price and release details for their Homeworld Remastered Collection.
The package will include new versions of Homeworld and Homeworld 2, both of which have seen dramatic visual improvements over their original releases. Speaking of the originals, those are included in the package as well in case you feel like having the original experience without having to struggle to get it to play nice with modern computers.
For $34.99, you get both versions of both games, and access to the Homeworld Remastered multiplayer beta on Steam, which will begin on the game's launch day, February 25. We got a chance to play Homeworld Remastered at PAX South, so look for our first impressions shortly.
Next Killer Instinct Season 2 Character Teased
Killer Instinct Season 2's next character Golem has been revealed in a new gameplay trailer featuring the upcoming bonus character Omen.
Golem, seen at the 1:46 mark of the video, is a giant animated being, combining part stone and part metal, accented by plants and faces of statues.
Microsoft Studios Creative Director Adam Isgreen called the character Golem on Twitter. It is unclear if that is a codename or the final name.
The trailer also reveals Omen, who was unveiled earlier this month, will be available to Killer Instinct Season 2 Ultra Edition owners on January 30, and Combo Breaker Edition owners on February 5. He will not be available individually.
Bungie Won’t Repeat Mistakes With Destiny Expansions
Bungie has plans to take a different approach to Destiny’s loot reward system in the upcoming House of Wolves expansion.
Destiny developer Luke Smith says the studio will not repeat “mistakes we made with the DLC1 (The Dark Below) reward economy,” on NeoGAF today, in response to comments about House of Wolves’ potential reward system.
The studio has nothing official to announce, but Smith did list Vault of Glass vendor gear “invalidating” raid gear, resetting Exotic talents through upgrading, and the shard economy as mistakes the studio made.
Randy Pitchford Discusses The Chances of a Borderlands 1 Remaster
If enough people buy Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, we may see a similar new-gen remaster for the original Borderlands.
When asked about how Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and Borderlands 2 wound up being ported to PS4 and Xbox One, and whether Borderlands 1 would follow suit, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford initially responded by saying that he "...doesn't want to announce things anymore unless he knows for a fact they are going to happen." However, he went on to say that he "...loves Borderlands 1...it'd be awesome to get that on next-gen sometime. If the Handsome Collection is wildly successful, that increases the chances that that investment can be made." While this isn't a confirmation in any way, it sure is tempting to think about.
Revisiting the Golden Era of LucasArts
The image of a person skimming through the job section of their local newspaper to see who’s hiring is nothing new for people who grew up in the ‘80s or earlier. Before the internet went mainstream it was the way most people looked for work. And that’s exactly what Michael Levine was doing in early 1991, when he saw an ad looking for game testers at a local development studio. The game? Monkey Island 2. The developer? LucasArts.
A vintage LucasArts ad.