Monthly Archives: May 2015
Star Wars: How South Park Convinced Brad Bird to Turn Down Episode 7
Brad Bird is set to release his original sci-fi fable Tomorrowland on Friday May 22. But the creation of the film was almost stopped before it truly began when Bird was offered the directing gig on Star Wars: Episode VII. Rumor has it that he's in talks to helm a different Star Wars film - perhaps one of the anthology movies. When IGN asked which aspect of the universe Bird would be interested in taking on - Boba Fett, perhaps? - Bird quipped, "Can we go back in time and have several lifetimes to do every movie you've ever wanted to do?"
On a somewhat more serious note, Bird and Lindelof recalled the circumstances that led to Bird turning down Star Wars in favor of Tomorrowland, and how South Park's Cartman played a crucial role. You can see our chat on the topic in the video above, and their pitch for the most insanely awesome Sam Jackson post-credits scene ever here - or in the video below.
Wrestling Wrap Up: Kevin Owens Destroys John Cena
There are actually a bunch of rad things to type about this week, but I'll start with mothertwitchin' Stone Cold returning to the WWE Network for his live podcast video series.
That was a cool surprise. And one I'd like to think was brought about by the perpetual grumblings of fans over the webiverse. But who knows? Maybe Austin and the WWE never had a mini-beef to begin with. Obviously, Jericho's now hosting Tough Enough so he won't be able to do his video podcasts for a while, but it's also possible that WWE saw that they'd made a mistake and hit the reset button.
The Flash’s Season Finale Will Be “Catastrophic”
It was a long time coming, but The Flash’s Iris West finally found out about her best friend Barry Allen’s alter ego recently. With the season finale of The Flash airing Tuesday night, I spoke to Candice Patton about Iris now being in on the secret, what to expect from the finale and more.
IGN: So Iris knows! How great is it for her to know?
Patton: So relieved. I think the fans are relieved. I’m relieved, Iris is relieved. It’s just a good feeling because now we can kind of move on with that and see what Iris does with that information and kind of see her use whatever tools and knowledge she has to help the team, so to speak, so I’m happy for that to be done.
CryEngine3-built ARPG Umbra Has Been Greenlit
RPG Umbra has been Greenlit on Steam, and the game’s Kickstarter currently sits on over $115,000 in just five days.
For those yet to hear the name, Umbra is a hack ‘n’ slash open world RPG being built in the CryEngine3. One of the ways Umbra aims to differentiate itself from other APRGs is through its customisation options.
Players will be able to create their own house, complete with custom walls and floors, and add different types of furniture, some of which will let them display their most-treasured weapons and armour. In a similar vein, weapons will also allow for customisation. Hilts and blades can be changed and tweaked until you’re happy with your very own bringer of death.
‘Hide Eye Candy’ Option Added To League of Legends
Riot has recently added an option to enable players to hide "eye candy" in League of Legends.
The move is intended to simplify environments by removing background noise - "things like butterflies, dragonflies and the water wakes" - and, potentially, boost competitive performance.
"Recently we added an option to the Game tab in the menu called 'Hide Eye Candy'," said Riot's JeX yesterday on the official forums. "Some of our more competitive players requested the option to hide some of the less subtle movement on Summoner's Rift. We added the option to disable things
Apple Is Trying to Prevent Radioshack Selling Your Data
Apple has joined AT&T and other companies in order to attempt to stop Radioshack selling private customer information.
Electronics retailer Radioshack filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. Customer information was originally part of the first round of bankruptcy liquidation, but was withdrawn.
However, in April, Radioshack asked the court to authorise another round, including the data of up to 117 million customers.
Apple has said that Radioshack cannot include Apple customer data in the auction, and has joined in filing a motion to block the sale.
Pegg Says Original Star Trek 3 Script Was “Too Star Trek-y”
Simon Pegg has been talking about his work behind-the-scenes on the forthcoming Star Trek movie, explaining that his script-writing duty was to make the sequel “more inclusive.”
Pegg has co-written the movie with Doug Jung, but Roberto Orci, Patrick McKay and John D. Payne have all previously had stabs at the third film in the franchise.
“They had a script for Star Trek that wasn’t really working for them,” the actor told magazine Radio Times (via The Guardian). “I think the studio was worried that it might have been a little too Star Trek-y.
“Avengers Assemble, which is a pretty nerdy, comic-book, supposedly niche thing, made $1.5bn. Star Trek: Into Darkness made half a billion, which is still brilliant. But it means that, according to the studio, there’s still $1bn worth of box office that don’t go and see Star Trek. And they want to know why.”
Dragon Age and Metal Gear Lead Deals with Gold
Microsoft has announced the games discounted thanks to its Deals with Gold program from now until May 25.
On Xbox One, both Dragon Age: Inquisition and Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes are 50 percent off, while Unmechanical: Extended and Jet Car Stunts are 40 percent off. Finally, Dragon Ball: Xenoverse is 33 percent off.
On the Xbox 360 front there's a lot to choose from, but stand out offerings include the original Dragon Age games as well as earlier Metal Gear Solid titles.
The full list of games and their discounts is below.
Xbox One
- Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - 50%
Valve’s Virtual Reality Kit Teams Up With Razer
Valve has become the latest company to team up with Razer's Open Source Virtual Reality standard drive.
Razer's latest announcement said that Valve's OpenVR, along with MonoGame, VorpX, and the Unigine engine will all be supported by OSVR, bringing the total number of partners so far up to 118.
Razer's virtual reality headsets will be going up against OculusVR over the coming year. The OSVR hardware development kit is expected to ship in July.
Valve joins Ubisoft as another big gaming name behind OSVR, after the Assassin's Creed developer said it was looking to bring its franchises into virtual reality.
This is What Doom 4 Could Have Looked Like
Footage from Doom 4 before it was rebooted back in 2013 has surfaced online, revealing a rather different title to the one we glimpsed yesterday.
The video, which you can see below, was picked up by Doomworld and shows a rather dull, brown world populated by pretty generic characters.
“It wasn’t one thing,” id Software’s studio director, Tim Willits told IGN when we asked why the reboot happened. “It wasn’t like the art was bad, or the programming was bad. Every game has a soul. Every game has a spirit. When you played Rage, you got the spirit. And