Monthly Archives: May 2016
Orange Is the New Black: Season 4 Trailer Revealed
Netflix has pulled back the curtain on the first official trailer for Orange Is the New Black: Season 4.
Get a sneak peek at what lies ahead for Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) and the rest of the inmates of Litchfield Penitentiary in the clip below.
Orange Is the New Black: Season 4 makes its Netflix debut on Friday, June 17 at 12:01am. Earlier this year, Netflix and Lionsgate announced three additional seasons for the popular television drama, with Seasons 5, 6 and 7 arriving sometime in the years ahead.
Next Mass Effect: Andromeda News Coming at E3
Our next piece of news regarding Mass Effect: Andromeda will be coming at the EA Play event on June 12.
EA Play is essentially replacing EA's old press conference and booth at E3, and instead fans will be invited to play games at the free event from June 12 - 14.
Aaryn Flynn, general manager of Bioware, also confirmed we won't be seeing Mass Effect: Andromeda until early 2017, saying "we need the right amount of time to make sure we deliver everything the game can be and should be. This confirms what EA's CFO Blake Jorgensen already said back in March about a delay.
Raiders! Trailer Debut for the Hot Documentary
Feast your eyes on the new trailer for Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, the forthcoming documentary chronicling the story of the decades-spanning production of a shot-for-shot remake of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark by three childhood best friends.
After Raiders of the Lost Ark was released in 1981, three 11-year-old boys -- Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, and Jayson Lamb -- set out on what would become a 7-year-long labor of love and tribute to their favorite film: a faithful, shot-for-shot adaptation of the action adventure film. They finished every scene except one; the film's explosive airplane set-piece. Over two decades later, the trio reunited with the original cast members from their childhood in order to complete their masterpiece.
Halo 5’s Infection Mode Detailed
Halo 5: Guardians will receive its Memories of Reach update later this month, and with it 343 Industries is unveiling fan-favorite gameplay mode Infection.
Infection—which started as a fan-made multiplayer variant but eventually became a Halo staple—pits humans against zombies. For the humans to win, they've got to survive. For zombies to prevail, they've got to take out all the humans.
In an interview with Game Informer, community coordinator John Junyszek and multiplayer engineer Geoff Landskov discussed the ways Infection is different in Halo 5.
Kojima’s New Game Is for Fans of AAA Action
Hideo Kojima has given a few snippets of information about what his first game since leaving Konami will be.
In an interview with Famitsu, via Hachima with a translation from Siliconera, Kojima says "I won't say that it's an open-world title, but those that enjoy playing today's AAA titles such as The Division and Uncharted will be able to play it smoothly."
"When it gets announced, some may think that it's not as way-out as they had expected, but I'm sure they'll understand once they play it. The genre is action."
Uncharted 4 Soundtrack Available on Vinyl This Week
UPDATE: The Uncharted 4 vinyl soundtrack is now available for pre-order on iam8bit's store. Cover art for both the standard edition and limited Avery Coin Edition can be seen below:
20 Images of Totally Awesome Japanese Star Wars Toys
Japanese toy manufacturer Kotobukiya is known for its incredibly detailed, high-quality figures, and its Star Wars line is no exception. From main characters like Han, Luke, and Vader to every variation of Stormtrooper you’ve ever seen, Kotobukiya makes replicas from the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, and from The Force Awakens.
IGN recently visited Kotobukiya’s store in Akihabara in Tokyo, Japan and took photos of all of the incredible Star Wars merchandise on display.
You can swipe or click through the gallery above to see Kotobukiya’s impressive figure dioramas, plus its general Star Wars displays.
Galak-Z: The Void Review
Galak-Z is a game of tense moments and heavy decisions. Its first expansion The Void, to its detriment, is one long adrenaline rush from start to finish. Galak-Z's frenetic core mechanics are intact, but The Void has sacrificed much of what makes the game so great in the first place.
The Void's main focus is its score attack mode. It thrusts you into the titular abyss as you fight through familiar enemies such as space bugs, pirates, and mercenaries, all in the interest of increasing your standing in online leaderboards. There is no actual end--as long as you survive, you continue.
Galak-Z's Newtonian physics-based combat is still very much at play here. You can strafe, reverse, boost, and leap around groups of enemies within zero-gravity environments, and as is the case with the base game, these mechanics feel fantastic. There's a rough learning curve, but once you master your ship's weapons and thrusters--as well as its alternate mech form--the nuance of each skirmish creates an intricate kind of chaos. It combines tension and dynamism to form something exhilarating.
The expansion's arenas are much more confined than those of the original Galak-Z, which encourage exploration through the innards of asteroids and abandoned space vessels. The Void's new linear locales are bordered on either side by a torrent of purple energy that's damaging to the touch--they create a more cramped feeling, and another layer of danger in this already uninviting world. They increase the need for spatial awareness in more ways than one, however. Not only do you want to avoid them--you can push unsuspecting enemies into the flames along the way.
To further deviate from the base game's design, The Void offers a daily challenge with a specific set of ship upgrades and a preset level layout. By dictating which enhancements you'll have access to, and creating a level playing field for anyone attempting the mission, The Void lures you out of your comfort zone. One of these events focused on mech upgrades. As someone who usually focuses on ship combat, I felt more exposed, and more vulnerable, than ever before.
And Galak-Z's structure is its defining trait. While many modern roguelikes always return you to the beginning upon death, Galak-Z allows for checkpoints at the end of each "season." That is, if you complete five missions in a row, you complete that season and unlock the next one. But die before you finish that chain of victories and you'll lose everything except your ship's upgrade blueprints.
The Void delivers a fun new take on Galak-Z's formula, but relinquishes its exceptional structure.
The Void, on the other hand, fails to deliver the same thrills its base game does. It offers a fun new take on the Galak-Z formula, but relinquishes its exceptional structure, and the engaging risk/reward system it creates.
With the increased focus on score there's less of a compelling emphasis on survival. In its original form, Galak-Z isn't afraid to confront you with tough choices: should you venture off the beaten path in search of ship upgrades, or boost for the exit just to reach a checkpoint? Should you sneak by this group of enemies to maintain your health, or destroy them for currency, and increased survivability down the road? Galak-Z is exciting in the way it uses survival to drive its every aspect. The Void, though, is driven by leaderboard ranks.
Strategic long term thinking isn't completely absent in the expansion--more upgrades means better combat abilities in later chapters, and therefore, more points. But in basing The Void largely on score-chasing, it removes the weight of my decisions, which used to be the main thing between me and permanent defeat. I stop to consider my options much less frequently now.
Despite my complaints, it's hard to deny the sheer thrill of The Void: careening through space, leaping over a giant bug, and firing my last missile into a group of pirates before I speed toward the mission's evacuation point. The expansion may take a less engaging approach to survival, but it's still a frantic, intricate display of movement and reaction. The Void attempts to break ground of its own, and in some ways, it has. But the end result is weaker than the foundation it's built upon.
New Need for Speed Coming in 2017
Electronic Arts and Ghost will release a new Need for Speed game in 2017.
In an Under the Hood update on the Need for Speed blog, developer Ghost revealed the game alongside an announcement regarding updates to the 2015 game. Need for Speed's SpeedList update is now officially the game's last free content update for the game - it was released in November 2015.
Ghost will now use their time to "
upon the foundations that have been laid with Need for Speed." However, the developer won't be going quiet; Ghost intends to work with the community to get feedback on the new game's direction.
The Rock’s Jumanji Role Will Honor Robin Williams
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson says he thinks his role in Jumanji will make Robin Williams' family proud.
The Rock took to Instagram to say "You have my word, we will honor his name and the character of 'Alan Parrish' will stand alone and be forever immortalized in the world of Jumanji in an earnest and cool way."
He continues by saying the Jake Kasdan-directed Jumanji will be a "new re-imagining of this amazing story," and it will be going back to Chris Van Allsburg's original source material.
Johnson also recounted the tale of when he first met Robin Williams. "I also think Robin is somewhere lookin' down and laughing, remembering the first time we met backstage and I (for the first time ever) was a star struck bumbling idiot that couldn't even get my words out."