Power/Rangers Producer’s James Bond Fan Film

Adi Shankar, the creator of the gritty Power Rangers bootleg, has just released his take on James Bond.

The movie, titled In Service of Nothing, stars Christopher Gee, Fryda Wolf, Damien Haas, Gregory Hardigan and Rachel Kimsey.

“I always wondered what would happen to James Bond in his old age and in our borderless world,” says Shankar. “I'm not referring to the Bond we've seen in recent films, that incarnation is closer to Jason Bourne meets Batman. I'm referring to the swanky, alcoholic, serial killer, with mommy issues that we saw in films like Dr. No and Goldfinger. How would he find a sense of purpose in a self-absorbed and impersonal modern world once his license to kill has been revoked?”

Continue reading…

Nintendo Explains Why Re-Releasing Amiibo is Hard

Nintendo of Japan has announced it's working on re-releasing three Amiibo soon, explaining why resupplying retailers takes so long in the process.

A note of the company's website (via NeoGAF) explains new shipments of Villager, Little Mac and Captain Falcon will be coming to Japan in mid-May. There's no word on whether other regions will get similar treatment.

As for why the company has struggled to keep up with demand, the post explains it takes several months for Amiibo to reach stores once production has begun as it's a rather complex process, with several of the models being done by hand.

Continue reading…

Dragon Age: Inquisition Patch Adds Party Storage

BioWare has released the full set of patch notes for Dragon Age: Inquisition's next update.

A blog post reveals the full list of additions, the most notable of which is the addition of Party Storage. At long last you'll be able to store weapons and armor for your party members without cluttering up your inventory space.

A PC-only note also explains the option to toggle mouse look has been added, but may experience odd behavior occasionally. It'll be tweaked in future patches.

The full list of patch notes is below:

  • Fixed an issue that allowed characters to take damage while using the Counterstrike ability.
  • Continue reading…

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns Refines, Not Reinvents

As a lapsed Guild Wars 2 player, the recent news about the Heart of Thorns expansion inspired me to return to Tyria and see what’s been happening in the months that I’ve been absent. Pleasingly, the MMO has come on in leaps and bounds since launch and is now in the enviable position of thriving as a buy-to-play MMO with a legion of devoted fans. Which is why I’m cautiously optimistic about coming away from my time with Heart of Thorns feeling it does a hell of a lot right that’ll make fans happy, though it’s unclear if it’ll be enough to sway the uninitiated.

Continue reading…

Marvel’s Cinematic Universe: 7 Inhumans We Want

Warning: this article contains spoilers for Marvel's Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D. up until the first half of Season 2.

If you've been watching Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D. this season, you know that the show has been setting the stage for the Inhumans in a big way. These secret beings, hiding among humanity and gifted with the ability to gain superhuman powers, are starting to emerge in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even Skye has discovered that she numbers among this ancient race.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Watch Out for Skye's Inhuman Powers

Continue reading…

Resident Evil: Revelations 2 – Episode Two Review

Resident Evil: Revelations 2 sets you down the same path at two different points in time, playing as iconic characters Barry Burton and Claire Redfield. In the first episode, Claire is stuck on an island that's under the control of a devious overseer, who subjected her and her companion, Barry's daughter Moira, to a veritable gauntlet of violent and deformed monstrosities as they tried to make their escape. Barry arrived six months later, hoping to rescue his daughter, and when he landed ashore, he befriended a mysterious girl named Natalia who can see enemies through walls, making her a very useful companion indeed. Even though you ran through the same locations twice, once as each party, different weapons, enemy types and companion abilities were enough to stave off repetitiveness, even if the latter wasn't always used creatively at all times.

Episode One ended with a compelling cliffhanger that introduced a pivotal plot point, and while it's not surprising that it doesn't come full circle by the time Episode 2 ends, it would have been nice to have a little more narrative to chew on as you near the halfway mark in the overall story. In total, there's very little new information revealed until Episode 2's own cliffhanger, which reinvigorates your interest in the events at hand, but also leaves you in the dark, with unanswered questions luring you back for Episode Three.

Get off my roof!

At least the action picks up some of the slack. Claire and Moira kick off the latest episode in a rundown village, where they encounter a pair of other people from TerraSave, Claire and Moira's employer. Unfortunately, the new characters you meet offer more poorly-written and -acted dialogue, much like Moira did in Episode One, but at least she's less abrasive this time around. With their help, you attempt to eradicate the once-active logging village of its afflicted vermin, an act that ends with you in a cabin as enemies burst through windows on every side. It's one of two peaks during Claire and Moira's chapter that gets your adrenaline flowing.

After escaping the village, you emerge in a rundown city, with derelict busses and violent dogs patrolling rusty playgrounds. In the middle, a tower stands tall. It juts from the city's foundation, dominating the skyline, and on top, a pulsing, ominous red light beckons you to enter. The number of stories between the ground level and the top inspires fear; you're a long way from the top, and it can only get worse as you close in on the den of your manipulator.

There's always a switch. There's always a girl. There's always a door.

Revelations' puzzles, if you can really call them that, are standard fare. The challenge is often survival during the act of resolving the roadblock, rather than the process of coming up with the solution.

As you move through its halls, puzzles with switches and doors stand in your way, per usual, but after Episode One, you know the drill at this point. Revelations' puzzles, if you can really call them that, are standard fare. The challenge is often survival during the act of resolving the roadblock, rather than the process of coming up with the solution.

This is most evident when playing as Barry and Natalia, when the game introduces invisible monsters that only Natalia can see. They appear to her as orange or red clouds, depending on how close they are, but Barry sees nothing except screen-wide waves of luminance and color that disrupt his, and your, vision. Simply skirting past these enemies isn't an option; you die the moment you make physical contact with one. To overcome them, you have to use Natalia to figure out the general location of the enemy, and you have to switch to Barry to kill them, which is easier said than done when you're firing blind. The interplay of their two skills is valuable here, but it also comes across as forced, standing between you and the rest of the game.

Natalia and Barry must separate in order to make it past a door that stays open for a limited amount of time, for instance, with one person manning the switch while the other physically prevents the door from closing. You initially clear the area while fighting side by side, going through the motions of looking through Natalia's eyes and then Barry's to take down invisible monsters. Once the coast is clear, you both go your separate ways for a moment, but you ultimately need to reunite when another invisible monster appears between Barry and Natalia. Natalia can't sneak past it or defeat it; she can only see it. Barry must come to the rescue, but with each character on a different side of the monster, you practically have to triangulate its position as you fire blindly. The fact that it's invisible and will always kill you in one hit makes the experience frustrating, as you have to redo the previous steps of killing the other invisible monsters and fixing the door before you get to try that part again.

Where Barry and Natalia stole the show during the last episode, the best moments of Episode Two come from Claire's side of the story, because Barry and Natalia don't really accomplish a lot this time around. Other than the aforementioned cabin scene, the boss that Claire and Moira fight after entering the tower is one of episode two's other highlights. He's a large, cannon-wielding foe, and he's also got a team watching his back. Go big or go home: this battle is easiest won by fighting fire with fire. Fire bombs and other expendables may or may not have been useful to you in tense situations before, but you better pray that you have enough left here, because without them, it's going to be a long and arduous fight. Part of what makes this exciting is that you are probably fighting on your last legs, ammo-wise, but the boss itself is also smarter and more threatening than other enemies you've fought so far, and you have to be proactive rather than reactive to come out on top. It's a great conclusion to Claire's time in the spotlight, but it leaves a lot for Barry's story to live up to.

I felt a great disturbance in the force.

Sadly, it doesn't, and it's disappointing to see that, once again, only one half of this week's episode is praise-worthy. Claire and Moira face tense situations, and when you come upon a new environment, you're seeing it for the first time, but once you take control of Barry, you're essentially going through the motions in the same environments that Claire did until you encounter the invisible enemies, which are more frustrating than anything else. The concept of an invisible enemy is interesting, but the fact that it also kills you in one hit makes its purpose so transparent that you loathe it, rather than appreciate the opportunity it presents. Were it not for Claire's chapter, it wouldn't be hard to sit out the rest of Resident Evil: Revelations 2, but the memory of the good times, and the latest cliffhanger, ultimately stick with you when the credits roll.

Gone Home ‘Not Actively in Development’ for Consoles

Gone Home, first-person conceptual simulation game from The Fullbright Company, is not actively in development for consoles.

Game designer Steve Gaynor explained on Colin & Greg Live today that the partnership with Midnight City has gone dark, possibly due financial troubles of the indie publisher’s parent company Majesco.

“And, unfortunately, we don’t have exciting, good news about that, I wish I did,” Gaynor said during the Kinda Funny Games livestream. “Yeah, it’s been quite a while, and as you kind of sensed, there’s been some delays and maybe you have seen some things that have changed with Majesco.

Continue reading…

Orphan Black: Season 3 Trailer

Tatiana Maslany has amazed audiences and critics for two seasons in Orphan Black, playing Sarah, Cosima, Alison, Helena and many more clones from Project Leda. But in Season 3, the clone world is getting even more crowded, now that we know a male strain exists, Project Castor, played by Ari Millen.

Check out the new trailer for Season 3 above, as we learn more about what's to come.

Orphan Black: Season 3 premieres Saturday, April 18, 9:00pm ET on BBC America.

Helldivers Review

Helldivers won't be remembered for its narrative, nor will it be praised for intriguing mission design. No, these elements of the game are merely average pieces of a backdrop in a theater enacting thrilling performances destined to be endlessly retold among friends and fellow helldivers--and many of those tales are the kind that begin with "Hey, do you remember that one time?" Among these stories, the best ones told by veteran helldivers are of the edge-of-your-seat moments that culminate in cries of jubilance and relief as you and your allies watch your space-faring drop ship fly to safety just in the nick of time. But just as indelible are the tales that end with howls of disappointment (or, sometimes, laughter) as the last remaining member of the team crumbles against the odds and is finally overtaken. There are undoubtedly some blemishes in Helldivers' armor, but inside that armor you'll find a story creator, helping you craft fond memories to be retold for years to come.

Indeed, the stories you create will be ones that will stick with you long after you hang up your uniform, as the plot in Helldivers is one quickly lost to the recesses of space. A multiplayer twin-stick shooter, Helldivers sends you and your fellow caped soldiers to march across the galaxy, delivering "managed democracy," all for the glory of Super Earth. You fight an interstellar war against three other races: the grotesque bugs; the technologically advanced illuminati, and the cyborgs, humans who grafted flesh to metal after separating from the regime--all of whom the government has decreed the enemies of freedom for some reason or other.

The game draws its theme from current history and popular fiction such as Starship Troopers, with the latter inspiring the game's light-hearted, corny propaganda. There are also some thinly veiled references to real-world issues. The Super Earth government labels cyborgs, who reportedly attack with suicide bombers, as terrorists, all the while justifying war in the name of protecting democracy and "our way of life," as well as collecting necessary resources such as, you guessed it, oil deposits (sometimes the veil is so thin as to be nonexistent). But Helldivers isn't attempting to be the next Spec Ops: The Line. It uses tongue-in-cheek humor throughout, and a delicate touch with its weighty themes.

Helldivers is tug of war on a cosmic scale. You and your fellow helldivers fight together against the three computer-controlled species, who reciprocate by pushing toward Super Earth. It's a persistent online universe, in which battles are won and lost even if you don't partake in them. The war theater, viewed from a console on the deck of your ship, is split into three large sections that are then broken into smaller sectors, any of which are claimable after you gather enough community points. These points are earned by completing missions on the many procedurally created planets nestled within. Once all the smaller sectors are claimed, you can begin the real battle, on the alien homeworld. During my time with the game, we were able to take the fight to the bug planet, which invoked some fond memories of a certain sci-fi adventure romp. Hopes were high, but to say the planet was a tough nut to crack would be an understatement--we got completely whupped. The desert world was too much for our handful of helldivers, but perhaps the story will be different post launch. Ultimately, complete conquest of the three planets is the goal, and once achieved, the game starts anew. The home world fights are not the only special events, however. On occasion, helldivers are called to safeguard a city under siege, and cleansing the infestation results in a double dose of experience points. Also, if an enemy species manages to breach Super Earth's defenses, all players rally to its defense.

The humdrum missions, sadly, do put a damper on the engaging design of Helldivers' war front. Planets are won by completing objectives, which don't stretch far beyond the typical, such as capturing and holding an area, activating some device or another, or the always popular escort mission. Odds are you will be too occupied dealing with oncoming waves of enemies to notice boredom seeping in, but after hours of slowly dragging a briefcase or yet another hapless group of stranded civilians across a stretch of terrain, it's difficult not to feel a sense of slowly mounting frustration at the tedium. Completing missions offers a variety of awards, at least. Experience points, in an amount that varies depending on your performance, are showered upon you at the end of each stage. Leveling up unlocks new weapons and gear to be used in your campaign, though I would have preferred for the game to denote which piece of equipment unlocks at what level, rather than being occasionally surprised.

Helldivers' one-two punch of deep strategy complementing intense cooperative combat, however, is fantastic. It is so good, in fact, that it often overshadows much of the dreariness arising from the dull missions. It is incredibly satisfying to play on a team of up to four helldivers, all relying on each other to survive while executing carefully planned strategies involving perks and equipment. Playing the game solo is possible and provides its own set of challenges, but it just doesn't offer the same experience. Choosing a planet, the squad leader picks where the group of guerilla fighters will make its landing. On the ground, the team then decides what pieces of equipment, called stratagems, to call down, and what objectives to tackle first. Equipment varies, and includes options ranging from a UAV, which pinpoints threats on the map, to gun turrets, ammunition boxes, heavy guns, and much more. New stratagems are unlocked when battles on certain planets are completed, with more equipment being offered as a reward. The enemies you face also affect your game plan: Bugs are plated in thick carapace, and charge at you brandishing massive claws; cyborgs are often strapped in bullet-deflecting armor, forcing you to carefully line your shots up with any exposed fleshy bits; and the illuminati attack with high-tech war machines, mind control, and snipers that can kill with one hit.

The stories you create will be ones that will stick with you long after you hang up your uniform, as the plot in Helldivers is one quickly lost to the recesses of space.

The combat itself unfolds organically as you make your way from objective to objective. If your landing is free of immediate hostiles, you can attempt to move through the area with stealth and haste, quickly eliminating any scouting party before scouts manage to raise an alarm. It's entirely possible to complete a mission leaving only the corpses of unwitting foes in your wake, but more often than not, you will end up hammering down your trigger as enraged forces rush to meet you. The weapons, which include a disparate array of rifles, shotguns, and beam cannons, dish out white-hot metal or plasma in gratifying thunder. Bullets rip through flesh, leaving smatterings of blood and piles of viscera in their wake. Effortlessly smooth controls make the gunplay feel terrific throughout every fight.

Helldivers is easy to jump into, depending on your familiarity with twin-stick shooters, but even if you're used to the style, you will find that the game has many factors for you to keep in mind the moment your boots touch terra firma. Chief among them is the immense difficulty, which requires all players to be at the height of their game, as one mistake can spell immediate disaster. As you travel around, research samples that dot maps must be collected in order to earn points to use to upgrade weapons and stratagems. Friendly fire is another item of concern, as it is always on and cannot be disabled, so practice keen trigger discipline. Ammo conservation is an equally high priority, as reloading will discard any unused rounds in a clip.

Death is no stranger in Helldivers, and despite your glorious, flowing cape, you are not superhuman. The game demands a sharp eye and a clever wit; otherwise, you will go down fast. And, take it from someone who knows, if your fallback procedure keeps circling back to running away as quickly as possible, then maybe it's time to rethink the battle plan. Falling in combat is hardly the end of the game, however, as you can call down a reinforcement stratagem to bring a lost comrade back onto the battlefield. But do keep an eye on where the pod (actually, any stratagem, come to think of it) is about to land. Far too many helldivers have lost their lives being crushed beneath incoming ordnance, which doesn't solve any problems whatsoever.

Beyond mission design and story, Helldivers has other issues, though some are negligible. For example, you can customize the look of your helldiver, as well as unlock new clothing designs as you go along, but the options only change from dark to not-so-dark. Since the camera floats off at a distance, it's easy to confuse one dark-armored soldier with another, often resulting in someone foolishly falling off a ledge or firing a weapon into an unrecognized ally. A friend I was playing with also mentioned that the game wasn't tracking his progress when he was playing in my lobby. This is a minor issue; one that I've been informed may be patched by the time the game releases. On the more nitpicky side: What is with the wind on some planets? More than once, during rare moments of silence, I watched as shadows of clouds moved northwest, while dust on the ground flowed to the west, and a small handful of particles lazily floated east. All the while my cape drooped, apathetic to the elements. But on the subject of capes, it's oddly amusing to spin in place and watch your cape flow in response to the motion. And I know I'm not the only one to feel this way. Before nearly every mission, I watched as so-called hardened fighters twirled on the deck of a battleship; joining the impromptu dances is almost irresistible.

The game draws its theme from current history and popular fiction such as Starship Troopers, with the latter inspiring the game's light-hearted, corny propaganda.

Helldivers is a hugely entertaining space romp, despite bearing a few battle scars. It is truly a game designed for precious water cooler moments, when you can tell stories of fights barely won, and anecdotes detailing white-knuckle flights from insatiable hordes. The deafening cheers heard through my microphone as the last living member of the team squashed a bug tank with three reinforcement pods, turning the tide back toward victory, is forever etched in my mind. Imperfect as it may be, Helldivers' focus on the cooperation of a small team looking out for each other against oppressive waves of enemies elevates it from what would have been a fun and challenging shooter, to a game that now sits at the top of my list of how I plan to spend many future evenings: with a gun in hand, my allies at my back, and a broad smile on my face.