Julius

Yeah, I’m fairly confident that the plug has been pulled on these shows now because they’re being moved across to Disney’s own streaming service — this was always going to be the case. The wording in the Iron Fist cancellation statement is very telling, in my opinion: Whether it’s a third season or they end up appearing in something else, I have no doubt that Iron Fist and Luke Cage will be returning relatively soon. Loki and Scarlet Witch live-action series have also been rumoured to be coming to the platform for months now. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to hear that Daredevil is cancelled by Christmas at this rate, only for a number of (if not all) the leads in the currently Netflix-exclusive shows to make a very loud return at SDCC or D23 next summer.

So, David Hayter, Robin Atkin Downes and Kris Zimmerman have all been teasing something Metal Gear related on social media in recent days. It doesn’t seem like much, and I think it’s a bit far fetched to say for certain (apparently the last time something like this happened it was for a car advertisement...), but it will be the 20th Anniversary of Metal Gear Solid in North America tomorrow, and I could certainly see Konami wanting to cash-in on that in some way, whether immediately, or with a reveal at the TGAs as Downes seemed to imply could be the case. I’m not sure how I would feel about that considering that Kojima-san will more than likely be in attendance, so... It could be nothing. It could also be those FOX Engine remakes which everyone has been screaming out for — or, you know, a remake of MGS in particular. I suppose it could also even be a Metal Gear Solid VI, a piece of Metal Gear Solid V DLC to round things off, or another spin-off attempt. Or VR. Or some more pachinko machines — a Metal Gear Solid x Castlevania pachinko machine? Konami — just what the hell are you doing?

Always love hearing that George has seen the new films and visited some of the sets, but I believe (?) that this is the first time that a visit of his has been photographed. Definitely keeps me excited for The Mandalorian.

Absolutely. I think that the focus on practical effects/props above all else is probably the greatest focal point of Disney’s Star Wars, which was such a smart move. Without someone like George Lucas to spearhead technological innovation with regards to computer generated effects, they were always going to find it tough to compete with people like James Cameron in that regard, and it just matters less and less with every small step taken towards perfecting CG: the majority of films worked on by ILM look just as stunning as any other film besides, perhaps, Cameron’s Avatar, which I think is both a blessing and a curse. The original trilogy paved the way for ILM and CG to really come into its own and advance at an astronomical rate, and the prequel trilogy ushered in the age of digitally filmed movies and, at the time of their release, was the greatest showcase of what CG could do. This is a great middle ground: the CG in the sequel trilogy and spin-off films (for the most part) look as good as they could do, but the practical effects and props will remain timeless, as will shooting on-location. I suppose, in a way, this could future proof these films in a much more comprehensive manner than was the case for the prequels, and most likely the majority of other films which depend on these effects, too.

Bandai Namco has also been confirmed to be distributing the game, across several of the European markets, meaning that the distributors of the game across much of Europe and North America (WB) will be the same distributors as those for The Witcher 3 in 2015. From a few minutes of looking around for some old articles, it would seem that the distributors for the game were revealed roughly a year prior to the release of the game. I believe that I have previously mentioned the grant awarded to CDPR by the Polish government for their efforts with the game, but I don’t believe that I mentioned a key piece of information from the same grant (and if I did, well then I guess it’s worth repeating now in light of everything that’s happened this year anyway): the grant which they [CDPR] applied for stipulated that development goals of the projects applying for said grant must be completed by June 29th 2019.

Great write-up @Hero-of-Time! I actually picked this up last Tuesday after finishing Spider-Man, and I’m quickly closing in on 30 hours of gameplay (I’ve just completed the events in Phnom Nom, for anyone wondering), and I’ve actually been taking notes as I’ve gone along of my experience with the game. As my first Dragon Quest game, I’m having an absolute blast — and to hear that there’s the potential for another 50 hours (probably more for someone like me!) of gameplay excites me a lot! It’s just so charming and fun! I agree with many of the points that you raised - at least as much as I can at this point in the game - but the point that I agree with most, and want to talk a little bit about, certainly has to be your point about the music. As someone who has not played Dragon Quest before, I have to imagine that a few themes or musical nods have returned from previous games which I’m missing out on the nostalgia for, which I have to admit is a shame — this is my favourite thing to listen out for in franchises that I have a long history with, like Pokémon or Star Wars — but even then, the music has started to grate on me a little bit with how many times some of the themes are repeated, and for the most mundane things. Going into the game, as a big fan of music but by no means a music buff, I was worried much more about the actual quality of the music itself, what with everyone complaining about the audio quality of the MIDI soundtrack online. Whilst I love orchestral music, and think it adds a nuance which MIDI simply can’t offer, the music in this game sounds great (if a little loud at times), and many of the themes are great, but the repetition that comes with having a theme specifically for cities/“bustling towns”, for example, without any nuance added to distinguish cities musically...it’s probably the biggest letdown of the game for me so far (and this is me being somewhat picky at that). It could have been as simple as rearranging the piece at different tempos and location-related instruments to keep it fresh, and I think it’s only made worse by the fact that the evening theme for these places is in fact already a rearrangement of this particular piece at a lower tempo and with softer-sounding instruments.

I’m going to assume that you’re referring to the standard edition of the game? In which case, GAME seems to be offering the same pre-order bonus for this version of the game being offered by other retailers: I believe that the exclusive content which their advertisements were referring to were with reference to the Ultimate Edition and (Ultimate) Collector’s Edition Box (the Ultimate version of this is just the Collector’s Edition Box - which strangely does not include the game itself - bundled with the Ultimate Edition), for which they have exclusivity in UK retail. These also include the pre-order bonuses mentioned above. Special Edition — RRP: £74.99 Ultimate Edition — RRP: £89.99

Jon Favreau has posted two images from the set of The Mandalorian, the second of which shows off the titular character’s rifle in more detail...and it might look familiar to some here. In case you didn’t see it, this rifle actually originated from the Star Wars Holiday Special, in which it is wielded by Boba Fett: I was on board before, but now...even more so. This is the sort of callback to Legends/non-canon material which I’m a big fan of. I didn’t get a chance to see it actually. I’ll probably end up letting the episodes pile up a little bit before checking it out, a lesson learned from my early Rebels viewings; an episode or so per week just isn’t enough to get me hooked early on, because it’s simply not enough time for me to adjust to the new animation style. Very glad to hear you enjoyed it though @Ronnie, I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on it.

I haven’t posted my thoughts on the games yet (I had them completed by the end of August, and thoroughly enjoyed them), because I’ve been quite busy as of late, and so I’ve done quite a lot of reading/watching into the series’ production, history and plans, so I hope to give more comprehensive thoughts on the games in the near future. For now, though, and my reason for posting this, is that Eurogamer have released an article stating that a remake - not remaster - was indeed in the works by SEGA, but ended up getting cancelled. Digital Foundry shows comparisons between the HD rerelease and the cancelled remake that was in the works, and I have to say, it looks gooooood.

This thumbnail doesn’t exactly look PG... And neither does this one... The design has definitely grown on me, especially after seeing that first video — I don’t play GO myself anymore, but I do love watching the CG efforts that they put out to advertise the game.

I completed the final story mission on Sunday. I really, really enjoyed the game’s story — it’s not anything revolutionary, by any means, but it’s just a fun and smartly assembled Spider-Man story. I can’t wait to see what they could with a sequel on more capable hardware, and it’s a great way to kickstart the Marvel Video Game Universe. However, despite spending a lot of time on side content parallel to my enjoyment of the game’s story, I was still left with around fifty things to do after conpleting the final story mission on my map, many of which were the randomly occurring crimes. Whilst it offers me an excuse to pop in for an hour a day and just swing around completing crimes — which I’ll happily do, seeing as traversing Manhattan is so much fun — I do feel like the number of random crimes should either be much lower or instead be perpetually generated and only have five or so of each type required to 100%/Platinum the game. So, add that to my very small list of “complaints”, if you could call them that, about the game. I’m currently sitting at 97% completion with around thirty more crimes to bring to an end. Otherwise, I love it. I’ve got a few more games to catch up on from this year, but I’ll be surprised if this isn’t what I want to be GOTY at the TGAs. Oh, and I feel the music isn’t being mentioned as much as it should be - shades of the Spider-Man jingle, Danny Elfman’s main theme for the Raimi films, and even hints of the Avengers theme being in the game’s main theme alone is extremely hard to pull off, and I think is an indication of the hard work put into the pieces - so kudos to John Paesano for assembling a wonderful score to accompany the game.

Skybound is headed by Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead, and in fact it was them who gave Telltale the license, so it seems to be in good, stable hands now.

Gearnuke is reporting on a rumour that the PS5 will not only be backwards compatible with PS4 games, but with PS1, PS2, and PS3 games too. The recently updated patent which sparked these rumours is described as follows: I think that many of us will agree that Xbox’s backwards compatibility is one of only a few things that Xbox objectively has done better than PlayStation this generation with the Xbox One, so this would be huge. Though, is it me, or does the patent read more like a virtual console/Xbox One X visual enhancement type of thing?

Oh, sure, it could well be. I’m kind of just hedging my bets on it being Vanth, for a number of reasons, but it could be a wholly original character. There’s no denying that it looks worn, and seems a little odd that I believe that this is the first time we’ve seen a polished Mandalorian helmet. This image does appear to be on Tatooine, is set three years after ROTJ, and they mention the Fetts specifically - who aren’t actually Mandalorians - which to me implies the continuation of the lineage of their armour. Like I said, we know that the Fett armour and helmet were obtained by Cobb Vanth, on Tatooine, months after the events of ROTJ, and it would make sense, at least to me, that it could look different/have been repainted/polished in the time since ROTJ by a potential new owner. Do you mean Sabine? If so...I wouldn’t place much faith in those reports. It could totally be someone new and original, or someone (relatively minor) returning from an animated series. I just think that the idea of following Cobb Vanth, a slave-turned-sheriff wearing the armour of, and likely claiming to be, a Mandalorian, bringing law to Tatooine, seems like an extremely intriguing premise (at least to me). Plus, the potential for a confrontation with a returning Boba at some point in the show over the ownership of the armour seems too good an opportunity to miss. I’m all for an original character, but I think that Vanth is the most likely in the event that this is a returning character. Either way, there are a ton of possibilities. We’ll likely have a better picture of things when we get some more images/a trailer, but I feel just as excited for this as I do Episode IX right now. And, I have to say, between this and The Clone Wars returning, as well as likely having access to the films and animated series of Star Wars, the Disney streaming service seems to be shaping up well for Star Wars fans.

I think Renner is more than likely on his way out as Hawkeye - he’s seemed tired of the role since promoting Age of Ultron - so I expect this to be his last hurrah, and I would have to imagine that this will be RDJ’s swan song in the red and gold of Iron Man, too. But I could easily see the other half of the original six sticking around in some capacity. I’m more surprised by the fact that they’ve let Evans say what he said on Twitter in the first place - which I still think could be taken one of two ways - especially if this is going to be his last film as Cap. It could effectively kill a lot of the tension around the character’s fate in the same way that announcing contract renewals of major cast members months prior to Age of Ultron destroyed a lot of the tension going into that film, too.

Uh...depending on how you want to read this, Chris is either just immensely grateful, or immensely grateful and retiring from the role of Cap. We have known for some time that Avengers 4 was the last film that his current contract required him to fulfil the role for, and also that Chris has been talking about hanging up the shield for quite a while now.

It somehow gets worse.

I think I read similar, basically that the setup that they had for PS3 wasn’t designed for changes such as this and that if it wasn’t sorted then that would be the only solution, and the problem is that, because the PS4 setup is built on top of the pre-existing PS3 code, going back to an earlier point in the code (i.e. the PS3 user ID) and changing the username would have the ripple effect that a lot of stuff further down in the code could be lost as a result. However, I don’t see them offering that specific solution just because, as you say, it would be pretty much pointless. I have to imagine that they’ve figured out some sort of solution which isn’t going to tick many of their consumers off.