Julius

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.

StarWars.com has revealed the first image of the show: Looks like Tatooine to me, and what appears to be Boba’s gear polished/repainted/damaged (which I suppose gives further credence to this being Cobb Vanth, who I mentioned previously). We also have some more news on the behind-the-scenes work, and the director of the first episode will probably be familiar to anyone who has watched material outside of the films in the last decade: That’s right: Dave Filoni will finally get his chance at live-action direction for Star Wars, likely a stepping stone before he is eventually given the reins to a live-action film. Say what you might about some episodes of The Clone Wars and Rebels being a bit too directed at the younger audience, the fact remains that he was George Lucas’ one and only prodigy, and knows Star Wars - and how to tell a good Star Wars Story - as well as anyone. And then you see the list of the other directors for the show, and see the embarrassment of riches Lucasfilm have in tow. A bit odd that we don’t have a cast list yet, but we’ll likely see one prior to the end of the year.

Numerous development sources have informed Kotaku that they’re preparing for PSN name changes.

I’ll pop this into the Spider-Man thread too, but probably another great watch from Mark. I’ll finish the game first

So what you’re telling me is that we’re screwed if we’re red-green colourblind?

First details on Jon Favreau’s Disney GO live-action Star Wars series: Sounds like the spiritual successor to 1313, Underworld and the cancelled Boba Fett movie, and I am so onboard. The references to Boba and Jango specifically, whom are not considered Mandalorians in any official capacity canonically, are quite interesting, so I have to wonder if this story could centre around the slave-turned-sheriff of Freetown on Tatooine, who acquired their Sarlacc-damaged Mandalorian helmet and armour from some Jawas in a subplot of the canonical Aftermath trilogy of novels: Cobb Vanth. Interestingly, he also found a huttlet (likely related to Jabba), which was to be raised by the beastmaster we see mourning the loss of the Rancor in Return of the Jedi, Malakili. That’s just one distinct possibility of many for the show, which will take place three years after the events of Return of the Jedi. We don’t know much about the show thus far, but it is currently being filmed, so a cast list shouldn’t be too far away. I would expect a trailer by the end of April of next year, as Star Wars Celebration will return after its 2018 hiatus to shed some light on Episode IX, and possibly everything beyond that currently in the works, too.