“Powerful, at times shocking, but also intensely human.” Kino Lorber has debuted the official US trailer for an award-winning documentary called Fire at Sea, or Fuocoammare, from Italy about the migrant crisis affecting Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The doc won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and has played at numerous other film festivals including Telluride, Toronto and New York (coming up). The film is set on an island off the coast of Italy called Lampedusa, one of the places many migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean by boat end up. Fire at Sea was also just selected by Italy as their official entry to the Academy Awards this year, a strong push for this doc to get even more attention. I recently had the chance to see it and wrote that it’s a “slow burn, but builds to a bonfire.” Highly recommended for doc fans. ›››
The question we should be asking isn’t where has director Paul Verhoeven been for the past decade. The question is where has this Verhoeven been all our lives? The director whose career skyrocketed with Total Recall and Basic Instinct hasn’t released a film since 2006’s Black Book, the Dutch filmmaker’s return to his homeland. We hoped whatever Verhoeven had in store for us next would be a return to the trashy good form with which the filmmaker had become known, and Elle, his latest, doesn’t disappoint. It isn’t what was expected, either, instead he gives us an eye-opening and wholly unique look at one woman’s attempt to connect with any man in her life: her son, her ex-husband, her mass-murderer father, or even her rapist. ›››
As part of its Outbreak Day sale, Naughty Dog has discounted the remastered version of its its acclaimed post-apocalyptic game The Last of Us by 50 percent for the week. You can grab the PlayStation 4 title for only $10 right now.
In addition, Remastered’s Tactical Weapons Bundle for multiplayer is marked down to $1.50 (from $3), while the Outbreak Day PS4 dynamic theme that normally goes for $3 is now completely free.
These are just a few of the offers available as part of the Outbreak Day sale. You can also save on Remastered multiplayer customization packs and more. Go to the PlayStation Store on your console or visit the store’s website here to see all of the offers.
The Outbreak Day sale runs for a week, ending on October 4 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET.
One of the most unique elements of FIFA 17 is its interesting-sounding campaign mode called The Journey, which follows a rising star’s…journey in the soccer world. Note that The Journey is not available for FIFA 17’s last-generation console versions.
You can see a roundup of review scores and editor opinions below. For even more on FIFA 17’s critical reception, head to GameSpot sister site Metacritic.
“The Journey is engaging enough that it’ll be interesting to see how it’s developed next year, but right now, it’s not the reason to buy FIFA 17. That remains a combination of still-excellent fundamental gameplay (on a par, at least, with Pro Evolution Soccer 2017‘s much-improved showing) and Ultimate Team, the game-above-the-game to which PES still has no serious answer. Put together with an improved Career mode and best-in-class presentation, and FIFA 17 is still out in front–even if its lead has been cut this year.” — Nathan Ditum [Full review]
ESPN FC
“With over two decades of practice at making FIFA games, it should be possible to match the game’s groundbreaking visuals with their gameplay equivalent. While those elements matter, the ability to play this endlessly until FIFA 18 releases next year surely matters more.” — James Tyler [Full review]
IGN — 8.4/10
“For all that FIFA promises something for every football fan, from the casual observer to the full-kit fanatic, I still find myself wishing that EA Sports would spend a little more time focusing on the basics. You could probably create the perfect football game by letting Konami handle everything on the pitch, with EA Sports responsible for everything off it. But FIFA plays well enough that the gains elsewhere–in terms of licensing, authenticity, and big-match atmosphere–more than compensate for those shortcomings. For my money, PES is still ahead where it counts most, but The Journey gives FIFA something unique and rewarding. If you can afford it, this year it might just be worth getting both.” — Chris Schilling [Full review]
Digital Spy — 4/5
“If you’re a FIFA 17 fan, go ahead and buy it–you won’t regret your purchase. Just be aware that, right now, EA’s game can’t match the standard of the new console footie king–PES 2017.” — Stuart Andrews [Full review]
Forbes — 8.9/10
“Aside from the missing customization, this is easily the best and most complete FIFA ever. There are other areas with minor issues, but nothing worthy of mentioning in the negatives section. Tightened gameplay, improved visuals and The Journey make this a monumental achievement in the series and it reestablishes the series as the King of the Pitch, yet again.” — Brian Mazique [Full review]
Game Informer — 8.75/10
“The Journey isn’t the be-all-end-all of FIFA 17. It’s a good start that adds to the game despite its flaws, while the title is anchored by the overall gameplay and other modes. Solving the riddle of how to blend player agency seamlessly with a well-crafted story remains a tantalizing prize, one that will pay off handsomely when attained.” — Matthew Kato [Full review]
The sequel to ’90s fantasy adventure Jumanji, starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, is currently shooting in Hawaii. New plot details for the movie have emerged, as well as the announcement of four new cast members.
Mashable writer Jeff Sneider has tweeted that the movie’s storyline is to center upon a quartet of high school kids who find themselves drawn into the Jumanji game while on detention. The adult actors, which also include Jack Black, are the game representations of the teens.
It has also been reported that the movie could feature a video game version of Jumanji, but there has been no confirmation of this from the studio or filmmakers.
Johnson himself took to Instagram to announce the names of the four youngest cast members. They are Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner, Ser’Darius Blain, and Alex Wolff. Singer-turned-actor Nick Jonas has also been confirmed in the cast.
Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows 10, is now installed on at least 400 million devices around the world, the company said, as reported by GameSpot sister site ZDNet. The figure, which is up from 350 million at the end of June, is accurate as of September 26.
It counts the number of “active devices,” so the figure may actually be even higher. An active device, according to Microsoft’s wording, is one that has been active in the past 28 days. The figure counts active devices across all Windows 10 devices, including PC, tablet, phone, Xbox One, and HoloLens.
News about a Nintendo 64 app for Xbox One emerged this week on Reddit. It apparently let you play games from the classic system, including Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64.
Now, as you might have imagined, the app has been removed, though people who have it installed can reportedly continue to use it.
As reported by Eurogamer, the app is called Win64e10. It was actually released over the weekend, according to people on Reddit, though buzz didn’t really build until days later. According to the site, the app, which cost the equivalent of £7.69, was “hidden on the marketplace as it had not received a Microsoft-approved release.” If you knew the app’s name, however, you could apparently find it.
Microsoft has now stepped in to pull down the app. People on Reddit report that it still works for those who have it installed, though it has some issues that future patches could have addressed. You can see a YouTube video of how the app works here.
An Xbox One update that came out this year for Xbox One introduced support for the Universal Windows Platform, which basically made it possible for Windows Store apps to run on Xbox One as well. As this example shows, Microsoft is likely to take action against apps of questionable nature, like this one.
GameSpot has contacted Microsoft in an attempt to get more details. We will update this post with anything we hear back.
While Batman actor Ben Affleck continues to work on Justice League, pre-production on the standalone Batman movie that he will direct and star in has begun. In the last few weeks test we’ve seen rogue “test” footage and casting news, and now Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes has hinted at when we might see the film.
As reported by Comicbook.com, Bewkes was speaking at an investor conference where he revealed that the movie was 18 months away. “The reboot of Batman with Ben Affleck was a big success,” he said, in reference to the positive reaction to Affleck’s portrayal of the character in this year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. “He’s going to be [executive producer] on Justice League and that’s helpful to that team.”
“Ben announced a Batman movie [that] he’s going to direct, star, write for. I think it’s a year and a half out. So, the strategy worked.”
It is unclear if Bewkes was referring to a release of the Batman movie in 18 months time, or whether that would be when production begins. However, given the DC schedule already has films lined up until 2020, it seems unlikely that the Batman movie would be released in 2018.
Deathstroke first appeared in a 1980 issue of The New Teen Titans, and the armored mercenary has gone on to appear in a wide variety of DC comics over the years. He is associated with Batman, and is a main adversary to the Green Arrow. On TV, he recently appeared in Season 2 of the CW show Arrow, played by Manu Bennett. He also featured prominently in last year’s Batman: Arkham Knight.
Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan has said the development team is looking at ways to improve Symmetra, a hero that has fallen out of favour among players. According to Kaplan, the light-bending support character is “one of [the] least-played heroes” due to her very situational applications.
Speaking to Business Insider, Kaplan said changes to the character are “definitely on our list, but I don’t think we’ll see a change go live until probably some time in November.” He went on to address the idea that Symmetra wasn’t being used very much by players.
“You know, Symmetra’s a really interesting hero to talk about,” he said. “She’s a hero who’s very situational and she actually gets played a fair bit, but she gets switched off of. What happens commonly is players will play her on defense on the first part of a point, and then when they’ve lost that point, then they’ll switch off of Symmetra. So, that definitely impacts her play time when you’re looking at the stats.”
The situational nature of Symmetra is something that Kaplan says is “not really desirable” to Blizzard, which is why the studio will be tweaking the character. He wasn’t ready to talk about the nature of the changes, however.
“I don’t have anything really specific to talk about right now, other than she is kind of an internal project right now,” he said. “She is a hero we’d like to make some changes to. I think those changes wouldn’t see the light of day until November, though, because we want to do a bunch of internal testing.
“It’s one thing when we do something [minor]–like, we have a change to Junkrat on the [Public Test Realm] where his Ultimate activates faster, but it’s a very incremental, safe change–whereas the type of changes we think need to happen to Symmetra require a lot more internal testing and discussion.”
In related news, Blizzard recently announced it is transitioning away from with the Battle.net name over the next few months. Services on its digital platform will continue as normal, however.
“Given that built-in multiplayer support is a well-understood concept and more of a normal expectation these days, there isn’t as much of a need to maintain a separate identity for what is essentially our networking technology,” it said.
Michel Ancel, creator of Beyond Good & Evil, has reignited speculation that a sequel is in development at Ubisoft. Ancel posted artwork on Instagram which features a male engineer-type character with a pig sitting on his shoulder.
Fans of the first Beyond Good & Evil have theorised that the pig could be a young version of Pey’j, the caretaker of protagonist Jade. It may also be an entirely new character belonging to the same Sus Sapiens species as Jade. As for the male, some fans believe he could be Jade’s father.
The image is accompanied by a caption that reads “Somewhere in system 4 … Thanks Ubisoft for making this possible!”
It’s unclear what “System 4” is a reference to as of yet.
The last time Ubisoft officially showed Beyond Good & Evil 2 was in 2009 and it was believed that the project had been cancelled.
“It’s difficult to say,” Guillemot said. “Michel is working on it, but he’s doing two games at the same time–he’s doing Wild at the same time. It’s coming along, but he has to spend more time on it, so we can see it faster.”
“It’s not only the desires that are important, it’s can our team come up with something that will be a revolution,” he said. “You don’t just want Beyond Good & Evil 2, you want a fantastic Beyond Good & Evil 2. You don’t want us to bring it back as something that isn’t perfect. That’s a challenge we’re facing; we have to come back with something crazy and something that will be great.”
