Ahead of its release next week, racing game Forza Horizon 3 is now available to pre-load on PC, Microsoft has announced. In a tweet, the Forza account also confirmed that “game-ready” drivers from Nvidia and AMD will be available today, September 21.
Here’s the tweet:
Pre-load is now available for #ForzaHorizon3 on Windows 10! Also, look for game-ready drivers coming from @NVIDIA and @AMDGaming tomorrow!
Forza Horizon 3 comes out on September 27 for PC and Xbox One. The Xbox One itself supports pre-loading, but it’s not immediately clear if this will be available for Forza Horizon 3.
“With Forza Horizon 3, Turn 10 and Playground Games affirm the series’ status as the driving game for everyone,” reviewer Miguel Concepcion said. “The new emphasis on off-road options isn’t at the expense of traditional races, thanks to the sheer volume of activities.”
The fourth season of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD has arrived. Picking up where Season 3 ended, the show jumped forward six months after the agents fought Grant Ward/Hive. If you missed the last season or need a refresher, you can check out our series recap here. SHIELD has gone through some big changes, and Daisy Johnson is on the run. The appearance of Ghost Rider won’t make life any easier for the agents.
Warning: Spoilers for season 4, episode 1 of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD,”The Ghost,” will be discussed below.
Daisy Johnson’s Gone Rogue
When we last saw Daisy, she was no longer with SHIELD but instead, a fugitive being pursued by Coulson and Mack. It turns out she’s destroying banks and other institutions funding the Watchdogs’ attack against Inhumans. She’s feeling guilt over falling under Hive’s control and the death of Lincoln. As a result, she’s pushing herself, her powers are increasing, but they’re also taking a toll on her body. She doesn’t want to have any attachments anymore and is focused on stopping the Watchdogs.
Big Changes at SHIELD
SHIELD has returned to being an officially sanctioned group. One of the big changes is a new director. Coulson is believed to be dead and can no longer perform the role. During the past six months, Coulson has been partnered with Mack in the pursuit of Daisy. Since she’s been able to elude them, it’s believed Coulson may be purposely allowing her to remain on the run.
Simmons has been given a promotion. She is now the Special Advisor to the Director in Science and Technology. Some of the others don’t fully trust the new director (who remains unseen in this episode). Simmons is required to take daily lie detector tests to prove her loyalty and this has put her on the outs with her former teammates. Simmons now has a higher clearance level than May, who is training agents to kick butt the way she does. Simmons does confess to May that she doesn’t trust the Director either, but she’s trying to keep them together and take advantage of the fact he trusts her.
Fitz Discovers Radcliffe’s LMD Project
Fitz goes to Radcliffe’s to watch a game. Simmons couldn’t make it due to being so busy. While Fitz is there, Aida, the Life Model Decoy seen in last season’s final episode, reveals herself. Fitz is freaking out over Radcliffe’s project because his pardon from working for Hive requires him to obtain approval before conducting any experiments. Radcliffe explains his idea for the LMDs is to use them to protect agents. He points out the deaths of Lincoln, Andrew, and Trip. He understands the dangers that could happen, as with Ultron. His LMDs aren’t meant to be weapons and don’t deal with artificial intelligence. They will be used as decoys when agents are out in the field. Fitz feels they shouldn’t tell the Director just yet because there’s no telling what he’d do. He wants to wait until Aida is perfect.
Ghost Rider Unleashes His Vengeance
Ghost Rider has been killing people. Daisy first sees the carnage when she was in pursuit of some men supplying weapons to the Watchdogs. She’s later able to talk to one of the survivors in the hospitals who tells her, “When the Rider burns you, he burns your soul.” She tries tracking down Ghost Rider to find out what his connection might be to the Watchdogs.
Daisy Fights Ghost Rider
Daisy asks around town, looking for parts for a Dodge Charger, the same car Ghost Rider drives. Her search takes her to Robbie Reyes. Reyes figures out her cover story doesn’t hold up and moves to attack her. When Daisy uses her quake powers, he assume there’s something dark about her as well. As they fight, he explains he only kills those that deserve it. When Daisy asks Reyes what makes him think he has the right to decide, he tells her, “I’m not the one who decides” and transforms into Ghost Rider.
Towards the end of their fight, Daisy tells Ghost Rider to go ahead and put an end to her. Ghost Rider looks at her and then leaves. This could be because there wasn’t any evil inside her.
Daisy later tracks down Reyes again and sees he has a younger brother in a wheelchair.
Thoughts
The season premiere delivers a pretty strong episode. Last season’s six month jump forward gives the show a bit of mystery. We get to catch up on what’s been going on while the story continues to move forward. With a new Director, the team has to adjust to the changes and figure out if he can be trusted.
Agents of SHIELD has a record of shaking things up each season. A new direction is taken, and this season is no different. There are some minor hints of the show taking a slightly darker or mature approach with the move to a new time slot. It’ll be interesting to see if this is something that continues further as the season continues.
The team may have their hands full trying to find Daisy and adjust to the changes made by the new director, but there’s more problems coming. It appears May may be infected by the weapon the Watchdogs were after. Fitz is forced to keep the LMD a secret from Simmons since she has to report everything to the Director. Coulson may be in hot water for making a trip to Los Angeles with Mack where Daisy once again evaded capture. With so much up in the air, the show is holding our attention and breaking new ground rather than simply giving us more of what we’ve already seen for the last three seasons.
In its third year, Destiny is finally trying to explore the myths that have pervaded its world since launch. The Rise of Iron expansion brings a new storyline with fantasy elements, more cooperative strikes, additional public events, an assortment of player vs. player offerings, and a new upcoming multiplayer raid. In short, Rise of Iron attempts to dig beneath the surface of Bungie’s post-apocalyptic world. As of this writing, though the expansion has yet to go very deep.
Rise of Iron explores the tale of the Iron Lords, the order of warriors that fought before the post-apocalyptic world devolved into Destiny as we know it now. The expansion draws heavy influences from Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings: wolves lie sprawled across the stone floors of Felwinter Peak, characters don pelts to cross snowy mountainsides, and ancient evils return from the past to wreak havoc on the present.
As a portmanteau of fantasy and science fiction, this setup is promising. But the writing doesn’t lend the premise any momentum. Characters are one-dimensional and the plot whisks by without conveying the weight of your missions. The Taken King, Destiny’s previous expansion, showed promise in the way it depicted the nuanced personalities of its lone warriors. After finishing Rise of Iron’s storyline, I feel as if Destiny has taken a narrative step back.
The actual questlines show a little more promise. Although missions frequently retread locales from Destiny’s first two years, and firefights can become repetitive, there are a few standouts–most notably, a skirmish that plays out in the shadows of massive anti-aircraft guns, and a boss fight that encourages melee combat throughout. Rise of Iron may exhibit the same signs of combat fatigue that have permeated Destiny since launch, but as of this writing, it has a few shining moments of stellar design.
The new cooperative strikes show the same paralysis between the past and future: one of the strikes is a rehashed version of one of Destiny’s earliest boss fights, and makes few attempts to hide it. The actual new strike, on the other hand, pits you against an ogre impervious to damage, forcing you to dodge his pummelling attacks while you eliminate his handler. The ogre is a constant threat that disrupts the objective, creating tension without becoming overly invasive. With its second major expansion, Destiny still knows how to craft a thrilling boss fight.
I have yet to spend more than two hours with Destiny’s new Supremacy mode and multiplayer maps, but from what I’ve played, there’s nothing novel here. The maps mostly comprise close-quarters hallways and catwalks of varying elevations. Supremacy also lacks inspiration: after killing an opponent, you don’t get full credit for the elimination until you collect the orb it leave behind–this mode has been done before in numerous other shooters, and while it rewards risky maneuvers and daring sprints into the open, it quickly feels rote.
As of now, the prevailing feeling is that I’m playing Rise of Iron just for the feeling of progress, and few genuine thrills. But my final opinion all hinges on the expansion’s late-game questlines and, of course, its six-person raid. I’ll be further increasing my light level over the next few days, completing more quests in the Rise of Iron lineup, and preparing for the raid–time will tell if the cooperative battle can mitigate my lukewarm response.
Yonois a game in the style of classic, top-down Legend of Zeldas, but also it stars an elephant. It’s got combat, puzzles, and treasure hunts, as well as “delicate cultural and political situations” among humans, zombies, and robots. It’ll be out on PC at… some point. Definitely worth keeping an eye on until then.
The new paid Death Star expansion for Star Wars Battlefront won’t significantly alter the game’s reputation as a fairly casual shooter designed for quick, chaotic fun. But it does add an interesting three-stage mode that culminates with the possible destruction of the Death Star. That new mode at least makes a session with the game feel more substantial.
“What do we do now?” Sony has finally released the first full trailer for the sci-fi movie Passengers, from a screenplay by Jon Spaihts, directed by Morten Tyldum (of The Imitation Game previously). The story is set far in the future entirely on a passenger ship carrying thousands of people to a colony on the other side of the galaxy. Chris Pratt stars as a mechanic whose sleep pod malfunctions, leaving him awake and alone and unable to last the 60 years left on the ship’s journey. The cast includes Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Sheen and Laurence Fishburne. This project has been in development for years and years, once with Keanu Reeves attached to star, and I’m glad we finally get to see it. From the footage in these first trailers below, the movie looks like it’s going to be wonderful. So glad it looks this good. Really can’t wait to see this. ›››
“Outside of these walls, there are no guarantees.” Another outstanding short film to watch. Dust is a sci-fi, fantasy short film produced by Ember Labs and directed by Mike Grier. We originally featured the teaser trailer for this short film way back in 2013, a year after it was on Kickstarter getting funding. Now it’s finally complete and it’s gorgeous, some of the best short film cinematography I’ve seen all year (by Michael Nie), with some incredible world-building and mythology to draw you deeper into the story. This was shot on location in remote areas of Japan with VFX added later. The film follows a tracker who takes a black-market merchant out into the wilderness to find the source of the “dust” that is poisoning the air. There’s all kinds of cool flora and fauna hidden throughout this, and the main character (named Irezumi) is awesome. Enjoy. ›››
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