“How much trouble can one poet be?” Ah, you’re about to find out of course. Strand Releasing has debuted a wonderful official US trailer for their upcoming release of Andy Goddard’s Set Fire to the Stars, a black & white drama set in the 1950s starring Elijah Wood as an aspiring poet who ends up on a week-long retreat to save his hell raising hero, Dylan Thomas, played by actor/co-writer Celyn Jones. These two look like so much fun playing against each other, and I am excited to see their dynamic play out across the entire film. This first premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival last summer, playing at a few other fests here and there, waiting for its release in the US until now. Might be worth the wait? “It’s about feelings, sir…” Check it out. ›››
“If you have any needs in the sci-fi category…” This is crazy cool! Disney has launched a pop up shop on Amazon.com promote Tomorrowland, and they’re selling lots of cool sci-fi toys and goodies. To promote the store they made a fun little viral video for the Blast from the Past Super Store, and it stars Keegan-Michael Key as one of the clerks, talking about all the cool stuff they have. There’s a shot of the Iron Giant Mondo figure (nice reference to Brad Bird), and a few other gems. At the end the video flashes a URL which links to an Amazon store where you can buy Tomorrowland swag and lots of other stuff. Does it also exist as an actual store in Hollywood, too? Follow @BlastFromPast for more updates. And see the video just below. ›››
Every Generation Needs a Voice. Universal has debuted the first full trailer for Jem and the Holograms, a big live-action spectacle based on the super cheesy 80’s animated TV show of the same name (if you’ve never heard of it before, give it a look, it’s 80s-tastic). The plot is simple: music executive, Jerrica Benton, lives a secret, adventurous life as a glamorous rock star named Jem. Newcomer Aubrey Peeples plays Jerrica, along with Stefanie Scott, Aurora Perrineau, Hayley Kiyoko as her three sisters. This trailer is cut mainly for the Pitch Perfect crowd, as that’s what this trailer is attached to, but it looks like it might have some potential. Not sure if this is your thing? Take 2 minutes to find out, just don’t forget to have fun. ›››
Hunt or Be Hunted. Aw, the poor bear! Did anyone know that a movie called Into the Grizzly Maze was being made with a cast like this? This new trailer put out by Open Road for Into the Grizzly Maze looks no better than your standard B-movie that barely makes a DVD release, however check out this cast: Billy Bob Thornton, James Marsden, Piper Perabo, Scott Glenn, Adam Beach & Thomas Jane. Essentially it’s a horror thriller action B-movie about a “killer” grizzly bear that preys on loggers and the fine folk who come to investigate. There isn’t a single shot in this it that looks good, none of it looks good, but here it is. ›››
To the future we go! As always, we love it when the kind folks at Poster Posse release another new series of custom curated artwork for an upcoming movie, and this time they chose to highlight Tomorrowland from director Brad Bird, starring George Clooney & Britt Robertson. This new set features some wild poster art that hints at the inspiration of Walt Disney, to the more simple look at the “Tomorrowland” city in the movie. Earlier this week we posted a look at the new Tomorrowland Mondo poster by Kevin Tong, also showing the futuristic Tomorrowland from in the movie. I want to go there. I love the poster within a poster, the second one down seen below by Simon Delart, so good. Only a few more weeks until this is in theaters! ›››
Ubisoft may hold a beta for its upcoming online shooter The Division, according to comments from chief executive Yves Guillemot. Speaking during a recent earnings briefing about the game’s delay to 2016, Guillemot referenced alpha and beta periods for the game.
See his quote below with emphasis added.
“It’s an RPG, online game. So those games take more time to be completed,” Guillemot explained about the delay.
“We want to make sure we have enough feedback from consumers from alpha and betas to polish it as much as possible before the launch. So that it comes to the market with the best experience possible.”
With Valve’s Vive VR headset launching this fall and the Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus devices coming in 2016, the virtual reality space is indeed heating up. One publisher excited about the technology is Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry company Ubisoft.
Chief executive Yves Guillemot said during an earnings call this week that Ubisoft is excited about VR and even has multiple games in development. But he also explained why the company is somewhat concerned.
“We believe a lot in virtual reality because we see that it’s really giving a chance for gamers to be more immersed in worlds and we are developing a certain number of games that are going to take advantage of these new possibilities,” Guillemot said.
“What we are doing is working on the different brands we have to see how we can take advantage of those new possibilities but in making sure also that we don’t suffer from what comes with it, which is the difficulty to play a long time with those games.”
Overall, however, Guillemot said Ubisoft is “very bullish” about the potential of VR.
“We think it’s going to bring more players to the universe of Ubisoft video games and we are going to come with our brands,” he explained. “We’ll have a few titles coming in the first year and we’ll have regular games coming following that.”
The publisher confirmed the news to VideoGamer on Wednesday.
The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game–which are priced at $60 compared to $40 for the last-gen versions–use the “seamless online multiplayer” feature to allow players to jump in and out of online sessions with friends and other players.
There are both competitive and cooperative aspects to multiplayer, including the ability to complete missions and level up the character you use online and offline.
It was suspected that the last-generation versions of Pro Skater 5 wouldn’t have the online mode last week, when numerous retailer listings showed “seamless online multiplayer” as a feature only for the Xbox One and PS4 versions.
Activision did not offer any kind of explanation regarding why the previous-generation versions of Pro Skater 5 don’t include the online mode. It also remains to be seen if there will be any further differences between the current- and last-gen versions outside of, presumably, the visuals.
Pro Skater 5 is being developed by Robomodo, the developer of Tony Hawk Ride, Shred, and Pro Skater HD, as well as Disruptive Games. The game will launch this year, but a release date has yet to be announced; Activision says that will be “shared in the upcoming weeks.”
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End developer Naughty Dog has discussed the improvements made to its facial animation systems since Uncharted 3 and The Last of Us, saying that face models now animate with “between 300 and 500 bones.”
In an interview with GamesTM , writer Josh Scherr contextualised the improvements by comparing them to previous Uncharted games and The Last of Us, which he said used “about 90 and 100 ‘bones’ in their faces.”
“We’ve completely revamped our facial animation systems,” he said. “Think about that, how detailed Joel and Elli’s pained facial expressions were, how well the game captured the respective actors … Now, the faces have anywhere between 300 and 500 bones.”
“[This] lets us emote more, with all the ‘bones’ we can put onto [faces] – you pan round the camera to look at Nate’s face when he’s climbing and you see him grimacing and all this kind of stuff … we’re pushing detail on a macro and micro level that I think people are really going to respond to,” added lead designer Ricky Cambier.
Unlike previous Naughty Dog titles, for which “some of the animations might have been sample at 10 or 15 frames per second to save memory,” which code would then interpolate to run at 30 frames per second in-game, the new tech can “afford to record [animations] at 30 frames per second so that [they] look that much smoother.”
Speaking about the visual fidelity of other PS4 exclusives, Cambier said Killzone: Shadow Fall was “pretty damn impressive looking for a launch title,” while The Order: 1886 is “one of the best looking games [he’s] seen on any system ever,” but says developers are still in early days with Sony’s latest console.
“If you look at the first Uncharted and how that looked versus how The Last of Us looked … I have difficulty fathoming that we’ll have that kind of graphical leap in the next several years. The reality is, we probably will as we learn the systems better, so it’s all up from here, and that’s exciting.”
Nintendo has release a selection of new screenshots for its upcoming Wii U platformer Yoshi’s Woolly World and, predictably, they’re adorable.
The screenshots show the unbearably cute Nintendo character adventuring in a colourful knitted world. Take a look below.
Considered by many as a spiritual sequel to Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, Mario’s little green companion will once again be able to swallow enemies. However, instead of just producing eggs to throw, Yoshi produces little balls of yarn which have a number of platforming applications.
Nintendo has announced a series of new Amiibo for Yoshi’s Woolly World. Three figures, all which have the knitted look, will be available, each spawning a second Yoshi when used on the Wii U’s NFC reader. The Yoshi Amiibo will be available in green, blue, and pink.
