Category: Gamespot

Sony’s Angry Birds movie pulled in $16.6 million million on Saturday at the US box office, a healthy 52 percent increase from Friday’s $10.9 million. Deadline, which supplied the box office figures, said the animated film could make between $38.8 million and $39.5 million for the entire weekend, once Sunday’s figures come in.

This would be the third best start for a Sony animated movie, following Hotel Transylvania 2 ($48.5 million) and Hotel Transylvania ($42.5 million).

Check back with GameSpot tonight, as we’ll update this post with Sunday’s box office numbers when they are finalized.

Reviews for the Angry Birds movie have been mixed. GameSpot’s review had this to say:

“Like the game it’s based on, the Angry Birds film feels like a distraction. A good animated movie straddles the line between entertaining adults with sly asides, engaging children with energy, and tieing it all together with a compelling story,” reviewer Justin Haywald said. “Angry Birds fails on every count, instead crafting a tale that’s nonsensical even by its own internal logic and just plain boring from beginning to end.”

It’s not the first video game movie this year and it won’t be the last. The Ratchet & Clank film opened in April, while the next Dead Rising film, Endgame, comes out on June 20 through streaming sites. After that, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed premieres in December.

Powered by WPeMatico

Presumably in celebration of PlayStation Music’s one-year anniversary, Spotify–which powers the service–is offering a pretty sweet deal on its Premium subscription package.

New and existing Spotify members can now get three months of Premium for just 99 cents. The one catch, and it’s a big one, is that the offer is only available to people who have not previously gotten a trial of Spotify Premium.

You can grab the deal here–you must redeemed by June 30. Official terms and conditions for the offer can be seen here. Premium normally goes for $10/month.

PlayStation Music is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and other Sony devices. A Premium Spotify membership gets you extras like offline play and no ads. You can also listen to tracks while gaming, which is proving popular, as people streamed 5 billion songs through PlayStation Music in its first year.

In a post on the PlayStation Blog, PlayStation senior marketing manager Carrie Surtees said PlayStation Music has been a massive hit on PSN.

“Thanks to you, Spotify has become one of the most downloaded apps in PlayStation history, and together we’ve reached more than five billion streams,” Surtees said. “Now, we’re excited to introduce our music-loving players to another level of listening.”

Background music support is also coming to Xbox One through a future update, though it remains to be seen if this will be done through a partnership with Spotify or by leveraging Microsoft’s own Groove service. For its part,Sony has said Spotify may not be exclusive to PlayStation forever.

Powered by WPeMatico

A decade ago, Valve officially announced Half-Life 2: Episode Three. Gamers are still waiting for Valve to deliver.

Polygon reminds us that on May 24, 2006, Valve confirmed that the third Half-Life 2 episode update was in development. At the time, it only said that it would be the last “in a trilogy…that will conclude by Christmas of 2007.”

Half-Life has been dormant for more than seven years now, with Half-Life 2: Episode Two having been released in 2007. Fans have been awaiting news of a sequel for years, but with Valve’s propensity for taking its time–not to mention the lack of any official indication that a new Half-Life is in development–it’s unclear what the franchise’s status is.

In 2012, Valve boss attempted to explain the wait for the next Half-Life game.

“The problem is, we think that the twists and turns that we’re going through would probably drive people more crazy than just being silent about it, until we can be very crisp about what’s happening next,” he said at the time.

Valve added support for the Oculus Rift VR headset to Half-Life 2 in 2013. In March this year, HTC chairwoman Cher Wang offered an ambiguous statement: “We are cooperating with Half-Life, and I think… I hope, you know, it will be on it.” She quickly walked back that comment, saying , “I misspoke when I referred to our working together with Valve on a particular game,” according to the BBC.

For now, fan videos like the one here and this frustratingly excellent unofficial trailer are all we have to hold us over. You can also read Polygon’s rundown of what’s been said about the long-dormant new Half-Life episode here .

Are you still holding out hope for a new Half-Life? Let us know in the comments below!

Powered by WPeMatico

Each week we search and gather up the coolest comic book art you won’t see in actual comics. The reason you won’t is because professional artists often draw sketches for fun or commissions and post them on their websites, blogs, and Tumblrs. Some artists even arrange commissions through their sites so be sure to check them out. This is a way to see the artists working on one book draw characters from other comics or publishers.

Jim Lee posted a couple new images on his Instagram including a Batman one he auctioned for a local school.

Rod Reis posted some commissions from Motor City Comicon on his Instagram.

Mike Maihack posted Harley Quinn and Catwoman sketches on his Tumblr.

Ryan Stegman posted a bunch of new sketches on his Tumblr.

Skottie Young posted a couple Daily Sketches on his Tumblr. He puts them up for sale here.

Michael Walsh posted a bunch of cool sketches from MSP Comicon on his Instagram.

Ron Ackins also did a Moon Knight commission at MSP Comicon and posted it on his Twitter.

Chrissie Zullo posted new art on her Facebook page.

Tom Raney posted a Starfire commission from Motor City on his Twitter.

Denis Medri posted new sketches on his Deviant Art page this week.

Chris Giarrusso put new sketch cards for sale on his website.

Brett Booth posted a Rebirth Superman sketch on his Twitter.

Joel Gomez posted new sketches on his Tumblr.

Mike McKone posted new art on his Twitter page.

Agnes Garbowska posted new commissions on her Tumblr.

Ryan Lee posted new commissions from Motor City on his Twitter.

Marcio Takara posted the beginning of a couple commissions on his Tumblr.

Marcus To posted some commissions from Ottawa Comicon on his Tumblr.

Paolo Rivera posted a Daredevil commission on his blog. His list for Wizard World Sacramento is open.

Franco posted more Daily Doodles on his Instagram. He puts them up for sale here.

Jim Cheung posted recent commissions on his Instagram. The first one here was picked up without being paid for. So be on the lookout if it suddenly goes up for sale.

Mike Henderson posted some commissions from Motor City plus a Thanos painting on his Instagram. He also has original art for sale here.

Todd Nauck posted some commissions from Wizard World Des Moines on his Tumblr.

That’s it for this week. Let us know which ones you dug. We’ll have more awesome art next time.

Powered by WPeMatico