Thunder buddies for life. Universal has debuted yet another red band trailer for Seth MacFarlane’s Ted 2, the return of everyone’s favorite foul-mouthed teddy bear. This ain’t even the first red band trailer either. They basically pack all kinds of jokes and ridiculous scenes into this trailer that they can’t normally show to regular audiences. F-bombs, lots of pot smoking and pot jokes, and a little bit of the plot. Mark Wahlberg returns along with Seth MacFarlane as the voice of Ted, joined by Amanda Seyfried, who shows up in just about every scene of this trailer, plus Morgan Freeman and Jessica Barth as Tami-Lynn. Have fun.›››
“This is truly a dream team.” Warner Bros has officially announced that Clint Eastwood will be directing the movie about Captain Sully, the pilot who was able to safely land U.S. Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in New York in January 2009. The title seems to be Miracle on the Hudson, but that may change. The announcement was made official by Warner Bros via THR, with statements from Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger himself. “I am very glad my story is in the hands of gifted storyteller and filmmaker Clint Eastwood, and veteran producers Allyn Stewart and Frank Marshall. The project could not have found a better home than Warner Bros. Pictures,” he says. Looks like a fine team, here’s to hoping it turns out okay. ›››
It was going to happen one day. Someone had to make a film about the Sony Hack. Word from THR is that filmmaker Jehane Noujaim (seen above) of the Oscar-nominated documentary The Square, working with her husband Karim Amer, is already “quietly” developing a documentary that “explores the cyberattack”. The Sony Hack was at the top of the news for weeks late last December, with new information being leaked almost every single day for a few weeks. It was crazy to watch unfold, then suddenly everything went silent, right before the VOD release of The Interview on Christmas Day. THR’s sources say that “director Noujaim and producer Amer will put forth alternative theories about the hack’s culprit” but that’s all else they reveal. ›››
Activision’s toys-to-life franchise, Skylanders, has now sold through more than 250 million toys since the franchise debuted four years ago, the publisher revealed today as part of the announcement of the next game in the series. As stated previously, Skylanders has generated $3 billion for Activision so far.
The next entry in the franchise, Skylanders SuperChargers, was announced today. This game changes things up by introducing vehicles (land, sky, and sea) to the series for the first time.
Twenty new character toys and 20 new vehicle toys will be available for purchase when SuperChargers launches in September for consoles, PC, and mobile. For lots more on SuperChargers, check out GameSpot’s just-published hands-on preview and a new trailer below that features Travis Pastrana.
The Skylanders franchise faces more competition than ever this year. In addition to Disney Infinity and Amiibo, Warner Bros. will release its exciting-sounding LEGO Dimensions in September, featuring toys based on heavyweight franchises such as Batman, The Lord of the Rings, and The Simpsons, among others.
Nintendo has sold 10.5 million Amiibo toys by its latest count, while sales figures for Disney Infinity are unavailable.
Summer doesn’t actually begin until later this month, but The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red’s GOG.com on Wednesday launched its annual Summer Sale. Free games, daily bundles, and more will take place through the Summer Sale, which runs today through June 21.
In addition to the standard discounts on games, GOG shoppers have a chance to score up to three free games during the sale period.
Spend more than $1 during the Summer Sale and you’ll receive a free copy of SimCity 2000; spend at least $20 and you’ll unlock S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky; spend more than $50 and you’ll get a free copy of Xenonauts.
New deals for GOG’s Summer Sale will appear on the site every 12 hours–more than 100 discounts will be available every day. Altogether, GOG more than 700 games will be marked down during the sale period by as much as 90 percent.
GOG kicks things off with deals on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (10 percent off), Lichdon Battlemage (87 percent off), and Jade Empire (80 percent off). A variety of bundles, including the Lucasfilm Adventures collection (Monkey Island, Sam & Max, and more) will be available for 66 percent off.
Head to GOG’s website to see all the deals. As always, all games are completely DRM-free.
GOG isn’t the only online retailer with plans for a summer sale. Just last week, the dates for Valve’s annual summer sale leaked, suggesting the event would kick off on June 11, meaning it would overlap with GOG’s.
It’s been nearly four years since Activision first introduced Skylanders, the now-annual toys-to-life franchise. New Skylanders games have debuted with new types of figures or accessories; whether it be the larger figures in Skylanders: Giants, creatures made of swappable halves in Skylanders: Swap Force, or the speaker-embedded portal that brought trapped bosses to life in Skylanders: Trap Team. However, the next instalment, Skylanders: SuperChargers, will introduce a completely new feature and new toys to accompany it: vehicles.
At certain points in the game, an access point will allow the player to place one of these new vehicle toys on the Portal of Power and pair with an in-game Skylander character. This allows that character to enter the vehicle in-game. There are three different classes of vehicles; ground vehicles which allow the player to race on land, water vehicles to weave through obstacles underwater, and flying ships to do battle with in the sky.
SuperChargers will introduce 20 new vehicles paired with 20 new matching Skylander figures. While the vehicles can be used in-game with any new or old Skylander character, pairing a vehicle with its matching Skylander partner will activate a Supercharge state in-game, granting the player new abilities and combos. This was demonstrated to me with a new version of returning character Hot Streak, who when paired with his chosen car, gained a powerful fireball shooting ability. The vehicles themselves are introduced with a brief in-game cinematic when summoned using the portal of power–an intro that could be likened in its outrageousness and glamour to that of a car show spectacle.
If you don’t have a specific vehicle type, you cannot access the areas that have been designed for them; these areas are simply gated from the player. While platform levels do make a return in Skylanders: SuperChargers, it was these vehicular sections of the game which really captured my attention during a preview session hosted by Activision.
Racing On Land
Getting behind the wheel in SuperChargers will feel very familiar to those who have played Mario Kart. The course shown was beset with sharp turns, littered with hazardous obstacles, and at one point launched the player high into the air to land on an adjacent platform. Similar to Nintendo’s flagship racer, each course contains alternative routes to the finish line. Taking time to explore these alternative routes is beneficial, as they sometimes contain new parts which can be used to customize and boost the in-game stats of a vehicle. Collected parts can be added to a vehicle the instant they are picked up, an action which pauses the game mid-race and opens the vehicle customization screen.
The race culminated with a boss battle, at which point the Activision representative switched out their Skylander character in favour of Hot Streak, who was paired with this particular vehicle. Equipped with Supercharge, Hot Streak could weave around the boss in the vehicle and spew destructive fireballs at the enemy. It wasn’t all physical fighting however; once the boss was defeated, a simple puzzle had to be solved to progress through the section’s exit.
The vehicle toys themselves will have articulation that allows interaction outside of the video game. For example, the wheels on Hot Streak’s car spin. However, I was warned that the vehicles’ figures were not recommended for contact with water, unlike some of their in-game counterparts in the following section.
Diving Into The Sea
The next part of the demonstration took the Skylander character for a plunge into the sea with a water vehicle that looked like a cross between a boat and a submarine. Racing through the water track started off as a straightforward affair, but dodging obstacles by submerging underneath the water’s surface turned the section into an aquatic course with two sections–one above water, and one underwater. Hazards on the surface of the water could be avoided by diving underneath, and vice versa.
Like in the land race, the sea level culminated with a boss fight that required the player to simultaneously dodge obstacles and shoot enemies. The dramatic swell and crash of the waves made the fight appear more challenging than its land counterpart. I was particularly impressed with the textures and animation of the water; according to the Activision representative, SuperChargers is a game “built for next-gen consoles,” despite being available for last-generation consoles. With the boss in the water section defeated, the Skylander took to the section which inspired part of the series’ name–the sky.
Sailing Through The Sky
Like previous sections, taking off into the skies required a specific vehicle figure to be placed on the Portal of Power. Activating a flight-capable vehicle in the game started up the sky section, which had the player weave the ship through the air to pick up collectibles and shoot cannons at enemies. While the ship’s acceleration could be controlled, left on its own it would fly slowly to its destination, thanks to an autopilot system of sorts in place to ensure that players are guided to where they need to go.
As with the land sections, picking up new parts during the section instantly opened up the customization screen, allowing the player to add new parts to their ship soon as they were collected.
Compatibility With Old Content
Parents will be relieved to hear that SuperChargers will be compatible with all previously released Skylanders figures and Portals of Power. Tying in with this backwards compatibility, Activision has confirmed that a digital version of the game will also be released for sale. However, the bulk of the game’s new content will still need the new vehicle figures to access. Not all vehicles and figures will be available at launch, though the starter pack will include new versions of returning characters Hot Streak, Spitfire, and Stealth Elf. Only the new versions can be partnered with their chosen vehicles to unlock Supercharge in-game–using the old versions of these characters will not produce any extra effect.
While the new types of levels in Skylanders: SuperChargers were impressive to behold, the need for additional vehicle figurines was not. If the land vehicle stages, water levels, and sky battle sections will make up a large portion of what is new in the game then restricting players who don’t own the corresponding vehicles will mean that they miss out on what makes SuperChargers unique. Crying wallet aside, the changes in scenery these new sections will offer look interesting enough to welcome newcomers and seasoned collectors alike, and kids will likely love playing with the new vehicle figures–both in-game, and outside of it.
CD Projekt Red’s acclaimed role-playing game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt features a rich world with lots of quests to take on and characters to interact with. But what happens when you reach the end of the story? There’s no need to stop, as CD Projekt Red has now confirmed the game has no hard level cap.
“There is no level cap,” CD Projekt Red community lead Marcin Momot said on Twitter (via IGN).
This would suggest that unlocking every ability and mastering each is at least theoretically possible. But you certainly don’t need to do this to finish the game, as reviews have pointed out.
In response to Momot’s comments about The Witcher 3 having no level cap, some fans called for some kind of New Game Plus mode. Momot has not responded.
It’s possible that The Witcher 3’s upcoming paid DLC, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, will offer some kind of solution for players who want a new, high-level challenge.
Online retail giant Amazon has updated its store page for Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: Thief’s End with the game’s official box art.
The cover art, which you can see below, is fairly standard fare for modern third-person shooters. It features Nathan Drake, with ruffled hair, presumably because he has been shot at a lot and has been diving around quite a bit, leading the unkempt look. Or perhaps he used a bit of Garnier Fructis texturising wax to achieve that I’m-not-even-trying surf hair style.
Drake’s face is partly obscured by shadow, with his forehead prominently showing an injury, likely from all the aforementioned diving around. The use of shadows is particularly interesting because Uncharted 4 has been pitched as a much darker entry in the successful series, and will delve into the protagonist’s chequered past.
With the Uncharted 4 cover, Drake seems to be in a jungle, which would explain why he has unbuttoned his shirt–it’s hot. But he’s also the kind of guy that would work really hard on his pecs but not overtly brag about his gains. Instead he’d simply give the world a peek and wait for the compliments to roll in.
Naturally he’s holding a gun, because no self-respecting Indiana Jones facsimile would leave home without one. Drake is also looking down with an expression of anguish. Although this is speculation, this may be because he’s dealing with the reality of killing yet another person.
Either that, or he’s lamenting the fact that he left home wearing sandals and now his feet are just full of potentially poisonous thorns. On top of that, opportunistic indigenous wildlife may have clamped down on his exposed toes and are suckling the blood from his tired, malnourished body.
In summary, box art is man with gun looking sad/angry.
“[With] The Last of Us, we went to great lengths to try to create this reality, but we were still limited by the amount of overdraw the PS3 could handle, etc.,” Straley said when the game was first revealed.
“Now, the PS4 is allowing us to push so much more density, so it’s fun to go back and go like, ‘Oh, look at the things we wish we could have done in Uncharted 1, it’s just like, this is easy, let’s just make this.’ It’s nice to be able to explore something and look back and go, ‘Wow, remember when we couldn’t do any of this?’ It’s kind of neat.”
Destiny‘s next major expansion will be called The Taken King, according to Red Bull tie-in products spotted out in the wild.
Images of boxes of the energy drink branded with the Destiny name and logo, along with “The Taken King,” were posted online by Twitter user Agrios Endendros.
Bungie has been teasing a “major content release” for its online shooter for this fall.
Destiny’s future may also involve something called “Eververse,” if another recent trademark is any indication. The company filed two additional trademark applications for “Eververse Trading Co.,” and a third for an Eververse logo.
The “Eververse Trading Co.” may tie-in with Bungie’s previous comments about the possibility of Destiny one day introducing a player trading system.
Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm has officially launched on PC, and is available as a free download to anyone with a Battle.net account. The game is Blizzard’s take on the MOBA genre, and features characters from the universes of various Blizzard games including Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo.
For the first week, players who engage in matches will be rewarded with a special in-game portrait. An experience boost will also be active for the first three weeks from launch.
In Heroes of the Storm, players are able to play up to seven heroes each week for free. Access to additional heroes can be purchased using real-world money or in-game gold. Players can earn in-game gold by leveling up their accounts, completing quests, or simply participating in matches.
Heroes recently gained some mainstream attention when part of the Heroes of the Dorm tournament was broadcast on ESPN 2. This was criticized by both some ESPN viewers and at least one ESPN employee.
