By Anonymous on Dec 12, 2018 12:22 am Tis the season for Overwatch Winter Wonderland! Join Erick and Joey as they see what goodies Blizzard has in store for them this year.
The Spider has painted a new target on an escapee of the Prison of Elders with the latest Destiny 2 weekly reset. With the new round of bounties comes Wanted: Eye In The Dark, a wanted target players haven't hunted before. It's a powerful Hive Shrieker hiding in one of the deep places of the Hellas Basin on Mars. You'll need some strong weapons to bring it down, as well as the resiliency to fight off a whole horde of Hive minions. Here's where to find it, and how to take it down to earn a piece of Powerful gear.
Like all of the Wanted Spider bounties, this one will run you five Ghost Fragments, which you can earn from completing public events, bounties, and patrols on the Tangled Shore. Purchase it, and you'll unlock a new Adventure on Mars. Load into Braytech Futurscape area, then head north around the side of the building Ana Bray is in to find some Hive, and the entrance to the Core Terminus Lost Sector. There you'll also find the adventure.
Delve into the cave and you'll find Cabal fighting Hive throughout the area. Clear the path until you get to the back of the Lost Sector, where you'll find the Eye In The Dark hovering over you, closed up. You'll soon find that the Shrieker is invulnerable to your attacks--the only way to hurt it when it is opened is to have the "Wormcursed" buff active, which lets you dish out the damage for 15 seconds.
To get the buff, look for special Wormcursed Thralls, which are glowing Cursed Thralls, hanging around the battlefield. These guys carry orange life bars and are therefore a bit tough to kill, so watch out they don't explode and take you down. Once they pop, they'll spray green goo all over the area. You can catch some from the explosion or walk through it to get it on you, which will give you the buff. As soon as you've got it, turn your attention to blasting away at the Eye.
Doing a certain amount of damage will cause the Eye In The Dark to clam up again, forcing you to fight a whole bunch of Hive enemies that stream into the area. Try to keep moving so you don't get overwhelmed, and watch your six, as enemies will enter behind you along the path you took to reach the Eye. Clearing out all the enemies will cause the Eye to open again, and you'll need to repeat the process of killing a Womrcursed Thrall to get the buff.
If you're at a high level and have strong weapons like Sleeper Simulant, you should be able to take down the Eye on that second buff. Crowd control supers are really helpful here, since the Hive can be overwhelming, as is anything that does powerful direct damage to the Eye, like sniper rifles or linear fusion rifles. Heavy weapons are good for the Eye, while assault rifles and other fast-firing weapons will be good for fighting the Hive that protect it.
Killing the Eye will complete the bounty and net you your Powerful gear drop, which is the gear in Destiny 2 that will push you toward the new Power level cap of 650, thanks to the new expansion The Black Armory. To continue the climb, focus on Daily and Weekly challenges, as well as the Ascendant Challenge in the Dreaming City.
You might also want to check out the Dawning, Destiny 2's holiday themed event, for some new stuff to do. The event fills December with new activities (including a lengthy quest that's all about baking cookies for Destiny 2 characters) and new cosmetic items to earn along the way.
EA has revealed additional details for both of the demos for Anthem, the upcoming multiplayer RPG developed by BioWare. You'll need to fulfill certain requirements to be a part of the first demo, but the second is open for all players.
Anthem's VIP demo goes from January 25-27, 2019. In order to participate in it, you'll need to pre-order Anthem or be a subscriber of either EA Access or Origin Access. If you play in Anthem's VIP demo, you'll unlock an exclusive item in the game when it officially launches. The normal Anthem demo occurs the following week from February 1-3. You don't need to do anything to participate in this demo other than download it.
Speaking to GameSpot, Anthem's lead producer wanted to clarify that these demos are not betas for the game. If you play the demo, you won't be starting from the game's beginning, but instead go through a portion of the middle of the campaign. Progress made in the demo will not carry over to the rest of the game when it launches either.
If you do want to get a head start on Anthem, you'll have to subscribe to either EA Access or Origin Access. Both services allow you to start playing the game on February 15, a full week before it launches for everyone else.
While the new Mythical Pokemon Meltan can be obtained in Pokemon Go through a Special Research quest, the easiest way to get your hands on one is by linking the game up to Let's Go Pikachu or Eevee for Nintendo Switch. When you transfer a Gen 1 Pokemon over to the Switch titles, you'll receive an item in Go called the Mystery Box, which is the key to making Meltan appear in the game. Now the Mystery Box has gotten a little upgrade.
According to the official Pokemon Go Twitter account, it'll be much easier to find Meltan in the wild when the Mystery Box is activated. "The Mystery Box's effect has grown stronger," the account tweeted. "Now when you use the Mystery Box, even more Meltan will appear for you to encounter."
Outside of the aforementioned Special Research quest, Meltan can only be found in Pokemon Go using the Mystery Box. The item will open up after you transfer a Pokemon to either Let's Go Pikachu or Eevee, causing Meltan to spawn in Pokemon Go. However, the Mystery Box will only remain open for 30 minutes, and you need to wait a full seven days before you can activate it again, giving you only a brief window of time to catch as many of the Pokemon as you can.
Niantic hasn't specified how much Meltan spawns have been increased following this update, but it's a welcome change nonetheless, particularly if you're hoping to get a Melmetal. In order to evolve Meltan into one, you'll need to feed it 400 Meltan Candies, which means you need to capture quite a few of them to achieve that feat. You can read more about the process in our Meltan guide.
2018 has been a big year for Pokemon Go, and there are still some features on the way to the game soon. Niantic recently unveiled a PvP Trainer Battle system for the title, which will give you the ability to compete directly against other players. You also still have a little more time to catch Pokemon Go's latest Legendary, Cresselia. The Lunar Pokemon is scheduled to leave Raid Battles on December 18.
By Anonymous on Dec 11, 2018 11:30 pm While there hasn't been any massive AAA games like Skyrim in VR this year, VR actually had an awesome 2018 with a ton of great games.
Xbox One might not have had a perfect year in 2018 in terms of sheer exclusives, but that doesn't mean some great games haven't launched for the console in the last 12 months. Even ones that haven't made our list of the five best Xbox One games in 2018--which we'll get to in a moment--have offered some excellent experiences.
Sea of Thieves, for example, gave us a great excuse to dig out our fancy dress eye patches back in March and has expanded since then, while PUBG's battle royale mayhem finally left early access this year. In addition, Xbox One enjoyed a great year on the subscription services front, with Game Pass now including every first-party Xbox One exclusive on day one at no extra cost, and EA Access continuing to be a console exclusive. And that's before you mention Microsoft managing to secure ports of some of Sony's 2017 exclusives, such as Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and Nier: Automata.
But enough of all that. You've come here for one thing, and one thing only. Well, maybe five things. Either way, in no particular order, here are the five best Xbox One games from 2018. For more on the best games to launch this year, check out our takes on the best PS4 games and best Switch games of 2018.
Rockstar's spaghetti western series returned this year with a prequel focusing on a different antagonist to 2010's Red Dead Redemption. Throughout the game's emotional 50-plus hour story, the audience--as Arthur Morgan--experience almost every emotion in the book.
Red Dead Redemption 2's Old West is possibly the greatest game world developer Rockstar has ever created: varied weather patterns, wildlife, activities, and human personalities make this a region that really does feel alive. Even within that, the tiny details--such as real-time facial hair growth and horse bowel movements--are astonishing.
More than anything else, Red Dead Redemption 2 is about amazing relationships. Throughout its campaign you form meaningful bonds with friends, enemies, and even that aforementioned horse. Yee-haw, cowboy.
This surprising indie game is a prime example of the phrase "more than the sum of its parts." At first, the mishmash of influences and homages seem to contradict one another. It's a Metroidvania game--a genre known for its character progression--but this is also a roguelike, meaning it's built specifically around dying and resetting from near-zero. Though Dead Cells does have a handful of permanent abilities tucked away in obscure corners, for the most part you're no more powerful on your 20th run than your first. What truly makes the difference is how you shape the game's economy and weapon selection organically as you progress through each run.
Purchasing a new weapon or secondary gadget from the vendor will also add it to the pool of items you can find in the world during a run. By steering your choices toward the weapons that fit your playstyle, you can increase the chances of finding the right set to progress further than you have before. It's this constant push and pull on the game's economy that creates a meta-strategy running throughout the experience. Do you reserve your hard-earned cash for only a handful of weapons to increase their odds, or do you collect everything you can in an effort to find what works? Over time Dead Cells becomes an experience of tinkering with the game's systems, and then fine-tuning the smaller variables nested inside it, with each passing run.
Hitman 2 also gets rid of the controversial episodic release structure its predecessor launched with. Some fans criticized the release schedule, as it forced them to wait for more levels and environments to become available. This sequel therefore launches complete from day one, though more environments, missions, and limited-time events are in the pipeline as both free updates and paid DLC. Sign us up.
Monster Hunter World launched way back in January, yet it still stands out as one of Xbox One's best experiences this year. With this latest entry in the long-running series, developer Capcom successfully made the game more accessible for new players while keeping its heart and soul intact. Unlike the hearts and souls of the impressive monsters you track down, of course. Once you do track those creatures down, killing them has never been this fun, either, thanks to World's mechanical improvements making its combat a pleasure to engage in.
A blast to play both alone and with friends, World is the most refined game in the franchise--and quite possibly the best one, too.
Forza has never looked so gray. Or so snowy. Or so sunny. Or so... leafy? With Horizon 4, Forza fans get to experience what 60 million Brits have known all their life: you can never predict England's weather.
Fortunately, that makes for an entertainingly diverse racing game, with each of Horizon 4's four seasons presenting different gameplay challenges and changing--but always beautiful--visuals. Playground's condensed version of the British countryside is a joy to explore, constantly offering up new challenges and different race types, as well as public events to take advantage of its multiplayer portions. You can also choose which contests to focus on--goodbye, time trials; hello, hovercraft races!--meaning the world really is your oyster. Top show, old chap!
We're a few years into the rebirth of virtual reality gaming, and while hardware manufacturers continue to iterate on headsets that will one day (hopefully) bring us closer to the promise of untethered, uncompromised VR, game developers are hard at work pouring their creativity into what's possible with today's technology. The best VR games of 2018 represent a variety of different genres, proving that the popularized image of VR being all about realism and physical immersion isn't the sole end goal, but one of many potential avenues with which to take the medium.
In no particular order, the list that follows is a rundown of what we at GameSpot think are the five best VR games to come out in 2018. When you're done reading, be sure to check out our comprehensive look back at the VR landscape as a whole in 2018. And for more roundups focusing on the best games of 2018, be sure to visit our Best of 2018 page for all of our content reflecting on the year that was, and ahead to what we're looking forward to most in 2019.
Beat Saber is a demanding rhythm game that pushes your reaction times and physical perseverance--prepare to sweat! With a VR controller in each hand, you wield virtual lightsabers and cut through incoming colored blocks that arrive in time with the music. It's a simple concept that doesn't need a lot of explaining, but getting good requires a lot of practice, poise, and precision. Beat Saber originally released on PC in early access, and that version may one day see an exclusive, custom track creator, but the PSVR release snuck in before the end of the year with exclusive content all its own. Despite some potential for tracking discrepancies compared to the PC version, the extra content makes the PSVR version the one to get today if you have the option (and a pair of PlayStation Move controllers).
Tetris may be timeless, but it doesn't immediately look like a natural fit for VR. Now that Tetris Effect is out on PS4, you might think twice before assuming what a good VR game looks like at first glance. Designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi and his team at Enhance Games took the standard Tetris formula and molded rhythm-game elements around it. It's still the puzzle game you probably know and love, but it's also a captivating blend of sight and song. Color and rhythm are used to instill a range of emotions, and the connected sound effects that come from rotating a tetromino, dropping it, and clearing a line, help form a connection between your puzzle-solving duties and the tone of a particular stage. It all makes for an engrossing experience outside of VR, but isolating yourself in a headset is the best way to understand everything Tetris Effect has to offer.
Though Tetris Effect lacks any kind of competitive multiplayer, it does feature a rewarding asynchronous co-op mode. Players can participate in a cumulative effort during special event weekends where high-scores from across the globe are tallied up towards a milestone set by Enhance Games. So far, the community's success has resulted in new stages and songs, such as the one themed after the wildly popular Game Boy version of Tetris, pale greens and all. Tetris Effect's main stages are enough of a treat, but this arrangement ensures that you will have new reason to revisit one of the surprise hits of the year on a regular basis, and hopefully enjoy a new set of challenges and rewards along the way.
Astro Bot Rescue Mission
When Sony launched PSVR in 2016 it also handed us the keys to The Playroom. This pack of mini VR games featured scenes filled with expressive little robots. They would jaunt about and play as if that's all they've ever known, and it was their infectious joy that made the rather simple interactive tech demos feel as fun as they did. That said, nobody could have guessed at the time that a full-fledged follow-up game would arrive in 2018, and that Astro Bot Rescue Mission would make for one of the best VR games of the year.
Astro Bot is a 3D platformer where you control a bot, but also a representation of your controller that acts as a Swiss-army knife of useful gadgets. Your Bot friend may be cute, but it's not very capable, so you'll need to help it solve puzzles, free it from danger, and provide a home for the other bots you rescue along the way--who adorably scurry into your controller's virtual representation by way of the hatch-door touchpad. This would all make for a fine game outside of VR, but a big part of its allure is feeling like you're along for the ride with your charming companion in a bustling cartoon world. Astro Bot feels like the product of creators who recognized both the potential of the character at their fingertips and the unique strengths of VR, and the result is a lovely game that remains a delight to play from beginning to end.
Moss can be viewed in the same vein as Astro Bot, but with a different set of qualities that make its third-person, 3D adventure stand on its own four furry legs. The star of Moss is Quill, a mouse packing a sword and shield to defend itself in a fantasy world that immediately brings Brian Jacques' Redwall series of books to mind. You directly guide her during moments of platforming and combat, but you also serve as a deity with the power to manipulate the environment as a means to solve puzzles or open new paths ahead.
Most importantly, you can also interact directly with Quill, giving her high-fives and head scratches for a job well done. And like a true partner, she'll help guide you towards puzzle solutions when it's clear that you're unsure of what to do next. This sometimes involves getting a closer look and peering around environments for hidden items or pathways, giving you a glimpse at life through Quill's eyes. Moss is a great VR game that brings its lead character to life, and in turn leaves you with lasting memories of a friend you only wish you could find in the real world.
Wipeout is the breakneck racing series that helped kick off the PlayStation's popularity way back in the mid '90s. The simple mix of high-speed racing, weaponry, and adrenaline-pumping music remains effective today, over 20 years later. The Wipeout Omega Collection in 2017 offered a massive collection of the game's recent outings under one roof that by and large played and felt great. But with the VR mode update that came in 2018, the experience of steering a speeding-bullet-like racecraft around tight turns amidst incoming enemy fire felt more riveting than ever.
If Tetris Effect is the surprise hit for VR, Wipeout is the no-brainer. Sitting in the driver's seat means that you don't need to worry about pairing your physical movement in the real world to that of a virtual character, and because Wipeout iterates on a winning formula that's worked for decades, you know almost exactly what you're going to get. You may not be prepared, however, for the increased demands of racing at such speeds from the view of a cockpit, but that just means your eventual mastery will be all the more satisfying. Wipeout in VR feels like the realization of a dream that began with the PlayStation brand, and it's a definite selling point when considering PSVR as a whole.
Your PC has the ability to be as powerful as you want it to be, and the flexibility to allow you to use it in the way you want to, which has always made it a great place to play video games. If you wanted to play a multiplatform blockbuster in 2018 and were concerned with making sure it looked and performed the absolute best it could--giant monsters rendered stunningly in 4K resolutions, dense environments filled with hundreds of characters running at a smooth 60 frames-per-second--the PC was still the place to do that.
But it's not all about graphics, of course--the PC's open nature makes it a natural spawning ground for refreshing innovations and never-before-seen ideas. This year, we were reminded that truly great games can be born and refined in early access programs with the participation of players and an open dialogue with developers. The PC also reminded us that sometimes the most cohesive, risky, and brilliant experiences can be executed superbly by just one or two people. The PC had fantastic games both big and small in 2018. Now, in ascending order of development team size, here are our picks for the best PC games of 2018.
Lucas Pope, the creator of Papers, Please, continued his trend of building gripping narrative experiences around menial administrative jobs in 2018. Return of the Obra Dinn sees you in the role of an insurance adjuster, and it's your job to board the titular ship Obra Dinn and investigate the fates each and every one of its 60 crew members. Your tools are limited to an incomplete in-game notebook, your own powers of mental deduction, and a magical pocket watch that shows you the last moment of a deceased person's life.
Return of the Obra Dinn gives you only the briefest glimpses into what happened over the course of the game's narrative, and its potency lies in the trust it puts into you to piece things together using your head. The game gives you broad strokes, but you need to fill in the details by deducing identities and causes of deaths based on faces, accents, movements, probable cause, and more. Obra Dinn excels at making you feel like a real detective, and the thrilling eureka moments you get when you successfully solve even the smallest part of the overall mystery feels nothing of extraordinary.
Return of the Obra Dinn is restrained, yet rich in narrative and characterization, with a cohesion between its haunting visual aesthetic, stirring sound design, and pointed mechanics that must be experienced. It is one of the definitive PC games of 2018.
Justin Ma and Matthew Davis, the creators of 2012's FTL, knocked it out of the park again this year with their elegant isometric turn-based tactics game, Into The Breach. As a time-traveling mech squad, it's your job to counter an ever-growing infestation of giant bugs with your unique skills--but it'll be hard to make sure everything comes out unscathed.
Into The Breach is a masterful piece of game design, thanks in part to its concise, no-frills design and the transparency of its systems--the effects of every enemy action is made visible to you before they happen. Its ingenuity lies in the process of working out the most effective way to mitigate the damage to a number of critical objectives before it happens with the use of your limited toolset. But a lot of the time, not everything can be stopped, meaning each turn is a satisfying conundrum of prioritized compromises that are revolved in a wonderfully choreographed ballet of kinetic push and pull, redirected attacks, near misses, and controlled collateral damage.
A large variety of distinctive squads showcases the breadth of the game's unique and obtuse ideas, and the minimally evocative writing and music from Chris Avellone and Ben Prunty, respectively, tie perfectly into the game's focused aesthetics and design. In a year filled with exceptional PC strategy games, Into The Breach is the one to keep jumping back into again and again and again.
Chances are good that you've already heard a lot about how great Motion Twin's Dead Cells is. The 2D roguelike takes some of the most enticing fundamentals of the Metroid and Castlevania strain of platformers and twists it into its own refreshing package that's difficult to stop playing. There are countless different methods in which to tackle the labyrinth, and with each new randomized run, each life, and each death, you'll come across new surprises and challenges that will test your wits and reflexes. It weaponizes a continual feeling of incremental triumph, progression, and improvement that echoes the most morbidly seductive aspects of Dark Souls and Spelunky. It's a compulsive feeling that causes Dead Cells to stay with you for a long time.
Dead Cells has been particularly good on PC throughout 2018, because of the game's availability in Steam Early Access from mid-2017 right up until its official launch in August 2018. The transparent relationship and dialogue between Motion Twin and the Dead Cells community during this period accomplished implementations of feature requests, bug fixes, and general feedback. In a way, Dead Cells as we have it today is born from the PC platform, but no matter where you decide to play it, there's no denying that Dead Cells is one of 2018's paragons.
IO Interactive might have had to brave some rocky roads during Hitman 2's development (it transitioned publishers from Square Enix to Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in 2017) but the game as it launched in 2018 was an excellent showing regardless. The game built upon the already strong systems IO had established in their Hitman reboot, but more significantly, Hitman 2 was a brilliant showcase of the team's talent for creating interesting, dense, and multi-layered sandbox levels full of possibilities.
Entertaining mission stories highlighted the environments, their characters, and the big opportunities available to you, but each stage still held dozens of obscure opportunities that invited you to embrace their allowances for flexibility, to break from the mold, experiment and try and achieve things in the most elegant or ludicrous way possible. Regardless of whether you succeed or fail, pushing against the limits of levels, systems, and your own creativity are what Hitman 2 is all about, and the content updates that have occurred since launch have continued to convince us that IO know exactly what makes this game great. Hitman 2 is one of the best PC games of 2018, but expect the magic to continue into 2019.
2018 was the year that Capcom would bring its enormously popular Monster Hunter series to PC for the first time. Monster Hunter World released in January to great acclaim--this was the most accessible the series had ever been, though most of its endearing complexities remained. The result is that a whole new audience was able to discover the thrills of what made this series so beloved to begin with: getting together with friends, tracking down giant beasts, and working furiously to exploit their weaknesses and bring them down with a ridiculous arsenal of enormous weapons.
Monster Hunter World came to PC in August 2018, with improved matchmaking, faster mission onboarding, capable keyboard and mouse controls, and the potential for an even more spectacular visual presentation, making it a platform favorite. On top of being a meaningful and robust evolution for the Monster Hunter series, World is one of 2018's most defining multiplayer experiences that has remained strong since the beginning of the year.
GameSpot will be unveiling our picks for the best games and entertainment of 2018 throughout December. Head to our Best of 2018 hub to see all the winners so far.
This is not an instant win. No purchase necessary. Competition ends at 12:00 PM PT on December 19, 2018, in which 30 winners will be chosen at random and emailed a code for the full game (MSRP: $30).
Sure, 'tis the season to be jolly. But 'tis also the season when retailers have their winter sales, dropping prices on video games of all kinds. Newegg is the latest online store to launch a seasonal sale, which means you can save money on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC games. A number of the deals end on December 15, so don't wait too long to make your purchases or you might miss out.
Some of the biggest games from recent months have gotten the discount treatment, which is good news to anyone who held out through the launch hype. Among those is Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, a game that comes with three robust online modes: multiplayer, Zombies, and a new battle royale mode called Blackout. It's on sale for $40 across all platforms. Now is also a great time to jump into Destiny 2: Forsaken - Legendary Collection, because not only is it packed with endgame content, but it's on sale for $25 on PS4 and Xbox One.
And if you own a Nintendo Switch, you can pick up Diablo III: Eternal Collection for $40, a good deal on one of the best dungeon crawlers ever made. It comes with all the content Blizzard has put out for the game. Switch owners who enjoy polygonal platformers can also pick up Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy for $30.
Speaking of retro platformers, Spyro Reignited Trilogy is down to $30 on PS4 and Xbox One. Sports fans can pick up NBA 2K19 or WWE 2K19 for $30 each, or UFC 3 for $20. Lastly, a handful of digital Xbox One games are on sale, but you have to enter a promo code to get the discounts. You can find the details below to save on games like Forza Horizon 4 and Sea of Thieves.
By Anonymous on Dec 11, 2018 10:55 pm The latest weekly reset brings a new Ascendant Challenge for Destiny 2: Forsaken players in the Dreaming City. Here's where to go and what to do complete it and earn Powerful gear.
The latest weekly reset marks the start of Destiny 2's holiday event, the Dawning, and with it comes a bunch of new cosmetic items to earn and the return of the Mayhem Crucible playlist. But in terms of the standard refresh, another Ascendant Challenge is now available, this one returning from the third week of Forsaken. Here's where its portal is located and what to do inside.
If you've done an Ascendant Challenge before, you'll have an idea of how this goes overall. Start out by buying the appropriate bounty from Petra in the Dreaming City. Alongside that, you'll need a Tincture of Queensfoil. Once you consume that, you get the Ascendance buff that allows you to see the Taken portal--after you've found it.
This particular portal is located in the Spire of Keres; you can see its location in the video above. Go through it to visit the Ascendant Plane, where are tasked with climbing a tower made of rocks without dying. Enemies will try to snipe you, and Taken rifts will try to boop you off the tower to your death. Be careful with where you move as you go toward the top; once you're there, kill the boss to complete the Ascendant Challenge.
Your reward is a chest that may not have anything special inside, but you'll also complete the bounty you picked up from Petra. This offers a piece of Powerful gear, making it a task worth tackling. With the recently released Black Armory expansion, the Power cap for characters has been raised to 650, so it's definitely worth revisiting the Ascendant Challenge as you grind up to those new heights.
As noted above, the prerequisite for doing an Ascendant Challenge--aside from access to the Dreaming City, which only comes after finishing the Forsaken campaign--is a Tincture of Queensfoil. These can be obtained through chests and Public Events in the Dreaming City, but that's not the only means.
The video above details a location you can go to trade 50 Baryon Boughs, the planetary material you earn in the Dreaming City, for a Tincture of Queensfoil. If you're desperate to get your hands on one to try the Ascendant Challenge, follow our video guide to help you find your way to the spot where you can trade with Huginn.
It's been a quiet couple of weeks in terms of new movies releases, with very little of note hitting theaters since mid-November. But this weekend finally brings us some of the season's biggest movies. The animated adventure Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse arrives in the US and UK on the back of rave reviews, with some critics stating this is the best Spider-Man movie ever made. There's more superhero action in the shape of Once Upon A Deadpool--a specifically re-edited version of this year's smash Deadpool 2, with new footage and a portion of every ticket sold going to the charity F*** Cancer (renamed Fudge Cancer for this more audience-friendly Deadpool).
And that's not all--while DC's much-anticipated Aquaman isn't released in the US until next week, UK audiences can see it seven days earlier from this Friday. Also in UK theaters are a couple of smaller, darker movies--The House that Jack Built and Lizzie--while the Peter Jackson-produced fantasy epic Mortal Engines is also released.
FInally, one of 2018's most acclaimed films arrives on netflix. Alfonso Cuaron's Roma has been picking up acclaim since it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival back in August, and is set to be the streaming giant's first serious Oscar contender. After a limited theatrical release it can be watched worldwide on Netflix from this Friday. So here's the week's new releases in the both the US and UK, in both theaters and on streaming...
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
See it in US and UK theaters on December 14
This spectacular animated Spider-Man adventure has been getting rave reviews and is set to be one of the winter's biggest movies. It features no fewer than six Spideys--including Peter Parker and Miles Morales versions, plus Spider-Gwen and, er, Spider-Ham--and is produced by Lego Movie directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord. In his review, GameSpot's Michael Rougeau called the movie "an instant animated classic, and, with any luck, the first of many of its kind."
Once Upon A Deadpool
See it in US and UK theaters on December 12
The idea of a PG-13 rated Deadpool 2 might seem crazy--how do you reduce the levels of violence and cursing enough to make it teen-friendly but still entertaining? But that's exactly what Once Upon A Deadpool is. Ryan Reynolds and company have filmed new scenes for this version and the movie is set to run until December 24th, with a portion of every ticket sold going to charity. The promos released so far have been very funny, so Deadpool fans will want to make sure they check this out.
Mortal Engines
See it in US and UK theaters on December 14
While Peter Jackson's first post-Hobbit directorial effort is yet to be revealed, he is heavily involved with this sci-fi adventure. Jackson produces and co-writes alongside his regular collaborator Fran Walsh, while Christian Rivers--who has worked with Jackson since his early horror days--makes his directorial debut. Mortal Engines is an adaptation of the first of four YA novels written by Philip Reeve and is set in a post-apocalyptic steampunk world where motorised cities-on-wheels are at war with one another. As you'd expect from Jackson, it looks pretty spectacular.
The Mule
See it in US theaters on December 14
Clint Eastwood might be 87 years old, but his output as a director shows no sign of slowing. We've already had one movie from him this year--the drama The 15:17 to Paris--and The Mule arrives this week. It's another true-life tale, in which Eastwood plays Leo Sharp, who was the world's oldest drug courier, responsible for moving millions of dollars of cocaine across the border for a Mexican cartel. The cast also includes Bradley Cooper as the DEA agent on his trail, plus Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix, John Wick: Chapter 2) and Michael Peña (Ant-Man).
Backtrace
See it in US theaters on December 14
Sylvester Stallone might be enjoying one of the biggest successes of his career with Creed II, but that's not the only movie he has coming out this month. The thriller Backtrace hits selected US theaters and Video on Demand this weekend, and stars Stallone as cop on the trail of a veteran bank robber, played by Stranger Things' Matthew Modine. It sounds like standard stuff for Sly, but 40 decades into his career, he remains a popular star.
Aquaman
See it in UK theaters on December 14
It's been a more than a year since the last DC hit theaters--and frankly, it's best just to forget Justice League ever happened. But there's plenty of movies from the studio on the way over the next couple of years, starting with Aquaman. It's not out in the US until next week, but it arrives in the UK on Friday. Jason Momoa reprises his role as the King of Atlantis, with Amber Heard as Mera, and a cast that also includes Patrick Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Nicole Kidman, and Dolph Lundgren. It's directed by Furious 7 and The Conjuring's James Wan.
The House That Jack Built
See it in UK theaters on December 14
Lars Von Trier remains one of the most provocative directors in the world, best known for such controversial, divisive films as Dogville, Nymphomaniac, Dancer In The Dark, and The Idiots. Von trier has made one horror movie to date--2009's harrowing Antichrist--and he returns to the genre in 2018 with The House That Jack Built. This is a '70s-set serial killer movie that follows the gory exploits of a man named Jack over the course of a decade. Matt Dillon plays the killer, and his victims include characters played by Uma Thurman and Riley Keough.
Lizzie
See it in UK theaters on December 14
Lizzie Borden is one of the most notorious figures in American crime; in 1892 she was tried and acquitted of the axe murders of father and stepfather. Lizzie is based on this case, with Chloe Sevigny as the title character, a young woman who lives in terror under the domineering control of her stepfather, played by Homeland's Jamey Sheridan. Kristen Stewart plays a maid who comes to work at the Borden family home and befriends Lizzie, and it's a safe bet to assume that things get pretty dark from there.
Roma
See it on Netflix on December 14
Alfonso Cuaron is best known for the hugely successful Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Gravity, but his new movie is a world away from those blockbusters. It's a semi-autobiographical story set in Mexico City of the early '70s, and it follows the life of a housekeeper who works for a dysfunctional middle-class family. It's had some the best reviews of any of movie this year, with critics praising both it's beautiful black-and-white photography, ambitious narrative, and powerful performances.
By Anonymous on Dec 11, 2018 10:49 pm Enter Arena War, where ruthless gladiatorial combat meets the bleeding-edge of vehicular modification technology in one spectacular – and highly combustible – competition.
It seems like we just wrapped up Destiny 2's Halloween-themed in-game event, the Festival of the Lost, and already the people of the Tower are slapping up their holiday decorations for the game's next celebration. That event is the Dawning, Destiny's version of a snow-covered space holiday season, which is usually marked by players going around giving NPCs gifts.
The Dawning returns with the latest Destiny 2 weekly reset on December 11, and with it comes the usual holiday giving event--but this time, it's all about baking. As Bungie noted in its blog post about the event, the major single-player event of the Dawning will be all about making and delivering cookies to spread holiday cheer. You'll get recipes for certain cookies and earn ingredients as you work through the missions, but you'll have to discover the most delicious cookie combinations on your own.
Facilitating all this cookie-sharing is Eva Levante, a Destiny character who's been missing from the game since the launch of Destiny 2. There are even lore items tied to Eva's story, so visiting her will likely fill in some interesting backstory gaps.
As with every big in-game event, the Dawning comes with a whole new batch of cosmetic items to earn or buy, too. They're mostly winter-themed, but the most interesting additions are two-player emotes, which let you activate a cool animation like high five or fist bump with another player.
The other big activity returning with the Dawning is Mayhem, a Crucible playlist we haven't seen since the first Destiny. As the name implies, this one is pure, hilarious chaos. Power weapon ammo drops much more frequently, and Super abilities charge up super quickly--meaning everyone in the match is constantly zapping, stabbing, hammering, and exploding each other.
Finally, there's a minor patch to Destiny 2 that comes with the Dawning. Update 2.1.2 gives a bit of a fix to Prime Engrams, making them drop more frequently and with higher power levels to help you grind up to the Power cap and get ready for the Black Armory's new raid, Scourge of the Past.
Check out the full patch notes below.
Items and Economy
General
Prime engrams will now drop more frequently and with larger power bumps for players under 600 Power
Misc
General
Fixed an issue where players could not purchase the Annual Pass from the Director node
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