Cars 3: Driven To Win is Avalanche Software's latest title (not to be confused with Avalanche Studios, the maker of Mad Max and the Just Cause series). It's an action-adventure racing game that will be released the same day as the upcoming movie. It will be available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, and Wii U (yes, all of them). Check the game's brand new trailer below.
Cars 3: Driven To Win will pick up where Cars 3 the movie leaves off. There are more than 20 customizable characters (including Lightning McQueen, of course) and players will race on more than 20 unique tracks from the film against Lightning's chief rival, Jackson Storm.
"We wanted to create a game that allows fans to extend their experience with this great film, and also feel the thrill of speeding through the tracks, participating in races, and mastering tricks and techniques for fun with the whole family" said John Blackburn, head of the game's studio Avalanche Software.
There are six different modes, many different skills and abilities, and players can train up their character through challenges and tests, unlocking new modes, tracks, and characters along the way. There's also a split-screen local cooperative mode that allows two players to team up together at home.
For years, Netflix users could rate videos they watched through the streaming service using a five-star rating system. Now, the company has decided to incorporate a new, simpler system.
The new rating system--as seen in the video above--will have one of two choices: thumbs up or thumbs down. Based on your votes, Netflix will be able to find content that matches what you might be interested in, when compared to the user's previous ratings, other users who vote similar to your tastes, and other factors. The match percentage will also appear on the card with the video, in place of the star rating.
Considering that Netflix has exploded in popularity since the company started its streaming service back in 2007, the new system may turn people on to content they normally wouldn't watch. Many times, users may pass on watching something based on the low ratings of other subscribers, even if the content is something they'd like. The new rating system is more streamlined and will hopefully bring an end to the struggle of browsing for the perfect content.
The new system was tested last year with some Netflix subscribers. Director of Product Innovation, Cameron Johnson, explained why this system is better for their users on the Netflix blog: "[W]hen people see thumbs, they know that they are used to teach the system about their tastes with the goal of finding more great content. That's why when we tested replacing stars with thumbs we saw an astounding 200% increase in ratings activity."
Currently, the new system is not in place, and there is no information for when it will go into effect.
Persona 5 is split between the daily life of a high-schooler--where you're encouraged to socialise with friends or work on self-improvement--and classic RPG dungeon crawling. The interlocking mechanics between the two create a satisfying back-and-forth investment and reward system, but you'll need to properly manage your time to maximise your gains. To help you make the most of every day in the game we've put together a few Persona 5 tips to improve the stats you want and make the friends you need to conquer the Palaces.
Warning: Although there aren't any story spoilers in this gallery, some of the images include characters that are unlocked later in the game. These characters have been featured in pre-release artwork, however.
Read, Learn, Repeat
As in real life, reading books is a great way of improving your characteristics and learning about the city you live in. Head to the bookstore in Central Street and you'll be greeted with a selection of books and magazines to buy, and each of them will improve a different stat. Some will make you more knowledgeable, others will improve your proficiency--which is key for crafting items. There are also books dedicated to uncovering new places in the city that you can travel to when hanging out with friends. Once you've read about a new place, it'll be added to the map and, depending on who you choose to hang out with, you could improve your Confidant rank quicker--handy for when you're wooing your waifu or husbando. There's a lot of travelling on the subway in Persona 5 and if you've got a book in hand you can spend that time improving your stats. Try and always have something new to read to make the best use of this time.
Juice Up
There are also various ways to boost your stats. Part time jobs will improve a specific characteristic, as will hanging with friends, and doing extracurricular activities. However, for a quick bump, head to the Underground Walkway in Shibuya Station on Sundays. There you'll find a Juice Stand where you can buy a special Fruit Juice. Drinking this tasty virtual beverage will add a point to one of your characteristics. However, it's different every week, so if you're focusing on improving select attributes, you may be better served doing something else. This is a nice, randomised bonus.
Thieve Like Me
When you boot up the game, you'll be prompted to connect to the Thieves Guild. You may be tempted not to since Persona 5 is primarily a single-player RPG but DO IT. Connecting to the Thieve's Guild is a super useful way to call upon the many other players out there for their assistance. If one of your teammates gets taken hostage in battle, you can summon a Thieve's Guild member to rescue them. If you're wondering what level you should be at that particular time in the game, or want to see how other players spent their day you can with a press of the touchpad. If you're in class and you're stumped on a question the teacher has thrown your way, your pals at the Thieves Guild have your back. It's basically Ask the Audience from Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, where the answer percentages are displayed, giving you what is most likely to be the correct response. Note that this doesn't work during exam season. Cheating is bad, m'kay.
Be Confidant
Making friends is important, in life and in Persona 5. The closer you are to your allies, the more they'll watch your back in battle or help you out in the real world. Make nice with Kawakami and she'll let you slack off in class, meaning you can spend that time doing something more useful like reading a book or making lockpicks. Spend time with Hifume, and she'll teach you some awesome Shogi moves that you can apply in the Metaverse to turn the tides on your enemy. Spend as much time as possible strengthening those bonds. Or, if you don't want to put the time in, once you reach rank 7 with the fortuneteller Chihaya, you can pay her 5,000¥ to boost the amount of Co-op points you get each time you hang out with a Confidant, meaning you'll be hitting Max Rank in no time.
Auto-Recover And Over And Over
Not really a tip as much as a 'reminder of the tutorial menu that pops up on screen,' but one of Persona 5's new functions is the very handy AUTORECOVER, which is genuinely a game changer and time saver. No longer after fights are you trawling through menus looking for Dia so you can heal everyone up. Now all you have to do is just tap square as you're running around Palaces and everyone will be topped up and ready to party. Get in the habit of doing it regularly and get into it early. As the game progresses it introduces enemies that can wipe your team out in the blink of an eye, so you don't want to be going into encounters with half health.
Lockin' Pickin'
Lockpicks are important because Palaces are literally full of chests, ripe for the taking. Once a Treasure has been taken from the Palace and your target's heart has been changed, the Palace collapses, meaning that that chest you missed is gone forever. Spend your evenings crafting lockpicks (which also ups your Proficiency stat) so that you can loot chests as and when you find them. Additionally, try and make the Unbreakable Lockpick as soon as possible. You'll need Aluminium Sheet and Liquid Mercury which you can find in Mementos. Having one of these will save you a lot of time and make your treasure hunting life much easier.
Eye See You
Your Third Eye ability is super useful when solving puzzles as it highlights key items or footprints in blue. Tap the Left Trigger and you'll see elements of the environment glow gold. This signifies that there's there's something worth pinching. And once you've liberated that item from the Palace in which you found it, you can then sell it in the real world for mega ¥, no questions asked. Make sure you use your Third Eye in every new room you enter, you never know what kind of valuable is hiding away in the corner.
Combonation
Save yourself some bother in battle by fully utilising Persona 5's combo mechanic to make light work of your demonic foes. If an enemy is burning as a result of your fire attack, follow up with a wind attack to fan those flames and do extra damage. If enemies have a status effect from a Psi attack, say hit it with a Nuclear ability to add an extra dose of pain. If an enemy is asleep … well, actually, don't hit them or they'll wake up. Instead, use this time to buff a member of your party so they can deal a devastating blow.
Mementos
The many (and I mean MANY) levels of Mementos may be daunting, but honestly, it's a great place to grind, so don't ignore it. If you want to make things easier for yourself, pay attention to the weather. Since Mementos is connected to the real world, you can use changes in the weather to your advantage. If there's a Heatwave, some of the enemies may be inflicted with a burning status effect that chips away at their health. If there's a high pollen count, they'll be sleepy and less inclined to attack you on sight. Use this time to avoid battles and travel deeper into the depths of the mysterious dungeon. This will help you complete side-quests quicker and take care of some pesky citizens of the city.
BONUS TIME
Buy the old TV from the second hand store in Yongen-Jaya as soon as you can. As an added bonus, you'll get a used DVD player thrown in for free. You can rent DVDs from the video store on Central Street to improve your stats. Here's a cheeky hint: You can keep these DVDs for as long as you like. You're threatened with a late fee, but for some reason the game waives it every time you take a DVD back--must be all the good karma you're racking up by helping people. This never would have happened in Blockbusters, but it's a nifty little exploit that happened to me. There is a chance that it may not work for you, but it's worth testing out anyway.
Marvel has announced it is partnering with Freeform and ABC Signature on a TV series called Marvel's New Warriors. It is described as a "comedic live-action adaptation of the popular Marvel comic featuring young adult heroes."
The TV show is about "six young people with powers living and working together," and aims to focus on "that time in your life when you first enter adulthood and feel like you can do everything and nothing at once." Doreen "Squirrel Girl" Green has been revealed as one of its six main characters.
"[Doreen is] a totally empowering fan girl--tough, optimistic and a natural leader," Marvel explains. "[She's] confident and has the powers of a squirrel ... She's acrobatic, can fight and talk to other squirrels. Her most important trait is that she has faith in people and teaches them to believe in themselves."
The remaining five characters that make up the New Warriors are still a mystery, but Marvel says they'll all have "powers and abilities on the opposite end of the spectrum of The Avengers." Together "the New Warriors want to make a difference in the world … Even if the world isn't ready."
Freeform is the cable channel formerly known as ABC Family, and its programming is aimed at teenagers and young adults. A series based on Marvel's Cloak & Dagger is also in development there.
"Marvel's New Warriors have always been fan favorites and now, particularly with the addition of Squirrel Girl, they are Marvel Television favorites as well," said Jeph Loeb, Marvel's head of television and executive producer. "After the amazing experience we've had with Freeform on Marvel's Cloak & Dagger we can't think of a better place for our young heroes."
Loeb is serving as executive producer on the series alongside Jim Chory (Marvel's The Punisher, Marvel's The Defenders). Marvel's New Warriors has not been given an air date yet.
Adapting The Legend of Zelda to the structure of a modern, open world may be Nintendo's greatest feat of the last decade; to say nothing of Breath of the Wild's role in fueling sales of Switch consoles. But perhaps more notable than what Breath of the Wild means for Zelda or Switch is the unshakable impact Nintendo has made on the future of open world games. Breath of the Wild is almost without compare, and any open world game in its wake will no doubt be measured against it in some way. For the first time in years, Nintendo is a trendsetter.
As you might expect, creating such an ambitious game was a monumental undertaking. As Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma revealed to us at E3 last year, Breath of the Wild was the biggest Nintendo project to date. When you consider the enormity of its world, the litany of mechanics at play, and the seamless yet varied atmosphere that connects it all, it wasn't surprising when Aonuma felt challenged to keep such a large team--consisting of both Nintendo and Monolith Soft. employees--focused on a single vision:
Nintendo Producer, Eiji Aonuma
"When we're building something, we all have to have a shared perspective and goal, and it's important that everyone has this concrete image in [their] mind. When you have this many people, you may say the same thing to everybody, but everyone has a different perspective on it. If we made a game with that, we would have a very broken and disjointed game. One of the biggest challenges is making sure we all have a shared vision."
Breath of the Wild shipped, and by all accounts, Aonuma met his challenge well. Whether you're catching butterflies or infiltrating the ransacked halls of a once-great castle, Breath of the Wild consistently reflects a unified spirit. Around the game's release last month, we had the chance to chat with three Breath of the Wild directors about their experiences crafting this incredible adventure; about the events that transpired while Aonuma fought to unite his own kingdom at Nintendo.
Hidemaro Fujibayashi is the director of Breath of the Wild, but he got his start working on Zelda games back at Capcom during the Game Boy Color days, directing both The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. During our chat, though he did most of the talking, Fujibayashi sat between technical director Takuhiro Dohta and art director Satoru Takizawa--cohorts that have worked closely on Zelda games like Twilight Princess and Wind Waker HD. Though Aonuma and Shigeru Miyamoto are the names most people associate with Zelda, the three developers that sat across from us arguably deserve a lion's share of the credit that's been laid at the feet of Nintendo's more prominent personalities.
Breath of the Wild is an unwavering adventure set in a world dominated by nature, where elements and objects become the subjects of experiments as you piece together how the world works, and what you can do within that ruleset. Slowly but surely, you learn how to control fire, lightning, gravity, and magnetism. As Fujibayashi was quick to point out, giving the player freedom to experiment was the solution to keeping players engaged while exploring a massive world--one practically devoid of typical open-world filler quests.
Satoru Takizawa, Takuhiro Dohta, and Hidemaro Fujibayashi.
"So the easiest way to go about addressing that problem--of not tiring out the player or boring the player--would be to add puzzles here or add elements there," said Fujibayashi. "But then we would have to make all of that, and that's a lot of resources that we would have to devote to that." The now famous multiplicative gameplay was the answer, he added: "So say we make one, two, or three, different calculations. [Between] those calculations there are things that occur. So it looks like we calculated for all of these things, but only just the three."
"We tried to avoid [creating scenarios] where there's only one possible outcome," he continued. "We tried to remove those as much as possible, and this ideal was really well understood by all of the designers and artists that design terrains and landscapes."
The game that resulted from this concept no doubt thrives because of it, and even a month after its release, players around the world continue to make and share their discoveries. What about the people responsible for crafting the game's collection of cause-and-effect mechanics? Even among Nintendo's staff, occasional surprises delighted the team despite their unrivaled familiarity with the game. According to Takizawa: "one thing we saw at E3 was one of the NOA demonstrating staff, just in their downtime figured out a way to use magnesis to make themselves fly in a way, and we're like, 'Okay, we hadn't thought of that.' We all had to go back and try it ourselves."
"At times we would even show Mr. Miyamoto once a week what we'd been working on, because if we don't do that, and then go face-to-face and present the idea, tables might be flipped!'"
He tried to explain the trick, which we were unfortunately unable to replicate. "If you laid two of the metal platforms on top of each other, and got them just in the right position, you could use one of them to lift the other and kind of make yourself float." He relayed another surprise, this time from watching a new player tinker with the game. "We also saw, and I think this was just an E3 attendee," he recalled, that used objects to fashion their own catapult and then fling themselves across the landscape. That also looked pretty fun. And that made me feel, 'Yeah, this freedom we wanted to give players is really coming through here.'"
Breath of the Wild isn't short on challenges or solutions to overcome them, but it wasn't surprising to hear that some ideas were left by the wayside. Takizawa chimed in with one such example that lasted far into development, and the reasoning behind its ultimate disappearance.
"Until about halfway through the development, we had a spec where you could take your weapon and stab it into a wall. When your stamina gauge was dwindling you could stab the weapon and kind of hang out and rest there." Given the emphasis on climbing in the game, it was surprising to hear this option was removed. The reason? Miyamoto's disapproval.
Nintendo Director/Creative Fellow, Shigeru Miyamoto
"So the answer," according to Fujibayashi," is that Mr. Miyamoto heard of the concept he said, 'You can't stand on the tip of a sword. This is strange.' And then we explained, "No no no, you stab it in." Then he's like, 'No, it's not going to work.' Another idea is that it's very hard to actually stab a sword into a big piece of rock. We considered that you can stab them into cracks or crevices in the wall, but then you can't freely use that feature anywhere you want, so I decided not to implement it."
Miyamoto may not have been directly involved in creating gameplay concepts himself, but by the sound of it, he kept a close eye on everything the team was doing. "So starting from the early stages of development we had been constantly showing Mr. Miyamoto our progress. At times we would even show him once a week what we'd been working on, because if we don't do that, and then go face-to-face and present the idea, tables might be flipped!'"
Though the team had plenty of leaders and a judicious overseer, Breath of the Wild is a product of the group, and the life experiences its members brought to the team were a key component of its success, particularly when it came to interacting with the environment. Fujibayashi drove this point home."The staff that was involved in creating the game, they all have their own hobbies. Some of them like camping or outdoor sports, and we tried to make it a point that they take all of the experiences that they have in their lives and drop it into the game."
When we told the directors how the game matched up with our own meaningful experiences in nature, Fujibayashi beamed. "Hearing you express that you have this emotion that comes up [while playing], that you haven't felt since you went hiking, makes me really happy because I feel like we were able to convey what we really wanted to."
Part of the allure of hiking through woods or over complicated mountain passes is the joy of discovering something that makes you look at your environment, and maybe the world at large, in new ways. But even in our day to day lives, we experience a version of discovery on a smaller scale. According to Takizawa, "One of the things that we were considering was to incorporate this phenomena, which is very common for us in Japanese culture. Every day you take the same road to school and back, but on the way you're like, 'Oh look, I remember this guy over here has a dog so I'm gonna go over there and pet that dog. And then over here, there's this field I want to explore. There's some plants I want to pluck, or there are things I want to do that make that road itself interesting.' We said, 'Let's create an environment that does just that.'"
"And it's not just the terrain," he continued. "It's all the items and elements within the terrain...you soon get distracted by this shiny thing over here, that cool thing over there. And again, we had that very active conversation to create that world. So kids really like stopping to pick the weeds or stopping to smell the flowers, so we wanted to create a world that not only enabled them to do that but enticed them to do so."
Gazillion Entertainment, the developer of 2013's PC RPG Marvel Heroes, has announced a follow-up called Marvel Heroes Omega, coming to PlayStation 4 this spring.
Marvel Heroes Omega "draws inspiration from both action-RPGs and MMOs," says community manager David Lee. Headline characters include Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, and the Guardians of the Galaxy, while villains Loki and Doctor Doom will also make an appearance in the game's nine-chapter story campaign.
You can take a look at the game's reveal trailer above, or if you want to try it out for yourself, Gazillion has stated a closed beta will come to PS4 soon.
It's unclear whether Omega represents a full sequel to Marvel Heroes--which Gazillion has continued to support since its launch four years ago--or if it's to be a port of that PC game. We do know, however, that the new game will be free-to-play, just like the original title.
In other Marvel news, upcoming Spider-Man reboot movie, Homecoming, recently saw a new trailer released. The film--which is set to hit theaters on July 7--stars Tom Holland in action as Spidey, plus Michael Keaton as the villainous Vulture, and Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is also scheduled for this year, while a new teaser for Netflix's Defenders series recently got a new teaser--check it out here.
Screenwriter Eric Heisserer was nominated for an Oscar this past award season for his work on Arrival. While he continues to write for Hollywood, with films like Lights Out and future films like Van Helsing, he's also started writing for comic publisher Valiant. During a recent visit to WonderCon in Anaheim, California, we talked to him about his transition in comics and his upcoming film projects.
GameSpot: You adapted Arrival from a story by Ted Chiang, and it's a very science fiction movie that isn't so science fiction. How far did you dive into linguistics and how language works for the film?
Eric Heisserer: I took what I learned from the novella, from Ted's work, and I dove in with a lot of reading and research on my own and got to where I was like, "Yeah, I know this s*** really well." Then I sat down with linguist and I was like, "I don't know anything at all. I'm not that smart."
The best thing to do in these kinds of situations is surround yourself with the people that do these kinds of things and just let them talk. Listening to how a theoretical physicist and a linguist talk about their work is a little bit like you and I talking about a new comic we love or a new movie that came out which we're infatuated with. For them, it's ideas. It's theories. It's whatever part of their work that they're really grappling with or excited about.
In a sense, would you say that it was a bit overwhelming with the intelligence in the room with you while working on Arrival?
It was! Here I am writing characters that are way smarter than I am, and they're facing the challenge of a lifetime. To try and make that believable was so intimidating to me. I didn't want to mess that up. The best thing I could do would be a surrogate for their approaches, their philosophies, and their ideas and find out how linguists would try and crack this in that situation. Some of that was in the [Ted Chiang] story, and that helped. Ted has done the heavy lifting for me. Time and again, if I ran into a dead end, I could go back to the story and say, "This is what he did."
You've also worked on a few horror films as well: Lights Out, The Thing (2011), A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010). Are you going back to horror? Is that something you gravitate towards as a writer?
It's the mafia, for me. Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in with another horror movie. I got stuck in that lane, and I wrote other stuff, specifically to get out of that. But now that I am, the best material I find ends up being horror.
When [director] David Sandberg came to me and said, "I have an idea for how to make Lights Out a feature." I was like, "[sighs] Yes. I see that. That works. I can do that." And I adapted a novel by Josh Malerman called Birdbox, which if you haven't read it, read this novel. You will love it. It's holy s***, it's great. And that is, right now, my favorite unproduced screenplay out there. I'm really proud of that one and I hope it gets made sometime.
I saw you were attached to a new Van Helsing film.
Yeah. I wrote that with Jon Spaihts (Doctor Strange). We co-wrote that last year. We turned in a draft that we were so proud of and so excited for. I think we both knew our version of Van Helsing, which you hadn't seen before... It's like... take Mad Max, put him in contemporary times, throw him in the caravan, so he's "this close" to being homeless, and have him know everyone in the occult. [laughs] That's just cool. Have him be the MacGyver of the world. It's a little like Batman around the Justice League. Everyone else has ridiculous, god-like powers, and he's rich. And a poor Van Helsing isn't even that. We had a lot of fun with it, and I don't know what the situation is with that. We turned our draft, and it just takes forever in the system today. We'll see what happens with it.
With that character, we've seen a lot of different versions of him, and a lot of it gravitates towards action. He's a guy that lives in a world of horror. How much of your version of the character deals with that?
Quite a lot. His viewpoint, specifically, is even with horror. You're dealing with creatures and sometimes scientists that are larger than life. They're superheroes in a horror world, and so to speak, sometimes anti-heroes. When a big problem comes along, they're the ones to solve it.
What Van Helsing doesn't like is this culture of--which is almost like anti-superhero culture--we, as human beings, have to stop outsourcing our problems to people that are bigger than us or larger than us and expecting them to solve the problems. We gotta do it ourselves. We have to own up, take some responsibilities, find our balls, go and tackle whatever this thing is because the more we keep doing this and relying on somebody else, when they're done with one problem, they're gonna turn to feeding on us again. That makes him a bit of a radical, and I believe there was a moment when we were in the room talking about all the other monsters movies.
I brazenly said, 'The moment your monster movie bombs, Van Helsing is going to kill your guy.' [laughs] They didn't like that. [laughs] You start in one place and where you end up is the result of a million different decisions along the way, half of a which you're not even in the room for.
Do you feel more comfortable in the realm of adaptation or creating new stories?
I found that it's a little easier to get work in the adaptation world. I may shed a tear talking about the original pieces that I tried to launch that have fallen short because there's just not a built-in audience for them. I've gone as far as selling some things that I don't think will ever get made. But that's why I like comics because there's a market. I'm like, "Hey! I want to do a brand new title and introduce new characters," and they're like, "sure!"
What brought you to Valiant, writing comics?
I had been pulled in to consider adapting Harbinger for them and for Sony. And I had not seen any of the new run of Harbinger at Valiant, prior to that. And so the week before my meeting, I went and did a crash course, and I went and bought all of [Joshua] Dysart's books and dove in. It went from, "I'll consider talking about a comic book movie" that seems to be increasingly difficult to make in a time where there are a lot of comic book movies. And I fell in love. I was like, "I have to do this now. This is an American Akira. I've got to do this. Holy s***." I kept coming back to them.
I think, at one point in time, Dinesh Shamdasani [Valiant CEO] said, "Eric, you got the job already." But I kept auditioning through the final draft of that. Then I had so many ideas for Livewire in particular. I really fell in love with her as a character and had all these interesting notions of how she might use her powers and who she might mentor in her next life, so to speak. I told them I have enough to make her own book and they said, "Challenge accepted." Before I knew it, I was writing.
Did you talk to Dysart prior to getting into his work?
Yeah. I reached out to him. First to find out how the people were here, and second of all, what challenges he had with the characters, with Pete. He was helpful. He was also understandably critical of Hollywood screenwriters. The advantage is that my wife has known him for a long time. He could just tell me to take a leap.
Did you feel like there are a lot of challenges going from screenwriting into comic book writing? There are a lot of similarities in the format of the writing, but it is very different at the same time with things like pacing.
There is, yeah. Pacing is making sure where you are on the page and on the spread, having some idea of how the panels will flow without spoon-feeding your artist so you're not doing too much or too little. They love when you do too little because they go crazy, but you want to make sure the pacing works. And beyond that, you got to be so much more of a director and a writer at the same time to know where you want the focus. You can put that in the script for a comic book and really say, "This is the action we're going to highlight. This is the moment we're going to capture. This is the emotion I want to see drawn large." I think it makes me a better screenwriter. I come off of that and feel like I flexed some muscles there. For the first draft of the next thing I write, I'm like, "Yeah, I can direct this."
It does open your eyes going from screenwriting to comic books because it is so similar yet so different.
Totally. And the ability to… you gotta know how to be torse in your dialogue. You can't just prattle-off and give people soliloquies. They gotta earn that s*** on the page.
Because you wrote the Harbinger movie, how was the transition into comic book movies?
The transition is to be aware of every comic book movie that's come before you. And we went six months down a path and finally had a draft we got excited about. We took a month off and went back it and said, "This is still too much like X-Men." We can't do that. It required a reinvention, and I was down for that because I love the characters. I love the world so much. We finally figured out a sweet spot to land in, and as I mention now, we created the David Bowie of comic book movies, with Harbinger. It's off-center and it's punk and it's interesting. It just looks cool.
Do feel there's a lot of pressure to write a story for that movie that's like everything else even though there's a bit of over-saturation with comic book films?
Well, I gotta say it's easy to start with something familiar because you know what works, but then you realize when you go familiar, you're gonna get second place at best. If you really want to have a breakout hit, you gotta do something that's bold and different, impossibly controversial, and see how that works. I imagine it will still undergo another transformation before it ever gets to screen, but it started from the place of, "We know how comic books movies work, and we can write one like that," and we wound up throwing it all out and reinventing it. It was a hard process that I think yielded a good product. I'm really proud of it.
Who else within comics would you like to work with?
Doctor Mirage.
I think that's right up your alley.
I think it is! I may have a handful of great story pitches that never saw the light of day.
What attracts you to that character?
E: I like that her and her husband are kind of modeled after The Warrens, and I did a little work on Conjuring 2, so I've had a taste of the Warrens, and I was like, "I got to write that relationship again." I like that there is a voice that I find so comforting and inviting, so I want to try my hand at writing in the charatcer's voice, so to speak. They aren't X-Files stories, and they aren't Supernatural stories. They're Doctor Mirage stories, and I'm grateful for that.
Are there any personality or character types you struggle to write, trying to find their voice?
Yeah. I had trouble, not within any of the Valiant stuff. I felt pretty connected to those characters. But I've had trouble with… I gotta tell you how hard it can be to find the right voice for a character if they've been around for a long time. And therefore, are on a spectrum. So then everyone in the room will have their favorite version of that character. Then to try and write something that feels loyal to that but is a little bit of your own voice can be maddening.
Would it be fair to say that Freddy Krueger is one of those characters?
Yes. I was in trouble when I realized that one person in a lot of power in that room wanted a super-scary, serious Freddy, and the other one wanted the wise-cracking one.
Like Dream Warriors.
Yeah! Exactly. I'm like, "Oh, we're in trouble now." One is gonna keep pushing me to put in puns and wise-cracking comments, and the other is gonna be like, "No! You gotta have a goat that he slaughters!"
That is a very diverse character, if you look at that entire series. New Nightmare is a very serious version of Freddy, even if that wasn't technically Freddy. While the middle of the franchise is very wacky. Were there days where you were conflicted and didn't know which route to take?
I was. I was really paralyzed in moments with that. I gave it my best with the one pass I had at it, and then ultimately, maybe 5% of what I wrote wound up on the screen, which is how it goes, and by the way, that was my first credit. I was the little man in the room there, and there's really not a chance to talk much. I talk a lot about, in terms of screenwriting, that you either get hired as an architect or as a hard hat worker. But also, the reason I kept going back to New Line is that the guys at New Line, in particular, love genre, they know their stuff, they were advocates for me from the start, and I didn't have any problem with them. If you're listening, I love you, New Line.
I was very excited that Arrival got nominated for an Oscar. What was your experience with the show and the nomination?
It was an interesting experience. I've been watching the Oscars, like a ritual, for years and years. The first thing that struck me, when I got into that theater was, "That's actually smaller than I thought." It seems to huge on television, and yet, here, it's just a stage. It feels a little bit like some all-star episode of something because you look around and every face you recognize. "Oh my god, Samuel L Jackson is on my row. This is weird." Beyond that, it's just an award show, like anything else, and I've been to a few others earlier in the season, and there's something comforting about that.
Was it an incredible boost to your ego to know you're kind of on that echelon with everyone else?
It should have been. I think I have a malfunctioning ego, where I was more rooting for Barry Jenkins [writer of Moonlight] for a long while. We met each other on the road. I am a big fan of his writing, and his philosophy and his approach. Once I found out that he and I were sharing the category, I was like, "Well, obviously, I would vote for you, so…"
By Anonymous on Apr 05, 2017 08:30 pm The Lobby crew discusses what they want in Battlefront 2, the stellar lineup of Japanese games this year, and their most anticipated titles for the rest of 2017.
There are a wide variety of creatures you can tame and ride in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Whether you're riding on horseback or plowing through enemies atop a bear, you have no shortage of mounts to ride across the Hyrule countryside. Click ahead for a closer look at every creature you can ride.
Spotted horses are great for beginners, as they're easy to tame and aren't as ill-tempered. However, their accessibility comes at a cost; they have the lowest stamina among all the horse mounts.
One-Color Horse
One-color horses are more difficult to tame and ride than their spotted counterparts. Fortunately, these issues are counterbalanced by their high stamina. But don't go stressing out these elegant hotheads too much, as their wild temperament will likely cause them to kick you off.
Epona
The iconic Epona appears in Breath of the Wild, but you can only obtain her when you scan the Super Smash Bros. series Link amiibo. She has some of the most-balanced horse stats in the game, sporting four star strength, speed, and stamina.
Descendant Of Zelda's Mare
You can find a descendant of Zelda's mare grazing near the ruins at Safula Hill. Her pure-white coat makes her hard to miss. Her wild temperament and low speed lower her standing as a mount, but these failings are balanced out by her high strength and stamina.
When you tame the descendant, make sure to show her off to the old man standing in front of the Outskirt Stable. He rewards you with the Royal Saddle and Bridle. If these new accessories don't suit your taste, you can switch them out by talking to the Outskirt Stable's groomer, Canni (but only after you raise the relationship with your horse to the max level).
Giant Horse
The giant horse has the most strength of any other registrable mount in the game. It also has infinite stamina; though, it isn't very fast.
You can find this gigantic steed in the Taobab Grassland. Simply travel to Owa Daim Shrine and paraglide to the cliffs of Mount Faloraa to the south. Once you reach the cliffs, look west and you can spot the Giant Horse in the distance. Before approaching it, equip your Stealth Armor or consume a Stealth Elixir. Keep in mind, it takes just over two stamina wheels to tame it.
Stalhorse
As you explore the North Tabantha Snowfield's tundra, you'll discover that stalkoblins ride on undead mounts at night. If you want steal one of these sweet skeleton horses for yourself, simply pick off their rider with an arrow and mount it. Unfortunately, they cannot be registered at stables and they automatically disappear right at sunrise.
The Lord of the Mountain
The Lord of the Mountain is a horse-like creature you can find at the top of Satori Mountain. Its presence is indicated by a blue glow that you can easily spot from a distance. Before you reach the grove at the mountain's peak, make sure to equip your Stealth Armor or consume a Stealth Elixir. You also need at least two full stamina wheels to successfully tame the creature.
When you're close enough to the Lord of the Mountain, sprint towards it and quickly press A to mount it, and then mash on the L button to prevent it from dislodging you. It cannot be registered at stables, but it offers fully maxed out stats--making it the best mount in the game.
Deer
Deer aren't the most useful or reliable mounts, as they're far less compliant than horses and lack speed. You also can't register them at stables for future travels. Despite these limitations, riding them is a fun novelty well worth taking advantage of when the opportunity presents itself.
Bear
It's possible to ride a bear. They're not all that useful or fast, but they're great at ramming unsuspecting foes. Plus, who doesn't want to ride a bear? Sadly, you can't register them at stables.
Lynel
If you've completed the Zora Domain portion of your quest, then chances are you'll know about the devastating power of Lynels. These centaur-like beings will stop at nothing to eliminate you, making persistent use of both their melee weapon and long-range attacks to cause you all sorts of grief. But it's possible to humiliate these terrifying foes by stunning and temporarily mounting them. Before you confront a Lynel, it's recommended that you grab the Stasis rune upgrade from Purah.
When you're ready to fight one, make sure to maintain your distance. Use Stasis when it's about to charge at you; once frozen, quickly shoot a bomb or a fire arrow at its head to stun it. When it's down, quickly mount it and toss a few swipes at its neck. Rinse and repeat this process until the creature is defeated.
"We have plotted out many years," said Sher. "We put together this group of writers to talk about where we were going. There'll be a film that feels more like Black Ops, the story behind the story. The Modern Warfare series looks at what it's like to fight a war with the eyes of the world on you. And then maybe something that is more of a hybrid, where you are looking at private, covert operations, while a public operation is going on."
It's not clear whether Sher is referring to three separate movies--one based on Black Ops, one on Modern Warfare, and one a hybrid--or if she is discussing one film that draws on multiple Call of Duty sources.
"It's going to have the same sort of high-adrenaline, high-energy aesthetic as the game, but it's not a literal adaptation," added van Dyk. "It's a much more broad and inclusive, global in scope ... a big, tentpole, Marvel-esque movie."
In addition to a number of films--the first of which could, according to the Guardian, arrive as early as 2018--the studio is also considering a TV series based on historical conflicts, such as those in Vietnam and World War II. Call of Duty has visited both those eras in the past with Black Ops and the early, numbered games respectively. The next Call of Duty game is rumored to return the franchise to the Second World War after multiple futuristic entries.
Any potential Call of Duty movie would not be Activision Blizzard's first foray into the world of film: the company released a World of Warcraft motion picture, simply called Warcraft, in 2016. Warcraft went on to be the highest-grossing video game movie ever, earning $337 million at the worldwide box office, though it was a critical failure. However it should be noted that Warcraft was licensed out to a third-party studio, Legendary Pictures, while the Call of Duty films will seemingly be produced in house.
Terraria: Otherworld, a spinoff PC game announced back in February 2015, has seen its developer ditched as the project is "well behind schedule," according to publisher Re-Logic.
The game was in development at Engine Software, a Dutch developer behind a number of licensed games and handheld ports. However, in a forum post, Re-Logic stated it has had to end Engine's involvement with the game as "the game is still equal parts far from [our] vision and well behind schedule."
"Re-Logic's focus has and always will be on delivering complete and quality game experiences to our fanbase," the publisher said. "This means that we will not compromise game quality for speed to market or for any other reasons within our control. Our team had a clear vision for this game--one that we shared with all of you with much shared excitement--and, as much as we hate to say it (and in spite of all of the reforms we tried last year)--the current state of the game is still equal parts far from that vision and well behind schedule.
"As a result, we have made the decision to move on from having Engine Software continue development of Terraria: Otherworld. Re-Logic has possession of the game (code, art, sounds, etc.) as it exists today, and we have been examining the array of options available to us to get TOW to a place to where we can confidently deliver on the vision and expectations we all have for this game. After taking a good hard look at everything, we feel that a new and fresh start/direction is the only way Otherworld will ever reach its full potential at this point."
Re-Logic, who developed the original game and published it on PC, stated it has shifted development of the spinoff open-world strategy game to Pipeworks, which previously worked on the console and mobile versions of Terraria.
"Based upon their really impressive work to date with the Terraria re-write on console/mobile," said the publisher, "coupled with an amazingly on-point proposal for completing Otherworld (after a thorough review of the game on their end), we have made the decision to bring Pipeworks on board as our new development partner for Terraria: Otherworld."
Re-Logic goes on to state that it expects a "quiet period" while Pipeworks gets started on its version of the game. The new developer will "staff up" appropriately so that work on Otherworld "does not have any impact on the timing/quality of console/mobile/Switch launch." The main game is due to launch on Nintendo Switch at some point in 2017.
A study commissioned by Google has found that teenagers find the Xbox brand "cooler" than they find PlayStation. That preference was switched in millennials, however, as 18-25 year olds thought Sony's gaming brand was cooler than Microsoft's.
According to the report, children aged 13-17 thought Xbox was the fourth coolest brand in the world, with PlayStation down in seventh. Top of that list was Google's own video streaming service, YouTube, with Netflix and Google's overall brand in No.2 and No.3, respectively.
Nintendo is seen to be less cool than Xbox and PlayStation among both millennial and teenagers, while EA Sports is even further behind, says the report. Additionally, VR and AR are seen as some of the coolest things in the world of technology, along with smartphones and iOS in particular.
The study--which was intended to discover what young people's favourite brands were--was commissioned by Google but carried out by YouGov and Gutcheck across three surveys. In total, around 1600 teenagers and 800 millenials were polled between May and July 2016, though much of the data came from one particular survey that queried 1100 teens. It should be noted that much of the actual data was omitted from the final report in favor of qualitative statements, while it also appears the survey was limited to young people in the US.
Virtual reality is a big trend in gaming and across other entertainment mediums. There is some concern, however, that the technology might not be the best thing for society.
John Hanke, the CEO of Pokemon Go developer Niantic Labs, offered his thoughts on the subject today at the Mixed Reality Summit in London. According to GI.biz, Hanke said VR has the potential to be "too good" and might lead to people wanting to spend extended periods of time in digital worlds.
"My thing about VR is I'm afraid it can be too good, in the sense of being an experience that people want to spend a huge amount of time in," he said. "I mean I already have concerns about my kids playing too much Minecraft, and that's a wonderful game.
"We're human beings and there's a lot of research out there that shows we're actually a lot happier when we get exercise, when we go outside--and outside in nature in particular," he added. "I think it's a problem for us as a society if we forgo that and spend all of time in a Ready Player One-style VR universe."
Hanke has been critical of VR in the past. Speaking to Recode last year, Hanke said VR can be an isolationist activity. "In a VR situation, you're isolating yourself from everyone around you and entering this completely virtual space," he said at the time.
Going back to his talk at the Mixed Reality Summit, Hanke said augmented reality--which is at the core of Pokemon Go--has a "huge amount of potential" to do things that have a positive impact on humanity. Niantic has said one of its goals for Pokemon Go is to help make the world a better place.
"There is research about the health impact of Pokemon Go in particular but you can expand that to apply to all AR games," he said. "These games can encourage people to be more active than they would normally be. As a parent, part of my motivation for building this kind of game was to try and get my kids out of the house. I think there's a ton of good that can be done."
Also during the talk, Hanke said he foresees a day when AR and VR "converge into a single set of experiences."
Marvel today announced that its next Netflix show, The Defenders, will premiere on the streaming site on August 18. This was confirmed alongside a new teaser that shows members of the Defenders, including Iron Fist (Finn Jones), Like Cage (Mike Colter), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), and Daredevil (Charlie Cox) in an elevator. Jessica Jones ends the clip by smashing the camera.
This teaser is not much to go on, though you can see the name Midland Circle Financial in the elevator. And according to Bleeding Cool, the voice saying "going down" is that of Sigourney Weaver, who plays the show's villain, Alexandra.
The characters in the elevator are joined by a variety of characters from the individual Netflix shows, including Daredevil's Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), Jessica Jones's Jeri Hogarth (Carrie-Anne Moss), and Luke Cage's Misty Knight, played by Simone Missick.
Dave, Lucy, Tamoor, and Oscar try their hand at Yooka-Laylee's local multiplayer mode, with mixed results.
The Lobby crew discusses what they want in Battlefront 2, the stellar lineup of Japanese games this year, and their most anticipated titles for the rest of 2017.
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