Sony has released the list of best-selling PlayStation Store games in the US for the month of July. Unsurprisingly, Crash Bandicoot continued his ascent to the top of the PlayStation 4 charts, while the Call of Duty series dominated the DLC category.
On the DLC chart, Call of Duty: Black Ops III's Zombie Chronicles expansion once again took the top spot, while Diablo III's Rise of the Necromancer held firm at No. 2. The rest of the chart was largely comprised of various other Call of Duty DLC, though the Dragon Ball Super 4 pack for Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 made a surprise appearance at No. 8.
The PS3 and Vita charts didn't differ too much from June's. The Last of Us topped the former, while God of War Collection was once again the best-selling PSN title for the latter. You can find the full sales charts for those and other platforms on the PlayStation Blog; the PS4 and DLC lists can be seen below.
July 2017's Best-Selling PS4 Games on PSN in the US
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - Game of the Year Edition
God of War III Remastered
Friday the 13th: The Game
Rocket League
Grand Theft Auto V
Minecraft: PlayStation 4 Edition
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered
Ratchet & Clank
EA Sports UFC 2
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age
Star Wars Battlefront - Ultimate Edition
Madden NFL 17
Battlefield 1
Ghost Recon: Wildlands
How to Survive 2
MLB The Show 17
Mad Max
Ark: Survival Evolved
Elite Dangerous
July 2017's Best-Selling PS4 DLC on PSN in the US
Call of Duty Black Ops III: Zombies Chronicles
Diablo III: Rise of the Necromancer
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - Absolution
Call of Duty Black Ops III - The Giant Zombies Map
Rocket League - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Car Pack
Call of Duty: MWR Variety Map Pack
Rocket League - The Fate of the Furious Ice Charger
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 - Dragon Ball Super Pack 4
With the recent launch of Titanfall 2: Ultimate Edition, which is a compilation of all content for Titanfall 2, Respawn Entertainment will be winding down large scale support for last year's mecha action FPS. Despite this, they've still got plans for delivering more content for the futuristic franchise where mechs and parkouring pilots go hand-in-hand. Coming off of the cancellation of the mobile game Titanfall: Frontline earlier this year, Respawn is teaming with mobile game developer Particle City for the full release of the companion game Titanfall: Assault, a mobile RTS title, which saw a soft-launch back in May.
Set for full release on August 10, Titanfall: Assault will have players take on the role of a commander as they guide their crew of pilots, mechs, and other support units to capture territories from opposing forces. As you collect burn cards and upgrade your resources, you'll travel across a series of familiar territories and spaces--such as Angel City from Titanfall--and interact with other established characters from the series. While it may come off as an odd choice to turn a fast-paced and hectic game like this one into an RTS title, the creatives behind the series were set on re-thinking the series for the new platform.
GameSpot recently had the opportunity to sit down with Respawn CEO and Call of Duty co-creator Vince Zampella, as well as Particle City CEO Larry Pacey. We discussed the upcoming Titanfall RTS title and the current standing of the mech FPS franchise and the success it has found, and what's next for the series and for Respawn Entertainment itself.
GameSpot: The Titanfall franchise very much has Respawn Entertainment's name written all over it, so can you talk about what the collaborative process was like for Titanfall: Assault? Did this process focus on one-side pitching out their proposals to the other, or was it more cyclical in nature?
Vince Zampella: It's a little of both. We have guys at Respawn that are really into [Titanfall: Assault], and push out ideas for it. The guys at Particle City have ideas and they also push them out. Some of the ideas we push tend to get shot down, oftentimes it's like why did we think of them for the mobile game or for the main game, and the other way around. They'll try do one thing and we'll be like, "That doesn't fit the universe and here's why." So everyone's really creative and open, and there's a lot of discussions, but ideas really come from both sides.
Larry Pacey: What was really important was to carry forward the true tenants of the Titanfall universe, which are these fast and agile apex predators of the future battlefield which are these pilots. Our goal was to take advantage of those elements and bring those into a game like this. We also had to look at things like the design aesthetic, working closely with Respawn to deliver that triple-A calibur product on a mobile device. Looking how to simplify and communicate the key units on a smaller screen, with that same kind of presence and scale, was really important for us in how we move the franchise forward.
It must've been difficult to translate Titanfall to a different genre, especially one that's inherently slower paced. Can you talk about that process, what the challenges were in trying to bring the series, and all its lore, over to the RTS space?
VZ: It really was a trial and error type of thing. The good thing is that we have some kind of framework to what the universe actually is, and you tend to always think, "Well, we have a good idea on what the rules are." And then when you start getting into it you realize there's a number of different things to think about. Steve Fukuda, our franchise creative director, helped solved a bunch of problems that necessarily exist for the shooter, but that did start to exist for the new types of things we're doing for the universe. It's actually fun, when you think about all the backstories and characters, you have to put a whole universe together to draw from. It's a really fun process. It lets us expose characters that aren't necessarily in the game, or are just bit players and it gives you more life to the universe. It was a good process.
LP: It really came down to wanting to bring players together on a competitive landscape, and what better way to do that than by leveraging everyone's mobile devices. That was the impetus from day one, and we pretty much gave the team carte-blanche to go out and tell us what the perfect game for the mobile space would be. What they've come back with is Titanfall: Assault, and it's a real-time strategy game where you play the commander overseeing three pilots, three titans, and a library of support units in the form of burn cards.
What can you say about how Respawn handles Titanfall 2's content updates? One thing that much of the community loves about this game is that it's getting regular support in the form of large content updates--such as the recent Frontier Defense mode, patches, and other cosmetic updates. Can you discuss what the studio's mindset is on how they continue support for an existing game, while gradually moving on to another?
VZ: It's a delicate balance, really. We don't know where and when to stop supporting it. Frontier Defense was obviously something big for us to get out and to push for, and our numbers during the launch of FD were like five times the numbers since the initial launch, in terms of player count--and it's now starting to stabilize a bit. There's two or three times as many people playing Frontier Defense right now than all other multiplayer modes combined. That's very encouraging for us; I love to see that. It keeps the fans happy and engaged in the universe, and it also brings in some new players as well.
LP: For Titanfall: Assault, we're already there. For our soft-launch back in May, we've been gradually adding in free content like new cards with new traits, so we're already there with that. We're already rolling out new content with new features and events, we're constantly trying to add in new content and functionally , and finding what's best for players and the experience.
So with Frontier Defense out the door, can we expect to see more Titanfall 2 content like this after the release of the Ultimate Edition?
VZ: Probably not. We want to work on new stuff.
I'd be remiss not to mention this, but one thing that was talked about in the wake of Titanfall 2's launch was how crowded the 2016 holiday season. While Titanfall 2 seemed to have fallen short in sales compared to the original, the community is still present and accounted for. Do you have comments about how last year's sales season went?
VZ: The game was successful, it sold well, but it didn't quite sell as well as it should have. Maybe because it was super crowded, the pricing was aggressive--it was a rough window to launch our game. But we've got a really great fanbase. There's not really much negativity or acidity compared to other communities, so I'm very thankful for that. It's important for us to keep the franchise going. "We're doing more Titanfall," which is the quote I'm supposed to say. We have our franchise creative director, who's in charge of safeguarding the franchise in multiple formats and making sure it continues to grow. There's some other things we're doing that haven't been announced just yet, but we're heavily invested in the Titanfall universe.
Since this was your studio's debut franchise, it must have been exciting to see it grow and evolve into what it is today, and now releasing with a standalone game for mobile. Since you're working on another title--a Star Wars game with EA--can you speak to what the franchise has accomplished thus far?
VZ: We're very proud of what we have so far. As a new studio, we tried something different and new, and while it worked--maybe not well enough to remove the single-player--we kinda expanded with the follow-up, and we brought in the single-player, which turned out great. We're working on more Titanfall--we're not announcing what that is yet, but there's a few other things in the works--the mobile game, which turned out fantastic and is super fun, the fans love it and allowed us to expand on what we did in the last games. So I'm pretty happy with what the franchise has become.
The X-Men franchise isn't just growing on the big screen, it has expanded to TV as well. We've already had the acclaimed Legion this year, and it will be followed by The Gifted this fall. A new trailer premiered at San Diego Comic-Con last month, and now a behind-the-scenes featurette has been released. Check it out below:
The Gifted is set to premiere in October 2 on Fox. It is overseen by Burn Notice's Matt Nix, and the first episode is directed by Bryan Singer, who helmed four of the X-Men movies. It centers around the Strucker family, who are running from the government after officials discover that their children are mutants. Its stars include Stephen Moyer (True Blood) and Amy Acker (Person of Interest).
Speaking at SDCC, Nix explained that although the show is closely associated wth the movie series, it won't overlap with it. "One of the great favors that Days of Future Past did for all of us is establish there are many streams, so one answer is we exist in one of those streams," he said, via Variety.
"The idea is that this is definitely its own universe. We're not in the same exact timeline as any particular movie or comic, but that said we do share some characters with the movies and comics. The idea is we're doing our own thing. As they say, there are many streams."
We teamed up with Hi-Rez Studios to give away 15,000 codes for the Chinese Starter Pack in their newest game in open beta, Hand of the Gods: SMITE Tactics on PC. Each code will unlock 3 cards that will help you build an awesome Chinese deck. Here's what you get:
Transfusion x1
Ne Zha x1
Projection x1
You can download the game for free here and enter to get your code below:
Hand of the Gods: SMITE Tactics is a turn-based, one-vs-one strategy game set in the same mythological universe as the hit MOBA, SMITE. Players build decks of cards that spawn units onto a fully rendered battlefield using Unreal Engine 4. Each pantheon has its own unique leader ability and pantheon specific cards that can be combined with neutral cards to support a variety of playstyles. Hand of the Gods is currently in open beta on PC. Download and play for free at www.handofthegods.com
Shopping for PC components can be intimidating if you're not up to date on hardware news. Fortunately, we've done the research for you and have put together three tiered builds (cheap, mid-range, and high-end) geared to deliver great gaming experiences.
You can certainly build a PC for less than the budget-oriented rig we're recommending here, but it's often a good idea to spend a little more to mitigate serious bottlenecks and avoid harsh compromises. With that in mind, we spec'd out components that will deliver an excellent 1080p gaming experience for less $650.
Click through the gallery to read why we chose our respective components.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 1200
AMD recently released two good budget CPUs with its Ryzen 3-series processors. Unlike Intel's entry-level Core-i3 equivalents, AMD's chips feature four cores instead of two. Four cores is the minimum number of cores we recommend for any respectable gaming PC.
That's why we're going with the Ryzen 3 1200 for our processor. It's an affordable quad-core CPU that offers a 3.1GHz base clock and a 3.4GHz boost clock. The CPU is also fully unlocked, which means you can overclock it as long as you have an AM4 motherboard with the B350 or X370 chipset and proper cooling. The same can't be said of all Intel i3 CPUs.
Its quad-core architecture makes it VR-ready and provides some future-proofing for games that will be optimized for four cores. It also has four threads; coupled with 8MB of L3 cache and 2MB of L2 cache, this makes it a pretty good chip for productivity, too. And you don't need to worry about spending more on an aftermarket cooler since the CPU comes with AMD's Wraith Stealth solution.
Price: $109
GPU: EVGA GTX 1060 Gaming
The Cryptocurrency craze has unfortunately greatly inflated the price of graphics cards since GPUs are so good at mining data, but we were able to find an EVGA GTX 1060 for $220. It's a really good GPU, too. From our testing, it's on par with the GeForce GTX 980, which was Nvidia's $550 flagship graphics card in 2014.
In terms of specs, the EVGA variant carries a stock 1506MHz core clock and 1708MHz boost clock along with 3GB of GDDR5 RAM. It's by far the most expensive component in our build and you can argue that it belongs more in a mid-range build, but we think it's worth the investment for a gaming rig considering it should be able to max out most games at 1080p with smooth, playable frame rates.
Price: $220
Motherboard: ASRock AB350M-HDV
Since we selected a Ryzen 3 CPU, we'll need an AM4 motherboard to pair it with. We're going with ASRock's AB350M-HDV ATX mobo. At $70, it's the most affordable board we could find that will allow us to overclock our CPU. It also supports DDR4 RAM up to 3200MHz. Finally, it has an M.2 slot, which gives you the option to install super-fast NVMe SSDs.
Price: $70
RAM: Patriot Viper Elite 8GB (2 x 4GB) 2800MHz
Any respectable gaming PC should have at least 8GB of RAM, so we're going with 8GB of Patriot's Viper Elite sticks clocked at 2800MHz. Patriot is known for its memory, and these modules in particular are compatible with our Ryzen CPU. We're getting our RAM across two modules, so we can run it in dual-channel mode to get more memory bandwidth.
Price: $70
Storage (SSD): Kingston A400 120GB
While solid-state drives are more expensive than hard drives, we couldn't recommend building a system without one, even in a budget-centric rig. As an affordable solution, we're going with Kingston's 120GB A400 SSD. That's not a ton of storage, but it should be enough for the operating system and some of your favorite games and programs. In terms of speeds, it's a SATA III drive that's capable of delivering read and write speeds up to 500MB/s and 450MB/s, respectively. In layman's terms, this will make your PC boot up faster, load programs quicker, and feel much more responsive overall.
Price: $55
Storage (HDD): IBM/Seagate Constellation ES 1TB Hard Drive
While we absolutely recommend getting a solid-state drive for at least your boot drive, 120GB isn't going to be enough for all your needs. That's why we're supplementing our SSD with a 1TB hard drive. More specifically, we're recommending the IBM/Seagate Constellation ES drive, which is a 7,200RPM HDD that provides plenty of space for the price.
Price: $40
PSU: EVGA 500 B1, 80+ Bronze 500W PSU
Even though we're putting together a budget rig, it's vital that you don't skimp out and buy a cheap, no-name power supply. A PSU that fails can really damage the rest of your components. With that said, we're going with EVGA's 500 B1 PSU. The company is one of the best PSU manufacturers on the market, and its 80 Plus Bronze rating provides safety at an affordable price. Its 500-watt output also offers more than enough juice to power all of our components.
Price: $36
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox Lite 3.1
Just because our case is under 40 bucks, it doesn't mean that we have to get one that looks ugly or cuts corners on features. Cooler Master's MasterBox Lite 3.1 is built with acrylic glass front and side panels and supports two 120mm fans at the front, a 120mm fan in the back, and has a cutout at the bottom for your PSU fan. The case fits full-length graphics cards and offers front I/O that includes a headphone jack, mic port, USB 3.0 port, and USB 2.0 port. Overall, the case looks pretty sleek as well.
Price: $40
Total
The total for our build comes up to $751.92 You can certainly build a PC for less, but this build represents a killer gaming rig that will be able to max out the most graphically demanding games at 1080p with smooth frame rates. It'll also be able to handle VR and plenty of 1440p games as well. It has all the core components you need in a great gaming PC.
In an earnings call today, however, Take-Two expressed confidence that GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 will not cannibalize each other's sales. In response to a question about if Take-Two thinks that Red Dead Redemption could slow down the revenue generated by GTA Online, CEO Strauss Zelnick replied that the company doesn't view the games as competitors. Rather, the belief is that the marketplace will grow to fit both.
"When there's more than one title in the marketplace that compels people, the market also expands to take advantage of it," he explained. "The marketplace can be competitive, but it's rarely directly competitive title-to-title, whether that's a title that comes out under the Take-Two umbrella or any of our competitors or anything else for that matter."
"We're really looking forward to the release of Read Dead Redemption 2; we're really excited and enthusiastic, of course," he continued. "We don't think that has anything to do at all with how Grand Theft Auto [V] and Grand Theft Auto Online will perform."
He also stated that this reasoning is due to the fact that everything competes with everything else--there's not much to indicate that two games will compete specifically with each other, more so than with every other piece of media. His explanation mirrors what he said earlier this year, too.
"All entertainment titles compete against every other possible use of your time and they don't compete specifically against our games or anyone else's games," he said. "They compete against everything, against text messaging, going to movies, reading a book, doing your work. Entertainment is a 'nice to have,' not a 'must have.'"
New games continue to roll out for the Nintendo Switch, with a total of seven new games arriving on the Switch Eshop today. The biggest of these is Retro City Rampage DX, an upgraded port of the 2012 game.
Retro City Rampage is an open-world action game designed as a sort of parody of '80s and '90s games and of the original, top-down Grand Theft Auto titles. After launching on PC, PS3, and PS Vita five years ago, it later came to Xbox 360, Wii, PS4, 3DS, PSP, iOS, Android, microwaves, calculators, and vacuum cleaners (probably). About time it came to Switch, then. It'll set you back $15 / £13 / €15. Developer Vblank is also working on a spiritual successor called Shakedown Hawaii, which is coming to Switch (as well as PC, PS4, Vita, and 3DS) soon.
Also new is the fast-paced twitch platformer Slime-San, which previously launched on PS4, Xbox One, and PC in April. That'll cost you $12 / £10 / €12. There's also arcade Pong-variant Gunbarich and aerial arcade game Strikers 1945 for $8 / £6 / €6 each, cute brain-twister Puzzle Adventure Blockle for $8 / £6 / €6.29, and multiplayer party game Use Your Words, which costs $15 / £11.79 / €13.
Finally, the Switch receives its customary ACA Neo Geo game of the week. This time around it's Aero Fighters 2, another aerial shoot-'em-up. It was first released in 1994, and now you can play it on your Switch for the price of $8 / £6.29 / €7. In addition to the new games, one older one is on sale. I Am Setsuna, the popular JRPG, is available for 33% off for one week.
Looking ahead, the Switch will receive a region-free demo of Monster Hunter XX next week, despite the game still not being confirmed for a western release. The Switch's firmware was also updated this week to fix a battery display issue, bringing with it the usual stability and performance improvements.
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy has dominated sales charts since its launch at the end of June, and July's are no different. The European charts for PlayStation platforms on the PS Store were revealed today, and Crash remains king on PS4.
On the EU PS Blog, Sony shared the charts for European sales on all of the PlayStation platforms. Crash Bandicoot charted at number one last month, as well, even though it was only available for a couple of days in June. Crash also came in at first place on the US chart for July.
Although there are some shared entries with the US charts, there are several notable differences. For example, Grand Theft Auto V actually rose to second place in the European PS4 chart, while Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor surged to second in the US chart.
The top sellers list for PS VR is marked by a strong start for Superhot VR, the excellent shooter that launched in mid-July. The DLC chart, meanwhile, saw Diablo III: Rise of the Necromancer rise to first place, while Call of Duty: Black Ops III Zombies Chronicles fell to second.
You can find the full sales charts for all the platforms on the PlayStation Blog; the PS4 and DLC lists can be seen below. Last month's ranking for each game is in parentheses.
PS4
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (1)
Grand Theft Auto V (4)
Rocket League (10)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered (20)
Minecraft (12)
Friday the 13th: The Game (2)
FIFA 17 (3)
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Re-entry)
Mortal Kombat XL (RE)
Battlefield 1 (9)
Battlefield 4 (8)
Star Wars: Battlefront (7)
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag (RE)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience (RE)
Dying Light: The Following – Enhanced Edition (RE)
Elite Dangerous (New)
Ratchet & Clank (RE)
EA Sports UFC 2 (17)
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (RE)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (19)
DLC
Diablo III Rise of the Necromancer (2)
Call of Duty Black Ops III Zombies Chronicles (1)
Rocket League Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Car Pack (5)
Rocket League The Fate of the Furious Ice Charger (6)
The Xbox One's backwards compatibility feature, introduced in November 2015, lets you play Xbox 360 games on the new console. But what games are available? We've now rounded them all up--and we'll continue to update this post as new games are made available.
Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Lineup (As of July 27, 2017):
New titles are bolded
3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures
A Kingdom for Keflings
A World of Keflings
Aegis Wing
Age of Booty
Alan Wake
Alan Wake's American Nightmare
Alice: Madness Returns
Alien Hominid HD
Altered Beast
Anomaly Warzone Earth
Arkanoid Live
Army of Two
Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed II
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (added June 27)
Assassin's Creed III
Assassin's Creed Revelations
Assassin's Creed Rogue
Assault Heroes 2
Asteroids & Deluxe
AstroPop
Aqua
Babel Rising
Band of Bugs
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts n Bolts
Banjo Tooie
Banjo Kazooie
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Battlefield 3
BattleBlock Theater
Battlestations: Midway
Bayonetta
Beat'n Groovy
Bejeweled 2
Bejeweled 3
Bellator: MMA Onslaught
Beyond Good & Evil HD
Bionic Commando Rearmed 2
BioShock
BioShock 2
BioShock Infinite
Bloodforge
Blood Knights
Blood of the Werewolf
BloodRayne: Betrayal
Blue Dragon
Bomberman Live: Battlefest
Boom Boom Rocket
Borderlands
Borderlands 2
Bound by Flame
Braid
Brain Challenge
Bullet Soul
Bullet Soul: Infinite Burst
Bully: Scholarship Edition
Burnout Paradise
Cabela's Alaskan Adventures
Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013
Cabela's Hunting Expeditions
Cabela's Survival: Shadows of Katmai
Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty 3
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Call of Duty: Ghosts (added June 29)
Call of Duty: World at War
Call of Juarez Gunslinger
Capcom Arcade Cabinet
Carcassonne
Cars 2
Castle Crashers
Castlestorm
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Catherine
The Cave
Centipede & Millipede
Civilization: Revolution
Clannad
Commanders: Attack of the Genos
Comic Jumper
Comix Zone
Condemned
Contra
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Crazy Taxi
Crystal Quest
Crystal Defenders
Dark Souls
Dark Void
Darksiders
Darksiders II
Daytona USA
de Blob 2
Dead Rising 2: Case West
Dead Rising 2: Case Zero
Dead Space
Dead Space 2
Dead Space 3
Dead Space Ignition
Deadliest Warrior: Legends
Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue
Defense Grid
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut
Dig Dug
Dirt 3
Dirt Showdown
Discs of Tron
Disney Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (added August 3)
Domino Master
Doom
Doom II
Doom 3: BFG Edition
Doritos Crash Course
Double Dragon: Neon
Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon's Lair
DuckTales Remastered
Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara
Dungeon Siege III
E4: Every Extend Extra Extreme
Earthworm Jim HD
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon (added July 12)
Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Encleverment Experiment
Escape Dead Island
F1 2014 (added July 12)
Fable II
Fable III
Faery: Legends of Avalon
Fallout 3
Fallout: New Vegas
Far Cry 3
Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon
Feeding Frenzy
Feeding Frenzy 2
Final Fight: Double Impact
Flashback
Flock
Forza Horizon
Fret Nice
Frogger
Frogger 2
FunTown Mahjong
Galaga
Galaga Legions
Galaga Legions DX
Garou: Mark of the Wolves
Gatling Gears
Gears of War
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 3
Gears of War: Judgment
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime
Gin Rummy
Golden Axe
Go! Go! Break Steady
Golf: Tee It Up
Grand Theft Auto IV
Grid 2
Gripshift
Guardian Heroes
Gunstar Heroes
Guwange
Gyromancer
Gyruss (added July 25)
Half-Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax
Halo: Reach
Halo: Spartan Assault
Halo Wars
Hard Corps: Uprising
Hardwood Backgammon
Hardwood Hearts
Hardwood Spades
Harms Way
Haunted House
Heavy Weapon
Hexic 2
Hexic HD
Hitman: Absolution
Hydro Thunder
I Am Alive
Ikaruga
Ilomilo
Injustice: Gods Among Us + disc-only Ultimate Edition
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos
Iron Brigade
Jeremy McGrath's Offroad
Jet Set Radio
Jetpac Refuelled
Joe Danger Special Edition
Joe Danger 2: The Movie
Joust
Joy Ride Turbo
Juju
Jurassic Park: The Game
Just Cause 2
Kameo
Kane & Lynch 2
Killer Is Dead
The King of Fighters '98
The King of Fighters 2002
Lazy Raiders
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
Lego Batman
Lego Indiana Jones
Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Limbo
Lode Runner
Lost Odyssey
Lumines Live!
Luxor 2
Mad Tracks
Magic: The Gathering 2012
Mars: War Logs
Mass Effect
Mass Effect 2
Mass Effect 3
Matt Hazard: Blood, Bath, and Beyond
The Maw
Medal of Honor: Airborne
Meet the Robinsons
Mega Man 9
Mega Man 10
Metal Slug 3
Metal Slug XX
Midway Arcade Origins
Might & Magic Clash of Heroes
Military Madness
Mirror's Edge
Missile Command
Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine
Monday Night Combat
Monkey Island: SE
Monkey Island 2: SE
Moon Diver
Motocross Madness
Ms. Splosion Man
Ms Pac-Man
Mutant Blobs Attack
Mutant Storm Empire
MX vs. ATV Reflex
N+
NBA Jam: On Fire Edition
Neogeo Battle Coliseum
Nights Into Dreams
Of Orcs and Men
Omega Five
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
Operation Flashpoint: Red River
The Orange Box
Outland
Pac-Man
Pac-Man C.E
Pac-Man CE DX+
Pac-Man Museum
Peggle
Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark Zero
Phantasy Star II
Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds
Pinball FX
Planets Under Attack
Plants vs. Zombies
Poker Smash
Portal: Still Alive
Portal 2
Prince of Persia
Pure
Putty Squad
Puzzle Quest
Puzzle Quest 2
Puzzle Quest: Galactrix
QIX++ Puzzlegeddon
Rage
Raiden IV (added July 25)
Raskulls
Rayman 3 HD
Rayman Legends
Rayman Origins
Red Dead Redemption
Red Faction: Armageddon (added July 25)
Red Faction: Battlegrounds
RoboBlitz
Rocket Knight
R-Type Dimensions
Runner 2
Sacred 3
Sacred Citadel
Saints Row IV
Sam & Max: Beyond Time & Space
Sam & Max Save the World
Samurai Shodown II
Scarygirl
Scrap Metal
Sega Vintage Collection: Alex Kidd & Co.
Sega Vintage Collection: Monster World
Sega Vintage Collection: Streets of Rage
Sega Vintage Collection: ToeJam & Earl (added August 3)
Shadow Assault/Tenchu
Shadow Complex
Shadowrun
Shadows of the Damned
Shank 2
Shinobi
Shred Nebula
Shotest Shogi
Silent Hill: Downpour
Skate 3
Skullgirls
Skydive
Small Arms
Soltrio Solitaire
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Sonic & Knuckles
Sonic CD
Sonic The Fighters
Sonic The Hedgehog
Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Sonic The Hedgehog 3
Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 1
Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode II
Soulcalibur
Soulcalibur II
South Park: The Stick of Truth
Space Ark
Space Giraffe
Space Invaders Infinity Gene
Spelunky
The Splatters
Splosion Man
SSX
Stacking
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
Steins; Gate 比翼恋理のだーりん (Japan only)
Steins; Gate (オリジナル版) (Japan only)
Steins; Gate 線形拘束のフェノグラム (Japan-only, requires game disc)
Strania
Street Fighter IV
Stuntman: Ignition
Super Meat Boy
Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition (added July 13)
Xbox One's backwards compatibility library has grown once again. Microsoft has announced that two more Xbox 360 games are now playable on Xbox One.
The first of these is Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, the 2012 platformer that marked the second and final game released by Junction Point Studios before its closure. The other is a fifth game from the Sega Vintage Collection: ToeJam & Earl. This is a port of the classic 1991 platformer, complete with online multiplayer support.
If you own a digital copy of either game, you'll find it in your Xbox One's Ready to Download list. Alternatively, in the case of Epic Mickey 2, you can just pop the disc into your Xbox One. Both games are also for sale on the Xbox Store--Disney Mickey 2 sells for $20/£9, while ToeJam & Earl costs $10/£6.75.
By Anonymous on Aug 03, 2017 10:30 pm We sit down with Anthony Ingruber -- the voice of The Joker in Batman: The Telltale Series -- to talk about his YouTube beginnings, the challenges of playing the character, and some of his favorite celebrity impressions.
Bethesda has shared some new details about its upcoming survival-horror game, The Evil Within 2. In a post on its blog, the publisher shed more light on the game's customization system, which sounds considerably more flexible than its precedessor's.
As before, players will be able to customize both protagonist Sebastian as well as his arsenal of weapons. This time, however, they'll use separate resources to upgrade the two. Green Gel, which customized both Sebastian and his gear in the previous game, now only upgrades the hero. Weapons, meanwhile, can now be tweaked with Weapon Parts.
According to Bethesda, Sebastian's customization options fall within five categories, which include health, combat, stealth, recovery, and athleticism. Players will be able to tailor Sebastian's abilities to suit their own play style depending upon the categories they invest in. Upgrading the combat tree, for instance, increases the amount of damage Sebastian can inflict and allows him to learn an ability called Bullet Cascade, which ramps up the power of each consecutive shot for a limited time. Investing in the health tree, on the other hand, increases Sebastian's life gauge and allows him to potentially endure what might otherwise be fatal attacks.
Players can further customize the experience by outfitting their weapons with Parts, which can add new abilities or increase their fire rate and ammo capacity. The game also features a deep crafting system, which allows players to use the items they've gathered to create weapons and ammo. You can read more about The Evil Within 2's extensive customization system on Bethesda's website.
The Evil Within 2 releases for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on October 13. Like its predecessor, the game is being developed by Tango Gameworks, the studio run by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami. Those who pre-order the title will receive the bonus Last Chance DLC pack which includes an exclusive weapon and other beneficial items.
The Inhumans might not be as well known as many of Marvel's other superheroes, but they are certainly getting a lavish TV treatment. The upcoming Inhumans is a co-production between ABC and IMAX, and the first two episodes will debut on IMAX screens next month. A new clip has been released, which shows a confrontation between villainous Maximus (Iwan Rheon) and his super-haired sister-in-law Medusa (Serinda Swan). Check it out below:
Inhumans also stars Anson Mount as hypersonic-voiced Black Bolt, with Eme Ikwuakor as Gorgon, Isabelle Cornish as Crystal, and Ken Leung as Karnak. It's overseen by Scott Buck, the showrunner for Netflix's critically-maligned Iron Fist.
The first two episodes are released into IMAX theaters worldwide on September 1. The series premieres on ABC on September 29, and Season 1 will be eight episodes long.
Roel Reine is the director of those first two episodes, and in a recent interview with Den of Geek, he explained that the IMAX version would differ from the one seen on TV. "If you are going to do a big close-up in IMAX, you better have something important to say," he explained. "[However], in TV, we are expecting this a lot. You want to go in on this character, you want to feel this character. That is why TV is cool. You spend 12 hours with the character instead of two hours in a feature. So, you also need that coverage.
"All the choices, prep, locations we chose, the lenses we were using--all the technical stuff--were as if we were shooting a big movie. [But] we were [also] doing TV coverage for the scenes, so we can have the drama and the close-ups."
The Inhumans were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and first appeared in a 1965 issue of Fantastic Four. Their first self-titled comic line ran from 1975 to 1977, and they have subsequently appeared in a variety of limited and ongoing series over the past four decades.
The Dark Tower is not a perfect movie, but it was probably never going to be. Stephen King's books are basically impossible to adapt--not like George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, which the author famously (although perhaps a bit apocryphally) believed to be too large in scope. The Dark Tower books would be hard to adapt because, in retrospect, they're kind of all over the place.
I won't try to convince anyone that the books they love are bad. But King wrote this series over several decades, changing tone, style, and even crucial, concrete details in the novels' setting and plot as he went. He wrote himself into the story as a character who had to be saved so that he could keep writing it (a plot point King has requested never make it to the big screen). He even went full George Lucas at one point, significantly altering and adding nearly 40 pages to the first book, The Gunslinger.
So. The Dark Tower the movie is something else entirely, a reinterpreted sort of-sequel that, should it continue beyond this first film, will allegedly portray Roland Deschain's final time 'round the merry-go-round.
Roland is the last Gunslinger, a fallen order of knights dressed like cowboys. He's the best bits of King Arthur and John Wayne but also extremely tired and sad from being ancient and losing all his battles. Idris Elba, incredibly talented actor that he is, captures this nuanced and badass character perfectly. One of the movie's big shames is that you don't get to see more of him, as-- unlike the books--The Dark Tower is basically told from Jake Chambers' perspective.
Jake is a boy from New York City who, in the movie, seeks Roland out based on a series of lucid, haunting dreams. The Dark Tower's first act is all Jake, and luckily, Tom Taylor is a pretty good actor. He really sells being a troubled kid without coming off as whiny or annoying. It makes you root for him.
Jake, it turns out, possesses some vaguely defined power--in this version called "shine," yes, like The Shining--that makes him an ideal candidate for the machinations of a powerful sorcerer named Walter, more often referred to as The Man in Black. Walter is working to destroy the dark tower, thereby destroying the universe, while Roland works to stop him. Jake, meanwhile, is along for the ride, mostly just trying to prove he's not crazy--that his visions are of something real, and that the ever more frequent "earthquakes" plaguing New York are more than simple geographic phenomena.
The dynamic between Roland and Jake is central, and the two actors have surprisingly good chemistry. Their whole pseudo father-son bond is weirdly touching, in a Spielbergian sort of way, and much of the movie's significant humor comes from Roland's interactions with normal people in Jake's world, like when he tells people he's from "here, on Keystone Earth." Oh, of course, sure.
Matthew McConaughey is super-villainous as The Man In Black, killing lots and lots of people, often by simply commanding them to "stop breathing." He's weirdly reserved while he does it. It's an unsettling performance unfortunately hampered by two things: 1) The weird wig he seems to be wearing in some scenes, which is obvious and super distracting, and 2) some of the truly awful dialogue he's saddled with. "His shine is pure," is pretty bad, but just wait until you hear him talk about his "magicks."
The Dark Tower is strangely game-like in more than one scene, and usually not to its benefit. Both large action scenes, for example, are populated mainly by throwaway foes that snarl cheesily or run straight toward Roland as if they exist for no purpose other than to let the Gunslinger blow them away. At one point he picks up a propane tank, hurls it at a group of enemies, and plants a single slug to set off a large explosion, one of the most video gamey moves there is.
At other times these scenes come off like one of those action movies that came out in the years immediately following The Matrix--the ones that had no business imitating that movie's "bullet time" and malleable physics but tried to anyway. The Dark Tower's gunplay is best when it's grounded in reality; Elba clearly put a lot of work into becoming fluid with those clunky hand cannons, and it shows--when the movie lets him do his thing. One particularly affecting scene late in the film has Roland hand Jake one of his guns, and they together recite the Gunslinger's oath while taking aim. The Dark Tower's talented cast is its greatest strength.
This adaptation takes what it wants from the source material and leaves the rest on the page. That may have some fans choking on their graf, but it's not the movie's biggest flaw. That would be its 95-minute running time. There's nothing wrong with a movie that can get to its point quickly, but The Dark Tower could have really used another 20 minutes or so, partially to flesh out some of its characters a little more--but mainly at the end. The Dark Tower definitely leaves threads that sequels could pick up, but its ending also feels abrupt and undercooked, especially for fans upset that the first book's subtle climax has been transformed into an epic battle of guns and sorcery.
The Dark Tower is probably not the adaptation hardcore fans were hoping for, but it's also not a terrible movie. It takes plenty of liberties with the source material, some for the better, and others the worse. It could have taken more time to explain why The Man In Black wants to destroy the universe, or exactly what being a Gunslinger once meant. But for every cringey line of dialogue, there's another that might make you laugh or give you chills, and for all the cheesy action, there's some really impressive stuff, too. If nothing else, there's no such thing as too much Idris Elba.
Recent Articles:
You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website.
Jake and Peter dive headlong into the new and mysterious Final Fantasy XV Online closed beta.
We sit down with Anthony Ingruber -- the voice of The Joker in Batman: The Telltale Series -- to talk about his YouTube beginnings, the challenges of playing the character, and some of his favorite celebrity impressions.
No comments:
Post a Comment