In Psychonauts 2, the Tooth Is Stranger Than Fiction
Though it’s been nearly a decade and a half since the original Psychonauts, not much has changed in the world of Raz and the other psychically gifted campers. That’s because Psychonauts 2 picks up just a few days after the events of the first one (though the highly enjoyable PSVR interstitial Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin managed to crowbar directly between the two mainline titles). Truman has been rescued from Dr. Robato, and it begs the question: was there a mole operating within the Psychonauts, and if so, who hired him?
If you fondly remember the 2005 cult classic from the original Xbox (and later other platforms), as I do, you’ll feel right at home in the sequel. The art style retains the same cartoonish, almost claymation charm, though of course texture detail, resolution, and just about every other technical part of the visuals is substantially improved now that we’re two generations removed from Raz’s debut.
Hollow Knight: Silksong Is like Hollow Knight with the Speed Cranked up to 11
I was extremely excited to play Hollow Knight: Silksong in the Nintendo Booth at E3 2019, and what I found there was a sequel to one of my favorite games that simultaneously felt incredibly familiar and entirely new. It’s unmistakably Hollow Knight, but with the speed cranked up to 11 thanks to the nimble nature of its new protagonist, Hornet.
Hornet’s basic movement doesn’t seem any faster, but her attacks and abilities certainly are. Your mid-air downslash has been replaced with a diagonal dive thrust (completely uprooting strategies I had developed in the first game) and she can grab edges to hop up onto high platforms right off the bat. It felt like I had to relearn a game I was already intimately familiar with - that was jarring, but once I did, I think I started to like its combat and movement even more than the original.
Tim Allen Answers the Buzz Lightyear Question You’ve Always Had
Tim Allen has answered a question that has long eluded fans: what does Buzz Lightyear’s hair look like under that purple Snoopy cap?
At the press junket for Toy Story 4, an audience member asked what kind of haircut Buzz Lightyear has. “He has alopecia is the problem. He has pattern baldness a little. That balaclava that he wears - it’s for fireproofing,” Allen joked. "No, actually, he’s got a beautiful head of hair underneath there. It’s rather curly. And he’s got a man bun under all that."
Of course (and Buzz knows this well): he’s just a toy, so all that's really under that balaclava is just more plastic. Still, some fans have wondered exactly what kind of hair he’s got going on under his helmet, and now you can imagine beautiful, flowing locks that he keeps hidden in a bun to focus on saving the galaxy.
Bond 25 Director Denies His RDR2 Playing Behind Production Delays
Bond 25 director Cary Fukunaga said in an Instagram post on Tuesday that he did not hold up his film crew by playing Red Dead Redemption 2.
A report in The Sun surfaced on Monday that said Fukunaga kept the James Bond crew waiting hours. The excuse? Because he was too busy playing PlayStation 4. Fukunaga responded to the Bond 25 controversy by posting a picture to Instagram of Production Designer Mark Tildesly on Tuesday with a caption denying his supposed video game addiction.
Everything You Need to Know About FX’s Y: The Last Man TV Series
Hollywood has been trying to adapt the best-selling comic series Y: The Last Man for well over a decade now. But it seems that adaptation will finally see the light of day as FX gears up for the 2020 debut of Y (yes, the show is losing the "The Last Man" part of the title).
Read on to learn everything we know so far about this long-awaited TV series, from the plot to the cast to the release date and more.
Be sure to also check out everything we know about Wonder Woman 1984 and everything we know about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Thor Star Chris Hemsworth to Receive Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
Marvel’s Thor actor Chris Hemsworth is set to receive a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce’s Walk of Fame Selection Committee is inducting Hemsworth into the “Motion Picture” category alongside other new star recipients Mahershala Ali, Laurence Fishburne, Spike Lee, Julia Roberts, Octavia Spencer, and Batman. Yup, Batman is also getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Hemsworth was born in Australia as the middle child of actors Luke and Liam Hemsworth. He first appeared in episodes of TV series like Neighbours and Marshall Law before joining the cast of the long-running Australian soap opera Home and Away. His first film role was (briefly) playing George Kirk in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek. He would play the lead role in Thor just two years later, a role he has since played in two other Thor movies, four Avengers movies, and other appearances in video games, short films, etc.
Moons of Madness Strands You on Mars with Cthulhu Monsters
What's worse than being stranded on Mars in a malfunctioning research station? Being stranded on Mars in a malfunctioning research station... with monsters. This is the simple yet very effective premise of Moons of Madness, the sci-fi/Lovecraft-themed horror adventure from Rock Pocket games.
My recent demo at E3 2019 took me through what is essentially the first hour of Moons of Madness's story, and did an excellent job proving two things:
- The team has done a great job blending these two distinct horror genres
- I am still a huge wimp when it comes to horror games.
You'll play as Shane Newhart, Chief Engineer for the Invictus Mission - a topper-than-top secret mission to explore the potential for humanity to colonize Mars. The mission, funded by the corporate conglomerate Orochi Group (if that sounds familiar, it's because Moons of Madness is set in the universe of Funcom's The Secret World), is entirely privatized and wholly off the books - it seems that not even NASA's top brass knows you're up there. Learning this, by reading through various notes, emails and NDAs that Shane has signed, adds another welcome layer of anxiety-inducing world-building - if this goes south, no one is coming to help you.
DC Comics to End the Vertigo Imprint in 2020
DC Comics' long-running Vertigo imprint will be no more after 2019. This mature readers imprint is being retired as DC consolidates its entire comic book publishing line beginning in January 2020.
DC will be shuttering Vertigo along with the YA-focused DC Ink and the all ages-focused DC Zoom. Beginning in January 2020, all of DC's comic content will fall under one of three umbrellas depending on the age demographic - DC Kids (8-12), DC (13+) and DC Black Label (17+).
Art by Brian Bolland. (Image Credit: DC Comics)
Nintendo Says It Will Not Release a Game Before It’s Ready
As the development community continues to question practices that contribute to a normalized culture of crunch, many studios and individual developers have been reflecting on the conversation, trying to find ways to contribute to the solution. And Nintendo is no different.
Crunch isn’t necessarily an easy problem to identify or solve, and there are nuances to that problem based on the variations in studios’ personal practices or team structures. Ultimately, a lot of what contributes to crunch is the inherent nature of game development: It’s hard to predict what will work, what will go wrong, and what will end up being the better direction as identified by creative leads (and, let’s be real: Likely publisher needs, too).
Tom Holland Wants Spider-Man to Team Up With Doctor Strange
Tom Holland says he’d like Spider-Man and Doctor Strange to team up in a future MCU movie.
In an interview with CinemaBlend, Holland said "I’m really wanting to do a team-up with Doctor Strange, because we’re both New Yorkers and I just really like the idea of a science guy being teamed up with a guy who does magic, because it totally contradicts everything he knows. And I like the idea that there is real science that Peter Parker talks about, and then there’s Doctor Strange gibberish, where he’s like ‘The time rift and the thing and the thing.’ So it’s kind of fun."