Comic Book Reviews for August 23, 2017
It was another big week of comics. DC kicked off the dark, futuristic story Nightwing: The New Order. Marvel delivered the penultimate issue of Secret Empire and the finale to Edge of Venomverse. IDW continued their epic Hasbro-verse crossover, First Strike. And Dark Horse gave us another issue of the always dependable Black Hammer.
Scroll down to check out our reviews for these and various other new releases, and be sure to let us know your favorite books of the week in the comments below.
Note: We'll have a review of Generations: Thor up a bit later.
DC COMICS
Space Junkies Feels Like a VR First-Person Shooter Done Right
Perhaps at some point in the future, omnidirectional treadmills will become a fixture in every household, enabling proper 360 degree on-foot movement in virtual reality first-person shooters. Until that time, and with the exception perhaps of DOOM VR’s dash and warp mechanic, most developers are making do with the unhappy marriage of head tracking for look controls with traditional thumbstick for movement, which is a system that at best breaks immersion and at worst leads to nausea.
Space Junkies avoids such issues with the simple solution of strapping every player into a jetpack. It doesn’t matter that the movement of your feet isn’t tracked by the game, because your feet never touch the ground in its anti-gravity arenas. It doesn’t feel odd to be playing a virtual reality first-person shooter sitting down, because movement is handled by looking where you want to go and clicking the left thumbstick on the controller (in the case of my Gamescom demo, an Oculus Touch) in order to boost your jets and propel yourself in that direction.
LEGO Marvel 2 Is Assembling Marvel’s Most Ludicrous Line-Up
The character select screen in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 is, frankly, ridiculous. A sea of tiny portraits and question marks swims up the screen, so massive that it seems almost counter-intuitive - is that Sakaar Hulk, medieval Hulk, or Maestro, the evil Hulk from the future? Ah who cares, let’s give them all a try. Hearing the developers speak about the game, I wouldn’t be surprised if that roster started a lot smaller, and they just got a bit carried away.
The best LEGO games have been more than the sum of their plasticky parts, and it’s that line-up, and the love that’s gone into assembling it, that looks like it’ll make the difference here. LEGO Marvel 2 is still a game designed to be a totally smooth ride for kids - I played through a boss fight against burning Norse demon, Surtur that amounted to a series of “square peg in square hole” puzzles; The Witness this is not. That means most characters have an ability or two at most - which is when having a retina-scrambling number of them comes into its own. It’s tough to get bored when there’s always something new to try.
UK Daily Deals; Preorder the Samsung Note 8 and Claim a Free DeX Station Worth £139
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Preorder the Samsung Note 8 and Claim a Free DeX Station Worth £139
Samsung are taking preorders on their newly-announced Samsung Note 8 which has a healthy price-tag of £869.00. The Samsung upgrade programme is also available from £32.58 per month. Why preorder from Samsung? Because you can turn your new luxury phone into a desktop-like experience with the DeX station which is worth £139 but given free when you preorder the Samsung Note 8 with Samsung.
Is the Madden Curse Real?
In the 20-plus years of the Madden football game franchise, infamy has surrounded those selected to grace the annual football simulator’s cover. Since the San Francisco 49er’s Garrison Hearst broke his ankle after being named Madden ‘99’s cover athlete, rumors have circulated of a “curse.”
The “curse” grew in infamy as an ever-increasing numbers of Madden cover athletes suffered high-profile injuries: after being named to the Madden cover, Michael Vick broke his fibula during the 2003 preseason, while Vince Young, Troy Polamalu, and Shaun Alexander all lost time due to injury. Other cover athletes simply had terrible seasons compared to their normal successes: Drew Brees had a down year after his selection, and Marshall Faulk, usually so reliable, failed to pass 1,000 yards rushing. Now, fans are so superstitious about the curse that they actively campaign for their favorite player to not get selected for the cover.
Final Fantasy XV Pocket Has ‘A Chance’ of Coming to Switch
Square Enix has hinted at a potential future for Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition on Nintendo Switch.
Speaking to IGN at Gamescom, Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata didn’t rule out the possibility of the recently-announced mobile version coming to Nintendo’s console.
“There is certainly a chance. It’s certainly not zero,” Tabata told IGN when asked about a Switch version. “Obviously we’d have to think about what the meaning and what the significance of bringing this to Switch would be. You know, whether people would want to play it and whether it would be the right thing to do for our team.”
The Evil Within 2 Feels Familiar, But That’s a Good Thing
At an early point during my hour-long demo of The Evil Within 2, returning protagonist Sebastian ran into a room full of swinging bodies, their bleeding faces obscured by white masks. There was a weird red symbol painted onto one of its concrete walls. A camera on a tripod was the only other object of note, so I looked through it. Suddenly, I saw a door. Had looking at the camera made it appear? I was disorientated. Then a multi-headed, nude monster with a buzz-saw for a hand burst through the wall and screamed her way towards me.
Oh yeah, this was The Evil Within, all right.
My time with the Evil Within 2 showed that while improvements have been made to the formula, it fundamentally remains the same. Sebastian is still a sort of stiff, bewildered protagonist, the monsters are still pulled from the golden era of Japanese horror, and the world is as grimy and oppressive as some of the darker moments of Jacob’s Ladder, a source of inspiration for original Evil Within director Shinji Mikami. But of course, that combination of quirks made the original game so much fun in the first place.
Joker and Harley Quinn ‘Criminal Love Story’ Movie Revealed
Jared Leto and Margot Robbie will reprise their Suicide Squad roles in an as-of-yet unnamed movie.
According to Variety, Warner Bros. is in "final negotiations" with Glenn Ficarra and John Requa to direct the film. The movie is a stand-alone story not affiliated with the recently announced Joker origin-story movie reportedly being produced by film legend Martin Scorcese.
The Tracking Board reports the Joker and Harley Quinn movie will come after Suicide Squad 2, pushing back the planned Gotham City Sirens movie.
Live-Action DC Series Titans Has Its Starfire
Titans, an upcoming live-action dramatic series based on characters from the DC Universe, has cast an actress in the role of Starfire. That actress is Anna Diop, who prior to this was likely best known for playing Nicole Carter on 24: Legacy.
While Starfire is not as well-known as DC characters such as Batman or Aquaman, she will certainly be familiar to anybody who watched Teen Titans or Cartoon Network's Teen Titans Go!. Starfire is an alien from the planet Tamaran who can fly and shoot green energy bolts from her eyes. Her portrayal in Titans is intended to be serious and no-nonsense, which is certainly different from her portrayal in Teen Titans Go! where she is all nonsense.
Hideo Kojima Praises Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk
Game industry legend Hideo Kojima has sung the praises of Christopher Nolan's latest box office hit Dunkirk.
Kojima penned an article for Rolling Stone in which he compares Nolan's latest film to his own works and talks about how both make great efforts to convincingly depict war. In his collum, the Death Stranding creator explains why he believes "Dunkirk gave birth to a new kind of war movie."
"By refusing to rely on computer graphics, opting instead to create life-size sets and employ a large cast of extras, Christopher Nolan recreated the war movie construct," Kojima wrote.