The Assembly Brings Point and Click Adventure to VR
We still don’t really know what a VR game ‘should’ be - since the technology is so new, there’s no standard for what kind of game should exist on VR, and what might remain better without. I feel like every experience is enhanced by VR, but I never expected a 90s-style Point and Click Adventure to make the jump to Oculus and Vive, and even PSVR when it releases later this year.
The Assembly is a narrative-driven, interactive story that takes you through the struggle of two characters on opposite sides of the ‘Assembly’ - an organisation rife with mystery and secrets that you’ll slowly uncover as you venture through its seemingly enormous, hospital-like complex. One of the two characters is a scientist, named Cal, who has begun to oppose one of the company’s practices - the depth of their lack of morals wasn't completely evident after my 2 hours playing the game, but the systems were pretty clear. The information I needed to find was hidden in filing cabinets, email inboxes, in laboratories, behind locked doors with missing key-codes and, sometimes, even on the other end of a phone-call.
BioShock Collection, Release Date Officially Revealed
2K has officially announced BioShock: The Collection, headed to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC for $59.99 in North America on September 13, Australia on September 15, and internationally on September 16.
BioShock: The Collection will include BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite remastered in 1080p and running at 60fps on all platforms. 2K worked with Blind Squirrel Games on the remaster. On PC, the collection will not include BioShock Infinite, as it “already meets current-gen console standards and runs smoothly on high visual settings,” according to 2K.
Update: Leaked Pokémon Confirmed to be Real
UPDATE: Nintendo has now confirmed that the leaked Pokémon are indeed new designs for Sun and Moon, releasing a trailer including all the below entries.
ORIGINAL STORY: A batch of new monsters from the upcoming Pokémon Sun and Moon has seemingly been leaked, a day before the Pokémon Company releases new information about the 3DS games. The reaction to them has been mixed, to say the least.
Apparently coming from an embargo-breaking Russian source, images were originally posted on 4chan - after which a set of videos was released.
Greens Seeking to Invest $158M in Aussie Games Industry
The Greens have announced a $158 million initiative to boost the Australian games industry. The plan is based on the recommendations from an April report out of the Senate Environment and Communications References Committee. The report on the future of Australia’s video game development industry, which contained a variety of proposals designed to stimulate the sector, was called for by The Greens this time last year.
Gran Turismo Sport: New Model, Original Parts
With over 75 million copies sold the Gran Turismo franchise remains the highest-selling series in Sony’s stable, and yet its presence at E3 this year was relatively understated. Gran Turismo Sport occupied a moderate slice of floorspace at Sony’s booth but it only snared a few seconds of airtime during Sony’s highly-praised press conference.
Nudged from Sony’s own spotlight, and facing more competition than ever before, GT Sport represents an extremely important game for the idiosyncratic series. According to franchise overlord Kazunori Yamauchi, GT Sport offers a level of innovation not seen since the original Gran Turismo, and it has reportedly been stripped and rebuilt from scratch for its PS4 debut.
The BvS Ultimate Edition Won’t Win Over Haters
Check out my review of the theatrical release for my full thoughts on everything I found good and bad in the original film. This feature is solely focused on whether the Ultimate Edition makes BvS a better film and what new material appears in this edition.
Major SPOILERS follow.
The Ultimate Edition of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice neither makes the original version of the film any better nor worse. It just makes its already convoluted story longer (it's 2 hours, 54 minutes long before the end credits roll). This version offers a lot of little moments and extensions of plot threads that, even when revealed in their Ultimate length, still don’t do much to make any more sense or to justify why those elements were even there to begin with. The BvS Ultimate Edition isn't like the multiple cuts of Watchmen or Blade Runner that offer viewers entirely new movies to experience.
Person of Interest: The Top 10 Episodes
Warning: Full spoilers for Person of Interest's five-year run follow.
If you asked people who'd never watched CBS' Person of Interest what they thought the show was about, you'd get a lot of different answers, and likely none quite close to the truth. A lot of this disparity had to do with the incorrect way the show was marketed, while some of it also was the result of a show that continuously evolved over the years - transforming from a somewhat straight forward surveillance state procedural into a much more serialized sci-fi saga about two warring artificial intelligences and the human pawns they sacrifice -- or who sacrifice themselves to stop them -- along the way.
AMC Renews Preacher for Season 2
Preacher will return in 2017 for a 13-episode second season, AMC announced today.
The adaptation of Garth Ennis' comic book series premiered on AMC in May, with Dominic Cooper as the titular preacher Jesse Custer, Joseph Gilgun as the vampire Cassidy, and Ruth Negga as Tulip O'Hare. The first season will run for 10 episodes, the fifth episode "South Will Rise Again" having been the most recent episode to air. The show tells the story of Custer, a Texas preacher who becomes infused with an entity known as Genesis that gives him the ability to command others to do whatever he says.
Super Mario RPG Comes to Wii U Virtual Console Tomorrow
The Super Nintendo classic role-playing game Super Mario RPG: Legend of The Seven Stars is hitting the U.S. Wii U Virtual Console on June 30, Nintendo's website has revealed.
Super Mario RPG will cost $7.99 when it releases tomorrow and allow for off-TV play. The Square-developed SNES title first released in 1996 features Mario and friends journeying around the Musroom Kingdom to reclaim the titular Seven Stars and repair Star Road. The title later reappeared on the Wii Virtual Console in 2008.
Netflix Releases BoJack Horseman Season 3 Trailer
Netflix has released a new trailer for the upcoming third season of its animated comedy BoJack Horseman.
The trailer (below) gives a taste of what's to come in Season 3, as BoJack rises to movie stardom after filming Secretariat in season 2. BoJack returns having achieved a new level of fame but he continues to question whether he can actually ever find happiness.
BoJack's twelve-episode third season releases exclusively on Netflix on July 22.
The series principal voice cast returns with Will Arnett as BoJack, Aaron Paul as Todd, and Alison Brie as Diane, among others. IGN recently named the animated series the ninth best Netflix original series.