Sleeping Dogs Successor Triad Wars Closing Down
Square Enix is closing down Triad Wars, the online open-world action game follow-up to Sleeping Dogs.
Developer United Front Games announced the closure on Twitter and the official Triad Wars forums. The game will remain playable until 12:00pm PT on January 20, 2016.
"Since the start of the Triad Wars Closed Beta this year, diligent Enforcers have run rampant through the streets of Hong Kong, killing rivals and building Empires. During this time we have gathered immense amounts of feedback, information, and data on the game. We’ve loved seeing how you’ve played Triad Wars but we know it wasn’t right for many of you, so we’re letting you know today that we are going to close the beta on January 20th 2016 at 12 p.m. Pacific Standard Time," said the developer.
Star Wars: Force Awakens Continues Box Office Dominance
Star Wars: The Force Awakens performed incredibly well at the box office yesterday, setting a new record high for Tuesday with just over $37.3 million.
J.J. Abrams space epic not only eclipsed The Amazing Spider-Man's Tuesday record of $35 million, it's also now the fastest film to surpass the $300 million milestone, with domestic earnings-to-date now at a whopping $325.4 million.
Additionally, The Force Awakens has now made $689.4 million globally, which, according to THR, already puts its ahead of Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation's entire run as the seventh highest-grossing film of 2015.
See the New Trailer for Natalie Dormer’s The Forest
A new trailer and poster for Natalie Dormer's upcoming psychological thriller The Forest have been revealed.
Here's a look at the new poster, courtesy of Empire.
The film is set in the Aokigahara Forest, a famous location in Japan near Mout Fuji where many have gone to commit suicide. Dormer (of Hunger Games and Game of Thrones fame) stars as young American woman named Sara, who travels to the forest in search of her missing twin sister.
The 50 Greatest Quentin Tarantino Characters
Oscar-winning screenwriter, foot fetishist and shutter-down of butts, Quentin Tarantino has a new movie opening in limited domestic release this weekend, The Hateful Eight. Tarantino has gifted cinema dozens of classic characters in his half century, from Reservoir Dogs through Django Unchained – plus, of course, via movies he wrote, like True Romance and Natural Born Killers. It's easy to forget the wealth of talent that has at some point agreed to be QT's mouthpiece (Pitt! Clooney! Willis! De Niro! Oldman!). The Tarantino universe boasts an unforgettable cast of heroes, villains and everyone in between.
With that, let's look at Tarantino's Top 50 characters (sans the characters from The Hateful Eight -- we'll include them next time!):
This Fender Guitar Is Made From Cardboard
Ernest Packaging has teamed up with Fender to create a Stratocaster electric guitar made out of cardboard.
According to the Mail Online, Cardboard Chaos is a collaboration between Ernest Packaging Solutions and Signal Snowboards, and they've made a guitar that not only looks like a Fender Stratocaster, it also plays like one.
"One of the biggest challenges of this neck is with the strings," said Dave Lee, co-founder of Signal Snowboards. "It adds about 250 lbs of torque on the neck."
Paul Waller, Fender Master Builder, said "the challenge is gonna be to try to get this material that is notoriously kinda weak to get strong to hold all those strings."
Beyond: A Special Holiday Beyonza
Download Podcast Beyond Episode 424
Finally, 2015 is coming to a close and the silly drama of this here video game industry has settled down. In the penultimate episode of 2015, Marty, Brian, Alanah, Zach, and Goldengoose dig deep into the mailbag and answer literally every single question you've ever asked. Well, that's a lie. But they do talk about what they're playing over break, why Bully was rad, dinosaurs, why Altano is terrified of Australia, PaRappa VR, why no one should sleep on Until Dawn, the most disappointing Christmas presents ever, and a whole bunch of other dumb stuff.
Daily Deals: 70% Off Amazon Sale, PS4 Uncharted Bundle
Up to 70% Off End of Year Sale on PS4, Xbox One and PC Digital Games at Amazon
We're pretty much past the point of no return for getting physical items shipped to you in time for Christmas on Friday, but you can still give the gift of digitally-delivered goods with plenty of time to spare! Amazon's got major savings on the downloadable versions of tons of 2015's most popular games, so click over and browse the selection.
Animated Spider-Man Movie Pushed Back
Sony Pictures announced that the release date of its planned animated Spider-Man film has been pushed back. The movie, produced and written by The LEGO Movie's Phil Lord and Chris Miller, will now open on December 21, 2018 instead of July 20, 2018.
Lord and Miller have the option to direct the animated Spider-Man movie, but currently aren't slated to do so. They are, however, directing Lawrence Kasdan's upcoming Han Solo origin movie, which is expected to hit theaters on May 25, 2018.
Sony also announced the release dates for two of its other animated movies: The Emoji Movie and Peter Rabbit. The Emoji Movie will release on August 8, 2017, and it's rumored that Sony spent nearly seven figures to acquire the film, which was written by Eric Siegel of Men at Work and Anthony Leondis of Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Masters. Peter Rabbit will release on March 23, 2018.
The Next Sword Art Online Game Is Coming to America Next Year
Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization is coming to American territories.
Publisher Bandai Namco made the announcement during Jump Festa. Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization, based on the wildly successful manga and anime franchise, is set in a different virtual world than the previous material. This new environment is "Sword Art: Origin," and seems to recall past events from the original (and much deadlier) game world, Aincrad.
The announcement points out that the action-RPG's story was created by the original author, Reki Kawahara. It will be available on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita when it lands here sometime in 2016.
Unlocked: All Our Nonsensical 2015 Outtakes
NOTE: As this is a collection of outtakes from the year, there's no video episode this week. See below for .mp3 audio download links.
Continuing the tradition started last year, we're giving you an episode full of 2015's Unlocked outtakes while the Xbox world rests for the holidays. These outtakes span the entire year, will in some cases make absolutely no sense without any context, and you might think this episode is pointless and/or totally dumb. But you might also think it's hilarious. Let us know, and Happy Holidays! We'll be back with regular episodes of Unlocked starting January 6!