Star Wars: Battlefront – I Slaughtered as Luke Skywalker
Let me get this out of the way up front: I am terrible at Star Wars: Battlefront. This isn’t surprising to me, as I’m generally awful at shooters as a whole. I spent the first portion of my E3 demo as a standard Rebel Soldier and I was constantly getting creamed.
I probably died 15 times in the first few minutes. It was disheartening, to say the least, but damn it, this was Star Wars, so I pressed on. I had taken my umpteenth blaster bolt to the face when the most amazing thing happened. I respawned in a tunnel a good distance from the battle and noticed a power-up icon to my left. I snagged it, and there he was in the bottom corner of my screen: Luke Skywalker himself, waiting for me to take over.
Watch the New Spidey Practicing His Spidey Moves
Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios announced today that Tom Holland will be the next Spider-Man, but in recent days the 19-year-old actor has already been showing off that he can do whatever a spider can.
Holland posted a series of acrobatic videos on his Instagram.
This Week’s Deals With Gold Discounts Fallout, Evolve, and More
A number of games have been discounted on both Xbox One and Xbox 360 this week for Xbox Live Gold members.
On Xbox One, The Crew, Evolve, and a bundle including Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein: The Old Blood are among the games offered at a discount of 35-50 percent off the normal retail price.
Xbox 360 has a number of Bethesda offerings available for 60 percent off core game titles, including Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, Dishonored, and The Evil Within. Additional DLC for Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Skyrim are also discounted. Those who aren't interested in post-apocalyptic or fantasy RPGs also have the option to save on Grand Theft Auto V, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, among others. Visit Major Nelson's Blog to learn more about each of the titles currently on sale.
Game of Thrones, Outcast Headed to Comic-Con
HBO and Cinemax will be bringing Game of Thrones and Outcast, Cinemax's new Robert Kirkman series, to San Diego Comic-Con next month.
The Game of Thrones panel will take place on Friday, July 10 in Hall H at 2:30pm. Moderated by Seth Meyers (Late Night with Seth Meyers), the panel will include executive producer Carolyn Strauss and director David Nutter, who most recently helmed the Season 5 finale. Several cast members will also make appearances, including Alfie Allen (Theon/Reek), John Bradley (Samwell Tarly), Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth), Liam Cunningham (Ser Davos Seaworth), Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell), Conleth Hill (Varys), Hannah Murray (Gilly), Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark), Carice van Houten (Melissandre), and Maisie Williams (Arya Stark). The panel will be followed by an autograph signing at 4:15pm.
Showtime Partners With Hulu
Showtime is partnering with Hulu, allowing Hulu subscribers to get access to the premium cable and satellite network's content.
Starting next month, Hulu subscribers will get 30 days free of Showtime. And then afterward, Showtime will be available for $9 a month on top of the monthly $8 Hulu subscription.
Showtime is promising that the Hulu add-on includes all of the network's series, movies and even live sporting events without commercials. That means subscribers can stay up to date with Penny Dreadful, Masters of Sex, Homeland and Ray Donavan.
This is the second partnership that Showtime has announced for gaining access to the network. Showtime will also offer a standalone service though Apple starting next month for $11 per month. Similar to the Hulu deal, there is a 30-day free trial with Showtime for Apple devices as well.
NBC Fall Premiere Dates: Heroes Reborn, Blindspot and More
NBC has announced its fall line-up, with new additions like Blindspot and the kind-of-new Heroes Reborn.
Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris, the actor's live variety show, will start on September 15 at 10 PM. Blindspot will start September 21 at 10 PM, with a lead-in from The Voice. Heroes Reborn will premiere on September 24 at 8 PM, with The Blacklist following at 9 and then the premiere of The Player at 10.
The new comedy People Are Talking will premiere at 8:30 on October 16. The drama Chicago Med will be the last new show to begin on November 10 at 10 PM.
Nintendo Isn’t Compromising Game Development for Amiibo
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has spoken out to assure gamers that the rising popularity of amiibo won't affect its ever-present commitment to game development.
"The toys-to-life category is most developed here in the United States," Fils-Aime told Polygon. "Early on, we challenged our internal supply chain that this was going to be big and we needed to scale it up. The fact that we had supply challenges probably says we didn't think big enough. But certainly the demand has been exceedingly strong."
Here’s Shia LaBeouf as Every Doctor Who
Check something off your bucket list, folks: An artist has created oil painting renditions of renowned actor Shia LaBeouf (Transformers) as all 13 incarnations of The Doctor from Doctor Who.
Artist Brandon Bird is responsible for these uncanny portraits and is selling each original oil painting, along with art prints and posters of Shia as the various Time Lords, over at his website.
Check out a few of Bird's stunning portraits below...
Shia LaBeouf as The Fourth Doctor
Shia LaBeouf as The Ninth Doctor
Spoilers! My Problem with The Arkham Knight’s Identity
SPOILERS! You should not read this unless you’ve already played Arkham Knight, or don’t care if the reveal is spoiled for you. If you're playing the game now, bookmark this and come back.
I love Arkham Knight to death as a game, and for the most part as a Batman story, but it’s super, super dumb that Rocksteady was intentionally deceptive about the Arkham Knight being an original character.
Back in March 2014, Rocksteady Producer Dax Ginn told a room full of press the following: “There are only two things I can say about the character you just saw. Number one: his name is the Arkham Knight. Number two: he is a completely original character that we have designed at Rocksteady in collaboration with DC Comics. That’s it.”
Activision: World War 2 Shooter Comeback ‘Certainly Possible’
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is a promising game, but yet another shooter set in a near-future with believable technologies. Like Ghosts, Black Ops 2, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, and more before it, the trend of future-shooters is imitating the World War II genre rising of previous generations. Maybe it's time for World War II to make its return, then.
When asked if he expected the World War II shooter to make a comeback, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg told IGN it was "certainly possible."
Hirshberg explained, "There are these moments where certain ideas seem to be floating in the collective consciousness, and there are two 'meteor hitting the earth' movies in one summer and were both in production for years." Indeed, video games experienced a similar occurrence when WWII-themed the Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Medal of Honor series (and other imitators) saw regular releases for generations.