Let’s Talk About How Epic Game of Thrones Was This Week!
It's time for another episode of IGN's Game of Thrones show! Eric Goldman (remember that guy?) is back, and with Roth Cornet on vacation, Joshua Yehl sits down to chat about an absolutely huge episode - maybe the best one ever?
Warning: Beware of full show spoilers!
After giving our overall thoughts on "Hardhome" and the long-awaited conversations between Daenerys and Tyrion and that jaw-dropping battle between the Night's Watch, Wildlings and freaking zombies, we dive into some other specific topics, including Valerian Steel's importance, whether the Night's King is the show's actual main villain and the latest developments for Sansa and Arya. Plus, in our closing section on book spoilers, we talk more about the major sections of this week's episode that were not in the source material and how things may play out differently as a result.
Hatred Review
Hatred is perfect fodder for “What other people think I do/What my parents think I do” memes--memes that would include tiny boxes for “What the media thinks Hatred is,” “What 14-year-olds think Hatred is,” “What the developers think Hatred is,” and so forth. But there's really only one box that matters, and that would be the one in the lower right: “What Hatred actually is.”
Here's what Hatred actually is: An isometric semi-open street-level shooter in which you kill designated numbers of progressively tougher adversaries before advancing to the next area. You have three main weapons--which you aim with an analog stick on your gamepad--as well as grenades, and the ability to duck. The basics are not terribly dissimilar from the first top-down iterations of Grand Theft Auto; Hatred is, ostensibly at least, an engine for quick, unthinking bursts of multidirectional fire, as opposed to, say, Hotline Miami’s trial-and-error kinetic problem solving. You can drive various vehicles, but they control like lead; fortunately, driving is optional, save for one stage near the end in which you control a SWAT van.
Hatred's stark, Sin City aesthetic is irreproachable, and the number of destructible objects is astonishing. In too many other respects, however, there is precious little to say about Hatred: the action is simple, levels lack painfully in variation and escalation of arms, and frequent linearity only exacerbates the tedium. You simply wander through suburban neighborhoods and other mundane locales, mowing down whomever might happen to stand between you and your assigned kill count. There is no thrilling five-star moment in which whirring helicopters or SEAL Team Six members show up; the game’s idea of variety is to introduce armored enemies who don't die after being shot just once. Hatred has you firing almost endlessly at the same six or seven types of victims for a few hours, and then it ends. Aesthetics aside, it is thoroughly unspectacular, and any primal enjoyment you may be having wears off by the third stage.
And so you have it. Hatred is a boring ‘80s-style arcade game with excellent visuals. There are dozens of better, cheaper games that do what Hatred does, which leaves one real reason why anyone might want to play it: Your primary targets are innocent, predominantly unarmed, uncharacterized civilians who run, scream, cry, beg for mercy, and endure brutal executions in order for you--the Antagonist--to remain alive. Unlike in Grand Theft Auto V or Saints Row, there's not even the flimsiest effort to provide a barrier of unreality. Bystanders are not simple victims of collateral damage: You are explicitly told to kill, “cleanse,” and “execute” the innocent. Problematically, Hatred isn’t fun to play. Its attempted power fantasy comes not from the exhilaration of superhumanity, but from the slaughter in and of itself, and unlike listening to a Slayer album or watching Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, this is not a passive experience. Best of luck to anyone who can answer the question of why Hatred is meant to be, in the developer's own words, “pure gaming pleasure.”
Yet there's an irony to Hatred. It might almost be a game worth clutching pearls over if the Antagonist never opened his mouth. But he does. Often. And while he exhibits a detached malevolence with his early one-liners, as you progress, there's a pronounced air of Metalocalyptic silliness, as the Antagonist grumbles about tasting the blood of innocent and proclaims everything as “stinking," “worthless,” or “pathetic,” with the same whining conviction of children who don’t want to eat their vegetables. He growls about how the only thing he hates more than politics is politicians, expressing his rage with all the murderous intent of a petulant Oscar The Grouch. The goofiness climaxes in the game's final moments: the acting reaches for Tommy Wiseau-level arch camp, to the point where it seems impossible to imagine that developer Destructive Creations meant for its shrug-worthy Dethgame to truly matter. Hatred isn't going to make mass murderers of anyone, but it still wants to be every mass murderer's favorite game. The shift in tone from horrifying psychopathy to mustache-twirling supervillainy feels like an intentional joke by the developers, an attempt to make Hatred a new generation’s Postal or Hong Kong 97--and it might have been funny if the rest of the game's particulars weren't a semi-monthly real-life tragedy.
But there’s an even greater irony at work here, in that having brutally killed thousands of innocents, survived police retaliation, and laid waste to everything good in the world, even while the Antagonist devours scenery behind the mic, you feel nothing. Hatred is too repetitive to be exciting, too dumb to be frightening, too basic for you to feel accomplished at its end, too dour to be violently cathartic, too self-serious to engender ironic amusement, and yet still too childish to matter. It will be given more credit than it’s worth--all a game like this can do is provide meager table scraps to a ravenous desire already deeply embedded in pre-existing monsters, and that's not a problem that treating Hatred as Videodrome made (new) flesh will cure. The fact that the final product fails even to be worth a primal psychotic scream of victory against society at large for the people it might encourage means it laughably fails even at being dangerous.
Meaning, essentially, it's a nothing of a game.
Today Was a Big Day on the X-Men: Apocalypse Set
X-Men: Apocalypse director Bryan Singer has used social media to keep fans abreast of what's happening on the Montreal set of his latest mutant movie.
Today, Singer posted the photo seen below to his Instagram account with the caption "Big day." And as you can see by the array of cast chairs, the scene being shot today involved many of the film's leads, including Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique, Nicholas Hoult's Beast, Alexandra Shipp's Storm, James McAvoy's Professor X, Rose Byrne's Moira MacTaggart, Oscar Isaac's Apocalypse, Lucas Till's Havok, and Michael Fassbender's Magneto.
Here’s Harley Quinn and Katana on Set
I guess we spoke too soon! Just a day after Suicide Squad director David Ayer said the movie's exterior location filming was done (thus putting an end to the daily deluge of set photos) comes ... more set photos!
These new images show Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn and Karen Fukuhara's Katana among other members of Task Force X on the streets of Toronto. Via Comic Book Movie:
Heroes Reborn: Mohinder Returns
Even though the Heroes character of Mohinder was referenced in the Heroes Reborn trailer that screened during the Network Upfronts a few weeks ago (read the full trailer description here), we didn't know for sure if actor Sendhil Ramamurthy would be returning for the new NBC "event series."
Well, now it's official. TVLine is reporting that Ramamurthy is in fact returning to the franchise and reprising his role as Dr. Mohinder Suresh.
Don’t Miss the Return of Spider-Man’s Wife & Daughter
We all want the best of the best, so let us point out the hottest comics and collectibles released each week. We spotlight our favorite comics that we know are money-well-spent, new books that look cool, and any toys we can't wait to play with.
Check out our picks, then take to the comments to let us know what looks good to you!
By writer Geoff Johns & artist Jason Fabok | DC Comics
In the previous issue of Justice League, we got a surprisingly in-depth look at the Anti-Monitor. We learned his true name, got a clear sense of his motivation, and saw that he’s teaming up with Darkseid’s daughter to take down dear old dad.
The Rock Starring in Big Trouble in Little China Remake
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is currently in negotiations to star in the upcoming remake of John Carpenter's Big Trouble in LIttle China.
The movie will be written by Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz, writers of X-Men: First Class, Thor and the upcoming Power Rangers movie.
According to a report by The Wrap, Johnson will star in and produce the movie, taking on the role of Jack Burton. Burton was played by Kurt Russell in the 1986 original.
The report states the original movie is one of The Rock's favorites, and he was involved with pitching the remake to 20th Century Fox with his producing partners Dany and Hiram Garcia.
Hannibal’s Return is This Week’s TV Highlight
June's arrived and we're officially in the raging sea of Summer TV! NBC's superb Hannibal cooks up its first Season 3 feast this week while Netflix releases a brand new mind-bending series from The Wachowskis.
Plus, Power returns to Starz, Lifetime debuts UnREAL, ABC goes extra-terrestrial with The Whispers, and ABC Family premieres the procedural Stitchers (think iZombie without the zombie part) after Pretty Little Liars' season opener.
IGN's 2015 Summer TV Preview Guide
Also, Game of Thrones' Episode 9 is coming! We know to expect big things from GoT's penultimate season episodes, but in seasons past we at least had an idea of what was coming. Wars, weddings, etc. Here, we're not quite sure what's in store for us. We just know it'll be big.
Avengers Assemble and Ultimate Spider-Man Renewed and Retitled
Disney XD has renewed both Marvel's Avengers Assemble and Ultimate Spider-Man for their third and fourth respective seasons.
Both shows will also be renamed to fit their new story lines. Fans can expect to see a number of guest appearances from different heroes and villains in both.
Avengers Assemble, now renamed Marvel's Avengers: Ultron Revolution, will see the headlining Avengers fighting Baron Zemo, the Masters of Evil, the Inhumans, and Kang the Conqueror. Additionally, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Ant-Man, and Ms. Marvel will make guest appearances and the press release notes the Avengers will need help to have "a chance of surviving an all-out Marvel super hero Civil War."
Hellraid Not Canceled, Says Techland CEO
Techland has now clarified that Hellraid has not been canceled, despite having announced it was being put on hold.
"Right now we want to concentrate on Dying Light," CEO Pawell Marchewka told Eurogamer. "We wanted to be fair with the fans so we wanted to send a clear message, especially as a lot of the people were expecting new things coming from Hellraid at E3 and Gamescom. We decided to take the pressure away. .... But putting on hold means we want some of the resources to concentrate on Dying Light, and once they do what needs to be done we will come back to Hellraid."