Overwatch: Here’s 9 Minutes of Gameplay for Newcomer Hanzo
Blizzard has released a new gameplay video showcasing Hanzo, the stealthy bowman in Overwatch.
The video is a straight up nine-minute match that shows Hanzo climbing walls to get a better view of what’s ahead, and – obviously – him shooting a bow lots.
The match in question takes place in King’s Row, a map situated in the heart of England, which is a hybrid Capture and Payload arena.
Hanzo joins the previously-announced McCree, Zarya, and Zenyatta. The Overwatch beta is due for public consumption this autumn, but you can sign up right now over on Battle.Net.
Gearbox and 3D Realms Duke Nukem Lawsuit Resolved
Gearbox's lawsuit against 3D Realms has been settled via mediation.
The case -- a dispute over the intellectual property rights to Duke Nukem -- is the latest in a long line of legal battles between the two companies.
Take-Two originally sued 3D Realms/Apogee Ltd in May 2009 for breach of contract following the ongoing delay of the release of Duke Nukem Forever. 3D Realms responded with a countersuit claim a month later, saying Duke Nukem Forever was still in development, and it was thought the matter was settled.
Google on the Verge of Giving Machines Human-like Intelligence
Prominent artificial intelligence scientist Professor Geoff Hinton predicts computers will develop “common sense” within a decade.
Hinton is helping develop intelligent operating systems at Google where he says, in an interview with The Guardian, the company is on the verge of creating algorithms with the ability for logic, fluid conversation and flirtation.
According to Hinton, Google is at an early stage of working on a new type of algorithm that encodes “thoughts as sequences of numbers,” what he refers to as “thought vectors.” He believes a more advanced version may reach a “human-like capacity for reasoning and logic” that will basically give machines “common sense.”
Reese Witherspoon is Disney’s New Tinkerbell
Reese Witherspoon is set to star in Disney's 'Tink', a live-action film centred on Tinkerbell.
Variety reports that Witherspoon will star and produce the film, which currently has no production timeline.
Tink follows Disney's recent trend of spinning its animated franchises into live-action films. In the wake of Maleficent and Cinderella, Tink will join Winnie the Pooh and Beauty and the Beast on Disney's upcoming slate.
Lucy O'Brien is Entertainment Editor at IGN’s AU office. Follow her ramblings on Twitter.
Here Come This Month’s Xbox One Preview Features
Microsoft will soon be rolling out a bunch of new features to its Xbox app for Windows 10, including DVR options, avatars, and more.
As per the latest Xbox Wire, here's what to expect on the app, currently available to those in the Windows Insider program:
Avatars - dress up and buy new items for your avatar from within the Xbox app.
Friends updates - add friends and designate them as favourites directly from the Xbox app. You'll also be able to report or block people from the app, too.
Game hubs - view game-specific feeds, your achievement progress and friends who have played the game.
Hannibal: Season 3 Featurette Shows Red Dragon Killer
Warning - A bit spoilery for those who don't want to know certain things about Hannibal: Season 3...
NBC has released a lengthy behind-the-meal look at Hannibal's upcoming third season, featuring inverviews with stars Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, Gillian Anderson, Laurence Fishburne, and Caroline Dhavernas.
Plus, this marks viewers' first look at Hobbit star Richard Armitage as famed Red Dragon film/novel serial killer Francis Dolarhyde - aka "The Tooth Fairy."
Also, while we're all still mourning the loss of Michael Pitt as Mason Verger, this video shows glimpse of new actor Joe Anderson (The River) as the now-disfigured madman.
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/Showrenity.
Schrodinger’s Cat And The Raiders Of The Lost Quark Review
Many articles could be written about the idea that the video game mascot--in the Mario/Sonic/Crash Bandicoot/Pikachu sense--is dead, and what that says about where games are as a medium, but suffice it to say, that Schrodinger's Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark tries to make a new one is at once endearing and utterly baffling. Of all the aspects of 90s gaming that are being mined for material, that's one I never expected to see make a comeback.
In the game's favor, it's a great idea for a mascot-style platformer. On the subatomic level, a particle zoo--a real term used to describe the atomic building blocks of our universe--is used literally here as a bright, colorful cartoon zoo housing quarks, gluons, and the like. One day, security breaks down, Jurassic Park-style, and the zoo's inhabitants get loose. Unable to deal with the sudden chaos, the zoo's director calls in an agent with a particular set of skills: Schrodinger's Cat. You might remember him from such popular quantum states as “being alive and dead at the same time.”
The particular set of skills the Cat has turns out to be collecting and manipulating quarks to create completely new tools to traverse the environment. The science is rather cleverly on point here. There are four different types of quarks running around: Up, Down, Construction, and Destruction; each type is assigned to a shoulder button. Pressing them in combinations of three creates a different effect, just like they create protons in reality. Three Ups create a tiny helicopter. Three Downs create a drill that breaks through floors. Three Constructions create a giant bubble shield; three Destructions create a fragile platform to stand on. The 12 possible combinations are mostly left to the player to discover. It's a fun bit of trial and error to find all the different options, which are wisely shown in a little reference guide when you pause the game. A few too many are different permutations of “this helps you go up,” but when you start running out of components, the options for a creative alternative are nice.
It's an imaginative mechanic that feels like it belongs on a current gen system. The problem is that the rest of the game is absolutely committed to being a 90s mascot platformer in every other respect, complete with the Cat himself being given obnoxious, oft-repeated catchphrases, like “Scienceariffic!” and yelling “Holy Higgs!” when he dies. Schrodinger's Cat is, ultimately, the more ThinkGeek-y cousin of Bubsy The Cat, to the point where I bet a friend that “What could possibly go wrong?” was coming. The references to famous physicists and physics terms start off as cute, but they quickly become ubiquitous, obvious, and awkwardly shoehorned into the narrative. Non-player characters serve the same function, offering hints and clues to the next objective but burying those hints neck deep in references to the Higgs Boson and combinant theory at every turn. The script is less concerned with showing and playing with the physics concepts (in the way that Psychonauts utilized psychology) and more concerned with showing off the fact that yes, the designers clearly went to college. It's exclusionary nerdery at its worst.
Even as a game, however, it is trying to serve two masters at once. Two types of levels are seen here. The best are pre-planned puzzle levels with a limited number of quarks to use, quark-stealing gluons scattered about, and the need to do some tricky platforming. Faint glimmers of greatness occur here--if you run out of the type of quark you need for the easy solution, you have to think creatively to use the quarks you do have. You have plenty of ways to get vertical in a level, but having the ability to explode a wall in just the right way to proceed and saving enough quarks to do so is a different story. The worst levels, on the other hand, are procedurally generated, awkwardly designed obstacle courses that rely far too much placing nondescript destructible walls in your way rather than creating a surmountable challenge.
Both types suffer from a severe lack of variety in environments and enemies for a platformer, and seeing the subatomic world undulating in the background doesn't cut it. It doesn't take long for the game to show you virtually everything it has to offer. The actual mechanics of running, jumping, crawling, and clawing are just fine, but the mad genius platformer where you get to test any of those skills is missing. All we get in return is a gimmick in which you can create a special net out of your available quarks to cart the ones you knock unconscious away, making the job of the zoo's staff a lot easier. It's neat the first hundred times, but it’s not nearly enough. You have to do way too much of it to feel a sense of accomplishment; you also have to do it while walking in the irksome paws of a sentient episode of The Big Bang Theory. The game turns a fresh, fascinating new mechanic using particle physics as a creative springboard into the most staid, stale platformer imaginable. If the goal was to create a game that's both alive and dead at the same time--mission accomplished.
Samurai Warriors 4 II Coming to the West
Koei Tecmo is bringing Samurai Warriors 4 II to the United States on September 29 and Europe on October 2.
Samurai Warriors 4 II features a new story mode with 13 chapters and makes Naomasa Ii a playable character for the first time in the hack-and-slash series. The action game also overhauls the battle system from Samurai Warriors 4.
In addition, Koei Tecmo is including a new mode called the Endless Castle, which has players engaging in a survival scenario or battling against the clock to advance through increasingly difficult levels.
Samurai Warriors 4 II will come out on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita and PC.
Evan Campbell is a freelance news writer who streams games on his Twitch channel, talks about Nintendo weekly on the NF Show, and chats about movies and TV series on Twitter.
Romero’s Marvel Comics Series Being Developed for TV
A television adaptation of Empire of the Dead, horror icon George A. Romero's Marvel Comics series, is currently in development, production-finance company Demarest announced today at the Cannes Film Festival.
Romero will write the TV series with longtime partner Peter Grunwald. The duo will also executive produce alongside Demarest's Sam Englebardt and William D. Johnson, according to Variety.
Empire of the Dead #1. Image courtesy of Marvel.
BoJack Horseman: Season 2 Date Announced
Netflix has announced that BoJack Horseman: Season 2 will premiere July 17 on the streaming service.
The second season of the animated adult comedy series will feature 12 episodes, with all of them available at once. Will Arnett will return as BoJack, along with co-stars Aaron Paul as Todd Chavez and Alison Brie as Diane Nguyen.
Amy Sedaris and Paul F. Tompkins are coming back for the sophomore season of BoJack Horseman as well, as Princess Carolyn and Mr. Peanutbutter, respectively. Netflix is also promising lots of surprise guest stars for the upcoming season.