New to Amazon Prime for June
The school year's ending as summer fast approaches and Amazon Prime's got a few Stephen King flicks, some trolls, some leprechauns, a dollop of punk rock love, and an army of Transformers free to stream on their Instant Video app for all Prime members.
So let's check out June on Amazon Prime...
IGN SPOTLIGHT
- The Shining
Stanley Kubrick's ingeniously tweaked and re-worked version of Stephen King's classic novel features Jack Nicholson in one of his most famous roles. As a precursor to the loony madness he'd display as the Joker a decade later, Nicholson's off-season Colorado hotel innkeeper, Jack Torrance, was the epitome of over-the-top cabin fever insanity.
Daily Deals: Awesome PS4 Headset, Rechargeable Battery Sale, Xbox One With Three Games and $100 Credit
Our Favorite PS4/PC Headset Is On Sale
You've probably never heard of the HyperX Cloud 2 headset. I hadn't either until I read our review. Spoiler alert: we gave it a 9.5, and it's one of the highest rated headsets on the site currently. It's normally a $98 purchase, but this is the second time I've seen it go on sale for $80, and I've never seen it cheaper than that.
Apple Upgrades 15-Inch MacBook Pros
Apple is upgrading the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro with several of the same additions brought to the 13-inch model, MacBook, and MacBook Air a few months ago.
Among the new features of the 15-inch MacBook Pro is the Force Touch trackpad, as well as speedier PCI Express storage and an upgraded graphics card for the $2,500 model.
Check out the specs below from the Apple Store.
15-inch: 2.2GHz with Retina display - $1,999
- 2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 – Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz
- 16GB 1600MHz memory
EA Loses Veteran Executive Frank Gibeau
Executive vice president of EA Mobile Frank Gibeau is leaving EA after 23 years, the company announced today.
According to an SEC filing, Gibeau "has chosen to transition on from the company," and his last day was yesterday, May 18 –– as of now, he no longer shows up on EA's Executives page. Before his most recent position at EA Mobile, Gibeau was president of EA Labels, as well as director of marketing and president of EA Games.
"I can confirm that Frank Gibeau has chosen to transition on from Electronic Arts," an EA spokesperson told IGN. "Throughout a more than 20-year career, Frank’s made many significant contributions to the company, our people and our games. Most recently, he’s worked to strengthen EA Mobile by building a great team. We thank Frank for his achievements at EA, and we wish him all the best in his next chapter."
Xbox Boss Is Still Betting on Kinect
Xbox Boss Phil Spencer says the value of Kinect will have to be earned through experiences, and still considers the peripheral an important part of the Xbox One landscape moving forward.
Speaking with GamesRadar, Spencer says the fact that Upload Studio 2.0 was designed with a Kinect green-screen feature is just one example which shows it's still on the minds of Microsoft engineers. "We’ll continue to build functionality to make it a valuable part of the ecosystem," Spencer says.
However, he did reiterate that the unbundling of Kinect from the Xbox One was also a crucial move that had to happen.
Star Wars: How South Park Convinced Brad Bird to Turn Down Episode 7
Brad Bird is set to release his original sci-fi fable Tomorrowland on Friday May 22. But the creation of the film was almost stopped before it truly began when Bird was offered the directing gig on Star Wars: Episode VII. Rumor has it that he's in talks to helm a different Star Wars film - perhaps one of the anthology movies. When IGN asked which aspect of the universe Bird would be interested in taking on - Boba Fett, perhaps? - Bird quipped, "Can we go back in time and have several lifetimes to do every movie you've ever wanted to do?"
On a somewhat more serious note, Bird and Lindelof recalled the circumstances that led to Bird turning down Star Wars in favor of Tomorrowland, and how South Park's Cartman played a crucial role. You can see our chat on the topic in the video above, and their pitch for the most insanely awesome Sam Jackson post-credits scene ever here - or in the video below.
Wrestling Wrap Up: Kevin Owens Destroys John Cena
There are actually a bunch of rad things to type about this week, but I'll start with mothertwitchin' Stone Cold returning to the WWE Network for his live podcast video series.
That was a cool surprise. And one I'd like to think was brought about by the perpetual grumblings of fans over the webiverse. But who knows? Maybe Austin and the WWE never had a mini-beef to begin with. Obviously, Jericho's now hosting Tough Enough so he won't be able to do his video podcasts for a while, but it's also possible that WWE saw that they'd made a mistake and hit the reset button.
The Flash’s Season Finale Will Be “Catastrophic”
It was a long time coming, but The Flash’s Iris West finally found out about her best friend Barry Allen’s alter ego recently. With the season finale of The Flash airing Tuesday night, I spoke to Candice Patton about Iris now being in on the secret, what to expect from the finale and more.
IGN: So Iris knows! How great is it for her to know?
Patton: So relieved. I think the fans are relieved. I’m relieved, Iris is relieved. It’s just a good feeling because now we can kind of move on with that and see what Iris does with that information and kind of see her use whatever tools and knowledge she has to help the team, so to speak, so I’m happy for that to be done.
CryEngine3-built ARPG Umbra Has Been Greenlit
RPG Umbra has been Greenlit on Steam, and the game’s Kickstarter currently sits on over $115,000 in just five days.
For those yet to hear the name, Umbra is a hack ‘n’ slash open world RPG being built in the CryEngine3. One of the ways Umbra aims to differentiate itself from other APRGs is through its customisation options.
Players will be able to create their own house, complete with custom walls and floors, and add different types of furniture, some of which will let them display their most-treasured weapons and armour. In a similar vein, weapons will also allow for customisation. Hilts and blades can be changed and tweaked until you’re happy with your very own bringer of death.
‘Hide Eye Candy’ Option Added To League of Legends
Riot has recently added an option to enable players to hide "eye candy" in League of Legends.
The move is intended to simplify environments by removing background noise - "things like butterflies, dragonflies and the water wakes" - and, potentially, boost competitive performance.
"Recently we added an option to the Game tab in the menu called 'Hide Eye Candy'," said Riot's JeX yesterday on the official forums. "Some of our more competitive players requested the option to hide some of the less subtle movement on Summoner's Rift. We added the option to disable things