Podcast: The newest Blu-rays from George Clooney and Tom Hardy explored
From their secluded home-theater compound, film critics Wade Major and Mark Keizer mix insightful commentary with irreverent banter, covering the latest DVD and Blu-ray news and new releases of the week, including studio, independent, television and special-interest titles.
Digigods Podcast, 04/14/15 (MP3) -- 33.1 MB
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Batman’s Arkham Knight Will Have Origin Revealed in DC Comic
Want to know the origin of the Arkham Knight, the villain of the upcoming Batman: Arkham Knight video game? Well, DC Comics has you covered. A new six-issue comic book mini-series by writer Pete Tomasi and artist Alisson Borges called Batman: Arkham Knight - Genesis, out July 29, will explore the villain's mysterious past.
Batman: Arkham Knight - Genesis #1 by artist Stepan Sejic
The Brilliance of Black & White Buttons in Guitar Hero Live
Freestyle’s Guitar Hero Live is an interesting, technically ambitious deviation from expectation, and its guitar also reflects the changing tides for the franchise. Initially, its custom design looks familiar, like Guitar Hero 5’s axe, almost Fender in its shape. Very little stands out as remarkable. It’s small. It’s plastic. It’s a Guitar Hero guitar.
It isn’t until you hold the device that its familiarity truly sets in – and it’s strongest differentiating factor smacks you across the fingers.
Guitar Hero Live abandons the series’ usual five-fret, five-color system for creating chords. Green, red, yellow, blue, and orange buttons, each set to a single slot on the fret board, are a thing of the past. Guitar Hero Live’s guitar uses just the top three frets, divided down the middle to create one button on the inside, and another on the outside of each fret. The six buttons are then divided in a binary black/white, rather than singular colors. The buttons on the inside of the fret board are labeled black, and the outside frets are labeled white.
Cities: Skylines Sells 1 Million Copies in First Month
Paradox Interactive has announced sales of city-building sim have passed the 1 million mark since launching back on March 10.
Following launch it was revealed the title had sold 250,000 units in its first day on sale, with this rising to 500,000 just four days later.
So far 33,000 mods have been created for the game and released via Steam Workshop, while player concurrency is hovering around an average of 21,000.
An antidote to the disappointment caused by 2013's SimCity, our review of Cities: Skylines (which, it should be noted, isn't part of the Cities series of games like Cities XXL made by Focus Home Interactive) gave the title an 8.5 after finding its huge, bustling cities to be incredible fun.
Bloodborne Sales Pass 1 Million Mark Worldwide
Bloodborne has sold-through over 1 million copies to consumers globally, Sony has announced.
The number combines both physical sales and digital downloads, with the milestone being smashed through back on April 5 (so that's within two weeks of launch).
“Bloodborne was a new challenge for us, and our goal was to create a title that took full advantage of the power of PS4,” says Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida. “I am thrilled that so many users have been enjoying the extremely rich and detailed world, beautiful melancholic atmosphere and palpable tension of Bloodborne. SCE WWS will continue to bring exciting software titles that offer entertainment experiences only possible on PS4.”
iZombie: “Flight of the Living Dead” Preview
iZombie's Liv (Rose McIver) has a constant need for brains, and there are an endless number of cases that need solved. It seems like a win-win situation. In tonight's episode, "Flight of the Living Dead," Liv reluctantly snacks on the brain of one of her sorority sisters who has recently been murdered. The investigation leads the team into the deceased sorority sister's world of extreme sports. Being a zombie is sort of like an extreme sport, right?
Besides that open case, Major (Robert Buckley) lets Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) know his concerns about a young boy's disappearance. Those disappearances have to be stacking up by now. Get a look at what's ahead with photos in the below gallery.
The New Guitar Hero Wants to Give You Stagefright
Guitar Hero looks totally different. The bright, caricatured rockstars of yesteryear have morphed into real-life musicians playing in front of live audiences. The assault of colour-coded inputs racing towards you is still there, of course, but it’s evolved into a more elegant system. It immediately looks like a more contemporary incarnation of the familiar Guitar Hero experience, but there's more to its new appearance than a desire to look modern.
“We thought of it as a clean slate," Jamie Jackson, the creative director tells me. "One of the briefs I gave the team early on was to think of it just as a name. Think of it as a music game with a guitar peripheral, but pretend that nothing else has ever been done. We want to come back with some big innovation and to do that we almost felt like we needed to start from scratch.
Guitar Hero Live Announced With 2015 Release Date
Activision has announced Guitar Hero Live, the latest installment in the popular franchise, will be released in autumn 2015.
Developed by FreeStyleGames, whose previous credits include DJ Hero and DJ Hero 2, Guitar Hero Live costs $99.99 and is currently planned for PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U. Additionally, select mobile devices will support the game.
A new controller has been revealed with two rows of three buttons, while artists confirmed to join the tracklist include The Black Keys, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Gary Clark, Jr., Green Day, Ed Sheeran, The War on Drugs, The Killers, Skrillex, The Rolling Stones, The Lumineers, Pierce the Veil and Blitz Kids.
Oculus Rift Uses Binaural Sound To Entice Holidaymakers
South African Tourism has used Oculus Rift technology to target UK holidaymakers.
During April, selected bars in London and Manchester will offer a five-minute taster of the sights and sound of an action-packed vacation, including cage-diving with sharks and abseiling down Cape Town's Table Mountain.
Visitors to the VR pods will also be able to sample South African street food, music, and wine.
"We want to surprise the UK travelling public," said Juan Herrada, South African Tourism’s UK manager, "and Oculus Rift is the ideal partner for us to reach a young, tech-savvy market."
"This is the first time Oculus Rift and binaural sound have been combined to create a unique, immersive holiday experience for the UK public."
Kingdom Hearts 3 Director Gives Development Update
Kingdom Hearts III development is progressing "smoothly" according to the game's director.
Tetsuya Nomura spoke to Famitsu (via Gematsu), where he also revealed we should expect to see lots more about the title at Japan's D23 Expo this November, and even hinted at a smartphone addition to the series.
"We have some interesting things planned," he said. "There will be Kingdom Hearts III news, and various things
, I think. Kingdom Hearts III development is going smoothly, but there will also be new announcements connected to it. As one of those new announcements, I think we should be able to announce a smartphone-specific development for the series in short order.”