Dark Phoenix: This Is How Jean Grey Becomes the Phoenix

Fox brought the next X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix, to New York Comic-Con  to show off new footage, and writer-director Simon Kinberg, stars Sophie Turner and Tye Sheridan, and producer Hutch Parker were also on hand to discuss the film.

The team debuted a 14-minute sequence from Dark Phoenix which shows the X-Men’s trip to space and how Turner’s Jean Grey becomes the Phoenix. Spoilers for the scene follow, but note that it takes place early in the film.

Check out the first trailer for Dark Phoenix below, and keep reading for a breakdown of the footage:

The sequence began with a space shuttle launch — don’t forget, this film is set in the 1990s. But there’s some kind of mysterious disturbance on NASA’s monitors, and the shuttle crew loses communication with Mission Control. They’re in danger, and back at the X-Mansion Professor Xavier and Beast are watching the news of the space accident. Xavier asks if the upgraded X-Jet can make it up to space, and Beast discourages this notion. But then the president himself calls — there’s an X-Phone in the Oval Office! A black phone with a big X on it! — and the decision is made to attempt a rescue.

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Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Skills Guide: Combat Tips And The 12 Best Abilities To Unlock First

As you play Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, you’ll inevitably come across several battles and conflicts that’ll test your wits and reflexes. As a Spartan-turned-mercenary/proto-Assassin, you’ll need to rely on every tool at your disposal to fight against the warring armies and mysterious cults that seek to take over Ancient Greece.

Like last year’s Assassin’s Creed Origins, Odyssey blends together RPG elements within the framework of an open-world action-adventure game, allowing you to explore and uncover resources at your leisure, while strengthening your character in the areas that you wish. However, the level of customization for your character in Odyssey is far more flexible, giving you more room to specialize the protagonist across several different archetypes.

Centering around the Warrior, Hunter, and Assassin archetypes, these areas are tied to melee, long-range, and stealth respectively. Each archetype possesses its own set of abilities and passive skills that add new options for you to take advantage of, many of which can be used in clever ways for some effective combos. With the amount of skills to choose from, you’re free to respec your character at any time, allowing you to rebuild them to make a stronger and more refined adventurer.

In this feature, we’ve come up with several tips to help you out in battle, and along with our selection of the most useful abilities to overcome the deadly foes of Ancient Greece. Of course, this is all spoiler free, and only focuses on the core skills that can be unlocked from general progression. For more info on the series’ new entry, check out our full Assassin’s Creed Odyssey review along with our look back on every Assassin’s Creed game we’ve reviewed over its 11-year history.

Critical Assassination

When sneaking up on your foe to pull off an assassination, you may discover that they’re more powerful than you estimated as they survive your would-be killing blow To avoid this common occurrence, it’s good to invest in the Critical Assassination skill. With this enabled, you can spend a single bar of Adrenaline to put some extra force into your silent attacks, allowing you to take out enemies that are more powerful than usual. When fully upgraded, this skill can deal three times as much Assassin damage than normal.

Sixth Sense

When performing stealth, there’s the occasional chance that a guard may catch you in the corner of their eye. As a precaution, the Sixth Sense ability in the Hunter tree would be a valuable skill to have. With this enabled, you’ll be given a short grace period after being noticed by guards, slowing down time and allowing you to get a shot off from your bow. If your aim is sharp, you might be able to land a headshot, keeping you in the clear. Upgrading this ability further can extend the slow-mo duration and increase your Hunter damage.

Spartan Kick

As one of Odyssey’s most useful and versatile abilities, the Spartan Kick is a fast and vicious strike that can push foes back several feet–and it’s also a lot of fun to use. As one of the first abilities you can acquire in the Warrior tree, the kick is especially effective for forcing an overly aggressive enemy back, or sending an unsuspecting foe flying. However, elite enemies are able to resist the pushback from this move, only resulting in normal damage. When upgraded to its max potential, the Spartan Kick will also let out a shockwave, stunning nearby enemies. You’ll occasionally find enemies standing at the edge of cliff, and you’ll find that it’s difficult to resist the urge to kick them off and see them fly off into the distance.

Arrow Master

As a hunter, you may find yourself in situations that can make you rethink how you’ll want to engage enemies at long-range. The Arrow Master skill will grant you the ability to craft different arrow types, opening up new ways to take on opponents. After the initial unlock, you can create flame and paralyzing arrows. Fire arrow are pretty self-explanatory–they ignite targets. The paralyzing arrows, however, can knock out and stun enemies. This is useful when you want to clear through locations without getting any blood on your hands, or when you want to recruit some elite enemies to your ship’s crew. Upgrading the Arrow Master ability will allow you to craft Poison and Explosive arrows, which can be extremely effective in both stealth and combat.

Shield Breaker

While you can’t use shields in Odyssey, the many foes you come across take advantage of them readily. While you can parry strikes and dodge their attacks, sometimes it’s better to get rid of their shield altogether. With the Shield Breaker move, you can yank an enemy’s shield out of their hands and bash them with it. However, Elite enemies wielding shields will require a bit more force to strip. Upgrading Shield Breaker to its max will not only deal more damage to the single target, it will also shatter the shield outright–harming nearby foes in the process.

Devastating Shot

When using the bow, you’re most effective when you can fire off quick and powerful shots. With the Devastating Shot ability, one of the most useful skills in the Hunter tree, you can charge up a powerful shot to take out enemies in a single blow–at the cost of an Adrenaline bar. If you have the Arrow Master skill unlocked, the special arrows will also have increased effectiveness. Upgrading this ability further will increase the damage done from a single shot, with the max level hurling enemies back with incredible force. While this is useful for getting a clean kill while simultaneously pushing a body into some bushes, it’s also invaluable during combat when dealing damage from a distance.

Second Wind

You’ll often come across fights that get overwhelming quickly. With this in mind, it’s useful to have a skill at the ready when you need a pick-me-up. As the closest thing to a healing potion, the Second Wind ability will regain a portion of your health at the cost of some Adrenaline. When upgraded to maximum, this ability can restore up to half your life, while also negating the effects of fire and poison damage outright. This is especially useful when fighting against foes that use special elemental weapons.

Overpower Attacks

Similar to Origins, you can use up a significant portion of your adrenaline to unleash a deadly attack. By pressing both the light and heavy attacks, the Overpower Attack will cause massive damage to a single enemy, with some light damage done to surrounding targets. This can be especially handy when up against elite and legendary foes with lots of health and plenty of skills to dish out. Depending on your weapon type, you’ll see different types of Overpower Attacks.

Rush Assassination

During your infiltration missions, there may come a time when you need to take out a set of foes quick and quietly. Using the Rush Assassination, you can launch a series of quick assassinations. You’ll immediately take down the first tagged enemy by throwing your Spear of Leonidas which activates a slow-mo effect to give you time to pick your next target. While the first rank of Rush Assassination only allows for two quick kills, upgrading it further can extend the chain to up to four different enemies. Though bear in mind, just like normal assassinations, some enemies are more powerful than they appear–resulting in heavy damage instead of an instant kill.

Hero Strike

As a blend between the Warrior and Assassin skill-sets, the Hero Strike executes a fatal multi-hit move. While it seems like a more elaborate version of an assassination (that’s not too far off,) this skill is also usable during combat. The Hero Strike is an incredibly powerful ability that gets in quick damage, and when fully upgraded, it uses maximum Assassin strength to deal greater damage–which is especially deadly to foes in combat encounters.

Stealth Master

With the amount of bases and enemy compounds you’ll need to sneak into, it’s important that you know how to move undetected. With the Stealth Master skill, noise made during traversal will be minimized, and enemies will have a more difficult time seeing you while in the crouched position. Upgrading the skill further will make your stealth traversal more efficient and also increase your Assassin and Hunter attack power during night time.

Battlecry Of Ares

When you’re up against multiple enemies, you may need to call upon your inner strength to even the odds. After you’ve invested points into the Overpower Attacks skill, you can acquire the Battlecry of Ares ability to amplify your base damage for a short period of time, while also increasing your defense against enemy attacks. As the peak ability in the Warrior tree, this ability is at its best when used with other skills like Overpower, Spartan Kick, and Shield Breaker. When fully upgraded, this special buffs becomes even more useful, with repeated attacks boosting damage power and activation that requires no Adrenaline.

Robin Actor Says Batman Is a Killer in DC’s Titans

While talking to IGN about his role in the upcoming live-action Titans show on the DC Universe subscription service, Dick Grayson/Robin actor Brenton Thwaites explained that it was Batman’s murderous methods that drove Robin away, which is why the show finds Robin fighting crime solo in Detroit instead of Gotham.

“Batman is a killer and Robin wants to get away from that,” Thwaites said. “The idea is that he doesn’t want to become a killer himself. And although these guys that he’s fighting are bad and they deserve, you know, they deserve what he’s dishing out, it seems, he believes that when you kill someone you crossed the line and you become almost as bad as them, so it’s pretty clear in the series that he was with Batman, Batman crossed the line and he was teaching me to do the same thing, and he’s trying to break away from that.”

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How Star Wars Resistance Is Intended to Set Up The Force Awakens

It’s one of the trickiest balancing acts of extending the Star Wars universe: how do you give the audience something that feels fresh and original, but still completely immersed in all the aspects of the galaxy far, far away that fans have loved for over four decades now? In that respect, Star Wars Resistance is hoping that the Force will be with it – in a brand new way.

Resistance is the new Disney Channel animated series debuting October 7th that, in the tradition established by the fan-embraced, critically hailed series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, hopes to expand and deepen the established mythos. Like Star Wars Rebels, it desires to establish a new group of characters that viewers can invest in. And Resistance enters with a couple of its own distinct characteristics: its visually arresting cell-shaded animation style is in a more anime tradition than its CG-rendered predecessors, and it’s the first series set just prior to the events of the third Star Wars trilogy kicked off by Episode VII: The Force Awakens – six months prior, to be specific.

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Complete Guide to WWE 2K19 Preorder Bonuses

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WWE 2K19 is the latest installment in the WWE 2K franchise, with WWE superstar AJ Styles grabbing the cover athlete spot this year. Legendary wrestler Ric Flair gets his own version of the game with the WWE 2K19 Ric Flair: Wooooo! Edition. WWE 2K19 features a new 2K Towers mode and the roster is the  “biggest yet” for WWE 2K.

Preorder bonuses for all versions of the game include unlocking Ronda Rousey and Rey Mysterio as playable characters.

WWE 2K19 Standard Edition

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Fortnite Cheaters Facing Bigger Problems Than A Ban

Scammers are taking advantage of Fortnite‘s popularity, and the latest round of Trojan horse malware appears to target the less scrupulous among us. Android apps promising free V-bucks or cheats are reportedly being used for phishing schemes and other nefarious deeds.

A report from Malwarebyte Labs looked into Android apps meant to copy Fortnite with promises of advantages like “bogus cheats, wallhacks, and aimbots.” The apps then distribute surveys that are actually phishing schemes. At least one YouTube video led to a referral for a download EXE, sending data back to an index file in the Russian Federation. It appears primed to steal browser and Steam session information, cookies, and Bitcoin wallets.

Epic chose to distribute Fortnite itself on Android rather than through the Google Play store, presumably in order to avoid the 30% store tax and keep more of its profits. Critics claimed that was a security risk, since forcing customers to go outside a trusted ecosystem for such a popular game would invite copycat malware and phishing attacks. Epic’s own installer had its own security problems to boot.

If you do install Fortnite on an Android device, make sure you sign up through the official site rather than visiting darker corners of the web to find it. And obviously, never trust a site or app that offers cheats, hacks, or free in-game currency through its own install.

Check out our Season 6 Week 2 challenge guide for details on how you can earn unlocks and rewards the good old-fashioned way.

Pokémon Let’s Go Will Be The First In The Franchise I Can’t Play

On November 16, the Nintendo Switch will be graced with its first quasi-traditional Pokémon adventure. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!  will aim to reimagine the first generation of the hit series through everything from improved graphics to updated battling.

Wild battles and random encounters have been removed to reduce the sometimes-tedious grind; Pokémon can be ridden if they’re large enough, or follow behind you if they’re not; and motion-controlled capture mechanics have been added to help immerse players within the exotic world.

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Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: New Clip and Photo Debut

At the Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles panel at NYCC 2018, the creators unveiled a never-before-seen clip from an upcoming episode, titled The Longest Fight.

Per Nickelodeon, “Paulsen and LaMarche are reunited behind the mic as Foot Lieutenant, the de-facto leader of the Foot Clan, and Foot Brute, the Foot Lieutenant’s right-hand man.”

For a look at the turtles in actions, check out the clip below:

Season 1 of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles premiered on Monday, Sept. 17 on Nickelodeon. The first season will consist of 26 episodes, featuring the voice talents of Omar Miller (Ballers), Ben Schwartz (Parks and Recreation), Josh Brener (Silicon Valley), Brandon Mychal Smith (You’re The Worst), and Kat Graham (The Vampire Diaries).

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