Month: June 2019

E3 is over…long live E3! And although it was a great show overall, that doesn’t mean it didn’t have its fair share of disappointing moments. We went around the IGN office to round up the creme de la creme of the biggest E3 bummers.

A Lack of Rocksteady

I was already sad that we wouldn’t be seeing Rocksteady’s next game at E3 this year, and then Avengers happened. We still don’t know what the Batman Arkham devs are up to officially, but if rumours (and a certain amount of common sense) are to be believed, it’ll be a DC superhero game of some description. You only need look at this list to see that the Marvel effort on show didn’t quite meet expectations – how nice would it have been to have something else to pin our superhero hopes on? As it is, the wait continues. Here’s hoping that long-awaited reveal works in Rocksteady’s favour, unlike Crystal Dynamics. – Joe Skrebels 

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Warning! Full spoilers for the Final Space Season 2 premiere, “The Toro Regatta,” and the events of Season 1 of Final Space ahead. Buckle up your butt cheeks.

Final Space is off to the races in its Season 2 premiere – literally. The show wastes little time establishing the new status quo for Gary and what’s left of the crew of the Galaxy One after their ill-fated confrontation with the Lord Commander last season. While all the setup for what’s to come this season is exciting, it doesn’t leave much time to unpack the devastating events that closed out last season.

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This review contains spoilers for the Season 3 premiere of Legion and spoiler-free impressions of the following five episodes, which were provided to critics in advance. 

It’s hard to write a critique of Legion’s final season premiere while knowing what’s to come. Having watched the first six episodes and spent some time on set during episode 7, we’ve experienced the cognitive dissonance of what’s ahead. While this first episode Season 3 is delightfully fun and filled with everything you love about Legion (plus time travel!), its subsequent installments — though compelling to watch — can’t help but feel hollow.

In its final season’s premiere, the stage is set for a showdown: David Haller (Dan Stevens) wants to change the past to prevent a world-ending future (at his hand). He’s made mistakes and old friends are now foes. But to fix it means time travel, and a new set of bad guys who really don’t like when you mess with time (because they want to eat it).

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In the crowded annals of superhero television, Legion is in a league of its own. Less cape-and-cowl crusading and more art house thought experiment, the FX original series has just kicked off its third and final season, paving the way for one last unapologetically unhinged romp through the mind of David Haller, a mentally disturbed mutant telepath who will, supposedly, one day destroy the world.

From the jump, fans will recognize that a lot has changed in the space between season 2’s finale and this season’s premiere. Episode 1, “Chapter 20,” opens with an entirely new focus: a brand new character named Switch (Lauren Tsai) who seems locked in a sort of Wes Anderson flavored isolation. She lives with her father, present only as a face on a bulky vintage television set, in a maze-like apartment, and spends her time listening to a sort of guided self-help cassette tape giving “lessons” for time travelers. We never get any real indication of where the tapes came from or why she has them, but it’s a good thing she does because as it turns out, Switch is a mutant, and time travel is her power.

In any other show, it would seem completely incomprehensible to withhold any familiar cast members from a season premiere for almost half the episode. We don’t see a single character we’ve met before for a full 20 minutes. But in Legion, it somehow works completely, thanks largely to the show’s completely magnetic self-confidence. Switch may be a completely new character, but she feels precisely like she belongs in Legion’s eclectic blender of sensibilities and styles. What’s more, Legion creator Noah Hawley correctly assumes that if you’ve stuck with the madness for two seasons already, you’ve become pretty familiar with the rules of the game here, so not even the impromptu musical number that crops up midway through the episode seems even the slightest bit out of place.

That aforementioned self-confidence is what carries the episode through the eventual reveal payoff–don’t worry, no spoilers, but we do eventually get to see what David’s been up to since we last saw him. It’s a moment that seamlessly dovetails into an explanation as to why Switch is important in the bigger picture, and why David is interested in time travel in the first place. This episode never quite goes back to “business as usual” (what would “business as usual” even be for Legion, anyway?) but it does glide smoothly back into feeling more familiar with the added bonus of one new main character and a whole slew of new problems.

As with all “avant-garde” shows–especially genre-benders like Legion–there’s the temptation to write off the surreality and quirkiness as weirdness for the sake of weirdness, but if anything, “Chapter 20” proves that there really is a plan in play here. Sure, it’s a plan dripping in eccentricities and camp, but it’s a plan nonetheless. This episode epitomizes Legion’s strengths: the ability to weave actual throughlines and stories in between disco ball smattered psychedelia and psychological horror, all while deftly staying out of its own way. Once things start happening, they start happening fast. They never get any less trippy–not that we’d want them to–but they do start moving at a healthy clip. By the time the credits on this episode roll, the plan for the final season is not only immediately and abundantly clear, but well on its way forward. All we have to do now is try and keep up.

Netflix has attracted yet another Hollywood star to make a movie for the streaming service. The company has announced that George Clooney, who has won two Oscars, will direct and star in a new Netflix movie. The untitled film is based on the novel Good Morning, Midnight that was written by Lily Brooks-Dalton. Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) wrote the screenplay for the film, which is in pre-production.

Clooney plays the character Augustine, “a lonely scientist in the Arctic,” in the post-apocalyptic film that follows two parallel threads. Here is the full plot description:

“This post-apocalyptic tale follows the parallel stories of Augustine (Clooney), a lonely scientist in the Arctic, as he races to make contact with the crew of the Aether spacecraft as they try to return home to Earth.”

Production on the film is scheduled to begin in October. No release date has been set, and there is no word on who will star in the movie alongside Clooney.

“Having known and worked with George for over two decades, I can’t think of anyone better to bring this amazing story to life,” Netflix movie boss Scott Stuber said in a statement. “The book is powerful and moving, and Mark’s adaptation is beautifully written. At its core, this is a story about human nature, and one that I know our global audiences will fall in love with, just like I did when I read it.”

The untitled Good Morning, Midnight movie is being produced by Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures, which produced the Oscar winning movie Argo, as well as films like Good Night and Good Luck, Leatherheads, and The Men Who Stare at Goats.

Clooney also worked on and appeared in the Hulu series Catch-22, but the new Good Morning, Midnight movie is his first feature film for a streaming service.

Space Jam 2 is coming, and it appears filming is starting soon (if it hasn’t already). Star LeBron James, who plays the lead, wrote on Twitter today to talk about how he’s really very excited that the movie has finally come together.

“Man this really just hit me! I’m really shooting Space Jam 2!! This is so surreal and doesn’t even make sense to me! Where I come from man and what I saw growing up this doesn’t add up to me! I’m truly grateful and beyond blessed. This is CRAZINESS,” he wrote.

Just recently, it was reported that Space Jam 2 will also feature Damian Lillard, Anthony Davis, and Klay Thompson alongside WNBA stars Diana Taurasi, Nneka Ogwumike, and Chiney Ogwumike. “Several more” NBA and WNBA players will reportedly have roles in the film, but Steph Curry won’t be among them.

Curry told The New York Times that he couldn’t appear in the film due to scheduling conflicts. Some had speculated that Curry wasn’t contractually able to appear in the film due to his sponsorship deal with Under Armour, while James is with Nike. But it appears it was instead a scheduling issue.

The 1996 original Space Jam featured the world’s biggest basketball star at the time, Michael Jordan, in the lead role. The original film featured numerous famous basketball players of the time, with Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, and others joining Jordan. They teamed up with Looney Tunes characters in a very high-stakes basketball game. Bill Murray was also in the movie.

Black Panther director Ryan Coogler is set to produce Space Jam 2, with Terence Nance (Random Acts of Flyness) on board to direct. The movie opens in July 2021.

The director of the original Space Jam, Joe Pytka, doesn’t think a sequel is a good idea; he thinks it’s “doomed.”

The rumor mill has been churning quite a bit lately in regards to a possible new Matrix movie, with new reports suggesting that one or both of the Wachowskis will return to direct a fourth installment starring Michael B. Jordan.

Back in 2017, THR originally reported Warner Bros. was starting to develop a “relaunch” of The Matrix franchise starring Jordan with a script by Zak Penn (co-screenwriter of Ready Player One). At the time, the involvement of the Wachowskis was undecided, but one new rumor from The GWW says Lana Wachowski will return to direct the fourth Matrix film, which will shoot in Chicago under the working title “Project Ice Cream.”

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Microsoft’s E3 briefing this year was missing a few things some people might have expected. Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10 did not show its new game, while Microsoft’s new studio, The Initiative, also didn’t show up during the event. Some also expected to see the rumored new Fable game from Forza Horizon developer Playground’s second team.

Now, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has explained why Microsoft focused more on the games coming out in the closer future than those that could release further out.

Spencer told Kotaku that he was proud that 12 of the 14 first-party titles that Microsoft showed off at E3 were shipping in the next year. “We were really able to focus on what’s coming now, which I think is awesome,” he said. “And then I think about the studios: where was Initiative? Where was [Forza Motorsport studio] Turn 10? Where was Playground’s second team?”

Spencer said it felt “nice” to not have to show all of its first-party games at the show. He said teams like 343 Industries (Halo) and Turn 10 (Forza Motorsport) have been given “time” to come up with new games that really excite people.

“We gave them time–we did, what, four Halos in four years?–giving them an opportunity to really think and have a creative impact when they launch. Turn 10 is similar. I want to give them time to think through their plans,” he said.

“I love what they do with Motorsport, but you’ve got to be able to listen to your studios when they need time and they want to focus on more things. And as you have more content, you’re able to do that,” Spencer added.

The executive went on to say that quality for first-party games is “very important.” He acknowledged that in the past it “became more difficult” to align the first-party Xbox portfolio of games with release dates chosen years before release. Now that Microsoft owns more studios–it now has 15 owned studios–it’s allowed the company to “create room for [Microsoft] to focus on quality.”

“I feel good about what Rod [Fergusson]’s done [at Gears studio The Coalition], what Bonnie [Ross] has done [at Halo studio 343 Industries], what Alan [Hartman] has done with Turn 10, and what Helen [Chiang]’s been doing with Minecraft.”

For Halo and Forza Motorsport, the wait is already longer than usual for a new release–and as Spencer says, that’s by design. Halo Infinite‘s release in Holiday 2020 will be around 5 years after the release of Halo 5 in 2015, which is longer than the average interval between the previous mainline releases. Meanwhile, the Forza Motorsport series (not counting Horizon) has been released every two years since the first game in 2005. The latest instalment, Motorsport 7, was released in 2017.

Microsoft acquired or set up a number of new studios in the past year, the most recent of which is Brutal Legend studio Double Fine that Microsoft announced in June.

List Of Xbox Game Studios Developers

• 343 Industries
• The Coalition
• Compulsion Games
• Double Fine
• Microsoft Studios Global Publishing
• The Initiative
• inXile
• Mojang
• Ninja Theory
• Obsidian
• Playground Games
• Rare
• Turn 10 Studios
• Undead Labs
• Age of Empires

Many gamers consider Half-Life 2 to be Valve’s greatest achievement and one of the best games ever made. I, for one, have always preferred the original Half-Life. With no disrespect to Alyx, Dog, or the gravity gun, the mystery of the Black Mesa facility, the slow onion-peeling reveal of one weird layer after another, the mystery of the G-Man and, lest many forget, the two endings(!) that the original delivered always left a more lasting impression for me. But what knocks Half-Life 1 down a peg for a lot of folks – and this is hard to argue against – is a particular part of the campaign: Xen. The alien dimension is placed right near the end of Gordon Freeman’s Excellent Science Adventure, and it was…a let-down, for sure, after the GOAT-quality experience up until that point.

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