Month: September 2019

Godzilla may seem like an impossible work of science fiction, but did you know that the origins of the monster are deeply rooted in our reality?

Naughty Dog has described The Last of Us Part II as one of the most ambitious games it has ever made. One of the major new additions is something that may not be immediately apparent, but will no doubt have a big impact on the game: a new traversal animation system.

Admittedly, “a new traversal animation system” may not sound exciting, but the implications of it certainly do. GameSpot attended a hands-on event for The Last of Us Part II and spoke to co-director Anthony Newman, who highlighted “motion matching” as one of the key new additions to the game.

“It’s this technology for characters moving through a space like running, walking, jumping, and that kind of thing,” Newman explained. “In all our previous games there’s been this really distinct state machine where we say, ‘Play a run animation. Then play a turn left animation. Then play a turn right animation.’ The way motion matching works is it takes this massive bucket of animation, just hundreds and hundreds of animations, and chops them into little tiny bits. When you define the path that a player or an enemy wants to take, rather than saying, ‘Play this and then play that and then play that,’ the system actually looks at the bucket of animations, finds the ones that matches the path that you’re already taking, and blends them together frame-by-frame.”

The effect of this is, as Naughty Dog says, much smoother, more natural movement to characters. “It’s this totally new way of doing traversal,” Newman continued. “I think, as you play the game, you must have noticed just how fluid the player feels. With every foot plant, every turn, there’s as little blending as possible. That’s applied to our NPCs. That’s applied to the horses. That’s applied to the dogs. We even have these dogs and horses and mocap suits running around getting the data that we needed for this really intricate system.”

A new gameplay video for The Last of Us Part II was shown during Sony’s recent State of Play event. The video provides fleeting glimpses at some of the action scenes where this kind of movement will become most evident. More importantly, however, the trailer confirmed a release date for The Last of Us Part II.

We also learned that The Last of Us Part II will come on two discs, which is something of a rarity for PlayStation 4 titles. If you splash out for one of the special editions of the game, you’ll get a note from co-director Neil Druckmann. You can read the heartfelt message from The Last of Us Part II’s director in advance, however.

For more on the game, read our hands-on impressions for The Last of Us Part II.

One of the most highly-anticipated games of 2020 is The Last of Us Part II. Since its announcement in 2016, both Sony and Naughty Dog have kept tight-lipped about its story and how it’ll play, only offering brief looks of how it’s shaping up. However, that veil has once again lifted thanks to a new trailer and preview event that allowed us our first hands-on time with the game.

The latest trailer alluded in more detail to Ellie’s motivations in The Last of Us Part II. There were also glimpses of her relationship with her companion Dina, as well as shots of the infected. However, the biggest reveal was returning protagonist, Joel, who seems like he’ll be helping Ellie through her journey.

While it was great being able to see a little more of the game in action in the new trailer, we actually got to play it. You probably have plenty of questions about Ellie and Joel, how weapon upgrades work, or how companions have improved. We won’t have all the answers until the game releases, but we’ll have some insight to offer in our The Last of Us Part II preview.

With the surge of The Last of Us Part II coverage, a lot of new information is out in the wild, so if you’re here, you’re likely looking to be versed on what exactly is most notable from the big wave of new details. Some of the biggest news can be learned from our impressions video above, but we’ve also collected all the major news stories and placed them in a handy list below, which includes new tidbits making the rounds, as well as the most notable information we were told during a recent interview with The Last of Us Part II co-director Anthony Newman.

If you just want the information in quick-hits, read below for a quick overview of what’s important and, if you want to learn more, you can read each slide’s associated article. By the time you’re done, you’ll be all caught up with everything you need to know about The Last of Us Part II.

What are you most looking forward to about The Last of Us Part II? Let us know in the comments below.

The Last Of Us Part II Is Naughty Dog’s Longest Game

According to director Neil Druckmann, The Last of Us Part II is Naughty Dog’s longest game to date. “We began working on this game over five years ago,” Druckmann wrote in a PlayStation blog post. “What we realized pretty early on is that we were putting together Naughty Dog’s most ambitious and longest game in our 35-year history. To tell this kind of story, the game needed to be massive.”

The Game Spans Two PS4 Discs

The fact that The Last of Us Part II is Naughty Dog’s longest game seems to fits in line with how the game’s physical version spans two PS4 discs. It just might be the only physical PS4 game to actually take up that much data.

It Will Make You Feel Bad About Killing Enemies

The original Last of Us didn’t shy away from making you reflect on your actions. In the sequel, developer Naughty Dog aims to hit that theme even harder. The Last of Us Part II has a new, seemingly small detail that could add a lot of weight to each kill: Every human enemy has a name. And they do not like it when you kill their friends. According to co-director Anthony Newman, this was intentional.

Stealth Is Trickier Thanks To A New Enemy

During GameSpot editor Phil Hornshaw’s time with the game, he noted that he couldn’t just watch enemies for their patrol routes and take them out safely because they’re a lot more reactive. But that’s not the only reason why stealth felt more difficult; the addition of attack dogs made going unnoticed far trickier.

Companions Won’t Break Your Immersion

Enemy AI often ignored Ellie in the first game even when she was right in front of them. While implemented for your convenience, it allowed for plenty of immersion-breaking moments. Co-director Anthony Newman acknowledged these problems is something that the team is fully aware of and are hoping to address with the sequel’s improved companion-AI.

There’s A New Traversal System

One of the major new features of The Last of Us Part II is something that may not be immediately apparent, but will undoubtedly have a big impact on gameplay: a new traversal animation system. Admittedly, this may not sound exciting, but the implications of it certainly do. During our interview with Newman, he highlighted “Motion Matching” as one of the key new additions.

Find every Piece of Heart, Secret Seashell, trade sequence item, and more with our Link’s Awakening guide!

Video games are art. We know this because they keep making art books for each year’s biggest games. That’s just logic, duh. To that end, we dug through the museum of life that is Amazon and found some great deals on art books for some of recent history’s biggest games, like Marvel’s Spider-Man, Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and more. So if you missed out when they were full-priced, now is your chance to pick them up.

Here’s the best deals on some video game art books for you.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Art of the Game

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If you’ve finished Untitled Goose Game, there’s still plenty to do.

Abominable, from DreamWorks Animation and China’s Pearl Studio, scaled to the top of box office mountain this weekend with an estimated $20.85 million domestically and $29.7 million overseas.

The PG-rated family film, about a teen girl (voiced by Agent of SHIELD’s Chloe Bennet) and a Yeti embarking on an epic quest, had the best opening of the year so far for an original animated film. It’s also only the third original film overall — the other two being Good Boys and Us — to debut at number one this year.

With a $75 million dollar price tag though, the film will most likely have to rely on China’s box office numbers to push it up over the top. The film will release there on Tuesday.

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Batwoman star Ruby Rose took to Instagram ahead of her show’s October 6 premiere to share with fans a video of herself undergoing emergency back surgery.

The reason for the urgent procedure? Two herniated discs caused by intense stunt work on set, she explained. An injury that was risking severing her spinal cord and paralyzing her. You can check out Rose’s original video post here (warning: not for squeamish viewers).

Rose decided to break her silence after fans noticed her surgery scar and started inquiring about it. After chronic pain and numbness led her to seek solutions, doctors discovered the herniated discs. Here’s what Rose wrote in full:

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