Month: October 2019

Crossovers happen in media all the time. The Jetsons meet the Flintstones. Supergirl shows up in The Flash. But in games, melding the characters and gameplay mechanics from divergent worlds can be a tall order. How do you remain true to the unique vision of each game while still create something more than the sum of its parts?

With the recent announcement of Resident Evil 2’s Leon & Claire coming to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, we thought it would be a good time to take a look back at some of the best (and worst) crossover events in gaming history.

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Current Thor writer Jason Aaron is currently in the process of wrapping up a seven-year run on the series, and now Marvel Comics has revealed what’s coming next for the god of thunder.

As part of their Next Big Thing panel at NYCC, Marvel announced a relaunch of the monthly Thor series. The new series will be spearheaded by writer Donny Cates (Venom) and artist Nic Klein (Deadpool).

Thor #1 cover by Olivier Coipel. (Image Credit: Marvel Comics)

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When Alien hit theaters in 1979, it showed that audiences weren’t only interested in the family-oriented sci-fi fun of Star Wars, which had arrived two years earlier. Ridley Scott’s stunningly realized mix of horror and sci-fi was a commercial and critical success, and is now considered a classic movie in both genres. While the subsequent films in the franchise have varied in quality, the original stands as one of the most iconic movies of all time. It’s a film that has been endlessly discussed, dissected, imitated, and analyzed over the decades–most notably in the superb making-of documentary The Beast Within, which first appeared in the Alien Quadrilogy DVD set in 2003.

With so much material about Alien already out there, it might seem surprising that this weekend sees the release of another feature-length documentary, titled Memory: The Origin of Alien. However, anyone who saw director Alexandre O. Philippe’s last movie, the documentary 78/52, will know that he is not interested in delivering a standard movie making-of. 78/52 spent its entire running time analyzing a single scene from one movie–the legendary shower murder in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Similarly, Memory avoids regurgitating widely known facts about Alien’s production and instead takes a deep dive into what inspired the film.

Ridley Scott did an incredible job directing Alien, and he was unquestionably responsible for much of its success. But it’s easy to forget that he was essentially a director-for-hire, with only one other film under his belt at that stage; he only joined the production after a variety of more experienced directors had been considered. The true origin of Alien lies with writer Dan O’Bannon, and much of Memory’s first half is focused on him. The film charts O’Bannon’s early years as a struggling writer, his association with maverick Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, and his role as the writer of John Carpenter’s debut film, Dark Star. This first section sows the seeds of all the influences and obsessions that O’Bannon would return to with Alien, such as HP Lovecraft, ’50s sci-fi comic books, and ’60s B-movies such as Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires. While O’Bannon died in 2009, he appears in archive footage mixed in with interviews featuring his widow Diane, colleagues in the industry such as legendary producer Roger Corman and fellow director Gary Sherman, and a variety of critics, writers, and academics.

Once the documentary moves into the writing of the Alien script–which began with an early concept called Memory and later became a full script co-written with Ronald Shusett that had the title Star Beast–it’s inevitable that some of the better known backstory is covered. But to Philippe’s credit, he gives just enough making-of material to keep the narrative moving, before returning to the influences that Alien’s creators used to craft their vision. Unsurprisingly, there is much focus on the Swiss artist H.R. Giger, who designed the Xenomorph, the Space Jockey, and the derelict ship in which the eggs are found. The abstract painter Francis Bacon also had a big impact on Giger’s work, and the movie goes into fascinating detail about how this fed through to his iconic creations in Alien.

The final section of the documentary is the one that most resembles Phillipe’s previous film. The chestburster sequence is every bit as famous as Psycho’s shower scene, and it’s impressive how many angles the director is able to approach it from. Some of the behind-the-scenes footage of the actual filming of the chestburster will be familiar to those who saw The Beast Within, but here it is recontextualized, with new commentary from some of the cast and crew that were there, including art director Roger Christian and actor Veronica Cartwright. There’s also a fascinating exploration of the way the movie deals with the social differences between the different crew members on the Nostromo, and how the performances have more in common with the naturalism of pioneering filmmakers like Robert Altman than other ’70s sci-fi movies.

As with many documentaries that place analysis and theory over a straightforward retelling of actual events, there are parts of Memory that don’t hang together as well as others. While much of the commentary is insightful, it’s hard to escape the sense that Phillipe is simply throwing every angle he can at us and asking us to pick our favorite. Which is fine, but there are some elements that could do with elaboration–for example, the gender mix of the cast and the fact that Ripley was originally written as a man is mentioned then quickly passed over. Ripley remains one of cinema’s great female characters, and fans expecting a detailed look into how she was shaped as the film developed will be disappointed. Conversely, the slightly silly dramatic “recreation” of the Furies from Greek legend, another influence on O’Bannon, feels at odds with the more serious, considered tone elsewhere. And there’s no getting away from the fact that neither Scott or Sigourney Weaver have been interviewed for the film, although Scott does appear via footage from earlier interviews.

But unlike many of its rivals, Memory is a proper “film,” not just a glorified DVD extra. It’s extremely well shot and edited, and avoids the perils of many talking head documentaries by constantly cutting from the interviewees to stylishly animated images and footage to keep things visually interesting. It’s perhaps not for casual fans, and those wanting to learn about the nuts-and-bolts of the movie’s production are advised to look elsewhere. But Alien is a movie that continues to inspire conversation, and this is a welcome addition to the discourse. It’s been 40 years since Alien hit theaters, but as new generations discover it, Memory shows that it can remain a vital part of the cultural zeitgeist.

Reviewed at Fantastic Fest 2019.

Executive producer Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers) unveiled the first episode of his new HBO series, Watchmen, at New York Comic Con today, giving us our first real idea what his sequel series to the iconic comic is all about. We’ll be reviewing the episode closer to its October 20 debut date, but we do have some first impressions of the premiere episode here. (Check out what else happened at the NYCC panel here.)

In short, HBO’s Watchmen looks like it has the potential to be a faithful continuation of the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons classic, though it’s also clearly a Lindelof production, as elliptical and potentially challenging a viewing experience as his previous HBO show, The Leftovers.

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Loot boxes continue to be a hot-button issue and, understandably, the practice of asking people to spend money for a chance to unlock in-game items that won’t have any value outside of the game, is under more scrutiny now than ever. Recently, however, the discussion has been around whether purchasing loot boxes is akin to gambling.

On this week’s episode of the GameSpot After Dark Podcast, one of the topics of discussion is buying loot boxes in games versus buying packs of Magic the Gathering cards in real life. The discussion was prompted by a question from a reader, who notes the similarity to buying booster packs in Magic, which has avoided being scrutinized as a potential form of gambling.

In the podcast we also discuss our time with Destiny 2, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, Apple Arcade, Untitled Goose Game. Naturally, we also drift into off-topic territory for some fun times. Below you’ll find all the necessary links to find the GameSpot After Dark podcast on iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, and Google Play. We’ve also included an RSS link so you can put that into your podcast application of choice. If you want to read a transcript of the conversation, you can do that too.

Where You Can Listen

• RSS Feed
• Spotify
• Soundcloud
• iTunes
• Google Play

Magic The (Random) Gathering

Lucy: Magic the Gathering was mentioned last episode, and I thought that this might be a good way to see where you stand on Magic the Gathering booster packs versus loot boxes in games. The argument for loot boxes being gambling is that loot box returns skins, characters or weapons of variable value.

For example, you can open a box that contains three common skins and one rare. Or, you can open a box with one common, two rares, and one legendary. In addition, you could buy those skins directly for coins using real money. Because of this direct monetary relationship of coins to skins, this means that each box has an actual dollar value that you can calculate, which is the very definition of gambling.

However, Magic the Gathering has survived this gambling situation by claiming explicitly that each card is only worth 20 cents-

Jake: Ooooooh, that’s a lie.

Lucy: Which is the cost of the booster pack, $3, divided by the total amount of cards in each pack, which is 15. This means that even if Jake pulled a $20 card-

Jake: Never going to happen. Never going to happen.

Kallie: Love using Jake as an example.

Lucy: Wizards of the Coast will refuse to acknowledge its value and claim that card is only worth 20 cents. Of course, they host tournaments that requires players to bring decks with good and expensive cards, which means that they directly influence the cost of the cards.

What do you all think of the current situation of loot boxes and microtransactions in gaming? And do you foresee this having a spillover effect into other markets? Thanks, Matt.

Kallie: Peter is raising his hand.

Jake: I want to clarify one thing quickly. The 20 cents thing actually makes sense. Because I actually pulled a $20 card not that long ago. But once again, Wizards of the Coast doesn’t decide that value, that is decided by…

Tamoor: Wizards of the Mainland.

Jake: The people who play and figure out like, “Alright, this card is good for professional play.” And then, if people see professional players buy, then everyone wants that card. Anyway, go ahead, Peter.

Peter: So, there’s a difference between virtual and physical goods and how you can create a market around those and make money off of them and trade them for intangible value in a sense. Cards can be used in a lot of different ways. Like, I do think buying a pack of cards is still gambling. But I think if we’re going to get down to like the human experience, opening a pack of cards is way more fulfilling than opening a loot crate where you get like one thing.

A deck of cards has like 13 things in it that you can consider and do things with. You can also trade with your friends and do a lot of stuff with it. I mean, a lot of what Magic the Gathering is, is that community of sharing, building decks, a lot of that. That’s something that we just don’t get from video games. But are you rolling the dice? Of course.

Jake: Yeah, totally. That’s a good point because even when I used to play, I’d go to a card shop and pull a good card that was worth a lot of money and immediately I’d just be like, “Actually, here, can I just have like $20 in store credit because I don’t really want this card.” And then I’d get more packs or maybe something else. Can’t really do that with games. Well, I guess you kind of can with Steam, right?

Peter: But not really, either. I mean, you’re not … I mean, maybe you can do it from a transactional standpoint, but there’s not that community, the relationship building that comes from that sort of thing. You’re doing it to a cold person on the other end of that thing.

Lucy: I understand that, yeah.

Peter: I can see why that comparison exists, but I don’t know, I feel like Magic is … they cannot change the value of these cards because they’re trying to get around the fact that it’s random. But at the same time, I feel like it’s way more fulfilling to play Magic than open loot crates.

Jake: Oh yeah, totally.

Peter: Or rather, open Magic packs than open loot crates.

Lucy: Have you seen … there was a YouTube channel called Open Boosters and a few years ago, I don’t know how we found this video. It came up … maybe in the algorithm or something. But there is a guy, he’s doing-

Tamoor: It was on Reddit. We found it on Reddit-

Lucy: Oh, was it on Reddit?

Tamoor: It was like wholesome videos or something like that.

Lucy: God, it was so good. He was doing this … he opened a pack of cards, and he was wearing the gloves and what was it called? The Black Lotus?

Tamoor: Black Lotus. He pulled a Black Lotus-

Jake: Oh, wow.

Lucy: Which is like a $15,000 card. And just the … I’ve never heard just like joy in some … like, pure, unadulterated wholesome joy. And his hands started shaking-

Tamoor: Immediately started … and he was like, he went, “Holy PSSSSSHHHHH”

Jake: It’s okay, Lucy’s already cussed a couple of times. You can say it-

Lucy: No, no, no. That’s what he did-

Jake: Oh, he did? Okay.

Peter: Are we not allowed to cuss?

Jake: Well-

Kallie: We try to stay away from the F-word.

Jake: We’re not supposed to say the F-word.

Peter: Ah …

Lucy: Flip.

Tamoor: But like, he went like … you could see his hands shaking.

Lucy: Like we talk about Overwatch a lot, and I’m past the point now where I buy loot boxes in Overwatch, even for seasonal events because I’ve just got that much gold, humblebrag, because I don’t buy boxes anymore. And so, if there’s a skin that I want, I can just buy it. But even at my-

Jake: The 1%.

Lucy: Even at the height of Overwatch, when I was actually buying boxes, I’ve not had a comparable moment. Even when I unlocked that particular D.Va skin, or you know, whatever. I’ve never felt joy like that guy finding the Black Lotus and maybe that’s just because I live a sad life…-

Jake: To be fair, not many people probably have felt the joy of pulling a Black Lotus-

Lucy: Yeah, I was going to say because that’s not a $15,000 skin.

Peter: The thing is, a physical card, right? Like you can really assign a lot of false but emotional value to that objects. I mean, objects have power.

Lucy: No, I mean, because yeah, people now you … I mean, Pokemon cards, you can still find the collection that I started in the 90s, whereas in 20 years time, am I going to boot up my Blizzard account and go, “Oh, I remember unlocking this skin-

Kallie: I like how in 20 years, you’re 70.

Tamoor: You’re mad old.

Lucy: To be fair, I am a 60 year old in the body of a 28-year-old.

Tamoor: That Open Boosters guy, I think he pulled the Black Lotus a second time.

Lucy: No, he did not?!!?!

Tamoor: I think so, yeah.

Lucy: What a guy.

Marvel Comics will relaunch its flagship Star Wars series in early 2020. Along with a brand new creative team comes a new time period, as the relaunched series sets out to fill in the gap between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

First revealed by StarWars.com and announced at the LucasBooks publishing panel at New York Comic Con, the new volume of Star Wars will be overseen by writer Charles Soule (Star Wars: Darth Vader, Star Wars: Poe Dameron) and drawn by Jesus Saiz (Swamp Thing), with RB Silva (Powers of X) providing covers.

Star Wars #1 cover by RB Silva. (Image Credit: Marvel/Lucasfilm)

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