Month: March 2021

Almost 10 years after the first game was released, Jetpack Joyride is finally getting a sequel that once again stars Barry Steakfries in his quest to stop the latest evil scheme of Dr Brains.

Much like the original game, Jetpack Joyride 2 is an endless runner where players touch the screen to make Barry jump over obstacles and enemies, or maneuver directly over and through more devious traps by using Barry’s jetpack.

One big change is that Barry now has a gun in addition to all of his other power-ups, which can be used in segments to take out hovering robot enemies. Don’t worry though, Little Stomper is still around and there’s even a robot dog sidekick.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Epic Games has announced some crucial details about Fortnite’s Chapter 2 Season 6 update involving one of its new events, the Zero Crisis Finale. In a blog post, Epic confirmed how things will go when the big update arrives on March 16. Here’s what we know.

Zero Crisis Finale

When the update launches on March 16, Season 5 will officially come to an end. This will involve playing through the conclusion of Agent Jones’ mission as part of the Zero Crisis Finale event. “The aftermath of this event is sure to shape Reality as we know it,” Epic said.

This Zero Crisis Finale event is a “solo experience,” Epic said, and you can play through it whenever you log into Fortnite for the first time when the update comes out. This is a big change from the past, as previous events of this nature were structured more like live events where if you couldn’t attend it, or if servers were full, you potentially missed out. Fans complained about this, and it appears Epic listened and is delivering a change.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

The next Evil Dead movie will start production later this year. The news was confirmed by the horror franchise’s star Bruce Campbell, who stated that the movie will shoot in New Zealand.

Campbell gave the update about the new Evil Dead film to Knox News, while promoting a virtual screening of Sam Raimi’s classic original 1981 movie. He also stated that the film will take place “out of the woods” and will instead have a “a modern-day urban setting.”

The new Evil Dead movie will be directed by Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin. In June last year, Campbell stated that the title was Evil Dead Now, and revealed that he wouldn’t be reprising his role as hapless hero Ash. “You could have different heroes, different heroines in this case,” he said. “This one’s gonna be a little more dynamic. We just want to keep the series current. And the mantra, really, is that our heroes and heroines are just regular people. That’s what we’re going to continue.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot

After getting approved by regulators, Microsoft’s $7.5 billion deal to acquire ZeniMax and its subsidiaries such as Bethesda has officially gone through. One of the biggest gaming deals in history is now complete, and it sets the stage for big things for Xbox going forward.

In a statement, Bethesda’s Pete Hines said you should not expect any “landmark announcement or changes right now.” Today’s announcement is about the deal getting officially approved; the specifics on what this means for Bethesda’s future comes later.

Hines did say that Bethesda expects that its studios will be able to continue to operate independently, but now with extra support and resources from Microsoft. Hines also teased that Bethesda will bring more of its games to the Game Pass catalog in the future.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Ubisoft has issued a new update for The Division 2 which begins rerunning content from previous seasons that you may have missed. The 12.3 patch is now live and introduces Season 5 which is actually a rerun of Season 1’s Shadow Tide.

The maintenance period ended this morning, March 9, and fixes some PC crash issues as well. But the main feature of the patch notes is the start of seasonal re-runs, which Ubisoft announced last week. This was announced alongside the development of new content including an entirely new mode, so the seasonal reruns appear to be giving the community something to do in the meantime.

“While we’re hard at work on the next content update, we will re-run previous seasons released during Year 2,” the company stated. “In other words, the next season (Season 5) will be a re-run of Season 1, giving you the chance to collect rewards and collectibles that you might have missed out on.” It also noted this means Leagues and Global Events will reset.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

High-profile entertainment-industry investors Eric Garland and Evan Richter have just announced a $75 million fund for media, entertainment, and games, with Epic Games as one of the select companies Smash Ventures has chosen to invest in. In an interview with GamesBeat, the duo has explained what’s so different about Epic Games, and why they’re choosing to invest in it.

The pair’s relationship with Epic Games goes back six or seven years when both were working in venture investments for Disney. A conversation with Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull led to Garland and Richter looking for companies that developed game engines, which led them to Epic. “We put out just a handful of cold calls,” Garland said. “One of them was a totally cold email. I think we guessed Tim Sweeney’s email address. He responded.”

The pair initially invested in Epic on Disney’s behalf, but later reconnected with Sweeney while putting their own company Smash Ventures together. “We connected with Tim, caught up, and he said, ‘I’m putting a round together. Would you like to participate?’ It was a privilege to get to do that,” Richter explained. “That was our first investment, and there have been many since then, but it started all at that time.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Amazon is no doubt celebrating its late-game acquisition of Coming 2 America, after the comedy sequel saw a huge opening weekend in Amazon Prime Video streams. While reviews for the Eddie Murphy film have been mixed, Coming 2 America managed to snag the top spot in streaming movies for the weekend, with a bigger opening than any other film this year.

Defining success for streaming films is a little more complicated than theatrical releases, without the clear data from the global box office, but Amazon has pointed to figures from 3rd party Screen Engine/ASI’s weekly VOD ratings.

The weekly chart shows Amazon’s Coming 2 America overtaking Paramount+’s The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run and Netflix’s To All The Boys: Always and Forever. Amazon also says the movie has seen the best opening weekend for a movie on a streaming service in all of 2021, and even since the COVID-19 pandemic first shut down cinemas last year. These numbers should be taken with a grain of salt however, as they’re based on viewer surveys rather than raw streaming data–with streamers like Netflix notoriously cagey about its viewer numbers.

Continue Reading at GameSpot