Author: trafficblast

Leia Organa has fought her way out of garbage compactors. She’s chased down Imperial soldiers on speeder bikes. She choked a handsy crime lord to death, and helped bring the Empire to its knees. She was an accomplished diplomat and a cutthroat politician, but Leia was always known best as a princess.

And then, the Force awakened. When Leia Organa returned to the big screen for the first time in 32 years, she had traded in her royal title for a new one: general. Now, instead of presiding over kingdoms, she leads armies. The Resistance is her domain, and its soldiers, pilots, techs, and spies are her subjects.

But how did Leia go from a young noble to a war-hardened military leader? Naturally, it’s all Darth Vader’s fault. Here’s what you need to know about Leia’s journey from princess to general before we say goodbye for good in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

From royalty to rebel to representative

It didn’t take long for Leia to immerse herself in the world of politics–and the world of espionage. At the age of 14, Leia began working for her father, Bail Organa, as a junior legislator in the Imperial Senate. Before she turned 19, Leia took over for Bail as Alderaan’s elected representative, making her the youngest-ever senator in the Senate’s history.

Just because Leia worked in the Imperial government, however, didn’t mean that she supported it. On the sly, she started to fight back. Outwardly, Leia focused her efforts on humanitarian causes. But, as shown in Claudia Grey’s novel Leia, Princess of Alderaan, she snuck a handful of refugees off of the planet Wobani and took them back to Alderaan. She smuggled sensitive data out of an Imperial stronghold with the Mandalorian outcast Sabin Wren in Star Wars: Forces of Destiny, and helped Kanan Jarrus’ crew of rebels steal three battleships in Star Wars Rebels. All the while, the public dismissed Leia as a simple, flighty princess.

Soon, they’d know better.

After Leia helped smuggle the Death Star plans off of Scarif, Darth Vader captured her, branded her a traitor, and destroyed her home planet, Alderaan. The Emperor dissolved the Senate, and Leia’s time as a monarch and a politician came to an abrupt end (Naboo, where Leia’s birth mother served as queen, has an electoral monarchy, not a hereditary one). After all, it’s hard to rule when your kingdom no longer exists.

Yet Leia couldn’t escape her royal moniker. It stuck with her when she helped the surviving Alderaanian citizens find a new home in Marvel’s Princess Leia miniseries. She commanded a mission to capture Darth Vader on Vrogas Vas in Vader Down, stole an Imperial Star Destroyer in Marvel’s Star Wars, and led Operation Yellow Moon, a feint designed to distract the Empire from the Rebellion’s upcoming attack on Endor, in Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure. All the while, her friends and followers still called her “Princess.”

After years of conflict, Leia and her friends destroyed the second Death Star, bringing the Empire’s reign of terror to a close. In the resulting power vacuum, the Rebel Alliance rebranded itself as the New Republic and re-established the Galactic Senate.

Leia played a pivotal role in the new government, bringing Naboo into the fold and serving for years as the Alderaan sector’s senator. But despite her pedigree, not everything went in Leia’s favor. As implied in Aftermath, Chancellor Mon Mothma passed the Military Disarmament Act against Leia’s wishes, reducing the size and scope of the New Republic’s military. In Aftermath: Life Debt, Leia tried to convince the Senate to help liberate Kashyyyk, the Wookiee homeworld, but the New Republic refused to intervene.

Family life got in the way, too. Leia married Han Solo in a small ceremony on Endor, and they had a child named Ben. But Han had no patience for politics, and often took off for months at a time to participate in starship races around the galaxy. When Ben grew older, he went off to train as a Jedi with Leia’s brother, Luke Skywalker. Meanwhile, Leia was stuck serving in the Senate, and spent most of her time alone, separated from her family. (Although she’s Force sensitive, and possibly as powerful as Luke, she always sacrificed her own power in favor of her responsibilities.)

After 23 years of service, Leia decided that she’d had enough. That’s when everything fell apart.

Sins of the father

When Claudia Grey’s Bloodline takes place, the Senate has been stuck in deadlock for years, and Leia’s fed up. Her party, the Populists, wanted a government that gave control to individual planets. Their opposition, the Centrists, argued in favor of strong central government and powerful military. The Senate was deadlocked. As politicians bickered, the citizens suffered.

Leia had no interest in returning to her aristocratic roots, either. She inherited a royal governorship on the planet Birren, but Leia was over the royalty thing. She happily passed the title to the next-in-line, a Centrist senator named Carise Sindian.

But just before Leia submitted her resignation, the Loyalists nominated her as their candidate for First Senator, a Prime Minister-like position designed to cut through the Senate’s gridlock. Meanwhile, Lady Cerise found a secret message in Birren’s treasure rooms that revealed Leia’s biggest secret: Darth Vader was Leia’s biological father.

As a dedicated Centrist (and a secret member of the First Order), Cerise made sure that the public learned the truth about Leia’s heritage. Leia’s political career crumbled in an instant. Longtime Populist allies abandoned her, accusing her of keeping secrets, while the Centrists publically questioned her motives, integrity, and credibility. Just like that, her time in the Senate was over.

That’s why, when Leia discovered that a group of Centrist planets were secretly funding a large-scale paramilitary operation called the First Order, nobody listened. And so, Leia did the only thing she could. With the support of a handful of loyal politicians, military leaders, and soldiers–not to mention a stockpile of thermal detonators snatched from First Order weapons smugglers–Leia founded the Resistance, an unsanctioned militia dedicated to keeping fascism at bay.

Without Leia’s leadership, Luke Skywalker would still be lost among the stars. The planet-destroying Starkiller Base would still be causing havoc around the galaxy. We’re not sure what The First Order is going to throw The Resistance’s way in The Last Jedi, but whatever it is, expect General Leia to be right there fighting it. She’s not just a princess, after all. She’s a bona fide hero.

When the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR released in 2016, they were derided as being too expensive. All three VR headsets have received significant price drops in 2017, however, making them much more accessible. VR may still be far from mainstream, but its market share grew steadily in 2017. Let’s look back at the medium’s highlights (and lowlights) over the past year.

All three VR headsets have received significant price drops in 2017

Oculus Significantly Reduces Rift Pricing, Steadily Gains Market Share

Coming into 2017, the HTC Vive had momentum over the Rift in a battle between the two PC VR headsets. The past year has arguably been more kind to the Facebook-backed platform, however. While the Rift and its Touch controllers retailed for a combined $800 at the beginning of the year, the bundle received a notable price drop to $600 in March. Oculus then temporarily dropped the price of the bundle to $400 with its summer sale. The device became a big-seller on retail outlets like Amazon as a result, and the company permanently cut the bundle’s price to $400 in October.

2017 also marked the one-year anniversary of the Touch controllers. While many users reported having tracking issues at launch, Oculus has solved those problems through software updates and now there are over 300 titles that support Oculus’ motion controllers. The platform also officially introduced support for room-scale with three sensors in 2017, moving out of its experimental beta state when it was introduced in 2016.

The Rift received many respectable exclusives in 2017, which include Robo Recall, Lone Echo, Echo Arena, Wilson’s Heart, Arktika.1, and more. The company also revealed some compelling upcoming exclusives at its Oculus Connect 4 event in October, such as Ubisoft’s multiplayer shooter Space Junkies and what could be a Titanfall-inspired VR game from Respawn Entertainment.

The Rift received many respectable exclusives in 2017

On the user interface front, the Oculus Store still needs a lot of work, but the company has implemented refunds and announced Dash, which will allow users to launch their favorite desktop apps while they’re in VR.

At the tail end of the year, Oculus showed its continued commitment to mobile VR and announced Oculus Go, which is an all-in-one mobile VR headset that doesn’t require a phone. The company also showed off its updated Santa Cruz headset prototype, which featured new motion controllers coupled with inside-out tracking that provides six degrees of movement without the need for external trackers.

The Vive Introduces New Peripherals, But Loses Momentum

At the beginning of the year, HTC introduced the Deluxe Audio Strap for the Vive. It integrated headphones and made the heavy head-mounted display much more comfortable, which was important considering the Vive was arguably the most uncomfortable HMD of the bunch. HTC also lowered the price from $800 to $600 shortly after Oculus dropped the price of its Rift bundle to $400. While the Vive is still more expensive than the Rift, owners do get room-scale right out of the box with Valve’s included lighthouse trackers.

Several peripherals were revealed for the Vive this year. TPCast is a third-party add-on that allows the Vive to go wireless with minimal added latency. HTC also began to sell Vive Trackers that will allow you to see non-tracked accessories in VR, though time will tell if they will provide a meaningful impact to consumers.

In 2017, HTC pushed its Viveport store and subscription service, the latter of which allows users to play up to five VR games a month starting at $7. But many users have reported that it’s been a bit of a buggy mess, even causing blue-screen issues. Throughout the year, many users have also complained that HTC’s customer service has been slow and unresponsive when it comes to repair and replacement issues.

On Valve’s end, the company revealed its Knuckle Controllers towards the tail end of last year, which track individual fingers and will allow Vive users to grip and release virtual objects by way of a strap that attaches to users’ hands. Unfortunately, only certain developers have them today, and Valve hasn’t announced an official release date for the controllers as of yet. Early on in the year, Valve revealed that it was working on three full VR games, but it disappointingly hasn’t revealed any screenshots or info on any of them since.

SteamVR got a wide variety of new games throughout the year. Notable standouts include Pavlov VR, which many refer to as virtual reality’s Counter Strike, and Gorn, which is an arena hack-and-slash game that takes full advantage of room-scale VR. The year’s end is topped off by Bethesda’s Fallout VR and Doom VFR shooters.

Valve revealed that it was working on three full VR games, but it disappointingly hasn’t revealed any screenshots or info on any of them since.

PlayStation VR Leads Virtual Reality Sales

Most recent estimates suggest that Sony has sold roughly 1.5 million PlayStation VR headsets to date, which shows that PS4 owners have a healthy appetite for VR.

The headset itself went from $400 down to $300 for a limited time, and Sony also revealed new PSVR bundles that include the PlayStation camera, Move controllers, and games like Skyrim VR and Doom VFR for $450. These new bundles come with a slightly modified headset that offers an HDR passthrough.

PS4 owners have a healthy appetite for VR.

The PSVR’s success was largely driven by exclusive standouts that include Resident Evil 7 and Skyrim VR. Sony also released Farpoint, which introduced PSVR’s new Aim controller, which owners can also use with Doom VFR. Sony particularly showed its commitment to VR at its Paris Games Week even in October, where it revealed a bunch of new VR games including Blood & Truth and Megalith.

Considering the PlayStation Camera and Move controllers weren’t originally designed for VR, however, much of the community is clamoring for an improved tracking system and more refined controllers that feature joysticks.

Other Matters, In Brief

• Pimax’s 8K VR headset surpasses Oculus Rift’s Kickstarter to be the biggest crowdfunded VR headset.

• Microsoft and its hardware partners that include Acer, Lenovo, and HP release their Mixed Reality VR headsets towards the tail end of the year.

• Lenovo, in partnership with Disney, releases a $200 augmented reality headset that allows users to play Star Wars: Jedi Challenges with their phones.

Verdict

While VR may not have gone mainstream in 2017, it takes years for even the most disruptive tech to reach mass market adoption. There have certainly been pitfalls along the way. For instance, CCP Games announced that it would suspend resources on developing new VR games, and the medium could certainly use more big-budget AAA games, but it’s important to acknowledge that VR is still relatively new and that high-quality games often take years to develop.

Oculus, HTC, and Sony have lowered the prices on their respective headsets, which has bolstered adoption across the board. Considering that VR is still a new, growing market meant that many third-party developers opted to release their games on all three major VR platforms. In fact, many fun games like Rec Room and Star Trek Bridge Crew are even cross platform across all three headsets. All of these contributions lead to a case where a rising tide lifts all boats in the burgeoning industry.

While the 2015 deal between Sony and Marvel allows Spider-Man to appear in the latter’s cinematic universe, Sony is still making the most of owning the overall movie rights to characters from the Spidey comic books. The studio has several spin-offs in development, and the first of these will be next year’s Venom.

The first piece of promotional material for the movie has now been revealed. It’s a banner that was spotted at Brazil’s Comic-Con Experience (CCXP), and shows the fearsome alien symbiote of the title bursting through the letter V. Check the images out over at Collider.

Venom will star Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock. In Marvel’s comics, Brock is a photographer and rival to Peter Parker, who becomes a host for the parasite and sets about to destroy him. A behind-the-scenes video released in October showed Hardy on-set.

The movie hits theaters on October 5, 2018. It also stars Riz Ahmed and Michelle Williams. Zombieland‘s Ruben Fleischer is directing.

There was initially some confusion about whether Venom would be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and whether Spider-Man could appear in any of the spin-offs. Both Marvel boss Kevin Feige and Spidey actor Tom Holland have stated that the two universes are entirely separate. However, in June, former Sony boss and Spider-Man: Homecoming producer Amy Pascal suggested otherwise, before subsequently switching to Feige’s position.

In terms of other Spidey spin-offs, Venom will be followed by Silver & Black. That movie will focus on Silver Sable and the Black Cat, and is set to arrive on February 8, 2019.

Ahead of the holidays, the Microsoft Store has a promotion going on where it features a different set of deals each day. For today, December 7, the retailer has discounted a bunch of Xbox One and PC games–including many of this fall’s big releases–by up to 50%. However, you’ve only got a very limited amount of time to take advantage.

Among the games included in this promotion are Star Wars Battlefront II, Call of Duty: WWII, Assassin’s Creed Origins, and Battlefield 1 Revolution, each of which costs $40. Destiny 2 and South Park: The Fractured But Whole drop to $35, while Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition can be had for $30. Many other recent releases are also included, though one notable omission is Forza Motorsport 7, which you’d expect to be included as a first-party game.

All of the aforementioned titles are for Xbox One. There are also a small handful of PC games discounted. These are primarily from Bethesda–the highlights include The Evil Within 2 and Wolfenstein II for $30 each, or Doom for $20. Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood can also be had for $20.

You can see everything on sale here. This is a one-day-only deal, and some games are already sold out, including Middle-earth: Shadow of War on Xbox One and the PC and Xbox One version of Overwatch: Game of the Year Edition. If you’re interested, you may want to jump on this quickly. Just be aware that a new Xbox Live sale is now underway to celebrate The Game Awards, and it discounts some of the same games. Additionally, Steam may follow suit today and discount some of these PC games. We’ll report back if that turns out to be the case.

Some links to supporting retailers are automatically made into affiliate links, and GameSpot may receive a small share of those sales.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has confirmed PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR sales have reached another milestone.

PlayStation 4 has now sold more than 70.6 million units worldwide through to customers as of December 3, 2017, while the PlayStation VR has surpassed two million units sold worldwide. More than 617.8 million copies of PS4 games and over 12.2. million units of PSVR titles have been sold as of December 3 as well. This includes both retail and digital sales.

“I cannot thank our fans and partners enough,” Andrew House said, Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO. “Their support, since the launch of very first PlayStation in 1994, has helped to make PlayStation one of the biggest console gaming networks in the world.”

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GTA Online will add an “epic” new heist activity, titled ‘The Doomsday Heist’ on Tuesday, December 12.

Coming for PS4, Xbox One and PC versions of the game, the update also appears to add new vehicles and equipment to GTA V’s multiplayer mode. All previous updates to GTA Online have been free, so we’d assume this will be too.

The Doomsday Heist itself looks to be an even less serious approach to high crime than we’re used to from GTA Online – the trailer includes an existential threat on Los Santos, an AI called Clifford, futuristic jetpacks and tanks and, most excitingly, flying DeLorean-style and submersible Lotus Esprit-style cars.

The official press release describes it as:

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A new selection of game discounts are now available in the US PlayStation Store. As was the case last week’s PSN deals, this week doesn’t feature any publisher-specific sales, though there are still some new PS4, PS3, and Vita discounts to choose from.

As usual, the majority of the deals available this week are for PS4, and many feature an additional percentage off for PlayStation Plus subscribers. Among the games discounted right now are Hob for $15 (or $17 without a PS Plus subscription), the horror games Perception ($9.88/$11.95) and Don’t Knock Twice ($10/$14), Warhammer 40K: Deathwatch ($28), Space Hulk ($21), and Space Hulk Ascension ($24.49).

PS4 owners also still have a chance to snag some of the game deals that had previously been available. Most notably, The Elder Scrolls Online is still on sale; the Gold Edition costs $30, while the Morrowind expansion is $30. The Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition – Duke Nukem Bundle is likewise still on sale for $40.49.

PS3 owners have a much slimmer selection of deals to choose from this week. Space Hulk is $14, Steredenn is $5.97 ($7.92 without PS Plus), the PS2 game La Pucelle: Tactics is $5, and PSOne’s Dirt Jockey is $1.97. On Vita, you can find discounts on a handful of Hyperdimension Neptunia games, as well as Mary Skelter: Nightmares ($24/$28), Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds ($15/$18), MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death ($4.49/$7.49), and Amnesia: Memories ($3/$5).

You can find the full list of deals available now on the PlayStation Store. Unlike typical weekly sales, not all of the aforementioned discounts will be available until the same day, so you should act quickly if you see any that you’re interested in. More deals will likely be available later today to coincide with The Game Awards 2017, which airs at 5:30 PM PT/8:30 PM ET.

We knew X-Men: Dark Phoenix would retell the classic X-Men storyline bungled in 2006’s The Last Stand – and now we know how it will do that.

If you don’t want to know any plot details for the next X-Men film, turn back now.

As reported by EW, Dark Phoenix will see the younger cast of the franchise in 1992 – around 10 years after X-Men: Apocalypse. The mutant team are now national heroes, with James McAvoy’s Charles Xavier landing on the cover of Time Magazine – and inflating his ego a little too far.

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