WWE Animated Movie Rumble’s Trailer Features Wrestling Monsters And Dirty Dancing

WWE Studios is nearly 20 years old and has made movies in seemingly every genre you can think of. Next year will see the release of one of its highest profile movies to date–it’s an animated family movie titled Rumble, which it’s produced with Paramount Pictures. The first trailer has been released.

The film is set in the world of monster wrestling, where the reigning champ is a huge tentacled beast known as Tentacularis, voiced by Terry Crews. But there’s a new contender for winning whatever title monsters fight for. He’s called, er, Steve, and he’s voiced by Arrested Development’s Will Arnett. With the help of his young human assistant Winnie, Steve starts a gruelling training routine, which seems to consist of recreating a famous scene from the ’80s classic Dirty Dancing. Why? We don’t know, but hopefully the movie will reveal all. In the meantime, check the trailer out below:

Since Rumble is a WWE Studios movies, there is some wrestling talent involved–in this case, Becky Lynch and Roman Reigns. Other voices are provided by Geraldine Viswanathan (Blockers), Ben Schwartz (Sonic the Hedgehog), and Tony Danza (Broad City). It hits theaters on January 29, 2021.

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Disneyland’s Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run Has a Hack to Turn on ‘Chewie Mode’

Riders on Disneyland’s Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run can now ‘hack’ the ride to turn on Chewie Mode.

If you’ve been on the ride before, you know that every right and wrong move is met with a line from Hondo, the famed smuggler who sends you on the mission in the first place. You meet him in the queue before entering the Millennium Falcon.

But with a specific set of inputs, you can activate Chewie Mode, replacing all of Hondo’s verbal cues with responses from Chewbacca in the form of his famous yell. But be warned, making this happen isn’t easy and will require a group of friendly strangers or a full crew of friends willing to help you.

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Fresh Baked completed this hack and you can see it in action if you want to see it for yourself. If you’re looking to hack into the system yourself, you’re going to need to follow a very specific set of instructions:

When you enter the ride section of Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run, do not activate your position, which could be pilot, gunner, or engineer. This means that nobody on the ride should press a button or touch a lever.

The left and right pilots need to push their steering controls to the far left and right respectively. Once they’ve done that, they can hit their activation button. The engineers and gunners need to now hit one of the white buttons on their interface before pressing the orange activation button.

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All of this must be done before the cast member hits the button that starts the ride. A good way to ensure you’ve done what you need to do in time is making sure everyone completes their steps, or hack as it were, before the cast member assigned to your unit finishes the seatbelt check.

If you’ve completed these steps in time, you’ll know you’ve successfully hacked the ride when you hear Chewie yelling at you and explaining what you need to do instead of Holdo.

If you haven’t had the chance to go to Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland to ride Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run, we’ve got a review of it with footage from the ride you can check out. We also recently reviewed the newest ride in the land, Rise of the Resistance, and spoilers: it’s amazing.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN that loves Disney and is eagerly anticipating the day he can try this at Disney World in Florida. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

Square Enix Will Keep Releasing Xbox One And PS4 Games Alongside Next-Gen Versions

Some major game publishers are likely champing at the bit to release exclusively next-generation games this holiday, but Square Enix isn’t one of them. The company is planning on supporting both generations for now, and backward compatibility is a major reason why.

Speaking at a financial Q&A presentation earlier this month, Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda explained that the PS5 and Xbox Series X will both support previous generations’ games. In the near-future, Square Enix will develop games for both generations, and will hold off on developing next-gen exclusives for the time being.

“It will therefore be somewhat [further] down the road that we release titles exclusively for the next-generation consoles,” Matsuda said.

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Platinum Games Reveals Project G.G. With Teaser Trailer; Watch It Here

Platinum Games has released the first teaser for Project G.G., a new IP that will be the first game both developed and published by the independent studio.

Game director Hideki Kamiya revealed the new title in an interview with Famitsu, where he compared the ideas for it to Ultraman. The teaser trailer backs that up, with a shot of an obscured hero with blue eyes facing off against a colossal kaiju in the downtown streets of an unnamed metropolis. Check it out below.

In a blog post, Kamiya stresses that Project G.G. is only a working title, and that the project itself is still in the very early stages of production. He explains that acting as a publisher affords him and his team far more creative freedom than before, but also invites new risks that Platinum Games will need to manage.

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The Creator of the Konami Code Has Died

The creator of the Konami Code, Kazuhisa Hashimoto, has died. The news was announced by composer and former Konami collaborator Yuji Takenouchi.

Takenouchi shared a message on Twitter that states that Hashimoto died last night (February 25), and that the composer hopes the legendary programmer and developer continues to “keep making games in heaven”. He was 61 years old.

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Hashimoto worked at Konami in the 80s and 90s on classic games such as Snatcher, Gradius, Life Force, and ISS, but he is best known for the creation of the Konami Code; a combination of button inputs used to activate powerful cheats.

The code – up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start – was first implemented by Hashimoto into the NES version of Gradius as it was found to be too difficult during playtesting. The code would give players a complete set of power ups. The code was subsequently added to dozens of other games over the years. It is perhaps best known for its use in Contra, where it would grant players 30 lives.

The Konami code can be found outside of Konami games, too, thanks to its evolution into a pop-culture icon. Fortnite, League of Legends, and Rocket League all have a Konami code, and even Netflix has a secret settings menu that can be accessed by inputting an almost identical code. It also is referenced by Disney’s video games themed movie Wreck-it Ralph.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter

The Wonderful 101: Remastered Will Be Released in May

PlatinumGames has announced The Wonderful 101: Remastered will be released for Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Steam on May 19 in North America and May 22 in Europe (no Australian release date available at time of writing).

This is being referred to as a “general” release date and, to our knowledge, backers of the game’s Kickstarter that paid to receive a copy of the game will still be receiving it in April as stated on the crowd-funding campaign’s page.

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In a message to fans, the original version’s director, Hideki Kamiya, thanked fans for supporting the game after its commercial failure on Wii U, saying, “I’m considering this a chance to show it to the world again. I’m looking forward to seeing how it measures up.”

He adds: “This isn’t just a simple port, either. We’ve tuned the controls for each new platform and made several adjustments that should make it easier to grasp and play. On top of that, we’ve improved the image quality and frame rate to suit modern hardware. On the whole, I’d say The Wonderful 101: Remastered is the definitive edition of the game!”

The Wonderful 101: Remastered has seen a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, asking for just under £38,000 ($50,000 USD) and receiving £1.4 million ($1.8 million USD) with 9 days still to go. That success has unlocked a number of stretch goals, including a separate 2D game, Luka’s First Mission.

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The Wonderful 101: Remastered was the first of 4 annoucements teased by PlatinumGames. The second has also been announced today – Project G.G. is a new Hideki Kamiya game, a spiritual follow-on from TW101, and is the studio’s first fully self-published game.

We awarded the Wii U version of The Wonderful 101 a 7.4 review, calling it “a charming, boisterous and deceptively complex action game”.

Correction: This story originally stated that an Astral Chain PC port was part of the Kickstarter stretch goals for TW101. This was a mistake – we apologise for the error.

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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News, and he loves The Wonderful 101, aside from its horrific use of Wii U rumble. Follow him on Twitter.

The LG V60 ThinQ 5G Aims to Be the Biggest Budget Phone

5G connectivity and 8K video seems to be the running theme of the most recent smartphone announcements and the LG V60 ThinQ 5G promises to deliver both of these features at a bargain.

Okay, the exact pricing for the V60 ThinQ 5G is still under wraps, but LG told us it should cost less than the existing V50 Thin-Q, which originally retailed for $999. If the final pricing falls somewhere between $699 and $899, this could be one of the best value devices around.

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Even without knowing what the price tag will look like, the LG V60  ThinQ 5G looks like a great smartphone and an impressive upgrade. For starters, it features a 6.8-inch OLED display with an extra tall 20.5:9 aspect ratio and FHD+ (2,460 x 1,080) resolution. LG has also replaced the wide notch found on the V50 ThinQ 5G with a waterdrop notch similar to the one found on the OnePlus 7T.

The LG V60 ThinQ 5G display gets even better when you double it with the Dual-View case that will be included for free during its initial release. This special case gives you a second 6.8-inch OLED display to run two apps at the same time, play games on one screen with a virtual game pad on the other, or just split what you’re viewing across the two screens.

LG V60 ThinQ 5G

Around back you might notice the LG V60 ThinQ 5G only has two cameras, whereas the previous version had three. Well LG has simplified its camera setup with a 13MP Super Wide and a 64MP main camera. The main camera does the most heavily lifting of letting you shoot photos at full resolution, pixel binning low-light shots to 16MP when you need to capture more light, and giving you the ability to crop in 2-10 times with only a marginal loss in image quality.

Normally we’re not fans of digital crop zooming, but we were genuinely impressed by how much image quality was retained as we punched in.

LG V60 ThinQ 5G

LG also promises the two cameras can capture more realistic 3D photo effects and attain accurate focus faster thanks to a newly integrated time of flight sensor array.

Aside from stills, the LG V60 ThinQ 5G will allow you to shoot 8K videos with HDR10+ colors. Additionally, the phone comes equipped with four microphones to power Voice Bokeh, which sets the microphones to pick up in a faux-cardioid pattern to minimize background noise and boost the subject’s voice.

LG V60 ThinQ 5G

In terms of specs, the LG V60 ThinQ is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor you’ll find on all of the major 2020 flagship phones. This central chip is also backed up by 8GB of  RAM and 128GB of storage that comes standard, and you can further expand your data storage space with an up to 2TB microSD card.

Lastly the phone comes with a 5,000mAh battery, which LG promises can regain 50% of its charge by plugging it in for just 30 minutes.

LG plans to release the LG V60 Thin-Q with a dual-screen case in the coming weeks.

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Kevin Lee is IGN’s Hardware and Roundups Editor. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam

Platinum Announces New Game, Releases First Trailer

PlatinumGames has officially announced its first self-published game, Project G.G. Directed by Hideki Kamiya, it will be a spiritual follow-up to Viewtiful Joe and The Wonderful 101.

Project G.G. (a working title) will be a ‘giant hero’ game in the vein of Ultraman. No platforms or release date have been announced – in fact, Kamiya says “the finish line is still a long way away”. The initial teaser trailer, below, shows a man (from the viewpoint of an excellent dog) transforming to fight a kaiju amid a cityscape:

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Project G.G. is a major step for Platinum, which has always partnered with publishers for its work until recently. While the Kickstarter for The Wonderful 101 on Switch was a start, this is the developer’s first fully self-published title, and it will be developed at a new 100-person studio in Tokyo that Platinum is currently staffing up.

In a message to fans, Hideki Kamiya said: “In the fourteen years since we founded this company, we’ve worked towards the dream of making and releasing a game based on a Platinum intellectual property. Now, we’re finally stepping up to that starting line.”

He explains that because of restrictions based on other companies owning Platinum’s work, sequels and new platform releases have historically been hard or impossible for the developer to push through.

“Project G.G. is different”, he goes on. “Unlike any of the games we’ve made so far, it’s going to be a 100% PlatinumGames title. For everything from its setting and characters, to its game design and story, to how it’s promoted – PlatinumGames is in full control.”

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Project G.G. is the second of four game announcements teased on the Platinum website – it’s not clear when we’ll hear about the others.

The first was a release for The Wonderful 101: Remastered, and we also found out today that that game will be released for Switch, PS4 and Steam in North America on May 19, Europe on May 22, and Japan on June 11.

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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News, and he’s very much hoping that ‘G.G.’ stands for ‘gigantic gorilla’. Follow him on Twitter.

Checking Who Uses an iPhone in Movies Could Be a Spoiler Now

Rian Johnson has let slip an industry secret about how the presence of an iPhone in a movie could serve as an early indication as to whether a character is going to be a hero or a villain.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, the Knives Out director shared a helpful tidbit for moviegoers, as he revealed that Apple imposes a strict rule that prevents their products from being used by villainous characters in movies.

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“I don’t know if I should say this or not,” he admitted. “Not ’cause it’s lascivious or something, but because it’s going to screw me on the next mystery movie that I write, but forget it, I’ll say it. It’s very interesting. Apple, they let you use iPhones in movies but – and this is very pivotal if you’re ever watching a mystery movie – bad guys cannot have iPhones on camera.”

Johnson then joked that “every single filmmaker who has a bad guy in their movie that’s supposed to be a secret” will now want to “murder” him, as he has divulged the details of a prop spoiler that could potentially help audiences to figure out the on-screen motivations of certain characters before they are officially revealed by the movie’s plot.

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While it is unknown whether any other companies operate a similar mandate over product placement, fans will now be donning their sleuthing hats to identify which character is using an Apple-branded product in Knives Out 2, though they will have to try and not get distracted by the whole new cast, mystery, and location that has been proposed for the sequel.

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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Asgard’s Wrath Studio Joins Facebook To Focus On Oculus VR

Asgard’s Wrath is one of the most impressive games on Oculus Rift, and Facebook appears to have great confidence in developer Sanzaru Games. Facebook purchased Sanzaru, making it part of Oculus Studios, where it will continue to work on unannounced VR projects.

The announcement was made on the official Oculus Blog, where director of content Mike Verdu said Sanzaru’s deep experience with VR and Oculus platforms gives it the ability to “readily explore a future of rich and immersive original VR content.”

Most of Sanzaru’s staff will be joining Oculus Studios as part of the acquisition, and the company will not be relocating. Its offices in the United States and Canada will continue operating, and Oculus stresses Sanzaru’s independence in the announcement.

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