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Here’s the first Teaser Trailer for the Doom movie reboot Doom: Annihilation
Universal Studios has been promising/threatening to release a new film based on id Software’s Doom for years. But even though original stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Karl Urban, and Rosamund Pike all became massive stars in the intervening years since 2005’s Doom, the studio decided to go the reboot route when they officially announced the new adaptation last April.
Now we know that it’ll be titled Doom: Annihilation and that it looks to be a slightly more faithful adaptation of the game franchise. A newly released Teaser Trailer gives us a glimpse at a platoon of space marines (though no clearcut shot of the Doomguy), a roving band of demonic imps, goretastic special effects, and the promise that unethical scientific shenanigans opened a “Portal to Hell.”
However, the film also looks to have a much lower budget than 2005’s Doom, and that’s because Doom: Annihilation will be released direct to DVD/Blu-ray and streaming services sometime this Fall.
And just in case you were wondering what the developers at id Software think of the new film, they rather bluntly informed a fan that “We’re not involved with the movie” on Twitter.
Epic adds a human-sized hamster ball to Fortnite in Season 8
Epic Games is constantly updating Fortnite, but the game’s newest update might just be its best yet. As part of today’s kickoff to Season 8, the developer has added a new vehicle to Fortnite known as The Baller… a human-sized hamster ball with a grappling hook.
I’m not sure the world of FOrtnite is ready for a giant hamster ball of doom, but you learn more about it at the game’s official website:
Keep the good times rolling! Combine your boost and grapple to perform unbelievable feats with the newest vehicle addition to Battle Royale!
This single seat vehicle is found at Expedition Outposts and around pirate camp loot stashes. Use the attached Grappler and Boost functionality to pull yourself up cliffs or swing through the trees. The driver is protected from damage, but The Baller is vulnerable to enemy weapon fire.
A new trailer for Fortnite: Season 8, which has been subtitled Pirates and Treasure, can be found after the break. (more…)
New Retail Releases: Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, Lego Marvel Collection, More
It looks like another handful of new games will make their way to retail establishments this week…
Ubisoft is shifting the locale of The Division from New York City to Washington D.C. in Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, which will launch this week for the PS4 and Xbox One (and as a digital download for the PC). Players will march into a “post-pandemic Washington D.C.” and fight to restore order and prevent the collapse of the city in online co-op or competitive PvP.
Players looking to upgrade to a new Xbox One console will also be able to pick an upgraded version of Microsoft’s machine and the game in a Xbox One X 1TB + Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Bundle or a Xbox One S 1TB + Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Bundle.
A different type of group-play will be available in WB Games’s new Lego Marvel Collection for the PS4 and Xbox One. The package will bundle together Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2, and Lego Avengers, as well as all previously-released downloadable content for all three games.
A variety of other games will appear elsewhere on store shelves this week. Bandai Namco will bring the anime-inspired One Piece: World Seeker to the PS4 and Xbox One. NIS America will expand and enhance the turn-based RPG The Caligula Effect: Overdose for the PS4 and Switch. Outright Games will team up with Nickelodeon to release Paw Patrol: On A Roll for the Switch. Rising Star Games will release cel-shaded FPS Rico for the PS4 and Switch. And THQ Nordic will update MX Vs ATV: All Out – Anniversary Edition for the PS4 and Xbox One.
That’s it for this week’s New Retail Releases report.
Cassie Cage makes her proper debut in a new Mortal Kombat 11 trailer
Fresh off the heels of a Story Trailer that reintroduced Erron Black, Jacqui Briggs, and Cassie Cage to the Mortal Kombat mythos, NetherRealm Studios has uploaded a new Reveal Trailer for Mortal Kombat 11 focusing solely on Johnny and Sonya’s daughter.
Accompanied by a Battle Drone (and a pair of fully-loaded pistols), Cassie delivers a beating to Kano that includes a Shadow Kick, a Split Punch, and an absolutely insane new Fatality.
Mortal Kombat 11 will be released for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One on April 23.
Mortal Kombat 11’s newest Story Trailer reintroduces Erron Black, Cassie Cage, and Jacqui Briggs
“I’ve been in the future for a whole hour and I haven’t seen one jetpack. Not one.”
It’s official… Johnny Cage is a national treasure. A younger version of the movie star takes center stage in the latest Story Trailer for Mortal Kombat 11, while also reintroducing fans to a trio of returning fighters (Erron Black, Cassie Cage, and Jacqui Briggs) from Mortal Kombat X.
Beyond the new characters, the trailer features an epic scope and an all-out war between Earthrealm’s mightiest heroes, Kronika’s time-displaced warriors, Liu Kang’s army of revenants, and Raiden’s evil alter-ego. Can it be April already?
Mortal Kombat 11 will be released for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One on April 23.
A major Anthem bug is randomly shutting down PS4 consoles
Man, it has been a rough couple of weeks for BioWare’s Anthem. The game’s VIP Beta was met with a resounding “meh,” the convoluted release schedule left fans confused, and the critical reception to the eventual retail release has been less than kind (in fact, it quickly became the developer’s worst-reviewed game ever).
But wait, it gets worse. Electronic Arts confirmed last night that Anthem will completely crash (for seemingly no reason) for a random assortment of PS4 players. The publisher is currently gathering information about the bug on their Answers HQ forum, and so far more than 300 people have responded:
We’re aware of a crashing issue some of you have been reporting for #AnthemGame. We’re investigating and ask that you share your crash data reports when prompted. If you have, we’ll be reaching out to gather info; if not, please reply to this thread on AHQ:https://t.co/36P21YFjYL
— EA Help (@EAHelp) March 4, 2019
Is Anthem shutting down your PS4 console? If so, please share your information with EA so they can get to the bottom of this.
The Video Game Canon: Tetris Remains the Best Game of All Time in Version 3.0 Update
The Video Game Canon is a statistical meta-ranking of dozens of “Best Video Games of All Time” lists that began in 2017 with Version 1.0, and the ranking has been updated several times since then. Which game is #1? There’s only one way to find out…
Once again, Alexey Pajitnov’s puzzle masterpiece, Tetris, stands atop the Video Game Canon.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Video Game Canon, it’s a statistical meta-analysis of 53 “Best Video Games of All Time” lists that were published between 1995 and 2018. To qualify for inclusion, each list had to include at least 50 games, as well as some form of editorial oversight in the process (lists made up solely of reader polls or fan voting were excluded), and no restrictions on release dates or platforms.
After feeding each “Best Games” list into the Video Game Canon machine, the games were ranked against each other using the C-Score, a formula that adds together a game’s “Average Ranking” across all lists with the complementary percentage of its “Appearance Frequency.” Combining these two factors allows us to create a list of games that have universal appeal across a long period of time without punishing any game for being too old or too new.
Five new lists were added to the Video Game Canon in the Version 3.0 update, bringing the total number of games to be selected by at least one list up to 1,182. The most expansive new list came from Game Informer, which published The Top 300 Games of All Time in April of last year. Hyper (The 200 Games You Must Play), IGN (Top 100 Video Games of All Time), and Slant Magazine (The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time) also published new lists in 2018.
I was also able to reach back into the history books a little bit after stumbling upon a list from 2009 by Benchmark.pl, one of Poland’s largest technology blogs. Aside from a handful of titles (most notably, 2015’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt), most of the games created in Eastern Europe or played by Eastern European players aren’t on the radar of your average gamer, so digging through The Top 100 Best Games of the Twentieth Century gave me an interesting window into a population of gamers that I probably don’t think about as often as I should.
Even with these new additions to the dataset, Version 3.0 didn’t signal any huge changes to the Video Game Canon over last year’s Version 2.0 update, but the movement amongst the games in the top ten does bring to mind a round of musical chairs. And after the music stopped, nearly all the titles scrambled to find a new place to sit.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com for all future updates to this project and to explore the complete Top 1000.
Capcom reminds fans of “The Story So Far” in a new video ahead of Devil May Cry 5’s launch
The original Devil May Cry franchise went on a bit of a hiatus after the release of Devil May Cry 4 in 2008, as Capcom turned to Ninja Theory to create the alternate universe seen in 2013’s DMC: Devil May Cry. So it’s understandable that some fans might need a refresher course on all the events that happened in the series so far before the original Dante (along with Nero and newcomer Nico) returns next week in Devil May Cry 5.
Thankfully, Capcom has provided us with “The Story So Far,” a short video recap of Dante’s greatest hits:
Been a long time since your last demon hunt? Forgotten about Mundus, Lady, and Nero? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with this smokin’ sexy short recap on the DMC story so far…
“The Story So Far” has been embedded above, and Devil May Cry 5 will be available for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on March 8.