Patch 1.1 rolled out today for Tom Clancy’s The Division on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. As with every patch, Ubisoft Massive has stomped out some bugs and exploits, including a nasty bug that disabled daily missions from resetting and another that blocked people from logging on.
More importantly, the new patch introduces some new gameplay features. The big marquee addition is the new Falcon Lost incursion. Designed for four highly geared and coordinated players, the incursion is set in a water treatment facility being held by the Last Man Battalion. New daily and weekly assignments have also been added to the game, encouraging players to craft, do dungeons, and explore the Dark Zone.
The Dark Zone has been tweaked with new supply drops full of uncontaminated gear. These drops will happen several times a day and will force agents and NPCs to battle it out for the treasures the boxes may contain. Additionally, two new High End named weapons and four named gear sets have been released. Designed for lone wolves, support specialists, marksmen, and assaulter roles; the named gear sets will yield powerful bonuses when worn as a set. Crafting and loot drops have also been rebalanced in this patch, along with the ability to trade items with people in your instance group.
BANDAI NAMCO ENTERTAINMENT EUROPE DELIVERS A NEW FREE-TO-PLAY EXPERIENCE FOR THE WII U WITHLOST REAVERS
New Free-to-Play Dungeon Crawler Co-Op Game Enters Open Beta Today and is Available for Download Now on the Wii U eShop
BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe today announces the latest title in their growing free-to-play catalogue, LOST REAVERS, a four-player action co-op game for the Nintendo Wii U that is now available for download in Open Beta in the Nintendo eShop.
LOST REAVERS is an intense four-player co-op game where players must discover hidden treasures at the end of a series of dungeons and haul it safely back to their extraction point while their friends protect them. Along the way, the team will encounter a variety of traps, clever foes and the dungeon bosses who will do everything in their power to thwart the quartet. Through all of these challenges, one of the brave four must bring the treasure hoard safely back home by using only their wits and their friends to survive.
Players can choose from one of four distinct characters to play through the game. Sayuri, a sword-wielding modern day samurai; Dwayne, a heavy-weapon toting specimen of human artillery; Victoria, a svelte dual-wielding mistress of pistols, and a mysterious masked fourth character, who wields many weapons to cut down his foes.
With a variety of worlds ranging from Ancient Ruins, Medieval Castles and a Modern City, LOST REAVERS provides endless hours of entertainment and dozens of challenging environments for determined players and team to conquer. Along the way, players must search for new and powerful weapons, level up their characters’ skills and learn to evade cleverly placed traps. Only with trusted compatriots by your side will players prevail!
Open Beta for LOST REAVERS commences today and players with a Wii U are able to head to the Nintendo eShop to download the game. Open Beta for LOST REAVERS will continue until April 28, when the full version of the game will become available on the Nintendo eShop.
A brand new trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadowshas been released! The new trailer serves as a great introduction to all the characters of the film to people new to the series while teasing the film’s plot.
Shredder has escaped prison and has teamed up with a mad scientist who has created a purple ooze that turns humans into animals and animals into humans. While the Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles struggle internally with the possibility of being able to walk freely outside of the sewers, Shredder is now looking to use the invention to take over the world.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows is produced by Michael Bay and stars Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Stephen Amell, and Tyler Perry. The movie will hit cinemas on June 9th.
Indie Gala and Capsule Computers is back this week with another Every Monday Bundle. This week’s bundle is crammed with seven great indie games, with six dropping Steam trading cards!
Generic Space Shooter – A simple, yet challenging space shooter featuring 30 spacecrafts to unlock, each with a unique ability.
Story of a Cube – A minimalistic action game that is part twin-stick shooter and part bullet hell.
Big Fish Legend – A kitten’s adventure through three worlds to find the prized fish that can only be captured by the bravest and the strongest of predators.
Airstrike HD – A 2D aircraft game that challenges players to destroy buildings and battle bosses.
Ares Omega – A top down rogue-lite shooter set on Mars in the middle of a violent robot revolution.
Stop Online – Battle of Words – A multiplayer word game to test vocabularies! A letter and five themes are randomly selected, and then Players race to provide five words that both match a theme and begin with that letter in the shortest amount of time possible.
Rhino’s Rage – A turn based strategy game about all about charging down enemies and slamming into them.
For the first 24 hours of the sale, the bundle is only $1.89, so grab your copy at Indie Gala before the price goes up!
BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc. Delivers a New Free-to-Play Experience for the Wii U withLOST REAVERS
New Free-to-Play Dungeon Crawler Co-Op Game Enters Open Beta Today and is Available for Download Now on the Wii U eShop
SANTA CLARA, Calif,. (April 14, 2016) – BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc. today announces the latest title in their growing free-to-play catalogue, LOST REAVERS, a four-player action co-op game for the Nintendo Wii U that is now available for download in Open Beta in the Nintendo eShop.
LOST REAVERS is an intense four-player co-op game where players must discover hidden treasures at the end of a series of dungeons and haul it safely back to their extraction point while their friends protect them. Along the way, the team will encounter a variety of traps, clever foes and the dungeon bosses who will do everything in their power to thwart the quartet. Through all of these challenges, one of the brave four must bring the treasure hoard safely back home by using only their wits and their friends to survive.
Players can choose from one of four distinct characters to play through the game. Sayuri, a sword-wielding modern day samurai; Dwayne, a heavy-weapon toting specimen of human artillery; Victoria, a svelte dual-wielding mistress of pistols, and a mysterious masked fourth character, who wields many weapons to cut down his foes.
With a variety of worlds ranging from Ancient Ruins, Medieval Castles and a Modern City, LOST REAVERS provides endless hours of entertainment and dozens of challenging environments for determined players and team to conquer. Along the way, players must search for new and powerful weapons, level up their characters’ skills and learn to evade cleverly placed traps. Only with trusted compatriots by your side will players prevail!
Open Beta for LOST REAVERS commences today and players with a Wii U are able to head to the Nintendo eShop to download the game. Official service for LOST REAVERS begins April 28, the full version of the game will become available on the Nintendo eShop.
About BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc.
BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc., part of BANDAI NAMCO Holdings Inc., is a leading global publisher and developer of interactive content — including all major video game consoles, iOS, mobile and online. The company is known for creating and publishing many of the industry’s top video game franchises, including PAC-MAN®, TEKKEN®, SOULCALIBUR®, NARUTO™, NARUTO SHIPPUDEN™, Dragon Ball®, GALAGA®, RIDGE RACER® and ACE COMBAT®. More information about the company and its products can be found at www.bandainamcoent.com or www.facebook.com/BandaiNamcoUS
Toy Story was a staple of many childhoods, including my own. It was a seminal film which cemented the position of the Pixar as a leading animation studio and is considered one of the best animated films of all time. This film broke ground with computer generated imagery in not just film but video games as well as it proved to be a masterclass for animation. The film established itself as a cultural touchstone and spawned its franchise with sequels, spin-offs, and games. Putting my childhood nostalgia aside for a moment, I walked on down to George St cinemas for the In the House screening.
Jason ‘Jabba’ Davis and Anthony Kierann were the live MCs this evening as David ‘Quinny’ Quinn was away attending to Supanova duties. They gave away a bunch of prizes to children in the audience and also did a give-away for adults. Following a quick game of ‘heads or tails’ with the whole audience, we were screened short video starring Quinny and Jabba discussing the film in a toy store. An interesting tidbit they mentioned which stuck with me was the fact that the production time for three seconds of the film required about a week of work by the studio.
Story
The film narrative follows the eponymous toys the toys owned by a young boy named Andy. They are organised by a toy cowboy named Woody (Tom Hanks) as they go about their lives playing with their young owner and keeping up appearances of being inanimate. The trouble when Andy gets a new astronaut toy, Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), for his birthday who upsets the comfortable life Woody had for himself by replacing him as Andy’s favourite toy. To complicate things even more, Buzz is not aware of the fact that he is a toy which only annoys Woody more. Through a series of mistakes and misunderstandings; Woody and Buzz both get separated from Andy and have to find their way back home.
The story is a quintessential buddy story where the two leads meet each other with mutual enmity before growing past that into friendship. The performances of Hanks and Allen in this regard needed to be strong to make the emotional journey of their characters seem real… with just their voices. They both rose to the challenge and put out amazing performances with their respective however. Hanks gives Woody charm which help to make you to empathise with him even as he goes works through his the jealousy and selfishness of his character arc. Allen plays Buzz as the subdued foil to Hank’s more expressive Woody but still manages to give him emotional depth as he works through the character arc of a character who comes to terms with some pretty extreme self-realisations.
The writing is very well written with plenty of sarcasm, slapstick, and solemn moments to keep audiences entertained. The script is able to jump from moments of levity to more sombre beats and back with ease to keep its audience invested. When minutes require weeks of work, there’s no room for unnecessary dialogue or superfluous plot points. The script is lean and funny, and that’s exactly what you need as an adult watching a children’s film.
The direction is absolutely beautiful with some amazing moments being created in the film. One particular standout scene is Buzz’s realisation of the truth of his existence as a toy. He attempts one last time to prove to himself that he is not simply a child’s plaything but, in a truly tragic turn, he fails. The build up to this moment was substantial and the sequence as a payoff is shattering as Sailing No More played to the scene. In the cinema watching it, the person sitting next to me cried and, were I not emotionally dead on inside, I’m sure I would have too.
Visuals
The animation itself hasn’t aged as well as the rest of the film unfortunately as, compared to the super slick and smooth animations we’re spoiled with today, Toy Story seems a bit crude. Don’t get me wrong, the visual design of the characters is par excellence but some of the movements and facial expressions might look a bit strange for a second or two. However, if you’re seeing this movie through the eyes of a child then I doubt you’ll love the adventure of Woody and Buzz any less. I’d say that older audience members brace yourself for characters that might feel a bit wooden… but they’re toys and some of them are literally made out of wood.
Fun fact: The rendering power for the computer animation that Pixar was working with at the time had difficulty in adding translucence to skin. This effectively meant was that all the human characters looked like they were made out of the plastic. Rather than running the risk of jumping straight into the gorge of the uncanny valley, Pixar decided to double down and make a film about characters who were themselves made out of plastic. Thus, Toy Story was born.
Audio
I’m not someone who is easily impressed by film soundtracks as most of the time they simply provide a backing accompaniment to the action and, in most film soundtracks, you don’t even notice the score until something is horrendously wrong or tremendously right. Luckily, Randy Newman’s composition is absolutely spot on throughout the film. As well as matching every plot point perfectly, the soundtrack brings out some absolute classics that will stick in your memory like nothing else. The film’s signature song is of course; You’ve Got a Friend in Me but another entry which I feel is under appreciated is Sailing No More. Both these songs lyrically match up with the action of the film and are powerful in their own ways.
Overall
Toy Story was and still is an amazing film. The characters and story are moving for audiences both young and old. The animation hasn’t aged all that well but if you’re looking at it through nostalgia-vision or are someone who can count your age on your hands then I doubt you’ll particularly care. The soundtrack is amazing and I challenge anyone to not leave the cinema humming You’ve Got a Friend in Me after watching this film. I enjoyed this film just as much now as I did when I was an ankle biter myself and I have no problems recommending it. Kudos to In the House for screening this movie!
For other films which In The House is screening, feel free to check out their schedule here.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
With the new season of Fear the Walking Dead debuting tonight Microsoft and The Coalition decided to fit a little something special in for fans of the Gears of War franchise. This came in the form of a brand new trailer for Gears of War 4 and if you weren’t keeping an eye out on the show then you won’t have to worry as the video has already been released online by the company and can be found below.
Set 25 Years after Gears of War 3, spurred by a series of strange disappearances, JD Fenix must embrace his father’s legacy and battle a terrifying new enemy and the trailer called “Tomorrow” is meant to show the family connection between father and son and provide us a brief glimpse at the new enemies that will be awaiting in Gears of War 4 when it is released worldwide on October 11th.
Acttil has announced that they will be releasing Experience’s dungeon crawling RPG Ray Gigant for the PlayStation Vita in North America and Europe sometime this May. The title will be released digitally in both regions and will feature three main characters which have a goal in saving the world.
Each of these three characters have a different set of ideals however which means as you progress with each character through the story you’ll witness how their ideals impact their journey. To go along with this announcement acttil has released a ton of new English screenshots for Ray Gigant and you can check them all out below.
Last December Idea Factory International announced that they were bringing Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart to the PC and now the company has revealed that the game will be released on Steam on April 18th. This strategy RPG spin-off from the Neptunia series was originally released on the PS Vita and features a number of brand new characters in a storyline focused mostly on Noire and her journey to save the Gamarket from a new and unknown force.
A bunch of new screenshots showing Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart in its updated 1080p resolution have been released and you can check those out below.
Popular voice actor Sean Schemmel, best known for his role as Goku in the Funimation dub of Dragon Ball Z and GT, has revealed some insider information on future projects during a recent Q&A session at Bristol Comic Con over the weekend. Sean spoke about a new game, a possible time frame for the Super dub as well as his work on the Buu Saga dub for the Dragon Ball anime.
When asked by an audience member if he had heard any news on a Xenoverse 2 game yet, Sean answered with
“I do think there is going to be…I can’t confirm it yet but Chris (Sabat, the producer of the Dragon Ball Z dub) called me and said there’s gonna be a game coming out, I’m thinking there’s going to be some DLC or maybe another Xenoverse game I wouldn’t be surprised. Xenoverse was so successful the publishing company would be stupid not to make another one just for the sake of the money.”
The game in question could be the recently announced 3DS game Dragon Ball Fusion, however that is still a while away from release in Japan and has no International release confirmation as of yet. It’s also a 3DS title which mean it’s likely to have no voice acting or just retain the Japanese voices as was the case with Dragon Ball Z Extreme Butoden.
Sean then expanded on this answer about Xenoverse 2 to talk about Dragon Ball Super.
“I think that’s coming and I think Dragon Ball Super should happen this year. We don’t have a contract yet but Chris called me the other day and said I think this might be happening soon. Funimation has been working hard since late last year to go to Japan and secure… Just because we have Z doesn’t mean the Japanese are gonna go OK you can have Super. It’s the whole process of lawyers meeting and talking about money and shows and whose gonna air it and what money they get for it and they have to work all that out before they call the cast members and say here’s a contract. But my guess and this is totally speculative, I’m hoping we’ll have something out in July and at the very worst case scenario August or September for school. Definitely before Christmas I’m hoping because I need a job.”
We also got more information on the completion of the redub for the Buu Saga in Dragon Ball Kai, which still has no official confirmation of being in production despite many voice actors letting it be known they have been working on the project for a while, including this recent reveal from Sean Schemmel.
“We were just recording something for Dragon Ball Kai maybe about 10 months ago… I’m not supposed to tell you this but we got done recording Resurrection F last year and everyone recorded on the Buu Saga but me, and I just wrapped up recording the Buu saga probably about 6 weeks ago, so I’m done. It’s done it’s gonna get released. Everyone else has recorded they have to mix it and print it and whatever but you will get the Buu saga at some point…it’s gonna happen.”
So it seems the Buu saga dub may have been done for a while now but took a break to record the Resurrection F which Sean admitted he had recorded all of his lines for in just 2 days. Perhaps they are waiting to acquire the license to dub Dragon Ball Super before releasing it but apparently all the recording is done.
Interestingly Schemmel also said their was a rumor of a third movie, however I can’t say how much weight this holds. You can check out the full interview below.
