“Put the life back into your mid-life crisis!” We told you it was coming yesterday, and now that it has been released, we’re here with more details on exactly what comes with the San Andreas Flight School Update for GTA Online, straight from the source at Rockstar.
You think you’ve got what it takes to be awesome? Want to take yourself to the absolute limit – hell, past the limit – and live to high-five on the other side? Get yourself down to The San Andreas Flight School. Grab the stick of the fast and nimble Western Besra training jet and push it to the edge of the envelope. Master absolute air superiority in 10 new solo missions that will make you comfortable in any pilot’s danger zone, including combat manoeuvring, low-flying challenges, formation flying and more.
Once it’s ‘mission accomplished’ and you’re out of your heroic new Flight Suit, spend your shore leave buzzing the skies in the luxury Swift helo, or cram your entire squad into the new 16-seater Buckingham Mil-Jet for team transport in style. Hit the silk with a collection of new Chutes and Parachute Bags, and if things get a little out of control, rely on the Reserve Parachute to give you a second chance at that soft landing – or use it to get creative with your precision dives. Later, hit the streets in the shapely Invetero Coquette Classic, available in either hard-top or topless roadster variants for whatever your sea-level speed fix.
And round up your wingmen for new Races, Captures, Parachute Jumps and more, including the three all-new VS Mission modes. Acquire Targets is a kill-the-carrier style mode where opponents fight in P996 Lazers to control one flag; maintain control for as long as you can to rack up points. In G-Rating, compete against other cadets as you fly to pick up 15 flags in both weapons hot and cold environments. Or try out Air Force Zero, where the defending team must protect an aircraft against an attacking team as it flies to the safe LZ.
The San Andreas Flight School Update for GTA Online is now available via automatic update 1.16 for both PS3 and Xbox 360. In addition to everything listed above, today’s update also includes a number of other adjustments and fixes for GTA Online. Most notably, all Contact Mission GTA$ and RP awards have been rebalanced so that more difficult missions will earn you greater rewards, GTA$ payouts on replays are no longer reduced and all rewards are now time scaled. For a look at all the changes in this update, please check out the full dossier at Rockstar Support.
Stay tuned for more details on continuing updates to GTA Online, and look out for specifics later this week on the upcoming Event Weekend to commemorate the launch of the San Andreas Flight School Update.
With a little under two weeks until Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate is released in the West, Koei Tecmo has released a pair of new gameplay videos with the focus of these videos being to introduce fans to two of the guest characters that have been added to this release. The first of them will be familiar to most fighting game fans, as it is Sophitia from Bandai Namco’s Soulcalibur while the second happens to be Sterk, a character from the Arland trilogy of the Atelier series.
The gameplay videos can be found below while the game itself is set to be released for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PS Vita on September 2nd in North America and September 5th in Europe.
While fans of Resident Evil were disappointed about there being no Resident Evil 7 announced at E3 this year, it seems that Capcom might be working on a new Resident Evil outside of their re-re-release of the first title on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
A couple of URLs on Xbox.com reveal that Resident Evil: Revelations 2 either is in the works, or was planned since there is no actual listing for the title. Since there has been no official announcement made by Capcom at the moment, this can be taken as a rumor. However being shown on Xbox’s official website makes this pretty much confirmed.
Also unless this is an exclusive title, it will likely be released for the PlayStation 3 as well and it might even make the jump to next-gen consoles as well.
Although a Western release for Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires has not been confirmed it is a likely occurrence. That being said, it looks like that inevitable Western release will be pushed back a month as Koei Tecmo has announced, via Gamer, that the Japanese release for Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires has been pushed back to October 23rd.
It has also previously been revealed that a new fighter has been added to the game and is named Xun Yu, a warrior that uses a “formation staff.” Originally Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires was set to be released on September 25th in Japan for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and Xbox One. The reason given for the delay was to improve the quality of the game.
Note that at this point, the article below will contain spoilers for Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc and potentially spoilers for Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.
Now that that warning is out of the way, if you take a look below you will notice a small scan from Famitsu that reveals that a few more familiar faces will be appearing in Danganronpa: Another Episode.
These faces happen to be Makoto Naegi, the heroine’s brother and the protagonist of the first game, as well as Byakuya Togami who also was in the first game. Although the scan is small, it appears that both of them wear an emblem that translates into future. It is also worth noting that someone looking remarkably similar to Nagito Komaeda from Danganronpa 2 will also be making an appearance though what roles all three of them will play was not revealed.
Those eager for some more Danganronpa can look forward to Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair’s release from NIS America in two weeks, since at the moment no Western release has been confirmed for Another Episode.
It has been a long time coming but it seems that Level-5‘s Yo-Kai Watch will finally be released in the West next year. Speaking with Japanese website Zakzak, and translated at NeoGAF, Level-5 president Akihiro Hino revealed that the company is preparing for an international launch sometime next year and it seems they will be doing more than just bringing over the game, as it appears they are also talking about bringing over some of the toys the franchise has produced.
Since being released in Japan last year, this 3DS title has managed to sell over a million units and its sequel managed to sell twice that much in only a month, meaning that this title has quite a big chance for success in the West.
Sony has chosen to release an official gameplay demo that was shown off at Gamescom last week and in this demo we are treated to a little over six minutes of gameplay footage showing off Bloodborne‘s combat system and some of the enemies that players will encounter.
As you can see in the footage below, From Software has kept a number of their Dark Souls themes with the game as well as the same feel. Be sure to stick around for the battle against the giant Cleric Beast at the end of the vidoe and if you happen to be intrigued, keep an eye out for this PlayStation 4 exclusive once it is released in Spring 2015.
While it has been known for quite a while now that Sony would be bringing Freedom Wars over to North America and Europe, exactly when they would has been a question that has gone unanswered for just as long.
Well today Sony announced that they will be bringing Freedom Wars to North America on October 28th while Europe will be getting it on October 31st and best of all, the game will be available at retail in both regions. It has also been confirmed that those who pre-order Freedom Wars through various retailers will be given special costumes and starter equipment.
Gamescom has come and gone and while many people were able to attend the event and see some special gameplay footage, the majority of gamers have simply had to read about what was shown. Well for fans of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt they now have over a half hour long video of gameplay footage to check out.
CD Projekt RED has released a thirty seven minute long extended look at the game showing us a large amount of Witcher 3 gameplay. It is worth noting that there might be a few spoilers in the trailer but this is also a great opportunity to take a look at how Wild Hunt will look once it is released on February 24th.
The mockumentary style is a favourite amongst smaller film productions with a limited budget. Films like ‘This is Spinaltap‘ and ‘The Blair Witch Project‘ both showed that this style could be used effectively to evoke laughter and horror. Jemaine Clement’s and Taika Waititi’s What we do in the Shadows follows this esteemed style by taking Gothic Vampire horror and framing it within the setting of a share house in modern day New Zealand. There isn’t all that much more to say, it’s a film which parodies the traditional narrative tropes of vampires in popular fiction and by Dracula’s fangs it does do it well…
Story
The film starts off simply enough the audience being introduced to Viago (Taika Waititi) as he engages in his early evening routine of waking his housemates and organising a flat meeting. His housemates include the sexually deviant Vladislav (Jemaine Clement), the lazy Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), and the monstrous Petyr (Ben Fransham). We get a good sense of each of each character in just the first five minutes of the film with their introductions as Deacon is found sleeping upside down in a cupboard, Vlad is caught in the middle of a Vampiric orgy, and Peter’s initial reaction upon being woken is to glare at Viago as he feebly announces that he will be holding a flat meeting in 15 minutes. Viago himself is a polite, adorable, fussy dandy who complains to the other vampires about them leaving bloodstains on his (formerly) green couch when they feed on their victims. His suggestion to the other vampires that they put down newspaper or a towel when they feed perfectly encapsulates the irreverent humour of the film. Take the supernatural elements of the vampire mythos, put it into the context of a modern day sharehouse in suburban New Zealand and hilarity ensues.
The narrative largely sticks to following these characters as they go about their daily (un)lives. We see them at home and when they go out on the town. The routine of their lives is upset however, when Peter decides to create a new vampire out of Nick, one of their victims, rather than just killing him. The newly minted vampire and his best friend, Stu (Stuart Rutherford), then set about bringing his fellows into the contemporary world by introducing them to modern technology and getting them invites into trendy nightclubs (since vampires can’t enter a building without an invitation). However, an individual who has accustomed to using twitter may not exactly be the best at keeping their vampiric nature a secret. Complications arise and hilarity ensues.
The subversion of the traditional tropes of the Vampire Genre are where the movie gets most of its laughs as we see the supernatural characters wash bloody dishes, vacuum their house, and argue over chore wheels. The simple juxtaposition of awesome, supernatural Vampiric abilities being used to achieve mundane goals like cleaning a house is a stroke of comedic genius.
The actors themselves are great in their parts with all of them finding a their niche for their colourful character. Viago is adorable and charming which lets the audience get on his side even as he accidentally bites into the main artery of a victim (which in turn covers him in blood). Nick is played in a wonderful turn as someone who is coming to terms with the transition into immortality and in turn we see him take a certain glee at being able to fly alongside dismay at not being able to eat chips anymore. Of the main characters, Deacon I felt was the least interesting out of the main characters as the narrative gives him little to do besides conflict with the other leads but nonetheless he is played well by Brugh. Honourable mention should also go to Karen O’Leary and Mike Minogue for playing two very polite officers who come to investigate disturbances at the home of the vampires in one of the films best sequences.
Visuals & Audio
Each character is visually distinct in their style of dress with Vlad’s and Viago’s eccentricities being contrasted by Nik’s more casual, contemporary street clothes. A New Zealand vampire in a flannel shirt and jeans amuses me more than it probably should but after seeing the same old tropes in a lot of vampire fiction, it becomes refreshingly subversive to give the traditional suave creature of the night a kiwi accent.
What we do in the Shadows largely fulfils its titular promise with a large number of scenes that are largely shot in the dark of the night with limited lighting. This does mean that the colour palette in the film is somewhat subdued, but it also ensures that the make-up and fake prosthetics on the film’s colourful characters does not stand out too much.
The shots are also largely well composed with the lion’s share of the action occurring in the sharehouse of the vampires which is wonderfully decorated with equal parts dilapidation and antique furniture. The camera work itself works well as well and avoids the common mockumentary trope of shaky camera movements except in several chase and high energy sequences.
Just a heads up, this film is a black comedy and since it deals with the subject of vampires there is copious amounts of gore and guts at various points. It’s largely played for laughs, but those who are easily upset by such things should take care.
The audio itself was sparing in non-diegetic music but for a few instances where horror cliche violin chords were used to elevate tense moments before defusing them in a comedic manner. The music was a lively mix of contemporary pop and Eastern European party music (also known as ‘turbofolk’) which were certainly fitting tunes with some of the characters.
Overall
There is a lot of heart in this film and a lot of laughs to be had. The actors are all great in their performances and the scenes are well directed to allow them to showcase their talent. The humour is definitely more subdued than your average slapstick comedy fair, but if you’re willing to go along with the ridiculous juxtaposition of supernatural monsters engaging in household in activities; then you’ll certainly love this film. Overall, it’s a solid black comedy film which deserves to be enjoyed.
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While fans of 
