Month: February 2018

You might have heard that Spongebob Squarepants, one of the most enduringly successful and popular animated shows ever, was coming to an end in March. This is not true.

A fake tweet from a Twitter profile claiming to be the official SpongeBob account (complete with a blue checkmark!) said the show was coming to an end on March 1, 2018. The tweet looked and sounded real and genuine enough to pass for something Nickelodeon might say. But it turned out to be a bunch of baloney; a good Photoshop job and nothing more.

We know it’s fake because in May 2017, Nickelodeon renewed SpongeBob for a 12th season, comprising 26 episodes, that will air in 2019. The show’s 11th season is going on right now. As with all shows, SpongeBob will eventually end, but it won’t be for at least another year.

Even if SpongeBob does end after the 12th season in 2019 (and Nickelodeon has given no indication that it will pull the plug then), a third SponbeBob movie is scheduled to hit theatres in 2020 so the franchise is set to continue regardless.

SpongeBob the TV show premiered in 1999, so it’s 20th anniversary is right around the corner. According to Entertainment Weekly, it remains the No. 1 highest rated show on TV among children aged 2-11. One of the newest extensions of the hit show was a SpongeBob musical that premiered on Broadway in 2016.

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Live-action versions of anime have been increasingly popular, or at least more widely talked about, in recent years. From Netflix’s Death Note to Ghost in the Shell with Scarlett Johansson, more and more fan-favorite anime are getting high-profile live-action adaptations.

The latest is Fullmetal Alchemist, which is now available to stream on Netflix. The Netflix library has both the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime as well as Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which is often considered the must-watch version. As such, we decided to compare characters, certain scenes, and that chimera between Brotherhood and the live-action film.

Click ahead to see an image from the anime followed by the comparison from the live-action version. We’ve kept spoilers to a minimum, so you’ll be fine as long as you’ve seen the first four or five episodes of Brotherhood.

For more on Fullmetal Alchemist, be sure to read our review. You can also check out our list of the best anime available on Netflix and our top 10 anime of 2017 if you’re looking for more to watch.

A Way Out, the co-op game from the creator of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, is almost here. The game recently crossed a major milestone, as Josef Fares announced on Twitter that it went “gold.” That means development on the title has finished.

“I can’t even describe my excitement,” Fares said on Twitter.

A Way Out launches on March 23 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. The game is only playable in co-op, but there will be a way to pretty much ensure you have someone to play with. At The Game Awards back in December, publisher EA announced a “friends pass free trial” for the game that lets you play the full title if your friend owns it.

There are a few caveats: You need a constant internet connection and an EA account to use this trial. Also, your friend must be on the same platform, and you’ll need PS Plus or Xbox Live Gold if you’re playing on console.

Set in the ’70s, A Way Out focuses on the story of two convicts who are on the run after a prison escape. You can see the latest gameplay trailer in the embed above.

Fares, who is also a film director, made headlines during The Game Awards when he went off-script during a live segment and proclaimed, “F**k the Oscars.” He also gave the middle finger to the camera in an awkward interview with host Geoff Keighley.

At the awards show, spoke passionately about A Way Out. “I live, breathe, s*** this game. It is everything for me,” he told GameSpot. “Even if the whole word told me this is s***, I still know in my heart it’s not, it’s great. I know when people play it, they will understand what I mean, what’s it doing.”

Since A Way Out is published by EA, it stands to reason that a trial for the game will be playable ahead of time for EA/Origin Access subscribers. Typically, subscribers can play a portion of upcoming EA games around 5 days before their public release, though it’s not immediately clear if this will be the case for A Way Out.

HAL Laboratory, the developer behind the Kirby and Boxboy series, has launched its first mobile game, Part Time UFO. Originally released in Japan last November under the moniker Hataraku UFO, the game is now available in international markets for iOS and Android devices and costs $4 to download.

Like many of HAL’s other titles, Part Time UFO puts players in control of an adorable hero, in this case an anthropomorphic flying saucer with an extendable claw. Having just arrived on Earth, the UFO decides to take on various odd jobs to assist the denizens of the planet, using its claw to catch fish, assemble a pyramid of cheerleaders, load up trucks with cargo, and more. You can take a look at some gameplay in the trailer below.

Completing jobs will reward players with money, which can be used to buy new costumes for your flying saucer. Part Time UFO features 27 levels and more than 20 costumes to acquire, with additional jobs to unlock by completing hidden achievements in each level. Players can also post the craziest pileups they’ve created on social media using an in-game sharing function.

HAL’s first Nintendo Switch game, Kirby Star Allies, is slated to release around the world on March 16. Like other mainline installments in the series, the game is a side-scrolling platformer in which players use Kirby’s copy ability to inhale enemies and take on their powers. This time around, players can also throw hearts at enemies to turn them into allies. You can watch us play through several early levels of Kirby Star Allies and face off against a weirdly buff King Dedede.