Month: April 2018

In our God of War review, Peter Brown called it “one of the best-looking console games ever released, with every breathtaking environment and mythical character exhibiting impressive attention to detail and beautifying flourishes aplenty.” But if you want to see what it took to create that final, polished vision, The Art of God of War presents an inside look at the sketches, models, and paintings used as reference to create the game.

The recently released, 224-page book features a behind-the-scenes glimpse at God of War’s artistic creation and also includes commentary from Sony Santa Monica. You can see a few samples in the images below of what the book has to offer, including final art for the World Serpent, Jörmungandr, and rough sketches of the game’s enemies.

The Art of God of War is on sale now, and the book retails for $40/£33.50 (though at the time of this publishing, Amazon is selling the physical version of the book for $24 in the US).

Some links to supporting retailers are automatically made into affiliate links, and GameSpot may receive a small share of those sales.

On the April 24 episode of WWE Smackdown, Big Cass attacked Daniel Bryan from behind. The audience never saw the actual attack. We just saw the immediate aftermath, when Bryan was rolling around on the floor, and the post-aftermath, when Bryan appeared outside the locker room with ice bag taped to his left arm.

Three years ago, this entire sequence would have been handled differently. The actual beatdown would have been filmed, and we would have witnessed Bryan slammed into furniture, walls, and nearby objects–similar to what Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn did to Shane McMahon, or what AJ Styles did to Shane McMahon, or what Kane did to Shane McMahon. But instead, WWE left this beatdown to the imagination. And that’s a smart move, considering who would be on the receiving end of it.

Bryan, after a three-year layoff from active competition, is back as a full-time performer. That exile was not his decision; WWE was concerned (for reasons both personal and PR-minded) that Bryan would suffer long-term physical damage from his career, were he to continue. He had multiple concussions, many of which Bryan concealed from WWE’s doctors. He had lesions on his brain. He suffered from seizures. And despite being told, multiple times by the WWE brass, to slow down and not take so many risks in the ring, he ignored that advice and continued using suicide dives and his diving headbutt–the same diving headbutt that Chris Benoit used as a finisher, week in and week out, before killing his wife, son, and himself. It’s the same diving headbutt that permanently injured Dynamite Kid, who’s now confined to a wheelchair. Bryan, in other words, couldn’t be trusted to care of himself.

But now, against all likelihood, Bryan is back, with doctors’ approval. And it seems that this time, he’s taking people’s advice seriously, both in the way he delivers moves and in the way he takes them. There are no more suicide dives to the outside of the ring. There are no more flying headbutts off the top rope. And several of his signature moves have been slightly altered to make them safer.

Take, for example, his corner drop kicks. Pre-retirement Bryan would finish his delivery with a shoulder roll. Occasionally, he put his hand down to soften the impact. But more often, he simply took the impact directly on his upper body, especially if he over-corrected.

At Wrestlemania 34, post-retirement Bryan delivered this move by holding onto the ropes and deliberately planting his hand. The result was a flip; although the signature move is slower than what we remembered, it’s a lot safer. And it’s better to have Bryan going at 80% speed than not going at all.

There have been a couple of questionable booking decisions. On the March 20 episode of Smackdown before Wrestlemania, Bryan wasn’t protecting himself on the corner dropkicks very well and nearly landed on his neck. Shinsuke Nakamura delivered a Shinkasa to the back of Bryan’s head on the April 10 episode of Smackdown–mere months after Paige’s career ended from an errant, blind kick.

On the whole, however, Bryan is moving in the right direction, and the other WWE superstars can also learn from his example. There are a handful common sense adjustments to consider. Maybe suicide dives should be a PPV-only type move. Maybe WWE can bring back razor blades to cause bleeding, instead of deliberately elbowing people in the head. The debate between either wrestling the risk-taking indie style and the safer, softer WWE style is a false dilemma. There’s a compromise between those two extremes. Bryan is trying and thus far succeeding at finding it.

GameStop has a new weekly sale going on, and in a Game of Thrones-worthy plot twist, it doesn’t put games front and center. Instead, it offers a 20% discount on board and card games. But don’t worry, video games are also on sale this week, so read on for details on the best deals available this week at GameStop, ending May 1.

Let’s start with the video games, because Far Cry 5 is on sale for $50. That’s probably the best deal you’ll find on this open-world shooter outside of Best Buy’s Gamers Club Unlocked program. Also on sale are Ark: Survival Evolved for $40, Overwatch for $40, as well as NBA 2K18 and WWE 2K18, both on sale for $30.

If you’re in the market for a new or upcoming game, you can get 40% extra trade credit when you trade in games or hardware toward God of War, Nintendo Labo, State of Decay 2, or Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze for Switch.

Now it’s time for the tabletop games. You can get Dark Souls: The Card Game for $48 (just prepare to die), or the Pokemon Trading Card Game Ultra Prism Elite Trainer Box for $32. If you’re more of a sci-fi fan, the price of the Star Wars Legion Board Game has dropped to $72.

Lots of this week’s discounts are on traditional games with a special twist. For instance, you can buy a Zelda-themed set of Uno cards for $6, and a Fallout-themed chess set for $42. Don’t worry, Zelda fans, there’s a Zelda-themed chess set for $42, too. Monopoly comes in a few different flavors, including Dragon Ball Z for $22 and Mario Kart for $24. Heck, you can even get a Golden Girls-themed game of Clue for $32.

More adventurous tabletop gamers may be interested in the Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook and Monster Manual for $40 each, and/or an attractive Gemini polyhedral set of dice for $8.

Here are our picks for the best deals this week at GameStop, but you can see the full list of deals here.

Video game deals

Board and card games

Some links to supporting retailers are automatically made into affiliate links, and GameSpot may receive a small share of those sales.

George RR Martin has announced a new Game of Thrones book! Don’t plan your next A Song of Ice and Fire reading party just yet, though. The new book isn’t The Winds of Winter, the long-awaited next installment in his Game of Thrones series of novels. In fact, there’s some bad news for fans waiting on that.

Martin has revealed that The Winds of Winter won’t be coming in 2018, which is sure to be bad news for those that have been waiting for it since A Dance with Dragons was released in 2011. It’s not the first time the book has been delayed though, as Martin has said multiple times that he has missed his own deadlines with the work.

However, he will still have some Game of Thrones content in bookstores this year in the form of Fire and Blood, an “imaginary history” of the Targaryens. The book was previously revealed by the author, who said it was possible both it and The Winds of Winter could arrive in 2018. Clearly, that is no longer the case. In a press release (via Entertainment Weekly), Martin writes, “Fire and Blood is not a novel. This is not a traditional narrative and was never intended to be… let’s call this one ‘imaginary history’ instead. The essential point being the ‘history’ part. I love reading popular histories myself, and that’s what I was aiming for here.”

Still, he adds, “there are enough stories here for twenty novels.” Hopefully, he isn’t planning to write those before The Winds of Winter–which Martin claims he’s now turning his attention to–finally arrives for fans.

Fire and Blood is set 300 years before the A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels and will illuminate the history of House Targaryen and its place in Westeros. Perhaps it will serve as one of those spin-offs of Game of Thrones that HBO says are in development. Whatever the case, the final season of Game of Thrones will premiere in 2019. At this rate, it could very well be before The Winds of Winter hits bookstores.

Every year, Netflix releases a ton of original content, and it’s too much to keep track of. From Stranger Things to Mindhunter to everything Marvel puts out, finding a Netflix original series to binge during your free time can be a pain. While you’re spending way too much time searching through Netflix menus, you may be wondering to yourself, “What’s new that’s worth my time?”

Luckily, we’ve been watching a ton of what Netflix puts out and have a narrowed down the service’s best 10 shows of 2018. Yes, it’s early in the year, and that’s why we’ll continue to update the list as other amazing shows get released. Obviously, some of the shows on the list are ones you’re familiar with, but there are plenty of series that went under the radar as well. If you’re planning a weekend streaming binge, check out the shows on this list.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Netflix originals, check out our list of every original produced in 2018, with mini reviews of everything we’ve seen included.

With one day to go until the release of Avengers: Infinity War, the reviews are in. The movie is the culmination of 10 years of storytelling, with 22 movies released since the Marvel Cinematic Universe launched with Iron Man in 2008. So what do the critics think of this truly epic superhero team-up?

The reviews are extremely positive, if not quite as unanimous in their praise as the recent Black Panther. Infinity War currently has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 86%, compared to Black Panther‘s hugely impressive 96%. It also currently sits behind the like of Thor: Ragnarok (92%) and Spider-Man: Homecoming (92%).

Nevertheless, many critics loved the movie. The Avengers: Infinity War review from GameSpot’s own Mike Rougeau says the film “does justice both to the promise Marvel has been riding on for the last decade, and the source material that inspired it. Somehow, for all its fire and fury–the raw spectacle of it all–Infinity War is a surprisingly human story. Marvel has accomplished something truly incredible here, although at this point it’s no more than the absurdly high quality bar Marvel fans have come to expect.”

Most critics were unified on the impressive scale and spectacle of the movie. “The scale and grandeur of Infinity War surpasses anything else to date in the genre,” said Mark Hughes of Forbes. “It makes a loud, bold declaration of what is truly possible in superhero cinema, challenging filmmakers to reach higher and challenging audiences to keep demanding more.”

Den of Geek’s James Hunt agrees, writing, “Avengers: Infinity War is epic and operatic, with scope and ambition. It’ll leave you simultaneously breathless and emotionally devastated–and when you’ve pulled yourself together, you’ll want to do it all over again.”

The challenge that directors Joe and Anthony Russo faced by juggling so many characters was something that a number of writers focused on . Sara Stewart of the New York Post stated that prior knowledge of the MCU is essential. “You’ll need some context to properly appreciate the reunions, the awkward first-time meetings, the snark and the sheer incongruity of seeing wildly different characters interact,” she wrote. “[But] with a cast as talented and genial as this one, nearly every matchup is a winner.”

The Seattle Times’ Moira MacDonald also thought that it was sometimes hard to keep track of every character. “Watching the enjoyable but overstuffed superhero epic Avengers: Infinity War is kind of like attending a crowded cocktail party where you more-or-less know everyone, but sometime struggle to put names and backstories to the faces,” she said.

However, not everyone loved Infinity War. Matt Zoller Seitz of RobertEbert.com liked the movie, but thought something was missing. “This movie shouldn’t just engage and amuse and occasionally move us; it should shock and scar us,” he said. “Deep down, we all know that modern superhero movies are operating with even lower dramatic stakes than Star Wars or James Bond movies. This is, as many have pointed out, one half of a story broken in two, but it feels like less than half somehow.”

Avengers: Infinity War is in theaters on April 26.