Month: July 2018

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One of Microsoft’s strengths when it comes to Xbox One is its commitment to backwards compatibility. New backwards compatible games are being added all the time. As with the latest bunch–GRID, Sensible World of Soccer, and Fable Heroes–these are routinely announced by Major Nelson on Twitter at 9 AM PT on Twitter, although there’s no particular schedule for how many are released (if any) on a given day.

Even in lieu of any specific schedule for new additions, the past few years have seen the list of backwards compatible games grow quite long, and it can be extremely difficult to find those that are worthwhile. Not only are there 400+ Xbox 360 games that can be played on Xbox One, but more than 30+ original Xbox titles are also supported.

Beyond the consistent rollout of games, Microsoft has publicly made it clear that backwards compatibility is a real priority for the company. “I see games as an art form,” Xbox boss Phil Spencer said last year. “Console games can get lost when hardware generations go away. It can become more challenging to play the games of our past … There’s something to be learned from experiencing what I played as a kid. There’s good business there for the content owners, but as players, it’s nice to be able to understand how our art form has progressed.”

Spencer subsequently made it clear that backwards compatibility is–despite reports suggesting it’s ignored–a feature that people do use. He wrote off data that said otherwise and pointed to an example of strong sales for an old Call of Duty game when it was added to the service: “I think the best signal we had so far is when Black Ops II landed and that month it hit NPD’s Top 10 that month for game sales. An Xbox 360 game that’s years old, that shows that people care.”

The feature has only gotten better with the release of the Xbox One X, as it offers much sharper visuals in these old games; some even have specific enhancements on top of a resolution increase. But whether you play on an X, an Xbox One S, or even the standard Xbox One, you’re treated to a feature that is currently unmatched by both PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

While not providing access to everything available on Xbox 360 and the original Xbox, the supported backwards compatible games from the two include classics ranging from expansive RPGs and thrilling adventures to XBLA gems and old arcade games refined for the big screen. Among these are all-time greats like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the Mass Effect Trilogy, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to name a few. But if you want a challenge that’s faster to jump into, the likes of Ikaruga or Super Meat Boy will do the trick.

To help you parse through the giant list of supported games, we’ve compiled a list of our personal favorites to highlight which backwards compatible titles are worth your time. If you want to pick something out yourself, you can peruse the entire list of Xbox One backwards compatible games. Which Xbox One backwards compatible games do you love the most? Are there any games would you like to be added in the future? Let us know in the comments below.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is bringing back an enormous roster of previous Smash characters along with a handful of new additions, and some are getting the Amiibo treatment. Ridley, Samus’ arch-nemesis, is getting one of his own, along with the new Inkling and Daisy. Apparently they’re bringing friends.

The Japanese Nintendo site (via Nintendo Everything) confirmed that the company is planning Amiibo for other returning fighters. Specifically, they’ve named Ice Climbers from the game of the same name and Pichu from Pokemon, though there may be others in the works as well.

That’s not to say that the entire roster will necessarily be represented. There are already 66 confirmed characters and likely at least another few on the way. Producing all new Amiibo for all of them would be a daunting task. That said, we may see some new sculpts and poses for some of the more popular characters.

Smash Bros. Ultimate will feature every character to ever appear in a Smash Bros. game, even if they were added later as DLC. That includes the classic roster of 12 mainstays like Mario and Link, more recent third-party additions like Bayonetta and Solid Snake, and even more obscure one-timers like Palutena from Kid Icarus.

NBA 2K19 will feature its first international star on the cover of the standard version. Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks, who earned the nickname “the Greek Freak” for his country of origin and his preternatural basketball skills, will be this year’s standard featured player. Pre-ordering the standard edition also gets his Sapphire MyTeam card, 10 more MyTeam packs, and 5,000 in virtual currency.

Antetokounmpo was the first player to finish in the top 20 for total points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. He also quickly earned honors like All-Rookie Second Team, NBA All-Defensive Second Team, All-NBA Second Team, and Most Improved Player. Similar to the 20th Anniversary cover featuring LeBron James, the cover sports phrases that are significant to Antetokounmpo’s life, like “Father’s Legacy,” “Athens,” and “Phenom.”

“I am honored to be the first international player featured on the cover of NBA 2K19,” said Antetokounmpo. “I love playing NBA 2K so this means a lot to me. I have worked hard to earn recognition in the NBA and being on the cover of NBA 2K19 is a dream come true.”

NBA 2K19 will be available September 11 for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. The 20th Anniversary Edition will launch a few days earlier, on September 7. You can download “The Prelude” starting on August 31 for PS4 and Xbox One, to get a jump on the MyCareer mode. Check out our pre-order guide for all the details.

Hitman is a game that offers immense freedom within its episodic sandbox levels; you’re presented with a target to take out, and for the most part, you’re free to use your environment to your advantage in any way you see fit to execute your mission. But what happens when we give Hitman the Potato Mode treatment? A mess, that’s what.

In the video above, Joey and Jean-Luc take us to France and Italy, which have never looked worse. In Paris, Agent 47 must infiltrate a fashion show to take out a target. As we sink the graphics, things get considerably weirder as faces disappear, backgrounds turn to blobs, and objects morph into textureless white shapes. Be sure to check out the horrifying buffet, too. It’s nothing compared to Agent 47’s trip to Potato Mode Italy, which ends with a particularly comical death by a spaghetti can.

If you haven’t already, you should really play Hitman in its intact form. In GameSpot’s 2016 review of Hitman, Brett Todd called it a “brilliant game,” praising its massive levels, huge replay value, scalable difficulty levels, and “nearly limitless possibilities for how to stage–and then pull off–assassinations.” While the game took a while to get going (thanks to it being divided into six episodes and slowly being released over time), Brett gave this “globe-trotting delight” a 8/10. The game was repackaged earlier this year in the Hitman: Definitive Edition, which includes all of the episodes at once.

Now, Hitman 2 is on its way. It will release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on November 13, and pre-orders are already live. The game is a continuation of Agent 47’s adventures from 2016’s Hitman, taking him to the rainforest and a Miami motorsport track during a big race, but developer IO Interactive says this game will not be episodic like the previous entry.

While it’s been two years since American fans watched the Season 1 finale of Robert Kirkman’s Outcast, it won’t be long before they’ll be treated to more. On July 20, Outcast will finally return to Cinemax, though these new episodes already aired in the UK last year.

When Season 1 of Outcast came to a close, Kyle (Patrick Fugit) had finally escaped the small town of Rome, West Virginia with his daughter Amber (Madeleine McGraw), set on finding a new home where people didn’t know about their supernatural connections. Meanwhile, Reverend Anderson (Philip Glenister) believed he was killing mysterious preacher Sidney (Brent Spiner) by setting fire to his trailer, only to learn it was another poor soul that suffered from the consequences.

Now, with the show returning, it’s time for the characters to own up to the decisions they made last season. “I think some of the most exciting stuff that I was looking at where we were getting into season two is seeing the fallout of the decisions made at the end of season one,” Fugit says in a group interview. “There’s some stuff that’s extreme decisions, good ones, bad ones, really bad ones. And then horrible accidents and stuff like that. So season two is trying to get back to level, trying to get everybody back to where they can fight the darkness and that sort of thing. So there’s a lot of consequence that has to be dealt with.”

The fallout from those decisions will bring two characters back to a very familiar setting, as Kyle and Amber both return to Rome in the Season 2 premiere. “At the end of the season, you start to realize, as Amber and Kyle try to bail out, that this possession phenomenon is much more broad spread than Kyle would’ve thought,” the actor teases. “And so obviously he goes back to Rome, because he’s like, ‘Well, leaving town isn’t going to work…'”

According to Fugit, that small town is paramount to executive producer Robert Kirkman’s idea of the series and the comic book it’s based on. “Robert’s always liked the idea that this takes place in Rome, West Virginia, that we’re not cutting to the Vatican having some expert exorcists flying to America to investigate this stuff,” he explains. “I think he likes the idea that it’s a large scale but a small town. And that sort of thing. And so all the evolution of the characters and everything happens in Rome.”

As for what the evolution of Rome will look like after Season 2, that remains unknown. While a third season of Outcast has not been ordered at this point, Kirkman does have in mind how he wants the story to end–unlike his TV adaptation of The Walking Dead. “It’s not gonna go on, as many seasons [as The Walking Dead]. But that’s by design; like this is a story that has a beginning, middle, and an end,” Kirkman says. “I knew the ending of the story before I started the first issue before I started the pilot, and we’ve been working towards that, every minute along the way and so it’s just a much more contained story. It’s not a sprawling zombie epic and crazy apocalyptic world.”

Outcast Season 2 premieres Friday, July 20, at 10 PM on Cinemax.

While Marvel is known for being highly secretive when it comes to its storylines, lately this has extended to its plans for future movies. The fourth Avengers film is less than a year from release and its title is still to be officially announced. However, a possible name has now emerged, via the movie’s cinematographer.

The title Avengers: End Game appeared on a list of credits on the website of Trent Opaloch. Opaloch has served as Director of Photography on several Marvel movies, including Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. The credit has since been changed to Avengers 4, but you can check out a screengrab of the original page over at Omega Underground.

The term “end game” actually appears in Infinity War, when Doctor Strange tells Iron Man, “we’re in the end game now.” However, as Comicbook.com points out, co-director Joe Russo had previously denied that the title will be a line of dialogue from Infinity War. Either way, Marvel has, unsurprisingly, not commented on the story.

This isn’t the first time a someone involved with Avengers 4 has seemingly leaked the title. Back in April 2017, Guardians of the Galaxy star Zoe Saldana called the movie Gauntlet during an interview, which is presumably a reference to the Infinity Gauntlet. And of course, the Russo brothers are known for trying misdirect fans from finding out too much about their movies, as shown by the various tricks they used in the Infinity War trailers.

In related news, we do at least know the title of the Spider-Man: Homecoming sequel, which is released shortly after Avengers 4. Last week, Tom Holland “accidentally” revealed that it would be named Spider-Man: Far From Home. It hits theaters on July 5, 2019.