Month: May 2019

Every kid who loved Pokémon growing up (and every adult who loves it still) has dreamed about what life would be like if Pokémon were real. The Detective Pikachu movie’s greatest strength is in showing that possibility–albeit not always in the ways you might personally have imagined it.

Detective Pikachu transports viewers to Ryme City, a bustling NYC-like metropolis teeming with human and Pokémon life. The setting comes with an odd conceit: The city was founded by Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy), a successful CEO who envisioned a utopia in which Pokémon and people live in harmony, with no Poké Balls, battles, gym leaders, or any of the other series mainstays fans might hope to see.

Tim Goodman’s (Justice Smith) detective father Harry has been distant most of his life (yes, much like that of the protagonists of every Pokémon game). When he’s killed in a car crash, Tim heads to Ryme City to get his father’s affairs in order. There, he meets Harry’s former Pokémon partner, an amnesiac Pikachu in a detective cap with whom Tim can somehow, miraculously, talk (and who is voiced, hilariously, by Ryan Reynolds). Nobody else understands the Pikachu, and Tim can’t talk to any other Pokémon, the rest of which mostly grunt, squeak, or recite their own names like we’ve come to expect. Together, Tim and Pikachu unravel the mystery of what happened to Detective Harry Goodman.

As a longtime Pokémon fan, I think the very specific quirks central to Ryme City as a setting are an unnecessary wrinkle. The goal seems to be to have a setting where every shot can be filled with Pokémon. But they could have simply done all that without the need for an info-dump explaining how Ryme City is special; previous Pokémon games, anime, and movies are filled with examples of the little pocket monsters hanging around outside their Poké Balls in everyday life.

Read Next: How The Detective Pikachu Movie Makes Pokemon Work In Real Life

Regardless of how they choose to frame it, Ryme City is a place in which any Pokémon fan would be thrilled to live. Sleeping Snorlaxes block broad avenues filled with cars, while Machamps direct traffic with their quadruple arms. Aipoms hang from street signs, and Golurks stand sentinel outside the doors of police stations, where officers and detectives come and go with their sidekick Growlithes and Snubbuls. Through the course of Tim and Pikachu’s investigation, they encounter dozens of different types of Pokémon: Greninjas attack them with aquatic throwing stars, Charizards bear down on them breathing fire, Ludicolos serve them drinks, Mr. Mimes need interrogating (probably the movie’s best scene)–and these Pokémon all look and act true to the source material, cute or disgusting or terrifying as needed. Seeing these Pokémon in this live-action setting probably shouldn’t work, but it somehow does.

Along the way, Tim and Pikachu also meet Lucy Stevens (Kathryn Newton), a young reporter (read: unpaid blogging intern) with a hapless Psyduck at her side. If you never watched the original Pokémon anime, you might be unaware that this unassuming yellow duckling is a bomb waiting to go off–if Psyduck gets too stressed out, he might unleash a wave of destructive psychic energy, as Reynolds-voiced Pikachu constantly reminds his friends. It’s a good example of the ways Detective Pikachu pulls in elements from throughout Pokémon history, while also adding to the Pokémon mythology.

The mystery unfolds in unexpected directions. It takes a meandering route to get to its climax, including one particularly expensive-looking, CG-heavy, completely pointless detour that would have fit better in a disaster movie than one about a reluctant detective and his cute, furry sidekick trying to find his father. The movie’s pacing sometimes feels a little off, and every time it goes down a narrative cul-de-sac like that, you’ll wish that it instead was spending time somewhere else, exploring another corner of Ryme City and introducing an even wider variety of Pokémon.

Smith makes a sympathetic and believable reluctant hero, as Goodman’s distance from his father plays into how the story takes shape. Reynolds was a great choice for Pikachu, although you may at times struggle to hear a yellow mouse and not a certain red-spandex-clad superhero when he talks. You’re The Worst’s Chris Geere is extremely good at playing a douchebag CEO’s sociopathic son, while Ken Watanabe is somewhat wasted as a police lieutenant we only meet a couple of times. And there are still more characters whose true identities and purposes will surprise you.

I give this movie a lot of credit for expanding beyond the original 151 Pokémon to include monsters from throughout the game generations. With the recent introduction of Meltan and Melmetal in Pokémon Go, there are 809 Pokémon total, and that’s not even including the new ones revealed for the upcoming Pokémon Sword and Shield. This movie relies on a general knowledge of Pokémon–even if it’s just nostalgia for the original Red, Blue, and Yellow games–to be enjoyed, and it could have easily played it safe by sticking to the originals. Ryme City feels much more expansive as a result of this great choice.

Detective Pikachu even comes up with new capabilities for some of the most well-known and beloved Pokémon–although the one most crucial to the plot is likely to leave you scratching your head, as it’s hard to see exactly how it works. If you’ve played the Detective Pikachu game, you may know what I’m referring to, as the movie does take several plot elements from the 2018 3DS title.

Detective Pikachu should prove enjoyable for any and all Pokémon fans, young or old. It presents fun answers to the fantasy of what life would be like if Pokémon were real. It introduces new wrinkles to the world of Pokémon, although not all of them completely work. Still, as the first official live-action trip to the world of Pokémon, Detective Pikachu presents characters I want to see again and a setting I’d like to return to.

The Good	The Bad
Live-action Pokémon look great and act true	Pacing sometimes feels off, with unfortunate story detours
Likable characters, from protagonists to villains	Adds some new wrinkles to Pokémon that don’t completely work
Expands beyond the original 151 Pokémon
An inventive portrayal of a city where humans and Pokémon coexist
Some unexpected twists in the story

Disney’s next live-action revival movie, Aladdin, opens this Memorial Day weekend in the United States, and it’s expected to make a lot of money over its opening weekend. Early box office tracking numbers suggest the film will make $80 million or more over the long weekend.

The estimates, which were obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, further state that Aladdin’s opening-weekend US/Canada haul could actually be closer to $100 million as Disney ramps up its marketing efforts.

For comparison, Disney’s latest revival film, Dumbo, opened to a disappointing $45.9 million in the US and Canada back in March. Aladdin is of course a bigger, more widely known name than Dumbo, so it is expected to do better. Disney’s next new live-action remake, The Lion King, opens in July and surely it is eyeing a bigger opening-weekend box office haul.

Aladdin, which is based on Disney’s 1992 animated classic, stars Mena Massoud as Aladdin. He discovers a magical lamp, which conjures a singing, dancing, wise-cracking genie (Will Smith). The genie grants him three wishes, with which he sets about wooing Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott) and avoiding the evil Jafar (Marwan Kenzari). Sherlock Holmes director Guy Ritchie is directing the new Aladdin.

Aladdin opens in the US on May 24. It doesn’t have a huge amount of competition, but also out that day is Brightburn, the superhero horror movie produced by James Gunn.

During the gameplay reveal stream on May 1, Gearbox provided the first good look at Borderlands 3. The event revealed how Borderlands 3 is mechanically different from its predecessors, as well as how loot, space travel, and co-op will work. Afterwards, Jean-Luc Seipke and Jordan Ramee played through the sixth chapter of Borderlands 3’s story. In the video above, we discuss our impressions of Borderlands 3’s new mechanics and gameplay features.

One of the changes both noticed almost immediately is how much Borderlands 3 is a modern shooter when compared to its predecessors. Its Titanfall 2 inspirations really come through in the combat. Both sliding and vaulting have been added to Borderlands 3, allowing you to move around environments faster. Combat happens more quickly as a result, and we appreciate how much more exciting battles are now.

Chapter 6 takes place on one of Borderlands 3’s new planets. Called Promethea, the landscape is a battleground of megacorporations waging war on city streets. The new environment is distinct from the starting planet of Pandora, offering more instances of verticality both in exploration and in firefights. Exploring is a lot easier to do, with the new 3D map providing a more precise means of identifying your Vault Hunter‘s location. The new map also highlights where you’ve been, a change that we both agree makes environments easier to explore.

We aren’t completely behind every change made in Borderlands 3, though. Gearbox’s upcoming game introduces new vehicles, all of which handle differently from cars and trucks in previous Borderlands games. However, Borderlands 3’s vehicles handle poorly and some of the new ones, like Promethea’s one-wheeled motorcycle, have ineffective weaponry. It’s usually easier to just jump out and shoot enemies with a gun on foot.

Speaking of firearms, Borderlands 3 features some of the coolest loot we’ve seen in any Borderlands game. A large part of this comes from the new alternate fire modes that come equipped to almost every weapon. We weighed the value of loot in previous Borderlands games solely on stats, but the new alternate fire modes add some interesting strategic potential to Borderlands 3 beyond what’s just the strongest.

Borderlands 3 is scheduled to release on September 13 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. The PC release of the game will be a limited-time Epic Games Store exclusive. Cross-platform play could maybe happen, according to 2K.

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Cloud gaming is poised to potentially be the Next Big Thing for gaming, and one of the companies that stands to benefit the most is Activision Blizzard, according to CEO Robert Kotick. In an earnings call, Kotick said new platforms like Google Stadia are good for gaming to help grow the market, but these platforms can’t succeed without content.

Activision Blizzard owns and controls decades worth of content, and that positions the company uniquely, Kotick said. “When you own 30 years of IP like we do, there’s probably never been a better time to be in the games business,” Kotick said. “When these big, well-funded companies are building out platforms where they have limited amounts of content to actually serve up to customers, I’d say there’s a great opportunity for a company like ours.”

“For starters, they will all try to broaden the audience for gaming and make big investments and commitments to doing so and that’s just helpful for growing the market,” Kotick added. “But in each case, none of these platforms can succeed without great content. Truthfully, they really don’t know how to make it. So when you think about what will be required, it will be support from us [and other game publishers] to allow them to actually build an audience. We have a better audience than most to capitalise on all these new platforms.”

Google Stadia‘s announcement in March was light on content partners, leading some to shrug the service off. Stadia boss Phil Harrison teased that more details will be announced in June, so it could be soon that we learn more about who Google is partnering with. Stadia has also created an internal game development team, Stadia Games led by industry veteran Jade Raymond, that will create games for Stadia.

Microsoft is working on its own game-streaming service, xCloud, and it’s not a stretch to imagine that the company will tap into its long list of owned studios to make new content for the platform. Sony, too, has its PlayStation Now streaming service that will likely continue to leverage first-party studios in an addition to third-parties to build out its content catalog as Xbox is expected to do.

Outside of those companies that are directly tied to game development, Amazon, Verizon, and Wal-Mart are among the non-gaming companies that are confirmed or rumoured to be building cloud gaming platforms. Those companies will need game content to build out their services.

Going back to Kotick, he said distribution models are always evolving and changing for games, and he expects this to continue with cloud gaming. In the next 5-10 years, Kotick said there will be “more ways and places to engage players [and] that serves us better than almost any other company.” Kotick added that, beyond partnering with the new cloud gaming services, Activision has a unique opportunity to connect directly with its massive network of 345 million monthly active players across its catalog of games.

Kotick is not the first gaming executive to discuss the issue of cloud gaming companies and a potential struggle to get compelling content. Xbox boss Mike Nichols said about Stadia, “They don’t have the content.”

What do you think about cloud gaming? Let us know in the comments below! You can also read GameSpot’s cloud gaming primer to find out everything you need to know.

[Update 4 PM ET: This deal has now sold out.]

First-party Nintendo Switch games are notorious for not budging in price, while other games see price drops are early as release day (we’re looking at you, Mortal Kombat 11). However, we’ve recently seen quite a few Nintendo Switch games on sale at places like Amazon, where you can currently find many titles discounted by $10, $15, or even more. Now, Best Buy is getting in on the deals action with a fantastic offer for anyone looking to pick up Nintendo’s latest console. For a limited time, the retailer is giving away a free Switch game of your choice when you buy a Nintendo Switch console. Previous deals have bundled the console with a handful of game options for 50% off, so this offer is one of the best Switch bundle options we’ve seen to date.

Another bonus: This offer extends to over 200 Switch games (222, to be exact), and that number includes a mix of acclaimed first-party titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, new releases like Mortal Kombat 11, and indie gems like Undertale. The console options include the standard gray Joy-Con or neon red-and-blue Joy-Con versions ($300), as well as the Pikachu & Eevee special edition that comes with Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu and a Poke Ball Plus ($400).

Just choose your console and an eligible game, add them both to your cart, and you’ll see the discount applied at checkout. Visit the official offer page to get started:

BUY A NINTENDO SWITCH, GET A FREE GAME AT BEST BUY »

Plus, check out some of the available titles below, and see the full list of eligible games at Best Buy.

• Bayonetta 2
• Civilization VI
• Dark Souls Remastered
• Darksiders: Warmastered Edition
• Diablo III: Eternal Collection
• Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
• Fifa 19
• Final Fantasy X/X2 HD Remaster
• Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age
• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
• Mario Tennis Aces
• Minecraft
• Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate
• Mortal Kombat 11
• New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
• Octopath Traveler
• Pokemon: Let’s Go Eevee
• Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu
• Splatoon 2
• Super Mario Odyssey
• Super Mario Party
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• The World Ends with You: Final Remix
• Undertale
• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has undergone several delays, but now it’s just around the corner. A new trailer drops a release date for the Castlevania homage, but also makes a point of showing just how far it’s come during its long development cycle.

The trailer (below) gives a release date of June 18 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and one week later, June 25, for Nintendo Switch. But most of the time is spent showing internet naysayers mocking the early graphics, and juxtaposing that old “poop” look with the game as it will release in a little more than a month. Yes, the trailer actually does call the old graphics “poop.”

It doesn’t shed much light on the reason for the Switch version following a week after the others. This follows an announcement, from a Nintendo Direct in fact, that all of the versions will be coming this summer.

The Kickstarter for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night promised a game in the style of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the most famous work from Bloodstained creator Koji Igarashi. That crowdfunding concluded almost four years ago, so it’s spent quite a bit of time in development–so long, in fact, that the target platforms have changed over time. It was originally targeting PlayStation Vita and Wii U, and development started before the Nintendo Switch was even announced, so those plans have shuffled to the new platform. The studio also recently canceled the Mac and Linux versions.

Our recent hands-on showed a game that’s right up the alley of classic Metroidvania-style adventures, with some minor trade-offs from taking it 3D. A notably clever 8-bit style prequel is already available on all platforms as well.

It’s been a busy week for news out of the Epic Games Store, as it was recently announced that Rocket League developer Psyonix will be acquired by Epic and the vehicular soccer game will be coming to the service later this year. In addition, Epic continues to challenge Steam with its biweekly free game offerings, with past freebies including acclaimed titles like The Witness, Oxenfree, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Subnautica.

Now, the latest free PC game from Epic is available: World of Goo replaces Transistor as the newest giveaway. From now until May 16, you can download the game, and it’ll be yours to keep. If you don’t already have an Epic account, all you have to do is create one (which is free). It’s worth the 30 seconds it’ll take you to sign up, as Epic has already established a track record of offering some great games at no cost.

Get World of Goo for free »

Create a free Epic Store account »

World of Goo is an award-winning, physics-based puzzle game that involves building bridges, towers, and other structures to navigate various levels. Your building tools are balls of goo, and there are several different types of goo with their own unique abilities. The game also includes a multiplayer sandbox area where players around the world can compete to build the tallest towers of goo and complete other challenges. World of Goo initially launched on PC back in 2008 but just received its first update in 10 years (likely to prepare for this Epic giveaway). The update includes a full remaster of the game, including improved frame rate, HD resolution, and 16:9 aspect ratio. So there’s truly no better time to snag this classic (and very silly) game.

If World of Goo isn’t your thing, hang tight, because another freebie will drop later this month. Stories Untold, which includes a genre-mixing anthology of mysterious and innovative story-driven games, will be Epic’s next PC giveaway. Look for it in the Epic Store starting May 16.