Month: June 2019

What Pokemon Go Should Borrow From Harry Potter: Wizards Unite

Niantic’s new Harry Potter game, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, has officially arrived. Given its pedigree, the title is unsurprisingly very similar to Pokemon Go. Wizards Unite is clearly built around the same style of augmented-reality gameplay (albeit with a Harry Potter twist), and many of the game’s elements even have direct analogs in Pokemon Go: Fortresses are Harry Potter’s equivalent of Gyms, for instance, while Portkeys serve the same function as Eggs, among many other examples.

Despite their similarities, however, Wizards Unite also differs from Pokemon Go in a few notable ways. Not only has the game launched with more content and features than Pokemon Go had at its outset (with the glaring exception of Adventure Sync), Niantic has also incorporated a number of RPG-like mechanics that Go lacks, chief among them the Professions system. Once you reach a certain level in the game, you’re able to select from one of three different classes for your character, each of which boasts its own distinct attributes and comes with a skill tree that can be leveled up to unlock additional skills and perks.

Elements like these help make Wizards Unite a deeper experience than Pokemon Go, and the latter would benefit from pilfering some ideas from its sister title. Of course, no proper Pokemon game has allowed players to pick a class before, so Wizards Unite’s Professions system may not exactly be in keeping with the spirit of the series, but something similar could be implemented. Players have been pit against a wide variety of specialized Pokemon trainer in the mainline games, from Bug Catchers to Bird Keepers to Hikers, and these classes could serve as the basis for a Pokemon Go-style Professions system.

Other elements from Wizards Unite that Pokemon Go would benefit incorporating are daily quests and login bonuses. Pokemon Go does already have its own quest system of sorts in the form of Field Research tasks, but to acquire these missions, you must travel to a Poke Stop, and you can only have a certain number of active tasks at a time, so you can’t stockpile them. Wizards Unite, meanwhile, offers players a list of daily challenges to complete, as well as a little bonus each day they log in. A combination of the two methods would certainly add more incentive to fire up Pokemon Go every day.

Wizards Unite also features a potion-brewing system. As you play, you’ll encounter materials on the overworld that can be used to brew different types of potions. Potion brewing would feel out of place in a Pokemon game, but the series has allowed you to craft certain items in the past; in Pokemon Gold and Silver, for instance, you could collect different kinds of Apricorns and forge them into specialized Poke Balls, such as the Lure Ball, which makes it easier to catch Water Pokemon. A similar kind of crafting system would work very well in Pokemon Go.

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is available for free on iOS and Android devices. If you’re just getting started in the game, be sure to check out our full Wizards Unite coverage. We’ve put together guides detailing how to get more Spell Energy, as well as breakdowns of how Wizarding Challenges work and how to pick the best Professions for you.

Explaining the Villain of Jessica Jones Season 3

Warning: this article contains spoilers for Jessica Jones Season 3!

Jessica Jones has a bad habit of attracting the attention of the most sadistic killers in the Marvel Universe. That’s been true in both the comics and the MCU. Jessica Jones Season 3 pits Jessica against Gregory Salinger, a highly intelligent psychopath whom comic readers may know as Foolkiller.

Who is Gregory Salinger, and how did this comic book vigilante inspire the final season of Jessica Jones? Read on to find out.

Who Is Foolkiller?

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FF7 Remake: Tifa Isn’t Getting a Smaller Chest, Just a Proper Bra

This week, fans and media outlets reacted to a translated Tetsuya Nomura interview from Famitsu about Final Fantasy VII’s Tifa with very conflicting interpretations. In the interview, Nomura is said to have been told by Square Enix’s ethics department to “restrict” or “constrict” Tifa’s chest. Twinfinite has the full interview, and has an editor’s note reading “the context and wording indicted clearly that this refers to the tightness and design of Tifa’s clothing, not to her chest size.” I’ll take an educational approach as to why this is not only appropriate when interpreted correctly, but realistic, further down in this article.

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Keanu Reeves Talks About What’s Cool in Cyberpunk 2077

Keanu Reeves shook the house at Microsoft’s E3 2019 showcase, after the latest trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 revealed he would be playing Johnny Silverhands, a rebellious rock star and the player character’s companion during at least some of the game. IGN sat down with Reeves, who also recently starred in John Wick 3, to talk about why he wanted to be a part of CD Projekt Red’s next big role-playing game.

“Part of the attraction for me was that not only was it my face, but they were asking me to perform a role, and a cool one,” Reeves said. “I really love the format of the game and some of the questions it asks, what’s revealed, and what it demands of the player. There’s some interesting choices that have to get made.”

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Doom Eternal Won’t Have ‘Traditional’ Deathmatch Multiplayer

Doom Eternal won’t have traditional (deathmatch) multiplayer. Its offerings are strictly the 2 v 1 Battlemode announced at Bethesda’s E3 conference; but by all accounts, this is a very good thing.

“No traditional multiplayer mode. Battlemode is our primary multiplayer mode,” says Executive Producer Marty Stratton. “The cool thing about it is it’s ripped straight from Doom; it’s the combat players want and love, you’re familiar with the gameplay, playing as a Slayer.”

Although Doom 2016’s single player mode was fantastic, the team learned a lot from its not-particular-well-received multiplayer mode.

“When you look back to Doom 2016”, says Stratton, “we kind of did something more traditional. Skill vs skill twitch vs twitch. It didn’t have any of the components of Doom that people loved from the campaign. It didn’t have the slayer or demons in a meaningful way. It just kind of fell flat so we really flipped the script on it and decided we need to develop this internally, we need to pull it from what Doom is all about, demons vs slayer.”

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Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Wand Guide: How To Make Your Favorite Characters’ Wands

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, Niantic’s follow-up to Pokemon Go, is now available on iOS and Android. It’s a dense game; Pokemon Go players will notice a number of parallels to Go’s mechanics, for example. One of the most iconic things about the Harry Potter universe is also the trickiest: wands. In Wizards Unite, you customize your own wand (in the books, the wand “chooses the wizard”). You can choose from wood types, pick a core, change the wand’s flexibility, and then select the length. Having so many choices can be intimidating!

If you’ve read the Harry Potter books or watched the movies, you might have a passing understanding of the series’ wand lore. In short, different materials are suited for different types of magic, like charms or defense (among other things), and witches and wizards have a kind of bond with their wands. While your wand in Wizards Unite doesn’t affect anything in the game, it can still be fun to fully immerse yourself in the role of a witch or wizard. In that spirit, we’ve gathered all the details we can about famous Harry Potter characters’ wands so you can match yours to your favorite witch or wizard.

For the purposes of this feature, we’ve referenced Pottermore for each character’s wand materials and length. Some characters have complete wand information, but for those who don’t, usually the flexibility is missing–so have fun with that one and make it your own! There are also some popular characters whose wands we know nothing about, so we’ve included some of them here for your reference.

Harry Potter: holly wood, phoenix feather core, “reasonably supple” flexibility, 11 inches

Ron Weasley’s first wand: ash wood, unicorn hair core, 12 inches

Ron Weasley’s second wand: willow wood, unicorn hair core, 14 inches

Hermione Granger: vine wood, dragon heartstring core, 10 and 3/4 inches

Rubeus Hagrid: oak wood, 16 inches (broken)

Albus Dumbledore/The Elder Wand: elder wood, Thestral tail hair core [not available in Wizards Unite], 15 inches

Minerva McGonagall: fir wood, dragon heartstring core, “rigid” or “solid” flexibility, nine and a half inches

Luna Lovegood: no data

Neville Longbottom: cherry wood, unicorn hair core, 13 inches

Ginny Weasley: no data

Draco Malfoy: hawthorn wood, unicorn hair core, 10 inches

Voldemort: yew wood, phoenix feather core, 13 and a half inches

Severus Snape: no data

Cedric Diggory: ash wood, unicorn hair core, 12 and 1/4 inches

Cho Chang: no data

Viktor Krum: hornbeam wood, dragon heartstring, “rigid” flexibility, 10 and 1/4 inches

Sirius Black: no data

Remus Lupin: cypress wood, unicorn hair core, “pliant” flexibility, 10 and 1/4 inches

Nymphadora Tonks: no data

Bellatrix Lestrange: walnut wood, dragon heartstring core, 12 and 3/4 inches

Dolores Umbridge: birch wood, dragon heartstring core, 8 inches

Newt Scamander: no data

Lily Potter: willow wood, 10 and 1/4 inches

James Potter: mahogany wood, 11 inches

Garrick Ollivander: Hornbeam wood, dragon heartstring core, “unyielding” or “quite bendy” flexibility, 12 and 3/4 inches

For more on Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, you can find all the important details in our roundup article. We have a guide to battles, fortresses, and Wizarding Challenges, a feature on how to get more Spell Energy, and an explainer on Professions–be sure to check them out!

Toy Story 4 Ending Explained

This ending explained contains full spoilers for Toy Story 4. 

Toy Story 3 seemed like a perfect ending for Woody, Buzz, and the rest of the gang. Andy went off to college, but he left his beloved toys in the gentle hands of pre-schooler Bonnie, implying that his toys had many years of playtime left ahead of them.

Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley admitted that when it came to approaching a fourth installment, “We had the same questions everybody else has right now: ‘I thought you guys were done.’ But we had those questions five years ago when we started… We love the end of Toy Story 3, and feel like that’s the completion of Woody and Andy’s story. But there was more Woody story to tell.”

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Borderlands 3 Isn’t Trying to Be Anything It’s Not

Borderlands may have been one of the original loot shooters, but it’s a more crowded market now. While series like Destiny and The Division have cropped up and injected the genre with innovative new ideas, Borderlands isn’t jumping on any other bandwagon. Developer Gearbox isn’t trying to ape or even incorporate most of those new ideas into the upcoming game. What I played and learned of Borderlands 3 wouldn’t be mistaken for a service-game. It looks and feels like the Borderlands you already know – but better.

In a new demo at E3 2019, I played as Moze, the gunner character who specializes in all things packing firepower, including her mech suit, Iron Bear. If you play with friends, they can even hop on the back of your mech and use a turret as you take them for a ride.

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