Month: May 2020

Batman: The Dark Knight Trilogy Will Return To Cinemas In Hong Kong As They Reopen

The Dark Knight trilogy–consisting of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises, all directed by Christopher Nolan–are returning to cinema screens in Hong Kong. According to The Hollywood Reporter, all three films are playing in advance of Nolan’s next film, Tenet, debuting on July 17.

The first film in the trilogy, Batman Begins, will return to cinemas on June 4. The Dark Knight will be available in cinemas on June 11, and then The Dark Knight Rises will appear from June 18. The movies will be available on IMAX screens as well, which makes sense as the last two films in the trilogy were partially filmed with IMAX cameras.

The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises both earned over $1 billion at the global box office, and these re-releases will increase those totals further.

In March, cinemas began to open again in China; however, just a few days later, they closed again. When cinemas reopen in other regions, it might be that some screens are showing already released films–the Russo brothers, for instance, would like to see their films Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame return to cinemas.

Tenet will arrive a month later, and we’re still not entirely sure what it’s about. Not even one of its stars, Robert Pattinson, can tell us much. Meanwhile, a new Batman film (simply titled The Batman) is in the works, starring the aforementioned Robert Pattinson.

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$100,000 Up For Grabs In Fortnite Tournament Hosted By Australian Football League

The AFL is teaming up with Epic to host a charity Duos tournament in Fortnite. The charity event will be called the “AFL Stream King featuring Fortnite” and will run on Thursday, May 21 2AM PT and Friday, May 22 7PM AEST on the AFL Gamers Network YouTube channel.

The event will consist of 40 professional AFL players and 40 of Australia’s best Fortnite players will team up to battle it out for the ultimate crown and $50,000 AUD for the charity of the winner’s choice. Second place will earn $30,000 AUD for their chosen charity, with third earning $15,000 AUD, and fourth getting $5,000 AUD for their charities. The winners will also be crowned as the AFL Stream King(s).

“We are proud to partner with global giant Epic Games to put on this charity tournament, harnessing the strengths of both organisations, and providing what should be an amazing product for footy fans and gamers alike. Bringing together some of the biggest names in footy with the biggest names in Fortnite – we can’t wait to see who takes out the title,” said Ben Sellenger, AFL Head of Commercial Growth.

The AFL has become more involved in the gaming industry over the past few years, with AFL teams owning and sponsoring their own esports teams respectively. Back in 2017, the AFL became interested in esports after the Adelaide Crows purchased a local League of Legends team. Following that decision, the league began purchasing esports teams across the country, although many teams have ceased their partnerships over the past three years. Since then, the AFL has streamed over 6,500 hours of content that has been viewed by over 75,000 fans.

“The AFL has been involved in gaming for a number of years in various ways, and the AFL Gamers Network now allows us to deliver a product which gives our players who game a platform to unite under and grow their own fan base,” said Sellenger.

Currently, Fortnite is remaining a strong contender as one of the most lucrative multiplayer games, with the game generating $1 billion from microtransactions on mobile alone. Epic is pushing for the franchise to continue smashing records on the next generation of consoles, with both the PS5 and Xbox Series X editions of Fortnite will support cross-progression and cross-play on release.

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New Study Reveals Which Movie Actor Swears The Most

A new study of popular movies has revealed which films, actors, and characters from cinema are the most foul-mouthed.

The movie with the most swears in it is The Wolf of Wall Street, which has 715 expletives, followed by Uncut Gems with 646 cuss words. The Scorsese mobster movie Casino follows with 606 instances of strong language.

Leading the way by star is actor Jonah Hill, who has spoken the highest number of cuss words in the film industry, reaching 376 total swear words for an average of 22.9 instances of potty language per 1,000 words spoken. As you may recall, Hill swore a great many times in Superbad, but he credits his starring role in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street in helping him set the record.

“So many people to thank,” Hill said on Instagram. “Martin Scorsese, thanks for pushing me over the edge. Humbled.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (361), Samuel L. Jackson (301), Adam Sandler (295), and Al Pacino (255) round out the top five actors who swear the most in movies. There are no surprises there.

In terms of the movie character who swears the most, that record belongs to DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street. The character swore an incredible 332 times in that movie. Sandler’s Uncut Gems character, Howard, followed with 295 cuss words.

This study was conducted by Buzz Bingo. Its team looked at 3,565 movie scripts, collected instances of swearing, and ranked them by severity as determined in part by Ofcom’s list of “potentially offensive language and gestures on TV and radio.”

The survey is missing some key data, it seems. If DiCaprio spoke 332 swears as Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street, that would leave only 29 additional cuss words to reach his lifetime tally of 361 as calculated by Buzz Bingo. DiCaprio swore numerous times in The Departed and Django Unchanged, but those films–and many–do not appear to have been tracked.

Separately, it is understood that The Wolf of Wall Street set a record for most f-bombs in a popular movie, featuring 506 instances of the word. Scorsese’s The Departed includes 237 instances of the word “f**k,” which is believed to be the highest total ever for Best Picture-winning movie.

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The Half-Life: Alyx Workshop Tools Are Now Available

Valve Software has made the tools for editing Half-Life: Alyx’s levels open to the community. In a new blog post on the official site, the developers have announced the release of the tools as part of the Steam Workshop support, an initiative by Valve to support the modding community.

The tools will allow for the creation of new levels, models, textures, and animations for the Half-Life VR game, along with letting creators upload their mods to the Steam Workshop for anyone to try.

Valve intends to continue updating and adding to the tool kit while still in beta. The first release includes the current editions of the following software:

  • Hammer, the latest version of the Source 2 level editor.
  • Material Editor, the tool for creating and tuning materials in Source 2.
  • ModelDoc, a tool for viewing, editing, and compiling models with animation, collision, and other gameplay attributes.
  • AnimGraph, our animation tool used to create complicated animation setups with blends and transitions.
  • Particle Editor, for making new particle effects.
  • Subrect Editor, for creating smart texture sheets known as “hotspots.”
  • Source Filmmaker, the Source 2 cinematic renderer and animation tool.

In addition to these VR tools, the developers have included several sample maps to demonstrate how they authored enemy encounters in the game. These maps can be used as a template for understanding how the developers used features such as tile meshes, static/dynamic cables, and texture hotspotting to create the game’s levels.

If this is your first time messing around with these kinds of tools, the developers have also begun work on a Half-Life: Alyx Workshop Tools documentation, a guide for how to implement and best make use of the tools and software currently in the beta. Over time more documents will be added, especially as new software and tools are made available.

In GameSpot’s Half-Life: Alyx review, Michael found it to have “elevated many of the aspects we’ve come to love about Half-Life games… Even when familiarity starts to settle in, its gameplay systems still shine as a cohesive whole. And as it concludes, Half-Life: Alyx hits you with something unforgettable, transcending VR tropes for one of gaming’s greatest moments.”

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Nintendo Switch Eshop Releases This Week: What The Golf, Cannibal Cuisine, And Everything Else

Seems like it’s golf week on the Nintendo Eshop, with the chaotic multiplayer indie title Golf With Your Friends and the hilarious What The Golf making their Switch debuts. There’s also the remastered edition of realMyst: Masterpiece Edition releasing in celebration of the game’s 20th anniversary.

There’s only two weeks to go until Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition consumes our every waking moment, so until then scoop up some of these indie titles to tide you over. Sink some hole-in-ones with friends in Golf With Your Friends, consume some questionable content in the new co-op cooking game Cannibal Cuisine, date some hot monsters in Monster Prom: XXL, and blast through waves of enemies in the non-stop arcade space shooter Fluxteria.

What The Golf is having a launch sale too, with the pre-purchase price for the game at 25% off.

May 19

  • The Wonderful 101: Remastered
  • Golf With Your Friends

May 20

  • Cannibal Cuisine

May 21

  • Pushy And Pully In Blockland
  • What The Golf?
  • Luxar
  • realMyst: Masterpiece Edition
  • Monster Prom: XXL
  • Arrest of a stone Budda
  • Steel Rain
  • Lost Artifacts: Time Machine
  • The Persistence
  • Red Wings: Aces of the Sky
  • Skelly Selest & Straimium Immortaly Double Pack
  • Aqua Lungers
  • Fluxteria

May 22

  • Concept Destruction
  • Animal Up!
  • Monstrum

As always, there’s a number of digital sales going on in the Eshop. This week a myriad of Sonic The Hedgehog titles are on sale, along with the continuation of the Deadly Premonition: Sequel celebration sale. The AniMay sale is also still going, with titles from your favorite anime on sale. For more on what’s on sale this week, check out our full guide.

Now Playing: Nintendo Switch Shortages, Breaches, & Lawsuits Are Happening Right Now – GS News Update

SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle For Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated’s Boss Fight Trailer Makes Us Nostalgic

SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle For Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated, which is due to release on June 23, has shown off its boss fights in a new trailer. Watching this footage reminds us of the hey-day of the PS2 3D platformer–after all, this is a remake of a game from 2003, when boss fights like this were a dime a dozen.

In the footage below, you can see SpongeBob take on a variety of giant enemies, including robots based on his friends, a huge jellyfish, and his arc nemesis, Plankton. The game has received a huge visual update, but it still looks like a PS2 platformer in many ways–and that, for many fans, is surely a good thing.

Battle for Bikini Bottom is receiving the remake treatment because the original game has earned something of a cult following among the speedrunning community–and also because SpongeBob is still going, with a new movie on the way, and the 12th season of the TV show currently airing sporadically.

Check out our preorder guide to find out how to secure the game’s huge Rehydrated F.U.N. Edition.

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After New Halo: MCC Update Causes Issues, Developer Working On A Hotfix

Halo: The Master Chief Collection‘s latest update, which also brought Halo 2 Anniversary to PC, did not go exactly to plan. The release led to numerous bugs, issues, and oddities, and now developer 343 Industries has posted an update that explains what’s being done to fix them.

As of May 17, 343 said it conducted a “full day of testing” on the changes to address the issues, and the developer is seeing “good results” so far. An upcoming “hotfix” patch for The Master Chief Collection will feature fixes for two main issues.

First, the hotfix will address a projectile bug in Halo 2 that caused various projectiles to not operate as intended. 343 said it identified and fixed the bug, and players can expect the fix soon. The hotfix will also address issues with Halo 3 including rubber-banding, desycned vehicles, and missing effects. Additionally, 343 continues to look into a problem with the Valhalla map that can cause the game to crash in custom games and matchmaking. While the studio has not yet fixed this issue in its internal tests, it believes it will be able to do so and include it with the upcoming hotfix.

343 did not say when the new Master Chief Collection hotfix will be available, but the latest information will be posted to the @HaloSupport account on Twitter.

In response to the new issues with The Master Chief Collection, 343 asked fans to be patient and to stop yelling at them. Adding to the complexity of the situation, 343’s teams are currently working from home as they work on fixes for the game.

The team working on The Master Chief Collection is separate from the one at 343 that’s developing Halo Infinite. Microsoft will finally show off more of the long-awaited next-gen Halo game during the Xbox 20/20 event in July.

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Epic Games Store Now Offers A Partial Refund If You Buy A Game Shortly Before It Goes On Sale

If you’ve ever bought a game on a digital store and then seen it go on sale at a greatly reduced price days later, you know how painful an experience it can be. If you’re using the Epic Games Store to buy games, though, that feeling might soon be a thing of the past–users are now receiving partial refunds for recent purchases made before a game comes on sale.

This news comes via Joshua Boggs, the director at Studio MayDay (and previous director of Framed at Loveshack Entertainment), who tweeted out part of an email he received about a partial refund being paid into his account.

“You recently placed orders from the Epic Games Store,” the email reads. “The price of the game(s) you purchased were recently lowered, so we are issue partial refunds for the difference(s).”

This means that players will receive back what they would have saved. It’s a very generous move, in line with their recent decision to not charge developers royalties on their games until they hit $1 million in revenue.

The Epic Games Store is currently handing out free copies of Grand Theft Auto V – Premium Edition, which is absolutely worth claiming. Epic can afford this, in part, due to the extraordinary success of Fortnite, which has brought in $1 billion on mobile alone.

Now Playing: Epic Games Store Will Have More Free Games Through 2020 – GS News Update

Disney Has Shut Down A Club Penguin Clone For Being Wildly Inappropriate

Disney has ordered all unauthorized clones of Club Penguin to be shut down after a fan-run clone was found by the BBC to be exposing children to explicit messages.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a fan-made Club Penguin Online server was flooded with over a million new players. Usually this would be enough for Disney to order a take down, with Club Penguin falling under the mega corporation’s ownership in 2007 for $350 million.

It seems some fans have missed the original so much that they made their own server of the game, using stolen or copied source code. These clones are relatively easy to find online, with even children finding their way onto the servers. This is where the issue lies, as the nature of this particular Club Penguin clone was not suitable for children at all.

In the fan-made server, the creators had disabled the offensive language filter in order to allow players to engage in “penguin e-sex”, according to the BBC. The BBC used multiple accounts to investigate the claims and found examples of racist, homophobic, and anti-Semistist language being used, along with the sexual role play.

In response, Disney has issued copyright notices to all private server games hosting the Club Penguin clones, giving them a strict deadline to close or face legal action from Disney.

In a statement, the company said, “Child safety is a top priority for the Walt Disney Company and we are appalled by the allegations of criminal activity and abhorrent behaviour on this unauthorised website that is illegally using the Club Penguin brand and characters for its own purposes. We continue to enforce our rights against this, and other, unauthorised uses of the Club Penguin game.”

According to the aforementioned BBC article, one man involved in the site has been arrested on suspicion of possessing child abuse images. Detectives told the BBC that the man from London has been released on bail.

The original Club Penguin servers were shut down in 2017. While the franchise had a number of spin off games, nothing ever compared to the original MMO. For over 12 years Club Penguin was the place to hang out with your friends after school and chill out as chubby penguins together. The MMO saw over 200 million players at its peak and is still held in the hearts of many as a vital part of their childhood.

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