Month: May 2020

As we continue to hunker down at home, we’re all watching a lot of television, including plenty of stuff on streaming services. Things like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and Disney+ help pass the time, and there are new movies, TV shows, and original content coming very month. Here is what Disney has planned for the month of June.

The biggest release for next month is none other than Artemis Fowl. Back in April Disney announced the film would be skipping theaters and going right to the streaming service, as the COVID-19 pandemic is keeping theaters closed. Based on the book series by Eoin Colfer, and arriving on June 12, the film follows the preteen genius Artemis Fowl, “a descendant of a long line of criminal masterminds, as he desperately tries to save his father who has been kidnapped. In order to pay his ransom, Artemis must infiltrate an ancient, underground civilization–the amazingly advanced world of fairies–and bring the kidnapper the Aculos, the fairies’ most powerful and coveted magical device. To locate the elusive object, cunning Artemis concocts a dangerous plan—so dangerous that he ultimately finds himself in a perilous war of wits with the all-powerful fairies.”

Additionally, the final three episodes of Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian arrive on June 5, 12, and 19. The series gives Star Wars fans an inside look at creating the Disney+ original series which took the world by storm. The final three episodes will cover visualization, score, and “connections.”

Below, you’ll find everything you can watch on Disney+ for the month of June. And speaking of things you should be watching, consider listening to GameSpot’s weekly TV series and movies-focused podcast, You Should Be Watching. With new episodes premiering every Wednesday, you can watch a video version of the podcast over on GameSpot Universe or listen to audio versions on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and Apple Podcasts.

New to Disney+ in June 2020

Friday, June 5

• Alaska’s Grizzly Gauntlet (S1)
• America’s Greatest Animals
• Chasing the Equinox
• Howie Mandel’s Animals Doing Things (S1-2)
• Secrets of Wild India (S1)
• The Greeks (s1)
• Weird but True! (S1-2)
• Wild Hawaii (S1)
• Women of Impact: Changing the World
• Be Our Chef: Season Finale Episode 111 “The Spectacular”
• Disney Gallery The Mandalorian: Episode 106 “Visualization”
• Disney Family Sundays: Episode 131 “101 Dalmatians: Onesie”
• One Day At Disney: Episode 127 “George Montano: Plasterer”
• It’s a Dog’s Life with Bill Farmer: Episode 104 “Disaster Rescue Dogs & A Dog Mayor”
• Disney Insider: Episode 106 “Artemis Adventure, Taste of Disney, Runaway Railway”

Friday, June 12

• Mighty Med (S1-2)
• The Liberty Story
• The Story of the Animated Drawing
• Walt & El Grupo
• Artemis Fowl (Premiere)
• It’s a Dog’s Life with Bill Farmer: Episode 105 “The Surfing Corgi & Bee Dogs”
• Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian: Episode 107 “Score”
• Disney Family Sundays: Episode 132 “Winnie the Pooh: Bag Toss”
• One Day At Disney: Episode 128 “Scot Drake: Imagineering Creative”

Friday, June 19

• 101 Dalmatians (1997) (S1)
• Big Sur: Wild California
• Muppet Babies Play Date (S1)
• Schoolhouse Rock (S1)
• Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy
• Disney+ Originals
• Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian: Finale Episode 108 “Connections”
• It’s a Dog’s Life with Bill Farmer: Episode 106 “Stunt Dogs & Water Rescue Dogs”
• Disney Family Sundays: Episode 133 “Monsters, Inc. Water Bottles”
• One Day At Disney: Episode 129 “Candice Valdez: Radio Disney Host”

Friday, June 26

• Man in Space
• Mars and Beyond
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
• Raven’s Home (S3)
• Tarzan
• Tarzan II

The final “Curtain Call” for American Horror Story Freak Show is here and ends with quite a dazzling performance. Dandy Mott goes on a killing spree at the Freak Show after becoming its owner. Luckily, some of the freak survive his spree and join forces to get their revenge on the sadistic Mott.

Meanwhile, Elsa Mars makes her way to Hollywood in hopes of becoming a star. When she finally makes her dreams come true, some of her shady past comes back to haunt her. Ultimately, she’s forced to perform on Halloween night. We know what that means!

Finally, the Tattler twins find some inner peace with one another as well as love as they start a family with none other than Jimmy. Let us know what you thought of the season of Freak Show in the comments below! Thanks for watching along with us!

There’s a new quest in Destiny 2‘s Season of the Worthy this week, and while it’s only slowly unfolding, it could be very important to the overall story the game has been building over the last year and a half. “The Lie” concerns Rasputin, the artificially intelligent Warmind at the center of this season’s tale. Given the backstory of Rasputin and some hints we’ve been seeing over the last few seasons, The Lie could have some major implications–and it could be the next step toward developing a new kind of conflict in the fourth year of Destiny 2.

Rasputin is a character who has existed since the start of the original Destiny, and yet one we know little about. During the Golden Age, the period of prosperity that started with the arrival of the Traveler in Destiny lore, Rasputin had control of defenses for the entire solar system. It is possibly the only character in Destiny who was present for the big apocalyptic event known as The Collapse. Rasputin’s connections with all those defenses were cut over the centuries that followed the Collapse; most of the Season of the Worthy has been centered around restoring Rasputin’s capabilities so it can shoot down a giant Cabal spaceship, the Almighty, before it crashes into the Last City and kills everybody.

Reconnecting Rasputin to its defenses has given the computer a whole bunch of power, something that a few Destiny characters have voiced concerns over. Since Rasputin was first rediscovered back in Destiny 1, Zavala has been concerned that the Warmind shouldn’t be trusted. After all, despite having an army of Guardians on its side, humanity is on its last legs in the Destiny universe. A rogue computer with a bunch of orbital weapons satellites is not an enemy that the Guardians’ leadership, the Vanguard, really wants to have to deal with. And while Rasputin’s mandate is to protect humanity, who knows how exactly it might decide to go about that–or whether his internal circuitry is in prime condition hundreds of years after his construction.

Over the course of the Season of the Worthy, Zavala has seemingly come around on trusting Rasputin to keep humanity’s best interests at heart. But there’s definitely more to Rasputin’s story than we yet know, and it seems like we might learn some of it with “The Lie.” If the story pans out in the direction it seems like Bungie has been pushing things, it could be another step toward introducing an ideological conflict to the game, to go along with the shooty kind.

The Collapse, The Darkness, And The Traveler

To get where things seem to be headed, you first need to know about a theory that a lot of players hold about Rasputin’s story, based on various clues scattered throughout Destiny lore. That theory is that it wasn’t the enemies of the Traveler that attacked and disabled it during the Collapse, as was commonly believed throughout Destiny’s story up until now–it was Rasputin. Given what’s happened so far this year, it seems like that could be the lie Destiny 2 is about to reveal in its story.

The thing about the Traveler, the benevolent robot god that hovers over Destiny’s Last City and provides Guardians with their superpowers and immortality, is that we don’t actually know much about it or its motivations. In the backstory of Destiny, the Traveler showed up in the solar system and ushered in a new era of prosperity, in which humanity made huge leaps forward, spread throughout the system, terraformed whole planets, and basically built a utopia. But then the Traveler’s enemies, known as the Darkness, arrived to attack it. Something more or less unknown happened–the Collapse–and the Darkness was beaten back, but the Traveler was disabled and left dormant for hundreds of years afterward, all the way up to when the games take place.

Though the Traveler did a lot of good for humanity, this wasn’t the first time it showed up and elevated a civilization to utopia. The Traveler previously did that with the Eliksni, the alien race of enemies also known as the Fallen. They’re the folks the Traveler visited before us, and they too were attacked by the Darkness (or more specifically, it seems, the Hive aliens players also fight in Destiny). Fallen society was just as ravaged as humanity’s in an event they call the Whirlwind–and though it’s not 100% clear, there’s a suggestion in the lore that the Traveler might have abandoned the Fallen to their fate.

The theory among many (but, it should be noted, by no means all) Destiny fans who pay attention to the lore is that Rasputin recognized the Traveler would bail on humanity when its enemies came calling, dooming the human race to destruction in an event similar to the Whirlwind. The only way to prevent utter destruction was to blast the Traveler, forcing it to stay near Earth, and thus use its power to defend itself. That’s apparently what happened; the Traveler’s power drove off the Darkness (in an event that also created the Awoken, but that’s another very long story), and it created the Ghosts to build an immortal army to protect itself while it healed.

Rasputin’s Secret

Last season, we saw a cutscene in which Osiris confronted Rasputin after learning something important through all his time travel shenanigans, but didn’t say what–but presumably, what Osiris learned that would make him so mad was that Rasputin attacked the Traveler. If that’s revealed in The Lie (or if it’s another step toward that reveal), we’ll likely also learn why: Tthe Traveler would have abandoned humanity to its fate. And that revelation would go on to recolor a lot of Destiny’s standing lore and the attitudes of its characters, many of whom revere and even worship the Traveler.

(It also seems possible, especially given Rasputin-related flavor text in this season and some lore evidence from the past, that the Traveler wasn’t about to abandon humanity–but Rasputin made the call to shoot it anyway. That might have released the wave of Light energy that drove off the Darkness and stopped the Collapse, with Rasputin sacrificing the Traveler to save everyone else. You could also take this as evidence that Rasputin didn’t shoot the Traveler–but the story definitely seems to be hinting at something potentially shameful in Rasputin’s past. The point is that it’s an ambiguous “do the ends justify the means” kind of situation.)

Here’s the thing: For the whole of the Destiny franchise, the story has been about the good Light, a powerful force born from the Traveler, fighting the evil Darkness, the enemies of the Traveler. Almost all of the characters of the game see the Traveler as a nearly infallible force of good. But if Rasputin had to shoot the Traveler to stop it from abandoning billions to save itself, that calls into question all the beliefs the entire story of Destiny is built on. It has the potential to rock every character in the game to their core.

And really, that’s where Destiny 2 has been heading for at least the last year. Many of the major story beats since the start of Destiny 2’s second year have concerned the idea that maybe the dichotomy between Light and Dark isn’t quite so stark. Occasional lines of dialogue pop up from various characters, like Emperor Calus and his robot minions, that caution you about putting too much faith in the Traveler, like they know something you don’t. And there’s a big threat looming on the literal horizon, and Destiny has been suggesting that it’ll take more than just the Light to defeat it.

Embracing The Dark Side

Up until now, the “Darkness” has been a sort of unquantified but malevolent force, but at the end of Destiny 2’s vanilla campaign, we started to get a sense of the actual people that term referred to. The post-credits scene of that campaign showed a bunch of pyramid-shaped spaceships waking up because of a wave of Light energy given off by the Traveler at the end of the story. One of those pyramid ships was discovered on the moon in the Shadowkeep expansion, and at the end of that campaign, we even spoke with the people who fly them. They told us that the Light was actually bad–that it abandons you when you need it most–and that the Darkness people are neither enemy nor friend, but will be our “salvation.”

Over the last year of Destiny 2, Bungie has been blurring the moral lines between the Light and the Darkness, and raising questions about whether using the power of the Darkness is all bad. The entire activity of Gambit, added with the Forsaken expansion in Year Two, is about gathering and harnessing Dark energy, potentially as a means to deal with the threat of the pyramids. The backstory of the Drifter, the guy who runs Gambit, suggests he came into closer contact with the Darkness than just about anybody else ever has and survived to tell about it. We still don’t know what the Drifter’s plans are, but we do know that he thinks it’s necessary in order to survive whatever’s on its way to the solar system.

And that threat is on the way, arriving imminently. For a few weeks now, Rasputin’s bunkers have shown a display tracking the proximity of the pyramid ships, and they’re quickly reaching the outer edges of the solar system. Their arrival could happen as soon as Destiny 2’s next content season, which kicks off in June.

When they get here, it seems likely they’re not going to be aggressive, necessarily–they’re going to be seductive, in a Dark-Side-of-the-Force kind of way. They’ll offer Guardians power, like what the Kentarch 3 encountered in the Garden of Salvation, or what tempted Dredgen Yor and the Shadows who followed him. And if The Lie establishes that the Traveler isn’t the perfect benevolent god, and in fact is it exactly what the Darkness portrays it to be, it’ll be all the more tempting to give into the Darkness and its powerful gifts for the game’s characters–and for the Guardians that serves as its heroes. Who knows exactly what that’ll lead to, whether it’s another branching story like the one where players had to choose between the Drifter and the Vanguard a few seasons ago, or proof of the rumor that Destiny will eventually split Guardians into two factions: Light and Dark.

Destiny has slowly been inching toward its world being far less black-and-white than much of the story has portrayed it thus far. We’re poised to see the story of Destiny evolve in some huge ways as tons of tiny threads seem poised to finally come together. I might be wrong about what Rasputin means to tell us in The Lie, but even if that theory doesn’t pan out, it’s hard to deny that Bungie’s MMO is on the precipice of a major shift that’ll add more nuance to the game than it’s ever had before.

If there’s one show that’s ever truly captured what it’s like to work in the video game industry, it’s Apple TV+’s Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet. If you’re a gamer or at all interested in the industry, Mythic Quest almost single-handedly makes subscribing to Apple TV+ worth it. And now the show is jumping on the COVID-19 bandwagon and getting its very own quarantine special, much like Parks and Rec and others before it.

Mythic Quest: Quarantine will stream on Apple TV+ beginning Friday, May 22. The special will follow the developers of the titular massive online video game as they contend with the new Work From Home world necessitated by the global pandemic. Given that MQ is an Apple TV+ exclusive, it’s not surprising to hear that this half-hour episode was shot entirely on iPhones. Check out the trailer below.

Mythic Quest stars It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s Rob McElhenney, who also serves as executive producer and co-creator along with Charlie Day, and Megan Ganz. It’s produced in part by Ubisoft Motion Pictures and Lionsgate Television. The cast also includes F. Murray Abraham, Charlotte Nicdao, Community’s Danny Pudi, Imani Hakim, Ashly Burch (known for her video game voice work), David Hornsby (Rickety Cricket on It’s Always Sunny), and others.

In our review, we called Mythic Quest “an interesting and entertaining look at the video game development industry” that uses the setting to “explore issues that arise when art and commerce go head-to-head.” Look forward to watching this special quarantine episode on May 22, and until then, check out the 9 things we thought Mythic Quest got right about the game industry. We’re also eagerly anticipating the show’s second season, although there’s currently no word when it might arrive.

And speaking of things you should be watching, consider listening to GameSpot’s weekly TV series and movies-focused podcast, You Should Be Watching. With new episodes premiering every Wednesday, you can watch a video version of the podcast over on GameSpot Universe or listen to audio versions on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and Apple Podcasts.

Another remake of a cult-classic game is about to make its way to modern consoles. Based on the 2005 action-adventure game, Destroy All Humans will release July 28 on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia. The game is available to pre-order now with several editions and pre-order bonuses available, including an extremely pricey collector’s edition clearly aimed at longtime fans of the series.

Destroy All Humans is an open-world game set during the 1950s and parodies Cold War-era alien films. The game follows an alien named Crypto, who is part of a race known as the Furons who clone themselves to continue existing. The game opens with Crypto being sent to harvest human brain stems, which contain precious Furon DNA (due to a previous clash between Furon warriors and humans in ancient times) that’s crucial to preserving his species. Crypto is also searching for his predecessor, Sporidium 136, who crash-landed on Earth years prior; now, the humans have him as well as Furon technology. As Crypto, you’ll burn cities to the ground with your mighty Death Ray, use your Abducto Beam to toss around tanks, crush a farmer under his own cow using psychokinetic powers, and much more. Generally, you’re just causing chaos.

The original game earned a 7.5/10 in GameSpot’s Destroy All Humans review, which praised its embrace of cheesy sci-fi themes and awesome dialogue. “You take on the role of a comically murderous alien on a mission of domination and destruction against humanity. It isn’t all just blasters and explosions, however, as the game takes a decidedly tongue-in-cheek stance on the subject matter, modeling itself after the good-natured cheesiness of 1950s-era B-grade science fiction,” wrote Alex Navarro. “Flying saucers, death rays, mysterious G-men, government conspiracies, and lots of anal probing are the order of the day here. And while the gameplay doesn’t really do anything especially remarkable, and the adventure is unfortunately quite short, Destroy All Humans shows such enthusiasm for its thematic inspiration that you can’t help but at least appreciate what it tries to do.”

Whether you’re a fan of the original or looking for something new to play this summer, Destroy All Humans is sure to satisfy any fantasies about what it’d be like to crush human civilization using strange and powerful alien technology. Check out everything you need to know about pre-ordering Destroy All Humans below.

Destroy All Humans pre-order bonuses

Anyone who pre-orders the Destroy All Humans remake will get 48-hour early access before launch and receive a Crypto skin pack for free, letting you dress Crypto up as an evil clown, Elvis, and more.

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Pre-order Destroy All Humans standard edition | $40

If you just want the base game, you can pre-order Destroy All Humans’ standard edition, which is $40 for consoles and $30 for PC, and get the above pre-order bonuses. While available in most physical and digital formats, Destroy All Humans isn’t up for pre-order on the PlayStation Store.

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Pre-order Destroy All Humans DNA Collector’s edition | $150

Normally the collector’s edition of a game is its most expensive version, but the Destroy All Humans DNA Collector’s edition is far from your priciest option (that said, it’ll still cost you $150). The DNA Collector’s Edition includes:

• Base game and Crypto skin pack
• Crypto ‘N’ Cow figurine (approx. 9 inches)
• Keychain
• Six lithographs
• Eye-popping anti-stress toy
• Premium box

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Pre-order Destroy All Humans Crypto-137 edition | $400

The Destroy All Humans Crypto-137 Edition might be the most expensive version of a game we’ve seen in a long time. It’s a full $100 more than the SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom F.U.N. Edition that recently blew us away and far more expensive than the collector’s editions for AAA games like Ghost of Tsushima and Cyberpunk 2077.

The Crypto-137 Edition is listed at a whopping $400 and notably includes a Crypto figurine that stands at around 23 inches tall. You’ll also get a Crypto backpack that makes it look like the alien is clinging to your shoulders. Aside from that, you’ll get everything included with the Collector’s edition. Here’s a full list of everything:

• Base game and Crypto skin pack
• Crypto-137 figurine (approx. 23 inches)
• Crypto backpack
• Keychain
• Six lithographs
• Eye-popping anti-stress toy
• Premium box

Now Playing: Destroy All Humans! – Release Date Reveal Gameplay Trailer

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Season 5: Fortune’s Favor adds playable character Loba to Apex Legends. The teleporting thief offers a new support option to Respawn’s battle royale game. However, instead of keeping her allies alive–like fellow support character Lifeline–Loba assists her squad with finding and securing the best loot.

In the video above, Max Blumenthal and Jordan Ramée talk about Loba and her abilities, as well as how to best use them to benefit her squad. Loba’s passive ability allows her to see and ping epic and legendary loot through walls, her tactical ability lets her teleport, and her ultimate ability gives her squad the opportunity to loot an entire area from one location.

After spending a few days testing her abilities and synergy with other characters, both Max and Jordan agree that she’s a well-balanced character for Apex Legends. Though a powerful addition to the battle royale game, Loba isn’t overpowered–her slow tactical ability and limit on how much she can steal with her ultimate ability keep her firmly in the support class, preventing the addition of yet another dangerous offensive threat. Apex Legends has too many of those already.

Loba isn’t the only new addition to Apex Legends in Season 5–the full list of changes are outlined in the Fortune’s Favor update patch notes. The new season makes several major map changes to Kings Canyon, implements a new battle pass, and adds a new story-focused PvE mode, Quests.

Every PC, laptop, and smartphone is at risk of being infected with malware. Thankfully, malicious software like viruses are easy to protect against on all of these devices, as there are plenty of options for anti-malware software out there. My personal favourite is MalwareBytes, a type of anti-malware software that I’ve used for the last eight years. Newegg currently has a great deal on one year of Malwarebytes Premium for $30, down from $60, with promo code 52PTYHC4. The deal runs through the weekend and ends on May 18.

Newegg’s Malwarebytes Premium deal comes as a digital code, so you don’t have to worry about shipping or waiting for it to arrive. You can also buy more than a single one-year subscription from Newegg and still take advantage of the promo code discount. This lets you stack multiple years of your overall Malwarebytes subscription, so you won’t have to pay again until the subscription ends.

Malwarebytes, one-year of protection for five devices

$30 with promo code 52PTYHC4 ($60)

This one-year offer lets you protect up to five different devices, so you can install the software on your PC, laptop, and smartphone and still have two device activations left over for a friend or loved one. It’s also a great option for parents looking to protect their family’s various devices. It works on PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and Chromebook devices.

If you want to try Malwarebytes before you buy it, you can download a free trial from its website. It gives you access to everything Malwarebytes Premium offers, including 24/7 malware detection, stopping and blocking attacks, and preventing access from malicious website, except it expires after 14 days.

The great thing about Malwarebytes is that it lets you know when a website may contain malware or downloads for PUPs (potentially unwanted programs). Some perfectly safe programs do show up as PUPs, such as the open-source gaming software CheatEngine, but thankfully, Malwarebytes gives you the option to omit certain programs from its detection. You’re also able to scan for threats, quarantine potential malware, and remove it from your device completely.

Back in April, Warner Bros. announced the latest Scooby-Doo animated film–Scoob!–would be skipping theaters and headed straight to VOD, as theaters have been and will be closed for the foreseeable future thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. Now, Scoob is available to rent on VOD.

This is the first feature-length animated Scooby-Doo movie made for a theatrical release, even though it’s now VOD. The film is an origin story of how Scooby and Shaggy met and became friends. The film will also explore how the duo joined Fred, Velma, and Daphne and formed Mystery Inc. The film stars Will Forte as Shaggy, Gina Rodriguez as Velma, Zac Efron as Fred, Amanda Seyfried as Daphne, Frank Welker as Scooby-Doo, and Mark Wahlberg as Blue Falcon.

The film is available to both rent and buy. Renting costs $20, and you have 30 days to start the movie, with a 48 hour watch window afterwards. Or you can buy the movie for $25 through the various retailers listed below.

Where to watch Scoob:

Currently, the movie sits at a score of 43 on GameSpot’s sister site Metacritic, with eight positive critic reviews, 10 mixed, and nine negative.

With Universal Pictures, skipping the theatrical release of Trolls: World Tour to go straight to digital download caused some issues with Regal Cinemas and AMC; however, Warner Bros. has reassured theater chains it will continue to work with theater owners in the future.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.