Month: December 2020

Former President Obama Shares His Favorite 2020 Movies And TV Shows

It’s getting to be the end of the year, which means it’s prime “everyone posts their favorite movies and TV shows lists” season. On Twitter, former President Barack Obama got into the spirit of things by sharing his favorites from 2020–and also acknowledging that he might have watched so much more than usual because “like everyone else, we were stuck inside a lot this year.” Check out the full list below.

Obama was not kidding about how much he’s been watching–his list is packed with many pretty recent Netflix picks, such as Mank (director David Fincher’s biographical drama about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, who developed Citizen Kane’s screenplay) and The Queen’s Gambit (a drama miniseries about an orphaned girl who finds her confidence and identity through chess).

But what’s really impressive is a few of his favorites for this whole entire year aren’t even out yet or were just released today: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom hit the streaming platform this morning, whereas Disney+’s Soul won’t be out until Christmas Day–a full week from today. Also raising an eyebrow on the list is Obama giving a shout-out to Crip Camp, an excellent documentary about a New York summer camp established in the ’70s for teens with disabilities–which was made by Obama’s production company, Higher Ground. He might be a little biased on that last one, even though it is good.

Also topping his TV list are the Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul, Showtime’s fantastic adaptation of The Good Lord Bird (based on the 2013 novel with the same name about abolitionist John Brown’s revolution, which sparked the Civil War), and The Good Place. And of course, the Obama household is not exempt from the big superhero craze–Amazon’s The Boys, about vigilantes who combat people with superpowers who abuse their abilities, nonchalantly ranks among his shared favorites.

Among Us Launches On Xbox Game Pass For PC, Will Come To Xbox Consoles In 2021

Innersloth’s Among Us has launched on Xbox Game Pass for PC and will come to Xbox Game Pass for Console in 2021.

The announcement was revealed in an amended post on the Xbox blog, which reflected the imminent launch of the game on the PC version of the Game Pass service. If you subscribe to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you’ll be able to access Among Us on PC now and then on console when it launches in 2021.

Innersloth followed up with a tweet from the official Among Us account, noting that the game will arrive “on Xbox consoles in 2021”. The wording there suggests it will come to the Xbox One and Xbox Series family of consoles when it launches next year.

In other Among Us news, the game launched on Nintendo Switch earlier this week as part of Nintendo’s Indie World presentation. Players have already found a glitch that lets them access the Airship map early on Nintendo Switch, even though the new location is set to launch at some point in Early 2021.

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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Judd Apatow and More Unite for Charity Stream

Steve Buscemi is bringing together a whole host of his celebrity friends and fellow comedians for a two-hour live fundraising event to raise money for Friends of Firefighters – a charity that was founded following 9/11 to support active and retired FDNY firefighters and their families.

The Fireside Chat with Steve Buscemi will feature several celebrity guests, including Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Judd Apatow, Julie Bowen, Dan Bulla, Tim Herlihy, Kevin James, Tim Meadows, Colin Quinn, Jackie Sandler, Rob Schneider, Kenan Thompson and more for an intimate evening of casual conversation and a celebration of the incredible work of firefighters.

The star-studded charity stream will be raising money through Tiltify, and can be watched live directly on IGN.com and via IGN’s YouTube, IGN’s Facebook, IGN’s Twitter, or IGN’s Twitch platforms on Tuesday, December 22nd at 4 p.m. PT / 7 p.m. ET.

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Audiences will have the opportunity to participate in the event and interact with the celebrity line-up throughout the live stream, where the guests will be discussing their movies and answering some of the donor questions that are submitted. There will also be a few surprises mixed into the two-hour chat, with viewers being given the chance to win various items by donating to the campaign.

This is the second charity stream that Steve Buscemi is participating in this month. The actor (and former firefighter) is also featuring as a guest on The Sopranos’ virtual holiday reunion, together with David Chase, Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli, Robert Iler, Drea de Matteo, Vincent Pastore, Steve Schirripa, and Jamie-Lynn Sigler in support of Friends of Firefighters.

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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

PS5 And Xbox Series X: Fixes, Improvements, And Error Codes

We’ve been in the “next console generation” for a little over a month now, considering Xbox Series X|S released November 10 and PS5 launched November 12. Guess we should start referring to the new consoles as the current generation, huh? Still sounds weird though, to be honest.

In the weeks following their launch, Xbox and PlayStation have released updates for their respective new consoles, ranging from bug fixes to quality of life adjustments. Even Xbox Series X|S and PS5 are hard to find, at least both Microsoft and Sony have shown a commitment to improving the experience on their consoles for those who do happen to have one.

Several games have received significant upgrades on the new consoles as well, such as Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Borderlands 3. It all pretty much boils down to 4k support at 60fps but a few titles have received other notable improvements, such as splitscreen co-op and 120fps.

On this episode of Generation Next, Lucy, Tamoor, and Jordan go over all of this. The Gen Next crew is thankful that it hasn’t run into any major issues with their Xbox Series X|S and PS5 consoles just yet–hopefully their luck extends into 2021.

The Mandalorian Season Finale: Don’t Turn It Off When The Credits Start To Roll

The Mandalorian Season 2 came to an end this week, with a shocking revelation about where the series will be heading at the start of Season 3, along with the appearance of a familiar face. But when the story comes to its conclusion, wait a minute before running to Twitter to yell about the season finale.

There are no spoilers about the season finale of The Mandalorian. You’re cool to keep reading. Even the video below just features moments from Season 1, so we got you covered.

Much like almost every Marvel movie, when the credits start rolling, don’t exit the episode. There is a post-credit scene you’ll want to check out that has a connection to what’s coming down the line for Star Wars and Disney+.

From 41:33-43:49, a post-credit scene pops up that’s probably one of the coolest things so far for the Mandalorian show. If you want to learn exactly what happens there, and you don’t mind spoilers or need some clarification, check out our breakdown of the post-credit scene.

And while we won’t be going into detail here about what’s happening, you can check out some of the Easter eggs and references from the season finale to see if you caught them all.

When it comes to the future of Star Wars, it’s looking pretty bright for new content. During Disney Investor Day, the House of Mouse announced two movies, six live-action shows, and three animated series. As for The Mandalorian, there is more coming, as creator Jon Favreau revealed Season 3 will begin shooting once Pedro Pascal finishes shooting a wacky movie with Nicolas Cage called The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

Now Playing: Baby Yoda’s Best Moments In The Mandalorian

Fortnite: Operation Snowdown Winter Event Brings Free Skins, Quests, And More

Epic Games has launched its latest seasonal event in Fortnite: Battle Royale, and as you might guess from the name, it’s a winter-themed one. Operation Snowdown brings new activities and free rewards for all players to take part in and earn from now until January 5.

During Operation Snowdown, the NPC Snowmando will offer quests with a variety of new seasonal rewards, such as the Frosty Globes pickaxe, Shield Surprise back bling, and more gliders and wraps, plus another back bling and pickaxe. You can get a peek at some of these in the image below. There are also new and returning skins/outfits to purchase on the Fortnite item shop. Everyone can also now claim the Sing Along emote, which causes you to pull out a book and begin caroling, for free from the item shop–if you purchased it previously, you’ll get your V-Bucks refunded.

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While you’re playing, you’ll also encounter new tools to get the job done. There are custom X-4 Stormwing planes that are wrapped in Christmas lights, special Chiller grenades, Sneaky Snowmandos (which disguise you as a snowman), and “Snowmando-wrapped presents.”

Alongside all of this, there will be a mix of new and returning limited-time modes. Shockwave is a new mode where players try to bump into each other to send enemies flying into the storm, which deals extra damage–it sounds a bit like a sumo-style competition. Pickaxe Frenzy will be available as an LTM, and Air Royale will make a return. These modes will be on a rotation, although the Snowdown Shuffle playlist will allow you to play one of these at random.

It sounds as if you shouldn’t expect any other major Fortnite updates for the remainder of the year, as Epic’s announcement of this event notes that the development team is “tak[ing] off for the holidays.” Earlier this month, Fortnite on PC got a new Performance mode to help it run on lower-end hardware, while PS5 and Xbox Series X players got 120fps support. Epic also launched the new Spy Within mode that is basically Among Us.

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Stardew Valley Update 1.5 May Still Release In 2020

Indie developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone has been aiming the ambitious Stardew Valley 1.5 update for this year, but if you’ve looked at a calendar lately you know there’s not much of this year left. But fret not, fellow farmers: Barone says he may still be able to release the update this year on PC.

In answering a fan on Twitter, Barone said it might come out on PC this year, though console players will still have to wait for early 2021. This was only a “might,” so it seems he may still be working through some last remaining bugs and polish, as he said in November.

Previously, Barone has said that most of the new content is aimed at endgame players who have developed their farms, though there will be new features that players will be able to enjoy if they start from the beginning too. At least one new feature is split-screen cooperative play, which may support up to four players depending on the platform. Barone also teased a new door in the back of Willie’s shop, but where it goes or what it does is unknown.

Stardew Valley was based on classic Harvest Moon games, and it has sold more than 10 million copies to other farming fans.

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Control PS5 And Xbox Series X/S Update Offers 60fps Or Ray Tracing In February

The much-anticipated next-gen update for Control: Ultimate Edition launches in February, developer Remedy Entertainment has announced. This will bring technical enhancements to the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of the game; as it stands, those platforms can only play the existing, backwards-compatible version of the hit sci-fi action game.

This update offers two different graphics settings to choose from on next-gen hardware. Performance mode offers 60fps gameplay, which–if it’s able to stay locked–would come as a very welcome addition given the frame rate inconsistencies of playing Control on last-gen hardware. The alternative is Graphics mode, which drops the frame rate to 30fps but introduces ray tracing features.

The brief video above demonstrates the two running on PS5, with the silky smooth frame rate of Performance mode looking quite nice–although it’s shown in a scene without any combat or effects that might put a strain on the hardware. It also quickly shows off the implementation of ray tracing, which will at the very least involve ray-traced reflections based on what we see. It’s a stark contrast to see the windows shift from milky panes to offering such accurate reflections, but it’ll be up to you to decide whether you prefer ray tracing or a higher frame rate. Fortunately, it looks as if you can flip between the two from the in-game settings menu without having to restart.

Remedy will launch the digital version of Control: Ultimate Edition on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on February 2, 2021, followed by the physical version on March 2, 2021. If you own the existing version of Control: Ultimate edition, you’ll be able to upgrade for free. However, owners of the base game–even those who have also purchased the DLC, meaning they have everything in Ultimate edition–will not be eligible for the upgrade.

Control was one of 2019’s best games and has since expanded with a pair of DLC expansions, The Foundation and AWE, both of which are included in Ultimate edition.

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Watch The Super Nintendo World Nintendo Direct Presentation Here

With little warning, Nintendo announced a special version of its Nintendo Direct presentations to air today, December 18. Rather than focus on upcoming games, this 15-minute video will be entirely about Super Nintendo World, the first-ever Nintendo theme park opening at Universal Studios Japan. You can watch the entire presentation right here and long for the day when you can finally have a real Mario Kart race.

The presentation begins today, December 18, at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET, and we have embedded it below for your convenience. Be sure to set a reminder so you don’t forget to head on back and see what Nintendo and Universal Studios Japan have been working on.

Super Nintendo World, at least the Japanese version, will feature an enormous version of Bowser’s menacing castle as well as Piranha Plants, coin blocks, Thwomps, and many of the other characters and items you expect from the Mushroom Kingdom. Along with a full Mario Kart theme park ride, there is also a Yoshi ride. It’s scheduled to open early next year and there will be a Mario-themed cafe and gift shop, as well. The cafe looks like a pharmacy, but we wouldn’t trust Dr. Mario to fulfill a prescription.

Unique versions of the park will be coming to Orlando and Hollywood in the future. We don’t have firm dates for those yet, but we’re eagerly waiting to book our tickets.