Month: September 2021

1047 Games says that its popular first-person portal-based shooter Splitgate will incorporate a take on Forge mode before Halo Infinite.

In response to a tweet from @KFCGaming asking its community to “trigger an entire gaming fanbase with one sentence,” the official Splitgate account responded by announcing, “Splitgate will have a forge mode before Halo Infinite.”

Splitgate will have forge mode before Halo Infinite.

(Sorry in advance Halo fans, we love you but we had to)

— Splitgate – Season 0 (@Splitgate) September 15, 2021

Originally released in Halo 3, Forge is a mode designed by Bungie that allows players to edit, customize and share maps within the Halo community. Due to its popularity, Forge has become a regular addition to Halo games with the mode being added to subsequent releases within the franchise in Halo Reach, Halo 4, Halo 5: Guardians, and 343 Industries’ upcoming installment: Halo Infinite.

Last month, 343 announced that it was delaying the launch of campaign co-op and Forge within Halo Infinite until after launch as it continued to focus on getting the single-player campaign and multiplayer done in time for its launch date. Forge is currently expected to release in Halo Infinite during its third season. With each season set to ship in three-month windows, 1047 Games’ own announcement would likely mean that a mode for Splitgate would debut sometime before mid-2022.

In a subsequent tweet in the thread, 1047 Games explained that a its own mode for Splitgate likely wouldn’t use the name Forge, but would still allow players to edit maps within the shooter. The developer explained how this might look in Splitgate by saying, “Imagine placing portal pads anywhere you wanted on Olympus.”

We probably won’t call it forge mode, but it’s a map editor. Imagine placing portal pads anywhere you wanted on Olympus!

— Splitgate – Season 0 (@Splitgate) September 15, 2021

In other Splitgate news, 1047 Games recently shared more information about its long-term goals following a funding campaign for the studio that raised over $100 million. The company said that while it is still focusing on Splitgate at the moment and for the immediate future, it will look to offer new takes on game genres it believes have become stale in the future.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN who would very much enjoy toying around with a Splitgate map editor. You can follow him on Twitter.

Sir Clive Sinclair, the entrepreneur and inventor widely known for bringing one of the most popular early gaming PCs to the masses, has died aged 81.

Per The Guardian, Sinclair’s daughter, Belinda, confirmed that he died in his London home on Thursday morning after a long illness. Among other inventions, Sinclair is notably credited for his creation of the ZX Spectrum, the 8-bit home computer that brought affordable gaming to the masses when it was released in the United Kingdom in 1982.

Speaking to The Guardian, Belinda Sinclair said, “He was a rather amazing person. Of course, he was so clever and he was always interested in everything. My daughter and her husband are engineers so he’d be chatting engineering with them.”

Following in the footsteps of the ZX80 and ZX81, the ZX Spectrum marked an important shift in computing technology, becoming one of the first home computers to be marketed towards mainstream audiences. The home computer became one of a limited number of affordable options at the time and acted as a true rival to the US-produced Commodore 64 that debuted in the same year. For many years, the Spectrum remained a popular choice across the world, inspiring generations of future IT developers and gamers alike until it was discontinued in 1992, ten years after its first release.

Sinclair also invented the first slimline pocket calculator, an early folding bike, and the Sinclair C5, a battery-powered single-seater vehicle. Sinclair received a number of honors for his contributions toward the technology sector in the 1980s following the release of the Spectrum. In 1983, he was awarded a knighthood for contributions to British industry in the Queen’s Birthday Honors list before subsequently being made a fellow at Imperial College London the year after.

After news broke of Sir Clive Sinclair’s passing, a number of tributes to the British inventor were posted across Twitter from various notable individuals and companies across the world. A selection of these messages can be read below:

RIP Sir Clive Sinclair. Your innovations democratized computing and inspired so many, including myself. I vividly remember my first computer, a ZX80, and the sense of wonder and empowerment I felt. It was your device that sparked my passion for engineering.

— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) September 17, 2021

For someone whose first glimpses of a brave new world were the terrifying graphics of 3D Monster Maze on the ZX81, I’d like to salute tech pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair. He made 21st Century dreams feel possible. Will bash away on the rubber keys of a Spectrum in your honour. RIP. pic.twitter.com/UGHs0djeMV

— edgarwright (@edgarwright) September 16, 2021

RIP Sir Clive Sinclair.

The ZX Spectrum brought affordable personal computers to the masses, and for many people in the UK it was the beginning of their love for video games and coding. Thank you. 💙

— PlayStation UK (@PlayStationUK) September 17, 2021

Sad to hear that Clive Sinclair has died. The ZX81 was my introduction to computing and I loved it! Started out with a 1k version and eventually saved up for a 16k ram pack – thank you Clive !

— Brian Cox (@ProfBrianCox) September 16, 2021

Everyone here at IGN would like to offer our condolences to Sinclair’s family and friends at this time.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN.

Copshop arrives in theaters on Friday, Sept. 17.

Copshop is wise-cracking, violent homage to pulpy ’70s action flicks that nicely uses a single location to house all of its crazy carnage, but then delivers a story that feels listless, arbitrary, and devoid of full payoff.

Containing cool shootouts, quirky characters, and some moments of unique irreverence, Copshop occasionally crackles with humor and inspiration. However, far too often, it squanders set ups and side-steps golden opportunities, possibly for the sake of defying convention. As a result, the film’s disjointed, constantly reinventing itself (and its plot) and giving the impression that the story’s truly being made up as it goes along.

Directed and co-written by Smokin’ Aces‘ Joe Carnahan, who has plenty of experience with combustible cauldrons and colliding agents of chaos, Copshop seems to figure itself out best during its middle section, when all participants are more or less present and accounted for. Despite that, though, the film has a stifling Three-card Monte problem of constantly shuffling priorities.

Set in dusty, sleepy Gun Creek, Nev., Copshop brings us into the local police precinct — which is anything but dusty and sleepy and feels like it’s out of RoboCop or some other saga with a dystopian metropolis — for the story of a frantic con man on the run, Teddy (Frank Grillo), and a hitman, Viddick (Gerard Butler), who gets himself arrested in order to saddle up next to his target. Caught in the middle of this, having inadvertently trapped two devils in her midst, is rookie officer Valerie Young (The Tomorrow War‘s Alexis Louder). And while Louder is a fun and fresh presence here, as really the only character to root for, the film is too unfocused to capitalize on her… or any of its characters, really. The result of this befuddled blueprint is too much time spent with characters who don’t matter and not enough time spent with ones whose motivations need more exploration.

Butler’s Bob Viddick isn’t a hero, obviously, but the film tries to give him an out from being a true villain because he’s a somewhat sane and reasonable hitman, making him one of the lesser evils in the film. But even that default champion status doesn’t save the story enough, or make it feel any less discombobulated. There’s a way to swirl action and characters together in a mannered enough way to present us with “randomness” containing casual violence, winking one-liners, and eccentric tangents, but Copshop is only able to find that sweet spot in spare moments.

Toby Huss’ heightened performance as a wild card killer thrown into the mix is a good example of manic, maniac energy. Huss is wonderful and instantly livens up the scene, which at that point, honestly, has completely run out of steam. Yes, there are times Copshop coolly embraces its campy B-movie outlandishness and it’s a delight to watch Louder’s cop ascend into pure badass action hero status by the end. Ultimately, though, Copshop doesn’t see its fun all the way though. The film is filled with half-measures, with far more satisfying results and payouts hiding just around the corner.

The film is filled with good cops (Chad L. Coleman), dirty ones (Ryan O’Nan), and hired madmen, but the most disappointing character is the story’s keystone, Teddy. As a fugitive “fixer,” and professional liar, Teddy comes with an assortment of twists and turns, but none seem to fit him just right. And because of that, none of them land with the impact the plot demands. If you take an over-arching look at the film as just one slaughter-filled night at a police station, there’s some clarity. But once you dig into some of the assorted, individual moments, it’s a big mess.

Cry Macho releases in theaters, and on HBO Max, on Friday, Sept. 17.

Clint Eastwood directs and stars in Cry Macho, a project that various studios and leading men have been trying to get off the ground since the book it’s based on came out in 1975. In Eastwood’s hands, filling the headlining role at 91, it’s a somewhat lethargic affair, with rudimentary emotion and a lifeless finish.

There’s a meta aspect to this movie, given that Eastwood, at his age, is playing the role of a long-forgotten rodeo champion who’s alone because of both tragedy and self-sabotage, but it’s nothing like the spotlight he beamed on the Western genre in Unforgiven. Here, like most other aspects of the film, it’s just a murmur in the midst of a very dry backdrop (and plot).

As Mike Milo, an elderly man sent to Mexico in 1979 to convince and/or kidnap his ranch-owning boss’ teenage son, Eastwood whispers his way through most of the movie, only really becoming engaging during Cry Macho’s best interlude, which involves a long and rewarding stay in a small town. When Eastwood is on his own, it’s hard to buy into his character being capable of this type of errand, or this sort of trek, but once he’s more tenderly paired with Eduardo Minett’s Raphael, Natalia Traven’s Marta, and the rest of an unintentionally uncovered south of the border paradise, he’s able to carve a more viable character out of the movie’s meager marble.

Minett is a solid sidekick most of the time, finding the best ways to form a bond with Eastwood’s spare and cantankerous performance. On paper, Mike and Rafo (Raphael’s nickname) are good road trip material. They’re a fine duo for an emotional journey that helps both lonely characters open up and find the love they’re either lacking or they’ve lost. But Cry Macho comes up just short of true catharsis most of the time, opting to underplay most situations and scenes to the point of banality.

The material here is basic enough to be able to make something good (albeit manipulative), but Eastwood chooses only to hand over something that feels less-than. Again, it’s a mostly dull attraction until Mike and Milo find peace and tranquility in a humble village, where Milo softens under the flirtatious and generous eye of the widowed Marta. Rafo too, having fled a truly abusive household, discovers kindness and camaraderie (and horses). In true Western form, however, their peace can’t/won’t last and eventually they’re forced to flee. What happens afterward, though, truly feels like the story just implodes and gives up.

As Mike’s boss Howard, Dwight Yoakam once again displays his knack for playing things slick and sleazy. It’s clear from the get-go that Howard has other designs for Rafo. He tells Mike that the boy’s mother is crazy (he’s not wrong) and that he wants to bring him to Texas and be a real father, but it’s easy enough to sniff out the lie here. Given that, the narrative beats, meaning how Mike will redeem himself, seem somewhat clear from the opening. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. After all, stories move frequently in certain ways because that’s just how they work best. But the end resolution, both emotionally and situationally, comes off as simply not doing the bare minimum to give us a complete and satisfying story.

Rafo, who carries around a rooster he’s named Macho, has strong opinions about what it means to be strong and important, but you never get the sense he buys into it for real. Rafo has had to fit many different molds to survive, and most often he’s a hot-headed liar. But Mike never dishes out any sage wisdom to help Rafo, nor does their relationship cap off in a believable manner. When the film is just able to present the two of them amicably, with no forced tension between them or no Federales chasing them, it’s a nice, majestic hang. When the drama starts up, the film’s not equipped to make it enticing or realistic.

This is a spoiler-free review for Season 3 of Sex Education, which premieres Friday, Sept. 17 on Netflix.

Otis, Eric, Maeve, Jackson, and the rest of the so-called degenerates at Moordale Secondary School are back for a third helping of Sex Education, a series that miraculously combines lewd laughs, rom-com tropes, therapeutic wisdom, and cringe comedy all in one go. Sex Education works on both a broad slapstick level, but also on a very specific one, where it’s still able to whisper into your heart. It’s uniquely wrenching and joyous, and Season 3 builds the world of the show out even more.

Sex Education is definitely a series that pays dividends. Not just because it torments us with the slow-burn “will they/won’t they” romance between Asa Butterfield’s Otis and Emma Mackey’s Maeve, but because it’s picked up stragglers along the way. These aren’t just new characters who’ve entered the mix and become a crucial part of the festivities, but also side characters who’ve managed to meld their way into the story in a more layered fashion, usually in the form of old antagonists made more human and sympathetic. Even this season’s new “villain” comes with sneaky vulnerabilities.

Because of this, Sex Education keeps expanding like a beautiful balloon, becoming more loving, inclusive, and complex. Otis hasn’t quite lost his status as the lead, but we’re much more far removed now from the original premise of “what kind of problems would the teen son of a sex therapist have?” The show has transformed into a truer ensemble, though it still retains some of its underlying episodic qualities, despite Otis and Maeve’s “sex clinic” taking a break and leaving us without a clear entry point for a case/sex question of the day.

Another way Sex Education has blossomed season-to-season is in the full absorption and inclusion of adult characters and their specific sexual gaffes and follies. Now that Gillian Anderson’s Jean is fully in the “I f***ed up” swirl of the story, the show is able to explore her and her severe aversion to domestic intimacy and lack of control to its fullest. Now pregnant, as it was dramatically revealed at the end of Season 2, Jean’s life — along with the worlds of Otis, Jakob, and Ola — becomes hugely more complicated and compelling. Likewise, we continue to explore Alistair Petrie’s Headmaster Michael Groff and his fall from grace following Season 2’s literal theatrics and, within this, uncover a bit of redemption for him as well.

Speaking of Groff, when we last left off, the Moordale school had unleashed quite the production on the students, parents, and donors: Lily’s graphic and fantastical Romeo and Juliet erotica musical. Now labeled as deviants from the “sex school,” Moordale’s students arrive back after a lust-filled summer (even Otis finds a regular, er, dance partner, as it were) to a regime change. Groff is gone and a groovy new “wanna be your best friend” Headmistress, Hope (Girls’ Jemima Kirke), stands in his place. But she’s a wolf hiding behind a smile, and will soon inflict her draconian Dolores Umbridge rules on the student body in ways that, yes, also include their student bodies. Moordale’s titular sex education takes a nasty trip back in time, regressing about a hundred years.

When a line is placed down the center of every school hallway, to force kids into a single-file line, Eric’s ex, Rahim (Sami Outalbali) wisely states “It’s never just a line.” In short, this is how repressive and bigoted policies begin, with something seemingly innocuous. As Dua Saleh joins the series as a non-binary student named Cal, whom Kedar Williams-Stirling’s Jackson finds himself instantly drawn to, Sex Education stretches its wings open even further to pull gender identity issues into its meaningful methods of discourse, acknowledgement, and advancement.

Maeve, given her outsider status and serious family concerns, has been a tricky character to handle with regards to the other teens. But as Sex Education’s only swelled to include characters from all over town (Jason Isaacs even guests this year as Michael’s bullying brother), meaning more and more peeks into people’s home situations, Maeve’s trailer park set feels less of an offshoot and more a part of the overall tapestry.

Ncuti Gatwa and Connor Swindells find a ton of tenderness within Eric and Adam’s newfound relationship, while also playing characters at different points in their emotional development and confidence. At the same time, Aimee Lou Wood’s Aimee makes an earnest go at dealing with her trauma, Patricia Allison’s Ola and Tanya Reynolds’ Lily discover some romantic obstacles of their own, a handful of characters take life-changing trips to both France and Nigeria, and Isaac — well — the series smartly deals with Isaac’s Season 2 finale whoopsie in a frank and refreshing manner.

In a show that leans into a lot of awkward moments of utter misunderstanding — be it some text message snafu or otherwise — Isaac is on the precipice of being regrettably malicious, which is not usually how Sex Education plays things. Even its love triangles feature competitors you care about, so Isaac’s bold message-erasure is handled well. The series’ core strength, aside from its supremely fun and raunchy gimmick, remains the characters, the ones we’ve loved from the beginning and the ones we’ve grown to love over time. Time spent with them as they journey and grow is the reward.

Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka has taken a move towards the realm of indie games following this year’s disappointing release of Balan Wonderworld.

As translated by VGC, Naka, who turns 56 today (September 17), tweeted thanking fans for their birthday wishes before going on to announce that he’s working on a small indie mobile game developed using Unity.

“I’ve recently started learning how to program again, and I’m working on a simple game for smartphones with Unity,” said Naka. “I’m making it by myself, so it’s not much, but I’m enjoying programming it. I hope you’ll be able to play with the app when it’s available.”

In April this year, Naka left his position at Square Enix shortly after the studio’s dissatisfying release of Balan Wonderworld. The game, which Naka himself worked as the director on, received an overwhelmingly negative response from critics and fans. Naka had previously told IGN that the game was his “one chance” to make a platformer for the publisher.

Upon the title’s release, IGN reviewed Balan Wonderworld upon its release and granted it a lowly 4/10. In our verdict for the game, we said that its “half-baked platforming and ill-advised one-button design” unfortunately led to it “being a complete bore”.

In June, Naka told fans that he couldn’t currently talk about the reasons behind his departure from Square Enix despite also adding that he one day hopes to be able to. The famed Sonic producer also noted at the time that at 55 years of age, he was considering retirement. It remains unclear if Naka’s departure was his decision or Square Enix’s.

While little else is known about the Unity-based mobile project that Naka is currently working on, fans will be hoping that it provides the programmer with an opportunity to put Square Enix’s release of Balan Wonderworld behind him.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.