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5 References to the ‘PlayStation5’ and ‘Xbox Two’ Next-Gen Consoles

While we’re constantly speculating on what the future of video games has in store, E3 2018 marked the beginning of folks in the industry directly referencing the next generation of consoles. Not mid-generation improvements like the Pro and the X, but, for lack of official names, the PlayStation 5 and the “Xbox Two,” which seems to be codenamed Scarlet. More on that later.

From rumors to speculation to concrete details, here are are 5 references to the next generation of consoles that came out of E3 2018.

Next-gen talk kicked into gear during the final moments of Bethesda’s E3 2018 conference. After showing off extended demos Rage 2 and Fallout 76, both of which should be in our hands in less than a year, Todd Howard capped off the show with two brief, but important announcements. Starfield, the long-rumored “third open-world pillar” for Bethesda, and The Elder Scrolls 6.

MoviePass vs. AMC Stubs A-List vs. Sinemia Comparison–We Put All 3 To The Test

When MoviePass announced in August 2017 that it was changing its business model to a monthly subscription that cost $9.95 and allowed users to see a movie every day, the floodgates were officially open. Since then, the idea of a movie ticket subscription service has become the norm for those that like to see a lot of movies.

Now, though, there’s competition. MoviePass isn’t the only subscription service in the game anymore–and it might not even be the best, either. To find out which subscription service offers the best value, GameSpot put MoviePass, Sinemia, and AMC’s Stubs A-List to the test.

MoviePass

The service that started it all. MoviePass was the first to offer a massive number of movie tickets for a low monthly price and has made quite a name for itself in the process. How can you not when charging $9.95 a month for a movie ticket every day?

What Works

If you go to the movies a lot, MoviePass is a great option. The ability to see up to 31 movies every month for a $10 flat rate is hard to beat–even if there aren’t 31 movies released in any given month. In theory, you could stay up to date on every major release. Additionally, MoviePass offers in-app ticket purchases from select theaters, which is a nice perk.

What Doesn’t Work

The theaters that offer in-app ticket purchases are rare. The only other option is to check into the theater when you arrive and buy your ticket on the spot. All tickets must be purchased the day of the screening, so you can’t plan ahead too far. Another wrinkle is that premium formats (3D, IMAX, etc.) are not available with the service at this point.

Additionally, MoviePass has begun assessing upcharges–Peak Pricing–for “in-demand” movies. However, the company hasn’t revealed how it will determine what is in demand or how much the upcharge will be in all cases. According to the company, the new charge will start at $2.

The biggest knock against MoviePass, though, is the service itself. The terms of the subscription keep changing. Over the last year, this service has not only begun restricting you from seeing a movie a second time but is also requiring users to submit photos of their ticket stubs and is tinkering with temporarily locking specific movies in certain locations. When attempting to buy a ticket to a screening of Red Sparrow back in March, the title was simply blocked out on the app. When I tweeted MoviePass to ask why, it quickly responded, “As we continue to enhance our service for everyone, certain inventory may not be available at all times.” Of course, there was no warning that this would be happening.

AMC Stubs A-List

The newest player on the block is AMC’s response to MoviePass. The world’s largest movie theater chain has integrated a subscription service to its loyalty points system. AMC Stubs A-List offers three tickets each week for the monthly price of $19.95.

What Works

The most exciting thing about A-List is it’s all contained within the AMC Theaters app–it’s where you find the movies, buy the tickets, and have them scanned at the theater. With that in mind, it’s also linked to your Stubs account. As a member, you get access to Stubs Premium, which allows you to collect points from concession purchases that earn you rewards.

The nicest perk of A-List, though, is access to premium formats. Not only can you watch movies repeatedly, but you have access to IMAX, 3D, Dolby, and AMC Prime screenings. There are no restrictions.

What Doesn’t Work

The big problem with A-List is it only works at AMC theaters. While it is the world’s largest theater chain, that doesn’t mean everybody lives near one. If there’s not an AMC in your neighborhood, you’re out of luck.

Of course, there’s also the fact that you’re paying twice as much as MoviePass for less than half of the movies. However, this should only concern you if you know you’ll be seeing more than three movies each week.

Sinemia

Sinemia is seemingly a dark horse that came out of nowhere. However, it’s been around since 2014 with offerings in the UK, Canada, Turkey, and Australia. It made its presence known in the US market in May with four different pricing options:

$4.99 per month for 1 standard movie ticket
$6.99 per month for 2 standard movie tickets
$9.99 per month for 2 of any movie ticket (3D, 4D, IMAX)
$14.99 per month for 3 of any movie ticket (3D, 4D, IMAX)

What Works

The best thing about Sinemia is it allows you to purchase tickets to just about any movie theater. Those locked out on MoviePass typically aren’t in Sinemia and it also works for the AMC theaters found in A-List. There are also a variety of plans to meet your moviegoing needs, provided you don’t head to the theater multiple times each week.

For fans of premium format films, the top two plan options give access to IMAX, 3D, 4DX, and practically any other upcharge option a theater might offer–and it’s all included in your monthly price.

What Doesn’t Work

The biggest issue with Sinemia is the app itself. In trying to simplify the design, it’s become a bit confusing. Want to buy a ticket to an upcoming film? Head to the planning tab. From there, though, you’ll have to switch over to the Fandango app to find a theater and showtime.

After manually entering the information into the Sinemia app, a temporary credit card number will be unlocked that you can then transfer back over to the Fandango app–or Atom Tickets or MovieTickets.com–to purchase there. It can make for a difficult process.

There also doesn’t seem to be a simple way within the app to find out how many tickets you have left. These are all problems that could be addressed in a redesign. Still, given that you’re paying up to $15 each month for three tickets, it could make the hassle more than it’s worth.

The Bottom Line

Truthfully, each of these subscriptions has some merit. Sinemia offers the least tickets, but access to premium theaters and formats. MoviePass offers the most tickets, but more restrictions and a constant state of flux when it comes to service rules. Meanwhile, AMC Stubs A-List offers a middle-of-the-road number of tickets for the highest price, but with surprisingly few restrictions outside of only being available at AMC theaters.

In the end, though, there is a clear winner. While it may be the newest on the scene, AMC Stubs A-List is exactly what I’m looking for when it comes to a movie ticket subscription. Everything is housed within the app, it’s really easy to use, and IMAX, 3D, and other premium formats are offered–what’s not to love?

That said, if you don’t live near an AMC theater but still want to see tons of movies every month, MoviePass may be your best bet. However, if you’re part of the 88% of MoviePass’s audience that the company says sees two or fewer movies each month, check out Sinemia. It may not be the best-designed app, but it allows you to easily treat yourself to IMAX and 3D screenings.

Disclosure: Sinemia provided GameSpot with a trial subscription to evaluate the service for this story.

Explaining Ant-Man and the Wasp’s New Villain Ghost

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is getting bigger all the time, with Ant-Man and the Wasp adding several new heroes and villains to the mix. One of those new additions is Ghost (played by Hannah John-Kamen), a sinister villain who — in the comics anyway — lives to make life miserable for the business tycoons of the Marvel U.

If you’re not familiar with Ghost, here’s everything you need to know about the villain and his/her comic book background.

Where most Marvel villains are busy trying to take over the world or feuding with their superhero nemesis of choice, Ghost is more motivated by a love of anarchy and a desire to punish oppressive corporations. Ghost has dedicated himself (more on the character’s gender in a sec!) to attacking the largest corporate empires in the Marvel Universe, using a combination of elite hacking skills and phasing abilities to dismantle them from the inside out. Sometimes he works as a hired mercenary performing acts of corporate espionage. Other times he chooses his own targets. But either way, Ghost is a real thorn in the side of powerful businessmen in general and Tony Stark in particular.

Ant-Man and the Wasp’s Goliath Explained

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is expanding in a big way thanks to Ant-Man and the Wasp. Not only does the film finally put Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne in costume and introduce her long-lost mother, Janet (played by Michelle Pfeiffer), but we also meet Dr. Bill Foster (Laurence Fishburne), a brilliant scientist and future heir to the mantle of Giant-Man (in the comics anyway). As we learned in the trailers for the film, Foster worked with Hank Pym at one time on “the Goliath program”… though he never got quite as big as Ant-Man did!

Whether you call him Giant-Man, Goliath or Black Goliath, Bill Foster isn’t a character many causal Marvel fans may be aware of. With that in mind, here’s everything you need to know about this new addition to the MCU.

Guild Wars 2 Writers Fired After Twitter Dispute With Streamer

Writers Jessica Price and Peter Fries were let go by developer ArenaNet after a contentious Twitter exchange with a partnered YouTuber Thursday.

It began Tuesday when Price tweeted out a thread that expanded on a recent Reddit AMA regarding how to develop personable characters in an MMO. She outlined the difficulty in crafting a unique character, which is also supposed to act as a cypher for a multitude of diverse players.

“The dirty secret is I’m not sure if it’s possible to make an MMORPG (or CRPG) character compelling, because people have different expectations about what that character will be, as opposed to a pre-designed character in a single-player game,” she tweeted.

The 15 Best Comic-Con 2018 Panels to Be Excited For

Comic-Con 2018 is going to be a weird one compared to usual years, at least in regard to its panels. Marvel won’t have its traditionally enormous movie panel that usual gives us a glimpse at upcoming movies, and HBO won’t be bringing a hard hitter like Game of Thrones.

But that doesn’t mean this year’s panel line-up isn’t still a busy one! There will be tons of talks with footage from new movies, TV shows, comics, and games, all of which are sure to be loaded with surprises. Here are 15 panels we’re most excited about.

Warner Bros. (Movies)

Time and Date TBD

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Makes $1 Billion at the Worldwide Box Office

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has crossed $1 billion at the worldwide box office, becoming the 35th movie to do so, not adjusted for inflation.

According to THR, the sequel reached the milestone on Thursday, with a domestic haul of $304.8 million and an additional $700.7 million from overseas, with $245.2 million coming from China alone. In the slideshow below, you can see the 34 other movies that have already joined the box office billionaire’s club.

While it’s unlikely that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom will reach the financial heights of its predecessor back in 2015 ($1.671 billion), the sequel is still considered a success, and is now the third movie in 2018 to cross $1 billion, behind Black Panther ($1.346 billion) and Avengers: Infinity War ($2.037).

The First Purge: How We Got Here

It’s no secret that The Purge films are as heavy with political commentary as they are with “the humans are the real monsters” cliches and buckets of gore. Like any good horror flick worth its salt, these films carry important messages regarding the current state of affairs in our American society. Such commentary is, after all, a horror tradition. (Consider the bleak stance on racism in the Civil Rights era offered by George A. Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead, or the Reagan-era class warfare and conformity of 1988’s They Live.)

The Purge films take place in a future where a far-right political faction called the New Founding Fathers of America has risen to power and ratified a 28th Amendment to the Constitution, sanctioning an annual night of uncontrolled violence and crime. While the given reason for the Purge is to curb violence for the rest of the year, subsequent films reveal it’s actually an excuse for eliminating poor and marginalized communities.

10 Upcoming Apocalypse Games

The apocalypse is a topic and setting that countless games have explored throughout the years, but we can’t quite put our finger on why. Maybe it’s because we find some source of solace in their cautionary tales of a bleak future that’s yet to come. Maybe it’s because in these darkest of times, true heroes arise. Or maybe it’s just because we like roaming the wastelands in search of mutated ghouls to fight.

No matter the reason, here are 10 games that will help prepare you for when the world ends.

Fallout 76

It’s fitting that a list about the apocalypse starts with Fallout, a series synonymous with the topic. Through the Fallout games have always had us roaming the wastelands by ourselves, November’s Fallout 76 is making the whole thing more social. The idea of scavenging with pals, crafting a makeshift shelter, and launching a couple of nukes at our enemies seems downright awesome. But only time will tell if this drastic shift to the series will alienate some longtime fans.

Black Panther vs. Deadpool Coming From Marvel Comics

Wakanda and pure insanity are going to collide in Black Panther vs. Deadpool, a new limited series officially announced by Marvel.

As reported by AIPT!, Black Panther vs. Deadpool will feature writer Daniel Kibblesmith and artist Ricardo Lopez Ortiz. Kibblesmith is known from his work on Lockjaw and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Ortiz has worked on Hit-Girl and Civil War II: Kingpin.

The five-issue run of Black Panther vs. Deadpool is set to debut on October 3.

Credit: Marvel