Author: Trafficblast

Now that Mayans MC Season 3 has come to an end on FX, it’s clear that the show has vastly evolved from its first two seasons. The connections to Sons of Anarchy, the show it’s spun off from, have been reined in. Instead, it now looks to its own characters for ways to explore their individual stories within the world of this outlaw motorcycle club on the border between the United States and Mexico. In doing so, Mayans MC was reborn–and for showrunner Elgin James, it’s finally the show he wanted to make.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Season 3 of Mayans MC. If you haven’t finished the latest batch of episodes yet, you can check them out on FX on Hulu.

“This is the show that I actually pitched to [co-creator Kurt Sutter] and to the network and studio,” he told GameSpot. “When people would talk about how much they love the show [in the first two seasons], and even episodes I wrote, and I’d be like, ‘Oh, yeah, man, that wasn’t me,'” he admitted. “Like, not in a bad way, because I know I [co-]created these characters, you know? Kurt had the idea, created the characters, he created the world and he is just such a particular and special storyteller. So those are the stories we were telling, right? So when people were saying really nice things… even when I go on set with the actors, even when I direct, and they’d asked me something, I’d be like, ‘Oh, man, I don’t know.’ They’d be like, ‘But your name’s on it.’ And I was like, ‘I know, but I didn’t write it.’ And that’s just how a lot of TV is. That’s not us in particular, that’s just how a lot of television is.”

Now, though, after stepping in as the sole showrunner of the series, James and his cast and crew were able to make the show he’d been hoping to since day one.”With this season, as [star JD Pardo] always says, this was our first season,” he explained. “Not to discount the other seasons at all, it’s just this became the stories that we really wanted to tell.”

One of those stories centered on Coco’s (Richard Cabral) slide into heroin addiction and how it impacted everyone around him. For James, this was a story that demanded to be told. “These characters for nine seasons [between Sons of Anarchy and Mayans MC], I guess, have been selling heroin, and we’ve never seen the repercussions of that,” he explained. “We’d always talk about it in the writers’ room in the first two seasons.”

He continued, “Nevermind that the country has been torn apart by this opiate crisis now for so long. It hit New England, it hit New Hampshire and Massachusetts, South Boston over a decade ago. Where I grew up, that’s been something that’s been happening for a long time, even before it cut off to the rest of the country. And we’ve never shown repercussions. I think so many of us have family members and then there’s people attached to the show that have gone through their own journeys with opiates, so I felt it was so important to tell this story. Then even on a deeper level, it was just, again, about the repercussions of your actions.”

Beyond the clubs trafficking the drug, for Coco, in particular, those repercussions stem back to killing his own mother in Season 1. And while it may have taken until Season 3 for Coco to spiral downward, his struggles are far from over.

“He’s not healed. He survived, but Coco is not healed,” James said. “Where is he going to go from now? And how is he going to find the tools to keep it together [and] make his way back into the only world that’s ever really felt like home?”

Thankfully, fans will get the chance to see where Coco–and the rest of Mayans MC–goes from here. The series has already been renewed for Season 4. And with a creative rebirth like what’s seen in Season 3, there’s no telling what will happen next. Chances are it’s going to be bloody and violent, though.

One of the most anticipated programs coming to HBO Max is the one-off Friends reunion special that brings back the cast of the iconic TV show. Lisa Kudrow, who starred as Phoebe on the show, has now said everything she can about the show to try to get people hyped.

Speaking with Conan O’Brien, Kudrow read from a prepared statement about what she’s allowed to say. The bosses at Warner Bros. are trying to preserve the mystery so as to entice people to watch, but for now, Kudrow said she could share the official description: “Joined by special guests, we all, the cast, return to the original sound stage–Stage 24–on the Warner Bros. studio lot for an unscripted reunion special in celebration of the show.”

Pressing for more details, O’Brien asked Kudrow if part of the reunion show involved the cast recreating the famous fountain scene from the show’s credits where they are splashing around in the water as “I’ll Be There For You” plays. They did not, Kudrow said, but she teased that the cast did return to the fountain for … something.

“We’re at the fountain and there is footage I’ve never seen before that I was really excited about. So if you do like the fountain, then yes, that will be kind of thrilling,” she said.

Kudrow added that the reunion special will feature footage that people haven’t seen before, including the cast. This may include clips that previously apparently never made it to air.

The reunion special is not a Friends reboot, and the actors will not be in character. The special will instead be a reunion for the actors, who have not gotten together for a TV special since 2004 when Friends went off the air.

All six of the main cast members are coming back for the special. In addition to Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, Courteney Cox, and David Schwimmer will all take part. Series co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane will be included as well.

According to a report, all six stars are being paid between $2.5 million and $3 million to appear in the reunion. The actors are said to have collectively negotiated for the fees in the Friends reunion special. This is in keeping with tradition, as fans may recall that the actors also negotiated together to be paid $1 million per episode for the original show. This kind of collective bargaining was rare at the time, and it still is today for major TV shows.

No release date has been announced for the Friends reunion show yet, but we know filming wrapped up in April after being delayed due to COVID.

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GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Two of Marvel’s upcoming movies, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and the Eternals, feature Chinese-born creators in front of and behind the camera. And yet, these two movies may not make it to Chinese theaters if a hint from CCTV6 China Movie Channel ends up being accurate, according to a report from Variety.

CCTV6 aired a list of the United States release dates for all of the upcoming MCU Phase Four films, but Eternals and Shang-Chi were missing despite being the nearest films after Black Widow, which releases July 9. As Variety notes, their absence from the list doesn’t guarantee they won’t make it over, but the two films are already facing some challenges. These two movies are the first to significantly feature Asian creators; Shang-Chi stars Chinese-Canadian actor Simu Liu, while Eternals was helmed by Academy Award-winning director Chloe Zhao.

Shang-Chi‘s major obstacle comes from its history as an older Marvel comic. Shang-Chi first appeared in Marvel comics in 1973, a time when Marvel creators were taking inspiration from Eastern film and culture. Doctor Strange first appeared in 1963, and the Mandarin and Iron Fist a year after Shang-Chi, in 1974. Marvel didn’t always handle these characters gracefully. Variety points out that Shang-Chi’s father in his original backstory is a character called Fu Manchu, a character long associated with Asian racism and stereotyping. Marvel tweaked Shang-Chi’s backstory for his movie, making the Mandarin his father and casting veteran Chinese actor Tony Leung, but Chinese moviegoers appear skeptical.

“So you change the name and it’s not Fu Manchu anymore? The Mandarin is inherently a character that blackens the image of the Chinese people,” one user wrote on Weibo, China’s major social media service.

The situation with the Eternals is a little bit different because there, it’s more about the director herself. An article from Time explains that while Zhao was originally lauded in China for her groundbreaking Best Director win at the Golden Globes, comments from Zhao resurfaced, including one where she spoke about growing up in China, describing it as “a place where there are lies everywhere.” Chinese state-run publications did not report on Zhao’s similarly groundbreaking Oscar win, and a hashtag on Weibo mentioning Zhao was censored, along with mentions of her on other sites and services.

All movies that play in Chinese theaters are approved by the government before they get in front of citizens. For Shang-Chi, the issue seems to be more of a cultural one, but if the committee views the history of the movie’s villain as significantly offensive to Chinese culture and history, that may be enough to keep it from seeing release. For Eternals, Zhao herself seems to be the primary obstacle. Releasing a film created by someone the government views as persona nongrata, that would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for Marvel, could be a huge sticking point. None of this is guaranteed, but Marvel is almost certainly keeping an eye on both of these issues.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings releases on September 3, 2021, followed by the Eternals on November 5.

With vaccines rolling out across the country, in-person gatherings are finding calendar dates again. Star Wars fans can look forward to their next event even sooner than planned, as Lucasfilm has moved the next Star Wars Celebration date up by three months, from August 2022 to May 2022.

Star Wars Celebration Anaheim was initially scheduled for August 18-21, 2022. Instead, Lucasfilm announced today that the event will run from May 26-29, 2022.

“These new dates will provide fans with more incredible offerings to enjoy at Star Wars Celebration,” the organizers wrote in the official announcement.

Star Wars Celebration is the one-stop shop for Star Wars announcements. Celebration 2019 revealed the title of Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker, along with a trailer for the film. The event also featured the first event-only Mandalorian footage, along with character reveals for the show, and tons of Clone Wars reveals. Gamers, meanwhile, got an early look at Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

Disney has a big batch of Star Wars movies and shows planned. Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron and Taika Waititi’s untitled project are headed to the big screen. For television, Disney has announced shows for Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Cassian Andor, Lando Calrissian, Boba Fett, and more. While the Book of Boba Fett is releasing this year, many of these projects are further out, and we can likely look forward to reveals for some of them come next May.

According to the official announcement, fans who want to keep their tickets don’t have to do anything. If those new dates don’t work, though, you can request a refund through the Star Wars Celebration website.

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Days Gone

• PC
• PlayStation 4

Set in the beautiful, volcanic scarred high-desert of the Pacific Northwest, Days Gone is an open-world action-adventure game where you play as Deacon St. John, a Drifter and bounty hunter who would rather risk the dangers of the broken road than live in one of the “safe” wilderness encampments.

On paper, Hood: Outlaws and Legends has a lot going for it. It’s a competitive riff on the co-op multiplayer heist game where two teams of four merry men and women simultaneously attempt to unlock a vault and extract a giant chest of gold. Its stealthy race to elude computer-controlled knights and rival players rarely plays out with the grace implied by the concept. More often, the competition for keys, chests, and respawn points devolve into protracted brawls that showcase Hood’s clumsy combat, rather than dynamic stealth. Throw in some confusing UI, easily exploitable stealth-kill mechanics, and myriad small design flaws, and Hood’s execution fails to deliver the goods it’s promised.

Each match in Hood has four phases. First, someone needs to steal the vault key from the invincible (but generally unaware) Sheriff. Second, you find and open the vault. Third, someone carries the chest to one of a few extraction points on the map. Once the chest is locked in, one or two players use a winch to lift the chest while the others defend them. The “other team,” meanwhile, has opportunities to disrupt the mission to try and acquire the key or chest for themselves. With both teams naturally meeting at a few key locations, you have plenty of opportunities to surprise and overtake the objective.

In this idealized version of the game, the match is a coordinated stealth run, where each character uses their unique skills to advance the mission or help their teammates. Each of the four characters theoretically has a role to play: Marianne, the stealthiest fighter, moves quickly and has abilities that let her steal the key or assassinate enemies discreetly. Robin’s bow allows him to take out enemies from afar. Little John can lift gates and move the chest quickly. Tooke is a solid backup fighter with a wide-reaching melee attack and a healing ability. Though some of these skills make certain characters well-suited to different tasks, there’s no moment where you need a specific character and their skills. This opens the door for players to choose characters based on their playstyles, but also minimizes the importance of class-based play around the heist itself.

Ultimately, the character combat abilities matter more than their other affinities. Though Hood is primarily pitched as a game about heists, things get more chaotic and aggressive when you add another team of players. Rather than picking each other off or a coordinated ambush, most matches devolve into a series of team battles for control of the key, the chest, or the winch. Once the fighting starts, any pretense of a stealth mission falls away. The AI-controlled knights, while powerful enough to overwhelm any one player if they are in large numbers, are still easy enough to avoid that most players will engage each other even if it means getting spotted by them. Even the sheriff, who instantly kills you when he gets in range and can only be temporarily stunned, is slow enough that you can fight around him.

Hood’s unwieldy combat mechanics make large battles painful whether you win or lose. Though every character has some capacity for hand-to-hand fighting, Hood’s melee attacks feel loose–they’re difficult to aim or time well. On the receiving end, most attacks stun slightly, leading to a situation in large battles where a single hit will leave you stun-locked. In theory, you have either a parry or dodge to keep an enemy from hitting you, but it’s nearly impossible to keep track of the action in a scrum. These large clumsy battles can turn into minutes-long wars of attrition where players fight, die, respawn, and run right back into the fray until one side wipes the other out, giving themselves enough time to make progress. This is especially true in the winching phase of the match, where one team needs to defend a fixed point.

Hood’s unwieldy combat mechanics make large battles painful whether you win or lose

Then there’s the assassination issue. Any player can stealth kill an opponent by crouching behind them and hitting a prompt. It doesn’t matter if the assassin’s already been seen or even if the two have been fighting previously. This frequently leads to situations where one player will engage another openly, only to get assassinated by another opponent waiting in the wings. Getting assassinated mid-fight feels abrupt and inappropriate in the situation and, at times, it feels unavoidable and is therefore extremely aggravating. Similarly, Robin Hood can kill other players with a fully charged headshot. While it isn’t always possible to land one, especially while getting attacked, it also leads to frustrating sudden deaths in and out of combat. While this kind of combat seems appropriate for a stealthy combat experience, its unregulated use feels more disruptive than additive; more like an exploit than a well-considered mechanic.

Since a team can get wiped out quickly, matches can turn on a dime. Just because your team got the key and moved it to an extraction point doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not you’ll beat the other team. All you need to do to win is winch the last of seven progress pips. I’ve had matches where my team did all of the work, only to have the match stolen at the last moment, and I’ve also stolen matches at the last second in the same fashion. Still, the only reward for match progress nine times out of 10 is experience. Sometimes a steal feels earned, but sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, it doesn’t feel like the better team always wins.

Whether you play the objective or you go after the other team, Hood requires a lot of coordination. The best teams attack as a group and find ways to cater to their best players’ strengths. Hood features a ping system that allows for some nonverbal communication, but when you’re predicting enemy movements or noting something not in direct line of sight, you need to be able to say more. It also helps to relay intel when you get it: For example, when you steal the key, you learn the location of the vault, which isn’t on the map. Without chat, it would be impossible to share that information. Hood’s in-game party chat is on by default, which seems to prompt matchmaking-assembled groups to chat more than other multiplayer games, but there’s no substitute for playing this game with friends.

You can experience the pure heist version of the game without a second set of players, but sadly that PvE experience is relegated to a “practice” mode, which doesn’t give you any experience or gold to unlock and earn cosmetics or character perks. Without any opportunity to experience a narrative or make meta-progress, the practice feels slightly wasteful of time, especially since it’s also not great practice for the main PvPvE experience.

That said, I don’t think it’s a problem that Hood sidesteps the lore that so many multiplayer games feel compelled to build. In fact, Hood deftly uses the Robin Hood myth to get around it. There’s almost no story in Hood–you can earn text-based snippets of character information, but there’s no plot, per se. While that leaves open the question of why there are two rival bands of thieves, the story doesn’t really feel missing. All you really need to know is that Robin Hood and his band of thieves–Little John, Father Tuck, and Maid Marian–steal from the rich and give to the poor. Chances are, if you were drawn to this game there’s a good chance you’ve got the gist already.

Gallery

It is not without its own sense of style, though. Hood does try to put its own slightly darker, edgier spin on the Robin Hood universe. The character designs are more intimidating than the simple green garb. Tooke, Hood’s take on Friar Tuck, looks more like a shaman than a monk. (Also, in the lore, he’s a reformed church Inquisitor who tortured enemies of the state before going rogue). The more brutal aesthetic touches feel in line with all the killing you do on any given heist, but without any real story to spotlight those characterization changes, they don’t really register. It’s been a while since I’ve seen any of the Robin Hood movies so I can’t say for sure, but I think the biggest difference between Hood and other Robin Hood adaptations may be that this is the first time I’ve ever heard Robin Hood say “F**k.”

But without interesting characters or a story the focus falls solely on the gameplay, and Hood’s gameplay feels sloppy. It’s a heist game that usually devolves into a wild, frustrating melee combat arena. In its best moments, it’s a tense, highly cooperative experience, but those moments never last long. I want to believe in the competitive heist Hood tries to pull off and, in theory, a living multiplayer game could evolve into something better over time. (There are already plans to introduce a new game mode, map, and character for all players within the next 12 months). Still, there are too many points of frustration built into the experience to expect that Hood’s evolution will be transformative.