Author: Trafficblast
Aladdin Sequel in Development
Disney’s Aladdin remake is reportedly moving forward on its sequel and writers John Gatins and Andrea Berloff have been hired to write the script.
In August, one of the Aladdin remake’s producers said that Disney was looking into a sequel. Now, Variety reported that these producers had spent the past six months trying to work out the sequel’s story and have supposedly settled on a new idea instead of simply adapting the original animated movie’s sequels.
The producers are also hoping that actors Will Smith, Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott will return, but there won’t be any deals made until a script is completed. It’s not known at this time if the first film’s director, Guy Ritchie, is being pursued.
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This would be the fourth of Disney’s recent live-action adaptations to receive a sequel. Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent have already received sequels in theaters, and Disney officially announced a Jungle Book sequel to be directed by Jon Favreau.
There have been previous reports of a Genie prequel movie way back in 2015 and, more recently, a spinoff of Aladdin was rumored to be in development that would focus on the Prince Anders character. This potential spinoff is supposedly planned for Disney+, whereas this sequel is reportedly getting the big-screen treatment.
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In our review of Aladdin, we said the film is “about as safe an adaptation as we’ve seen Disney put out, which is a bit disappointing considering that most of what it adds to the story works pretty well.” The Disney studio has since announced a Bambi remake and a reboot of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids featuring the return of Rick Moranis.
IGN has reached out to Disney for comment.
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Petey Oneto is a freelance writer who has no interest in Aladdin (2019) but this sequel could be interesting.
Phantasy Star Online 2: Hands-On Beta Preview
As much as I love to play MMOs, most of them have really boring combat. Even the ones that market themselves as more “action-packed” usually just trade tab targeting for empty sizzle and often tedious repetition which doesn’t really solve the problem. But Phantasy Star Online 2 is different.
After spending a chunk with the PSO2 North American Closed Beta, I’d honestly put its combat system right up there with the likes of Monster Hunter, God Eater, and maybe even Devil May Cry. It’s just that intense and fun.
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Over the course of last weekend, I put over a dozen hours into PSO2, mostly as a Human Braver switching between using a katana and bullet bow. The versatility of a powerful melee weapon with massive combos and a long-range precision-based weapon meant I could be effective in any situation. Near the end of the beta, I eventually dabbled with a Newman Summoner as well but didn’t get to spend as much time with that one.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=I%E2%80%99d%20put%20its%20combat%20up%20there%20with%20Monster%20Hunter%2C%20God%20Eater%2C%20and%20maybe%20even%20Devil%20May%20Cry.”]As far as Closed Beta tests go, Phantasy Star Online 2’s westward expansion went far better than most. The first seven or so hours I tried logging on were a complete non-starter as servers buckled under the pressure of huge swaths of players slamming the game within seconds. But after several hours of downtime, they were up and running well through the rest of the test, including an extra day of up-time. Honestly, it felt more like an Early Access headstart than a closed beta. Nothing was restricted in terms of content and no progress will be wiped before launch or Open Beta either, allowing us to just play through the first several hours of the actual game.
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If you’re unfamiliar with PSO as a franchise – you can get caught up by learning everything newcomers need to know about Phantasy Star Online 2 – but at a base level, it’s a lot like Monster Hunter. The big difference being that it’s less about targeted and specific hunts and more about completing quests and raid-style missions. If you could make Monster Hunter a more traditional MMO with a heavy dose of sci-fi, then you’d have something pretty close to PSO2. There’s a similarly-designed lobby area where you can run into all kinds of other players, as well as instanced missions, but – similar to Destiny’s Exploration mode – you can also come across other players out in the field even if they’re not in your party.
So it’s not really a big open, connected world to explore. Instead, you queue up quests from the central hub that then send you to a transport ship where you can tweak your loadout, recruit NPCs if you want, and get ready before going through a portal down to the planet. Like Monster Hunter, zones each have their own types of enemies, loot, and environmental designs to make them feel distinct.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=If%20you%20mixed%20Monster%20Hunter%20with%20a%20traditional%20MMO%20and%20a%20heavy%20dose%20of%20science%20fiction%2C%20you%E2%80%99d%20have%20something%20pretty%20close%20to%20Phantasy%20Star%20Online%202.”]Notably, PSO2 was an extremely easy game 90% of the time. If you’re playing content that’s marked as appropriate for your level on Normal difficulty then you likely won’t even need to heal through the entire mission. Even Hard missions targeted at 10 levels higher than my current level weren’t very difficult. The exception to this is boss battles, which can be incredibly overwhelming if you’re not paying attention and your group is ill-prepared.
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Combat in PSO2, meanwhile, is flashy and intense. As a Braver, I can dash in for a quick combo, counter enemy attacks to block and return damage, enter a hyper-powered state for increased speed and effectiveness, and even juggle enemies in the air with my katana. The bow is my ranged-option packed full of huge attacks that eviscerate single-targets alongside plenty of other options that hit a large area for massive AoE damage. And while special attacks and techniques use up your PP energy gauge, basic attacks rapidly refill it so you’re never going more than a few seconds without doing something cool.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=The%20highlight%20of%20the%20Closed%20Beta%20was%20undoubtedly%20the%20Urgent%20Quests.”]Exploring zones and doing quests was fun enough, but the highlight of the Closed Beta was undoubtedly the Urgent Quests. At specific real-world times, everyone that’s online gets a server-wide alert message that there’s an emergency situation. You go up to the quest counter and queue up for the Urgent Quest, which takes place over the course of a half-hour interval. Once you’re sent to the mission you’ll join up with up to 11 other players for a big 12-player raid-style mission where boss fights are intense, albeit not very difficult. But from what Japan server veterans have told me that changes dramatically once you get deeper into the game – these Urgent events were very much designed as introductory experiences.
The overall format and structure of PSO2 isn’t groundbreaking, but the execution and polish in terms of gameplay is unrivaled. Sega has done a fantastic job of distilling and capturing the iconic flare that goes with anime-style games like this and managed to repackage it into a persistent online multiplayer RPG that defies expectations. After eight years I expected PSO2 to feel archaic by gaming standards, but other than some jagged edges on textures, some performance hiccups associated with the beta, and admittedly dated visuals, I’m hard-pressed to find issues worth complaining about.
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Obviously I only played the first dozen or so hours, the key moments of any game that constantly throw new mechanics at you to keep things fresh, so I have no idea if it will start to get tedious soon or not. But my gut tells me that between the nine different classes and fighting styles there is plenty of variety to warrant playing for a long time to come – especially considering it’s a free-to-play MMO. Finally, There’s no indication of what the cash shop will be like in the North American version, but hopefully it will lean toward convenience items and cosmetics rather than pay-to-win elements.
What I played was still a Closed Beta, is unfinished, and had its share of translation errors, but I’ve been assured the team is aware of all that and is actively working on getting it in top-shape for release this Spring on Xbox One and eventually on PC after that – including cross-play – though there’s no official word on other platforms for the North American version yet.
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David Jagneaux is a freelance writer for IGN. Talk RPGs with him on Twitter at @David_Jagneaux.
After Making $1 Billion, Disney’s New Aladdin Is Getting A Sequel
Disney is moving forward with a sequel to Aladdin, the reboot that made more than $1 billion at the box office in 2019. According to Variety, the producers spent six months try to find a direction of the sequel, and now the movie is in the early stages of development.
Disney is reportedly replacing the 2019 movie’s writers, John August and Guy Ritchie, and bringing in new writers John Gatins (Flight) and Andrea Berloff (Straight Outta Compton) for the sequel, according to the report. The original movie’s producers, Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich, are reportedly set to return.
The report goes on to say that it’s unclear if director Guy Ritchie will return as well. The film studio also hopes to bring back Will Smith, Mena Massoud, and Naomi Scott, but the report says they won’t receive official offers until the script is finished.
Also of note, Variety reports that Aladdin 2, or whatever it’s called, will play in theatres as opposed to premiering as a Disney+ film. That’s expected, given the 2019 Aladdin made more than $1 billion at the box office.
The original Aladdin movie had two sequels–Return of Jafar and King of Thieves–but they were released on direct-to-video. Sources told Variety that the sequel to the live-action Aladdin will not follow the plots of those earlier sequels.
Shayna Baszler Biting Becky Lynch On WWE Raw Was a Bad Call
On last week’s call with investors, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon re-emphasized his commitment to maintaining WWE’s PG rating. When asked if AEW would encourage WWE’s creative team to create edgier, more explicit content, McMahon said the following:
“AEW has not changed [WWE’s] content at all because it’s all about our characters, the storylines, and resolutions. We don’t need more edgy content, as you call it. We’re one of the few programs out there that really is PG.”
Shayna Baszler bit Becky Lynch on the neck and then posed with blood dripping out of her mouth on the February 10 episode of Raw. WWE is in the business of working a paying audience; it takes nerve and gall to work the stockholders.
The big bite occurred on the heels of a Raw Women’s Championship match between Becky Lynch and challenger Asuka. Lynch retained the title via pinfall, and it was during her post-match celebration that Baszler entered the ring and struck Lynch from behind. She then locked her opponent into a Kirifuda Clutch, before throwing Lynch’s limp body to the mat, face first.
This was Baszler’s debut on Raw after years of dominating NXT. Had the segment ended there, it would have been perfect. In less than a minute, WWE had established everything the audience needed to know about this new feud between Lynch and Baszler. In one corner was the dominant champion, who held the title against all comers and handed Ronda Rousey her first loss. In the other corner was a thick-shouldered, legitimate shoot fighter, who trained with Rousey and fought in the UFC.
But the segment did not end there. Instead, Shayna Baszler knelt down and took a healthy chomp out of the back of Becky Lynch’s neck. Blood flowed out of Baszler’s mouth. Lynch, who had been lying on the mat lifeless, began hollering at the top of her lungs. And as she was taken out of the arena by a medic team, the camera captured dried blood clumped in Lynch’s hair.
Afterwards, Lynch hijacked an ambulance and drove herself to the hospital. She returned later in the show, bandaged up and spoiling for a fight. Baszler didn’t oblige, which means that likely, this angle will become a cat-and-mouse game for the next several weeks, where each woman will try and one-up the other. A Becky Lynch appearance on the February 12 episode of NXT seems imminent.
The segment drew a crowd reaction, no doubt about that. But WWE will struggle to top this segment for the next two months. It’s too much, too soon.
Let’s assume that both the bite and the blood were kayfabe (in the unlikely scenario that the bite was legit, this segment was beyond the pale). Even so–even as a scripted storytelling device–the bite is a freak show stunt. It reduces Baszler, who is a legitimate, trained fighter, to the level of a feral animal.
Fleshing out who she is, and why we should care, is going to be an uphill battle moving forward. The WWE creative team now has to convince the casual fan that Baszler is someone with value beyond “the one who bites people;” commentator Jerry Lawler got the ball rolling by calling her a “vampire.” Fortunately, Baszler is talented enough to dig herself out of this narrative hole, but why put her in the hole to begin with?
It would have been easy to make her unhinged and dangerous without stooping to this level. The bite was so extreme, so out of place, that it became impossible to suspend disbelief. Baszler might as well have taken out a knife and shanked Lynch. Because at that point, the wrestlers are no longer simulating athletic competition. They’re performing bad theater.
Conversely, imagine if Baszler mounted Lynch and continued to ground-and-pound her. Imagine if at the end of the segment, the blood dripped off of Baszler’s fists instead of her mouth. Wouldn’t that be terrifying?
In the context of a wrestling angle, biting is logical if the biter feels cornered or trapped–if the person’s other limbs are, for whatever reason, unavailable. Chomping down should be the last, desperate resort.
Case in point: When Roman Reigns and the Usos chained Baron Corbin to the ring post on the January 31 episode of Smackdown, Corbin attempted to bite his opponents as a way of escaping because his hands were being yoked together. That made sense. What didn’t make sense, and what came across as ridiculous, was Shayna kneeling down to bite an unconscious opponent, who was lying in the prone position.
Yes, it was shocking, and it drew a social media response. But that’s a short-term reward that numbs the audience’s sensibilities. The bite would have made a lot more sense if it took place two weeks before Wrestlemania. The storyline needs to build to an emotional point where such an act would be a necessary escalation.
Instead, we’re 50 days away from Wrestlemania. What’s the followup act to this? Does Baszler continue to bite people? Will Lynch bite Baszler back? Never underestimate WWE’s ability to redefine bad taste. This is not the bottom.
Lynch vs. Baszler has the potential to be great–even better than the Charlotte Flair vs. Rhea Ripley showdown that’s also heating up. But often, the difference between a solid match and a classic match comes down to the context and history of its competitors and the lead-up to the fight. WWE hot-shotted this storyline with a momentum it cannot maintain. It does Baszler, and the hard work it took her to get to this point, a pointed disservice.
The Game Console That Nintendo And Sony Made Together Is Now Available To Buy … For $13,000
The so-called “Nintendo Play Station” console, which was a fable system and the subject of video game lore, is now available to buy on an auction site. The website Heritage Auctions has listed the Nintendo PlayStation console, and this is said to be the first time one of the units has been available at a public auction. Only 200 of these were ever made, and some or all of the other units were reportedly destroyed, but not this one.
The folks at Heritage Auctions say the console operates normally, and they played a few rounds of Mortal Kombat on it as a test. It’s now up for auction, and the current highest bid is 13,000. You can bid in increments of $500, and also bear in mind there is a 20 percent “buyer’s premium” attached, so $13,500 becomes $15,600, and so on.
“By far, this is arguably one of the most notorious, mysterious, and controversial artifacts of the video game industry,” reads the auction description. “This prototype has been around the world and back again, admired and appreciated by video game enthusiasts from all over. Even though this is the closing of this portion of its narrative, it will continue to remain a pivotal piece of video game history no matter where it ends up.”
The Nintendo PlayStation was publicly unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in 1991, but Nintendo backed out of the arrangement with Sony and, at that very same event, announced it would be entering into a partnership with Philips, which would result in the infamous Philips CD-i (and its notorious Zelda titles). The 200 existing prototypes for the Nintendo PlayStation were said to be destroyed.
The falling out between Nintendo and Sony is reportedly part of what drove Sony to get into the gaming market to begin with. Both companies have enjoyed great success in gaming, with Sony’s PS4 recently surpassing the Wii with more than 100 million in sales. Nintendo’s newest console, the Switch, is also asales juggernaut that keeps growing.
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Season 2 Update Adds A Disgusting New Dismemberment
Infinity Ward packed a lot into the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Season 2 update, and this includes a new dismemberment animation that is incredibly brutal and disgusting.
You can see in the video below that players killed by killstreaks can now have their heads blown clear off. Have a look at the video below to see this in action, but fair warning: it’s gross.
If you don’t want to see this new animation, or the game’s other gory ones, you can toggle off dismemberment and gore effects from the Options menu. Bear in mind, however, that dismemberment only happens in the campaign mode, but gore effects are in all modes.
Modern Warfare’s new Season 2 update adds a heap of new content, including a new version of the fan-favorite Modern Warfare 2 map, Rust. It’s available in a 24/7 playlist called “I Have Rust Issues.” For more, check out the full patch notes.
In other news, Infinity Ward is rumored to be working on a battle royale mode called Warzone, and its release might be coming up sooner than expected. Players have successfully glitched into the mode’s menus, revealing new details about it.
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Mighty Ducks TV Series Reportedly Moving Forward on Disney+
A Mighty Ducks TV series is reportedly coming to Disney+ and it sounds like the Ducks will be portrayed as the antagonists of the show.
The Hollywood Reporter says the show will consist of 10 half-hour episodes and will be set in present day Minnesota. It’s not clear if this will be a miniseries or if it will potentially go on for future seasons. The story follows 12-year-old Evan (Brady Noon), who was recently cut from the now highly competitive Ducks. Evan and his mom (Lauren Graham) decide to start their own team of underdogs to take them on.
The Mighty Ducks series was first rumored in January 2018. The show will reportedly begin production in Canada this month for a release on Disney+ later this year. The writer of the three Ducks films, Steve Brill, co-created and will executive produce the series. Cathy Yuspa and Josh Goldsmith, who both served as showrunners for The King of Queens, co-created the Mighty Ducks series and will serve as showrunners. Black-ish director James Griffiths will direct for the series.
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Noon is best known as one of the leads of Good Boys while Graham was a star on Gilmore Girls and Parenthood. Graham will also be credited as an executive producer on the Mighty Ducks series.
The three Mighty Ducks films were never blockbusters at the box office, but they’ve certainly had a lasting appeal. The first Mighty Ducks movie was more popular in video rentals in 1993 than it was at the box office in 1992, according to Esquire. Popularity grew when Disney founded the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim NHL team shortly after the film’s release, which Esquire reports had the most first-year wins for any NHL team in history and was responsible for 80% of all NHL merchandise that season.
A Mighty Ducks animated series aired around the time of the third film’s release, featuring anthropomorphic ducks playing hockey. The show only lasted from September 1996 to January 1997, and the third film made less than half of the first movie at the box office.
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This is far from the only old property that Disney is rehashing for its streaming service. A Turner & Hooch series was announced for Disney+ along with new shows starring Lizzie McGuire and numerous Marvel and Star Wars characters. Disney will also bring out shows based on Night at the Museum, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Cheaper by the Dozen and Home Alone. It was announced today that Rick Moranis is even coming back for a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids movie that may or may not air on Disney+.
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Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN who could really go for a NEW idea coming to Disney+.
Sonic The Hedgehog Movie: 16 Of The Weirdest Real Sonic Characters
No, Sanic isn’t one of them.
There’s nothing quite like Sonic the Hedgehog. Not only is he a beloved pop culture icon and the star of some of the most popular video games of all time, he’s also the central character of a vast, rich mythology populated by all kinds of supporting characters. Some of Sonic’s pals are just as well known as he is: Miles “Tails” Prower, the friendly flying fox; Dr. Robotnik, with his huge mustache and dastardly schemes; Knuckles the Echidna, who was basically a universal cheat code for every Sega Genesis Sonic game with his super-cool flip-top game cartridge.
Chances are those names are pretty familiar to you–and, sure, Knuckles may have already pinged your radar as being a little weird, given the way he could inexplicably glide and scale walls for no discernible reason. But when looking at the larger picture of the Sonic Universe, it wasn’t that strange, right? After all, Tails could fly, Sonic could rev up. Video game characters sometimes just have weird, specific abilities, right? But it turns out flying foxes and gliding echidnas were just the tip of the strange Sonic character iceberg–and boy howdy, what an iceberg it is.
We sent ourselves on a surrealistic spiral through the far reaches of Sonic’s sprawling, mega-dense lore to find some of the weirdest characters the various branches of the franchise have to offer, from ninja-detective chameleons to regular, normal humans Sonic somehow just gets to pal around with between the various TV shows, games, and comics. Who could have guessed that the fight between a super-fast blue hedgehog and an evil robotics-obsessed scientist could be so complicated?
With any luck, we’ll see at least some of this craziness unleashed upon the big screen as the live-action Sonic The Hedgehog movie speeds towards theaters. Though right now, the only confirmed character (that isn’t just a regular human) is Sonic himself, there’s always the chance for some surprises, right? And, who knows, maybe the live-action Sonic universe will spin-off into its own mega-involved lore sometime down the line? We certainly hope it will.
Fortnite Boss Condemns Loot Boxes, Praises Cross-Play
Fortnite is one of the biggest games on the planet, and as a free-to-play game, it makes money from the sale of microtransactions. Unlike other popular free-to-play titles, however, the game does not have loot boxes.
Developer Epic Games stands against loot boxes as a monetization practice. CEO Tim Sweeney said during the D.I.C.E. 2020 Summit in Las Vegas that loot boxes share the same characteristics as gambling, and they have no place in games.
“We have to ask ourselves, as an industry, what we want to be when we grow up?” he said to an audience of some of the biggest names in gaming, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Do we want to be like Las Vegas, with slot machines … or do we want to be widely respected as creators of products that customers can trust? I think we will see more and more publishers move away from loot boxes.”
He added: “We should be very reticent of creating an experience where the outcome can be influenced by spending money. Loot boxes play on all the mechanics of gambling except for the ability to get more money out in the end.”
Fortnite’s microtransactions come in the form of cosmetics that people can buy to outfit their characters in unique and personalized ways. The content that Epic sells for the game does not impact gameplay.
EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront II generated a lot of buzz for its implemention of loot boxes. In its pre-launch state, the game allowed players to spend money on loot boxes that could contain items that affect gameplay. Players voiced their concerns about this, and EA removed these loot boxes–and all of the game’s microtransactions–for the game’s official launch. Microtransactions later returned to the game.
Also during his talk, Sweeney spoke about how he hopes to see more cross-play games in the future. The executive said cross-play is good for business, as he found that Fortnite players who play together spend more time in the game and buy more microtransactions.
“What we all really want and need to accept is equal access to all customers and give up our attempts to create our own private wall guard or private monopoly,” Sweeney said. “In Fortnite, the player who spends with friends plays for twice as long and spends more money. Cross-platform is the future and we all have to do our part.”
Cross-play is indeed becoming more and more popular. Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is the first entry in the series to feature cross-play, and that game set new sales and microtransaction records.
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