Author: Trafficblast

From Dusk Till Dawn Director Announces 4K Edition Of ’90s Horror Hit

Director Robert Rodriguez has been keeping busy recently, with his action-packed Mandalorian episode, co-showrunner duties on the upcoming Boba Fett spin-off series, and his hit Netflix kids movie We Can be Heroes. The filmmaker has also found time to oversee a 4K UHD version of his iconic ’90s collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, From Dusk Till Dawn

The vampire action movie was released in 1996, with Rodriguez directing Tarantino’s script. The movie co-starred Tarantino alongside George Clooney, Salma Hayek, Harvey Keitel, and Juliette Lewis. In a new interview with Forbes, Rodriguez revealed the 4K version will be released for the movie’s 25th anniversary this year.

“I actually just finished a color correction for a 4K version,” he said. “It looks gorgeous. It was cool to see. I can’t wait for that to come out to celebrate the anniversary.”

Rodriguez went on to talk about the circumstances of shooting From Dusk Till Dawn, which, despite the high profile stars and screenwriter, was a low-budget independent movie.

“It feels like it was a lifetime ago, but it doesn’t feel like it was that many years ago if that makes sense,” he said. “It was a different life for me back then, for sure. I was starting out, the independent film scene was exploding, and From Dusk till Dawn was an independently done film. It was really low budget. It was crazy how we shot that.

“It felt like you could do anything. Because of the success of Pulp Fiction, suddenly studios didn’t know what audiences wanted anymore. They were trying anything, and it was very experimental.”

Rodriguez was also asked about the possibility of a sequel to his 2018 movie Alita: Battle Angel, which was co-written and produced by James Cameron. Despite the fact the film was a box office disappointment, the director explained that it still could happen.

“I think anything is possible,” he said. “Disney bought Fox, and they have Disney+, so that is worth the conversation. I know other people would love to see another, and I would love to do another one. As far as where it would go or how it would be made, I think streaming has opened up many opportunities such as sequels. It’s already a pre-sold concept, it’s already got a built-in audience that wants to see it, and then it’s delivered to them in a way that’s the easiest for them to consume. So, it’s not a bad idea.”

Rodriguez will executively produce the Boba Fett show, titled The Book of Boba Fett, alongside Jon Farveau and Dave Filoni. Favreau recently confirmed that the series will hit Disney+ later this year, with The Mandalorian Season 3 arriving in 2022.

Now Playing: 10 Biggest TV Shows To Watch In 2021

Monster Hunter World’s Latest Patch Fixes Delivery Quest Glitch

If you have been playing Monster Hunter World: Iceborne lately and have been running into issues with a bugged delivery quest, we have good news for you! Iceborne version 15.11’s patch update is now live and will squash those bugs.

In the previous version of Iceborne, 15.10, delivery quests would disappear from the list at the Resource Center when playing on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles in offline mode. This bug made it impossible to complete these quests, which was a pretty significant drag on the Monster Hunter experience. If you play in online mode, those quests should reappear anyway, but with the 15.11 update, even players who want to remain offline will no longer see delivery quests up and vanish on them.

The bug was originally discovered by Twitter user JalBagel, a Monster Hunter speedrunner, during a charity stream back in early December. He noticed that while playing with an offline mod on Steam, the delivery quests were disappearing. This was noticeably strange since JalBagel knew that prior to the game’s Movie Event Quest update, delivery quests were not going missing.

He tweeted a video of the glitch to Capcom and the Monster Hunter team to let them know and to encourage them to check if the bug was also found on PS4 and Xbox One in offline modes. Turns out it was. JalBagel also reported the bug to Capcom’s customer support, and received confirmation of the bug from the dev team, with them citing poor internet connections or server outages as the reason for the glitching.

Now that the Monster Hunter team has made good on getting this fixed, players and particularly speedrunners can continue to play without worrying about how missing delivery quests will impact their hunts.

Now Playing: Monster Hunter World: Iceborne – Alatreon Trailer

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Sundance Film Festival Cancels LA Drive-In Screenings

The Sundance Film Festival has canceled all of its 2021 drive-in screenings in Southern California as the region continues to see a record-breaking surge in COVID-19 cases. In December, the festival reacted to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic by announcing the typically Salt Lake City-based event would instead go virtual with “satellite screens” at drive-ins and independent theaters across the country.

“The safety and well-being of our audiences, community, and staff is the most important thing to Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival,” the festival said in a statement provided to Variety. “In consideration of the overall public health situation in the Los Angeles area and the trajectory of the spread of the virus there, the health guidelines, and crisis the hospital systems are facing we will be pivoting our planned drive-in screenings to our online platform.”

In a separate letter distributed to filmmakers obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, festival programmers point to a “significant spike in COVID-19 cases” for the cancelation, adding, “It is deeply unfortunate that Southern California, and Los Angeles County in particular, is now one of the worst hit parts of the country.”

Sundance will, as of this writing, still proceed elsewhere in the country with screenings to assure the traditional Sundance premiere for film titles is still able to move forward. The festival has been shortened to seven days, compared to the usual 10. Check Sundance’s website for listings of where there might be local screenings.

Call Of Duty: Warzone Patch Nerfs The DMR 14

Activision has followed through on its promise to nerf the DMR, which was causing some issues and headaches in the battle royale game Call of Duty: Warzone.

The newest patch is now live, and it reduces the headshot damage of the DMR 14 while also increasing recoil to deliver an overall nerf to the weapon. The Type 63 has also been nerfed with the same adjustments through the patch notes.

The Mac-10, meanwhile, sees its headshot multiplier decreased, while players using dual pistols will discover more hip fire spread and a decreased damage range. All of these nerfs and adjustments are specific to Warzone, not Black Ops Cold War.

Here are the full patch notes:

January 6 Warzone Patch Notes:

  • DMR 14 – Reduced headshot damage, increased recoil
  • Type 63 – Reduced headshot damage, increased recoil
  • Mac-10 – Decreased headshot multiplier
  • Dual pistols – Increased hip fire spread, decreased damage range

These issues popped up in Warzone with the launch of Season 1, which brought guns from Black Ops Cold War into Warzone.

In other news, Warzone recently added its newest Operator, Bulldozer, who wields a giant sledgehammer and is now available to buy in a new bundle.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

With Flash Games Dead, One Developer Is Saving Theirs With A Game Boy Port

If you’re old enough to remember the early 2000s, you probably have fond memories of playing Flash games to while away the hours at your job or at school. As many longtime Flash fans know well by this point, Adobe officially halted support for the longtime multimedia platform back on December 31, citing security flaws and the existence of better tech. However, one prolific Flash developer took an unusual step to preserve their work: porting it to the original Game Boy.

That game is Anthony Lavelle’s IndestructoTank, and you might have hazy memories of it from your youth, as I do. It’s a grounded shoot ’em up similar to Defender or Moon Patrol, only your tank is completely invincible, and your goal is to bounce onto your enemies’ heads continuously so you don’t run out of fuel. The Game Boy port obviously limits the game’s color palette, and the on-screen action is a little bit tighter, but it plays just as I remember.

Though the ROM will work on a real Game Boy, for the rest of us, Lavelle has provided an emulator that works in your web browser on his Itch.io page. As a whole, Lavelle exhibits a sense of humor about the demise of Flash in a recent AMA, but it’s clear that he still has a lot of love for the platform. Arguably best-known for the puzzle game Shift, he says that Flash is the reason that he got into making games, and there will never be a tool quite like it.

“There were very few hours of my day I wasn’t making Flash games, and I would have likely filled all of my spare time making them anyway even if I wasn’t being paid, because it was a fun tool to use,” he writes. “You didn’t need to be into coding, it’s just a skill that came as part of the creation process. Itch.io scrapes the surface of what those days were like for the new wave of developers, but the only thing close to as simple to get started in are visual novels, so a much more restricted genre gameplay wise.”

If you’re still feeling nostalgic for the heyday of Flash, you can check out preservation projects like Flashpoint and the Flash Game Archive. Emulation efforts are ongoing.

Now Playing: Turn Your Phone Into A Game Boy: Hyperkin Smart Boy Review

Sacha Baron Cohen Says There Won’t Be Another Borat Movie

Sacha Baron Cohen has some not-so very nice news for Borat fans: He’s not planning on bringing the character back for another sequel. 

In an interview with Variety, Baron Cohen, who co-wrote and produced Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, a follow-up to his 2006 box office smash, said that it’s very unlikely that he will revive the Borat character again, as he had a very specific purpose for returning to the role of the fictional Kazakhstani journalist last year, which he doesn’t think he will be able to find again for a third movie.

“I brought Borat out because of Trump,” Baron Cohen told the outlet, speaking about his decision to reprise the character after so many years. “There was a purpose to this movie, and I don’t really see the purpose to doing it again. So yeah, he’s locked away in the cupboard.”

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/12/21/borat-2-star-maria-bakalova-reacts-to-best-lead-performance-in-a-movie-win”]

Baron Cohen revealed that he hadn’t planned to make a sequel to the first movie as he had “vowed never to make another undercover movie again” in the wake of his 2009 mockumentary Brüno because of how much it had impacted his real life, though he ultimately reversed that decision and decided to bring the character back for another outing last year.

“After Bruno, I was fairly traumatized. For about six months afterwards whenever I heard a police siren, I would start to get tense, because I’d been chased by the police so much. I vowed never to make another undercover movie again,” Baron Cohen revealed, before delving into his reasons for making the Borat sequel.

“I felt democracy was in peril, I felt people’s lives were in peril and I felt compelled to finish the movie,” he explained, discussing the relevancy of the movie. “The movie was originally about the danger of Trump and Trumpism. What coronavirus demonstrated was that there’s a lethal effect to his spreading of lies and conspiracy theories.”

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/10/21/borat-subsequent-moviefilm-review”]

With many movie theaters remaining closed or operating a severely limited moviegoer capacity, Baron Cohen felt that the best option was to release the film digitally for as many people as possible to watch it before the US Presidential election in November, so he struck a distribution deal with Amazon Studios to allow the tech giant to release the movie exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in October.

In our review of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, we commended the sequel for managing to be “funny and relevant” all these years later. In particular, we praised Maria Bakalova’s performance, saying she was “every bit Sacha Baron Cohen’s on-screen equal” in the movie’s “avalanche of awkward, anxiety-cranking moments that’ll have you laughing while watching through your fingers like you would a horror movie.”

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

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

Graphics Cards Are All Set To Become More Expensive Very Soon

If the ongoing supply issues and resurgence in cryptocurrency mining isn’t enough to make grabbing a new graphics card challenging, prices for them might soon be increasing in the US to make stock even harder to come by.

The price increase might soon affect numerous GPU manufacturers, as waivers that kept trade tariffs at bay have now expired. President Trump instigated a trade war with China in 2018, which would’ve increased GPU prices had companies not applied for waivers to prevent it. Those waivers expired, however, this month, meaning tariffs between 7.5% to 25% can now be applied to all PC hardware.

ASUS is the only company that has acknowledged this right now, writing to customers to explain why they might encounter higher than expected prices on products.

“Our new MSRP reflects increases in cost for components. operating costs, and logistical activities plus a continuation of import tariffs,” Juan Jose Guerrero III, ASUS’ technical product marketing manager wrote in a statement via TechPowerUp. “We worked closely with our supply and logistic partners to minimize price increases. ASUS greatly appreciates your continued business and support as we navigate through this time of unprecedented market change.”

There’s already some instances where the ASUS-branded RTX 3090 is on sale for $1980, an increase from its previous $1799 MSRP. Similarly, ASUS’ cheapest RTX 3080 now retails for $860, while breaking the $1000 mark for some variants. It’s challenging to see how widespread these increases will be given the fluctuating supply levels and secondhand pricing of all of Nvidia’s RTX 30-series cards, but it’s likely prices across the board will increase in some way given how many components are manufactured in China.

Nvidia is set to host a livestream on November 12 to showcase the future of GeForce graphics technology. The company has not indicated if new hardware will be revealed, too.

Now Playing: Nvidia RTX 3080 Review

Samsung Introduces its First 110-inch Micro LED TV to Homes

Samsung has been showing off its massive wall-sized Micro LED TVs at CES since 2018, but now the company is finally ready to sell these massive screens to regular consumers.

Available in 88, 99, and 110 inch sizes, Samsung’s Micro LED TVs feature a 99.99% screen to body ratio – so you really are just getting a sliver of bezel with all that screen space. As the name Micro LED might suggest, these TVs utilize much smaller LEDs. They’re also self-illuminating, so they can produce perfect blacks and contrast like an OLED 4K TV can.

Samsung Micro LED

Of course, having a really big screen at home is great for simulating the movie theater experience, but you can also split any of these Micro LED TVs into four smaller displays. In fact, the 110 inch screen can become four neatly separated 55 inch displays – perfect for split-screen Mario Kart.

Samsung has yet to give a firm date of when these Micro LED TVs will release or pricing information, but you should definitely expect an eye-popping sticker price on these massive displays.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected]

Kevin Lee is IGN’s Hardware and Roundups Editor. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam

Samsung Announces its Next Generation Neo QLED TVs

Samsung is introducing a new generation of TVs called Neo QLED. The company was the first to introduce QLED 4K TVs imbued with quantum dot technology and now is following that up with something new.

Neo QLED TVs feature an all-new backlighting technology that uses smaller LEDs while also eliminating the need for a layer of lenses to capture and transmit backlight illumination. Now each compact LED chip emits its own light similar to how OLED screens work.

Samsung Neo QLED
Samsung Neo QLED TVs come with Google Duo built-in

The smaller LED also allows more lights to be packed into the same space, resulting in more backlighting zones and even greater brightness. At the same time, the smaller LEDs offer more finely controllable brightness and reduced bloom, resulting in higher contrast and deeper blacks.

Aside from the impressive new backlighting system, Samsung has fitted its Neo QLED TVs with a new AI Quantum processor. This new chip can more quickly process 8K image upscaling and introduce object-tracking sound that follows the action happening on the screen.

Samsung Neo QLED

Samsung’s new Neo QLED TVs also introduces two new gaming TV-focused features. First up, Ultrawide Gameview is all about giving users the option of turning their TV into an ultrawide 21:9, or even super ultrawide 32.9, display. Secondly, there’s a new Game Bar UI that allows players to quickly change their aspect ratio, check input lag, and connect a gaming headset.

The first TVs to get the Neo QLED treatment include Samsung’s flagship Q90A line. Additionally, Samsung has announced a new Neo QLED 8K TV as well. We’re sure to get more details and specs on these TVs in the coming days, but don’t expect to see pricing until a few months later.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected]

Kevin Lee is IGN’s Hardware and Roundups Editor. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam

Madden 21 CPU Teams Are About To Get Better At Drafting

It’s one of the longest running jokes for Madden fans. A CPU team with a veteran quarterback steps up to the mic during the first round of the draft and picks another QB. The team is filled with holes and they choose not to fill any of them.

Madden CPU AI has always been flawed and Madden 21 is no different–but EA hopes to change that. A new update is bringing improved QB draft logic alongside other changes to the only licensed football game.

“We have added new logic checks that CPU teams will use to guide whether they should even be interested in drafting a QB when they’re on the clock in Round 1,” EA said in a statement sent to GameSpot. “Now, teams will evaluate their roster and previous draft picks of the last two years to keep teams from replacing players too soon.”

AI currently prioritizes drafting a QB in the first round if the prospect’s rating is higher than the team’s current starter, regardless of any other factors. This update will have CPU teams consider their quarterbacks age, previous draft picks, and a few other factors before they pick a player in the draft.

This update will also give commissioners the ability to undo free agent signings, override team settings (Heat Seeker tackling, Ball Hawk, and Switch assist), put the draft on autopilot, add the popular “House Rules” feature to franchise mode, and give commissioners the ability to restrict X-Factor Customization. Another update will bring improved trade logic in February.

These updates have been widely requested by the Madden community, although they are still far behind the work that modders have been able to add to the PC version of the game. We’ll have to wait and see about how effective these changes will be once they are live.

Keep an eye out for Madden’s crossover with SpongeBob this week as well.

Now Playing: Madden NFL 21 Video Review

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.