Author: Trafficblast

Dawson’s Creek — one of television’s most beloved coming-of-age stories — is coming to Netflix in The US on November 1
…and before you ask, the episodes won’t have the original theme song (sorry) pic.twitter.com/f07QkbdFJY

— Netflix (@netflix) October 19, 2020

To promote the upcoming western release of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Sega’s Australian distribution partner Five Star Games has created what it’s calling the “world’s most expensive bowl of ramen.”

Five Star worked with the Sydney-based ramen favorite Gumshara for this unique promo. The bowl of ramen is filled with lobster, pork, and noodles, and it carries an estimated value of $400 AUD ($282 USD).

This special edition bowl is called the “Rags to Riches” ramen, and it’s meant to symbolize Yakuza protagonist Ichiban Kasuga’s story in Like a Dragon.

Specifically, each bowl was made using 15kg of lobster and pork bones, and Mori Higashida of Gumshara crafted the bowls in his kitchen. The dish also has a full lobster in it, complete with a head made to look like a dragon.

“Being given a chance to imagine such an over-the-top ramen dish has been fantastic, and I’m proud of what we’ve created,” Higashida said in a statement. “My wife is actually a fan of the Yakuza series of videogames, so I’m familiar with the craziness of the game and hope to have captured its essence in our own way!”

Here is the full ingredient list for the Rages to Riches ramen:

• 5kg high-end lobster heads
• 10kg quality pork bone
• 1x full lobster: Tempura lobster tail and golden head fashioned as a dragon head for garnish
• Noodles
• Traditional ramen garnishes of soft-boiled seasoned egg, bamboo shoots, spring onions,
• Golden nori

One person in New South Wales will get to eat (and hopefully enjoy!) the Rags to Riches ramen as part of an Xbox ANZ sweepstakes. The winner will also get a custom Like a Dragon noren and a copy of the game on Xbox. 10 runner-ups, who don’t need to live in Sydney but must be in Australia, will get the noren and a copy of the game.

You can follow the Xbox ANZ Twitter channel from today through November 10, which is when Like a Dragon releases, to enter for a chance to win.

For more on Like a Dragon, check out GameSpot editor Michael Higham’s recent preview of the game’s Xbox Series X edition, “Yakuza: Like A Dragon Is An Absolute Gift.”

The Batman, which stars Robert Pattinson as the Dark Knight himself, is using virtual production techniques for select scenes, the same techniques that have been used for 2019’s The Lion King and The Mandalorian.

As reported by THR, Industrial Light & Magic’s chief creative officer Rob Bredow revealed the news during this year’s virtual VIEW visual effects and animation confab, and said the production team on The Batman had “pre-built practical sets in the UK and an LED wall was built around these sets to enable use of virtual production in those specific scenes.”

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/the-batman-trailer-dc-fandome-official-footage”]

In season one of The Mandalorian, showrunner Jon Favreau worked with ILM to create an LED wall driven by the Unreal real-time game engine that allowed for real-time visual effects production as scenes were being filmed.

ILM’s StageCraft, a virtual production unit, is also being used for the production of Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder, and season two of The Mandalorian will feature even more complex virtual production techniques as the technology isn’t quite as new as it was during the first season.

Unfortunatly, it will be a bit of a wait until we see how virtual production has helped The Batman, as it was recently delayed to March 4, 2022.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=the-mandalorian-season-2&captions=true”]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

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

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

With the first season of HBO’s Lovecraft Country coming to a close this past weekend, one of the biggest unanswered questions is whether or not the show will be returning for a second season. While nothing is confirmed, there are talks happening at HBO and, if it were to go forward, it would continue in the spirit of Matt Ruff’s novel.

In an interview with Lovecraft Country’s showrunner Misha Green, Rolling Stone asked what the chances were that HBO would greenlight a second season.

“We’re in talks with HBO,” Green said. “I just finished the finishing touches of Season One three weeks ago. But I’m excited about exploring Season Two and what we have in mind. Nothing’s official.”

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/06/05/hbos-lovecraft-country-teaser-trailer”]

Green also spoke to Deadline, and revealed a bit more of what she hopes a potential season 2 would look like.

“Nothing is official yet, but I envision a second season that carries on the spirit of Matt Ruff’s novel by continuing to reclaim the genre storytelling space that people of color have typically been left out of.”

Lovecraft Country’s first season ended with an episode called “Full Circle,” and in our review, we said “Lovecraft Country has attempted numerous times to infuse its characteristic flavor of contemporary pulp with thematic profundity, and, in a number of those instances, has managed to succeed in its aspirations. These are the aspects the show will likely be best remembered for: its incisive themes, its stirring performances, and its bold narrative choices that deconstruct and juxtapose the conventions of pulp-horror with the real-life horrors of being black in America. These qualities are apparent and present throughout this season’s finale, but so are its faults.”

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=lovecraft-country-season-1-photos&captions=true”]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

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

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

This review of the series finale of HBO’s The Third Day, titled “Last Day – The Dark,” contains full spoilers. To remind yourself where we left off, read our review of The Third Day episode 5.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

With this week’s “The Last Day – The Dark,” HBO’s miniseries The Third Day arrives finally at a conclusion that – in however roundabout a fashion – offers some degree of closure. But what becomes amply clear when viewing the series in total is that the writers had about three hours worth of story they felt compelled to stretch out like an elastic thread to fit into six. As a result, the time I’d invested in the buildup ended up working in direct opposition to whatever degree of emotional fulfillment I extracted from the closer.

As the hour begins, Helen (Naomie Harris) is at long last reunited with her wayward husband Sam (Jude Law), finally intersecting the two tracks of story that comprise The Third Day: Sam’s search for his son, and Helen’s search for her spouse. We already know there’s more than pure happenstance that brought Sam to the misbegotten island of Osea, up to and including a sanctified bloodline and demonic sacrifices, but as becomes clear now, there are still plenty of blood-drenched shenanigans yet to unfold.

[poilib element=”poll” parameters=”id=7c80e316-8f4f-4389-a778-5d5fdaf44c56″]

Add to that the question of what actually happened to Sam and Helen’s son. Add to that the ongoing mystery of what role their daughters play in all this. Add to that the question of why Sam absconded with a large sum of money at the start of the series. It’s a whole lot of dangling bits of yarn that requires knitting together, and last week’s entry sure seemed to point the way towards some kind of meaningful resolution.

Unfortunately, by the time things finally start winding down to the conclusion in this final installment, The Third Day has already been hobbled by the prevailing need over the course of the series to keep the audience on the hook and only parcel out exposition in dribs and drabs. As a result, there are simply too many things in play for all of them to be resolved, and while there is some measure of satisfaction to be found in where things end up, there’s just as much frustration in the things that remain open-ended, including the fates of several main characters and the future of Osea itself.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=tv-shows-that-killed-off-a-main-character&captions=true”]

Whether they’re playing coy in hopes of further stories down the line, or they simply want the uncertainty itself to be the point, it’s an unrewarding payoff to the ordeal. Even with that said, this final chapter does offer yet another opportunity to watch a cast of great actors play off each other. The backstory behind Sam and Helen is exactly as complicated as we’d expect given the circumstances leading into their respective island excursions across the causeway to Osea, and Law & Harris both add immediacy and angst to their reunion as they try to chart a path forward from a place no parent ever wants to even think about, much less actually experience.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=tv-shows-that-killed-off-a-main-character&captions=true”]

Also on the performances side, there’s a moment with Mr. and Mrs. Martin (Paddy Considine and Emily Watson) that genuinely surprises with the emotion it elicits. Despite their unsettling intro in the first hour of the series, the Martins became one of the bits of consistency throughout, and darned if we haven’t started to feel a bit of attachment to the crazy old couple over that span!

Given that last week’s episode already revealed new mom Jess (Katherine Waterston) as having a larger, more sinister part to play than her introduction in the series implied, things come to a boil on the island with various factions violently at odds, and Sam, Helen, and the girls caught in the middle. By the time the credits roll, there is a path forward out of their pain for our main characters, but the larger question of what happens next with Osea and its complicated familial hierarchy seems to left very deliberately unresolved, as if leaving room for some future, further exploration. It’s not the neat and self-contained story that the “miniseries” format suggested we’d get, making it feel like a bit of a bait-and-switch.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/10/14/dexter-revived-for-limited-series-on-showtime-ign-now”]

Maybe it’s just the palpable exhaustion talking after having been on this journey for the last six weeks, but the mere threat of more Osea on the horizon makes one feel like this is one causeway that should probably be left sealed off.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/10/14/dexter-revived-for-limited-series-on-showtime-ign-now”]

Lawbreakers, the first game from Gears of War director Cliff Bleszinski’s Boss Key Productions, struggled to make an impact in the hero shooter market–so much so that the studio eventually closed, having only released one other game, the Early Access Radical Heights. Now Bleszinski, who retired from games and has been working in the world of theatre as a producer, is writing a book about his life–and it’s leading to some reflection.

In a Facebook post, Bleszinski says that as he works through the section of his book about forming his own studio, it’s bringing up some feelings for him. “In spite of it being difficult, in a way, it’s therapeutic,” he says. “The first two years were a blast but the tail end was extremely difficult on everyone and I’ve had more than enough time to reflect on my time running that studio.”

“We should have started with a small, indie game FIRST before trying to make the shooter we ultimately did,” he reflects, before digging into the specific issues Lawbreakers faced. Bleszinski has previously lamented how it was a mistake to release Lawbreakers on PS4 rather than Xbox One, which he reiterated in this post. “I already had a core base of fans on Xbox,” he writes.

“Indecision about free to play or $29.99 caused customer confusion as well,” he continues (the game ended up costing $30). “Putting my own personal politics front and center certainly didn’t help!” Bleszinski has previously said that he thinks the game was “too woke“.

He also talks about how Radical Heights suffered because it was “hard to motivate a team that just saw their previous game crater and (knew) that this battle royale is the hail Mary to possibly save the studio.” He alludes to the Aliens FPS that never was, too, referencing “the frustration of having a shot at the Aliens franchise and then suddenly Disney does what Disney does and buys Fox which puts that in limbo.” The details of this deal, however, will have to wait until the book releases.

However, for all of these difficulties, Bleszinski seems more confident about the future of gaming thanks to some titles he has played recently. “I’ve found myself madly in love with smaller games these days, and the success of Fall Guys and Among Us give me hope that not everything needs to be insane AAA that requires crazy crunch that ruins families and mental health on a 100m budget,” he says. “The other title I’m madly in love with is The Touryst on the Switch. So simple, yet deceptively tricky in parts, and just cute as heck with the art style.”

He says that these smaller, successful games “give me hope that I may one day dip my toe back into the biz, ever so slowly and cautiously.”

For the record, he’s right: The Touryst is really great.