Spoilers follow for the first three episodes of HBO’s Watchmen.
In Episode 3 of HBO’s Watchmen, “She Was Killed by Space Junk,” Jean Smart (Fargo, Legion) makes her debut as Laurie Blake, formerly Laurie Juspeczyk, a.k.a. Silk Spectre, one of the main characters from the original graphic novel. Her arrival in this third week of the nine-episode season isn’t just a terrific way to connect the new show to the Watchmen world of 35 years ago, but Smart is also flat-out amazing as this older, more world-weary version of Blake, who has changed quite a bit in the years since the squid attack. Or has she?
I spoke to Smart about the return of Agent Blake, how she feels about Doctor Manhattan and Nite Owl these days, what her dynamic is with Regina King’s Sister Night, and more.
This review contains spoilers for HBO’s Watchmen Season 1, episode 3, “She Was Killed By Space Junk.” Watch our spoiler-filled discussion on the highlights of Watchmen episode 3 in the video recap above.
The third episode of Watchmen breaks from its predecessors’ narrative focus. It moves away from Angela Abar/Sister Night (Regina King), the brand-new protagonist written for the show, and towards Watchmen graphic novel alumna Silk Spectre II/Laurie Juspeczyk (Jean Smart). Now an FBI agent who hunts masked vigilantes, Laurie has taken the last name of her father, The Comedian/Edward Blake. By following Laurie, an outsider to the main plot, the episode provides insight into what the post-comic world feels like outside its Tulsa setting — as well as how these two worlds differ, and how they overlap — thus establishing what tensions and barriers could arise as Abar’s story unfolds.
The Sims has surpassed an extraordinary sales milestone according to EA’s latest financial report.
As part of their quarterly earning report, EA revealed plenty about their current success stories. Apex Legends has reached 70 million players, for instance, and will now be treated as an annual franchise. CEO Andrew Wilson also singled out The Sims 4 as a strong performer, with an average monthly player count that rose 40% in 2019.
Now, thanks thanks to Wilson’s earnings call, we know exactly how much money The Sims franchise has made since the first game released in 2000.
“Engagement across the franchise has led The Sims to surpass $5 billion in lifetime sales,” Wilson stated. “The Sims continues to be one of the great franchise in gaming, and we have plans to bring new experiences to its amazing players for a long time to come.”
The Sims has long been a strong seller and a cultural phenomenon. The next expansion for The Sims 4, Discover University, will release for PC on November 14. The long-running series will return to Steam in the coming months, with The Sims 4 being made available on the storefront for the first time.
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Warning: this review contains full spoilers for Batwoman: Season 1, Episode 5! If you need a refresher on where we left off, here’s our review for Season 1, Episode 4.
With Batwoman finally gaining some momentum, the biggest obstacle to the show’s success is Kate Kane’s arch-enemy/long-lost sister, Alice. The show’s take on this DC villain falls well short of the mark established by the comics. With that in mind, the prospect of an Alice-focused episode could be construed as either the worst idea ever or a necessary shift in order to flesh out a struggling character. In the end, “Mine Is a Long and Sad Tale” makes some progress with Alice, bit not enough to suggest this character will ever become what the series needs her to be.
The news last month that 3DS developer AlphaDream has gone bankrupt reportedly led to the internal cancellations of several 3DS games that were in the works, including a remake of a previous game in the Fire Emblem series.
This news comes via Greg Miller’s Kinda Funny podcast during a chat with former Game Informer senior editor Imran Khan. At around the 45:20 mark of the video below, the two discuss Nintendo’s statements on the strong sales of the Switch Lite, and the likelihood that this will lead to more 3DS franchises coming to Nintendo’s new handheld.
The result is encouraging for Pokemon games coming next month. Nintendo chief Furukawa said company would make more 3DS franchises available on Switch to convey appeal of Lite.
The Switch Lite sold 1.95 million units in its first 11 days of release, showing that there’s still an appetite for handheld-dedicated consoles. But things aren’t looking so good for Nintendo’s older handheld: Khan notes on the podcast, AlphaDream’s Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story + Bowser Jr.’s Journey for the 3DS sold terribly despite strong reviews. According to Khan, the game shipped “something like” 11,000 units in its first month.
“When that happened, I heard that Nintendo cancelled a bunch of further 3DS plans,” Khan states. “I know there was another Fire Emblem remake in the works. And that was one of the things they shuttered.” He goes on to speculate the possibility of that game eventually coming to Switch.
This is in no way confirmed, though–so for now, if you want more Fire Emblem on Switch, consider investigating the excellent New Game Plus perks in Three Houses.
Joker, the new DC movie starring Joaquin Phoenix, is closing in on a super-sized box office milestone. After another weekend in theatres, the movie has now crossed $934 million worldwide.
According to Hollywood news site Variety, it “looks likely” that Joker will reach $1 billion globally, given the film’s sustained momentum.
Joker was produced on a small budget compared to other comic book movies. It reportedly cost $70 million to produce, which is far lower than the reported budgets of other DC movies such as Wonder Woman ($149 million) and Aquaman ($160 million).
In addition to its production budget, Warner Bros. reportedly spent $120 million to market the film and around $100 million more on profit-sharing. When all is said and done, Joker might end up turning a profit of around $500 million, which is the same as Avengers: Infinity War.
Joker is already in the record books as the most successful R-rated film of all time. It is also one of the most successful DC movies ever, recently surpassing Suicide Squad ($746 million) and Wonder Woman ($821.8 million), and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($873.6 million). It still trails The Dark Knight ($1.004 billion), The Dark Knight Rises ($1.081 billion), and Aquaman ($1.148 billion), however.
Few could have predicted the huge success that Joker has enjoyed, and that includes Warner Bros. Reportedly due to concerns about its content and tone, Warner Bros. elected to mitigate its risk by sharing the financing with outside investors, according to The Wall Street Journal. This approach might have seemed like a measure of financial discipline at the time, but Warner Bros. is now losing out on huge profits as a result. According to the report, the outside investors that Warner Bros. took on for Joker will together earn between 40% and 50% of Joker’s entire profits.
Also eating into the profits for Warner Bros. is the fact that the studio agreed to “generous” profit-sharing deals with Joker director Todd Phillips and star Phoenix. Warner Bros. agreed to lucrative deals because it didn’t see Joker as being a blockbuster hit, and now that it has proven to be one, Phillips and Phoenix are getting paid big time.
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If you want to run Halo: Reach on your PC, you won’t need the most up-to-date machine. 343 Industries want to make sure that the game scales on all types of computers, “ranging from bleeding edge to near potatoes”.
We learned back in March that Halo: The Master Chief Collection is coming to PC, and that you’ll be able to buy the games individually, with Halo: Reach arriving first (and it’s also coming to the Xbox One version). Now, months after the game’s PC beta, 343 Industries has revealed the minimum system requirements for Halo Reach in a post on Halo Waypoint. You can see them below.
“With the help of the Halo Insider program we have received feedback and monitored how the title has played on a wide range of systems and below are the currently recommended minimum specifications for the Steam version of Reach on PC,” the post reads.
Depending on whether or not you want to run the game at 1080p or 4K, the system requirements are a bit different. The recommended specs have not been released yet, but should be made available at a later date.
“We are in the process of testing more options with integrated graphics but are not ready to share that information quite yet,” the post reads. “The specs will be slightly different for the Windows Store version as well and will be shared at a later time.”
Halo: Reach was the final Halo game developed by Bungie. In GameSpot’s original 2010 review of the Xbox 360 version of Halo: Reach, Chris Watters gave the game a 9.5/10, calling it “a towering achievement that delivers an enormous amount of engaging content that players will no doubt be enjoying for years to come.” A release date for the PC version has not been confirmed yet.
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It looks like BioWare is preparing to reveal some news about the long-awaited Dragon Age 4 in the coming weeks. The studio celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Dragon Age franchise with a tweet that teased some kind of further reveal on December 4.
BioWare is holding a party of sorts on that date to celebrate the franchise’s 10th birthday. Dragon Age: Origins, the first game in the series, was released on November 3, 2009. Dragon Age II was released in 2011, with Dragon Age: Inquisition following in 2014.
It seems there might be some news about Dragon Age 4 during the event. BioWare ended its statement by saying fans should tune in for “Dragon 4ge Day!” which is seemingly in reference to Dragon Age 4.
Today marks 10 years of Dragon Age! This year we’re excited to join the community’s party on December 4th and celebrate a decade together in the world we all love. See you on 12/4 for Dragon 4ge Day!
It’s a whole new month, and that means New Releases has a bunch of games to talk about. November brings the long-anticipated PC release of Red Dead Redemption 2 and PS4 exclusive Death Stranding. Those two platforms are also seeing the return of a cult classic with Shenmue III. Meanwhile, we’ve got new games for two massive IPs with Pokemon Sword & Shield and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Red Dead Redemption 2 — November 5
Available on: PC
Red Dead Redemption 2 was GameSpot’s 2018 Game of the Year, so the PC release is a pretty big deal. This version of the game looks better than ever thanks to better textures and lighting, plus 4K/HDR support on capable PCs. You can also check out new story content, including more Gang Hideouts and Bounty Hunts.
Hideo Kojima’s latest project is still largely wrapped in mystery, but the elevator pitch is this: Sam Bridges (played by The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus) makes delivers across a shattered United States. Also there are shadow monsters, psychic babies, and tons of celebrity cameos. The game was also just announced for PC, in case you want to wait until summer 2020 to play that version.
By this point, you probably know what you’re getting with a Pokemon game, but Sword & Shield are mixing things up. The new Galar Region has its own variants of classic Pokemon like Weezing and Ponyta, plus region-specific evolutions for Farfetch’d and Linoone. Sword & Shield also introduce new giant, kaiju-like monsters called Dynamax Pokemon, some of which can even change form, known as Gigantamax Pokemon.
It might sound cliche, but Fallen Order’s combat really does feel like the Dark Souls games. In fact, if you die, you’ll have to defeat the last enemy you fought to regain your lost XP, a la Bloodborne. It’s pretty fitting that this original Star Wars story is challenging, since protagonist Cal Kestis is one of the few surviving Jedi Padawans after Order 66.
Shenmue 3 isn’t the end of Ryo Hazuki’s story, but fans of the Sega Dreamcast classic have been waiting a long time for the next chapter nonetheless. The third game picks up in a small fishing village in China, where Ryo continues to track down his father’s killer. Expect the usual dose of minigames and intriguing characters as you explore the open world.
November has only just begun, and it’s got plenty more video games on the horizon. We didn’t even get a chance to talk about Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games 2020, which comes to Nintendo Switch on November 5 in the US and on November 8 in the UK. Next week, we’ll take a look at two anticipated remasters: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition and Romancing SaGa 3.
It’s no secret that Star Wars creator George Lucas drew inspiration from samurai films like Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, but the similarities between the Jedi and samurai aren’t just drawn from fiction.
In this week’s episode of True Fiction, Kurt Indovina traces the threads of George Lucas’s inspiration back to 17th century feudal Japan, and its impact on popular culture as a whole, including ancient belief systems, like Shintoism and Bushido, and how they align with the way of the Jedi.
