Author: Trafficblast

Brightburn, the darkest, most violent, and adult superhero movie you may ever see, is about to arrive on DVD, Blu-ray, and UHD on August 20. And if you’re interested in the home release, there is also an ill-advised drinking game you can play while watching it.

The movie follows an adopted child who is actually from space who develops superpowers akin to Superman. During his middle-school years, these powers awaken, and the movie takes a horrific turn. During the audio commentary on the home release of Brightburn, director David Yarovesky is joined by cinematographer Michael Dallatorre and costume designer Autumn Steed. At one moment in the movie, Elizabeth Banks’ character Tori Breyer is looking for her son, Brandon, during the middle of the night. She ends up saying his name quite a bit. “We should have played a game where every time someone says the word ‘Brandon’ in this movie, we take a shot,” said Yarovesky.

Just to put this game into perspective, we first see Brandon in home videos at the two and a half minute mark. In the following 10 minutes of the movie, his name is said 12 times. If you’ve seen Brightburn, then you know the main character’s name is said a lot, so we don’t suggest playing this game, as you will be inebriated before act one is over.

In addition to the audio commentary, the home release of Brightburn also contains numerous featurettes on subjects like mixing horror and the superhero genre, creating the character, and social vignettes.

Brightburn on Blu-ray

$20 ($35)

See on Amazon

In his review of Brightburn, GameSpot’s Mike Rougeau said, “Brightburn wants to be a rebuttal to the drippy sentimentality of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But it fails to understand one key reason why the superhero genre is beloved by millions. The heroic capacity to do good on a large scale is inherently fantastical; many people go through life feeling helpless to affect positive change in the world, despite good intentions. In contrast, doing evil on a large scale is all too easy. There’s nothing enjoyable about watching someone with great power do what actual mass murderers have done countless times in real life: unapologetically kill a lot of people.”

You can own Brightburn for yourself when it comes to UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD on Tuesday, August 20.

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We’re less than three weeks away from River City Girls‘ September 5 launch for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Video game distributor Limited Run Games took the time as a liberty to reveal the upcoming beat-em-up’s physical release, which is slated for PS4 and Switch.

LRG shared the news on Twitter, reminding players of the game’s premise: “two street-tough high-schoolers who must fight their way through the six regions of River City to rescue their kidnapped boyfriends.” Pre-orders for River City Girls’ physical version will be open for a limited, four-week period starting on Friday, August 30. Each standard River City Girls physical copy will come with a one-disc sampler of the game’s soundtrack, with LRG alluding to more River City Girls news in “the coming weeks” in a separate tweet.

Earlier this week, developer WayForward Technologies published another character spotlight. This time, the video focused on the cheerful and bubbly Kyoko, River City Girls’ second playable character. At the beginning of August, WayForward showcased River City Girls’ first playable character, the hot-blooded Misako, in a spunky character reveal.

We played River City Girls at Anime Expo 2019, citing it as one of the better anime-like games we’re watching this year. The beat-em-up features retro-inspired visuals reminiscent of previous Kunio-kun games like 2016’s 3DS release, River City: Tokyo Rumble. But instead of focusing on series mainstays Kunio and Riki, River City Girls modernizes its formula by putting girl power front and center.

Given the pedigree of Platinum Games, there’s reason to believe the Nintendo Switch exclusive Astral Chain could be the next breakout game in the stylish hard-action genre. It’s directed by Takahisa Taura, who was a lead designer on Nier: Automata, and supervised by Hideki Kamiya, who brought us Bayonetta and the original Devil May Cry. But what those games had, in addition to gratifying and refined combat systems, was a star character with a unique voice who brought their stories to life.

You may think that a game that lives or dies by the greatness of its combat system could easily get away with a silent protagonist. However, a lot of the bombast and attitude that exudes from stylish action games are borne out of a character who sets the tone throughout. I think about Bayonetta’s confidence and ferocity and how it’s part of what makes those games pop, and how the on-screen action is very much an extension of that charisma. Even Vanquish lead Sam Gideon’s corny, hard-boiled temperament was part and parcel to the game’s attitude.

In the opening minutes of Astral Chain, you choose between playing as a male or female character, both of which are siblings in the story. You give them a name, hairstyle, hair and eye color and jump straight into some varied third-person action scenarios. You’re a slick anime cop who’s quickly propelled to special status by taking on a Legion, a separate entity you control simultaneously to fight the Chimera threat that plagues your city. In the heat of these moments, your character will yell, grunt, and call out to their Legion upon summoning, but they’ll never speak, even when spoken to.

Instead, the silence of Astral Chain’s lead makes for those awkward moments that warrant a vocal response in dialogue. And to be clear, there hasn’t been any narrative reasoning to why they don’t talk. Maybe it’s that Astral Chain puts less of a focus on story or character development. But I begin to wonder if those bits of emptiness could have been flipped to help the game establish a distinct attitude and help elevate the critical action-packed scenes or lend more weight into the smaller investigative decisions you make.

What makes this design choice even more curious is that whichever sibling you didn’t choose becomes a key supporting character who features fully voiced dialogue. Voice actors Aleks Le and Brianna Knickerbocker play the roles of the male and female characters, respectively. And by virtue of having to choose one, you have to pass on the other’s performance. It also feels like we could’ve had a more fleshed-out lead with a distinct personality, like in Platinum’s past games.

Last month, Platinum Games put out a blog post in which Taura-san explained the decision to go with a silent protagonist and said, “I want players to be able to project themselves onto the player character, so they naturally feel like part of the game. So [we] don’t give the player character any extreme expressions that might give them too much of a predefined personality.” But now having played Astral Chain, silence doesn’t seem to be benefitting it in that particular way.

I don’t see silent protagonists as an inherent flaw; my favorite games of all time, like the Persona series and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, put them in starring roles. And those characters develop alongside you as you make specific decisions that have narrative implications over the course of the game’s story. That’s not exactly what Astral Chain is doing, as the few dialogue options I’ve seen during investigative scenarios seem inconsequential, so it’s hard to get in the mindset of having the lead be an extension of yourself.

Of course, it’s just one aspect to the multitude of things Astral Chain is trying to do. There’s a uniqueness to the function of the Legion and how it diversifies combat in a way that Platinum hadn’t done before, and the visual flair complements the satisfaction of tearing through Chimera. It’s probably not going to be a deal-breaker that your character doesn’t speak since the game is much more than that, but I can’t help but think of it as a missed opportunity.

Who will appear?

Most of those shows have rather large casts, which makes for tricky storytelling. We know for sure Green Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and Batwoman (Ruby Rose) will be involved. Black Lightning (Cress Williams) will also be getting into the mix. While various members of their respective teams might also play a role, chances are it will have to be in a supporting capacity.

As for Legends of Tomorrow, that’s a bit trickier. Expect to see, at the very least, White Canary (Caity Lotz) in Crisis. Leaving her out would be a mistake. As for the rest of the team, it’s too soon to tell.

However, there is one Legends actor playing an interesting part. Brandon Routh, who stars on Legends as the Atom, will appear in Crisis as a version of Superman. The actor played the role initially in 2006’s Superman Returns, though it doesn’t seem like he’s playing that same take on Superman. Instead, he teased at San Diego Comic-Con that he will play a version of the Man of Steel based on the Kingdom Come comic book story, which follows an older version of the hero.

Routh isn’t the only Arrow-verse actor playing a new role. In addition to the Monitor, Garrett will play the evil Anti-Monitor. Meanwhile, Cavanagh will appear as Pariah. In the comics, Pariah is an evil scientist that lets the Anti-Monitor loose, resulting in the destruction of universes.