The Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest book series ever created. Now, a new hardcover Illustrated edition of the epic tale is coming out on October 14, 2021, in the UK. The 1954 edition of the novel only features two illustrations from Tolkien, but this latest Lord of the Rings Illustrated version will have “30 other sketches, illustrations, and maps.”
Originally listed for £60, the standard Illustrated Edition is now available for £43.29 instead if you preorder, while the premium deluxe edition is now down to just £112.50, instead of £150. Don’t worry if you’ve already got your preorder in, as Amazon will automatically bring your current order down to the lowest price.
Preorder The Lord of the Rings Illustrated Edition
There are two versions to choose from before the release. The standard illustrated and new hardcover edition which features a stunning white cover, will set you back £60 and features 1248 pages in a hardcover binding. But, for the serious fans, there is also the Deluxe Special Edition to consider.
This very special deluxe edition is quarter-bound in cloth and red leather, with raised ribs on the spine and stamped in two foils. The pages are edged in gold and contained within are special features unique to this edition. It is limited to a worldwide first printing of just 5,000 copies, and will cost £150, likely destined to become an incredible collector’s item for any who choose to pick it up.
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Robert Anderson is a Commerce Editor and deals expert for IGN. Send him awesome gaming screenshots @robertliam21 on Twitter.
The Suicide Squad is a second chance–not just for the franchise, but also for director and writer James Gunn, who found himself in the position to pitch Warner Bros. a DC movie only after being fired from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise at Disney. The stars had to align just right for this movie to be made at all, and it feels like a gamble in some ways–Warner Bros. bet not just that the controversy over Gunn’s old tweets would blow over, but also that moviegoers would give The Suicide Squad another shot after the commercially successful but otherwise dismal 2016 version.
It might come as a relief, then, that The Suicide Squad is completely delightful. It’s shocking, bloody, hilarious, and heartfelt, with a winning ensemble who never feel wasted (unless that’s the point–we’ll get to that).
Gunn’s version of The Suicide Squad doesn’t waste time laboring over the details of its premise–that a government agency led by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) implants bombs into the heads of supervillains and then sends them on deadly missions, leaving the US with deniability (and most likely ridding the world of some supervillains in the process). The program’s official name is Task Force X, but they don’t call it the Suicide Squad for nothing, as you’ll learn early on in this movie. A lot of characters die very quickly, which explains how Gunn managed to balance the massive ensemble cast that we’ve seen in all the marketing. The answer: he didn’t.
The Suicide Squad really focuses on a handful of characters that the writer and director put a lot of care into molding. There’s Idris Elba’s Bloodsport, a deadly mercenary and reluctant leader; Margot Robbie’s iconic Harley Quinn, who everyone should be familiar with by now; Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag, who returns from the first film; John Cena’s Peacemaker, who believes he’s doing bad things for the right reasons; King Shark, a Groot-like hulk voiced by Sylvester Stallone and mo-capped by comedian Steve Agee (who also plays one of Waller’s lackeys in the film); and arguably the two standouts, David Dastmalchian’s Polka-Dot Man and Daniela Melchior’s Ratcatcher II.
In writing about this movie, it’s tempting to devote several hundred words to these characters. Cena’s Peacemaker provides many of the movie’s funniest moments, but he has a sinister side as well. He and Bloodsport engage in an ever-escalating gun-measuring contest, which is hilarious, but also results in lots of unnecessary deaths. Then there’s King Shark, a murderous people-eater who is going to chomp his way into your heart as surely as Gunn’s past CGI anthropomorphisms have. And that’s not even mentioning the wide cast of supporting characters, including those who don’t make it very far into the mission; even if they’re only around for a short time, each one manages to make an impression.
Regarding Polka-Dot Man, Gunn told press repeatedly in the lead-up to the film’s release that he wanted to take the most ridiculous villain he could find and transform him into a complex character. He undoubtedly succeeded. Dastmalchian gives a truly sad sack performance, while his weird but powerful abilities, tragic backstory, and extremely unique psychosis (he hallucinates his mother’s face on all his foes) make for a magnetic anti-hero. Melchior, meanwhile, provides the actual heart of this film in a surprise performance as another unknown villain, the second Ratcatcher (the first was her father, a fun cameo we won’t spoil).
These villains and anti-heroes invade the South American island nation of Corto Maltese, a location from DC comics, in order to destroy a lab where research was being done on a mysterious weapon that Waller says can’t fall into the hands of a new regime that’s unfriendly to the US government. Unlike in the last Suicide Squad movie, this is a mission that actually makes sense for Task Force X–dangerous, difficult, and far too dirty for actual superheroes to carry out. This mission takes up most of the film, besides a slightly too-long tangent involving Harley Quinn getting romantic with one of Corto Maltese’s new leaders. There’s no appearance by or mention of the Joker in this movie, but it’s interesting to see Harley’s arc playing out and continuing across all these different films, tied together by Robbie’s energetic, irresistible portrayal.
Also unlike the 2016 version, this Suicide Squad is rated R, and Gunn takes full advantage. There is some legitimately shocking violence in this movie, plenty of foul language, and even some body horror courtesy of that whole secret lab thing. Gunn also fills the movie with his signature needle drops, folksy rock songs that often accompany slow-mo shots of a bunch of characters walking together in a line. There are maybe one or two too many–you get the sense Gunn was really let loose to indulge himself here–but at least they’re much more interesting than the 2016 version’s infamously bland and uninspired top 40 dad rock soundtrack.
Of course, superhero movie fans know that Gunn has since been re-hired to continue the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise after all. So it’s unclear whether most of the characters or threads in The Suicide Squad will be picked up again (aside from the Peacemaker show). But it’s OK if this is all we get; The Suicide Squad is one of the most fun, heartfelt, and surprising modern DC movies we’ve seen yet. Here’s hoping it leads to Warner Bros. taking more chances on talented filmmakers, because the results are something special indeed.
It’s been five years since the original incarnation of Mythbusters–hosted by Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman–came to an end. Now, fans of the series could own their very own piece of it thanks to an auction of several of the show’s props, creations, and even one of the iconic Buster dummies. Even better, proceeds from the auction will benefit the Grant Imahara STEAM Foundation, named in honor of former host Grant Imahara, who died unexpectedly last year.
The online auction kicks off on Friday, August 20. However, you can get a preview of what will be available now. And trust us, if you were a Mythbusters fan, chances are some of this will look pretty familiar.
Among the items that will be up for grabs is a very big Newton’s Cradle. This particular build was used as a scale model for the Season 11 episode where the team ultimately built a truly gigantic version of the popular desk toy out of cranes and wrecking balls. It would be hard to find a place for a wrecking ball Newton’s Cradle in your house, but this scale version would be an interesting addition to your collection.
And, as previously mentioned, there will be a Buster up for auction. The crash test dummy was practically the show’s mascot, being used for all kinds of experiments that saw it blown up, crashed into, and dropped from insane heights. Now you can let the dummy relax in your house.
Other items that will be available include a giant mechanical shark, Jamie’s amphibious bicycle, a number of blueprints for various builds, and even the arrow machine gun built for a Season 8 episode.
Over 80 items will be auctioned off, with a portion of proceeds going to the Grant Imahara STEAM Foundation, which “provides mentorships, grants, and scholarships to underserved youth in the areas of science, technology, engineering, art and math,” according to a press release.
While the auction doesn’t kick off until August 20, you can take a look at a number of items and register to bid now. Meanwhile, Savage will be highlighting several of the props and builds being sold off on his website Tested.com in a series of videos. Check out his look at the mechanical shark below.
PlayStation has announced the trio of free games PS Plus subscribers can snag in August. As revealed last month during PlayStation’s State of Play stream, battle royale title Hunter’s Arena: Legends will be available to claim all month. Both the PS5 and PS4 versions of the game are up for grabs, which marks a change from the recent trend of offering one PS5-only freebie. Hunter’s Arena: Legends will be joined by the wonderful family-friendly action-shooter Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville and Tennis World Tour 2.
It looks like developer Witchcraft and publisher Bandai Namco have delayed Digimon Survive yet again. According to Toei Animation‘s latest financial report, the release date has been pushed back to “Q3 2022 and beyond”.
Digimon Survive is supposed to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Digimon anime. The game follows a young man named Takuma Momozka and his group of teenagers. They get lost during a school camping trip and find themselves in a new world filled with Digimon. Takuma is paired with Agumon, and each of his friends earn Digimon of their own. Together, they must find a way to get back home again.
Digimon Survive was announced back in 2018 and was originally supposed to launch in 2020. However, producer Habu Kazumasa said that the game had been delayed to 2021. Now, it’s suffered an additional delay into 2022.
This is the latest game announced to be pushed out of 2021 and into 2022. There have been other notable titles falling to the same fate, such as Rainbows Six Extraction, Resident Evil: ReVerse, and Ghostwire: Tokyo. Digimon Survive will launch on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Microsoft has announced that the Games with Gold for August 2021 include Darksiders 3, Yooka-Laylee, Lost Planet 3, and Garou: Mark of the Wolves.
As detailed on Xbox Wire, all Xbox Live Gold members and those with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will gain access to these games when they become available, beginning with Darksiders 3 and Lost Planet 3.
Darksiders 3 will be part of Games with Gold from August 1-31 and lets players become Fury, one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, as she hunts down the Seven Deadly Sins.
In our Darksiders 3 review, we said that “it is a straightforward action game that isn’t afraid to throw some serious old-school challenges at you.”
Lost Planet 3 will be available from August 1-15 and, although it is the third entry in the Lost Planet series, it is actually a prequel that follows Jim Peyton as he reveals the hidden truths within the environments of E.D.N. III.
In our Lost Planet 3 review, we said that “it tells a good story and mixes up combat with a giant mech, but [it] is just too inconsistent.”
Yooka-Laylee, which was developed by former core members of Rare as a “worthy spiritual successor” to games the team built like Banjo-Kazooie, will be available from August 16 to September 15. As the buddy duo Yooka & Laylee, players will embark on an epic quest to stop the corporate villain known as Capital B and his scheme to absorb all the world’s literature.
In our Yooka-Layee review, we said that it “is a good reminder that this genre, once thought to be dead, still has some life left in it.”
Lastly, Garou: Mark of the Wolves will be available from August 16-31 and is the last entry of the classic Fatal fury series. Players can select over a dozen fighters to participate in the King of Fighters: Maximum Mayhem tournament.
In our Garou: Mark of the Wolves review, we said that although “it may have an unfortunate name, Fatal Fury: Garou – Mark of the Wolves is a fantastic old-school fighter.”
Nickelodeon All Star Brawl is an upcoming, absolutely bonkers, game pitting some of Nickelodeon’s most beloved properties against one another in a Smash Bros-like fighting tournament. Nickelodeon All Star Brawl comes out October 5 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch, and you can preorder it starting right now for $49.99. If you’ve ever wanted to have Spongebob fight Leonardo from the Ninja Turtles, this is the game for you. Even if you haven’t wanted to see them fight, what’s not to love here?
So far there are no preorder bonuses available for Nickelodeon All Star Brawl, but that could change. Best Buy and GameStop in particular are great at adding in a little something extra to entice you to preorder from them, whether that’s a physical collectible, some sort of in-game reward or even a bundled deal. When and if preorder bonuses do come up, we’ll update this article to reflect it.
Is Nickelodeon All Star Brawl Just Smash Bros. With Nick Characters?
Yep. Smash Bros. isn’t the only character-fighter on the block, although it has been the only one in a while (and it’s still the top series for disparate characters punching each other off platforms). Basically Nickelodeon All Star Brawl takes the Smash formula and replaces video game characters with Nickelodeon characters. So instead of Mario duking it out with Solid Snake, you can have Sandy Cheeks fight Zim from Invader Zim.
What Characters are in Nickelodeon All Star Brawl?
We don’t have the full character list just yet, but here are the Nickelodeon characters we know for sure are coming to All Star Brawl when it launches October 5:
Microsoft has unveiled the Xbox Games with Gold lineup for August 2021. As always, there are a pair of Xbox One games and two titles that are playable with backwards compatibility. Next month’s freebies include Darksiders 3, Yooka-Laylee, Lost Planet 3, and Garou: Mark of the Wolves. You still have until the end of the month to claim two of July’s freebies, Planet Alpha and Midway Arcade Origins. Meanwhile, Rock of Ages 3: Make and Break will be free until mid-August.
Developed by Gunfire Games, Darksiders 3 is an action-RPG that will appeal to those who miss the days when open-world games didn’t dominate the AAA game space. As a more linear action game, Darksiders 3 has stylish combat that is surprisingly challenging (sometimes to its detriment) and a great atmosphere. Though it’s certainly the weakest entry in the series, it’s worth checking out for yourself. Darksiders 3 will be available to claim for free all throughout August.
Yooka-Laylee is a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, and it definitely pays homage to the formula of the classic platforming series. Yooka-Laylee is a collectathon platformer that rewards players for searching every inch of its worlds. While Yooka-Laylee doesn’t add anything new to the genre, it’s an enjoyable platformer with colorful characters and worlds that will likely appeal to the youngsters in your home. Yooka-Laylee will be up for grabs from August 16 to September 15.
You don’t need any prior knowledge of the Lost Planet series to dive into Lost Planet 3. As a prequel to the first game, Lost Planet 3 tells the story of Jim Peyton’s expedition to solve the world’s energy problem. Lost Planet 3 is mission-based but the levels are semi-open world, allowing for exploration between third-person combat encounters. Like Darksiders 3, Lost Planet 3 is the weakest entry in the series, sadly. Lost Planet 3 will be free to claim until August 15.
Garou: Mark of the Wolves is part of the Fatal Fury fighting game series and features more than a dozen fighters. It originally released for Neo Geo back in 1999 and was ported to Xbox 360 in 2009. Garou can be claimed from August 16 to August 31.
The next big Marvel movie is Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and now a new clip from the superhero film has arrived. It shows off main character Simu Liu saying things you’d expect like, “All I ever wanted was a normal life” and diving into some epic CGI sequences where Shang-Chi uses his ten rings to fight enemies across a variety of locations.
“I thought I could change my name. Start a new life,” he says in the video. Unfortunately for him, he can’t, and he’s forced to confront his past (and take off his shirt). Check out the trailer below:
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings hits theaters on September 3. It also stars Awkwafina and Michelle Yeoh, both of whom starred in Crazy Rich Asians.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will be followed by Eternals (November) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (December) later in 2021. After that, Marvel has lots more films lined up for 2022 and 2023, including Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and The Marvels, among others.
The one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, previously owned by controversial pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli has been resold – and virtually nobody knows who has it now.
The single-sale collector’s album – which contained a 31-track record, a hand-carved box and an accompanying 174-page parchment-paper book bound in leather – was originally purchased by Shkreli at an auction in 2015. At the time of the auction, IGN reported that Shkreli could do with the album whatever he pleased, so long as it was never made commercially available. The former executive is thought to have paid around $2 million for it.
Shkreli, who became infamous for drastically increasing the price of the antiparasitic drug Daraprim in 2015, later handed the album over to the US government amongst a range of other seized assets in 2018 after being convicted of securities fraud. Proceeds from the sale of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin will be used against the $7.4 million Forfeiture Money Judgment that Shkreli was sentenced to pay in 2018.
As reported by the BBC, the US government has now subsequently sold the one-of-a-kind album – and reportedly for “substantially more” than the $2 million originally paid for it. According to the US Department of Justice, the “contract of sale contains a confidentiality provision that protects information relating to the buyer and price” meaning that it is unclear who now owns the coveted record.
What’s also not clear is whether an original sale clause still remains in effect after the resale. When Shkreli bought the item, the contract of sale originally stipulated that either Wu Tang or actor Bill Murray could take the record back at any time in the next 88 years by means of “one heist or caper to steal back” the record.
Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which apparently contains two appearances by guest singer Cher, features contributions from every living member of the Wu-Tang clan. RZA apparently came up with the concept of the album as a reminder that music can still be viewed as a depiction of fine art. RZA, alongside his co-producer Cilveringz, is one of the few people known to have listened to the record in its entirety.
For more on the Wu-Tang Clan, why not check out our review of the 2019 Hulu-produced series Wu-Tang: An American Saga which we said was “a top-notch tale about the origin of hip-hop’s most famous game-changers.”
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Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
