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As video games get more and more realistic, it becomes harder for an untrained eye to distinguish screenshots and real-world photographs. The latest victim of this mistake is Oregon local news station NewsChannel 21, who published a stunning Red Dead Redemption 2 screenshot in its ‘Out & About’ nature photography segment.
The image first appeared on Reddit, with the catch proudly shared by the father of the person responsible for the fake-out. “My daughter sent another picture into our local TV station… from Red Dead Redemption 2 for their “Out & About” segment…” the post reads. “And once again they fell for it!”
A girl keeps sending my local news station screenshots of the landscape from Red Dead Redemption 2 for their “Out and About” news segment… and they keep putting it on the news thinking it’s a photo.
Bella, I salute you. pic.twitter.com/Km5HGz3A4t
— 🔸queenie🔸 (@frenziedandfine) November 29, 2020
The screenshot still exists in a video of the segment posted to NewsChannel 21’s YouTube channel, which has accumulated a number of comments poking fun at the screenshot’s inclusion.
While apparently the culprit has done this (and gotten away with it) before, this is the only instance that has surfaced so far. Still, the channel’s YouTube has an extensive archive of Out & About segments if you want to look for earlier slip ups.
In the past, a number of news channels have gotten themselves into hot water by mistaking screenshots for actual pictures. In one instance, a news channel used a screenshot from Metal Gear Solid 5 in a story about child soldiers. In another, a Danish news report showed a screenshot from Assassin’s Creed to represent Syria. Yahoo News was also caught illustrating a report on Saturn with a screenshot from Destiny–despite the prominent inclusion of one of the game’s spaceships in the foreground.
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The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies are now available in 4K UHD, and director Peter Jackson has spoken about the process of updating the movies and some of the issues that came along with it.
In a new video promoting the 4K release, Jackson said the six movies lacked consistency in their coloring and other elements, due to the evolving way in which the movies were shot. Updating them for 4K gave the team an opportunity to go back and address this.
“It was interesting going back and revisiting these films because I realised how inconsistent they were,” he said. “And that’s really due to the way in which the Lord of the Rings trilogy was shot first, about 20 years ago. The lord of the rings was shot on 35mm. The color timing was done on an old-fashioned mechanical way for the first Lord of the Rings movie. Then we switched to digital color timing for the 35mm negative for the next two,” he said.
For The Hobbit series, the movies lacked consistency for a variety of reasons, including how scenes on outdoor sets were filmed at different stages in the day. With the 4K re-releases, they were able to weak individual colors.
Jackson also said that the process was not solely about increasing the crispness of the picture–the director said it was important to preserve the “cinematic look” of the films, while also boosting the overall fidelity.
“Great to be able to have all the films looking like they were shot at the same time, finally,” Jackson said.
When updating the Lord of the Rings for 4K, the team noticed that imperfections in the visual effects were more pronounced. Some of the shots did not hold up, Jackson admitted. So with the re-release, the team went back and removed or painted out some of these oddities and imperfections.
To be clear, however, the VFX are not upgraded or enhanced. But Jackson said of them, “They look like they were done today, not 20 years ago” as was the case for the first Lord of the Rings movie.
And speaking about the entire process of updating The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for 4K UHD, Jackson said, “This process, the way I see it, it’s not about making the film different. It’s simply taking a 20 year old movie and making it feel like it’s a modern film.”
The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies are currently available to buy separately, for $90 USD each. Each box contains the theatrical and extended edits, as well as a code to get the 4K movies on Movies Anywhere service.
Warner Bros. is releasing an Ultimate Collector’s Edition in 2021 that comes with all six movies and “new bonus content.”
In other Lord of the Rings news, Harper Collins is releasing a new Middle-earth book that will, among other things, explain who can grow beards.
Amazon is currently filming a very expensive TV show based on the fantasy series in New Zealand, while there are multiple Lord of the Rings video games in the works, including an MMO and a title featuring Gollum.
Rocket League went free-to-play in September, kicking off “Season 1” of the game, which is now 5 years old. Now developer Psyonix is making up for lost time, launching Season 2 on December 9. The theme of this season is music, and the game will add new tracks from EDM artist Kaskade to the game’s soundtrack.
The first of Kaskade’s new tracks, Flip Reset, is available now. More tracks will follow in the update.
Along with new tracks, players will also have the ability to choose a “Player Anthem” from the soundtrack. This means that whenever they score a goal, their song will play, letting you really soak in your achievement after a good goal. All players will also have access to a new arena, called Neon Fields, which is EDM-inspired and covered in cool glowing lights.
Rocket Labs will also return for Season 2, featuring as a Casual LTM playlist. In this mode, you’ll be able to try out some experimental gameplay styles, just like in the early days of Rocket League. It should be interesting to see what ideas Psyonix is testing out now.
A new Rocket Pass is being introduced too, with over 70 tiers of unlockable content. Grab the premium version of the pass and you’ll immediately unlock the R3MX car, and working your way through the ranks will unlock more cars, decals, wheels, explosions, and more. You can check out the full Season 2 Rocket Pass unlock list now.
Rocket League is free-to-play on Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC, and on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S through backwards compatibility. The game has also received a great boost on the next-gen systems.
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With Twin Mirror, Dontnod abandons the episodic model it has experimented with since 2015’s Life is Strange in favor of a six-hour standalone release. The result is a focused crime thriller with some great character work. However, Twin Mirror’s exploration of its story and mechanics suffers somewhat from its brevity, relative to Dontnod’s recent work. It’s longer than an episode of Dontnod’s serialized games but still shorter than what it needed to be to explore characters with depth and tackle the heavier subject matter and themes its narrative alludes to. Twin Mirror comes to a conclusion just as the plot and gameplay are really beginning to gain momentum.
In Twin Mirror, players take on the role of Sam Higgs, a tenacious investigative reporter returning to his hometown of Basswood, West Virginia, after a period of self-imposed exile. Two years prior, Sam published a damning investigative piece on unsafe practices at the Basswood mine, which employed a huge portion of the town. As a result, the mine closed, putting a huge swath of Basswood out of work and pushing the town into an economic depression. In the midst of this firestorm, Sam proposed to his girlfriend Anna, another writer at the paper. She turned him down and, struggling with the personal and professional devastation, Sam left town without a word. In the time since, Anna has started dating Sam’s longtime best friend, Nick.
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The pain of all this is still fresh for Sam. But, when Nick dies in a car accident, he finally feels he must return to Basswood. Though the local police have ruled the death an accident, Nick’s preteen daughter, Bug, suspects foul play, and Sam agrees to investigate. In classic Dontnod fashion, that investigation mostly plays out via dialogue with the locals–some of whom hate Sam for the problems his reporting caused, and some of whom are old friends. You’ll investigate densely packed areas, read documents, and analyze objects to get to know the cast of characters and uncover clues to the cause of Nick’s death. Dontnod is great at this kind of environmental storytelling, and Twin Mirror is no exception. Discovering objects evoke memories of Sam’s past, and hearing his thoughts on the people that he once called neighbors is especially enjoyable. There’s even some fun Bandai Namco brand synergy in Sam recalling his and Nick’s childhood Pac Man competitions.
The traits that made Sam a talented journalist are tools in the player’s toolbelt, too. Sam’s gift for rational thought results in the Mind Palace. It’s an ancient technique (also referred to as the Method of Loci), which Cicero discussed in his De Oratore. It allows the practitioner to create a space in their mind that they can imaginatively navigate. Rather than attempting to recall abstract facts, the inhabitant of the Mind Palace simply strolls by the object they need to remember, perusing thoughts as if they’re cereal options at the grocery store. The Mind Palace’s purpose, primarily, is to aid memory, though in recent depictions such as the BBC’s Sherlock, it has become a method for superhuman feats of detective work.
At several moments, Sam must piece together the events of the past or look ahead to the future to formulate a plan. At first, you need to pace around an area, gather information, and look for clues. Sam doesn’t just automatically reach a conclusion once you’ve examined every object, however. Instead, you need to adjust the variables for each element of the crime scene to make sure it fits with the rest of your conclusions. In an early scene when Sam is attempting to figure out who he got into a barroom brawl with the night before, you may need to replay the scene multiple times to make sure the parts that you have selected are coming together correctly. If Sam was fighting with Dennis by the liquor counter, then why is Dennis’ bracelet across the room instead of by the bar? If Sam was, instead, fighting with the angry miner by the seating area, does that change anything? Getting each element to come together correctly isn’t especially difficult, but the troubleshooting process is really satisfying. It’s Detective Vision with a Rube Goldberg machine twist, and it’s a great evolution of a familiar mechanic.
Though Sam has a handle on this kind of methodical, rational thought, he’s less adept at dealing with people. For this, he needs to rely on his “Inner Voice.” Basically, the Inner Voice is another version of Sam, albeit with floppier hair and dark-rimmed glasses, who pops up to offer advice in social situations. In certain conversations, Sam can stop and talk things over with his Inner Voice, but it may result in him delaying his response for too long. While it often feels like ignoring the Inner Voice is the more expedient thing to do, I found conversations went better when I took the time to pause and listen. Mechanizing this conflict between the rational and the relational is one of Twin Mirror’s most interesting ambitions, but this is also one area where its awkward length hurts the experience. Just as this conflict between logic and love felt like it was beginning to come to a head, the game began to wrap up.
Twin Mirror is about solving a mystery, but it’s also about Sam picking up the pieces he left behind when he abruptly left town. Sam’s relationship with Bug was one of my favorite parts of the game. There’s a palpable melancholy to her character, expertly brought to life by 15-year-old actress Ruby Jay. Bug’s sadness over her father’s death, her anger with Sam for leaving, her irritation with her mother’s busyness and emotional distance from her –these all come through in Jay’s performance. I similarly enjoyed seeing Sam hash out his unfinished business with Anna and reconnect with his warm and loquacious former boss, Walter. Dontnod’s dialogue is still occasionally corny, but they’ve come a long way since Life Is Strange’s “Go f**k your selfie.”
That said, Twin Mirror’s character development is hampered by the game’s awkward length. While the character work that Dontnod does here is good, I felt like the game was just getting started when it came to a conclusion. The character arcs aren’t necessarily incomplete; there are beginnings, middles, and ends for all the key players. Nevertheless, it does at times feel like the moments in between–the ones that would really help us get to know each character on a deeper level–are missing or truncated. Similarly, the game gestures at major issues like police corruption and opioid addiction but doesn’t really commit to fully exploring them. This, once again, feels like it is the result of not having the room to unpack the issues meaningfully in its six-hour runtime.
Still, Twin Mirror is a good next step from Dontnod, a studio that has stepped up to fill the adventure game-shaped hole left when Telltale went under. Episodic games have struggled to sell well after the first episode and also suffered from protracted release schedules, and Twin Mirror shows that the studio has a willingness to explore new territory. Twin Mirror has interesting new mechanics, well-realized characters, and a good understanding of what makes exploration rewarding. It’s just a shame that the pacing undercuts so much of what makes it work.
Dead by Daylight is running a promotion all December, handing out free currency and items to all players. The Advent Calendar 2020 event runs until January 3, and if you log in every day until then you’ll nab some bonuses, including some additions to the game’s Ugly Sweater collection.
Every day you’ll get bonuses for logging in, while there are also weekly cosmetic bonuses that can be claimed through codes. Here are the first week of treats–you’ll have to wait to see what the next four weeks have in store.
December 4-6: Zarina’s Snap Snap Sweater
After the holiday season is over, you’ll be able to buy the items from the Ugly Sweater collection through the in-game store, too.
The Advent Calendar announcement notes that Dead by Daylight will focus on “event” celebrations like this going forward, and thus activations will look a bit different from now on. “We will still be celebrating Winter, Lunar New Year, etc. but are taking new approaches to them to better define and focus our efforts on those larger ones,” the post reads. “This means that you won’t see special event gameplay mechanics or earnable cosmetics for these Celebrations, but will continue to see activations such as login rewards, Bloodweb items, and themed assets.”
Dead by Daylight will receive an updated release for PS5 and Xbox Series X in the future. The game, which originally released in 2016, has improved dramatically over time–so much so that we re-reviewed it for 2020, giving the game a 9/10 review.
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Pokemon Sword/Shield introduced a new mythical Pokemon, Zarude, earlier this year, with distribution set to commence this month in Europe. Now, you can easily claim Zarude through GameStop Germany for free–regardless of your region.
PokeJungle has noted that Zarude is now being distributed through the store’s website, and getting a code is straightforward. We’ve tested it in Australia with a local digital copy of Pokemon Shield, and now have a Zarude in our box.
All you need to do is head to this link, enter your email address, and tick the top two boxes. Within moments, an email will arrive with a code. Once you have a code, go to “Mystery Gift” in the game menu, then select “Get A Mystery Gift” and “Get with Code/Password”. Enter the code there to claim the Pokemon.
You can also claim Zarude in the US through a separate distribution scheme, but the deadline to sign up for the newsletter is closed.
Zarude is level 60, and it comes with a held Leftovers item. It’s a Dark/Grass type, and comes with the moves Close Combat, Power Whip, Swagger, and Snarl.
Pokemon Sword/Shield’s second and final DLC, The Crown Tundra, is available now.
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Sonic the Hedgehog launched in cinemas back in February 2020–before the COVID-19 pandemic shut screens around the world–and became the highest-grossing game adaptation ever in the US, overtaking Detective Pikachu. Now, a new movie is in the works, and production dates have been revealed.
Gamesindustry.biz has pointed towards a listing on Creative BC, showing a film with the codename “Emerald Hill” in production. This is the first zone from the Sonic 2 game, and Jeff Fowler–director of the first movie–is listed as this film’s director, too. There’s no question that this listing is for the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 movie.
According to the listing, the movie is due to begin filming in British Columbia, Canada, on March 15, 2021. Filming is set to end on May 10, 2021.
No firm details about the plot have been announced yet, but a post-credits scene in the original review revealed that Tails has gone looking for Sonic–presumably, he’ll feature in the sequel.
The movie is due to release on April 8, 2022, assuming that it’s able to shoot without incident. The first movie initially looked like a disaster, thanks to Sonic’s weird design, but it ended up being decent enough to earn an 8/10 in GameSpot’s review.
It should not come as a big surprise, but Fortnite‘s latest Marvel event was a huge success in terms of player activity and viewership. According to numbers released by developer Epic Games, some 15.3 million people were logged into the game at the same time to watch the devourer of worlds himself, Galactus, descend upon Fortnite.
That’s a new record for concurrent players, Epic said. For comparison, the Travis Scott concert inside Fortnite reached 12.3 million concurrent players.
Outside of the game, more than 3.4 million people watched the event unfold on YouTube and Twitch, Epic added.
The Galactus event lays the foundation for what will become Season 5, but it turns out you won’t be able to play any further until Season 5 begins overnight. That’s because Fortnite has been taken offline, rendering it unplayable. Booting up the game presents you with a countdown to the new season, and your only option is to exit.
For more on the Galactus event, check out GameSpot’s recap of how it all went down.
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