The Walking Dead: Survivors is a new mobile survival game based on the popular franchise, which sees players gathering resources and recruiting Survivors to help fortify their stronghold. Announced earlier this year, players won’t have to wait too long to get into Survivors, with the game releasing on April 12.
While The Walking Dead exploded in popularity thanks to AMC’s 10-season TV show, the new mobile game is based on the original comics rather than the TV adaptation. Developer Elex has announced that the pre-registration period for the game has nevertheless been a successful one, with over 1.5 million players registering interest across iOS and Android.
The titular Survivors are key to the game, with the player encountering and recruiting various characters from the comics who will help fortify their defenses. While the developer has promised that over 80 Survivors will eventually be present in the game, it’s unclear how many of them will be present at launch besides the five that have been announced by name– Rick, Glenn, Beta, and Hershel. Other characters previously announced for the game include Maya, Vayne, and Dwight.
Each Survivor has different abilities, which are grouped into two categories as either Combat or Development characters. Rick, for example, is a Combat Survivor who is “focused on fighting off walkers,” according to a details revealed in a press release. “He wields a rifle, an axe and his skills increase damage.” Hershel, on the other hand, is listed as “a Development Survivor who is a medic. He wields a rifle and he increases Healing Speed and hospital capacity while reducing healing cost.”
Sadly, despite its official license, gameplay videos from the Survivors beta that have been posted online look fairly underwhelming, with little to differentiate it from other base-building zombie survival mobile games beyond the familiar skin.
The Walking Dead: Survivors will release on April 12 for iOS and Android. You can pre-register your interest prior to the release on the game’s official website.
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The Street Fighter V Spring Update streamed live this week, giving updates on new characters, content and tournaments. The livestream focused on new characters including Rose, Oro, and the surprise reveal of Rival Schools‘ Akira.
The next character to be released is the fortune teller Rose, who will arrive in SFV on April 19. Rose is being re-introduced with a new V-Skill called Soul Fortune, which uses various tarot cards to either apply buffs to herself, or cast debuffs on her opponent. You can see her moveset, comprised of both new skills and more familiar skills from SFIV, in the livestream.
Also being added to the game soon is Oro, a 130-year-old hermit monk who was first introduced in Street Fighter 3. Where the SF3 version of the character had one arm tied back to limit his power, the SFV version of the character retains his one-armed fighting style, but this time his other arm is occupied by holding a pet turtle. With Oro due to release in the summer, the livestream video gives us a peek at his updated fighting style and various skills.
In a surprise announcement for fans of old-school fighting games, the update also snuck in a peek at Akira Kazama, a character from Rival Schools who will be coming to Street Fighter V in the near future. Akira also appears to introduce another Rival Schools character into Street Fighter with Daigo appearing as an assist in her V-Trigger.
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Street Fighter V – Akira Kazama Gameplay Teaser
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The update on the 19th that will introduce Rose to the game has other new content in store, such as three new “Professional” skins for Vega, Seth, and Juri. The skins will come included with the Premium Pass, but can also be purchased separately if you’re only after one.
The upcoming Mortal Kombat film, which releases on April 23, has a lot to live up to. Not just three decades of beloved video games, but one of the most universally beloved video game moves in Paul W.S. Anderson’s 1995 film of the same name. Getting the game’s massive cast of characters right is one of the biggest challenges, and the new “Meet the Kast” featurette give us a look at the movie’s many characters and gives the actors chance to offer up a few words.
“[Fans] deserve to see their beloved characters elevated to this cinematic height,” said director Simon McQuoid in the featurette, which looks to be a much longer and more in-depth version of the character video released on March 25.
Mehcad Brooks, who plays Jax, is no stranger to playing heightened, superhero-type characters. The actor spent four seasons on Supergirl as James Olsen, eventually becoming the vigilante superhero called Guardian for the show.
“The interesting thing about playing a video game character is, you have to walk this line of being larger than life, but also making that person real,” Brooks said. Jax is a long-time member of the Mortal Kombat cast of characters, and in an earlier trailer for the upcoming film we see him lose his arms in battle, only to come back with much stronger, cybernetic arms as a Mortal Kombat competitor (or Kompetitor, they’d probably like us to say).
The video goes into the focus on believable, grounded combat, and McQuoid’s desire to pair brutal fighting with beautiful scenery.
Mortal Kombat hits theaters and HBO Max on April 23. Ahead of that, see what the director has to say about not deviating from the source material and making sure the movie lives up to its R-Rating. If you’re wondering why Johnny Cage isn’t in the movie, blame Kano. And if you’ve missed a few Mortal Kombat games and don’t recognize every face in the featurette, make sure to check out our rundown of every Mortal Kombat character revealed so far.
In the center of Balan Wonderworld’s hub area lies the construction site of a clock tower. Complete the 12 worlds–the entry points to which are arranged at random around the tower like dial markings on a jumbled clock face–and the clock tower rises further into the sky; an elaborate contraption that stands as a monument to your hours played. Despite a thematic preoccupation with telling the time, Balan Wonderworld feels like something of an anachronism, a throwback 3D platformer whose occasional charms arrive too late.
Balan Wonderworld makes a terrible first impression. It’s a 3D platformer where the primary act of running around the levels feels sloppy. Swapping character costumes to employ new abilities is the key novelty, but the initial batch of costumes fail to inspire, and instead add the sorts of abilities you’d take for granted in any other platformer. Completing the early game doldrums, you’re dropped into levels without context nor any attempt to explain your goals.
The clumsy controls and character movement are the most persistent problem. There’s a weird dissonance in the way it feels like you’re moving too slowly while the choppiness of the simplistic animation gives the illusion of moving too quickly. Your character will float slightly above the ground even when standing on a flat surface. Jumping and judging distance feels sloppy and imprecise, mostly thanks to a stickiness of movement but also because, from time to time, the useful ground shadows cast by yourself and other objects will simply disappear. To put it kindly, mistiming or failing to land a jump doesn’t always feel like it’s your own fault.
Perhaps the core design of Balan Wonderworld was asking too much. Your character can equip dozens of different costumes, each conferring a different (though not unique, as there are overlaps) set of abilities, requiring a different range of animations for running, jumping, and whatever else they can do. One moment you’re controlling a muscular wolf with a spin attack, the next moment you’ve transformed into a spider who can skitter up any webbed wall. Not to mention the bobbing chess rook who turns into a turret when you stand still, or the little lizard who can use its tongue as a grappling hook, or the marching band boy with a drum goofily strapped to his back.
With seemingly so many options at your disposal, it’s inevitable that compromises were made. The sheer number of costumes is remarkable, and the range of abilities they deliver by the end of the game is surprising. And it’s testament to the strength of the design that, for the most part, the levels support playthroughs with varied combinations of equipped costumes. But even so, too many feel too similar. The costume that lets you break large blocks is basically the same as the other costume that lets you break large blocks. And another handful have only limited special-case uses or are sadly under-utilized. You don’t really feel like you’re playing as a muscular wolf when you don the costume, nor do you feel like you’re playing as a skittering spider; you’re just the same boy or girl who can now spin into enemies or climb walls. Greater variety and flexibility, something that beefs up the costume department to feel truly transformative, would be welcome.
Exploring a world is thus less about the sheer delight of physically navigating the space, and more about enjoying how the various costumes and abilities come into play. Admittedly, things take a little while to warm up–the early levels are intentionally quite basic, since you have access to only a few costumes. But by the fourth or fifth world you’ve moved well beyond costumes that merely let you jump a bit further and the level design itself ramps up accordingly, offering a more intricate and sophisticated challenge. The giant tree level, with its vertiginous drops and well-disguised grapple points, is a mid-game highlight. I particularly enjoyed how the warping concavity of the surreal chess world encouraged the use of costumes that could glide long distances. My favorite, though, is the late-game gallery, an Escher-esque maze of rotating stairways and portals that turn the floor into the ceiling.
It’s rewarding to move through a level, thinking about how you’re going to tackle the next obstacle with your current wardrobe while also keeping an eye out for other paths you could have taken if you had equipped a different costume. Indeed, these are worlds built to be replayed in the sense that all of them contain secret areas and collectibles that can only be accessed through the use of costumes acquired on later levels. You’ll spy many items on an initial playthrough that’ll leave you wondering how on earth you can reach them. Learning to recognize the limits of your current costumes, and what costumes you might need to swap to at the nearest checkpoint, is part and parcel of the experience.
It’s a shame that the novel costume mechanic isn’t given better support on a narrative level. The opening scene-setting cinematic fails at its one job. The suggestion seems to be that your chosen character, teased and rejected by their peers, finds refuge in a mysterious old theatre where the resident showman–Balan himself–promises to help you. But in each world that branches off the hub area, you’re helping some other troubled soul to conquer their demons for no readily discernible reason. In a baffling move, the cutscene introducing each person shows midway through their world, meaning you spend the first half of each level with no idea why you’re there.
Some of the people you’re helping are more sympathetic than others; in one world, a young girl is traumatized after her kitten is run over by a car, while elsewhere a successful chess master must recover from, uh… losing a big match. Maudlin sentimentality prevails, as do lazy tropes, such as the woman who is “scared to love” having her tale situated in a frigid ice world. In any case, no effort is made to develop them as characters. Though you may see these people from time to time inside a level, you’ll never interact with them, nor are you granted any deeper insight into their state of mind. They have a problem and you solve it by beating the level, and that’s it. To say Balan Wonderworld takes a light touch to its story presentation would be an understatement. The result is confusing rather than intriguing and ultimately means you stop paying attention to whatever is trying to serve as a narrative thread.
A couple of dismal mini-games plumb the nadir. Collecting a sports costume prompts a brief chance to play a hole of golf or try to score a penalty kick in soccer, for example. They are bad, unimaginative and forgettable, but at least they’re over in a matter of seconds. In contrast, the “Balan Bout” mini-game forces you to sit through a lengthy cinematic sequence of Balan fighting a demon with a few trivial QTEs thrown in to ensure you haven’t dozed off or popped out for a snack.
Similarly tired and formulaic are the end-of-world encounters with bosses who run through basic attack patterns you’ve learned to avoid in countless other games–whack ’em three times and they’re dead. Bonus rewards incentivize finding different strategies to beat a boss. These add a layer of experimentation as you try out different costumes, but they don’t fundamentally alter the flow of the encounter. They’re more just a neat little twist.
Gallery
There’s a lot going on in Balan Wonderworld and sometimes you feel like that is to its detriment. It jumps from world to world–taking in standard platformer fare like the water level and lava level, but also venturing further afield to the spooky mansion level and surreal chessboard level. However, the game struggles to convey a coherent vision that aligns its disparate environments, and it jumps from world to world, and costume to costume, without providing much sense that any of it connects together.
Throughout, there’s the faint presence of Balan’s theatre–it’s in the red curtain doors that lead you into each world, in the ludicrous song and dance numbers that conclude every level, and in the cavalcade of costume changes. It’s a motif that could conceivably work to tie everything together and be the consistent throughline the game is crying out for, but it’s too thin and all too easily forgotten once you’re in a level.
Balan Wonderworld feels like a game from another time. In a different era the rough edges, inconsistent mechanics, and formulaic design may have been things that players could overlook, but in this moment in time, it’s a 3D platformer of a quality that can’t compete with polished modern-day contemporaries from Nintendo, Sony, and the like. It has its merits and delivers an unexpectedly mentally stimulating platformer when it manages to play to its strengths, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
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In addition to standard hunting and capture quests, Monster Hunter Rise introduces a new type of mission called Rampages. These quests crop up periodically and blend horde and tower defense elements, tasking you with defending your fort against several waves of rampaging monsters. They can also be among the game’s most frustrating objectives, and while you can generally avoid most of them, you’ll occasionally need to complete a Rampage to jump up to the next Hunter Rank. If you’re having trouble, here’s an overview of Rampage quests and some tips to help you clear them.
Rampage Quest Overview
Unlike standard quests, which send you off to different locales, Rampages all occur within Kamura Village’s stronghold. The overarching goal of these quests is to defend the fort’s final gate by driving back the invading monsters.
To help you defend the gate, you can place various installations around the stronghold. These fall into one of several categories. There are mountable installations such as ballistas and cannons; these can be manned by players and can fire different types of projectiles to repel monsters. There are also some “automatic” installations such as bamboo bombs; place these on the ground, and they’ll detonate when a monster comes in contact with them, dealing severe damage.
There are also a couple of special “limited” installations. These typically take the form of characters from Kamura Village, such as Fugen the Elder, and they can only be activated once, so you’ll need to deploy them strategically during the mission.
At the beginning of a Rampage, you’ll only have a handful of installations at your disposal. As you repel monsters, however, you’ll gradually level up your fort, which in turn will unlock additional installations that you can place around the stronghold. The game will also present a list of sub-assignments to complete during the Rampage. Work on clearing these and you’ll level up your fort more quickly, as well as earn some extra rewards once the mission is completed.
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The New Gameplay Systems of Monster Hunter Rise
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If possible, tackle the Rampage with other players. While these quests can be completed solo, you’ll have a much better chance of succeeding if you team up with two or three other hunters. Since you’ll frequently need to move between installations as monsters start flooding the stronghold, having a few extra sets of hands to assist you will make controlling the hordes much more manageable.
Keep An Eye On Monsters’ Icons
Each monster that invades the stronghold will have an icon above its head denoting its attack pattern, so it’s important to keep an eye on these icons and target the monsters accordingly. Monsters with a blue icon are known as gate crashers, and they’re among the biggest threats you’ll face. These monsters will focus strictly on trying to destroy the stronghold’s gate, so it’s imperative to drive them off before they can inflict too much damage.
On the other hand, monsters with red icons are called stalkers; these foes will focus on attacking players. While you won’t need to worry about stalkers damaging the gate, they’ll prove to be a nuisance, especially if you are playing the Rampage solo. Targeters–monsters with a green icon above their heads–are similarly troublesome. These monsters typically fly and fire projectile attacks at players operating installations, so try to knock them out of the air with a headshot as soon as they appear.
Finally, there are Apex monsters. These foes are the “boss” of the Rampage and will be more powerful than the other monsters you face, so you’ll need to deal with them as quickly as you can.
Save Your Limited Installations
As previously mentioned, you’ll unlock a handful of “limited” installations during the course of the Rampage, and these can only be deployed once, so you’ll need to think carefully before setting them up. For the warriors of Kamura, such as Fugen the Elder, your best bet is to wait until things get dicey before deploying them. These characters typically attack monsters on sight, so it’s better to hold off installing them until the stronghold is already overrun, rather than placing them between Rampage waves.
Another helpful limited installation is the Dragonbait. This decoy will lure monsters toward it, so it’s a good idea to install it near the stronghold’s Dragonator during the final wave and unleash that powerful weapon when monsters have swarmed the Dragonbait.
Complete The Sub-Assignments
On top of your overarching goal of defending the stronghold’s gate, each Rampage presents a checklist of optional sub-assignments to complete. You don’t need to clear any of these sub-assignments to finish the Rampage, but it’s a good idea to try to. Not only will completing sub-assignments help level up your stronghold, giving you access to a wider array of installations to deploy, but it will also improve your Rampage grade, which in turn will net you more rewards at the end of the mission.
The Counter Signal
One of the most important installations around the stronghold is the Counter Gong. Hitting this during the Rampage will activate the Counter Signal, which will temporarily boost your attack power. However, this boost only affects your weapons; installations like the ballista and cannon won’t receive the buff, so when you activate the Counter Signal, you’ll need to head down onto the ground and engage monsters face-to-face. As such, it’s a good idea to save the Counter Signal until late in the Rampage, such as when the Apex monster appears, and use its strength boost to deal some serious damage.
We’ve got several other guides to help you become a better Monster Hunter, including tips on how to kill every monster in the game and a weapon explainer. You can find more of our Monster Hunter Rise guides below.
Sylvester Stallone fought tooth and nail to make the original Rocky film happen and has shepherded the series since. For the upcoming Creed III, though, Stallone will not reprise his role as Rocky Balboa, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
News broke via Stallone himself, who replied to a comment on his official Instagram. Asked whether there was a chance he would appear in Creed III, Stallone replied, “It will be done but I won’t be in it. Keep punching.” Stallone’s rep confirmed to THR that he would not be appearing in the film. No indication was given whether this was a mutual decision or a whether one party or the other made the call.
This may be a bit of a surprise to fans of the series. Stallone appeared in six Rocky films and the first two critically-acclaimed Creed films. The ending of Creed II, though, had Rocky stepping out of the limelight and reconnecting with family. In that way, it makes sense that Stallone would not appear in Creed III.
Despite all that, Stallone isn’t done with Rocky by any means. The actor announced on Monday that he’d completed his re-cut of Rocky IV, the film that laid the groundwork for Creed and Creed II. In the film, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) dies following his fight with Russian boxer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), causing Rocky to face off against Drago for revenge on his home turf in Russia.
Apollo Creed is, of course, the father of Creed protagonist Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan). Creed re-introduced Balboa as the trainer for Adonis. In Creed II, Adonis faces off against Ivan’s son, Viktor Drago.
The re-cut film will cut out Paulie’s robot entirely, Stallone said in another Instagram reply last year, along with other changes to the Stallone-directed picture.
Creed III, meanwhile, marks the directorial debut for star Michael B. Jordan, and is currently set to release around Thanksgiving 2022.
With the official confirmation from The ESA that E3 2021 will be a free online digital event, Lucy, Tamoor, and Jordan discuss the future of the gaming show and what to expect this summer.
It’s official: E3 2021 is happening and it’s going to be a free online event for everyone to enjoy. The ESA has released a list of the publishers that will be taking part, and it makes for an interesting read.
With so many publishers having their own digital events and showcases, do publishers even need E3? This sounds like a question for the Console Crew! Tamoor, Jordan, and Lucy got together to discuss the news in this week’s episode. In particular, they talk about Sony’s absence and Xbox’s inclusion in the huge summer event. They also discuss the future of E3 and the show’s hopes of being an in-person event in 2022.
For all the latest gaming news, make sure to keep an eye on GameSpot, or consider subscribing to our channel, youtube.com/GameSpot, for all the latest from the world of video games.
When it was revealed during Season 2 of Mayans MC that Miguel Galindo (Danny Pino) was actually the son of Felipe Reyes (Edward James Olmos), it was a shocking moment for fans of the series. After all, he’s spent his life believing he was the son of one of Mexico’s most vicious cartel bosses–a role he’s since taken over. Since that revelation, the two characters haven’t shared a single frame of film on the series–until now.
The following contains spoilers for Mayans MC Season 3, Episode 5, which is titled “Dark, Deep-Laid Plans.” If you haven’t watched the latest installment of the biker series, you should veer away now.
In the latest episode, “Dark, Deep-Laid Plans,” Miguel and Felipe came face-to-face in one of the most surprising moments of the new season. In the scene, the two sit in Felipe’s butcher shop as Miguel asks about his late mother, Dita (Ada Morris), and the love Felipe had for her. While you might have expected this to be the moment the older man laid it all on the line and revealed that Miguel was his son, he instead informed the current Galindo cartel head that while he loved Dita, she always remained loyal to his father.
It’s a quiet scene that’s packed with emotion and so much story yet to be told, that fans of the show are certainly going to be bursting at the seams waiting for the moment when the truth finally sees the light of day.
For Pino, though, taking the time to explore this storyline–and whatever kind of bond Miguel and Felipe can forge from it–is practically a dream come true. Speaking to GameSpot, he remembered the first time he encountered Olmos in college and what that moment meant to him.
“Edward James Olmos has been a hero–and I know we use that word all the time, we hear that word in regular life and we toss it around like it’s not meaningful,” he explained. “But I can assure you that for me using that word is accurate. Edward James Olmos came to speak at my undergraduate school in Miami, Florida, when I was there as a student. And I didn’t have an example of anybody who had succeeded in the arts period, much less as an actor–and I was studying acting at my university. So to have Edward James Olmos come and speak as to not only that it was possible, but him being a tangible example of the effort and the possibility of being a professional actor touched me incredibly deeply to meet him.”
He continued, “I prayed that one day [that] I would be able to work with him. And so the fact that not only am I working with him, but that our characters are related in some way, to say that I’m salivating is probably an understatement.”
That said, while Pino knows Felipe is Miguel’s dad and has been waiting to see it play out on the show, he refuses to allow that knowledge to impact how he approaches the twist or his role in it.
“I think as an actor to retain your innocence to certain material, to certain revelations about your character is important,” he said. “And so, you know, to not have that affect the way that you play a scene or the way that you think about certain relationships in scenes is vital, so that you understand the given circumstances for your character–so that you’re able to play the truth of that character and preserve that moment where he or she finds out the truth–to be innocent to that and try and play that moment as authentically as possible and as fully as possible.”
Now, though, the next steps in that story are beginning to play out. What remains to be seen is how Miguel will react when he inevitably finds out who his father truly is. Based on the different and far more violent side of the character we’ve seen thus far in Season 3, it’s not going to be pretty.
Mayans MC airs Tuesdays on FX.
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Nintendo has announced a new battle royale-style Pac-Man game for Switch called Pac-Man 99. The title launches tomorrow, April 7, and much like Tetris 99, it will be available exclusively for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers.
As with the aforementioned Tetris 99, Pac-Man 99 is a 99-player take on the classic arcade game. Each player will vie to be the last Pac-Man remaining as they navigate a maze and avoid the pursuing ghosts. Any ghosts that you defeat will be sent to other players’ screens as a “Jammer Pac-Man.” Bumping into one of these will reduce the player’s movement speed, making them more vulnerable.
Another new wrinkle in Pac-Man 99 is Sleeping Ghosts. As explained in the announcement trailer, chomping these ghosts will cause them to multiply and form a “ghost train,” setting you up to chomp them all in one fell swoop after you grab a Power Pellet. You can watch the full trailer for Pac-Man 99 below.
Pac-Man 99 goes live at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET on April 7. As previously mentioned, the game is a free download for Nintendo Switch Online members, so you’ll need a subscription to download and play it. Individual memberships cost $4 for one month, $8 for three months, and $20 for one year, while an annual family plan runs for $35 and covers up to eight different Nintendo Accounts across multiple systems.
At launch, there will also be various paid DLC packs for Pac-Man 99 that add offline modes and themes based on other Namco games, such as Galaga and Dig Dug. The offline modes pack costs $15 USD, while the various themes each cost $2 USD. All of the DLC is also being bundled together into one Deluxe Pack for $30 USD. You can read more on Nintendo’s website.
Pac-Man 99’s announcement comes shortly after Nintendo delisted Super Mario Bros. 35, another battle royale-style take on a classic game. Super Mario Bros. 35 was one of the special titles that the company offered as part of its Super Mario 35th anniversary celebration, and it was similarly only available for Nintendo Switch Online members, but was taken offline after March 31.
