Game developer and filmmaker Josef Fares is known for being outspoken, and now one of his most memorable outbursts has been immortalized in his latest game, It Takes Two. It has been discovered that Fares’ memorable “f**k the Oscars” comment from The Game Awards back in 2017 is featured in the game as an Easter egg.
Games media veteran Geoff Keighley, the host of The Game Awards and the person standing next to Fares as he said the line during the show, shared a clip of the Easter egg on Twitter. It simply plays what sounds like the direct audio from Fares’ speech at The Game Awards, which is pretty great. Have a listen for yourself:
A very familiar moment pops up in It Takes Two as an easter egg…. Gotta love @josef_fares! What an incredibly fun game, the sheer variety of gameplay is insane…and it all controls so well too. pic.twitter.com/G4htZCW9Bx
The “f**k the Oscars” Easter egg is located in the Pillow Fort chapter. You can follow the walkthrough from GameRant to learn exactly how to find the secret audio.
Fares originally made the comment at The Game Awards in 2017 when he appeared on stage to promote his newest game at the time, A Way Out. Fares asked if he was allowed to swear, and Keighley said it was fine because the show was airing on the internet. Fares also gave the middle finger to the camera after ranting about how bad the Oscars are as an awards show.
“The Oscars should f**k themselves up. This is the sh**,” he said, referring to The Game Awards. “I’m telling you–this is the real sh**.”
Before making video games, Fares made five movies, and Variety said he was one of the top 10 directors to watch in 2006 thanks in part to the acclaim of his movie, Zozo.
It Takes Two launched on March 26 behind rapt reviews, including a 9/10 from GameSpot.
“It Takes Two is the best 3D platformer I’ve played since Super Mario Odyssey, and like that game, it has a flair for variety,” review Andrew King said in GameSpot’s It Takes Two review.
Wreckfest is headed to PS5 on June 1, publisher THQ Nordic has announced. Priced at $40 for the full game on PS5, anyone who owns the PS4 edition of Wreckfest can instead opt to upgrade the game for $10 and receive a number of visual updates that includes dynamic dirt on vehicles, improved shadows and particles, environment lighting, and higher resolution textures running at a 4K resolution and at 60 fps. It’s unclear if this upgrade applies to both the physical and digital editions of Wreckfest, but we have reached out to THQ Nordic for clarification.
Other quality-of-life features include improved loading times and DualSense haptic effects, and multiplayer now features up to 24 players smashing their cars into each other. Curiously, there’s no mention yet of a similar Xbox Series X|S upgrade, although a recent patch did increase the frame rate and add 4K support on that version of the game.
Earning a 9/10 in GameSpot’s review, reviewer James Swinbanks wrote that it’s “rare when a racing game manages to modernize and reinvigorate an old formula with spectacular confidence, but Wreckfest does just that. Minor issues with menus and its soundtrack aside, it wows with a gorgeous look and wonderful driving feel, along with a damage system that satisfies in the most brutal of fashions.”
Spring has officially sprung in the Northern Hemisphere, and Fortnite is celebrating the start of the new season with its first-ever springtime event. Called “Spring Breakout,” this new limited-time event adds new outfits, an egg-themed weapon, and more.
Running March 30-April 7, the Spring Breakout event brings back the Egg Launcher weapon, which, as its name suggests, lets you shoot eggs to celebrate Easter. Players can also complete a new quest from Webster–a new character who offers Legendary quests–that rewards you with the Tactical Quaxes pickaxe. This quest goes live on Thursday, April 1, but it is no April Fools’ joke.
Additionally, Fortnite’s island is getting new eggs that, when consumed, make you hop like a bunny rabbit.
Behold, the Egg Launcher
New Items To Buy
Fortnite’s in-game store is being stocked with new items to buy, themed around spring and Easter. The Bunny Brawler, Rabbit Raider, and Quackling outfits are all returning.
Some of the new items in Fortnite’s in-game store
Spring Breakout Cup
Starting April 2 is the Spring Breakout Cup, which is a Duos competition series. Players have three hours to complete up to 10 matches to earn tournament points. The top-earners for each region will receive the Webster outfit and Mecha-Feathers back bling.
Players must be account level 30 or above and have 2FA enabled to compete.
The Spring Breakout Cup is almost here
More Papercraft
Fortnite fans who want to craft items in the real world can now download brand-new papercraft masks and foldables. These include the Stella, Rabbit Raider, and Webster masks, as well as the Bun Bun, Nitehare, and Cluck foldables.
The Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series coming to Disney+ is beginning production soon, and the company has announced the ensemble cast set to star in the show. The two leads are recognizable Star Wars veterans: Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen, reprising their roles as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker aka Darth Vader, respectively.
But the cast includes a lot more players besides those two Jedi. Some notable new faces to Star Wars include Moses Ingram, Kumail Nanjiani, and Indira Varma. Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Piesse are returning to reprise their roles as young Owen and Beru Lars, who took care of the young Luke Skywalker. The story will begin 10 years after Revenge of the Sith, which ended with Obi-Wan bring Luke to the Lars ranch and staying on Tatooine to watch over him.
The executive producers will be Kathleen Kennedy and Ewan McGregor, along with Michelle Rejwan, and The Mandalorian’s Deborah Chow. Joby Harold (Edge of Tomorrow) is both writer and an executive producer. Disney is calling this a “special event series,” which suggests it will be a limited run.
Production on the show will begin in April. The full announced cast, as detailed from Disney, is:
Ewan McGregor
Hayden Christensen
Moses Ingram
Joel Edgerton
Bonnie Piesse
Kumail Nanjiani
Indira Varma
Rupert Friend
O’Shea Jackson Jr.
Sung Kang
Simone Kessell
Benny Safdie
The Obi-Wan series had been long rumored before being confirmed by Disney. The company has a wide slate of Star Wars shows in development, following the lead of its breakout hit, The Mandalorian. To that end, Obi-Wan Kenobi will borrow some of Mando’s groundbreaking special effects techniques.
PAX East’s physical event, which was planned for June 3-6 in Boston, has been canceled. ReedPop and Penny Arcade canceled the show due to the ongoing pandemic.
Despite the cancellation, the organizers say they remain “cautiously optimistic” that PAX West and PAX Unplugged will go forward as in-person events in September and December, respectively.
While PAX East is canceled, ReedPop and Penny Arcade announced that an online show–PAX Online–will be held again this year, from July 15-18. The first PAX Online took place in 2020, and the organizers are building on it in 2021 with an Indie Showcase event and more.
“While we hoped PAX East could safely take place, we remained realistic and did not sell any tickets or space to exhibitors to avoid significantly inconveniencing our friends and partners,” ReedPop said. “As we have shown via our actions throughout the pandemic, our utmost concern is the safety of the PAX family–from attendees, exhibitors, and show staff to media and content creators–as well as the local communities that host our celebrations of all things gaming. We will only move forward with a live PAX once we are confident the show will be safe for everyone.”
ReedPop said it looks forward to bringing PAX East back to Boston in 2022. PAX East has a history with the pandemic, as its 2020 show went ahead normally in late February and early March 2020 just as the health crisis was picking up steam in the city and across the US.
Massachusetts’ reopening plan is currently in Step 1 of Phase IV, and under those guidelines, indoor gatherings at event venues or in public settings are limited to 100 people. PAX East is known to drawn thousands of attendees, so this would have caused an issue if the same rules stayed in place in June.
A Microsoft Flight Simulator mod recreates the suddenly-iconic image of the cargo ship, the Ever Given, stuck in the Suez Canal. A viral TikTok video shows a pilot engaging in a flyby of the stuck ship, and you can recreate the bird’s-eye view yourself with the mod.
Mat Velloso, technical advisor to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, shared the video on Twitter. It features a player narrating as a plane captain, giving a tour of the Suez Canal as a major pipeline for global trade, and then noticing the ship. He then tells the passengers to fasten their seatbelts so they can turn for a better look.
The Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week, disrupting trade through the highly trafficked sea route. It was a serious problem and a source of frustration for the governments trying to free the ship, but it is also objectively hilarious that big boat got stuck. So there’s been no shortage of memes and videos about the incident, and this Flight Simulator mod is just the latest riff.
You can download the Ever Given mod by FlyBoyRez1 to view the scene yourself. You’ll just have to plan a flight path that overlooks the Suez (coordinates: 30.017650, 32.580220) and you can’t miss it. It’s the giant boat.
In the real world, though, the Ever Given has just been freed and traffic through the Suez Canal has resumed, reports the New York Times.
“Weiss, you dumbass! You better start making sense, you rotten book, or you’re gonna be sorry! Maybe I’ll start ripping your pages out one-by-one, or maybe I’ll put you in a goddamn furnace! How can someone with such a big, smart brain get hypnotized like a little b**ch? Oh, Shadowlord! I love you, Shadowlord! Come over here and give Weiss a big sloppy kiss, Shadowlord! Now pull your head out of your goddamn ass and START F***ING HELPING US!”
That’s the opening line delivered by Kainé, a tough and calloused character with a fighting passion. She yells this directly at Grimoire Weiss, a sentient book who’s a sassy wisecrack that wields crucial powers to fight against the otherworldly threat called Shades. But while this first impression is of conflict between allies, it’s illustrative of the eccentric group dynamic between the characters of Nier. And the line hits you like a truck just before you watch the intro cinematic, which is backed by the impassioned orchestrations and chorus composed by Keiichi Okabe. It’s all that’s needed to tell you that you’re in for an emotional journey without saying anything more.
In a post-Nier: Automata world, the original Nier has garnered a new spotlight that has afforded it a second lease on life. The initial release was a bit obscured in 2010, dated and rather basic in some aspects, which may have undercut its storytelling chops and the unique narrative stylings of creator Yoko Taro. I’ve been playing the original version on PS3 recently, and, in retrospect, the flaws in its gameplay systems are easier to overlook when it’s understood you’re playing an older game–and through that perspective, I’ve found something really special.
With this remake, fully and oddly named Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139…, an overlooked gem has been ushered into the modern era on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC with a modernized gameplay experience that’s closer to what you get from Automata. I’ve spent some time playing ahead of its launch, and it leaves me a bit shook to see this game again running in higher resolution and at 60 frames per second, with revamped combat mechanics and the reorchestrated, evocative soundtrack. But more importantly, it’s a real treat knowing that folks have another chance to play through a special piece of video game storytelling, especially considering how tough it is to go back to (and actually find) the original version.
Revamped combat makes Nier Replicant a much better gameplay experience than the original.
Nier Replicant doesn’t necessarily contain any structural changes from what I’ve seen thus far, essentially preserving the original experience as if it’s a one-to-one recreation. In the small snippets I played, combat scenarios and boss fights in The Aerie and Junk Heap still had their familiar multifaceted challenges, gameplay perspective shifts, and bombastic moments.
In The Aerie, a village constructed along a cliffside, you stand against the imposing threat of a massive Shade. Through sequences of hitting specific spots, reacting to attack patterns, and wailing on the Shade when the opportunity presents itself, you’ll take them down. Junk Heap features robots and machines (vaguely resembling the experience of Nier: Automata’s factories), and a Zelda-like boss fight where you destroy a machine’s floating hands then throw bombs into its mouth at the right time while fending off smaller enemies. It’s all fairly standard action-game-type stuff that doesn’t deviate much from the original Nier, though this does provide a decent vehicle for the game’s stronger elements.
Replicant has an enhanced satisfaction in battle with smoother movements and melee combos, and an enhanced system for Weiss’ Dark abilities (effectively magic spells). These spells are much more enjoyable to pull off, and it’s one aspect where Nier has an edge over Automata–you have hard-hitting projectiles, a Pod-like bullet barrage, spikes to summon from the ground, and a massive hand to call on to smack enemies with metaphysical power. The lock-on system also means that you aren’t necessarily struggling against the game itself to pull off attacks accurately and on your intended targets. I must say I quite like Grimoire Weiss more so than the various Pods of Automata.
No matter what, Emil will steal your heart.
Those who played Nier back in the day are getting something new for the Western experience. Replicant stars “Brother Nier” as opposed to “Father Nier.” The core story remains the same, where a young child named Yonah faces a seemingly terminal illness related to the Shades who threaten your world. Although I can’t exactly explore the dynamic in relation to Replicant quite yet, I did find something special about how this story is communicated with a father figure front and center. At a time when we have quite a few prominent games starring dads and parental struggles, the lens through which you view Nier’s desolate world and experience the unlikely relationships has been unique–it’s one that’s less about fatherhood and more about forming bonds with strangers and the power they afford you in critical moments. With the brother now in the starring role, however, I don’t expect Nier’s pivotal moments to lose their impact or poignance.
What I will say is that Nier eventually becomes narratively heavy. It’s blunt sometimes, philosophical at others. It can be grandiose but not without a bit of earnestness and levity in between. If you’re like me–someone who loves investing in stories only to have your heart ripped out–this is a game for us. Remake or otherwise, the original Nier has a keen focus on humanity, empathy, and tragedy, and in that regard, it’s a lot like Nier: Automata. But the original game itself has a charismatic edge that’ll draw you in to hit you in your feelings in a different way. The revelations and connections to Automata are also exciting things to explore, and first-timers should be eager to see this story unfold.
Like Father Nier, Brother Nier will do whatever it takes to save Yonah.
Although it shares the slick feel of a modern action game, this is very much the original Nier with what it asks you to do in terms of its core gameplay structure. That might make Replicant feel a bit outdated or perhaps a step back if you’re coming fresh off Automata–but admittedly, gameplay isn’t exactly why we’re here. Nier can be dark and depressing, but also uplifting at certain moments and in small ways. Surviving in a broken world to preserve your humanity and your connections with whoever you have left doesn’t come without the drama and heart necessary.
Just hearing a few of the songs in this soundtrack again hit something deep that I can’t quite explain without taking the time to really unpack that emotional response. And that’s kind of what Nier: Automata does, too. Not many games can deliver that sort of impact, so I’m looking forward to exploring Nier Replicant more as we get closer to its April 23 release date, if anything, just to feel something.
Click To Unmute
Size:
Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?
Marvel’s Avengers already has a few elements that have clearly been inspired by Bungie’s successful space sandbox Destiny 2, and it’s about to add one more similar feature to its world in the form of an upcoming Patrol mode. With a busy summer period ahead of the game, the new Patrol mode will give players a wide area to explore, one that isn’t constrained by the usual mission parameters.
Players will be able to complete quests and earn rewards, but the new mode will only be open in the Wasteland area when it arrives. Introduced in the recent Operation: Future Imperfect expansion, the Wasteland is a vast and open post-apocalyptic area inhabited by mercenaries and the remnants of AIM’s robot army that were active during the Kree invasion of the planet. The Wasteland will be split into three key areas: Kree Sentry graveyard, Ruined City, and SHIELD stronghold.
We’re Introducing the new Patrol Mode mission type this summer that allows you to explore the largest War Zone to date, complete quests, and earn rewards without the constraints of a mission. Explore these areas as long as you want and complete Assignments at your leisure! pic.twitter.com/3mwdVbUApB
The area sounds like an ideal map in which to harvest rare resources, complete assignments and spend time leveling up your Avenger of choice, similar to how Destiny 2 operates with its multiple levels dotted across the solar system. Marvel’s Avengers has other zones which could also easily fit into this new mode, such as its Eastern Seaboard, Pacific Northwest, and Snowy Tundra levels which rotate in and out of the game as War Zone stages.
Marvel’s Avengers is currently preparing for a more content-packed future, as developer Crystal Dynamics has revealed the roadmap for the next few months. Black Panther will headline the War for Wakanda expansion as the next playable character in a future update listed under “summer and beyond” on the roadmap, with new gameplay options, cosmetic updates, and in-game events also being added throughout the year as part of a renewed drive by the developer to further fine-tune and strengthen the game.
In the more immediate future, players can try out Tachyon Anomaly missions that allow for any combination of four heroes and Red Room Takeover, which provides the HARM training room with a Black Widow-themed makeover. Those two modes will arrive in the spring season.
PlayStation 4 users will be able to pre-load the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War mid-season update, which is another big patch for the military shooter. According to CharlieIntel, the mid-season update weighs in at around 7 GB.
The site reported that players can install the 7 GB update, starting at 9 PM PT on March 29 (12 AM ET on March 30). For some reason, pre-loading is only available on PS4, it seems.
A new patch update for Black Ops Cold War, version 1.14, for PlayStation 4 is starting to become available for pre-loading. The update is 7GBs and will be available to install at 9PM PT on March 29. This is the mid-Season update. Pre-load only available on PS4.
The mid-season update is a big one, as evidenced by the file size and what we’ve heard about it so far. Developer Treyarch has already announced that the update will include new maps, including the Golova map with the new 40-player Hardpoint mode, along with a new map called Mansion that’s set in Cuba. Various weapon tuning changes are coming as well.
It’s expected there will be some updates and changes for the battle royale game Warzone as well, along with the fan-favorite Zombies mode, but we’re still waiting to learn more.
Prominent director James Mangold–who directed Logan, Ford v Ferrari, and Walk The Line and is attached to direct the new Indiana Jones movie–has said he won’t make a movie in the state of Georgia due to a recent law that makes changes to voting rules.
Mangold said succinctly on Twitter, “I will not direct a film in Georgia.”
Georgia is one of the US east coast’s movie-making hubs, with numerous Marvel and DC projects filming there such as The Avengers, Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and The Suicide Squad projects.
The new bill, which was signed into law late last week, makes changes to voter ID requirements and more. Democratic state senator Jen Jordan said of the bill, “It’s like the Christmas tree of goodies for voter suppression.”
Mangold responded to numerous people on Twitter who followed up and challenged him on his statement. You can see some of his responses below. Screenwriter Amy Holden Jones, who wrote Mystic Pizza, said Atlanta–which is where many of the big Hollywood productions film–is the “blue heart of the state.” Eliminating movie production in Georgia would harm Democratic voters, Jones said.
I am grateful for that election. But the Georgia legislature just made that election nearly impossible to ever repeat. Pressure is required. Get angry at the right people.
The state will be irredeemably red with these new “laws”. The only reason studios shoot in GA is cause they have steal production from other states and workers w/ cash.
Film and television shoot in Atlanta, the blue heart of the state. Eliminate production and you harm democratic voters, hard working people, not the representatives elected by the red rural areas.
Star Wars actor Mark Hamill also weighed in on the matter, saying he agrees with Mangold about wanting to stop filming in Georgia. “No More Filming In Georgia,” he wrote as a hashtag.
Mangold’s next project is the new Indiana Jones movie starring Harrison Ford. Series director Steven Spielberg was originally scheduled to direct the film but Mangold stepped in after Spielberg parted ways with the film.
