Category: Games

Warning: Full spoilers follow for The Rise of Skywalker. Obviously.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is the last movie in The Skywalker Saga, which means this ending explained isn’t just for one movie… but for the entire nine-film trilogy which began over 40 years ago!

So how did the original Star Wars saga finish up? Let’s break it all down.

It is… our destiny…

Entering the Unknown Regions and Exogol

After much gallivanting around a galaxy far, far away, The Rise of Skywalker spends its finale in the mysterious Unknown Regions, the unexplored area of space beyond the Outer Rim. Yeah, it turns out there’s a lot of worlds out there beyond just the area controlled at various times by the Republic, Empire and First Order.

Continue reading…

It’s time to get started on your New Year’s resolution with a fitness tracker. Here’s the best one for under $100.

This post contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and The Mandalorian Season 1 through episode 7.

What Is Force Healing?

The Rise of Skywalker introduces a lot of new Force abilities into the Star Wars franchise, but perhaps the most vital is the one utilized by Rey (and later Ben Solo) at several points – the ability to use the Force to heal an injury; even a seemingly fatal one.

When Rey encounters a wounded sand serpent in the caves of Pasaana, she explains to Finn and Poe that she used the Force to transfer a part of her life essence to the snake in order to heal it, but given how we see her holding her hand in pain, it’s implied that using the Force to heal someone takes something (whether it’s energy or pure life force) from the wielder. Rey again demonstrates the power when she heals Kylo Ren from what looks like a fatal lightsaber wound through his midsection during their battle on the ruins of the second Death Star.

Continue reading…

This review contains full spoilers for The Witcher Season 1, episode 7, titled “Before a Fall”. For a refresher, check out our review of episode 6, “Rare Species”.

The penultimate episode of The Witcher’s freshman season resembles the show that many fans likely expected. Grand in scope (albeit not in physicality), it places Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri at the crossroads of a potentially monumental conflict. Armies march, mages scheme, and Geralt approaches his goals with singular purpose. After a season-long struggle with structure, it finally feels as if the show has found itself.

Continue reading…

This review contains full spoilers for The Witcher Season 1, episode 6, titled “Rare Species”. For a refresher, check out our review of episode 5, “Bottled Appetites”. 

As The Witcher enters the final third of its first season, we’re treated to one of the fantasy genre’s greatest treasures: dragons. Not only that, but episode 6 is about as classic a Geralt story as can be told; a contract to kill a terrifying beast, with a moral dilemma right at the centre of it. It makes for one of the season’s more enjoyable tales, and sets the stage for developments in Geralt and Yennefer’s strange relationship to play out upon.

Continue reading…

IGN does lots of Movie and TV of the Year Award categories, but we just can’t cover everything. That’s where IGN UK comes in, to dish out awards for the stuff no one else will.

Want to know what the Best Performance from Someone Not Called Joaquin Phoenix was? Cardy has you covered. Want to know who the 4.0 GPA award for Best School Film goes to? Matt will tell you. And who will take home the much coveted Thank God It’s Over award? Alex has the answer.

Those are just a handful of the 9 winners we will be crowning, plus we get a tantalising look into the world of Matt’s search history.

Remember, if you want to get in touch with the podcast, please do: [email protected]

Continue reading…

This review contains full spoilers for The Witcher Season 1, episode 1, titled “The End’s Beginning”. 

Anyone who has read Polish fantasy author Andrzej Sapkowski’s plethora of novels, or played through the gargantuan trilogy of CD Projekt Red video games, will know that the world of The Witcher is a sprawling, knotty landscape. It’s a place of conflicting kingdoms, tragic families, and murky politics. To describe the saga’s plot to a newcomer without getting caught up in its many overlapping strands is a difficult task. Smartly circumnavigating this issue, Netflix’s The Witcher show starts small, and exactly where it needs to: with Geralt.

While the first episode of The Witcher – “The End’s Beginning” – has one eye on the larger picture, it is predominantly a small-scale introduction to Henry Cavill’s slayer of beasts, Geralt of Rivia. Stripping the story back to essentials is a sensible choice, and by the episode’s conclusion we have a pretty solid understanding of who he is, what drives him, and where he stands in the greater narrative. His destiny to meet Ciri helps anchor him in the episode’s ‘B plot’, and it’s clear where the character needs to go both in narrative and personal development.

Continue reading…

This review contains full spoilers for The Witcher Season 1, episode 3, titled “Betrayer Moon”. For a refresher, check out our review of episode 2, “Four Marks”.

From the get-go, The Witcher has been content to focus on its leading characters and their smaller stories, leaving any sense of a grand plot simmering in the background. Episode 3, “Betrayer Moon,” continues that trend, once again opting to delve deeper into Yennefer’s origins and adapt yet another short story for Geralt’s quest-of-the-episode. That means we’ve now had a trio of tales dedicated to plot establishment, rather than development. But while it’s hard not to feel a little impatient about the season’s pace, “Betrayer Moon” does provide a consistent third chapter to Netflix’s fantasy series.

Continue reading…

This review contains full spoilers for The Witcher Season 1, episode 4, titled “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials”. For a refresher, check out our review of episode 3, “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials”.

We’ve reached the halfway mark of Netflix’s The Witcher, and episode 4 marks somewhat of a watershed moment for the show. The ties that bind Geralt and Ciri have finally been revealed, putting at least one of the show’s mysteries (partially) to bed. But the episode also feels as if it slams on the brakes, allowing for time to fill in the cracks of mysteries laid in previous stories. This creates what feels like a chapter designed to iron out creases rather that move the journey forward.

Continue reading…

This review contains full spoilers for The Witcher Season 1, episode 2, titled “Four Marks”. For a refresher, check out our review of episode 1, “The End’s Beginning”.

The first episode of The Witcher eased us gently into Geralt’s world, much as the White Wolf himself would slowly slip into his famous bathtub. But that smooth and steady introduction halts here, as episode 2 – “Four Marks” – opens the floodgates on The Witcher’s lore, creating an at-times breathless rush of information, exposition, and history. If the first episode was a side-quest, then “Four Marks” is evening-long session of reading background information on the official Witcher wiki.

Continue reading…