Oberyn Martell is reportedly joining Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman sequel.
Variety reports that Game of Thrones and Narcos star Pedro Pascal will be joining the cast in an unnamed role, alongside Gal Gadot and fellow newcomer Kristin Wiig, who was recently cast as the villainess Cheetah.
Pascal in Narcos.
Ahh, mid-March, that wonderful time when spring is in the air and baseball fans are getting excited about the start of another Major League Baseball season. It’s almost time. If you’re thinking about picking up a baseball game this year, you might be wondering which one is right for you. To help you decide, we’ve put together a primer on this year’s big baseball games covering what each one offers and everything else you need to know about them. Bear in mind that all of this information is based on what the game’s respective publishers have said about each title. You may want to wait for reviews to pick up a game, but this should help you get started in thinking about what you want.
What Is It? Sony’s flagship sports franchise, MLB The Show, returns this year promising better visuals, smarter AI, custom batting stances, and more. With 2K’s MLB 2K series canceled, Sony’s 2018 game is the only one on the market that offers an authentic, simulation-style baseball experience instead of an arcade or management-centric take on the sport. This is a high-end, officially licensed baseball game with gorgeous graphics, involved (but not overly complicated) controls, and a level of customisation and depth that is unrivaled in the market.
Who’s It For? This is the game you want if you’re after a baseball experience that tries to be as close as possible to the real game.
What’s New? Sony says that all major areas of baseball fundamentals have been improved for MLB The Show 18, including pitching, hitting, catching, throwing, and tagging. In all, Sony is promising more than 1,000 new gameplay animations, a revamped hitting engine with improved physics, and a player-tagging system that was completely re-written (Sony says not a single line of code from 2017’s game remains). Also new for MLB The Show 18 are new dynamic crowd elements like Judge’s Chambers, new Legend players (Babe Ruth!), and an expanded Road to the Show mode. Additionally, you can now customise your batting stance, while there are new home run celebrations as well. If a player hits a home run when it actually matters, like a game-winning dinger in the bottom of the ninth, the player will celebrate accordingly. In a step towards realism you didn’t know you wanted, there will be rain delays in this year’s game. Really. Also new for MLB The Show 18 are three-inning games, which are exactly what they sound like. Returning from last year is the Retro mode, which provides a simpler, two-button arcade-style take that aims to hearken back to older days and simpler times.
When’s It Out And Where? MLB The Show 18 launches on March 27 exclusively for PS4. If you pre-order, you can start playing on March 23.
Who’s On The Cover? Aaron Judge in the US/Marcus Stroman in Canada.
What’s It Cost? MLB The Show is priced at $60 in the United States for the standard edition.
What Is It? 2014’s Super Mega Baseball, a streamlined, arcade-style unlicensed baseball game, was a surprise hit. It was popular enough to get an Extra Innings Edition, and now a full-on sequel due out this spring.
Who’s It For? Super Mega Baseball 2, like its predecessor, is a more casual and over-the-top take on baseball. The controls are simple (relative to MLB The Show) and it doesn’t take as long to finish a game. If you’re looking for a more casual, arcade take on baseball that you can finish in minutes, not hours, Super Mega Baseball 2 is one to consider.
What’s New? The original Super Mega Baseball lacked online multiplayer support, and that was a bit of a bummer. Thankfully, online play is here for the sequel with support for co-op and head-to-head matches. Single-player of course returns as well. In terms of presentation, you’ll immediately notice that the characters and environments look more realistic than they did in the first game. Players are now more realistically proportioned, though not to the level of MLB The Show. Stadiums look better as well, and light should react and reflect more realistically. The user interface has also been updated to look and work better.
Also new for Super Mega Baseball 2 is deeper customisation across all major reasons; you now have more options available for your team and league–including things like uniforms–and your lineup. You now have one extra starting player, one extra bench player, one extra starting pitcher, and one extra relief pitcher. You can customise your players with all manner of elements such as tattoos and beards, while you can create your own custom team logo as well.
When’s It Out And Where? Originally pegged to launch in 2017, Super Mega Baseball 2 is now due out in early 2018, though a specific date hasn’t been announced yet. The game is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC.
Who’s On The Cover? Remember when we said this was an unlicensed game?
What’s It Cost? Pricing has not been announced, but Super Mega Baseball 2 is expected to be a budget-priced game in the range of $20-$40.
What Is It? Developed by MLB’s own MLB Advanced Media division, R.B.I. Baseball 18 is an arcade-style licensed game with simplified controls.
Who’s It For? If you’re after a streamlined, simplified baseball game but still want recognisable names, faces, and ballparks, RBI Baseball 18 is one to consider.
What’s New? Described as the most significant update to the R.B.I. Baseball series since it was revived in 2014, this year’s game features tons of updates, changes, and additions. Starting off, there is a Franchise mode that lets you do things like make trades, sign free agents, and more, while a player progression system will let you create a character and lead them through all stages of the game, including ultimately retirement. Also new for RBI Baseball 18 is a Home Run Derby mode that supports local head-to-head play with another human or take on the computer. RBI Baseball 18 adds online multiplayer for ranked and unranked games. There will also be roster updates for the first time, so if a player gets traded in real life during the season, this will be reflected in the game.
Other new features include a soundtrack (featuring songs from more than a dozen popular artists) and MLB Legends for Franchise mode. These Legends are famous players who have since retired, including Ted Williams, Rod Carew, Nolan Ryan, Ozzie Smith, Jeff Bagwell, and Jorge Posada. Also new for RBI Baseball 18 are “completely redesigned” player models for more than 300 players, while there are “hundreds” of new animations–including player-specific ones–that should help the game feel more realistic. Finally, all 30 MLB ballparks got a makeover with things like new textures and enhanced lighting, as well as a crowd system that makes attendees look and react in a more lifelike way.
When’s It Out And Where? RBI Baseball 18 launches in March for PS4, Xbox One, and Switch. A mobile version will be available for iOS and Android devices.
Who’s On The Cover? Francisco Lindor is on the cover.
What’s It Cost? RBI Baseball 18 will cost $30 on consoles.
What Is It? Electronic Arts was once a big player in the licensed baseball video game space with its Triple Play and MVP Baseball franchises (and also, briefly, college baseball). Those games are out of rotation, but EA is publishing this year’s Out of the Park Baseball 19 from developer Out of the Park Developments.
Who’s It For? Critically, Out of the Park Baseball is a text-based, management-style game similar to Sega’s Football Manager franchise. This game is nothing like the others. There is no traditional gameplay or stick skills. Instead, it’s all about cultivating your baseball acumen and executing on a strategy as a manager. If you’re interested in what it would be like to be a manager or a general manager, this is the game for you.
What’s New? There are many new features for Out of the Park Baseball 19. Additionally, the developer says the stadiums have been had their looks “greatly improved,” while player models should be better looking. Additionally, the simulated on-field players now perform all baseball actions–running, sliding, throwing, etc.–and they take more realistic routes to make a play on defense.
Additionally, the scouting report system has been “completely rewritten” to focus more on aspects that matter more, the developer says. On top of that, the AI is smarter this year. For the first time, computer-controlled players can perform things like double switches, better use of starting and closing pitchers during the playoffs, and more. Changes have also been made to the player-rating system to allow for a “more realistic and consistent” snapshot of MLB players. Some of the other new features in Out of the Park Baseball 19 include custom tournaments, the introduction of 800 custom team logos you can choose from for fictional leagues, a new stat for pitchers (RA9-WAR, which is Wins Above Replacement but based on runs allowed), and the option to delay the substitution of an injured player.
When’s It Out And Where? Out of the Park Baseball 19 launches on March 22 exclusively for PC. If you pre-order, you get access on March 19.
Who’s On The Cover? This ain’t that kind of game.
What’s It Cost? Out of the Park Baseball 19 costs $40, but if you pre-order you save 10 percent, knocking the price down to $36.
A new trailer for Westworld Season 2 is coming tomorrow, March 29, HBO has announced. While you have to wait a bit to see the full thing, the network has released an intriguing teaser.
It’s difficult to make sense of what’s happening in the brief teaser, and with Westworld, things might not necessarily be as they seem. Voiceover from the Man in Black (Ed Harris) to an unidentified person says, “They wanted a place hidden from God, a place they could sin in peace. We had something else in mind entirely.”
The full trailer will arrive on March 29 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET. We’ll post it here when it’s available, along with all the key information in it. It’s probably going to be a mind-bender.
Last week, HBO released a creepy new poster for Westworld Season 2 that may or may not contain some clues. Producers Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan also recently confirmed some plot details about the second season–and made some teases of their own as well.
The first big trailer for Westworld Season 2 was shown during the Super Bowl last month–you can check out our breakdown here. Westworld Season 2 premieres on April 22.
Late last year, Valve teased an upcoming card game called Artifact based on it’s popular MOBA Dota 2, and now we’ve gotten a closer look at the cards and gameplay. You can see the game in action right here, and we’ll have a have a more detailed preview coming soon, but in this gallery you can get a look at the artwork and screens.
Valve boss Gabe Newell said explicitly in an AMA that his company has more projects in the works (including a “fully fledged single-player game), but Artifact is likely the next game that Valve will self-release. The game is coming first to desktop (Win/Mac/Linux) late 2018. After that, it’ll hit tablet devices mid-2019, and then a phone version will launch at some unspecified point in the future.
The final game will include over 280 cards and 44 heroes initially. And according to a press release, “players will be able to buy and sell cards on the Steam Community Marketplace.” Following the game’s launch, Valve plans to continue supporting the game through “expansions, competitive events, and new features.” As soon as we have more details, you’ll be able to read about them here!
With the superheroes from throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe uniting and Thanos (Josh Brolin) trying to destroy everything in his way, there’s already a lot that will be going on in Avengers: Infinity War. However, it turns out there will also be a love story packed in.
The relationship between Vision (Paul Bettany) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) introduced in Captain America: Civil War will take a big step forward in Infinity War. “Vision’s been on this quest to understand what being human is and I think Scarlet Witch [has], in a large degree, helped him figure that out and what love is,” Bettany tells io9.
For Olsen, how this relationship was handled made even more of an impact than the death of Wanda’s brother in Avengers: Age of Ultron. “This is definitely the most emotional arc I’ve done in an Avengers film, that’s for sure,” she says.
Given that the Infinity Stones–including the one embedded in Vision’s forehead–are the thing Thanos is after, putting the spotlight on the two of them makes perfect sense. Their journey even takes them to Wakanda after a failed attempt by Thanos to remove the stone.
“These bad guys are trying to get the stone out of my head and so Wanda and I fought them off, and then we’ve ended up here for surgery,” Bettany explains. He also teases something of importance that happens in Shuri’s lab before a Disney publicist reels the actor back in.
Whatever happens on Wakanda, keeping Vision alive in the face of Thanos has far more meaning after he’s found out what love and emotion are. “I just found out what it means to be human and now this Thanos guy,” Bettany says. “I think he’s a real d***.”
Avengers: Infinity War is in theaters on April 27.
Announced last year in a brief teaser, we’re now seeing much more of Valve’s new Dota card game Artifact. GameSpot’s Jimmy Thang recently visited Valve HQ to check out Artifact and talk to developers about the game and what they are hoping to achieve in the digital card game space.
As you’ll see, Artifiact bears a resemblance to Blizzard’s hugely popular Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and CD Projekt Red’s Gwent, among others. But it also has some MOBA elements. For example, there are three lanes in Artifact, which adds variety to the gameplay.
Artifact uses heroes from the Dota universe. You can see how the game looks in action in GameSpot’s video above. Valve developers can also be heard in the video.
Earlier this month, Valve boss Gabe Newell talked about how the company is going to start making games again, beginning with Artifact. In addition to Artifact, Valve has “several games” on the way, but no, we don’t know if one of them is the much-anticipated Half-Life 3.
While Far Cry 5 remains loyal to the series’ most well-established tenets, it manages to make some big changes to exploration, progression, and combat. When you first start the game, some of these new elements may seem disorienting–a pleasant surprise for more hardcore fans of the series. To help clear the initial confusion, we’ve gathered nine essential tips on how to best play Far Cry 5.
Got any tips that you don’t see here? Let us know in the comments below. If you’re looking for a beginners tips-focused guide, you can watch our video guide discussing general starter tips to follow. And be sure to check back often as we put up our final Far Cry 5 review–as well as more guides–in the coming days.
Far Cry 5 is out now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. In other news, Ubisoft recently announced Far Cry 5’s Season Pass, which takes you to settings like Mars and the Vietnam War. We also recently learned more about the game’s microtransactions, how the campaign is playable offline, and the game’s single-player campaign playtime.
Donald Glover has responded to rumors he was too busy to work on the defunct Deadpool TV series.
Glover revealed on Twitter that his supposed busy schedule isn’t too blame for the show’s demise, which FX also cited “creative differences” as a reason for the project’s end.
“For the record: i wasnt too busy to work on deadpool,” Glover tweeted, before posting the script pages, which you can read in the gallery below:
Glover, who was set to serve as showrunner and writer on the series along with Stephen Glover (Atlanta), also shared a 15-page script titled “Finale,” seemingly implying this would have been the show’s final script. The 15 pages are notably filled with references to events that have occurred in recent days, though.