Oscar Isaac has explained his love for Metal Gear Solid led him to accept the role as Solid Snake in an upcoming movie adaptation, saying that its “psychedelic military horror” and anti-war message are a big part of his affections.
Following the news that Oscar Isaac is set to play Solid Snake in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid movie from director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, the actor has explained to Total Film why he joined the film.
“I just loved the game,” Isaac said. “I love the feeling that the game would give me every time I’d play. It’s just a strangely isolated, mournful, lonely game to play that has these incredible moments of violence and terror, with these weird, psychedelic concepts and villains. But, yes, it’s kind of like psychedelic military horror things that happen.”
Isaac spoke further about the themes behind Metal Gear Solid and his hopes for the series’ adaptation onto the big screen. “The truth is, underneath the whole thing, it’s an anti-war story. So I think those are the elements I really love,” he explained. “And, like I said, I love the feel of playing it, and the big question of: can something like that be transferred – or can you explore those themes in a really interesting way – on film?”
Isaac has long since been known to be a fan of the role. During an interview with IGN for Netflix’s Triple Frontier, the actor stated his desire to play the role of Solid Snake in a movie adaptation. “Metal Gear Solid, that’s the one,” Isaac said at the time. “I’m throwing my hat in for that one.”
Following the interview, Vogt-Roberts seemed keen for Isaac to portray the film’s lead even before casting had started. The director commissioned artist Bosslogic to create a mock-up of the actor as Snake which you can see in the tweet below.
THIS-MUSING-IS-NOT-NEWS-PSA:
To everyone asking how I feel about Oscar Isaac saying he wants to be Solid Snake.
The full process required to cast an icon hasn’t even started, but..
Ask @Bosslogic where the idea for his brilliant mock up came from.
— (((Jordan Vogt-Roberts))) (@VogtRoberts) March 4, 2019
Very little is known about the movie at this point with neither the film’s release date nor production date having been announced. With Isaac’s incredibly busy schedule, fans will hope that the film is able to move forward sooner rather than later.
Mike Richards has stepped down as the new daily host of Jeopardy. Richards had been the center of controversy ever since he was announced as host last week.
The announcement that Richards will no longer present the new season of the classic game show follows the backlash to a series of sexist, racist, and homophobic comments that he made on a podcast between 2013 and 2014. Richards is also Jeopardy’s executive producer, and in a statement, he said that didn’t want his past behavior to overshadow the show, which started production again this week. Read the full statement below, via writer Claire McNear:
It was McNear who broke the story about the comments that Richards made on the podcast The Randumb Show, in an article for Ringer. Richards issued an initial apology on Wednesday this week, stating, “It is humbling to confront a terribly embarrassing moment of misjudgment, thoughtlessness, and insensitivity from nearly a decade ago.” However, the controversy was showing little signs of going away.
Even before the Ringer article, there were questions being asked about both the selection process to find a new host for Jeopardy. The series went through a series of guest hosts, including LeVar Burton and Aaron Rodgers, with the expectation that the new host would be chosen from these. However, on August 11, it was announced that Richards himself would be the regular host, with Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik set to host special episodes and prime-time tournaments.
In addition, Richards had previously settled two lawsuits that dated back to his time as executive producer on The Price is Right in the early 2010s. The lawsuits were brought by former models on the show, who alleged that Richards discriminated against them because of pregnancies, and also made insensitive statements. Richards denied any wrongdoing, stating, “I want you all to know that the way in which my comments and actions have been characterized in these complaints does not reflect the reality of who I am or how we worked together on The Price is Right.”
The search for a new Jeopardy host followed the death of Alex Trebek, who had hosted the show since 1984 but died in November last year. As Richards’ statement indicates, the show will now go back to guests hosts until a new full-time host can be appointed.
A new tease appears to confirm that a Saints Row reboot/new entry will be revealed next week at Gamescom 2021.
The Game Awards and Gamescom Opening Night Live’s Geoff Keighley shared this tease on Twitter, confirming that the team behind the show is “‘Bossing’ it with our announcements this year.”
Speaking of the show, Gamescom Opening Night Live will take place on Wednesday, August 25 at 11am PT/2pm ET/7pm BST.
As if there was any doubt that this was for Saints Row, the Tweet also includes a link to bit.ly/BossIt that takes users to SaintsRow.com, which has been updated to include the same “Rebooting” image.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic or other unknown reasons, this reveal has yet to happen, but Gamescom 2021 sure seems where fans of the franchise will finally learn what’s next for the series.
Soujla Boy told ’em, but it wasn’t the truth. Atari has set the record straight that rapper and cheap electronics reseller Soulja Boy is not actually the new owner of Atari, despite the claims he has made over the last few days.
“I am now the owner of Atari. I own the video game company Atari,” Soulja Boy (real name DeAndre Cortez Way) said in a video posted on YouTube. If that sounded too good to be true, it’s because none of it is true, despite Soulja Boy wearing an Atari shirt and hat in the video. He claimed Atari was “proud” of him for his work on the Soujla Game console, which was very clearly a repackaged and marked-up knockoff system that included some legally nebulous elements.
In a message spotted by Game Informer, the Atari Twitter account didn’t directly mention Soulja Boy but very clearly referred to him:
We know that CEO of Atari is a dream job, but that honor belongs to Wade Rosen
The SouljaBoyGame Twitter account said back in June that you’d be able to play its handheld system using Xbox and PS5 controllers. The console itself is based on another system–big surprise–and is sure to be sold for many times what the original system would cost.
Atari has its hands full already with the recent launch of the Atari VCS system, which doesn’t seem to be making all that big of a splash so far. Reviews have been limited, though IGN’s Seth Macy was unimpressed with its attempts to blend console and PC elements together, as well as its very high price tag.
Exorcism meets virtual reality in Neill Blomkamp’s Demonic, a film that boasts several weird and interesting ideas but barely skims their surface. It’s bold and unique in the way it captures spiritual fears in a technological landscape, but this exploration is frustratingly cast aside in favor of by-the-numbers horror that hardly commits to its own ridiculous premise.
Demonic follows Carly (Carly Pope), a middle-aged woman who’s talked into communicating with her estranged, comatose mother Angela (Nathalie Boltt) through a new form of virtual reality — however, we quickly learn that they’re not alone in this digital dreamscape. The film is at its most interesting, thematically and aesthetically, during Carly’s multiple trips to see her mother. The space she inhabits is created by Angela’s mind, which, with the help of VR technology, renders it like a video game, bringing doors and passageways into existence right before Carly wanders through them. This world feels uncanny, as if real locations and characters had been coated with a thin layer of digital paint. The camera alternates between sticking close to Carly and taking an “objective” overhead angle. In one moment, it employs a head-on POV, which centers her emotional discovery through close-ups. In the next, it captures a floorplan of the mysterious technological world as Carly carefully explores it.
The frames in this world often jitter as if there’s too much information to process; Blomkamp understands the enormity of turning memory into a digital space. He even uses glitches and impossible physics to denote the bizarre, maybe even supernatural goings-on within Angela’s mind. It’s a haunting image of what a literal ghost in the machine might look like, if one could digitize every element of the human psyche, including its deepest, darkest fears. As Carly emerges into the real world after meeting with her mother, a number of visual flourishes hint at her fractured self-identity. When she’s debriefed and recorded by the executive and doctor who are overseeing the whole ordeal, Michael (Michael J. Rogers) and Daniel (Terry Chen), she’s presented out of focus, and only visible to us on their camera’s monitor. We begin to see her as she sees herself, indirectly, distorted through mirrors and glass, as if her perspective has come unglued.
Somehow, all of this takes up an incredibly tiny portion of the film.
In addition to its haunted digital consciousness, Demonic also features a related, parallel tale of physical haunting, one that proves just how much Blomkamp’s strengths lie in the realm of VFX and the way human beings interact with technology. Carly’s forays into the eerie digital world are often broken up by less interesting real-world segments involving secondary characters like her ex Martin (Chris William Martin), and her best friend Sam (Kandyse McClure). The way she’s framed in isolation certainly piques curiosity, but as the film goes on, she shares more and more scenes with other characters, and the Demonic’s limitations become increasingly apparent. The conversations in Blomkamp’s script are often stilted and unnatural. The movie is lucky to feature a lead actress as naturalistic as Pope to balance it out. Unfortunately, she’s the only cast member who does. It’s practically a superpower in a film like this, in which the protagonist rarely makes active decisions (everything happens either to or around her) and every bit of dialogue, from characters greeting one another to emotional confessions, all feel like exposition first. You can feel Pope struggling to inject her character with some form of lived reality (she’s especially adept at radiating anxiety and discomfort), but the filmmaking does her no favors. The way it frames characters in conversation, with little care for their physical or emotional relationships, comes across as amateurish and rote. It’s as if the goal isn’t to convey a feeling but to establish logistical information.
There’s something almost fascinating about a film that feels totally at ease in the digital world but seems to be on autopilot when dealing with flesh and blood. Almost. For a moment, it seems like this uncanniness during dialogue-heavy scenes might serve a distinct purpose, but whatever twists and turns that appear to be foreshadowed turn out not to pay off. The intrigue is mostly accidental. With Demonic, what you see is what you get, and what you see isn’t very engaging. While its rare moments of VR-specific terror are placed on full display, the movie’s real-world horror segments play out far too mechanically to have any bite. Demonic has the familiar look and design of a typical horror film, with dim, narrow hallways fit for plenty of jump scares. However, the construction of each familiar moment ends up limp and tensionless. It lacks finesse. Each minor miscalculation — when exactly to cut during an intense set-piece, what kind of shot to cut to, or when to play a jarring sound cue — eventually adds up, and so it plays like a hollow imitation of much more effective possession films.
The intrigue is mostly accidental.
At one point, Demonic actually seems like it’s about to introduce an especially kooky wrinkle, with regards to who its exorcists might be and how they navigate the modern world and its modern supernatural problems. The idea is revealed through a line of dialogue that’s so laugh-out-loud ridiculous that it reframes the entire premise, shifting it towards the realm of a self-aware midnight movie. However, this too ends up being a broken promise; it’s largely dealt with off-screen. No idea in Demonic seems to last too far beyond its introduction, save for the occasional concept that might briefly re-emerge to serve a plot function before disappearing once again. It’s quite a shame, considering the film’s potential.
Biomechanical anxieties run throughout Blomkamp’s work. In District 9, Wikus (Sharlto Copley) begins mutating into an alien, which allows him to use DNA-coded extraterrestrial tech. In Elysium, Max (Matt Damon) is surgically fused with a metallic exoskeleton, and has a program coded into his brain. Blomkamp’sshelved Alien project would have seen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) wear a biomechanical Xenomorph suit. In Chappie, Deon (Dev Patel) is resurrected after his consciousness is stored on a series of PlayStations; it’s a sillier film than the rest, but it asks similar questions about our relationship to machines, and whether the soul can be reconciled with ones and zeroes. Demonic’s virtual reality segments are a natural progression of these ideas. They hint at what could have been Blomkamp’s most intimate exploration of technology, and they’re also more conceptually interesting than what sci-fi anthologies likeBlack Mirror andSolos have done with VR in recent years, down to the way certain events from Carly’s past manifest both in her dreams as well as her virtual experiences.
As we live more of our lives online, the mind-body connection becomes an understandable fixation in modern sci-fi, but it so often breaks human consciousness down to simple code without digging into the clash between the technological and the spiritual. Few Hollywood films since the Matrix trilogy have even attempted this — which makes Demonic’s sidelining of the concept all the more frustrating. It points towards fascinating questions about how religious beliefs may transform in a digitized, mechanized world, and the ways deep-seated folklore may take hold as we pour cultural fears into online spaces. However, it chooses not to follow those instincts, which might have offered its lead character a much more challenging and complicated emotional journey. Instead, the film reveals its unoriginal demon mythology not only in traditional terms — through snippets of analog historical research — but in a way that circumvents the chilling sensation of discovering something horrifying. The information is simply presented to Carly in pre-assembled form, like someone leaning over to you in the theater and whispering “that’s demonic” when a shapeless figure appears on-screen.
Blomkamp is far more adept at heavy-handed social metaphors than nuanced storytelling, and the lack of the former really hurts him here. The film’s scares are largely traditional too, born of a combination of physical startles and things often explained away in literal terms. Its eventual climax barely features the virtual world at all. For a film with such a new and unique premise, Demonic is awfully quick to bury its ideas beneath ones that have been done to death by dozens of better films.
The upcoming microgames collection WarioWare: Get It Together! has received an unexpected demo that is available for players to try out now on the Nintendo Switch eShop.
News of the demo’s addition to the store was announced on Nintendo of America’s Twitter account and this free trial version of WarioWare: Get It Together! will allow players to access a select range of quirky minigames and characters before the full game’s official release on September 10, 2021.
WarioWare: Get It Together’s full release will allow fans to control Wario and his crew as they navigate across 200 fast-paced minigames. The game’s story mode can either be played solo or with a friend in two-player local co-op whilst an alternative Variety Pack party game mode supports up to four players on the same system. WarioWare: Get It Together will also feature an online game mode called the Wario Cup where players can compete in rotating weekly challenges to earn trophies and in-game currency.
The last WarioWare game to debut for Nintendo was WarioWare Gold which launched in 2018 for 3DS. We felt that the franchise’s previous installment did a good job in providing “short attention span shenanigans” for newcomers, but repeated too much of previous games to really impress long-term fans of the franchise. WarioWare veterans will likely be hoping that Get it Together brings some innovative and substantial new additions to the series.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Tom Cruise was barred by the Navy from flying an actual F-18 Super Hornet jet in Top Gun: Maverick, even though he pilots several other aircrafts in the sequel.
According to USA Today, Jerry Bruckheimer, who co-produced the original Top Gun, spoke to Empire Magazine about the long-awaited sequel. He hinted that fans can expect plenty of thrilling action sequences in the movie, as glimpsed in the trailers, with Cruise piloting a P-51 and various other helicopters and aircrafts — bar Maverick’s F-18 jet.
Apparently, Cruise put in a request to fly the Super Hornet but he was denied clearance by the Navy. Instead, IMAX cameras were installed inside the F-18 cockpits to shoot certain scenes while skilled Navy pilots took care of the actual flying, which Bruckheimer assures will give the experience of “what it’s like to be in an F-18 in that cockpit with those pilots.”
“When you’re pulling heavy Gs, it compresses your spine, your skull. It makes some people delirious. Some people can’t handle it,” said Cruise, who, as a producer on the film, signed his co-stars up for intense training and aerial boot camp. “So I had to get them up to be able to sustain high Gs. Because they have to act in the plane. I can’t have them sick the whole time.”
Tron: Legacy and Oblivion’s Joseph Kosinski directs the decades-later sequel, which sees Cruise reprising his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Now a flight instructor, Maverick must head back into the danger zone and confront his past while training a new squad of graduates for a perilous mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice.
Psyonix is currently “actively working on” moving Rocket League to Unreal Engine 5, but it cautions that this will be a “long-term project” that will take some time.
“The marketing department continues to build out its team in order to maintain and expand its ability to support Rocket League’s ongoing initiatives, as well future Psyonix projects including Rocket League: Sideswipe and Rocket League’s move to UE5.” The job posting read.
It appears that line about Unreal Engine 5 has since been removed in the job posting, but Rocket League senior community manager Devin Connors replied to u/goldfish5’s Reddit thread to confirm this move was in the works.
“Upgrading the technology that powers Rocket League, including a move to UE5, is something we are actively working on. This is a long-term project for us, and we’ll share more details when we’re ready to show our players what’s coming next,” Connors wrote.
Ghost of Tsushima had a few nice little nods to the PlayStation games of old, especially toward the end of the original campaign. But with the Iki Island expansion that’s part of Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, developer Sucker Punch Productions has left a few very big Easter eggs for PlayStation fans to find, and several come complete with their own puzzles and rewards.
The three biggest Easter eggs reference some classic PlayStation exclusives: Shadow of the Colossus, Bloodborne, and 2018’s God of War. Each has its own dedicated shrine you can find as you explore Iki Island, and each will reward you a cosmetic suit of armor that was previously only available in the Ghost of Tsushima’s Legends mode, if you’re willing to solve some puzzles (or look up their solutions).
Here’s a quick look at the Easter eggs you can find and the rewards you’ll unlock if you manage to solve their puzzles. If you want to figure them out on your own, stop reading now.
Ghost Of Tsushima’s Iki Island Wind Shrines
There are three “forgotten” shrines located on Iki Island, each of which references the game worlds and stories of a famous PlayStation game. Their names give some hints as to what you’ll find in each one: the Blood-Stained Shrine recalls the hunt of Bloodborne; the Shrine in Shadow gives the feel of the central temple in Shadow of the Colossus; and the Shrine of Ash is the home of birch trees like those that grow around the home of Kratos and Atreus in God of War.
Each shrine also includes a poem referencing its game, which provides clues to the puzzle you can solve within.
The Blood-Stained Shrine
Located on the west side of the island, the Blood-Stained Shrine is full of loud, irritating crows and their feathers, with a mural that depicts Yarnham’s orange moon and the Moon Presence it hides.
Blood Stained-Shrine
Venture into the shrine and you’ll discover a scroll that includes a poem referencing the story of the game.
“The first green of spring
sickens to black, decaying,
plagued by blood and beast.
Hunter, reject death’s allure.
Prepare to duel man’s frailty.”
Complete the shrine and you’ll earn the Yarnham Helm and Yarnham Vestments armor cosmetic, both of which recall the armor of Eileen the Crow, one of the Hunters you can meet in Yarnham during your journey.
You’ll find the Shrine of Ash on the east side of the island. The shrine is littered with chains, a reference to our man Kratos and his Blades of Chaos. The birch trees present are those found surrounding Kratos’ home at the start of the game, and near the center of the shrine, you’ll find one with a glowing orange handprint–just like those marked by Freya in God of War. There’s also an axe embedded in the tree, recalling Kratos’s work felling a few of them at the start of the game. It’s just a regular working axe, though, and not the super-cool, magical Leviathan axe Kratos wields in the game.
The Shrine of Ash
The shrine’s poem is all about Kratos and Atreus’ relationship, while also feeling a bit relevant to Jin’s story. His journey to Iki Island is all about Jin dealing with the memories of his father, who died during a military campaign on the island, an event that has left Jin feeling guilt and shame for years.
“In fall, a tree fruits
which grows from seed to sapling,
a stranger and son.
Boy, honor your father’s fight.
Show him the strength of your blade.”
If you solve the shrine’s puzzle, you’ll get the Helm of War, Spartan face mask, and Ghost of Sparta armor cosmetic for your trouble, allowing you to cosplay as Kratos as you adventure across Tsushima.
Stag
Our Shrine of Ash guide can help you to find the shrine and solve its puzzle.
The Shrine In Shadow
Located to the south of Iki Island, the Shrine in Shadow is the toughest of the three to reach, much like the land of Shadow of the Colossus itself. Reach it, and you’ll find a huge mural painted on the base of the statue at its center–the symbol that marks the weak points on the huge colossi you battle throughout that game. The base of the statue is also adorned with huge fur pelts, as if they were skinned off the colossi, and fans of the game will remember using those patches of fur to climb the huge beasts in order to administer the killing blows to bring them down.
The Shrine in Shadow
The poem is a somber remembrance of Shadow of the Colossus’s story:
“Stone knows no season,
Nor the colossus that was
felled to save one soul.
Wanderer, come like through mist,
a ghost casting no shadow.”
Completing the final shrine’s puzzle gets you the Mask of the Colossus and the Armor of the Colossus cosmetic, which recall both the look of the huge colossi from the game, and the armor and ceremonial robes worn by protagonist Wander and the soldiers and priests who pursue him.
When Ghost of Tsushima came out in 2020, it included pretty involved Sly Cooper and Infamous Easter eggs that triggered a secret Trophy, paying homage to two of Sucker Punch’s other well-loved series. Iki Island gets its own Sly Cooper nod, but this time, it’s hidden in a cave off the beaten path, and you’ll have to be familiar with the series to get it.
A raccoon, a hippo, and a turtle, who may or may not be planning a heist.
Find the particular cave in the Buddha’s Footprints region and you’ll uncover this painting, featuring a raccoon, hippopotamus, and turtle. It’s a reference to Sly (the burglarizing raccoon) and his pals Murray (the hippo) and Bentley (the turtle).
See the resemblance?
The nod to Infamous is similarly hidden, located on the path up the towering Saruiwa mountain. Find a path where you can climb down from the trail that leads toward the summit, and you’ll find a mural depicting a samurai version of Infamous protagonist Cole MacGrath.
Scour Saruiwa mountain and you might find this mural, an homage to Sucker Punch’s Infamous.
The samurai version of Cole even depicts him with his signature weapon, the Amp, and arcing electricity.
The PS3 version of Cole doesn’t look quite as good as Ghost of Tsushima on PS5, but you get the idea.
Where could WarioWare go after Gold? The 2018 3DS game acted as a sort of grand culmination for the series, combining the best microgames from across its many installments with a handful of new challenges and a plethora of extras. Rather than retread that same ground, the series’ upcoming Switch installment, WarioWare: Get It Together, introduces a few interesting twists to the classic formula, making it more of a party experience.
We recently got a chance to see more of WarioWare: Get It Together via a virtual preview event. Like previous entries, the title is comprised of more than 200 microgames–bite-sized challenges that are thrown at you in rapid-fire succession. These games run the gamut from silly to outright bizarre. One moment, you’ll be shaking apples from a tree; the next, you’ll be plucking hairs from a Greek god’s underarms. This oddball humor has become one of the series’ hallmarks, and even from our brief preview, it’s clear that it’s on full display in Get It Together. But while the microgames are all classic WarioWare fare, they offer a different experience here, thanks to the new focus on actually playing as the title characters.
Unlike past games, you directly control Wario and company during microgames, using their abilities to clear the objective. Each character has a unique playstyle; Ashley the witch, for instance, can fly around on her broom and conjure spells from her wand, while Mona throws a boomerang that you guide around the screen using the control stick. You select three characters at the start of a round, with the game randomly cycling between them as you clear microgames. This adds a new dynamic to the games, as their challenge will depend on which character you’re currently controlling. Ashley can make quick work of the aforementioned apple tree microgame by firing spells directly at the apples, for example, while someone like 9-Volt–who can only skate along the ground and flick his yo-yo vertically–will need to shake the tree’s branches from beneath to dislodge the fruits.
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WarioWare: Get It Together! First Look | Nintendo E3 2021
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Multiplayer adds yet another wrinkle. Although previous entries in the series have featured some multiplayer games and activities, Get It Together places a much heavier emphasis on them. Nearly every microgame here supports multiple players locally, and it looks like a riot. While the ability to play with another person should theoretically make the microgames easier to clear, that seems far from the case in practice. You’ll inadvertently get in each other’s way while trying to clear the microgames, turning already-frenetic tasks into pure chaos.
In addition to the story mode microgames, Get It Together features a party mode called Variety Pack, which boasts a handful of more traditional-style cooperative and competitive minigames for multiple players on the same system. One of the games that Nintendo highlighted, Daily Grind, plays out like a sidescroller. Here you must work your way through stages en route to the office, picking up contracts and defeating coworkers. Further complicating that goal, the stage layouts become progressively more challenging as you progress, and they feature power-ups that transform you into other characters, constantly shaking things up.
Another Variety Pack game, Puck ‘er Up, is an air hockey-style competition. The objective here is to knock the puck into the goal. The player who manages to score will then get to play a microgame, with a star as their reward if they can successfully clear it. The other player, however, has a chance to interfere, be it by shaking the screen or trying to obscure the view with a leaf. If the person playing the microgame fails, the star will be awarded to the other player. It’s a clever way of turning microgames into a head-to-head contest, and it looks like one of the highlights of the package.
Beyond that, Get It Together features a handful of other modes, including one called Wario Cup. While we didn’t get to witness it during our preview session, we did learn some details. Nintendo described it as an “online weekly rotating challenge” where you’ll try to clear a specific objective. While you can use any character, the more ill-suited they are to that objective, the better your score will be if you manage to clear it. Wario Cup also features a ranked mode that lets you upload your score and see how it stacks up against players from around the world. That, however, requires a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.
WarioWare: Get It Together launches for Nintendo Switch on September 10. The game retails for $50 USD and is available to preorder now from the eShop and various retailers. Nintendo has also released a free WarioWare demo on the eShop that lets you sample a handful of microgames as well as several playable characters.
