An 18-metre mobile robot is being built in Japan and opened to the public this year to celebrate over 40 years of the Mobile Suit Gundam anime series.
Japan Times reports that the robot has 24 fully functional joints but how exactly it will be able to move hasn’t been disclosed yet.
What is known is that the robot will be 18-metres tall and supported by a 25-metre Gundam Dock that will act as its maintenance site. It will be built in Gundam Factory, Yokohama on a 9,000 square meter facility.
It’s set to open at Yamashita Pier and opened for public view on October 1, 2020, with tickets to see the robot going on sale in July.
The robot will be situated next to a two-story building with shops and event spaces. That building will be opening before the robot across the weekends of July and August.
The Gundam Global Challenge project started back in 2014 as part of the celebrations leading up to the Mobile Suit Gundam anime’s 40th anniversary in 2019. The Challenge was to build a mobile Gundam robot. Director of the Gundam anime, Yoshiyuki Tomino, has been working on the project alongside a team of engineers and researchers.
Last year, it was reported that a live-action Gundam movie was in the works with Brian K. Vaughn writing the screenplay. With the anime’s production studio also involved, we’re hoping there are plenty of reasons that it won’t suck.
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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
Guilty Gear Strive has been confirmed for PlayStation 4, but if you’re in Japan, you’ll also have the option of playing it in an arcade. The arcade release of the game was reported on Arc System Works’ website, and was picked up on and translated by Gematsu.
While it’s possible that the cabinets will make their way outside of the country, they’re bound to be rare–arcades are still fairly common in Tokyo and other areas of Japan. For most players, the PlayStation 4 version will remain the most accessible.
A new trailer for Faust, a returning character first seen in the game’s name announcement trailer, has also been revealed. You can watch it below.
A demo of the arcade version will be playable at Japan Amusement Expo 2020 in February; otherwise, a closed beta of the game is coming later this year, although details have not been announced yet.
The new Guilty Gear has been described by the game’s general director as “a full-frontal confrontation with the essence of the fighting game genre.”
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As January rolls on, it brings us new adventures, more content for some big titles, and the chance to revisit some previous releases. The Pokemon-inspired MMO Temtem is full of creatures to collect, while The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is full of zombies to gun down. You can also jump back into Kingdom Hearts 3 with the Re:Mind expansion. Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD is getting an updated Nintendo Switch port, while the dystopia adventure game Mosaic makes its console debut.
Temtem — January 21
Available on: PC
At first glance, you might think Temtem is related to Pokemon Sword & Shield. Well, the Pokemon series is developer Crema’s chief inspiration. But there are some key differences: chiefly, Temtem is an MMO. That means you can explore the archipelago, catch creatures, and throw down in 2v2 battles with friends. Those battles involve a elemental strengths and weaknesses, yes, but Temtems can also synergize for deeper strategies.
More Coverage:
Kingdom Hearts III – Re:Mind — January 23
Available on: PS4
Re:Mind brings more of what you love about Kingdom Hearts to the latest game, with more boss fights, story content, and two new Keyblades for Sora to wield: Oblivion and Oathkeeper. It focuses on his search for Kairi in the Keyblade Graveyard, but Kairi herself is also playable. Re:Mind also brings back Final Fantasy favorites like Aerith, Yuffie, and Leon.
More Coverage:
Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD — January 23
Available on: Switch
The Oddworld series is, well, odd. The titular stranger wields a crossbow that fires tiny creatures as ammo, letting you take down enemies with unique effects. This Nintendo Switch port lets you do that with new gyro controls. The Stranger himself is a bounty hunter who can leap and climb around the environment, and there’s plenty of platforming to be had here too.
More Coverage:
Mosaic — January 23
Available on: PS4, Xbox One, Switch
Mosaic is set in a dreadful world: a sprawling, depressing city with lifeless people just going through their daily routines. The game tasks you with breaking out of this dystopia, going on a journey to overcome your urban isolationism. That sounds abstract, I know, but at least there’s a fun saxophone player in the trailer.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners — January 23
Available on: PC
What’s an episode of New Releases without a virtual reality game? Saints and Sinners is set in a flooded New Orleans, where you’ll have to scavenge for supplies, make tough decisions, and meet with various factions if you want to survive. There’s also a secret hidden in the city that just might put a stop to this whole zombie plague thing too.
There’s still another batch of hot January games in the oven. Next week, New Releases will bite into Journey to the Savage Planet and the long-awaited final episode of Kentucky Route Zero.
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The latest box office numbers are in, and Bad Boys for Life started strong to win the weekend. The action movie starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence pulled in an estimated $59.2 million for the January 17-19 weekend in the US and Canada to top all other movies, while its international results have the movie closing in on $100 million worldwide.
Bad Boys for Life is the first new entry in the action series since 2003’s Bad Boys II. The $59.2 million opening-weekend figure for Bad Boys for Life is the best domestic start for the series, surpassing Bad Boys II ($47 million), and Bad Boys ($15.6 million).
The new movie also stars Kate del Castillo, Paola Nunez, Alexander Ludwig, Joe Pantoliano, and Vanessa Hudgens. Bad Boys for Life is directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. Action movie giant Michael Bay directed the first two Bad Boys movies; he has a cameo in Bad Boys for Life.
Bad Boys For Life made $38.6 million over the weekend from international markets, pushing the total haul to close to $100 million. The film is expected to surpass $100 million once the final weekend numbers come in, according to Variety. The movie reportedly had a $90 million budget before marketing.
Last week’s No. 1 movie, 1917, pulled in another $22 million to finish this weekend in the No. 3 position. The Robert Downey Jr. movie Dolittle finished second, with $23 million. That is a very low result, given the movie reportedly had a $175 million budget. It was Robert Downey Jr.’s first post-Marvel movie. The film could end up losing $100 million, according to The Wrap.
Rounding out the top five were Jumanji: The Next Level ($10 million) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ($8.4 million). This is the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in the US, so box office numbers will eventually include Monday figures once they come in.
Xbox Achievements remain a core part of the Xbox ecosystem, and having a high gamerscore in a game–or finally snagging a difficult Achievement–can feel pretty good. Xbox achievement tracking site True Achievements has created a tool, called #MyDecadeOnXbox, to give you some insight into your own play habits.
Log into your Xbox account and the site’s tracker will tell you how many games you played over that decade on Xbox, how many achievements and gamerscore you unlocked, how many of those achievements were rare, and much more. It tracks your best month and day for achievements, gives you a platform breakdown, and lists your rarest achievements.
It’s worth noting that this is not an official Microsoft initiative–you will need a True Achievements account, and you’ll need to give them access to your Xbox account information to get these figures.
It’s an interesting list of statistics, and a good way to chart how your play habits on Xbox systems have or have not changed. Xbox Achievements have changed a lot over the decade, as the distinction between retail and “arcade” games has been dropped, and Microsoft has been less rigid over how many Achievements a game can or can’t have. You can even earn them on Switch, but only in a tiny handful of games.
Achievements will likely remain a big part of the Xbox Series X when it launches in late 2020. There are still plenty of Xbox One games on the horizon as well, though, so Achievement hunters will be able to keep busy this year.
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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has been in theatres for over a month now, but we’re still learning more about the billion-dollar blockbuster. The secret cameo role that singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran had in the movie has now been seemingly confirmed, and it comes as a big surprise.
Images shared before Rise of Skywalker’s release showed Sheeran in a Stormtrooper outfit, but it appears he played a different role. Oh My Disney reports that the “Shape of You” singer played an alien member of the resistance–the iguana-looking creature, to be more specific. You can see an image of the character at Oh My Disney.
It’s possible Sheeran has two cameos in Rise of Skywalker, or that he was on set in a Stormtrooper outfit as a gag or to throw people off.
Star Wars is not the first gigantic franchise featuring Sheeran in a cameo. He also played a character in Game of Thrones. After a mixed reaction from fans, this character ultimately died in a horrific manner.
The Rise of Skywalker received mixed reviews, and it was also the only one of the new Star Wars movies to not get an “A” Cinemascore rating. The movie was directed by JJ Abrams, who also made 2015’s The Force Awakens.
The Rise of Skywalker was Disney’s seventh 2019 movie to make $1 billion, following Avengers: Endgame ($2.79 billion), The Lion King ($1.65 billion), Frozen II ($1.37 billion), Captain Marvel ($1.12 billion), Toy Story 4 ($1.04 billion), and Aladdin ($1.05 billion).
An actual apex legend plugged his PlayStation 4 into a TV at Portland International Airport on Thursday to play Apex Legends.
According to Oregon Live (via Kotaku), the man commandeered a TV that was displaying a map of the airport. Security officials walked over and asked the traveler to stop playing. Kama Simonds from Port of Portland said that the man “very politely” asked if he can finish his game. Security denied his request, and the man stopped his game.
“Apparently it was a very polite and cordial interaction,” Simonds said.
Picture from Oregon Live
The television takeover occurred early in the morning on Thursday. Simonds said this was, “a good reminder of what not to do at the airport.”
US Gamer pointed out that the man decided to play a ranked match judging by a badge on the corner of the screen.
Apex Legends launched almost a year ago on February 4, 2019. The game has continued adding new events including the Grand Soirée event, which is currently going on until January 28. One of the events is an option to play in third-person mode.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has yet to be renewed for Season 15, but co-creator Rob McElhenney apparently has no plans for the series to end any time soon.
While promoting his upcoming Apple TV+ series Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, McElhenney told reporters that he and Mythic Quest co-creator Charlie Day (who also stars on Always Sunny) are able to juggle the scheduling of the two shows to ensure that It’s Always Sunny isn’t impacted, after a reporter observed that Sunny seems likely to run forever.
“It takes us about five months to make a season of Sunny, we have that period of our lives carved out just for that,” McElhenney revealed. “And yes, we’re gonna keep doing it forever, as long as people keep watching it.”
This reiterates a recent Tweet from McElhenney promoting the Mythic Quest trailer, in which the showrunner noted, “Charlie Day & I would like to cut the death threats off by saying this will in no way affect Sunny. Sunny Always. Always Sunny. But also Mythic Quest. There’s room for both you animals.”
Here’s the new show. Charlie Day & I would like to cut the death threats off by saying this will in no way affect Sunny. Sunny Always. Always Sunny. But also @mythic_quest There’s room for both you animals. Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/nKSZ3W4OGr
FX boss John Landgraf recently told Deadline that discussions are currently underway with the It’s Always Sunny team for a potential Season 15: “We’re actively talking to them about more,” he said.
Mythic Quest, co-created by McElhenney, Day, and fellow Sunny executive producer Megan Ganz, is a live-action comedy series that follows a team of video game developers as they navigate the challenges of running a popular video game. It stars McElhenney, David Hornsby (aka Always Sunny’s Cricket), F. Murray Abraham, Charlotte Nicdao, Imani Hakim, Danny Pudi, Ashly Burch, and Jessie Ennis, and premieres on Apple TV+ on February 7. Check out our review of It’s Always Sunny’s Season 14 finale here.
The last episode of the second series of Short Treks dropped recently, and not surprisingly “Children of Mars” serves as a prelude to the new Picard show which debuts on January 23. Up until now, the creators of Star Trek: Picard — which sees the return of Patrick Stewart to the iconic title role after an almost 20-year break — have kept pretty quiet about what the show will be about. But “Children of Mars” clearly sets up what will surely be a major element of the show.
The short is mostly a wordless but effective tale about a couple of schoolgirls on Earth whose parents work out at the Federation shipyards on (and above) Mars. The two wind up in a spat, which escalates over time into a full-blown physical fight, but when tragedy strikes, they find themselves united. And it’s that tragedy that connects to Star Trek: Picard.
On viewscreens at the girls’ school, we see an emergency unfolding in real time back on Mars, where the girls’ parents are based. The planet is under attack by “rogue synths” and some 3,000 people are believed dead (although it looks like most of the planet is being carpet-bombed from space, so who knows what the actual casualty total is). We also briefly see an image of Jean-Luc Picard on the Federation news network, with the caption “Devastating: Admiral Picard reacts to Mars attack.”
“Children of Mars”
But what is a rogue synth anyway? It seems they’re some kind of androids like Picard’s old friend and shipmate Data (Brent Spiner). But why are they attacking a Federation site and murdering its citizens?
Rogue Synths, Androids, and Data
During the Star Trek: The Next Generation time period, Data was the only android in existence. Mostly. Of course, it eventually turned out that he also had an evil “brother” named Lore, because TV. He also had a “daughter” named Lal (Hallie Todd) who he built in the third-season episode “The Offspring,” but because of the advanced — even by Star Trek standards! — tech of an android’s brain, her neural net failed and she died that same episode. Not even Data could fix her.
Then there was another long-lost brother of Data’s, named B-4, who appeared in the last TNG film, Star Trek: Nemesis. While Data died at the end of that story, B-4 was still functioning and had possibly absorbed his brother’s memories. It’s currently unknown if he will figure into Star Trek: Picard.
There were a couple of other androids who popped up here or there, but generally, they were one-offs and the basic concept was that Data was the only stable, functioning example of his kind. As such, he was also something of a valuable asset, and coveted by a variety of folks, be it Saul Rubinek’s greedy uber-collector from “The Most Toys,” or the nasty Starfleet scientist Commander Maddox (Brian Brophy) from the great Season 2 episode “The Measure of a Man.”
Star Trek: TNG’s “The Measure of a Man”
In that segment, which was written by Melinda Snodgrass and nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award — a rare recognition for Star Trek at the time — the crew of the Enterprise encounter Commander Maddox while visiting a starbase. The cybernetic lifeforms expert is from the Daystrom Institute (a nice nod to the Original Series episode “The Ultimate Computer”), and he’s arrived in order to study Data’s positronic brain and figure out what makes the android tick… which will include taking Data apart!
Data assesses the risks of the procedure, and since he’s freaking Data and smarter than everyone else, he realizes that he may not survive this one. Maddox doesn’t see the issue as he doesn’t consider Data to be an actual sentient person, and it all winds up having to be resolved via a classic Trek trope: a courtroom drama. But the episode is so much better than it sounds, with Jonathan Frakes’ guilt-ridden Riker forced to prosecute the case against his friend while Captain Picard defends Data. In the end, Picard wins the day for Data — Data’s day! — thanks in part to a rousing speech from Patrick Stewart:
“Now sooner or later, this man — or others like him — will succeed in replicating Commander Data. The decision you reach here today will determine how we will regard this creation of our genius. It will reveal the kind of people we are; what he is destined to be. It will reach far beyond this courtroom and this one android. It could significantly redefine the boundaries of personal liberty and freedom, expanding them for some, savagely curtailing them for others. Are you prepared to condemn him — and all who will come after him — to servitude and slavery? Your honor, Starfleet was founded to seek out new life. Well, there it sits! Waiting.”
It looks like the captain’s words have finally come to fruition and the rogue synths are part of a race of androids by the time of Star Trek: Picard. We even get a glimpse of them in the Picard trailers.
But could it be that what Picard feared most back in “The Measure of a Man” has come to pass, and that these beings are being treated as less than equals?
There is precedent for this, as we would learn on Star Trek: Voyager regarding the Emergency Medical Holographic programs. Played by Robert Picardo on that series, the EMH was essentially a sentient computer given physical form via hologram. He was considered a part of the crew of the USS Voyager, which was lost on the other side of the galaxy. But back in Federation space hundreds of the original EMH programs were eventually deemed obsolete and replaced by more advanced models. As such, they were consigned to less desirable jobs such as mining or other hard labor, apparently with no say in the matter of their own.
The fact is the people of the Federation and Starfleet aspire to high ideals of liberty and freedom for all, but they also carry with them a history of occasional wrongdoing, and sometimes even grave criminal acts against those they don’t understand or who are simply in their way. Just ask Commander Maddox.
So perhaps there’s more to the story of the rogue synths of Star Trek: Picard than at first meets the eye. Maybe they have a reason to attack their makers. Of course, the slaughter of 3,000 people cannot be justified, but this, it appears, is war.
Ubisoft is suing a website that allegedly sells subscriptions to a server that distributes denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Rainbow Six: Siege players, according to a report by Polygon.
The lawsuit was filed on Thursday against website SNG.ONE. On the outside, the website sells plans to companies who want to evaluate the security of their website, according to Eurogamer. When Ubisoft went to investigate, they found they could get access to servers from Epic Games’ Fortnite, EA’s FIFA 20, Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) and more.
“When executed, the DDoS Attacks flood the R6S Servers, overload its network, slow down the servers, and often cause a complete server crash, disconnecting all players engaged in an R6S match on the targeted server (and thereby ending their game prematurely),” the lawsuit reads. “Even when the DDoS Attacks do not result in a server crash, however, they nonetheless disrupt and interfere with access to the R6S Servers. Defendants have weaponized these DDoS Attacks, providing some R6S players looking for an unfair advantage with the ability to cheat.”
Ubisoft announced plans to counter DDoS attacks in September that resulted in a 93% decrease in attacks by the end of October.
The lawsuit mentions a time when it’s believed SNG.ONE responded to Ubisoft’s original plans. In September, the Twitter account for SNG wrote “Good job, @UbisoftSupport Keep the work up.” Accompanied with the post is a picture from The Simpsons with Bart writing on the chalkboard. The writing on the chalkboard appears to be edited to read, “We will ban every ddoser.”
The tweet has since been taken down, according to Polygon, but a screenshot of it was placed in the lawsuit. Ubisoft claims in the lawsuit that this means SNG was “well aware” of both Ubisoft’s actions as well as their own.
Screenshot from the Ubisoft lawsuit
For now, Ubisoft is seeking damages and court fees while it petitions a court to shut down the alleged DDoS service.
Rainbow Six Siege was first launched by Ubisoft in December 2015. The support for the game hasn’t stopped by Ubisoft or the community. The game is the fourth most-played game on Steam at the time of this writing and Ubisoft keeps adding new characters to play as.
