We’re rolling out sneak peeks for Netflix’s The Witcher all month long as part of our IGN First exclusive set visit. Keep it locked right here for never-before-seen interviews and behind the scenes footage of the White Wolf, Ciri, and Yennefer. And be sure to check out The Witcher when it premieres on Netflix on Friday, December 20, 2019. For more, check out Henry Cavill discussing the common misconceptions about Geralt, Anya Chalotra breaking down Yennefer’s incredible transformation, Freya Allan on how Ciri fits into the Season 1 storyline, and our chat with David J. Peterson on how he created the “Elder Speech” language for the series.
New Temtem Trailer Highlights The Starter Picks For The Pokemon-Style Online Game
Coming from Crema and Humble Bundle, the creature-collecting adventure game Temtem pulls a lot of influences from Nintendo’s immensely popular Pokemon series. Still, it injects an online twist to give it its own flair As a massively-multiplayer online game, you’ll start in a setting known as the Airborne Archipelago, a collection of six floating islands with different terrain and wildlife, and embark on an adventure with other explorers to catch magical creatures known as temtem. In this exclusive new trailer, we get to see the three starter temtem that you can choose from, who can eventually grow into formidable members of your roster.
After creating your custom protagonist, who you can deck out with new costumes and accessories, you get to pick your starting temtem to accompany you on your journey. In the new trailer, we get a solid rundown of each of the three starters, which detail their strengths and weaknesses.
Here’s a brief explainer on each one:
- Crystle: A lizard temtem that can conjure up crystal spikes to attack its enemies. Many of its abilities are defensive in-nature allowing it to absorb blows and dish them out in kind.
- Smazee: A monkey-like temtem that specializes in using melee-strikes and offensive abilities. Smazee is the fastest starter choice, and it can quickly dish-out strikes against its foes.
- Houchic: A fairy-like temtem that uses psychic attacks and mind-based abilities to confuse and weakens its foes. Houchic can use its psychic attacks to pierce through enemy defenses.
After picking a starting temtem, your protagonist–a temtem tamer in training–will be able to explore the six islands of the archipelago. Throughout your journey, you’ll come to blows with Clan Belsoto, who are seeking to control the six islands for themselves. While exploring, you’ll be able to battle other tamers, level up your party, and capture new temtem to expand your roster.
All this sounds very familiar when thinking of the Pokemon series, but what makes Temtem stand on its own is that it all takes place within an online world where other players will be making a go of it on their journey. In addition to battling NPC characters, you’ll also be able to test your skills against other players online. But if you want to stick with the story, then you can still play through the game solo, or even with a friend and go through the entire campaign cooperatively.
As of this time, Temtem is planned for a PC release on Steam on January 21, but according to developer Crema, they’re looking into releasing the game on Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch at a later period. During the early access period, the developers will continue adding new content after launch.
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Xbox Series X Will Stay As Quiet As Xbox One X, Says Phil Spencer
In our exclusive talk with Xbox boss Phil Spencer, we learned a great deal about just how powerful the next-gen Xbox Series X will be: a GPU eight-times faster than the base Xbox One and twice that of the Xbox One X, a CPU said to be four times more capable, and an ultra-fast NVMe solid-state drive. Well, aside from the SSD which is virtually silent, you might be wondering about how the Series X will handle all that power while staying cool and quiet.
In general terms, Spencer described the console’s cooling system, saying, “What the team did, and you [see] it through the top grate, is we went with one central fan in the design.” He continued, “What this design does, with the size of the fan that we built around, is it lets us match how quiet the Xbox One X is with all that power inside of the box.”
It’s not as simple as deciding on a type of cooling system and running with it, of course, as Spencer explained, “There’s always this tension between design, acoustics, cooling, and the function of the console, and we were not going to compromise on function. I’m just incredibly impressed with the design that they [came up with].”
Spencer went on to describe how he’s been using a Series X at home and that its acoustic profile helps it keep a low profile even for people who have seen it in action. He claimed, “If I don’t point it out, it just sits there and plays video games the way I want it to and I never hear it, just like how I don’t hear my [Xbox One] X.”
The Series X sports a natural, PC tower-like design, which was accounted for in its cooling system, but also the fact that you can set it horizontally or vertically. Microsoft wouldn’t get into the specifics of dimensions and hard technical details of the cooling system, but Spencer asserts that the single fan is “able to spin at a low enough rate that it is whisper-quiet.” He also said that the Series X has “no secondary fans, probably just passive coil” to keep temperatures in check.
When you take a look at the Series X itself, you see that the single central fan gets a bit fancy. “We did do a nod with our Xbox; it has a green tint and it’s a concave design so as you come up [to it].” Considering that one of the goals with the Series X is to sort of unify the Xbox brand and ecosystem, we suppose it seeps into all aspects of its design. Spencer goes into a bit more detail as to what that means in our story about why the console was named Series X. And for all the details we gathered in our exclusive coverage, be sure to read our in-depth feature on the Xbox Series X.
IGN UK Podcast: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilercast
It’s Star Wars Day! Alex, Dale and Cardy are here to spoil everything about Star Wars Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker. Do not listen to this podcast unless you’ve seen the film. I really can’t stress that enough. It would be a really stupid thing to do. Don’t do it. But do enjoy.
Remember, if you want to get in touch with the podcast, please do: [email protected]
Comic Fans: Get 3 Months of Kindle Unlimited for $0.99
Here’s a great deal for fans of comic books, magazines, fiction, nonfiction, and pretty much any other writing you might purchase in digital format: You can get three months of Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited for just $0.99. That’s a killer deal on one of the best services for readers.
Kindle Unlimited grants you instant access to over 1 million digital books, comics, and even current magazines. You can also listen to over a thousand audiobooks for no extra charge.
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Resident Evil 3 Makes Some Big Changes to the Original
Resident Evil 3’s remake will have more changes to the original game compared to how Resident Evil 2’s remake was handled.
Capcom producers Peter Fabiano and Masao Kawada revealed new details about Resident Evil 3 in the latest issue of Japanese magazine Famitsu (via Siliconera). Producer Masachika Kawata also appeared in the latest episode of Capcom TV to talk about the remake (via ResetEra).
The Jackass Franchise Is Coming Back In 2021
The Johnny Knoxville-created Jackass film franchise is coming back. Paramount Pictures has announced that the film series based on the MTV show will return in 2021 with a fourth movie. The untitled movie will premiere on March 5, 2021, Deadline reports.
The first Jackass debuted in 2002 with numerous sequels coming thereafter. In total, the franchise has grossed more than $335 million at the box office. The Jackass films were directed by Jeff Tremaine, who also directed the Bad Grandpa movie starring Knoxville.
It’s expected that the new Jackass movie, which would be the fourth in the main franchise, will follow the format of the earlier ones with Knoxville and his pals performing all manner of dangerous and awkward stunts played for laughs and shock value.
There is no word on who else beyond Knoxville will return for Jackass 4. The MTV series was co-created by Knoxville and Spike Jonze, who would go on to earn an Oscar nomination for Being John Malkovich and then win an Oscar for the Joaquin Phoenix movie Her.
Jackass 4’s March 5, 2021 release date puts it up against Sony’s Masters of the Universe movie.
Behold, The $100 “Active Gaming” Sock From Puma
Socks are the classic bad holiday gift, but what if they were also prohibitively expensive? Enter the Puma Active Gaming Footwear sock, an absurd example of capitalism run amok that you can wear on your feet. Next time you ask “where we droppin’ boys?” your feet could be swaddled in luxury.
That luxury costs about £80 through the Puma store, or about $100 USD–though they aren’t available to purchase in the USA, where we appreciate our rugged foot freedom. These monuments to excess promise a “knitted upper” for comfort and breathability, a “low rubber outsole for grip,” and a custom fit. All of these features suggest Puma believes video gaming involves a lot of athletic foot movement, so we’re not entirely sure what they think gaming actually is.
Pictured: A sock.
But wait, there’s more! It also features three “modes,” by which they mean features. Sock features. Those include a medial wrap-up grip (“SEEK mode”), lateral wrap-up support (“ATTACK mode”), and heel wrap-up stability (“CRUISE and DEFENSE mode”). So basically, these are just different weaves to support different foot parts.
If you happen to live in the UK or Australia, you can order the socks now with free express shipping. And if you do, and then you rocket to the top-tier of Fortnite competitive play and win millions of dollars, make sure to thank your socks in the acceptance speech to teach us a lesson.
DualShock 4 Back Button Preorders Are Live
The PlayStation 4’s DualShock 4 controller is about to get an upgrade. Sony is gearing up to release the DualShock 4 Back Button on January 27, with an MSRP of $29.99.
The DualShock 4 Back Button is a controller add-on that snaps into the undercarriage of your PS4 controller. It adds not one, but two, fully customizable buttons to your controller. And because these buttons are on the back of the controller, close to where your fingers normally rest, they’re easy to access for instant, perfectly timed button presses.
Preorder the DualShock 4 Back Button
The Cats Movie Reviews Are In, And Oh My It Sounds Like A CGI Nightmare
Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper’s new movie, Cats, is out in theatres this weekend. Reviews have begun to appear online ahead of the premiere, and the movie sounds like an unsettling CGI nightmare.
The film–which features unsettling CGI-cat versions of actors like Ian McKellan, James Corden, Idris Elba, Judi Dench, and Taylor Swift–currently has a 31 percent rating on GameSpot sister site Metacritic. We’ve collected some quick-hit highlights of the movie’s critical reception below.
Cats is based on the iconic Andrew Lloyd Webber stage musical of the same name. It’s Hooper’s second musical movie, following 2012’s Les Miserables. It also stars Jason Derulo, Jennifer Hudson, Rebel Wilson, and Francesca Hayward. It hits theatres on December 20, which is the same day that the divisive Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits screens.
What The Reviewers Are Saying About Cats
i09’s Cats movie review went with the headline, “I Have Seen Sights No Human Should See.” Reviewer Alex Cranz elaborated, “You will witness things no eyes should see and things nobody should be able to do, and you will be in awe. And that’s more than enough.”
The Chicago Tribune used the headline, “Wrong Animal. It’s A Dog” for their Cats review. “Is it the worst film of 2019, or simply the most recent misfire of 2019?” reviewer Michael Phillips said. “Reader, I swear on a stack of pancakes: Cats cannot be beat for sheer folly and misjudgment and audience-reaction-to-Springtime for Hitler’-in-The Producers stupefaction.”
Lena Wilson of The Playlist said of Cats, “Tom Hooper’s Adaptation Of A Broadway Classic Is A CGI Nightmare.”
“Once Hooper’s 110 minutes of Cats are over, theater is dead,” Wilson said. “One lucky Jellicle cat is dead. And we unchosen ones are left, tragically, to continue living.”
The Los Angeles Times writer Justin Chang wrote: “For the most part, Cats is both a horror and an endurance test, a dispatch from some neon-drenched netherworld where the ghastly is inextricable from the tedious. Every so often it does paws–ahem, pause–to rise to the level of a self-aware hoot.”
USA Today’s Brian Truitt described the movie in this way: “A furry Taylor Swift sprinkles the contents of a bedazzled can of catnip to create a fog of intoxicating magical dust, and that’s not even in the top five truly insane things that happen in Cats.”
Collider’s review of Cats said, “You can never get swept up in Catsbecause it’s so abrasively weird and anti-narrative that you needed some kind of fearless auteur like a Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin) who would lean into those sensibilities rather than flail desperately at making it palatable for audiences.”
For more on the critical reaction to Cats, go to Metacritic.