Since its release in late January, Dragon Ball FighterZ has suffered from issues relating to online multiplayer. These are still present almost a month later, but Bandai Namco has reassured fans that it’s both aware of the problems and working on updates to resolve them–the first of which should be out quite soon.
In a video discussing the upcoming roadmap for FigherZ patches, producer Tomoko Hiroki states, “We’ve heard all of your feedback since the release, and we’re fully aware of the online issues that you’re having, such as the matching in Ring Match or being disconnected from the lobby. We’re aware of the situation, and keen to resolve them with all our might.”
The first step toward fixing the problems will come before the end of February, when a new update is scheduled for release. Hiroki doesn’t specify what this will do precisely or which of the problems it will address, nor was a specific release date provided–she only says it’ll be out in “late February.”
“Please bear in mind that this first patch might not fix everything at once,” she continues. “Therefore, we’re also planning to release another patch in mid-[to]-late March to gradually resolve the issue. Rest assured that we will not stop until the fix has been completed.”
Dogs are man’s best friend, and for definitive proof, look no further than video games. Having a four-legged pal by your side during virtual adventures brings levels of protection and trust that regular companions simply cannot. Video game dogs can come in all different shapes and sizes, but there is one trait that all share: they are such GOOD BOYS!
Following the release of its first DLC pack, The Hidden Ones, another Assassin’s Creed Origins DLC is on the way, this one called The Curse of the Pharaohs. With its launch on PS4, Xbox One, and PC drawing near, we recently got to check it out.
In the video above, you can see about half an hour of gameplay from two different main story missions. These feature totally new locations you won’t have ventured through previously, and they’re home to some notable encounters. Those include one with some giant scorpions and a boss fight against an undead Nefertiti.
The Curse of the Pharaohs differs from The Hidden Ones in that it introduces a totally new storyline that is separate from that of the main game. You’ll take on a variety of Egyptian beasts and famous pharaohs as you try to figure out why the dead are being brought back to life. In addition to the new areas, story, and enemies, you’ll be able to acquire new outfits, gear, and weapons. Furthermore, it raises the level cap to 55.
Curse of the Pharaohs is due out on March 6 and is included in the $20 season pass or as a separate purchase. Before its release, everyone will be able to take part in an introductory quest called Lights Among the Dunes, which will be added as part of a free Origins update on February 27. [Update: The DLC itself has been delayed slightly and is now due out on March 13.]
This DLC comes not long after the release of Discovery Tour, a free update that allows you to play through the game without any quests or combat. It effectively transforms the game into a learning experience as you’re able to explore ancient Egypt and even take part in guided tours that will teach you about the world. If you’d prefer something different, Ubisoft has also released a New Game Plus mode for Origins.
This is a spoiler-free review of episodes 7-12 of Amazon’s The Tick – the second half of the show’s first season.
The Tick – which has already been renewed for a second season by Amazon – drops the final six episodes of its first season this Friday, February 23rd. And whereas the first half of this run was dedicated to the set up and formation of Tick and Arthur as a team (along with the idea Tick might even be imaginary), these remaining chapters round out the full adventure aspects of the series – including a final showdown with The Terror.
The humor still holds up here, thankfully, as does this show’s merging of daffiness with a TV-MA language grid. None of the f-bombs take away from the goofiness and Peter Serafinowicz’s Tick is still marvelous. Since this particular Tick story is solidly an Arthur redemption arc, having focused heavily on the poor young man’s trauma during the first half of the season, Tick is relegated, more often than not, to being Arthur’s booming, boneheaded sidekick – capable of feverishly funny platitude-salads and thunderous feats of strength.
With the second Pokemon Go Community Day approaching, developer Niantic has announced another, unrelated event that is now underway. And if you missed out on the opportunity to catch two of the previous Legendary Pokemon that were available in the game, you’re in luck, as they’re back for a limited time.
As part of Pokemon Go Legendary Week, which is now underway, both Kyogre and Groudon have returned to Raid Battles, where they can be found alongside Rayquaza. Groudon was the first Gen 3 Legendary added to the game and was available to face during December and January. Kyogre then took its place until mid-February, when it was replaced by Rayquaza, which will stick around until March 16.
Despite the name, Legendary Week will last more than a week–it runs from now until March 5, giving you a total of about 10 days to get your hands on the returning Legendaries. To further mix things up, the specific Legendaries that are taken down during that period will have an additional effect. Should Rayquaza be defeated more than Kyogre and Groudon combined, eggs hatched from March 5-16 will be more likely to contain “Pokemon that typically prefer windy weather,” such as Bagon. Alternatively, Pokemon who like sunny or rainy weather (Trapinch or Lotad, for example) will be more likely to hatch.
Starting on February 24, Niantic will offer a new special box for purchase that contains Raid Passes “to help you prepare.” No further specifics were shared. February 24 is also the date of the next Community Day event. This three-hour event will provide various bonuses and, more notably, the opportunity to catch or evolve a rare Pokemon with a special move. For this event, it’ll be the Dragon-typeDragonite, who can learn Draco Meteor.
As Netflix adds more and more original content every week, the streaming service is also removing a lot of popular titles from its library. March is no different, with dozens of films and TV shows being removed.
Among the most notable departure is the Jaws franchise of films. All four movies will disappear from Netflix on March 1. Likewise, the movies Less Than Zero, Baby’s Day Out, and Ferngully: The Last Rainforest will be removed at the beginning of the month. Later in the month, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Good Son, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou will go away, as well.
When it comes to TV, seasons of Archer, The Killing, Life In Pieces, The Carmichael Show, and The Finder will no longer be available to stream. You can take a look at everything leaving Netflix in March below. After that, check out every title the service is adding next month. Arrivals on the service include new seasons of Marvel’s Jessica Jones and Santa Clarita Diet. Additionally, you can see what both Hulu and Amazon Prime are debuting in March.
Leaving Netflix in March
March 1
A Gang Story
Anastasia
Baby’s Day Out
Eyewitness
FernGully: The Last Rainforest
First Response
Forget and Forgive
Hitch
Jaws
Jaws 2
Jaws 3
Jaws: The Revenge
Less Than Zero
Memento
Slums of Beverly Hills
The Chase
The Craft
The Panic in Needle Park
Trigger Point
Two Wrongs
xXx
March 4
Chloe
Safe Haven
March 6
The Finest Hours
March 8
March 11
Believe
Glitch
March 12
Standby
Disney’s The Santa Clause
Disney’s The Santa Clause 2
Disney’s The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
March 13
Breakout Kings: Season 1
City of God: 10 Years Later
London Has Fallen
The Killing: Seasons 1-2
March 14
Archer: Seasons 1-7
March 19
V/H/S: Viral
March 20
March 22
Steve Jobs: One Last Thing
March 24
Voltron 84: Season 1
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
March 26
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
March 29
The Gates: Season 1
March 30
Life in Pieces: Season 1
March 31
Awake: Season 1
Bordertown: Season 1
Breakout Kings: Season 2
Brickleberry: Seasons 1-3
Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life: Season 1
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was the big winner at the 21st annual DICE Awards, which was held by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences tonight in Las Vegas.
Nintendo’s open-world adventure was awarded Game of the Year and Adventure Game of the Year, and received the awards for Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction and Outstanding Achievement in Game Design.
Cuphead picked up three wins, receiving the awards for Outstanding Achievement in Animation, Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction, and Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition.
Other notable winners include Horizon Zero Dawn, Snipperclips, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and Lone Echo/Echo Arena, each of which received two awards. Additionally, Genyo Takeda, Special Corporate Advisor at Nintendo, received a Lifetime Achievement Award for the integral role he had in Nintendo’s hardware development.
Sometimes a sci-fi movie just barely misses the mark. Maybe it didn’t hit quite the right tone, or it failed to provide satisfying answers to the thought-provoking questions it proposed. There are plenty of science fiction films that we enjoy despite their flaws, because there’s some good in them, too. And then there’s Mute.
From Netflix and Duncan Jones, Mute promised to be a return to form for the director and writer behind the instant classic 2009 mind-bender Moon (and, more recently, the less-than-classic Warcraft). Unfortunately, Mute is a cartoonish, nonsensical, tone-deaf, derivative, outrageously awful nightmare without a single redeeming quality. Bummer, right?
From beginning to end, Mute is simply hard to watch. It starts when a young Amish boy named Leo suffers a terrible boating accident that leaves his vocal cords permanently shredded. As an adult, Leo (Alexander Skarsgard) has emigrated to Germany. A brief fly-by on a newspaper clipping clumsily tells us that the German chancellor invited American Amish to relocate there en masse to bring a sense of “tradition” back to the country, and that’s all the explanation we ever get for that.
After several early scenes of drippy, melodramatic flirting that would make Tommy Wiseau cringe, Leo sets out on a mission to find his missing girlfriend, a blue-haired cocktail waitress named Naadirah (Seyneb Saleh, whose acting is ridiculously, terribly over the top). Meanwhile, Cactus Bill (Paul Rudd, sporting an absurdly huge handlebar mustache) is an AWOL American soldier who does under-the-table surgeries for the mob in the hopes of getting papers for him and his daughter to return home. His friend Duck Teddington (Justin Theroux in an insanely bad wig) is also around, for reasons that become horrifyingly clear as the movie progresses.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: Leo being Amish has absolutely no bearing on the story whatsoever, and so boils down to a pointless, distracting, silly quirk. He works as a bartender, where he doesn’t hesitate to skillfully beat up drunk guys who hit on Naadirah. He uses technology, albeit reluctantly. In other words, he could have been any random schmuck and the only thing about him they’d need to change is his suspenders.
Leo being mute doesn’t really affect the story either; it just makes many scenes unnecessarily long as we wait for him to scribble his side of each conversation on a notepad. His lack of speech carries no thematic weight, and it never even hinders him plot-wise. It does have one positive effect, though, at least for Skarsgard: He doesn’t have to say any of the lines in this terrible script.
Here’s a small sampling of actual lines from this movie, all from relatively early on since the entire thing is like this and at a certain point you have to stop transcribing every single thing that every single character says:
“That’s a real sexy hood ornament you’ve got dancing up there tonight.”
“If my mom tried to stop me talking, I would f*** her up. And she’s in a wheelchair.”
“He doesn’t need words. He’s kind. Why wouldn’t I love him?”
“School girls, babe. Itty bitty titties and smooth little p***ies. Then they grow up.”
That last is said with a big sigh by Justin Theroux’s character, a pediatric surgeon who’s also a pedophile. The line is accompanied by an actual upskirt shot of a nearby school girl, the camera lingering on her behind as she bends over to pick up a bowling ball.
Mute treats Duck’s preference for young girls as a joke for the movie’s first half, like Matthew McConaughey’s famous quote in Dazed and Confused about how high school girls always stay the same age, no matter how old you get. Except Theroux’s character is literally filming pre-pubescent young girls in their underwear at his practice. The only thing that will make your stomach turn more than that fact is the flippant way the movie plays these scenes, almost as if it’s supposed to be funny.
Halfway through, this subplot seems like it’s about to take a major turn. Cactus–who has a young daughter–confronts Duck about his pedophilia, telling him firmly that he has just got to cut it out. Then they go to the mall, where they get drunk and steal some peanuts, like the previous scene never happened. As they leave, Cactus screams a homophobic slur at a security guard who confronts them.
Go ahead and re-read those sentences a couple more times and let them sink in. Now consider for a second that the entire movie is this bad. The biggest mystery is how Jones convinced these actors to go along with any of it.
Mute‘s futuristic setting itself has some promise, but it’s utterly squandered. The movie doesn’t have a single original idea, simply ripping shamelessly from great sci-fi and cyberpunk films that have come before it. Flying cars? Grungy neon? Sexy robots? Drones? A seedy city underbelly populated by prostitutes in crazy pseudo-futuristic outfits? Check, check, and check–although Mute could have easily been set in the present, or even in the past, since not one of these shallow sci-fi trappings has a single tangible effect on the story.
As Mute‘s plodding, meandering two-hour length comes to a close across multiple increasingly nonsensical climactic showdowns, nothing else will strike you so much as the baffling, swirling, inexplicable, disgusting mess of it all. Nothing anyone in this movie does makes a shred of sense, either logically or emotionally. Every single character is a one-dimensional caricature with no redeeming qualities. The effects look cheap. The score is forgettable. It’s casually offensive, vulgar, gross, and mean for absolutely no reason. And it’s unabashedly unaware–or uncaring–of the fact that you shouldn’t play scenes about pedophiliac pediatricians and domestic abuse with the same weightless flippancy as a joke about robot strippers or a less-than-subtle cameo from Moon‘s Sam Rockwell.
And by the way, the fact that Mute and Moon apparently take place in the same “universe” doesn’t make Mute any better (although this movie’s existence may retroactively make Moon seem worse).
Mute is a bad joke about itself, the movie version of a Weird Al Yankovic song (an “Amish Paradise” sequel set in the future?), only if the filmmaker wasn’t aware it was supposed to be a parody. It’s like Mute underwent so many rewrites that the scenes and characters no longer match up–or like it’s a first draft that never underwent a single edit, though considering how long Jones was trying to get this made–12 years!–the former seems more likely. At least now we have an idea why he had such a hard time.
The Good
The Bad
Paul Rudd is kind of funny once or twice
Nonsensical, stupid plot
Poorly written script filled with cringe-inducing lines
Ugly, unoriginal world
Cartoonish, one-dimensional characters
Totally derivative without a single original thought
Square Enix’s big role-playing game Final Fantasy XV is coming to PC on March 6, but you won’t have to wait that long to check out the newest edition of the title. A free demo for Final Fantasy XV will launch on PC through Steam, Origin, and the Microsoft Store on February 26. The demo spans the full first chapter, including the tutorial and multiple quests.
In a blog post, Square Enix said the demo is also a way for players to find out how well the game runs on their rig and test out the game’s various graphics options. Square Enix announced Final Fantasy XV’s PC requirements back in January–see them here. Square Enix already released a benchmark tool to help you evaluate your PC’s ability to run the game.
In other news, people who buy Final Fantasy XV for PC on Steam by the end of April will receive the Half-Life Pack. This comes with a Gordon Freeman costume, including his famous crowbar, which you can use as a weapon in the RPG.
