Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile Review

This is an advance review out of the Sundance Film Festival. The movie will debut on Netflix later in 2019.

In the lore of serial killer movies, none have tried so hard to make us feel sympathetic about a man who murdered 30 women as Joe Berlinger’s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. The performances are great, and the film tries to do something new with the serial killer genre, but its misguided tone and an abrupt change of focus halfway through the film are hard to overlook, even if it’s somehow also one hell of a courtroom comedy.

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Apex Legends Is Awesome, but it’s Not Perfect

Apex Legends is the latest entry in the increasingly crowded Battle Royale space. Created by Respawn, the developers of the beloved Titanfall franchise, Apex seems to not only take queues from other battle royales that proceeded it, but also from the hero shooter category, hence the Legends. Believe me when I say that these two aspects of game design work very well together. So well, in fact, that Apex Legends had already drawn in well over 2 million players in just its first few days. And while it seems to be getting fairly high praise from fans of the genre, there are a few aspects that could use some tightening up. Let’s dive in.

The Legends themselves are what immediately sets Apex apart from other Battle Royales. Apex shipped with eight unique characters, with a promise of more to come. So, unlike Call of Duty’s Blackout where everyone drops onto the map completely even, Apex Legends’ heroes immediately make you unique within your squad. Where one Legend may have the ability to vanish for a limited time, allowing you to escape a lethal situation, another can help spot laid traps or enemies within close proximity.

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Nick Jonas Confirms He’s Back In Jumanji Sequel

The Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle movie continues to add to its cast. Singer Nick Jonas has confirmed that he’s coming back to play Alex a second time in the sequel.

“Guess who’s back… Let’s go people!” Jonas wrote on Twitter, referencing his character’s signature line from the first movie. “The Jumanji sequel is on the way and I couldn’t be more excited to bring Alex back to the big screen,” he said.

The character Alex is a pilot who’s been stuck in Jumanji for 20 years. Jonas is best known for his music career with the Jonas Brothers and then his solo career, and he was a standout success in the 2017 Jumanji movie.

All of the other actors from the 2017 movie are coming back, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, and Karen Gillan. The sequel is adding to its cast with a number of big names, including Awkwafina, Danny Glover, and Danny DeVito, while original director Jake Kasdan is also back to direct.

Welcome to the Jungle was an enormous success, banking more than $962 million on its way to becoming the 43rd biggest movie in the history of film. The Jumanji franchise is based on the Chris Van Allsburg book, and it was first made into a movie in 1995 with Robin Williams in the lead role.

Plot details are under wraps for the Jumanji sequel, but The Rock teased that Kasdan gave a “dynamite pitch” for the plot. The film hits theatres in December 2019.

The Walking Dead Delivers Much-Needed Zombie Carnage

Each month it grows more and more difficult to review The Walking Dead without feeling like a broken record. Whatever merits each individual issue might have, the series as a whole has been stuck in a storytelling rut for well over a year at this point. Even though there’s been some momentum in recent months, it’s beginning to look more and more like readers will be forced to wait until the big issue #200 mark to see this simmering conflict finally boil over.

This problem is even more frustrating than usual in issue #188. On its own merits, this is actually one of the more well-rounded chapters of the series in recent memory. Robert Kirkman’s script bounces between a number of different locales and characters, but not in a way that feels messy or choppy. Each subplot is given a bit of room to breathe. This issue moves the pieces around the board and inches the book closer to a major showdown between the Commonwealth and its neighbors. The problem, again, is that the book has been inching and nudging for so long that it’s impossible not to grow fed up with the overall glacial pace.

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Jordan Developing African Fantasy Epic Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Michael B. Jordan’s production company, Outlier Society in conjunction with Warner Bros., has secured the rights to the popular fantasy novel by Marlon James – Black Leopard, Red Wolf.

Variety reports James will serve as executive producer for the project, which will tell the story from the first book in his planned Dark Star Trilogy. James is better known for his A Brief History of Seven Killings and is a Booker prize winner.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a fantasy tale of a man charged with finding the potential heir to an empire while war and politics rage in the background. It draws on African mythology and while he said he was only joking at the time, James has described the story as an, “African Game of Thrones” perhaps due to its bloody nature and high fantasy themes.

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Giveaway: The Division 2 Private Beta Access (Australia Only)

GameSpot and Ubisoft want Australian readers to join us during the private beta for Tom Clancy’s Division 2 this weekend! It begins this Friday on February 8 at 8pm AEST.

Two main missions are playable, along with five side missions and additional activities in the open world. One of three new Dark Zones will show off The Division 2’s brand of PvPvE action, while you can sample the more organized PvP gameplay in a Conflict game mode named Skirmish.

Additionally, one slice of endgame content is included in the beta: an Invaded mission will unlock on February 9 at 8pm AEST. The test period will cap players’ progress at level 30.

To get access to the code, all you need to do is fill out the form below and follow one of our social media accounts! Along with your access rights, you will be able to invite up to 3 Uplay friends to the Beta.

IMPORTANT: This code will only be valid for the first 1000 people who redeem it. Once its allocation is exhausted it will cease to work.

For more info on The Division 2, including how the new Dark Zones work and how Ubisoft is planning on providing a surprising endgame, you can check out our features and articles on here on GameSpot.

World War Z 2 Might Be On Hold Indefinitely, According To Report

Paramount has announced that it’s halting preproduction on the sequel to the World War Z movie. The sequel was originally scheduled to go into production this year.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film was put on hold over budgetary issues, and it’s currently unknown whether the movie will resume development at some point or simply be canned completely. This isn’t the first problem the second World War Z movie has faced. Originally directed by J.A. Bayona and scheduled for 2017, the movie lost its director in 2016 and it took a year to secure another one in David Fincher–who Brad Pitt really wanted. Shooting was continuously pushed and rescheduled throughout the following year, before finally settling on a planned production date in spring/early-summer 2019.

2013’s World War Z is a movie adaption, starring Brad Pitt, of Max Brooks’ 2006 novel of the same name. The novel is a collection of accounts from various people of different social, religious, and political backgrounds that survived a zombie apocalypse that occurred 17 years prior to the narrative’s present day events. As opposed to a recollection of past events from multiple perspectives, the World War Z movie takes place during the zombie apocalypse from one perspective, and tells a more action-focused story about one man’s efforts to find a means for humanity to survive the plague.

Despite the differences, the movie was mostly well-received. However, it too faced considerable production difficulties. The film went massively over-budget and was consistently behind schedule in terms of development, resulting in the release being delayed by several months. Nevertheless, the movie still managed to made $540 million worldwide, making it the most successful zombie movie of all time.

Violent Video Game Tax Proposed In Pennsylvania

Lawmakers from Pennsylvania have put forth a bill that proposes a 10% excise tax on violent video games. House Bill 109 seeks to impose the so-called “sin tax” on games sold at retail that are rated by the ESRB as M for Mature or Adults-Only. The money would go into a fund called the “Digital Protection for School Safety Account” that aims to enhance security measures at schools in the wake of the school shootings in Parkland, Florida and Newtown, Connecticut.

State representative Chris Quinn, a republican, initially put forth the bill in 2018, but it never made it out of committee during the 2018 legislative session. The new version is similarly worded.

The 10 percent tax would be in addition to applicable state and local taxes. The sales tax rate in Pennsylvania is 6%, which means a standard $60 game costs around $64. With the extra 10 percent tax on violent games, the cost of an M-rated game like Red Dead Redemption 2 would make the game end up costing about $70.

Explaining the bill last year, Quinn said violent video games might be an element in the rise of school shootings in America. “One factor that may be contributing to the rise in, and intensity of, school violence is the material kids see, and act out, in video games,” he said.

Quinn cited the National Center for Health Research’s statement that studies demonstrate a link between violent video games and increases in aggressive thoughts and behaviors. Quinn’s comments conveniently leave out the same statement’s disclaimer that other factors like mental illness, access to weapons, and adverse environments should be considered as other risk factors. Not only that, but the National Center for Health Research’s own reporting states that studies have not shown that aggression leads to increased instances of deadly violence or criminal activity.

Expectedly, the Entertainment Software Association, which lobbies on behalf of the video game industry, is taking a hard line against this bill. In a statement to Variety, the ESA the bill is a violation of the US Constitution.

“Numerous authorities–including scientists, medical professionals, government agencies, and the US Supreme Court–found that video games do not cause violence,” it said. “We encourage Pennsylvania legislators to work with us to raise awareness about parental controls and the ESRB video game rating system, which are effective tools to ensure parents maintain control over the video games played in their home.”

After the Sandy Hook shooting, a lawmaker from Connecticut proposed a similar tax in 2013. Also that year, a state representative from Missouri proposed a sales tax on games rated M and above. In both cases, the funds would have gone towards mental health programs. However, the bills never became law.

Here’s Why There Are No Titans in Apex Legends

Respawn Entertainment has said the giant mechs that populated its Titanfall series simply didn’t work in its free-to-play battle royale game, Apex Legends.

Though Respawn has explicitly said Apex Legends is not a sequel to Titanfall 2, it is set in the same universe, leading many to wonder if wall running and big old robots were ever considered. Speaking to IGN, Executive Producer Drew McCoy said that they were, but they just didn’t work within the battle royale genre.

“During development of Apex Legends, we prototyped a lot of stuff,” said McCoy. “Having come from Titanfall 2, we tried wall-running and double jumping and triple jumping, and all sorts of crazy stuff. And the goal of the game from a development standpoint was to create something strategic and masterable and learnable and very deep, and a lot of those mechanics were detrimental to those goals.”

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