Ubisoft has once again partnered with actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s production company, HitRecord, to produce in-game materials, all made by HitRecord community members, this time for Watch Dogs: Legion. The renewed partnership has again raised the ire of game developers and others on social media who criticize the process as potentially exploitative “speculative work.”
Specifically, Ubisoft and HitRecord have organized to commission 10 new songs for Watch Dogs: Legion. In a video posted to HitRecord’s YouTube channel, Watch Dogs: Legion creative director Clint Hocking, audio director Richie Nieto, and HitRecord founder and director Gordon-Levitt describe the partnership as an opportunity to reflect the game’s emphasis on collaboration between characters through the open world’s music.
Amazon Prime Day 2019 is nearly here–the two-day shopping bonanza is going down this coming Monday and Tuesday for a full 48 hours, making it the longest-running Prime Day since the event was first held in 2015. With tens of thousands of deals across every category, Prime Day has become a full-blown event akin to Black Friday, to the point where other retailers are offering their own counter-sales happening around the same time.
If you’re primarily on the lookout for Xbox One games, console bundles, or accessories this Prime Day, we have you covered. While Monday and Tuesday will bring an even bigger wave of discounts, some Xbox One deals are already live, not only at Amazon but also at GameStop, Ebay, and other retailers. Below you’ll find a breakdown of the best Xbox One deals available now, and we’ll update this story as more deals go live on Monday.
Mortal Kombat 11 – on sale for $44.17 at Amazon
Best Xbox One game deals
In terms of games, you can already find solid discounts on many of this year’s biggest titles, such as Kingdom Hearts 3 for only $20 at GameStop and Mortal Kombat 11 for $44 at Amazon. Games that received less-than-stellar reviews at launch are also quite cheap, with Anthem: Legion of Dawn Edition selling for $20 and Fallout 76 down to $25. You’ll also find some pre-order titles cheaper at Amazon, such as Doom Eternal and Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, so Prime Day may be a good time to secure your copy, especially since Amazon will give you the cheapest price on your pre-order if it drops again.
Xbox One S bundle + controller + headset – on sale for $300 at Walmart
Best Xbox One console deals
If you’re in the market for a new Xbox One S or X, a few different deals are already available. Various Xbox One bundles are currently marked down at GameStop, and you’ll get an additional $50 gift card with your purchase. Meanwhile, at Walmart, there’s an Xbox One S bundle that includes a game of your choice, a bonus wireless controller, and a headset for around $300 (price varies based on your picks). Finally, if you’re only interested in the console itself, you can get a new Xbox One S for $196 at Ebay, which is a great price if you don’t want any accessories and aren’t interested in any bundle games right now. Of course, you might want to consider waiting until Monday before taking the plunge, as Amazon will likely offer the console at deep discount as well.
Thrustmaster TMX Force Feedback Racing Wheel for Xbox One/Windows – on sale for $126.37 at Amazon
Best Xbox One accessory deals
Controllers, headsets, memory cards, and other accessories make up a core part of the hobby for many gamers, and having the right gear is crucial. Unfortunately, these types of added purchase can really burn a hole in your pocket, but Prime Day is a great chance to grab whatever accessories you’ve been needing for a fraction of the price. See some of the deals you can find already, and check back on Monday as more products start getting marked down.
Certified Refurbished Kindle Paperwhite 6″ e-reader under £65, Google Pixel 3a with 10GB data, unlimited minutes and texts and FREE upfront cost for £24/month.
This year, Amazon Prime Day has doubled into a full 48-hour period of deals. If you’re a Prime member, you have access to bargains on hundreds of products from July 15 to 17. Pretty much everything is discounted, from games and PC hardware to console controllers and VR headsets. That includes tabletop games as well.
In the following guide, we outline our favorite tabletop game deals happening on Amazon right now. Whether you’re looking for a simple card game to play with the family, a multi-layered board game to take on with your friends, or something in-between, we’ve got you covered.
As Prime Day hasn’t started yet, many of these deals can be enjoyed by all shoppers, not just Prime subscribers. That may no longer be the case come Amazon Prime Day, so if you’re not a Prime member and you see a deal that you want to take advantage of, it’s better to buy sooner rather than later.
Board Games
Card Games
If you’re looking for some advice, I’d highly recommend Red Dragon Inn 5: The Character Trove (which is linked above). Red Dragon Inn is a fairly easy card game to pick up, but the addition of yearly character expansions means strategies for the game are constantly evolving and growing more complex over time. The aforementioned fifth expansion comes in a box large enough to store the four included character decks as well as all the cards that come in the original game and expansions 2-4, making it the perfect box to start with. Red Dragon Inn requires a minimum of two players, but the maximum is only limited by the number of unique character decks you have. Currently, there are over two dozen characters (with even more on the way) so you can play with a massive group of people.
While the horror genre has remained a consistently popular one over the decades, it is marked by the rise and fall of certain subgenres. From the Exorcist-inspired wave of possession movies in the ’70s to the glut of slashers that followed the success of Halloween and Friday the 13th in the ’80s, all it takes is a single movie to inspire dozens of homages, copies, and rip-offs. In July 1999, a micro-budget indie horror titled The Blair Witch Project hit US theaters and changed the shape of horror–and other genres, to be honest–for the next decade and beyond.
The Blair Witch Project’s gimmick was to present the movie as if we were watching the recovered footage left by a trio of missing student filmmakers as they investigated the legends of a witch who lurked in a spooky wooded area. This wasn’t the first time the technique had been used–the 1980 Italian shocker Cannibal Holocaust was partly found footage, while mock-documnetraries like This is Spinal Tap and the notorious British TV show Ghostwatch arguably used this technique too. But Blair Witch Project was by far the most influential.
In terms of the film itself, it gave the events on screen an intensity and scary realism, helped by the naturalistic performances by its three actors, that delivered a frightening experience unlike anything else many audiences had experienced before. And in terms of the industry, it broke down a financial barrier for filmmakers. You no longer need an experienced crew and expensive equipment. With a domestic camcorder, a location, and a few friends, anyone could make a found footage movie that had a shot at making some money at the box office.
And that’s what happened. The vast success of Blair Witch meant that seemingly everyone was making their own version. Horror has always been a genre that could maximize profit, with many of the biggest success stories being low budget independent movies that became huge hits. Suddenly films that might have been barely releasable a few years earlier were flooding the market. Terrible sound, lousy acting, murky photography? Doesn’t matter–it’s a found footage movie!
But while many of the found footage films released in the wake of Blair Witch were indeed very bad, there were some great examples too. These were all movies that used the limitations of the format to the story’s benefit. In some cases this meant delivering giant monster movies that put us at ground-level with terrifying beasts, and others it meant creating a sense of claustrophobia, denying the viewer that release and distance that a more traditional horror movie can. So with The Blair Witch Project celebrating its 20th anniversary this week, we’ve taken a look at the best and scariest found footage horror movies ever made. And once you’ve read that, check out GameSpot’s look at the background to Blair Witch and find out why the movie could not be made in the same way today.
A new trailer for the upcoming movie by anime director Tatsuyuki Nagai has been released. Nagai is best known in the anime industry for directing the anime series Toradora and Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, as well as the movie The Anthem of the Heart. The new trailer for his upcoming film can be watched below.
The 90-second trailer teases the upcoming movie’s story, which follows the evolving relationship between two sisters: Akane and Aoi. The siblings live on their own, as their parents both died 13 years prior. One day, Akane (who’s the older sister) reunites with her ex-boyfriend, Shinnosuke, who is now a professional musician. At the same time, a teenage Shinnosuke (from 13 years ago and who goes by Shinno) travels forward in time from the past and befriends the younger Aoi. As Akane and Shinnosuke rekindle their old flame, Aoi begins to fall in love with Shinno.
The upcoming film, Sora no Aosa wo Shiru Hito Yo (which, according to Crunchyroll, translates into The Person Who Knows About the Sky’s Blueness) is the third and final anime in a planned trilogy of stories all taking place in the same setting. The previous anime in the series are Anohana and The Anthem of the Heart. The Person Who Knows About the Sky’s Blueness is scheduled to be released in Japan on October 11, with an international debut planned for a later date.
For more anime, check out our coverage of Anime Expo, which is linked below.
2011’s Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day follows a group of childhood friends who slowly reunite in high school. The group drifted apart after one of its members, Menma, died in an accident unwittingly caused by the others. Jinta, the leader of the group and who loved Menma, becomes a recluse after her death. However, when Menma’s ghost appears to Jinta and begins asking him to help her grant her one true wish so she can go to the afterlife, Jinta reluctantly turns to his old friends to help him figure out what the wish is.
2015’s The Anthem of the Heart revolves around high school student Jun, who is unable to speak. Her disability is the result of a fairy’s curse, a punishment enacted on Jun when she was a little girl. Always talkative as a child, Jun accidentally caused her parent’s divorce when she tells her mom about seeing her dad at a love hotel with a strange woman. In the present day, Jun is assigned to the Charity Committee, where she happens upon one of the members, Takumi, singing. Captivated by his voice, Jun begins planning a musical with him and her fellow committee members, believing that, through song, she will finally be able to speak.
This year, Amazon Prime Day is actually more Amazon Prime Days with a full 48 hours of deals. Provided you’re a Prime member, you have access to bargains on hundreds of products. Everything, from games and PC hardware to console controllers and VR headsets, is on sale. Even plenty of anime products receive a hefty discount.
Given Prime Video’s rapidly growing presence as a serious contender in the anime streaming space, Amazon may not discount as many Blu-ray and DVDs for mainstream series and movies as it did last year. Even if it does, you may not want to take advantage of all of them. Amazon Prime Video has spent the past few years getting the streaming rights to many of those major anime series, as well as securing exclusivity on some truly remarkable stories–such as Re:Creators, Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku, After the Rain, Iroduku: The World in Colors, Dororo, and Vinland Saga. Without a doubt, the best anime deal you can find on Amazon right now is buying into Prime Video. You’re missing out on some great series without a membership.
Amazon hasn’t completely stepped away from physical sales, though, and is planning on using Prime Day to offer discounts on the series that aren’t a part of Prime Video. There’s a whole lot more than just Blu-ray deals for anime fans to take advantage of as well–there are discounts on box sets, plushies, and other types of collectibles.
Below we’ve highlighted some of the best anime deals to take advantage of around Prime Day, and most of them aren’t at Amazon. Rightstuf is having one of its huge anime sales right now, and Best Buy and Walmart both have a few excellent anime deals going on at the moment. We’ll continue to fill the list out with Prime Day deals as we hear of them, so stay tuned.
Best anime deals at Amazon
Best anime Blu-rays and box set deals elsewhere
Anime collectibles deals
Darling in the Franxx (Zero Two & Ichigo) Nendoroid Bundle — $80 (Rightstuf)
If you’re looking for even more anime as you wait for Prime Day, we’ve got you covered. July marks the start of the summer season, which means a bunch of new movies and series have made their debut. To help you wade through the dozens of new titles to choose from, we’ve put together a guide of the eight anime to add to your queue and watch this summer–one of which is a Prime Video exclusive. Earlier this month, we attended Anime Expo and compiled galleries of the best anime games and best cosplay at the convention.
For more on Amazon Prime Day(s) 2019, look below to read through all the deals we’ve compiled. Prime Day ends at on July 17 at midnight (no matter which timezone you live in).
Warning: this article contains major spoilers for Stranger Things: Season 3!
Stranger Things star David Harbour may be teasing the return of his character Jim Hopper in the upcoming fourth season. And it’s all thanks to Harbour’s Instagram account.
As reported by Uproxx, fans have been noticing some bizarre updates to Harbour’s Instagram account over the past week. Harbour has been quietly changing his profile picture to display various numbers. So far, the profile pic has switched from 6 to 1 to 8 and back to 6.
What does this mean? The theory (which is growing more plausible with each update) is that Harbour is slowly listing the phone number for Brett Gelman’s character Murray Bauman, as glimpsed in Season 3, Episode 6. Bauman’s full number was shown to be (618) 625-8313. And as it turns out, if fans dial that number they can hear an answering machine message where Bauman urges Winona Ryder’s Joyce Byers to meet him in person to discuss something important. The message cuts off before Bauman can elaborate, but many are speculating it has to do with Hopper’s fate.
