‘Strangers Things’ director will helm the ‘Uncharted’ movie
Sony Pictures has announced that Shawn Levy will be directing the live-action movie version of Uncharted. If the name sounds familiar, Levy was the executive producer and director of Netflix hit Stranger Things, and while he’ll still be involved in the show’s second season, he’ll now also be in charge of Nathan Drake’s big-screen debut — one of the PlayStation’s most cinematic franchises.
The project has already bounding through script writer changes and general whispers of development hell. And yeah, still no more on that Last of Us movie — or whether the Uncharted movie will still manage to hit theaters next summer. (It probably won’t.)
Source: Deadline
Twitch picks up ‘ChefShock,’ a daily live cooking show
Twitch, the Amazon-owned game streaming network, is branching out to appeal to the foodies of the world with a new daily show. Variety is reporting that the service has signed a deal with Justin Warner, former winner of Food Network Star, to front a cooking show called ChefShock. The show will air between Monday and Friday at 8pm ET / 5pm PT starting Monday, October 31st and will feature Warner preparing a meal. Users will be encouraged to order the ingredients in advance of each episode and then follow along with him as he teaches them how to be a better gourmand.
Twitch became a household name by streaming games, but it looks as if the company has found a ceiling relating to how big its audience can go. That would explain why it’s spent the last year or so broadening its appeal with various non-gaming initiatives. For instance, the outfit purchased the rights to broadcast Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting and followed that up with a Food channel that showed re-runs of Julia Child’s The French Chef. Given how YouTube and Facebook Live are also eagerly attempting to woo younger viewers, we can expect to see plenty more moves like this from the service.
Source: Variety
Rockstar liquidates cheaters’ ‘GTA Online’ bank accounts
Not long after it launched in October 2013, Grand Theft Auto Online cheaters began artificially creating gobs of in-game money. The plague of illicitly-gained cash proliferated while Rockstar continued releasing its expansions — until today. Players who had cheated, modded, hacked or even gotten money through glitches woke up to a message from Rockstar this morning telling them yes, they’d been found out, and the studio had eliminated their ill-gotten dough. For some players, this wiped out their in-game cash reserves to an ignominious $0.
That includes money made by exploiting glitches. Players who made lower amounts of illegitimate cash seem less likely to be affected, though the bans are apparently coming in waves, so safe now doesn’t guarantee modders and cheaters won’t have their game finances reset. It’s unclear whether players who picked up money generated by others’ mods will see it stripped away, according to Ars Technica.
In an FAQ post, Rockstar explained that they wiped all the falsely-generated money in order to keep the gameplay environment fair. This comes alongside the game’s new suspension policy, updated today: A player’s first temporary ban will wipe all character progress, inventory and property, while a second will result in permanent expulsion. Both motions seem drastic, but understandable given how prevalent cheating has remained in the three-year-old game. Still, there’s a word for drastically stripping cheating players’ gains in a game that’s all about making money by breaking laws, but I can’t put my finger on it.
Via: Ars Technica
Source: Rockstar support forums
‘Star Trek: Bridge Crew’ finds a new frontier in VR co-op gaming
While you spent your childhood climbing trees, learning to love Mario and making furtive glances at your first crush, I was playing Star Trek games. That doesn’t make me a gamer, but I’m well-qualified to talk about how poorly the series translates to any existing game genre. It’s a generalization, sure, but most mainstream games are not about slow, thoughtful collaboration in order to solve problems. But that’s why Star Trek: Bridge Crew is so intriguing, since VR offers us the chance to redefine those tired genres. In anticipation of the game’s late-November mid-March launch, four Engadget editors tried out a near-finished demo with Ubisoft in London.
Bridge Crew tells the story of the USS Aegis NX-1787 and its staff, a Federation vessel designed for long-range surveillance of early-stage civilizations. The four players each man a station on the bridge, starting with the helmsperson, who is responsible for piloting the ship. Second, there’s tactical, who’s in charge of the ship’s weapons, shields and scanners. A third plays as the engineer, who assigns the Aegis’ limited power reserves between engines, shields and phasers while also manning the transporter. Rounding out the quartet is the captain, who is in possession of knowledge the other three need to do their jobs. Oh, and they also have the important job of pressing the all-important Red Alert button.
The story begins with a message from the local admiral, which allows the crew to settle into their positions. We’re told that a nearby starbase has gone silent, and that the Aegis needs to go check out why. Naturally, we warp over to find assistance, only to find a wreck scattered beautifully in front of the neighboring star, which is about to go nova. We scan the area to find three escape vessels, beam aboard the survivors and warp away before the star explodes. So far, so Kobayashi Maru*, and true to form, once you’ve rescued the first six bodies, three Klingon vessels de-cloak and attack.
Sitting in the center seat was the culmination of a lifelong obsession with Star Trek that’s seen me play a lot of tie-in games. As a dirt-poor kid from a rural town, the show offered me a vision for a better future: people — smart people — working together to solve problems and make the world a better place. Nobody beat up the smart kids for doing well in the 24th century, or for being bad at football, which made it a pretty nice place to live — the sort that I’d have traveled to in an instant. Or, at least, I would have, except commanding a starship isn’t as easy as you think.
You can’t beam aboard survivors with your shields up, and dropping them in the face of three attacks would be suicide. So while it’s presented as an ethical decision to fight or save lives, you’re pretty much forced into going on the offensive. But there’s a problem, because while Star Trek: Bridge Crew is a Kelvin-timeline** game, ship movement has been cribbed from the original. That means the USS Aegis maneuvers like an ocean liner compared to the fighter jet-like Klingons. Going toe-to-toe with three far more powerful enemies turned out to be a disaster, and no matter how many times we played the demo, we couldn’t win. (Although, in our defense, Ubisoft’s representatives told us that the demo would break if we let the ship explode.)
Each player can only do their job properly with the support of the others, and the captain is key to guiding everyone. Only captains have a readout on the status of the enemy vessel when it cuts weapon power to recharge its shields. It’s their job to use this information to guide the other three in coordinating attacks and when to run away to lick their own wounds. But that’s easier said than done in a high-stakes space battle where your helmsman needs more power for the engines and the tactical officer needs that same juice for the phasers.
Yes, we were playing a VR game in the back room of a central London art gallery, but that didn’t make the pressure any less real. In fact, my palms were sweating against the smooth plastic of the Oculus Touch controllers and any water in my mouth had evaporated. I began to stammer and stumble as I tried to work out some — any — form of strategy to get us through this. I can feel my heartbeat in my ears grow progressively louder to the point where I can no longer hear my colleagues cry for assistance. No matter how many times we played the demo, we were unable to get beyond rescuing the first “gimmie” survivors — mostly because I couldn’t coordinate everyone successfully. All those years immersed in the Star Trek canon had left me more John Harriman than Benjamin Sisko.
On one hand, Star Trek: Bridge Crew breaks new ground in delivering a Trek game that actually captures the spirit of the series. The graphics are slightly cartoonish, but that doesn’t detract from the immersion you feel. It’s nice to notice digital extras being thrown around the bridge when you take on damage, or the consoles sparking and smoking. After a particularly study torpedo hit, a ceiling panel swings down and dangles above the viewscreen, something you’d expect to see in the show. Upon leaving the demo, I was flushed, excited and desperate to spend more time inside Bridge Crew to experience all that it could offer. But we’d overrun our time slot, because even a speedy run can quickly stretch to cover half an hour.
But after a few days, the excitement wore off as I started to think about how the full-length game will play. After all, there’s a big imbalance with player roles, since the majority of the work is done by the helm and tactical players. Ubisoft has kept much of the game’s details close to its chest, but apparently the game will work with AI players filling in for absent humans. That’s good, because whoever’s playing the engineer has the joyless task of pushing the Aegis’ one spare power block between three graphs. It’s less gameplay and more tedious “space admin.” Engadget’s Aaron Souppouris, who played the demo and is fan of collaborative gaming, described the experience as “Artemis-lite,” a reference to the six-player game also inspired by the show.
Then there’s the fact that the space combat isn’t as exciting as Ubisoft probably imagined it would be. This is nerdy, but the game is well-steeped in Trek lore, but cribbed its ship movement from the show’s Prime timeline. Watch JJ Abrams’ Star Trek movies to see the new USS Enterprise perform hairpin turns and zooming around at great speed.
It’s hard to judge Star Trek: Bridge Crew based upon this demo alone, since Ubisoft has been tremendously cagey about what the rest of the game will look like. If it’s simply more of the same — a fetch quest followed by some stilted space combat — it’s likely to wear out its welcome pretty quickly. I’m hoping that the company has been holding back the bulk of the game’s detail simply to avoid showing all the goods at once, and that the game does indeed have a broader scope. Otherwise, it might be hard for me to assemble groups of friends to help me complete it.
* A famous piece of Star Trek lore in which cadets are tasked with rescuing a crashed freighter against overwhelming opposition. It’s impossible to win, mostly because it’s designed to teach you about no-win scenarios.
** That’s the splinter universe created by JJ Abrams’ Trek movies, rather than the classic series’ ‘Prime’ timeline.
Microsoft Research helped ‘Gears of War 4’ sound so good
Popping in and out of cover has been a hallmark of the Gears of War franchise since the first game came out in 2006. It hasn’t changed much because it didn’t need to. What’s always been an issue though is how thin the game sounds — a shortcoming of the underlying tech, Unreal Engine, powering it. But Microsoft owns the series now and has far more money to throw at it than former owners/Unreal Engine creators Epic Games did. With help from Microsoft Research, Redmond’s Gears of War factory The Coalition found a high tech way to fix that problem. It’s called Triton.
Two years ago Microsoft Research’s Nikunj Raghuvanshi and John Snyder presented a paper (PDF) titled “Parametric Wave Field Coding for Precomputed Sound Propagation.” The long and short of the research is that it detailed how to create realistic reverb effects based on objects in a video game’s map, to hear it in action pop on a pair of headphones and watch the video below.
At its simplest, Triton looks at an entire video game level and calculates the reverb properties of every material. From there, it applies realistic echo/reflection effects to the soundscape. This means incoming fire passing over a wooden crate sounds different than it would a brick wall.
It’s a much different approach compared to the way other games tweak audio to sound more realistic. Those rely on comparatively basic volume ducks and one-size-fits-all muting effects to create the illusion of occlusion and obstruction between you, the player, and the source of the sound. Peek your head up to take a potshot and the sound is unobstructed, but because you’re sitting behind a wooden garden box in a greenhouse instead of a cobblestone plaza it’s going to sound distinctly different.
Obstruction and occlusion are what keeps dialogue or battle sounds in adjacent rooms from playing at full volume, confusing the player as they walk around an environment, too. Rather than adjusting the levels of audio clips for distance, Triton considers the simulated materials and acoustical properties of the surrounding gamespace. Sound bounces off of a cave wall differently than a deserted hospital, so Triton does its best to simulate that.
If you need an example of obstruction and occlusion gone horribly wrong, fire up the recently released BioShock Collection — also based on a version of the Unreal Engine. Early on in the first game, a splicer enemy is singing a lullaby to the revolver in her baby stroller. Yes, she’s crazy, and the scene is absolutely creepy. But her voice sounds clear as day from two rooms over when there’s 30 feet (and a wall) between you. This is the type of thing that robs a scene of its immersion and atmosphere and undermines the developer’s intent: to make you forget you’re playing a video game.
“[Triton] is quite the complicated beast,” Gears 4 audio director John Morgan said. “The occlusion and obstruction values that Triton gives our game are really, really accurate to every listener position permutation possible on the map.”
A gunshot sounds basically the same in any situation in BioShock, but in Gears 4, a shotgun blast will ring out differently in the middle of a cathedral than it might in the entry way. Why? Because the ceiling is higher. It sounds like an insignificant detail, but getting it right makes a huge difference in terms of immersion — especially if you’re shooting a gun literally thousands of time in a game and rarely hear the same sound effect twice.
“A lot of people would be like, ‘Why does it sound like I’m in a bathroom when I’m going through this hallway?’ People playing the game didn’t understand why it was wrong, but it felt wrong to them,” Morgan said. “A big part of that is how does the dialog sound? How do the weapons sound? How does the reverb of that space, or the acoustic properties of that space sound? “If you get it wrong, people will notice right away.”
“People playing the game didn’t understand why it was wrong, but it felt wrong to them.”
Triton probing for sound data; player in the middle.
One of the examples Morgan is most proud of is near the game’s beginning. The new Gears have just finished fighting a few waves of robotic sentry guards and have to cut through a hospital’s maternity ward. Outside, trees sway in the breeze that descends from the mountains surrounding the deserted city; leaves rustle along the cobblestone street as the wind whispers around brick facades. The area feels like large open space because it sounds like a large open space.
That all changes once you bash through the door. Dialog has more echo as it bounces around the tiled floor and off of the propaganda posters lining the walls. Indoors, the shotgun has a more menacing bellow. Crossing the threshold back outside or into a glass-domed foyer and this changes because there isn’t a ceiling, or the one that’s there is higher and more reflective.
It’s this type of nuance and subtlety that set Gears 4 apart from its competition — even within Microsoft. But Triton’s fancy tech is a double-edged sword: Morgan said that a bulk of The Coalition’s early audio and engineering work was just getting the toolset up and running at parity with its previous project, the Gears of War Ultimate Edition remaster.
And because it’s specifically tailored to work with Unreal Engine and the third-party Wwise audio toolset, Triton’s benefits won’t make their ways into games using other design tools (even those made within Microsoft) anytime soon. Morgan said it’d be somewhat easy to port Triton into another Unreal game, but wouldn’t work with a custom game engine like, say, what Halo or Forza uses without a ton of additional labor.
If you get [reverb] wrong, people will notice right away.
John Morgan
What’s here is a far cry from the common tools used across everything Electronic Arts makes with its Frostbite engine.
“It’s not something we can just go. ‘Here, we’re handing this off to you.’” Morgan admitted. “That’s the tricky part right now if other game teams are looking at it. We’re trying to make it easier for them.”
That’s a shame, because save for Uncharted 4, there simply aren’t many other games that sound this good. Yet. A feature that’s exclusive to one game or toolset eventually finds its way elsewhere. Just look at the HDR audio system EA’s DICE studio pioneered with the Battlefield series or the lens flare effect that permeated practically every game in the late ’90s. That’s thanks in part to developers sharing their secrets at venues like the Game Developers Conference.
Microsoft has done the financial and physical heavy lifting to get Triton up and running, now it’s up to every other developer to follow suit and implement it or something similar.
“Nikunj [Raghuvanshi] has given a Siggraph presentation on [Triton], it’s not a secret anymore,” Morgan said. “People know we’re doing this, and that’s how it works.
“I think it’s a matter of going, ‘Do we want to spend the money on trying to make this happen?’”
‘The Division’ update keeps you playing past the endgame
Ubisoft is facing the same problem with The Division that Bungie encountered with Destiny: how do you keep people playing after they’ve hit the level cap, especially when extra content only goes so far? Its solution: dangle the promise of more loot. The developer has released that promised patch to overhaul the game’s mechanics, and its centerpiece is a new World Tiers feature that increases the difficulty of enemy characters in return for greater rewards. The higher the tier, the greater the chance you’ll get items you’d want to keep. You can also accrue experience beyond the regular and Underground level caps, and Ubisoft has tweaked loot drops across the board — you’re more likely to get equipment appropriate to your level, and any enemy has a chance of dropping advanced gear.
As for those overhauled mechanics? A lot has changed, and it’s mainly for the better. There have been “many improvements” to enemy AI, and it takes less time overall to kill them. Scavenging has been removed from the game entirely, for that matter, and you now progressively heal when you’re outside of combat. Weapons and armor have seen significant rebalancing as well. To top it off, skills behave very differently — there’s no longer a cap, but you face diminishing returns the higher your skill levels get.
It’s hard to say if the update will inject new life into The Division, although it at least clears the way for the DLC that Ubisoft had delayed for the sake of the new patch. From a cursory glance, though, the update appears to tackle some of the biggest complaints with online role-playing games of all kinds, especially shooter RPGs. You not only have more reason to play past the usual endgame, but should spend less time grinding or licking your wounds.
Source: Ubisoft
The Morning After: Tuesday October 25th 2016
While you were sleeping, we found out where you can still buy a Galaxy Note 7 (don’t), Apple added Portrait mode to its flagship iPhone 7 Plus, and we’re thinking about what Microsoft has planned for later this week.
iOS 10.1 is herePortrait mode brings blurry backgrounds to iPhone 7 Plus photos
While it’s a mostly minor update, the iPhone 7 Plus will pick up another way to utilize its duo of rear-facing cameras. Yes, the once-teased portrait mode is now here to blur your backgrounds and make those portraits of loved ones really pop.
Disable in-app purchasesDoctors say your toddler can use your tablet — as long as you’re around to supervise
The American Academy of Pediatrics has softened its guidelines when it comes to screenwatchin’ for the under-twos, stating that they can watch “high-quality programming” (Sesame Workshop, for example) so long as you’re there to help understanding and monitor use. If your wee ones are younger than that, you should limit them to video chat for now. The AAP reiterates that, regardless of your children’s age, it’s important to both set “consistent limits” and ensure that device time doesn’t affect physical activity, play and sleep.
Tune in, turn on … TrumpSocial media isn’t just for apologies and insults
There’s no “Trump TV” yet, but the campaign has launched a daily show for its Facebook followers. So far, it’s not outdrawing Chewbacca Mom, but you all know those viewing counts are rigged anyway.
Scratching the surfaceHere’s what to expect from Microsoft’s ‘Imagine What You’ll Do’ event
New Surface? Sure, but in what shape — maybe an all-in-one? Perhaps, perhaps. While we probably won’t see a Surface Pro 5, we do expect Microsoft to explain what’ll happen in the next Windows 10 update, likely to launch in early 2017.
GastlyPokémon Go’s first global event is Halloween-themed
To celebrate All Hallows’ Eve, Pokémon Go creators Niantic Labs is increasing the encounter rate for its spookier Pocket Monsters. Gastly, Gengar, Golbat (ugh!) and more will appear far more frequently, while each monster caught will net you double the number of candies. In true trick-or-treat style, you’ll also get more candies from your Buddy Pokémon, and even from Professor Willow when you send him your Pokémon.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you shouldIf you want a Galaxy Note 7, they’re still on sale in Hong Kong
Because people like to risk carrying around something in their pocket that might explode in a burst of smoke. Read how Engadget Chinese editor-in-chief Richard Lai fared while trying to buy one — and why they’re still on sale in the first place.
But wait, there’s more…
- Hackers can gain full access in five seconds with this Linux exploit
- Stare at this beautifully detailed map of the Milky Way
- New White House initiative hopes to ensure microsatellites thrive
- A new stylus-toting Samsung Galaxy device that won’t burst into smoke
What’s on TV: World Series, ‘Titanfall 2,’ ‘Skyrim: Special Edition’
Assuming the new season of Black Mirror hasn’t scared you into unplugging everything, there’s plenty to watch this week. While Westworld has finally started to show a few hints of where we’re going in this fantastical experience, The Walking Dead came back with a thud or two. The World Series is ready to roll, as either the Chicago Cubs or Cleveland’s baseball team will end a long championship dry spell, and this week the NBA regular season starts.
Titanfall 2 brings its mech/shooter action to multiple platforms this time around, and Skyrim Special Edition brings us back to a better-looking version of Tamriel. On streaming, we have Werner Herzog’s volcano exploration flick Into the Inferno. Look after the break to check out each day’s highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).
Blu-ray & Games & Streaming
- Lights Out
- Nerve
- The Exorcist III
- Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie
- Mr. Church
- Just Dance 2017 (PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
- Ginger: Beyond the Crystal (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
- Batman: the Telltale Series Episode 3 (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
- Farming Simulator 17 (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
- Dark Souls III: Ashes of Ariandel (PS4, Xbox One, PC)
- Monster Jam: Crush It (PS4, Xbox One)
- Titanfall 2 (PC, PS4, Xbox One – 10/28)
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition (PC, PS4, Xbox One – 10/28)
Monday
- Monday Night Football: Texans vs. Cardinals, ESPN, 8:15PM
- Supergirl , CW, 8PM
- Kevin Can Wait, CBS, 8PM
- Gotham, Fox, 8PM
- The Voice, NBC, 8PM
- Dancing With the Stars, ABC, 8PM
- WWE Raw, USA, 8PM
- X Factor UK, Axs, 8PM
- Man with a Plan (series premiere), CBS, 8:30PM
- Jane the Virgin, CW, 9PM
- 2 Broke Girls, CBS, 9PM
- Lucifer, Fox, 9PM
- Fast n’ Loud, Discovery, 9PM
- The Odd Couple, CBS, 9:30PM
- Scorpion, CBS, 10PM
- Timeless, NBC, 10PM
- Conviction, ABC, 10PM
- Mary + Jane, MTV, 10PM
- Sacred Steel, Discovery, 10PM
- Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, TBS, 10:30PM
- Desus & Mero, Viceland, 11PM
- StarTalk, National Geographic Channel, 11PM
Tuesday
- MLB World Series Game 1: Cubs vs. Cleveland, Fox, 7:30PM
- The Mindy Project, Hulu, 3AM
- The Flash, CW, 8PM
- Brooklyn Nine-nine , Fox, 8PM
- Ben & Lauren, Freeform, 8PM
- The Middle, ABC, 8PM
- 16 for ’16: Ferraro/Palin, PBS, 8PM
- NCIS, CBS, 8PM
- The Voice, NBC, 8PM
- WWE Smackdown, USA, 8PM
- Undrafted, NFL Network, 8PM
- New Girl, Fox, 8:30PM
- American Housewife, ABC, 8:30PM
- True Life, MTV, 9PM
- Channel Zero: Candle Cove, Syfy, 9PM
- Bull, CBS, 9PM
- The Letter, Freeform, 9PM
- Fresh Off the Boat, ABC, 9PM
- This is Us, NBC, 9PM
- No Tomorrow, CW, 9PM
- Inside the NFL, Showtime 9PM
- Deadliest Catch: Dungeon Cove, Discovery, 9PM
- From Dusk till Dawn, El Rey, 9PM
- Forged in Fire, History, 9PM
- The Gary Owen Show, BET, 9:30PM
- The Real O’neals, ABC, 9:30PM
- Chicago Fire, NBC, 10PM
- Atlanta, FX, 10PM
- Aftermath, Syfy, 10PM
- Black Market, Viceland, 10PM
- A Season with Florida State Football, Showtime, 10PM
- Adam Ruins Everything, TruTV, 10PM
- Drunk History, Comedy Central, 10:30PM
- Cyberwar (season premiere), Viceland, 10:30PM
- Desus & Mero, Viceland, 11PM
- The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail, Comedy Central, 12AM
Wednesday
- Chance, Hulu, 3AM
- MLB World Series Game: Cubs vs. Cleveland, 7:30PM
- Arrow, CW, 8PM
- Blindspot, NBC, 8PM
- Lethal Weapon, Fox, 8PM
- The Goldbergs, ABC, 8PM
- Survivor, CBS, 8PM
- Lucha Underground, El Rey, 8PM
- Speechless, CBS, 8:30PM
- Lip Sync Battle, Spike TV, 9 & 9:30PM
- Law & Order: SVU, NBC, 9PM
- Criminal Minds, CBS, 9PM
- Modern Family, ABC, 9PM
- NFL Turning Point, NBC Sports Network, 9PM
- Ghost Hunters (season finale), Syfy, 9PM
- Frequency, CW, 9PM
- The Real World, MTV, 10PM
- That Awkward Game Show, Spike TV, 10PM
- Chicago PD, NBC, 10PM
- Code Black, CBS, 10PM
- Designated Survivor, ABC, 10PM
- You’re the Worst, FXX, 10PM
- American Horror Story FX, 10PM
- South Park, Comedy Central, 10PM
- Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia (series premiere), Viceland, 10PM
- Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons, HBO, 10PM
- Rectify (season premiere), Sundance, 10PM
- Impastor, TV Land, 10:30PM
- Legends of Chamberlain Heights, Comedy Central, 10:30PM
- Desus & Mero, Viceland, 11PM
- True Life: I’m an Adult Baby, MTV, 11PM
Thursday
- Jaguars/Titans football, CBS, 8:25PM
- DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, CW, 8PM
- Grey’s Anatomy, ABC, 8PM
- The Big Bang Theory, CBS, 8PM
- Superstore, NBC, 8PM
- Rosewood, Fox, 8PM
- The Great Indoors (series premiere), CBS, 8:30PM
- The Good Place, NBC, 8:30PM
- The Living and the Dead (series premiere), BBC America, 9PM
- Mom (season premiere), CBS, 9PM
- Pitch, Fox, 9PM
- Supernatural, CW, 9PM
- Chicago Med, NBC, 9PM
- Notorious, ABC, 9PM
- Life in Pieces (season premiere), CBS, 9:30PM
- Pure Genius (series premiere), CBS, 10PM
- Falling Water, USA, 10PM
- Almost Impossible Game Show, MTV, 10PM
- Balls Deep (season premiere), Viceland, 10PM
- The Blacklist, NBC, 10PM
- How to Get Away With Murder, ABC, 10PM
- Better Things, FX, 10PM
- Acting Out, MTV, 10:30PM
- Desus & Mero, Viceland, 11PM
- Wonderland, MTV, 11PM
- This is Not Happening, Comedy Central, 12:30AM
Friday
- MLB World Series Game 3: Cleveland vs. Cubs, 7:30PM
- Bookaboo (series premiere), Amazon Prime, 3AM
- Good Girls Revolt (series premiere), Amazon Prime, 3AM
- I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, Netflix, 3AM
- Into the Inferno, Netflix, 3AM
- 7 Años, Netflix, 3AM
- Trailer Park Boys: Out of the Park: Europe, Netflix, 3AM
- Skylanders Academy (S1), Netflix, 3AM
- Macgyver, CBS, 8PM
- The Vampire Diaries, CW, 8PM
- Dr. Ken, ABC, 8:30PM
- Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, CW, 9PM
- America Divided (season finale), Epix, 9PM
- A Football Life: Pat Tillman, NFL Network, 9PM
- The Exorcist, Fox, 9PM
- Hawaii Five-0, CBS, 9PM
- Shark Tank, ABC, 9PM
- Z Nation, Syfy, 9PM
- Van Helsing, Syfy, 10PM
- Quarry (season finale), Cinemax, 10PM
- Blue Bloods, CBS, 10PM
- Loosely Exactly Nicole (season finale), MTV, 10:30PM
- Tracey Ullman’s Show (series premiere), HBO, 11PM
- Comedy Bang! Bang! (fall premiere), IFC, 11 & 11:30PM
Saturday
- The Fall (S3), Netflix, 3AM
- MLB World Series: Cleveland vs. Cubs, Fox, 7:30PM
- Amish Witches, Lifetime, 8PM
- The Night Before Halloween, Syfy, 9PM
- Rats, Discovery, 9PM
- Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, BBC America, 9PM
- Pete Davidson: SMD, Comedy Central, 11PM
Sunday
- MLB World Series Game 5: Cubs vs. Cleveland (if necessary), Fox, 8PM
- Eagles/Cowboys Sunday Night Football, NBC, 8:20PM
- 60 Minutes, CBS, 7PM
- The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth, Showtime, 8PM
- Durrells in Corfu, PBS, 8PM
- Years of Living Dangerously (season premiere), National Geographic Channel, 8PM
- Ash vs. Evil Dead, Starz, 8PM
- Once Upon a Time, ABC, 8PM
- Blunt Talk, Starz, 8:30PM
- NCIS: Los Angeles, CBS, 8PM
- Son of Zorn, Fox, 8:30PM
- Blunt Talk, Starz, 8:30PM
- The Walking Dead, AMC, 9PM
- Westworld, HBO, 9PM
- Alaska: The Last Frontier, Discovery, 9PM
- Poldark, PBS, 9PM
- Secrets and Lies, ABC, 9PM
- Shameless, Showtime, 9PM
- Berlin Station, Epix, 9PM
- The Last Man on Earth, Fox, 9:30PM
- Madam Secretary, CBS, 9:30PM
- Edge of Alaska, Discovery, 10PM
- Eyewitness, USA, 10PM
- Graves, Epix, 10PM
- Divorce, HBO, 10PM
- Masters of Sex, Showtime, 10PM
- The Strain (season finale), FX, 10PM
- Talking Dead, AMC, 10PM
- Elementary, CBS, 10PM
- Insecure, HBO, 10:30PM
- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO, 11:15PM
- Kevin Hart: Hart of the City, Comedy Central, 11:30PM
Get a look at the lost Super NES ‘Rayman’ game
When he isn’t busy cryptically teasing Beyond Good & Evil 2, game developer Michel Ancel laments (above) past projects lost to the sands of time. Like the Super NES version of Rayman that was scrapped in favor of the disc-based iterations for the Atari Jaguar and original PlayStation. As noticed by Motherboard, Ancel managed to find an old prototype cartridge and fired it up.
“It’s working !!! 4 people in the world have seen this . We thought it was lost , but somewhere in the cold electronic circuit, something was still alive . and running at full 60fps !!! should do a Switch version of this 😭”
Considering that Ancel and his team are already working on the upcoming PlayStation 4 exclusive Wild and the aforementioned Beyond Good & Evil sequel, maybe don’t expect to play this on Nintendo’s new console anytime soon. For starters, it isn’t clear if Ancel still has the original code to work from or would have to start over again from scratch. But since we’re still a ways off from Nintendo releasing the Switch, anything’s possible at this point if you dream hard enough.
A photo posted by Michel Ancel (@michelancel) on Oct 23, 2016 at 1:17am PDT
Via: Motherboard
Source: Michel Ancel (Instagram) (1), (2), (3), (4)
‘Dishonored 2’s’ live-action trailer is all about glorious revenge
Just as we saw with Fallout 4 last year, Bethesda is hoping to amp you up for Dishonored 2 by making it seem more real with a live-action trailer. The two-minute piece is narrated by Emily, the kidnapped princess you rescued in the first game, who lays out her drive for revenge like Game of Throne’s Arya Stark. They killed her mother; took her kingdom; and framed her friend (Corvo, the bodyguard assassin who returns for another round of fun) for murder. Now she’s back to take what’s hers.
In the run-up to Bioshock Infinite, the original Dishonored was something of a surprise. It was an action game that offered plenty of choices, both in terms of how you played it (you were free to be bloodthirsty, stealthy or something in between), and how you handled major choices. Based on what we’ve seen from other videos, it looks like Dishonored 2 is doubling down on that freedom with even more ways to slaughter (or trick) your enemies, including the casual use of time travel.
Dishonored 2 hits stores on November 11th.
AIVAnet 