If you’re looking for a late father’s day gift that’s friendly for the kiddos or just because, right now is the right time to grab it. This is one of the lowest prices we’ve seen on a new Xbox One S yet, so snag it before it sells out. Online consumer electronic store Newegg is running the sale. Did we mention there’s free shipping too?
The $50 price cuts to the Xbox One consoles prior to the Xbox One X reveal just ended yesterday; this sale does not seem related.
The Xbox One S is the second iteration of the Xbox One console. It’s 40 percent smaller, has 4K media output, and HDR gaming and movies. It’s intended for the casual gamer who prefers a little more portability and finer details in their games than the original Xbox One could offer. Make sure to check out our review here.
The recently announced Xbox One X isn’t for the average joe however; it’s a beastly machine meant for the most hardcore of gamers. For more on that iteration of the Xbox One, head on over here.
Minecraft is getting a big new update soon that unifies it across most platforms (except for PlayStation devices). As a result, Minecraft players on Nintendo Switch will be able to play with those on Xbox One or PC. One of the interesting consequences of this new, unified platform is that Nintendo Switch owners will have to log into Xbox Live to play the game online.
Head of Xbox confirmed the news today while speaking on the Giant Bomb E3 2017 live show. In a discussion about cross-platform play, Giant Bomb’s Jeff Gerstmann asked about logging in, and Spencer replied that it’ll be the same system across all devices. “It’s an Xbox Live account; that’s our gaming social network,” he said.
“We use Xbox Live as the way to make sure we know who our players are, controls around parental controls and other things that we put into our platform are there. And as you’re buying things in Minecraft, you want to make sure you have them available on other platforms, so we have to know who you are. If you have a realm that you’ve created on the PC and you want to get to it on the Switch, we have to have an identity system and we just use Xbox Live.”
Gerstmann also asked if players will be able to earn Achievements. “I don’t know yet,” he replied. “I’m guessing no. And this is a collaborative relationship between Nintendo and I; they don’t have Achievements on their platform. If they want us to, I would love to be able to do it… The relationship with Nintendo is incredibly strong. We obviously did the Mario mash-up pack into Minecraft; that doesn’t happen that often.”
Have you played Minecraft? Sorry. Yes. Of course you’ve played Minecraft – it’s the videogame equivalent of asking if you’ve ever played Tic-Tac-Toe or hopscotch. It’s this gaming generation’s most ubiquitous title, available (initially freely) on everything from PCs to low-end smartphones to the newly announced Xbox One X. It took an age, but Microsoft even eventually saw fit to bring it to its own mobile OS, hoping the Minecraft brand’s licence to print money would rub off on the flailing smartphone platform.
For the hardcore fan (of which they’re many – the game’s been bought more than 100 million times, and inspired Microsoft to buy the game outright for $2.5 billion), they’re probably seeing Minecraft blocks in their sleep, playing the game religiously and spending almost as much time trawling the pages of YouTubers and Twitch streamers for the latest news and builds in the game.
It’s easy to see what’s made Minecraft so popular, an alchemical mix of simplicity and creativity. Gamers are given free reign to use its block-based building system to create essentially any structure they can think of, from simple shacks to complex minecart systems and even a working in-game smartphone.
Although it’s since spawned many imitators over the course of its eight-year life, it was massively refreshing upon release, a taste of what an infinite digital LEGO box could be like – other brick-based games are available.
Block rocking beats
Its simplicity is key. Limiting the game world to blocky objects not only meant it could run on a huge number of devices without taxing a high-powered GPU, it also aesthetically separated it from the pack.
Bold, colorful and far removed from the grim-dark shooters that can dominate the gaming landscape, you could go as far as using the so often-misappropriated description and apply it to the Minecraft style: it was, it is, iconic.
Which makes Microsoft’s E3 Minecraft announcement of a new 4K-optimised ‘Super Duper Graphics Pack’ so groan-worthy. Designed to spruce up the Minecraft visuals in a way that takes advantage of the growing graphical grunt of 4K gaming systems (including, of course, Microsoft’s own Xbox One X) it gives Minecraft a significant makeover.
“Dynamic shadows! Directional lighting! Edge highlighting!” boasts the Minecraft blog, all coming as a free update to the game in the Fall of this year.
This all seems to be missing the point. It’s never been about the polygon count. It’s never been about the fidelity of the shadows, or the number of visible blades of grass. Minecraft’s appeal and its charm lay in its lo-fi chic.
You’re not drawn in by what the game presents to you (at least visually), but what you can present to the game through your creations. The simpler the palette, the more amazingly unexpected the eventual culmination of your greatest Minecraft works.
Mona Lisa overdrive
From humble beginnings come great achievements, and that simple original Minecraft aesthetic points to the promise of your imagination, rather than how many ones and zeroes are being pushed under the hood of your machine.
It’s like saying you’re going to give the Mona Lisa an HDR makeover – wholly inappropriate, not simply because it’s anachronistic, but also because it undermines the quality of the original work. Or, to use a more recent example, take the Star Wars: Special Edition remasters – tweak a beloved work too much, and you risk diluting the homebrewed charm of the original.
A few still shots of the new update.
In Microsoft’s defence, it does state that this in an optional look, “just one aesthetic vision for Minecraft – not THE vision for Minecraft,” according to Marsh Davies, Minecraft’s Creative communications manager.
“Our beloved pixels are going nowhere – and we’re thinking about ways to give you more choice over your game’s look in the future.”
And Microsoft did make one undeniably positive Minecraft announcement at E3 – the chance for cross-platform play for the game, expanding the ways gamers can play together, no matter what console they own, prefer or can afford.
Minecraft is a long play for Microsoft, with arms reaching out to education and design sectors as well as gamers. So it must evolve for it to survive long term. But while that’s being supported by smart moves like cross platform play, the Super Duper Graphics Pack suggests it may be losing sight of what makes Minecraft so special in the first place.
E3 is the world’s largest exhibition for the games industry, stuffed full of the latest and greatest games, consoles, and gaming hardware. TechRadar is reporting live from Los Angeles all week to bring you the very latest from the show floor. Head to our dedicatedE3 2017hub to see all the new releases, along with TechRadar’s world-class analysis and buying advice about the next year in gaming.
The Mummy marks the official launch of Universal’s “Dark Universe” of monsters, borrowing from the shared universe models of Suicide Squad and The Avengers. Ever since Marvel Studios concluded Phase 1 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by bringing together various superheroes from solo franchises to form The Avengers – and earning more than $1 billion at the box office – the shared universe model has grown increasingly popular in Hollywood. While no other studio or franchise has necessarily copied the model laid out by Marvel Studios (introducing solo characters, then bringing them together for a team-up), Warner Bros. has been building its DC Extended Universe and Fox has continued to expand their X-Men universe with spinoffs from its the main series.
However, the idea of a shared universe has expanded beyond superhero movies. After Transformers: Age of Extinction wasn’t as well-received as previous installments of Paramount’s Robots in Disguise series, the studio announced they were turning the Transformers franchise into a cinematic universe. Paramount assembled a writer’s room to come up with a host of stories, which are being turned into Transformers: The Last Knight and the solo Bumblebee movie. Another high-profile shared universe that’s been in the works for a few years is Universal’s world of classic movie monsters, which was recently officially unveiled as the studio’s Dark Universe.
In terms of specifically how The Mummy sets up the larger Dark Universe, Kurtzman’s film introduces Crowe’s Dr. Henry Jekyll (as well as his alter-ego Mr. Eddie Hyde) and the organization he heads called Prodigium, which is positioned to be the common thread among all the shared universe installments. Though the specifics of the private organization are unclear, Dr. Jekyll lays out their intentions to research, hunt, and eradicate evil from the world. Jekyll even goes into a theory that evil itself is a pathogen and, if that’s the case, it must have a cure – which, of course, ties into his own condition.
The biggest Dark Universe tease in The Mummy, however, arrives in the final scenes. After Tom Cruise’s Nick Morton willingly accepts the Egyptian god of death, Set, into himself, he kills the mummified Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) – who had previously been positioned as the Dark Universe’s Mummy character – and essentially becomes Universal’s modern Mummy. Then, in a final voiceover conversation between Jekyll and Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), they discuss that Cruise’s character is now half man, half monster, with Nick forced to constantly battle the evil Set within himself. And, as Jekyll teases, one day Prodigium may need a monster to fight another monster.
The Mummy’s ending – particularly Jekyll commenting that Prodigium will need Cruise’s new Mummy to battle a force of evil later on – is strikingly similar to S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury’s recruitment speech to Tony Stark in the post-credits scene of Marvel Studios’ Iron Man, which laid the groundwork for not only The Avengers but the entire MCU. The implication of Jekyll’s comment is that the Mummy will return within Universal’s Dark Universe, but not necessarily in a direct sequel. Since we know this is a shared universe of classic monsters, and Prodigium will be the thread tying them all together (as S.H.I.E.L.D. was in Phase 1 of the MCU), Kurtzman’s film is setting the stage for The Mummy to return in the Dark Universe as an anti-hero fighting against a bigger evil.
At this point, it’s not exactly clear where the Dark Universe is headed. Universal has so far only confirmed a handful of solo films, and comments from franchise producer Chris Morgan indicated each monster reboot is a “standalone” entry in the series, though they are interconnected. Given the parallels between the ending of The Mummy and the post-credits scene from Iron Man, it seems as though future Dark Universe installments may be origin stories for the various characters, and the rebooted classic monsters will assemble one day for some kind of team-up.
Not only does this mirror the model of a shared universe laid out by the MCU, the concept of a team of villains joining together at the behest of an organization working to fight evil is reminiscent of Warner Bros’ DCEU entry Suicide Squad. And, in fact, if the Dark Universe continues to establish each of its monster characters as conflicted anti-heroes like Cruise’s Mummy, Universal’s shared universe is poised to become a more longform version of the DCEU’s villain team-up. There’s even an argument to be made, if one was so inclined, that there are broad similarities between Cruise’s character and June Moon/Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) – they’re both interested in exploring historical sites and become possessed by forces of ancient evil that give them unimaginable powers, after all. (Whether that makes Dr. Jekyll the Dark Universe’s Deadshot or Amanda Waller is up for debate.)
Of course, based on the characters already confirmed to appear in Universal’s Dark Universe, there’s also a comparison to be made between the burgeoning shared cinematic world and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The comic series created by writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O’Neill sees a number of literary characters team up to battle evil, and was adapted to the big screen in the 2003 movie of the same name. Dr. Jekyll and the Invisible Man are the most obvious characters that appear in both the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the Dark Universe, but if Universal reboots Dracula again, the studio could potentially introduce Mina Harker, a character from Bram Stoker’s original novel who is a member of the League. Mina Harker did appear in the present scene at the end of Dracula Untold, so it would seem Universal does have plans to introduce the character in the Dark Universe.
So, if Universal’s shared universe brings its anti-heroes together, they could become a modern live-action version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, though it should be noted that 20th Century Fox owns the movie rights to Moore and O’Neill’s comic series. The studio even hinted at a potential reboot of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as recently as 2015. Still, the Dark Universe isn’t exactly the same as the League (which is a good thing considering Universal is already facing a potential lawsuit from Warner Bros over the Dark Universe title), though the concepts may be similar.
All this is to say, Universal’s Dark Universe seems to be borrowing aspects of other shared universes to construct its new monster-focused reboots, which may be what winds up weighing the franchise down. Early reviews for The Mummy indicate the franchise isn’t bringing anything fresh to Hollywood or the now incredibly popular business of shared universes. Instead, the method of picking and choosing from what has worked before (though some would argue Suicide Squad didn’t necessarily work very well as a standalone film), is obvious to moviegoers who have been showing up for shared universe installments for almost a decade.
While the Marvel Cinematic Universe may be the gold standard of shared universes, other studios deliberately haven’t replicated it exactly. Instead, Warner Bros, Fox, and Paramount have built their cinematic worlds in ways that make sense for their characters and brings something new to the table. Although it may still be too early to truly know where Universal’s Dark Universe is headed, the blatant teaser at the end of The Mummy sets the stage for a shared universe with inspirations from The Avengers and Suicide Squad. However, without offering much of a different spin on those concepts aside from the use of classic movie monsters rather than superheroes, it remains to be seen if Universal’s Dark Universe will actually be able to rival the MCU and DCEU.
