by Stone Marshall | Jun 18, 2015 | Minecraft News |
Minecraft is coming to the real world – and in 3D. Just don’t hold your breath.
Microsoft delivered a convincing press briefing at E3 2015, revealing a muscular line-up of exclusive titles and features.
The show was stolen by the appearance of Minecraft on the company’s Hololens augmented reality (AR) hardware. On stage, Microsoft Studios manager Saxs Persson, showed how the block-building game can use the forthcoming device, which overlays computer graphics onto the real world to create a tabletop Minecraft landscape that players can model and interact with, through voice and touch commands.
No release date was given for the tech or the game, but Microsoft made clear it has big plans for both mixed and virtual reality. Corporate vice president and Hololens head Kudo Tsunoda also announced that the company would be working with Valve, co-developer of the HTV Vive virtual reality headset, to make Windows 10 the de facto platform for virtual reality (VR) technologies on the PC. With this and the recent announcement that the Oculus Rift VR headset would be shipping with an Xbox One controller (together with the ability to play Xbox One games streamed via PC), it seems Microsoft is making a land grab for both the VR and AR sectors, while competitor Sony concentrates on its own virtual reality technology project, Morpheus.
Xbox E3 Rise of the Tomb Raider
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Rise of the Tomb Raider artwork at Xbox’s press conference at E3. Photograph: Michael Nelson/EPA
Away from futuristic immersion platforms, Microsoft revealed a generous range of new titles, showing footage from Halo 5, Forza Motorsport 6 and Gears of War 4, as well as the latest Lara Croft adventure, Rise of the Tomb Raider, which will appear first on Xbox One this winter, getting an as-yet unknown headstart on PS4. From Software’s Dark Souls III, another much-anticipated sequel, was also shown for the first time, with a spring 2016 release date.
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As anticipated, legendary UK studio Rare revealed its latest title, Sea of Thieves, a typically bright and brash multiplayer pirating adventure, described by studio head Craig Duncan as “By far the most ambitious game that Rare has ever created.” Rare also has a collection of 30 of its classic titles such as Perfect Dark and Conker’s Bad Fur Day coming to Xbox One.
Elsewhere, Dean Hall, creator of cult open-world zombie title Day Z, popped up to show his latest project, Ion, an intriguing adventure based around deep space colonisation. Recore, a new title from Japanese game design legend Keiji Inafune and the team behind sci-fi classic Metroid Prime, is due in Spring 2016, and features two of this year’s seemingly on-trend elements: a female protagonist and a dog companion.
There were some key service announcements too, not least limited backward compatibility with the Xbox 360. Classic titles will start showing up on Xbox One’s online store soon, but players who own the original versions will be able to download the digital versions for free. Xbox chief Phil Spencer showed the original Mass Effect running on Xbox One, where classic titles will be supported by new features like screenshot sharing and game streaming.
Microsoft is also launching the Xbox One Preview service which allows players to download and try incomplete games before they are published. The concept is similar to Early Access on the PC games platform Steam. Players will be able to trial each game for free, then decide whether to commit to a purchase. Two titles Elite: Dangerous and Long Dark are already available and more are coming throughout the year.
A large range of independent titles were shown to add some relief from a lot of shooting and explosions. Steve Gaynor of Fullbright showed its follow up to critically acclaimed exploration game Gone Home with Tacoma, and there was also a brief look at the fascinating Beyond Eyes, an adventure following a blind girl who must use touch to navigate the environment.
It was a strong confident showing, then, with popular glances backward and some interesting platform exclusives. It will be up to Sony, holding its press conference later in the day, to up the ante, especially on exclusive titles. For the last two years the fight between Xbox One and PlayStation 4 has been built largely on technical differences and promise. Now, with plenty of titles looking to fully explore the capabilities of both sets of hardware, the real console war begins.
E3 2015: Xbox thrills with Lara Croft, Halo 5 and holographic Minecraft
by Stone Marshall | Jun 17, 2015 | Minecraft News |
We got a closer look at Microsoft’s HoloLens during Build in April, but the company is showing off the gaming aspects of its headset today. Microsoft has built a new version of Minecraft specifically for its HoloLens headset. You can play with a controller as you’d expect, and create or explore worlds using holograms you create with voice or gestures. Microsoft’s demonstration at E3 today involved a full Minecraft universe running on a table thanks to the HoloLens headset, and it was very similar to the experience the company revealed back in January.
The audience seemed impressed, and the demo kept the hologram perfectly positioned on the table while the presenter walked around and interacted with Minecraft objects freely. Most of those interactions were enabled by voice, but the demo also involved Microsoft’s “air tap” gesture where you raise your index finger and tap down. Those might not be great ways to control a game, but sitting immersed in a world of Minecraft around your living room while you avoid critters with a controller sounds like it could be a lot of fun. Microsoft is planning to share more about its Minecraft plans at Minecon in July.
Microsoft is building a special version of Minecraft for HoloLens
by Stone Marshall | Jun 17, 2015 | Minecraft News |
As a PC-only gamer, I feel an occasional twinge when a bunch of people I know are all playing the same console game. Forced to endure tweet after tweet about Destiny, for example, leaves me feeling left out. I never got to experience the horror of PT, and it sounds like I never will. The most recent example is Splatoon, the Wii U game. Everyone seems to be having fun with it except me. Poor me!
All is not lost, however. Creative block wizard SethBling has created a version of Splatoon you can play in Minecraft.
Strictly speaking, this isn’t a mod. It’s a map and a very clever use of Minecraft’s command blocks. But, hey, it’s a fun creation, and I’m sure it took quite some time and effort, so I’m gonna say it counts for this week’s column. I appreciate a custom game that only requires me to join a server to play it, and it’s a nice excuse to revisit Minecraft, something I rarely find the time to do these days.
I have to admit, despite hearing so much about Splatoon, I don’t really know how it works or what it is because most tweets about it can be summed up thusly: OMG SPLATOON!!! However, after watching SethBling’s introductory video, I get the gist of it. Two teams compete to cover a map with their team’s colored ink.
There are a few different weapons available in SethBling’s Splatoon that you can choose from before the round begins. There’s the Splattershot, which lets you rapid-fire ink blobs. There’s the Splat Charger, which acts like a long-range bow. And, there’s the Splat Roller, which paints a stripe in front of you as you run around. You can also transform yourself into a squid, which lets you slip through the map more quickly, and even climb walls if they’ve been painted in your team’s ink.
The Splatoon map is meant for 4v4 matches, but it can support larger groups, and most of the sessions I’ve joined have had around 10 to 15 people.
As for how to actually play, you can download the map and install it on any server running Minecraft 1.8. You can also simply search for a server that is hosting it and join, as I did. Now, if someone could just bring the Uncharted series to Minecraft, I’d be all set.
No Wii U? You can now play Splatoon in Minecraft
by Stone Marshall | Jun 16, 2015 | Awesome Book News |
Lionsgate has such lucrative movie franchises as
The Hunger Games and
Divergent under its umbrella, and the studio aims to (re-)launch another successful young adult genre property on the big screen in 2017, with
Power Rangers. The project is expected to begin shooting in the second half of 2015, with Dean Israelite (
Project Almanac) directing a cast that
may consist primarily of unknown actors in their late teens/early 20s (which would be a traditional casting approach for Saban’s
Power Rangers IP).
There have been many different iterations of the Power Rangers property on television since Mighty Morphin Power Rangers debuted in 1993, but the basic premise has never changed: a team of human teenagers are given tech that imbues them with super-powers (morphing abilities), along with giant assault machines (Zords) by a wise mentor figure, so they can battle a variety of intergalactic villains and threats.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (naturally) featured what remains the most widely-known wise leader and villain duo in Power Rangers history: the noble alien warrior Zordon and the evil-doer Rita Repulsa, respectively. It would make sense for both characters to be included in the upcoming film reboot, and Umberto Gonzalez (now of Heroic Hollywood) is claiming that this will, indeed, be the case. Here is how Gonzalez’s sources describe Rita, based on her planned depiction in the 2017 Power Rangers movie:
“A huntress. A striking, yet subtly alien-looking woman. She carries a metallic staff topped with a distinctive crescent shape. Advances with a soldier’s confidence, guided by some sort of compass… Her staff is actually a device of immense power. She points it at the ground. Heads emerge, built layer upon layer like 3-D printing, made from the earth itself… The staff’s technology grants her the ability to create humanoid figures, soulless and robotic.”
Israelite has said that the Powers Rangers reboot will “mature but still playful” in tone, suggesting that screenwriters Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz have re-imagined the Rangers universe in a way that will (in theory) resonate with a broader demographic, in terms of their age – bringing to mind how the duo approached the Marvel comic book world, with their Thor and X-Men: First Class script work. The idea behind such an approach would presumably be to make the Power Rangers film reboot something that has appeal to both adult fans and a younger crowd alike (much as Marvel Studios’ film releases generally do).
The description of Rita (assuming it’s accurate) lines up with that idea; the villain’s appearance sounds less campy than in previous versions, but it’s not so “grounded” as to no longer be kid-friendly and/or accidentally become a self-parody (which is somewhere that producer Adi Shankar and director Joseph Kahn’s viral hit Power/Rangers short film internationally went). The same goes for how Gonzalez’s sources describe Zordon in Miller and Stentz’s Power Rangers script (before Rita traps him in a time warp):
“Though alien, he looks like a man in his 50s. Sinewy and strong, as if carved from some root that refused to die. A being of integrity and iron will.”
The Power Rangers reboot will apparently introduce this new version of Zordon (as the original Red Ranger) during a prologue where he’s shown battling Rita on Earth, back when there are still dinosaurs roaming the planet. That would be in keeping with the world-building approach that Miller and Stentz took on Thor, which (you might recall) also starts out with a prologue (beginning in ancient times) that explores the history behind its main villains and heroes alike. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
In short: between official details and rumors alike, it sounds as though the new Power Rangers film is going to fall close to your average Marvel Studios movie release, in terms of temperament and how it aims to respectfully update the Power Rangers lore without alienating either newcomers or longtime fans of the property. That might not be the most innovative approach but again, it’s a smart one with a proven track record for success – and it might give Lionsgate (as well as Saban) the hit the studio wants.
Power Rangers opens in U.S. theaters on January 13th, 2017.
http://screenrant.com/power-rangers-reboot-villain-zordon/
