If you’re a superfan of Minecraft, you’ve got to be there.

Minefaire, an official Minecraft fan experience, returns Oct. 14-15 to the region where it was created. Earlier this year Minefaire was held in Houston, Charlotte and Washington DC. Did you know that guinnessworldrecords.com says last year’s Minefaire held at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center set a Guinness World Record for largest convention for a single video game?

Minecraft is the virtual game where you build new worlds, block by block, by mining the resources you find.

“It’s not just a game,” Minefaire cofounder Gabe Young said in a press release. “While you’re making dinner and your kids are playing Minecraft, they’re experiencing the huge educational and inspirational aspects that are driving them to become an engineer or an architect — to think really, really big.”

Chad Collins, one of the Bucks County fathers who founded Minefaire, also had a statement: “Minefaire is a chance for parents to connect with their kids through their favorite game and have a blast. We were determined to create a one-of-a-kind Minecraft experience you won’t find at home.”

So how big is Minecraft?

The Minefaire folks tell us that Minecraft is the second best-selling stand-alone video game of all time, with more than 122 million units sold. That’s second only to Tetris.

Where is Minefaire being held?

Halls A and B of the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center, 100 Station Ave., Upper Providence. That’s 150,000 square feet of all things Minecraft. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for both Saturday and Sunday.

Give me a summary of what’s going to be there.

A Mineplex with more than 45 original free-to-play games for varying skill levels (and 10 million players); Minecraft Virtual Reality Experiences; live performances on four “mega-stages;” a Minecraft costume contest; meet and greets with Minecraft YouTube stars; Build Battles for both kids and adults; a Learning Lab with official Minecraft mentors and educators that are using Minecraft in local classrooms; and new, rare and custom Minecraft items.

What’s the admission price?

All-inclusive tickets start at $29.50, free for ages 2 and under.

Please tell me there’s a website.

MINECRAFT FANS: Build Battles, VR, a costume contest, YouTubers and more at Minefaire. Event is held at the Philadelphia Expo Center

Frustration over Final Fantasy XIV’s housing shortage has come to a head after two players angered a lot of others by buying up 28 homes in the land-strapped massively multiplayer online game. Now, players are questioning whether virtual housing is an equal right or a privilege meant for the rich and over-dedicated.

The two players bought their homes in a formerly vacant corner of the game, a server called Mateus, where they could pursue dual ambitions of opulence and privacy. Their critics say they’ve hoarded land from dozens of FFXIV citizens, who feel they deserve a chance at housing. That criticism has gotten ugly as players hotly debate whether their elitism—or desire for mass amounts of property—has any place in a game where everybody pays the same fee.

“Given we both came to Mateus for the quiet, it’s distinctly uncomfortable to have others come in and insult us,” one of the bulk home-owners, a player who goes by the name Martyr Igeyorhm, told me during a tour of their two-occupant neighborhood today. “We’ve had to report people for harassment a few times.” Her housing partner Seraph Altima agreed, adding, “I think it’s wrong that people ignore the work and just see themselves being deprived.”

FFXIV has had housing drama as long as it’s had houses. When producer Naoki Yoshida introduced housing to FFXIV in 2011, he emphasized fair land distribution. But in the intervening years, housing has become a contentious topic in the game as speculators and thick-pocketed players monopolized property on big servers. Other times, players didn’t even use the houses they buy; it’s just a status symbol.

About 2,500 houses are available for each of FFXIV’s servers, which on average host over twice that amount of players. Houses aren’t a necessity in FFXIV, but owning one means having your own space to invite new raiding friends, host parties and, most importantly, decorate. Players paste ornate wallpaper to their walls, fill rooms with carved wood chests and candles and decorate with garlands and gold trimming. They cost several million FFXIV gil, unfurnished. Fur rugs, wall-to-wall bookshelves, portraits and hot tubs garnish the homes of more thick-pocketed players who choose to sink their resources in home decor. Smaller apartments remain available too, but without the grandeur of a garden or street entrance (and on some servers, houses are still available.)

Out of this design frenzy, an FFXIV adaptation of Cribs has even emerged. A year ago, it featured the player Seraph Altima and her “sanctuary,” complete with a lush garden, an attended full bar and stone partitions.

Altima had carved out sanctuaries on two of FFXIV’s most populous servers. There, not even apartments, the less sought-after housing option, remain on the market. Publisher Square Enix has been adding more plots to keep up with demand, and will add more in the future, but right now, there’s not enough to go around. Over e-mail, a Square Enix representative told Kotaku that players are only able to purchase one house per character. But because both individual players and Free Companies—FFXIV’s guilds—can own property, players break that mandate a lot.

Last year, Altima fled the game’s more populous servers and established her new home on the quaint Mateus. At that point, it was one of the only servers with a wealth of land. She and Igeyorhm claimed 28 plots and thought they’d have that space to themselves. Likely, their land avarice wouldn’t have become a problem if thousands of refugees hadn’t recently fled booked-up servers searching for fresh housing frontiers.

Square Enix started offering free server transfers prior to FFXIV’s June Stormblood expansion, so players who wanted to avoid the influx of returning fans could game in peace. Mateus, which was unofficially designated a new role-playing server and was still a pristine (and cheap) housing frontier, was quickly full of home-scouters. Eventually, the housing options in that server filled up, too. When incoming transfers realized that they could no longer purchase plots on Mateus, of all places, and noticed that two players owned a plush 28 plots, accusations of greed and unfeeling avarice spread. Over Facebook and Reddit, hundreds of players had angry words for the alleged gentrifiers who felt “entitled” to own all that property when so many recent transfers (and players still saving up) never had a chance to carve out a home on Mateus.

Altima estimates that their 28 homes, the majority of an entire ward, cost around 150 million gil. If they had bought that gil, it’d have cost $375. On FFXIV this morning, Igeyorhm described themselves as “omnicrafters,” or players who “make all of our own items and sell other items for profit.” (To save a few bucks, most of their decor was made using FFXIV’s crafting system, too.) It took a lot of time. And she doesn’t feel sorry for players who put in less effort, or got to Mateus later along with the crowds. On a now-viral Tumblr post in response to public outcry, Altima wrote, “Many people feel entitled to own a house. They feel that even knowing there are only 2,160 plots (soon to be 2,880) on any given server, they can and should be allowed to go at their own pace and have free access to any content they like, including housing. They want a house of their own, but they don’t want to accept that lots of other people want it badly enough to work harder for it than they did.”

“Good lord,” a Redditor wrote. “People who aren’t rich enough to afford houses just aren’t TRYING hard enough? Not wanting neighbors putting up ‘ugly’ Paissa houses in ‘MY neighborhood?’ It’s like the most stereotypical rich snob attitude I’ve ever seen, except it’s apparently REAL (other than being in a video game).” Another described their actions as “selfishness because this person wanted to make a bastion of single-player content in a multiplayer game.”

I met Altima and Igeyorhm at the entrance of Goblet Ward 12 on FFXIV’s Mateus server. There, they fielded my questions while we toured through their saccharine two-floor cake shop, picture-perfect schoolyard, somber church to the FFXIV deity Zodiark and many, many gardens. Igeyorhm excitedly pointed out ice crystal formations and bubbling fountains between dives into hand-designed underground libraries and the like. I asked whether home construction was something she pursued in other games.

“Not really,” she said. “A lot of people like to ask us, ‘Why not play the Sims?’ Because we do so much other stuff!” Igyorhm said that, after her husband died, she hasn’t decorated much in real life. A few months later, she met Altima, and together they’ve spent an estimated thousand hours curating their 28 plots.

Neither thinks they’re unfairly eating up FFXIV’s limited housing resources. They blame Square Enix for not accommodating players’ passion for home-ownership—at least with houses. Although more cramped apartments are available on some servers and more housing will be added soon, the problem is more of philosophy than accessibility: Are players entitled to property in FFXIV—any more than they’re entitled to raiding mounts or veteran rewards? Is it the richer players, or the ones with more free time to grind out crafting exp, who are more entitled to take up space?

I asked Altima and Igeyorhm whether they’d give up any one of their plots for a new transfer desperate for a home. They paused. “These are our memories. Our precious time spent together,” Igeyorhm said.

Of course, some players still think they should be able to get those houses. “Not everyone needs everything in-game,” counters Altima. She argues that she’s not depriving anyone of housing; the plots were empty for years before they took them. “For example, not everyone deserves the Savage raiding mounts if they don’t do Alexander.”

Two Final Fantasy XIV Players Buy Dozens Of Homes, Spark Debate Over Housing Shortage

Today’s 4.1 update to Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood introduced new player housing in the scenic, Far Eastern-themed district of Shirogane. Servers went online at 6AM, putting 720 new housing plots on the market. The choicest locations were gone before many players could even clear the login queue.

In order to acquire one of the new housing plots, players had to be fast. Grabbing one involves making their way as quickly as possibly to the area their preferred plot is located in and staking a claim before anyone else. One helpful tip circulating for players hoping to score a home this morning involves setting their character to busy, so other players can’t attempt to interrupt the purchase by opening a trade window. It’s a cutthroat game that’s over in a flash.

The login queues did not help. The launch of a new update is a busy time for any popular MMO, and the 4.1 “The Legend Returns” update is pretty huge. According to reports gathered in game and in the Final Fantasy XIV forums, many players who had prepared for today’s land rush found them stuck in login queues, their hopes of a new home ticking away with each passing minute.

Final Fantasy XIV’s housing system is notoriously bad. Where other games allow players to carve out a private space for themselves or their guild as they see fit, Square Enix’s MMO keeps available housing limited. Up until today’s patch there were three housing areas in each server. Each housing area features 12 wards, with 60 plots of varying sizes in each. That’s 2,160 spots for players and free companies (guilds). Taking into account players who like to horde housing or free companies attempting to buy up plots en masse, that’s not a lot of space.

Adding 720 more plots per server doesn’t help much, especially when they’re fresh and new and oh-so-pretty. The forums and Reddit are filled with nightmare stories about today’s chaotic land grab. It’s the worst part of an otherwise excellent patch. It’s souring the entire experience. Players are talking about canceling their accounts. My free company leader mentioned hearing someone suggest the Shirogane area’s name be changed to “Shiogane” (“shio” is Japanese for salt.)

It’s a rough system, to be sure. It’s been rough for years. When housing was introduced in Final Fantasy XIV back in 2011, I was excited at the idea of owning my own little home and decorating it with all sorts of virtual FF items. Then I saw the exorbitant prices for player homes and the relatively slim chance of actually getting one, and I gave up. I am a bold adventurer. I have conquered gods, demons and kings and averted world-ending catastrophe on several occasions. My home is wherever my sword or fishing rod takes me.

Seriously though, please fix this, Square Enix. I am fine with anything. Build us a Final Fantasy-flavored slum and I will live under a box, as long as I don’t have to fight for it.

Another Final Fantasy XIV Player Housing Nightmare

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana is a great action role-playing game marred by a shoddy localization. Following fan outcry over grammatical errors, inconsistencies and typos, NIS America announced today it’s doing the whole thing over again.

In a letter addressed to “All Customers of Ys VIII,” NIS America president and CEO Takuro Yamashita acknowledged that the localization had not reached an acceptable level by the company’s standards, and an internal investigation was being held to discover how it occurred as well as ensure it doesn’t happen again. More importantly, the company is having the entire localization gone over again to fix the existing problem.

As for Ys VIII itself, we will have a new translator and editor go over the entire localization to fix grammatical errors, typos, inconsistencies, and also to take a fresh look at the dialog and characterizations. For the script, where necessary, we will re-translate and re-edit the game including updating voicework to reflect these changes.

That’s some pretty substantial bending-over-backward to make players happy right there, but an appropriate response given the scope of the flubs and fumbles made in localizing the eighth game in the venerable role-playing series to English.

One of my favorite examples involves a place named the “Crevice of the Archeozoic Era” in Japanese. It sounds so mysterious, doesn’t it?

Here’s the English version:

Not only did this place already have a perfectly good English language name, the translators opted to translate “crevice” as “big hole.” Big hole.

Along with poor translating, localization errors also led to food recipe names being swapped, leaving players confused over which buffs were received when eating in-game meals.

The images in this post are all derived from a gallery linked on the Reddit page for fans of Ys developer Nihon Falcom, which organized a write-in campaign aimed at letting the Japanese video game maker know how poorly North American publisher NIS America had botched the localization.

Yamashita said the company plans to offer the results of the re-localization as a free download to PlayStation 4 and Vita players next month, with the delayed PC version launching with the updated translation.

NIS America Is Redoing Ys VIII’s Shoddy Localization

In 2001, after a mere nine issues ending with an unresolved cliffhanger, popular fantasy comic series Battle Chasers was put on hold so creator Joe Madureira could pursue game development. If recently-released turn-based RPG Battle Chasers: Nightwar is any indication, it was a good move.

The Battle Chasers comic book was pretty huge in the late ‘90s. One couldn’t walk by a comic shop or bookstore without seeing posters emblazoned with bright and colorful fantasy characters wielding giant weapons. Creator Joe Madureira is often credited with bringing the influence of manga art to Western comics, and Battle Chasers felt like a Japanese role-playing game in comic book.

But Joe had trouble getting the comic book out on a regular schedule. Between switching from creator-owned label Cliffhanger to DC and eventually Image, Battle Chasers averaged a whopping six months between issues. The series’ cancellation was not unexpected, but it was still very disappointing for fans who’d stuck it through.

Sixteen years after Battle Chasers got put on hold, Battle Chasers: Nightwar gives fans of the series a chance to get reacquainted with the comics’ group of stalwart heroes as they embark on a mildly unrelated adventure.

The game opens with sulky swordsman Garrison, hulking golem Calibretto, wizened mage Knolan, wildly irresponsible bounty hunter Red Monika and hard-punching nine-year-old Gully flying their airship over an unfamiliar island. Suddenly attacked by unknown forces, the party is separated, their airship trashed. Thus begins an epic adventure to bring the band back together, figure out why they were targeted and deal with those that targeted them in spectacular turn-based fashion.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar combines Diablo-style exploration with dynamic turn-based battles to create a clever little amalgam that’s quite fun to play. First we’ve got the overworld map, where players move from point-to-point, battling creatures and harvesting crafting materials and treasure. It’s not the most thrilling way to get around the map, but it works.

Things get much more exciting in the game’s dynamically-generated dungeons. The view shifts to something a little more isometric, giving a much more detailed look at the game’s lush environments. When not engaging in battles, players are free to explore and search for ancient texts, rare crafting materials and powerful equipment. There’s even a basic fishing mini-game, because no fantasy adventure is so urgent that we can’t have fish.

The downside to dungeons is that developer Airship Syndicate tied most of the story’s plot progression to events that take place deep within their winding pathways. Odds are if the next step in your quest is to get to a point on the overworld map, there will be a mandatory dungeon between the two points that’ll take a good half hour to clear. There are subtler ways to impede player progress.

The dungeons can sometimes feel like little more than filler between battles, but when the battles are this good, I don’t mind filler so much. Joe Madureira’s signature art system animates beautifully in Nightwar’s simple-yet-sophisticated turn-based combat.

It’s a finely-honed system that encourages using the parties’ complementary skills to maximize damage and efficiency. As battles increase in difficulty, the party is forced to work together in order to juggle buffs and debuffs, healing and damage. Spamming basic attacks is hardly ever the answer.

Now that the Battle Chasers video game is out, word is there are more comics on the way. I’m not so sure we need them anymore. Gully and friends feel more at home in Nightwar than they ever did on the printed page.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar is now available on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. A Switch version is in the works.

Battle Chasers Works Much Better As A Video Game Than A Comic Book

2004’s Spider-Man 2 is fondly remembered for being a pretty good movie tie-in game with some amazing web swinging. New York is a blast to zip through, but one speedrunner decided to see how fast they could complete the game without using its most exciting feature.

Slyfincleton decided to speedrun their way through Spider-Man 2 without ever using the superhero’s iconic web swinging. In Spider-Man 2, the fastest mode of travel is to toss out a line of webbing and swing around the city. Slyfincleton forgoes all of this in favor of furious wall running and long jumps that turns Spider Man into a bouncing daredevil, ping ponging from building to building like a jittery flea.

The only time that he ever employs webbing for movement is a web zip, which allows Spider Man to quickly shoot some web to pull himself forward. It gives a quick burst of movement but can’t quite match the momentum of a full swing. Using zips might feel like a bit of a technicality, but it proves essential for sequences where Spider Man is meant to spend extended time in the air, such as a battle above the Hudson River against some UFOs created by the special effects mastermind Mysterio.

Slyfincleton’s run is a bit of a gimmick; it’s the only complete “no swing” run. He finished with a time of 1:43:31, bouncing all over the place. It’s a silly run that shows off how nimble Spider Man is even when he’s not web slinging.

Someone Beat Spider-Man 2 Without Any Web Swings

Fancy construction sets are nice, but there’s plenty of building to do in Minecraft proper. The first wave of Minecraft Adventure Figures from Jinx are the perfect way to just hang out at your desk with Steve and the gang.

Available this month at Walmart, Target and collectible retailers like Gamestop (they also dabble in video games), Minecraft Adventure Figures are a series of six lovingly-crafted vinyl statues celebrating the life and death of Steve, Alex and their various enemies.

I’m not normally one for toys that don’t actually do anything, but there’s something about the design of these that implies action without actually imparting any. The slight curve to the characters’ bodies, the sway of their blocky arms. They are ready for adventure, even if that adventure never comes.

The initial assortment includes Diamond Steve, Enchanted Alex (aka Hawkeye), Zombie, Zombie Pigman, Skeleton (or jack-o-lantern with Skeleton friend) and, of course, a Creeper. They run $9.99 apiece and surprise—they are sold in window boxes, so you don’t have to worry about doubles.

Check out some shots of the Minecraft Adventure Figures in relative action in the slideshow below.

You can’t go wrong with good old Diamond Steve. While staying true to texture, the Minecraft adventure figures give the characters’ bodies a slight curve, adding a sense of momentum to the stationary toys. He is charging towards a thing, and that thing is probably adventure.

When It Comes To Minecraft Toys, Sometimes Simple Is Best

The World Lets Out A Confused Sigh As Turkey Considers Banning Minecraft

Microsoft and Mojang have made good on the promise from E3 2017 that Minecraft would become a cross-platform gaming experience. With the “Better Together” update, players from mobile, Xbox One, and Windows 10 platforms can all play together. It should also be noted that while the Nintendo Switch version is still in development (with a “soon” release date at best) it will be cross-platform compatible upon its release.

Being able to play with your friends regardless of platform is a great step in the right direction for gamers as a whole and adds value to whichever edition players get theirs hands on. That being said, Sony opted out of being a part of this togetherness, meaning neither the PlayStation 3 nor PS4 versions will be compatible. Whether or not the comments in the video about the universe not exploding and everything being better together are meant at Sony directly will probably never be answered.

Xbox One is the only console that this update will take effect on, currently. Further, it should be noted that at the time of writing this that there has been a bit of word of lag-related issues in the community when playing on servers. While this is not ideal, Mojang and 4J Studios have been known to keep a steady stream of updates flowing, meaning that anything that needs ironing out post-update will probably be tended to.

Minecraft has launched across nearly every platform since its 2009 debut on PC, spanning Android, iPhone, X1, X360, PS3, PS4, Windows 10 and a future port to Nintendo Switch. The game features both local co-op and online across the platforms via split-screen and internet, respectively.

If you have any questions about what features or versions of the game are supported, Mojang put together an FAQ on the minecraft.net website.

Minecraft does an outstanding job of incorporating the co-op that we here at Co-Optimus are so fond of; you can read our review here (short version: we gave it a 5 out of 5, it’s amazing.) meaning that this update is just frosting on the cake. Will you be playing together with your friends, or has the lure of caves, monsters and diamonds wore off of you? Let us know in the comments below, and for all things co-op, stick with your friends here at Co-Optimus.com.

Minecraft Update Brings A Promising Future

Microsoft has announced a new update for the building and exploration game Minecraft. The new update will introduce several new features to the game.

The new update will introduce 4K graphics rendering, crossplay support and “massive servers”. When the new update hits, players will be able to play together regardless of which device the player plays the game on, if they are playing on special designated servers.

The new graphics update will bring 4K resolution rendering to the Xbox One version of the game. The PC version of the game already supported 4K resolution rendering. Both the PC and Xbox One versions of the game will also be able to make use of updated 4K resolution textures.

The Minecraft “Super Duper Graphics Pack” update launches this fall for PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS and several virtual reality devices. The PlayStation 4 version will not support crossplay multiplayer functionality.

Minecraft to get 4K graphics and crossplay update this fall

While the rollout of the Minecraft Better Together Update is being promoted as, well, and update to Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, it is actually a completely new Minecraft video game that is replacing the Xbox One Edition version and being sold separately (though current owners of the Xbox One Edition do get the new version for free).

While browsing the Store on the Xbox One, the listing for Minecraft: Xbox One Edition can still be found and its Game Hub still functions but it can no longer be purchased. Meanwhile, a new listing for the new version of the game, simply called Minecraft, is now discoverable and has its own new Game Hub. It’s unclear why such a shift was made though one reason could be that it makes it easier to discern which Xbox Live friends are playing which version when online. If someone is playing Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, they would be unable to join a multiplayer game on Minecraft for example.

What do you think? Do you like this fresh start for Minecraft players? Sign-off in the comments below.

Minecraft: Xbox One Edition no longer available digitally

Sure, the latest update for Minecraft is a notable one for introducing cross-play to the wildly popular game–that’s all well and good. But it’s the bug fixes located in the patch notes that I think are the real highlight.

The latest instance of “patch notes that are much funnier than they have any right to be” comes with this week’s Better Together update for Minecraft. There are a wide range of new features and tweaks, including the aforementioned cross-play support, but it also fixes so many bug fixes that developer Mojang decided not to share them all. Luckily, it did include a few.

Among them: This patch “stop[s] llamas from creepily turning their heads to stare at you while riding them.” Not being a hardcore Minecraft player, this is something I was admittedly unaware of–you can seemingly see it in the image above, which comes from this YouTube video by Aiden Art. Suffice it to say, it’s something I will forever regret not being able to experience myself.

Other bug fixes in this update include the return of cats purring (they’re good for the soul) and bats losing the ability to swim underwater. The patch is out now for the Xbox One, PC, VR, and mobile versions, with cross-play support also coming to the Nintendo Switch version. Minecraft on PS4 won’t offer cross-play support, at least yet.

Llamas Stop Creepily Staring At You Thanks(?) To Minecraft’s New Update

Minecraft’s Better Together Update Adds More Cross-Play Functionality

Dir: Matthew Vaughn, 140 mins, starring: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Channing Tatum, Halle Berry, Pedro Pascal, Julianne Moore, Jeff Bridges

Matthew Vaughn loves his gadgets. Spy sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle is full of them. X-ray spectacles, umbrellas that act as weapon shields, “alpha gel” that miraculously preserves characters you think have been shot dead, London taxis with technology that puts Apollo skyrockets to shame, robotic attack dogs and prosthetic arms are all thrown into the mix. In James Bond movies, Q provides 007 with one or two gizmos. The problem here is that the film is absolutely bulging with them. There is a new toy or piece of hardware or software for every new scene.

Vaughn also has a fetishistic obsession with tailoring: with the suits, ties, watches, boots and shoes the male characters in particular wear. The preoccupation with style gets in the way of the storytelling. He has a formidable cast here including several Oscar winners (Julianne Moore, Colin Firth and Jeff Bridges) but all of them are only allowed to give the most cartoonish of performances.

You can’t fault the stunts. As an action movie, The Golden Circle passes muster. It is packed with explosions, chases and visual spectacle. It is often quite witty too in its own tongue-in-cheek and macabre fashion. The evil villainess Poppy Adams (Moore) likes to put her enemies through the mincing machine and turn them into hamburgers. She has kidnapped Sir Elton John (played by himself) and is keeping him in captivity deep in the jungle, where she has built her own compound in the shape of an old American shopping mall. (It has cinemas, fast-food joints and lots of fluorescent lighting.)

Sir Elton doesn’t get much in the way of meaty dialogue but we do see him at the piano from time to time and when one of the heroes asks for tickets to a concert, he replies in magnificently camp fashion: “Darling, if you save the world, you can have a backstage pass!”

The British filmmakers are keen to show off their patriotic credentials. That much is obvious from the car chase/fight sequence which opens the movie. We’re plunged straight into the action. Eggsy, the youngster from the council estate who was turned Pygmalion-style into a super-suave spy in the first film, is caught up in a vicious fight with his nemesis Charlie Hesketh (Edward Holcroft), in the back of a black cab. Vaughn stages the scene as if it is the chariot race in Ben-Hur but set in Piccadilly and around Hyde Park Corner rather than in a Roman amphitheatre. Vaughn and his collaborators are doing their part for the export drive. It’s hard not to admire the shameless way that even at the most fraught moments, the filmmakers manage to showcase the best of British.

Eggsy (again engagingly played by Taron Egerton) remains remarkably cheerful in the face of setbacks which would floor a lesser spy. He is advised early on that there is “no room for emotion” when you’re working as a Kingsman agent. Whether a pet dog dies, a best friend is killed, he is covered in sewage or his beloved but skittish Scandinavian princess girlfriend (Hanna Alstrom) threatens to leave him, he always keeps calm and carries on.

There are continual and often very disorienting switches in location. After the explosive London-set opening, we’re quickly whisked away to Kentucky where a sister organisation to Kingsman called Statesman is run from a bourbon distillery. Kingsman’s most cerebral operative Merlin (Mark Strong) is very sniffy about the local brew, much preferring single malt from his native Scotland.

Statesman is presided over by the gun-waving Tequila (Channing Tatum in Magic Mike groove), the stetson-wearing patriarch Champagne (Jeff Bridges), the brilliant analyst Ginger Ale (an underused Halle Berry), who would far rather be an agent in the field, and the whip-cracking Whiskey (Pedro Pascal, from Game Of Thrones and Narcos).

From Kentucky, we’re taken back to Britain for an excruciating Ab Fab-like sequence set, for no very good reason, at the Glastonbury Festival. Eggsy has to seduce It Girl Clara (Poppy Delevigne) in order to plant a tracking device deep within her. Other random stop-offs include the Alps (an excuse for a dizzying cable car scene and a few nods in the direction of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and Cambodia, where drug baroness Poppy is hiding out. She comes up with a ludicrous idea for holding the world to ransom by contaminating drug supplies. Anybody who touches the wrong kind of cannabis or cocaine comes out in blue splotches, becomes manic, paralysed and then dies. Poppy is the only one who has the antidote.

To anyone who saw the first film, the presence of Colin Firth’s Harry is disconcerting. It feels like cheating on a Bobby Ewing-like scale to bring him back from the dead. As first encountered here, he has lost much of his memory and has a strange obsession with butterflies – but he’s still as dapper as ever.

Just as in the original movie, the filmmakers are absolutely relentless. When one action set-piece falls flat, they’ll follow it immediately with another to distract us. Some of the visual gags (Keith Allen upside down in a sausage machine) are very funny. Others are laddish and crass in the extreme but there is never a moment to pause or reflect on what is actually going on or why. Lasting for well over two hours, this is a gilded hamster wheel of a movie. Enormous energy is expended but it still feels at the end as if the filmmakers are going around in exactly the same circles as at the beginning.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle film review: ‘A gilded hamster wheel of a movie’

NINTENDO Switch fans can expect a big new streaming app soon, as Inside is pencilled in for a Nintendo release.

Nintendo Switch NEWS: Netflix app FINALLY ready, Halo on Switch, MASSIVE indie games boost

Eggsy, the street kid turned well dressed spy, is back to save the world in Kingsman: The Golden Circle.

A short time after the events of the first movie, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is living the life of a spy while still mourning the loss of his mentor Harry Hart (Colin Firth). After all the Kingsman are eliminated by an evil drug dealer named Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore), Eggsy and Merlin (Mark Strong) are forced to head to Kentucky to get help from America’s version of the Kingsman known as Satesman.

The Statesman group is headed by Champagne aka Champ (Jeff Bridges) and is supported by special agents Tequila (Channing Tatum), Jack Daniels (Pedro Pascal), and tech expert Ginger Ale (Halle Berry). Yes, those names are real. I’m shocked they didn’t have a Shirley Temple on staff.

Eggsy and Merlin learn their old pal Harry is still alive and being held at Statesman’s headquarters. Harry was “killed” in the last movie after the insane church shootout. Ginger Ale provides a super ridiculous science-y explanation for how Harry survived a point blank gunshot to the head. Anyone who is all in on a laser lasso and an underwater car should be ok with absurd life saving technology. Of course, one of the side effects from saving Harry is temporary amnesia – action movies love using amnesia as a trope.

With no Kingsman, Eggsy must team up with his new found allies to stop Poppy before her designer drugs kill millions around the world.

As much fun as 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service was The Golden Circle is not as fun. It does some of the same action with none of the interesting things that made those sequences fun. A big part of what made the first film work was Samuel L Jackson’s incredibly fun performance as Richmond Valentine. Jackson saw the ceiling that said over-the-top and kept going. He was comically evil and that’s perfect for the type of film he was in.

As great of an actress as Julianne Moore is, her character Poppy reduced to a Susie homemaker villain and given very little to do. Poppy is menacing and feared by her team during the opening and the story steers away from at as the story moves forward. You can’t sideline your big bad in an action movie.

The action, much like the action from the first film, includes fun gadgets and tons of slow motion. The best sequence is chase scene/fight at the beginning of the film. It’s the type of strong opening that fans expect in an action movie. There’s more action scenes sprinkled throughout that remind audiences why they love Kingsman so much.

The best villainous action comes courtesy of Charlie (Edward Holcroft) who has a grudge against Kingsman after his run in with Eggsy in the last film. Charlie’s robotic arm is used brilliantly during the fight scenes.

The Golden Circle should’ve taken a hint from John Wick 2 and delved deeper into the spy world of Kingsman. Instead, the story is crippled by a pointless love story between Eggsy and Princess Tilde (Hanna Alstrom). Eggsy’s love story feels completely forced and is the most boring part of the story. The runtime is only 12 minutes longer than the original. The Golden Circle being 40% less fun makes those 12 mins feel like 45 mins.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle had potential to be a fun sequel that told us more about Kingsman and the undercover spy world that supports it. It settled for more of the same in Kingsman, and even more of the same once they arrive at Statesman. It’s not a lazy sequel but a sequel that doesn’t build on anything new.

Grade: B-

Review: Kingsman: The Golden Circle

The PlayStation 4 version of Minecraft will not be getting the upcoming crossplay update that allows players to play together even if they don’t have the same console.

The 4K graphics and crossplay update was announced during Microsoft’s E3 2017 press conference earlier today and was said to allow players to play together on any device if they played the game on designated “massive” multiplayer servers.

According to rumors, Sony did not allow the game to support crossplay multiplayer functionality. The company has yet to officially comment on the matter.

Whether the 4K graphics update will still be making its way to the PlayStation 4 version of the game is still unknown.

The Minecraft crossplay update will be coming to PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS and several virtual reality devices.

PlayStation 4 version of Minecraft will not support upcoming crossplay update

When Kingsman: The Secret Service landed in theaters two years ago, it was a surprising, if modestly guilty, pleasure. For more than 30 years—going back at least as far as Never Say Never Again—James Bond had been derided within his own franchise as a “dinosaur,” for his tailored suits, sexist attitudes, and proclivity for violence. Kingsman thus served as a kind of Jurassic Park for the Bondian gentleman spy, resurrecting him from prehistoric Connery DNA discovered in fossilized amber somewhere. It was, as I noted at the time, “reactionary bordering on retrograde bordering on reprobate [but] also a tremendous amount of fun.”

Pulling off such a satirical feat once was hard enough, and it seemed unlikely that the movie’s director, Matthew Vaughn, could manage it a second time. He doesn’t—quite. But Vaughn’s new sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, while not as fresh as its predecessor, is nonetheless better than one might expect: a goofier, more over-the-top treatment of a premise that was pretty goofy and over-the-top the first time around.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle Is More Farce Than Satire

Mojang, the development team behind the building game Minecraft, has released a new developer diary video in which they discuss the game’s upcoming “Super Duper Graphics Pack” update.

The update was announced during Microsoft’s E3 2017 press conference last week and was said to bring 4K graphics to the Xbox One version of the game, along with a range of other graphical enhancements.The PC version of the game already supported 4K resolution rendering.

Both the PC and Xbox One versions of the game will also be able to make use of updated 4K resolution textures as well as other graphical enhancements such as specular maps, emissive maps, updated shadows, updated water rendering and animated foliage.

A cross-play update is also expected to be released this summer for almost all consoles, except for the PlayStation 4, that will enable players to play together regardless of which device the player plays the game on, if they are playing on special designated servers.

The Minecraft “Super Duper Graphics Pack” is expected to launch this fall.

Minecraft development team discusses “Super Duper Graphics Pack” in new developer diary video