With E3 2019 less than two months away, many publishers have begun detailing their plans for this year’s show. Last week, Microsoft confirmed the date and time of its annual Xbox press conference, and now Square Enix has announced it is holding another live presentation of its own at this year’s expo.
The Square Enix Live broadcast is scheduled to take place on Monday, June 10, at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET–the time slot traditionally occupied by Sony’s E3 press conference. Sony, of course, won’t be using that time slot this year, as the company announced back in November that it won’t be attending E3 2019, leaving a sizable gap for other publishers to fill.
The Square Enix Live presentation will be broadcast online on the company’s website and other social media channels. As for what will be revealed during the broadcast, Square Enix has only hinted that it will focus on “another exciting line up of titles.” Last year, the company showcased Kingdom Hearts 3, Just Cause 4, and even revealed a handful of unannounced games like Babylon’s Fall, a new title from Bayonetta developer Platinum Games.
What was conspicuously missing from last year’s presentation was the Final Fantasy VII remake. Little has been said about the title since it was first announced back at Sony’s E3 2015 press conference, so there is a chance it may make an appearance in this year’s broadcast. Square Enix also has an Avengers game in the works that we know very little about, and a Nintendo Switch version of Dragon Quest XI is on the way this year, which will presumably be one of the games highlighted during its live event.
E3 2019 officially kicks off on Tuesday, June 11. This is notably the last year the show has been confirmed for its current venue, the Los Angeles Convention Center, which has traditionally served as the site of E3 for most of the expo’s history. Microsoft’s E3 2019 conference is scheduled for Sunday, June 9, while Nintendo traditionally airs a pre-recorded presentation on the day E3 proper begins. Be sure to check out our roundup of all the E3 2019 conferences announced so far.
How do you wrap up a movie as big as Infinity War–hell, a franchise as expansive as the Marvel Cinematic Universe? How do you tie up the loose ends, close the time loops, and fulfill the character arcs of almost two dozen movies and over a decade of storytelling? According to co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo, they knew what they were getting themselves into with this whole thing–they wanted this ultimate conflict to be so complex and desperate that they’d be challenged to envision a way forward. And they definitely created that challenge.
The question now is whether that challenge paid off. And the answer, like the challenge itself, is complicated.
Avengers: Endgame absolutely works as a blockbuster movie experience. If you’re at all invested in the plight the remaining Avengers face after the events leading up to and including Infinity War, you will feel satisfied with this movie. The much-discussed three-hour runtime is no joke, but almost every minute of it is used well, barring some extended gag scenes that probably could have been left for the Blu-ray. Endgame manages to tie the entire MCU up with a beautiful, emotional, gut-wrenching, hopeful conclusion, which is an undeniable achievement.
But it also frequently loses the thread, especially as the remaining Avengers break into distinct teams and embark on their own separate missions in an extremely complex series of plots and sub-plots to defeat Thanos once and for all. Part of the problem is that simply defeating him isn’t enough–understandably, they want to undo what he did, as well. And their methods for doing so create infinite potential for plot holes, hand-waving, and rules that seem to get established in one scene and broken in the next. In other words, the Russos and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wrote themselves into a corner, and writing themselves out of it became maybe more complex than any movie–even one that’s three hours long–could have possibly supported.
The clips that have been released leading up to Endgame’s release take place almost entirely within the first few scenes of the movie. Eventually, the Avengers split and head off in very different directions, and the teams that form aren’t the most obvious pairings: Nebula and Rhodey, Thor and Rocket, Clint and Natasha, and one larger team comprising Ant-Man, Hulk, Tony, and Steve. A huge chunk of the movie–most of the middle, in fact–feels itself like a bizarro take on the original Avengers formula, one where cosmic Marvel intercepted with Earth Marvel much earlier, where Don Cheadle and a daughter of Thanos team up and blast off into space together.
It’s so fun. There are a ton of twists and turns, and at every stage Endgame will turn your expectations upside-down. Characters you thought would live will die, and characters you never expected to see again will re-appear where you least anticipate it. This really is the movie where everything from the MCU comes together all at once–Infinity War felt stuffed to the brim at the times, but it has absolutely nothing on the bursting mess that is Endgame. Even diehard MCU fans will struggle to recognize every random side character who makes a cameo, every one-liner that’s actually a callback to a callback from a movie from years ago, and every other reference that seems familiar but you just can’t quite place it because, come on, there are more than 20 of these movies and it’s been a decade.
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Avengers: Endgame – “Go” TV Trailer
Top New Games Out On Switch, PS4, Xbox One, And PC This Week — April 21-27 2019
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Infinity War was the cliffhanger of the MCU, and Endgame is its cathartic climax. There’s a battle that rivals Infinity War’s final clash, but with even more characters. It feels less personal as a result–there are fewer epic hero moments like Thor’s grand, crackling entrance into the Wakanda battle in Infinity War, and there are characters who have led their own movies who get one or two lines in this entire thing–or none at all. It was impressive how Infinity War felt like every character got some time in the spotlight, but Endgame doesn’t try to replicate that. This movie is about the core Avengers, and the background characters and supporting cast around them are just that.
Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark kicked the MCU off with the original Iron Man, and in many ways he’s the main character of this movie as well. The actor has come to completely embody Iron Man, and Endgame totally does him justice. Chris Evans’ Captain America is arguably just as important, and he has quite an arc in this film. I won’t spoil anything about Bruce Banner except to say his situation has changed quite a bit since the last time we saw him, and Mark Ruffalo’s performance in this movie isn’t marred by any distracting floating head CG like in Infinity War’s final fight. Scarlett Johansson has always brought a lot of warmth to the role of Natasha, a character who should by rights be a stone cold killer, and Black Widow is arguably the team’s beating heart. And as anyone who saw the trailers anticipated, Clint undergoes quite a transformation, although honestly the movie could have spent even more time on that.
Even with all the ground Endgame has to cover, it also has time for plenty of smaller, emotional moments–arguably too many, as it’s easy to view the movie with a clinical eye and imagine all the scenes here and there that could have been surgically cut to make it leaner. The events of Infinity War truly screwed the world up, and scenes like seeing Captain America leading a survivors’ support group emphasize the trauma. Some of these characters have changed a lot by the time we catch up with them–you’ll be surprised by Thor’s arc here.
But most of all Endgame is truly a love letter to the entire MCU–the whole thing. It’s messy and confusing, and there’s going to be a lot of discussion about whether the ending even makes sense–it basically breaks the rules set up throughout the entire movie leading up to it. But holy hell is it an emotional, fulfilling ride. I have no doubt we’re going to spend the coming weeks picking and pulling it apart until we’ve over-analyzed every single aspect imaginable, but right now, in the aftermath, Avengers Endgame feels like a win.
This is a SPOILER-FREE review of Avengers: Endgame, but honestly, you probably still shouldn’t read it. If you’re already sold on this movie, go see it, come back, and let’s compare notes. If you’re not, read on for some reasons why you should be.
The less you know going into Avengers: Endgame, the more you’re likely to enjoy it. Obviously, you wouldn’t have clicked on a review of this movie if you didn’t want to know something about the culmination of a decade’s worth of Marvel’s superhero storytelling, but trust me: more than Avengers: Infinity War, more than any Star Wars movie, Endgame is truly a story that needs to be experienced. Forget all the external noise from the deliberately vague teaser trailers, perfectly-calibrated celebrity soundbites, and footage leaks, and just strap in for the ride.
The latest patch for Cuphead, Update 1.2, is live on Xbox One, PC, and Switch. The update adds several quality-of-life improvements to the game, such as the feature to choose between Cuphead and Mugman while playing the campaign solo. However, the update added something far more interesting: secret boss battles.
An exact number of secret bosses hasn’t been confirmed, but YouTuber ProsafiaGaming has already found three. The first can be found in Isle One’s The Root Pack, the second in Isle Two’s Djimmi the Great, and the third in Isle Three’s Sally Stageplay. To access each secret boss, you’ll need to perform certain actions during specific moments in the aforementioned boss battles.
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Cuphead – 15 Minutes Of Mugman Gameplay On Switch
Top New Games Out On Switch, PS4, Xbox One, And PC This Week — April 21-27 2019
In The Root Pack, play as normal until the giant onion appears. Don’t attack him at all and eventually he’ll disappear. During the final phase of the fight with the giant carrot, an angry radish will pop up instead.
For Djimmi the Great, just battle your way through the boss any way you please until you reach the third phase (where he scans you). Transform into the smallest airplane form at the end of the third phase and instead of a normal-sized Cuppet joining the fray in the next round, a mini version will show up to do battle instead.
Sally Stageplay hides a rather morbid secret boss. During her boss battle, ignore Sally and parry the floating hearts she kisses at you. Then jump on the angel platform on your left and remain there until you hear a cracking sound. Now do the same thing but on the angel platform to the right. You’ll know you’ve got it when the ceiling comes crashing down and kills Sally’s husband to be. Continue as normal and Sally’s dead husband will rise from the grave to join his beloved in battle during the second-to-last phase.
Peter Brown updated our Cuphead review to reflect the new Switch version of the game, writing, “[Cuphead is] beautiful to look at, and with a pitch-perfect soundtrack, it flawlessly captures the era its developers so clearly revere. It’s also an intense action game that pulls no punches. It could benefit from a few tweaks, and two-player co-op doesn’t feel like the valuable addition you might imagine, but Cuphead remains a rare, unique game that truly stands out.”
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It’s no big secret that Apple has spent recent years focusing most of its hardware efforts on “post-PC” devices. That might be bad news for the Mac crowd, but it’s good news for anyone who enjoys portable Apple products like iPads and Apple Watches. If that’s you, you’re in luck, because both devices happen to be on sale right now at Amazon and Walmart. Here’s a rundown of what Apple products you can get considerable discounts on right now.
On Twitter, Williams added her comments to the many around the internet, saying that while people have the right to be uncomfortable, their feelings don’t quite compare to how she is feeling.
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The PS4’s next big game is right around the corner. Days Gone is set to release on April 26 as a PlayStation 4 exclusive. It’s a post-apocalyptic, open-world game that follows a bounty hunter named Deacon St. John as he travels the Pacific Northwest on motorcycle, scavenging for gear, running missions for settlements, and fighting off hordes of zombie-like Freakers.
If you’re ready to secure a copy of Days Gone for yourself, you’ll want to know what kind of preorder bonuses you can get, what comes in each edition, and where it’s available. We have all that information and more waiting for you below.
If you still haven’t picked up Kingdom Hearts III, today’s a good day to make the purchase, as the game is currently on sale for $37 on PS4 and just under $40 on Xbox One at Amazon. New copies of the game are still selling for $60 elsewhere, so this is a good chance to pick it up for more than $20 off. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you’ll also get free two-day shipping on this one.
It’s been nearly three months since Kingdom Hearts III released back in January, and the game is finally getting a huge update–a series of two patches that include a higher difficulty setting known as Critical Mode. Based on previous games, we can assume the new mode will increase damage dealt and taken by enemies, among other things, but not many details have been shared. The update was announced yesterday via Twitter, and the first patch containing Critical Mode will be released today at 7 PM PT / 10 PM ET (2 AM GMT on April 24).
In addition to the higher difficulty mode, the update brings quality-of-life improvements to the game, such as bumping up the number of photo slots from 100 to 200 and introducing item carryover to New Game+, among other fixes. Another improvement: When at the Moogle Shop, you’ll now be able to identify which Synthesis items you’ve already synthesized, as they’ll have a checkmark beside them. Some enemy behaviors have also been changed, but details are slim in that regard.
With the game cheaper than ever, there’s no better time to hop in and see all the changes to Kingdom Hearts III. On Amazon, there’s no knowing how long the game will be marked down, so act fast if you’re interested in this deal.
Update 4/23: in addition to Anthem Update 1.1.0 going live, BioWare has also posted a general progress update on the official Anthem Reddit, revealing that some of what was planned for the Act 1 post-launch content has been delayed.
Though BioWare had delivered much of the planned Act 1 features on time, not every goal will be met. Instead, BioWare has been “prioritizing things like bug fixes, stability and game flow over the new features of Act 1. We set aside time for this work, but the reality is there are more things to fix and improve than we planned for. While this is the best thing to do for the game, it means some items from the calendar will be delayed.”
