One cosplayer in particular – Andrien Gbinigie, from Montreal – caught our eye for the epic quality of his photos, which is doubly impressive because this is his first ever cosplay. Click right to see all the shots:
The photographer featured is E Vic Rosa, otherwise known as lucidvphotography.
Andrien told IGN, “My favourite thing about being a cosplayer has to be fully embodying the character I’m portraying. In my case, as this was my first costume, it felt fantastic seeing comments and reactions from people who said I did a good job looking like the Black Panther. It made all that working out 4 times a week worth it.”
Dandara defies its platforming heritage by subverting two ubiquitous ideas: jumping and running. Neither is present in the traditional sense within this surreal, Metroid-inspired adventure. Rather, the heroic Dandara slings herself to any wall, ceiling, or floor she fancies, thumbing her nose at gravitational forces that would dare stifle her kinetic charm. This spin on standard movement sets Dandara apart, making it feel different from every other exploration-heavy platformer. When you’re zipping carefree through its labyrinthine world, Dandara is a complete joy, but control hiccups and a story that’s too vague for its own good often undermine its unique charm.
Although Dandara is based on a Brazilian figure who helped lead a slave revolt in the late 1600s, you wouldn’t know it based only on the game’s surreal tale. The story is one of oppression told through vague metaphors about a broken world whose currency, salt, is in short supply. The sporadic conversations Dandara has with the trapped inhabitants does little to inject the world with any sense of humanity. The story is simply too abstract to create the lasting bonds that could have propelled Dandara forward with a real sense of purpose.
Thankfully, the imaginative action sequences grab hold of your attention in ways the story cannot. Dandara doesn’t walk. Instead, she leaps to designated spots that dot the walls, floors, and ceilings. Aiming the analog stick in a given direction shows where Dandara will land, and though her reach is limited, you can quickly bounce between surfaces to dance past enemies or arrive at a nearby treasure chest that’s waiting to be opened.
This simple action is the basis on which the entire adventure is built. Because Dandara’s leaps have limited range and you can only latch on to certain places, navigating each room becomes a small puzzle as you decipher how best to reach the next area. In some places, there are rotating blocks or gliding platforms that Dandara can control by firing a burst of energy from her palms, while other rooms have tracking lasers that demand a frantic pace lest you wind up dead. There’s a great variety in what each section demands, ensuring you don’t fall into a dull routine of simply looking for the white spots along the walls without any deeper thought.
Of course, Dandara can do more than just leap to any surface. She has a projectile weapon at the ready, one that’s slow-acting so you can’t just spam your foes. It takes a second or two to charge so you have to plan your assault–if you don’t, a wayward projectile could smack you while you’re gearing up for a strike. This smart system means that even though you always have the ability to fight, it’s often better to avoid confrontations rather than risk taking damage. Eventually, Dandara does acquire new projectiles that can be unleashed instantaneously, but these are limited by an energy bar. Because every attack has an obvious downside, mastery of movement is ultimately the key to staying alive.
However, mastering movement is no easy task. Even though I spent more than 10 hours exploring this world, I never felt completely in control. The line that sprouts from Dandara to show where you’re going to land can be fiddly. Too often I had to adjust and then readjust my aim because it would auto-aim to a specific spot that I didn’t want to be on. And though that wasn’t much of a problem, quickly bounding across a hazard-strewn section was way trickier than I would have liked. Precision felt like it came at the cost of speed, so I would get smacked around by enemies as I tried valiantly to make my way to a safe area.
There’s one section late in the game that should have been the exhilarating climax everything had been building toward. It has narrow walls and five different types of enemies preventing any chance of reprieve. I was all set to show off my jaw-dropping movement abilities and dispatch the enemy swarm with the style I had learned during my hours with the game. But the reality of the situation was that instead of evading the homing missiles barreling toward me, I would accidentally fly directly into them. The same clumsiness persisted as I tried to time my leaps to counter an enemy flipping between the floor and ceiling. Because I had so much health by this point, I was able to progress with little more than a bruised ego, but it was an ugly victory. That moment in platformers where you show off all that you learned is one of the reasons I love the genre. Moving so awkwardly even as I reached Dandara’s end was a bummer.
It’s a shame that the control can be a little tricky, because Dandara is an utter delight when things really click. There’s a boss fight early on where you chase an enemy through the nothingness of space. Platforms appear out of thin air as you hunt him, and you have to bounce across the broken landscape while dodging projectiles and spawning enemies to get close enough to land a counter attack. When I finally vanquished my opponent, I felt like taking a bow. The speed and precision required pushed me to my limits, and though I died a dozen or so times, it was a serious rush when everything coalesced into a beautiful dance. But Dandara doesn’t often reach those heights. Later scenarios require even more speed and precision than that early boss fight, and because there’s a slight auto aim on your jumping point, I often felt bit out of control as I zipped around.
If you play on the PC, you do have the option of using a mouse, but it’s a little cumbersome. Although it’s slightly easier to aim for a specific spot, it’s much slower, and areas where you have to quickly bounce from one place to the next, avoiding traps on the ground while dodging projectiles from angry enemies, are tougher without a controller. No matter which control method you choose, though, Dandara is forgiving enough that I never got angry. Frequent checkpoints mean you’re rarely more than 30 seconds from where you last died, and Dandara has plenty of health to help her withstand a few stray attacks.
The level design is another strong point. The world rotates as you turn ceilings and walls into floors, making you put a little thought into figuring out which way is up. But even as everything flips and twist around you, it’s still clear where you need to go next. There are only so many unexplored paths at a given time, so a quick peek at the map should be enough to get you moving to your goal. And as you explore, there are plenty of fascinating sights to behold. The most impressive comes late in the game in a nightmare world where swirling vortexes dot the foreground while mystical islands drift behind you. It’s a stunning area that made me pause to take it all in. The same mesmerizing feeling came from the enchanting music. Even though the story comes up short, the visuals and music really transport you to an imaginative world just begging to be discovered.
Careful explorers are rewarded with bonuses that help against the tougher boss fights. Dandara can use the salt she collects from defeated enemies and treasure chests to boost her abilities. Although you don’t need to upgrade often during the early going, as you earn more and more salt toward the end of the game, and the bosses get harder and harder, you really need the extra burst of health and energy these upgrades provide. But, more importantly, it’s just fun figuring out how to reach every hidden room and unlock every treasure chest. Even when a chest doesn’t yield a particularly valuable reward, simply solving a tricky puzzle to get the chest is satisfying on its own.
There have been so many Metroid-inspired games that it’s almost impossible to stand out. Dandara’s unique movement abilities ensure it’s at least significantly different from its peers. But the same reason that Dandara is so unique is also its biggest setback. The sense of mastery never quite comes, resulting in a game that flashes its potential in one scene only to undermine that thrill soon afterward. Even with its occasional stumbles, though, Dandara offers enough excitement and beauty to push you onward.
Monster Hunter World released for PS4 and Xbox One last month, but one of the biggest incentives to pick the game up on Sony’s console is an exclusive set of Horizon Zero Dawn DLC armor. The gear has been available since launch through a limited-time Event Quest, but it won’t be around for much longer.
The first round of Monster Hunter World’s Horizon collaboration event ends at 3:59 PT / 6:59 ET / 11:59 UTC on February 8, making this your last opportunity to embark on the quest. The mission is called Lessons of the Wild, and it’s a five-star quest available to players who’ve attained a Hunter Rank of 6 or higher. The object is to hunt eight Barnos, which will net you the materials needed to craft the Watcher armor and Felyn Watcher Grinder weapon for your Palico. You can take a look at the gear below.
While the Lessons of the Wild quest sounds simple on paper, you’ll also have to contend with a Tzitzi-Ya-Ku during the mission. Once you’ve defeated the Barnos and gathered the required materials, you can forge the Watcher gear at the Smithy. For more details on how to craft the armor, we’ve put together a guide on exactly how to get Monster Hunter World’s Horizon Palico gear.
The second round of the Horizon event begins at the end of the month, on February 28, and runs until March 5. Capcom hasn’t detailed what that quest will entail or what Hunter Rank you’ll need to reach in order to accept it, but your reward will be materials to craft Aloy’s Bow and armor set. When the latter is equipped, it will change your hunter’s appearance to look like the Horizon protagonist.
While the Horizon Zero Dawn gear is exclusive to the PS4 version of Monster Hunter World, all players will be able to get the recently announced Street Fighter V crossover costumes. An upcoming Event Quest will reward players with materials to craft Ryu and Sakura costumes for their hunter. Capcom hasn’t announced what date the Event Quest will begin, but PS4 players who have a save file for Street Fighter V on their consoles will be able to embark on the mission before everyone else.
Take Two label Private Division has announced the release of Kerbal Space Program’s first expansion, Making History, set to launch on March 13 for PC for $14.99.
“Kerbal Space Program: Making History Expansion will provide players with an entire new set of tools and content that fundamentally change how the game is played,” said Allen Murray, Vice President of Production at Private Division. “We can’t wait to see the creativity of the KSP community around the world as they create and share missions.”
The expansion will add a Mission Builder allowing players to “create and share their own scenarios,” and a number of pre-made missions inspired by historical moments in space exploration in the History Pack, among other additions.
The resurgence of vintage video games is great for many reasons, not the least of which is the availability of new equipment to play old games on modern TVs. Seattle-based Analogue has traditionally stood ahead of the competition by releasing great looking consoles that offer best-in-class video processing and notably nuanced configuration settings, and its latest device, the Super Nt, is no different. It’s a beautifully designed, compact console that, at the moment, is the best device for playing original Super Nintendo cartridges on HD and 4K TVs. It’s a relatively expensive option at $189, but if you obsess over minute details and strive for authenticity, the Super Nt’s price tag is easily justifiable.
In addition to Nintendo’s own SNES Classic (which obviously doesn’t support cartridges) there are multiple sub-$100, HD-enabled SNES consoles to choose from at present, from manufacturers like Hyperkin and Retro-Bit. While functional, the Retrons and Retro Trios of the world are consoles designed on a budget with constrained feature-sets and outdated tech. In theory, you can grow accustomed to shortcomings like input latency and improper video processing, but accepting these quirks doesn’t diminish their existence. Analogue took a decidedly different approach for its console that eliminates these issues from the get-go.
These images are captured directly from the Super Nt at 1080p, with an aspect ratio of 8:7, at 4.5x height.
The Super Nt offers highly configurable video output with resolutions up to 1080p through HDMI, and near-perfect performance thanks to the expertly configured FPGA under the hood. In simple terms, an FPGA chip can mimic components like RAM, video processors, and CPUs simultaneously. In the case of the Super Nt, developer Kevin Horton has created a seemingly complete and accurate Super Nintendo on an FPGA, a feat no one else can claim.
Generally speaking, games played on the Super Nt look and play exactly as they should when upscaled to resolutions beyond the original system’s native 240p signal. The Super Nt will output video at 480p, 576p, 720p, or 1080p, with suitable options to cater to the peculiarities of games designed for both NTSC and PAL standards. However, the output resolution is only half of the story. Once that’s settled, you can dive into other menus to configure the aspect ratio of the game screen, adjust its position, crop unwanted portions of the image, and manually scale width and height to achieve your desired look.
Simulated scanlines are also available, but rather than apply a static filter over the rendered image, the Super Nt’s solution operates on the individual horizontal lines of resolution. So when you enable scanlines in conjunction with a resolution that is not a multiple of 240p–such as 1080p–they lack complete uniformity. Super Nt’s scanline options can be adjusted and slightly improved from the default settings, but if you want to play with “proper” scanlines, the best solution is to stick to 480p or 720p.
With over 2,000 SNES games released across multiple territories, it’s virtually impossible for anyone to say with absolute certainty that the Super Nt is 100% compatible with all games from start to finish. In testing dozens of cartridges, only two proved troublesome for us: Mortal Kombat 2, and a reproduction cartridge of the unreleased English version of Rendering Ranger R2, known as Targa. Analogue’s answer for the Mortal Kombat 2 issue? To fix the bug in less than 48 hours after we brought it to their attention. A new firmware came quickly after Analogue reproduced the glitch on its end, and it’s comforting to know that a precedent has been set for addressing and resolving incompatibility issues in short order.
Analogue did a great job of matching the original aesthetic of both the original Super Nintendo and the Super Famicom.
Targa simply wouldn’t get past the publisher’s slashpage, despite working fine on other aftermarket consoles. This was also the case when trying to play the Japanese version using a flash cart on the Super Nt. Rendering Ranger is known to be a problematic game even for official SNES consoles, but Analogue promises a fix is on the way in the near future.
Of note is the potential (as hinted by Analogue) for an option down the road for users to switch the Super Nt’s FPGA–on-the-fly–to match different Super Nintendo hardware revisions. Even among Nintendo’s own consoles, these variations in processors and encoders would lead to rare instances of glitches in certain games (such as Rendering Ranger R2), so it’s refreshing to know that the Super Nt may have a workaround for end-user troubleshooting at a later date.
While there are obviously a few quirks to keep in mind, the benefits of the Super Nt far outweigh its relatively minor issues.
Aside from those two exceptions, compatibility was otherwise rock-solid during our tests, including games like Star Fox, Mega Man X2, and Street Fighter Alpha 2, which are designed around traditionally troublesome special expansion chips that handle applications like 3D calculations and asset compression. There’s also native support for peripheral carts like Game Genie and Super Game Boy–including streaming audio, which most SNES clone consoles struggle with. The only accessory you can count on not working is the Super Scope, a light gun designed for (and only compatible with) CRT TVs. Analogue is currently developing a digital-to-analog attachment for the Super Nt to support CRT TVs, though the performance, release date, and cost of the DAC remains to be seen.
On the hardware side, the Super Nt is straightforward: a Micro USB port for power, an HDMI port for A/V output, an SD card slot for firmware updates, and two SNES controller ports. Traditional SNES controllers work exactly as expected, and as Analogue suggests, you can also use wireless controllers made by 8Bitdo, which now come in colors designed to match the four color variants of the Super Nt.
The Super Nt’s scanlines work best at 720p, as seen in this screenshot of Konami’s Cybernator.
The 8Bitdo SN30 Bluetooth controllers are convenient to connect and charge, are very responsive, and feel almost like a Nintendo-made controller. The one minor issue is the d-pad, which will occasionally move your character on screen left or right when pressing down, should you inadvertently tilt your thumb. Though not perfect, we like the 8Bitdo controllers a lot, and only wish that the Super Nt came bundled with one.
It should be noted that even though you won’t normally have to tinker with the 8Bitdo wireless transmitter once you’ve started playing a game, removing or adding transmitters during gameplay can cause the Super Nt to crash, forcing you to power the console off and on. According to Analogue, this is due to related power demands coming from the transmitter, and the system detecting and protecting the FPGA from potential harm. Thankfully, wired controllers can be connected and disconnected during gameplay without risk of crashing the system.
While there are obviously a few quirks to keep in mind, the benefits of the Super Nt far outweigh its relatively minor issues. There is simply no other console that can play actual SNES cartridges at 1080p without relying on expensive video gear. And looking beyond resolution, the number of settings at your fingertips makes it easy to dial in the look you want for your SNES games in a matter of seconds. The Super Nt is impressive both inside and out, and a smart solution for anyone who strives to see their favorite 16-bit Nintendo games in their best light.
Editor’s note: Analogue provided GameSpot the Super Nt consoles and 8bitdo controllers used in this review.
The full trailer for the second season of Jessica Jones has been released. The Marvel Netflix show sees Kristen Ritter return as the troubled, hard-drinking private detective, who is forced to deal with consequences of her traumatic experiences in Season 1. Check it out above.
Jessica Jones Season 2 hits Netflix on March 8. The show also stars Rachael Taylor, Carrie-Anne Moss, Eka Darville, and Leah Gibson. David Tennant is set to make a return as the villainous Kilgrave too, although given his fate in Season 1, it’s not yet clear how exactly.
Last year, Jessica Jones showrunner Melissa Rosenberg spoke about her plans for Season 2 and revealed that her time on the acclaimed serial killer drama Dexter was influencing her approach. “I learned from working on Dexter that you can advance the character, but you never want to cure the character,” she said. “With Dexter, the moment he felt guilt or accepted that he was ‘bad,’ the show’s over. He’s no longer a sociopath.
“The equivalent for us would be if Jessica somehow recovered from the damage that had been done to her. People don’t just heal, you don’t go through that just to say, ‘Oh, he got arrested, he’s in jail, I’m OK now.’ That trauma is a huge part of who she is now. She was kind of messed up even before Kilgrave came along, and so in Season 2 we can explore what’s possible for her moving forward.”
As director David F. Sandberg revealed last week, DC’s superhero adventure Shazam is now in production. The movie stars Thor actor Zachary Levi in the title role, Asher Angel as his young alter ego Billy Batson, and Mark Strong as the evil Doctor Sivana. It’s set to hit theaters in April next year, and Warner has now released an official synopsis for the movie.
As Sandberg hinted last year, the synopsis confirms that the movie will have a more lighthearted tone than many of DC’s movies. As in the comic books, the story will focus on teenage Billy, who becomes an adult superhero by saying a single word.
The synopsis reads: “We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s case, by shouting out one word–SHAZAM!–this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult superhero Shazam, courtesy of an ancient wizard.
“Still a kid at heart–inside a ripped, godlike body–Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he’ll need to master these powers quickly in order to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Doctor Thaddeus Sivana.”
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was previously announced in the role of Shazam’s nemesis Black Adam, but it was subsequently confirmed that he will not feature in Shazam. However, he is still set to appear in a spin-off movie.
Shazam first appeared in 1939, when he was known by the name Captain Marvel. The character was bought by DC in 1971, when he was renamed, due to Marvel’s ownership of the name Captain Marvel. A live action Shazam TV show was broadcast in the mid-’70s, while an animated show followed in 1981.
Details for the latest Overwatch Year of the Dog event have been teased.
A new developer update video brings some details of what we can expect in the next lunar new year event.
Lead designer Jeff Kaplan reveals a new map based on Thailand will be added to the game. The Ayutthaya map is designed specifically for capture the flag and will feature both ancient and modern themes.
Kaplan goes on to explain that updates have also come to the capture the flag game mode. Draws have been removed from the mode and instead a sudden death mechanic will commence if a tie is imminent. This will move both teams flags closer to the center of the map, allowing for either team to score a point quickly.
This week’s Flash was really all over the place in terms of tone and focus. In other words, pretty much par for the course with Season 4. The renewed focus on Clifford DeVoe and a handful of great character moments ensured that there was more bad than good, but there’s still little sense that the writers are figuring out how to strike a lasting balance between comedy and drama this season really needs at the moment.
Barry’s prison ordeal took a darker turn this week as he found himself locked away in the metahuman wing of iron Heights and placed at the mercy of the suddenly not-so-trustworthy Warden Wolfe. That made for an interesting shift, with Barry forced to join forces with the very metahuman criminals he put away in the hope of escaping. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before this episode began undercutting its own drama. The ease of Barry’s escape ensured that neither Wolfe nor Amunet Black presented quite the clear, immediate danger they should have.
