Warner Bros. UK have revealed the official origin trailer for the highly anticipated WONDER WOMAN. Starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielson, Robin Wright, David Thewlis and directed by Patty Jenkins, WONDER WOMAN is released in UK cinemas June 2, 2017.
Before she was Wonder Woman, she was Diana, princess of the Amazons, trained to be an unconquerable warrior. Raised on a sheltered island paradise, when an American pilot crashes on their shores and tells of a massive conflict raging in the outside world, Diana leaves her home, convinced she can stop the threat. Fighting alongside man in a war to end all wars, Diana will discover her full powers…and her true destiny.
Wonder Woman is scheduled for release beginning June 2, 2017.
Warner Bros. UK is pleased to reveal a brand new poster for Patty Jenkins’ highly anticipated WONDER WOMAN.
Before she was Wonder Woman, she was Diana, princess of the Amazons, trained to be an unconquerable warrior. Raised on a sheltered island paradise, when an American pilot crashes on their shores and tells of a massive conflict raging in the outside world, Diana leaves her home, convinced she can stop the threat. Fighting alongside man in a war to end all wars, Diana will discover her full powers…and her true destiny.
Patty Jenkins directs the film from a screenplay by Allan Heinberg, story by Zack Snyder & Allan Heinberg and Jason Fuchs, based on characters from DC. Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston.
The film is produced by Charles Roven, Deborah Snyder, Zack Snyder and Richard Suckle, with Stephen Jones, Geoff Johns, Wesley Coller, Jon Berg and Rebecca Steel Roven serving as executive producers.
Joining Jenkins behind the camera are director of photography Matthew Jensen (“Chronicle,” “Fantastic Four,” HBO’s “Game of Thrones”), Oscar-nominated production designer Aline Bonetto (“Amélie,” “A Very Long Engagement,” “Pan”), Oscar-winning editor Martin Walsh (“Chicago,” “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” “V for Vendetta”), and Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming (“The Dark Knight” trilogy, “Topsy-Turvy”). The music is by composer Rupert Gregson-Williams (“Hacksaw Ridge,” “The Legend of Tarzan”).
Warner Bros. Pictures presents, an Atlas Entertainment/Cruel and Unusual production, “Wonder Woman.” The film is scheduled for release beginning June 2, 2017, and will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.
iStorage Limited, manufacturers of PIN authenticated hardware encrypted portable data storage drives, have added the premium DriveSecurity antivirus software to their range, just in time for World Back Up Day.
DriveSecurity prevents malware from spreading via removable media and is designed to run from your portable drive (e.g. Flash, HDD/SSD, etc.) and does not require any installation on the host computer. It resides on portable drives providing protection on any Windows or Mac computers it is connected to and protects users from viruses and other malware that are commonly transmitted by USB drives. Changes to flash drive content are scanned by ESET’s award-winning ESET NOD32 anti-virus engine to detect and eliminate Viruses, Spyware, Trojans, Worms, Rootkits, Adware and other Internet threats before they can be transmitted onto your portable drives.
Having the DriveSecurity software on your portable secure drive by iStorage provides an additional security layer (antivirus and anti-spyware protection) means that any files placed on your flash drive are malware-free and safe to share with others. It’s easy to use and deploy as there is no need to install anything on a host computer. DriveSecurity brings ESET NOD32 ThreatSense award-winning security technology, usability and portability together, eliminating all security threats from your portable data storage drive.
Users can be safe in the knowledge that their data will be protected on an iStorage PIN authenticated hardware encrypted portable storage drive, meaning that if the drive is lost or stolen, there is no need to worry about their private files being shared with unwanted users. With the benefit of DriveSecurity antivirus and anti-spyware software, users are given even more security protection meaning that their files and now Win and MAC computers are protected from malicious virus threats that may be spread via portable data storage devices.
With World BackUp Day coming up, and to encourage users to protect their data and back up regularly, iStorage is offering a free 30-day trial on all iStorage products requested online. To find out how iStorage can protect your confidential data in preparation for World BackUp Day, please visit www.istorage-uk.com
Telltale Games, along with Marvel Entertainment, today shared the world-first screenshots and cast details for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series, set to premiere digitally this Spring on consoles, PC, and mobile devices.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series is a brand new story of the universe’s unlikeliest heroes: Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket, and Groot. In the wake of an epic battle, the Guardians discover an artifact of unspeakable power. Each of them has a reason to desire this relic, as does a ruthless enemy who is the last of her kind, and who will stop at nothing to tear it from their hands.
From Earth to the Milano to Knowhere and beyond, and set to the beat of awesome music, you wear the rocket-powered boots of Star-Lord in an original Guardians adventure, where your decisions and actions drive the story you experience.
The series will feature a star-studded cast of voice talent, including Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights, The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series) as Star-Lord, Emily O’Brien (The Young and the Restless, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor) as Gamora, Nolan North (the Uncharted series, Pretty Little Liars) as Rocket, Brandon Paul Eells (Watch Dogs) as Drax, and Adam Harrington (The Wolf Among Us, League of Legends) as Groot.
Premiering this Spring, the series will also be coming to retail as a special season pass disc, which will include the first episode in the season, and will grant access to the subsequent four episodes as they become available for download via online updates. Specific platform details are yet to be announced.
Mario is quite possibly one of the most active video-games characters and is probably responsible for getting many youths into sports. Not content with promoting the Olympic Games and starring in various other sports themed video-games, Mario is also keeping active in Mario Sports Superstars.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment revealed the first gameplay footage of Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the sequel to Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.
Gameplay Walkthrough introduces viewers to the next generation of the innovative Nemesis System with the addition of Nemesis Fortresses, where players must utilise different strategies to conquer dynamic strongholds and forge their personalised Orc army. In this video, Talion and Celebrimbor, who return as the Bright Lord, must lead a fortress assault on the mountain valley of Seregost and take it from one of Sauron’s Overlords. To succeed, they will use the power of the New Ring to recruit Followers during enemy encounters a new mechanic allowing gamers to establish entirely new stories of loyalty, betrayal and revenge.
Now sit back and watch 16 minutes of gameplay walkthrough is just one of the millions of possibilities that players will experience in Middle-earth: Shadow of War.
Out on 25 August for PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One and PC and Project Scorpio.
A brand new site from Watermelon Limited has launched allowing fans of Disney, Star Wars and Marvel to buy an exciting range of items, all of which can be easily customised with a name, slogan or word of choice and delivered straight to your door in just a couple of clicks. From t-shirts and tea towels to cushions and coasters, and with products to suit all ages, customisedbyme.com is the place to make your favourite characters even more special.
Licensed by Disney and operated by Watermelon Limited, customisedbyme.com features a huge collection of bespoke designs for a wealth of favourite characters, with more are being added regularly. Characters include Beauty and the Beast’s Belle, Elsa from Frozen, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Donald Duck, Baloo from The Jungle Book and Winnie the Pooh to name just a few. In addition, galactic favourites such as Darth Vader and Rey are featured as well as a whole host of Super Heroes such as Spider-Man and Captain America.
Whether looking to make that gift even more special or just to create something for yourself, you can select items either by character or by product, across fashion, home and gifts and technology. In addition, there are a number of beautiful collections, including ‘Retro Film Posters’ and ‘Movie Art’ as well as occasion themed items, starting with Valentine’s Day but with more to follow throughout the year.
What’s more, Disney Princess fans are in for a real treat with the ability to go one step further in their customisation journey with the Princess By Me collection. As well as adding a name, slogan, or word of choice they can even decide the design of their product, choosing everything from colour and pattern, to text colour and their favourite Princess quote.
Using advanced printing techniques, a stunning, hardwearing finish is visible across all products and with the range of designs set to keep on growing, finding product of your latest Disney favourite has never been easier.
We will be testing out the service and will report back what we think!
Having completely missed out on the PlayStation 3 era altogether due to selecting the Xbox 360 as my gaming console of choice for that generation, a good number of classic PlayStation titles and series slipped my gaming. Thus my PlayStation 4 bucket list was created and thankfully only a few remain unchecked going into 2017, one of them was Kingdom Hearts. Ahead of the hopefully imminent release of Kingdom Hearts III, a collection of previously outside PlayStation Kingdom Hearts content has been released under the mouthful title of ‘Kingdom Hearts 2.8 HD Final Chapter Prologue’ and finally I was to experience Kingdom Hearts…well, just about anyway.
This collection contains three parts; Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop HD, Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep ‘A Fragmented Passage’ and Kingdom Hearts X Back Cover. Each is a standalone option to choose to play from the main menu. The music on the main menu is soothing and embodies the sense of wonder I have grown to have about Kingdom Hearts as a series.
Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD was originally a title for the Nintendo 3DS so this remastered version marks the first time it has appeared on a main PlayStation console and has been adapted to suit a console rather than the dual screens of the 3DS. It stars Sora and Riku, characters from the main Kingdom Hearts games as they look to complete their Mark of Mastery exams by protecting parallel worlds as they prepare for the return of Master Xehanort. Each character is playable in the worlds but use a timed based system which results in switching to the other character via the Drop system which depletes over time.
As my first introduction to playing anything Kingdom Hearts, my reaction to the first 20 minutes was one of confusion and intrigue. I knew Disney characters were a part of the series but the very first thing I was presented with was a fight with Ursula from the Little Mermaid. The way in which the story felt thrown at the player was overwhelming and the opening to the game moves pretty fast with cuts-scenes that do set up the story but was lost on a newcomer to the series like me. It did feel as though I was playing a remake of a handheld game, loading screens are frequent and the gameplay is quick but the shifting between Sora and Riku never gave me time that I felt I needed to learn about them as characters. But it gives an incredible look into how the world of Disney blends with that of Kingdom Hearts and in terms of story and scope for what Kingdom Hearts III has in store it honestly left me wanting to get into this series even more. Getting to grips with the flowmotion system of moving around felt a little lost in what came across as rather empty worlds, something that probably worked ok on the 3DS but for this remaster, being a little more populated would have helped a lot I feel.
Kingdom Hearts X Back Cover was a surprise for me in that I was expecting content to actually play. Instead it is merely an animated movie that looks into the very earliest history of the Kingdom Hearts universe with one of the strangest introduction to any animation I have seen with text on screen moving so fast you can hardly make out what the text on screen is saying yet you have almost three minutes of it to get through. To be fair it is listed as the final chapter in the collection so if a player follows each chapter choice normally they will find this animated film as the closing part to the collection.
It tells the story set before the Keyblade War itself, which to someone like me who is not familiar enough with the main story as it is, did not help fill in any of the blanks at all. The story is really all about politics, how when seven people are chosen to be Foretellers, holders of books with prophecies of the future and their role in preventing the spread of darkness across the worlds. The pace is slow, really slow and on first viewing, the chapters are not skippable, meaning you have to play the whole animation as a complete piece before given the option to watch individual chapters in bite size after watching it that first time. Due to its setting, it is disconnected from what is shown and played in Drop Distance and A Fragmented Passage though it is apparently something that will be referenced in Kingdom Hearts III. My reaction to this was pretty much the same as most Star Wars fans coming out of watching The Phantom Menace for the first time in that this animation has themes and exposition that feel strange and not in line with how the story was told in the actual playable chapters in this collection. The quality of the animation is great though and if the cut scenes in Kingdom Hearts III follow suit, the story telling through them will indeed be amazing, but it just feels rather out of place without anything a player can actually play or experience other than sitting there watching it unfold.
I left the middle chapter, Birth by Sleep ‘A Fragmented Passage’ really is the crown jewel of this collection and to a newcomer to Kingdom Hearts, a superb way of demonstrating its gameplay and story telling in a traditional straight forward gaming way that I wish it had been my first selection in going into this collection instead of Drop Distance. Short at just shy of three hours long, it is told from the viewpoint of the character Aqua, who along with two friends are trapped in the realm of Darkness. Set after the events of Drop Distance, King Mickey Mouse reveals that he has been keeping a few secrets, one of which is the truth about what happened to Aqua and her attempts to rescue her friends from Darkness.
This is truly the best teaser for Kingdom Hearts III as A Fragmented Passage uses the same Unreal 4 engine that it is using. Visually the game world and character models are simply stunning and the gameplay is smooth in transitioning from combat styles to moving around the world using Aqua’s double jump. It felt far more controlled to play as Aqua than the flowmotion with Sora and Riku in Drop Distance and I felt more comfortable with this gameplay style. The story telling between gameplay sections in cut-scenes was easy enough to follow for a newcomer like me and left me excited going into Kingdom Hearts III more so than before I played this collection and especially more than either of the other inclusions. Exploring this world felt fun and intriguing and the gameplay soon became second nature.
Now to someone completely new to Kingdom Hearts I was hoping that for this remastered collection at least, each would come with some kind of introduction as to their place in the series but sadly each is presented just how they are, which left me as confused about the series as I was without this collection experience. Back Cover felt like filler and Drop Distance failed to capture me as much as A Fragmented Passage did, with the latter certainly paving the way for what looks to be an amazing visual platform with the Unreal 4 Engine for Kingdom Hearts III. This is a collection for fans well versed in the series but it did very little to help welcome me as a new player which feels like a missed opportunity. Drop Distance and Fragmented Passage are short game experiences, worthwhile but indeed short. Back Cover was a chore to sit through in one sitting to justify it as anything but padding to justify the pricing for the collection.
If only Square Enix had added something to allow new players to Kingdom Hearts more freedom to learn about the series, even if it were just text based information to set up each chapter or explain their place in the overall Kingdom Hearts series but if this collection was simply a way to put the engine being used for the next game, through its paces, then it has paid off. It gave me a glimpse into the world of Kingdom Hearts and whilst it was not a bountiful feast of lore to snack on, does have me engaged enough to want Kingdom Hearts III even more now.
We take a look at the Iron Man Pop Bobble-Head from Underground Toys.
Formed in 2001, Underground Toys is a leading creator, manufacturer and distributor of licensed products around the globe. Underground Toys became known for the talking keychain brand “In Your Pocket” and “Pocket Pals”™ and have built a reputable name; expanding into the world of high-quality, stylised talking plush, homewares and other exciting categories
Underground Toys is proud to hold the rights for an impressive portfolio of entertainment brands from popular TV series and movies including Star Wars, Doctor Who, Marvel, Sherlock, Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Game of Thrones and many more.
This particular Pop! Bobble-head is Iron Man from Captain America: Civil War (number 126 for those who are interested).
This would make a great addition to your collection! The Iron Man Pop Bobble-Head is available for around £9.99.
The world of video-games has often been used as a way of escaping the harsh reality of real life for a lot of players. It’s only fitting that the very art style in puzzle title Back to Bed seems inspired by the surrealism movement that tried to combine reality with dreams.
The moment you see that the world a game is based on is called Gamerearth, you can already tell where the theme is heading. Combine that with the knowledge that the game comes from Adult Swim and you can be forgiven for expecting a rather tongue in cheek funny adult themed game and this is where Rise and Shine almost loses its way in trying to define exactly what it is supposed to be as an experience for players.
Rise and Shine puts the player in the role of Rise, a young boy living on Gamerearth, a place inhabited by heroes who have more than just a passing resemblance to certain classic video game characters. The world is suddenly invaded by a evil army of space marines and whilst running to protection inside a local shopping mall, Rise comes across a Legendary Warrior, who falls in battle and gives Rise his gun in order to fight back and save the world. The gun is a legendary pistol called Shine, who can speak and offers to help Rise in his fight.
The game itself on the surface is a standard 2D side scrolling shooter but soon starts to throw in gameplay styles from other well known game series. Soon the game injects a cover based system those familiar with Gears of War will recognize, an addition which in the early stages does work well. Rise and Shine also uses a twin stick shooter system to make it stand out from conventional side scroller shooters. So what we have is a game that has been influenced and inspired by the gameplay styles of other titles, trying to blend them together in a way that is refreshing but sadly, only succeeds in making the gameplay messy.
The gameplay starts off fairly routine but quickly escalates to almost silly levels that frustrate and constrain the gameplay. Shine soon unlocks the ability to use different forms of ammo from remote controlled bullets to elemental bullets. The levels introduce puzzles in order to progress further which will require using the special ammo to unlock doors or turn off security systems. I actually liked this element; it gave the levels an extra challenge outside of the action and complimented the level design well. But the gameplay does start to trip up on itself sadly and this is the main fault of Rise and Shine.
At points of the game, the difficulty will spike at points, turning Rise and Shine into more of a bullet hell style game which the player will have to try and avoid a shower of bullets from the enemy. When this happens, the control system becomes increasingly unhelpful and cheap deaths will halt progression. The cover based system falters under the relentless amount of bullets or enemies on screen and soon the player can be overwhelmed by the action. It felt as though the game was attempting to make up for its very short length, between two and two and half hours to complete, by making sections overly difficult to force repeating sections or boss encounters. Now other games use this style very effectively, but here it simply feels unfair leaving a trial and error system to rinse and repeat certain sections. It regretfully sullies the experience and sours the cocktail of gaming styles Rise and Shine tries to bring together which can work in parts but ultimately breaks itself far too much.
Visually the hand drawn art style is striking and gives it a real comic book visual style I really liked. The soundtrack and audio to the game is equally fun but just as the gameplay lets itself down, the hard work in the visuals and audio then falls down in terms of the story. It is a relatively simply story in Rise and Shine, hero must rise to save his world from an enemy but it relies on parody far too much which at first is kind of cute but soon becomes tiresome. The Legendary Warrior who gives Rise the pistol Shine, bears more than a passing resemblance to a certain Nintendo hero, and the parodying continues into other well known game series, these are not subtle and end up feeling forced into the story though but considering the setting of the world is expected.
Overall Rise and Shine is a game trying to do a lot of things but ultimately over complicates the fundamentals. By being a jack of all trades it relies far too much on simply making it difficult to the player but in a way that is not rewarding or satisfying enough for the player to feel like they were challenged more than simply surviving cheap AI tactics. The visual style is wasted by such a short game and the humour quickly evaporates which considering the two hour length is a disappointment. Fans of side scroller shooters will get more out of this than a casual player but when the controls and mechanics start to unravel you simply end up thinking it is a shame they did not focus more on just making the game a bit longer and rewarding.
With Jack Reacher Never Go Back released on DVD and Blu-ray, here is our spoiler free two minute review.
Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) returns to enforce his bold brand of justice in the action-packed sequel based on author Lee Child’s best-selling series. When Army Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders) is framed for treason, Reacher discovers she’s the target of a massive government conspiracy. With help from Turner and a mysterious new ally, Reacher risks everything to take down a powerful organization that will stop at nothing to protect its secrets.
This is the second Jack Reacher movie to be released, and as a big fan of the books I was looking forward to seeing what they would do with this movie.
The film begins with Reacher sitting in a dinner after an altercation with a few guys, and following a conversation with Major Susan Turner, he decides to make his way to meet her for dinner. The problem is once he gets there, he finds she’s been taken into custody and he’s framed for murder! From that point on it’s pretty much non stop with both the Army and the bad guys chasing Reacher and Turner, and a girl they have with them, and trying to uncover what’s going on and clear their names.
I enjoyed the movie, it had a little more story to it than the first Jack Reacher movie. Fans of the books will always feel a little disappointed though – there just isn’t time to do Reacher justice in a movie, especially when there are over 20 Reacher books now. With a lot of material to choose from I was surprised they went with this one, but that said, it’s still an enjoyable movie and worth a watch.
If you are after an action movie with a bit of a story then check out Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. And whilst you are at it, why not pick up some of the books, you won’t be disappointed.
JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK is available now on Digital Download, Blu-ray and DVD.
As we all know there is alot of streaming audio players out there, at the heart of the Musaic MP5 (Amazon £279.95) is a beautiful sounding amp more on this later on in the review, which in the MP5’s case outputs 18W per side into two full-range 55mm front-firing drive units made from doped paper cones with dust caps.
A rear grab handle also acts as a discreet bass port, to further aide lower frequency reproduction and both models feature a custom-tuned version of HDSX signal processing, claimed to expand the listening position’s sweet-spot.
10 touch sensitive panel buttons
With 10 touch-sensitive top-panel buttons emulating smartphone icons that include power, volume and mute in the right bank and play controls to the left, which also double up as memory recall buttons. There’s also a heart-shaped ‘like’ icon and light bulb symbol, revealing how the Musaics are also designed to work with streaming services and smart home lighting systems.
3.5mm input/USB charge socket, Ethernet port
Physical inputs are limited to a rear-panel 3.5mm analogue input, a USB-A charge socket for smartphones and the like and an Ethernet port. The system’s real talent, however, lies in its streaming support, and to access everything it has to offer, you need to download the free Musaic app (for Android and iOS). Setting up a wi-fi connection is plain sailing.
Sound
The way how the MP5 glues the various instruments within the track together in a cohesive manner, allowing all of its elements to combine and build the music’s overriding atmospheric, to hook me in.
At the bottom of the screen is a row of music source icons to access music stored on my phone, internet radio stations, music libraries on my network (including my NAS drive), plus a range of third-party streaming services.
For the latter, seamless integration is provided for Spotify Connect, and you’ll need Spotify’s Premium package to access this. There’s also support for AUPEO!, Murfie, Napster, Qualcomm AllPlay,, including Tidal.
Hitting the home icon takes you to the ‘Rooms’ menu, which lists each Musaic player on your network, allowing you to stream music to each individually, or group them to play simultaneously, with one acting as a ‘master’ allowing it to relay music on, such as when streaming via Bluetooth.
With the Musaic MP5 has the range of file types is supported including MP3/AAC/ALAC/FLAC/AIFF and WAV up to 24-bit/192kHz, alongside aptX Bluetooth.
While listening to the MP5, while was listening to it I positioned myself about 2m in front of the MP5, to test the quality of sound from the device, with listening to my test tracks, the instruments are placed precisely where they should be with the guitars at the centre of the mix, complemented by horns and tambourines at the edges, alongside layers of percussion deeper still. Moving left or right of this position and the musical image remains the same, continuing to sound whole and well-rounded, with less drop off or over attention on areas of the frequency band than I’d expected. As I continue to move away from my listening position, the music gives a good impression of following me around the room without getting too lost or blurred.
Conclusion
The outset from the M5 has been engineered for maximum sound quality from the compact cases, meaning your office or kitchen need not suffer from audio that’s overly compromised. And while the Musaics’ onboard controls are intentionally limited, thankfully the accompanying app is very user-friendly, allowing you to jump across each device in the moment. Also Musaic can be connected to smart lighting systems and IFTTT to create a smart home that’s equally simple to set up.
If you looking for a good streaming speaker system then your ears will love you for it.
The most feared soldier on Nu Earth is back in business! ROGUE TROOPER REDUX will bring 2000 AD’s blue-skinned GI to Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Back in 2006, the original ROGUE TROOPER set the benchmark for video game adaptations of comic books. Developed by Rebellion, the studio behind Sniper Elite 4 and owners of British comic book powerhouse 2000 AD, it was widely acclaimed for bringing the cult sci-fi strip to life in an authentic, tactical, cover-based third-person shooter that debuted before the genre became the gaming staple it is today.
ROGUE TROOPER REDUX will remaster the Rebellion classic for a new generation of players, taking them to the chem-blasted battlefields of Nu Earth. Rogue, a bio-engineered Genetic Infantryman (or “GI”) immune to the planet’s poisonous atmosphere, is the last soldier standing against the colonial Nort regime. Carrying three fallen comrades as biochips in his equipment, Rogue is a one-unit squad of death and destruction, and he only has one thing on his mind – REVENGE.
ROGUE TROOPER REDUX is being developed in partnership with experienced UK studio TickTock Games, making it the first 2000 AD game developed outside of Rebellion.
