Mega Man Creator Announces Mighty No. 9

At PAX today, Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune announced Mighty No. 9, a new project seeking funding on Kickstarter.

According to the project page, Mighty No. 9 features “classic Japanese side-scrolling action” in which the player takes on the role of Beck, “the 9th in a line of powerful robots, and the only one not infected by a mysterious computer virus that has caused mechanized creatures the world over to go berserk.”

Gameplay sound similar to Mega Man in that players “run, jump, blast, and transform your way through six stages” that can be completed in any order. Players will steal weapons and abilities from enemies they defeat, and Beck’s “body itself can also reconfigure into new shapes, allowing for all kinds of new skills and abilities.”

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Rewind Theater: XCOM: Enemy Within PAX Trailer

The new trailer from Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown expansion is called War Machines, and it reveals the aliens' second new threat: the stealthy Seeker. Steve and Dan give you the shot-by-shot breakdown of all the new information on how they fight and what you can do to keep your troops alive.

If you missed the raw, unfiltered trailer, watch it below.

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Hang Out With IGN At PAX This Weekend

This year IGN is going to be all over PAX. Where can you see us this year? Check out all of our big events below:

"Join IGN at Rock Bottom Brewery in downtown Seattle on Saturday the 31st for a night of drinks, food, games and Greg Miller scaring small children! We've partnered up with Midnight City, a brand new indie publishing company from former IGN Editor In Chief Casey Lynch and we'll be showing off tons of games they'll be publishing. IGN's own Greg Miller, Daemon Hatfield, Mitch Dyer, Jose Otero, Sean Finnegan, Tim Geddes and Sean Allen will be hanging out all night, drinking, gaming, and partying with the IGN community. (When you see Mitch, make sure to talk to him about the finer points of Boy Meets World, he loves it!)"

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Road Not Taken Coming to PlayStation 4, PS Vita

Sony revealed quite a few games for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita today: add Road Not Taken to the list. Road Not Taken has already been announced for PC and iPhone.

Road Not Taken is under development at Spry Fox, and “is a game about life’s surprises, both positive and negative,” according to Spry Fox’s CEO David Edery. “In our take on Robert Frost’s poem of the same name, you wander through a mysterious forest in the aftermath of a large snowstorm. As you explore, you’ll come across wild animals, impassable barriers, and lost children.”

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Samurai Gunn Announced for PS4, PS Vita

Today, Sony revealed that Samurai Gunn (not to be confused with the old manga Samurai Gun) would be coming to both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.

Samurai Gunn was actually mentioned back at Gamescom as coming to the PlayStation ecosystem, but it appeared to only be a Vita game (in addition to coming to PC). Sony’s PS Blog post confirms that it’s both Vita and PS4-bound. It’s an old-school, hardcore action-platformer.

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VVVVVV Coming to PS Vita

Today, Sony revealed that indie hit VVVVVV will be coming to PlayStation Vita. It originally came to PC in 2010 (and 3DS a year later), and we liked it.

What’s VVVVVV all about? Publisher Nicalis’ Tyrone Rodriguez describes it as something like this: “you’re Captain Viridian (like the color) and you, your ship, and your crew are stranded in some crazy alternate dimension that, of course, is in the process of imploding. Of course it is. Your crew has been lost in this weird dimension and you’re the leader; it’s your job to go find them and maybe save the dimension.”

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The Subtle Magic of Tengami

I guess this preview should start with an apology. See, I played Tengami months ago at the first annual BitSummit -- an independent developer conference in Japan -- but forgot to write about it for IGN. And, at the time, I walked away impressed. I thought it was wonderful and different: a serene and thought provoking experiment that used interesting visual trickery and puzzles.

The first time I played Tengami, I did so on an iPad. Today, I played an early build running on Wii U at PAX. And, more importantly, I still felt the positive about it.

But I will admit that it's hard to fully grasp Tengami at first glance. In fact, during my Wii U demo two attendees started talking about it, and I couldn’t help but overhear their discussion. "I just don't understand what the game is here?" a disinterested male voice said.

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Double Fine Making DLC for PS4’s The Playroom

During a PlayStation event at PAX tonight, Double Fine revealed that it will create upcoming downloadable content for The Playroom, PlayStation 4’s AR game collection.

No details about the DLC have been revealed (including price or release date), but expect more information leading up to PlayStation 4's launch in November.

The Playroom is a collection of mini-games that utilizes the PlayStation 4 camera. At Gamescom last week, Sony confirmed that it will be pre-installed on every PlayStation 4.

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PS4 and Vita Get Another Timed Indie Exclusive

Cosmic Star Heroine -- the latest from developer Zeboyd -- will make its console debut exclusively on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita alongside its PC/Mac release next year. According to Robert Boyd, it wasn't a hard decision.

"I'm a huge Vita fan and both the PS4 and Vita support Unity so when Sony contacted us, it was an easy choice to make," Boyd said. "More indie games doesn't mean less big budget games; it means more games period. If anything, having a healthy selection of indie games on a platform actually increases the likelihood that people will buy the system which in turn increases the likelihood that big game companies will support that platform with blockbuster games."

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Microsoft Explains Xbox One Voice Command Delay

Update: Microsoft has clarified that the delay specifically affects the "Xbox On" voice command, which will only work in five markets at launch.

A spokesperson provided the following statement to Gamespot:

"Our vision is to bring conversational voice control and voice search to every country where we sell Xbox. At Xbox One launch, we will offer voice control in 10 of our 13 launch markets, with eight total languages: English US, English UK, French, Spanish MX, Spanish ES, Italian, German, and Portuguese. There will be some voice experience variations in different markets at launch; the 'Xbox On' voice command will only be available in five markets (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Germany) and will come to others in the near future.

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The Tragedy and Comedy of Phoenix Wright 5

Five minutes into the investigation demo for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies, I'm faced with a situation I would describe as dire and funny at the same time. First, the dire part: Everyone's favorite, blue suit wearing Attorney is missing, and a team made of Apollo Justice and spunky newcomer Athena Cykes must rescue him. And the funny part? Athena theorizes a giant bird monster ate him.

OK, maybe her theory sounds a little too dramatic but it accurately describes Phoenix Wright's courtroom hijinks in a nutshell. The series bounces between tragedy and comedy often, but it never runs off of a narrative cliff on a wacky tangent. And even though Athena's theory appears farfetched, I found evidence to support it all over the room.

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Space Hulk Review

I once even spent a hot summer afternoon playing the Space Hulk card game (not the classic board game) and discovering that there wasn’t all that much to it. The Tyranid Genestealers are fed into the playing area, and you try to kill them by repeatedly using the same one or two abilities. It's not a game of rich tactical dilemmas, but it didn't really need to be. It's flavor, atmosphere, and an unprecedented lack of shame that make the Warhammer 40K universe so great. So the very faithful adaptation of that game to a turn-based tactical PC game, as you might expect, results in gameplay that's a little too thin.

Space Hulk is basically WH40K-meets-Aliens, but it fails to really make the most of that concept. The Blood Angels chapter of the Space Marines is sent to cleanse a Tyranid Genestealer-infested starship, the space hulk. Trouble is, the Blood Angels are kind of dumb: they sent a squad of bulky Terminators into a spaceship full of corridors so narrow that only a single Terminator can get through at a time. These beefy bastards are so wide, in fact, they can’t fire their guns past each other, so only the guys in front and back can engage. Good thing they’re also incredibly slow, using two of their action points (of only four per turn) just to turn themselves 180 degrees. Congratulations, Space Marines, you’ve thrown away your only advantage over fast-charging, melee-killing Genestealers: massed firepower!

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Detroit's Robocop Statue is Almost Ready, But ...

After three years and much publicity, the Kickstarter-funded fan campaign to erect a statue of Robocop in Detroit is nearly complete.

Mother Jones recounts the arduous, storied journey of how the statue came to be and the political and corporate hurdles that cropped up along the way, from Mayor Bing's dismissal of the Twitter-generated idea to MGM's copyright concerns.

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Need for Speed Now Lives at EA’s Ghost Studio

EA’s Ghost studio has taken control of the Need for Speed franchise.

Speaking to Videogamer, studio head Marcus Nilsson explained that the brand “needs continuity” in order to maintain its identity.

"It cannot go from black to white between Black Box and Criterion, and that's why we're now thinking about the brand as Ghost owns it,” Nilsson said. “We're going to build it, we're going to build it on Frostbite 3,

people will see something they are familiar with every time we release the game. And I think that is the core basis of building a brand; that people know what to expect."

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Green Lantern #23.1: Relic Preview

In September 2011, the New 52 launched. In September 2012, we got Zero Month. This September -- next week -- launches DC Comics' Villain's Month, in which the baddies of the DCU get the spotlight with a whole bunch of one-shot issues and the launch of Forever Evil.

In the Green Lantern world, a new big bad known as Relic recently emerged, and writer Robert Venditti and artist Rags Morales are giving him the spotlight in Wednesday's Green Lantern #23.1: Relic.

Get your first look right here:

Joey is a Senior Editor at IGN and a comic book creator. Follow Joey on Twitter @JoeyEsposito, or find him on IGN at Joey-IGN. He thinks Catwoman is swell.

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J.J. Abrams, Jonah Nolan Bringing Westworld to HBO

Michael Crichton's film Westworld is being remade as a TV series, in a rather big way. Deadline reports that the power trio of J.J. Abrams, Jonathan Nolan and Jerry Weintraub are executive producing the new version for HBO.

Deadline calls it "one of the biggest commitments ever for HBO," as the project has been given a pilot production commitment, jumping past other steps in development most shows go through.

Nolan, who co-wrote the Dark Knight trilogy with his brother Christopher and David Goyer, is writing the pilot with Lisa Joy (Burn Notice) and will direct it. This is the second team-up for Abrams and Nolan, following CBS' Person of Interest. The involvement of legendary producer Weintraub is interesting, given this is his first pairing with Abrams or Nolan, though he did just work with HBO on Behind the Candelabra. This is the first major cable sale for Abrams' Bad Robot, who have been behind numerous network series in recent years.

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Arrow: The Importance of Amanda Waller

I have a confession. I’ve met someone. As a matter of fact, I met them a very long time ago and we’ve only just rekindled our relationship. It’s not you, it’s me; I’m timid and I need someone that’s willing to steer the ship and make the hard decisions. I’ve had enough passive aggressiveness to fill two lifetimes, and the re-emergence of this person has reminded me that there are still people willing to grab the bull by the horns and do what’s got to be done no matter what.

Her name is Amanda Waller, and I love her.

“The Wall,” as she’s not-so-affectionately called within the DC Universe, is a character that made her debut in 1986 created by John Ostrander, John Byrne, and Len Wein. She’s one of the most morally and ethically complex characters at DC, oftentimes straddling the line between government hero and absolute super villain. What’s so endearing about her is that, deep down, she really does have the best intentions of the greater good at heart despite often being a blunt instrument.

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Official: Bradley Cooper is Rocket Raccoon

Marvel Studios officially announced today that Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper is set to voice Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy, finishing one of the most talked about casting hunts for a comic book movie in some time.

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Xbox One Launching in ‘Late November 2013’?

Xbox One may be launching later than expected. According to section 12 of the rules of Mountain Dew/Doritos' Every 2 Minutes Xbox One contest, Microsoft's new console has a “targeted launch date of late November 2013.”

While the language in the rules here is by no means official, it's worth noting that the Every 2 Minutes contest is being held in partnership with Microsoft and has even been promoted by Xbox Live's Major Nelson.

If "late November" is correct, this means Xbox One would likely launch after the November 15th release of PlayStation 4 and later than the widely-expected November 5th release date.

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Game of Thrones Character Recast in Season 4

When Game of Thrones returns for Season 4, Jorah Mormont will have a whole new guy to be jealous of... Well, a whole new actor at least. THR reveals that Daario Naharis has been recast, with Michiel Huisman taking over the role.

Ed Skrein played Daario in Season 3, introduced as a warrior who turned the tables on his would-be partners and joined up with Daenerys - even while the two began giving each other some rather notable "How YOU doin'?" glances.

Michiel Huisman (Left, in Treme) will take over the role of Daario, first played by Ed Skrein.

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Expendables 3: Arnold and Harrison Together

Behold two action icons together. Arnold Schwarzenegger posted the photo below of himself on the Bulgarian set of The Expendables 3 alongside director Patrick Hughes and Indiana Jones himself, Harrison Ford.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, director Patrick Hughes, and Harrison Ford on the set of The Expendables 3.

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Microsoft and Google Sue U.S. Government

Back in July, Microsoft and Google were among a number of tech giants who signed on to a coalition movement asking the U.S. government for more transparency when it comes to sharing the private online data of citizens. Today, the two companies have decided to move forward with litigation against the government, asking the courts to uphold their right to "speak more freely."

Image Source: Microsoft

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How to Make a Better Spawn Movie

The '90s weren't exactly a great time for fans of superhero movies. Instead of a Superman reboot, we got Shaquille O'Neal as Steel. And just before Blade arrived on the scene to light the first sparks of a Hollywood superhero renaissance, there was Spawn. This supernatural avenger quickly rose to prominence in the early '90s amid a new wave of characters from upstart publisher Image Comics. But despite his success in comics, animation, and toys, Spawn found little success on the big screen.

That hasn't stopped creator Todd McFarlane from pursuing a follow-up film. And at the Toronto Fan Expo earlier this month, he suggested that the long-gestating Spawn reboot may finally be taking shape and could even go into production next year. But is there any reason for excitement given how lousy the first movie was? Actually, yes. There's far more potential with this franchise than that adaptation would have you believe. And we have a few ideas of how this reboot can better take advantage of all the franchise has to offer.

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Nintendo Voice Chat: Let's Talk About 2DS

Download Nintendo Voice Chat Here

Check out this smashing podcast art by pandamusk.

Download Nintendo Voice Chat Here

During last week's podcast, we wondered what Nintendo would do as they entered the Fall season. Well, it looks like they responded. There's a new addition to the Nintendo 3DS family, a Wii U price cut, and a bunch of other announcements.

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Nintendo: ‘Online Play is Always Important’

Nintendo still believes that online play is an important part of 3DS and Wii U’s futures. Speaking to IGN this week, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime discussed Wii U’s connected future, including online play and digital purchases.

“Online play is always important,” Fils-Aime told IGN. “I guess maybe people read into it, when a Nintendo first-party game doesn’t have connected play, that somehow we’re not interested in connected play. The reality is that when our developers are making a game, they think about the type of experience that they want to see happen. And so for Super Mario 3D World the development team wanted people to be in the same space, having that fun enjoyment, that’s the vision that they had in their head. So they created an experience that was multiplayer in the same room. That doesn’t mean that we don’t care about connected gameplay. It’s just that the developers have a vision for what we want to bring to bear. We do exceptionally well in that in-the-same-room multiplayer experience.”

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Project Godus' Big Secret

When I first played Black and White, Molyneux and Lionhead's landmark 2001 god game, it presented an image of God that I found surprisingly relatable: well-meaning, but hurried, not entirely competent and increasingly distant as time passed and the population increased. The God I was in Black and White may have been omnipotent, but I couldn't be omnipresent. Leave your followers alone for an hour whilst you went off to do something else and you'd often come back to find that they'd run out of grain and started offering each other as blood sacrifices. Under those circumstances, I'd have complete sympathy with a God that simply threw up His hands and left followers to their own devices after a few thousand years of trying to do what's best for them.

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PlayStation Store Now Offers Mobile Billing

PlayStation Store purchases can now be made by billing your mobile phone account, Sony has announced.

The new Mobile Billing feature supports purchasing content on both the PlayStation Store and the Sony Entertainment Network (which offers the Music Unlimited service) through a PS3 or a browser. The Add Funds page that previously asked users to enter a credit or debit card number, PayPal information, or the code from a prepaid card also now has a "Use Mobile" option.

By choosing this option, you'll be prompted to enter your mobile phone number, at which point you'll need to confirm the purchase by responding to a text message. The charge for whatever you've purchased will then appear on your next mobile phone bill to be paid off like any other charge. In the case of prepaid accounts, the charge will be debited against it.

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Xbox One Also Downloads Your Purchases While You're Away

Xbox One, much like PlayStation 4 -- and Xbox 360 before it -- is capable of downloading content while you're away from the console, Microsoft has confirmed.

Xbox boss Marc Whitten said as much in a tweet sent out last night. It stated, "Yes! Of course you can download while you are away. #xboxone - Always up to date, always your console. The beauty of low power mode!"

In a pair of follow-up tweets, he elaborated on this feature, stating, "All marketplace items can be downloaded. You won't have to worry about updates - they'll download

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PlayStation 4 Camera Includes Voice Recognition

A listing on Amazon suggests that the PlayStation 4 camera will offer voice recognition. A bullet point on the peripheral’s product notes suggests that “from navigational voice commands to facial recognition, the PlayStation Camera adds incredible innovation to your gaming.”

If true, this confirms the feature first suggested by a Sony job listing in May for a “Speech Recognition Intern.” It also means further parity between PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as Microsoft’s new console offers voice recognition via Kinect (though that feature will only be available in five markets at launch).

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When Indie Developers Almost Give Up

Being an independent developer is tough, especially for those that are essentially one-person shows. Besides spending vast amounts of time and energy making the game, that person also has to deal with marketing and selling the game, which is a hard enough thing to do for a team of PR professionals at a large publisher. If you don’t see your efforts paying off, it can be easy to throw up your hands and quit. Chris Peterson, the founder and sole developer at Beast Games, was getting close to this point before his indie PC game Avalanche 2: Super Avalanche was selected for this year’s PAX 10.

“I've been living like a broke hermit for the past year and a half while I made this game,” Peterson said. “Despite the occasional positive feedback from game testers, I had no idea if what I was doing was worthwhile. There were more than a few moments of doubt where I wanted to give up and look for a steady paycheck. I love making games but I have to be realistic about my skills and potential to earn a living doing this.”

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Spawn, Heihachi Both in Soulcalibur II HD Online

Namco Bandai has confirmed that both Spawn and Heihachi will be playable characters in Soulcalibur II HD Online. Both characters will be available in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game.

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The Best Game Capture Kits for Consoles and PCs

Back in the early days of gaming, showing off your skills required a trip to the local arcade, or maybe setting up your dad's VHS camera in front of the television. But the growing influence of YouTube has allowed gamers to cultivate brands around their commentaries and Let's Play videos. And with sites like Twitch, it's easier than ever to post streaming gameplay online. Of course, you still need a reliable way to record that footage--especially in the case of consoles.

Purchasing game capture hardware can require a decent investment, and there's a number of factors to consider before you take the plunge. Do you need portability? Are you planning to record to a Windows or Mac operating system? How about recording in-game chat? Here's a rundown of the best game capture hardware on the market.

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Xbox Live Marketplace Renamed

Microsoft has officially rebranded the Xbox Live Marketplace as the Xbox Games Store, effective immediately.

Joystiq asked Microsoft about the reasons for the switch and was told, "That's right,

is now called the Xbox Games Store, and will sit alongside the Xbox Music Store and Xbox Video Store.

"This is to make it easier for consumers to find content both on Xbox 360 today and Xbox One when it launches in November."

The Xbox Live Marketplace launched at the same time as the Xbox 360 in November 2005. Given the recent changes made regarding the Xbox Video Store and the Xbox Music Store however, we're not massively surprised at this decision.

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In Case You Missed It: Dota 2 International Roundup

Featuring ten days of competition, sixteen teams, a final prize pool of well over 2.8 million dollars, and a concurrent audience in excess of a million people, it was both an entertaining spectacle and a promising step forward in the growth of high-level eSports.

It was exciting. It was well produced. It was an opportunity to win Dota loot. It had ups, downs, and inbetweens. So let's have a look at how it went down.

Seattle's Benaroya hall once again hosted the event, with about 1700 lucky fans able to watch it live over the five-day stretch of the finals. Coming out of the group stages the clear favourite for the title had to be Sweden's Alliance, who were unbeaten atop their group, but they had definite competition in the winners bracket in the form of their European neighbours Na'Vi and Fnatic. Chinese representatives LGDcn, Tongfu, DK and Invictus Gaming also made the top bracket, with Malaysia's Orange Neolution rounding out the eight.

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Majesco Launching New Indie Publishing Label

Majesco Entertainment has founded a new indie publishing brand called Midnight City. The label’s initial line-up includes 10 games from developers including Barnyard Intelligence Games, Tuesday Society Games, and Mario von Rickenbach.

Midnight City will be helmed by former IGN editor-in-chief Casey Lynch as VP of publishing. Lynch will be joined by Doug Kennedy, former president and CEO of Reverb Communications and Reverb Publishing.

“Having been front and centre watching the tidal wave of independent games coming through IGN, Majesco’s move to get behind these games truly speaks to the commitment they are making to the independent development community,” said Lynch.

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Chris Pratt Talks Guardians of the Galaxy

When I visited the set of Parks and Recreation this week, I was surprised to find Chris Pratt shooting scenes, given he's also in the middle of playing the lead in Guardians of the Galaxy. I'd assumed he'd be missing all of the early episodes of Parks this season, but it turns out we'll still see Andy Dwyer, albeit perhaps not as much as usual. As it turned out, Pratt has quite the crazy schedule right now, flying back and forth between London, where Guardians is being filmed, and LA, where Parks is made.

During a break in shooting for the duo, I sat down with Pratt and his Parks and Rec costar Aubrey Plaza in Plaza's trailer for a conversation about the upcoming sixth season of the NBC comedy. While I'll be posting more from that chat in the weeks to come, near the end, we also spoke a bit about Pratt's experience working on Guardians of the Galaxy. Check out what he told me about the film's tone, working with director James Gunn and the potential to crossover with other Marvel movies - along with the questions Plaza had for Pratt as well and the very funny, tongue-in-cheek back and forth that followed between the two.

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Potential Breaking Bad Spinoffs

Warning: Silly piece featuring silly things, but spoiler alert for all of Breaking Bad nonetheless...

With only five episodes of Breaking Bad left, things have gotten so dark that the big question seems to have moved past "who dies?" and landed on "who dies first?" Now, one wouldn't think that a show clearly driving us all toward a catastrophic reckoning would be ripe for a spinoff, but creator Vince Gilligan is currently working out the details for a Saul Goodman spinoff (prequel?) series. A show which, I assume, would be slightly tonally different and more prone to wise-cracking and misadventures. That is unless we discover that Saul became shady attorney out of desperation because he was diagnosed with cancer.

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Clooney Is Out There in New Gravity Poster

Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity has been getting a very positive response from critics in the wake of its screening at the Venice Film Festival earlier this week. And now the Sandra Bullock/George Clooney-lost-in-space thriller has a poster. Take a look:

This has got to be one of the films I'm most excited about as we head into the fall movie season. Cuaron made one of the greatest genre pictures in recent years with Children of Men (which was actually his last feature if you can believe it, released seven years ago). The good buzz coming out of Venice has only got me more excited to see Clooney and Bullock go through hell in space when the film hits on October 4.

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This Week on the Wii U and 3DS eShop (08.29.2013)

This week is light, but it’s packed with some quality content. The big release is Pokémon Rumble U on the Wii U eShop, which brings about NFC tech to the Wii U as you can get different toy Pokémon figures to use in the game. Today also has two Virtual Console releases, one on each platform. The original Legend of Zelda is on Wii U Virtual Console, while Wario Land 3, the Game Boy Color classic, makes it way to the 3DS. Lastly, Rayman Legends comes to the eShop on the same day as its retail release on September 3. Be sure to check the sales, too. Some are expiring very soon.

Pokémon Rumble U ($17.99)

The latest entry in the Pokémon Rumble series brings a new wrinkle to the beat-’em-up fray: Skylander-like toys. You can pick up figures at GameStop for $3.99 each and then bring them into the action using the Near Field Connection input on the GamePad. Aside from that, Rumble U has every Pokémon as of Pokémon Black 2 and White 2. It has four-player multiplayer, including both co-op and competitive modes.

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DC Comics' Amanda Waller Coming to Arrow

DC Comics' villain Amanda "The Wall" Waller is bound for The CW's Arrow.

Spoiler TV recently revealed the logline for Arrow's sixth episode in Season 2 called "Keep Your Enemies Closer." The description reads, "This episode will see the introduction of recurring character Amanda Waller who is an agent of A.R.G.U.S. who sends out a team to kidnap Diggle."

IGN reached out to The CW, and they confirmed Waller will indeed be introduced in this episode. However, there's no word on casting just yet.

Amanda Wallers: Pam Gier in Smallville (left) and Angela Bassett in Green Lantern (right).

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Peter Molyneux's Mixed Feelings on Fable Legends

When game design luminary Peter Molyneux left the Lionhead Studios development house he founded in 1997 last year, everyone knew that the Fable franchise he created would continue on without him. Now that Fable Legends has been announced, what does he think of the first Fable to be made without his involvement?

First, he’s not surprised that Legends runs on Unreal Engine 4. The studio began to get away from its own proprietary technology with Molyneux’s final Lionhead project, the Unreal Engine 3-powered Fable: The Journey. “It’s the tools, I suppose,” be began. “You have to have 20 people dedicated to your engine and your tools. That’s 20 people out of making the game. If you use Unreal, those 20 people you can use to make the game. So I’m not surprised that Unreal is their first choice. I think Journey actually looked better for it, compared to using proprietary tech.”

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IGN Live Presents: Diablo 3 Console

Diablo III was highly controversial when it launched on PC last year, but the two biggest points of contention – the always-on internet requirement and the real-money auction house – have been dropped for the console version. It also benefits from an entire year of balance tweaks that aim to address concerns about loot drop rates and endgame progression. So, will the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions be the best way to play Diablo III when they launch on September 3rd? We're about to find out!

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Xbox One Voice Commands Only Available In 5 Markets at Launch

While we're still waiting on a firm release date for the Xbox One, we now know that the system's much-touted voice command capabilities will be limited to select markets at launch. Spotted by Gamespot, a listing on Xbox.com notes that the console's new Kinect-enabled voice commands will only be available in the US, UK, Canada, France, and Germany when it ships sometime in November. That leaves customers in the other 8 launch regions — including Australia, Mexico, Italy, and others — out of luck until an unspecified later date.

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Thrustmaster Announces Xbox One TX Racing Wheel

Thrustmaster has unveiled its first peripheral for the Xbox One, the Ferrari 458 Italia Edition TX Racing Wheel. The accessory will be a 7:10 scale replica of the real-life Ferrari 458 Italia wheel, and features metal gas and break pedals, as well as die-cast paddle shifters.

Thrustmaster collaborated with Microsoft to develop the racing wheel, which includes Menu and View buttons for full compatibility with the upcoming console.

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Total War: Rome II's Roman Faction Tech Tree Laid Out

The Creative Assembly has offered fans a complete look at the tech tree belonging to one of the factions in Total War: Rome II.

There are a number of factions in Rome II, each with its own branching tech tree that allows for players to customize their approach to the game. Trees have two paths initially -- Military and Civil -- that players can pursue freely without being restricted to one or the other.

One of these trees, belonging to the Roman faction, has been made available online for fans to explore. Using it, you can see just what steps will need to be taken to gain access to siege towers, natural philosophy, and other options for those pursuing a strong military force or a more peaceful route to victory.

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Forza Rewards Tracks Progress Across Franchise, Grants Awards

A new way to track your career progress across the Forza Motorsport franchise -- and earn rewards for your accomplishments -- is now available in the form of Forza Rewards.

Forza Rewards tracks a variety of elements in each of the previous Forza games on Xbox 360 -- things like number of cars owned, miles driven, Achievements, and DLC packs owned -- and awards you with points for those things. These points allow you to reach higher tiers and can be exchanged for in-game rewards in Forza 4 and Forza Horizon. New rewards, which get better at higher tiers, are rotated in each month and include in-game credits, tokens, and cars.

By signing in at the Forza Rewards site, you can see your progress (as well as that of your Xbox Live friends) and available rewards. If you've played any of the Forza games starting with Forza 2 -- the first game, released on the original Xbox, is not supported -- on the Gamertag you use to sign in, you may already have rewards available to you.

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Saints Row IV Sells 1 Million Units, Gets Presidential DLC

Saints Row IV has sold more than one million units in just a week's time, and its first two downloadable content packs are now available, Deep Silver has announced.

The game was released in North America on August 20 and in Europe on August 23. The one-million-units-sold mark is the number of copies Deep Silver says the game has sold through, rather than the number of copies that have been shipped to retailers, which is often the figure that publishers share in the wake of a game's launch. The publisher also noted the PC version has sold particularly well in the first week, more than tripling sales of Saints Row: The Third on PC during its first week of availability.

Deep Silver also announced that the first two pieces of DLC for Saints row IV are now available for $2.99 each on Steam, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

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GameStick Android Console Begins Shipping

After a couple setbacks, the GameStick portable Android console is finally making its way to Kickstarter backers. As reported by The Verge, the GameStick blog has announced the device should be in the hands of all backers by the middle of September. And if you didn't jump on the crowdfunding train, GameStick will start arriving at retailers later next month.

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Batman Vs. Superman to Shoot in Michigan

Superman Vs. Batman, a.k.a Man of Steel 2, a.k.a. Batman Vs. Superman, a.k.a. The Untitled Man of Steel Sequel, will shoot in Michigan in the first quarter of 2014. In other words, soon.

The Hollywood Reporter says that the Ben Affleck/Henry Cavill starrer has been awarded "an incentive of $35 million on $131 million of projected in-state expenditures" by the Michigan Film Office. Filming will take place in Detroit and other parts of the state, meaning that city will stand in for Metropolis… or perhaps even Gotham City (or even both).

Here's why states offer tax incentives like this to film productions. According to THR, "the production is expected to hire 406 Michigan workers, with a full time equivalent of 426 jobs, plus an additional 6,000 man/days of extra work. … The production estimated the use of 500 local Michigan vendors and spending $5.1 million on hotels."

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Futurama: First Look at the Final Episode

Next week, it's time to say goodbye to the Planet Express crew once again, as Comedy Central airs the final episode of Futurama. It's been a long road for Matt Groening and David X. Cohen's animated series, which first aired on FOX from 1999-2003, was then revived as several straight to DVD movies and finally got a full resurrection on Comedy Central that lasted for four years.

We've got an exclusive first look for you at a clip from the final episode, airing next Wednesday, as Fry and Leela discover something is very wrong with, well, everyone else...

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Xbox One's Improved Voice Chat Quality Demonstrated

Microsoft has detailed the changes made to Xbox Live voice chat for Xbox One, revealing a much-improved level of audio quality.

As convenient as Xbox Live voice chat could be on Xbox 360, allowing players to chat with each other regardless of what they were playing or doing, the audio quality has never been great. Microsoft plans to change that on Xbox One by making use of Skype's audio codec and having dedicated audio processing for both multiplayer voice chat and Skype conversations on Xbox One.

Today's announcement also points to the Xbox One controller's expansion port and the system's new headset as part of the reason for the enhanced audio quality. As mentioned previously, thanks to this new technology, speech is captured and rendered at 24 KHz PCM, a 50% boost over the capture rate seen with Xbox 360 headsets.

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Nintendo: We Love Independent Developers

Nintendo is committed to facilitating independent development on Wii U. In an interview earlier this week following the announcement of 2DS, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime explained that helping independent development grow is a big priority for Nintendo.

“The independent developer, especially those developers who have experience, who’ve shown real capabilities, we love those independent developers,” Fils-Aime told IGN. “And what we’re doing is creating even more of an infrastructure for a brand-new independent developer, someone who’s never created content before, to be effective on our platform. So it’s an area that we’re spending a lot more time and a lot more energy to create the infrastructure to help these developers publish their content and be effective. It’s something that we have had to learn how to do. Because our systems aren’t straightforward for a developer who hasn’t had a lot of experience.”

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Valve Celebrates One Year of Steam Greenlight

Steam Greenlight is one year old today. In a statement this morning, Valve said Greenlight has doubled the number of independent titles available on Steam since its launch, and new titles continue to be submitted every day.

"Ultimately our goal is to have no bottlenecks at all between developers and consumers," said Valve co-founder Gabe Newell. "As we move closer to that, launching Greenlight and evolving our backend toolset has helped us increase our publishing throughput, pushing the number of independent titles released in the last twelve months to equal the number of titles published from all other categories combined. We expect that number to grow dramatically as we continue to iterate upon our developer service features and seek more ways to improve Steam's value to the community."

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September’s Free PlayStation Plus Games Are…

If you’re a PlayStation Plus user, you’re naturally curious what free games you can look forward to in the coming month. Well, we have your answer.

Below are the five games that will be free to download on PlayStation Plus in North America throughout September. As always, these games won’t be made free at the same time, but will be staggered throughout the month. It’s still unclear when each game will be free, and which already-free game each will replace in the Instant Game Collection.

• Galaga Legions DX (PSN)


• Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PSP)


• ICO HD (PS3)


• Resident Evil Chronicles HD Collection (PS3)


• 
  

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Nintendo: Wii U’s Name Isn’t the Problem

The Wii U is struggling mightily, but according to Nintendo of America’s President Reggie Fils-Aime, the hardware’s name isn’t the issue.

In a conversation with Kotaku, Fils-Aime notes that “the challenges

facing with Wii U are not issues of the name. The issue is the lack of a steady rate of software launches to motivate the consumer to drive buzz and engagement and to highlight the wide variety of uses of the GamePad. That’s the issue.”

Fils-Aime also told Kotaku that the Wii U has only sold 1.5 million units in the United States to date, “about half of what the Wii did in the same amount of time,” according to the article.

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Skylanders Swap Force Comes to 3DS

Activision is definitely delivering on its promise to continue feeding Skylanders demand this fall with Skylanders Swap Force, a brand new adventure with more than enough new characters and gameplay improvements to keep fans engaged. But even if the console sequels weren't enough, the publisher today announced that n-Space is also working on a different, 3DS Swap Force game, also due out this fall. We had the chance to play through several levels of the new game and try out the new characters for ourselves.

The 3DS version follows the same basic design as the console versions. In addition to the dozens and dozens of Skylanders already out on the market, the game supports 32 brand new characters, 16 of which are composed of interchangeable upper and lower halves. These Swap Force Skylanders allow players to mix and match play styles, combining the attack powers of one figure's upper body with the movement powers of another figure's lower body. Want to be a magnet-wielding robot that bounces around on a rattlesnake tail? Or maybe a storm-flinging chicken that climbs around using octopus tentacles? You can do all of that. Me, I'm going for the magical owl with rocket boots.

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EA: We Aren't Favouring Microsoft Over Sony

EA's COO has reiterated that the company isn't favouring Microsoft over Sony, despite a host of decisions that would seem to suggest otherwise.

In an interview with Games Industry, Peter Moore asserted that despite exclusive games like Titanfall and the fact EA is offering free copies of FIFA 14 with every pre-ordered Xbox One in Europe, the publisher is remaining neutral in the battle for next-generation dominance.

"We have relationships with both companies that go back many many years, so I think that what you saw yesterday was, just from a phasing perspective, you saw a little bit more of the Microsoft stuff," he explained. "We have a lot of partnership opportunities with Sony, with the PlayStation 4, which we have done for many many years, that maybe we should start talking more about.

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Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #26 Review

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man was hardly a series in need of revitalizing, but Brian Bendis spruced it up anyway by kicking the book forward a year and evolving his cast accordingly. Issue #26 continues to reap the rewards of that decision. Even the fact that this issue offers relatively little of Miles Morales does nothing to slow the book's stride.

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Secret Avengers #8 Review

The Secret Avengers' latest mission -- assassinating A.I.M.'s Scientist Supreme -- didn't exactly go as planned in the previous storyline. Issue #8 opens with Mockingbird trapped behind enemy lines, still disguised as an A.I.M. scientist, and having no memory of how she got their in the first place. The fact that Nick Spencer is treating this as an ongoing development rather than a cliffhanger in need of immediate resolution is one of his most inspired choices yet on the book. Instead of a rescue mission, issue #9 is a quieter look at life for the drones and command crew alike on A.I.M. Island.

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Young Avengers #9 Review

In the world of Young Avengers, sometimes one would rather die than suffer an awkward moment. Series writer Kieron Gillen continues to prove how adeptly he can capture the particular triumphs and indignities of youth. In the wake of the final page shocker in last month's issue, our intrepid heroes are faced with a series of challenges only to discover that sometimes it's not the bad guys that have the power to hurt you the most.

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Captain Marvel #15 Review

Captain Marvel #15 is the series' first tie-in with the events of Infinity, and the issue -- penned by series regular Kelly Sue DeConnick alongside Jen Van Meter -- merges Carol's ongoing story within the larger narrative. In the aftermath of her battle with Yon-Rogg in last month's installment, Carol Danvers finds herself with a headache of another kind as damage to her brain stripped her of some of her most important memories. The plot shows a great deal of potential as it explores the ramifications of Captain Marvel's condition, but the execution doesn't quite live up to it.

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Itty Bitty Hellboy #1 Review

I've read Hellboy and thought, “This is great, but it'd be nice if there were an adorable, all-ages version!” You thought that, right? Well, whether you thought that or not, Art Baltazar and Franco went ahead and made it. Itty Bitty Hellboy is pretty good, a newspaper-strip styled comic that, at times, plays like a solid Calvin and Hobbes story. It's silly, funny, and engaging. My five year-old even loved it and I always thought it'd be a few more years before he enjoyed a Hellboy comic.

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FF #11 Review

It's heartbreaking knowing that this creative team won't be sticking around on FF much longer. This title has been so quirky and bizarre, so utterly lovable that it's hard to imagine a world without it. FF #11 is more of the same; more crazy antics, more humor and more gorgeous artwork. There's more personality in an issue of this FF run than most comics manage in a whole year.

Matt Fraction injects phrases like “cray-cray” into FF and manages to make it not sound ham-fisted. I mean, there's a kid named Adolf Impossible in this comic. Adolf Impossible. It's ridiculous and so great. Nearly every page made me smile, left me wanting more. There are robots discussing cross-fit, Julius Caesar teaching a class on conquering and one of the best time travel scenes ever. There's so many threads running, it's sad that Fraction can't stick around to tie everything up. No Fraction on FF is a cray-cray scenario I can't deal with.

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Captain America #10 Review

This Cap story has been big. Sure, previous Captain America arcs featured plenty of big set pieces and fights, but this one ends with a flying, infected city, a giant, gooey Zola robot, and a speeder biker chase through portals between worlds. It's cray-cray stuff and a crazy good time. Plus, you get the added bonus of an insane ending that all but guarantees the craziness is going to continue in the coming months and that is a very, very good thing.

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Tom Strong and the Planet of Peril #2 Review

Tom Strong and the Planet of Peril is just solid comic booking. Every aspect of it, the writing, the art, the lettering, the colors, all of it is great. The second issue of this series throws you into a planet-wide adventure, an entire world hanging in the balance. Seriously, I can't help but eat this stuff up. Tom Strong is great, guys. That is all.

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Batman: The Dark Knight #23 Review

As a series, Batman: The Dark Knight has had a rough time. To be frank, it hasn't been very good. This latest Clayface arc looks to reverse that trend and, so far, it's doing a pretty good job. It keeps the dark, horror feel of the series but ramps things up a bit without dumbing it down. This is probably the best and most interesting Batman: The Dark Knight has been since, well, ever. It's actually a pretty good comic book.

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Batman/Superman #3 Review

The newly relaunched Batman/Superman title has been a welcome diversion from the normal New 52 books. This series feels like it's in its own little corner, free to tell the stories it wants and have some fun while it's doing it. Plus, thanks to the world jumping and time shifting of the previous issues, we get two Supermans and two Batmans in this book. Throw in Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, and some little kid Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, and you'll have a big, adventurous comic that's a damn fine read.

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American Vampire Anthology #1 Review

The world and mythology of American Vampire lends itself well to the anthology model. At its heart, this is a classic vampire tale; one about love, darkness, power, and violence. The stories we get in the first collection capture that incredibly well. American Vampire has always been filled with a reverence for history, which is probably why a scattershot anthology that covers centuries of time works so well. This series has been gone for too long and left us with a fang-sized hole in our heart, so any time spent back in this bloody world is time well spent.

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The Bridge: “Vendetta” Review

Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.

Turns out that Kenny isn’t just some peripheral character for Alma to nail, no, he’s also the insane mastermind killer our cops have been looking for all along. Possibly. He still might not be the killer - this could all be circumstantial. Maybe all he wanted was to exact revenge on his family’s murderer just this week and now he’s all better. I suppose he could have saved a bead from his wife’s necklace and it just so happens to match up with the other killings in a neat coincidence. And he could just happen to be working with Alma for quite a while now and know nothing about her connection to his old buddy Ruiz. And sure, I suppose it’s technically possible to be walking around El Paso with a different identity looking exactly like he did in his former life without ever bumping into anyone who knew him as Tate, while he expertly gets all around town to perform perfect executions. Lucky for him Ruiz never visits his wife at work - guess that’s what you get for being an absentee husband.

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Resident Evil Coming to Halloween Horror Nights

Resident Evil is coming to life in Florida! Now can you survive it?

The final haunted house at this year's Halloween Horror Nights event at Universal Orlando Resort has been revealed and it’s Resident Evil: Escape From Raccoon City. The maze is not based on the feature film series but rather is influenced by the games, with Universal’s Entertainment team collaborating with Capcom on the project.

Guests will journey through Raccoon City, encountering vicious characters from the games, including Lickers, bloodthirsty zombies, packs of Cerberuses and, yes, Nemesis. The idea with the Resident Evil game is to make it truly feel like a video game and in one room, it will appear as if a fight scene is paused, as though the gamer has taken a quick break from playing.

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Suspicious Ouya Game Kickstarter Campaign Raises Eyebrows

The Kickstarter campaign for Ouya title Gridiron Thunder has aroused suspicions this week after it managed to reach its $75,000 goal with a very low number of backers.

Gridiron Thunder is, put simply, a pro football game designed for Ouya, Facebook, and iOS and Android devices. At launch, it will be available exclusively on Ouya for six months. This is in order to take advantage of Ouya's Free the Games Fund, an initiative that will double the money (up to $250,000) raised by any Kickstarter game campaign, so long as it pledges six months of exclusivity to Ouya and raises at least $50,000.

Along with Elementary, My Dear Holmes!, Gridiron Thunder is one of the first two games to meet its crowdfunding goal and the fund's requirements. Having surpassed its Kickstarter goal of $75,000, Gridiron developer MogoTXT will see upwards of $78,000 from Ouya, and possibly much more as the campaign runs through September 8.

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Princess Leia's Daughter in Episode VII?

Some more Star Wars rumors have emerged today, this time involving the potential casting of none other than Princess Leia's daughter in Episode VII.

Latino Review's sources say that Rachel Hurd-Wood has auditioned to play the part, though the site stresses that while she is so far the only actress to read for the role, there will be others and this does not mean she has landed the job yet.

Hurd-Wood is a British actress who is perhaps best known for her turn as Wendy when she was just a kid back in 2003's Peter Pan. But what's interesting about this report is that it tracks with previous rumors that have Episode VII featuring the children of Leia, Luke, and Han (though hopefully not of all three combined). Ryan Gosling reportedly met with the Star Wars team last month about playing Luke’s son (and has since declined).

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Sony's Jim Ryan: Giving Away FIFA 14 is "Rather Odd'

Sony's European boss Jim Ryan has called Microsoft's decision to give away FIFA 14 to those who pre-ordered the Xbox One in Europe "rather odd."

In a revealing interview with UK website Metro, Ryan defended PlayStation 4's position against the Xbox One in the face of Microsoft's series of u-turns, which have arguably aligned the two consoles in consumer's minds.

"(Microsoft has) clearly, and I don’t want to impute too much to anybody else’s behaviour – it’s improper – but they obviously concluded that they had made some decisions that they needed to change and they did that," said Ryan. "I think that it has resulted in there continuing to be some confusion round exactly what they stand for now. And I think there continues to be no ambiguity about what we stand for."

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Aquaman #23 Review

The Death of a King arc has been full of political intrigue, mysteries within mysteries, and sea monsters, and now all of those waves come crashing together in a rousing conclusion. Geoff Johns has truly put the weight of the world (ocean?) on Aquaman’s shoulders, and in a rare feat for superhero comics, shows him making intense, irreversible decisions that affect both his character and the world around him. This issue is very much a cliffhanger -- the kind that would give Joss Whedon a fit -- but when the last page is this good, it’s hard to complain.

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Superman #23 Review

It doesn’t take the award winning reporting skills of Lois Lane to see that a new writer has taken over Superman. It’s Mike Johnson, who used to write Supergirl. I've enjoyed that title, so that already gives Superman the potential for an upswing. While reading this issue, it was like I could feel the world of Superman shaking beneath my feet, terraforming into something new and coherent and likable. It’s far too early to say this is the new All-Star Superman or anything like that, but it’s definitely a well-crafted, accessible story that sets Superman’s house in order.

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Wolverine and the X-Men #35 Review

Wolverine and the X-Men has always been a super dense read with dozens of characters being featured in several different locations doing wildly different things. Even though this issue all takes place at the Hellfire Academy, it still channels that fun and frenzied feeling. A couple plotlines get way more attention than others, making for a lopsided read, but that Aaron was able to service them all at once is impressive regardless.

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Larfleeze #3 Review

Larfleeze continues to distance itself from the other Lantern books with its wacky plot and humorous self-awareness. Despite his silly quirks, the character was initially introduced with a fair bit of seriousness -- remember those haunting Agent Orange covers? -- but Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis have abandoned that and fully embraced the funny aspects of the character. Yet even though it’s full of fun and games, there’s still a strong narrative at its foundation.

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Nintendo Says 'Meh' to PS4, Xbox One Launch Lineups

During an interview with IGN, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime defended Wii U's value proposition for consumers this Fall.

As we reported earlier, Nintendo will cut the price of Wii U by $50 in the US starting September 20. So we asked Reggie what are the incentives for consumers to choose Nintendo, especially since their home console is $100 cheaper than its closest competitor.

“It’s all about the games. The competitive systems have announced their launch lineups. I’m allowed to say ‘Meh,’” Fils-Aime said. “I look at our lineup of titles and I feel good about our lineup. We’ve got Zelda. We’ve got Mario. We’ve got Donkey Kong. In addition to great titles like Pikmin 3 and Wonderful 101, I feel very good about our lineup, and I feel very good about the value proposition we’re putting out there for the consumer.”

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PlayStation 4 Can Be Turned on Remotely

PlayStation 4 can be turned on while away from the console in order to download new content, Sony confirmed today.

In response to a question on Twitter about purchasing PS4 games from a smartphone, Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida responded, "When you buy a PS4 game on smartphone, it will wake your PS4 up to start downloading the game. PS4 goes back to sleep after that."

This sort of remote wake-up functionality was mentioned by Yoshida earlier this year in an interview with Eurogamer. "You can play offline, but you may want to keep it connected," he said at the time. "The system has the low-power mode - I don't know the official term - that the main system is shut down but the subsystem is awake. Downloading or updating or you can wake it up using either the tablet, smartphone or PS Vita."

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Top 10 Ben Affleck Movies

Normally when we do our "Top 10 Films" lists, they're tied to the release of some major movie or another. But with Ben Affleck, the news now isn't so much about what's coming right up, but what's in store for 2015. Affleck has been cast as Batman in the Man of Steel follow-up (possibly titled Batman vs. Superman). That news set the Internet ablaze.

So what better time than now to look back at Affleck's career? Affleck rose to prominence in the '90s thanks to movies like Good Will Hunting and Armageddon, hit a few snags in the early 2000's (obviously Daredevil wasn't his crowning artistic achievement), and bounced back more recently as a director as well as an actor. We've picked out his ten best movies, and it's a resume worthy of Batman himself.

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Sony Online Entertainment Hit by Layoffs

Sony Online Entertainment has announced a reduction in its workforce. In a post on SOE’s official forums, global community relations director Linda “Brasse” Carlson posted the following statement:

“Today we announced a reduction in our workforce at SOE. As a company, our goal is to focus on our core expertise of MMO games and as part of these efforts, we had to make the difficult decision to eliminate positions to help reduce costs, streamline our employee base and strategically align resources towards our current portfolio of games and upcoming slate of MMOs, including EverQuest Next Landmark and EverQuest Next. We deeply value our employees and are grateful for all they’ve contributed to our company and games. They will be missed by colleagues and friends, and we wish them well in the future.

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Oxford Online Dictionary Adds Twerk, Phablet, Geek Chic

If you're of a certain vintage, you probably remember a time when high school English teachers would correct the use of slang in your homework or essays. But the internet age and the proliferation of text messaging are changing the way people communicate with one another, so its stands to some reason the dictionary keeps pace. The Oxford Dictionaries Online, the web version of that venerable keeper of the English lexicon, has just made some rather trendy additions.

Image Source: The City Slacker

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