NBA And Take-Two To Launch NBA 2K eLeague

NBA And Take-Two To Launch NBA 2K eLeague

NBA AND TAKE-TWO TO LAUNCH NBA 2K eLeague

First Official eSports League Operated by U.S. Professional Sports League Set for 2018 Debut

Sydney, Australia Feb. 10, 2017 – The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) today announced plans to launch the NBA 2K eLeague, a new, professional competitive gaming league that will bring together the best basketball gamers in the world.  This marks the first official eSports league operated by a U.S. professional sports league. 

Set to debut in 2018, this ground-breaking competitive gaming league will consist of teams operated by actual NBA franchises.  The founding teams, each composed of five professional eSports players who will play the game as user-created avatars, will be announced in the coming months.  The NBA 2K eLeague will follow a professional sports league format: competing head-to-head throughout a regular season, participating in a bracketed playoff system, and concluding with a championship matchup.  

“We believe we have a unique opportunity to develop something truly special for our fans and the young and growing eSports community,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.  “We look forward to combining our best-in-class NBA sports team operators with Take-Two’s competitive gaming expertise to create a brand new league experience.”

“We are proud to expand our strong relationship with the NBA and co-create the NBA 2K eLeague,” said Strauss Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two.  “Through the NBA 2K series, which is renowned throughout the world for capturing the authenticity of the NBA and the passion of its fans, we have a proven track record of highly successful collaboration.  With this new venture, Take-Two and the NBA aim to fuel the accelerating growth of eSports and take the thrill of competition to exciting new heights.”

The relationship between NBA and Take-Two dates back to 1999, with the NBA 2K series selling over 68 million units worldwide.  The most recent release, NBA 2K17, is the highest-rated annual sports game of the current console generation and the highest-rated title in the history of the NBA 2K series.⁽¹⁾  To date, NBA 2K17 has sold-in nearly 7 million units, and is poised to become 2K’s highest-selling sports title ever.  

In December, 2K launched its second official eSports competition, NBA 2K17 All-Star Tournament, which offers teams of gamers the chance to win a trip to NBA All-Star 2017.  The 5-on-5 tournament, featuring a $250,000 grand prize, will culminate on Feb. 17 in New Orleans.

Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Wildlands: PS4 Closed Beta Review

Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Wildlands: PS4 Closed Beta Review

Platform: PS4
Released by Ubisoft

The second of Ubisoft's closed BETAs in as many weeks is the massive open world Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Wildlands.

With two months to go until the latest iteration hits, the BETA puts you on the ground and into the action as part of a unit taking on cartels in Bolivia.

Multiplayer or solo are on offer, and to be frank, the solo campaign already opens up a world that takes so much of your time, that jumping in with mates is the last thing on your mind.

After customising your character, it's into the world you go, and into a squad of 3 others. A first mission sees you tasked with getting intel from a captive that begins to open up the wealth of objectives on offer and the reasons for doing them. The BETA offered six of the opening story missions to complete.

From using drones at your disposal to tag enemies or simply going in all guns blazing, Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Wildlands is a game that will thrive on your choices and will be played many different ways. The guns blazing approach certainly quickly brings brutal combat to life and the fight can get quite difficult quite quickly. But being tactical can also pay off as well - there's nothing better than tagging an opponent and the joy of the stealth kill rather than the shoot and hope approach.

In many ways, Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Wildlands feels like it's been more heavily influenced by the last iteration of the Just Cause game series. Sure, there's not the comic edges and over the top physics mentality within, but there are touches of it that remind you of Rico's exploits.

From gently hitting a car on the road and seeing it flip wildly in the air, to careering backwards down a mountain, the game hits a fun level early on. And while there are also elements of Far Cry and Just Cause's narratives within (free the checkpoints, take on a dictator etc), the game's made them all their own.

It's also a world of exploration too with there being plenty to see and do around the wildlands. From avoiding killing civilians (which abruptly ends your game) to getting revived once only by your colleagues once you fall, there's more than enough in the game mechanics to stop you from actually achieving the missions on offer.

But those missions themselves are worth getting involved with. Each one unlocks another and sees you zipping around the countryside to complete them. As you hurtle on the red barren tracks that double for roads, there's a wealth of life out there. If anything, Ubisoft's ensured that the NPCs are certainly in attendance (watch them cower when you order an attack by your squad from your car) and are reacting to what's around.

All in all, Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Wildlands: PS4 Closed Beta showed the vast range of just part of the worlds out there. While the missions may be of a similar nature to what's encountered before, it's clear that the sheer scale of the open world and its secrets within will ensure this release in March will be a popular one.

Impact Winter release date revealed

Impact Winter release date revealed

Your winter survival experience starts on APRIL 12^th, 2017 with IMPACT WINTER on PC Digital and later this year on Playstation®4 and Xbox ONE Digital

Pre-order the PC digital version to receive the official game soundtrack by Mitch Murder!

Winter season will be long this year as IMPACT WINTER is coming on April 12^th, 2017 on PC digital.BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe and Mojo Bones are pleased to announce that their post-apocalyptic survival adventure will also be available later this year for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on digital versions. By pre-ordering the PC digital version now, bolder players will receive the official soundtrack, created exclusively by composer Mitch Murder.

An asteroid has collided with Earth, and the world we once knew is now nothing more than a snow-covered wasteland. Almost everyone and everything perished in the harsh, sub-zero temperatures. But you didn't. And you received a radio transmission that has filled you with hope and the will to survive the next 30 days. Take on The Void as Jacob Solomon, a lone survivor wandering around the frozen wilderness when he stumbles upon a snow-buried church sheltering four other survivors and their robot, AKO-LIGHT. Each with their own unique field of expertise, they'll form a makeshift team, hunting and scavenging to stay alive despite the weather conditions and slumping morale, while furiously focusing on lowering the Rescue Timer...

IMPACT WINTER will be coming on April 12^th, 2017 on PC and later this year for digital distribution. To know more about IMPACT WINTER please visit  impact-winter.com, and to know more about BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe’s other products feel free to visit us at https://www.bandainamcoent.eu or follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BandaiNamcoEU or join the conversation on Twitter athttps://twitter.com/bandainamcoeu.

For Honor BETA: PS4 Review

For Honor BETA: PS4 Review

Released by Ubisoft
Platform: PS4

Ubisoft's BETA month is well underway.

What with Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Wildlands hitting and the For Honor BETA also being delivered, it's a fairly busy time ahead of these releases in the coming months.

For Honor's Closed Beta (an open one is being held very soon) offered a tantalising glimpse at a new way of playing online competitive brawling. And for the large part, it was a very intriguing one.

If anything, it showed that a great deal of practice is necessary to ensure that when the game kicks in, you're in line with what's expected and can survive, as well as help your team to victory.

Real-time countering is a skill to master and is vital, no matter which faction you choose to play. Whether you're Viking, Knight or Samurai, if you can't defend then you're gone. It's a skill that takes a little time to get your head around but it's terribly important during the ongoing combat.

Talking of which, the plot loosely revolves around the world having been shattered by an earthquake and different factions fighting for resources afterwards. As ever, world-changing means that groups spring up - and allying yourself to one of these is the way forward.

The opening video is nothing short of spectacular. Fighting through the ages is demonstrated by the world changing around the characters and it's very wonderfully executed, a sort of age-old conflict given a graphical new spin.

With the closed Beta offering 1 v 1 duelling, 2 vs 2 or 4 v 4, the combat element is as mentioned the most important part of the game. And it's fluid, brutal and if you've not mastered what you need to, likely to signal an end to your time in the world before you've even realised what's going on.

The full on brawling where zones are captured are ones that will require tactics - gaining a zone collects you points, but losing that zone and then dying in said zone deducts them. It's a smart touch to ensure one side never romps home with the prizes but it does make the counting down clock a major enemy to your march to victory.

While the Beta had a few glitches and many were choosing the samurai because of their long length weapons meaning you could kill before your opponent's anywhere near you, most of it felt balanced and a good learning curve to what lies ahead.

With loot, XP and the customisations on hand, For Honor could well be a tantalising prospect to the age old online brawler. It's certainly got the premise and promise down pat - here's hoping the Valentine's Day release will hit the highs that the BETA's pointed to.

Fifty Shades Darker: Film Review

Fifty Shades Darker: Film Review

Cast: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Kim Basinger, Marcia Gay Harden, Bella Heathcote, Rita Ora
Director: James Foley

To be fair, no-one is expecting cinematic mastery of the celluloid domain with the erotic flick Fifty Shades Darker.

The adaptation of the first Fifty Shades of Grey mummy porn movie wasn't exactly thrilling and rendered the dangerous world of BDSM and talk thereof rather dull and flaccid.

But to say the sequel, which centres on a wounded Christian Grey determined to get Anastasia Steele back in his life, has a bit more life and a lot more kinky fuckery (to quote Ana) is to damn it with feint praise.

Sure, the terrible dialogue is ever-present, every touch leads to near orgasm and the leering gaze of the camera lingers a little too often on Dakota Johnson's shapelier assets. There are obligatory moments of Jamie Dornan sans shirt and giving that slightly constipated and pained squirrel look that he did in the first; but let's face it, that's what most of the audience coming to this weak 80s softcore rip-off are looking for.

From lingering looks, talk of nipple clamps, romps to endless changing soundtracks, and discussions of renegotiating terms, the second film is very much about The Domestication of Christian Grey, where he has to consider serious issues like trust and allowing a girl to move in, rather than deciding which blindfold and which sub to master that night.

And yet, around the edges of this creaky wannabe psychological push and pull, there are elements of a psycho-sexual thriller lurking and failing to garner enough light.

However, the tension that's supposed to be built with hints of Grey's dangerous past teased out are laughably dispatched in a piecemeal fashion that's irritating.

Two sequences that threaten danger to our protagonist are over and resolved within moments, robbing the film of any kind of drama as the duo weave their way through the sheen of masquerade balls and flirting over the coring of a capsicum. A sub-plot about Ana working for a publisher with a seedy boss feels strongly like set-up, but it's all so summarily dismissed that the episodic nature of the film fails to fire.

Ana's constant "I want you but I don't want you" flip-flopping grates on the screen as she debates and then hops into another romp - though one suspects that is sorely down to EL James' source material and her controlling desire to write the screenplay. However, Johnson brings some light to the role, and sells the continual uncertainty and actually gives a bit more to the one dimensional Ana. Even if you're still troubled by how much she refuses the sub lifestyle and then demands it before rejecting it once again...

Dornan's confined to the sidelines a little more this time around, going from a more playful Grey to a Horny looking Kato at the ball. There's a softer edge to him in the latest, which renders the stalking message and one-spanking-away-from-an-injunction Christian Grey a little more palatable in the second film.

Ultimately, a lot of Fifty Shades Darker lurches from one ludicrous moment to another, saddled with some
laugh out loud dialogue (none of it intentional), and there's no disputing the fact it's dull in parts. And there's still a shocking disparity over the amount of male / female nudity within.

Yet, bizarrely, there's also a clarity of vision here, with the sex ramped up as that's clearly what the audience wants. First time around, all the discussion of contracts and sexual fantasies robbed the film of the lusty edge - here, it's all on, with the between the sheets action being left to do the talking. There's no denying that Foley delivers it all in a manner which will titillate parts of the audience and leave them breathless as this saga of the love affair plays out.

But there's no hint of suggestion, no delicious tease of sexiness and while there's one Johnson that more than rises to the occasion this time around, giving her Ana a little more than the one dimensions set down on the page, Fifty Shades Darker remains still a damp cinematic squib.

Fences: Film Review

Fences: Film Review

Cast: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Mykelti Williamson, Joven Adepo
Director: Denzel Washington

Based on the Pulitzer and Tony Award winning play by August Wilson from part of the Pittsburgh cycle of plays, Fences rarely transcends its theatrical roots in its transition to screen.

And while this tale of an ordinary family and the ordinary everyday battles with life's choices may overwhelm some unable to disassociate the non-filmic experience, for those who stay in their seats during the 140 minute run time, the reward is a powerful performance from a pair of searing leads.

Washington plays Troy Maxson, a rubbish truck worker in 1950s Pittsburgh. Resigned to the life laid before him after he was rejected from the Negro baseball league, Maxson's determined to make a promotion to driver of the truck becoming the first African-American to do so. Believing he was passed over by the white man because of his colour, Maxson's bitterness is infecting his family.

From his long-suffering wife of 18 years, Rose (played with a quiet ferocity by Viola Davis, who's on award-winning form) to his son Cory, who wants to try out for the football leagues, Troy's righteous anger bubbles deep below the surface.

But as the bullish and mood-swinging Troy continues his quest to cope with the price paid to keep the family together, the simmering resentment and frustration he feels at his situation is corrosive to all around him...

Fences benefits from a powerhouse performance from Davis, and a little less so, with Washington, both reprising their award-winning roles from the stage performance.

While Washington's is clearly the more showy turn, with plenty of exposition and "Remember when?" ethos soaking his at times, didactic dialogue, the quieter more effective Davis as Rose is the more explosive of the two.

Hers is a subtle performance of a tragedy within and her reserved outlook for most of the film means when the inevitable moment comes, its intensity and power is evident. It's a relative shoo-in for her for an Academy Award this year, based on the politics of the film and the subtle energy of her performance.

The allegory of Troy Maxson's family obsession with building a fence within the play isn't lost on the audience, with it being mentioned several times that it's to keep things out and simultaneously things in, but the poignancy of the reasoning behind it doesn't become clear until the end.

However, it's a long way to the end, and with the film's flow very much feeling like a four act play with distinct ends and fades, there's a degree of endurance needed to get through Washington's relative workmanlike direction of Wilson's play. He rarely makes use of any of the spaces around him, with the dialogue demanding that stationary sets and relatively static positioning be used doing little to shake off the more theatrical feeling of Fences.

Consequently, Fences becomes somewhat of a punishing movie, and some of the electricity that would be delivered in the live arena of the theatre is, unfortunately, somewhat lacking. As the story of the ordinary suburban family plays out, one can't help but feel more of an edge would have generated a little more of a frisson for ordinary film-goers.

As it is, the confines of the stage writ large upon the big screen, rob Fences of some of the moments that would land in that live venue and with the electricity of an audience. That said, in the back half of Fences, this performance of actors acting becomes more of a tour de force, mainly thanks to its leads and their lengthy monologues.

The Elder Scrolls Online | Own Your Own Home in Tamriel With Homestead

The Elder Scrolls Online | Own Your Own Home in Tamriel With Homestead

It’s time to take the big leap and become a homeowner … in Tamriel.

Today PC/Mac players of The Elder Scrolls Online receive the first major DLC of 2017 – Homestead – a free update that will allow them to buy apartments, homes, manors – and even an island – in Tamriel. Available for both in-game Gold and through the Crown Store, homes can be customized with more than 2,000 decorating items, including furniture, décor, books, barrels and a whole lot more.

Homestead will release on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on February 21.

Tons of Homes – First One Free!

Homestead releases with nearly 40 instanced homes to choose from, each styled after one of the game’s 10 playable races. Anyone who would like to grab their own Tamriel digs can get one for free through an initial tutorial quest. Once that introductory quest is completed, players can move on and up, owning multiple homes of various sizes that can be shared across all of their in-game characters.

Not Your Friend’s House

Owning a house is only the beginning of Homestead – it’s not truly a home until you decorate it. Players can make their new residences truly unique by acquiring and placing more than 2,000 items with the game’s new Housing Editor. Furniture and other décor are available through in-game vendors and the Crown Store, but players can also craft their own using existing crafting skills. Available décor includes tables, chairs, chests, beds, bars, counters as well as decorating items like books, food, barrels, paintings, light fixtures, plants, trees, and more. Looking for more utility? Players can also place items like combat dummies, crafting tables and assistants in their homes.