BURNOUT PARADISE REMASTERED IS COMING TO PLAYSTATION 4 AND XBOX ONE ON MARCH 16

BURNOUT PARADISE REMASTERED IS COMING TO PLAYSTATION 4 AND XBOX ONE ON MARCH 16

BURNOUT PARADISE REMASTERED IS COMING TO PLAYSTATION 4 AND XBOX ONE ON MARCH 16

This Marks the First EA Title Remastered for this Generation of Consoles and Includes Content from the Original Base Game and DLC*

Criterion Games, a studio of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) today announced Burnout™ Paradise Remastered will become available March 16th, 2018 on the PlayStation® 4 computer entertainment system and Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, inviting players to wreak havoc and unleash automotive anarchy once more. Players will be transported back into the world of Paradise City to tear it up in the ultimate driving playground, from hectic downtown avenues to the wild mountain roads. Pull off high-octane stunts and create insane car destruction in one of the greatest arcade-driving games ever created.

Experience Ancient Egypt With The Discovery Tour By Assassin’s Creed

Experience Ancient Egypt With The Discovery Tour By Assassin’s Creed

THE DISCOVERY TOUR BY ASSASSIN’S CREED^® TRANSFORMS ANCIENT EGYPT INTO AN INTERACTIVE MUSEUM

History Is Everyone’s Playground With This New Educational Tool

SYDNEY, Australia  — February 20, 2018 — Ubisoft’s Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt is a new educational and entertaining tool which lets anyone explore the entire interactive 3D recreation of Ancient Egypt in Assassin’s Creed Origins free of conflict, time pressure or gameplay constraints. The Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt releases from tomorrow on PS4, Xbox and PC at no cost for all owners of the Assassin’s Creed Origins game. It will also be available independently from the game on PC via the Uplay and Steam platforms.

Click image below to view trailer.

From Alexandria to Memphis, the Nile Delta to the Sand Sea, the Giza plateau to the Faiyum Oasis, the Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt lets visitors either explore the rich world of Ancient Egypt at their will or follow the 75 themed tours devised by Ubisoft’s creative teams in collaboration with History experts and Egyptologists. “With the Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt, we give the chance to everyone interested in Ancient Egypt to enjoy the beauty of it and realize that video games can be a source of inspiring knowledge” explains Jean Guesdon, Creative Director of Assassin’s Creed Origins and the Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt.

Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt is a unique experience at the intersection of entertainment and learning. Interactivity, specific to the world of videogames, is at the heart of the experience, creating strong engagement with the content. This makes the Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt a completely new type of edutainment tool. “We’ve been in touch with teachers from the very first instalment of Assassin’s Creed games about ten years back. Many of them already used the games during their History classes but soon came to realize that what they needed was an easily accessible educative tool based in our historical reconstructions,” explains Maxime Durand, in-house Historian at Ubisoft Montreal. “With the Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt you can visualize and understand thousands of things from Egyptian history in their actual context. As both a game and a learning tool, it is quite a unique asset for teachers to integrate as part of their history classes.”

Overwatch Contenders launches in Australia and New Zealand

Overwatch Contenders launches in Australia and New Zealand

Overwatch Contenders launches in Australia and New Zealand

Aspiring Overwatch pros in Australia and New Zealand have a new platform to test their mettle with the launch of Overwatch Contenders.

With money on the line for every match, Overwatch Contenders is the first semi-professional league aimed at showcasing the top players in Australia and New Zealand. Local talent will have the opportunity to play against the best in the region and potentially gain the attention of scouts from some of the world’s leading teams.

There will be three Overwatch Contenders seasons during 2018, with a total local prize pool of $150,000 USD per year.

For more information on Season 1 of Overwatch Contenders Australia, including teams, scheduling and more, check out our brand new website: https://contenders.playoverwatch.com/en-us/. The full local schedule will be updated shortly.

For more background on about Overwatch Contenders globally, check out our latest blog: https://overwatchleague.com/en-gb/news/21508787/these-are-your-overwatch-contenders  

Australian competition begins 11 March, 2018 AEDT/NZDT, with all the action live-streamed from 2:00pm AEDT/4:00pm NZDT at: https://www.twitch.tv/OverwatchContenders. Every game will be live-streamed each week moving forward, so be sure to tune in.

The top eight teams in Open Division have automatically qualified for Overwatch Contenders Australia positions, with Contenders Trials currently underway to determine the final four.

The eight Overwatch Contenders teams confirmed so far are:

• Legacy
• Kings GC
• Your Name Here
• cmonBruh
• ViewSonic.DarkSided
• Masterminds GC
• Kanga Esports
• Alter Ego

Goodbye Christopher Robin: DVD Review

Goodbye Christopher Robin: DVD Review

Very much a warts and all portrayal of one of the world's most famous children's icons, Goodbye Christopher Robin is a cautionary tale about the damage done to others by fame and neglect.

With a strong anti-war message, Goodbye Christopher Robin is the story of the playwright A A Milne (Gleeson, sombre and at times, drawn) whose London arty life is irrevocably changed when he returns from the first Great War.

Shell-shocked and sleep-walking through life, Milne, along with his flapper wife Daphne (Robbie in chocks away mode) relocate to the English countryside after their first child is born.

Milne believes the countryside will inspire his anti-war writing, but Daphne, disappointed at birthing a boy rather than a girl and fearing he will be conscripted, stays in London to party and forget the perils.

Left alone with Christopher Robin and forced to take on the kid when nanny Olive (Macdonald, the film's heart and vocal conscience) has to look after her ill mother, the pair bond as young Christopher helps him through post-war life and yearns for a father.

As the duo spend more time together, the whimsical world of Winnie The Pooh is born - and despite AA Milne saying the story would be for his son, it soon becomes a worldwide phenomenon, leading to an even stronger sense of estrangement in the Milne family.

Served with a large degree of as much sugariness as Pooh's beloved honey, Goodbye Christopher Robin comes dangerously close to over-egging the pudding at times, with the mawkish manipulation being piled on to occasionally over-bearing moments.

With the saccharine overdose being largely confined to the dimple-faced moppet playing young Christopher Robin and his fatherly interactions, there's little insight into what fully led to the bear's creation other than some downpat broad brush strokes applied to the stiffly-starched English accents and rather withdrawn adult acting.

And yet, bizarrely and equally so, the sense of detachment and the underlying sadness of lives wrecked within (Milne's PTSD haunts him at every turn, wife Daphne's denial pushes her to seek solace in London away from the boy she could lose and son Christopher's growing resentment over the fame he's handed and the lack of familial attachment) really hint at the dark story underneath it all.

This is perhaps Goodbye Christopher Robin's strength - it's not a film that celebrates an icon in many ways.

If anything, it shows a deeply tragic personal correlation between fame and its cost.

Pre-reality shows and post war with England aching for a return to more optimistic times, this is a harrowing introspective look at the trappings and perils of the creative world.

It puts a uniquely human spin (albeit occasionally laden with a spoon rather than a dollop) on proceedings and deserves to be saluted so.

Perhaps if some of the sentiment hadn't been ladelled on with such heft, this immensely thoughtful biopic could have been intensely more emotionally satisfying. 

Game Night: Film Review

Game Night: Film Review

Cast: Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler, Jesse Plemons, Sharon Horgan, Billy Magnussen, Kylie Bunbury, Lamorne Morris
Director: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

Mixing irreverence with edges of drama and wrapping it up in a kookiness grants Game Night a feel of crackling edginess for a comedy.

Tapping into the ennui that affects the middle class and using Bateman's usual laconic deadpan ways, it's the story of Max and Annie (Bateman, McAdams) a normal suburban couple who like to gather their friends together for a regular weekly game night.

But Max's competitive and always wants to win (as shown in a charming montage early on) - however, he finds against a backdrop of fertility struggles, that his competitive edge is further enraged and engaged when his brother Brooks (Friday Night Lights' Kyle Chandler) comes to town.
Brooks sets a game night down for them, but decides it'll be a murder mystery with one of their number being kidnapped.

However, it soon turns out that the planned Game Night wasn't what was on the cards - and a fight for survival begins...

Game Night is fresh, spiky and genuinely funny in parts.

Even if its denouement packs too many twists for general consumption and tries to be a bit cleverer than it actually is, its general desire to subvert expectations is a welcome one.

Sure, the usual messages are there - about being open with partners, honest with friends etc, but the hugging and learning portion feels earned in the final furlong - and amuses rather than overtly preaches.

It's nice to see McAdams cut loose a little and have some fun, and Catastrophe's Horganmakes an impressive big film debut , but this is, without a doubt, Plemons' film.

As the sadsack former member of the group and creepy divorced neighbour, this security guard is a delight as the cameras hang on his words and actions perhaps a little too long so as to make things uncomfortable and uncertain.

Daley and Goldstein's eyes behind the camera proffer up some interesting shots too - from high-in-the-sky shots which make the sets look like board games to fixed cameras in chases, the film's freshness leaps from the screen too.

Ultimately, the crackling Game Night may have edges of Funny Game and some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments, but its quirky irreverence towards the buddy dynamic and mixing up of various genres means it proves to be a winner for a refreshing night out and proves to be a game winner.

David Duchovny live - Photos

David Duchovny live - Photos

Here are some shots from David Duchovny live at Auckland's PowerStation on February 20th, 2018 as he toured New Zealand for the first time.

Final Portrait: DVD Review

Final Portrait: DVD Review

A sort of Waiting for Godot piece about a man getting a portrait painted by a master, Final Portrait requires a bit of patience and a lot of goodwill to see it through.

Hammer plays James Lord, who's been asked by Geoffrey Rush's Swiss painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti if he can paint his portrait in 1964 Paris. Flattered by the offer and on holiday in France, Lord agrees expecting it to be a few days at most.

However, Giacometti's eccentric style and the fact he's distracted by muse and prostitute Caroline (Poesy) means nothing goes according to plan.

Final Portrait may appeal to those who appreciate the artist and what they go through, but with an occasionally stultifying pace, it's punishing at times for those expecting anything other than sedate.

Thankfully, both Hammer and Rush inhabit their characters well and while Hammer's Lord is a little prim and proper, he eventually gives way to some cracks later on in the film and you see his patience crumble.

More impressive is Rush who makes his eccentric maestro frustratingly approachable and a character worth watching. Gradual tics and dismissive doubts plague Giacometti and it's intriguing to watch it unspool, even if it is punishing to bear at times.

Ultimately, while Tucci's eye for the arts leads to some bizarre directorial choices (jerky cam movements seem at odds with the subject matter), his desire to present the artist and their method of work is actually canny in places.

Final Portrait isn't one for everyone, and while it's a frustrating experience at times thanks to its real depth of character study, those who appreciate the arts may appreciate some of the insights on show here.