OtherSide Entertainment has issued a mea culpa for the rough launch of Underworld Ascendant, and explained how it plans to improve the game going forward. In a lengthy blog post, the studio acknowledges it was buggy and flawed at launch, and that players may have expected something more similar to Ultima Underworld. Underworld Ascendant was released in November following a successful crowdfunding effort."Despite the game’s flaws at launch, we believe there is a core of goodness to Underworld Ascendant," the studio said. "Our job now is to address the concerns players have expressed and improve the game; making what is good about the game shine through more brightly.The studio mentioned that it's "evident some our fans wanted a game that played much closer to the original Ultima Underworld. It’s been painful to hear these players describe how we missed expectations. Although we tried to be clear with press and fans during the development of the game, in hindsight we could have done a better job communicating what Underworld Ascendant was and what it was not."In a roadmap, the studio laid out a plan for upcoming improvements. Coming next week, the studio plans to fix the save system to be more flexible and retain all of your quest and equipment data. It will also adjust combat in regards to how directional attacks, weapon damage balance, and some AI improvements. A few select quests are being improved, and items and gear will show wear. Finally, player movement is being adjusted along with some other minor tweaks like saved key binding preferences, and skill UI improvements.A second update, coming next February, will include more improvements to combat and AI, adjustments to leveling and quests, and other UI improvements. The studio also says it is also looking into ways to improve the overall metagame and "reduce the complexity around what players are supposed to be doing to stop Typhon."The blog also goes into detail about the development process and how the game went out in the state it did. "With 20/20 hindsight we were overly optimistic," it states. "We convinced ourselves that the game was in more robust shape than it actually was. Had we been more objective, we would have held off the launch and worked on the game longer. Instead we pushed hard and hit the planned November launch date."As a consequence, the game went out rougher than it should have. None of the challenges the project faced are an excuse. We should have done better."The issues led to a poor reception in GameSpot's Underworld Ascendant review, which scored it a 2/10. That review specifically mentioned the poorly implemented save system as a problem. However, the review criticized the game's problems as much more deeply ingrained."For many players, especially the time-poor, the save system alone will be enough to render Underworld Ascendant unplayable," said critic David Wildgoose. "But even if it were addressed, and a more conventional system patched in, it would be impossible to recommend this game to anyone. Framed as a spiritual successor to Ultima Underworld, Underworld Ascendant misses the mark with almost every shot, much like my aforementioned hapless archer. At the same time, even freed from the expectations its historical baggage brings, it is a clear failure. The spirit of Ultima Underworld lives on elsewhere."Info from Gamespot.com

The latest chapter of the Battlefield V TTK drama has unfolded. DICE has announced that it's backtracking on the controversial changes it made to the multiplayer shooter's time-to-kill values that made the game more forgiving for new players and angered veteran players in the process.In a post on Reddit, DICE said it made the choice to roll back the changes after listening to player feedback and reviewing internal statistical data. The TTK changes were released in an update that came out last week, so they really didn't last very long at all.DICE reiterated that its aim with the TTK changes was to make the game "more enjoyable for new players." Veteran Battlefield fans took issue with this, and in response, DICE released a "Core" playlist for the Conquest mode with the original TTK values. Fans commented that a single playlist wasn't enough, and DICE later announced that it would release more "Core" playlists."Clearly we didn't get it right," DICE said about the TTK changes. "Veteran players didn't ask for the change, but as game developers, we took it upon ourselves to make those changes based on extensive data and deliberation. It truthfully wasn't an easy decision for us," DICE said.The developer added that it is an ongoing challenge to make Battlefield a more enjoyable experience for new players. Indeed, the game has a very different feel than its main competitor, Call of Duty, which is often regarded as a game that is relatively easier to get into."It's been a challenge across our games for a long time, as many will know, and becomes even more important for us to improve upon our post-launch experience with consistent updates to the game through the Tides of War," DICE said. "Our desire to service a game that caters to old and new players will continue. How we get it right isn't easy, nor will it be quick, and we appreciate when the community comes together and helps us on this journey."While DICE is rolling back the TTK changes, the developer said it continues to work on new updates to "improve the experience" for all players--new and veteran.Battlefield V's TTK will revert to its original value through an update coming December 18 at 4 AM PT / 7 AM ET / 1 PM CET. The "Core" playlist for Conquest will be removed at this time, while the previously announced additional "Core" playlists are not going to be released.Unlike previous Battlefield games, all of Battlefield V's expansions are free as part of the game's Tide of War live service element. The first major post-release expansion, Chapter 1: Overture, is out now, and it adds a new map and the single-player War Story where you play as a member of a German tank division. On a longer timeline, Battlefield V will introduce a battle royale mode called Firestorm in March.GameSpot's Battlefield V review scored the World War II shooter an 8/10. The game is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Info from Gamespot.com

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's Alfonso Ribeiro, who starred as the show's Carlton, is suing Epic Games. Ribeiro's law firm said the the actor is accusing the studio of stealing his dance--commonly referred to by fans of the show as the Carlton dance--for the "Fresh" emote in Fortnite.According to TMZ, Ribeiro is currently in the process of filing for the copyright for the dance. This announcement comes on the heels of another lawsuit filed against Epic. Terrance Ferguson accused Epic of stealing his Milly Rock dance for Fortnite's "Swipe It" emote, an act he describes as a pattern the studio has for "exploiting African-American talent in particular in Fortnite by copying their dances and movements." Ribeiro is mentioned as another example of this in Ferguson's lawsuit.Epic has seen several legal disputes when it comes to Fortnite. PUBG Corp., the creators of PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds, sued Epic over a concern "that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known." However, the lawsuit was ultimately dropped. Epic hasn't always been on the receiving end of a lawsuit either. The studio sued a QA tester who leaked Fortnite Season 4 secrets, as well as a few streamers for advertising Fortnite cheats.When it comes to outside the court room, Epic has been enjoying the growing success of Fortnite--which is the number one searched game on Google in 2018. After finding success with cross-platform play on Fortnite between Xbox One, PS4, Switch, PC, and mobile devices, Epic Games is sharing its technology with other developers looking to do the same. The studio also launched its own PC game store that offers an enticing alternative to Steam.Info from Gamespot.com

One of the reasons why DICE updated Battlefield V to make it easier for new players was specifically to help the game appeal to new players--this did not go so well. After a wave of criticism from veteran players, DICE announced that it is rolling back the time-to-kill changes to restore the values to their original state. The Swedish developer has now also acknowledged that it has been a struggle for years now to get people into Battlefield games."It's important to acknowledge that we have a challenge bringing new players into Battlefield V and onboard them to become more experienced Battlefield players," DICE said in a Reddit post regarding the TTK changes. "It's been a challenge across our games for a long time, as many will know."DICE's overall ambition with Battlefield V is for it to appeal to new and veteran players alike, and the developer will continue to try to do this even after the TTK changes are undone. "How we get it right isn't easy, nor will it be quick, and we appreciate when the community comes together and helps us on this journey," DICE said.The Battlefield franchise is generally understood to be relatively more difficult for new players compared to the series main competitor, Call of Duty. Activision's franchise regularly outsells Battlefield. Back in 2013, EA management said it hoped Battlefield 4 would outsell that year's Call of Duty game, Ghosts. It did not.Other established franchises face the same challenge as Battlefield: drawing in new players while also appealing to veterans, and pleasing everyone. As DICE frankly said in its Reddit post and as evidenced by the rollback to the original TTK values, this can be a tough nut to crack. Marcus Lehto, who co-created the Halo franchise, recently said he believes Halo is in a no-win scenario now as it tries to appeal to new players and do right by veterans.For its part, DICE has pledged to continue to listen to fan feedback and try to make Battlefield V appealing to everyone. How this works in practice remains to be seen. Info from Gamespot.com

The Mythical Psychic Pokemon Deoxys made its debut in Pokemon Go earlier this year as the game's second EX Raid boss, replacing Mewtwo. Up until now, the DNA Pokemon has only appeared in the mobile game in its Normal Forme, but a new variant of the Pokemon is set to arrive soon.Developer Niantic has announced that Attack Forme Deoxys will be available in EX Raids later this month. Along with taking on a different appearance, Attack Forme Deoxys has a much higher attack stat than its standard form, and Niantic warns that it will be a "difficult challenge that requires Trainers to take advantage of every opportunity."The new form of Deoxys is set to arrive with the next cycle of EX Raid invites, which are scheduled to go out beginning December 20. Unlike standard Raid Battles, you can only participate in EX Raids if you've received an invitation. In order to get one, you'll first need to have recently won a Raid Battle at a "qualifying" Gym. These are denoted by an EX Raid tag in the upper righthand corner when you look at the Gym's details.In the meantime, players still have a little more time to catch Pokemon Go's latest Legendary, Cresselia. The Psychic Pokemon is scheduled to leave standard Raid Battles on December 18, just before Attack Forme Deoxys is set to arrive in EX Raids. Niantic hasn't announced when the game's next Legendary Pokemon will arrive, although the developer has teased that Azelf, Uxie, and Mesprit--three more Legendaries originally from Pokemon Diamond and Pearl--are on the way.Pokemon Go's annual holiday celebration is also set to return again soon. This year's event kicks off on December 18 and will introduce another handful of Gen 4 Pokemon, including Snorlax's pre-evolved form, Munchlax, as well as Snover, Abomasnow, and Croagunk. Festive hat Pikachu and Delibird will also return, and different bonuses will be meted out throughout the event until it ends on January 2.Info from Gamespot.com

Of course Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse has a post credits scene--it would, frankly, be pretty irresponsible if it didn't, considering just how deeply embroiled in comic book culture the whole movie is. There are certain expectations for superhero stories and this is a film that understands that intimately, and is more than happy to deliver.Needless to say: Into The Spider-Verse spoilers ahead, so please proceed with caution from here on out!We've known for a while that Sony has been planning on developing more Spider-Verse or Spider-Verse adjacent movies, which is what the very brief mid-credits scene starts to set up. We see Miles on his bed back in his dorm room before, off screen, a portal seems to open on his ceiling, glowing neon. We never see her, but Gwen's voice chimes in, saying Miles' name to get his attention. The implication here is pretty obvious--Gwen has found some way to hop through the multiverse on her own, without causing a black hole to open up under Brooklyn, and has figured out how to use this--tech? Magic?--to link back up with Miles.Obviously this leaves some major questions. We all want Miles and his interdimensional friends to be able to join back up and go on adventures again, but a major part of Into The Spider-Verse's story was the fact that dimension-hopping is potentially lethal for the people who are leaving their home universe. This certainly puts a damper on all the potential fun to be had, unless a solution was worked out somewhere off screen. Also, we can't tell by this brief moment whether or not the only person able to hop dimensions now is Gwen or if the rest of Miles' ragtag Spider-crew are going to be invited along as well. We certainly hope so.Spider-Man 2099The actual post credits scene may even give us a little insight into that particular problem. It introduces an entirely new character comics fans will recognize as Miguel O'Hara (voiced by none other than Oscar Isaac), AKA Spider-Man 2099. He's accompanied by his holographic personal assistant, Lyla, who seems to be helping him with new tech, assuring him that if he succeeds, he'll be the first person to pull off an autonomous dimension jump.For those of us not super well versed in '90s Marvel comics, Miguel might be a bit of a mystery. He's basically exactly what it says on the tin: a Spider-Man from the year 2099, in keeping with the extremely '90s superhero tradition of advanced, cyberpunk alternate futures--think Marvel's own version of the Batman Beyond concept.Miguel's Spider-Man origins are similar to Peter's in that they were the results of genetic experimentation. As an adult, Miguel became the head of a genetics program at the semi-shady corporate juggernaut Alchemax, where he begins working on a project based on records of the original Spider-Man's exploits. He invents a machine that would, ideally, fuse human DNA with spider DNA and attempts to test it on himself, but the process was sabotaged by a jealous lab assistant who cranks the ratios up by 50%. Miguel survives the accident, but is mutated to have a more physically extreme version of Peter's abilities, including talons that are now growing out of his hands and feet.Though the 2099 line of comics is largely defunct these days, Miguel still crops up in his own solo books or other Spider-adjacent titles even now. During the Secret Wars event, Miguel was set to the present and stranded, but he was eventually able to make it back in one piece. His last proper solo title wrapped up in 2017.Spider-Memes and Stan Lee QuotesSpider-Verse's Miguel is more than happy to use his experimental tech to make a dimension hop, so the question is: where does he want to go? The answer is, hilariously, "the beginning," of course--Earth-67, otherwise known as the Earth where the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon takes place. Miguel's actual landing place won't be a surprise to anyone familiar with Spider-Man memes--he inserts himself right into the middle of the infamous "two Peters pointing at each other" scene--a riff on the "first" time multiple Spider-people crossed over into one moment.It's all a pretty elaborate gag aimed specifically at deep-cut loving, very online comic book fans but it does mean that Sony has an animated design and model ready to go for both Miguel and Lyla in the future--and voices cast for both of them--so, even if you're not a fan of vintage memes, there's still good news to be found. Maybe keep an eye out for future Spider-Verse announcements to see just where the 2099 cast ends up.The movie actually ends, after all the 60s camp, on a touching note with a Stan Lee tribute quote--simple white text on a black background, encompassing the whole message of the film. "That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed without a doubt, a real superhero." Rest in peace, Stan. Info from Gamespot.com

One of Disney's next live-action remakes of an animated classic, Lady & The Tramp, filmed at least some of its scene with actual dogs, it has been confirmed. Why is this notable? The first trailer for Disney's new Lion King movie billed the film as being "live-action," but those aren't real lions or elephants you're seeing, but instead very visually stunning CG creatures. For Lady & The Tramp, however, Disney used real dogs--at least for a part of the process.Actor Thomas Mann, who plays Jim Dear in the new Disney movie, confirmed to Collider that real, tail-wagging dogs were used on set for the new Lady & The Tramp."The dogs were there. We shot with the dogs, every day," he explained. "They were on set and they weren't even trained. They found these dogs and started training them about three months before. They just wanted to find the perfect dogs. The main dog's name was Rose, who played Lady. It was crazy because they didn't know they were working, so they would run off in the middle of a take, and then come back over. You have to be extra patient because you have to be good every time for when they are good once. It was a lot of fun. It was so cute, every day, to just have a bunch of dogs to play with. It made the job a lot less stressful."One of the most memorable scenes from the 1955 original was when the two main dogs shared a bowl of spaghetti and kissed. Apparently the movie-makers recreated this with the real dogs for the remake."Who doesn't want to see two real dogs kiss over a plate of spaghetti? That is the main draw for me. You get the charisma of real dogs in there," Mann said.What's unclear at this stage is how much post-production effort will go into the new Lady & The Tramp specifically for the dogs. Presumably there will be significant visual effects to help make their speaking sequences and other cues look more believable.The new Lady & The Tramp features the voices of Tessa Thompson and Justin Theroux in the title roles, with Janelle Monae, Benedict Wong, Kiersey Clemons, and Ashley Jensen also appearing in the film. It's directed by The Lego Ninjago Movie director Charlie Bean. No release date has been set yet.It's just the latest remake from Disney. The film giant has already released reboots of Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and Beauty and the Beast. In addition to Lady & The Tramp and The Lion King, some of Disney's other upcoming remakes include Dumbo, Mulan, Aladdin, and Pinocchio, among others.Info from Gamespot.com

Like PlayStation, Spotify, and others before it, Microsoft has released a neat little "Year In Review" website that reveals your most-played games and other cool stats from 2018.Go to this website and sign in with your Microsoft account to get started. The page displays a number of stats, beginning with how you stack up with the wider Xbox community when it comes to your gamerscore, number of hours played, and achievements earned.The page also gives you a 2018 "mood." Mine was "Fighting for something greater than yourself in shooter games" because I played a lot of shooters this year on Xbox One. Additionally, it shows off your most-played games and asks questions about what felt like a bigger accomplishment: earning specific achievements or total number of hours played.The Year in Review site also displays how many new friends you made on Xbox Live during the year, how much gamerscore you earned, how many hours you played across all games (presumably this excludes media app usage time), and how many hours you spent in multiplayer games versus single-player titles.Additionally, the page reveals that Xbox Live players collectively earned more than 3 billion achievements during the year. The Year in Review page gives you little trinkets to collect in the process, and at the end they come together to form a holiday snowglobe with all of them. Onc you're done, you can download your results or share them on social media.There appear to be a few oddities with the website, specifically as it relates to the number of hours played in some games, but the page should give you a generally good idea about what titles you played the most in 2018. Info from Gamespot.com

(Presented by Oculus) In the final episode of the Change the Game VR Charity Challenge, Magnus Beasticus and Lemming go toe to toe in Creed: Rise to Glory to win $100K for charity. Visit vrcharitychallenge.com for more info!Learn more about our two awesome charities:Stack Up Website: https://stackup.org/Take This Website: http://www.takethis.org/Info from Gamespot.com

A recent Battlefield V patch made changes to the values of the multiplayer game's time to kill, or TTK. The changes were aimed at helping new players have a better experience, but as you would expect, some people in the "core" Battlefield community understandably took issue with the changes.DICE created a "core" playlist for the Conquest mode in an attempt to appease veteran fans who didn't enjoy the TTK changes. But DICE now acknowledges in a new Reddit post that this one playlist was "clearly" not enough to satisfy core fans.So now, DICE is adding a "Core" version of every playlist, not just Conquest, and these new versions should arrive next week.Another part of the issue with Battlefield V's TTK is that DICE apparently did not address the feedback fast enough. "I'd like to apologize for the silence over the past couple of days on the TTK topic. We've seen it's been a big talking point and causing a divide in the community, which was never our intention. We have been listening closely to what you've all been saying," Battlefield community manager Dan Mitre said.He added: "Changes to the game carrying this kind of weight needs clearer, earlier communication before getting rolled out. We will improve how we roll out updates in the future and respond more quickly when you have questions or concerns."DICE made the TTK changes right away was due in part because the developer knows a number of new players will pick up the game for the holidays, and DICE wanted to try to help them have a good experience. "The intent came from us observing that new players are having a very hard time with the game compared to our core players, and we wanted to see if we could improve this over the holidays so more players can have a great time," Mitre said.Battlefield games are known for evolving over time based on community feedback and ideas that DICE itself comes up with. "Battlefield V is no exception," Mitre said regarding how the WWII shooter will grow and evolve in time.Unlike previous Battlefield games, all of Battlefield V's expansions are free as part of the game's Tide of War live service element. The first major post-release expansion, Chapter 1: Overture, is out now, and it adds a new map and the single-player War Story where you play as a member of a German tank division. On a longer timeline, Battlefield V will introduce a battle royale mode called Firestorm in March.GameSpot's Battlefield V review scored the World War II shooter an 8/10. The game is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Info from Gamespot.com

WWE's TLC PPV--the final major event of 2018--is winding down, and the results for all the matches that have already taken place, including the Kickoff Show, are posted below. The show aired on traditional PPV as well as on the WWE Network, and featured a few surprises.Both Raw and Smackdown have plenty of matches planned for the evening. In fact, there are 12 matches on the card, and chances are that many of these won't go longer than 10 minutes, since this isn't one of WWE's "big four" events of the year and there simply isn't enough time for everything. There is a good chance this show will be moving a mile a minute.On the Raw side of things, there is only one match that really makes sense. If you've been keeping up with the Monday night series, then you know it has not been good in quite some time. However, Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose for the Intercontinental Championship should be fantastic. Aside from that, there's a lot you can probably skip out on since the storylines simply aren't there.For Smackdown, TLC is stacked with great matches. To highlight a couple, (The New) Daniel Bryan takes on AJ Styles for the WWE Championship in what should be an instant classic. Also, the Smackdown Women's Championship is on the line when Asuka, Charlotte Flair, and "The Man" Becky Lynch battle for the title in a TLC match. Again, this should be an instant classic.This year's TLC PPV is coming to the SAP Center in San Jose, California today at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT, with a Kickoff Show beginning one hour prior. You can see the event for yourself on the WWE Network or on PPV through your cable or satellite provider.Here's what is currently planned for TLC:R-Truth & Carmella vs. Jinder Mahal & Alicia Fox (Finals of MMC Season 2)Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton (Chairs Match)Buddy Murphy (c) vs. Cedric Alexander (Cruiserweight Championship)Elias vs. Bobby Lashley (Ladder Match)Finn Bálor vs. Drew McIntyreNatalya vs. Ruby Riott (Tables Match)The Bar (c) vs. The New Day vs. The Usos (SmackDown Tag Team Championships)Becky Lynch (c) vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Asuka (Triple Threat TLC Match For The Smackdown Women's Championship)Ronda Rousey (c) vs. Nia Jax (Raw Women's Championship)Braun Strowman vs. Baron Corbin (TLC Match)Seth Rollins (c) vs. Dean Ambrose (Intercontinental Championship)(The New) Daniel Bryan (c) vs. AJ Styles (WWE Championship)In case you're not caught up, don't worry; we put the final results in spoiler blocks. The Kickoff Show begins at 6 PM ET / 3 PM PT.Kickoff ShowNOTE: The Cruiserweight Championship match was added to the Kickoff Show.Buddy Murphy (c) vs. Cedric Alexander (Cruiserweight Championship)Murphy wins by pin at 10:23.Elias vs. Bobby Lashley (Ladder Match)Elias grabs the guitar and wins at 6:15.Main CardR-Truth & Carmella vs. Jinder Mahal & Alicia Fox (Finals of MMC Season 2)Carmella submits Fox at 5:46.The Bar (c) vs. The New Day vs. The Usos (SmackDown Tag Team Championships)Sheamus pins Xavier Woods at 12:19.Braun Strowman vs. Baron Corbin (TLC Match)Strowman wins by pin at 7:20.Natalya vs. Ruby Riott (Tables Match)Natalya puts Riott through a table at 12:40.Finn Bálor vs. Drew McIntyreBalor wins by pin at 12:07.Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton (Chairs Match)Mysterio pins Orton at 11:40.Ronda Rousey (c) vs. Nia Jax (Raw Women's Championship)Rousey submits Jax at 11:10.(The New) Daniel Bryan (c) vs. AJ Styles (WWE Championship)Bryan wins by pin at 23:50.Seth Rollins (c) vs. Dean Ambrose (Intercontinental Championship)Match in progressUpdating...Info from Gamespot.com

For the first time in the history of the Assassin's Creed franchise, this year's game, Odyssey, lets you choose to play as a man, Alexios, or a woman, Kassandra. But which was the more popular choice?Game director Scott Phillips told Game Informer (via Destructoid) that Alexios is currently the more popular choice. Around two-thirds of players chose him. This ratio surprised Phillips because early playtests were closer to 50/50."Right now it's two-thirds Alexios and one-third Kassandra," he said. "The interesting thing is that, during playtests, it was pretty much 50/50. I was a bit surprised; I was expecting half-and-half or even a little bit more Kassandra."The idea of choice being key to our game shows really well in that even we are surprised by some of the choices [players] ended up making."It's unclear if the breakdown between Alexios and Kassandra includes people who played the game more than once and chose a different character the next time. We also don't know how the player split breaks down by console.Assassin's Creed: Odyssey launched in early October, and it enjoyed the franchise's best start in many years in terms of game sales and microtransactions. Info from Gamespot.com

The idea of what the Super Smash Bros. games are, and what they can be, has been different things during the series' 20-year history. What began as an accessible multiplayer game also became a highly competitive one-on-one game. But it's also been noted for having a comprehensive single-player adventure, as well as becoming a sort of virtual museum catalog, exhibiting knowledge and audiovisual artifacts from the histories of its increasingly diverse crossover cast. Ultimate embraces all these aspects, and each has been notably refined, added to, and improved for the better. Everyone, and basically everything, from previous games is here--all existing characters, nearly all existing stages, along with the flexibility to play and enjoy those things in different ways. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a comprehensive, considered, and charming package that builds on an already strong and enduring fighting system.If you've ever spent time with a Smash game, then you likely have a good idea of how Ultimate works. Competing players deal damage to their opponents in order to more easily knock them off the stage. The controls remain relatively approachable for a competitive combat game; three different buttons in tandem with basic directional movements are all you need to access a character's variety of attacks and special abilities. There are a large variety of items and power-ups to mix things up (if you want to) and interesting, dynamic stages to fight on (also if you want to). You can find complexities past this, of course--once you quickly experience the breadth of a character's skillset, it allows you to begin thinking about the nuances of a fight (again, if you want to). Thinking about optimal positioning, figuring out what attacks can easily combo off of another, working out what the best move for each situation is, and playing mind games with your human opponents can quickly become considerations, and the allure of Smash as a fighting game is how easy it is to reach that stage.Complexity also comes with the wide variety of techniques afforded by Ultimate's staggeringly large roster of over 70 characters. Smash's continuing accessibility is a fortunate trait in this regard, because once you understand the basic idea of how to control a character, many of the barriers to trying out a completely new one are gone. Every fighter who has appeared in the previous four Smash games is here, along with some brand-new ones, and the presence of so many diverse and unorthodox styles to both wield and compete against is just as attractive as the presence of the characters themselves. In fact, it's still astounding that a game featuring characters from Mario Bros, Sonic The Hedgehog, Pac-Man, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, and Street Fighter all interacting with each other actually exists.On a more technical level, Ultimate makes a number of under-the-hood alterations that, at this early stage, seem like positive changes that make Smash feel noticeably faster and more exciting to both watch and play. Characters take more damage in one-on-one fights; continuous dodging is punished with increased vulnerability; fighters can perform any ground-based attack, including smash moves, immediately out of a running state; and short-hop aerial attacks (previously a moderately demanding technique) can be easily performed by pressing two buttons simultaneously. Refinements like these might go unnoticed by most, but they help define Ultimate's core gameplay as a tangible evolution of the series' core mechanics.A number of Ultimate's more superficial changes also help Smash's general quality-of-life experience, too. Some make it a more readable game--additions to the UI communicate previously hidden elements like meter charges and Villager's captured items, a simple radar helps keep track of characters off-screen, and a slow motion, zoom-in visual effect when critical hits connect make these moments more exciting to watch. Other changes help streamline the core multiplayer experience and add compelling options. Match rules can now be pre-defined with a swath of modifiers and saved for quick selection later. Stage selection occurs before character selection, so you can make more informed decisions on which fighter to use.On top of a built-in tournament bracket mode, Ultimate also features a number of additional Smash styles. Super Sudden Death returns, as does Custom Smash, which allows you to create matches with wacky modifiers. Squad Strike is a personal favorite, which allows you to play 3v3 or 5v5 tag-team battles (think King of Fighters), and Smashdown is a great, engaging mode that makes the most of the game's large roster by disqualifying characters that have already been used as a series of matches continues, challenging your ability to do well with characters who you might not be familiar with.The most significant addition to Ultimate, however, lies in its single-player content. Ultimate once again features a Classic Mode where each individual fighter has their own unique ladder of opponents to defeat, but the bigger deal is World of Light, Ultimate's surprisingly substantial RPG-style campaign. It's a convoluted setup--beginning as Kirby, you go on a long journey throughout a huge world map to rescue Smash's other fighters (who have incidentally been cloned in large numbers) from the big bad's control. Along the way, you'll do battles with Spirits, characters hailing from other video games that, while not directly engaging in combat, have taken control of clones, altered them in their images, and unleashed them on you.Though there is some light puzzling, the world is naturally filled with hundreds upon hundreds of fights--there are over 1200 Spirit characters, and the vast majority have their own unique battle stages that use the game's match variables to represent their essence. The Goomba Spirit, for example, will put you up against an army of tiny Donkey Kongs. Meanwhile, the Excitebike Spirit might throw three Warios at you who only use their Side+B motorbike attacks.It may seem like a tenuous idea at first, but these fights are incredibly entertaining. It's hard not to appreciate the creativity of using Smash's assets to represent a thousand different characters. Zero Suit Samus might stand in for a battle with The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater by donning a silver-palette costume and fighting you in a flower-filled Final Destination, but she also stands in for the spirit of Alexandra Roivas from Eternal Darkness by using a black-palette costume and fighting you in the haunted Luigi's Mansion stage, with a modifier that makes the screen occasionally flip upside down (Eternal Darkness was a GameCube horror game whose signature feature were "Sanity Effects", which skewed the game in spooky ways to represent the character's loosening grip on reality). If I knew the character, I often found myself thinking about how clever their Spirit battle was.Defeating a Spirit will add it to your collection, and Spirits also act as World of Light's RPG system. There are two types of Spirit: Primary and Support. Primary Spirits have their own power number and can be leveled up through various means to help make your actual fighter stronger. Primary Spirits also have one of four associated classes, which determine combat effectiveness in a rock-scissors-paper-style system. These are both major considerations to take into account before a battle, and making sure you're not going into a fight at a massive disadvantage adds a nice dimension to the amusing unpredictability of this mode. What you also need to take into account are the modifiers that might be enabled on each stage, which is where Support Spirits come in. They can be attached to Primary Spirits in a limited quantity and can mitigate the effect of things like poisonous floors, pitch-black stages, or reversed controls, or they can simply buff certain attacks.There are a few Spirit fights that can be frustrating, however. Stages that are a 1v4 pile-on are downright annoying, despite how well-equipped you might be, as are stages where you compete against powerful assist trophies. On the flip side, once you find yourself towards the end of the campaign, there are certain loadouts that can trivialize most stages, earning you victory in less than a second. Regardless, there's a compulsive quality to collecting Spirits, and not just because they might make you stronger. It's exciting to see which obscure character you run into next, feel validated for recognizing them, and see how the game interprets them in a Spirit battle. There's also just a superficial joy to collecting, say, the complete Elite Beat Agents cast (Osu! Takatae! Ouendan characters are here too), even though these trophies lack the frills of previous Smash games.Some hubs in the World of Light map are also themed around certain games and bundle related Spirits together to great effect--Dracula's Castle from Castlevania, which changes the map into a 2D side-scroller, and the globe from Street Fighter II, complete with the iconic airplane noises, are personal standouts. Despite the dramatic overtones of World of Spirit's setup, the homages you find within it feel like a nice commemoration of the games and characters without feeling like a pandering nostalgia play. One of the most rewarding homages of all, however, lies in Ultimate's huge library of video game music. Over 800 tracks, which include originals as well as fantastic new arrangements, can all be set as stage soundtracks as well enjoyed through the game's music player.There is one significant struggle that Ultimate comes up against, however, which lies in the nature of the console itself. Playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in the Switch's handheld mode is simply not a great experience. In situations where there are more than two characters on screen, the view of the action often becomes too wide, making the fighters too small to see properly, and it can be difficult to tell what you or your opponent is doing. The game's penchant for flashy special effects and busy, colorful stages doesn't help things at all, and unless you're playing a one-on-one match, you'll likely suffer some blameless losses. This is a situational disadvantage and may not affect all players, but it puts a damper on the idea of Smash on the go.The need to unlock characters also has the potential to be an initial annoyance, especially if your goal is to jump straight into multiplayer and start learning one of the six brand-new characters. In my time with the game, I split my attention between playing World of Light (where rescuing characters unlocks them everywhere) and multiplayer matches, where the constant drip-feed of "New Challenger" unlock opportunities (which you can easily retry if you fail) came regularly. I naturally earned the entire roster in roughly 10 hours of playtime, but your mileage may vary.Your mileage may also vary in Ultimate's online mode, where the experience of competing against others was inconsistent during the 200+ matches we played. Ultimate matches you with players from your region, but continues to use peer-to-peer style connectivity, which means the quality of the experience relies primarily on the strength of each player's internet connection. A bad connection from any player can result in a noticeable input delay, stuttering, and even freezing as the game tries to deal with latency issues. Things have the greatest potential to go bad during four-player matches, where there's a greater chance of finding a weak link.There's some blame to be put on the console itself--the Switch only has the capabilities for wifi networking. You can invest in an optional USB LAN adapter to make sure your own connection is stable, but because of the peer-to-peer nature, I found that the experience was just as inconsistent. You can get lucky--I would regularly enjoy sessions filled with smooth matches--but regardless, laggy matches aren't exactly a rare occurrence. It's also worth noting that you're required to have a paid subscription to Nintendo's Switch Online service to be able to play online at all, so the sub-optimal performance of the mode is disappointing.Network performance aside, Ultimate's online mode does have an interesting way to cater to the large variety of ways to play Smash Bros. You can create public or private arenas for friends and strangers, which serve as personal rooms to dictate specific rulesets, but the primary mode is Quick Play, where you're matched against people of a similar skill level to you. Quick Play features an option where you can set your preferred ruleset--things like the number of players, item availability, win conditions--and it will try to match you up with someone with similar preferences. However, Ultimate also prioritizes getting you into a match in under a minute, which is great, but sometimes means that you might find yourself playing a completely different style of match.In my experience, I found that there were enough people who wanted to play with my ruleset (one-on-one, three stock, six minutes, no items, Omega stages only) and I would find myself in these kinds of matches, or at least a very close approximation, the majority of the time. Getting thrown into the occasional four-player free-for-all felt like a nice, refreshing change of pace to me, but depending on how flexible you are as a player, this can be a turn-off. But like so much of Ultimate, its multitude of options and styles of play doesn't necessarily mean that all of them will suit every player.An inconsistent online mode and situational downers don't stop Super Smash Bros. Ultimate from shining as a flexible multiplayer game that can be as freewheeling or as firm as you want it to be. Its entertaining single-player content helps keep the game rich with interesting things to do, as well as bolstering its spirit of loving homage to the games that have graced Nintendo consoles. Ultimate's diverse content is compelling, its strong mechanics are refined, and the encompassing collection is simply superb. Info from Gamespot.com

Mortal Engines, the big-budget sci-fi movie from a series of Lord of the Rings veterans, is expected to be a major box office flop. Variety reports that the film is expected to lose more than $100 million when all is said and done. The film had a reported production budget of $100 million, with "tens of millions" more spent on marketing.As of today, Universal's Mortal Engines has made only $42 million worldwide."This is a true Christmas disaster and a lump of coal for Universal," Exhibitor Relations analyst Jeff Bock told Variety. "They took a big swing, and they struck out."Mortal Engines has yet to open in China, which is a massive market, but it currently has no release date for that country.The disappointing box office results come even though Mortal Engines has big names attached--it was written by LotR's Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh. It was directed by Oscar winner Christian Rivers, who also worked on LotR.As we reported in the past, Mortal Engines takes place in the far future where modern technology as we know it has been destroyed and morphed into a steampunk-like world, where giant, moving cities traverse through Europe looking for other cities to eat, in order to use the eaten city's structures to power their gigantic machines to continue the hunt.That might be a visually stunning set-up, but the complicated plot was one of the reasons that Warner Bros. and Fox said no to the film because Universal picked it up, according to Variety. Universal reportedly only contributed 30 percent of the production costs, with Media Rights Capital putting up half of the money. Legendary and Perfect World also financed the movie.Jackson apparently at one point said he believed Mortal Engines could become another big franchise, but this box office performance suggests that may not happen. Info from Gamespot.com

The new Aquaman film from Warner Bros. is doing quite well already. The superhero origin movie has now exceeded $261 million from all international markets combined, an achievement that is especially notable given that the film hasn't premiered in the US yet.According to Variety, China is the biggest market for Aquaman so far, with box office receipts totalling $189.2 million there after two weekends. Other markets where Aquaman is performing well so far include Mexico ($7.9 million), Brazil ($7.7 million), Russia ($7.4 million), the UK ($6.5 million).Aquaman, which stars Jason Momoa in the title role, opens in the US on December 21. In addition to Momoa, the film stars Nicole Kidman, Amber Heard, and Willem Dafoe. It was directed by James Wan, who previously made Saw, Insidious, and Fast & Furious 7.GameSpot's Aquaman review mostly praised the superhero film. "Aquaman isn't simply a bunch of remixed comics elements thrown together. It's a movie with its own over the top, tongue in cheek, inconsistent, massive, irreverent, CGI-soaked tone, aesthetic, and world," reviewer Michael Rougeau said. "And somehow, it works well enough that you'll be calling Arthur king by the end."For more on the critical reaction to Aquaman, check out this roundup of reviews.Info from Gamespot.com