William Shatner, who once sparred with Engadget over Twitter’s verification policy, has finally reprised his most famous role. Captain Kirk is back in the short film 765874 - Unification. This eight-minute story is live now on YouTube and follows the events of Star Trek: Generations, which was the last time Shatner donned his Starfleet uniform.
The short was made by a graphics company called OTOY, along with Paramount and Shatner himself. It technically exists to honor the 30th anniversary of Generations, but it also acts as a proper send-off to the first Star Trek captain.
Now it’s time to get into spoiler territory, for those who haven’t seen a 30-year-old movie. Captain Kirk is dead. He died on an uninhabited planet after trying to stop Malcolm McDowell from unleashing an extra-dimensional time ribbon called the Nexus on an unwitting solar system of innocent folks. You know the drill. It’s Star Trek!
Anyways, the short follows Kirk after dying on that planet. Is it the after-life or maybe the residual effects of the Nexus? We don’t know. There’s no dialogue to help us along. Instead, a de-aged Kirk, sometimes played by Sam Witwer, wanders an otherworldly realm until he eventually finds an old friend. It’s surprisingly touching, particularly for die-hard Trek fans.
My eternal gratitude to @WilliamShatner for, well, giving us the word.
The emotional depth is enhanced by the soundtrack, which is helmed by veteran Star Trek composer and MCU director Michael Giacchino. I knew it was him in like five seconds. The music reminded me of Lost, which was another show scored by Giacchino.
Barring some new life extension technology, this is likely the last time we’ll see Shatner’s Kirk. The man is 93 years old. Paul Wesley has stepped into Shatner’s space boots to portray a younger version of the captain on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Despite his advanced age, Shatner did manage to go to space a few years back.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/youtube/william-shatners-captain-kirk-returns-one-last-time-in-an-eight-minute-short-film-180607202.html?src=rss
On December 12, The Game Awards will reveal some of the biggest upcoming games and honor the industry's achievements yet again. The day before it's set to take place, however, a Day of the Devs event will put a spotlight on indie developers and titles in a livestream that fans everywhere can watch online. This Game Awards Edition showcase will feature quite a lengthy list of developer partners, including Heart Machine, which is best known for 2D action role-playing game Hyper Light Drifter and Solar Ash, a 3D platformer set against a neon-colored landscape.
Panic, the developer behind Untitled Goose Game, will also participate in the event, along with Annapurna, a publisher whose games include What Remains of Edith Finch. There's also Riffraff Games that debuted its first title, Sleight of Hand, a "noir stealth sim" game about a former occult detective who must track down and defeat her former coven earlier this year. The event will showcase 19 indie titles in all and will feature seven world premieres, title reveals and release date announcements throughout. Indie games fans can watch it on the official Game Awards YouTube and Twitch channels on December 11, starting at 9AM PT/12PM ET.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/day-of-the-devs-livestream-will-showcase-indie-titles-a-day-before-the-game-awards-170002009.html?src=rss
Yesterday, at the Disney APAC Content Showcase in Singapore, the company revealed Volume 3 of Star Wars: Visions. This anthology of nine short animations from nine separate anime studios is set to release next year. In keeping with tradition from prior volumes, each studio is allowed considerable creative freedom and will likely produce shorts with distinctive art styles that fans will recognize instantly.
Based on the Star Wars website’s blog post, we can immediately see four returning studios: Kamikaze Douga, Kinema citrus Co., Production I.G and TRIGGER. These studios are responsible for anime adaptations of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Made in Abyss, Haikyu!! and Kill la Kill, respectively.
To improve the diversity of styles, Disney invited five new studios to create the remaining shorts. They are ANIMA (collaborating with Kamikaze Douga), David Production, Polygon Pictures, Project Studio Q and WIT Studio.
ANIMA is an animation studio specializing in 3D CG movies, and you may know it as the studio behind cutscenes from Xenoblade 3, certain Fire Emblem Heroes movies and Pokemon Unite. David Production animated Fire Force and Undead Unluck, among many other anime. Some Star Wars: The Clone Wars episodes and Tron: Uprising were Polygon Pictures’ work.
Project Studio Q is a less-known name, but it’s responsible for some 3D animation in DARLING in the FRANXX episodes. As for WIT Studio, it’s of Spy x Family and Attack on Titan (the first three seasons) fame.
With such a stacked roster of studios, Disney is sparing no expense on this anthology. The wait might be long, but Volumes 1 and 2 are still available on Disney+.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/star-wars-visions-volume-3-is-coming-in-2025-164557738.html?src=rss
Comcast is spinning out Rotten Tomatoes, Fandango and a bunch of NBCUniversal (NBCU) cable networks into a separate company. That means USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel will soon have a new home. Comcast is hanging onto other NBCU operations, namely NBC, Peacock, film and TV studios, Telemundo and theme parks. Bravo is also sticking around to help keep feeding Peacock’s ever-hungry reality TV maw.
Comcast says the new entity will be a “tax-free spin-off” and the step is "expected to be accretive to revenue growth at Comcast and approximately neutral to Comcast’s leverage position." In other words, it's to do with money — and perhaps laying the groundwork for further consolidation between major media companies. The spun-out properties pulled in around $7 billion between them over the last year or so, while their future parent will still have a partnership with NBCU. Comcast is aiming to complete the transition within the next year.
In its press release, Comcast calls the spin-off company "SpinCo," which is a placeholder and surely won't be the business' actual name. After all, having "SpinCo" as their parent company's moniker wouldn't exactly be great optics for CNBC and MSNBC journalists.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/comcast-is-spinning-out-rotten-tomatoes-and-cable-networks-into-a-separate-company-151153285.html?src=rss
The Department of Justice is reportedly planning to make Google sell its Chrome browser to address its search monopoly. It’s in response to a 2020 lawsuit filed by the DOJ and several US states that was finally ruled upon in August. Google has, naturally, said such a sale would be a terrible idea and would harm American competitiveness in the tech industry. I’m more curious about how much inherent value Chrome has without the backing of its parent company.
Twitch is now on the docket for X’s lawsuit against companies that stopped advertising on the social media site. X amended its lawsuit on Monday to include Twitch as a defendant in its lawsuit in a federal court in Wichita Falls, Texas, according to Reuters.
The new complaint claims that the gaming stream site owned by Amazon stopped purchasing ads on X at the end of 2022. X alleges that Twitch and other companies conspired with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) network’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative to withhold “billions of dollars in advertising revenue” from Elon Musk’s social media company.
The plaintiff alleges the boycott violated federal antitrust laws and is demanding a jury trial to settle the matter. GARM also announced its discontinuation two days after X filed its lawsuit.
X Corp.’s joint lawsuit first filed in August also includes the WFA, the global food manufacturer Mars Incorporated, the drugstore chain CVS and the Danish energy company Ørsted A/S over the advertising boycott. X also has a lawsuit against the media watchdog group Media Matters for publishing a report showing X displayed ads next to antisemitic content on the platform.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-adds-twitch-to-its-advertising-boycott-lawsuit-215540775.html?src=rss
A Minecraft Movie has dropped its first full-length trailer today, expanding on the blocky world hinted at by the teaser released in September. While the game Minecraft gives players only the barest sense of direction, there will be a traditional story driving A Minecraft Movie.
Jack Black provides a voiceover about how his character, Minecraft mascot and stock avatar Steve, was drawn to the mines as a child and discovered the Overworld. He teams up with four other people, seemingly from the real world we know, to protect the Overworld from "dark forces" with their inventiveness and creativity. This all sounds like pretty standard fare for a video game movie — rag-tag group of misfits band together and learn the power of friendship. It's unclear whether their foes will be baddies from the Nether or the End, because while those can be a pain, they canonically don't seem interested in world domination.
But I'm not here for a clever, compelling plot. The trailer is a sizzle reel of familiar in-game experiences, and that's exactly what I want. Taming a wolf with a bone, making a chicken-roasting redstone machine and nighttime coming way faster than you want it to all get their due. The team certainly did their homework on that front. The art style they've chosen doesn't speak to me, but I'm also willing to admit to some bias after hundreds of hours spent looking at the original source material. I'm also not sure if they'll stick the landing on the humor and emotion or whether it'll fall flat like an elytra that's run out of juice. We'll find out when A Minecraft Movie releases on April 5, 2025.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/first-trailer-for-a-minecraft-movie-delivers-on-iconic-in-game-moments-210252851.html?src=rss
The actual payout could rise above $16 million per year, as it only reflects the “fixed” component of the payment. The “variable” component will be calculated in the future, according to a recent earnings call led by the chief operating and financial officer of Dotdash Meredith’s parent company IAC.
“If you look at Q3 of 2024, licensing revenue was up about $4.1 million year over year. The lion’s share of that would be driven by the OpenAI license,” CFO Chris Halpin said. “So that’s — on a quarterly basis — a good proxy for the revenue we’re recognizing. And then the variable components will be calculated and recognized in the future.”
Dotdash Meredith will license its content for OpenAI to train ChatGPT, but the publisher will also use the AI company’s models to boost its in-house ad-targeting tool. As part of this arrangement, ChatGPT will display content and links attributed to the various publications under the Dotdash Meredith umbrella.
These publications include stuff you likely already read, like Food & Wine, InStyle, Better Homes & Gardens, Lifewire and Investopedia, among others. Dotdash Meredith also owns and publishes the eco-conscious site Treehugger and weall know how great AI is for the environment.
As a side note, I have written for multiple Dotdash Meredith publications throughout the years. Can a lowly copywriter get a taste of that $16 million please? Actually, never mind. Huge payouts are for overpaid executives and not for the people who actually make the thing that people click on. Silly me.
On the plus side, at least OpenAI is paying some companies to use content now. The entity has been sued by everyone from The New York Times to comedians like Sarah Silverman, all accusing it of using content without permission or any kind of payout.
Dotdash Meredith is just the latest publisher to offer its content to AI companies to help create our glorious shared future in which nobody makes anything except pithy messages on social media sites. The Financial Timesentered into a similar arrangement with OpenAI. Book publisher HarperCollins is also getting in on the act.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-will-pay-dotdash-meredith-at-least-16-million-per-year-to-license-its-content-191756662.html?src=rss
We know that there’s been a Squid Game-inspired video game in the works since July. Now, Netflix is announcing Squid Game: Unleashed and dropping a trailer on YouTube. The game will be available on Netflix starting December 17.
The multiplayer party royale (think Mario Party) will be available for everyone with a Netflix subscription, and you can pre-register now to get an exclusive skin when the game launches. The game’s cartoony art style may be eye-catching, but the gameplay will be violent. Fortunately, it’s not excessive, and there doesn’t seem to be any blood.
While Netflix has made mobile spinoff titles based on famous franchises or exclusive shows for years now, it did try to branch out into AAA games. Sadly, it shut down its AAA studio, Team Blue, last month. Whether the streaming giant still has ambitions for bigger games remains to be seen.
You can play Squid Game: Unleashed on Android and iOS after logging in with your Netflix account credentials. If you’re interested in more Netflix games, Monument Valley 3 is a great one. It’s a beautiful puzzle game and can be enjoyed without playing the previous two titles in the series.
We also have a list of our favorite Netflix games if these two aren’t enough. These include popular dungeon crawler roguelike Hades, GTA San Andreas and Terra Nil, a peaceful strategy game.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/squid-game-for-your-phone-arrives-on-december-17-170018220.html?src=rss
Blizzard's first real-time strategy games had a profound impact on me as a young immigrant to Canada in 1994 and ’95. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness helped me learn how to read and write in English, and formed the basis for some of my oldest friendships in a brand-new country. Suffice to say, I have a lot of love for these old RTS games — maybe more than Blizzard itself.
So you can imagine my excitement at remaster rumors for Warcraft II and its expansion, Beyond the Dark Portal. When Blizzard aired its Warcraft Direct last week, not only were those rumors confirmed, but it announced that the original Warcraft would receive the same treatment, and both would be sold alongside Warcraft III: Reforged (itself a remaster) as part of a new battle chest. Of course, I immediately booted up Battle.net and bought the bundle.
I was just as quickly disappointed. Where to start? The most obvious place is the new hand-drawn graphics. Some fans have accused Blizzard of using AI to upscale the art in Warcraft and Warcraft II. I don’t think that’s what happened here, but what is clear is that the new assets don’t live up to the company’s usual quality.
The unit sprites are completely missing the charm of their original counterparts. They also don’t look properly proportioned, and many of them have new stilted animations. Additionally, the extensive use of black outlining makes everything look a bit too stark. At best, the remasters resemble poorly made mobile games.
Both games feature a toggle to switch between their original and remastered graphics seamlessly, but here again, Blizzard missed the mark. There’s a great YouTube video explaining the issue, but the short of it is the company didn't accurately represent the “tall pixels” that the original graphics were designed around, so every asset appear stretched horizontally.
Like every game from that era, Warcraft was designed to be played on a 4:3 CRT monitor. However, the original art assets were made to scale within a 320 x 200 frame, which is a 16:10 resolution. As a result, UI elements and units look taller in the 1994 release than in the remaster. GOG correctly accounted for this when it rereleased Warcraft and Warcraft II in 2019, and there’s no reason Blizzard couldn’t do the same in 2024. Without these nods to the game’s original visuals, Warcraft: Remastered just doesn’t look right.
What gameplay enhancements the remasters include are minimal, and while they’re all appreciated, Blizzard could and should have done more. In Warcraft, for instance, it’s now possible to select up to 12 units simultaneously, up from four, and bind buildings to hotkeys for more efficient macro play. Oh, and you can finally issue attack move commands, something you couldn’t do in the original release.
However, any features you might find in a modern RTS are notably missing. For example, neither game allows you to queue commands or tab between different types of units in a control group. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Blizzard took the same approach with StarCraft: Remastered. StarCraft: Brood War still had a sizable professional scene when Blizzard released its remaster. Had Blizzard touched the balance or mechanics of that game, it would have caused an outcry. By contrast, Warcraft II is essentially moribund, and would have greatly benefited from modernization. At the very least, Blizzard could have done a balance pass and added a ladder mode to give the game a chance to attract a new multiplayer fanbase.
Coming back from the dead is achievable for an old RTS. Age of Empires II managed to pull this trick off with flying colors: Since the release of its Definitive Edition in 2019, Microsoft’s genre-defining RTS has never been in a better place. A constant stream of support, including a substantial new expansion that was released just last week, has managed to grow the AoE2 community. At any time, there are as many a 30,000 people playing the Definitive Edition on Steam. If you ask me, that’s pretty great for a game that was originally released in 1999, and it shows what’s possible when a company cares and nurtures a beloved franchise. The fact Microsoft now owns Blizzard makes its treatment of Warcraft feel particularly unfair.
Most disappointing is the lack of bonus content. Contrast this with Half-Life 2’s free anniversary update, which Valve released just days after the Warcraft remasters. It includes three and a half hours of new commentary from Gabe Newell and the dev team. Valve also uploaded a two-hour documentary and announced a second edition of Raising the Bar, a behind-the-scenes look at Half-Life 2’s turbulent development. If Newell could take time away from his yachts to talk about Valve's most important game, surely Chris Metzen could have done the same for Warcraft. The people who were vital to Warcraft and Warcraft II’s development aren’t getting any younger — Blizzard should preserve their stories.
If there’s one thing I’m hopeful for, it’s that Blizzard will eventually do the right thing. As I mentioned, the bundle I bought also came with Warcraft III: Reforged. Last week it received a free patch that does a lot to fix the disastrous issues with that remaster, albeit four years late. With more work, I can see the Warcraft and Warcraft II remasters becoming essential. But as things stand, the studio has done the bare minimum to honor its own legacy.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/i-wish-blizzard-loved-warcraft-as-much-as-i-do-141524674.html?src=rss