Wolverine and the X-Men #18 Review

Wolverine and the X-Men #18 is heart breaking. Sure, Avengers vs. X-Men had a death that everyone was talking about, but this issue features one that ripped my soul out. It's not done poorly or played for some sort of cash grab gimmick; it's sincere and sad and brutal. Maybe it's not how it looks; maybe the character isn't dead and this is all Jason Aaron playing with us. Either way, this is a character's death in superhero comics done right. This is just a damn good comic book.

Aaron delivers in all the best ways here. He manages to tie-in the ending of the major Marvel event without having it disrupt the story. It feels natural, like the characters populate the same world. Everything just clicks. The dialogue, the pacing, the humor, all of it. You can feel the weight of AvX in these pages and yet the events of Wolverine and the X-Men feel just as important. More so, actually.

The writing kicks major butt in this issue, but so does the art. Jorge Molina nails it. His crispy, clean style showcases the heart and emotion of this story perfectly. That's right: perfectly. There are glimpses of action throughout the book, but the best bits take place at a school dance. A school dance that Lockheed deejays. It's amazing stuff. When you see a little character's heart break, Molina makes sure your heart breaks along with him. If you like comic books, you owe it to yourself to check out Wolverine and the X-Men.

Benjamin Bailey has been crying all day. Follow Benjamin on Twitter @616Earth, or find him on IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Anna Kendrick on End of Watch

It’s emotional, gritty, and very realistic. The action-drama End of Watch chronicles two beat cops (Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena) working in the heart of south central L.A. They deal with gang bangers, drug dealers, and the worst criminals the city has to offer. The film tells a story about men trying to control their world, fighting the good fight.

The emotional core of director David Ayer’s are the relationships. This is a movie as much about family, and what it means to rely on someone, as it is about day to day police work. Anna Kendrick plays Janet, girlfriend and eventual wife to Officer Brian Taylor (Gyllenhaal). She becomes a focal point as their relationship develops, and she learns what it means to enter this world.

IGN recently had a chance to sit down with Kendrick to talk about End of Watch and what the movie means to her.

IGN: What can you tell us generally your role in the film?

Anna Kendrick: I play Jake Gyllenhaal’s girlfriend, and fiancee, and eventual wife who is kind of taking the journey from thinking that dating a cop is like dating a teacher or an accountant, and realizing what it is that he risks everyday, and realizing how strong she has to be to accept that risk.

IGN: The film’s form is fascinating, how did the ‘day in the life’ aspect inform how you took on the film?

Anna Kendrick: It certainly created one of the most interesting atmospheres on set that I’ve ever experienced. One in which you were never really sure if you were being filmed or not, so it was weirdly liberating and challenging at the same time, in this wonderful way where you were in character for 12 hours a day. The only time we weren’t holding hands, snuggling or whatever the scene called for was at lunch. If there was ever a point that we realized that every other camera was re-loading then Jake or Michael would grab the handheld and we would just film something. Jake would pull me aside and he would grab the handheld camera and start doing something, and then David would notice that we were in the corner and come over and start filming, and we wouldn’t have noticed for a solid 5 minutes that they’d been filming us, until Dave yells out ‘kiss her!’

IGN: So it sounds like there was a lot of improv on set.

Anna Kendrick: Exactly. Two things happen when you’re allowed to improv that much. You do find these little magic moments that really add to the film, but also it creates such a natural environment that improv can bleed really naturally into scripted dialogue. Dave wrote a great screenplay, and he knew the story that he wanted to tell, so a lot of what’s in the film is paired back down to his original screenplay. There are certainly magical little moments that are peppered in there, and that’s definitely worth all the footage that we sacrificed, it’s certainly worth those tiny little moments that did make it into the film, and I think it aided our performances all around.

IGN: How do you get into the mindset of a police officer's wife?

Anna Kendrick: It was interesting for me because it was one of those weird life imitating art situations where all of my rehearsals were with just Jake. So I’ve met Mike (Peña) and I’ve met Natalie (Martinez), but I didn’t know them well at all, so when I came to set it really felt like my new boyfriend introducing me to his good friends. And the three of them were already really close so I really had that feeling of wanting to prove that I was strong enough to be a part of this family, but then also being overwhelmed by the bond that they had. In a healthy way, I was a little envious of the relationship Jake had with Mike, and the relationship that he has with everybody on the police force. Realizing again and again, and again through every scene just what it means to be a police officer, what it means to be a police officers wife.

In the wedding scene when Mike is giving a toast he gave such a beautiful performance I really felt like I was just listening and taking it in and then I was looking around the room at all these people and being told that they were my family now that all felt really real for me. It was really great to go on this journey with this character. I was a little nervous coming in without doing a ton of prep work because the guys had done so much, but I think actually it would have been detrimental to the entire experience and the performance.

IGN: How did you achieve such believable intimacy with Jake?

Anna Kendrick: I really followed his lead on that. I’m really glad that he was so open and giving on that end, just like somebody who wants to reach inside you and rip you open in this really incredible way. He was so deep in the shit by the time that I got there that he was completely mentally there all day every day. So when I showed up and he was holding my hand the entire time I was like ‘this is weird right?’; but I think that’s exactly why that relationship is believable in such a short amount of screen time.

IGN: What draws you to this kind of a character?

Anna Kendrick: I don’t have a thing for really likable characters. Even in this, Janet is likable and she has her heart in the right place but I think weirdly the scene that really puts the audience on her side is the scene when she goes through Brian’s wallet. Because it’s not a respectable thing to do, and I think the audience wants to be on a character’s side and they want to forgive them, but when you just say ‘here’s this character isn’t she great, this is why we love her’ I think people really resist that.

This is a really silly example but I think that on Community you know how at first people didn’t like Britta, because she was supposed to be the cool one, the moral one; and once they started breaking her down and making her like the worst, and making fun of her, people started to really come around on her. Little things like that is what makes you connect with characters and gets you on their side. Even the police officers, people talk about finally showing the story of two good cops, but they make some morally questionable decisions. I think those are the places where you’re rooting for them., because they’re human, and you think ‘if I met them they wouldn’t look down on me.’

IGN: What’s your take on some of the graphic violence in the film?

Anna Kendrick: That’s really David’s wheelhouse. I think this is a world that David understands and there are things in the film that I wish I could look at them and say ‘but I’m sure that kind of thing doesn’t really happen…’ but of course a lot of these are true stories or inspired by true stories so there’s a part of me that wants to block some of that out. I know that it’s a world that David understands so I’m glad he can put it across so beautifully, and in such a compelling way.

End of Watch is now playing.

Source : ign[dot]com

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Beta is Live

The closed beta test for the second installment of StarCraft II, called Heart of the Swarm, is now underway. Blizzard has sent out invites to a limited pool of testers, and in the coming months will be sending out more.

For now the test includes the multiplayer portion of Heart of the Swarm where testers will get a chance to try out the new units and abilities planned for the beta. Blizzard does not have a definite end point for the beta, so no word yet on a possible release window for the game.

If you’re interested and would like to help test out Heart of the Swarm, you can opt in through your battle.net account. Opting in does not mean you will definitely get access. Here’s what Blizzard said about how it selects who gets in through the opt-in pool:

“Beta testers are chosen according to their system specifications and other factors, including recent StarCraft II activity (and an element of luck), when selecting individuals during each round of invitations. Our goal is to have a wide variety of players and system types.”

For more on Heart of the Swarm, check out IGN’s recent interview with Blizzard’s designers.

Source : ign[dot]com

StarCraft II: Preparing for Heart of the Swarm

Sometime soon beta invites will start to go out for Heart of the Swarm, the second game in a planned three-part arc that makes up the complete StarCraft II experience. Along with an all new single-player campaign, Blizzard will also dramatically alter the multiplayer game by adding in new units to the Protoss, Zerg and Terran armies, as well as tweak existing units. The result, according to game designer David Kim, will be a more complex, challenging experience.

He gave an example of what some Zerg players had been doing in internal testing. Against an enemy army, players would set up Swarm Hosts, a new Zerg unit that can burrow and periodically and automatically birth offensive units on the battlefield that roll towards enemies from long range. Players would then move in Vipers to back up the Swarm Hosts, which are flying units that can set down a Blinding Cloud to dramatically reduce the sight range of affected biological units like Marines. They then immobilized part of the enemy army with Fungal Growths from Infestors, forcing the enemy to fight off the Hosts’ units while blinded, and used the Viper’s Abduct ability to yank any mechanical units like Siege Tanks away from the enemy pack in order to focus fire them into oblivion.

“That kind of micro is pretty crazy, right?” said Kim. “But at the same time, we don’t think it’s a requirement to have to be able to use all those things. We foresee players will stick to what they’re good at more so than trying to follow pro players as much as people are trying to do now. For the pro players, the bar is definitely higher. We definitely think a better pro player will be at the top, as compared to someone who just follows other peoples’ strategies. Originality, strategy, mechanics will definitely matter, because the game is harder to play. All those factors will contribute a little more than they did in Wings of Liberty.”

So because it’s going to be such a different experience, what will happen to your Wings of Liberty online rankings? “The current plan is to just wipe everything,” said Kim. “Even the MMR [matchmaking ranking]. Another option is we might be able to bring over your MMR from the beta, because the beta and the actual game are very similar. Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm are pretty different. A diamond player in Wings of Liberty might actually be a masters player, and vice-versa. We’re going to reset that and people will just have to rank up again.”

Heart of the Swarm will also bring in unranked matchmaking, giving you a way to compete without having to worry about hurting your overall ranking. “It is less stressful for most players. And those players who do opt to play in the ranked modes will have an even more competitive experience.” If you do decide to play in leagues and ladders, you’ll also find it’ll require more skill to move up in the ranks. “If you’re fifth place in diamond and I’m fifth place in diamond, I could be way better. You could be way better than me. Because there are different tiers within diamond league. We’re going to flatten that out so that each rank actually matters. The flip side of that is, if you are not a top five percent diamond player, you’d never get there, whereas right now you could.”

Your Wings of Liberty ranking won’t disappear if you pick up Heart of the Swarm when it’s ready, though. “You could choose to play two different ladders. In your Wings of Liberty ladder, you’ll have your MMR still, so if you were masters last season, even after HotS comes out, you play one game and you’re back into masters.”

As Blizzard continues to spread out beta invites, it doesn’t have a set timeline on how long testing will run. “We’re going to spend as much time as we need to, especially on the multiplayer side, really making that right,“ said producer Kaeo Milker. “Wings of Liberty has been so great for multiplayer, the esports scene has been so great, we’re going to very cautiously going to make improvements to that for Heart of the Swarm. The beta is our real proving ground for that.”

Reaching that state of readiness isn’t a scientific process, because during the beta, which will initially offer 1v1 online play, anything could change. Any number of variables, from unit damage to armor to research times for upgrades, could be tweaked, and units could even be cut or completely new ones added in. So when will Blizzard know when to stop tinkering and ship the product? “We don’t really know one-hundred percent. It’s kind of the same as how we develop the game. We constantly change units, we add in new units, we polish a lot. I think if you keep doing it, you kind of get a sense of ‘yeah, it is so much better than before.’ The time it takes to improve further from this point on is just way too long, so that’s when we decide. It’s not one hundred percent perfect, but it’s close. I think that is the point where we say, it is done.”

After that, patches take care of what beta testing didn’t catch. Following the launch of Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard will continue to monitor both it and Wings of Liberty, but Heart of the Swarm will be the focus of the team’s attention. “If there are balance problems in Wings of Liberty we will definitely address it. But probably not to the degree that we will focus on HotS because Wings has been getting two years of attention already, so naturally it’s not going to have as many problems as Heart of the Swarm.”

If the testing period for Heart of the Swarm winds up being similar to Wings of Liberty, chances are it’ll last at least a few months, meaning Wings of Liberty isn’t going to necessarily fall out of favor for a while. Kim seems happy with the current state of the game, which Blizzard recently reassessed after analyzing new data. “The global [win/loss] level [for Wings of Liberty] was looking good for a long time now, it’s fifty percent in every matchup. Every map is very good, especially in the ladder maps. So we did a more focused study on just the pro level games . We took almost fifteen thousand professional games at the highest level tournaments only in the past two years. The graph looks like a constant decrease toward fifty percent, which means we have been on the correct direction. That’s also why we feel confident if any problem arises in Heart of the Swarm because we have that track record.”

Following launch, is there any chance Blizzard might add in another unit through a patch? “We don’t want to confuse players,” said Kim, “by changing the role of a unit completely. Or adding new units or removing units with a patch. That’s only for expansion. When the game goes live, we will not patch in new units, or change up abilities, or change the role of a unit.”

Blizzard says the team is putting the finishing touches on the campaign now, so assuming a beta testing period of four or so months, it seems likely Heart of the Swarm could launch in early 2013…maybe?

Source : ign[dot]com