House at the End of the Street Review

Coming off her recent success with The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence has returned to the big screen for director Mark Tonderai's House at the End of the Street. From the very first few minutes of the film, it's clear that the young actress still has the charisma and acting chops to pull off the heart-melting whimsy of a troubled teenager. But is it enough to ignite this seemingly pedestrian slasher flick?

The story centers on Elissa (Lawrence) and her mother Sarah (Elisabeth Shue), who move to a small, upscale town in search of a fresh start. But before they've even finished unpacking, Elissa and Sarah learn the horrifying secret behind the house next door. Years earlier, a daughter killed both of her parents in the night and disappeared, leaving only her brother Ryan (Max Thieriot) as the sole survivor. Against Sarah's wishes, Elissa begins developing a friendship with Ryan, who seems to be keeping a few secrets of his own.

Obviously, the biggest selling point here is Jennifer Lawrence, and her performance is sweet and genuine; she does a great job of evoking the naivete of a rebellious daughter. Unfortunately, not even the talented Lawrence -- bless her -- can elevate this uninspired material (despite her perpetually glistening skin and flimsy white tank top). Whatever merit there is in the acting is more or less undone by the contrived and predictable storytelling.

To its credit, the film does have one decent twist that some viewers may find surprising, although a seasoned moviegoer will likely see it coming. Even the first 45 minutes or so are actually pretty decent. Elissa and Sarah share some nice scenes together early on, and the budding romance between Elissa and Ryan has its occasional sincere moments. The narrative isn't hopeless by any stretch, but its characters eventually become so stupid that you'll soon be whispering things like, "God, turn around!" or, "Seriously, don't open that door," and finally, "Ugh, you deserve to die!" As the film nears its end, you'll wonder how Elissa managed to survive the move-in, let alone how she might escape the ploys of a violent psychopath.

House at the End of the Street isn't a poorly structured film, but its bush-league scares are few and far between. Moreover, the actual dramatic aspects of the story never really culminate in anything meaningful. In fact, the more we see of the characters, the less invested we become. The initial complexity and intrigue behind Elissa and Sarah's relationship is slowly worn away until you forget why you even cared in the first place. It's unfortunate, too, because Lawrence and Shue have a pretty good chemistry together. On the plus side, in terms of story the ending isn't a total "screw you" to the audience, and there is at least some sense of closure for the characters.

At the end of the day, Tonderai's entry-level thriller isn't the worst horror film to come out in recent memory, but it's certainly nothing you haven't seen before. The movie plays on every cheap cliché and common-sense failure you can think of, and the presentation clues you into most of the surprises before they happen. Having said that, if you're a huge Jennifer Lawrence fan, I wouldn't blame you for checking it out -- she's still as endearing and sexy as ever -- but I'd suggest waiting until another one of her many other projects hits theaters before dropping coin here. (I hear Silver Linings Playbook is supposed to be pretty good.)

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love on Twitter and IGN.

The Verdict

Although Jennifer Lawrence delivers a solid performance, House at the End of the Street's amateur screenplay and transparent direction fail to keep up.

Source : ign[dot]com

IPTL Premier Division - Team Liquid Preview

In the first season of the IGN Pro Team League, Team Liquid will look to replicate their success from the final edition of IPL’s Team Arena Challenge, where they came within one series of taking the entire tournament, qualifying them for the Premier Division in the new IPTL format.

Liquid’s history in team league play is a tale of two eras: pre-TaeJa and post-TaeJa.  Before the acquisition of the Korean Terran in March of this year, Liquid was a strong foreign team with a couple of Korean players to add some luster to the lineup, but just did not stack up against the deep rosters of the GSTL-caliber teams.  They were able to win the small team league event put on by NASL, but other foreign teams were the only competition.  The primarily foreign Liquid roster was not competitive when invited to participate in GSTL 2012 Season. TaeJa was unable to attend the first match against ZeNEX, where the ZeNEX Zerg Life all-killed Liquid, and in the second match HerO was the only player to manage any game wins off of NSHoSeo, taking two maps as the last hope for Liquid before losing.

In the time since the lackluster team performance in Korea, TaeJa has become one of the very best players in all of Starcraft 2, and brought Team Liquid to a whole new level of team league performance.  Their IPL TAC 3 campaign began with a bang, with Zenio all-killing Dignitas in the first round and a 5-1 trouncing of Mouz by Sheth and HayprO.  Then the foreign foes so easily swept aside by the backup players of Liquid were replaced by Korean teams, beginning with Prime.  Things seemed dire for Liquid, as they quickly fell behind Prime by a 3-0 margin before TaeJa came in and worked his magic, disposing of the entire Prime team, securing his first all-kill.

In the next round of the winner’s bracket, Liquid did lose to SlayerS and fall to the loser’s bracket, but that only served to provide the team and TaeJa more opportunities to shine.  Their first match was a team effort, with TaeJa, Ret, and HerO all taking sets in a victory over MVP.  The next clan war came against StarTale, a team with a roster chock full of Code S players, and Liquid once again fell behind at the start, losing four maps to Ace and Life. The situation was dire, and the best players for StarTale had yet to come into play.  TaeJa, however, was unimpressed, coming in as the last player for Liquid and once again cleaning house, defeating Life, Curious, Squirtle, and Bomber in succession to steal victory from the jaws of defeat.

Not content with this achievement, TaeJa scored another four kills in a win over SlayerS to send Liquid the TAC 3 finals in San Francisco, and there met the team who made it through the winner’s bracket unscathed, Incredible Miracle.  In the first best of nine series, IM led off with arguably their strongest player, the most recent GSL champion Seed. After he took game one from Ret, Liquid brought the big guns out early, relying on TaeJa to deal with the powerful IM Protoss.  No coaching decisions were necessary after that, as TaeJa all-killed the Korean powerhouse team.  However, a second best of nine series followed since Liquid came up through the loser’s bracket, and lightning did not strike twice for the community favorites.  Seed avenged his defeat by ending another TaeJa streak after only two victories, and then proceeded to finish off the rest of the team.

Clearly, the key to Liquid’s success is the Terran superstar TaeJa, especially in a stacked field like the Premier Division of the IPTL.  It is not much of a stretch to consider him the most consistent Terran player in the world right now, and he needs to bring that consistency to every clan war this season for Liquid to have a chance at advancing from the group stage.  TaeJa is excellent in all matchups, but has a particularly good TvZ.  This could prove to be quite advantageous, as Liquid’s group features Stephano and DongRaeGu as opposing team aces.  Obviously, there are a number of other great players between the rosters of EG, MVP, and SlayerS, but TaeJa should be considered the favorite in every set he plays.

The other major threat for Liquid is their longest tenured Korean, the Protoss player HerO.  With the arrival of TaeJa as ace, much of the pressure that was on HerO to take maps from the opposition’s best players is now gone, which should help avail some of the nerve issues he has been known for in the past.  Frankly, HerO could actually be an ace on many great teams, and an absolute boon to have as a major backup for the frontline player.  His creative play makes him an especially strong PvP player, and his other matchups are solid as well, as you can expect from any player who has won a Dreamhack Open.  Expect him to flourish alongside TaeJa this season.

A stable of Zerg players form the rest of the lineup that we will likely see in the IPTL: the Korean Zenio, and the foreigners Ret, Sheth and TLO.  Zenio has been sitting around the border of Code A and Code S for a while, the sign of a player with great potential but not the ability to pull off his best play on a regular basis.  After taking that into consideration, he is still the third best player behind his Korean brethren, and the most reliable Zerg.  Liquid will look to use him in the leadoff role often, trying to grab a couple of wins behind his well-balanced style of play.

The foreigner Zergs are all wild cards, players who with a win here and there can make a big difference for the team.  When Ret is on top of his game, he can out-macro anyone with his Brood War-trained mechanics, but his decision making is lacking. Sheth is a good player, but just not on the same level as the high-caliber opponents he will be facing in this league.  TLO, with his creative play that borders on the ridiculous, can steal a win if he catches a foe off-guard with a wacky build.  Any maps taken by these players at this level of competition should be viewed as a gift, making life easier for the core of Korean stars.

Liquid was somewhat lucky to end up in Group A, as the only other foreign team—Evil Geniuses—is also in the group.  To add to that, the arguably strongest Korean teams Incredible Miracle and StarTale, along with the massive amount of Code S players they bring with them, are in Group B.  This should create easier match-ups for TaeJa and HerO, who will have fewer players of equivalent skill to play against.  Even so, the group stage will be a challenge, as MVP and SlayerS have skilled players of their own, and possess greater overall depth in these best of nine scenarios than Liquid.  The match versus EG is almost a must win for Liquid, as having a 1-0 edge before facing off against the Korean squads will give them a much better chance of advancing.

The match against EG will take place on September 11th, and is also the first match of the IPTL Premier division, so be sure to tune in!

Written by Kyle Elliott

Source : ign[dot]com

Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom #2 Preview

The 30th anniversary of the Golden Age throwback success the Rocketeer is still in full swing, and IDW Publishing is celebrating by putting one of the best creative teams in comics -- Mark Waid and Chris Samnee -- on Cliff Secord's first long form adventure in years.

Read our review of Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom #1!

Hitting on Wednesday, Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom #2 is teasing the unmasking of Cliff to the public, which would obviously be a bad thing for our hapless hero.

Joey is IGN's Comics Editor and a comic book creator himself. Follow Joey on Twitter, or find him on IGN. He loves superhero pets so hard.

Source : ign[dot]com

Gamer Fatigue and the Creative Renaissance

Sometimes, boring games sell well. That is why they are made. Corporations that produce tedious, repetitious drivel are merely fulfilling their function, which is to enrich shareholders. They measure success in sales numbers and margins. They like predictability.

But even the most undemanding, conservative consumers eventually grow tired of formulas, and so games publishers seek to innovate, to try new things in order to build blueprints for the future.

This is the constant friction-point in the business of games, the drive to churn out games that will hit quarterly targets now, and the fear that failure to try new things will severely impact the quarterly results of the future.

'Gamer fatigue' is a phrase used this week by Dishonored co-director Harvey Smith, to describe what happens when the marketing guys gain too much power over the creative process. This is what happens when the corporations' need for quick returns outweigh both concerns about the future and the artistic vision of the game-maker.

But his message is a positive one. He points out that, even at the tail-end of a console generation, we are seeing artistic, interesting creations. Games like Dishonored, Beyond: Two Souls and The Last of Us are leading the charge against the AAA standards that fill the shelves of GameStop, while digital experimentation through XBL, PSN and Steam is a source of much that is challenging and new.

In an interview with GI Biz, Smith said, “You could attribute it to gamer fatigue. How many games have been released now where you're a soldier, or a space marine, or you're surrounded by elves and wizards, or you're robbing a bank in L.A.? I'm still an optimist, and I still have a great time playing games, but...most stuff is just variations on things we've seen before. If you've been around for a while you've seen it over and over and over."

There have been times in the past when it seemed that the marketers were taking too much creative power. The argument went that the ‘market’ should dictate what was produced, and there are still people who believe that consumer buying patterns are the ultimate measure of artistic endeavor.

But markets are not open and free systems, and in gaming’s past this was especially the case. It wasn’t that long ago when the only realistic way to get a game into the hands of the public-at-large was through one of a limited number of powerful publishing companies. Even now, we do not live in a utopia of creative freedom, but things have definitely changed, giving more power back to the people who actually know how to make games, and want to try to expand the form.

Looking back at the bad old days, Smith says, "I remember working at companies where people would tell me that role-playing games don't sell. I once had an executive tell me that first-person games don't sell. It can fly in the face of reality.”

He adds, “There are many ways to be successful. You could go out and aim for a very mainstream story...and you can capture an audience that way and be very successful. On the other hand, you can be completely rock 'n' roll about it and say, 'F*ck it, we're gonna do everything different from everyone else’. We're driven by this one impulse creatively. At a certain point, I came to mistrust formulas, because I've seen so many examples of people failing or succeeding by following a certain blueprint.”

Most of us are guilty of perpetuating formulas. We buy games that we know will be enjoyable, but that fail to surprise or even particularly delight us.

But what we really want is to be taken to new and unusual worlds, to be shocked and amazed at new experiences.

Source : ign[dot]com

MTV's The Inbetweeners "Sunshine Mountain" Review

Early reports that MTV’s remake of The Inbetweeners is actually quite good may have been grossly exaggerated, as following the success of episode one, the second effort is inferior in every way, shape and form.

Once again taking its plot from an episode of the U.K. version of the show, the story revolves around Simon seemingly receiving the keys to the kingdom in the shape of his first car, or as the foul-mouthed four call it, a 'muff-magnet'.

But the sports car Simon is expecting actually turns out to be a yellow Ford Festiva, or Ford Celibacy, in the words of Jay. Yet while the car does little to improve his chances with sweetheart Carly, it does afford Simon and the rest of the guys the opportunity to follow her and her boyfriend to Sunshine Mountain to charm/stalk her.

And so, following the revelation that Neil works as a Poncho the Parrot at the theme park, the bulk of the action revolves around the boys suffering a series of mishaps at the Mountain, from Simon losing the door of his car to Neil losing his clothes, closely followed by his dignity.

The best joke is a rollercoaster gag that’s a direct lift from the British show, but falls flat as a pancake in this instance, the timing slightly off, and Will failing to nail his big moment.

Indeed at this early stage, Joey Pollari seems to be the weak link as Will, the actor lacking charisma and trying too hard to be funny when it just came naturally to his British counterpart Simon Bird.

As with the first episode, the show features a good paedophile gag, but all-in-all proceedings lack balls; the swearing bleeped out, the insults of the tame variety.

Bubba Lewis is still likably wet as Simon, and the show seems to be at its best when he’s embarrassing himself in front of Carly, which in this episode involves a water-pistol.

But aside from a gut-buster involving a mother and daughter in a Jeep, episode two is woefully short of laughs, so here’s hoping MTV up the gag quotient for their third effort.

Source : ign[dot]com

The World Ends With You: Why We Need a Sequel

The World Ends With You is one of the biggest success stories from a handheld that has had many such stories to tell. It was a Square Enix-published RPG, developed by Jupiter (the makers of the Kingdom Hearts franchise), and it launched in North America in April 2008. It was praised by critics, earning positive reviews across the industry. And it sold well at release, though not record-setting numbers by any stretch.

It was what happened after that launch that really mattered, though. TWEWY began to build momentum. Those who bought it and played it loved it, and they told their friends. Then their friends tried it, loved it too, and they told more friends. The game's reputation grew, and grew some more, and the game achieved that rare and intangible accomplishment – cult classic status.

We realize, though, that not everyone is part of this in-crowd. That TWEWY's slow, under-the-radar growth to achieving its dedicated audience still may never have caught your attention. That you find yourself asking, "Just what is the big deal with The World Ends With You" after all? Well, we're here to help. Here's a refresher on what the game is, what makes it so great, and why we desperately need that recently rumored sequel.

The World of The World Ends With You

Square Enix was one of the most prolific third-party publishers for Nintendo's DS, bringing more than 30 different games to the handheld in North America over the course of the system's life cycle. By and large, though, those games were all sequels, ports or spin-offs of pre-existing brands – Final Fantasies and Dragon Quests and even a couple of Manas. So The World Ends With You stood out immediately thanks simply to the fact that it was a new IP. Made by the Kingdom Hearts people, sure, but not a spin-off of that series – TWEWY had its own new world.

That world, though, is one that our hero Neku Sakuraba has no interest in. As TWEWY opens we meet this young, anti-social kid, strolling through Tokyo's crowded Shibuya district and getting so fed up with all the people and noise and commotion around him that he screams for everyone to just "Shut up!"

And then they do. Everyone goes quiet. Everyone begins to totally ignore Neku, and extremely so – it's like they can't hear him or see him or sense him at all. Neku has unexpectedly gotten his wish, as he's flung into an alternate version of Shibuya where he's little more than a ghost.

Then a countdown appears on his hand, and a swarm of frogs assaults him.

Things get strange pretty quickly in The World Ends With You, and it should come as no surprise that another game from the Kingdom Hearts team would feature an odd, otherworldly and altogether hard-to-follow storyline. But to try to sum it up succinctly, Neku has been drawn unwillingly into the "Reaper's Game," a deadly week-long series of missions to fight against physical manifestations of the world's social distortions. That anti-social attitude he had in the game's opening moments? That was part of the problem, and now he's being forced to deal with the damage his negativity has done to the world around him. (Which, again, somehow translates to attacking amphibians.)

Neku isn't alone in this Reaper's Game, though, as there are other players that have been drawn in as well – each with their own reason for being there in the shadowy, alternate Shibuya and each with their own prize if they're somehow able to survive long enough to "win" the game. Neku, at first, is simply fighting for understanding – to figure out how he ended up in this place, and figure out the rules of this crazy game he's been thrown into. He ends up partnering with another player almost immediately just to help him get a sense of what's going on.

And that's when things really start getting weird.

The Gameplay of The World Ends With You

The gameplay design of The World Ends With You is focused on a two-character, double-screen simultaneous combat system. While Neku appears on the touch screen and you guide his movements and attacks with the stylus, his partners show up on the upper screen - fighting the same enemies, just not exactly with Neku. The two characters are somehow split into two overlapping, concurrent realities and foes have to be killed in both places for them to truly be defeated.

The DS system's upper screen, though, is not a touch screen – so the partner character who appears there has his or her actions directed by an entirely different method of input. You tap the D-Pad and face buttons to input commands for them in a new riff on the card-battling system first seen in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. And remember, at the same time, you're still also directing Neku with the stylus down below.

The two-screens-at-once battle system is wild, imaginative, complicated and even more difficult to master than it is to explain. But it proves to be incredibly compelling for those who learn its rhythms, and it remains the cornerstone of TWEWY's appeal – especially since now, years later, no other games have come along to mimic its method of madness.

Those battles end up just being one of TWEWY's crazy game design ideas, and each other element Jupiter tossed into this mix helps further define the game's personality. There are pins to collect. Little buttons, each embued with psychic powers and used to activate Neku's attacks in battle – you equip them and even level them up over time, while the physical actions they demand range from simple taps on the screens to wide slashes across enemy sprites. There are something like 300 different pins and attacks. Neku himself levels up after enough battling too – an RPG staple – but then you have the option of sacrificing Neku's gained levels to increase the probability of more pin drops from fallen foes. Another unprecedented idea.

Then there's the fashion scene. Pins aren't the only thing to wear, as in the clothing-conscious neighborhoods of Shibuya you're actually given further bonuses in battle for equipping your heroes in outfits that match the trending style of each location. And then there's the food – almost every RPG features standard things like HP-recovering potions or meat, but in TWEWY you buy things like hot dogs and essentially equip them into your heroes' stomachs. There, they digest over time and ultimately grant a permanent stat bonus after they've been fully absorbed into the body.

TWEWY even boasted the wireless tagging of "Mingle Mode," which was essentially Jupiter inventing StreetPass years before Nintendo built it into the 3DS.

Wrapping all of these wonderfully ridiculous design elements together is one of the best soundtracks ever crafted in gaming, and a visual style so bold that it's no wonder the game inspired a full manga adaptation shortly after its release in Japan. That release, by the way, was on July 26, 2007 – meaning The World Ends With You just celebrated its fifth anniversary a couple of weeks ago.

The Future of The World Ends With You

That milestone could be seen as significant on its own, but it's made much more interesting by the not-so-coincidental timing of a new Square Enix release in the same week this year. Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance debuted in Europe, Australia and North America in late July, all within a week of that fifth anniversary date. And Kingdom Hearts 3D also happens to host the first reappearance of characters from The World Ends With You we've ever seen.

Half a decade has come and gone with no proper TWEWY sequel, but the makers of Kingdom Hearts continue to make Kingdom Hearts – and in this latest 3DS adventure, the series most well known for its crossovers with Disney films and characters instead sidelines Mickey Mouse and his friends for one chapter to give Neku Sakuraba a second chance to step into the spotlight. Sora teams up with Neku in Kingdom Hearts' recurring village locale, Traverse Town – while Riku, on his own adventure, meets up with Shiki Misaki, who was Neku's first partner character in TWEWY. Other major characters also reappear as Sora and Riku help the gang through a truncated version of TWEWY's plot, as Kingdom Hearts chapters often do with the Disney films they draw on for inspiration.Neku, Shiki and all the rest appearing in Kingdom Hearts 3D is a paradigm-shifting event for the KH franchise – they've become the first non-Disney, non-Final Fantasy characters to ever cross over into the series. Square Enix has plenty of other properties to draw on. You'd think a Dragon Quest hero would've made the cut by now, or even just the iconic Slime. But no, it's never happened – The World Ends With You is the first to get the honor, and you've got to think that it's all a nod to Square Enix's plans to publish a TWEWY sequel.

And, appropriately enough, a countdown has now appeared that looks like it will announce exactly that.

A new teaser site has just gone live this morning. The site contains nothing more than a countdown and a bit of music playing on a loop, but the countdown of one week, the font of the numbers, the music, the image of the Shibuya silhouette displayed in the background and even the URL itself all point unmistakably to The World Ends With You. If all goes to plan, in less than a week we hope to discover that Square Enix has finally made The World Ends With You 2 official.

So what does that mean, for all of you who still haven't experienced the original? Well, your time to play this incredible game before its series moves on without you is running out. I'll leave you with the advice of one of our IGN readers:

"always wanted to try the world ends with you" - MaverickHall2

"Stop trying and DO IT. Its worth whatever you have to pay to get it." - _AbBaNdOn

Lucas M. Thomas made the mistake of not picking up TWEWY the instant it came out in America back in 2008. Don't repeat his mistake. Play the game now. (And follow Lucas on Twitter.)

Source : ign[dot]com

MTV's The Inbetweeners: "First Day" Review

Remaking a British sitcom can be a dangerous exercise. For every success, there are many, many more failures. So while the U.S. version of The Office has enjoyed years of success, the likes of Coupling and Free Agents have failed in their first season, while Red Dwarf and Spaced didn’t even make it beyond the pilot stage.

So it’s with some trepidation that one approaches The Inbetweeners, MTV’s remake of the British sitcom of the same name, which spawned three hugely successful series and a low-budget spin-off movie that grossed tens of millions at the U.K. box office.

In response to such success, MTV has taken an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to the show, appropriating the same characters, situations and in many instances jokes and simply transplanting them to America.

And if the below trailer was anything to go by, it was set to be a disaster; a louder and more obnoxious carbon copy of the Channel 4 show. But trailers can be misleading, and so it is with The Inbetweeners, a comedy cover that, while not the equal of the original, nevertheless regularly delivers laughs.

As with the U.K. version, proceedings kick off with teenager Will (Joey Pollari) being transferred to public school Grove High because his mother can no longer pay his private school fees. Showing up with a blazer and briefcase, Will is a walking, talking target to the rest of the kids, so the vice-principal quickly pairs him with nice-guy Simon (Bubba Smith) to show him around.

And that’s where the fun begins, as Simon and best friends Jay (Zack Pearlman) and Neil (Mark L. Young) initially rip the living piss out of Will before eventually taking him under their wing, the three mismatched friends soon becoming four.

They share the same traits as their UK counterparts; Will awkward and uptight, Neil dumb as a rock, Jay a compulsive liar and Simon a wet blanket who’s obsessed with childhood sweetheart Carly D’Amato.

And once the first half of the U.S. pilot has mined the first half of the U.K. pilot for jokes (Will’s mum being hot, Neil’s dad being gay, Jay claiming to have stuffed both his penis and balls into a girl) it then cribs from a different episode in which the boys bunk off school, buy booze, get dunk, and visit Carly’s house, with predictably disastrous results.

Joey Pollari as Will, Mark L. Young as Neil, Zack Pearlman as Jay and Bubba Lewis as Simon.

Yet while the proceedings are caked in the stench of déjà vu, the episode is nevertheless consistently funny, the old jokes just about hitting their mark second time around, and the new ones laugh-out-loud funny, most notably a marvellous set-up and pay-off involving a child molester.

The show also manages to be just as rude, if not ruder that the original (you actually see Simon’s boner in this one, albeit through his trousers) though it’s a shame that the more explicit swear words are bleeped out, and we wait with baited breath for the American equivalent of the word ‘clunge.’

And after a somewhat shaky start, the cast quickly settle into their roles, though their delivery apes the British performances a little too closely, with none of the lads yet the comic equal of the originals, most notably Zack Pearlman as a less cruel and therefore less funny version of Jay.

With the U.S. series following the template of The Office by interspersing U.K.-inspired scripts with original episodes throughout the first season however, it looks like the American cast will soon get the chance to flex their own comedic muscles in new settings and situations.

But on this early evidence, MTV’s The Inbetweeners is much better than it has any right to be, never quite hitting the hilarious highs of the original, but delivering just enough laughs to make the Transatlantic journey worthwhile.

Chris Tilly is the Entertainment Editor for IGN and definitely doesn't look like Will from the British Inbetweeners. His idle chit-chat can be found on both Twitter and MyIGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Dragon's Dogma Sells Over 1 Million

Dragon's Dogma has sold 1.05 million units, proving that a new IP can indeed be a success this late in a console cycle.

We already knew that Capcom's new RPG had fared well at the end of June, with the Japanese publisher had promised to "develop this entirely new brand into a major franchise".

But this has now been reaffirmed by Capcom's April-June Financial Report, in which the publisher highlights the success of the game, describing it as "setting the stage for creating a series of titles".

Overall, Capcom's profits increased 300% to £11 million ($17 million) for the quarter, with total revenue of £151 million ($237 million).

Daniel is IGN's UK Games Writer. You can be part of the world's worst cult by following him on IGN and Twitter.

Source : ign[dot]com

ABC in Talks for Live-Action Avengers-Connected TV Series

The Avengers success (and the success of the Marvel films in general) may finally be leading to a TV Series.

Since Disney bought Marvel three years ago, there’s been a lot of talk about live-action TV show possibilities, especially since Disney also owns ABC. But nothing has come to fruition, though we keep hearing about the Guillermo del Toro Hulk series that’s been in development for a couple of years now. It was always unclear whether that series could be considered in continuity with the films, though it seemed it would likely be a tenuous connection at best – perhaps focusing on a Bruce Banner younger than the one we see in Avengers.

But Deadline now reports that Marvel Television and ABC and ABC Studios are having conversations about a drama series that would more specifically be set in the Marvel cinematic universe.

Deadline says the connection to Avengers “Would be light” and while it would be set in the same universe, it may not include any of the characters from Joss Whedon’s Avengers film. Right now there’s just “the kernel of an idea,” with many scenarios being discussed, including “a high-concept cop show.”

Marvel of course has a ton of characters they could pull from for such a series, and there are many ways to connect such a series to Avengers without it being Avengers: The TV Series. Even having smaller characters like SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell (played by Maximiliano Hernandez) from the Marvel films could help make the connection deeper.

What do you think? Is there a Marvel character or concept you think would be the right fit for a TV series tied to the Marvel movies? Let us know in the comments!

Source : ign[dot]com

Could Ptch be the Instagram of Videos?

The production company behind Shrek and Madagascar thinks it has the next killer social media app on its hands.

Referring to Instagram’s unlikely success among a sea of photo-sharing apps, Dreamworks Animation CTO Ed Leonard told Fast Company, “They had a very particular vision about creating something that had a strong point of view and ease of use. We're trying to do a similar thing in the world of media mashup."

Ptch, available now for video-equipped iOS devices, allows users to mix, share, mashup and re-remix media content with friends. The app is more involved than many existing social video apps, but giving users more editing options than filter selection should make for better videos.

Ptch’s dead-simple drag & drop interface lets you import content (the Ptch team calls it “Living Media”) from your camera roll and other social networks, and lets you mashup video clips with photos, add captions or a soundtrack, and apply “themes” for a finishing touch. Ptches are limited to 60 seconds, so your friends can’t subject you to more than a minute-long montage of how cute their kids are.

Sound familiar? The Ptch team acknowledges they’re not the first social video app. The spin, they say, is the option to make your Ptches available to friends for further remixing and mashing-up. So if you post a video from an Arcade Fire concert, I can replace the audio with a Coldplay song and make you look like a sap. Ha!

Ptch is a free download in the app store. The app team, which is being run as a startup within Dreamworks, plans to generate revenue from micro-transactions—licensed audio & video content, premium “themes”, etc. Unfortunately, no plans have been announced to let you pitch your Ptch-es to Dreamworks Pictures; looks like your Bee Movie sequel will have to wait.

Source : ign[dot]com