Films Games

The new Tomb Raider film, starring Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft, is something of a breakthrough when it comes to creating a film out of a video game. 

The film focuses on the adventures of Lara Croft, in a similar way to the video game. It even uses some of the locations from the game, so people who know it well will certainly be able to draw comparisons.

However, there are also some details that don’t really marry up. Lara only kills people in two scenes during the film, and in both cases, she is either defending herself or others. This isn’t really in the same vein as the film, in which she kills people all the time.

Whilst this might, on the surface, appear like a lack of attention to detail, in reality it is very much a way of making the character more human and relatable. We care about the character, and the film is about much more than just the action, as is seen in others like Red Dead Redemption and Assassin’s Creed.

Tomb Raider is now showing in UK cinemas.

We have a weird feeling that Sony have started the beginning of the end of the future of the console with their game streaming service, PlayStation Now. This isn’t just a service Sony are offering, there’s plenty more on the market.

PlayStation Now streams PlayStation 3 games to a variety of streaming devices, but this had been meant with lukewarm reception by fans and critics alike. They say it is too expensive and most people in the PlayStation ecosystem, own a PlayStation 3 and own games so why would they want to rebuy their games?

Sony thought ahead of their current hardware sales and future-proofed itself by creating a game streaming service that could be their main business in the very near future. What have other platforms done with streaming services?

Microsoft has promoted the cloud services ever since the Xbox One launched, not for games though, but to do some graphical calculations to lighten the load on the Xbox One. CrackDown 3 uses the cloud to create in game destruction. Though it is not the same as game streaming, it has the basic concept of what could they do with cloud services right now.

Great news if you’re a Total War fan! Total War: Warhammer will add free content after launch, developer The Creative Assembly announced today. This new content, which is separate from Warhammer’s Part II and Part III sequels, includes new units, Lords, items, and races, among other things. For Total War: Warhammer, you can expect a selection of content covering more of the iconic good stuff you’ll see in the main game,” the developer said in a blog post. “From new units offering new tactical potential in battle, to new magic lores to augment certain races’ spell-casting arsenal.

Great news for retro game lovers: Shadow of the Beast on PS4 comes with the Amiga original.

But you’ll have to unlock it first, because the emulation of the Amiga classic is burrowed away somewhere in the main campaign.

“As fans of the original, we wanted to offer new players to chance to experience first-hand the game that inspired us and offer fellow fans of the original a chance to re-live it. To that end, we’ve included a full emulation of the original Amiga game (we think this might be the first time an Amiga emulation has been published on a Sony console!) as an unlockable bonus in the main game – that means you’ll get the entire original Amiga game alongside the new Shadow of the Beast!” Heavy Spectrum founder Matt Birch.

Microsoft dropped a major bombshell earlier this week, confirming that it was open to the possibility of cross-platform play between the consoles.