The original Star Trek TV series followed Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise on a five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, and to boldly go where no man has gone before. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled after three seasons, which means we never got a proper look at how that mission ended. (Though, we did get some idea from Star Trek: The Animated Series.)

Now, we will.

According to THR, IDW Publishing is launching a comic book series called Star Trek: Year Five, which will explore the end of Kirk and company’s first five-year mission. The series will explore the crew’s feelings about the end of their mission and their return to Earth.

The writer’s room for the series includes Brandon Easton, Jody Houser, Jim McCann and the team of Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing. Kelly and Lanzing will be writing the first issue in the series, which will be illustrated by Stephen Thompson.

“[Star Trek: Year Five is] a vital, hard-hitting, character-focused look at Captain Kirk on his last year in command,” said Lanzing. “[Kirk’s actions in the series] will have huge ripple effects, from the outbreak of war in the Alpha Quadrant to an unprecedented strain of trust with Spock. We’ll turn a mirror on modern society, just as [the original television series] did in the 1960s, and go boldly towards meaningful, heartfelt stories.”

“With Year Five, we don’t just want to thrill — we want to channel the power of [franchise creator Gene] Roddenberry’s original vision, to tell a story about the future that illuminates our present,” added Kelly.

Illustrator Greg Hildebrandt will also be working on the series. The veteran comics illustrator, who has never worked on a Star Trek story, despite being a longtime fan of the franchise, said he “admired the social, moral and political statements that were obvious in Gene Roddenberry’s plot lines… It was an honour to paint this cover art of the original cast. Having painted Trek before, it was a kick for me at 80 years old.”

Star Trek: Year Five will launch in April.

Many people who played the original Resident Evil 2 on PlayStation will no doubt remember its two-disc format. With Leon’s story on one disc and Claire’s on the other, the two-disc system not only highlighted the game’s zapping feature (in which the actions of one character impact the story of another) but made the game feel larger than most other titles. 

The funny thing is that Resident Evil 2 wasn’t meant to be a two-disc game. In fact, the team could have, and intended to, fit the entire game on one disc. The decision to add the second disc was only made after a crucial error was discovered at the very last minute by software engineer Yasuhiro Anpo.

“Anpo told me there was a problem. But before he could explain, I actually hung up on him,” said Resident Evil 2 producer Shinji Mikami in an upcoming book on the series from Alex Aniel. “Anpo eventually came over to my desk, where he told me that Resident Evil 2 would require two discs instead of just one.”

It seems that the problem was that someone had miscalculated how much space the game’s audio would take up. It was seemingly a simple miscalculation, but the end result was that it was no longer possible to fit Resident Evil 2 on one disc. This came as especially bad news to Mikami who would now have to explain why the game’s already tight budget was going to have to be expanded in order to make up for this oversight. 

At that point, Capcom had to decide whether to let the team work to fix their mistake or to just produce an extra disc. It seems that they ultimately felt that the team was so far behind and so far over budget that it would just be easier for everyone to add the second disc and get the game on shelves. 

While fans may argue that the game’s two-disc format actually helped sell the title as something much grander and greater than the original, the truth of the matter is that game director Hideki Kamiya still apologises for the error to this day and considers it to be a sign of his inexperience at that point in his career. Of course, it’s not like that’s the biggest setback that Resident Evil 2 suffered during development. At one point, the entire project was scrapped after the initial version of the game was nearly completed. 

Thankfully, the game did come out eventually, and those two discs added up to an utter classic. And the incoming remake for modern consoles is pretty darn good as well.

Like many fans, we can’t wait for the BBC and Amazon’s new TV series Good Omens to start – here are just a few of the reasons why…

It will help to pass the time until the next season of The Good Place comes out

Season three of The Good Place concluded on January 24th, and the long wait for season four is here. But fear not! Another comedy drama series about angels and demons and Heaven and Hell is coming soon! Based on the book Good Omens, written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, this series will feel very familiar to anyone who has watched The Good Place, Supernatural, or Lucifer (not to mention, obviously, the other screen adaptations of Pratchett and Gaiman’s works, including the Discworld TV dramas and American Gods) and will help to plug that gap in your TV-viewing schedule.

David Tennant and Michael Sheen

These two are playing the two lead characters, the demon Crowley (Tennant) and the angel Aziraphale (Sheen). As well as the geek-friendly casting of a former Doctor, these are two of the most charismatic actors out there, both with proven ability to make big, over-the-top performances really work, and so are perfect casting for an angel and a demon facing the end of the world.

And the rest of the cast and crew too

The cast also includes Jon Hamm, Mark Gatiss, Miranda Richardson, Derek Jacobi, Nick Offerman, David Morissey, a freshly announced Benedict Cumberbatch… the list goes on, and they’re the cream of the acting crop. Director Douglas Mackinnon has some serious fantasy chops, having directed episodes of Outlander, Doctor Who, and Jekyll, as well as geek favourite Sherlock. And the whole series was written by Gaiman himself, one of the two authors of the original book – you can’t get much more faithful to the source material than that.

There will be extra material that isn’t in the book

Mackinnon told Entertainment Weekly at the San Diego Comic Con that episode three will feature the history of Crowley and Aziraphale, from ideas Gaiman and Pratchett had talked about when writing the original story. This isn’t the only extra touch. Gaiman is an old hand at screen adaptation and at producing the same story through different media, having written Neverwhere as a television series and as a novel at almost the same time, and developing MirrorMask as a film before writing it as a children’s book. He is well aware of the demands of different media and the way a story can be enriched by changing it to fit a new format. So while this adaptation can hardly be criticised for being unfaithful considering it’s written by one of the authors of the book, it will be different, and that is what will make it a thrilling viewing experience both for those who have read the book, and for those who haven’t.

Hopefully there will be Queen music

Fond jokes about Queen music (in the vein of Shaun Of The Dead’s use of Don’t Stop Me Now) are a key aspect of the novel. The trailer features a classic Queen track (You’re My Best Friend) and Mackinnon has suggested at SDCC that “there might be a little bit of Queen”, so hopefully that means the series has the rights to some good old fashioned Queen soft rock, and can make the audio that plays in our heads as we read the book come to life. Though, sadly, they have had to jettison the gag about cassette tapes.

The story captures the best of Terry Pratchett combined with the best of Neil Gaiman

Good Omens came out in 1990, a year in which Pratchett also had four other books published – Eric and Moving Pictures in the Discworld series, and Diggers and Wings in the Bromeliad series. At this stage, the Discworld books had moved on from the slightly two-dimensional fantasy spoofs of the very early books, and was starting to become the bigger, more fully-realized world we now know. Guards! Guards! had been published the year before, kicking off perhaps the most popular sub-series within the Discworld, the City Watch books, while the Death and Witches sub-series were going strong, with Reaper Man and Witches Abroad appearing the following year. Gaiman, meanwhile, was working on the comic book series that made his name, Sandman.

While the two authors’ written styles are clearly distinct in their own works, in Good Omens, they blend perfectly. The story follows a wry take on religion and mythology, which suits both to a T – it would be a few years before Pratchett would write a ceramic atheist or Gaiman would create the rich (and often imitated) myth-driven world of American Gods, but the seeds of both can be seen here. Pratchett’s down-to-earth humour combined with Gaiman’s flair for the surreal and the weird come together perfectly in the source novel. With Gaiman writing the television adaptation, based partly on ideas from their original collaboration, it is to be hoped that this combination will shine through in the new TV series.

It was one of Pratchett’s final requests

Gaiman has made it clear on numerous occasions that he made this series for Terry Pratchett. There had been several earlier attempts to adapt the book for film, all of which failed, and it had ended up adapted for radio by BBC Radio 4 in 2014, not long before Pratchett’s death from complications from Alzheimer’s Disease in early 2015. As Gaiman told Entertainment Weekly, Pratchett had e-mailed not long before he died to ask Gaiman to over-see a screen adaptation of the book. Gaiman has truly honoured his friend’s request in writing and producing this adaptation, and Pratchett fans will no doubt be keen to complete the request by watching and enjoying it.

All episodes of Good Omens will land on Amazon Prime Video on the 31st of May (and at a later date on BBC Two).

Like many fans, we can’t wait for the BBC and Amazon’s new TV series Good Omens to start – here are just a few of the reasons why…

It will help to pass the time until the next season of The Good Place comes out

Season three of The Good Place concluded on January 24th, and the long wait for season four is here. But fear not! Another comedy drama series about angels and demons and Heaven and Hell is coming soon! Based on the book Good Omens, written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, this series will feel very familiar to anyone who has watched The Good Place, Supernatural, or Lucifer (not to mention, obviously, the other screen adaptations of Pratchett and Gaiman’s works, including the Discworld TV dramas and American Gods) and will help to plug that gap in your TV-viewing schedule.

David Tennant and Michael Sheen

These two are playing the two lead characters, the demon Crowley (Tennant) and the angel Aziraphale (Sheen). As well as the geek-friendly casting of a former Doctor, these are two of the most charismatic actors out there, both with proven ability to make big, over-the-top performances really work, and so are perfect casting for an angel and a demon facing the end of the world.

And the rest of the cast and crew too

The cast also includes Jon Hamm, Mark Gatiss, Miranda Richardson, Derek Jacobi, Nick Offerman, David Morissey, a freshly announced Benedict Cumberbatch… the list goes on, and they’re the cream of the acting crop. Director Douglas Mackinnon has some serious fantasy chops, having directed episodes of Outlander, Doctor Who, and Jekyll, as well as geek favourite Sherlock. And the whole series was written by Gaiman himself, one of the two authors of the original book – you can’t get much more faithful to the source material than that.

There will be extra material that isn’t in the book

Mackinnon told Entertainment Weekly at the San Diego Comic Con that episode three will feature the history of Crowley and Aziraphale, from ideas Gaiman and Pratchett had talked about when writing the original story. This isn’t the only extra touch. Gaiman is an old hand at screen adaptation and at producing the same story through different media, having written Neverwhere as a television series and as a novel at almost the same time, and developing MirrorMask as a film before writing it as a children’s book. He is well aware of the demands of different media and the way a story can be enriched by changing it to fit a new format. So while this adaptation can hardly be criticised for being unfaithful considering it’s written by one of the authors of the book, it will be different, and that is what will make it a thrilling viewing experience both for those who have read the book, and for those who haven’t.

Hopefully there will be Queen music

Fond jokes about Queen music (in the vein of Shaun Of The Dead’s use of Don’t Stop Me Now) are a key aspect of the novel. The trailer features a classic Queen track (You’re My Best Friend) and Mackinnon has suggested at SDCC that “there might be a little bit of Queen”, so hopefully that means the series has the rights to some good old fashioned Queen soft rock, and can make the audio that plays in our heads as we read the book come to life. Though, sadly, they have had to jettison the gag about cassette tapes.

The story captures the best of Terry Pratchett combined with the best of Neil Gaiman

Good Omens came out in 1990, a year in which Pratchett also had four other books published – Eric and Moving Pictures in the Discworld series, and Diggers and Wings in the Bromeliad series. At this stage, the Discworld books had moved on from the slightly two-dimensional fantasy spoofs of the very early books, and was starting to become the bigger, more fully-realized world we now know. Guards! Guards! had been published the year before, kicking off perhaps the most popular sub-series within the Discworld, the City Watch books, while the Death and Witches sub-series were going strong, with Reaper Man and Witches Abroad appearing the following year. Gaiman, meanwhile, was working on the comic book series that made his name, Sandman.

While the two authors’ written styles are clearly distinct in their own works, in Good Omens, they blend perfectly. The story follows a wry take on religion and mythology, which suits both to a T – it would be a few years before Pratchett would write a ceramic atheist or Gaiman would create the rich (and often imitated) myth-driven world of American Gods, but the seeds of both can be seen here. Pratchett’s down-to-earth humour combined with Gaiman’s flair for the surreal and the weird come together perfectly in the source novel. With Gaiman writing the television adaptation, based partly on ideas from their original collaboration, it is to be hoped that this combination will shine through in the new TV series.

It was one of Pratchett’s final requests

Gaiman has made it clear on numerous occasions that he made this series for Terry Pratchett. There had been several earlier attempts to adapt the book for film, all of which failed, and it had ended up adapted for radio by BBC Radio 4 in 2014, not long before Pratchett’s death from complications from Alzheimer’s Disease in early 2015. As Gaiman told Entertainment Weekly, Pratchett had e-mailed not long before he died to ask Gaiman to over-see a screen adaptation of the book. Gaiman has truly honoured his friend’s request in writing and producing this adaptation, and Pratchett fans will no doubt be keen to complete the request by watching and enjoying it.

All episodes of Good Omens will land on Amazon Prime Video on the 31st of May (and at a later date on BBC Two).

Late last year it was announced that former X-Files producer and current Medici co-creator Frank Spotnitz was working on a new Italian-set series celebrating the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci. Marking the passing of 500 years since the legendary polymath’s death, the series is planned to tell his story through the lens of his masterpieces.

Chatting to Den Of Geek at the January 2019 launch of historical Netflix drama Medici: The Magnificent, Spotnitz confirmed that writing on the new drama (alongside Sherlock and Deep State’s Stephen Thompson) was ongoing and that the plan is to film the eight-episode series in Italy later this year.

“It’s incredibly challenging,” said Spotnitz. “A really hard one but really rewarding.”

Particularly challenging, he explained, is casting the lead. “I think about [casting] all the time!” he laughs. “That’s a really tough role to cast.”

“I can’t think of anybody more challenging because you just can’t believe he ever existed. You can’t believe there is one man who was good at so many things, and he was beautiful. He was famously really strikingly handsome, you just can’t believe this guy…

“And drama doesn’t like that. Drama doesn’t like somebody who’s good at 50 things, we like somebody who’s good at one thing. Trying to capture all of who he was without reducing him, without making him banal or being too simple, is not easy.”

Actors who’ve previously taken on the role include Tom Riley (in Starz series Da Vinci’s Demons), Mark Rylance and Roberto Benigni. A genius, an inventor, a creator of masterpieces, a great beauty… 

We’ve got just the fella.

All eight episodes of Medici: The Magnificent arrive on Netflix on Friday the 25^th of January.

The nominations for the 91st Academy Awards have landed and as ever there are a few surprises, a few snubs and a few ‘yeah obviously’ nominations.

Here’s a quick digest of the runners and riders as along with a few cheeky guesses and what we think might come up on top.

The front runners in terms of sheer numbers were Roma and The Favourite, bagging 10 noms each, with both of them up for Best Picture and Best Director. Close behind was A Star Is Born with eight nominations including Best Picture, while Blackkklansman bagged six. Slightly surprisingly (but absolutely deservedly) Black Panther reeled in an impressive seven nominations including Best Picture making this the FIRST SUPERHERO MOVIE EVER to be nominated for the top award.

Here’s a bit more of a breakdown.

Super duper

First of all let’s talk some more about Black Panther. Ryan Coogler’s bold, political Marvel movie managed to buck age old trends by grabbing a whole armful of noms. Yep it really is the first superhero film to get a nod for the top spot. True, Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight but the film didn’t manage to squeeze into the Best Picture list. In all likelihood it won’t win though it has a good shot at some of the other awards. It has a reasonable chance at Best Production Design for its impressive realisation of Wakanda, while Best Costume Design is also a possible (though we fancy The Favourite for this one). It’s also up for Original Score, Sound Mixing and Best Original Song for ‘All The Stars’ all of which are possibles.

The Favourite

Though it bagged the most nominations jointly with Roma, The Favourite isn’t actually a favourite to take the top spot – Roma seems like a hotter tip for the big one. Instead Olivia Colman is the one to beat for Best Actress (though it’s a very strong category this year – Glenn Close for The Wife, Yalitza Aparicio for Roma, Lady Gaga for A Star is Born and Melissa McCarthy for Can You Ever Forgive Me? would all be front runners any other year).

Will Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz’s double nominations for Best Supporting Actress split the vote and mean neither will win? It’s highly probable and hard to choose between them. This one could be a front runner for some of the technicals – it’s nominated for Cinematography, Production Design, Costume Design and Editing and we reckon it’s got a very good chance of taking the award for Best Original Screenplay.

Snubs

It might be just us but we’ve been crossing our fingers for Hereditary since its release last summer. It wasn’t to be. No nom for Toni Collette for best actress, and not even a nod for production design.

In fact the only horror to even get a mention was A Quiet Place, which is up for Best Sound Editing. Oscar never really goes for horror but we were hoping Get Out might have changed that.

Other notable omissions are Claire Foy for First Man, Timothée Chalamet for Beautiful Boy and John David Washington for Blackkklansman – Adam Driver got a Best Supporting nod so we’re sad to see Washington overlooked here.

A Star Is Born raked in loads of noms but Bradley Cooper for Best Director wasn’t one of them – when there are eight Best Pic noms and only five Best Directors there’ll always be some discrepancies. Slightly surprising though that Cold War didn’t get a Best Pic nom since Pawel Pawlikowski is up for Best Director – it’s nommed in the Best Foreign Film category but we’d be very surprised to see that award go to anything other than Roma this year, which made the cut for both Best Pic and Best Director for Alfonso Cuaron. Pleasingly Spike Lee did get a Best Director nomination for Blackkklansman – slightly unbelievably this is his first ever Best Director nom.

Gender gap

Once again there are no women nominated for the Best Director award. Not wildly surprising since only five female directors have ever been nominated in this category (Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties, Jane Campion for The Piano, Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation, Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker and Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird with Bigelow the only winner). This year we might have hoped to see Marielle Heller for Can You Ever Forgive Me? which bagged noms for its stars Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant, or Debra Granik for Leave No Trace. In fact Leave No Trace was overlooked entirely.

Spidey sense

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse was one of our favourite films of the year  and while we’re really pleased it got a nom in the Animated Feature category we were hoping it might have pick up a best picture nom. This hardly ever happens. The first animation ever to get a best picture nod was Beauty And The Beast in 1991 and since then Up and Toy Story 3 both got noms. Not only an animation but also a superhero movie, Spider-Verse was never going to make the list but we can always dream.

Bohemian Rhapsody

The rock-tastic Freddie Mercury biopic continues its awards-season momentum, despite being dogged by behind-the-scenes controversies and mixed reviews. The film has picked up an impressive five nominations, including two of the biggies – Best Picture and Best Actor, for Rami Malek’s transformative turn as the Queen frontman. After its surprise wins in both those categories at the Golden Globes earlier this year, we wouldn’t count this one out just yet. The unashamed crowd-pleaser has already powered its way to a record-breaking $800 million box-office haul (making it the biggest musical biopic ever), thanks to some big performances, big tunes and a staggering recreation of the 1985 Live Aid gig. Perhaps the Academy is finally starting to take popular opinion into account (given that their ill-fated ‘popular movie’ award is no longer a thing).

Netflix kills it

The streaming giant has massively upped its original film content over the last few years, tempting big-name talent both in front of and behind the camera with the carrots of creative freedom, decent budgets and an innovative distribution model that potentially gets its film out to a much broader audience. And while lofty film festivals like Cannes are still giving Netflix movies the cold shoulder, the Academy is clearly getting on board. Not only is Roma, Alfonso Cuaron’s black-and-white passion project, tying for the most nominations this year with 10 nods – it’s also the first Netflix movie ever to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Elsewhere, The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs  – the Coen brothers’ western anthology – has picked up three nominations, including Adapted Screenplay. Sadly, sci-fi horror Annihilation didn’t make the cut – a bit too genre-y, perhaps?

The 91st Academy Awards will take place on the 24th February. 

Rage 2 may be a somewhat surprising sequel, coming seven years (and a new generation of consoles) after id Software’s first Rage title, but the new game’s technicolour promo pictures and madcap gameplay videos have done more than enough to catch our attention.

Still, we weren’t really sure what to expect when we trotted over to the London offices of Bethesda for 90 minutes of hands-on time with Rage 2. All we really knew about the game was that it puts you in the shoes of a new lead character, 30 years on from the events of the original Rage game. In hindsight, though, we’re ruddy glad we went along.

As first impressions go, Rage 2 gave us a very strong one. The gameplay we experienced, the not-yet-released clips we witnessed and the tantalising teases that we glimpsed have upgraded our hype levels from mild intrigue to genuine excitement. Read on to discover some of the major takeaways we took from our morning with Rage 2…

Endless options for epic violence

To kick things off, id Software’s director Tim Willits gave us an epic demonstration of the combat mechanics in the game. Showing off on a big screen, he loaded up a development area and took control of a character that has every weapon and ability that it’s possible to obtain in the game. He proceeded to obliterate wave after wave of goons using a truly vast variety of attacks – gravity wells, incineration blasts, huge guns, ‘wingstick’ boomerangs and whopping telekinetic blasts. As enemies exploded into pools of blood around Willits, with skeletons piling up as new foes spawned, our eagerness to get our mitts on the game went smashing through the roof.

In terms of these combat mechanics, the closest comparison that comes to mind is Dishonored (another franchise that’s published by Bethesda Softworks, interestingly enough). Your character’s right hand holds whichever massive gun you’ve equipped, while their left hand dishes out an array of fantastical abilities. It’s up to you to hone your dexterity skills to dish out damage in the most effective and awe-inspiring ways possible by juggling these two sets of moves.

After sitting in stunned silence and witnessing Willits’ wanton destruction, we were dropped into the game ourselves. We were plonked into an open world segment, roughly 25 per cent of the way through the main campaign, and pointed in the right direction for the next chunk of the story. We didn’t have the full array of moves that Willits had in his development area, but we still had a couple of cool supernatural moves and a ruddy big gun to play with. It’s clear that this game offers endless options for attacks, and that potential for epic combos makes us very keen to collect every upgrade that we can.

Make a name for yourself

We entered one of many settlements in this punk-styled post-apocalyptic wasteland and quickly found ourselves in a combat situation. Speaking to the person that seemed to be in charge soon led to an influx of enemies in close quarters, and we started to put together some satisfying combos: use a telekinetic blast to smash one enemy to smithereens, then throw a boomerang at another, then dish out a headshot to another. This type of combat is really fun to get to grips with, but if you have fumbling fingers and bumbling thumbs, it is easy to muck things up and break your streak.

After we cleared the room in satisfying style, the story pressed ahead: if we want to progress to chat with the next bigwig up the settlement’s pecking order, we had better make a name for ourselves in numerous post-apocalyptic pop culture events. Your player character, who is male or female depending on your choices at the start of the game, essentially needs to become famous. We’re told to try out for Mutant Bash TV (a telly series within the game, which previously gave its name to the iOS version of Rage 1) and to try our driving skills in a big racing event, both of which are tasks that will take us out of the settlement and into the wasteland.

We didn’t get a huge sense of our character or the overarching narrative during our time with Rage 2, but it’s clear that almost every character in the game is absolutely off their rocker. This segment of the game provided an easy-to-understand series of interconnected objectives, though, in amongst the mayhem: win the race, survive Mutant Bash TV, and become popular enough to win an audience with the big cheese of the area. Keen for more combat, and with these clear quests in mind, we set out into the wasteland.

A vast world, connected by chaos

So we left the settlement and got in our car: a mostly black Mad Max-looking vehicle, kitted out with various weapons and a navigation gadget that maps out the best route to your destination. That feature, which puts a suggested route up on your screen, came in particularly handy. This world is clearly massive, with sandy vistas stretching out in all directions, so the assist was a welcome one given that our time was limited.

Even though we knew the way to go, it was nigh-on impossible to avoid running into trouble. Chaos lurks in every nook and cranny on the map: petrol stations are filled with enemies, roads are littered with violent rival vehicles and roadblocks offer occasional get-out-and-clear-the-way-without-getting-killed challenges. There are maniacs around every corner, promising mayhem aplenty and loads of opportunities to use those killer combos. 

The driving controls were fairly standard, with the inter-car combat feeling like a mash-up of elements we saw in the Mad Max video game and the Arkham Knight Batmobile. You can boost your speed and switch between mounted weapons of various magnitudes, but you’ll need to get within a certain distance to lock on a truly devastating blow.

Picking up some car skillz en route came in handy when we made it to the race track location. A quick chat with the purveyor of the establishment led to us being plonked straight into a different vehicle and chucked into a competition. We had to win a race against a handful of other cars over a set number of laps. Again, the controls were easy to pick up. And although it took a few attempts to nab the top spot and complete the objective, the challenge factor here never fell into frustrating territory.

A challenge you want to chip away at

Visiting and attempting to master Mutant Bash TV presented a bigger challenge, truth be told. Once you’ve driven over there (probably getting into a few on-the-road scuffles on the way), it doesn’t take long before you’re thrust into action. This seems to be a recurring pattern, actually, with the game always rushing you to the next activity, which certainly doesn’t leave any room for boredom to settle in. But if, like us, you’ve only been mucking around with your weaponry for an hour or so at this point, prepare yourself for a baptism of fire when you drop into Mutant Bash TV.

Your character is thrust into a series of arenas with an ever-growing number of violent mutants. You only have the weaponry you brought with you, although there is normally some extra ammo lying around between each new location in the challenge. We’re not ashamed to say that, even with an understanding of our telekinetic powers and a decent arsenal of weapons, we really struggled to progress through Mutant Bash TV‘s numerous levels. It’s a challenge, but winningly, it’s one that doesn’t feel totally insurmountable. You’ll want to keep chipping away at it, working out which combos can fell enemies without wiping out your resources, trying again and again until you know how to overcome the situation without being reduced to a puddle of blood and guts on the floor.

Rage 2 is indeed very bloody, but it’s done in a playful way, rewarding you for a combo well executed by reducing your fallen foe to an almost cartoonish explosion of bodily fluids. And the game is pretty challenging at times, too, but it never feels cynically done. This is a game that wants you to have a good time with it. Rage 2 wants you to work out your favourite moves and discover the best to deploy them. And this strategy, it must be said, seems to be working very well.

Certainly, we went into this preview event without much in the way of expectations, but we left it with a keen desire to get the game, explore its maniacal wasteland, play around with the vast variables for violence and chip away until we can tackle situations with the skill and finesse that Tim Willits displayed in his presentation. And considering that we only played the game for 90 minutes, that’s a very impressive achievement. Consider our intrigue very much upgraded.

Rage 2 is released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on 14 May 2019.

Awards season is really starting to heat up. We’ve had the Golden Globes, we’ve had the Bafta nods, and now, finally, we have the full list of nominations for the 2019 Oscars.

The Favourite and Roma are out in the lead with 10 nominations apiece, followed by A Star Is Born and Vice with eight nods each. Black Panther has seven nominations, including one for Best Picture – making it the first superhero movie to be nominated for that award.

The category shortlists were announced by The Big Sick’s Kumail Nanjiani – a former nominee himself – and Tracee Ellis Ross, star of TV comedy Black-ish. The winners will be revealed at the currently host-less 2019 Academy Awards ceremony on 24 February.

Here is the full list of this year’s nominees:

Best Picture

Black Panther
Blackkklansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Roma
A Star Is Born
Vice

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Yalitza Aparicio – Roma
Glenn Close – The Wife
Olivia Colman – The Favourite
Lady Gaga – A Star Is Born
Melissa McCarthy – Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Christian Bale – Vice
Bradley Cooper – A Star is Born
Willem Dafoe – At Eternity’s Gate
Rami Malek – Bohemian Rhapsody
Viggo Mortensen – Green Book

Best Director

Blackkklansman – Spike Lee
Cold War – Paweł Pawlikowski
The Favourite – Yorgos Lanthimos
Roma – Alfonso Cuaron
Vice – Adam McKay

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Adams – Vice
Marina de Tavira – Roma
Regina King – If Beale Street Could Talk
Emma Stone – The Favourite
Rachel Weisz – The Favourite

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Mahershala Ali – Green Book
Adam Driver – Blackkklansman
Sam Elliot – A Star Is Born
Richard E Grant – Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Sam Rockwell – Vice

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs – Joel and Ethan Coen
Blackkklansman – Spike Lee, David Rabinowitz, Charlie Wachtel and Kevin Willmott
Can You Ever Forgive me? – Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty
If Beale Street Could Talk – Barry Jenkins
A Star Is Born – Bradley Cooper, Will Fetters and Eric Roth

Best Original Screenplay

The Favourite – Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara
First Reformed – Paul Schrader
Green Book – Brian Hayes Currie, Peter Farrelly and Nick Vallelonga
Roma – Alfonso Cuaron
Vice – Adam McKay

Best Animated Film

Incredibles 2
Isle Of Dogs
Mirai
Ralph Breaks The Internet
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

Best Foreign Language Film

Capernaum – Lebanon
Cold Par – Poland
Never Look Away – Germany
Roma – Mexico
Shoplifters – Japan

Best Documentary 

Free Solo
Hale County, This Morning, This Evening
Minding The Gap
Of Fathers And Sons
RBG

Best Original Score

Black Panther
Blackklansman
If Beale Street Could Talk
Isle of Dogs
Mary Poppins Returns

Best Original Song

All The Stars – Black Panther
I’ll Fight – RBG
The Place Where Lost Things Go – Mary Poppins
Shallow – A Star is Born
When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings – The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Best Visual Effects

Avengers: Infinity War
Christopher Robin
First Man
Ready Player One
Solo: A Star Wars Story

Best Cinematography

Cold War
The Favourite
Never Look Away
Roma
A Star Is Born

Best Production Design

Black Panther
The Favourite
First Man
Mary Poppins Returns
Roma

Best Costume Design

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Black Panther
The Favourite
Mary Poppins Returns
Mary Queen Of Scots

Best Film Editing

Blackkklansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Vice

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Border
Mary Queen Of Scots
Vice

Best Sound Editing

Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
First Man
A Quiet Place
Roma

Best Sound Mixing

Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
First Man
Roma
A Star Is Born

Best Documentary Short

Black Sheep
End Game
Lifeboat
A Night At The Garden
Period, End of Sentence.

Best Animated Short

Animal Behaviour
Bao
Late Afternoon
One Small Step
Weekends

Best Live Action Short

Detainment
Fauve
Marguerite
Mother
Skin