Annihilation
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Netflix is making a fourth 'Beverly Hills Cop' movie
After a 25-year absence, Axel Foley is coming back. According to Deadline, series-owner Paramount has signed a one-time licensing deal with Netflix that will allow the company to produce a fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie that will stream exclusively on its service. Both Eddie Murphy and producer Jerry Bruckheimer are on board to help with the project, and if all goes according to plan, the contract includes an option for Netflix to create a fifth movie.
Watching 'Annihilation' at home versus the cinema
Alex Garland wrote 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Dredd, establishing his bona fides as a master of blending horror and mind-bending sci-fi. He then wrote and directed Ex Machina, which propelled him into an elite fraternity of directors producing smart, arty films that stick with you long after you leave the theater. His latest film, Annihilation, was set to be his big mainstream breakthrough, but it will be released theatrically only in the US, Canada and China. In the rest of the world, the film will play on Netflix. Does that mean everyone in the rest of the world is losing out by having to watch it in the comfort of their own homes? We asked two of our editors -- one in New York and one in London -- to report their respective experiences.
‘Ex Machina’ director’s next film explores a dreamy otherworld
Frequent Danny Boyle film screenwriter Alex Garland's directorial debut, the lauded 2015 sci-fi thriller Ex Machina, was a delightful and discomforting take on humans and the robots they create. His next film Annihilation comes out February 23rd, 2018, but check out its first trailer to see Natalie Portman explore a future United States starting to be overrun by a dreamy, otherworldly wilderness.
Meet 'Annihilation,' Loadout's wacky take on team warfare
Loadout's key feature may be its massive abundance of player-crafted guns, but as this developer-led walkthrough of the "Annihilation" gametype demonstrates, the game delivers more than just mix-and-match boomsticks - it also offers helpful butt syringes.
SWTOR patch 1.3 bringing group finder, legacy perks
A long time ago on a server far, far away, the Imperial forces BioWare prepared a Star Wars: The Old Republic update to rule the online world: patch 1.3. Called Allies, patch 1.3 will usher in a group finder, character transfers, and legacy perks. The group finder will aid in banding together interested adventurers to tackle operations and flashpoints. Lead Designer Daniel Erickson said that the time is ripe for the feature, as players are spread out in levels and are rolling plenty of alts. Saying that BioWare wants to "respect the communities" that have formed, Erickson reports that the group finder will not be cross-server. He also revealed some of the other key features for patch 1.3. Additional perks to the Legacy system will allow players to customize their experience; we'll see new ports, earlier access to mounts, and bonus XP modifiers for PvP. The patch will also change social gear to fit the armor type of the class using it, server transfers, and the ability to add augments to any crafting items. Looking past 1.3, Erickson promises a "return to big content" with patch 1.4. If you're a fan of the SWTOR novels, you'll also be delighted to hear that Drew Karpyshyn announced that his next novel, Annihilation, is scheduled for November 13th. You can watch the patch 1.3 preview video after the jump!
Black Ops 'Annihilation' DLC blows up PC and PS3 on July 28
C'mon PC and PS3 gamers, you're starting to depress us. You press your noses against the window as you watch 360 gamers enjoy the new four new multiplayer maps in the Call of Duty: Black Ops "Annihilation" DLC. You drool like Dickensian orphans at a Golden Corral as they raze hordes of the undead in the new zombie scenario, Shangri-La. You wonder aloud what it must feel like to be them and, frankly, we've seen enough. It's time to reclaim your dignity. Thirteen days. That's all you have to wait. Less than two weeks and you'll finally be back on even footing with those jerks. ... What's that, pumpkin? No, we're sure they haven't "used up all the fun." Oh, that's adorable. No, you'll see. On July 28, if you've got your $15 in hand, there will still be plenty of fun waiting for you. We promise.
Black Ops 'Annihilation' trailer tours the latest zombie stomping grounds
No, Activision -- stop it! We're all for the new zombies map coming in the next Call of Duty: Black Ops map pack, Annihilation, but we never, ever want to associate the joytime feelings we get from "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" with the feelings of desperation and panic in Black Ops' co-op survival mode. It's just two things that we never want to mix together, kinda like baby sea otters and Hellraiser. %Gallery-127231%
Call of Duty: Black Ops 'Annihilation' trailer hits those familiar notes
That one hamburger-stand guy? "Gimme Shelter?" Fifteen dollars floating out of your wallet in anticipation? Yes, it's that time again: Activision posted a new Call of Duty: Black Ops DLC trailer, this one for the "Annihilation" map pack.
GameStop is 'exclusive' place to pre-order Black Ops Annihilation DLC
GameStop has announced that it will be the "exclusive" pre-order destination for the upcoming "Annihilation" DLC for Call of Duty: Black Ops. Typically, this is where we would make fun of the concept of pre-ordering DLC. Just to outline the process again: Visit GameStop store and pre-order DLC Wait until release day Receive download voucher from GameStop Enter code and enjoy Now, contrast this with purchasing the DLC on release day via Xbox Live: Sit on couch Press "A" button We should point out that, unlike GameStop's Halo: Reach DLC promotion, an Annihilation pre-order doesn't even come with any bonuses. That said, GameStop sold a quarter-million vouchers for the Black Ops "Escalation" DLC, so what do we know?
Call of Duty: Black Ops' 'Annihilation' maps revealed
We didn't spot any celebrities in the Call of Duty: Black Ops "Annihilation" DLC footage included in this dev diary. However, we did see lots of shots of all the new maps, including the Area 51-inspired "Hangar 18," the "Hazard" map based on World at War's "Cliffside" (and then made into a golf course), and the ancient ruins/zombie stronghold "Shangri-la." You can either watch the video after the break and get excited about your upcoming $15 purchase, or just buy it on June 28 when it comes to Xbox Live. But let's be honest: either way, you're going to end up buying this Call of Duty map pack. Everyone will.%Gallery-126560%
Call of Duty: Black Ops 'Annihilation' DLC coming to 360 June 28
Activision has officially announced the third Call of Duty: Black Ops map pack, to the surprise of everyone who wasn't online yesterday. The "Annihilation" pack, out June 28 on Xbox 360, and a contractually appropriate time later on PC and PS3, adds four new multiplayer maps: Hangar 18, Drive-In, Silo, and Hazard, along with the requisite Zombies map, "Shangri-La." Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia called "Shangri-La" an exotic and mysterious map filled with deadly traps, dark secrets and innovative gameplay that will challenge even the most daring Zombie hunters." It goes without saying that it's also filled with zombies. To celebrate the release of this map, Treyarch will offer a double XP weekend starting July 1. Now all you have to do is free yourself from all personal and professional responsibilities.
Lichborne: A look at the latest patch 4.2 news for death knights
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. As I mentioned last week, there was one big issue that the patch 4.2 PTR hadn't addressed: the discrepancy between frost and unholy death knight DPS. Just like that, Blizzard seems to have heard and has in fact both changed the tier 12 set bonuses and added a few changes to the patch notes that mostly seem tailor-made to address that gap. Let's take a look at the changes and how the death knight class is shaping up in patch 4.2.
Lichborne: Unholy issues in Patch 3.2
If there's one thing that researching the Death Knight class changes for patch 3.2 has done for me, it's reconfirmed my hatred of all these extra annoying little combat stats. You know expertise, armor penetration, haste, all those little things they added to the game for seemingly no other reason than to make determining best in slot gear a master's thesis level task or to make quest rewards suck worse than they first appear. Really, I long for the days when your choices were hit rating, AP, and spell power, heal power and spell or physical critical strike rating.I mean, I guess if I sat down and thought about it, I can deal, especially since the system tweakage has also bought us more awesome stuff like consolidated spell power and critical rating. Still, times like this, I really long for the old days. In particular, I'm talking about the Unholy tree.
Lichborne: The Future of Death Runes in Patch 3.2
Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight class column, with your host, Daniel Whitcomb, who's still wearing mourning black for AE Unholy Blight. And also because black looks awesome.I admit to being a bit underwhelmed by the Death Knight Q&A. To be fair, this is primarily because most of the things covered were already in the 3.2 patch notes, and the rest was pretty common sense stuff. However, one little comment by Ghostcrawler did catch my attention: His praise of Death Runes. This caught me more than a bit by surprise, since, if anything, the Death Knight changes in Patch 3.2 seem tailor made to discourage the use of Death Runes, at least for Frost and Unholy.Between the damage buff to Blood Strike and diseases, and the nerf to Scourge Strike, we have a pretty good chance of seeing people move away from using Death Runes. The major reason to use Blood Strike in both trees right now is to create Death Runes so you can use higher damage abilities on your next refresh cycle. If Blood Strike becomes the higher damage ability, it's not worth it to use the Death Runes on something else. There's a off-chance, I suppose, that you might want the Death Runes handy for an emergency use of Ghoul Frenzy, in theory, but that chance is so slim that no-one's going to want to waste the talent points in Reaping, at the very least.
Lichborne: The Rise of Blood in 3.1
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly Death Knight news and analysis fix.The Blood tree often gets a bad rap among those not in the know. It's a decent leveling tree, but it's generally considered not to have the tanking power or AoE DPS Potential of Unholy or Frost. By all indications, that has changed in 3.1, especially in the latest patch. Not only have many key Blood talents and skills received key buffs or changes, but the very nature of Armor Penetration has changed, with the 25% benefit buff making Blood's mostly physical damage dealing style well suited to take advantage of the change. This is quite a shift from just before 3.1, when many were afraid disease-less Blood would be wiped out and leave the tree with no viable hassle-free DPS specs.
Lichborne: Talents for catching up
Welcome to Lichborne, where Daniel Whitcomb is doing some last minute agonizing over what face to give his Death Knight on Thursday.So there are quite a few of us, I imagine, who are still on track to switch to a Death Knight, or at least play one quite extensively, immediately when Wrath of the Lich King hits the live servers. But the fact remains that you'll be 15 levels behind everyone to start, and if you have friends to catch up to, you're going to want to get up there pretty quickly, most likely. Even if you plan to take it slow, you'll still want a good effective leveling build, most likely. So today, we'll look at three solid solo DPS builds from each tree, and discuss how to use them most effectively for grinding and leveling.
Lichborne: Death Knight glyphs
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly weekend look at the first hero class, the Death Knight. Daniel Whitcomb is back after dealing with some light administrative work back at the Ebon Hold. Inscription seems to be coming on to the beta server in bits and pieces, especially when it comes to the much looked for glyphs. One or two classes seem to trickle in each build, and in the latest build, it is the Death Knight's turn. Today, we'll take a quick look at the new Death Knight glyphs, and figure out how useful they'll be to the various playstyles and specs of the Death Knight. As always, it's worth noting that these are beta numbers, so things could change by the time Inscription and Death Knights see the light of day on live servers.
Lichborne: State of the Death Knight
Welcome to Lichborne, WoW Insider's newest class column. Every week in Lichborne, Daniel Whitcomb will explore the ins and outs of Blizzard's newest class, the Death Knight. It's Wrath of the Lich King Beta time, and finally time to meet the new Death Knight class. Unfortunately, we can't really guarantee you'll be meeting the same class that you'll see in the live game, per se. It's not that the class isn't shaping up well or isn't quite distinctive, it's more that there's just so much that's changing. The next build that's scheduled to hit the Beta servers is a perfect example. Not only will talent trees be changing extensively, with some talents becoming baseline and some baseline abilities becoming talents, some talents switching tiers, and others even switching trees, but the very way we inflict and stack diseases will be getting some tweaking as well. In addition, many of the Death Knight's baseline abilities, especially related to disease and damage rotations, are changing as well. So with all these changes, what can you say about a class that's changing drastically on a weekly basis, and may look completely different from how it does now by the time Wrath goes live? Is it really possible to speak about an overarching unifying theory of Death Knights? Well, let's try. Welcome to the first annual State of the Death Knight address.
Death Knight Frost tree changes in latest Wrath Beta build
Between Blood's lack of downtime and Unholy's AE abilities and Ghoul control, Frost is starting to feel a bit like the unwanted orphan of the Death Knight trees. While it's heavy on the tanking talents and has some burst potential, we've been there done that, perhaps, already have Frost Mage alts, and so on and so forth. Luckily, Blizzard recently made some changes to the tree on Beta which look like they may be nudging the tree in the right direction toward equality with the other two trees. Here's a concise list of the changes via MMO-Champion: Improved Icy Touch now increase the damage of your Icy Touch by 10/20/30/40/50% and its damage against Frozen Targets by 20/40/60/80/100% (Old version : Reduces the cooldown of your Icy Touch spell by 1/2/3/4/5 sec and increases its critical strike damage bonus by 10/20/30/40/50%) Nerves of Cold Steel has been moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2. Annihilation has been moved from Tier 6 to Tier 3. Aneurysm has been moved from Tier 8 to Tier 7. Merciless Combat has been moved from Tier 8 to Tier 6. New Talent - Blood of the North - Tier 8 (5 Points) - Whenever you use a Blood Strike there is a 20/40/60/80/100% chance that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates Frost Aura increases your Frost Resistance by 32/65 instead of 22/45. Frost Strike prerequisites have been removed. (Merciless Combat was required before)
