President Trump Wants to Send Man to the Moon Again

The Trump administration wants NASA to send astronauts to the moon again.

NPR reports President Donald Trump has signed the “Space Policy Directive 1,” which puts a focus on potentially having U.S. astronauts make trips beyond low-Earth orbit for the first time in decades. “The directive I’m signing today will refocus America’s space program on human exploration and discovery,” Trump said.

NASA’s space shuttles have been retired since 2011, with Americans using Russian capsules to ride up to the International Space Station. Though there’s now a new focus on going to the moon, the ultimate goal is to finally set foot on Mars.

Continue reading…

Powered by WPeMatico

Mark Hamill Regrets His The Last Jedi Criticisms

Mark Hamill regrets criticizing The Last Jedi’s portrayal of Luke Skywalker.

In several interviews throughout The Last Jedi’s press tour, Hamill revealed he didn’t quite agree with how writer-director Rian Johnson handled Luke in the film. However, Hamill has now issued an apology on Twitter saying he should have kept his thoughts and doubts private.

“I regret voicing my doubts & insecurities in public,” Hamill tweeted. “Creative differences are a common element of any project but usually remain private. All I wanted was to make good movie. I got more than that- @rianjohnson made an all-time GREAT one! #HumbledHamill”

Continue reading…

Powered by WPeMatico

Fe: 5 Minutes of Gorgeous Gameplay

All month long we’re highlighting cool games that might not be on your radar, as part of IGN First: Games to Watch in 2018.

Today’s game is Fe, a beautiful action-adventure that’s a bit Zelda-ish. In the video above, one of Fe’s developers walks you through five minutes of new gameplay that showcases bonding with animals. Enjoy!

To see all the Games to Watch in 2018 as we roll them out over the month, be sure to head over to our IGN First Hub Page.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews and Xbox Guru-in-Chief. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.

Continue reading…

Powered by WPeMatico

A History of Screwups

The game industry never goes without a controversy for long. The latest one concerns Electronic Arts, now in the crosshairs over pay-to-win lootbox features in Star Wars: Battlefront 2. Yet Josef Fares, director of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and the upcoming EA-backed A Way Out, offered a modest defense for the EA at the recent Game Awards: “All publishers fuck up.”

He’s right, of course. No major game company has an entirely spotless record. The industry’s most popular names all made mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes spelled doom. Others were just bumps in the road. We packed together the biggest blunders of the biggest game publishers past and present to see just how they bounced back— or didn’t.

Continue reading…

Powered by WPeMatico

Doomsday Clock #2 Review

Doomsday Clock #1 established that Geoff Johns and Gary Frank are capable of the daunting task that is crafting a sequel to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ legendary Watchmen saga. That issue didn’t, however, offer much indication as to how the DC Universe and its heroes would factor into this story. As Johns himself warned back at NYCC, Doomsday Clock is much more a direct continuation of Watchmen than readers might have been expecting going in. But even though issue #2 maintains the methodical pacing of the first, it also goes a long way to uniting these two diametrically opposed superhero universes and making the scope of the conflict more clear.

Perhaps even more than the first, this issue really highlights the notion that Johns and Frank have nailed down the specific visual language of Watchmen. The creators employ the iconic nine-panel grid to maximum effect throughout the story. That structure ensures that the pacing remains careful and coordinated, while still leaving room for Frank to go big during those pivotal moments and capture the full scope of a scene. Both creators devote careful attention to the interplay between words and images in much the same way Moore and Gibbons did in the original story. There’s often an ironic juxtaposition between what’s printed in a narrative caption and what Frank renders in a given panel. Watchmen stands the test of time in part because it’s a story that makes full use of the medium and doesn’t really translate elsewhere without losing something in translation. Doomsday Clock is a story that recognizes and celebrates that fact.

Continue reading…

Powered by WPeMatico