AvX: Consequences #5 Review

I'm accustomed to post-event epilogue pieces like this not actually doing much to rock the boat or alter the status quo established by the event itself. At best, you get a really nice, emotional coda like in Civil War: The Confession. But with AvX: Consequences, Kieron Gillen has't just put a nice little bow on he events of AvX. He's defined a significant new direction in the lives of Cyclops and his remaining allies.

Issue #5 regains some of the singular focus that was lost with issue #4. Apart from a few pages devoted to Hope's search for Cable, the entirety of the script focuses on Cyclops' jailbreak. As usual, the Hope material feels dull and pointless, but at least Gillen wraps it up firmly enough. The rest of the script is focused on Cyclops' escape and the vengeance he exacts on his jailers. Gillen has effectively reversed the Wolverine/Cyclops dynamic now, with the former being the idealistic hero and voice of reason and the latter willing to shed blood and do what is necessary to protect those he cares about. Most importantly, Cyclops remains an identifiable figure, not an overt villain. He and Magneto benefit from some strong dialogue throughout issue #5. It seems being on the lam suits them both.

Unfortunately, coming off the strong visuals of issue #4, issue #5 suffers from the weakest artwork of the entire series. Gabriel Hernandez Walta's style is inherently too different from the rest. It's too flat, oddly colored, and generally non-superheroic to fit the needs of the story.

Even so, Gillen delivers a strong finish to a surprisingly enjoyable and important mini-series. More than ever, I'm eager to see what the future holds for Cyclops and his dwindling band of allies as the Marvel NOW! status quo kicks in.

Jesse is a writer for various IGN channels. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Tech Fetish Episode 148: We Welcome iPad Mini & Microsoft Surface

The Tech Fetish crew chats Apple's hardware-saturated iPad Mini press event, and how we think Apple's new tablet stacks up against the reigning 7" kings. Nic bought a Microsoft Surface RT and it accidentally changed his Xbox GamerTag to SunflowerWharf4, but we still think the Windows tablet is cool.

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Justin is the Rose to Nic's Titanic.

Listener George is workin' on his Tech Fetish-inspired beard.

Source : ign[dot]com

Report: Major Layoffs at Zynga Austin

This morning during Apple's iPad Mini event, Zynga employees began taking to Twitter en masse to report on significant layoffs at the troubled social gaming giant. Zynga has yet to make any official announcement and have not yet responded to our request for comment.

Individuals close to the situation are reporting that Zynga Austin bore the majority of cuts, with more than 100 jobs lost at that location. The entire Zynga Bingo and theVille teams have reported been let go, leaving only teams developing mobile products left at the office.

Gamasutra is also reporting layoffs or perhaps the closure of Zynga Boston and Zynga Chicago. TechCrunch reports that the San Francisco office is not seeing any layoffs today.

More Zynga employees have reported that an all-hands meeting has been scheduled for later this afternoon. A more solid picture of the extend and location of the layoffs is likely to follow.

Today's layoffs are the latest in a growing line of bad news for the social game maker. SuperData Research noted today that Zynga has less active players now than it had two years ago. Social game players are increasingly leaving Facebook in favor of mobile play. Most analysts agree that Zynga has failed to make the mobile transition rapidly enough.

Justin is Editor of IGN Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter at @ErrorJustin and on IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Family Guy Celebrates Its 200th Episode

Freakin' sweet! Family is commemorating its 200th episode with a one-hour event including its milestone episode as well as a tribute to the Emmy Award-winning animated series.

The event will kick off with the episode entitled "Yug Ylimaf," in which Brian abuses Stewie's time machine, causing reality to run in reverse. As a result, they have to work together to set things right before Stewie is "unborn."

Then, in the Family Guy retrospective, "The End Of The World As We Know It," fans will get a behind-the-scenes look at some of the show's most memorable moments, featuring interviews with series creator Seth MacFarlane and voice actors Mila Kunis, Alex Borstein and Seth Green. Viewers will also be treated to an inside glimpse into the cast and crew's 200th episode party in Los Angeles.

Family Guy's one-hour 200th episode event begins on Sunday, November 11, at 9pm ET/PT on FOX.

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love by following @Max_Nicholson on Twitter, or MaxNicholson on IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

iPad Mini Event Slated for October 23rd

Apple's next event is slated for October 23rd and all signs point to a 7.85" iPad Mini.

The chronically leaked iPad is said to have a Lighting dock connector, come in black and white, and have a very similar design to that found in the stylish new iPod Touch.

Still uncertain, however, is whether the iPad Mini will contain a Retina-Display pixel density, if it might come in additional colors, what exactly the price will be, or if it will even contain the iPad Mini moniker (some have speculated it could be called the iPad Air, or iPad Nano).

We may see more than just the iPad Mini at the event, as well. Recent rumors suggest we could also see a 13" Macbook Pro with Retina Display, additional iTunes news (subscription-based streaming, anyone?), and possibly updates to iBooks, iWork, and iLife.

Either way, all your questions will be answered October 23rd, at 10:00 a.m. PST, where the event will be covered live, right here on IGN.

Nic is the Editor of IGN Tech. He loves technology almost as Wes Anderson, The Tech Fetish Podcast, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. You can follow him on Twitter @nicvargus and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Take IGN On In A Real-Life Medal Of Honor Warfighter Firefight

This is probably the most ridiculously awesome community event we're ever likely to host here at IGN in the UK, so hold tight soldier whilst we give you the sit-rep.

On October 17th, we're hosting a day-long Medal Of Honor Warfighter event with EA and our partner site AskMen and we need a fireteam of four IGN readers to take part. If you're selected, we'll be taking you and three of your mates deep into the British countryside to take part in a four-way Airsoft firefight against a team of AskMen readers, a team of IGN and AskMen editors and a team of former special forces soldiers! You can read about Airsoft here.

You'll be given special training to give you the fighting edge before heading back to Central London to carry on the battle in Medal of Honor Warfighter multiplayer. After all that shooty shooty bang bang action we'll then take you down to the pub to battle it out once more for ultimate glory in a special Medal of Honor pub quiz, with some cool Warfighter prizes up for grabs.

HOW TO REGISTER YOUR INTEREST

To be in with a chance of getting involved in this crazy event you (and your three friends) need to be available from 8am on October 17 until around 10:30pm that night. You need to be able to get yourself to a Central London location (TBC) by 8am on the day and you need to be up for the physical challenge as we expect the day to be quite active. Please ensure you read the terms and conditions on the next page which lay out the health and safety restrictions for the day.

To be in with a chance of taking part simply email UKcomps@IGN.com and tell us your fire-team's code name and why your team should be taken in 25 words or less.

Send your full name, contact number and date of birth with the subject line Warfighter IGN before 1pm on Wednesday October 10 when we'll pick our favourite entry to come along.

This competition is open to UK residents over the age of 18 only with full terms and conditions on the next page.

Source : ign[dot]com

Avengers vs. X-Men #12 Preview

The end is finally here. Marvel's latest huge event is coming to an end in a few weeks, as the Avengers and X-Men finally unite against Cyclops Dark Phoenix, fresh off dealing a death blow to a rather important figurehead.

Written by Jason Aaron with art from Adam Kubert, Avengers vs. X-Men #12 shows all signs of bringing the series out with a bang. Look for it on October 3.

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

New Nintendo Land Attractions Announced

During this morning's Wii U Preview Event, Nintendo revealed a bit more information about its flagship launch title for the platform, Nintendo Land. We previously knew about eight of the 12 total "attractions" inside the package, but four remained a mystery. Now we know about two more.

"Mario Chase" is a refined, evolved version of the "Chase Mii" demo first showcased at E3 2011. Dressed as Mushroom Kingdom characters, four players will work together on the TV screen to chase down a fifth runner, who plays using the Wii U GamePad.

"Pikmin Adventure" will also be playable at the event later today, and Bill Trinen has described the game as an "action-based multiplayer attraction," with players having their Miis dressed up like Pikmin soldiers and working together to swarm enemies characters.

UPDATE! Here's a first look at new screens of the new attractions in action:

Mario Chase

Pikmin Adventure

Lucas M. Thomas is IGN Nintendo's wise old sage, having worked to cover the worlds of Mario, Link, Samus and all the rest of the Big N's creations for over six years here. You can follow him on Twitter.

Source : ign[dot]com

Amazon Unveils New Products, Partnerships

Today at a media event in Santa Monica, Amazon announced an assortment of heavily-rumored products, including a new Kindle eReader.

The backlit 'Paperwhite' Kindle reader will surely tempt to eReading aficionados. The new eReader sports a white background that is reminiscent to paper, easier on the eyes, and is gently backlit.

The new Kindle has 25% more contrast, 212 PPI, 62% more pixels. It also has a more accurate touch capacitive screen. Light Guide took 4 years of research and development. "It's exactly like ambient light."

They're going to leave it on all the time, so they worked on 8-week battery life even with the light on.

The new Kindle is 9.1mm thin, 7.5 ounces.

The new Kindle also comes with a brand new feature, called "Time to Read." By clicking the bottom left corner, the Kindle will tell you how much time is left in the chapter, and how much time it will take you to finish the book. The Kindle tracks your average reading speed, adjusts the timers based on your individual reading speed.

The new touchscreen paperwhite Kindle will sell for $119, and will ship October 1st. The 3G version offers free 3G at $119.

The $79 Kindle has also received a minor upgrade, with faster pageturns a black body, a price drop, and a "new name: the $69 Kindle."

New Kindle Fires

Amazon updated its Kindle Fire with a faster processor, doubled the RAM, and cut the price by $40. For only $159 you can get a pretty serious 7-inch tablet.

But the Kindle Fire bump was small news when compared to the Kindle Fire HD, Amazon's new tablet, which has an 8.9" HD IPS display, at 1920 x 1200 resolution at 254 PPI.

The Fire HD has an OMAP 4470 processor, made by Texas Instruments.

Amazon has updated their display, which features 25% less glare with a laminated screen. The Fire HD also has dual stereo speakers, two antennas, and a MIMO-capability, which supposedly makes the internet 41% faster internet than the iPad, and 54% faster WiFi than the Nexus 7.

Amazon also unveiled a feature across their tablets capabilities, called Whispersync. Whispersync will save your progress in a book, even if you're listening to it as an audiobook. For Games, Whispersync saves your progress, unlocked levels, and more. If you ever have to reinstall your games you won't have to start over.

The Fire HD will start at 16GBs.

No word yet on pricing or release date.

Developing...

Nic is the Editor of IGN Tech. He loves technology almost as much as The Great Gatsby, The Idiot, and Life of Pi. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Motorola Refreshing RAZR Line this Fall

In what looks like a deliberate effort to upstage Nokia and Microsoft, Motorola and Verizon held a press event in New York today to announce three new Droid RAZR phones. The RAZR M (budget), RAZR HD (mid-range), and RAZR Maxx HD (high-end) will all come LTE-enabled with Google's Chrome browser, but none of the phones will ship with the latest version of Android.

The $99 (with contract) RAZR M has the same 960 x 540 super AMOLED display as last year's Droid RAZR. It runs on a 1.5GHz dual-core CPU and 1GB of RAM, and features an 8MP camera. While the phone only has 8GB of internal storage, a microSD slot will let you expand it substantially.

Predictably, the RAZR HD ups the display quality to 720p, but under the hood it's pretty similar to the RAZR M (which is already pretty similar to last year's Droid X2). The HD quietly raises capacity to 16GB (plus microSD), but with the same processor, RAM and camera as the RAZR X2, the main internal upgrade here seems to be the battery. At 2,500mAh, you'll basically only ever have to charge it once. Just kidding, but that's a lot of battery.

So what's Motorola's strategy for setting its high-end RAZR Maxx HD apart? Give it an *even bigger* battery! Seriously though, it has the same processor, display, and camera as the RAZR HD. It doubles storage again, this time to 32GB+, but the RAZR Maxx HD's main selling point seems to be its 3,300mAh battery - the biggest in the business. Motorola could have run a quad-core processor on it, but they've opted for efficiency instead, promising a whopping 16 hours of talk time. If the only reason you've been going to sleep at night is to let your phone recharge, the RAZR Maxx HD is for you.

In all seriousness, the new RAZRs all look like totally decent phones; we're just disappointed to see a phone company owned by Google caught in a six month catch-up cycle with Samsung. We may even prefer the new RAZRs' kevlar framing and minimal bezels to the sort-of-ugly Galaxy S III, but the omission of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean at launch is just baffling, even if it is promised for all three phones within 2012.

With the Galaxy S III still selling strong and new smartphones from Nokia and Apple imminent, are immortal batteries really a selling point? Let us know in the comments.

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Square Reveals Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Collection

Final Fantasy’s 25th anniversary celebration is in full effect over in Japan, and a rather interesting tidbit was revealed leading up to the main event. Andriasang reports that Square Enix will be releasing something called the Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Ultimate Box, which includes the 13 core Final Fantasy games in one handy compilation.

The games in the collection include the following:

• Final Fantasy (PSone)
• Final Fantasy II (PSone)
• Final Fantasy III (PSP)
• Final Fantasy IV (PSone)
• Final Fantasy V (PSone)
• Final Fantasy VI (PSone)
• Final Fantasy VII (PSone)
• Final Fantasy VIII (PSone)
• Final Fantasy IX (PSone)
• Final Fantasy X (PS2)
• Final Fantasy XI (PS2)
• Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
• Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)

It was initially unclear if Square Enix would actually be releasing PSone discs (and PSP UMDs) along with PS2 and PS3 discs, but according to its listing on Square Enix’s website, it appears that is the case. All told, the collection will contain 21 discs (18 PSone, 3 PS2, 1 PS3) and a single UMD.

It will also include a “special anniversary video disc,” a soundtrack spanning two discs and more.

The collection reportedly costs ¥35,000, or $447. It comes out in Japan on September 30th. Whether or not it will be released anywhere else remains to be seen.

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.

Source : ign[dot]com

IGN UK Podcast #151: Metal Gear Me

New Metal Gear Solid! New Metal Gear Solid! Listen all about it.

On this week's podcast we talk about all the news that came out of the exciting 25th Anniversary event held by Konami this week, from Ground Zeroes to the movie adaptation to, erm, the social game.

On this week's podcast, we also get round to talking about:

Layton's last hurrah

Kratos takes on the big screen

Joss Whedon's brand new S.H.I.E.L.D.

If you want to catch up with the Metal Gear news ahead of this week's podcast, watch Luke in the video below being all informative (and Welsh):

IGN UK Podcast #151: Metal Gear Me - 53.1 MB
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Remember, if you've got something to say to the IGN UK team, grab us on Twitter page, our Facebook page, or via email at ignukfeedback@ign.com.

Source : ign[dot]com

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes Unveiled

It seems the Metal Gear game fans have been waiting for has been finally announced at Konami's Metal Gear 25th Anniversary event: Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes.

Moments after attendees began to report on Twitter that they had just seen something they were not permitted to post about, several guests at the event begun posting references to the new game on Twitter. Many of these posts were hastily deleted within minutes, but according to attendees Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes is an open-world game and was reportedly demoed on current-gen PC.

The game is running on the new FOX Engine and has left attendees amazed.

It is not known when Konami will reveal the Ground Zeroes to the rest of the world.

Earlier this week, during the latest Kojima Productions podcast, Kojima Productions' Chris Johns claimed announcements made at the Metal Gear 25th Anniversary event would "shake" the industry.

Source : ign[dot]com

Metal Gear Solid Social Ops for Smartphones Revealed

A new Metal Gear title for smartphones has been announced at Konami's Metal Gear 25th Anniversary event this evening.

Social Ops for GREE, a leading mobile social gaming network worldwide, is being built with the Unity Engine and is fully 3D.

GREE CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka was on hand to announce the game himself and confirmed a worldwide release, as reported by andriasang.com.

It's due in fall/winter in Japan and will playable at this year's Tokyo Game Show.

Source : ign[dot]com

Metal Gear Movie Announced

A Metal Gear movie has been announced at Konami's Metal Gear 25th Anniversary event, in association with Columbia Pictures.

Avi Arad (X-Men, Iron Man, The Amazing Spider-Man) will be producing and was on stage at the event.

"For many years I fought to bring comics to theaters - and video games are the comics of today," Arad said.

There are no further details at this point.

2012 marks the 25th Anniversary of the Metal Gear series; the 'Tactical Espionage Action' series was first launched on MSX back in 1987.

Source : ign[dot]com

League of Legends Finalists Disqualified in Pro Circuit Conspiracy

The first and second place teams in MLG's Summer Championship League of Legends Event have been disqualified. A "collusion" between Team Dignitas and Curse NA has been led to a violation of the Major League Gaming Pro Conduct rules. As such, neither team will be awarded Circuit points, and the third and fourth place teams will earn the first and second place points and prize money, respectively.

Neither team denies the allegations or is fighting against the ruling. In fact, according to MLG's website, "Both teams have agreed that the disqualification was warranted," although the specifics of the pro gaming conspiracy remain unknown.

Developer Riot Games recently created its own league for professional League of Legends play, and is in agreement regarding the collusion decision.

Mitch Dyer is an Associate Editor for IGN's Xbox 360 team. He’s also quite Canadian. Read his ramblings on Twitter and follow him on IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

GaymerCon: The First LGBT Gaming Convention

GaymerCon, the first convention focused on LGBT geek culture, will debut on August 3rd, 2013. The event will take place in San Francisco, CA, and will celebrate under-represented groups in the gaming realm while also illuminating the presence of alternative sexualities both inside and outside the digital space.

"The goal of GaymerCon is to create a space where geek identified LGBT people can come together and build community," says GaymerCon Director of PR Benjamin Williams. GaymerCon Director Matt Conn also comments: "Historically, there has been very little content with LGBT themes or options in video games and other geek media. We hope to show the world that this audience not only exists, but is flourishing."

The organizers of GaymerCon are currently seeking funding through a Kickstarter campaign. The current goal, $25,000, will help the organizers secure a venue in San Francisco as well as produce more programming for the convention. At the time this article was written, an impressive $8,695 has already been raised with a full 29 days remaining.

Gamers interested in attending GaymerCon can contribute $30 to the Kickstarter campaign to reserve a two-day pass to the event, which will save attendees 5 to 10 dollars off the presale/door price. And according to the campaign home page, the organizers will "...turn you into a robot or something" with a $700 pledge!

Ryan Clements writes for IGN. He encourages readers to keep it clean and classy in the comments section below, lest he turn into a robot and reign terrible destruction down upon the trolls. Also, follow him on IGN or on Twitter!

Source : ign[dot]com