In order to understand today's picks, a quick news wrap up is required. First of all, apparently Ride 4 running on PS5 in first-person mode is sheer, photo-realistic terror. Also, Hot Wheels Unleashed is out and has proven to be quite a sleeper hit arcade racing experience (9/10 review here). I've tracked down the best prices for both of those, along with a bunch of eyebrow-raising peripherals deals. They're all waiting below!
With no alarms and no surprises, EA Sports has pumped out yet another incremental update to its football simulation series. FIFA 22’s graphical upgrades and new animation technology make the beautiful game feel better, with goals demanding a more deliberate and rewarding playstyle. Tiny tweaks also improve FIFA 22’s Career Mode and Volta Football ahead of a proper revamp. However, aside from those minor but largely positive changes, this is the same game in a new pair of pants – which means its microtransactions are just as eager as ever to get you to turn your pockets inside out.
David Beckham has ordered pancakes on a Parisian balcony. As the server slaps the plate down in front of him, you can see the individual blueberries jostle. The camera then pans down a floor, past rippling flags and flowerbeds to reveal you, the protagonist of FIFA 22, having a cheeky lie-in. Don’t worry; EA Sports hasn’t transformed its beloved football series into a JRPG (that would be far too interesting) but it’s just put together an absurdly lavish opening to try and convince all of us that this is the next generation of virtual football. Some of that Ultimate Team cash has to go somewhere right? Having made the leap to a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X for this year’s game, I quickly noticed the aesthetic facelift.
It’s mostly little things that stick out, like the way a football shirt catches a player’s skin or the forehead sheen of a busy winger. At the same time, there’s still a very evident gulf in consistency between character models; the world’s most popular footballers are rendered in remarkable detail, sporting bouncy hair and expressive features while managers, on the other hand, look like they’ve all had dodgy head transplants onto the same stock body. With action both on and off the pitch looking better than ever, FIFA 22 can often be an intoxicating atmosphere to take in then, but these are all surface-level improvements.
HyperMotion may sound like brain-numbing marketing jargon, but it actually results in tangible improvements on the pitch.
If you’re a perennial FIFA player, you’ll know that graphical bumps are nice-to-haves, but gameplay is king. This is where FIFA 22 has made some meaningful progression. Most of the improvements this year can be attributed to “HyperMotion,” a new motion-capture technology that EA is leveraging to make FIFA 22 feel more fluid on new-gen consoles by adding over 4,000 new animations harvested from real-life matches. This may sound like brain-numbing marketing jargon, but it actually results in tangible improvements on the pitch.
A forward’s legs will buckle from the momentum after they ping a shot in the top corner from outside of the box. Midfielders will react naturally to the blowback from a strong pass, and wingers with high dribbling stats feel more flexible on the break. Players still clatter into each other and fuse into well-paid Cronenberg monsters, making the ball’s trajectory anyone’s guess, but it’s a rare occasion this time around. Collisions seem to have been improved, with opposition AI being dragged up in tandem.
FIFA 22 is a slower game than FIFA 21 as a result, but that doesn’t mean it’s all about defence. There’s not a lack of goals; you just have to earn them with careful passing play and a healthy dose of vision. Patience often seems to trump pace, which is very refreshing. I’ve muttered ‘what a ball’ more than ever this year, most often after spotting one of my wingers in space and switching it with a dreamy late lob across the pitch that leads to a dazzling equaliser.
FIFA 22 is a slower game than FIFA 21 as a result, but that doesn’t mean it’s all about defence.
I’ve always been a big proponent of using both triggers to jockey, intercept a pass, and counter when defending in FIFA, and it feels more important than ever to play deliberately and capitalise on these opportunities in FIFA 22. Players like Jack Grealish and Jadon Sancho are a real challenge to track, with the new explosive sprint mechanic letting them leave you in the dust with a knock-on if you don’t try and read their run. It can get hectic as the opposition closes in on goal, and this is where player switching becomes a bit too frantic as you try to fill all the gaps in your armour and survive an onslaught of Tiki-taka. The new Icon Switch mechanic tries to fix this by letting you click in the right stick and flick to the player you need, but it’s still not as quick as hammering the bumper, so it’s hard to justify and ends up feeling redundant when the timing is tight.
Because of these changes, I rarely end up in goalless draws in FIFA 22, though I have also let in some absolute howlers. Goalkeepers' fingers aren’t as buttery as last year, but even top dogs like Alisson can fumble under pressure and leave you scratching your head. It’s much harder to get past them in basic one-on-ones, but a quick fake shot or a long cross across the box seems to give them an existential crisis. Finesse shots from range also feel particularly deadly, with statistical all-rounders curling them in like it’s nothing.
Goalkeepers' fingers aren’t as buttery as last year, but even top dogs like Alisson can fumble under pressure.
My favourite metagame addition to FIFA 22 is the fleshed-out stats screen you can see during and after each match. At a glance, you can see your dribble success rate and pass accuracy, but dig a little deeper, and you’ll find diagrams showing where and how you lost possession, the angles when your shots were blocked, and what your distribution looks like. It’s invaluable information for developing your skills with certain players and teams, even if your expected goals stat can border on depressing in a match that is slipping away from you.
This is all subject to change with post-launch patches, but right now, FIFA 22 feels like a solid blend of offence and defence with a surprising amount of over-the-top play. It’s a brave new world where sweaty pace demons can’t just run riot, and strong strikers are viable. It’s still early days, but I’ve already developed a complex where my hands will start getting clammy if I see Romelu Lukaku or Erling Haaland appear in Division Rivals.
Volta Football, Career Mode and Ultimate Team
Outside of the bread and butter gameplay, several revisions have been made to FIFA’s major modes this year. There’s nothing revolutionary to note, but careful tweaks here and there have made FIFA 22 enjoyable across the board, with the new-gen console’s loading time boosts and graphical upgrades pulling some serious weight.
This is one of the best licensed soundtracks in recent memory.
I played on the PlayStation 5, and the low hum of the DualSense’s haptics is a nice touch that pulls me deeper into the action with the thud of a good through ball or the crunch of a nasty tackle coming through to my palms. Each mode in FIFA 22 is also complemented by one of the best licensed soundtracks in recent memory, featuring earworms from an eclectic mix of artists, including Brockhampton, Sam Fender, and Kero Kero Bonito.
Career Mode is very similar to FIFA 21’s version but with a few new additions, such as the ability to create a club. In this separate mode, you’ll replace an existing team and make your own crest, kit, and stadium, tweaking the board’s expectations to your liking. It’s a neat idea, but in practice I much prefer taking a real club in an exciting direction rather than developing a squad of randomly generated androids, so I quickly put it down.
Player Career Mode now offers RPG-style objectives in each match that you must complete to build a relationship with your manager. Think of it as a visual novel, except you’re trying to romance Steve Bruce into putting you in the starting XI of Newcastle United. This is a lot of fun if you create your own player as it features a massive skill tree, attributes to upgrade, and perks to unlock that help the whole team. You get to feel like you’re building a footballer’s career within an established club, and it can hurt when you don’t live up to your potential. The character building also helps to offset the dull moments when you’ve got no control over the team’s direction at large.
Think of it as a visual novel, except you’re trying to romance Steve Bruce.
However, the Career Mode upgrade that I appreciated most was a simple quality-of-life tweak that lets you bypass Training Days and simulate them at the highest rank you’ve previously achieved, which cuts out a lot of the menu monotony. It was also great to hear Alex Scott pop up to talk about goals across the grounds during Premier League matches. By FIFA standards, the Career Mode package is solid, but there’s a reason why so many people still prefer Football Manager.
Meanwhile, Volta Football edges closer but doesn’t quite commit to being the new FIFA Street game we’re all hoping for. This time there’s no story mode, but it leans further into absurdity with abilities that give you supernatural powers on the pitch, such as lightning pace and deadly shots. The more focused football lets you appreciate the extra animations and visual enhancements. As always, Volta is a handy training ground for figuring out skill moves without the pressure of a full-size pitch.
Bizarrely, Volta’s most interesting new addition is annoyingly only available at the weekends. Volta Arcade has you competing online in Fuzion Frenzy-style party minigames where you can hone some important skills. Tense games of Foot Tennis help with crossing, while Disco Lava has you dribbling carefully to steal squares from your opponents. It feels more worthwhile than repeating skill games and is the perfect chaser after bottling it on a cold, rainy night in Stoke; it’s just baffling that I can’t play these whenever I want.
The online multiplayer is what I am sticking around for.
Over in Ultimate Team, it’s another year of minor revisions on a formula that clearly works very well for EA, even if it delivers waves of Stockholm Syndrome to many players. Some extra stadium customisation options help make your club feel more like home, and the Division Rivals framework has been made more forgiving with checkpoints and seasonal rewards. In the absence of anything new, I’m holding out for a training mode that lets you play skill games with your Ultimate Team to get used to how they play together ahead of matches.
The online multiplayer is what I am sticking around for, though. It’s as palm-wetting and foot-twitching as ever, with the meta still in flux as FIFA 21 players throw off the complacency that 99-rated, end-of-year cards afford. Gone are the days when you would tremble in fear at your opponent’s team before a match, too, as the PlayStation 5’s SSD and a solid internet connection pretty much erase the loading process, so if you blink you’ll miss the screen that displays them.
I’ve forced a few rage quits with my J1 League team centred around ‘King’ Kazuyoshi Miura (a 59-rated Bronze Striker who is 54 years old), so it’s fair to say you can still have a good bit of fun in Ultimate Team without feeding EA’s golden goose. Still, I don’t recommend getting sucked into the billion-dollar money vortex for the sake of a few good cards, and given my track record over previous years, I’ll likely play it for a few months and then drop it because of the growing temptation to dig into my pockets.
You can still have a good bit of fun in Ultimate Team without feeding EA’s golden goose.
For FIFA 22, EA has fully implemented Preview Packs that let you look inside one loot box every day before you buy, but, even so, the microtransactions are still very much front and centre here. EA is not yet brave enough to tame the rampaging elephant in the room, and FIFA 22 suffers for it.
Fans of DC's recent YA graphic novels like Teen Titans: Raven and Teen Titans: Beast Boy have plenty of reason to be excited. Writer Kami Garcia has two new books in the works, including a new Teen Titans story focused on Robin. Or should we say, Robins.
IGN can exclusively reveal the covers to Garcia's next two books. First, check out Teen Titans: Robin, which spotlights more than one of Batman's sidekicks:
Artist Gabriel Picolo is also returning for this new Teen Titans book, making it the fourth collaboration between the duo following Beast Boy, Raven and Beast Boy Loves Raven. This book looks to spotlight original Robin Dick Grayson as well as Bruce Wayne's son, Damian.
Next, Garcia is teaming with artist Isaac Goodhart (Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale) for Constantine: Distorted Illusions. Check out the cover below:
As you can see, Distorted Illusions offers a very different take on the trickster magician. Constantine is both younger and more handsome than he's looked in years. While we initially mistook the two women on the cover for Zatanna and Black Canary, they're actually members of Constantine's punk rock band, Mucus Membrane. In this new take on the Hellblazer mythos, a teenage John Constantine travels to the US, joins the band and begins dabbling in the dark arts.
Look for both books to show up in DC's January 2022 solicitations soon.
IGN recently spoke with Picolo about the appeal of making Beast Boy and Raven a couple and following the example of the Teen Titans animated series. Will the duo show up in Teen TItans: Robins? We'll just have to wait and see.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
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For as much as streaming services love boasting about their record-breaking numbers, it’s still difficult to accurately gauge exactly how well a popular show performs. But today, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has shared a better set of data on the streamer’s top movies and TV shows yet than what the company has provided before.
At Vox Media’s Code Conference, Sarandos shared two slides that highlight two different metrics. One that measures “[Number] of Accounts” tracks the number of users that watched at least two minutes of a show or movie within the first 28 days of release. This is how Netflix has previously shared viewership metrics with the public.
The second chart measures total hours spent watching a show or movie within the first 28 days of release. This is not a metric Netflix has previously revealed to the public or press.
Show and tell from Netflix’s Ted Sarandon, right after dismissing Apple’s Ted Lasso as an “awards-y show” that likely has a small audience: Netflix shows ranked by viewers and viewing hours. pic.twitter.com/8ceTSHqr2c
“We’re trying to be more transparent with talent, with the market,” Variety reports Sarandos telling the crowd at Code Conference.
Based on the different data above you get a few common titles that can be considered Netflix’s biggest hits including Bridgerton, Bird Box, and Extraction. Other top shows include The Witcher, Lupin, Money Heist, and Stranger Things.
These are shows Netflix has touted as some of the most successful on the platform, but the additional data helps contextualize the degrees of their success. The Spanish crime drama has long been known to be a popular international hit for Netflix, but in terms of hours viewed it beats shows like Stranger Things and 13 Reasons Why by considerable margins.
Similarly, Lupin appears to be a proper hit as well, beating Stranger Things by 10 million additional viewership accounts. Both Lupin and Money Heist are foreign-language productions but dominate Netflix’s metrics, putting the company’s aggressive expansion into foreign-language content into more context.
Sarandos reportedly said the South Korean hit Squid Game is on track to “be the most popular Netflix show ever[.]”
These metrics still don’t present the full picture and can be the result of factors beyond popularity. But as far as transparency goes, this data is more than we’ve seen before from Netflix and other streamers like Apple TV+. Hopefully, there's more of this in the future as well.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
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Venom 2, a.k.a. Venom: Let There Be Carnage, finally arrives this week! But for the non-comics fans out there, some may be asking… who exactly is the very red, very scary symbiote bad guy in this movie?
It all started with Spider-Man's black alien costume in the comics, which betrayed him and wound up in the hands of his bitter rival Eddie Brock — who became Venom. But it also spawned an even meaner and deadlier nemesis in the form of Carnage. This bloodthirsty sadist has racked up quite a body count over the years, and even the Avengers have been hard-pressed to bring him to justice.
And now the Woody Harrelson character (also known as Cletus Kasady) is finally getting his due on the big screen. With that in mind, here's everything you need to know about this symbiote psychopath…
Venom 2's Carnage Explained: The Basics
Carnage is basically the closest thing Spider-Man's rogues gallery has to a Joker. Most of Spidey's enemies have some tragic or redeeming qualities. Not Carnage. He's a force of nature who lives to kill, destroy and sow chaos. And he's not particular about the order in which he does so.
Cletus Kasady was already an accomplished criminal and sadist even before gaining superhuman powers. But after spending some time as Eddie Brock's cellmate and gaining a symbiote costume of his own, he's become one of the most proficient killers in the Marvel Universe. He's incredibly strong and very difficult to put down once the blood starts flowing. A mutual hatred of Carnage is about the only thing that can make Spider-Man and Venom put aside their differences and work towards a common goal.
Who Is Stronger – Venom or Carnage? Carnage's Powers and Abilities
Carnage is basically a meaner, stronger version of Venom. His costume is an offshoot of the Venom symbiote, and like Venom, Carnage has access to amped-up versions of Spider-Man's powers, such as boosted strength, agility and speed. Like Venom, Carnage can block out Spider-Man's Spider-Sense, even while he has access to enhanced senses of his own.
However, because Carnage's symbiote gestated on Earth rather than the planet Klyntar, it's stronger and more unstable. Carnage is powerful enough to fight both Spider-Man and Venom to a standstill. He can reshape his symbiote tendrils into various deadly weapons and even launch them as projectiles. The symbiote also grants Kasady a Wolverine-like healing factor, allowing him to survive what seemed like certain death on multiple occasions.
Fortunately, Carnage does have weaknesses. He's not as susceptible to sonic weapons as Venom, but he is even weaker than Venom is when faced with fire. He's also extremely vulnerable to the touch of Anti-Venom, a hero whose entire purpose is to hunt down and destroy symbiote. And in Venom 2, director Andy Serkis says Carnage's powers are somewhat different, including the ability to turn into mist!
Carnage: Origin and Background
Given the breakout popularity of Venom after 1988's Amazing Spider-Man #300, it was only a matter of time before Marvel further exploited the concept. Carnage was the first (and by far the most popular) of several new symbiote villains introduced in the early '90s, with Cletus Kasady making his first appearance as Carnage in 1992's Amazing Spider-Man #360 (created by writer David Michelinie and artists Erik Larsen and Mark Bagley) and quickly became a recurring presence in the franchise.
1993 brought about a massive Spider-Man crossover called "Maximum Carnage," arguably the biggest Marvel storyline ever to revolve around this character. It even inspired a video game of the same name (more on that later). "Maximum Carnage" forced Spider-Man and Venom to join forces with other Marvel heroes like Captain America, Black Cat, and Cloak and Dagger to battle Carnage's alliance of evil.
Carnage remained an active player in the Spider-Man comics throughout the '90s, with several stories featuring the symbiote bonding with characters other than Cletus Kasady. That resulted in some less than beloved hybrid characters like Spider-Carnage and Cosmic Carnage. Eventually, most fans agreed that the villain had become overexposed. Even Marvel seemed to agree, and an early issue of 2004's New Avengers featured Carnage being ripped in half by the Sentry and left to die in Earth's orbit.
But few characters stay dead forever in superhero comics, and Carnage eventually made his comeback in a 2010 miniseries called, appropriately enough, Carnage. That book revealed that both the symbiote and Kasady survived bring torn in half. Carnage and follow-up stories like Carnage USA and Superior Carnage restored the villain to his old status quo and once again made him a force to be reckoned with in the Marvel Universe. Still, that didn't stop Carnage from briefly turning over a new leaf in 2014's Avengers & X-Men: AXIS. There, a villain named Red Onslaught (part Red Skull and part Professor X) inverted the minds of many heroes and villains and rendered Carnage temporarily heroic.
Carnage underwent his most significant overhaul in "Go Down Swinging," the final chapter in writer Dan Slott's decade-long Amazing Spider-Man run. There, the Carnage symbiote bonded with Norman Osborn to form a new villain called the Red Goblin. That alliance didn't last, but Carnage got another boost in 2019's Absolute Carnage, which shows the villain trying to murder everyone on Earth who's ever bonded with a symbiote. He's no longer just Spider-Man and Venom's problem anymore.
Carnage: Beyond the Comics
Carnage has had plenty of room to shine on the small screen. Carnage first appeared in animated form in 1994's Spider-Man: The Animated Series (voiced by Scott Cleverdon) and served as a major antagonist in several episodes. He also played a big role in the spinoff series Spider-Man Unlimited (voiced this time by Michael Donovan).
Carnage missed out on appearing in 2008's Spectacular Spider-Man, though he was slated to show up if the series had lasted longer than two seasons. He did play a recurring role in Marvel's next Spider-Man cartoon, Ultimate Spider-Man (voiced by both Dee Bradley Baker and Fred Tatasciore). That series continued the comic-book trend of having the Carnage symbiote bond with other Marvel characters, resulting in mash-ups like Carnage-Ock and Carnage-Hulk.
Carnage has also enjoyed a healthy video game career dating back to the 1992 Game Boy title The Amazing Spider-Man 2. He was a major boss character in 1994's Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage and its sequel, Spider-Man and Venom: Separation Anxiety, both of which are inspired by the comic book storylines of the same name. Carnage has also appeared in everything from LEGO Marvel Super Heroes to Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions to Marvel Puzzle Quest. The video game adaptation of 2014's Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie even offered a glimpse of what Carnage might have looked like in Sony's rebooted Spider-Man universe (of the time).
For years the villain was rumored to be the main antagonist in Sony's Venom solo movie. At one point that movie was even reportedly titled Venom Carnage. However, Riz Ahmed's character Carlton Drake wound up being the main baddie — as a different symbiote villain called Riot — in the film. Woody Harrelson had a small role as Cletus Kasady in the movie, setting up his transformation into Carnage for the sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, where he will co-star with Tom Hardy.
September 27, 2021: This story has been updated with the latest information about Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
