Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, Niantic’s follow-up to Pokemon Go, is now available on iOS and Android. It’s a dense game; Pokemon Go players will notice a number of parallels to Go’s mechanics, for example. One of the most iconic things about the Harry Potter universe is also the trickiest: wands. In Wizards Unite, you customize your own wand (in the books, the wand “chooses the wizard”). You can choose from wood types, pick a core, change the wand’s flexibility, and then select the length. Having so many choices can be intimidating!

If you’ve read the Harry Potter books or watched the movies, you might have a passing understanding of the series’ wand lore. In short, different materials are suited for different types of magic, like charms or defense (among other things), and witches and wizards have a kind of bond with their wands. While your wand in Wizards Unite doesn’t affect anything in the game, it can still be fun to fully immerse yourself in the role of a witch or wizard. In that spirit, we’ve gathered all the details we can about famous Harry Potter characters’ wands so you can match yours to your favorite witch or wizard.

For the purposes of this feature, we’ve referenced Pottermore for each character’s wand materials and length. Some characters have complete wand information, but for those who don’t, usually the flexibility is missing–so have fun with that one and make it your own! There are also some popular characters whose wands we know nothing about, so we’ve included some of them here for your reference.

Harry Potter: holly wood, phoenix feather core, “reasonably supple” flexibility, 11 inches

Ron Weasley’s first wand: ash wood, unicorn hair core, 12 inches

Ron Weasley’s second wand: willow wood, unicorn hair core, 14 inches

Hermione Granger: vine wood, dragon heartstring core, 10 and 3/4 inches

Rubeus Hagrid: oak wood, 16 inches (broken)

Albus Dumbledore/The Elder Wand: elder wood, Thestral tail hair core [not available in Wizards Unite], 15 inches

Minerva McGonagall: fir wood, dragon heartstring core, “rigid” or “solid” flexibility, nine and a half inches

Luna Lovegood: no data

Neville Longbottom: cherry wood, unicorn hair core, 13 inches

Ginny Weasley: no data

Draco Malfoy: hawthorn wood, unicorn hair core, 10 inches

Voldemort: yew wood, phoenix feather core, 13 and a half inches

Severus Snape: no data

Cedric Diggory: ash wood, unicorn hair core, 12 and 1/4 inches

Cho Chang: no data

Viktor Krum: hornbeam wood, dragon heartstring, “rigid” flexibility, 10 and 1/4 inches

Sirius Black: no data

Remus Lupin: cypress wood, unicorn hair core, “pliant” flexibility, 10 and 1/4 inches

Nymphadora Tonks: no data

Bellatrix Lestrange: walnut wood, dragon heartstring core, 12 and 3/4 inches

Dolores Umbridge: birch wood, dragon heartstring core, 8 inches

Newt Scamander: no data

Lily Potter: willow wood, 10 and 1/4 inches

James Potter: mahogany wood, 11 inches

Garrick Ollivander: Hornbeam wood, dragon heartstring core, “unyielding” or “quite bendy” flexibility, 12 and 3/4 inches

For more on Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, you can find all the important details in our roundup article. We have a guide to battles, fortresses, and Wizarding Challenges, a feature on how to get more Spell Energy, and an explainer on Professions–be sure to check them out!

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/harry-potter-wizards-unite-wand-guide-how-to-make-/1100-6467961/

As any number of women’s magazines will tell you, 80% of women are wearing the wrong bra size. That’s probably because bra shopping is hell on earth and basically impossible unless you invite a total stranger into the fitting room to help measure you properly, but it might also be a result of our society’s complete misunderstanding of what bra sizes even are. If the video game discourse is any indication, most people seem to think bra sizes stop at DD and that anything smaller than “huge badonkers” is in the A-to-B range.

I’m talking, of course, about Tifa Lockhart, who has been accused of having B-cup breasts–as her character model in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake looks different from her extra-busty appearance in the PS1 era–as well as the entire female cast of Mortal Kombat 11, for that matter. Now, these are fictional women who have top-of-the-line physics engines supporting them, so it’s not like they really need the extra support from an $80 Lululemon sports bra. But if we’re going to use bra sizes as shorthand to talk about fake women’s bodies, we’re going to do it right, goddammit.

Lucky for you, I know a thing or two about this. Bra sizes have two main components: the cup size and the band size. The cup size is denoted by letters, like B or DD, and refers to the actual breast part of the bra. The band size is a number based on the size of the person’s ribcage area (right under the actual breasts), and it’s secretly the more important size.

While most people tend to focus on the cup letter, it’s band size that determines cup size. So if you have two people whose actual breasts are exactly the same size, but whose band sizes are different, they’ll wear different cup sizes. A 36DD, for example, is the same as a 34DDD–those two people have the same size breasts, but one has a smaller rib cage, so the cup size scales up a bit. Why does Big Lingerie do this? Because the cup size represents the difference between your band measurement and your breast measurement, with one inch difference being an A, two being a B, and so on. The bigger the difference, the bigger the cup size.

Anyway, back to Tifa. Tifa is a Woman of Small Ribcage, so I’m going to guess and say she’s a 28 band size. If you look at her for even two seconds, you can see that her chest is a lot bigger around than her ribcage. I’d say it’s at least a six- or seven-inch difference, which puts her in the F or G range. Did you know bra sizes go up that far? They sure do!

On top of that, there’s also been some discussion around Remake Tifa’s bra–specifically that she’s wearing a sports bra. Sports bras are generally a bit more constricting in terms of fit, and while some retailers do offer traditional bra sizing options, you’ll often see sports bras sold in dress sizes (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.) or in the small-medium-large metric. Because of the design and further size confusion, sports bras often make chests look “flatter” than they are. In Tifa’s case, however, it looks like she’s wearing a $100-plus designer sports bra that imitates the look of a regular bra. I’d argue the type of bra she’s allegedly wearing has little to no effect on the perceived size of her chest… or how hard she punches the hell out of things.

So while it may be true that Tifa’s chest looks smaller than it used to be (or perhaps how you imagined it), it’s by no means a small chest. Even if you did think she wears a B-cup bra, though, you can still look at her and see that it is not a small chest. Now that you know how bra sizes work, you can go back to the cast of MK 11, too, and observe that they have different bodies and thus fit a variety of bra sizes. And finally, consider that there’s nothing at all wrong with small boobs to begin with.

In conclusion, if you think that video games are being censored because suddenly “every” female character has A- or B-cup boobs, you’re just plain wrong. And if you must complain, you should maybe consider complaining about ribcage size instead.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/we-need-to-talk-about-how-bra-sizes-work/1100-6467977/

After an impressive showing during EA Play at E3 2019, new details about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order have emerged. A Respawn Entertainment developer cites the Metroid series as a prominent influence on how exploration is handled in the upcoming third-person action-adventure game.

Lead level designer Jeff Magers sat down with GameInformer to discuss Jedi: Fallen Order’s exploration. Magers said it’s “an exploration game from the level design perspective, at its core” and that “traversal feels snappy [and] responsive.” But while things like “mixing in [the] wide range of traversal tools [to] make the moment-to-moment feel really good” and “no UI objectives in the world” sound nice, things got interesting when Magers mentioned how Metroid (among other titles like The Legend of Zelda franchise and the Dark Souls games) influenced the hotly-anticipated Star Wars game.

“Metroid absolutely served as an inspiration for us,” Magers told GamerInformer. “What the Metroid-style level design does for us is somewhat [of] a way to give the player guided exploration. A ton of freedom within the world, but at the same time we can deliver really handcrafted moments and really focus on the moment-to-moment.” Magers then described design sensibilities common in Metroidvanias: hidden secrets, backtracking, abilities/weapons that unlock new areas. For Jedi: Fallen Order, “Force powers are lock-and-key mechanisms,” meaning that behind the Force push gate you couldn’t get through earlier, “Maybe there’s a whole other area [or] maybe there’s a little secret.”

Since hidden pathways and secrets to discover abound, Jedi: Fallen Order is not really linear. “We have linear sections of the game,” Magers said. “And each, I’d say 30-minute to one hour section that we call a level… will be somewhat linear, although there [are] different branching options, different choices to make, different secrets to find [and] areas to explore. But when it really opens up is kind of at a macro level. You will be retraversing through these levels that earlier was kind of more of a linear experience… with your new tools and your upgraded hero. It really aligns with kind of the goal of the game, which is to become a Jedi.” It sounds like the Jedi has become the master of Jedivania.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will launch on November 15 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/star-wars-jedi-fallen-orders-exploration-inspired-/1100-6467974/

John Wick films are riveting to watch because of how fluid and precise all of Keanu Reeves‘ moves are. You get a sense that he’s always one step ahead, able to predict the next movements of his foes and adjust accordingly. It’s not always perfect though; John gets battered and bruised when he makes an error, reminding him that death is just a second away should he not maintain a death-dealing rhythm. With Bithell Games’ interpretation of this action franchise, all these pillars of John Wick’s combat are upheld, which is surprising given the turn-based nature of John Wick Hex.

John Wick Hex puts you in control of the titular assassin during his lucrative time as an assassin before any of the films, when John’s skills were at their sharpest. You overlook the action from above, moving John around the linear stages by clicking on points for him to move to. Each action takes up time, represented by a bar on top of the screen that lets you easily see what commands you’ve enacted, and how long they will take to execute down to the second.

Directly underneath this is another timeline for enemy actions, letting you compare how long their moves will take in comparison with yours. While time is paused between your turns, you can cycle through each of your available moves and get an idea of how long it will take to execute in the timelines above. This lets you make the best decision possible for the scenario, calculating your actions so that you can pull off a headshot on an enemy before they get to return fire, or just as quickly duck behind cover before poking out on the other side to return a shot.

Despite being turn-based, John Wick Hex lets you take turns so quickly that it’s easy to string multiple actions together fluidly once you feel more comfortable with the repertoire of offensive actions open to you. It felt great to throw my handgun across a small courtyard to stagger an enemy about to fire at me, then use the afforded time to take down another enemy close by before picking up their handgun and finishing off the previous one. When strung together Hex flows by much faster than you might expect for a strategy game, while still pushing clever decision making to the forefront of its gameplay.

John Wick Hex aims to make you feel like your scripting one of the many action sequences in one of the films. Each small decision you make influences the full symphony of death that John orchestrates, with a feature at the end of each level letting you see your actions unfold in real-time. Bithell Games co-founder, Mike Bithell, explained that they were also careful to ensure this approach made logical sense. Games like XCOM will often introduce randomization in what should be a certain situation, which is one example where Hex makes some changes based on their title character.

“It’s the logic of the fight that when you’re watching as a viewer, you think, yeah, that seems how you would fight, and that’s the driving principle of every choice we’re making is, does this feel like it’s sensible?” explained Bithell. “Like you say, if I’m directly in front of a guy, the chance of me hitting him is 100% every time. Because it is. If I’m John Wick, he would not miss at this range. One of our starting assumptions with the game was that we thought that John Wick never misses. You go back, watch the movie, he totally does, but he misses in places where that feels logical.”

So far Hex feels incredibly faithful to its source material, while also being a tactically satisfying turn-based strategy game too.

Bithell was coy regarding just what story Hex was going to tell, given that it is detached from the trilogy of films out now. But he did say that Lionsgate has given him and his team a lot of freedom to experiment with both their own story and its effect on the series’ mythos, allowing them to tell a tale that Bithell says will be surprising to fans.

John Wick Hex excels so far at making you feel like the ultra-instinctive and clinical assassin that Wick is. It will be crucial to see how its enemy variety and level-design both test your strategies as you become more comfortable with your abilities. But so far Hex feels incredibly faithful to its source material, while also being a tactically satisfying turn-based strategy game too.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/john-wick-hex-is-turn-based-but-that-wont-hold-kea/1100-6467959/