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We already know Mass Effect: Andromeda should've been delayed to fix the weird facial animations, but it looks like BioWare's artists might not even be directly responsible for the game's most mocked feature. Reports indicate BioWare outsourced all human most of the alien character models to other EA branches.

Anonymous BioWare devs who worked on Mass Effect: Andromeda told YouTuber Liam Robertson:

This makes sense. Remember that BioWare completely answers to EA now, and they're owned by the publisher. EA has consolidated all of its talent into a big pool, and most of its future games will not only keep to the same action-based focus, but also use the same engine: DICE's Frostbite engine. This means key portions of a game will be dissected and handed off two different parts of EA, and BioWare may not have full control over the project.

Yes we've been picking on Mass Effect: Andromeda a bit lately, but on the Mass Effect Reddit I came across an interesting tidbit that genuinely serves as a cautionary tale about hype. And this one is pretty ironic.

Back in 2016, BioWare's Mac Walters told OXM that the animations are at an "all time high" for the company as a whole. "The quality of the character animations is at an all-time high for us, and that's great because it means expressiveness, emotion and a connection with the player," Walters said.

Fast forward to the final release of the game with its terrifying, often wacky and freakish facial animations, this quote seems entirely ridiculous. And I'm not innocent in spreading hype for this game--I've written tons of articles talking about how impressive it looks and how excited I am for it. But all of that content seems to be written about a different game, the vision that BioWare had versus the janky game they shipped.

In a perfect world, consoles would be upgradeable and new games could come out with better graphics and higher resolution support, and you'd just upgrade your Xbox or PlayStation console - but no, the world we live in today isn't like that.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has now come out saying that you won't be upgrading your Xbox any time soon, including Microsoft's next-gen Project Scorpio console. On Twitter, Spencer said that upgradeable components for consoles were "a stretch". He said: "The idea that users will open up a console and change compute components inside seems like a stretch to me".

Spencer continued: "Am I going to break open my console and start upgrading individual pieces of my console? That's not our plan. There is something special about what happens with a console. You buy an appliance-like device; you plug it into your TV; it works when you plug it in. It's not like I'm going to ship a screwdriver set with every console that comes out".

The Total War franchise has been a big one on the PC over the years, with Total War: Warhammer released in May 2016, but now Sega Europe has announced its sequel - Total War: Warhammer II, and that it'll be here before the end of the year.

Creative Assembly are back in the developer chair for Total War: Warhammer II, with four new continents to battle on: Ulthuan, Naggaroth, The Southlands and Lustria. CA teases that Total War: Warhammer II will be so big, the map covers the entire geographical areas of the first two games.

Total War: Warhammer II will give gamers the ability of playing four new races (High Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen, and another race that CA and Sega haven't revealed just yet), with each of them including their own unique campaign mechanics, and armies of Legendary Lords, Heroes, monsters, troops, and siege weapons. CA will also push out a post-launch update that will let people play through any campaign as any owned, or playable race from the first game in the Total War series.

Apple is shifting into the content business in a big way with teases that it will acquire Disney, which owns Pixar, LucasArts, and Marvel - their collective properties worth tens of billions of dollars. Now the company is reportedly looking at offering a premium TV service that would include HBO, Showtime, and Starz for a single monthly price.

If you were to subscribe to each of those premium TV channels, it would cost $35 per month, but according to Redcode, Apple is wanting to make it more convenient by offering the bundle as a standalone product. Instead of bunch of separate apps, Apple would offer the premium TV channels in a new app - with the power of having shows like Game of Thrones and Homeland on its side.

There haven't been any external comments from the premium TV side, or Apple, but with the previous rumors of the Disney acquisition - the race towards being a content king is something Apple has its sights set on.

ARK: Survival Evolved has been updated with a massive list of changes and tweaks, with the new v256 patch including vacuum-sealed underwater bases, aquatic creature breeding, TEK teleporter pads and wireless generators, and four new powerful creatures.

Studio Wildcard has also made some big changes to the menu of ARK, with the Inventory UI being completely revamped - making it easier to work with your inventory in ARK. Lead Designer, Lead Programmer, and co-founder of Studio Wildcard, Jeremy Stieglitz, explains: "The new ARK Inventory UI is a total redesign of the game's former clunky interface! This visual and functional overhaul brings right-click context menus and better organization for remote inventories. It's a significant step on the road of preparing ARK for its home stretch of Early Access!".

ARK: Survival Evolved v256 patch includes:

It's a successful franchise that he kicked off back in 2010, but it looks as if Sylvester Stallone has parted ways with the crew of 'The Expendables'.

According to a Deadline Hollywood report, Stallone has decided to step back from the fourth instalment in the franchise, after a series of fundamental disagreements with studio head Avi Lerner which apparently revolved the choice of director, the script and even the visual effects house. When asked for comment, Lerner confirmed that discussions with the action star were tense, but he hasn't given up hope, saying "We've got disagreements with Sly, but we've had them for over a year and a half. Right now, each one has an opinion. We agreed on 95% of things, but there are certain things in production we don't agree on. I don't think it's over, but write whatever you want. In my opinion, it's not dead."

'The Expendables' franchise has been a lucrative one for Lionsgate, which has gone on to gross over $800 million at the worldwide box office. The 2012 follow up is the most successful to date, grossing $315 million on a $100 million budget.

Fans of Adult Swim's 'Rick and Morty' have been patiently awaiting the return of the mad-cap adventure series for almost a year and a half, but yesterday the network released the first episode as the best April Fools joke of them all.

Originally planned to hit screens last last year, the premiere episode of the third season of 'Rick and Morty' kicked off on Adult Swim's website yesterday, to the surprise of fans everywhere. While the website no longer hosts the 22 minute episode (and some countries such as Australia were geo-blocked out), it doesn't require much effort to find it. 'The Rickshank Rickdemption' has already been hailed by fans as one of the best 'Rick and Morty' episodes yet.

The remaining thirteen episodes of 'Rick and Morty' season three are scheduled to be released mid this year.

AORUS impressed us recently with their GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition graphics card, but now the tweaked GTX 1080 11Gbps Xtreme Edition is on the way, with its 8GB of GDDR5X clocked up to 11Gbps - up from the stock 10Gbps.

It should be absolutely identical in other specs, with the same GPU clock speeds, the same overall design, display output configuration, and the nifty GPU backplate all haven't received any changes. This is effectively the AORUS GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition, with its 8GB of GDDR5X clocked at 1Gbps faster, to 11Gbps.

After laying dormant for eight years since the release of 'The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor', Universal Studios has opened up the sarcophagus of the franchise for a new big budget reboot starring Tom Cruise and Sofia Boutella. Today the studio has released the first full theatrical trailer for the film.

The 'Mummy' reboot is being built from the ground up to launch a cinematic universe of the studio's classic horror icons, which will ultimately include The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man and vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing. As the kick-starter for a new multiverse, there's quite a bit of expectation on its shoulders for first time director Alex Kurtzman, but if this footage is anything to go by it could be a fun ride indeed.

'The Mummy' is set to scare cinemagoers in 2D, 3D and IMAX cinemas worldwide from June 9, 2017.

To celebrate this week's release of 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' on Blu-ray 3D, 2D DVD and digital, we have five Blu-ray prize packs to give away thanks to our friends at Walt Disney Home Entertainment.

A rebellion built on hope. From Lucasfilm comes the first of the Star Wars standalone films, 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story', an all-new epic adventure. In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire's ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.

To go into the running to win a copy of the film on Blu-ray and a Darth Vader POP! Vinyl, simply correctly answer the following question:

It's no secret that Mass Effect: Andromeda's faces are pretty bad. The internet has mocked it for weeks now, and for good reason: the faces are quite bizarre, inhuman and genuinely creepy at times. In an effort to gauge just how bad the faces are, we compare the game's faces to three other juggernaut titles. The results aren't too pretty.

We selected three games with dialog-heavy animations to test against Mass Effect: Andromeda: Horizon: Zero Dawn (yes, this one was a bit unfair, but we had to judge Andromeda against a high-caliber game just to see what would happen), Dragon Age: Inquisition (runs on the same Frostbite 3 engine as Mass Effect: Andromeda, but wasn't developed by BioWare: Montreal) and the original Mass Effect (the game has aged particularly well even on consoles).

The results just confirm what we already knew: Mass Effect: Andromeda should've been delayed. We'll have a video review up on our channel shortly that digs into the frustrations and truly bizarre decisions BioWare made with this new Mass Effect game.

Microsoft will unveil its "monster" 4K-ready Project Scorpio console sometime next week, according to reports, and we won't get vague PR speak like I expected. Microsoft is gearing up to drop tons of info on its mighty new system and trigger a "deluge" of coverage.

Microsoft usually has a problem conveying key information about its products, and wiggles around in vague PR-speak terms like "True 4K." But Project Scorpio should be different, and rightly so: considering it's the world's first enthusiast-grade games console gamers need in-depth specs.

According to Windows Centrals' Jez Corden, Microsoft will deliver actual specifications and showcase the system's raw 4K power with first-party games like Forza Horizon 7.

ASUS has just unveiled its new top-of-the-line ROG Poseidon GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, which features a hybrid cooler that can run on its own with its dual-fan cooler, but you can plug it into your existing water loop and run it under water.

ASUS says that the new ROG Poseidon GeForce GTX 1080 Ti will run hotter than the GTX 1080 Ti Strix, but once it's under water, the temperatures will come down considerably.

We should expect 75C or so with the dual-fan cooler, which is around 5-10C hotter than current custom GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards.

NVIDIA's super-fast GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is ripping up gaming desktops, but what about gaming laptops? It looks like NVIDIA is working on bringing its GTX 1080 Ti to laptops, something the company never usually does.

According to a post on NotebookReview's forums teases that NVIDIA is working on a new SKU based on the MXM form factor, which is much faster than the GTX 1080. The screenshot shows that this purported GTX 1080 Ti rocks 11GB of GDDR5X memory on the 352-bit memory bus, and since there's only the GP102 that rocks 11GB of RAM, it looks like this is the GTX 1080 Ti.

The GPU-Z screenshot shows that it is the full GTX 1080 Ti, with 3584 CUDA cores - but the GPU-Z screenshot is displaying the wrong TMU and ROP numbers.

Update: Nintendo actually IS making a new Metroid game for Nintendo Switch! It's called Metroid Prime 4 (working title), and it's a first-person adventure game.

Breaking:Nintendo today announced Metroid: Dark Star, a new first-person shooter in the vein of Metroid Prime that will release exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.

Metroid: Dark Star will be a full high-def 3D FPS built using Unreal Engine 4 and will feature a "dynamic, immersive and action-packed sci-fi story" for solo play.

With buzzwords like "True 4K", promises of native 4K gaming, and reports of 4K 60FPS thrown around, Microsoft's new "monster" Project Scorpio can be a bit confusing. But in reality it's not that much different than the PS4 Pro in terms of functionality...just a lot more powerful.

Project Scorpio is Microsoft's way of blurring the line between consoles and PCs by making the world's first real enthusiast-grade system. While Project Scorpio's specs are impressive, with the box housing a custom AMD SoC with a 6 TFLOP GPU and an 8-core CPU likely built on its new 14nm Polaris/Vega GPU and Zen CPU architectures, the software side is just as important. Thanks to Windows 10's Universal Windows Platform and the beefy specs, Microsoft has an substantial edge in both halves.

Project Scorpio is an iterative console that will play all existing Xbox One games. But just like the PS4 Pro, older Xbox One games will play better on Project Scorpio thanks to dynamic frame rate and resolution upscaling. And even though Project Scorpio is designed for 4K gaming, regular 1080p HDTV owners will still benefit thanks to super-sampled resolution. Here's how it works.

The reveal of Microsoft's "monster" 4K-ready Project Scorpio is fast approaching, and as we said a long time ago, the world's most powerful console doesn't mean anything unless you have games that leverage the hardware to its full extent. Microsoft fully knows this and has selected a lineup games to showcase Project Scorpio's 4K gaming prowess--and two of them are hugely anticipated sequels.

Microsoft will use games like Xbox exclusive Forza 7, Rockstar's upcoming Red Dead Redemption 2, and EA's latest Battlefront 2 to demonstrate Project Scorpio's "True 4K" gaming performance, according to reports from Windows Central.

Monolith's new impressive-looking Shadow of War is also poised to fully tap the console's high-end 6 TFLOP console GPU and 8-core CPU.

NVIDIA had the crown for a couple of weeks with its impressively fast GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, but it looks like AMD is coming out of thin air with a monster graphics card in their new Radeon RX Vega - thanks to newly leaked docs.

AMD will be offering Radeon RX Vega in three forms: 4GB HBM2, 8GB HBM2, and 16GB of HBM2 - with AMD promising that 4GB of HBM2 will outperform 11GB of GDDR5X - the VRAM found on the GTX 1080 Ti.

Vega has a brain and a soul - with 2x the performance per clock, and 4x the performance per watt of its previous-gen GPU architecture.

AMD is already offering performance improvements on its new Ryzen 7 1800X processor for games like Ashes of the Singularity and DOTA 2 - but there are some big surprises coming soon with a new AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA) point release 1.0.0.4 to motherboard partners.

The new AGESA-powered BIOS pushed out in April will offer some great improvements, including:

Better yet, that super cool guy Robert Hallock from AMD teased that this is just the beginning of Ryzen improvements - as there'll be an update in May that will push for better overclocking of DDR4 RAM on Ryzen motherboards.