Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Final Review

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For the first time in a few years, it seems like Call of Duty has stopped peeking at other shooters’ homework for inspiration. It’s not to say it hasn’t been successful with taking on trending modes and mechanics, like when Treyarch’s Black Ops 4 ditched the campaign and introduced an amazing battle royale mode. This year, though, Infinity Ward pulls from its own history for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. And as a result, it’s delivered excellent gunplay to pair with an intense and effective campaign and a fantastic weapon customization system in multiplayer. Something it didn’t learn, though, is that even a great arsenal can’t make up for poor map design, especially when there’s such a limited selection available at launch. Missteps in multiplayer and Spec Ops are like suppression fire that keep Modern Warfare from taking the high ground of its classic namesake, but everything else suggests that the series is now heading in a promising direction.

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Netflix's The King Review

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This is a non-spoiler review for David Michôd's The King, which starts streaming Friday, November 1 on Netflix. It's currently playing in limited theatrical release.

The King is a sometimes riveting, sometimes rickety retelling of Shakespeare's Henry V, starring Oscar-nominee Timothée Chalamet as a young reluctant king who's quickly steered into a war with France by a retinue of advisors with questionable loyalties.

Directed by David Michôd (Animal Kingdom, The Rover), and written by Michôd and Chalamet's co-star Joel Edgerton (Black Mass), The King attempts to take what's commonly known about the famous play -- that King Henry (given the common name "Hal" here) was pushed into a war by a self-serving council -- and tether it to larger, modernly relevant themes about power and inherited violence.

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Butters Disappoints in South Park's New Halloween Special

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Like any self-respecting animated sitcom, South Park has a long history of Halloween specials under its belt. Apart from a handful of real classics (“Hell on Earth 2006” comes to mind) and a couple clunkers, these specials tend to fall into the “decent, not great” category. So it is with the show’s latest Halloween episode, the meta-heavy but only intermittently funny “Tegridy Farms Halloween Special.”

The good news is the series hasn’t quite squeezed the last juice out of the fruit that is Tegridy Farms. That ongoing storyline has often threatened to overstay its welcome this season, but at the end of the day it’s hard to argue with the show redoubling its focus on all things Randy. The stupider and more self-absorbed Randy gets, the more the show benefits. It helps that this episode shifts focus to Shelly for a change, allowing her to do more than just show up for 30 seconds a week and yell at her dad. Casting Shelly as a cauldron-brewing saboteur with a marijuana “problem” definitely helps inject new life into Tegridy Farms.

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This Joker Comic Delivers Chilling Psychological Horror

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Even when a comic is technically about the Joker, it's difficult to actually cast the Clown Prince of Crime as the main protagonist. Unlike the Joker movie, DC Comics has always shied away from stories that shed too much light on the character's origin or his manner of thinking. Better this villain's story be expressed in multiple choice. With that in mind, Joker: Hidden Smile is another strong addition to the library of Batman comics that are less about the Joker himself than his effect on those trapped in his orbit.

Killer Smile's premise may sound familiar at first glance. An ambitious psychiatrist thinks they have the key to cracking Joker's mind and curing his unique brand of madness, only to find their patient may be manipulating them instead. But this isn't really a retread of the classic Harley Quinn origin. Killer Smile is much more a psychological horror tale in the vein of Jacob's Ladder and Altered States. It's a comic where Dr. Ben Arnell finds the lines between reality and horrific fantasy blurring.

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Batman Annual #4: One of 2019's Best DC Comics

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"City of Bane" may not be working out as hoped, but that's not the only new Batman content from writer Tom King on tap this month. Batman Annual #4 comes along at the perfect time to give readers a break from the frustrating climax of King's main series. This issue is a perfect showcase of everything that makes the series shine. It's a poignant and beautifully illustrated reflection on why Batman does what he does.

While not directly tied to the events of King's run, Batman Annual #4 is significant in that it comes on the heels of a major twist in Batman #77. Alfred Pennyworth's narration fuels this story, as he narrates a series of strange adventures that make up Batman's day-to-day life. The goal is nothing more or less than to understand what motivates Bruce Wayne and whether he's a man without fear or a man who ignores fear.

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Doctor Sleep Review

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The tragedy of the Torrance family is one of the most beloved horror stories ever told. The Shining is one of Stephen King’s biggest hits and Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation has beguiled viewers for decades. But these two versions of the story have always been seen as very different sides of the same coin, as Kubrick’s film deviates majorly from King’s novel. That’s what made the prospect of adapting Doctor Sleep, King’s 2013 sequel to The Shining, so tricky - how do you stay true to one without betraying the other? It turns out, you get Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Ouija: Origin of Evil), a modern master of ghost stories; combined with a great cast, and a whole heap of cool psychic set-pieces, and it just works. Most of Doctor Sleep delights with the new material it brings to this chapter of Torrance family history - its only real moments of weakness come when overindulging in Kubrick’s vision of the story.

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Amazon Fire TV Cube Review

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Amazon’s second-generation Fire TV Cube (See it on Amazon) looks identical to the original Cube but under the hood it adds a speedier processor, along with support for local Amazon Alexa voice control, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision if your 4K TV supports such AV niceties. It also now includes the YouTube app, a sizable omission from last year’s Cube. Rolling an Echo smart speaker and a Fire TV streaming stick into one streaming box provides hands-free, Alexa-powered ease for controlling your entire home theater setup -- TV, speakers, cable box, and more -- but you still won’t want to lose the included Fire TV remote.

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Arrow Is Trapped in its Mediocre Past

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Warning: this review contains full spoilers for Arrow: Season 8, Episode 3! If you need a refresher on where we left off, here's our review for Season 8, Episode 2.

This week's installment of Arrow further bears out an uncomfortable truth. The episodes in this final season are only going to be as good as the parts of Arrow's checkered past they homage. And with Episode 3 remaining locked in Season 3 territory, this was always going to be a very uphill battle for Ollie and Thea.

The fundamental flaw with "Leap of Faith" is that it never really feels all that necessary to the bigger picture that is Crisis. Sure, it ties up plenty of random loose ends and serves as the swan song for characters like Willa Holland's Thea and Lexa Doig's Talia, but for the most part, it all feels more like obligatory housekeeping than dramatically rich material. Thea already got a perfectly decent sendoff last season. Sure, the show purposely left the Thanatos Guild subplot hanging to be picked up down the road, but it's not a thread that was exactly crying out to be addressed. Certainly not like, say, the unresolved fates of Slade Wilson or Brock Turner.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Multiplayer Review

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Giving the latest Call of Duty effectively the same name as one of the most revered multiplayer shooters of all time is a bold move. Right out of the gate, it creates sky-high expectations that are challenging to actually fulfill. And while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare does look excellent and has some good new and improved features, like the enhanced weapon customization, the disappointing selection of maps encourages bad behavior and it’s missing some things I’d expected to see in a 2019 Call of Duty. I'm having fun with Modern Warfare multiplayer, but it doesn't quite live up to its recent predecessors.

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The Flash Is Finally Back in Fighting Shape

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Warning: this review contains full spoilers for The Flash: Season 6, Episode 4! If you need a refresher on where we left off, here's our review for Season 6, Episode 3.

It's honestly impressive how quickly The Flash has turned itself around in Season 6. It's not as if the series had anywhere to go but up after the past two seasons, but this sudden and dramatic return to form is pretty much the best case scenario. "There Will Be Blood" is a great reminder of how much character drama and family dynamics are the beating heart of the series, not superhero spectacle.

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Moons of Madness Review

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You can tell that a lot of great Lovecraftian games are crafted with love for the 20th century writer’s vision of horror, but Moons of Madness often feels more like an interactive movie than a video game.  And I can’t help but wonder if it could have been more successful if it were. The story is decent though unfocused, but it suffers from the presence of gameplay that’s rarely more than busywork and often left me feeling as cold as the planet it’s set on.

Lovecraft and the cosmic-horror genre have found a comfortable home in video games. The early 20th century Massachusetts writer’s ideas have formed the basis of plenty of them in recent years, including Bloodborne and The Sinking City, but in Moons of Madness, developer Rock Pocket Games takes the ideas of the Ancient Ones in space to its logical endpoint by just putting you on Mars.

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Apple TV's For All Mankind: Premiere Review

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This is a spoiler-free advance review of Apple TV Plus' For All Mankind, starring Joel Kinnaman. The first three episodes of the series will be available to stream on Apple TV Plus on Friday, November 1, with episodes rolling out weekly thereafter. For more from Apple, check out our reviews of Apple TV Plus' See, The Morning Show, and Dickinson premieres.

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Harriet Review

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Marie Buchanon (Janelle Monae) comforts Harriet Tubman (Cynthia Erivo) after she returns to Maryland for her husband John (Zackary Momoh), only to discover he has remarried after her escape to freedom. “What’s a man to a woman touched by God?” Marie points out, a statement that’s appropriate to a woman whose faith guided her in her riskiest journeys. In Harriet, co-written and directed by Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou, Talk to Me), we follow the Underground Railroad’s most famous conductor. Despite its standout performances, the film suffers from a formulaic delivery.

The story begins in 1849 in Bucktown, Maryland, where Araminta “Minty” (née Ross) Tubman is still enslaved while her husband John is a free man. When the son of her owner puts up ads to sell her, she escapes without John. She successfully makes it 100 miles to Philadelphia and meets William Still (Leslie Odom Jr.), an abolitionist who introduces her the Underground Railroad - a network of safehouses and allies to leverage for the journey to free states. Assuming the new free name Harriet, Tubman becomes a conductor for the network, freeing over 70 enslaved people (including her friends and family.)

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Apple TV's Dickinson: Premiere Review

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This is a spoiler-free advance review of Apple TV Plus' Dickinson. The first three episodes of the series will be available to stream on Apple TV Plus on Friday, November 1, with episodes rolling out weekly thereafter. For more from Apple, check out our reviews of Apple TV Plus' See premiere and The Morning Show premiere.

Emily Dickinson is a woman who feels — as more and more biographical information comes out, to say nothing of her magnetic poetry — rife for reconsideration and recontextualization through a modern lens. Though her life may have seemed quite small to many on the surface, reading the way she wrote out her emotions proves hers was a life that was quite expansive and full — her writing feels electric. It’s why, by many standards, Dickinson’s work changed the game in terms of how poetry, emotion, and expression collides into evocative art; it’s no wonder Apple’s new series Dickinson chose to represent that with a more modern tone and visually luscious retelling. Whether it surpasses the sum of its parts is another matter entirely.

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Doraemon Story of Seasons Review

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After an hour-long tutorial, Doraemon Story of Seasons has me running out of battery faster than my Switch. It's been 62 minutes, and I've barely touched a thumbstick. Soon, this licensed farm life spin-off will have me familiarly watering crops, collecting bugs, and rearing livestock in a farming sim that borrows from both Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley. But first, I have to get through the boring part.

Doraemon, one of the best-selling manga in the world, has come together with Marvelous, the original developer behind the Harvest Moon farming series. The crossover is as unusual as it sounds. What do a sleepy 10-year-old and a robot cat from the 22nd century have to do with farming? As it turns out, not much! The characters are lost in an alternate dimension, and the only way they can get home is to befriend the townsfolk. There's just one problem: this town puts its children to work, and I’m not talking about mowing the lawn.

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Excalibur Puts a Fresh Spin on a Familiar X-Men Spinoff

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Note: this is a mostly spoiler-free advance review of Excalibur #1, which releases on Wednesday, October 30.

Another week brings another new addition to Marvel's growing Dawn of X relaunch. This time it's Excalibur up to bat, with writer Tini Howard and artist Marcus To crafting a new take on a familiar X-Men-adjacent franchise. Excalibur #1 isn't quite the home run Marauders #1 was last week, but it does find similar success in terms of offering readers something that's both very different from Jonathan Hickman's work while still feeling like a cohesive addition to the line.

Unlike Marauders, which has basically nothing to do with the original band of mutant killers employed by Mister Sinister, Excalibur does dabble in some of the expected tropes. This series is heavily centered around the Braddock family in general and Psylocke in particular. It's also heavily steeped in the mythology of Camelot and Otherworld and even features Morgan le Fay as a major antagonist. But in other ways, the new series is a major deviation from the norm. Most of the old Excalibur mainstays are ignored in favor of a new team that includes iconic X-Men characters like Gambit, Rogue and Jubilee. And that's to say nothing of the central role played by Apocalypse.

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EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 Super Review and Benchmarks

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Nvidia isn't quite done with its Turing architecture just yet, and is releasing what is likely to be the final graphics cards in its product stack, plugging two holes to complete its lineup. First up is the $229 GTX 1660 Super (See it at Amazon), which sits right between the vanilla 1660 and the Ti version, both in performance and price. In a few weeks the GTX 1650 Super will also release, though, pricing has yet to be announced but it will likely be around $179 or so.

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Deathstroke Fuels a Terrific Titans Episode

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Warning: this review contains full spoilers for Titans: Season 2, Episode 8. If you need a refresher on where we left off, here's our review for Season 2, Episode 7.

It's been a rocky road for Titans in Season 2. As much as the general direction of the series feels like an improvement over the first season, the execution has generally come up short. Mostly, the show's pointlessly large cast of characters and complete lack of narrative focus have worked against what is generally a very faithful (albeit darker) take on the comics. But with "Jericho," Season 2 finally clicks and lives up to its full potential.

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Apple's The Morning Show Premiere Review

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There was a time when a prestige drama about sexual harassment starring Oscar nominee Steve Carell, Golden Globe winner Reese Witherspoon (coming off Big Little Lies, arguably one of the most successful projects of her career), and Jennifer Aniston (in her first leading TV role since Friends) would've been one of the biggest television events of the year. Yet, something about the rollout of AppleTV+ and the current saturation of streaming shows makes it seem like barely anyone is talking about the platform, which launches November 1, and its flagship drama The Morning Show - and after watching the first three episodes, it doesn't seem like they'll be missing much.

Making a show about the #MeToo movement is tough. It has to be nuanced, balanced, and thoughtful, especially since the fight to stop abuse in the workplace is far from over. Sadly, the first three episodes of The Morning Show approach the topic with all the tact of the Newsroom airplane scene when the reporters tell the pilot that Bin Laden is dead and (as you'll know if you saw the episode or just watched the clip) that isn't a compliment. Instead of taking notes from Aaron Sorkin's playbook, The Morning Show would've been better served following the example of HBO's most recent deconstruction of the media industry, Succession, which knows how to tell compelling stories about unrepentantly self-obsessed characters without glorifying their behavior.

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Apple TV+: See - Series Premiere Review

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This is an advanced spoiler-free review of the series premiere of See, starring Jason Momoa. The first three episodes of the series will be available to stream on Apple TV Plus on Friday, November 1, 2019. 

Apple TV+'s entrance into the competitive streaming market already dominated by the likes of Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu is a bold move for any company, even one valued at $1 trillion. Thankfully, the tech giant seems to understand that if it wants to make a splash in the entertainment world, it better go out and get some damn good storytellers to keep subscribers coming back. With See, a new post-apocalyptic series starring Aquaman's Jason Momoa, the streamer chose wisely by enlisting the imaginative mind of Steven Knight (creator of Peaky Blinders) to act as showrunner and writer.

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Luigi's Mansion 3 Review

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I'm looking forward to the new Ghostbusters movie coming in 2020, but I'll be surprised if it's as much fun as Luigi's Mansion 3. The anxiety-riddled brother straps the vacuum pack back on for the first time since 2013’s Dark Moon for 3DS and headlines one of the funniest and most charming Nintendo games on the Switch yet.

Setting aside the nitpicking fact that Luigi and his friends are checking in at a hotel this time rather than an actual mansion, Luigi’s Mansion 3 had me smiling and laughing at its adorable sense of humor right off the bat. From Mario and Luigi’s goofy half-English, half-gibberish conversations to communicating with ghost-sucking vacuum backpack inventor Professor E. Gadd through a Virtual Boy (complete with a red-tinted interface and a joke about how “it’ll sell millions”), among other examples, Luigi’s latest adventure is downright funny.

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OnePlus 7T Review

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OnePlus is one of the most exciting and unpredictable phone manufacturers around. Shortly after releasing their OnePlus 7 Pro, they’re pulling it from shelves and replacing it with the OnePlus 7T (See it at OnePlus)—a model that’s even cheaper and nearly as good by every conceivable metric. It’s a Android phone packed with high-end features, like a 90Hz AMOLED display, triple camera system, an in-display thumbprint scanner that actually works, and a jaw-droppingly low $599 price tag.

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Afterparty Review

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I’ve never beaten him in a fiddle contest, but I’m sure glad I got to challenge Lucifer to a drinking competition in Night School Studio’s second adventure game, Afterparty. The Oxenfree developers’ descent into the underworld retains its formula of 2D exploration with near-constant conversation and Telltale-like dialogue choices while introducing a world of neon-soaked demonic alleyways and dive bars that look... well, like most do on Earth. But inside that over-the-top demonic shell is a deeply human, cuttingly honest, and frequently funny story about two best friends making it through one hell of a night.

Afterparty’s tightly knit cast allows for more personal and affecting storytelling than what we saw in Oxenfree. Milo and Lola have, surprisingly, found themselves in Hell. Believing they’ve wrongly ended up surrounded by fire and brimstone for eternity, the duo ventures off to win a trip back to Earth by beating Satan in a drinking game. Should be easy enough, right?

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The Walking Dead: Negan Becomes Public Enemy Number One Again

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Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...

The paranoia that (rightfully) overtook Carol last week washed over everyone in "Silence the Whisperers," a somewhat plodding chapter, directed by former Walking Dead star Michael Cudlitz, in Season 10's ongoing Whisperer Cold War.

When a different type of natural disaster befalls Hilltop (a tree crashes down through a barracks building, as far as I could tell - the screener I watched was very dark), many start to believe it's Alpha's doing. Much like the waves of walkers that assaulted Alexandria in "Ghosts." Because of this, Lydia becomes even more of a target for the remaining (former) Too Cool Hilltop Teen™, Gage, who we already know is terrrrrible, Highwayman Margo, and...some other dude. Brandon?

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Watchmen: Season 1, Episode 2 Review

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This review contains spoilers for HBO's Watchmen Season 1, episode 2: "Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship."

Last week, HBO’s Watchmen kicked off with "It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice," a politically dense, occasionally jumbled intro to the comic sequel, but one that no doubt piqued curiosities. This week’s entry, "Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship," is a step up from its predecessor. It deepens the mysteries of Episode 1, and its biggest strength is doing so while Regina King commands the screen as Detective Angela Abar.

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Batwoman Finally Shows Signs of Life

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Warning: this review contains full spoilers for Batwoman: Season 1, Episode 4! If you need a refresher on where we left off, here's our review for Season 1, Episode 3.

Just when I was getting ready to write off Batwoman as a lost cause, the series shows new signs of life in Episode 4. If still not where it needs to be, the show makes significant strides in "Who Are You?" and is finally starting to feel like a legitimate piece of the Arrowverse puzzle, rather than a weird, redundant outlier.

Batwoman is still a ways from establishing a clear identity for itself. The series borrows heavily from both the Arrow: Season 1 and Dark Knight playbooks without bringing a great deal new to the table, beyond the flawed sisterly dynamic between Kate and Alice. But if the series is doomed to retread familiar ground, at least it's doing a better job of capturing that early Arrow sensibility. It may be as simple as the fact that we're now in Episode 4. Most new shows tend to flounder in those early few weeks, only really developing a consistent voice and tone around the Episode 4 or 5 mark. Watching "Who Are You?", there's a definite sense the writers are slowly coming to terms with this new setting and cast of characters and getting a better handle on how to balance the various moving parts.

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My Hero Academia: Season 4, Episode 3 Review

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Season 4, episode 3, “Boy Meets…”, begins with a worthwhile bit of narrated exposition from Midoriya, making clear his current goals as a student hero and what has changed for him since facing off against Hero Killer Stain back in Season 2. Deku now has his provisional licence and, with that, can use his quirk in public to assist pro heroes in battle and to avert disasters. This is the next big step in becoming a pro hero’s sidekick. And Midoriya’s work study is under the tutelage of All Might’s former sidekick: Sir Nighteye. Or so he hopes.

Sir Nighteye himself, while very briefly introduced in Episode 2, really shines in Episode 3 from the beginning. The two disparate halves of his persona – the hyperbolic, serious, and scary salaryman on the surface, and the diehard child-like All Might fanboy underneath – fold together to create an incredibly fun and alluring character right off the bat. And the fact that these two sides of him are established within two minutes shows off the strength of writing and characterisation that’s almost always consistent in My Hero Academia. In fact, the characterisation is so solid here that Sir Nighteye can be clearly understood with the sound off. From his office - with one wall of grey shelves and folios and another covered with colourful dedications to All Might - to his bland suit of grey and white, spiced up by a clownish necktie.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - Single-player Review

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After taking a year off in 2018, Call of Duty’s single-player campaign has come roaring back in the revival of the Modern Warfare name. For my money, this is the best campaign the series has seen since 2010’s Black Ops; and if that sounds like a backhanded compliment, I don’t mean it as one. Though it stops short of being as provocative and button-pushing as it seemed poised to be, it is nevertheless an extremely well-designed first-person shooter that refreshes the franchise format just enough with a few cool new ideas and some smart new takes on others we haven’t seen in years.

The plot of Modern Warfare’s rebooted storyline starts out trying to blur the lines between good and bad, but it ends up quickly establishing the good guys as very clearly good. The US team is led by memorably mustachioed fan-favorite Captain John Price, while the sister and brother duo of Farah and Hamir head up an insurgency movement fighting to push Russian forces out of their fictional home country of Urzikstan. That’s right: it’s cool to shoot at Russia again.

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Netflix's Daybreak: Season 1 Review

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This is a mostly spoiler-free review for all 10 episodes of Netflix's Daybreak, which premiered Thursday, October 24.

Daybreak, as a rambunctious comedy-horror series, doesn't always hit the mark, but at its best, you'll find a generous swirl of Buffy, Scott Pilgrim, Zombieland, and other bouncily clever genre super-colliders.

Daybreak is also the latest in a line of notable Netflix offerings involving "teens doing whatever the f*** they want." Whether it's outcasts on the run in The End of the F***ing World or youths trying to govern themselves in The Society, the streaming service seems to love asking, "But what if there were no adults?" This show, loosely based on the comic series by Brian Ralph, takes the concept a few steps further by turning high school into Mad Max... with zombies. All while (mostly successfully) mashing things up with iconic movie touchstones like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Goodfellas, kung-fu films, three-camera sitcoms, and more.

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Google Pixel 4 Review

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Google’s Pixel phones have been steadily improving over the years. Pixel 2 caught up with tall-screened phones while the Pixel 3 cemented Google’s regency over cameras. The latest Pixel 4 (See it at Amazon) is all about grabbing headlines with its new 2x telephoto camera, motion sensing features, and 90Hz adaptive display.

Unfortunately, none of these features are new and almost every one of them hasn’t been implemented in a best-of-class fashion or seemingly for good reason. Additionally, the Pixel 4 misses some of the most important smartphone fundamentals when it comes to battery life, a dim display, and water-proofing. This makes it hard to unequivocally recommend this year’s  Pixel phone, although it continues to offer the best Android OS experience and camera.

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HyperX Alloy Origins Gaming Keyboard Review

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HyperX keeps on showing its strength in the PC gaming peripheral market, with the HyperX Alloy Origins gaming keyboard as the latest example (See it on Amazon). It sports all the RGB flair and mechanical switches you expect from a gaming keyboard, at a modest $109 price. And it introduces HyperX’s custom key switches to boot. At this price, it competes readily with the best budget gaming keyboards around, even if it doesn’t have quite the aggressive budget proposition of something like the $49 G.Skill KM360 or $69 Cooler Master CK530. Here’s what you need to know and what I experienced using the HyperX Alloy Origins.

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Stephen King's Castle Rock: Season 2 Premiere Review

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This is a spoiler-free review of the Castle Rock Season 2 premiere, titled "Let the River Run" that was originally published out of New York Comic Con. The first three episodes are now streaming on Hulu.

Misery never felt quite so good as it does in the Season 2 premiere of Hulu's Castle Rock, which brings Kingverse villainess Annie Wilkes (Masters of Sex star Lizzy Caplan) to the small Maine town when she and her daughter, Joy (portrayed by Eighth Grade's Elsie Fisher), are waylaid after a car accident. Hulu's decision to allow (or compel?) showrunners Dustin Thomason and Sam Shaw to go the anthology route with something "wholly original" for their second outing appears to have paid off. Caplan's Wilkes is a creative fresh coat of paint for the series, and even though the town looks the same outwardly, its narrative inner-workings are already more intriguing than Season 1.

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Mary Jane's First Solo Comic Is Less Than Amazing

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It's not difficult to understand why Marvel might want Mary Jane Watson to have her own solo series right about now, especially with the MCU and Insomniac's Spider-Man game both giving us much more assertive takes on Peter Parker's favorite flame. Whether The Amazing Mary Jane will actually appeal to those hungry for more Mary Jane is another matter. The first issue works as a perfectly entertaining spinoff of the ongoing Amazing Spider-Man series, but it doesn't have a huge amount to offer beyond that.

This series builds on recent MJ-related developments in writer Nick Spencer's work. MJ has reluctantly put her relationship with Peter Parker on pause in order to jump-start her Hollywood career. Little does she know the production she's joined is being run by Mysterio.

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One Piece: Stampede Review

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One Piece: Stampede will play in limited theatrical release in North America on the following dates: Oct 24, 29 & 31 (Subtitled); October 26 & 30 (English Dub) Canada: Oct 25 & Nov 5 (Subtitled); Oct 28 & Nov 8 (English Dub).

“In a deep, lofty darkness, you will find your answer.” This is the only hint left by Gol D. Roger, king of the pirates, after he hides an “invaluable treasure” on the island where the great Pirate Festival, the setting of One Piece: Stampede, takes place. And that’s all the setup we need for a perfect “greatest hits” film which pits the Straw Hat crew and so many of One Piece’s most beloved and fan-favorite heroes and villains (Trafalgar Law, Boa Hancock, Buggy, Eustace Kid, and more) against one another in a thrilling carnival setting as they race to find Gol D. Roger’s treasure.

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Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville Review

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Whether you’re listening to a tiny Acorn yodel as it transforms into a mighty Oak tree or watching a wannabe superhero zombie hold his arms aloft like Superman when he sprints, Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville's roster pops with personality. Its PvE campaigns may be boring and repetitive, and its multiplayer maps can create chaotic clusters of action where it’s hard to work out what’s going on, but that’s easy to forgive after you meet its varied and amusing cast of playable plants and zombies. Their unique abilities fill the full range of playstyles, from snipers to healers, and kept me smiling even if the modes around them never quite hit the same high bar.

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WWE 2K20 Review

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WWE 2K20 is a mess. The pro wrestling series has never been known for its polish, but this year, just about every issue that has plagued WWE 2K is even worse. It’s bursting at the seams with bugs; many of its character models look even uglier than they already did last year; the lighting effects glitch constantly; there are virtually no noteworthy improvements to the actual wrestling, which feels woefully outdated at this point; its biggest new feature, the 2K Originals, is locked behind DLC and isn’t playable at launch; the MyCareer mode retains all of the same problems as last year but with none of the charm; and, perhaps worst of all, the collision detection and targeting is somehow way worse than ever before.

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Amazing Spider-Man Is Looking Better Than Ever

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Marel and DC may not be as aggressive as they once were about locking up big-name creators under exclusivity agreements, but the news that Patrick Gleason has jumped to Marvel after a long tenure at DC was definitely significant. And one need look no farther than The Amazing Spider-Man #32 to see why. This is easily the most visually stunning issue of ASM since Stuart Immonen was still drawing the series. Clearly, Spider-Man and his world can only benefit from having this new artistic weapon in the artillery.

It helps that Gleason makes his debut in a story that caters so directly to his storytelling abilities. Issue #32 kicks off a new storyline featuring the return of Spider-Man 2099 and a new conflict between the present and future. The specifics of that conflict aren't well established, but for now it's enough simply to savor the return of Miguel O'Hara and the futuristic visuals that come along with him.

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MediEvil Review

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It’s downright impressive that, even after more than 20 years, the bulk of MediEvil’s DNA hasn’t lost an ounce of its charm. That’s due in part to the fact that the original hack-and-slash adventure was ahead of the times for 1998 in many ways, and it’s deserving of its cult classic status. A lot of credit, though, has to go to the incredible work developer Other Ocean has done in recreating it for this new, ground-up remake, which stays true to its roots – although to a fault in a lot of ways. MediEvil walks a fine line between reinventing itself and being the same game that people remember from the PS1, and too often places nostalgia over modernizing itself to be palatable for an audience in 2019.

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Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop Review

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Acer's Helios 300 (See it on Amazon) recently underwent a redesign, with the midrange gaming laptop now boasting a metal chassis, new teal color highlights, a 9th generation Intel Core i7 processor, and Nvidia's GTX 1660 Ti.

What makes the GTX 1660 special is its Turing architecture, although it forgoes real-time ray tracing. When Nvidia first announced the 16-series GPUs, the company promised a 1.5x boost in performance and the ability to run Apex Legends or Fortnite at over 100 frames per second. And that's been my exact experience over the past week of testing --Games have run impressively smooth, without any sign of slowing down.

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Arrow's Final Season Has a Sophomore Slump

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Warning: this review contains full spoilers for Arrow: Season 8, Episode 2. If you need a refresher on where we left off, here's our review for the Season 8 premiere.

It was probably inevitable that the second episode of Arrow's final season wouldn't live up to the first. Once you kick off a season by sending Oliver Queen to a parallel universe where he's confronted by his dead loved ones in the flesh, there's nowhere to go but down. Well, I suppose you could follow up with another multiverse crossover involving Michael Keaton's Batman or something, but let's not get too crazy.

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The Flash: Season 6, Episode 3 Review

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Warning: this review contains full spoilers for The Flash: Season 6, Episode 3. If you need a refresher on where we left off, here's our review for Season 6, Episode 2.

The Flash hasn't given viewers much cause to feel optimistic over the past several years, but it really seems as though the series has turned a corner in Season 6. The new year started off pretty well and has only improved from there. "Dead Man Running" seems to cement the new status quo and a new era in which that classic Flash appeal is finally back.

There's been a noticeable shift in the general tone of the series this season. Not necessarily in terms of it being lighter or darker, but simply more confident and consistent. The series is dark when it needs to be dark, but it's also careful to balance out the more dramatic elements with goofier subplots. That's in stark contrast to Seasons 4 and 5, where the humor often felt forced and overdone, as if in self-conscious response to the criticisms of Season 3's Flashpoint/Savitar storyline. Here, The Flash has finally found its sense of balance again.

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Terminator: Dark Fate Review

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The Terminator franchise has always been about trying to maintain hope for humanity’s future in the face of relentless mechanized onslaught (as personified by the titular cyborg assassins). The latest sequel/reboot, Terminator: Dark Fate, embraces that notion as it steers the series into a new direction while both acknowledging and jettisoning many of the hallmark trappings of the franchise so far. It’s an exciting, action-packed and often humorous reset that captures the spirit and pacing of the first two James Cameron entries in a way that none of the recent three films could. It’s the best Terminator film since T2: Judgment Day.

One key reason is that Dark Fate does not place Arnold Schwarzenegger front and center. He shows up later in the film and appears for just the right amount of screen time. Where the first Terminator used him judiciously as the villain and Judgment Day introduced a new version of his T-800 as a heroic protector figure, the Austrian Oak’s shadow loomed large — perhaps too large — over the next three films, even when he was reduced to just a digitally recreated cameo.

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Star Wars: Why Emperor Palpatine's Return Could Backfire

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As much as Lucasfilm is holding back on the plot of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, we know one juicy detail about the final entry in the Skywalker Saga. This sequel will bring back Ian McDiarmid's Emperor Palpatine, as this twisted Sith Lord makes one final attempt at dominating the galaxy. But as much as Palpatine's return raises the stakes for this sequel, we also can't help but be worried. Bringing back the Emperor could wind up doing more harm than good for the franchise.

In many ways, Palpatine's return isn't terribly surprising. As we've explored in the past, it was basically inevitable director J.J. Abrams would revive this ultimate villain, given how much The Force Awakens and his other films trade on a reverent nostalgia for the past. Depending on whom you ask, that nostalgia-fueled approach either helped or hindered The Force Awakens. Plus, considering how much the Star Wars franchise prizes storytelling symmetry, it makes sense that the overarching villain of the first six movies would return for one last hurrah in Episode IX.

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Overwatch Switch Review

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As it’s existed on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC for the past three years, Overwatch is one, if not the singular best game I’ve ever played. The moment-to-moment action, flexibility, and lashings of style in this team-based hero shooter all combine to make it a special experience. On Nintendo Switch, however, that exhilarating gameplay is too often robbed of the true greatness it achieves on other platforms. The perpetrators of this theft are a number of technical and control issues that make the Switch a tough place to play Overwatch. It’s still fun, but if you’re coming from somewhere else it’s hard to get used to.

Overwatch is still one of the most gratifying multiplayer shooters I’ve come across. The flexibility it offers and range of ways to approach each match is what has had me coming back for over 650 hours on PS4. As you can imagine, switching over to another platform after all that time was going to take a little getting used to – and even then, it’s not a great situation.

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Advance Review: Marauders #1

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Note: this is a spoiler-free advance review of Marauders #1, which will hit stores on Wednesday, October 23.

House of X and Powers of X certainly lived up to the massive hype. But anyone very familiar with writer Jonathan Hickman's past Marvel work already knew he would be just what this struggling franchise has needed. The real test for Marvel's Dawn of X relaunch comes as other writers enter the stage and begin building on that foundation. It's one thing for Hickman to come in and shake up the X-Men line. It's another entirely for other creators to catch the baton and run with it. But judging from the first issue of Marauders, fans needn't worry about the future of the franchise. There's plenty of room for everyone to have fun with the new status quo.

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The Outer Worlds Review

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The Outer Worlds is the “you got chocolate in my peanut butter” of RPGs. Obsidian, a developer that’s made sequels to both BioWare’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Bethesda’s Fallout 3, has merged those two distinctive flavors, and they taste great together. I wouldn’t quite call this space-frontier themed adventure the best of both, but it’s a creative and well-made take that’s both familiar and new all at once.

The Outer Worlds takes place in a solar system-wide colony ruled by corporate feudalism and filled with dark humor. Everywhere you look there’s a satirical slogan or crazy-eyed mascot, a worker being treated as hilariously disposable, and oppressive propaganda and policies keeping everybody in line. And, as a big fan of the short-lived sci-fi western show Firefly, I spotted its influences everywhere. From the on-the-nose “Firefly” branding on the energy weapon ammo to the fact that your junky transport’s young naive engineer lady talks pretty much exactly like Kaylee, it’s layered on thick in a way I appreciated. It isn’t hard to picture Captain Malcolm Reynolds reading off some of the more sarcastic dialogue options, either.

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Facebook Watch's Limetown Review

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This is a mostly spoiler-free review of the first two episodes of the Limetown TV show, which are now streaming on Facebook Watch.

From Lore to Homecoming, podcast adaptations are the new trend that Hollywood is keen to capitalize on, the more modern cousin of book-to-film adaptations. The latest TV offering is Facebook Watch’s Limetown, based on an eerie 2015 podcast about an investigative broadcast journalist trying to unravel the mystery behind a research community that disappears without a trace.

Headlined by Jessica Biel and featuring the talents of Stanley Tucci, Kelly Jenrette, Omar Elba, Sherri Saum, and Janet Kidder, it’s a very faithful adaptation of the highly popular podcast. Limetown the show is about as intriguing and terrifying as its source material, but at the end of episode two, the question arises: was a visual adaptation actually necessary?

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Acer Nitro XF252Q Gaming Monitor Review

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In the world of gaming monitors, few brands are better known than Acer. Across its catalog, Acer displays serve every niche; from hardcore esports athletes who demand the bleeding edge of monitor technology to the budget gamer who wants performance without breaking the bank.

For years, if you were part of the latter group, you were forced to sacrifice core features like refresh rate or response time, but no more. With the Nitro XF252Q (See it on Amazon), Acer aims to change that, delivering one of the first HDR-enabled 240Hz panels ever. Up until now the market has been full of very similar 25-inch Full HD displays designed for competitive gaming and Esports with sub-1ms response times being the only notable new feature—which this monitor can also handle.

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Batwoman Remains the Arrowverse's Weak Link

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Warning: this review contains full spoilers for Batwoman: Season 1, Episode 3. If you need a refresher on where we left off, here's our review for Season 1, Episode 2.

Three episodes in, I’ve decided I’m far more in love with the idea of Batwoman than I am the series itself. It’s great seeing Kate Kane take the spotlight on The CW, both because she’s a compelling heroine and because it’s yet another reminder that the Arrowverse is running circles around the MCU and DCEU when it comes to LGBTQ representation. But that doesn’t change the fact that the series continues to fall well short of its potential. Rather than carve a unique niche for Kate Kane in the Arrowverse, this series is content to recycle the same tropes and cliches we’ve seen time and time again.

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The Walking Dead: "Ghosts" Review

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Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...

The Walking Dead rebounded a bit this week with an episode that started as the show's own version of BSG's wildly intense "33," in which waves of walkers descended upon Alexandria, keeping everyone up for 48 hours, and then ended as a meditation on Carol's overall mental state.

And in between, because it was a chapter that bobbed and weaved quite a bit, Negan graduated to full-fledged Alexandria protector (Aaron was the mini-boss he had to reconcile with), Siddiq's anxiety and manifesting trauma began to hinder his work (Dante covered for him, while also revealing his backstory a bit), and Rosita and Eugene had to have "the talk" (about how he still harbored hope for a romance that wasn't going to happen). So, all around, a busy episode.

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