The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out Washed ashore on a remote island with nothing but a knife and my wits to protect me, I was immediately grabbed by Windbound’s opening moments. In this seafaring adventure you must harvest materials and craft tools to keep main character Kara alive as she navigates through a series of procedurally generated archipelagos in her search for the other surviving members of her tribe. Unfortunately, the combination of exhausting survival mechanics and a paper-thin plot meant that neither the voyage nor the destination proved to be worth the time and effort. Windbound takes an intriguing premise and completely blows it. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/31/the-first-17-minutes-of-windbound-gameplay"] A gorgeous painterly aesthetic gives the impression that Windbound could be set somewhere off the coast of Hyrule, but that’s largely where comparisons with The Legend of Zelda end. While it does feature a lead character with an insatiable appetite for smashing pots, Windbound otherwise lacks the dungeons, environmental puzzles, flexible combat, or boss fights typically found in one of Link’s legendary adventures. Instead, Windbound leans hard into a survival-based grind that makes Breath of the Wild’s breakable weapons seem like little more than a minor inconvenience. Before you begin the adventure you’re instructed that the ‘Survivalist’ difficulty setting is ‘the full Windbound experience’, and so that’s exactly what I chose to play it on. Survivalist strips you of most of your inventory and returns you to the beginning each time Kara perishes, and I found those high roguelike stakes made me particularly careful about which beasts to engage with and which craftable objects to prioritise as I made my way from one island to the next. There’s a fairly extensive crafting system at Kara’s disposal, as almost everything in her surroundings - from grass and sticks to animal bones and hides - can be gathered and converted into rudimentary tools like shovels and hammers or enhancements to her boat in order to make sailing speedier. But aside from a basic boat and perhaps a sharpened stick to defend yourself with, none of it feels particularly essential. You can play all the way through Windbound’s story existing on a pacifist’s diet of mushrooms, avoiding all enemies and not making a single modification to your canoe. There aren’t any creatures of significance that force you to strengthen Kara’s combat capabilities in order to overcome them, nor are there particular stormy seas that require extensive boat upgrades to cross. There’s all this crafting to do in Windbound, but no compelling reason to bother with any of it. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=windbound-screenshots&captions=true"] In fact, the most persistent threat in Windbound isn’t the deadly inhabitants of its islands nor the turbulence of its waters; it’s the rumbling of Kara’s stomach. Windbound’s hunger meter constantly nags at you to drop anchor at every landmass you see in order to search for food, a search that can frequently prove futile when the procedurally generated island you manage to land at has no procedurally generated flora or fauna to eat. Worse still, any food you carry with you is often likely to spoil before you need to eat it. Indeed, starvation proved to be the direct cause of the majority of my deaths early in Windbound as I got to grips with its systems. Still, I was otherwise content to play on the Survivalist setting - that is, until midway through the fourth chapter when, with a full bar of health and a recently topped-up hunger meter, I was suddenly killed by a single hit from a shark-like beast that charged my boat in the middle of the ocean; quite literally out of the blue. The next thing I knew I was waking up on the shore at the beginning of the first chapter, some six or seven hours of progress washed away like a sand castle in a rising tide. This abrupt and seemingly unavoidable demise left a salty taste in my mouth that had nothing to do with swallowing too much seawater, and needless to say after that I switched the difficulty to ‘Storyteller’ and kept it there for the remainder of my Windbound playthrough.
Whatever Floats Your Boat
Storyteller mode certainly makes progress easier since enemies are weaker, and if you die you can restart with your full inventory intact at the beginning of your current chapter rather than all the way back at the start. But Windbound’s plot is so scarce, and its objectives so repetitive, that once you’ve stripped away the more challenging survival mechanics and roguelike structure you really aren’t left with a particularly engrossing adventure. Each of the five chapters of Windbound feature three randomly placed but structurally indistinct tower beacons that must be found and activated before you can pass through an exit portal. The story, or what evidence there is of one, is mostly told either through cryptic text that occasionally appears onscreen or via a static mural that is gradually revealed upon the completion of each chapter. That’s it. In story terms there’s no reason to really explore Windbound’s waters since, at least from my time with it, there appears to be no characters to meet or unique structures to uncover. There’s just not enough mystery to lure me into clearing the fog off each of its maps, since invariably the most exciting discoveries to make are merely shrines to increase the limits of your health and stamina bars. Windbound hints at an ocean of possibilities at its outset, but ultimately delivers an adventure with all the depth and excitement of a wading pool. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Windbound%20hints%20at%20an%20ocean%20of%20possibilities%20at%20its%20outset%2C%20but%20ultimately%20delivers%20an%20adventure%20with%20all%20the%20depth%20and%20excitement%20of%20a%20wading%20pool."]In fact, the biggest mystery that confounded me in Windbound was trying to figure out why the developers didn’t include a minimap. I’m totally in favour of eliminating minimaps to make exploration in open-world games more immersive - most recently exemplified by Ghost of Tsushiba - but I honestly feel like that’s a far more practical design choice when you have landmarks to navigate by. In the case of Windbound, the lack of a minimap or even a simple compass meant I was constantly pausing to check the in-menu map as I sailed across huge swathes of empty ocean with nothing on the horizon to orient myself with, which made already lengthy journeys even more sluggish.
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The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out Logitech has just introduced its latest budget gaming mouse with the Logitech G203 LightSync. This is its cheapest option for gamers, and it doesn’t skimp on some higher-end premiums. But, at $39, it doesn’t qualify as dirt cheap, and it runs against some strong competition from the rest of the budget gaming mice out there. Let’s see how it compares. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=logitech-g203-lightsync-gaming-mouse&captions=true"]
Design and Features
The Logitech G203 LightSync is a small, wired mouse. At just 2.45-inches wide and 1.5-inches long, it’s got a small profile akin to the SteelSeries Sensei Ten, and it stays light at 85 grams. That gives it a somewhat insubstantial feel in the hand that some gamers may like for the ease of moving it around, but it’ll be cramped for bigger hands regardless of grip style. The design is fairly basic, with a symmetrical shape and your standard buttons. It’s almost unchanged from the Logitech G203 Prodigy that came before it. You get two well-sized thumb buttons on the left (sorry, left-handed gamers), two detached buttons for the left and right click, as well as a clickable scroll wheel and a DPI cycle button. Each is programmable. The mouse is made out of plastic, most of which has a matte finish, and that’s pretty much it. There’s no extra silicon grip. Logitch does add some style with RGB lighting though. It offers three controlled zones, though it's more like two distinctly lit elements. Essentially, there’s a single band around the back edge of the mouse that contains all three assignable zones blended together, and then the Logitech logo in the middle of the palm also lets the colors shine through. It looks satisfying, but it’s not precise. Using the three zone lighting, whichever color sits in the middle of the strip is affected by the colors on its flank. Trying to go with purple, red, and light blue, the red in the middle became more of a pink. I still find that soft, almost pastel, glow quite engrossing, but users who want exact customization may be disappointed. The G203 LightSync sports a new Logitech sensor that offers a DPI range from 200 up to 8000, giving you plenty of flexibility. It also meets that 1000Hz polling rate so pivotal for gaming mice.
Software
The G203 LightSync is customizable using Logitech’s G Hub software. That will give you custom profiles, with the option to change the DPI, button assignments, polling rate, and lighting. Logitech’s software is fairly comprehensive, but there’s only so much you can customize on this mouse due to its basic features.
Gaming
The Logitech G203 LightSync is no slouch when it comes to gaming, but that’s not to say it’s perfect either. I brought it on two season’s worth of Overwatch competitive placement matches, and considerably more gametime outside of that. The sensor in the G203 LightSync performs admirably. It tracks as consistently as any other mouse I’ve used. From the SteelSeries Rival 350 or Razer Basilisk Ultimate to budget options like this one or the Cooler Master MasterMouse MM520, the kind of sensors found in many gaming mice are proving themselves perfectly dependable. I didn’t struggle to track targets and unload clips as Soldier 76 during my competitive placements, and I never struggled with my frantic flick shots to keep my teammates alive during playtime as Ana. I even got the hang of melting enemies with Zarya while using this mouse. The accuracy never disappointed. But, there were a couple things I didn’t get the hang of. I’ve used some small mice before, such as the SteelSeries Sensei Ten or the Razer Basilisk Ultimate (which I find to be just a bit cramped on the pinky side), but the G203 LightSync has left my hand feeling more cramped than most other mice I’ve reviewed (And I once used this mini mouse for two months of ranked CS:GO play while travelling). The sides of the mouse just don’t give much room to grab on because of their height and contours. Bigger hands will struggle with this mouse. Then there’s the small issue of the buttons. Generally, they have a good feel, not too mushy nor too stiff. But, the tight confines of the top of the mouse made the DPI switch placement troublesome. I found myself in too many firefights where I’d be tapping away frantically while trying to track some air-dancing Genji only for my sensitivity to shift suddenly, and all it takes is one second. Plenty of other mice have a DPI switch in more or less the same spot without this problem arising as often. Many of these problems are something gamers with smaller hands may not struggle so much with, but the fact is there are more mice on the market that offer better ergonomics, similar tracking, and may even go wireless, like the Corsair Harpoon RGB Wireless.
Purchasing Guide
The Logitech G203 LightSync is available on Amazon with an MSRP of $40. It comes in black, white, lilac, or blue.
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Empress Hamam accomplished a lot in her 71 years. Hailing from a meager tribe in what would be modern Sudan (eastern Africa), she restored the organized worship of the ancient Egyptian gods and cemented the rule of a new pharaonic dynasty in the medieval Nile Valley, finally ending centuries of foreign rule. Her passion in life, however, was her 12 children, some of whom would go on to rule in their own right. Raising that many kids is stressful, though, which led her to develop a drinking habit and a taste for elaborate feasts, ultimately ingratiating her in the eyes of her more revelrous subjects even further. This is just one of the countless human stories that emerged organically over more than 100 hours I’ve already spent in Crusader Kings 3. And its marriage of the personal and the political, the grand and the intimate, is nothing short of glorious.
Crusader Kings has always been a series about how individual characters, and their interactions, shape history, and this third installment finds new and intriguing ways to portray that. Like its predecessors, Crusader Kings 3 lets court drama, dynastic feuds, and marriage alliances underpin the more familiar grand strategy game tasks of constructing castles, researching technology, and waging war. A personal slight between two neighboring rulers can plunge the entire region into bloodshed and chaos worthy of a great historical fiction novel, while a well-planned betrothal can forge a mighty alliance and eventually unite kingdoms under one crown. Fundamentally, it’s a game more about people than things – and that focus is what makes it truly special and memorable. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/6-minutes-of-crusader-kings-3-gameplay"]
Paradox Development Studio has deepened and expanded upon most of the key elements that made Crusader Kings 2 work. The stress system, which led our merry matriarch Hamam to find solace in the bottom of a bottle, is emblematic of this. In Crusader Kings 2, characters have personality traits that affect their stats, but they didn’t do much to guide your behavior. In Crusader Kings 3, a cruel character will build up stress if you often offer your enemies mercy, while an honest one will chafe at dark dealings in the shadows. This encouraged me to roleplay the traits of my characters rather than just seeing them as numerical modifiers, or live with the consequences of denying their natural tendencies, which I really enjoyed. Understandably, Crusader Kings 3’s system doesn’t feel as broadly fleshed-out as its predecessor’s, which has had the benefit of seven years and hundreds of dollars’ worth of expansions, but it’s well on its way.
[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Stress%20encouraged%20me%20to%20roleplay%20the%20traits%20of%20my%20characters%20rather%20than%20just%20seeing%20them%20as%20numerical%20modifiers."]Stress never felt like it railroaded me into a specific kind of behavior, though. Accumulating too much leads to a mental break, which offers you the choice of a couple different coping mechanisms you can adopt to deal with the strain of ruling a medieval realm. Whether it’s drinking, fighting, or frequenting the brothels, each of these provides authentic-feeling character development and introduces new opportunities for drama and conflict. Hamam’s love of booze led her to make new friends with other magnates who shared in her favored pastime. But developing a temper could lead to you punching out a priest and upsetting the Pope, which is generally a bad idea in this time period. Of course, due to the in-depth, free-form new religion system, you can always bid farewell to a religious doctrine that no longer suits you. You can create a new heresy of Catholicism that, for instance, exalts cannibalism, believes in reincarnation, and allows only women to become priests. Everything is customizable, from the role of the clergy to views on witchcraft and homosexuality. The possibilities are practically limitless, and allow you to customize your experience and leave your mark on the world in very satisfying ways that were never possible in the previous games.
Master of Whisperers
Medieval dynastic politics would be nothing without a little cloak and dagger, and this is another area where Crusader Kings 3 has gone all out. A new system of secrets and hooks allows you to gain leverage over other characters by, for instance, discovering and threatening to expose an extramarital affair. It feels rewarding and viable to work solely in the shadows, building your base of power through trading favors, manipulating the careless, and assassinating those too inconvenient to your schemes. Most of the same results were achievable in Crusader Kings 2, but the way you get there is so much richer and more hands-on now. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=crusader-kings-3-screenshots&captions=true"] Warfare has some strong new ideas too, well beyond the advantage bar that clearly shows you who’s winning a battle at any given moment (a huge improvement over Crusader Kings 2’s arcane and inaccessible number-crunching). While combat is still fairly simple and hands-off, from a tactical perspective, the ways it can have repercussions after the fact have been greatly broadened and deepened beyond simple success or failure. The addition of Knights gives individual, named warriors a bigger role to play in turning the tide, and more opportunities for personal stories to emerge from the din of clashing steel. What’s more, the risks of bloodshed now include consequences that can be more shattering to a ruler than losing an entire army. A lover serving in your personal guard might sacrifice themselves to save you from a stray arrow. A close but bloody battle, even if you emerge victorious, could end with all of your adult children, your most trusted counselor, and your best friend dead or maimed. The survivors will be left to return to a completely changed political situation and atmosphere at court while possibly sending your current avatar into a depression spiral full of angst and debauchery.
Martial Management
The logistics of conducting a campaign of conquest could still use some work. In an effort to cut down on the micromanagement that bogs down Crusader Kings 2 at times, Crusader Kings 3 has all of your armies arrive at a designated rally point as a single force, rather than raising dozens of small stacks from their home counties and having to merge them together. The problem is it doesn’t always send troops where they’re needed, this often leaves you without the fine control you need to stage your invasion efficiently. Setting up multiple rally points is supposed to split your forces somewhat evenly when you call up the banners, but I’ve never found this to work properly in practice. Usually one rally point would spawn a small contingent of troops, while the entire rest of my army showed up at the other. This is pretty annoying, because having too many troops in one spot will cause you to lose men and supplies to attrition, and in a war with multiple fronts it leaves one or more positions woefully undermanned. The end result is that you end up doing almost as much work micromanaging your soldiers, manually splitting them into smaller contingents and marching them halfway across the realm, as you would have under the old system. [poilib element="poll" parameters="id=5c494444-91df-4f19-ad27-96a5f5b6be19"] This is partly alleviated by the fact that there’s so much to do besides marching armies around, and all of that is done so well. But it’s the one major thing I’d really want to see improved, and I take comfort from the fact that Paradox has a rock-solid history of polishing its games for years after launch. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=This%20is%20easily%20Paradox%E2%80%99s%20best%20looking%20game%20to%20date%2C%20across%20the%20board."]The graphics don’t need any polishing though. This is easily Paradox’s best looking game to date, across the board. I couldn’t have anticipated how much having fully 3D, animated character models would help the world and stories come to life, but it makes an absolutely massive difference over Crusader Kings 2. And it’s more nuanced than you’d probably expect, in that you get to see your characters age gradually year over year in complex and realistic ways, rather than suddenly getting gray and wrinkly at a pre-set age like in the previous installment. On top of that, the new DNA system allows children to be a believable mix of their parents’ features, with the ability to pass on everything from hair color to nose bridge width to ear lobe size. The historically-inspired clothing is a joy to look at, from the roughspun tunics of a Swedish commoner to the elaborate, embellished court dress of the Byzantine Emperor. I do wish there was a little more regional variation – my pharaohs were stuck with fairly generic Arabic-looking outfits, for instance – but that’s something I’d bet strongly on getting more of in updates, mods, and DLC down the line. And the portrait system can even model things like scars from battles, weight gain from too much wine and feasting, athleticism, and the signature buboes of everyone’s favorite plague. Characters have always been the mechanical heart of Crusader Kings, but making them its visual focus in so many new and effective ways elevates everything else substantially.
The map is gorgeous to look at as well, fading seamlessly from an era-appropriate parchment mode at higher zoom levels to highly detailed and striking close-ups of terrain at the lowest ones. It’s very easy when maneuvering to see where features like hills, swamps, and forests start and end without having to rely on the UI, which is a huge boon for tactics and immersion when on a campaign. And using zoom levels instead of discrete map modes that must be toggled on and off (though there are a few of those) allows you to access the information you need much more quickly and intuitively at a moment’s notice. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-best-modern-pc-games-summer-2020-update&captions=true"] The interface is generally clean and well-organized, using a dusky but not depressing color palette that’s easy to look at and feels decidedly medieval without casting a sense of gloom all over everything. Hand-painted backgrounds on events and character pages enhance the atmosphere and sense of place, from a chieftain’s smoky tent on the Eurasian steppe to a Sultan’s elaborate, ostentatious palace grounds. It can get a little busy at times, though, due to the fact that Crusader Kings 3 seemingly wants to avoid overlapping menus as much as possible. If you open the intrigue screen, for instance, it shoves everything that’s normally along the right hand side over to the left instead of covering it up. If you have a lot of menus and notifications going on at once, you can be left with what feels like basically a postage stamp of the map left to peer at and it sometimes made me feel very claustrophobic. Too much information at a glance can be a bad thing, so you have to learn to manage it. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Every%20music%20track%20is%20excellent%20and%20effective."]The soundtrack and sound design is also a new high for Paradox Development Studio. Ambient sounds like a bustling market or the clash of swords in battle at the lowest zoom levels are crisp, layered, and effective at reinforcing that sense of place. Every music track is excellent and effective, whether it be a serene and ambient bed of strings or the bombastic, energetic contextual stings that play when you declare war or being a crusade. Even little things like the clicky feedback noises you get from clicking on menu options are great. Subtleties like that can go a long way. [poilib element="poll" parameters="id=01cdf707-d4ff-4070-8847-6033c8cf596e"] All of this is sealed with the slick, regal wax of the new lifestyles system, which takes the ideas of Crusader Kings 2’s best add-on, Way of Life, and expands on it excellently while folding it into the base mechanics. Characters can choose to focus on one of five areas: war, intrigue, learning, diplomacy, and stewardship. Each of these has three distinct and rich sub-focuses within them. Does your scheming duke want to get his way through murder or seduction? Both can accomplish the same goals, but in very different ways. And each is loaded with new events, almost none of which are repeats that those of us who played Crusader Kings 2 to death will recognize. And since so many of them are specific to one focus within one lifestyle, I imagine it’s going to take a very long time to see them all even once. At around 100 hours played, I’m still getting tons of novel events pop up at my court and it feels like I’ve only scratched the surface.
Power and Progression
Lifestyles also come with three talent trees that don’t only give you boring, flat modifiers to your skills, but actually open up entirely new playstyles. A skilled diplomat who is a vassal to a higher ruler, for instance, can unlock the ability to claim the throne of their liege lord even if they have no right to it by blood. Seedy schemers can gain the ability to abduct other characters and take them prisoner, up to and including kings and popes! On top of this, you’ll be accumulating Renown for your whole dynasty, which can unlock bonuses like making everyone in your line longer-lived or more likely to inherit positive genetic traits like Strong and Intelligent. This means that while each new ruler you inhabit might be a fresh start in terms of lifestyle points, you’ll always be accumulating dynastic progress that never goes away. It’s really satisfying, and one of those things I’m now realizing was painfully missing from Crusader Kings 2. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-modern-ign-1010&captions=true"] The new technology system is another great example of improving on this idea of long-term progression. While Crusader Kings 2’s system was full of more of those boring, flat modifiers – a small bonus to prestige here, an increase to the fighting effectiveness of heavy infantry there – almost all of Crusader Kings 3’s historically-inspired innovations give you something new and exciting to play with. It’s how you unlock new succession laws that allow you to consolidate power under one heir, rather than having the kingdom split between all your kids when you die. The latter system makes the early game very chaotic and challenging, and by the time you get rid of it, you feel like you’ve really earned it. It will also unlock new buildings and culture-specific military units and abilities for just about every corner of the map. Mongols get deadly horse archers. Norse longships will allow you to sail along major rivers, not just the open seas. In a tapestry where regional variation is one of the few colors that isn’t as bright, these little touches really help each region in Crusader Kings 3’s feel somewhat new and different.
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This review contains spoilers for Lovecraft Country episode 3, "Holy Ghost." To refresh your memory of where we left off, check out our Lovecraft Country episode 2 review.
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“Honestly, since I've been back I've felt like a ghost. Like something's missing,” Leti tells Atticus in the third episode of Lovecraft Country, in a diner conversation that feels more like a confession. “And I keep grasping at everything, trying to avoid it. The church, my sister...you. Hell, I thought the world was one way and now I find out it isn't. And it terrifies me.”
This week's episode of Lovecraft Country, appropriately titled "Holy Ghost," tackles not only the lingering ghosts of Leti's past, but the metaphorical— and in this case, very literal— specter of redlining, a manifestation of systemic racism dating as far back as Roosevelt’s New Deal, whose effects are inextricably tied with the post-war formation of the American suburbs and whose repercussions continue to haunt Black American homeowners to this day.
Using funds and resources provided to her (presumably) by her estranged late mother’s estate, Leti purchases a large abandoned house on the North Side of Chicago in an attempt at “pioneering,” where Black homeowners purchased homes in predominantly white neighborhoods prior to the Fair Housing Act of 1968 in an appeal for peaceful integration and coexistence. Unfortunately, these efforts were, more often than not, met with a backlash that was anything but peaceful. We learn later that Leti’s purchase was not facilitated by an inheritance from her mother, but by the machinations of Christina Braithwhite, and that the Winthrop House has its own sordid history when it comes to profiting from Black pain. Before we jump too far ahead though, let’s unpack what happened in this week’s episode.
It’s been over a month since George's burial in the wake of the events of what took place in Ardham. Hippolyta, still mourning the loss of her husband, becomes visibly resentful of her nephew Atticus, whose presence serves as not only a living reminder of George’s absence, but a seed of suspicion that both he and his father Montrose are hiding something from her about the circumstances of her husband's murder.
While her screen-time this week is relatively small compared to Atticus, Leti, or even Montrose's, the heartbreaking grace, anger, and sheer emotional weight of Aunjanue Ellis' performance as a grieving widow is remarkable and makes the prospect of her own future stand-alone episode in the vein of this week's focus on Leti all the more exciting. The trio have sworn one another to secrecy regarding the truth of what happened in Ardham, in an attempt to spare Hippolyta the pain of having to confront a new reality which they themselves have scarcely even begun to understand. However, judging by what we've seen of Hippolyta in "Holy Ghost," this deception is destined to be undone soon enough.
Atticus has distanced himself from Leti in the weeks since George’s death, throwing himself into the role of a surrogate caregiver and support structure for his cousin and aunt out of both grief and guilt. In that time, Leti has purchased a home, the aforementioned Winthrop House, in order to provide a place of refuge for Black Chicagoans who need it most. Her best-laid plans and intentions are soon undone, however, as she and her would-be boarders are forced to confront not only the intimidations of her white neighbors, but the malevolent presence of a force that haunts the house.
There's no shortage of superlatives one could use to describe Jurnee Smollett's performance in this episode. Last week I speculated that the show would most likely hit its stride the further it moved out of the immediate orbit of Atticus' personal story and instead focused on the supporting characters around him. The quality of “Holy Ghost” is a testament to that. From smashing in the headlights of her racist neighbors' wailing automobiles with a baseball bat like a scene straight out of Beyonce's Lemonade, to tearfully screaming condemnations in a last-ditch attempt at exorcising a demonic spirit, Smollett's range in this episode is remarkable.
In many respects, "Holy Ghost" feels like both a course correction from last week's "Whitey's on the Moon" and a refinement of the strengths of the series' premiere. There's suspense and gratification, jubilation and heartache, horror and catharsis. The scene of Leti's housewarming party is a perfect reprise of the all-too-rare depiction of Black communal joy we were treated to in Lovecraft Country's first episode, and this week's twist on the series' ongoing narrative, framing the episode as a haunted house story with an ominous intertitle card before counting down the days to its fated gory finale, is such a welcome change of pace that one can only hope the series will continue to experiment and iterate on its formula as the season progresses.
Speaking of gore, the practical effects in this episode are superb. From drooling mutilated giblets and ghastly amputations, the makeup and costume designs for the house's cast of apparitions echo some of the most hellacious forms of eugenic experimentation ever perpetrated throughout modern history. Their appearances especially shine during the episode’s climax where a trio of neighborhood vandals are fiendishly picked off one-by-one by the house’s most horrifying poltergeists.
For such an ostensibly stand-alone episode, “Holy Ghost” deftly weaves several narrative threads across its runtime that are just begging to be elaborated on in future episodes. From Hippolyta’s fateful discovery of a mysterious golden orrery in a secluded room of the Winthrop House, to Ruby’s internalized racism and insecurity in the face of systemic prejudice, to an offhand conversation concerning a certain Southern preacher gaining support for civil rights, "Holy Ghost" offers plenty of tantalizing directions the series could explore both now and in the future.
All of this is to say nothing of one of the episode's most interesting yet understated creative choices: its depiction of religion and faith. Although in past episodes we've seen Leti's estranged relationship with faith, "Holy Ghost" foregrounds that crisis of belief immediately in a poignant opening scene with her sitting in the church pews with a group of parishioners immersed in the rapture of song.
The sound falls away, and we hear a voice speaking to Leti, presumably her late mother's. “Hey Leti, what did you do to make a mark on this world?” the voice rings out throughout the scene. “What mountains did you climb? Which angels gave you their wings? Which skies have you flown? When you reached the heavens, who was there to catch you when you fell?” It's a deeply affecting scene, made even more so when juxtaposed with Leti's later confrontation with the malicious spirits that haunt her home, one that unearths the complicated tangle of trauma and love at the heart of Leti's relationship to both her mother and, by extension, the church in which she grew up.
Throughout her personal arc during “Holy Ghost,” Leti comes into a fuller sense of certainty with herself, confronting the ghosts of her past and her own selfish indiscretions to become a better, stronger person. "I can't live in fear, I won't," Leti tells Atticus during that same fateful conversation at the diner, devising a means to exorcise the evil from her house. "I got to face this new world head-on and stake my claim in it."
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The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out IGN serves a global audience, so with The New Mutants released in select US and international theaters, we are publishing our review from Jim Vejvoda who watched the movie at a drive-in in L.A. Read more on IGN's policy on movie reviews in light of COVID-19 here. IGN strongly encourages anyone considering going to a movie theater during the COVID-19 pandemic to check their local public health and safety guidelines before buying a ticket. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Until its opening weekend, The New Mutants has not been dissimilar to its teen protagonists, an oddball locked away from the world by some big, powerful entity. And as it turns out, like them, it didn’t deserve such ill-treatment. The apparent reason New Mutants sat on a shelf for two years isn’t that it’s unwatchable — surprise, the movie’s fine! — but possibly because two studios didn’t know how to open a strange, small-scale film that didn’t check enough marketing boxes. In other words, it appears neither Fox nor Disney knew how to sell what feels like a Netflix show. That’s essentially what The New Mutants is; it’d be right at home on the streaming service alongside Stranger Things, Umbrella Academy, and Locke & Key. To think turds like The Call of the Wild and Artemis Fowl were actually screened for critics ahead of time -- New Mutants wasn’t, which is never a good sign -- and given proper promotional attention while this admittedly flawed but entertaining flick gets flushed is absurd. And as an X-Men movie, New Mutants is definitely superior to the widely released (and widely panned) X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix. The film’s plot isn’t complicated, so that shouldn’t have been part of the apparent problem selling it. Five mutant teens are locked away at a mysterious facility where they are studied by (evidently the only adult there) Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga). But when new patient Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt) arrives, stranger things (ahem!) start happening, with each young hero facing their literal inner fears. They will have to work together if they’re going to figure out how to stop it. And while none of that is terribly novel, the film remains engaging throughout thanks largely to the fine ensemble cast bringing these sympathetic characters to life, and to the low-stakes but claustrophobic scenario that generates sufficient intrigue and emotional investment. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-new-mutants&captions=true"] Is New Mutants scary enough to be deemed a full-on horror movie? No. Is it melodramatic enough to be a straight-up YA movie? No. Is it bad? No. It’s perfectly watchable, competently made, and actually gets better as it goes along. What starts as just an OK movie ends as a good one. Even the visual effects aren’t that bad, with some by the end involving characters like Anya Taylor-Joy’s Illyana Rasputin (aka Magik) actually being pretty great. (Wolfsbane’s canine form is far better than the CG dog in every scene of The Call of the Wild.) Director/co-writer Josh Boone made a film that’s akin to the first X-Men movie -- which, if you revisit it now, is about as ambitious and expensive-looking as a cable TV series pilot -- but Boone made his film in an era where the scale and stakes of superhero movies are required to be more epic in order to appeal to a mainstream audience. If the first X-Men movie was made now -- with its simplistic train station fight sequence and final showdown where a handful of people scuffle at the Statue of Liberty -- it would likely have suffered the same fate as New Mutants. New Mutants is anchored by its solid cast, led by Blu Hunt as Dani Moonstar (that this is the first comic book movie featuring a Native American lead character and actor shouldn’t be overlooked) and Maisie Williams as Rahne Sinclair (or, as Marvel Comics fans know them, Mirage and Wolfsbane, respectively). The movie develops a romantic relationship between them, and it’s all handled in a very sweet way befitting puppy love (that’s not a Wolfsbane pun!). Both Dani and Rahne -- all five members of the team, actually -- are frightened and have been emotionally scarred by what their powers have wrought and that affects how they view themselves and relate to others. For Dani and Rahne, they have each just found someone who understands and accepts them. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/the-new-mutants-cast-take-the-ultimate-x-men-quiz"] None of the New Mutants like having their powers but they begrudgingly accept them because they see no alternative. Each character is only at this facility because their powers got someone killed, leaving most of them riddled with survivors’ guilt. Of the five, Taylor-Joy’s rebellious and rude Illyana is the most adept with her powers, something the movie puts to great use in the homestretch. Charlie Heaton’s everyman Sam Guthrie probably has the most dangerous abilities but the movie never quite unleashes them, letting Illyana have all the big crowd-pleasing superpower scenes. Ditto Henry Zaga’s cocky Roberto Da Costa who gets a memorable powers-revealing scene but never really gets to show them off in the last act. (Zaga's casting, it should be noted, has been blasted by many, including New Mutants co-creator Bob McLeod, as whitewashing a character who was dark-skinned in the original comics.) There’s one fun section in the second act that’s a riff on a sequence from The Breakfast Club, which Boone has cited as an influence on his film. These John Hughes homages lend the film some coming-of-age movie warmth and splashes of levity. As for the horror aspects, Boone didn’t lie when he said there are shades of Stephen King in the movie, particularly Firestarter. Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer clearly plays a heavy influence as well, specifically the iconic “Hush” episode, with scenes from the show appearing multiple times. But The New Mutants starts with a long period of quiet, familiar set-up, building to a more rewarding and lively second half. The first act is at times sluggish and rote, with exposition aplenty. And while all the cast is solid, the respective accents of Taylor-Joy’s Illyana (Russian) and Heaton’s Sam (a Southern drawl) may prove vexing to some ears. I also could have done without one glaringly on-the-nose music cue, which is when Sam -- who was a coal miner like his daddy -- briefly recounts his past as the country classic “Coal Miner’s Daughter” plays on the radio. We get it! He’s Southern and he mined coal! There are also plenty of moments where you’re left wondering why a particular character doesn’t just use their specific powers to get out of the jam they’re in at that moment. These nagging questions are enough to pull you out of things for a second. [ignvideo width=610 height=374 url=https://ift.tt/34JA3xy] As a movie set within the X-Men universe, The New Mutants contains a handful of nods and Easter eggs that fans of both the movie series and the comics should recognize and appreciate. New Mutants was indeed setting up a whole new direction for the X-franchise before the Disney acquisition of Fox put the kibosh on that. But this movie also works as a standalone film, a stray without a pack to belong to now that the MCU has control of the X-Men. The New Mutants had already gained cult movie status before its eventual release thanks to its storied delays; now that it’s a one-and-done entry in a retired franchise, and a legit good movie, it should earn its place as a midnight movie classic. I saw The New Mutants at a drive-in, which was not only the safest way to see it during the pandemic but might also be the best and most fun way to experience it. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-x-man-ever&captions=true"]
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The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out With the rise of all-in-one liquid cooling units, it’s not uncommon to see prebuilt gaming PCs with water cooling inside. But iBuyPower’s Element CL takes things a step (or three) further, by building a custom, hardline water cooling loop into a plug-and-play system. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=ibuypower-element-cl-plus&captions=true"] There are a few different configurations for the Element CL, with the lowest-end model running about $1,599. We tested the high end Element CL Plus at $2,199, with these specs:
Model: iBuyPower Element CL Plus
Processor: Intel Core i9-10900K
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z490-P
Graphics: MSI RTX 2080 SUPER 8GB VENTUS GP OC
Memory: 32GB DDR4-3200 G.SKILL Trident Z RGB
Cooling: iBuyPower custom CPU and GPU water blocks, fittings, and hardline tubing, with 4 x 120mm ARGB fans and one 360mm radiator
Power Supply: High Power 700 Watt 80 Plus Gold (Model HP1-J700GD-F12S)
OS: Windows 10 Home
Storage: 1TB ADATA SX8200PNP PRO M.2 NVMe SSD
Ports: 2 x USB 3.0, 3.5mm headphone, and 3.5mm microphone on front of case, plus all the rear and internal ports available on the ASUS PRIME Z490-P motherboard
Connectivity: 802.11ac, Bluetooth
Accessories: iBuyPower Gaming Keyboard and Mouse
Dimensions: 460 x 215 x 460mm (18.1”H x 8.5”W x 18.1”D)
Price (as tested): $2,199
The non-Plus version of the Element CL downgrades the CPU to an i7-10700K, the RAM to 16GB, and the GPU to a 2070 Super, with Best Buy offering two similarly-tiered models that use slightly downgraded motherboards and SSDs.
Design and Features
The Element CL lives inside a steel case with tempered glass panels on the side and front, for a crystal-clear look at the badass hardware inside. The front glass panel is a window into iBuyPower’s custom D5-compatible reservoir, which takes up most of the 8x7-inch panel. The hardline tubing leads straight from their blocks to the reservoir with only one bend per tube. This, iBuyPower says, allows for a faster build time to keep costs down, as well as adjustability – so the company can fit different CPUs and GPUs into the system without having to re-bend the tubing. Custom fittings keep a strong grip on the tubing so it can be shipped without as much risk for leaks. It’s a clever design, though it comes with some small sacrifices. For example, iBuyPower is using aluminum blocks instead of copper, which does limit the cooling effectiveness compared to a system you could build yourself (more on this later). The pump was rather quiet unless under full load, though fans were rather loud at their default settings. The BIOS allows you to tweak the fan curve to your preferences, provided you’re willing to sacrifice a bit of cooling potential. I found the fan configuration a bit confusing, though – the pump was plugged into the CPU FAN header and the four fans were connected to a daughter board that split them among two headers – the bottom two radiator fans on one CHA FAN header, the top radiator fan and rear exhaust on another CHA FAN header. This didn’t seem to be listed anywhere in the paperwork I was given, which may lead to some confusion for users that want to adjust the fan curves themselves. From the reservoir, water feeds into a 360mm radiator against the right side panel, with three RGB intake fans attached in a pull configuration. The fans draw fresh air from outside the case through a mesh on the right side panel, heading through a fan filter before blowing through the radiator and into the case. A single 120mm fan at the rear of the case acts as exhaust, for fairly positive air pressure inside the case. Traditionally, positive air pressure means less dust as long as you have filters on the intake fans, though in this case the filter is inside the case, between the side panel and the radiator. This feels like a slightly strange decision, since it does allow dust to get into the case before it reaches the filter. In theory, it should still prevent most dust from making it into the main chamber of the PC, but it is a bit unorthodox, and you will have to remove the side panel for occasional cleaning. There’s also a dust filter along the bottom, preventing dust from getting into the bottom-mounted PSU, and a dust filter along the top vent, where you can mount up to two extra fans if you feel the need. Like most iBuyPower prebuilts, you can swap many of the components yourself, although the CPU and GPU are more limited in their upgradability, since their water blocks are only designed for the specific components offered on Element CL rigs. Most Intel CPUs are available, but graphics are currently limited to only the RTX 2070 Super and 2080 Super. This highlights the main challenge of a system like this: finding the right audience. As much as PC builders may scoff at prebuilt systems, they have a place. I love building PCs, but I know that some people would prefer to be up and gaming without the hassle (I like eating cake, for example, but I don’t love baking). Water cooling, though, does require a tad more maintenance, and simple upgrades like a CPU swap become much more complex when you have to drain the loop and deal with the intricacies of hardline tubing. iBuyPower has made loop maintenance pretty easy, with dedicated fill and drain ports available behind the front panel, but it is one more thing the user will have to think about over the course of the PC's life. If you plan on buying a PC and keeping it as-is for as long as possible, this is a pretty solid way to get hardline water cooling without the work. Just know that it comes with added complexity, and upgrades are a bit more limited than other rigs. The rest of the computer is well-built. Cable management is solid, with most cables routed through the proper holes and excess cables hidden under the power supply shroud with zip ties. The power supply is from a lesser-known brand called High Power, and I can’t speak to this specific model – though the brand has received good-but-not-glowing words from the experts at jonnyGURU.com, which is good enough for me. It isn’t modular, hence the rat’s nest under the shroud, but there are enough free molex and SATA cables to add more peripherals if you want. The case even has two 2.5-inch drive mounts behind the motherboard if you need extra storage. The fans, water blocks, and RAM are all RGB, with controls available through ASUS’ bundled software. They do the typical rainbow breathing out of the box, but as always, RGB’s real power is in setting it to a very specific color to match the rest of your gear, and I was able to dial in the perfect shade of royal blue to match my keyboard. All this comes in a very well-packed box with plenty of soft foam inside and outside the case to prevent damage during shipping, and fittings showed no signs of leakage on my review unit. The Element CL also comes with iBuyPower’s Ares M1 membrane gaming keyboard and Zeus E2 mouse – both usable, but nothing to write home about, and they feel a bit like throwaways next to a PC this high-end. If you don’t already have a mouse and keyboard, I suppose they’d work fine as stand-ins while you save up for a fancier model.
Performance and Gaming
We test every machine that comes through our proverbial halls using a number of benchmarks, as well as your run-of-the-mill gaming sessions to see how they perform. Before doing so, however, I toured the BIOS to double check iBuyPower’s out-of-the-box settings. While they did enable XMP to ensure buyers receive the advertised RAM speeds – not always a given these days – the review unit we received in July was running a very old BIOS revision from March, and for some reason the CPU wouldn’t boost properly to Intel’s recommended spec. After clearing the BIOS settings and updating to the latest version, everything seemed to run properly, but it’s one of those things I feel like iBuyPower should have noticed and corrected before shipping, given they claim each unit is individually benchmarked by staff. Many typical users won’t go tweaking the BIOS themselves, which is a problem if they aren’t getting the promised performance out of the box. iBuyPower tells me the BIOS should have been updated before getting to me, though I also know this isn’t the first time they’ve shipped systems with outdated BIOS revisions. Windows itself also needed an update to the latest 2004, but that was easy enough to do, and Windows automatically downloaded the latest version of Nvidia’s graphics drivers on first boot. Once I got my house in order, I ran a number of benchmarks to see how this bad boy handled heavy workloads. Benchmarks like this are designed to stress the system as much as possible, meaning they aren’t always indicative of actual in-game performance – still, these are some pretty impressive numbers, with frame rates higher than 60fps on just about anything you’d run at 1080p. This is perfect for fast-paced games like Doom Eternal or Overwatch, especially if you have a monitor that can refresh quickly enough to keep up. Since this is such a high-end system, I also ran our usual benchmarks at 4K with ray tracing turned on (when applicable), producing frame rates in the 30s and 40s. That’s not bad given the load this system is under, but I also wanted to run some more typical gaming sessions, especially at 4K, and I was very pleased with how it performed. With ray tracing turned off and all other settings maxed out, my time playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider hovered mostly around 70-90 FPS at 4K, making for incredibly detailed graphics and pleasantly smooth motion (provided you have a G-Sync capable display). With the exception of RTX, I rarely felt like I had to fiddle with graphics settings to find a good balance in a game – I could just crank everything up and go. Given that this system boasts a custom water cooling loop, cooling is an important piece of the puzzle. In my 25° C office, idle temperatures hovered around 32° C on the CPU. Prime95’s Small FFT test spiked the CPU to 85° C on the hottest core, though that lasted less than a minute – the i9-10900K allows for 250W of power for that initial boost, before backing down to 125W for longer, sustained workloads. After the system backed down to 125W, temperatures kept steady at 62° C on the hottest CPU core. My office is warmer than many rooms, so to compare apples to apples, that’s about 7° C over ambient at idle, and 37° C over ambient at load. That’s certainly not bad, and noticeably better than many reviewers saw on the i9-10900K at launch with AIO coolers. GPU temperatures were similar, with the chip reaching 59° C (or 34° C over ambient) at its hottest moments during a full load. You could probably get both components even cooler with a fully custom loop using copper blocks, but as I mentioned earlier, iBuyPower made these compromises knowingly, and ultimately the build strikes a good balance between cooling and aesthetics, while still being easy enough to produce and ship at a reasonable price. And yes, I do mean “reasonable.” It’s pricey, and it’s certainly not a “bang for your buck” PC given the top-tier hardware inside (or almost top-tier, given that Nvidia’s 3000 series is just around the corner). But it’s actually very well priced for what you get. By my count, a computer with the same components would cost around $2,200 to build yourself – the same price as the Element CL plus – and that’s without the custom water cooling. (Part of this price is likely due to surging prices on components right now, with Intel’s i9-10900K being sold for more than MSRP at the moment.) Eschewing the Windows license and considering bottom-of-the-barrel fans, RAM, SSDs, and PSUs (not advisable) could get you as low as $1,800 for these specs – again, without the water cooling. So for the hardware inside, the price tag is remarkably enticing.
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Every year a new Madden NFL game comes out, and every year the marginal improvements and new additions feel like just enough to keep the series moving forward. This year, however, things feel a bit different in Madden NFL 21. Despite the introduction of the surprisingly fun and unique The Yard mode, the list of persistent issues, neglected features, and new annoyances is growing quite long. So even though the underlying moment-to-moment football gameplay has continued to make progress with its fine-tuning refinements, just about everything else is underwhelming -- including technical performance.
It’s easy to be dismissive of annual sports games by saying they look and play the same every year because, to some degree, that’s true. Changes have been noticeable but minor ever since the series moved to the Frostbite engine in 2017, so everything has stayed relatively consistent, for better and for worse. As usual, when you’re playing a game from the typical zoomed-out camera perspective, Madden 21 looks fantastic. Stadiums are true-to-life, character models are extremely detailed, animations look smooth and responsive, and overall it’s got a sharp design that feels cutting-edge and primed to make the free upgrade to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X later this year. Once you get up close, though, player faces are often stiff and awkward and the fans in the bleachers still look like low-poly cardboard cutouts. EA has repeatedly missed opportunities to graphically polish these areas that could really use it.
Similarly, the NFL pageantry around each game is still lacking. The pre-game highlight reel is full of players awkwardly celebrating even though the game hasn’t started yet and it’s missing the vast majority of stat blocks and recap cutaways you typically see during the actual NFL broadcasts Madden strives to simulate. On a related note, the half-time show is basically non-existent, especially in Franchise mode where its absence is especially conspicuous. A narrator will summarize a handful of games from around the league, it’ll show a couple slow-motion highlights from your game, and then it’s right back into the second-half kickoff. Where’s the actual contextual commentary on what happened and how each side could improve? Where’s the broadcast booth or analyst desk with commentators and interviews? Or at least something to fill that void? It all feels unfinished, which is disappointing considering how much this aspect has been lacking for several years and it was done better in much older games like ESPN NFL 2K5 or even in Madden NFL 10. Instead, it’s the same old song and dance.
It’s also been notably buggier than normal. Even after the first patch, playing on PlayStation 4 Pro, performance issues have made things incredibly frustrating across the board. During kicks I experienced framerate drops so extreme that it often resulted in missed field goals and terrible kickoffs through no fault of my own. During the Face of the Franchise campaign mode, Madden NFL 21 would hang up at loading screens after games, requiring me to quit out to the PS4 dashboard and start it back up multiple times. (Thankfully, my progress saved.) Classic Franchise mode often stuck at the player upgrade screen as well, also forcing me to reboot. Visual glitches have been minimal, but the performance hiccups made it extremely difficult to settle into a flow. I’ve also seen other miscellaneous issues like my opponent randomly mirroring my entire team or textures tearing across the screen.
When things are running smoothly on the field, moment-to-moment gameplay feels a tiny bit faster than last year, with more precise animations for things like jukes and spins. As a ball carrier, using the right ‘Skill Stick’ feels more dynamic and fluid for pulling off evasive moves and overall blocking seems more realistic. Runners plant their feet well and make decisive cuts, so it all adds up to really satisfying goal line moments on both offense and defense. Last year it was far too easy to run over anyone and everyone if you knew what you were doing, but this year running lanes are narrower and require following blockers more precisely. This is also the first entry in recent memory that lets me throw the ball away relatively easily without taking a cheap sack.
The way the ‘Skill Stick’ change works here also makes it far easier to combo together moves really fluidly, so you can prepare a stiff-arm right after a spin, for example, without breaking animation or waiting for the spin to finish. Madden NFL 21 still relies heavily on a canned animation system rather than actual inverse-kinematics physics simulation, so it’s easy to spot repetition, but the smoothness of it all is great. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-ign-madden-nfl-game-review-ever&captions=true"] On the defensive side, pass-rushing as a lineman is a much deeper experience than in previous Maddens. There’s an entire new Pass Rush ability system for the defensive line that includes new moves to help navigate blocks. Offensive linemen have new skills at their disposal as well. Also on the defensive side of the ball it’s much harder now -- as it should be -- to play linebacker. In Madden NFL 20 it seemed like every linebacker in the league could run down speedy receivers and running backs while making superhuman leaps into the air to intercept bullet passes out of nowhere. If you know Madden well, you could cover the entire field with just an average middle linebacker. But while throw trajectories seem about the same this time around (generally too flat and low compared to the actual NFL) linebackers are thankfully toned down in effectiveness, with far fewer impossible-seeming moments. Defensive backs are much more aggressive on the interception front this year, to a point of near comedy with how quickly they can react and clamp down on curl routes or catch up to deep post routes. So if you play on All-Pro or All-Madden you can expect to throw more picks than you’re used to at first. Two of the best additions from Madden NFL 2020, X-Factor and Superstar abilities, are back again this year, with a few new ones thrown into the mix. Superstar abilities are special attributes for stand-out players that enhance certain skills, such as Inside Deadeye, which grants perfect accuracy on normal throws inside the numbers on the field. X-Factor zone abilities, on the other hand, are almost like super powers when you activate them. For example, Ezekiel Elliot has the Freight Train zone ability that’s activated by having three rushes for over 10 yards; once live, it puts Zeke in the zone, giving him an increased chance of breaking tackle attempts but also makes him get knocked out of the zone if he’s tackled for a loss. I like the extension of this feature because it incentivizes leaning on star players and leveraging their strengths -- every team has powerful players like this, so strategies revolve around activating zone abilities and keeping them running. In the actual NFL players have a tendency of gaining momentum and taking over a game, just like this, so it’s a believable and fun imitation of that.
A Face Only A Mother Could Love
This year’s version of the story-driven campaign mode is called Face of the Franchise: Rise to Fame (as opposed to last year’s QB1: Face of the Franchise), and it’s a genuinely bad story built around a paper-thin illusion that your actions and choices matter. You start all the way back in high school as the backup quarterback to local legend and rival, Tommy Matthews. Matthews is voiced by Tye Sheridan (best known as Cyclops from the recent X-Men movies) but the character is written in such a way that I can’t help but roll my eyes anytime he shows up. Everything centers around Matthews’ health condition and your internal struggle to support him and the team or capitalize on the opportunity to take over. Performances feel phoned in, animations are poor, and some of the most crucial scenes are inexplicably devoid of all voice acting. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="legacyId=20108153&captions=true"] One way or the other, eventually you get a shot at the limelight, go on to become a star in college, and enter the Rookie Combine and NFL Draft. Playing NCAA games again, albeit briefly and fragmented, was a real treat -- except that nothing matters. You can intentionally tank every game and not complete a single pass, yet still get drafted because off-screen you lit up the scoreboard. You’ll even get a chance to force your preferred team to pick you if you’d like, or switch positions to running back or wide receiver. Face of the Franchise does do one smart thing: the story doesn’t stop when you get to the NFL. Unlike last year, story moments continue to pop up over the years as you play through a sort of highlight reel of your career while your character discusses the key moments as a narrator in an interview. It’s a good format that keeps me coming back for more, even if the writing is extremely clunky with awkward cutscenes. However, your rival, Tommy Matthews, is all but non-existent after you reach the NFL, which comes off as a huge waste of resources and potential.
Bring All The Boys to The Yard
The big new mode this year is called The Yard, and it has proved to be a bright spot in Madden NFL 21 even if it comes at the expense of other modes. At first glance it seems a bit like NFL Street or NFL Blitz, but it’s actually nothing like those at all. Instead, The Yard is a completely new way to experience American football: a 6v6 mode that pits superstar-caliber players against one another in a ludicrously silly but oddly captivating backyard game. The closest comparison would be that it’s trying to emulate how you may have played football with friends at school during recess, with fluid rules, lots of movement, and everyone lining up on both sides.
There are no quarters or time limits here, and the field is only 80 yards long. Each side gets three offensive possessions, starting at their 20-yard line, with a 1st-and-20. There are no kickers so it’s always four-down territory and when you give the ball back, it goes on the opponent’s 20. To make matters even more complex, you can hike the ball to any player on your team and you can throw behind the line of scrimmage multiple times. You even get bonus points for interceptions or for throwing a TD after already passing it once. Heck, you can even go for three after a TD by lining up from the 20-yard line! With so many new and unexpected rules to learn The Yard is extremely jarring at first. On top of that, players dress up in bright, flashy clothing instead of typical uniforms, giving it a more jumbled look, and every person on the field is a top-tier talent at their position, which makes the margin for error even slimmer than usual. Giving up a big play usually results in a touchdown and, with only a handful of possessions to count on, coming back from a big deficit early on is extremely tough. Much of the gains The Yard makes in ingenuity, though, it gives up in its lack of depth. Other than unlocking a handful of customization cosmetics and experiencing the thrill of beating a stranger online, there isn’t a whole lot to it. You can play solo or in team games with and against other players, but there isn’t a Franchise structure or League format to go through other than a handful of stadiums with unique rulesets. It plays out like a tutorial for a deeper, more involved mode that never materializes. I enjoyed The Yard for what it is -- a nifty distraction from the real core of Madden -- but it doesn’t have enough meat to satisfy on its own.
Crafting the Ultimate Team
Not much is new this year with Madden Ultimate Team (MUT), meaning you’ll still see advertisements for microtransactions in loading screens and feel pressure to try it constantly, even if you have zero interest. If you’re unfamiliar, the gist is that you open random packs of sports cards that each represent NFL players of today and yesteryear, and those cards make up your team -- like a living, breathing fantasy squad. You’ll iterate and expand on that team over the course of the year by earning new cards through completing challenges, playing against other MUT squads online, and so on. The premise is cool enough -- basically merging the NFL with Collectible Card Game (CCG) ideas -- but it’s so riddled with microtransactions it’s hard to enjoy. Taking your team online invites unfair-feeling matchups against the legion of diehard fans that drop tons of money on building the best team as quickly as possible, and you’ll find your progression painfully slow if you opt for going the no-cost route. It’s a tedious grind that will all be erased when Madden NFL 22 comes out. The only really significant change to MUT this year is how abilities are capped. Previously, you’d find yourself limited to only selecting three offensive and three defensive players to equip special abilities, but now each ability has an Ability Point (AP) cost and you’ve got an AP cap for offense, defense, and special teams. This allows you to be more flexible with balancing your team and customizing it just right. Other than that, the onboarding experience is a bit better as well, with the inclusion of Rivalz, which is like a series of Arcade-style challenges to help jumpstart your team right out of the gate.
Disenfranchised
Speaking of the core of Madden, Franchise mode is once again relegated to background status and completely neglected. In Madden NFL 21 the main classic Franchise mode is almost identical to last year, all the way down to the menu visuals and on-screen layout -- and that means it’s almost identical to Madden NFL 19, as well. It’s like a case of deja vu, all over again.
Last week you may have read my op-ed about the state of Madden’s classic Franchise mode. I wrote that before playing Madden NFL 21 but everything still stands true. Other than expanded Wild Card rounds to match actual NFL rule updates, new X-Factor abilities that were added this year, and more authentic rookie contracts, it is literally identical to last year, with only vague promises of patches over time as a “live service” to look forward to. It’s a shameful lack of attention for what is, historically, one of the franchise’s most-played modes. Instead of focusing on the mode that actually lets you take over the career of a player, coach, or owner in the quest for Super Bowl victories, EA has shown a continued allegiance to cash-cow features such as Madden Ultimate Team and now, The Yard, which features additional microtransactions in spite of its lack of depth.
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The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out IGN serves a global audience, so with Bill & Ted Face the Music released in theaters in the US and select international markets as well as On Demand, we are releasing our review from Jim Vejvoda who screened the movie via a digital screener. Read more on IGN's policy on movie reviews in light of COVID-19. IGN strongly encourages anyone considering going to a movie theater during the COVID-19 pandemic to check their local public health and safety guidelines before buying a ticket. [poilib element="accentDivider"] After a nearly 30-year absence, Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore" Logan are back for more wacky adventures through time in the long-awaited Bill & Ted Face the Music, which sees the titular duo -- once again most amiably played by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, respectively -- out to fulfill their grand destiny to unite the world through the power of music. For a sequel that could have easily failed to recapture what had worked decades earlier, the end result is a lean but far from bogus amusement that largely delivers. Because of the sheer age difference in the characters and the place where they’re at now in their lives, Bill & Ted Face the Music has a hint of ruefulness missing from the earlier flicks. The duo may have previously concluded that the best time to be is now, but the personal and professional travails of middle age have challenged that earlier judgment. They still love their medieval princess wives -- recast here with Jayma Mays and Erinn Hayes -- and have two adult daughters named after one another, Thea (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine). But nearly three decades later their once-excellent rock careers have waned, and Bill and Ted wrestle with the notion that they may need to give up on their music dreams. That’s when the future intercedes with a mission for them to finally compose the song they were meant to make -- or reality itself will be destroyed in a matter of hours. A most heinous challenge! No mere exercise in Gen X nostalgia, Bill & Ted Face the Music manages to recapture both the spirit and energy of the earlier films while still acknowledging the clear passage of time. The movie doesn’t avoid the characters’ ages but instead shows that, even in their fifties, Bill and Ted are man-children who are hopelessly codependent on each other. They are platonic soulmates. Their naivete may have waned a tad but they’re still just immature and dopey enough to lack the necessary self-awareness; that’s where their time-traveling adventures have always come in to enlighten them. Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves still have the same doofy chemistry they had decades ago, not missing a beat from their first scene to immediately recapture what made them such a fun screen pairing. If Winter and Reeves didn’t click all these years later then Bill & Ted Face the Music would be dead on arrival but, thankfully, they still have infectious chemistry together. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=movie-sequels-that-took-forever&captions=true"] The movie has a few nostalgic callbacks, from the welcome and hilarious return of William Sadler as the fame-and-friend-craving Death to the B-plotline revolving around Billie and Thea’s sidequest to help their dads. But this third film isn’t so much interested in playing Wyld Stallyns’ greatest hits as it is in exploring the idea of how long do you dedicate your life to your seemingly hopeless dream, to something you felt you had to do. Through the course of their time travels here, Bill and Ted encounter versions of their slightly future selves who serve to show them the areas of their lives where they’re deficient and glimpses of what might be in store for them should they fail. That sounds a lot headier and darker than the movie is but it’s sort of like the Bill & Ted version of Scrooge meeting the Christmas Ghosts in order for him to evolve. Winter and Reeves may still click as Bill and Ted, but the movie doesn’t always give their offspring Thea and Billie enough to chew on to really come into their own. As Ted’s daughter Billie, Brigette Lundy-Paine shines brighter than her co-star Samara Weaving as Bill’s kid, Thea. Lundy-Paine seems more comfortable in such decidedly American vernacular and attitude than her Aussie co-star Weaving, and she’s just more believable as the daughter of her particular screen dad. Still, the pair have chemistry together that somewhat papers over the story’s shortcomings in developing them. Of the remaining supporting cast, Holland Taylor makes for a suitably imperious Great Leader from the future, while Kristen Schaal nicely underplays this film’s surrogate for George Carlin’s too cool Rufus. Anthony Carrigan scores some laughs as a sort of sad-sack Terminator. The 1989 original film saw some of history’s most notable figures team-up to help our heroes, something the sequel Bogus Journey skipped in order to focus on a threat from the future. Bill & Ted Face the Music splits the difference, bringing in a future threat while also reaching into the past for help for our heroes. There’s even a segue to Hell just to cover all the bases of what fans liked most about the first two films. But, like the original films, Bill & Ted Face the Music remains good without ever quite grasping greatness. Perhaps it’s the inherently skit-like or predictable nature of such slight material, but the Bill & Ted trilogy never quite attained Excellence so much as cult admiration. Still, this third film definitely avoids the curse of the disappointing threequel and is certainly far from Bogus. Bill & Ted Face the Music is simply a sweet, fun, good time. Be excellent to each other. 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[Editor’s Note: These impressions are based on the publicly available demo version of NBA 2K21, which allows you to play five total games, each with five minute quarters. Since it is designed to give everyone an idea of what the new version will offer in its on-court gameplay, we’ve asked our reviewer to weigh in on the changes he’s seen so far as the first installment of our review in progress. 2K has informed us that review copies for NBA 2K21 won’t be available until September 3, which is basically launch day (officially September 4, but that usually means the night of the previous day in our Pacific time zone). We’ll have updated impressions of the full game as soon as possible, and we’ll strive to have our final review ready by the end of the following week.]
In a lot of ways, NBA 2K21’s demo feels like more of the same, as compared to NBA 2K20. To my eye it looks almost identical to the previous few years, and seems to be running out the clock until next-generation consoles arrive before springing for a more substantial visual upgrade. Legacy issues, like the CPU mishandling clock management and players awkwardly dropping the ball as soon as the shot clock runs out, are definitely still present. Still, there are some noticeable positive tweaks: with the help of a few smaller gameplay upgrades and a new shot-stick mechanic, NBA 2K21’s gameplay feels like a baby-step forward. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/nba-2k21-current-gen-demo-trailer"]
Seriously, if you put video of NBA 2K21 side by side with NBA 2K20 I would challenge you to spot the difference in the graphics. This isn’t a horrible thing, since this franchise has a long history of being one of the best-looking sports games out there, but it’s a little disappointing to see how little has changed year over year. That means last year’s blemishes have carried over: players still look good, but outside of the superstars like Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James there is something a little generic about the designs. Some faces have too little detail and unusually large players like Shaquille O’Neal (who is rostered on the “All-Time Lakers” squad available in the demo) don’t own the same kind of massive presence they do in real life.
[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=If%20you%20put%20video%20of%20NBA%202K21%20side%20by%20side%20with%20NBA%202K20%20I%20would%20challenge%20you%20to%20spot%20the%20difference%20in%20the%20graphics."]Thankfully, the more time I spent with the new shot-stick mechanic, the more NBA 2K21 started to separate itself. The new shot meter, which requires aiming shots rather than just timing them, is used entirely with the right analog stick. It requires a straight pull downward (or upward, when driving toward the basket) and then centering the stick inside of the sweet spot on the meter. Not only did I find this new shot meter vastly more challenging, it also fixed a handful of other issues I’ve had with NBA 2K for years.
First and foremost, I never have to worry about accidentally hurling a shot up when I’m attempting to make a dribble move. Pulling directly back on the analog stick and holding it there will lead to a shot, while any flicks or other faster motions will result in a dribbling move. The new shot meter opens up the right-stick to be used entirely for dribbling moves, which includes the ability to size-up or use escape dribbles. Everything feels a lot cleaner, which is a nice change for a series where things were beginning to feel too cluttered to control.
[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=The%20shot-stick%20mechanic%20feels%20like%20a%20direct%20response%20to%20issues%20with%20latency%20online."]The shot-stick mechanic also feels like a direct response to issues with latency online. Even though the demo doesn’t feature the ability to play online matches, it’s easy to see a future where most online players will be using the aimed shot meter rather than the older timed meter (which is still available via the square or X button). Instead of trying to guess how much latency there will be with each jump shot, it should be a lot more efficient to pull back on the analog stick and aim the shot instead. Still, aiming shots is certainly the more difficult of the two options as things currently stand. I’m excited to have a brand-new skill to master, but it’s good to have both options available.
Other than that, however, I could only spot minor changes to the on-court gameplay. Spacing is slightly better in the halfcourt, but it’s still too easy to close out on three-point shots. Blocking shots, and the animations that come with them, seems to be improved and the ball just generally moves in a more believable way. One of my favorite improvements has been seeing the ball get knocked around realistically on rebounds and steals. Still, it’s incredibly jarring to see the ball lifelessly drop to the floor after a shot-clock violation or the end of a quarter, and to watch players start moving around like robots until a cutscene eventually kicks in. I know nothing about game development but it’s hard to believe these are issues so difficult to fix that they should’ve persisted all the way into 2K21. In just five games (the maximum the demo allows), it’s hard to get a feel for exactly how much things have changed. It does seem clear to me that the new aim-meter mechanic is going to be divisive and could potentially alter the online experience in major ways. A few smaller issues have seen some improvement, but most of the legacy gameplay issues remain present. It’s clear that this is far from the franchise’s biggest step forward, but the shot-stick alone is enough to open the door for tons of possibilities. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Ben Vollmer is a freelance critic who has previously reviewed NBA 2K19 and NBA 2K20 for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
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Raised by Wolves feels like the logical next step in Ridley Scott’s career. The Alien and Blade Runner director has returned to artificially intelligent characters in recent years with films like Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, so it follows that his first US TV directing gig would be about gradually deteriorating AI wrestling against their programming on a mysterious, far-flung world.
The HBO Max series, which releases its first three episodes on Thursday, September 3, was created by Prisoners scribe Aaron Guzikowski with Scott on board as executive producer. Scott also helmed the first two installments - setting the stage for a 10-part saga that feels at once new and familiar - before passing episode 3 onto his son Luke (who directed several supplemental short films for Blade Runner 2049, Alien: Covenant, and The Martian). This father-son handoff is fitting; Raised by Wolves centers on a pair of humanoid androids tasked with raising a new generation of human children, exploring the limits of their own humanity — and their own inhumanity — in the process.
The show’s premise seems simple at first, though it plays its cards devilishly close to its chest. There aren’t any spoilers in this review, though do look out for my detailed deep-dive once the show has officially premiered; there is a lot to get into, and each installment feels like it opens up new doors and new possibilities. The first episode takes what would ordinarily be a prologue in voiceover or opening text and spreads it across an entire hour, introducing us to a pair of androids simply named Mother (Amanda Collin) and Father (Abubakar Salim) who arrive on a distant planet sometime after the Earth becomes uninhabitable.
Despite the conflicting programming at their core, Mother and Father have a personable rapport and they share a common objective: birthing six human embryos on this distant world, seeding it with new life, and raising these six children to avoid the mistakes which led to humanity’s implosion. The show is able to play coy with its specifics longer than most sci-fi stories of its ilk; after all, the only real exposition at first is what Mother and Father do and do not teach their kids (what information is or is not shared, and why, is an entertaining part of the mystery). All we seem to know for sure is this: the Earth was torn apart by religious zealotry, and a core belief of one major faction — the sun-worshipping Mithraic — involved stern opposition to androids raising human children.
Mother, Father, and their kids are, therefore, refugees of sorts. They arrived on a tiny spacecraft that now hangs off an inner ledge of one of this planet’s many enormous holes (deep, unending caverns shot dizzyingly by Scott). We don’t yet know who sent them here, but we know they weren’t Earth’s only survivors; somewhere, out in the universe, a ship known as The Ark carries a thousand Mithraic passengers to distant quadrants, and all it would take to contact The Ark is someone switching on Mother and Father’s ship — should they be able to reach it.
The first episode is focused mostly on this makeshift interstellar family, while the second and third flesh out the backstories of two Mithraic characters in particular — Marcus (Travis Fimmel) and Sue (Niamh Algar) — in manners both delightful and surprising, positioning them as thematic mirrors to Mother and Father in ways best left unspoiled. The show is constantly twisting its screws, throwing new sci-fi concepts at the wall at breakneck speed, though they seem to stick for the most part. No genre element is introduced without the express purpose of exploring its characters and exacerbating their crises of identity, even if it takes a while to get a handle on what the premise actually is (the “who” and “why” of Earth’s collapse is left frustratingly oblique, even when it seems like the central focus).
However, these specifics become a secondary concern when someone like Ridley Scott is at the helm. The opening scenes promise a wildly idiosyncratic story in the vein of Scott gleefully toying with his creations, a career-long instinct that appeared to come to Frankensteinian fruition in Alien: Covenant. Here, though, body horror takes a back seat, even though some elements undoubtedly carry over.
The main focus appears to be nature of the nuclear family — a familiar structure in the face of societal deterioration — from the ways it protects, to the ways in which it stifles. As much as the show is about characters coming physically undone (and about Scott’s signature, milky android innards), it’s also a story about white lies and betrayals; horrors that go hand-in-hand with emotional intimacy.
There’s a real weight to everything that happens, but it wouldn’t be a post-Prometheus Scott story if it weren’t also incredibly fun to watch. The family’s bland bodysuits and floppy, uniform hats feel winkingly retro-futuristic. (I sometimes wondered if the show was based on a series of decades old pulp sci-fi novels; to my delight, it’s wholly original.) What makes the show especially enticing is Mother and Father themselves — especially Amanda Collin, who oscillates fearlessly between maternal and terrifying, in a performance that teeters on the edge of madness but never fails to be empathetic. The Scotts even shoot Mother the way they shoot this new planet: in one moment it’s home, warm and welcoming. In the next, it’s filmed in shadow, as untold dangers lurk within its hidden corners. (Fittingly, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski shoots the first two episodes before handing the camera over to his Alien: Covenant second unit director Ross Emery, who also shot a trio of Covenant shorts, thus keeping it all in the family).
To put it simply, Raised by Wolves is peak Ridley Scott. Though what appears to separate it from his android predecessors (Alien, Blade Runner, and his Alien prequels) is something all too fitting for a show coming out in 2020. Where the aforementioned works all featured androids in somewhat functioning human societies — even those taking place on distant worlds — Raised by Wolves continues this exploration amidst an ever-shifting status quo, in which any semblance of societal function seems like a luxury of the past. Humanity’s remnants exist in the radioactive afterglow of a world torn apart by extreme, irreconcilable convictions. So rather than a story of androids figuring out how they fit into an ostensibly normal world, the show pushes this familiar premise into unfamiliar territory, as technological beings are forced to reckon not only with what humanity is, but what it once was — the worst parts of it, which undoubtedly led to its downfall.
In addition to protective and parental instincts, this appetite for destruction, and penchant for clutching tightly to one’s beliefs, is as much a part of the programming Mother and Father need to reckon with. And so, Raised by Wolves holds a terrifying amount of relevance — at least initially, though it seems poised to keep up its momentum.
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