The Callisto Protocol Performance Review

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The Callisto Protocol is a game with a myriad of inspirations and references within its design, but on the technical front it is most certainly a leader. Striking Distance is a relatively small, and certainly new studio, filled with a mix of veterans and new members who have collaborated to create one of the most forward-looking games of this generation. But before I get into that, I need to note that while the game is cross-generation, our review code only had access to the new-gen consoles and later the PC version.

Game Modes

The PS5 and Xbox Series X both have two modes: one is the default, which you could call a Quality mode or Ray Tracing mode, which runs at 30fps and has a dynamic scaling resolution with counts ranging from 3456x1944 to 2304x1296, effectively 90% to 60% of 4K. This is then improved, I suspect, by Unreal Engine’s TAAU to up-sample that back to 4K as often as possible. The image treatment here from that lower base is staggering, and I would not be shocked to learn that the team that has built or enhanced this with their own custom resolve and AA pass, as it can easily pass as 4K aside from some high-contrast areas that can be slightly unstable from the jittered rendering resolve it uses to up-sample. The game also supports FSR 2.1, with the caveat that this could be what the consoles are using, and the dynamic scaling could be higher or lower. Due to its dark look, gritty world, gore, and violence, this is a game that benefits greatly both from the Film Grain, which can improve perceived sharpness of the image, and the superb Per Pixel Motion Blur that assists greatly in the fully real-time cinematics, often convincing you they are genuine offline renders from only last generation.

The Quality mode is where all the new features stand out, being a great example of how the team has integrated elements of the later Unreal Engine 5 into this Unreal Engine 4.2 game. It supports both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 to enable older GPUs to run the game, but without DX12 you will miss out on the ray-traced reflections, shadows, and translucent surface refractions. In isolation they may seem like only a small boost, but due to the core cinematic and atmospheric design the game has, they are the biggest reason the game pulls off possibly the most impressive real-time character models in games thus far.

This mode has two main boosts, Ray Traced Shadows and Reflections, with the shadows running on both Series X and PS5. They not only dramatically increase the amount of shadow casting light sources within a scene, they also allow smaller objects to now cast shadows. The accuracy here is incredible as light and shadow now react more realistically, and less light bleeds through geometry. Darker areas now contrast better with the light, and shadows cast right off into the distance, whereas in Performance mode, they can pop in close to the camera and cast no shadows off into the middle and far distance. The way light casts across faces is so good, making it one of the main reasons that the game has such a high-quality CGI look and feel. The other big boosts are in the gameplay, as the lighting design works much better with the sheer wealth of shadows, particularly since some jump scares and tells in the game are designed with Ray Traced shadows in mind. This means in Performance mode you will simply not see a shadow of a monster in the distance, whereas in the Quality mode it is like Michael Myers popping up from behind the sofa.

Currently only the PlayStation 5 supports ray-traced reflections, even as of launch patch 1.3, with the Series X version limited to screen space reflections. I would assume that a patch will come soon to add them to the Series X, but until then it does leave the Xbox console missing out on a big visual boost of the new-gen version. The only saving grace is the Quality mode on Series X does run with a higher resolution most of the time due to this. The loss is noticable, as reflections are another key ingredient to the horror cake. Screen space reflections are still used as a boost to the local screen data on pools of water, blood and such, but they draw off as SSR no longer has that information on screen, but they blend here with those ray-traced reflections, and those are always present. From giant security robots to head-munching beasts, everything reflects in these surfaces. But the game goes even further by using them in planar surfaces and transparent reflections, which are expensive, meaning that both you and dynamic enemies all appear far more grounded and present in the game world. These reflections are also used on sub surface light refraction on enemy skin, with the blood- and pus-filled growths refracting light through in real-time.

What we said about The Callisto Protocol

The Callisto Protocol is a supremely atmospheric and action-heavy tour through a spectacular slaughterhouse set in distant space. Its largely linear design makes for minimal backtracking, meaning it trims the fat while leaving no shortage of bone and gristle to rip and tear. However, it also betrays its survival horror roots by regularly tipping the balance of power too far in favour of the player, and while there’s plenty of murderous fun to be had using giant grinding mechanisms to make mulch out of mutants, such cheap thrills come at the high cost of puncturing any tension and dread that the tremendous art and audio design work so hard to invoke. Aside from the meaty melee combat, there’s also the overriding sense that there’s not a lot here that hasn’t been done before – and there’s disappointingly little to do once you’ve beaten the campaign. Thus The Callisto Protocol is a satisfyingly gory spiritual successor to the Dead Space series, but it’s ultimately more of a striking modern mimic than a scary new mutation. –Tristan Ogilvie, December 1, 2022

Score: 7

Read the full The Callisto Protocol review

The second mode is Performance, which makes some visual cutbacks to the graphical force this game is. Ray-traced effects are all off the table now along with reduced post effects, lighting model, ambient occlusion, shadows and resolution, which now changes the dynamic range from a 2560x1440 maximum down to a low of approximately 2112x1188 – 55% of 4K – in some heavier sections. Again, with many of these techniques it may be a base resolution AA up sampling that now targets 1440p rather than 4K. The result is that any deficit can be hard to notice in many sections, but the biggest tell is on texture details within high frequency areas, increased dithering on shadows and a great deal less of them, and worse and nosier lighting passes. The payback is the game now runs at a 60fps target, which helps improve the temporal stability and the controller response. This helps most in the dodge-and-evade combat mechanic which requires you to move the left stick in opposite directions to the attack.

That said, this game is not a fast-paced shooter by any means, although it does have many other Doom-like qualities. In fact one of the games it reminded me of was Doom 3, a game that pioneered stencil shadows, so it’s fitting for the ray-traced ones here to really deliver on those same aims of accurate light and dark. It has the same sense of atmospheric tension, just delivered on a whole new scale.

The Series S cuts back some more effects, but resolution is the same as the Performance mode on the higher-end consoles, with a 1440p high and dynamically scaling down to 1080p as needed, although all my counts came out at 1440p. However, this is a single mode on the console and targets the same 30fps as the higher-quality mode of the other consoles, but it misses out on many of the graphical treats that mode offers, and instead resembles the Performance mode more, just with some extra cutbacks to aid the performance targets and relatively high pixel count it offers. The differences are not stark to most I am sure, but it did stand out to me jumping from the ray-traced mode on the other two. The cutbacks are intelligent, which can start to highlight some of the cross-generation roots of the game, as the extra fidelity, post effects, lighting and essential post processed film like rendering techniques are cut back heavily in places and far more frugal in others. This leaves materials often looking flat, with far fewer light sources, shadows, and more obvious light bleed and incorrect lighting on faces. These can still happen on the Performance mode on the other consoles, it just appears more frequent here due to reduced shadows over those modes.

Performance Comparisons

Performance Mode

Starting with the Performance mode, pitting the PS5 against the Xbox Series X, the first big difference is the resolution is often higher on the PS5 than the Series X, with the PS5 sometimes having a 19% higher pixel count. In addition, the performance is slightly more stable on the PS5, but these tend to be memory or CPU-like stutters that crop up on Series X on occasion when entering a new area, or mid-battle as it appears to be calculating the impact of the dynamic dismemberment and deformation system in real time. That said, most of these are almost invisible with an fps graph, and they both perform brilliantly in all the sections I tested with that 60fps rate never being an issue. Considering the game’s delivery time and some of the bugs that did crop up, performance is largely a standout achievement. Additionally, the patches that have come since review code dropped have improved all formats, and the 60fps mode is very close now between the two consoles.

Ray Traced Mode

The extra graphical enhancements and increased resolution cost halve the framerate in this mode, which is actually more than a fair trade off as the increased per object motion blur and 3rd person action are not significantly hampered by the reduced input latency. And from the sections I tested, it really only skips a single frame here and there which would never be noticed without a frame-time graph. The review code was very stable on PS5 and slightly less so on Series S, but the Series X had more dips and judders that would have caused an issue. But applying the patch 1.2 and then 1.3 it now performs much better and is close to a locked 30fps to now be in the same range as the PS5. In this mode though the Series X has the resolution advantage now, with it often hitting 2880x1620 versus the PS5 often being at 2688x1512, giving a 14% resolution increase in this mode. The visual reductions do explain some of this, but like the small performance dips, the gap is not really apparent as the relatively high resolutions they all run at.

Xbox Series S

The Xbox Series S also runs very close to a locked 30fps, and I noted no big issues both with and without Motion Blur. It can dip more than the Quality mode on the other two consoles, but this has been improved with the pre-launch patch and now is as close to locked 30fps as you would hope for. I played some sections I thought would present some dips, but it was all very solid in general with only a handful of dips on the odd occasion, so this presents an excellent version of the game that manages to achieve the core aims of the team. The biggest standout is the much lower RAM pool does cause lower material quality and slow mip loading in gameplay and more so in cinematics, which is where they stand out the most.

SoundScapes

The final piece of the jump scare jigsaw is the sound design, mixing and execution. The electric fizzle of an earthing cable. The hydraulic pressure of an opening door. Fans that create a Doppler effect as you walk closer, accompanied by screen shake and controller vibrations. The meaty squelch as heads pop, limbs break and much much more. The use of sound and silence is incredible as you can hear the screech of enemies in the distance, but sometimes the sound of silence scares you the most. Music is blended in at times, with a clear John Carpenter-like synth mix that has more than a nod to the Thing. Voice acting from all is top notch and although it can be cheesy and cliche at times, it often takes twists and turns you do not expect and is never holding your hand or running on too long. I often say that sound is 50 percent of the experience in games and films, and here that may be understating its impact. It is an impeccable piece of work from the sound team that complements the game’s art, technical, animation and storytelling.

Summary

Striking Distance has managed to achieve a feat we have not seen in a very long time, blending many mediums and archetypes into a seminal survival horror game. From a visual and audio perspective it is a leader for the current generation. Taking the UE4 engine and, in my opinion, improving on what we saw from the Matrix Awakens UE5 demo. The character models are now at the point of being photorealistic both in gameplay and cutscenes that you would struggle to tell a video from the game apart. Some bugs with death animations, clipping through scenery, and bad animation cycles aside, the team has managed to deliver one of the most visually striking, stable, impressive games this generation. As linear and within the lines of its own genre it may be, The Callisto Protocol still offers a visual tour de force and enough surprises to be worth your time across all formats. I just hope that the final Christmas present is that Series X gets its Ray Traced reflections added before the year is out.

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Spoiler Alert Review

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Spoiler Alert debuts in theaters on Dec. 2, 2022.

In a year of movies about movies (Bardo, The Fabelmans, Empire of Light, and so on), it’s almost refreshing to get one nominally about ’80s sitcoms, even though it’s really about TV journalist Michael Ausiello (Jim Parsons) telling the story of his late photographer husband, Kit Cowan (Ben Aldridge), who died from cancer in 2015. Then again, Spoiler Alert is only really “about” television in the most passing sense, with brief and tenuous connections made between Michael’s perspective on his field, and his approach to real life. Parsons narrates the story, which slips into sitcom-esque flashbacks on occasion — single-camera with a laugh track seems to be the lens through which Michael views his own life — but director Michael Showalter is seldom interested in telling this tragic romance with much flair or emotional allure.

The result is a deeply plain movie that, though it has a warm and welcome palette, features great performances, and captures the outward shape of a relationship, has very little else to offer.

The title makes little sense when shortened from that of Ausiello’s memoir (“Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies”), but its opening scene fills in the missing gap, showing Michael laying with a terminally ill Kit on his last day alive. The rest of the movie chronicles the 14 years leading up to this moment, casting a dark and unavoidable cloud over its central relationship. Michael, a timid wallflower, reluctantly accompanies his coworker to a gay bar, where he meets the sweet and sexy Kit. A mismatch on paper, they strike an immediate and adorable chord, but the actors rarely have physical chemistry despite their numerous intimate scenes. Part of the blame falls on Showalter, who captures sex and even kissing with a stilted, distant hand — rarely has a queer film felt so safe and conventional — but Parsons and Cowan have enough by way of upbeat energy to sell at least some semblance of a dynamic between Michael and Kit.

It's difficult to gauge who either of them are as people beyond their interactions. Michael has a collection of Smurfs memorabilia that’s played for laughs, but neither man’s perspective — as a journalist and photographer respectively — seem to inform their worldview, and little about their dialogue or behavior suggests they have any kind of depth or history beyond the immediate circumstances of a scene. This is especially unfortunate given the vulnerability both actors put on display, bringing their characters’ respective insecurities to the fore (Kit is still closeted; Michael is afraid he’ll leave him for someone better).

However, Spoiler Alert is concerned, first and foremost, with fitting all 14 years of Ausiello’s tale into its 112-minute runtime. So, while the highs of Michael and Kit’s relationship have just enough spark to be convincing, the lows play more like boxes checked off for the sake of fidelity. This includes extended periods where they’re forced to work through their issues in couple’s therapy, but it’s all reduced to a head-scratching rom com montage that gives their most rigorous and defining romantic moments a mere passing glance.

When they’re visited by Kit’s high-strung parents (Sally Field and Bill Irwin), the situation is mildly awkward until Kit is forced to come out to them, but compared to Showalter’s The Big Sick — which was about the friction between the main character and his future in-laws — Spoiler Alert frames even this vital drama as a gag to be swept under the rug with a quickness. There certainly needn’t be a binary choice between “comedy” and “drama” (The Big Sick deftly blended the two), but Michael and Kit’s story is frequently reduced to the former for most of its chronology.

Spoiler Alert is just about saved by its cast, especially Parsons and Aldridge.

When things finally get more serious — which is to say, when Kit receives his diagnosis, and when his condition eventually worsens — the movie has no choice but to let the circumstances speak for themselves. The performances elevate the story just beyond the realm of Showalter’s dull non-embellishments, if only for him to find a sprinkle of late third-act panache when it’s least dramatically appropriate, robbing the film’s most touching moments of their power in the process.

Spoiler Alert is just about saved by its cast, especially Parsons and Aldridge. But it’s hard to avoid wondering what kind of work they might have done in the hands of a better director, one capable of molding their physical and emotional dynamic into something deeply felt — rather than simply seen — so that losing it might feel more meaningful.

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The Callisto Protocol Review

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A proper remake might be rising from the grave next year, but the festering corpse of Dead Space has come lurching back to life early in the form of The Callisto Protocol. This spiritual successor to the sci-fi survival horror series recreates the haunting blood-streaked hallways and space zombie-slaying hallmarks first established on the USG Ishimura back in 2008, and injects the gore with more awe than ever before thanks to some strikingly detailed splashes of blood and guts. Unfortunately, while the mutant dismemberment has never been more vivid, The Callisto Protocol’s shortcomings appear just as clearly. Occasional control annoyances, imbalanced combat, and a general absence of innovation result in a roughly eight-hour massacre that’s gratifyingly gruesome, but never quite as great as the series that inspired it.

Catastrophe has struck the Black Iron Prison facility on the moon of Callisto, and the convicts are revolting; not just in the sense that they’ve escaped their cells and are causing a riot, but also because they’ve been infected by a mysterious virus that’s mutated them all into twisted toxic avengers. It’s up to wrongly incarcerated cargo pilot Jacob Lee to get to the root of the resident evil and find a way off the prison planet, undergoing a claustrophobic crawl through an exceptionally well realized facility in ruin and overrun by lunar-based lunatics. What follows is a fairly linear gauntlet run, but thankfully the team at developer Striking Distance Studios has proven itself to be masterful makers of creepy corridors – rarely are any two passages ever the same and each area is given a distinct sense of place, from the maintenance room decorated with dangling corpses that look like prison guard pinatas, to the frosted-over facilities that lie beyond the prison walls.

The Callisto Protocol's putrid penitentiary had me locked in a state of maximum insecurity.

Josh Duhamel from the Transformers movies does a commendable job in the lead role, as does The Boys’ Karen Fukuhara as his main ally Dani Nakamura, but the majority of the desperation and discomfort of the pair’s plight is conveyed through the impressive art direction and audio design. With the third-person camera tight on Jacob at all times, you get a clear look at the sweat sheen on his scalp in the humid laundry area, the blood-spatter that soaks his coveralls after each brutal encounter, and the especially icky sewerage that coats his body after he’s forced to wade waist-deep through waste management. Everything is thick and gross in a genuinely palpable way and reinforced by unsettling scrapes and sickening squelches in the darkness around you. And while it’s become a common technique for developers to mask the loading of new areas with the use of narrow gaps in the terrain for players to shimmy through, here they fortify the feeling of dread rather than becoming a drag. As Jacob inched his way through the disgusting pus-boil and tendril-covered caves of Black Iron’s lower levels, his winces on screen mirrored my own looks of unease. The Callisto Protocol's putrid penitentiary had me locked in a state of maximum insecurity.

Retread Space

Let’s address the elephant-sized mutant monster in the room, though; The Callisto Protocol is effectively a Dead Space game in everything but name, with Striking Distance Studios even being lead by Dead Space co-creator Glen Schofield. From the neatly minimalistic HUD which grafts Jacob’s health bar into the back of his neck like a phone battery indicator, to the stomping of crates and corpses to uncover precious resources, to the combat system that heavily relies on a battery-powered telekinesis ability that allows you to hurl objects around with a flick of Jacob’s wrist. There’s even evidence of a mysterious religious cult that’s somehow involved in the outbreak, and instructions on how to kill enemies left in blood smeared on the walls. It stops short of introducing Isaac Clarke’s stasis ability, and swaps his collection of weaponised mining implements for a more conventional arsenal of pistols and shotguns, but it otherwise feels very familiar – and as someone who’s played all of the Dead Space games, it made for a campaign that was heavy on startling jump scares but light on any major story or gameplay surprises.

The biggest deviation that The Callisto Protocol makes from Dead Space’s terror-fueled template is it’s increased emphasis on melee combat, at least during the opening hours. With weapons and ammunition initially scarce, dispatching each snarling cellmate demands that you lure them into an uncomfortably close proximity, sway out of the way of their clawing attacks, and then counter with a flurry of blows from Jacob’s stun baton. The thumbstick-based dodging and blocking of incoming attacks feels a bit like ducking and weaving in a boxing game – except your opponent is less like Holyfield and more like ‘Holy crap!’ – and it feels satisfyingly weighty to bash their limbs off one by one and bludgeon baton-shaped grooves into their skulls.

The already tight-in camera pulls even closer to really highlight the carnage as you administer each infected inmate with a lethal injection of hot lead. 

Even as Jacob’s arsenal grows, melee combat remains a smart way to conserve ammo since each successful combo string you land opens up a brief window to perform a ‘skill shot’, allowing you to automatically lock-on to a weak spot with your firearm and down them in a few shots instead of a full clip. I enjoyed the risk-reward choice involved in getting up close and personal rather than trying to more safely pick enemies off from afar, not least because the already tight-in camera pulls even closer to really highlight the carnage as you administer each infected inmate with a lethal injection of hot lead.

Getting a GRP

Unfortunately that high level of tension isn’t sustained once the GRP is introduced. Powerful enough to lift most enemies into the air, this gravity-defying gauntlet can certainly make for some dynamic combat encounters, particularly in tandem with the various deathtraps and volatile objects that are handily positioned around each area. You might enter a room full of ghouls, lift up one and impale him on a spiked wall, throw another into an exposed grinding mechanism, before finishing off a third by hurling a saw blade through their midsection, all before they’ve realised you were ever there. It can be a lot of fun in a jailbreaking Jedi sort of way and it often produces some gloriously gory results, but it also means that major threats are often too swiftly snuffed out, like you’re Indiana Jones bringing a gun to a swordfight.

GRP is an ability that depletes and must either be recharged over time or instantly topped up with batteries should you have one in your inventory, so I couldn’t constantly use it as a crutch, but I certainly felt it gave me the force-flinging upper hand in the bulk of enemy encounters even on the ‘maximum security’ difficulty setting – at times making me wonder if the most dangerous monster lurking in Black Iron was actually me.

The overpowered nature of the GRP meant I didn’t really bother investing too much in The Callisto Protocol’s weapon upgrade system. I certainly splurged on basic augmentations like expanded clip sizes and recoil dampening, but never felt the need to scrounge up enough Callisto credits to buy the more exotic enhancements. After all, what use are explosive rounds for the riot gun or the homing bullets for the assault rifle, when the ability to throw the ever-present explosive canisters or pick an enemy up and drop them over a ledge is the only alternate fire mode I ever really required?

Similarly, stealth sequences fail to induce much in the way of stress. Midway through Jacob’s great escape The Callisto Protocol introduces a deadly blind variant of the infected that are reminiscent of the clickers from The Last of Us. However, although they’re purported to possess an elevated sense of hearing, I found it surprisingly easy to violently shiv them to death right under the nose of other enemies who seemingly wouldn’t bat an eyelid – assuming they have eyes – despite the loud death squeals of their freshly dispatched friends. A far more serious threat are the towering terminator-style security droids that can only be destroyed with a pinpoint headshot – mess it up and you’ll likely be swiftly minced by their high-powered canons – but strangely these genuinely formidable foes are introduced early on and then rarely encountered again.

Hell in a Cell

That’s not to say there isn’t a healthy variety of enemy types to tackle in The Callisto Protocol. Although they embody a fairly customary set of survival horror archetypes – standard zombie-types, suicide bombers that rush you, spider-like creatures that scramble on all fours up walls and along ceilings – they all look wonderfully repulsive, and even better when you’re making space jam out of their space guts. Before too long a regenerative ability is introduced that enables basic enemy grunts to transform into more resilient brutes if you wound them without finishing them off completely, which brings a welcome sense of urgency to fights with groups of agitated foes. This is perhaps best exemplified by a late game ride on an underground drilling platform, with hordes of attackers that set upon you from all sides and instantly power-up as a result of being lashed by the shards of flying rock. It’s definitely one of the most heartrate-ratcheting sequences of the entire journey.

But elsewhere my anxiety was stirred by the surprisingly slow so-called ‘quick weapon swap’ function. It routinely let me down during the repeated fights against The Callisto Protocol's twin-headed tank-like mini-boss in which my ammunition reserves were rapidly drained. Tapping left on the D-pad swaps out one equipped weapon for another, but the animation of Jacob holstering a weapon and drawing the next is too long and can be accidentally interrupted, meaning there were many times I’d start a weapon switch but perform a dodge to evade an enemy attack immediately afterwards, and then spring back up into a shooting stance to find myself still armed with the exact same weapon I was attempting to holster. Clumsy control issues aside, The Callisto Protocol’s handful of boss fights are disappointingly one-dimensional and never really blew my mind (although they certainly smashed Jacob’s skull on a number of occasions).

There are a number of other smaller quibbles that plague The Callisto Protocol. It’s frustrating that opening chests automatically picks up everything inside, meaning I had to continually hop into the inventory screen to drop the skunk gun ammo I never asked for in order to clear space. It seems a bit antiquated that you can only listen to audio logs while you’re standing still with your head stuck in a menu, instead of having them serve as eerie accompaniments to your exploration as they are in games like Dead Space and BioShock. And although having a facehugger leap out of the locker you’re searching might have been a great idea for a jump scare the first time, by the sixth or seventh time it’s just plain annoying, and feels like you’re being forced to endure the same repeated office pranks of an alien April Fool’s day.

Lastly, while its eight-hour runtime feels about right in terms of pacing, there’s precious little to do in The Callisto Protocol after you’ve beaten the story. While a New Game+ mode is apparently coming via a free patch at a later date, for now there are no interesting unlockables to speak of that might encourage repeat playthroughs, or any alternative modes to try, making the overall package at launch feel almost as slim as a prison cell mattress.

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World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Review in Progress

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Most recent World of Warcraft expansions started with a tightly scripted, story-heavy, and somewhat bothersome on-rails scenario. Dragonflight seems to have remembered that this is an MMORPG and I should be deciding what kind of adventures I want to go on. Right off the boat onto the expansive, beautiful Dragon Isles, you'll be met with only minimal handholding and four huge, new zones to explore. It's like Blizzard finally learned to trust us to find the fun without supervision, and they're letting us have the run of the world again. I still have a lot of this expansion left to play, but it’s already so refreshing.

As of now, I've leveled from 60 to 67 and quested through two of Dragonflight's four major zones. They really fly by – pun intended – which is a bit of a disappointment. I'm much more of a, "The journey is more important than the destination," kind of player than one who thinks the "real" game only begins at max level. The new talent points I've earned along the way have definitely helped my characters come into their own, though. I feel like I understand so much better where the combat designers were going with specs like Marksmanship Hunter and Preservation Evoker now that I have a more complete toolkit to work with.

These zones are downright gorgeous, too. The contrast between volcanic wastelands and verdant river valleys in The Waking Shores is a breathtaking introduction to the expansion. And it features some of the best side quest writing I've seen in WoW in a long time. One of my favorite quests involved sitting and listening to a red dragon, shapeshifted into a humble dwarf, talk about all his regrets and the pain of being banished from his homeland for 10,000 years.

Another one I loved involves traveling slowly, on foot, with a centaur clan to their sacred meeting grounds, complete with a pit stop for a hunting competition. These kinds of heartfelt, memorable moments really are World of Warcraft at its absolute best. They seem to be here to lovingly bonk you over the head and remind you to take your time, simply exist in this beautiful world for a moment.

A Wing and a Prayer

If that's a bit too slow-paced for you, though, then I think you'll love the new dragon riding system. Zooming over the landscape at up to three times the speed of WoW's traditional "flying" mounts, I feel like I can't ever go back to that old system. Vigor, which limits your dragon's stamina, can feel a bit restrictive at first. I've developed a habit of tabbing out of the game to check on my friends in discord every time I'm forced to land and wait for it to recharge, because there's often nothing useful or interesting to do during this downtime.

But it feels incredible when you're soaring, banking, and diving around with a palpable sense of momentum and physicality that WoW normally lacks. The restrictiveness of your first drake's abilities is a strong incentive to chase hidden glyphs that will allow you to go higher, further, faster, which has been one of my favorite activities – alongside dragon riding courses that reward you for better and better times.

I'm not a huge fan of how it controls on a mouse and keyboard, though. It seems to be begging for controller support, which has long been rumored but never actually manifested. Also, there are still some technical issues. If you fly into a steep slope at high enough speed, you might just glitch out and get booted to the login screen. A couple of my guildmates were even unable to log in again for some time afterwards.

A Dance of Dragons

The main story, so far, hasn't exactly wowed me as much as the side quests. If you didn't follow all of the out-of-game lore leading up to Dragonflight, you might be a bit confused about why you're even here in the first place. There is some tension between the major good guys, but it rings kind of hollow. The new bad guys, the primal dragons and their humanoid minions, the Primalists, haven't yet made an impression as especially complex or interesting villains. There does at least seem to be some sort of succession crisis brewing within the Black Dragonflight that has the promise of delivering interesting stories down the line. But the first dungeon, Ruby Life Pools, is very straightforward and unmemorable outside of the rather bombastic final fight.

All of that has kind of fallen to the wayside so far though, because I'm just having so much fun exploring the isles and getting excited about smaller adventures that don't involve the fate of the world again. This gives me the feeling of playing 2004 vanilla WoW more than even WoW Classic did. I might get called "Champion" by the power players like the Dragon Queen Alexstrasza or the cocky Prince Wrathion, but most of the time I'm just vibing like I did in my freelance adventurer days when some guy in the woods would ask me to go collect twelve bear asses for his bear ass stew. It feels good.

And the expanded crafting system has really gotten its hooks into me, too. This is easily the best World of Warcraft has ever been for fans of making and enchanting your own cool stuff, with varying qualities of materials and different results for finished products based on your skill level and progression choices. When I make myself a pair of Tier 5 leather pants, I know every stat on those bad boys is as high as it is because my Leatherworking skill is so much higher than the recipe calls for, because I specialized into leather pants specifically, and because I chose to use only the finest bear asses in their manufacture. Those pants will be sought after because of my mastery, dedication, and reputation as a crafter. There are many pairs of leather pants. But you want these ones, because I made them.

There's still more than half of the expansion to see, so I'll be updating this review as my journey continues. I'd be remiss to put a score on Dragonflight before I've seen the new raid, currently scheduled to go live on December 12. But at this moment? While I may miss the spirit of innovation that ran through certain parts of Shadowlands – I long for something like Torghast done better, where it doesn't feel like a chore but still allows primarily solo players like me a place to really test our skills and class mastery – the back-to-basics approach of this expansion seems to be paying off so far. The positive reaction to WoW Classic clearly inspired some soul-searching at Blizzard based on interviews they've given recently, and while this may end up feeling like a "rebuilding year" for modern WoW, the foundations being laid are strong ones.

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Women Talking Review

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Women Talking opens in limited theaters on Dec. 2 before going into wide release on Dec. 23.

To say that a film feels like a Twitter thread is rarely a good thing — see also: the middling Harvey Weinstein exposé movie She Said — but Sarah Polley’s Women Talking makes a meal out of the concept. Based loosely on Miriam Toews’ eponymous novel, it takes aim at patriarchal structures, and the ensuing philosophical gridlocks emerging from a society where sexual assault is all too common, and women have finally begun to speak out. The story unfolds in an isolated Christian commune, where a series of attacks have forced its oppressed female population to gather, vote, and debate on how best to proceed — whether to forgive their rapists as their faith dictates, to stay and fight to create a better culture, or to up and leave entirely — but the film’s non-stop dialogue avoids straying too far towards the didactic. This is owed, in large part, to Polley probing at what lies beneath every facet of this ongoing conversation, which can manifest in the public sphere in reductive ways, whether through new media or more traditional streams. Women Talking tries to pick up the broken pieces of those debates and put them back together. While its theatrical staging does occasionally give way to an inorganic ebb and flow (alongside some awkward shifts in tone when the film attempts levity), it’s hard not to be taken in by its incredible ensemble, who deliver stellar performances across the board.

Its opening text reads, “What follows is an act of female imagination,” though its most imaginative qualities are all in its staging and dramaturgy. The story itself is rooted in the painful reality of a Menonite community in Bolivia, the Manitoba Colony, whose real-life case Toews adapted for her novel set in Ukraine (Toews herself grew up in a Menonite town in Manitoba, Canada, which she left when she was 18). Polley further transposes the film to the United States, where the timeline isn’t fully clear at first — the simple costumes and rural production design make this commune feel stuck in time, and out of time; both trapped in the past, yet timeless and prescient — but a few references begin to slowly clue us in on the “when” of it all. The text’s westward cultural translation speaks to the story’s theatrical nature; it feels distinctly like a blackbox stage play, unfolding mostly in a barn in secret, via spoken dialogue first and foremost. It’s the kind of under-the-radar tale that would benefit from being localized, given how it lives in the delicate space between broad generalities, with regards to gender, and specificities of time, place, and language — or lack thereof, where the latter is concerned. As one of the film’s illiterate victims describes, she was taught little about her own body, and what could be done to it.

However, despite its theatricality, Women Talking discovers its most affecting moments when it briefly cuts away from the barn, to flashes of memory. These interludes illustrate what the women inside are actually discussing, resulting in distinctly cinematic depictions of the emotions underscoring their words (whether the brutality wrought upon them, or their more abstract hopes and dreams for their children in the future). After the colony’s women vote in secret — with “X”s marked alongside illustrations, since they can neither read nor write — they arrive at a deadlock between fleeing and fighting. And so, under the guidance of a minor character played by Frances McDormand, the women from two specific families are chosen to hash things out, and come to a collective decision.

The kindly elders of each family, Agata (Judith Ivey) and Greta (Sheila McCarthy), conceal their burdens with accepting smiles, but they harbor wry wisdom too. Agata has two daughters: Ona (Rooney Mara), who’s pregnant from her assault and who thoughtfully considers each option, and Salome (Claire Foy), whose youngest daughter was raped, and who harbors an unquenchable fury; she’s determined to stay and fight, though what that truly means is something the women still need to decide on. Rounding out the leading trio is Greta’s daughter, Mariche (Jessie Buckley), whose abusive marriage has convinced her that leaving is the best (and only) option. Mariche and Salome are at constant loggerheads, and their understandable hair-triggers result in frequent explosions amid the debate.

The lulls between their skirmishes, however, see the dramatic baton passed to a rich array of supporting characters. Not only Agata and Greta, but Greta’s niece Mejal (Michelle McLeod) — who quietly considers the conversation from a corner, as she dulls her resurgent traumas by smoking — and the film’s two teenagers, Salome’s niece Neitje (Liv McNeil) and Mariche’s daughter, Autje (Kate Hallett). Rather than following Salome and Mariche’s adversarial lead, they’re best friends who quickly grow tired of the process. However, their performances are so finely tuned that the two teens never blend together, despite having to share almost the entirety of their limited screen time; as the debate intensifies, McNeil grows more quietly disaffected, while Hallett begins to slowly crack and crumble.

Rounding off the main cast is Ben Whishaw as the sensitive schoolteacher August, who’s in love with Ona, and whose function is to take the minutes of the meeting. He’s also asked for his input on occasion; his mother was once excommunicated from the commune for challenging their beliefs, so the way he was raised makes him willing to assist the women in ways the colony’s other men may not.

It’s a rare ensemble movie where every single performance makes it worth watching.

The movie’s desaturated palette stands out right from its opening frames, and while Polley and cinematographer Luc Montpellier don’t play with light and color much beyond this, it sets the stage for the unfurling of a particularly bleak story. The unusually wide 2.76:1 aspect ratio certainly adds to the stage-like quality, but it also helps frame multiple women and multiple perspectives unfolding alongside each other simultaneously, as opinions and tempers fly, and the debate about leaving versus staying deepens to the point that several characters end up 180’ing entirely. Ona is frequently the catalyst for these changes; where Mariche and Salome rage at one another (and at practically everyone else), Ona’s pregnancy keeps her keenly aware of the future and its fragility, so she asks pragmatic questions about where exactly each path might lead the women, should they either stay or leave.

The subject of forgiveness is also broached, both as a religious concept as well as one with a collective social function. But these intellectual musings, while no doubt engaging, are eventually set aside in favor of its emotional strengths. The film, though it features few male characters beyond August — and a trans man in the community (August Winter), who was also raped and impregnated — harbors a constant awareness of the ways in which men and boys play into this dynamic, especially when the topic of leaving is considered more seriously. Which of their sons would the women bring with them? What’s the cutoff age? And are the women even equipped to teach their sons, and help them unlearn cruelty? Of the numerous cutaways to disjointed flashbacks, the images concerned with these questions are perhaps the film’s most moving. The women ask August his thoughts on his young male students; he answers in words, elucidating ideas about kindness and curiosity, but Polley matches his statements to both images of innocent, boyhood frolic, and of the haunting loneliness and emotional isolation imposed upon the boys. Even as children who don’t play a major role in the story, the boys’ diverging paths —should they stay or leave — are laid out clearly through poetic, abstract implications. Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir ties a neat bow on this sequence with some of her most moving film music to date. One moment in particular stands out, where held strings accompany a fleeting closeup of a tween boy staring right down the lens, causing time itself to stand still as his future hangs in the balance.

While not quite as polished as Todd Field’s Tár, Women Talking pairs surprisingly well with it, as an extrapolation of power dynamics (“Don’t we all want some sort of power?” Mejal asks at one point, to which Ona responds: “I think so, but I’m not sure”). But rather than exploring the way power hurts the powerless, the film instead lingers alongside that hurt, long after it has taken hold, as the women figure out ways to escape its dulling grasp. But where the movie ultimately succeeds is not just in its cinematic presentation of ongoing debates on power and gender, or even the rhythms with which each blistering performance is crafted (kudos to editors Christopher Donaldson and Roslyn Kalloo). Rather, its key success lies in its ability to follow the ripple effects of these conversations along distinctly emotional trajectories, tracing each implication as it arrives at some new hurdle to be painstakingly jumped, even at the point of exhaustion. It’s about what could, or should, come after the yelling, the screaming, and the desperate venting — which is to say, the difficult task of healing and rebuilding.

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Marvel's Midnight Suns Review

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One of my favorite things about watching superheroes duke it out is when someone gets smacked so hard they fly backwards and crash through solid walls, explode tanker trucks, or slam into their friends. It’s an awesome demonstration of just how strong these godlike characters are supposed to be, and it’s always a disappointment when a superhero game doesn’t quite capture that feeling. With Marvel’s Midnight Suns, however, Firaxis has built a deep and innovative turn-based tactical combat system around the joy of having Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Blade, and more knock enemies around like toys they're trying to break – and that hasn’t gotten old in the roughly 75 hours of its surprisingly expansive RPG campaign. A lot of that time isn’t spent in battles, though, and while it’s certainly appealing to get up close and personal with this cast of more than a dozen popular and lesser-known Marvel heroes, it does tend to go a bit overboard with convincing Earth’s mightiest heroes to all be your BFFs.

The full-on supernatural theme of Midnight Suns immediately sets it apart from the Marvel games we’ve gotten in recent years. This story is very loosely based on the Marvel Comics series Midnight Sons, and centers on the corrupt witch Lilith returning from the dead to claim the Darkhold (the evil spell book featured in Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness) on behalf of an even more evil god. That apocalyptic mystical threat isn’t terribly novel in of itself, but the family relationships around it make it more interesting: Lilith is the mother of our character, a Commander Shepard-style blank slate known as The Hunter, and her sister is Caretaker, a powerful witch who serves as the Midnight Sun’s Professor X-like mentor. There’s a lot of history between them to delve into – literally, in that Lilith and Caretaker are hundreds of years old and date back to the Salem Witch Trials – and the story uses Lilith’s ability to twist the minds of heroes and villains alike to great effect in creating strife and division among our heroes. With such a long campaign – at least 60 hours, but I’m at more like 75 or 80 now – just about everybody in the cast gets some time to shine, from the world-famous Spider-Man to the more obscure magical heroes like the Runaways’ Nico Minaru and Colossus’ sister Illyana “Magik” Rasputin, who both take central roles in the fight against Lilith.

Right off the bat, Midnight Suns’ style of combat is radically and refreshingly different from Firaxis’ genre-defining XCOM games. For one thing, each member of your three-person team you take on a typical mission has their own customizable deck of eight cards representing everything from Spider-Man’s THWIP!!! web-stunning attack to Dr. Strange’s Winds of Watoomb tornado, forcing you to think on your feet in order to make the best possible use of the hand you’re dealt. As a big fan of card games like Slay the Spire and Monster Train (and recently Marvel Snap) I’m absolutely on board with this idea – the unpredictability of it keeps me from falling into the rut of repeating the same routine every battle once I find something effective. Having just a few cards in your hand isn’t as limiting as you might think, since you can discard and redraw any at least a few every turn to replace those that aren’t useful in your situation (and you can increase the number of redraws per turn with consumable items or card upgrades). It’s rare that I’ve found myself unable to act, and it’s not unusual that you’ll draw exactly the card you want.

Losing one character doesn't pull you into the downward spiral of failure that can happen in XCOM.

Another excellent aspect of this system is that all your characters draw from the same pool of (usually) three “card plays” and one movement action per turn. That means that one person getting knocked out doesn’t instantly reduce your available actions by a third – you lose access to that hero’s cards, but those who are left standing can still use all of the turn’s allotted moves. So you’re at a disadvantage until you can revive them, but it’s not so great that you’re pulled into the downward spiral of failure that can happen in XCOM and other squad-based games – but it certainly doesn’t mean Midnight Suns is easy.

Superheroes don’t take cover in a fight and they don’t miss their shots, so instead of getting entrenched and using suppressive fire to win shootouts, these mostly small-scale missions are exciting slugfests where staying alive is all about quickly taking enemies out – or at least weakening them before they get to move. Directing their attacks away from your weakest hero with taunts and buffing your allies with armor and resistances is key to mitigating the damage, and a lot of the guesswork is taken out of it by icons above enemies' heads indicating who they plan to attack on their turn.

The rhythm of combat involves picking off weak fodder enemies using basic attack and skill cards (those with the “quick” trait refund your card play if you knock out a target, extending your turn) to build up Heroism points, which can then be spent on powerful Heroic cards like a hail of missiles from Iron Man’s shoulders that damages every enemy on the screen or Wolverine's armor-piercing claws, or satisfying environmental attacks like dropping a street lamp on a group of enemies or vaulting off a table to come crashing down on a target from above. It’s fantastic when it all comes together to let you clear out one of these close-quarters arena maps before the inevitable wave of enemy reinforcements charges in from off-screen to keep the action going.

Firaxis’ animators have done an excellent job.

Firaxis’ animators have done an excellent job of making these turn-based fights feel energetic. That so much of it is built around smacking enemies with extreme force works extremely well with high-powered heroes like Iron Man and Captain Marvel, and using Spider-Man’s webs to fling objects into bad guys’ faces from across the map is very on-brand. With all of that knockback in play positioning is extremely important – you have to think about how to approach a target and how to set up more damaging hits. On that note, I love how every hero has a distinctive flavor to the way they move and attack, whether it’s flying, levitating, teleporting, or swinging, and the powerful team-up attacks put on a good show as two heroes take turns beating the living hell out of a target. When you scale up to the over-the-top late-game abilities the animations are a whole lot of fun to watch, and it's all set to a rousing Avengers-esque score.

Mixing heroes like Magik and Ghost Rider into your squad gives you the ability to open portals in the floor (into Limbo and/or Hell) and kick enemies into it for an instant knockout, which is one of the few major places in Midnight Suns where a roll of the dice determines if an attach is successful or not. Considering this requires you to spend a move and may not do any damage at all, it’s a gamble – but it can pay off big if you can remove a beefy enemy from the map in one move.

While the maps you do battle on are consistently small and flat with only a handful of objects on them for you to slam enemies with or into, there are a fair number of backdrops to keep visual diversity up and a good variety of objectives beyond simply defeating all the enemies. There are hazards that make you keep your squad moving to avoid danger zones, shield-bearing enemies that have to be broken through to reach a target, Hydra VIPs that must be captured, bombs that must be disabled, and so on. You can also keep things interesting on straightforward battles by opting into side objectives where you need to, for example, use a specific character to deal 250 damage within two turns. Between those factors and occasional boss encounters with Venom, Sabertooth, Crossbones, and more – each with their own unique mechanics – missions rarely felt like I was stuck in a loop.

It can be a pain to find the exact right place to cast an area-of-effect attack.

Of course, Midnight Suns’ combat does have some annoying quirks to get used to: because positioning is so important it's a bit frustrating that you can’t really control where your characters will land after an attack (though it does preview the location for you before you play a card), and because there’s no grid it can be a pain to find the exact right place to cast an area-of-effect attack to hit multiple targets or to get an environmental attack to line up just right. The main thing that still throws me off, though, is that it’s easy to accidentally move a character when you’re trying to make them shove an enemy, and once you do that you've burnt that shove move for this turn.

While I’ve come to love it, I admit that Midnight Suns' battles did take a little while to grow on me. The opening hours are a lot to take in, and at the same time you’re trying to wrap your head around this dramatically different new combat system you’re barraged with what feels like way too many currencies for upgrades (each of the three card types has its own) and relationships and other stats to manage, and of course each character’s individual deck of cards – including Hunter’s, which are a mixture of light and dark cards that give you a good range of options for how you’d like them to play, focusing on support abilities that heal or grant armor or going all-in on damage dealing. I also made the mistake of taking on a lot of early side missions, which turns out to be unwise because a lot of things that haven’t been unlocked at that stage. For example, if you don't unlock the ability to do extra damage by knocking an enemy into one of your own teammates you're just making things harder than they need to be. When Venom randomly showed up in an already difficult situation (boss characters can drop into normal missions unexpectedly, similar to XCOM 2’s Chosen) it took me around two hours of stubbornly retrying it to figure out how to survive that mission.

But by the time I’d made my way through the first act of the surprisingly long story, things had really clicked into place, and I found myself greatly enjoying the challenge of maximizing the potential of the hands I’m dealt. Having a wider selection of cards to work with and the ability to upgrade and augment them with bonuses, like increasing their power when you spend a redraw on them or inflicting bleeding on a target, expanded my options significantly and made each character feel more tailored to my preferred style.

I did end up having to tone the difficulty down during that second act. I’d ambitiously cranked it up three levels as they’d unlocked based on my scores in some early missions, but when the generic Hydra soldiers were replaced by a bigger variety of tougher demonic enemies (such as the creepy guys who can clone themselves and others) I started hitting walls where my current understanding of how to optimize a deck just wasn’t up to the task. So I went back down to just one notch above the default for the rest of my run, and that put me in a good place – but I’m looking forward to a future playthrough (maybe when the planned DLC characters Deadpool, Storm, Venom, and Morbius arrive) where I can plan out my decks with a better understanding of how upgrades work and which cards I can sacrifice for extra resources to level up and enhance the ones I like.

Turning up the difficulty increases your rewards for beating missions quickly and without anyone getting knocked out, and it’s a really smart system. Doing well doesn’t make you much stronger (if you’re doing that well you don’t need a lot of help there anyway), it just makes you look cooler doing it by increasing the amount of Gloss currency you have to spend on unlocking new costumes and leisure wear for Hunter and the rest of the gang, among other things. With at least a few costume options for everyone, each with multiple color palettes, to earn it’s a good incentive to push yourself to improve on the battlefield.

The Abbey is certainly a major change of pace from battles, though that’s not always a good thing.

Before you can pay Gloss to enable them, though, you have to find those cosmetic items, and most of them come from exploring the grounds around the Midnight Suns’ home base, a castle-like building known as the Abbey. I generally enjoyed the parallel story that unfolds here, wherein the ghost of Agatha Harkness sends you looking for clues to missing memories of Hunter and Lilith’s previous conflict, and retracing the events that lead to her own death. It’s certainly a major change of pace from battles, though that’s not always a good thing because it can feel like a big time-sink: there’s a lot of aimless wandering alone across the moderately sized, maze-like map, which is almost entirely devoid of NPCs of any kind, as you search for pieces of puzzles. During that time I encountered a few frustrating bugs where items weren’t interactable at first or a solution didn’t work until I tried it multiple times. Also, while there’s a set of four different powers you get here that aren’t available at all in combat, they aren’t used very creatively and mostly serve to unlock areas that’ve been gated off. It becomes very straightforward that you need to use the Open spell to open locked doors, the Purify spell to clear obstructions made of vines, and Reveal whenever you see the eye symbol.

The third major part of Midnight Suns is the aggressive befriending of everyone on the team, and it’s here that things can become a bit awkward. We do get to explore every hero’s backstory and what led them to join the Suns, along with interpersonal conflicts between the visiting Avengers and the resident magic users, and a lot of that is done well and brings depth to the characters. The writing is usually strong and often funny – Tony Stark and Dr. Strange have some of the best banter as they work to solve problems with their technological and magical approaches, Nico’s rebelliousness puts her constantly at odds with Caretaker, and Blade is dark and intense but also nursing a secret crush. There’s a lot to like about each of them, even the vacuous young Ghost Rider, Robbie Reyes, and the voice acting holds it all up fairly well. These iterations of known characters feel distinct; the only one I’d accuse of doing an impersonation of their Marvel Cinematic Universe counterpart is Tony Stark.

Having recently replayed the Mass Effect trilogy I couldn’t help but notice a fair amount of similarity to how you chat up your teammates and earn points for being a goodie-two-shoes or an abrasive jerk at every opportunity (or taking the more neutral option), with each character having their own preference for how they’d like you to act. Nico, for example, is generally fishing for a dark answer when she’s venting about Caretaker, while Steve Rogers is exactly what you’d expect. Like nearly everything else, that system feeds into combat by unlocking items that give Hunter passive bonuses, so there’s a good reason to be consistent with your choices even if you’re not into roleplaying.

As for Hunter, they aren't a bad character, but they’re kind of set up for failure by being placed next to legendary comic book heroes like Iron Man, Captain America, and Spider-Man, among others that we already know and love – they never really stood a chance of being as memorable. My Hunter – a male who almost exclusively chooses the “light” dialogue options (my standard choice for a first playthrough of a game like this) – tends to alternate between a self-serious crusader against his mother’s evil and kind of a goofy dork who always wears sunglasses at night, and that was kind of endearing. I don't expect a dramatic change in how events play out when I eventually revisit it with a different approach, though.

It takes on the tone of self-insertion fan fiction.

What made me cringe here and there, though, was the fact that so much of Midnight Suns is spent getting all of these heroes to really like Hunter. It takes on the tone of self-insertion fan fiction, where you write a story in which you get to meet all your favorite characters and they’re constantly telling you how cool you are and how much they love being friends with you. To be fair, we see a lot of this same relationship-building in other similar party-based RPGs of the BioWare style, but in this case the fact that our character is the only one who isn’t drawn from the existing Marvel Comics universe and largely already know each other gives it a bit of a different flavor when everyone is quickly fawning over you. Of course, there’s gameplay value in participating in all of the various book clubs and surprise parties and soaks in the Abbey’s grotto pool: leveling up friendships unlocks powerful passive abilities for each character when in combat and eventually unlocks their Midnight Suns costumes and most powerful card, so it’s worthwhile.

Speaking of payoffs, though, it’s odd that in a game where we spend so much time buttering up a group of mostly attractive people by showering them with compliments and thoughtful gifts suited to their interests, and unlocking their swimsuit options, all of these friendships are completely platonic. (I believe canonically makes our character the only person Tony Stark hasn’t tried to bang.) There are quite a few conversations, especially with Magik, where it seemed poised to take a romantic turn but nothing came of it, and that can be anticlimactic coming from games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and The Witcher. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Marvel vetoed the idea of romance options with its established characters, but as it is a more appropriate superhero name for Hunter might’ve been Captain Friendzone.

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Willow Season 1 Review: Episodes 1-7

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This is a spoiler free review of episodes 1-7 of Willow.

In an age where "content" is king and established franchises rule Hollywood, it often feels as if everything is getting rebooted. In many cases, it can leave fans wishing their precious artistic fave was left alone. But in some cases, it can lead to underappreciated gems getting to find a new audience as they're reimagined for the modern age. Or, in the case of the new Disney+ series Willow, it can build on a beloved story that many thought would never be continued. The first seven episodes of Jon Kasdan's sequel to the 1988 Ron Howard dark fantasy amount to one of 2022's most magical shows.

Decades after the events of Willow, when the titular Nelwyn hero and his allies Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) and Madmartigan (Val Kilmer) defeated the evil Queen Bavmorda, peace reigns in the kingdom of Tir Asleen. Or at least it does within the walls of the magical barrier that was erected to keep evil out and the prophesied child known as Elora Danan in. Sorsha is queen and her rebellious daughter Kit (Ruby Cruz) is set to be married off to a noble, Graydon (Tony Revolori). But when Kit's twin Airk (Dempsey Bryk) goes missing, it sets off a series of events that bring together a ragtag group of young heroes including Kit's best friend and knight, Jade (Erin Kellyman); a local criminal and adventurer, Boorman (Amar Chadha-Patel); and Airk's current squeeze, a young kitchen girl named Dove (Ellie Bamber). Together they must journey beyond the barrier with the help of the sorcerer Willow (returning star Warwick Davis).

Beautifully, vibrantly shot by four talented cinematographers -- James Friend, Joel Devlin, Stijn Van der Veken, and Will Baldy -- Willow watches like a warm hug. Though similar shows trade simply in nostalgia, the built-in audience for Willow is much more niche than your average re-quel, and the source material more limited. That means it has to constantly innovate and expand on the little that we who love it do know of the universe we're losing ourselves in. Luckily, Jon Kasdan is a lifelong fan of the franchise and comes from a family legacy of creating accessible and exciting adventure yarns. His love for the world drenches every scene and, along with the stellar creative team, Kasdan has created a truly unique and lovely fantasy series.

Willow's biggest surprise will likely be its comedy. While the original movie was funny -- mostly thanks to Val Kilmer's Madmartigan -- what has long stuck with young viewers is the combination of terror and fantasy. Both of those elements come into play here, of course, but the writing is legitimately warm and often hilarious. Davis gives a performance that channels a truly heartwarming kind of humor that delivers some of the show's most hearty laughs. His new party of adventurers are equally charming. Disney stalwart Kellyman, who's had impressive but underwritten turns in Star Wars and the MCU, finally gets a role that showcases the breadth of emotion and range she can bring to a performance. Here, she's the party's Knight, a brave and brilliant soldier with a loyalty to Kit that will take her to the ends of the earth. Cruz seemingly has a lot of fun as the spoiled warrior princess whose brother's kidnapping breaks her out of her palace-trapped reverie and into the real world.

While adventuring is at the fore, this is a story about legacy and how we live it. That's true not just in the fact that Willow is itself a sequel, but in the journey that each of the heroes take. At the heart of many of those stories is Madmartigan and the impact he had on them. It's this connection that introduces two of the show's standout performances, one from a never-better Christian Slater, and the other from Chadha-Patel as Mad's spiritual successor, Boorman. He's a whirlwind of charm, quips, and well-timed violence that feels closest to what Kilmer brought to Willow all those years ago. It's rare for an ensemble show like this to have such a balanced cast of key players, but Willow really does introduce us to an entire swath of characters where almost all of them feel like worthy additions to the story and world that we've been invited back into.

Leaning into the classic serialized storytelling that has always shaped Lucasfilm, this is a wacky and wonderful adventure-of-the-week series set in a gorgeously drawn fantasy world that's driven forward by an overarching mystery and a party of heroes that you'll care about.

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Violent Night Review

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Violent Night hits theaters on Dec. 2, 2022.

It's the month before Christmas that brings Violent Night, a rowdy skull crusher that dons fierce action might. Director Tommy Wirkola honors Die Hard and Home Alone with care, with hopes that a barbarian Santa would — just kidding, rhymes stop here. There's no reason to distract from my enthusiasm for a smashup of Hallmark holiday traditions and gore-slathered fight sequences from the filmmaker behind both Dead Snows and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. Violent Night sells its gingerbread-scented hostage scenario with the tongue-in-cheekiness of winter wonderland innocence, then jacked old Saint Nick goes warrior-berserk with a sledgehammer.

David Harbour is seemingly having a blast as Santa Claus, currently suffering a crisis of faith due to civilization's increasingly naughty habits. Another year flying around the world, gifting bratty kids electronics that'll be outdated in weeks — Santa's Christmas spirit is fading. His next stop? The Lightstone residential compound where matriarch Gertrude (Beverly D'Angelo) once again hosts her son Jason (Alex Hassell), daughter Alva (Edi Patterson), accompanying family, and all the hired catering help. Santa cracks into homemade cookies and vibrates in a luxury massage chair, living the good life until he hears gunshots. Enter John Leguizamo as a Christmas-hating criminal ("Mr. Scrooge," he calls himself) in search of Gertrude's vaulted millions, blasting his handgun and threatening even Jason's wee daughter Trudy (Leah Brady) — which Santa doesn't approve of.

Violent Night darkens your average syndicated Christmastime drama with coal residue by introducing the Lightstones as dysfunctional elites who've lost the jolly with their holly. Alva is a catty alcoholic, her husband Morgan (Cam Gigandet) is a D-list action star wannabe in search of producers, and Gertrude's introduction includes metaphorically roasting a senator's chestnuts without remorse. Violent Night takes Michael Dougherty’s Krampus approach of teaching wholesome holiday lessons with heavy doses of danger, except Violent Night swaps horrific creatures for mangled henchpersons standing within Santa's reach. No jack-in-the-box monsters, only whirring snowplow blades, icicle spikes, and sharpened ice skates as Santa's makeshift arsenal.

Harbour's transformation into a grizzled, tattooed Santa shows an actor loving every second on screen.

Pat Casey and Josh Miller's screenplay is aggressively on the nose, calling out influences and storytelling beats like Rudolph pointing to his blinking red schnoz. Scenes don't just cheekily recreate Home Alone — characters will say how much a sequence resembles Home Alone aloud. Violent Night lives to entertain by turning famous Christmas carol lines into badass Santa catchphrases during battle or by bastardizing Trudy’s yuletide innocence. The script can read as initially corny since momentum takes a few beats to start snowballing, but then the decapitations begin, and Wirkola's brutal sensibilities usher in primetime seasons beatings.

Harbour's transformation into a grizzled, tattooed Santa shows an actor loving every second on screen. Santa's not invincible, nor are choreographed fight sequences fantastically outmatched. Harbour stands Redwood-thick in his red leather outfit, using everything from electrified star toppers to glittery garland for an upper hand against Scrooge's hired psychopaths (each with cute seasonal codenames like Frosty and Jingle). It's the John McClaneisms like calmly lying exhausted next to dead bodies or hearty laughter as soldiers explode after he stuffs a grenade in their "stocking." Beverly D'Angelo, Cam Gigandet, and the rest are playing cemented stereotypes, while Harbour reinvents Santa Claus as a brawny action hero with only twinkly nose magic, an endless toy sack, and a readable scroll with "naughty" enemy names. The reset is all Harbour translating precious holiday imagery into rough-and-tumble mercenary punishment.

With a zippier opening, Violent Night would’ve reached a rung higher. When Harbour's off camera, there's less to be enthusiastic about. Leguizamo can easily pull off the bah-humbug bulletstorm persona, but not all his supporting baddies carry the same presence. Harbour's the not-so-secret weapon of Violent Night, which becomes apparent when Wirkola stages a game-changing combat sequence set to another radio-friendly Christmas hit that elevates intensity and sets a new standard moving forward. That's when Violent Night locks into overdrive, when gory tidings erupt and the naughtiest are shown no mercy, the same way 1989's Deadly Games morphs from a “playful” Christmas thriller into suspenseful December warfare.

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Scrooge: A Christmas Carol Review

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Scrooge: A Christmas Carol streams on Netflix on Dec. 2, 2022.

Netflix’s Scrooge: A Christmas Carol is a heartfelt retelling of the classic Charles Dickens story. It's familiar to a fault, with a predictable conclusion. That said, thanks to some solid animation, a lively cast, and strong musical performances, Scrooge manages to delight nonetheless.

Directed by Stephen Donnelly, Scrooge: A Christmas Carol depicts the exploits of miserly old Ebenezer Scrooge (Luke Evans) during Christmas Eve. A businessman with zero holiday cheer to give, he can often be seen hounding his debtors for money or berating the poor for their lack of wealth. That is when he isn’t chastising his nephew Harry (Fra Fee) for daring to invite him to a Christmas dinner. He detests all things merry and rarely enjoys the company of others. Ultimately, Scrooge lives a solemn life that’s free of familial obligations and the common decency one would typically expect from folks during the holidays. As long as he remains wealthy, he can’t be bothered – a silly notion that’ll eventually falter over the course of a long winter’s night.

A Christmas Carol is a classic for a reason. Presented as a cautionary tale, it delivers a potent message about reaping what’s sown through a man’s encounter with time-traveling spirits. The basic premise is almost always as engaging as it is fanciful. That’s not to say that its charm doesn’t wane at times. Given how each rendition is more or less the same, most all of them suffer from being overly familiar; the timeless nature of A Christmas Carol doesn’t circumvent the fact that it’s been retold several times in all manner of film and play. The audience knows what to expect. And while Scrooge: A Christmas Carol certainly entertains, its plot only slightly deviates from what’s come before.

The good news is that deviation helps to humanize Netflix’s Scrooge. He shares a similar upbringing as his predecessors except in this version, his descent into bitterness is slightly more understandable given certain story shifts. His desire to hoard wealth, for instance, comes from a basic need to secure a solid financial footing as opposed to just being greedy for the sake of it; he never wanted to be like his father, who always seemed to be indebted to someone. Scrooge’s reasons for hating Christmas also differ slightly. The emphasis is placed more on the loss of loved ones over “wasteful” holiday shopping. Scrooge is as cold hearted as ever but his self-induced state is more relatable this time around.

Scrooge believes he’s a good man who worked hard for his station in life. This notion is often contradicted by his actions, none more obvious than his treatment of Bob Cratchit (Johnny Flynn), his poor office clerk. His fear of becoming poor outweighs his love for money. This realization makes the latter parts of the film shine when Scrooge is confronted with the results of his wrongdoings. The ending is predictable, even to those who haven’t seen any version of this story. That said, this shift in tone colors that way the final scenes come across in a nice way.

Luke Evans does a wonderful job at showcasing the different sides of Ebenezer Scrooge.

None of this would matter, of course, if the cast didn’t provide strong performances. Luke Evans does a wonderful job at showcasing the different sides of Ebenezer Scrooge. From grumpy old miser to grief-ridden hopeful, Luke seamlessly captures the essence of this classic character. Olivia Colman and Trevor Nicholas are also great as the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, respectively. Their distinct portrayals of these characters match that of the vibrant animation, resulting in lively and charming performances. The same can be said of Johnny Flynn’s Bob Cratchit and Rupert Turnbull’s Tiny Tim. And that’s before mentioning the musical numbers, some of which are rather moving.

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Dash Review

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Dash is now available on digital and VOD.

Sean Perry's Dash is a structural marvel as a one-take Los Angeles thriller captured exclusively by a rideshare driver's dashboard camera. Adultery, drug dealing, gunsmoke, and numerous other unsavory elements blend as “Tarantino for the found footage age.” Heaping helpings of chaotic storytelling and hopelessly detestable character work trademark this seedy reinvention of Crazy Taxi through Hollywood, all about consequences ganging up for a relentless night of karmic lashings. We don't leave the car — leaving us reading exposition on floating text bubbles or hearing private voicemails — which will be a selling point for adventurous viewers and a hindrance for those who switched off other vehicle-focused thrillers like Wheelman or H4Z4RD.

Alexander Molina stars as protagonist driver Milly, propelled by a host of bad decisions that collide in a sky-high pileup over 100 minutes. His love life includes pregnant secret girlfriend "Potential Spamm" aka Emily (Monette Moio), workaholic doctor wife "My Favorite Prostitute" aka Tara (Paige Grimard), and actual prostitute "Cali DMV" aka Kalli (Audra Alexander) — who sells Milly a brick of drugs to start the night (after an unfinished flaccid handjob). Dash rests on the car's chassis and Molina's performance, ranging from awkward conversations with "Dash" app riders to Milly's increasingly manic spiral. Text messages go to the incorrect recipients, Google becomes a resource for cocaine measurements, and Perry introduces scenario after scenario of captivating discomfort as we ride shotgun.

Dash is a single-location, mostly feel-bad movie, which creates a tougher barrier for entry. Perry — who also appears backseat as a stupendously drunk off-duty LA cop — visually succeeds as far as one-shot cinema is concerned, but the writing needs to be airtight in a movie like this. Sticking within a confined and unchanging setting can lead to environmental monotony, and Dash isn't impervious to gear-grinding lulls. Whether that be Milly's lonesome speeding down Los Angeles alleys screaming obscenities or bits like giddy and gassy rideshare party girlies who refuse to speak (dialogue is conveyed through on-screen messages), Perry feels the weight of his conceptual challenge. The experience sustains but stretches like a grating Grand Prix with too many laps.

Perry takes the Taxicab Confessions approach while swapping lewdness for emotional vulnerability, not to forgive Milly's actions. It's more about who Milly encounters — a police officer with a superhero complex who feels demonized, the sex worker with a heart of gold — while Milly struggles to either conceal or offload his powdery product. Molina accentuates licorice-bitter humor through Milly's inability to identify the correct narcotics via street names or fumbling through cheater coverups, never to grant any confessional pass. Dash is wholly cognizant of Milly's despicable behaviors and ensures the audience knows, through deserved mental anguish and surprise violence. That's important because choice scenes unwittingly drift towards forgiveness — but Dash is more about starting over and learning from painful, destructive lessons.

Cinematography, “editing” (fluid storytelling transitions), screenwriting — it's all Perry. Hollywood Boulevard signage zips by rear view window views as Milly digs himself a bottomless grave, hellbent on nuclear self-sabotage. It's too grounded to be zany, but frequent close calls with proverbial brick walls make Dash seem like a failing playboy's fever dream. Whether dropping a straight white guy's opinion into a queer throuple's argument or inept juggling of his too-good wife and Dave Matthews Band one-night-stand mistress, Milly's actions keep us wincing but also engaged. Perry deserves applause for an independent feature shot by a skeleton crew that requires immense on-set finesse not to break the marathon shoot. It's a few steps away from full-throttle, but neither coasting on autopilot.

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HyperX Cloud Stinger 2 Review

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No stranger to the increasingly crowded and competitive gaming headset market, HyperX has consistently stood out, dependably delivering quality performance, long-lasting comfort, and durable designs across its line of mid to high-end models. With its recently released Cloud Stinger 2 – an update of the company's popular budget-minded Cloud Stinger – the reliable brand attempts to again hit that same trifecta at a fraction of the cost.

HyperX Cloud Stinger 2 Gaming Headset – Design and Features

The Cloud Stinger 2's lower price is apparent as soon as you free the headset from its packaging. Forgoing the familiar, aluminum frame of the brand's more premium builds, this budget entry is almost entirely constructed of plastic. The mold is pretty solid and the matte finish is pleasant enough on the eyes, but if you've been spoiled by sturdier models, you'll have trouble overlooking the Cloud Stinger 2's flimsier feel.

Given its affordability, I wasn't especially bothered by this cheaper chassis construction, but was more put off by the ear-cups' excessively loose swivel. While I appreciate the convenience and comfort that comes with rotating cups, the Stinger 2's have far too much play, lending to an especially wobbly, inferior feel.

Of course, the saving grace of this cost-cutting design is the brand's signature comfort. Coupled with cozy leatherette and memory foam coverings, the lightweight build provides a feathery, ergonomic fit that might find you forgetting you're even wearing a headset. I tested the Cloud Stinger 2 for several weeks, donning them for lengthy days of work and play, before clocking another couple hours of bedtime TV streaming. Discomfort was never an issue, even with eyeglass arms tucked beneath the cans for most of my testing period.

My only minor complaint here is that the headband adjustment slider moves too easily. Like the too-loose ear-cup swivel, this feature would benefit from far more rigidity. As is, it feels insecure and can occasionally cause your adjustment to gain – or lose – an unwanted notch when positioning or removing the headset. The addition of numbered notches is welcome, letting you assign – and memorize – a precise value to your perfect fit; I just wasn't expecting to rely on this feature, frequently re-dialing in my preferred fit whenever it slipped out of place.

Speaking of those numbered notches, they pretty much represent the limit of the headset's features. The Cloud Stinger 2 is a no-frills offering, providing the bare minimum of what you need to game. It's a wired headset with a permanently fixed cord, and a mic that isn't going anywhere either. The latter conveniently mutes when raised, but it would be nice to detach it entirely when using the headset outside of the home. On-board controls are limited to a red, chunky volume wheel, which nicely contrasts with the black peripheral.

The lack of flashy features is by no means a deal-breaker, as its minimalist design is pretty on par for headsets circling this price point. And, honestly, I often appreciated the simplicity of a straightforward, plug-and-play experience, one where I needn't dedicate a single brain cell to selecting optimal settings.

When tucked into bed, mindlessly farming resources in Disney Dreamlight Valley, for example, I don't want to fiddle with touch controls, worry about tuning insignificant features, or wonder if my battery's gonna run out of juice before I do. In this way, the Cloud Stinger 2 makes for a great second headset, one that unassumingly sits on a bedside table, never distracting you with 1-million-plus RGB lighting options or other superfluous inclusions.

And what it lacks in extras, it easily makes up for in versatility. While the Cloud Stinger 2 is marketed as a PC gaming headset, its 3.5mm connection makes it compatible with so much more. Over my month or so of testing, I used it with my PC and laptop, all current-gen consoles, and even an old iPhone S. The convenience of being able to plug it into – and immediately use it – with so many devices can't be understated.

HyperX Cloud Stinger 2 Gaming Headset – Performance and Gaming

The Cloud Stinger 2's streamlined design and lack of features doesn't come at the cost of its ability to deliver exceptional sound, especially for a headset priced so reasonably. Its 50 mm drivers more than hold their own, pumping out a dynamic soundscape with surprisingly good separation.

I made a point of using them with games that regularly mix subtle, ambient audio cues with big, ear-pummeling action and combat encounters. After dozens of hours spent slaying all manner of mythological monsters in God of War Ragnarok and cracking criminal skulls in Gotham Knights, I came away impressed by the headset's ability to keep up with these games' deep, layered sound designs.

Audiophiles will certainly find room to nitpick, as the Stinger 2's performance – while more than proficient for its price point – doesn't match the quality of more premium cans. There are moments when the mid ranges get lost in the highs, and the bass doesn't quite reach those stomach-rumbling lows. More often than not though, only the most discerning ears will pick up on these shortcomings. I tested the Stinger 2 side-by-side with HyperX's pricier Cloud Alpha and Cloud II models, and noted only occasional, often negligible differences.

The headset's attached mic also gets the job done, delivering consistently clear comms during even the most chaotic multiplayer skirmishes. My teammates did report my voice sounding a bit distant on several occasions, but the effect never seemed to come at the cost of clarity. The ability to mute the mic, by flipping it up, also worked as advertised.

HyperX Cloud Stinger 2 Gaming Headset – Software

Like everything else with the Cloud Stinger 2, its software support is a pretty straightforward, stripped-down affair. In fact, those who like to tweak and customize their audio output are out of luck, as there's no real software or app compatibility to speak of.

That said, the headset is bundled with a code for DTS Headphone: X Spatial Audio, which promises a more immersive soundscape. Compatible with Windows and Xbox – via a download from the Microsoft Store – the license typically costs $20 after a free trial, but you'll score two years gratis with the Stinger 2. It's worth downloading and testing with different games, as results tend to vary from game to game. The improvements were pretty subtle in my experience, leaving me happy I redeemed the code, but not so won over that I'd consider ponying up for a renewal.

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