Birds of Prey Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out Much like its central character, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is a riot - an anarchic glitterbomb of lunacy that boasts some of the most inventive fight sequences ever seen in a comic book movie, even if it often has a tendency to undermine its momentum just when it’s kicking into high gear. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel - especially in the wake of the fourth-wall breaking Deadpool franchise and the swagger of Guardians of the Galaxy - but it’s still a ballsy, biting blast that feels like a two-hour sugar high without the crash. After being underwhelmed by the initial trailers, and frustrated by the muddled mess of Suicide Squad (which squandered one of the most entertaining and bonkers concepts in DC’s canon), I worried that Birds of Prey would end up falling into the same trap as the likes of Elektra and Catwoman, slapping a pandering “girl power” narrative onto a paper-thin plot and trusting that skintight costumes would distract from how hollow it all felt. Luckily, in the capable hands of producer and star Margot Robbie, director Cathy Yan, and writer Christina Hodson, Birds of Prey allows us to see Harley at her most liberated; a trickster goddess who undoubtedly creates more messes than she cleans up, but one who is no patsy, despite spending years in thrall to her green-haired puddin’. It’s the most nuanced portrayal of Harley since creators Paul Dini and Bruce Timm fleshed out her backstory in “Mad Love,” one that actually takes advantage of the fact that Harleen Quinzel earned a PhD before succumbing to the Joker’s unhinged charms; meaning that she not only has the smarts to be strategic when she wants to be, but also has a delicious habit of psychoanalyzing her opponents in a way that’s hilariously disarming. And make no mistake, despite the front-loaded title, this is a Harley Quinn movie first and foremost, one that’s told from her own endearingly off-kilter point of view. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=birds-of-prey-gallery&captions=true"] Birds of Prey has a deliberate stream-of-consciousness quality thanks to Harley’s breakneck voiceover, which is woven throughout - first introduced via an energetic animated prologue stuffed full of easter eggs, which seems designed to get her complicated history with the Joker out of the way up front without actually showing him. (There are also a few direct nods to Suicide Squad, lest you try to forget that the two are set in the same universe, but the movie zips along fine without feeling the need to get bogged down by too much backstory.) The plot swerves, skids, and doubles back on itself as Harley recounts the unlikely tale of her emancipation and the women who inadvertently become tangled up in it, overcomplicating a fairly straightforward story in which various factions are on the hunt for a stolen diamond… or on the hunt for those who are hunting it. Thankfully, Yan’s stylish direction and keen sense of comedic timing keep things lively even when the story starts to strain under the weight of so many competing storylines. [ignvideo width=610 height=374 url=https://ift.tt/2unoWdV] Although “Mistah J” is often namedropped - and serves as the catalyst for much of Harley’s growth here - his presence isn’t missed, since Birds of Prey serves up two villains who are somehow even more unpredictable than either Jared Leto or Joaquin Phoenix’s recent takes on the Joker. Ewan McGregor is clearly having the time of his life as Roman Sionis (aka Black Mask), a mercurial and sadistic crime lord with a penchant for carving people’s faces off and wearing pajamas adorned with his own image. (Sidenote: the costuming choices in this movie are spectacular across the board, and just begging for cosplay -- it’s no coincidence you can buy most of Harley’s clothes at Hot Topic already.) His cruel volatility, coupled with his control-freak tendencies, make him the perfect funhouse mirror reflection of Harley’s more benign brand of chaos - there’s no malice in her casual disregard for others, whereas Black Mask makes a game out of toying with his foes. McGregor chews the scenery with such commitment that it’s hard not to be charmed by his charisma, but just when it feels like the audience might be enjoying Roman’s antics a little too much, Yan expertly flips the switch, forcing us to be unwilling witnesses for his most discomfiting acts, just to remind us that it’s all fun and games until somebody loses a face. [ignvideo width=610 height=374 url=https://ift.tt/2GlY8NS] Roman’s theatrics are made all the more chilling because he has the dead-eyed Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina) as his unflappable enforcer. Although the knife-wielding serial killer is an iconic member of Batman’s rogues gallery in his own right, Victor’s obsessive desire to please his boss and Roman’s unchecked narcissism combine to create a dynamic duo who are pure nightmare fuel. If it sounds like we’re spending a lot of time on the villains, that’s because the movie does too. Birds of Prey has a lot of masters to serve between emancipating Harley, setting up her antagonists, and establishing the other women crammed into that very long title, and unfortunately, the Birds of Prey are the ones who get shortchanged by the ambitious scope of this tale. Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), and Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) are all perfectly cast and utterly magnetic when they’re on screen - with Winstead’s Huntress proving to be an unexpected scene-stealer in her comparatively limited screen time - but there’s no doubt that this is Harley’s show. Ella Jay Basco’s Cassandra Cain fares a little better because she spends a good portion of the story in Harley’s custody, and the film really finds its groove whenever they’re together, but you can’t help but wish that Birds of Prey leaned a little harder into the team-up aspect of the title, especially when Smollett-Bell, Perez, and Winstead imbue their characters with such depth in such a short period. Familiarity with the comics (or other iterations of the Birds of Prey) isn’t a necessity, but it certainly adds more context and emotional heft to some of the easter eggs the movie drops, especially in the case of Black Canary’s storyline - but not so much for “Cass,” who is notably different from her comic book iteration, in ways that thankfully end up working to the movie’s advantage. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-dceu-movie-review-score&captions=true"] Hodson’s script does a good job of tying the women’s disparate plot threads together and giving all of them believable reasons to hate Black Mask (along with some tantalizing hints of each reluctant hero’s backstory), and when they do eventually team up, it’s definitely worth the wait, culminating in a dazzling action setpiece. But the delayed gratification calls to mind Netflix and Marvel’s Defenders miniseries, which took three episodes to get the titular heroes fighting together, and even longer for them to all acknowledge that they were, in fact, a team. There’s certainly plenty of scope for a sequel, but it feels like a more streamlined story might’ve left more room for character development, even if the movie had to sacrifice some sass to accomplish it. One area of the movie that perfectly balances character and sass is in its many elaborate fight sequences. In terms of pure, blood-splattered action, Birds of Prey has far more in common with the John Wick franchise than any recent superhero film, which makes a lot of sense when you realize that Chad Stahelski (director of all three John Wick movies) was reportedly brought on to help punch up the brawls. The fight scenes in Birds of Prey are jaw-dropping and more than earn the movie’s R-rating - utilizing all manner of props (from baseball bats to bags of cocaine), satisfyingly squelchy sound editing, and a deranged sense of humor to create something truly thrilling. And, thanks to an emphasis on practical stunts and well-choreographed camera movements, the smackdowns have a tangible, bone-crunching quality that sets them apart from the overly CGIed slugfests found in many other superhero movies lately.

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The Flash: Midseason Premiere Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out Warning: this review contains full spoilers for The Flash: Season 6, Episode 10. If you need a refresher on where we left off, here's our review for the midseason finale and our full review of Crisis on Infinite Earths. [poilib element="accentDivider"] It's funny to think how little we knew about the future direction of The Flash coming into the second half of Season 6. Crisis on Infinite Earths had been casting a huge shadow over the series, to the point where we didn't even know if Barry Allen would still be alive come January. And even once it became clear Grant Gustin's Barry wasn't the one sacrificing his life to save the multiverse, there was still the question of what conflicts and villains would drive the series post-Crisis. Thanks to "Marathon," we now have a much clearer sense of how the series will move forward from the crossover. This episode deftly balances the need to reflect the events of Crisis while also building a clear path forward. Surprisingly, the tone of "Marathon" isn't as lighthearted as you might expect now that Barry has just been given a second lease on life. Apart from that early CC Jitters scene, this episode is a fairly glum exploration of how the various members of Team Flash are moving forward from Crisis. This does feel like an appropriate choice, however. With multiple heroes having sacrificed everything to save the multiverse, a lighthearted, feel-good midseason premiere would probably ring hollow. This goes back to one of the main strengths of Season 6 - it's better at tone management and knowing when to be funny and when to let the drama carry the day. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-flash-marathon-photos&captions=true"] "Marathon" is also notable for featuring Arrow's David Ramsey in his first guest role since that show wrapped. I'm sure we were all hoping this episode would follow up on Arrow's big cliffhanger, but the script is very careful to place this episode's events before the Diggle family's departure from Star City. Instead, Dig plays a more understated but still important role, helping Barry come to terms with Ollie's death. I appreciate how this storyline subverts expectations by revealing there's no actual mystery at all and Ollie's final gift is truly just that - a gift to commemorate a friendship that helped establish the Arrowverse as we know it today. Plus, it never gets old watching Dig deal with Speed Force-induced motion sickness. In another surprise, welcome twist, Iris is turning out to be the driving force of the show's post-Crisis status quo. Her ongoing investigation and partnership with Esperanza has never really been one of the more compelling pieces of the Season 6 equation, but this episode goes a long way toward changing that. While a bit plodding at first, there's a growing sense of danger and unease as Iris digs deeper into the mystery of McCulloch Technologies and invites both physical and legal disaster. That culminates in a very satisfying stinger scene that makes the identity of the series' latest big villain abundantly clear. Along the way, we also get a surprisingly different take on Doctor Light, one that doesn't seem particularly beholden to any prior comic book incarnation. While it's a little strange seeing Kimiyo Hoshi depicted as a ruthless assassin when she's always been the heroic counterpoint to the fiendish Arthur Light, she does make for a fun secondary antagonist in this episode. And with the Arthur Light version having recently appeared in Titans, it stands to reason The Flash may have been limited to using Kimiyo. The promise of an ongoing Team Flash vs. Mirror Master storyline is extremely appealing. For all that this series has done to refine the Arrowverse formula and showcase speedster villains like Reverse-Flash and Zoom, it's never really taken advantage of the full scope of Flash's rogues gallery. Specifically, the Flash Rogues have always felt like an afterthought. Captain Cold and Heat Wave barely spent any time as villains at all before reforming and shifting over to DC's Legends of Tomorrow. The rest have been used as minor, forgettable footnotes. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/18/crisis-on-infinite-earths-crossover-review"] Even Mirror Master suffered that fate back in Season 3, with the Sam Scudder version of the character being used as a one-and-done threat to Central City. Mirror Master deserves better, and it seems that he's finally getting better. The twist being that the classic Evan McCulloch version is being transformed into Eva McCulloch, a billionaire inventor who now exists as some sort of warped, journalist-snatching mirror demon. And as with the previous Bloodwork arc, the hope is that the the condensed nature of this storyline will prevent too much fluff and filler from gumming up the works. Barry and Dig's quest aside, the lingering effects of Crisis are most clearly felt in Cisco's emotional journey. "Marathon" is great about exploring both the humor and the tension that arise in trying to come to terms with a new world built on the ashes of multiple worlds. Having Supergirl and Black Lightning as permanent neighbors is great, but what about all the new and resurrected villains that have appeared alongside them? That's to say nothing over Cisco's guilt and regret over taking the metahuman cure. That's the tricky thing about the old great power and great responsibility mantra. Do superheroes get the luxury of a happy, peaceful retirement? Can they even appreciate that retirement when it comes? These are interesting questions to explore, particularly in light of how Smallville's Clark Kent was portrayed in Crisis. Carlos Valdes delivers what is easily the episode's strongest performance, especially late in the game where his guilt begins to overwhelm him. It's a welcome reminder that Cisco is far more than just the obligatory snarky tech whiz, but a character who's grown and evolved and suffered every bit as much as Barry himself over the course of six years. I do wish "Marathon" gave us a better sense of what Cisco's Arrowverse future entails. There were rumors last year that Valdes was leaving the series after Season 5's finale. Clearly that rumor didn't pan out, but maybe there was a kernel of truth to it? It's hard to tell if Cisco's absence is temporary as the series builds toward a new status quo for the character, or if Cisco is being phased out so Valdes can pursue other projects. It would be a shame if Cisco exits the picture just as the series is finally finding its footing again. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=crisis-on-infinite-earths-aftermath-all-the-ways-the-arrowverse-has-changed&captions=true"] One thing is clear - Nash Wells is now being positioned as Cisco's temporary replacement on Team Flash. Having a Wells as a more permanent presence on the series is always a nice thing, particularly one who isn't as aggressively annoying as Season 5's Sherloque. While this episode highlights the fact that his adventurous swagger is a mask for his loneliness and guilt over his role in Crisis, there are some concerns regarding Nash's current characterization. For one thing, it's a little bizarre seeing him revert to his old Nash persona so soon after his turn as Pariah. I'm not clear on how much time was supposed to have passed between Nash's disappearance and his return as Pariah, but he definitely had the air of a man haunted by countless years of watching his failure play out in front of him. Neither the writing nor Tom Cavanagh's performance reflect the full weight of that experience. If anything, Nash seems more bothered by his daughter's estrangement than his role in the death of the old multiverse. On that note, do we really need another running subplot about Harrison Wells trying to reconnect with his daughter? It's a redundant plot twist, and seemingly unnecessary given how much drama this character already has to process. The hope is that Nash can better find his place in the team Flash dynamic in this second half of Season 6, but there are reasons for concern right now.

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The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics Review

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Spoiler Note: The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics follows the same plot as its Netflix TV series counterpart. While this review is spoiler-free and the gameplay and screenshots shown were picked to avoid giving anything away, keep that in mind if you haven’t seen the show and want to go in completely fresh.

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It’s 2020, but Netflix is still banging the drum for licensed tie-in games. Like Stranger Things 3: The Game before it, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics morphs the streaming network’s 2019 prequel TV series to Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal into game form – this time as a tactical RPG akin to Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics. It twists Age of Resistance into a linear, combat-heavy experience, but ends up feeling like little more than a hollow puppet of an RPG used to capitalize on a beloved franchise. It’s passable enough to trigger some Pavlovian response from both my love of tactics games and The Dark Crystal series, but left me wanting in both regards once I really saw what it had to offer.

In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I’ll say that The Dark Crystal Tactics covers the same general plot arc as the Age of Resistance show. Like Stranger Things 3: The Game, many missions are pulled right from sequences in the show, and new, well-drawn comic-strip cutscenes retell key scenes with some flair. Despite this, the story told here pales in comparison to the TV version. These moments, both interactive and hand-drawn, are truncated in ways that seem tailored to elicit memories of when you watched the show, rather than actually tell its story. In between the very clear nods to Age of Resistance, the plot moves far too quickly through strings of dialogue shown on the world map between missions. I found it difficult to follow, even after watching the first few episodes just before I started playing.

Screenshots From The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics

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As a result, even the centerpiece moments like boss fights with the most prominent Skeksis from the show, feel hollow. All the key characters – Gelfling, Skeksis, and otherwise – get a chance to stand in the spotlight, but there’s next to no time spent on character development. If you aren’t excited by the sight of them alone, controlling or fighting them isn’t going to add much to the equation. Even allowing for the liberties you have to take when condensing a full season of plot into a roughly 15-to-20-hour combat-focused video game, this version of the story feels like a hurried summary you’d get from a friend – it hits the crucial details and can be enticing at times, but never captures the emotion of any important moments.

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Setting aside its capacity for Dark Crystal fan service, The Dark Crystal Tactics also evoked a bit of my nostalgia for tactical RPGs, particularly original PlayStation-era games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Vandal Hearts. Though its art style is not retro by any means – it’s got a muddy, overly rendered look that’s more functional than stylish – its turn-based combat laden with RPG-style abilities and tiled maps full of environmental hazards and gimmicks definitely is. The Dark Crystal Tactics gets the basics of that experience right, with a strong emphasis on using skills to get the upper hand over enemies that will likely beat you if you just trade blows until someone dies.

More than many other strategy RPGs, The Dark Crystal Tactics also emphasizes turn order and timing as a means of controlling a battle. A long bar at the top of the screen shows the next 10 character turns, helping you to predict your enemies’ movements and plan ahead. There are also a decent number of skills that allow you to move an ally’s next turn up or push an enemy’s back, giving you the ability to not only take stock of turn order, but manipulate it to your advantage. Any character can also refrain from attacking or using an ability to speed up their next turn, which cleverly incentivizes careful play over taking wild swings. Predicting enemy behavior is a cornerstone of all tactics and strategy games, but The Dark Crystal Tactics puts it front and center.

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But while the combat can offer some interesting decisions, even at its best it’s dragged down by poorly designed menus that take far longer to navigate than they should. You cannot, for example, cycle through characters in the jobs or equipment menus, but instead must select each character, then choose what aspect of their loadout to alter one by one. In combat, you have to select “move” from a radial menu to move, rather than just clicking on a character as it works in nearly any other game from the genre. These inefficiencies, combined with fairly long load times on Switch, make navigating menus both in and out of battle tedious to the point where I sometimes avoided tinkering with my party’s skills just to save myself the slog.

The Dark Crystal Tactics' greatest strength is its progression, which is clearly a smaller-scale riff on the job system from Final Fantasy Tactics. In addition to level, each of your Gelfling and Podling fighters gains stats and abilities by choosing and leveling up their class or “job.” Though the job tree is small – there are 12 classes, most of which adhere to broad roles like Mender (healer) and Paladin (offense-focused melee fighter) – there’s a lot of room for customization. Each person in your squad can only choose a finite number of skills: three from their current, primary job, and two more from a secondary job. By the time a character hits job level 10, the threshold for advancing, they’ll have learned way more than three skills, so it’s on you to choose skills that fit a role on your team.

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Moreover, the classes are all complementary and feature very little overlap, so there’s always a strong incentive to stay in a lower class rather than absent-mindedly advancing up the ladder. Since you only bring four or five people into each fight, it’s impossible to create a flawless team, so you need to assemble your character loadouts with an eye towards specific sets of skills and an overall gameplan for how those skills combine.

However, the system works better in theory than it does in practice. With such strict loadout limitations, some of the skills become infinitely better than others, limiting character rotation greatly. For example, many of the most powerful attack abilities for Soldiers, like “Double Strike,” require you to mark enemies first. Mark is a basic Scout ability, so I was compelled to keep the Scout job as a primary or secondary for one or two characters at all times. While I found myself wishing I had access to other abilities, particularly passive and movement-related skills, they’re never as essential as the few I grew to rely on.

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Over time, new battle conditions will force you to mix things up, but even that causes frustration. You’ll run into bosses that are immune to the status effects you usually inflict; Poison swamps demand skills that cure debuffs; Beach maps with rising tides require extra speed. There are also plenty of missions that require you to focus on an objective other than combat, like getting your team to an exit or freeing Gelfling prisoners from cages, which push you to balance engaging an enemy and achieving your goals. None of these twists are very interesting or creative, but I appreciated the commitment to environmental mechanics and theme missions to keep things fresh. On the other hand, that commitment sometimes lead to boring situations where I’d have to spend a dozen extra turns slowly moving to an objective even after defeating all the enemies.

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In a perfect world, your entire 14-character roster would be leveled up and properly equipped at all times to allow you to swap out different fighters to match each situation. However, since your characters only level up in combat, bringing in someone with a skill you unexpectedly need requires a lot of grinding optional battles to whip those backups into shape. It rarely feels worth the significant effort required, and I instead found myself trying to rejigger my default five or six squad members to the best of my ability whenever a level had a hard counter for my usual gameplan.

Though it wasn’t an insurmountable issue, every setback in The Dark Crystal Tactics feels like a disproportionately big inconvenience. Outside of the laborious menus, The Dark Crystal Tactics also somehow relies exclusively on an auto-save system and does not provide a way to quick-save in the middle of a battle. On Switch, you can always pause by putting the console to sleep, but your save reverts to the last time you were on the world map if you quit. Retrying a mission after a death (or when you quit out, since there’s no easy option to restart) requires you to sit through multiple loads, which can lead to a lot of downtime if you get stuck.

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For another Netflix show tie-in game, watch our review of Stranger Things 3: The Game above.

It’s also worth pointing out that the pre-launch Switch version of The Dark Crystal Tactics used for this review suffered from consistent bugs. Chief among them, backing out to the Switch home menu and returning without quitting would cause hitching and, in some cases, force it to crash entirely. Certain late-game cutscenes sped through dialogue and had faulty audio. There’s also a story map late in the campaign where highlighting certain panels would discolor a large portion of the screen. As with any game these days, it’s entirely possible that these issues will be patched out, but they were notably more consistent and impactful than the pre-release hiccups I’m used to seeing.

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LG G8X ThinQ Smartphone Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out LG's G8X ThinQ may sound like an update to the LG G8, but it has substantial enough changes that it could well have been named the LG G9. It’s a flagship smartphone with performance to match, a big display, and a $699 price (though AT&T is currently charging $779 and Sprint wants $749). For now, LG also includes the special Dual Screen case, which doubles the amount of screen space. It’s an interesting (though not unique) way to stand out from the crowded Android market, but let’s see how well the LG G8X ThinQ manages.

Design and Features

The LG G8X has some visual similarities to its predecessor. A metal frame wraps around the edges of the phone while glass covers the front and back. The rear piece of glass is curved at the edges, jutting out above the metal frame—a good reason to have a case. Altogether the phone feels like a sturdy device. The bottom of the phone houses a USB-C port with Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0 capability and a laudable 3.5mm headphone jack backed by a powerful Quad DAC that gets music to really kick. I played some tunes via headphones with the Quad DAC enabled from Islands’ Should I Remain Here at Sea album and watched Scott Pilgrim, and all the sound had impact. DTS:X 3D Surround audio also upgrades the audio experience while watching movies and can have a fun effect for some music. It’s a pleasure to see LG’s ongoing encouragement of high-quality audio experiences. There’s a dual-SIM tray inside, with an option for a microSD card—so you can decide between a second SIM and microSD card to expand the phone’s generous 128GB of internal storage. There are two cameras on the rear, and they’re completely embedded under the glass— no camera bump here—but LG moved the rear fingerprint sensor of the old LG G8 to the front, embedding it under the LG G8X’s display. The effect is cool, but it’s been done before (by Samsung, OnePlus, and others), and the result is a slower scanner LG has also ditched all the extra sensors that enabled touch-free Air Motion controls on the LG G8. A small notch carves out a space at the top of the LG G8X’s display for the front-facing camera. The pure black backgrounds offered by the display definitely help hide the notch, but when apps re-color the status bar, it’s plainly visible. The LG G8X’s brilliant OLED display, at 6.4 inches diagonally, is bigger than its predecessor’s, the iPhone 11’s, and very nearly as big as the iPhone 11 Pro Max’s. It offers plenty of room for streaming content and gaming. It got bright enough for me to see while walking down the street in direct sunlight, and dim enough for me to comfortably view in a dark room. Aside from the notch cutting in, the display looks fantastic. Somewhat chunky bezels flank it on all sides, though. That doesn’t lend a super modern look to the phone, but does leave room for a comfortable grip without covering up the screen. But, that’s all just the experience with the phone itself. A lot changes when the LG Dual Screen case is attached, which turns the device into something of a messy meld of a square tablet, Nintendo 3DS, and pocket PC. It gains considerable bulk in every dimension. The LG G8X slots into the case, plugging into a USB-C connector in the bottom. The case covers the back of the phone in a leather-like plastic, but leaves a large cutout for the cameras. The bottom of the case has cutouts for the speaker grille and 3.5mm jack, but some headphone plugs may be too wide to fit into the cutout. For charging, LG created a nifty magnetic adapter, but the magnet isn’t strong enough to dependably hold the charging cable against the adapter in all positions. The mirror-like front of the Dual Screen attracted fingerprints like I’ve never seen before. It hides a third display beneath that mirror-cover—a simple black and white notification panel that displays the time, date, battery and three app notification icons. It’s usable, but the pixels are plainly visible. The case has a 360-degree hinge, but it creates a considerable gap between the two displays and raises the second screen above the phone’s display so the whole device can’t sit flat. The hinge is firm enough to hold the second screen in place at any angle, but not enough to support the phone if you hold the whole device by the second screen. Inside, the case houses a display identical to phone’s. Same measurements, same resolution, same OLED, and annoyingly the same camera notch (minus the camera). The Dual Screen offers a second home screen, and multi-tasking with fullscreen apps. It also enables things like a full-size QWERTY keyboard in landscape or a virtual gamepad to use with full-screen apps on the other screen. The Dual Screen display doesn’t come perfectly calibrated to the primary display. My unit was a touch dimmer than the main display, but there’s an option to calibrate its level manually so that it will match. Oddly, many display settings (like grayscale, and inverted color) don’t affect the second display. And using the Dual Screen disables Comfort view altogether. The Dual Screen wavers between nifty, handy, and obtrusive. When I’m not actively using the second screen, it mostly gets in the way of using the main portion of the phone. Running two apps side-by-side, the Dual Screen presents more information, but makes it difficult to type on either screen because of the awkwardness of essentially holding two phones at once. But, the Dual Screen has more readily apparent utility in a landscape orientation when I’m gaming with a virtual gamepad or using it as a second viewfinder for the camera. As a free add-on, the Dual Screen case is a nice addition. But, if LG doesn’t keep offering it for free, I didn’t find enough utility for it to be a worthwhile purchase.

Software

An immediate downside of the LG G8X is Android 9 Pie, which originally launched in 2018. That’s a weak point for a phone released while Android 10 is already available. LG’s custom UX 9.0 isn’t an improvement to the software experience either. It keeps around the old vertical stack of apps when checking the app history for those who prefer the less-detailed but quicker view of recent apps. The default setting also places all apps on the home screen, making for a crowded and disorganized home screen, though the app drawer can be enabled in settings. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=The%20Dual%20Screen%20software%20isn't%20at%20all%20straightforward."] LG has tweaked the main settings menu to group different settings in cards. Presumably, this would mean the settings should have some logical grouping, but I haven’t been able to make sense of why Apps & Notifications is grouped with Battery rather than with Display and Sound, which are grouped with Lock screen & security. For a phone with an OLED display, the software sorely lacks a dark theme. A dark theme is effectively available, but only when Night mode is on – which deactivates during daytime hours. I have to smack my head and ask, “why?” The Dual Screen software isn’t at all straightforward either. I often struggled to find what I was looking for – even things that should be simple like mirroring the main display. A small button floats on the main screen when the Dual Screen is attached, but not all of the controls show up there. Controls like “Swap Screens” and “Show main on Dual Screen” have nearly the same effect. Other controls are limited to certain apps, but it’s inconsistent whether they’ll appear in the Dual Screen menu or somewhere within the app. For instance, I wanted to make both displays show the camera viewfinder. I figured I could mirror the display, but the option wasn’t anywhere to be found in the Dual Screen controls. Eventually I found a toggle for mirroring the display in the Camera app. The button to launch the virtual Gamepad hides itself near the main navigation buttons, while the ability to share a Dual Screen screenshot is buried in the LG Keyboard. All of this makes the Dual Screen controls feel utterly slipshod.

Gaming and Performance

The LG G8X packs a Snapdragon 855 chipset with 6GB of RAM to power a high performance mobile experience, and the 4,000mAh battery does well to last all day, even with a bit of Dual Screen action. Launching apps and switching between them is perfectly responsive, though the camera still takes a moment to turn on. The second screen causes some hiccups, as the phone struggles to figure out how to reorient or switch content between displays. But, it’s otherwise a zippy device. Gaming on the LG G8X with the Dual Screen is where the phone starts to stand out. I jumped into some Call of Duty Mobile on the LG G8X, and the game ran smoothly from the get go. That was with graphics settings dialed up to Very High and ragdolls and anti-aliasing activated. The game was consistent even using both displays to enable a virtual gamepad. Some games will work right away with one of LG’s pre-made gamepad layouts, letting you keep one display dedicated to the game visuals while controlling all the action with inputs on the second screen. For Call of Duty Mobile, I had to create a custom gamepad, but it only took a couple minutes and the result was highly effective. I had one “analog stick” for movement, a second for basic aim, and a third specifically for firing while aiming down my sights. The one thing that felt like it was missing was trigger buttons, something Asus actually thought to include on its similar ROG Phone, which also has a dual-display option. Even so, I still found it a more compelling way to game on mobile than with a single display that’s half obscured by my thumbs.

Camera

The LG G8X ThinQ pairs a 12MP main camera with a 13MP Super Wide Angle camera offering a 136-degree field of view on the rear. The front-facing camera shoots up to 32MP. It’s a pleasure to see both rear cameras shooting similar pictures. They present different views, but otherwise balance color and lighting in a similar way, though the two sensors diverge slightly on color in low-light environments. Switching cameras mostly feels like switching lenses as there’s parity in the image quality. And it’s high quality at that. Both cameras manage to pick up a lot of detail in shots, with fine fur and tree bark showing just how well they perform. They successfully balance light in tricky environments, making most of the scene easily visible when I was at a dark bar with a spattering of bright lights (with the exception of the dazzling LEDs shining directly from one performer’s glasses). [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=lg-g8x-camera-images&captions=true"] The crisp detail in both rear cameras makes the Super Wide Angle camera a valuable tool to have on the LG G8X, as I was able to get more into every shot. However, optical zoom is sorely missed. That said, for some light zooming, a 2x digital zoom managed to capture a sharper, less noisy image than the 2x optical zoom on my OnePlus 5. The selfie camera keeps up the quality, though I noticed that holding the phone at an angle can distort the image – several of my selfies gave me an overly large forehead or jaw. The front camera also does surprisingly well in low-light environments, and the Dual Screen can contribute some extra glow to light up selfies. For video shooting, there’s a Steady Cam feature. It crops some of the image, but is effective at keeping hand-held video smooth, so it feels worth leaving on. That’s especially true since the 4K/60fps recording would otherwise highlight shake camera movements. That said, LG’s camera software still has some way to go to improve settings. Various features can be hard to find, and almost all settings are specific to each shooting mode. So if I want to change camera resolution, I have to do it while using the main camera. To change video resolution, I have to be in video mode. That ends up burying features like HDR10 recording, which is only available in the settings for Manual Video mode. And some settings are blocked by others, as is the case of HDR10 when trying to shoot at 4K60fps. Unsurprisingly, the Dual Screen finds as many ways to be useless as it does to be useful (like the fact it turns off entirely when in manual camera mode).

Purchasing Guide

The LG G8X ThinQ is available for $779 from AT&T, $749 from Sprint or $709 unlocked from Amazon.

from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/2RSFtj2
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