#casting hub reviews

[crazydiscostu]

Google Nest Hub (2nd Generation)

With the release of the Google Nest Hub (2nd Generation), the tech giant has taken a step further in enhancing the smart home experience. Today we are looking into what the Google Nest Hub Gen 2 does, explore its features, and answer some commonly asked questions about this innovative device. What does a Google Nest Hub Gen 2 do? The Google Nest Hub (2nd Generation) serves as a central hub for…

[felassan]

Game Informer's Dragon Age: The Veilguard coverage archive (MASTERPOST)

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Please note that in some cases article titles were updated at some point after first being published, e.g. the "A Deep Dive Into Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Expansive Character Creator" article is the same article as "Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Character Creator Is BioWare's Most Robust Yet".

First, here is an archive of the 'index/contents' page, GI's DA:TV "Hub" - [link, Wayback Machine link]

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✅ "Cover Reveal - Dragon Age: The Veilguard" - by Wesley LeBlanc - June 9th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "Get Your First Look At Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Real-Time Action Combat In First Gameplay Trailer" - by Wesley LeBlanc - June 11th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "The Dragon Age: The Veilguard Digital Issue Is Now Live" - by Kyle Hilliard - June 18th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "Returning To The Magic" - by Wesley LeBlanc - June 18th. COVER STORY. [link to screenshots of article, link to another collection of screenshots, link to typed transcript (credit: @acealistair), link to reblog of typed transcript]

✅ "A Deep Dive Into Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Combat, Abilities, Skill Tree, And More" - by Wesley LeBlanc - June 18th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Leads On The Name Change And Solas' Role In The Story" - by Wesley LeBlanc - June 20th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "Ahead Of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, The Entire Series Is On Sale For $10" - by Wesley LeBlanc - June 21st. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "Breaking Down Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Classes And Factions" - by Wesley LeBlanc - June 25th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "Dragon Age Cover Story And Shadow Of The Erdtree Review | GI Show" - by Alex Van Aken - June 27th. CONTAINS A GAME INFORMER VIDEO. [link, Wayback Machine link, link to video on YouTube, backup link to video]

✅ "Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Character Creator Is BioWare's Most Robust Yet" - by Wesley LeBlanc - June 27th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "Here's How Dragon Age: The Veilguard's 'Unbound' Option Lets You Customize Difficulty And More" - by Wesley LeBlanc - July 1st. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "Dragon Age: The Veilguard Will Feature A 'Robust' Transmog System At Launch" - by Wesley LeBlanc - July 4th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

[character limit text break!]

✅ "Companions Can Romance And Form Relationships With Each Other In Dragon Age: The Veilguard" - by Wesley LeBlanc - July 8th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "Yes, Dragon Age: The Veilguard Has Nudity, And I've Seen It" - by Wesley LeBlanc - July 10th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "A Deep Dive Into BioWare's Companion Design Philosophy In Dragon Age: The Veilguard" - by Wesley LeBlanc - July 15th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "Dragon Age: The Veilguard Is 'Respectful And Referential' To Previous Games Without Making Them Mandatory" - by Wesley LeBlanc - July 17th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "BioWare Leads Discuss The Making Of Dragon Age: The Veilguard" - by Alex Van Aken - July 19th. CONTAINS A GAME INFORMER VIDEO. [link (post contains the video), Wayback Machine link]

✅ "Here's The Main Voice Cast For Dragon Age: The Veilguard" - by Charles Harte - July 22nd. [link, Wayback Machine]

✅ "Everything We Know About Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Bellara Lutara [later corrected to Lutare]" - by Wesley LeBlanc - July 22nd. [link, Wayback Machine link]

✅ "Here's Your First Look At Dark Horse's Upcoming 'The Art Of Dragon Age: The Veilguard' Book'" - by Wesley LeBlanc - July 24th. [link, Wayback Machine link]

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #25 – The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

The fact that I put in a hold for this is basically a triumph of marketing. I saw Jackson Bennett doing an AMA to promote it, which reminded me that a) he existed and b) I liked the one book of his I’d read. So 20 people in the hold queue ahead of me latter, I finally got a chance to give it a try. Shockingly, this actually worked out incredibly – this was easily one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had all year.

The book follows Din, a recently promoted Assistant Investigator mainly notable for the incredible invasive grafts and suffusion that left him with grey skin, dyslexia, and a literally edetic memory. The last bit is the most relevant, as his incredibly eccentric Investigator uses him as combination Watson and CSI, running around collecting all the evidence and conducting most of the interviews so she can make her grand deductions in peace.

The case in question is the murder of an esteemed and well-regarded commander through the unconventional method of a tree sprouting in his chest cavity and growing several feet over the course of as many seconds. As things are wont to, the investigation quickly spirals out of control, dragging the investigators to a logistical hub days from the Seawall protecting the empire from leviathan attacks and implicating true imperial grandees.

So, this is a murder mystery. An extremely high concept one, full of leviathan-blood enhancements and supernatural contagion and a whole society structured and organized around the constant struggle to stave off apocalypse, but ultimately still very much an intentionally tropey murder mystery. Every clue is mentioned as Din notices it, always before it’s relevance to the plot is revealed. There’s an extended reveal where the Investigator just lays out the whole mystery as she’s’ deduced it and baits the villain into doing something stupid. One of the supporting cast is revealed to have been one of the killers all along. The entire thing occurs with a ticking clock meaning the investigation has only days to find an answer. It’s all there.

To be clear, this is not at all a complaint. Maybe it would be if I read more mysteries, but as it is the whole set of tropes is a very rare treat for me, and it’s all executed very well. And I adore a well-done drawing-room reveal scene. Not that I did, but I appreciate that I could have tried to outguess the plot and figure out the whole mystery ahead of time from the clues given (instead of just noticing most of them and having a vague sense of where people were headed – though I def thought the governor’s second paying a weird amount of attention to Din was a threat and not the love interest). The whole thing was just a joy to read, even if the characters were all a bit exaggerated and archtypal, and the ending was a bit too neat and tidy for my tastes.

The setting isn’t exactly novel – creepy quasi-horror rich biopunk settings and horrible kaiju whose corpses warp the world around them being harvested and processed for raw materials became fairly well trod ground at some point – but it’s hardly generic or the expected standard either. It’s very well-executed, and the murder mystery conceit basically requires each new relevant addition to the story being clearly explained as we meet it, which was handled with surprising grace/without devolving into multipages reams of exposition too often.

It was very amusingly obvious (and then confirmed in the acknowledgements!) that the entire subplot about ‘preservation boards’ (bodies to ensure there’s no unintended side effects of growing/processing weird biopunk reagents in a given region) being abused to obstruct and delay vital progress to – literally – raise property values for the landed gentry, was directly inspired by Jackson Bennett having read a lot of articles about malicious abuse of environmental protection legislation in the US.

Politics-wise – I mean it’s a conceit of the whole story that the empire is essentially, if not benevolent, then at least necessary and well-intentioned. Riven with corruption and patronage networks, warped for the interests of the landed elite, full of negligence and despair – but at it’s core a good thing to work for, and receiving awards and mandates from on high is a good thing. The issue is the boyars and not the tsar, all that sort of thing. Which works for the story, but I’ve at this point read enough SF/F that really digs into the whole empire thing that the lack of subversion there took me almost by surprise.

Not that the empire’s all nice – the grafted specialists with superhuman strength or eidetic memory or perfect reasoning skills all die after a decade or two of service, and that’s just the price of keeping things running. A major subplot of the whole book is Din trying to hide the fact that his enhancements misfired slightly to make him functionally dyslexic (an issue, when your main value to be a perfect living archive). Not entirely sure if the series is really going anywhere with the whole disability theme beyond the very basic ‘the empire will only survive if it makes it possible for EVERYONE to contribute what they can’ beat it hit in this book – regardless, the fact that Din spend the entire book wondering what had been done to her boss’s brain that e.g. she spent most conversations blindfolded to help her focus, and while doing so can identify most forms of text on a page by touch, only to find out that no she’s just autistic was very funny to me.

[thesummerstorms]

I keep seeing people say that the Greeks have *too much* access to Celestial Bronze for something that's supposed to be rare, or that "everything" seems to be made of celestial bronze, but at least in the original series I don't think that's true?

I just did a text search on the Kindle editions, not an in depth review, but I feel like everything I came across was either: a) actual demigod weapons & armor b) something made by the Gods or another immortal not the demigods or c) some sort of small decoration that someone made almost always explicitly from armor scraps.

The only two big exceptions I can think of are the Hephaestus kids having and iron and celestial bronze horse in the chariot race (which idk they run the forges ... Cast offs? Stuff they can melt down again later) and Mrs. O'Leary having a giant bronze dog bone (which I explain only with 'it's a children's book' and 'awww').

But I don't feel like they're just swimming in excessive amounts of the stuff? Especially as the singular unified hub of the Greek Demigods across the entire planet.

[ismahanescorner]

Six of Crows | Book Review

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Series: Six of Crows

Genre: YA Fantasy

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co

Release Date: 29/09/2015

Rating: 4.5/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

Synopsis:

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone. . . . A convict with a thirst for revenge A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager A runaway with a privileged past A spy known as the Wraith A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

Review:

tw//: murder, mental illness, bad coping mechanisms, panic attacks.

so if you don’t already know, this novel is about a heist! Kaz Brekker gets a job worth millions of krugers to break someone outta the ice court. thus, he brings together a group of six misfits (the crows) to carry out this “impossible” mission! chaos ensues!

it’s been a few years since i read this book, yet i love it the same! i was a bit hesitant going in due to the overwhelming hype, cuz i had already read bardugo’s shadow and bone, and while it was good, it wasn’t a literary masterpiece! six of crows isn’t either; however, it lives up to the hype! i was throughly entertained and intrigued all throughout. additionally, i read this for my phd thesis and it provided me with valuable insights and data for conference papers!!

definitely recommend it, as well as the audiobook (it’s a full cast!!)!

[miloscat]

[Review] Sonic Heroes (GCN)

The Sonic series reinvents itself again, and I like it!

I just found out about Sonic Team USA, an America-based (but Japanese-staffed) division of Sonic Team set up at first to localise Sonic Adventure, who went on to develop Adventure 2 themselves. Heroes then is their second game, and marks a course correction that the fanbase seems unhappy with but which I reckon is a step in the right direction after the messy SA2.

Eggman is up to no good again, making threats about an ultimate weapon and even worse, kidnapping Froggy. Sonic and his pals Tails and Knuckles set out to see what's up; meanwhile Amy teams up with Big and new cute bunny character Cream (created for this game although she had an advance debut in Advance 2). Rouge, sporting a new armoured super-spy look with bigger wings, is surprised to find Shadow not dead after all but in stasis and amnesiac, as well as the other new character Omega the trigger-happy robot. Finally, the Chaotix (Vector, Espio, and Charmy) are dusted off from their 32X game to re-debut in the modern series and take on the role of detectives to get to the bottom of the scheme.

Ultimately Metal Sonic is revealed to be at the centre of things with a wicked cool new design; this is the only time he has a speaking voice and also the only time he ever really does anything important in the plot of any Sonic media, so it's good for him to get a moment in the sun. The other additions to the roster stick around as core cast members, and even though the plot is thin it has moments that satisfyingly follow up Shadow's story in SA2. Amy's still in her stalker phase but these bits are over quickly. Mainly I just like how it balances a large cast by splitting them up.

The four teams act as separate stories that can be tackled in any order, and whose events play out simultaneously before coming together in the Last Story. My biggest disappointment was that each team plays through the same levels with the same layouts, fighting the same bosses. It makes for a lot of repetition between stories and feels low-effort (and even within levels there are reused chunks). They do try to vary it by tweaking things; Team Rose is sort of an easy mode, with shorter truncated levels and fewer enemies. Team Sonic is the normal mode with full levels including some bombastic setpieces. Team Chaotix is also shorter but has different kinds of objectives, like scavenger hunts or stealth missions which is a more fun and creative way to remix the content. The "hard mode" Team Dark chucks in more enemies (a fun way of increasing difficulty) but I think reduces the number of checkpoints (an unfun way).

As with SA2 we have a linear sequence of levels with no hub in between, but this structure is a better match for the more balanced pace and action-oriented design here. The streamlining doesn't make it feel dumbed down though, as the team dynamic adds some complexity. Each team has a speed, power, and flight character, and swapping who you're directly controlling (the current "leader") changes your abilities, for example the flight character stacks up the others and carries them, or the power character picks up their buddies to throw them. Each configuration has uses in and out of combat, often telegraphed by obtrusive signage. I found controlling all three at once a fun novelty and it's a great way to integrate a wide array of characters in playable form.

The three team members feel distinct, and swapping between them is immediate with the push of a button (all four face buttons finally have a unique use as of this game). Between teams the characters who fill those roles play basically the same with a tweak here and there, which contributes more to the samey feeling of replaying levels. There's also a level up mechanic where beating enemies and finding orbs incrementally powers up one of the three for the duration of the level, or until you die. It feels harsh to reset this when it's still easy to die from a platforming slip, but oh well.

Speaking of the platforming, Heroes has a fast pace. I've been told it's built on the same framework from SA2 but at the last minute they doubled the acceleration value... while the deceleration is unchanged. I did like the zippiness of the speed, but it can feel very slippery and skittish to control. Some speed characters still have a kind of spin dash move but it's not useful at all. Grind rails have a larger role in this game and despite some jankiness at times they have a good showing, with an effective railhopping mechanic and Jet Set Radio Future-like tricking to increase your speed.

Between normal levels are boss fights. Some just throw waves of enemies at you, another low-effort solution but I didn't mind it in the sense of it stretching the game's combat system and forcing you to engage with it. Others are battles against the other playable teams, which are extremely chaotic; whether it was my foes constantly stunlocking me or flinging themselves out of the arena for an instant defeat, I never felt in purposeful control of the flow of these messy bouts. The "proper" boss fights are few in number (there's a hoverplane, an expanded rematch with the same, and then an Eggman mech, plus the final giant Metal Sonic fight) and janky, but in a fun way. They have multiple targets to hit and incorporate chase sequences that are preferable to the design of simply waiting for your turn to deal damage. The problem is it's easily possible to die in the pursuit by falling into the game's ever-present death pits, thus starting the fight over again.

To unlock the final story requires gathering the Chaos Emeralds between all the stories, which means the return of special stages to the series. Vaguely inspired by Sonic 2's example, these have you running through a tube collecting orbs to catch up to the gem. Except only Act 2 of each zone actually has a chance for an emerald, Act 1's stages are just for earning more lives. And specific emeralds are locked to specific zones. And for some reason the third one is way harder than the others. Hrm. The physics and controls in these are also quite clumsy, especially if you try to flip around the ceiling of the tube. I was playing this game on Dolphin, and made use of savestates to make sure I didn't have to replay whole levels to clear these. My advice is to ignore the suggestion of the orb formations and just use the speed characters. I do have to give the special stages credit though for essentially inventing the boost system. It's no surprise that Dimps has reused and riffed on this specific stage type over their games, as they built on this mechanic to bring boosting to the main games with Rush.

The aesthetics of the game are interesting; they go for a colourful chunky look that more or less set a standard for Sonic's world going forward, including the introduction of the goofy Egg Pawns as Eggman's standard footsoldiers. It generally looks good, although character models both in and out of cutscenes are excessively shiny for some reason. It looks like everyone is either made of plastic or smeared with oil! It's honestly distracting, and a very odd choice.

Aurally the game's tunes are upbeat and inoffensive. Each team gets a vocal theme song that only plays during the credits; Team Sonic's super lame track gives a poor first impression and there's some Crush 40 dreck in there too, but Teams Rose and Chaotix have standout songs that are well worth a listen. Character voice acting is a little better than previous efforts, but there's a lot of repeated barks during gameplay on top of which the team members essentially have replaced Omochao with an overabundance of intrusive advice. I must also mention that once again Tails is voiced by an actual child and is at his most stilted; the manual actually states that he's 8 years old and I guess they wanted to drive that home? Why did they feel the need to give these funny animal cartoon characters definitive ages anyway?? Why is Rouge a sultry spy at 17 and Charmy a detective at 6???

Maybe it was the use of savestates saving me from too much pain (I tried to be sparing), but I'm coming out of this game with positive feelings. I think they made some good decisions when course-correcting from SA2, making a streamlined and breezy platformer with propulsive gimmicks, a fun team dynamic, and decent combat mechanics. It's still a 3D Sonic game so it's got a hefty share of jank, but it seemed solid enough to me to not cause undue frustration. My main problem was the repetition of content between stories, but I love the attempt at integrating a large cast in playable roles, something which disappeared completely from the 3D games immediately after this (until Dream Team I guess?) and only sporadically featured in 2D instalments. Now I just need to play Shadow and I'm finally ready for the recent games!

[yakourinka]

just like with genshin the mandatory mainline story quests in honkai railway gacha are a snoozefest but side quests are interesting. this is not an endorsement of the game.

you're on a doomed planet with a single human settlement left. the catastrophe that happened 700 years ago halted all technological advances. they don't have phones, no way of communicating via signals across distances. but someone in bumfuck nowhere is sending and receiving signals. across space.

so your colleagues ask you to check it out because they're worried that the signal might attract undesirable attention to this frozen wasteland. if a hostile or expansionist alien species were to take notice, these people would have no means of defending themselves. you go to check it out.

you climb your way up through the snow and arrive at your destination. just as you expected, there's nothing and no one there. but your phone rings; you have a new message. it must've been a telecommunications signal.

IT'S A FUCKING AD.

curious, you text back.

it's space amazon! they knew a terrible disaster struck and they didn't give a sliver of a shit, but they've been sending spam ads to a dead planet for the past 78 years. there's a guy in space, in some dark, forgotten cubicle, whose entire job is sending ads to people who can't even receive them because they had an extinction event. clearly the bosses don't give a shit whether people look at the ads or not so long as they get sent out!

in the first player hub there are a bunch of optional interactable objects which are like someone flexing their literary sci-fi muscles. each of them is a short story written from the perspective of aliens, either weird, funny, horrifying, or a mixture of them. love letters to sci-fi. the funny thing is of course you don't see any aliens! in space game! there are just Mihoyo Anime 3D Models (TM).

when I was downloading the game the first review I saw was "there's too much text in this game, let me skip faster!!" and I was like, yeah sure bro have you heard of arknights. but there really is too damn much text in the game. on the first planet alone there are 80 flavour text collectibles; steampunk mining equipment manual, flower dictionary exclusive to planet, planet's NY times best seller. not to mention NPCs talk a lot. and you get texts from both playable characters and NPCs every single damn day.

it's actually kind of sad that so much effort and love went into building the backbone of the most lukewarm main storyline ever written for a game (and possibly cast) and a mihoyo gacha.

[greenmagic-oilspill]

Spoiler-Free FFXVI review

Going to keep it under a Read More because it’s pretty long...

FFXVI is a really ambitious game, and from beginning to end I was invested in the plot and characters -- but it's missing just a couple of things that would really make it great. It’s a beautiful game, no doubt about it, with an amazing score and environments, rich lore and deep worldbuilding, fun gameplay, and some really compelling characters. When it excels, it really excels. But where it falters, I really felt it. I’ve got some recency bias here, working for and against the game (since I only beat it yesterday), so I’m not really sure how my thoughts will change over time. I’ve definitely changed my opinions of many FF games after revisiting them a second time, so this one could benefit from the same.

I’m going to start with the characters and plot, because those are the most important parts of a FF game to me, but I’ll also delve into the worldbuilding, gameplay, and music of the game.

Characters

With as many cutscenes as this game has, the characters really find their time to shine. It’s primarily Clive’s story, and over the course of the game we really see him change. His development is a bit cyclical in some ways, but there are definitely events that shape him and who he becomes over the story, and he really feels different from every other FF protagonist. I like him well enough – I think he’s among some of the better FF protagonists for sure. Clive shows such a wide range of emotions and his VA did a stellar job of capturing them.

My favorite character in this game is a spoiler, so I’m not going to go into that in this review.

One character I really wanted to like more was Jill. She’s got all the makings of a compelling character and a compelling story, but a lot of the time it just felt like she was there. The other day @faerantstory and I were discussing how they’d heard that every female character in this story fell under the umbrella of “Pure,” “Sexy,” or “Evil,” and at the time, I had just finished a sequence of the story where Jill most certainly veered away from “Pure,” but after that she fell right back into it. And then she was just an ever-present support to Clive who did little else. I liked the part of the story that focused on her a lot, but it felt so brief and they could have done a LOT more with her past that they didn’t do – she just felt so underutilized. To be honest, she feels a lot like Tifa 2.0, for better or for worse.

Benedikta and Hugo were both extremely disappointing. I expected more from them. Without going into spoilers that is all I am going to say. Barnabas too, to a lesser extent – they went in a direction with him that I didn’t really expect and I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. Dion, however, was pretty great, and Joshua’s story at the beginning of the game made for a really compelling start. Continuing with the umbrellas that female characters fall under, Benedikta fell under both “Evil” and “Sexy” and not much else.

The villains in general (including the main villain) didn’t really do it for me. The main villain didn’t really do anything new that past FF villains had already done before, and better. Their motivations were interesting and followed the overall theme of the story, and there were some twists, but as a character they kind of fell flat. One of the other villains even felt cartoonishly evil.

Honestly, where this game REALLY shines with its characters is primarily in the supporting cast. This genuinely might be one of my favorite parts of the game. You meet a TON of characters over the course of this game (some might even say too many) and I found some of them more compelling than the characters who got more screentime. The world feels so alive with all of their stories, many of which play out over both the main scenario and also through side quests. Many of these characters live in the Hideaway, the main hub of the game, but just as many appear in the various towns and settlements you visit. They all felt like they had a purpose, and many of them had a surprising amount of depth. I definitely encourage doing all of the side quests and taking the time to talk to them after many of the story beats. Also, none of these really fall under a bland Pure, Evil, Sexy umbrella! That was great! But maybe that’s why they’re side characters. :/

The Plot

It’s hard to really go into it without spoilers, but overall I really liked the plot itself and the structure of it really worked to help tell the story they needed to tell. They had clearly defined goals and the characters never felt like they were simply reacting to everything happening around them. I’ve seen some criticism for the “MMO style storytelling” this game has, and that makes sense coming from the team who made XIV, but if you like the story progression in XIV I feel pretty confident in saying you’d like it in XVI. It feels really similar and follows the same pattern of go to new area -> help people with their problems -> gain the trust of the populace. It worked for me. At times there are parts that may feel like “filler” (I’ve always hated this term because people tend to use it wrong), but all of it helps further the characters or worldbuilding. My biggest problem with it is that at times it felt predictable.

At times things felt really bleak, but it never got too bleak for me, and overall the story has a hopeful message so that really helped.

Worldbuilding

Stellar. The Active Time Lore system is a huge help to understanding and conveying the lore and politics of this game – I can’t stress enough how much I loved that system and the dedicated characters in the Hideaway who discuss these things and tell you more about them. The lore in this world is rich and it feels so alive, as I mentioned earlier with the side characters, who are perhaps the primary reason for it. Everything and everywhere really has such a great atmosphere. The marketing stressed that things would change a lot over the game’s time skips, but I didn’t really feel it to be honest – things changed more after big plot events regardless of how much time passed.

Three of the six nations of this story felt extremely underutilized, though, which was a huge shame. Two of those in particular were being really built up but due to story events nothing really happened.

I don’t know how to describe this criticism, and this is more personal preference than anything, but XVI didn’t really feel like it offered anything “new” or original to the overall series to make it feel like it has its own identity distinct from the others. Every FF game offers some new summon that doesn’t appear in other games, maybe a new marketable/cute/iconic monster, a unique airship or something, a unique race, etc. I don’t know if that makes sense, but every concept introduced in XVI felt like a reference to a previous game in the series (even, to some extent, the main villain, whose very name is a name used before). Because of that it almost feels like it doesn’t stand on its own, in a way.

Gameplay

Battles were a ton of fun once I got the hang of it. Loved how smooth it felt, loved the gameplay changes for certain boss battles. I played with one of the accessories to help with evasion – with it, at times the game felt a little too easy, but that’s not a criticism from me. I like easy. I knew if I took it off I’d have died a lot more often. The battle system itself was the best part of the gameplay.

Customization could have been better – sometimes I felt like I had a lot of options for different Eikon abilities to equip and not a lot of space to equip them, leaving some abilities completely unused despite how I wanted to equip them. Weapons and armor were pretty much always straight upgrades that increased your stats and did nothing else. Accessories had the potential to switch things up a bit and offer some variety, but with only three accessory slots you couldn’t really do much (especially if you have one of the accessibility options equipped, like I did). Character progression was mostly achieved through story events, because leveling up is just a straight stat increase, which I can understand is very boring for some people.

I loved that this game was not open world, and instead used four separate and very large maps. Of those four, one felt considerably smaller than the others though. Open world games tend to be really overwhelming for me, and too easy to get lost, so I typically don’t care for the exploration aspect of a lot of those games. But with these four separate areas, I did actually want to explore them – the problem is, aside from finding beautiful vistas or the locations of certain hunt marks, there was not a whole lot to do. Any treasures to find were mostly just filled with useless crafting materials or gil. Not the highest priority for me, but I can see why people would count the exploration against this game. Speaking of gil, once I got past the early game I almost never had to spend any, so it just kept building up and felt pointless.

My biggest gameplay criticism is the enemy variety. All of the enemies in all of the maps were the same, just in different colors. Every map had crabs, or scorpions, or antelopes, or bandits, or chocobos, or goblins, or spiders, or plant monsters, or a couple different species of dragon, maybe an adamantoise or coeurl. Again, there was nothing new – no fantastical creature that the FF series never introduced before, and many of the series staples (like tonberries and cactuars) were missing altogether. It got particularly egregious when they went as far as to double up on some bosses.

Music

Fantastic, as expected of Soken. Not much to say there. I like his work better overall in XIV, but that’s unfair with the sheer amount of songs XIV has. He was allowed to experiment a bit more in XIV, but in XVI he took some opportunities to use different genres here and there.

Overall - 7/10

I can honestly say I really liked it overall – it’s a beautiful game with really rich characters and lore, and where it excels it really excels. I’m not a big fan of the way it ended but I think that is mostly due to personal preference. There were several unanswered questions and I don’t know if they have plans to go into DLC or even a sequel, and I don’t think there’s enough for that anyway – it ended pretty neatly. I will let this game sit with me and I’ll read up on some discussions from other people to see if my thoughts will change, but I don’t know if I’ll end up liking it more or less.

Thanks for reading this really long review!! I will write up a more spoilery one in a couple of days.

[theaawalker]

introduction.

︲｡ ･◟ section count : 10 𓂃 ⊹ welcome, dear explorer. If you made it this far, that implies you're ready and willing to enter Camoria. Be warned: not all is what it seems; and be wary of miracles, for all miracles come at a cost. If you have magic, tread forward with a target on your back, otherwise turn back now. If you're ready... then the world of Camoria awaits.

If you click a link and it takes you nowhere then the linked post is private, meaning i am likely posting it for personal nostalgia, hence why you do not see it.

° . ˎˊ character posts, excerpts, q&a's, oh my — everything you need to know is right here in this post. Let it serve as the central hub as you navigate the world of Camoria. Now hop aboard, dear explorer, and buckle in. We've got a long journey ahead.

For the glory of Camoria! 🗡

ෆ wips. — these are laid-out, literary works in progress listed in chronological order and including the status of each novel.

ෆ book details.

𝕍𝕆𝕃𝕌𝕄𝔼 1

𝕍𝕆���𝕌𝕄𝔼 2

𝕍𝕆𝕃𝕌𝕄𝔼 3

𝕍𝕆𝕃𝕌𝕄𝔼 4

𝕍𝕆𝕃𝕌𝕄𝔼 5

𝕍𝕆𝕃𝕌𝕄𝔼 6

𝕍𝕆𝕃𝕌𝕄𝔼 7

ෆ characters. — this is the masterlist of all my characters from volume 1.

the main character cast … the Guardians

the known antagonists ... the creature, etc.

the titular characters ... swirly star, etc.

the supporting characters ... the royals, etc.

the tertiary characters ... khadijah, etc.

ෆ settings. — this is a map and visual aid of the world of Camoria, my prized paracosm and the setting of our heroes' adventure.

ෆ excerpts. — here is where all snippets and sneak peaks are stored.

ෆ author info. — you can find all the get-to-know-me information here, including my favorite novel, zodiac chart, and inspirations.

ෆ reviews. — these are reviews from beta readers, whom have early access to my manuscript.

VOLUME 1:

- 4.5 ⭐'s : “Walker seems to know her world very well, and I can tell this by the rich level of detail she’s included about the characters and setting. I can tell her target audience is probably those who gravitate toward stories with magic, kingdoms, nobility, D&D themes, coming-of-age, and adventure. I think it would be the perfect story for emerging adults or teens who feel like they too stick out. I’m really curious to see how this story continues.” -- Zeyda Romero

- 4 ⭐'s : “I absolutely love the setting of the scenery/the description of the surroundings; so easy to visualize. It was full of excitement and also danger and fear. The main character, Duke, is a very sympathetic guy, so it works well for the reader to appreciate him and his action. I’m fond of the author’s attention to race and gender, it’s very respectful and contemporary. I really like the amount of women that are also in high(er) positions. I realized how little (strong) women there usually are in fantasy novels, so thank you!” -- K. Van Lierop

- 5 ⭐'s : “The novel ends in an interesting sort of cliffhanger which allows the next installment to either be a continuation of the current one or a completely different character’s story, even a crossover of sorts, all of which fit perfectly with the chosen way of ending. Overall, the first novel achieves the capturing of the interest of the reader who already wishes to see not only how The Guardians’ mentioned powers are supposed to work, but how these characters evolve as people.” -- Freddy G.

ෆ faqs. — you can find all the answered questions and fun facts here.

ෆ q&a. — feel free to ask any and all book-related questions here.

ෆ contact. — these are channels for contacting me directly. hope to talk soon!

email at… guardiansofcamoriayahoo.com

dm me on ... instagram, twitter, or here

[reasoningdaily]

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander’s unforgettable argument that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” As the Birmingham Newsproclaimed, it is “undoubtedly the most important book published in this century about the U.S.”

Now, ten years after it was first published, The New Press is proud to issue a tenth-anniversary edition with a new preface by Michelle Alexander that discusses the impact the book has had and the state of the criminal justice reform movement today.

Named one of the most important nonfiction books of the 21st century by Entertainment Weekly‚Slate‚Chronicle of Higher Education‚ Literary Hub, Book Riot‚ and Zora

A tenth-anniversary edition of the iconic bestseller—“one of the most influential books of the past 20 years,” according to the Chronicle of Higher Education—with a new preface by the author

“It is in no small part thanks to Alexander’s account that civil rights organizations such as Black Lives Matter have focused so much of their energy on the criminal justice system.” —Adam Shatz, London Review of Books

[felassan]

Game Informer "Hub" archive

This post was like their index/contents page of links to every article.

(Please note that in some cases article titles were updated at some point after first being published, e.g. the "A Deep Dive Into Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Expansive Character Creator" article is the same article as "Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Character Creator Is BioWare's Most Robust Yet".)

"Dragon Age: The Veilguard Exclusive Coverage [note: the inclusion of the listing for GI's final piece of coverage on DA:TV - the art book announcement - was not captured in time by the Wayback Machine from what I can see, and so while the article itself is still available to read, it does not appear in this record of the Hub. it would have appeared here first before the listing for the article on Bellara, which is below]"

"Everything We Know About Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Bellara Lutara We spoke to BioWare about Bellara Lutara, the first companion players will recruit in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jul 22, 2024 at 02:00 PM"

"Here's The Main Voice Cast For Dragon Age: The Veilguard The protagonist, Rook, will have four options to choose from. by Charles Harte on Jul 22, 2024 at 11:24 AM"

"BioWare Leads Discuss The Making Of Dragon Age: The Veilguard Corinne Busche, John Epler, and Mark Darrah dive into BioWare's long-awaited RPG. by Alex Van Aken on Jul 19, 2024 at 02:43 PM"

"Dragon Age: The Veilguard Is 'Respectful And Referential' To Previous Games Without Making Them Mandatory Game director Corinne Busche tells Game Informer it's about managing assumptions. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jul 17, 2024 at 02:00 PM"

"A Deep Dive Into BioWare's Companion Design Philosophy In Dragon Age: The Veilguard BioWare says these companions are the series' best yet. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jul 15, 2024 at 02:00 PM"

"Yes, Dragon Age: The Veilguard Has Nudity, And I've Seen It And we're not talking implied nudity here. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jul 10, 2024 at 01:00 PM"

"Companions Can Romance And Form Relationships With Each Other In Dragon Age: The Veilguard Giving a cold shoulder to a companion might nudge them into the warm shoulder of someone else. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jul 08, 2024 at 02:00 PM"

"Dragon Age: The Veilguard Will Feature A ‘Robust’ Transmog System At Launch You won't need to compromise fashion for function in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jul 04, 2024 at 04:00 PM"

"Here’s How Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s ‘Unbound’ Option Lets You Customize Difficulty And More Using the Unbound difficulty option, you can customize parry timing, enemy health, and more. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jul 01, 2024 at 02:00 PM"

"Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Character Creator Is BioWare’s Most Robust Yet We spent nearly 40 minutes crafting a Rook in BioWare's best character creator yet – here's what we learned. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jun 27, 2024 at 02:00 PM"

"Dragon Age Cover Story And Shadow of the Erdtree Review | GI Show Our flagship gaming podcast covers Dragon Age: The Veilguard, our Elden Ring DLC review, Concord, Supervive, and more. by Alex Van Aken on Jun 27, 2024 at 01:57 PM"

"Breaking Down Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Classes And Factions There are three classes and six factions to choose from for your Rook. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jun 25, 2024 at 02:00 PM"

"Ahead Of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, The Entire Series Is On Sale For $10 You should at least give Dragon Age: Inquisition a go ahead of The Veilguard this fall. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jun 21, 2024 at 08:20 AM"

"Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Leads On The Name Change And Solas’ Role In The Story Though Solas name isn't a part of the game's title anymore, he still plays a major role in The Veilguard. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jun 20, 2024 at 03:00 PM"

"A Deep Dive Into Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Combat, Abilities, Skill Tree, And More With Veilguard, Dragon Age has completed its long shift from real-time strategy combat to full action, and we spoke to BioWare about that transition. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jun 18, 2024 at 02:10 PM"

"The Dragon Age: The Veilguard Digital Issue Is Now Live! If you subscribe to the digital edition of Game Informer, you can now read all about our trip to BioWare for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. by Kyle Hilliard on Jun 18, 2024 at 12:30 PM"

"Get Your First Look At Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Real-Time Action Combat In First Gameplay Trailer More than 20 minutes of flashy Veilguard action, coming right up. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jun 11, 2024 at 10:21 AM"

"Cover Reveal – Dragon Age: The Veilguard The latest issue of Game Informer features an exclusive, in-depth feature on BioWare's return to the Dragon Age series, 10 years in the making. by Wesley LeBlanc on Jun 09, 2024 at 02:00 PM"

[source]

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 1/5

Book Blurb:

A BEST SUMMER READ: The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time, Vulture, Esquire, Boston Globe, Elle, Town & Country, Seattle Times, New York Post, Lit Hub, Cosmopolitan, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Paste, BiblioLifestyle, E! Online, AARP, BookBub, BookRiot “For anyone who’s ever craved a seat at the Round Table. Utterly enchanting.” —Rebecca Yarros, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fourth Wing and Iron Flame “If you love King Arthur as much as I do, you’ll love Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword, a fresh and engrossing take on the Matter of Britain featuring a colorful cast of Round Table knights who don’t often get as much story time as they deserve. The creator of The Magicians has woven another spell.” —George R. R. Martin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Game of Thrones The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Magicians trilogy returns with a triumphant reimagining of the King Arthur legend for the new millennium

A gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, only to find that he’s too late. The king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table survive.

They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Table, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight, and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords lay siege to Camelot and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell, and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.

The first major Arthurian epic of the new millennium, The Bright Sword is steeped in tradition, full of duels and quests, battles and tournaments, magic swords and Fisher Kings. It also sheds a fresh light on Arthur’s Britain, a diverse, complex nation struggling to come to terms with its bloody history. The Bright Sword is a story about imperfect men and women, full of strength and pain, who are looking for a way to reforge a broken land in spite of being broken themselves.

Review:

A new take on the Arthurian round table but with a bunch of misfits and underdogs. King Arthur has died and now the round table is in shambles. A young knight named Collum is desperate to get a seat at the round table... and he's lied and killed his way into Camelot... but what is he to do now that Arthur is gone. With only the oddballs of the Round table left such as Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight, and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke and Nimue, Merlin's apprentice who turned on him..... things are about to get a little hectic. Collum and his companions are determined to reclaim Excalibur and solve the mysteries while also facing off against all the faeries, monsters, and old gods returning with Morgan le Fay as their leader. This is the start in a new series and a new take on the Arthurian story. This new take on the classic story is definitely an interesting one but I just don't think it was for me. I was really hoping I would like it more but I just found it kind of boring overall and just a slog to get through. I would however recommend it for fans of Arthurian stories just to read it and see if they do like it. I love Arthurian stories but this particular one was a bit of a miss for me.

Release Date: July 16,2024

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Viking | Viking for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Christopher F. Rufo

Published: Apr 29, 2024

Stanford University, its campus lined with redwoods and eucalyptus trees, has long been known as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship. But in recent years, another ideological force has taken root: “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” a euphemism for left-wing racialism. DEI, in fact, has conquered Stanford.

I have obtained exclusive analysis from inside Stanford outlining the incredible size and scope of the university’s DEI bureaucracy. According to this analysis, Stanford employs at least 177 full-time DEI bureaucrats, spread throughout the university’s various divisions and departments.

Stanford’s DEI mandate is the same as those of other universities: advance the principles of left-wing racialism, hire faculty and admit students according to identity, and suppress dissent on campus under the guise of fostering a “culture of inclusion” and “protected identity harm reporting.”

Julia Steinberg, an undergraduate and journalist at the Stanford Review, believes that DEI is a “black box” system of rewards and punishments for enforcing ideological adherence. “I’ve observed as students are reported by their peers for constitutionally protected speech,” and professors are denounced and accused of discrimination by other students “for the crime of not being PC enough in their research or in class,” she says. “Who fits or doesn’t fit into the DEI caste system determines a student or professor’s summary judgement.”

DEI’s growth at Stanford has been fast. In 2021, the Heritage Foundation counted 80 DEI officials at the university. That number has more than doubled since then.

Sophie Fujiwara, a recent graduate, explains that DEI has become “unavoidable” for students, with “mandatory classes” and “university-spon.sored activities.” Left-wing students increasingly believed that this wasn’t enough. Following the George Floyd revolution of 2020, these students “demanded more initiatives and funding from the university for DEI-related subjects.”

Stanford’s DEI initiatives are not limited to humanities departments or race and gender studies. The highest concentration is in Stanford’s medical school, which has at least 46 diversity officials. A central DEI administration is led by chief DEI officer Joyce Sackey, with sub-departments throughout the medical school. Pediatrics, biosciences, and other specialties all have their own commissars embedded in the structure.

In the sciences, DEI policies have advocated explicit race and sex discrimination in pursuit of “diversity.” The physics department, for example, has committed to a DEI plan with a mandate to “increase the diversity of the physics faculty,” which, in practice, means reducing the number of white and Asian men. Administrators are told to boost the representation of “underrepresented groups,” or “URGs,” through a variety of discriminatory programs and filters.

Ivan Marinovic, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, says that DEI programs have had a disastrous impact on campus. He describes DEI as a “Trojan horse ideology” that undermines “equality before the law, freedom of expression, and due process.”

Given Stanford’s current trajectory, DEI will likely keep growing. At each step, it will degrade the quality of scholarship and academic rigor. The question is whether dissenters—professors, students, and alumni who reject the ideological capture of the university—will have enough power to dislodge more than 100 full-time bureaucrats. Stanford’s new president, Richard Saller, was hired in part to moderate ideological influence on campus. But according to sources familiar with Saller in his previous role as dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, he probably lacks the strength to push back against DEI.

The fight ahead will be tough. As it has been before, Stanford may once again serve as a leading indicator of where American higher education is going.

[ Via: https://archive.today/WSzFI ]

==

I've never thought about it that way before, but it really is a caste system, with the straight white males as the Dalits/untouchables, and the trans, black, disabled lesbian being the Brahmins.

[mailperson]

Brief side order review and thoughts:

Visual presentation: A1, on par with octo expansion

Gameplay loop: very addicting, very rewarding, a liiiiiittle on the easy side though. I think more obstacle or objective diversity would go miles, shortly into playing you’ve kinda seen the extent of the possible challenges you can face. Most blatantly it needed more boss variety pretty badly. Still something that’s very easy to want to 100% though. Unlike splat2’s hero mode I actually want to play this through with every weapon.

Story: Really fun characterization, but that’s kinda it. Not a BAD story but it’s just kinda whatever. If the Alterna single player campaign had more individual character moments it’d be about equal with side order in terms of depth. Octo Expansion kinda takes the lead here in terms of best splatoon campaign story by virtue of not relying on familiarity with the cast for the sake of familiarity which pretty much all the other single player campaigns (save for splat1 hero mode) do.

Overall: Absolutely worth a play. It’s different for splatoon, but it’s something that has me really optimistic for the dev team’s future if they expand upon what works here. Kinda wish they’d take the philosophy that created all the interesting and fun ideas for the solo campaigns and use it improve the multiplayer modes lol. They genuinely could get away with releasing a super beefed up and expanded version of this same concept as a splatoon spin-off game.

Misc thoughts: Inkopolis square is about as disappointing as Inkopolis plaza as a DLC hub, arguably more so due to reusing Murch and Donny. Additionally I wish the replica skins were actually skins and not locked to the vanilla kits for their respective weapons. Side Order very good but also tragically all the neat parts just leaves me wanting so much more elsewhere.

[denimbex1986]

'Oppenheimer film review — Christopher Nolan delivers the bomb but can’t crack the man

Cillian Murphy’s charisma holds together a film of astonishing images but fumbled storytelling

No action figures are yet being sold of J Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb. He is the stuff of a lavish summer blockbuster all the same: Oppenheimer, a $100mn, Imax-ready portrait from writer-director Christopher Nolan. It makes an unlikely Hollywood prospect. The film doesn’t just forgo superheroes, it is steeped in the very definition of the all-too-human. Feel the tortured ambivalence; witness the dark shadow of doubt. A popcorn trail that leads to Hiroshima: a high-risk strategy.

The star is Cillian Murphy, whose weight loss for the part leaves it looking like the bomb was created by former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne in the era of concert movie Stop Making Sense. Supporting him, a giant cast includes Emily Blunt as wife Kitty Oppenheimer and Robert Downey Jr playing Washington insider Lewis Strauss; among the throng are Kenneth Branagh, Florence Pugh and Tom Conti, as an avuncular Einstein.

The film runs three hours precisely. This is also the typical length of an exam in many British university finals, a rhyme with early scenes of the fragile young Oppenheimer at Cambridge. And with the film as a whole, in truth, which can feel like an undergraduate essay, packing in factoids to mop up marks. It also has a touch of psychoanalysis: Nolan sure that if he aims the camera at Murphy just-so, his character will crack right open.

Florence Pugh is among the supporting cast, playing one of Oppenheimer’s lovers Put like that, it sounds hubristic. The film still has much to recommend it. Nolan taps the full sensory potential of moviemaking, pushing picture and sound to meet the scale of the story: clever lines dot the script; the whole project is admirably willing to wrestle with matters of great weight through cinema. But the source is a book: a credit given to Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin for their 2005 biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer.

All to the good. A gifted choreographer, Nolan has also long struggled with rendering characters in three dimensions. Bird and Sherwin have done the legwork for him: the principals come with rich biographies and ready-to-go dialogue. The book also provides the story’s basic shape: a Greek tragedy, structured around the trial-by-any-other-name Oppenheimer faced during the postwar inquisitions of Joseph McCarthy.

Physicist, womaniser, linguist, leftist, enigma, coward, genius. The film must find room for many Oppenheimers. It duly shows how illusory the divides between them were, one Oppenheimer habitually setting off chain reactions that imperil another.

And yet here, not all are created equal. Blue eyes gleaming, Murphy’s sheer charisma is often the glue that holds the film together. But the through-line from one part of his character to another can be hard to track. We see cocksure intellect, for instance, but have to take on trust that the same man could also be a shrewd handler of personnel, taking charge of the rogue elements building a nuclear weapon in desert Los Alamos, New Mexico.

That period claims much of Nolan’s focus. Of course. This is the crux; the crossroads. But you sense a second reason for Nolan glomming hard on to the moment. As a creative hub thrown up out of plywood, Los Alamos resembles a movie set as the second Oppenheimer becomes director of his band of mercurial talents, facing down bad weather while a producer hovers in the form of US Army Lieutenant General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon). At one point, the script calls its subject the most important man in history. Oh, you think: and yet here we are watching another film about filmmaking.

Still, to quote Robert Shaw in Jaws, Nolan delivers the bomb. He can be an astonishing image-maker. The test in the New Mexico desert is all that and more, the mushroom cloud a strange white apparition, dread and wonder on the watching sun-goggled faces. (“It hardens the heart,” Oppenheimer says, hauntingly.) For all Nolan’s unease with inner lives, Oppenheimer is at its most effective shrunk down to faces and human drama: Los Alamos lost in queasy jubilation after Hiroshima, the scientist’s later hounding driven by one small man’s grudge. What an indictment. The species still so petty, even now.

The film also overplays that hand. The decision to treat the background to the trial like a gaudy whodunnit is misjudged. The storytelling is fumbled too, key scenes saddled with flashbacks and distracting flips between black-and-white and colour. When Oppenheimer needs a spotlight, Nolan puts on a firework display. And the detail comes to feel scattershot; unthinking. (We still never see the moment in Bird and Sherwin’s book where, sharing a lift with McCarthy himself, Oppenheimer gave the senator a wink.)

For all the hint of Hollywood in Los Alamos, Christopher Nolan isn’t Robert Oppenheimer. Nor is he Stanley Kubrick, who gave us that deathless nuclear comedy, Dr Strangelove. Kubrick was brilliant; Nolan is proficient. You may still find that his new film stays with you for days, turning itself over in your mind. And if that owes as much to Oppenheimer as Oppenheimer, the pair do have much in common: each as bold as they are flawed, two contradictory equations.

★★★★☆

In cinemas from July 21.'

[miloscat]

[Review] Sonic Unleashed (PS3)

Modern(er) Sonic truly starts here.

Sonic Team kept pumping out the games in this era, with at least one game per year. But between racing spinoffs and Wii experiments, Unleashed stands out, a big budget blowout that represents a much needed refresh after the ignominious Sonic 06.

The Japanese title of Sonic World Adventure gives you an idea of the structure: it’s sort of like the Adventure games with levels accessed via hubs, plus NPCs and sidequests to do in between, but now we’re travelling the world! The story has Mobius breaking into pieces (taking cues from Star Fox Adventures, might I say) which Sonic must restore by visiting places inspired by real-world locations.

The locations have a lot of character, whether it’s small African or South East Asian towns, or European or Middle Eastern cities, helped by the lovely score using appropriate styles and instruments. Although the hubs are quite small, they’re packed with detail and people to chat to. And the people have fabulous and distinctive cartoony designs this time! I love this version of Sonic’s world even if the pastiche is a bit on the nose at times.

The story also strikes a good tone, with the world-ending stakes balanced by a bit of goofiness; Eggman’s bluster is punctured by a sassy proto-Orbot, while Sonic’s biggest allies are the silly mascot creature Chip and the bumbling Professor Pickle. Tails is there for occasional exposition and aeroplane rides, and Amy is also present… just imagine if she ever got to do anything besides obsess over Sonic!! Otherwise there are no returning characters which feels jarring but lets them put more focus on Sonic and Chip’s dynamic, I guess…

Of course the big gimmick of the game is the duality of Day and Night. Due to plot shenanigans, Sonic is now a werewolf (or “werehog”, a nonsensical designation etymologically speaking) and takes on a monstrous form at nighttime. With this, 50% of the game uses an entirely new gameplay style, one of the more divisive choices in this game’s legacy.

Night stages play out as slow-paced beat em ups, part of the seismic impact that God of War had on the gaming world at the time I suppose. Werehog Sonic is brawny and smashy, with Lanky Kong-style stretchy arms. This also plays into ill-advised werehog puzzle-platforming sections. The combat is fine for what it is, sweeping attacks and strong focused attacks, aerial juggling if you can manage it (I couldn’t), picking up and throwing small foes, unlocking new combos. There’s also quick time event finishers, but beyond the most basic of enemies I found the timers on these way too tight to be practical, so never used them. An experience system pervades the game and lets you up the werehog’s many stats; this is very necessary while daytime Sonic’s paltry two stats feel tacked on and less useful.

The sheer length of Night levels makes them feel more tiresome, with half an hour being a normal duration. This compounds if you get stuck on a tricky section with scarce checkpoints. Sonic games have often housed alternate gameplay styles, but this style feels like a mere genre copycat while seemingly replacing the inclusion of the rich supporting cast. This combined with damage spongey and hard-hitting enemies, a shallow guard/dodge mechanic, and questionable platforming, and I do end up with concerns about their implementation.

On the other hand, Day stages make a bold move by incorporating the boost mechanic from Dimps's Rush into Sonic Team's 3D headliner. This is a divisive change itself, although I like what it adds to the basic gameplay loop (as long as you're not just killed instantly for using it). Other new abilities like walljumping, drifting, and quickstepping join the returning stomp, slide, light speed dash, and homing attack (with reticle). These stages keep the pace up and use a lot of gimmicks—including Rivals' innovation of the boosters that spit you out in different directions based on your input—and smoothly transition between 3D and 2D for (I think) the first time. This template carries forward in future games, and I enjoyed seeing it emerging fully formed here after the fumbling steps that directly preceded Unleashed. The intense speed can lead to a lot of cheap deaths in later levels unfortunately, and we still have the issue of lives to deal with.

The final level deserves special mention, an immense gauntlet that uniquely switches you between Day and Night as you proceed through. My initial attempt with around 30 lives in hand met with disaster HALF AN HOUR in, so all of my progress up to that point was lost. Fun! This led to an hours-long session of farming for lives, exploiting the inventory system to gradually accrue infinite money, buying stacks of food items, and laboriously chowing down to get paltry experience points before my next attempt. I love it when a game wastes my time! Of course the second time I cleared it with 90 lives remaining but it still took 45 effing minutes! I think if you're putting extra life pickups directly after half your checkpoints, it might be a sign that you should rethink the system, or break up the level, or at least tone down the difficulty. For goodness' sake. Oh and the final boss fight that follows it sucks too.

Unleashed feels unbalanced. It's obviously got a budget, with high production value FMV cutscenes and big levels full of detail. You only really have to play them once though, so they stuff the game full of padding that encourages you to spend more time in the game world as if they're struggling to justify themselves: dozens of sidequests, hot dog challenge runs of the regular stages with time/ring/destruction goals, collectibles to fill the gallery. Not to mention the many DLC packs that all up nearly double the number of stages to play. It's all optional, but you are obligated to do at least some side stuff to have enough EXP to level up the werehog.

Despite the high-budget feel, the game still sadly suffers from performance problems. Not nearly as bad as Sonic 06, good heavens no, but enough to cause some frustration from frame loss and hitching. The framerate is very unsteady, even tanking in cutscenes when werehog Sonic is on-screen as the fur rendering overtaxes the game engine. Of course these drops can affect the reaction windows in gameplay and therefore the difficulty, but they also just make me wonder if Sonic Team are ever going to get themselves together. Yes I know the PS3 was hard to develop for, etc. etc. and so on and so forth.

Tomoya Ohtani is again very well deployed as soundtrack director, with highlights including the main vocal track “Endless Possibility”, the oft-reused Rooftop Run Day track, and the jaunty town tracks (Shamar is my favourite). The Night level tracks are jazzy and fun, but having one singular track break in and take over whenever combat starts—which is very often—was a poor choice that undermines the strength of the diverse soundtrack.

Unleashed was eye-opening for me in how much it established that would persist in Sonic games for the next ten years. Soon I'll even play the rest of the games in between it and Forces to see for myself! But of course, the HD version of Unleashed is only half the story... well, a bit less than that if you count Gameloft's mobile phone versions, which I do because they're quite good Rush-inspired 2D games from the peak of the J2ME era. But the PS2/Wii version of Unleashed is Dimps's first 3D game, and I'm very keen to see another take on this and whether it corrects some of the imbalances of the HD version. You might say that the possibilities are endless...?