Ronald.phillips

It is with shock and dismay that I find it my duty to report to you all the death of our mutual friend Shamus Young, this morning at 3am, of cardiac arrest.

Shamus called an ambulance at 6pm yesterday night for odd chest and stomach pain, and was transported via ambulance to the hospital where his wife Heather met him from work an hour away. They were able to remain together throughout the rest of the ordeal. The doctors ran a suite of tests, which were all negative until a heart enzyme test came back elevated. The decision to admit him was made due to the high heart enzyme levels, but his Blood Pressure and O2 remained normal. He continued to experience unusual cramping and weakness, so the doctors attempted to rule out stroke and anything kidney related with more tests. The doctors at the ER and hospital worked with his nephrologist to check everything. He was in the process of being admitted when suddenly he went into full cardiac arrest. The emergency staff worked on him for 20 minutes, but were never able to establish a heartbeat.

Although this may seem sudden, it is not entirely unexpected. Shamus already hated dialysis and would be miserable with a transplant, so there was not much expectation of ongoing quality of life. He kept making comments about not being around. Not depressed, just not expecting to be with us much longer. The family, while surprised at the suddenness, were not surprised at the outcome. The kids were in the process of moving back to be nearby and help; This process has been sped up and they will be moving back this weekend.

Shamus is survived by his wife Heather, their three children- Bay(24), Peter(22), and Issac(20), his mother, brothers, and sister, nieces and nephew.

Heather’s Notes

About the site: The family intends to keep the site up as long as possible, both as a legacy as well as a secondary subdomain with uploads of other content he never finished or never posted and other possible content. We also intend to make his source code available in the future as open source. While we, the family, all have WordPress/backend/blogging/varying levels of programming experience and can maintain the site ourselves, we also welcome those with experience who would be interested in helping maintain the site. Please direct emails to Shamus@shamusyoung.com, though it will be a while before we get on top of that aspect of our lives. (I would set up a new email for this but honestly, there are too many other things to deal with at the moment and I have access to all Shamus’ internet infrastructure.)

In lieu of food and flowers:

If you would like to offer financial support, Heather’s account is @tinybookdragon on PayPal or son-in-law’s Cashapp account is ElliotRneaJubilee

You can find his books here.

Due to lack of space and health issues (Heather has severe food allergies and is recently diagnosed celiac) we request that no one bring food or flowers. Instead, here are some ways you can help as they deal with their loss.

Amazon list:

• Things for Shamus’ family

Memorial Service:

The memorial service for Shamus can be viewed on Youtube here.  His obituary is also hosted on their website:
https://www.spencerdgeibel.com/obituary/Shamus-Young

From 1970 to 2006, white American author Tony Hillerman published 18 books that focused on the fictional Navajo tribal policeman Joe Leaphorn (and later added Jim Chee to complete the buddy cop genre) as mysteries and crimes were explored on the Navajo reservation. The books earned much acclaim during their publication and even gained some attention on the big screen (The Dark Wind (1992)) and small screen (“Skinwalkers: The Navajo Mysteries” (2002)). Now Hillerman’s vision returns to television, but this time with a much more Native presence. Created, written, directed, and performed almost entirely by Native talent, AMC’s new psychological thriller series DARK WINDS allows Natives to combine a unique cultural approach to pulp-detective stories with many of the true crimes aimed at Native people.

Set in the 1970s, the action hits right in the first scene as an armored car is robbed by a very well-coordinated group who escape in a helicopter, flying right over the squad cars racing to the scene. From there on out all the action takes place on the reservation as we find out another crime has been committed; a double murder has taken place at a cheap motel where members of the tribe were performing a purification ceremony. Both crimes set the stage for a tale that will crisscross jurisdictions and priorities. And at the center of all these crimes stands Joe Leaphorn (played by Zahn McClarnon [“Reservation Dogs”, “Westworld“]) who takes his job as Lieutenant very seriously, especially when it comes to the safety and preservation of the Navajo people and culture.

McClarnon establishes his character as a tough but fair lawman as he deals with an artifact thief in an intimidating yet forgiving manner. It’s clear that Lieutenant Leaphorn is a reasonable man, but not one to be messed with. As he sets out to investigate the double murder, it becomes clear that he’s not very welcome by one of the victim’s families because before Leaphorn can even deliver the bad news the situation becomes hostile. When the family demands action, he calmly reminds them that murder is a federal matter and would have to be handled by the FBI.

Despite the crimes occurring on the rez, white Agent Whitover (Noah Emmerich) arrives to review the evidence he’s found as well as the remains of the murdered Navajos. The whole interaction between Leaphorn and Whitover relies on the mistrust of each other’s culture and how the FBI only cares about the money, not the slain Natives. The FBI doesn’t really care about the death of a sick old man or a 19-year-old girl, but since the killings might connect to the robbery, Whitover has to pretend to be interested. There’s a clear undercurrent of cynicism and low-key animosity throughout the exchange, but both sides seem to know they have to work together to some degree. Each has their own priority, but that priority falls under the other’s jurisdiction. Leaphorn makes the blunt (and unfortunately true statement) when he expresses how murders get solved quicker if you pretend the victims are white, but Whitover raises a similar challenge by instructing the Lieutenant to imagine the robbers as Natives and they will see who solves their respective cases first.

Set on a Native reservation, DARK WINDS allows the story to unfold in interesting ways as we see the Natives’ mistrust of the US government which has been earned over the course of generations. The topics of forced sterilization, assimilation schools, theft of land, and robbery of culture all come into play with each episode including both the distant and more recent crimes against Native people. The setting also allows the story to explore and delve into Native culture by featuring ceremonies and the use of medicine for protection, which offers different dynamics and opportunities for the investigation to unfold. The FBI might rely on ammunition to provide themselves security, but on Navajo land, your best protection isn’t your .38, but your medicine.

In addition to Leaphorn, the Tribal Police also consists of Deputy Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) and new-comer Deputy Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) who both provide strong supporting roles to the ever-impressive McClarnon. The pair of deputies provide some fun chemistry as the young pair admit an attraction (and suspicion) for one another. Matten’s character provides the more mystical approach to the investigation, but the story interestingly weaves together science and technology with spiritualism and spells. Also included in the narrative we meet Deanna Allison who plays Emma, a nurse who is married to Leaphorn, but a tragedy strains their relationship, and some of the most dramatic exchanges in the series occur between McClarnon and Allison.

Aside from a few hokey-looking green screen moments when watching the horizon, the setting provides some amazing scenery and aesthetically creates a murder mystery like no other. With only six episodes for the first season, the brevity of DARK WINDS will not be enough to satiate most viewers because the series quickly introduces (and endears) us to well-written and well-performed characters all while taking us through the lives and trials of the Navajo. So hopefully, we can return to the rez in the near future and follow more of the adventures of Leaphorn and Chee as they continue to solve crimes.

DARK WINDS premiered on June 12th on AMC.

The post [Series Review] DARK WINDS appeared first on Nightmarish Conjurings.

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Microprocessors from Intel, AMD, and other companies contain a newly discovered weakness that remote attackers can exploit to obtain cryptographic keys and other secret data traveling through the hardware, researchers said on Tuesday. From a report: Hardware manufacturers have long known that hackers can extract secret cryptographic data from a chip by measuring the power it consumes while processing those values. Fortunately, the means for exploiting power-analysis attacks against microprocessors is limited because the threat actor has few viable ways to remotely measure power consumption while processing the secret material. Now, a team of researchers has figured out how to turn power-analysis attacks into a different class of side-channel exploit that's considerably less demanding. The team discovered that dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) -- a power and thermal management feature added to every modern CPU -- allows attackers to deduce the changes in power consumption by monitoring the time it takes for a server to respond to specific carefully made queries. The discovery greatly reduces what's required. With an understanding of how the DVFS feature works, power side-channel attacks become much simpler timing attacks that can be done remotely. The researchers have dubbed their attack Hertzbleed because it uses the insights into DVFS to expose -- or bleed out -- data that's expected to remain private. The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2022-24436 for Intel chips and CVE-2022-23823 for AMD CPUs. The researchers have already shown how the exploit technique they developed can be used to extract an encryption key from a server running SIKE, a cryptographic algorithm used to establish a secret key between two parties over an otherwise insecure communications channel.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Darth Vader remains one of the greatest villains in history a full 45 years removed from his debut in "Star Wars: A New Hope." Initially a brooding villain for the ages, he would later be revealed to be a deeply complex figure — a boy named Anakin Skywalker who wanted nothing more than to become a Jedi, only to be corrupted by the power of the dark side of the Force. The nature of truly peeling back the layers really comes into play in "The Empire Strikes Back" with perhaps the most famous line in cinema history — you know the one.

But that line, in light of "Obi-Wan Kenobi" getting ready to finish up its run on Disney+, raises some questions that fans may be wondering about or never truly considered: when exactly did Vader figure out that his son was alive and, moreover, when did he figure out specifically that Luke Skywalker was his son? The same question lingers with Leia Organa as well, his daughter and Luke's twin sister, who has been a huge part of "Obi-Wan Kenobi" as well. Within "Star Wars" canon lies answers to these questions and those answers could, in turn, impact how we view this show, as well as Vader's actions in general.

A Darth Vader Comic Holds The Key

Marvel Comics began publishing "Star Wars" comics again in 2015 a few years after Disney purchased Lucasfilm, looking to keep the brand in-house since both companies existed under the same roof. One of the key books in that initial lineup was "Darth Vader" by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca. It is within the pages of "Darth Vader" #6 that a gigantic moment in "Star Wars" history comes into focus as we actually see when Vader discovers that Luke Skywalker is his son. This issue, which essentially concludes the first arc of the series, is set between the events of "A New Hope" and "Empire Strikes Back,"

It is well worth remembering that, as far as Vader knew at the end of "Revenge of the Sith," he had killed Padme and his child did not survive. It is also very important to point out that he had no idea Padme was pregnant with twins. This will come into play as it relates to the Leia situation. However, this issue reveals that Boba Fett was sent on a mission by Vader to find out more about the Rebel pilot who destroyed the Death Star and the bounty hunter does indeed deliver the goods in the form of a name: Skywalker.

This sends Vader into a rage, with his fist clenched, nearly breaking the glass in front of him in the ship he's currently aboard. We also see flashbacks to the climax of "Revenge of the Sith," with Vader playing everything over again in his head with this new revelation. As if this all weren't clear enough, Gillen puts a button on the whole thing by having Vader actually say out loud, "I have a son," making his revelation crystal clear. This is a defining moment for the character and the franchise at large.

But What About Leia?

This realization that his son was alive informs so much. It explains how Vader knew Luke was his son, resulting in the epic "I am your father" line in "Empire." It also does a lot to explain why he wanted to convert Luke and overthrow Palpatine. The nature of the relationship between the Emperor and Vader is, in a word, complicated. So, during the "Obi-Wan Kenobi" timeline, which is set ten years after "Revenge of the Sith," Vader still believes that his bloodline died with Padme, leaving him with nothing but darkness to turn to, channeling all of that rage into ruling the galaxy. He doesn't know Luke is on his former home of Tatooine growing up with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, nor does he have the slightest clue about Leia and her connection to the Skywalker bloodline. Little did Vader know just how wrong he was about the nature of his family.

Unlike Luke, however, it would not be until much later in the timeline that Vader would find out the truth about Leia, whom he viewed as part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. It is not truly until the final confrontation in "Return of the Jedi" when Luke, far more advanced in the ways of the Jedi, confronts his father once again. During the battle, Vader says "your feelings for them are strong" relating to his Rebel friends. But then he adds the ever-important line, "especially for ... your sister."

It is here, with Vader reading the thoughts of his son in a key moment, that he learns that he has a daughter as well. Later, when Vader is dying he says to Luke, "Tell your sister, you were right," referring to the fact that Luke said he sensed good in his father despite the fact that he was heading up the Empire alongside Palpatine.

The Obi-Wan Kenobi Of It All

With Leia, Luke, and Darth Vader all being major characters in "Obi-Wan Kenboi," the show is having to tread lightly as the "Star Wars" canon is pretty explicit. We know exactly when Vader discovered that Luke was his son, and we know when he figured out that Leia was connected to him as well. It was years removed from the events of this show and that is incredibly important. This to say, the show can't really see Vader making any connections in this department or it would contradict what already exists. That having been said, the people behind the show have made it quite clear that they are being respectful of canon as it exists. That explains why Darth Maul is not the villain of the show, as his journey with Obi-Wan ended in "Star Wars Rebels." So, it's unlikely these revelations as they exist will be retconned. Then again, stranger things have happened.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi" is streaming now on Disney+.

Read this next: The Best Movies Streaming Right Now: Malignant, A Hero, And More

The post When And How Did Darth Vader Learn That Luke Was His Son? appeared first on /Film.

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Running up that hill

Neon White is the latest game from Donut County creator Ben Esposito. He and the Angel Matrix team bill this level-based first-person shooter as "for freaks, by freaks." They're not wrong, either. Despite some rough narrative moments and occasional hiccups, Neon White is a blazing-fast shooter with style, precision, and a lot of dead demons.

Sinners, saints, and salvation. All of these potentially await in the heaven of Neon White. To reach the end, though, you'll have to learn to go really, really fast. And, as it so happens, Neon White is a pretty good tutor.

Neon White (PC [reviewed], Nintendo Switch)
Developer: Angel Matrix
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Released: June 16, 2022
MSRP: $24.99

Surfacing in the ocean of heaven as Neon White himself, the player is a dead, amnesiac assassin stuck in a rut. White's lost soul can be ferried into heaven, but only if he can seize the number-one spot against all the other damned, color-coded Neons.

Over time you acquaint yourself, or re-acquaint yourself, with the other denizens of heaven's competition. There are some nameless Neons, the Believers who maintain the game and punish rulebreakers, and the pencil-pushing angels who task White with his daily missions. Mikey, the cigar-chomping Garfield-alike, is a particular favorite of mine, and SungWon Cho's delivery as the inconceivable presence that White's mind can only rationalize as an angelic cartoon is very endearing.

https://youtu.be/fDD17TfIn7Y

Friends in low places

A few key Neons make up the core of the story though, as former life acquaintances of White's. They start out divided into tropes; Yellow the best bro, Violet the homicidal but childish tagalong, and Red the enigmatic femme fatale. Add in Green, the imposing top-ranker, and it's a pretty colorful crew competing for the top spot.

Though some of the gags do wear on after a while, the crew is overall pretty likable as long as you enjoy a little bit of online humor. References to memes and jokes about other video games are pretty frequent, and it definitely has a self-aware sense of humor.

When the story gets a bit more serious, it's pretty good. Neon White quickly goes from demon-slaying and gags to questions of how one's deeds carry over into the afterlife, and whether those actions merit eternal condemnation. As the portrait of White in the bottom-left constantly asks, "who deserves a place in heaven?"

It's got some Cowboy Bebop vibes, which makes casting Steve Blum in the role of Neon White all the more appropriate. Really, the whole voice cast does a pretty great job across the board. But I did feel like the narrative was ultimately where Neon White falters a bit. It certainly works and provides some lighthearted asides, but aside from a few twists and cool moments in levels, it really felt like it took a backseat to the running-and-gunning that physically drives White towards redemption.

Make a deal with God

Of course, to reach any of that self-realization and affirmation, White has to slay a lot of demons. Each day of the Days of Judgment tasks you with tackling a host of levels, spread out across the kingdom of heaven. There's a bit of a demon outbreak around this time of year, so the Believers host this competition to clear them all out and see who slays best for God's salvation in the process.

Each one is a race to the finish, navigating the environment, obstacles, enemies, and their glowing bullets. Of course, White has some tools of his own to use too. Scattered everywhere are Soul Cards, which can be either primary-fired for a bullet type or discarded for a secondary-fire effect.

Elevate, for example, is a handgun that can be discarded for an extra jump. Purify, meanwhile, is a machine-gun that also fires a time-delayed bomb that can clear an area or give you a rocket boost. There's a pretty good variety of cards, as well as a very important economy: White can only ever hold two types of cards, at three apiece. Hitting Ace, the highest medal in the game, on levels usually entails clever use of resources to clear what you need to clear while moving as fast as possible.

Really, Neon White feels like a tutorial for speedrunning. And I don't just mean that it makes running fast through these levels fun and enjoyable. It's not even that it necessarily encourages speedrunning itself. It's that Neon White is remarkably good at teaching the player to speedrun.

Medals are given at different time markers cleared, to give a sense of gradual progression. At Gold, the player is given a hint specifically for bumping their time up to Ace; a ghost helper can show a place where a well-timed jump or boost can completely circumvent otherwise tedious navigation. The dual-use cards allow for a surprising number of interactions, but keeping it to two-and-two (two fire types, two in your hand at any time) keeps the effectual verbs at your disposal easy to remember.

Neon White's levels are gorgeous to speed through as well. It's full of vaporwave, sharp-angled polygons, neon colors, and anime. But the architecture is also enormous and even imposing at times. In a few cases, I slowed down just to take in the breadth of an area. And the levels themselves play home to some interesting storytelling too. While the boss fights are fine, at least a couple of levels had some really compelling story tie-in moments that propelled them along.

Need for speed

It is amazing how good it feels to finally feel like you've mastered a level in Neon White. And once you've cleared the premade markers, the global leaderboard opens up, adding a new level of competition. It was always exciting to hit a new Ace time and see if I'd gone up or down in the standings, and (on Steam at least) there's also a Friends filter. Beyond that, there are even more options to run that shuffle level orders and add a few extra ticks of difficulty, like no health recovery.

If you're not eager to compete, Neon White is still fairly finishable without Acing every run. There are a few medal hurdles to clear, but they're set fairly low compared to where a completionist would be. It's certainly a challenging game, even though it's fairly short in length — I'd guess anywhere from eight-to-ten hours to see credits roll — and I'm still plucking away at getting the optional off-the-beaten-path Gifts in each level that unlock visual novel chats with the cast and challenges in the hub.

Everything in Neon White revolves around running though, especially if you want to see the optional ending. Whether you dig Neon White or not will depend heavily on whether a shooter built on speedrunning through levels appeals to you. Some of the best writing and in-game moments lay behind the optional social content, and that'll add a little challenge to the fold.

If shoving Toonami and the Titanfall 2 Pilot's Gauntlet into a blender and turning it to the highest speed sounds like a good time, then Neon White might be what you're looking for. It's a blood-pumping, speed-infused anime shooter with style and a decent bit of heart. While it's short and sweet, Neon White gives just enough to get the player keen on shaving off seconds and fractions of seconds until they are, indeed, a speedrunning freak. For anyone who likes to go fast, that's at least worth the price of admission.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Neon White appeared first on Destructoid.

Do you feel its presence, lurking in the dark corridor? Alien: Isolation is here, enjoying a breathtaking 75% discount during the hot Summer Sale on GOG!

Read the newest article on our blog to check why you should definitely give this exceptional title a special place on your gaming list. Also, check out more great games from the past decade in our 2010’s Collection, present on GOG until the end of the Summer Sale on 27th June 2022, at 10 PM UTC.

Play a reimagined version of the all-time RPG classic from The Elder Scrolls series. Daggerfall Unity – GOG Cut brings this amazing experience to modern gamers. It has been made possible, thanks to the efforts of the GamerZakh, a gaming content creator with a love for classics.

The GOG Cut of Daggerfall Unity doesn’t require any special actions on your behalf. All you have to do is download the game and simply launch it. Thanks to settings and mods that were selected by GamerZakh you can explore the rich world of Daggerfall with enhanced visuals and gameplay.

I was at a college party the first time I heard it: “If you break the seal,” my friend said darkly, “you’ll break the deal.” I was on my way to the bathroom, a standard and reasonable journey we all undertake multiple times per day—but, according to party legend, one that should put off as long as possible when…

Read more...

Following the Xbox & Bethesda Extended Showcase that aired yesterday, Starfield Game Director Todd Howard was featured in a lengthy live interview on IGN, answering plenty of questions on the game's mechanics and specifics.

One of the big reveals at Sunday's showcase was space combat, which according to Howard won't feel too twitchy. The developer also confirmed that you can board ships and even steal them, as well as smuggle goods across the galaxy as if you were Han Solo.

We want this to feel something unique. There's been a lot of space sims that we're fans of. You can see it in the video, your ship has various Power Systems, there's a little bit of FTL there in terms of putting how much power into three different weapon systems and then your engines and shield. The Grav Drive is what lets you jump and get out of some situations that you have to put Power to.

There is some dogfighting. We keep the pace fairly slow, one of the games that I love that we sort of look at for pace is MechWarrior, believe it or not, in terms of systems and power and being able to line things up. It's a little bit faster than that, but you know what I mean as opposed to a twitchy dogfighter. But the ship stuff is not just dogfighting, as you saw in the video you can dock with other ships, you can disable them, you can board them, there's actually some quests that involve that, you can steal ships. There's dialogue in space, there's space stations you can visit, there's smuggling, there's all the things that we would want and we'll be showing some more of that later but it's a good chunk of Starfield gameplay that we think is really fun when it comes to playing this type of sci-fi game.

Howard also commented on Starfield's main quest length, which should be quite a bit larger than Skyrim and Fallout 4's at around 40 hours. Additionally, he described Starfield as a dream for the modding community.

We usually aim for around that length if you look at our previous games, but this one's ending up a little bit longer. We may tune that some still and add some more quests, so it might be 20% more than our previous ones. Your mileage may vary as people generally don't straight line it, but if our previous ones if we aimed for let's say a 25-hour main quest, this one might be in the 30 hours, maybe 40 hours just for the main quest. Obviously, there are all of the other quests and faction lines and everything else. There's quite a bit there and we've sort of learned that people do play our games for a really really long time. They're still playing Skyrim, not straight for 10 years, but they leave and they come back and there's extra content. Certainly, we're going to be doing extra content for Starfield and we love our modding community, we actually think this game for our modding community is going to be a dream because there's so much they could do.

Indeed, given the huge amount of real estate (over 100 systems, over 1000 planets), Starfield could include the definitive playground for modders. Bethesda didn't say yet if the mod tools will be released right alongside the game, though.

Starfield should land at some point in early 2023 for PC and Xbox Series S|X.

The post Starfield Lets You Steal Ships, Has a Longer Main Story Than Skyrim or Fallout 4; It’ll Be a Dream for Modders, Says Howard by Alessio Palumbo appeared first on Wccftech.

AMD is giving away Saints Row for free with Radeon RX 6000 GPUs, and specific models also include Forspoken, and Sniper Elite 5. Dubbed the Radeon Raise the Game Bundle, the offer could give players a reason to pick up a current-gen graphics card instead of jumping on the next-gen bandwagon later this year, especially if you're planning on picking up any of the included games.

The AMD Radeon RX 6000 bundle covers the company's full range of RDNA 2 GPUs, from the entry-level RX 6400 to the RX 6950 XT. To receive a copy of all three games, you'll have to pick up one of the red team's best graphics cards, as lower-spec options will either come with just Saints Row and/or Forspoken. Participating retailers include the AMD store, Microcentre, and Newegg, while UK residents can also snag the deal at Scan Computers.

The Radeon Raise the Game deal gives AMD the opportunity to promote features like AMD FSR, an upscaler that aims to help gaming PCs boost fps at higher resolutions. The promotional page highlights the RX 6000 ray tracing and the benefits of using a FreeSync gaming monitor.

RELATED LINKS: Zen 4 CPUs - everything we know, RDNA 3 GPUs - everything we know, Best gaming CPU

Flying Wild Hog has released a brand new update for Shadow Warrior 3. According to the release notes, Patch 1.05 adds a New Game+ Mode, brings a number of Quality of Life improvements, and fixes numerous issues. Update 1.05 also brings additional challenges to players, as well as new weapon skins. Moreover, it extends the … Continue reading Shadow Warrior 3 Update 1.05 adds New Game+ Mode, full patch notes →

The post Shadow Warrior 3 Update 1.05 adds New Game+ Mode, full patch notes appeared first on DSOGaming.

Over the last six months since Intel launched its 12th Gen Core series of processors, we've looked at several Alder Lake desktop CPUs and seen how competitive they are from top to bottom - not just in performance but price too. To harness the power of Alder Lake, however, there are many options in terms of Z690 motherboards, and today we're taking a look at one of ASUS's more premium models, the ROG Maximus Z690 Hero.

They say hard times don't create heroes, but ASUS has done for many years with good results. Equipped with plenty of top-tier features such as Thunderbolt 4, Intel's Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, and support for up to DDR5-6400 memory, it has enough to make it a solid choice for gamers and enthusiasts. It's time to see if the Z690 Hero option stacks up against the competition and if it can sparkle in a very competitive LGA1700 market.

You'll love being a turtle

Somewhere, tucked away in a photo album at my dad's house, there lies a photograph of me playing Konami's Teenage Mutant "Hero" Turtles arcade, during a 1990 family vacation to the tropical paradise that is South Devon. I remember literally having "jelly legs" after playing, such was my complete, unadulterated excitement at my two greatest loves of the time combining. You see, my friends, what I was experiencing was the perfect marriage of the two most important elements of the 1990s for any 10-year-old: TMNT and arcade games.

While Eastman & Laird's iconic Heroes in a Half Shell have since dipped their two-toed feet into all manner of gaming genres, there is little argument that they will always be suited best to the beat-'em-up genre. From the aforementioned 1989 arcade classic, to the beloved 1992 SNES release Turtles in Time and its Sega Mega Drive compadre The Hyperstone Heist, the lean, green fighting machines are perfectly attuned to multiplayer mayhem. TMNT was made for brawling... More so than The frikkin' Simpsons.

And so, with the genre currently enjoying a major renaissance, publisher Dotemu and developer Tribute Games have decided it's high time that Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michaelangelo make their grand return to the mean streets. But in a whole new era, one where the brawler genre has advanced beyond its rudimentary beginnings, is the TMNT brand capable of regaining its button-mashing crown, or is it just ninja, ninja, crap? Let's check it out. And remember, the clock's tickin', dude.

TMNT: Shredder's Revenge (PS4 [reviewed], PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch)
Developer: Tribute Games
Publisher: Dotemu
Released: June 16, 2022
MSRP: $24.99

Describing the gameplay of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge is something of a monument to pointlessness, as we all know the score by now. You pick your favorite characters, and then take to the streets of New York City, laying down a solid green knuckle sandwich on the battalion of foolhardy Foot Clan members that stand in your way. Break some skulls, toss some bodies, face down an end-of-level guardian, and it's on to the next stage. It's a tale as old as time and, for the most part, Shredder's Revenge changes very little from the core gameplay of Konami's 1989 classic. You gotta know what a crumpet is to understand cricket, and you also know what you're getting yourself into here.

As it is no longer 1989, the brawler genre has, itself, gone through some serious evolutionary stages since those halcyon arcade years. And in order to bring Shredder's Revenge screaming into the terrible 2020s, developer Tribute Games has seen fit to widen each individual character's arsenal of attacks, combos, and specials, as well as fine-tune their individual strengths and weaknesses in battle.

For your hapless opponents, we now have tried-and-tested button mash combos; various anti-air counters; two forms of dash attack; jump and dive kicks; team attacks; and flashy, screen-clearing specials. The biggest addition is that of a tactical roll, which has invincibility frames and will prove to be a crucial tool in your battle with the robo-ninjas. Our heroes are also equipped with several very familiar throws, including the famous Mode 7 screen toss, the multi-slam, and Raphael busting out a German Suplex that would make Lesnar proud.

Shredder's Revenge has sublime controls, effectively designed so that beginners and younger players can get straight to dishing out vigilante justice, while offering hardened brawler fans elbow room for slick combos, juggles, and wall splats. While this makes for impactful and satisfying combat, it must be noted that Shredder's Revenge does not boast the same precision of a Streets of Rage 4 or a Fight'n Rage. These are titles that truly explore the marriage between brawler and fighter, presenting each and every enemy encounter as an individual problem to be solved.

While Shredder's Revenge is undoubtedly deeper than its TMNT forerunners, its role is that of a "Supercharged Turtles in Time," rather than a groundbreaking example of the genre's evolution. Crucially, however, Shredder's Revenge is committed to an all-out effort to ensure that you and your friends are having pure, unadulterated fun. A mission goal that the colorful scrapper achieves with ease.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GemOAwU-9fo

Shredder's Revenge sets itself within the world of the 1987 TMNT animated series. The colors, style, humor, characters, and locations immediately recall memories of the classic TV show — the medium in which "Turtle Mania" became a global phenomenon. If the faithful appearance of the Fab Four (voiced by their original actors) wasn't enough, then fans will be giddy with excitement to hear that Shredder's Revenge is jam-packed with characters from the show, ranging from regular villains such as Bebop, Krang, Rocksteady, and The Shredder himself, to a wide variety of deep-lore cameos.

When some of these lesser-known characters popped up, my jaw dropped, having not had them enter my sphere of reference since I first saw them on TV all those decades ago. I was expecting to see Bebop & Rocksteady — and was spoiled with an appearance of Best Girl Irma Langenstein — but I had completely forgotten about one-off characters such as... well... why would I spoil the surprises? Tribute Games, true to its moniker, has gone above and beyond to make Shredder's Revenge a celebration of the show's legacy, filling its games with references to the series that will please the most dedicated TMNT fans.

As you might expect, Shredder's Revenge sounds as good as it looks. The action is soundtracked with an excellent score from artist Tee Lopes, which is punctuated by appearances from vocal legends Mike Patton and The Wu-Tang Clan. There's also a fantastic mullet-rock song, complete with lyrics, that helps to capture the game's nostalgic Saturday Morning vibe. Lopes has made the smart decision to replicate the legendary "Konami sound," vibrant tones that scored the days when Konami was king of both the arcades and the hearts of the video game community. No, honestly, it really was.

Where Shredder's Revenge shines brightest, however, is in its personality, utilizing awesome pixel-based animation to afford life and charm to the characters and their world. It's the little things: Individual run cycles, taunts, and celebrations; goofy background characters; and nods to previous TMNT games, shows, and movies. Adding April O'Neil, Splinter, and an unlockable Casey Jones as playable characters is inspired, providing welcome variety in multiplayer games. (April, in particular, has some of the cutest sprite animations in the genre, including some suspiciously familiar Street Fighting maneuvers.)

From hazardous open manholes and fire hydrant traps, to promises of Turtle Soup, the return of those irritating "Do Not Resist Us" bots, and even a sequence that references another famous Konami brawler, Tribute Games knows what the audience wants to see, hear, and experience, then goes out of its way to deliver. And while it doesn't always work, (the vehicular sections have some irritating forced perspective issues, for example), the flaws are swiftly forgotten in the energetic, joyful spirit of the gameplay.

As a beat-'em-up Shredder's Revenge is, ultimately, a shallower experience than one might expect in the current climate, though it does add depth with its great range of moves and minor fetch quests. Outside of the TMNT fanbase, I don't think Shredder's Revenge will offer the same long-term replay value as some of its contemporaries. For party play, however, the six-player co-op mode will provide some enjoyable, accessible action for any group of friends. Shredder's Revenge isn't really a title to be "mastered," it's more a lazy afternoon riot, to be enjoyed with good company. A true arcade experience.

[Note: Shredder's Revenge features both online and local six-player co-op. As of press time I was unable to test the online multiplayer capabilities. I will return to this review following launch with my findings. The PlayStation version, curiously, is strictly limited to four-player local co-op.]

TMNT: Shredder's Revenge delivers exactly what one expects. It's a great-looking, great-sounding, and great-playing love letter to one of the most beloved franchises of all time. It lacks the top-tier polish and scalpel-precise intelligence of Streets of Rage 4, instead choosing to present itself purely as a retro multiplayer masher — albeit one with a far expanded moveset than its predecessors. As a brawler aficionado, I think Shredder's Revenge is good, delivered with a passion that veers into great. I don't think it topples the best examples of the genre, but I defy any TMNT fan to play this game without sporting a massive grin on their face. And, ultimately, that's the highest praise it can receive.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge is a delightful celebration of the Heroes in a Half-Shell. More importantly, it's simply a helluva lot of fun to play. It breaks little in the way of new ground, remaining rooted in old-school cool, but it does offer wild, satisfying combat, packed out with personality and charm. For anyone who ever jumped off a schoolyard wall — tree branch in hand — shouting "Cowabunga!", Shredder's Revenge is absolutely worth shelling out for.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge appeared first on Destructoid.

Though each season of the HBO series "Westworld" is wildly different from the last, they all share common themes and a universal understanding of reality that is more than a little nihilistic.The series is loosely based on the film of the same name directed by Michael Crichton (yes, the same guy that wrote "Jurassic Park"), and like most of his work, it doesn't depict humans very kindly. The series takes place in a near-future where androids have become sentient, and their mechanics are so complex that they're nearly indistinguishable from humans. Instead of worrying about the possible moral implications, people decide to capitalize on the technology and create a theme park where the filthy rich can live our their wildest and most depraved dreams. Part of that theme park is Westworld, a land set in the old west complete with cowboys, fights with Indigenous tribes, a saloon, and all of the trappings of a John Ford or Sergio Leone movie. Westworld and the other Delos parks are the ultimate in alternate reality, because they are as close to real as anyone can get. Of course, the android "hosts" eventually wake up and rebel, setting off a chain of events that could end all of humanity. 

While there aren't very many true heroes in this complicated series, most of the villains tend to be human, and there's none among them worse than the Man in Black, played by Ed Harris. His identity was a major mystery in the first season, and by season 2, he had proven himself to be a monster when he murdered his only child in cold blood. Season 3 saw him reckoning with that decision and the man he had become, cementing the series' assessment of humanity as ultimately beyond redemption. 

William Vs. The Man In Black

The Man in Black's identity was revealed in a shocking twist at the end of season 1, when the relatively mild-mannered and sweet-hearted William (Jimmi Simpson) turned out to have become the Man in Black as he aged. The first season deals with morality in very binary, computer hacker-inspired terms, with visitors deciding upon entering the park whether they want to be a "white hat" or a "black hat," symbolically representing good and evil through haberdashery. William spends almost all of season 1 wearing a white hat and tries his best to do the morally right thing even when the opposite is easier or even encouraged. He falls in love with one of the hosts, a farmer's daughter named Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), and that love makes him desperate to find a way to break her free. He becomes obsessed with the park and its creators, Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) and Arnold Weber (Jeffrey Wright), trying to unravel the mysteries embedded in the park's "narrative" by the two men. 

More than anything, William wants the game to become real. He wants Dolores' love for him to be real, not programmed. He wants to actually be in danger in the park, not just pretending and safe because of Delos protocols. To achieve this goal, he's willing to do a number of horrible things to all of the hosts as the Man in Black. His talent for violence is first revealed when part of the narrative involves Dolores being kidnapped by Confederate soldiers and he brutally dispatches all of them. It's only the first hint at what he's capable of, but by the time he goes fully black-hat, William is a monster to anyone he doesn't deem human.

Creating Life And Taking It Away

The unusual nature of the hosts' sentience makes their suffering seem less horrific, at least to many of the people that inhabit the world of "Westworld." People treat them with the same casual disregard someone might have for a toaster or cell phone, not recognizing that they are causing real harm. William's obsession with the park and the damage he causes there begins to seep into his real life when his wife of 30 years dies by suicide, in part blaming him for being so distant. His daughter, Emily (Katja Herbers) blames him for her mother's death and for being an absent father, going into the park to find him and try to talk some measure of sense into him in season 2 after Dolores "frees" the hosts and starts a revolution, killing park creator Robert Ford. Instead, he believes that she is a part of the uprising and that he's being taunted from beyond the grave by Ford's machinations, and he shoots and kills Emily. 

The Man in Black then proceeds to mutter to himself as he looks for proof that Emily is a host, another pawn in the massive chess match between himself and Ford, and he discovers that she was his real, flesh-and-blood daughter. He killed her without hesitation in a flash because of his fixation on the park and its mysteries. His focus on the narrative made him forget everything else that had previously mattered, and it made him paranoid, violent, and ultimately delusional.

The Series' Dark Heart

Season 3 allowed the Man in Black to confront his demons through Delos-mandated therapy, having conversations with himself from different points in his past in episode 6, "Decoherence." The whole thing is exceptionally trippy, but it also shows just how much the character has changed over time as he's allowed his obsession with the park to become all-consuming. He crossed plenty of lines of morality before killing Emily, but ending the life of his own daughter was a turning point for the character's total mental collapse. His grip on reality is almost completely gone, and that makes him more deadly than he's ever been. He ends up battling it out with one of the hosts who has been given his memories and he loses, which means audiences may have seen the end of the human version of the Man in Black. But if "Westworld" has taught us anything, it's that consciousness and identity is far more complicated than life and death, so he truly lives on, in a way, through the host versions that exist. 

Obsession is the ultimate sin in "Westworld," whether it's an obsession with wealth like many of the Delos brass, an obsession with power like Ford, an obsession with a mystery like William, or even an obsession with freedom at any cost, like Dolores. In the end, our obsessions are what cause us to act against our own best interests and self-sabotage, no matter how good our intentions may be. After all, to err is human. 

Season 4 of "Westworld" premieres June 26, 2022 on HBO and HBO Max. 

Read this next: The 10 Best Sci-Fi Movie Villains

The post Westworld's Man in Black is the Show's Morally Compromised Core appeared first on /Film.

Despite the simplicity of its premise, John McTiernan's 1987 film "Predator" spawned a rather unlikely media franchise, multiple sequels, and several crossovers. The set-up can be fit on a notecard: A group of burly military men, engaged in a violent mission in the jungle, find themselves being hunted by an invisible space alien they are powerless to stop. By the end of the film, all their sweaty, military-inflected machismo is reduced to blood and pulp, and it will take the wits and cleverness of Arnold Schwarzenegger to save us. 

"Predator" was a hit, but the concept was so simple as to stymie sequel efforts. Little is learned about the alien species other than their fondness for game hunting, and a full rundown on their civilization is never depicted on screen. In ancillary, expanded universe materials, the aliens are named The Yautja, although the canonical legitimacy of that name can be debated. In small ways, the mythology of the creature was explored -- on a limited basis -- in the film's five sequels (with a sixth on the way: Dan Trachtenberg's "Prey" hits Hulu on August 5, 2022). 

Some of the sequels are excellent. Some are most decidedly not. As a way of preparing for the sixth "Predator" film, one must take stock of where the series has been to date.

6. Aliens Vs. Predator - Requiem (2007)

Blunt, shlocky, and incompetent, The Brothers Strause's clunky sequel to the 2004 hit "Alien vs. Predator" takes place in smalltown America where an Alien creature is on the loose, and the Predator must hunt it. The Alien in question is, in fact, a hybrid of the "Alien" alien and the "Predator" alien. This doesn't seem to mean much other than the creature has facial mandibles and stylish dreadlocks. 

The human characters in "Requiem" are useless and forgettable fodder, sprinkling the background of an alien mayhem film that provides very little in the way of alien mayhem. Not that a casual observer would be able to tell: The photography in here -- from Michael Bay impresario Daniel Pearl -- is so dim and murky, it's difficult to make out what's happening in any given moment. It takes so little to create a fun, drive-in-ready piece of audience-pleasing alien-based action shlock, and "Requiem" doesn't even rise to that level. It's a miserable film. The best one can say about it is that it knew to get out after 94 minutes. 

5. The Predator (2018)

It's now a well-established piece of film trivia that celebrity screenwriter Shane Black was hired to act in McTiernan's "Predator" as a tricky way to have him on hand should the script needed to be punched up on the fly. Black is cited as an uncredited script doctor on "Predator," a project he was working on even as he wrote as "The Monster Squad" and "Lethal Weapon." It was a very busy year. In 2018, the studio had the novel idea to ask Black back into the franchise's fold with a "Predator" sequel he would be permitted to co-write (with Fred Dekker) and direct openly. This was after his major success with "Iron Man 3," so it seemed like the wisest possible choice. 

What Black ended up making is an embarrassment. The silly badasses of the 1987 original were replaced by flip, terrible prisoners whose banter seems less playful than pathetic. The premise is that modern-day humans have captured a Predator creature and aim to study it before it -- natch -- breaks its restrains and flees. It will be up to Thomas Jane to stop the monster. The jokes are frequently sexist, and there is an on-the-spectrum character whose autism is treated like a superpower. It's clunky, it's not exciting, it's not funny, it's not even satisfyingly violent. 

4. Alien Vs. Predator (2004)

Dark Horse Comics famously united the creatures from Ridley Scott's 1979 film "Alien" with McTiernan's monster into a pop culture team-up that has become a miniature franchise unto itself. Fans so enjoyed the pairing -- the aliens are the galaxy's most dangerous animals, the predators are the galaxy's most terrifying hunters -- that seeing the respective creatures wail on each other in live action was hotly anticipated. In 2004, director Paul W.S. Anderson provided the battle royale everyone desired ... and had them asking why they desired it in the first place. 

In order to spice up the premise, "Alien vs. Predator" takes place in a Mayan pyramid that has been inexplicably buried underneath Antarctica. A team of scientists find that the pyramid can automatically rearrange itself, forming a stone maze. The minotaur in the labyrinth is a pack of xenomorphs. Here to save the day is a Predator who know how to deal with these bug-like animals, and who will end up having to kill many aliens in order to escape. Every possible combination of alien fight is imagined (Predator vs. Alien Queen, Predator vs. Facehugger, etc.) and the shlocky glee of monster mayhem is fulfilled. It's as good as an Alien vs. Predator film could possibly be.

3. Predator 2 (1990)

Fans of "Predator" likely fostered fantasies of what kind of damage the titular alien could do in the big city, and Stephen Hopkins' "Predator 2" provided the goods. Set in the near future in Los Angeles, "Predator 2" sees a world gone mad. Pollution is high, temperatures are higher, and crime rates are the highest they've ever been. The police and the local drug cartels are involved in a violent shooting war ... and a mysterious invisible alien seems to be killing off combatants. It will take a great deal of investigation for police detective Danny Glover to determine that there is an alien in their midst, and for special agent Gary Busey to locate it. 

It's a slick action sequel whose only theme seems to be that crime will eventually become indistinguishable from battlefield combat, attracting a creature that likes to hunt in battlefield scenarios. The finale shows off the interior of a Predator's ship, and their trophy room implies that all this species does is fly around the galaxy hunting sentient beings for sport (a xenomorph head is prominently displayed). 

2. Predator (1987)

The original "Predator," it should be remembered, is a satire more than it is an action film. The sweaty biceps, hulking mighty attitudes of the soldiers, and crass, sexual dialogue between the testosterone-soaked men are all exaggerated to the nth degree. They are outsize versions of regular humans; cartoon characters who represent machismo run amok and a misplaced confidence in American military might. That they are destroyed by a creature with a distinctly vaginal face should cement "Predator" as a savvy comment on ultra-masculinity as it is depicted in '80s action cinema. "Predator" is almost an antidote to George P. Cosmatos' "Rambo: First Blood Part II." 

"Predator" functions perfectly well as an action picture as well, however, and one can have a fun time at the movies watching soldiers get skinned and turned inside out but a mysterious monster. The creature remains mysterious and threatening throughout "Predator," and not knowing about it makes it far more terrifying. That mystery is largely lacking from future sequels, and the creatures became too familiar too quickly. In 1987, it was still a threat.

1. Predators (2010)

The advantage Nimród Antal's 2010 film has over its predecessors is that it not only recaptures the threat and the mystery of the titular creature, but it expands on the myth in an interesting way. The premise is close to something out of "The Twilight Zone." A group of humans awaken -- in mid-air! -- plummeting toward the ground of a planet that is definitely not Earth. Upon finding one another and gathering to compare notes, each of the humans (among them Adrien Brody, Danny Trejo, Mahershala Ali, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, and Walton Goggins) finds they were considered dangerous killers back on Earth, and now will have to use their cunning to survive an onslaught of multiple Predators who have brought them here to be hunted. 

"Predators" features a scene wherein multiple creatures communicate, thinking they are out of human earshot. The audience might get the impression that they have a command structure, that there is a sense of propriety among these otherwise murderous aliens. For a brief moment, we see that Predators might have a life outside of their game-hunting shenanigans. Additionally, there are twists with the characters who have arcs and revelations as the film progresses. "Predators" has the most interested Predators and the most interesting humans. 

That makes it stand above the rest. 

Read this next: 12 Awesome Sci-Fi Movies That Never Got Sequels

The post The Predator Films, Ranked Worst To Best appeared first on /Film.

Matt Gorening's and David X. Cohen's "Futurama," soon to be rebooted for the third or fourth time, was never meant to be speculative science fiction along the lines of, say "Star Trek." The show begins with the hapless twentysomething dimwit Philip J. Fry (Billy West) accidentally getting cryogenically frozen for a millennium, waking in the year 3000. In the future, he becomes friends with an alcoholic robot named Bender (John DiMaggio) and a badass cyclops pilot named Leela (Katey Sagal), and the three of them take blue collar jobs at a low-rent delivery company called Planet Express, run by the doddering old mad scientist Professor Farnsworth (also West). 

The show is rife with references to well-established sci-fi tropes and TV shows (the blowhard character of Zapp Brannigan is meant to emulate William Shatner, for instance), as well as any number of scientific and math references (the writers' room was well stocked with holders of advanced degrees). It was a show made by alpha nerds to appeal to other alpha nerds, just with a few raunchy ass jokes thrown in. While the universe of "Futurama" would become increasingly complex over its multiple seasons and movies (Richard Nixon's resurrected severed head is the president of Earth, starships run on dark matter harvested from the colons of Nibblonians, the word "ax" will come to replace the word "ask," every installment of "Star Trek" will be banned because of a Holy War), its dalliances with technological prognostication rarely stretched beyond a few fun coincidences. 

But some of those fun coincidences did indeed come true as seen in the below list. Tune up your holophoner. It's time to start.

Suicide Booths

One of the introductory details of "Futurama," and one that gave the studio pause when Groening pitched it, was that in the year 3000 suicide booths would be located on every corner. The implication is that modern life has become so intolerable that euthanasia became a coin-operated industry. The show's suicide booths were often played for quick bursts of gallows humor, a cynical running gag left over from grimmer '90s sensibilities. Over the years, fans of "Futurama" would note that the writers began employing them less and less (although they do still pop up from time to time). 

However, the writers were recently validated: In December of 2021, a sleek, specialized euthanasia pod had been invented in Switzerland. The pod is an airtight chamber wherein the user would be sealed in, and their air supply rapidly (over the course of 10 minutes) replaced by nitrogen until suffocation occurs. It's worth noting that euthanasia is legal in Switzerland, only one of seven countries worldwide that expressly allow the practice. It is also legal in eight of the United States. 

There are no coin-op euthanasia machines on street corners, but something that was started as a grim "Futurama" gag has now seen reality.

The Wrist LoJack-A-Mater

"Futurama" is hardly the first piece of fantasy or sci-fi that included a wrist-mounted communication device. Indeed, the two-way wrist radio was one of Dick Tracy's greatest superpowers back in 1931. Leela's wrist-mounted widget, which she once called the Wrist LoJack-a-mator, was used as a two-way radio, a screen for "Pong" and "Tetris," a scanner (akin to the tricorder on "Star Trek"), and a surgery laser. It was also used for video calls and whatever else the writers needed it for in any given moment.

Modern wrist-mounted devices became more common after the inception of "Futurama," with Apple, Samsung, and others inventing their own "smartwatches" that tie into your cellular phone, and deliver texts, health information (such devices are often used to regulate workout routines), and news headlines. Modern smartwatch devices don't quite do everything that Leela's Wrist LoJack-a-mator might do -- no surgery lasers yet -- but they do more than Dick Tracy could have ever dreamed. 

The Smelloscope

Located in the tower of the Planet Express building is Professor Farnsworth's most-used invention, the smelloscope. In the future of "Futurama," it is revealed that each heavenly body has its own unique aroma, and Farnsworth had found a way to detect said smells from lightyears away. And while one can't breathe in space particles to actually get a whiff of the cosmos, some scientists have theorized what space might smell like judging by the many particles in the eternal vacuum. 

How the smelloscope actually works is never explained in "Futurama," but the operations of a field olfactometer called the Nasal Ranger are ready to be studied for the adenoidally curious. Olfactometers have a variety of uses, including sniffing out gas leaks or detecting sewer damage. The funnel-shaped device is fitted over the nose, and one can take a deep breath in to sniff something far away that has been enhanced by the meter's chemical workings. To date, olfactometers are not used for spatial detection, but surely that is mere steps away. 

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Movies

Throughout "Futurama," the main characters go to see movies at their local Loew's א‎₀-plex. When Fry sees his first 31st-century movie, he is surprised to learn that the movie stops every few minutes to conduct an audience poll as to where the story should go next. The disembodied voice leading the polls is played by Russ Leatherman, the once-ubiquitous voice behind the call-in movie times service Moviefone. The choices in "Futurama" are fraught, and audiences can choose between watching an action sequence, or a scene wherein the characters do their taxes. 

Interactive movies have become increasingly common over the years, and many modern video games have come to resemble films with minor control elements throughout. In 2018, Eko published an interactive sequel to the 1983 computer thriller "WarGames" called simply "#WarGames," wherein a viewer could choose which screen to watch of a cluster of conversing characters. The narrative would change depending on which one you were watching. Something similar was done on the short-lived streaming service Quibi in 2020 with their film "Wireless," which let viewers watch an actor in a car or what was on the character's phone, depending on how the viewer oriented their phone screen. There was also the Netflix film "Bandersnatch," the feature film adaptation of "Black Mirror," which also polled viewers as to which path they wanted the movie to take. This approach was also tried by Netflix' "Captain Underpants" series, as well as other kid-friendly shows. 

Alcohol As Fuel

Bender Bending Rodriguez is, true to his name, a bender. He can bend metal. It's why he was built. Also true to his name, Bender is an alcoholic, as are all robots in the future. It turns out that booze helps keep robots' fuel cells charged, and they have to keep on drinking all day in order to prevent powering down. If they drink too much, they get drunk. If they drink too little ... they also get drunk. The future is a world of crazed, lazy, drunken robots. Either stay indoors, or live like it's Carnival in Rio. 

There are no alcohol-fueled robots yet, but using alcohol as fuel is a very real thing. In New Zealand, some scientists have pioneered something they are referring to as "brewtroleum," which uses the excess yeast and grain left over from the beer brewing process and converting it into an ultra-refined ethanol (which, sadly, must be blended with actual gasoline -- it's more of a supplement). It's not exactly a clean-burning alternative to ordinary oil-based petroleum, but it's cleaner to manufacture. 

The eyePhone

In a 2010 episode of "Futurama," the entire world becomes briefly obsessed with a hip new smart device called an eyePhone (a clear model on the real-world device we all still use each and every day, the Zune). The eyePhone was inserted (painfully) into the user's eye socket, right next to their eyeball, and allowed people to watch a video screen projected midair directly in front of their faces. It also used the eyeballs as camera lenses and would record anything the user looked at. So much of sci-fi has now incorporated the (aesthetically ugly, horrendous to ponder) floating video screen notion to their tools, it seemed to be the logical next step in ordinary consumer products. 

Thanks to Samsung, such a device is now in development. Not a painful widget crammed next to one's eyeballs, but a contact lens with recording abilities, controlled by blinking. The idea is to fill a user's field of vision with augmented information -- the way ancillary scanning data fills The Terminator's eyes -- and can take pictures of whatever they blink at. Patents for such tech go back to 2014 and nothing has been made available to the consuming public, but a computerized contact lens is certainly in our future, and would be far less unwieldy than Google Glass. 

Sex Robots

It is illegal for humans to date robots in "Futurama," as having a programmable sex celebrity at your beck and call 24 hours a day would be so alluring as to cease human progress entirely. Regardless, Fry finds a way to create a robot girlfriend modeled after actress Lucy Liu (playing herself), disgusting his co-workers. Fry eventually has to break up with his Lucy Liu-bot when he learns that celebrity robot clones are made by torturously shocking the preserved, still-living heads of the actual celebrity. The episode climaxes with an army of Lucy Liu robots engaged in battle. 

While sex dolls are nothing new -- RealDoll has been in business since 1996 -- functioning robotic sexual partners are closer to being a reality all the time. A company called Realbotix has already developed a customizable robot bust with a realistic face and speech, based on yourself. Famously, comedienne Whitney Cummings had one made of herself and incorporated it into a bit of hers. It's only a matter of time before RealDoll and Realbotix are working together to make a fully customizable companion. 

Perhaps more darkly, "Futurama" also leaned in the direction of deepfake technology, sometimes used to -- with increasing realism -- insert celebrity's faces into pornographic films. It's not the same as a robot, but it does explore the idea of stealing a celebrity's likeness for your own gratification and without their permission. The law has yet to catch all the way up with this kind of tech. 

Read this next: The 15 Best Simpsons One-Off Characters Ranked

The post Every Time Futurama Predicted the Future appeared first on /Film.

For a guy who played Batman in some of the biggest superhero movies of all time, it's telling that Christian Bale's most identifiable role is still Patrick Bateman, the wealthy Wall Street serial killer of director Mary Harron's "American Psycho," a man perpetually trapped in the vanity-obsessed 1980s as well as in his own diseased mind.

Based on the character in Bret Easton Ellis' novel of the same name, Patrick Bateman is a role that would've been a calling card for just about any actor: He's sardonic, oddly self-aware, impeccably dressed, suave, charming, and utterly insane. Yet where other actors would likely have approached the role as a way of making themselves look sexy and dangerous, Bale makes a series of bizarre, hilarious, uncompromising and unforgettable choices throughout that keep his performance both honest and indelible. He never tries to make Bateman cool, and it's that approach that has allowed the character and the film to remain so popular decades after its release.

Bale Lands The Part With A Lot Of Laughs

Despite being perfect for the role, Christian Bale almost missed out on the chance to play Patrick Bateman. According to co-writer and actress Guinevere Turner in a 2020 oral history of the film for MovieMaker Magazine, actor Billy Crudup was attached to the part before Mary Harron had even met Bale. Crudup surprisingly ended up turning down the role, calling Harron and saying, "I don't feel like I can get this character."

That wasn't the case for Bale. After the actor read the script while filming "Velvet Goldmine," he was so excited "he was like, on a plane right away," as Harron recalled. Bale found the screenplay by Harron and Turner "one of the most ridiculous and hilarious scripts" he'd ever read. That quality came out in his audition, during which Bale and Harron were performing the scene of Paul Allen's murder and enjoying themselves so much that the actor recalled how "I couldn't finish the scenes because she was laughing and shaking the camera, and I was laughing as well."

Bale Almost Lost The Part ... To Leonardo DiCaprio

While Christian Bale's audition convinced Mary Harron that the actor was the only choice to play Bateman, the studio behind "American Psycho," Lionsgate, nearly derailed Bale's opportunity (never mind the movie itself) by offering a huge payday of $20 million to "Titanic" star Leonardo DiCaprio to take the role. Guinevere Turner recalled how they learned the news in the trades instead of being told. The production team was not only shocked, but Harron refused to accept the casting.

Beyond preferring Bale, Harron's reason for refusing was DiCaprio was such a massive star thanks to having "a worldwide fan base of 15-year-old girls," and as such, casting him in a part that would feature him demeaning and murdering women would be "intolerable ... and everyone will be terrified," and it would have likely led to the studio and star taking away more creative control from the director.

While Harron and Turner were actually fired from "American Psycho" for a time while Lionsgate brought in director Oliver Stone to develop a version with DiCaprio playing Bateman, Bale never gave up the faith. As he continued to get in shape and work on his accent for the role, he recalled: "Everybody thought I was crazy, but it became a crusade for me." Once Stone and DiCaprio were out of the picture, Harron got to make the film her way with Bale in the lead. As the actor marveled 20 years later: "She really threw herself on the sword for me. I will always appreciate that, so much."

Patrick Bateman Is Given Life By Bale, On And Off Set

The main reason Mary Harron wanted Christian Bale to play Bateman is because "he got the humor of it." The director explained to MovieMaker Magazine: 

"He didn't see Bateman as cool. I sort of had the feeling a lot of the other actors kind of thought Bateman was cool. And he didn't."

Indeed, one of the special qualities Bale brings to the role is Bateman's unhinged petulance, the conformist serial killer sporting a hair-trigger anger that's almost childlike. It makes him not a sleek, sexy man of danger, but a whiny and pathetic man child who's more pitiable than enviable. It's a mixture that makes Bateman both watchable and off-putting, and Bale's Method-like insistence on remaining in character on and off set inspired a variety of responses from his fellow actors and filmmakers.

Bret Easton Ellis remembered a dinner in Los Angeles early in production where Bale "was in full Patrick Bateman mode in terms of the hair, the suit and the way he was talking ... it was unnerving in a way." Costar Willem Dafoe thought highly of Bale when he shot his scenes with the actor, remarking how Bale "was like a machine ... his rhythms, his clarity, his control were just incredible." Yet the people portraying Bateman's set of frenemy Wall Street bros sympathized more with Ellis' take on Bale, weirded out by the way the actor broke into a sweat on cue and other such tics. Bale recalled later how he learned from Josh Lucas that "all of the other actors [in the corporate card comparison scene] thought that I was the worst actor they'd ever seen."

Bale's Performance Epitomizes Harron's Vision Of The Film

Ironically, the actors' initial reaction to Christian Bale's work mirrored the initial reaction by several critics and audience members to "American Psycho" upon its release. As Harron told MovieMaker Magazine:

"The tone just completely confused people. When you do something that mixes genres, in this case you're mixing social satire and horror ... people don't know how to take it at first. I think it took years for people to think it's okay to find these scenes funny."

Sure enough, while the film was embroiled in controversy upon its debut, the response to it years later has changed considerably, with the film continually mentioned in everything from reappraisal pieces to an abundance of memes. The movie's ambiguity, once a sticking point, is now embraced as one of its virtues, and Bale's Bateman perfectly encapsulates the toxic masculinity of the '80s as well as now.

The success of "American Psycho" and Bale's performance led to the actor shooting to the top of the A-list in Hollywood, landing him roles in a variety of films like Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy as well as Oscar contenders such as "The Fighter" and "American Hustle." Bale's dedication to the part and eagerness to push the envelope cemented him as one of our finest actors, a trajectory Bale found himself surprised at. He continued in the oral history:

"I guess I was a little bit disappointed that it didn't end up being career suicide. I kind of hoped that maybe that was it, and I'd have to find something else to go do ... I'm perverse."

Of course, it's that perversity that makes Patrick Bateman and "American Psycho" so powerful, memorable, darkly hilarious, and even cool — though not intentionally so.

Read this next: The 95 Best Horror Movies Ever

The post Christian Bale Never Tried To Make His American Psycho Character Cool appeared first on /Film.

Warning: major spoilers ahead for "Obi-Wan Kenobi."

"Obi-Wan Kenobi" has had a pretty good run so far, barring a few story elements that seemed pretty rushed, and episode 5 of the show gave "Star Wars" fans plenty to chew on. Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) got the most screentime yet as he was hell-bent on cornering Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) on Jabiim with the aid of the tracker implanted in Leia's droid Lola by Reva (Moses Ingram).

While this seems like the foundation for an eventual clash between the former master and padawan, the show does much more by delving deeper into the characters we know and love. I'm obviously talking about the beautiful, bittersweet prequel-era flashback scenes that were sprinkled throughout the episode, which further our understanding of the emotional landscape between Obi-Wan and Anakin, especially now that he's become Darth Vader.

While we were already treated to some footage from the prequels in the series premiere, the newly-shot scenes that feature a young Anakin sparring with his Jedi Master have left fans delighted for a plethora of reasons. While "Obi-Wan Kenobi" has its flaws, the show has been able to bring some of the best aspects of nuanced, interpersonal bonds in the franchise to life, which which was done exceptionally well in the "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" animated series.

While the prequels did provide the foundation for the bond between Obi-Wan and Anakin, the depth of their relationship was better explored in the animated "Clone Wars," as the show had a better opportunity to flesh out these complex characters across more time. The flashback sequence in "Obi-Wan Kenobi" is the first step towards deepening our understanding of their relationship in live-action, and I would say, that's a win.

Fighting Side By Side, As Brothers

"The Clone Wars" takes place between the events of "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith," and the series hones in on the many conflicts between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy, with Count Dooku at the helm of the villainous movement. The show obviously does not focus solely on Anakin and Obi-Wan alone, as there are numerous storylines concerning Mace Windu, Yoda, Padmé andmore. Anakin and Ahsoka's dynamic as master and padawan was first explored in this show, allowing fans to better understand Anakin as a character before his turn to the dark side.

Obi-Wan and Anakin obviously fought side-by-side in many battles, including the Clone Wars, both having suffered tremendous personal losses over the course of time. Their relationship is undeniably a complex one — while Qui-Gon assumes a fatherly role when he decides to bring Anakin with him to train him, it is Obi-Wan who has to quickly step into the role of master for the young apprentice, watching him mature through the years and fight alongside him like a brother. There's a strong sense of trust between them in the prequel era, much of which has been portrayed brilliantly in both the prequels and "The Clone Wars" (further deepened in "Star Wars: Brotherhood"), which obviously chips away as we approach the events of "Revenge of the Sith," culminating in the tragic confrontation on Mustafar.

"Clone Wars" not only fills in the blanks with regards to how well the two men knew each other, but it also further established the familial aspect of their bond. However, there was also a sense of unease, especially in Anakin, whose ambition often made him feel as if Obi-Wan held him back. This urge to prove himself, to both impress and one-up his master, has been on full display during many missions that the two embark on in "Clone Wars," and "Obi-Wan Kenobi" cements it in live-action and ties it in beautifully with the events after Anakin's fall.

Confronted With Ghosts Of The Past

The reason why the sparring scenes between young Anakin and Obi-Wan are so important within the context of the show and "Star Wars" canon is how meaningful it is to understanding both characters. There's the pull of nostalgia, of course, as fans never thought they would see the two playfully clashing lightsabers and partaking in their trademark master-padawan quips and banter. The mere sight of Hayden Christensen smiling as a young Anakin is enough to make my heart feel full, but let's look at how the show utilizes this flashback as a contrast to where they stand now.

Anakin, although extremely gifted, is driven by his emotions. While there is nothing wrong with being led by one's emotions, this gift can backfire on the battlefield, especially for a Jedi. As Anakin allows his aggression to guide him through the mock fight with Obi-Wan, the latter reminds him that the Jedi are tasked with defending, not attacking viciously (unless the circumstances demand it). Anakin defiantly asks his master to admit defeat, but Obi-Wan surprises him by using the Force and turning the tides in his favor. This is when Obi-Wan tells Anakin that, while he is a great warrior, his need to prove himself will be his undoing, and until he overcomes it, he will remain a padawan.

This ties in well with the actions of Vader — he is too confident that he has Obi-Wan cornered on Jabiim, and Obi-Wan is able to predict this and eventually outsmart him...for now. Make no mistake, Vader is still terrifyingly powerful and greatly perceptive (he knew about Reva's past all along), but when it comes to facing the ghosts of his past, namely Obi-Wan, he cannot help but make the same mistakes again.

Although we only have one more episode left in "Obi-Wan Kenobi," one can hope that we get more of the "Clone Wars" character and relationship dynamic treatment in live-action. Hopefully, we will, in the near future.

The first five episodes of "Obi-Wan Kenobi" are currently streaming on Disney+.

Read this next: The 20 Best Clone Wars Episodes Ranked

The post Obi-Wan Kenobi Finally Fulfills the Live-Action Promise of Star Wars: The Clone Wars appeared first on /Film.

When Guillermo del Toro takes the stage, you know you're in for something special. The Oscar-winning director got a rockstar's welcome at the end of the Netflix Animation showcase at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, with a standing ovation to boot.

Introducing footage from his animated directorial debut, "Pinocchio," del Toro talked about his love of animation, and how he particularly felt in love with stop-motion, "a form of animation perpetually on the brink of extinction," as he described it.

While the joke got a few laughs, nothing in the entire 90-minute showcase got as loud a reaction as when del Toro talked about the future of animation, and how "this is the decade when we drive home the mantra that animation is film." And in case anyone from the Academy was listening, del Toro had something else to say. "Animation is not a f****** genre!" the acclaimed director said to thunderous applause.

A Dark Fantasy

The first footage shown was a clip from early in the film, more specifically the first meeting between David Bradley's Geppetto and Gregory Mann's Pinocchio. The scene shows the old woodcarver waking up absolutely wasted, with an empty bottle in his hand. As he struggles to get up, he stumbles to his desk and sees a broken photograph of a young boy, his son Carlo.

When he hears a noise from the attic, Geppetto goes to investigate, and comes face-to-face with a wooden boy. But this is not the cute, smooth puppet of the Disney film. Instead, it is a tall, rough creature with plenty of imperfections, rogue branches, and patches of wood that aren't sanded. If having the wooden creature say "You asked for me to live; I am your son!" to the old man wasn't enough, the purple bug next to the boy startles Geppetto, making him fall off the stairs to the floor below.

The audience at Annecy was then shown the first proper trailer for "Pinocchio," which is narrated by Ewan McGregor's Sebastian J. Cricket, who says he's lived for so long he's heard all kinds of stories, particularly those of "imperfect fathers and imperfect sons." We see flashes of Geppetto carving up Pinocchio, the boy escaping to the circus, the blue wood spirit that gives Pinocchio live, and a brief glimpse at that iconic whale.

Let's Show The Mistakes

It was clear from both the footage and del Toro's introduction that "Pinocchio" is meant to be both a unique take on the classic story, and also a different kind of animated movie.

According to del Toro, one of his first instructions when production began was to avoid key posing (frames meant to help animators know the important movements in a sequence) and to highlight the handmade aspect of stop-motion. This meant not hiding mistakes, and to make sure the characters made mistakes, that their ticks, sweat, impulses are shown, in order to bring forth the acting in the puppets.

From the short footage shown at the showcase, del Toro, his co-director Mark Gustafson, and the animators at Shadow Machine succeeded. It has taken del Toro 15 years to get this movie made, but the wait has definitely been worth it. The footage looks breathtaking, with incredible attention to detail and the subtlest of body movements, camera movement and framing that feels more like live-action, with the kind of intimate yet universal approach del Toro is known for. 

After the footage, del Toro took the stage again to talk about his take on "Pinocchio," and how he wanted to combine the classic tale with another one of his favorite stories: "Frankenstein." You can clearly see the result in the footage, even if it's brief.This Pinocchio is more primordial, uglier, more naturalistic and makeshift, the clear result of a grieving man. According to del Toro, he felt that both Pinocchio and Frankenstein are tales about children thrown into the world with a blank slate, learning about who they are as humans, and struggling to please their fathers.

Disney may be trying to painstakingly replicate the look and feel of an 82-year-old movie, but in just a minute or so, del Toro showed why pantomime and recreation are the wrong way to keep classic stories alive. The Oscar-winner brings the classic tale to a much darker place than audiences know, while still infusing the story with his trademark love for misunderstood creatures. Get ready to fall in love with Pinocchio all over again.

"Pinocchio" is set to arrive on Netflix in December 2022.

Read this next: Ranking All Eight Muppet Movies On The First Film's 40th Anniversary

The post Pinocchio Footage Reaction: Guillermo del Toro Delivers A Darker, Personal Take on a Timeless Tale [Annecy] appeared first on /Film.

The Elder Scrolls fans, here is something for you today. The team behind Daggerfall Unity, a reimagined version of the all-time RPG classic from The Elder Scrolls series, has released a brand new GOG version of it. This ambitious project, launched over a decade ago by Gavin “Interkarma” Clayton, is aiming to bring the unique … Continue reading You can now download for free a re-imagined version of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall →

The post You can now download for free a re-imagined version of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall appeared first on DSOGaming.

You'd be hard-pressed to find any of the best gaming laptops using a hard disk drive as their primary storage solution, with most manufacturers having replaced them with the best SSDs and relegating the mechanical drives to an optional expansion. However, it appears that HDDs may soon disappear from portable PCs entirely.

China said its giant Sky Eye telescope may have picked up signs of alien civilizations, according to a report by the state-backed Science and Technology Daily, which then appeared to have deleted the report and posts about the discovery. From a report: The narrow-band electromagnetic signals detected by Sky Eye -- the world's largest radio telescope -- differ from previous ones captured and the team is further investigating them, the report said, citing Zhang Tonjie, chief scientist of an extraterrestrial civilization search team co-founded by Beijing Normal University, the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of California, Berkeley. It isn't clear why the report was apparently removed from the website of the Science and Technology Daily, the official newspaper of China's science and technology ministry, though the news had already started trending on social network Weibo and was picked up by other media outlets, including state-run ones.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Season 3 of Netflix's "The Umbrella Academy," based on the comic series of the same name by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way and artist Gabriel Bá, is finally here. The season took a bit longer to get to our screens due to the pandemic, but now the Hargreeves family is back and ready to fight a whole new threat: the Sparrow Academy! After saving the world (twice), the superpowered siblings of the Umbrella Academy have found themselves in an altered timeline, where their dear old dad Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) adopted a different set of children as a result of their time-traveling meddling. Those children grew up to be the Sparrow Academy, and they're not too thrilled that some random supposed impostors appeared in their living room and demanded information. That's how season 3 kicks off, sending the Umbrella Academy on their most challenging adventure yet.

"The Umbrella Academy" has always been a little bit of a mixed bag. It is absolutely excellent when it's good, but it's also truly terrible when it's bad. There isn't really a middle ground for "The Umbrella Academy," because the show simply goes too hard and invests too much in its characters and wacky world-building to ever be bland or boring. That means that the hits and misses are both as large and obvious as Luther's shoulders. After a shaky first season, the series found its footing in season 2, focusing on the chemistry between its stellar cast and leaning into the weirdness. Season 3 is a frustrating mix of both, delivering exceptional arcs for certain characters while making baffling decisions with others, leading to an experience that feels sort of like eating those gag jelly beans: it's impossible to tell whether the next scene is going to be piña colada or vomit flavored. That's pretty tough when you love piña coladas, and some viewers may finally grow tired of having their expectations and feelings yanked around in service of a confusing narrative.  

Character-Driven Chaos

In season 1, the Hargreeves kids had to save the world from one of their own after Vanya, who in season 3 goes by Viktor (Elliot Page), embraced his powers and went rogue. The second season saw them trying to deal with the repercussions of some faulty time-travel due to Five (Aidan Gallagher)'s powers not being quite enough to take them all to the same place and time. They had to stop an apocalypse there, too, before jumping through time once more back to the present. Unfortunately, the present has changed dramatically as a result of their time shenanigans, and now they have to try and contend with a completely different timeline and set of rules. Theoretically, they could even run into this timeline's version of themselves, which excites drugged-out ghost whisperer Klaus (Robert Sheehan) but terrifies big sweet Luther (Tom Hopper). They check into the Hotel Obsidian, Klaus' favorite place to crash and try to figure out how to make friends with the Sparrows and exist in a brand-new world. 

Because this is "The Umbrella Academy," there's soon another apocalyptic event that needs to be stopped, though this one makes the first two seasons look like an afternoon in the park. As the characters get closer and closer to doomsday, they reveal new things about themselves to both the audience and one another, leading to moments both exciting and deeply disappointing. The show is at its best when it gives the characters catharsis and joy, because they are all deeply traumatized people who deserve at least some measure of peace. The cast plays a family much like a real family, and getting to spend time with them feels like hanging out with the X-Men if they were real people and not superheroic ideals. Everyone is deeply flawed, but most of them have understandable reasons for their sometimes selfish or silly behavior. Pairing up different characters and seeing how they interact is a great part of the fun, and this season has some incredible moments, including a brotherly road trip with a surprising destination, a bachelor party complete with terrible karaoke, and a hilarious bathroom brawl. It's unfortunately just not quite enough to save the season from its more dour half.

The Good, The Bad, And The Really Ugly

The performances are all great this season, and Elliot Page's transition and life as a trans man have been handled with nuance and grace. The show looks better than it's ever looked, with some moments in the back half of the season that are genuinely jaw-dropping from both a visual and special effects perspective. The big, ugly problem is that one of the characters does something irredeemable and the show never mentions it again, instead asking us to have sympathy for that character. There is an attempted rape that is completely glossed over, making all of the moments where the series handled tough subjects more delicately feel slightly tarnished. It became difficult to care at all about the character, who remains a central protagonist for the rest of the season. 

The members of the Umbrella Academy have forgiven one another for some pretty terrible things, but usually, the series identifies those actions as terrible and shows the repercussions. Instead, the scene here is immediately written off, and because the victim is a man, the scene grows exponentially more complicated and worthy of examination. Men are less likely to report sexual assault because of the potential reactions from their peers, and many toxic myths exist about men and consent. The show's handling of this plot point is irresponsible enough to sour the rest of the season, and it's a real shame. 

I wanted to love season 3 of "The Umbrella Academy," and there are brief moments where I did. Unfortunately, the show's mixed messaging and messy storytelling hampered the good moments, leaving me with both sweet satisfaction and a terrible taste in my mouth. The good news is that Netflix has already renewed the series for a fourth season, which means there's time to course-correct and maybe deliver satisfying endings for the characters we've grown to know and love. Despite my frustrations, I'll still be watching, because I'm a sucker for when this show is sweet and silly even if I occasionally get a mouth full of vomit. 

/Film Rating: 6 out of 10

Read this next: 20 Underrated Rom Coms You Need To Watch

The post The Umbrella Academy Season 3 Review: The Umbrellas Meet The Sparrows With Some Very Messy Storytelling appeared first on /Film.

One of Pixar's most beloved Toy Story characters goes to infinity on Disney Plus or on DVD and Blu-ray.

A newly discovered security vulnerability in modern Intel and AMD processors could let remote attackers steal encryption keys via a power side channel attack. Dubbed Hertzbleed by a group of researchers from the University of Texas, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Washington, the issue is rooted in dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS), a power and

The Elden Ring mod The Convergence is now in development, and while its creator offered few hints about what to expect from the action RPG’s unofficial expansion, if it’s anything like their earlier project, Dark Souls 3 The Convergence, there’s quite a bit to look forward to. Dark Souls 3 Convergence is essentially a fan-made expansion that adds new weapons and bosses, extensive redesigns for key areas, and even significant tweaks to existing systems such as covenants. Player response to the announcement was overwhelmingly positive, with most comments expressing excitement and disbelief that the project was actually happening.

RELATED LINKS: The best Elden Ring builds, Elden Ring bosses, The best Elden Ring classes

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