Right now, the Turner Classic Movies streaming app Watch TCM is featuring two classic pre-code horror movies made by director Michael Curtiz for Warner Bros. That's right, the great "Casablanca" helmer dabbled in horror in the early 1930's when producer Darryl F. Zanuck and WB (back when it was run by the actual B's) decided to cash in on the popular horror trend kicked off by Universal Pictures' "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" in 1931. So in 1932 they hired studio journeyman Curtiz to make "Doctor X," a mad scientist-themed picture starring noted Hollywood B-movie star -- and sometimes orgy master -- Lionel Atwill ("Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man") as well as Fay Wray, she of the loud screams in "King Kong."
Made on a budget of around $200,000 dollars, "Doctor X" was such a success that WB immediately followed it up with 1933's chiller "Mystery of the Wax Museum," re-teaming Curtiz with Atwill and Wray, and once again filmed in gloriously vibrant two-strip Technicolor. With both films now on the streaming service, let's take a look back at both -- particularly "Doctor X" -- and why they're so startling to watch in 2021.
Why The Pre-Code Status Is So Significant
"Pre-code Hollywood" refers to that brief, beautiful window between 1929 and 1934 when studios were not strictly enforcing the Motion Picture Production Code/Hays Code, and you would see more adult content and themes in studio pictures before the Production Code Administration came in and began castrating movies. Because it was made during this window, "Doctor X" has more teeth than you're used to seeing in a classic horror picture, and coupled with its color look, it feels surprisingly contemporary.
The plot involves a snoopy alcoholic reporter played by Lee Tracy who is looking into a series of "full moon murders" being committed by a serial killer witnesses say is a disfigured monster. These murders seem to involve the killer cannibalizing the victims, as detailed during an autopsy scene. There is mention of prostitution, rape, drug addiction and a final scene before the credits role involving a "joy buzzer" that can really only be interpreted in a lascivious way.
There is a particular scene where we're introduced to the eye-patched Dr. Rowitz (Arthur Edmund Carewe) with his white lab coat speckled in red blood. This was probably the first time audiences were exposed to blood in color, decades before Hammer Studios made a mint dumping globs of bright red paint all over the screen in their Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" movies.
"Mystery of the Wax Museum" is also loaded with innuendo and "offensive" material, including Fay Wray posing suggestively in a scene where she chats on the phone. Her roommate is a motormouthed reporter named Florence played by the hilarious Glenda Farrell, who at one point in the film walks up to a cop and bluntly asks him, "How's your sex life?" One of the main characters is a junkie (we see him get drugs in shadow at one point) who the cops let dry out until he finally agrees to confess to a crime, telltale dark circles over his eyes.
The Horror Movie So Nice They Made It Twice
"Doctor X' and "Mystery of the Wax Museum" hold the distinction of being the first horror films produced in color, but that wasn't necessarily what the studio wanted. Around 1932, the popularity of the color musicals being released was waning, and WB was hesitant to make films that way but still had a two-picture commitment with Technicolor. They even asked if they could fulfill their commitment with two shorts instead of features.
Instead, they decided to film these two "quickie" B-movies in the two-strip process (also known as Process 3). They were so adamant against the color version (shot by Ray Rennahan) that they actually had Curtiz shoot an alternate version of "Doctor X" in black & white with a different director of photography, Richard Tower. This non-color version of the film actually got a wider release, with the Technicolor version only going to the major markets in big cities. It's a shame, because the color version shown on TCM (from UCLA's 2020 4K restoration funded by George Lucas) is a candy-coated marvel, with expressive use of green gels that prefigure the highly stylized Italian horror of Mario Bava and Dario Argento.
The black & white cut is mostly similar takes to the color one, with a few minor ad-libs, but the German expressionist compositions are far weaker. The color is one of the main things that distinguishes "Doctor X" from the myriad other monochromatic mad scientist movies of the era, many of which also featured Atwill, like Universal's 1942 "Night Monster." For decades, the only version available to the public and in TV syndication was the black & white cut, or to make matters confusing, the color version transferred to black & white. Technicolor had discarded most of their two-color negatives in 1948, but upon Jack Warner's death in 1978, a nitrate film print of the color version was miraculously uncovered among his collection.
A Spiritual Sequel?
"Doctor X" has so many insane things in it, not least of which when the serial killer is finally revealed to be altering his appearance with "synthetic flesh" that he globs onto his face like putty. That scene and his ultimate demise (being lit on fire and tossed out a castle window with his cooking corpse splatting on the rocks below) make this feel like an early stab at something like Sam Raimi's "Darkman." All the Tesla coil art direction adds to the atmosphere, which builds to a climax involving several scientists handcuffed to chairs while they watch a woman about to be murdered.
The spiritual follow-up "Mystery of the Wax Museum" was perhaps even more influential.The plot follows a fine wax statue artist played by Atwill whose life's work is destroyed by a sleazy investor for a quick insurance payout, only for him to then rebuild his gallery with real bodies in order to take revenge. We of course saw this story ported over nearly wholesale for the 1953 Vincent Price joint "House of Wax," and the conceit of using real bodies to create "art" has been used in films like Roger Corman's "Bucket of Blood" and Giorgio Ferroni's criminally underseen "Mill of the Stone Women."
The scene where Wray sees Atwill's wax facade face crumble to reveal the horrifying disfigurement underneath was recycled for a memorable moment in David Cronenberg's "The Fly." We've also seen the masked disfigured protagonist in Price's "Doctor Phibes" movies as well as the recent "The Cure For Wellness."
Definitely check out both of these movies right now on the TCM app before they're gone, or purchase them on two beautiful Warner Archive Blu-rays released this past year.
Last week, Marvel's "What If...?" animated series finally tilted its hand to reveal the endgame that's in store for the first season. Though the series was initially presented as an anthology series that kept each story contained within its own universe, fans had long expected that something would end up bringing the universes together. That something ended up being a terrifying version of Ultron that inhabits the body of Vision and wields all of the Infinity Stones. However, that powerful "new" villain had some Marvel Cinematic Universe fans scratching their heads and wondering if there was a plot hole left overlooked. In response, "What If...?" head writer A.C. Bradley has laid out the facts for concerned (or confused) fans.
Marvel's What If...? Plot Hole Explained
In last week's episode of Marvel's "What If...?," the powerful new Ultron who defeated The Avengers obtained all of the Infinity Stones. After destroying a variety of realms in his own universe, the Infinity Stones suddenly made Ultron aware of The Watcher and all the other universes that the cosmic being was observing. This led to an epic comic book battle between Ultron and The Watcher where they were smashing through the alternate universes of the multiverse.
It's that last detail that had fans questioning the powers Ultron was wielding with the Infinity Stones. Just earlier this year, "Loki" established that the Infinity Stones won't work if they're taken from one universe and into another. (The reason the Infinity Stones worked in "Avengers: Endgame" is because they traveled back in time to moments in their own universe to collect the Infinity Stones). So if Ultron and The Watcher are careening into different universes, how is the power of the Infinity Stones able to be harnessed within them? A.C. Bradley noticed the fan discourse about this subject online and took to Twitter to explain the situation:
So there are basically two explanations here. First of all, Ultron isn't using the Infinity Stones to manipulate other universes. Instead, he's using the stones to give himself more power and abilities, so technically, as a being of his own universe, he's still using the power of the Infinity Stones within his own universe. But even if Ultron were using the Stones to manipulate other universes, it turns out that would be allowed too, because he's breaking the barriers between all these universes and creating a connection between them.
It's that last detail that will lead us right into the first season finale for Marvel's "What If...?" animated series.
A Multiverse Meeting
Marvel's "What If...?" will reveal what happens when the barriers between universes are broken. After last week's episode, we now know exactly how all of the alternate versions of Marvel's Avengers that we've seen throughout the show so far will come together. Captain Carter, T'Challa as Star-Lord, Erik Killmonger as Black Panther, Thor, Black Widow, and Gamora have all been seen assembling as a new team of Avengers, and they're presumably joining forces to take on the all-powerful Ultron.
However, what happens to all these universes once Ultron is defeated? Does everyone go back to their own universe? Or will they all stay together in this new expanded universe? We already know the next season of "What If...?" is in the works, so there are more stories to tell. But will they continue to be anthology episodes that come together for an epic finale, or will we merely follow each hero on their own adventures in their own alternate universes? We'll have to wait and see what Marvel's "What If...?" season finale has in store before we can start speculating properly.
The first season finale of Marvel's "What If...?" arrives on Disney+ on Wednesday, October 6.
Both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck are donning the cowl and taking up the Batman mantle once more for a turn in Andy Muschetti's "The Flash," but you won't be seeing George Clooney join them. The actor, who infamously played the caped crusader in Joel Schumacher's 1997 film "Batman and Robin," recently told Variety that he would not be involved, joking that he had "ruined the franchise."
Blaming Himself For The Bad Batman?
"Batman and Robin" is a mess of a movie, but that blame can't be placed on Clooney's shoulders alone. Even director Schumacher, who took a lot of heat for the campy sequel, has cleared Clooney of his role in the abysmal reception of the film.
"Well, you know, that's very George. First of all, Batman has survived since 1939 — we're the same age. Nothing has ever stopped Batman," Schumacher told Vulture in 2020.
Clooney still feels at least somewhat responsible for the way the franchise stumbled after the release of "Batman and Robin." When a reporter for Variety spoke with him at the screening of the latest film he directed, "The Tender Bar," Clooney reassured him that he wouldn't be a part of "The Flash."
"They didn't ask me," Clooney said. "When you destroy a franchise the way I did, usually they look the other way when 'The Flash' comes by."
"Batman and Robin" didn't exactly kill the franchise, but it did put things on hold until Christopher Nolan rebooted things in 2005. The tone shifted from Schumacher's campy, 1960s-inspired schlock to edgy, dark drama, and Batman fans ate it up. While many fans of the Dark Knight simply forgot about the blip of "Batman and Robin," Clooney clearly hasn't.
A Shame So Deep It Can't Be Shared
While many people share their work with their spouses, Clooney is apparently so embarrassed by his outing as Batman that he won't even let his wife, Amal Clooney, see the movie.
"He won't let me watch it," she told the Variety reporter.
"There are certain films I just go, 'I want my wife to have some respect for me,'" Clooney said.
Aww, c'mon George. "Batman and Robin" isn't that bad. It's a little silly, but it's a lot of campy fun. It's full of wild gay subtext and some of the worst ice puns in history, but it's never boring! And besides, you made the nipples on the batsuit look good.
Note: Screenshots, unless stated otherwise, come from The Ultimate Doom re-release by Nerve Software for PC, which does tweak the graphical fidelity of the original game, but otherwise remains faithful to the original style.
In 1992, id Software used John Carmack’s new rendering technology to release the action packed Wolfenstein 3D. The game was central to the development of the concept of first person shooters, showing a twitchy speed not seen in first person games to that point, and then one year later they defined the genre in its most basic foundations with Doom, a game that was installed on more PCs than Windows at the time. They made it in a building they called “Suite 666” because id Software was founded and run by turbo nerds. Beyond John Carmack, the team included John Romero, Sandy Petersen, American McGee, and Shawn C. Green as programmers and level designers, Adrian Carmack (no relation) and Kevin Cloud as artists, Michael Abrash and Dave Taylor as additional programmers, Tom Hall as the creative director, and Bobby Prince as the musician. They got the idea for fighting monsters with tech from a tabletop game they had (similar story for Quake) and Carmack took a quote from The Color of Money for a title. Doom is the alpha and the omega of the FPS, what made id Software the powerhouse it is today, and inspired countless developers across the world with its mod friendly design. It was all thanks to these brilliant developers.
Pictured: Some of the most important people to ever exist in the gaming medium.
Yes. These guys.
Doom is a story-light shooter because the team kind of threw out Tom Hall’s horror story to focus on intense shoot-bang-run action. You are a space marine, the “Doomguy,” and you are trying to stop a demonic invasion on the Mars moon Phobos caused by idiot scientists trying to make teleportation a thing, eventually leading you into hell. You start with a pistol and your manly fists (that you can power up with a berserk pack for an entire map’s length), and can nab a shotgun, chaingun, plasma gun, rocket launcher, chainsaw, and the infamous BFG or “big fucking gun.” That last super powerful weapon fires a big green energy orb that kills everything in the general area, and even affects enemies through walls. The pistol and chaingun share bullets, and the plasma gun and BFG share energy cells. The formula is similar to Wolfenstein 3D: Kill demons, get through the maze heavy levels, find colored keys, repeat as needed. The simplicity is its strength.
There are a handful of enemy types, including undead human grunts (zombieman and shotgun guy, yes really) that wield their own pistols and shotguns, as well as imps, which shoot fireballs which can be dodged, if you’re nimble enough. Pink demons or pinkies (just known as demon officially for awhile) don’t have projectile weapons but run straight at you with tremendous speed and take a few hits before going down, plus there’s an invisible-type called spectres which are harder to see. Cacodemons are one-eyed floating heads, whose designs were lifted from a Dungeons and Dragons book, plus there are flaming skulls (lost souls) flying about, eating up all your ammo. There are also three large creatures that are initially used as bosses but are occasionally placed as regular enemies in later games and levels, including the large Baron of Hell, the enormous cyberdemon, and the even bigger spiderdemon, also called the Spider Mastermind.
Doom was an incredible technical leap over Wolfenstein 3D. The levels of Wolfenstein 3D were laid out with blocks on a large grid, since the walls were only positioned at 90 degree angles. Doom has much more complex design, with angular walls of arbitrary lengths, allowing for more free-form room creation. Floors and ceilings are textured, and there are skyboxes for the occasional outdoor environment. Sector-based lighting allows for rooms (or parts of rooms) to have lighting values, and can even blink, adding to the spookiness. Floors can move up and down too, effectively creating elevators. The number of textures has also greatly expanded, though the game has a general “brown/red/silver” color palette, depending on whether you’re in the starbase levels or the hell levels. Also added is a head bob for the onscreen weapon, mimicking actual walking/running motion compared to the completely static guns in Wolfenstein. The game tops out at 35 FPS, which back when it came out required at least a low end Pentium to hit. Options to change the screen size or run in a low resolution, low detail mode allowed players with then-crusty 386 CPUs to play the game, albeit somewhat compromised.
However, the engine isn’t entirely 3D – it’s unofficially termed “2.5D”, not to be confused with the concept where side-scrolling games use 3D graphics. Floors can be positioned at different heights, allowing the game to feature stairs and even windows, but rooms cannot be placed over other rooms, nor can characters exist on top of one another. Normally, the game simply won’t let you exist in the same space as another enemy, though if you teleport into one via a teleport, it’ll kill the other character, termed “tele-fragging”. With this, you can’t look up or down (a feature added to the engine in the later Heretic, though it’s not used for much). You never need to worry about hitting foes at higher or lower altitudes, because the game automatically adjusts the height when you fire. You can’t jump either, though in a few cases where you need to leap between platforms, you simply run and let the inertia carry you over.
Technically Ultima Underworld beat Doom to the punch in having such an elaborate graphics engine, and that one is actually more technically accomplished, allowing for things like slopes. But Ultima Underworld is also a relatively slow-paced RPG, while Doom is a fast-paced action game.
The game hits all the right notes, requiring you to think on the fly with your weapon selection against the variety of monsters you have to face. Sure, blasting imps with rockets is fun, but better to have those ready for a room full of pinkies or the odd baron of hell. There are keycards to find, puzzles to solve that are mostly coherent and involve flipping switches (though later episodes start to test things), and a crunchy soundtrack by Bobby Prince that pays tribute to all your metal faves in glorious bit crush noise. It helps that the first episode, Knee Deep in the Dead, had the best maps of the game by far (Romero having the stand outs). That made up the shareware version, and that’s what made Doom a phenomenon. The levels are short and sweet, while giving plenty of action, avoiding some of the bloat later episodes would have (see Slough of Despair, the map shaped like a hand with a broken event trigger and far too many lost souls on Ultra Violence, the hard difficulty).
Doom was made by a bunch of dudes just wanting to do what sounds cool, in an era where games were simple enough to program that you could make an entire fleshed out game with hours of content in a few months. It had a transgressive mood to it nobody had seen from the medium before, at least so widely, and kicked off what the western 90s PC gaming scene would be like, for better or worse. It also invented deathmatching, both online through modems and via local area networks, even if Quake became the big multiplayer franchise, so that’s also a pretty big deal. This all happened entirely because John Romero was a fighting game nerd, amusingly.
That transgressive nature of the game did come with problems, though, mainly by making it an easy target by the media. While using video games as escapism isn’t really a problem anymore due to the industry being so massive now and therefore having influence on laws and policy, it was a different story back in the mid-1990s. The use of religious imagery kicked up a story from the church, it was caught up in the bizarre speculation on VR that polluted the 90s, the 32X version was one of the first games to get an M rating from the newly-formed ESRB, and there was a swastika in one of the maps as a Wolfenstein reference they removed after a vet complained. There was also the Columbine shooting in 1999, Doom being a favorite game of the perpetrators, where the media pin-pointed it as the cause of their acts, not unlike the satanic panic around D&D in the 80s. Retrospective views on the tragedy rightfully ignore that angle and instead focus on other, more concrete factors, like the pair’s interest in nazism and one of the duo’s severe emotional issues. Other scapegoats include The Matrix (because they wore trench coats) and Marilyn Manson for reasons that don’t seem at all coherent nowadays.
The full commercial version of Doom originally came with three episodes: Knee Dead in the Deep, The Shores of Hell, and Inferno. The retail version, called The Ultimate Doom, includes a new fourth episode called Thy Flesh Consumed, which was meant for expert players, and frustrates quite often. American McGee designed the first map and it instantly makes you miserable by forcing you to pistol a mess of monsters that teleport in and further make your life hell with a baron teleporting into the scene when you’re cornered. John Romero made the second map, which he made in a few hours, which is filled with death traps, including a surprise cyberdemon in the corner near the level’s end alongside a monster closet meant to distract you from the cyberdemon, and the infamous plasma gun trap that sends a mess of barons at you in a tight space. The episode gets better but those first two maps are just…maddening.
The fifth episode released by John Romero in 2019, Sigil, fairs much better, still with some hellish traps (it is a set of Romero maps after all), but some impressive moments and interesting stylistic decisions that even help with navigating levels without having to draw literal arrows in. It even comes with two full soundtracks, a MIDI one by James Paddock and an instrumental metal one by Buckethead. It’s technically not an official release, but come on, it’s John Romero, it’s as close to official as it gets.
Sigil (Switch)
The various OS ports different in quality based on who was around to do the porting and the specs they were working with, but the console ports are just a wild ride of bad ideas, rushed execution, and just straight up rotten luck.
The SNES version relies on the Super FX2 chip as a co-processor. It doesn’t use the Doom engine but rather a new one called RAGE created by programmer Randal Linden. The visuals are presented in a window with a low resolution that looks like the DOS version’s low res mode. There are also several compromises made to reduce the ROM size, like the lack of floor and ceilings textures and enemy sprites that only face the player, plus there are only 22 levels. There’s no save or password function, so each episode must be played all the way through. However, the music conversion is excellent, as the sharp guitar samples give the music a much richer sound than the FM MIDI soundtrack found on typical PC Soundblaster cards at the time.
The 32X version by id Software themselves is mostly an improvement, but not much. It only features 17 levels out of the first two episodes, and is missing any kind of save feature. The visuals are better than the SNES but it still runs in a window, albeit a larger one. It also features sprites that only face a single direction and some removed enemies. It also has weird quirks, like the BFG having to be put in through cheats due to the missing third episode, or locking up on a DOS prompt if you finish the game with cheats or start on any level but the first. Probably the most egregious change is the music, which seems to have converted very hastily from the original MIDI files, resulting in a soundtrack that sounds absolutely terrible.
Jaguar Version
GBA Version
SNES Version
id Software also did the Jaguar port, which would have been the best of the bunch if not for the complete lack of music. There are some tweaks to the levels to reduce memory and processing load, and the altered versions created here were used for several later ports, including the PS1 version. 22 of the 27 maps are included, with two new ones added in. Some enemies are missing, like the cyberdemons and spiderdemons.
The 3DO port was a disaster that was in development hell for two years, basically programmed together by one person over an incredibly short period of time (Rebecca Heineman, a legend in her own right) with a new soundtrack brought together by the studio CEO’s garage band. The action is packed into a very tiny window, which can be tweaked with a code but causes the framerate to suffer massively, but their covers were pretty sick. Just listen to their take on At Doom’s Gate.
The PS1 version is probably the stand out, a mash-up of levels from both Doom and Doom II (though several levels have been cut) and a few originals. This version adds in some colored lighting which makes it look pretty different in spots from other versions, mostly giving the rooms with radioactive clime a green glow, as well as animated skyboxes. Aubrey Hodges also did a new soundtrack, moody new takes on the material like his work on the Quake ports and Doom 64, and many sound effects have been changed as well. There were technical limitations that resulted in some further map tweaks but the team clearly tried their hardest to make it work on the limited hardware, and it’s still far better than previously console ports, running at full screen with a relatively smooth frame rate. Due to the graphics and sound changes, this version has a very distinct mood that still makes it worth checking out. The Saturn version was going to port this version, but were forced by id Software to use software rendering instead of their original technique due to causing texture warping, resulting in awful frame rates.
PlayStation
3DO Version
32X Version
The GBA version is shockingly solid, considering the hardware. It’s based on the Jaguar set of levels and missing the same content, but runs fairly well, even if the visuals are little bright to compensate for the original console’s lack of a backlight. The music conversion isn’t great, plus most of the songs are used in incorrect levels.
All later ports were much smoother (minus maybe the glitchy version in Doom Eternal, which is there entirely to run Doom in Doom), working on better hardware, and thanks mainly to the hard work of Nerve Software (and Carmack for the original iOS version, now removed). The Xbox 360 version adds in split screen multiplayer and supports widescreen. This feature also appeared on the Doom 3 BFG pack, also ported to the PlayStation 3. From this point on, the medpacks were altered so that they no longer display the Red Cross symbol.
The most recent official port of Doom was also released on the Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In addition to updating the engine to work at 60 FPS, it includes support for external WADs, at least ones that have been vetted by Bethesda. A Bethesda online account was required to download and play these when the first update went out due to a bug, but now it’s just an option for various bonuses.
Their modern digital release of The Ultimate Doom is probably the easier way to play, but you have fanmade options as well.
Chocolate Doom and GZDoom are the two most popular source ports for an authentic experience along with modern convenience, and your options from there just get nutty. Doom‘s mod scene is absurdly vast, complete with entirely new games made with its framework. And as for other devices, it would be faster to list the things Doom hasn’t been run on, which I’m fairly certain would be an empty list. Scientific calculators? Check. A thermostat? Yup! Pregnancy tests? You betcha. You could probably get Doom running on your microwave at this point, or even a toaster if it has a screen on it.
Probably the most significant part of Doom‘s legacy beyond its sheer influence is how it changed what id Software was, and what they would become. This is where John Romero became a rockstar, where John Carmack suddenly had the money to chase after his various interests and turning the loose studio into a proper business, where Tom Hall’s absence started a domino effect that would start being seen in full as the first Quake was developed. Games took longer to make, the staff got more ambitious, and the technology became more central. Doom could be considered the west’s first real blockbuster since the initial industry boom started by Atari, and the ripple of that achievement is still being felt to this day.
And, of course, a sequel had to follow, because they had a hit and they had to follow that success. What we got was indeed more Doom, and arguably even more than that.
Welcome to Evil Week, our annual dive into all the slightly sketchy hacks we’d usually refrain from recommending. Want to weasel your way into free drinks, play elaborate mind games, or, er, launder some money? We’ve got all the info you need to be successfully unsavory.
IMDB Rating: 7.1/10 Genre: Comedy / Music / Musical Size: 1.69 GB Runtime: 1hr 32 min
This movie is a comic oratorio based on Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), which retells the tragic tale of Mandy, impregnated by a Roman soldier, giving birth to Brian, a reluctant revolutionary of the People's Front of Judea who falls in love with Judith, gets mistaken for a Messiah and is arrested by the Romans and sentenced to be crucified. It ranges in reference from Handel, through a naughty Mozart duet, to the Festival of Nine Carols, Bob Dylan, and the classic finale "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".
Courtesy Blumhouse & Universal PicturesWith the success of 2018’s Halloween, fans have been chomping at the bit for the highly anticipated sequel, HALLOWEEN KILLS. However, after a worldwide pandemic pushed all theatrical releases to the backburner, many were left wondering when the sequel would see the light of day. Now that time has come and fans will finally be able to see evil rise again when HALLOWEEN KILLS hits theaters and Peacock on October 15th.
To keep from spoiling anything, I’ll turn to the official synopsis: “Minutes after Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) left masked monster Michael Myers caged and burning in Laurie’s basement, Laurie is rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, believing she finally killed her lifelong tormentor. But when Michael manages to free himself from Laurie’s trap, his ritual bloodbath resumes. As Laurie fights her pain and prepare to defend herself against him, she inspires all of Haddonfield to rise up against their unstoppable monster.
HALLOWEEN KILLS was an unexpected surprise for this critic. Having been underwhelmed with the 2018 remake, I went in with very tempered expectations. And in doing so, it resulted in an entertaining viewing experience. Is it perfect? Far from it, as it rides a thin line of being too campy, but even still, HALLOWEEN KILLS has enough meat on its bones to make even the most die-hard Halloween fan happy.
The acting really takes this film on a rollercoaster ride, with performances going every which way. Jamie Lee Curtis will forever be the baddest bitch and, once again, showcases the immense strength and determination that a Strode possesses. Anthony Michael Hall is a great addition to the film taking on the role of adult Tommy Doyle, and though he gives an exaggerated performance, I loved every minute of it. HALLOWEEN KILLS really falls upon the shoulders of Judy Greer who shines bright in the film both literally, in her festive Christmas sweater, and figuratively. The only character that seems to be a struggle to connect with is Allyson – whether it’s because of the way the character is written or because of Andi Matichak’s performance, Allyson has always felt like she needed more fleshing out.
Outside Jamie Lee Curtis, I bestow the best performance honors upon Scott MacArthur and Michael McDonald as Big John and Little John, respectively. An adorable gay couple who moves into the Myers’ former home where they gentrify the shit out of it. Everything about their scenes had me laughing and they brought a fresh air to the film that was quite unexpected. I also fully believe that co-writer Danny McBride created these characters and no one else can tell me otherwise.
(L-R) Karen (Judy Greer), Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Allyson (Andi Matichak) in Halloween Kills
Where the film excels the most is in its visual presentation. David Gordon Green does a stand up job of keeping a lot of the camera shots interesting and engaging. There are moments where the story lags, but the visuals keep the viewer dialed in and on the edge of their seat. Typically, the viewer is watching the carnage unfold as a silent spectator; however, Green puts us into the victim’s perspective as we see out of their eyes the horrors unfolding. It makes what the viewers see all the more terrifying.
With a Halloween film, there’s an expectation for some brutal kills. And have no fear, there’s no shortage of gore. HALLOWEEN KILLS does feature a lot of humor (whether intentional or not) but when the kills happen, the tone shifts and becomes much heavier. One of the more gut-wrenching (no pun intended) kills is when Myers enters the home of an elderly couple. What proceeds is a vicious display that is chilling and cold – – all humor is gone and instead replaced pure horror. It’s those moments that really remind the audience just how terrifying Michael is.
Like the 2018 film, there is still quite a bit of fan service, especially with the return of such iconic as Halloween II‘s Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens) and Halloween‘s Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards), to name a few. And look, no one is going to deny the nostalgia that they bring or the scenes that give a nod to other films in the franchise (we see and respect you, Halloween III). We see these characters as the catalyst for a new generation to come forth, which is exciting.
HALLOWEEN KILLS is not only focusing on the monster that is Myers but also the monster that lives in each of us. One scene, in particular, takes place inside of a hospital corridor and is easily one of the more sobering moments of the film. It highlights mob mentality and how badly people want answers to atrocious acts. The moment is horrifying because it’s a reminder of how quickly humans can turn into monsters.
HALLOWEEN KILLS is an exciting addition to the Halloween franchise as it begins to pave the way towards its own individual story. It has its flaws which mainly fall upon the acting and writing, but for the most part, this is a film that’s going to have people cheering, laughing, and gasping in fright. Halloween is synonymous with Michael Myers and I hate to admit it, but it feels so god damn good to see the return of the Boogeyman.
HALLOWEEN KILLS arrives in theaters and streaming only on Peacock on October 15th.
Wherein we discuss Pokemon Unite, Eastward, Facebook's snow day, our last-minute guesses for the final Super Smash Bros. Ultimate character, DC FanDome 2021, our dream vacation spots, and Tim Curry. Starring Ryan Scott, Adam Fitch, Justin Haywald, and Ryan Higgins.
When it comes to toaster cleaning, are you a flip-and-dumper who aggressively tosses the crumbs and calls it a day? Do you make the outside sparkle, and leave the inside a hot mess? Or are you just sitting here thinking, “toaster cleaning who?”
The partners that license Windows haven't always supported Microsoft's moves to step on their turf with its own tablets and laptops. So how is Microsoft navigating those relationships now? From a report: The CEO of Acer told the Financial Times Microsoft should "think twice" when it first introduced its Surface tablet in 2012. And Asus reportedly felt blindsided when Microsoft chief product officer Panos Panay unveiled the Surface Book -- which was more like a traditional laptop computer -- in 2015. When Panay speaks at Microsoft events about the latest Surface computers, he almost unnaturally enthusiastic and oddly specific about hardware components. Now, he said, he's excited -- he likes to use the word "pumped" -- about the diversity of options for consumers and organizations, no matter who builds the hardware.
"OEMs provide choice for customers," Panos said of Microsoft's partners. "Not just choice for choice's sake. What do you want to accomplish? You can pick a device that suits you." In 2016, Microsoft announced a partnership with Lenovo, the world's biggest seller of PCs, in an effort to prevent conflicts that might arise between the Surface business and Windows. "We came to a very simple approach...we call it a level playing field," said Lenovo's leader of worldwide strategic alliances, Christian Eigen, who has known Panay for 15 years. "It means Microsoft does not give, from an operating system point of view, any feature exclusively to Surface."
The CEOs of Microsoft and Lenovo communicate four to six times per year, and teams lower down in the organizations talk 12 to 24 times per year, Eigen explained. Microsoft also improved its communications with partners around Windows 11. "It was definitely, by far, more transparent and open and kind of cooperative development," Eigen said. [...] "My whole goal is, 'Hey, what do your customers need?' This is from an OEM brand perspective," Panay said. "Same with Surface. 'What do the Surface customers need?' Ultimately, they're all Windows customers." He said has has had input on every Surface model, including the Surface Laptop Studio PC that went on sale this week.
Wasteland 3's final DLC is out now. Cult Of The Holy Detonation features two mutant cults who worship a nuclear explosion in stasis, and as usual it's your job to chat with them and probably choose between them, in between turn-based battles. You can find the launch trailer below.
NVIDIA has announced a new Desktop/Laptop bundle for gamers who want to try out the PC version of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. The game is enhanced with the highest levels of details, ray-traced reflections rendered in real-time, performance accelerating DLSS support, and all the trimmings one would expect from a title of this caliber.
NVIDIA launched a new bundle that includes the digital copy of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy when you purchase a participating RTX laptop or desktop. There’s a wide array of models on offer, featuring everything from a GeForce RTX 3060, all the way up to the GeForce RTX 3090. Some of the participating laptop models include:
Acer Predator Triton 300 SE
ASUS ROG GA401QM-211.ZG14 notebook
HP OMEN 15
MSI GE66
Gigabyte AERO 15
Acer PH315
You can check the full list of Desktop and Laptop bundles offered by NVIDIA on the company's Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy bundle page. That way, you'll find the perfect RTX PC for your needs.
If you lack an RTX PC or are away from the gaming system, NVIDIA also offers the option for players to get access to Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy through their GeForce NOW service. GeForce NOW allows low-end rigs to get the power to stream Guardians of the Galaxy through the cloud, all with the power of RTX.
This game is just one of over 100 games that use GeForce NOW to let players with all kinds of gaming systems play the games regardless of how powerful their hardware is. You can see all of the improvements offered in the PC version of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy in the article we wrote before.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy debuts on October 26th for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, PC (Steam), and streaming via GeForce NOW on October 26, 2021. Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: Cloud Version for Nintendo Switch is also coming to select regions on the same day.
Windows 11 has finally arrived, and gaming PC users around the globe are getting to grips with the operating system's new features. However, as you'd perhaps expect, Microsoft's latest iteration of Windows comes with a few out of the box quirks, and a memory leak is reportedly causing the platform to hoard RAM resources.
For context, a memory leak is when a process on your computer fails to release its assigned cache memory. As a result, memory is unintentionally ringfenced, meaning it's unavailable to other system resources. Ultimately, this can affect your PC's overall performance, and even cause unresponsiveness in extreme cases.
According to Reddit user gyrohan269 (via PC Gamer), Windows 11's leaky trail leads straight to File Explorer, which seems to be clinging onto RAM usage stacks. The Windows 11 user also reports that memory reserves are retained by the file manager both on startup and whenever a new folder is opened, with each instance gobbling up more resources each time. Naturally, not using File Explorer isn't really an option, as the application is at the heart of Windows' navigation system.
Leslee Beldotti sent a question to our podcast this week. As I thought about the topic, I realized it was too big and I’d never be able to do it justice on the show. We’ve touched on this topic many times in the past, but we’ve never gone in-depth. So here it is…
Dear Diecastians,
Greetings from Berlin!
For the past few months I have been playing Outriders, from Polish developer, People Can Fly.
I realize that as a 54 year old woman, I am probably so far outside this game’s intended demographic that I could be in the next galaxy, but this game is emblematic of worrying trend I have been seeing in AAA gaming: THE WRITING IS ATROCIOUS!
Everything about this game’s writing — the story, the characters, and the dialogue — is juvenile, emotionally immature, and downright mean-spirited.
What is going on?!?! Why does it seem that game studios no longer prioritize quality story writing and dialogue in their games?
Am I just getting old?
Your devoted fan,
Leslee Beldotti
So let’s interrogate this. The first thing we need to acknowledge is that…
Money Isn’t the Problem
If all it took was money to make a story good, then we'd be drowning in brilliant stories by now.
The curt answer that people typically throw out goes like this, “Game companies figured out that bad writing doesn’t hurt sales, so they don’t bother to spend money making it good.” And if you’re happy with that answer, then you probably won’t have any use for the rest of this. But I find that explanation kind of unsatisfying, so I want to look deeper and see if we can find some systemic faults to blame this on.
For one thing, I think bad writing does hurt sales. (Or if you prefer, good writing boosts sales.) The Last of Us, Portal 2, and Borderlands 2 were all bolstered by the widespread praise of their writing. Metroid Other M and Hitman: Absolution were singled out for their terribly mishandled stories. As it turns out, critics don’t enjoy bad writing. [1] And while the narrative tastes of the average videogamer cause them to give a free pass to crappy stories when paired with solid gameplay, in the end they will complain if the story is bad enough. That means that bad writing will drag down Metacritic scores. And we know that publishers believe that those scores are important. So cutting corners on writing doesn’t make a lot of sense as a money-saving measure.
Moreover, developers do lots of things that don’t directly drive sales. You can’t make a business case for having a custom font and an animated scene for the title screen / main menu. You can’t point at a spreadsheet and say, “If our main menu options slide around and animate as the user scrolls through the list, then it will result in us selling N additional copies.” Games are a creative and collaborative medium, and thus lots of effort gets spent on little details that don’t fit the barebones “Tentpole AAA Video Game Template”.
People who make games don’t like making stuff that sucks. So even if the publisher doesn’t care about writing quality, that doesn’t mean that the people making the game will go out of their way to make sure the writing is terrible.
And finally, good writing doesn’t cost that much. Sure, maybe a talented writer can demand a higher salary than a bad one, [2] but it’s not like they make five times as much. Most writers – good or bad – are going to fall into a fairly predictable salary band. Maybe the great writer makes 50% more than the lousy one, but on the scale of a AAA project that spans years and involves hundreds of people, the salary of one person doesn’t matter that much. Writing is so important to the quality of the final product, and the difference between good writers and bad is basically a rounding error in the overall budget. Cutting corners on writing to save money is like leaving the tires off your car to save on fuel. Sure, your car won’t be as heavy, but maybe there are less critical systems you could start with for weight reduction, you know?
I know I’m always complaining that the AAA publishers[3] don’t know what they’re doing, but even those doofuses ought to be savvy enough to spot the inherent contradiction in this:
Aiming for a cinema-focused design with lots of cutscenes.
Obsessing over metacritic scores.
Funding $100 million projects.
Trying to save a few thousand dollars by having some dumb kid write the story rather than a professional writer.
That sounds implausibly idiotic, even for a AAA publisher. So if you’re willing to humor me for the next 3,000 words, then let’s set aside this idea that stories suck due to budget limitations and look for other systemic problems that we could use to explain this.
(In case it’s not clear, I’m focusing this discussion on story-driven AAA games with cutscenes and dialog, since those are the games we’re usually talking about when we complain about bad writing. I’m making this clear up front to ward off all of the objections along the lines of, “But what about Dark Souls / Minecraft / FIFA 2020 / Spelunky 2? Nobody found anything wrong with the writing in those games!”)
Writing Looks Easy
Oops. I accidentally slipped and made a story with a poorly-motivated protagonist, an incoherent antagonist, contradictory themes, cringeworthy jokes, glacial pacing, wooden dialog, annoying sidekicks, no stakes, needless exposition, obvious twists, and tons of internal dissonance. Oh well. Maybe we can fix it in post?
The Dunning-Kruger Effect was a really popular topic of conversation a few years ago. Among laypeople, the idea has since fallen out of favor and it doesn’t carry the weight it used to. People claim that newer studies have trouble replicating the effect, or that the effect is an overly-simplified explanation for a much more complex phenomenon. I don’t know. All of that is outside my area of expertise.
In case you missed it, the DKE goes something like this: People who are ignorant regarding $TOPIC tend to vastly overestimate their mastery of it. The classic example is the boss who watches a documentary on $TOPIC and then decides he’s now an expert in the field, because he’s blind to the vast oceans of details, exceptions, controversies, and complexities that weren’t shown in the film. In the workplace, someone suffering from DKE will have a lot of self-confidence in a job interview, and they’ll be hilariously overconfident when taking on new projects. They’ll eventually be dragged down once their perceptions collide with reality, but only after they’ve created a ton of problems for everyone else.
Personally, I imagine that the DKE is a bit situational. It’s not just ignorance, but ignorance combined with arrogance, optimism, and a personality that is fundamentally incurious and dismissive of criticism. Moreover, this problem can only be expressed in a domain that allows for it.
In the world of programming, it’s very hard for a know-nothing to get anywhere. If you can’t program, then you won’t know what to type. A bad carpenter will still be able to pick up a length of wood and shove it into a table saw, but a programmer that doesn’t know how to program will have trouble even beginning the task. Even if they figure out what to type, their wrong code won’t compile. Even if they get it to compile, it’ll probably crash on startup. And even if it manages to run, it will probably malfunction obviously and catastrophically.
It takes a lot to overcome those basic hurdles, which probably does a half-decent job of weeding out the people at the very bottom. You might not realize you’re bad at programming, and you might be able to fool the interviewer, but you can’t bluff your way past the GNU C and C++ compiler. Sure, there are still bad programmers out there. I’m just saying the floor is higher in some domains than in others.
For contrast, writing (particularly writing fiction) is one domain where you can plausibly fake your way through the early stages. Assuming the writer is skilled enough to form complete sentences and get everything spelled right, then it’s not hard to bang out a couple of pages of imitative dross that seems “good enough” to the layperson.
People have a hard time judging the quality of writing, because a lot of it involves non-obvious structural work that the audience sort of takes for granted.
Leslee cited Outriders specifically in her question. I haven’t played it myself, but I’m going to use it as a jumping off point for talking about structure. Specifically, I want to draw attention to a tiny moment that appears at 1:07 in this IGN review. It goes like this:
Girl With Too Much Eye Makeup:
You must’ve lost people.
Dumb Meathead:
Yeah. (Pause. Suddenly quiet and introspective.) We all did.
I can’t find that exact moment in the agonizing two hours of cutscenes that make up the Outriders story. Maybe it’s an optional conversation, or maybe the game branches, or maybe I’m just blind. Whatever. I want to focus on this moment because it allows us to look at how large-scale story construction will impact small moments in a story. I’m not saying this specific moment is bad,[4] I’m just using it to illustrate how bad moments are created.
The scene we’re looking at here is very clearly aiming for the “trauma confessional” trope where one character opens up and reveals some moment of personal trauma from their backstory. Yes, it’s cliché. But lots of great movies have cliché moments in them. You can find examples in the Matrix, Star Wars, and Marvel movies. As TV Tropes will tell you, Tropes are Tools. And the difference between a trope and a cliché is mostly about execution.
The trauma confessional is a powerful moment in the story. It serves a dual purpose: It reveals something about the character doing the confessing, and it also acts as a bonding moment between them and the listener.[5]
However, the trauma confessional shouldn’t come out of nowhere. We need some sort of catalyst scene. Maybe a loss or a setback. Maybe our heroes have a disagreement and this confessional moment is where they make amends. The important thing is that this moment needs to be motivated by the scene preceding it.
But wait, there’s more! The confessional scene is a payoff scene. Its purpose in the story is to answer a question that the writer posed earlier. In Lethal Weapon, why is Martin Riggs such a whacky loner?[6] In Die Hard, what made Al Powell afraid to draw his weapon?[7] In Guardians of the Galaxy 2, what made Nebula want to kill her sister despite them both being victims of Thanos?[8]. What brought Nico Bellic to Liberty City?[9] The writer needs to ask the question, or the audience won’t care when we get the answer.
But it’s not enough to just pose a question. The writer needs to make the question relevant to the story. The growth of this character needs to be tied to the events of the story, either practically,[10] thematically, [11] or (preferably) both. For example: Maybe this character makes poor decisions based on personal greed, and this causes them to make mistakes. So then when they are brought low, they do a Trauma Confessional where they explain that they grew up in desperate poverty. Their recent behavior is actually driven by the fear that they’ll somehow fall back into poverty, and this fear highlights what the writer is saying about the damaging effects of being poor.
That’s nice, but none of this will mean anything if we don’t care about the character in question. So before they do any of these other things, the writer must first kick off the story by introducing us to this person, humanizing them, and getting us to root for them despite their flaws.
All of this leads to a dependency chain:
Introduce relatable character.
Reveal the central conflict of the story.
Illustrate the character’s flaw.
Pose the question of why the character behaves this way.
Tie their flaw to the central conflict.
Have a catalyst event that causes introspection or candor.
Stop for the Trauma Confessional where we finally learn the source of the behavior
That’s seven different scenes / story beats, all of which need to be done in the proper order and all of which need to land in order for this confessional scene to really work. And keep in mind that all of this stuff is linked to the other character arcs in complex ways. A well-told story often forms an interlocking structure of moments that depend on one another.
And then a game designer – thinking himself to be a writer – watches the movie. He only understands the Trauma Confessional scene in isolation. “Bah. That’s easy!” he says. “You just need character A to tell a sad story to character B. I can totally do that.” So he has a Trauma Confessional scene without laying any of the necessary groundwork. The result is concentrated, weapons-grade cringe.
The same goes for countless other kinds of scenes. A confession of love. A promise of vengeance. A betrayal. A cataclysmic showdown. A poetic death. A tragic death. A shocking surprise death. A resurrection. A tense standoff that ends peacefully. These are all scenes that – when executed properly – will leave an impression on the audience. Some of those audience members will fail to understand the time and care required to set these moments up. And some of those people will go on to write videogames.
Bad Cinematography
Sure, our cutscenes are long, boring, and unpleasant to look at, but we make up for it by having lots of them!
A lot of bad stories have the additional problem of being badly told. While the two aren’t necessarily linked, [12] they do have a common root cause: Someone watches a movie, perceives only the superficial details, and then assumes that they can easily make their own work of similar quality.
Bad cinematography is different from bad writing, but the failings of the cinematographer can end up being blamed on the writer. Excessive shot/reverse shot can make serviceable dialog feel stilted and boring. Zooming in on rendered faces that don’t emote will create dissonance between a hammy voice actor and a stoic face, and that can make the dialog feel “bad”, even if there’s nothing strictly wrong with the script as written. A failure to visually establish props and geography can leave the audience with the nagging impression that elements are entering the scene from out of nowhere. A lack of a proper soundscape can make the world feel fake and lifeless. Too little color filter can leave the footage feeling kind of flat and boring. Too much color filter can make it numbing, distracting, or confusing.
If the art team aims for photorealism, then everything gets harder. Animated characters can sit still and blink, because they’re drawn by hand and we’re used to their stillness as a cost-saving measure. But flesh-and-blood actors fidget. They emote. They redirect their gaze based on mood. They change facial expressions based on what the other person is saying. But if a game designer tries that same scene with aspirationally photoreal models, then their stock poses and limited facial movement will give the whole scene a weird “community theater” vibe.
Maybe the writer imagined a moody, intense meeting with a stranger in a shadowy corridor. But then they didn’t explicitly tell the cinematographer about it in the script. Or the cinematographer didn’t understand the directions. Or the game engine couldn’t create the required mood with the given art assets. Whatever. Someone dropped the ball, and so this “moody” meeting ends up taking place in uniform lighting and the stranger ends up looking like a bored nobody instead of a faceless enigma.
Making movies is really hard!
Writing is Treated as Modular
I don't understand why you keep asking people what the gameplay is like and where the story takes place. Look, just write us a story and we'll add it to the game when you're done. Don't bother everyone else with your weird questions.
All of this is made worse by the fact that game designers often see writing as just another game asset. Modelers make the polygons, animators make stuff move, and writers make the words. But if you’re going for that “cinematic” vibe, then you need a finished script[13]before you start putting the game together. Note that Hollywood occasionally tries to make a movie before they have a working script, and the result is usually a disaster. If the postmortems and GDC talks I’ve seen are to be believed, then game designers make this mistake constantly.
Like I said before, good stories often have a lot of interdependent scenes. Character arcs need to be relevant to the events of the story, which needs to have a clear central conflict, which needs to fit with the themes, which needs to be revealed through dialog and action, which needs to be carefully paced to keep the viewer interested. This is a difficult task, and it takes time to do it well. Templates like the three act story structure can help the writer by giving them a solid starting point, but having a blueprint does not save you from needing to build the house. You still need to put the work in and assemble the parts.
Cinematic games[14] have all of the above requirements, plus all of those elements need to work with the gameplay. The only way to do that is to make sure the writing is done before you start building the world. Writing isn’t some cosmetic element that you can staple onto the game later in development.
The Systemic Dysfunction of Cinematic Games
My actions have no impact on the story, just like in a REAL movie!
Usually my blame-chain looks like this:
The publisher wants the prestige (and money) of a Hollywood blockbuster.
Making matters worse is that the company is run by ancient non-gaming dinosaurs. They can’t judge things like combat mechanics, leveling mechanics, gameplay loops, class balance, and all of the other things that concern the actual consumer. So anyone pitching a game to CEO Oldie McGolfputt needs to have SOMETHING the suits will understand, which usually means a cutscene-driven story game.
As a result of #1 and #2, the publisher is drawn towards storytelling as a central pillar. At the same time, the leadership doesn’t know anything about moviemaking.
The studios are full of game developers with no training in story construction, cinematography, wrangling voice actors, or directing movies. Which means the company leadership is drawn towards pursuing a kind of product that their own staff is generally unqualified to produce.
And finally, every team is likely to have one or two designers who think they can do all of those things, because they don’t understand just how difficult and complex screenwriting, direction, and cinematography are.
This is the way I think of EA, Activision/Blizzard, and Ubisoft. I think this leadership problem is at the root of a lot of our gripes with this dumb industry.
However, this doesn’t really apply to all publishers. For example, I get the impression that publisher Zenimax is pretty hands-off, and I don’t see them pushing their developers towards being “cinematic”. Bethesda has become infamous for their horrible storytelling, from bad plotting, to cringe dialog, to potato-faced NPCs vomiting clunky exposition from their barely-animated mouths. But I get the sense that Bethesda’s dysfunction comes from much lower down on the totem pole. My guess is that it’s more of a problem with company culture than with the people at the very top.
Outriders is published by Square Enix. Ten years ago, I would have pointed to SE as an example of a company that was doing things right. But things seem to have taken a turn over the last few years. The rebooted Tomb Raider series started off a little wobbly and has been in sharp decline since then. Marvel’s Avengers is reportedly a mind-numbing grind designed to funnel people towards the cash shop, but in the rare moments when it can be bothered to tell its story it’s apparently a cavalcade of cringe. The Quiet Man scored a humiliating 28% on Metacritic, and while the story wasn’t the only problem with the game, it was still a problem. And as bad as those other games were in terms of storytelling, it seems that Outriders still managed to attain a new low.
(This is not to say that everything released by SE is bad. The Life is Strange series isn’t really my thing, but it seems to really resonate with the intended audience. The Nier games are pretty interesting. And we can’t really complain about the avalanche of legacy titles they’re re-releasing for new hardware.)
I honestly don’t know what’s going on at Square Enix. My guess is that we have a Japanese leadership in charge of western studios, and maybe that makes it hard for the leadership to appraise the quality of the work the team is putting out. We have a Japanese leadership in charge of a western developer, who is imitating western movie studios, by making a western-style story intended for a western audience. Even if the SE leadership has the skills and knowledge to spot the problems with these games, there’s always the cultural barrier to worry about.
Wow, this seems like crap to me. But I don’t know. Maybe this is what those crazy Americans are into? I can’t tell. I guess we have to trust these people to understand their own culture. Ship it.
So that’s my take on why writing sucks. The publishers aim for cutscene-heavy design yet fail to hire people suited for that sort of work. Writing is bolted onto a game as if it was a cosmetic element instead of making it part of the foundation. The non-storytellers in the trenches wrongly assume they can make a movie. None of the higher-ups know how to analyze a story to see if it’s working, so there’s no safety net for a project with a terrible writer.
I know I give Dark Souls a hard time on this site, but I actually think the Soulsborneo design is a really good way to approach the integration of gameplay and story that doesn’t require every team to have their own Steven Spielberg + Roger Deakins duo. Sure, you still need a decent writer to make passable dialog and build a world. There’s no magic formula that will make this problem easy. But if developers lean towards the approach of making the setting itself the story, they can free themselves from a lot of the complicated structural problems I talked about earlier.
Sadly, I think even this step is beyond them. When a developer signals that they’ve decided to make their own Soulsalike, they usually mean, “The game is really unforgiving.” SWJFO borrowed from Souls games in a mechanical sense, but when it came to storytelling it continued to lean on the “Play the game to see the next static scene in the movie” school of design.
My guess is that we shouldn’t expect this problem to get better anytime soon.
A few days ago, the Korean Game Rating and Administration Committee rated Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. And today, the official Rockstar Games Launcher was updated with some mentions about this upcoming remastered trilogy. The Rockstar Games Launcher basically confirms that this trilogy will be using Unreal Engine. As you can … Continue reading Rockstar Games Launcher confirms Grand Theft Auto Remastered Trilogy using Unreal Engine →
U.S. lawmakers pounded Facebook on Tuesday, accusing CEO Mark Zuckerberg of pushing for higher profits while being cavalier about user safety and they demanded regulators investigate whistleblower accusations that the social media company harms children and stokes divisions. Reuters: Coming a day after Facebook and its units including Instagram suffered a major outage, whistleblower Frances Haugen testified in a congressional hearing that "for more than five hours Facebook wasn't used to deepen divides, destabilize democracies and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies." In an era when bipartisanship is rare on Capitol Hill, lawmakers from both parties excoriated the nearly $1 trillion company in a hearing that exemplified the rising anger in Congress with Facebook amid numerous demands for legislative reforms.
As lawmakers criticized Facebook and Zuckerberg, the company's spokespeople fought back on Twitter, arguing Haugen did not work directly on some of the issues she was being questioned on. Senate Commerce subcommittee chair Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said Facebook knew that its products were addictive, like cigarettes. "Tech now faces that big tobacco jawdropping moment of truth," he said. He called for Zuckerberg to testify before the committee, and for the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission to investigate the company. "Our children are the ones who are victims. Teens today looking in the mirror feel doubt and insecurity. Mark Zuckerberg ought to be looking at himself in the mirror," Blumenthal said, adding that Zuckerberg instead was going sailing.
Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook's civic misinformation team who has turned whistleblower, said Facebook has sought to keep its operations confidential. "Today, no regulator has a menu of solutions for how to fix Facebook, because Facebook didn't want them to know enough about what's causing the problems. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been need for a whistleblower," she said. The top Republican on the subcommittee, Marsha Blackburn, said that Facebook turned a blind eye to children below age 13 on its sites. "It is clear that Facebook prioritizes profit over the well-being of children and all users."
Victims of ransomware attacks would be required to report payments to their hackers within 48 hours under a proposal from Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and Democratic Representative Deborah Ross. From a report: The Ransom Disclosure Act would give the Department of Homeland Security data on ransomware payments, including the amount of money demanded and paid, and the type of currency used. The lawmakers say this is essential to bolster the U.S. government's understanding of how hackers operate and the extent of the ransomware threat. "Ransomware attacks are skyrocketing, yet we lack critical data to go after cybercriminals," Warren said in a statement on Tuesday.
So, you've finished watching Netflix's "Squid Game" and now you need more. While season two might be on the way sometime soon, we've compiled a list of some of the best dystopian death game movies and tv shows for you to watch in the meantime.
Hwang Dong-hyuk's Korean survival series "Squid Game" is a runaway hit for Netflix, and it's not hard to see why. The real world is looking a little dystopian lately, but fiction that takes dystopian scenarios to horrifying, murderous conclusions always has a way of making us feel a little bit better about reality. After all, we don't have game shows where people kill one another for a cash prize ... yet.
There are quite a few TV shows and movies about game show-esque battles to the death, but we've gathered ten that are shocking, smart, and extremely entertaining.
Battle Royale
You really can't talk about movies with battles to the death without including the totally gonzo "Battle Royale." It's one of my favorite movies of all time, and it helped introduce a lot of people in the early aughts to extreme Japanese cinema. "Battle Royale" was based on the novel of the same name by Koushun Takami. (It was also adapted into a popular manga series in Japan.) The movie takes place in an unspecified near future, where the totalitarian regime in Japan has enacted the "BR Act." The act allows them to select one junior high class per year to send to a remote island. On that island, they give each student a random weapon and a collar that explodes at the press of a button.
The students must avoid "danger zones" that change regularly or their collars will explode. They are told to kill one another because only one surviving student will be allowed to leave the island. The kids' weapons range from binoculars to machetes and machine guns, so it's not exactly a fair contest.
"Battle Royale" is incredibly violent, often funny, and full of gasp-out-loud moments of blood-geyser gore. Japanese icon Takeshi Kitano stars as their former teacher who runs the year's game, and "Kill Bill" star Chiaki Kuriyama plays a track star trying to survive.
Where to Watch it: Streaming for free on Tubi with ads, available to rent on Amazon/Google Play for $1.99
Alice In Borderland
The Japanese series "Alice in Borderland" has everything you love about "Squid Game": incredible violence, class commentary, and a stylish dystopian future. Where "Squid Game" is a brightly colored, initially clean-looking future hell, the futuristic Tokyo of "Alice in Borderland" is much grungier. /Film's Hoai-Tran Bui described "Alice in Borderland" as "if 'Battle Royale' and 'Saw' had a sick, twisted baby that puts its characters through a series of manipulative, tortuous games — usually with a high body and splatter count."
The series was based on the manga of the same name by Haro Aso and follows three unfocused, drifting young people in Tokyo. After they pull a prank in the middle of Shibuya crossing and run from the cops, they find themselves transported to a completely empty Tokyo. It looks apocalyptic, but as night falls, lights come on in the various empty-looking buildings. Our heroes enter one and are forced to participate in a life-or-death game with other stranded Tokyo residents. They must not only figure out how to survive, but also what happened to all of Tokyo.
Where to Watch it: Streaming on Netflix
The Belko Experiment
Before he was blowing our minds with "The Suicide Squad," James Gunn wrote a mean little script about an experiment conducted on an office building to see if they would all kill one another under orders. "Wolf Creek" director Greg Lean took Gunn's already brutal story and upped the ante, making every hit, shot, and splatter count. This might be Gunn's darkest flick, but it still bears his trademark humor, and "The Belko Experiment" is a deliciously dark horror with some pitch-black comedy to keep it from being oppressively unpleasant.
"The Belko Experiment" follows the workers in a huge office building somewhere in South America. Most of the employees were flown in and are working on visas, so few have ties to the outside world nearby. It makes them the perfect people for an extreme experiment when the windows and doors of the building seal up and they're instructed to start killing one another — or else. The cast includes John C. McGinley, Sean Gunn, David Dastmalchian, and Michael Rooker. Honestly, it's worth seeing just for Rooker and Dastmalchian's scenes alone.
Where to Watch it: Available to rent on AppleTV+ and Google Play for $3.99
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
"The Hunger Games" is sort of a young-adult American version of "Battle Royale." Based on the book series by Suzanne Collins, the franchise follows the story of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), who survives fighting in her world's ridiculous death games but goes on to start a revolution. In the first film, Katniss volunteers to fight in the games after her sister is selected in the yearly raffle. Only one person is allowed to win and survive, but Katniss ends up saving her friend/romantic interest Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) as well. In the second film, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," Katniss and Peeta must return to the gaming battlefield once more for a special edition that pits former winners against one another.
Everything in "Catching Fire" is a step up from the first film, and it stands on its own as a thrilling dystopian adventure. Hutcherson and Lawrence do good work, but Jena Malone steals every scene she's in as the ax-wielding Johanna Mason.
Where to Watch it: Streaming on Hulu
Snowpiercer
Before directing the Oscar-winning social satire "Parasite," Bong Joon Ho directed "Snowpiercer," the dystopian social satire about a train holding the last survivors of humanity in a frozen future apocalypse. If "Snowpiercer" sounds familiar, that's because it was made into a TBS television series that's going into its fourth season.
The movie stars Chris Evans as Curtis Everett, one of the people living in the lower-class tail section of the train. The richer you are, the closer you live to the front of the train. Curtis and his fellow passengers decide to rebel, trying to make their way to the front of the train to get some justice from the folks in charge (played by Ed Harris and Tilda Swinton). "Snowpiercer" is a class commentary that's occasionally a little too on-the-nose, but it's a modern Korean classic for a reason.
Where to Watch it: Streaming on Netflix
The Platform
Speaking of allegory that's a little heavy-handed, but still awesome, there's the 2019 Spanish science-fiction social horror movie "The Platform." Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia created a singular vision of a dystopian future with an unusual system of punishment known as the Pit. The Pit is a vertically-stacked prison, with a single platform that starts at the top and moves toward the bottom each day. The day's food is on that platform, and if you try to keep any food after the platform passes, you will be severely punished.
To keep things somewhat egalitarian, a person's floor level is chosen at random and changed once a month. If you're lucky, you end up near the top and can enjoy bountiful fresh food. If you're less lucky, you're probably going to end up eating your cellmate down at the bottom somewhere. "The Platform" is harrowing, with a whole lot to say about consumerism, capitalism, and human nature.
Where to Watch it: Streaming on Netflix
Cube
Survival games as horror devices are a fairly common trope. There's the "Saw" franchise, "Channel Zero: No-End House," "Escape Room," and more. The movie that started it all, though, was 1997's "Cube." Directed and co-written by Vincenzo Natali, "Cube" follows five strangers as they make their way through various cube-shaped rooms. The rooms make up a kind of maze, and some of the rooms are filled with puzzles and traps. It's a stylish, violent, and terrifying thriller that inspired many of the survival horror game movies that came after. "Cube" is something to behold, and it's even more impressive when you consider its $350,000 budget.
The Canadian cult classic even got a Japanese remake, debuting in theaters in Japan on October 22, 2021.
Where to Watch it: Available to rent on AppleTV/Amazon/YouTube for $3.99
High-Rise
Much like "Snowpiercer," "High-Rise" is about a structure where class levels are structurally organized. In "Snowpiercer," the rich lived at the front of the train. In "High-Rise," they live on the upper levels of the titular high-rise apartment building. Tom Hiddleston stars in Ben Wheatley's adaptation of the J.G. Ballard novel, about an apartment building that descends into chaos during an internal class uprising. The families towards the bottom struggle to afford to live in the luxury complex, while those at the top grow fat and lazy.
"High-Rise" is a gorgeous dystopian drama, with brilliant performances from Hiddleston and Jeremy Irons, who plays the man who designed and runs the building. Wheatley plays around with a fun '70s style (probably inspired by the book's 1975 publication) while asking a lot of questions about society. While some of the titles on this list give more definitive opinions on societal issues, "High-Rise" is more interested in just breaking it down.
Where to Watch it: Available for rent on Google Play/AppleTV for $2.99
The Running Man
"The Running Man" is a 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie based on a novel by Stephen King.
Schwarzenegger plays Ben Richards, a police helicopter pilot who is framed for massacring civilians during a food riot. Set in the near-future (at the time) of 2017, the U.S. has become a totalitarian police state that pacifies its citizens by broadcasting "The Running Man," a game show where prisoners fight for their lives. Instead of fighting one another a la "Battle Royale" or "The Hunger Games," our runners are fighting against armed mercenaries called "stalkers" who grow increasingly difficult in a manner similar to video game bosses.
"The Running Man" is very silly and very '80s, but it also features tight-fitting costumes, a killer game show, and some wild visuals. Besides, you'll want to check it out before Edgar Wright's remake gets released
Where to Watch it: Streaming on HBO Max
Tag
This is where I wanted to recommend the Takashi Miike film "As the Gods Will," but it's unavailable to rent or stream. Some Miike fans have even accused "Squid Game" of plagiarizing the 2014 horror movie about a game to the death, though it appears to be a case of creative confluence.
One Japanese filmmaker who ratchets things up in the same wild way as Miike is Sion Sono, whose 2015 film "Tag" is a deliciously weird horror story about how games and our lives can become deeply intertwined. The movie is ostensibly about a deadly game of tag, but there's much, much more to it than that. The less you know, the better. Just expect loads of blood, a plot that feels nonsensical until it isn't, and some absolutely killer rock music.
Where to Watch it: Streaming on Tubi and NightFlight
Joe Bob Briggs is back with another special on Shudder! As in the past, the "Halloween Hoedown" will be another double feature hosted by the beloved film and pop culture critic, but this year it's been confirmed via BlumFest (Blumhouse's annual fan event) that its founder, producer Jason Blum, and "Halloween" (2018) and "Halloween Kills" director David Gordon Green will grace the event. This year's "Halloween Hoedown" is scheduled to pop off on the Shudder TV channel on 8 October 2021, at 9 pm EST.
Shudder broke the news via Twitter on the first of the month.
A Late Night Picture Show
The host followed up the announcement with a tweet of his own: "Two heavy hitters in horror--the guys who pretty much own Halloween at this point--will journey to the trailer house next week for HALLOWEEN HOEDOWN. (Apparently Michael escaped from that burning house.)." Blum also chimed in from his own account: "A lifelong dream comes true. I'm gettin' my dancing shoes on for the 'Halloween Hoedown' where I'll be on #TheLastDriveIn with #DavidGordonGreen, talking to @therealjoebob about #HalloweenKills and so much more. I can't wait to meet @kinky_horror!"
The special is an offshoot of the Shudder series, "The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs," described by the streaming service thusly:
Proving once again that "the drive-in will never die," iconic horror host and exploitation movie aficionado Joe Bob Briggs is back with a new season Fridays on Shudder TV and Sundays on demand. Every week, "The Last Drive-In" series offers an eclectic pairing of films, running the gamut from horror classics to obscurities and international cult favorites. And from time to time, special surprise guests will drop in on Joe Bob and Darcy the Mail Girl.
This year's double feature slate is currently unannounced, as is traditionally the case, but past events have unearthed fun Samhain gems. Last year's "Halloween Hideaway" featured "Haunt" (2019) and "Hack-O-Lantern" (1988), while 2019's "Halloween Hootenanny" came out swinging with a Michael Myers triple feature: John Carpenter's original 1978 slasher "Halloween," as well as two later sequels, "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers," and "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers." With a third season of "The Last Drive-In" wrapped over the summer, and according to Darcy the Mail Girl, at least five more specials to come, It looks like the drive-in will indeed never die.
"Joe Bob's Halloween Hoedown" will be available to stream on the Shudder TV channel, 8 October 2021 at 9 pm EST, and will be available on-demand on 10 October 2021.
As the world has changed over the past 18-months, companies have been wrestling with ways to keep employees and data protected as they support new ways of hybrid working. We built Windows 11 to be the most secure Windows yet with built-in chip to cloud protection that ensures company assets stay secure no matter where work happens.
Seventy-five percent of software decision-makers feel that the move to hybrid work leaves their organization more vulnerable to security threats.
The threat intelligence journey to build in protection
The expansion of both remote and hybrid workplaces brings new opportunities to organizations. But the expansion of access, increased number of endpoints, and desire for employees to work from anywhere on any device has also introduced new threats and risks. In 2020, Microsoft protected customers from 30 billion email threats, 6 billion threats to endpoint devices, and processed more than 30 billion authentications. Yet most employees still struggle to avoid clicking phishing links in email, spoofed websites, and more. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows a more than five-fold increase in hardware attacks over three years, and Microsoft’s initial Security Signals report found that more than 80 percent of Vice Presidents and above admitted to experiencing a hardware attack in the last two years.
We designed Windows 11 for today’s hybrid workplace. With Windows 11, hardware and software work together for protection from the central processing unit (CPU) all the way to the cloud so our customers can enable hybrid productivity and high-quality employee experiences without compromising security.
“In this new hybrid work environment, more information is being handled outside the confines of the traditional office and outside the control of IT departments. This creates new, acute security challenges and makes it more important than ever to add as many layers of protection as possible to keep devices secure. Hardware protections are a key component to instilling a higher degree of confidence that devices haven’t been compromised.”—Michael Mattioli, Vice President, Goldman Sachs
Windows 11: Security by default
NIST shows a more than five-fold increase in hardware attacks over three years, and Microsoft’s initial Security Signals report found that more than 80 percent of Vice Presidents and above admitted to experiencing a hardware attack in the last two years. To address the increasing sophistication and number of attacks against firmware/hardware, we partnered with manufacturers to create a new class of Secured-core PCs in 2019 and a new security-specific processor in 2020, the Microsoft Pluton, that redefines Windows security at the CPU. In Secured-core PCs, hardware-backed security features are enabled by default without any action required by the user or IT. Secured-core PCs were initially designed for highly targeted industries like financial services and healthcare with mission-critical roles that handle company IP, customer Personal Identifiable Information (PII), sensitive government data, financial information, or patient history. But as the move to hybrid work becomes the new normal and the threat landscape becomes more complex, the need to apply better security features from chip to cloud becomes a high priority.
Eighty percent of security decision-makers believe software alone is not enough protection from emerging threats.
We leveraged our learnings from secured-core PCs and brought them to Windows 11. The new hardware security requirements that come with Windows 11 are designed to build a foundation that is even stronger and more resilient to attacks. Windows 11 isolates software from hardware. This isolation helps protect access—from encryption keys and user credentials to other sensitive data—behind a hardware barrier, so malware and attackers can’t access or tamper with that data during the boot process. And Windows 11 requires hardware that can enable even more protections like Windows Hello, Device Encryption, virtualization-based security (VBS), hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI), and Secure Boot. The combination of these features has been shown to reduce malware by 60 percent on tested devices. All Windows 11 supported CPUs have an embedded Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip, support secure boot, and support virtualization-based security (VBS) and specific VBS capabilities, fully turned on out-of-the-box.
Windows 11: Powerful security from chip to cloud. For a comprehensive view of the Windows 11 security investments, see the Windows 11 Security book.
Enhanced hardware and operating system security
With hardware-based isolation security that begins at the chip, Windows 11 stores sensitive data behind additional security barriers, separated from the operating system. As a result, information including encryption keys and user credentials are protected from unauthorized access and tampering. In Windows 11, hardware and software work together to protect the operating system, with VBS and Secure Boot built-in and enabled by default on new CPUs. Even if bad actors get in, they don’t get far.
Robust application security and privacy controls
To help keep personal and business information protected and private, Windows 11 has multiple layers of application security to safeguard critical data and code integrity. Application isolation and controls, code integrity, privacy controls, and least-privilege principles enable developers to build in security and privacy from the ground up. This integrated security protects against breaches and malware, helps keep data private, and gives IT administrators the controls they need.
Secured identities
Passwords are inconvenient to use and prime targets for cybercriminals—and they’ve been an important part of digital security for years. That changes with the passwordless protection available with Windows 11. After a secure authorization process, credentials are protected behind layers of hardware and software security, giving users secure, passwordless access to their applications and cloud services.
Connecting to cloud services
Windows 11 security enables policies, controls, procedures, and technologies that work together to protect your devices, data, applications, and identities from anywhere. Microsoft offers comprehensive cloud services for identity, storage, and access management in addition to the tools to attest that any Windows device connecting to your network is trustworthy. You can also enforce compliance and conditional access with a modern device management (MDM) service such as Microsoft Intune that works with Microsoft Azure Active Directory to control access to applications and data through the cloud.
Learn more
Windows 11 rises to the challenge of modern threats of hybrid computing and enables customers to get ultimate productivity and intuitive experiences without compromising security.
For customers who aren’t ready to transition to new devices, the baseline security features in Windows 11 are also available on Windows 10, which will remain supported through October 14, 2025. We are committed to supporting Windows 10 customers and offering choices in their computing journey.
To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.
Xbox Wire announces the release of Windows 11, saying the new version of its operating system is "built for gaming." Here's how they justify that claim: "The big day is finally here: Windows 11 has...
There’s no harm in being a little curious. You don’t want to be known as a gossip, but you can still have a healthy interest in the goings-on of other people’s lives—if you can earn their trust (and keep it). Whether you want to get people to open up to you to deepen your personal relationships or it’s a requirement…
Can we agree that society as a whole seems to have grown... shall we say coarser over the past decade or so? In an age when we—and our interactions—are increasingly digitized, anonymous, and remote (hell, during the pandemic some of us worked, slept, and ate in our bedrooms for 18 months straight), the tendency to…
In August, we heard that T-Mobile would start offering an exclusive Google One plan tier for its customer. Well, if you have been waiting for that to happen, the deal is now confirmed as T-Mobile is now offering 500GB of cloud storage on Google One for just $5/month.
T-Mobile's 500GB Plan is One of the Best Things to Happen to Google One
This information was given via T-Mobile newsroom; the Uncarrier will offer an exclusive tier to its customer starting October 12th, later this month. The plan comes with 500GB of family cloud storage for just $5/month. This fits perfectly for the 200GB and 2TB offerings that Google currently has on their website. T-Mobile has also mentioned that the 2TB plan for $10/month is available for customers. However, this does match Google's current pricing.
This plan was initially set for September 1, but the date was later delayed. T-Mobile is currently offering a 30-day trial for the new tier for a limited time; you will, of course, get auto-renewal for $5/months after that. All the Sprint customers who have not migrated to the T-Mobile plan will be able to claim the offer via the T-Mobile Tuesdays app at any point through the end of the year. We have also heard that all postpaid and business customers with 12 lines or less will be eligible for the offer. Customers on a tax-inclusive plan like T-Mobile One or T-Mobile Magenta will not pay tax on the newly announced Google One tier. However, tax-exclusive plans will.
You can share the 500GB plan with up to 5 other Google accounts. The new tier also appears to include the 10% cashback, but there is no mention of any VPN service included.
Customers interested in the 500GB Google One storage tier can sign up online or via support starting October 12th, later this month.
If you’re looking for a Halloween movie to watch with your children, these scary-but-not-too-scary flicks are spooky enough to raise goosebumps, but aren’t likely to scare anyone’s face off. That is, unless they’re either very little or very scaredy-cat, in which case your mileage may vary. You know your kids best.…
Mark Zuckerberg's personal wealth has fallen by more than $6 billion in a few hours, knocking him down a notch on the list of the world's richest people, after a whistleblower came forward and outages took Facebook's flagship products offline. Bloomberg reports: A selloff sent the social-media giant's stock plummeting 4.9% on Monday, adding to a drop of about 15% since mid-September. The stock slide on Monday sent Zuckerberg's worth down to $121.6 billion, dropping him below Bill Gates to No. 5 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He's down from almost $140 billion in a matter of weeks, according to the index.
Content Warning: The following article contains discussions of suicide.
Horror movies are known for throwing curveballs at the audience. This can be something like an unexpected ending or a killer whose motivations were not what they seemed.
Sometimes, the curveball isn't fully logical. There could be a plot twist revealing a villain that was obvious to everyone but the movie's cast of characters — or a strain in credibility that's just too much for the attentive viewer to buy. Either way, some plot twists are more realistic than others. However, just because a twist strains credibility doesn't mean it's bad.
9 Alternate Personalities – Identity (2003)
Identity was an early-aughts slasher with a unique twist, albeit one that derails everything the audience had seen before. The narrative primarily follows a group of unique characters trapped at a hotel on a rainy night. People are killed, others are blamed, and there's only one man responsible.
The twist is that this one man is serial killer Malcolm Rivers, and the hotel is within his mind. All of the characters the audience just grew to know are imagined by one man without much of a fleshed-out personality. A twist shouldn't negate the importance of the characters the audience has gotten to know. Regardless, Identity is still a fun murder-mystery movie.
8 Topsy Kretts – The Number 23 (2007)
The Number 23 starred Jim Carrey in a dramatic role as Walter Sparrow. Sparrow is a man who grows obsessed with the number 23 after reading a book sharing the film's title.
The author of the book is named Topsy Kretts (top secrets), who is actually Walter Sparrow. His choosing that pseudonym both strains credibility and is a tell. Furthermore, Sparrow's obsession with the number 23 is because his father scribbled it in a notepad before taking his own life. The twists in The Number 23 are somehow simultaneously predictable and too outlandish to be believable.
7 Human Puppet – Dead Silence (2007)
Dead Silence was an early, trademark-filled James Wan movie that didn't hit it big with either fans or audiences. It follows Jamie Ashen, a young widower out to solve the mystery of his wife's death. He returns to their hometown and learns the legend of slain ventriloquist Mary Shaw.
The twist in Dead Silence is multi-layered. Jamie's father has several scenes throughout the film and never quite looks alive. The end of the film reveals that he isn't; he's a puppet. His wife, Ella, is actually inhabited by the evil Mary Shaw. "Ella" has been mimicking the voice of Jamie's father and guiding his movements via a massive wound on his back. The ending strains credibility because Jamie would have noticed that something was seriously wrong with his father from the first moment.
6 Jamie Lloyd Is A Killer Now – Halloween 4 (1988)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers follows Jamie Lloyd, the daughter of Laurie Strode (who is now deceased). When Michael returns to wreak more havoc, Jamie must survive with the help of her adoptive family.
Jamie holding the bloody pair of scissors comes out of nowhere and blunts the impact of an otherwise solid Halloween sequel. The audience is expected to believe that Michael Myers' soul has taken over his niece and made her kill a relative. The ending is more reminiscent of the original film's beginning than it is a logical conclusion to a narrative. It's also never established that Michael's spirit can be transferred, so the ending doesn't even make sense within the franchise's rules.
5 Esther's Identity – Orphan (2009)
The plot of Orphan focuses on a grieving couple who adopt a girl named Esther. Soon, the Colemans notice strange behavior from Esther that escalates in severity.
Like the rest of the film, the twist of Orphan is successful, but it doesn't fully make sense. Esther is actually a 33-year-old woman named Leena Klammer. Klammer was diagnosed with hypopituitarism when she was young. Her growth has been stunted and she has retained the appearance of a nine-year-old. Hypopituitarism does stunt growth and Isabelle Fuhrman is terrific as Esther, but she does not look like a grown woman with a pituitary gland disorder.
4 Mrs. Voorhees – Friday The 13th (1980)
Sean S. Cunningham's original Friday the 13th (1980) follows several teens as they arrive to re-open Camp Crystal Lake. Throughout the evening, they're stalked by a mysterious killer one by one.
Friday the 13th is an overall efficient film, but Mrs. Voorhees being the killer is a non-twist positioned as a twist. The character isn't established in any way until her introduction in the third act. Her motivation for vengeance is sound and there's something effective about her relative anonymity. Even still, a character (or her son) has to be at least mentioned prior to the reveal for a twist to be a twist.
3 Brahms Isn't A Doll – The Boy (2016)
The Boy follows Greta (Lauren Cohan), a woman hired to serve as a nanny. However, she's meant to supervise creepy horror movie doll Brahms, which she is told is alive.
The film takes the usual steps and gets progressively creepier. First, Greta is disbelieving of the doll's sentience. Then, she starts to take it seriously. Finally, the twist: Brahms isn't a boy who passed away 20 years ago and now inhabits a doll — he's a man who has been living in the walls. There are many times throughout the movie where this would have been obvious to Greta. Furthermore, not all of the adult Brahms' movements track logically. Greta will leave a room momentarily and then return to see the doll Brahms in a different position. Throughout the movie, there's no way adult Brahms could repeatedly enter and exit the home's walls with ease and no detection.
2 It's All A Lie – The Village (2004)
M. Night Shyamalan's The Village takes place in a secluded, Amish-like community surrounded by ominous woods. The residents of the village are told that in these woods is a group of vicious monsters.
The twist of The Village is that the community's elders have fabricated every aspect of the residents' realities; the monsters are really just people in costumes. The elders aren't afraid of anything in the woods but rather what's beyond it. They're not in the 19th-century; they're in the present day. It is stated that the property is a wildlife preserve, so it's logical that they were left alone. It's also revealed that the government was given a pay-off to make it a no-fly zone. But it's hard to believe that there's never been an off-course plane flying over since the late 1970s.
1 Will Benson Is Ben's Son – I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
A year after the events of the original, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer again follows Julie James, this time in the Bahamas.
This sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer features two killers, neither of whom make sense. The first revealed killer is Will Benson, who is the son of the Fisherman. Benson ("Ben's son") acts a little off throughout the movie. His reveal should have been as obvious to the characters as it is to the audience. The second killer is the Fisherman himself, Ben Willis, who apparently survived his fatal injuries in the original.
After three months in preview, Windows 11 is finally available. There’s a lot that’s new. It’s got the biggest visual overhaul in ages, and then it comes with new features like Widgets, Teams Chat, Snap Layouts, and much more.
Now, the question is, should you upgrade your PC? My answer is going to be a hard yes. In my opinion, Windows 11 is a winner, and Microsoft is finally ditching some bad UI choices that it’s been living with for about a decade.
OK, let’s get this out of the way because it’s the elephant in the room, and it’s important. While Windows 11 is a free upgrade from Windows 10, it does significantly raise the hardware requirements. A good chunk of people on Windows 10 are ineligible for the upgrade.
The biggest change is the CPU requirements. You need one of the following:
Intel 8th-gen or newer
Intel Core i7-7820HQ (this is the only mainstream seventh-gen chip supported, and it’s also the one in the Surface Studio 2)
AMD Zen 2 or newer
Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 or newer
There are other requirements, such as a minimum of 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage, both of which are double the requirement of Windows 10. The other big one is TPM 2.0; however, that’s been a requirement of new PCs since 2016, and all of the supported CPUs started shipping after that anyway. In other words, if you’ve got a supported CPU, you should also have TPM 2.0.
I understand that a lot of people with unsupported hardware are upset about this, but to be fair, this is the first time that requirements have been raised since Windows 7 came out. And still, Windows 10 is going to be supported until October 2025.
Ding-dong, the witch is dead. And by witch, I mean Cortana. No, I don’t hate Cortana, but I despised the digital assistant being part of the out-of-box experience. It was jarring, and frankly, it was terrible. Moreover, if anyone complained about it, Microsoft acted like they were some kind of villain that hates people with special needs. Windows 11 works the way it should have worked this whole time. If you don’t interact with the OOBE for a certain amount of time, it audibly asks if you need assistance.
The whole OOBE has been redesigned too, and it’s a lot prettier. It has a white background now, rounded corners on buttons, and it’s just more graphical. You might recall that when Windows 10 first launched, it just had these flat blue screens, and then it was redesigned later on with deeper blues and more windows. Now, it’s much better.
One other thing to note is that you can finally name your PC in the OOBE, something that was in the Windows 8 OOBE and was removed in Windows 10. It might seem crazy that it was removed, but you have to think about that in terms of building an OS. When creating the OOBE, you tend to start with a certain amount of screens or steps for the user to experience, and things get prioritized. But it’s really nice to once again be able to name a PC. With Windows 10, you had to go into Settings to do it, and then you still had to reboot.
A new Start Menu, rounded corners, and an all-new Windows 11 design
It’s a whole new design
Live Tiles are dead
Things are centered
Things like the Start button are not stationary
Once you get past the out-of-box experience, you’re going to notice that Windows looks completely different. In my opinion, this is the biggest feature of the new OS. I’ve always thought that Windows 8 and Windows 10 were ugly, and I’m not just talking about the bad ideas in Windows 8. I’m talking about the design language as a whole, from the bright colors to the sharp corners.
Windows 11 replaces jarring system sounds with pleasant ones.
I’m not an expert in design; indeed, I’m not the type of person that notices small changes in design. I’m also not the guy that you should ask if something looks good. But to me, there are two kinds of popular designs. One category is what I’d call classic, and one is what I’d call trendy. With a trendy design, that’s something that we look back on in a decade or two, wondering what we were thinking, even though it looks good in the moment. A classic design is something that, even after it’s gone out of style, is still beautiful.
Windows 8 and Windows 10 had trendy designs. I think Windows 11 is more classic. It replaces the sharp corners with rounded ones, and just by doing that, the OS is so much more pleasant to use. Gone are the jarring system sounds, as they’ve been replaced by softer ones.
Of course, there’s so much more. There’s an all-new Start Menu, and Live Tiles are finally gone. Don’t remember Live Tiles? I’m not surprised, even though you’re using an OS that supports them. Live Tiles originated on Windows Phone as a way to see notifications and other app information inside of the shortcut; it’s similar to a widget. Unfortunately, they just weren’t as practical on Windows, and I would unpin all tiles from the Start Menu on Windows 10.
The Start Menu still shows you pinned apps, which I still hate, and recommended apps and documents. The reason I hate pinned apps is just that I use so many PCs. I don’t have time to unpin all of the nonsense that Microsoft thinks I should use and pin the stuff I actually use. I just pin the things I want to the taskbar. The frustrating thing is that it takes an extra click to get to the All Apps list.
Windows 11 is more enjoyable to see, hear, and even touch.
That taskbar, along with the Start Menu, is centered too. This is a big change, which seems to be a bit polarizing. I like it, having used utilities like TaskbarX on Windows 10 to center the taskbar; however, TaskbarX left the Start button in the corner. After all, that makes sense. It’s muscle memory that if you move your pointer all the way to the corner, you’ll get the Start Menu. It’s been that way for decades. Even with Windows 8, when the Start button was infamously taken away, moving your mouse to the bottom-left corner of the screen and clicking brought you to the Start Screen.
With Windows 11, not only has the button moved for the first time, but it doesn’t even stay in the same spot. That’s the issue about when things are centered. When more icons get added to the taskbar, the Start button moves further to the left.
Anyway, that’s the big complaint about things being centered. Personally, I think it’s fine. I haven’t had any issues with things being where they are.
Let me put it this way. I’ve barely used Windows 10 at all since a build of Windows 11 leaked prior to the June 24 announcement. Every time I get a review unit that’s running Windows 10, it feels like a step backward. I go and I run my benchmarks on Windows 10, and then immediately install Windows 11. Seriously, in the last three months, I’ve barely used Windows 10 at all.
Snap Layouts and Snap Groups
You can now choose snap locations in different layouts
You can restore groups of snapped windows
Moving past the design, my favorite functional change in Windows 11 is called Snap Layouts. Windows has had snapping for over a decade. That’s where you drag a window to the side of the screen and it snaps to one side. You can also snap to a quarter to keep an app in a quadrant. Windows 10 introduced Snap Assist, which automatically lets you select a second app for the rest of the screen after you snap an app.
Snap Layouts takes this to the next level. If you hover over the maximize button in a window (or hit Win + Z), it will display an array of window layouts, and you can pick the one you want. You’ll also select which window in the layout you want that app to be in. It’s pretty great.
Snap Layouts finally makes ultra-wide screens a delight to use.
It also makes life a lot better with ultra-wide monitors. Companies used to send me ultra-wide PCs, and I couldn’t stand them because Windows 10 really wasn’t made for it. With two 16:9 monitors, I can have two apps side-by-side on each screen, for four apps total. With an ultra-wide, there was no easy way to do that. Snap Layouts now has a way to let you have three apps side-by-side. I just got to check out the HP Envy 34 AiO, and when I sent it back, it was the first time I actually missed an ultra-wide AiO.
Snap Layouts was originally part of PowerToys, a utility that does work on Windows 10. It’s nice to see it make its way to the OS though.
A bit of a smaller addition is Snap Groups, but it’s still super useful. When you minimize your windows, you can hover over an icon, and in the window previews, you’ll see each window, along with groups of windows. Previously, if you had two apps snapped side-by-side and minimized them, you had to restore them each separately. Now, there’s one option to open all of your snapped windows.
Widgets are back in Windows 11, but they’re first-party for now
Widgets take the place of News and Interests
They’re first-party only for now
There’s a new Widgets icon that you’ll see in the taskbar, and clicking it will bring up a selection of first-party widgets. Unlike the widgets of yesteryear, you can’t pin them to the desktop. They’re going to stay sandboxed in their own little area.
They replace News and Interests, a feature that’s actually fairly new in Windows 10. Still, Widgets offer a lot more options than just a news feed. In Windows 11, you can also add things like OneDrive photos, Outlook Calendar, Microsoft To Do, Family Safety, and more. It also comes with the parts that you’re used to like weather and sports.
You can move them around, resize them, customize them, and so on. However, Windows 11 Widgets are currently limited to first-party apps and services. That’s changing in the future, but strangely, Microsoft isn’t confirming that. It’s a shame too, because there are a lot of third-party services that I’d like to see. For example, a Google Calendar widget instead of Outlook Calendar nice, as would Google Photos. But of course, that takes us into another discussion about if Google would actually bother to make them.
Teams Chat puts the service in the OS, but it needs some serious work
Microsoft Teams is built into Windows 11
You can use it to send SMS messages
You still need the full Teams app for meetings
There are big pain points that Microsoft needs to solve
One of the big features that Microsoft announced for Windows 11 was Teams integration. It’s called Teams Chat, and it’s not my favorite part of Windows 11. There’s some good and some bad here, but first, there’s a bit of background.
Microsoft has done this before. The second version of Windows 10, version 1511, integrated Skype into the OS. It broke up Skype into Skype Video, Messaging, and Phone apps. By the next feature update, version 1607, Microsoft was already pushing a new UWP version of the Skype app, killing off features that were shown in preview like Messaging Everywhere (did you think I’d make a Messaging Everywhere reference in a Windows 11 review? I certainly didn’t). It wasn’t long after that that Skype integration in the OS was killed off, and it was generally regarded as always having been a terrible idea.
So here we are, with Teams Chat. The good news is that it takes little work to get started. You can message any of your Skype contacts, and you can also send SMS messages to anyone. SMS messages get a little weird though. It sends the recipient a link to install Teams on their phone, so they can choose to install it or just respond to the SMS message. From my experience, it’s kind of confusing for the recipient.
That’s not all that’s confusing either. Teams chat comes with a Microsoft Teams app, but not the one you need if you want to click a link to join a Microsoft Teams meeting. You need the standard desktop app for that. After that, you have two nearly identical apps in your Start Menu called Microsoft Teams. It’s kind of a mess.
Teams Chat shows potential, but SMS and meetings lead toward a confusing experience.
Notifications aren’t great either. Personally, I turn off notifications in Windows. It’s a lot easier than dealing with the mess of apps that just start shoving notifications down your throat, because unlike modern operating systems like iOS and Android that were meant for dealing with this, Windows doesn’t ask you permission before an app can send you notifications. Whenever I set up a new PC, I check for updates in the Store, and it starts firing off notifications every time an update finishes. That’s my notification to turn off notifications.
I also rarely find notifications valuable, which is what makes it easy for me to turn them off completely. What I find more valuable are little badges that say I have unchecked notifications, such as a little ‘1’ by a messaging app that shows I have an unread message. Unfortunately, with Teams Chat, that number doesn’t show up. Most of my conversations when testing this had a couple hours between each message. I ended up turning on notifications, and I already hate it.
There’s a lot of potential here, but really, Microsoft has to sort this stuff out. The issue with having two Teams apps is straight out of the issue with Skype integration in 2015. You could do a lot of things with the built-in apps, but you still needed the full Skype app for the full experience. The issue with confusing SMS messages is a pain point too, because it feels more like a way to pull the recipient into Teams than to give the sender a proper messaging experience.
There’s an all-new Microsoft Store for Windows 11, and for Windows 10 too
You can finally get other browsers through the Store
Broken promises include the new Entertainment section and Android apps
Microsoft showed off an all-new Store for Windows 11, although as it turns out, it’s coming to Windows 10 as well. First of all, it’s totally redesigned, something that you’re going to hear about a lot of inbox apps. But the redesign isn’t the big story.
The bigger story is that Microsoft is accepting all apps that run on Windows into the Microsoft Store. Now, it’s once again time for a history lesson, because as it turns out, a lot of Windows 11 is still about fixing mistakes that were born in Windows 8. The Windows Store was born in Windows 8, and the problem was that you had to rewrite your app in order to be in the store. No one was about to do that, and this idea failed.
Then came Windows 10, where Microsoft promised four bridges. Project Westminster let you package a web app as a UWP app, Project Astoria promised to run Android apps on Windows, Project Islandwood would let you recompile your iOS apps for Windows, and Project Centennial let you package your Win32 app to go in the Store. Astoria never shipped outside of preview, and Islandwood never took off because Microsoft really couldn’t keep up with Swift. The desktop bridge has been key though, but more complicated apps have still not made it into the store.
Now, Microsoft has let its guard down completely. Apps no longer need to be packaged, and for those apps, you probably won’t even get updates through the Microsoft Store. With Windows 11, the Microsoft Store is really just a gateway to where you’re going.
That goes for third-party app stores as well, which now take a front row seat. The first partner announced was Amazon, and that’s been delayed. Indeed, one of the features announced for Windows 11 was Android app support, but no one outside of Microsoft has their hands on that just yet. Android app support on Windows 11 is coming to Insiders soon, but in the meantime, another third-party app store partner will be the Epic Games Store.
You’ll also be able to get third-party browsers from the Microsoft Store, such as Opera. Microsoft used to have similar rules as Apple for browsers in the Store. They were fine, but they had to use the platform engine, that being EdgeHTML. When Edge was rebuilt, the plan was to change that policy to Chromium, but again, Microsoft has let the guard down. If you like a browser, the vendor should be able to put it in the Microsoft Store.
Finally, one other thing that was promised was an Entertainment tab that would offer content from different services. That was never delivered though. It’s still just Microsoft Movies & TV purchases and rentals.
Windows 11 comes with all-new inbox apps
Many apps are getting big visual changes, and some are coming with new features as well
Calculator
Still open source, Microsoft says that the Calculator app has been rewritten in C#. As you’d expect from a Windows 11 redesign, the buttons have rounded corners. You can use it as a scientific calculator, a graphing calculator, there’s a programming mode, and it can convert between 100 units and currencies.
Clock with Focus Sessions
The Clock app has a feature called Focus Sessions, and this is pretty significant. It’s not just a redesign for the new OS. It’s a customizable way of setting up periods of time that let you focus on things.
First of all, there’s a timer. This lets you set how long you want the Focus Session to be, and it will automatically give you breaks depending on the length. There’s a ‘skip breaks’ checkbox too. Next, there’s a dashboard that shows a daily streak, how many hours you’ve set Focus Sessions for today, how many hours yesterday, and more. You can also set a daily goal.
Here’s where it gets really cool though. Focus Sessions comes with Microsoft To Do and Spotify integration. That means that you can set music to play during your Focus Sessions, and with Microsoft To Do, you can choose certain tasks to work on.
Here’s what really annoys me, and this isn’t a new problem. Ever since Microsoft killed off its in-house Groove Music service, it’s deemed Spotify to be the music streaming service of choice for Windows users. I understand To Do being integrated since it’s a Microsoft service, but playing favorites with third-party services is frustrating. If you look at things like the Microsoft Store, a big theme is about letting third-party developers have front-row seats on Windows, so maybe we should stop showcasing Spotify throughout Microsoft apps.
Other than that, the feature is really cool. I’m always up for new and inventive ways of being more productive.
Photos
Throughout the Windows 10 era, it’s been pretty commonly known that the Photos app is bad. With Windows 11, it’s getting a proper redesign.
First of all, when you’re viewing a photo, you’re going to see a film strip at the bottom, thumbnails of next and previous images in your folder. You can obviously click through these however you want, but it’s something that feels like a big step forward from the Windows 10 app. At the top, there’s the toolbar where you’ll find regular options like rotate, trash, inking, and so on.
The new Photos app has some basic photo editing tools, which is super cool. The goal here isn’t to be everything to everyone, but rather, Microsoft wants this to be an app that does the things it does well.
I talked about the individual photo view first because frankly, that’s how I launch Photos. I never go into the Start Menu and click on Photos. I double-click on an image in File Explorer, and that’s how I get to the app. However, if you do launch the app on its own, you’ll see a new home screen that has Albums, People, and Folders tabs.
It’s really the ribbon at the bottom of images that does it for me. It’s a nice easy way to scroll through a camera roll, and it’s one of those features that you’ll see on other platforms and wonder why it’s not on Windows. Now, it is.
Paint
Microsoft Paint is getting its first big overhaul in a very long time. Indeed, it wasn’t very long ago that Microsoft Paint was deprecated, meaning that it was no longer being developed and would someday be removed from the OS. After blowback from the many, many users that Paint has, the Redmond firm promised to put it in the Microsoft Store. That didn’t happen though, because the company ended up killing off Paint 3D instead.
The new Paint app is still mostly a redesign. Upon launching the new app, you’ll find that the square color palettes are now circular, there are rounded corners, and it fits in more with the Windows 11 design. It’s nice to see, since we’ve seen a lot of big design changes in Windows 8 and Windows 10, and it’s been frustrating to watch older, beloved system apps get left in the dust.
Snipping Tool
You might notice by now that flip-flopping on the direction of certain apps is a theme with Microsoft. Snipping Tool is one of them. The app was officially deprecated at one point, and it was promised to be replaced by Snip & Sketch. Now, we’re back to Snipping Tool, and it’s an entirely rebuilt app.
This is an exciting time to use Windows.
While it’s redesigned, supporting dark mode, the method of taking screenshots isn’t different. You can choose to draw a rectangle to snip, screenshot a window, screenshot the full screen, or grab a free-form portion of the screen.
You’re also going to find new inking and editing tools, which existed in Snip & Sketch but not in the old Snipping Tool. Essentially, it takes the best of the old Snipping Tool app and the newer Snip & Sketch.
The Touch Keyboard is prettier
The Touch Keyboard comes with support for themes
Microsoft brought some of its SwiftKey chops over to Windows 11 in the Touch Keyboard. One way it did that is with themes. You can choose from any of the pre-made themes, or you can upload your own image.
It’s a nice touch, and it makes the Touch Keyboard more pleasant to use. It’s one of those things that always felt lacking in Windows to me. Sometimes, things in Windows are fine, but when you look at how well they work on other platforms, it’s worth wondering why Microsoft doesn’t do better. The truth is that people don’t use touch on a PC as much as they do on a smartphone or tablet, so it gets overlooked. And when it gets overlooked, people don’t use it. It’s a real chicken or egg problem.
Windows 11 gives much-needed love to Windows on ARM
x64 emulation is finally here
Windows on ARM now has Hyper-V
Windows 11 on ARM comes with some big improvements, and this is old news. It’s really old news. Both x64 emulation and Hyper-V support for Windows on ARM has been in testing with Windows Insiders since 2020. They were originally going to ship in Windows 10 version 21H1, back when that was going to be a major update. Then, Windows 10X was going to steal the show, so the 21H1 update became an enablement package, and the features got pushed back to the fall. Windows 10X got scrapped and the big visual overhaul landed as Windows 11.
It’s a worthy update for Windows on ARM though. ARM devices have been able to run native ARM or ARM64 apps, and emulated x86 apps. The ability to run x64 apps has been the missing part of the equation, especially since Apple came out of the gate with ARM PCs that just work with all of the apps that you use.
Now, the software will be there. The hardware will be an interesting space to watch.
Conclusion: Windows 11 is a worthy upgrade
To me, Windows 11 is a breath of fresh air. Sure, it’s not perfect. I’d love it if the Start Menu were more customizable instead of including shortcuts and recommended apps that I won’t use. For example, it would be really cool if the all apps list, shortcuts, and Widgets were merged into one.
Windows 11 is a breath of fresh air.
I’ve never actually liked the design of Windows 10, or Windows 8 for that matter. I’m a Windows user because I love the functionality of Windows. I love that I can work all day and when I’m done, I can pick up where I left off playing on Forza Horizon 4 (soon Forza Horizon 5!), all on the same hardware. I’m not a huge gamer, but with inexpensive subscriptions like Xbox Game Pass, I can casually play from a wide array of games at my convenience.
Windows has the apps that I want. It allows me to do the things that I want. It comes in a wonderful and diverse range of form factors that fits the need of every use case that’s been found. Indeed, if there’s a thing that you can do on a computer, you can do it on Windows. That’s what I love about the OS, and it’s why I’ve continued to use it for the last decade despite not really caring for the design.
But now, I love the design. I feel good about Windows 11 when I use it. It’s softer on the senses. It looks better, it sounds better, and it even feels better. This is an exciting time for Windows. Sure, there are lots of great new features, such as Snap Assist, but ultimately, it’s just more pleasant to use.
Once you upgrade, and you totally should, you’ll likely feel it immediately. If you don’t, I’d challenge you to roll back your PC after a week. At that point, I guarantee you’ll feel how much more jarring it is to use Windows 10.
If you don’t meet the requirements to upgrade, then it’s a good time to buy a new PC. If you’re looking for assistance, we’ve made a list of every PC we could find that can be upgraded to Windows 11. It also includes some Windows 11-ready devices that you can buy now. Also, make sure you check out our roundup of best laptops, all of which can be upgraded to Microsoft’s new OS.
Want to learn more about Windows 11? We’ve got you covered. Check out our deep dive series about individual features.
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