Arriving after the success of Moonlighter and The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story, Cataclismo marks the studio’s first foray into strategy games. While much of the marketing and buzz surrounding the upcoming early access release (available on July 22) has focused on its LEGO-like building mechanics and the relentless onslaught of deformed monstrosities players have to survive night after night, it turns out more is happening under the surface.

After spending a few hours with the game, prioritizing its campaign over the skirmish offerings and the endless mode that everyone would’ve asked for had it not been there, I’ve been surprised by how much it owes to RTS classics once you look past its main blocky attraction, and I mean that as a compliment.

Without getting into spoilers at this stage, the world of Cataclismo feels like a mix of Against the Storm and Demon’s Souls, with an added touch of Attack on Titan and Dead Space for good measure. Before the current post-apocalyptic state of its fantasy world, a bunch of mysterious objects the humans called ‘Perlas’ descended from the heavens and everything seemed good. A bit later, however, the Mist showed up and engulfed all that mankind had built and turned anyone it caught into deformed monsters. Now, only the cities that are above the Mist – or can push back against it and the horrors it creates – stand tall.

You’d expect Cataclismo to play things relatively safe and focus on the basic resource management we’ve come to expect from similar indie games and on siege defenses that are literally built with LEGO, but it goes the extra mile to create its own voice and make a stronger impression. At least during its early levels, it manages to present the flurry of systems and interlinked mechanics with ease. That said, only a few of them come across as truly novel.

Cataclismo appears to be one of those indie games that excels at reusing and refreshing old parts that have never been put together before, or at least not exactly like this. When coupled with the striking art style and easy-to-understand flow of the levels, it starts to shine. You’ll be tinkering a lot with your base builds, defined by the planning done in a preparation and gathering phase, to survive past the early scenarios though. This is no walk in the park by any means. I personally went with the default Medium difficulty, but even in this early access build, Cataclismo invites players of all skill levels and experience with RTS games into its cursed world.

After a few tutorials about movement, combat, and exploration that won’t be news to anyone who’s been playing RTS in the past, things quickly shift to base defense and improving the location’s weakest spots as best as you can with the resources you have. On a basic level, you’re just picking up different blocks and putting them together to create sturdy walls, bridges, stairs, and even items that boost the performance of the warriors you’ll have to train as well as the main character, who’s a playable hero of sorts.

Resource-gathering is automatic, but much like the blocks used to build up defenses, gatherers can be optimized to collect more rocks and wood (among other things) and faster. This might not seem very important early on, but you’ll soon appreciate every new drop that comes into your main building. I was expecting Cataclismo to be more limited in its scope, yet the town management aspect eventually becomes as important as building the right walls and traps plus equipping them with defender units. As things get even more complicated, it’ll be interested to see whether the complete loop becomes a chore or things remain frenetic and interesting.

Watching the carnage unfold is equally satisfying regardless of the outcome, as entire structures can crumble if the foundations are trashed and the game never becomes visually cluttered, and while the enemies that attack the bases early on seem pretty basic, we do know things get more savage the further we move into the wilderness. Soon, the ability to save entire builds (and Steam Workshop support is there) with a couple of clicks for easy redeployment becomes as crucial to the experience as the protagonist’s in-universe save-scumming capabilities (yes, really).

Hooded Horse, a publisher who’s been making waves in recent times with titles such as Against the Storm and Manor Lords, could have another winner in its hands with Digital Sun’s latest, yet I’m remaining cautious, as much of Cataclismo’s appeal in the long run will depend on how much each map shakes things up and what new building blocks are added to my collection. For now, I’m going to go add another layer of rock cubes to my exterior walls.

Cataclismo is launching in early access on July 22 via GOG and Steam.

These Weird and Wonderful Devices All Run Doom

1. Pregnancy Test

Congratulations, it’s a Cacodemon! You might have to squint a little to play it, but hardware wizard Foone managed to play Doom ron a pregnancy test’s tiny black-and-white screen. They initially used it as a monitor, which is an accomplishment in itself, but took things one step further and got it running on the device itself.

2. Single Keyboard Key

Now out of production, the Optimus Maximus was a keyboard where every key was a small display screen. Modder Radio4Active got Doom running (at an admittedly low frame rate) on just one single key.

3. Supermarket Barcode Scanner

Bored to tears as your partner/relative/friend drags you around shopping? Simply grab one of the supermarket’s self-shop barcode scanners, install Doom and you’re away. Okay, it took modder tamay-idk more work than that but I’d still love to see shoppers reach for one of these to find Doom has been installed on every single one.

4. Medical Device

Why hack something to run Doom? For the challenge? The prestige? Just because it’s there? In the case of HTM Workshop, they wanted to show just how vulnerable some medical devices can be. I think they’ve proved their point.

5. Panasonic Welding Robot

I couldn’t hunt down the price for this Panasonic welding robot, but compared so similar models it’s worth five, maybe six figures. It’s probably going to murder us all, but in the meantime, Xenazorro squeezed Doom onto it. I’m assuming it was their own personal property, otherwise their supervisor is absolutely going to want a word.

6. McDonald’s Till

You may have seen the picture of Doom on a McDonald’s kiosk but, sadly, that turned out to be fake. Former McDonald’s manager Fleebs, however, had Doom running on a McDonald’s till which is the next best thing, especially if the lunchtime rush is eating away at your soul.

7. Espresso Machine

Need a boost to sharpen your reflexes? Rouge-agent007’s Doom-playing espresso machine could be just the thing. Decaf is not an option.

8. Kodak DC260 Digital Camera

Virtually every current mobile device can run Doom (and emulate half a dozen consoles) but back in 1998 it was a big deal. The idea of running Doom on one of that year’s Kodak DC260 digital camera seems ridiculous. But as VideoGameObsession shows, it can be done and what’s more it’s perfectly playable.

9. ATM

This hole in the wall machine is missing the wall, but it’s no less impressive that Aussie50 and team got this ATM playing Doom. While the video clearly shows them using a keyboard, the description states they eventually got it running using the side keys and pin pad alone.

10. Sex Toy

Dubbed “Dong DOOM” by modder MyTinyHappyplace, this is a creative use of an AliExpress sex toy. Why does this thing have an LCD screen? I’m not sure I want to know but they’ve succeeded in turning it into an altogether different kind of entertainment device.

11. Ticket Validator

Need your parking validated? This device, from Aussie modder Zbios, will punch, shoot and chainsaw your ticket. It helps that this device runs Windows CE though, slightly disappointingly, this was their own personal property. They didn’t just install Doom on a random street ticket machine and stroll off whistling nonchalantly

12. Thermostat

Ever got moaned at for playing with the thermostat? Cz7asm struck a blow for all of us with Doomstat, Doom running on a Honeywell Thermostat. It makes use of a SNES joypad and the “hot as Hell” jokes write themselves.

13. Treadmill

It’s cool that Kreeator3 got Doom running on a treadmill but what really makes this award worthy that they did this in their school’s gymnasium, while it was in use. “Sadly we got kicked out of the gym before I could figure out how to map the onboard buttons and get the belt to spin as you run in-game,” they explain.

14. John Deere Tractor

It’s not a good idea to get distracted when you’re operating heavy machinery but, like the hacked medical device there’s a point to this Doom device. John Deere has been accused of locking tractor owners out of their tractors’ internals, making it harder to repair them. It was only in 2023 that farmers won the right to repair their tractors. By putting Doom on this machine, modders Sickcodes and Skelegant were highlighting the possibility of jailbreaking John Deere’s tractors.

15. Ultrasound Scanner

I’d like to say that BwaveTV saw Doom running on a pregnancy test and had a hold my beer moment, but this was a full five years before that. Strafing doesn’t work on this ultrasound machine unfortunately, but everything else does and I can see it making for one hell of a gender reveal party.

These are the cream of the crop, as Macho Man Randy Savage would say. But if you’re curious as just what else can run Doom, check out the Will It Run Doom subreddit, which is where a handful of these awesome accomplishments came from.

It feels strange to start off an article where I’ll be complaining about a show with effusive praise, but it is important to acknowledge that Star Trek: Prodigy is an absolutely fantastic show. The series at this point could be in contention for the best non-comedic Star Trek show since Star Trek: Discovery relaunched the franchise on Paramount+. It takes everything that’s great about Trek and dilutes it down wonderfully while still developing a cadre of fantastic, diverse, and engaging characters into a crew. Of all the current running shows, it quite possibly “gets” Star Trek the most.

However, criticizing something that’s great does not mean it isn’t great; it just means we can see how it can be better. And Star Trek: Prodigy‘s second second season has a worrying flaw that was handled so much better in its first season: nostalgia.

Star Trek: Prodigy’s Nostalgia Is Nothing New

Using nostalgia to help draw in an audience is nothing new to Star Trek: Prodigy or Star Trek itself. The franchise has been using it in one way or another since The Next Generation brought Scotty back for a very special episode. One of Deep Space Nine‘s best and most beloved episodes was a time-traveling crossover with The Original Series‘s “The Trouble with Tribbles.” This is even more true for the current run of Paramount+ shows, which are all heavily connected in one way or another to the past TV series, whether that be directly with Picard basically being three seasons of fan service (for better or worse) or indirectly with the plethora of references and cameos in Lower Decks. The point is that nostalgia, crossover, and cameo are tools regularly used in Trek, and a lot of the time it’s to great affect.

Prodigy is no different. In fact, its first season was one of the best uses of nostalgia the franchise has ever had. In that season, the show pulled Captain Janeway in to the series to help establish and teach new viewers just what Star Trek was all about. By inserting a holographic Janeway into the series, the show not only connected with the past for fans but also grounded itself squarely in the universe without requiring a PhD in Star Trek lore to understand what was going on. Hologram Janeway, acting as the guiding teacher for not just the young crew of the Prodigy but for the audience as well, could be any Captain for newcomers but was also a wonderful return for fans of the series. Nostalgia here was used perfectly, without the mess of continuity or the requirement of previous knowledge.

The series could then focus on Prodigy’s crew of ragtag escapees as they crossed the universe, not only learning about Star Fleet, friendship, and the bigger universe but also evolving themselves. Of course, by the end of the first season, the show started to pull in the actual Captain Janeway and hints of the second season’s bigger issue with nostalgia began to crop up.

Nostalgia as a Barrier to Entry in Star Trek: Prodigy

With Star Trek: Prodigy‘s second season, the creators dive hard into nostalgia in a way that’s far different from its first. In this season, the crew of the Prodigy is interacting directly with Star Fleet as they are pulled into a time travel plotline that involves not just the actual Admiral Janeway but also Captain Chacotay, The Doctor, Wesley Crusher, Beverly Crusher, and Voyager itself. That is a lot of lore to know for a series meant to be an introduction to Star Trek. This is especially true for Wesley, who has a convoluted and complex history involving becoming what is basically a time god. These cameos are all clearly far more played toward already-established fans of the show.

And, to be fair, it’s played really, really well, outside of The Doctor being mostly useless. Again, I’m pointing out an issue for sure, but for fans of Star Trek, this is an incredible season of television that gives us even more fantastic Janeway, explored a new side of Chakotay, and finally gave Wesley’s story arc at least a little closure. His exit from TNG left so many questions open thanks to that series’ episodic nature that even his cameo in Picard wasn’t truly enough to put a cap on his tale. Prodigy finally gave him and Beverly some closure, but at the cost of this season turning into far more of a fan love letter than a season of Prodigy.

The biggest cost of this, outside of the possible alienation of newcomers, is to the new Prodigy characters. Dal, Gwyndala, Murf, Rok-Tahk, Jankom Pog, Zero, and newcomer Maj’el lost some of the attention of the series as it dove into nostalgic storylines. This feels like even more of a shame because these are some of the best-developed characters in all of Trek, with actual evolution and growth throughout these two fantastic seasons of television. Season 2 of the series offers some truly great arcs, including Zero’s growth into a corporeal being and Dal and Gwyn’s growing relationship, but that just highlights the issue even more. It feels like we could have gotten more of it all if the show wasn’t so tied into a storyline focused on expanding the universe and emphasizing the past.

The fault here is not one in show construction or plotting, but a worrisome trend by Star Trek to veer into its past instead of constructing for its future. The crew of the Prodigy didn’t need a full season devoted to unpacking past storylines and characters because it had already delivered a season that gave us wonderful new characters. It’s a hard point to argue because Season 2 is truly fantastic, but it hints at an unfortunate overall issue with Trek‘s reliance on the past that Prodigy was so good at avoiding in its first season.

The Future of Star Trek: Prodigy Is Ditching the Past

All is not lost, however, especially given fans praise of the show. The minds behind some of Star Trek seem to understand that nostalgia will only get you so far. While Picard‘s final season was basically just an updated episode of The Next Generation, Discovery learned quickly that being pulled into the continuity of the past wasn’t going to work and launched the entire crew into the future so they could chart their own course. Did it work? Not all the time, but it definitely made the show better.

Prodigy seems to understand this as well, if the conclusion of the second season is any indication. While we don’t know if we’ll actually get a third season as, Netflix has yet to greenlight one, the show concludes with the Prodigy’s crew getting a revamped version of the ship and being sent off to explore the universe while Star Fleet struggles with the fallout of the synthetic attack on Mars. Of course, that attack is yet again a bit of continuity from Picard but the message is that the characters, along with hologram Janeway, will be on their own journey.

This is the correct direction, even if the excuse to have a crew of kids on a starship is ludicrous, and if the show gets a third season and does indeed go into a series focused solely on this crew, much like Trek before the Paramount+ shows, the future of Star Trek: Prodigy, if there is one, looks bright.

Star Trek: Prodigy is available to watch now.

It didn’t take long to see what Square Enix wanted to do with the story, as the post-Endwalker quests quickly established that the Warrior of Light would continue exploring Eorzea and the continents beyond that, as hinted to by Emet-Selch back in Shadowbringers. FFXIV: Dawntrail is the first chapter of a brand new journey, and while it never quite comes close to the highs of Shadowbringers and Endwalker, it’s clear that there’s still plenty of adventure to be had in this world.

Speak With Wuk Lamat

FFXIV: Dawntrail takes place on an entirely new continent. In this expansion, we go west to visit the city of Tuliyollal and the regions that surround it. It’s a sunny, forested region that’s beautiful and vibrant everywhere you look.

Tuliyollal is bustling with activity; shops and market stalls line its winding streets, stone architecture envelops the city to give it a real sense of majesty, and it’s all tied together with a gorgeous view of the coastline.

The story itself centers around Wuk Lamat, who was introduced in the final post-Endwalker patch. As an old friend of Erenville, she’s come to Eorzea in search of a champion who can assist her in a rite of succession. She’s looking to compete with three other claimants for her father’s throne in Tuliyollal, in hopes of continuing to maintain peace in the land.

Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of Dawntrail is how the story is so centered on Wuk Lamat. Truly, the game’s success and whether it resonates with you will depend on how much you actually like her, and that can be a pretty tough sell, especially considering we really only had half a patch’s worth of content to get to know her before we’re running off to Tuliyollal. She’s the very embodiment of your typical anime protagonist: young and bright-eyed, a bit of a loudmouth and showboat, naive to the ways of the world, and clearly still has a lot to learn. This can make it difficult to latch on to her as a central character, particularly when you contrast her with the more dour tone of the prior two expansions.

It’s also important to recognize that while the Warrior of Light is basically a celebrity in Eorzea at this point, but she’s no one in Tuliyollal. I can see this being off-putting for some players, especially since a big part of FFXIV‘s appeal is how involved the player character is in the story, but I found it very refreshing. After a decade of being the central figure and having to save the world at every turn, it’s nice to finally be able to take the backseat and let someone else have the spotlight for once. Dawntrail is very much Wuk Lamat’s story, and you’re largely just here to support her.

Road to the Golden City

As part of the rite of succession, you’ll need to help Wuk Lamat collect several keystones. This involves visiting the various regions on the continent and completing feats to earn said keystones. After collecting all of them, the claimants are then tasked with finding the fabled Golden City.

Aside from Wuk Lamat, you’re also up against her siblings Koana, Bakool Ja Ja, and Zoraal Ja. While Koana is methodical and level-headed, the other two are much more aggressive and prone to starting conflicts with you. These two serve as the primary antagonists for much of Dawntrail, and I have to say that the lack of a proper central antagonist also hurts the game in the first half.

Bakool Ja Ja is your typical asshole villain who will lie and cheat at every turn to get in your way, though he does get some much-needed character development in the latter half. Zoraal Ja is more calculated, but his motivations are rather uninspired; he seeks to bring war to the land to teach his people the importance of peace. Neither claimant is particularly engaging or intriguing, which can make the first half of Dawntrail a drag.

The good news is that the game does pick up significantly once you reach the second half. Without diving too deep into spoiler territory, there are much more interesting revelations to be had here, including a fantastic redemption arc and even proper character development for Krile, who has been a criminally overlooked Scion for far too long. The bad news is that it just takes a little bit too long for Dawntrail to actually get there.

No More Training Wheels

For all of my complaints with Dawntrail‘s pacing, though, you’ll be glad to know that Square Enix hasn’t lost its touch when it comes to dungeon and encounter design. Final Fantasy XIV has truly come a long way from its ARR days, and with Dawntrail, the team has once again outdone themselves in terms of combat and boss fights.

The new dungeons feel fresh, innovative, and unlike anything else that came before it, and the trials are no slouch either. I was even caught off-guard by the very first trial in the expansion, which wasted no time in throwing some seriously tricky mechanics at the player.

Right off the bat, you’re hit with boss moves that don’t come with a cast bar tells after the first time they’re used, along with moving stack markers that you bounce between players with each cast. Being forced into proper coordination for the very first trial of the game was surprising but also very refreshing, as it’s clear that FFXIV is no longer interested in holding your hand. If you’re playing Dawntrail, the game assumes that you’ve already played through every other encounter prior to this, and you should be able to pick up on these mechanics within your first few tries. That level 93 trial felt very reminiscent of the early Stormblood Shinryu days, and that’s a good thing.

Snakes and Painters

Aside from all of the exciting new story content, I’d be remiss not to at least mention the two new DPS jobs that have been added to the game: Viper and Pictomancer.

Overall verdict? These jobs are kinda meh and don’t really add much to the game, in my opinion. Viper, in particular, is easily my least favorite melee DPS job in a long time, thanks to the game’s need to over-complicate its job actions and descriptions. And once you finally manage to wrap your head around all its different actions, buffs, and debuffs, you’ll quickly realize that Viper isn’t really all that complex at all and plays very similarly to the existing melee DPS jobs that we already have.

Viper is all about positionals and keeping your buffs up in a rotation. There’s nothing new here, and while I was initially excited about the prospect of swapping between single and dual blades, I was disappointed to see that it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

I’m a little more partial towards Pictomancer, though this is really just your typical caster job with a few bells and whistles thrown in. You’ll still be casting your usual spells like Aero, Fire, Ice, Thunder, etc, but the difference is that you’ve also got a few other job actions to weave in, and they’re pretty darn cute.

Painting the Pom and Wings or the Hammer will allow you to deal additional damage, while painting the Starry Sky will let you provide a group-wide buff to your party. All of this is tied together by an adorable job gauge that shows you what you have on your canvas at all times. I appreciated that you could prep all three paintings at any given point in time and hold the actual spells themselves so you could choose when to use them.

All in all, the jobs aren’t really anything special, but they’re serviceable. I would’ve much preferred getting a new tank or healer, and I suspect I’m not alone in that, but look, I’ll take what I can get.

What’s Next?

By the time you reach the end of the Dawntrail MSQs, it’s clear that there’s still plenty of life left in our Warrior of Light yet. The endgame loop remains the same: do your dailies and weeklies for gear and Tomestones, wait for the next major patch to drop for the story to continue.

Big picture thoughts: Dawntrail kinda feels like the filler arc as we gear up for bigger and better adventures. It’s rare to get to enjoy a moment of peace, where things don’t feel so doom and gloom all the damn time, and that’s exactly what FFXIV needed after a decade of facing world-ending threats. It won’t land for everyone and that’s okay; there’s always next time.

Verdict: Recommended

Final Fantasy XIV is available to play now.

I knew about this campaign since it was announced but I forgot that it existed until when it was happening. For one day only on July 9th, if you ordered from the McDonald’s app, you could snag some Jujutsu Kaisen themed Special Grade Garlic Sauce. Why it is garlic-themed? No idea, but when I realized that today was the day it went live, I thought “Why not?” I had vivid memories of the Szechuan Sauce fiasco and I expected a similar rush to grab this sauce, so I expected nothing to be available at my store.

So to my surprise, they had plenty. My girlfriend and I went onto the app, saw it was available at our store, put in an order, and then grabbed it. I know that may sound banal, but after dealing with the hellscape that was collecting Amiibo, I was prepared for the worst. But no, we ordered a burger, fries, some nuggets, got our sauces, and then drove back to our home.

After we sat down (and after my girlfriend tricked me into thinking that my burger already had two bites taken out of it because I’m gullible as hell), I was ready to try it. After separating the Gojo-themed label, which I got a laugh out of, I was surprised at how dark the sauce looked. It didn’t look like a garlic sauce but more like a BBQ sauce. It was about as thick as a BBQ sauce too, but that may just be the consistency of all McDonald’s sauces. I could easily see the black pepper chunks in it and it smelled like pepper more than anything else, but it was the taste that mattered to me.

My goal was to try the sauce with each of the three main McDonald’s staples and see how they stacked up. After taking a single bite of a nugget drenched in this sauce, the first thing that hit me was pure garlic. It overpowered everything about the nugget to the point where it didn’t even taste like one of their nuggets. McDonald’s nuggets have a specific taste I could only taste oozing garlic. As for the pepper that I smelled, I weirdly didn’t taste any pepper. I guess there was a light tang at the end of each bite when I let it sit for a while, but it was less peppery and just tasted like more garlic.

The same situation happened with the fries. The saltiness of the fries helped to weaken the garlic, but the garlic had complete and total control over each bite. And look, I like garlic a lot, so I wasn’t too upset by how potent the garlic was here, but those who are only mild fans of it may be immediately turned off by it. What was universally a bad idea was putting the sauce on the burger. I don’t know if anyone normally puts McDonald’s dipping sauces on their burgers, but after securing a part of the burger that my girlfriend didn’t bite, I spread some sauce on, took a bite, and instantly regretted my decision.

I know that there are people who will mix mayo with ketchup, but the garlic sauce didn’t blend at all with any of the ketchup, onions, or pickles that were on it. It was like mixing oil and vinegar and the ketchup and garlic fought in my mouth but never came together. It just left a bad aftertaste, but considering I’m probably the one person in the world who thought to put Jujutsu Kaisen Special Grade Garlic Sauce on a burger, I don’t think anyone else will make the same mistake.

Look, I can’t say that I approve of the method McDonald’s took to make this marketing stunt work but at the end of the day, I didn’t care about any of that. I just wanted to know if the McDonald’s Jujutsu Kaisen Special Grade Garlic Sauce tasted good. For what it’s worth, it was pretty alright. If it was available on their menu normally, I’d probably order it, though it wouldn’t replace my beloved sweet and sour sauce. My curiosity was satisfied, and now I can sit back and watch people try to flip these sauces on eBay for ludicrous sums of money. Because of course people are already doing that.

Kim’s Multimillion-Dollar Gaming App, Kim Kardashian Hollywood

Kim Kardashian and her team went straight to business and launched Kim Kardashian: Hollywood in 2014. The game went extinct this year, but the Kardashians have been more involved in gaming than you might think. 

After nine running seasons of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Kim had already gotten deals and partnerships with shoe brands, TV studios, and so much more. Kim’s PR team, along with her mother Kris Jenner, were in touch with Glu Mobile (the publisher of games like Frontline Commando and Deer Hunter) to create Kim’s character-customization gaming app, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood.

The initial premise of the game was to create a character that players used to climb their way to fame and success and earn their “A-celebrity status.” Although predominantly popular among young girls, the game also had the option to create both female and male characters. Players could choose to style them with different hair, shoes, and clothes. 

The game had different levels to get you A-celebrity status, and challenges ranged from having to shop for outfits, attend parties, meet celebrities, do photoshoots, and even deal with the paparazzi. The game gave players rewards like K-fans and K-stars for establishing as many celebrity connections as possible, however crazy this may sound. Kim’s avatar was the one that guided players through different levels by offering little pieces of advice.

According to TMZ, the game generated $85 million for Kim during its first year. But how? External sponsorship and the game’s microtransactions were key elements. In Kardashian style, the game couldn’t go on without selling something. So players could purchase cash and items from the “star shop” to earn K-stars (the game’s other form of currency). However, if players wanted to, they could opt for the free-to-play version instead.

Despite the PR-obsessed nature and controversial takes, in 2019 the game was ranked 82 as one of the best 100 games of the decade by Polygon. The game went on for 10 years total and was finally shut down by April 2024.

Kanye West’s Attempt at a Spiritual Game: Only One

Although not officially a Kardashian, Kim’s ex-husband, Kanye West, tried to leave his mark in the gaming industry. After being a gamer himself and stating his appreciation for music in video games from a young age, Kanye has yet to release an official game.

His closest attempt came when he got in touch with Nintendo executives in 2015. Kanye’s inspiration for a game idea came from his late mother, Donda, who passed in 2007. His idea was revealed at E3 2016, where they showed a trailer for the game idea called Only One.

The trailer showed a group of angels (including Donda) ascending into heaven, either by themselves or a Pegasus-like horse. Kanye and his team also produced the ethereal soundtrack that was meant to be in the game. The idea for the game didn’t reveal much of a plot, but it certainly left fans wanting more. After beginning development with Encyclopedia Pictura, the project was discontinued. 

Kim’s UPS and Downs With Roblox

In 2021, Kim opened up about the nuances of parenting and brought up having to learn how to play Roblox with her kids. Later in 2022, an episode of The Kardashians showed an awkward moment; Kim’s son, Saint West, was playing on his iPad, and an ad for another game came up showing Kim’s face and claiming to release another “sex tape” as clickbait. 

The incident quickly escalated, and Kim subsequently threatened to sue Roblox for the inappropriate advertisement. Roblox representatives took responsibility and diffused the situation by banning the specific game developer who made the racy claim in their ad.

According to Polygon, a Roblox spokesperson publicly replied,

…we have strict moderation and policies to protect our community, including zero tolerance for sexual content of any kind which violates our Community Rules. The text reference to the tape that got around our filters was quickly taken down and fortunately visible only to an extremely small number of people on the platform.”

Roblox spokesperson.

Despite the incident, Kim’s family didn’t seem to have an issue with Roblox and kept playing. In 2023, Kim even shared on her social media that her son, Saint, had asked the tooth fairy for Robux (Roblox money) instead of real money. With that said, we’ll just have to wait and see what games this family comes up with in the future.

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is no longer available for Android or iOS as of April 2024.

ZZZ is a feastful affair full of pop, color, and awe—a free-to-play mobile game with a buffet platter of complexity for you to chew on that puts most other mobile games on the market to shame. And as I slid my way through the game’s first chapter, I increasingly kept thinking, “Wow, I’d happily pay tens of dollars for this, actually.” Unfortunately, at the same time, it also became abundantly clear to me that if I wanted to play the game the way it seemingly is meant to be enjoyed, then I’d have to play developer MiHoYo’s game of slots—a dangerous, money-siphoning game that rarely ends with little more than a brain full of frustration and an empty pocket.

Don’t get me wrong, the money-grubbing aspect doesn’t put me off. Zenless Zone Zero is free-to-play, after all, and it’s not really doing anything different than other gacha games. In fact, it’s downright standard. But it feels as if ZZZ’s gacha mechanics rub against the game’s finely-tuned, character-driven gameplay with a friction that can spark a dumpster fire. Simply put, the game’s too well made for its primary feature (team building and monster smacking) to be driven by random-chance collection, which essentially amounts to a dull time at the casino.

Now, I’m no stranger to gacha games. I wouldn’t say I’m the most ardent player, but I’ve dedicated years of my dumb little life to dumb little mobile games like Fire Emblem Heroes, Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia, and Pokemon Masters EX. None of their gacha mechanics disappoint me the way ZZZ’s does. And that’s largely because most other gacha games I’ve played have shallow, bite-sized gameplay that mostly serves as a playground to place all your collectible characters and admire their cutesy glory. They’re one-or-two button-tapping near-auto-battlers that you can futz around with for a few minutes before getting on with your life. You can happily pull new characters endlessly because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you get. They’re all ultimately the same anyway, and you’re just trying to amass a collection.

In contrast, ZZZ’s sharp gameplay, which feels closer to a tag-team fighter, is far from brainless button tapping. Characters all have their own unique fighting style, all hitting with satisfying impact; they all synergize with one another differently; they’re each attributed with elemental aspects that may be better or less suited for particular enemies. The game begs for you to build well-synergized teams while rotating out characters to adapt to fluctuating situations. But that’s hampered when you have little to no control over the characters you unlock and your ability to level them up is limited by various stylings of far-too-many premium currencies with hard-to-conceive names.

And that’s nothing to say of its impact on the narrative. ZZZ’s meaty combat is intercut by flashy, comic book-styled visual novel segments (fun!). However, the fact that it’s a never-ending gacha game means that the full narrative will likely never come to a satisfying conclusion, and most characters will inevitably have little story relevance. As such, you probably won’t really get to know most characters in a meaningful way (not fun!). For a character-driven game, that’s a huge flaw.

The most frustrating part is that the fixes for many of Zenless Zone Zero’s problems would be clear as day if it were an average premium experience. You need only to make all characters unlockable through the story and/or through optional side quests, slap a traditional leveling system in there, and call it a day. When fleshed out, you’d have a fun, addictive game that fully comes together as a cohesive whole, with lovable characters every fan could get to know and want to die for. There doesn’t have to be much more to it than that.

I keep thinking back to Fire Emblem: Awakening, a game that featured nearly 50 unlockable characters throughout its main story and side content. And most of its characters, including the optional ones, are all memorable and quite lovable, helped along by the game’s support mechanic, which saw characters get closer to each other and progress in unique dialogue the more they’re paired together. If Zenless Zone Zero were to adopt such a system, it would surely be something special.

Perhaps I’m just being nostalgic for the days before rampant microtransactions when video games had a plethora of unlockable content. But I don’t think so. Character-driven games need you to be able to access and interact with their characters, especially when the primary gameplay revolves around team building.

 Unfortunately, I don’t think MiHoYo will ever stray from the HoYoverse gacha games they’ve become known for. Not implementing a gacha mechanic into their games would probably feel like money left lying on the table. And for Zenless Zone Zero, it’s too late. The game’s already out, and it is what it is. But who knows — maybe one day we’ll get a proper, premium HoYoverse game that I can feel good about slamming some money down for. One can only hope.

Zenless Zone Zero is available now.

It’s no secret that Game of Thrones and its prequel House of the Dragon draw inspiration from real-life history, particularly the Middle Ages. Yet one of the shows’ biggest nods to true events – dragons as a metaphor for Weapons of Mass Destruction – is decidedly more contemporary.

Related: All Dragons & Their Riders in House of the Dragon

George R.R. Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series on which Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are based, highlighted the dragons/WMD subtext in a 2011 Vulture interview. “Dragons are the nuclear deterrent… But is that sufficient?” he said. “These are the kind of issues I’m trying to explore. The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn’t mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals. Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build.”

It’s fascinating stuff, however, we’ve never seen it fully realized on the small screen – until now. Indeed, with its last four episodes, House of the Dragon has finally delivered on Martin’s WMD metaphor in ways that Game of Thrones Seasons 1-8 didn’t.

How Game of Thrones’ Approached the Dragons/WMD Metaphor

In fairness to Game of Thrones, its ability to engage with Martin’s WMD metaphor was limited by its scarcity of dragons. In keeping with the A Song of Ice and Fire canon, the show’s eight-season run featured just three of the winged beasties, all (almost) exclusively under Daenerys Targaryen’s command. As such, there’s not much scope to get into the “nuclear arms” race of it all. Even so, there’s at least some commentary in Game of Thrones about the power imbalance created when only one side in a conflict has warhead-level weapons. Daenerys using her dragons to flatten King’s Landing in Season 8 touches on Martin’s “creation versus destruction” point, too.

Related: House of the Dragon: Mysaria’s Neck Scar, Explained

So, if nothing else, Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss leave us in no doubt that, whether it’s firebreathers or nukes, might doesn’t make right. But the deterrent aspect of Martin’s metaphor is almost completely absent. We never truly get the sense that Daenerys will rule unopposed thanks to her dragons, because we barely see her ruling. Sure, she’s technically the boss of Slaver’s Bay in Seasons 4 to 6. Yet she’s constantly challenged by the uncowed locals. As Martin rightly observed, so much of nuclear weapons’ effectiveness comes from the fear they evoke; Daenerys’ dragons don’t quite have the same effect.

House of the Dragon Season 1 Built on Game of Thrones’ Dragon/WMD Metaphor

Fortunately, House of the Dragon Season 1 edges the franchise closer to what Martin had in mind. From the jump, we appreciate that dragons have devastating, history-altering potential, even though we never see it firsthand. In Episode 1, King Viserys I Targaryen provides a handy recap of Westeros’ backstory: the dragons are what allowed his house to conquer Westeros and maintain its hold over the realm. After all, nobody wants to go toe-to-toe with a dragon and its rider.

Related: Is Daemon Targaryen Really Responsible for the Blood and Cheese Scene?

Throughout the rest of Season 1, this “dragons as a nuclear deterrent” is baked into the subtext. Viserys even has an Oppenheimer-esque moment of reflection, questioning the Targaryen dynasty’s decision to unleash dragons on the world. At the same time, he can’t exactly give them up. Otherwise, what’s to stop the other Great Houses from mounting a rebellion? So, the WMD metaphor is definitely there – but even so, you could conceivably miss it.

House of the Dragon Season 2 Runs Back the Cold War

That’s not the case in House of the Dragon Season 2, though. Unless you know nothing about world history post-1945, you’re not missing the dragon/WMD overlap here. Indeed, Episodes 1-3 play out as Westeros’ answer to the Cold War. There’s a tangible sense that the likes of Rhaenyra and Rhaenys Targaryen and Otto and Alicent Hightower know all too well that letting their dragons loose (like launching warheads) is a point of no return. Heck, Rhaenyra says as much in Episode 3.

It’s why House of the Dragon Season 2 starts slowly with saber rattling and proxy conflicts, not full-scale war. The realm’s cooler heads appreciate that dragon-on-dragon combat could result in the same mutually assured destruction that kept the US and Soviets in check back in the day. If the nukes-on-wings run riot, chances are there’ll be hardly anything left (and nobody left to rule it).

Related: Who Is Daeron Targaryen in House of the Dragon?

That’s also why, when the Green and Black Targaryen camps at long last “fire” their living arsenals in House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 4, it’s suitably apocalyptic. Daenerys torching King’s Landing was one thing, a multi-dragon aerial slugfest is another entirely. Soldiers crumble to ash. The earth is scorched black. True, there’s no radiation, but the visuals are clearly meant to evoke what happens when you split the atom. What’s more, it’s evident there’s no going back. The fiery holocaust we’ve dodged in our world (for now) is coming to Westeros.

And that’s arguably showrunner Ryan Condal and his team’s biggest achievement with House of the Dragon Season 2’s first four episodes: dragon fighting is now more than just about spectacle. they’re a fully realized WMD metaphor. Yes, seeing these overgrown lizards mix it up is awesome. However, it’s forever tainted by our knowledge that each fight will bring the Targaryens (and Westeros itself) closer to annihilation. In effect, it blows up House of the Dragon‘s blockbuster appeal – but then, what do you expect from a WMD metaphor?

House of the Dragon Season 2 is currently airing on HBO and Max, with new episodes dropping Sundays.

With Zenless Zone Zero, however, it looks like HoYoverse has finally found a way to capture the attention of that smaller subset of players. Unlike its predecessors, ZZZ doesn’t feature any sort of open world. Instead, the game is broken down into smaller, bite-sized zones with activities to do and NPCs to talk to.

The main hub — Sixth Street — is small and cozy, and getting a coffee or a bowl of noodles for your daily buffs is only a few seconds away from the protagonists’ videotape store. It doesn’t take too long before you’ve become completely familiar with everything Sixth Street has to offer. And, in fact, I’d argue that the coziness it evokes also helps to bring about a sense of familiarity and connection to Zenless Zone Zero‘s world — a feeling I was never quite able to experience in Genshin Impact or Star Rail just because of how vast those games are.

Zenless Zone Zero is also structured like a more conventional gacha game. You’ve got a list of missions to choose from, and each one comes with star ratings that will yield more rewards if you’re able to nab them. The much-maligned TV mode also helps to break things up, as its structure makes for very clear starting and stopping points, allowing you to quickly jump in and out of a stage without feeling like there’s so much more to see and do after finishing a mission.

This is especially crucial for players who generally enjoy being more casual with their mobile games, as there isn’t any pressure to continue playing for hours on end when everything has been broken up into neat little chapters for you.

This isn’t to say that ZZZ isn’t a game you can binge, either. If I’m making this game sound simple and far too easy, rest assured that there are way harder challenges waiting for you as you make your way to the endgame portion. Reckless Challenges and Hard Mode missions help elevate the game and bring the combat to the next level. While you could largely get through the early stages just by spamming buttons, Zenless Zone Zero offers much more challenging game modes later on for players who really want to learn the intricacies of the combat system and get good at it.

There’s plenty to grind for in the endgame too, with weekly boss runs to do, as well as the classic HoYoverse resin mechanic (it’s called Battery Charge in this one), time-gating you slightly so you can’t just power level all your characters in one sitting.

With Zenless Zone Zero, it’s clear that HoYoverse wanted to focus on creating an immersive environment with top-notch character designs rather than creating yet another massive open world for players to explore. While it’s obviously been scaled down quite a bit, it’s safe to say that I’ve never felt more connected with a pair of HoYoverse protagonists than I have with Belle and Wise. Their casual sibling bickering and rivalry are endearing, and it’s heartening to see that each character has so much time to shine in the story.

The vibes of ZZZ are immaculate as well, with the soundtrack being one of the main highlights here. Everything about New Eridu, from the coffee-making robot to the retro videotape store, just screams style, resulting in one of the most well-realized worlds HoYoverse has ever created.

Not everything needs to be a huge open world that takes hundreds upon hundreds of hours to explore. Sometimes there’s satisfaction to be had in just being static, chilling with a cup of coffee as you bask in the comfort of familiarity, and that’s what Zenless Zone Zero does.

Zenless Zone Zero is available now.

What Are the Best A24 Horror Movies?

Horror is an entirely subjective genre, filled with plenty of different niches and methods to scare audiences. But when put through the lens of A24’s auteur-focused lens of production, they seemingly elevate each genre into something more. A24 has made a lot of horror movies in the past decade, and while some of them have been less than amazing, plenty are worth your time.

This past weekend, A24 released MaXXXine, the conclusion to Ti West’s X trilogy, which has found commercial and critical success since its release in 2022. With people eager to see the conclusion of this horror series, some people may be itching to see more horror movies like MaXXXine after they see the credits roll. Consider taking a look at these five other excellent horror movies made by A24. While I can’t guarantee they’ll scare you, I can guarantee that you won’t forget them.

1) Hereditary (2018)

Considered by many to be one of the scariest movies of the past decade, Hereditary is an unnerving look at a family that is slowly falling apart. To say any more would spoil the numerous twists and revelations in the film, but Ari Aster’s debut horror feature shows an eye for cinematography that most other directors lack. He would go on to make Midsommar, another excellent A24 horror movie, but Hereditary manages to leave a long-lasting impression, mostly thanks to Toni Collette’s amazing performance. It’s a slow-burn horror movie, not dissimilar from something like Rosemary’s Baby, and thanks to the myriad of shots that will leave you disturbed, it’s going to be one that the viewer won’t forget anytime soon.

2) I Saw The TV Glow (2024)

It may be a bit presumptuous putting a movie like I Saw The TV Glow on this list so soon after its release, but the technicolor nightmare that it brings is hard to ignore. The film follows Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine as socially awkward teenagers who bond over a supernatural show called The Pink Opaque. At first, what seems like a 90s-inspired coming-of-age story slowly descends into an amalgamation of Buffy, Twin Peak, and a whole host of mid-90s Nickelodeon shows. That may seem like a weird combination, but the show’s unnerving blend of surrealism and horror creates an experience that, by the end, will leave you questioning everything you saw and saddened by the conclusion. This is a depressing movie that will leave you nostalgic for an era of popular culture that we’ll never get back, yet hollow thanks to the fate of its cast.

3) The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (2017)

If you saw Poor Things last year and thought that the director, Yorgos Lathimos, was weird, then The Killing Of A Sacred Deer is just for you. It’s the story of a doctor, played by Colin Farrell, as he becomes more and more familiar with a young man played by Barry Keoghan. Like most of Yorgos’s films, it’s an odd watch at first, but you can’t deny the terror that begins to overtake everything as the movie begins to pick up speed. It’s a movie that will leave you asking a lot of questions, but the ideas it has about evil and the nature of the devil are wonderfully handled, mostly thanks to a breakout performance by Barry Keoghan. More than any other movie on this list, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is not for everyone, but for those who can vibe with its weirdness, you’ll find a lot to admire.

4) The Lighthouse (2019)

Much like Ari Aster, Robert Eggers is a director who got his start making horror movies with A24 and has found critical success ever since. However, while Aster has more modern sensibilities surrounding horror, Eggers uses a lot of classical imagery and mythology to make his horror movies pop. Take The Lighthouse for example. The film follows Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe as two lighthouse keepers who can hardly stand each other, forced to live with one another on a stormy island for an unknown amount of time. Between the abuse that Dafoe puts on Pattinson and the tight cinematography, sometimes literally, it makes a film that makes you feel almost as deranged as the two men themselves. Add in some truly bizarre moments and an ending that will sear itself into your brain, and you too will be spilling your beans and regretting ever criticizing Dafoe’s lobster.

5) X (2022)

It stands to reason that if this list is in celebration of MaXXXine’s release, we should probably talk about X and its homage to 70s low-budget horror movies. Taking influence from exploitation films of the era and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the film follows a group of adult filmmakers as they rent out a barn on the property of ultra-religious geriatrics as they try to secretly make their movie without alerting their hosts of what they’re doing. What follows is a gory look at religious fundamentalism, the allure of fame and regret, all propelled by the performances of Mia Goth, who does double duty as both the film’s protagonist and antagonist. Mia Goth owns this movie and elevates what should normally be a middle-of-the-road slasher into something special. It’s funny how Mia Goth’s characters want to be a star and this is the film that put this scream queen on the map and into the hearts of so many horror fans. If you watch X, you’re coming for the slasher bits, but you’re staying for Mia Goth.

Related: All Major Actors & Cast List for Wicked

No, not the colorful costumes. Or even the stylized visuals and overall sense of hyper-reality. Yes, song-and-dance features and cape-and-tights adventures are founded on both, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. Instead, I’m hung up on how Hollywood markets musicals today, and how closely it mirrors the industry’s approach to superhero movies more than two decades ago.

In both cases, the tactic is the same: don’t tell the audience what you’re selling them. That way, they might actually turn up for a brand of entertainment they typically can’t stand. It’s deeply dishonest – and wildly effective. So, really, is it any surprise that musicals have become the superhero movies of the late ’90s and early 2000s?

The Secret to a Good Musical Trailer: No Singing

In the last 18 months alone, we’ve seen several high-profile examples of 2000s-era superhero movie marketing applied to musicals. 2023 Timothée Chalamet vehicle Wonka didn’t outright obscure its true nature, however, the Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory prequel’s trailers didn’t foreground them either. Indeed, plenty of moviegoers didn’t realize they were buying tickets to a musical until Chalamet belted out his first tune (at least if the audible groans at my screening are any guide).

Meanwhile, the promotional campaign for Mean Girls took things to a new level. Nothing about the 2024 stage show adaptation’s marketing suggested that it was, in fact, based on a musical. Heck, the trailers didn’t feature a single song! The only clue Paramount Pictures supplied viewers was a small musical note in Mean Girls‘ logo – an easily missed detail. Paramount was clearly confident the Mean Girls IP could get folks through the door. But the musical bit? Not so much.

And then there’s Wicked: Part One. Here, Universal has adopted a middle-of-the-road stance. It’s virtually impossible to hide what Wicked is; the stage show is one of the longest-running (and most lucrative) in Broadway history. What’s more, Wicked‘s soundtrack is its major selling point. So, leaving songs out of Part One‘s trailer was obviously a non-starter. Yet the studio hasn’t completely given up on luring in the uninitiated. That’s almost certainly why the Wicked: Part One trailer doesn’t include any clear shots of its cast actually, y’know, singing.

Related: Wicked Already Changed Disney’s Fairy Tale Princesses, so Do We Need a Film?

Don’t Say ‘Superhero,’ Say ‘Sci-Fi’ or ‘Horror’

It’s all a bit sneaky – and very familiar to those of us who grew up before the current superhero movie boom. In the late 90s, ‘superhero’ was a dirty word in Tinseltown. The Superman and Batman franchises had both crashed and burned, along with the likes of The Rocketeer, The Shadow, The Phantom, and Spawn. The knock-on effect was that if you wanted to get a superhero film off the ground, you had to repackage it as something else.

So, 1998’s Blade became a hybrid horror flick, 2000’s X-Men leaned more into its sci-fi elements, and so on. Even so, these movies (and others like them) were still recognizably superhero-oriented. M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable made room for entire monologues on comic book history, for crying out loud! Yet the advertising of these late ’90s/early ’00s superhero movies – not to mention that of 2002’s Blade II and 2003’s X2: X-Men United – was decidedly less honest.

On the contrary, if you were a horror, sci-fi, or thriller fan who fronted up for Blade, X-Men, or Unbreakable, you straight-up didn’t get what you paid for. You may have enjoyed these films, however, with the possible exception of Blade, they only vaguely aligned with the story you were promised. In Unbreakable‘s case, there’s a decent chance this disconnect even led to lukewarm reviews and lower-than-expected box office (a theory backed by no less than Quentin Tarantino!).

Indeed, it wasn’t until 2002’s Spider-Man – with its unmistakably spandex-clad protagonist – that superhero movie marketing started playing fair.

Related: How Many X-Men Movies Are There?

Eventually, Hollywood Will Be Honest About Its Musicals

Fittingly, the Spider-Man seachange also hints there’s hope yet for musicals’ marketing. After all, the underlying reason for superhero movies embracing their source material more fully – on screen and in adverts – was a gradual shift in audience taste. As more and more people became comfortable with superhero-inspired fare (ironically, thanks to the dubious tactic I’ve railed against all article), studios worried less and less about disguising it. They didn’t need to anymore; moviegoers were finally in the market for what they were selling.

The same could happen with musicals. Wonka raked in over $600 million worldwide, and if Mean Girls faltered by comparison, it still more than doubled its budget. Plus, industry pundits are already pegging Wicked: Part One as one of 2024’s safe bets. Willingly or otherwise, it seems people are gradually vibing with big screen musicals – just like they did with superhero movies in the early 2000s. Perhaps someday soon, Hollywood will finally feel safe marketing their musicals as musicals. Now, wouldn’t that be super?

Wicked: Part One arrives in theaters on Nov. 27, 2024.

Once Upon A Time In Anime

Megaton Musashi W: Wired has a slow start, with a heavy focus on story beats, character interactions, and exploring the world around you. It feels a lot like a visual novel in between battles, and while I don’t mean that as a derogatory thing, I do know that won’t be for everyone. The good news is that, while the characters and story beats can feel a bit tropey for anyone who’s watched an anime before, which we’re assuming is everyone who’s reading this, it’s still very enjoyable.

Plus, when you do get to the action, it feels amazing. Your mech can float around with ease, and use a mix of melee and ranged weapons that you can switch between on the fly during battles. Along with that, you’ve got awesome special moves that make you feel like an anime protagonist, which you are; don’t let anyone tell you any different.

A Sturdy Base

Battles become substantially more varied as you get further into the game, but the gameplay itself isn’t the deepest thing going. Actually, nothing here is exactly revolutionary, but it is all incredibly good fun. Whether you’re racing around town trying to chat with your friends, finding out what strange part of the story is coming next, or you’re just repeating some of the big combat missions, you’ll have a good time.

There’s a lot of stuff to unlock as well, and while it can feel a bit overwhelming when you’re customising your mecha and looking at stats that easily hit near the 100,000 mark, you’ll be smitten with it all. Plus, if you really enjoy it, there are even some online bits to engage in if you fancy trying to prove yourself as the best mech pilot out there, and plenty of genuinely tough end-game battles to trudge through as well.

All-in-all, Megaton Musashi W: Wired is just a lot of fun, and while it’s not going to change the world, it will help you forget about it all while you’re playing it, and that’s got to be worth something.

Megaton Musashi W: Wired is available now.