Pat Patterson, one of professional wrestling’s most successful and well-known personalities for five decades, has passed away at the age of 79.
Born Pierre Clermont in Montreal, Quebec, Patterson began his career in 1958 in his native country before moving on to the San Francisco promotion, Big Time Wrestling. Despite not speaking English, Patterson became an important staple in the Bay Area for nearly two decades, winning the regional tag team championship an unprecedented 11 times with seven different partners–including with the likes of Peter Maiva and Rocky Johnson–and twice capturing the legendary Cow Palace Battle Royal in 1975 and 1981.
Eventually going into a behind-the-scenes personality and producer, Patterson helped create one of WWE’s most iconic events, the Royal Rumble, as well as helped book Hulk Hogan vs Ultimate Warrior at Wrestlemania VI.
Patterson returned to the ring during WWE’s Attitude Era along with Gerald Brisco as one of Mr. McMahon’s “Stooge” characters. At one point, Patterson even pinned Crash Holly to win the Hardcore Title, making him one of two people to have won the 24/7 Champion as well as the Hardcore Championship–the other being his fellow Stooge, Gerald Brisco.
Behind-the-scenes, it was known in certain circles that Patterson was gay, but finally publically came out in an episode of WWE Legends House in 2014, becoming one of the first out gay wrestlers in the company.
Patterson was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1996 by fellow Canadian, and WWE Champion, Bret Hart and leaves behind a one of a kind legacy in professional wrestling.
Daybreak Games–the developer of H1Z1, Planetside 2, and EverQuest–separated from parent company Sony a few years ago after having operated as Sony Online Entertainment. However, its days of independence were short-lived. The studio has now been acquired by Enad Global 7 for $300 million.
Announced by Enad Global 7 (EG7) on December 1, the deal sees the company acquiring 100% of Daybreak’s shares.
“On behalf of the Daybreak team, we are elated to be joining the EG7 family,” said Daybreak executive chairman Jason Epstein. “The combined companies are strategically positioned to expand Daybreak’s unique and iconic portfolio of live games and will help amplify our passion for making great games for our communities.”
Daybreak has struggled in recent years, undergoing numerous layoffs. H1Z1 has had difficulty competing with the likes of Fortnite and Apex Legends, and it went free-to-play a few years ago before eventually changing its name to Z1 Battle Royale.
Prior to the launch of H1Z1 and Planetside, Daybreak was best known for the EverQuest series. Despite eventually being eclipsed by more-popular MMO games such as World of Warcraft, it’s still in active development. The latest expansion for EverQuest, Claws of Veeshan, is set to release in less than a week. EverQuest 2, meanwhile, gets its next expansion, Reign of Shadows, on December 15.
Of course, Daybreak’s greatest claim to fame is being the former home of internet meme Brent Rambo. The thumbs-up-giving technology whiz recreated his signature gesture as an adult several years ago while working for the studio.
While it’s been more than eight years since Drake first mentioned that he had his eye on the leading role in a (thus far non-existent) Obama biopic, the former president has now given the hypothetical casting his seal of approval.
In an interview with Complex News, Obama was reminded of the comments Drake made almost a decade ago, and asked if he would give Drake a thumbs up for the role. “I will say this, Drake seems to be able to do anything he wants,” Obama commented. “That is a talented brother.”
While the former president dodged confirming his own approval of Drake for the role, he did mention that the Canadian artist has a more important qualification. “You know what, Drake has–more importantly, I think–my household’s stamp of approval,” he explained. “I suspect Malia and Sasha would be just fine with it.”
The interview was part of Obama’s press tour for A Promised Land, the first volume of his presidential memoirs. While there’s not currently an Obama biopic in the works that we know of, the release of his memoirs only makes a potential biopic more likely. The Obamas are currently signed on a multi-year deal with streaming service Netflix, which was responsible for Oscar-winning documentary American Factory–and a sketch comedy about Trump.
Whether Obama’s seal of approval will help Drake land his dream role is yet to be seen, however. While Drake started his career in the entertainment industry as an actor on Degrassi: The Next Generation, he is now far more well-known for his music.
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Nostalgia is a funny thing. When the first episode of Telltale Games’ Sam & Max Save the World debuted in 2006, fans of 1993’s Sam & Max Hit the Road had waited years for the dog and bunny’s return. Now, Save the World is old enough to have built up its own nostalgic fanbase, keen to once again revisit these lovable weirdos. Sam & Max Save the World Remastered isn’t a new game, but the huge visual and mechanical improvements implemented by developer Skunkape Games (a team made up of ex-Telltale folks) make it a pleasure to revisit.
For the uninitiated, Sam & Max Save the World Remastered is about two freelance police agents: Sam, a loquacious, wry dog who acts as de facto leader of the duo, and Max, his psychotic rabbit pal. Across the six episodes included in this remaster, the pair gets caught up in a mass-hypnosis scheme, thwarting various enemies on their way to finally facing the season’s big bad during the finale. While Telltale would eventually become known for its choice-focused narrative experiences like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, Sam & Max Save the World is a far more traditional point-and-click adventure game–you talk to people, gather items, and then use those items in clever ways to progress through the story.
Sam & Max Save the World Remastered on Nintendo Switch
Each episode of Save the World follows roughly the same pattern: Sam and Max get a call about a new case in the opening cutscene, and they head out to start asking questions. Each episode is compact, running about two hours and featuring, at most, three locations. Over time, recurring themes and characters emerge, and before long the pair realize that there’s some nefarious connective tissue running throughout all of their cases.
The plot doesn’t take itself particularly seriously, which is a good thing, because the overarching story is a bit of a dud. While some side characters are fun (a chicken actor; a nearby neighbor who changes her job every episode; a giant living statue of Abraham Lincoln), many of the recurring characters are more annoying than amusing. There are only so many times you can talk to a squeaky-voiced child star whose gimmick is that he pees too often before you get tired of him. There are some fun individual moments and plenty of great scenes throughout the game, but most of the good jokes are saved for Sam and Max themselves.
The two heroes are a delight. Sam and Max’s conversations are a mix of bon mots, puns, and allusions to wild adventures. It’s easy to grow attached to Max’s irreverent love of violence and Sam’s unerring devotion to his little buddy, and the game’s script is peppered with fun Easter eggs, meta comments, and absurdist jokes. Both characters are consistently amusing throughout the adventure.
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The game’s puzzles are, for the most part, enjoyable and clever. They tend to come in groups; once or twice an episode you’ll be given three tasks to complete, all interconnecting in smart ways. The key is to remember that you’re playing a comedy game that follows comedy rules–and many of the solutions end up being pretty funny. Logical leaps are rare in the front half of the game, and while the back half has a few circuitous solutions, there’s nothing too obscure or ridiculous. While it won’t give your brain a full workout, there’s enough here to make you feel smart.
This remastered version of the game has been updated with widescreen display, controller support, uncompressed audio, and drastically overhauled visuals. Sam & Max Save the World wasn’t a looker by 2006 standards, but it’s now gorgeous, with reworked character models and a lighting system that adds a huge amount of depth and personality to the experience. Despite these major upgrades, the original art remains largely intact, and has been polished rather than replaced. Chintzy décor and ugly fonts abound, and you wouldn’t want it any other way–the game’s look and vibe are still unique all these years later. There’s some subtle cel-shading to give characters a more cartoony look, which suits the overall tone perfectly. This is a significant upgrade and an enormous improvement over the flat graphics of the original release. It looks fantastic on Switch, too, although it can look slightly fuzzy in handheld mode.
You’re now in direct control of Sam, rather than guiding him around with a pointer (as was the case in the original release), and it feels much more natural than before. The ability to highlight every object you can interact with by tapping the L button cuts down on frustrating pixel-hunting, and the controls have been streamlined to make this feel like a game built specifically with a controller in mind. You can also play with the touch screen on Switch, if that’s your preference. Clicking and dragging to control Sam is functional, but I switched back to the Joy-Con almost immediately–still, it’s a good option to have.
The game runs beautifully, which is a blessing for anyone who played the original release on Wii or Xbox 360. Load times are short and frame rates are stable, with no hitches or stuttering across the entire six-episode series. All of these changes are very welcome–it’s enough to make you wish that Skunkape could go back and touch up all of Telltale’s old games.
Sam & Max Save the World Remastered on Nintendo Switch
The development team has also changed a few camera angles, added new songs, and even changed the timing on some jokes. Bosco, the local convenience store owner and a major side character, has been re-recorded–he’s a Black man who was previously voiced by a white actor, which has thankfully been rectified–but otherwise the dialogue is unchanged, for better or worse. While the game is mostly funny, some jokes have aged more poorly than others. At times, the game can punch down or lean on stereotypes for the sake of a gag, and while they’re never outright hateful, these lazier jokes don’t sit well next to the game’s more effective absurdist humor. The fact that you’re playing as two gun-toting, trigger-happy cops hits differently now, too, although the characters and situations are all strange and exaggerated enough that it’s easy to disconnect from reality while playing.
In other areas, the game’s advancing age can be kind of charming. The fact that there are jokes about Keanu Reeves being a bad actor certainly date the game, as does the chapter where Max faces off against the US president, presented as a robotic hayseed satire of George W. Bush who is threatening to introduce, among other things, mandatory gun registration. One chapter takes place inside a virtual reality version of the internet; seeing a pastiche of the web that contains no references to social media feels very strange, because things have changed so much over the years. These jokes date the game, but they also give it a keen sense of time and place: the heart of the original game is mostly untouched.
Sam & Max Save the World Remastered is more than just a nostalgia play. The season has held up well and still has plenty of great jokes and clever puzzles that have held up well over time. Even if the overarching plot is weak, and some jokes don’t hit, the titular duo is still a delight, and the smart puzzles are even more enjoyable to solve now that the controls have been improved. This is the definitive version of one of Telltale’s strong early efforts–hopefully Sam & Max Seasons 2 and 3 will receive similar treatment in the future.
In Fortnite, players and their friends lead a group of Heroes to reclaim and rebuild a homeland that has been left empty by a mysterious darkness only known as “the Storm.”
In Fortnite, players and their friends lead a group of Heroes to reclaim and rebuild a homeland that has been left empty by a mysterious darkness only known as “the Storm.”
As video games get more and more realistic, it becomes harder for an untrained eye to distinguish screenshots and real-world photographs. The latest victim of this mistake is Oregon local news station NewsChannel 21, who published a stunning Red Dead Redemption 2 screenshot in its ‘Out & About’ nature photography segment.
The image first appeared on Reddit, with the catch proudly shared by the father of the person responsible for the fake-out. “My daughter sent another picture into our local TV station… from Red Dead Redemption 2 for their “Out & About” segment…” the post reads. “And once again they fell for it!”
A girl keeps sending my local news station screenshots of the landscape from Red Dead Redemption 2 for their “Out and About” news segment… and they keep putting it on the news thinking it’s a photo.
The screenshot still exists in a video of the segment posted to NewsChannel 21’s YouTube channel, which has accumulated a number of comments poking fun at the screenshot’s inclusion.
While apparently the culprit has done this (and gotten away with it) before, this is the only instance that has surfaced so far. Still, the channel’s YouTube has an extensive archive of Out & About segments if you want to look for earlier slip ups.
The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies are now available in 4K UHD, and director Peter Jackson has spoken about the process of updating the movies and some of the issues that came along with it.
In a new video promoting the 4K release, Jackson said the six movies lacked consistency in their coloring and other elements, due to the evolving way in which the movies were shot. Updating them for 4K gave the team an opportunity to go back and address this.
“It was interesting going back and revisiting these films because I realised how inconsistent they were,” he said. “And that’s really due to the way in which the Lord of the Rings trilogy was shot first, about 20 years ago. The lord of the rings was shot on 35mm. The color timing was done on an old-fashioned mechanical way for the first Lord of the Rings movie. Then we switched to digital color timing for the 35mm negative for the next two,” he said.
For The Hobbit series, the movies lacked consistency for a variety of reasons, including how scenes on outdoor sets were filmed at different stages in the day. With the 4K re-releases, they were able to weak individual colors.
Jackson also said that the process was not solely about increasing the crispness of the picture–the director said it was important to preserve the “cinematic look” of the films, while also boosting the overall fidelity.
“Great to be able to have all the films looking like they were shot at the same time, finally,” Jackson said.
When updating the Lord of the Rings for 4K, the team noticed that imperfections in the visual effects were more pronounced. Some of the shots did not hold up, Jackson admitted. So with the re-release, the team went back and removed or painted out some of these oddities and imperfections.
To be clear, however, the VFX are not upgraded or enhanced. But Jackson said of them, “They look like they were done today, not 20 years ago” as was the case for the first Lord of the Rings movie.
And speaking about the entire process of updating The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for 4K UHD, Jackson said, “This process, the way I see it, it’s not about making the film different. It’s simply taking a 20 year old movie and making it feel like it’s a modern film.”
The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies are currently available to buy separately, for $90 USD each. Each box contains the theatrical and extended edits, as well as a code to get the 4K movies on Movies Anywhere service.
Warner Bros. is releasing an Ultimate Collector’s Edition in 2021 that comes with all six movies and “new bonus content.”
Rocket League went free-to-play in September, kicking off “Season 1” of the game, which is now 5 years old. Now developer Psyonix is making up for lost time, launching Season 2 on December 9. The theme of this season is music, and the game will add new tracks from EDM artist Kaskade to the game’s soundtrack.
The first of Kaskade’s new tracks, Flip Reset, is available now. More tracks will follow in the update.
Along with new tracks, players will also have the ability to choose a “Player Anthem” from the soundtrack. This means that whenever they score a goal, their song will play, letting you really soak in your achievement after a good goal. All players will also have access to a new arena, called Neon Fields, which is EDM-inspired and covered in cool glowing lights.
Rocket Labs will also return for Season 2, featuring as a Casual LTM playlist. In this mode, you’ll be able to try out some experimental gameplay styles, just like in the early days of Rocket League. It should be interesting to see what ideas Psyonix is testing out now.
A new Rocket Pass is being introduced too, with over 70 tiers of unlockable content. Grab the premium version of the pass and you’ll immediately unlock the R3MX car, and working your way through the ranks will unlock more cars, decals, wheels, explosions, and more. You can check out the full Season 2 Rocket Pass unlock list now.
Rocket League is free-to-play on Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC, and on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S through backwards compatibility. The game has also received a great boost on the next-gen systems.
With Twin Mirror, Dontnod abandons the episodic model it has experimented with since 2015’s Life is Strange in favor of a six-hour standalone release. The result is a focused crime thriller with some great character work. However, Twin Mirror’s exploration of its story and mechanics suffers somewhat from its brevity, relative to Dontnod’s recent work. It’s longer than an episode of Dontnod’s serialized games but still shorter than what it needed to be to explore characters with depth and tackle the heavier subject matter and themes its narrative alludes to. Twin Mirror comes to a conclusion just as the plot and gameplay are really beginning to gain momentum.
In Twin Mirror, players take on the role of Sam Higgs, a tenacious investigative reporter returning to his hometown of Basswood, West Virginia, after a period of self-imposed exile. Two years prior, Sam published a damning investigative piece on unsafe practices at the Basswood mine, which employed a huge portion of the town. As a result, the mine closed, putting a huge swath of Basswood out of work and pushing the town into an economic depression. In the midst of this firestorm, Sam proposed to his girlfriend Anna, another writer at the paper. She turned him down and, struggling with the personal and professional devastation, Sam left town without a word. In the time since, Anna has started dating Sam’s longtime best friend, Nick.
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The pain of all this is still fresh for Sam. But, when Nick dies in a car accident, he finally feels he must return to Basswood. Though the local police have ruled the death an accident, Nick’s preteen daughter, Bug, suspects foul play, and Sam agrees to investigate. In classic Dontnod fashion, that investigation mostly plays out via dialogue with the locals–some of whom hate Sam for the problems his reporting caused, and some of whom are old friends. You’ll investigate densely packed areas, read documents, and analyze objects to get to know the cast of characters and uncover clues to the cause of Nick’s death. Dontnod is great at this kind of environmental storytelling, and Twin Mirror is no exception. Discovering objects evoke memories of Sam’s past, and hearing his thoughts on the people that he once called neighbors is especially enjoyable. There’s even some fun Bandai Namco brand synergy in Sam recalling his and Nick’s childhood Pac Man competitions.
The traits that made Sam a talented journalist are tools in the player’s toolbelt, too. Sam’s gift for rational thought results in the Mind Palace. It’s an ancient technique (also referred to as the Method of Loci), which Cicero discussed in his De Oratore. It allows the practitioner to create a space in their mind that they can imaginatively navigate. Rather than attempting to recall abstract facts, the inhabitant of the Mind Palace simply strolls by the object they need to remember, perusing thoughts as if they’re cereal options at the grocery store. The Mind Palace’s purpose, primarily, is to aid memory, though in recent depictions such as the BBC’s Sherlock, it has become a method for superhuman feats of detective work.
At several moments, Sam must piece together the events of the past or look ahead to the future to formulate a plan. At first, you need to pace around an area, gather information, and look for clues. Sam doesn’t just automatically reach a conclusion once you’ve examined every object, however. Instead, you need to adjust the variables for each element of the crime scene to make sure it fits with the rest of your conclusions. In an early scene when Sam is attempting to figure out who he got into a barroom brawl with the night before, you may need to replay the scene multiple times to make sure the parts that you have selected are coming together correctly. If Sam was fighting with Dennis by the liquor counter, then why is Dennis’ bracelet across the room instead of by the bar? If Sam was, instead, fighting with the angry miner by the seating area, does that change anything? Getting each element to come together correctly isn’t especially difficult, but the troubleshooting process is really satisfying. It’s Detective Vision with a Rube Goldberg machine twist, and it’s a great evolution of a familiar mechanic.
Though Sam has a handle on this kind of methodical, rational thought, he’s less adept at dealing with people. For this, he needs to rely on his “Inner Voice.” Basically, the Inner Voice is another version of Sam, albeit with floppier hair and dark-rimmed glasses, who pops up to offer advice in social situations. In certain conversations, Sam can stop and talk things over with his Inner Voice, but it may result in him delaying his response for too long. While it often feels like ignoring the Inner Voice is the more expedient thing to do, I found conversations went better when I took the time to pause and listen. Mechanizing this conflict between the rational and the relational is one of Twin Mirror’s most interesting ambitions, but this is also one area where its awkward length hurts the experience. Just as this conflict between logic and love felt like it was beginning to come to a head, the game began to wrap up.
Twin Mirror is about solving a mystery, but it’s also about Sam picking up the pieces he left behind when he abruptly left town. Sam’s relationship with Bug was one of my favorite parts of the game. There’s a palpable melancholy to her character, expertly brought to life by 15-year-old actress Ruby Jay. Bug’s sadness over her father’s death, her anger with Sam for leaving, her irritation with her mother’s busyness and emotional distance from her –these all come through in Jay’s performance. I similarly enjoyed seeing Sam hash out his unfinished business with Anna and reconnect with his warm and loquacious former boss, Walter. Dontnod’s dialogue is still occasionally corny, but they’ve come a long way since Life Is Strange’s “Go f**k your selfie.”
That said, Twin Mirror’s character development is hampered by the game’s awkward length. While the character work that Dontnod does here is good, I felt like the game was just getting started when it came to a conclusion. The character arcs aren’t necessarily incomplete; there are beginnings, middles, and ends for all the key players. Nevertheless, it does at times feel like the moments in between–the ones that would really help us get to know each character on a deeper level–are missing or truncated. Similarly, the game gestures at major issues like police corruption and opioid addiction but doesn’t really commit to fully exploring them. This, once again, feels like it is the result of not having the room to unpack the issues meaningfully in its six-hour runtime.
Still, Twin Mirror is a good next step from Dontnod, a studio that has stepped up to fill the adventure game-shaped hole left when Telltale went under. Episodic games have struggled to sell well after the first episode and also suffered from protracted release schedules, and Twin Mirror shows that the studio has a willingness to explore new territory. Twin Mirror has interesting new mechanics, well-realized characters, and a good understanding of what makes exploration rewarding. It’s just a shame that the pacing undercuts so much of what makes it work.
