Author: Trafficblast

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Last night, HBO’s Watchmen TV show introduced its incarnation of a familiar face: Laurie Blake, AKA Laurie Juspeczyk, AKA the second Silk Spectre has joined the show played by the legendary Jean Smart. But in true Watchmen style, this isn’t the Laurie fans of the graphic novel will be all that familiar with and we can assume that a lot (and we mean a lot) has changed over the last thirty years for her.

But before we talk about where she is now, let’s rewind to talk about where she was during the 1980s. Laurie’s position within the Watchmen canon has always been a little complicated. As the original Silk Spectre’s (Sally Jupiter) daughter, she was uniquely situated within the masked vigilante underworld and uniquely privy to the darker side of the career. Laurie was a teenager when she learned that her biological father was actually Eddie Blake, otherwise known as The Comedian, one of the heroes her mother had worked with The Minutemen; and that she was the product of a brutal sexual assault that The Minutemen had elected to cover up. The revelation drove a wedge between Laurie and her mother that was never really repaired, even when Laurie finally agreed to pick up the Silk Spectre mantle and continue in the “family business.”

At 16, Laurie met and became romantically involved with Jon Osterman, AKA Doctor Manhattan, which only served to put more strain on Laurie’s connection with her mom–not because Manhattan was a grown adult at the time, but because Sally thought Manhattan’s nuclear powers were dangerous to be around. Yikes.

Laurie and Jon remained together for around 20 years, even after the Keene Act outlawed vigilantism and forced them into retirement. However, Jon’s growing detachment from humanity eventually put a real end to things. Laurie eventually left him and began a romantic relationship with Dan Dreiberg, the second Nite Owl, who she remained with through the events of the graphic novel.

Following Ozymandias’s squid scheme, Laurie and Dan adopted new identities, Sam and Sandra Hollis, which they figured out keep them safe from any potential fallout both from Adrian Veidt himself and from the law, considering just how many they broke doing things like breaking Rorschach out of prison. They did not, however, plan on giving up the vigilante lifestyle. Their final moments in the comic are dedicated to them having a conversation about new costumed identities where Laurie implies that she’s going to want a new costume, a mask, and possibly a gun.

We learned from the Peteypedia that she did indeed get all of those things at some point. She adopted a new hero name, The Comedienne, after her father. She maintained this identity, presumably with Dan, until the mid-90s when they were caught. This is where things start to get a little tricky. Dan ended up in federal custody as a result and is still there in 2019. Laurie, however, is now a federal agent herself and a member of the anti-vigilante task force. We can’t be sure of what exactly happened, or what kind of deal Laurie would have struck to keep herself out of jail, but it’s certainly possible that she flipped on Dan to ensure her own safety.

Regardless of what happened in the 90s, the Laurie we see in the show is anything but sympathetic to the vigilante cause. She’s ruthlessly good at her job and makes no pretense for her disgust and disinterest in Joe Keene’s “DOPA” or “Defense of Police Act” that allows cops in Tulsa to wear masks and adopt vigilante identities for their own. She’s just as ready to kill costumed adventures as she is to arrest them.

With any luck, the gaps in Laurie’s story will be filled in eventually as HBO’s Watchmen continues every Sunday at 9PM.

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Every week, streaming services like Shudder, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video offer up new content for its subscribers. This week on those services, you can check out intriguing documentaries, terrifying horror films, or Thursday night football streaming live to your home.

The movie Back to the Future made the Delorean an iconic car. However, the history of the car, and its creator, is even more interesting than you think. On Tuesday, a new documentary arrives to Hulu recounting the events of the cars creator, John DeLorean. The film is called Framing John Delorean and it documents the rise and fall of the car and Delorean the man, posing the question, “Was he a con man?” Alex Baldwin plays Delorean in some of the reenactments, which you can see in the trailer for the film.

Shudder will be the first place you want to stop this week. On Monday, one of Takashi Miike’s best films arrives to the horror-themed service. 1999’s Audition follows a widower who has trouble meeting women, so a friend puts together an audition for a fake movie, to help the widower meet women. However, the actress he falls for is not who she seems to be. It’s chilling, horrific, and has moments you can never unsee.

If you’re looking for a new documentary to check out, then head to Amazon on Friday. One Child Nation is an Amazon original film delving into China’s one child policy, instituted in 1980. The movie interviews people who had more than one child and what they’ve had to go through because of this law. The trailer for the documentary is intriguing and a bit terrifying, when it goes over some of the ramifications citizens had to endure if in fact they had more than one child.

Additionally, Amazon Prime Video streams live NFL games to your home on Thursday nights. Below, you can find everything coming to Shudder, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu below. For more on streaming, check out what’s coming to Netflix this week.

What is new to Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Shudder this week?

Monday, November 4

Hulu

• Denial (2016)

Shudder

• Audition (Director: Takashi Miike)
• Deep Murder (Director: Nick Corirossi)

Tuesday, November 5

Hulu

• Framing John Delorean (2019)

Wednesday, November 6

Amazon Prime Video

• Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

Hulu

• Long Time Coming: A 1955 Baseball Story (2017)
• The Biggest Little Farm (2019)

Thursday, November 7

Amazon Prime Video

• Thursday Night Football: Chargers @ Raiders (NFL)

Hulu

• Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

Shudder

• Re:Born (Director: Yuji Shimomura)

Friday, November 8

Amazon Prime Video

• One Child Nation (2019) – Amazon Original movie

Saturday, November 9

Hulu

• You’re the Worst: Complete Season 5 (FX)

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We’re a week away from Disney+ launching, and the streaming service is getting a lot of original content. Star Wars’ The Mandalorian launches on day one, and coming in 2020 is the MCU series The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and the stars of the series announced it’s now in production.

Taking over the Marvel Studios Instagram, stars Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan both made the announcement that the new series has begun production for a new story for IG. Both actors had access to the account so they both posted numerous videos before announcing the show has begun production. You can see a screenshot of this below.

From what we saw from the set, there’s a truck with “Party Time Ice” written on it and something blurred-out to the left. We’re guessing that’s just to block out the phone number for the company that supplies said ice you party with.

The series stars Mackie and Stan in their roles from other MCU movies, and it looks like this show will reintroduce the world to Helmut Zemo–who appeared in Captain America: Civil War. Daniel Brühl will reprise his role, and his character will be getting a new look for the film, which was revealed at 2019’s Comic-Con.

This team-up series isn’t the only MCU show coming to Disney Plus in the near future. There are plenty of others planned including Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Loki, Moon Knight, and more to add to the already growing list of Disney+ originals already planned for the service.

The Falcon and The Winter Soldier will arrive on Disney Plus in 2020.

Memories can be painful. Recalling them can result in feelings of regret, anger, shame, embarrassment, and worse. Much, much worse. In Disco Elysium, a mesmerising, hilarious and at times harrowing narrative-heavy RPG, recollecting a memory can prove fatal. For an amnesiac, alcoholic cop struggling with a new murder case with elusive details, and the world’s worst hangover, remembering the person he was offers a path to redemption for the person he might become. After all, memories that don’t kill you make you stronger.

Disco Elysium presents as an RPG in the mold of Baldur’s Gate or Divinity: Original Sin. Indeed, it opens with a nod to Planescape Torment with a semi-naked figure lying on a cold, hard slab before slowly rising to his feet–only the slab isn’t in a mortuary, it’s in a cheap motel room, and the figure wasn’t recently dead, he’s just still drunk. Very, very drunk. It proceeds with the traditional top-down view of the world, your party members traversing beautiful, hand-painted 2D environments, pausing to inspect objects and talk to people. There are quests to initiate, experience to gain, levels to up, dialogue trees to climb, and skill checks to fail. Yet in all kinds of other ways–thematically and mechanically–Disco Elysium is very unlike other RPGs.

On the one hand, it’s a detective game. Your amnesiac cop quickly discovers he’s been assigned to investigate a murder–what appears to be a lynching–in a small, seaside town. You and your new partner, the unflappable and eternally patient Kim Kitsuragi, at first inspect the body, interview potential witnesses and generally gather clues to identify the victim and track down the perpetrator. Played straight, there’s a meticulous satisfaction in assuming the role of by-the-book cop. You can grill suspects about their movements on the night of the murder and look for holes in their stories about what they saw. You can call in to the police station and request they retrieve further information about leads you’ve uncovered and, if there’s anything your booze-frazzled brain has forgotten, Kim is always there with a gentle reminder of the finer details of effective police work.

Of course, you don’t have to play it straight. Disco Elysium provides a staggering amount of options, letting you choose and role-play the type of cop–indeed, the type of person–your amnesiac detective is going to remember himself to be. As such, you’re welcome to walk out of your shitty motel room with just one shoe on, and you’re able to tell the manager you’re not paying for the room, nor the damage you caused, and he can frankly go screw himself. In his impeccably dry way, Kim will suggest this is not exactly appropriate behaviour, but he’s also not going to stop you from reinventing yourself as a cocky superstar cop, a rude asshole cop, a wretched nihilistic cop, a bungling apologetic cop, a mortified repentant cop, or some tempered combination thereof.

Even during what could be considered rote casework, Disco Elysium provides so much opportunity to express yourself. There’s a scene in which you and Kim are conducting an autopsy; while Kim got his hands dirty, I opted for the paperwork. It’s a very lengthy back-and-forth between the two cops, you prompting him through a dialogue tree of step-by-step instructions and filling out the proper sections of the form, and Kim voicing his observations as he examines the body. This scene, which should be aggressively dry, is instead wonderfully written, creative and entertaining, every new selection of dialogue options presenting you with little decisions about how to play things–do you agree with Kim’s assessment or try to argue with him, or do you just crack a joke instead? And every detail you read about Kim’s actions–his muttered asides, his matter-of-fact commentary on the decaying corpse, his raised brow in response to your nonsense–paints a vivid, indelible portrait of a man you’ve known for less than a day.

The full range of the game’s tonal spectrum is on display in this one scene. There are flashes of surprising camaraderie as you and Kim nod respectfully at each other’s insights. There’s playful humour as you make fun of the bureaucracy that requires such convoluted autopsy forms, and crude gags as you request Kim double-checks if he’s missed anything inside the dead man’s underwear. There’s the more sombre tone struck by the at times repulsive descriptions of the body’s state of decomposition, and threaded throughout is the satisfying accumulation of clues, the central mystery contracting and expanding as new information answers questions and asks further ones.

But Disco Elysium is not just a commendable detective game. It is a deeply political game that tackles issues of ideology, privilege, racism, and class in a thoughtful and provocative fashion. The small, seaside town you’ve been summoned to is in fact the neglected working class district of Revachol, a city built to “resolve history” in the wake of a failed communist revolution that now sees it governed by a coalition of foreign nations.

The murder you’re investigating at first seems tied to a months-long labor dispute. Negotiations between union and corporate leaders are at a stalemate, striking workers have shut down the harbor, scab laborers are picketing in the streets, and road transport in and out of town is at a standstill. More deeply ingrained are the painful memories of the wars that first beheaded the Revachol monarchy and then quashed the revolution, and the lingering darkness of centuries-old racial resentments fuelled by the “economic anxieties” of industrial change. It’s a remarkable, nuanced circumstance–tensions are high, violence feels inevitable, and the future of Revachol has never felt more uncertain.

…in all kinds of other ways–thematically and mechanically–Disco Elysium is very unlike other RPGs.

The case you’re working intersects with the political arguments of the town. Navigating such intricacies can be tricky, though the amnesia conceit gives you a good excuse to ask what might otherwise seem like basic questions. You’re given openings to sympathize with or reject various political views, and your character stats do in fact track how much of a communist, fascist, ultraliberal, or moralist you are. There’s a tongue-in-cheek approach here, as when you’re given the option in favour of your preferred ideology it’s, without exception, an utterly extreme version of it. Moderate paths don’t exist–there’s no room for a “public option,” the communists are all about jumping straight to the “eat the rich” stage.

Indeed, Disco Elysium isn’t especially interested in the typical binary ideologies explored in most RPGs. It pokes fun at extremism and at the same time chides you for any attempt to retreat into non-committal centrism, and it’s even less interested in trying to dodge politics. Instead it wants you to focus on the dynamics of power that structure society and the systemic changes required to repair the inequities of those relationships. This is a game with a specific, if complex, point of view and it’s not afraid to remind you of it even when it’s leaving room for you to explore other ideas.

At the centre of all this ideology is the matter of your privilege. Disco Elysium remains very much aware that you are playing a middle-aged, heterosexual, white man–a policeman, no less–and that fact grants him a heightened degree of privilege to express himself. You’re able to reinvent yourself, to choose to be this or that type of person, without much in the way of repercussions, save the odd disapproving glance from Kim. Meanwhile, many of the characters you meet aren’t possessed of the same privilege; they’re the downtrodden, exploited by authority, trapped in systemic poverty, or just desperately trying to escape their circumstances. The contrast makes this point with piercing clarity.

Yet Disco Elysium isn’t just a formidable game of politics and detective work. It also jettisons a bunch of standard tropes of RPG interaction and replaces them with new systems that delve deep into your character’s psyche. There is no combat to speak of–at least not in the conventional sense. There are moments where you can suffer damage to your health and morale, the two stats that determine whether or not you remain alive. For example, one early incident saw me discover that reading a book can cause actual physical pain. And there are certain, shall we say, encounters that play out like combat analogues, except you’re not choosing to attack or defend. Instead you’re picking from a selection of actions and lines of dialogue, where success or failure depends on the skills you’ve prioritised and the luck of the dice.

During character creation you cannot alter the physical appearance of your nameless cop. You can, however, drop points into a bunch of entertainingly unusual and evocative skills, 24 in total across four broad categories. Among them, Drama allows you to lie convincingly while also detecting the lies of others, while Inland Empire, refers to your gut instinct by way of David Lynch; Savoir Faire assesses your expertise with the intersection of grace and style; while Shivers–my favourite skill–to “raise the hair on your neck” and, in essence, gain a greater awareness of the physical environment, both immediate and occasionally miles and miles away.

Disco Elysium’s skill system is refreshingly original. The entire fascinating suite it posits serves as a captivating exploration to your character’s inner life and echoes his journey of self-rediscovery. Skill checks are being rolled all the time to see if there’s something you should know. It could be as simple as checking whether your Perception means you notice a particular object. Maybe you see or hear a word you don’t recognize and your Encyclopedia skill interrupts to provide a definition. Perhaps you’re walking down the street and, Shivering, gain a deeper, more poetic understanding of your place in the world. These pop up like typical dialogue boxes on the right edge of the screen and you’re often able to conduct conversations with your skills, digging for more information or telling them to pipe down, a little chorus in your head filling the gaps and prodding you into action. These competing, often uncalled-for, voices add up to a remarkably successful simulation of how the mind works.

Skills intrude during conversations with other characters, too. Reaction Speed might let you pick up on an unusual turn of phrase and give you an additional response to pursue, letting you uncover a clue. Sometimes your skills offer conflicting approaches. Drama might be urging you to make a big scene right now–“This is your moment!” it’s yelling in your ear–but Composure is pushing back, coolly arguing for restraint. The specific voices that you decide to listen to may be influenced by your strength in each skill or the type of person you want to become. They also connect back to how the game wears its politics, as many of the unpleasant things you can say are the result of failed skill checks. It can feel weird to have your character do something you didn’t quite intend, or to have your dialogue choices restricted to three equally offensive alternatives, but there’s something pleasingly authentic in the way things don’t always go according to plan.

Supporting the skill system is what the game describes as your Thought Cabinet, a kind of mind map that charts your collected understanding of the world. Critical moments of awareness will enable you to access a particular thought, which you can then research to unlock a range of benefits. An early realization that you are in fact homeless triggered the “Hobocop” thought. While mulling over the very strong possibility than I was more hobo than cop, I suffered a penalty to all Composure checks; once my research was complete and I had decided I was now committed to the hobo life, I regained my Composure and took my dumpster-diving abilities to another level. More than a seamlessly integrated perk system, the Thought Cabinet manages to successfully reposition character development as a kind of intellectual deconstruction. It’s incredibly satisfying to look back on the completed cabinet at the end of the game and see it as a neat summary of your character’s defining moments, the points at which you learned something about yourself and were able to grow.

Learning to read Disco Elysium, through what can initially feel like a mad jumble of competing voices, is the essential first step of attuning yourself to the type of experience it wants to deliver. This is a game with, let’s be honest, an absolute shit-ton of words to read. Literally everything you do, save walking from one place to another, is conveyed and accomplished through text. There are item descriptions, branching dialogue trees where it’s not unusual to have a large handful of options at any one time, skills interjecting with new thoughts and random asides, and even books to read. I cannot verify the developer’s claim that there are one million words in the game, but I can attest that I spent the overwhelming majority of my 50-odd hours with Disco Elysium utterly enraptured by the words it sent my way.

And what beautiful, bonkers, bold words they are. Disco Elysium is easily one of the best-written games I’ve ever played. There’s a swagger and a confidence here that’s rarely seen. There’s a masterful ability to transition from drama and intrigue to absurdist comedy and pointed political commentary in the space of a few sentences. One moment you’re elbow deep in the grim details of police procedure, the next you’re contemplating some metaphysical wonder; later, some hilariously grotesque joke is followed by a spell of genuinely moving emotional vulnerability. It might sound all over the shop, but it works because it all rings true to the fascinating, multi-faceted central character.

Your nameless cop can be charming, offensive, understandably confused, brimming with completely unearned optimism, flustered, unguarded, or simply sick of everything he’s had to endure. Your skill selections and dialogue choices nudge him in these directions, but of course the reality is that he’s always all of them. The man whose “armpits are lakes, a scythe of booze” preceding him, as he’s first introduced, is the same man who licks congealed rum off the counter of the bar, is the same man who, locked in a tender embrace with a strange woman, vows to spread peaceful communist revolution one hug at a time, is the same man who passes the time sitting on a playground swing, whistling a tune with his detective partner. A writhing mass of contradictory impulses and behaviour, as human as the rest of us.

Disco Elysium is a mad, sprawling detective story where the real case you’ve got to crack isn’t who killed the man strung up on a tree in the middle of town–though that in itself, replete with dozens of unexpected yet intertwined mysteries and wild excursions into the ridiculous, is engrossing enough to sustain the game. Rather, it’s an investigation of ideas, of the way we think, of power and privilege, and of how all of us are shaped, with varying degrees of autonomy, by the society we find ourselves in.

The video game industry is rapidly gearing up to embrace cloud-based game streaming with the likes of Microsoft’s Project xCloud and Google Stadia on the horizon. And as subscription services like Xbox Game Pass continue to thrive, it’s pretty safe to say that gaming is becoming for affordable and convenient than ever. These services are no doubt exciting, but it’s so easy to focus on what’s coming that you may have lost sight of the here and now. If you’re looking for a service that combines cloud gaming and a hefty library of titles to choose from, Sony’s had one for years: PlayStation Now.

It’s understandable why PS Now might have slipped past you. The service was in a rather primitive form in its early days, with a fairly limited library and less-than-ideal stream quality. However, Sony has made strides since it launched PS Now in 2014 by improving functionality and expanding access, even letting you directly download PS4 titles. If this is news to you, or if you simply want to know more about PS Now, let us walk you through everything you need to know about Sony’s subscription service.

PS Now’s game library has expanded greatly since its early days.

Quick History Of PS Now

PS Now was in beta in 2014 for Sony’s family of gaming platforms (PS4, PS3, PS Vita, and PS TV), including Sony Bravia TVs, and subsequently launched in 2015 in North America, Europe, and Japan throughout that year. At the time, it only had a handful of PS3 games in its library available for streaming, but has evolved since.

While Sony dropped PS Now support for PS3 and PS Vita/TV in 2017, it bolstered the service by expanding the library with PS4 and PS2 games in 2018, including the ability to download them directly to your PS4. And in 2019, PS Now game streaming was brought to PC users through a dedicated application. Today, PS Now sits pretty with over 800 games that cover releases from Sony’s various gaming platforms.

How PS Now Works

PS Now is a subscription-based service that grants you access to a large library of games. One of the biggest developments recently was that Sony cut the monthly price in half, from $20 to $10, to align closer to its competitors. There are three subscription models as of now; monthly, in three-month chunks, or on an annual basis:

• $9.99 monthly
• $24.99 for three months ($8.33/month average)
• $59.99 yearly ($4.99/month average)

Playing games via cloud streaming on PS Now does not tax your local hardware the same way digital or physical copies of games do. That’s because the processing tasks are performed by remote servers that send video feed to your screen–you’re accessing the cloud to play these games. There are some inherent advantages , like not putting stress on your actual hardware and not having to wait for a download to complete before playing. Though the possibility of noticeable input lag or compressed image quality by virtue of streaming still lingers–your mileage will vary depending on your connection.

At the moment, PS Now is a sort of hybrid of Xbox Game Pass and Project xCloud approaches, but for PlayStation games, as you are also allowed to download PS4 and PS2 games directly to your PS4 as part of your subscription.

The Games You Can Play

PS Now has some big hitters, like the latest God of War and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, both high-profile PS4 exclusives. However, certain games can and will be cycled through; both of those games, with Grand Theft Auto V and Infamous: Second Son will be available until January 2, 2020. This isn’t unprecedented though, as Xbox Game Pass does this with specific games as well. While timed availability is something you’ll want to pay attention to, there’s still so much more to choose from.

Subscribers have access to a variety of great games like Bloodborne, Rocket League, and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. PS Now also casts a fairly wide net; Sony shows confidence in the service’s capability as you’ll see fighting games, competitive shooters, and fast-paced action games on the roster, which typically demand a low-lag gaming environment. It’s likely you’ll find something you’ll enjoy, but here are a few PS4 titles we’d recommend right off the bat:

• Bloodborne
• Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
• God of War
• Rocket League
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Mortal Kombat 11
• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• Tekken 7
• Valkyria Chronicles Remastered
• Wolfenstein: The New Order
• XCOM 2
• Gravity Rush 2
• Fallout 4
• Battlefield 4

It’s not just about the latest PS4 games, though. You can find number of PS3 and PS2 available on PS Now as well, and here are some that we can recommend:

• Ape Escape 2 (PS2)
• Batman Arkham Asylum, City, and Origins (PS3)
• Bioshock 1, 2, and Infinite (PS3)
• Braid (PS3)
• Catherine (PS3)
• Eternal Sonata (PS3)
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)
• Metal Gear Solid HD Collection (PS3)

Over 800 games make up the service, and you can check out the full list of games available through PS Now.

While a subscription to PS Now doesn’t give you access to PS Plus benefits, you’re at least granted access to multiplayer capabilities for games on the service. It’s a nice perk that doesn’t require you to commit to both subscription services to get the most out of PS Now.

With a decent internet connection and a controller, you can PlayStation games on PC with PS Now.

PlayStation Games On PC? No Way!

You can now play PlayStation games on PC via PS Now through the app. Sure, it’s not the same as having a proper PC port, but it’s pretty wild to at least have access to some of PlayStation’s hits on a computer. Given that you meet the technical requirements of internet speed, all you really need for PS Now on PC is the proper controller. A DualShock 3 or DualShock 4 controller will work, as well as any gamepad recognized through XInput on Windows (that includes Xbox 360 and Xbox One controllers).

Your PC needs to be running Windows 7 or higher (currently there’s no support for Mac), so even that junky old laptop can play God of War or Uncharted 4 as long as it runs the PS Now app and holds a stable internet connection.