Godzilla vs. Kong delivers exactly what the title promises. The film, fourth in Warner Bros. and Legendary’s “Monsterverse” of kaiju movies that began with 2014’s Godzilla and 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, pits the two giant monsters against each other for the first time since the Japanese-produced King Kong vs. Godzilla in 1962. That one-off battle retained enough of a Godzilla-sized footprint in pop culture that, no matter how many other creatures the Japanese lizard squared off against, it was this pairing that seemed as inevitable as it was unlikely.
Of course, 49 years was probably long enough for the two icons to chill in their respective corners, so the timing couldn’t be more right for this long-in-coming rematch, one afforded the blockbuster budget and razzle-dazzle we’d expect in 2021. As directed by Adam Wingard from a screenplay by Eric Pearson and Max Borenstein, Godzilla vs. Kong not only lives up to the bone-crunching, building-smashing promise of its title, it also brings together numerous threads laid out over the three Monsterverse chapters thus far.
Does that mean Godzilla vs. Kong is particularly deep or introspective? No. Does it need to be? Also no. Eschewing the satirical edge of Skull Island or the slow-burn approach of the 2014 Godzilla, this is a Saturday afternoon matinee gussied up with elaborate effects. And it’s made all the better for wholeheartedly embracing that.
The story picks up broadly from where things were left at the end of 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Giant Titans populate the globe, with Godzilla the top banana among the top bananas. Life has gone on, and the monsters pretty much leave people alone. But when the Big G attacks a facility run by shady corporation Apex Cybernetics, that fragile detente is shattered.
Meanwhile, Kong — now considerably bigger than his “adolescence” during the 1970s-set Skull Island — is being shipped to a place big enough for him to live in: the Hollow Earth, an entire subterranean primordial ecosystem. Kong must make it there before his presence at sea can attract the attention of that certain other alpha creature who may wish to take him down. Whoops, too late.
So why do Godzilla and Kong fight? The various developments leading to it are best discovered on their own, but fight they do. A few times. Probably the smartest thing Godzilla vs. Kong does is not delaying the fisticuffs. Yes, there’s a cursory effort to ground the proceedings in a way that hangs together narratively while feeling like a natural progression, but nothing to get in the way of the hot monster-on-monster action everyone showed up for.
Even more of a challenge – given their huge respective fanbases – was ensuring each of the title monsters got their moment to shine while also making their bouts enough of a contest to keep us engaged. It’s a tricky balance, admittedly, but Wingard manages it well.
Ultimately, Godzilla is Godzilla. A force of nature, he’s neither good nor bad. He just is. Kong, on the other hand, is actually given something of an arc, with his longing for friendship and family imbuing him with humanity. He’s also formed a relationship with a little girl (Kaylee Hottie) calling to mind the Kong animated series from the 1960s as well as the Toho-produced feature King Kong Escapes. And while there’s no “Save Mothra!” moment like the Internet lampooned endlessly when the project was announced, some of the developments aren’t all that far removed from 2016’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Of course, as with the previous entries in this universe, it’s the human characters – including Millie Bobby Brown and Kyle Chandler as Madison and Mark Russell, the daughter-father duo from Godzilla: King of the Monsters – who suffer the most in terms of screentime and development.
While it’s nice to see both returning characters again to add some continuity, Chandler’s role, unfortunately, amounts to little more than an extended cameo, though he plays it with clear eyes and full heart, naturally. (The instant gravitas of Ken Watanabe’s Dr. Serizawa from the preceding Godzilla films is sorely missed here,)
Instead, more time is spent on new characters like Rebecca Hall’s scientist Ilene Andrews and Alexander Skarsgaard as Hollow Earth expert Nathan Lind, as well as Brian Tyree Henry playing a paranoid podcaster determined to prove Apex is up to something. (Spoiler alert: they’re up to something.) Of the newbies, Skarsgaard probably comes off the worst, given little in the way of backstory nor motivation to make us feel invested in his own investment with the film’s event. On the other hand, Henry is a bright spot by doing for Godzilla vs. Kong what John C. Reilly did so memorably in Skull Island: puncturing the self-seriousness with a few well-placed laugh lines.
Today, WizKids has revealed to IGN it is developing its largest TTRPG miniature to date, an absolutely massive, game-scale premium model of Tiamat, the five-headed fiendish goddess, mother, and queen of chromatic dragons.
Slated to hit store shelves in September of this year and available for pre-order in the WizKids online shop, the miniature will be priced “under $400″ with more details to come, and tower over your player characters, monster miniatures, most of your terrain pieces, and likely some small pets at 28.9 inches (73.4 cm) wide, 14.6 inches (37.1 cm) tall, and 16.8 inches (42.8 cm) long, supported by a 200mm clear round base. This new miniature will be the largest officially licensed, playable representation of the classic Dungeons & Dragons antagonist since her earliest incarnation by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax back in 1975.
Get a glimpse of the newly revealed Tiamat premium miniature by WizKids from every angle in the preview video above.
Speaking with IGN, WizKids executive producer of RPGs, Patrick O’Hagan, shared insight about what it took to bring the classic Dungeons & Dragons tyrant to life like never before. “Tiamat was so much fun for us to bring to life as so many people are familiar with this classic D&D entity and can envision how she looks with her unique, five-headed form. This version of Tiamat will be the largest mini we have ever worked on.”
“There are so many challenges to doing something on this scale – the components, the weight, the size, and the engineering of her use,” O’Hagan said. “Remember she isn’t just a statue – we want folks to play with her on their tables! Ultimately these challenges weighted against what we felt was a price fans were willing to pay for her.”
But there’s more to capturing the essence of such an emblematic creature than sheer size, as O’Hagan revealed. Her chaotic and savage multi-color-headed form is both a literal and symbolic representation of the classic chromatic dragons—red, green, blue, black, and white—so sculpting those defining qualities was important.
“We want to bring the books to life and create realistic, to scale minis that bring terror, as with Tiamat, along with laughter and joy to people’s game tables. We want to show action and movement,” O’Hagan said. “The iconic image of her coming out of the portal from Tyranny of Dragons is so amazing we wanted to take that and bring it to people’s tables. We felt it time to truly showcase Tiamat and give her the spotlight to shine in all her epic glory, focusing on her size and overall wild nature that so many love about her.”
Check out the final concept renders of the upcoming Tiamat premium miniature by WizKids to see what it will look like on your table.
No stranger to massive TTRPG miniatures, WizKids has steadily released a line of incredibly large, and incredibly detailed miniatures designed to dominate the table, including the recently released gargantuan ancient white dragon Arveiaturace, the Walking Statue of Waterdeep, and the imposing terrain centerpiece simply called The Tower. And while the premium Tiamat miniature will be the largest creature the company has created thus far, WizKids is committed to bringing many more of Dungeons & Dragons’ most iconic elements to life, and the game table.
“We have been working with [Dungeons & Dragons developer Wizards of the Coast] for the last seven years with the launch of [Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition]. In the last year, we have really been pushing the envelope to bring the most iconic elements of D&D to player’s tabletops: Adult & Gargantuan Dragons, The Falling Star, The D&D Tower, the Yawning Portal.
“We are dedicated to bringing those D&D moments to the tabletop community. You can imagine we have a full slate for the next three years in the works. We work closely with Wizards of the Coast on all of our product launches. We want to ensure that as they create new fantastical experiences, we support these, as well as dive into the back catalog for the things that we haven’t created yet…”.
Why must I be surrounded by incompetent fools? I don’t expect Evil Genius 2’s world domination to be a walk in the park, but I can’t take diabolical joy in shaking my fist at the forces of justice or making an example of an unruly minion when it’s a clunky interface and confusingly-worded objectives getting in the way of my grand plans. The whole Dungeon Keeper-meets-Bond villain operation is decked in delightful style and humor from top to bottom, but that can only go so far when the acts of building a secret lair, ordering around underlings, and taking over the damn world are so often underwhelming.
Evil Genius 2 is at its best when it’s leaning into the tropes and aesthetics of classic, over-the-top spy thrillers. From the hulking, brass-bedecked Red Ivan to the subtly menacing goodie-turned-archvillain Emma, each of the four geniuses you can choose to play as has a distinct, in-your-face personality that makes them the deliciously malicious center of the unfolding plot. With simple but effective character designs and gleeful, scenery-chewing voice acting, I was always eager to see how these titans of crime would react to each new challenge or event in the story. Even bit parts are voiced and animated with a dramatic flair. And the way they’re organized into optional side missions you can pick up at any time gives you a lot of control over what kind of tale you’re in the mood for. There seem to be quite a few of them, as I’m still seeing plenty of new ones with over 25 hours of terror under my belt.
And there are a lot of scripted episodes to enjoy here. As you progress toward building a campaign-winning doomsday weapon, you’ll recruit new types of minions to staff your base, steal cultural heirlooms, and go up against some of the globe’s signature crime fighters. Dealing with these do-gooders means running a legit-seeming, upscale casino as a cover operation. This was probably my favorite part of the whole business, and I wish it were a bit more in-depth. As it is, your entertainers and cocktail bars merely serve as a way to waste the investigators’ time, draining their resolve and hopefully forcing them to go home without finding any clues. I wish this had been expanded on more, as trying to waylay a wannabe Bond in true Casino Royale fashion is exactly the kind of experience I was hoping for.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Running%20a%20cover%20operation%20was%20probably%20my%20favorite%20part%20of%20the%20whole%20business%2C%20and%20I%20wish%20it%20were%20a%20bit%20more%20in-depth.”]If the meddling heroes make it past the “Employees Only” doors, you can get into some tense dust-ups with higher stakes and tougher enemies the more infamous you become. I found these became kind of repetitive and meaningless, though, and mostly boiled down to hitting a lockdown button so my security forces would go and deal with the problem. The cool traps you can deploy unlock so late in the tech tree that my base was usually too established to make the best use of them without painstakingly and completely relocating all of my vital operations. If I could have started out with a bunch of money to build an entire dummy floor for the purpose of slowing down my enemies, that would have been great. But Evil Genius 2 doesn’t really give you the chance to do that.
Unfortunately, for almost every spot where Evil Genius excels in the style department, I can point to one where it falls short in substance. Building a multi-layered base full of evil computers, evil bunk beds, and evil… whatever this thing is, was a rewarding way to customize my operation, with the added wrinkle of having to think about how to best make use of limited space. But almost everything else I had to do to take over the world was not so pleasant.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=The%20world%20map%20is%20mostly%20a%20giant%20mess%20and%20I%20hate%20it.”]Let’s cut right to the chase. The world map is where you deploy minions to steal money, kidnap specialists who can train your staff to do new jobs, and complete story missions. As a whole, it’s mostly a giant mess and I hate it. Its existence dragged my machinations down time and again. For example, the little number next to the menu button down here will show you how many of your global criminal networks are idle, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to quickly see which ones need attention once you’re on the map screen. You have to actually hover over each one to check its status and see who needs a new assignment. Don’t I have lackeys to trudge through this tedium for me?!
I ended up mostly ignoring the active operations like heists or distracting the authorities unless I needed a quick cash infusion or there was a story mission to complete. It’s a major chore to try to have a lot of operations running constantly. And the rewards don’t usually seem worth it, since each network will generate a small amount of passive income even if you do nothing, which was more than enough to keep things running smoothly once I had enough outposts built.
This interface is generally terrible at communicating objectives, too, doling out vague directives and assuming you’ll be able to psychically discern what steps are required to get there. For example, it might tell you to recruit two new types of minions to fill out your roster. But it will never tell you that you need to do this by opening the Side Stories screen and selecting a specific adventure that will unlock them. I ran into this issue almost constantly, in every single genius’s campaign. The tutorial is mediocre at best, and there doesn’t even seem to be a glossary to explain basic game terms. Not anywhere that I could find it, anyway.
Building a criminal empire isn’t all fun and games, you know. In Evil Genius 2, the sequel/reboot of the 2004 cult classic strategy game, running a casino and super-secret volcano lair with a doomsday device takes vision… and the ability to manage an army of minions. It’s a management sim that requires careful planning and timing; you need to build a base that runs like a well-oiled machine that can mint the resources you’ll need to conquer the globe. To succeed where every Bond villain has failed, the base needs to double as a labyrinth of wild traps like shark pits and laser walls that can keep nosy secret agents from bringing too much heat down on you. Though aspects of the game can feel like they’re at cross-purposes from time to time, Evil Genius 2’s goofy, lighthearted vision perfectly captures a cartoony retro spy vibe that lets you revel in pretending you’re the ultimate evil boss.
Taking advantage of nearly 20 years of technological advances since the original, Evil Genius 2 makes good on the promise of making a Bond Villain simulator. The art, music, and style channel the cartoon camp of ‘60s and ‘70s spy movies and TV. In cutscenes, the Genius banters with rival villains and super spies or berates his minions, who maintain a sheepish, aww-shucks attitude. All of this paints the Genius’ rise to power as a fun, free-wheeling romp. The swanky lounge soundtrack, punctuated by dramatic musical cues likewise feels like it’s pulled out of the early-era Bond that permeates every pore of the game.
The ’60s and ’70s spy-movie vibe permeates every aspect of Evil Genius 2 to great effect.
You can feel it most acutely in the characters. Though you are the mastermind, there are actually many Evil Geniuses. At the start of the game you can choose one of four to be your avatar. From the gold-obsessed Maximilian to the metal-armed Russian General Red Ivan, the geniuses all have the larger-than-life international crime syndicate boss look and feel. You can also recruit “henchmen,” unique lieutenants with similar powers and Bond villain personas. Lastly, each region of the world has a singular Super Agent who can disrupt your base pretty handily and deliver some of that crucial hero-villain banter.
Technically, each of the Geniuses has their own story, but they all seem to revolve around one thing: constructing a giant doomsday device in their base and using it to conquer the world. Each Genius has their own world-breaking apparatus, though, so you do get a different flavor of mad rise to power with each telling.
Don’t let the vibe check fool you, though. Running a criminal organization gets complicated. A fully operational base has a lot of moving parts: You need a power plant, a vault to store your gold (villains prefer gold), and a lab to research upgrades. You also need minions to handle all these jobs, so they’ll need living quarters, a mess hall, and a break room for video games, among other things. Lastly, you also have to run a casino as your front business to keep your island lair secret.
Though literally putting the base together is easy–everything’s drag and drop–building a lair effectively requires careful planning. All of the rooms need to be built small at first, but with room for expansion as your organization grows. Every part of the base requires resources from other parts–electricity, various minions to handle different jobs, money–and some of those resources, like workers with advanced jobs, take time to build. There’s a dance to scaling up the right pieces by the right amount at the right time without experiencing any workflow hiccups, like losing power to the whole base or finding your security cameras are unmanned because you don’t have enough guards. It doesn’t feel like it most of the time, but the base should take care of itself if you build it well and don’t overload it.
In fact, it has to: Other than using the Genius and their lieutenants, you cannot control the individual workers. You can prioritize certain types of jobs, but that requires wading through an unwieldy menu. You are truly a manager, here, not an omnipotent control. (This is best expressed by the Geniuses, who can all use an ability to yell and force the minions in their immediate vicinity to work faster.) That can be frustrating at times, like when a guard leaves their post when you know an intruder is coming or when a technician chooses to repair a trap instead of a power generator when both are on fire. It makes the small hiccups feel more frustrating than large problems because you lack control. On the one hand, the machine will almost always correct those kinds of small problems on their own, but on the other, it’s hard to meticulously watch every aspect of your base and see that it doesn’t work perfectly all the time.
Gallery
Then again, the base is only part of your operation, so you have plenty of things to distract you from those problems. To make story progress and earn most of your money, you need to send your minions out into the world to run “schemes.” Schemes are a meta-game–they’re timed. For example, you send three workers to Western Europe, and over the next 30 minutes they’ll make you $20,000. When you send minions out into the world, they don’t come back after finishing a task, so you need a constant flow of new workers to train, maintain the base, and send out when the time is right. And, again, there’s a knack for knowing how many minions you can send out before it starts to impact your base’s operations.
As schemes progress, they draw “heat,” filling a meter that, when filled, can get the job cancelled, limit your earning potential, and potentially trigger a visit from some investigators or a secret agent who can make a mess of your base’s zen-like flow. Heat fills gradually between schemes, too, and only goes down after a lockdown period or if you run a scheme specifically to cool things down. All the same issues with carefully balancing your resources apply: The story will constantly push you to expand the number of networks you have and put more resources into schemes, while also putting in more obstacles. You need to be mindful of which regions can support long-term moneymaking schemes, which ones need to be cooled, and which ones you should simply leave alone. Plus, like construction, there is a gap between the moment you’ve assigned a scheme and when your workers fly to the site. That gap only grows when you load up a bunch of assignments at once, so you really need to be mindful of when you’re clicking on schemes and in what order.
Though you are constantly working–adjusting, tweaking, assigning–Evil Genius 2 rewards patience, arguably above all else. Often, a story-critical scheme you need to accomplish will wind up being guarded or in a region on the world map that’s about to lock down, so the best recourse for you is to simply wait until you have a better chance at success. In building, assigning tasks, and navigating the world map, it rarely pays to force things. That can make the game extremely frustrating when the timing on story objectives doesn’t line up and you’re left having to change course and spend time raising money or sacrifice upgrade progress to prep for an unforeseen new objective.
Luckily, the problems can be quite amusing. No matter how well you play, you will inevitably get visitors–investigators, soldiers, and super spies who come to your base looking to cause trouble. Depending on the type, they’ll steal your money, destroy key parts of your base, or just kill everybody, all of which are quite disruptive. When the heat arrives, you have three choices for how to deal with them: You can try to distract them before they reach the base using the trappings of the casino and specialized minions like socialites who chat them up; once they find the base, you have the option to kill or capture them. To prevent intruders from escaping and bringing back more aggressive enemies, you need a security system that can stop the average low-level intruders without your lifting a finger. You need to assign guards and cameras to watch key points, which is completely practical and necessary, but you also have access to wacky traps like killer bee dispensers and poison dart launchers, which are far more amusing. Watching an investigator get caught in a giant bubble or frozen into a giant ice cube as you intended elicits a certain gleeful satisfaction.
While traps are among the most distinctive elements of Evil Genius 2, they’re more amusing than efficient; most slow intruders, but few kill them. Your opponents also level up often and quickly learn to dismantle each level of trap with the push of a button. The most powerful enemies–super agents and crime lords (aka henchmen you haven’t tamed) simply ignore all traps. While they’re fun to fool around with, the traps feel too benign to take center stage in the story. There’s a sandbox mode that lets you build bases with traps without constraints of the story mode, which is great if you love to tinker for tinkering’s sake, but it’s a shame that they don’t fit into the primary game more effectively.
Evil Genius 2 is an intricate game of spinning plates and building, building, building to make the numbers go up smoothly, which manages to capture the spirit of its Bond villain simulator conceit. Though its management gameplay creates momentary frustrations, the tight rapport among all the different elements of the Genius’ organization make for a challenging, long-term management puzzle that requires you to both move quickly and take your time. Plus, you can use a giant magnet to drag your enemies into a flamethrower, which is pretty damn whimsical. You know, in an evil way.
Game developer and filmmaker Josef Fares is known for being outspoken, and now one of his most memorable outbursts has been immortalized in his latest game, It Takes Two. It has been discovered that Fares’ memorable “f**k the Oscars” comment from The Game Awards back in 2017 is featured in the game as an Easter egg.
Games media veteran Geoff Keighley, the host of The Game Awards and the person standing next to Fares as he said the line during the show, shared a clip of the Easter egg on Twitter. It simply plays what sounds like the direct audio from Fares’ speech at The Game Awards, which is pretty great. Have a listen for yourself:
A very familiar moment pops up in It Takes Two as an easter egg…. Gotta love @josef_fares! What an incredibly fun game, the sheer variety of gameplay is insane…and it all controls so well too. pic.twitter.com/G4htZCW9Bx
The “f**k the Oscars” Easter egg is located in the Pillow Fort chapter. You can follow the walkthrough from GameRant to learn exactly how to find the secret audio.
Fares originally made the comment at The Game Awards in 2017 when he appeared on stage to promote his newest game at the time, A Way Out. Fares asked if he was allowed to swear, and Keighley said it was fine because the show was airing on the internet. Fares also gave the middle finger to the camera after ranting about how bad the Oscars are as an awards show.
“The Oscars should f**k themselves up. This is the sh**,” he said, referring to The Game Awards. “I’m telling you–this is the real sh**.”
Before making video games, Fares made five movies, and Variety said he was one of the top 10 directors to watch in 2006 thanks in part to the acclaim of his movie, Zozo.
It Takes Two launched on March 26 behind rapt reviews, including a 9/10 from GameSpot.
“It Takes Two is the best 3D platformer I’ve played since Super Mario Odyssey, and like that game, it has a flair for variety,” review Andrew King said in GameSpot’s It Takes Two review.
Wreckfest is headed to PS5 on June 1, publisher THQ Nordic has announced. Priced at $40 for the full game on PS5, anyone who owns the PS4 edition of Wreckfest can instead opt to upgrade the game for $10 and receive a number of visual updates that includes dynamic dirt on vehicles, improved shadows and particles, environment lighting, and higher resolution textures running at a 4K resolution and at 60 fps. It’s unclear if this upgrade applies to both the physical and digital editions of Wreckfest, but we have reached out to THQ Nordic for clarification.
Other quality-of-life features include improved loading times and DualSense haptic effects, and multiplayer now features up to 24 players smashing their cars into each other. Curiously, there’s no mention yet of a similar Xbox Series X|S upgrade, although a recent patch did increase the frame rate and add 4K support on that version of the game.
Earning a 9/10 in GameSpot’s review, reviewer James Swinbanks wrote that it’s “rare when a racing game manages to modernize and reinvigorate an old formula with spectacular confidence, but Wreckfest does just that. Minor issues with menus and its soundtrack aside, it wows with a gorgeous look and wonderful driving feel, along with a damage system that satisfies in the most brutal of fashions.”
Spring has officially sprung in the Northern Hemisphere, and Fortnite is celebrating the start of the new season with its first-ever springtime event. Called “Spring Breakout,” this new limited-time event adds new outfits, an egg-themed weapon, and more.
Running March 30-April 7, the Spring Breakout event brings back the Egg Launcher weapon, which, as its name suggests, lets you shoot eggs to celebrate Easter. Players can also complete a new quest from Webster–a new character who offers Legendary quests–that rewards you with the Tactical Quaxes pickaxe. This quest goes live on Thursday, April 1, but it is no April Fools’ joke.
Additionally, Fortnite’s island is getting new eggs that, when consumed, make you hop like a bunny rabbit.
Behold, the Egg Launcher
New Items To Buy
Fortnite’s in-game store is being stocked with new items to buy, themed around spring and Easter. The Bunny Brawler, Rabbit Raider, and Quackling outfits are all returning.
Some of the new items in Fortnite’s in-game store
Spring Breakout Cup
Starting April 2 is the Spring Breakout Cup, which is a Duos competition series. Players have three hours to complete up to 10 matches to earn tournament points. The top-earners for each region will receive the Webster outfit and Mecha-Feathers back bling.
Players must be account level 30 or above and have 2FA enabled to compete.
The Spring Breakout Cup is almost here
More Papercraft
Fortnite fans who want to craft items in the real world can now download brand-new papercraft masks and foldables. These include the Stella, Rabbit Raider, and Webster masks, as well as the Bun Bun, Nitehare, and Cluck foldables.
The Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series coming to Disney+ is beginning production soon, and the company has announced the ensemble cast set to star in the show. The two leads are recognizable Star Wars veterans: Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen, reprising their roles as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker aka Darth Vader, respectively.
But the cast includes a lot more players besides those two Jedi. Some notable new faces to Star Wars include Moses Ingram, Kumail Nanjiani, and Indira Varma. Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Piesse are returning to reprise their roles as young Owen and Beru Lars, who took care of the young Luke Skywalker. The story will begin 10 years after Revenge of the Sith, which ended with Obi-Wan bring Luke to the Lars ranch and staying on Tatooine to watch over him.
The executive producers will be Kathleen Kennedy and Ewan McGregor, along with Michelle Rejwan, and The Mandalorian’s Deborah Chow. Joby Harold (Edge of Tomorrow) is both writer and an executive producer. Disney is calling this a “special event series,” which suggests it will be a limited run.
Production on the show will begin in April. The full announced cast, as detailed from Disney, is:
Ewan McGregor
Hayden Christensen
Moses Ingram
Joel Edgerton
Bonnie Piesse
Kumail Nanjiani
Indira Varma
Rupert Friend
O’Shea Jackson Jr.
Sung Kang
Simone Kessell
Benny Safdie
The Obi-Wan series had been long rumored before being confirmed by Disney. The company has a wide slate of Star Wars shows in development, following the lead of its breakout hit, The Mandalorian. To that end, Obi-Wan Kenobi will borrow some of Mando’s groundbreaking special effects techniques.
PAX East’s physical event, which was planned for June 3-6 in Boston, has been canceled. ReedPop and Penny Arcade canceled the show due to the ongoing pandemic.
Despite the cancellation, the organizers say they remain “cautiously optimistic” that PAX West and PAX Unplugged will go forward as in-person events in September and December, respectively.
While PAX East is canceled, ReedPop and Penny Arcade announced that an online show–PAX Online–will be held again this year, from July 15-18. The first PAX Online took place in 2020, and the organizers are building on it in 2021 with an Indie Showcase event and more.
“While we hoped PAX East could safely take place, we remained realistic and did not sell any tickets or space to exhibitors to avoid significantly inconveniencing our friends and partners,” ReedPop said. “As we have shown via our actions throughout the pandemic, our utmost concern is the safety of the PAX family–from attendees, exhibitors, and show staff to media and content creators–as well as the local communities that host our celebrations of all things gaming. We will only move forward with a live PAX once we are confident the show will be safe for everyone.”
ReedPop said it looks forward to bringing PAX East back to Boston in 2022. PAX East has a history with the pandemic, as its 2020 show went ahead normally in late February and early March 2020 just as the health crisis was picking up steam in the city and across the US.
Massachusetts’ reopening plan is currently in Step 1 of Phase IV, and under those guidelines, indoor gatherings at event venues or in public settings are limited to 100 people. PAX East is known to drawn thousands of attendees, so this would have caused an issue if the same rules stayed in place in June.
A Microsoft Flight Simulator mod recreates the suddenly-iconic image of the cargo ship, the Ever Given, stuck in the Suez Canal. A viral TikTok video shows a pilot engaging in a flyby of the stuck ship, and you can recreate the bird’s-eye view yourself with the mod.
Mat Velloso, technical advisor to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, shared the video on Twitter. It features a player narrating as a plane captain, giving a tour of the Suez Canal as a major pipeline for global trade, and then noticing the ship. He then tells the passengers to fasten their seatbelts so they can turn for a better look.
The Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week, disrupting trade through the highly trafficked sea route. It was a serious problem and a source of frustration for the governments trying to free the ship, but it is also objectively hilarious that big boat got stuck. So there’s been no shortage of memes and videos about the incident, and this Flight Simulator mod is just the latest riff.
You can download the Ever Given mod by FlyBoyRez1 to view the scene yourself. You’ll just have to plan a flight path that overlooks the Suez (coordinates: 30.017650, 32.580220) and you can’t miss it. It’s the giant boat.
In the real world, though, the Ever Given has just been freed and traffic through the Suez Canal has resumed, reports the New York Times.
