Category: Games

John Wick is an orchestrator of death. He efficiently uses both the tools and space around him in a fight, delicately flowing between enemies and intelligently picking them off. John Wick Hex effortlessly replicates the slick violence of the films, allowing you to embody the feared assassin in combat scenarios that are both challenging and satisfying to overcome. It also introduces a fast-paced spin on traditional turn-based action, letting you think and act like the elusive Baba Yaga while also looking as refined and controlled as he is.

At the core of John Wick Hex is an overhead timeline, which records actions both you and enemies take. Each action takes a set amount of time, represented plainly in the timeline to give you a clear view of when you’re taking a shot versus when you have to dodge an incoming one, for example. After each turn, the action you’ve made plays out in real-time, only pausing if a new enemy enters your line of sight or if you take damage to let you adjust accordingly. You’re always aware of how the action is going to play out when it starts moving again, which lets you plan ahead and position yourself for your next turn.

The choices you make in combat are vital, though. Sometimes an enemy might be quicker on the draw than you, forcing you to decide between potentially taking a hit or throwing your gun to stun them in time. This has its own set of consequences. If the enemy is too far, you’ve now disarmed yourself with too much ground to cover for a close-quarters takedown, or left yourself vulnerable to the surprise appearance of another foe. Each turn is a new step in a moving puzzle, rewarding careful consideration of positioning, sight lines, and resource management with a graceful flow of murder.

Aside from health, you have to consider both ammunition and a resource called focus. John Wick is great with a gun, but Hex limits the number of bullets you can carry at a time to force you to experiment with new weapons that you find. Knowing how many bullets you have in the magazine before a fight helps you manage how many enemies you think you can dispatch before needing to find a new one, which in turn helps you move efficiently from one kill to the next, collecting dropped firearms in the process. It’s a satisfying balance; I constantly had to adapt to the firing speeds and effective ranges of new weapons, which in turn changed the way I advanced on or retreated from a fight.

Focus governs most of your actions outside basic movement and shooting. Everything from performing an instant melee takedown to reloading your weapon requires some focus points, making it the backbone to most of your available repertoire. Although it can be replenished easily enough, finding space in a fight to do so without taking too much damage is tough, encouraging you to only bite off as much as you can chew and space your enemies out to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Your successes and failures are governed but how well you’re able to manage both ammunition and your distribution of resources, with Hex focusing less on hit percentages and random rolls and more on the choices you make and your ability to anticipate how things will play out.

Levels are designed to challenge your understanding of movement and its inherent risks, too, stuffing you into long, cramped corridors laden with doors that enemies can spawn through at any point. Sight lines are obscured to keep you guessing about who’s just around the corner; a reckless roll could put you in the firing line of a group of previously hidden enemies. Each step you take towards the exit of each level has to be a calculated one, taking into account acute angles of doorways and the benefits of elevation from overhead balconies.

When you hit a stride with this balancing act, John Wick Hex feels like it’s almost moving in real time. Your decisions will start feeling instinctive, with moves playing out as if you’re beholden to a ticking clock. Hex is tuned to make you feel like you’re always one step ahead. Because you have a beat or two to react to new enemies before they make their moves, you’ll often feel like your reaction times are split seconds ahead of them–so long as you’re thinking carefully. But it’s equally unforgiving if you’re too bold. If you don’t learn how to break sight lines while moving, you’ll quickly find your timeline overwhelmed with enemy actions that you can’t address entirely. Hex is a power fantasy with the odds ever so slightly tilted in your favor, but it’s also a game that wants you to understand the fine margins that John Wick operates within during every fight.

With such dynamic and engrossing combat at its center, it’s disappointing that John Wick Hex’s original story fails to live up to the same standard. It takes place well before the events of the first film–when John was the most dangerous weapon the High Table had in their employ, and before he ever met his wife–with John searching for series stalwarts Winston and Charon, reprised by Ian McShane and Lance Reddick respectively (Keanu Reeves’ likeness is used in the game’s stylized cartoonish aesthetic, but John Wick has no dialogue to speak of). Hex, a new villain to the series, has kidnapped the pair in an attempt to dismantle the High Table in a fit of revenge, inviting the wrath of John Wick as he ruthlessly hunts him down over a variety of locales, like neon-soaked night clubs with harsh electronic music and silent, snow-slicked forests which quickly become drenched in bright pink streaks of blood from fallen foes.

While the narrative gives the game a reason to bounce from one location to the next, it never taps into the intriguing layer of lore that sits on top of the high-octane action from the films. You’ll learn nothing new about the High Table or their seedy, mysterious Continental hotels, and even less about John’s time before giving up his assassin lifestyle in pursuit of something quieter. Hex’s revenge tale also fails to establish any interesting backstory or lasting impression on the franchise, making the story feel meaningless in the grander scheme of things.

It’s a disappointing thread that ties together the exceptional gameplay, which faithfully captures the feeling of being John Wick in a strategic and pulsating formula. John Wick Hex has turn-based gameplay at a pace you’ve likely not experienced before, and it intricately balances its systems to give you a sense of being an expert hitman while also making it feel earned. It’s a slick and well-oiled game that succeeds in giving you a new, engrossing way to experience John Wick and its signature brand of chaotic action.

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Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds may find themselves singing up a storm on Apple very soon, as their A Christmas Carol musical could be landing on the service.

The final negotiations are underway, in the midst of a bidding war, for the musical reimagining of the classic tale, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Reynolds and Ferrell will star in the project that will be written and directed by John Morris and Sean Anders. The writer team previous penned Instant Family, the Daddy’s Home films, and Hot Tub Time Machine.

As of this writing, the final deal has not been made, but Apple has aggressively been building its original content library to pad its streaming service Apple TV+, which launches on November 1. This past September, there were reports that multiple studios were bidding on the project.

A Christmas Carol follows the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a curmudgeon and nasty older man who has a change of heart about life and Christmas after he’s visited by ghosts from his past, present, and future. The story has had multiple adaptations including The Muppet Christmas Carol, and animated feature starring Jim Carrey, and most notable, Scrooged, which starred Bill Murray.

If Apple lands the musical, it would be surrounded by other Apple TV+ original series. This includes the sci-fi anthology series, Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories, the fictionalized series The Morning Show, and the Jason Momoa-starring drama See.

After a long, long wait, Rick and Morty Season 4 is almost here! Well, half of it, at least–Adult Swim announced recently that the new season’s first five episodes will begin airing on Sunday, November 10. The second half will air sometime next year. As the trailer says, it’s “half the season you deserve, all the season we could handle.”

So while it seems production troubles may still plague everyone’s favorite animated show about a sociopathic dimension-hopping genius and his neurotic grandson going on sci-fi adventures together, at least new episodes are finally almost here. And this year at San Diego Comic-Con, the show’s creators promised shorter waits in between future seasons.

Check out the video above for our in-depth breakdown of the Rick and Morty Season 4 trailer, and stay tuned to GameSpot for all the Rick and Morty coverage you need.

Restoring the place which harbors your fondest childhood memories is a cute and almost noble goal. In Concrete Genie you get to take something drab and dead and bring it back to life with colour, love, and warmth. It’s a very simple and short experience that focuses mainly on light puzzling, 3D platforming, and a little stealth, but its charm and general sense of playfulness really make it a worthwhile adventure.

In Concrete Genie you play as Ash, a boy who dreams of bringing his former home, a fishing port called Denksa, back to life. The town has been corrupted by an oil spill and negative emotions, and is now a desolate maze-like neighbourhood by the water. Ash’s love of art and memories of better days draw him to the run-down area, despite his parents’ warnings. Unfortunately for Ash, his bullies also enjoy running amok in the ghost town; they tear up his art book and push him into a cable car bound for Denska lighthouse (known for housing a ghost), starting him on a new journey.

Small drawings of the genies Ash drew as a child are scattered around the city and, when combined with the power of the lighthouse ghost, bring his paintings to life. These friendly genies bid him to use his artistic talents to paint the town using a new magic brush, which restores the electric lights in the area. He sets to work, using his vibrant artworks to push back the darkness infecting the town. The premise doesn’t make a tonne of sense, but its message and execution are sweet and full of heart, much like the rest of the game.

Ash is determined to restore Denska to its former glory and each area of the town, including the lighthouse, has hanging fairy lights over some parts of buildings. Painting these areas will clear the dark vines that block your path to the next section. Mechanically, painting is more like placing large dynamic stickers rather than using your own brush strokes. You choose whether you want to paint something like a rainbow or a flower, use either motion controls or the right stick to choose its location, then drag across the screen to determine the general size and shape of the object.

Concrete Genie fills in the rest, adding fine details that can vary depending on the sticker. Flowers may create extra grass, and trees can grow additional branches, but it all works to make whatever you’re creating far more impressive. The artwork is made of light and genuinely quite beautiful–if a little overbearingly bright at times. Much like projected light art or bright neon signs, they work well in moderation but can get overly busy. You do have to go quite overboard to create something that’s actually ugly, which makes the act of painting the town really satisfying–you get to watch a boring dull environment become something quite pretty with very minimal effort.

To light up the hanging lights, any painting will do. This means that sometimes, for simplicity’s sake, I used the same art over and over again, covering the walls with butterflies or stars out of laziness. Occasionally, you may need to paint something specific, but even then it can get a little repetitive. All of the paintable objects come from your sketchbook the aforementioned bullies tore apart, and these pages are scattered all over Denska.

Sometimes you might not have the page you need yet, but setting out to find them gives you a genuine reason to explore the environment and fortunately, it’s really fun to do so. Ash is just a kid and doesn’t have superpowers, so he can’t jump particularly high or survive large falls, but he does have a spirited spring in his step. Clambering up the sides of buildings is quick and efficient while still feeling grounded and not at all floaty. Even if you do fall to your death, you’re immediately returned to where you fell from, and daredevil actions like sliding down power lines make getting around enjoyable without fear of punishment. There’s a really nice fluidity to his movements, which emboldens you to explore every nook and cranny to hunt down your strewn pages.

Along the way, you’ll also find spots to create new genies, which will in turn help you solve puzzles and access new areas. These genies have set colours which allow them to solve different elemental puzzles–red genies can burn down a tarp, for example, whereas blue ones can blow on specific objects, and yellow ones generate electricity to power various doors and switches. The downside to the puzzles is calling one genie to solve a problem calls all who are available to come, so often there’s not much active work on your part to solve them–Instead, the genies come along and, aside from a few exceptions, they’ll just solve it on their own. As genies are still technically paintings that exist on the walls they were painted on, they can only travel on connected walls and are locked in their own areas. This means you may need to have found the painting spot for the type of genie you need first, but this still isn’t very difficult.

You also have a fair amount of control over how your genies will look, depending on how many genie design pages you’ve collected. The choices you make can impact their personalities, which can make interacting with them incredibly endearing–it’s also very easy to make some hot mess genies, but they don’t seem to mind their appearance. The interactions between Ash and the genies are very sweet–you can hang out with them, play games together, and paint things for them. Keeping your genies happy also makes them more likely to help you solve puzzles and provides you with Super Paint, which is required to paint over some surfaces, so the whole interaction with the genies feeds back into the positivity of the game.

Concrete Genie takes a surprising turn in the final act, when combat suddenly makes an appearance. As a part of the narrative, it makes sense and is an enjoyable twist, but because it’s such a short-lived mechanic it feels under-developed. Like the elements of the genies, you are granted three different elemental attacks that need to be used to take down different shields. The half-hour dedicated to combat, mostly involving boss fights, doesn’t give much opportunity for you to experiment with it. I’m still not sure if all the attacks did damage or whether some just caused status effects because there wasn’t enough time or enemies to organically work it out.

When you’re granted combat, you also gain new movement abilities, which include paint skating. This means you no longer have to run so much and can instead essentially skate on magical painted shoes. It makes getting around even more fluid than it was before, and unlike your ability to shoot elements, you get to keep this one even after the main story is completed. Because it’s introduced fairly late into the game, it makes jumping back in after the story to clean up collectibles really enjoyable. The game itself only takes about six hours to complete on an initial playthrough, and once it’s “over” you really do want to play more. But even with the 10 or so hours I spent finding all the secrets and collectibles, it still feels like some concepts could still have been explored to a greater degree.

Most of what Concrete Genie has to offer is fun and beautiful in a sort of childlike way. The game is not particularly difficult, and overcoming a puzzle or combat scenario isn’t always satisfying. But it’s ultimately still an endearing experience throughout. There’s plenty of enjoyment to be found just from the act of exploring, and little hidden secrets along the way help make it worthwhile; I just wish Concrete Genie had more adventure waiting for me.

Sony continues to gradually reveal new tidbits about its next-generation console, now officially called the PlayStation 5. In an interview with Wired, the company opened up about the system’s release window and new features, which include improvements to game installation and user interface.

According to system architect Mark Cerny, PS5 will boast a “revamped” UI that will make it much easier to, say, see what multiplayer matches you can jump into or what single-player missions are available without having to load a game. As Cerny explains:

“Even though it will be fairly fast to boot games, we don’t want the player to have to boot the game, see what’s up, boot the game, see what’s up. Multiplayer game servers will provide the console with the set of joinable activities in real time. Single-player games will provide information like what missions you could do and what rewards you might receive for completing them—and all of those choices will be visible in the UI. As a player you just jump right into whatever you like.”

As Sony had previously confirmed, the PS5 will also be ditching a standard hard drive in favor of a solid-state drive (much like Microsoft’s next-gen Project Scarlett), which will dramatically reduce load times. That isn’t the only way Sony will be improving the user experience, however. While game installs will still be mandatory on PS5, Sony says players will have more control over which aspects of a game they wish to install.

“Rather than treating games like a big block of data, we’re allowing finer-grained access to the data,” Cerny says. An example Wired mentions is only installing a game’s multiplayer component, or installing the entire game and then deleting the single-player portion from your system once you’ve completed it.

PlayStation 5 is slated to launch Holiday 2020. There is still much we don’t know about the console, but Sony recently confirmed that the PS5 controller will have haptic feedback, and porting specialist Bluepoint is working on a PS5 title. For more on the anticipated next-gen system, check out our roundup of everything we know about the PS5.

Sony has officially announced the PlayStation 5, along with new details on the PS5 hardware, controller, and UI. The big question remains when you’ll be able to get your hands on one, and while Sony hasn’t put a stamp on a specific date, it did narrow it significantly.

The announcement from SIE CEO Jim Ryan said it will be “launching in time for holiday 2020.” That assures it will come out sometime before the gift-giving season, and the phrasing suggests it will be sometime close to the holidays. New PlayStation hardware has usually launched in the fall, so the PS5 will likely hit late next year.

That will give Sony plenty of time to continue outlining the new hardware. Ryan says “there’s much more to share about PlayStation 5 in the year ahead,” which again suggests a release in late 2020. It’s unknown at this point if Sony will hold dedicated reveal events or appear at E3 2020, after deciding to forgo a presence this year.

What we do know is that the new (unnamed) controller will feature haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, and Bluepoint Games is already at work on something “big” for the system. A new user interface will also give you more information without needing to jump directly into a game.