Video games offer vast, detailed worlds that you can truly get lost in, and sometimes, there’s more to learn about a world than what you easily pick up by just playing the game. That’s part of why video game art books and compendiums are so popular–they dive deeper into the lore and history of a game while also showing off the art and sketches that went into making a game world come to life. If you’re someone who likes to collect art books, guides, and other books around gaming, Amazon’s latest sale has an absolute treasure trove of deals to check out.
The new Amazon sale features steep discounts on dozens of video game art books, compendiums, cookbooks, novelizations, and more. But on top of these individual discounts, there’s a multi-buy deal that slashes 50% off one of your items when you add two to your cart. As usual, this’ll be the cheaper item that gets the discount, so keep that in mind. This offers stacks as well–if you buy four things, the two cheapest items will be 50% off. With these combined deals, you can stock up on any gaming books you’ve been eyeing for a great price today, so it’s absolutely worth browsing all the offers.
If you do a lot of home cooking, official cookbooks inspired by series like Destiny and The Elder Scrolls are discounted. These make great gifts for others too (and hey, Mother’s Day is this weekend if you need a last-minute gift). Dungeons & Dragons players can save big on a bunch of official guidebooks like the Fifth Edition Monster Manual and newly released Candlekeep Mysteries. A few books about the gaming industry itself are included too, like Ask Iwata, a book about Nintendo’s iconic CEO Satoru Iwata that released in April.
The sale isn’t just gaming-related–hundreds of books are discounted and eligible for the multi-buy discount as well. Because of that, it’s somewhat difficult to parse through it all and find the stuff you’re interested in. Lucky for you, we’ve gone through and picked out as many of the gaming-related deals as we could and rounded them up below. This isn’t everything–for example, there are plenty more Halo novels and D&D books on sale if you look them up in the sale’s search bar–but this should give you an idea of the type of books on offer.
The first images from the set of House of the Dragon have been revealed.
The photographs, taken at a beach location, show five of the key cast members. Sporting the instantly recognisable hair of the Targaryen family are Emma D’Arcy and Matt Smith as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Prince Daemon Targaryen. The second duo photograph is of Alicent Hightower and Otto Hightower, played by Olivia Cooke and Rhys Ifans. Finally, standing on his lonesome is Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon, a character known as “The Sea Snake”.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen is the king’s first-born child and a dragonrider. Prince Daemon Targaryen is her uncle, and younger brother of King Viserys. An heir to the throne, he is said to be a peerless warrior and a dragonrider.
Otto Hightower is the hand of the king, who believes Daemon Targaryen is the largest threat to the realm. Alicent is his daughter, and was raised in the Red Keep close to the king’s inner-circle.
Finally, the Sea Snake is the Lord of House Velaryon, a Valyrian bloodline as old as House Targaryen. He’s a famed nautical adventurer and head of a family richer than even the Lannisters.
The upcoming release of Mass Effect Legendary Edition isn’t exactly short of content, as the classic BioWare space adventure trilogy includes remastered versions of the original games and almost all of the DLC that came with them. What’s not is deluxe edition content from Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 such as soundtracks, art books, and comic books. Those additional features can be found instead on EA’s website, and best of all, it’s entirely free.
EA and BioWare have put together a 1.7GB download package that includes 88 music tracks from across the trilogy including a Resynthesis single, two digital art books, two digital comic books, and a digital lithograph of the Normandy spaceship, which can all be downloaded from this link.
As an added bonus, there’s a unique custom key art creator experience that allows you to customize your own Mass Effect Legendary Edition key art. Choose your favorite Shepard, assemble your team, a key location, and even the squad’s morality, and a custom piece of key art can be created.
EA explained that this piece can be shared online, as well as downloaded in several formats including 4K and slipcover sizing for players who want to personalize their physical copies.
A NASA probe heading for the Sun flew by Venus and picked up a natural radio signal, which happens to be the first measurement of the planet’s atmosphere in nearly 30 years.
The mission of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is to dive close to the Sun, but in order to do that, it needed to slow down its speed before the approach, according to a NASA blog post. It did this by flying close enough to Venus that its gravity and atmosphere would lower its speed. NASA also saw this as an opportunity to measure the Venusian atmosphere for the first time in almost 30 years and so it did. The probe picked up a radio signal that has been translated into sound and you can listen to it below.
“The goal of flying by Venus is to slow down the spacecraft so that Parker Solar Probe can dive closer to the Sun,” Parker Solar Probe scientists, Nour E. Raouafi, of the Applied Physics Laboratory said in the blog post. “But we would not miss the opportunity to gather science data and provide unique insights into a mysterious planet such as Venus.”
This radio signal read came from a flyby the Parker Solar Probe made on July 11, 2020, and it was the closest flyby made to date – the probe was just 517 miles above the surface. It was the probe’s FIELDS instrument, which is named after the “electric and magnetic fields it measures in the Sun’s atmosphere,” according to NASA, that actually picked up the radio signal.
When the probe was close to Venus, the FIELDS instrument detected a natural, low-frequency radio signal for just seven minutes and this data caught the attention of Glyn Collison of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who is the lead scientist on this study. He recognized the shape and the strength of the signal, according to NASA, but he couldn’t quite place it.
Collison woke up the next day saying, “Oh my god, I know what this is,” NASA said, and that’s because it was a signal he recognized from some of his previous work: a similar signal appeared when NASA’s Galileo orbiter passed through the ionospheres of Jupiter’s moons in the early 2000s.
“Like Earth, Venus sports an electrically charged layer of gas at the upper edge of its atmosphere, called the ionosphere,” NASA’s blog post reads. “This sea of charged gases, or plasma, naturally emits radio waves that can be detected by instruments like FIELDS. When Collison and his team identified that signal, they realized Parker Solar Probe had skimmed Venus’ upper atmosphere.”
The team behind the study used the radio signals from Venus to calculate the density of the ionosphere that the probe passed through, something that hadn’t been done since the Pioneer Venus Orbiter’s 1992 passthrough. Data obtained from that probe and in the years that followed seemed to indicate the ionosphere was thinner during the Sun’s calm phase known as the solar minimum. That theory was impossible to confirm, but the Parker Solar Probe’s flyby might change that.
“When multiple missions are confirming the same result, one after the other, that gives you a lot of confidence that the thinning is real,” study co-author, Robin Ramstad, said in regards to the Parker Solar Probe also showing that Venus’ ionosphere was thinner during the time it passed by.
Venus and Earth have long been referred to as Twin planets – they were both born of a similar process, both are rocky, and their size and structural makeup is quite similar, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t differences. Venus doesn’t have a magnetic field like Earth, and if a human tried to walk on the surface of the planet as they do on Earth, they’d likely instantly die due to the surface boiling at temperatures hot enough to melt lead.
NASA says that at most, spacecrafts have lasted only a couple of hours on the planet. Despite how difficult it is to study Venus, its distance from Earth aside, it’s an important scientific mission to do so as it, “helps scientists understand how these twins have evolved, and what makes Earth-like planets habitable or not.”
House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones prequel, is now in production and is set to hit HBO and HBO Max sometime in 2022. WarnerMedia has released images from the set showing off some of the characters from the upcoming series.
While the recent image HBO released of the production room for the show was mildly interesting, people really want to see some of these new characters, especially when one of the cast members was once The Doctor. There were three images released for the show, along with character descriptions, which you can check out below.
Photograph by Ollie Upton/HBO
Emma D’Arcy (Truth Seekers) plays Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen. She is King Viserys Targaryen’s first-born and is pure Valyrian blood. Additionally, she’s a dragonrider. Matt Smith (Doctor Who) plays Prince Daemon Targaryen, the younger brother of Viserys and current heir to the throne. Also a dragonrider, “Daemon possesses the true blood of the dragon. But it is said that whenever a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin in the air,” reads the official descriptions.
Photograph by Ollie Upton/HBO
Steve Toussaint (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) plays Lord Corlys Velaryon, also known as “The Sea Snake.” The Lord of House Velaryon is a famous nautical adventurer, claims the largest navy in the world, and has become richer than the Lannisters.
Photograph by Ollie Upton/HBO
Olivia Cooke (Ready Player One) plays Alicent Hightower, the daughter of the Hand of the King. She is close to the king and his inner-circle and was raised in the Red Keep. Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill) plays Alicent’s father, Otto Hightower, who serves King Viserys. He sees Daemon Targaryen as a threat to the realm.
House of the Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood. The story follows House Targaryen and is set 300 years before the Game of Thrones story. Ryan Condal (Colony, Rampage) and Miguel Sapochnik (Altered Carbon, Game of Thrones) serve as showrunners, and they will be joined by Sara Lee Hess (Deadwood) as writer and executive producer.
Ahead of its release on May 7, reviews for Capcom’s Resident Evil Village have started to appear online, shining a light on what critics think of the new horror game.
A lot of the chatter surrounding Village has been around Lady Dimitrescu, but what’s the game actually like? Here at GameSpot, reviewer Phil Hornshaw said in his 9/10 Resident Evil Village review that the game succeeds in capturing the spirit of what made Resident Evil 7 so great and evolved it to “become its own unique creature.”
To help you get an idea about if Village is worth your time and money, we’re collecting a roundup of review excerpts from a variety of publications, which you can see below.
Game: Resident Evil Village
Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Stadia
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: May 7
Price: $70
GameSpot — 9/10
“Resident Evil 7 was an excellent return to the horror underpinnings of the franchise, but cunningly altered with new ideas and a new perspective. Similarly, Village is an intelligent reintroduction of the best action elements of Resident Evil. Though it captures some of the same things that made RE7 such a breath of fresh air (or maybe rancid, stale, mold-filled air, but in a good way), Village evolves to become its own unique creature. It makes you wonder what beautifully twisted fiend Resident Evil might mutate into in the future.” — Phil Hornshaw [Full review]
Stevivor — 6.5/10
“It’s ultimately held back by a sloppy storyline, two-dimensional characters and bizarre design choices. The relationship between it and the player is broken from the get-go, resulting in loss of trust that can sit in the back of your mind and haunt you through your entire playthrough.” — Luke Lawrie [Full review]
Press Start — 9/10
“While Resident Evil Village channels the best bits of several Resident Evil games, it stands on its own to be something never done before in the franchise. A macabre potpourri of European, gothic inspired styles of tension and horror, Resident Evil Village is a worthy follow-up to Resident Evil 7: biohazard and one that any self-respecting horror fan shouldn’t miss.” — James Berich [Full review]
Shacknews — 9/10
“Resident Evil Village walks a line of fear and action that reminds of a certain road we’ve been down before, but it’s one worth traveling nonetheless.” — TJ Denzer [Full review]
IGN — 8/10
“Roaming the streets of Resident Evil Village is like visiting a disturbing and deadly Disneyland, where every attraction is a house of horrors. I got just as big a thrill out of revelling in its frenzied violence as I did retracing my steps through the gradually revealed recesses of its sizable village setting to uncover the darkest story secrets of its monstrous main cast. Boss fights are a bit of a letdown but the great variety of enemies throughout keeps things tense, especially on Hardcore mode. The fact that it’s very much a throwback to the fast-paced action of Resident Evil 4 also means it largely takes a step back from the slow-burn scares of Resident Evil 7’s excellent opening hours, which may well disappoint those who prefer more psychological dread to blowing off heads. But if you have an itch for action-heavy survival-horror, then Resident Evil Village will scratch it like a fistfull of Lady Dimitrescu’s freakish fingernails.” — Tristan Ogilvie [Full review]
PC Gamer — 85/100
“Village can occasionally feel like half a dozen different horror games jammed together. But the strength and variety of its ideas, the quality of the art direction, and its darkly evocative atmosphere more than make up for it. It’s a bold and experimental horror game, but also one that leans into the series’ past glories–particularly Resident Evil 4. There’s a lot of Mikami’s 2005 reinvention here, from the enigmatic merchant and weapon upgrades, to the rural setting and corrupted villagers. But ultimately, Village is its own game with its own identity, and the elements it borrows from earlier sequels never define it. This is a quality horror game in its own right, and proof Resident Evil still has the power to thrill, surprise, and scare 25 years on.” — Andy Kelly [Full review]
VentureBeat — 4/5
Resident Evil: Village is going to make fans of the franchise happy, especially those who aren’t cowards like me. But even if you also find yourself shying away from horror, I’d encourage you to screw your courage to the sticking place and consider a look at Capcom’s latest survival horror stunner.” — Mike Minotti [Full review]
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New details have been revealed about the next Superman movie. The film is being written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and will be produced by JJ Abrams.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, DC and parent company Warner Bros are “committed” to hiring a Black director to helm the movie, which will feature a Black superman for the first time. Among the names that are being considered are Steven Caple Jr (Creed II), Regina King (One Night in Miami), Shaka King (Judas and the Black Messiah), and J.D. Dillard (Utopia, The Twilight Zone). While JJ Abrams is obviously a hugely successful director, THR’s sources state it would be “tone-deaf” for Abrams himself to direct.
However, there’s no news yet on who might play Superman himself. While Creed and Black Panther actor Michael B. Jordan was previously rumoured to be under consideration, he told THR that he wouldn’t be taking on the role. “I’m flattered that people have me in that conversation,” he said. “It’s definitely a compliment, but I’m just watching on this one.”
As for the movie’s plot, Coates is reportedly writing an origin story that will see Kal-El arrive on Earth from Krypton. One idea being considered is that the movie is a “20th century period piece.” In addition, the current plan is that the movie will stand alone from other DC films and won’t be part of an existing universe.
Coates is known as a journalist and non-fiction writer as well as for his comic books. His work in comics include a number of Black Panther and Captain America series for Marvel, as well as working as a consultant on the Eisner Award-winning World of Wakanda. Coates’s non-fiction books include The Beautiful Struggle, Between the World and Me, and We Were Eight Years in Power, which collected his essays about the Obama presidency.
Superman was last played by Henry Cavill in Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of the Justice, and both versions of Justice League.
Marvel’s Blade is reportedly due to start production in July 2022, “so that the studio can spend time working on the Stacy Osei-Kuffour-penned script,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. It’s a surprising bit of information to come out in the piece, particularly because the article’s reportage is primarily focused on the upcoming Superman reboot coming from JJ Abrams and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Marvel’s Blade was first announced at Comic-Con way back in 2019 as part of Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 4, when it was revealed that Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) will star in the titular role and will be written by Osei-Kuffour (Watchmen, PEN15). Since then, aside from the fact that the film will exist, Marvel has been lean on details. In fairness, the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a giant curveball in Marvel’s plans for many projects. To get up to speed or check in on other Marvel movies you’ve been waiting for, check out our list of Phase 4 release dates and plot details.
Ironically, at this point, much more is now known about Wesley Snipes’ planned “Blade-killer” movie, which is set “in the world of shape-shifters and a little bit of time travel,” than how Blade itself will be getting rebooted. The original 1998 superhero-horror film arguably gave Snipes the greatest commercial success of his career, so the idea of competing Blades trying to potentially outdo one another is of course incredibly exciting–everybody wins there, in the end.
Meanwhile, if you missed out on the original Blade, or if it’s just been a long time since you’ve seen it, for its 20th anniversary we did a rewatch and can attest that it still holds up.
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Over its 25-year history, the Resident Evil series has continually changed and evolved, like a mad scientist who injects himself with a questionable bio-weapon, mutating into something new every time he shows up. For the most part, those evolutions have been fascinating recombinations of elements as Resident Evil tries different mixes of survival-horror and action gameplay. With Resident Evil 7, Capcom swung for the fences with a first-person perspective, a narrower scope, and more horror-focused gameplay. Resident Evil Village evolves that idea to make something that feels very different from its predecessor, but which is just as engaging.
Though the perspective and mechanical underpinnings are the same, Village branches off in its own direction from RE7, capturing some of the things that were great about that game while resisting the impulse to retread the same ground. While it’s still frightening at points, it takes a less horror-driven tack on the same underlying first-person formula. Village continues to evolve Resident Evil while maintaining a keen grasp on some of its core tenets, finding new ways (or reviving old ones) of getting under your skin and ratcheting up the tension.
As has been pretty clear for a while now, Resident Evil Village is Resident Evil 7 through the lens of Resident Evil 4. When the latter was released way back in 2005, it significantly revamped what the franchise had been up to that point, swapping the earlier games’ slower, survival-horror focus for a more fast-paced action approach. RE4 was scary because you were being overwhelmed by enemies, backed into corners, and chased by madmen wielding chainsaws. It traded darkened corridors and jump scares for adrenaline-fueled panic.
So while RE7 leans into the dark and creepy haunted house idea of the very first Resident Evil, Village transforms that take by taking cues from the faster, panickier RE4. It’s again played from a tight, closed-in first-person perspective that has you constantly wondering what’s behind you, and it still often focuses on slower movement and exploration through its gorgeous, twisting environments. But Village’s approach is distinctly more action-centric, and it’s remarkable how much Capcom has managed to push the formula of its reboot to the series in such a different direction.
Village picks up on Resident Evil 7’s story three years later, again focusing on protagonist Ethan Winters. After rescuing his wife Mia from the Baker house and subsequently getting saved by Resident Evil franchise mainstay Chris Redfield, Ethan and Mia went into hiding with Chris’ help, moving to Europe to restart their lives. They’ve since had a daughter, and while they’re trying to put their lives back together, Ethan continues to struggle with the trauma he experienced. Mia, meanwhile, keeps trying to put the subject out of her mind and even seems to be struggling to remember it. But before Ethan can really get to the bottom of why his wife is acting kinda weird about the whole “survived being tormented in a house full of monsters” trauma they shared, Chris and his team bust into the couple’s house and drag Ethan and baby Rose off.
Ethan wakes up some time later after a car crash. The two random special forces guys who were transporting him and Rose are dead. Ethan wanders through the snowy woods in search of his missing child, until he hits a ramshackle, seemingly empty village. Before long, he discovers it’s under siege by what appear to be werewolves. It’s all extremely reminiscent of the beginning of Resident Evil 4, which upended the RE formula by dropping you into a village overrun with enemies who acted like humans rather than shambling, mindless zombies. The lycans wield weapons and shoot arrows at you, and to avoid getting surrounded, you can run into houses and barricade the doors with furniture to slow their advances. The first major challenge in Village is to survive an onslaught of these creatures as you frantically try to create barricades, find weapons, and make a run for it before you’re completely overwhelmed.
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Just like its 2005 inspiration, the opening battle of Village taps into a frightening intensity of trying to create a defensible position or take part in a running gunfight that you’re in serious danger of losing. It’s a completely different feeling from the slow-burn dread of RE7, whose combat builds fear from the realization that the number of bullets in your gun is not the same as the number of bullets you need to kill one of its lumbering Molded enemies. But Village’s combat can make your heart pound just as hard.
Really, the fact that Village feels like such a turn away from RE7 is what works about it–as a sequel, it feels like Capcom reaching for a new way to challenge itself. Most of the time in Village, at least on its standard difficulty, you’ll find yourself well-outfitted for whatever you’re about to face–the challenge is in using those resources effectively and keeping yourself alive. Village uses the same movement systems as RE7, which can feel a little slow and clunky at times; Ethan isn’t especially agile and even at a sprint, it can feel like he’s barely moving. Despite a sense of trudging through molasses, Village is tuned so that enemies also approach slowly and cautiously, so dealing with them comes together like a standoff that has you judging their moves or hitting their weak points before they have a chance to get in close and rip into you. It also adds to the tension as you try to navigate through areas to keep yourself out of danger–the first-person view means your awareness is very narrow, so staying hypervigilant about your surroundings is essential. Sometimes, you just have to run and hope you can find a better place to make your stand.
While the controls work for tense moments when surrounded, they feel a little wobblier in boss battles. Here, you’re often dodging attacks as a monster charges you or swings at you with a huge weapon. You can absorb some damage with the ability to hold up your hands in a guard, another holdover from RE7 that helps mitigate the limitations of your movement, but the better strategy is to try to run around a battlefield and get out of the way. That usually means sacrificing seeing what your opponent is doing so you can make a quick dash one way or the other, and it’s a bit of a weird way to fight. Since Ethan can’t step sideways while looking forward, you’re constantly just sort of running for it and hoping whatever is coming at you doesn’t hit you. It doesn’t make these boss battles frustrating or add to their difficulty, but it does add a counterintuitiveness to combat that can take you out of the moment.
Bullets are easy to come by, and if you’re short, you can craft more from materials you find by searching your surroundings, or purchase them from the Duke, a traveling merchant with a penchant for showing up just when you need him. You’ll find lots of guns and gun upgrades throughout the game, and you’ll revisit the central town repeatedly to scour it for new hidden items. There’s even a system for upgrading your character that involves animals like pigs and chickens scattered around the village. Shoot them and bring their meat to the Duke, he’ll cook them into meals that increase your health, amp up your movement speed, or make your guard more effective.
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All that stuff you’re carrying around has to go somewhere, so Village brings back the inventory management system of RE4: You have a suitcase full of weapons, ammo, and health items, with each item taking up spaces on a grid. For most of the game, you probably won’t have to worry about this, but as things wear on, you’ll start to find yourself hauling more and more gear. You can move items around to make sure they all fit in your case, Tetris-style, and purchase bigger cases from the Duke so you can bring more stuff–but this system is most interesting when it starts making you wonder if you should sell off old guns or toss less useful items in favor of things like extra ammo. Mercifully, crafting materials aren’t counted in your inventory, so you’re free to make bullets and health items on the fly. But planning what you do and don’t need to pick up becomes a consideration in exploration, albeit never a major one.
Though Village has far more variety of enemies to fight than RE7, it’s not all shooting, with a lot of varied pacing and new challenges throughout. There are four different areas to unlock as you progress through the story, each headed by one of the Four Lords–the scary monster people who dominate the village and the area around it. The first is the castle run by Lady Dimitrescu (she of much internet fame), and while you’ll spend lots of time popping the skulls of lycans in the village, there’s a lot less shooting to be done in the castle portion. You’ll occasionally face enemies you have to gun down, but much more time in the castle is spent navigating its tight corridors as Dimitrescu and her daughters–all seemingly vampires capable of turning themselves into clouds of bugs and recomposing themselves elsewhere–are hunting you. You can’t kill Dimistrescu or her daughters with your conventional weapons, so you have to run if you’re found. The entire level is spent exploring the castle, looking for the items you need to advance through the area, while listening for Dimistrescu’s clomping footsteps and trying to keep away from her.
Even in this very first new area, Village is mixing and remixing its experience with the different horror ideas. You’re not just shotgunning tons of enemies, you’re also engaging in stealth that’s much more akin to what navigating the Baker house was like in RE7. Later portions of the game throw different obstacles into your path. There are puzzle-heavy levels reminiscent of the mansion of Resident Evil or the police station of Resident Evil 2. There are sections where you hear frightfully powerful enemies in the distance, and knowing you’re going to have to face them down, begin heaping ammo into your pockets in preparation. And there are points that show Village can also hone in on some of the intense frights that made RE7 so remarkable–points that are too damn good to spoil here.
Suffice to say that though Village gives you lots of guns and lets you use them, it also is great at maintaining an atmosphere of unease as you head around each new corner. You might have plenty of weapons, but can you handle what you’re about to face? Will they even work against the next creature you encounter? There’s an excellent balance between providing lots of action and maintaining that dread. This isn’t the same kind of intense anxiety that RE7 conjured up, but Village encourages its own kind of fear, and it hits you with a few great RE7-like setpieces to ratchet up the tension when you least expect it. One particular “oh crap” moment with Dimitrescu comes to mind; others later in the game remind you that just because you have a lot of guns doesn’t mean you’re invincible.
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No two sections of Village are quite the same, and each draws on different aspects of past Resident Evil games to combine them with the underlying RE7 feel to create something that’s both new and nostalgic. It’s impressive how deftly the game can change into something a little different again and again throughout its runtime, and each section is fun, intense, and, naturally, frightening in its own way. The result is a game that clips right along, constantly throwing something new at you but always feeling like an interesting new take on what you already know and have experienced. It’s a hodgepodge of Resident Evil ideas, yes, but each one is executed exceedingly well–this is a game that seems aware of the franchise’s entire history and is able to summon its best elements at will.
The caveat to that is the last hour of the game, where things take a weird, over-the-top turn. In the run-up to Village’s final moments, the action gets turned up even higher, resulting in a final few enemy encounters that wind up feeling like needless digressions and don’t add much to the overall package. Where past fights with hordes of lycans were intense affairs that required you to keep moving and pay careful attention to what you were facing, these last bits feel a bit like you’ve stepped through a portal into another game. For a few moments there, Village draws up the worst action-heavy portions of Resident Evil 6, losing track of what made you grit your teeth and clench your fists and exchanging it for something more akin to shooters like Call of Duty.
This same moment highlights some of the inconsistency in Village’s story. Despite pre-release imagery focused on the Umbrella corporation’s logo appearing in the game, the way that Village connects with the larger RE franchise feels a bit tacked on. The same is true of Chris Redfield, who shows up here and there to say something cryptic without really revealing anything. The focus on Ethan’s interactions with the Four Lords and uncovering what’s going on in the village is more fun and interesting–these are antagonists who come off as petty and human. They don’t particularly like each other but are all eager to torture and maim you anyway, and their interactions with Ethan and each other add dimension to their characters. In all, this isn’t the best Resident Evil story, but it is a spooky romp with fun villains. It’s just a shame that more time wasn’t devoted to pulling on all the hanging story threads of RE7, or in tying it together with the franchise at large.
Thankfully, the late-game digression doesn’t last long, and the elements about the combat that are fun–the one-on-one or one-on-too-many sparring nature of fights, and finding ways to take down tough enemies before they can rip you apart–are transplanted into the fast-paced arcade mode The Mercenaries. This also feels like a lift straight out of Resident Evil 4; it takes the combat of Village, slaps a timer on it, and focuses it on scoring points. The Mercenaries is a fun side activity in its own right, always daring you to get a higher score by balancing taking down enemies quickly and trying to complete one of its given levels as fast as you can. It demonstrates how tight the combat in Village can be, although at times it can be held back a bit by the slow, underwater-feeling of movement around the battlefield.
Another aspect of the Village package is Resident Evil Re:Verse, a multiplayer-focused mode in which you fight other players as both Resident Evil characters and monsters. Re:Verse is slated to release separately sometime this summer for Village buyers, but it wasn’t included with our review copy.
Resident Evil 7 was an excellent return to the horror underpinnings of the franchise, but cunningly altered with new ideas and a new perspective. Similarly, Village is an intelligent reintroduction of the best action elements of Resident Evil. Though it captures some of the same things that made RE7 such a breath of fresh air (or maybe rancid, stale, mold-filled air, but in a good way), Village evolves to become its own unique creature. It makes you wonder what beautifully twisted fiend Resident Evil might mutate into in the future.
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Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 will release on Nintendo Switch this summer. It’s coming June 25, Activision announced in a news release.
“As the first Tony Hawk Pro Skater game to debut on Switch, fans are in for an epic treat when Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, a faithful remaster of the first two iconic games in the franchise, takes on-the-go gameplay to the next level,” Activision said.
The announcement also included a tweet from Nintendo that shows Tony Hawk performing a … switch. Check out the animated GIF below.
Developer Vicarious Visions is now part of Blizzard and is said to be contributing to the upcoming Diablo II remake, which is called Diablo II: Resurrected.
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