Updating one’s resume, a far cry from the fun of gaming for a few hours, often is a frustrating process for a couple of reasons. It takes a considerable amount of time to ensure your work history and experience accurately reflect what you’ve done in life. What’s more, there’s also that sinking suspicion that any resume you submit online will get lost in a sea of thousands of other applications. While that may be the case for the majority of people these days, it doesn’t have to be you.
Resoume Resumé Creator is an easy-to-use software that helps you stand out and get closer to the job you want by making it simple to build beautiful, ATS-aligned resumes, CVs, and portfolios. You can get a lifetime subscription to this software-as-a-service on sale today for $34.99, which is 63% off its regular price tag of $95.
Resoume takes the hard work out of making incredible resumes. First off, this software empowers you to import your up-to-date profile from LinkedIn. So, rather than spending hours copy-pasting all of the information you want to include on your resume, you click one button and the software takes care of the rest. On top of that, Resoume scans the content of your resume to see if it has the necessary keywords and formatting to get you past a company’s Applicant Tracking System (ATS). These days, most companies use ATS to help their hiring managers and HR specialists sift through the sea of applications they receive for any job opening. So, it’s crucial to create an ATS-friendly resume so that you actually have a shot of hearing back from the employer.
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Dell is having a great run of deals on their Alienware, G-Series, and XPS gaming PCs, but this particular run is about to end soon. The hottest deal right now is an Alienware m15 15″ RTX 2070 laptop with all the bells and whistles (like a 240Hz display and 32GB of memory) for only $1450. For those of you who are looking for a desktop instead, Alienware’s newest generation Aurora gaming PC is also on sale, and close to the lowest price we’ve ever seen.
______________________________ Eric Song is IGN’s deal curator and spends roughly 1/4 of his income on stuff he posts. Check out his latest Daily Deals Article and subscribe to his IGN Deals Newsletter.
Games Done Quick’s annual summer event had to be first postponed, and later moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but despite the many obstacles the charity marathon event will be going ahead from this Sunday, August 16.
The event runs 24 hours a day for a full week from the 16th to the 23rd, with all proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders, a charity GDQ has raised millions for in the past. This year, due to the delay on the summer event, GDQ added an extra event in April to raise money for coronavirus relief.
While the event no longer has a physical presence, for most viewers at home the experience will be the same. Summer Games Done Quick will stream throughout the length of the event on its Twitch channel, with videos also available after the fact on YouTube.
With all participants streaming from home, the online-only SGDQ has been able to include some interesting games that require more unique set-ups. You can view the full schedule in your local time here, but some highlights to watch out for include:
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt–9:47 PM PT, August 17
Any% Old Patch, 2:12:00
The Last Of Us–9:55 PM PT, August 19
Grounded mode, Glitchless, New Game, 3:00:00
Half Life: Alyx–6:27 PM PT, August 20
Bonus Game 4 (and potentially the first VR game to be included in GDQ)
Any% No Spin, 0:40:00
Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic–1:15 AM PT, August 21
Any %, 0:51:00
Crypt of the NecroDancer: AMPLIFIED–8:15 PM PT August 21
Coda, All Zones, 0:20:00
Pump It Up!–8:41 PM PT August 21
Bonus Game 5, Showcase, Arcade Cabinet
Final Fantasy VII Remake–9:51 AM PT August 22
Any% Normal, 7:20:00
Smash Bros 64, Break the Target–12:25 PM PT, August 22
It’s surprising that the video game industry doesn’t have very many high quality documentaries that chronicle its fascinating history. There have been a few commercial gems, including The King of Kong and Indie Game: The Movie. Recent developer-created making-ofs for games like God of War and Broken Age offer compelling looks at the process of creating a single game. And YouTube channels such as Noclip have regular long-form stories about the development of games both large and small. But there hasn’t been a really great documentary that tells the story of gaming’s formative years–until now. High Score, a new Netflix limited series streaming August 19, is easily the most impressive video game documentary to date.
High Score covers a lot of ground in its roughly 4.5 hour runtime spread across six distinct episodes. From arcade culture and Atari to Nintendo, Sega, and specific genres like role-playing and fighting games, High Score methodically moves through the late ’70s through early ’90s, telling the vibrant stories behind the most popular games of the time and the people who created them. The result is a crash course on the golden age of gaming filled with insightful interviews, brilliant writing, and most importantly, an inspiring and inclusive message.
Video game documentaries, even some of the decent ones–Chasing Ghosts, Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters–have routinely been plagued by low production values. High Score is as well-produced as any Netflix doc, with interviews and scenes set globally, a treasure trove of classic footage, and most charmingly, animated scenes that are used alongside anecdotes told by those involved with gaming’s rich history.
High Score also has a stellar narrator in Charles Martinet, the voice of Super Mario. Martinet serves as the tour guide for this trip through gaming’s pivotal years, while the huge cast of interview subjects–who speak directly to the camera–fill in the details, providing behind-the-scenes stories of what it was really like to be part of the gaming boom. It’s directed by William Acks, France Costrel, and Sam LaCroix, all of whom worked on Showtime’s doc series about technology and the dark web, Dark Net.
Episode 1, “Boom & Bust,” revisits Space Invaders and Pac-Man and features in-depth interviews with both creators as well as the challenging transition from arcades to home consoles. Some of the most interesting interviews in “Boom & Bust” tell lesser known stories, like how Ms. Pac-Man came to be and the actual developer behind the tech that led to cartridge-based games. And it addresses the “Bust” part of the episode title as well by dissecting Atari’s downfall, complete with a humorous interview with the creator of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial—notoriously considered the worst game ever made.
Setting the tone for High Score as a whole, “Boom & Bust” offers a humanizing look at those who both fell in love with making games and those who excelled at them, stressing along the way that games are meant to be for anyone and everyone.
Nintendo rose from the ashes left by Atari, so it’s fitting that High Score heads in that direction next. For longtime Nintendo fans, much of the story might be familiar, like how Donkey Kong and Super Mario came to be. However, Episode 2, “Comeback Kid,” also focuses on an endearing aspect of the studio’s history: Nintendo Game Play Counselors. In fact, the star of the episode is Shaun Bloom, a former Game Play Counselor, who has a ton of on-the-job stories that are simply delightful. With old Nintendo training videos, news footage, gameplay videos, and cartoon scenes galore, “Comeback Kid” has a startling amount of variety across its 45-minute runtime.
For RPG fans, the third episode looks back at the origins of the hugely influential genre. Featuring interviews with the duo behind the first PC adventure game with graphics and the man responsible for bringing choice-based consequences to games, “Role Players” is utterly absorbing. Most critically, it delves into the appeal of the genre for many: the ability to become anyone they want on screen. To this effect, it features one of the most inspiring interviews in the series with the creator of the 1992 LGBTQ RPG, GayBlade.
Anyone who has read Blake Harris’s Console Wars will recognize many of the beats in the episode dedicated to Sega, with key contributors such as Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske and Sonic the Hedgehog gameplay designer Hirokazu Yasuhara telling the story of Sega’s path to relevance. It really hones in on how Sega cleverly managed to wrangle away some of Nintendo’s astronomically high market share, providing a keen perspective on how marketing can be the most important aspect of any product. Part of Sega’s plan involved sports games and the complex journey to bring 11v11 football to life with John Madden Football, including a story from a very persistent developer who changed the game for the better with Madden NFL ’95.
Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat are the foundation for the episode dedicated to fighting games. Revealing interviews with Street Fighter II designers Akira Nishitani and Akira Yasuda and Mortal Kombat co-designer John Tobias explore the beginnings of gaming’s path toward serious competition. The episode also details the first major (comical) outcry about video game violence, which contains some lesser known facts about the 1993 congressional hearings and their lasting effects on the industry at large.
Every episode of High Score is superb, but Episode 6, “Level Up,” has a few of the best anecdotes and insider stories about the pivotal jump from 2D to 3D. Of course, id Software is heavily featured, and John Romero has plenty of amazing tales to tell. Jumping back and forth from America to Japan, Level Up also discusses Nintendo’s decidedly different but equally compelling approach to the revolution that was 3D gaming.
All told, High Score is the most comprehensive video game documentary to date. It has a large scope but manages to tell intimate, relatable stories about people who fell in love with games and decided to dedicate themselves to what has become one of the most ubiquitous entertainment mediums in the world. It’s also fiercely determined to shine a light on the stories surrounding games that have been lost over the years, lifting up those who have sadly lived on the margins of both the industry and society. For that, High Score delivers an important and hopeful message.
If ever there was a film franchise perfectly positioned for a modern video game adaptation, it’s Fast & Furious. For a medium so regularly adept at putting us in high-speed pursuits and shoving us through sweeping action sequences, it’s almost baffling that in nearly two decades this series has never spawned a truly top-notch, dedicated tie-in (at least beyond 2015’s small but free Fast & Furious-themed spin-off experience for Forza Horizon 2).
Unfortunately, it still hasn’t. Fast & Furious Crossroads is short, shallow, and surprisingly simple, and it’s nothing less than a crashing disappointment in virtually every department.
The Fast & Furious film saga’s rise from low-fi Point Break rehash to six-billion-dollar box office brute is the bane of film snobs, but I love it. A high-octane hodgepodge of spy movie madness and telenovela tropes, these films may be dumber than a box of hair but they have oodles of heart – and I am unironically and unequivocally invested in them. I’ve got all the Blu-rays; I’ve got way more of the Hot Wheels than my wife knows about. I assure you; I am all in.
I’m telling you this because I need you to know I’m not punching down here. In fact, I was nearly punching the air when Crossroads was finally confirmed after years of rumours. A Fast & Furious game from the talented team behind Need for Speed Shift and Project CARS, and Vin Diesel is involved? On paper that’s a supremely promising combo. But somehow all of that promise resulted in this bland and bafflingly basic game that barely lasts four hours – and that’s including the cutscenes. Not that I especially wanted to keep playing longer than that.
Ejecto Seato, Cuz
Crossroads pits the Fast family against an ancient group of highway robbers who’ve since transitioned to international terrorism: the Tadakhul. That sounds entirely on-brand for a modern Fast & Furious tale and, for the most part, it works well enough. The vehicle selection is strong, with many plucked directly from the films, although the ones with harpoon guns and gaming routers bolted to their roofs can look a little goofy.
Things don’t get off to a particularly promising start, though, and with the opening mission dropping you directly into the action without any introduction, the overly-manufactured VO here between franchise stalwarts Dom and Letty feels like a jury-rigged solution for Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody being off the table for a proper intro. It’s like walking into a movie 10 minutes late.
Crossroads quickly pivots to a trio of fresh faces – two ex-Miami street racers and an off-brand Spanish Liam Hemsworth – but despite their efforts, Sonequa Martin-Green and Asia Kate-Dillon’s Vienna and Cam aren’t very compelling characters. Martin-Green’s Vienna is largely written as a slightly crankier Letty and her sliver of backstory is basically left to the campaign’s closing lines of dialogue. Kate-Dillon seems to be having fun chewing the scenery as the non-binary Cam – who fits snugly in the Fast universe, which has been quietly and effortlessly nailing diverse ensembles for nearly 20 years – but they’re not given any particularly funny material. It was a welcome respite when Tyrese Gibson’s Roman finally showed up to inject some mild comic relief into proceedings.
Alas, the game itself is no deeper than the new characters.
The handling is clearly tuned for maximum arcade accessibility and there definitely isn’t a shred of simulator about it; cornering is sticky on the front end but almost entirely disconnected at the rear, and pinballing off walls and obstacles carries little punishment. Ultimately I found it twitchy and unsatisfying, and it’s certainly not assisted by the fact the only view available is a far too closely-cropped chase camera that unhelpfully lurches in and out.
Crossroads may look like a Need for Speed-style experience spiked with a hefty dose of official Fast & Furious features but it’s really nothing of the sort. There are no open worlds to explore and almost no actual racing to speak of. The single-player campaign is rather a scripted series of completely linear segments of action-driving, so to speak. As such, Crossroads has more in common with, say, SpyHunter than any Need for Speed – or, at least, those obligatory car missions in old James Bond shooters.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Most%20of%20Crossroads%E2%80%99%20missions%20lack%20spark%20or%20challenge”]That wouldn’t have necessarily been a bad thing, but most of Crossroads’ missions lack spark or challenge. The car-on-car combat initially seems to have a pleasant Burnout taste to it but it quickly becomes entirely one-note. There’s a whiff of Bond to the vehicle gadgets, but I never felt like I was aiming for anything; just clicking through button prompts and quick time events. Combat missions often feature the ability to switch between heroes but it’s generally only something you do when Crossroads instructs you to, and only to go through the motions with the required processes; hack the guns, yank the guns off, rinse, repeat. Avoiding an avalanche or fleeing a collapsing mine may sound thrilling, but here you just mash the throttle and bounce your way to a straightforward escape. Dragging what’s basically a high-tech wrecking ball across the deck of an aircraft carrier looks like a hoot, but the path is so forgiving and the task is so simple I didn’t really feel like I’d achieved anything.
There are a pair of chapters towards the end that are more dynamic and fleshed-out – the quarry mission pumps up the amount of environmental hazards and the last mission pleasingly dials up the scale of the task at hand to proportions even the film franchise might balk at – but then it’s over. There’s really no reason to go back; the missions play the same way every time. Icons for smashables and jumps throughout each mission seem to hint at some kind of Stuntman-inspired scoring system for encouraging cinematic driving that never materialises. Hit the crates or don’t; Crossroads doesn’t seem to care.
Outside of the brief campaign there’s online multiplayer, dubbed Online Ops. These appear to be a nine-player contest between three teams of three – heroes, villains, and cops. However, I can’t say how it works because I can’t start a match; any time I try I appear to be the only person in the world playing it. It’s a problem that so many cars and unlockables are tied to ranking up in Online Ops when I can’t actually play them.
The Steam Game Festival may be the only gaming-related show to have added extra dates instead of cancelling this year–and Geoff Keighley has just announced yet another edition of the online-only game festival will be gracing our screens before the end of the year.
Valve is planning another Steam Game Festival: Autumn Edition this Fall, running October 7 – 13. Another chance to play free previews of upcoming games.
The very first iteration of the Steam Game Festival was launched to coincide with Keighley’s Game Awards in December 2019, with the idea being to replicate the concept of a physical trade show even before the pandemic made such online events a necessity. Two more of the online events ran this year, with the first running when GDC should have taken place in March, and the Summer Game Festival running in June when E3 would have happened.
Now, the Steam Fall Games Festival will run from October 7 to 13, giving Steam users a chance to play free demos of upcoming games–usually comprised of games which are planning to release on Steam within the next year.
While nothing has yet been announced about the fate of Keighley’s Game Awards for 2020, we may get yet another iteration of the Steam Game Festival running alongside that event in December again this year.
Craig Mazin, the Emmy award-winning writer behind Chernobyl and The Hangover movie series, is working alongside Neil Druckmann on The Last of Us TV show for HBO. He’s now shared some intriguing new details about what to expect, including that the show will feature storylines that Druckmann originally had in mind for the game that didn’t make it for one reason or another.
Speaking to the BBC (via Eurogamer), Mazin reflected on a conversation he had with Druckmann, who shared an anecdote with him about something that was cut from the game.
Mazin said Druckmann told him, “There was one thing we were talking about for a while, and then he told me what it was, and I was like … jaw drop … OK … that’s going in. For sure, we have to do that. You will have to shoot me to stop me from doing that.”
Mazin did not share more details about this, but he said it’s part of a wider ambition to make the Last of Us TV show new and exciting for people who already played the game.
“Our intention is you will watch the show and say, ‘This has violated nothing about what I loved about the game and what I witnessed in the game, but it has also brought me a whole lot more. Things that I did not know.'”
Mazin added that he was not surprised that The Last of Us movie that Sony tried for years to make never materialized. The writer said the joy of a good story like The Last of Us’ is in its length and the slow burn of character development and relationships.
“It had to be in this format,” Mazin said of The Last of Us as a TV show as opposed to a movie.
Also in the interview, Mazin confirmed that he and Druckmann have mapped out the “first cycle” of The Last of Us TV show, and then next stage is to begin writing the scripts.
He also spoke about why he believes The Last of Us TV show will succeed where other video game adaptations have struggled. Mazin also reflected on how the changes to the story that he and Druckmann are writing for the show are meant to expand, not undo, the original game.
“The one anxiety that I think fans of something have is that when the property gets licensed to someone else, those people don’t really understand it or are going to change it or make it stupid. And in this case, I’m doing it with the guy who did it [Neil Druckmann],” Mazin said. “So the changes that we’re making are designed to fill things out and expand, not to undo, but rather to enhance. We’re doing both–we’re creating the new and we’re also reimagining what is already there to present it in a different format. It’s kind of a dream come true for me.This is one I’ve been thinking about on my own as a fan for a long, long time.”
“I’m a little scared because everybody’s emotions connected to this game are, uh, rather intense [laughs],” he said. “I think I’m probably going to hide in a bunker for a while [when it comes out] because you can’t make everybody happy.”
More generally, Mazin also mentioned that while The Last of Us TV show will follow the story of the original game, it won’t be a beat-for-beat re-telling of the game. Writing for a game, where you control the character and largely stay with that person the whole time, is very different than writing for a TV show where the story bounces between numerous characters that you watch passively, Mazin said.
“Everything we’re doing is being done with extreme care and thoughtfulness for what we know we love about it,” Mazin said. “Our goal is not to keep you in love with The Last of Us, it’s to make you fall in love the Last of Us in a different way. It’s a passive way–you’re taking it in, you’re not playing it but you are experiencing more, with more characters, in more ways. I think we’ve got something good going.”
Finally, Mazin said you should not expect to see The Last of Us TV show anytime soon. He mentioned that HBO has given him a good level of freedom in regards to timing, with the network prioritizing quality over a release date in the near future. He also pointed out that the Hollywood industry is in a difficult place these days with COVID-19 impacting filming schedules around the world. There have been no casting announcements, either, so we don’t know who will play Joel and Ellie in the show.
We’re one step closer to a release date for the Xbox Series X, as Microsoft has confirmed via blog post on the Xbox Wire that the Series X launches this November. There’s no specific date and there’s still no word on price. One major game that won’t launch with Series X is Halo Infinite – which has been delayed to 2021.
In other news, Splinter Cell’s Sam Fisher is coming to Rainbow Six Siege as a playable character. He is one of the new operators in the next season, Operation Shadow Legacy.
While you’re here, check out GameSpot’s merch store! Until the end of August, all the proceeds will go to charity, split between Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 direct relief.
Daybreak Games, the developer of PlanetSide 2 and the EverQuest franchise, has acquired Cold Iron Studios. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but this is a big deal because it means Cold Iron’s new Alien game has found a home and will still see the light of day.
This all came into question after Disney acquired Fox, thus assuming ownership of Cold Iron’s previous owner, FoxNext Games. The mobile game company Scopely acquired Cold Iron Studios earlier in 2020, at which time the studio said it planned to sell the developer.
That has now happened, with Daybreak acquiring Cold Iron and the Alien game they were working on. This game is in the works for console and PC, but it has yet to be announced.
“The game promises to deliver an action-packed, sci-fi shooter experience unlike any other game on the market,” Daybreak said in a press release.
Cold Iron Studios, which is based in San Jose, California, was founded in 2015 by the developers who created Star Trek Online, Neverwinter, and City of Heroes. Cold Iron will continue to operate independently under this new deal, with Daybreak providing marketing, tech, and operational support.
Daybreak, meanwhile, was formerly a subsidiary of Sony before it split off from the PlayStation company to operate independently back in 2015.
The world is full of spots. They invite you, seducing you into skating on them. A great skate spot encourages you to nail a line of tricks on it, pushing you to keep trying after every bail. An expertly placed ramp that leads you to a rail and down a flight of stairs is one of the many Mona Lisas that skaters strive for. The idea of successfully conquering said spot is what drives them to push themselves, learn from their mistakes, and grow. It’s all about the location, something some skateboarding games have nailed for over two decades. And while newcomer Skater XL has a good foundation for its trick system, it fails to inspire the practice of those mechanics on its small number of largely lacklustre levels.
Skater XL’s trick system is easy to understand and rewarding to learn. Each analog stick is assigned to a foot, and your job is to twist and push those sticks to pull off a cavalcade of tricks. A kickflip requires you to pull the right stick (your right foot) back, snap it up for an ollie and then kick the board with your left stick (left foot) to cause it to flip. It’s an engaging way to perform the simplest tricks, and while it may sound complicated, Skater XL’s physics give you a lot of room for nailing tricks.
At times, it feels somewhat weightless and more like you’re controlling a board with no one on it than an actual person that has to twist their body and manipulate the board with their feet. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as many games have utilized less-than-realistic physics to create great skateboarding power fantasies. Unfortunately, Skater XL’s levels aren’t the interesting playgrounds for your skateboarding endeavors that they need to be for a compelling experience.
The limited number of levels exacerbates this issue. There are only five official ones created by developer Easy Day Studios, while the other three are community-made. These levels emulate typical skating locales, including a school, a small neighborhood, and several different skate parks. These locations are prime candidates for skating, and they do have some good spots–I personally loved skating the bowl at the California Skatepark. However, they largely feel bare, and no matter where you go, there’s little to encourage you to keep exploring and searching for that next skate conquest.
The lack of direction is another aspect of Skater XL that falters a bit. Normally, skateboarding games are satisfying enough to play without any real objective–the act of skating and landing difficult tricks is rewarding enough on its own. This can be attributed to great level design, something that Skater XL doesn’t excel at with its base set of levels. Each level features challenges that you select from a menu, and these do a decent job of introducing you to an area’s various spots, though they mostly just feel like tutorials as opposed to challenges. Skater XL’s actual tutorial, meanwhile, is extremely basic and incomplete, as it doesn’t detail grabs, manuals, reverts, and a number of other tricks. You simply learn the basest of basics and are then let loose into the world to do whatever you want with your board.
The exploration of each level is stifled by the game’s reliance on checkpoints. Unlike other skateboarding games where you can get back up in the spot you bailed, Skater XL is entirely governed by a checkpoint system. This normally works as an optional mechanic that lets you warp to a specific spot if you want to try a specific trick in a specific location. Unfortunately, you will always respawn where your checkpoint is located, forcing you to place them every now and then if you’re just looking to free skate through a level to see what it has to offer.
Another way to navigate each of Skater XL’s levels is to press Y or triangle and then move a cursor around the world’s geometry. This lets you transport yourself to any area of the map in a much quicker fashion–and in cases like rooftops, it’s the only way to get there. This is a good way to get from one end of a map to the other, and while zooming out and moving up in elevation does take an unnecessarily long time, it works as it should. There were a few times when my cursor would end up outside of the map–or the map would be enveloped in a black abyss–but resetting the level was always possible and, because of the lack of objectives or progress, it was only ever a minor inconvenience.
Similar controls for zooming around the map are used in Skater XL’s Replay mode, which lets you shorten a clip of your gameplay and create a shot that could be seen in a skate tape. There are some great options, the best of which is a tripod movement mode that allows you to place the camera wherever you want and have it follow your skater’s movements. This in particular can make even the most basic of tricks look like they belong in a skate compilation. These clips are saved as you create them, though the specific shots aren’t. This lets you come back to specific moments to capture them from different angles, though you will need to rely on your specific platform’s recording functions to set shots into stone and share them on the internet.
Alongside the replay editor, Skater XL’s character customization and music both make the package feel in touch with skate culture. While the menu design is spartan and uninteresting, the character creator is full of licensed clothing and skateboards that are fun to equip your skater with. This is accompanied by a soundtrack that’s full of great skateboarding music from the 2000s forward, consisting largely of indie rock bands like Modest Mouse and Interpol. It’s an excellent soundtrack, but it doesn’t feel like a cohesive part of the game. Songs play uninterrupted and unchanged by loading a new map, changing modes, or even entering the pause menu. Everything from the rock bands to the short selection of hip hop and electronic music belongs in a skateboarding game, but it feels more like you’re listening to a Spotify playlist than a game’s soundtrack.
If there’s one thing Skater XL excels at, it’s that it has a great foundation that shows Easy Day Studios knows how to make quality skateboarding mechanics. Unfortunately, the rest of the experience isn’t quite there yet. The uninspired levels, barebones features, and overall unfinished-feeling state makes its 1.0 release look like it’s still in Early Access. Its trick system deserves more, and with time, it could grow into a great experience. As it is now, Skater XL lacks spots worth conquering and fails to entice past this initial bail.
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