Donkey Kong player Robbie Lakeman has achieved a new world record of 1,260,700 while streaming on Twitch, surpassing player John McCurdy’s 2019 record of 1,259,000. While the achievement hasn’t yet been verified on Twin Galaxies’ Donkey Kong leaderboard, the full run is available to watch on Twitch.
Lakeman previously held the second highest record at 1,247,700, set in February 2018, and has long been one of the top players in the community.
Congratulations to my friend Robbie Lakeman on his new Donkey Kong world record! 1,260,700 points, incredible.
The news that he had set a new record was tweeted out by Billy Mitchell, a fellow Donkey Kong player who featured in the movie The King of Kong, and later became infamous for allegations of cheating on his historical DK records. After an investigation, Twin Galaxies wiped his high scores from the site and banned him from submitting any new ones.
Lakeman’s record-setting moment was clipped a number of times on Twitch, where he often runs record-beating attempts. The full four hour session is also available to view for those who are curious.
While EndeavorRX, a game by therapy-focused studio Akili Interactive may not be groundbreaking for its graphics or its gameplay, it just broke new ground by becoming the first video game that can legally be marketed and prescribed as medication in the USA.
EndeavorRX–with RX being the medical notation for prescription–is a game for iPhone and iPad that can now legally be prescribed by doctors. Designed for children between the ages of eight and 12 who have inattentive or combined-type ADHD, the game went through six years of clinical trials before finally receiving FDA approval.
The most favorable study showed that one in three of the children studied in clinical trials “no longer had a measurable attention deficit on at least one measure of objective attention,” after they played Endeavor for 25 minutes a day, five days a week for four weeks straight.
Of course, while the study showed the game could help with the effects of ADHD, the results still aren’t comparable with traditional, medication-based treatments. The study’s conclusion warns that the results “are not sufficient to suggest that AKL-T01 should be used as an alternative to established and recommended treatments for ADHD.”
The game itself focuses on dodging obstacles and collecting items, pretty standard gameplay for a number of different genres. However, Endeavor’s website claims it’s “different from other action video games that a child might play,” with a trial against an unnamed control game showing almost zero effect from the control.
“The treatment programmed into the game was scientifically designed to challenge a child’s brain during treatment requiring the child’s attention and focus on multiple tasks at the same time,” the website explains, though there isn’t much detail as to how the design of Endeavor is different from other task-based games.
Endeavor’s FDA approval is a big step forward for the idea of games as treatment or therapy, and they’re not the only ones working on medicinal video games. French game studio Ubisoft is currently working on a prescription video game designed to treat Amblyopia, or “lazy eye”, in partnership with medical company Amblyotech.
Quantum Error, the upcoming PS5 horror game from developer TeamKill (Kings of Lorn: The Fall of Ebris), has received a new gameplay video during the Future Games Show. The footage, below, shows some of the creepy environments and monsters players will be facing when the game launches at an unannounced date.
Quantum Error is a “cosmic horror” FPS, and the game’s official site has revealed some more details about it. You’ll be playing as Captain Jacob Thomas, a firefighter who is sent with his partner Shane Costa and a crew to the Monad Quantum Research Facility, where something has gone wrong.
Once you’re there, you’ll discover that an entity of some kind has attacked, and the fire that is spreading through the facility is a sign of something far more grim. While the goal is initially to save as many people as possible from the fire, it soon gets more complicated than that.
While the trailer proudly displays the PS5 logo, the game will also come to PS4.
Plenty of games have been unveiled for PlayStation 5 this month, thanks to the console’s reveal event. If you’re hungry for more horror, it’s also worth checking out the trailer for the next Resident Evil title, Resident Evil: Village, which is coming in 2021.
GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
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But that’s not all, eight first runner up winners will get one Steam key for the Remnant: From the Ashes base game and Swamps of Corsus DLC bundle.
To enter the giveaway you must be a legal resident of the United States, Puerto Rico, or Canada (excluding Quebec), read our official rules, accept the terms and conditions, and fill out the form below. If you are having issues seeing the form, please make sure your ad blocker is disabled. If you are experiencing issues from your mobile device, this link will help.
Remember that you have the option to get extra entries by performing additional actions on the form like subscribing to our YouTube channel. And don’t forget to check your email and junk mail on July 1, because we will be emailing the potential winners with details around claiming the prizes. Good luck, everyone!
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Destiny 2‘s new Season of Arrivals has brought a rise in the game’s Power cap, kicking off another period in which players are earning new gear to strengthen their characters. Climbing the Power ladder is one of the core elements of Destiny, as is finding any way to shortcut the process through exploits, bugs, and other lucky happenings. Season of Arrivals has a bug like that, but instead of fixing it, which Bungie has already partially dealt with. But instead of hampering players’ ability to use the shortcut, the developer should leave it in the game–because it actually has some spooky thematic resonance.
The exploit players are using comes from the newly introduced Umbral Engrams, Arrivals’ season-specific gear system. Umbral Engrams drop from all activities in the game right now, and you can use a special machine to “focus” them, allowing you to change your random gear drop into one from a specific category you choose. You can focus Umbral Engrams to become seasonal armor or seasonal weapons, or make them focus on particular stats.
Usually, Umbral Engrams drop at a certain Power level that’s in line with your character’s other gear. Thanks to a bug, if you focus your engrams to become seasonal armor, they often get a big Power spike. That makes them akin to “Powerful” weekly drops in the world, allowing players to quickly get up to the “soft” Power cap of 1,050. That’s almost the highest you can get your gear this season–to get up to 1,060, you need to do “Pinnacle” activities, like Destiny 2’s raids and dungeons.
The thing about Umbral Engrams is that they drop from any activity, including the Forge activities added with the Black Armory season that popped up after the Forsaken expansion. The Forge is something players have exploited since it was released, because the game would quickly load you into a new Forge run soon after one ended. You could enter the activity and leave your game, allowing it to run over and over again. Forges ended and started so quickly that Destiny 2 wouldn’t kick you out for being AFK, and even if you fail the event (since you’re not playing), you still are sometimes awarded an Umbral Engram. So through the first weekend of the Season of Arrivals, players would just load into the Forge and leaving their games running, gathering a bunch of Umbral Engrams, and decrypting them to jump their characters up to the 1,050 with no grinding and no work.
That’s definitely not how Bungie intended to play the Season of Arrivals, and already, the developer has partially put a stop to the exploit. Starting on Monday, the developer made a change so that Forge activities won’t start automatically after one ends–you’ll now be kicked to orbit when a Forge activity concludes, meaning you’ll have to manually restart it for another chance at a quick Umbral Engram.
Umbral Engrams are currently a pretty quick way to power up your character, thanks to a bug–which is exactly in keeping with the idea of accepting “gifts from the Darkness.”
This is a quick way to deal with an exploit, and it was expected that Bungie would put a stop to it. But really, Bungie should just leave the bug be–it’s a perfect accidental addition to the Season of Arrivals’ story.
Players who’ve been keeping up with the lore of Destiny 2’s story arc since the Forsaken expansion know that things are getting muddled in the world of Bungie’s MMO. In the early days of Destiny and its story, things were pretty black and white: the player Guardians wield the Light, a “good” kind of space magic, and the bad guys have, use, and worship the Darkness, the “bad” kind of space magic.
But especially since the Forsaken expansion, that dichotomy has slowly been morphing to make the Darkness a much more nebulous and nuanced force as we’ve awaited the arrival of a spooky, unknown new group of seemingly evil aliens. And now, those powerful creatures who wield the Darkness have shown up in the solar system–and they’re not invading, but offering gifts.
The Season of Arrivals has seen the Pyramid ships we’ve been waiting on since the end of Destiny 2’s vanilla campaign finally, uh, arriving, and that’s created a new seasonal activity called Contact and a new way of earning gear–the aforementioned Umbral Engrams. These are similar to the Engrams Destiny players have been picking up since the first game to get new weapons and armor–the difference, from a story perspective, is that these Engrams are infused with Darkness. These are the “gifts” the Darkness is presenting to players.
There are a few stories floating around in the Destiny lore about what interacting with the Darkness is actually like, and it’s not always the frightening destruction of the Collapse, the event that ended the Golden Age of humanity hundreds of years in the games’ past. Lately, the Darkness has been more about trying to seduce Guardians with promises of power. One story, about a fireteam called the Kentarch-3, details a group of Guardians who went into the Black Garden and were given some kind of strange, incredible power by the Darkness they encountered there. The three Guardians eventually turned on each other as that power seemingly corrupted them.
Right now, players are farming activities where they die repeatedly and don’t actually play, in order to get a quick path to high-level gear using Umbral Engrams. That sounds exactly like the Darkness tempting and seducing the good guys with promises of easy power. What if the Umbral Engrams aren’t bugged at all? What if they’re working exactly as intended?
What if we all thought we were taking advantage of an exploit for extra power–but we were really giving in to the temptations of the Darkness?
That’s actually a fun and frightening thought, where the meta side of Destiny 2’s Power grind could intersect with the story side of what Bungie wants players to experience–by succumbing to the exploit, we’re playing right into the Darkness’s hands. What’s more, allowing players to use the Forge exploit to grow their Power quickly doesn’t really hurt anybody. Guardians who aren’t in the know might get annoyed with other players being AFK if they’re actually trying to successfully complete the Forge, but most players exploiting the system actively avoid messing up anyone else’s day by putting on the lowest-level gear they can. That drops the exploiters’ Power levels so they won’t get matched with people genuinely trying to run the activity.
And sure, the exploit gets you close to endgame content quickly, like the new dungeon, Prophecy, which recommends a starting Power level of 1,040. But Umbral Engrams can’t get you to 1,060, the peak Power level. To get that, you still need to grind some of Destiny 2’s toughest stuff. You can speed your way to Pinnacle activities with the Darkness’s help, but you still have to defeat the game’s most difficult challenges to continue, and being able to start those activities doesn’t guarantee you’ll have the skill or capability to finish them.
And that, too, feeds into the idea that power gained from the Darkness is a double-edged sword. It’s quick and it’s easy, but how useful is it? Are you truly benefitting from leaping over the grind but not earning the experience that comes with a slower ascent (if not practically, at least thematically)? Are these gifts from the Darkness all they’re cracked up to be?
It’s fun to imagine Bungie taking advantage of the situation. Sure, you can enjoy a speedy Power grind in the Season of Arrivals, but maybe that decision will come back to haunt you next season. Bungie could use player data to implement another story element, where perhaps the Darkness asks something in return for all these “gifts.” And as a player, your actions would suddenly matter in a way they often don’t in Destiny 2, as your choice of how to play the game, and whether to effectively cheat, have unforeseen consequences.
In any case, this is one of those serendipitous times when an in-game bug actually feels more like a feature. Bungie has an opportunity to play it up and use it to Destiny 2’s advantage. Let us have our easy, possibly easy power, Bungie–you can even find a way to make us regret it later. It’ll make for an even cooler story for you to tell.
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EA has officially announced Star Wars: Squadrons. The new game from Motive Studios is an “immersive, first-person space dog fighting experience” that follows an original story with a new cast of characters, plus cameos from characters like Wedge Antilles and Hera Syndulla.
PlayStation 5 was announced last week, and we still have no idea what it’s going to cost. PlayStation boss Jim Ryan said, however, that Sony is focused on “value opposed to price.” Speaking of next gen, there’s more details on Xbox Series X’s Smart Delivery initiative.
If you’re a member of T-Mobile’s phone network, you may be experiencing voice and messaging problems. This also means that if you’re on another carrier like AT&T or Verizon, making a call or sending a text to a T-Mobile user will also result in an error.
Earlier today, T-Mobile users (IGN staff included) have experienced issues with placing calls over the network. T-Mobile president of technology Neville Ray confirmed that there are outages across its network for voice and messaging. However, T-Mobile has since worked on the problem enough that data services are available.
Teams continue to work as quickly as possible to fix the voice & messaging problems some are seeing.
Data services are now available & some calls are completing. Alternate services like WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, Facetime etc. are available. Thanks for your patience. https://t.co/uQiGSAFEAH
That means apps that use wi-fi data like WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, and more are available to use now. Though there’s still no word on when voice and messaging will resume normal services.
However, the domino effect of T-Mobile’s problems means that services owned by the company like Sprint and Boost Mobile are also experiencing problems.
There’s no word yet on when T-Mobile will fully resolve its network issues. But if you’re a T-Mobile carrier experiencing call problems, the issues have persisted up until the time of 4:25 pm PT.
The Punisher’s iconic skull logo has been adopted by members of the police and military for some time, brandished on their uniforms and vehicles in a variety of ways. But Gerry Conway, co-creator of the Marvel character, has long been an outspoken critic of this appropriation of Frank Castle’s iconography. And now Conway has launched a fundraising effort with the goal, as he puts it, to “claim this symbol for the cause of equal justice and Black Lives Matter.”
Conway has launched a new fundraising drive called Black Lives Matter: Skulls for Justice. Working with a number of artists, Conway has created T-shirts adorned with the Punisher logo and the Black lives Matter slogan, with proceeds going to Black Lives Matter-related charities.
“For too long, symbols associated with a character I co-created have been co-opted by forces of oppression and to intimidate black Americans,” Conway writes on the site. “This character and symbol was never intended as a symbol of oppression. This is a symbol of a systematic failure of equal justice. It’s time to claim this symbol for the cause of equal justice and Black Lives Matter.”
Why is Conway intent on reclaiming the Punisher logo? To answer that, it’s worth taking a step back to examine the origins of the character and how the skull imagery has increasingly been co-opted by a variety of organizations.
The Punisher Is No Superhero
The Punisher was originally created by Conway and artists Ross Andru and John Romita, Sr. Debuting in 1974’s The Amazing Spider-Man #129. Frank Castle was very unlike traditional Marvel heroes such as Spider-Man and very much a product of his cynical, post-Vietnam War era. Conway himself has pointed to Don Pendleton’s book series The Executioner as being one of the main sources of inspiration for The Punisher, and it’s no coincidence the character debuted the same year the Charles Bronson movie Death Wish hit theaters. Vigilante anti-heroes were in vogue at the time.
Most versions of Punisher’s origin story paint him as a decorated war veteran who returns home, only to see his family gunned down in the crossfire of a gang war. Disillusioned by the NYPD’s inability to protect his family or bring their killers to justice, Frank adopts his iconic skull logo and begins a one-man war on crime. In effect, he’s a serial killer who only targets other killers.
Art by John Romita, Sr. (Image Credit: marvel)
As Conway alludes to in his introduction to Skulls for Justice, the Punisher was never intended to be portrayed as a hero or role model, but rather as a tragic example of a man failed by the system, and one who becomes a monster in order to fight other monsters. The character is frequently shown to be at odds with the more morally righteous heroes of the Marvel Universe. In particular, the Punisher has developed an ongoing rivalry with Daredevil. Frank respects Matt Murdock’s commitment to justice, but he certainly doesn’t share Matt’s faith in the system. Their grim showdown in 2000’s The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank closely inspired the dynamic between Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock and Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle in Netflix’s Daredevil: Season 2.
2006’s Civil War crossover may best illustrate the uneasy relationship between the Punisher and the rest of the Marvel Universe. In that story, Frank briefly joins forces with Captain America’s anti-registration faction, only to be savagely beaten by Cap after murdering two villains attempting to join their ranks. Frank refuses to fight back, revealing WWII veteran Steve Rogers to be the one hero the Punisher truly admires.
Art by Steve McNiven. (Image Credit: Marvel)
Why Is The Punisher So Popular Among the Police and Military?
Despite generally being portrayed as an anti-hero at best and an outright villain at worst, the Punisher developed widespread popularity in the 1980s and ’90s, including among many members of the police and military. While he operates firmly outside the law, Frank’s moral code normally prevents him from killing police officers or soldiers. In 2008’s Punisher MAX: Valley Forge, Valley Forge, writer Garth Ennis and artist Goran Parlov built a conflict specifically around that idea that Frank won’t allow himself to kill his brothers-in-arms. In that story, a group of corrupt generals assemble an elite team to arrest Frank, knowing full well the Punisher won’t use lethal force against them.
Art by Goran Parlov. (Image Credit: Marvel)
That history of respect for cops and soldiers seems to have contributed to an adoration for the Punisher among members of the armed forces. CBR traces that phenomenon as far back as 1988’s The Punisher #8, the first issue to feature a fan letter from an active serviceman. However, as both CBR and Time Magazine explore, the connection between the Punisher’s skull logo and the military seems to have been cemented by the late Chris Kyle. A famous Navy SEAL sniper and author of the autobiography American Sniper (which later inspired by the 2013 film of the same name starring Bradley Cooper), Kyle was known for adorning his equipment with the Punisher emblem and even nicknaming his unit “The Punishers.”
“He righted wrongs. He killed bad guys. He made wrongdoers fear him,” Kyle wrote of Frank Castle. “We spray-painted [the skull logo] on our Hummers and body armor, and our helmets and all our guns. We spray-painted it on every building or wall we could, We wanted people to know, We’re here and we want to f*** with you.”
The idea that Frank Castle is a person who “rights wrongs” certainly isn’t supported by the vast majority of Punisher media, where he’s depicted as a man motivated by an unquenchable thirst for revenge and a love of killing that supersedes even his attachment to his family.
But despite this, many others have come to identify with Kyle’s reading of the character in both the military and police organizations, especially as adaptations like the Netflix series and 2004’s The Punisher movie have boosted the character’s mainstream exposure. In perhaps the most alarming example of real life imitating art, members of the Milwaukee Police Department allegedly spearheaded a rogue vigilante group also dubbed “The Punishers” in 2004, prompting multiple internal investigations.
The Blue Lives Matter movement arose in late 2014 in response to Black Lives Matter, with the group advocating for new laws requiring those convicted of killing members of law enforcement to be sentenced under hate crime statutes. It wasn’t long before the Punisher logo was adopted as a defiant symbol of that camp. For example, a police department in Catlettsburg, Kentucky came under heavy criticism in 2017 for adorning police cruisers with Blue Lives Matter-themed Punisher logos. Another noteworthy incident came in October 2019, when a Dallas police officer was seen wearing a Punisher logo during a contentious community meeting. Conway vehemently condemned this growing association between the Punisher character and police organizations.
One of many Blue Lives Matter-themed Punisher items being sold on Amazon.
The Internet is now rife with Punisher merchandise like T-shirts, flags and pins, much of it apparently unlicensed and adorned with either patriotic colors or the blue, black and white colors of Blue Lives Matter. This merchandise has become increasingly prominent during protests and in the media, with Fox News’ Sean Hannity spotted on more than one occasion wearing one of these pins during his broadcasts. However inappropriately, the Punisher has now become a rallying symbol of right-wing media, Blue Lives Matter and, based on the aforementioned reports about rogue Milwaukee police officers, even violent vigilante groups.
How Has Marvel Responded?
Given the rate at which the far-right and other groups have embraced the imagery of the Punisher, you might be wondering what Marvel Comics and parent company Disney have done to counteract this messaging and distance the Punisher character from these organizations. For all its reputation for being aggressively litigious on matters of copyright, Disney has done surprisingly little to speak out against this misuse of the logo or target the companies selling unlicensed merchandise. The Punisher may be second only to Calvin & Hobbes when it comes to the sheer glut of unlicensed merchandise, but Disney has made little public show of stemming the tide.
Even Conway’s Skulls for Justice fundraiser is purely a personal crusade on Conway’s part. IGN confirmed with Marvel that the fundraiser isn’t officially sanctioned by the publisher or parent company Disney.
CBR’s Brian Cronin speculates that Marvel may be limited in its options when it comes to cops and celebrities wearing bootleg Punisher pins. The company might face an uphill legal battle in arguing that the skull imagery itself is distinct enough to qualify as a protected trademark, and in any case, trademark law focuses more on those attempting to illegally profit from protected IP. That said, this doesn’t explain why Marvel/Disney apparently aren’t targeting the companies actually producing and selling the unlicensed merchandise.
To date, Marvel’s most overt attempt at speaking out against police officers co-opting the Punisher logo came within the pages of 2019’s The Punisher #13. In that comic, from writer Matthew Rosenberg and artist Szymon Kudranski, an injured Frank Castle is approached by two NYPD officers who reveal themselves to be rabid fans. To their surprise, Frank reacts with disgust, telling them, “We’re not the same. You took an oath to uphold the law. I gave all that up a long time ago. You don’t do what I do. Nobody does.”
Art by Szymon Kudranksi. (Image Credit: Marvel)
That scene seems to make Marvel’s stance on the matter pretty clear. Unfortunately, the message may not be reaching the right eyes. According to industry analyst site Comichron, The Punisher #13 only sold 21,727 copies in July 2019, hardly among Marvel’s best-selling titles, and surely a small fraction of the number of people who watched the Netflix series.
Marvel clearly has a Punisher problem that isn’t going away, and simply condemning the misuse and misrepresentation of the character within the comics themselves isn’t enough. That’s why Conway created Skulls for Justice, seemingly with the hope that fundraiser will help spark larger conversations about who Frank Castle is and what he truly represents.
As part of Keanu Reeves’ ongoing philanthropic work, often said to be in response to his sister’s battle with leukemia, he has now donated 15 minutes of his time to be auctioned off to someone who wants “a little one-on-one with Keanu,” as picked up by THR.
The auction will benefit an Idaho-based children’s cancer charity, Camp Rainbow Gold, a foundation that aims to provide “emotionally empowering experiences” for children battling cancer and their families. The fundraising auction, Shine for Camp, is in response to an event postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The auction is live now, and will run until June 22. Also lending their fame to the auction are voice actor Rob Paulsen and musician Ally Brooke, who both promise to show off their talents in a 15-minute Zoom call.
The Zoom call for the eventual winner will take place in the week of July 6, and bids are already up to $4000 at the time of writing. While Shine for Camp has the value of the Zoom date at $10,000, we wouldn’t be surprised if the eventual amount surpasses that number.
Independence Day director Roland Emmerich is currently working on Moonfall, an absurd-sounding film about a crew of folks who need to stop the moon from crashing into Earth. The film will star Josh Gad as unkempt genius KC Houseman, and now some new cast members have been announced.
The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Patrick Wilson (The Conjuring, Aquaman) is bringing his gravitas to the project. Wilson worked on Emmerich’s previous film, Midway, and clearly made an impression on the director. Wilson will play a former astronaut whose previous mission ended in tragedy, and who now holds the key to saving Earth (yes, it’s that kind of movie).
Halle Berry has also previously been announced as starring in the film, and Charlie Plummer (Looking For Alaska) has also joined the project. Berry will play a former colleague of Wilson’s character, while Plummer will portray his son in the movie.
The movie is currently in pre-production, and has a tentative 2021 release date–although that could move, considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In late 2019, Emmerich reflected on his Independence Day sequel, Resurgence, and said that he regretted making it after Will Smith dropped out.
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