Microsoft recently announced the prices of the Xbox Series S ($300) and Xbox Series X ($500), and they came in lower than some might have imagined, especially the lower-spec S model. The consoles were intentionally priced low, and Microsoft is launching the phone-style subscription plan, to make it easier to get people into the Xbox ecosystem and then start spending money on games, according to Xbox CFO Tim Stuart.
Stuart told Barron’s that the aggressive pricing for the Series S/X consoles will help Microsoft “kick-start” the new generation.
“Our goal was to increase that top-of-funnel as fast as possible, get people into the ecosystem, get people into that next-gen experience, and frankly kind of kick-start this generation as fast as we can,” Stuart said. “If you can get that install base as big as you can up front, you have customers enjoying the next-gen experiences we have to offer. And from a business side, we start to monetize and build a customer lifetime value much faster than a slow build over time.”
Microsoft could lose as much as $100 on every Xbox Series X sold, but the company will make up those losses with game sales and subscription revenue like with Xbox Game Pass. Stuart spoke about this in the interview with Barron’s.
“I like to talk about how engagement equals currency,” he said. “If customers are playing, they’re buying more things from our partners, they’re buying more things from us, and their enjoyment goes up.”
For comparison, the Xbox One launched at $500, which was a full $100 more than the PS4. This price gap, along with various other stumbles by Microsoft, led to a difficult position for the company relative to the competition.
This generation, Microsoft is starting off from a stronger position with a lower price (when factoring in inflation) and the smartphone-style Xbox All Access program where you get can an Xbox Series S for $25/month or an Xbox Series X for $35/month.
Kotaku did some calculations and reported that the Series X ($500) is less expensive than the launch prices for the Xbox 360 ($529) and the Xbox One ($555) when adjusting for inflation.
While Microsoft has announced the price and release dates for its next-generation consoles, Sony has yet to divulge the launch details for the PS5 and the digital PS5. We also don’t know if Sony will follow Microsoft’s path and offer a subsidized program as well for the consoles.
Sony is holding a PS5 showcase on September 16, so it might not be long until we learn more about the console and its price/release date.
Click To Unmute
Size:
Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?
Back in July, it was announced that Universal Studios was calling off its Halloween Horror Nights celebrations at both the Florida and California parks. While Universal Orlando Resort is open at limited capacity, Universal Studios Hollywood remains closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, though, it seems the Orlando parks do have something in the works for Halloween.
This coming weekend, September 19 and 20, the park is holding an event dubbed “Halloween seasonal experience testing.” Universal Orlando Resort tells GameSpot that currently, these are the only two days scheduled for the event. Given that the word “testing” is in the name, though, it would not be a surprise if this is expanded in the weeks to come.
Included in the weekend event is access to two new haunted mazes–Universal Monsters: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives and Revenge of the Tooth Fairy, both of which are not recommended for guests under age 13. You can check out descriptions of the mazes, from Universal’s website, below.
The Bride of Frankenstein Lives: “We belong dead.” The last words of Frankenstein’s monster on that fateful night when his Bride rejected him. But his end was her beginning. Now the Bride is stepping out of the shadows to bring him back. And there’s nothing she won’t do as she sharpens her brilliance by experimenting on unsuspecting victims. The mate will have her monster. And the monster his mate.
Revenge of the Tooth Fairy: The innocent traditions of the tooth fairy hide a darker ritual. All children must give up their baby teeth to the goblinesque tooth fairies or pay a gruesome price. Step into an old manor that has been overrun by yellow-clawed fiends who extract teeth by force. It’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
In addition to the haunts in the Universal Studios park, Islands of Adventure will feature trick-or-treating for those 12 and under. It’s unclear how trick-or-treating in the parks will work, given social distancing measures.
Additionally, you’ll be able to wear costumes while you visit, if that’s your thing. It’s important to note that unlike Halloween Horror Nights, this is not a separately ticketed event. Instead, these experiences will be available during normal operating hours for those that decide to visit the parks.
Universal Orlando Resort first opened its doors again in June, with a list of new rules and procedures to visit the theme parks. For more on those, you can check out GameSpot’s first-hand report on the experience of visiting a park during the pandemic.
In 2018 Microsoft had the idea to sink an entire data center to the bottom of the Scottish sea as an experiment to see if submerged conditions were better for data centers. After two years, Microsoft resurfaced its nautical data center and discovered the results turned out great.
Microsoft sunk 864 servers, which contained 27.6 petabytes of storage, down 117 feet into the ocean. Microsoft’s Project Natick team believed these underwater conditions would actually be more energy-efficient and better overall for data centers. And it looks like they were correct.
As it turns out, underwater data centers had just one-eight the failure rate of on-land data centers. The reason is that on land factors like oxygen, moisture in the air can corrode computer components. Not to mention the many temperature fluctuations over time.
Meanwhile, if data centers are placed in Microsoft’s submerged pods, engineers can create a stable environment where they control factors like humidity and oxygen, or just keep data centers away from people who might break things themselves.
Having deployable data centers like this can also allow companies to build servers near coastal areas that need them.
The next stage of the experiment will see if Microsoft can safely recycle retrieved data centers once they reach the end of their lifespan. Check out Project Natick’s full research blog here, and the video explainer here.
UPDATE: Jason Momoa has gone into greater detail about his support for Ray Fisher’s claims of Joss Whedon running a toxic and hostile set during the Justice League reshoots.
In a post to his Instagram account, Momoa wrote: “THIS SHIT HAS TO STOP AND NEEDS TO BE LOOKED AT @ray8fisher AND EVERYONE ELSE WHO EXPERIENCED WHAT HAPPEN UNDER THE WATCH OF @wbpictures NEEDS PROPER INVESTIGATION.”
The Aquaman star went on to call foul on the recent news that he was voicing Frosty the Snowman in a movie to be produced by Jon Berg and Geoff Johns, the former DC Films execs Fisher has specifically called out for fostering Whedon’s alleged bad behavior on set.
“I just think it’s fucked up that people released a fake Frosty announcement without my permission to try to distract from Ray Fisher speaking up about the shitty way we were treated on Justice League reshoots,” Momoa wrote. “Serious stuff went down. It needs to be investigated and people need to be held accountable.”
Our original report from Sept. 8th follows.
[poilib element=”accentDivider”]
Jason Momoa is the first Justice League cast member to publicly “stand with” Ray Fisher in his case against Joss Whedon.
Momoa played Aquaman in 2017’s Justice League alongside Fisher’s Cyborg with Whedon serving as the director after previous director, Zack Snyder, had to bow out due to personal reasons. Fisher recently accused Whedon of running a toxic and hostile set and that DC Films chair Geoff Johns and former co-chair Jon Berg enabled Whedon’s alleged bad behavior. The rest of the Justice League cast has remained quiet, but on Sept. 8, Momoa showed his support for Fisher on his Instagram story, as originally reported by Variety.
As you can see, Momoa said “#IStandWithRayFisher,” which marks the first show of public support from any of Fisher’s fellow Justice League cast members. Momoa didn’t mention anything else but the message is pretty clear. Fisher posted a screenshot on Twitter of Momoa’s post that says “Let’s Go!!! #BORGLIFE Accountability>Entertainment.”
Without inferring into Momoa’s message, it’s a case of Fisher’s story versus the DC Films side of the Justice League Production. It’s worth noting that Momoa has voiced his support of Fisher while in talks to voice the titular character in an upcoming Frosty the Snowman Warner Bros. picture that has both Johns and Berg attached to it.
Marvel Studios is quietly developing a follow-up to 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp. And while details are scarce about Ant-Man 3, Deadline reports Lovecraft Country star Jonathan Majors has been cast in a major villain role. According to their sources, that character is none other than Kang the Conqueror.
That’s right, one of the most iconic Avengers villains ever may be joining the MCU, but not in an Avengers movie. Not yet, anyway. If you’re not familiar with Kang or why he has the potential to be the next Thanos-level threat to the MCU, we’re here to shed light on this powerful villain. These are the topics we’ll be covering here:
It’s not easy recapping the convoluted history of Kang the Conqueror. He’s a villain who’s gone by many names and many different motivations in his countless clashes with the Avengers and Fantastic Four. But through it all the basics have stayed the same. Kang is a man who sees himself as the rightful master of the world. Using the power of time travel and the most sophisticated weaponry his future world has to offer, Kang has repeatedly sought to rewrite history to his own whims and ensure his own rise to power.
Kang’s love of time travel is exactly what makes him such a dangerous and seemingly never-ending thorn in humanity’s side. No matter how often he’s defeated, banished or even destroyed utterly, some version of him is always out there, waiting and plotting.
While the first appearance of Kang the Conqueror is featured in 1964’s The Avengers #8, the character technically debuted a year earlier in Fantastic Four #19. We’ll try to summarize Kang’s confusing origin story as simply as possible.
Kang’s real name is Nathaniel Richards. Originally a historical scholar from the 31st century (and possibly a distant descendant of either Reed Richards or Victor von Doom), Nathaniel discovers Doctor Doom’s ancient time travel tech and uses it to travel back to the era of ancient Egypt. Crowning himself “Rama-Tut,” he lords over his new subjects and uses his futuristic tech to make himself seem like a god. That is, until the Fantastic Four show up to end his reign.
After escaping to the 20th century, Rama-Tut meets Doctor Doom and uses Doom’s distinctive armor as inspiration for his next supervillain identity, the Scarlet Centurion. However, he’s again defeated by Earth’s heroes and attempts to return to his own timeline.
This is where Kang the Conqueror is born. Richards accidentally travels forward too far in time, arriving in an era when human civilization has collapsed. As the only person left who understands the advanced but forgotten technology of the 40th century, the newly minted Kang is able to quickly conquer his new timeline and even extend his new empire beyond Earth’s borders. Not content to be ruler of a futuristic empire, Kang begins a recurring game of toying with time and attempting to rewrite history to suit his own whims.
Kang’s Powers and Abilities
As an ordinary human from the 31st century, Kang has no innate superhuman powers. However, he’s a gifted physicist and historian, using his knowledge of science and history to manipulate the timeline and accumulate power. His distinctive green and purple suit of armor (inspired by Doom’s own armor) both enhances Kang’s strength and allows him to survive in whatever inhospitable environments he may find. Kang has a time-ship that allows him to freely travel through the time-stream, and he’s also assembled a vast army comprised of the best warriors from throughout history.
Kang also sometimes wields a ray gun that can sap a person’s strength and willpower, along with various doomsday weapons only a 40th century tyrant could dream of.
Kang also seems to be functionally immortal. Because he’s so fond of abusing the timeline for his own selfish ends, there are countless variations of Nathaniel Richards in existence. No matter how many times Kang is defeated, there’s always another incarnation of the Conqueror ready to continue his crusade.
Kang’s Many Identities
Kang is every bit as convoluted a character as one would expect from a man whose favorite hobby is manipulating time. But part of what makes Kang such a confusing character is that he’s had so many different names and identities over the years. It doesn’t help that these various characters weren’t all originally conceived as being the same person, so a lot of these connections have been forged after the fact. If you’re familiar with the comic book storytelling term “retcon,” Kang is basically its living embodiment.
As we’ve already covered, Nathaniel Richards uses names like Rama-Tut and the Scarlet Centurion early on in his career as a time-travelling tyrant. But taking up the mantle of Kang isn’t his last identity shake-up.
At some point in his long life, Kang gives up his name and his empire to instead forge an alliance with an advanced alien race known as the Time-Keepers. In exchange for true immortality, Kang agrees to preserve the timeline and ensure the Time-Keepers’ rise to power. At that point he becomes Immortus. Ironically, his younger selves are responsible for much of the damage Immortus is tasked with undoing.
Kang has held other cover identities while masquerading as a 21st century human, including a small-town mayor named Victor Timely and a business tycoon named Mr. Gryphon.
If all this isn’t complicated enough, thanks to time travel these various incarnations of Kang basically coexist alongside each other and sometimes collude or wage war against one another. There’s even an entire team of Kangs known as the Council of Cross-Time Kangs. Picture the Citadel of Ricks in Rick and Morty, but with less alcohol and self-loathing.
The many versions of Kang the Conqueror.
Kang and the Young Avengers
There’s another notable incarnation of Kang who may well factor into the MCU at some point. The 2005 series Young Avengers introduces a team of teen heroes modeled after classic Avengers but with very different backgrounds and origin stories. The team’s founder, Iron Lad, isn’t a descendant of Tony Stark, but is actually a teen version of Nathaniel Richards from a splinter timeline. Kang attempted to travel back in time and rescue his younger self from a group of bullies who had left him hospitalized for months. Kang saves himself and gives the young Nathaniel an advanced suit of armor in the hope of hurrying along his transformation from ordinary man to Kang. But instead, young Nathaniel is horrified by his older self and travels back in time to form a new team of Avengers.
Ultimately, this version of Kang is killed and Iron Lad is forced to wipe his own memories and return to the future, restoring the proper timeline. But he leaves behind a copy of his consciousness inside his armor, which fuses with the broken remnants of Vision to form a new version of that iconic Avenger.
Iron Lad is an important Kang offshoot to know, given that Marvel is showing every sign of introducing the Young Avengers in the MCU. We’ve already met Scott Lang’s daughter Cassie, who eventually becomes the size-changing Stature, and the upcoming Hawkeye series on Disney+ will introduce Kate Bishop. At this point, it seems only a matter of time before we meet other teen heroes like Wiccan, Hulking and Patriot so that the Young Avengers can finally assemble on the big screen.
We’ve speculated that Kang may well become the MCU’s next Thanos-level villain. Though he’s making his debut in Ant-Man 3 of all movies, Kang’s love of time travel and perpetual habit of returning to threaten the Avengers all over again make him perfectly suited to become a recurring antagonist across the MCU. It doesn’t hurt that he has deep connections to so many different Marvel characters and teams.
As mentioned before, Kang may well be a descendant of Mister Fantastic or Doctor Doom. Both characters have certainly played a key role in his development as a villain. He also has connections to major characters on the cosmic side of the MCU. In the comics, Kang once competed with the Grandmaster for a chance at godlike power, and he attempted to claim the so-called “Celestial Madonna” (better known as Mantis) as his bride.
Decades after it was originally published, Marvel added more layers to the events of Fantastic Four #19 by revealing Nathaniel’s true motivations for travelling back in time and becoming Rama-Tut. He was actually seeking out a young En Sabah Nur, the mutant destined to become Apocalypse, to crown him as his heir. He never succeeded, though Apocalypse turned out to be a chip off the old block in terms of harnessing futuristic technology and seeking to dominate the world.
With Kang now firmly linked to the Fantastic Four, Avengers and X-Men, Marvel forged yet another connection in the 2015 series Uncanny Inhumans. There, Black Bolt gives his son Ahura to be fostered by Kang, seeing the time travelling tyrant as the only safe haven in a world growing steadily more hostile toward the Inhumans.
TV: Given his status as one of the greatest Avengers and Fantastic Four villains, it should come as no surprise Kang has enjoyed a healthy career outside of Marvel’s comics. His first animated TV appearance came way back in 1967’s Fantastic Four animated series, with the episode “Rama-Tut” adapting the events of Fantastic Four #19. Whether as Kang or Rama-Tut, the villain has appeared in numerous other Marvel cartoons like X-Men Evolution and Avengers: United They Stand. He even had a brief cameo as Immortus in an episode of X-Men: The Animated Series. But Kang’s most significant animated appearances have come more recently. He played a recurring role in both Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (voiced by Jonathan Adams) and Avengers Assemble (voiced by Steve Blum).
Games: Kang has appeared in F2P games like Marvel: Avengers Alliance and Marvel: Contest of Champions, but his most notable video game appearance so far has been in 2017’s LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2. Kang (voiced by MCU veteran Peter Serafinowicz) serves as the main villain of the game and is also available as a playable character.
According to Deadline, Kang will finally make his live-action debut in Ant-Man 3, with Lovecraft Country star Jonathan Majors tapped to play the character. We can only assume this will be the first of several MCU appearances for Majors.
Rarely is a group of A-list actors so willing to be vicious like the ensemble in The Devil All the Time. Set between two secluded towns — the aptly named Knockemstiff, Ohio, and Coal Creek, West Virginia — Antonio Campos’ film (his fifth feature on a string of critically praised indies) spins a yarn about zealotry during the late 1950’s. Adapted from Donald Ray Pollock’s novel of the same title, a wry omniscient narrator (Pollock, himself) strings together the serendipitous The Devil All the Time. But amid the death and the poverty presented on screen, his matter of fact delivery often belies the film’s cruel irony.
The non-linear narrative, which explores the violent vestiges of religious iconography, finds Willard Russell (Bill Skarsgård) on the Solomon Islands during World War II. It’s here, he discovers a bloodied, fly-infested serviceman crucified. The image changes the once godly soldier to religiously apathetic, but more importantly, makes apparent how closely brutality and sacrifice — exemplified through the image of Jesus tortured on the cross — align. When Willard returns from the war, he meets the love of his life Charlotte (Haley Bennett). Their courtship, which witnesses Willard’s non-secular revival, twirls another thread: Faith unhealthily filling the hole that loss leaves.
Because after the pair marry, they produce a son named Arvin, only to have a tragedy befall them. To avoid the inevitable, Willard resorts to God, and with his son Arvin fervently prays for divine intervention. His situation becomes so bleak he takes an unthinkable action, which results in a haunting animal death. Skarsgård is unflinching in his ferocity, and his Appalachian accent suggests a man never unwound. He sets the tone early for a film whose most joyful moment is a young Arvin citing his father beating two poachers to a bloody pulp as his happiest memory with his dad.
Campos loves intertwining bliss with blood. For instance, in the same diner where Willard met Charlotte, Carl Henderson (Jason Clarke) encounters Sandy (Riley Keough). The pair form a serial killer duo that slays young hitchhikers by Carl offering Sandy for sex and then taking their picture, a memento, at their peak of fear. For Carl, murder is the only way for him to feel love, not just for Sandy, but God, too. The Devil All the Time never wavers in exploring the manifestation of extremism. Upon Willard’s return to Knockemstiff, he encounters the revivalist preacher Roy Laferty (Harry Melling) who comes to marry a local girl Helen (Mia Wasikowska). She’s taken by his resolute faith, one where he pours spiders upon his face to prove the lord’s healing powers.
The Devil All the Time is an unhurried dirge, and the three opening arcs produce a distressing first act, one where death is always lurking around the bend. As the film’s narrator explains, every person living in these backroads connect by “lust, necessity, or just plain ignorance.” The ignorance, or the incomprehensible indifference of God, spins this world. In fact, unanswered prayers lead nearly every character to madness because they exist in an inflection point: where treatments for most diseases were still undiscovered and two World Wars mercilessly wiped out large populations, religion served as the only recourse. Once more, their economic station — the hard lives they live — is evident in every shack’s cracking paint.
The Devil All the Time is also a multigenerational tale, which asks a teenage Arvin (Tom Holland) and Lenora (Eliza Scanlen) to reckon with the ghosts of their parents’ past. But not everything works in the final two acts. For example, a sloven preacher fresh out of Bible college, Preston Teagardin (Robert Pattinson), arrives in Coal Creek. While other performers play into the gritty milieu, the screen’s next Batman relies on camp. Pattinson operates in a different movie than the other actors, but he’s probably where the film should be with regards to the narrative’s cruelly ironic tone.
The drama’s final act, which morphs into a thriller, sees Arvin employing his father’s vengeful tactics. This is the most violent you’ll see Tom Holland, especially when he beats a bully of Lenora’s with a wrench. But the pieces don’t all fall into place, such as the subplot of Sebastian Stan as a crooked cop. Even when the pieces feel as incongruous as God’s ways, the level of commitment from this heavily English cast, makes it impossible to avert our eyes from the horrors of their secluded existence.
Sony has reportedly cut its estimated PS5 production for its fiscal year by 3 million units, bringing the new total to around 11 million, following “production issues with its custom-designed system-on-chip for the new console.”
Sony’s shares dropped by as much as 3.5% following this news, which is its biggest intraday drop since August.
Daniel Ahmad, a senior analyst at Niko Partners, has stated that this production delay will “hit PS5 supply during 2021,” and Sony is planning on using Air Freight to “meet demand this holiday and ship as many units as possible in the launch period.”
Ahmad notes that “production yield issues will always exist, especially at the beginning of a console launch, though this does seem more severe than expected.”
We have yet to learn the price and release date of the PS5, but we now know that the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S will cost $499 and $299, respectively. Bloomberg’s intelligence analyst Masahiro Wakasugi says the PS5 could be priced as low as $449, while the PS5 Digital Edition could possibly “dip below $400.”
If we do learn the price and release date for the PS5 this Wednesday, we will keep you up-to-date with our PS5 preorder guide.
This is a mostly spoiler-free review of HBO’s We Are Who We Are, created by Luca Guadagnino.
[poilib element=”accentDivider”]
After remaking Dario Argento’s occult dance horror Suspiria, Italian auteur Luca Guadagnino returns with his first television series, We Are Who We Are, a wandering endless summer among teens. For those familiar with Call Me By Your Name, his HBO show explores similar themes: teens discovering their identity, hormonal horniness, and the mundanity of American expats living in Italy. Set on a military base in 2016, We Are Who We Are follows two teens — Fraser Wilson (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Caitlin Harper (Jordan Kristine Seamon) — who are coming of age.
Even with the familiar guide of Call Me By Your Name, the show’s conceit withers under its myopic lens. The premiere, “Right Here, Right Now I” (each episode carries the same title) tracks Fraser restlessly wandering the base for hijinks, and though he won’t admit it, for friends. Fraser, an androgynous kid with semi-bleached hair and black-and-yellow colored nails, arrives on the American base with his two mothers: Sarah (Chloë Sevigny) and Maggie (Alice Braga) — more on them later — heartbroken that he’s left his friend Mark in New York. Through Fraser we meet Caitlin, a confident girl who, on the surface, appears to be his complete opposite.
Guadagnino, and his co-writers Paolo Giordano and Francesca Manieri, struggle to build out the supporting characters around Fraser and Caitlin. Though Sarah and Maggie are two women in a committed relationship, with thriving careers in a military that once instituted Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the lens rarely points their way unless Fraser occupies their space. Confoundingly, their family nucleus is far-fetched. Fraser and Sarah share an overly close relationship, something bordering on an Oedipus Complex, except the young teen loves Maggie — the gentler parent — too. Fraser is often abusive; in one scene he viciously slaps Sarah, yet still culls affection from her. The idea of a stern base commander as a laissez-faire mother slapped around, and totally at the behest of her young teenage son, while her dutiful wife watches, never tracks.
The show suffers from other thin characters, too. While we learn that Caitlin loves wearing boy clothes, refers to herself under the gender-neutral name of Harper, and is especially close with her army father Richard (Kid Cudi), the people around her lack complexity. For instance, Caitlin’s older brother Danny suffers from depression and anger issues — he doesn’t care for his sister’s perceived promiscuity — but the only explanation given for such frustration comes from “loving God.” We also learn that Caitlin’s cheery Nigerian mother, Jennifer (Faith Alabi), was once Muslim. Are we meant to assume his rage stems from his religion? The answers linger just out of sight. Caitlin’s father Richard — who she lovingly spars with — operates a motorboat with her, and the pair perform smuggling missions. But his sternness, and covert homophobia, do not make a three-dimensional character. Instead, her family is composed of interesting ideas, but nothing fully thought through.
Even the center of the series — the teens — lack any defining characteristics other than their horniness. And We Are Who We Are is an extremely horny show. Every teen is involved in some lover’s quarrel. Caitlin’s boyfriend Sam (Ben Taylor) is extremely possessive, yet mostly mopes when his affections aren’t reciprocated. Her best friend Britney (Francesca Scorsese) is openly interested in pretty much everyone: Sam, Enrico (whose sole character traits are his interest in Britney and his Veneto heritage), and Fraser — who the group often refers to as t-shirt, due to him not removing his shirt while at the beach. Other characters possess even less dynamism, such as Danny’s best friend Craig, a soldier in his twenties attracted to Caitlin, and hanging with teens.
The four episodes provided to critics are also without true arcs. They meander like the teens, with a feeling of ennui during an endless summer. By the time audiences arrive at the rudderless fourth episode, involving a wedding between two characters who have rarely appeared together in the show, nothing feels remotely earned. In fact, episode four features zero character development among the thrusting dancing bodies partying in the commandeered white modernist home of a rich Russian. The lurid images of teen libido and full-frontal nudity try to buoy the weak storytelling, but the entire scene is just useless debauchery.
No one can fault Guadagnino for the visuals. We Are Who We Are bursts with evocative tracking shots and pans, and striking tableaus. Guadagnino builds out Fraser’s character by capturing, through pans, the posters dedicated to The Last Tango in Paris, Blue Velvet, and Klaus Nomi hanging on his wall. Often, the director employs freeze frames of characters during the height of their happiness, as if to trap them in the amber of youth. And the way he juxtaposes the manicured suburban image of a man mowing his lawn with the distant screams of an altercation, or when he contrasts Caitlin reading Leaves of Grass while soldiers talk of gang rape on the other side of a wall, explains the two competing realities of the regimented base.
And of course, what’s a Guadagnino work without a dance sequence? In this instance, it’s Caitlin grooving to Raf’s Self Control. But amongst the images and dialogue, there is no meaningful conflict. No provoking incident that binds the swirl of sunny beaches and teen sex together to signify anything meaningful.
EA is making moves to rebrand its desktop app, and the name “Origin” looks to be going away. VentureBeat and Gamesindustry.biz are both reporting that EA is planning to change Origin to simply be known as the EA desktop app, which is part of a wider strategy the company is employing to make their services clearer to customers.
The new EA app, which will replace Origin, will let users sign up to EA Play or EA Play Pro, and will also carry the store that is currently featured in the Origin app. VentureBeat has a quote from EA senior vice president Michael Blank on the change: “The EA Desktop app is being designed to deliver a frictionless and socially connected experience that is faster for players to get into their games.” It’s designed to be faster to find, download, and launch games than before.
“This move aligns to the strategy, which is to help players play our games more effectively,” Blank told the site. “We had these different names. The reality is that they all align to the same objective, which is to help our players play.” He also said that EA is taking things like cross-play and cross-save more seriously. “If you’re delivering a similar game experience across multiple different devices, it’s important to be able to let those players play together,” he said.
Blank also spoke to Gamesindustry.biz, saying that they want the EA desktop app to be “the best place for them to connect with the people they want to play with in the games they want to play.”
In August, EA made EA Play the new name for its cross-platform subscription service, ditching the Origin branding. They’ve also recently announced that the EA Play back catalog will become a part of Xbox Game Pass, making Microsoft’s subscription service even stronger than before.
The Jackbox Party Pack 7 has revealed a release date, and it’s not far off. The next collection of multiplayer party games from Jackbox will release on October 16, 2020, and all five games it contains have been revealed and detailed. The game is coming to PC, Switch, PS4, and Xbox One. Here’s everything you need to know about it.
The first is Quiplash 3 (3-8 players), which is, as the name suggests, the third installment in the popular series. As in previous entries, you’ll be given prompts and asked to come up with fun responses to it, with winners decided with player votes. Here’s an extended video of how it’ll look–it’s not so different from past Quiplash titles.
The Devils and the Details (3-8 players) is a co-operative game with a distinct aesthetic. According to the description on Steam, it’s about “the daily torture of human life,” and it seems like it will involve players needing to collaborate to complete basic tasks.
Champ’d Up (3-8 players) is the next Jackbox drawing game, and it looks a lot like Tee KO. You’re asked to draw something from a prompt you’re given, and everyone’s drawings are then pitted against each other. You vote on a winner, and get to watch the two drawings battle. Tee KO is a popular Jackbox title, so it’ll be interesting to see if this one is similarly successful.
Talking Points (3-8 players) is an “on the spot speech game,” and the key is to keep talking regardless of whether what you’re saying makes sense or not. It seems that this game will combine drawing, talking, and user voting.
Blather ‘Round (2-6 players) is the final game in the pack, and it’s about showing off your pop culture credentials. You have to try and describe a specific thing with very vague terms, and every other player has to take turns trying to guess what you’re talking about. The video below shows an example of how a round with the prompt “Moby Dick” might look.
If you’re social distancing, Jackbox can be played easily through Zoom or similar services–you can each use a phone as a controller, so it works well as a long-distance party game.
