Like seconds of a good meal, add-ons for video games can sometimes be more of a good thing, sometimes just more of the same, and sometimes just too much. Thankfully, it’s the former category that we find Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways, an add-on for the recent and excellent remake of Resident Evil 4.
For some, fighting games are all about beating the crap out of their friends. Or complete strangers they meet online. For others, though, they’re about the challenge of taking on a computer intelligence, one that may even be more skilled than they could ever hope to be. It is for the latter group — of which I am a proud, paid up member — that I present the following critique of the new Mortal Kombat 1 (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC) from the perspective of someone who only played it — and only wanted to play it — as a single-player game.
A good jazz trio is a thing of beauty. But it can also be a thing of redundancy, given how so many of them are just piano, bass, and drums, and how, for every Red Garland Trio or Keith Jarrett / Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette team-up, you have sixty-seven others who add nothing new. Which is why I got excited by Seven pieces / about an hour / saxophone, piano, drums (CD, digital), the first album by the trio of saxophonist Mark Reboul, piano player Roberta Piket, and drummer Billy Mintz. Yes, a bass-less trio. Color me intrigued.
Many of us aspire to greatness…and many of us fail. But sometimes, in failing, we still manage to do something good. It’s something I thought about while playing the ambitious but underwhelming and yet still engaging fantasy first-person shooter Immortals Of Aveum (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC). While it falls short of what would seem to be its lofty goals, what Aveum does offer is exciting combat in interesting places against competent enemies, and that’s enough to make it kind of fun.
If I had a dollar for every TV show that was unceremoniously cancelled, and with a cliffhanger no less, I would start my own network and give all a reprieve. Or at least a satisfying conclusion. But no abruptly cancelled TV show hurt as much as The Venture Bros., the irreverent and intelligent Adult Swim ‘toon that came to an unexpected end in 2020. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one bothered by this, as fan outcry led Adult Swim to give the show the send off it deserves in the form of a finale movie, The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is The Blood Of The Baboon Heart, which has just been released on Blu-ray and digital. And while it didn’t make me okay with the show coming to an end, at least it gets to end, and in an interesting way.
When it came out on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC in December of 2022, the snarky sci-fi first-person shooter High On Life immediately became one of my favorite games of the year. But it was also a “must play” for fans of Rick & Morty because one of the main characters, a talking gun named Kenny, was voiced by Justin Roiland, who’s the voice of both Rick and Morty, as well as the founder of High developers Squanch Games.
A month later, though, it came out that Roiland had been arrested and charged with felony domestic battery and false imprisonment, which prompted other people to come forward with accusations about his behavior. Roiland was subsequently fired from Rick & Morty, and his other sci-fi ‘toon, Hulu’s Solar Opposites, and he resigned from Squanch Games. And while the criminal charges were dismissed, and Roiland has denied any wrongdoing, he has not been rehired by Adult Swim, Hulu, or Squanch Games, nor has he been forgiven by the public at large.
Now, some people believe you should not equate the art with the artist, especially when said art is a collaboration with other people, like, say, a video game. Other people believe you cannot separate them. Me? I believe you’re innocent until proven guilty, but also that where’s there’s smoke there’s often fire, so you should do what feels right for you and leave everyone else to do the same. So, if you can’t play High On Life because of Roiland’s voice, or involvement, fine. If you can, fine. To each his own.
That said, as someone who was still able to play it, even with Roiland’s problematic accusations very much on my mind, here is my review of the newly released PlayStation 5 / PlayStation 4 version of High On Life.
Though he seems to record a new album with pianist pal Matthew Shipp every week, and has also recorded a bunch with bassist Michael Bisio, violinist / violist Mat Maneri, and drummers Whit Dickey and Gerald Cleaver, jazz saxophonist Ivo Perelman seems just as comfortable working with new people, too. Of the nine piano players he teamed with for 2021’s duets boxed set Brass And Ivory Tales, for instance, only one was someone with whom he’d previously collaborated. Which brings me to his new album, Prophecy, on which he teams with cellist Lester St. Louis for the first time, and pianist Aruán Ortiz for the second after…well, what do you know? Brass And Ivory Tales.
One of the things that always kills my enthusiasm for multiplayer games is how some people take them so seriously. Maybe I’m weird, but I don’t like being yelled at because I didn’t do something exactly right or don’t have the skills of a professional gamer. It’s one of the reasons why I enjoyed Crash Team Rumble (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One), which is such a weird, goofy, cartoony game that you’d have to be a huge dick to take it seriously.
While a lot of people were upset when The Venture Bros. was cancelled in 2020, there were also a lot of people who asked, “Who the hell are the Venture brothers?” It is for those people — and Venture Bros. completionists — that we now have The Venture Bros.: The Complete Series DVD, which presents every episode of the TV show…well, sort of.