This is going to sound like an odd thing to say about a game that only costs $15 to begin with, but you might want to wait for a sale before picking up the space dogfighting game Subdivision Infinity DX, which has just come to PlayStation 5 after being available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Switch for years. Which is not to say it’s bad — it’s not — more that it’s a little thin.
In theory, it sounds like a great idea: “James Bond meets Edge Of Tomorrow.” But in practice, the deeply flawed time looping sci-fi first-person shooter Deathloop (PlayStation 5, PC) is just okay.
If South Park, Rick & Morty, and Saints Row IV have shown us anything, it’s that you can smart and stupid at the same time, even if the stupid stuff is immature or scatological, so long as it’s ultimately fun. It’s something I thought about while playing the third-person hack & slash action game No More Heroes 3 (Switch), which would be idiotic and immature, and also kind of annoying in how flawed it can be, if it wasn’t so much silly fun.
While many jazz bands take their names from their leaders and number of members — like, for example, The Miles Davis Quintet or The Red Garland Trio — there have been such exceptions as Return To Forever. But pianist Matthew Shipp apparently wants to have it both ways. Not only are the albums he’s made with horn player Mat Walerian credited both ways — their debut, Live At Okuden, was credited to both The Uppercut and the Matthew Shipp Mat Walerian Duo, for instance — but for the cover of Cool With That (CD, digital), the new album by the four-piece jazz band East Axis, he and his bandmates put their names on the cover as well. And yet, regardless of who gets the credit or the cover, Cool has the same kind of enticing free jazz adjacent music Shipp and his bandmates often make.
Nearly twenty years after William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and the rest of the Enterprise crew played Star Trek for laughs in the Futurama episode “Where No Fan Has Gone Before,” Starfleet is getting colorfully comedic again with Star Trek: Lower Decks, an animated comedy that’s also the newest addition to the Star Trek cannon. And while it takes more than one episode to really get good, watching all ten on the Star Trek: Lower Decks: Season 1 Blu-ray, DVD, or limited-edition Blu-Ray steelbook is the best way to see it happen.
The entertainment industry is just that: an industry. And the objective of any industry is to make money. Which is why entertainment people sometimes make cutesy versions of adult or all-ages things in hopes of expanding their (paying) audience to include children. We’ve seen it with The Muppets and Muppet Babies, with the Loony Tunes and Tiny Tunes, and now we’re seeing it with Earth Defense Force: World Brothers (PlayStation 4, Switch, PC), a cartoony take on the titular third-person sci-fi shooter series. But by doing more than just making it LEGO-fied, the good people at Yuke’s who made this goofy gun game have managed to make something that’s as fun as the previous ones, regardless of your age.
Let’s cut to the chase: the sci-fi, third-person, open world, action-packed role-playing game Biomutant (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) is epic, effortlessly engaging, and entirely worth your time. But man, I wish it had gotten to the point as quickly as I just did because this sure takes its sweet time getting good.
They say that keeping things fresh is the key to a good relationship. But that advice doesn’t just apply to romance. Since 1997, jazz saxophonist Ivo Perelman and pianist Matthew Shipp have recorded more than three dozen albums together; some as a duo, some as two-thirds of a trio, and some as half of a quartet, but always with something new in mind.
Now they’ve done something else different with Special Edition Box, a limited-edition boxed set that includes a studio album on CD, a live concert on Blu-ray, and a book on, uh, paper. And while this may be new for them, anyone who’s enjoyed their previous duo albums will find that it’s still them doing what they do so well.
Given how 2017’s Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was called a “return to form,” it should come as no surprise that the sequel would try to follow in its footsteps. But rather than rest on their laurels, and spend their time sipping Mai Tais as the money rolls in, the good people at Capcom have instead decided to progress once again by making Resident Evil Village (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC, Stadia) essentially Resident Evil 7 crossed with Resident Evil 4 for a game that — yeah, you know — goes up to 11.