R.O.B. the robot appears in some of the already-revealed movie merch
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Features A Deep-Dive Character From 1985
Author Archives: Xordac Prime
Arc B390 Graphics With Panther Lake Performing Great On Open-Source Intel Compute Runtime
This month I have been doing a lot of Panther Lake benchmarking under Linux with the Core Ultra X7 358H. One of the areas of much interest has been the Arc B390 Xe3 graphics that have been working nicely out-of-the-box with the Intel open-source driver stack on Linux although there still are some gaps to fill against Windows. Those Intel Arc B390 Linux benchmarks so far have been focused on OpenGL and Vulkan graphics, but what about OpenCL and GPU compute with the open-source Intel Compute Runtime? Today’s article is looking at the performance of the Xe3 Panther Lake graphics on the newest Compute Runtime release compared to prior Intel graphics generations and the AMD Ryzen AI competition.
One Switch Emulation Dev Is Fighting Back Against Nintendo’s New Takedowns: ‘We Want To Keep Continuing The Work In The Preservation Of Video Games’
The crackdown continues despite the launch of the Switch 2
Layers of 3 revealed via a mysterious trailer and poem
Bloober Team has revealed Layer of Fear 3 following a Valentine’s Day countdown that started at the beginning of 2026. The new chapter will include not only a game but a novel and music, the company said in a press release.
The developer revealed the new IP via a live-action teaser, with an actor reading lines from William Blake’s poem, The Sick Rose. A painting then fell from the wall, and the actor then turned over an hourglass with red sand, with a tagline stating “The door won’t stay closed.” No gameplay or other information like the release date was revealed.
What Bloober did say, though, is that it would launch new Layer of Fear non-game content, including a novel by horror writer, poet and vocalist Marta Bijan. The company also announced that it would release the soundtracks for Layer of Fear, The Medium and Cronos both in digital and physical (CD and vinyl) editions.
The new title is likely to be eagerly anticipated given Bloober’s form of late. The company recently released its Silent Hill 2 remake, Cronos: The New Dawn and a new Switch 2 Layers of Fear 2 version called Layers of Fear: The Final Masterpiece Edition. The original Layers of Fear came out back in 2016 and is considered one of the better horror titles of recent years, thanks to an expertly crafted narrative and psychedelic thrills and chills. The sequel moved to a creepy ocean liner and was equally well-received.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/layers-of-3-revealed-via-a-mysterious-trailer-and-poem-153021903.html?src=rss
Linuxiac Weekly Wrap-Up: Week 7, 2026 (Feb 9 – 15)
Catch up on the latest Linux news: Linux Kernel 6.19, COSMIC Desktop 1.0.6, Mesa 26, Vim 9.2, OpenVPN 2.7, Podman 5.8, XFS could gain a self-healing feature, and more.
The ROG Xbox Ally X Price Shoots Up Nearly $200 In Japan
The PC gaming handheld seems poised for potential price hikes around the globe
Best Buy Presidents’ Day Sale Slashes Samsung OLED TVs By Thousands
George Washington never binged-watched a TV series on a big and glorious OLED display, but you certainly can. Upgrading to an OLED TV doesn’t have to put a big hit on your bank account, either. Best Buy is serving up discounts on whole bunch of OLED TVs in its Presidents’ Day sale, with savings of up to $1,300 off the suggested pricing.
Samsung’s
Pentagon Threatens Anthropic Punishment
An anonymous reader shares a report: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is “close” to cutting business ties with Anthropic and designating the AI company a “supply chain risk” — meaning anyone who wants to do business with the U.S. military has to cut ties with the company, a senior Pentagon official told Axios.
The senior official said: “It will be an enormous pain in the ass to disentangle, and we are going to make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand like this.”
That kind of penalty is usually reserved for foreign adversaries. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told Axios: “The Department of War’s relationship with Anthropic is being reviewed. Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight. Ultimately, this is about our troops and the safety of the American people.”
Anthropic’s Claude is the only AI model currently available in the military’s classified systems, and is the world leader for many business applications. Pentagon officials heartily praise Claude’s capabilities.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple’s next event is set for March 4
Apple has lined up its first event of the year. The company has invited members of the press to an “Apple Experience” that’s taking place in New York City on March 4 at 9AM ET. It hasn’t yet confirmed whether it will stream the event publicly. According to MacRumors, versions of this Apple Experience will also take place simultaneously in London and Shanghai.
It seems likely that Apple will take this opportunity to unveil its latest slate of iPads and MacBooks. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported earlier this month that Apple was planning to make a number of hardware announcements “as early as the week of March 2.”
Apple
This is expected to include a new MacBook Air and refreshed 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, with the M5 Pro and M5 Max making their debuts (a MacBook Pro with the base M5 chip arrived in October). There’s also speculation that Apple will announce a new entry-level MacBook that will be available in light yellow, light green, blue and pink colorways.
In addition, we may see new iPads here (or perhaps a little farther down the line), including an entry-level model with an A18 chip that’s capable of supporting Apple Intelligence features. The iPad Air could be in line for an upgrade as well with the introduction of the M4 chip to that line. Apple is also expected to roll out updated versions of the Mac Studio, Studio Display and Mac mini later this year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/apples-next-event-is-set-for-march-4-145931890.html?src=rss
McDonald’s Just Announced Its Own TCG, And Ronald McDonald Is The Chase
Featuring your favorite characters, Grimace, um, Fry Girl, and, um, Cheeseburger Chair?
Michigan antitrust lawsuit says oil companies hobbled EVs and renewables
Michigan is taking on major oil and gas companies in court, joining nearly a dozen other states that have brought climate-related lawsuits against ExxonMobil and its industry peers. But Michigan’s approach is different: accusing Big Oil not of deceiving consumers or misrepresenting climate change risks, but of driving up energy costs by colluding to suppress competition from cleaner and cheaper technologies like solar power and electric vehicles.
The strategy is risky and might run into challenges, but it could potentially be a game changer if the state can overcome initial dismissal attempts by the industry defendants, legal experts say.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed the lawsuit last month in federal District Court against BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute. The suit, brought under federal and state antitrust laws, alleges a conspiracy to delay the transition to renewable energy and EVs and maintain market dominance of fossil fuels.
Zero-Day Affecting Billions Of Chrome Intalls Is Under Attack, Update Now
Attention all Chrome users, Google is rolling out an emergency patch to address a high-severity zero-day security flaw in the world’s most popular browser (by market share), and it’s not one you want to ignore. That is because Google confirmed attackers are actively exploiting the flaw in the wild, making it an actual threat rather than a
[$] Compact formats for debugging—and more
At the 2025 Linux Plumbers Conference in Tokyo, Stephen Brennan gave a
presentation on the debuginfo
format, which contains the symbols and other information needed for
debugging, along with some alternatives. Debuginfo files are large and, he
believes, are a bit scary to customers because of the “debug” in their name.
By rethinking debuginfo and the tools that use it, he hopes that
free-software developers “can add new, interesting capabilities to tools
“.
that we are already using or build new interesting tools
Four stable kernels for Monday
The Best Puzzle Games On Quest In 2026
Looking to stretch your mind in VR? Here are some of our favorite puzzle games available on Quest today.
There’s something unique about puzzle games in VR. When you can reach out and touch the world around you, the genre transforms into something magical. Games like Lumines Arise and Tetris Effect: Connected wrap you in a warm sensory blanket while narrative puzzlers like Red Matter and Ghost Town immerse you in their story in ways wholly unique to VR.
Meta Quest users have no shortage of puzzle games. From meditative and musical experiences to emotionally powerful narrative puzzlers that challenge your mind and stir your emotions, here are some of the best the genre has to offer.
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Tetris Effect: Connected
With Tetris Effect, Tetsuya Mizuguchi and his colleagues at Enhance tapped into something remarkable. The 2018 release took the classic puzzle game from the 1980s and transformed it into a musical trance masterpiece. In 2020, the updated Tetris Effect: Connected added co-op and competitive multiplayer, and it remains one of the best puzzle games to this day.
Tetris Effect: Connected wraps you in reactive visuals and music that evolve with your moves. Every rotation, every slammed block, every cleared row adds a new dimension to the soundtrack so that playing Tetris Effect: Connected becomes less about traditional gaming and more about entering a flow state. It’s the ultimate VR vibe game, and beautifully demonstrates VR’s power to elevate traditional gameplay into something greater.
From Pong To VR: Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Quest To Make Games That Move You
With Lumines Arise launching this November on PS VR2 and Steam, we interviewed Tetsuya Mizuguchi about his career and how Enhance are approaching this new entry.
UploadVRJames Tocchio
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The Room VR: A Dark Matter
If you love mechanical puzzles, secret compartments, and mysterious artifacts, Fireproof Games’ The Room VR: A Dark Matter is an essential game for your Quest collection. Not only is it one of the most immersive puzzle games on Quest, it’s also one of the most visually impressive.
In this narrative puzzle game built exclusively for VR and set in 1908 London, you’re tasked with investigating the mysterious disappearance of a renowned Egyptologist after a police investigation yields no result. The 5-6 hour-long adventure will have you exploring cryptic locations with fantastic gadgets as you work your way through an opaque mystery.
In addition to its standalone release, Fireproof Games has also bundled The Room VR: A Dark Matter into a two-pack alongside the team’s extraordinary Ghost Town (mentioned later in this list).
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I Expect You To Die (Series)
Part slapstick comedy, part absurd escape room, part mid-century spy parody, the I Expect You To Die series drops you into increasingly ridiculous and deadly scenarios, and tasks you with saving yourself (and the world) from the nefarious super-villain Dr. Zor. You’ll explode, get swarmed by bees, zapped by lasers, and try to survive, all from the comfort of your Quest headset. Clever design rewards experimentation, and the tongue-in-cheek humor makes failure feel fun.
There are three mainline I Expect You To Die games on Quest, which can be purchased separately, or bundled together as part of the Phoenix Rising Trilogy.
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The House of Da Vinci
As Leonardo Da Vinci’s most promising apprentice, you are summoned to Florence only to find that Leonardo has mysteriously disappeared. Thus begins The House of Da Vinci, a challenging puzzle mystery that our reviewer described as “one of the best VR puzzle games I’ve ever played, delivering an experience that’s been lovingly created with reverence to its historical inspiration.”
Gameplay takes the shape of escape room-style challenges in which we manipulate complex machines, peer into the past, and solve puzzles based on Da Vinci’s real-life inventions. Gorgeous visuals and advanced riddles make this a perfect game for puzzle fans and art history buffs alike.
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Ghost Town
The latest phenomenal mystery from Fireproof Games, Ghost Town is a narrative puzzle game set in the 1980s that puts players in the shoes of Edith, an Irish witch turned exorcist and ghost hunter. “What follows,” says Henry Stockdale in our review last year, “is a thoroughly gripping narrative that sees us searching for Edith’s missing brother. Fireproof’s not afraid to have some fun with this story[…]”
One of Ghost Town’s great strengths is that it strikes a great balance. It tells a story, but does so with both humor and suspense, and its puzzles, while challenging, never feel overly difficult. The end result is, as our review put it, “one of the best VR games so far this year.”
Ghost Town Review: An Utterly Engrossing Supernatural VR Adventure
Ghost Town is a brilliant supernatural puzzle adventure from The Room VR studio that you won’t want to miss.
UploadVRHenry Stockdale
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Humanity
Humanity is a third-person puzzle-action game in which your goal is to guide a massive mob of humanity to the end point of each level. You lead the pack as a cute Shiba Inu, leading the seemingly mindless humans as they jump, turn, push, float, shoot, and climb their way toward salvation across 90 story-mode stages.
Another game from Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Enhance, Humanity is a flatscreen critical darling that has really stuck the landing on Quest. It was voted VR Game of the Year at the 2023 EDGE Awards, ranked Best Puzzle Game of 2023 by Game Informer magazine, and was nominated for Best VR / AR Game at The Game Awards in 2023.
As with most of Mizuguchi and Enhance’s games, there’s more than meets the eye here. And while the game’s online servers and user-generated level support are ending in March, 2026, there’s enough meat on the base game’s bones to warrant a thorough chewing.
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Red Matter & Red Matter 2
These narrative-heavy adventures blend environmental puzzles with atmospheric world-building and deliver some of the most impressive visuals yet seen on Quest headsets.
The first game drops you into a retro-futuristic Cold War space race where you play as Agent Epsilon, sent to a deserted Volgravian base on Rhea, Saturn’s mysterious moon to investigate a secret project with the potential to change humanity’s destiny forever. And once you’re done with that, fire up Red Matter 2 for yet another stunning story.
Start with Red Matter here, or buy the two-game bundle.
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Myst
Few games define the puzzle genre like Myst. For most gamers of a certain age, it was the first puzzle game we’d ever played (and the first we’d ever owned on CD-ROM). In VR, its enigmatic puzzles and lonesome island feel more tangible than ever.
Built from the ground up by Cyan Worlds, the indie studio that created the beloved classic way back in 1993, Myst for Quest is a definitive reimagining of one of the greatest puzzle games ever made. It brings new art, new sound, new interactions, and optional puzzle randomization.
When you’ve finished unraveling the mysterious island of Myst, you may be tempted to jump into its sequel, Riven. While Riven is a must-play for fans of the original flatscreen version, or for those who simply can’t get enough of the Myst universe, in truth, Riven on Quest is not a very strong adaptation. It’s good, just not as great as Myst.
Myst Added The Age Of Rime In Major Update
Myst’s VR remake introduced the Age of Rime in a recent update.
UploadVRSarah Thwaites
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The Last Clockwinder
Called “One of the most unique and creative VR games ever” by Polygon, and “the best puzzle game since Portal” by Beardo Benjo, The Last Clockwinder is a creative and clever game that our own review described as “a true delight and gem of a puzzle game that’s well worth your time.”
The main mechanic of the game centers on mapping your real-life physical actions to several robotic “clones” which will repeat your actions indefinitely. This allows you to create a sort of production line that moves fruit from one place to another, feeding the health of a mystical tree. It’s a gameplay hook that defies explanation, but it’s one that’s totally engaging and superbly executed. Add to this a mysterious story that’s “an absolute delight to unravel” and we have all the makings of a VR classic.
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A Fisherman’s Tale
In A Fisherman’s Tale, you play as a reclusive fisherman puppet who awakens locked inside a lighthouse. In the center of the room sits a model of the very same lighthouse, with a tiny version of yourself inside, and a larger one outside, mimicking your every move. The perspective-bending puzzles begin from there.
When we reviewed the game some years ago, we gave it 5 out of 5 stars and said it “might be the first [Quest game] to achieve a perfect storm of gameplay, immersion and narrative in a single experience. [A Fisherman’s Tale] fuses experience and interactivity to really show what this medium is capable of.”
The game’s sequel, Another Fisherman’s Tale, doubles down on the original’s creativity with whole new gameplay mechanics. It’s imaginative, slightly absurd, and filled with tactile puzzle design.
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Puzzling Places
Another special experience that could only exist in VR, Puzzling Places lets you build gorgeous photorealistic dioramas of beautiful places from all over the world, either in full VR or in the familiar comfort of your own space in mixed reality. There are no timers, no pressure; just pure, mindful building at a peaceful puzzling pace, alone or with others in online multiplayer and local MR co-op modes.
The base game includes 25 puzzles, and a massive collection of DLC puzzles continues to grow. The most recent, a gorgeous Van Gogh-inspired impressionist diorama, joins previous themed puzzles such as cities of the world, a haunted house, underwater seascapes, and dozens more.
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Cubism
Clean shapes and floating blocks, Cubism strips puzzle design down to its essentials. You rotate and place geometric shapes into transparent containers, building increasingly complex forms in full VR or MR modes. Hand tracking makes the game play seamlessly and intuitively, and the balance of relaxation and challenge is perfectly struck.
While the concept of Cubism is great, what really sets it above is the game’s minimalist aesthetic. As in old Japan Studio games like Echochrome, or Keita Takahashi’s Katamari Damacy, there’s a simplicity of concept that we also find in Cubism. As we shift pastel-colored shapes into place, the resonant strings of a rich piano strum a beautiful backing soundtrack. The overall vibe is elegant, calming, and clever.
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Gadgeteer
Gadgeteer lets you build elaborate chain-reaction machines in both VR and MR using ramps, marbles, dominoes, and motors, creating chain reactions that may even end up tearing apart the fabric of space-time.
There are over 60 physics puzzles, plus sandbox environments that let you build whatever wild machines you like. Hundreds of community-made puzzles round out the experience. For older gamers who might remember launching the MS-DOS build of The Incredible Machine on some ancient PC, watching your Gadgeteer contraption unfold in 3D space feels like a dream come true.
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Shadow Point
Shadow Point is a story-driven puzzle game in which you’ll explore a vibrant kingdom and solve mind-bending puzzles as you uncover the mystery of missing schoolgirl, Lorna McCabe who vanished from Shadow Point Observatory twelve years ago. As your adventure unfolds, you will manipulate gravity, play with shadows, work with your own reflection, walk on walls, peer through a magical lens to reveal an alternate reality and much more.
Narrated by Sir Patrick Stewart, Shadow Point combines over 80 puzzles with a reflective story about memory and mentorship. Its paper doll-esque art style is gorgeous and evocative and its light-and-shadow mechanics are clever. We recommended the game in our review some years ago, though we felt Stewart to be underutilized. More than anything else, however, the game’s emotional framing elevates it to a must-play.
Quest Launch Title Shadow Point Is Coming To PSVR
Coatsink is bringing its Quest launch title, Shadow Point, over to PSVR this month. The game, which also came to Rift, will launch on Sony’s headset on March 22nd for $19.99. Check out the PSVR announcement trailer for the game below. Coatsink PSVR Released Shadow Point sees players
UploadVRJamie Feltham
Whether you want a musical flow state (Tetris Effect, Lumines Arise), a story-rich adventure (Red Matter, Shadow Point), or relaxing brain training (Cubism, Puzzling Places), Quest offers some of the most inventive puzzle design in gaming today.
For more of the best of VR, check these out:
Linux 7.0 Better Segregates Legacy CardBus Code To Avoid On Modern PCs
The PCI subsystem updates for Linux 7.0 are aplenty as usual and contain a wide assortment of different fixes and code improvements…
After a year of dithering, I’ve finally found a cordless pressure washer deal worth buying – but this discount code expires tonight
I moved to a top-floor flat in February 2025, with no access to a hose or mains power, forcing lazy old me to buy a cordless pressure washer to clean my bikes. Fast forward to today and… well, I’m really tight and have toiled with a sponge and bucket since moving.
But the green layer growing on my balcony floor and my delicate editor’s hands, grown weary of bathing my bikes after a truly disgusting winter, have forced action.
I shopped around diligently, looking for something affordable from a reputable brand, and landed on this Worx pressure washer, available direct from the brand’s eBay shop for £89.99 – a 47 per cent saving on RRP and most retailers.
At checkout, I was pleasantly surprised to find I’d saved another 10 per cent off using the automatically applied discount code HEART10. This time-limited code expires on 16 February 2026 at 11.59pm and brings the price down further to £80.99, with free postage.
Even without the discount code, that’s a great deal when you consider it’s £149 on Amazon. At the time of writing, there are some Amazon Resale options available for as little as £97.20, but that’s still more expensive than the brand-new option from eBay.
The washer includes a bucket, cleaning accessories, one battery plus charger, and a helpfully long 6m hose – a generous suite of bundled bits compared to the comparatively frugal offering of something such as this Titan pressure washer from Screwfix.
Why the Worx?
Full disclosure: I only slapped down my 80 big ones last night, so I’m yet to receive the pressure washer, so I can’t vouch for its efficacy.
However, based on the enthusiastic endorsements of mud-slinging, shred-sledding colleague Tom Marvin, alongside former colleague and good friend Matthew Loveridge, I have no reason to doubt it will be up to the task.
In addition, our 4.5-star 2018 review of the similar Worx Max Hydroshot heaped praise on its quality and power. User reviews on Amazon are also, generally, very positive.
I was also drawn to the washer for one extremely niche reason.
I’m an enthusiastic advocate of Lidl’s house tool brand, Parkside, and have a decent stash of its 20v batteries.
Alas, despite waiting patiently for one of its well-liked cordless washers to go on sale, the middle aisle gods have not looked kindly upon my soggy soul.
However, 3D-printed adaptors enabling you to use Parkside batteries on Worx tools (and other brands) are widely available. Because they are both 20v systems, these adaptors are simpler than others that must switch/convert voltage.
Worx will, doubtless, take a dim view of these (I expect it will invalidate your warranty, so proceed with caution), but many online reports suggest these work perfectly well.
If you’re looking for a pressure washer, this is about as good a deal as you’re going to find – just act quickly if you want to use that discount code.
Sony May Push Next PlayStation To 2028 or 2029 as AI-fueled Memory Chip Shortage Upends Plans
Sony is considering delaying the debut of its next PlayStation console to 2028 or even 2029 as a global shortage of memory chips — driven by the AI industry’s rapidly growing appetite for the same DRAM that goes into gaming hardware, smartphones, and laptops — squeezes supply and sends prices surging, Bloomberg News reported Monday.
A delay of that magnitude would upend Sony’s carefully orchestrated strategy to sustain user engagement between hardware generations. The shortage traces back to Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron diverting the bulk of their manufacturing toward high-bandwidth memory for Nvidia’s AI accelerators, leaving less capacity for conventional DRAM. The cost of one type of DRAM jumped 75% between December and January alone. Nintendo is also contemplating raising the price of its Switch 2 console in 2026.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple’s More Affordable MacBook Design Leaks With A Pleasant Surprise
There has been considerable chatter over the past several months about Apple releasing a lower-cost MacBook, perhaps in an attempt to combat the growing army of budget Windows laptops and Chromebooks. If such a thing comes to fruition, there will obviously need to be concessions made to lower the cost, but the overall design could end up being
The creators of Mixtape want to make a great hangout video game
For most adventure games, the long-term goal can often focus on solving a grand mystery or chasing a lost artifact of the past. But for the upcoming Mixtape, from publisher Annapurna Interactive, it sets its sights on the misadventures of young friends enjoying their last days together before moving on. It’s the type of narrative adventure game that shines a light on how good music can bring people together, and how much fun getting into trouble can be.
From developer Beethoven and Dinosaur, the Australian creative team behind The Artful Escape, Mixtape is, in many ways, a tribute to classic ’90s Americana and an ode to the rebellious youth of the average suburb. I recently got to play the latest build of Mixtape and spoke with game director Johnny Galvatron about the making of their latest game. Along with sharing his favorite ’80s and ’90s films that helped shape his vision, he also explained how tough yet rewarding it is to make “idleness” in video games compelling.
“Idleness is hard to explore as a video game, and one of the interesting things about being a teenager is you just hang out a lot, and sometimes it just sucks,” said Galvatron. “So I love that we made a game that shows that idleness.”
“I think it can be a really hard balance to make something that is based on what is really a hangout film, something like Wayne’s World or Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, but to have that be paced well and to be exciting for a video game was a real challenge.”
Set in the 1990s, Rockford and her friends Slater and Cassandra prepare for one last hurrah before heading into adulthood. With Rockford deciding to make a daring move to New York City to hopefully connect with her music idol, the crew reminisces on the good times they had going for late-night fast food runs, evading the police in shopping carts, and first kisses with their crushes – and all to the tune of their favorite songs.
Beethoven & Dinosaur
On the surface, Mixtape is an interactive coming-of-age story about a crew of rebellious teens, with memories serving as playable mini-games and interludes that capture their feelings at the time. But that’s actually what makes this interactive trip down memory lane so compelling. These segments are presented as exaggerated memories of the past, fueled by the music of Devo, Joy Division, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. They’re emotional, poignant moments for these characters, tapping into the idea of how moments from our youth seemed bigger and grander than they actually were.
One section I enjoyed playing was an interactive head-bobbing segment where the crew drove across town to get fast food. Different buttons corresponded to fist-pumping and head-bobbing actions, but there were no specific directions, so I just had to go with the flow. This scene was a great bit of comedy that showed off how goofy Rockford and her friends could get while vibing, but it was also a fun callback to films like Pulp Fiction, which used rear-projection sets to simulate car driving scenes (the memory even plays out on a film set). Another segment focused on a photo booth with Rockford and Slater, which put them in a position to capture the best or funniest shots.
But it’s not all fun and games with the crew. One segment focused on the friends tossing toilet paper rolls around their school principal’s home, which quickly takes a turn for the worse when one of them decides to take the blame to spare Rockford from expulsion. It’s a surprisingly heartfelt and sad moment, but it also foreshadows a simmering conflict for these characters.
It’s clear that Mixtape seeks to capture the experiences of a particular era, and that the developers themselves had a particular fondness for American movies and pop culture of the time. It captures the feeling of the so-called MTV generation and the intersection of media and the emotional expression of youth during this period. This is also evident in the game’s use of a “mixed media, liquid television” editing style, which intercuts clips from TV shows and movies to emphasize emotional and comedic beats.. Rockford even does a Ferris Bueller-style narration for the players.
Given that video game-to-movie adaptations have never been more popular, game director Johnny Galvatron has also had some talks about a potential movie adaptation.
“Obviously, Annapurna is also a film company, and they have those kinds of connections, and let me tell you, those meetings are fun as fuck,” said the director. “When people pitch you stuff, it’s super cool. I would just say that, yes, I can see it coming. I would probably be totally hands-off on it.”
“When you develop video games, you should be changing them to work better within the medium,” he continued. “I think when they try to adhere too closely to the way a game works, that can sometimes break down. But yeah, I think if there were to be some adaptation stuff for Mixtape, probably, and I will stay clear of it.”
Beethoven & Dinosaur
Mixtape feels like a heartfelt tribute to the ’90s. While nostalgia bait is increasingly common these days, I felt there’s a much deeper message under the hood, and getting to take part in these larger-than-life days of being a young adult has really got me excited for what’s to come. I’m hoping the final game will deliver an adventure where I can really savor those listless hangouts with friends.
Mixtape is set to be released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S later this year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-creators-of-mixtape-want-to-make-a-great-hangout-video-game-140026928.html?src=rss