As we just reported yesterdayTaika Waititi’s Thor: Love And Thunder is making a big splash on the box office charts in its debut weekend, opening at $143 million. That’s more than any other Thor movie has opened to in the entire history of cinema, and a good chunk of Urdu higher than last week’s winner Minions: The Rise Of Grubut it’s still short of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (which was riding that Spider-Man: No Way Home high apparently).

Speaking of the Minions, they made 45 million bananas, bringing them to a total of 210 million bananas after two weeks. Third place went to Top Gun: Maverick with 15 million bananas (it’ll hit 600 million bananas next week, easily), and fourth went to Elvis with 11 million peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches (we brought it around, isn’t that fun?).

Out of the tens-of-millions, we have Jurassic World Dominion in fifth place ($8 million, $350 million total), The Black Phone ($7 million, $62 million total), and lightyear ($2.9 million, $112 million total). Out of the millions periodwe have Marcel The Shell With Shoes On in eighth, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness in ninth, and Mr. Malcolm’s List in 10th meaning Everything Everywhere All At Once has fallen out of the top 10 in its 16th week on the charts.

One other noteworthy story, and a reminder that good search engine optimization isn’t just for the people who think algorithms should be allowed to influence creative decisions, is that IFC Films’ Wastage came in 18th with $25,000 and Neon’s Fire Of Love came in 19th with $22,000. They’re only playing in four and three theaters, respectively, but how many people wanted to see one and accidentally saw the other? “Yeah, one fer da movie about people in love wit’ Wastage in da title!” Let us know in the comments if that was you and whether we accurately captured your accent!

The full top 10 list is repeated below, courtesy of Box Office Mojo.

1. Thor: Love And Thunder
2. Minions: The Rise Of Gru
3. Top Gun: Maverick
4. Elvis
5. Jurassic World Dominion
6. The Black Phone
7. lightyear
8. Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
9. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness
10. Mr. Malcolm’s List

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<p>The post Love And Thunder storms onto the weekend box office charts first appeared on harchi90.</p>

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a prequel covering the adventures of the USS Enterprise as led by Anson Mount’s Christopher Pikethe original captain before William Shatner’s James Kirk sat in the chair in the original Star Trek series. Leading up to release, the question of if Kirk would appear was danced around, at least until Paramount revealed that yes, strange would indeed bring in Kirk during his pre-Captain days. When season two arrives, the character will be played by Vampire Diaries alum Paul Wesley.

But if you watched the season finale that aired earlier this week, you know that the episode is where Wesley’s Kirk first makes his debut. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Wesley revealed that the season finale was always intended to break the news of his casting, but Paramount felt they had to get ahead of set photo leaks. He’d told close family and friends before the news broke, and funnily, they straight up thought he was lying. But it was a relief for him that the news got out early, both because keeping secrets can be torture, and because “it allows people to digest it, in a way.”

The Kirk of Strange New Worlds is introduced via projection of an alternate timeline, where he’s the captain of the USS Farragut rather than the Enterprise. In Wesley’s words, that allowed him to have a bit of a looser interpretation, but not drastically so. He’s meant to be called his version “a whole new look,” sitting somewhere in the middle of Shatner and Chris Pine’s Kirk from the reboot films. “It’s an interpretation that’s different,” continued Wesley. “Doing an imitation of either Kirks would be an insult … What is most important is to pay respect to the integrity of who Kirk is — his wants, his needs, his deep desires, his morality, his spontaneity, his instinct.”

Dancing around specifics, he added that the season would explore more of the character and his relationship with Pike. And because Pike’s met an alternate version of Kirk, he’ll have to work on separating the two versions of Kirk he’s met. “It’s like, I’ve met you before, but I can’t tell you that I’ve met you before,” Wesley laughed, “and I can’t explain to you how I’ve met you before.” Still, don’t expect things to be as mildly antagonistic as the relationship that Pine’s Kirk had with Bruce Greenwood’s Pike in the movies—there’s a deep respect between the two men, according to Wesley, despite their different command styles.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds first season is available now on Paramount+.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TVand everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

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It’s common for games to have multiple endings, usually classified as “good” or “bad” depending on their content and the consequences leading up to their conclusions. Elechead is a little different, if only because it turns that paradigm on its, well, head.

I don’t know why you’re even here if you’re worried about Elechead spoilers but stop reading if you don’t want to learn more about the thing I specifically mentioned in the headline (ie the only thing most people read anyway).

As of June 23, Elechead is available on Switch, which means I finally had a chance to try out its electrifying brain teasers without resorting to playing the Steam version on the same laptop where I work nine hours a day. I spent my nights exploring its futuristic environments from the comfort of my bed and ultimately finished the game in less than a week.

I loved it. Elechead was everything folks said it was after its 2021 launch, providing hours of adorable puzzle platforming without overstaying its welcome. And then I decided to unlock the true ending.

While playing Elechead, you’ll inevitably stumble upon data chip-like items that serve as the game’s main collectibles. Some are in plain sight, while others are hidden and require some clever manipulation of Elechead‘s mechanics to discover. By the time I got to the end of the game, I was still missing a few and thus relegated to watching what I assumed was the “bad” ending.

Pretty melancholy stuff. Elechead the robot puts its electric head in some sort of machine, the space station upon which the entire game apparently takes place goes supernova, and the light of the resulting explosion illuminates a nearby Earth. After a smash cut to a late title screen and some intense music, the short credits roll—Elechead was made by only two people—and you’re taken back to the beginning of the game.

Not wanting to be done with Elechead Quite so soon, I immediately set about collecting the last few data chips to unlock the “good” ending (again, its good-ness merely an assumption on my part). It didn’t take long before I found myself walking through a conspicuous door, now unlocked thanks to my brief treasure hunt, and then watching as an elevator carried the game’s eponymous hero towards destiny.

“Elechead basically died in the other ending,” I thought to myself, “so this one might be a little more happy.” It wasn’t.

Instead of the space station blowing up as in the other ending, the “true” Elechead conclusion sees your tiny robotic protagonist activate a gigantic cannon that completely obliterates Earth. Title screen, credits, what the fuck just happened.

I’ve been taught to expect certain tropes from video games. When one has collectibles, for instance, the ending you get after grabbing everything is generally considered “good,” or at least better than the ending you get otherwise. Gathering all the Chaos Emeralds in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 back in 1992, for instance, rewarded the player with a new conclusion to the story where Sonic becomes Super Sonic. It barely changed the story, but watching the Blue Blur go Super Saiyan felt like a great reward for beating all those frustrating special stages.

Trying to fit Elechead into this mold broke my brain. Earth is far from perfect, but is it bad enough to make its total destruction a “good” ending? Maybe in the world of Elechead, the planet’s been taken over by even more dangerous nutjobs hellbent on, I don’t know, destroying the entire universe with some sort of impossibly massive nuclear weapon? In that case, Elechead’s death and subsequent inability to destroy Earth would be a “bad” ending for more than just seeing a cute character bite the dust.

Maybe it’s deeper than that. While Elechead seems like a simplistic indie game on the surface, it’s possible the devs were trying to make a larger point about the medium’s cliched good-bad ending dichotomy. What is good? What is evil? Aren’t we all capable of both great beauty and great destruction? And for that matter, is creating something beautiful inherently good and destruction always an act of evil? I think we can all agree killing babies is bad, but killing baby Hitler is a bit more complicated.

Of course, like most great works of art, Elechead leaves that conversation up to the player. It’s not even a topic you need to consider to fully enjoy the game. Elechead is very much worth your time from a pure gameplay standpoint thanks to its gorgeous presentation and clever puzzles. But sometimes it’s fun to take things a little too seriously to prompt these sorts of thought experiments. I obviously don’t have all the answers, so I’d love to hear how other folks felt about these endings.

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<p>The post Elechead’s Multiple Endings Completely Broke My Brain first appeared on harchi90.</p>

Is Jupiter’s Claim—the fictional theme park featured in Jordan Peele’s new feature nope—as “hell no” inducing as Keke Palmer’s character seems to think in the first teaser? Brave viewers will soon have the opportunity to find themselves. On the same day the film premieres in theaters, the scenery (and alien terror) from the film will come to life in a new attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood.

Created by production designer Ruth DeJong, the new attraction is made from the real set pieces used in the film. per The Hollywood Reporterthe Jupiter’s Claim seen onscreen in nope was carefully disassembled after production and then reconstructed at the West Coast theme park. Original props and details from the movie have also been included in the experience.

“I remember visiting Universal Studios when I was 12 years old and being mesmerized. That experience reinforced my passion and drive to someday join in on the meta-magic of ‘backlot life.’ Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to direct three movies for Universal,” Peele said in a statement, per THR. “It is a privilege to honor these collaborations with my studio partners, crew members, and cast, and to be able to share Jupiter’s Claim with fans.”

nope‘s Jupiter’s Claim joins the roster of other Universal Studio films that have real-world experiences to go along with them, from Steven Spielberg’s War Of The Worlds to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. nope and its accompanying attraction are part of Peele’s exclusive deal with Universal Studio Group for film and television projects.

In the world of the movie, Jupiter’s Claim is a family-fun park owned and operated by ex-child star Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun) in the Santa Clarita Valley of Southern California. The park’s overarching theme centers around a (decidedly sanitized and white-centric) version of the California Gold Rush. Jupiter’s Claim becomes a central location for the otherworldly chaos sibling duo Emerald and OJ Haywood (Palmer and Get Out‘s Daniel Kaluuya).

both nopeand the Jupiter’s Claim attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood, touch down on July 22.

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Up until now, reverse bullet-hell shooter Vampire Survivors, one of the year’s must-play indie hits, did not have a final boss. That’s no longer the case in the wake of a recent update, which adds a new version of the game’s final stage.

Still in early access, and technically first released in the twilight of last year, Vampire Survivors work a Castlevania-inspired survival game. Though it may look like a top-down bullet hell shoot-’em-up, the core concept isn’t really about dodging projects: You’re the one shooting them, obliterating thousands of enemies. And thanks to a handful of roguelike elements, Vampire Survivors can easily put you into that “just five more minutes” mindset. here’s Kotaku‘s Ian Walker:

Vampire Survivors‘ true power, however, is in its near-constant dopamine rush. It feels like a mobile game without all the mobile game bullshit, or maybe one of those mindless Flash distractions you used to secretly pull up on your school’s study hall computers. Not only is clearing the screen of baddies satisfying, but every so often rare, stronger enemies reward you with a treasure chest that showers you in additional items and money for unlocks with a flashy sequence that rivals even the best loot boxes.

The latest update, 0.8.0 (patch notes here), showers you with even more stuff, inching Vampire Survivors closer to a full release via a slew of new abilities, achievements, and weapons. But the biggest change is the addition of a reworked final stage, “Cappella Magna.” If you survive to the 30-minute mark, ace polygon notesall of the stage’s enemies will coalesce, Voltron-style, into a giant reaper. that’s the final boss. Once you defeat it the first time, “Cappella Magna” will revert to the easier—but still really freakin’ difficult—version. For your efforts, you’ll unlock the Great Gospel relic, which allows you to upgrade weapons beyond their max level.

If you haven’t played yet, Vampire Survivors is worth a spin. it’s part of the PC library for Game Passmicrosoft’s games-on-demand subscription service. Or, and this is key, it costs $3.

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<p>The post Vampire Survivors, A 2022 Best Game, Gets Final Boss In Update first appeared on harchi90.</p>

Publisher Nacon announced some new games today, and among them are RoboCop: Rogue Cityan upcoming FPS starring the famous cyborg police officer from the 1980s, and Terminator Survival Projecta survival game set in that universe’s bleak, machine-ruled future.

Let’s talk RoboCop first: destined for both PC and consoles (PS5 & Xbox Series X|S), it is being developed by Teyon, the studio responsible for Terminator: Resistance (I’m sensing a pattern here). Here’s the pitch:

Welcome to Detroit; crime runs rampant, the city on the edge of ruin. As things descend further into chaos, you are the solution, a cyborg officer, RoboCop. And it wouldn’t feel right without Peter Weller reprising this role. Become the RoboCop in June 2023! Coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

RoboCop is a classic sci-fi action-adventure and one of Hollywood’s most iconic movie franchises of all time. NACON and Teyon are working with MGM to develop an authentic RoboCop game experience that is faithful to the franchise’s DNA, while immersing gamers in an original story that enables them to play as none other than RoboCop himself. In the RoboCop movie, when good cop Alex Murphy is fatally wounded by ruthless criminals, innovative doctors are able to piece him back together as an unstoppable crime-fighting cyborg called “RoboCop.”

In some good news for fans of the original films, the Alex Murphy you’ll be playing won’t just look like actor Peter Weller—who “agreed to be the model for the game’s protagonist”—but will feature his voice acting as well , meaning you’re getting the most authentic “dead or alive, you’re coming with me” you can get.

Here’s the game’s trailer, which not only features gameplay—I am liking the implementation of the original film’s target lock-on visuals—but also shows this is looking like the kind of linear, singleplayer shooter that we simply don’t get enough of in this day and age.

It was also announced Terminator: Survival Projectwhich I’ll spend a lot less time on since they only showed a brief teaser trailer and said it’s “coming to PC & Consoles in the distant future.”

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<p>The post New Robocop And Terminator Games Are Coming To PC, Consoles first appeared on harchi90.</p>

Few racing games are more therapeutic than Funselektor’s Art of Rally, a minimalist, top-down arcade rally racer with an emphasis on driving feel and pleasant vibes. It’s a singular experience — the kind of racing game that rightfully garnered plenty of attention and praise from novices and experts alike. An interview posted today with the game’s chief developer, Dune Casu, teases into what makes it so special.

Unlike many other modern racing games, Art of Rally is played from a pseudo-top-down perspective, as was more common in the days before polygons and sprite scaling. Personally, as charmed as I am by the game’s visual style and zen-like approach to driving, that’s always been a sticking point for me; I’ve never got on well with top-down racers. However, a fan-made mod for the PC version was actually created to address that, bringing the camera close down to the ground, directly behind the car, like a chase cam in a more traditional racing game.

ace youtuber DustinEden says, it completely transforms the experience. It also causes some graphical and logistical issues, as Art of Rally was never intended to be played from such a vantage point. Those flat-shaded, minimalist assets that previously merged to paint a rich landscape when seen from a distance now seem a little too plain, a little too undercooked this up close. The sense of speed is also heightened, and DustinEden reports a compulsion to brake and lift more frequently out of a fear of losing control.

But the bigger issues actually pertain to pace notes; or rather, the lack of them. In rallying, your co-driver’s warnings of turns and hazards ahead is essential to successful run on a course you’ve never seen before. These notes must also be relayed at precisely the right time, in the right cadence and obviously in a variety of languages ​​for every territory in which the game releases.

Funselektor, however, is a small team that lacks the resources to record pace notes with the level of care they require. By pulling the camera up and back, the player could glean a better sense of what lies ahead without having to rely on verbal warnings. Casu explains this in a little more detail, in his interview with DustinEden, which you really should watch if you’re interested in this sort of stuff, or are a fan of the game.

The interview begins at about the 9:15 mark. Casu starts by explaining how the idea for the top-down camera came from a previous project:

originally with Absolute Drift it was a bit of an accident. It was supposed to be a third-person camera, like Need For Speed or the classic racing games. I was trying to make a main menu, like an interactive 3D main menu, so we just took this camera out and I brought it to this video game meetup, and someone said “oh this is way better, I like it better.” That’s the whole reason we did that.

the camera quickly became the glue that held the entire experience together; Casu recalls she having continually tweaked it “almost up until launch.” Still, he appreciates the chase cam mod presenting another option to the players that want it:

Some people seem to like it! It’s definitely an interesting mod that’s come out, it’s pretty cool to see. People would ask for it to be in the game, a chase camera like that. But then, since it’s a rally game you need pace notes, and the original goal of this game was to have a more minimal rally experience. By having this camera you get to do away with the pace notes. Because pace notes can [require] a lot of skill for a game, especially for localization — we have 12 languages ​​in the game — and getting that for like all the voice acting for everything, and also tuning it so it’s right… I’ve played rally games where the pace notes were a bit off and it forces you to crash. So having it all zoomed out, being able to see everything, that’s like the core of the game.

There are certainly advantages and disadvantages to either camera position, and Funselektor decided this one would be the best option for the type of game they wanted to make — a love letter to rallying presented as a diorama, with a stunning degree of physical depth. Art of Rally is still getting new, free content almost two years on, and Indonesian stages are due to be added in the coming weeks. It’s also available on pretty much every modern platform now, so if you haven’t had the chance to settle in yet, now could be the best time.

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<p>The post How a New Camera Angle Completely Transforms Art of Rally first appeared on harchi90.</p>

As the prophecies (aka, Sony’s vast marketing machine) foretold, ragnarok it’s coming. yesterday, Sony’s Santa Monica Studio announced a November release date for its upcoming action game God of War Ragnarok. Maybe you’ve found yourself itching to replay its predecessor, God of War. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been doing so and lemme tell you: New game plus does note do it for me.

A few months after God of War‘s initial 2018 release, Sony added a new game plus mode to the game. Like most similar modes, you can start a fresh save file with all of the skills and gear you earned over your prior playthrough. Enemies are scaled up in difficulty to match your abilities. From the perspective of pure power fantasy, it’s a blast and, to a certain extent, God of War‘s new game plus makes replaying it feel like playing through a totally new game.

It also doesn’t make a lick of narrative sense.

Yes, yes, say what you will about “ludon************* dis*******” or “playing games inherently demands a suspension of disbelief” or whatever. I’m not new here, and at the risk of opening a whoooole other can of worms, I generally agree. thigh God of War is an exception.

spoilers for God of War (2018).

God of War cold opens with longtime protagonist Kratos swinging an ax into a tree. He’s living sequestered in the woods. He’s rocking a ZZ Top beard. He has a son, a precocious, kind-hearted kid named Atreus. Most notably, the Blades of Chaos, Kratos’ signature weapons from the original trilogy, are nowhere to be seen. Clearly, a lot of time has passed.

the crux of God of War‘s story revolves around Kratos and Atreus delivering the ashes of Faye—spouse to Kratos, parent to Atreus—to the highest peak in all the realms. It’s not long until Atreus comes down with an urgent, life-threatening sickness, the cure for which he is located in the land of the dead, Helheim. (Though the original trilogy was inspired by Greek mythology, the 2018 entry pivoted to Norse canon.) Kratos’ ax is useless against Helheim’s cannon fodder; he’ll need a different weapon.

The scene is a tour de force. It’s worth watching in its entirety:

Good stuff, right? but here’s the red flag: When you start a new game plus in God of War, you start with the Blades of Chaos already unlocked. Kratos is literally wearing them in the very first scene (along with whatever armor you had equipped at the end of your first playthrough).

That’s not a “spoiler,” per se, nor does it ruin any plot twists; if you’ve played the game, you know Kratos digs up the Blades of Chaos. But it totally defends the game’s most emotionally impactful moment. It’s also just…weird.

Following the news, first reported by Bloomberg last monththat God of War Ragnarok would likely come out in the fall, I decided to replay its predecessor. I initially started with new game plus. Having the Blades of Chaos from the very start just didn’t feel right. and since God of War forces you to commit to a game mode from the start of a save file (in other words, you can’t move from new game plus to new game minus), I had to make a choice. I knew the Blades of Chaos would bother me. I couldn’t continue.

It’s not like playing on the vanilla mode is a pain in the ass, at least personally. God of War is, after all, hailed as one of the best games ever, and deservedly so. It’s reached a level of acclaim that’s only clarified with time. Four years later—with my understanding of combat and knowledge of puzzle solutions covered in a thin layer of mental dust—replaying God of War almost feels like playing a totally new game, even without the new game plus.

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<p>The post Replaying God Of War Before Ragnarök? Ignore The New Game Plus first appeared on harchi90.</p>

Lego and Nintendo have been staples of millions of kids’ lives for the past few decades, so it’s no surprise that when the two joined forcesit resulted in a collection of building sets that are impossible to resist, including a monstrous new Bowser that fittingly towers over Lego’s interactive mario figure.

Although embraced by Lego fans of all ages, the Lego Super Mario playsets and interactive figures tend to appeal to younger fans of the building toy given they’re designed more for playing than just displaying. Thankfully, Lego has also released a handful of larger sets under the Lego Super Mario theme targeted at older collectors, including a life-size buildable version of the Nintendo Entertainment System console complete with an animated TV playing Super Mario Bros.and a giant 3D question block that opened to reveal miniature recreations of various levels from the N64’s Super Mario 64.

This isn’t Bowser’s first appearance in the Lego Super Mario collection. A much smaller version of the famed baddie was included in the Bowser’s Castle Boss Battle expansion playset, but given how the character towers over Mario in the video games, this new version, built from 2,807 pieces, appears to be more appropriately scaled to the interactive lego figure.

The Mighty Bowser is fully articulated allowing collectors to find the perfect pose, and features “newly designed elements to recreate the look of Bowser’s spikes.” There’s also a button that can be pressed to control Lego Bowser’s head and neck movements, and the model includes an interactive fireball feature allowing Bowser to battle the Mario, Luigi, and Peach figures.

The Lego Super Mario the Mighty Bowser set will be available for sale starting on October 1, and will sell for $270, matching the price of the set in Europe as a result of the toy maker’s recently announced price increases.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TVand everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

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<p>The post Lego’s Largest Super Mario Set Is This New 2,807-Piece Bowser first appeared on harchi90.</p>

Manga artist Kazuki Takahashi, best known as the creator of the Yu-Gi-Oh series (and the popular card game it’s based on), has been found dead.

ace NHK reports, via an English-language story in the Japan Times, a body was “found floating while wearing snorkeling gear in the waters off Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, on Wednesday morning”. Japanese coast guard officials confirmed on Thursday that the body belonged to Takahashi, and are currently “looking into the cause of death”.

Takahashi began his manga career in 1982, and for the next 14 years struggled to find success on titles like Fighting Hawk and Tennenshoku Danji Buray. In 1996, however, he released Yu-Gi-Oh, and the rest was history.

In addition to creating the manga, Takahashi—who had some experience in games design—also designed the broad outlines of a card game (originally called Magic & Wizardsbut later changed to Duel Monsters) featured in the series itself, which after popular request was first released in 1999 as an actual trading card game in Japan by Konami and blew up. It saw an American release in 2002, and is still popular around the world today.

Alongside the manga (which has now sold tens of millions of copies) and card game (which has sold tens of billions of cards), Yu-Gi-Oh has also inspired a range of other media appearances, like several long-running anime series, a number of motion pictures, book releases and, of course, video game adaptations. the latest Yu-Gi-Oh game, Master Duelreleased earlier in 2022 on PC, Switch, Xbox and PlayStation, was at one point pulling in over 200,000 concurrent players just on Steam.

Takahashi had still been active in the comics scene; he was still involved in broader creative decisions on Yu-Gi-Ohand it was only two weeks ago that a Marvel collaboration he had worked oninvolving Iron Man and Spider-Man, was published.

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<p>The post The Creator Of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kazuki Takahashi, Has Died At Age 60 first appeared on harchi90.</p>