It's impossible to play or talk about Dangerous Driving without comparing it to Criterion's seminal Burnout 3: Takedown. This is by design, of course, as developer Three Fields Entertainment--a small indie studio comprised of former Criterion alum--set out to create a spiritual successor to the dormant racer; latching onto the groundbreaking Burnout 3 as a clear and popular focal point. Everything about Dangerous Driving's design, right down to small details like font selection and the phrasing used in its loading screens, is distinctly Burnout 3. It foregoes the advances made in its sequels--like traffic checking and the introduction of an open-world--to hone in on what made Takedown so special.My first hour or so with Dangerous Driving was fraught with bewilderment, however. There's a single song that plays on the main menu, but other than this there's a complete absence of music throughout the entire game. Licensed tracks are a crucial component to the Burnout formula, and after playing a few events in near-complete silence, their monumental importance can't be overstated. Obviously, this is true of most games, but particularly one where high-speed exhilaration is on the menu. After initially thinking this was either a bug or that music would eventually find its way into the game via a day one patch, I hopped into the audio settings and discovered the reason for its omission: Spotify integration.This is a smart idea for an indie studio that might not have the budget to splash out on licensed music, and after finding something suitably upbeat and aggressive myself, the experience of tearing around the track and wrecking other cars was improved tenfold. Yet asking people to own a premium service just to get music in their game is a fairly excessive compromise. It's an understandable trade-off for gaining access to popular music in a budget-priced game, but beyond the monetary requirement, it also has an effect on gameplay. Three Fields can't manipulate Spotify music in any way, so songs will just play through from start to finish without the incorporation of any interactive elements. This means that the music doesn't change its tone when you boost, or slow down and warp during takedowns, and that robs these moments of some of their potential impact.When you're out on the road, the handling of each car will feel instantly familiar to anyone who's ever played Burnout before. While most contemporary racing games are wary of fully embracing an arcadey style without featuring some kind of simulation element, Dangerous Driving is a full-blooded, balls-to-the-wall arcade racer. You'll hold down the accelerator ad infinitum until your finger aches, careen around corners by either scraping across the steel guard rails or tapping the brake button to effortlessly drift around, and weave between oncoming traffic at over 200-miles-per-hour as the nitrous oxide flames spewing out of each exhaust pipe propel your car forward.Unfortunately, the physics can be fairly wonky at times, often bringing your vehicle to a complete stop because you brushed against a wall; while other times it will shoot you straight up into the air, or force your car into a complete 90-degree turn. This can be incredibly frustrating during the latter stages of an event when one mishap is enough to send you tumbling to the back of the pack. Collision detection is also inconsistent; numerous times a head-on crash resulted in my car clipping through the floor and appearing unscathed on the other side. The face-distorting sense of speed, though, is genuinely electric, and the PS4 Pro version maintains a stable 60 frames-per-second with one notable exception: It has a tendency to hitch rather egregiously when you're driving through tunnels.The crux of Dangerous Driving's racing is centered around the need to drive recklessly and constantly put yourself in harm's way. By hurtling towards incoming traffic, performing near misses, nailing drifts, tailgating, and taking down your opponents, you earn variable degrees of boost that will help fire your chosen vehicle towards the finish line. There isn't a discernible difference in how each car handles, other than the fact that some go faster than others, but their pinpoint responsiveness coupled with the high framerate ensures that you're fully capable of serpentining in and out of danger if your reactions are quick enough. Again, this is quintessential Burnout, with the destruction of your fellow drivers doubling your boost meter and incentivizing the most perilous behavior possible. These takedowns are reminiscent of those that debuted in Burnout 3, although the slow-motion crashes in Dangerous Driving are surprisingly underwhelming. They're not bad, but they're also not impactful enough--which the aforementioned issues with music contribute to--lacking in any real dynamism or metal-crunching detail.There are exceptions to this rule, but vehicle collisions actually look a lot more violent when they occur near you in real time, with broken cars hurtling across the road in a furious cascade of fire and sparks. A wrecked car doesn't signal the end of its lifespan either. While Dangerous Driving unabashedly riffs on Burnout, it has its own ideas, too, like persistent wrecks. Now, if you're driving on a track with multiple laps, any takedowns that happen will leave the battered husk of that car out on the road as a smoke-billowing obstacle. This is rather ingenious, as subsequent laps gradually evolve the track until it's veritable minefields of dead vehicles.The slow-motion crashes are not impactful enough--which the aforementioned issues with music contribute to--lacking in any real dynamism or metal-crunching detailThe problem with this--and it's not a problem with the mechanic itself, but rather one with the game's overall structure--is that these multi-lap events, and the most stimulating moments within them, are too few and far between. Dangerous Driving excels when you're in the middle of the pack, trading paint with other cars, and fighting tooth and nail to move up the field. It's here where it's at its most exciting, and really latches onto what made Burnout 3 so brilliant in the first place. But reaching first place is relatively easy--I was taken down by the AI twice in all my time playing--and once you're there the rubber banding isn't aggressive enough to ever compete with your driving unless you crash. Rivals drivers will hover just behind you, waiting to capitalize on any mistakes, but there are far too many instances where you can take a leisurely drive in first place, resulting in a feeling that you're missing out on all the action.It doesn't help that the track design is bland. Visually there's a lot of variety with a cohesive theme of North American National Parks that encompasses sunswept canyons, beachside cliffs, snowy mountain ranges, and so on, but the tracks themselves are made up of the same kinds of long, winding corners that it almost feels like they were copied and pasted from one track and into another. They rarely deviate from this standard blueprint, and there's nothing that sets the tracks apart from one another either. This compounds the issues with difficulty and AI during race events, and also results in a dearth of engaging racing in other game modes. There are face-offs against a single opponent, the takedown-centric Road Rage, time trials, a survival event that tasks you with reaching checkpoints to stave off an ever-depleting timer, and even a nod to Criterion's work on Need for Speed in the shape of police pursuits. Again, there's a decent amount of variety here, with familiar modes returning from Burnout (including one that was previously its namesake, re-titled to Heatwave here), but the lack of interesting courses and a scarcity of racing events depletes much of the excitement.Online multiplayer is being added in a future update, and playing against other people might allay some of these problems. But the more I played the more I began to realize Dangerous Driving lacks that magic spark the Burnout games had in abundance. That kinetic energy, palpable sense of danger, and the heart-racing thrill that something could and would go wrong at any moment. The AI was aggressive--competitive--and the satisfaction of taking them down was born of more than just getting to watch their car crumple against the nearest brick wall. The tracks were inventive, too, more interesting in their environments, and full of diverging paths and risky shortcuts.Dangerous Driving nails the basic feeling of driving a car in Burnout, but the lack of small details quickly begin to add up and peel away at everything that doesn't feel quite right. The most damning criticism I can level at it is that it's often dull and lifeless. There are too many events that fail to capitalize on its strengths, and those that do can only reach those heights in fleeting moments. I was concerned that maybe I'd feel the same way about Burnout; that one of the greatest racing series ever made just doesn't fit in 2019. So I went back and played Burnout 3 again and it quickly alleviated all of those fears with a rapid combustion of thrilling vehicular mayhem. The potential was there for Dangerous Driving to latch onto that magic, and there are brief moments when it feels like you're playing a brand new Burnout. But the truth is, I'd rather play a 16-year-old game than pick up its spiritual successor again, and that's a disheartening outcome. Info from Gamespot.com

Disney's new paid streaming service, Disney+, is launching this November in the United States, and there will be quite a lot of content available right at the start. This includes all 30 seasons of The Simpsons (totalling more than 650 episodes), as well as at least the first episode of the new Star Wars show The Mandalorian.Also available at the start will be 18 Pixar movies and every one of their theatrical shorts, as well as numerous Star Wars movies. Not only that, but the entire 13-movie "Signature Collection" of Disney classics will be there as well, including Bambi, Snow White, Pinocchio, and others. There will also be a new Lady & The Tramp live-action movie, and more than 5,000 episodes of Disney Channel TV shows.Launch is just the beginning, as Disney has major plans to develop lots more original TV shows and movies over the first year and beyond.Disney+ launches on November 12 in the United States. It costs $7/month or $70 a year. The service will launch first in the United States, with plans to release in other markets later.Disney+ Launch Lineup:Movies:101 DalmatiansA Bug's LifeAladdinAvengers: EndgameBambiBeauty and the BeastBraveCaptain MarvelCarsCars 2Cars 3CinderellaCocoFinding DoryFinding NemoFrozenInside OutIron ManIron Man 3Lady & The TrampMoanaMonsters Inc.Monsters UniversityPeter PanPinocchioRatatouilleRogue One: A Star Wars StorySleeping BeautySnow White and the Seven DwarfsStar Wars: A New HopeStar Wars: Attack of the ClonesStar Wars: Empire Strikes BackStar Wars: Return of the JediStar Wars: Revenge of the SithStar Wars: The Force AwakensStar Wars: The Phantom MenaceThe Good DinosaurThe IncrediblesThe Incredibles 2The Jungle BookThe Lion KingThe Little MermaidThe Mandalorian (at least Episode 1)The World According To Jeff GoldblumThor: The Dark WorldToy StoryToy Story 2Toy Story 3Toy Story 4UpWall-EZootopia100 Various Disney Channel Original Movies TVThe Simpsons (Seasons 1-30)The World According To Jeff GoldblumThe MandalorianDisney Channel (5,000 episodes of various shows)250 hours of National Geographic shows Info from Gamespot.com

Disney+, the new subscription streaming service from Disney, will not feature video games. Disney CEO Robert Iger confirmed this during Disney's investor day briefing, where he stated that Disney's plan is to only offer television and movie programming on Disney+.The DisneyLife service in Europe offered video games as part of its overall content package. Iger acknowledged that a big learning from that was people were more interested in TV and movies than video games."What we learned there is the consumer is mostly interested in movies and television shows. We wanted this to be a pure movie and television play for the consumer," Iger said about Disney+. "So we do not have any intention of adding more types of media to [Disney+]. I'm not going to get into the history of video games at the company; every time I mention it I seem to get myself in trouble."That last comment is surely a reference to when Iger discussed Disney's rocky history with internal game development and publishing. That's why Disney now pursues licensing deals for video games, like the one it has with Electronic Arts.While Disney+ itself won't offer games to stream, you'll be able to use a game console like Xbox One, PS4, or Nintendo Switch to stream the service.Disney+ launches on November 12 in the United States. It costs $7/month or $70 a year. The service will launch first in the United States, with plans to release in other markets later. Info from Gamespot.com

All 30 seasons of The Simpsons will be available on Disney+ when the subscription service launches in November. Management said during an investor briefing today that Disney+ will become the exclusive subscription video on demand source for The Simpsons.The Simpsons became a Disney property when Disney acquired Fox.Disney also released a funny video showcasing The Simpsons family joining the Disney family. Notably, a painting of Fox executive Rupert Murdoch can be seen in the trash can.Welcome to the family, @TheSimpsons. #DisneyPlus pic.twitter.com/OYAN1ziGsy — Disney (@Disney) April 11, 2019Disney+ launches on November 12 in the United States. It costs $7/month or $70 a year. The service will launch first in the United States, with plans to release in other markets later. Info from Gamespot.com

With all the high-end hardware requirements typical of VR gaming, you'd think of the Nintendo Switch as the least likely candidate to adopt it. But one of the many things Nintendo is unequivocally good at is making the most of its tech and working within its limitations. The new Labo VR Kit is yet another example. While it doesn't always overcome its inherent shortcomings, Nintendo's latest cardboard-based do-it-yourself package cleverly transforms the Switch into a light, inventive virtual reality gaming experience with the tools to go beyond the initial library.First things first: You have to build. Thankfully, assembly is part of the fun. Like the previous Labo packages, the software contains detailed and digestible step-by-step instructions, which are animated to show you how to put everything together without a hitch--the encouraging communication also helps take the edge off the laborious, time-consuming aspect of it all. Construction is almost fool-proof since each cardboard sheet has precisely cut lines and slots for everything to be folded and snapped into place. There's no denying the satisfaction of seeing little bits of cardboard gradually come together as an intricate device solidly held together by rubber bands, exact creases, and plastic grommets.So, how does the Switch become a VR headset? You first build the mount that contains the slot you slip the Switch into, which also holds the packaged goggles. The mount keeps everything in place nicely and the adhesive pads keep the Switch safe. Once you set the Labo software to VR mode, the screen transforms to a stereoscopic view for the lenses. Since there is no headstrap, you'll need to hold the Switch up to your face throughout your time in VR mode. It's worth noting that the Switch's 720p screen resolution is well below that of any other VR platform, resulting in a distinct lack of visual clarity--luckily, this limitation doesn't detract from the types of experiences Labo VR delivers.With the headset ready to go, you can physically look up, down, left, and right by moving your head. But because the Switch isn't able to do positional tracking, forward or backward movements aren't recognized and could be nausea-inducing. Tracking relies entirely on the Switch's built-in gyroscope and accelerometer, which results in a relatively smooth viewing experience. Looking in and around in VR works pretty well, and in combination with the Joy-Cons' own gyroscope and accelerometer (and the right Joy-Con's IR sensor), the cardboard devices become functional pieces of hardware.By and large, the creative process is what drives the Labo VR Kit to become more than its packaged contents--but to see that, you should experience its roster of games, minigames, and proof-of-concept sandboxes. Once you've assembled a new cardboard toy (called Toy-Cons), Labo then walks you through a specific game made for it. The Toy-Con Camera transports you to the middle of an ocean where you can snap photos of marine life, or look upward to float to the surface and see a bigger world. Twisting the Toy-Con Camera lens works just like zooming in with an actual camera lens because of the Joy-Con placed inside recognizes those small movements. Despite the Toy-Con Elephant being the toughest one to work with, the Marble Run game it's tied to is a series of smart physics-based puzzles for you manipulate platforms, gravity, and trampolines to get a marble through a goal.The novel applications don't end there, either. The Toy-Con Bird delivers flight movements for its open-area collectathon and racing game because the Joy-Con, which is placed on the "bird"'s beak rocks back and forth when you flap the cardboard wings. A personal favorite is the Toy-Con Blaster; it's a pump gun for with tactile feedback that matches the launching of explosive balls for its on-rails shooter game. There's impressive cleverness in how Nintendo makes use of the motion-tracking capabilities and cardboard components, and how they translate to sensible control schemes. These aren't intended to be long-form experiences; rather, they're bite-sized showcases of VR functionality for each of the cardboard devices you assemble.The Labo VR Kit is much more than just VR gaming for the Switch; it's educational, accessible, and imaginative, with a robust suite of programming tools. And that's what makes it wholly unique from anything else on the VR market.On paper, it may seem like a hassle to constantly hold the Switch headset to your face without a strap to hold it in place, but it's not as bad as it sounds--each Labo VR device is designed with this in mind. Take the Toy-Con Blaster, for example; your view in its rail shooter game is essentially a persistent aim-down-sights, and the ergonomics of the Blaster itself make it a comfortable experience. With the Elephant, you get a handle beneath the cardboard face to hold it up as you extend the trunk to move your in-game hands. And of course, the physical act of holding up the Toy-Con Camera to your face coincides with the real-world action.The content in VR Plaza distills it down even further by isolating certain aspects of each toy's potential in 60+ minigames/sandboxes. They essentially act as the building blocks for the inventive Toy-Con Garage and this is where the Labo VR Kit lets your imagination run wild--it's literally the toolset used to program the minigames contained in the VR Plaza section. It's a part of previous kits as well, but this version adds tools to create VR experiences. Toy-Con Garage is extremely complex and much more than a level creator you may find in other games. It's possible to teach yourself and eventually get to a point where you can wrap your head around the logic and programming for something and see it come to fruition, but it'll take significant time and effort if you don't have prior experience with programming. What's neat is that you can edit every sandbox/minigame in VR Plaza using the Garage tools and basically use them as the foundation to create your own thing. By virtue of seeing the programming guts of each game, you can then start to unravel how they're built. Things like Make An FPS Game and Make An Action Game in VR Plaza are specifically designed to let you use them as templates. And editing doesn't have to be solely done in VR thanks to the ability to select a 2D editing mode.Like the other kits, the Labo VR Kit does so many great things outside of its more standard game experiences, and it's really about what you do with the technology.In addition to the games and programming tools, Discovery Mode works as a laudable educational tool. Discovery offers a series of cheeky dialogue scenarios between a few Labo-based characters that effectively walk you through the Switch's technology, asking you questions along the way to make sure you're keeping up. Think of it as a crash course in physical science and electronics that explains everything from how the right Joy-Con's IR sensor works to showing you why gyroscope drift happens. Not only does Discover further contextualize what the hardware is doing, but makes knowledge of complex tech accessible to a wider audience.However, there are a few cases in which the Joy-Con tracking can be frustrating due to gyroscope drift. It's fairly easy to constantly recalibrate the Joy-Con position in a free-hand experience like shooting hoops, hitting a ball with a paddle, or moving blocks in a 3D space. But it becomes an issue in something like the Doodle application or the Marble Run stage creator, where you have to use the Elephant to craft a 3D sculpture or build a course, respectively. Your plane will always drift off-center. You can recenter yourself by accessing the pause menu, but it's frustrating to frequently wrestle with the motion-tracking in these cases. As a result, it's difficult to keep your work consistent and gets in the way of certain parts of the creative process with VR mode.The Labo VR Kit is much more than just VR gaming for the Switch; it's educational, accessible, and imaginative, with a robust suite of programming tools. And that's what makes it wholly unique from anything else on the VR market. Despite all its limitations and seemingly makeshift appearance, each contraption is an example of a creative vision in action, most of which works exceptionally well in bite-sized portions. In a broad sense, Labo VR is a smart, clever use of existing tech and expertly designed cardboard devices. The biggest factor in the lasting appeal of Labo VR (and the Labo lineup in general) lies in the Toy-Con Garage, because there's no denying the barebones aspect of the packaged gaming content, which is more of a collection of proofs-of-concept for VR's potential. Like the other kits, the Labo VR Kit does so many great things outside of its more standard game experiences, and it's really about what you do with the technology.Info from Gamespot.com

Marijuana. The Devil’s Lettuce. Sweet Mary-Jane. All words for the same thing rolled up and smoked as a jazz cigarette. In Weedcraft Inc, you're not a smoker, but an entrepreneur tasked with making sure your floral-smelling empire expands beyond its rinky-dink beginnings.Weedcraft is a management sim, and a fairly complex one at that. While it seems a bit sparse in scope at first, you'll be experimenting with temperature, humidity, and mineralized soil before you know it. At the same time, you have to make sure your electricity output isn't suspicious to the keen-nosed authorities hellbent on sending your delinquent bottom to a cold jail cell. Unless you're willing to bribe them, of course.Click image to view in full screenWhen you boot up Weedcraft, you're treated to a soundtrack composed of percussive hip-hop beats and instrumental vocals. Next thing you know, you're Johnny, failed MBA student who has turned to drug dealing. In order to make ends meet, you need to sell astronomical amounts of weed. At the start you're only selling a couple of grams at a time, but you'll be shifting top-quality greenery for tens of thousands of dollars a pop before you know it.Weedcraft's management sim systems are designed quite well. As your business expands, you start to spend less time growing weed and more time managing employees, all of whom have three stats: growing, selling, and interpersonal skills. These workers can grow weed for you, sell it on the streets, or run a front business designed to make your operation inconspicuous. As you progress through the game and go national, they can run weed from cities where it's legal to cities where it isn't--for a small fee, of course. At the same time, they can slip up and get arrested, at which point you’ll need to decide what to tell the cops. Maybe you’ll play dumb and let them take the hit for you; maybe you’ll lie on their behalf, saving their skin and earning their gratitude (until they ask for a raise two days later). Or maybe, just maybe, you’ll go down with them, your empire of dirt collapsing inwards on top of you. Although this sounds interesting in theory, there’s not much to it in execution. You assign your employees jobs by dragging their portraits into a little box and then just leave them be. Every couple of minutes they'll ask for a raise, even if you're going under, and every other day they’ll mention that they were threatened by a rival gang member, which decreases their motivation to work for you. Because they only come to you to discuss money or threats, there’s no real sense of building a relationship with them. The management sim mechanics in Weedcraft are clean and intuitive, but not in any special or new way.You've got your own list of perks, too, which are separated into two strands: decent and shady. These can provide you with bonuses when you're bargaining with employees over wages or assist you in convincing a cop that there's no smell coming out your chimney. You unlock these very gradually throughout the game, but their effects are usually significant enough to make even slow progression worthwhile, as the benefits they provide can have an astronomical impact on day-to-day dealing. You can headhunt the best growers in town, or get better at convincing rivals that you're genuinely trying to help them before you bring them down.A lot of Weedcraft's core play comes down to property management. You need to pay leases, rent, utilities, wages, and materials on a monthly basis. As you progress through the game, employees notice the rate at which your empire is expanding and ask for raises. Properties in new cities are fancier than the ones in the small town you started out in, and people are used to more experimental strains of weed that cost a lot more money to cultivate. The prospective employees you'll come across are usually a little more skilled too, and they know it. While you may have gotten away with paying an ex-con $250 a month for holding the fort in your front business in Michigan, hiring someone to sell weed outside a church in Colorado can amount to as much as $750 a month, and that's before they start making demands.After a while in Weedcraft, you'll stop selling outside diners and flea markets and start to take larger orders, reflecting the way empires are built on weed on the silver screen. These will come from people who are coordinating events, celebrities, and politicians who don't want to be seen at a dispensary or in a shady alley. Naturally, these gigs pay a lot more than the minor deals you were doing when you started out. They're also harder to work up to though, and clients are a lot pickier. If you want to avoid bankruptcy and prison, you'll have to be crafty in your attempts to balance the legal and the illegal, and the minor and the major. In theory, larger orders should work swimmingly. In execution though, they're a bit deceptive, offering more bang for your buck in the short term, but also drastically undercutting the prices of your day-to-day sales. I got several consecutive game overs from neglecting my clients at the burger joint to grow 800g of top-quality Grandaddy's Purple. Because you're micromanaging employees instead of growing your own weed at this point in the game, getting high-quality pot mostly boils down to good RNG. And if you consider buying a basement to set up your own personal operation, you'll miss out on employee prompts, rival threats, and police warnings. It's just not really worth it, and that's an issue. If these people want to buy your best strains in bulk, they should offer something more enticing than market value to make it worth your while.Weedcraft also has another game mode in which you start off as a 50-year-old man who has just been released from prison. Formerly a junior brand manager, you'll end up meeting with your old friend Matty after deciding that legal weed is a business you're well-equipped to take on. In this mode you'll start off with a decent amount of capital, including a hefty amount of weed to sell straight away. However, this is much more advanced and will involve you sycophantically dismembering the competition. This mode is a lot more difficult, and the assets you're gifted at the start are deceptive. Here you'll probably need to take out a loan just to get by, which you'll need to repay within 30 months at 8% interest. This might seem like a long time, but weed takes a long time to grow, so naturally there's a fast-forward setting that powers through months in minutes. Bankruptcy is never too far away so long as there are competitors desperately seeking to undercut you for an inch of your territory. This mode is a lot more engaging than the other one because it makes use of the game's full systematic ensemble. Here you spend more time combining strains in a laboratory to create the next big thing than you do on the streets, which gives you an insight into where the easier mode will end up about 10 hours in.Visually, Weedcraft finds style in simplicity. As with most management sims, the overall area you're operating within is viewed from a top-down perspective. Cars drive along the roads wrapped around shady neighborhoods, rundown burger joints, and sky-kissing hotels, all of which serve as hubs for operations you wouldn't want your parents to know about. In your growing rooms you actually get to watch your budding trees bloom, which is very satisfying with fast-forward enabled. These rooms are the most dynamic places in Weedcraft because the progress is meaningful. Most of the time, zooming cars just boil down to background noise designed to convey the passage of time. They become furniture almost immediately, before being interrupted by fleeting conversations with police officers and rival dealers. When these dialogue encounters occur, characters appear on either side of the screen, still portraits with clear, if not caricatured, personalities.None of the personalities in Weedcraft are remotely nuanced. You've got maniacal metalheads, somnolent stoners, and highfalutin hipsters, all of whom are paired with their own preferential strains of weedCaricature is an important word here. The thing is, none of the personalities in Weedcraft are remotely nuanced. You've got maniacal metalheads, somnolent stoners, and highfalutin hipsters, all of whom are paired with their own preferential strains of weed. People known as "vagrants" prefer whatever's cheapest, whereas a hipster is more than happy to pay above market price if the quality is there. Sometimes, these people will utter a short line after you sell them a bag. Most of these are generic, something along the lines of, "I'll take the usual, Super Lemon Haze." And in the case of talking to other dealers, every time you're met with a prompt to ask them about a certain point of interest, the exchange will literally consist of, "Let me ask you about…" and "Well, what can I say about that!" Here, the ellipses are used to make this generic conversation applicable to every dialogue encounter with potentially major characters in the game. Because of this, none of them ever become particularly intriguing, which is not to say that they even were in the first place. From Los Muertos in Michigan to the health-loving businessman living in an "eco-house" in weed-permitting Colorado, every character you meet is a character you've probably seen in a movie 100 times before.While it's relatively harmless to write tropey characters like the ones above, some of Weedcraft's clientele is horribly designed. Alongside the kinds of people you'd expect to find in a game like this, you'll find people who suffer from cancer, PTSD, and epilepsy, all of whom are accompanied by very unflattering portraits. The cancer patient is doubled over, ghostly pale with bags beneath their eyes, and attached to a drip. The PTSD patient is wide-eyed and open-mouthed with both hands on their head, wearing an expression torn between fear and confusion. People who smoke medicinally in Weedcraft will only buy from registered dispensaries, so you’ll need to get a license to sell before they’ll do business with you, but their representation in the game is extremely distasteful. It may be true that people suffering from illnesses are sometimes prescribed marijuana to help them deal with pain, but to present them in such an appalling way in a game is nothing short of shameful.Click image in full screenThis really did sour the game's initial tongue-in-cheek charm. The beginning of Weedcraft starts to get towards something interesting, presenting itself as an experience capable of playing with the cultural and socioeconomic impacts the devil's lettuce has had on society since it assimilated into the mainstream. Blending such a polarizing substance with the management sim genre seems ingenious, especially because of how significant property is. In one of the first lines of the game, your younger brother explicitly mentions issues with gentrification, but the problem is that the idea is almost immediately dismissed thereafter. With weed being legal in some US states, but not in others, Weedcraft could be a remarkable way of studying the impacts of the drug in legal and illegal settings alongside each other. You learn about creating artificial climates to support optimal growth, checking soil quality to determine strain strength, and combining seemingly immiscible substances in order to invent something new. At the same time, you're faced with the case of buying the proper licenses to adhere to legislation and establish a legitimate business. It's obviously not as in-depth as I imagine the real-life process is, but the fact that it attempts to replicate it even in a minor way gives us a little insight into how these intangible things work. It places you, an ordinary person, in a highly unusual string of circumstances, and allows you to waltz your way through the sale of the most controversial plant on the planet. But it does it in a way that lacks nuance, commentary, and maturity. From terminally-ill patients to hackneyed depictions of dealers, it relies more on stoner symbolism than genuine critique.Weedcraft is a well-designed management sim with stylish art and catchy music. Generally, it does its job well. Managing things is hectic and engaging, and you can't afford to take your eye off the ball for too long, lest someone take advantage of your ignorance and kick you out of the market and into prison. However, its characters are stale, its dialogue is boring, and its depiction of ill people is really disgusting. These aren't minor flaws by any means and they drastically affect play. I felt particularly uncomfortable when I saw the picture of the cancer patient because of how grossly caricatured it was. For these reasons, Weedcraft really shot itself in the foot. For a game that could have engaged in a globally-significant discourse, all Weedcraft really amounted to in terms of cultural and socioeconomic discussion was a jaded look at stoners and the people who sell them drugs in the back alleys of dodgy neighborhoods. In doing so, it fails to say anything meaningful about the human cost of weed and relinquishes the opportunity to grapple with weed's impact on the zeitgeist. It's the kind of game Ashton Kutcher would laugh at in Dude Where's My Car, which means it's not the kind of game that has anything of merit to say in 2019. Info from Gamespot.com

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's battle royale mode Blackout added a new map, Alcatraz, on PS4 earlier this month, and now it's also available for Xbox One and PC. This comes alongside a new update that's now available on all platforms.Black Ops 4's version of the island prison off San Francisco is a close-quarters map that sees players fighting among buildings and watchtowers and inside through cells and tight corridors. In addition to being smaller than the standard map, it's changes how you drop into the map, and it features zombies throughout. Additionally, like Apex Legends, you're able to respawn on Alcatraz. You can see it in action in the video embedded above.Blackout is currently free on all platforms until the end of the month. Normally, you'd have to own the full Black Ops 4 to play it, but that's not the case during this promotional period.In other news, an update for Black Ops 4 added a new Infected game mode on PS4, while there have been some updates to weapon balance: the KN-57 now has increased four-shot range but increased recoil. Additionally, in a curious decision, Duos was removed from Blackout, but it'll be coming back on April 10 for PS4 and Xbox One players. Go to Reddit to see a full rundown of the changes made to the game with its April 9 patch.2019's Call of Duty game is rumoured to be Modern Warfare 4 from developer Infinity Ward, though nothing is confirmed at this stage. Activision typically announces new Call of Duty games in late April or May, so it should be soon that we know more. What we do know for sure is that the game will have a traditional campaign after Black Ops 4 left it out. Info from Gamespot.com

Sea of Thieves has been out for just over a year, and while many enjoyed the pirate game, others felt it just didn't have enough content. Developer Rare is further attempting to address that feedback with the game's Anniversary Update, comprising a new narrative-driven questline called Tall Tales: Shores of Gold and an entire new PvP mode named The Arena.The Arena is a competitive mode for five teams of four set in smaller, distinct areas. At the beginning of each 24-minute match, every team receives the same set of treasure maps. You must proceed to one of the X marks in order to retrieve chests, which can then be cashed in for Silver at a number of special ships.Of course, other teams are competing for the same chests to cash in, so you might find you run in to some resistance on your travels. Killing other players or sinking their ships nets you a small amount of Silver, and respawns are active. Particular to The Arena is a new damage model for ships, which can now have their wheel, masts, and anchor destroyed--though these can be repaired with wood in the same way you would fix a hull.Tall Tales, meanwhile, is a new questline for people who wanted more direction in Sea of Thieves' classic adventure mode. It's set in the game's usual shared world--which will also gain a new island that Rare says is its biggest island yet--and will see you complete a number of puzzles and riddles in the search for treasure. The mode includes new enemy types, items enchanted with new abilities, and a new faction that will buy fish and meat off you after you utilise new fishing and cooking mechanics.Sea of Thieves' Anniversary update will be released for free on April 30. For more on the new content, check out our thoughts on why it could breathe new life into Sea of Thieves.Rare's pirate game launched in March 2018 and was awarded a 6/10 in our Sea of Thieves review. "There may come a time when Sea of Thieves is able to entice me back, and I imagine that will be with a mix of new mission types and hopefully the promise of rewards that allow for new types of interactions, if not improve my character's capabilities," wrote Peter Brown. "For now, it's a somewhat hollow game that can be fun for a handful of hours when played with friends, and something worth trying out if you happen to be an Xbox Game Pass subscriber. Even though it's hard to wholeheartedly recommend, I like enough of what I see to hold out hope that things will eventually improve as the game continues to be patched and updated with new content."Info from Gamespot.com

Sony has confirmed the much-requested PSN ID change feature will arrive very soon for PS4 users. Players in North America can change their IDs from today, April 10, while those in Europe can do so from tomorrow, April 11."We're excited to announce that the online ID change feature on PSN is officially launching to all PlayStation 4 owners later today," Sony's social media director, Sid Shuman, stated on the PlayStation Blog. "You'll also be able to change your online ID via a web browser, and that feature will also be available starting today."Shuman goes on to state that ID changes can only be done through a web browser or your PS4--so PS3 and PS Vita users are out of luck. As was previously confirmed, the first change is free, but any subsequent changes to your PSN ID will cost $10 / £8, or $5 / £4 for PS Plus subscribers.There are no limits on how many times you can change your ID, and you can always revert back to any previous version of your ID for free by contacting PlayStation support. Nobody else can take your old IDs, even after you change, and if you choose to you can display your old ID next to your new one on your profile for up to 30 days, in order to help your friends notice the change. Child accounts cannot change their online ID, Sony says.Sony warns not all PS4 games will support ID changes: any title published on or after April 1, 2018 should display your new ID in-game, but the platform holder has discovered one instance "where a [recent] game did not fully support the feature." A full list of games that support PSN ID changes can be found on the PlayStation website, showing that many hundreds of titles fully support name changes, while a handful of games have "critical issues" and a few more have "known issues which we did not consider critical to the gameplay experience."PS4 users might also be interested in April 2019's PS Plus games, The Surge and Conan Exiles. Both titles are available at no extra cost for PS Plus subscribers right now, but they'll go back to their original price at the end of the month.Info from Gamespot.com

Disney has released the first trailer for its remake of The Lion King. The movie, which is set to hit cinemas in July, features an all-star voice cast that includes James Earl Jones as Mufasa and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar. The trailer gives us an early look at how both of these characters look and sound, and it's quite impressive.The trailer also features a number of other characters who will be familiar to fans of the animated classic, including Simba (Donald Glover), Nala (Beyonce), Rafiki (John Kani), and, very briefly, Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed the hyenas. Evoking nostalgia seems to be very much a goal of The Lion King, and we see a few iconic scenes from the animated film given new life. Most notable among these is the stampede and Simba standing on the cliff. There's also a nice musical finish at the end of the trailer. Check it out above.The new Lion King is written by Jeff Nathanson, who previously worked on Catch Me If You Can and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. It's directed by Jon Favreau, known for his work on Iron Man and the 2016 Jungle Book remake.Other actors in the film include comedian John Oliver, who plays Zazu, while Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner voice Timon and Pumbaa, respectively. Keegan-Michael Key and Eric Andre are also voicing characters. You can see the full cast in the image here. The Lion King and hits theatres on July 18, 2019.Info from Gamespot.com

A classical RPG isn't necessarily the next step one would expect from the creators of the fighting game Skullgirls, which makes Indivisible something of an oddity. While it still has room for growth and polish, a recent hands-on showed how Lab Zero is merging its unique fighting sensibilities with classic genre tropes.The fighting influence was most immediately apparent in the battle system, which operates with a rhythm and intensity not often seen in RPGs. Each of the characters is assigned to a face button that can be used twice with a cooldown timer. On top of those basic commands, each one has an up and down attack, and breaking an enemy's defense with these powerful blows leaves them more vulnerable to subsequent attacks.It's the nature of fighting games to offer a great deal of depth from the timing and combinations of relatively simple commands, and the same is true for Indivisible. Breaking an enemy's guard and then following up with well-timed attacks, attuned to your enemy's weaknesses, feels very much like a fighter--to the point that at first I would often trip myself up trying to hit the next command with the rhythm of the fight, not realizing my cooldown timer hadn't refreshed yet. It's a system that definitely took some recalibration to grasp, but once I did it felt very satisfying.The Skullgirls influence can also be seen in several other elements. The art is a unique blend of western and anime-inspired styles with clean, colorful compositions and expressive faces. The writing is irreverent and often feels playfully anachronistic for its fantasy setting.The traditional RPG elements can create issues familiar to that trope as well. In some areas of the demo, I was clearly under-leveled and out of my depth. Though I was assured that this was an issue of balance in the demo, it went to show how the realities of RPGs still apply. Though the combat system is an exercise in timing and skill, there's simply no substitute for being leveled appropriately to an area. It also had its share of placeholder images and text, suggesting the studio has some elements to finish before launch.Indivisible is slated for this year but it has no firm release date, so the studio has time to put on these finishing touches and get the balance just right. What we've seen already is a promising start, blending genres in a new way that makes the marriage of fighting and RPG elements feel natural.Info from Gamespot.com

Xbox Game Pass subscribers have six more games to look forward to on Xbox One this month. Microsoft has announced the lineup for the remainder of April, and it includes some heavy hitters from recent years.The games include the Prey reboot from Bethesda and Arkane Studios, our game of the year finalist Monster Hunter World, and the co-op zombie shooter Resident Evil 5. If you'd rather kick back with a narrative adventure game, you can play The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, the penultimate season of the Telltale series, or the pretty recently released Life is Strange 2: Episode 2. If all that sounds too stressful and you'd rather just hit the links, you can play The Golf Club 2.Those join the previously announced offerings for late March and early April, which included The Walking Dead mini episode Michonne, Marvel vs Capcom Infinite, and Minecraft. Microsoft recently teased six more games would be announced this week.Xbox Game Pass is a subscription service that provides full downloads from a catalog of more than 100 games. It costs $10 per month, and all first-party titles from Microsoft are available on release day. The company has also hinted at plans to expand the service to PC.Xbox Game Pass Upcoming Titles:April 11 - Prey, The Golf Club 2April 18 - Monster Hunter World, The Walking Dead: A New FrontierApril 24 - Life is Strange 2: Episode 2April 25 - Resident Evil 5Info from Gamespot.com

Shazam has been out for almost a week at this point, which means it's time to talk about some major spoilers. If you haven't seen it yet, don't keep reading! Unless you don't care about Shazam spoilers, in which case, have at it.In the world of the DC cinematic universe, Shazam is actually fairly sparse as far as connections to other DC heroes. There's no major climactic cameo like Wonder Woman showing up in Batman v. Superman, and no heroic team-up like the Justice League (unless you count the big twist in the climactic fight with Dr. Sivana).There is one DC character cameo, and it's played entirely for laughs: at the end of the movie, when Superman shows up during Freddy's lunch hour at school. It's payoff for the bit earlier where Freddy bragged that he's friends with Shazam, and seeing Clark Kent from the torso down only somehow makes it even funnier, as it lets us focus on the other characters' reactions.But the scene almost turned out very differently, Shazam director David Sandberg told GameSpot: They initially tried to get Superman actor Henry Cavill to appear in full at the end of the movie."It was originally written as a scene where he sits down and he talks to the kids a little bit and kind of ends with Freddy going, 'I have so many questions,'" Sandberg said. There was even dialogue written--"They sort of joked around...something about aliens or something," Sandberg struggled to recall."It wasn't actually that fun, which is why this is so much better," the director continued.Sandberg said Cavill's cameo didn't work out for scheduling reasons. "We could only be in that school in Toronto for a certain date, and we just couldn't work it out," he said. But he still wanted to have the payoff that Superman's appearance creates, so he brainstormed other ways to do the scene. "We tried shooting it the way we did, and I thought it worked great," the director said. "It seemed actually funnier than the scene we had written, because you see him come in, you see Freddy's great reaction, and you just hard cut to the end credits. It just makes me laugh, you know? So, in some ways, it kind of worked out for the best." "But it would have been great to actually work with Henry Cavill," Sandberg added.Cavill's part in the larger DC universe has been up in the air lately, as rumors have mounted since last year that the actor won't return to the role of Superman. We've yet to get a concrete answer on that, and we'll likely never know for sure whether those tensions had an effect on Cavill's would-be Shazam cameo. In the end, we find it easy to agree with Sandberg's assessment: The scene, and the movie as a whole, turned out just fine.Shazam is in theaters now. The latest DC movie had a successful opening weekend, and there's already plenty of buzz about a sequel. Read our full review here.Read next: All The Obscure DC References, Easter Eggs, And Clues You Missed In Shazam Info from Gamespot.com

The closure of Telltale Games was one of the most shocking stories of the games industry in 2018. But in the time after the studio's shuttering, publisher Skybound Games worked with key members of Telltale Games to finish The Final Season for The Walking Dead. Following the completion of the series, which will be the final game for all existing developers at Telltale Games, the studio's creative director Kent Mudle and Skybound Games CEO Ian Howe spoke with GameSpot about finishing the long-running and popular series under such unusual circumstances. During our interview, they spoke candidly about the closure of the studio, revealing what the immediate plans were at the time of the closure, what the developers had planned after The Walking Dead, and what they believe the lasting impact Telltale will have on gaming.Editor's Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and readability.Telltale's final chapter is a unique one in game development. Can you take us back to the moment when this news broke, and how you were able to find a solution to finish The Final Season?Kent Mudle: WelI, I guess the start of this experience would be the middle of production of what would have been the final season of The Walking Dead. At that point, Telltale Games shut down. For a moment it seemed like all hope was lost and we would never really get to finish this thing. At the time Ian and I had really believed in it and worked on it very hard, and a lot of us really thought it was gonna be one of the best things we've ever made. It was heartbreaking, both to not finish that and also for a lot of people who came to work and found out that it was all over.But luckily, we learned pretty quickly that Skybound was interested in trying to resurrect the thing, so we were given some hope. That sustained us for a certain period. But then when we finally got back up, it was almost like no time had passed, and we were actually able to just get right back to making the piece of art that we all wanted to make, and I think the experience has been miraculous.Ian Howe: The guys couldn't work for two months as we were clearing all the legal side of things, but we were able to stick with almost the exact schedule less those two months, which was pretty incredible. That's a testament to the team and the effort they put in to get it over the line because that's hard to do. Just picking up something that's had this eight-week gap in the middle.The day the news broke, we were really shocked. It was like "sorry, what?" We sat around a phone talking to Telltale co-founder Dan Conners and CEO Pete Hawley, and there was me and David Alpert, and a few of the other senior people at Skybound. Robert Kirkman [the creator of The Walking Dead] was laying on the couch behind us, just kind of listening, and at the end of the call, we were just diving into the weeds and Robert said, "let's just go get the story finished." That was very refreshing to just have a guide from Robert, as to say just go and make this happen. And then we, I think we flew up the next day.Mudle: It was crazy how quickly it happened. The day we were fired, they were supposed to come back and they said pack up our stuff and Brody and Paul called me into a room and they were working on the spreadsheet and I guess they may have already been in touch with [Skybound] at that point. Yeah, like almost right away, you guys came up and we had that big meeting in the boardroom with everybody trying to figure out how viable this would all be.Howe: The desire was to finish it, and there was definitely that dedication to try and save some jobs. These guys had been let go without any severance and have been through a tough situation--can we figure something out? Thankfully we were able to put together something pretty quickly, and I will give huge credit to the management of Telltale who went out of their way and did everything they could to make this deal happen as quickly as it could. For exactly that reason to help those people out, so that I don't think that should get lost in this.There was a massive outpouring from fans regarding the fate of Telltale. It must have been very overwhelming to see such a response from fans, especially after the January reveal of the final two episodes.Mudle: I think the outpouring of love and excitement that happened as soon as it was confirmed that Skybound was definitely going to continue was tremendous. Like it's almost like- people had been into the season, it was just a roller coaster of emotions. It just hit people like super hard. I just remember it being everywhere, every social media feed I had ever looked at, it was just like blasted with support.Howe: Yeah, it was overwhelming in a good way, but also that there was a definite realization of expectation that, and at the time it happened, Skybound Games was in its infancy and it still is, honestly. It's still in its infancy and I don't know what [Kent's] expectations were, but you didn't probably realize there was so few of us.Mudle: I didn't, when we first started talking to you guys, it sounded like you guys were like five people or something when you started being like, 'we'll save it.' Yeah, I assumed that Skybound was a bigger company.Howe: Yeah, the games division of Skybound was five people. We were less than a year old and we were still definitely in training wheels. I mean I've been doing this for a long time so I realized that a lot of the work related to the publishing side had been done. Telltale was literally the lowest maintenance team I've ever worked with, they literally just came back in and got on with the job. That to me speaks volumes about the character of the people there, but also the desire to get it finished. Our part compared to what these guys were doing was very small, but it was really all about the focus of getting these guys back in a room somewhere with the ability to finish the story.Around the time of the closure, reports came out that the last two episodes of the season were already written and ready for production. Did the experience of the last few months have any influence on the final episodes?Mudle: Well at the time of Telltale's closing down, Episode 3 had just hit sort of the middle point of development, which was funnily referred to as the ratings milestone--meaning all the voicework had been recorded and all the visuals were in sort of a rough state. So Episode 3 really just kind of had to get finished and just get a normal series of edits along with some nips and tucks anyway. Episode 4 had already had its first round of voicework recorded. So the first draft of the episode was written and recorded and like very base level like visual stuff had been done.Thankfully before Telltale shut down, we already had talked, you know we work with Skybound editorial to get feedback from them and we already were aligned on what the plan was going to be to finish the thing. Though we did some revisions and some minor adjustments, it was exactly as it would have been had Telltale not exploded, really. And it was a testament to Skybound for letting us do our own vision without trying to like meddle with it in any way except for giving us feedback. But it was exactly what we envisioned and we'd all agree with Skybound to do even before Telltale shut down.It seems fitting in a way that Telltale's history closed out on The Walking Dead. This series, in particular, helped propel the studio to new heights, and in a lot of ways, it seems like it's a bit of an epitaph summing up Telltale was all about.Mudle: Weirdly, I think it would have done that anyway regardless of the studio closing. It was always going to be the last Walking Dead game, and we all knew at that point. After that, we were actually planning to move Telltale as a studio into new kinds of games, with new graphics engines, and just kind of go bolder. So this was always intended to be the last hurrah for the classic style of a Telltale game. Like the choices, the waiting, and all that stuff. So it was always trying to be like the very best one of those. We know that it's such a long-running series that we wanted to do a bunch homages to the past and that kind of stuff.We even wanted to do some stuff in the last quarter of the episode that was supposed to be like, this is what a new Telltale game could be like with like those mechanical twists and that kind of thing. So it was always kind of intended to be a tribute to Telltale's legacy. And it's weird that it's ended up being that in, you know, in its finality because it was the last one ever.Telltale had some strong parallels with Lucasarts of the '90s, with games like Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. A lot of fans saw the studio very much in that school of thought, offering these in-depth adventures with some compelling characters.Mudle: That does mean a lot that fans saw that in us. I'm a storyteller at heart and if I can get the audience to care about something you care about, these fictional people that we made up so, so passionately that they feel real feelings, I think that's a huge accomplishment. I think the legacy of Telltale has had left has on the games industry has been kind of broad and wide as a whole. I think it's still a really rich space to explore, and I'd like to think Telltale helped kickstart all that again. So I think that legacy will stick around forever, and it'll always be an honor to have been a small part of that.I can only imagine how bittersweet experience this must be for you all. Though it's sad to see Telltale come to an end, you do leave a sizable legacy of games behind.Howe: Well, I've been doing publishing for 28 years and this is the project I'm probably most proud to be associated with. The motivation to bring it back and to rescue it gives me a great deal of personal satisfaction that we were able to do that. The fact that this community has really actually come together. I'm very grateful to have been a part of this.Mudle: Yeah, absolutely. Episode 4 makes me extremely emotional, honestly. Like a lot of it is tough near the end, in that it's kind of a loving tribute to the people that worked on the game. I still can't even look at it without getting a little misty-eyed. I'm just so proud of the work everybody did. We all came together to make this beautiful thing and to leave that stretching back into all the years that I worked with all of those people. It's the end of an era, and it's sad, but I'm glad we got to at least finish it in style.Info from Gamespot.com

Following 2015's sleeper hit Her Story, creator Sam Barlow initially wasn't keen on making a similar game right after. However, as the framework for his follow-up took shape, the writer/director found his past's game approach to storytelling as a compelling hook for his new tale. In Telling Lies, you'll investigate the lives of four strangers over a period of two years; each of them has their own secrets and personal trauma. By witnessing brief glimpses of their lives from private videos, you'll uncover the larger story that connects them all together.We spent some time talking with the game's writer and director during GDC 2019, where he gave us the rundown on what to expect with his return to the interactive video drama. In essence, Telling Lies takes Her Story's foundation of an interactive drama and expands its scope. Featuring a larger cast of characters, portrayed by film and TV actors such as Logan Marshall-Green, Kerry Bishé, Alexandra Shipp, and Angela Sarafyan, it puts more of a focus on the private moments that individuals have alone with their devices, and how relationships are affected when filtered through a personal phone or webcam.With an air of voyeurism similar to films like Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation, the overarching story unfolds on a modern desktop with access to an NSA database. Playing heavily to the modern paranoia surrounding increased surveillance, this conceit allows you to search through hours of recorded footage taken from phones, computers, and dashboard cameras, revealing plenty of personal and raw moments. According to Barlow, when the larger story begins to form, you'll come to understand why you're examining these characters in the first place.Similar to Her Story, Telling Lies will have you comb through footage looking for the key information that fills in the blanks of a fractured timeline. Moving away from Her Story's '90s-era tech, the player interface in Telling Lies--another desktop--is more modern, allowing for greater flexibility in how you can interpret and piece together the story. By searching keywords, you'll be able to find clips that include the use of that word. Engaging the clip will start you at the point where the keyword is spoken by the person of interest. From here, you'll be able to play the video for its duration, even if you landed on the last word spoken in the clip, or scrub it back to see what came before--possibly unearthing a new clue.Barlow explained that Telling Lies not only examines intimacy in the modern age but also plays with the concept of context and what you bring with your perspective. In Her Story, it became apparent over the course of the game that figuring out the crime that Hannah was suspected of wasn't necessarily the true goal. Rather, it was more of a character study and an exercise in fostering empathy for her, faults and all. According to Barlow, Telling Lies is about "exploring the larger story through the negative space," an idea that stuck with him during the making and ensuing reception of Her Story."It's kind of doubling down on the sense of narrative I had with Her Story," Barlow said. "People would play that game and one of the big positives they came away with was they felt like they had an intimate experience when spending that time with that character, listening to her talk, and it felt like they had a connection and empathized with her in a way. Despite it being essentially a computer interface, it all felt quite organic and human in a way. You get to explore [the story] through these more character-driven and intimate moments, which is a very different texture to most video games."Some clips will show various characters during some mundane moments, without anything of consequence happening. However, another video might show a pivotal, and likely serious, event, which can give previous clips new meaning. Discovering the context of many of these clips can add new layers to the key characters, which can affect your perception of their relationships with others. Though it all seems to be in a similar vein as Her Story, and Barlow said that Telling Lies hits something more social than its predecessor could."I think it's an interesting question when you make something that is as different and weird as Her Story," said Barlow. "I deliberately did not immediately want to make a sequel with Her Story, and I gave myself some distance from it. Once I came back to it and I was like, 'What was interesting to me about that game that I think I could do more with? What direction can I take it in?'"One of the more remarkable things about Her Story was the way it used its detective conceit as a means to examine its key character. Thanks to its non-linear approach, you could unearth details about the lead at your own pace. Barlow seems to be aware of what made the original work, reinforcing the flow of the narrative and the sense of distance from a story that's long since past. However, the new focus on a larger cast can make for a more intriguing plot, which may play out in its most raw and intimate forms.Telling Lies is set for release sometime in 2019 and will be published by Annapurna Interactive.Info from Gamespot.com